L\'Assommoir

E >> Emile Zola >> L\'Assommoir

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Then Mme Lorilleux fell to crying, and Lantier had great trouble
in preventing her from going away at once, and the quarrel grew so
violent that Mme Lerat hastily closed the door of the room where
the dead woman lay, as if she feared the noise would waken her.
The children's voices rose shrill in the air with Nana's perpetual
"Tra-la-la" above all the rest.

"Heavens, how wearisome those children are with their songs," said
Lantier. "Tell them to be quiet, and make Nana come in and sit down."

Gervaise obeyed these dictatorial orders while her sisters-in-law went
home to breakfast, while the Coupeaus tried to eat, but they were made
uncomfortable by the presence of death in their crowded quarters. The
details of their daily life were disarranged.

Gervaise went to Goujet and borrowed sixty francs, which, added to
thirty from Mme Lerat, would pay the expenses of the funeral. In
the afternoon several persons came in and looked at the dead woman,
crossing themselves as they did so and shaking holy water over the
body with the branch of box. They then took their seats in the shop
and talked of the poor thing and of her many virtues. One said she
had talked with her only three days before, and another asked if
it were not possible it was a trance.

By evening the Coupeaus felt it was more than they could bear.
It was a mistake to keep a body so long. One has, after all, only
so many tears to shed, and that done, grief turns to worry. Mamma
Coupeau--stiff and cold--was a terrible weight on them all. They
gradually lost the sense of oppression, however, and spoke louder.

After a while M. Marescot appeared. He went to the inner room and
knelt at the side of the corpse. He was very religious, they saw.
He made a sign of the cross in the air and dipped the branch into
the holy water and sprinkled the body. M. Marescot, having finished
his devotions, passed out into the shop and said to Coupeau:

"I came for the two quarters that are due. Have you got the money
for me?"

"No sir, not entirely," said Gervaise, coming forward, excessively
annoyed at this scene taking place in the presence of her
sisters-in-law. "You see, this trouble came upon us--"

"Undoubtedly," answered her landlord; "but we all of us have our
troubles. I cannot wait any longer. I really must have the money.
If I am not paid by tomorrow I shall most assuredly take immediate
measures to turn you out."

Gervaise clasped her hands imploringly, but he shook his head,
saying that discussion was useless; besides, just then it would
be a disrespect to the dead.

"A thousand pardons!" he said as he went out. "But remember that
I must have the money tomorrow."

And as he passed the open door of the lighted room he saluted the
corpse with another genuflection.

After he had gone the ladies gathered around the stove, where a great
pot of coffee stood, enough to keep them all awake for the whole
night. The Poissons arrived about eight o'clock; then Lantier,
carefully watching Gervaise, began to speak of the disgraceful act
committed by the landlord in coming to a house to collect money at
such a time.

"He is a thorough hypocrite," continued Lantier, "and were I in Madame
Coupeau's place, I would walk off and leave his house on his hands."

Gervaise heard but did not seem to heed.

The Lorilleuxs, delighted at the idea that she would lose her shop,
declared that Lantier's idea was an excellent one. They gave Coupeau
a push and repeated it to him.

Gervaise seemed to be disposed to yield, and then Virginie spoke in
the blandest of tones.

"I will take the lease off your hands," she said, "and will arrange
the back rent with your landlord."

"No, no! Thank you," cried Gervaise, shaking off the lethargy in which
she had been wrapped. "I can manage this matter and I can work. No,
no, I say."

Lantier interposed and said soothingly:

"Never mind! We will talk of it another time--tomorrow, possibly."

The family were to sit up all night. Nana cried vociferously when she
was sent into the Boche quarters to sleep; the Poissons remained until
midnight. Virginia began to talk of the country: she would like to be
buried under a tree with flowers and grass on her grave. Mme Lerat
said that in her wardrobe--folded up in lavender--was the linen sheet
in which her body was to be wrapped.

When the Poissons went away Lantier accompanied them in order,
he said, to leave his bed for the ladies, who could take turns in
sleeping there. But the ladies preferred to remain together about
the stove.

Mme Lorilleux said she had no black dress, and it was too bad that she
must buy one, for they were sadly pinched just at this time. And she
asked Gervaise if she was sure that her mother had not a black skirt
which would do, one that had been given her on her birthday. Gervaise
went for the skirt. Yes, it would do if it were taken in at the waist.

Then Mme Lorilleux looked at the bed and the wardrobe and asked if
there was nothing else belonging to her mother.

Here Mme Lerat interfered. The Coupeaus, she said, had taken care of
her mother, and they were entitled to all the trifles she had left.
The night seemed endless. They drank coffee and went by turns to look
at the body, lying silent and calm under the flickering light of the
candle.

The interment was to take place at half-past ten, but Gervaise would
gladly have given a hundred francs, if she had had them, to anyone who
would have taken Mamma Coupeau away three hours before the time fixed.

"Ah," she said to herself, "it is no use to disguise the fact: people
are very much in the way after they are dead, no matter how much you
have loved them!"

Father Bazonge, who was never known to be sober, appeared with the
coffin and the pall. When he saw Gervaise he stood with his eyes
starting from his head.

"I beg you pardon," he said, "but I thought it was for you," and he
was turning to go away.

"Leave the coffin!" cried Gervaise, growing very pale. Bazonge began
to apologize:

"I heard them talking yesterday, but I did not pay much attention. I
congratulate you that you are still alive. Though why I do, I do not
know, for life is not such a very agreeable thing."

Gervaise listened with a shiver of horror and a morbid dread that he
would take her away and shut her up in his box and bury her. She had
once heard him say that he knew a woman who would be only too thankful
if he would do exactly that.

"He is horribly drunk," she murmured in a tone of mingled disgust and
terror.

"It will come for you another time," he said with a laugh; "you have
only to make me a little sign. I am a great consolation to women
sometimes, and you need not sneer at poor Father Bazonge, for he has
held many a fine lady in his arms, and they made no complaint when
he laid them down to sleep in the shade of the evergreens."

"Do hold your tongue," said Lorilleux; "this is no time for such talk.
Be off with you!"

The clock struck ten. The friends and neighbors had assembled in the
shop while the family were in the back room, nervous and feverish with
suspense.

Four men appeared--the undertaker, Bazonge and his three assistants
placed the body in the coffin. Bazonge held the screws in his mouth
and waited for the family to take their last farewell.

Then Coupeau, his two sisters and Gervaise kissed their mother,
and their tears fell fast on her cold face. The lid was put on and
fastened down.

The hearse was at the door to the great edification of the
tradespeople of the neighborhood, who said under their breath that
the Coupeaus had best pay their debts.

"It is shameful," Gervaise was saying at the same moment, speaking
of the Lorilleuxs. "These people have not even brought a bouquet of
violets for their mother."

It was true they had come empty-handed, while Mme Lerat had brought
a wreath of artificial flowers which was laid on the bier.

Coupeau and Lorilleux, with their hats in their hands, walked at the
head of the procession of men. After them followed the ladies, headed
by Mme Lorilleux in her black skirt, wrenched from the dead, her
sister trying to cover a purple dress with a large black shawl.

Gervaise had lingered behind to close the shop and give Nana into the
charge of Mme Boche and then ran to overtake the procession, while the
little girl stood with the concierge, profoundly interested in seeing
her grandmother carried in that beautiful carriage.

Just as Gervaise joined the procession Goujet came up a side street
and saluted her with a slight bow and with a faint sweet smile. The
tears rushed to her eyes. She did not weep for Mamma Coupeau but
rather for herself, but her sisters-in-law looked at her as if she
were the greatest hypocrite in the world.

At the church the ceremony was of short duration. The Mass dragged
a little because the priest was very old.

The cemetery was not far off, and the cortege soon reached it. A
priest came out of a house near by and shivered as he saw his breath
rise with each _De Profundis_ he uttered.

The coffin was lowered, and as the frozen earth fell upon it more
tears were shed, accompanied, however, by sigh of relief.

The procession dispersed outside the gates of the cemetery, and at
the very first cabaret Coupeau turned in, leaving Gervaise alone on
the sidewalk. She beckoned to Goujet, who was turning the corner.

"I want to speak to you," she said timidly. "I want to tell you how
ashamed I am for coming to you again to borrow money, but I was at
my wit's end."

"I am always glad to be of use to you," answered the blacksmith. "But
pray never allude to the matter before my mother, for I do not wish
to trouble her. She and I think differently on many subjects."

She looked at him sadly and earnestly. Through her mind flitted a
vague regret that she had not done as he desired, that she had not
gone away with him somewhere. Then a vile temptation assailed her.
She trembled.

"You are not angry now?" she said entreatingly.

"No, not angry, but still heartsick. All is over between us now
and forever." And he walked off with long strides, leaving Gervaise
stunned by his words.

"All is over between us!" she kept saying to herself. "And what more
is there for me then in life?"

She sat down in her empty, desolate room and drank a large tumbler
of wine. When the others came in she looked up suddenly and said to
Virginie gently:

"If you want the shop, take it!"

Virginie and her husband jumped at this and sent for the concierge,
who consented to the arrangement on condition that the new tenants
would become security for the two quarters then due.

This was agreed upon. The Coupeaus would take a room on the sixth
floor near the Lorilleuxs. Lantier said politely that if it would not
be disagreeable to the Poissons he should like much to retain his
present quarters.

The policeman bowed stiffly but with every intention of being cordial
and said he decidedly approved of the idea.

Then Lantier withdrew from the discussion entirely, watching Gervaise
and Virginie out of the corners of his eyes.

That evening when Gervaise was alone again she felt utterly exhausted.
The place looked twice its usual size. It seemed to her that in
leaving Mamma Coupeau in the quiet cemetery she had also left much
that was precious to her, a portion of her own life, her pride in her
shop, her hopes and her energy. These were not all, either, that she
had buried that day. Her heart was as bare and empty as her walls and
her home. She was too weary to try and analyze her sensations but
moved about as if in a dream.

At ten o'clock, when Nana was undressed, she wept, begging that she
might be allowed to sleep in her grandmother's bed. Her mother vaguely
wondered that the child was not afraid and allowed her to do as she
pleased.

Nana was not timid by nature, and only her curiosity, not her fears,
had been excited by the events of the last three days, and she curled
herself up with delight in the soft, warm feather bed.

CHAPTER X

DISASTERS AND CHANGES

The new lodging of the Coupeaus was next that of the Bijards. Almost
opposite their door was a closet under the stairs which went up to
the roof--a mere hole without light or ventilation, where Father Bru
slept.

A chamber and a small room, about as large as one's hand, were all the
Coupeaus had now. Nana's little bed stood in the small room, the door
of which had to be left open at night, lest the child should stifle.

When it came to the final move Gervaise felt that she could not
separate from the commode which she had spent so much time in
polishing when first married and insisted on its going to their new
quarters, where it was much in the way and stopped up half the window,
and when Gervaise wished to look out into the court she had not room
for her elbows.

The first few days she spent in tears. She felt smothered and cramped;
after having had so much room to move about in it seemed to her that
she was smothering. It was only at the window she could breathe. The
courtyard was not a place calculated to inspire cheerful thoughts.
Opposite her was the window which years before had elicited her
admiration, where every successive summer scarlet beans had grown to
a fabulous height on slender strings. Her room was on the shady side,
and a pot of mignonette would die in a week on her sill.

No, life had not been what she hoped, and it was all very hard to
bear.

Instead of flowers to solace her declining years she would have but
thorns. One day as she was looking down into the court she had the
strangest feeling imaginable. She seemed to see herself standing just
near the loge of the concierge, looking up at the house and examining
it for the first time.

This glimpse of the past made her feel faint. It was at least thirteen
years since she had first seen this huge building--this world within
a world. The court had not changed. The facade was simply more dingy.
The same clothes seemed to be hanging at the windows to dry. Below
there were the shavings from the cabinetmaker's shop, and the gutter
glittered with blue water, as blue and soft in tone as the water she
remembered.

But she--alas, how changed was she! She no longer looked up to the
sky. She was no longer hopeful, courageous and ambitious. She was
living under the very roof in crowded discomfort, where never a ray
of sunshine could reach her, and her tears fell fast in utter
discouragement.

Nevertheless, when Gervaise became accustomed to her new surroundings
she grew more content. The pieces of furniture she had sold to
Virginie had facilitated her installation. When the fine weather came
Coupeau had an opportunity of going into the country to work. He went
and lived three months without drinking--cured for the time being by
the fresh, pure air. It does a man sometimes an infinite deal of good
to be taken away from all his old haunts and from Parisian streets,
which always seem to exhale a smell of brandy and of wine.

He came back as fresh as a rose, and he brought four hundred francs
with which he paid the Poissons the amount for which they had become
security as well as several other small but pressing debts. Gervaise
had now two or three streets open to her again, which for some time
she had not dared to enter.

She now went out to iron by the day and had gone back to her old
mistress, Mme Fauconnier, who was a kindhearted creature and ready
to do anything for anyone who flattered her adroitly.

With diligence and economy Gervaise could have managed to live
comfortably and pay all her debts, but this prospect did not charm her
particularly. She suffered acutely in seeing the Poissons in her old
shop. She was by no means of a jealous or envious disposition, but
it was not agreeable to her to hear the admiration expressed for her
successors by her husband's sisters. To hear them one would suppose
that never had so beautiful a shop been seen before. They spoke of
the filthy condition of the place when Virginie moved in--who had
paid, they declared, thirty francs for cleaning it.

Virginie, after some hesitation, had decided on a small stock of
groceries--sugar, tea and coffee, also bonbons and chocolate. Lantier
had advised these because he said the profit on them was immense. The
shop was repainted, and shelves and cases were put in, and a counter
with scales such as are seen at confectioners'. The little inheritance
that Poisson held in reserve was seriously encroached upon. But
Virginie was triumphant, for she had her way, and the Lorilleuxs
did not spare Gervaise the description of a case or a jar.

It was said in the street that Lantier had deserted Gervaise,
that she gave him no peace running after him, but this was not true,
for he went and came to her apartment as he pleased. Scandal was
connecting his name and Virginie's. They said Virginie had taken the
clearstarcher's lover as well as her shop! The Lorilleuxs talked of
nothing when Gervaise was present but Lantier, Virginie and the shop.
Fortunately Gervaise was not inclined to jealousy, and Lantier's
infidelities had hitherto left her undisturbed, but she did not accept
this new affair with equal tranquillity. She colored or turned pale
as she heard these allusions, but she would not allow a word to pass
her lips, as she was fully determined never to gratify her enemies
by allowing them to see her discomfiture; but a dispute was heard by
the neighbors about this time between herself and Lantier, who went
angrily away and was not seen by anyone in the Coupeau quarters for
more than a fortnight.

Coupeau behaved very oddly. This blind and complacent husband, who
had closed his eyes to all that was going on at home, was filled with
virtuous indignation at Lantier's indifference. Then Coupeau went so
far as to tease Gervaise in regard to this desertion of her lovers.
She had had bad luck, he said, with hatters and blacksmiths--why did
she not try a mason?

He said this as if it were a joke, but Gervaise had a firm conviction
that he was in deadly earnest. A man who is tipsy from one year's end
to the next is not apt to be fastidious, and there are husbands who at
twenty are very jealous and at thirty have grown very complacent under
the influence of constant tippling.

Lantier preserved an attitude of calm indifference. He kept the peace
between the Poissons and the Coupeaus. Thanks to him, Virginie and
Gervaise affected for each other the most tender regard. He ruled the
brunette as he had ruled the blonde, and he would swallow her shop as
he had that of Gervaise.

It was in June of this year that Nana partook of her first Communion.
She was about thirteen, slender and tall as an asparagus plant, and
her air and manner were the height of impertinence and audacity.

She had been sent away from the catechism class the year before on
account of her bad conduct. And if the cure did not make a similar
objection this year it was because he feared she would never come
again and that his refusal would launch on the Parisian _pave_
another castaway.

Nana danced with joy at the mere thought of what the Lorilleuxs--as
her godparents--had promised, while Mme Lerat gave the veil and cup,
Virginie the purse and Lantier a prayer book, so that the Coupeaus
looked forward to the day without anxiety.

The Poissons--probably through Lantier's advice--selected this
occasion for their housewarming. They invited the Coupeaus and the
Boche family, as Pauline made her first Communion on that day, as
well as Nana.

The evening before, while Nana stood in an ecstasy of delight before
her presents, her father came in in an abominable condition. His
virtuous resolutions had yielded to the air of Paris; he had fallen
into evil ways again, and he now assailed his wife and child with the
vilest epithets, which did not seem to shock Nana, for they could fall
from her tongue on occasion with facile glibness.

"I want my soup," cried Coupeau, "and you two fools are chattering
over those fal-lals! I tell you, I will sit on them if I am not waited
upon, and quickly too."

Gervaise answered impatiently, but Nana, who thought it better taste
just then--all things considered--to receive with meekness all her
father's abuse, dropped her eyes and did not reply.

"Take that rubbish away!" he cried with growing impatience. "Put it
out of my sight or I will tear it to bits."

Nana did not seem to hear him. She took up the tulle cap and asked her
mother what it cost, and when Coupeau tried to snatch the cap Gervaise
pushed him away.

"Let the child alone!" she said. "She is doing no harm!"

Then her husband went into a perfect rage:

"Mother and daughter," he cried, "a nice pair they make. I understand
very well what all this row is for: it is merely to show yourself in a
new gown. I will put you in a bag and tie it close round your throat,
and you will see if the cure likes that!"

Nana turned like lightning to protect her treasures. She looked her
father full in the face, and, forgetting the lessons taught her by
her priest, she said in a low, concentrated voice:

"Beast!" That was all.

After Coupeau had eaten his soup he fell asleep and in the morning
woke quite amiable. He admired his daughter and said she looked quite
like a young lady in her white robe. Then he added with a sentimental
air that a father on such days was naturally proud of his child.
When they were ready to go to the church and Nana met Pauline in
the corridor, she examined the latter from head to foot and smiled
condescendingly on seeing that Pauline had not a particle of chic.

The two families started off together, Nana and Pauline in front,
each with her prayer book in one hand and with the other holding down
her veil, which swelled in the wind like a sail. They did not speak
to each other but keenly enjoyed seeing the shopkeepers run to their
doors to see them, keeping their eyes cast down devoutly but their
ears wide open to any compliment they might hear.

Nana's two aunts walked side by side, exchanging their opinions
in regard to Gervaise, whom they stigmatized as an irreligious
ne'er-do-well whose child would never have gone to the Holy
Communion if it had depended on her.

At the church Coupeau wept all the time. It was very silly, he knew,
but he could not help it. The voice of the cure was pathetic; the
little girls looked like white-robed angels; the organ thrilled him,
and the incense gratified his senses. There was one especial anthem
which touched him deeply. He was not the only person who wept, he
was glad to see, and when the ceremony was over he left the church
feeling that it was the happiest day of his life. But an hour later
he quarreled with Lorilleux in a wineshop because the latter was so
hardhearted.

The housewarming at the Poissons' that night was very gay. Lantier
sat between Gervaise and Virginie and was equally civil and attentive
to both. Opposite was Poisson with his calm, impassive face, a look
he had cultivated since he began his career as a police officer.

But the queens of the fete were the two little girls, Nana and
Pauline, who sat very erect lest they should crush and deface their
pretty white dresses. At dessert there was a serious discussion in
regard to the future of the children. Mme Boche said that Pauline
would at once enter a certain manufactory, where she would receive
five or six francs per week. Gervaise had not decided yet, for Nana
had shown no especial leaning in any direction. She had a good deal
of taste, but she was butter-fingered and careless.

"I should make a florist of her," said Mme Lerat. "It is clean work
and pretty work too."

Whereupon ensued a warm discussion. The men were especially careful
of their language out of deference to the little girls, but Mme Lerat
would not accept the lesson: she flattered herself she could say what
she pleased in such a way that it could not offend the most fastidious
ears.

Women, she declared, who followed her trade were more virtuous than
others. They rarely made a slip.

"I have no objection to your trade," interrupted Gervaise. "If Nana
likes to make flowers let her do so. Say, Nana, would you like it?"

The little girl did not look up from her plate, into which she was
dipping a crust of bread. She smiled faintly as she replied:

"Yes, Mamma; if you desire it I have no objection."

The decision was instantly made, and Coupeau wished his sister to
take her the very next day to the place where she herself worked,
Rue du Caire, and the circle talked gravely of the duties of life.
Boche said that Pauline and Nana were now women, since they had been
to Communion, and they ought to be serious and learn to cook and to
mend. They alluded to their future marriages, their homes and their
children, and the girls touched each other under the table, giggled
and grew very red. Lantier asked them if they did not have little
husbands already, and Nana blushingly confessed that she loved Victor
Fauconnier and never meant to marry anyone else.

Mme Lorilleux said to Mme Boche on their way home:

"Nana is our goddaughter now, but if she goes into that flower
business, in six months she will be on the _pave_, and we will
have nothing to do with her."

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