L\'Assommoir

E >> Emile Zola >> L\'Assommoir

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In reality Gervaise was more afraid of Lantier than she was willing
to admit even to herself. She was fully determined never to allow
the smallest familiarity, but she was afraid that she might yield
to his persuasions, for she well knew the weakness and amiability of
her nature and how hard it was for her to persist in any opposition
to anyone.

Lantier, however, did not put this determination on her part to
the test. He was often alone with her now and was always quiet and
respectful. Coupeau declared to everyone that Lantier was a true
friend. There was no nonsense about him; he could be relied upon
always and in all emergencies. And he trusted him thoroughly, he
declared. When they went out together--the three--on Sundays he bade
his wife and Lantier walk arm in arm, while he mounted guard behind,
ready to cuff the ears of anyone who ventured on a disrespectful
glance, a sneer or a wink.

He laughed good-naturedly before Lantier's face, told him he put on
a great many airs with his coats and his books, but he liked him in
spite of them. They understood each other, he said, and a man's liking
for another man is more solid and enduring than his love for a woman.

Coupeau and Lantier made the money fly. Lantier was continually
borrowing money from Gervaise--ten francs, twenty francs--whenever
he knew there was money in the house. It was always because he was in
pressing need for some business matter. But still on those same days
he took Coupeau off with him and at some distant restaurant ordered
and devoured such dishes as they could not obtain at home, and these
dishes were washed down by bottle after bottle of wine.

Coupeau would have preferred to get tipsy without the food, but he
was impressed by the elegance and experience of his friend, who found
on the carte so many extraordinary sauces. He had never seen a man
like him, he declared, so dainty and so difficult. He wondered if all
southerners were the same as he watched him discussing the dishes with
the waiter and sending away a dish that was too salty or had too much
pepper.

Neither could he endure a draft: his skin was all blue if a door was
left open, and he made no end of a row until it was closed again.

Lantier was not wasteful in certain ways, for he never gave a
_garcon_ more than two sous after he had served a meal that cost
some seven or eight francs.

They never alluded to these dinners the next morning at their simple
breakfast with Gervaise. Naturally people cannot frolic and work, too,
and since Lantier had become a member of his household Coupeau had
never lifted a tool. He knew every drinking shop for miles around and
would sit and guzzle deep into the night, not always pleased to find
himself deserted by Lantier, who never was known to be overcome by
liquor.

About the first of November Coupeau turned over a new leaf; he
declared he was going to work the next day, and Lantier thereupon
preached a little sermon, declaring that labor ennobled man, and
in the morning arose before it was light to accompany his friend to
the shop, as a mark of the respect he felt. But when they reached a
wineshop on the corner they entered to take a glass merely to cement
good resolutions.

Near the counter they beheld Bibi-la-Grillade smoking his pipe with
a sulky air.

"What is the matter, Bibi?" cried Coupeau.

"Nothing," answered his comrade, "except that I got my walking ticket
yesterday. Perdition seize all masters!" he added fiercely.

And Bibi accepted a glass of liquor. Lantier defended the masters.
They were not so bad after all; then, too, how were the men to get
along without them? "To be sure," continued Lantier, "I manage pretty
well, for I don't have much to do with them myself!"

"Come, my boy," he added, turning to Coupeau; "we shall be late if
we don't look out."

Bibi went out with them. Day was just breaking, gray and cloudy. It
had rained the night before and was damp and warm. The street lamps
had just been extinguished. There was one continued tramp of men going
to their work.

Coupeau, with his bag of tools on his shoulder, shuffled along; his
footsteps had long since lost their ring.

"Bibi," he said, "come with me; the master told me to bring a comrade
if I pleased."

"It won't be me then," answered Bibi. "I wash my hands of them all.
No more masters for me, I tell you! But I dare say Mes-Bottes would
be glad of the offer."

And as they reached the Assommoir they saw Mes-Bottes within.
Notwithstanding the fact that it was daylight, the gas was blazing
in the Assommoir. Lantier remained outside and told Coupeau to make
haste, as they had only ten minutes.

"Do you think I will work for your master?" cried Mes-Bottes. "He is
the greatest tyrant in the kingdom. No, I should rather suck my thumbs
for a year. You won't stay there, old man! No, you won't stay there
three days, now I tell you!"

"Are you in earnest?" asked Coupeau uneasily.

"Yes, I am in earnest. You can't speak--you can't move. Your nose
is held close to the grindstone all the time. He watches you every
moment. If you drink a drop he says you are tipsy and makes no end
of a row!"

"Thanks for the warning. I will try this one day, and if the master
bothers me I will just tell him what I think of him and turn on my
heel and walk out."

Coupeau shook his comrade's hand and turned to depart, much to the
disgust of Mes-Bottes, who angrily asked if the master could not wait
five minutes. He could not go until he had taken a drink. Lantier
entered to join in, and Mes-Bottes stood there with his hat on the
back of his head, shabby, dirty and staggering, ordering Father
Colombe to pour out the glasses and not to cheat.

At that moment Goujet and Lorilleux were seen going by. Mes-Bottes
shouted to them to come in, but they both refused--Goujet saying he
wanted nothing, and the other, as he hugged a little box of gold
chains close to his heart, that he was in a hurry.

"Milksops!" muttered Mes-Bottes. "They had best pass their lives in
the corner by the fire!"

Returning to the counter, he renewed his attack on Father Colombe,
whom he accused of adulterating his liquors.

It was now bright daylight, and the proprietor of the Assommoir began
to extinguish the lights. Coupeau made excuses for his brother-in-law,
who, he said, could never drink; it was not his fault, poor fellow!
He approved, too, of Goujet, declaring that it was a good thing never
to be thirsty. Again he made a move to depart and go to his work when
Lantier, with his dictatorial air, reminded him that he had not paid
his score and that he could not go off in that way, even if it were
to his duty.

"I am sick of the words 'work' and 'duty,'" muttered Mes-Bottes.

They all paid for their drinks with the exception of Bibi-la-Grillade,
who stooped toward the ear of Father Colombe and whispered a few
words. The latter shook his head, whereupon Mes-Bottes burst into a
torrent of invectives, but Colombe stood in impassive silence, and
when there was a lull in the storm he said:

"Let your friends pay for you then--that is a very simple thing to
do."

By this time Mes-Bottes was what is properly called howling drunk, and
as he staggered away from the counter he struck the bag of tools which
Coupeau had over his shoulder.

"You look like a peddler with his pack or a humpback. Put it down!"

Coupeau hesitated a moment, and then slowly and deliberately, as if he
had arrived at a decision after mature deliberation, he laid his bag
on the ground.

"It is too late to go this morning. I will wait until after breakfast
now. I will tell him my wife was sick. Listen, Father Colombe, I will
leave my bag of tools under this bench and come for them this
afternoon."

Lantier assented to this arrangement. Of course work was a good thing,
but friends and good company were better; and the four men stood,
first on one foot and then on the other, for more than an hour, and
then they had another drink all round. After that a game of billiards
was proposed, and they went noisily down the street to the nearest
billiard room, which did not happen to please the fastidious Lantier,
who, however, soon recovered his good humor under the effect of the
admiration excited in the minds of his friends by his play, which
was really very extraordinary.

When the hour arrived for breakfast Coupeau had an idea.

"Let us go and find Bec Sali. I know where he works. We will make him
breakfast with us."

The idea was received with applause. The party started forth. A fine
drizzling rain was now falling, but they were too warm within to mind
this light sprinkling on their shoulders.

Coupeau took them to a factory where his friend worked and at the door
gave two sous to a small boy to go up and find Bec Sali and to tell
him that his wife was very sick and had sent for him.

Bec Sali quickly appeared, not in the least disturbed, as he suspected
a joke.

"Aha!" he said as he saw his friend. "I knew it!" They went to a
restaurant and ordered a famous repast of pigs' feet, and they sat
and sucked the bones and talked about their various employers.

"Will you believe," said Bec Sali, "that mine has had the brass to
hang up a bell? Does he think we are slaves to run when he rings it?
Never was he so mistaken--"

"I am obliged to leave you!" said Coupeau, rising at last with an
important air. "I promised my wife to go to work today, and I leave
you with the greatest reluctance."

The others protested and entreated, but he seemed so decided that they
all accompanied him to the Assommoir to get his tools. He pulled out
the bag from under the bench and laid it at his feet while they all
took another drink. The clock struck one, and Coupeau kicked his bag
under the bench again. He would go tomorrow to the factory; one day
really did not make much difference.

The rain had ceased, and one of the men proposed a little walk on the
boulevards to stretch their legs. The air seemed to stupefy them, and
they loitered along with their arms swinging at their sides, without
exchanging a word. When they reached the wineshop on the corner of La
Rue des Poissonniers they turned in mechanically. Lantier led the way
into a small room divided from the public one by windows only. This
room was much affected by Lantier, who thought it more stylish by far
than the public one. He called for a newspaper, spread it out and
examined it with a heavy frown. Coupeau and Mes-Bottes played a game
of cards, while wine and glasses occupied the center of the table.

"What is the news?" asked Bibi.

Lantier did not reply instantly, but presently, as the others emptied
their glasses, he began to read aloud an account of a frightful
murder, to which they listened with eager interest. Then ensued a hot
discussion and argument as to the probable motives for the murder.

By this time the wine was exhausted, and they called for more. About
five all except Lantier were in a state of beastly intoxication, and
he found them so disgusting that, as usual, he made his escape without
his comrades noticing his defection.

Lantier walked about a little and then, when he felt all right, went
home and told Gervaise that her husband was with his friends. Coupeau
did not make his appearance for two days. Rumors were brought in that
he had been seen in one place and then in another, and always alone.
His comrades had apparently deserted him. Gervaise shrugged her
shoulders with a resigned air.

"Good heavens!" she said. "What a way to live!" She never thought of
hunting him up. Indeed, on the afternoon of the third day, when she
saw him through the window of a wineshop, she turned back and would
not pass the door. She sat up for him, however, and listened for his
step or the sound of his hand fumbling at the lock.

The next morning he came in, only to begin the same thing at night
again. This went on for a week, and at last Gervaise went to the
Assommoir to make inquiries. Yes, he had been there a number of times,
but no one knew where he was just then. Gervaise picked up the bag
of tools and carried them home.

Lantier, seeing that Gervaise was out of spirits, proposed that she
should go with him to a cafe concert. She refused at first, being
in no mood for laughing; otherwise she would have consented, for
Lantier's proposal seemed to be prompted by the purest friendliness.
He seemed really sorry for her trouble and, indeed, assumed an
absolutely paternal air.

Coupeau had never stayed away like this before, and she continually
found herself going to the door and looking up and down the street.
She could not keep to her work but wandered restlessly from place
to place. Had Coupeau broken a limb? Had he fallen into the water?
She did not think she could care so very much if he were killed, if
this uncertainty were over, if she only knew what she had to expect.
But it was very trying to live in this suspense.

Finally when the gas was lit and Lantier renewed his proposition of
the cafe she consented. After all, why should she not go? Why should
she refuse all pleasures because her husband chose to behave in this
disgraceful way? If he would not come in she would go out.

They hurried through their dinner, and as she went out with Lantier
at eight o'clock Gervaise begged Nana and Mamma Coupeau to go to bed
early. The shop was closed, and she gave the key to Mme Boche, telling
her that if Coupeau came in it would be as well to look out for the
lights.

Lantier stood whistling while she gave these directions. Gervaise
wore her silk dress, and she smiled as they walked down the street
in alternate shadow and light from the shopwindows.

The cafe concert was on the Boulevard de Rochechoumart. It had once
been a cafe and had had a concert room built on of rough planks.

Over the door was a row of glass globes brilliantly illuminated.
Long placards, nailed on wood, were standing quite out in the street
by the side of the gutter.

"Here we are!" said Lantier. "Mademoiselle Amanda makes her debut
tonight."

Bibi-la-Grillade was reading the placard. Bibi had a black eye, as if
he had been fighting.

"Hallo!" cried Lantier. "How are you? Where is Coupeau? Have you lost
him?"

"Yes, since yesterday. We had a little fight with a waiter at Baquets.
He wanted us to pay twice for what we had, and somehow Coupeau and I
got separated, and I have not seen him since."

And Bibi gave a great yawn. He was in a disgraceful state of
intoxication. He looked as if he had been rolling in the gutter.

"And you know nothing of my husband?" asked Gervaise.

"No, nothing. I think, though, he went off with a coachman."

Lantier and Gervaise passed a very agreeable evening at the cafe
concert, and when the doors were closed at eleven they went home in a
sauntering sort of fashion. They were in no hurry, and the night was
fair, though a little cool. Lantier hummed the air which Amanda had
sung, and Gervaise added the chorus. The room had been excessively
warm, and she had drunk several glasses of wine.

She expressed a great deal of indignation at Mlle Amanda's costume.
How did she dare face all those men, dressed like that? But her skin
was beautiful, certainly, and she listened with considerable curiosity
to all that Lantier could tell her about the woman.

"Everybody is asleep," said Gervaise after she had rung the bell
three times.

The door was finally opened, but there was no light. She knocked at
the door of the Boche quarters and asked for her key.

The sleepy concierge muttered some unintelligible words, from which
Gervaise finally gathered that Coupeau had been brought in by Poisson
and that the key was in the door.

Gervaise stood aghast at the disgusting sight that met her eyes as
she entered the room where Coupeau lay wallowing on the floor.

She shuddered and turned away. This sight annihilated every ray of
sentiment remaining in her heart.

"What am I to do?" she said piteously. "I can't stay here!"

Lantier snatched her hand.

"Gervaise," he said, "listen to me."

But she understood him and drew hastily back.

"No, no! Leave me, Auguste. I can manage."

But Lantier would not obey her. He put his arm around her waist and
pointed to her husband as he lay snoring, with his mouth wide open.

"Leave me!" said Gervaise, imploringly, and she pointed to the room
where her mother-in-law and Nana slept.

"You will wake them!" she said. "You would not shame me before my
child? Pray go!"

He said no more but slowly and softly kissed her on her ear, as
he had so often teased her by doing in those old days. Gervaise
shivered, and her blood was stirred to madness in her veins.

"What does that beast care?" she thought. "It is his fault," she
murmured; "all his fault. He sends me from his room!"

And as Lantier drew her toward his door Nana's face appeared for
a moment at the window which lit her little cabinet.

The mother did not see the child, who stood in her nightdress, pale
with sleep. She looked at her father as he lay and then watched her
mother disappear in Lantier's room. She was perfectly grave, but
in her eyes burned the sensual curiosity of premature vice.

CHAPTER IX

CLOUDS IN THE HORIZON

That winter Mamma Coupeau was very ill with an asthmatic attack,
which she always expected in the month of December.

The poor woman suffered much, and the depression of her spirits was
naturally very great. It must be confessed that there was nothing very
gay in the aspect of the room where she slept. Between her bed and
that of the little girl there was just room for a chair. The paper
hung in strips from the wall. Through a round window near the ceiling
came a dreary gray light. There was little ventilation in the room,
which made it especially unfit for the old woman, who at night, when
Nana was there and she could hear her breathe, did not complain, but
when left alone during the day, moaned incessantly, rolling her head
about on her pillow.

"Ah," she said, "how unhappy I am! It is the same as a prison. I wish
I were dead!"

And as soon as a visitor came in--Virginie or Mme Boche--she poured
out her grievances. "I should not suffer so much among strangers.
I should like sometimes a cup of tisane, but I can't get it; and
Nana--that child whom I have raised from the cradle--disappears in the
morning and never shows her face until night, when she sleeps right
through and never once asks me how I am or if she can do anything for
me. It will soon be over, and I really believe this clearstarcher
would smother me herself--if she were not afraid of the law!"

Gervaise, it is true, was not as gentle and sweet as she had been.
Everything seemed to be going wrong with her, and she had lost heart
and patience together. Mamma Coupeau had overheard her saying that
she was really a great burden. This naturally cut her to the heart,
and when she saw her eldest daughter, Mme Lerat, she wept piteously
and declared that she was being starved to death, and when these
complaints drew from her daughter's pocket a little silver, she
expended it in dainties.

She told the most preposterous tales to Mme Lerat about Gervaise--of
her new finery and of cakes and delicacies eaten in the corner and
many other things of infinitely more consequence. Then in a little
while she turned against the Lorilleuxs and talked of them in the most
bitter manner. At the height of her illness it so happened that her
two daughters met one afternoon at her bedside. Their mother made a
motion to them to come closer. Then she went on to tell them, between
paroxysms of coughing, that her son came home dead drunk the night
before and that she was absolutely certain that Gervaise spent the
night in Lantier's room. "It is all the more disgusting," she added,
"because I am certain that Nana heard what was going on quite as well
as I did."

The two women did not appear either shocked or surprised.

"It is none of our business," said Mme Lorilleux. "If Coupeau does not
choose to take any notice of her conduct it is not for us to do so."

All the neighborhood were soon informed of the condition of things by
her two sisters-in-law, who declared they entered her doors only on
their mother's account, who, poor thing, was compelled to live amid
these abominations.

Everyone accused Gervaise now of having perverted poor Lantier. "Men
will be men," they said; "surely you can't expect them to turn a cold
shoulder to women who throw themselves at their heads. She has no
possible excuse; she is a disgrace to the whole street!"

The Lorilleuxs invited Nana to dinner that they might question her,
but as soon as they began the child looked absolutely stupid, and
they could extort nothing from her.

Amid this sudden and fierce indignation Gervaise lived--indifferent,
dull and stupid. At first she loathed herself, and if Coupeau laid
his hand on her she shivered and ran away from him. But by degrees
she became accustomed to it. Her indolence had become excessive,
and she only wished to be quiet and comfortable.

After all, she asked herself, why should she care? If her lover
and her husband were satisfied, why should she not be too? So
the household went on much as usual to all appearance. In reality,
whenever Coupeau came in tipsy, she left and went to Lantier's room
to sleep. She was not led there by passion or affection; it was simply
that it was more comfortable. She was very like a cat in her choice
of soft, clean places.

Mamma Coupeau never dared to speak out openly to the clearstarcher,
but after a dispute she was unsparing in her hints and allusions. The
first time Gervaise fixed her eyes on her and heard all she had to say
in profound silence. Then without seeming to speak of herself, she
took occasion to say not long afterward that when a woman was married
to a man who was drinking himself to death a woman was very much to
be pitied and by no means to blame if she looked for consolation
elsewhere.

Another time, when taunted by the old woman, she went still further
and declared that Lantier was as much her husband as was Coupeau--that
he was the father of two of her children. She talked a little twaddle
about the laws of nature, and a shrewd observer would have seen that
she--parrotlike--was repeating the words that some other person had
put into her mouth. Besides, what were her neighbors doing all about
her? They were not so extremely respectable that they had the right
to attack her. And then she took house after house and showed her
mother-in-law that while apparently so deaf to gossip she yet knew
all that was going on about her. Yes, she knew--and now seemed to
gloat over that which once had shocked and revolted her.

"It is none of my business, I admit," she cried; "let each person
live as he pleases, according to his own light, and let everybody
else alone."

One day when Mamma Coupeau spoke out more clearly she said with
compressed lips:

"Now look here, you are flat on your back and you take advantage of
that fact. I have never said a word to you about your own life, but
I know it all the same--and it was atrocious! That is all! I am not
going into particulars, but remember, you had best not sit in
judgment on me!"

The old woman was nearly suffocated with rage and her cough.

The next day Goujet came for his mother's wash while Gervaise was
out. Mamma Coupeau called him into her room and kept him for an hour.
She read the young man's heart; she knew that his suspicions made
him miserable. And in revenge for something that had displeased
her she told him the truth with many sighs and tears, as if her
daughter-in-law's infamous conduct was a bitter blow to her.

When Goujet left her room he was deadly pale and looked ten years
older than when he went in. The old woman had, too, the additional
pleasure of telling Gervaise on her return that Mme Goujet had sent
word that her linen must be returned to her at once, ironed or
unironed. And she was so animated and comparatively amiable that
Gervaise scented the truth and knew instinctively what she had done
and what she was to expect with Goujet. Pale and trembling, she piled
the linen neatly in a basket and set forth to see Mme Goujet. Years
had passed since she had paid her friends one penny. The debt still
stood at four hundred and twenty-five francs. Each time she took the
money for her washing she spoke of being pressed just at that time.
It was a great mortification for her.

Coupeau was, however, less scrupulous and said with a laugh that if
she kissed her friend occasionally in the corner it would keep things
straight and pay him well. Then Gervaise, with eyes blazing with
indignation, would ask if he really meant that. Had he fallen so low?
Nor should he speak of Goujet in that way in her presence.

Every time she took home the linen of these former friends she
ascended the stairs with a sick heart.

"Ah, it is you, is it?" said Mme Goujet coldly as she opened the door.
Gervaise entered with some hesitation; she did not dare attempt to
excuse herself. She was no longer punctual to the hour or the
day--everything about her was becoming perfectly disorderly.

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