L\'Assommoir

E >> Emile Zola >> L\'Assommoir

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The clearstarcher, meanwhile, was going from bad to worse. She had
been dismissed from Mme Fauconnier's and in the last few weeks had
worked for eight laundresses, one after the other--dismissed from
all for her untidiness.

As she seemed to have lost all skill in ironing, she went out by the
day to wash and by degrees was entrusted with only the roughest work.
This hard labor did not tend to beautify her either. She continued to
grow stouter and stouter in spite of her scanty food and hard labor.

Her womanly pride and vanity had all departed. Lantier never seemed
to see her when they met by chance, and she hardly noticed that the
liaison which had stretched along for so many years had ended in a
mutual disenchantment.

Lantier had done wisely, so far as he was concerned, in counseling
Virginie to open the kind of shop she had. He adored sweets and could
have lived on pralines and gumdrops, sugarplums and chocolate.

Sugared almonds were his especial delight. For a year his principal
food was bonbons. He opened all the jars, boxes and drawers when he
was left alone in the shop; and often, with five or six persons
standing around, he would take off the cover of a jar on the counter
and put in his hand and crunch down an almond. The cover was not put
on again, and the jar was soon empty. It was a habit of his, they all
said; besides, he was subject to a tickling in his throat!

He talked a great deal to Poisson of an invention of his which was
worth a fortune--an umbrella and hat in one; that is to say, a hat
which, at the first drops of a shower, would expand into an umbrella.

Lantier suggested to Virginie that she should have Gervaise come in
once each week to wash the floors, shop and the rooms. This she did
and received thirty sous each time. Gervaise appeared on Saturday
mornings with her bucket and brush, without seeming to suffer a single
pang at doing this menial work in the house where she had lived as
mistress.

One Saturday Gervaise had hard work. It had rained for three days, and
all the mud of the streets seemed to have been brought into the shop.
Virginie stood behind the counter with collar and cuffs trimmed with
lace. Near her on a low chair lounged Lantier, and he was, as usual,
eating candy.

"Really, Madame Coupeau," cried Virginie, "can't you do better than
that? You have left all the dirt in the corners. Don't you see? Oblige
me by doing that over again."

Gervaise obeyed. She went back to the corner and scrubbed it again.
She was on her hands and knees, with her sleeves rolled up over her
arms. Her old skirt clung close to her stout form, and the sweat
poured down her face.

"The more elbow grease she uses, the more she shines," said Lantier
sententiously with his mouth full.

Virginie, leaning back in her chair with the air of a princess,
followed the progress of the work with half-closed eyes.

"A little more to the right. Remember, those spots must all be taken
out. Last Saturday, you know, I was not pleased."

And then Lantier and Virginie fell into a conversation, while Gervaise
crawled along the floor in the dirt at their feet.

Mme Poisson enjoyed this, for her cat's eyes sparkled with malicious
joy, and she glanced at Lantier with a smile. At last she was avenged
for that mortification at the lavatory, which had for years weighed
heavy on her soul.

"By the way," said Lantier, addressing himself to Gervaise, "I saw
Nana last night."

Gervaise started to her feet with her brush in her hand.

"Yes, I was coming down La Rue des Martyrs. In front of me was a young
girl on the arm of an old gentleman. As I passed I glanced at her face
and assure you that it was Nana. She was well dressed and looked
happy."

"Ah!" said Gervaise in a low, dull voice.

Lantier, who had finished one jar, now began another.

"What a girl that is!" he continued. "Imagine that she made me a sign
to follow with the most perfect self-possession. She got rid of her
old gentleman in a cafe and beckoned me to the door. She asked me to
tell her about everybody."

"Ah!" repeated Gervaise.

She stood waiting. Surely this was not all. Her daughter must have
sent her some especial message. Lantier ate his sugarplums.

"I would not have looked at her," said Virginie. "I sincerely trust,
if I should meet her, that she would not speak to me for, really,
it would mortify me beyond expression. I am sorry for you, Madame
Gervaise, but the truth is that Poisson arrests every day a dozen
just such girls."

Gervaise said nothing; her eyes were fixed on vacancy. She shook her
head slowly, as if in reply to her own thoughts.

"Pray make haste," exclaimed Virginie fretfully. "I do not care to
have this scrubbing going on until midnight."

Gervaise returned to her work. With her two hands clasped around the
handle of the brush she pushed the water before her toward the door.
After this she had only to rinse the floor after sweeping the dirty
water into the gutter.

When all was accomplished she stood before the counter waiting for
her money. When Virginie tossed it toward her she did not take it up
instantly.

"Then she said nothing else?" Gervaise asked.

"She?" Lantier exclaimed. "Who is she? Ah yes, I remember. Nana! No,
she said nothing more."

And Gervaise went away with her thirty sous in her hand, her skirts
dripping and her shoes leaving the mark of their broad soles on the
sidewalk.

In the _Quartier_ all the women who drank like her took her part
and declared she had been driven to intemperance by her daughter's
misconduct. She, too, began to believe this herself and assumed at
times a tragic air and wished she were dead. Unquestionably she had
suffered from Nana's departure. A mother does not like to feel that
her daughter will leave her for the first person who asks her to do
so.

But she was too thoroughly demoralized to care long, and soon she had
but one idea: that Nana belonged to her. Had she not a right to her
own property?

She roamed the streets day after day, night after night, hoping to
see the girl. That year half the _Quartier_ was being demolished. All
one side of the Rue des Poissonniers lay flat on the ground. Lantier
and Poisson disputed day after day on these demolitions. The one
declared that the emperor wanted to build palaces and drive the lower
classes out of Paris, while Poisson, white with rage, said the emperor
would pull down the whole of Paris merely to give work to the people.

Gervaise did not like the improvements, either, or the changes in
the dingy _Quartier_, to which she was accustomed. It was, in fact,
a little hard for her to see all these embellishments just when she
was going downhill so fast over the piles of brick and mortar, while
she was wandering about in search of Nana.

She heard of her daughter several times. There are always plenty of
people to tell you things you do not care to hear. She was told that
Nana had left her elderly friend for the sake of some young fellow.

She heard, too, that Nana had been seen at a ball in the Grand Salon,
Rue de la Chapelle, and Coupeau and she began to frequent all these
places, one after another, whenever they had the money to spend.

But at the end of a month they had forgotten Nana and went for their
own pleasure. They sat for hours with their elbows on a table, which
shook with the movements of the dancers, amused by the sight.

One November night they entered the Grand Salon, as much to get warm
as anything else. Outside it was hailing, and the rooms were naturally
crowded. They could not find a table, and they stood waiting until
they could establish themselves. Coupeau was directly in the mouth of
the passage, and a young man in a frock coat was thrown against him.
The youth uttered an exclamation of disgust as he began to dust off
his coat with his handkerchief. The blouse worn by Coupeau was
assuredly none of the cleanest.

"Look here, my good fellow," cried Coupeau angrily, "those airs
are very unnecessary. I would have you to know that the blouse of
a workingman can do your coat no harm if it has touched it!"

The young man turned around and looked at Coupeau from head to foot.

"Learn," continued the angry workman, "that the blouse is the only
wear for a man!"

Gervaise endeavored to calm her husband, who, however, tapped his
ragged breast and repeated loudly:

"The only wear for a man, I tell you!"

The youth slipped away and was lost in the crowd.

Coupeau tried to find him, but it was quite impossible; the crowd was
too great. The orchestra was playing a quadrille, and the dancers were
bringing up the dust from the floor in great clouds, which obscured
the gas.

"Look!" said Gervaise suddenly.

"What is it?"

"Look at that velvet bonnet!"

Quite at the left there was a velvet bonnet, black with plumes,
only too suggestive of a hearse. They watched these nodding plumes
breathlessly.

"Do you not know that hair?" murmured Gervaise hoarsely. "I am sure
it is she!"

In one second Coupeau was in the center of the crowd. Yes, it was
Nana, and in what a costume! She wore a ragged silk dress, stained
and torn. She had no shawl over her shoulders to conceal the fact that
half the buttonholes on her dress were burst out. In spite of all her
shabbiness the girl was pretty and fresh. Nana, of course, danced on
unsuspiciously. Her airs and graces were beyond belief. She curtsied
to the very ground and then in a twinkling threw her foot over her
partner's head. A circle was formed, and she was applauded
vociferously.

At this moment Coupeau fell on his daughter.

"Don't try and keep me back," he said, "for have her I will!"

Nana turned and saw her father and mother.

Coupeau discovered that his daughter's partner was the young man for
whom he had been looking. Gervaise pushed him aside and walked up to
Nana and gave her two cuffs on her ears. One sent the plumed hat on
the side; the other left five red marks on that pale cheek. The
orchestra played on. Nana neither wept nor moved.

The dancers began to grow very angry. They ordered the Coupeau party
to leave the room.

"Go," said Gervaise, "and do not attempt to leave us, for so sure
as you do you will be given in charge of a policeman."

The young man had prudently disappeared.

Nana's old life now began again, for after the girl had slept for
twelve hours on a stretch, she was very gentle and sweet for a week.
She wore a plain gown and a simple hat and declared she would like
to work at home. She rose early and took a seat at her table by five
o'clock the first morning and tried to roll her violet stems, but her
fingers had lost their cunning in the six months in which they had
been idle.

Then the gluepot dried up; the petals and the paper were dusty and
spotted; the mistress of the establishment came for her tools and
materials and made more than one scene. Nana relapsed into utter
indolence, quarreling with her mother from morning until night.
Of course an end must come to this, so one fine evening the girl
disappeared.

The Lorilleuxs, who had been greatly amused by the repentance and
return of their niece, now nearly died laughing. If she returned again
they would advise the Coupeaus to put her in a cage like a canary.

The Coupeaus pretended to be rather pleased, but in their hearts they
raged, particularly as they soon learned that Nana was frequently seen
in the _Quartier_. Gervaise declared this was done by the girl to
annoy them.

Nana adorned all the balls in the vicinity, and the Coupeaus knew that
they could lay their hands on her at any time they chose, but they did
not choose and they avoided meeting her.

But one night, just as they were going to bed, they heard a rap on the
door. It was Nana, who came to ask as coolly as possible if she could
sleep there. What a state she was in! All rags and dirt. She devoured
a crust of dried bread and fell asleep with a part of it in her
hand. This continued for some time, the girl coming and going like a
will-o'-the-wisp. Weeks and months would elapse without a sign from
her, and then she would reappear without a word to say where she
had been, sometimes in rags and sometimes well dressed. Finally her
parents began to take these proceedings as a matter of course. She
might come in, they said, or stay out, just as she pleased, provided
she kept the door shut. Only one thing exasperated Gervaise now, and
that was when her daughter appeared with a bonnet and feathers and
a train. This she would not endure. When Nana came to her it must be
as a simple workingwoman! None of this dearly bought finery should
be exhibited there, for these trained dresses had created a great
excitement in the house.

One day Gervaise reproached her daughter violently for the life she
led and finally, in her rage, took her by the shoulder and shook her.

"Let me be!" cried the girl. "You are the last person to talk to me
in that way. You did as you pleased. Why can't I do the same?"

"What do you mean?" stammered the mother.

"I have never said anything about it because it was none of my
business, but do you think I did not know where you were when my
father lay snoring? Let me alone. It was you who set me the example."

Gervaise turned away pale and trembling, while Nana composed herself
to sleep again.

Coupeau's life was a very regular one--that is to say, he did not
drink for six months and then yielded to temptation, which brought him
up with a round turn and sent him to Sainte-Anne's. When he came out
he did the same thing, so that in three years he was seven times at
Sainte-Anne's, and each time he came out the fellow looked more broken
and less able to stand another orgy.

The poison had penetrated his entire system. He had grown very thin;
his cheeks were hollow and his eyes inflamed. Those who knew his age
shuddered as they saw him pass, bent and decrepit as a man of eighty.
The trembling of his hands had so increased that some days he was
obliged to use them both in raising his glass to his lips. This
annoyed him intensely and seemed to be the only symptom of his failing
health which disturbed him. He sometimes swore violently at these
unruly members and at others sat for hours looking at these fluttering
hands as if trying to discover by what strange mechanism they were
moved. And one night Gervaise found him sitting in this way with great
tears pouring down his withered cheeks.

The last summer of his life was especially trying to Coupeau. His
voice was entirely changed; he was deaf in one ear, and some days he
could not see and was obliged to feel his way up and downstairs as
if he were blind. He suffered from maddening headaches, and sudden
pains would dart through his limbs, causing him to snatch at a chair
for support. Sometimes after one of these attacks his arm would be
paralyzed for twenty-four hours.

He would lie in bed with even his head wrapped up, silent and
moody, like some suffering animal. Then came incipient madness and
fever--tearing everything to pieces that came in his way--or he would
weep and moan, declaring that no one loved him, that he was a burden
to his wife. One evening when his wife and daughter came in he was not
in his bed; in his place lay the bolster carefully tucked in. They
found him at last crouched on the floor under the bed, with his teeth
chattering with cold and fear. He told them he had been attacked by
assassins.

The two women coaxed him back to bed as if he had been a baby.

Coupeau knew but one remedy for all this, and that was a good stout
morning dram. His memory had long since fled; his brain had softened.
When Nana appeared after an absence of six weeks he thought she had
been on an errand around the corner. She met him in the street, too,
very often now, without fear, for he passed without recognizing her.
One night in the autumn Nana went out, saying she wanted some baked
pears from the fruiterer's. She felt the cold weather coming on, and
she did not care to sit before a cold stove. The winter before she
went out for two sous' worth of tobacco and came back in a month's
time; they thought she would do the same now, but they were mistaken.
Winter came and went, as did the spring, and even when June arrived
they had seen and heard nothing of her.

She was evidently comfortable somewhere, and the Coupeaus, feeling
certain that she would never return, had sold her bed; it was very
much in their way, and they could drink up the six francs it brought.

One morning Virginie called to Gervaise as the latter passed the shop
and begged her to come in and help a little, as Lantier had had two
friends to supper the night before, and Gervaise washed the dishes
while Lantier sat in the shop smoking. Presently he said:

"Oh, Gervaise, I saw Nana the other night."

Virginie, who was behind the counter, opening and shutting drawer
after drawer, with a face that lengthened as she found each empty,
shook her fist at him indignantly.

She had begun to think he saw Nana very often. She did not speak, but
Mme Lerat, who had just come in, said with a significant look:

"And where did you see her?"

"Oh, in a carriage," answered Lantier with a laugh. "And I was on the
sidewalk." He turned toward Gervaise and went on:

"Yes, she was in a carriage, dressed beautifully. I did not recognize
her at first, but she kissed her hand to me. Her friend this time must
be a vicomte at the least. She looked as happy as a queen."

Gervaise wiped the plate in her hands, rubbing it long and carefully,
though it had long since been dry. Virginie, with wrinkled brows,
wondered how she could pay two notes which fell due the next day,
while Lantier, fat and hearty from the sweets he had devoured, asked
himself if these drawers and jars would be filled up again or if the
ruin he anticipated was so near at hand that he would be compelled
to pull up stakes at once. There was not another praline for him to
crunch, not even a gumdrop.

When Gervaise went back to her room she found Coupeau sitting on the
side of the bed, weeping and moaning. She took a chair near by and
looked at him without speaking.

"I have news for you," she said at last. "Your daughter has been seen.
She is happy and comfortable. Would that I were in her place!"

Coupeau was looking down on the floor intently. He raised his head
and said with an idiotic laugh:

"Do as you please, my dear; don't let me be any hindrance to you.
When you are dressed up you are not so bad looking after all."

CHAPTER XII

POVERTY AND DEGRADATION

The weather was intensely cold about the middle of January. Gervaise
had not been able to pay her rent, due on the first. She had little
or no work and consequently no food to speak of. The sky was dark and
gloomy and the air heavy with the coming of a storm. Gervaise thought
it barely possible that her husband might come in with a little money.
After all, everything is possible, and he had said that he would work.
Gervaise after a little, by dint of dwelling on this thought, had come
to consider it a certainty. Yes, Coupeau would bring home some money,
and they would have a good, hot, comfortable dinner. As to herself,
she had given up trying to get work, for no one would have her. This
did not much trouble her, however, for she had arrived at that point
when the mere exertion of moving had become intolerable to her. She
now lay stretched on the bed, for she was warmer there.

Gervaise called it a bed. In reality it was only a pile of straw
in the corner, for she had sold her bed and all her furniture. She
occasionally swept the straw together with a broom, and, after all,
it was neither dustier nor dirtier than everything else in the place.
On this straw, therefore, Gervaise now lay with her eyes wide open.
How long, she wondered, could people live without eating? She was not
hungry, but there was a strange weight at the pit of her stomach. Her
haggard eyes wandered about the room in search of anything she could
sell. She vaguely wished someone would buy the spider webs which hung
in all the corners. She knew them to be very good for cuts, but she
doubted if they had any market value.

Tired of this contemplation, she got up and took her one chair to
the window and looked out into the dingy courtyard.

Her landlord had been there that day and declared he would wait only
one week for his money, and if it were not forthcoming he would turn
them into the street. It drove her wild to see him stand in his heavy
overcoat and tell her so coldly that he would pack her off at once.
She hated him with a vindictive hatred, as she did her fool of a
husband and the Lorilleuxs and Poissons. In fact, she hated everyone
on that especial day.

Unfortunately people can't live without eating, and before the woman's
famished eyes floated visions of food. Not of dainty little dishes.
She had long since ceased to care for those and ate all she could get
without being in the least fastidious in regard to its quality. When
she had a little money she bought a bullock's heart or a bit of cheese
or some beans, and sometimes she begged from a restaurant and made
a sort of panada of the crusts they gave her, which she cooked on a
neighbor's stove. She was quite willing to dispute with a dog for a
bone. Once the thought of such things would have disgusted her, but
at that time she did not--for three days in succession--go without a
morsel of food. She remembered how last week Coupeau had stolen a half
loaf of bread and sold it, or rather exchanged it, for liquor.

She sat at the window, looking at the pale sky, and finally fell
asleep. She dreamed that she was out in a snowstorm and could not find
her way home. She awoke with a start and saw that night was coming on.
How long the days are when one's stomach is empty! She waited for
Coupeau and the relief he would bring.

The clock struck in the next room. Could it be possible? Was it only
three? Then she began to cry. How could she ever wait until seven?
After another half-hour of suspense she started up. Yes, they might
say what they pleased, but she, at least, would try to borrow ten
sous from the Lorilleuxs.

There was a continual borrowing of small sums in this corridor during
the winter, but no matter what was the emergency no one ever dreamed
of applying to the Lorilleuxs. Gervaise summoned all her courage and
rapped at the door.

"Come in!" cried a sharp voice.

How good it was there! Warm and bright with the glow of the forge. And
Gervaise smelled the soup, too, and it made her feel faint and sick.

"Ah, it is you, is it?" said Mme Lorilleux. "What do you want?"

Gervaise hesitated. The application for ten sous stuck in her throat,
because she saw Boche seated by the stove.

"What do you want?" asked Lorilleux, in his turn.

"Have you seen Coupeau?" stammered Gervaise. "I thought he was here."

His sister answered with a sneer that they rarely saw Coupeau. They
were not rich enough to offer him as many glasses of wine as he wanted
in these days.

Gervaise stammered out a disconnected sentence.

He had promised to come home. She needed food; she needed money.

A profound silence followed. Mme Lorilleux fanned her fire, and her
husband bent more closely over his work, while Boche smiled with an
expectant air.

"If I could have ten sous," murmured Gervaise.

The silence continued.

"If you would lend them to me," said Gervaise, "I would give them back
in the morning."

Mme Lorilleux turned and looked her full in the face, thinking to
herself that if she yielded once the next day it would be twenty sous,
and who could tell where it would stop?

"But, my dear," she cried, "you know we have no money and no prospect
of any; otherwise, of course, we would oblige you."

"Certainly," said Lorilleux, "the heart is willing, but the pockets
are empty."

Gervaise bowed her head, but she did not leave instantly. She looked
at the gold wire on which her sister-in-law was working and at that in
the hands of Lorilleux and thought that it would take a mere scrap to
give her a good dinner. On that day the room was very dirty and filled
with charcoal dust, but she saw it resplendent with riches like the
shop of a money-changer, and she said once more in a low, soft voice:

"I will bring back the ten sous. I will, indeed!" Tears were in her
eyes, but she was determined not to say that she had eaten nothing
for twenty-four hours.

"I can't tell you how much I need it," she continued.

The husband and wife exchanged a look. Wooden Legs begging at their
door! Well! Well! Who would have thought it? Why had they not known it
was she when they rashly called out, "Come in?" Really, they could not
allow such people to cross their threshold; there was too much that
was valuable in the room. They had several times distrusted Gervaise;
she looked about so queerly, and now they would not take their eyes
off her.

Gervaise went toward Lorilleux as she spoke.

"Take care!" he said roughly. "You will carry off some of the
particles of gold on the soles of your shoes. It looks really as
if you had greased them!"

Gervaise drew back. She leaned against the _etagere_ for a moment
and, seeing that her sister-in-law's eyes were fixed on her hands,
she opened them and said in a gentle, weary voice--the voice of a
woman who had ceased to struggle:

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