L\'Assommoir

E >> Emile Zola >> L\'Assommoir

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Gervaise had been calm and smiling all day, but she had quietly
watched her husband with the Lorilleuxs. She thought Coupeau was
afraid of his sister--cowardly, in fact. The evening previous he had
said he did not care a sou for their opinion on any subject and that
they had the tongues of vipers, but now he was with them, he was like
a whipped hound, hung on their words and anticipated their wishes.
This troubled his wife, for it augured ill, she thought, for their
future happiness.

"We won't wait any longer for Mes-Bottes," cried Coupeau. "We are all
here but him, and his scent is good! Surely he can't be waiting for us
still at St-Denis!"

The guests, in good spirits once more, took their seats with a great
clatter of chairs.

Gervaise was between Lorilleux and Madinier, and Coupeau between Mme
Fauconnier and his sister Mme Lorilleux. The others seated themselves.

"No one has asked a blessing," said Boche as the ladies pulled the
tablecloth well over their skirts to protect them from spots.

But Mme Lorilleux frowned at this poor jest. The vermicelli soup,
which was cold and greasy, was eaten with noisy haste. Two
_garcons_ served them, wearing aprons of a very doubtful white
and greasy vests.

Through the four windows, open on the courtyard and its acacias,
streamed the light, soft and warm, after the storm. The trees, bathed
in the setting sun, imparted a cool, green tinge to the dingy room,
and the shadows of the waving branches and quivering leaves danced
over the cloth.

There were two fly-specked mirrors at either end of the room, which
indefinitely lengthened the table spread with thick china. Every time
the _garcons_ opened the door into the kitchen there came a strong
smell of burning fat.

"Don't let us all talk at once!" said Boche as a dead silence fell on
the room, broken by the abrupt entrance of Mes-Bottes.

"You are nice people!" he exclaimed. "I have been waiting for you
until I am wet through and have a fishpond in each pocket."

This struck the circle as the height of wit, and they all laughed
while he ordered the _garcon_ to and fro. He devoured three plates of
soup and enormous slices of bread. The head of the establishment came
and looked in in considerable anxiety; a laugh ran around the room.
Mes-Bottes recalled to their memories a day when he had eaten twelve
hard-boiled eggs and drunk twelve glasses of wine while the clock was
striking twelve.

There was a brief silence. A waiter placed on the table a rabbit stew
in a deep dish. Coupeau turned round.

"Say, boy, is that a gutter rabbit? It mews still."

And the low mewing of a cat seemed, indeed, to come from the dish.
This delicate joke was perpetrated by Coupeau in the throat, without
the smallest movement of his lips. This feat always met with such
success that he never ordered a meal anywhere without a rabbit stew.
The ladies wiped their eyes with their napkins because they laughed
so much.

Mme Fauconnier begged for the head--she adored the head--and Boche
asked especially for onions.

Mme Lerat compressed her lips and said morosely:

"Of course. I might have known that!"

Mme Lerat was a hard-working woman. No man had ever put his nose
within her door since her widowhood, and yet her instincts were
thoroughly bad; every word uttered by others bore to her ears a double
meaning, a coarse allusion sometimes so deeply veiled that no one but
herself could grasp its meaning.

Boche leaned over her with a sensual smile and entreated an
explanation. She shook her head.

"Of course," she repeated. "Onions! I knew it!"

Everybody was talking now, each of his own trade. Madinier declared
that boxmaking was an art, and he cited the New Year bonbon boxes as
wonders of luxury. Lorilleux talked of his chains, of their delicacy
and beauty. He said that in former times jewelers wore swords at their
sides. Coupeau described a weathercock made by one of his comrades out
of tin. Mme Lerat showed Bibi-la-Grillade how a rose stem was made by
rolling the handle of her knife between her bony fingers, and Mme
Fauconnier complained loudly of one of her apprentices who the night
before had badly scorched a pair of linen sheets.

"It is no use to talk!" cried Lorilleux, striking his fist on the
table. "Gold is gold!"

A profound silence followed the utterance of this truism, amid which
arose from the other end of the table the piping tones of Mlle
Remanjon's voice as she said:

"And then I sew on the skirt. I stick a pin in the head to hold on
the cap, and it is done. They sell for three cents."

She was describing her dolls to Mes-Bottes, whose jaws worked
steadily, like machinery.

He did not listen, but he nodded at intervals, with his eyes fixed
on the _garcons_ to see that they carried away no dishes that were
not emptied.

There had been veal cutlets and string beans served. As a _roti,_
two lean chickens on a bed of water cresses were brought in. The room
was growing very warm; the sun was lingering on the tops of the
acacias, but the room was growing dark. The men threw off their coats
and ate in their shirt sleeves.

"Mme Boche," cried Gervaise, "please don't let those children eat
so much."

But Mme Coupeau interposed and declared that for once in a while a
little fit of indigestion would do them no harm.

Mme Boche accused her husband of holding Mme Lerat's hand under the
table.

Madinier talked politics. He was a Republican, and Bibi-la-Grillade
and himself were soon in a hot discussion.

"Who cares," cried Coupeau, "whether we have a king, an emperor or
a president, so long as we earn our five francs per day!"

Lorilleux shook his head. He was born on the same day as the Comte de
Chambord, September 29, 1820, and this coincidence dwelt in his mind.
He seemed to feel that there was a certain connection between the
return of the king to France and his own personal fortunes. He did
not say distinctly what he expected, but it was clear that it was
something very agreeable.

The dessert was now on the table--a floating island flanked by two
plates of cheese and two of fruit. The floating island was a great
success. Mes-Bottes ate all the cheese and called for more bread. And
then as some of the custard was left in the dish, he pulled it toward
him and ate it as if it had been soup.

"How extraordinary!" said Madinier, filled with admiration.

The men rose to light their pipes and, as they passed Mes-Bottes,
asked him how he felt.

Bibi-la-Grillade lifted him from the floor, chair and all.

"Zounds!" he cried. "The fellow's weight has doubled!"

Coupeau declared his friend had only just begun his night's work,
that he would eat bread until dawn. The waiters, pale with fright,
disappeared. Boche went downstairs on a tour of inspection and
stated that the establishment was in a state of confusion, that the
proprietor, in consternation, had sent out to all the bakers in the
neighborhood, that the house, in fact, had an utterly ruined aspect.

"I should not like to take you to board," said Mme Gaudron.

"Let us have a punch," cried Mes-Bottes.

But Coupeau, seeing his wife's troubled face, interfered and said no
one should drink anything more. They had all had enough.

This declaration met with the approval of some of the party, but the
others sided with Mes-Bottes.

"Those who are thirsty are thirsty," he said. "No one need drink that
does not wish to do so, I am sure." And he added with a wink, "There
will be all the more for those who do!"

Then Coupeau said they would settle the account, and his friend could
do as he pleased afterward.

Alas! Mes-Bottes could produce only three francs; he had changed his
five-franc piece, and the remainder had melted away somehow on the
road from St-Denis. He handed over the three francs, and Coupeau,
greatly indignant, borrowed the other two from his brother-in-law,
who gave the money secretly, being afraid of his wife.

M. Madinier had taken a plate. The ladies each laid down their five
francs quietly and timidly, and then the men retreated to the other
end of the room and counted up the amount, and each man added to his
subscription five sous for the _garcon_.

But when M. Madinier sent for the proprietor the little assembly were
shocked at hearing him say that this was not all; there were "extras."

As this was received with exclamations of rage, he went into
explanations. He had furnished twenty-five liters of wine instead of
twenty, as he agreed. The floating island was an addition, on seeing
that the dessert was somewhat scanty, whereupon ensued a formidable
quarrel. Coupeau declared he would not pay a sou of the extras.

"There is your money," he said; "take it, and never again will one
of us step a foot under your roof!"

"I want six francs more," muttered the man.

The women gathered about in great indignation; not a centime would
they give, they declared.

Mme Fauconnier had had a wretched dinner; she said she could have had
a better one at home for forty sous. Such arrangements always turned
out badly, and Mme Gaudron declared aloud that if people wanted their
friends at their weddings they usually invited them out and out.

Gervaise took refuge with her mother-in-law in a distant window,
feeling heartily ashamed of the whole scene.

M. Madinier went downstairs with the man, and low mutterings of the
storm reached the party. At the end of a half-hour he reappeared,
having yielded to the extent of paying three francs, but no one was
satisfied, and they all began a discussion in regard to the extras.

The evening was spoiled, as was Mme Lerat's dress; there was no end
to the chapter of accidents.

"I know," cried Mme Lorilleux, "that the _garcon_ spilled gravy
from the chickens down my back." She twisted and turned herself
before the mirror until she succeeded in finding the spot.

"Yes, I knew it," she cried, "and he shall pay for it, as true as
I live. I wish I had remained at home!"

She left in a rage, and Lorilleux at her heels.

When Coupeau saw her go he was in actual consternation, and Gervaise
saw that it was best to make a move at once. Mme Boche had agreed to
keep the children with her for a day or two.

Coupeau and his wife hurried out in the hope of overtaking Mme
Lorilleux which they soon did. Lorilleux, with the kindly desire
of making all smooth said:

"We will go to your door with you."

"Your door, indeed!" cried his wife, and then pleasantly went on to
express her surprise that they did not postpone their marriage until
they had saved enough to buy a little furniture and move away from
that hole up under the roof.

"But I have given up that room," said her brother. "We shall have
the one Gervaise occupies; it is larger."

Mme Lorilleux forgot herself; she wheeled around suddenly.

"What!" she exclaimed. "You are going to live in Wooden Legs' room?"

Gervaise turned pale. This name she now heard for the first time,
and it was like a slap in the face. She heard much more in her
sister-in-law's exclamation than met the ear. That room to which
allusion was made was the one where she had lived with Lantier for a
whole month, where she had wept such bitter tears, but Coupeau did not
understand that; he was only wounded by the name applied to his wife.

"It is hardly wise of you," he said sullenly, "to nickname people
after that fashion, as perhaps you are not aware of what you are
called in your _Quartier_. Cow's-Tail is not a very nice name,
but they have given it to you on account of your hair. Why should
we not keep that room? It is a very good one."

Mme Lorilleux would not answer. Her dignity was sadly disturbed at
being called Cow's-Tail.

They walked on in silence until they reached the Hotel Boncoeur, and
just as Coupeau gave the two women a push toward each other and bade
them kiss and be friends, a man who wished to pass them on the right
gave a violent lurch to the left and came between them.

"Look out!" cried Lorilleux. "It is Father Bazonge. He is pretty full
tonight."

Gervaise, in great terror, flew toward the door. Father Bazonge was
a man of fifty; his clothes were covered with mud where he had fallen
in the street.

"You need not be afraid," continued Lorilleux; "he will do you no
harm. He is a neighbor of ours--the third room on the left in our
corridor."

But Father Bazonge was talking to Gervaise. "I am not going to eat
you, little one," he said. "I have drunk too much, I know very well,
but when the work is done the machinery should be greased a little
now and then."

Gervaise retreated farther into the doorway and with difficulty kept
back a sob. She nervously entreated Coupeau to take the man away.

Bazonge staggered off, muttering as he did so:

"You won't mind it so much one of these days, my dear. I know
something about women. They make a great fuss, but they get used
to it all the same."

CHAPTER IV

A HAPPY HOME

Four years of hard and incessant toil followed this day. Gervaise and
Coupeau were wise and prudent. They worked hard and took a little
relaxation on Sundays. The wife worked twelve hours of the twenty-four
with Mme Fauconnier and yet found time to keep her own home like
waxwork. The husband was never known to be tipsy but brought home his
wages and smoked his pipe at his own window at night before going to
bed. They were the bright and shining lights, the good example of the
whole _Quartier_, and as they made jointly about nine francs per
day, it was easy to see they were putting by money.

But in the first few months of their married life they were obliged to
trim their sails closely and had some trouble to make both ends meet.
They took a great dislike to the Hotel Boncoeur. They longed for a
home of their own with their own furniture. They estimated the cost
over and over again and decided that for three hundred and fifty
francs they could venture, but they had little hope of saving such a
sum in less than two years, when a stroke of good luck befell them.

An old gentleman in Plassans sent for Claude to place him at school.
He was a very eccentric old gentleman, fond of pictures and art.
Claude was a great expense to his mother, and when Etienne alone was
at home they saved the three hundred and fifty francs in seven months.
The day they purchased their furniture they took a long and happy walk
together, for it was an important step they had taken--important not
only in their own eyes but in those of the people around them.

For two months they had been looking for an apartment. They wished,
of all things, to take one in the old house where Mme Lorilleux
lived, but there was not one single room to be rented, and they were
compelled to relinquish the idea. Gervaise was reconciled to this more
easily, since she did not care to be thrown in any closer contact with
the Lorilleuxs. They looked further. It was essential that Gervaise
should be near her friend and employer Mme Fauconnier, and they
finally succeeded in their search and were indeed in wonderful luck,
for they obtained a large room with a kitchen and tiny bedroom just
opposite the establishment of the laundress. It was a small house,
two stories, with one steep staircase, and was divided into two
lodgings--the one on the right, the other on the left, while the
lower floor was occupied by a carriage maker.

Gervaise was delighted. It seemed to her that she was once more in the
country--no neighbors, no gossip, no interference--and from the place
where she stood and ironed all day at Mme Fauconnier's she could see
the windows of her own room.

They moved in the month of April. Gervaise was then near her
confinement, but it was she who cleaned and put in order her new home.
Every penny as of consequence, she said with pride, now that they
would soon have another other mouth to feed. She rubbed her furniture,
which was of old mahogany, good, but secondhand, until it shone like
glass and was quite brokenhearted when she discovered a scratch. She
held her breath if she knocked it when sweeping. The commode was her
especial pride; it was so dignified and stately. Her pet dream, which,
however, she kept to herself, was someday to have a clock to put
in the center of the marble slab. If there had not been a baby in
prospect she would have purchased this much-coveted article at once,
but she sighed and dismissed the thought.

Etienne's bed was placed in the tiny room, almost a closet, and there
was room for the cradle by its side. The kitchen was about as big as
one's hand and very dark, but by leaving the door open one could see
pretty well, and as Gervaise had no big dinners to get she managed
comfortably. The large room was her pride. In the morning the white
curtains of the alcove were drawn, and the bedroom was transformed
into a lovely dining room, with its table in the middle, the commode
and a wardrobe opposite each other. A tiny stove kept them warm in
cold weather for seven sous per day.

Coupeau ornamented the walls with several engravings--one of a marshal
of France on a spirited steed, with his baton in his hand. Above the
commode were the photographs of the family, arranged in two lines,
with an antique china _benitier_ between. On the corners of the
commode a bust of Pascal faced another of Beranger--one grave, the
other smiling. It was, indeed, a fair and pleasant home.

"How much do you think we pay here?" Gervaise would ask of each new
visitor.

And when too high an estimate was given she was charmed.

"One hundred and fifty francs--not a penny more," she would exclaim.
"Is it not wonderful?"

No small portion of the woman's satisfaction arose from an acacia
which grew in her courtyard, one of whose branches crossed her window,
and the scanty foliage was a whole wilderness to her.

Her baby was born one afternoon. She would not allow her husband to be
sent for, and when he came gaily into the room he was welcomed by his
pale wife, who whispered to him as he stooped over her:

"My dear, it is a girl."

"All right!" said the tinworker, jesting to hide his real emotion.
"I ordered a girl. You always do just what I want!"

He took up the child.

"Let us have a good look at you, young lady! The down on the top of
your head is pretty black, I think. Now you must never squall but be
as good and reasonable always as your papa and mamma."

Gervaise, with a faint smile and sad eyes, looked at her daughter. She
shook her head. She would have preferred a boy, because boys run less
risks in a place like Paris. The nurse took the baby from the father's
hands and told Gervaise she must not talk. Coupeau said he must go and
tell his mother and sister the news, but he was famished and must eat
something first. His wife was greatly disturbed at seeing him wait
upon himself, and she tossed about a little and complained that she
could not make him comfortable.

"You must be quiet," said the nurse again.

"It is lucky you are here, or she would be up and cutting my bread
for me," said Coupeau.

He finally set forth to announce the news to his family and returned
in an hour with them all.

The Lorilleuxs, under the influence of the prosperity of their brother
and his wife, had become extremely amiable toward them and only lifted
their eyebrows in a significant sort of way, as much as to say that
they could tell something if they pleased.

"You must not talk, you understand," said Coupeau, "but they would
come and take a peep at you, and I am going to make them some coffee."

He disappeared into the kitchen, and the women discussed the size of
the baby and whom it resembled. Meanwhile Coupeau was heard banging
round in the kitchen, and his wife nervously called out to him and
told him where the things were that he wanted, but her husband rose
superior to all difficulties and soon appeared with the smoking
coffeepot, and they all seated themselves around the table, except the
nurse, who drank a cup standing and then departed; all was going well,
and she was not needed. If she was wanted in the morning they could
send for her.

Gervaise lay with a faint smile on her lips. She only half heard what
was said by those about her. She had no strength to speak; it seemed
to her that she was dead. She heard the word baptism. Coupeau saw no
necessity for the ceremony and was quite sure, too, that the child
would take cold. In his opinion, the less one had to do with priests,
the better. His mother was horrified and called him a heathen, while
the Lorilleuxs claimed to be religious people also.

"It had better be on Sunday," said his sister in a decided tone, and
Gervaise consented with a little nod. Everybody kissed her and then
the baby, addressing it with tender epithets, as if it could
understand, and departed.

When Coupeau was alone with his wife he took her hand and held it
while he finished his pipe.

"I could not help their coming," he said, "but I am sure they have
given you the headache." And the rough, clumsy man kissed his wife
tenderly, moved by a great pity for all she had borne for his sake.

And Gervaise was very happy. She told him so and said her only anxiety
now was to be on her feet again as soon as possible, for they had
another mouth to feed. He soothed her and asked if she could not trust
him to look out for their little one.

In the morning when he went to his work he sent Mme Boche to spend the
day with his wife, who at night told him she never could consent to
lie still any longer and see a stranger going about her room, and the
next day she was up and would not be taken care of again. She had no
time for such nonsense! She said it would do for rich women but not
for her, and in another week she was at Mme Fauconnier's again at
work.

Mme Lorilleux, who was the baby's godmother, appeared on Saturday
evening with a cap and baptismal robe, which she had bought cheap
because they had lost their first freshness. The next day Lorilleux,
as godfather, gave Gervaise six pounds of sugar. They flattered
themselves they knew how to do things properly and that evening, at
the supper given by Coupeau, did not appear empty-handed. Lorilleux
came with a couple of bottles of wine under each arm, and his wife
brought a large custard which was a specialty of a certain restaurant.

Yes, they knew how to do things, these people, but they also liked
to tell of what they did, and they told everyone they saw in the next
month that they had spent twenty francs, which came to the ears of
Gervaise, who was none too well pleased.

It was at this supper that Gervaise became acquainted with her
neighbors on the other side of the house. These were Mme Goujet, a
widow, and her son. Up to this time they had exchanged a good morning
when they met on the stairs or in the street, but as Mme Goujet had
rendered some small services on the first day of her illness, Gervaise
invited them on the occasion of the baptism.

These people were from the _Department du Nond_. The mother
repaired laces, while the son, a blacksmith by trade, worked in
a factory.

They had lived in their present apartment for five years. Beneath the
peaceful calm of their lives lay a great sorrow. Goujet, the husband
and father, had killed a man in a fit of furious intoxication
and then, while in prison, had choked himself with his pocket
handkerchief. His widow and child left Lille after this and came to
Paris, with the weight of this tragedy on their hearts and heads, and
faced the future with indomitable courage and sweet patience. Perhaps
they were overproud and reserved, for they held themselves aloof
from those about them. Mme Goujet always wore mourning, and her pale,
serene face was encircled with nunlike bands of white. Goujet was a
colossus of twenty-three with a clear, fresh complexion and honest
eyes. At the manufactory he went by the name of the Gueule-d'Or on
account of his beautiful blond beard.

Gervaise took a great fancy to these people and when she first entered
their apartment and was charmed with the exquisite cleanliness of all
she saw. Mme Goujet opened the door into her son's room to show it
to her. It was as pretty and white as the chamber of a young girl.
A narrow iron bed, white curtains and quilt, a dressing table and
bookshelves made up the furniture. A few colored engravings were
pinned against the wall, and Mme Goujet said that her son was a good
deal of a boy still--he liked to look at pictures rather than read.
Gervaise sat for an hour with her neighbor, watching her at work with
her cushion, its numberless pins and the pretty lace.

The more she saw of her new friends the better Gervaise liked them.
They were frugal but not parsimonious. They were the admiration of
the neighborhood. Goujet was never seen with a hole or a spot on his
garments. He was very polite to all but a little diffident, in spite
of his height and broad shoulders. The girls in the street were much
amused to see him look away when they met him; he did not fancy their
ways--their forward boldness and loud laughs. One day he came home
tipsy. His mother uttered no word of reproach but brought out a
picture of his father which was piously preserved in her wardrobe. And
after that lesson Goujet drank no more liquor, though he conceived no
hatred for wine.

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