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 THE "ASSOMMOIB."
 
 ZOLA'S BEALISTIO NOVELS. 
 
 UNIFORM WITH THE PRESENT VOLUME. 
 
 " After reading Zola's novels it seems as if in all others, even in the truest, 
 there were a veil between the reader and the things described, and there is 
 present to our minds the same difference as exists between the representa- 
 tions of human faces on canvas and the reflection of the same faces in a 
 mirror. On reading Zola it is like finding truth for the first time." Signor 
 de Amicis. 
 
 The only unabridged translation into English of Zola's Masterpiece. 
 
 NANA. 
 
 FROM THE 127TH FEENCH EDITION. 
 
 Illustrated with Twenty-four Tinted Page Engravings, from Designs by 
 Bellenger t Clairin, and Andre Gill. 
 
 PIPOG HOT! 
 
 (POT-BOUILLE.) 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE 63BD FRENCH EDITION. 
 Illustrated with Sixteen Page Engravings, by Georges Bellenger. 
 
 Shortly will be published, uniform with the above, 
 
 THE RUSH FOR THE SPOIL. 
 
 (LA CUR^E.) 
 
 Illustrated with Tinted Page Engravings, by French Artists,
 
 GERVAISE DRIVING NANA OT7T OF THE " GBAND HALL O* FOLLY." 
 
 p. 366.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR. 
 
 (THE PKELUDE TO "NANA.") 
 
 CERVAISE AND COUPEAU AT, THE "ASSOMMOIR." p. 41. 
 
 BY BMIJLi-B
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR" 
 
 (THE PRELUDE TO "NANA") 
 A REALISTIC NOVEL. 
 
 BT 
 
 ! ZOLA. 
 
 TRANSLATED WITHOUT ABEIDQMENT FROM THE 97TH FRENCH EDITION. 
 
 FROM DESIGNS BY BELLENGER, CLAIRIN, ANDRE GILL, LELOIR, 
 ROSE, AND VIERGE. 
 
 NEW EDITION- 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 VIZETELLY& Co., 4.2 CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 
 
 1885.
 
 20 
 
 NOTES UPON THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 BY SIGNOB EDMONDO DB AMICIS.* 
 
 ONCE in a railway carriage, I saw a Frenchman, who was 
 reading a book very attentively, exhibit, from time to time, 
 signs of surprise. Suddenly, whilst I was trying to discover 
 the title upon the cover, he exclaimed, " Oh ! this is disgusting !" 
 and put the volume into his valise in the most contemptuous 
 manner. He remained for some moments lost in thought, 
 then re-opened the valise, took up the book again, and began 
 reading. He might have finished a couple of pages, when he 
 suddenly burst out into a hearty laugh, and turning to his 
 companion, said, " Ah ! my dear friend, here is the most 
 marvellous description of a wedding dinner !" Then he resumed 
 his reading, showing plainly that he was enjoying it intensely. 
 
 The book was the " Assommoir," and that which happened. to 
 the Frenchman when perusing it occurs to all who take up the 
 novels of Zola for the first time. You must conquer the first feeling 
 of repugnance ; then, whatever may be the final judgment pro- 
 nounced upon the writer, you are glad to have read his works, 
 and you arrive at the conclusion that you ought to have read 
 them. The first effect produced, particularly after the perusal of 
 other works, is similar to that experienced on coming out of a 
 close and heated theatre, when one feels the first whiff of fresh 
 air in one's face with a keen sense of pleasure, even if it bring with 
 it an odour not altogether agreeable. After reading Zola's novels 
 it seems as though in all others, even in the truest, there were a 
 veil between the reader and the things described, and there is 
 present to our minds the same difference as exists between the 
 representations of human faces on canvas and the reflection of 
 
 * Signer de Amicis is one of the most brilliant and powerful of the 
 present generation of Italian writers.
 
 ri NOTES UPON THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 the same faces in a mirror. It is like finding truth for the first 
 time. Certain it is, that no matter how strong you may be, and 
 whether or no you have le nez solide, like Gervaise at the hospital, 
 sometimes you spring back as if from a sudden -whiff of foul air. 
 But even at these points, as at almost every page, though we 
 may violently protest " This is too much !" there is a devil in us 
 which laughs and frolics and enjoys himself hugely over our dis- 
 comfiture. You feel the same pleasure that you would in 
 hearing a very blunt man talk, even if he were thoroughly vulgar; 
 a man who expresses, as Othello says, his worst ideas in his worst 
 language, who describes what he sees, repeats what he hears, says 
 what he thinly and tells what he is, without regard for anyone's 
 feelings, and just as if he were talking to himself ct la bonne heuref 
 
 From the very first lines you know with whom you are 
 dealing. Delicate persons withdraw that is an understood 
 thing; Zola does not conceal or embellish anything, either 
 sentiments, thoughts, conversations, acts, or places. He is at 
 once a judicious romancer, a surgeon, a casuist, a physiologist, and 
 an expert chancellor of the exchequer, who thus raises every veil, 
 putting his hands into everything, and calling a spade a spade, 
 not heeding, but rather being greatly surprised at your 
 astonishment. Morally, he unveils in his characters those 
 deepest feelings, which are generally profound secrets, 
 tremblingly whispered through the grating of the confessional. 
 Materially, he makes us aware of every odour, every flavour, 
 and every contact. In language, he scarcely refrains from 
 those few unspeakable words, which naughty boys stealthily 
 seek for in the dictionary. No one has ever gone further in 
 this extreme, and you really do not know whether you ought 
 most to admire his talent or his courage. 
 
 Among the myriads of characters in novels whom we remem- 
 ber, Zola's remain crowded on one side, and are the boldest and 
 most tangible of all. We have not only seen them pass, and 
 heard them talk, but have jostled against them, felt their breath, 
 and become conscious of the odour of their flesh and their garments. 
 We have seen the blood circulating beneath their skins; know in 
 what positions they sleep, what they eat, how they dress and un-
 
 NOTES UPON THE < f ASSOMMOIR." v 
 
 dress; we understand the difference between their temperaments 
 and ours, their most secret appetites, the most passionate anger of 
 their language; their gestures, their grimaces, the spots on their 
 linen, the dirt in their nails, &c. And, with characters, he 
 also imprints upon our mind places, because he looks at every- 
 thing with the keen glance, which embraces all, and which lets 
 nothing escape. In a room already drawn and painted, the 
 light is moved, and he interrupts the story to tell us whither it 
 glides, upon what the ray of the flame falls in its new position, 
 and how the legs of a chair and the hinges of a door gleam 
 in a dark corner. From the description of a shop, he makes us 
 understand that it has just struck twelve, or lacks nearly an 
 hour of sunset. He notes all the shadows, all the spots on the 
 sun ; all the shades of colour which succeed each other from 
 hour to hour upon the wall, and presents everything with such 
 marvellous distinctness, that five years after reading, we 
 remember the appearance the upholstery presented about five 
 o'clock in the evening when the curtains had been drawn, and 
 the effect this appearance produced upon the mind of a person 
 seated in the corner of that particular room. 
 
 He never forgets anything, and gives life to everything. There 
 is nothing before which his omnipotent pencil stops, neither soiled 
 linen, the manners of drunken men, unclean flesh, or decayed 
 bodies. Among all these things, in all these places the air of 
 which we breathe, and in which we see and touch everything 
 moves a varied crowd of women, corrupt to the marrow, foul- 
 mouthed shopkeepers, cunning bankers, knavish priests, prosti- 
 tutes, dandies, ruffians, and human scum of every kind and shape 
 (among which appears sometimes, like a rara avis, a good man). 
 Amongst them all they do a little of everything, swaying 
 to and fro between the prisoner's dock and the hospital, 
 the pawnshop and the tavern, amidst all the passions 
 and brutish tastes, sunk in the mire up to the chin, in a thick 
 and heavy atmosphere, barely freshened from time to time by 
 the breath of a lovely affection, and stirred alternately by 
 plebeian sickness and the heartrending cries of the famished 
 and the dying
 
 via NOTES UPON THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 r 
 Despite all this, it may be resolutely affirmed that Emile 
 
 Zola is a moral writer. He is one of the most moral novelists of 
 France, and it is really astonishing. how anyone can doubt this. 
 He makes us note the smell of- vice, not its perfume ; his 
 nude figures are those of the anatomical table, which do not 
 inspire the slightest immoral thought ; there is not one of his 
 books, not even the crudest, that does not leave in the soul, 
 pure, firm, and immutable aversion or scorn for the base 
 passions of which he treats. Brutally, pitilessly, and without 
 hypocrisy, he strips vice naked, and holds it up to ridicule, 
 standing so far off from it that he does not graze it with his 
 garments. Forced by his hand, it is Vice itself that says, 
 " Detest me and pass by ! " His novels, he himself says, are 
 really " morals in action." The scandal which comes from them 
 is only for the eyes and ears. And as he holds back, as a man, 
 from the mire in which his pen is dipped, so does he, as a writer, 
 keep completely aloof from the characters which he has created. 
 
 There is, perhaps, no other modern author who conceals him- 
 self more skilfully in his works. After reading all his novels, 
 one cannot understand who or what he is. He is a profound 
 observer, a powerful painter, and a wonderful writer. Strong, 
 without respect for mankind, brusque, resolute, bold, rather ill- 
 humoured, and little given to benevolence ; but you know no- 
 thing more of him. Only that, although you do not see his 
 entire face through the pages of his books, you catch a glimpse 
 of his forehead, scored with a straight and deep furrow, 
 and you fancy that he must have seen, at no great distance, a 
 large portion of the misery and vice which he describes. And 
 he seems to be a man who, having been offended by the world, 
 revenges himself by tearing from her her mask, and exhibiting 
 her for the first time as she really is for the most part odious 
 and disgusting. A thorough conviction guides and strengthens 
 him that he ought to speak and describe the truth at any 
 risk or any cost, just as it is, boldly, entirely, and without any 
 concealment. . . . 
 
 Strength is the pre-eminent gift of Zola, and any one wishing 
 to describe him must say in the first place : " He is powerful ! "
 
 NOTES UPON THE "ASSOMMOIK." u 
 
 Every one of his novels is " un grand tour deforce" an enormous 
 weight which he raises from the ground, whilst doing all that 
 in him lies to conceal the effort. After reading the last page, 
 one is forced to exclaim : "Ah, what a hand;" like those three sots 
 in the "Assommoir," when speaking of the Marquis, whohad thrown 
 three ruffians to the ground without even taking his gloves off. 
 And the sudden appearance of this novelist in his shirt sleeves, 
 with his hairy chest and rough voice, who in the most impudent 
 manner, and in the open street, says everything to everybody, 
 hi the midst of a crowd of novelists in black suits, well educated 
 and smiling, who say a thousand obscene things in a decent 
 fashion in those little romances, couleur de rose, which are written 
 for boudoirs and the stage, is in truth an event in literature. 
 Herein lies his greatest merit. He has flung into the air with one 
 kick all the toilet articles of literature, and has washed with a 
 dowlas dish-cloth the bedizened face of Truth. 
 
 The publication of the "Assommoir" was originally com- 
 menced in the Bien Public, but was left off half finished, so 
 many were the protests launched against this " horror " by the 
 subscribers. . Then it was printed in a literary journal, 
 and before it was finished those hot polemics commenced, which 
 became so furious after the publication of the work in a volume, 
 and which will be remembered among the fiercest literary 
 battles of the present day. 
 
 These polemics gave a powerful impulse to the success of 
 the novel, and it was a noisy, enormous and incredible success. 
 It had been years since so much had been heard about any 
 book. For a long time Paris talked of nothing but the 
 "Assommoir." One heard it loudly discussed in the cafes, 
 theatres, reading-rooms, and even in the shops j and this by 
 its fanatical admirers, who were more in number than its 
 bitter adversaries. The unheard of brutality of the novel 
 seemed a challenge, a slap at Paris, a calumny against the 
 French people ; and they called the book " a dirty thing to 
 be handled with the tongs," " a monstrous abortion," and a 
 " galley offence," and hurled against the author all the abuse 
 
 A
 
 * NOTES UPON THE " ASSOMMOIR. " 
 
 that was possible, from the name of " the enemy of his coun- 
 try," to that of "literary sewer," without choosing their 
 words. The theatrical "Revues " of the end of the year repre- 
 sented him in the attire of a garbage-gatherer, who goes 
 about collecting filth with a hook in the streets of Paris. 
 "It was no longer criticism," he says; "it was downright 
 slaughter." They denied his talent, originality, style, and even 
 grammar there were even those who would not discuss him ; 
 and they came very near to personal challenges in the 
 streets. And the most extravagantly odious rumours were cir- 
 culated respecting him ; he was spoken of as a bundle of vice, a 
 half brute, a man without heart like Lantier, a beast like 
 Salted-Mouth, and an ugly individual like his father Bazouge, 
 the mute. 
 
 But meanwhile, editions of the "Assommoir " succeeded editions; 
 the dispassionate gastronomists said in a low voice that the novel 
 was a masterpiece; the Parisian populace read it largely, because 
 they found in it their boulevard, buvette, and shop life indel- 
 ibly depicted with new colours and touches of the brush, in com- 
 parison with which all others seemed feeble, and the most 
 enraged critics were obliged to recognise the fact, that in those 
 pages which had been such a target, there was something that 
 eternally blunted the points of their arrows. The great success 
 of the " Assommoir " made Zola's other novels sought after, and 
 one may safely affirm that he became celebrated then. 
 
 Through my friend Parodi, I had the honour of meeting 
 Zola and of passing several hours with him. In speaking of the 
 " Assommoir " he said, " The writing of this - work was a 
 torture to me. It is the book which has cost me the most 
 trouble in putting together the small details, upon which it 
 rests. I intended writing a novel on alcohoL I did not know 
 anything further. I had collected a number of notes on the effects 
 of the abuse of alcohol. I had determined to make a brute 
 die the kind of death that Coupeau does. I did not know, 
 however, who would be the victim, and before even looking for 
 I went to the hospital of Sainte-Anne to study sickness and
 
 NOTES UPON THE "ASSOMMOIK." xi 
 
 death, like a physician. Then I assigned to Gervaise the occu- 
 pation of a laundress, and instantly thought of that description 
 of a real wash-house in which I had myself passed many hours. 
 Then, without knowing anything of Goujet, whom I next 
 imagined, I thought of making use of the recollections of the 
 workshop of an ironmonger and blacksmith, where I had passed 
 half holidays at a time when I was a boy. In the same way, 
 before having woven the thread of my romance, I had already 
 prepared the description of a dinner in Gervaise's shop and of 
 the visit to the museum of the Louvre. I had already studied 
 my types of working men, the * Assommoir ' of old Colombe, the 
 shops, the Hdtel Boncoeur, everything in fact. 
 
 " When all that remained was disposed of, I commenced to 
 occupy myself with that which was to happen, and reasoned 
 thus while writing it. Gervaise comes to Paris with Lantier, 
 her lover. What will follow 1 ? Lantier is a mauvais sujet, so 
 he leaves her. Then, will you credit it ? I came to a stand- 
 still here and could not go on for several days. After some 
 delay I took another step. Gervaise thus abandoned, it is natural 
 that she should marry again. She does so, and marries the zinc- 
 worker, Goupeau. This is the man who is to die at Sainte-Anne. 
 But here I was stopped again. In order to put the personages 
 and scenes which I had in my head in their respective places, 
 and to give some sort of a framework to the novel, I needed 
 one more fact, one only, that would connect the two preceding 
 ones. These three facts would be sufficient, the rest was all 
 found, prepared and written out in my mind. But I could not 
 get hold of this third fact. I passed several days quite worried 
 and discontented, when, suddenly one morning, I was seized 
 with an idea. Lantier finds Gervaise again, makes friends with 
 Coupeau, installs himself in the house ; and then a family of 
 three is established, such as I have often seen ; and ruin follows. 
 I breathe again. The novel is completed." 
 
 Saying this Zola opened a box, took out a roll of manuscript 
 and placed it before me. It contained the first studies of the 
 " Assommoir " on so many fly-leaves. 
 
 On the first leaves was a sketch of the characters notes
 
 jrfi NOTES UPON THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 about the person, temperament, and character. I found the 
 "Miroir Characte'ristique " of Gervaise, Coupeau, Mamma 
 Coupeau, the Lorilleux, the Boches, Goujet, and Madame Lerat. 
 All of them were there. The notes seemed like those of the regis- 
 trar of a court, written in laconic and free language, like that of 
 the novel, and interpolated with short remarks, such as : " Born 
 like this, educated in this manner, he will conduct himself in this 
 way." In one place was written : " What else can a rascal of 
 this kind do 1 " Among others, I was struck with a sketch of 
 Lantier, composed of nothing but a list of adjectives, each one 
 stronger than the other, such as grossier, sensuel, brutal, ego'iste, 
 polisson. In some parts was written : " Use such and such a 
 one" (some one known to the author), all written in large, 
 clear characters, and in perfect order. 
 
 Then I saw sketches of places, scarcely outlined, but as 
 accurate as the drawing of an engineer. There were a number 
 of them. All the " Assommoir " was drawn, the streets of the 
 quarter in which the plot was laid, with the corners and signs 
 of the shops; the zigzag which Gervaise took to avoid the 
 creditors, the Sunday escapades of Nana, the peregrinations of 
 the set of topers from bastringue to bastringue, and from 
 bousingnot to bousingnot ; the hospital and slaughter-house, 
 between which on that terrible evening came and went the 
 poor ironing woman when maddened by hunger. The great 
 house of Marescot was traced minutely all the upper storey, 
 the landings, windows, the den of the mute, Father 
 Bru's hole all those dark passages, in which one could hear 
 un .souffle de crevaison, those walls which resounded like empty 
 vaults, those doors through which were heard the music of 
 blows and the cries of mioches, dying from hunger. There was 
 even the plan of Gervaise's shop, room by room, with indica- 
 tions of beds and tables in some places erased and corrected. 
 One could see that Zola had amused himself by the hour, 
 quite forgetting, perhaps, the story, so buried was he in his 
 fiction, as if it were a true record.
 
 NOTES UPON THE " ASSOMMOIR." xiii 
 
 With regard to the title of the work, it may be mentioned 
 that "L'Assommoir " was the name given derisively to a tavern 
 at Belleville, which subsequently became noted under that 
 designation. It was then adopted by the proprietor, and has 
 since become the slang term for those low drinking haunts 
 where the common people imbibe adulterated spirits which 
 shorten their existence. The word " Assommoir " literally means 
 a loaded bludgeon, or that weapon ironically termed a life-pre- 
 server in short, anything that will fell, stun, or kill; and, 
 according to M. Alfred Delvau, the author of a French slang 
 dictionary, it is a curious fact that Russian robbers reverse the 
 metaphor, and nick-name a bludgeon, " champagne." It is 
 scarcely necessary to point out that the loaded bludgeon in the 
 hands of a ruffian and the pernicious spirits dispensed at estab- 
 lishments of the above-mentioned character produce a like 
 result.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 THE " Kougon-Macquart " series will be composed of about 
 twenty different novels. Ever since 1869, the general 
 plan has been traced, and I have been following it with 
 extreme rigour. The." Assommoir" came at its time; I 
 wrote it as I shall write the others, without deviating for 
 a second from my straight line. That is what constitutes 
 my strength. I have a goal towards which I am advancing. 
 When the " Assommoir " appeared in a newspaper, it 
 was attacked with unexampled brutality, denounced, 
 accused of every crime. Is it very necessary to explain 
 here in a few lines my intentions as a writer ? I have 
 sought to picture the fatal downfall of a family of work- 
 people, in the pestilential surroundings of our faubourgs. 
 After drunkenness and idleness come the loosening of 
 
 o 
 
 family ties, the filth engendered by progressive forgetful- 
 ness of all upright sentiments, and then, as denouement, 
 shame and death. It is simply a lesson in morality. 
 
 The " Assommoir " is certainly the most chaste of my 
 works. Often have I had to point to sores far more fright- 
 ful The style alone has shocked. Anger has been aroused 
 by the words. My crime consists in having had the 
 literary curiosity of gathering together and running 
 through a highly-worked mould the language of the 
 people. Ah ! the style, therein lies the great crime ! Yet 
 dictionaries of this language exist, men of letters study it 
 and enjoy its piquancy, and the unpremeditatedness and
 
 xvl PREFACE. 
 
 the strength of its conceptions. It is a treat for burrowing 
 grammarians. Nevertheless, no one has perceived that 
 my wish was to produce a purely philological work, which 
 I believe to be of keen historical and social interest. 
 
 I do not seek to defend myself, though. My work will 
 defend me. It is a work of truth, the first novel of the 
 people which does not lie and which possesses the odour of 
 the people. And one must not conclude that all the lower 
 classes are bad, for my characters are not bad, they are only 
 ignorant and spoilt by the surroundings of rough work and 
 misery amidst which they live. Only, it is necessary to read 
 my novels, to understand them, to see them clearly as a whole, 
 before entertaining the grotesque and odious judgments 
 formed beforehand, which are circulating about my person 
 and my works. Ah ! if it were only known how my 
 friends laugh at the amazing legend which serves to 
 amuse the crowd ! If it were only known that the 
 blood-drinker, the ferocious novelist, is a worthy citizen, 
 a man of study and of art, living discreetly in his corner, 
 and whose sole ambition is to leave behind him a work as 
 vast and lifelike as he can ! I contradict no story. I 
 work, and I leave to time and to the good faith of the 
 public the task of unearthing me from beneath the heap 
 of nonsense and abuse that has been piled up. 
 
 EMILE ZOLA.
 
 THE "ASSOMMO1B." 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GERVAISE had waited for Lantier until two in the morning. 
 Then, shivering from having remained in a thin loose jacket, 
 exposed to the fresh air at the window, she had thrown herself 
 across the bed, drowsy, feverish, and her cheeks bathed in tears. 
 
 For a week past, on leaving the " Two-Headed Calf," where 
 they took their meals, he had sent her home with the children 
 and never reappeared himself till late at night, alleging he had 
 been in search of work. That evening, while watching for his 
 return, she thought she had seen him enter the dancing-hall of 
 the " Grand-Balcony," the ten blazing windows of which lighted 
 up with the glare of a conflagration the dark expanse of the 
 exterior Boulevards ; and, five or six paces behind him, she had 
 caught sight of little Adele, a burnisher, who dined at their 
 restaurant, swinging her hands, as if she had just quitted his 
 arm so as not to pass together under the dazzling light of the 
 globes at the door. 
 
 When, towards five o'clock, Gervaise awoke, stiff and sore, 
 she broke forth into sobs. Lantier had not returned. For the 
 first time he had slept away from home. She remained seated 
 on the edge of the bed, under the strip of faded chintz, which 
 hung from the rod fastened to the ceiling by a piece of string. 
 And, slowly, with her eyes veiled by tears, she glanced round 
 the wretched lodging, furnished with a walnut chest of drawers, 
 minus one drawer, three rush-bottomed chairs, and a little 
 greasy table, on which stood a broken water-jug. There had 
 been added, for the children, an iron bedstead, which prevented 
 any one getting to the chest of drawers, and filled two-thirds of 
 the room. Gervaise's and Lantier's trunk, wide open, in one 
 corner, displayed its emptiness, and a man's old hat right at the
 
 10 THE "ASSOMMOrR." 
 
 bottom almost buried beneath some dirty shirts and socks; 
 whilst, against the walls, above the articles of furniture, hung a 
 shawl full of holes, and a pair of trousers begrimed with mud, the 
 last rags which the dealers in second-hand clothes declined to buy. 
 In the centre of the mantel-piece, lying between two odd zinc 
 candle-sticks, was a bundle of pink pawn-tickets. It was the 
 best room of the hotel, the first floor room, looking on to the 
 Boulevard. 
 
 The two children were sleeping side by side, with their heads 
 on the same pillow. Claude, aged eight years, was breathing 
 quietly, with his little hands thrown outside the coverlet ; while 
 Etienne, only four years old, was smiling, with one arm round* 
 his brother's neck. As the clouded gaze of their mother rested 
 upon them, she broke into a fresh fit of sobbing, and wab 
 obliged to press a handkerchief to her mouth, to stifle the faint 
 cries that escaped her. And, bare-footed, without thinking to 
 again put on the old shoes that had fallen on the floor, she 
 resumed her position at the window, her eyes searching the 
 pavements in the distance. 
 
 The hotel was situated on the Boulevard de la Chapelle, to 
 the left of the Barriere Poissonniere. It was a building of two 
 stories high, painted a red, of the colour of wine dregs, up to the 
 second floor, and with shutters all rotted by the rain. Over a 
 lamp with starred panes of glass, one could manage to read, 
 between the two windows, the words, " H6tel Boncosur, kept by 
 Marsoullier," painted in big yellow letters, several pieces of which 
 the mouldering of the plaster had carried away. The lamp 
 preventing her seeing, Gervaise raised herself en tiptoe, still 
 holding the handkerchief to her lips. She looked to the right, 
 towards the Boulevard Rochechouart, where groups of butchers, 
 in aprons smeared v with blood, were hanging about in front of 
 the slaughter-houses ; and the fresh breeze wafted occasion- 
 ally a stench of slaughtered beasts. Looking to the left, she 
 scanned a long avenue that ended nearly in front of her, 
 where the white mass of the Lariboisiere Hospital was then in 
 course of construction. Slowly, from one end of the horizon to 
 the other, she followed the octroi wall, behind which she some- 
 times heard, during night time, the shrieks of persons being 
 murdered j and she searchingly looked into the remote angles, 
 the dark corners, black with humidity and filth, fearing to discern 
 there Lantier's body, stabbed to death. When she raised her 
 eyes beyond that grey and interminable wall, which encircled the 
 city with a desert-like belt, she perceived a great light, a sunny
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 11 
 
 dust, already full of the early morning rumbling of awaking Paris. 
 But it was always to the Barriere Poissonniere that she returned, 
 stretching out her neck, and making her head dizzy by watch- 
 ing the uninterrupted flow of men, cattle, and carts, that de- 
 scended from the heights of Montmartre and La Chapelle, pass 
 between the two low buildings of the octroi. There were the 
 heavy tramp of a drove, a crowd that sudden stoppages formed 
 into groups like puddles in the roadway, an endless procession 
 of labourers going to their work, with loaves of bread under 
 their arms and their tools slung over their shoulders ; and this 
 mixed mass was swallowed up by the great city in which it 
 kept on disappearing. Each time Gervaise thought she 
 recognised Lantier among all these people, she leaned out the 
 more, at the risk of falling ; then she pressed the handkerchief 
 more firmly to her mouth, as though to repress her grief. 
 
 The sound of a young and cheerful voice caused her to leave 
 the window. 
 
 " So the old man isn't here, Madame Lantier ? " 
 
 " Why, no, Monsieur Coupeau," she replied, trying to smile. 
 
 He was a zinc-worker, occupying a mere closet at the top of 
 the house, for ten francs a month. He had his bag slung on 
 his shoulder j and finding the key in the door, he had entered 
 in a neighbourly way. 
 
 " Y"ou know," he continued, " I'm now working over there at 
 the hospital What beautiful May weather, isn't it ? The air 
 is rather sharp this morning." 
 
 And he looked at Gervaise's face, red with weeping. When 
 he saw that the bed had not been slept in, he shook his head 
 gently ; then he went to the children's couch where they were 
 sleeping, looking as rosy as cherubs, and, lowering his voice, he 
 said, 
 
 " Come, the old man's not been home, has he ? Don't worry 
 yourself, Madame Lantier. He's very much occupied with 
 politics. The other day, when they elected Eugene Sue, one of 
 the right sort, it appears, he was perfectly crazy. He has very 
 likely spent the night with some friends blackguarding that 
 crapulous Bonaparte." 
 
 "No, no," she murmured with an effort. "You don't think 
 that. I know where Lantier is. You see, we have our little 
 troubles like the rest of the world ! " 
 
 Coiipeau blinked his eyes, to indicate he was not a dupe of 
 this falsehood ; and he went off, after offering to fetch her 
 milk, if she did not care to go out : she was a good and cour-
 
 12 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 ageous woman, and might count upon him on any day of 
 trouble. 
 
 As soon as he was gone, Gervaise again returned to the 
 window. At the Barriere, the trainp of the drove still continued 
 in the cold morning air. You could recognise the locksmiths 
 by their short blue blouses, the masons by their white overalls, 
 and the painters by their overcoats, beneath which extended 
 long blouses. At a distance this throng had the washed-out 
 appearance of mortar, a neutral tint, in which faded blue and dirty 
 grey predominated. Now and again, a workman stopped short, to 
 relight his pipe, while the others around him pressed on, with- 
 out a laugh, or. a word said to a comrade, a cadaverous look on 
 their cheeks, and their faces turned towards Paris, which 
 swallowed them, one by one, down the gaping Faubourg- 
 Poissonniere. At both corners of the Rue des Poissonniers, 
 however, some of the men slackened their pace as they neared 
 the doors of the two wine-dealers who were taking down their 
 shutters ; and, before entering, they stood on the edge of the 
 pavement, looking sideways over Paris, with no strength in 
 their arms, and already inclined for a day of idleness. Before 
 the counters, groups of men were standing, treating each other, 
 wasting their time there as they filled the rooms, coughing, 
 spitting, and clearing their throats with glasses of neat spirits. 
 Gervaise was watching old Colombo's wine-shop to the left of 
 the street, where she thought she had seen Lantier, when a 
 stout woman, bareheaded and wearing an apron, called to her 
 from the middle of the roadway : 
 
 " I say, Madame Lantier, you're up very early ! " 
 
 Gervaise leaned out. " Why ! it's you, Madame Boche ! 
 Oh ! I've a lot of work to-day ! " 
 
 " Yes, things don't do themselves, do they ? " 
 
 And a conversation ensued from the window to the pavement. 
 Madame Boche was doorkeeper of the building the ground floor of 
 which was occupied by the restaurant of the "Two-Headed Calf." 
 Several times Gervaise had waited for Lantier in her room, so 
 as not to sit down alone among all the men who took their 
 meals close by. The doorkeeper said she was going a few steps, 
 to the Kue de la Charbonniere, to catch a clerk in bed, who 
 owed her husband for the repairing of a frock-coat. Then she 
 talked of one of her lodgers who had brought a woman home 
 with him the previous night, and who had prevented everybody 
 from going to sleep till three o'clock in the morning. But, 
 whilst chatting, she scrutinized the young woman with piercing
 
 THE "ASSOMMOm." 13 
 
 curiosity, and seemed only to have come there and planted 
 herself under the window for the purpose of finding some- 
 thing out. 
 
 "Is Monsieur Lantier, then, still in bed ? " she asked abruptly. 
 
 "Yes, he's asleep," replied Gervaise, who could not avoid 
 blushing. 
 
 Madame Boclxe saw the tears come into her eyes ; and, satis- 
 fied no doubt, she turned to go, declaring men to be a cursed, 
 lazy set. As she went off, she called back : 
 
 " It's this morning you go to the wash-house, isn't it ? I've 
 something to wash, too, I'll keep you a place next to me, and 
 we can chat together." Then, as if moved with sudden pity, 
 she added : 
 
 " My poor little thing, you had far better not remain there ; 
 you'll take harm. You look quite blue with cold." 
 
 Gervaise still obstinately remained at the window during two 
 mortal hours, till eight o'clock. The shops had all opened. 
 The flow of men in blouses coming from the heights had ceased ; 
 and only a few workmen who were late passed the Barriere with 
 hasty strides. In the wine-shops, the same men standing up 
 continued to drink, cough, and spit. Workwomen had followed 
 the labourers burnishers, milliners, artificial flower-makers, 
 gathering their thin clothes tightly around them, trotting along 
 the exterior Boulevards; they went in bands of threes and 
 fours, chatting gaily, gently laughing and casting bright 
 glances about them ; at long intervals, one all alone, pale-faced 
 and serious-looking, followed the octroi wall, carefully avoiding 
 the filth that lay about there. Then the clerks had passed, 
 blowing on their fingers, and eating their halfpenny rolls as they 
 walked ; thin young men in clothes too short, and with a bleared 
 and sleepy look about their eyes ; little old men who stumbled 
 along, with sickly countenances, worn out by long office hours, 
 and who kept consulting their watches to regulate their progress 
 to within a few seconds. The Boulevards had assumed their morn- 
 ing calm ; the men of leisure of the neighbourhood strolled about 
 in the sunshine ; mothers, with heads uncovered, and in dirty 
 skirts, rocked their babies in swaddling clothes, which they 
 changed on the seats j a number of half-naked brats, with dirty 
 noses, jostled each other and rolled upon the ground, amid 
 whining, laughter and tears. Then Gervaise felt herself 
 choking, dizzy with anguish, all hope gone ; it seemed to her 
 that eveiyfching was ended, even time itself, and that Lantier 
 would return no more. Her eyes vacantly wandered from the
 
 14 THE "ASSOMMCHR." 
 
 old slaughter-houses, foul with butchery and with stench, to the 
 new white hospital, which, through the yawning openings of its 
 ranges of windows, disclosed the naked wards, where death was 
 preparing to mow. In front of her, on the other side of the octroi 
 wall, the bright heavens dazzled her, with the rising sun which 
 rose higher and higher over the vast awaking city. 
 
 The young woman was seated on a chair, no longer crying, 
 and with her hands abandoned on her lap, when Lantier quietly 
 entered the room. 
 
 " It's you ! it's you ! " she cried, rising to throw herself 
 upon his neck. 
 
 "Yes, it's me. What of itl" he replied. "You are not 
 going to begin any of your nonsense, I hope ! " 
 
 He had pushed her aside. Then, with a gesture of ill-humour, 
 he threw his black felt hat on to the chest of drawers. He was 
 a young fellow of twenty-six years of age, short, and very dark, 
 with a handsome figure, and slight moustaches which his hand 
 was always mechanically twirling. He wore a workman's 
 overalls and an old soiled overcoat, which he had made tight at 
 the waist, and he spoke with a strong Provencial accent. 
 
 Gervaise, who had fallen back on her chair, gently complained, 
 in short sentences : " I've not had a wink of sleep. I feared 
 some harm had happened to you. Where have you been 1 ? 
 Where did you spend the night ? For heaven's sake ! don't do 
 it again, or I shall go crazy. Tell me, Auguste, where have 
 you been 1 " 
 
 " Where I'd business, of course," he returned, shrugging his 
 shoulders.- "At eight o'clock, I was at La Glaciere, with my 
 friend, who is to start a hat factory. We sat talking late, so I 
 preferred to sleep there. Now, you know, I don't like being 
 spied upon, so just shut up ! " 
 
 The young woman recommenced sobbing. The loud voices 
 and the rough movements of Lantier, who upset the chairs, had 
 awakened the children. They sab up in bed, half naked, dis- 
 entangling their hair with their tiny hands, and, hearing their 
 mother weep, they uttered terrible screams, crying also with 
 their scarcely open eyes. 
 
 " Ah ! there's the music ! " exclaimed Lantier. " I warn 
 you, I'll take my hook ! And it will be for good, this time. You 
 won't shut up ? Then, good morning ! I'll return to the place 
 Fvejust come from." 
 
 He had already taken his hat from off the chest of drawers. 
 But Gervaise threw herself before him, stammering: "No, nol"
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 15 
 
 And she hushed the little ones' tears with her caresses, 
 smoothed their hair, and soothed them with soft words. The 
 children, suddenly quieted, laughing on their pillow, amused 
 themselves by pinching each other. The father, however, with- 
 out even taking off his boots, had thrown himself on the bed, 
 looking worn out, his face bearing signs of having been up 
 all night. He did not go to sleep, he lay with his eyes wide 
 open, looking round the room. 
 
 " It's clean here 1 " he muttered. And after observing Ger- 
 vaise a moment, he malignantly added : " Don't you even wash 
 yourself now ? " 
 
 Gervaise was only twenty-two years old. She was tall and 
 rather slim, with delicate features already worn by the rough- 
 ness of her life. Uncombed, and in old shoes, shivering under 
 her thin white jacket all soiled with grease and the dust from the 
 furniture, she seemed aged at least ten years by the hours of 
 anguish and tears she had just gone through. Lanlier's words 
 made her throw off her timid and submissive attitude. 
 
 " You're not just," said she, spiritedly. " You well know I 
 do all I can. It's not my fault we find ourselves here. I would 
 like to see you, with the two children, in a room where there's 
 not even a stove to heat some water. When we arrived in 
 Paris, instead of squandering your money, you should have 
 made a home for us at once, as you promised." 
 
 " I say ! " he cried, "you cracked the nut with me ; it doesn't 
 become you to sneer at it now ! " 
 
 But she did not appear to hear him, and she continued : 
 "However, with courage, we can still get right again. I saw 
 Madame Fauconnier, the laundress iii the Rue Neuve, yesterday 
 evening ; she will take me on Monday. If you get to work 
 again with your friend at La Glaciere, we'll have our heads 
 above water again before six months are past, just time enough 
 to get ourselves some clothes and take a place somewhere, that 
 we can call our own. Oh ! but we must work, work ! " 
 
 Lantier turned over towards the wall, looking greatly bored. 
 Then Gervaise lost her temper. 
 
 " Yes, that's it, I know the love of work doesn't trouble you 
 much. You're bursting with ambition, you want to be dressed 
 like a gentleman and take out strumpets in silk skirts. You 
 don't think me nice enough, do you, now that you've made me 
 pawn all my dresses ? Listen, Auguste, I didn't intend to speak 
 of it, I would have waited a bit longer, but I know where you 
 spent the night ; I saw you enter the " Grand-Balcony" with
 
 16 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 that trollop Ad&le. Ah ! you choose them well ! She's a nice 
 one, she is ! she does well to put on the airs of a princess ! She's 
 been the mistress of every man who frequents the restaurant." 
 
 At a bound Lantier sprang from the bed. His eyes had be- 
 come as black as ink in his pale face. With this little man, 
 rage blew like a tempest. 
 
 " Yes, yes, of every man who frequents the restaurant ! " re- 
 peated the young woman. "Madame Boche intends to give 
 them notice, she and her long stick of a sister, because they've 
 always a string of men after them on the staircase." 
 
 Lantier raised his fists ; then, resisting the desire of striking 
 her, he seized hold of her by the arms, shook her violently, and 
 sent her sprawling upon the bed of the children, who recom- 
 menced crying. And he lay down again, mumbling, like a man 
 resolving on something that he previously hesitated to do : 
 
 " You don't know what you've done Gervaise. You've been 
 wrong ; you'll see." 
 
 For an instant, the children continued sobbing. Their 
 mother, who remained bending over the bed, held them both in 
 her embrace, and kept repeating these words in a monotonous 
 tone of voice. 
 
 " Ah ! if you were not there ! my poor little ones ! If you 
 were not there ! If you were not there ! " 
 
 Stretched out quietly, his eyes raised to the faded strip of 
 chintz, Lantier no longer listened, but seemed to be buried in a 
 fixed idea. He remained thus for nearly an hour, without giv- 
 ing way to sleep, in spite of the fatigue which weighed his eye- 
 lids down. When he turned round, raising himself on his 
 arm, with a harsh and determined look upon his face, Gervaise 
 had almost finished tidying the room. She was making the 
 children's bed, they being already up and dressed. He watched 
 her as she swept and dusted about ; the room still remained 
 dingy and miserable looking, with its smoky ceiling, its paper 
 peeling off the walls from the damp, its three rickety chairs 
 and its tumble down chest of drawers, to which the dirt obsti- 
 nately clung and only spread all the more beneath the duster. 
 Then, whilst she washed herself with a great splashing of the 
 water, after doing up her hair in front of a little round hand- 
 glass hung to the window fastening, and which Lantier used to 
 shave himself by, he seemed to examine her bare arms, and 
 throat, and shoulders, the whole of her frame that she exposed, 
 as though his mind was forming a comparison. And he pouted 
 his lips. Gervaise limped with her right leg; but it was scarcely
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 17 
 
 perceptible, excepting on the days when she was tired, when 
 with her hips aching from fatigue she would be careless how she 
 walked. That morning, worn out by the restless night which 
 she had passed, she dragged her leg, and leant against the wall. 
 Silence prevailed ; they had not exchanged another word. He 
 seemed to be waiting for something. She, devouring her grief, 
 trying to assume a look of indifference, hurried over her work. 
 While she was making a bundle of the dirty clothes thrown in 
 a corner, behind the trunk, he at length opened his lips, and 
 asked : 
 
 " What are you doing there ? Where are you going ? " 
 
 She did not answer at first. Then, when he furiously re- 
 peated his question, she made up her mind, and said : 
 
 " I suppose you can see for yourself. I'm going to wash all 
 this. The children can't live in filth." 
 
 He let her pick up two or three handkerchiefs. And, after a 
 fresh pause, he resumed : " Have you got any money ? w 
 
 At these words she stood up and looked him full in the face, 
 without leaving go of the children's dirty shirts, which sho 
 held in her hand. 
 
 " Money ! and where do you think I can have stolen any ? 
 You know well enough that I got three francs the day before 
 yesterday on my black skirt. We've lunched twice off it, and 
 money goes quick at the pork-butcher's. No, you may be quite 
 sure I've no money. I've four sous for the wash-house. I don't 
 earn money like some women." 
 
 He let this allusion pass. He had moved off the bed, and 
 was passing in review the few rags hanging about the room. 
 He ended by taking up the pair of trousers and the shawl, and, 
 searching the drawers, he added two chemises and a woman's 
 loose jacket to the parcel ; then, he threw the whole bundle into 
 Gervaise's arms, saying : 
 
 " Here, go and pop this." 
 
 " Don't you want me to pop the children as well ? " asked 
 she. " Eh ! if they lent on children, it would be a fine rid- 
 dance ! " 
 
 She went to the pawn-place, however. When she returned 
 at the end of half-an-hour, she laid a hundred sou piece on the 
 mantel-shelf, and added the ticket to the others, between the 
 two candlesticks. 
 
 " That's what they gave me," said she. " I wanted six francs, 
 but I couldn't manage it. Oh ! they'll never ruin themselves. 
 And there's always such a crowd there ! "
 
 18 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 
 
 Lantier did not pick up the five franc piece directly. He 
 would rather that she got change, so as to leave her some of it. 
 But he decided to slip it into his waistcoat pocket, when he 
 noticed a small piece of'ham wrapped up in paper, and the re- 
 mains of a loaf on the chest of drawers. 
 
 " 1 didn't dare go to the milkwoman's, because we owe her a 
 week," explained Gervaise. " But I shall be back early; you 
 can get some bread and some chops whilst I'm away, and then 
 we'll have lunch. Bring also a bottle of wine." 
 
 He did not say no. Their quarrel seemed to be forgotten. 
 The young woman was completing her bundle of dirty clothes. 
 But when she went to take Lantier's shirts and socks from the 
 bottom of the trunk, he called to her to leave them alone. 
 
 " Leave my things, d'ye hear ! I don't want 'em touched ! " 
 
 " What's it you don't want touched ] " she asked, rising up. 
 " I suppose you don't mean to put these filthy things on again, 
 do you? They must be washed." 
 
 And she anxiousiy scrutinized his handsome face, in which 
 she saw the same harshness, as though nothing would move him 
 ever more. He flew into a passion, and, snatching the things 
 from her hands, threw them back into the trunk. 
 
 " Damnation ! just obey me for once in a way ! I tell you 
 I won't have 'em touched ! " 
 
 "But why 1 ?" she added, turning pale, a terrible suspicion 
 crossing her mind. " You don't want your shirts now, you're 
 not going away. What can it matter to you if I take them ? " 
 
 He hesitated for an instant, embarrassed by the piercing 
 glance she fixed upon him. " Why why " stammered he, 
 " because you go and tell every one that you keep me, that you 
 wash and mend. Well ! it worries me, there ! Attend to your 
 own business and I'll attend to mine. Washerwomen don't 
 work for dogs." 
 
 She supplicated, she protested she had never complained ; 
 but he roughly closed the trunk and sat down upon it, saying, 
 " No ! " to her face. He could surely do as he liked with what 
 belonged to him ! Then, to escape from the inquiring looks she 
 levelled at him, he went and laid down on the bed again, saying 
 that he was sleepy, and requesting her not to make his head 
 ache with any more of her row. This time, indeed, he seemed 
 to fall asleep. Gervaise, for a while, remained undecided. She 
 was tempted to kick the bundle of dirty clothes on one side, 
 and to sit down and sew. But Lantier's regular breathing 
 ended by reassuring her. She took the ball of blue and the
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 19 
 
 piece of soap remaining from her last washing, and going up to 
 the little ones who were quietly playing with some old corks in 
 front of the window, she kissed them, and said in alow voice: 
 "Be very good, don't make any noise ; papa's asleep." 
 When she left the room, Claude's and Etienne's gentle 
 laughter alone disturbed the great silence beneath the blackened 
 ceiling. It was ten o'clock. A ray of sunshine entered by the 
 half open window. On the Boulevard, Gervaise turned to the 
 left, and followed the Rue Neuve de la Goutte-d'Or. As she 
 passed Madame Fauconnier's shop, she slightly bowed her head. 
 The wash-house she was bound for was situated towards the 
 middle of the street, at the part where the roadway commenced 
 to ascend. On the top of a flat building three enormous reser- 
 voirs of water zinc tanks strongly riveted displayed their 
 round grey sides ; whilst, behind, rose up the drying-room, a 
 very lofty second floor, closed on all sides by Venetian shutters, 
 the openings between the laths of which admitted the outer 
 air, and gave a view of clothes drying on brass wire lines. To 
 the right of the reservoirs, the narrow funnel of the steam 
 engine discharged, with a rough and regular respiration, puff's of 
 white smoke. Gervaise, without tucking up her skirts, but like 
 a woman used to moving about amongst puddles, entered the 
 doorway, all encumbered with jars full of some chemical water. 
 She was already acquainted with the mistress of the wash-house, 
 a delicate little woman with sore eyes, who sat in a small glazed 
 closet with account books in front of her, bars of soap on 
 shelves, balls of blue in glass bowls, and pounds of soda done 
 up in packets ; and, as she passed, she asked for her beetle and 
 her scouring- brush, which she had left to be taken care of 
 the last time she had done her washing there. Then, after 
 obtaining her number, she entered the wash-house. 
 
 It was an immense shed, with large light windows, and a flat 
 ceiling, showing the beams supported on cast-iron pillars. Pale 
 rays of light passed freely through the hot steam, which re- 
 mained suspended like a milky fog. Smoke arose from certain 
 corners, spreading about and covering the recesses with a bluish 
 veil. A he.ajqLniQiature hung._around, impregnated with a soapy 
 odour, a damp insipioT'smell, continuous though at moments 
 overpowered by the more potent fumes of the chemicals. Along 
 the washing-places, on either side of the central alley, were 
 rows of women, with bare arms and necks, and skirts tucked 
 up, showing coloured stockings and heavy lace-up shoes. They 
 were beating furiously, laughing, leaning back to call out a word
 
 20 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 
 
 in the midst of the din, or stooping over their tubs, all of them 
 brutal, ungainly, foul of speech, and soaked as though by a 
 shower, with their flesh red and reeking. Around them, 
 beneath them, was a great flow of water, steaming pailfuls 
 carried about and emptied at one shoot, high up, taps of cold 
 water turned on and discharging their contents, the splashings 
 caused by the beetles, the drippings from the rinsed clothes, 
 the pools in which the women trod trickling away in streamlets 
 over the sloping flagstones ; and, in the midst of the cries, of 
 the cadenced blows, of the murmuring noise of rain, of that 
 storm-like clamour dying away beneath the saturated ceiling, 
 the engine on the right, all white with steam, puffed and snorted 
 unceasingly, the dancing trepidation of its fly-wheel seeming 
 to regulate the magnitude of the uproar. 
 
 Gervaise passed slowly along the alley, looking to the right 
 and left. She carried her bundle of clothes on her arm, with 
 one hip higher than the other, and limping more than usual, in 
 the passing, backwards and forwards, of the other women who 
 jostled against her. 
 
 " This way, my dear ! " cried Madame Boche, in her loud 
 voice. Then, when the young woman had joined her, at the 
 very end on the left, the doorkeeper, who was furiously rubbing 
 a sock, began to talk incessantly, without leaving off her work. 
 " Put your things there, I've kept your place. Oh ! I sha'n't 
 be long over what I've got. Boche scarcely dirties his things 
 at all. And you, you won't be long either, will you ? Your 
 bundle's quite a little one. Before twelve o'clock we shall have 
 finished, and we can go off to lunch. I used to send my things to a 
 laundress in the Rue Poulet, but she destroyed everything with 
 her chlorine and her brushes ; so now I do the washing myself. 
 It's so much saved ; it only costs the soap. I say, you should 
 have put those shirts to soak. Those little rascals of children, on 
 my word ! one would think their bodies were covered with soot." 
 
 Gervaise, having undone her bundle, was spreading out the 
 little ones' shirts, and as Madame Boche advised her to take a 
 pailful of lye, she answered, " Oh, no I warm water will do. 
 I'm used to it." 
 
 She had sorted the clothes, and put the few coloured things 
 on one side. Then, after filling her tub with four pailfuls of 
 cold water taken from the tap behind her, she dipped in the 
 pile of linen, and, tucking up her skirt, drawing it tight between 
 her legs, she got into a kind of upright box, the sides of which 
 reached nearly to her waist.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 21 
 
 " You're used to it, eh 1 " repeated Madame Boche. " You 
 were a washerwoman in your native place, weren't you, my 
 dear?" 
 
 Gervaise, with her sleeves turned up, displaying her fine fair 
 arms, still young, and scarcely reddened at the elbows, com- 
 menced getting the dirt out of her linen. She had spread a 
 chemise over the narrow plank of the washing-place, whitened 
 and eaten away by the wear and tear of the water ; she rubbed 
 it over with soap, turned it, and rubbed it on the other side. 
 Before answering, she seized her beetle and began to beat, 
 shouting out her sentences, and punctuating them with rough 
 and regular blows. 
 
 "Yes, yes, a washerwoman When I was ten That's twelve 
 years ago We used to go to the river It smelt nicer there 
 than it does here You should have seen, there was a nook 
 under the trees, with clear running water You know, at 
 Plassans Don't you know Plassans ? It's near Marseilles." 
 
 " How she goes at it ! " exclaimed Madame Boche, amazed at 
 the strength of her blows. "What a wench it is? She'd 
 flatten out a piece of iron with her little lady-like arms." 
 
 .The conversation continued in a very high tone. At times, 
 the doorkeeper, not catching what was said, was obliged to lean 
 forward. All the linen was beaten, and with a will ! Gervaise 
 plunged it into the tub again, and then took it out once more, 
 each article separately, to rub it over with soap a second time 
 and brush it. With one hand she held the article firmly on to 
 the plank ; with the other, which grasped the short couch-grass 
 brush, she extracted from the linen a dirty lather, which fell in 
 long drips. Then, in the slight noise caused by the brush, the 
 two women drew together, and conversed in a more intimate 
 way. 
 
 " No, we're not married," resumed Gervaise. " I don't hide 
 it. Lantier isn't so nice for any one to care to be his wife. 
 Ah ! if it wasn't for the children. I was fourteen and he 
 eighteen years x)ld when we had our first ; the other came four 
 years later. It happened as it always -does, you know. I 
 wasn't happy at home. Old Macquart, for a yes or a no, would 
 give me no end of kicks behind ; so I preferred to keep away 
 from him. We might have been married, but I forget why 
 our parents wouldn't consent." 
 
 She shook her hands, which were growing red in the white 
 suds. " The water's awfully hard in Paris," said she. 
 
 Madame Boche was now washing only very slowly. She
 
 22 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 kept leaving off, making her work last as long as she could, so 
 as to remain there, to listen to that story, which her curiosity 
 had been hankering to know for a fortnight past. Her mouth 
 was half open in the midst of her big, fat face ; her eyes, which 
 were almost at the top of her head, were gleaming. She was 
 thinking, with the satisfaction of having guessed right, 
 
 " That's it, the little one gossips too much. There's been a 
 
 row." 
 
 Then, she observed out loud, " He isn't nice, then ? " 
 
 " Don't mention it ! " replied Gervaise. " He used to behave 
 very well in the countiy ; but, since we've been in Paris, he's 
 been unbearable. I must tell you that his mother died last 
 year and left him some money about seventeen hundred 
 francs. He would come to Paris, so, as old Macquart was for 
 ever knocking me about without warning, I consented to corne 
 away with him. We made the journey with the two children. 
 He was to set me up as a laundress, and work himself at his 
 trade of a hatter. We should have been very happy ; but, you 
 see, Lan tier's ambitious and a spendthrift, a fellow who 
 only thinks of amusing himself. In short, he's not worth 
 much. On arriving, we went to the Hotel Montmartre, 
 in the Rue Montmartre. And then there were dinners, and 
 cabs, and the theatre ; a watch for himself and a silk dress for 
 me, for he's not unkind when he's got the money. You under- 
 stand, he went in for everything, and so well that at the end of 
 two months we were cleaned out. It was then that we came to 
 live at the H6tel Boncoeur, and that this horrible life began." 
 
 She interrupted herself. A lump had suddenly risen in her 
 throat, and she could scarcely restrain her tears. She had 
 finished brushing the things. 
 
 *' I must go and fetch my hot water," she murmured. 
 
 But Madame Boche, greatly disappointed at this break off in 
 the disclosures, called to the wash-house boy, who was passing, 
 
 " My little Charles, kindly get madame a pail of hot water ; 
 she's in a hurry." 
 
 The boy took the pail and brought it back filled. Gervaise 
 paid him; it was a sou the pailful. She poured the hot water 
 into the tub, and soaped the things a last time with her hands, 
 leaning over them in a mass of steam, which deposited small 
 beads of grey vapour in her light hair. 
 
 " Here, put some soda in, I've got some by me," said the 
 doorkeepe^ obligingly. 
 
 And she emptied into Gervaise's tub what remained of a bag of
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 2$ 
 
 soda which she had brought with her. She also offered her some 
 of the chemical water, but the young woman declined it; 
 it was only good for grease and wine stains. 
 
 " I think he's rather a loose fellow," resumed Madame 
 Boche, returning to Lantier, but without naming him. 
 
 Gervaise, bent almost double, her hands all shrivelled, and 
 thrust in amongst the clothes, merely tossed her head. 
 
 " Yes, yes," continued the other, " I've noticed several little 
 things " But she suddenly interrupted herself, as Gervaise 
 jumped up, with a pale face, and staring wildly at her. Then 
 she exclaimed, " Oh, no ! I don't know anything ! He likes to 
 laugh a bit, I think, that's all. For instance, you know the two 
 girls who lodge at my place, Adele and Virginie. Well, he 
 larks about with 'em, but it doesn't go any further, I'm sure." 
 
 The young woman standing before her, her face covered with 
 perspiration, the water dripping from her arms, continued to 
 stare at her with a fixed and penetrating look. Then the door- 
 keeper got excited, giving herself a blow on the chest, and 
 pledging her word of honour, she cried, 
 
 " I know nothing, I mean it when I say so ! " 
 
 Then, calming herself, she added in a gentle voice, as if speak- 
 ing to a person on whom loud protestations would have no effect, 
 " I think he has a frank look about the eyes. He'll marry you, 
 my dear, I'm sure of it ! " 
 
 Gervaise passed her wet hand over her forehead. She drew 
 another article of clothing from the water, as she again tossed 
 her head. For a while they both remained silent. Peacefulness 
 prevailed around them ; eleven o'clock was striking. Half the 
 women, resting one leg on the edges of their tubs, and with 
 open bottles of wine at their feet, were eating sausages between 
 slices of bread. Only the women who had fa'milies, and had 
 come there just to wash their little bundles of clothes, hurried 
 over their work as they kept glancing up at the clock which 
 hung above the office. A few beetle strokes were still heatd 
 at intervals, in the midst of quiet laughter and conversations, 
 which were drowned in the noise of a glutinous movement of 
 jaws ; whilst the steam-engine, ever at work, without truce or 
 repose, seemed to raise its vibrating, snorting voice, until it 
 filled the immense building. But not one of the women noticed 
 it ; it was as it were the very breathing of the wash-house a 
 scorching breath which accumulated, beneath the beams of the 
 ceiling, the mist that incessantly floated about. The heat was 
 becoming unbearable. Kays of sunshine entered through the
 
 24 THE "ASSOMMOflL" 
 
 tall windows on the left, transforming the smoking vapours 
 into opaque masses of a pale pink and bluish grey tint ; and, as 
 complaints arose, the boy Charles went from one window to 
 the other and lowered some coarse blindp ; then he crossed to 
 the other side, the shady one, and opened some of the case- 
 ments. His movements were greeted with acclamations. There 
 was a general clapping of hands, a boisterous gaiety passed 
 over all. Then 1?he last beetles were laid down. The women, 
 with their mouths full, now only made gestures with the open 
 knives that they held in their hands. The silence became so 
 general that one could hear, at regular intervals, the grating of 
 the stoker's shovel at the farther end, as he scooped up the coal 
 and threw it into the furnace. 
 
 Gervaise was washing her coloured things in the hot water 
 thick with lather, which she had kept for the purpose. When 
 she had finished, she drew a trestle towards her and hung across 
 it all the different articles, the drippings from which made 
 bluish puddles on the floor ; and then she commenced rinsing. 
 Behind her, the cold water tap was set running into a vast tub 
 fixed to the ground, and across which were two wooden bars 
 whereon to lay the clothes. High up in the air were two other 
 bars for the things to finish dripping on. 
 
 " We're almost finished, and it's not a pity," said Madame 
 Boche. "I'll wait and help you wring all that" 
 
 " Oh ! it's not worth while ; I'm much obliged though," 
 replied the young woman, who was kneading with her hands 
 and sousing the coloured things in some clean water. " If I'd 
 any sheets, it would be another thing." 
 
 But she had, however, to accept the doorkeeper's assistance. 
 They were wringing between them, one at each end, a woollen 
 skirt of a washed-out chestnut colour, from which dribbled a 
 yellowish water, when Madame Boche exclaimed : 
 
 " Why, there's tall Virginie ? What has she come here to 
 wash, when all her wardrobe that isn't on her would go into a 
 pocket handkerchief? " 
 
 Gervaise quickly raised her head. Virginie was a girl of her 
 own age, taller than she was, dark and pretty in spite of her 
 face being rather long. She had on an old black dress with 
 flounces, and a red ribbon round her neck ; and her hair was 
 done up carefully, the chignon being enclosed in a blue silk 
 net. She stood an instant, in the middle of the central alley, 
 screwing up her eyes as though seeking some one ; then, when 
 she caught sight of Gervaise, she passed close to her, erect,
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 25 
 
 insolent, and with a swinging gait, and took a place in the same 
 row, five tubs away from her. 
 
 '* There's a freak for you ! " continued Madame Boche in a 
 lower tone of voice. " She never even washes a pair of cuffs. 
 Ah ! she's a regular slut, I can tell you ! A needlewoman who 
 doesn't even sew the buttons on her boots ! It's the same with 
 her sister, the burnisher, that trollop Adele, who's away from 
 the workshop two days out of three ! They know neither their 
 father nor their mother, and they live no one knows how ; and 
 if one cared to talk What's that she's rubbing there ] Eh 1 
 it's a petticoat ! Isn't it in a filthy state 1 It must have seen 
 some fine goings-on, that petticoat ! " 
 
 Madame Boche was evidently trying to make herself agreeable 
 to Gervaise. The truth was she often took a cup of coffee with 
 Adele and Virginie, when the girls had any money. Gervaise 
 did not answer, but hurried over her work with feverish hands. 
 She had just prepared her blue in a little tub that stood on 
 three legs. She dipped in the linen things, and shook them an 
 instant at the bottom of the coloured water, the reflection of 
 which had a pinky tinge ; and, after wringing them lightly, she 
 spread them out on the wooden bars, up above. During the 
 time she was occupied with this work, she made a point of 
 turning her back on Virginie. But she heard her chuckles ; 
 she could feel her sidelong glances. Virginie appeared only to 
 have come there to provoke her. At one moment, Gervaise 
 having turned round, they both stared into each other's faces. 
 
 " Leave her alone," murmured Madame Boche. " You're not 
 going to pull each other's hair out, I hope. When I tell you 
 there's nothing ! It isn't her, there j " 
 
 At this moment, as the young woman was hanging up the 
 last article of clothing, there was a sound of laughter at the 
 door of the wash-house. 
 
 " Here are two brats who want their mamma !" cried Charles. 
 
 All the women leant forward. Gervaise recognised Claude 
 and Etienne. As soon as they caught sight of her, they ran to 
 her through the puddles, the heels of their unlaced shoes 
 resounding on the flagstones. Claude, the eldest, held his little 
 brother by the hand. The women, as they passed them, uttered 
 little exclamations of affection as they noticed their frightened, 
 though smiling, faces. And they stood there, in front of their 
 mother,' without leaving go of each other's hands, and holding 
 their fair heads erect. 
 
 " Has pap? sent you ? " asked Gervaise.
 
 26 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 But as she stooped to tie the laces of Etienne's shoes, she saw 
 the key of their room on one of Claude's fingers, with the brass 
 numher hanging from it. 
 
 . " Why, you've brought the key ! " said she, greatly surprised. 
 "What's that for?" 
 
 The child, seeing the key which he had forgotten on his 
 finger, appeared to recollect, and exclaimed in his clear voice, 
 "Papa's gone." 
 
 " He's gone to buy the lunch, and told you to come here to 
 fetch me ? " 
 
 Claude looked at his brother, hesitated, no longer recollecting. 
 Then he resumed all in a breath : " Papa's gone. He jumped 
 off the bed, he put all the things in the box, he carried the box 
 down to a cab. He's gone." 
 
 Gervaise, who was squatting down, slowly rose to her feet, 
 her face ghastly pale. She put her hands to her cheeks and 
 temples, as though she felt her head was breaking; and she 
 could find only these words, which she repeated twenty times ii 
 the same tone of voice : 
 
 " Ah ! good heavens ! ah ! good heavens ! ah ! good 
 heavens ! " 
 
 Madame Boche, however, also questioned the child, quite 
 delighted at the chance of hearing the whole story. 
 
 " Come, little one, you must tell us just what happened. It 
 was he who locked the door and who told you to bring the key, 
 wasn't it ? " And, lowering her voice, she whispered in Claude's 
 ear : " Was there a lady in the cab ?" 
 
 The child again got confused. Then he recommenced his 
 story in a triumphant manner : " He jumped off the bed, he 
 put all the things in the box. He's gone." 
 
 Then, when Madame Boche let him go, he drew his brother 
 in front of the tap, and they amused themselves by turning on 
 the water. Gervaise was unable to cry. She was choking, 
 leaning back against her tub, her face still buried in her hands. 
 Slight shivering fits seized her. At times a deep sigh escaped 
 her, whilst she thrust her fists firmer into her eyes, as though 
 to bury herself in the darkness of her abandonment. It was a 
 gloomy abyss to the bottom of which she seemed to fall. 
 
 " Come, my dear, pull yourself together !" murmured Madame 
 Boche. 
 
 " If you only knew ! if you only knew ! " said she at length 
 very faintly. " He sent me this morning to pawn my shawl 
 and my shifts to pay for that cab."
 
 THE "ASSOMMOm." 27 
 
 And she burst out crying. The recollection of her errand at 
 the pawn-place, fixing in her mind one of the events of the 
 morning, had given an outlet to the sobs which were choking 
 her. That errand was an abomination the great grief in her 
 despair. The tears ran down on to her chin, which her hands 
 had already wetted, without her even thinking of taking a 
 handkerchief. 
 
 "Be reasonable, do be quiet, everyone's looking at you," 
 Madame Boche, who hovered round her, kept repeating. " How 
 can you worry yourself so much on account of a man 1 You 
 loved him, then, all the same, did you, my poor darling 1 ? A 
 little while ago you were saying all sorts of things against him ; 
 and now you're crying for him, and almost breaking your heart. 
 Dear me, how silly we all are ! " 
 
 Then she became quite maternal. 
 
 u A pretty little woman like you ! can it be possible ? One 
 may tell you everything now, I suppose. Well ! you recollect 
 when I passed under your window, I already had my suspicions. 
 Just fancy, last night, when Adele came home, I heard a man's 
 footsteps with hers. So I thought I would see who it was. I 
 looked up the staircase, The fellow was already on the second 
 landing; but I certainly recognised M. Lantier's overcoat. 
 Boche, who was on the watch this morning, saw him coolly 
 come down. It was with Adele, you understand. Virginie has 
 a gentleman now to whom she goes twice a week. Only it's 
 highly improper all 'the same, for they've only one room and an 
 alcove, and I can't very well say where Virginie managed to 
 sleep." 
 
 She interrupted herself an instant, turned round, and then 
 resumed, subduing her loud voice : 
 
 " She's laughing at seeing you cry, that heartless thing over 
 there. I'd stake my life that her washing's all a pretence. 
 She's packed off the other two, and she/s come here so as to tell 
 them how you take it." 
 
 Gervaise removed her hands from her face and looked. When 
 she beheld Virginie in front of her, amidst three or four women, 
 speaking low and staring at her, she was seized with a mad rage. 
 She thrust out her arms, turned right round as she felt on the 
 ground, trembling in every limb, then walked a few steps, and 
 noticing a bucket full of water, she seized it with both hands 
 and threw the contents with all her might. 
 
 " The strumpet 1 " yelled tall Virginie. 
 
 She had stepped back, and her boots alone got wet. The
 
 28 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 other women, who for some minutes past had all been greatly 
 upset by Gervaise's tears, jostled each other in their anxiety to 
 see the fight. Some, who were finishing their lunch, got on the 
 tops of their tubs. Others hastened forward, their hands 
 smothered with soap. A ring was formed. 
 
 "Ah ! the strumpet ! " repeated tall Virginie. " What's the 
 matter with her? she's mad ! " 
 
 Gervaise, standing on the defensive, her chin thrust out, her 
 features convulsed, said nothing, not having yet acquired the 
 Paris gift of the gab. The other continued : 
 
 " Get out ! It's tired of wallowing about in the country ; it 
 wasn't twelve years old when it let the soldiers make free with 
 it; it's left its leg behind in its native place. . The leg fell off; 
 it was rotting away." 
 
 The lookers-on burst out laughing. Virginie, seeing her 
 success, advanced a couple of steps, drawing herself up to her 
 full height, and yelling louder than ever : 
 
 " Here I come a bit nearer, just to see how I'll settle you ! 
 Don't you come annoying us here. Do I even know her, the 
 hussy $ If she'd wetted me, I'd have pretty soon turned up her 
 skirts, as you'd have seen. Let her just say what I've ever done 
 to her. Speak, you vixen ; what's been done to you 1 " 
 
 " Don't talk so much," stammered Gervaise. " You know 
 well enough. Some one saw my husband last night. And shut 
 up, because if you don't I'll most certainly strangle you." 
 
 kt Her husband ! Ah ! that's a good joke, that is ! Madam e's 
 husband ! as if one with such a carcass had husbands ! It isn't 
 my fault if he's chucked you up. You don't suppose I've stolen 
 him. I'm ready to be searched. I'll tell you why he's gone : 
 you were infecting the man! He was too nice for you. Did 
 he have his collar on, though 1 Who's found madame's husband ? 
 A reward is offered." 
 
 The laughter burst forth again. Gervaise contented herself 
 with continually murmuring in an almost low tone of voice : 
 
 " You know well enough, you know well enough. It's your 
 sister, I'll strangle her your sister." 
 
 " Yes, go and try it on with my sister," resumed Virginie 
 sneeringly. " Ah ! it's my sister ! That's very likely. My 
 sister looks a trifle different to you ; but what's that to me 1 
 Can't one come and wash one's clothes in peace now ? Just dry 
 up, d'ye hear, because I've had enough of it ! " 
 
 But it was she who returned to the attack, after giving five 
 or six strokes with her beetle, intoxicated by the insults she had
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 29 
 
 been giving utterance to, and worked up into a passion. She 
 left off and recommenced again, speaking in this way three 
 times : 
 
 " Well, yes ! it's my sister. There now, does that satisfy 
 you? They adore each other. You should just see them bill 
 and coo ! And he's left you with your bastards. Those pretty 
 kids with scabs all over their faces ! One of 'em's by a 
 gendarme, isn't he ? and you had three others made away with 
 because you didn't want to have 'to pay for extra luggage on 
 your journey. It's your Lantier who told us that. Ah ! he's 
 been telling some fine things ; he'd had enough of you ! " 
 
 "You dirty jade ! you dirty jade ! you dirty jade ! " yelled 
 Gervaise, beside herself, and again seized with a furious 
 trembling. She turned round, looking once more about the 
 ground ; and only observing the little tub, she seized hold of it 
 by the legs, and flung the whole of the blue water at Virginie's 
 face. 
 
 " The cow ! she's spoilt my dress ! " cried the latter, whose 
 shoulder was sopping wet and whose left hand was dyed blue. 
 " Wait a minute, you walking dungheap ! " 
 
 In her turn she seized a bucket, and emptied it over the 
 young woman. Then a formidable battle began. They both 
 ran along the rows of tubs, seized hold of the pails that were 
 full, and returned to dash the contents at each other's heads. 
 And each deluge was accompanied by a volley of words. 
 Gervaise herself answered now : 
 
 " There ! dirty beast ! You got it that time. It'll help to 
 cool you." 
 
 " Ah ! the carrion ! That's for your filth. Wash yourself 
 for once in your life." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I'll take the shine out of you, you lanky strumpet !" 
 
 " Another one ! Rinse your teeth, make yourself smart for 
 your watch to-night at the corner of the Rue Belhomme." 
 
 They ended by filling the buckets at the taps. And as they 
 waited while these filled, they continued their foul language. 
 The first pailfuls, badly aimed, scarcely touched them; but 
 they soon got the range. It was Virgin ie who first received one 
 full in the face ; the water entered at the neck of her dress, ran 
 down her back and bosom, and flowed out under her petticoats. 
 She was still quite giddy with the shock, when a second one 
 caught her side-ways, giving her a sharp blow on the left ear 
 and soaking her chignon, which unrolled like a ball of string. 
 Gervaise was first hit in the legs ; the water filled her shoes and
 
 30 THE "ASSOMMOIB." 
 
 rebounded as high as her thighs ; two other pailfuls inundated 
 her hips. Soon, however, it became no longer possible to count 
 the hits. They were both of them dripping from their heads to 
 their heels, the bodies of their dresses were sticking to their 
 shoulders, their skirts clung to their loins, and they appeared 
 thinner, stiffer, and shivering, as the water dropped on all sides 
 as it does off umbrellas during a heavy shower. 
 
 "They look jolly funny ! " said the hoarse voice of one of the 
 women. 
 
 Every one in the wash-house was highly amused. A good 
 space was left to the combatants, as nobody cared to get 
 splashed. Applause and jokes circulated in the midst of the 
 sluice-like noise of the buckets emptied in rapid succession. On 
 the floor the puddles were running one into another, and the 
 two women were wading in them up to their ankles. Virginie, 
 however, who had been meditating a treacherous move, suddenly 
 seized hold of a pail of boiling lye, which one of her neighbours 
 had left there, and threw it. The same cry arose from all. Every 
 one thought Gervaise was scalded ; but only her left foot had 
 been slightly touched. And, exasperated by the pain, she 
 seized a bucket, without troubling herself to fill it this time, 
 and threw it with all her might at the legs of Virginie, who fell 
 to the ground. All the women spoke together. 
 
 " She's broken one of her limbs ! " 
 
 " Well, the other tried to cook her ! " 
 
 " She's right, after all, the fair one, if her man's been taken 
 from her ! " 
 
 Madame Boche held up her arms to heaven, uttering all sorts 
 of exclamations. She had prudently retreated out of the way 
 between two tubs ; and the children, Claude and Etienne, cry- 
 ing, choking, terrified, clung to her dress, with the continuous 
 cry of " Mamma ! mamma! " broken by their sobs. When she 
 saw Virginie fall she hastened forward, and tried to pull Gervaise 
 away by her skirt, repeating the while, 
 
 " Come now, go home 1 be reasonable. On my word, it's 
 quite upset me. Never was such a butchery seen before." 
 
 But she had to draw back and seek refuge again between the 
 two tubs, with the children. Virginie had just flown at Ger- 
 vaise's throat. She squeezed her round the neck, trying to 
 strangle her. The latter freed herself with a violent jerk, 
 and in her turn hung on to the tail of the other's chignon, as 
 though she was trying to pull her head off. The battle was 
 silently resumed, without a cry, without an insult. They did
 
 THE " AssoMMbra.' si 
 
 Dot seize each other round the body, they attacked each other's 
 faces with open hands and clawing fingers, pinching, scratching 
 whatever they caught hold of. The tall, dark girl's red ribbon 
 and blue silk hair net were torn off. The body of her dress, 
 giving way at the neck, displayed a large portion of her 
 shoulder j whilst the blonde, half stripped, a sleeve gone from 
 her loose white jacket without her knowing hov7, had a rent in 
 her underlineu, which exposed to view the naked line of her 
 waist. Shreds of stuff flew in all directions. It was from 
 Gervaise that the first blood was drawn, three long scratches 
 from the mouth to the chin ; and she sought to protect her 
 eyes, shutting them at every grab the other made for fear of 
 having them torn out. No blood showed on Virginie as yet. 
 Gervaise aimed at her ears, maddened at not being able to 
 reach them. At length she succeeded in seizing hold of one of 
 the earrings an imitation pear in yellow glass when she 
 pulled and slit the ear, and the blood flowed. 
 
 " They're killing each other ! Separate them, the vixens 1 " 
 exclaimed several voices. 
 
 The other women had drawn nearer. They formed them- 
 selves into two camps. Some excited the combatants in the 
 same way as the mob urge on snarling curs, while the others, 
 more nervous and trembling, turned away their heads, having 
 had enongh of it, and kept repeating that they were sure they 
 would be ill ; and a general battle was on the point of taking 
 place. The combatants styled each other heartless and good 
 for nothing j bare arms were thrust out three slaps were 
 heard. Madame Boche, meanwhile, was trying to discover 
 the wash-house boy. 
 
 " Charles ! Charles! Wherever has he got to ?" 
 
 And she found him in the front rank, looking on with his 
 arms folded. He was a big fellow, with an enormous neck. 
 He was laughing and enjoying the sight of the bits of skin which 
 the two women displayed. The little blonde was as plump as 
 a quail. It would be fine if her petticoat slit up. 
 
 " Why ! " murmured he, winking his eye, " she's got a straw- 
 berry mark under the arm." 
 
 " What 1 you're there ! " cried Madame Boche, as she caught 
 sight of him. "Just come and help us separate them. You 
 can easily separate them, you can ! " 
 
 " Oh, no ! thank you, not if I know it," said he, coolly. " To 
 get my eye scratched like I did the other day, I suppose ! I'm 
 not here for that sort of thing ; I should have too much work
 
 32 THE " ASSOMMOm." 
 
 if I was. Don't be afraid, a little bleeding does 'em good ; it'll 
 soften 'em." 
 
 The doorkeeper then talked of fetching the police ; but the 
 mistress of the wash-house, the delicate young woman with the 
 sore eyes, would not allow her to do this. She kept saying : 
 
 " No, no, I won't ; it'll compromise my establishment." 
 
 The struggle on the ground continued. All on a sudden, 
 Virginie raised herself up on her knees. She had just got hold 
 of a beetle and brandished it on high. She had a rattling in 
 her throat, and, in an altered voice, she exclaimed, 
 
 "Here's something that'll settle you ! Get your dirty linen 
 ready ! " 
 
 Gervaise quickly thrust out her hand, and also seized a 
 beetle, and held it up like a club; and she too spoke in a 
 choking voice, 
 
 " Ah ! you want to wash. Let me get hold of your skin that 
 I may beat it into dish-cloths ! " 
 
 For a moment they remained there, on their knees, menacing 
 each other. Their hair all over their faces, their breasts heav- 
 ing, muddy, swelling with rage, they watched one another, as 
 they waited and took breath. Gervaise gave the first blow. 
 Her beetle glided off Virginie's shoulder, and she at once threw 
 herself on one side to avoid the tetter's beetle, which grazed her 
 hip. Then, warming to their work, they struck at each other 
 like washerwomen beating clothes, roughly and in time. When- 
 ever there was a hit, the sound was deadened, so that one 
 might have thought it a blow in a tub full of water. The other 
 women around them no. longer laughed. Several had gone oflj 
 saying that it quite upset them ; those who remained stretched 
 out their necks, their eyes lighted up with a gleam of cruelty, 
 admiring the pluck displayed. Madame Boche had led Clauda 
 and Etienne away, and one could hear at the other end of the 
 building the sound of their sobs, mingled with the sonorous 
 shocks of the two beetles. But Gervaise suddenly yelled. 
 Virginie had caught her a whack with all her might on her bare 
 arm, just above the elbow. A large red mark appeared, the 
 flesh at once began to swelL Then she threw herself upon 
 Virginie, and every one thought she was going to beat her to 
 death. 
 
 " Enough ! enough ! " was cried on all sides. 
 
 Her face bore such a terrible expression, that no one dared 
 approach her. Her strength seemed to have increased tenfold. 
 She seized Virginie round the waist, bent her down and pressed
 
 
 THE COMBAT BETWEEN GERVAISE AND VIEQINIE AT THE- WASH-HOUSE. 
 
 p. 32.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 88 
 
 her face against the flagstones ; then, in spite of her struggles, 
 she turned up her petticoats, and tore her drawers away. 
 Raising her beetle she commenced beating as she used to beat 
 at Plassans, on the banks of the Viorne, when her mistress 
 washed the clothes of the garrison. The wood seemed to yield 
 to the flesh with a damp sound. At each whack a red weal 
 marked the white skin.. 
 
 " Oh, oh ! " murmured the boy Charles, opening his eyes to 
 their full extent and gloating over the sight. 
 
 Laughter again burst forth from the lookers-on, but soon the 
 cry, " Enough ! enough ! " recommenced. Gervaise heard not, 
 neither did she tire. She examined her work, bent over it, 
 anxious not to leave a dry place. She wanted to see the whole 
 of that skin beaten, covered with contusions. And she talked, 
 seized with a ferocious gaiety, recalling a washerwoman's song, 
 
 " Bang ! bang ! Margot at her tub Bang ! bang ! beating 
 rub-a-dub Bang ! bang ! tries to wash her heart Bang ! 
 bang ! black with grief to part " 
 
 And then she resumed, " That's for you, that's for your 
 sister, that's for Lantier, When you next see them, you can 
 give them that. Attention ! I'm going to begin again. That's 
 for Lautier, that's for your sister, that's for you. Bang ! bang ! 
 Margot at her tub Bang ! bang ! beating rub-a-dub " 
 
 The others were obliged to drag Virginie from her. The tall 
 dark .girl, her face bathed in tears and purple with shame, 
 picked up her things and hastened away. She was vanquished. 
 Gervaise slipped on the sleeve of her jacket again, and fastened 
 up her petticoats. Her arm pained her a good deal, and she 
 asked Madame Boche to place her bundle of clothes on her 
 shoulder. The doorkeeper referred to the battle, spoke of her 
 emotions, and talked of examining the young woman's person, 
 just to see. 
 
 " You may, perhaps, have something broken. I heard a 
 tremendous blow." 
 
 But Gervaise wanted to go home. She made no reply to the 
 pitying remarks and the noisy ovation of the other women who 
 surrounded her, erect in their aprons. When she was laden 
 she gained the door, where the children awaited her. 
 
 " Two hours, that makes two sous," said the mistress of the 
 wash-house, already back at her post in the glazed closet. 
 
 Why two sous ? She no longer undei'stood that she was asked 
 to pay for her place there. Then she gave the two sous ; and, 
 limping very much beneath the weight of the wet clothes on 
 
 c
 
 84 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 her shoulder, tho water dripping from off her, her elbow black 
 and blue, her cheek covered with blood, she went off, dragging 
 Claude and Etienne with her bare arms, whilst they trotted 
 along on either side of her, still trembling, and their faces be- 
 smeared with their tears. 
 
 Behind her, the wash-house resumed its great sluice-like noise. 
 The women had eaten their bread and drank their wine, and 
 they beat harder than ever, their faces brightened up, enlivened 
 by the set-to between Gervaise and Virgim'e. Along the rows of 
 tubs arms were again working furiously, whilst angular, puppet- 
 like profiles, with bent backs and distorted shoulders, kept jerk- 
 ing violently forward as though on hinges. The conversations 
 continued along the different alleys. The voices, the laughter 
 and the indecent remarks mingled with the gurgling sound of 
 the water. The taps were running, the buckets overflowing, 
 and there was quite a little river beneath the washing-places. 
 It was the busiest moment of the afternoon, the pounding of the 
 clothes with the beetles. The vapours floating about the 
 immense building assumed a reddish hue, only broken here and 
 there by orbs of sunshine, golden balls that found admittance 
 through the holes in the blinds. One breathed a stifling, luke- 
 warm atmosphere, charged with soapy odours. All on a 
 sudden the place became filled with a white vapour. The 
 enormous lid of the copper full of boiling lye was rising 
 mechanically on a central toothed rod, and the gaping hole in 
 the midst of the brickwork exhale .1 volumes of steam savouring 
 of potash. Close by, the wringing machine was in motion. 
 Bundles of wet clothes, inserted between the cast-iron cylinders, 
 yielded forth their water at one turn of the wheel of the panting, 
 smoking machine, which quite shook the building with the con- 
 tinuous working of its arms of steel. 
 
 When Gervaise turned into the entry of the H6tel Boncoeur, 
 her tears again mastered her. It was a dark, narrow passage, 
 with a gutter for the dirty water, running alongside the wall; 
 and the stench which she again encountered there caused her 
 to think of the fortnight she had passed in the place with 
 Lantier a fortnight of misery and quarrels, the recollection of 
 tf-hich was now a bitter regret. It seemed to bring her aban- 
 donment home to her. 
 
 Upstairs the room was bare, in spite of the sunshine which 
 entered through the open window. That blaze of light, that 
 kind of dancing golden dust, exposed the lamentable condition 
 of the blackened ceiling, and of the walls half denuded of
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIE." 35 
 
 paper, all the more. The only thing left hanging in the room 
 was a woman's small neckerchief, twisted like a piece of string. 
 The children's bedstead, drawn into the middle of the apartment, 
 displayed the chest of drawers, the open drawers of which exposed 
 their emptiness. Lautier had washed himself and had used up 
 the last of the pomatum a penn'orth of pomatum in a play- 
 ing card ; the greasy water from his hands filled the basin. 
 And he had forgotten nothing. The corner which until then 
 had been filled by the trunk seemed to Gervaise an immense 
 empty space. Even the little hand-glass which hung on the 
 window-fastening was gone. When she made this discovery 
 she had a presentiment. She looked on the mantel -piece. 
 Lantier had taken away the paw i tickets ; the pink bundle was 
 no longer there, between the two odd zinc candlesticks. 
 
 She hung her washing on the back of a chair, and remained 
 standing, turning round, examining the furniture, seized with 
 such a stupor that her tears could no longer flow. One. sou 
 alone remained to her out of the four sous she had kept for the 
 wash-house. Hearing Claude and Etienne laughing at the 
 window, feeling already consoled, she went up to them, took 
 their heads under her arms, and forgot for an instant her 
 troubles as she gazed on that grey highway, where she had beheld 
 in the morning the awaking of the labouring classes, of the 
 giant work of Paris. At this hour the pavement, warmed by 
 the labours of the day, kindled a scorching reverberation above 
 the city, behind the octroi wall. It was on that pavement, in 
 that furnace-like atmosphere, that she was cast all alone with 
 her little ones ; and her look wandered up and down the 
 exterior Boulevards, to the right and to the left, pausing at 
 either end ; and she was seized with a dull fear, as though her 
 life would henceforth hang there, between a slaughter-house 
 and a hospital.
 
 86 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THREE weeks later, towards half-past eleven, one beautiful sun- 
 shiny day, Gervaise and Coupeau, the zinc-worker, were each par- 
 taking of a plum preserved in brandy, at the " Assommoir " kept 
 by old Colombe. Coupeau, who had been smoking a cigarette 
 on the pavement, had prevailed on her to go inside on her cross- 
 ing the road as she returned from taking home a customer's 
 washing ; and her big square laundress's basket was on the 
 floor beside her, behind the little zinc covered table. 
 
 Old Colombo's " Assommoir " was situated at the corner of 
 the Eue des Poissonniers and the Boulevard de Rochechouart. 
 The inscription outside consisted of the one word " Distillation," 
 in tall blue letters, which covered the space from one end to 
 the other. On either side of the doorway, planted in the two 
 halves of a cask, were some oleanders covered with dust. The 
 enormous bar, with its rows of glasses, its filter and its pewter 
 measures, stretched along to the left on entering ; and the vast 
 apartment was ornamented all round with big barrels painted a 
 light yellow, shining with varnish, and the hoops and brass taps 
 of which were dazzling bright. Higher up on shelves, bottles 
 of liqueurs, glass jars full of preserved fruits, all kinds of phials 
 neatly arranged covered the walls and reflected in the mirror 
 placed behind the counter their vivid apple green, pale gold and 
 delicate crimson tints. But the curiosity of the house was, at 
 the back, on the other side of an oak barrier, in a glass-covered 
 courtyard, the distilling apparatus which the customers could 
 see at work, stills with long necks and worms that went down 
 into the earth ; a regular devil's kitchen before which the 
 drunken workmen would come and muse. 
 
 At this, the luncheon hour, the "Assommoir" was almost 
 deserted. A stout man of forty, old Colombe, wearing a waist- 
 coat with sleeves, was serving a little girl of about ten with four 
 sous of brandy in a cup. A blaze of sunshine entered through
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 37 
 
 the doorway warming the floor ever damp with the saliva of 
 the smokers. And, from the bar, the barrels, the whole place, 
 there arose a spirituous odour, an alcoholic fume, which seemed 
 to thicken and intoxicate the dust floating in the golden sun- 
 light. 
 
 Coupeau was making another cigarette. He was very clean, in 
 a short blue linen blouse and cap, and was laughing and showing 
 his white teeth. With a projecting under jaw and a slightly 
 snub nose, he had handsome chestnut eyes, and the face of a 
 jolly dog and thorough good fellow. His coarse curly hair stood 
 erect. His skin still preserved the softness of his twenty-six 
 years. Opposite to him, Gervaise, in a thin black woollen dress, 
 and bareheaded, was finishing her plum which she held by the 
 v stalk between the tips of her fingers. They were close to the 
 street, at the first of the four tables placed alongside the barrels 
 facing the bar. 
 
 When the zinc-worker had lit his cigarette, he placed his 
 elbows on the table, thrust his face forward, and for an instant 
 looked without speaking at the young woman, whose pretty fair 
 face had that day the milky transparency of china. Then, 
 alluding to a matter known to themselves alone, and already 
 discussed between them, he simply asked in a low voice : 
 
 " So it's to be ' no "! you say < no ' ? " 
 
 " Oh ! most decidedly l no,' Monsieur Coupeau," quietly re- 
 plied Gervaise with a smile. " I hope you're not going to talk 
 to me about that here. You know you promised me you would 
 be reasonable. Had I known, I wouldn't have let you treat me." 
 
 He did not resume speaking, but continued looking at her 
 quite close, with a bold tenderness which seemed to offer itself, 
 especially impassioned as it were by the corners of her lips, 
 little pale rose corners, slightly moist, which showed the vivid 
 red of her mouth when she smiled. She, however, did not draw 
 away from him, but remained placid and fond, At the end of 
 a brief silence she added : 
 
 " You can't really mean it. I'm an old woman ; I've a big 
 boy eight years old. Whatever could we two do together ? " 
 
 "Why!" murmured Coupeau winking his eyes, "what the 
 others do, of course ! " 
 
 But she made a gesture of feeling annoyed. " Oh ! do you 
 think it's' always amusing 1 ? One can very well see you've never 
 lived with any one. No, Monsieur Coupeau, I must think of 
 serious things. Amusing oneself never leads to anything, you 
 know ! I've two mouths at home which are never tired of swal-
 
 38 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 lowing, I can tell you ! How do you suppose I can bring up 
 my little ones, if I only think of enjoying myself? And listen, 
 besides that, my misfortune has been a famous lesson to me. 
 You know, I don't care a bit about men now. They won't catch 
 me again for a long while." 
 
 She explained herself without anger, but with great propriety 
 and very coldly, as though she had been discussing a question 
 connected with her work, giving the reasons which prevented 
 her starching a habit-shirt. One could see that she had tho- 
 roughly made up her mind after due reflection. 
 
 Coupeau, deeply moved, repeated : " You cause me a great 
 deal of pain, a great deal of pain." 
 
 " Yes, I see I do," resumed she, " and I am sorry for you, 
 Monsieur Coupeau. But you mustn't take it to heart. If I 
 had thoughts of amusing myself, well! I would rather do so 
 with you than with another. You look a good-natured fellow, 
 you're nice. We might live together, no doubt, and we'd get 
 along the best way we could. I'm not at all stuck up. I don't 
 say that it might not have been. Only, where's the use, as I've 
 no inclination for it ? I've been for the last fortnight, now, at 
 Madame Fauconnier's. The children go to school I've work, 
 I'm contented. So the best is to remain as we are, isn't it ? " 
 
 And she stooped down to take her basket. 
 
 "You're making me talk; they must be expecting me at the 
 shop. You'll easily find some one else prettier than I, Monsieur 
 Coupeau, and who won't have two brats to drag about with 
 her." 
 
 He looked at the clock inserted in the frame-work of the 
 mirror, and made her sit down again, exclaiming : 
 
 "Don't be in such a hurry ! It's only eleven thirty-five. I've 
 still twenty-five minutes. You can't be afraid I shall do any- 
 thing foolish ; there's the table between us. So you detest me 
 so 'much that you won't stay and have a little chat together." 
 
 She put her basket down again, so as not to disoblige him ; 
 and they conversed like good friends. She had had her lunch 
 before taking home the washing; and he, on that day, had 
 hastily swallowed his soup and his beef, so as to be on the watch 
 for her. Gervaise, replying complaisantly, looked but of the 
 window, between the glass jars of preserved fruit, at the com- 
 motion in the street which the luncheon hour had filled with an 
 immense crowd. On both of the narrow foot-pavements there 
 were hurrying footsteps, swinging arms, and endless elbowings. 
 The late-comers, the men detained by their work, with looks
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 89 
 
 sulky through hunger, crossed tho road with long strides and 
 entered the baker's opposite ; and when they emerged, with a 
 pound of bread under their arm, they went three doors higher 
 up, to the " Two Headed Calf," to partake of an ordinary at six 
 sous a head. Next door to the baker's was a greengrocer, who 
 sold fried potatoes and mussels cooked with parsley ; a contin- 
 uous procession of workwomen, in long aprons, carried off from 
 here potatoes done up in paper and mussels in cups ; others, 
 pretty girls with delicate looks, and their hair coquettishly 
 arranged, purchased bunches of radishes. When Gervaise leant 
 forward, she could catch a glimpse of a pork-butcher's shop full 
 of people, out of which came children holding cutlets, sausages, 
 or pieces of hot black-pudding wrapped up in greasy paper in 
 their hands. Along the roadway slippery with black mud, even 
 in fine weather, through the constant treading of the ever mov- 
 ing crowd, some workmen who had already left the eating- 
 houses passed strolling along in bands, and their open hands 
 swinging against their sides, heavy with food, quiet and slow in 
 the midst of the jostling throng. 
 
 A group had formed at the doorway of the " Assommoir." 
 
 " I say, Bibi-the-Smoker, are you going to stand a go of 
 vitriol ? " inquired a hoarse voice. 
 
 Five workmen entered and stood before the bar. 
 
 " Ah ! old Colombe, you thief ! " resumed the voice. " You 
 know, you must give us some of the right sort, and not in 
 thimbles, but real glasses ! " 
 
 Old Colombe quietly served them. Another party of three 
 workmen arrived. Little by little, the men in blouses collected 
 at the corner of the pavement, stood there for a short time, and 
 ended by pushing each other into the dram-shop between the 
 two oleanders grey with dust. 
 
 " You're stupid ! you only think of dirty things ! " Gervaiso 
 was saying to Coupeau. ' ( Of course I loved him. Only, after 
 the disgusting way in which he left me " 
 
 They were talking of Lantier. Gervaise had not seen him 
 again; she thought he was living with Virginie's . sister, at La 
 Glaciere, in the house of that friend who was going to start a 
 hat factory. She had no thought of running after him. At 
 first, his leaving her had caused her great anguish she had 
 even wanted to drown herself; but, now that she had reasoned 
 with herself, she considered that all was for the best. Perhaps, 
 had she continued with Lantier, she might never have been able 
 to bring up the little ones, for he spent so much money. He
 
 40 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 might come and kiss Claude and Etienne, she would not refuse 
 
 O * 
 
 him admittance. Only, as far as she herself was concerned, she 
 would be cut up in pieces before she would let him touch her 
 with the tips of his fingers. And she said all these things in 
 the manner of a woman who was firmly resolved, having per- 
 fectly decided on her mode of life, whilst Coupeau, who would 
 not-yield in his desire to possess her, joked and gave an ob- 
 jectionable meaning to everything, asking her coarse questions 
 about Lantier so gaily, and showing such white teeth, that she 
 did not think of taking offence. 
 
 " You used to beat him," said he at length. " Oh ! you're 
 not kind ! You whip people." 
 
 She interrupted him with a hearty laugh. It was true, 
 though, she had whipped Virginie's tall carcass. She would 
 have delighted in strangling some one on that day. She laughed 
 louder than ever when Coupeau told her that Virginie, ashamed 
 at having shown so much of her person, had left the neighbour- 
 hood. Her face, however, preserved an expression of childish 
 gentleness; she held out her plump hands, saying that she 
 would not hurt a fly ; all she knew of blows was that she had 
 received plenty in her time. Then, she talked of her childhood 
 passed at Plassans. She wasn't a bit gaddish ; the men bored 
 her; when Lantier took her, at fourteen, she thought it nice, 
 because he said he was her husband, and she thought they were 
 playing at being married people. Her only fault, she asserted, 
 was that she was too sensitive ; she loved every one, and became 
 attached to those who behaved badly to her. For instance, 
 when she loved a man, she had no notions of tomfoolery, all 
 she dreamed of was their living together for ever and being very 
 happy. 
 
 And, as Coupeau with a chuckle spoke of her two children, 
 whom she had certainly not hatched under the bolster, she 
 tapped his fingers ; she added that she was, no doubt, made on 
 the model of other women ; only, men were wrong to think 
 that women were always rabid after that sort of thing ; women 
 thought of their home, slaved to keep the place clean and tidy, 
 and went to bed too tired at night not to go to sleep at once. 
 Besides, she resembled her mother, a stout labouring woman 
 who died at her work, and who had served as beast of burden 
 to old Macqnart for more than twenty years. She was still 
 quite slim, whilst her mother had shoulders broad enough to 
 demolish the doorways through which she passed ; but all the 
 same, she resembled her by her mania for becoming attached to
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 41 
 
 people. And if she limped a little, she no doubt owed that to 
 the poor woman, whom old Macquart used to belabour with 
 blows. Hundreds of times had she told her of the nights when 
 the old man, coming home drunk, would indulge in such rough 
 gallantry that he broke her limbs ; and she must surely have 
 owed her own existence with her leg all behind hand to his be- 
 haviour on one of these occasions. 
 
 " Oh ! it's scarcely anything, it's hardly perceptible," said 
 Coupeau gallantly. 
 
 She shook her head ; she knew well enough that it could be 
 seen ; at forty she would look broken in two. Then she added 
 gently, with a slight laugh : " It's a funny fancy of yours to fall 
 in love with a cripple." 
 
 With his elbows still on the table, he thrust his face closer to 
 hers, and began complimenting her in rather dubious language, 
 as though to intoxicate her with his words. But she continued 
 to shake her head, declining to be tempted, though caressed by 
 his wheedling accents. She listened, gazing out into the street, 
 seemingly again interested by the increasing crowd. The now 
 empty shops were being swept out ; the greengrocer withdrew 
 her last panful of fried potatoes from the fire, whilst the pork- 
 butcher put the plates spread over his counter back into their 
 places. Bands of workmen were emerging from all the eating- 
 houses; big fellows with beards pushed and pommelled one 
 another, playing together like children, with their heavy hob- 
 nailed boots grating on the pavement as they slicled about ; 
 others, with their hands at the bottoms of their pockets, stood 
 musingly smoking, gazing at the sun and blinking their eyes. 
 It was a regular invasion of the foot-pavement, of the roadway 
 and of the kennels, an idle crowd streaming from the open door- 
 ways, stopping in the midst of the vehicles, and forming an 
 endless trail of long and short blouses, and faded and discoloured 
 old overcoats in the bright light which filled the street. The 
 factory bells rang in the distance, yet the workmen did not 
 hurry themselves, but stopped to light their pipes once more ; 
 then drawing themselves up, after" calling each other from the 
 different wine-shops, they at length slowly bent their steps in 
 the direction of the factories. Gervaise amused herself by 
 watching three workmen, a tall fellow and two short ones, who 
 turned to look back every few yards ; they ended by descending 
 the street, and came straight to old Colombo's " Assommoir." 
 
 "Ah well!" murmured she, "thcre'ro three fellows who 
 don't seem inclined for work ! "
 
 42 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 " Why ! " said Coupeau, " I know the tall one, it's My-Boots, 
 a comrade of mine." 
 
 The "Assomrnoir" was now pretty full. Every one was 
 talking a great deal, and the sharp accents of the shriller voices 
 kept breaking in on the husky murmurs of the hoarser ones. 
 Fists banged down now and again on the bar caused the glasses 
 to jingle. All the customers were standing up, with their hands 
 crossed over their stomachs or clasped behind their backs, and 
 formed Jittle groups pressing close to each other ; some parties, 
 over by . the barrels, were obliged to wait a quarter of an 
 hour before they had a chance of ordering their drinks of old 
 Colombo. 
 
 " Hallo ! it's that aristocrat, Young Cassis ! " cried My- 
 Boots, bringing his hand down roughly on Conpeau's shoulder. 
 " A fine gentleman, who smokes paper, and wears shirts ! So 
 we want to do the grand with our sweetheart ; we stand her 
 little treats ! " 
 
 " Shut up ! don't bother me ! " replied Coupeau, greatly 
 annoyed. 
 
 But the other added, with a chuckle, " Right you are ! 
 We know what's what, my boy. Muffs are muffs, that's 
 all ! " 
 
 He turned his back, after squinting terribly as he looked at 
 Gervaise. The latter drew back, feeling rather frightened. 
 The smoke from the pipes, the strong odour of all those men, 
 ascended in the air, already foul with the fumes of alcohol; 
 and she felt a choking sensation in her throat, and coughed 
 slightly. 
 
 " Oh ! what a horrible thing it is to drink ! " said she, in a 
 low voice. 
 
 And she related that formerly, at Plassans, she used to drink 
 aniseed with her mother. But on one occasion it nearly killed 
 her, and'that disgusted her with it; now, she could never touch 
 any liqueurs. 
 
 " You see," added she, pointing to her glass, " I've eaten my 
 plum; only, I must leave the juice, because it would 'make me 
 ill." 
 
 Coupeau could not understand how people could swallow 
 glassfuls-of brandy. A plum now and again was a good thing. 
 As for " vitriol," absinthe, and all such filth, good night ! he 
 would have nothing to do with them. In spite of his comrades' 
 chaff, he stood outside when those swiggers entered' the boozing- 
 ken. Old Coupeau, who had been a zinc-worker like himself,
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 43 
 
 had cracked his head on the pavement of the Hue Coquenard 
 through falling from the roof of No. 25, one day he had heen 
 on the spree ; and the constant recollection of that in their 
 minds, caused all the family to keep very steady. Whenever 
 he passed along the Rue Coquenard, and saw the place, he 
 would sooner have swallowed the water of the gutter than have 
 drank a tumbler of wine at the wine-shop, though it were given 
 to him. He concluded with these words : 
 
 "In my calling, one must be steady on one's legs." 
 
 Gervaise had taken up her basket again. She did not rise 
 from her seat, however, but held the basket on her knees, with 
 a vacant look in her eyes, and lost in thought, as though the 
 young workman's words had awakened within her far-off 
 thoughts of existence. And she said again, slowly, and without 
 any apparent change of manner : 
 
 " Well ! I'm not ambitious ; I don't ask for much. My 
 desire is to work in peace, always to have bread to eat, and a decent 
 place to sleep in, you know ; with a bed, a table, and two chairs, 
 nothing more. Ah ! I should also like to be able to bring up 
 my children, to make good men of them, if possible. I've still 
 another wish, which is not to be beaten if I ever live with any 
 one again ; no, I shouldn't like to be beaten. And that's all, 
 you see, that's all." 
 
 She sat thinking, interrogating her desires, unable seemingly 
 to find anything else of consequence which tempted her. After 
 hesitating awhile, she resumed : 
 
 " Yes, when one reaches the end, one might wish to die in 
 one's bed. For myself, after having trudged through life, I 
 should like to die in my bed, in my own home." 
 
 And she rose from her seat. Ooupeau, who cordially ap- 
 proved her wishes, was already standing up, anxious about 'the 
 time. But they did not leave at once ; she had the curiosity 
 to go and take a look at the back, behind the oak barrier, at 
 the big copper still at work beneath the glass roof in the court- 
 yard ; and the zinc-worker, who followed her, explained how it 
 operated, pointing out the different pieces of the apparatus, 
 especially the enormous retort, from which a limpid stream of 
 alcohol fell. The still, with its strangely-shaped receivers, its 
 endless coils of pipes, had a sombre look ; not the least fume 
 escaped from it ; one could just hear a kind of internal breath- 
 ing, like some rumbling underground ; it was as though some 
 midnight labour was being performed in the light of day by a 
 mighty, dumb, and mournful workman.
 
 44 THE "ASSOMMOIB." 
 
 My-Boots, accompanied by his two comrades, had come and 
 leant over the barrier, whilst waiting until a corner of the bar 
 was free. He had a laugh resembling the noise made by a 
 pulley that wanted greasing, and wagged bis head as he looked 
 tenderly at the machine for producing drunkenness. Jove's 
 thunder ! it was a pretty invention ! There was enough in 
 that big copper arrangement to keep one's throat moist for a 
 week. He would have liked to have had the end of the pipe 
 soldered to his teeth, so as to feel the still hot " vitriol " fill his 
 body, descending downwards to his heels, always, always like a 
 little waterfall He would never trouble himself about any- 
 thing else then; it would be a great deal better than having to 
 put up with that ass, old Colombo's thimblefuls ! And his com- 
 rades chuckled, saying that that animal, My-Boots, was precious 
 funny all the same. The still, slowly, without a flame, without 
 the least brightness in the dull reflection of its copper envelope, 
 continued its work, letting its alcoholic exudation flow like a 
 sluggish and stubborn stream, which, in course of time, was to 
 overrun the whole dram-shop, spread along the exterior Boule- 
 vards, and inundate the immense gulf of Paris. Gervaise 
 shiveringly moved away ; and she tried to smile, as she 
 murmured : 
 
 " It's stupid ; but to look at that machine makes me shiver ; 
 the thought of drink makes my blood run cold." 
 
 Then, returning to the idea she nursed of a perfect happi- 
 ness, she resumed : " Now, ain't I right 2 it's much the nicest, 
 isn't it to have plenty of work, bread to eat, a home of one's 
 own, and to be able to bring up one's children, and to die in 
 one's bed?" 
 
 " And never to be beaten," added Coupeau gaily. " But I 
 would never beat you, if you would only try me, Madame Ger- 
 vaise. You've no cause for fear. I don't drink, and then, I 
 love you too much. Come, shall it be for to-night ? we will 
 warm our tootsies at the same fireside." 
 
 He had lowered his voice, and was whispering in her ear, 
 whilst she, holding her basket before her, made a way for her- 
 self amongst the men. But she still shook her head several 
 times. Yet she looked round, smiled at him, and seemed 
 pleased to know that he did not drink. She would certainly 
 have answered " yes," had she not sworn never again to take up 
 with a man. At length they reached the door, and passed 
 out. Behind them, the " Assoinmoir " still continued full, and 
 out in the street the hoarse voices of the customers could be
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 45 
 
 plainly heard, whilst the air was impregnated with the spirituous 
 odour of the "vitriol." My-Boots was calling old Colombo a bilk, 
 and accusing him of having only half filled his glass. He was a 
 jolly dog, one of the right sort, a fellow who was all on. The 
 guv'ner might go to blazes, he was not going back to the shed, 
 he had had enough work for that day. And he proposed to his 
 two comrades that they should sheer off to the " Little Old 
 Man -with a Cough," a boozing-ken of the Barriere Saint-Denis, 
 where they gave you the right stuff, pure, 
 
 "Ah ! one can breathe here/' said Gervaise, on the pavement 
 outside. " Well ! good-bye, and thank you, Monsieur Coupeau. 
 I must hurry back." 
 
 And she was about to proceed along the Boulevard. But 
 he had taken her hand, and held it, as he said : " Go round 
 with me by the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, it won't be much farther 
 for you. I've got to call on my sister before returning to work. 
 We can keep each other company." 
 
 She ended by agreeing, and they slowly ascended the Rue 
 des Poissonniers side by side, without taking each other's arms. 
 He talked of his relations. His mother, old Madame Coupeau, 
 used to make waistcoats, but her eyes were failing her, so now 
 she went out charing. She was sixty-two on the third of the 
 previous month. He was the youngest. One of his sisters, 
 Madame Lerat, a widow of thirty-six, worked at artificial flower 
 making, and lived in the Rue des Moines, at Batignolles. The 
 other, aged thirty, had married a gold chain maker .that slyly 
 malicious beggar, Lorilleux. It was on her that he was going 
 to call in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. She lived in the big house 
 on the left. Every evening, he dined with the Lorilleux ; it 
 was a saving for all three of them. And he was going to 
 tell them not to expect him that evening, as he had been 
 invited by a friend. 
 
 Gervaise, who was listening to him, suddenly interrupted him 
 to ask, with a smile : " So you're called 'Young Cassis,' Monsieur 
 Coupeau ? " 
 
 "Oh ! " replied he, " it's a nickname my mates have given me, 
 because I generally drink f cassis' when they force me to 
 accompany them to the wine-shop. It's no worse to be called 
 Young Cassis than My-Boots, is it ? " 
 
 " Of course not. Young Cassis isn't an ugly name," ob- 
 served the young woman. 
 
 And she questioned him about his work. He was still work- 
 ing there, behind the octroi wall, at the new hospital. Oh 1
 
 46 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 there '<vas no want of work, he would not have finished 
 there for a year at least. There were yards aad yards of 
 gutters ! 
 
 " You know," said he, " I can see the H6tel Boncoeur when 
 I'm up there. Yesterday,, you were at the window, and I waved 
 my arms, but you didn't notice me." 
 
 They had already gone about a hundred paces along the 
 Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, when he stood still, and, raising his 
 eyes, said : 
 
 " That's the house. I was born farther on, at No. 22. But 
 this house is, all the same, a fine block of masonry ! It's as big 
 as a barrack inside ! " 
 
 Gervaise raised her chin, and examined the frontage. The 
 house had five storeys looking on the street, and each of them 
 had a row of fifteen windows, the shutters of which, black, and 
 more or less broken, gave an air of ruin to that immense mass 
 of wall. Down below, four shops occupied the ground floor : to 
 the right of the door was a vast, greasy eating-place ; to the 
 left, a charcoal-dealer's, a linen-draper's, and an umbrella shop. 
 The house appeared all the more colossal through being situated 
 between two little, low, insignificant-looking buildings, which 
 seemed to cling to it; and square in shape, and similar to a 
 block of coarsely-made mortar, rotting and crumbling beneath 
 the rain, it displayed above the neighbouring , roofs its enor- 
 mous rude form, its rough unplastered sides, of the colour of 
 mud, with the interminable bareness of prison walls, and 
 wherein rows of projecting stones looked like so many decayed 
 jaws gaping vacantly. But Gervaise was more struck by the 
 door an immense arched door, which rose as high as the second 
 storey, and opened into a deep porch, at the other end of which 
 one could discern the faint light of a large courtyard. In the 
 centre of this porch, paved like the street, was a gutter, along 
 which flowed some pale pink water. 
 
 " Come in," said Coupeau, " no one will eat you," 
 
 Gervaise wanted to wait for him in the street. However, she 
 could not resist going through the porch as far as the door- 
 keeper's room on the right. And there, on the threshold, she 
 again raised her eyes. Inside, the fa9ades had six storeys 
 four regular fagades enclosing the vast square of the coiirtyard. 
 The grey walls, partly eaten away by a kind of yellow Idprosy, 
 were streaked by the drippings from the roof, and were perfectly 
 flat from the pavement to the slates, without the slightest 
 piece of moulding the water-pipes alone curved a little at each
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR.* 47 
 
 floor, where the open sinks were seen, covered with rust. The 
 windows, without shutters, displayed their bare panes, of the 
 greenish hue of cloudy water. At certain windows, mattresses, 
 covered with blue check were hanging out to air ; in front of 
 others, clothes were drying on '-lines, all the washing of the 
 family the man's shirts, the wife's loose linen jackets, and the 
 children's drawers ; at one window, on the third floor, were a 
 baby's soiled napkins. From the top to the bottom, the lodgings, 
 all too small for their occupants, seemed to be bursting, showing 
 scraps of their misery in every crack. 
 
 Down below, each frontage had a tall narrow doorway, with- 
 out any woodwork, merely cut out of the wall, and which gave 
 admittance to a passage, with walls full of crevices, and a muddy 
 staircase, with an iron hand-rail, at the end ; there were alto- 
 gether four of these staircases, distinguised by the first four 
 letters of the alphabet painted on the wall. The ground floors 
 were fitted up as immense workshops, with glass frontages, 
 black with dust ; a locksmith's forge was blazing away in one ; 
 farther off the sounds of a .carpenter's plane could be heard in 
 another ; whilst near the entrance, that light pink stream which 
 flowed along the gutter beneath tty3 porch was running from a 
 dyer's laboratory. Dirtied with pools of dyed, water, littered 
 with heaps of shavings and cinders, and having tufts of grass 
 growing round its edges in the crevices between the paving 
 stones, the courtyard was lit up by a sharp light, and seemed as 
 though cut in two at the line where the sunshine and the 
 shadow met. On the shady side, around the water tap, 
 which always maintained a certain dampness there, three 
 little hens, their claws all nmddy, were pecking the ground, 
 seeking for worms. And Gervaise slowly gazed about, lowering 
 her glance from the sixth floor to the paving stones, then raising 
 it again; surprised at the vastness, feeling, as it were, in the 
 midst of a living organ, in the very heart of a city, and interested 
 in the house, as though it were a giant before her. 
 
 " Is madame seeking for any one?" called out the inquisitive 
 doorkeeper, emerging from her room. 
 
 The young woman explained that she was waiting for a friend. 
 She returned to the street ; then, as Coupeau did not come, she 
 went back 'to the courtyard, seized with the desire to take 
 another look. She did not think the house ugly. Amongst the 
 rags hanging from the windows she discovered various cheerful 
 touches a wall-flower blooming in a pot, a cage of chirruping 
 canaries, shaving-glasses shining like stars in the depth of the
 
 48 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 shadow. Down below a carpenter was singing, accompanied by 
 the regular whistle of his jointing-plane; whilst, in the lock- 
 smith's work-shop, a clatter of hammers beating in time 
 resembled a silvery peal of bells. And at almost all the open 
 windows, against the background of partly seen misery, children 
 showed their clean and smiling faces, and women sewed, their 
 placid profiles bent over their work. It was the resuming of 
 the task after the mid-day meal, the rooms free of the men, who 
 were working away from home, the house returning to that 
 great peacefulness, solely disturbed by the noise of the work- 
 men's tools, by the lullaby of a refrain, ever the same, repeated 
 for hours together. Only the yard seemed rather damp. If 
 Gervaise had lived there, she would have preferred a lodging at 
 the further end, on the sunny side. She had advanced five or 
 six steps, and was inhaling that unsavoury effluvium pertaining 
 to the lodgings of the poor a smell of old dust, of rancid filth ; 
 but, as the acrid odour of the dyed water predominated, she 
 thought there was not so great a stench as at the H6tel 
 Boncceur. And she had already chosen her window a window 
 up in the left-hand comer, where there was a little flower-box 
 full of scarlet runners, the slender stems of which had com- 
 menced to twine round a little bower of string. 
 
 " I'm afraid I've kept you waiting rather a long time," said 
 Coupeau, whom she suddenly heard close beside her. " They 
 always make an awful fuss whenever I don't dine with them, 
 and it was worse than ever to-day, as my sister had bought 
 some veal." 
 
 And as Gervaise had slightly started with surprise, he con- 
 tinued, glancing around in his turn : 
 
 " You were looking at the house. It's always all let from 
 the top to the bottom. There are three hundred lodgers, I 
 think. If I had had any furniture, I would have secured a small 
 room. One would be comfortable here, don't you think so ? " 
 
 " Yes, one would be comfortable," murmured Gervaise. " In 
 our street, at Plassans, there weren't near so many people. 
 Look, that's pretty that window up on the fifth floor, with the 
 scarlet runners." 
 
 Then he stubbornly asked her again whether she would con- 
 sent, As soon as they had a bed, they would try and get a 
 room there. But she hastened away, passing hurriedly beneath 
 the porch, and begging him not to commence his nonsense again. 
 The house might crumble to pieces, but she would certainly 
 never sleep in it under the same blanket as he. Coupeau, how-
 
 40 
 
 'ever, as he left her at Madame Fauconnier's door, was able for 
 an instant to hold her hand, which she abandoned to him in all 
 friendliness. 
 
 For a month the young woman and the zinc-worker were the 
 best of friends. He admired her courage, when he beheld her 
 half killing herself with work, keeping her children tidy and 
 clean, and yet finding time at night to do a little sewing. 
 There were women who were far from clean, whose looks showed 
 the evil existence they led ; but, hang it all ! she was nowise 
 like them : she took too serious a view of life ! Then she would 
 laugh, and modestly defend herself. It was her misfortune 
 that she had not always been good. And she alluded to her 
 first confinement, when she was only fourteen, and to the quarts 
 of aniseed which she helped her mother to put away in the old 
 days. Experience was correcting her a little that was all. 
 One was wrong to think she had a strong will. She was, on the 
 contrary, very weak ; she let herself go wherever she was 
 pushed, for fear of causing pain to any one. Her dream was to 
 live amongst gopd j people, because bad society, said she, was 
 like the blow of a bludgeon it cracked one's skull, it would 
 lay a woman on her back in no time. She fell into a cold sweat 
 at the thought of the future, and compared herself to a coin 
 tossed up in the air and coming down head or tail, according to 
 how it struck the ground. All she had already seen, the bad 
 examples spread before her childhood's eyes, had been for her a 
 sharp lesson. But Coupeau chaffed her about her gloomy 
 thoughts, and brought back all her courage by trying to pinch 
 her hips. She pushed him. away from her, and slapped his 
 hands, whilst he called out laughingly that, for a weak woman, 
 she was not a very easy capture. He, who always joked about 
 everything, did not trouble himself regarding the future. One 
 day brought another, of coiirse ! One could always manage to 
 have a nest and a bit to eat. The neighbourhood was a decent 
 one, excepting for a few drunkards, of whom one might do well 
 to clear the gutters. He was not a bad devil ; he sometimes 
 said some very sensible things, was a trifle coquettish, parted 
 his hair carefully on the side, wore pretty neckties and a pair 
 of patent leather shoes on Sundays. With all that, he was as 
 sharp and as impudent as a monkey, full of jokes like most 
 Parisian workmen, and with a tongue ever on the move, which 
 was not so objectionable in a young fellow like him. 
 
 They had ended by rendering each other all sorts of services 
 at the Hdtel Boncoeur. Coupeau fetched her milk, ran her 
 
 D .
 
 50 THE "ASSOMMOrR." 
 
 errands, carried her bundles of clothes ; often of an evening, as 
 he got home first from work, he took the children for a walk on 
 the exterior Boulevard. Gervaise, in return for his polite 
 attentions, would go up into the narrow room at the top of the 
 house where he slept, and see to his clothes, sewing buttons 
 on his blue linen trousers, and mending his linen jackets. A 
 great familiarity existed between them. Amused with the 
 songs he sang and the continual larking of the Paris faubourgs, 
 all new to her, she was never dull when he was there. By 
 constantly rubbing up against her skirts, he became more and 
 more excited. He was caught, and firmly, too ! It ended by 
 bothering him. He still laughed ; but his stomach was so 
 upset, it felt so oppressed, that it was no longer funny. The 
 nonsense continued. He could never' meet her without asking, 
 " When's it to be 1 " She knew what he meant, and she pro- 
 mised her consent when four Thursdays came in the same week. 
 Then he would tease her, would go to her room with his slippers 
 in his hand, as though moving in. She also joked with him 
 about it, and could pass the day without a blush amidst the con- 
 tinual smutty allusions with which he surrounded her life. She 
 tolerated all so long as he was not rough. She only got angry 
 on one occasion when he, wishing to snatch a kiss from her, had 
 pulled out some of her hair. 
 
 Towards the end of June, Coupeau lost his liveliness. He 
 became most peculiar. Gervaise, feeling uneasy at some of his 
 glances, barricaded herself in at night. Then, after having 
 sulked ever since the Sunday, he suddenly came on the Tues- 
 day night about eleven o'clock and knocked at her room. She 
 would not open to him ; but his voice was so gentle and so 
 trembling that she ended by removing the chest of drawers she 
 had pushed against the door. When he had entered, she 
 thought he was ill : he looked so pale, his eyes were so red, and 
 the veins on his face were all swollen. And he stood there, 
 stuttering and shaking his head. No, no, he was not ill. He 
 had been crying for two hours, upstairs in his room ; he wept 
 lilge a child, biting his pillow so as not to be heard by the 
 neighbours. For three nights past he had been unable to sleep. 
 Itijepuld not go on like that. 
 
 ;."i <{ Listen, Madame Gervaise," said he, with a swelling in his 
 thjroat, and on the point of bursting out crying again ; " we 
 must end this, mustn't we 1 We'll go and get married. I'm 
 willing. I've quite made up my mind." 
 
 Gervaise showed great surprise. She was very grave.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOrR." 51 
 
 "Oh! Monsieur Coupeau," murmured she, " whatever are 
 you thinking of 1 You know I've never asked you for that. 1 
 didn't care about it that was all Oh, no, no ! it's serious 
 now ; think of what you're saying, I beg of you." 
 
 But he continued to shake his head, with an air of unalterable 
 resolution. He had already thought it all over. He had come 
 down because he wanted to have a good night. She wasn't 
 going' to send him back to weep again, he supposed ! As soon 
 as she had said " yes," he would no longer bother her, and she 
 could go .quietly to bed. He only wanted to hear her say " yes." 
 They could talk it over on the morrow. 
 
 "But I ..certainly can't say 'yes* like that," resumed 
 Gervaise. " I don't want you to be able to accuse me later on 
 of having incited you to do a foolish thing. You see, Monsieur 
 Coupeau, it's wrong of you to be obstinate. You don't know 
 yourself what your real feelings are for me. If you didn't see 
 me for a week, you'd get all right again, I bet. Men often 
 marry for a night, the first one ; and then the nights follow on, 
 the days succeed each other, for the rest of their lives, and 
 they're awfully bothered. Sit down there ; I'm willing to talk 
 it over at once." 
 
 Then until one in the morning, in the dark room, and by the 
 faint light of a smoky tallow candle which they forgot to snuff, 
 they talked of their marriage, lowering their voices so as not to 
 wake the two children, Claude and Etienne, who were sleeping, 
 breathing gently, their heads on the same pillow. And 
 Gervaise kept alluding to them, showing them to Coupeau. It 
 was a funny dowry for her to bring him ; she really could not 
 encumber him with two brats. Then she was seized with shame 
 for him. What would they say in the neighbourhood 1 They 
 had known her with her lover ; they knew her story. It would 
 not be decent for them to see him and her get married two 
 months afterwards. Coupeau replied to all this reasoning by 
 shrugging his shoulders. He did not care what the people of 
 the neighbourhood thought ! He did not poke his nose into 
 other people's affairs ; to begin with, he would have been too 
 much afraid of dirtying it ! Well, yes ! she had lived with 
 Lantier before him. What of that ? She did not lead an im- 
 proper life ; she would not bring men into her home, like so 
 many women did, and some of the richest. As for the children, 
 they would continue to grow up, arid he and she would take 
 care of them, of course ! He would never find another woman 
 so courageous, so kind, so full of good qualities. Besides, all
 
 62 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 that was nothing ; she might have rolled about the streets, 
 have been ugly, idle, disgusting, and have had a troop of dirty 
 kids it would have been nothing in his eyes. He wanted her. 
 
 " Yes, I want you," he repeated, bringing his hand down on 
 his knee like a continuous hammering. " You understand, I 
 want you. There's nothing to be said to that, is there ?" 
 
 Little by little, Gervaise gave way. A cowardliness of the 
 heart and senses seized on her, in the midst of that passionate 
 desire with which she felt herself enveloped. She only ventured 
 on the most timid objections, her hands lying idly in her lap, a 
 look of gentleness on her face. From the outside, through the 
 open window, the beautiful June night wafted in a warm 
 breeze, flickering the candle, the long wick of which was burn- 
 ing as black as a cinder. In the great silence pervading the 
 neighbourhood, now hushed in sleep, one only heard the child- 
 like sobbing of a drunken man, lying flat on his back in the 
 middle of the Boulevard ; whilst a very long way off, inside a 
 restaurant, a fiddle was playing a lively quadrille to some 
 belated wedding party a little crystalline music, clear and 
 sharp like a harmonica. Coupeau, seeing the young woman had 
 exhausted her arguments, and that she was silent and smiling 
 vaguely, seized her hands and drew her towards him. She was 
 in one of those moments of abandonment which she so much 
 dreaded, feeling conquered, and too deeply moved to refuse any- 
 thing and cause pain to anyone. But the zinc-worker did not 
 understand that she was yielding herself to him. He contented 
 himself by roughly grasping her wrists, so as to take posses- 
 sion of her ; and they both sighed at this slight pain, which 
 satisfied a little of their love. 
 
 " You'll say ' yes,' won't you 1 " asked he. 
 
 "How you worry me!" she murmured. "You wish itl 
 Well then, 'yes.' Ah! we're perhaps doing a very foolish 
 thing." 
 
 He jumped up, and, seizing her round the waist, kissed her 
 roughly on the face, at random. Then, as this caress caused a 
 noise, be became anxious, and went softly and looked at Claude 
 and Etienne. 
 
 " Hush ! we must be good," said he in a whisper, " and not 
 wake the brats. Good-bye till to-morrow." 
 
 And he went back to his room. Gervaise, all in a tremble, 
 remained seated on the edge of her bed, without thinking of 
 undressing herself for nearly an hour. She was touched; she 
 considered Coupeau was very honourable ; for at one moment
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 63 
 
 she had really thought it was all over, and that he would sleep 
 there. The drunkard below, under the window, was now 
 hoarsely uttering the plaintive cry of some lost animal. The 
 violin in the distance had left off its saucy tune and was now 
 silent. 
 
 The following days, Coupeau sought to get Gervaise to call 
 some evening on his sister in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or ; but 
 the young woman, who was very timid, showed a great dread 
 of this visit to the Lorilleux. She saw perfectly well that the 
 zinc-worker was in reality afraid of them. Yet, he was in no- 
 wise dependent on his sister who was not the eldest. Mother 
 Coupeau would freely give her consent, for she never thwarted 
 her son. Only, the Lorilleux had the reputation among the 
 family, of earning as much as ten francs a day ; and on that 
 ground they exercised a regular authority. Coupeaji would not 
 have dared to marry without their having accepted his wife 
 beforehand. 
 
 "I have spoken to them of you, they know our plans," ex- 
 plained he to Gervaise. " Come now ! what a child you are ! 
 Let's call on them this evening. I've warned you, haven't I ? 
 You'll find my sister rather stiff. Lorilleux, too, isn't always 
 very amiable. In reality, they are greatly annoyed, because, if 
 I marry, I shall no longer take my meals with them, and it'll 
 be an economy the less. But that doesn't matter, they won't 
 turn you out. Do this for me, it's absolutely necessary." 
 
 These words only frightened Gervaise the more. One Satur- 
 day evening, however, she gave in. Coupeau came for her at 
 half-past eight. She had dressed herself in a black dress, a 
 crape shawl with yellow palms, and a white cap trimmed with a 
 little cheap lace. During the six weeks she had been working, 
 she had saved the seven francs for the shawl, and the two and 
 a half francs for the cap ; the dress was an old one cleaned and 
 made up afresh. 
 
 " They're expecting you," said Coupeau to her, as they went 
 round by the Rue des Poissonniers. " Oh ! they're beginning 
 to get used to the idea of my being married. They seem very 
 nice indeed, to-night. And, you know, if you've never seen gold 
 chains made, it'll amuse you to watch them. They just happen 
 to have a pressing order for Monday." 
 
 " They've got gold in their rooms 1 " asked Gervaise. 
 
 " I should think so ; there's some on the walls, on the floor, 
 in fact everywhere." 
 
 They had passed through the arched doorway and crossed
 
 64 THE "ASSOMMOffi." 
 
 the courtyard. The Lorilleux lived on the sixth floor, stair- 
 case B. Coupeau laughingly told her to hold the hand-rail 
 tight and not to leave go of it. She looked up, and blinked her 
 eyes, as she perceived the tall hollow tower of the staircase, 
 lighted by three gas jets, one on every second landing; the last 
 one, right up at the top, looked like a star twinkling in a black 
 sky, whilst the other two cast long flashes of light, of fantastic 
 shapes, among the interminable windings of the stairs. 
 
 -" By Jove ! " said the zinc-worker as he reached the first floor 
 landing, "there's a strong smell of onion soup. Some one's been 
 having onion soup, I'm sure." 
 
 As a matter of fact the grey, dirty, B staircase, with its greasy 
 hand-rail and stairs, and its scratched walls showing the mortar, 
 was still filled with a powerful odour of cooking. On each land- 
 ing passages branched off sonorous with noise, and yellow painted 
 doors, blackened near the locks by dirty hands, were opened ; 
 and, on a level with the window, the sink exhaled a fetid humid- 
 ity, the stench of which mingled with the pungency of the 
 cooked onions. One could hear from the ground floor to the 
 sixth storey the noise of crockery, of saucepans being scoured 
 out and of pans being scraped with spoons to clean them. On 
 the first floor, Gervaise noticed, by a partly open door on which 
 the word " Draughtsman " was written in big letters, two men 
 seated before a table covered with American cloth, and from 
 which the remains of the dinner had just been cleared away, 
 conversing energetically in the midst of the smoke from their 
 pipes. The second and third floors were quieter ; through the 
 chinks in the woodwork one merely heard the sounds of the 
 rocking of a cradle, of a child's smothered cries, and a woman's 
 loud voice flowing with the dull murmur of a stream, without 
 any distinct words being recognisable. And Gervaise read differ- 
 ent names on nailed-up placards : " Madame Gaudron, carder," 
 and farther off: " M. Madinier, manufactory of cardboard boxes." 
 They were fighting on the fourth floor, which shook with the 
 stamping of feet and the upsetting of furniture, accompanied by 
 an awful noise of oaths and blows ; all this, however, did not 
 prevent the neighbours opposite from playing cards, with their 
 door open, so as to get a little air. 
 
 But when Gervaise reached the fifth floor, she had to stop to 
 take breath ; she was not used to going up so high ; that wall 
 for ever turning, the glimpses she had of the lodgings following 
 each other, made her head ache. Besides, a family blocked up 
 the landing ; the father was washing some plates on a little
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 55 
 
 earthenware stove near the sink, whilst the mother, leaning 
 against the handrail, was washing the baby before putting it to 
 bed. Coupeau, however, encouraged the young woman. They 
 were nearly there. And, when he at length reached the sixth 
 landing, he turned round to aid her with a smile. She, with 
 raised head, was trying to find whence proceeded the sound of 
 a voice which she had been listening to from the first stair a 
 clear, piercing voice, dominating the other noises. It came 
 from a room under the roof, where a little old woman was sing- 
 ing as she dressed dolls at thirteen sous. As a tall girl entered 
 a room close by with a pail of water, Gervaise also saw a tumbled 
 bed on which a mau with his coat off lay sprawling, and looking 
 up in the air ; when the door was closed, she read written on 
 a card nailed against it : " Mademoiselle Cle'mence, ironer." 
 Then, right up at the top, feeling short of breath, and with her 
 legs quite worn out, she had the curiosity to lean over the hand- 
 rail. Now, it was the lowest gas-jet which looked like a star at 
 the bottom of the narrow well of the six flights; and the odours 
 and the rumbling caused by the incessant animation of the 
 house, ascended to her as it were in a single breath, scorching 
 her anxious face with a puff of heat, as she paused there as 
 though on the edge of an abyss. 
 
 "We're not there yet," said Coupeau. "Oh! it's quite a 
 journey ! " 
 
 He had'jgone down a long corridor on the left. He turned 
 twice, the first time also to the left, the second time to the right. 
 The corridor still continued, branching off, contracted, the walls 
 full of crevices, with the plaster peeling off, and lighted at dis- 
 'tant intervals by a slender gas-jet.; and the doors all alike, suc- 
 ceeding each other the same as the doors of a prison or a con- 
 vent, and nearly all open, continued to display homes of misery 
 and work, which the hot June evening filled with a reddish 
 mist. At length they reached a small passage in complete 
 darkness. 
 
 " We're there," resumed the zinc- worker. " Be careful ! keep 
 to the wall; there are three stairs." 
 
 And Gervaise carefully took another ten steps in the obscu- 
 rity. She stumbled, and then counted the three stairs. But 
 at the end of the passage Coupeau had opened a door, without 
 knocking. A brilliant light spread over the tiled floor. They 
 entered. 
 
 It was a narrow apartment, and seemed as if it were the con- 
 tinuation of the corridor. A faded woollen curtain, raised up
 
 56 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 just then by a string, divided the place in two. The first part 
 contained a bedstead pushed beneath an angle of the attic ceil- 
 ing, a cast-iron stove still warm from the cooking of the dinner, 
 two chairs, a table and a wardrobe, the cornice of which had 
 had to be sawn off to make it fit in between the door and the 
 bedstead. The second part was fitted Up as the workshop : at 
 the end, a narrow forge with its bellows ; to the right, a vice 
 fixed to the wall beneath some shelves on which pieces of 
 old iron lay scattered ; to the left, near the window, a small 
 workman's bench, encumbered with greasy and very dirty 
 pliers, shears, 1 and microscopical saws. 
 
 " It's us ! " cried Coupeau, advancing as far as the woollen 
 curtain. 
 
 But no one answered at first. Gervaise, deeply affected, 
 moved especially by the thought that she was about to enter a 
 place full of gold, stood behind the workman, stammering, and 
 venturing upon nods of her head by way of bowing. The bril- 
 liant light, a lamp burning on the bench, a brazier full of coals 
 flaring in the forge, increased her confusion still more. She 
 ended, however, by distinguishing Madame Lorilleux little, 
 red-haired and tolerably strong, pulling with all the strength of 
 her short arms, and with the assistance of a big pair of pincers, 
 a thread of black metal which she passed through the holes of a 
 draw-plate fixed to the vice. Seated in front of the bench, 
 Lorilleux, quite as small of stature, but more slender in the 
 shoulders, worked, with the tips of his pliers, with the vivacity 
 of a monkey, at a labour so minute, that it was impossible to 
 follow it between his scraggy fingers. It was the husband who 
 the first raised his head a head with scanty locks, the face of 
 the yellow tinge of old wax, long, and with an ailing expression. 
 
 " Ah ! it's you ; well, well ! " murmured he. " We're in a 
 hurry, you know. Don't come into the workroom, you'd be in 
 our way. Stay in the bedroom." 
 
 And he resumed his minute task, his face again in the re- 
 flection of a glass globe full of green-coloured water, through 
 which the lamp shed a circle of bright light over his work. 
 
 " Take the chairs ! " called out Madame Lorilleux in her turn. 
 " It's that lady, isn't it ? Very well, very well ! " 
 
 She had rolled the wire, she carried it to the forge, and then, 
 reviving the fire of the brazier with a large wooden fan. she pro- 
 ceeded to temper the wire before passing it through the last 
 holes of the draw-plate. 
 
 Coupeau fetched the two chairs, and seated Gervaise close to
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." . 57 
 
 the curtain. The room was so narrow that there was not space 
 for him to sit beside her. So he placed his chair a little behind 
 hers, and leant forward to give her explanations of the work. 
 The young woman, abashed by the strange reception accorded 
 by the Lorilleux, feeling uneasy beneath their covert glances, 
 had a singing in her ears which prevented her from hearing. 
 She thought the woman looked very old for her thirty years, 
 with her cross-grained manner, her dirty appearance, and her 
 hair rolled together, looking like a cow's tail as it hung over her 
 unfastened linen jacket. The husband, only a year his wife's 
 senior, appeared quite an old man, with his thin wicked-looking 
 lips, as he sat there in his shirt sleeves and his naked feet in a 
 pair of old trodden down slippers. But what disheartened her 
 the most was the smallness of the workroom, the besmeared 
 walls, the tarnished metal tools, all the black dirt hanging about 
 there amongst the odds and ends of a dealer in old iron. It 
 was terribly hot. Beads of perspiration hung about the man's 
 greenish face, whilst Madame Lorilleux ended by taking off her 
 loose linen jacket, exposing her bare arms, and her chemise 
 clinging to her drooping breasts. 
 
 " And the gold ? " asked Gervaise in a low voice. 
 
 Her anxious glances searched the corners, and sought amongst 
 all that filth for the resplendence she had dreamt of. But Cou- 
 peau burst out laughing. 
 
 " Gold ?" said he ; " why, there's some, there's some more, 
 and there's some at your feet ! " 
 
 He pointed successively to the fine wire at which his sister 
 was working, and to another roll of wire, similar to the ordinary 
 iron wire, hanging against the wall, close to the vice ; then, 
 going down on all fours, he picked up, beneath the wooden 
 screen which covered the tiled floor of the workroom, a piece 
 of waste, a tiny fragment resembling the point of a rusty needle. 
 But Gervaise protested. It could not be gold that black-looking 
 inetal, as ugly as iron ! He had to bite it and show her the 
 shining mark left by his tooth. And he resumed his explana- 
 tions : the masters supplied the gold in wire, already alloyed ; 
 the workmen first of all passed it through the draw-plate to get 
 it the required thickness, being careful to temper it five or six 
 times during the operation, so that it should not break. Oh ! 
 it required a good fist, and practice ! His sister would not let 
 her husband have anything to do with the draw-plates, because 
 he coughed. She had famous arms ; ho had seen her draw the 
 gold as fine as a hair.
 
 58 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 Lorilleux, seized with a fit of coughing, almost doubled up 
 on his stool. In the midst of the paroxysm, he spoke, and said 
 in a choking voice, still without looking at Gervaise, as though 
 he was merely mentioning the thing to. himself : 
 
 " I'm making the herring-bone chain." 
 
 Coupeau obliged Gervaise to get up. She might draw nearer 
 and see. The chain-maker consented with a grunt. He wound 
 the wire prepared by his wife round a mandrel, a very thin 
 steel rod. Then he sawed gently, cutting the wire the whole 
 length of the mandrel, each turn forming a link, which he 
 soldered. The links were laid on a large, piece of charcoal. 
 He wetted them with a drop of borax, taken from the bottom 
 of a broken glass beside him ; and he rapidly made them red- 
 hot at the lamp, beneath the horizontal flame produced by the 
 blow-pipe. Then, when he had soldered about a hundred links, 
 he returned once more to his minute work, pressing against the 
 edge of the block, a small piece of board which the friction of his 
 hands had polished. He bent each link almost double with the 
 pliers, squeezed one end close, inserted it in the last link 
 already in place, and then, with the aid of a point, opened out 
 again the end he had squeezed ; and he did this with a con- 
 tinuous regularity, the links joining each other so rapidly that 
 the chain gradually grew beneath Gervaise's gaze, without her 
 being able to follow, or well understand how it was done. 
 
 " That's the herring-bone chain," said Coupeau. " There's 
 also the long link, the cable, the plain ring, and the spiral. 
 But that's the herring-bone. Lorilleux only makes the herring- 
 bone chain." 
 
 The latter chuckled with satisfaction. He exclaimed, as he 
 continued squeezing the links, invisible between his black finger- 
 nails : 
 
 " Listen to me, Young Cassis ! I was making a calculation 
 this morning. I commenced work when I was twelve years old, 
 you know. Well ! can you guess how long a herring-bone chain 
 I must have made up till to-day ? " 
 
 He raised his pale face, and blinked his red eye-lids. 
 
 " Twenty-six thousand feet, do you hear ? Two leagues ! 
 
 That's something ! a herring-bone chain two leagues long ! 
 
 It's enough to twist round the necks of all the women of the 
 
 , neighbourhood. And, you know, it's still increasing. I hope 
 
 to make it long enough to reach from Paris to Versailles." 
 
 Gervaise had returned to her seat, disenchanted and thinking 
 everything very ugly. She smiled just to please the Lorilleux.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 59 
 
 What most made her feel ill at ease was the silence maintained 
 respecting her marriage, that important matter to her, and but 
 for which she would certainly never have come. The Lorilleux 
 continued to treat her as an unwelcome inquisitive person 
 brought by Coupeau. And the conversation being at length 
 started, it turned solely on the different lodgers of the house. 
 Madame Lorilleux asked her brother if he had heard any fight- 
 ing as he came upstairs. Those B6nards knocked each other 
 about every day. The husband came home drunk like a pig ; 
 the wife also had her faults : she said the most disgusting 
 things. 
 
 Then, they talked of the draughtsman of the first floor, that 
 big sponger Baudequin, a fellow who gave himself airs, who 
 owed money right and left, who was always smoking and always 
 having a row with his friends. M. Madinier's cardboard box 
 manufactory was only just managing to jog along. He had 
 only the day before dismissed two more of his workwomen. 
 It would be a blessing if he smashed up, for he squandered 
 everything himself, and let his children go about half-naked. 
 Madame Gaudron carded the wool of her mattresses in a funny 
 manner : she was again in the family way, which was scarcely 
 decent at her age. The landlord had given notice to the 
 Coquets, of the fifth floor; they owed three quarters' rent, 
 besides which, they persisted in lighting their stoVe on the 
 landing ; even the Saturday before, Mademoiselle Kemanjou, 
 the old lady of the sixth floor, had only just got down in time 
 to prevent little Linguerlot from being burnt to death, as she 
 was going out to deliver her dolls. As for Mademoiselle 
 Cl&nence, the ironer, she behaved as she thought proper ; but, 
 in spite of-all that, one could not deny that she adored animals, 
 and that she had a heart of gold. But what a pity it was such 
 a fine girl should go with all the men ! They would certainly 
 finish by meeting her one night walking the streets. 
 
 " Look, here's one," said Lorilleux to his wife, giving her the 
 piece of chain he had been working on ever since his lunch. 
 " You can trim it." And he added, with the persistence of a 
 man who does not easily relinquish a joke : fl Another four feet 
 and a half. That brings me nearer to Versailles." 
 
 Madame Lorilleux, after tempering it again, trimmed it by 
 passing it through the regulating draw-plate. Then she put it 
 in a little copper saucepan with a long handle, full of lye-water, 
 and placed it over the fire of the forge. Gervaise, again pushed 
 forward by Coupeau, had to follow this last operation. When
 
 60 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 the chain was thoroughly cleansed, it appeared a dull red colour. 
 It was finished, and ready to be delivered. 
 
 " They're always delivered like that, in their rough state," 
 the zinc- worker explained. " The polishers rub them afterwards 
 with cloths." 
 
 But Gervaise felt her courage failing her. The heat, more 
 and more intense, was suffocating her. They kept the door 
 shut, because Lorilleux caught cold from the least draught. 
 Then, as they still did not speak of the marriage, she wanted to 
 go away, and gently pulled Coupeau's jacket. He understood. 
 Besides, he also was beginning to feel ill at ease and vexed at 
 their affectation of silence. 
 
 " Well, we're off," said he. " We mustn't keep you from 
 your work." 
 
 He moved about for a moment, waiting, hoping for a word, 
 or some allusion or other. At length he decided to broach the 
 subject himself. 
 
 " I say, Lorilleux, we're counting on you ; you'll be my wife's 
 witness." 
 
 The chain-maker pretended, with a chuckle, to be greatly 
 surprised ; whilst his wife, leaving her draw-plates, placed her- 
 self in the middle of the workroom. 
 
 " So it's serious, then]" murmured he. " That confounded 
 Young Cassis, one never knows whether he is joking or not." 
 
 "Ah! yes, madame's the person," said the wife in her turn, 
 as she stared rudely at Gervaise. " Well, we've no advice to 
 give you, we haven't. It's a funny idea to go and get married, 
 all the same. Anyhow, it's your own wish. When it doesn't 
 succeed, one's only oneself to blame, that's all. And it doesn't 
 often succeed, not often, not often." 
 
 She uttered these last words 'slower and slower, and, shaking 
 her head, she looked from the young woman's face to her hands, 
 and then to her feet, as though she had wished to undress her, 
 and see the very pores of her skin. She must have found her 
 better than she expected. 
 
 "My brother is perfectly free," she continued more stiffly. 
 " No doubt, the family might have wished one always makes 
 projects. But things take such funny turns. For myself, I 
 don't want to have any unpleasantness. Had he brought us 
 the lowest of the low, I should merely have said : * Marry her 
 and go to blazes ! ' He was not badly off though, here, with us. 
 He's fat enough ; one can very well see he didn't fast much ; 
 and he always found his soup hot, at the very minute. I say,
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 61 
 
 Lorilleux, don't you think rnadame's like The^ese you know 
 who I mean, that woman who used to live opposite, and who 
 died of consumption 1 " 
 
 " Yes, there's a certain resemblance," replied the chain-maker. 
 
 " And you've got two children, madame 1 Now, I must admit 
 I said to my brother : * I can't understand how you can want 
 to marry a woman who's got two children/ You mustn't be 
 offended if I consult his interests ; it's only natural. You don't 
 look very strong either. Don't you think, Lorilleux, madame 
 doesn't look very strong ? " 
 
 " No, no, she's not strong." 
 
 They did not mention her leg ; but Gervaise understood by 
 their side glances, and the curling of their lips, that they were 
 alluding to it. She stood before them, wrapped in her thin 
 shawl with the yellow palms, i replying in monosyllables, as 
 though in the presence of her judges. Coupeau, seeing she 
 was suffering, ended by exclaiming : 
 
 " All that's nothing to do with it. What you say and nothing 
 are the same thing. The wedding will take place on Saturday, 
 July 29. I calculated by the almanac. Is it settled 1 does it 
 suit you ? " 
 
 " Oh, it's all the same to us," said his sister. " There was 
 no necessity to consult us. I sha'n't prevent Lorilleux being 
 witness. I only want peace and quietness." 
 
 Gervaise, hanging her head, not knowing what to do with 
 herself, had put the toe of her boot through one of the openings 
 in the wooden screen which covered the tiled floor of the work- 
 room ; then, afraid of having disturbed something when she 
 withdrew it, she stooped down and felt about with her hand. 
 Lorilleux hastily brought the lamp, and he examined her fingers 
 suspiciously. 
 
 " You must be careful," said he ; " the tiny bits of gold 
 stick to the shoes, and get carried away without one know- 
 ing it." 
 
 There was quite a fuss. The masters did not allow a milli- 
 gramme for waste ; and he showed the hare's foot, with which 
 he brushed up the particles of gold which remained on the 
 block, and the skin spread over his knees, placed there pur- 
 posely to receive them. Twice a week the workroom was care- 
 fully swept out ; they collected all the filth and burnt it, and then 
 sifted the ashes, in which they found every month from twenty- 
 five to thirty francs' worth of gold. Madame Lorilleux did not 
 take her eyes off Gervaise's shoes.
 
 62 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 " There's no occasion to get angry," murmured she, with an 
 amiable smile. " Perhaps madame would not mind looking at 
 the soles of her shoes." 
 
 And Gervaise, turning very red, sat down again, and, holding 
 up her feet, showed that there was nothing clinging to them. 
 Coupeau had opened the door exclaiming : " Good-night ! " in 
 an abrupt tone of voice. He called to her from the corridor. 
 Then she in her turn went off, after stammering a few polite 
 words : she hoped to see them again, and that they would all 
 agree well together. But the Lorilleux had already resumed 
 their work, in the black hole of a workroom, where the little 
 forge shone, like a final piece of coal coming to a white heat in 
 the high temperature of a furnace. The wife, with her chemise 
 slipping from one shoulder, her skin reddened by the reflection 
 of the brazier, was drawing another wire, each effort swelling 
 out her neck, the muscles of which were working like strings. 
 The husband, bending beneath the greenish gleam of the globe 
 of water, commenced a fresh piece of chain, forming each link 
 with the pliers, squeezing it at one end, inserting it in the pre- 
 vious one, and then opening out the end again with the aid of 
 a point, continuously, mechanically, without wasting a move- 
 ment to wipe the perspiration from his face. 
 
 When Gervaise emerged from the corridor on to the landing, 
 she could not help saying, with tears in her eyes : 
 
 "That doesn't promise much happiness." 
 
 Coupeau shook his head furiously. He would make Lorilleux 
 smart for that evening. Had anyone ever seen such a miserly 
 fellow *? to think that they were going to walk off with two or 
 three grains of his gold dust ! All the fuss they made was 
 from pure avarice. His sister thought, perhaps, that he would 
 never marry, so as to enable her to economise four sous on 
 her dinner every day. However, it would take place all the 
 same on July 29. He did not care a hang for them ! 
 
 But Gervaise, as they went downstairs, felt heavy at heart, 
 and troubled with a stupid fear, which made her anxiously 
 examine all the dark shadows of the staircase. At this hour, it 
 was wrapped in silence, deserted, and only lighted by the gas- 
 jet of the second-floor landing/ the small flame of which looked 
 down that well of gloom, like the faint glimmer of a night-light. 
 Behind the closed doors, one could distinguish in the great 
 silence the heavy slumbers of the workmen who had gone to 
 bed immediately after their evening meal; yet a smothered 
 laugh issued from the ironer's room, whilst a feeble ray of light
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 63 
 
 shone through Mademoiselle Remanjou's key-hole, as, with the 
 click-click of her scissors, she continued to cut out the dresses 
 of her thirteen-sou dolls. A child continued crying down 
 below, at Madame Gaudrou's ; and the sinks emitted a stronger 
 stench in the dark and dumb peacefulness. 
 
 Then, down in the courtyard, whilst Coupeau, in a sing-song 
 voice, asked to have the door opened, Gervaise turned round 
 and looked once more at the house. It seemed larger still 
 beneath the moonless sky. The grey fa9ades, as though 
 cleansed of their leprosy and besmeared with shadow, spread 
 out and ascended ; and they now appeared more bare, and com- 
 pletely flat, denuded as they were of the rags, which, in the 
 day-time, hung out to dry in the sun. The closed windows 
 showed no sign of life. Here and there a few vividly lighted 
 up looked like eyes, and gave a squinting appearance to certain 
 corners. Over each entrance, from the bottom to the top, one 
 above the other, the windows of the six landings, whitened with 
 a feeble glimmer, raised a narrow tower of light. A ray from a 
 lamp in the cardboard box manufactory on the second floor 
 spread a yellow trail across the paved courtyard, piercing the 
 darkness which enveloped the work-shops on the ground floor. 
 And in the depths of this darkness, in the damp corner, drops 
 of water fell one by one, with a sonorous noise in the midst 
 of the prevailing silence, from the tap not properly turned off. 
 Then it seemed to Gervaise that the house was upon her, 
 crushing her with its weight, and feeling icy cold against her 
 shoulders. It was only her stupid fear a childish fancy at 
 which she smiled directly afterwards. 
 
 " Take care ! " cried Coupeau. And in order to get out, she 
 was obliged to jump over a great pool of water which had flowed 
 from the dyer's. That day the pool was blue, of the deep azure 
 of a summer sky, which the doorkeeper's little night-lamp 
 lighted up with a multitude of stars.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 did not want to have any wedding-party. What was 
 the use of spending money ? Besides, she still felt somewhat 
 ashamed ; it seemed to her quite unnecessary to parade the 
 marriage before the whole neighbourhood. But Coupeau cried 
 out at that. One could not be married without having a feed. 
 He did not care a button for the people of the neighbourhood ! 
 Oh ! merely something very simple a little outing in the 
 afternoon, previous to going and having a bite at no matter 
 what eating-house. And no music at dessert, most decidedly ; 
 no clarionet to make the ladies dance. Only for the sake of 
 having a few drinks together before going home to by-by, each 
 in his own crib. 
 
 The zinc-worker, chaffing and joking, at length got the young 
 woman to consent on promising her that there should be no 
 larks. He would keep his eye on the glasses, to prevent sun- 
 strokes. Then he organised a sort of pic-nic at five francs a 
 head, at the "Silver Windmill," kept by Auguste, on the 
 Boulevard de la Chapelle. He was a small publican, of moderate 
 charges, and had a dancing place in the rear of his back shop, 
 beneath the three acacias in his courtyard. They would be 
 very comfortable on the first floor. During ten days he got 
 hold of guests in the house where his sister lived in the Rue de 
 la Goutte-d'Or M. Madinier, Mademoiselle Remanjou, Madame 
 Gaudron and her husband. He even ended by getting Gervaise 
 to consent to the presence of two of his comrades Bibi-the- 
 Smoker and My-Boots. No doubt My-Boots was a boozer ; but 
 then he had such a funny appetite that he was always asked to 
 join those sort of gatherings, just for the sight of the caterer's 
 mug when he beheld that bottomless pit swallowing his twelve 
 pounds of bread, t The young woman, on her side, promised to 
 bring her employer, Madame Fauconnier, and the Bodies, some 
 very agreeable people. On counting, they found there would be
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 65 
 
 fifteen to sit down to table, which was quite enough. When 
 there are too many, they always wind up by quarrelling. 
 
 Coupeau, however, had no money. Without wishing to do 
 the grand, he intended to behave handsomely. He borrowed 
 fifty francs of his employer. Out of that, he first of all pur- 
 chased the wedding-ring a twelve franc gold wedding-ring, 
 which Lorilleux procured for him at the wholesale price of nine 
 francs. He then bought himself a frock coat, a pair of trousers, 
 and a waistcoat, at a tailor's in the Rue Myrrha, to whom he 
 gave merely twenty-five francs on account ; his patent leather 
 shoes and his hat were still good enough. When he had put 
 by the ten francs for his and Gervaise's share of the feast the 
 two children not being charged for he had exactly six francs 
 left the price of a mass at the altar of the poor. He was cer- 
 tainly no friend of the priests, and it almost broke bis heart to 
 take his six francs to those gormandizers, who had no need of 
 his money to prevent their throats from getting dry. But a 
 marriage without a mass is, in spite of all one may say, no 
 marriage at all. He went himself to the church to make a 
 bargain ; and for an hour he argued with a little old priest in a 
 dirty cassock, and who was as big a thief as a greengrocer. He 
 felt inclined to pommel him. Then for a joke he asked him if 
 he could not find in his shop a second-hand mass, not too much 
 knocked about, and which would still do for an easy-going 
 couple. The little old priest, grunting that God would have 
 no pleasure in blessing his union, ended by promising him his 
 mass for five francs. It was twenty sous saved, and that was 
 all the money that was left him. 
 
 Gervaise also wanted to look decent. As soon as the marriage 
 was settled, she made her arrangements, worked extra time in 
 the evenings, and managed to put thirty francs OD one side. 
 She had a great longing for a little silk mantle marked thirteen 
 francs in the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonniere. She treated her- 
 self to it, and then bought for ten francs of the husband of a 
 washerwoman who had died in Madame Fauconnier's house a 
 blue woollen dress, which she altered to fit herself. With the 
 seven francs remaining she procured a pair of cotton gloves, a 
 rose for her cap, and some shoes for Claude, her eldest boy. 
 Fortunately the youngsters' blouses were passable. She spent 
 four nights cleaning everything, and mending the smallest holes 
 in her stockings and her chemise. 
 
 On the Friday night, the eve of the great day, Gervaise and 
 Coupeau had still a good deal of running about to do up till 
 
 E
 
 66 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 eleven o'clock, after returning home from their work. Then, 
 before separating for the night, they spent an hour together in 
 the young woman's room, happy at being about to be released 
 from their awkward position. In spite of their resolution not 
 to trouble themselves about their neighbours, they had ended 
 by putting their hearts into everything, and thoroughly tiring 
 themselves out. When they wished each other good night, 
 they were almost falling asleep where they stood ; but, all the 
 same, they both heaved a great sigh of relief. Now it was all 
 settled. Qoupeau's witnesses were to be M. Madinier and Bibi- 
 the-Smoker ; whilst Gervaise was counting on Lorilleux and 
 Boche. The six of them were to go quietly to the mayor's and 
 to the church, without lugging a number of other people behind 
 them. The bridegroom's two sisters had even declared that 
 they would stay at home, their presence not being at all neces- 
 sary. Mother Coupeau alone had burst out crying, saying that, 
 sooner than not be there, she would go before them and hide 
 herself in a corner; and so they promised to take her. As for 
 the general meeting of the wedding party, it was fixed for one 
 o'clock, at the " Silver Windmill." From there they would go 
 and get an appetite on the plain of Saint-Denis ; they would 
 take the train and return on foot along the high road. The 
 gathering promised to be a very pleasant one ; not a wholesale 
 booze, but a bit of fun something nice and respectable. 
 
 Whilst dressing himself on the Saturday morning, Coupeau 
 felt uneasy at having only his twenty sou piece. He had just 
 recollected that, as a matter of politeness, he ought to offer the 
 witnesses a glass of wine and a slice of ham whilst waiting for 
 the dinner hour. Then, perhaps, there would be other unfore- 
 seen expenses. Twenty sous were decidedly not sufficient. So, 
 after taking Claude and Etienne to Madame Boche, who was to 
 bring them to the dinner in the evening, he hastened to the 
 Hue de la Goutte-d'Or, and boldly went and borrowed ten francs 
 of Lorilleux. True, he could scarcely get thy words out of his 
 mouth, for he knew the grimace his brother-in-law would make. 
 The latter grunted, chuckled in an ill-natured way, and finally 
 lent two five franc pieces. But Coupeau heard his sister mutter 
 between her teeth that " it was beginning well." 
 
 The marriage at the mayor's was to take place at half-past 
 ten. It was beautiful weather a storm-presaging sun which 
 seemed to roast the streets. So as not to be stared at, the 
 bride and bridegroom, the old mother, and the four witnesses 
 separated into two bands. Gervaise walked in front with
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 67 
 
 Lorilleux, who gave her his arm ; whilst M. Madinier followed 
 with mother Coupeau. Then, twenty steps behind,' on the 
 opposite side of the way, came Coupeau, Boche, and Bibi-the- 
 Smoker. These three were in black frock coats, walking erect, 
 and swinging their arms. Boche had on a pair of yellow 
 trousers ; Bibi-the-Smoker, buttoned up to his neck, without a 
 waistcoat, showed only a bit of neckerchief rolled round like a 
 piece of rope. M. Madinier alone wore a dress coat a big 
 dress coat with square cut tails ; and the passers-by stopped to 
 look at the gentleman escorting fat mother Coupean, in a green 
 shawl and a black cap with red ribbons. Gervaise, very gentle 
 and gay, in her blue dress, her shoulders tightly enveloped in 
 her scanty little mantle, listened complacently to the chucklings 
 indulged in by Lorilleux, lost in the midst of an immense over- 
 coat, in spite of the heat ; now and again, at the street corners, 
 she slightly turned her head, and smiled knowingly at Coupeau, 
 who felt ill at ease in his new clothes, shining in the sun. 
 
 Though they walked very slowly, they arrived at the mayor's 
 -quite half an hour too soon. And as the mayor was late, their 
 turn was not reached till close upon eleven o'clock. They sat 
 down on some chairs and waited, in a corner of the apartment, 
 looking by turns at the high ceiling and the bare walls, talking 
 low, and over-politely pushing back their chairs, each time that 
 one of the attendants passed. Yet, among themselves, they 
 called the mayor a sluggard. He was no doubt at his blonde's, 
 having his gouty limbs rubbed ; perhaps also he had inad- 
 vertently swallowed his official sash. But when the magistrate 
 appeared, they all rose respectfully. They were, however, 
 motioned back to their seats. Then they assisted at three 
 marriages, lost amongst three middle -class wedding parties, 
 with brides dressed in white, little girls with their hair in curls, 
 young ladies wearing pink sashes, and interminable processions 
 of ladies and gentlemen all dressed in their Sunday best, and 
 looking highly respectable. 
 
 When at length they were called, they almost missed being 
 married altogether, Bibi-the-Smoker having disappeared. Boche 
 discovered him outside smoking his pipe. ,Well ! they were a 
 nice lot inside .there to humbug people about like that, just 
 because one hadn't yellow kid gloves to shove under their noses.! 
 And the various formalities the reading of the Code, the 
 different questions to be put, the signing of the documents 
 were all got through so rapidly that they looked at each other 
 with an idea that they had been robbed of a good half of tlio
 
 68 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 ceremony. Gervaise, dizzy, her heart full, pressed her handker- 
 chief to her lips. Mother Coupeau wept bitterly. All had 
 signed the register, writing their names in big straggling letters, 
 with the exception of the bridegroom, who, not being able to 
 write, had put his cross. They each gave four sous for the 
 poor. When an attendant handed Coupeau the marriage 
 certificatOj the latter, prompted by Gervaise, who nudged his 
 elbow, handed him another five sous. 
 
 It was a long walk from the mayor's to the church. On the 
 way the men had some beer, whilst mother Coupeau and Ger- 
 vaise took some black currant syrup and water. And they had 
 to follow a long street down which the sun shone fiercely, with- 
 out leaving the least bit of shade. The beadle was waiting for 
 them in the middle of the empty church ; he pushed them to- 
 wards a little chapel, asking them angrily whether it was to 
 show their contempt for religion that they arrived so late. A 
 priest looking sulky, his face pale with hunger, advanced with 
 great strides, preceded by a clerk trotting along in a dirty sur- 
 pliee. The priest hurried through the mass, gobbling up the 
 Latin phrases, turning about, stooping, spreading out his arms 
 all in great haste, and with side glances at the bride and bride- 
 groom and their witnesses. In front of the altar, the bride and 
 bridegroom feeling very ill at ease, not knowing when they had 
 to kneel, when to stand up, when to sit down, waited for signs 
 from the clerk. The witnesses, in order to be decent, stood up 
 all the time, whilst mother Coupeau, again seized with her fit 
 of weeping, dropped her tears into the open church service 
 which she had borrowed from a neighbour. However, twelve 
 o'clock had struck, the last mass had been said, and the church 
 gradually resounded with the tread of the sacristans' foot steps and 
 the noise of chairs being put back in their places. The high 
 altar was evidently being got ready for some grand religious 
 ceremony, for one could hear the hammers of the upholsterers 
 who were nailing up the hangings. And in the depths of the 
 out-of-the-way chapel, amidst the dust caused by the beadle 
 who was sweeping around, the priest with the sulky look passed 
 his bony hands over Gervaise's and Coupeau 's bent heads, and 
 seemed to be uniting them in the midst of a removal. When 
 the wedding party had again signed a register in the vestry, 
 and were once more out in the sunshine beneath the porch, they 
 stood there for a moment bewildered and all out of breath at 
 having been despatched so quickly. 
 
 " There ! " said Coupeau with an uneasy laugh.
 
 COUPEAU AFFIXING A CROSS TO THE REGISTER OF HIS MARRIAGE 
 WITH GERVAISE BEFORE THE MAYOR. p..68.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 69 
 
 He wriggled himself about unable to find something funny to 
 say. However, he added : "Well ! it doesn't take long. They 
 do it in double quick time. It's like at the dentist's : you've 
 no time to call out, they marry without pain." 
 
 " Yes, yes, it's a fine piece of work," murmured Lorilleux 
 chuckling. "You're joined in five minutes 'and you can't be 
 undone for the rest of your life. Ah ! poor Young Cassis ! v 
 
 And the four witnesses patted the zinc-worker on the shoulders, 
 whilst he drew himself up. During this time Gervaise smilingly 
 embraced mother Coupeau, her eyes full of tears, however. In 
 answer to the old woman's broken words, she said : 
 
 " Don't be afraid, I shall do my best. If anything goes 
 wrong it won't be my fault. No, that's very certain; I long too 
 much to be happy. Anyhow, it's done now, isn't it ? It's for 
 him and I to agree together and do our best to help each other." 
 
 Then they went straight to the "Silver Windmill." Coupeau 
 had taken his wife's arm. They walked quickly, laughing as 
 though carried away, quite two hundred steps before the others, 
 without noticing the houses, or the passers-by, or the vehicles. 
 The deafening noises of the faubourg sounded like bells in their 
 ears. When they reached the wine-shop, Coupeau at once 
 ordered two bottles of wine, some bread and some slices of ham, 
 to be served in the little glazed closet on the ground floor, 
 without plates or table cloth, simply to have a snack. Then, 
 seeing that Boche and Bibi-the-Smoker appeared to be really 
 hungry, he ordered a third bottle an-I a piece of Brie cheese. 
 Mother Coupeau. had no appetite, she was in too choking a 
 condition to be able to eat. Gervaise, who was dying of 
 thirst, drank several large glasses of water just tinged with 
 wine. 
 
 " I'll settle for this," said Coupeau, going at once to the bar, 
 where he paid four francs and five sous. 
 
 It was now one o'clock and the other guests began to arrive. 
 Madame Fauconnier, a fat woman, still good looking, first put 
 in an appearance; she wore a chintz dress with a flowery 
 pattern, a pink tie and a cap over-trimmed with flowers. Next 
 came Mademoiselle Remanjou, looking very thin in the eteinal 
 black dress which she seemed to keep on even when she went 
 to bed; and the two Gaudrons the husband, like some heavy 
 animal and almost bursting his brown jacket at the slightest 
 movement, the wife, an enormous woman, whose figure indicated 
 evident signs of an approaching maternity, and whose stiff violet 
 coloured skirt still more increased her rotundity. Coupeau
 
 70 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 explained that they were not to wait for My -Boots ; his com- 
 rade would joiii the party on the Route de Saint-Denis. 
 
 " Well ! " exclaimed Madame Lerat as she entered, " it'll pour 
 in torrents soon ! That'll be pleasant ! " 
 
 And she called every one to the door of the wine-shop to see 
 the clouds as black as ink- which were rising rapidly to the south 
 of Paris. Madame Lerat, the eldest of the Coupeaus, was a tall 
 lean woman of masculine appearance, who talked through her 
 nose, and was slovenly attired in a puce-coloured dress too big 
 for her, the long fringe on which made her resemble a thin 
 poodle just emerged from the water. She handled her parasol 
 like a stick. When she had kissed Gervaise, she resumed : 
 
 " You've no idea, it's so stingingly hot in the street. It's 
 just as though fire was being thrown in your face." 
 
 Every one then declared that they had felt the storm coming 
 on for a long while. When they came out of church, M. Madi- 
 nier had seen perfectly well what they had to expect. Lorilleux 
 related that his corns had kept him awake ever since three 
 o'clock in the morning. Besides it could not finish otherwise ; 
 the last three days had been really too warm. 
 
 " Oh ! perhaps it will pass over," repeated Coupeau, standing 
 up in the doorway, anxiously looking at the sky. " We're only 
 waiting for my sister ; if she would make haste and come, we 
 might start all the same." 
 
 Madame Lorilleux was indeed behind time. Madame Lerat 
 had called in upon her so that they might come together ; but, 
 as she found her putting on her stays, they had had a bit of a 
 row. The tall widow added in her brother's ear : 
 
 " I just left her there. She's in such a temper ! You'll see 
 how she looks ! " 
 
 And the wedding party had to wait a quarter of an hour 
 longer, walking about the wine-shop, elbowed and jostled in the 
 midst of the men who entered to drink a glass of wine at the 
 bar. ,Now and again, Boche, or Madame Faucormier, or Bibi- 
 the-Smoker, left the others, and went to the edge of the pave- 
 ment, looking up at the sky. The storm was not passing over 
 at all ; a darkness was coming on, and puffs of wind sweeping 
 along the ground, raised little clouds of white dust. At the 
 first clap of thunder, Mademoiselle Rernanjou made the sign of 
 the cross. All the glances were anxiously directed to the clock 
 over the looking-glass : it was twenty minutes to two. 
 
 " Go it ! " cried Coupeau. " It's the angels who're weeping." 
 
 A gush of rain swept the pavement, along which some women
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 71 
 
 flew, holding down their skirts with both hands. And it was 
 in the midst of this first shower that Madame Lorilleux at length 
 arrived, furious and out of breath, and struggling on the thres- 
 hold with her umbrella that would not close. 
 
 "Did any one ever see such a thing?" she exclaimed. "It 
 caught me just at the door. I felt inclined to go upstairs agam 
 and take my things off. I should have been wise had I dono 
 so. Ah ! it's a pretty wedding ! I said how it would be. I 
 wanted to put it off till next Saturday ; and it rains because 
 they wouldn't listen to me ! So much the better, so much the 
 better ! I wish the sky would burst ! " 
 
 Coupeau tried to pacify her. But she sent him to the right 
 about. He would not pay for her dress if it were spoilt 1 She 
 had on a black silk dress, in which she was nearly choking , the 
 body, too tight fitting, was almost bursting the button-holes, 
 and was cutting her across the shoulders ; while the skirt only 
 allowed her to take very short steps in walking. Yet, the other 
 ladies of the party looked at her, pursing their lips and seem- 
 ingly much affected by the gorgeousness of her costume. She 
 did not even appear to see Gervaise seated beside mother Cou- 
 peau. She called Lorilleux and asked him for his handkerchief; 
 then, going into a corner of the shop, she carefully wiped off 
 one by one the drops of rain which had fallen on the silk. 
 
 The shower had abruptly ceased. The darkness increased, it 
 was almost like night a livid night rent at times by large flashes 
 of lightning. Bibi-the-Smoker said laughingly that it would 
 certainly rain priests. Then the storm burst forth with extreme 
 violence. For half an hour the rain came down in bucketsful, 
 and the thunder rumbled unceasingly. The men standing up 
 before the door contemplated the grey veil of the downpour, the 
 swollen gutters, the splashes of water caused by the rain beat- 
 ing into the puddles. The women feeling frightened had sat 
 down again^ holding their hands before their eyes. They no 
 longer conversed, they were too upset. A jest Boche made 
 about the thunder, saying that Saint Peter was sneezing up 
 there, failed to raise a smile. But, when the thunder-claps be- 
 came lest frequent and gradually died away in the distance, the 
 wedding guests began to get impatient, enraged against the 
 storm, cursing and shaking their fists at the clouds. A fine 
 and interminable rain now poured down from the sky which had 
 become an ashy grey. 
 
 " It's past two o'clock," cried Madame Lorilleux. " We can't 
 stop here though for over."
 
 72 THE "ASSOMMOIR," 
 
 Mademoiselle Remaujou having suggested going into the 
 country all the same, even though they went no farther than 
 the moat of the fortifications, the others scouted the idea : the 
 roads would be in a nice state, one would not even he able to 
 sit down on the grass ; besides, it did not seem to be all over 
 yet, there might perhaps be another downpour. Coupeau, who 
 had been watching a workman completely soaked, yet quietly 
 walking along in the rain, murmured : 
 
 " If that animal My-Boots is waiting for us on the Route de 
 Saint-Denis, he won't cafcch a sunstroke." 
 
 That made some of them laugh ; but the general ill-humour 
 increased. It was becoming ludicrous. They must decide on 
 something. They could not possibly intend to look at the whites 
 of each other's eyes, as they were doing, until the dinner hour ar- 
 rived. Then, for some little while, in face of the obstinate shower, 
 they all puzzled their brains trying to think of something 
 to do. Bibi-the-Smoker proposed a game at cards ; Boche, who 
 was of a sly and rather wanton nature, knew a very funny little 
 game, that of -playing at confession ; Madame Gaudron talked 
 of going and eating some onion tart at a place she knew in the 
 Chaussee Clignancourt ; Madame Lerat would have preferred 
 story-telling ; Gaudron was not a bit dull, he felt very comfort- 
 able there, and merely offered to sit down to dinner at once. 
 And, at each proposal, they wrangled and got more and more 
 angry : it was stupid, it would send them all to sleep, they 
 would be taken for children. Then, as Lorilleux, wishing to 
 put in his word, suggested something very simple, a walk along 
 the exterior Boulevards as far as the Pere-Lachaise cemetery, 
 where they might go and see the tomb of Heloise and Abelard, 
 if there was time, Madame Lorilleux exploded, no longer able to 
 restrain herself. She was off, she was ! That's what she was 
 going to do ! Were they trying to make a fool of her? She 
 dressed herself, she got wet with the rain, and all that merely 
 to go and stick inside a wine-shop ! No, no! she had had enough 
 of a wedding like that, she preferred her own home. Coupeau 
 and Lorilleux had to place themselves in front of the door. She 
 kept repeating : 
 
 " Move away from there ! I tell you Tin going home !" 
 Her husband having succeeded in pacifying her, Coupeau went 
 up to Gervaise, who was still quietly sitting in her corner, con- 
 versing with her mother-in-law and Madame Fauconnier. 
 
 " But you don't suggest anything ! " said he, not daring to 
 be very affectionate.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 73 
 
 "Oh ! anything one likes," she replied, with a laugh. " I'm 
 easy to please. Go out, or stay in, it's all the same to me. 
 I'm very comfortable, I don't ask for anything more." 
 
 And, indeed, her face was all beaming with a peaceful joy. 
 Ever since the guests had been there, she had spoken to each in 
 a rather low and tremulous voice in a sensible manner, and 
 without taking part in any of the disputes. During the storm, 
 she hai remained with fixed eyes watching the lightning, as 
 though she beheld some serious things very far off in the future 
 by the aid of those sudden flashes. 
 
 M. Madinier had, up to this time, not proposed anything. 
 He was leaning against the bar, with the tails of his dress coat 
 thrust apart, while he fully maintained the important air 
 of an employer. He kept on expectorating, and rolled his big 
 eyes about. 
 
 "Well !" said he, "one might go to the Museum." 
 
 And he stroked his chin, as he blinkiugly consulted the other 
 members of the party. 
 
 " There are antiquities, pictures, paintings, a whole heap of 
 things. It is very instructive. Perhaps you have never been 
 there. Oh ! it is quite worth seeing, at least once in a way." 
 
 They looked at each other, interrogatively. No, Gervaise 
 had never been ; Madame Fauconnier neither, nor Boche, nor 
 the others. Coupeau thought he had been one Sunday, but he 
 was not sure. They hesitated, however, when Madame Loril- 
 leux, greatly impressed by M. Madinier's importance, thought 
 the suggestion a very worthy and respectable one. As they 
 were wasting the day, and were all dressed, they might as well 
 go somewhere for their own instruction. Every one approved. 
 Then, as it still rained a little, they borrowed some 
 umbrellas of the proprietor of the wine-shop, old blue, green, 
 and brown umbrellas, forgotten by different customers, and 
 started off to the Museum. 
 
 The wedding party turned to the right, and descended into 
 Paris along the Faubourg Saint-Denis. Coupeau and Gervaise 
 again took the lead, almost running, and keeping a good distance 
 in front of the others. M. Madinier now gave his arm to 
 Madame Lorilleux, mother Coupeau having remained behind in 
 the wine-shop on account of her old legs. Then came Lorilleux 
 and Madame Lerat, Boche and Madame Fauconnier, Bibi-the- 
 Smoker, and Mademoiselle Rernanjou, and finally the two Gau- 
 drons. They were twelve, and made a pretty long procession 
 on the pavement.
 
 74 THE " AS80HMOIR." 
 
 " Oh ! I assure you we had nothing whatever to do with it," 
 explained Madame Lorilleux to M. Madinier. " We don't know 
 where he picked her up, or rather we know only too well 5 but 
 it's not for us to say anything, is it ? My husband had to-^buy 
 the wedding-ring. This morning, before we were scarcely out 
 of bed, we were obliged to lend them ten francs, otherwise there 
 would have been nothing done. A bride who doesn't bring a 
 single one of her relations to her. wedding ! She says she has a 
 sister in Paris, who keeps a pork-butcher's shop. Why didn't 
 she invite her, then ? " 
 
 She interrupted herself to point to Gervaise, whom the sloping 
 pavement caused to limp a great deal. 
 
 " Just look at her ! Is it possible ? Oh ! the hobbler ! " 
 
 And this word, " Hobbler," passed from mouth to mouth. 
 Lorilleux said, with a chuckle, that they ought to nickname her 
 so. But Madame Fauconnier took Gervaise's part ; they were 
 wrong to make fun of her, she was as clean as a newly-coined 
 sou, and could do no end of work when necessary. Madame 
 Lerat, always ready with doubtful allusions, called the little 
 woman's leg a "love skittle;" and, she added, that mauy men 
 liked them, without being willing to enter into any further 
 explanation. 
 
 The wedding party, emerging from the Faubourg Saint- 
 Denis, had to cross the Boulevard. They waited a minute to 
 let the crowd of vehicles pass, then ventured into the roadway, 
 which the storm had transformed into a pool of liquid mud. 
 Another shower was coming on, so they opened the umbrellas, 
 and, beneath the lamentable old ginghams held by the men, 
 the women gathered up their skirts, and the procession spread 
 out in the slush which separated the pavements on either side 
 of the Boulevard. Then a couple of street urchins called out : 
 " What a lot of guys ! " The passers-by hastened to obtain a 
 look, whilst the shopmen stood up behind their windows. In 
 the midst of the movement of the crowd, the couples marching 
 in procession presented striking contrasts against the grey wet 
 background of the Boulevards : Gervaise's coarse blue dress, 
 Madame Fauconnier's flowery chintz, Boche's canary 3 7 ellow 
 trousers ; the stiffness common to persons arrayed in their Sun- 
 day best, imparted a most ludicrous air to Coupeau's shining 
 frock-coat and M. Madinier's square cut garment j whilst the 
 elegant costume which bedecked Madame Lorilleus, the long 
 fringe worn by Madams Lerat, and Mademoiselle Remanjou's 
 rumpled skirts, mingled the fashions together, and displayed the
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 75 
 
 tawdry luxury of the poor. But it was more especially the 
 gentlemen's hats which amused the crowd old-fashioned hats, 
 that had been carefully put by, and had become tarnished in 
 the obscurity of the cupboards ; all of them being of the 
 most comical shapes tall, broad, pointed, with extraordinary 
 brims, either turned up or flat, and too broad or too narrow. 
 And the smiles increased still more when, right in the rear, 
 forming the close of the spectacle, Madame Gaudron, the carder, 
 advanced in her stiff violet-coloured dress, with her enormous 
 stomach protruding in front of her. The wedding guests, how- 
 ever, did not hurry themselves ; they were all in the best of 
 humours, happy at being looked at, and amused by the jocular 
 remarks passed upon them. 
 
 " Hallo ! there's the bride!" yelled one of the street urchins, 
 pointing to Madame Gaudron. " By Jove ! what a pip she's 
 swallowed ! " 
 
 The whole party burst out laughing. Bibi-the-Smoker, look- 
 ing back, said that the youngster was precious sharp. The 
 carder laughed the loudest, and was only too pleased at being 
 noticed. It was nothing to .be ashamed of; on the contrary, 
 there was more than one lady who had given her a side glance 
 as she passed, and who would have been only too delighted to 
 be in a similar condition. 
 
 They turned into the Rue de Clery. Then -they took the Rue 
 du Mail. On reaching the Place des Victoires, there was a halt. 
 The bride's left shoe lace had come undone, and, as she tied it 
 up again, at the foot of the statue of Louis XIV., the couples 
 pressed behind her, waiting, and joking about the bit of the 
 calf of her leg that she displayed. At length, after passing 
 down the Rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs, they reached the 
 Louvre. 
 
 M. Madinier politely asked to be their cicerone. It was a big 
 place, and they might lose themselves ; besides, he knew the 
 best parts, because he had often come there with an artist, a 
 very intelligent fellow, from whom a large dealer bought draw- 
 ings to put on his cardboard boxes. Down below, when the 
 wedding party entered the Assyrian Museum, a slight shiver 
 passed through it. The deuce ! it was not at all warm there ; the 
 hall would have made a capital cellar. And the couples slowly 
 advanced, their chins raised, their eyes blinking, between the 
 gigantic stone figures, the black marble gods, dumb in their 
 hieratic rigidity, and the monstrous beasts, half cats and half 
 women, with death-like faces, attenuated noses, and swollen
 
 76 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 lips. They thought all these things very ugly. The stone 
 carvings of the present day were a great deal better. An 
 inscription in Phoenician characters amazed them. No one could 
 possibly have ever read that scrawl. But M. Madinier, already 
 up on the first landing with Madame Lorilleux, called "to them, 
 snouting beneath the vaulted ceiling : 
 
 " Come along ! They're nothing, all those things ! The things 
 to see are on the first floor ! " 
 
 The severe bareness of the staircase made them very grave. 
 An attendant, superbly attired in a red waistcoat and a coat 
 trimmed with gold lace, who seemed to be awaiting them on 
 the landing, increased their emotion. It was with great respect, 
 and treading as softly as possible, that they entered the French 
 Gallery. 
 
 Then, without stopping, their eyes occupied with the gilding of 
 the frames, they followed the string of little rooms, glancing at 
 the passing pictures, too numerous to be seen properly. It 
 would have required an hour before each, if they had wanted to 
 understand it. What a number of pictures ! there was no end 
 to them. They must be worth a mint of money. Right at the 
 end, M. Madinier suddenly ordered a halt opposite the " Raft 
 of the Medusa," and he explained the subject to them. All 
 deeply impressed and motionless, they uttered not a word. 
 When they started off again, Boche expressed the general feel- 
 ing, saying it was marvellous. 
 
 In the Apollo Gallery, the inlaid flooring especially astonished 
 the party a shining floor, as clear as a mirror, and which 
 reflected the legs of the seats. Mademoiselle Remanjou kept 
 her eyes closed, because she could not help thinking that she 
 was walking on water. They called to Madame Gaudron to be 
 careful how she trod on account of her condition. M. Madinier 
 wanted to show them the gilding and paintings of the ceiling ; 
 but it nearly broke their necks to look up above, and they could 
 distinguish nothing. Then, before entering the Square Saloon, 
 he pointed to a window, saying : 
 
 "That's the balcony from which Charles IX. fired on the 
 people." 
 
 Meanwhile, he kept his eye on the tail of the procession. In 
 the middle of the Square Saloon, he signalled to them to stop. 
 He murmured in a low voice, as though at church, that there 
 were only masterpieces there. They went round the apartment. 
 Gervaise asked to have the " Marriage of Cana " explained to 
 her ; it was stupid not to write the subjects .of the pictures on
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIB." 77 
 
 the frames. Coupeau stopped before the " Joconde," whom he 
 considered resembled one of his aunts. Boche and Bibi-the- 
 Smoker chuckled to each other every time they discovered a 
 picture of a naked woman ; the thighs of " Antiope " especially 
 gave them quite a shock. And, right at the end of the room, 
 the two Gaudrons, the man with his mouth wide open, the 
 woman with her hands folded on her stomach, stood staring 
 with astonishment, deeply moved, and feeling quite stupid, in 
 front of Murillo's " Virgin." 
 
 When they had been all round the saloon, M. Madinier wished 
 them to go over it again, it was worth while. He was very 
 attentive to Madame Lorilleux, because of her silk dress ; and 
 each time that she questioned him, he answered her gravely, 
 with great assurance. As she was interested in Titian's Mis- 
 tress, whose yellow hair she thought resembled her own, he 
 stated that the portrait was that of the beautiful Madame Fer- 
 ronniere, one of Henri IV.'s mistresses, about whom a drama had 
 been written, and performed at the Ambigu Theatre. 
 
 Then the wedding party invaded the long gallery occupied by 
 the Italian and Flemish schools. More paintings, always 
 paintings, saints, men and women, with faces which none of 
 them could understand, landscapes that were all black, 'animals 
 turned yellow, a medley of people and things, the great mixture 
 of the colours of which was beginning to give them all violent 
 headaches. M. Madinier no longer talked as he slowly headed 
 the procession, which followed him in good order, with stretched 
 necks and upcast eyes. Centuries of art passed before their 
 bewildered ignorance, the fine sharpness of the early masters, 
 the splendours of the Venetians, the vigorous life, beautiful 
 with light, of the Dutch painters. But what interested them 
 most were the artists who were copying, with their easels planted 
 amongst the people, painting away unrestrainedly j an old lady, 
 mounted on a pair of high steps, working a big brush over the 
 delicate sky of an immense painting, struck them as something 
 most peculiar. Little by little, however, the news had probably 
 spread that a wedding party was visiting the Louvre ; painters, 
 with broad grins on their faces, hastened to the spot ; some of 
 the curious secured seats beforehand to witness the procession 
 comfortably ; whilst the attendants, repressing their laughter, 
 refrained with difficulty from making some very cutting remarks. 
 And those forming the party, already feeling tired, losing their 
 respect, dragged their hob-nail shoes, and knocked their heels 
 on the sonorous floors, like the stamping of a bewildered
 
 78 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 drove of cattle let loose in the midst of the cleanliness and quiet 
 of the rooms. 
 
 M. Madiiiier was reserving himself to give more effect to a sur- 
 prise that he had in store. He went straight to the " Kermesse " 
 of Eubens ; but still he said nothing. He contented himself 
 with directing the others' attention to the picture by a sprightly 
 glance. The ladies uttered faint cries the moment they had 
 brought their noses close to the painting. Then, blushing 
 deeply, they turned away their heads. The men, though, 
 kept them there, cracking jokes, and seeking for the coarser 
 details. 
 
 /'Just look !" exclaimed Boche, "it's worth the money. 
 There's one who's spewing, and another, he's watering the 
 dandelions ; and that one oh ! that one. Ah, well ! they're a 
 nice clean lot, they are ! " 
 
 " Let us be off," said M. Madinier, delighted with his success. 
 " There is nothing more to see here." 
 
 They retraced their steps, passing again through the Square 
 Salon and the Apollo Gallery. Madame Lerat and Mademoiselle 
 Remanjou complained, declaring that their legs could scarcely 
 bear them. But the cardboard box manufacturer wanted to 
 show Lorilleux the old jewellery. It was close by, in a little 
 room which he could find with his eyes shut. However, he 
 made a mistake, and led the wedding party astray through 
 seven or eight cold, deserted rooms, only ornamented with 
 severe-looking glass cases, containing numberless broken pots 
 and hideous little figures. The party shuddered, and was 
 beginning to feel awfully bored. Then, as it was seeking a 
 door, it came plump upon the drawings. Now ensued another 
 long peregrination. The drawings seemed as though they 
 would never come to an end. One room suceeeded another, 
 without anything funny ; nothing but sheets of paper scribbled! 
 all over, hanging under glass against the walls. 
 
 M. Madinier, losing his head, not willing to admit that h( 
 did not know his way, ascended a flight of stairs, making th( 
 wedding .party mount to the next floor. This time it traversed 
 the Naval Museum, among models of instruments and cannons, 
 plans in relief, and vessels as tiny as playthings. After going 
 a long way, and walking for a quarter of an hour, it came upon 
 another staircase ; and, having descended this, it found itself 
 once more surrounded by the drawings. Then despair took 
 possession of it. It wandered through whatever rooms it came 
 to, all the couples following each other behind M. Madinier,
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 79 
 
 who was mopping his forehead, almost out of his mind, and 
 furious with the administration, whom he accused of having 
 changed the positions of the doors. The attendants and the 
 visitors, full of astonishment, watched it pass. In less than 
 twenty minutes it was seen again in the Square Saloon, in the 
 French Gallery, and amongst the glass cases, in which slumber 
 the little Eastern gods. Never again would it get out. With 
 aching legs, abandoning itself to fate, the wedding party kicked 
 up an awful row, leaving in its flight Madame Gaudron's pro- 
 truding stomach a long way in the rear. 
 
 " Closing time ! closing time ! " called out the attendants, in 
 a loud tone of voice. 
 
 And the wedding party was nearly shut in. An attendant 
 was obliged to place himself at the head of it, and conduct it to 
 a door. Then, in the courtyard of the Louvre, when it had 
 recovered its umbrellas from the cloak-room, it breathed again. 
 M. Madiuier regained his assurance. He had made a mistake 
 in not turning to the left, now he recollected that the jewellery 
 was to the left. The whole party pretended to be very pleased 
 at having seen all they had 
 
 Four o'clock was striking. There were still two hours to be 
 employed before the dinner time, so it was decided they should 
 take a stroll, just to occupy the interval. The ladies, who were 
 very tired, would have much preferred to have sat down ; but, 
 as no one offered any refreshments, they started off, following 
 the line of quays. There they encountered another shower, 
 and so sharp a one that, in spite of the umbrellas, the ladies' 
 dresses began to get wet. Madame Lorilleux, her heart sinking 
 within her each time a drop fell upon her black silk, proposed 
 that they should shelter themselves under the Pont-Royal; 
 besides, if the others did not accompany her, she threatened to 
 go all by herself. And the procession marched under one of 
 the arches of the bridge. They were very comfortable there. 
 It was, most decidedly, a capital idea ! The ladies, spreading 
 their handkerchiefs over the paving-stones, sat down with their 
 knees wide apart, and pulled out the blades of grass that grew 
 between the stones with both hands, whilst they watched the 
 dark flowing water as though they were in the country. The 
 men amused themselves with calling out very loud, so as to 
 awaken the echoes of the arch. One after the other, Boche and 
 Bibi-the-Smoker insulted the vacant space, shouting out "Pig!" 
 with all their might, and laughing heartily each time the 
 echo sent the word back to them ; then, their throats getting
 
 80 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 husky, they picked up some flat stones, and tried to make 
 ducks and drakes with them iu the water. 
 
 The shower had ceased, but the whole party felt so comfort- 
 able that no one thought of moving away. The surface of the 
 Seine was covered with greasy matter, old corks and vegetable 
 parings, heaps of filth which an eddy detained a moment in the 
 restless waters, darkened by the shadow of the arch ; whilst, on 
 the top of the bridge could be heard the rumbling of the pass- 
 ing cabs and omnibuses, all the animation of Paris, of which 
 only the roofs of the houses to the right and the left could be 
 seen, as though from the bottom of some pit. Mademoiselle 
 Remanjou sighed. If there had only been some foliage, it 
 would have reminded her, she said, of a nook on the banks of 
 the Marne, where she used to go, about the year 1817, with a 
 young man for whom she was still mourning. 
 
 At last, M. Madinier gave the signal for departure. They 
 passed through the Tuileries gardens, in the midst of a little 
 community of children, whose hoops and balls upset the good 
 order of the couples. Then, as the wedding party on arriving 
 at the Place VendCme looked up at the column, M. Madinier 
 gallantly offered to treat the ladies to a view from the top. 
 His suggestion was considered extremely amusing. Yes, yes, 
 they would go up ; it would give them something to laugh about 
 for a long time. Besides, it was full of interest for those 
 persons who had never been above their mother earth. 
 
 " You make a mistake if you think the Hobbler will venture 
 inside there with her leg all out of place ! " murmured Madame 
 Lorilleux. 
 
 " I'll go up with pleasure," said Madame Lerat, " but I won't 
 have any men walking behind me." 
 
 And the whole party ascended. In the narrow space afforded 
 
 by the spiral staircase, the twelve persons crawled up one after 
 
 the other stumbling against the worn steps, and clinging to the 
 
 walls. Then, when the obscurity became complete, they almost 
 
 split their sides with laughing. The ladies screamed. The 
 
 gentlemen tickled them, pinched their legs ; but they were very 
 
 stupid to say anything ! The proper plan is to think that 
 
 it's the mice. Besides, it went no further ; all knew where to 
 
 leave off for propriety's sake. Then Boche bad a funny idea, 
 
 which the others at once took up. They called out to Madame 
 
 Gaudron as though she had stuck on the way, and asked her if 
 
 she was able to get through. Just fancy ! supposing she had 
 
 become fi^ed in there, without being able to go up or down,
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 81 
 
 she would have stopped up the hole, and noiie of them \vould 
 have known how to get out. And they laughed, with a bois- 
 terous gaiety which shook the column, at the idea of that woman's 
 stomach. Afterwards, Boche, who was in quite a merry mood, 
 declared that they were growing old in that chimney-pot. 
 Would it never come to an end, were they going right up to 
 heaven ? And he tried to frighten the ladies, by calling out 
 that he felt it shaking. Coupeau, however, said nothing. He 
 was behind Gervaise, with his arm round her waist, and felt that 
 she was abandoning herself to him. When they suddenly 
 emerged again into daylight, he was just in the act of kissing 
 her on the neck. 
 
 1 ' Well ! you're a nice couple ; you don't stand on ceremony," 
 said Madame Lorilleux with a scandalised air. 
 
 Bibi-the-Smoker pretended to be furious. He muttered 
 between his teeth, "You made such a noise together! I wasn't 
 even able to count the steps." 
 
 But M. Madinier was already up on the platform, pointing out 
 the different monuments. Neither Madame Fauconnier nor 
 Mademoiselle Remanjou would on any consideration leave the 
 staircase. The thought of the pavement below made their 
 blood curdle, and they contented themselves with glancing out 
 of the little door. Madame Lerat, who was bolder, went round 
 the narrow terrace, keeping close to the bronze dome ; but, all 
 the same, it gave one a rude emotion to think that one only had 
 to slip off. What a somersault, ye gods I The men, rather 
 pale, looked down on' to the Place. One could almost think 
 oneself up in the air, separated from everything. No, really, 
 it gave you a chill down the back. M. Madinier, however, 
 recommended raising the eyes, to look straight in front of one, 
 far into the distance; it prevented giddiness. And he con- 
 tinued to point out with his finger the Invalides, the Pantheon, 
 Notre-Dame, the Tour Saint- Jacques, the Buttes Montmartre. 
 Then Madame Lorilleux thought to inquire whether one could 
 see, on the Boulevard de la Chapelle, the wine-shop where 
 they were going to dine, the " Silver Windmill." So, for ten 
 minutes, they looked about, and even came to quarrelling; 
 each one placed the wine-shop in a different part. Paris spread 
 out around them its grey immensity, which in the more distant 
 parts assumed a bluish tinge, and its deep valleys covered 
 with a sea of roofs. All the right bank of the river was in 
 shadow, beneath a vast ragged copper-coloured cloud ; and, 
 from the border of this cloud fringed with gold issued a broad 
 
 F
 
 82 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 sunbeam, which illumined the thousands of window-panes on the 
 left bank with a multitude of sparks, causing that corner of the 
 city to stand out against a bright blue sky cleared by the storm. 
 
 " It wasn't worth while coming up here to bite each other's 
 noses off," said Boche, angrily, as he turned to descend the 
 staircase. 
 
 The wedding party went down, dumb and sulky, awaken- 
 ing no other sound beyond that of shoes clanking on the stone 
 steps. When it reached the bottom, M. Madinier wished to 
 pay ; but Coupeau would not permit him, and hastened to place 
 twenty-four sous into the keeper's hand, two sous each person. 
 It was nearly half-past five, there was just time to get back. So 
 they returned by the Boulevards and the Faubourg Poissonniere. 
 Coupeau, However, considered that their outing could not end 
 like that. He bundled them all into a wine-shop where they 
 took some vermouth. 
 
 The repast was ordered for six o'clock. At the " Silver 
 Windmill," they had been waiting for the wedding party a good 
 twenty minutes. Madame Boche, who had got a lady living in 
 the same . house to attend to her duties for the evening, was 
 conversing with mother Coupeau in the first floor room, in front 
 of the table, which was all laid out ; and the two youngsters, 
 Claude and Etienne, whom she bad brought with her, were play- 
 ing about beneath the table and amongst the chairs. When 
 Gervaise, on entering, caught sight of the little ones, whom she 
 had not seen all the day, she took them on her knees, and 
 caressed and kissed them. 
 
 " Have they been good 1 " asked she of Madame Boche. " I 
 hope they haven't worried you too much." 
 
 And as the latter related the things those little vermin had 
 said during the afternoon, and which would make one die with 
 laughing, the mother again took them up and pressed them to 
 her breast, seized with an overpowering outburst of maternal 
 affection. 
 
 " It's not very pleasant for Coupeau all the same," Madame 
 Lorilleux was saying to the other ladies, at the end of the room. 
 
 Gervaise had retained her smiling tranquillity of the morning. 
 Ever since the walk, however, she became at moments quite 
 sad, and watched her husband and the Lorilleux with her pen- 
 siye and sober-minded air. She found that Coupeau was a 
 coward in his sister's presence. Only the day before he had 
 talked very big, and swore that he would put those vipers back 
 in their places, if they did not treat him properly. But she saw
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 83 
 
 very well that when they were there he was a regular lick- 
 spittle, deferring to them in everything, and almost going out 
 of his mind whenever he thought them angry. And that alone 
 filled the young woman with anxiety for the future. 
 
 They were now only waiting for My-Boots, who had not yet 
 put in an appearance. 
 
 " Oh ! blow him ! " cried Coupeau, " let's begin. You'll see, 
 he'll soon turn up, he's got a clear nose, he can scent the grub 
 from afar. I say, he must be amusing himself, if he's still 
 standing like a post on the Route de Saint-Denis ! " 
 
 Then the wedding party, feeling very lively, sat down making 
 a great noise with the chairs. Gervaise was between Lorilleux 
 and M. Madinier, and Coupeau between Madame Fauconnier 
 and Madame Lorilleux. The other guests seated themselves 
 where they liked, because it always ended with jealousies and 
 quarrels, when one settled their places for them. Boche glided 
 to a seat beside Madame Lerat. Bibi-the-Smoker had for neigh- 
 bours Mademoiselle Remanjou and Madame Gaudron. As for 
 Madame Boche and mother Coupeau, they were right at the 
 end of the table, looking after the children, cutting up their 
 meat and giving them something to drink, but not much wine. 
 
 " Does nobody say grace ? " asked Boche, whilst the ladies 
 arranged their skirts under the table-cloth, so as not to get 
 them stained. 
 
 But Madame Lorilleux did not like those sort of jokes. And 
 the vermicelli soup, which was nearly cold, was gulped down 
 very quickly, their lips making a hissing noise against the 
 spoons. Two waiters served at table, dressed in little greasy 
 jackets and not over clean white aprons. By the four open 
 windows overlooking the acacias of the courtyard there entered 
 the clear light of the close of a stormy day, with the atmosphere 
 purified thereby though without sufficiently cooling it. The 
 reflection of the trees in this damp corner gave the smoky room 
 a greenish hue, and the shadows of leaves danced over the table- 
 cloth which had a vague musty odour. There were two looking- 
 glasses covered with fly marks, one at either end of the room, 
 which lengthened the table indefinitely, with the coarse white 
 crockery on it fast turning yellow, and in the scratches on 
 which the greasy dish water had left a dark deposit. Each time 
 a waiter returned from the kitchen, the door banged, admitting 
 a strong smell of burning fat. 
 
 " Don't all talk at once," said Boche, as every one remained 
 silent with his nose in his plate.
 
 84 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 And they were drinking the first glass of wine as their eyes 
 followed two force-meat pies which the waiters wore handing 
 round when My-Boots entered the room. 
 
 " Well, you're a scurvy lot, you people ! " said he. " I'vo 
 been wearing my pins out. for three hours- waiting on the high 
 road, and a gendarme even came and asked me for my papers. 
 It isn't right to play such dirty tricks on a friend ! You might 
 at least have sent me a growler by a commissionaire. Ah ! no, 
 you know, joking apart, it's too bad. And, with all that, it 
 rained so hard that I got my pockets full of water. Honour 
 bright, you might still catch enough fish in 'em for a meaL" 
 
 The others wriggled with laughter. That animal My-Boots 
 was just. a bit on; he had certainly already stowed away his 
 two quarts of wine, merely to prevent his being bothered by 
 all that frog's liquor with which the storm had deluged his 
 giblets. 
 
 " Hallo 3 Count Leg-of-Mutton ! " said Coupeau, "just go and 
 sit yourself there, beside Madame Gaudron. You see you were 
 expected." 
 
 Oh, he did not mind, he would soon catch the others up ; and 
 he asked for three helps of soup, platefuls of vermicelli, in which 
 he soaked enormous slices of bread. Then, when they had 
 attacked the force-meat pies, he became the profound admira- 
 tion of every one at the table. How he guttled ! The bewil- 
 dered waiters helped each other to pass him bread, thin slices 
 which he swallowed at a mouthful. He ended by losing his 
 temper ; he insisted on having a loaf placed on the table beside 
 him. The landlord, very anxious, came for a moment and 
 looked in at the door. .The party, which was expecting him, 
 again wriggled with laughter. It seemed to upset the caterer. 
 What a rum card he was, that My-Boots ! One day he had 
 eaten a dozen hard boiled eggs and drank a dozen glasses of 
 wine while the clock was striking twelve ! There are not many 
 who can do that. And Mademoiselle Remanjou, deeply moved, 
 watched My-Boots chew, whilst M. Madinier, seeking for a word 
 to express his almost respectful astonishment, declared that 
 such a capacity was extraordinary. 
 
 There was a brief silence. A waiter had just placed on the 
 table a ragout of rabbits in a vast dish as deep as a .salad-bowl. 
 Coupeau, who liked fun, started another joke. 
 
 "I say, waiter,- that rabbit's from the housetops. It still 
 
 mews." 
 
 And in fact, a faint mew, perfectly imitated, seemed to issue
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 85 
 
 from the dish. It was Coupeau who did that with his throat, 
 without opening his lips ; a talent which, at all parties, met 
 with decided success, so much so that he never ordered a dinner 
 abroad without having a rabbit ragout. After that, he purred. 
 The ladies pressed their napkins to their mouths to try and stop 
 their laughter. Madame Fauconuier asked for a head, she only 
 liked that part Mademoiselle Remanjou had a weakness for 
 the slices of bacon. And as Boche said he preferred the little 
 onions when they were nicely broiled, Madame Lerat screwed 
 up her lips, and murmured : 
 
 " I can understand that." 
 
 She was as dry as a stick, and led the life of a workwoman 
 immured in her occupations, never having seen the shadow of 
 a man in her home ever since she became a widow, though 
 showing a continual hankering after obscenity, a mania for 
 words of double meaning and dubious allusions so profound, 
 that she alone could understand them. As Boche leant to- 
 wards her and, in a whisper, asked for an explanation, she 
 resumed : 
 
 " Little onions, why of course. That's quite 'enough, I think." 
 
 But the conversation was becoming grave. Each one was 
 talking of his trade. M. Madinier was extolling the manufacture 
 of cardboard boxes ; there were real artists at work on that ; 
 and he mentioned some boxes for New Year's gifts of which he 
 had seen the models, regular marvels of luxury. Lorilleux, 
 however, chuckled. He was very vain at working gold ; he saw a 
 kind of reflection of it on his fingers and all over his person. 
 He said that in olden times jewellers used often to wear swords; 
 and he ignorantly alluded to Bernard Palissy. Coupeau talked 
 of a weather-cock, a work of art that one of his comrades had 
 made .; it consisted of a column, above which came a sheaf, then 
 a basket of fruit, and then a flag ; the whole was very natural 
 and made with nothing but pieces of zinc soldered together. 
 Madame Lerat showed Bibi-the-Smoker how to make the stalk 
 of an artificial rose, as she turned the handle of her knife be- 
 tween her bony fingers. Meanwhile the voices rose, and mingled. 
 Amidst the hubbub one could hear some words uttered very 
 loud by Madame Fauconnier, who was complaining of her work- 
 girls, especially of a little slattern of an apprentice who, the day 
 before, had let a pair of sheets burn. 
 
 " You may talk,"' cried Lorilleux, banging his fist down on 
 the table, " but gold is gold." 
 
 And, in the midst of the silence caused by the statement of 
 
 V
 
 86 THE "ASSOMMOIR," 
 
 this fact, the only sound heard was Mademoiselle Remanjou's 
 shrill voice continuing : 
 
 " Then I turn up the skirt and stitch it inside. I stick a 
 pin in the head to keep the cap on, and that's all j and they 
 are sold for thirteen sous a-piece." 
 
 She was explaining how she dressed her dolls to My-Boots, 
 whose jaws were working slowly like grindstones. He did not 
 listen, though he kept nodding his head, but looked after the 
 waiters to prevent them removing any of the dishes he had not 
 cleaned out. There had been some stewed veal and French 
 beans ; and now they were serving the roastj two skinny 
 chickens lying on a bed of faded watercresses and cooked in the 
 oven. Outside, the sun was setting behind the high branches of 
 the acacias. In the room the greenish reflection was thickening 
 with the fumes that rose from the table, stained all over with 
 wine and gravy, and covered with a pell-mell of crockery, glasses, 
 knives and forks ; and along the wall, dirty plates and empty 
 bottles looked liked so much rubbish swept and shaken from 
 the cloth. It' was very warm. The men took off their coats 
 and continued eating in their shirt-sleeves. 
 
 " Madame Boche, please don't let them stuff so much," said 
 Gervaise, who spoke but little, and who was watching Claude 
 and Etienne from a distance. 
 
 She got up from her seat, and went and talked for a minute 
 behind the little ones' chairs. Children did not reason ; they 
 would eat all day long without refusing a single thing ; and 
 then she herself helped them to some chicken, a little of the 
 breast. But mother Coupeau said they might, just for once in 
 a way, risk an attack of indigestion. Madame Boche, in a low 
 voice, accused Boche of pinching Madame Lerat's knees. Oh, 
 he was a sly dog, and he tippled. She had certainly seen his 
 hand disappear. If he did it again, drat him ! she wouldn't 
 hesitate shying a water-bottle at his head. In the partial 
 silence, M. Madinier was talking politics. 
 
 " Their law of May 31 is an abominable one. Now you must 
 reside in a place for two years. Three millions of citizens are 
 struck off the lists. I've been told that Bonaparte is, in reality, 
 very much annoyed, for he loves * the people ; he has given them 
 proofs." ' ' 
 
 He was a republican ; but he admired the prince on account 
 of his uncle, a man the like of whom would never be seen again. 
 Bibi-the-Smoker flew into a passion. He had worked at the 
 Elyse'e; he had seen Bonaparte just as he saw My-Boots in
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIB.'* 87 
 
 front of him over there. Well, that muff of a president was 
 just like a jackass, that -was all ! It was said that he was 
 going to travel about in the direction of Lyons ; it would be a 
 precious good riddance of bad rubbish if he fell into some hole 
 and broke his neck. But, as the discussion was becoming too 
 heated, Conpeau had to interfere. 
 
 " Ah, well ! how simple you all are to quarrel about politics. 
 Politics are all humbug ! Do such things exist for us ? Let 
 there be no matter who, a king, an emperor, no one at all, it 
 won't prevent me earning my five francs a day, and eating, and 
 sleeping; isn't that so? No, it's too stupid !" 
 
 Lorilleux shook his head. He was born on the same day as 
 the Count de Ohambord, the 29th of September, 1820. He 
 was greatly struck with this coincidence, indulging himself in a 
 vague dream, in which he established a connection between the 
 king's return to France and his own private fortunes. He never 
 said exactly what he was expecting, but he led people to suppose 
 that when that time arrived something extraordinarily agree- 
 able would happen to him. So whenever he had a wish 
 too great to be gratified, he would put it off to another time, 
 when the king came back. 
 
 " Besides," observed he, " I saw the Count de Chambord one 
 evening." 
 
 Every face was turned towards him. 
 
 " It's quite true. A stout man, in an overcoat, and with a 
 good-natured air. I was at Pequignot's,, one of my friends who 
 deals in furniture in the Grande Rue de la Chapelle. The Count 
 de Chanibord had forgotten his umbrella there the day before ; 
 so he came in, and just simply said, like this : ( Will you 
 please return me my umbrella 1 ' Well, yes, it was him ; 
 Pe*quignot gave me his word of honour it was." 
 
 Not one of the guests suggested the smallest doubt. They 
 had now arrived at the dessert. The waiters were clearing the 
 table with a great clattering of crockery ; and Madame Lorilleux, 
 who until then had behaved in a most lady-like manner, allowed 
 a " dirty beast " to escape from her, because one of the waiters 
 had spilt something down her neck as he removed a dish. Her 
 silk dress was most certainly stained. M. Madinier was obliged 
 to look at her back, and he declared there was nothing the 
 matter. Now, in the middle of the table, rose a salad-bowl 
 full of frosted eggs, flanked by two plates of cheese and two 
 plates of fruit. The frosted eggs, with the whites over-cooked and 
 floating on the yellow cream, set every one meditating ; they
 
 88 THE "ASSOHMOER." 
 
 had not been anticipated, so that they produced a very agree- 
 able impression. My-Boots was still eating. He had asked for 
 another loaf. He finished what there was of the cheese ; and, 
 as there was some cream left, he had the salad-bowl passed to 
 him, into which he sliced some large pieces of bread as though 
 for a soup. 
 
 " The gentleman is really remarkable," said M. Madinier, 
 again giving way to his admiration. 
 
 Then the men rose up to get their pipes. They stood for a 
 moment behind My-Boots, patting him on the back, and asking 
 him if he felt better. Bibi-the-Smoker lifted him up in his 
 chair ; but, Jove's thunder ! the animal had doubled in weight. 
 Coupeau, for a joke, stated that his comrade was only just fairly 
 settling down to work, that he would go on eating like that all 
 through the night. The terrified waiters beat a hasty retreat. 
 Boche, who had just before gone downstairs, came back relating 
 the awful face that the landlord was making over it : he was 
 looking as pale as death behind his bar. His wife, in a state of 
 consternation, had sent out to see if the bakers were still open ; 
 even the cat at the fire-side looked as though ruin was staring 
 it hi the face. Really, it was too comic ; it was worth the money 
 of the dinner ; no pic-nic of that sort would be complete without 
 that swallow-all, My-Boots. And the men, smoking their pipes, 
 watched him with jealous looks ; for after all, to be able to eat 
 so much, he must be a precious strong fellow ! 
 
 " I wouldn't care to be obliged to support you," said Madame 
 Gaudron. " Ah, no; you may take my word for that 1" 
 
 "I say, little mother, no jokes," replied My-Boots, casting a 
 side-glance at his neighbour's rotund figure. " You've swallowed 
 more than I have." 
 
 The others applauded, shouting " Bravo ! " it was well 
 answered. It was now pitch dark outside, three gas-jets were 
 flaring hi the room, diffusing dim rays in the midst of the 
 tobacco-smoke, The waiters, after serving the coffee and the 
 brandy, had removed the last piles of dirty plates. Down 
 below, beneath the three acacias, dancing had commenced, a 
 cornet-a-piston and two fiddles playing very loud, and mingling 
 in the warm night air with the rather hoarse laughter of 
 women. 
 
 " We must have a punch ! " cried My-Boots j " two quarts of 
 brandy, lots of lemon, and a little sugar." 
 
 But Coupeau, seeing the anxious look on Gervaise's face in 
 front of him, got up from the table, declaring that there should
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 89 
 
 be no more drink. They had emptied twenty-five quarts, a 
 quart and a half to each person, counting the children as grown- 
 up people ; that was already too much. They had had a feed 
 together in good fellowship, and without ceremony, because they 
 esteemed one another, and wished to celebrate the event of. the 
 day amongst themselves. All had gone off very pleasantly. 
 They were gay, and they must not go and get beastly drunk 
 if they wished to respect the ladies. In a word, and finally, 
 they had met together to drink the health of the newly-married 
 couple, and not to become regularly scamraered. This little 
 speech, spoken in a determined tone of voice by the zinc-worker, 
 who placed his hand on his breast at the end of every sentence, 
 was warmly approved by Lorilleux and M. Madinier. But the 
 others Boche, Gaudron, Bibi-the-Smpker, and especially My- 
 Boots, all four very much on only jeered, speaking thick, and 
 feeling a confounded thirst, which they must water at any cost. 
 
 " Those who're thirsty are thirsty, and those who aren't 
 thirsty aren't thirsty," remarked My-Boots. " Therefore, we'll 
 order the punch. No one need take offence. The aristocrats 
 can drink sugar-and-water." 
 
 And as the zinc- worker commenced another sermon, the other, 
 who had risen on his legs, gave himself a slap, exclaiming : 
 
 " Come, let's havo no more of that, my boy ! Waiter, two 
 quarts of your best ! " 
 
 So Coupeau said very well, only they would settle for the 
 dinner at once. It' would prevent any disputes. The well- 
 behaved people did not want to pay for the drunkards ; and it 
 just happened that My-Boots, after searching in his pockets for 
 a long time, could only produce three francs and seven sous. 
 Well, why had they made him wait all that time on the Route 
 de Saint-Denis 1 He could not let himself be drowned, and so 
 he had broken into his five-franc piece. It was the fault of the 
 others, that was all ! He ended by giving the three francs, 
 keeping the seven sous for his morrow's tobacco. Coupeau, who 
 was furious, would have knocked him over, had not Gervaise, 
 greatly frightened, pulled him by his coat, and begged him to 
 keep cool. He decided to borrow the two francs of Lorilleux, 
 who, after refusing them, lent them on the sly, for his wife 
 would never have consented to his doing so. 
 
 M. Madinier went round with a plate. The spinster and the 
 ladies who were alone Madame Lerat,- Madame Fauconnier, 
 Mademoiselle Reinanjou discreetly placed their five-franc 
 pieces in it the first, Then the gentlemen went to the other
 
 90 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 end of the room, and made up the accounts. They were 
 fifteen ; it amounted therefore to seventy-five francs. When 
 the seventy-five francs were in the plate, each man added five 
 sous for the waiters. It took a quarter of an hour of 
 laborious calculations before everything was settled to the 
 general satisfaction. 
 
 But when M. Madinier, who wished to deal direct with the 
 landlord, had got him to step up, the whole party became lost 
 in astonishment on hearing him say with a smile that there was 
 still something due to him. There were some extras ; and, as 
 the word " extras " was greeted with angry exclamations, he 
 entered into details : Twenty-five quarts of wine, instead of 
 twenty, the number agreed upon beforehand ; the frosted eggs, 
 which he had added, as the dessert was rather scanty ; finally, 
 a quarter of a bottle of rum, served with the coffee, in case any 
 one preferred rum. Then a formidable quarrel ensued. Coupeau, 
 who was appealed to, protested against everything; he had 
 never mentioned twenty quarts ; as for the frosted eggs, they 
 were included in the dessert, so much the worse for the landlord 
 if he chose to add them without being asked to do so. There 
 remained the rum, a mere nothing, just a mode of increasing 
 the bill by putting on the table spirits that no one thought any- 
 thing about. 
 
 " It was on the tray with the coffee," he cried j " therefore it 
 goes with the coffee. Go to the deuce ! Take your money, 
 and never again will we set foot in your den ! " 
 
 " It's six francs more," repeated the landlord. " Pay me my 
 six francs ; and with all that I haven't counted the four loaves 
 that gentleman ate ! " 
 
 The whole party, pressing forward, surrounded him with 
 furious gestures and a yelping of voices choking with rage. 
 The women especially threw aside all reserve, and refused to add 
 another centime. Ah, well, thank you! it was a pretty wedding 
 party ! Mademoiselle Remanj ou would never again mix herself up 
 in anything of the sort ! Madame Fauconnier had dined very 
 badly indeed ; at home, for a couple of francs, she could have 
 had a delicious little meal. Madame Gaudron complained 
 bitterly of having been placed at the bad end of the table, next 
 to My-Boots, who had not shown her the least attention. In 
 short, those sort of parties always wound up badly. When one 
 wanted to have friends at one's wedding, one should pay all ex- 
 penses ! And Gervaise, who had taken refuge behind mother 
 Coupeau, in front of one of the windows, said nothing, but was
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 91 
 
 full of shame, feeling that all those recriminations were directed 
 at her. 
 
 M. Madinier ended by going down with the landlord. One 
 could hear them arguing below. Then, when half an hour had 
 gone by, the cardboard box manufacturer returned ; he had 
 settled the matter by giving three francs. But the party con- 
 tinued annoyed and exasperated, constantly returning to the 
 question of the extras. And the uproar increased from an act 
 of vigour on Madame Boche's part. She had kept an eye on 
 Boche, and at length detected him squeezing Madame Lerat 
 round the waist in a corner. Then, with all her strength, she 
 flung a water bottle, which smashed against the wall. 
 
 " One can easily see that your husband's a tailor, madame," 
 said the tall widow, with a curl of the lip, full of a double 
 meaning. " He's a petticoat measurer, Al. Yet I gave him 
 some pretty hard kicks under the table." 
 
 The harmony of the evening was altogether upset. Every 
 one became more and more ill-tempered. M. Madinier sug- 
 gested some singing, but Bibi-the-Smoker, who had a fine 
 voice, had disappeared some time before ; and Mademoiselle 
 Remanjou, who was leaning out of the window, caught sight of 
 him under the acacias, swinging round a big girl who was bare- 
 headed. The cornet-a-piston and the two fiddles were playing 
 the "Mustard Dealer," a quadrille in which every one clapped 
 their hands at the pastourelle. Then, there was a general 
 breaking up of the wedding party : My-Boots and the two Gau- 
 drons went down ; Boche himself sneaked off. From the win- 
 dows, the couples dancing round could be seen through the 
 leaves, to which the lanterns hung amongst the branches gave 
 the formal green-paint, hue of scenery on the stage. The night 
 was peaceful, and without a breeze, whilst the heat gave one a 
 feeling of faintness. In the dining-room, M. Madinier and 
 Lorilleux were engaged in serious conversation, whilst the 
 ladies, no longer knowing how to give vent to their ill-humour, 
 were examining their dresses, trying to discover if they had got 
 at all stained. 
 
 Madame Lerat's fringe looked as though it had been soused 
 in the coffee. Madame Fauconnier's chintz dress was full of 
 gravy. Mother Coupeau's green shawl, fallen from off a chair, 
 was discovered in a corner, rolled up and trodden upon. But 
 it was Madame Lorilleux especially who became more ill-tem- 
 pered still. She had a stain on the back of her dress ; it was 
 useless for the others to declare that she had not she felt it.
 
 92 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 And, by twisting herself about in front of a looking-glass, she 
 ended by catching a glimpse of it. 
 
 " What did I say ? " cried she. " It's gravy from the fowl. 
 The waiter shall pay for the dress. I will bring an action 
 against him. Ah ! this is a fit ending to such a day. I should 
 have done better to have stayed in bed. To begin with, I'm 
 off. I've had enough of their wretched wedding ! " 
 
 And she left the room in a rage, causing the staircase to shake 
 beneath her heavy footsteps. Lorilleux ran after her. But all 
 she would consent to was that she would wait five minutes on the 
 pavement outside, if he wanted them to go off together. She 
 ought to have left directly after the storm, as she wished to do. 
 She would make Coupeau smart for that day. When the latter 
 heard she was in such a passion, he seemed quite dismayed ; 
 and Gervaise, to save him any unpleasantness, consented to go 
 home at once. Then they all hastily embraced each other. 
 M. Madinier undertook to see mother Coupeau home. For that 
 first night, Madame Boche was to take Claude and Etienne to 
 sleep at her place ; their mother might be quite easy, the little 
 ones were sleeping heavily on some chairs with bad stomach- 
 aches from the frosted eggs. " As the newly-married couple were 
 starting off with the Lorilleux, leaving the rest of the guests at 
 the wine-shop, a battle commenced down below in the dancing 
 place between their party and another one ; Boche and My- 
 Boots, who had kissed a lady,, would not give her up to two 
 soldiers to whom she belonged, and threatened to clear out the 
 whole place, amidst the maddening noise of the cornet-a-piston 
 and the two fiddles playing the " Pearl " polka. 
 
 It was scarcely eleven o'clock. On the Boulevard de la 
 Chapelle, and in the entire neighbourhood of the Goutte-d'Or, 
 the fortnight's pay, which fell due on that Saturday, produced 
 an enormous drunken uproar, Madame Lorilleux was waiting 
 beneath a gas-lamp about twenty paces from the " Silver Wind- 
 mill." She took her husband's arm, and walked on in front 
 without looking round, at such a rate, that Gervaise and Cou- 
 peau got quite out of breath in trying to keep up with them. 
 Now and again they stepped off the pavement to leave room for 
 some drunkard who had fallen there. Lorilleux looked back, 
 endeavouring to make things pleasant. 
 
 " We will see you as far as your door," said he. 
 
 But Madame Lorilleux, raising her voice, thought it a funny 
 thing to spend one's wedding night in such a filthy hole as the 
 H6tel Boncceur. Ought they not to have put their marriage
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 95 
 
 off, and have saved a few sous to buy some furniture, so as to 
 have had a home of their own on the first night ? Ah ! they 
 would be comfortable, right up under the roof, packed into a 
 little closet, at .ten francs a month, where there was not even 
 the slightest air. 
 
 " I've given notice, we're not going to use the room up at the 
 top of the house," timidly interposed Coupeau. "We keep 
 Gervaise's room, which is larger." 
 
 Madame Lorilleux forgot herself, she turned abruptly round. 
 
 " That's worse than all ! " cried she. " You're going to sleep 
 in the Hobbler's room ! " 
 
 Gervaise became quite pale. This nickname, which she re- 
 ceived fnll in the face for the first time, fell on her like a blow. 
 And she fully understood, too, her sister-in-law's exclamation : 
 the Hobbler's room was the room in which sliB had lived for a 
 month with Lantier, where the shreds of her past life still hung 
 about. Coupeau did not understand this, but merely felt hurt 
 at the nickname. 
 
 " You do wrong to christen others," replied he angrily. 
 " You don't know, perhaps, that in the neighbourhood they call 
 you Cow's-Tail, because of your hair. There, that doesn't please 
 you, does it ? Why should we not keep the room on the first 
 floor ? To-night the children won't sleep there, and we shall be 
 very comfortable." 
 
 Madame Lorilleux added nothing further, but retired into 
 her dignity, horribly annoyed at being called Cow's-Tail. Cou- 
 peau, to console Gervaise, gently squeezed her arm ; and he 
 even succeeded in making her smile, by telling her in a whisper 
 that they started on their married life with exactly seven sous 
 three big ones and a little one, which he shook together in his 
 trouser pocket. When they reached the H6tel Boncnpnr, the two 
 couples wished each other good-night, with an angry air ; cuid as 
 Coupeau pushed the two women into each other's arms, calling 
 them a couple of ninnies, a drunken fellow, who seemed to 
 want to go to the right, suddenly slipped to the left and came 
 tumbling between them. 
 
 " Why, it's old Bazouge ! " said Lorilleux. " He's had his fill 
 to-day." 
 
 Gervaise, frightened, squeezed up against the door of the 
 hotel. Old Bazouge, an undertaker's mute of some fifty years 
 of age, had his black trousers all stained with mud, his black 
 cape hooked on to his shoulder, and his black leather hat 
 knocked in by some tumble he had met with.
 
 94 THE " ASSOMM01R." 
 
 "Don't be afraid, he isn't spiteful," continued Lorilleux. 
 " He's a neighbour of ours the third room in the passage be- 
 fore us. He would find himself in a nice mess if his people 
 were to see him like this ! " 
 
 Old Bazouge, however, felt offended at the young woman's 
 evident terror. 
 
 " Well, what ! " hiccoughed he, " we ain't going to eat any 
 one. I'm as good as another, any day, my little woman. No 
 doubt I've had a drop ! When work's plentiful one must 
 grease the wheels. It's not you, nor your friends, who would 
 have carried down the stiffun of forty-seven stone whom I 
 and a pal brought from the fourth floor to the pavement, and 
 without smashing him too. I like jolly people." 
 
 But Gervaise retreated further into the doorway, seized with 
 a longing to cry, which spoilt her day of sober-minded joy. She 
 no longer thought of kissing her sister-in-law, she implored 
 Coupeau to get rid of the drunkard. Then Bazouge, as he 
 stumbled about, made a gesture full of philosophical disdain. 
 
 " That won't prevent your passing through our hands, my 
 little woman. You'll perhaps be glad to do so, one of these 
 days. Yes, I know some women who'd be much obliged if we 
 did carry 'em off." 
 
 And, as Lorilleux led him away, he turned round, and stut- 
 tered out a last sentence, between two hiccoughs. 
 
 " When one cocks one's toes listen to this when one cocks 
 one's toes, it's for a long time."
 
 85 
 
 CHAPTER IV, 
 
 THEN followed four years of hard work. In the neighbourhood, 
 Gervaise and Coupeau had the reputation of being a happy 
 couple, living in retirement, without quarrels, and taking a 
 short walk regularly every Sunday, in the direction of Saint- 
 Ouen. The wife worked twelve hours a day at Madame Fau- 
 connier's, and still found means to keep their lodging as clean 
 and bright as a new coined sou, and to prepare the meals for 
 all her little family, morning and evening. The husband never 
 got drunk, brought his wages home every fortnight, and 
 smoked a pipe at his window in the evening, to get a breath of 
 fresh air before going to bed. They were frequently alluded to 
 on account of their nice, pleasant ways ; and, as between them 
 they earned close upon nine francs a day, it was reckoned that 
 they were able to put by a good deal of money. 
 
 But, during the earlier days especially, they had to work ex- 
 ceedingly hard to make both ends meet. Their marriage had 
 burdened them with a debt of two hundred francs. Then, too, 
 they abhorred the H6tel Boncoeur. They thought it a disgust- 
 ing place, full of unpleasant recollections, and they dreamed of 
 having a home of their own, with their own furniture which 
 they could take care of. Twenty times they had reckoned up 
 the sum of money that would be necessary. It amounted in 
 round figures to three hundred and fifty francs, if they wished 
 to have sufficient accommodation for putting their things away, 
 as well as pots and pans handy whenever they required them. 
 They were despairing of being able to save so large a sum in 
 less than two years, when they met with a piece of good luck. 
 An old gentleman of Plassans asked them to let him have 
 Claude, the elder of the little ones, to send to the college there. 
 It was the generous whim of an original, an amateur of paint- 
 ings, who had been deeply struck by some figures the youngster 
 had sketched in former days. Claude was already costing them
 
 96 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 a great deal. .When they only had the younger brother, 
 Etienne, to keep, they were able to put by the three hundred 
 and fifty francs in seven months and a half. The day when 
 they bought their furniture at a second-hand dealer's of the 
 Rue Belhomme, they went for a short walk along the exterior 
 Boulevards before returning home, their hearts filled, with a 
 grea't joy. There were a bedstead, a chest of drawers with a 
 marble top, a wardrobe, a round table with an American cloth 
 cover, and six chairs, all in old mahogany without counting 
 the bedding, the linen, and the kitchen utensils, which were 
 almost new. It was like a serious and definite entrance into 
 life with them something which, in makinj them owners of 
 property, gave them a certain importance in the midst of the 
 well-to-do people of the neighbourhood. 
 
 For two months past they had been busy seeking some apart- 
 ments. At first, they wanted above everything to hire these 
 iu the big house of the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. But there was 
 not a single room to let there ; so that they had to relinquish 
 their old dream. To tell the truth, Gervaise was rather glad in 
 her heart : the neighbourhood of the Lorilleux, almost door to 
 door, frightened her "immensely. Then, they looked about 
 elsewhere. Coupeau, very properly, did not wish to be far from 
 Madame Fauconnier's, so that Gervaise could easily run home 
 at any hour of the day. And at length they met with exactly 
 what suited them, a large room with a small closet and a kit- 
 chen, in the Rue Neuve de la Goutte-(J'Or, almost opposite the 
 laundress's. It was a small house with only a single storey, 
 reached by a very steep staircase, at the top of which there were 
 only two lodgings, one to the right and the other to the left ; 
 the ground floor was occupied by. a job-master, who had his 
 stock-in-trade"in some stables and coach-houses in a vast court- 
 yard adjoining the street. The delighted young woman almost 
 fancied" herself back again in the country ; no neighbours, no 
 gossip to fear, a little quiet corner which reminded her of an 
 alley ,at Plassans, behind the ramparts; and, to crown her good 
 luck, by stretching her neck, she could see her window from her 
 ironing table without leaving her work. 
 
 . They took possession of their new abode at the April quarter. 
 Gervaise was then eight months pregnant. But she showed 
 great courage, saying with a laugh that the child helped her 
 when she worked ; she felt its little hands pushing within her 
 and giving her strength. Ah, well ! she just laughed at Cou- 
 peau whenever he wanted her to lie down and rest herself ! She
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 97 
 
 would take to her bed when the great pains came on. That 
 would be quite soon enough ; for now that there was going to 
 be one more mouth to feed they must not be idle. And it was 
 she who cleaned the place out before helping her husband to 
 put the furniture in its proper places. She had quite a religious 
 regard for the things, dusting them with maternal care, and her 
 heart breaking at the sight of the least scratch. She stood 
 still in a state of dismay, as though she had struck herself, 
 whenever she knocked against them whilst sweeping. The 
 chest of drawers was especially dear to her; she thought it beau- 
 tiful and solid, and that it had a serious look about it. A 
 dream, of which she dare not speak, was to have a clock to 
 stand in the centre of the marble slab, where it would produce 
 a magnificent effect. Had it not been for the baby that was 
 coming, she would perhaps have risked buying the clock. How- 
 ever, she sighed and put off doing so till later on. 
 
 The couple were thoroughly enchanted with their new home. 
 Etienne's bed occupied the small closet, where there was still 
 room to put another child's crib. The kitchen was a very tiny 
 affair and as dark as night, but, by leaving the door wide open, 
 one could just manage to see ; besides, Gervaise had not to cook 
 meals for thirty people, all she wanted was room to make her 
 soup. As for the large room, it was their pride. The first 
 thing in the morning, they drew the curtains of the alcove, 
 white calico curtains ; and the room was thus transformed into 
 a dining-room, with the table in the centre, and the wardrobe 
 and the chest of drawers facing each other. As the grate burned 
 as much as fifteen sous' worth of coal a day, they closed it up ; 
 and a little cast-iron stove, placed on the marble hearthstone, 
 kept them warm during the coldest weather for seven *sous. 
 Then, Coupeau decorated the walls as best he could, projecting 
 various embellishments ; a tall engraving, representing a marshal 
 of France caracoling with his baton in his hand between a cannon 
 and a heap of cannon-balls, occupied the place of a looking-glass; 
 some family photographs were hung in two rows over the chest 
 of drawers, on either side of a little old gilded china holy-water 
 fount, in which some matches were kept ; on the top of the 
 wardrobe, close to the wooden clock, to the ticking of which 
 they seemed to be listening, a bust of Pascal paired with a bust 
 of Be>anger, the one looking grave, the other smiling. It was 
 really a pretty room. 
 
 " Guess how much we pay here 1 " Gervaise would ask of 
 every visitor she had.
 
 98 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 And whenever they guessed too high a sum, she triumphed 
 and delighted at being so well suited for such a little money, 
 cried : 
 
 " One hundred and fifty francs, not a sou more ! Isn't it 
 almost like having it for nothing ! " 
 
 The -Rue Neuve de la Goutte-d'Or was itself a good part of 
 the cause of their contentment. Gervaise lived in it, going in- 
 cessantly backwards and forwards between her home and 
 Madame Fauconnier's. Coupeau would now go down, of an even- 
 ing, and smoke his pipe on the door-step. The street was a 
 steep uneven one, and without any side pavements. At the 
 top, near the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, there were some dismal- 
 looking shops with dirty windows, cobblers, coopers, a miserable 
 grocer's, and the establishment of a wine-dealer who had become 
 bankrupt, the shutters of which had been up for weeks and 
 were becoming covered with placards. At the other end, to- 
 wards Paris,, houses of four storeys hid the view of the sky, the 
 ground floors mostly occupied by laundresses, all of a heap, one 
 close to another; one shop-front alone, that of a small barber, 
 painted green and full of delicate-coloured little bottles, en- 
 livened this gloomy corner with the sparkle of its sign two 
 brass dishes, always shining. But the liveliest part of the 
 street was in the middle, where the buildings, not being so 
 numerous nor so high, admitted the air and the sunshine. The 
 job-master's stables, the manufactory next door where they 
 made seltzer water, the wash-house opposite, gave a large quiet 
 open space in which the smothered voices of the women wash- 
 ing and the regular puffing of the steam-engine seemed to still 
 more increase the peacefulness. Low plots of ground, alleys 
 bordered by black walls, gave the place the appearance of a 
 village. And Coupeau, amused by the rare passers-by who 
 stepped over the cokJtantly flowing stream of soapy water, said 
 that it reminded him of somewhere in the country where one of 
 his uncles had taken him, when he was five years old. Ger- 
 vaise's joy was a tree planted in a courtyard to the left of her 
 window, an acacia with a single branch, the scanty green foliage 
 of whick sufficed for the charm of the entire street. 
 
 It was on the last day of April that the young woman was 
 confined. The pains came on in the afternoon, towards four 
 o'clock, as she was ironing a pair of curtains at Madame Fau- 
 connier's. She would not go home at once, but remained there 
 wriggling about on a chair, and continuing her ironing every 
 time the pain allowed her to do so ; the curtains were wanted
 
 THE "ASSOMMOm." 99 
 
 quickly and she obstinately made a point of finishing them. 
 Besides, perhaps after all it was only a colic ; it would never do 
 to be frightened by a bit of a stomach-ache. But as" she was 
 talking of starting on some shirts, she became quite pale. She 
 was obliged to leave the workshop, and cross the street, doubled 
 in two, holding on to the walls. One of the workwomen offered 
 to accompany her; she declined, but begged her to go instead for 
 the midwife, close by, in the Rue de la Charbonniere. The house 
 was not on fire, there was no need to make a fuss. She would 
 be like that no doubt all through the night. It was not going 
 to prevent her getting Coupeau's dinner ready as soon as she was 
 indoors ; then, she might perhaps lie down on the bed a little, 
 but without undressing herself. On the staircase, she was seized 
 with such a violent pain, that she was obliged to sit down on 
 one of the stairs ; and she pressed her two fists against her 
 mouth to prevent herself from crying out, for she would have 
 been ashamed to have been found there by any man, had one 
 come up. The pain passed away ; she was able to open her door, 
 feeling relieved, and thinking that she had decidedly been mis- 
 taken. That evening she was going to make a stew with some 
 neck chops. All went well whilst she peeled the potatoes. The 
 chops were cooking in a saucepan, when the labour pains re- 
 turned. She mixed the gravy as she stamped about in front of 
 the stove, almost blinded with her tears. If she was going to 
 have a baby, that was no reason why Coupeau should be kept 
 without his dinner. At length the stew began to simmer on a 
 fire covered with cinders. She returned into the room, and 
 thought she would have time to lay the cloth at one end of 
 the table. But she was obliged to put down the bottle of 
 wine very quickly ; she no longer had strength to reach the bed; 
 she fell prostrate, and her baby was born on the floor, on a mat. 
 When the midwife arrived, a quarter of an hour later, it was 
 there that she was delivered. 
 
 The zinc-worker was still employed at the hospital. Gervaise 
 would not have him disturbed. When he came home at seven 
 o'clock, he found her in bed, well-covered up, looking very pale 
 on the pillow, and the child crying, swathed in a shawl at it's 
 mother's feet. 
 
 11 Ah, my poor wife ! " said Coupeau kissing Gervaise. " And 
 I was joking only an hour ago, whilst you were crying with 
 pain ! I say, you don't- make much fuss about it the time to 
 sneeze and it's all over." 
 
 She smiled faintly ; then she murmured : " It's a girl."
 
 100 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 " Exactly !" resumed the zinc-worker, joking so as to enliven 
 her, " I ordered a girl ! Well, now I've got what I wanted ! 
 You do everything I wish I " And, taking the child up in his 
 arms, he continued : " Let's have a look at you, Miss Malkin ! 
 You've got a very black little mug. It'll get whiter, never fear. 
 You must be good, never run about the streets, and grow up 
 sensible like your papa and mamma." 
 
 Gervaise looked at her daughter very seriously, with wide 
 open eyes, slowly overshadowed with sadness. She shook her 
 head ; she would have preferred a boy, because boys always pull 
 through somehow or other, and do not run so many risks in 
 Paris. The midwife had to take the baby away from Coupean. 
 She also forbade Gervaise to speak ; it was quite bad enough 
 that so much noise was made round about her. Then the zinc- 
 worker said that he must tell the news to mother Coupeau and 
 the Lorilleux, but he was dying with hunger, he must first of 
 all have his dinner. It was a great worry to the invalid to see 
 him have to wait on himself, run to the kitchen for the stew, 
 eat it out of a soup plate, and not be able to find the bread. In 
 spite of being told not to do so, she bewailed her condition, and 
 fidgeted about in her bed. It was stupid of her not to have 
 managed to set the cloth, the colic had laid her on her back like 
 a blow from a bludgeon. Her poor old man would not think it 
 kind of her to be nursing herself up there whilst he was dining 
 so badly. At least, were the potatoes cooked enough 1 She no 
 longer remembered whether she had put salt to them. 
 
 " Keep quiet ! " cried the midwife. 
 
 " Ah ! it's no use your trying to prevent her worrying her- 
 self ! " said Coupeau with his mouth fulL " If you were not 
 there, I'd bet she'd get up to cut my bread. Keep on your 
 back, you big goose ! You mustn't move about, otherwise it'll 
 be a fortnight before you'll be able to stand on your legs. Your 
 stew's very good. Madame will eat some with me. Won't you, 
 madameV 
 
 The midwife declined ; but she was willing to accept a glass 
 of wine, because it had upset her, said she, to find the wretched 
 woman with the baby on the mat. Coupeau at length went off 
 to tell the news to his relations. Half an hour later he returned 
 with all of them, mother Coupeau, the Lorilleux, and Madame 
 Lerat, whom he had met at the latter's. The Lorilleux, in the 
 face of the couple's prosperity, had -become very amiable, mak- 
 ing the most flattering remarks about Gervaise, accompanied, 
 however, by little restrictive gestures, nods of the head, and
 
 THE "ASSOMMOrfc." 101 
 
 peculiar looks, as though to adjourn their real judgment. In 
 short they knew what they knew ; only they would not go 
 against the opinion of the whole neighbourhood. 
 
 "I've brought you the whole gang!" cried Coupeau. "It 
 can't be helped ! they wanted to see you. Don't open your 
 mouth, it's forbidden. They'll stop there, and look at you, 
 without ceremony, you know. As for me, I'm going to make 
 them some coffee, and some of the right sort ! " 
 
 He disappeared into the kitchen. Mother Coupeau, after 
 kissing Gervaise, became amazed at the child's size. The two 
 other women also embraced the invalid on her cheeks. .And all 
 three, standing before the bed, commented with divers exclama- 
 tions on the details of the confinement a most remarkable con- 
 finement, just like having a tooth drawn, nothing more. Madame 
 Lerat examined the little one all over, declared that she was 
 well formed, and even added, mysteriously, that she would be- 
 come a wonderful woman ; and, as she considered that her head 
 was too pointed, she began to press it gently, in spite of its 
 cries, so as to make it rounder. Madame Lorilleux in a passion 
 snatched the infant from her: it was sufficient to give a creature 
 every vice imaginable, to mess it about like that, when its skull 
 was so tender. Then, she tried to find who the baby resembled. 
 They nearly all quarrelled over that. Lorilleux, who was 
 stretching his neck in between the women, repeated that the 
 little one was not a bit like Coupeau ; perhaps the nose was 
 slightly like his, but only very little ! She was nearly the image 
 of her mother, with somebody else's eyes though ; those eyes 
 certainly did not belong to their family. 
 
 Coupeau, however, had failed to reappear. One could hear 
 him in the kitchen struggling with the grate and the coffee-pot. 
 Gervaise was worrying herself frightfully ; it was not the proper 
 thing for a man to make coffee ; and she called out and told 
 him what to do, without listening to the midwife's energetic 
 "hush!" 
 
 " Here we are ! " said Coupeau, entering with the coffee-pot 
 in his hand. " Didn't I just have a bother with it ! It all went 
 wrong on purpose ! Now we'll drink out of glasses, won't we ? 
 because you know, the cups are still at the shop." 
 
 They seated themselves round the table, and the zinc-worker 
 insisted -on pouring out the coffee himself. It smelt very strong, 
 it was none of that weak stuff. When the midwife had sipped 
 her's up, she went off; everything was going on nicely, she was 
 not required. If the young woman did not pass a good night,
 
 162 tfHE "ASSOMMCHB." 
 
 they were to send for her on the morrow. She was scarcely 
 down the staircase, when Madame Lorilleux called her a glutton 
 and a good-for-nothing. She put four lumps of sugar in her 
 coffee, and charged fifteen francs for leaving you with your baby 
 all by yourself. But Coupeau took her part ; he would willingly 
 fork out the fifteen francs. After all, those sort of women spent 
 then? youth in studying, they were right to charge a good price. 
 Then Lorilleux had a dispute with Madame Lerat. He pretended 
 that, to have a boy, you must turn the head of your bedstead 
 towards the north ; whilst she shrugged her shoulders, calling it 
 a childish idea, and giving another recipe, which consisted in 
 hiding under the mattress a bundle of green stinging nettles 
 gathered when the sun was upon them, without letting your wife 
 know of it. They had pushed the table close up to the bed, 
 and until ten o'clock, Gervaise, overcome little by little with an 
 immense fatigue, remained smiling and stupid, her head turned 
 sideways on the pillow : she saw, she heard, but she no longer 
 
 w 9 
 
 found strength to make a gesture nor to utter a word ; she 
 seemed to be dead, of a very gentle. death, from the depths of 
 which she felt happy at seeing the others alive. Now and 
 again the little one uttered a faint cry, in the midst ot the loud 
 voices, of the interminable opinions on a murder committed the 
 day before in the Hue du Bon-Puits, at the other end of La 
 Chapelle. 
 
 Then, as the visitors were thinking of leaving, they spoke of 
 the christening. The Lorilleux had promised to be godfather 
 and godmother ; they looked very glum over the matter. How- 
 ever, if they had not been asked to stand they would have felt 
 rather peculiar. Coupeau did not see any need for christening 
 the little one ; it certainly would not procure her an income of 
 ten thousand francs, and besides she might catch a cold from 
 it. The less one had to do with priests the better. But mother 
 Coupeau called him a heathen. The Lorilleux, without going 
 and eating consecrated bread in church, plumed themselves on 
 their religious sentiments. 
 
 "It shall be next Sunday, if you like," said the chain-maker. 
 
 And Gervaise having consented by a nod, every one kissed 
 her and told her to take great care of herself. They also wished 
 the baby good-bye. Each one went and leant over the little 
 trembling body with smiles and loving words as though she were 
 able to understand. They called her Nana, the pet name for 
 Anna, which was her godmother's name. 
 
 w Good night, Nana. Come, be a good girl, Nana."
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 103 
 
 When they had at length gone off, Coupeau drew his chair 
 close up to the bed and finished his pipe, holding Gervaise's 
 hand in his. He smoked slowly, deeply affected, and uttering 
 sentences between the puffs, 
 
 " Well, old woman, they've made your head ache, haven't 
 they] You see, I couldn't prevent them coming. After all, it 
 shows their friendship. But we're better alone, aren't we ? I 
 wanted to be alone, like this, with you. It has seemed such a 
 long evening to me ! Poor little thing, she's had a lot to go 
 through ! Those shrimps, when they come into the world, have 
 no idea of the pain they cause. Where is the poor little body, 
 that I may kiss it 1 " 
 
 He gently slid one of his big hands under her back, and draw- 
 ing her towards him, he kissed the sheet, full of a coarse man's 
 tenderness for that still suffering fecundity. He asked her if 
 he hurt her, he would have wished to have cured her by simply 
 breathing on her aching body. And Gervaise was 'very happy. 
 She assured him that she was not suffering at all. She was 
 only thinking of getting up as soon as possible, for now it would 
 never do for her to lie there doing nothing. But he tried to 
 reassure her. Wasn't he going to earn all that was necessary 
 for the little one ? He would be a contemptible fellow, if he 
 ever left her to provide for the brat. It did not seem to him a 
 wonderful thing to know how to get a child j the merit con- 
 sisted in feeding it, was it not so ? 
 
 Goupeau did not sleep much that night. He covered up the 
 fire in the stove. Every hour he had to get up to give the baby 
 spoonfuls of lukewarm sugar and water. That did not prevent 
 his going off to his work in the morning as usual. He even 
 took advantage of his lunch-hour to make a declaration of the 
 birth at the mayor's. During this time Madame Boche, who 
 had been informed of the event, had hastened to go and pass the 
 day with Gervaise. But the latter, after ten hours of sound 
 sleep, bewailed her position, saying that she already felt pains 
 all over her through having been so long in bed. She would 
 become quite ill if they did not let her get up. In the evening, 
 when Coupeau returned home, she told him all her worries : no 
 doubt she had confidence in Madame Boche, only it put her 
 beside herself to see a stranger installed in her room, opening 
 the drawers, and touching her things. 
 
 On the morrow the doorkeeper, on returning from some 
 errand, found her up, dressed, sweeping and getting her hus- 
 band's dinner ready ; and it was impossible to persuade her to
 
 104 !fHB "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 go to bed again. They were trying to make a fool of her, 
 perhaps ! It was all very well for ladies to pretend to be un- 
 able to move. When one was not rich, one had no time for 
 that sort of thing. Three days after her confinement she was 
 ironing petticoats at Madame Fauconnier's, banging her irons, 
 and all in a perspiration from the great heat of the stove. 
 
 On the Saturday evening, Madame Lorilleux brought her 
 presents for her godchild a cap that cost thirty-five sous, and 
 a christening dress, plaited and trimmed with some cheap lace, 
 which she had got for six francs, because it was slightly soiled. 
 On the morrow, Lorilleux, as godfather, gave the mother six 
 pounds of sugar. They did things in a genteel way. Even 
 in the evening, at the feast which was given by the Coupeaus, 
 .they did not arrive empty handed. The husband brought a 
 sealed bottle of wine under each arm, whilst the wife carried a 
 big custard bought at a renowned pastry-cook's in the Chaussee 
 Clignancourt. Only, the Lorilleux went and related their grand 
 doings all over the neighbourhood ; they had spent close upon 
 twenty francs. Gervaise, on hearing of their gossiping, was 
 greatly incensed, and no longer thought anything of their 
 handsome proceedings. 
 
 It was at this christening feast that the Coupeaus ended by 
 becoming intimately acquainted with their neighbours on the 
 opposite side of the landing. The other lodging in the little 
 house was occupied by two persons, mother and son, the 
 Goujets as they were called. Until then, the two families 
 had merely nodded to each other on the stairs and in the 
 street, nothing more ; the Coupeaus thought their neighbours 
 seemed rather bearish. Then the mother having carried up a 
 pail of water for Gervaise on the morrow of her confinement, 
 the latter had thought it the proper thing to invite them to the 
 feast, more especially as she considered them very respectable 
 people. And, naturally, they there became well acquainted 
 with each other. 
 
 The Goujets came from the Departement du Nord. The 
 mother mended lace; the son, a blacksmith,. worked at an iron 
 bolt factory. They had lived in their lodging for five years. 
 Behind the quiet peacefulness of their life, a long standing 
 sorrow was hidden. Gonjet, the father, one day when furiously 
 drunk at Lille, had beaten a comrade to death with an iron bar, 
 and had afterwards strangled himself in prison with his hand- 
 kerchief. The widow and child, who had come to Paris after 
 their misfortune, always felt this tragedy hanging over their
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 105 
 
 heads, and atoned for it by a strict honesty, and an unvarying 
 gentleness and courage. There was even a certain pride 
 mingled with their case, for they ended by finding themselves 
 better than others. Madame Goujet, always dressed in black, 
 with her forehead framed in a monachal cap, had the white and 
 calm face of a matron, as though the paleness of the lace, the 
 minuteness of the work performed by her fingers, imparted a 
 reflection of serenity to her. Goujet was a superb-looking giant 
 of twenty-three, with a rosy face, blue eyes, and of herculean 
 strength. His comrades at the factory nicknamed him Golden 
 Mug, on account of his handsome yellow beard. 
 
 Gervaise at once felt a great friendship for these people. 
 When she entered their home the first time, she was amazed at 
 the cleanliness of the lodging. There was no denying it, one 
 might blow all about the place without raising a grain of dust ; 
 and the tiled floor shone like a mirror. Madame Goujet made 
 her enter her son's room, just to see it. It was pretty and 
 white like the room of a young girl ; an iron bedstead with 
 muslin curtains, a table, a washstand, and a narrow bookcase 
 hanging against the wall. Then there were pictures all over 
 the place, figures cut out, coloured engravings nailed up with 
 four tacks, and portraits of all kinds of persons taken from the 
 illustrated papers. Madame Goujet said with a smile that her 
 son was a big baby. In the evenings reading tired him, so he 
 amused himself with looking at his pictures. Gervaise spent 
 an hour with her neighbour, who had returned to her tambour 
 frame, in front of a window. She felt interested in the 
 hundreds of pins which fixed the lace down, happy at being 
 there, breathing the pleasant odour of cleanliness which per- 
 vaded the lodging, in which that delicate work induced a 
 thoughtful silence. 
 
 The Goujets were worth visiting. They worked long hours, 
 and placed more than a quarter of their fortnight's earnings in 
 the savings-bank. In the neighbourhood every one nodded to 
 them, every one talked of their savings. Goujet never had a 
 hole in his clothes, always went out in a clean short blue 
 blouse, without a stain. He was very polite, and even a 
 trifle timid, in spite of his broad shoulders. The washerwomen 
 at the end of thn street laughed to see him hold down his head 
 when he passed them. He did not like their oaths, and thought 
 it disgusting that women should be constantly uttering foul 
 words. One day, however, he came home tipsy. Then Madame 
 Goujet, for sole reproach, held his father's portrait before him,
 
 106 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 a daub of a painting piously hidden away at the bottom of a 
 drawer; and, ever since that lesson, Gonjet never drank more 
 than was good for him, without, however, any hatred of wine, 
 for wine is necessary to the workman. On Sundays he walked 
 out with his mother, who took hold of his arm. He would 
 generally conduct her to Vincennes ; at other times they would 
 go to the theatre. His mother remained his passion. He still 
 spoke to her as though he were a little child. Square-headed, 
 his skin toughened by the wielding of the heavy hammer, he 
 somewhat resembled the larger animals: dull of intellect, though 
 good-natured all the same. 
 
 In the early days of their acquaintance, Gervaise embarrassed 
 him immensely. Then in a few weeks he became accustomed 
 to her. He watched for her that he might carry up her parcels, 
 treated her as a sister, with an abrupt familiarity, and cut out 
 pictures for her. One morning, however, having opened her 
 door without knocking, he beheld her half undressed, washing 
 her neck ; and, for a week, he did not dare to look her in the 
 face, so much so that he ended by making her blush herself. 
 
 Young Cassis, with his Parisian cheek, thought Golden Mug a 
 bit of a muff. It was well not to booze, and not to shove your 
 nose into the face of every girl in the street ; but all the same, 
 a man should be a man, otherwise he might as well wear petti- 
 coats at once. He would chaff him before Gervaise, accusing 
 him of making eyes at all the women of the neighbourhood ; 
 and that drum-major of a Goujet would energetically deny it. 
 This did not prevent the two workmen from being great friends. 
 They called each other in the morning, started off together, and 
 sometimes one of them stood a glass of beer on their way home. 
 Ever since the christening feast they addressed one another 
 quite familiarly. Their friendship had reached this point, when 
 Golden Mug rendered Young Cassis a great service one of those 
 signal services which a man remembers all his life. It was on 
 the 2nd of December, 1852. The zinc-worker, just for a lark, 
 had had the brilliant idea to go and see the riots. He did not 
 care a hang for the Republic, or Bonaparte, or the rest of them ; 
 only, he loved the smell of powder, the firing amused him, 
 and he was on the point of being caught behind a barricade, 
 if the blacksmith had not happened to be there just in time to 
 protect him with his big body, and help him to get away. 
 Goujet, as they ascended the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonniere, 
 walked quickly, with a grave look on his face. He went in for 
 politics, and was a republican, wisely, in the name of justice and of
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 107 
 
 the happiness of all. However, he had not shouldered a mus- 
 ket. And he gave his reasons : the people were tired of drawing 
 the chestnuts out of the fire for the upper classes, and of burn- 
 ing their fingers. February and June were precious lessons, 
 so in future the Faubourgs would leave the city to do what it 
 thought best. Then, when they had reached the high ground, 
 the Rue des Poissonniers, he turned his head, and looked down 
 upon Paris. All the same, they were doing some sorry work 
 there ; one day the- people might regret having stood by with 
 their arms folded. But Coupeau jeered, and said they were 
 really too stupid, the asses who were risking their skins just to 
 preserve to the idle beggars of the Chamber their twenty-five 
 francs a day. That evening the Coupeaus invited the Goujets 
 to dinner. During dessert, Young Cassis and Golden Mug 
 kissed each other twice on the cheek. Now their friendship was 
 for life and death. 
 
 During three years the existence of the two families went on, 
 on either side of the landing, without an event. Gervaise had 
 managed- to bring up the little one without the loss of more 
 than two days' work a week. She was becoming a capital 
 clear starcher, earning as much as three francs a day. There- 
 fore she had decided to send Etienne, who was close upon, eight 
 years old, to a little school in the Rue de Chartres, where she 
 paid five francs. The couple, in spite of the expense of bring- 
 ing up the two children, put twenty or thirty francs every 
 month into the savings-bank. When their savings amounted 
 to the sum of six hundred francs, the young woman, beset with 
 a dream of ambition, was scarcely able to sleep. She wanted 
 to set up in business for herself, to take a small shop, and to 
 have workwomen in her turn. She had calculated everything. 
 In twenty years time, if all went well, they would have a little 
 income, on which they would go and live somewhere in the 
 country. However, she did not dare to run the risk. She 
 pretended to be looking for a shop, so as to give herself time for 
 reflection. The money was in no danger at the savings-bank; on 
 the contrary, it was increasing. In three years she had satisfied 
 only one of her desires she had bought herself an ornamental 
 clock; and that clock, a clock in a violet ebony case, with twisted 
 columns and a gilded brass pendulum, was to be paid for in a 
 year, by instalments of twenty sous every -Monday. She got 
 quite angry, whenever Coupeau talked of winding it up. She 
 alone took off the glass cover, and dusted the columns religiously, 
 as though the marble top of her chest of drawers had become
 
 108 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 transformed into a chapel. Under the glass cover, behind the 
 clock, she hid the savings-bank book j and often, when she was 
 dreaming of her shop, she would forget herself, in front of the 
 dial plate, her eyes fixed on the turning hands, as though she 
 were awaiting some solemn and particular minute to come to a 
 decision. 
 
 The Coupeaus went out nearly every Sunday with the 
 Goujets. They were pleasant little excursions, sometimes to 
 have some fried fish at Saint-Ouen, at others a rabbit at Viii- 
 cennes, in the garden of some eating-house keeper, without any 
 grand display. The men drank sufficient to quench their 
 thirst, and returned home as right as ninepins, giving their 
 arms to the ladies. In the evening, before going to bed, the 
 two families made up the accounts, and each paid half the ex- 
 penses; and there was never the least quarrel about a sou more 
 or less. The Lorilleux were jealous of the Goujets. They 
 thought it very funny, all the same, that Young Cassis and the 
 Hobbler should be for ever going with strangers, when they had 
 their own relations. Ah, well ! they did not seem to care a tinker's 
 curse for their relations ! Ever since they had had a few sous 
 put by, they gave themselves no end of airs. Madame Lorilleux, 
 greatly annoyed at seeing her brother avoid her, recommenced 
 her abuse of Gervaise. Madame Lerat,- on the contrary, 
 took the young woman's part, defended her by telling some 
 most extraordinary stories attempts at seduction at night- 
 time on the Boulevard, from which she made her escape like 
 the heroine of a drama, slapping the faces of the cowardly 
 aggressors. As for mother Coupeau, she tried to make them 
 all friends, that she might be well received by all her children. 
 Her sight was failing her more and more, she had only one 
 place left to do the cleaning of, and she was glad to get an 
 occasional five francs from one or the other. 
 
 The very day on which Nana was three years old, Coupeau, 
 on returning home in the evening, found Gervaise quite upset. 
 She refused to talk about it ; there was nothing at all the matter 
 with her, she said. But, as she laid the table all wrong, stand- 
 ing still with the plates in her hands to become absorbed in 
 deep reflection, her husband insisted upon knowing what was 
 the matter. 
 
 " Well ! this is it," she ended by owning, " the little draper's 
 shop, in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, is to let. I saw it only an 
 hour ago, when going to buy some cotton. It gave me quite a 
 turn."
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 109 
 
 It was a very decent shop, and in that big house where they 
 dreamed of living in former days. There was the shop, a back 
 room, and two other rooms to the right and left ; in short, just 
 what they required. The rooms were rather small, but well 
 placed. Only, she considered they wanted too much ; the land- 
 lord talked of five hundred francs. 
 
 " So you've been over the place, and asked the price ? n said 
 Coupeau. 
 
 " Oh ! you know, only out of curiosity ! " replied she, affect- 
 ing an air of indifference. " One looks about, and goes in wher- 
 ever there's a bill up that doesn't bind one to anything. But 
 that shop is altogether too dear. Besides, it would perhaps -be 
 foolish of me to set up in business." 
 
 However, after dinner, she again referred to the draper's 
 shop. She drew a plan of the place on the margin of a newspaper. 
 And, little by little, she talked it over, measuring the corners, 
 arranging the rooms, as though she were going to move all her 
 furnitur j in there on the morrow. Then Coupeau advised her 
 to take it, seeing how much she wanted to do so ; she would 
 certainly never find anything decent under five hundred francs ; 
 besides, they might perhaps get a reduction. The only objec- 
 tion to it was living in the same house as the Lorilleux, whom 
 she could not bear. But, she protested, she disliked nobody ; 
 in the warmth of her desire she even stood up for the Lorilleux; 
 they were not spiteful at heart : they would get on very \v sll 
 together. And, when they had gone to bed, Coupeau feD 
 asleep whilst she was still continuing to plan the arrangement 
 of the rooms, without, however, having finally decided to take 
 the place. 
 
 On the morrow, when she was alone, she could not resist 
 removing the glass cover from off" the clock, and having a peep 
 at the savings-bank book. To think that her shop was there, 
 in those dirty leaves, covered with ugly writing ! Before going 
 off to her work, she consulted Madame Goujet, who highly 
 approved her project of setting up in business for herself; with 
 a husband like hers, a good fellow who did not drink, she 
 was certain of getting on, and of not having her earnings squan- 
 dered. At the luncheon hour, Gervaise even called on the Loril- 
 leux to ask their advice ; she did not wish to appear to be doing 
 anything unknown to the family. Madame Lorilleux was struck 
 all of a heap. What ! the Hobbler was going in for a shop 
 now ! And, her heart bursting with envy, she stammered, and 
 tried to pretend to be pleased : no doubt the shop was a con-
 
 110 THE " ASSOMMOra." 
 
 venient one Gervaise was right in taking it However, when 
 she had somewhat recovered, she and her husband talked of the 
 dampness of the courtyard, of the poor light of the rooms on 
 the ground floor. Oh ! it was a good place for rheumatism. 
 Yet, if she had made up her mind to take it, their observations, 
 of course, would not make her alter her decision. 
 
 -That evening, Gervaise frankly owned, with a laugh, that she 
 would have fallen ill if she had been prevented from having the 
 shop. Nevertheless, before saying " it's done ! " she wished to 
 take Coupeau to see the place, and try and obtain a reduction 
 in the rent. 
 
 " Very well, then, to-morrow, if you like," said her husband. 
 " You can come and fetch me towards six o'clock at the house 
 where I'm working, in the Rue de la Nation, and we'll call in at 
 the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or on our way home." 
 
 Coupeau was then finishing the roofing of a new three-storied 
 house. It so happened that on that day he was to tix the last 
 sheets of zinc. As the roof was almost flat, he had set up his 
 bench on it, a wide shutter supported on two trestles. A beauti- 
 ful May sun was setting, giving a golden hue to the chimney- 
 pots. And, right up at the top, against the clear sky, the 
 workman was quietly cutting up his zinc with a big pair of 
 shears, leaning over the bench, and looking like a tailor in his 
 shop cutting out a pair of trousers. Close to the wall of the 
 next house, his boy, a youngster of seventeen, thin and fair,, 
 was keeping the fire of the chafing dish blazing by the aid of an 
 enormous pair of bellows, each puff of which raised a cloud of 
 
 " Hi ! Zidore, put in the irons ! " cried Coupeau. 
 
 The boy stuck the soldering irons into the midst of the char- 
 coal, which looked a pale rose colour in the daylight. Then he 
 resumed blowing. Coupeau held the last sheet of zinc. It had 
 to be placed at the edge of the roof, close to the gutter-pipe ; 
 there was an abrupt slant there, and the gaping hollow of the 
 street opened beneath. The zinc-worker, just as though in his 
 own home, wearing list-shoes, advanced, dragging his feet, 
 and whistling the air, " O.h ! tne little lambs." Arrived in 
 front of the hole, he let himself glide, and then, supporting 
 himself with one knee against the masonry of a chimney-stack, 
 remained halfway from the edge of the roof. One of his legs 
 dangled. When he leant back to call that young viper, 
 Zidore, he held on to a corner of the masonry, on account of 
 the street beneath him.
 
 THE "ASSOMMCHB." Ill 
 
 " You confounded dawdler ! Give me the irons ! It's no use 
 looking up in the air, you skinny beggar ! the larks won't tumble 
 into your mouth already cooked ! " 
 
 But Zidore did not hurry himself. . He was interested in the 
 neighbouring roofs, and in a cloud of smoke which rose from the 
 other side of Paris, close to Grenelle ; it was very likely a fire. 
 However, he came and laid down on his stomach, his head over 
 the hole, and he passed the irons to Coupeau. Then the latter 
 commenced to solder the sheet. He squatted, he stretched, 
 always managing to Jbalance himself, sometimes seated on one 
 side, at others standing on the tip of one foot, often only hold- 
 ing on by a finger. He had a confounded assurance, the devil's 
 own cheek, familiar with danger, and braving it. It knew him. 
 It was the street that was afraid, not he. As he kept his pipe 
 in his mouth, he turned round every now and then to spit on to 
 the pavement. 
 
 " Hallo ! Madame Boche ! " cried he, suddenly. " Hi ! 
 Madame Boche ! " 
 
 He had just caught sight of the doorkeeper crossing the road. 
 She raised her head and recognised him, and a conversation 
 ensued between them. She hid her hands under her apron, her 
 nose elevated in the air. He, standing up now, his left arm 
 passed round a chimney-pot, leant over. 
 
 " Have you seen my wife 1 " asked he. 
 
 "No, I haven't," replied the doorkeeper. "Is she this 
 way?" 
 
 "She's coming to fetch me. And are they all well at 
 home?" 
 
 "Why, yes, thanks ; I'm the most ill, as you see. I'm going 
 to the Chaussee Clignancourt to buy a small leg of mutton. 
 The butcher near the Moulin-Rouge only charges sixteen 
 
 sous." 
 
 They raised their voices, because a vehicle was passing. In 
 the wide, deserted Rue de la Nation, their words, shouted out 
 with all their might, had only caused a little old woman to come 
 to her window; and this little old woman remained there lean- 
 ing out, giving herself the treat of a grand emotion by watching 
 that man on the roof over the way, as though she expected to 
 see him fall, from one minute to another. 
 
 " Well ! good evening," cried Madame Boche. " I won't 
 disturb you." 
 
 Coupeau turned round, and took back the iron that Zidore 
 was holding for him. But just as the doorkeeper was moving
 
 112 THE "AFSOMMOER." 
 
 off, she caught sitfht of Gervaise on the other side of the way, 
 holding Nana by the hand. She was already raising her head 
 to tell the zinc-worker, when the young woman closed her mouth 
 by an energetic gesture, and, in a low voice, so as not to be 
 heard up there, she told her of her fear : she was afraid, by show- 
 ing herself suddenly, of giving her husband a shock which might 
 make him lose his balance. During four years, she had only 
 been once to fetch him at his work. That day was the second 
 time. She could not witness it, her blood turned cold when 
 she beheld her old man between heaven and earth, in places 
 where even the sparrows would not venture. 
 
 "No doubt, it's not pleasant," murmured Madame Boche. 
 "My husband's a tailor, so I have none of these terrors." 
 
 " If you only knew, in the early days," said Gervaise again, 
 " I had frights from morning to night. I was always seeing 
 him on a stretcher, with his head smashed. Now, I don't think 
 of it so much. One gets used to everything. Bread must be 
 earned. All the same, it's a precious dear loaf, for one risks 
 one's bones more than's fair." 
 
 And she left off speaking, hiding Nana in her skirt, fearing a 
 cry from the little one. Very pale, she looked up in spite of 
 herself. At that moment Coupeau was soldering the extreme 
 edge of the sheet close to the gutter ; he slid down as far as pos- 
 sible, but without being able to reach the edge. Then, full 
 of freedom and heaviness, he risked himself with those slow 
 movements peculiar to workmen. For an instant he was im- 
 mediately over the pavement, no longer holding on, all 
 absorbed in his work ; and, from below, one could see the little 
 white flame of the solder frizzling up beneath the carefully 
 wielded iron. Gervaise, speechless, her throat contracted with 
 anguish, had clasped her hands together, and held them up in 
 a mechanical gesture of prayer. But she breathed freely as 
 Coupeau got up and returned back along the roof, without 
 hurrying himself, and taking the time to spit once more into 
 the street. 
 
 "Ah ! ah ! so you've been playing the spy on me ! " cried he, 
 gaily, on beholding her. " She's been making a stupid of her- 
 self, eh, Madame Boche? she wouldn't call to me. Wait a bit, 
 I shall have finished in ten minutes." 
 
 All that remained to do was to fix the top of a chimney a 
 mere nothing. The laundress and the doorkeeper waited on 
 the pavement, discussing the neighbourhood, and giving an eye 
 to Nana, to prevent her from dabbling in the gutter, where she
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." U3 
 
 wanted to look for little fishes ; and the two women kept glanc- 
 ing up at the roof, smiling and nodding their heads, as though 
 to imply that they were not losing patience. The old woman 
 opposite had not quitted her window, but continued watching 
 the man, and waiting. 
 
 " Whatever can she have to look at, that old she-goat ? " said 
 Madame Boche. " What a mug she has ! " 
 
 One could hear the loud voice of the zinc-worker up above 
 singing, " Ah ! it's nice to gather strawberries I " Bending over 
 his bench, he was now artistically cutting out his zinc. With 
 his compasses lie traced a line, and he detached a large fan- 
 shaped piece with the aid of a pair of curved shears ; then he 
 lightly bent this fan with his hammer into the form of a pointed 
 mushroom. Zidore was again blowing the charcoal in the 
 chafing-dish. The sun was setting behind the house in a bril- 
 liant rosy light, which was gradually becoming paler, and turning 
 to a delicate lilac. And, at this quiet hour of the day, right up 
 against the sky, the silhouettes of the two workmen, looking 
 inordinately large, with the dark line of the bench, and tho 
 strange profile of the bellows, stood out from the limpid back- 
 ground of the atmosphere. 
 
 When the capital was got into shape, Coupeau called out : 
 "Zidore ! the irons ! " 
 
 But Zidore had disappeared. The zinc-worker swore, and 
 looked about for him, even calling him through the open sky- 
 light of the loft. At length he discovered him on a neighbour- 
 ing roof, two houses off. The young rogue was taking a walk, 
 exploring the environs, his fair scanty locks blowing in the 
 breeze, his eyes blinking as they beheld the immensity of 
 Paris. 
 
 " I say, lazy bones ! Do you think you're having a day in 
 the country ? " asked Coupeau, in a rage. " You're like Mon- 
 sieur Beranger, composing verses, perhaps ! Will you give me 
 those irons ! Did any one ever see such a thing ! strolling 
 about on the house-tops ! You'd better bring your sweetheart 
 at once, and tell her of your love. Will you give me those 
 irons'? you confounded little shirker ! " 
 
 He finished his soldering, and called to Gervaise : " There, 
 it's done. I'm coming down." 
 
 The chimney-pot to which he had to fix the capital was in the 
 middle of the roof. Gervaise, who was no longer uneasy, con- 
 tinued to smile as she followed his movements. Nana, amused 
 all on a sudden by the view of her father, clapped her little 
 
 H
 
 114 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 hands. She had seated herself on the pavement to see the 
 better up there. 
 
 " Papa ! papa J " called she with all her might. " Papa I just 
 look'!" 
 
 The zinc-worker wished to lean forward, but his foot slipped. 
 Then suddenly, stupidly, like a cat with its legs entangled, he 
 rolled and descended the slight slope of the roof without being 
 able to save himself. 
 
 " Damnation ! " said he in a stifled voice. 
 
 And he fell. His body described a gentle curve, turned 
 twice over on itself, and came smashing into the middle of the 
 street with the dull thud of a bundle of clothes thrown from on 
 high. 
 
 Gervaise, feeling stupid, her throat rent by one great cry, 
 stood holding up her arms. Some passers-by hastened to the 
 spot ; a crowd soon formed. Madame Boche, utterly upset, her 
 knees bending under her, took Nana in her arms, to hide her 
 head and prevent her seeing. Meanwhile, the little old woman 
 opposite quietly closed her window, as though satisfied. 
 
 Four men ended by carrying Coupeau into a chemist's, at the 
 corner of the Rue des Poissonniers ; and he remained there on 
 a blanket, in the middle of the shop, whilst they sent to the 
 Lariboisiere hospital for a stretcher. He still breathed, but the 
 chemist kept slightly shaking his head. Now, Gervaise, 
 kneeling on the ground, sobbed continuously, her face bathed 
 in tears, blinded and stupefied. With a mechanical movement 
 she thrust out her hands and felt her husband's limbs very 
 gently. Then she drew them back, looking at the chemist, who 
 forbade her to touch him ; and a few seconds later she did it 
 again, unable to resist the desire to feel if he were still warm, 
 and thinking she did him good. When the stretcher at length 
 arrived, and they talked of starting for the hospital, she got up, 
 saying violently : 
 
 " No, no, not to the hospital ! We live in the Rue Neuve de 
 la Goutte-d'Or." 
 
 It was useless for them to explain to her that the illness 
 would cost her a great deal of money, if she took her husband 
 home. She obstinately repeated : 
 
 " Rue Neuve de la Goutte-d'Or ; I will show you the house. 
 What can it matter to you ? I've got money. He's my husband, 
 isn't he ? He's mine, and I will have him." 
 
 And they had to take Coupeau to his own home. When the 
 stretcher was carried through the crowd which was crushing up
 
 COUPEAU FALLING FROM THE ROOF OF THE HOTJSE IN TEE RUE DE LA 
 
 NATION. p. 114-
 
 THE "ASSOMMOm." 115 
 
 against the chemigt'a shop, the women of the neighbourhood 
 were excitedly talking of Gervaise. She limped, the jade, but 
 all the same she had some pluck. She would be sure to save 
 her old man ; whilst at the hospital the doctors let the patients 
 die who were very bad, so as not to have the bother of curing 
 them. Madame Boche, after taking Nana home with her, 
 returned and gave her account of the accident, with interminable 
 details, and still feeling agitated with the emotion she had passed 
 through. 
 
 " I was going to buy a leg of mutton ; I was there, I saw him 
 fall," repeated she. " It was all through the little one ; he 
 turned to look at her, and bang ! Ah ! good heavens ! I never 
 want to see such a sight again. However, I must be off to get 
 my leg of mutton." 
 
 For a week Coupeau was very bad. The family, the neigh- 
 bours, every one, expected to see him kick the bucket at any 
 moment. The doctor a very expensive doctor, who charged 
 five francs for each visit apprehended internal injuries, and 
 these words filled every one with fear. It was said in the 
 neighbourhood that the zinc-worker's heart had been injured by 
 the shock. Gervaise alone, looking pale through her nights of 
 watching, serious and resolute, shrugged her shoulders. Her 
 old man's right leg was broken, every one knew that ; it would 
 be set for him, and that was all. As for the rest, the injured 
 heart, that was nothing. She would mend his heart for him. 
 She knew the way to mend hearts with care, cleanliness, and 
 solid friendship. And she showed a superb conviction, certain 
 of curing him, merely by remaining with him and touching him 
 with her. hands in the hours of fever. She did not doubt for a 
 minute. For a whole week she remained up, speaking but 
 little, wrapped up in her obstinacy of saving him, forgetting her 
 children, the street, the entire city. The ninth day the day 
 on which the doctor at last answered for his patient's recovery 
 she fell on to a chair, her legs unable longer to support her, 
 her back almost broken, her face bathed in tears. That night 
 she consented to sleep two hours, her head leaning on the foot 
 of the bed. 
 
 Coupeau's accident had created quite a commotion in the 
 family. Mother Coupeau passed the nights with Gervaise ; but 
 as early as nine o'clock she fell asleep on a chair. Every 
 evening, on returning from work, Madame Lerat went a long 
 round out of her way to inquire how her brother was getting, 
 on. At first the Lorilleux had called two or three times a day,
 
 116 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 offering to sit up and watch, and even bringing an easy-chair 
 for Gervaise. Then it was not long before there were disputes 
 as to the proper way to nurse invalids. Madame Lorilleux 
 stated that she had saved the lives of enough persons in her 
 life-time to know how to set about it. She accused the young 
 woman of behaving roughly to her, of keeping her away from, 
 her brother's bedside. The Hobbler was certainly right in wish- 
 ing to save Coupeau in spite of everything; for there was no 
 doubt that if she had not gone and disturbed him in the Rue de 
 la Nation, he would never have fallen. Only, by the way she 
 went to work, she was certain to finish him off. 
 
 When Gervaise saw that Coupeau was out of danger, she 
 ceased guarding his bedside with so much jealous fierceness. 
 Now, they could no longer kill him, and she let people approach 
 without mistrust. The family invaded the room. The con- 
 valescence would be a very long one ; the doctor had talked of 
 four months. Then, during the long hours the zinc-worker 
 slept, the Lorilleux talked of Gervaise as of a fool. She had 
 done a smart thing in having her husband at home. At the 
 hospital they would have cured him twice as quickly. Lorilleux 
 would have liked to have been ill, to have caught no matter 
 what, just to show her that he did not hesitate for a moment to 
 go to Lariboisiere. Madame Lorilleux knew a lady who had 
 just come from there. Well ! she had had chicken to eat 
 morning and night. And the two of them, for the twentieth 
 time, made the calculation of what the four months' con- 
 valescence would cost the little home. First of all, the lost 
 days of work, then the doctor, the medicine, and later on the 
 good wine, the juicy underdone meat. If the Coupeaus only 
 devoured their few sous of savings, they might think themselves 
 precious lucky ; but in all likelihood they would fall into debt. 
 Oh j that was their business. Anyhow, they must not count on 
 the family, which was not rich enough to keep an invalid at 
 home. It was so much the worse for the Hobbler, was it not ? 
 She should do as others did let her husband go to the hospital. 
 That would teach her not to be so proud. . 
 
 One night Madame Lorilleux had the spitefulness to ask her 
 suddenly : 
 
 " Well ! and your shop, when are you going to take it ? " 
 
 " Yes/' chuckled Lorilleux, " the landlord's still waiting for 
 you." 
 
 Gervaise stood bursting with anger. She had completely 
 forgotten the shop ; but she saw the wicked joy of those
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 11? 
 
 people, at the thought that she would no longer be able to take 
 it From that evening, in fact, they watched for every oppor- 
 tunity to twit her about her hopeless dream. When any one 
 spoke of some impossible wish, they would say it might be 
 realised on the day that Gervaise started in business, in a 
 beautiful shop opening on to the street. And behind her back 
 they would laugh fit to split their sides. She did not like to 
 think such an unkind thing; but, really, the Lorilleux now 
 seemed to be very pleased at Coupeau's accident, as it prevented 
 her setting up as a laundress in the Rue de.la Goutte-d'Or. 
 
 Then she also wished to laugh and show them how willingly 
 she parted with the money for the sake of curing her husband. 
 Each time that she took the savings-bank book from beneath 
 the glass clock-cover in their presence, she would say gaily : 
 
 u I'm going out ; I'm going to take my shop." 
 
 She had not been willing to withdraw the money all at once. 
 She took it out a hundred francs at a time, so as not to keep 
 such a pile of gold and silver in her drawer ; then, too, she 
 vaguely hoped for some miracle, some sudden recovery, which 
 would enable them not to part with the entire sum. At each 
 journey to the savings-bank, on her return home, she added up 
 on a piece of paper the money they had still left there. It was 
 merely for the sake of order. In spite of the pile diminishing 
 more and more, she still kept, in her sensible way and with her 
 quiet smile, the account of the downfall of their savings. Was 
 it not already a consolation that the money was being put to 
 such a good use, to have had it handy at the time of their mis- 
 fortune ? And without a regret she carefully replaced the book 
 behind the clock, under the glass cover. 
 
 The Goujets were very kind to Gervaise during Coupeau's 
 illness. Madame Goujet was entirely at her disposal. She 
 never went out without asking her if she wanted any sugar, or 
 butter, or salt fetched ; she always offered her the first plateful 
 on the evenings when she made any fresh soup ; and she even, 
 when she saw her very busy, looked after her cooking or helped 
 her to wash-up. Every morning Goujet took the young woman's 
 pails and filled them at the fountain in the Rue des Poissonniers ; 
 it was a saving of two sous. Then after dinner, when the rela- 
 tions did not invade the room, the Goujets would oome and keep 
 the Coupeaus company. For two hours, up to ten o'clock, the 
 blacksmith smoked his pipe as he watched Gervaise hovering 
 round the invalid. He did not utter ten words the whole 
 evening. With his big fair face set between his giant shoulders.
 
 118 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 he was moved at seeing her pour the diet-drink into a cup and 
 stir up the sugar without making any noise with the spoon. 
 When she tucked in the bed-clothes, and encouraged Coupeau 
 with her gentle voice, he felt deeply affected. Never before had 
 he seen such a plucky little woman. It was no dishonour that 
 she limped ; it was all the more merit to her that she tired her- 
 self out all day waiting on her husband. One could not deny 
 that she did not even sit down for a quarter of an hour to eat 
 her meals. She was constantly running to the chemist, poking 
 her nose into very unpleasant things, working tremendously 
 hard to keep that room, in which everything was done, neat and 
 clean ; with all that, she never complained, was always amiable, 
 even on nights when, from excessive fatigue, she was falling 
 asleep where she stood, with her eyes open. And the black- 
 smith, in that atmosphere of devotion, in the midst of those 
 drugs lying about on the furniture, was seized with a great 
 affection for Gervaise, as he beheld her loving and nursing 
 Coupeau with all her heart. 
 
 " Well ! old man, you're mended at last," said he one day to 
 the zinc- worker. " I never thought it would be otherwise ; your 
 wife is an angel ! " 
 
 He was going to marry. At least, his mother had found a 
 very suitable young girl, a lace-mender like herself, whom she 
 longed to see him take to wife. So as not to grieve her, he had 
 said "yes," and the wedding had even been settled to take 
 place early in September. The money to begin the house- 
 keeping upon had been lying for a long time in the savings- 
 bank. But he shook his head whenever Gervaise spoke to him 
 of the marriage, and he murmured in his slow voice : 
 
 " All women are not like you, Madame Coupeau. If they 
 were, one would want to marry ten of them." 
 
 At the end of two months, however, Coupeau was able to get 
 up. He did not go far, only from the bed to the window, and 
 even then Gervaise had to support him. There he would sit 
 down in the easy-chair the Lorilleux had brought, with his right 
 leg stretched out on a stool. This joker, who used to laugh at 
 the people -who slipped down on frosty days, felt greatly put out 
 by his accident. He had no philosophy. He had spent those 
 two months in bed, in cursing, and in worrying the people about 
 him. It was not an existence, really, to pass one's life on one's 
 back, with a pin all tied up and as stiff as a sausage. Ah ! he 
 certainly knew the ceiling by heart ; there was a crack, at the 
 corner of the alcove, that he could have drawn with his eyes
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 119 
 
 shut. Then when he was made comfortable in the arm-chair, 
 it was another grievance. Would he be fixed there for long, 
 just like a mummy ? The street was not so very amusing ; no 
 one ever passed there, and it smelt of dirty water and chemicals 
 all day long. No, really, he was growing old there ; ho would 
 have given ten years of his life just to have had a look at the 
 fortifications. And he was constantly uttering violent accusa- 
 tions against fate. His accident was not just ; it ought never 
 to have happened to him a good workman, not an idle fellow 
 or a drunkard. Had it happened to many others he knew, he 
 could have understood it. 
 
 "Papa Coupeau," said he, "broke his neck one day that 
 he'd been boozing. I can't say that it was deserved, but any- 
 how it was explainable. I had had nothing since my lunch, 
 was perfectly quiet, and without a drop of liquor in my body ; 
 and yet I come to grief just because I wanted to turn round 
 to smile at Nana ! Don't you think that's too much ? If there 
 is a providence, it certainly arranges things in a very peculiar 
 manner. I for one shall never believe in it." 
 
 And when at last he was able to use his legs, he retained a 
 secret grudge against work. It was a handicraft full of mis- 
 fortunes to pass one's days, like the cats, on the roofs of the 
 houses. The employers were no fools ! they sent you to your 
 death being far too cowardly to venture themselves on a 
 ladder and stopped at home in safety at their fire-sides with- 
 out caring a hang for the poorer classes ; and he got to the point 
 of saying that every one ought to fix the zinc himself on his 
 own house. Well, really ! in the name of justice it should be 
 so ; if you don't want the water to come in, cover the roof your- 
 self. Then he regretted that he had not learned some other 
 handicraft, something pleasanter and less dangerous ; for 
 instance, that of a cabinetmaker. It was all old Coupeau's 
 fault ; fathers always had that stupid habit of making their 
 children follow the same trade as themselves. 
 
 For another two months Coupeau walked about on crutches. 
 He had first of all managed to get as far as the street, and smoke 
 his pipe in front of the door. Then he had managed to reach the 
 exterior Boulevard, dragging himself along in the sunshine, and 
 remaining for hours on one of the seats. Gaiety returned to 
 him ; his infernal tongue got sharper in these long hours of idle- 
 ness. And with the pleasure of living, he gained there a delight 
 in doing nothing, an indolent feeling took possession of his 
 limbs, and his muscles gradually glided into a very sweet
 
 120 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 slumber. It was the slow victory of laziness, which took ad van- 
 tage of his convalesence to obtain possession of his body and un- 
 nerve him with its tickling. He regained his health, as thorough 
 a banterer as before, thinking life beautiful, and not seeing why 
 it should not last for ever. When he was able to lay aside his 
 crutches, he took longer walks, visited the workshops to see his 
 comrades again. He would stand with his arms folded in front 
 of the houses that were being built, chuckling and wagging his 
 head, and chaffing the workmen who were busying about. He 
 would hold out his leg to show them the result of exerting one- 
 self. This ridiculing of the labour of others was a sort of satis- 
 faction to his grudge against work. No doubt, he would have 
 to resume it again, he would be obliged to ; but he would put 
 off doing so as long as possible. Oh, he had good reason for not 
 being enthusiastic about it. Besides, it seemed so pleasant to 
 be able to do nothing for a while ! 
 
 On the afternoons when Coupeau felt dull, he would call on the 
 Lorilleux. The latter would pity him immensely, and attract 
 .him with all sorts of amiable attentions. During the first 
 years following his marriage, he had avoided them, thanks to 
 Gervaise's influence. Now they regained their sway over him 
 by twitting him about being afraid of his wife. He was no 
 man, that was evident ! The Lorilleux, however, showed great 
 discretion, and were loud in their praise of the laundress's 
 good qualities. Coupeau, without as yet coming to wrangling, 
 swore to the latter that his sister adored her, and requested that 
 she would behave more amiably to her. The first quarrel which 
 the couple had occurred one evening on account of Etienne. The 
 zinc-worker had passed the afternoon with the Lorilleux. On 
 arriving home, as the dinner was not quite ready, and the 
 children were whining for their soup, he suddenly turned upon 
 Etienne, and boxed his ears soundly. And during an hour he 
 did not cease to grumble : the brat was not his ; he did not 
 know why he allowed him to be in the place ; he would end by 
 turning him out into the street. Up till then he had tolerated 
 the youngster without all that fuss. On the morrow he talked 
 of his dignity. Three days after, he kept kicking the little 
 fellow behind, morning and evening, so much so, that the child, 
 whenever he heard him coming, bolted into the Goujets', where 
 the old lace-mender kept a corner of the table clear for him to 
 do his lessons. 
 
 Gervaise had, for some time past, returned to work. She no 
 longer had the trouble of looking under the glass cover of the
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 121 
 
 clock ; all the savings were gone ; and she had to work hard, 
 work for four, for there were four to feed now. She alone 
 maintained them. Whenever she heard people pitying her, 
 she at once found excuses for Coupeau. Recollect ! he had 
 suffered so much ; it was not surprising if his disposition had 
 soured ! 'But it would pass off when his health returned. And 
 if any one hinted that Coupeau seemed all right again, that he 
 could very well return to work, she protested: No, no; not 
 yet ! She did not want to see him take to his bed again. 
 They would allow her to know best what the doctor said, 
 perhaps ! It was she who prevented him returning to work, tell- 
 ing him every morning to take his time and not to force himself. 
 She even slipped twenty sou pieces into his waistcoat pocket. 
 Coupeau accepted this as something perfectly natural. He 
 complained of all sorts of ailments, in order to be pampered up; at 
 the end of six months he was not yet out of his convalescence. 
 On the days when he went to look at the others working, he 
 was always willing to go and have a glass of wine with his pals. 
 One was, all the same, pretty comfortable at the wine-shop ; 
 one stayed there joking, just for five minutes. That did not 
 dishonour anybody,. It was only fools who stood outside 
 parched with thirst. Those who used to chaff him were quite 
 right, for a glass of wine never yet killed a man. But he 
 slapped his chest as he boasted that he never drank anything 
 but wine ; always wine, never brandy ; wine prolonged life, 
 made nobody ill, and made nobody drunk. However, on 
 several occasions, after a day of idleness spent in going from 
 workshop to workshop, and from boozing-ken to boozing-ken, he 
 had come hdme slightly elevated. On those days, Gervaise had 
 kept her door shut, pretending she had a bad headache, so that 
 the Goujets should not hear all the nonsense Coupeau was 
 talking. 
 
 Little by little, however, the young woman fell sad. Morn- 
 ing and night she went to the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or to look at 
 the shop, which was still to be let ; and she would hide herself as 
 though she were committing some childish prank unworthy of a 
 grown-up person. This shop was beginning to turn her brain. 
 At night-time, when the light was out, she experienced the 
 charm of some forbidden pleasure in thinking of it with her eyes 
 open. She again made her calculations : two hundred and fifty 
 francs for the rent, one hundred and fifty francs for utensils and 
 moving, one hundred francs in hand to keep them going for a fort- 
 night in all, five hundred francs at the very lowest figure. If
 
 122 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 she was not continually talking of it aloud, it was for fear she 
 should be suspected of regretting the savings swallowed up by 
 (Joupeau's illness. She often became quite pale, having almost 
 allowed her desire to escapeher, and catching back her words quite 
 confused as though she had been thinking of something wicked. 
 Now they would have to work for four or five years before they 
 would succeed in saving such a sum. Her regret was at not 
 being able to start in business at once ; she would have earned 
 all the home required, without counting on Coupeau, letting 
 him take months to get into the way of work again ; she would 
 no longer have been uneasy, but certain of the future, and free 
 from the secret fears which sometimes seized her when he returned 
 home very gay and singing, and relating some joke of that 
 animal, My-Boots, whom he had treated to a drink. 
 
 One evening, Gervaise being at home alone, Goujet entered, 
 and did not hurry off again, according to his habit. He 
 seated himself, and smoked as he watched her. He probably 
 had something very serious to say; he thought it over, let it 
 ripen, without being able to put it into suitable words. At 
 length, after a long silence, he appeared to make up his mind, 
 and took his pipe out of his mouth to say f .-all in a breath : 
 
 "Madame Gervaise, will you allow me to lend you some 
 money ? " 
 
 She was leaning over an open drawer, looking for some dish- 
 cloths. She got up, her face very red. He must have seeu 
 her then, in the morning, standing in ecstasy before the shop for 
 close upon ten minutes. He was smiling in an embarrassed 
 way, as though he had made some insulting proposal. But she 
 hastily refused. Never would she accept money from any one 
 without knowing when she would be able to return it. Then 
 also it was a question of too large an amount. And as he 
 insisted, in a frightened manner, she ended by exclaiming : 
 
 " But your marriage 1 I certainly can't take the money you've 
 been saving for your marriage ! " 
 
 " Oh, don't let that bother you," he replied, turning red in 
 his turn. " I'm not going to be married now. It's an idea of 
 mine, you know. Keally, I would much sooner lend you the 
 money." 
 
 Then they both held down their heads. There was some- 
 thing very plaasant between them to which they did not give 
 expression. And Gervaise accepted. Goujet had told his 
 mother. They crossed the landing, and went to see her at 
 once. The lace-mender was very grave, and looked rather sad
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 123 
 
 as she bent her face over her tambour-frame. She would not 
 thwart her son, but she no longer approved Gervaise's project ; 
 and she plainly told her why. Coupeau was going to the bad ; 
 Coupeau would swallow up her shop. - She especially could not 
 forgive the zinc-worker for having refused to learn to read 
 during his convalescence. The blacksmith had offered to teach 
 him, but the other had sent him to the right about, saying that 
 learning made people get thin. This had almost caused a 
 quarrel between the two workmen ; each went his own way. 
 Madame Goujet, however, seeing her big boy's beseeching 
 glances, behaved very kindly to Gervaise. It was settled that 
 they would lend their neighbours five hundred francs ] the 
 latter were to repay the amount by instalments of twenty 
 francs a month ; it would last as long as it lasted. 
 
 " I say, the blacksmith's sweet on you !." exclaimed 
 Coupeau, laughing, when he heard what had taken place. " Oh, 
 I'm quite easy; he's too big a muff. We'll pay him back his 
 money. But really, if he had to do with some people, he'd find 
 himself pretty well duped.'* 
 
 On the morrow the Coupeaus took the shop. All day long, 
 Gervaise was running from the Rue Neuve to the Rue de la 
 Goutte-d'Or. When the neighbours beheld her pass thus, 
 nimble and delighted to the extent that she no longer limped, 
 they, said that she must have undergone some operation.
 
 124 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 IT so happened that the Boches had left the Rue des Poisson- 
 niers at the April quarter, and were now taking charge of the 
 great house in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. ] t was a curious 
 coincidence, all the same ! One thing that worried Gervaise, 
 who had lived so quietly in her lodgings in the Rue Neuve, was 
 the thought of returning under the subjection of some unpleasnt 
 person, with whom she would be continually quarrelling, either 
 on account of water spilt in the passage or of a door shut too 
 noisily at night-time. Doorkeepers are such a disagreeable 
 class! But it would be a pleasure to be with the Boches. 
 They knew one another they would always get on well together. 
 It would be just like members of the same family. 
 
 On the day that the Coupeaus went to sign the lease, Gervaise 
 felt her heart swollen with pride as she passed through the high 
 doorway. She was then, at length, going to live in that house 
 as vast as a little town, with its interminable staircases, and pas- 
 sages as long and winding as streets. The grey fa9ades, with 
 the rags hanging out of the windows drying in the sunshine, 
 the dull-lighted courtyard, with its uneven pavement like a 
 street, the hum of work which issued from the walls, caused 
 quite a commotion within her, a joy at being at length on the 
 point of satisfying her ambition, a fear of not succeeding and of 
 finding herself crushed in that enormous struggle against hun- 
 ger, of which she had a kind of presentiment. It seemed to her 
 that she was doing something very bold, throwing herself into 
 the midst of some machinery in motion, as she listened to the 
 blacksmith's hammers and the cabinetmaker's planes, hammer- 
 ing and hissing in the depths of the workshops on the ground 
 floor. On that day, the water flowing from the dyer's under 
 the entrance porch was a very pale apple green. She 
 smilingly stepped over, it ; to her the colour was a pleasant 
 omen.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 125 
 
 The meeting -with the landlord was to take place in the 
 Bochcs' room. M. Marescot, a wealthy cutler of the Rue de la 
 Paix, had at one time turned a grindstone through the streets. 
 He was now stated to be worth several millions. He was a man 
 of fifty-five, strong, bony, and decorated, with a habit of spread- 
 ing out his immense labourer's hands ; and one of his delights 
 was to get hold of his tenants' knives and scissors, which he 
 would sharpen himself, just for pleasure. He had the reputa- 
 tion of not being proud, because he remained for hours with his 
 doorkeepers, in a secluded corner of their room, overhauling 
 their accounts. It was there that he transacted all the busi- 
 ness connected with the house. The Coupeaus found him seated 
 before Madame Boche's greasy table, listening to how the dress- 
 maker on the second floor, staircase A, had refused to pay her 
 rent, making use of a disgusting expression. Then, when the 
 lease was signed, he shook hands with the zinc-worker. He 
 liked workmen. He had had to work precious hard once upon 
 a time. But work was the high road to everything. And, 
 after counting the two hundred and fifty francs for the first two 
 quarters in advance, and dropping them into his capacious 
 pocket, he related the story of his life, and showed his decora- 
 tion. 
 
 Gervaise, however, felt rather ill at ease on account of the 
 Boches' behaviour. They pretended not to know her. They were 
 most assiduous in their attentions to the landlord, bowing down 
 before him, watching for his least words, and nodding their 
 approval of them. Madame Boche suddenly ran out and dis- 
 persed a group of children who were paddling about in front of 
 the cistern, the tap of which they had turned full on, causing 
 the water jto flow over the pavement; and when she returned, 
 upright and severe in her skirts, crossing the courtyard and 
 glancing slowly up at all the windows, as though to assure her- 
 self of the good behaviour of the household, she pursed her lips 
 ill a way to show with what authority she was invested, now 
 that she reigned over three hundred tenants. Boche again 
 spoke of the dressmaker on the second floor ; he advised that 
 she should be turned out ; he reckoned up the number of quar- 
 ters she owed with the importance of a steward whose manage- 
 ment might be compromised. M. Marescot approved the 
 suggestion of turning her out, but he wished to wait till the half 
 quarter. It was bard to turn people out into the street, more 
 especially as it did not put a sou into the landlord's pocket. 
 And Gervaise asked herself with a shudder if she too would bo
 
 126 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 turned out into the street the day that some misfortune ren- 
 dered her unable to pay. The smoky room, filled with black 
 furniture, had the dampness and obscurity of a cellar ; what 
 little light there was fell on to the tailor's board placed in front 
 of the window, and on which lay an old frock coat sent to be 
 turned ; whilst Pauline, the Boches' only child, red haired, and 
 four yeai*s old, was seated on the ground, quietly assisting at 
 the cooking of a piece of veal, delighted, and surrounded by the 
 strong odour which rose from the stove. 
 
 M, Marescot again held out his hand to the zinc- worker, when 
 the latter spoke of the repairs, recalling to his mind a promise 
 he had made to talk the matter over later on. But the land- 
 lord grew angry, he had never promisedlanything ; besides, it 
 was not usual to do any repairs to a shop However, he con- 
 sented to go over the place, followed byfthe Coupeaus and 
 Boche. The little linenclraper had earned off all his shelves 
 and counters; the empty shop displayed its blackened ceiling and 
 its cracked walls, on which hung strips of an old yellow paper. 
 In the sonorous emptiness of the place, there ensued a heated 
 discussion. M. Marescot exclaimed that it was the business of 
 shopkeepers to embellish their shops, for a shopkeeper might 
 wish to have gold put about everywhere, and he, the landlord, 
 could not put gold. Then he related that he had spent more 
 than twenty thousand francs in fitting up his premises in the 
 Hue de la Paix. Gervaise, with her woman's obstinacy, kept 
 repeating an argument which she considered unanswerable. He 
 would repaper a lodging, would he not ? Then, why did he not 
 treat the shop the same as a lodging? She did not ask him for 
 anything else only to whitewash the ceiling, and put some 
 fresh paper on the walls. 
 
 Boche, all this while, remained dignified and impenetrable ; 
 he turned about and looked up in the air, without expressing an 
 opinion. Coupeau winked at him in vain, he affected not to 
 wish to take advantage of his great influence over the landlord. 
 He ended, however, by making a slight grimace a little smile, 
 accompanied by a nod of the head. Just then, M. Marescot, 
 exasperated, and seemingly very unhappy, and clutching his 
 fingers like a miser being despoiled of his gold, was giving way 
 to Gervaise, promising to do the ceiling and repaper the shop, 
 on condition that she paid for half of the paper. And he hur- 
 ried away, declining to discuss anything further. 
 
 Then, when Boche was alone with the Coupeaus, he slapped 
 them on the shoulders, and was awfully jolly and friendly.
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIB." 127 
 
 Well, the point was carried ! Without him they would never 
 have got the ceiling whitewashed or the walls repapered. Had 
 they noticed how the landlord had consulted him out of the 
 corner of his eye, and how he had suddenly come to a decision 
 on seeing him smile ? Then, he owned, in confidence, that he 
 was the real master of the house ; he decided when a notice to 
 quit should be given, let the rooms when the people suited him, 
 and received the rents, which he kept for a fortnight together 
 stowed away in his drawer. That evening, the Coupeaus, by 
 way of thanking the Boches, thought it only polite to send them 
 two quarts of wine. What they had done was well worth a 
 present. 
 
 As early as the following Monday, the workmen started doing 
 up the shop. The purchasing of the paper turned out especially 
 to be a very big ahair. Gervaise wanted a grey paper with blue 
 flowers, so as to enliven and brighten the walls. Boche offered to 
 take her to the dealers, so that she might make her own selec- 
 tion. But the landlord had given him formal instructions not 
 to go beyond the price of fifteen sous the piece. They were 
 there an hour. The laundress kept looking in despair at a very 
 pretty chintz pattern costing eighteen sous the piece, and 
 thought all the other papers hideous. At length the door- 
 keeper gave in ; he would arrange the matter, and, if necessary, 
 would make out there was a piece more used than was really 
 the case. So, on her way home, Gervaise purchased some tarts 
 for Pauline. She did not like being behindhand one always 
 gained by behaving nicely to her. 
 
 The shop was to be ready in four days. The workmen were 
 there three weeks. At first it was arranged that they should 
 merely wash the paint. But this paint, originally the colour of 
 wine lees, was so dirty and so sad-looking, that Gervaise allowed 
 herself to be tempted to have the whole of the frontage painted 
 a light blue with yellow mouldings. Then the repairs seemed 
 as though they would last for ever. Coupeau, who had not yet 
 returned to work, would arrive the first thing in the morning 
 to see if things were going on all right. Boche, leaving the coat 
 or the trousers, the button-holes of which he was mending, 
 would also come and give an eye to the men. And both of 
 them, standing in front of the painters, smoking and expecto- 
 rating with their hands behind their backs, would pass the day 
 judging each dab of the paint brush. There were interminable 
 reflections, profound reveries, anent a nail to be pulled out. 
 The painters, two tall, jolly fellows, would leave their ladders,
 
 128 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 and also stand in the middle of the shop, joining in the discus- 
 sion, and wagging their heads for hours as they looked with a 
 dreamy eye at the commencement of their work. The ceiling 
 was whitewashed pretty rapidly. The painting promised never 
 to be finished. It would not dry. Towards nine o'clock the 
 painters would arrive with their colour pots, and, after putting 
 them in a corner and giving a look round, they would disap- 
 pear, and would not be seen again. They had gone off to lunch, 
 or else they had had to go and finish a job close by in the Rue 
 Myrrha. On other occasions, Coupeau took the whole gang to 
 have a glass of wine Boche, the painters, and any comrades 
 who happened to be passing ; and that meant another afternoon 
 wasted. Gervaise's patience was thoroughly exhausted, when, 
 suddenly, everything was finished in two days, the paint var- 
 nished, the paper hung, and the dirt all cleared away. The 
 workmen had finished it off as though they were playing, 
 whistling away on their ladders, and singing loud enough to 
 deafen the whole neighbourhood. 
 
 The moving in took place at once. During the first few 
 days, Gervaise felt as delighted as a child whenever she crossed 
 the road on returning from some errand. She lingered to 
 smile at her home. From a distance her shop appeared light 
 and gay with its pale blue signboard, on which the word 
 " Laundress " was painted in big yellow letters, amidst the dark 
 row of the other frontages. In the window, closed in be- 
 hind by little muslin curtains, and hung on either side with 
 blue paper to show off the whiteness of the linen, some shirts 
 were displayed, with some women's caps hanging above them on 
 wires. And she thought her shop looked pretty, being the 
 same colour as the heavens. Inside, there was more blue ; the 
 paper, in imitation of a Pompadour chintz, represented a trellis 
 overgrown with convolvuli. The work-table, an immense piece 
 of furniture which filled two-thirds of the place, was covered 
 with a thick cloth, and draped round with a piece of cretonne, 
 displaying large blue flowers, so as to hide the trestles on which 
 it stood. Gervaise would seat herself on a stool, breathing con- 
 tentedly, and delighted with all that beautiful cleanliness, as 
 she devoured her new belongings with her eyes ; but her first 
 look was always given to her stove, a cast-iron stove, where 
 ten irons, ranged round the fire on slanting plates, could heat 
 at the same time. She would go down on her knees and look 
 with a constant dread, fearing that her little fool of an appren- 
 tice was making the cust-iron crack by stuffing in too much coke.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 129 
 
 The lodging at the back of the shop was tolerably decent. 
 The Coupeaus slept in the first room, where they also did the 
 cooking and took their meals ; a door at the back opened on to 
 the courtyard of the house. Nana's bed was in the right hand 
 room, which was lighted by a little round window close to the 
 ceiling. As for Etienne, he shared the left hand room with the 
 dirty clothes, enormous bundles of which lay about on the floor. 
 However, there was one disadvantage the Coupeaus would not 
 admit it at first but the damp ran down the walls, and it 
 was impossible to see clearly in the place after three o'clock 
 hi the afternoon. 
 
 In the neighbourhood the new shop produced a great sensa- 
 tion. The Coupeaus were accused of going too fast, and making 
 too much fuss. They had, in fact, spent the five hundred 
 francs lent by the Goujets in fitting up the shop and in moving, 
 without keeping sufficient to live upon for a fortnight, as they had 
 intended doing. The morning that Gervaise took down her 
 shutters for the first time, she Jiad just six francs in her purse. 
 But that did not worry her, customers began to arrive, and 
 things seemed promising. A week later, on the Saturday, 
 before going to bed, she remained two hours making calcula- 
 tions on 'a piece of paper, and she awoke Coupeau to tell him, 
 with a bright look on her face, that there were hundreds and 
 thousands of francs to be made, if they were only careful. 
 
 " Ah, well ! " said Madame Lorilleux all over the Hue de la 
 Goutte-d'Qr, "my fool of a brother is seeing some funny things ! 
 All that was wanting was that the Hobbler should go about on 
 the loose. It becomes her well, doesn't it 1 " 
 
 The Lorilleux had declared war to the knife against Gervaise. 
 To begin with/ they had almost died of rage during the time 
 while the repairs were being done to the shop. If they caught 
 sight of the painters from a distance they would walk on the 
 other side of the way, and go up to their rooms with their teeth 
 set. A blue shop for that "nobody," it was enough to dis- 
 courage all honest, hard-working people ! So on the second 
 day, as the 'apprentice was emptying a basin of starch water in 
 the street just as Madame Lorilleux was going out, the latter 
 drew a crowd round them by accusing her sister-in-law of in- 
 citing her workgirls to insult her. And all intercourse was 
 broken off; whenever they met now, they only exchanged the 
 most terrible looks. 
 
 " Yes, she leads a pretty life ! " Madame Lorilleux kept 
 saying. " We all know where the money came from that she 
 
 I
 
 130 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 paid for her wretched shop ! She earned it with the black- 
 smith ; and he springs from a nice ^ family too! Didn't the 
 father cut his own throat to save the guillotine the trouble of 
 doing so 1 Anyhow, there was something disreputable of the 
 sort ! " 
 
 She very plainly accused Gervaise of being Goujet's mistress. 
 She lied she pretended she had surprised them together one 
 night on a seat on the exterior Boulevards. The thought of this 
 intimacy, of the stolen pleasures that her sister-in-law was no 
 doubt enjoying, exasperated her still more, because of her own 
 ugly woman's enforced virtue. Every day the same cry came 
 from her heart to her lips, 
 
 "But whatever is it she has, that wretched cripple, for people 
 to fall in love with her? Nobody falls in Jove with me! " 
 
 Then there were endless cacklings with the neighbours. She 
 told the whole story. Ah ! she had led them a fine dance on 
 the wedding-day ! Qh 1 she was not blind, she saw then how 
 it was going to turn out. Only, later on, the Hobbler had 
 made herself so pleasant, she was such a hypocrite, that she and 
 her husband had consented, for Coupeau's sake, to be Nana's 
 godfather and godmother; and it had cost something, a christ- 
 ening like that. But now, you know, the Hobbler might be at 
 death's door, and in want of a glass of water, yet she would 
 certainly never take the trouble to give it to her. She had no 
 liking for insolent persons, nor hussies, nor harlots. As for 
 Nana, she would always be welcome whenever she came to see 
 her godfather and godmother ; the little one was not to be 
 punished for her mother's crimes. Coupeau was in no need of 
 advice; any other man in his place would have boxed his wife's 
 ears and given her a ducking. However, that was his busi- 
 ness ; all they wanted was ior him to see that proper respect 
 was paid to his family. Good heavens ! if Lorilleux had caught 
 her, Madame Lorilleux, in the very act of being unfaithful to 
 him, it would not have passed off quietly ; he would have 
 stabbed her in the stomach with his shears. 
 
 The Boches, however, severe judges of the quarrels of the 
 house, said that the Lorilleux were in the wrong. The Loril- 
 leux were no doubt respectable persons, quiet, working the 
 whole day long, and paying their rent regularly. But, really, 
 jealousy drove them mad. With all that, too, they would have 
 tried to fleece an egg. Regular misers, there was no other 
 name for them ; people who hid away their bottle of wine when- 
 ever anyone called, so as not to have to offer a glass. In short
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 131 
 
 they were not at all a pleasant couple. One day Gerraise had 
 treated the Boches to some syrup and seltzer water, and they 
 were all drinking it in the doorkeeper's room when Madame 
 Lorilleux passed very stiffly by, and made a point of spitting on 
 the ground 'before them as she did so ; and ever since then, 
 every Saturday when Madame Boche swept down the stairs and 
 passages, she left the dust in front of the chain-maker's door. 
 
 " It isn't to be wondered at ! " Madame Lorilleux would ex- 
 claim, " the Hobbler's for ever stuffing them, the gluttons ! 
 Ah ! they're all alike ; but they had better not annoy nie ! 
 I'll complain to the landlord. Only yesterday I saw that sly 
 old beast Boche rubbing against Madame Gaudron's skirts. 
 Jiist fancy ! making up to a woman of that age, and who has 
 half a dozen children too ; it's positively disgusting ! If I catch 
 'em at anything of the sort again I'll tell Madame Boche, and 
 she'll give her old man a hiding. It'll be something to laugh 
 at!" 
 
 Mother Coupeau continued to visit the two homes, saying 
 just what everyone else said, and even managing to get asked 
 oftener to dinner, by complaisantly listening one night to her 
 daughter and the next night to her daughter-in-law. For the 
 time being, Madame Lerat had ceased calling on the Coupeaus, 
 because she had quarrelled with the Hobbler respecting a 
 zouave who had cut his mistress's nose off with a razor. She 
 took the zouave's part, she considered slashing about with a 
 razor a great sign of love, but did not give her reasons ; and 
 she had increased her sister's resentment by assuring her that 
 the Hobbler, in the course of conversation before fifteen or 
 twenty persons, had called her Cow's-Tail in the most open 
 manner. Well ! yes, the Boches, the neighbours all called her 
 Cow's-Tail now. 
 
 In the midst of all this tittle-tattle, Gervaise, quiet and smil- 
 ing at the door of her shop, greeted her friends with an affec- 
 tionate little nod of the head. She delighted to come there for 
 a minute during her ironing to laugh at the street, with the 
 pride of a shopkeeper who has a bit of the pavement belonging 
 to her. The Rue de la Goutte-d'Or seemed hers, and the ad- 
 jacent streets, and the whole neighbourhood. When she 
 stretched out her head, with her loose white jacket on, her 
 arms bare, her fair hair which had come undone in the heat of 
 her work, she would give a glance to the left and another to the 
 right, as far as she could see, so as to take in at once the 
 passers-by,, the houses, the pavement, and the sky. To the
 
 132 THE "ASSOMMOIH." 
 
 left was the Eue de la Goutte-d'Or, quiet and deserted like a 
 corner in some country town, where women were conversing 
 in a low voice at their street doors. To the right, a few paces 
 away, was the Rue des Poissonniers with its noise of passing 
 vehicles, its continual treadiug of a crowd which came from all 
 directions and filled that part with a vulgar mob. Gervaise 
 loved the street, the Dumpings of the heavy carts over the un- 
 even roadway, the jostlings of the people along the narrow, 
 smooth-flagged side-walks, which were every now and then 
 broken by a steep sloping pebble pavement. The few yards of 
 gutter in front of her shop, assumed an enormous importance 
 in her eyes, became a wide river which she liked to see perfectly 
 clean a strange and living river, the waters of which were 
 capriciously coloured in the midst of the black mud, with the 
 most delicate tints from the dyer's establishment. Then, too, 
 she was interested in some of the shops, a vast grocery with its 
 display of dried fruits protected by some fine netting, a linen- 
 drapery and hosiery for workpeople, outside which overalls and 
 blue blouses, hanging with the legs and arms stretched out, 
 waved in the slightest breeze. At the greengrocer's and the 
 tripe-seller's, she could see corners of counters on which superb 
 cats sat quietly purring. Her neighbour, Madame Vigouroux, 
 the charcoal-dealer, returned her nod. She was a little fat 
 woman, with bright eyes and a black face, and was idling away 
 her time laughing with some men, as she leant against her shop 
 front to which simulated logs of wood painted on a background 
 the colour of wine lees gave the appearance of a log hut. 
 Mesdames Cudorge, mother and daughter, her other neighbours, 
 who kept the umbrella shop, never showed themselves. Their 
 window always had a sombre look, and their door, ornamented 
 with two little zinc parasols covered with a thick coat of bright 
 vermilion, was invariably closed. 
 
 But before going in again, Gervaise gave a glance over the 
 way, to a huge white wall without a window, and in the middle 
 of which was an immense gateway, through which one could see 
 the flare of a forge, in a courtyard full of carts and covered 
 vans standing with their shafts up in the air. On the wall the 
 word " Farriery " was painted in tall letters, surrounded by a 
 frame-work of horse-shoes. All day long the hammers re- 
 sounded on the anvil, and clouds of sparks lighted up the pale 
 shadows of the courtyard. And at the foot of this wall, in a 
 hole about the size of a cupboard, between a dealer in old iron 
 and a fried-potato stall, was a clockmaker, a gentleman in a
 
 THE "ASSOMMOtR." 133 
 
 frock-coat, looking very clean, who was for ever rummaging 
 inside watches with some very tiny tools, in front of a work- 
 table on which some slender articles reposed under glasses ; whilst 
 behind him, the pendulums of two or three dozen little wooden 
 clocks were ticking altogether, amidst the gloomy wretchedness 
 of the street and the cadenced hubbub of the farriery. 
 
 The neighbourhood in general thought Gervais.fi. Y^TV pretty. 
 There was, it is true, a good deal of scandal related regarding 
 her ; but every one admitted that she had large eyes, a small 
 mouth, and beautiful white teeth. In short, she was a pretty 
 blonde, and had it not been for her unfortunate leg, she might 
 have ranked amongst the comeliest. She was now in her 
 twenty-eighth year, and had grown considerably plumper. Her 
 fine features were becoming slightly puffy, and her gestures 
 were assuming a pleasant indolence. At times she occasionally 
 seemed to forget herself on the edge of a chair, whilst she 
 waited for her iron to heat, smiling vaguely and with an ex- 
 pression of greedy joy upon her face. She was becoming fond 
 of good living, everybody said so ; but that was not a very grave 
 fault, but rather the contrary. When one earns sufficient to be 
 able to treat oneself to tit-bits, one would be foolish to eat 
 potato parings. All the more so as she continued to work very 
 hard, slaving to please her customers, sitting up late at night after 
 the place was closed, whenever there was anything pressing. She 
 was lucky, as all her neighbours said ; everything prospered 
 with her. She did the washing for ail the house M. Madinier, 
 Mademoiselle Remanjou, the Boches. She even secured some 
 of the customers of her old employer, Madame Fauconnier, 
 Parisian ladies living in the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonniere. 
 As early as the third week she was obliged to engage two 
 workwomen, Madame Putois and tall Cle'mence, the girl who 
 used to live on the sixth floor ; counting her apprentice, that 
 little squint-eyed Augustine, who was as ugly as a beggar's 
 breech, that made three persons in her employ. Others 
 would certainly have lost their heads at such a piece of good 
 fortune. It was excusable for her to feast a little on Monday 
 after drudging all through the week. Besides, it was necessary 
 to her. She would have had no courage left, and would have 
 expected to see the shirts iron themselves, if she had not been 
 able to line her stomach with something nice, the desire for 
 which tickled her appetite. 
 
 Never before had Gervaise shown so much complaisance. 
 She was as meek as a lamb and as good as bread. Excepting
 
 134 THE <V ASSOMMOIR. 
 
 Madame Lorilleux, whom she called Cow's-Tail, out of revenge, 
 she detested no one, and found excuses for all. In her slight 
 gluttonous forgetfulness, when she had lunched well and drank 
 her coffee, she yielded to the necessity for a general indulgence 
 all round. Her favourite saying was : " One must forgive one 
 another, if one does not wish to live like savages." When 
 people talked of her kindness, she laughed. It would never 
 have suited her to have been cruel ! She protested ; she said 
 no merit was due to her for being kind. Had not all her dreams 
 been realised ? Had she anything else to wish for in life ? She 
 recalled her dream of bygone days, when she found herself 
 penniless to work, have bread to eat, a home to live in, bring 
 up her children, not to be beaten, and to die in her bed. And 
 now her dream was more than realised ; she had all, and far 
 better. As to dying in her bed, added she jokingly, she counted 
 upon it, only of course at as distant a date as possible. 
 
 It was to Coupeau especially that Gervaise behaved nicely. 
 Never an angry word, never a complaint behind her husband's 
 back. The zinc-worker had at length resumed work ; and as 
 the job he was then engaged on was at the other side of Paris, 
 she gave him every morning forty sous for his luncheon, his 
 drink, and his tobacco. Only, two days out of every six, 
 Coupeau would stop on the way, spend the forty sous in drink 
 with a friend, and return home to lunch, with some cock-and- 
 bull story. Once even he did not take the trouble to go far ; 
 he treated himself, My-Boots, and three others to a regular 
 feast snails, roast meat, and some sealed bottles of wine at 
 the " Capuchin," on the Barriere de la Chapelle. Then, as his 
 forty sous were not sufficient, he had sent the waiter to his wife 
 with the bill and the information that he was in pawn. She 
 laughed and shrugged her shoulders. Where was the harm, if 
 her old man amused himself a bit 1 You must give men a lonq 1 
 rein if you want to live peaceably at home. From one word to 
 another, one soon arrived at blows, it was easy to understand. 
 Coupeau still suffered from his leg ; besides, he was led astray. 
 He was obliged to do as the others did, or else he would be 
 thought a muff. And it was really a matter of no consequence. 
 If he came home a little bit elevated, he went to bed, and two 
 hours afterwards he was all right again. 
 
 It was now the warm time of the year. One June afternoon, 
 a Saturday when the work was pressing, Gervaise herself had 
 piled the coke into the stove, around which ten irons were 
 heating, whilst a rumbling sound issued from the chimney. At
 
 THE "ASSOMMOEB.." 1$5 
 
 that hour the sun was shining fall on the shop-front, and the 
 pavement reflected an ardent recoil, causing all sorts of quaint 
 shadows to dance over the ceiling ; and that blaze of light, 
 which assumed a bluish tinge from the colour of the paper on 
 the shelves and against the window, was almost blinding in the 
 intensity with which it shone over the ironing-table, like a sunny 
 dust shaken amongst the fine linen. The - atmosphere was 
 stifling. The shop door was thrown wide open, but not a breath 
 of air entered j the clothes, which were hung up on brass wires 
 to dry, steamed, and became as stiff as shavings in less than 
 three quarters of an hour. For some little while past an 
 oppressive silence had reigned in that furnace-like heat, inter- 
 rupted only by the smothered sound of the banging down of the 
 irons on the thick blanket covered with calico. 
 
 " Ah, well ! " said Gervaise, " it's enough to melt one ! It's 
 almost impossible to keep a thing on." 
 
 She was sitting on the floor, in front of a basin,, starching 
 somethings. She had on a white petticoat and a loose linen 
 jacket with the sleeves rolled up, showing her bare arms and 
 neck ; and she looked quite rosy, and was perspiring to that 
 extent that little locks of her fair disordered hair were sticking 
 to her skin. She carefully dipped caps, shirt-fronts, entire 
 petticoats, and the trimmings of women's drawers into the 
 milky water. Then she rolled the things up and placed them 
 at the bottom of a square basket, after dipping her hand in a 
 pail and shaking it over the portions of the shirts and drawers 
 which she had not starched. 
 
 " This basketful's for you, Madame Putois," she resumed. 
 " Look sharp, now ! It dries at once, and will want doing all 
 over again in an hour." 
 
 Madame Putois, a little thin woman of forty-five, was ironing 
 without a drop of perspiration, buttoned up in an old chestnut- 
 coloured dress. She had not even taken her cap off, a black cap 
 trimmed with green ribbons turned partly yellow. And she 
 stood perfectly upright in front of the ironing-table, which was 
 too high for her, sticking out her elbows, and moving her iron 
 with the jerky evolutions of a puppet. On a sudden she ex- 
 claimed, 
 
 " Ah, no 1 Mademoiselle Clemonoe, you mustn't take your 
 jacket off. You know I don't like indecency. Whilst you're 
 about it, you'd better show everything. There're already three 
 men over the way stopping to look." 
 
 Tall Cle'mence called her an old beast between her teeth.
 
 -136 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 She was suffocating ; she might certainly make herself comfort- 
 able ; every one was not gifted with a skin as dry as touchwood. 
 Besides, no one could see anything ; and she held up her arms, 
 whilst her fine girl's substantial bosom almost rent her chemise, 
 and her shoulders were bursting through the straps. At the 
 rate she was going, Cle'mence was not likely to have any 
 marrdw left in her bones long before she was thirty years old. 
 The morrow of a night of indulgence she was unable to feel 
 the ground she trod upon, and fell asleep over her work, whilst 
 her head and her stomach seemed as though stuffed full of rags. 
 But she was kept on all the same, for no other workwoman 
 could iron a shirt with her style. Shirts were her specialty. 
 
 " It's all my own, you know ! " she ended by declaring, as 
 she slapped her bosom. "And it doesn't bite, it hurts nobody." 
 
 " Clemence, put you jacket on again," said Gervaise. 
 " Madame Putois is right, it isn't decent. People will begin to 
 take my house for what it isn't." 
 
 So tall Clemence dressed herself again, grumbling the while, 
 
 " There's prudery for you ! As though those fellows had 
 never seen titties before ! " 
 
 And she vented her rage on the apprentice, that squint-eyed 
 Augustine, who was ironing some stockings and handkerchiefs 
 beside her. She jostled her and pushed her with her elbow ; 
 but Augustine, who was of a surly disposition, and slyly spite- 
 ful in the way of an animal and a drudge, spat on the back of the 
 other's dress, just out of revenge, without being seen. Gervaise, 
 during this incident, had commenced a cap belonging to Madame 
 Boche, which she intended to take great pains with. She had 
 prepared some boiled starch to make it look new again. She 
 was gently passing a little iron, rounded at both ends, over the 
 inside of the crown of the cap, when a bony-looking woman 
 entered the shop, her face covered with red blotches and her 
 skirts sopping wet. It was a washerwoman who employed 
 three assistants at the wash-house in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. 
 
 "You've come too soon, Madame Bijard!" cried Gervaise. 
 " I told you to call this evening. I'm too busy to attend to 
 you now ! " 
 
 But as the washerwoman began lamenting and fearing that 
 she would not be able to put all the things to soak that clay, 
 she consented to give her the dirty clothes at once. They went 
 to fetch the bundles in the left hand room where Etienne slept, 
 and returned with enormous armfuls, which they piled up on 
 the floor at the back of the shop. The sorting lasted a good
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 187 
 
 half hour. Gervaise made heaps all round her, throwing the 
 shirts in one, the chemises in another, the handkerchiefs, the 
 socks, the dish-cloths in others. Whenever she came across 
 anything belonging to a new customer, she marked it with a 
 cross in red cotton, so as to know it again. And from all this 
 
 s & 
 
 dirty linen which they were throwing about there issued an 
 offensive odour in the warm atmosphere. 
 
 " Oh, my ! what a stench ! " said Clemence holding her nose. 
 
 ' t Of course there is ! If it was clean they wouldn't send it 
 us," quietly explained Gervaise. " It smells as one would 
 expect it to, that's all ! We said fourteen chemises, didn't we, 
 Madame Bijard ? Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen " 
 
 And she continued counting aloud. Used to this kind of 
 thing she evinced no disgust. She thrust her bare, rosy arms 
 into the midst of the soiled chemises, of the dish-cloths stiffened 
 with grease, of the socks rotting with sweat. Yet, in the 
 midst of the strong odour which met her full in the face as she 
 leant over the heaps, a feeling of indifference took possession of 
 her. She was seated on the edge of a stool, almost bent double, 
 slowly stretching her hands out to the right and to the left, as 
 though that human emanation was intoxicating her, whilst she 
 smiled vaguely with a dreamy look in her eyes. And. it 
 seemed as if her first tastes for idleness had come from that, 
 from the asphyxia resulting from the dirty clothes, poisoning 
 the air around her. Just as she was shaking out a child's 
 dirty napkin, Coupeau came in. 
 
 " By Jove 1 " he stuttered, '* what a sun ! It shines full on 
 your head I " 
 
 The zinc-worker caught hold of the ironing-table to save him- 
 self from falling. It was the first time he had taken such a dose 
 Until then he had sometimes come home lively, but nothing 
 more. This time, however, he had a black eye, just a friendly 
 slap he had run up against in a playful moment. His curly 
 hair, already slightly streaked with grey, must have dusted a 
 corner in some low wine-shop, for a cobweb was hanging to one 
 of his locks over the back of his neck. He was still as funny 
 as ever, though his features were rather drawn and aged, and 
 his under jaw projected more ; but he was always lively, as 
 he would sometimes say, and his skin was still tender enough to 
 tempt a duchess. 
 
 " I'll just tell you/' he resumed, addressing Gervaise. 4< It 
 was Celery-Root, you know him, the bloke with a wooden pin. 
 Well, as he was going back to his native place, he wanted to
 
 188 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 treat us. Oh ! we were all right, if it hadn't been for that 
 devil of a sun. In the street everybody's ilL Really, all the 
 world's boozed ! " 
 
 And as tall Cle'mence laughed at his thinking that the people 
 in the street were drunk, he was himself seized with an intense 
 fit of gaiety which almost strangled him. 
 
 " Look at 'em ! the blessed tipplers ! Aren't they funny ? " 
 he cried. " But it's not their fault, they've got the sun in their 
 eyes." 
 
 All the shop laughed, even Madame Putois who did not like 
 drunkards. That squint-eyed Augustine was clucking like a 
 hen, suffocating with her mouth wide open. Gervaise, however, 
 suspected Coupeau of not having come straight home, but of 
 having passed an hour with the Lorilleux, who gave him bad 
 advice. When he swore that he had not been near them she 
 laughed also, full of indulgence, and not even reproaching him 
 with having wasted another day. 
 
 " Good heavens 1 what nonsense he does talk," she murmured. 
 " How does he manage to say such stupid things ? " Then, in 
 a maternal tone of voice, she added, "Now, go to bed, won't you? 
 You see we're busy j you're in our way. That makes thirty- 
 two handkerchiefs, Madame Bijard; and two more, thirty-four." 
 
 But Coupeau was not sleepy. He stood there wagging his 
 body from side to side, like the pendulum of a clock, and 
 chuckling in an obstinate and teasing manner. Gervaise, who 
 wished to get rid of Madame Bijard, called Cle'mence, and made 
 her count the things whilst she wrote the number down. Then 
 this tall good-for-nothing made use of some coarse expression, 
 uttered some foul remark respecting each article ; she exposed 
 the misery of the customers, had workshop jokes to crack upon 
 every hole and every stain that passed through her hands. 
 Augustine was as one who did not understand, pricking up 
 her ears like a vicious little girL Madame Putois pursed her 
 lips, and considered it foolish to speak of such things before 
 Coupeau. There is no need for a man to see the dirty linen ; 
 respectable people avoid such open displays. 
 
 Gervaise, serious, and her mind fully occupied with what 
 she was about, did not seem to hear. As she wrote, she gave a 
 glance to each article, so as to recognise it as it passed before 
 her ; and she never made a mistake ; she guessed the owner's 
 name just by the look or the colour. Those napkins belonged 
 to the Goujets, that was evident ; they had not been used to 
 wipe the saucepans with. That pillow-case certainly came from
 
 THE "ASSOMMOm." 139 
 
 the Boches, on account of the pomatum with which Madame 
 Boche always smeared her things. It was not necessary either 
 to poke one's nose into M. Madinier's woollen undervests to 
 know that they were his ; that man regularly dyed the wool, 
 his skin was so greasy. And she knew of other peculiarities, 
 the hidden side of the neighbours who crossed the street in silk 
 skirts, the number of stockings, handkerchiefs, and chemises, 
 that they allowed themselves in the week, the way in which 
 some people tore certain articles always in the same place. She 
 was also full of anecdotes. Mademoiselle Remanjou's chemises, 
 for instance, furnished material for interminable comments ; 
 they were wearing out at the top ; the old maid's shoulder-bones 
 were probably pointed ; and they were never dirty, even if she 
 had worn them a fortnight, which showed that at that age one 
 is like a piece of wood, from which it would be difficult to 
 extract a drop of moisture of any sort. It was thus that at 
 every sorting of the dirty linen in the shop, they undressed the 
 whole neighbourhood of the Goutte-d'Or. 
 
 " Here's something luscious ! " cried Cle"mence, opening 
 another bundle. 
 
 Gervaise, suddenly seized with a great repugnance, drew 
 back. 
 
 " Madame Gaudron's bundle ? '"' said she. " I'll no longer wash 
 for her, I'll find some excuse. No, I'm not more particular than 
 another. I've handled some most disgusting linen in rny time ; 
 but, really, that lot I can't stomach. What can the woman do 
 to get her things into such a state ? " 
 
 And she requested Clemen ce to look sharp. But the girl 
 continued her remarks, thrusting her fingers through the holes, 
 with allusions to the things, which she waved like triumphal 
 banners. Meanwhile, the heaps around Gervaise had grown 
 higher. Still seated on the edge of the stool, she was now dis- 
 appearing between the petticoats and chemises. Before her were 
 sheets, drawers, table-cloths, a complete assortment of uncleanli- 
 ness ; and there, in the midst of that rising flood, she remained 
 with her arms and her neck bare, and little locks of her fair hair 
 sticking to her temples, looking more rosy and languid than 
 ever. She regained her sedate air, her smile of an attentive 
 and careful mistress, forgetting Madame Gaudrou's dirty linen, 
 no longer rummaging with one hand amongst the heaps to see 
 that no mistake had been made. That squint-eyed Augustine, 
 who delighted in putting shovelfuls of coke into the stove, had 
 filled it to such an extent that the cast-iron plates were be-
 
 140 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 coming red-hot. The sun was shining obliquely on the window ; 
 the shop was in a blaze. Then Coupean, whom the great heat 
 intoxicated all the more, was seized with a sudden fit of tender- 
 ness. He advanced towards Gervaise with open arms and 
 deeply moved. 
 
 " You're a good woman," he stammered. " I must kiss you." 
 
 But he caught his foot in the petticoats which barred the 
 way, and nearly fell. 
 
 " What a nuisance you are ! " said Gervaise, without getting 
 angry. " Keep still, we've done now." 
 
 No, he wanted to kiss her. He must do so because he loved 
 her so much. Whilst he stuttered, he turned the heap of 
 petticoats, and stumbled against the pile of chemises ; then, as 
 he obstinately persisted, his feet caught together, and he fell 
 flat, his nose in the midst of the dish-cloths. Gervaise, begin- 
 ning to lose her temper, pushed him, saying that he was mix- 
 ing all the things up. But Cle"mence, and even Madame 
 Putois,- maintained that she was wrong. It was very nice of 
 him, after all. He wanted to kiss her. She might very well 
 let herself be kissed. 
 
 "You're lucky, you are, Madame Coupeau," said Madame 
 Bijard, whom her drunkard of a husband, a locksmith, was 
 killing with blows every night on returning home. " If my old 
 man was like that, when he's had a drop, it would be a 
 pleasure ! " 
 
 Gervaise, who had calmed down, was already regretting her 
 hastiness. She helped Coupeau up on his legs again. Then 
 she offered her cheek with a smile. But the zinc-worker, with- 
 out caring a button for the other people being present, seized 
 her round the waist. 
 
 " It's not for the sake of saying so," he murmured ; " but 
 your dirty linen stinks tremendously ! Still I love you all the 
 same, you know." 
 
 "Leave off, you're tickling me/' cried she, laughing the louder. 
 " What a great silly you are ! How can you be so absurd ? " 
 
 He had caught hold of her, and would not let her go. She 
 gradually abandoned herself, dizzy from the slight faiutness 
 caused by the heap of clothes, and without repugnance for 
 Coupeau's foul-smelling breath. And the big kiss they ex- 
 changed on each other's mouths, in the midst of the filth of the 
 laundress's trade, was the first tumble '*in the slow downfall of 
 their life. 
 ' Madame Bijard had commenced to tie the things up in
 
 THE "ASSOMMOER," 141 
 
 bundles. She talked of her little girl, two years old, whose 
 name was Eulalie, and who was as sensible as a grown-up 
 woman. You could leave her by herself; she never cried, nor 
 played with the matches. At length she carried off the bundles 
 one by one, her tall body bending beneath the weight, her face 
 streaked with purple blotches. 
 
 "It's becoming unbearable, we're roasting," said Gervaise, 
 wiping her face before returning to Madame Boche's cap. 
 
 And they talked of boxing Augustine's ears when they saw 
 that the stove was red-hot. The irons, also, were getting in 
 the same condition. She must have the very devil in her body ! 
 One could not turn one's back a moment without her being up 
 to some of her tricks. Now they would have to wait a quarter 
 of an hour before they would be able to use the irons. Gervaise 
 covered the fire with two shovelfuls of cinders. She also had 
 the idea of hanging a pair of sheets, like blinds, on to the wire- 
 lines against the ceiling, so as to allay the heat of the sun. 
 Then they felt pretty comfortable in the shop. The tempera- 
 ture was still tremendously warm ; but one might have thought 
 oneself in an alcove on a clear day, shut in as at one's own home, 
 quite away from the world, though one could hear the people 
 ou the other side of the streets walking quickly along the pave- 
 ment ; and one was able to put oneself at one's ease. Cle'inence 
 took off her loose cotton jacket. Coupeau still declining to go to 
 bed, he was allowed to remain, but he had to promise to keep 
 quiet in a corner, for they had no time to waste. 
 
 "Whatever has that vermin done with my little iron? " mur- 
 mured Gervaise, speaking of Augustine. 
 
 They were for ever seeking the little iron, which they found 
 in the most out-of-the-way places, where the apprentice, so they 
 said, hid it out of spite. Gervaise at length finished the crown 
 of Madame Boche's cap. She had already done the lace in the 
 rough, pulling it out with her hand and flattening it with a 
 slight touch of the iron. It was a cap with a very ornamental 
 front, consisting of narrow puffs, alternating with embroidered 
 insertions. And she stuck to her work silently, and taking 
 great pains, ironing the puffs and the insertions with an iron of 
 the shape of an egg at the end of a rod fixed in a wooden foot. 
 
 Silence reigned around. For a while, one heard nothing but 
 the dull sound of the irons deadened by the thick ironing cloth. 
 On either side of the large square table, the mistress, the two 
 workwomeii and the apprentice, stood leaning over at their work, 
 their shoulders rounded, and their arms moving backwards and
 
 142 THE 
 
 forwards without cessation. Each had her stand on her right, 
 a flat brick burnt by the hot irons. In the middle of the table, 
 'a piece of rag and a little brush were soaking on the edge of a 
 soup-plate full of clear water. A bunch of large lillies was 
 blooming in 'an old glass jar which had formerly containel 
 cherry-brandy, and which looked like a corner of some royal 
 garden with its tuft of large flowers, white as snow. Madame 
 Putois had started on the basket of linen prepared by Gervaise, 
 towels, drawers, loose cotton jackets, and pairs of cuffs. Augus- 
 tine was dawdling over her stockings and dish-cloths, her nose 
 up in the air, all engrossed by a big blue bottle that was buzzing 
 about. As for tall Clemence, she had reached her thirty-fifth 
 shirt since the morning. 
 
 " Always wine, never spirits ! " suddenly said the zinc-worker, 
 who felt the necessity of making this declaration. " Spirits 
 make me drunk, I'll have none of 'em ! " 
 
 Cl&nence took an iron from the stove with her leather holder, 
 in which a piece of sheet iron was inserted, and held it up to 
 her cheek, to see how hot it was. She rubbed it on her brick, 
 wiped it on a piece of rag hanging from her waist-band, and 
 started on her thirty-fifth shirt, first of all ironing the shoulders 
 and the sleeves. 
 
 " Bah ! Monsieur Coupeau," said she, after a minute or two, 
 " a little glass of brandy isn't bad. It sets me going. Besides, 
 the sooner you're merry, the jollier it is. Oh ! I don't make 
 any mistake ; I know that I sha'n't make old bones." 
 
 " What a nuisance you are with your funereal ideas ! " inter- 
 rupted Madame Putois, who did not like hearing people talk of 
 anything sad. 
 
 Coupeau had risen, and was becoming angry, thinking that 
 he had been accused of drinking brandy. He swore on his own 
 head, and on the heads of his wife and child, that there was not 
 a drop of brandy in his veins. And he went up to Clemence 
 and blew in her face, so that she might smell his breath. Then, 
 when he had his nose over her naked shoulders, he began to 
 chuckle. Clemence, after haying folded the back of the shirt 
 and ironed it on either side, was now doing the wristbands and 
 the collar. But, as he continued pushing up against her, he 
 caused her to make a crease, and she was obliged to take the 
 brush from the edge of the soup plate, to smooth the starch. 
 
 " Madame," said she, " do make him leave off bothering me. 
 
 " Leave her alone ; it's stupid of you to go on like that," 
 quietly observed Gervaise. " We're in a hurry, do you hear ? "
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 143 
 
 They were in a hurry, well I what ? it was not his fault. 
 He was doing no harm. He was not touching, he was only 
 looking. Was it no longer allowed to look at the beautiful 
 things that God had made 1 All the same, she had 
 precious fine arms, that artful Cle"mence ! She might exhibit 
 herself for two sous, and nobody would regret his money. The 
 girl allowed him to go on, laughing at these coarse compliments 
 of a drunken man. And she soon commenced joking with him. 
 He chaffed her about the shirts. So, she was always doing 
 shirts 1 Why, yes, she lived in them. Ah ! by Jove ! she knew 
 them .well, she knew how they were made. Hundreds and hun- 
 dreds had passed through her hands J All the fair fellows and 
 all the dark fellows of the neighbourhood wore her work on their 
 backs. Yet, she continued her work, her shoulders shaking 
 with her laughter ; she had made five broad flat folds down the 
 back, by inserting her iron through the opening in the front ; 
 she turned down the fore part and ironed it also in broad 
 folds. 
 
 " That's the banner ! " said she, laughing louder than ever. 
 
 That squint-eyed Augustine almost, burst, the joke seemed to 
 her so funny. The others bullied her. There was a brat for 
 you, who laughed at words she ought not to understand ! CJe- 
 mence handed her her iron; the apprentice finished up the irons 
 on the stockings and the dish-cloths, when they were no longer 
 hot enough for the starched things. But she took hold of this 
 one so clumsily, that she made herself a cuff in the form of a 
 long burn on the wrist. And she sobbed, and accused Clemence 
 of having burnt her on purpose. The latter, who had gone to 
 fetch a very hot iron for the shirt front, consoled her at once by 
 threatening to iron her two ears, if she did not leave off. Then, 
 she placed a piece of flannel under the front, and slowly passed 
 the iron over it, giving the starch time to show up and dry. 
 The shirt-front became as stiff and as shiny as cardboard. 
 
 " By golly ! " swore Coupeau, who was treading behind her 
 with the obstinacy of a drunkard. 
 
 He raise,d himself up, with a laugh that resembled a pulley 
 in want of grease. Clemence, leaning heavily over the ironing- 
 table, her wrists turned up, her elbows sticking out and wide 
 apart, was bending her neck in a last effort ; and all her bare 
 flesh swelled, her shoulders rose with the slow play of the 
 muscles beating beneath the soft skin, her bosom heaved, wet 
 with perspiration, in the rosy shadow of the open chemise. 
 Then Coupeau thrust out his hands to touch her.
 
 144 THE "ASSOMMOIX." 
 
 " Madame ! madaine ! " cried Cle'mence, " do make him leave 
 off ! I shall go away if it continues. I won't be insulted." 
 
 Gervaise had just put Madame Boche's cap on a stand covered 
 with a piece of rag, and. was minutely goffering the lace with 
 some goffering-irons. She raised her eyes just as the zinc-worker 
 was thrusting out his hands a second time. 
 
 " Keally, Coupeau, you're too foolish," said she, with a vexed 
 air, as though she were scolding a child who persisted in eating 
 his jam without bread. "You must come to bed." 
 
 " Yes, go to bed Monsieur Coupeau, it will be far better," 
 exclaimed Madame Putois. 
 
 "Ah ! well," stuttered he, without ceasing to chuckle, " you're 
 all precious particular ! So one mustn't amuse oneself now ? 
 Women know me, I've never hurt them. One squeezes a lady, 
 you know, but one doesn't go any further ; one simply honours 
 the sex. And besides, when one displays one's stock-in-trade, 
 it's that one may make one's choice, isn't it "? Why does the 
 tall blonde show all she's got? No, it isn't decent ! " 
 
 And turning towards Clemence, he added : " You know, my 
 duck, you're wrong to be so strait-laced. If it's because other 
 people are present " 
 
 But he was unable to continue. Gervaise, without any vio- 
 lence, seized hold of him with one hand and placed the other on 
 his mouth. He struggled, just by way of a joke, whilst she 
 pushed him to the back of the shop, towards the room. He 
 got his mouth free, and said that. he was willing to go to bed, 
 but that the tall blonde must come and warm his tootsies. 
 Then Gervaise was heard taking his shoes off. She was un- 
 dressing him, maternally scolding him the while. When she 
 tugged at his trousers he almost died with laughing, and 
 abandoned himself, leaning back, sprawling in the middle of the 
 bed ; and he wriggled his legs, and said that she tickled him. 
 At last, she tucked him iu carefully, like a child. Was he 
 comfortable, now? But he did not answer, he called to 
 Cle'mence, 
 
 " I say, ducky, I'm here and waiting for you ! " 
 
 When Gervaise returned to the shop, that squint-eyed 
 Augustine was receiving a sound clout from Cle'mence. It was 
 on account of a dirty iron, which Madame Putois had taken 
 from the stove. She, not suspecting anything, had blackened 
 the whole of one side of a jacket ; and as Clemence, to avoid 
 the imputation of not having cleaned her iron, accused Augustine, 
 and swore by all that was holy that she had not \ised it, in spite
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 145 
 
 of the dab of burnt starch that was still sticking to it, the 
 apprentice, incensed at such an unjust accusation, had openly 
 spat on the front of her dress. And she had received a good 
 sound clout in consequence. The squint-eyed one kept back 
 her tears, cleaned the iron by scraping it, and then by wiping 
 it after having rubbed a piece of tallow candle over it ; but, 
 each time she had occasion to pass behind Cle'mence, she spat, 
 and laughed inwardly whenever the saliva ran down the 
 tall one's skirt. 
 
 Gervaise continued goffering the lace of the cap. And in the 
 sudden calm which ensued, one could hear Coupeau's husky 
 voice issuing from the depths of the back-shop. He was still 
 jolly, and was laughing to himself as he uttered bits of phrases. 
 
 " How stupid she is, my wife ! How stupid of her to put me 
 to bed 1 Really ! it's too absurd, in the middle of the day, 
 when one isn't sleepy 1 " 
 
 But, all on a sudden, he snored. Then, Gervaise gave a sigh 
 of relief,. happy in knowing that he was at length quiet, and 
 sleeping off his intoxication on two good mattresses. And she 
 spoke out in the silence, in a slow and continuous voice, without 
 taking her eyes off the little goffering irons, which she deftly 
 handled. 
 
 " You see, he hasn't his reason, one can't be angry. Were I 
 to be harsh with him, it would be of no use. I prefer to say 
 just what he says and get him to bed ; then, at least, it's over 
 at once and I'm quiet. Besides, he isn't ill-natured, he loves 
 me very much. You saw just now, he would have gone through 
 fire and water to kiss me. That's very nice of him too ; for 
 there are many who, when they are screwed, go and see other 
 women. But he comes straight home here. He jokes with 
 you, but it doesn't go any further. Do you hear, Clemence ? 
 you mustu't be offended. You know what men are when they're 
 tipsy; they'd kill father and mother, and not even have the 
 faintest recollection of it afterwards. Oh ! I forgive him from 
 the bottom of my heart. He's like all the others, you know ! " 
 
 She said all this softly, without passion, already used to 
 Coupeau's goings on, and taking to discoursing on his love for 
 her, but no longer seeing any harm in his squeezing the waists 
 of the girls in her employ. When she had finished, silence en- 
 sued and wao not again broken. Every time she wanted an 
 article, Madame Putois took it from the basket, which she pulled 
 out from under the chintz hanging which adorned the table ; 
 then, when she had ironed it, she raised her little arms, and 
 
 K
 
 146 THE " ASSOMMOm." 
 
 placed it on a shelf. Ctemence was finishing folding her thirty- 
 fifth shirt, with the iron. There was no end of work ; they had 
 reckoned that they would not get it finished till eleven at night, 
 even with hurrying. Having no longer anything to distract 
 their attention, they now all set to with a will. The bare arms 
 moved to and fro, illuminating the white linen with their ruddy 
 reflection. The stove had been again filled with coke, and as 
 the sun, gliding in between the sheets, shone full upon it, one 
 could perceive the great heat ascending in the ray, an invisible 
 flame which quiveringly agitated the air. The temperature was 
 becoming so stifling beneath the skirts and the table-cloths 
 drying up against the ceiling, that squint-eyed Augustine, having 
 expended all her saliva, allowed a bit of her tongue to hang out 
 at the corner of her mouth. There was a stench from the over- 
 heated stove of sour starch water, of burning from the irons, 
 and of an unsavoury steaming bath-room with which, the four 
 workers, almost dislocating their shoulders, mingled the un- 
 pleasant odour of their chignons and their perspiring necks; 
 whilst the bunch of lilies, in the stale greenish water of the glass 
 jar, were fading as they exhaled a very pure and powerful per- 
 fume. And now and again, in the midst of the sound of the 
 irons and the poker grating against the stove, Coupeau's snore 
 rumbled with the regularity of the enormous tick-tack of a 
 clock, regulating the movements of the workers. 
 
 On the morrow of his carouses, the zinc-worker always had a 
 headache, a splitting headache which kept him all day with his 
 hair out of curl, whilst his breath was offensive, and his mouth 
 all swollen and askew. He got up late on those days, not 
 shaking the fleas off till about eight o'clock ; and he would hang 
 about the shop and expectorate, unable to make up his mind 
 to start off to his work. It was another day lost. In the 
 morning, he would complain that his legs bent lik/3 pieces of 
 thread, and would call himself a great foci to sru/zle to such an 
 extent, as it broke one's constitution. But one met a host of 
 jolly dogs who would not let one go; so one boozed away in 
 spite of oneself, one got caught in all sorts of traps, and ended 
 by being bowled over, and pretty roughly too ! Ah ! no, by 
 Jove ! that would never happen to him again ! he did not in- 
 tend to cock his toes in a boozing-ken in the prime of his life. 
 But, after his lunch, he would deck himself out, and hum ! and 
 ha! just to prove to himself that he still had a fine sonorous 
 voice. He would begin to deny the carouse of the day before, 
 he had perhaps had a drop or two, that was all. They no longer
 
 THE "ASSOMMOm." 147 
 
 made such fellows as he, ever fit, with the devil's own muscle, 
 and able to drink anything without blinking an eye. 
 
 Then, for the whole afternoon, he would hang about the place. 
 When he had thoroughly badgered the workwomen,, his wife 
 would give him twenty sous to clear out. And off he would go 
 and buy his tobacco at the " Little Civet," in the Rue des Pois- 
 sonniers, where he generally took a plum in brandy, whenever 
 he met a friend. Then, he spent the rest of the twenty sous at 
 old Frangois's, at the comer of the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, where 
 there was a famous wine, quite young, which tickled your gullet. 
 It was a boozing-ken of the old style, a dark shop with a low 
 ceiling, and a smoky room at the side in which soup was sold. 
 And he would stop there till night-time, gambling for drink ; 
 FranQois supplied him on tick, and had formally promised never 
 to send the bill in to the wife. One must give oneself a 
 rinse out to get rid of the muck of the day before. One glass 
 of wine leads to another. Besides, he was a jolly fellow, who 
 would never do the least harm to the fair sex a chap who 
 loved a spree, sure enough, and who coloured his nose in his 
 turn, but in a nice manner, full of contempt for those pigs of 
 men who have succumbed to alcohol, and whom one never sees 
 sober ! He went home as gay and as gallant as a lark. 
 
 " Has your lover been ? " he would sometimes ask Gervaise 
 by way of teasing her. " One never sees him npw; I must go 
 and rout him out." 
 
 Th lover was Gjoujet. He avoided, in fact, calling too often, 
 for fear ot being in the way, and also of causing people to talk. 
 Yet, he frequently found a pretext, such as bringing the wash- 
 ing ; and he would pass no end of times in front of the shop. 
 There was a corner right at the back in which he liked to sit, 
 without moving for hours, and smoke his short pipe. Once 
 every ten days, in the evening after his dinner, he would venture 
 there and take up his favourite position. And he was no talker ; 
 his mouth almost seemed sewn iip, as he sat with his eyes fixed 
 on Gervaise, and only removed his pipe to laiigh at everything 
 she said. When they were working late on a Saturday, he 
 woulu stay on, and appeared to amuse himself more than if he 
 had gone to a theatre. At times, the women were ironing up 
 to three o'clock in the morning. A lamp hung by a wire from 
 the ceiling, the shade "of it cast a large circle of brilliant light, 
 in which the linen looked as soft and as white as snow. The 
 apprentice put the shutters up at the shop window ; but as the 
 July nights were very hot, the street door was left open. And,
 
 148 THE "ASSOMMOtR." 
 
 as the hour advanced, the women unfastened their things, so as 
 to be more at their ease. They had fine skins, which assumed 
 a golden hue in the lamp light, Gervaise's especially ; she was 
 quite plump, her fair shoulders had the gloss of silk, her neck 
 was like a baby's, and had a dimple which Goujet could have 
 drawn from memory, he knew.it so well. He became oppressed 
 by the fierce heat from the stove, and by the smell of the clothes 
 steaming beneath the irons ; and he gradually succumbed to a 
 slight stupor, his mind slumbered, whilst his eyes became occu- 
 pied with those women who were hurrying through their work, 
 swinging their bare arms, spending their night in making their 
 customers smart on the morrow. Round about the shop, the 
 neighbouring houses were slowly becoming wrapped in the great 
 silence of sleep. Midnight struck, then one o'clock, then two 
 o'clock. The vehicles and the crowd of passers-by had alike 
 disappeared. Now, in the dark and deserted street, only the 
 door showed a ray of light, which looked like a piece of yellow 
 stuff spread on the ground. Occasionally a step was heard in 
 the distance and a man drew near; and, as he passed, he 
 stretched his neck, surprised at the noise of the irons which he 
 heard, and carried away with him a fleeting vision of bare- 
 breasted women in a ruddy mist. 
 
 Goujet, seeing that Gervaise did not know what to do with 
 Etienne, and wishing to deliver him from Coupeau's kicks, had 
 engaged him to go and blow the bellows at the factory "where 
 he worked. The profession of bolt-maker, if not one to be proud 
 of on account of the dirt of the forge and of the monotony of 
 constantly hammering on pieces of iron of a similar kind, was 
 nevertheless a well paid one, at which ten and even twebe francs 
 a" day could be earned. The youngster, who was then twelve 
 years old, would soon be able to go in for it, if the calling was 
 to his liking. And Etienne had thus become another link be- 
 tween the laundress and the blacksmith. The latter would 
 bring the child home and speak of his good conduct. Every 
 one laughingly said that Goujet was smitten with Gervaise. 
 She knew it, and blushed like a young girl, the flush of modesty 
 colouring her cheeks with the bright tints of the love-apple. 
 Ah ! the poor dear uoy, iae never embarrassed her ! He had 
 never spoken to her about it; nor had he ever made an indecent 
 gesture, or uttered a rude word. One did not meet many of 
 such a virtuous temperament. And, without admitting it, she 
 felt a great joy at being thus loved, aa though she were a holy 
 virgin. Whenever anything bothered her much, she thought
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 149 
 
 of the blacksmith, and that consoled her. If they found them- 
 selves alone together, they did not feel the least embarrassment; 
 they smilingly looked each other full in the face, without saying 
 what they felt. It was a sensible affection, free from all thought 
 of improper things, because it is ever best to preserve one's 
 peace of mind, when one can manage to do so, and be happy at 
 the same time. 
 
 . Towards the ead of the summer, Nana quite upset the house- 
 hold. She was six years old, and promised to be a thorough 
 good-for-nothing. So as not to have her always under her feet, 
 her mother took her every morning to a little school in the Rue 
 Polonceau, kept by Mademoiselle Josse. She fastened .her 
 playfellows' dresses together behind, she filled the school- 
 mistress's snuff-box with ashes, and invented other tricks much 
 less decent, which could not be mentioned. Twice, Mademoiselle 
 Josse expelled her, and then took her back again so as not to 
 lose the six francs a month. Directly lessons were over, Nana 
 avenged herself for having been kept in, by making an infernal 
 noise under the porch and in the courtyard where the ironers, 
 whose ears could not stand her racket sent her to play. There, 
 she would meet Pauline, the Boches' daughter, and Victor, the 
 son of Gervaise's old employer a bigboobv often, who delighted 
 in playing with very little girls. Madame Fauconnier, who had 
 not quarrelled with the Coupeaus, would herself send her son. 
 In the house, too, there was an extraordinary swarm of brats, 
 nights of children who rolled down the four staircases at all 
 hours of the day, and alighted on the pavement of the court- 
 yard like troops of noisy pillaging sparrows. Madame Gaudron 
 alone contributed nine, both dark and fair, with tangled hair 
 and dirty noses, breeches which almost went up to their eyes, 
 stockings which hung down over their shoes, and torn jackets 
 which showed their white skin under the rags. Another 
 woman, a baker's carrier, contributed seven. Bands issued 
 from nearly every room. And, in this multitude of rosy-faced 
 vermin, who were washed only when it rained, were tall ones 
 looking like piec.es of string, stout ones with bellies already as 
 big as men's, and little ones but recently escaped from their 
 cradles, still unsteady on their legs, quite silly, and going on all 
 fours when they wanted to run. 
 
 Nana reigned supreme over this host of urchins : she ordered 
 about girls twice her own size, and only deigned to relinquish a 
 little of her power in favour of Pauline and Victor, intimate 
 confidants who enforced her commands. This precious chit was
 
 150 THE "ASSOMMOm." 
 
 for ever wanting to play at being, mamma, undressing the 
 smallest ones to dress them again, insisting on examining the 
 others all over, messing them about and exercising the capri- 
 cious despotism of a grown-up person with a vicious disposition. 
 Under her leadership they got up to tricks for which they 
 should have been well spanked. The troop paddled in the 
 coloured water from the dyer's, and emerged frorn it with legs 
 stained blue or red as high as the knees ; then off it flew to the 
 locksmith's, where it purloined nails and filings, and started off 
 again to alight in the midst of the carpenter's shavings, enor- 
 mous heaps of shavings, which delighted it immensely, and in 
 which it rolled head over heels. The courtyard belonged to it, 
 resounded with the noise of the little shoes scuttling helter- 
 skelter about, and with the piercing shrieks of the voices which 
 swelled each time the troop took a fresh flight. On certain 
 days even the courtyard did not suffice. Then the band rushed 
 down into the cellars, raced up again, climbed to the top of a 
 flight of stairs, skurried along a passage, ran back into the 
 courtyard, ascended another staircase, followed another passage, 
 and kept on at it for hours together without tiring, yelling all 
 the time, and shaking the colossal house with the gallop of 
 destructive beasts escaped from every hole and corner. 
 
 " Aren't they abominable, those little toads ? " cried Madame 
 Boche. " Really, people can have but very little to do, to get 
 so many children. And yet they complain of having no bread !" 
 
 Boche said that children sprouted out of misery like mush- 
 rooms on a dungheap. The doorkeeper was shouting at them 
 all day, and menacing them with her broom. She ended by 
 fastening the door leading to the cellars, because she learnt from 
 Pauline, to whom she gave a couple of cloiits, that Nana had 
 taken to playing at being the doctor, down there in the dark ; 
 this vicious little thing administered remedies to the others 
 with sticks. 
 
 Well, one afternoon, there was a frightful scene. It was 
 bound to have come, sooner or later. Nana had thought of a 
 very funny little game. She had stolen one of Madame Boche's 
 wooden shoes from outside the doorkeeper's room. She tied a 
 string to it, and began dragging it about like a cart Victor, 
 on his side, had had the idea to fill it with potato parings. 
 Then, a procession was formed. Nana came first, dragging the 
 wooden shoe, Pauline and Victor walked on her right and left. 
 Then, the entire crowd of urchins followed in order, the big ones 
 first, the little cues next, jostling one another ; a baby in long
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 151 
 
 skirts, about as tall as a boot, with an old padded cap cocked 
 on the side of its head, brought up the rear. And the proces- 
 sion chanted something sad, with plenty of phs! and ahsj Nana 
 had said that they were going to pl*.y at a funeral ; the potato 
 parings represented the body. When they had gone the round 
 of the courtyard, they recommenced. They thought it im- 
 mensely amusing. 
 
 " What can they be up to ? " murmured Madame Boche, 
 who emerged from her room to see, ever mistrustful and on the 
 alert. 
 
 And when she understood : " But it's my shoe ! " cried she 
 furiously. *' Ah, the rogues ! " 
 
 She distributed some smacks, clouted Nana on both cheeks, 
 and administered a kick behind to Pauline, that great goose who 
 allowed the others to take her mother's shoe. It so happened 
 that Gervaise was filling a bucket at the tap. When she beheld 
 Nana, her nose bleeding, and choking with sobs, she almost 
 sprang at the doorkeeper's chignon. It was not right to hit a 
 child as though it were an ox. One could have no -heart, one 
 must be the lowest of the low, if one did so. Madame Boche 
 naturally replied in a similar strain. When one had a beast 
 of a-girl like that, one should keep her locked up. At length, 
 Boche himself appeared in the doorway, to call to his wife to 
 come in and not to enter into so many explanations with filth. 
 There was a regular quarrel. 
 
 As a matter of fact, things had not gone on very pleasantly 
 between the Bodies and the Coupeaus for a month past. Ger- 
 vaise, who was of a very generous nature, was continually be- 
 stowing wine, broth, oranges, and slices of cake on the Boches. 
 One night, she had taken the remains of an endive and beetroot 
 salad to the doorkeeper's room, knowing that the latter would 
 have done .everything for such a reat. Bat, on the morrow, 
 she became quite pale with rage on hearing Mademoiselle 
 Remanjou relate how Madame Boche had thrown the salad 
 away in the presence of several persons, with an air of disgust, 
 and under the pretext that she, thank goodness ! was not yet 
 reduced to feeding on things which others had messed about. 
 And, from that moment, Gervaise put a stop to all the presents : 
 no more bottles of wine, no more cups of broth, no more oranges, 
 no more slices of cake, nothing. It was quite a sight to see the 
 faces the Boches made! It seemed to them like a robbery on 
 the part of the Conpeaus. Gervaise saw her mistake; for, if 
 she had not been so stupid as to stuff them to such an extent,
 
 152 TIIE "ASSOZkDIOIK." 
 
 they would not have got into bad habits, aiid would have con- 
 tinued to behave nicely. Now, the doorkeeper found nothing 
 too bad to say about her. At the October quarter, she treated 
 M, Marescot, the landlord, to no end of slanderous stories, be- 
 cause the laundress, who spent her savings in gormandizing, 
 was a day behind with her rent ; and even M. Marescot, who 
 was not very polite either, entered the shop, with his hat on 
 his head, and demanded his money, which by the way was 
 handed to him at once. Naturally, the Boches had shaken 
 hands again with the Lorilleux. Now, it was the Lorilleux who 
 in the midst of the emotions springing from the reconciliation 
 tippled with the Boches in their room. They would never have 
 quarrelled had it not been for that Hobbler, who would even 
 have stirred up strife between mountains. Ah ! the Boches 
 knew her well now, they could understand how much the 
 Lorilleux must suffer. And whenever she passed beneath the 
 doorway, they all affected to sneer at her. 
 
 One day, however, Gervaise went up to see the Lorilleux.. It 
 was with respect to mother Coupeau, who was then sixty-seven 
 years old. Mother Coupeau's eyesight was almost completely 
 gone. Her legs too were no longer what they used to be. She 
 had been obliged to give up her last place, and now threatened 
 to die of hunger if assistance were not forthcoming. Gervaise 
 thought it shameful that a woman of her age, having three 
 children, should be thus abandoned by heaven and earth. And 
 as Coupeau refused to speak to the Lorilleux on the subject, 
 saying that she, Gervaise, could very well go and do so, the 
 latter went up in a fit of indignation with which her heart was 
 almost bursting. 
 
 When she reached their door, she entered like a tempest, and 
 without knocking. Nothing had been changed since the night 
 when the Lorilleux, at their first meeting, had received her so 
 ungraciously. The same strip of faded woollen stuff separated 
 the room from the workshop, a lodging like a gun barrel, and 
 which looked as though it had been built for an eel. Right 
 at the back, Lorilleux, leaning over his bench, was squeezing 
 together one by one the links of a piece of chain, whilst Madame 
 Lorilleux, standing up in front of the vice, was passing a gold 
 wire through the draw-plate. In the broad daylight the little 
 forge had a rosy reflection. 
 
 " Yes, it's I ! " said Gervaise. " I daresay you're surprised 
 to see me, as we're at daggers drawn. But I've come neither 
 for you nor for myself, you may be quite sure. It's for mother
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 153 
 
 Coupcau that I've come. Yes, I have come to see if we're going 
 to let her beg her bread from the charity of others." 
 
 "Ah, well, that's a fine way to burst in upon one ! " mur- 
 mured Madame Lorilleux. " One must have a rare cheek/' 
 
 And she turned her back and resumed drawing her gold wire, 
 affecting to ignore her sister-in-law's presence. But Lorilleux 
 raised his pale face and cried : 
 
 "What's that you say?" 
 
 Then, as he had heard perfectly well, he continued : 
 
 " More back-bitings, eh 1 She's nice, mother Coupeau, to go 
 and cry starvation everywhere ! Yet, only the day before yes- 
 terday, she dined here. We do what we can. We haven't got 
 Peru. Only, if she goes about gossiping with others, she had 
 better stay with them, for we don't like spies," 
 
 He took up the piece of chain and turned his back also, 
 adding as though with regret : 
 
 " When every one gives five francs a month, we'll give five 
 francs." 
 
 Gervaise had calmed down, and felt quite chilled by the 
 wooden looking faces of the Lorilleux. She had never once set 
 foot in their rooms without experiencing a certain uneasiness. 
 With her eyes fixed on the ground, on the holes of the wooden 
 grating, through which the waste gold fell, she now explained 
 herself in a reasonable manner. Mother Coupeau had three 
 children ; if each one gave five francs, it would only mako fifteen 
 francs, and really that was not enough, one could not live on it; 
 they must at least triple the sum. But Lorilleux cried out. 
 Where did she think he could steal fifteen francs a month 1 It 
 was quite amusing, people thought he was rich, simply because 
 he had gold in his place. Then, he abused mother Coupeau : 
 she would not give up her coffee in the morning, she must have 
 her drop of brandy, she required no end of things just like a 
 person of fortune. Of course everyone liked to take life easy ; 
 but yet, when one had not troubled to save a single sou, one 
 must do as-others did go without luxuries. Besides, mother 
 Coupeau was not so old as to be . unable to work ; she could 
 still manage to see very well when it was a question of getting 
 a tit-bit from the bottom of the dish ; in short, she was an art- 
 ful old woman, who wanted to be pampered up. Even had he 
 had the means, he would have considered it wrong to support 
 any one in idleness. 
 
 Gervaise, however, remained conciliatory, and peaceably 
 argued against all this bad reasoning. She tried to soften
 
 154 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 the Lorilleux. But the husband ended by no longer answering 
 her. The wife was now at the forge, scouring a piece of chain 
 in the little brass saucepan with the long handle, full of lye- 
 water. She still affectedly turned her back, as though a hun- 
 dred leagues away. And Gervaise continued speaking, watch- 
 ing them pretending to be absorbed in their labour, in the 
 midst of the black dust of the workshop, their bodies distorted, 
 their clothes patched and greasy, both become stupidly hardened, 
 like old tools, in the pursuit of their narrow mechanical task. 
 Then, suddenly, anger again got the better of her, and she ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 " Very well, I'd rather it was so ; keep your money ! I give 
 mother Coupeau a home, do you hear? I picked up a cat the 
 other evening, so I can at least do the same for your mother. 
 And she shall be in want of nothing, she shall have her coffee 
 and her drop of brandy ! Good heavens ! what a vile 
 family!" 
 
 At these words Madame Lorilleux turned round. She bran- 
 dished the saucepan as though she was about to throw the 
 Jye-water in her sister-in-law's face. She stammered with 
 rage: 
 
 " Be off, or I shall do you an injury ! And don't count on 
 the five francs, because I won't give a radish ! no, not a radish ! 
 Ah well! yes, five francs ! Mamma would be your servant, and 
 you would enjoy yourself with my five francs ! If she goes to 
 live with you, tell her this, she may croak, I won't even send 
 her a glass of water. Now, off you go ! clear out ! " 
 
 " What a monster of a woman ! " said Gervaise violently 
 slamming the door. 
 
 On the morrow, she took mother Coupeau to live with her. 
 
 She put up her bedstead in the big closet where Nana slept, 
 
 and which was lighted by a little round window close to the 
 
 ceiling. The moving did not take long, for all the furniture 
 
 mother Coupeau possessed, consisted of this bedstead, an old 
 
 walniit -wardrobe which was placed in the dirty clothes room, a 
 
 table and two chairs ; they sold the table and had the two 
 
 chairs reseated. And the old woman, on the very evening of 
 
 her arrival, swept up the crumbs and washed up the dinner 
 
 things, in fact made herself useful, feeling delighted at having 
 
 got out of her difficulty. The Lorilleux were bursting with 
 
 rage, the more so as Madame Lerat had just become reconciled 
 
 with the Coupeaus. One fine day the two sisters, the artificial 
 
 flower-maker and the chain-maker, exchanged blows on account
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 155 
 
 of Gervaise. The first had ventured to approve the last-named's 
 conduct with respect to their mother ; then, through a desire 
 to tease, seeing that the other was exasperated, she had gone 
 so far as to say that the laundress had magnificent eyes, eyes 
 at which one might light pieces of paper; and they ended 
 by slapping each other's faces and swearing never to meet 
 again. After that, Madame Lerat spent her evenings in the 
 shop, where she was inwardly amused by tall Clemence's loose 
 goings-on. 
 
 Three years passed by. There were frequent quarrels and 
 reconciliations. Gervaise did not care a straw for the Lorilleux, 
 the Boches and all the others who were not of her way of think- 
 ing. If they did not like it, they could do the other thing. 
 She earned what she wished, that was her principal concern. 
 The people of the neighbourhood had ended by greatly esteem- 
 ing her, for one did not find many customers so kind as she 
 was, paying punctually, never cavilling or higgling. She bought 
 her bread of Madame Coudeloup, in the Rue des Poissonniers ; 
 her meat of stout Charles, a butcher in the Rue Polonceau ; her 
 grocery at Lehongre's, in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, almost 
 opposite her own shop. Fran9ois, the wine merchant at the 
 corner of the street, supplied her with wine in baskets of fifty 
 bottles. Her neighbour Vigouroux, whose wife's hips must 
 have been black and blue, the men pinched her so much, sold 
 coke to her at the same price as the gas company. And, in all 
 truth, her tradespeople served her faithfully, knowing that there 
 was everything to gain by treating her well. So, whenever she 
 went about the neighbourhood, bareheaded and in her slippers, 
 she was wished good-day on all sides ; she was there as though 
 in her own home, the adjacent streets were like the natural de- 
 pendencies of her lodging which opened on a level with the 
 pavement. She would now linger over an errand, happy in 
 being out of doors in the midst of her acquaintances. The days 
 when she had not time to cook anything, she went and pur- 
 chased something all ready, and had a gossip with the eating- 
 house keeper who occupied the shop on the other side of the 
 house, a vast apartment with big dusty windows, through the 
 dirt of which one caught a glimpse of the dull light of the court- 
 yard at the back. Or else, her hands full of plates and basins, 
 she would stop and talk opposite some ground-floor window, 
 which gave a view of a cobbler's room, with the bed unmade, 
 and the floor encumbered .with rags, a couple of broken cradles 
 and the wax-pan full of black water. But the neighbour whom
 
 156 THE "ASSOMMOm." 
 
 she still respected the most was the clock-maker opposite, the 
 clean-looking gentleman in the frock coat, who was for ever 
 rummaging watches with dainty little tools ; and she often 
 crossed the street to wish him good-day, laughing with pleasure 
 at beholding, in the shop that was as narrow as a cupboard, 
 the gaiety of the little wooden clocks with their pendulums all 
 beating together against time.
 
 157 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ONE afternoon in the autumn, Gervaise, who had been taking 
 some washing home to a customer in the Rue des Fortes- 
 Blanches, found herself at the bottom of the Rue des Poisson- 
 niers just as the day was declining. It had rained in the morn- 
 ing, the weather was very mild, and an odour rose from the 
 greasy pavement ; and the laundress, burdened with her big 
 basket, was rather out of breath, slow of step, and inclined to 
 take her ease, as she ascended the street with the vague pre- 
 occupation of a longing increased by her weariness. She would 
 have liked to have had something nice to eat. Then, on raising 
 her eyes, she beheld the name of the Rue Marcadet, and she 
 suddenly had the idea of going to see Goujet at his forge. He 
 had no end of times told her to look in, any day she was curious 
 to see how iron was wrought. Besides, in presence of the other 
 workmen she would ask for Etienne, and make believe that she 
 had merely called for the youngster. 
 
 The manufactory of bolts and rivets was somewhere near 
 there, at that end of the Rue Marcadet, though she did not 
 exactly know where ; more especially as the numbers were 
 often missing from the buildings, which were interspersed by 
 vacant plots of land. It was a street in which she would not 
 have lived for all the gold in the ( world a wide, dirty street, 
 black from the coal-dust of the neighbouring manufactories, 
 with uneven paving-stones and ruts full of stagnant pools of 
 water. On either side there was a row of sheds, of lofty glazed 
 workshops, of grey unfinished buildings, showing their wooden 
 frameworks, a jumble of tottering masonry, intersected by open 
 spaces, giving a view of the country beyond, and flanked by 
 obscure lodging-houses and low cook-shops. She could only 
 remember that the factory was near an old iron and rag ware- 
 house, a kind of sewer opening on a level with the ground, in 
 which slumbered hundreds of thousands of francs' worth of
 
 158 THE "ASSOMMOIR.* 
 
 goods, according to Goujet. And she tried to find her way 
 amidst the din of the factories. Slender pipes on the roofs 
 violently disgorged jets of steam ; at regular intervals, a grating 
 sound, similar to that produced by a piece of calico being 
 abruptly torn, issued from a sawmill; button manufactories 
 shook the ground with the rumbling and ticking of their 
 machinery. As she was looking towards Montmartre, unde- 
 cided, and uncertain whether to go any further, a gust 
 of wind blew the smoke from a tall chimney downward 
 and infected the street. She closed her eyes, feeling almost 
 suffocated, when she heard a noise of hammers beating in 
 time ; without knowing it, she was exactly opposite the place 
 Rhe was in search of, and she recognised the fact on perceiving 
 the hole full of rags close by. 
 
 Yet she still hesitated, not knowing where to enter. Some 
 broken palings opened a passage which seemed to lead through 
 the heaps of rubbish from some buildings recently pulled down. 
 As a large puddle of muddy water barred the way, two planks 
 had been thrown across it. She ended by venturing along 
 them, turned to the left, and found herself lost in the depths of 
 a strange forest of old carts, standing on end with their shafts 
 in the air, and of hovels in ruins, the wood-work of which was 
 still standing. Right at the end, rending the darkness which 
 blended with a remnant of daylight, a red fire was shining. 
 The noise of the hammers had ceased. She was advancing care- 
 fully, moving in the direction of the light, when a workman, 
 his face blackened with coal-dust, and wearing a goatee, passed 
 near her, casting a side-glance with his pale eyes. 
 
 " Sir," asked she, " it's here, is it not, that a boy named 
 Etienne works 1 He's my son." 
 
 " Etienne, Etienne," repeated the workman, in a hoarse voice, 
 as he twisted himself about. " Etienne ; no, I don't know him." 
 
 His open mouth exhaled that odour of alcohol which comes 
 from old brandy casks with their bungs out ; and, as the meet- 
 ing with -a woman in that dark corner was beginning to make 
 him over pleasant, Gervaise drew back, murmuring, 
 
 " But yet it's here that Monsieur Goujet works, isn't it ? " 
 
 "Ah! Goujet, yes! "said the workman; "I know Goujet! 
 If you've come for Goujet, go right to the end." 
 
 And, turning round, he called out at the top of his voice, 
 which had a sound of cracked brass, 
 
 " I say, Golden-Mug, here's a lady wants you ! " 
 
 But a clauging of iron drowned the cry. Gervaise went to
 
 THE "ASSOMMOffi." 159 
 
 the end. She reached a door, and, stretching out her neck, 
 looked in. It opened into a vast apartment in which at first 
 she could distinguish nothing. The forge, as though dead, 
 shone in a corner with the faint glimmer of a star, which 
 rendered the gloom deeper still Large shadows hung about, 
 and now and again black masses, men inordinately enlarged, 
 whose sinewy limbs could be imagined, passed before the fire, 
 hiding that last gleam of light. Gervaise, not daring to 
 venture in, called from the doorway, in a faint voice, 
 
 "Monsieur Goujet 1 Monsieur Goujet ! " 
 
 Suddenly all became lighted up. Beneath the puff of the 
 bellows, a jet of white flame had ascended. The shed was seen, 
 enclosed by boarding, with openings roughly plastered round, 
 and corners strengthened with bits of brick wall. The dust 
 that blew from the coal fire had coated the place with a greyish 
 soot. Cobwebs hung from the beams, looking like rags put up 
 there to dry, and heavy with the dirt of years. Around the 
 walls, on shelves, or hanging to nails, or thrown down in the 
 dark corners, was a collection of old iron, of damaged utensils, 
 and of enormous implements, showing, as they lay about, their 
 tarnished, harsh, and broken forms. And the bright white 
 flame continued to blaze away, illuminating as though with a 
 ray of sunshine the trodden ground, on which the shining steel 
 of four anvils, fixed in their blocks, had the reflection of silver 
 streaked with gold. 
 
 Then Gervaise recognised Goujet in front of the forge by his 
 beautiful yellow beard. Etienne was blowing the bellows. 
 Two other workmen were there, but she only beheld Goujet, 
 and- walked forward and stood before him. 
 
 " Why, it's Madame Gervaise ! " he exclaimed, with a bright 
 look on his face. " What a pleasant surprise ! " 
 
 But as his comrades appeared to be, rather amused, he pushed 
 Etienne towards his mother and resumed, 
 
 " You've come to see the [youngster. He behaves himself 
 well, he's beginning to get some strength in his wrists." 
 
 "Ah, well ! " said she, " it's not easy to get here. I thought 
 myself at the end of the world." 
 
 And she told him what a journey she had had. Then she 
 asked him why Etienne's name was not known in the workshop. 
 Goujet laughed, and explained that every one called the boy the 
 little Zouzou, because his hair was cut short like a zouave's. 
 Whilst they were talking together, Etienne left off working the 
 bell'ows, the flame of the forge gradually lowered, a rosy
 
 160 THE "ASSOMMOrR." 
 
 glimmer was dying away in the middle of the shed, which had 
 once more become dark. The blacksmith, deeply moved, 
 watched the smiling young woman, looking so fresh in that 
 faint light. Then, wrapped in the shadows, as neither con- 
 tinued speaking, he seemed to recollect and broke the silence. 
 
 " Excuse me, Madame Gervaise, I've something that has to bo 
 finished. You'll stay there, won't you ? You're not in any 
 body's way." 
 
 She remained. Etienne returned to the bellows. The forge 
 was soon ablaze again, with a cJoud of sparks ; the more so as 
 the youngster, to show his mother what he could do, was 
 making the bellows blow a regular hurricane. Goujet, standing 
 up watching a bar of iron heating, was waiting with the tongs in 
 his hand. The bright glare illuminated him without a shadow. 
 His shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, open at the neck, displayed his 
 bare arms and bare chest, a skin as pinky white as a girl's, with 
 little light curly hairs ; and, with his head rather low on his 
 enormous shoulders all streaked with muscles, an attentive ex- 
 pression on his face, his pale eyes fixed, without blinking, on 
 the flame, he looked like a giant at rest, calm in the knowledge 
 of his might. When the bar was at -white heat, he seized it 
 with the tongs and cut it with a hammer on an anvil, in pieces 
 of equal length, as though he had been gently breaking bits of 
 glass. Then he put the pieces back into the fire, from which 
 he took them one by one to work them into shape. He was. 
 forging hexagonal rivets. He placed each piece in a tool-hole 
 of the anvil, beat down the iron that was to form the head, 
 flattened the six sides, and threw the finished rivet, still red 
 hot, on to the black earth, where its bright light gradually died 
 out; and this with a continuous hammering, wielding in his 
 right hand a hammer weighing five pounds, completing a detail 
 at every blow, turning and wprking the iron with such dexterity 
 that he was able to talk to and look at those about him. The 
 anvil had a silvery ring. Without a drop of perspiration, quite 
 at his ease, he struck in a good-natured sort of way, not appear- 
 ing to exert himself more than on the evenings when he cut 
 out pictures at home. 
 
 " Oh ! these are little rivets of twenty millimetres," said he 
 in reply to -Gervaise's questions. " A fellow can do his three 
 hundred a day. . But it requires practice, for one's arm soon 
 grows rusty." 
 
 And when she asked him if his wrist did not feel stiff at the 
 end of the day, he laughed aloud. Did she think him a young
 
 THE "ASSOMMOm." 161 
 
 lady ? His wrist had had plenty of drudgery for fifteen years 
 past ; it was now as strong as the iron implements it had been 
 so long in contact with. She was right though ; a gentleman 
 who had never forged a rivet or a bolt, and who would try to 
 show off' with his five pound hammer, would find himself precious 
 stiff in the course of a couple of hours. It did not seem much, 
 but a few years of it often did for some very strong fellows. 
 During this conversation, the other workmen were also hammer- 
 ing away, all together. Their tall shadows danced about in the 
 ligh,t, the red flashes of the iron taken from the fire traversed 
 the gloomy recesses, clouds of sparks darted out from beneath 
 the hammers, and shone like suns on a level with the anvils. 
 And Gervaise, feeling happy and interested in the movement 
 round the forge, did not think of leaving. She was going a 
 long way round to get nearer to Etienne without having her 
 hands burnt, when she. saw the dirty and bearded wcfrkman, 
 whom she had spoken to outside, enter. 
 
 " So you've found him, madame 1 " asked he in his drunken, 
 bantering way. " You know, Golden-Mug, it's I who told 
 madame where to find you." 
 
 He was called Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, 
 the brick of bricks, a dab hand at bolt forging, who wetted his 
 iron every day with a pint and a half of brandy. He had gone 
 out to have a drop, because he felt he wanted greasing to make 
 him last till six o'clock. When he learnt that Zouzou's real 
 name was Etienne, he thought it very funny ; and he showed 
 his black teeth as he laughed. Then he recognised Gervaise. 
 Only the day before he had had a glass of wine with Coupeau. 
 You could speak to Coupeau abdut Salted-Mouth, otherwise 
 Drink-without-Thirst; he would at once say: "He's a jolly 
 dog ! " Ah ! that joker Coupeau ! he was one of the right 
 sort ; he stood treat oftener than his turn. 
 
 "I'm awfully glad to know you're his missis," added he. 
 " He deserves to have a pretty wife. Eh, Golden-Mug, madame 
 is a fine woman, isn't shel" 
 
 . He was becoming quite gallant, sidling up towards the 
 laundress, who took hold of her basket and held it in front of 
 her, so as to keep him at a, distance. Goujet, annoyed, and see- 
 ing that his comrade was joking, because of his friendship for 
 Gervaise, called out to him : 
 
 1 "I say, lazybones, what about the forty millimetre bolts t Do 
 you think you're equal to 'em, now that you've got your gullet 
 full, you confounded guzzler?" . . '
 
 162 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 The blacksmith was alluding to an order for big bolts which 
 necessitated two beaters at the anvil. 
 
 " I'm ready to start at this moment, big baby ! " replied 
 Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst. " It sucks its 
 thumb and thinks itself a man. In spite of your size, I'm. 
 equal to you 1 " 
 
 ".Yes, that's it, at once. Look sharp, and off we go ! " 
 
 " Right you are, my boy ! " 
 
 They defied each other, stimulated by Gervaise's presence. 
 Goujet placed the pieces of iron that had been cut before- 
 hand in the fire ; then he fixed a tool-hole of large bore on an 
 anvil. His comrade had taken from against the wall two 
 sledge-hammers weighing twenty pounds each, the two big 
 sisters of the factory, whom the workmen called Fi$ne and 
 De'dele. And he continued to brag, talking of a half-gross of 
 rivets which he had forged for the Dunkirk lighthouse, regular 
 jewels, things to put in a museum, they were so daintily finished 
 off. Hang it all, no ! he did not fear competition ; before 
 meeting with another chap like him, you might search every 
 factory in the capital. They were going to have a laugh ; they 
 would see what they would see. 
 
 f< Madame shall be judge," said he, turning towards the 
 young woman. 
 
 " Enough chattering ! " cried Goujet. "Now then, Zouzou, 
 show your muscle ! It doesn't heat a bit, my lad." 
 
 But Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, asked : 
 " So we strike together ? " 
 
 " Not a bit of it ! each his own bolt, my friend ! " 
 
 This statement operated a^s a damper, and Goujet's comrade, on 
 hearing it, remained speechless, in spite of all his boasting. Bolts 
 of forty millimetres fashioned by one man had never before 
 been seen ; the more so as the bolts were to be round-headed, a 
 work of great difficulty, a real masterpiece to achieve. The 
 three other workmen who were present left their work to look 
 on ; a tall, spare fellow wagered a quart that Goujet would bo 
 beaten. The two blacksmiths each took a sledge-hammer with 
 their eyes shut, because Fifine weighed half a pound more than 
 Dedele. Salted^Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, had 
 the luck to put his hand on De'dele, so that Fifiue fell to 
 Golden-Mug. And, while waiting till the iron was at a white 
 heat, the first, having recovered his cheek, swaggered about in 
 front of the anvil, casting tender glances at the laundress. 
 He took up his position, stamped on the ground with his foot,
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 163 
 
 like a gentleman fencing, and already made the gesture of 
 swinging D&lele with all his might. Ah ! Jove's thunder ! he 
 was in his element ; he could have beaten the Venddme column 
 into a pulp ! 
 
 "Now then, off you go !" said Goujet, placing one of the 
 pieces of iron, as thick as a girl's wrist, in the tool-hole. 
 
 Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, leant back, 
 and swung D&lele round with both hands. Short, dried-up, with 
 his goatee, and with his wolf-like eyes glaring beneath his un- 
 kempt hair, he seemed to snap at each swing of the hammer, 
 springing up from the ground as though carried away by the force 
 he put into the blow. He was a fierce one, who fought with 
 the iron, annoyed at finding it so hard, and he even gave a 
 grunt whenever he thought he bad planted a fine stroke. Perhaps 
 brandy did weaken other people's arms, but he needed brandy 
 in his veins, instead of blood. The drop he had taken 
 a little while before had made his carcass as warm as a boiler ; 
 he felt he had the power of a steam-engine within him. And 
 the iron seemed to be afraid of him this time ; he flattened it 
 more easily than if it had been a quid of tobacco. And it was 
 a sight to see how Dedele waltzed ! She cut such capers, with 
 her tootsies in the air, just like a dollymop of the Elys^e Mont- 
 martre, who exhibits her under-garments ; for it would never do 
 to dawdle, iron is so deceitful, it cools at once just to spite the 
 hammer. With thirty blows, Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink- 
 without-Thirst, had fashioned the head of his bolt. But he 
 panted, his eyes were half out of his head, and got into 
 a great rage as he felt his arms growing tired. Then, carried 
 away by wrath, jumping about and yelling, he gave two more 
 blows, just out of revenge for his trouble. When he took the 
 bolt from . the hole, it was deformed, its head being askew like 
 a hunchback's. 
 
 " Come now ! isn't that quickly beaten into shape ? " . said he 
 all the same, with his self-confidence, as he presented his work 
 to. Gervaise. 
 
 " I'm no judge, sir," replied the laundress, reservedly. 
 
 But she saw plainy enough the marks of D^dele's last two 
 kicks on the bolt, and she was very pleased. She bit her lips so 
 as not to laugh, for now Goujet had every chance of winning. 
 
 It was now Golden-Mug's turn. Before commencing, he gave 
 the laundress a look full of confident tenderness. Then he did 
 not hurry himself. He measured his distance, and swung the 
 hammer from on high with all his might and at regular
 
 164 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 intervals. He had the classic style, accurate, evenly balanced, 
 and supple. Fifine in his hands did not cut capers, like at a 
 dancing-place, cocking her legs above her skirts ; she rose and 
 fell in cadence, like a lady of quality solemnly leading some 
 ancient minuet. Fifine's heels beat time gravely, and smote 
 the red-hot' iron of the bolt's head with scientific strokes, first 
 flattening the metal in the centre, then modelling it by a series 
 of blows of 'rhythmical precision. It was certainly not brandy 
 that filled Golden-Mug's veins ; it was blood, pure blood, that 
 flowed powerfully even into his hammer, and accomplished the 
 task. It was a magnificent sight to see that fellow at work ! 
 The glare of the forge shone full upon him. His short hair curl- 
 ing over his low forehead, his handsome yellow beard with its wavy 
 ringlets, seemed to light up, and illuminated all his face with its 
 golden threads, making it indeed a face of gold. With that he 
 had a neck like a pillar, and as white as a child's ; a vast chest, 
 broad enough to bear a woman across it ; shoulders and arms 
 which seemed sculptured from those of a giant in some museum. 
 When he took his aim, one could see his muscles rise, moun- 
 tains of flesh rolling and hardening beneath the skin; his 
 shoulders, his chest, his neck, all swelled ; he cast a halo 
 around him; he became beautiful, all-powerful, like a god. 
 He had already brought Fifine down twenty times, his eyes fixed 
 on the iron ; taking breath at every stroke, with merely two big 
 drops of perspiration trickling down his temples. He counted: 
 twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three. Fifine quietly continued 
 her grand lady's curtseys. 
 
 " What affectation ! " jeeringly murmured Salted-Mouth, 
 otherwise Drink-without-Thirst. 
 
 And Gervaise, standing opposite Golden-Mug, looked on, 
 smiling tenderly. Ah, what fools men are ! Were they not 
 each hammering their bolts by way of courting her? Oh, she 
 saw it all : they were fighting for her with their hammers ; 
 they were like two big red cocks making up to a little white 
 hen. What devices, eh ? All the same, the heart has at times 
 funny ways of declaring itself. Yes, it was for her, that 
 thunder of De"dele and Fifine beating on the anvil ; it was for 
 her, all that crushing of iron ; it was for her, that forge in 
 activity, flaring like a conflagration, filled with a shower of 
 fiery sparks. They were forging there a love for her, forging 
 against each other with her as the prize. And, in her heart, 
 this .pleased her; for, after all, women love compliments. 
 Golden- Mug's blows especially found an echo in her breast ;
 
 GOLDEN-MUG FORGING A BOLT IN THE PRESENCE OP GERVA1SE. 
 
 p. 165 

 
 THE "ASSOMM01R." 166 
 
 they resounded there as on the anvil, with a bright music 
 which accompanied the heavy thrbbbings of her blood. It 
 seems absurd, but she felt that they drove something into her 
 there, something solid, a little of the iron of the bolt. At 
 twilight, before entering the factory, she had experienced a vague 
 desire, as she passed along the wet pavements, to eat something 
 niee ; now she felt satisfied, as though the blows Golden-Mug 
 had dealt with his hammer had nourished her. Oh, she had 
 no doubt of his victory. It was to him that she would belong. 
 Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, was too ugly, 
 jumping about like an escaped monkey, in his dirty blouse 
 and overalls. And she waited, looking very red, feeling happy 
 in the stifling heat, however, and taking a delight in being 
 shaken from head to foot by Fifine's final strokes. 
 
 Goujet was still counting. 
 
 " And twenty-eight ! " cried he at length, laying the hammer 
 on the ground. " It's finished ; you can look." 
 
 The head of the bolt was clean, polished, and without a flaw, 
 regular goldsmith's work, with the roundness of a marble cast 
 in a mould. The other men looked at it and no'dded their 
 heads ; there was no denying it was lovely enough to be wor- 
 shipped. Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, tried 
 indeed to chaff; but it was no use, and he ended by returning 
 to his anvil, with his nose put out of joint. Gervaise had 
 squeezed up against Goujet, as though to get a better view. 
 Etienne having let go the bellows, the forge was once more 
 becoming enveloped in shadow, like a brilliant red sunset sud- 
 denly giving way to black night. And the blacksmith and the 
 laundress experienced a sweet pleasure in feeling this gloom 
 surround them, in that shed black with soot and filings, and 
 where an odour of old iron prevailed. They could not have 
 thought themselves more alone in the Bois de Vincennes had 
 they met there in the depths of some copse. He took her hand 
 as though he had conquered her. 
 
 Outside, they scarcely exchanged a word. All he could find 
 to say was that she might have taken Etienne away with her, 
 had it not been that there was still another half-hour's work to 
 get through. She was at length going off, when he called her 
 back, trying to keep her with him a few minutes longer. 
 
 " Come this way; you haven't seen everything. Keally, now, 
 it's very curious." 
 
 He led her to the right, to another shed, where his employer 
 had set up some machinery. She hesitated at the thresholcf,
 
 1G6 THE "ASSOMMOm." 
 
 seized with an instinctive fear. The vast apartment shook with 
 the vibration, and huge shadows, pierced with red fires, hung 
 about. But he smilingly reassured her, saying that there was 
 nothing to be afraid of. All she had to do was to be careful 
 not to let her skirts go near any of the gear. He walked first, 
 and she followed in the midst of that deafening uproar com- 
 posed of all sorts of noises, whistling and rumbling, and of those 
 vapours peopled with vague forms men black and busy, 
 machines agitating their arms which she was unable to dis- 
 tinguish from each other. The passages were very narrow ; it 
 was necessary to step over obstacles, to beware of holes, and to 
 stand on one side to avoid being jostled. One could not hear 
 oneself speak. For a time, she saw nothing distinctly; all 
 danced before her. Then, as she felt the sensation of a great 
 flapping of wings above her head, she raised her eyes, and 
 stopped to look at the long straps hanging from the ceiling, like 
 a gigantic cobweb, each thread of which seemed to be for ever 
 unwinding without coming to an end ; the steam-engine, which 
 produced the motive-power, was hidden away in a corner behind 
 a little brick wall ; the straps seemed to spin along without any 
 help, bringing the motion from the depths of the gloom, with 
 their continuous and regular glide, as gentle as the flight of a 
 night bird. But she nearly fell, through stumbling against one 
 of the pipes of the ventilator, which ramified over the trodden 
 ground, distributing its sharp breath of wind to the little 
 forges near the machines. And he commenced by showing this 
 to her, turning the air on to a fire ; large fan-shaped flames 
 spread out on the four sides, forraiug a dazzling and rugged 
 collar of fire, slightly tinted with a touch of crimson ; the light 
 was so brilliant that the workmen's little lamps looked like 
 dark spots on a sun. 
 
 Then he raised his voice to give her some explanations, as he 
 showed her the machinery the mechanical shears which de- 
 voured bars of iron, gobbling a piece at each bite, and spitting 
 the bits out behind one by one ; the bolt and rivet machines, 
 tall and complicated, which forged the heads with a single 
 pressure of their powerful screw ; the scrapers, with their cast- 
 iron fly-wheel looking like a ball of cast-iron as it furiously 
 beat the air round each article, from which they removed the 
 rough edges ; the tappers, worked by women, tapping the bolts 
 and their nuts, -with the tick-tack of their steel wheels that shone 
 beneath the grease of the machine oiL She could thus follow 
 the whole fabrication, from the iron in bars leaning up against
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIE." 16? 
 
 the walls to the manufactured bolts and rivets, casefuls of 
 which filled the corners. Then she understood, she smiled as 
 she nodded her head j but all the same she had an oppressive 
 feeling in her'throat, uneasy at being so little and so tender 
 amongst those formidable workers in me'tal, and now and again 
 she turned round, so startled by the dull thud of one of the 
 scrapers that her blood almost froze in her veins. She became 
 accustomed to the gloom, and beheld recesses in which immov- 
 able men regulated the breathless dance of the fly-wheels, when- 
 ever a fire suddenly shed a flood of light from its collar of 
 flame. And in spite of herself, her eyes wandered back to the 
 roof, to the life, to the very blood of the machines, to the 
 supple flight of the straps, the noiseless and enormous power 
 of which she watched as it passed in the uncertain darkness 
 that hung about the beams and rafters. 
 
 Goujet had stopped in front of one of the machines for 
 making rivets. He stood there, wrapped in thought, with 
 bowed head and fixed look. The machine forged rivets of forty 
 millimetres with the quiet ease of a giant. And in truth 
 nothing was simpler. The fireman took the piece of iron from 
 the fire, the striker placed it in the tool-hole, which was 
 moistened by a constant trickling of water to guard against 
 softening the steel, and the thing was done, the screw came 
 down, the rivet jumped to' the ground, with its head as round 
 as though it had been cast in a mould. In twelve hours that 
 confounded machine manufactured hundredweights of rivets. 
 Goujet was not spiteful ; but, at certain moments, it would 
 have delighted him to have taken Fifine and gone and knocked 
 all that machinery about, in his rage at seeing that it possessed 
 arms more powerful than his own. It caused him great vexa- 
 tion, even when he reasoned with himself, and told himself that 
 flesh could not fight against iron. One day certainly, machinery 
 would kill the workman ; wages had already fallen from twelve 
 francs to nine francs a day, and there was a talk of lowering 
 them still more ; in short, there was nothing lively in those 
 hulking contrivances which made bolts and rivets just the same 
 as they might have made sausages. He gazed at that one fully 
 three minutes without saying a word ; his brow contracted, and 
 his beautiful yellow beard bristled menacingly. Then a look 
 of gentleness and resignation gradually softened the expression 
 of his features. He turned towards Gervaise, who pressed 
 against him, and said with a melancholy smile :
 
 1C8 THE "ASSOMM01B." 
 
 " Eh ! it makes one feel precious small ! But perhaps it 
 will some day help to insure the prosperity of all of us." 
 
 Gervaise did not care a fig for universal prosperity. In her 
 opinion, the machine-made bolts were badly forged. 
 
 " You understand what I mean," exclaimed she with warmth; 
 " they are too well done. I like yours better. In them one 
 can at least trace the hand of an artist." 
 
 In speaking thus, she gave him very great comfort, because 
 he had feared for a moment that she would despise him, after 
 seeing the machines. For though he was stronger than Salted- 
 Mouth, otherwise Drink-wilhout-Thirst, yet the machines were 
 stronger than he was. When he at length parted from her 
 in the courtyard, he squeezed her wrists almost to the point of 
 breaking them, because of his great joy. 
 
 The laundress went every Saturday to the Goujets, to take 
 home their washing. They still lived in the little house in the 
 Kue Neuve de la Goutte-d'Or. During the first year she had 
 regularly repaid them twenty francs a month ; so as not to 
 jumble up the accounts, the washing-book was only made up 
 at the end of each month, and then she added to the amount 
 whatever sum was necessary to make the twenty francs, for 
 the Goujets- washing rarely came to more than seven or eight 
 francs during that time. She had therefore paid off nearly 
 half the sum owing, when one quarter day, not knowing what 
 to do, some of her customers not having kept their promises, 
 she had been obliged to go to the Goujets, and borrow from 
 them sufficient for her rent. On two other occasions she had 
 also applied to them for the money to pay her workwomen, so 
 that the debt had increased again to four hundred and twenty- 
 five francs. Now, she no longer gave a halfpenny ; she worked 
 off the amount solely by the washing. It was not that she 
 worked less, or that her business was not so prosperous. But 
 something was going wrong in her home ; the money seemed 
 to melt away, and she was glad when she was able to make 
 both ends meet Well ! providing one lives, one is not so much 
 to be pitied. She was getting fatter ; she gave way to all the 
 little unconstraints of her growing obesity, no longer having 
 the strength to be frightened when she thought of the future. 
 So much the. worse! money would always come in, putting it 
 by only made it rusty. Madame Goujet, however, continued 
 to treat Gervaise in a maternal manner. She gently lectured 
 her occasionally, not on account of the money, but because she 
 loved her and. feared to see her take the plunge into the mire.
 
 "ASSOMMOlR." 169 
 
 She never even mentioned the debt. In short, she behaved 
 with the utmost delicacy. 
 
 The morrow of Gervaise's visit to the forge happened to be 
 the last Saturday of the month. When she reached the 
 Goujets, where she made a point of going herself, her basket 
 had so weighed on her arms that she was quite two minutes 
 before she could get her breath. One would hardly believe 
 how heavy clothes are, especially when there are sheets among 
 them. 
 
 "'Are you sure you've brought every thing?" asked Madame 
 Goujet. 
 
 She was very strict on that point She insisted on having 
 her washing brought home without a single article being kept 
 back, for the sake of order, as she said. She also required the 
 laundress always to come on the day arranged, and at the same 
 hour ; in that way there was no time wasted. 
 
 " Oh ! yes, there's everything," replied Gervaise, smiling. 
 " You know I never keep a thing back." 
 
 " That's true," admitted Madame Goujet; " you've got into 
 many bad habits, but you're still free of that one." 
 
 And, whilst the laundress emptied her basket, laying the 
 linen on her bed, the old woman praised her : she never burnt 
 the things, nor tore them, like so many others did, neither did 
 she pull the buttons off with the iron ; only she used too much 
 blue, and made the shirt fronts too stiff with starch. 
 
 " Just look, it's like cardboard," continued she, making one 
 crackle between her fingers. " My son does not complain, but 
 it cuts his neck. To-morrow hig neck will be all scratched 
 when we return from Vincennes." 
 
 "No, don't say that!" exclaimed Gervaise, quite grieved. 
 " To look nice, shirts must be rather stiff, otherwise it's as 
 though one had a rag on one's body, You should just see how 
 gentlemen have their's done. I do all your things myself. 
 The workwomen never touch them, and I assure you I take 
 great pains I would if necessary do everything over a dozen 
 times because it's for you, you know." 
 
 She slightly blushed as she stammered out the last words. 
 She was afraid of showing the great pleasure she took in iron- 
 ing Goujet's shirts. She certainly had no wicked thoughts, 
 but she was none the less a little bit ashamed. 
 
 " Oh ! I'm not complaining of your work ; I know it's per- 
 fection," said Madame Goujet. "For instance, you've done 
 this cap splendidly, only you could bring out the embroidery
 
 170 1?HE "ASSOMMOm." 
 
 like that. And the goffering is all so even ! Oh ! I recognise 
 your hand at once. When you give even a dish-cloth to one 
 of your workwomen I detect it at once. In future, use a little 
 less starch, that's all ! Goujet does not care to look like a 
 gentleman." 
 
 She took up the book and ticked off the items with a pen. 
 Everything was there. When they made up the account, she 
 saw that Gervaise had charged her six sous for a cap ; she pro- 
 tested against this, but she had to admit that the other things 
 were charged very low : shirts five sous, women's drawers four 
 sous, pillow-cases a sou and a half, aprons a sou a piece ; no, it 
 was really not dear, as many laundresses charged two liards, 
 and even a sou more for each of those articles. Then, when 
 Gervaise had called over the dirty linen, which the old woman 
 wrote down, she put it in the basket ; but, instead of taking 
 her leave, she remained there in an embarrassed sort of way, 
 with a request on the tip of her tongue, which she could 
 scarcely screw up courage to utter. 
 
 "Madame Goujet," said she at length, "if it does not incon- 
 venience you, I should like to take the money for this month's 
 washing." 
 
 It so happened that that month was a very Jieavy one, the 
 account they had made up together amounting to ten francs 
 seven sous. Madame Goujet looked at her a moment in a 
 serious manner, then she replied : 
 
 "My child, it shall be as you wish. I will not refuse you 
 the money, as you are in want of it. Only, it's scarcely the 
 way to pay off your debt ; I say that for your sake, you know. 
 Really now, you should be careful." 
 
 Gervaise received the lecture with bowed head, and stammer- 
 ing excuses. The ten francs were to make up the amount of a 
 bill she had given her coke merchant. But on hearing the 
 word "bill," Madame Goujet became severer still. She gave 
 herself as an example : she had reduced her expenditure, ever 
 since Goujet's wages had been lowered from twelve to nine 
 francs a day. When one was wanting in wisdom whilst young, 
 one died of hunger in one's old age. Yet, she restrained her- 
 self; she did not tell Gervaise that she merely gave her the 
 washing to do to enable her to pay off her debt. Previously 
 she had washed everything herself, and she would do so again 
 if the washing was going to draw sums like that out of her 
 pocket. When Gervaise had hold of the ten francs seven sous, she 
 murmured her thanks and hastened away. And, outside on
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." m 
 
 the landing, she experienced a sensation of relief; she felt 
 inclined to dance, for she was already becoming accustomed to 
 the worries and unpleasantnesses of money matters, retaining of 
 such vexations only the delight of being free of them, until 
 the next time. 
 
 It was also on that Saturday that Gervaise met with a rather 
 strange adventure as she descended the Goujets' staircase. She 
 was obliged to stand up close against the balusters with her 
 basket, to make way for a tall bare-headed woman who was 
 coming up, 'carrying in her hand a very fresh mackerel, with 
 its gills all bloody, in a piece of paper. And she recognised 
 Virginie, the girl whose skirts she had turned up at the wash- 
 house. They looked each other full in the face. Gervaise 
 shut her eyes, for she thought for a moment that she was going 
 to receive the mackerel in them. But no, Virginie even smiled 
 slightly. Then, as her basket was blocking up the staircase, 
 the laundress wished to show how polite she could be. 
 
 " Pray excuse me," said she. 
 
 "Most willingly," replied the tall brunette. 
 
 And they remained conversing together on the stairs, recon- 
 ciled at once without having ventured on a single allusion to 
 the past. Virginie, then twenty-nine years old, had become a 
 superb woman, of strapping proportions, her face, however, 
 looking rather long between her two plaits of jet black hair. 
 She at once began to relate her history just to show off. She 
 had a husband now; she had married in the spring an ex-journey- 
 man cabinetmaker, who had recently left the army, and who 
 had applied to be admitted into the police, because a post of 
 that kind is more to be depended upon and more respectable. 
 She had been out to buy the mackerel for him. 
 
 "He adores mackerel," said she. "We must spoil them, 
 those naughty men, mustn't we ? But come up. You shall 
 see our home. We are standing in a draught here." 
 
 When Gervaise, after relating in. her turn the story of her 
 own marriage, said that she had lived in the same lodging, and 
 had even been confined there of a daughter, Virginie pressed 
 her to come up more than ever. It is always a pleasure to see 
 the places again where one has been happy. For five years 
 past she had been residing in the Gros-Caillou district, on the 
 other side of the water. It was there that she had first known 
 her husband, who was then in the army. But she was dull ; 
 she longed to return to the neighbourhood of the Goutte-d'Or, 
 where she knew everybody ; and for the last fortnight she had
 
 i?2 THE " ASSOMMbBL" 
 
 been living in the lodging facing the Goujets. Oh, all her 
 things were still in great disorder; they would get straight 
 little by little. 
 
 Then they at length told each other their names on the 
 landing. 
 
 " Madame Coupeau." 
 
 " Madame Poisson." 
 
 And from that time forth, they called each other on every 
 possible occasion Madame Poisson and Madame Coupeau, solely 
 for the pleasure of being madame, they who in former days had 
 been acquainted when occupying rather questionable positions. 
 However, Gervaise felt rather mistrustful at heart. Perhaps 
 the tall brunette had made it up the better to avenge herself 
 for the beating at the wash-house by concocting some plan 
 worthy of a spiteful hypocritical creature. Gervaise determined 
 to be upon her guard. For the time being, as Virginie behaved 
 so nicely, she would be nice also. 
 
 In the room upstairs, Poisson, the husband, a man of thirty- 
 five, with a cadaverous-looking countenance and carroty mous- 
 taches and imperial, was seated working at a table near the win- 
 dow. He was making little boxes. His sole tools consisted of a 
 penknife, a saw about the size of a finger-nail file, and a pot of 
 glue. The wood which he used came from old cigar-boxes, thin 
 strips of unpolished mahogany, which he cut up and embellished 
 with extraordinary delicacy. All day long, from one end of 
 the year to the other, he made similar boxes three inches by 
 two and a quarter. Only, he checkered them, varied the shapes 
 of the lids, and divided them into compartments. It amused 
 him and helped to kill time whilst awaiting his appointment in 
 the police. From his old trade of cabinetrnaking, he had only 
 preserved a mania for constructing little boxes. He did not 
 sell his work, he distributed it in presents to persons of his 
 acquaintance. 
 
 Poisson rose from his seat and politely bowed to Gervaise, 
 whom his wife introduced to him as one of her old friends. 
 But he was no talker ; he at once returned to his little saw. 
 From time to time he merely glanced in the direction of the 
 mackerel placed on the corner of the chest of drawers. Gervaise 
 was very pleased to see her old lodging once more. She told 
 them whereabouts her own furniture stood, and pointed out the 
 place, on the floor where she was confined. What a curious 
 thing it was ! When they both lost sight of each other in the 
 old days, they would never have thought of meeting again like
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 173 
 
 that, and of living one after the other in the same room. 
 Virginie gave some further information about herself and her 
 husband. .He had inherited a small sum from an aunt. No 
 doubt he would set her up in business later on; for the time 
 being, she continued to do needle-work, and occasionally made 
 up a dress. At length, at the end of a good half-hour, the 
 laundress took her leave. Poisson scarcely turned round. 
 Virginie, who escorted her out of the room, promised to return 
 her visit; besides that, she arranged to give Gervaise her 
 custom; and as she detained her on the landing, Gervaise 
 fancied that she wished to speak to her of Lautier, and of her 
 sister Adele, the burnisher. She felt quite upset in conse- 
 quence. But not a word was uttered respecting these un- 
 pleasant things ; they parted, wishing each other good-bye in a 
 very amiable manner. 
 
 " Good-bye, Madame Coupeau." 
 
 " Good-bye, Madame Poisson." 
 
 That was the starting-point of a great friendship. A week 
 later, Virginie never passed Gervaise's shop without going in ; 
 and she remained there gossiping for hours together, to such an 
 extent, indeed, that Poisson, filled with anxiety, fearing she 
 had been run over, would come and seek her, with his 
 expressionless and death-like countenance. Gervaise, seeing 
 the dressmaker in this way every day of her life, soon became 
 absorbed in one fixed idea. She could never hear her com- 
 mence a sentence without thinking she was going to speak of 
 Lantier ; her thoughts reverted to Lantier in spite of herself 
 all the time the other remained with her. It was as stupid as 
 could be, for she really did not care a pin for either Lantier or 
 Adele, nor for what had become of them ; she never asked a 
 question ; in fact, she did not feel the least curiosity to have 
 news of them. No ; it seized upon her, notwithstanding her 
 determination to the contrary. The thought of them continued 
 in her head just the same as some bothering chorus sticks to 
 one's tongue, and declines to be got rid of. She did not bear 
 Virginie any ill-will, for it was certainly not her fault. Sho 
 enjoyed her society very much, and would detain her a dozen 
 times before letting her go. 
 
 Meanwhile* winter had come, the Coupeaus' fourth winter in 
 the Rue de la Gputte-d'Or. December and January were par- 
 ticularly cold. It froze as hard as it well could. After New 
 Year's Day, the snow remained three' weeks in the street with- 
 out melting. It did not interfere with work, but the contrary,
 
 174 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 for winter is the best season for the ironers. It was very 
 pleasant inside the shop ! There was never any ice on the 
 window-panes like there was at the grocer's and the hosier's 
 opposite. The stove, crammed full of coke, maintained the 
 heat of a bath-room ; the clothes steamed away, one could have 
 thought oneself in the height of summer; and one felt so com- 
 fortable with the doors shut, being warm all over, so warm that 
 one could have fallen asleep with one's eyes open. Gervaise 
 laughingly said that she fa'ncied herself in the country. And 
 true enough, the vehicles rolled noiselessly over the snow; 
 one scarcely heard the footfalls of the passers-by ; in the 
 great silence resulting from the cold, children's voices alone 
 resounded, the shouts of a troop of youngsters who had made 
 a big slide along the gutter of the farriery. Now and again 
 she would go to the door, and, wiping away the steam from one 
 of the panes of glass, would look out to see how the neighbour- 
 hood was getting on in that confounded temperature ; but not a 
 face was to be seen at any of the shops in sight. The neighbours, 
 wrapped up in snow, seemed to be sulking ; and she was only 
 able to exchange a nod with the charcoal-dealer near by, who 
 walked about bareheaded, and with her mouth grinning from 
 ear to ear, ever since the severe frost had set in. 
 
 What was especially enjoyable in this awful weather was to 
 have some nice hot coffee in the middle of the day. The work- 
 women had no cause for complaint. The mistress made it very 
 strong and without a grain of chicory. It was quite different 
 to Madame Fauconnier's coffee, which was like ditch-water. 
 Only, whenever mother Coupeau undertook to make it, it was 
 always an interminable time before it was ready, because she 
 would fall asleep over the kettle. On these occasions, when 
 the workwomen had finished their lunch, they would do a little 
 ironing whilst waiting for the coffee. 
 
 It so happened that on the morrow of Twelfth-day, half-past 
 twelve struck, and still the coffee was not ready. It seemed to 
 persist in declining to pass through the strainer. Mother 
 Coupeau tapped against the pot with a tea-spoon; and one could 
 hear the drops falling slowly, one by one, and without hurrying 
 themselves any the more. 
 
 "Leave it alone," said tall Cle'mence ; "you'll make it thick. 
 To-day there'll certainly be as much to eat as to drink." 
 
 Tall C16mence was getting up a shirt, tne plaits of which 
 she separated with her finger-nail. She had caught a cold 
 sufficient to kill her, her eyes were frightfully swollen, and her
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIE." 175 
 
 chest was shaken -with fits of coughing, which doubled her up 
 beside the work-table. With all that, she had not even a 
 handkerchief round her neck, and she was dressed in some 
 cheap flimsy woollen stuff, in which she shivered. Close by, 
 Madame Putois, wrapped up in flannel, muffled up to her ears, 
 was ironing a petticoat, which she turned round the skirt- 
 board, the narrow end of which rested on the back of a chair; 
 whilst a sheet laid on the floor prevented the petticoat from 
 getting dirty as it trailed along the tiles. Gervaise alone 
 occupied half the work-table with some embroidered muslin 
 curtains, over which she passed her iron in a straight line, with 
 her arms stretched out to avoid making any creases. All on a 
 sudden, the coffee running through noisily caused her to raise 
 her head. It was that squint-eyed Augustine, who had just 
 given it an outlet by thrusting a spoon through the strainer. 
 
 " Leave it alone ! " cried Gervaise. " Whatever is the 
 matter with you? It'll be like drinking mud now." 
 
 Mother Coupeau had placed five glasses on a corner of the 
 work-table that was free. The women now left their work. 
 The mistress always poured out the coffee herself, after putting 
 two lumps of sugar into each glass. It was the moment that 
 they all looked forward to. On this occasion, as each one took 
 her glass and squatted down on a little stool in front of the 
 stove, the shop-door opened. Virgiuie entered, shivering all 
 over. 
 
 " Ah, my children," said she, " it cuts you in two ! I can 
 no longer feel my ears. The cold is something awful ! " 
 
 " Why, it's Madame Poisson ! " exclaimed Gervaise. " Ah, 
 well ! you've come at the right time. You must have some 
 coffee with us." 
 
 " On my word, I can't say no. One feels the frost in one's 
 bones merely by crossing the street." 
 
 There was still some coffee left, luckily. Mother Coupeau 
 went and fetched a sixth glass, and Gervaise let Virginie help 
 herself to sugar, out of politeness. The workwomen drew on 
 one side, and made room near the stove for the new comer. 
 She shivered for a moment, her nose all red, and held her 
 hands stiff with cold round her glass to warm them. She had 
 come from the grocer's, where one froze, merely whilst waiting 
 for a quarter of a pound of Gruyere cheese. And she cried out 
 about the great heat of the shop. Really, it was like entering 
 an oven,, it was enough to bring the dead to life again, it filled 
 one's body with such a pleasant sensation. Then, having got
 
 176 THE "ASSOMMOIE." 
 
 over her numbness, she stretched out her long legs. And all 
 the six slowly sipped their coffee in the midst of the interrupted 
 work, in the dam'p sultriness caused by the steaming clothes. 
 Only mother Coupeau and Virginie were seated on chairs j the 
 others, on their little stools, looked as though they were on the 
 floor ; and that squint-eyed Augustine had even seized upon a 
 portion of the sheet beneath the petticoat, so as to sprawl upon 
 it." No one spoke at first j all kept their noses in their glasses, 
 enjoying their coffee. 
 
 " It's not bad all the same," declared Cle*mence. 
 
 -But she was seized with a fit of coughing, and almost choked. 
 She leant her head against the wall to cough with more 
 force. 
 
 " That's a bad cough you've got," said Virginie. " Where- 
 ever did you catch it ? " 
 
 " One never knows ! " replied Cle*mence, wiping her face with 
 her sleeve. " It must have been the other night. There were 
 two who were flaying each other outside the ' Grand-Balcony.' 
 I wanted to see, so I stood there whilst the snow was falling. 
 Ah, what a drubbing! it was enough to make one die with 
 laughing. One had her nose almost pulled off; the blood 
 streamed on the ground. When the other, a great long stick 
 like me, saw the blood, she slipped away as quick as she could. 
 And I coughed nearly all night. Besides that, too, men are 
 so stupid in bed, they don't let you have any clothes over you 
 half the time." 
 
 " Pretty conduct that," murmured Madame Putois. "You're 
 killing yourself, my girl." 
 
 "And if ib pleases me to kill myself! Life isn't so very 
 amusing. Slaving all the blessed day long to earn fifty-five 
 sous, cooking one's blood from morning to night in front of tho 
 stove ; no, you know, I've had enough of it ! All the same 
 though, this cough won't do me the service of making me 
 croak. It'll go off the same way it came." 
 
 A short silence ensued. That good-for-nothing Clemence, 
 who cocked up her leg the highest and shrieked like a screech- 
 owl in the low dancing establishments, always saddened every 
 one with her thoughts of death, whenever she was at the shop. 
 Gervaise knew her well, and so merely observed, 
 
 " You're not lively after you've been on the batter ! " 
 
 The truth was that Gervaise did not like this talk about 
 women fighting. Because of the flogging at the wash-house it 
 annoyed her whenever anyone spoke before her and Virginie of
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." IT? 
 
 kicks >rfith wooden shoes and of slaps in the face. It so 
 happened, too, that Virginie was looking at her and smiling. 
 
 " Oh ! " murmured the tall brunette, " I saw some hair 
 pulled out by the roots yesterday. They were tearing each 
 other to pieces." 
 
 "Who ? " asked Madame Putois. 
 
 " The midwife at the end of the street and her servant, you 
 know, a little blonde. She's a spiteful hussy, that girl ! She 
 said to the other, * Yes, yes, you did the trick for the green- 
 grocer's wife, and I'll go and tell tho commissary of police, if 
 you don't pay me/ And she went on about it ; you should just 
 have heard her ! Then the midwife let fly and gave her one 
 full on the conk. After that the little strumpet flew at her 
 missus, and scratched her face, and pulled out her hair, oh ! in 
 grand style. The pork-butcher had to separate them." 
 
 The workwomen laughed complacently. Then they all took 
 a sip of coffee, with an air of gluttonous enjoyment. 
 
 "Do you believe that about the greengrocer's wife?" asked 
 Clemence. 
 
 "Well, it was said so in the neighbourhood," replied Virginie. 
 "I wasn't there, you know. However, it's a part of their trade. 
 They all do it." 
 
 " Ah, well ! " said Madame Putois, " one's stupid to go to 
 them, and risk being lamed ! There's a sovereign way. Every 
 night you must drink a glass of holy water whilst you make the 
 sign of the cross on your stomach three times with your thumb ; 
 and it goes off just like wind." 
 
 Mother Coupeau, whom the others thought had fallen asleep, 
 protested with a' shake of her head. She knew another way, 
 and an infallible one. . It consisted in eating a hard boiled egg 
 every two hours, and placing spinach leaves on one's loins. 
 The' four other women remained very serious, but that squint- 
 eyed Augustine, whose mirth always got kindled without any- 
 one ever knowing why, gave vent to the cluck-cluck which was 
 her way of laughing. They had forgotten her. Gervaise lifted 
 up the petticoat, and caught sight of her rolling about on the 
 sheet like a young pig, with her legs in the air. She pulled her 
 away, and set her on her legs with a box on the ears. What 
 did she see to laugh at, the fool? She had no business to 
 listen when grown-up people were talking ! To begin with, she 
 would just take 4 the washing home to a friend of Madame 
 Lerat's at Batignolles. Whilst speaking, her mistress put the 
 basket on her arm and shoved her towards the door. The 
 
 H
 
 178 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 squint-eyed one, surly and sobbing, went off dragging her feet 
 along in the snow. 
 
 Meanwhile, mother Coupeau, Madame Putois, and Cle'mence 
 were discussing the efficacy of the hard boiled eggs and the 
 spinach leaves. Then Virginie, who remained thoughtful, with 
 her glass of coffee in her hand, said, in a very low voice, 
 
 " Really, now, one fights and then one makes it up ; one 
 always gets on when one's good-natured." 
 
 And, leaning towards Gervaise, she added, with a smile, 
 
 " No, truly, I bear you no ill-will. I mean the wash-house 
 matter, you recollect it ? " 
 
 The laundress felt dreadfully embarrassed. That was what 
 she had been fearing. She guessed that the other was about to 
 speak to her of Laiitier and Adele. The stove roared, an in- 
 crease of heat issued from the red-hot pipe. In the midst of 
 the general drowsiness, the workwomen, who made their coffee 
 last a long while so as to return to their work at the latest 
 possible moment, watched the snow in the .street with greedy 
 and languishing looks. They were all in a confidential mood ; 
 they related what they would have done if they had had ten 
 thousand francs a year ; they would simply have done nothing 
 at all, they would have remained like that all day long warming 
 themselves, .spitting at work from a distance. Virginio had 
 drawn nearer to Gervaise so as not to be heard by the others. 
 And Gervaise felt herself an awful coward, no doubt because of 
 the great heat, and so feeble and devoid of courage, that she 
 could not find strength to turn the conversation ; she was even 
 wanting to hear what the tall brunette had to say, her heart 
 filled with an emotion which she enjoyed witnout admitting it. 
 
 " I hope I'm not giving you pain," resumed the dressmaker. 
 " Already it's been twenty times on the tip of my tongue to say 
 so. However, as we've broached the subject, it's just as well to 
 talk it over, isn't it ? Ah ! really now, I don't bear you any ill- 
 will for what took place. On my word of honour 1 I bear 
 you no grudge for it." 
 
 She shook the remains of her coffee round in her glass, so as 
 to get all the sugar, and then drank three drops, making a 
 slight hissing sound with her lips as she did so. Gervaise, with 
 a swelling in her throat, still waited, and wondered if Virginie 
 had really forgiven her the walloping as she pretended she had; 
 for she noticed some yellow sparks glimmering in her black eyes. 
 That tall she-devil had probably merely put her rancour into 
 her pocket and covered it up with her handkerchief.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 179 
 
 " It was excusable .on your part," continued sh. " You had 
 just been treated in a shameful and abominable manner. Oh ! 
 I can be just, you know 1 Had it been me, I'd have taken a 
 knife." 
 
 She drank another three drops of her coffee, making the same 
 noise at the edge of the glass. And she dropped her drawling 
 tone of voice, and added quickly, without once stopping : 
 
 "And it didn't bring them luck, ah ! by Jove, no ! very far 
 from it ! They went to live, the devil knows where, right away 
 by La Glaciere, in a dirty street where there's always mud up 
 to your knees. Two days afterwards, I went off in the morning 
 to lunch with them ; it was quite a journey in the omnibus, I 
 can tell you ! Well ! my dear, I found them already wrangling 
 together. Keally, as I entered the room they were coming to 
 blows. There're lovers for you 1 You know, Adele isn't worth 
 the rope to hang her. She's my sister; but that doesn't prevent 
 my saying that she's in the skin of a precious dirty strumpet. 
 She's treated me shamefully ; it's too long to tell, besides it's a 
 little matter still to be settled between us. As for Lantier, 
 well ! you know him, he isn't worth much either. A little 
 gentleman, who pommels you about for a 'yes' or a 'no' ! And 
 he has a hard fist when he strikes. So they belaboured each 
 other in all conscience. Whenever one went up the stairs one 
 could hear them knocking each other about. One day, even, 
 the police interfered. Lantier wanted an oil soup, something 
 abominable that they eat in the South ; and, as Adele said it 
 was filthy, they chucked the bottle of oil, the saucepan, the 
 soup-tureen, in fact everything, at one another's heads ; in short, 
 there was a row that upset the whole neighbourhood." 
 
 She related other awful goings-on that had taken place ; there 
 was no end to them ; she knew things that would make one's 
 hair stand on end. Gervaise listened to the long story without 
 uttering a word ; her face was very pale, and a nervous wrinkle 
 hovered about the corners of her mouth, resembling a faint 
 smile. It was nearly seven years since she had heard any one 
 speak of Lantier. She would ne^er have believed that Lantier's 
 name, whispered thus in her ear, could have caused such a 
 burning sensation in the pit of her stomach. No, she never 
 imagined she had such a curiosity to know what had become of 
 the wretched being who had treated her so shamefully. She 
 could not be jealous of Adele now ; but she laughed inwardly 
 all the same at the couple's squabbles. She could fancy she saw 
 the girl's body covered with bruises, and it avenged her, and
 
 180 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 amused her. She could' have stayed there till the morrow 
 listening to Yirginie's reports. She asked no questions, because 
 she would not appear to be interested to that extent. It was 
 as though some one had abruptly filled up a great gap for her ; 
 at that moment, her past joined closely on to her present. 
 
 Virginie ended by burying her nose in her glass, as she sucked 
 up th'e sugar, half closing her eyes the while. Then, Gervaise, 
 understanding that she ought to say something, assumed an air 
 of indifference and asked : 
 
 " Are they still living at La Glaciere t w 
 
 4C Oh, no ! " replied the other ; " didn't I tell you ? For the 
 last week they've been living apart. One fine morning Adele 
 went x>ff with her things, and Lantier didn't run after her, I can 
 assure you." 
 
 The laundress uttered a faint cry, and said out loud : 
 
 " They're no longer living together ! " 
 
 "Who aren't? " asked tall Clemence, interrupting her conver- 
 sation with mother Coupeau and Madame Putois. 
 
 " Oh ! nobody you know," said Virginie. 
 
 She watched Gervaise, however, and noticed that she looked 
 strangely moved. She drew nearer, and seemed to find a wicked 
 pleasure in resuming her stories. Then, she abruptly asked her 
 what she would do if Lantier were to come hovering about her ; 
 for, after all, men are such queer beings, and Lantier was quite 
 capable of returning to his first love. Gervaise drew herself up, 
 and spoke very clearly and in a very dignified manner. She 
 was married, she would send Lantier to the right about, that 
 was all. There could never again be anything between them, 
 not even a shake of the hands. She would really be the most 
 heartless of women if she ever looked that man in the face. 
 
 "I know very well," said she, "that Etienne is his child, 
 there is a tie there that I cannot sever. If Lantier should wish 
 to kiss Etienne, I would send Etienne to him, because it is im- 
 possible to prevent a father from loving his child. But as for 
 myself, look you, Madame .Poisson, I would let myself be cut 
 up into tiny bits before I would allow him to touch me with his 
 little finger. It's all over." 
 
 As she uttered these last words, she made the sign of the 
 cross in the air, as though to seal her oath for evermore. And, 
 desirous of putting an end to the conversation, she seemed tc 
 rouse up with a start, and called to the workwomen : 
 
 "I say, you there ! do you think the clothes will iron them- 
 selves 1 What lazybones ! Gee up ! to work ! "
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 181 
 
 The workwomen did not hurry themselves; they were benumbed 
 by a fit of laziness, their arms were lying . idly on their laps, 
 whilst with one hand they still held their glasses, in which only 
 the dregs of the coffee remained. They continued conversing. 
 
 " It was little Celestine," Clemence was saying. " I knew 
 her. She was mad about cats' hairs. You know, she saw cats' 
 hairs eveiy where; she was always turning her tongue about 
 like this, because she thought her mouth was full of them." 
 
 " One of my friends," observed Madame Putois, " was a 
 woman who had a worm. Oh ! those animals have all sorts of 
 caprices ! It used to wriggle about in her stomach if she didn't 
 give it chicken to eat. Just fancy, the husband earned seven 
 francs a day, and all the money went in delicacies for the worm." 
 
 "I could have cured her at once, I could," interrupted 
 mother Coupeau. " Why ! yes, all one has to do is to swallow 
 a grilled mouse. It poisons the worm on the instant." 
 
 Gervaise herself had again lapsed into a happy idleness. But 
 she shook herself and rose to her feet. Ah, well ! there was an 
 afternoon wasted in gossip ! That would not help to fill her 
 purse ! She returned the first to her curtains, but she found 
 them stained with coffee ; and before resuming her ironing, she 
 was obliged to rub the stain with a damp rag. The workwomen 
 stretched themselves before the stove, and surlily looked for 
 their iron-holders. The moment Clemence moved, she was 
 seized with another fit of coughing, which almost caused her to 
 vomit her tongue ; then she finished her shirt, and pinned the 
 collar and cuffs. Madame Putois had returned to her petticoat. 
 
 " Well ! good-bye," said Virginie. " I only came out to get 
 a quarter of a pound of Gruyere cheese. Poisson must be 
 thinking that I've got frozen on the way." 
 
 But when she had gone a couple of steps along the pavement, 
 she opened the door again to say that she saw Augustine at the 
 end of the street, sliding over the ice with some urchins. It 
 was a good two hours since the young hussy had started on her 
 errand. She came running up, quite red in the face, and all 
 out of breath, with her basket on her arm, and her chignon 
 smothered with a snowball ; and she submitted to their scolding 
 with a sly look, excusing herself by saying that it was almost 
 impossible to walk on account of the frost. Some ragamuffin 
 had probably stuffed some bits of ice into her pockets for a 
 joke, for at the end of a quarter of an hour the latter commenced 
 watering the shop like a couple of funnels. 
 
 At that period all the afternoons were passed in the same
 
 182 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 way. The shop was the refuge of all the chilly people of the 
 neighbourhood. Every one in the Eue de la Goutte-d'Or knew 
 that it was warm inside there. It was constantly full of 
 cackling women, who enjoyed the heat from the stove as they 
 stood in front of it with their skirts tucked up to their knees. 
 Gervaise took a certain pride in that generous warmth, and she 
 attracted the people there, and held receptions, as the Lorilleux 
 and the Boches spitefully remarked. The truth was that she 
 was obliging and charitable, to the point of calling in the poor 
 whenever she saw them shivering outside. She felt an 
 especial friendship for an old journeyman painter, an old man 
 of seventy, who lived in one of the lofts of the house, where he 
 was slowly dying of hunger and cold. He had lost his three 
 sons in the Crimea, and had been existing as best he could 
 during the two years that had passed since he had last been 
 able to hold a paint-brush. The moment Gervaise beheld old 
 Bru stamping about in the snow to warm himself, she would 
 call him in, and make a little place for him near the stove ; she 
 even often forced him to eat a piece of bread and cheese. Old 
 Bru, with his stooping body, his white beard, and his face as 
 wrinkled as an old apple, would remain there for hours without 
 uttering a word, listening to the noise made by the burning 
 coke. Perhaps he was recalling his fifty years of work on 
 ladders, the half century spent in painting doors and white- 
 washing ceilings in all quarters of Paris. 
 
 " Well ! old Bru," the laundress would sometimes ask, " what 
 are you thinking of 1 " 
 
 " Nothing in particular, all sorts of things," he would reply 
 with a bewildered air. 
 
 The workwomen chaffed him, saying that he was in lovo. 
 But he, without hearing them, relapsed into silence, and resumed 
 his mournful and absorbed attitude. 
 
 From that afternoon Virginie frequently spoke to Gervaise of 
 Lantier. She seemed to find amusement in filling her mind 
 with. ideas of her old lover just for the pleasure of embarrassing 
 her by making suggestions. ' One day she related that she had 
 met him ; then, as the laundress took no notice, she said no- 
 thing further, and it was only on the morrow that she added ho 
 had spoken about her for a long time, and with a great show of 
 affection. Gervaise was much upset by these reports, whispered 
 in her ear in a corner of the shop. The mention of Lantier's 
 name always caused a burning sensation in the pit of her 
 stomach. She certainly thought herself strong ; she wished to
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." . 183 
 
 lead the life of a virtuous woman, because virtue is the half of 
 happiness. So she never considered Coupeau in this matter, 
 having nothing to reproach herself with as regarded her husband, 
 not even in her thoughts. But, with a hesitating and suffering 
 heart, she would think of the blacksmith. It seemed to her 
 that the memory of Lantier that slow possession which she 
 was resuming rendered her unfaithful to Goujet, to their 
 unavowed love, sweet as friendship. She passed sad days 
 whenever she felt herself guilty towards her good friend. She 
 would have liked to have had no affection for anyone but him, 
 outside of her family. It was a feeling far above all carnal 
 thoughts, for the signs of which upon her burning face Virginie 
 was ever on the watch. 
 
 As soon as spring came, Gervaise went and sought refuge 
 beside Goujet. She could no longer sit musing on a chair with- 
 out immediately thinking of her first lover ; she pictured him 
 leaving Adele, packing his clothes in the bottom of their old 
 trunk, and returning to her with the trunk outside a cab. The 
 days when she went out, she was seized with the most foolish 
 fears in the street ; she was ever thinking she heard Lantier's 
 footsteps behind her. She did not dare turn round, but 
 tremblingly. fancied she felt his hands seizing her round the 
 waist. He was, no doubt, spying upon her ; he would appear 
 before her some afternoon ; and the bare idea threw her into 
 a cold perspiration, because he would to a certainty kiss her on 
 the ear, as he used to do in former days solely to tease her. It 
 was this kiss which frightened her jit rendered her deaf before- 
 hand ; it filled her with a buzzing amidst which she could only 
 distinguish the sound of her heart beating violently. So, as soon 
 as these fears seized upon her, the forge was her only shelter ; 
 there, under Goujet's protection, she once more became easy 
 and smiling, as his sonorous hammer drove away her disagreeable 
 reflections. 
 
 What a happy time ! The laundress took particular pains 
 with the washing of her customer in the Rue des Fortes- 
 Blanches ; she always took it home herself, because that errand, 
 every Friday, was a ready excuse for passing through the Rue 
 Marcadet and looking in at the forge. The moment she turned 
 the corner of the street, she felt light and gay, as though, in the 
 midst of those plots of waste land surrounded by grey factories, 
 she were out in the country; the roadway black with coal- 
 dust, the plumage of steam over the roofs amused her as much 
 as a rnos.s-covered path leading through masses of green foliage
 
 184 THE "ASSOMMOIR" 
 
 in a wood in the environs ; and she loved the dull horizon, 
 streaked by the tall factory-chimneys, the Montrnartre heights, 
 which hid the heavens from view, the chalky white houses 
 pierced with the uniform openings of their windows. She 
 would slacken her steps as she drew near, jumping over the 
 pools of water, and finding a pleasure in traversing the deserted 
 inns and outs of the yard full of old building materials. Right 
 at the further end the forge shone with a brilliant light, even 
 at mid-day. Her heart leapt with the dance of the hammers. 
 When she entered, her face turned quite red, the little fair hairs 
 at the nape of her neck flew about like those of a woman 
 arriving at some lovers' meeting. Goujet was expecting her, 
 his arms and chest bare, whilst he hammered harder on the 
 anvil on those days so as to make himself heard at a distance. 
 He divined her presence, and greeted her with a good silent 
 laugh in his yellow beard. But she would not let him leave off 
 his work ; she begged him to take up his hammer again, 
 because she loved him the more when he wielded it with his 
 big arms swollen with muscles. She would go and give 
 Etienne a gentle tap on the cheek, as he hung on to the 
 bellows, and remain there for an hour, watching the rivets. 
 
 The two did not exchange a dozen words. They could not 
 have more completely satisfied their love if alone in a room 
 with the door double-locked. The chuckles of Salted-Mouth, 
 otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, did not bother them much, for 
 they no longer even heard them. At the end of a quarter of 
 an hour she would begin to feel slightly oppressed ; the heat, 
 the powerful smell, the ascending smoke, made her dizzy, 
 whilst the dull thuds of the hammers shook her from the crown 
 of her head to the soles of her feet. Then she desired nothing 
 more ; it was her pleasure. Had Goujet pressed her in his 
 arms, it would not have procured her so sweet an emotion. She 
 drew close to him that she might feel the wind raised by his 
 hammer beat upon her cheek, and become, as it were, a part of 
 the blow he struck. When the sparks made her soft hands 
 smart, she did not withdraw them ; on the contrary, she enjoyed 
 that rain of fire which stung her skin. He, for certain, divined 
 the happiness which she tasted there ; he always kept the most 
 difficult work for the Fridays, so as to pay his court to her with 
 all his strength and all his skill ; he no longer spared himself, 
 at the risk of splitting the anvils in two, as he panted and his 
 loins vibrated with the joy he was procuring her. All one 
 spring-time their love thus filled the forge with the rumbling of
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIE." 185 
 
 a storm. It was an idyl amongst giant-like labour, in the 
 midst of the glare of the coal fire, and of the shaking of the 
 shed, the cracking carcass of which was black with soot. All 
 that beaten iron, kneaded like red wax, preserved the rough 
 marks of their love. When, on the Fridays, the laundress 
 parted from Golden-Mug, she slowly reascended the Rue des 
 Poissonniers, contented and tired, her mind and her body alike 
 tranquil. 
 
 Little by little, her fear of Lantier diminished ; her good 
 sense got the better of her. At that time she would still have 
 led a very happy life, had it not been for Coupeau, who was 
 decidedly going to the bad. One day she just happened to be 
 returning from the forge, when she fancied she recognised 
 Coupeau inside old Colombo's " Assommoir," in the act of 
 treating himself to some goes of " vitriol " in company of My- 
 Boots, Bibi-the-Smoker, and Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink 
 without-Thirst. She passed quickly by, so as not to seem to be 
 spyiug on them. But she glanced back ; it was indeed Coupeau 
 who was tossing his little glass of bad brandy down his throat 
 with a gesture already familiar. He lied then ; so he went in 
 for brandy now ! She returned home in despair ; all her old 
 dread of brandy took possession of her. She forgave the wine, 
 because wine nourishes the workman ; all kinds of spirit, on the 
 contrary, were filth, poisons which destroyed in the workman 
 the taste for bread. Ah ! the government ought to prevent the 
 manufacture of such horrid stuff ! 
 
 On arriving at the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, she found the 
 whole house upset. Her workwomen had left the shop, and 
 were in the courtyard looking up above. She questioned 
 Clemence. 
 
 " It's old Bijard who's giving his wife a hiding," replied the 
 ironer. "He was in the doorway, as drunk as a trooper, 
 watching for her return from the wash-house. He whacked her 
 up the stairs, and now he's finishing her off up there in their 
 room. Listen, can't you hear her shrieks ? " 
 
 Gervaise hastened to the spot. She felt some friendship for 
 her washerwoman, Madame Bijard, who was a very courageous 
 woman. She hoped to put a stop to what was going on. Up- 
 stairs, on the sixth .floor, the door of the room was wide open, 
 some lodgers were shouting on the landing, whilst Madame 
 Boche, standing in front of the door, was. calling out : 
 
 "Will you leave off? I shall send for the police; do you 
 hear 1 *
 
 $86 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 No one dared to venture inside the room, because it was 
 known that Bijard was like a brute beast when he was drunk. 
 As a matter of fact, he was scarcely ever sober. The rare days 
 on which he worked, he placed a bottle of brandy beside his 
 locksmith's vice, gulping some of it down every half hour. He 
 could not keep himself going any other way. He would have 
 blazed away like a torch if anyone had placed a lighted match 
 close to his mouth. 
 
 " But we mustn't let her be murdered ! " said Gervaise, all in 
 a tremble. 
 
 And she entered. The room, an attic, and very clean, was 
 bare and cold, almost emptied by the drunken habits of the 
 man, who took the very sheets from the bed to turn them into 
 liquor. During the struggle, the table had rolled away to the 
 window, the two chairs knocked over had fallen with their legs 
 in the air. In the middle of the room, on the tiled floor, lay 
 Madame Bijard, all bloody, her skirts still soaked with the water 
 of the wash-house clinging to 'her thighs, her hair pulled out by 
 the roots. She was breathing heavily, with a" rattle in her 
 throat, as she muttered prolonged ohs ! each time she received 
 a blow from the heel of Bijard's boot. He had knocked her 
 down with his fists, and now he stamped upon her. 
 
 " Ah, strumpet ! ah, strumpet ! ah, strumpet 1 " grunted he, 
 in a choking voice, accompanying each blow with the word, 
 taking a delight in repeating it, and striking all the harder the 
 more he found his voice failing him. 
 
 Then, when he could no longer speak, he madly continued to 
 kick with a dull sound, rigid in his ragged blue blouse and over- 
 alls, his face turned purple beneath his dirty beard, and his 
 bald forehead streaked with big red blotches. The neighbours 
 on the landing related that he was beating her because she had 
 refused him twenty sous in the morning. Boche's voice was 
 heard at the foot of the staircase. He was calling Madame 
 Boche, saying : 
 
 " Come down ; let 'em kill each other, it'll be so much scum 
 the less." 
 
 Meanwhile, old Bru had followed Gervaise into the room. 
 Between them, they were trying to bring the locksmith to 
 reason, and to get him towards the door. But he turned round, 
 speechless, and foaming at the lips, and in his pale eyes the 
 alcohol was blazing with a murderous glare. The laundress 
 had her wrist injured ; the old workman was knocked on to the 
 table. On the floor, Madame Bijard was breathing with greater
 
 BIJARD, THE DRUNKEN LOCKSMITH. MURDERING HIS WIFE. 
 
 p. 186.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 187 
 
 difficulty, her month wide open, her eyes closed. . Now, Bijard 
 kept missing her. He had madly returned to the attack, but, 
 blinded by rage, his blows fell on either side, and at times he 
 was taken in by kicks which he sent into space. And, during 
 all this onslaught, Gervaise beheld in a corner of the room little 
 Lalie, then four years old,. watching her father murdering her 
 mother. The child held in her arms, as though to protect her, 
 her sister, Henriette, only recently weaned. She was standing 
 up, her head covered .with a cotton cap, her face very pale and 
 grave. Her large black eyes gazed -with a fixedness full of 
 thought, and were without a tear. 
 
 When at length Bijard, encountering a chair, stumbled on to 
 the tiled floor, where they left him snoring, old Bru helped Ger- 
 vaise to raise up Madame Bijard. The latter was now sobbing 
 bitterly; and Lalie, drawing near, watched her crying, being 
 used to such sights, and already resigned to them. As the 
 laundress descended the stairs, in the silence of the now quieted 
 house, she kept seeing before her that look of this child of four, 
 as grave and courageous as that of a woman. 
 
 " Monsieur Coupeau is on the other side of the way," called 
 out Cletnence, as soon as she caught sight of her. " He looks 
 awfully screwed." 
 
 Coupeau was just then crossing the' street. He almost 
 smashed a pane of glass with his shoulder as he missed the 
 door. He was in a state of complete drunkenness, with his 
 teeth clinched and his nose inflamed. And Gervaise at once 
 recognised the " vitriol " of the "Assommoir" in the poisoned 
 blood which paled his skin. She tried to joke and get him to 
 bed, the same as on the days when the wine had made him 
 merry ; but he pushed her aside, without opening his lips, and 
 raised his fist in passing as he went to bed of his own accord. 
 He was like the other the drunkard who was snoring upstairs 
 tired out by the blows he had struck. A cold shiver passed 
 over her. She thought of the men she knew of her husband, 
 of Goujet, of Lantier her heart breaking, despairing of ever 
 being happy.
 
 188 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 GERVAISE'S saint's day fell on the 19th of June. On such 
 occasions, the Coupeaus always made a grand display ; they 
 feasted till they were as round as balls, and their stomachs were 
 filled for the rest of the week. There was a complete clear-out 
 of all the money they had. The moment there was a trifle in 
 the house, it went in gorging. They invented saints for those 
 days which the almanac had not provided with any, just for the 
 sake of giving themselves a pretext for gormandizing. Virginie 
 highly commended Gervaise for stuffing herself with all sorts of 
 savoury dishes. When one has a husband who turns all he can 
 lay hands on into drink, it's good to line one's stomach well, 
 and not to let everything go on 7 in liquids. As the money was 
 bound to go, it might just as well go to the butcher as to the 
 publican. And Gervaise, fond of good living, abandoned herself 
 to that excuse. So much the worse ! It was Coupeau's fault 
 if they no longer even saved a liard. She had grown fatter 
 still, she limped more than ever, because her leg, swollen with 
 fat, seemed to grow shorter at the same time. 
 
 That year, they talked about her saint's day a good month 
 beforehand. They thought of dishes, and smacked their lips in 
 advance. All the shop had a confounded longing to junket. 
 They wanted a merry-making of the right sort something out 
 of the common, and highly successful. One does not have so 
 many opportunities for enjoyment. What most troubled the 
 laundress was to decide, who to invite : she wished to have 
 twelve persons at table, no more, no less. She, her husband, 
 mother Coupeau, and Madame Lerat, already made four mem- 
 bers of the family. She would also have the Goujets and the 
 Poissons. Originally, she had decided not to invite her work- 
 women, Madame Putois and Cle'mence, so as not to make them 
 too familiar; but, as the projected feast was being constantly 
 spoken of in their presence, and their mouths watered, she
 
 THE "ASSOMMOm." 189 
 
 ended by telling them to come. Four and four, eight, and two 
 made ten. Then, wishing particularly to have twelve, she 
 became reconciled with the Lorilleux, who, for some time past, 
 had been hovering round her ; at least, it was agreed that the 
 Lorilleux should come to dinner, and that peace should be made 
 glass in hand. One certainly cannot remain for ever on ill 
 terms with one's relations. Moreover, the thought of the 
 anniversary moved all hearts. It was an opportunity not to be 
 allowed to slip b$. Only, when the Boches heard of the pro- 
 jected reconciliation, they at once made up to Gervaise, with a 
 great show of politeness and most obliging smiles, and it became 
 necessary to beg them also to join the festive board. Thus, 
 they would be fourteen, without counting the children. Never 
 before had she given such a dinner; she felt quite scared in the 
 midst of her glory. 
 
 The saint's day happened to fall on a Monday. It was a 
 piece of luck. Gervaise counted on the Sunday afternoon to 
 begin the cooking. On the Saturday, whilst the workwomen 
 hurried on their work, there was a long discussion in the shop 
 with the view of finally deciding upon what the feast should 
 consist of. For three weeks past one thing alone had been chosen 
 a fat roast goose. There was a gluttonous look on every face 
 whenever it was mentioned. The goose was even already 
 bought. Mother Coupeau went and fetched it to let Clemence 
 and Madame Putois feel its weight. And they uttered all kinds 
 of exclamations ; it looked such an enormous bird, with its rough 
 skin all swelled out with yellow fat. 
 
 te Before that, there will be the pot-au-feu," said Gervaise, 
 "the soup and just 'a small piece of the boiled beef, it's always 
 good. Then we must have something in the way of a stew." 
 
 Tall Clemence suggested rabbit, but they were always having 
 that, everyone was sick of it. Gervaise wanted something more 
 distinguished. Madame Putois having spoken of stewed veal, 
 they looked at one another with an expansive smile. It was a 
 real idea, nothing would look better than a veal stew. 
 
 " And after that," resumed Gervaise, " we must have some 
 other dish with a sauce." 
 
 Mother Coupeau proposed fish. But the others made a 
 grimace, as they banged down their irons. None of them liked 
 fish, it was not a bit satisfying ; and, besides that, it was full of 
 bones. , Squint-eyed Augustine having dared to observe that 
 she liked skate, Clemence shut her mouth for her with a good 
 sound clout. At length, the mistress thought of stewed pig's
 
 190 THE " ASSOMMOIB." 
 
 back and potatoes, which restored the smiles to every counten- 
 ance, when Virginie entered like a puff of wind, with a strange 
 look on her face. 
 
 11 You come just at the right time ! " exclaimed Gervaise^ 
 " Mamma Coupeau, do show her the bird." 
 
 And mother Coupeau went a second time and fetched the 
 goose, which Virginie had to take in her hands. She uttered no 
 end of exclamations, By Jove ! it was heavy ! But she soon 
 laid it down on the work-table, between a petticoat and a 
 bundle of shirts. Her thoughts were elsewhere. She dragged 
 Gervaise into the back room. 
 
 "I say, little one," murmured she rapidly, "I've come to 
 warn you. You'll never guess who I just met at the corner of 
 the street. Lantier, my dear ! He's hovering about on the 
 watch ; so I hastened here at once. It frightened me on your 
 account, you know." 
 
 The laundress turned quite pale. What could the wretched 
 man want with her ? Coming, too, like that, just in the midst 
 of the preparations for the feast She had never had any luck; 
 she could not even be allowed to enjoy herself quietly. But 
 Virginie replied, that she was very foolish to put herself out 
 about it like that Why ! if Lantier dared to follow her about, 
 all she had to do was to call a policeman and have him locked 
 up. For a month past, ever since her husband had been 
 admitted into the police force, the tall brunette had assumed 
 most cavalier ways, and was always talking of having people 
 arrested. As she raised her voice whilst she uttered the wish 
 that some one might accost her in the street, to give her the 
 opportunity of dragging the scoundrel to the station-house and 
 handing him over to Poisson, Gervaise, by a sign, begged her 
 to leave off, because the workwomen were listening. The 
 laundress returned the first to the shop, and resumed, with a 
 great pretence of calmness : 
 
 "After that, there must be a vegetable." 
 
 " What do you say to green peas with a little fat bacon ? " 
 asked Virginie. " That's what I'd have." 
 
 " Yes, yes, green peas and bacon ! " approved all the others, 
 whilst Augustine enthusiastically rammed the poker into the 
 stove. 
 
 By three o'clock on the morrow, Sunday, mother Coupeau 
 had lighted their two stoves, and also a third one of earthen- 
 ware which they had borrowed of the Boches. At half-past 
 three the pot-au-feu was boiling away in an enormous earthen-
 
 "ASSOMMOtfc." 191 
 
 ware-pot lent by the eating-house keeper next door, the family 
 pot having been found too small. It had been decided to cook 
 the stewed veal and the pig's back beforehand, because those 
 dishes are best warmed up ; only, they would not thicken the 
 sauce for the veal until just at the dinner hour. There would 
 still be quite enough to do on the Monday the soup, the green 
 peas and bacon, and the goose to roast. The room at the back 
 was quite lighted up by the three fires; brown sauces were 
 simmering in the stew-pans with a strong smell of burnt flour ; 
 whilst the enormous earthenware-pot was emitting jets of steam 
 like a boiler, and grave, deep gurglings were shaking its sides. 
 Mother Coupeau and Gervaise, each with a white apron tied in 
 front of her, were all over the room in their haste in picking 
 parsley, in running after pepper and salt,, and in stirring the 
 meat about with a wooden spoon. They had turned Coupeau 
 out, so that he should not be in their way. But all the same 
 they had people bothering them throughout the afternoon. 
 The cooking smelt so nice in the house, that the neighbours 
 came down one after the other, looking in under all sorts of 
 pretences, but solely to find out what it consisted of; and they 
 stood waiting there so long that the laundress was obliged to 
 take the lids off the saucepans. 
 
 Then, Virginie put in an appearance towards five o'clock. She 
 had again seen Lantier; really, it was impossible to go down 
 the street now without meeting him. Madame Boche also had 
 just-caught sight of him standing at the corner of the pavement, 
 with his head thrust forward in an uncommonly sly manner. 
 Then Gervaise, who had at that moment intended going for a 
 sou's worth of burnt onions for the pot-au-feu, began to tremble 
 from head to foot and did not dare leave the house.; the more 
 so, as the doorkeeper and the dressmaker put her into a terrible 
 fright by relating horrible stories of men waiting for women 
 with knives and pistols hidden beneath their overcoats. Well, 
 yes ! one reads of such things every day in the newspapers, 
 When one of those scoundrels gets his monkey up, on discovering 
 an old love leading a happy life, he becomes capable of every- 
 thing. Virginie obligingly offered to run and fetch the burnt 
 onions. Women should always help one another, they could 
 not let that little thing be murdered. When she returned, she 
 said that Lantier was no longer there ; he had probably gone 
 off on finding he was discovered. In spite of that, though, he 
 was the subject of conversation around the saucepans until 
 night-time. Madame Boche having suggested that Coupeau
 
 192 THE "ASSOMKOIB/ 1 
 
 should be informed of what was going on, Gervaise was over- 
 come with a great fear and implored her never to say a word 
 on the subject Ah I it could only lead to great unpleasant- 
 ness I Her husband probably already had some suspicions, as, 
 for some days past, he had taken to swearing and striking his 
 fist against the wall on getting into bed. Her hands trembled 
 at the idea that two men might kill each other for her ; she 
 knew Coupeau, he was so jealous, he was capable of attacking 
 Lantier with his shears. And -whilst all four became absorbed 
 in this drama, the sauces simmered gently on the stoves filled 
 with coke ; each time mother Coupeau took the lids off the 
 stewed veal and the pig's back, there issued a faint sound, a 
 discreet murmur; the pot-au-feu continued the noise resembling 
 the snore of a chorister asleep on his back in the sunshine. 
 They ended by each having a cupful of the broth, just by way 
 of tasting it. 
 
 At length the Monday arrived. Now that Gervaise was going 
 to have fourteen persons at table, she began to fear that she would 
 not be able to find room for them all. She decided that they 
 should dine in the shop; and the first thing in the morning, she 
 took measurements so as to settle which way she should 
 place the table. After that, they had to remove all the clothes, 
 and take the ironing-table to pieces ; the top of this laid on to 
 some shorter trestles was to b& the dining-table. But, just in 
 the midst of all this moving, a customer appeared and made a 
 scene because she had been waiting for her washing ever since 
 the Friday; they were humbugging her, she would have her 
 things at once. Then, Gervaise tried to excuse herself and lied 
 boldly ; it was not , her fault, she was cleaning out her shop, 
 the workwomen would not be there till the morrow ; and she 
 pacified her customer, and got rid of her by promising to busy 
 herself with her things at the earliest possible moment. Then, 
 when this person nad gone, she burst out into bad language. 
 It was true, if one listened to one's customers, one would not 
 even take sufficient time to eat; one would work oneself to death 
 just to please them ! Yet, one was not a dog chained up ! 
 Ah, well ! even if the Grand Turk in person were to bring her a 
 collar, even if it were a question of earning a hundred thousand 
 francs, she would not handle an iron on that Monday, because 
 it was at last her turn to enjoy herself a little. 
 
 The. entire morning was spent in completing the purchases. 
 Three times Gervaise went out and returned laden like a mule. 
 But, just as she was going to order the wine, she noticed that
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 193 
 
 she had not sufficient money left. She could easily have got it 
 on credit; only, she could not be without money in the house, 
 on account of the thousand little expenses that one is liable to 
 forget. And mother Coupeau and she lamented together in the 
 back-room, as they reckoned that they required at least 
 twenty francs. How could they obtain them, those four pieces 
 of a hundred sous each? Mother Coupeau, who had at one 
 time done the charring for a little actress of the Batignolles 
 theatre, was the first to suggest the pawn-shop. Gervaise 
 laughed with relief. How stupid she was not to have thought 
 of it ! She quickly folded her black silk dress up in a towel, 
 which she pinned together. Then she hid the bundle under 
 mother Coupeau's apron, telling her to keep it very flat against 
 her stomach, on account of the neighbours who had no need to 
 know ; and she went and watched at the door, to see that the 
 old woman was not followed. But the latter had only gone as 
 far as the charcoal-dealer's, when she called her back. 
 
 " Mamma ! mamma ! " 
 
 She made her return to the shop, and, taking her wedding 
 ring off h6r finger, said : 
 
 " Here, put this with it. We shall get all the more." 
 
 And when mother Coupeau brought her twenty-five francs, 
 she danced for joy. She would order an extra six bottles of 
 wine, sealed wine to drink with the roast. The Lorilleux would 
 be crushed. 
 
 For a fortnight, past it had been the Coupeaus' dream to 
 crush the Lorilleux, Was it not true that those sly ones, the 
 man and his wife, a truly pretty couple, shut themselves up 
 whenever they had anything nice to eat, as though they had 
 stolen it ? * Yes, they covered up the window with a blanket to 
 hide the light, and make believe that they were asleep in bed. 
 Of course that was to prevent people going up and calling on 
 them ; and, they stuffed away all alone, they hastened to cram 
 themselves without uttering a word out loud. Even on the 
 morrow, they were too cunning to throw the remains on the 
 dust-heap, because one would have known then what they had 
 had to eat ; Madame Lorilleux went to the end of the street 
 and threw them down a sewer opening ; one morning Gervaise 
 had caught her there emptying a basket full of oyster-shells, 
 Ah! no, it was quite certain those skinflints were not miserly, 
 and all these artful tricks were indulged in through their mania 
 for wishing to appear poor. Well ! one would give them a 
 lesson, and show them that one was not mean. Gervaise, 
 
 N
 
 194 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 would have 'laid her table across the street, had she been able 
 to, just for the sake of inviting each passer-by. Money was not 
 invented that it should be allowed to grow mouldy, was it ? It 
 is pretty when it shines all new in the sunshine. She resembled 
 them so little now, that on the days when she had twenty sous 
 she arranged things to let people think that she bad forty. 
 
 Mother Coupeau and Gervaise talked of the Lorilleux, whilst 
 they laid the cloth, as early as three o'clock. They had hung 
 some big curtains at the windows ; but, as it was very warm, 
 the door was left open, and the whole street passed in front of 
 the table. The two women did not place a decanter, or a 
 bottle, or a salt-cellar, without trying to arrange them in such 
 a way as to annoy the Lorilleux. They had arranged their seats 
 so as to give them a full view of the superbly laid cloth, and 
 they had reserved the best crockery for them, 'well knowing 
 that the porcelain plates would create a great effect 
 
 "No, no, mamma," cried Gervaise ; "don't give them those 
 napkins ! I've two damask ones." 
 
 "Ah well 1" murmured the old woman ; " it'll kill 'em, that's 
 certain." 
 
 And they smiled to each other, as they stood up on either side 
 of that big white table, on which the fourteen knives and forks, 
 placed all round, caused them to swell with pride. It had the 
 appearance of the altar of some chapel in the middle of the 
 shop. 
 
 "That's because they're so stingy themselves!" resumed 
 Gervaise. " You know, they lied last month, when the woman 
 went about everywhere saying that she had lost a piece of gold 
 chain as she was taking the work home. The idea ! there's no 
 fear of her ever losing anything ! It was simply a way of making 
 themselves out very poor, and of not giving you your five 
 francs." 
 
 " As yet, I've only seen my five francs twice," said mother 
 Coupeau. 
 
 " You bet ! next month they'll concoct some other story. 
 That explains why they cover their window up when they have 
 a rabbit to eat. Don't you see ! One would have the right to 
 say to them : ' As you can afford a rabbit, you can certainly 
 give five francs to your mother ! ' Oh ! they're full of vice ! 
 What would have become of you if I hadn't taken you to live 
 with us?" 
 
 Mother Coupeau slowly wagged her head. That day she 
 was all against the Lorilleux, because of the great feast the
 
 THE "ASSOMMOnt." 195 
 
 Coupeaus were giving. She loved cooking, the little gossipings 
 round the saucepans, the place turned topsy-turvy by the 
 revels of saints' days. Besides, she generally got on pretty 
 well with Gervaise. On other days, when they plagued one 
 another, as happens in all families, the old woman grumbled, 
 saying she was wretchedly unfortunate in thus being at her 
 daughter-in-law's mercy. In point of fact, she probably had 
 some affection for Madame Lorilleux, who, after all, was her 
 daughter. 
 
 "Ah !" continued Gervaise, "you wouldn't be so fat. would 
 you, if you were living with them ? And no coffee, no snuff, 
 no little Juxuries of any sort ! Tell me, would they have given 
 you two mattresses to your bed ? " 
 
 " No, that's very certain," replied mother Coupeau. " When 
 they arrive 1 shall place myself so as to have a good view of 
 the door, to see the faces they'll make." 
 The idea of the faces the Lorilleux would make amused them 
 beforehand. But it would not do to stand there looking at the 
 table. The Coupeaus had lunched late, about one o'clock, off 
 something they had had in from the pork-butcher's, because 
 the three stoves were already occupied, and they did not wish 
 to dirty the crockery, all clean for the evening. At four o'clock 
 the two women were at the height of their work. The goose 
 was roasting before a stove placed on the ground against the 
 wall beside the open window ; and the bird was so big, they 
 had a difficulty in getting it into the Dutch oven. Squint-eyed 
 Augustine, seated on a foot-stool, and receiving the full reflection 
 of the fire of the stove, was gravely basting the goose with a 
 long-handled spoon. Gervaise was busy with the green peas 
 and bacon. Mother Coupeau, feeling almost crazy in the midst 
 of all these dishes, turned from one to the other as she awaited 
 the time for warming up the pig's back and the stewed veal. 
 
 Towards five o'clock the guests began to arrive. First of all 
 came the two workwomen, Cle'mence and Madame Putois, both 
 in their Sunday best, the former in blue, the latter in black ; 
 Cle'mence carried a geranium, Madame Putois a heliotrope ; and 
 Gervaise, whose hands were just then smothered with flour, 
 had to kiss each of them on both cheeks, with her arms behind 
 her back. Then, following close upon their heels, entered 
 Virginie, dressed like a lady in a printed muslin costume with 
 a sash and a bonnet, though she had only a few steps to come. 
 She brought a pot of red carnations. She took the laundress 
 in her big arms and squeezed her tight. At length, Boche
 
 196 THE "ASSOMM.OIR." 
 
 appeared with a pot of pansies, and Madame Boche with a pot 
 of mignonette ; then came Madame Lerat with a balm-mint, 
 the pot of which had dirtied her violet merino dress. All these 
 people kissed each other, and gathered together in the back- 
 room in the midst of the three stoves and the roasting 
 apparatus, which gave out a stifling heat. The noise from the 
 saucepans drowned the voices. A dress catching in the Dutch 
 oven caused quite an emotion. The smell of roast goose was 
 so strong that it made their mouths water. And Gervaise was 
 very pleasant, thanking every one 'for their flowers, without 
 however letting that interfere with her preparing the thicken- 
 ing for the stewed veal at the bottom of a soup plate. She 
 had placed the pots in the shop at one end of the table, 
 without removing the white paper that was round them. A 
 sweet scent of flowers mingled with the odour of cooking. 
 
 " Do you want any assistance ? " asked Virginie. " Just 
 fancy, you've been three days preparing all this feast, and it 
 will be gobbled up in no time." 
 
 " Well ! you know," replied Gervaise, " it wouldn't prepare 
 itself. No, don't dirty your hands. You see, everything's 
 ready. There's only the soup to warm." 
 
 Then they all made themselves at home. The ladies laid 
 their shawls and their caps on the bed, and pinned up their 
 skirts, so as not to soil them. Boche, who had sent his wife 
 back to look after the house until dinner-time, was already 
 pushing Clemence up into a corner, and asking her if she was 
 ticklish ; whilst Clemence panted and wriggled about, doubling 
 herself up, her breasts almost bursting through the body of her 
 dress, for the bare idea of being tickled made her shudder. 
 The other ladies also came into the shop, so as not to be in the 
 way of the cooks, and stood up against the wall, looking at the 
 table ; but, as the conversation continued through the open door, 
 and they were unable to hear each other, they kept returning 
 back and abruptly invading the room with their loud voices, 
 surrounding Gervaise, who left off her work to answer them, 
 with her steaming spoon in her hand. They laughed and said 
 some rather coarse things. Virginie having stated that she 
 had eaten nothing for two days, in order to have plenty of 
 room, that dirty Cle'menee related something stronger : she 
 had cleared herself out with a dose of salts, just like the Eng- 
 lish did. Then Bocbe gave them a recipe for digesting any- 
 thing at once, which consisted in squeezing oneself between the 
 door and the door-post after each plateful ; the English also
 
 THE "ASSOMHOI&." 197 
 
 did that, and it enabled them to gorge, for twelve hours at a 
 stretch, without fatiguing their stomachs. Politeness requires 
 one to eat plentifully when one is invited out to dinner. Veal 
 and pork and goose are not put on the table for the cats. Oh ! 
 Gervaise could make herself easy ; they would clear it all off 
 so cleanly, that she would have no nsed to wash up the crockery 
 on the morrow. And the guests seemed to get up their appetites 
 by sniftmg around the saucepans and the Dutch oven. The 
 ladies ended hy behaving like little girls ; they played at 
 pushing one another about, they ran from one apartment to 
 the other, shaking the floor, stirring up and disseminating the 
 odours of the cooking with their skirts, amidst a deafening up- 
 roar, in which their laughter mingled with the noise of mother 
 Coupeau's chopping knife as she minced the bacon. 
 
 Just as they were all jumping about and shouting by way of 
 amusement, Goujet appeared. He was so timid he scarcely 
 dared enter, but stood still, holding a tall white rose-tree in 
 his arms, a magnificent plant, with a stem that reached to his 
 face and entangled the flowers in his beard, Gervaise ran to 
 him, her cheeks burning from the heat of the stoves. But he 
 did not know how to get rid of his pot ; and, when she had 
 taken it from his hands, he stammered, not daring to kiss her. 
 It was she who was obliged to stand on tip-toe, and place her 
 cheek against his lips ; he was so agitated that, even then, he 
 kissed her roughly on the eye, almost blinding her. They both 
 stood trembling. 
 
 " Oh ! Monsieur Goujet, it's too lovely ! " said she, placing 
 the rose-tree beside the other flowers, which it overtopped with 
 the whole of its tuft of foliage. 
 
 " Not at all, not at all," repeated he, unable to say anything 
 else. 
 
 And, after sighing deeply, he slightly recovered himself, and 
 then stated that she was not to expect his mother ; she was 
 suffering from an attack of sciatica. Gervaise was greatly 
 grieved ; she talked of putting a piece of the goose on one side, 
 as she particularly wished Madame Goujet to have a taste of the 
 bird. However, no one else was expected. Coupeau was no 
 doubt strolling about in the neighbourhood' with Poisson, whom 
 he had called for directly after his lunch ; they would be home 
 directly, they had promised to be back punctually at six. Then, 
 as the soup was almost ready, Gervaise called to Madame Lerat, 
 saying that she thought it was time to go and fetch the Loril- 
 leux. Madame Lerat became at once very -grave ; it was she
 
 198 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 who had conducted all the negotiations and who had settled 
 how everything should pass between the two families. She put 
 her cap and shawl on again, and went upstairs very stiffly in 
 her skirts, and looking very stately. Down below, the laun- 
 dress continued to stir her vermicelli soup without saying a 
 word. The guests, suddenly become serious, solemnly waited. 
 
 It was Madame Lerat who appeared first. She had gone 
 round by the street, so as to give more pomp to the reconcilia- 
 tion. She held the shop-door wide open, whilst Madame 
 Lorilleux, wearing a silk dress, stopped at the threshold. All 
 tha guests had risen from their seats ; Gervaise went forward, 
 and, kissing her sister-in-law as had been agreed, said : 
 
 " Come ia It's all over, isn't it 1 We'll both be nice to 
 each other." 
 
 And Madame Lorilleux replied :. 
 
 " I shall be only too happy if we're so always." 
 
 When she had entered, Lorilleux also stopped at the thres- 
 hold, and he likewise waited to be embraced before penetrating 
 into the shop. Neither the one nor the other had brought a bou- 
 quet. They had decided not to do so, as they thought it would 
 look too much like giving way to the Hobbler if they carried 
 flowers with them the first time they set foot in her home. 
 Gervaise called to Augustine to bring two bottles of wine. 
 Then, filling some glasses on a corner of the table, she called 
 every one to her. And each took a glass, and drank to the 
 good friendship of the family. There was a pause whilst the 
 guests were drinking, the ladies raising their elbows, and empty- 
 ing their glasses to the last drop. 
 
 " Nothing is better before soup," declared Boche, smacking 
 his tongue. " It's preferable to a kick behind." 
 
 Mother Coupeau had placed herself opposite the door to see 
 the faces the Lorilleux would make. She pulled Gervaise by 
 the skirt, and dragged her into the back-room. And as they 
 both leant over the soup, they conversed rapidly, in a low 
 voice. 
 
 " Eh ! what a sight ! " said the old woman. " You couldn't 
 see them ; but I was watching. When she caught sight of the 
 table, her face twisted round like that, the corners of her mouth 
 almost touched her eyes ; and as for him, it nearly choked him, 
 he coughed, and coughed. Now, just look at them over there ; 
 they've no saliva left in their mouths, they're chewing their lips." 
 
 " It's quite painful to see people as jealous as that," murmured 
 Gervaise.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." . 199 
 
 Really, the Lorilleux had a funny look about them. No one, 
 of course, likes to be crushed ; in families, especially, when the 
 one succeeds, the others do not like it ; that is only natural. 
 Only, one keeps it in, one does not make an exhibition of 
 oneself. Well ! the Lorilleux could' not keep it in. It was 
 more than a match for th'em. They squinted their mouths 
 were all on one side. In short, it was so apparent, that the 
 other guests looked at them, and asked them if they were 
 unwell. They would never be able to stomach the table, with 
 its fourteen knives and forks, its white tablecloth and napkins, 
 and its slices of bread cut beforehand. One could have thought 
 oneself in a restaurant on the Boulevards. Madame Lorilleux 
 walked right round, holding her head down, so as not to see the 
 flowers, and she slyly felt the big tablecloth, tormented by the 
 thought that it was a new one. 
 
 f ' Everything's ready ! " cried Gervaise, as she reappeared, 
 with a smile, her arms bare, and her little fair curls blowing 
 over her temples. 
 
 The guests were shuffling about round the table. All were 
 hungry, and they gaped slightly, with a bored air. 
 
 " If the governor would only come," resumed the laundress, 
 " we might begin." 
 
 " Ah, well ! " said Madame Lorilleux, " the soup has time to 
 get cold. Coupeau always forgets. You shouldn't have let him 
 go off." 
 
 It was already half-past six. Everything was burning now ; 
 the goose would be overdone. Then Gervaise, feeling quite 
 dejected, talked of sending some one to all the wine-shops in 
 the neighbourhood to discover Coupeau. And, as Goujet offered 
 to go, she decided to accompany him. Virginie, anxious about 
 her husband, went also. The three of them, bareheaded, quite 
 blocked up the pavement. The blacksmith, who wore his frock- 
 coat, had Gervaise on his left arm and Virginie on his right : he 
 was doing the two-handled basket, as he said ; and it seemed to 
 them such a funny thing to say, that they stopped, unable to 
 move their legs for laughing. They looked at themselves in the 
 pork-butcher's glass, and laughed more than ever. Beside 
 Goujet, all in black, the two women seemed a couple of speckled 
 courtesans the dressmaker in her muslin costume, sprinkled 
 with pink flowers, the laundress in her white cambric dress, 
 with blue spots, her wrists bare, and wearing round her neck a 
 little grey silk scarf tied in a bow. People turned round to see 
 them pass, looking so fresh and lively, dressed in their Sunday
 
 200 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 best on a week day, and jostling the crowd which hung about 
 the Rue des Poissonniers, on that warm June evening. But it 
 was not a question of amusing themselves. They went straight 
 to the door of each wine-shop, looked in, and sought amongst 
 the people standing before the counter. Had that animal, 
 Coupeau, gone to the Arc de Triomphe to get his dram? They 
 had already done the upper part of the street, looking in at all 
 the likely places ; at the " Little Civet," renowned for its pre- 
 served plums ; at old mother Baquet's, who sold Orleans wine 
 at eight sous ; at the " Butterfly," the coachmen's house of call, 
 gentlemen who were not easy to please. But no Coupeau. 
 Then, as they were going down towards the Boulevard, Gervaise 
 uttered a faint cry on passing the eating-house at the corner, 
 kept by Frangois. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " asked Goujet 
 
 The laundress no longer laughed. She was very pale, and 
 labouring under so great an emotion that she had almost fallen. 
 Virginie understood it all, as she caught a sight of Lantier { 
 seated at one of Frangois's tables, quietly dining. The two 
 women dragged the blacksmith along. 
 
 " My foot twisted," said Gervaise, as soon as she was able to 
 speak. 
 
 At length, they discovered Coupeau and Poisson at the bot- 
 tom of the street, inside old Colombo's " Assommoir." They 
 were standing up, in the midst of a number of men ; Coupeau, 
 in a grey blouse, was shouting, with furious gestures, and bang- 
 ing his fists down on the counter. Poisson, not on duty that 
 day, and buttoned up in an old brown coat, was listening to him 
 in a dull sort of way, and without uttering a word, bristling his 
 carroty moustache and imperial the while. Gonjet left the 
 women on the edge of the pavement, and went and laid his hand 
 on the zinc-worker's shoulder. But when the latter caught sight 
 of Gervaise and Yirginie outside, he grew angry Why was he 
 badgered with such females as those 1 Petticoats had taken to 
 tracking him about now ! Well ! he declined to stir, they 
 could go and eat their beastly dinner all by themselves. To 
 quiet him, Goujet was obliged to accept a drop of something ; 
 and even then Coupeau took a fiendish delight in dawdling a 
 good five minutes at the counter. When he at length came 
 out, he said to his wife : 
 
 " It doesn't suit me. I'm going to stay where I've business, 
 do you hear ? " 
 
 She did not t^-wer. She was all in a tremble. She had
 
 THE "ASSOHMOIR." 201 
 
 probably been talking of Lantier with Virginie, for the latter 
 pushed her husband and Goujet, telling them to walk on in 
 Iront. Then the two women placed themselves on either side 
 of the zinc-worker, so as to occupy him, and prevent him from 
 seeing. He was only slightly on, more bewildered with having 
 shouted than with drink. As they seemed to wish to go along 
 the left hand pavement, he jostled them, and crossed over to 
 the other side of the street, just for the sake of teasing them. 
 They r.an after him in a great fright, and tried to hide the view 
 at Francis's door. But Coupeau must have known that Lan- 
 tier was there. Gervaise almost went out of her senses on 
 hearing him grunt : 
 
 " Yes, my duck, there's a young fellow of our acquaintance 
 inside there ! You mustn't take me for a ninny. Don't let 
 me catch you gallivanting about again with your side glances ! " 
 
 And he made use of some very coarse expressions. It was 
 not him that she had come to look for, with her bare elbows and 
 her mealy mouth ; it was her old bean. Then he was suddenly 
 seized with a mad rage against Lantier. Ah ! the brigand ! 
 ah ! the filthy hound ! One or the other of them would have to 
 be left on the pavement, emptied of his guts like a rabbit. 
 Lantier, however, did not appear to notice what was going on, 
 and continued slowly eating some veal and sorreL A crowd 
 began to form. Virginie led Coupeau away, and he calmed 
 down at once as soon as he had turned the corner of the street. 
 All the same, they returned to the shop far less lively than when 
 they left it. 
 
 The guests were waiting round the table with very long faces. 
 The zinc-worker shook hands with them, showing himself off 
 before the ladies. Gervaise, feeling rather dejected, spoke in a 
 low tone, as she directed them to their places. But she sud- 
 denly noticed that, Madame Goujet not having come, a seat 
 would remain empty the one next to Madame Lorilleux. 
 
 " We are thirteen ! " said she, deeply affected, seeing in that 
 a fresh proof of the misfortune with which she had felt herself 
 threatened for some time past. 
 
 The ladies, already seated, rose up, looking anxious and 
 annoyed. Madame Putois offered to retire, because, according 
 to her, it was not a matter to laugh about ; besides, she would 
 not touch a thing, the food would do her no good. As to 
 Boche, he chuckled. He would sooner be thirteen than fourteen ; 
 the portions would be larger, that was all. 
 
 " Wait ! n resumed Gervaise. "I can manage it"
 
 202 THE " ASSOMMOHL" 
 
 And going out on to the pavement, she called old Bra, who 
 was just then crossing the roadway. The old workman entered, 
 stooping and stiff, and his face without expression. 
 
 " Seat yourself there, my good fellow," said the laundress. 
 " You won't mind eating with us, will you ? " 
 
 He simply nodded his head. He was willing; he did not 
 mind. 
 
 " As well him as another," continued she, lowering her voice. 
 " He doesn't often eat his fill He will, at least, enjoy himself 
 once more. We shall feel no remorse in stuffing ourselves now." 
 
 Goujet was so moved that the tears came to his eyes. The 
 others pitied the old man, thought it very nice, adding that it 
 would bring luck to them alL However, Madame Lorilleux did 
 not seem pleased at being next to the old fellow ; she drew away 
 from him, casting glances at his horny hands, and at his patched 
 and discoloured blouse. Old Bru sat with bowed head, embar- 
 rassed above all by the napkin which hid the plate before him. 
 He ended by lifting it off, and placed it gently on the edge of 
 the table, without dreaming of putting it over his knees. 
 
 At length, GervaisS served the vermicelli soup ; the guests 
 were taking up their spoons, when Virginie remarked that 
 Coupeau had again disappeared. He had perhaps returned tc 
 old Colombe's. But the company got angry. This time, so 
 much the worse ! one would not run after him ; he could stay 
 in the street if he was not hungry ; and, as the spoons touched 
 the bottom of the plates, Coupeau reappeared with two pots of 
 flowers, one under each arm, a stock and a balsam. They all 
 clapped their hands. He gallantly placed his pots, one on the 
 right, the other on the left of Gervaise's glass ; then, bending 
 over and kissing her, he said : 
 
 " I had forgotten you, ducky. But in spite of that, we love 
 each other all the same, on such a day as this." 
 
 " Monsieur Coupeau's very nice this evening," murmured 
 Clemence in Boche's ear. "He's just got what he required, 
 sufficient to make him amiable." 
 
 The governor's nice behaviour restored the gaiety of the pro- 
 ceedings, which at one moment had been compromised. 
 Gervaise, once more 'at her ease, was all smiles again. The 
 guests finished their soup. Then the bottles circulated, and 
 they drank their first glass of wine, just a drop, pure, to wash 
 down the vermicelli. One could hear the children quarrelling 
 in the next room. There were Etienne, Pauline, Nana, and 
 little Victor Fauconnier. It had been decided to lay a table
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIE." 203 
 
 for the four of them, and they had been told to be very good. 
 That squint-eyed Augustine, who had to look after the stoves, 
 was to eat off* her knees. 
 
 " Mamma ! mamma ! " suddenly screamed Nana, " Augustine 
 is dipping her bread in the Dutch oven ! " 
 
 The laundress hastened there and caught the squint-eyed one 
 in the act of burning her throat, in her attempts to swallow 
 without loss of time a slice of bread soaked in boiling goose fat. 
 She boxed her ears, because the young monkey called out that 
 it was not true. When, after the boiled beef, the stewed veal 
 appeared, served in a salad-bowl, as they had not got a dish 
 large enough, the party greeted it with a laugh. 
 
 " It's becoming serious," declared Poisson, who spoke but 
 seldom. 
 
 It was half-past seven. They had closed the shop door, so as 
 not to be spied upon by the whole neighbourhood ; the little 
 clockmaker opposite, especially, was opening his eyes to their 
 full size, and seemed to take the pieces from their mouths, with 
 such a gluttonous look, that it almost prevented them from 
 eating. The curtains hung before the windows admitted a great 
 white uniform light which bathed the entire table, with its 
 symmetrical arrangement of knives and forks, and its pots of 
 flowers enveloped in tall collars of white paper ; and this pale 
 fading light, this slowly approaching dusk, gave to the party 
 somewhat of an air of distinction. Virginie looked round the 
 closed apartment hung with muslin, and with a happy criticism 
 declared it to be pretty. When a cart passed in the street, the 
 glasses jingled together on the table cloth, and the ladies were 
 obliged to shout out as loud as the men. But there was not 
 much conversation ; they all behaved very respectably, and 
 were very attentive to each other. Coupeau alone wore a blouse, 
 because, as he said, one need not stand on ceremony with 
 friends, and besides which the blouse was the workman's garb 
 of honour. The ladies, laced up in their bodices, wore their 
 hair in plaits greasy with pomatum, in which the daylight was 
 reflected ; whilst the gentlemen, sitting at a distance from the 
 table, swelled out their chests and kept their elbows wide apart 
 for fear of staining their frock coats. 
 
 Ah ! thunder 1 what a hole they were making in the stewed 
 veal ! If they spoke little, they were chewing in earnest. The 
 salad-bowl was becoming emptier and emptier, with a spoon 
 stuck in the midst of the thick sauce a good yellow sauce 
 which quivered like a jelly. They fished pieces of veal out of
 
 204 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 it, and seemed as though they would never come to the end ; 
 the salad-bowl journeyed from hand to hand, and faces bent 
 over.it as forks picked out the mushrooms. The long loaves 
 standing against the wall, behind the guests, appeared to melt 
 away. Between the mouthfuls one could hear the sound of 
 glasses being replaced on the table. The sauce was a trifle too 
 salt. It required four quarts to drown that blessed stewed 
 veal, which went down like cream, but which afterwards lit up 
 a regular conflagration in one's stomach. And before one had 
 time to take breath, the pig's back, in the middle of a deep dish, 
 surrounded by big round potatoes, arrived in the midst of a 
 cloud of smoke. There was one general cry. By Jove ! it was 
 just the thing ! Every one liked it. They would do it justice ; 
 and they followed the dish with a side glance, as they wiped 
 their knives on their bread, so as to be in readiness. Then, as 
 soon as they were helped, they nudged one another, and spoke 
 with their mouths full. Eh ! it was just like butter ! some- 
 thing sweet and solid which one could feel run through one's 
 guts right down into one's boots. The potatoes were like sugar. 
 It was not a bit salt ; only, just on account of the potatoes, it 
 required a wetting every few minutes. Four more quarts were 
 placed on the table. The plates were wiped so clean that they 
 also served for the green peas and bacon. Oh !. vegetables were 
 of no consequence. They playfully gulped them down in 
 spoonfuls. In short, a little greediness, a kind of ladies' 
 pastime. The best part of the dish was the small pieces of 
 bacon, just nicely grilled, and smelling like horse's hoof. Two 
 quarts were sufficient for them. 
 
 "Mamma ! mamma !" called out Nana suddenly, " Augustine's 
 putting her fingers in my plate ! " 
 
 " Don't bother me ! give her a slap ! " replied Gervaise, in the 
 act of stuffing herself with green peas. 
 
 Nana was at the head of the children in the next room doing 
 the mistress of the house. She had seated herself beside Victor, 
 and had placed her brother Etienne next to little Pauline ; and 
 they were playing at being two married couples out for a day's 
 pleasure. At the beginning Nana had helped her guests very 
 nicely, with the smiling ways of a grown-up person ; but she 
 had just yielded to her love for bacon, and had kept all tfoa 
 little pieces for herself. That squint-eyed Augustine, who wa& 
 slyly hovering round the children, had taken advantage of the 
 incident to seize a handful of the bacon, under the pretext of 
 dividing it properly. Nana, in a rage, bit her wrist.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 205 
 
 
 
 "Ah!, you know," murmured Augustine, "I'll tell your 
 mother that after the veal you asked Victor to kiss you." 
 
 But all became quiet again as Gervaise and mother Coupeau 
 went off for the goose. The guests at the big table were leaning 
 back in their chairs taking breath. The men had unbuttoned 
 
 ^ 
 
 their waistcoats, the ladies were wiping their faces with their 
 napkins. The repast was, so to say, interrupted ; only one or 
 two persons, unable to keep their jaws still, continued to 
 swallow large mouthfuls of bread, without even knowing that they 
 were doing so. The others were waiting and allowing their 
 food to settle. Night was slowly coming on ; a dirty ashy grey 
 light was gathering behind the curtains. When Augustine 
 brought two lamps and placed one at each end of the table, the 
 general disorder became apparent in the bright glare the 
 greasy forks and plates, the cloth stained with wine and 
 covered with crumbs. A strong stifling odour pervaded the 
 room. Certain warm fumes, however, attracted all the noses in 
 the direction of the kitchen. 
 
 " Can I help you ? " cried Virginie. 
 
 She left her chair and passed into the inner room. All the 
 women followed her one by one. They surrounded the Dutch 
 oven, and watched with profound interest Gervaise and mother 
 Coupeau trying to pull the bird out. Then a clamour arose, in 
 the midst of which one could distinguish the shrill voices and 
 the joyful leaps of the children. And there was a triumphal 
 entry. Gervaise carried the goose, her arms stiff, and her per- 
 spiring face expanded in one broad silent laugh ; the women 
 walked behind her, laughing in the same way ; whilst Nana, 
 right at the end, raised herself up to see, her eyes open to their 
 full extent. When the enormous golden goose, streaming with 
 gravy, was on the table, they did not attack it at once. It was 
 a wonder, a respectful surprise, which for a moment left every 
 one speechless* They drew one another's attention to it with 
 winks and nods of the head. Golly ! what a lady ! what legs 
 and what a stomach ! 
 
 " She didn't get fat by licking the waUs, I'll bet ! " said 
 Boche. 
 
 Then they entered into details respecting the bird. Gervaise 
 gave the facts. It was the best she could get at the poulterer's 
 in the Faubourg-Poissonniere ; it weighed twelve pounds and a 
 half in the scales at the charcoal-dealer's ; they had burnt 
 nearly half a bushel of charcoal in cooking it, and it had given 
 three basins full of dripping. Virginie interrupted her to boast
 
 20T, THE "ASSOMMOra." 
 
 that she had seen the bird raw. One could have eaten it as it 
 was, she observed, for the skin was so soft and white, a regular 
 blonde's skin ! All the men laughed in an obscenely glutton- 
 ous manner which swelled their lips. Lorilleux and Madame 
 Lorilleux, however, only bit theirs, and felt ready to choke at 
 seeing such a goose on the Hobbler's table. 
 
 " Well ! but we can't eat it whole," the laundress ended by 
 observing. " Who'll cut it up ? No, no, not me ! It's too 
 big ; I'm afraid of it" 
 
 Coupeau offered his services. Really ! it was very simple. 
 You caught hold of the limbs, and pulled them off ; the pieces 
 were good all the same. But the others protested ; they 
 forcibly took possession of the large kitchen knife which the 
 zinc-worker already held in his hand. Whenever he cut any- 
 thing up he turned the dish into a regular cemetery. For a 
 moment they waited for someone to come forward. At length, 
 Madame Lerat said in a most amiable voice : 
 
 " Listen, it should be Monsieur Poisson ; yes, Monsieur 
 Poisson." 
 
 But, as the others did not appear to understand, she added, 
 in a more nattering manner still : 
 
 " Why yes, of course, it should be Monsieur Poisson, who's 
 accustomed to the use of arms." 
 
 And she passed the kitchen knife to the policeman. All 
 round the table they laughed with pleasure and approval. 
 Poisson bowed his head with military stiffness, and moved the 
 goose before him. His neighbours, Gervaise and Madame 
 Boche, drew further away, so as to leave plenty of room for his 
 elbows. He carved slowly, with wide gestures, and with his eyes 
 fixed on the bird, as though to nail it to the dish. When he 
 thrust the knife into the goose, which cracked, Lorilleux was 
 seized with an outburst of patriotism. 
 
 " Ah I if it was a Cossack ! " he cried. 
 
 " Have you ever fought with Cossacks, Monsieur Poisson ? " 
 asked Madame Boche. 
 
 " No, but I have with Bedouins," replied the policeman, who 
 was cutting off a wing. " There are no more Cossacks." 
 
 A great silence ensued. Necks were stretched out as every 
 eye followed the knife. Poisson was preparing a surprise. 
 Suddenly he gave a last cut ; the after part of the bird came 
 off and stood up on end, the parson's nose in the air : it was 
 the bishop's mitre. Then admiration burst forth. None were 
 so agreeable in company as retired soldiers. Meanwhile the
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 207 
 
 gravy streamed out of the opening in the goose, and Boche 
 smacked his lips. 
 
 " I should like it to trickle all that into my mouth," mur- 
 mured he. 
 
 " Oh ! the dirty fellow ! " cried the ladies. " He is dirty ! " 
 
 " No, I never knew a man more disgusting ! " said Madame 
 Boche, more enraged than the. others. " Hold your tongue, will 
 you ? You would disgust an army. You know we're going to 
 eat it ! " 
 
 At this moment Clemence persistently repeated in the midst 
 of the noise : 
 
 " Monsieur Poisson, listen, Monsieur Poisson. You will save 
 me the parson's nose, won't you ? " 
 
 " My dear, the parson's nose is yours by right," said Madame 
 Lerat, in her discreetly smutty way. 
 
 However, the goose was now cut up. After letting the party 
 admire the bishop's mitre for some minutes, the policeman laid 
 the pieces down and arranged them round the dish. All was 
 ready to be served ; but the ladies, who were unhooking their 
 dresses, complained of the heat Coupeau called out that they 
 were at home, that he did not care a button for the neighbours, 
 and he opened the street door wide. The feast continued in 
 the midst of the rumbling of the vehicles and the jostliugs of 
 the passers-by. Then, their jaws having had a rest, and some 
 more room being found in their insides, they resumed the 
 dinner, and furiously attacked the goose. Merely waiting and 
 seeing the bird cut up, observed that joker Boche, had sent the 
 stewed veal and the pig's back right down into the calves of 
 his legs. 
 
 Then ensued a famous tuck-in ; that is to say, not one of the 
 party recollected ever having before run the risk of such a 
 stomach-ache. Gervaise, looking enormous, her elbows on the 
 table, eat great pieces of the breast, without uttering a word, 
 for fear of losing a mouthful, and merely felt slightly ashamed 
 and annoyed at exhibiting herself thus, as gluttonous as a cat, 
 before Goujet. Goujet, however, was too busy stuffing himself 
 to notice that she was all red with eating. Besides, in spite of 
 her greediness, she remained so nice and good ! She did not 
 speak, but she troubled herself every minute to look after old 
 Bru, and place some dainty bit on his plate. Tt was even 
 touching to see this glutton take a piece of wing almost from 
 her mouth to give it to the old fellow, who did not appear to be 
 any judge, and who swallowed everything with bowed head, and
 
 208 THE "ASSOMMOra." 
 
 bored at having to guttle so much he "whose gizzard had lost 
 the taste of bread. The Lorilleux expended their rage on the 
 roast ; they ate enough to last them three days ; they would 
 have stowed away the dish, the table, the very shop, if they 
 could have ruined the Hobbler by doing so. All the ladies had 
 wanted a piece of the breast (the breast is the ladies' part). 
 Madame Lerat, Madame Boche, Madame Putois, were all pick- 
 ing bones ; whilst mother Coupeau, who adored the neck, was 
 tearing off the flesh with her two last teeth. Virginie liked the 
 skin, when it was nicely browned, and the other guests gallantly 
 passed their's to her ; so much so, that Poisson looked at his 
 wife severely, and bade her stop, because she had had enough 
 as it was. Once already, she had been a fortnight in bed, with 
 her stomach swollen out, through having eaten too much roast 
 goose. But Coupeau got angry and helped Virginie to the 
 upper part of a leg, saying that, by Jove's thunder ! if she did 
 not pick it, she was no woman. Had roast goose ever done 
 harm to anybody? On the contrary, it cured all complaints 
 of the spleen. One could eat it without bread, like dessert. 
 He could go on swallowing it all night without being the least 
 bit inconvenienced ; and, just to show off, he stuffed a whole 
 drum-stick into bis mouth. Meanwhile, CJ&nence had got to 
 the end of her parson's nose, and was sucking it with her lips, 
 whilst she wriggled with laughter on her chair because Boche 
 was whispering all sorts of smutty things to her. Ah, by 
 Jove ! yes, there was a tuck out ! When one's at it, one's at 
 it, you know ; and if one only has the chance now and then, 
 one would be precious stupid not to stuff oneself up to one's 
 ears. Beallv, one could see their sides puff out by degrees. 
 The women all looked in the family way. They were cracking 
 in their skins, the blessed gormandizers ! With their mouths 
 open, their chins besmeared with grease, they had such bloated 
 red faces that one would have said they were bursting with 
 prosperity. 
 
 And the wine, my children ! it flowed round the table as 
 water flows into the Seine. A regular stream, like when it has 
 rained and the earth is thirsty. Coupeau poured it out from 
 on high to see it froth ; and when a bottle was empty, he 
 turned it upside down, and pressed the neck with the gesture 
 of a woman milking a cow. Another dead man with his head 
 broken ! In a corner of the shop, the heap of dead men 
 increased, a cemetery of bottles on to which they threw all the 
 refuse from the table. Madame Putois, having asked for water,
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 209 
 
 the zinc-worker indignantly removed all the carafes. Did 
 respectable people drink water ? Did she want, then, to breed 
 frogs in her stomach 1 And tumblerfuls of wine were tossed 
 off; you could bear the liquid shooting down their throats, 
 with the noise of rain-water rushing into the sewers during a 
 storm. It rained a sour wine ! a wine which at first had the 
 taste of a stale cask, but to which one soon got accustomed, to 
 such an extent that it ended by having a flavour of nuts. 
 
 Ah, ye gods ! in. spite of what the Jesuits say, grape-juice is, 
 all the same, a famous invention ! The guests laughed and 
 applauded ; for, after all, the workman could not have lived 
 without wine. Papa Noah must have planted the vine for the 
 zinc-workers, the tailors, and the blacksmiths. Wine cleansed 
 and rested one from work, and put fire into the stomachs of 
 sluggards. Then, when the joker played his tricks on you, 
 well ! the king was not your uncle, Paris was yours. With all 
 that, the workman, over-fatigued, penniless, despised by the 
 upper classes, had not many opportunities of enjoying himself, 
 and it was mean to reproach him for an occasional booze, which 
 he went in for merely to get a glimpse of the rosy side of life 1 
 At that very moment, for instance, did they care a hang for 
 the Emperor 1 Perhaps the Emperor himself was also full, but 
 that did not prevent their not caring a hang for him, they 
 defied him to be fuller than they were or to be amusing him- 
 self more. To the deuce with the aristocrats 1 Coupeau sent 
 all the world to blazes. He thought women were prime ; he 
 slapped his pocket, in which three sous rattled, laughing as 
 though he had been shovelling up five-franc pieces. Even 
 Goujet, usually so sober, was getting elevated. Boche's eyes 
 were becoming smaller; Lorilleux had a pale look in his; 
 v whilst Poisson was rolling glances more and more severe from 
 off his bronzed veteran's face. They were already as drunk as 
 ticks. And the ladies had their touch of it too. Oh, as yet it 
 was but slight, just a glimpse of the wine on their cheeks, with 
 a longing to undress themselves, which caused them to doff 
 their neckerchiefs. Cle"mence alone was beginning to forget 
 herself. But suddenly Gervaise recollected the six sealed 
 bottles of wine. She had forgotten to put them on the table 
 with the goose ; she fetched them, and all the glasses were 
 filled. Then Poisson rose up, and, holding his glass in his 
 hand, said : 
 
 " I drink to the health of the missus." 
 
 All of them stood up, making a great noise with their chairs 
 
 o
 
 210 THE "ASSOMMOIR" 
 
 as they moved. Holding out their arms, they cliuked 
 in the midst of immense uproar. 
 
 " This day fifty years hence ! " cried Yirgiuie. 
 
 "No, no," replied Gervaise, deeply moved and smiling; "I 
 shall be too old. Ah ! a day comes when one's glad to go." 
 
 Through the door, which was wide open, the neighbourhood 
 was looking on and taking part in the festivities. Passers-by 
 stopped in the broad ray of light which shone over the pave- 
 ment, and laughed heartily at seeing all those people stuffing 
 away so jovially. The coachmen, leaning forward OD their 
 seats, whipping up their jades of horses, glanced in and eracked 
 a joke as they passed : " I say, aren't you going to stand some- 
 thing ? Hallo there ! you with the stomach, I'm off for the 
 midwife ! " And the smell of the goose made the whole street 
 joyful and smiling ; the grocer's men fancied they were eating 
 the bird themselves as they stood on the pavement opposite ; 
 every minute the greengrocer and the tiipe-dealer came to 
 their shop-doors, and sniffed the air as they licked their lips. 
 The street was positively bursting with indigestion. Mesdames 
 Cudorge, mother and daughter, who kept the umbrella shop 
 close by, and, as a rule, were never seen out of doors, crossed 
 the road one behind the other, casting side-glances, and looking 
 as red as though they had just been making pancakes. The 
 little clockmaker, seated at his work-table, could no longer 
 work, intoxicated with having counted the bottles of wine, and 
 dreadfully excited in the midst of his merry little clocks. 
 
 Yes, the neighbours were devoured with rage and envy ! as 
 Coupeau said. But why should there be any secret made 
 about the matter 1 The party, now fairly launched, was no 
 longer ashamed of being seen at table ; on the contrary, it felt 
 flattered and excited at seeing the crowd gathered there, gaping 
 with gluttony ; it would have liked to have knocked out the 
 shop-front and dragged the table into the road-way, and there 
 to have enjoyed the dessert under the very nose of the public, 
 and amidst the commotion of the thoroughfare. Nothing dis- 
 gusting was to be seen in them, was there ? Then there was 
 no need to shut themselves in like selfish people. Coupeau, 
 noticing that the little clockmaker looked very thirsty, held up 
 a bottle; and, as the other nodded his head, he carried him the 
 bottle and a glass. A fraternity was established with the 
 street. They drank to any one who passed. They called in any 
 chaps who looked the right sort. The feast spread, extending 
 from one to another, to that degree that the entire neighbour-
 
 THE "ASSOHMOrR." 211 
 
 hood of the Goutte^d'Or sniffed the grub, and held its stomach, 
 amidst a rumpus worthy of the devil and all his demons. For 
 some minutes, Madame Vigouroux, the charcoal-dealer, had 
 been passing to and fro before the door. 
 
 " Hi ! Madame Vigouroux ! Madame Vigouroux ! " yelled 
 the party. 
 
 She entered with a broad grin on her washed face, and so fat 
 that the body of her dress was bursting. The men liked pinch- 
 ing her, because they might pinch her all over without ever 
 encountering a bone. Boche made room for her beside him, 
 and at once slyly got hold of her knee beneath the table. But 
 she, being accustomed to that sort of thing, quietly tossed off a 
 glass of wine, and related that all the neighbours were at their 
 windows, and that some of the people of the house were beginning 
 to get angry. 
 
 " Oh, that's our business," said Madame Boche. t( We're the 
 doorkeepers, aren't we ? Well, we're answerable for good order. 
 Let them come and complain to us, we'll receive them in a way 
 they don't expect." 
 
 In the backroom there had just been a furious fight between 
 ISTana and Augustine, on account of the Dutch oven, which both 
 wanted to scrape out. For a quarter of an hour, the Dutch oven 
 had rebounded over the tiled floor with the noise of an old 
 saucepan. Nana was now nursing little Victor, who had a 
 goose-bone in his throat. She pushed her fingers under his 
 chin, and made him swallow big lumps of sugar by way of a 
 remedy. That did not prevent her keeping an eye on the large 
 table. At every minute she came and asked for wine, bread, or 
 meat, for Etienne and Pauline. 
 
 " Here ! burst ! " her mother would say to her. " Perhaps 
 you'll leave us in peace now 1 " 
 
 The children were scarcely able to swallow any longer, but 
 they continued to stuff all the same, banging their forks down 
 on the table to the tune of a canticle, in order to excite them- 
 selves. 
 
 In the midst of the noise, however, a conversation was going 
 on between old Bru and mother Coupeau. The old fellow, who 
 was ghastly pale in spite of the wine and the food, was talk- 
 ing of his sons who had died in the Crimea. Ah ! if the lads 
 had only lived, he would have had bread to eat every day. 
 But mother Coupeau, speaking thickly, leant towards him and 
 said: 
 
 " Ah I one has many worries with children 1 For instance,
 
 212 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 I appear .to be happy here, don't I? Well ! I cry more often 
 than you think. No, don't wish to have children." 
 
 Old Bru shook his head. 
 
 " I can't get work anywhere," murmured he. " I'm too old. 
 When I enter a workshop the young fellows joke, and ask me if 
 I polished Henri IV. 's boots. Last year, I was still able to 
 earn thirty sous a day at painting a bridge ;, I had to remain 
 on my back all the time, with the river flowing beneath. I've 
 coughed ever since then. To-day, it's all overj they won't 
 have me anywhere." 
 
 He looked at his poor stiff hands and added : 
 
 " It's easy to understand, I'm no longer good for anything. 
 They're right; were I in their place I should do the same. 
 You see, the misfortune is that Pm not dead. Yes, it's my 
 fault. One should lie down and croak when one's no longer 
 able to work." 
 
 " Really," said Lorilleux, who was listening, " I don't under- 
 stand why the Government doesn't come to. the aid of the 
 invalids of labour. I was reading that in a newspaper the 
 other day." 
 
 But Poisson thought it his duty to defend the Government. 
 
 " Workmen are not soldiers," declared he. " The Invalidea 
 is for soldiers. You must not ask for what is impossible." 
 
 The dessert was now served. In the centre of the table was 
 a Savoy cake in the form of a temple, with a dome fluted like 
 a melon ; and this dome was surmounted by an artificial rose, 
 close to which was .a silver paper butterfly, fluttering at the 
 end of a wire. Two drops of gum in the centre of the flower 
 imitated dew. Then, to the left, a piece of cream cheese floated 
 in a deep dish ; whilst, in another dish to the right, were piled 
 up some large bruised strawberries, with the juice running 
 from them. However, there was still some salad left, some 
 large coss lettuce leaves soaked with oil. 
 
 " Come, Madame Boche," said Gervaise, coaxingly, " a little 
 more salad. I know how fond you are of it." 
 
 " No, no, thank you ! I've already had as much as I can 
 manage," replied the doorkeeper. 
 
 The laundress turning towards Virginie, the latter put her 
 finger into her mouth, as though to touch the food she had 
 taken. 
 
 "Really, Pm full," murmured she. "There's no room left. 
 I couldn't swallow a mouthful." 
 
 " Oh ! but if you tried a little," resumed Gervaise with a
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 213 
 
 smile. " One can always find a tiny corner empty. One 
 doesn't need to be hungry to be able to eat salad. You're 
 surely not going to let this be wasted 1 " 
 
 " You can eat it to-morrow pickled," said Madame Lerat ; 
 "it's nicer so." 
 
 The ladies puffed as they looked regretfully at the salad- 
 bowl. Cle"mence related that she had one day eaten three 
 bunches of watercresses at her lunch. Madame Putois could 
 do more than that, she would take a coss lettuce and munch it 
 up with some salt just as it was, without picking it to pieces. 
 They could all have lived on salad, would have treated them- 
 selves tip tubfuls. And, this conversation aiding, the ladies 
 cleaned out the salad-bowl. 
 
 " I could go on all fours in a meadow," observed the door- 
 keeper, with her mouth full. 
 
 Then they chuckled together as they eyed the dessert. 
 Dessert did not count. It came rather late, but that did not 
 matter ; they would nurse it all the same. Even were they to 
 burst like bomb-shells, they could not allow themselves to be 
 humbugged by cake and strawberries. Besides, there was no 
 hurry; they had plenty of time, all night if they pleased. 
 Meanwhile, they filled their plates with cream cheese and 
 strawberries. The men lit their pipes; and, as the sealed 
 bottles of wine were empty, they returned to the common wine, 
 and drank it as they smoked. But everyone desired that 
 Gervaise should cut the Savoy cake at once. Poisson got up 
 and took the rose, which he very gallantly presented to the 
 lady in whose honour the feast was given, amidst the applause 
 of the whole party. She had to fix it with a pin to the left 
 side of her dress, over her heart. Each movement she made 
 caused the butterfly to flutter about. 
 
 "I say!" exclaimed Lorilleux, who had just made a dis- 
 covery, " but it's your work-table that we're eating off ! Ah 
 well ! I daresay it's never seen so much work before ! " 
 
 This malicious joke had a great success. Witty allusions 
 came from all sides. Cle"mence could not swallow a spoonful 
 of strawberries without saying that it was another shirt ironed; 
 Madame Lerat pretended that the cream cheese smelt of starch; 
 whilst Madame Lorilleux said between her teeth that it was 
 capital fun to gobble up the money so quickly on the very 
 boards on which one had had so much trouble to earn it. There 
 was quite a tempest of shouts and laughter. 
 
 But suddenly a loud vo:c$ called for silence. 1$ was Boche T
 
 214 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 who, standing up in an affected and vulgarly seductive 
 was commencing to sing "The Yolcano of Love, or the Seduc- 
 tive Trooper." 
 
 " 'Tis I, Blavin, seducer of the fair" 
 
 A thunder of applause greeted the first verse. Yes, yes, 
 they would sing songs ! Everyone in turn. It was more 
 amusing than anything else. And they all put their elbows 
 on the table, or leant back in their chairs, nodding their heads 
 at the best parts, and sipping their wine when they came to 
 the choruses. That rogue Boche had a special gift for comic 
 songs. He would almost make the water-bottles laugh when 
 he imitated the raw recruit, with his fingers apart and his hat 
 on the back of his head. Directly after " The Volcano of 
 Love," he burst out into " The Baroness de Follebiche," one of 
 his greatest successes. When he reached the third verse, he 
 turned towards Cle'mence and almost murmured in a slow and 
 voluptuous tone of voice : 
 
 '* The baroness had people there, 
 
 Her sisters four, oh ! rare surprise ; 
 And three were dark, and one was fair ; 
 Between them, eight bewitching eyes." 
 
 Then the whole party, carried away, joined in the chorus. 
 The men beat time with their heels, whilst the ladies did the 
 same with their knives against their glasses. All of them 
 yelled : , 
 
 " By Jingo ! who on earth will pay 
 
 A drink to the pa to the pa pa ? 
 By Jingo ! who on earth will pay 
 A drink to the pa to the pa tro o 1 ?" 
 
 The panes of glass of the shop-front resounded, the singers' 
 great volume of breath agitated the muslin curtains. Whilst 
 all this was going on, Virginie had already twice disappeared, 
 and each time on returning had leant towards Gervaise's ear to 
 whisper a piece of information. When she returned the third 
 time, in the midst of the uproar, she said to her : 
 
 " My dear, he's still at Francis's ; he's pretending to read 
 the. newspaper. He's certainly meditating some evil design." 
 
 She was speaking of Lantier. It was him that she had been 
 watching. At each fresh report, Gervaise became more and 
 more grave. 
 
 " Is he drunk 1 " asked she of Virginie. 
 
 " No," replied tjie tall brunette. " IJe looks as though he
 
 THE "ASSOMJIOIR." 215 
 
 had merely had what he required. It's that especially which 
 makes me anxious. Eh ! why does he remain there if he's 
 had all he wanted? Good heavens ! good heavens ! I hope 
 nothing is going to happen ! " 
 
 The laundress, greatly upset, begged her to leave off. A 
 profound silence had suddenly succeeded the clamour. Madame 
 Putois had just risen, and was about to sing " The Boarding 
 of the Pirate." The guests, silent and thoughtful, watched her; 
 even Poisson had laid his pipe down on the edge of the table, 
 the better to' listen to her. She stood up to the full height of 
 her little figure, with a fierce expression about her, though her 
 face looked quite pale beneath her black cap ; she thrust out 
 her left fist with a satisfied pride, as she thundered in a voice 
 bigger than herself : 
 
 " If pirate audacious 
 Should o'er the waves chase us, 
 The buccaneer slaughter, 
 Accord him no quarter. 
 To the guns every man, 
 And with rum fill each can 1 
 While these pests of the seas 
 Dangle from the cross-trees." 
 
 That was something serious. But, by Jove ! it gave one a 
 fine idea of the real thing. Poisson, who. had been on board 
 ship, nodded his head in approval of the description. One 
 could see too that that song was in accordance with Madame 
 Putois's own feeling. Coupeau leant forward to relate how one 
 night in the Rue Poulet, Madame Putois had boxed the ears 
 of four men who had attempted to insult her. 
 
 With the assistance of mother Coupeau, Gervaise was now 
 serving the coffee, though some of the guests had not yet 
 finished their Savoy cake. They would not let her sit down 
 again, but shouted that it was her turn. With a pale face, and 
 looking very ill at ease, she tried to excuse herself; she seemed 
 so queer that some one inquired whether the goose had dis- 
 agreed with her. Then she gave out, "Oh ! let me slumber 1" 
 in a sweet and feeble voice. When she reached the chorus, 
 that wish for a sleep filled with beautiful dreams, her eyelids 
 partly closed, her rapt gaze lost itself in the darkness of the 
 street. Directly afterwards, Poisson abruptly saluted the ladies 
 and commenced a drinking song, the " Wines of France," but 
 he had a voice like a squirt ; only the last verse, the patriotic 
 one, met- with any success, because when alluding to the tri-
 
 216 THE "ASSOMMOTK." 
 
 colour flag, lie raised his glass on high, poised it there a 
 moment, and ended by pouring the contents into his open 
 mouth. 
 
 Then came a string of ballads : Madame Boche's barcarolle 
 was all about Venice and the gondoliers; Madame Lorilleux 
 sang of Seville and the Andalusians hi her bolero ; whilst 
 Lorilleux went so far as to allude to the perfumes of Arabia, 
 in reference to the loves of Fatma, the dancer. Around the 
 greasy table, in an atmosphere heavy with the breath of in- 
 digestion, horizons of gold opened, across which flitted necks of 
 ivory, jet-black hah*, kisses in the moonlight to the accompani- 
 ment of guitars, bayaderes scattering pearls and precious stones 
 in their wake ; and the men blissfully smoked their pipes, the 
 ladies smiled unconsciously with enjoyment ; they all fancied 
 themselves there, sniffing delicious odours. When Cle"mence 
 warbled " Build a Nest," with a shake in the throat, she also 
 caused a great deal of pleasure ; for it recalled the country, the 
 merry birds, the dances beneath the green foliage, the sweet- 
 scented flowers in short, all that one sees in the Bois de 
 Vincennes on the days when one goes to wring the neck of a 
 rabbit. 
 
 But Virginie revived the joking with " My little Drop of 
 Brandy ; " she imitated the sutler's wife, one hand on her hip, 
 the elbow arched, t9 indicate the little barrel ; and with the 
 other hand she poured out the brandy into space, by turning 
 her fist round. She did it so well that the party then 
 begged mother Coupeau to sing " The Mouse." The old woman 
 refused, vowing that she did not know the smutty thing. Yet, 
 she started off with the remnants of her broken voice ; and her 
 wrinkled face, with its lively little eyes, underlined the allusions, 
 the terrors of Mademoiselle Lise drawing her skirts around her 
 at the sight of a mouse. All the table laughed ; the women 
 could not keep their countenances, and continued casting bright 
 glances at their neighbours ; it was not indecent after all, there 
 were no coarse words in it. To tell the truth, Boche was all 
 the while acting the mouse along the charcoal-dealer's calves. 
 It might have degenerated into something unpleasant, if Goujet 
 had not, on a sign from Gervaise, restored silence and respect 
 with the " Farewell of Abd-el-Kader," which he thundered forth 
 in his bass voice. It was very evident he had a solid wind ! 
 The words came from the midst of his beautiful yellow beard, 
 like from a brass trumpet. When he uttered the cry : " my 
 noble companion!" alluding to the warrior's black marc, all
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 217 
 
 hearts beat with him. He was applauded before reaching the end, 
 for he had shouted so loud. 
 
 "Now, old Bru, it's your turn !" said mother Coupeau. "Sing 
 your song. The old ones are the best, any day ! " 
 
 And everybody turned towards the old man, pressing him 
 and encouraging him. He, in a state of torpor, with his im- 
 movable mask of tanned skin, looked at them without appearing 
 to understand. They asked him if he knew the " Five vowels." 
 He held down his head ; he could not recollect it ; all the songs 
 of the, good old days were mixed up in his noddle. As they 
 made up their minds to leave him alone, he seemed to remem- 
 ber, and began to stutter in a cavernous voice : 
 
 " Trou la la, trou la la, 
 Trou la, trou la, trou la la I " 
 
 His face assumed an animated expression, this chorus seemed 
 to awake some far-off gaieties within him, enjoyed by himself 
 alone, as he listened with a childish delight to his voice which 
 became more and more hollow. 
 
 "Trou la la, trou la la, 
 Trou la, trou la, trou la la 1 " 
 
 "I say, my "dear," Virginie came and whispered in Gervaise^ 
 ear, " I've just been there again, you know. It worried me. 
 Well ! Lantier .has disappeared from Frangois's." 
 
 " You didn't meet him outside ? " asked the laundress. 
 
 " No, I walked quick, I didn't think of looking." 
 
 But Virginie, who had raised her eyes, interrupted herself and 
 heaved a smothered sigh. 
 
 " Ah 1 good heavens ! He's there, on the pavement opposite j 
 he's looking this way." 
 
 Gervaise, quite beside herself, ventured to glance in the direc- 
 tion indicated. Some persons had collected in the street to hear 
 the party sing. The grocer's men, the tripe-dealer and the 
 little clockmaker formed a group, looking as though they were 
 at the theatre. There were some soldiers, some gentlemen in 
 frock-coats, and three little girls from five to six years old hold- 
 ing one another by the hand, very grave and lost in amazement. 
 And Lantier was indeed there in the front row, listening, and 
 coolly looking on. It was rare cheek, everything considered. 
 Gervaise felt a chill ascend from her legs to her heart, and she 
 no longer dared to move, whilst old Bru continued : 
 
 1 * Trou la la, trou la la, 
 Trou la, trou la, trou la la ! "
 
 218 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 "Ah well ! no, my ancient one, that's enough ! " said Coupean. 
 " Do you know the whole of it ? You shall sing it to us another 
 day, eh ! when we're too lively." 
 
 This raised a laugh. The old fellow stopped short, glanced 
 round the table with his pale eyes, and resumed his look of a 
 meditative animal The coffee had been all drunk and the zinc- 
 worker had asked for more wine. Cle"mence had just returned 
 to the strawberries. For an instant, the singing ceased, they 
 were talking of a woman who had been found hanged that morn- 
 ing in the house next door. It was Madame Lerat's turn, but 
 she required. to prepare herself. She dipped the corner of her 
 napkin into a glass of water and applied it to her temples, 
 because she was too hot. Then, she asked for a thimbleful of 
 brandy, drank it, and slowly wiped her lips. 
 
 " The ' Child of God/ shall it be ? " she murmured, " the 
 'Child of God.'" 
 
 And, tall and masculine-looking, with her bony nose and her 
 shoulders as square as a grenadier's, she began : 
 
 " The lost child left by its mother alone, 
 Is sure of a home in Heaven above, 
 God sees and protects it on earth from His throne. 
 The child that is lost is the child of God's love." 
 
 Her voice trembled at certain words, and dwelt on them in 
 liquid notes ; she looked out of the corner of her eyes to heaven, 
 whilst her right hand swung before her chest or pressed against 
 her heart, with an impressive gesture. Then Gervaise, tortured 
 by Lantier's presence, could not restrain her tears ; it seemed to 
 her that the song was relating her own suffering, that she was 
 the lost child, abandoned by its mother, and whom God was 
 going to take under His protection. C 4 le"mence, who was very 
 drunk, suddenly broke into sobs ; and, with her head fallen on 
 the edge of the table, she stifled her hiccoughs with the cloth. 
 A silence ensued that made one shudder. The ladies had pro- 
 duced their handkerchiefs, and were wiping their eyes without 
 in the least turning away their faces, but thinking their emotion 
 did them honour. The men, their heads slightly bent down, 
 were looking straight before them, blinking their eyelids. 
 Poisson, choking and grinding his teeth, twice broke a piece off 
 his pipe, and spat the bits on to the ground, without ceasing to 
 smoke. Boche, whose hand remained on the charcoal-dealer's 
 knee, was seized with a vague remorse and respect, and no longer 
 pinched her ; whilst two big tears trickled down his cheeks. 
 Those revellers were as rigid as justice and as tender-hearted
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 219 
 
 as lambs. The wine was coming out by the way of their eyes, 
 that was all 1 When the chorus started again, slower and more 
 pathetic, all gave way, all blubbered in their plates, unfastening 
 their clothes, bursting with emotion. 
 
 But Gervaise and Virginie could not, in spite of themselves, 
 take their eyes off the pavement opposite. Madame Boche, in 
 her turn, caught sight of Lantier and uttered a faint cry, with- 
 out ceasing to besmear her face with her tears. Then, all three 
 had very anxious faces as they exchanged involuntary signs. 
 Good heavens ! if Coupeau were to turn round, if Coupeau caught 
 sight of the other ! What a butchery ! what carnage ! And they 
 went on to such an extent, that the zinc-worker asked them : 
 
 " Whatever are you looking at ? " 
 
 He leant forward and recognised Lantier. 
 
 " Damnation ! it's too much," muttered he. " Ah ! the dirty 
 scoundrel ah ! the dirty scoundrel. No, it's too much, it must 
 come to an end." 
 
 And, as he rose from his seat .muttering most atrocious 
 threats, Gervaise in a low voice implored him to keep quiet, 
 
 "Listen to me, I implore you. Leave the knife alone. 
 Eemain where you are, don't do anything dreadful." 
 
 Virginie had to take the knife from him, which he had picked 
 up off the table. But she could not prevent him leaving the 
 shop and going up to Lantier. The party, in its increasing 
 emotion, saw nothing, but wept the more, whilst Madame Lerat 
 sang with an excruciating expression : 
 
 " She had been lost, poor orphan girl, 
 And her sad voice was only heard 
 By the tall trees and passing Lird." 
 
 The last line passed like a lamentable breath of the tempest. 
 Madame Putois, who was drinking, was so affected that she 
 spilt her wine all over the table-cloth. Gervaise, meanwhile, 
 remained as one frozen, pressing her hand to her mouth to pre- 
 vent her from calling out, blinking her eyelids with fright, ex- 
 pecting every second to see one of the two men outside knocked 
 down in the middle of the road. Virginie and Madame Bocbe, 
 deeply interested, also followed the scene. Coupeau, surprised 
 by the fresh air, had almost plumped down in the gutter, on 
 trying to rush upon Lantier. The latter, with his hands in his 
 pockets, had simply moved on one side. And the two men 
 were now blackguarding each other, the zinc-worker, especially, 
 was making use of some choice expressions, calling the other a 
 sick pig, and talking of eating his tripe. One could hear the
 
 220 THE "ASSOMMOIB." 
 
 sormd of their enraged voices, one could distinguish the furious 
 gestures they made, as though they were going to screw their 
 arms off with their numerous blows. Gervaise felt faint and 
 shut her eyes, because it was lasting too long, and she expected 
 every minute to see them biting each other's noses off, they 
 thrust their faces so close together. Then, when she no longer 
 heard anything, she opened her eyes again and felt quite con- 
 fused on seeing them quietly conversing together. 
 
 Madame Lerat's voice rose again, warbling and tearful, as she 
 commenced another verse : 
 
 " Next morn exhausted on the ground 
 The poor lost child half dead was found." 
 
 " Some women are indeed brutes ! " said Madame Lorilleux, 
 amidst general approbation. 
 
 Gervaise had exchanged a glance with Madame Boche and 
 Virginie. Was it going to end amicably then 1 Coupeau and 
 Lantier continued to converse on the edge of the pavement. 
 They were still abusing each other, but in a friendly way. They 
 called one another " damned rogue," but in a tone of voice which 
 had a touch of affection in it As people were staring at them, 
 they ended by strolling leisurely side by side past the houses, 
 turning round again every ten yards or so. A very animated 
 conversation was now taking place. Suddenly, Coupeau 
 appeared to become angry again, whilst the other was refusing 
 something and required to be pressed. And it was the zinc- 
 worker who pushed Lantier along, and who forced him to cross 
 the street and enter the shop. 
 
 " I tell you you're quite welcome ! " shouted he. " You'll 
 take a glass of wine. Men are men, you know. We ought to 
 understand one another." 
 
 Madame Lerat was finishing the last chorus. The ladies 
 were singing all together, as they twisted their handkerchiefs : 
 
 " The chUd that is lost is the child of God's love." 
 
 The singer was greatly complimented, and she resumed her 
 seat, affecting to be quite broken down. She asked for some- 
 thing to drink, because she always put too much feeling into 
 that song, and she was constantly afraid of straining one of her 
 nerves. Every one at the table now had their eyes fixed on 
 Lantier, who, quietly seated beside Coupeau, was devouring the 
 last piece of Savoy cake which he dipped in his glass of wine. 
 With the exception of Virginie a,nd Madame Boche, none of the
 
 COUPEAU FORCES LANTIER TO JOIN THE PARTY GIVEN TO CELEBRATE 
 
 GERVAISE'S SAINT'S DAY. p. 220. 

 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 221 
 
 guests knew him. The Lorilleux certainly scented some under- 
 hand business, but not knowing what, they merely assumed 
 their most conceited air. Goujet, who had noticed Gervaise's 
 emotion, gave the new-comer a sour look. As an awkward 
 pause ensued, Coupeau simply said : 
 
 " A friend of mine." 
 
 And turning to his wife, added : 
 
 " Come, stir yourself ! Perhaps there's still some hot coffee 
 left." 
 
 Gervaise, feeling meek and stupid, looked at them one after 
 the other. At first, when her husband pushed her old lover 
 into the shop, she buried her head between her hands, the same 
 as she instinctively did on stormy days at each clap of thunder. 
 She could not believe it possible ; the walls would fall in and 
 crush them all. Then, seeing the two men seated together, 
 without so much as the muslin curtains moving, she suddenly 
 thought it the most natural thing in the world. The goose was 
 disagreeing with her a little ; she had certainly eaten too much 
 of it, and it prevented her from thinking. A happy feeling of 
 langour benumbed her, retained her all in a heap at the edge of 
 the table, with the sole desire of not being bothered. Well ! 
 what is the use of putting oneself out when others do not, and 
 when things arrange themselves to the satisfaction of every- 
 body ? She got up to see if there was any coffee left. 
 
 In the back room the children had fallen asleep. That 
 squint-eyed Augustine had tyrannised over them all during the 
 dessert, pilfering their strawberries and frightening them with 
 most abominable threats. Now she felt very ill, and was bent 
 double upon a stool, not uttering a word, her face ghastly pale. 
 Fat Pauline had let her head fall against Etienne's shoulder, 
 and he himself was sleeping on the edge of the table. Nan a 
 was seated with Victor on the rug beside the bedstead, she had 
 parsed her arm round his neck and was drawing him towards 
 her ; and, succumbing to drowsiness her eyes shut, she kept 
 repeating in a feeble voice : 
 
 " Oh 1 mamma, I'm not well j oh ! mamma, I'm not well." 
 
 " No wonder 1 " murmured Augustine, whose head was rolling 
 about on her shoulders, " they're fuddled ; they've been singing 
 like grown-up persons." 
 
 Gervaise received another blow on beholding Etienne. She 
 felt as though she would choke when she thought of the 
 youngster's father being there, in the other room, eating cake, 
 and that he had not even expressed a desire to kiss the little
 
 222 ' THE " ASSOMMOIK." 
 
 fellow. She was on the point of rousing Etienne, and of carrying 
 him there in her arms. Then, she again felt that the quiet way 
 in which matters had been arranged was the best. It would 
 not have been proper to have disturbed the harmony of the end 
 of the dinner. She returned with the coffee-pot and poured out 
 a. glass of coffee for Lantier, who, by the way, did not appear to 
 take any notice of her. 
 
 " Now, it's my turn," stuttered Coupeau, in a thick voice. 
 " Eh ! you've been keeping me for the tit-bit. Well ! I'll sing 
 you ' What a piggish child 1 ' " 
 
 " Yes, yes, * What a piggish child ! ' " cried everyone. 
 
 The uproar was beginning again Lantier was forgotten. 
 The ladies prepared their glasses and their knives for accom- 
 panying the chorus. They laughed beforehand, as they looked 
 at the zinc-worker, who steadied himself on his legs as he put 
 on his most vulgar air. Mimicking the hoarse voice of an old 
 woman, he sang : 
 
 " When out of bed each morn I hop, 
 
 I'm always precious queer ; 
 I send him for a little drop 
 
 To th' drinking-ken that's near. 
 A good half hour or more he'll stay, 
 
 And that makes me so riled, 
 He swigs it half upon his way : 
 
 What a piggish child ! " 
 
 And the ladies, striking their glasses, repeated in chorus, .in 
 the midst of a formidable gaiety : 
 
 " What a piggish child ! 
 What a piggish child !" 
 
 Even the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or itself joined in now. The 
 whole neighbourhood was singing " What a piggish child ! " 
 Over the way, the little clockmaker, the grocer's men, the tripe- 
 dealer, the greengrocer, who knew the song, took up the chorus, 
 and smacked one another just for a lark. Really, the street was 
 ending by becoming intoxicated ; the festive odour issuing from 
 the Coupeaus' was alone sufficient to make everyone on the 
 pavement more than merry., It is only fair to say that the 
 entire party inside was now awfully drunk. This had come on 
 little by little from the first glass of pure wine after the soup. 
 It was now the climax ; they were all braying and bursting with 
 what they had swallowed, in the reddish haze of the two lamps, 
 which required snuffing. The clamour of this gigantic booze
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 223 
 
 completely drowned the rumbling noise of the last vehicles. 
 Two policemen, thinking there was a riot, hastened to the spot j 
 but, catching sight of Poisson, they just nodded to him, and 
 then slowly moved away, side by side, along the dark houses. 
 Coupeau was now singing this verse : 
 
 " On Sundays at Petite Villette, 
 
 Whene'er the weather's fine, 
 We call on uncle, old Tinette, 
 
 Who's in the dustman line. 
 To feast upon some cherry stones 
 
 The young un's almost wild, 
 And rolls amongst the dust and bones. 
 
 What a piggish child I 
 
 What a piggish child 1 ' 
 
 Then the house almost collapsed, such a yell ascended in the 
 calm warm night air that the shouters applauded themselves, 
 for it was useless their hoping to be able to bawl any louder. 
 
 Not one of the party could ever recollect exactly how the 
 carouse terminated. It must have been very late, it's quite 
 certain, for not a cat was to be seen in the 'street. Possibly, 
 too, they had all joined hands and danced round the table. 
 But all was submerged in a yellow mist, in which red faces were 
 jumping about, with mouths slit from ear to ear. They had pro- 
 bably treated themselves to something stronger than wine towards 
 the end, and there was a vague suspicion that some one had played 
 them the trick of putting salt into the glasses. The children 
 must have undressed and put themselves to bed. On the mor- 
 row, Madame Boche boasted of having treated Boche to a coiiple 
 of clouts in a corner, where he was conversing a great deal too 
 close to the charcoal-dealer ; but Boche, who recollected nothing, 
 said she must have dreamt it. What everyone agreed was not 
 at all decent, was the behaviour of Clemence, who was most 
 decidedly a girl not to invite again ; she had ended by display- 
 ing all she had to show, and then was so sick that she quite 
 spoilt one of the muslin curtains. The men had at least the 
 decency to go into the street ; Lorilleux and Poisson, feeling 
 their stomachs upset, had stumblingly glided as far as the pork- 
 butcher's shop. It is easy to see when a person has been well 
 brought up. For instance, the ladies, Madame Putois, Madame 
 Lerat, and Virginie, indisposed by the heat, had simply gone 
 into the back room and taken their stays off; Virginie had even 
 desired to lie on the bed for a minute, just to obviate any un- 
 pleasant effects. Then the party had seemed to melt away, some
 
 224 THE " ASSOMMOXR." 
 
 iisappearing behind the others, all accompanying one another, 
 and being lost sight of in the surrounding darkness, to the 
 accompaniment of a final uproar, a furious quarrel between the 
 Lorilleux, and an obstinate and mournful " trou la la, trou la 
 la," of old Bra's. Gervaise had an idea that Goujet had burst 
 out sobbing when bidding her good-bye \ Coupeau was still 
 singing ; and as for Lantier, he must have remained till the 
 end. At one moment even she could still feel a breath against 
 her hair, but she was unable to say whether it came from Lan- 
 tier or if it was the warm night air. 
 
 As Madame Lerat refused at that late hour to return to 
 Batignolles, they took a mattress off the bed, and spread it for 
 her in a corner of the shop, after pushing the table on one side. 
 She slept there, amidst the crumbs from the feast. And all 
 the rest of the night, during the heavy sleep of the Coupeaus, 
 digesting all they had swallowed, a neighbour's cat, taking ad- 
 vantage of a window which had been left open, crunched up the 
 goose bones, and finished burying the bird with the little gnaw- 
 ing sound of its sharp teeth.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ON the following Saturday, Coupeau, who had not come home 
 to dinner, brought Lantier with him towards ten o'clock. 
 They had had some sheep's trotters at Thomas's at Montmartre. 
 
 "You mustn't scold, old woman," said the ziuc-worker. 
 " We're all right, as you can see. Oh ! there's no fear with him ; 
 he keeps one in the straight road." 
 
 And he related how they happened to meet in the Rue 
 Rochechouart. After dinner, Lantier had declined to have a 
 drink at the "Black Ball," saying that when one was married to a 
 pretty and worthy little woman, one ought not to go liquoring-up 
 at all the wine-shops. Gervaise smiled slightly as she listened 
 Oh ! she was not thinking of scolding ; she felt too much em- 
 barrassed for that. Ever since the feast, she had been expecting 
 to see her old lover again, one day or other ; but, at such an 
 hour, just at bedtime, the sudden arrival of the two men had 
 taken her by surprise j and, with trembling hands, she fastened 
 up her back hair again, which had unrolled down her neck. 
 
 " You know," resumed Coupeau, " as he was so polite as to 
 decline a drink outside, you must treat us to one here. Ah ! 
 you certainly owe us that ! " 
 
 The workwomen had been gone a long while. Mother 
 Coupeau and Nana had just got into bed. So Gervaise, who 
 was about to put up the shutters when they appeared, left the 
 shop open, and fetched some glasses and the remains of a bottle 
 of brandy which she placed on a corner of the work-table. 
 Lantier remained standing, and avoided speaking at once to her. 
 However, when she helped him, he exclaimed : 
 
 " Only a thimbleful, madame, if you please." 
 
 Coupeau looked at them, and then spoke his mind very 
 plainly. They were not going to behave like a couple of geese, 
 he hoped ! The past was past, was it not ? If people nursed 
 grudges for nine and ten years together, one would end by no 
 
 P
 
 226 THE "ASSOMMOIPw" 
 
 longer seeing anybody. No, no, he carried his heart in his hand, 
 he did I First of all, he knew who he had to deal with, a 
 worthy woman and a worthy man in short, two friends ! He 
 felt easy; he knew he could depend upon them. 
 
 " Oh 1 that's certain, quite certain," repeated Gervaise, looking 
 on the ground, and scarcely understanding what she said. 
 
 "She is a sister now nothing but a sister!" murmured 
 Lantier in his turn. 
 
 " Damn it all ! shake hands," cried Coupeau, " and let those 
 who don't like it go to blazes ! When one has proper feelings, 
 one is better off than millionaires. For myself, I prefer 
 friendship before everything, because friendship is friendship, 
 and there's nothing to beat it." 
 
 He dealt himself heavy blows in the stomach, and seemed so 
 moved that they had to calm him. They all three silently 
 clinked glasses, and drank their drop of brandy. Gervaise was 
 then able to look at Lantier at her ease ; for, on the night of 
 her saint's day, she had only seen him through a mist. He had 
 grown stouter, was fat and round, and his legs and arms appeared 
 heavy on account of his small frame. ' But his face preserved 
 some handsome features beneath the bloated look of a life of 
 idleness; and as he always took great care of his little 
 moustaches, one would have guessed him just his age ^thirty- 
 five years old. That day he wore a grey pair of trousers and a 
 coarse blue overcoat like a gentleman, with a billy-cock hat ; he 
 even had a silver watch and chain, from which hung a ring, a 
 keepsake. 
 
 " I'm off," said he. " I live no end of a distance from here." 
 
 He was already on the pavement, when the zinc-worker called 
 him back to make him promise never to pass the door without 
 looking in to wish them good-day. Meanwhile, Gervaise, who 
 had quietly disappeared, returned pushing Etienne before her. 
 The child, who was in his shirt sleeves, and half asleep, smiled 
 as he rubbed his eyes. But when he beheld Lantier, he stood 
 trembling and embarrassed, and casting anxious glances in the 
 direction of his mother and Coupeau. 
 
 " Don't you remember this gentleman ? " asked the latter. 
 The child held down his head without replying. Then he 
 made a slight sign which meant that he did remember the 
 gentleman. 
 
 "Well ! then, don't stand there like a fool ; go and kiss him." 
 
 Lantier gravely and quietly waited. When Etienne had 
 
 made up his mind to approach him, he stooped down, presented
 
 THE "ASSOMMOTR." 227 
 
 both his cheeks, and then kissed the youngster on the forehead 
 himself. At this the latter ventured to look at his father ; but 
 all on a sudden he burst out sobbing, and scampered away like a 
 mad creature, with his clothes half falling off him, whilst Coupeau 
 angrily called him a young savage. 
 
 "The emotion's too much for him," said Gervaise, pale and 
 agitated hersel 
 
 "Oh! he's generally very gentle and nice," exclaimed 
 Coupeau. " I've brought him up famously, as you'll see. He'll 
 get used to you. He must learn to know people. Anyhow, 
 were it only on this youngster's account, we could not always 
 have remained bad friends, could we now ? We ought to have 
 made it up for his sake long ago, for I would sooner have my 
 head cut off than prevent a father seeing his child." 
 
 Having thus delivered himself, he talked of finishing the 
 bottle of brandy. All three clinked glasses again. Lantier 
 showed no surprise, but remained perfectly calm. By way of 
 repaying the zinc-worker's politeness, he persisted in helping 
 him put up the shutters, before taking his departure. Then, 
 rubbing his hands together to get rid of the dust on them, he 
 wished the couple good-night. 
 
 " Sleep well. I shall tiy and catch the last 'bus. I promise 
 you I'll look in again soon." 
 
 After that evening Lantier frequently called at the Rue de la 
 Goutte-d'Or. He came when the zinc-worker was there, 
 inquiring after his health the moment he passed the door, and 
 affecting to have solely called on his account. Then, clean- 
 shaved, his hair nicely combed, and always wearing his over- 
 coat, he would take a seat by the window, and converse politely 
 with the manners of an educated man. It was thus that the 
 Coupeaus learnt little by little the details of his life. During 
 the last eight years he had for a while managed a hat factory ; 
 and when they asked him why he had retired from it, he merely 
 alluded to the rascality of a partner, a fellow from his native 
 place, a scoundrel who had squandered all the takings with 
 women. But his former position of employer was apparent all 
 over his person like a title of nobility from which he could not 
 derogate. He was for ever saying that he was on the point of 
 making an admirable arrangement; some wholesale hat maim-, 
 facturers were about to set him up in business and trust him 
 .with an enormous stock. Meanwhile, he did nothing whatever, 
 but walk about in the sunshine with his hands in his pockets, 
 just like a gentleman possessed .of a private income. On the
 
 228 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 days when he complained, if any one ventured to tell him of a 
 factory in want of workmen, he seemed seized with a smiling 
 pity ; he had no desire to die of hunger whilst slaving for 
 others. 
 
 All the same, the fellow, as Coupeau would say, did not live 
 on air. Oh ! he was a cunning blade; He knew how to get 
 his bread buttered ; he had something up his sleeve, for he in- 
 variably had such an appearance of prosperity, he must obtain 
 money somehow to be able always to wear clean white shirts 
 and neckties worthy of the sons of gentlemen. One morning 
 the zinc-worker eaw him having his boots cleaned on the 
 Boulevard Montmartre. The real truth was that Lantier, who 
 was very talkative on the subject of other people, held his 
 tongue or lied when it was a question of himself. He would not 
 jyen say where he lived. No ; he was lodging at a friend's, an 
 ,wful way off, whilst waiting nntil his arrangements were com- 
 pleted j and he said it was useless for any one to call on him, 
 because he .was never at home. 
 
 " One can find a dozen places when one only wants one," he 
 would often explain. " Only, it's not worth while entering a 
 crib where you're certain of not remaining twenty-four hours. 
 For instance, one Monday, I arrived at Champion's, at Montrouge. 
 In the evening Champion bothered me about politics ; his ideas 
 were not the same as mine. Well ! on the Tuesday morning 
 off I went, for we're no longer in the days of slavery, and I'm 
 not going to sell myself for seven francs a day." 
 
 It was now the early part of November. Lantier gallantly 
 brought bunches of violets, which he distributed amongst 
 Gervaise and the two workwomen. Little by little he multi- 
 plied his visits, until he came almost every day. He seemed as 
 though he wished to make a conquest of the household, of the 
 whole neighbourhood; and he commenced by charming Clemence 
 and Madame Putois, to whom he was equally most attentive, 
 notwithstanding the difference in their ages. At the end of a 
 month the two workwomen positively adored him. The Boches, 
 whom he flattered enormously in paying them little visits in 
 their room, were in raptures with his politeness. As for the 
 Lorilleux, when they learnt who the gentleman was who had 
 arrived in the midst of the dessert on the day of the feast, they 
 gave vent to a thousand horrible things against Gervaise, who 
 dared thus to introduce her old lover into her family. But one 
 day Lantier called upon them, and made' himself so agreeable 
 whilst ordering a chain for one of his lady friends that they
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 229 
 
 asked him to sit down, and kept him there an hour, quite 
 charmed with his conversation ; they even asked themselves 
 how such a delightful man could ever have lived with the 
 Hobbler. At length the hatter's visits to the Coupeaus no 
 longer made any one indignant, and seemed quite natural, for 
 he had succeeded so well in getting into the good graces of 
 every one in the Kue de la Goutte-d'Or. ' Goujet alone remained 
 gloomy. If he happened to be there when the other arrived, 
 he at once made for the door, so as not to be obliged to become 
 acquainted with the individual in question. 
 
 In the midst, however, of all this extraordinary affection for 
 Lantier, Gervaise, during the first few weeks, lived in a state of 
 great agitation. She felt that burning sensation at the pit of 
 her stomach which affected her on the day when Virginie first 
 alluded to her past life. Her great fear was that she might 
 find herself without strength, if he came upon her all alone one 
 night and took it into his head to kiss her. She thought of 
 him too much ; she was for ever full of him. But she gradually 
 became calmer on seeing him behave so well, never looking her 
 in the face, never even touching her with the tips of his fingers 
 when the others' backs were turned. Then Virginie, who seemed 
 to read within her, made her ashamed of all her wicked 
 thoughts. Why did. she tremble? One could not hope to 
 come across a nicer man. She certainly had nothing to fear 
 now. And one day the tall brunette manoeuvred in such a way 
 as to get them both into a corner, and to turn the conversation 
 to the subject of love. Lantier, choosing his words, declared 
 in a grave voice that his heart was dead, that for the future he 
 wished to consecrate his life solely to his son's happiness. He 
 never alluded to Claude, who was still in the South. He 
 kissed Etienne on the forehead every evening, but never knew 
 what to say to the child if he remained there, and forgetting his 
 presence would turn his attention to Cle"mence. Then Gervaise, 
 more at ease, felt the past die within her. Lantier's presence 
 obliterated ' her recollections of Plassans, and of the H6tel 
 Boncosur. Seeing him constantly, she no longer dreamed of 
 him so much. But she would feel filled with disgust at the 
 thought of their past connection. Oh, it was all over, quite 
 over. If ever he dared to try it on with her again, she would 
 answer him with a couple of smacks; she would sooner tell her 
 husband everything. And again she thought, without remorse, 
 and with extraordinary sweetness, of Goujet's loyal friendship. 
 
 One morning, on arriving at the shop, Clemence related that
 
 230 THE " ASSOMMOm." 
 
 at eleven o'clock the night before, she had seen M. Lantier with 
 a woman on his arm. In saying this she made use of a great 
 many improper expressions, with a good deal of covert spiteful- 
 ness too, just to see how her mistress would take it. Yes, M. 
 Lantier was climbing up the Rue Notre-Dame de Lorette. 
 The woman was a blonde, one of those half-dead " cows " of the 
 Boulevard, with nothing to cover her skin but her silk dress. 
 And she had followed them for the fun of the thing. The 
 " cow " had entered a pork-butcher's, and bought some prawns 
 and some ham. Then, in the Rue de La Rochefoucauld, M. 
 Lantier had had to wait on the pavement in front of the house, 
 with his nose in the air, until the little one, who had gone up 
 alone, had signalled to him from the window to join her. -But in 
 spite of all the disgusting observations which Clemence appended, 
 Gervaise quietly continued ironing a white dress. Now and again 
 the story brought a slight smile to her lips. Those Souther- 
 ners, said she, were all mad after women ; they must have them 
 in spite of everything ; they would even pick them off a rubbish 
 heap with a shovel if they could not get them any other way. 
 
 And, in the evening, when the hatter arrived, she amused 
 herself by listening to Clemence teasing him about his blonde. 
 He, too, seemed proud at having been seen. Well, yes, it was 
 an old friend of his whom he saw now and then, when it was 
 not likely to disturb any one. She was a great swell, and had 
 violet ebony furniture ; and he mentioned some of her ex-lovers, 
 a viscount, a large china merchant, and the son of a notary. 
 He like-I women who had plenty of scent about them. And he 
 was poking his handkerchief, which the little one had scented 
 for him, under Clemence's nose, when Etienne entered. Then 
 he assumed his grave manner, kissed the child, and added that 
 the little amusement would go no further ; his heart was dead. 
 Gervaise, bending over her work, nodded her head with approval. 
 Thus it was Clemence who paid the penalty of her spitefulness, 
 for she had already, on two or three occasions, felt Lantier pinch- 
 ing her without seeming to be doing so, and she was bursting 
 with jealousy at not stinking of musk, like the " cow " of the 
 Boulevard. 
 
 When the spring-time returned, Lantier, who was now quite 
 one of the family, talked of living in (he neighbourhood, so as 
 to be nearer his friends. He wanted a furnished room in a 
 decent house. Madame Boche, and even Gervaise herself, went 
 searching about to find it for him. They explored the neigh- 
 bouring streets. But he was always too difficult to please ; he
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIIl." 231 
 
 required a big courtyard, a room on the ground floor; in fact, 
 every luxury imaginable. And, then every evening, at the 
 Coupeaus', he seemed to measure the height of the ceilings, 
 study the arrangement of the rooms, and covet a similar 
 lodging. Oh, he would never have asked for anything better, 
 he would willingly have made himself a hole in that warm, 
 quiet corner. Then each time he wound up his inspection with 
 these 'words : 
 
 " By Jove ! you are comfortably situated here." 
 
 One evening, when he had dined there, and was making the 
 same remark during the dessert,, Coupeau, who now treated him 
 most familiarly, suddenly exclaimed : 
 
 " You must stay here, old boy, if it suits you. It's easily 
 arranged." 
 
 And he explained that the dirty-clothes room, cleaned out, 
 would make a nice apartment. Etienne could sleep Jn the 
 shop, on a mattress on the ground, that was all. 
 
 " No, no," said Lantier, " I cannot accept. It would incon- 
 venience you too much. I know that it's willingly offered, but 
 we should be too warm all jumbled up together. Besides, you 
 know, each one likes his liberty. I should have to go through 
 your room, and that wouldn't be exactly funny." 
 
 s " Ah, the rogue 1 " resumed the zinc-worker, choking with 
 laughter, banging his fist down on the table to clear his throat, 
 " he's always thinking of something smutty ! But, you joker, 
 we're of an inventive turn of mind I There're two windows in 
 the room, aren't there ? Well, we'll knock one put and turn 
 it into a door. Then, you understand, you come in by way of 
 the courtyard, and we can even stop up the other door, if we 
 like. Thus you'll be in your home, and we in ours." 
 
 A pause ensued. At length, the hatter murmured : 
 
 " Ah, yes, in that manner, perhaps we might. And yet no, 
 I should be too much in your way." 
 
 He avoided looking at Gervaise. But he was evidently 
 waiting for a word from her before accepting. She was very 
 much annoyed at her husband's idea ; not that the thought of 
 seeing Lantier living with them wounded her feelings, or made 
 her particularly uneasy; but she was wondering where she 
 would be able to keep the dirty clothes. Meanwhile, the zinc- 
 worker 'began -enumerating the advantages of the arrangement. 
 The five-hundred-francs rent had always been rather too much 
 for them. Well, their comrade should pay them twenty francs 
 a month for the furnished room ; it would not be too dear for
 
 232 THE "ASSOMMOJR." 
 
 him, and it would assist them at quarter-day. He added that 
 he would undertake to knock up a big case under their bed 
 which would hold all the dirty clothes of the neighbourhood. 
 Then Gervaise hesitated, and with a glance seemed to consult 
 mother Coupeau, whom Lantier had won over months before by 
 bringing her jujubes for her cough. 
 
 " You would certainly not be in our way," she coded by say- 
 ing. " We could so arrange things " 
 
 "No, no, thanks," repeated the hatter. "You're too kind ; 
 it would be asking too much." 
 
 Coupeau could no longer restrain himself. Was he going to 
 continue making objections when they told him it was freely 
 offered 1 He would be obliging them, there, did he understand ? 
 Then in an excited tone of voice he yelled : 
 
 "Etienne ! Etienne 1 " 
 
 The youngster had fallen asleep on the table. He raised his 
 head with a start. 
 
 "Listen, tell him that you wish it. Yes, that gentleman 
 there. Tell him as loud as you can : ' I wish it ! ' " 
 
 " I wish it ! " stuttered Etienne, his voice thick with sleep. 
 
 Everyone laughed. But Lantier soon resumed his grave and 
 impressive air. He squeezed Coupeau's hand across the table 
 as he said : 
 
 " I accept. It's in all good fellowship on both sides, is it 
 not 1 Yes, I accept for the child's sake." . 
 
 As early as the morrow the landlord, M. Marescot, having 
 come to pass an hour in the Boches' room Gervaise spoke to 
 him about the matter. At first he seemed very apprehensive, 
 refused, and became quite angry, as though she had asked him 
 to knock down a whole wing of his house. Then, after a minute 
 inspection of the premises, and when he had gazed up in the 
 air to see whether the other storeys would be shaken, he ended 
 by giving the necessary permission, but only on condition that 
 he should not be called upon to bear any part of the expense ; 
 and the Coupeaus had to sign a paper in which they undertook 
 to leave everything as they had found it, at the expiration of 
 their term. That very evening, the zinc-worker brought some 
 of his comrades, a mason, a carpenter, a painter some jolly 
 dogs who would make the alterations in their spare time, just 
 to oblige a friend. The putting up of the new door and the 
 cleaning out of the room, cost nevertheless a hundred francs, 
 without counting the wine with which the job was watered. 
 The zinc-worker told his comrades he would pay them later on,
 
 THE "ASSOMMOnt." 233 
 
 with the first money he received from his tenant. Then, there 
 was the question of furnishing the room. Gervaise left mother 
 Coupeau's wardrobe in it ; she added a table and two chairs 
 taken from her own room ; then she had to purchase a toilet- 
 table, and a bedstead and all the bedding, amounting altogether 
 to a hundred and thirty francs, which she had to pay for at tho 
 rate of ten francs a month. If during the first ten months 
 Lantier's twenty francs of rent were swallowed up beforehand 
 by the debts contracted, there would nevertheless be a fine 
 profit afterwards. 
 
 It was during the early days of June that the hatter moved 
 in. The day before, Coupeau had offered to go with him and 
 fetch his box, to save him the thirty sous for a cab. But the 
 other became quite embarrassed, saying that the box was too 
 heavy, as though he wished up to the last moment to hide the 
 place where he lodged. He arrived in the afternoon, towards 
 three o'clock. Coupeau did not happen to be in. And Gervaise, 
 standing at the shop door, became quite pale, on recognising the 
 box outside the cab. It was their old box, the one with which 
 they had journeyed from Plassans, all scratched and broken 
 now, and held together by cords. She saw it return as she had 
 often dreamt it would, and it needed no great stretch of imagin- 
 ation to believe that the same cab, that cab in which that 
 strumpet of a burnisher had played her such a foul trick, had 
 brought the box back again. Meanwhile, Boche was giving 
 Lantier a helping hand. The laundress followed them in silence, 
 and feeling rather dazed. When they had deposited their 
 burden in the middle of the room, she said for the sake of saying 
 something : 
 
 " Well ! that's a good thing finished, isn't it ? " 
 
 Then, pulling herself together, seeing that Lantier, busy in 
 undoing the cords, was not even looking at her, she added : 
 
 "Monsieur Boche, you must have a drink." 
 
 And she went and fetched a quart of wine and some glasses. 
 
 Just then Poisson passed along the pavement in uniform. 
 She signalled to him, winking her eye and smiling. The police- 
 man understood perfectly. When he was on duty, and anyone 
 winked their eye to him, it meant a glass of wine. He would 
 even walk 'for hours up and down before the laundress's, waiting 
 for a wink.. Then, 'so as not to be seen, he would pass through 
 the courtyard, and toss off the liquor in secret. 
 
 "Ah ! ah 1 " said Lantier when he saw him enter, "it's you, 
 Badingue ! "
 
 234 THE "ASSOMMOIE." 
 
 He called him Badingue for a joke, just to show how little 
 he cared for the Emperor. Poisson put up with it in his stiff 
 way, without one knowing whether it really annoyed him or 
 not. Besides the two men, though separated by their political 
 convictions, had become very good friends. 
 
 " You know that the Emperor was once a policeman in 
 London," said Boche in his turn. " Yes, on my word ! he used 
 to take the drunken women to the station-house." 
 
 Gervaise had filled three glasses on the table. She would 
 not drink herself, she felt too sick at heart, but she stood " 
 there, longing to see what the box contained, and watching 
 Lantier remove the last cords. She recollected that in one 
 corner there used to be a heap of socks, two shirts, and an old 
 hat Were those things still in it 1 was she again going to 
 behold the rags and tatters of the past 1 Before raising the lid, 
 Lantier took his glass and clinked it with the others. 
 
 " Good health." 
 . " Same to you," replied Boche and Poisson. 
 
 The laundress filled the glasses again. The three men wiped 
 their lips on the backs of their hands. And at last the hatter 
 opened the box. It was full of a jumble of newspapers, books, 
 old clothes, and underlinen, in bundles. He took out succes- 
 sively a saucepan, a pair of boots, a busjb of Ledru-Kollin with 
 the nose broken, an embroidered shirt, and a pair of working 
 trousers. And Gervaise, leaning over, inhaled a stench of 
 tobacco, an odour of an unclean individual who only washes 
 the surface, just so much as is seen of his person. No, the 
 old hat was no longer in the left hand corner ; but there was a 
 pincushion there which she did not recognise, probably a present 
 from some woman. Then she became calmer ; she experienced 
 a vague sadness as she followed the different objects with her 
 eyes, asking -herself whether they dated from her time or from 
 the time of the others. 
 
 " I say, Badingue, you don't know this, do you V resumed 
 Lantier. 
 
 He thrust under his nose a little book printed at Brussels, 
 " The Amours of Napoleon III.," illustrated with engravings. 
 It related, amongst other anecdotes, how the Emperor had 
 seduced a girl of thirteen/the daughter of a cook; and the 
 picture represented Napoleon III., bare-legged, and only wear- 
 ing the grand ribbon of the Legion of Honour, pursuing a chit 
 of a girl who was flying from his lust. 
 
 " Ah ! that's it exactly ! " exclaimed Boche, whose slyly
 
 "ASSOHMOIR." 235 
 
 voluptuous instincts felt flattered by the sight '^Jt always 
 happens like that !" 
 
 Poisson was seized with consternation, and he could not find 
 a word to say in the Emperor's defence. It was in a book, so 
 he could not deny it. Then, Lantier continuing to push the 
 picture under his nose in a jeering way, he extended his arms 
 and exclaimed : 
 . " Well, what next ? It's nature, isn't it 1 " 
 
 The answer completely shut up Lantier. He placed his 
 books and his newspapers on a shelf in the wardrobe \ and as 
 he seemed to very much regret not having a little bookcase 
 suspended above the table, Gervaise promised to procure him 
 one. He possessed Louis Blanc's "History of Ten Years," 
 with the exception of the first volume, which by the way be 
 had never had ; Lamartine's " Girondins," in two sou numbers; 
 Eugene Sue's "Mysteries of Paris" and the "Wandering 
 Jew," besides a number of philosophical and humanitarian 
 works, picked up at second-hand dealers. But he especially 
 looked at his newspapers with tenderness and respect. It was 
 a collection he had been forming for years past. Every time 
 that he chanced to read at a cafe" a successful newspaper article 
 written in accordance with his own ideas, he would purchase 
 the paper and preserve it. He had thus formed an enormous 
 bundle, of all dates and titles, jumbled up anyhow. When he 
 had removed this bundle from the bottom of the box, he 
 slapped it in a friendly way, and said to the other two men : 
 
 " You see that ? well, it belongs to yours truly, and no one 
 can flatter himself he has anything so good. You've no idea 
 what it contains. That's to say, if half these ideas were carried 
 out, society would be cleansed at once. Yes, your Emperor 
 and all his jackasses would quake in their shoes " 
 
 But he was interrupted by the policeman, whose carroty 
 moustaches and imperial trembled on his pale face. 
 
 " And the army, I say, what would you do with it 1 " 
 
 Then Lantier flew into a passion. He banged his fists down 
 on the newspapers as he yelled : 
 
 " I require the suppression of militarism, the fraternity of 
 peoples. I require the abolition of privileges, of titles, and of 
 monopolies. I require the equality of salaries, the division of 
 benefits, the glorification of the protectorate. All liberties, do 
 you hear ? all of them ! And divorce ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes, divorce, for morality 1 " insisted Boche. 
 
 Poisson had assumed a majestic air.
 
 236 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 "Yet, if I won't have your liberties; I'm free to refuse 
 them," he answered. 
 
 " If you won't have them if you won't have them," stuttered 
 Lantier, choking with rage. " No, you're not free ! If you 
 won't have them, I'll bundle you off to Cayenne, that's what 
 I'll do ! Yes, to Cayenne, with your Emperor and all the pigs 
 who surround him ! " 
 
 They always quarrelled thus every time they met. Gervaise, 
 who did not like arguments, usually interfered. She roused 
 herself from the torpor into which the sight of the box, full of 
 the stale perfume of- her past love, had plunged her, and she 
 drew the three men's attention to the glasses. 
 
 " Ah 1 yes," said Lantier, becoming suddenly calm and taking 
 his glass. " Good health ! " 
 
 " Good health," replied Boche and Poisson, clinking glasses 
 with him. 
 
 Boche, however, was moving nervously about, troubled by 
 an anxiety, as he looked at the policeman out of the corner of 
 his eye. 
 
 "All this between ourselves, eh, Monsieur Poisson?" mur- 
 mured he at length. u We say and show you things " 
 
 But Poisson did not let him finish. He placed his hand 
 upon his heart, as though to explain that all remained buried 
 there. He certainly did not go spying about on his friends. 
 Coupeau arriving, they emptied a second quart. Then the 
 policeman went off by way of the courtyard, and resumed his 
 stiff and measured tread along the pavement. 
 
 During the first few days everything was upside down at 
 the laundress's. Lantier true enough had his separate room, 
 his own entrance and his key ; but as, at the last moment, they 
 had decided not to fasten up the door communicating between 
 the two rooms, it happened that he generally went through the 
 shop. The dirty clothes too were a great deal in Gervaise's 
 way, for her husband did nothing towards making the big box 
 he had spoken of; and she found herself obliged to put the 
 things everywhere, some few in the corners, but most of them 
 Under her bedstead, which was far from pleasant during the 
 summer nights. She was greatly annoyed too at having to 
 make up Etienne's bed every evening in the middle of the shop ; 
 when the workwomen were there late, the child would go to 
 sleep on a chair whilst waiting. Then Goujet, having suggested 
 sending Etienne to Lille, where his former employer, a mechani- 
 cian, was in want of apprentices, she was delighted with the
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 237 
 
 project, the more so as the youngster, who was not very happy 
 at home, and longed to be his own master, begged her to con- 
 sent to his going. Only, she feared a decided refusal from 
 Lantier. He had come to live with them, solely to be near his 
 son ; he would not wish to part with him at the end of a fort- 
 night. , Yet, when she tremblingly mentioned the matter to 
 him, he approved the project immensely, saying that young 
 workmen ought to see plenty of their country. The morning 
 Etienne left, he made him a little speech about his rights, then 
 he kissed him and declaimed : 
 
 " Remember that the producer is not a slave, but whoever is 
 not a producer is a drone." 
 
 Then things got into shape again, every one calmed down 
 and fell into the new habits. Gervaise became accustomed to 
 the dirty clothes lying about, and to Lantier passing to and 
 fro. The latter was always talking of his large business 
 matters ; he would sometimes go out with his hair nicely 
 combed and wearing a clean white shirt, and after disappearing 
 for a while, perhaps not even coming home to sleep, he would re- 
 turn pretending he was quite worn out, and that his head was 
 splitting, as though he had been discussing the most weighty 
 matters for twenty-four hours at a stretch. The truth was 
 that he was taking life easy. Oh ! there was no fear that he 
 would ever blister his hands ! He usually rose of a morning 
 at about ten o'clock, took a stroll in the afternoon if the colour 
 of the sun pleased him, or, if it was a rainy day, remained in the 
 shop reading the newspaper. It was his element; he was 
 nowhere more at his ease than when amongst the skirts, in the 
 thick of the women, delighting in their coarse language, inciting 
 them on, all the time speaking in the most choice manner him- 
 self ; and that explained why he was so fond of sticking so close 
 to the washerwomen, for they have a knack of calling things by 
 their true names. Whenever Clemence unburdened herself, he 
 would sit smiling blandly and twirling his slight moustaches. 
 The atmosphere of the shop, the perspiring workwomen bang- 
 ing their irons about with their bare arms, that corner re- 
 sembling an alcove full of the most secret details concerning 
 all the ladies of the neighbourhood, seemed to him to be the 
 long-dreamt-of nest, the long-sought haven of idleness and 
 enjoyment. 
 
 At the beginning, Lantier took his meals at Frangois's, at the 
 corner of the Rue des Poissonhiers. But of the seven days in 
 the week, he dined with the Coupeaus on three or four; so
 
 238 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 much so, that he ended by offering to board with them, and to 
 pay them fifteen francs every Saturday. From that time, he 
 scarcely ever left the house, but made himself completely at 
 home there. One would see him from morning till night going 
 to and fro in his shirt sleeves between the shop and the room 
 at the back, raising his voice and giving his orders ; he even 
 attended to the customers, he directed everything. FranQois's 
 wine not being to his liking, he persuaded Gervaise to order her 
 wine in future of Vigouroux, the charcoal-dealer close by, whose 
 wife he would go and pinch with Boche, whilst giving the orders. 
 Then he considered that Coudeloup's bread was not properly 
 baked, and he sent Augustine to get the bread of Meyer, who 
 kept the Viennese bakery in the Faubourg Poissonniere. He 
 also withdrew the custom from Lehongre, the grocer, and only 
 continued to deal with stout Charles, the butcher of the Rue 
 Polonceau, because of his political opinions. At the end of a 
 month, he wished oil to form a part of every dish served at the 
 table. As Cle'mence jokingly observed, the oil stain reappeared 
 on that cpnfounded Southerner in spite of all He himself 
 cooked the omelets omelets turned over on both sides, more 
 browned than pancakes, and as firm as galettes. He superin- 
 tended mother Coupeau, insisting on her cooking the beefsteaks 
 until they became like so much shoe-leather, adding garlic to 
 everything, and flying into a passion if anyone put herbs into 
 the salad, horrible weeds, according to him, amongst which 
 there might easily be something poisonous. But his great 
 delight was a certain soup, vermicelli, cooked in water, very 
 thick, into which he poured half a large bottle of oil. Only he 
 and Gervaise ever ate it, because the others, the Parisians, 
 having one day ventured to taste it, paid the penalty of almost 
 depositing their lights and livers on the floor. 
 
 Little by little, Lantier also came to mixing himself up in the 
 affairs of the family. As the Lorilleux always grumbled at having 
 to part with the five francs for mother Coupeau, he explained that 
 an action could be brought against them. They must think 
 that they had a set of fools to deal with ! it was ten francs a 
 month which they ought to give ! And he would go up him- 
 self for the ten francs, so boldly, and yet so amiably, that the 
 chainmaker never dared refuse them. Madame Lerat also gave 
 two five franc pieces now. Mother Coupeau would have kissed 
 Lantier's hands. He was, moreover, the grand arbiter in all the 
 quarrels between the old woman and Gervaise. Whenever the 
 laundress, in a moment of impatience, behaved roughly to her
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 239 
 
 mother-in-law, and the latter went and cried on her bed, he 
 hustled them about, and made them kiss each other, asking 
 them if they thought themselves amusing with their bad 
 tempers. . 
 
 And Nana, too : she was being brought , up precious badly, 
 according to his idea. In that he was right, for whenever the 
 father spanked the chit, the mother took her part, and if the 
 mother in her turn boxed her ears, the father made a disturb- 
 ance. Nana, delighted at seeing her parents abuse each other, 
 and knowing that she was forgiven beforehand, was up to all 
 kinds of tricks. Her latest mania was to go and play in the 
 farriery opposite ; she would pass the entire day swinging on the 
 shafts of the carts ; she would hide with bands of urchins in the 
 remotest corners of the grey courtyard, lighted up with the red 
 glare of the forge ; and, suddenly,' she would reappear, running 
 and shouting, unkempt and dirty, and followed by the troop of 
 urchins, as though a clash of the hammers had frightened the 
 ragamuffins away. Lantier alone could scold her ; and yet she 
 knew perfectly well how to get over him. This hussy of ten 
 would walk before him like a lady, swinging herself about, and 
 casting side glances at him, her eyes already full of vice. He 
 had ended by undertaking her education : he taught her to 
 dance and ,to talk patois. 
 
 A year passed thus. In the neighbourhood it was thought 
 that Lantier had a private income, for this was the only way to 
 account for the Coupeaus r grand style of living. No doubt, 
 Gervaise continued to earn money ; but now that she had to 
 support two men in doing nothing, the shop certainly could not 
 suffice ; more especially as the shop no longer had so good a 
 reputation, customers were leaving, and the workwomen were 
 tippling from morning till night. The truth was that Lantier 
 paid nothing, neither for rent nor board. During the first 
 months he had paid sums on account, then he had contented 
 himself with speaking of a large amount he had to receive, with 
 which later on he would pay off everything in a lump sum. 
 Gervaise no longer dared ask him for a centime. She had the 
 bread, the wine, the meat, all on credit. The bills increased 
 everywhere at the rate of three and four francs a day. She had 
 not paid a sou to the furniture dealer, nor to the three com- 
 rades, the mason, the carpenter, and the painter. All these 
 people commenced to grumble, arid she was no longer treated 
 with the same politeness at the shops. 
 
 But she was as though intoxicated by a mania for getting
 
 240 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 into debt ; she tried to drown her thoughts, ordered the most 
 expensive things, and gave full freedom to her gluttony now 
 that she no longer paid for anything ; she remained withal very 
 honest at heart, dreaming of earning from morning to night 
 hundreds of francs, though she did not exactly know how, to 
 enable her to distribute handfuls of five franc pieces to her 
 tradespeople. In short, she was sinking, and as she sank lower 
 and lower, she talked of extending her business. Yet, towards 
 the middle of the summer, tall Cle"mence had left her, because 
 there was no longer sufficient work for two women, and because 
 she had to go for weeks without her money. In the midst of this 
 downfall, Coupeau and Lantier thoroughly enjoyed themselves. 
 The fellows gorged till they filled themselves up to their chins, 
 guttling the shop, fattening on the ruin of the establishment ; 
 and they stimulated each other to take double helps, and at 
 dessert playfully slapped one another on the stomach, to help 
 them digest their food the quicker. 
 
 The great subject of conversation in the neighbourhood was 
 .as to whether Lantier had really gone back on his old footing 
 with Gervaise. On this point opinions were divided. According 
 to the Lorilleux, the Hobbler was doing all she could to hook 
 the hatter again, but he would no longer have anything to do 
 with her, thought her too faded, and had about town some little 
 women of a very different style. The Boches maintained, on 
 the contrary, that the very first night the laundress had gone 
 and joined her old lover directly that noodle, Coupeau, had 
 commenced to snore. All that, one way or another, was not 
 very creditable ; but there are so many filthy things in life, and 
 far worse than this, that people ended by thinking this family 
 of three quite natural, and even nice, for there was never any 
 quarrelling, and appearances were respected. It was very cer- 
 tain that if one poked one's nose into some other homes in the 
 neighbourhood, one would discover something much more dis- 
 gusting. At the Coupeaus' they were at least a jolly set All 
 three attended to their own little cooking, boozed, and slept 
 together in a friendly way, without interfering with their 
 neighbours' rest. Besides, the neighbourhood was conquered 
 by Lantier's pleasant ways. That wheedler shut every gossip's 
 mouth. Even in the doubt that prevailed as to his relations 
 with Gervaise, when the greengrocer told the tripe-seller there 
 was no truth in the reports, the latter seemed to say that it was 
 really a pity, because, in short, it made the Coupeaus far less 
 interesting.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIfi." 211 
 
 Gervaise, however, was quite at her ease iii this matter, and 
 not much troubled with these filthy thoughts. Things reached 
 the point' that she was accused of being heartless. The family 
 did not understand why she continued to bear a grudge against 
 the hatter. Madame Lerat, who delighted in thrusting herself 
 between lovers, came every evening ; and she said that Lantier 
 was an irresistible man, into whose arms the most uppish ladies 
 would end by falling. Madame Boche would never have been 
 sure of her own virtue had she been ten years younger. A 
 secret and continuous conspiracy was formed, gradually inciting 
 Gervaise, as though all the women around her would be satis- 
 fying their own desires in giving her a lover. But Gervaise 
 was surprised, and did not consider Lantier particularly seduc- 
 tive. No doubt he had improved : he always wore a coat, and 
 he had acquired some education in the cafes and at political 
 meetings. Only, she knew him well ; she could read his very 
 soul through the two holes of his eyes, and she found there a 
 heap of things which made her shudder. In short, if it pleased 
 the others so much, why did they not venture and go in for 
 the gentleman ? It was thus that one day she answered Vir- 
 ginie, who was the warmest in the matter. Then, to excite 
 Gervaise, Madame Lerat and Virginie told her of the loves of 
 Lantier and tall C16mence. Yes, she had not noticed anything 
 herself; but, as soon as she went out on an errand, the hatter 
 took the work girl into his room. Now, people met them out 
 together ; he probably went to see her at her own place. 
 
 "Well," said the laundress, her voice trembling slightly, 
 " what can, it matter to me % n 
 
 And she v looked into Virgmie's- yellow eyes, in which golden 
 sparks were shining the same as in a cat's. This woman then 
 wished her harm, as she was trying to make her jealous. But 
 the dressmaker put on her stupid air as she replied : 
 
 " It can't matter anything to you, of course. Only, you 
 ought to advise him to break off with that girl, who is sure to 
 cause him some unpleasantness." 
 
 The worst was that Lantier, feeling himself backed up, 
 changed altogether in his behaviour towards Gervaise. Now, 
 whenever he shook hands with her, he held her fingers for a 
 minute between his own. He tired her with his glance, fixing 
 a bold look upon her, in which she clearly read what it was he 
 asked. If he passed behind her, he dug his knees into her 
 skirts, or breathed upon her neck, as though to send her to 
 sleep. Yet he waited a while before being rough and openly 
 
 Q
 
 242 THE "ASSOMMOIB." 
 
 declaring himself. But one evening, finding himself alone with 
 her, he put&sd her before him without a word, and pressed her 
 all trembling against the wall, at the back of the shop, and 
 there tried to kiss her. It so chanced that Goujet entered 
 just at that moment. Then she struggled and escaped. And 
 all three exchanged a few words, as though nothing had 
 happened. Goujet, his face deadly pale, looked on the ground, 
 fancying that he had disturbed them, and that she had merely 
 struggled so as not to be kissed before a third party. 
 
 On ,the morrow, Gervaise wandered about the shop, feeling 
 very unhappy, and quite unable even to iron a handkerchief ; 
 she wanted to see Goujet, to explain to him how it was that 
 Lantier was holding her against the wall. But since Etienne 
 had gone to Lille, she no longer dared enter the forge, where 
 Salted-Mouth, other wise Drink-without-Thirst, always greeted her 
 with a sly laugh. Yet in the afternoon, yielding to her desire, 
 she took an empty basket and went out under the pretext of 
 fetching some petticoats from the customer in the Rue des 
 Fortes-Blanches. Then, when she arrived opposite the bolt 
 factory hi the Rue Marcadet, she slackened her footsteps, 
 trusting to some chance meeting. Goujet on his side had no 
 doubt been expecting her, for she had not been there five 
 minutes, before he came out just as though by accident. 
 
 " What 1 you've been on an errand ?" said he, smiling faintly; 
 "you're going home?" 
 
 He said that for the sake of saying something. It so happened 
 that Gervaise was turning her back on the Rue des Poisson- 
 niers. And they made the ascent towards Montmartre side by 
 side, and without taking one another's arms. Their only idea 
 seemed to be to get away from the factoiy, so as not to appear 
 to be having meetings just outside the door. With bowed 
 heads, they followed the uneven roadway, in the midst of the 
 hum of the factories. Then, after proceeding about two hun- 
 dred yards, they naturally, as though they knew the place, 
 turned in silence to the left and entered a piece of waste land. 
 It was a bit of a meadow still green, but with yellow patches 
 of scorched grass, and situated between a saw-mill and a button 
 manufactory ; a goat, fastened to a stake, kept turning round 
 and bleating ; right at the end, a dead tree was crumbling 
 away in the fierce sunshine. 
 
 " Really ! " murmured Gervaise, " it's just like being in the 
 country." 
 
 They went and sat down on the dead tree. Th laundress
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 243 
 
 placed her basket at her feet. In front of them, the heights 
 of Montmartre spread out their rows of tall grey and yellow 
 houses, in the midst of scanty clumps of verdure ; and, when 
 they leant their heads farther back, they beheld the vast 
 expanse of sky of a dazzling brightness above the town, and 
 streaked towards the north by a flight of small white clouds. 
 But the brilliant light dazed them ; they lowered their glances 
 to the distant white buildings of the faubourgs on a level with 
 the flat horizon, and they especially watched the narrow 
 chimney of the saw-mill, which kept puffing forth jets of steam. 
 These great gasps seemed to relieve their oppressed breasts. 
 
 "Yes," resumed Gervaise, embarrassed by their mutual 
 silence, " I was going on an errand, I came out " 
 
 After having so longed for an explanation, she suddenly 
 found herself unable to say anything. She was seized with a 
 great shame. And yet she felt that they had come there of 
 their own accord to talk the matter over ; they were indeed 
 conversing about it, without having the need to utter a word. 
 The occurrence of the day before remained between them like 
 a burden which embarrassed them. 
 
 Then, seized with an overwhelming sadness, her eyes full of 
 tears, she gave an account of the last moments of Madame 
 Bijard, her washerwoman, who had died that morning, after the 
 most horrible sufferings. 
 
 " It was all through Bijard kicking her," said she in a gentle 
 monotonous voice. " Her stomach swelled up. No doubt, he 
 had broken something in her inside. Good heavens ! in three 
 days it was all over with her. Ah ! there are many scoundrels 
 in prison who have not done anything so bad as he has. But 
 justice would have too much to do if it occupied itself about all 
 the women who have been killed by their husbands. One kick 
 more or less doesn't count, does it, when one's in the habit of 
 receiving them all day long? More especially as the poor 
 woman wished to save her husband from the scaffold, and 
 stated that she had hurt herself by falling on a tub. She 
 yelled all through the night before going off." 
 
 The blacksmith said nothing, but pulled up the grass with 
 his trembling fingers. 
 
 "It's only a fortnight ago," continued Gervaise, "that she 
 weaned her last, little Jules ; and that's a piece of luck, for 
 the child won't suffer from it. All the same, there's that 
 youngster Lalie has got to look after the two little brats. 
 She's not eight years old yet, but she's as serious and as sen-
 
 244 THE "ASSOMMOrR." 
 
 sible as a real mother. With that, her father's always beating- 
 her. Ah well ! one comes across people who are born to 
 suffer." 
 
 Goujet looked at her and said abruptly, his lips trembling 
 the while : 
 
 "You caused me great pain, yesterday; oh ! yes, great pain." 
 
 Gervaise, turning pale, clasped her hands. But he con- 
 tinned : 
 
 " I know, it was bound to happen. Only, you ought to have 
 confided in me, have told me the truth about it, so as not to 
 have let me form ideas " 
 
 He was unable to finish. She rose up when she understood 
 that Goujet thought she had resumed her old relations with 
 Lantier, as the whole neighbourhood affirmed was the case. 
 And, stretching out her arms, she cried, 
 
 " No, no, I swear to you. He had pushed me there ; he was 
 trying to kiss me, it's true, but his face did not even touch 
 mine, and it was the first time that he had tried anything of 
 the kind. Oh, listen ! I swear it on my life, on the lives of my 
 children, on all that I hold most sacred ! " 
 
 The blacksmith, however, shook his head. He mistrusted 
 her, because women always deny. Gervaise then became very 
 grave, and slowly resumed, 
 
 " You know me, Monsieur Goujet, you know I am no liar. 
 Well I no, it is not so, on my word of honour. And it will 
 never be so, do you hear 1 never 1 The day such a thing were 
 to happen, I should become the lowest of the low ; I should no 
 longer deserve the friendship of an honest man like you." 
 
 And as she spoke, her face was so lovely, so full of truth, 
 that he took her hand and made her resume her seat. Now he 
 could breathe freely ; he laughed within himself. It was the 
 first time he had held her hand like that, and he squeezed it in 
 his own. They both sat without speaking. The little white 
 clouds moved over the sky with swan-like slowness. In the 
 corner of the field, the goat turned towards them, looked on, 
 bleating gently at long, regular intervals. And, without leav- 
 ing their hold of each other's fingers, their eyes bathed in 
 tenderness, they looked into the distance at the pale Mont- 
 martre slope in the centre of the tall forest of factory chimneys 
 bordering the horizon, in that desolate suburb of mortar, amidst 
 which the green arbours of the low pot-houses moved them to 
 tears. 
 
 " Your mother is angry with me, I know she is," resumed
 
 THE "ASSOMMOZB." 245 
 
 Gervaise in a low voice. " Don't deny it We owe you so 
 much money I " 
 
 But he became violent to induce her to leave off. He shook 
 her hand as though he would break it. He did not wish her 
 to speak of the money. He hesitated, but at length managed 
 to stammer, 
 
 " Listen ! for a long time past I have been thinking of pro- 
 posing something to you. You're not happy. My mother 
 assures me that things are going badly for you n 
 
 He stopped a moment ; he was almost choking. 
 
 " Well ! we ought to go off together," 
 
 She looked at him, not clearly understanding at first, and 
 surprised by that rough declaration of a love regarding which 
 he had never before opened his lips. 
 . " In what way 1 " asked she. 
 
 "Yes," continued he with bowed head, "we could go off; 
 \re could live somewhere together, .in Belgium if you like. It's 
 almost my own country. And with both of us working we 
 should soon get comfortable." 
 
 Then she became very red. Had he pressed her against him 
 and kissed her, she could not have felt more shame. He was a 
 queer fellow all the same, to propose an elopement to her, just 
 like in novels and in high life. Ah, well ! all round about her 
 she saw workmen courting married women ; but they did not 
 even take them as far as Saint-Denis ; everything occurred on 
 the spot, and openly too, 
 
 " Ah ! Monsieur Gonjet, Monsieur Goujet ! " murmured she, 
 without finding anything else to say. 
 
 " In short, we should only be our two selves," resumed he. 
 " I can't bear the others, you understand. When I have a 
 fondness for a person, I can't endure seeing that person with 
 others." . 
 
 But she was recovering herself ; she refused now, in a sober- 
 minded way. 
 
 " It isn't possible, Monsieur Goujet. It -would be very 
 wicked. I'm married, am I not ? I've children. I know very 
 well that you have a great friendship for me, and that I cause 
 you pain. Only we should suffer remorse ; we should feel no 
 pleasure. I, also, have a great friendship for you. I feel too 
 much to let you do anything foolish. And it would be certainly 
 ^very foolish indeed. No, listen ; we had far better remain as 
 we are. We esteem one another ; our sentiments are the same. 
 That is much ; the thought of it has sustained me many a time.
 
 246 THE "ASSOMMOrR." 
 
 When people in our position keep to the right path, they have 
 their reward." 
 
 He nodded his head as he listened to her. He approved 
 what she said ; he could not say she was wrong. Suddenly, in 
 the full light of day, he took her in his arms, pressing her al- 
 most enough to crush her, and kissed her furiously on the 
 neck, as though he wanted to devour her skin. Then he let go 
 of her without asking anything further, and he did not again 
 speak of their love. She smoothed her things, but showed no 
 anger, feeling that they had both well earned that little pleasure. 
 
 The blacksmith, shaking from head to foot with a great 
 trembling, drew away from her, so as not to yield to the desire 
 to seize hold of her again ; and he crawled along on his knees, 
 not knowing how to occupy his hands, picking dandelions which 
 he threw into her basket from a distance. In the midst of the 
 scorched grass there were some superb yellow dandelions. 
 Little by little, this occupation calmed and amused him. He 
 gathered the flowers delicately, with fingers stiffened with wield- 
 ing the hammer, and threw them one by one, and his kind-look- 
 ing eyes smiled whenever he did not miss the basket. The 
 laundress, gay and rested, was reclining against the dead tree, 
 and she raised her voice to make herself heard above the pant- 
 ing noise of the saw-mill. When they quitted the waste ground, 
 walking side by side, talking of Etienne, who was very happy at 
 Lille, she carried away her basket full of dandelions. 
 
 Gervaise, at heart, did not feel as -courageous when with 
 Lantier as she said. She was, indeed, perfectly resolved not to 
 let him touch her, even with the tips of his fingers ; but she 
 was afraid, if ever he should touch her, of her old cowardice, of 
 that feebleness and complacency into which she allowed herself 
 to glide, just to please people. Lantier, however, did not renew 
 his attempt. He several times found himself alone with her 
 and kept quiet. He seemed to be now occupied with the tripe- 
 seller, a woman of forty-five and very well preserved. Gervaise 
 would talk of the tripe-seller in Goujet's presence, so as to set 
 his mind at ease. She would say to Virginie and Madame 
 Lerat, whenever they were ringing the hatter's praises, that he 
 could very well do without her admiration, because all the 
 women of the neighbourhood were smitten with him. 
 
 Coupeau went braying about everywhere that Lantier was a 
 friend and a true one. People might jabber about them ; he 
 knew what he knew, and did not care a straw for their gossip, 
 ior he had respectability on his side. When they all three
 
 THE "ASSOMMOm." 247 
 
 went out walking on Sundays, lie made his wife and the hatter 
 walk arm-in-arm before him, just by way of swaggering in the 
 street ; and he watched the people, quite prepared to administer 
 a drubbing if any one had ventured on the least joke. No 
 doubt he considered Lantier a trifle stuck up. He accused him 
 of disdaining the " vitriol," and chaffed him because he could 
 read and spoke like a barrister ; but, with that exception, he 
 declared he was a jolly good fellow. One could not have found 
 two others like them hi all La Chapelle. In short, they under- 
 stood each other ; they had both been made on the same model. 
 Friendship with a man is more steadfast than love with a 
 woman. 
 
 There is one thing to be said, Coupeau and Lantier were for 
 ever going out jimketting together. Lantier would now borrow 
 money of Gervaise ten francs, twenty francs at a time, when- 
 ever he smelt there was money in the house. Then, on those 
 days, he would keep Coupeau away from his work, talk of some 
 distant errand, and take him with him j and seated opposite to 
 each other in a corner of some neighbouring eating-house, they 
 would guttle dishes which one cannot get at home, and wash 
 them down with bottles of better class wine. The zinc-worker 
 would have preferred a booze in the hail-fellcw-well-met style ; 
 but" he was impressed by the aristocratic tastes of the hatter, 
 who would discover on the bill of fare dishes with the most ex- 
 traordinary names. One could never have imagined a man so 
 delicate and so hard to, please. But they are all like that, it 
 seems, in the South. For instance, he would have nothing 
 heating ; he discussed each stew from a sanitary point of view, 
 and had the_meat taken away again whenever he thought it too 
 salt or too peppery. It was worse still if there was a draught ; 
 it filled him with a mortal dread ; he abused the whole estab- 
 lishment if a door was left ajar. With all that, he was very 
 stingy, only giving the waiter a couple of sous after a meal cost- 
 ing seven or eight francs. 
 
 Nevertheless, people trembled before him, the pair were both 
 well known along the exterior Boulevards, from Batignolles to 
 Belleville. They would go to the Grande Rue des Batignolles 
 to eat tripe cooked in the Caen style, and served on little 
 hot-water plates. At the foot of Montmartre they obtained the 
 best oysters of the neighbourhood at the " Town of Bar-le-Duo." 
 When they ventured to the top of the height, as far as the 
 "Galette Windmill," they had a stewed rabbit. The " Lilacs" 
 in the Rue des Martyrs had a reputation for their calf s head ;
 
 248 THE "ASSOMMOm." 
 
 whilst the restaurants of the " Golden Lion " and the " Two 
 Chestnut Trees," in the Chausse"e Clignancourt, served them 
 stewed kidneys, which made them lick their lips. But they 
 more often turned to the left towards Belleville, where there 
 was always a table kept for them at the " Vintages of Bur- 
 gundy," the " Blue Dial," and the " Capuchin," houses to be 
 depended upon, where you could order everything with your 
 eyes shut They were sly little parties, which they talked of 
 on the morrow in words of hidden meaning, whilst they trifled 
 with Gervaise's fried potatoes. One day even, in one of the 
 arbours of the " Galette Windmill," Lantier brought a woman 
 with whom Coupeau left him at dessert 
 
 One naturally cannot both guttle and work ; so that, ever 
 since the hatter had made one of the family, the zinc-worker, 
 who was already pretty lazy, had got to the point or never 
 touching a tooL When, tired of doing nothing, he let himself 
 be prevailed upon to take up a job, his comrade would look him 
 up, and chaff him unmercifully when he found him hanging to 
 his knotty cord like a smoked ham ; and he would call to him 
 to come down and have a glass of wina And that settled it : 
 the zinc-worker would send the job to blazes, and commence a 
 booze which lasted days and weeks. Oh, it was a famous booze, 
 a general review of all the dram-shops of the neighbourhood, 
 the intoxication of the morning slept off by midday and renewed 
 in the evening; the goes of "vitriol" succeeded one another, 
 becoming lost in the depths of the night, like the Venetian 
 lanterns of an illumination, until the last candle disappeared 
 with the last glass ! That rogue of a hatter never kept on to 
 the end. He let the other get elevated, then gave him the slip, 
 and returned home smiling in his pleasant way. He coloured 
 his nose decently, without people noticing it When one got to 
 know him well, one could only tell it by his half-closed eyes 
 and his overbold behaviour to women. The zinc-worker, on the 
 contrary, became quite disgusting, and could no longer drink 
 without putting himself into a beastly state. 
 
 Thus, towards the beginning of November, Coupeau went in 
 for a booze which ended in a most dirty manner both for him- 
 self and the others. The day before he had been offered a job. 
 This time, Lantier was full of fine sentiments ; he lauded work 
 because work ennobles a man. In the morning he even rose 
 before^ it was light, for he gravely wished to accompany his 
 friend to the workshop, honouring in him the workman really 
 worthy of the name, But when they arrived before the
 
 THE "ASSOMMOm.* 249 
 
 " Little Civet," which was just opening, they entered to have a 
 plum in brandy, only one, 'merely to drink together to the firm 
 observance of a good resolution. On a bench opposite the 
 counter, and with his back against the wall, Bibi-the-Smoker 
 was sitting smoking, with a sulky look on his face. 
 
 " Hallo ! here's Bibi having a snooze," said Coupeau. "Are 
 you down in the dumps, old bloke J " 
 
 " No, no," replied the comrade, stretching his arms. " It's 
 the employers who disgust me. I sent mine to the right about 
 yesterday. They're all toads, all scoundrels." ' 
 
 And Bibi-the-Smoker accepted a plum. He was, no doubt, 
 waiting there on that bench for some one to stand him a drink. 
 Lantier, however, took the part of the employers ; they often 
 had some very hard times, as he, who had been in business 
 himself, well knew. Workmen were a bad lot ! always on the 
 booze, not caring a hang about their work, leaving one in 
 the lurch at some pressing moment, and only putting in 
 an appearance again when their money was all gone.. For 
 instance, he had had a little Picardian whose fad was to go 
 driving about ; yes, the moment he had got his week's screw, he 
 took cabs for days together. Was that a taste wqrthy of a 
 worker ? Then suddenly Lantier also attacked the employers. 
 Oh, he saw clearly, he would tell every one what he thought of 
 them. A dirty race after all, fellows without the least shame, 
 regular man-eaters. He, thank heaven ! could sleep with an 
 easy conscience, for he had always treated his men as friends, 
 and had .preferred not to make millions, as others did. 
 
 " Let's be off, my boy," said he speaking to Coupean. " We 
 must be good or we shall be late." 
 
 Bibi-the-Smoker followed them, swinging his arms. Outside, 
 the sun was scarcely rising, the pale daylight seemed dirtied by 
 the muddy reflection of the pavement; it had rained the night 
 before, and it was very mild. The gas lamps had just been 
 turned out ; the Rue des Poissonniers, in which shreds of 
 night rent by the houses still floated, was gradually filling with 
 the dull tramp of the workmen descending towards Paris. 
 Coupeau, with his zinc-worker's bag slung over his shoulder, 
 walked along in the imposing manner of a fellow on the job, 
 once in a way. He turned round and asked : 
 
 " Bibi, are you to be enticed ? The governor told me to 
 bring a pal if I could." 
 
 " Thanks," answered Bibi-the-Smoker " I'm purging myself. 
 You should propose that to My-Boots, who was looking out for
 
 250 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 a crib yesterday. Wait a minute. My-Boots is most likely in 
 there." 
 
 And as they reached the bottom of the street, they indeed 
 caught sight of My-Boots inside old Colombe's. In spite of the 
 early hour, the " Assommoir " was flaring, the shutters down, the 
 gas lighted. Lantier stood at the door, telling Coupeau to make 
 haste, because they had only ten minutes left. 
 
 " What ! you're going to that rascal Bourguignon's ? " yelled 
 
 My-Boots, when the zinc-worker had spoken to him. " You'll 
 
 never catch me in his hutch again ! No, I'd rather go till next 
 
 year with my tongue hanging out of my mouth. But, old 
 
 fellow, you won't stay there three days, it's I who tell you so." 
 
 " Really, now, is it a dirty hole ? " asked Coupeau, anxiously. 
 
 " Oh, it's about the dirtiest You can't move there. The 
 
 ape's for ever on your back. And such queer ways, too a 
 
 missus who always says you're drunk, a shop where you mustn't 
 
 spit. I sent 'em to the right about the first night, you know." 
 
 " Good ; now I'm warned. I sha'n't stop there for ever. I'll 
 
 just go this morning to see what it's like ; but if the governor 
 
 bothers me, I'll catch him up and sit him upon his missus, you 
 
 know, bang together like a pair of soles ! " 
 
 The zinc-worker shook his comrade's hand to thank him for 
 his warning ; and he was moving off, when My-Boots flew into 
 a rage. Jove's thunder ! was Bourguignon going to prevent 
 them having a driuk together 1 Were men no longer men, then 1 
 The ape could very well wait for five minutes. And Lantier 
 entering to join in the drink, the four men stood up in front 
 of the bar. My-Boots, with his shoes trodden down at heel, his 
 blouse black with filth, his cap flattened down on the top of his 
 head, yelled at the top of his voice and rolled his eyes as though 
 the whole " Assommoir " belonged to him. He had recently 
 been proclaimed emperor of gormandizers and king of pigs, "for 
 having eaten a salad of live cockchafers and bitten a dead cat. 
 
 "I say, you Borgia," called he to old Colombe, "give us some 
 of your yellow stuff, your ass's wine, number one." 
 
 And when old Colombe, pale and quiet in his blue-knitted 
 waistcoat, had filled the four glasses, these gentlemen tossed 
 them off, so as not to let the liquor get flat. 
 
 " That does some good all the same where it passes," mur- 
 mured Bibi-the-Smoker. 
 
 But that animal My-Boots was telling them something 
 awfully comic. He was so drunk on the Friday that his com- 
 rades had stuck his pipe in his mouth with a handful of plaster.
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 251 
 
 Any one else would have died of it ; he merely strutted about 
 and arched his back. 
 
 " Do you gentlemen require anything more ? " asked old 
 Colombe in his oily voice. 
 
 " Yes, fill up again," said Lantier. " It's my turn. 7 ' 
 
 Now, they were talking of women. Bibi-the-Smoker had 
 taken his girl to an aunt's at Montrouge on the previous 
 Sunday. Coupeau asked for news of the " Indian Mail," a 
 washerwoman of Ghaillot, who was known in the establishment. 
 They were about to drink, when My-Boots loudly called to 
 Goujet and Lorilleux, who were passing by. They came just to 
 the door, but would not enter. The blacksmith did not care to 
 take anything. The chain-maker, pale and shivering, held in 
 his pocket the gold chains he was going to deliver ; and he 
 coughed, and asked them to excuse him, saying that the least 
 drop of brandy would nearly make him split his sides. 
 
 " There are hypocrites for you ! " grunted My-Boots. " I bet 
 they have their drinks on the sly." 
 
 And when he had poked his nose in his glass, he attacked old 
 Colombe. 
 
 " Vile druggist, you've changed the bottle ! You know, it's no 
 good your trying to palm your vitriol off on me ! " 
 
 The day had advanced \ a doubtful sort of light lit up the 
 " Assommoir," where the landlord was turning out the gas. 
 Coupeau, however, found excuses for his brother-in-law, who 
 could not stand drink, which after all was no crime. He even 
 approved Goujet's behaviour, for it was a real blessing never to 
 be thirsty. And he talked of going off to his work, when 
 Lantier, with his grand air of a gentleman, sharply gave him a 
 lesson. One at least stood one's turn before sneaking off ; one 
 should not leave one's friends like a mean blackguard, even 
 when going to do one's duty. 
 
 " Is he going to badger us much longer about his work 1 " 
 cried My-Boots. 
 
 " So this is your turn, sir ? " asked old Colombe of Coupeau. 
 
 The latter paid. But when it came to Bibi-the-Smoker's 
 turn, he whispered to the landlord, who refused with a shake of 
 the head. My-Boots understood, and again set to abusing that 
 old Jew Colombe. What ! a rascal like him dared to behave in 
 that way to a comrade ! Everywhere else one could get drink on 
 tick ! It was only in such low boozing-kens that one was in- 
 sulted ! The landlord remained calm, leaning on his big fists 
 on the edge of the counter, and politely said :
 
 252 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 " Lend the gentleman some money that will be far simpler.** 
 
 " Damnation ! yes, I'll lend him some," yelled My-Boots. 
 " Here, Bibi, throw his money in his face, the limb of Satan ! " 
 
 Then excited, and annoyed at seeing Coupeau with his bag 
 slung over his shoulder, he continued, speaking to the zinc- 
 worker : 
 
 . " You look like a wet-nurse. Drop your brat It'll give you 
 a hump-back." 
 
 Coupeau hesitated an instant ; and then, quietly, as though 
 he had only made up his mind after considerable reflection, he 
 laid his bag on the ground, saying : 
 
 " It's too late now. I'll go to Bourguignon's after lunch. 
 I'll tell him that the missus was ill Listen, old Colombe, I'll 
 leave my tools under this seat, and I'll call for them at twelve 
 o'clock." 
 
 Lantier. nodded his approval of this arrangement. One must 
 work, no doubt; only, when one is with friends, politeness 
 passes before everything. A desire for tippling had gradually 
 tickled and overcome the four of them, and they stood there 
 with heavy hands consulting each other with a glance. And as 
 soon as they saw they had five hours of idleness before them, 
 they were suddenly seized with a noisy joy, catching each other 
 friendly slaps, and bawling affectionate words in each other's 
 faces. Coupeau especially, feeling relieved and younger, called 
 the others " old bricks ! " They had one more round of drinks, 
 and then moved off to the " Sniffing Flea," a low dram-shop 
 possessing a billiard table. The hatter made a grimace at first, 
 for it was not a very clean-looking place ; the brandy there cost 
 a franc the litre, ten sous a chopin in two glasses, and the cus- 
 tomers had so, messed the billiard table that the balls stuck to 
 it. But once the game had begun, Lantier, who was an extra- 
 ordinarily good player, recovered his grace and his good temper, 
 developing the trunk of his body and accompanying each canon 
 with a swing of the hip. 
 
 When lunch time came, Coupeau had an idea. He stamped 
 his feet as he cried : 
 
 '' We must go and fetch Salted-Mouth. I know where he's 
 working. We'll take him to mother Louis's to have some 
 pettitoes." 
 
 The idea was greeted with acclamation. Yes, Salted-Mouth, 
 otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, was no doubt in want of some 
 pettitoes. They started off. The streets had a yellowish look ; 
 a fine rain was falling. But they were too warm internally for
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 253 
 
 them to .feel the slight watering of their exteriors. Coupeau 
 took them to the bolt factory in the Eue Marcardet. As they 
 arrived a good half hour before the time the workmen came out, 
 the zinc-worker gave a youngster two sous to go in and tell 
 Salted r Mouth that his wife was ill 'and wanted him at once. 
 The blacksmith made his appearance, waddling in his walk, 
 looking very calm, and scenting a tuck-out. 
 
 " Ah ! the jokers ! n said he, as soon as he caught sight of 
 them hiding in a doorway. " I guessed it. Well ! what are 
 we going to eat ? " 
 
 At mother Louis's, whilst they sucked the little bones of the 
 pettitoes, they again fell to abusing the employers. Salted- 
 Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, related that they had a 
 most pressing order to execute at his crib. Oh ! the ape was 
 pleasant for the time being. One could be late, and he would 
 say nothing ; he no doubt considered himself lucky when any 
 one did turn up. There was no fear that any one would ever 
 dare give Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, the 
 sack, because one could not find many chaps who were his 
 equal. After the pettitoes, they had an omelet. Each drank 
 his quart of wine. Mother Louis had her wine sent from 
 Auvergne a wine of the colour of blood, and which could 
 almost be cut with a knife. It was beginning to get amusing ; 
 the booze was going apace. 
 
 " What 4o you think is the ape's latest idea ? " cried Salted- 
 Mouth at dessert. " Why he's been and put a bell up in his 
 shed 1 A bell! that's good for slaves. Ah well ! it can ring to- 
 day ! They won't catch me again at the anvil ! For five days 
 past I've been sticking there ; I may give myself a rest now. 
 If he deducts anything, I'll send him to blazes." 
 
 " I," said Coupeau, with an air of importance, " I'm obliged 
 to leave you ; I'm off to work. Yes, I promised my wife. 
 Amuse yourselves ; my heart, you know, remains with my pals." 
 
 The' others chaffed him. Bu.t he seemed so decided that they 
 all accompanied him, when he talked of going to fetch his tools 
 from old Colombo's. He took his bag from under the seat and 
 laid it on the ground before him whilst they had a final drink. 
 But at one o'clock the party was still standing drinks round. 
 Then Coupeau, with a bored gesture, placed the tools back 
 again under the seat They were in his way ; he could not get 
 near the counter without stumbling against them. It was too 
 absurd ; he would go to Bourguignon's on the morrow. The 
 other four, who were quarrelling about the question of salaries,
 
 254 tHE "ASSOMMOrR." 
 
 were not at all surprised when the zinc- worker, without any 
 explanation, proposed a little stroll on the Boulevard, just to 
 stretch their legs. It had left off raining. The little stroll was 
 confined to their going a couple of hundred steps all in a row 
 and swinging their arms ; and, surprised by the fresh air, feeling 
 bored at being out of doors, they no longer found a word to say 
 Without even consulting each other with so much as a nudge, 
 they slowly and instinctively ascended the Rue des Poissonniers, 
 where they went to Frangois's and had a glass of wine out of 
 the bottle. Really, they were in want of that to pull them 
 together again. It was too depressing out in the street ; it was 
 so muddy it would be a shame even to send a policeman out in 
 it. Lantier pushed his comrades inside the private room at the 
 back ; it was a narrow place with only one table in it, and was 
 separated from the shop by a dull glazed partition. He usually 
 preferred to colour his nose in private rooms, because it was 
 more respectable. "Were they not all very comfortable in 
 there? One could almost think oneself at home, and could 
 have had a nap without the least trouble. He called for the 
 newspaper, spread it out open before him, and looked through 
 it, frowning the while. Coupeau and My-Boots had com- 
 menced a game at piquet. Two bottles of wine and five glasses 
 were scattered about the table. 
 
 " Well ! what do they say in that rag ? " asked Bibi-the- 
 Smoker of the hatter. 
 
 He did not reply at once. Then, without raising his eyes, 
 he said : 
 
 " I'm reading the report of the Chamber. They're no repub- 
 licans, those lazy scoundrels of the Left ! Do the people elect 
 them merely for them to swill their sugar and water ? Here's 
 one who believes in God, and who's letting himself be cajoled by 
 those rascally ministers ! If I were elected, I would get into 
 the tribune and say : ' Excrement ! ' yes, nothing more, that's 
 my opinion ! " 
 
 " You know, Badingue's had a fight with his missus, before 
 all the court," related Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without- 
 Thirst. " I give you my word of honour it's true ! And all 
 about nothing, just a little wrangle. Badingue was a bit 
 boozed." 
 
 "Shut up with your politics!" cried the zinc-worker. 
 " Read us- the murders, they're more amusing." 
 
 And returning to his game, he declared a tierce from the 
 nine and three queens.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 256 
 
 " I've a tierce from the sewer and three doves. The crino- 
 lines don't forsake me." 
 
 They emptied their glasses. Then Lantier read out loud : 
 
 " A frightful crime has just spread consternation throughout 
 the Commune of Gaillon, Department of Seine-et-Marne. A 
 son has killed his father with blows from a spade, in order to 
 rob him of thirty sous." 
 
 They all uttered a cry of horror. There was a fellow, by 
 Jove ! whom they would have taken great pleasure in seeing 
 guillotined ! No, the guillotine was not enough ; he deserved 
 to be cut into little pieces. The story of an infanticide 
 equally aroused their indignation; but the hatter, highly 
 moral, found excuses for the woman, putting all the wrong on to 
 the back of her seducer ; for, after all, if some beast, of a man 
 had not put the wretched woman into the way of having a brat, 
 she could not have thrown one down the water-closet. But 
 what really delighted them, were the exploits of the Marquis de 
 T , who, leaving a ball at two o'clock in the morning, defended 
 himself against three ruffians on the Boulevard des Invalides ; 
 without even taking his gloves off, he had rid himself of the 
 first two by butting them in the stomach, and had led the 
 third by the ear to the police station. Ah ! what muscle ! It 
 was a pity he was an aristocrat. 
 
 "Listen to this, now," continued Lantier. "Here's some news 
 of high life: 'A marriage is arranged between the eldest 
 daughter of the Countess de Bre*tigny and the young Baron de 
 Valanay. aide-de-camp to His Majesty. The wedding trousseau 
 will contain more than three hundred thousand francs' worth of 
 lace.'-" 
 
 "What's that to us?" interrupted Bibi-the-Smoker. "We 
 don't want to know the colour of her chemise. The girl can 
 have no end of lace, nevertheless she'll see the moon the same 
 way as other people." 
 
 As Lantier seemed about to finish his reading, Salted-Mouth, 
 otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, took the newspaper from him, 
 and sat upon it, saying : 
 
 " Ah ! no, that's enough ! Paper's only good for this." 
 
 Meanwhile, My-Boots, who had been looking at his hand, 
 triumphantly banged his fist down on the table. He scored 
 ninety-three, 
 
 "I've the Revolution," shouted he. "A quint in clubs. 
 That's twenty, isn't itl Then tierce major in diamonds, 
 twenty-three; three kings, twenty-six; three jacks, twenty,
 
 256 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 nine ; three aces, ninety-two. And I play year one of the Re- 
 public, ninety-three." 
 
 " You're done for, old boy," cried the others to Coupeau. 
 
 They ordered two fresh bottles. The glasses were filled up 
 again as fast as they were emptied, the booze increased. To- 
 wards five o'clock, it began to get disgusting, so much so that 
 Lantier kept very quiet, thinking of how to give the others the 
 slip ; brawling and throwing the wine about was no longer his 
 style. Just then Coupeau stood up to make the drunkard's 
 sign of the cross. Touching his head, he pronounced Mont- 
 pernasse, then Menilmonte as he brought his hand to his right 
 shoulder, La Courtille moving it to his left shoulder, Bagnolet 
 giving himself a blow in the chest, and wound up by saying, 
 stewed rabbit three times as he hit himself in the pit of the 
 stomach. Then, the hatter took advantage of the clamour 
 which greeted the performance of this feat, and quietly made 
 for the door. His comrades did not even notice his departure. 
 He had already had a pretty good dose. But, once outside, he 
 shook himself and regained his self-possession ; and he quietly 
 made 'for the shop, where he told Gervaise that Coupeau was 
 with some friends. 
 
 Two days passed by. The zinc-worker had not returned. 
 He was reeling about the neighbourhood, but no one knew 
 exactly where. Several persons, however, stated that they had 
 seen him at mother Baquet's, at the "Butterfly," and at the 
 "Little Old Man with a Cough." Only, some said that he was 
 alone, whilst others affirmed that he was in the company of 
 seven or eight drunkards like himself. Gervaise shrugged her 
 shoulders in a resigned sort of way. All she had to do was to 
 get used to it. She never ran about after her old man ; she 
 even went out of her way, if she caught sight of him inside a 
 wine-shop, so as not to anger him ; and she waited at home 
 till he returned, listening at night-time to hear if he was snor- 
 ing outside the door. He would sleep on a rubbish-heap, or on 
 a seat, or in a piece of waste land, or across a gutter. On the 
 morrow, after having only badly slept off his booze of the day 
 before, he would start off again, knocking at the doors of all 
 the consolation dealers, plunging afresh into a furious wander- 
 ing, in the midst of nips of spirits, glasses of wine, losing his 
 friends and then finding them again, going regular voyages 
 from which he returned in a state of stupor, seeing the streets 
 dance, the night fall, and the day break, without any other 
 thought than to drink and sleep off the effects wherever ho
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 257 
 
 happened to be. When in the latter state, the "world 
 ended so far as he was concerned. On the second dfiy, however, 
 Gervaise went to old Colombo's " Assommoir," to find out some- 
 thing about him ; he had been there another five times, they 
 were unable to tell her anything more. All she could do was 
 to take away his tools, which he had left under a seat. 
 
 In the evening, Lantier, seeing that the laundress seemed 
 very worried, offered to take her to a music-hall, just by way of 
 passing a pleasant hour or two. She refused at first, she was 
 in no mood for laughing. Otherwise, she would riot have said, 
 " no," for the hatter made the proposal in too straightforward a 
 manner for her to feel any mistrust. He seemed to feel for her 
 in quite a paternal way. Never before had Coupeau slept out 
 two nights running. So that, in spite of herself, she would go 
 every ten minutes to the door, with her iron in her hand, 
 and look up and down the street to see if her old man was 
 coming. It made her legs tingle, so she said, in such a way 
 that she could not stand still. Coupeau might very likely get 
 a limb broken, or fall under some vehicle and stay there : it 
 would be a good riddance, and she forbade herself to entertain 
 the least affection in her heart for such a disgusting person as 
 he was. But it was becoming very annoying, never knowing 
 whether he would return or whether he would not. And, when 
 the gas lamps were lighted, as Lantier again proposed the 
 music-hall, she accepted his invitation. After all, she was very 
 stupid to refuse a pleasure, when, for the past three days, her 
 husband had been doing nothing but lead a dog's life. As he 
 did not come home, she too would go out. The place might 
 burn down if it liked. She was ready to set it alight herself, 
 for the troubles of life were beginning to disgust her with 
 everything. 
 
 They eat their dinner quickly. Then, when she went off at 
 eight o'clock, arm-in-arm with the hatter, Gervaise told mother 
 Coupeau and Nana to go to bed at once. The shop was shut. 
 She left by the door opening into the courtyard and gave 
 Madame Boche the key, asking her, if her pig came home, to 
 have the kindness to put him to bed. The hatter was waiting 
 for her under the big doorway, arrayed in his best and 
 whistling a tune. She had on her silk dress. They walked 
 slowly along the pavement, keeping close to each other, lighted 
 up by the glare from the shop windows which showed them 
 smiling and talking together in a low voice. 
 
 The music-hall was in the Boulevard de Rochechouart, it
 
 258 THE "ASSOHMOIR." 
 
 originally been, a little cafe" and had been enlarged by means of 
 a kind of wooden shed erected in the courtyard. At the door, 
 a string of glass globes formed a luminous porch. Tall posters 
 ( pasted on boards stood upon the ground, close to the gutter. 
 
 " Here we are," said Lantier, " To-night, first appearance of 
 Mademoiselle Amanda, serio-comic." 
 
 But he caught sight of Bibi-the-Smoker, who was also reading 
 the poster. Bibi had a black eye ; some knock he had run up 
 against the day before. 
 
 " Well ! where's CoupcauV inquired the hatter, looking about. 
 " Have you, then, lost Coupeau ? " 
 
 " Oh ! long ago, since yesterday," replied the other. " There 
 was a bit of a mill on leaving mother Baquet's. I don't care for 
 fisticuffs. We had a row, you know, with mother Baquet's pot- 
 boy, because he wanted to make us pay for a quart twice over. 
 Then I sloped. I went and had a bit of a snooze." 
 
 He was still gaping ; he had slept eighteen hours at a stretch, 
 .He was, moreover, quite sobered, with a stupid look on his face, 
 and his jacket smothered with fluff; for he had no doubt 
 tumbled into bed with his clothes on. 
 
 "And you don't know where my husband is, sir? " asked the 
 laundress. 
 
 " Well, no, not a bit It was five o'clock when we left 
 mother Baquet's. That's all I know about it. Perhaps he 
 went down the street. Yes, I fancy now that I saw him go to 
 the ' Butterfly ' with a coachman. Oh ! how stupid it is ! 
 Really, we deserve to be shot ! " 
 
 Lantier and Gervaise spent a very pleasant evening at the 
 music-hall. At eleven o'clock, when the place closed, they 
 strolled h9>me without hurrying themselves. It was rather 
 chilly, the spectators went off inoparties, and there were some 
 girls splitting with laughter in the shadow under the trees, 
 because the men who were with them were larking too familiarly. 
 Lantier sang one of Mademoiselle Amanda's songs between his 
 teeth : " It's in the nose that it tickles me." Gervaise, feeling 
 giddy, as though intoxicated, took up the chorus. She had felt 
 very warm during the evening. Then the two drinks she had 
 had, together with the tobacco smoke, and the odour of all those 
 people crowded together, made her feel sick. But she carried 
 away with her a very lively impression of Mademoiselle Amanda. 
 She would never herself have dared to have appeared before the 
 public in such a state of nudity. But to be just, the lady 
 had a most delicious skin. And she listeired with a sensual
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIK." 259 
 
 curiosity, whilst Lantier gave some details about the person in 
 question, -with the air of a man who had counted her ribs in 
 private. 
 
 " Every one's asleep," said Gervaise, after ringing three times, 
 without the Boches opening the door. 
 
 At length the door opened, but inside the porch it was very- 
 dark, and when she knocked at the window of the doorkeeper's 
 room to ask for her key, the doorkeeper, who was half asleep, 
 called out some rigmarole which she could make nothing of at 
 first. She eventually understood that Poisson, the policeman, 
 had brought Coupeau home in a frightful state, and that the key 
 was no doubt in the lock. 
 
 " The deuce ! " murmured Lantier, when they had entered, 
 " whatever has he been up to here 1 The stench is abomin- 
 able." 
 
 When Gervaise, who had been looking for the matches, suc- 
 ceeded in lighting a candle, a pretty sight met their eyes. 
 Coupeau appeared to have disgorged his very inside. Besides 
 that, he had fallen from the bed, where Poisson had probably 
 thrown him, and was snoring on the floor in the midst of the filth 
 like a pig wallowing in the mire, exhaling his foul breath through 
 his open mouth. 
 
 " Oh ! the pig ! the pig ! " repeated Gervaise, indignant and 
 exasperated. "He's dirtied everything. No, a dog wouldn't 
 have done that, a dead dog is cleaner." 
 
 Never before had the zinc-worker returned home in such a 
 state. The sight was a great shock to the affection his wife still 
 had for him. In the earlier days, when he returned slightly 
 elevated or tipsy, she showed herself kind, and in no way dis- 
 gusted. But this time it was too much, her stomach turned 
 against it. She would not have taken hold of him with a pair 
 of tongs. The thought alone that that sot's skin would touch 
 her own gave her the same feeling of repugnance as being 
 asked to lie down beside a corpse corrupted by some horrible 
 disease. . 
 
 " I must, however, get into bed," murmured she. " I can't 
 go and sleep in the street. Oh ! I'll tread on him sooner." 
 
 She tried to step over the drunkard, but had to catch hold of 
 a corner of the chest of drawers to save herself from slipping. 
 Coupeau completely blocked the way to the bed. Then, Lan- 
 tier, who laughed to himself on seeing that she certainly would 
 not sleep on her own pillow that night, took hold of her hand, 
 saying in a low and ardent voice :
 
 260 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 " Gervaise ; listen, Gervaise." 
 
 But she had understood. She freed herself, and in her bewilder- 
 ment addressed him familiarly as in the old days. 
 
 " No, leave me. I implore you, Auguste, go to your own 
 room. I'll manage to lie at the foot of the bed." 
 
 " Coine, Gervaise, don't be foolish," resumed he. " It's too 
 abominable ; you can't remain here. Come. What do you fear ? 
 he can't hear us ! " 
 
 She struggled, she energetically shook her head. In her con- 
 fusion, as though to show that she intended to remain there, 
 she commenced to undress herself, throwing her silk gown on to 
 a chair, and suddenly appearing all white in her petticoat and 
 chemise, her throat and arms bare. Her bed was her own, was 
 it not 1 she intended to sleep in her bed. Twice again she tried 
 to find a clear space to enable her to reach it. But Lantier did 
 not give in, and kept seizing her round the waist, saying all sorts 
 of things to excite her. Ah ! she was in a pretty position, with 
 a crapulous husband in front who prevented her getting 
 respectably under her blanket, and a dirty blackguard of a man 
 behind, whose only thought was to take advantage of her mis- 
 fortune to make her his mistress again ! As the hatter raised 
 his voice, she implored him to keep quiet. And she listened, 
 with her ear towards the little room occupied by Nana and 
 mother Coupeau. The child and the old woman were no doubt 
 asleep, for one could hear a heavy breathing. 
 
 " Auguste, leave me, you'll wake them," said she, clasping 
 her hands. "Be reasonable, Another day, elsewhere. Not 
 here, not before my child." 
 
 He no longer spoke, he stood there smiling ; and he slowly 
 kissed her on the ear, the same as he used to do to tease and 
 stupefy her. Then her strength deserted her, she felt a great 
 buzzing in her ears, a violent tremor passed through her. Yet, 
 she advanced another step forward. And she was again obliged 
 to draw back. It was not possible, the disgust was so great 
 Coupeau, overpowered by intoxication., lying as comfortably as 
 though on a bed of down, was sleeping off his booze, without 
 life in his limbs, and with his mouth all on one side. The 
 whole street might have entered and kissed his wife without a 
 hair of his body moving. 
 
 " So much the worse," stammered she, " it's his fault, I can- 
 not do it. Ah ! good heavens ! ah ! good heavens ! he drives 
 me from my bed, I've no longer a bed. No, I cannot, it's his 
 fault."
 
 LANT1ER ENTICING GERVAI8E NOT TO REMAIN WITH HER DRUNKEN 
 
 HUSBAND. ' P- 26 -
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIB. 2C1 
 
 She trembled, she lost her head. And whilst Lantier pushed 
 her into his room, Nana'shead appeared behind one of the panes 
 of the glass door of her little chamber. The child had just 
 awoke, and quietly got up in her night-gown, her face pale with 
 sleep. She looked at her father sprawling in his filth ; then, 
 pressing close to the pane, she remained there, waiting till her 
 mother's white petticoat had disappeared inside the other man's 
 room opposite. She was quite grave. Her eyes were opened 
 wide like a vicious child's, and lit up with a sensual curiosity.
 
 262 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THAT winter, mother Coupeau nearly went off in one of her 
 coughing fits. Each December, she could count on her asthma 
 keeping her on her back for two and three weeks at a time. 
 She was no longer fifteen, she would be seventy-three on Saint- 
 Anthony's day. With that, she was very rickety, getting a 
 rattling in her throat for nothing at all, though she was plump 
 and stout The doctor said she would go off coughing, just 
 time enough to say : " Good-night, Jeanneton, the candle's out ! " 
 
 When she was in her bed, mother Coupeau became positively 
 unbearable. It is true though that the little room in which 
 she slept with Nana was not at all gay. Between her bedstead 
 and the child's, there was just room to put a couple of chairs. 
 The wall-paper, an old faded grey one, hung in shreds. The 
 little round window close to the ceiling merely admitted the 
 pale doubtful light of a cellar. One soon grew old in there, 
 especially a person who could scarcely breathe. At night-time, 
 when unable to sleep, she would listen to the child's breathing, 
 and that was some amusement. Bat, in the day-time, as there 
 was no one to keep her company from morning to night, she 
 grumbled, and cried, and repeated to herself for hours together, 
 as she rolled her head on the pillow: 
 
 " Good heavens 1 what a miserable creature I am ! Good 
 heavens ! what a miserable creature I am ! They'll leave me to 
 die in prison, yes, in prison ! " 
 
 And as soon as any one called, Virginie or Madame Boche, to 
 ask after her health, she would not reply, but immediately 
 started on her chapter of complaints. 
 
 " Ah ! the bread which I eat here is dear indeed ! No, I 
 could not suffer so much were I amongst strangers! Listen, I 
 wanted a cup of herb tea, well ! they brought me a water-jug full, 
 just a way of telling me that I drink too much of it. It's the 
 same with Nana, that child whom I brought up, she goes off
 
 THE "ASSOSBIOIR." 2C3 
 
 bare-footed in the morning, and I don't see her again for the 
 rest of the day. One would think I had something offensive. 
 Yet, at night-time, she sleeps precious sound, and doesn't once 
 -wake up to ask me if I'm in pain. In short, I'm in their way, 
 they're waiting for me to croak. Oh ! it won't take long. I've 
 no longer a son, that hussy of a laundress has taken him from 
 me. She would beat me, she .would finish me off, if she were 
 not afraid of the police." 
 
 Gervaise was indeed rather hasty at times. The place was 
 going to the dogs, everyone's temper was getting spoilt, and 
 they sent each other to the right about for the least word. 
 Coupeau, one morning that he had got his hair out of curl, 
 exclaimed : " The old thing's always saying she's going to die, 
 and yet she never does ! " words which struck mother Coupeau 
 to the heart. They reproached her with what she cost, they 
 coolly said that it would be a great saving if she were no longer 
 there. To tell the truth, neither did she behave as she should 
 have done. For instance, whenever she saw her eldest daughter, 
 Madame Lerat, she complained of her poverty-stricken condition, 
 .accusing her son and her daughter-in-law of leaving her to 
 starve, and when she had wheedled a twenty sou piece out of 
 her, she would spend it in sweetmeats. She also told the 
 Lorilleux some abominable stories, relating that the laundress 
 spent their ten francs in indulging all sorts of fancies of her own, 
 new caps^ cakes eaten in sly corners, and far worse things which 
 one could not mention. On two or three occasions, she almost 
 caused. a general fight amongst the family. At one moment- 
 she was on this side and the next moment she was on that j in. 
 short, everything was getting into a dreadful mess. 
 
 When at her worst, that winter, one afternoon when Madame 
 Lorilleux. and Madame Lerat had met at her bedside, mother 
 Coupeau winked her eye as a signal to them to lean over her. 
 She could scarcely speak. She rather hissed than said in a low 
 voice : 
 
 "It's becoming decent! I heard them last night. Yes, yes, 
 the Hobbler and the hatter. And they were kicking up such a 
 row together ! Coupeau's a nice one. It's becoming decent ! " 
 
 And she related, in short sentences, coughing and choking 
 between each, that her son had probably come home dead drunk 
 the Anight before. Then as she was not asleep, she was easily 
 able to account for all the noises, the Hobbler's bare feet trip- 
 ping over the tiled floor, the hissing voice of the hatter calling 
 her, the door between the two rooms gently closed, and the
 
 2C4 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 rest. It must have lasted till daylight, she could not tell 
 the exact time, because, in spite of her efforts, she had ended 
 by falling into a doze. 
 
 "What's most disgusting, is that Nana might have heard," 
 continued she. "She was indeed restless all the night, she who 
 usually sleeps so sound; she tossed about, and kept turning 
 over, as though there had been some lighted charcoal in her 
 bed." 
 
 The other two women did not seem at all surprised. 
 
 " Of course ! " murmured Madame Lorilleux " it probably 
 began the very first night. But as it pleases Coupeau, we've 
 no business to interfere. All the same, it's not very respectable 
 for the family." 
 
 ."If I were there," explained Madame Lerat screwing up her 
 mouth, " I would give her such a fright, I'd call out something, 
 no matter what: *I see you! 'or else: * Police!' A doctor's 
 servant once told me that her master had said that such a 
 thing at a certain moment might kill a woman on the spot. If 
 so, it would serve her right ; she would be punished where she 
 had sinned." 
 
 All the neighbourhood soon knew that every night Gervaise 
 went and joined Lantier. In the neighbours' presence, Madame 
 Lorilleux was noisily indignant ; she pitied her brother, that 
 noodle who was made drunk by his wife from bead to toe ; and, 
 according to her, if she continued to visit such people, it was 
 solely on account of her poor mother, who was obliged to live 
 in the midst of these abominations. Then the neighbourhood 
 fell upon Gervaise. It was she who had seduced the hatter. 
 You could see it in her eyes. Yes, in spite of the nasty 
 rumours, that sly blade Lantier remained on his pedestal, be- 
 cause he continued to behave towards every one like a highly 
 respectable person, walking along the pavement reading his 
 newspaper, .attentive and gallant with the ladies, always having 
 sweets and flowers to give away. Well ! he merely continued 
 to act his part ; a man is a man, one cannot ask him to resist 
 women who throw themselves at him. But she had no excuse ; 
 she was a disgrace to the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. And the 
 Lorilleux, in their capacity of godfather and godmother, enticed 
 Nana to their rooms for the purpose of obtaining details. When 
 they questioned her in a round-about way, the child put on her 
 stupid air, hiding the fire of her eyes with her long soft lashes 
 as she answered them. 
 
 In the midst of this general indignation, Gervaise lived
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." '2i& 
 
 quietly on, feeling tired out and half asleep. At first, she con- 
 sidered herself very guilty, very dirty, and she felt a disgust 
 for herself. Each time she quitted Lautier's room, she washed 
 her hands, she wetted a dish-cloth and rubbed her shoulders 
 almost till they bled, as though to wipe off the stain. If 
 Coupeau then tried to joke, she would fly into a passion, and run 
 and shiveringly dress herself in the farthest corner of the shop ; 
 neither would she allow the hatter to touch her soon after her 
 husband had kissed her. She would have liked to have changed 
 her skin as she changed the man. But she gradually became 
 accustomed to it. . It was too much trouble to wash herself 
 each time. Her idleness was destroying her energy, her wish 
 to be happy made her get all the happiness she could out of 
 these worries. She was accommodating both for herself and for 
 the others, and merely tried to arrange things in such a way 
 that no one should be bothered too much. Providing her 
 husband and her lover were satisfied, that the household went 
 on in its own regular little way, that one amused oneself from 
 morn till night, all of them plump, satisfied with life and taking 
 it easy, there was really nothing to complain of, was there now ? 
 
 Then, after all, she could not be doing anything so very 
 wrong, since matters were arranged so easily to the general satis- 
 faction ; one is usually punished if one does what is not right. 
 So her dissoluteness had gradually become a habit. Now, it 
 was as regular an affair as eating and drinking ; each time that 
 Coupeau came home drunk, she retired to Lantier's room, and 
 that happened at least on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of 
 every week. She divided her nights. She had even got to the 
 point of leaving the zinc-worker in the middle of his sleep if he 
 merely snored too loud, and going and finishing her by-by on 
 the neighbour's pillow. It was not that she felt any greater 
 affection for the hatter. No, she merely found him cleaner, 
 she rested better in his room, where it was like having a bath. 
 In short, she resembled those she-cats which like to curl them- 
 selves up on the clean white clothes. 
 
 Mother Coupeau never dared speak of it flatly. But, after a 
 quarrel, when the laundress had bullied her, the old woman 
 was not sparing in her allusions. She would say that she 
 knew men who were precious fools, and women who were 
 precious hussies ; and she would mutter words far more biting, 
 with the sharpness of language pertaining to an old waistcoat- 
 maker. The first time this had occurred Gervaise looked 
 at her straight in the face, without answering. Then, also
 
 266 THE ".ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 avoiding going into details, she began to defend herself with 
 reasons given in a general sort of way. When a woman had a 
 drunkard for a husband, a pig who lived in filth, that woman 
 was to be excused if she sought for cleanliness elsewhere. She 
 went farther than this ; she gave it to be understood that 
 Lantier was as much her husband as Coupeau, perhaps more 
 so. Had she not known him from the time she was fourteen 
 years old? Had she not had two children by him? Well! in such 
 conditions, everything was excusable, no one had a right to 
 cast stones at her. She was merely obeying the laws of nature. 
 Besides, she would not stand being bothered by any one. She 
 would precious soon give them all a bit of her mind. The Rue 
 de la Goutte-d'Or was not such a very decent place ! Little 
 Madame Vigouroux was cutting capers from morn till night 
 amongst her charcoal. Madame Lehongre, the grocer's wife, 
 was her brother-in-law's mistress, and he was a big driveller 
 whom no one else would have picked up with a shovel. The 
 clockmaker opposite, that affected gentleman, had almost been 
 brought up at the criminal court for a most abominable thing 
 in connection with his own daughter, a hussy who now rolled 
 about the Boulevards. And, with a broad gesture, she took 
 in the whole neighbourhood ; it would require an hour merely 
 to display the dirty linen of all those people fathers, mothers, 
 children, all sleeping together in a heap like animals, and 
 wallowing in their own filth. Ah! she knew all about it; 
 nastiness was to be found everywhere, it infected the houses 
 round about ! Yes, yes, men and women were something 
 prime in that corner of Paris, where they are all piled up on the 
 top of each other, on account of their poverty ! Had the two 
 sexes been put into a mortar, all that one could have obtained 
 from them would have been something wherewith to manure 
 the cherry-trees in the plain of Saint-Denis. 
 
 " They would dp well not to spit in the air, for it only falls 
 down again on their own noses," she would exclaim, whenever 
 anybody especially aggravated her. " Every one for himself, 
 is it not so ? They should let other people live in their own 
 way, if they wish to live in theirs. For myself, I'm agreeable to 
 everything so long as I'm not dragged through the gutter by 
 people who have already made the plunge head first." 
 And mother Coupeau having one day been more pointed in 
 her observations than usual, she had replied to her, clinching 
 her teeth : 
 
 "You're confined to your bed. and you take advantage of it.
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 2C7 
 
 Listen, you're wrong ; you see that I behave nicely to you, for 
 I've never thrown your past life into your teeth ! Oh ! I know 
 all about it.l A fine life it was two and three men at a time, 
 and whilst old Coupeau was alive too. No, don't cough, I've 
 finished what I had to say. It's only to request you to mind 
 your own business, that's all ! " 
 
 The old woman almost choked. On the morrow, Goujet 
 having called about his mother's washing when Gervaise 
 happened to be out, mother Coupeau called him to her and 
 kept him some time seated beside her bed. She knew all about 
 the blacksmith's friendship, and had noticed that for some time 
 past he had looked dismal and wretched, from a suspicion of 
 the abominable things that were taking place. So, for the 
 sake of gossiping, and out of revenge for the quarrel of the 
 day before, she bluntly told him the truth, weeping and com- 
 plaining as though Gervaise's wicked behaviour did her some 
 special injury. When Goujet quitted the little room, he leant 
 against the wall, almost stifling with grief. Then, when the 
 laundress returned home, mother Coupeau called to her that 
 Madame Goujet required her to go round with her clothes, 
 ironed or not ; and she was so animated that Gervaise, seeing 
 something was wrong, guessed what had taken place, and had 
 a presentiment of the unpleasantness which awaited her. 
 
 Very pale, her limbs already trembling, she placed the things 
 in a basket and started off. For years past she had not re- 
 turned the Goujets a sou of their money. The debt still 
 amounted to four hundred and twenty-five francs. She always 
 spoke of her embarrassments and received the money for the 
 washing. It filled her with shame, because she seemed to be 
 taking advantage of the blacksmith's friendship to make a fool 
 of him. Coupeau, who had now become less scrupulous, would 
 chuckle and say that Goujet had no doubt squeezed her waist 
 in odd corners, and had so paid himself. But she, in spite of 
 the relations she had fallen into with Lantier, would indignantly 
 ask her husband if he already wished to eat of that sort of 
 bread. She would not allow any one to say a word against 
 Goujet in he'r presence; her affection for the blacksmith re- 
 mained like a last shred of her honour. Thus, every time she 
 took the .washing home to those worthy people, she felt a 
 spasm at her heart the moment she put a foot on their stairs. 
 
 " Ah ! it's you, at last ! " said Madame Goujet sharply, 
 on opening the door to her. " When I'm in want of death, I'll 
 send you to fetch him."
 
 2G8 THE " ASSOMMOIB." 
 
 Gervaise entered, greatly embarrassed, not even daring to 
 mutter an excuse. She was no longer punctual, never came at 
 the time arranged, and would keep her customer waiting for 
 days together. Little by little she was giving way to a system 
 of thorough disorder. 
 
 " For a week past I've been .expecting you," continued the 
 lace-mender. "And you tell falsehoods too; you send your 
 apprentice to me with all sorts of stories : you are then busy 
 with my things, you will deliver them the same evening, or 
 else you've had an accident, the bundle's fallen into a pail of 
 water. Whilst all this is going on, I waste my time, nothing 
 turns up, and it worries me exceedingly. No, you're most un- 
 reasonable. Come, what have you in your basket *? Is every- 
 thing there now ? Have you brought me the pair of sheets 
 you've been keeping back for a month past, and the chemise 
 which was missing the last time you brought home the 
 washing 1 n 
 
 "Yes, yes," murmured Gervaise, "the chemise is there. 
 Here it is." 
 
 But Madame Goujet cried out. That chemise was not hers, 
 she would have nothing to do with it. Her things were changed 
 now ; . it was too bad ! Only the week before, there were two 
 handkerchiefs which hadn't her mark on them. It was not to 
 her taste to have clothes coming from no one knew where. 
 Besides that, she liked to have her own things. 
 
 " And the sheets 1 " she resumed. " They're lost, are they 1 
 Well ! young woman, you must see about them, for I insist 
 upon having them to-morrow morning, do you hear 1 " 
 
 A silence ensued. What completed Gervaise's embarrassment 
 was the knowledge that, behind her, the door of Goujet's room 
 was ajar. The blacksmith was no doubt inside, she felt that he 
 was there ; and how unpleasant, if he was listening to all these 
 deserved reproaches, to which she could answer nothing ! She 
 became very submissive and gentle, bowing her head as she 
 placed the clean linen on the bed as quickly as she could. But 
 matters became worse when Madame Goujet began to look ovei 
 the things, one by one. She took hold of them and threw them 
 down again, saying : 
 
 " Ah ! you don't get them up nearly so well as you used to 
 do. One can't compliment you every day now. Yes, you've 
 taken to mucking your work doing it in a most slovenly way. 
 Just look at this shirt-front, it's scorched, there's the mark of 
 the iron on the plaits ; and the buttons have all been torn off.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 269 
 
 I don't know how you, manage it, but there's never a button left 
 on anything. Oh ! now, here's a petticoat body which I shall 
 certainly not pay you for/ -..Look there !. The dirt's still on it, 
 you've simply smoothed it over. So now the things are not 
 even clean ! " 
 
 She stopped whilst she counted the different articles. Then 
 she exclaimed, 
 
 "What ! this is all you've brought? There are two pairs of 
 stockings, six towels, a table-cloth, and several dish-cloths 
 short. You're regularly trifling with me, it seems ! I sent 
 word that you were to bring me everything, ironed or not. If 
 your apprentice isn't here in an hour with the rest of the 
 things, we shall fall out, Madame Coupeau, I warn you." 
 
 At this moment Goujet coughed in his room. Gervaise 
 slightly started. How she was treated before him, good 
 heavens ! And she remained standing in the middle of the 
 room, embarrassed and confused, and waiting for the dirty 
 clothes; but, after making up the account, Madame Goujet had 
 quietly returned to her seat near the window, and resumed the 
 mending of a lace shawL 
 
 "And the dirty things ? " timidly inquired the laundress. 
 
 " No, thank you," replied the old woman, " there's nothing 
 this week." 
 
 Gervaise turned pale. She was no longer to have the wash- 
 ing. Then she quite lost her head; she was obliged to sit 
 down on a chair for her legs were giving way under her. And 
 she did not attempt to vindicate herself. All that she could 
 find to say was, 
 
 " Is Monsieur Goujet ill ? " 
 
 Yes, he was not well. He had been obliged to come home 
 instead of returning to the forge, and he had gone to lie down 
 on his bed to get a rest. Madame Goujet talked gravely, 
 wearing her black dress as usual, and her white face framed in her 
 monachal cap. They had again lowered the wages of the bolt- 
 makers. From nine francs they had fallen to seven, on account 
 of the machinery which now did almost all the work. And she 
 explained that they were obliged to economise in everything ; in 
 future, she intended to do her own washing as formerly. It would 
 naturally have been very acceptable if the Coupeaus had been 
 able to return her the money lent them by her son ; but she 
 was not going to set the lawyers on them, as they were unable to 
 pay. Since she commenced speaking of the debt, Gervaise, 
 with bowed head, seemed to be following the skilful play of her
 
 270 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 needle as it gathered up the meshes of the net-work one by 
 one. 
 
 " All the same," continued the lace-mender, " by pinching 
 yourselves a little you. could manage to pay it off. For, really 
 now, you live very well ; you spend a great deal, I'm sure. If 
 you were only to pay off ten francs a month " 
 
 She was interrupted by the sound of Goujet's voice as he 
 called, 
 
 " Mamma ! mamma ! " 
 
 And when she returned to her seat, which was almost im- 
 mediately, she changed the conversation. The blacksmith had 
 doubtless begged her not to ask Gervaise for money ; but, in 
 spite of herself, she again spoke of the debt at the expiration of 
 five minutes. Oh ! she had foreseen what was happening the 
 zinc-worker was drinking up the shop, and he would lead his 
 wife a fine dance. Had her son only listened to her he would 
 never have lent the five hundred francs. He would have 
 married, he would not have been bursting with sadness, nor 
 had the prospect of being miserable for the rest of his life. 
 She was becoming excited, and likewise very harsh, plainly 
 accusing Gervaise of having arranged with Coupeau to take 
 advantage of her foolish child. Yes, there were women who 
 wore the mask of hypocrisy for years, and whose bad character 
 in the end was displayed in the light of day. 
 
 " Mamma ! mamma ! " again called Goujet, but louder this 
 time. 
 
 She rose from lier seat, and when she returned she said, as 
 she resumed her lace mending, 
 
 " Go in, he wishes to see you." 
 
 Gervaise, all in a tremble, left the door open. This scene 
 filled her with emotion, because it was like an avowal of their 
 affection before Madame Goujet. She again beheld the quiet 
 little chamber, with its narrow iron bedstead, and papered all 
 over with pictures, the whole looking like the room of some lad 
 of fifteen.. Goujet's big body was stretched on the bed. Mother 
 Coupeau's disclosures seemed to have knocked all the life out of 
 his limbs. His eyes were red and swollen, his beautiful yellow 
 beard , was strll wet. In the first moment of rage he must have 
 punched away at his pillow with his terrible fists, for the tick- 
 ing was split and the feathers were coming out. 
 
 " Listen, mamma's wrong," said he to the laundress, in a 
 voice that was scarcely audible. " You owe me nothing, I 
 won't have it spoken o"
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIB." 271 
 
 He had raised himself up, and was looking at her. Big tears 
 at once filled his eyes. 
 
 "Do you suffer, Monsieur Goujet?" murmured she. " What 
 is the matter with you? tell me." 
 
 "Nothing, thanks. I tired myself too much yesterday. I 
 will sleep a bit." 
 
 Then, his heart breaking, he could not restrain this cry, 
 
 " Ah, my- God ! my God ! it was never to be never. You 
 swore it. And now it is it is ! Ah, my God ! it pains me 
 too much, leave me ! " 
 
 And -with his hand he gently and imploringly motioned to 
 her to go. She did not draw nearer to the bed. She went off 
 as he requested her to, feeling stupid, unable to say anything 
 to soothe him. When in the other room, she took up her 
 basket ; but she did not go home. She stood there trying to 
 find something to say. Madame Goujet continued her mending 
 without raising her head. It was she who at length said, 
 
 " Well ! good night ; send me back my things, we will settle 
 up afterwards." 
 
 " Yes, it will be best so good-night," stammered Gervaise. 
 
 She closed the door slowly, giving a last glance at that clean, 
 tidy home, where she seemed to be leaving behind her a part of 
 her respectability. She went back to the shop in the stupid 
 manner of cows returning to their shed, without troubling 
 themselves about the way. Mother Coupeau, who had left her 
 bed for the first time, was seated on a chair beside the big 
 stove. But the laundress did not even utter a single reproach. 
 She was too tired, her bones ached as though she had been 
 beaten. She was thinking that life was indeed too hard, and 
 that one could not tear one's heart out without killing oneself 
 right off. 
 
 After this, Gervaise became indifferent to everything. With 
 a vague gesture of her hand she would send everybody about 
 their business. At each fresh' worry she buried herself deeper 
 in her only pleasure, which was to have her three meals a day. 
 The shop might have collapsed. So long as she was not be- 
 neath it she would have gone off willingly without a chemise to 
 her back. And the shop was collapsing, not suddenly, but 
 little by little, morning and evening. One by one the 
 customers got angry, and sent their washing elsewhere. M. 
 Madinier, Mademoiselle Eemanjou, the Boches themselves had 
 returned to Madame Fauconnier, where they could count on 
 greater punctuality. One ends by getting tired of asking for a
 
 272 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 pair of stockings for three weeks tog3ther, and of putting on 
 shirts with grease stains dating from the previous Sunday. 
 Gervaise, without losing a bite, wished them a pleasant journey, 
 and spoke her mind about them, saying that she was precious glad 
 she would no longer have to poke her nose into their filth. Ah, 
 well ! the whole neighbourhood might withdraw its custom, it 
 would rid her of a fine heap of infection. Besides that, too, it 
 would be so much \iork the less. Meanwhile, she merely re- 
 tained the customers who paid badly, the street-walkers, aud 
 the women like Madame Gaudron, whose washing not a laun- 
 dress of the Rue Neuve would touch. The shop was done for. 
 She had had to discharge her last workwoman, Madame Putois ; 
 and she was left alone with her apprentice, that squint-eyed 
 Augustine, who became all the more stupid the bigger she 
 grew. Yet the pair of them had not even then always sufficient 
 work. They would sit on their stools doing nothing for entire 
 afternoons. In short, it was a regular collapse. Ruin was 
 stamped on everything. 
 
 Whilst idleness and poverty entered, dirtiness naturally 
 entered also. One would never have recognised that beautiful 
 blue shop, the colour of heaven, which had once been Gervaise's 
 pride. Its window-frames and panes, which were never washed, 
 were covered from top to bottom with the splashes from the 
 passing vehicles. On the brass rods in the windows were dis- 
 played three grey rags left by customers who had died in the 
 hospital. And inside it was more pitiable still ; the dampness 
 of the clothes hung up at the ceiling to dry had loosened all 
 the wall paper ; the Pompadour chintz hung in strips like cob- 
 webs covered with dust ; the big stove, broken and in holes 
 from the rough use of the poker, looked in its corner like the 
 stock-in-trade of a dealer in old iron ; the work-table appeared 
 as though it had beea used by a regiment, covered as it was 
 with wine and coffee stains, sticky with jam, greasy from the 
 Monday junkettings. With all that there prevailed an odour 
 of stale starch, a stench of mustiness, of burnt fat and of filth. 
 But Gervaise felt very comfortable in there. She had not 
 noticed the shop getting dirty; she abandoned herself to it and 
 grew used to the torn wall paper, the greasy wood-work, the 
 same as she got into the way of wearing ragged skirts and of no 
 longer washing her ears. To her the dirt even became a warm 
 nest in which she enjoyed squatting. To leave things to take 
 care of themselves, to wait till the dust stopped up all the holes 
 and covered everything with a coat of velvet, and to feel the
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 273 
 
 house grow heavy around her in her irresistible laziness, was 
 indeed a voluptuous pleasure which intoxicated her. 
 
 Her own ease was her sole consideration ; 'she did not care a 
 pin for anything else. The debts, though still increasing, no 
 longer troubled her. Her probity gradually deserted her \ 
 whether she would be able to pay or not was altogether uncer- 
 tain, and she preferred hot to know. When her credit was 
 stopped at one shop, she would open an account at some other 
 close by. She was in debt all over the neighbourhood, she 
 owed money every few yards. To take merely the Rue de la 
 Goutte-d'Or, she no longer dared pass in front of the grocer's, 
 nor the charcoal-dealer's, nor the greengrocer's ; and this obliged 
 her, whenever she required to be at the wash-house, to go round 
 by the Rue des Poissonniers, which was quite ten minutes out 
 of her way. The tradespeople came and treated her as a 
 swindler. One evening, the man who had sold them the furni- 
 ture for Lantier drew a crowd round the place ; he yelled out 
 that he would turn her skirts up and spank the beast, by way 
 of paying himself, if she did not fork out his money. Such 
 scenes, of course, left her all in a tremble ; still, she would 
 shake herself like a cur that had been beaten, and there was an 
 end of it ; she did not dine any the worse afterwards. They 
 were a lot of insolent scoundrels to come bothering her ! She 
 had no money ; she could not make any, could she 1 Besides, 
 the tradespeople robbed everyone ; they were made to wait. 
 And she would fall asleep in her hole, trying not to dream of 
 what was sure to happen one day. She would take the leap, no 
 doubt ; but, until then, she was determined not to be bothered. 
 
 Meanwhile mother Coupeau had recovered. For another 
 year the household jogged along. During the summer months 
 there was naturally a little more work the white petticoats, 
 and the cambric dresses of the dollymops of the exterior Boule- 
 vard. The catastrophe was slowly approaching ; the home sank 
 deeper into the mire every week; there were ups and downs, 
 however days when one had to rub one's stomach before the 
 empty cupboard, and others when one eat veal enough to make 
 one burst. Mother Coupeau was for ever being seen in the 
 street, hiding, bundles under her apron, and strolling in the 
 direction of the pawn-place in the Rue Polonceau. She strutted 
 along with the air of a devotee going to mass ; for she did not 
 dislike these errands ; haggling about money amused her ; this 
 crying up of her wares like a second-hand dealer tickled her old 
 woman's fancy. The clerks in the Rue Polonceau knew her 
 
 s
 
 274 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 well ; they called her mother " Four Francs," because she al- 
 ways asked for four francs when they offered her three on her 
 bundles as big as two sous' worth of butter. Gervaise would 
 have pawned the whole place ; she was seized with a mania for 
 putting everything up the spout ; she would have had her head 
 shaved, if she could have got anything lent to her on her hair. It 
 was too convenient ; one. could not help sending there for 
 money when one was in want of a four-pound loaf. Every 
 article of clothing found its way there the linen, the coats, 
 even the tools and the furniture. At first, she took advantage 
 of the good weeks to get the things out again, even though she 
 had to send them back the week after. Then she gave up car- 
 ing for her things, and either let the tickets run out, or sold 
 them. 
 
 One thing alone gave her a pang it was having to pawn her 
 clock to pay an acceptance for twenty francs to a bailiff" who 
 came to seize her goods. Until then, she had sworn rather to 
 die of hunger than to part with her clock. When mother 
 Coupeau carried it away in a little bonnet-box, she sunk on to a 
 chair, without a particle of strength left in her arms, her eyes 
 full of tears, as though a fortune was being torn from her. But 
 when mother Coupeau reappeared with twenty-five francs, the 
 unexpected loan, the five francs profit consoled her; she at 
 once sent the old woman out again for four sous' worth of 
 brandy in a glass, just to toast the five-franc piece. Often now, 
 whenever they were on good terms together, they would share 
 a drink on a corner of the work-table, generally a mixture, half 
 brandy and half black currant ratafia. Mother Coupeau had a 
 knack for bringing back the glass brimful in the pocket of her 
 apron without spilling a drop. There was no need for the 
 neighbours to know, was there? The truth was that the 
 neighbours knew perfectly well. The greengrocer, the tripe- 
 seller, the grocer's men would say to each other : " Hallo ! the 
 old woman's off to uncle's," or else : " Hallo ! the old woman's 
 bringing her liquor in her pocket." And that naturally in- 
 censed every one against Gervaise. She guttled everything ; 
 she would soon have finished up her shanty. Yes, yes, only 
 three or four more mouthfuls, and there would not be a straw 
 left. 
 
 In the midst of this general demolishment, Coupeau con- 
 tinued to prosper. The confounded tippler was as well as well 
 could be. The sour wine and the "vitriol" positively fattened 
 him. He eat a great deal, and laughed at that stick Lorilleux,
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 275 
 
 who accused drink of killing people, and answered him by 
 slapping himself on the stomach, the skin of which was so 
 stretched by the fat that it resembled the skin of a drum. He 
 would play him a tune on it, the glutton's vespers, with rolls 
 and beats loud enough to have made a quack's fortune. But 
 Lorilleux, annoyed at having himself no stomach to speak of, 
 said that it was yellow fat, which was bad. Nevertheless, 
 Coupeau got more drunk than ever, for the sake of his health. 
 His pepper and salt hair, waving about his head, dropped off 
 like the ashes of a fire-brand. His drunkard's face, with its 
 monkey-shaped jaw, was colouring like a pipe, assuming the 
 purple tinge of wine f And he remained a child of gaiety ; he 
 behaved roughly to his wife, whenever she took it into her 
 head to tell him of her embarrassments. Were men made to 
 have to do with such bothering matters 1 The store-cupboard 
 might be in want of bread, that was nothing to him. He 
 required his fill morning and evening, and he never troubled 
 himself as to where it came from. When he allowed weeks to 
 go by without doing a stroke of work, he became more exacting 
 still. At the same time he continued to give Lantier friendly 
 slaps on the shoulder. He was certainly ignorant of his wife's 
 misconduct at least, many persons, the Boches, the Poissons, 
 swore by all that was holy that he had not the least suspicion, 
 and that something dreadful would happen if he ever became 
 aware of it. But his ' own sister, Madame Lerat, shook her 
 head, and related that she knew some husbands who did not at 
 all object to such a state of things. One night Gervaise her- 
 self, who was coming from the hatter's room, shivered with 
 fright on receiving a knock behind in the dark ; but she ended 
 by reassuring herself, thinking that she had come in contact 
 with the frame-work of the bedstead. Really, the situation was 
 too dreadful; her husband could not be amusing himself by 
 playing jokes upon her. 
 
 There was no falling-off in Lantier either. He took great 
 care of himself, measuring his stomach by the waistband of his 
 trousers, with the constant dread of having to loosen the buckle 
 or draw it tighter; he considered himself just right, and out of 
 coquetry neither desired to grow fatter nor thinner. That made 
 him hard to please in the matter, of food, for he regarded every 
 dish from the point of view of keeping his waist as it was. 
 Even when there was not a sou in the house, he required eggs, 
 cutlets, light and nourishing things. Since he had been sharing 
 the mistress with the husband, he considered himself entitled
 
 276 TfiE "ASSOMMOm." 
 
 to fully half of everything in the house ; he picked up any 
 twenty sou pieces which happened to be lying about, made 
 Gervaise obey his smallest behests, grumbled, yelled, and 
 seemed more' at home than the zinc-worker himself. In short, 
 it was' a crib that had two masters. And the left-hand one, 
 who was the more cunning, pulled the blanket over himself, 
 took the best share of everything, of the wife, the food, and the 
 rest of it. He was skimming the Coupeaus, that was all ! He 
 no longer took the trouble to churn his butter on the 'quiet, but 
 did it in public. Nana continued to be his favourite, because 
 he liked nice -little girls. He bothered himself less and less 
 about Etienne ; boys, according to him, should know how to 
 get along by themselves. Whenever any one called and asked 
 for Coupeau, he was always sure to find the hatter there, in his 
 slippers and his shirt sleeves, coming out of the back room with 
 the annoyed look of a husband who has been disturbed ; and 
 he would answer for Coupeau, saying that it was all the same. 
 
 Between these two gentlemen, Gervaise did not laugh every 
 day. She had nothing to complain of as regards her health, 
 thank goodness ! She also was growing too fat. But two men 
 for ever on her back, to coddle and satisfy, was often more than 
 she could manage. Ah ! good heavens ! one husband is already 
 too much for a woman ! The worst was that they got on very 
 well together, the rogues. They never quarrelled ; they would 
 chuckle in each other's faces, as they sat of an evening after 
 dinner, their elbows on the table ; they would rub up against 
 one another all the live-long day, like cats which seek and 
 cultivate their pleasure. The days when they came home in a 
 rage, it was en her that they vented it Go it ! hammer away 
 et the animal ! She had a good back ; it made them all the 
 better friends when they yelled together. And it never did for 
 her to give them tit-for-tat. 
 
 At first, when one shouted, she would give the other an 
 imploring look, to obtain a good word from him. Only, it 
 seldom succeeded. She bore it meekly now, she bent her fat 
 shoulders, understanding that it amused them to jostle her 
 about, she was so round, a regular ball. Coupeau, who was 
 very foul-mouthed, treated her to some abominable language. 
 Lantier, on the contrary, chose his insults, getting hold of words 
 which no one else made use of, and which wounded her far more. 
 Luckily, one gets accustomed to everything; the bad words, 
 the injustice of the two men ended by gliding off her smooth 
 skin as though it were oil-cloth. She had even reached the
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 277 
 
 point of preferring them when angry, because, on the occasions 
 when ^they- were nice, they bothered her far more, always after 
 her, not even letting her iron a cap in peace. Then they would 
 ask her for dainty dishes, she was to salt and not to salt, say 
 white and say black, nurse them, and put them to by-by one 
 after the other in cotton wool. At the end of the week her head 
 'was splitting, and her limbs could do no more, her brain was in 
 a whirl, and her eyes were like a lunatic's. Such an existence 
 soon wears out a woman. 
 
 Yes, Coupeau and Lantier were wearing her out, that was the 
 word ; they we're burning her at both ends, as one says of a 
 candle. The zinc-worker, sure enough, lacked education ; but 
 the hatter had too much, or at least he had education in the 
 same way that dirty people have a white shirt, with uncleanli- 
 ness underneath it. One night, she dreamt that she was on the 
 edge of a well ; Coupeau was knocking her into it with a blow 
 of his fist, whilst Lantier was tickling her in the ribs to make 
 her fall quicker. Well ! that resembled her life. Ah ! she was 
 at a good school, it was not at all surprising if she fell lower and 
 lower. The people of the neighbourhood were not very just 
 when they reproached her for the bad ways she was getting 
 into, for her misfortune was not of her making. At times, when 
 she lost herself in reflection, a shiver ran through her frame. 
 Then she would think that things might have turned out worse 
 than they had. For instance, it was better having two men to 
 bother her than to lose her two arms. And she would consider 
 that her position was perfectly natural, there were so many 
 others just the same ; she tried to get a little happiness out of 
 it for herself. What proved how largely it was becoming a 
 matter of course, was that she did not detest Coupeau any more 
 than she did Lantier. In a play, at the Gaiety, she had seen a 
 strumpet who abhorred her husband, and who poisoned him for 
 the sake of her lover; and it made her angry, because she felt 
 nothing of the sort in.her own heart. Was it not more sensible 
 to live all three together in a friendly manner ? . No, no, none 
 of that nonsense j it upset one's life, which was not* very amus- 
 ing as it was. In. short, in spite of the debts, in spite of the 
 poverty which threatened them, she would have admitted her- 
 self to be very comfortable, and very content, if the zinc- 
 worker and the hatter had worked her and bullied her a trifle 
 less. 
 
 Towards the autumn, unfortunately, things became worse. 
 Lantier pretended he was getting thinner, and pulled a longer
 
 278 THE "ASSOMMOIB." 
 
 face over the matter every day. He grumbled at everything, 
 sniffed at the dishes of potatoes a mess he could not eat, be 
 would say, without having the colic. The least jangling now 
 turned to quarrels, in which they accused one another of being 
 the cause of all their troubles, and it was a devil of a job to 
 restore harmony before they all retired for the night. When 
 there is no more bran, the donkeys fight together, do they not 1 
 Lantier scented the coming destitution ; it exasperated him to 
 find that the place was pretty well all eaten up, so completely 
 cleaned out, that he foresaw the day when he would have to 
 take his hat and seek for a nest and his pap elsewhere. He 
 had grown accustomed to his diggings, having fallen into little 
 habits, and been coddled by everyone ; a regular happy land, 
 the delights of which he would never be able to replace. Well ! 
 one cannot stuff oneself up to one's ears and still have the pieces 
 on one's plate. He became enraged with his stomach, for, after 
 all, it was his stomach which had swallowed up everything. 
 But he did not reason thus ; he felt a fierce rancour against the 
 others for having allowed themselves to be cleared out hi two 
 years. Really, the Coupeaus were not very broad-backed. So 
 he maintained that Gervaise was not sufficiently economical. 
 Jove's thunder ! what was going to become of them all ? His 
 friends were failing him just as he was on the point of conclud- 
 ing a fine stroke of business, six thousand francs salary in a 
 manufactory, sufficient to enable the little family to lead a life 
 of luxury. 
 
 One evening in December they had no dinner at all. There 
 was not a radish left. Lantier, who was very glum, went out 
 early, wandering about in search of some other den where the 
 smell of the kitchen would bring a smile to one's face. He 
 would now remain for hours beside the stove wrapt in thought. 
 Then, suddenly, he began to evince a great friendship for the 
 Poissons. He no longer chaffed the policeman by calling him 
 Badingue ; he even went so far as to admit that the Emperor 
 was perhaps a decent fellow. He seemed especially to esteem 
 Virginie, a woman of sense, he would say, and one who would 
 know perfectly well how to bring her ship home.* It was 
 evident he was getting on the right side of them. It even 
 seemed that he was trying to arrange to board with them. But 
 he had something in his head far more complicated than that. 
 Yirginie having acquainted him with her desire to set up in 
 some sort of business, he agreed with everything she said, and 
 declared that her idea was a ircst brilliant one. She was just
 
 THE "ASSOMMOUL" 279 
 
 the person for trade tall, engaging, and active. Oh ! she 
 would make as much as she liked. As the money, inherited 
 from an aunt, had been ready for a long time, she was quite 
 right to throw up the few dresses she had to do each season, 
 and start in business ; and he mentioned persons who were 
 making their fprtunes : the greengrocer at the corner of the 
 street, and a little china-dealer on the exterior Boulevard; for 
 the time was splendid, one might even have sold the sweepings 
 of the counters. Virginia, however, hesitated ; she was looking 
 for a shop that was to be let, she did not wish to leave the 
 neighbourhood. Then, Lantier would take her into corners 
 and converse with her in an undertone for ten minutes at a 
 time. He seemed to be urging her to do something in spite 
 of herself; and she no longer said "no," but appeared to 
 authorise him to act. It was as a secret between them, with 
 winks and words rapidly exchanged, some mysterious under- 
 standing which betrayed itself even in their handshakings. 
 
 From this moment, the hatter would covertly watch the 
 Coupeaus whilst eating their dry bread, and, becoming very 
 talkative again, would deafen them with his continual 
 jeremiads. All day long, Gervaise moved in the midst of 
 that poverty which he so obligingly spread out. He was not 
 speaking for himself, good heavens 1 lie would starve with his 
 friends as much as one liked. Only, prudence required that 
 one should fully understand one's position. They owed at 
 least five hundred francs in the neighbourhood to the baker, 
 the charcoal-dealer, the grocer, and the others. Besides which, 
 they were two quarters' rent behindhand, which meant two 
 hundred and fifty francs ; the landlord,. M. Marescot, even 
 spoke of having them evicted, if they did not pay him by the 
 1st of January. Finally, the pawn-place had absorbed every- 
 thing, one could not have got together three francs' worth of 
 odds and ends, the clearance had been so complete ; the nails 
 remained in the walls, and that was all, and perhaps there 
 were two pounds of them at three sous the pound. Gervaise, 
 thoroughly entangled in it all, her nerves quite upset by this 
 calculation, would fly into a passion and bang her fists down 
 upon the table, or else she would end by bursting into tears 
 like a fool. One night she exclaimed : 
 
 " I'll be off to-morrow ! I prefer to put the key under the 
 door and to sleep on the pavement rather than continue to live 
 in such frights." 
 
 " It would be wiser," said Lankier slyly, " to get rid of the
 
 280 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 
 
 lease, if you could find some one to take it. When you are 
 both decided to give up the shop " 
 
 She interrupted him more violently : 
 
 " At once, at once ! . Ah ! it'll be a good riddance ! " - 
 
 Then the hatter became very practical. On giving up the 
 lease, one would no doubt get the new tenant to be responsible 
 for the two overdue quarters. And he ventured to mention 
 the Poissons, he reminded them that Virginie was looking out 
 for a shop ; their's would perhaps suit her. He remembered 
 that he had heard her say she longed for one just like it. But, 
 when Virginie's name was mentioned, the laundress suddenly 
 regained her composure. One would see about it ; one always 
 talked of giving up everything when in a passion, only the 
 thing did not seem so easy when one took time to consider 
 about it 
 
 During the following days, it was in vain that Lantier harped 
 upon the subject. Gervaise replied that she had seen herself 
 worse off and had pulled through. It would be a wonderful 
 improvement when she no longer had her shop ! It would not 
 put bread into her mouth. She would, on the contrary, engage 
 some fresh workwomen, and work up a fresh connection. She 
 said that for the sake of struggling against the hatter's sound 
 arguments, for he pictured her on the ground, crushed beneath 
 their debts, and without the least hope of ever getting up again. 
 But he again made the mistake of pronouncing Virginie's name, 
 and she then became furiously obstinate. No, no, never ! She 
 bad always had her doubts of Virginie ; if Virginie coveted the 
 shop, it was for the purpose of humbling her. She would 
 perhaps have given it up to the first woman in the street, but 
 not to that tall hypocrite who had certainly been waiting for 
 years to see her take the final leap. Oh, that explained every- 
 thing. . She now understood why yellow sparks lighted up the 
 cat's eyes of that drab. Yes, Virginie still had the spanking at 
 the wash-house on her niind ; she was all the while quietly 
 nursing her rancour. Well, she would do wisely to put her 
 spanking under glass, if she did not wish to receive a second one. 
 And it would not take long ; she could get herself ready for it. 
 
 In the face of this flow of unpleasant language, Lantier 
 began by attacking Gervaise. He called her wooden-head, 
 slander-box, mother grumbler, and even went so far as to abuse 
 Coupeau, accusing him of not knowing how to make his wife 
 respect his friend. Then, realizing that passion would compro- 
 mjse everything, he swore that he would never again interest him-
 
 THE "ASSOMMOrR.* 281 
 
 self in other people's affairs, for one always got more kicks than 
 thanks ; and indeed he appeared to have given up all idea of 
 talking them into parting with the lease, but he was really 
 watching for a favourable opportunity of broaching the subject 
 again, and of bringing the laundress round to his views. 
 
 January had now arrived ; the weather was horrible, both 
 damp and cold. Mother Coupeau, who had coughed and 
 choked all through December, was obliged to take to her bed 
 after Twelfth-night. It was her annuity, which she looked 
 forward to every winter. But that winter, every one who knew 
 her said that she would only leave her room feet first ; and she- 
 had in all truth an awful rattling in her throat, which had the 
 real ring of the coffin about itr; yet for all that she was big 
 and plump, though already blind of one eye, and with half her 
 face contorted. Her children, sure enough, would not have 
 finished her off, only she had been lingering for so long, she was 
 such an encumbrance that they inwardly desired her death as a 
 deliverance for everybody. She herself would be far happier, 
 for she had lasted her time, had she not? and when one has 
 lasted one's time, one has nothing to regret. The doctor who 
 had been called in once had not even come again. They gave 
 her an infusion, by way of not abandoning her entirely. Every 
 hour some one looked in to see if she were still alive. She no 
 longer spoke, she was suffocating too much ; but -with her eye 
 that was still good, clear and full of life, she would look fixedly 
 at the people ; and so many things were reflected in that eye : 
 regret for her youth, sadness at seeing her family so anxious to 
 be rid of her, anger with that vicious Nana, who now openly 
 got up in the night and watched through the glass door in her 
 night-gown. 
 
 One Monday evening, Coupeau came home screwed. Ever 
 since his mother was in danger, he had lived in a continual state 
 of deep emotion. "When he was in bed, snoring soundly, Ger- 
 vaise turned about the place for a while. She was in the habit of 
 watching during a part of the night. Nana, however, showed 
 herself very brave, always sleeping beside the old woman, and 
 saying that if she heard her die, she. would alarm everyone. 
 That night, as the child was asleep, and the invalid appeared to 
 be dozing peaceably, the laundress ended by yielding to Lantier, 
 who was calling to her from his room, where he advised her to 
 come and get a little rest. They only kept a candle alight, 
 standing on the ground behind the wardrobe. But, towards 
 three o'clock, Gervaise abruptly jumped out of bed, shivering
 
 282 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 and oppressed with anguish. She had fancied she felt a 
 cold breath pass over her body. The morsel of candle had 
 burnt out ; she tied on her petticoats in the dark, all bewildered, 
 and with feverish hands. It was not till she got into the little 
 room, after knocking up against the furniture, that she was 
 able to light a small lamp. In the midst of the oppressive 
 silence of night, the zinc-worker's snores alone sounded as two 
 grave notes. Nana, stretched on her back, was breathing gently 
 between her pouting lips. And Gervaise, holding down the 
 lamp, which caused big shadows to dance about the room, cast 
 the light on mother Coupeau's face, and beheld it all white, the 
 head lying on the shoulder, the eyes wide open. Mother 
 Coupeau was dead. 
 
 Gently, without uttering a cry, icy cold yet prudent, the 
 laundress returned to Lan tier's room. He had gone to sleep 
 again. She bent over him, and murmured : 
 
 " I say, it's all over, she's dead." 
 
 Heavy with sleep, only half awake, he grunted at first : 
 
 " Leave me alone, get into bed. We can't do her any good 
 if she's dead." 
 
 Then, he raised himself up on his elbow, and asked : 
 
 "What's the time?" 
 
 " Three o'clock." 
 
 " Only three o'clock ! Get into bed quick. You'll catch 
 cold. When it's daylight, we'll see what's to be done." 
 
 But she did not listen to him, she dressed herself completely. 
 Then, he rolled himself up in the blanket, and turned his head 
 to the wall, talking of the confounded obstinacy of women. 
 What need was there of such a hurry to let every one know 
 that there was a death in the house? It was doubly dismal in 
 the middle of the night ; and he was exasperated at having his 
 rest. broken by unpleasant thoughts. However, when she had 
 removed her things into her own room, even her hair-pins, she 
 sat down and sobbed to her heart's content, no longer fearing 
 being discovered with the hatter. At bottom, she really loved 
 mother Conpeau. She felt a great grief, after having in the first 
 instance only experienced fear and annoyance at her having 
 chosen such an awkward time for going off. And she wept 
 all alone, very bitterly in the silence, without the zinc-worker 
 ceasing his snoring; he heard nothing, she had shaken and 
 called him, then she had decided to let him be, reflecting 
 that it would only be a fresh worry if he did wake up. On re- 
 turning to the body, she found Nana sitting up in bed rubbing
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 283 
 
 her eyes. The child understood, and with her vicious urchin's 
 curiosity, stretched out her neck to get a better view of her 
 grandmother ; she said nothing, but she trembled slightly, sur- 
 prised and satisfied in the presence of this death which she had 
 been promising herself for two days past, like some nasty thing 
 hidden away and forbidden to children j and her young cat-like 
 eyes dilated before that white face all emaciated at the last 
 hiccough by the passion of life, she felt that stiffness in her 
 back which held her behind the glass door when she crept there 
 to spy on what was no concern oif chits like her. 
 
 "Come, get up," said her mother in a low voice. "You 
 can't remain here." 
 
 She regretfully slid out of bed, turning her head round and 
 not taking her eyes off the corpse. Gervaise was much worried 
 about her, not knowing where to put her till day-time. She 
 was about to tell her to dress herself, when Lantier, in his 
 trousers and slippers, rejoined her ; he could not get to sleep 
 again, and was rather ashamed of his behaviour. Then, every- 
 thing was arranged. 
 
 " She can sleep in my bed," murmured he. " She'll have 
 plenty of room." . 
 
 Nana looked at her mother and Lantier with her big clear 
 eyes, and put on her stupid air, the same as on New Year's 
 day when any one made her a present of a box of chocolate 
 drops. And there was certainly no need for them to hurry her ; 
 she trotted off in her night-gown, her bare tootsies scarcely touch- 
 ing the tiled floor; she glided like a snake into the bed which 
 was still quite warm, and she lay stretched out and buried in it, 
 her slim body scarcely raising the counterpane. Each time her 
 mother entered the room, she beheld her with her eyes spark- 
 ling in her motionless face, not sleeping, not moving, very red 
 and appearing to reflect on her own affairs. 
 
 Lantier assisted Gervaise in dressing mother Coupeau ; and 
 it was not an easy matter, for the body weighed heavy. One 
 would never have thought that that old woman was so fat, and 
 so white. They put on her stockings, a white petticoat, a 
 short linen jacket, and a white cap ; in short, the best of her 
 linen. Coupeau continued snoring, a high note and a low one, 
 the 1 one sharp, the other flat ; one could almost have imagined 
 it to be church music accompanying the Good Friday ceremonies. 
 When the corpse was dressed and properly laid out on the bed, 
 Lantier poured himself out a glass of wine, for he felt quite up- 
 set. Gervaise searched the chest of drawers to find a little
 
 284 THE "ASSOMMOIB." 
 
 brass crucifix which she had brought from Plassans ; but she 
 recollected that mother Coupeau had in all probability sold it 
 herself. They had lighted the stove ; and they passed the rest 
 of the night, half asleep on chairs, finishing the bottle of wine 
 that had been opened, worried and sulking, as though it was 
 their own fault. 
 
 Towards seven o'clock, before daylight, Coupeau at length 
 awoke.. When he learnt his loss he at first stood still with dry 
 eyes, stuttering, and . vaguely thinking that they were playing 
 him some joke. Then, he threw himself on the ground and 
 went and knelt beside the corpse ; he kissed it and wept like a 
 calf, with such a copious flow of tears that he quite wetted the 
 sheet with wiping his cheeks. Gervaise had recommenced sob- 
 bing, deeply affected by her husband's grief, and the best of 
 friends with him again ; yes, he was better at heart than she 
 had thought he was. Coupeau's despair mingled with a violent 
 pain in his head. He passed his fingers through his hair, his 
 mouth was dry like on the morrow of a booze, and he was still 
 a little on in spite of his ten hours sleep. And, clinching his 
 fists, he complained aloud. Damnation ! she was gone now, his 
 poor mother whom he loved so much ! Ah ! what a headache 
 he had, it would settle him! It was like a wig of fire, and now 
 they were tearing out his heart I No, it was not just of fate 
 thus to set itself against a man ! 
 
 " Come, cheer up, old fellow," said Lantier, raising him from 
 the ground, " you must pull yourself together." 
 
 He poured him. out a glass of wine, but Coupeau refused to 
 drink. 
 
 " What's the matter with me? I've brass in my throat. It's 
 mamma, when I saw her I got a taste of brass in my mouth. 
 Mamma, my God ! mamma, mamma ! " 
 
 And he recommenced crying like a child. All the same he 
 drank the glass of wine, to put out the fire which was burning 
 his chest. Lantier soon went off on the pretext of informing 
 the family and of registering the death at the mayor's. He 
 wanted some fresh air. Therefore he did not hurry himself, but 
 strolled along smoking cigarettes and enjoying the sharp cold 
 of the morning. On leaving Madame Lerat's, he entered one 
 of the Batignolles milk shops and had a good cup of hot coffee. 
 And he stayed there quite an hour wrapt in thought. 
 
 Towards nine o'clock, the family was all united in the shop, 
 the shutters of which were kept up. Lorilleux did not cry ; 
 moreover, he had. some pressing work to attend to, and he re-
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 285 
 
 turned almost directly to his room, after having stalked about 
 with a face put on for the occasion. Madame Lorillenx and 
 Madame Lerat embraced the Coupeaus and wiped their eyes, 
 from which a few tears were falling. But the first named, after 
 giving a hasty glance round about the body, suddenly raised 
 her voice to say that it was unheard of, that one never left a 
 lighted lamp beside a corpse ; there should be a candle, and 
 Nana was sent to purchase a packet of tall ones. Ah well ! it 
 made one long to die at the Hobbler's, she laid one out in such 
 a fine fashion ! What a fool, not even to know what to do with 
 a corpse ! Had she then never buried any one in her life ? 
 Madame Lerat had to go to the neighbours and borrow a cruci- 
 fix ; she brought one back which was too big, a cross of black 
 wood with a Christ in painted cardboard fastened to it, which 
 covered the whole of mother Coupeau's chest, and seemed to 
 crush her under its weight. Then they tried to obtain some 
 holy water, but no one had any, and it was again Nana who 
 was sent to the church to bring some back in a bottle. In time 
 sufficient to turn round, the tiny room presented quite an- 
 other appearance ; on a little table a candle was burning beside 
 a glass full of holy water into which a sprig of box was dipped. 
 Now, if anyone came, it would at least look decent. And they 
 arranged the chairs in a circle in the shop for receiving people. 
 
 Lantier only returned at eleven o'clock. He had been to the 
 undertaker's for information. 
 
 " The coffin is twelve francs," said he. "If you desire a mass, 
 it will be ten francs more. Then there's the hearse, which is 
 charged for according to the ornaments." 
 
 "Oh! that's quite unnecessary," murmured Madame Lorilleux, 
 raising her 'head in a surprised and anxious manner. " We 
 can't bring mamma to life again, can we I One must do accord- 
 ing to one's means." 
 
 " Of course, that's just what I think," resumed the hatter. 
 " I merely asked the prices to guide you. Tell me what you 
 desire ; and after lunch I will give the orders." 
 
 They talked in a low voice, in the dim light which entered 
 the shop through the cracks in the shutters. The door of the 
 little chamber was kept wide open ; and, from that gaping 
 aperture, issued the great stillness of death. Children's laughter 
 rose in the courtyard, a troop of urchins were dancing in a ring 
 in the pale winter sunshine. All on a sudden, one heard Nana, 
 who had escaped from the Bodies', where she had been sent. 
 She was issuing her commands in her shrill voice, and the heels
 
 286 THE " ASSOMMOm." 
 
 beat time on the paving-stones, whilst these words were sung 
 and ascended in the air like the noise of some chattering birds : 
 
 " Our donkey, our donkey, 
 He has got a bad leg. 
 Madame has had him made 
 A pretty little sock, ; 
 And some lilac-colour shoes, oes, oes, 
 And some lilac-colour shoes ! " 
 
 Gervaise waited to say in her turn : 
 
 " We're not rich certainly ; but all the same we wish to act 
 decently. If mother Coupeau has left us nothing, it's no reason 
 for pitching her into the ground like a dog. No, we must have 
 a mass, and a hearse with a few ornaments." 
 
 " And who will pay for them ? " violently inquired Madame 
 Lorilleux. " Not we, who lost some money last week ; not you 
 either, as you're stumped. Ah ! you ought however to see 
 where it has led you, this trying to astonish people ! " 
 
 Coupeau, when consulted, mumbled something with a gesture 
 of profound indifference, and then fell asleep again on his chair. 
 Madame Lerat said that she would pay her share. She was of 
 Gervaise's. opinion, they should do things decently. Then, the 
 two of them fell to making calculations on a piece of paper : 
 in all, it would amount to about ninety francs, because they 
 decided, after a long discussion, to have a hearse ornamented 
 with a narrow scallop. 
 
 " We're three," concluded the laundress. " Well give thirty 
 francs a piece. It won't ruin us." 
 
 But Madame Lorilleux broke out in a fury. 
 
 " Well ! I refuse, yes, I refuse ! It's not for the thirty 
 francs. I'd give a hundred thousand, if I had them, and if it 
 would bring mamma to life again. Only, I don't like vain 
 people. You've got a shop, you only dream of showing off 
 before the neighbourhood. We don't fall in with it, we don't. 
 We don't try to make ourselves out what we are not. Oh ! you 
 can manage it to please yourself Put plumes on the hearse if 
 it amuses you." 
 
 " No one asks you for anything," Gervaise ended by answer- 
 ing. " Even though I should have to sell myself, 111 not have 
 anything to reproach myself with. I've fed mother Coupeau 
 without your help, and I can certainly bury her without your 
 help also. 1 already once before gave you a bit of my mind : 
 I pick up stray cats, I'm not likely to leave your mother in the 
 
 mire."
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 287 
 
 Then, Madame' Lorilleux burst into tears, and Lantier had to 
 prevent her from leaving. The quarrel had become so noisy, that 
 Madame Lerat energetically said " hush ! " and thought it her 
 duty to go softly into the little chamber, and give a sorrowful 
 and anxious glance at the dead woman, as though she feared 
 she would find her come to life again, and listening to the dis- 
 cussion going on so near her. At this moment the troop of 
 little girls in the courtyard again broke out with their song, 
 Nairn's piercing voice being heard high above the others : 
 
 " Our donkey, our donkey, 
 Has got a stomach-ache. 
 Madame has had him made 
 A nice little waist-band. 
 And some lilac-colour shoes, oes, oes, 
 And some lilac-colour shoes ! " 
 
 " Dear me ! how those children grate on one's nerves with 
 their singing ! " said Gervaise, all upset and on the point of 
 sobbing with impatience and sadness, to the hatter. " Do please 
 make them leave off, and send Nana back to the doorkeeper's 
 with a kick." 
 
 Madame Lerat and Madame Lorilleux went away to have 
 their lunch, and promised to return. The Coupeaus sat down 
 to table, and ate some ham, but without any appetite, and not 
 daring to clatter their forks against their plates. They were 
 very much bothered and bewildered with that poor mother 
 Coupeau, who weighed heavily upon their shoulders, and whose 
 presence appeared to them to fill all the rooms. Their life 
 seemed turned topsy-turvy. At first they wandered about 
 unable to find things ; they felt stiff like on the morrow of a 
 jollification. Lantier soon made again for the door to return to 
 the undertaker's, taking with him Madame Lerat's thirty francs 
 and sixty francs that Gervaise had gone, bareheaded like a mad- 
 woman, and borrowed of Goujet. In the afternoon some 
 visitors called, neighbours devoured by curiosity, who arrived 
 heaving tremendous sighs and rolling tearful eyes ; they entered 
 the little room and stared at the corpse, making the sign of the 
 cross and shaking the sprig of box dipped in the holy water ; 
 then they sat down in the shop, where they talked interminably 
 of the dear woman, without tiring of repeating the same phrase 
 for hours together. Mademoiselle Remanjou had noticed that 
 her right eye had remained open, Madame Gaudron kept 
 obstinately repeating that she thought she had a beautiful 
 colour for her age, and Madame Fauconnier was stupefied at
 
 238 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 the recollection of having seen her take her coffee three days 
 before. Really, one went off precious quick ; they had better 
 all be making their preparations. 
 
 Towards evening the Coupeaus were beginning to have had 
 enough of it. It was too great an affliction for a family to 
 have to keep a corpse so long a time. The government ought 
 to have made a new law on the subject. All through another 
 evening, another night and another morning no ! it would 
 never come to an end. When one no longer weeps, grief turns 
 to irritation ; is it not so ? One would end by misbehaving one- 
 self. Mother Coupeau, dumb and stiff in the depths of the 
 narrow chamber, was spreading more and more over the lodging 
 and becoming heavy enough to crush the people in it. And the 
 family, in spite of itself, gradually fell into its ordinary mode of 
 life, and lost some portion of its respect. 
 
 "You must have a mouthful with us," said Gervaise to 
 Madame Lerat and Madame Lorilleux, when they returned. 
 " We're too sad ; we must keep together." 
 
 They laid the cloth on the work-table. Each one, on seeing 
 the plates, thought of the feastings they had had on it. Lantier 
 had returned. Lorilleux came down. A pastry-cook had just 
 brought a meat pie, for the laundress was too upset to attend to 
 any cooking. As they were taking their seats, Boche came to say 
 that M. Marescot asked to be admitted, and the landlord 
 appeared, looking very grave, and wearing a broad decoration 
 on his frock-coat. He bowed in silence, and went straight to 
 the little room, where he knelt down. He was very pious ; he 
 prayed in the collected manner of a priest, then made the sign 
 of the cross in the air, whilst he sprinkled the body with the 
 sprig of box. All the family, leaving the table, stood up, greatly 
 impressed. M. Marescot, having finished his devotions, passed 
 into the shop and said to the Coupeaus : 
 
 "I have called for the two quarters' rent that's overdue. 
 Are you prepared to pay ? " 
 
 "No, sir, not quite," stammered Gervaise, greatly put out 
 at hearing this mentioned before the Lorilleux. " You see, with 
 the misfortune which has fallen upon us " 
 
 " No doubt, but every one has his troubles," resumed the 
 landlord, spreading out his immense fingers, which indicated 
 the former workman. " I am very sorry, but I cannot wait 
 any longer. If I am not paid by the morning after to-morrow, 
 I shall be obliged to have you put out.? 
 
 Gervaise, struck dumb, imploringly clasped her hands, her
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 289 
 
 eyes full of tears. With an energetic shake of his big bony 
 head, he gave her to understand that supplications were useless. 
 Besides, the respect due to the dead forbade all discussion. He 
 discreetly retired, walking backwards. 
 
 " A thousand pardons-for having disturbed you," murmured 
 he. " The morning after to-morrow ; do not forget." 
 
 And as, on withdrawing, he again passed before the little 
 room, he saluted the corpse a last time, through the wide open 
 door, by devoutly bending his knee. 
 
 They commenced by eating quickly, so as not to appear to 
 be taking any pleasure in it. But when they reached the 
 dessert, they lingered, overcome by a desire to take their ease. 
 Now and again Gervaise, or one of the sisters, went and peeped 
 into the little room, with her mouth full, and without even laying 
 down her napkin ; and when she regained her seat, finishing 
 what she was eating, the others looked at her for a second, to 
 ascertain if everything was going on all right close by. Then 
 the ladies disturbed themselves less frequently; mother Coupeau 
 was forgotten. They had made a big bowl of coffee, and very 
 strong too, so as to keep themselves awake all night. The 
 Poissons looked in towards eight o'clock. They invited them 
 to take a glass. Then Lantier, who. had been watching 
 Gervaise's face, seemed to seize an opportunity that he had been 
 waiting for ever since the morning. In speaking of the 
 indecency of landlords who entered houses where there was a 
 corpse to demand their money, he said suddenly : 
 
 " He's a Jesuit, the beast, with his air of officiating at a mass ! 
 But, in your place, I'd just chuck up his shop altogether." 
 
 Gervaise, quite worn out, and feeling weak and nervous, gave 
 way and replied : 
 
 " Yes, I shall certainly not wait for the bailiffs. Ah ! it's 
 more than I can bear more than I can bear." 
 
 The Lorilleux, delighted at the idea that the Hbbbler would 
 no longer have a shop, approved the plan immensely. One could 
 hardly conceive the great cost a shop was. If she only earned 
 three francs working for others, she at least had no expenses ; 
 she did not risk losing large sums of money. They repeated 
 this argument to Coupeau, urging him on ; he drank a great 
 deal, and remained in a continuous fit of sensibility, weeping all 
 by himself in his plate. As the laundress seemed to be allowing 
 herself to be convinced, Lantier looked at the Poissons and 
 winked. And- tall Virginie intervened, making herself most 
 
 amiable. 
 
 T
 
 290 THE "ASSOMMOIK.'' 
 
 " You know, we might arrange the matter between us. I 
 would relieve you of the rest of the lease, and settle your matter 
 with the landlord. In short, you would not be worried nearly 
 so much." 
 
 " No thanks," declared Gervaise, shaking herself, as though 
 she felt a shudder pass over her. " I'll work ; I've my two arms, 
 thank heaven ! to help me out of my difficulties." 
 
 " We can talk about it some other time," the hatter hastened 
 to put in. " It's scarcely the thing to do so this evening. Some 
 other time to-morrow, for instance." 
 
 At this moment, Madame Lerat, who had gone into the little 
 room, uttered a faint cry. She had had a fright, because she 
 had found the candle burnt out. They all busied themselves 
 in lighting another ; and they shook their heads, saying 
 that it was not a good sign when the light went out beside 
 a corpse. 
 
 The wake commenced. Coupeau had gone to lie down, not 
 to sleep, said he, but to think; and five minutes afterwards he 
 was snoring. When they sent Nana off to sleep at the Boches', 
 she cried ; she had been looking forward ever since the morning 
 to being nice and warm in her good friend Lantier's big bed. 
 The Poissons stayed till midnight. Some hot wine had been 
 made in a salad-bowl, because the coffee affected the ladies' 
 nerves too much. The conversation became tenderly effusive. 
 Virginie talked of the country : she would like to be buried at 
 the corner of a wood, with wild flowers on her grave. Madame 
 Lerat had already put by in her wardrobe the sheet for her 
 shroud, and she kept it perfumed with a bunch of lavender ; 
 she wished always to have a nice smell under her nose when 
 she would be eating the dandelions by the roots. Then, with 
 no sort of transition, the policeman related that he had arrested 
 a fine girl that morning who had been stealing from a pork- 
 butcher's shop ; on undressing her at the commissary of police's, 
 they had found ten sausages hanging round her body. And, 
 Madame Lorilleux having remarked, with a look of disgust, that 
 she would not eat any of those sausages, the party burst out 
 into a gentle laugh. The wake became livelier, though not 
 ceasing to preserve appearances. 
 
 But just as they were finishing the hot wine, a peculiar noise, 
 a dull trickling sound, issued from the little room. All raised 
 their heads and looked at each other. 
 
 "It's nothing," said Lantier quietly, lowering his voice, 
 emptying."
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 291 
 
 The explanation caused the others to nod their heads in a 
 reassured way, and they replaced their glasses on the table. 
 
 At length, th Ppissons withdrew. Lantier went oft 7 at the 
 same time : he was going to sleep at a friend's, said he, so as to 
 leave his bed for the ladies, who could rest upon it for an hour, 
 each in turn. Lorilleux went off to bed all alone, repeating 
 that such a thing had never happened to him since his marriage. 
 Then, Gervaise and the two sisters, being left with Coupeau, who 
 was sleeping, settled themselves round the stove, on which they 
 kept some warm coffee. They sat there, huddled together, bent 
 double, with their hands under their aprons, their noses over 
 the fire, conversing very low, in the great silence which enveloped 
 the neighbourhood. Madame Lorilleux lamented that she had 
 no black dress, yet she would have liked to avoid having to 
 purchase one, for they were very hard up, very hard up ; and 
 she questioned Gervaise, asking her if mother Coupeau had not 
 left a black skirt, that skirt which was given her on her saint's 
 day. Gervaise was obliged to fetch the skirt. It would do if 
 taken in a little at the waist. But Madame Lorilleux also 
 wanted some old linen, talked of the bed, of the wardrobe, of 
 the two chairs, and looked about for any odds and ends which 
 ought to be divided. There was almost a quarrel. Madame 
 Lerat made peace between them; she was more just; the Cour 
 peaus had had the care of the mother, they had well earned the 
 few things she had left And all three again dozed over the 
 stove, gossiping monotonously. 
 
 The night seemed terribly long to them. Now and again 
 they shook themselves, drank some coffee, and stretched their 
 necks in the direction of the little room, where the candle, 
 which was not to be snuffed, was burning with a dull red flame, 
 increased by the black thiefs on the wick. Towards morning, 
 they shivered, in spite of the great heat of the stove. Anguish, 
 and the fatigue of having talked too much, was stifling them, 
 whilst t their mouths were parched, and their eyes ached. 
 Madame Lerat threw herself on Lantier's bed, and snored like a 
 man ; whilst the other two, their heads falling forward, and 
 almost touching their knees, slept before the fire. At daybreak, 
 a shudder awoke them. Mother Coupeau's candle had again 
 gone out ; and as, in the obscurity, the dull trickling sound 
 recommenced, Madame Lorilleux gave the explanation of it anew 
 in a loud voice, so as to reassure herself : 
 
 " She's emptying," repeated she, lighting another candle. 
 
 The funeral was to take place at half-past ten. A nice morn-
 
 292 THE "ASSOMMOm." 
 
 ing to add to the night and the day before ! That is to say, 
 Gervaise, though without a sou, would have given a hundred 
 francs to anybody who would have come and taken mother Cou- 
 peau away three hours sooner. No, one may love people, but 
 they are too great a weight when they are dead ; and even the 
 more one has loved them, the sooner one would like to be rid 
 of their bodies. 
 
 The morning of a funeral is, fortunately, full of diversions. 
 One has all sorts of preparations to make. To begin with, they 
 lunched. Then, it happened to be old Bazouge, the mute, who 
 lived on the sixth floor, who brought the coffin and the sack of 
 bran. He was never sober, the worthy fellow. At eight 
 o'clock that day, he was still lively from the booze of the day 
 before. 
 
 " This is for here, isn't it ? " asked he. 
 
 And he laid down the coffin, which creaked like a new box. 
 But as he was throwing the sack of bran on one side, he stood 
 with a look of amazement in his eyes, his mouth opened wide, 
 on beholding Gervaise before him. 
 
 " Beg pardon, excuse me. I've made a mistake," stammered 
 he. " I was told it was for here." 
 
 He had already taken up the sack again, and the laundress 
 was obliged to call to him : 
 
 " Leave it alone, it's for here." 
 
 " Ah ! Jove's thunder ! let's understand each other! " resumed 
 he, slapping his thigh. " I see, it's the old lady." 
 
 Gervaise turned quite pale. Old Bazouge had brought the 
 coffin for her. By way of apology, he tried to be gallant, and 
 continued : 
 
 " I'm not to blame, am 11 It was said yesterday that some one 
 on the ground floor bad cocked their toes. Then I thought 
 You know, in our business, these things enter by one ear and 
 go out by the other. All the same, allow me to congratulate 
 you. As late as possible, eh ? That's best, though life isn't 
 always amusing ; ah ! no, by Jove ! " 
 
 She listened to him and drew back, with the fear that ho 
 would seize her in his big dirty hands, and carry her away in his 
 box. Once already, on her wedding night, he had told her that 
 he knew women who would thank him if he came to take them 
 away. Well, she had not yet got to that point ; it gave her 
 a chill down the back. Her life was spoilt, but she had no wish 
 to go off so soon. Yes, she would rather starve for years, than 
 die the death, just the matter of a second.
 
 " ASSOMMCHR." 203 
 
 "He's abominably drunk," murmured she, with an air of 
 disgust mingled with dread. " They, at least, oughtn't to send 
 us tipplers. We pay dear enough." 
 
 Then the mute became insolent, and jeered. 
 
 " I say, little woman, it's only put off till another time. I'm 
 entirely at your service, remember ! You've only to make me 
 a sign. I'm the ladies' consoler. And don't spit on old 
 Bazouge, because he's held in his arras finer ones than you, who 
 let themselves be tucked in without a murmur, very pleased to 
 continue their by-by in the dark." 
 
 " Hold your tongue, old Bazouge ! " said Lorilleux, severely, 
 having hastened to the spot on hearing the noise, "such jokes 
 are highly improper. If we complained about you, you would 
 get the sack. Come, be off, as you've no respect for principles." 
 
 The mute moved away, but one could hear him stuttering as 
 he dragged along the pavement, 
 
 "Well! what? principles! There's no such thing as prin- 
 ciples, there's no such thing as principles there's only 
 honesty ! " 
 
 At length ten o'clock struck. Th.e hearse was late. There 
 were already several people in the shop, friends and neighbours 
 M. Madinier, My-Boots, Madame Gaudron, Mademoiselle 
 Kemanjou ; and every minute, a man's or a woman's head was 
 thrust out of the gaping opening of the door, between the 
 tlosed shutters, to see if that creeping hearse was in sight. 
 The family, all together in the back room, was shaking hands. 
 Short pauses occurred, interrupted by rapid whisperings, a tire- 
 some and feverish waiting, with sudden rushes of skirts 
 Madame Lorilleux who had forgotten her handkerchief, or else 
 Madame Lerat who was trying to borrow a prayer-book. Every 
 one on arriving beheld the open coffin in the centre of the little 
 room before the bed ; and in spite of oneself, each stood covertly 
 studying it, calculating that plump mother Coupeau would 
 never squeeze into it. They all looked at each other with this 
 thought in their eyes, though without communicating it. But 
 there was a slight pushing at the street door. M. Madinier, 
 extending his arms, came and said, in a low, grave voice, 
 
 "Herethey'are!" 
 
 It was not the hearse though. Four mutes entered hastily 
 in single file, with their red faces, their hands all numbed like 
 persons in the habit of moving heavy things, and their rusty 
 black clothes wearing white from constant rubbing against 
 coffins. Old Bazouge walked first, very drunk and very proper.
 
 29-1 THE "ASSOMMOIE." 
 
 As soon as he was at work he found his equilibrium. They did 
 not utter a word, but slightly bowed their heads, already 
 weighing mother Coupeau with a glance. And they did not 
 dawdle ; the poor old woman was packed in, in the time one 
 takes to sneeze. The shortest, a young chap who squinted, had 
 emptied the bran into the coffin, and spread it out, kneading 
 it as though he wished to make bread. Another, a tall lean 
 fellow, with a funny look, laid the sheet over it. Then one, 
 two, off you go ! The four of them seized hold of the body and 
 lifted it up, two at the feet and two at the head. One could 
 not toss a pancake quicker. The persons who were stretching 
 their necks might have thought that mother Coupeau had her- 
 self jumped into the box. She glided into it as though quite 
 at home. Oh ! a perfect fit, so perfect that one heard her rub 
 against the new wood. She touched on all sides, a regular 
 picture in a frame. But anyhow she was in, which fact greatly 
 surprised the lookers-on. She had surely diminished in size since 
 the night before. 
 
 The mutes were now standing up and waiting ; the little one 
 with a squint took the coffin lid, by way of inviting the family 
 to bid their last farewell, whilst Bazouge had filled his mouth 
 with nails and was holding the hammer in readiness. Then 
 Coupeau, his two sisters, and Gervaise threw themselves on 
 their knees and kissed the mamma who was going away, weep- 
 ing bitterly, the hot tears falling on and streaming down the 
 stiff face cold as ice. There was a prolonged sound of sobbing. 
 The lid was placed on, and old Bazouge knocked the nails in 
 with the style of a packer, two blows for each ; and they none 
 of them listened any longer to their own weeping in that din, 
 which resembled the noise of furniture being repaired. It was 
 over. The time for starting had arrived. 
 
 " What a fuss to make at such a time ! " said Madame Loril- 
 leux to her husband as she caught sight of the hearse before 
 the door. 
 
 The hearse was creating quite a revolution in the neighbour- 
 hood. The tripe-seller called to the grocer's men, the little 
 clockmaker came out on to the pavement, the neighbours leant 
 out of their windows ; and all these people talked about the 
 scallop with its white cotton fringe. Ah ! the Coupeaus would 
 have done better to have paid their debts. But, as the Lorilleux 
 said, when one is proud it shows itself everywhere and in spite 
 of everything. 
 
 " It's shameful 1 " repeated Gervaise at the same moment,
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 205 
 
 speaking of the chain-maker and his wife. " To think that 
 those skinflints have not even brought a bunch of violets for 
 their mother ! " 
 
 The Lorilleux, true enough, had come empty-handed. Madame 
 Lerat had given a wreath of artificial flowers. And a wreath of 
 immortelles and a bouquet bought by the Coupeaus were also 
 placed on the coffin. The mutes had had to bring all their 
 muscle into play to raise the coffin and get it into the hearse. 
 Tt was some time before the procession was formed. Coupeau 
 and Lorilleux, in frock coats and with their hats in their hands, 
 were chief mourners ; the first, in his emotion, which two glasses 
 of white wine early in the morning had helped to sustain, clung 
 to his brother-in-law's arm, with no strength in his legs and a 
 violent headache. Then followed the other men : M. Madinier, 
 very grave and all in black, My-Boots, wearing a great coat 
 over his blouse, Boche, whose yellow trousers produced the 
 effect of a petard, Lantier, Gaudron, Bibi-the-Smoker, Poisson, 
 and others besides. The ladies came next : in the first row 
 Madame Lorilleux, dragging the deceased's skirt, which she had 
 altered ; Madame Lerat, hiding under a shawl her hastily got-up 
 mourning, a gown with lilac trimmings; and following them 
 Virginie, Madame Gaudron, Madame Fauconnier, Mademoiselle 
 Remanjou, and the rest. When the hearse started and slowly 
 descended the Kue de la Goutte-d'Or, amidst signs of the cross 
 and heads bared, the four mutes took the lead, two in front, 
 the two others on the right and left. Gervaise had remained 
 behind to close the shop. She left Nana with Madame Boche, 
 and ran to rejoin the procession, whilst the child, hold by the 
 doorkeeper under the porch, watched with a deeply interested 
 gaze her grandmother disappear at the end of the street, in that 
 beautiful carriage. 
 
 Just at the moment when the laundress, all out of breath, 
 reached the tail end of the procession, Goujet also joined it. 
 He went with the men ; but he looked back and nodded to her, 
 so gently that she felt all on a sudden very wretched and again 
 burst into tears. She was no longer crying for mother Coupeau 
 only; she was bewailing something abominable, which she 
 could not have put into words, and which was stifling her. 
 She kept her handkerchief pressed to her eyes all the way. 
 Madame Lorilleux, with dry and inflamed cheeks, looked at her 
 sideways, with an air of accusing her of doing it all for show. 
 
 The ceremony at the church was soon got through. The 
 mass dragged a little though* because the priest was very old.
 
 296 THE " ASSOMMOm." 
 
 My-Boots and Bibi-the-Smoker preferred to remain outside, on 
 account of the collection. M. Madinier studied the priests ell 
 the while, and communicated his observations to Lantier : 
 those jokers, though so glib with their Latin, did not even 
 know a word of what they were saying ; they buried a person 
 just in the same way that they would have baptised or married 
 him, without the least feeling in their heart. Then, M. 
 Madiuier blamed all those ceremonies, those lights, those sad 
 voices, and that display before the families. Really, one lost 
 one's relatives twice, at home and at church. And all the men 
 agreed with him ; for it was another painful moment, when, the 
 mass over, there was a mumbling of prayers, and the persons 
 present had to pass before the coffin, sprinkling it with holy 
 water. 
 
 Happily, the cemetery was not far off, the little cemetery of 
 La Chapelle, a bit of a garden which opened on to the RUG 
 Marcadet. The procession arrived disbanded, with stampings 
 of feet and everybody talking of his own affairs. The hard 
 earth resounded, and many would have liked to have moved 
 about to keep themselves warm. The gaping hole, beside which 
 the coffin was laid, was already frozen over, and looked white 
 and stony, like a plaster quarry j and the followers, group sd 
 round little heaps of gravel, did not find it pleasant standing in 
 such piercing cold, whilst looking at the hole likewise bored 
 them. At length, a priest in a surplice came out of a little 
 cottage ; he shivered, and one could see his steaming breath at 
 each de profundis that he uttered. At the final sign of the 
 cross he bolted off, without the least desire to go through the 
 service again. The sexton took his shovel, but on account of 
 the frost he was only able to detach large lumps of earth, 
 which beat a fine tune down below, a regular bombardment of 
 the coffin, an enfilade of artillery sufficient to make one think 
 the wood was splitting. One may be a cynic, nevertheless 
 that sort of music soon upsets one's stomach. The weeping re- 
 commenced. They moved off, they even got outside, but they 
 still heard the detonations. My-Boots, blowing on his fingers, 
 uttered an observation aloud : 
 
 "Ah ! Jove's thunder! no ! poor mother Coupeau won't feel 
 very warm ! " 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen," said the zinc-worker to the few 
 friends who remained in the street with the family, " will you 
 permit us to offer you some refreshments 1 " 
 
 And he was the first to enter a wine-shop in the Rue Mar-
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 297 
 
 cadet, the "Arrival at the Cemetery." Gervaise, remaining 
 outside, called Goujet, who was moving off, after again nodding 
 to her. Why didn't he accept a glass of wine ? He was in a 
 hurry, he was going back to the workshop. Then, they looked 
 at each other a moment without speaking. 
 
 " I must ask your pardon for troubling you about the sixty 
 francs," at length murmured the laundress. " I was half crazy, 
 I thought of you " 
 
 " Oh ! don't mention it ; you're fully forgiven," interrupted 
 the blacksmith. "And you know, I'm quite at your service if 
 any misfortune should overtake you. But don't say anything 
 to mamma, because she has her ideas, and I don't wish to cause 
 her annoyance." 
 
 She was still looking at him ; and, on beholding him so good , 
 so sad, with his beautiful yellow beard, she was on the point o!' 
 agreeing to his old proposal, that of going away with him 
 and living happy together somewhere. Then another wicked 
 thought came into her head, which was to borrow of him the 
 money for the two over-due quarters 1 rent at no matter what 
 cost. -She trembled, and resumed in a caressing tone of voice : 
 
 " We're not bad friends, are we ? " 
 
 He shook his head as he answered, 
 
 " No, certainly not ; we shall never be bad friends. Only, 
 you understand, all is over." 
 
 And he went off with long strides, leaving Gervaise be- 
 wildered, listening to his last words which rang in her ears with 
 the clang of a big bell. On entering the wine-shop, she seemed 
 to hear a hollow voice within her which said, " All is over, -well ! 
 all is over ; there is nothing more for me to do if all is over ! " 
 Sitting down, she swallowed a mouthful of bread and cheese, 
 and emptied a glass full of wine which she found before her. 
 
 It was a long, low room on the ground floor, and was furnished 
 with two big tables. Bottles of wine, quarter loaves of bread, 
 and large slices of Brie cheese on three plates were spread out 
 in a row. The party was just having a snack, without either 
 table-cloth or knives. Farther off, beside the roaring stove, the 
 four mutes were finishing their lunch. 
 
 " Dear me ! " explained M. Madinier, " we each have our 
 turn. The old folks make room for the young ones. Your 
 lodging will seem very empty to you now when you go home." 
 
 " Oh ! my brother's going to give notice," said Madame 
 Lorilleux quickly. " That shop's ruination." 
 
 They had been working upon Coupeau. Every one was urg-
 
 298 THE "ASSOMMOIB." 
 
 ing him to give up the lease. Madame Lerat herself, who had 
 been on very good terms with Lantier and Virginie for some 
 time past, and who was tickled with the idea that they were a 
 trifle smitten with each other, talked of bankruptcy and prison, 
 putting on most terrified airs. And, suddenly, the zinc-worker, 
 already overdosed with liquor, flew into a passion, his emotion 
 turning to fury. 
 
 " Listen," cried he, poking his nose in his wife's face ; " I in- 
 tend that you shall listen to me ! Your confounded head will 
 always have its own way. But, this time, I intend to have 
 mine, I warn you ! " 
 
 " Ah ! well," said Lantier, " one never yet brought her to 
 reason by fair words ; it wants a mallet to drive it into her 
 head." 
 
 And both fell to abusing her for a while. That did not pre- 
 vent the jaws from working the Brie cheese disappeared, the 
 bottles of wine flowed like fountains. However, Gervaise was 
 fast giving way before the attack. She answered nothing, but 
 hurried herself, her mouth ever full, as though she had been 
 very hungry. When they got tired, she gently raised her head 
 and said, 
 
 "That's enough, isn't it? I don't care a straw for the shop ! 
 I want no more of it. Do .you understand ? It can go to the 
 deuce ! All is over ! " 
 
 Then they ordered some more bread and cheese and talked 
 business. The Poissons took the rest of the lease and agreed 
 to be answerable for the two quarters' rent overdue. Boche, 
 moreover, pompously agreed to the arrangement in the land- 
 lord's name. He even then and there let a lodging to the 
 Coupeaus the vacant one on the sixth floor, in the same pas- 
 sage as the Lorilleux apartment. As for Lantier, well ! he 
 would like to keep his room, if it did not inconvenience the 
 Poissons. The policeman bowed ; it did not inconvenience him 
 at all ; friends always get on together, in spite of any difference 
 in their political ideas. And Lantier, without mixing himself 
 up any more in the matter, like a man who has at length settled 
 his little business, helped himself to an enormous slice of bread 
 and cheese j he leant back in his chair and eat devoutly, his 
 blood tingling beneath his skin, his whole body burning with a 
 sly joy, and he blinked his eyes to peep first at Gervaise and 
 then at Virginie. 
 
 " Hi 1 old Bazouge ! " called Coupeau, " come and have a 
 drink. We're not proud; we're all workers."
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 209 
 
 The four mutes "who were going off returned to clink glasses 
 with the company. It was no reproach ; but the lady they had 
 been handling weighed heavy, and it was well worth a glass of 
 wine. Old Bazouge stared at the laundress, but did not utter 
 an unbecoming word. " She rose from her seat, feeling uneasy, 
 and left the men who were all getting tipsy. Coupeau, who 
 was as drunk as a pig, recommenced bellowing and said it was 
 grief. 
 
 That evening, when Gervaise found herself at home again, 
 she remained in a stupefied state on a chair. It seemed to her 
 that the rooms were immense and deserted. Keally, it would 
 be a good riddance. But it was certainly not only mother 
 Goupeau that she had left at the bottom of the hole in the 
 little garden of the Rue Marcadet. She missed too many things, 
 most likely a part of her life, and her shop, and her pride of 
 being an employer, and other feelings besides, which she had 
 buried on that day. Yes, the walls were bare, and her heart 
 also ; it was a complete clear out, a tumble into the pit. And 
 she felt too tired ; she would pick herself up again later on if 
 she could. 
 
 At ten o'clock, when undressing, Nana cried and stamped. 
 She wanted to sleep in mother Coupeau's bed* Her mother 
 tried to frighten her ; but the child was too precocious. Corpses 
 only filled her with a great curiosity ; so that, for the sake of 
 peace, she was allowed to lie down in mother Coupeau's place. 
 She liked big beds, the chit ; she spread herself out and rolled 
 about. She slept uncommonly well that night in the warm and 
 pleasant feather bed.
 
 300 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE Coupeaus' new lodging was on the sixth floor, staircase B. 
 After passing Mademoiselle Remanjou's door, one followed the 
 passage on the left. Then came another turning. The first 
 door was the Bijards'. Almost opposite, in a hole without air, 
 under a little staircase, which ascended to the roof, old Bru 
 slept Two lodgings farther on, one came to Bazouge's. Then, 
 next to Bazouge's was the Coupeaus', a room and a closet, 
 looking on to the courtyard. And there were only two more 
 families along the passage before coming to the Lorilleux, who 
 were right at the end. 
 
 A room and a closet, no more. The Coupeaus perched 
 there now. And the room was scarcely larger than one's hand. 
 And they had to do everything in there eat, sleep, and all the 
 rest Nana's bed just squeezed into the closet ; she had to 
 dress in her father and mother's room, and her door was kept 
 open at night-time so that she should not be suffocated. There 
 was such little room, that Gervaise had sold some things to 
 the Poissons when she gave up the shop, not being able to find 
 space for everything. What with the bed, the table, and four 
 chairs, the lodging w.as about full. With a broken heart, un- 
 able to separate herself from her chest of drawers, she had en- 
 cumbered what little space remained with this great lumbering 
 piece of furniture, which blocked up half the window. One 
 half could never be opened, and but little light and cheerful- 
 ness could enter. Whenever she wanted to look down into the 
 courtyard, there was -not room for her elbows, as she was grow- 
 ing very stout, and she was obliged to lean out sideways, 
 straining her neck in order to see. 
 
 During the first few days, the laundress would continually 
 sit down and cry. It seemed to her too hard, not being able to 
 move about in her home, after having been used to so much 
 room. She felt stifled ; she remained at the window for hours,
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 301 
 
 squeezed between the wall arid the drawers, and getting a stiff 
 neck. It was only there that she could- breathe freely. The 
 courtyard, however, scarcely inspired her with other than sad 
 thoughts. Opposite to her, on the sunny side, she beheld her 
 dream of bygone days, that window on the fifth floor where, 
 every spring, some scarlet runners twined their slender stems 
 over an arbour made of string. Her room was on the shady 
 side, where pots of mignonette would not last g. week. Ah ! no, 
 life was not taking a pleasant turn, it was scarcely the existence 
 she had hoped for. Instead of spending her old age amidst 
 flowers, she was already floundering in things which were not 
 very clean. 
 
 On leaning out on6 day, Gervaise experienced a peculiar sen- 
 sation: she fancied she beheld herself down below, near the door 
 keeper's room under the porch, her nose in the air, and examin- 
 ing the house for the first time ; and this leap thirteen years 
 backwards caused her heart to throb. The courtyard had not 
 changed, the bare frontages were scarcely blacker or more 
 leprous, a stench still ascended from the sinks rotting with 
 rust ; on the lines at the windows, clothes and children's 
 napkins continued to hang out to dry ; down below, the un- 
 even pavement was littered with the cinders from the lock- 
 smith's and the shavings from the carpenter's ; even, in the 
 clamp corner near the water-tap, there was a beautiful blue 
 pool that had flowed from the dyer's, a blue as delicate as the 
 blue of other days. 1 But she herself felt terribly changed and 
 worn. To begin with, she was no longer below, her face raised 
 to heaven, feeling content and courageous, and aspiring to a 
 handsome lodging. She was right up under the roof, among 
 the lousy ones, in the dirtiest hole, the part that never received 
 a ray of sunshine. And that explained her tears ; she could 
 scarcely feel enchanted with her fate. 
 
 However, when Gervaise had grown somewhat used to it, the 
 early days of the little family in their new home did not pass 
 off so badly. The winter was almost over, and the trifle of 
 money received for the furniture sold to Virginie, helped to 
 make things comfortable. Then, with the fine weather came a 
 piece of luck, Coupeau was engaged to work in the country, at 
 Etampes ; and ho was there for nearly three months without 
 once getting drunk, cured for a time by the fresh air. One has 
 no idea what a quench it is to the tippler's thirst, to leave 
 Paris where the streets are full of the fumes of wine and 
 brandy. On his return, he was as fresh as a rose, and he
 
 302 THE " ASSOMMOm." 
 
 brought back in his pocket four hundred francs, with which 
 they paid the two overdue quarters' rent of the shop that the 
 Poissons had become answerable for, and also the most pressing 
 of their little debts in the neighbourhood. Gervaise thus 
 opened two or three streets through which she had not passed 
 for a long time. She had naturally become an ironer again at 
 so much a day. Madame Fauconnier, a very worthy woman 
 providing one flattered her, had been willing to re-engage her. 
 She even paid her three francs, the same as to a first class 
 workwoman, out of regard for her former position of employer. 
 Thus it seemed as though the couple would manage to jog 
 along.' With work and economy, Gervaise even saw the day 
 when they would be able to pay everyone and arrange an exist- 
 ence that would be supportable. She promised herself that, 
 however, hi the feverishness arising from the big sum cf money 
 earned by her husband. When cool, she accepted life as it 
 came, saying that beautiful things never lasted. 
 
 What the Coupeaus most suffered from at that time, was see- 
 ing the Poissons take up their abode at their shop. They were 
 not naturally of a particularly jealous disposition, but people 
 aggravated them, purposely expressing amazement in their pre- 
 sence at the embellishments of their successors. The Boches, 
 the Lorilleux especially, never tired. According to them, no 
 one had ever seen so beautiful a shop. And they talked of the 
 dirty state in which the Poissons had found the premises, relat- 
 ing that the cleaning alone had cost thirty francs. Virginie, 
 after a great deal of hesitation, had decided to go in for the 
 nicest part of the grocery business, dealing in such things as 
 sweetmeats, chocolate, coffee, and tea. Lantier had warmly 
 recommended this line to her, saying that enormous sums were 
 to be made out of dainties. The shop was painted black, and 
 relieved with yellow fillets, two genteel colours. Three carpen- 
 ters worked eight days at arranging everything at the pigeon- 
 holes, the glass-cases and the counter with shelves for the jars, 
 the same as at a confectioner's. The little inheritance which 
 Poisson had in reserve must have been a good deal eaten into ; 
 but Virginie triumphed, and the Lorilleux, assisted by the 
 doorkeepers, did not spare Gervaise a pigeon-hole, a show-case 
 or a glass jar, feeling amused whenever they saw her change 
 countenance. One may not be envious, but nevertheless one 
 loses one's* temper when others put on one's boots and crush 
 one with them. 
 
 There was also a question of a man beneath all this. It was
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 303 
 
 affirmed that Lantier had broken off with Gervaise. The neigh- 
 bourhood declared that it was quite right. In short, it gave a 
 moral tone to the street. And all the honour of the separation 
 was accorded to the crafty hatter in whom all the ladies con- 
 tinued to believe. Details were given he had been _ obliged to 
 beat the laundress to make her keep quiet, she had such a furi- 
 ous passion for him. Naturally, no one told the real truth ; 
 those who might have known it, thought it too simple and not 
 sufficiently interesting. As a matter of fact, Lantier had in- 
 deed broken off with Gervaise, in this sense that he no longer 
 had her day and night at his disposal ; but he certainly went 
 up to the sixth floor to see her, for Mademoiselle Kemanjou met 
 him coming from the Coupeaus at most peculiar hours. In 
 short, the connection continued, by hook or by crook, in a "do 
 as you are bid" manner, without either one or the other feeling 
 much pleasure ; the remnant of a habit, a few reciprocal com- 
 placencies, nothing more. Only, what complicated the situation, 
 was that the neighbourhood now put Lantier and Virginie be- 
 tween the. same pair of sheets. There again the neighbourhood 
 was in top much of a hurry. No doubt, the hatter was making 
 up to the tall brunette; and that was bound to be, because she 
 replaced Gervaise in everything and for everything in the lodg- 
 ing. 
 
 A good joke was just then going about on the subject: it was 
 pretended that one night he had gone to seek Gervaise on his 
 neighbour's pillow, and that he had brought back Virginie in- 
 stead, and had kept her without recognising her until daybreak, 
 on account of the obscurity. The story gave rise to much laugh- 
 ter, but Lantier was really not so far advanced, he scarcely ven- 
 tured to pinch Virginie's hips. The Lorilleux all the same talked 
 before the laundress of the amours of Lantier and Madame Pois- 
 son with a great amount of feeling, hoping thereby to make her 
 jealous. The Boches also gave out that never before had they 
 seen so handsome a couple. The funniest part of all this was 
 that the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or did not seem to take offence at 
 the new family of three ; no, morality which had been hard for 
 Gervaise, was mild for Virginie. Perhaps the smiling indulg- 
 ence of the street came from the fact that the husband was a 
 policeman. 
 
 Luckily, jealousy did not worry Gervaise much. Lantier 's in- 
 fidelities left her very calm, because for a long time her heart 
 had been as nothing in their relations. She had learnt, with- 
 out seeking to do so, some very nasty stories, intrigues between
 
 304 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 the hatter and all sorts of girls, the first strumpets he came 
 across in the street ; and it affected her so little, that she had 
 continued to be obliging, without even feeling sufficient anger 
 to break off the connection. However, she did. not accept her 
 lover's new fancy so quietly. With Virginie, it was quite 
 another thing. They had both of them invented that for the 
 sake of annoying her ; and if she laughed at trifles, she required 
 to be treated with consideration. So that, whenever Madame 
 Lorilleux or some other spiteful creature made a point of saying 
 in her presence that Poisson could no longer pass under the 
 Forte Saint-Denis, she would turn quite pale, with a gnawing 
 at her heart-strings and a burning sensation in her stomach. 
 She bit her lips, she avoided getting into a passion, not wishing 
 to give such a pleasure to her enemies. But she must have 
 picked a quarrel with Lantier, for one afternoon Mademoiselle 
 Remanjou thought she recognised the sound of a slap ; besides, 
 there certainly was some disagreement between them, for 
 Lantier did not speak to her for a fortnight Then, he was the 
 first to make it up, and everything seemed to jog on as before 
 as though nothing had happened. The laundress preferred to 
 make the best of a bad job, not caring for a general pulling out 
 of hair, and desirous of not making her life worse than it really 
 was. Ah ! she was no longer twenty ; she no longer loved men 
 to the point of spanking others for their dear sakes, and risking 
 being locked up at the police-station. Only, she added all this on 
 to the rest. 
 
 Coupeau laughed. This easy-going husband, who would not 
 see the cuckoldom in his own home, chaffed immensely about 
 Poisson's pair of horns. In his household it did not count ; 
 but in others, he thought it a rare joke, and he gave himself no 
 end of pains to watch for those accidents, when the neighbours' 
 wives went and had a look at the wrong side of the leaf. What 
 a noodle he was, that Poisson ! and yet he carried a sword, and 
 even allowed himself to jostle people on the footpaths ! Then 
 Coupeau had the cheek to chaff Gervaise. Ah well ! her lover 
 was indeed chucking her up ! She had no luck : the first time, 
 blacksmiths had turned out a failure, and, the second time, it 
 was the hatters who were found wanting. But then, too, she 
 went in for trades that were not at all serious. Why did she 
 not take a mason, a fellow who would stick, who was used to 
 mixing his mortar firm ? Of course he merely said these things 
 by way of a joke, but all the same Gervaise would turn quite 
 green with terror, because he pierced her through and through
 
 THE "ASSOMMOra." 305 
 
 with his little grey eyes, as though he had wished to drive the 
 words into her with a gimlet. When he started on the chapter 
 of abominations she never knew whether he was laughing or 
 not. A man who gets drunk from one end of the year to the 
 other no longer knows what he says, and there are husbands 
 who, very jealous at twenty, at thirty become through drink 
 very easy-going on the question of conjugal fidelity. 
 
 It was a sight to see Coupeau swaggering about the Hue de 
 la Goutte-d'Or ! He called Poisson the cuckold. That shut up 
 all the gossips' mouths 1 The cuckold was no longer himself. 
 Oh, he knew what he knew. If he had pretended not to notice 
 anything before, it was apparently because he did not like rows. 
 Each one appears to know what goes on in his own home, and 
 scratches himself where he itches. But it did not make him 
 itch, and he couldn't scratch himself just to please other people. 
 Well ! and the policeman, did he notice anything ? Yet it was 
 there sure enough this time. The lovers had been seen ; it was 
 not a mere bit of scandalous gossip. And he got quite angry. 
 He could not understand how a man, a person in the employ of 
 the Government, could permit such a scandal in his own home. 
 The policeman must have been very fond of other people's 
 leavings, that was all. 
 
 On the nights when Coupeau felt dull, all alone with his wife 
 in their hole under the roof, this did not prevent his going 
 down for Lantier and carrying him off by force. He considered 
 the nest a sad place, now that his comrade no longer shared it. 
 He would make him and Gervaise friends again whenever he 
 saw them sulking. Jove's thunder ! cannot one send those who 
 are not satisfied to blazes ? is it forbidden to amuse oneself as 
 one chooses 1 He chuckled, broad ideas lit up his drunkard's 
 vacillating eyes, desires to share everything with the hatter, 
 just to beautify life. And it was especially on those evenings 
 that Gervaise was uncertain whether he spoke in jest or in 
 earnest. 
 
 In the midst of all this, Lantier put on the most con- 
 sequential airs. He showed himself both paternal and dignified. 
 On three successive occasions he had prevented a quarrel 
 between the Coupeaus and the Poissons. The good understand- 
 ing between the two families formed a part of his contentment. 
 Thanks to the tender, though firm, glances with which he 
 watched over Gervaise and Virgiuie, they always pretended to 
 entertain a great friendship for each other. He reigned over 
 both blonde and brunette with the tranquillity of a pasha, and 
 
 u
 
 306 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 
 
 fattened on his cunning. The rogue was still digesting the 
 Coupeaus when he already began to devour the Poissons. Oh, 
 it did not inconvenience him much ! as soon as one shop was 
 swallowed, he started on a second. It is only men of his sort 
 who ever have any luck. 
 
 It was in June of that year that Nana was confirmed. She 
 was then nearly thirteen years old, as tall as an asparagus shoot 
 run to seed, and had a bold, impudent air about her. The 
 year Before she had been sent away from the catechism class on 
 account of her bad behaviour ; and the priest had only allowed 
 her to join it this time, through fear of losing her altogether, 
 and of casting one more heathen on to the street. Nana danced 
 for joy as she thought of the white dress. The Lorilleux, being 
 godfather and godmother, had promised to provide it, and took 
 care to let every one in the house know of their present. 
 Madame Lerat was to give the veil and the cap, Virginie the 
 purse, and Lantier the prayer-book ; so that the Coupeaus 
 looked forward to the ceremony without any great anxiety. 
 Even the Poissons, wishing to give a house-warming, chose this 
 occasion, no doubt on the hatter's advice. They invited the 
 Coupeaus and the Boches, whose little girl was also going to be 
 confirmed. They provided a leg of mutton and trimmings for 
 the evening in question. 
 
 It so happened that on the evening before, Coupeau returned 
 home in a most abominable condition, just as Nana was lost in 
 admiration before the presents spread out on the top of the 
 chest of drawers. The Paris atmosphere was getting the better 
 of him again; and he fell foul of his wife and child with 
 drunken arguments and disgusting language, which no one. 
 should have uttered at such a time. Nana herself was 
 beginning to get hold of some very bad expressions in the 
 midst of the filthy conversations she was continually hearing. 
 On the days when there was a row, she would often call her 
 mother an old camel and a cow. 
 
 " And bread ! " yelled the zinc- worker. " I want my soup, 
 you couple of jades ! There're females for you, always thinking 
 of their finery ! I'll sit on the gew-gaws, you know, if I don't 
 get my soup ! * 
 
 " He's unbearable when he's screwed ! " murmured Gervaise, 
 out of patience ; and, turning towards him, she exclaimed : 
 
 " It's warming, don't bother us." 
 
 Nana was doing the modest, because she thought it nice on 
 such a day. She- continued to look at the presents on the
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 807 
 
 chest of drawers, affectedly lowering her eyelids, and pretending 
 not to understand her father's naughty words. But the zinc- 
 worker was , an awful plague on the nights when he had had too 
 much. Poking hfs face right against her neck, he said : 
 
 " I'll give you white dresses ! Are you going to stuff the 
 body full of paper for titties again, like last Sunday ? Yes, yes, 
 wait a bit 1 I see you wriggling your breech. So fine, toys 
 tickle your fancy. They excite your imagination. Jusfc you 
 cut away from there, you ugly little slut ! Move your hands 
 about, bundle all that into a drawer, or I'll clean you with it ! " 
 
 Nana, with bowed head, did not answer a word. She had 
 taken up the little tulle cap, and was asking her mother how 
 much it cosi And as Coupeau thrust out his hand to seize 
 hold of the cap, it was Gervaise who pushed him aside, ex- 
 claiming : 
 
 ," Do leave the child alone ! she's very good, she's doing no 
 harm." 
 
 Then the zinc-worker let out in real earnest. 
 
 " Ah 1 the strumpets ! The mother and daughter, they make 
 the pair. It's a nice thing to go to church just to leer at the 
 men. Dare to say it isn't true, little slattern 1 I'll dress you 
 in a sack, we'll see if it'll scratch your skin. Yes, in a sack, 
 just to disgust you, you and your priests. I don't want you to 
 be taught anything worse than you know already. Damnation 1 
 Just listen to me, both of you ! " 
 
 "=; . : At this, Nana turned round in a fury, whilst Gervaise had to 
 spread out her arms to protect the things which Coupeau talked 
 of tearing. The child looked her father straight in the face; 
 then, forgetting thg modest bearing inculcated by her confessor, 
 she said, clinching her teeth : " Pig ! " 
 
 As soon as the zinc-worker had had his soup, he snored. On 
 the morrow, he awoke in a very good humour. He still felt a 
 . little of the booze of the day before, but only just sufficient to 
 make him amiable. He assisted at the dressing of the child, 
 deeply affected by the white dress, and finding that a mere 
 nothing gave the little vermin quite a young lady look. And 
 it was something to see Nana's style in her dress that was too 
 short, and she smiling in an embarrassed way like a young 
 bride. When she went downstairs, and caught sight of Pauline, 
 also ready : dressedj standing outside the doorkeeper's room, she 
 stopped and examined her with her clear glance, and then be- 
 came very nice indeed on seeing that her friend did not look as 
 well as herself, and, moreover, had the appearance of a bundle.
 
 308 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 The two families started off together for the church. Nana 
 and Pauline walked first,' their prayer-books in their hands, and 
 holding down their veils on account of the wind ; they did not 
 speak, but were bursting with delight at seeing the people come 
 to their shop-doors, and they pouted devoutly every time they 
 heard any one say as they passed that they looked very nice. 
 Madame Boche and Madame Lorilleux lagged behind, because 
 they were interchanging their ideas about the Hobbler, a gobble- 
 all, whose daughter would never have been confirmed if the 
 relations had not found everything for her; yes, everything, 
 even a new chemise, out of respect for the holy altar. Madame 
 Lorilleux particularly busied herself with her present, the dress, 
 crushing Nana with a look, and calling her " big slut " each 
 time the child got a little dust on her skirt, by going too near 
 the shop windows. 
 
 At church, Coupeau wept all the time. It was stupid, but 
 he could not help it. It affected him to see the priest holding 
 out bis arms, and all the little girls, looking like angels, pass 
 before him clasping their hands ; and the music of the organ 
 stirred, up his stomach, and the pleasant t smell of the incense 
 forced him to sniff, the same as though some one had thrust a 
 bouquet of flowers into his face. In short, he saw everything 
 cerulean, his heart was touched. There was a canticle especi- 
 ally, something extra sweet, sung whilst the children were 
 taking the communion, which seemed to run with a shiver down 
 his neck and his backbone. Round about him, too, all the sen- 
 sitive people were soaking their pocket handkerchiefs. Really, 
 it was a bright day, the brightest day of his life. Only, when, 
 on coming out of church, he went to drink a glass of wine with 
 Lorilleux, who had kept his own eyes dry, and who chaffed him, 
 he got in a passion, and accused the rooks of burning the devil's 
 herbs in their churches in order to unman people. But, 
 all the same, he made no secret of it, his eyes had melted, 
 and that merely proved that he had not got a paving-stone 
 in place of a heart. And he ordered the glasses to be filled 
 again. 
 
 That evening, the Poissons' house-warming was very lively. 
 Friendship reigned without a hitch from one end of the feast to 
 the other. When bad times arrive, one thus comes in for some 
 pleasant evenings, hours during which sworn enemies love each 
 other. Lantier, with Gervaise on his left and Virginie on his 
 right, was most amiable to both of them, lavishing little tender 
 caresses like a cock who desires peace in his poultry-yard.
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 809 
 
 Opposite to them, Poisson maintained the calm and dignified 
 air of a policeman accustomed to think of nothing, and with a sort 
 of bandage over his eyes during his long wanderings over his beat. 
 But the queens of the feast were the two little ones, Nana and 
 Pauline, who had been allowed to keep on their things ; they 
 sat bolt upright, through fear of spilling anything on their 
 white dresses, and at every mouthful they were told to hold up 
 their chins,' so as to swallow cleanly. Nana, greatly bored by 
 all this fuss, ended by slabbering her wine over the body of her 
 dress, so it was taken off, and the stains were at once washed 
 out in a glass of water. 
 
 Then, at dessert, the children's future careers were gravely 
 discussed. Madame Boche had decided that Pauline should 
 learn the business of a piercer of gold and silver ; one could earn 
 from five to six francs a day at it. Gervaise had not made up 
 her mind, Nana showed no vocation for anything. Oh ! she ran 
 about the streets, she had a taste for that ; but, at everything 
 else, she was butter-fingered. 
 
 " In your place/' said Madame Lerat, " I would bring her up 
 as an artificial flower-maker. It is a pleasant and clean em- 
 ployment." 
 
 " Flower-makers," murmured Lorilleux, " are girls who all 
 follow the first fellow that asks them." 
 
 "Well! and I?" retorted the tall widow, biting her lips. 
 " You're not over gallant. You know, I'm not a she-dog. I 
 don't put my paws up in the air whenever anyone whistles 1 " 
 
 But the others made her leave off. 
 
 " Madame Lerat ! oh ! Madame Lerat ! " 
 
 And they drew her ' attention with winks to the two young 
 girls who had been confirmed, and who were burying their noses 
 in their glasses, so as not to laugh. Out of decency, the men 
 themselves had up till then all chosen their words. But Madame 
 Lerat would not accept the lesson. What she had just said, she 
 had heard in the very best society. Besides, she flattered her- 
 self she knew her mother tongue ; she had often been compli- 
 mented on her way of speaking, even before children, without 
 ever violating the laws of decency. 
 
 " There are some very respectable women amongst the arti- 
 ficial flower-makers, just you be pleased to understand !" 
 shouted she. " They're made like other women ; they're not 
 all skin, of course. Only, they keep themselves in bounds ; 
 they choose with taste when they do what isn't right. Yes, 
 they owe it all to the flowers. It's what preserved me."
 
 310 THE "ASSOMMOra." 
 
 " Well ! " interrupted Gervaise, " I've no dislike for the 
 artificial flower-making. Only, it must please Nana, that's all 
 I care about ; one should never thwart children on the question 
 of a vocation. Come, Nana, don't be stupid ; tell me now, 
 would you like to make flowers ? " 
 
 The child, bending o\er her plate, was gathering up the cake 
 crumbs with her wet finger, which she afterwards sucked. She 
 did not hurry herself. She grinned in her vicious way. 
 
 "Why yes, mamma, I should like to," she ended by de- 
 claring. 
 
 Then the matter was at once settled. Coupeau was quite 
 willing that Madame Lerat should take the child with her on 
 the morrow to the place where she worked in the Rue du Caire. 
 And they all talked very gravely of the duties of life. Boche 
 said that Nana and Pauline were women now that they had 
 partaken of the communion. Poisson added that for the future 
 they ought to know how to cook, mend socks, and look after a 
 house. Something was even said of their marrying, and of the 
 children they would some day have. The youngsters listened 
 and laughed in their sleeves, rubbing up against one another, 
 red and awkward in their white dresses, their hearts swelling 
 with the pride of being women. But what tickled them most 
 was when Lantier chaffed them, asking them if they had not 
 already got little husbands. And they forced Nana to own 
 that she had a great affection for Victor Fauconnier, the son of 
 the laundress's former mistress. 
 
 " Ah well ! " said Madame Lorilleux to the Boches, as they 
 were all leaving, " she's our god-daughter, but as they're going 
 to put her into the artificial flower-making, we don't wish to 
 have anything more to do with her. Another drab for the 
 Boulevards. She'll take her hook before six months are over." 
 
 On going up to bed, the Coupeaus agreed that everything 
 had passed off well, and that the Poissons were not at all bad 
 people. Gervaise even considered the shop was nicely got up. 
 She was expecting to suffer a great deal in thus spending the 
 evening in her old lodging, where others were strutting about 
 now ; and she was surprised at not having felt angry for a 
 single moment. Nana, who was undressing, asked her mother 
 if the dress of the young lady on the second floor who had been 
 married the month before was a muslin one like hers. 
 
 But that was their last happy day. Two years passed by, 
 during which they sank deeper and deeper. The winters especially 
 cleared them out. If they had bread to eat during the fine
 
 THE "ASSOMMOm." 311 
 
 weather, Jbhe rain and cold came accompanied by hunger, by drub- 
 bings before the empty cupboard, and by dinner-hours with nothing 
 to eat in the little Siberia of their larder. That scamp Decem- 
 ber entered their home under the door, and he brought every 
 ill imaginable the closing of the work-shops, the benumbed 
 idleness engendered by the frost, the black misery of continual 
 wet weather. The first winter, they still had a fire at times, 
 huddling round the stove, preferring to be warm rather than 
 to eat ; the second winter, the stove did not even once have the 
 rust off it, it froze the room with its lugubrious air of a cast-iron 
 milestone. And what took the life out of their limbs, what 
 above all utterly crushed them, was the rent. Oh I the Janu- 
 ary quarter, when there was not a radish in the house and old 
 Boche came up with the receipt ! Then it blew colder, a regu- 
 lar tempest from the north. M. Marescot arrived the following 
 Saturday, wrapped up in a good warm overcoat, his big hands 
 hidden in woollen gloves ; and he was for ever talking of ejecting 
 them, whilst the snow continued to fall outside, as though it 
 were preparing a bed for them on the pavement, with white 
 sheets. To have paid the quarter's rent they would have sold 
 their very flesh. It was the rent which emptied the larder and 
 the stove. 
 
 In the entire house, moreover, a general lamentation ascended. 
 There was weeping on every floor; a music of misfortune 
 resounded up the staircases and along the passages. Had there 
 been a corpse in every home, it would not have produced a 
 more abominable noise of wailing. A regular day of the last 
 judgment, 1 the end of the end, life rendered utterly impossible, 
 the annihilation of the poor. The woman on the third floor had 
 to go and do eight days at the corner of the Rue Belhomme. 
 A workman, the mason on the fifth, floor, had robbed his 
 employer. 
 
 No doubt, the Coupeaus had only themselves to blame. 
 Life may be a hard fight, but one always pulls through when 
 one is orderly and economical witness the Lorilleux, who paid 
 their rent to the day, the money folded up in bits of dirty 
 paper ; but they, it is true, led a life of starved spiders, which 
 would disgust one with work. Nana as yet earned nothing at 
 flower-making; she even cost a good deal for her keep. At 
 Madame Fauconnier's, Gervaise was beginning to be looked 
 down upon. She was no longer so expert ; she bungled her 
 work to such an extent that the mistress had reduced her wages 
 to forty sous a day, the price paid to the clumsiest. With all
 
 312 THE "ASSOMMOIB." 
 
 that she was very proud and very susceptible, throwing in every 
 one's teeth her former position of a person in business. Some 
 days she never turned up at all, whilst on 'others she would 
 leave in the midst of her work, simply through a fit of temper ; 
 for instance, on one occasion she was so annoyed at Madame 
 Fauconnier's engaging Madame Putois, and at having thus to 
 iron side by side with her former workwoman, that she ha<2 
 gone off and had not returned for a fortnight. When she had 
 recovered her temper, she would be taken back out of charity, 
 which embittered her still more. Naturally, when the end of 
 the week came, she had not much money to receive ; and, as 
 she often bitterly observed, it would finish one Saturday by her 
 owing something to her employer. 
 
 As for Goupeau, he did perhaps work, but in that case he 
 certainly made a present of his labour to the Government ; for 
 since the time he returned from Etampes, Gervaise had never 
 seen the colour of his money. She no longer looked in his 
 hands when he came home on pay-days. He arrived swinging 
 his arms, his pockets empty, and often without his handkerchief; 
 well ! yes, he had lost his rag, or else some rascally comrade 
 had sneaked it At first he rendered accounts ; he invented all 
 sorts of lies ten francs for a subscription, twenty francs fallen 
 through a hole which he showed in his pocket, fifty francs dis- 
 bursed in paying off imaginary debts. Then he had no longer 
 troubled himself to give any explanations. The money 
 evaporated, that was all ! It moved from his pocket into his 
 stomach, and that was a funnier way of bringing it home to his 
 missus. On Madame Boche's advice, the laundress would some- 
 times go and watch for her husband at the door of the work- 
 shop at closing time, so as to secure the coin he had just 
 received. But that did not help her much ; some of his 
 comrades would warn Coupeau, and the money would glide into 
 his shoes or some purse dirtier still. Madame Boche was very 
 cunning in this respect, because Boche was in the habit of 
 doing her out of pieces of ten francs, which he hid for the pur- 
 pose of standing treat to amiable ladies of his acquaintance. 
 She would inspect the smallest corners of his clothes ; she 
 generally found the coin that had not answered to the roll-call 
 sewed up in the peak of his cap, between the leather and the 
 cloth. Ah ! it was not the zinc-worker who padded his rags 
 with gold ! He stuffed It under his flesh. Yet Gervaise could 
 not take her scissors and rip open his stomach. 
 
 Yes, it was their fault, if every season found them lower and
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIB." ', 313 
 
 lower. But that's the sort of thing one never tells oneself, 
 especially when one's down in the mire. They accused their 
 bad luck ; they pretended that fate was against them. Their 
 home had become a regular hell upon earth. They wrangled 
 the whole day long. However, they had not yet come to blows, 
 with the exception of a few smacks which somehow flew about 
 at the height of their quarrels. The saddest part of the business 
 was that they had opened the cage of affection ; all their better 
 feelings had taken flight like so many canaries. The genial 
 warmth of father, mother, and child, when united together and 
 wrapped up in each other, deserted them and left them shiver- 
 injg, each in his or her own corner. The whole three Coupeau, 
 Gervaise, and Nana were ever in the most abominable tempers, 
 biting each other's noses off for nothing at all, their eyes full of 
 hatred ; and it seemed as though something had broken the 
 mainspring of the family, the mechanism which, with happy 
 .people, causes all hearts to beat in unison. Ah ! it was certain 
 Gervaise was no longer moved as she used to be when she saw 
 Doupeau at the edge of a roof, at forty or fifty feet above the 
 pavement She would not have pushed him off herself ; but if 
 he had fallen accidentally, in truth ! it would have freed the 
 earth of one who was of but little account. The days when they 
 were more especially at enmity, she regretted that it seemed he 
 was never going to be brought home on a stretcher ! She was 
 awaiting it. It would be her happiness they were bringing 
 back to her. What use was he, that drunkard ? To make her 
 weep, to devour all she possessed, to drive her to sin. Well ! 
 men so useless as he should be thrown as quickly as possible 
 into the hole, and the polka of deliverance be danced over them. 
 And when the mother said " Kill ! " the daughter responded 
 " Fell 1 " Nana read all the reports of accidents in the news- 
 papers, and made reflections that were unnatural for a girl. 
 Her father had such luck, an omnibus had knocked him down 
 without even sobering hjrn. Would the beggar never croak ? 
 
 In the midst of this existence, maddened by misery, Gervaise 
 suffered also from the hungry groans that she heard around 
 her. This corner of the house was the lousy one, where three 
 or four families seemed to have made up their . minds not to 
 have bread every day. Their doors might be open, but there 
 seldom issued the smell of cooking. Along the passage reigned 
 the silence of starvation, and the walls gave a hollow sound like 
 empty stomachs. At times there rose the sound of drubbings, 
 women weeping, the plaintive cries of hungry brats. It was
 
 314 THE "ASSOMMOm." 
 
 only a family devouring themselves to deceive their stomachs. 
 Cramp in the throat was a general complaint, whilst they were 
 all gaping through their wide open mouths ; and chests con- 
 tracted merely from breathing that air, in which the flies them- 
 selves could not have lived, through want of food. 
 
 But what most excited Gervaise's pity was old Bru, in his 
 hole under the little staircase. He retired into it like a 
 marmot, and rolled himself up in a ball so as to feel less cold. 
 He remained for days on a heap of straw without moving. 
 Hunger no longer drove him out, for it was useless going and 
 getting up an appetite when nobody had invited him to dinner. 
 Whenever three or four days passed without his being seen, the 
 neighbours would push his door open to see if he had come to 
 an end. No, he lived on all the same; not much, but just a 
 little with one eye only. Even death was forgetting him ! 
 Directly Gervaise got hold of some bread she would throw him 
 a few crusts. If she was becoming bad and detested men, on ac- 
 count of her husband, she always sincerely pitied the animals; and 
 old Bru, that poor old fellow whom everybody left to die because 
 he could no longer hold his brush, was like a dog to her, a beast 
 past service, whose skin and fat even the knackers would not 
 buy. It was quite a weight on her heart to know of his being 
 continually there, on the other side of the passage, abandoned 
 by God and man, nourishing himself solely on himself, return- 
 ing to the size of a child, shrivelled and dried up like oranges 
 which become hardened on mantel-pieces. 
 
 The laundress also suffered a great deal from the close neigh- 
 bourhood of Bazouge, the funeral mute. A simple partition, 
 and a very thin one, separated the two rooms. He could not 
 put a finger into his mouth without her hearing it. As soon as 
 he came home of an evening, she listened in spite of herself to 
 everything he did His black leather hat laid with a dull thud 
 on the chest of drawers like a shovelful of earth ; the black 
 cloak hung up and rustling against the wall like the wings of 
 some night bird ; all the black toggery flung into the middle of 
 the room, and filling it with the trappings of mourning. Sho 
 heard him stamping about, felt anxious at the least movement, 
 and was quite startled if he knocked against the furniture, or 
 rattled any of bis crqpkery. -This confounded drunkard was 
 her pre-occupation, filling her with a secret fear, mingled with a. 
 desire to know. He, jolly, his belly full every day, his head all 
 upside down, coughed, spat, sang " Mother Godichon," made 
 use of many dirty expressions, and fought with the four walls
 
 THE "ASSOMMOtR." 315 
 
 before finding his bedstead. And she remained quite pale, 
 asking herself whatever he could be up to. She imagined the 
 most atrocious things. She . got into her head that he must 
 have brought a corpse home and was stowing it away under his 
 bedstead. Well ! the newspapers had related something of the 
 kind- an undertaker's mute who collected the coffins of little 
 children at his home, so as to save himself trouble, and to 
 make only one journey to the cemetery. 
 
 For certain, directly Bazouge arrived, a smell of death 
 seemed to permeate the partition. One might have thought 
 oneself lodging against the Pere-Lachaise cemetery, in the 
 midst of the kingdom of moles. He was frightful, the animal, 
 continually laughing all by himself, as though, his profession 
 enlivened him. Even when he had finished his rumpus and 
 had laid himself on his back, he snored in a manner so extra- 
 ordinary that it caused the laundress to hold her breath. For 
 hours she listened attentively, with an idea that funerals were 
 passing through her neighbour's room. 
 
 Yes, the worst was that, in -spite of her terrors, something 
 incited Gervaise to put her ear to the wall, the better to find 
 out what was taking place. Bazouge had the same effect on her 
 as handsome men have on good women : they would like to 
 touch them, but they dare not, their bringing-up restrains 
 them. Well ! if fear had not kept her baek, Gervaise would 
 have liked to have handled death, to see what it was like. She 
 became so peculiar at times, holding her breath, listening 
 attentively, expecting to unravel the secret through one of 
 Bazouge's movements, that Coupeau would ask her with a 
 chuckle if she had a fancy for the mute next door. She got 
 angry' and talked of moving, the close proximity of this neigh- 
 bour was so distasteful to her ; and yet, in spite of herself, as 
 soon as the old chap arrived, smelling like a cemetery, she 
 became wrapped again in her reflections, with the excited and 
 timorous air of a wife thinking of passing a knife through the 
 marriage contract. Had he not twice offered to pack her up, 
 and carry her off with him to some place where the enjoyment 
 of , sleep is so great, that in a moment one forgets all one's 
 wretchedness ? Perhaps it was really very pleasant. Little by 
 little the temptation to taste it became stronger. She would have 
 liked to have tried it for a fortnight or a month. Oh ! to sleep a 
 month, especially in winter, the month when the rent became 
 due, when the troubles of life were killing her ! But it was not 
 possible one must sleep for ever, if one commenced to sleep
 
 316 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 for an hour ; and the thought of this froze her, her desire for 
 death departed before the eternal and stern friendship which 
 the earth demanded. 
 
 However, one evening in January, she knocked with both 
 her fists against the partition. She had passed a frightful 
 week, hustled by every one, without a sou, and utterly dis- 
 couraged. That evening she was not at all well ; she shivered 
 with, fever, and seemed to see flames dancing about her. Then, 
 instead of throwing herself out of the window, as she had at 
 one moment thought of doing, she set to knocking and calling : 
 
 " Old Bazouge ! old Bazouge ! " 
 
 The mute was taking off his shoes and singing, " There were 
 three lovely girls." He had probably had a good day, for he 
 seemed even more maudlin than usual. 
 
 '-' Old Bazouge ! old Bazouge !" repeated Gervaise, raising 
 her voice. 
 
 Did he not hear her then ? She was ready to give herself 
 at once ; he might come and take her on his neck, and carry 
 her off to the place where he carried his other women, the poor 
 and the rich, whom he consoled. It pained her to hear his 
 song, "There were three lovely girls," because she discerned 
 in it the disdain of a man who has too many mistresses. 
 
 "What is it? what is it?" stuttered Bazouge; "who's un- 
 well ? We're .coming, little woman ! " 
 
 But the sound of this husky voice awoke Gervaise as though 
 from a nightmare. What had she done ? she must have been 
 hammering against the partition. Then she felt as though she 
 had received a heavy blow across her loins ; fright contracted all 
 the muscles of her body, she drew back, fancying she beheld 
 the mute's fat hands passing through the wall to seize her by 
 the hair.- No, no, she would not, she was not ready. If she 
 had knocked, it must have been with her elbow in turning over, 
 without being aware of it. And a feeling of horror ascended 
 from her knees to her shoulders at the thought of seeing herself 
 lugged along in the old fellow's arms, all stiff and her face as 
 white as a plate. 
 
 "Well! is there no one there now?" resumed Bazouge in 
 the silence. "Wait a bit, we're always ready to oblige the 
 ladies." 
 
 " It's nothing, nothing," said the laundress at length in a 
 choking voice. " I don't require anything, thanks." 
 
 Whilst the mute fell asleep grumbling, she remained anxiously 
 listening to him, not daring to move for fear he should fancy
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 317 
 
 that he again heard her knocking. She vowed to be very care- 
 ful now. She might be dying, she would not ask her neighbour 
 for help. She promised herself this so as to reassure herself, 
 for at certain moments she was still possessed by her horrible 
 fancy, in spite of her fright. 
 
 In her corner of misery, in the midst of her cares and the 
 cares of others, Gervaise had, however, a beautiful example of 
 courage in the home of her neighbours, the Bijards. Little 
 Lalie, that youngster of eight, about the size of two sous' worth 
 of butter, looked after everything and kept the place as clean 
 as a grown-up person could have done; and the work was 
 rough, she had the care of two little brats, her brother Jules 
 and her sister Henriette, urchins of three and five years old, 
 whom she had to watch over all day long, even whilst sweeping 
 the place out or washing up the crockery. 
 
 Ever since Bijard had killed his wife with a kick in the 
 stomach, Lalie had become the little mother of them all. 
 Without saying a word, and of her own accord, she filled the 
 place of the one who had gone, to the extent that her brute of 
 a father, no doubt to complete the resemblance, now belaboured 
 the daughter as he had formerly belaboured the mother. 
 Whenever he came home drunk, he required women to mas- 
 sacre. He did not even notice that Lalie was quite little j he 
 would not have beaten an old skin harder. With a slap he 
 covered her entire face, and the flesh was still so delicate that 
 the marks of his five fingers remained there for a couple of 
 days. The-re were most . abominable thrashings, kicks for a 
 "yes" or a "no," a regular mad wolf falling on a poor little cat, 
 .timid and coaxing, so thin that the sight would make one weep, 
 and who submitted to all this with a resigned look in her 
 beautiful eyes and without a murmur. No, Lalie never re- 
 belled. She bent her neck a little to protect her face; she 
 kept in her cries, so as not to rouse the house. Then, when 
 her father was tired of kicking her about from one corner of 
 the room to another, she waited till she had regained sufficient 
 strength to resume her work, washed her children, made the 
 soup, and did not leave a speck of dust upon the furniture. It 
 was a part of her daily task to be beaten. 
 
 Gervaise entertained a great friendship for her little neigh- 
 bour. She treated her as an equal, as a grown-up woman of 
 experience. It must be said that Lalie had a pale and serious 
 look, with the expression of an old girl. One might have 
 thought her thirty on hearing her speak. She knew very well
 
 318 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 how to buy things, mend the clothes, attend to the home, and 
 she spoke of the children as though she had already gone 
 through two or three confinements in her time. It made people 
 smile to hear her talk thus at eight years old ; and then a 
 lump would rise in their throats, and they would hurry away 
 so as not to burst out crying. Gervaise drew the child towards 
 her as much as she could, gave her all she could spare, food 
 and old clothing. One day as she tried one of Nana's old 
 dresses on bo her, she almost choked with anger on seeing her 
 back covered with bruises, the skin off her elbow; which was 
 still bleeding, and all her innocent flesh martyred and sticking 
 to her bones. Well ! old Bazouge could get his box ready; she 
 would not last long at that rate ! But the child had begged the 
 laundress not to say a word. She would not have her father 
 bothered on her account. She took his part, affirming that he 
 would not have been so wicked if it had not been for the 
 drink. He was mad, he did not know what he did. Oh ! she 
 forgave him, because one ought to forgive madmen everything. 
 From that time Gervaise watched, and prepared to interfere 
 directly she heard Bijard coming upstairs. But on most of the 
 occasions she only caught some whack for her share. When 
 she entered their room in the day-time, she often found Lalie 
 tied to the foot of the iron bedstead ; it was an idea of the 
 locksmith's, before going out, to tie her legs and her body with 
 eome stout rope, without anyone being able to find out why a 
 mere whim of a brain diseased by drink, just for the sake, no 
 doubt, of tyrannising over the child when he was no longer 
 S-here. Lalie, as stiff as a stake, with pins and needles in her 
 legs, remained whole days at the post. She once even passed 
 a night there, Bijard having forgot to come home. Whenever 
 Gervaise, carried away by her indignation, talked of unfastening 
 her, she implored her, not to disturb the rope, because her 
 father became furious if he did not find the knots tied the same 
 way he had left them. It was really not at all unpleasant, it 
 rested her ; and she would say that with a smile, whilst her 
 little cherub-like legs were swollen and lifeless. What grieved 
 her was* that being fastened to the bedstead did not get the 
 work at all forward, in face of the disorder of the home. 
 Her father ought certainly to have invented something else. 
 All the same, she looked after her children, made them obey 
 her, and called Henriette and Jules to her to have their noses 
 wiped. As her hands were free she knitted whilst waiting to 
 be delivered, so as not to waste her time entirely. And she
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 319 
 
 suffered especially when Bijard untied her. She crawled about 
 a good quarter of an hour on the ground, unable to stand up, 
 because the blood no longer circulated. 
 
 The locksmith had also thought of another little game. He 
 heated sous in the frying pan, then placed them on a corner of 
 the mantel-piece ; and he called Lalie, and told her to fetch a 
 couple of pounds of bread. The child took up the sous unsus- 
 pectingly, uttered a cry, and threw them on the ground, shaking 
 her burnt hand. Then he flew into a fury. Who had saddled 
 him with such a piece of carrion ? She lost the money now ! 
 And he threatened to beat her to a jelly, if she did not pick the 
 sous up at once. When the child hesitated she received a first 
 warning, a clout of such force that it made her see thirty-six 
 candles. Speechless, and with two big tears in the corners of 
 her eyes, she would pick up the sous and go off, tossing them 
 in the palm of her hand to cool them. 
 
 No, one could never imagine the ferocious ideas which may 
 sprout from the depths of a drunkard's brain. One afternoon, 
 for instance, Lalie, having made everything tidy, was playing 
 with her children. The window was open, there was a draught, 
 and the wind blowing along the passage gently shook the door. 
 
 " It's Monsieur Hardy," the child was saying. " Come in, 
 Monsieur Hardy. Pray have the kindness to walk in." 
 
 And she curtsied before the door, she bowed to the wind. 
 Henriette and Jules, behind her, also bowed, delighted with 
 the game, and splitting their sides with laughing, as. though 
 being tickled. She was quite rosy at seeing them so heartily 
 amused, and even found some pleasure in it on her own 
 account, which generally only happened to her on the thirty- 
 sixth day of each month. 
 
 " Good day, Monsieur Hardy. How do you do, Monsieur 
 Hardy?" 
 
 But a rough hand pushed the door, and Bijard entered. 
 Then the scene changed. Henriette and Jules fell down flat 
 against the wall ; whilst Lalie, terrified, remained standing in 
 the very middle of a curtsey. The locksmith held in his hand 
 a big waggoner's whip, quite new, with a long white wooden 
 handle, and a leather thong, terminating with a bit of fine whip- 
 cord. He placed this whip in the corner against the bed, and 
 did not give the usual kick to the child, who was already pre- 
 paring herself by presenting her back. A chuckle exposed his 
 blackened teeth, and he was very lively, very drunk, his phiz 
 lighted up by some idea that amused him immensely.
 
 320 THE "ASSOMMOnt." 
 
 " What's that ? " said he. " You're playing the strumpet^ you 
 confounded young hussy ! I could hear you dancing about from 
 downstairs. Now then, come here ! Nearer, damn you ! and 
 full face. I don't want to sniff you behind. Am I touching 
 you, that you tremble like a mass of giblets ? Take my shoes 
 off." 
 
 Lalie, turned quite pale again, and amazed at not receiving 
 her drubbing, took his shoes off. He had seated himself on the 
 edge of the bed. He lay down with his clothes on, and re- 
 mained with his eyes open, watching the child move about the 
 room. She busied herself with one thing and another, gradually 
 becoming bewildered beneath his glance, her limbs overcome 
 by such a fright that she ended by breaking a cup. Then, 
 without disturbing himself, he took hold of the whip and showed 
 it to her. 
 
 " I say, little calf, look at this. It's a present for you. Yes, 
 it's another fifty sous you've cost me. With this plaything I 
 shall no longer be obliged to run, and it'll be no use you 
 getting into the corners. Will you have a try ? Ah ! you 
 break the cups ! Now then, gee up ! Dance away, make your 
 curtsies to Monsieur Hardy!" 
 
 He did not even raise himself, but lay sprawling on his back, 
 his head buried in his pillow, making the big whip crack about 
 the room, with the noise of a postillion starting his horses. 
 Then, lowering his arm, he lashed Lalie in the middle of the 
 body, encircling her with the whip, and unwinding it again as 
 though she were a top. She fell, and tried to escape on all 
 fours ; but lashing her again, he set her once more on her feet 
 
 " Gee up, gee up ! " yelled he. " It's the donkey race ! Eh, 
 it'll be fine of a morning in winter. I can lie snug without 
 getting cold or hurting my chilblains, and catch the calves from 
 a distance. In that corner there, a hit, you hussy ! And in 
 that other corner, a hit again ! And in that one, another hit. 
 Ah ! if you crawl under the bed I'll whack you with the handle. 
 Gee up, you jade ! gee up ! gee up ! " 
 
 A slight foam came to his lips, his yellow eyes were starting 
 from their black orbits. Lalie, maddened, howling, jumped to 
 the four corners of the room, curled herself up on the floor, 
 and, clung to the walls ; but the lash at the end of the big 
 whip caught her everywhere, cracking against her ears with 
 the noise of fireworks, streaking her flesh with burning weals. 
 A regular dance of an animal being taught its tricks. This 
 poor little cat waltzed. It was a sight ! her heels in the air
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIB." 821 
 
 like little girls playing at skipping, and crying "Faster!" She 
 was all out of breath, rebounding like an india-rubber ball, 
 letting herself be beaten, unable to see, or any longer to seek, a 
 refuge. And her wolf of a father ^ triumphed, calling her 
 strumpet, asking her if she had had enough, and whether she 
 understood sufficiently that she was in future to give up all 
 hope of escaping from him. 
 
 But Gervaise suddenly entered the room, attracted by the 
 child's howls. On beholding such a scene she was seized with 
 a furious indignation. 
 
 "Ah ! the brute of a man !" cried she. " Leave her alone, 
 you brigand ! I'll tell the police of you." 
 
 Bijard growled like an animal being disturbed, and stuttered, 
 
 " I say, Limper, just mind your own business a bit. Perhaps 
 you'd like me to put gloves on when I stir her up. It's merely 
 to warm her, as you can see simply to show her that I've a 
 long arm." 
 
 And he gave a final lash with the whip which caught Lalie 
 across the face. The upper lip was cut, the blood flowed. 
 (Jervaise had seized a chair, and was about to fall on the lock- 
 smith ; but the child held her hands towards her imploringly, 
 saying that it was nothing, and that it was all over. She 
 wiped away the blood with a corner of her apron, and quieted 
 her children, who were sobbing bitterly, as though they had 
 received all the blows. 
 
 Whenever Gervaise thought of Lalie, she no longer dared 
 complain. She would have liked to have had the courage of that 
 -youngster of eight, who endured in herself alone as much as all 
 the other women of that staircase put together. She had seen 
 her living on nothing but dry bread for three months, not even 
 eating enough crusts to satisfy her hunger, and so thin and 
 weak that she had to cling to the walls when moving about ; 
 and when she took her by stealth any bits of meat she had left, 
 she felt her heart melt as she watched her eat, shedding big silent 
 tears the while, and only swallowing very tiny pieces because her 
 contracted throat could scarcely admit the food. Always 
 tender and devoted in spite of that, reasonable beyond her 
 years, she performed her duties of little mother to the point of 
 dying of her maternity, awakened too soon in her child's frail 
 innocence. And Gervaise took an example of suffering and 
 pardon from this dear creature, trying to learn from her how to 
 conceal her martyrdom. Lalie only retained her silent look, 
 her big, bl&ck, resigned eyes, in the depths of which one could
 
 322 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 divine a night of agony and misery. Never a word, only 
 her big black eyes opened wide. 
 
 In the Coupeaus' home the " vitriol " of the " Assommoir n 
 was also commencing its ravages. The laundress saw the hour 
 approaching when her husband would, like Bijard, take a whip 
 to lead the dance ; and the misfortune which threatened her, 
 naturally enabled her to feel that which had befallen the child 
 all the more. Yes, Coupeau was spinning a nasty thread. The 
 time was past when the bad spirit gave him a colour. He 
 could no longer slap his body and strut about, saying that the 
 confounded stuff fattened him, for his bad yellow fat of the first 
 years had melted away, and he was becoming dried up and 
 scraggy, of a leaden hue variegated with the green tints of a 
 corpse rotting in a pond. His appetite was also gone. Little 
 by little he had lost the taste for bread, he had even reached 
 the point of spurning his meat. One might have placed the 
 most delicious stew before him, his stomach was barred against 
 it, his inert teeth refused to chew. To keep himself up he required 
 his pint of brandy a day. It was his ration, his meat and drink, 
 the only food he could digest. In the morning, directly he 
 jumped out of bed, he remained a good quarter of an hour doubled 
 in two, coughing and cracking his bones, holding his head, and 
 getting rid of the phlegm, bitter as gall, which swept his throat. 
 It never missed coming, one might prepare for it beforehand. 
 
 Coupeau never got steady on his pins till after his first glass 
 of consolation, a real remedy, the fire of which cauterised his 
 bowels ; but, during the day, his strength returned. At first, 
 he would feel a tickling sensation, a sort of pins-and-needles 
 in his hands and feet; and he would joke, relating that 
 some one was having a lark with him, that he was sure 
 his wife put horse-hair between the sheets. Then his legs 
 would become heavy, the tickling sensation would end by 
 turning into the most abominable cramps, which gripped his 
 flesh as though in a vice. That, though, did not amuse him so 
 much. He no longer laughed, stopped suddenly on the pave- 
 ment in a bewildered way, with a singing in his ears, and his 
 eyes blinded with sparks. Everything appeared to him to be 
 yellow, the houses danced, and he reeled about for three seconds, 
 with the fear of suddenly finding himself sprawling on the 
 ground. At other times, while the sun was shining full on his 
 back, he would shiver, as though iced water had been poured 
 down his shoulders. What bothered him the most was a slight 
 trembling of both his hands ; the right hand especially must
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIB." 323 
 
 have been guilty of some crime, it suffered from so many night- 
 mares. Damnation ! was he then no longer a man ? He was 
 becoming an old woman ! He furiously strained his muscles, he 
 seized hol<J of his glass and bet that he would hold it perfectly 
 steady, as with a hand of marble ; but, in spite of his efforts, 
 the glass danced about, jumped to the right, jumped to the 
 left, with a hurried and regular trembling movement. Then, 
 in a fury, he emptied it into his gullet, yelling that he would 
 require dozens like it, and afterwards he undertook to carry a 
 cask without so much as moving a finger. Gervaise, on the 
 other hand, told him to give up drink, if he wished to cease 
 trembling; and he laughed at her, emptying quarts until he 
 experienced the sensation again, flying into a rage, and accusing 
 the passing omnibuses of shaking up his liquor. 
 
 In the month of March, Coupeau returned home one evening 
 soaked through. He had come with My-Boots from Montrouge, 
 where they had stuffed themselves full of eel soup, and he had 
 received the full force of the shower all the way from the 
 Barriere des Fourneaux to the Barriere Poissonniere, a good 
 stride. During the night he was seized with a confounded fit 
 of coughing. He ' was very flushed, suffering from a violent 
 fever, and panting like a broken bellows. When the Boches' 
 doctor saw him in the morning, and listened against his back, 
 he shook his head, and drew Gervaise aside to advise her to 
 have her husband at once taken to the hospital. Coupeau was 
 suffering from inflammation of the lungs. 
 
 And Gervaise did not worry herself, you may be sure. At 
 one time she would have been chopped into pieces before trusting 
 her old man with the saw-bones. After the accident in the 
 Rue de la Nation, she had spent their savings in nursing him. 
 But those beautiful sentiments have their day when men take 
 to wallowing in the mire. No, no, she did not intend to em- 
 barrass herself like that again. They might take him and 
 never bring him back, she would thank them heartily. Yet, 
 when the litter arrived, and Coupeau was put into it like an 
 article of furniture, she became all pale and bit her lips ; and 
 if she grumbled and still said it was a good job, her heart was 
 no longer in her words. Had she but ten francs in her drawer 
 she would not have let him go. 
 
 She accompanied him to the Lariboisiere hospital, saw the 
 nurses put him to bed at the end of a large apartment, where 
 the patients in a row, looking like corpses, raised themselves 
 up, and followed with their eyes the comrade who had just
 
 824 THE "ASSOMMOIB. M 
 
 been brought in. There was a good deal of death hanging 
 about in there, a suffocating odour of fever, and a consumptive 
 music sufficient to make one spit one's lungs out ; without 
 counting that the room had the look of a diminutive Pere- 
 Lachaise cemetery, bordered by its white beds, a regular alley 
 of tombstones. Then, as Coupeau remained flat on his pillow, 
 Gervaise went off without finding a word to say, and having 
 nothing, unfortunately, in her pocket to ease him. Outside, in 
 front of th*e hospital, she turned round and gave a last glance 
 at the edifice. And she thought of former days, when 
 Coupeau, perched up there on the edge of the gutters, laid his 
 sheets of zinc whilst he sang in the sunshine. He did not 
 drink then, he had the skin of a girl. She, from her window at 
 the H6tel Boncoeur, sought for him, and beheld him right in the 
 middle of the sky ; and they both waved their handkerchiefs, 
 sending one another kisses by telegraph. Yes, Coupeau had 
 worked up there, and without the least idea that he was working 
 for himself. Now he was no longer on the roofs like a jovial and 
 dissolute sparrow. He was beneath them, he had built his nest 
 in the hospital, and with his rough hide he had come there to 
 croak. Ah ! how far off their courting days seemed then ! 
 
 On the day after the morrow, when Gervaise called to obtain 
 news of him, she found the bed empty. A sister of charity 
 told her that they had been obliged to remove her husband to 
 the Asylum of Sainte-Anne, because the day before he had 
 suddenly gone wild. Oh ! a total leave-taking of his senses, 
 attempts to crack his skull against the wall, howls which pre- 
 vented the other patients from sleeping. It all came from 
 drink, it seemed. The drink, which had been brewing in his 
 body, had taken advantage, the moment the inflammation of 
 the ,lungs had laid him on his back without strength, to attack 
 him and wring his nerves. The laundress returned home in a 
 state of distraction. Her old man had gone mad now ! Life 
 would become precious queer if they let him out. Nana ex- 
 claimed that he ought to be left where he was, because other- 
 wise he would end by murdering them both. 
 
 Gervaise was not able to go to Sainte-Anne until the Sunday. 
 It was a tremendous journey. Fortunately, the omnibus from 
 the Boulevard Bochechouart to La Glaciere passed close to the 
 asylum. She went down the Bue de la Sante, buying two 
 oranges on her way, so as not to arrive empty-handed. It was 
 another monumental building, with grey courtyards, inter- 
 minable corridors, and a smell of rank medicaments, which did
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 325 
 
 not exactly inspire liveliness. But when they had admitted her 
 into a cell, she was quite surprised to see Coupeau almost 
 jolly. He was just then seated on the throne, a clean wooden 
 case ; and they both laughed at her finding him in this position. 
 Well, one knows what an invalid is. He squatted there like a 
 pope, with .his cheek of other days. Oh ! he was better as he 
 could do this. 
 
 " And the inflammation 1 " inquired the laundress. 
 
 " Done for ! " replied he. " They cured it in no time. I 
 still cough a little, but that's all that is left of it." 
 
 Then at the moment of leaving the throne to get back into 
 his bed, he joked once more. 
 
 And they laughed louder than ever. At heart they felt 
 joyful. It was by way of showing their contentment without 
 a host of phrases that they thus joked together. One must 
 have had to do with patients to know the pleasure one feels at 
 seeing all their functions at work again. 
 
 WTien he was in bed, she gave him the two oranges, and 
 this filled him with emotion. He was becoming quite nice again 
 ever since he had had nothing but infusion to drink. She 
 ended by venturing to speak to him about his violent attack, 
 surprised at hearing him reason like in the good old times. 
 
 "Ah, yes," said he, joking at his own expense; "I talked 
 a precious lot of nonsense ! Just fancy, I saw rats, and ran 
 about on all fours to put a grain of salt under their tails. And 
 you, you called to me, men were trying to kill you. In short, 
 all sorts of stupid things, ghosts in broad daylight. Oh ! I 
 remember it well, my noddle's still solid. Now it's over, I 
 dream a bit when I'm asleep. I have nightmares, but every- 
 one has nightmares." 
 
 Gervaise remained with him until the evening. When the 
 house surgeon came, at the six o'clock inspection, he made him 
 spread out his hands ; they hardly trembled at all, scarcely a 
 quiver at the tips of the fingers. However, as night approached, 
 Coupeau was little by little seized with uneasiness. He twice 
 sat up in bed, looking on the ground and in the dark corners of 
 the room. Suddenly, he thrust out an arm, and appeared to 
 crush some animal against the wall. 
 
 " What is it 1 " asked Gervaise, frightened. 
 
 " The rats 1 the rats ! " murmured he. 
 
 Then, after a pause, gliding into sleep, he tossed about, 
 uttering disconnected phrases. 
 
 "Damnation! they're tearing my skin ! Oh ! the filthy
 
 826 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 beasts ! Keep steady ! hold your skirts tight round you ! 
 beware of the dirty bloke behind you ! Jove's thunder ! she's 
 down, and the scoundrels laugh ! Scoundrels ! blackguards ! 
 brigands ! " 
 
 , fie dealt blows into space, caught hold of his blanket, and 
 rolled it into a bundle against his chest, as though to protect 
 the latter from the violence of the bearded men whom he 
 beheld. Then, an attendant having hastened to the spot, 
 Gervaise withdrew, quite frozen by the scene. Biit when she 
 returned, a few days later, she found Coupeau completely cured. 
 Even the nightmares had left him ; he could sleep his ten hours 
 right off as peacefully as a child and without stirring a limb. 
 So his wife was allowed to take him away. Only, the house 
 surgeon gave him the usual good advice on leaving, and advised 
 him to follow it. If he recommenced drinking, he would again 
 collapse, and would end by croaking. Yes, it solely depended 
 upon himself. He had seen how jolly and nice one could be- 
 come, when one did not get drunk. Well, he must -continue 
 at home the sensible life he had led at Sainte-Anne, fancy him- 
 self under lock and key, and that dram-shops no longer existed. 
 
 "The gentleman's right," said Gervaise in the omnibus 
 which was taking them back to the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. 
 
 " Of course, he's right," replied Coupeau. 
 
 Then, aften thinking a minute, he resumed : 
 
 "Oh! you know, a little glass now and again can't kill a 
 man ; it helps digestion." 
 
 And that very evening he swallowed a glass of bad spirit, 
 just to keep his stomach in order. For eight days he was 
 pretty reasonable. He was a great coward at heart ; he had 
 no; desire to end his days in the Bicetre mad-house. But his 
 passion got the better of him ; the first little glass led him, in 
 spite of himself, to a second, to a third, and to a fourth ; and, 
 at the end of a fortnight, he had got back to his old ration, a 
 pint of "vitriol" a day. Gervaise, exasperated, could have 
 beaten him. To think that she had been stupid enough to 
 dream once more of leading a worthy life, when she had seen 
 him at the asylum in full possession of his good sense ! 
 Another joyful hour flown, the last one no doubt ! Oh ! now, 
 as nothing could reclaim him, not even the fear of his near 
 end, she swore she would no longer put herself out ; the home 
 might be all at sixes and sevens, she did not care a hang ; and 
 she talked of also taking her pleasure wherever she found it. 
 
 Then the hell upon earth recommenced, a life sinking deeper
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 827 
 
 into the mire, without a corner of hope opened on to a better 
 season. Nana, whenever her father clouted her, furiously 
 asked why the brute was not at the hospital. She was awaiting 
 the time when she would be earning money, she would say, to 
 treat him to brandy and make him croak quicker. Gervaise, 
 on her side, flew into a passion one day that Coupeau was re- 
 gretting their marriage. Ah { she had brought him other 
 folks' leavings j ah ! she had got herself picked up from the 
 pavement, wheedling him by her virgin ways ! Damnation ! 
 he had a rare cheek ! So many words, so many lies. She did 
 not wish to have anything to do with him, that was the truth. 
 He dragged himself at her feet to make her give way, whilst, 
 she was advising him to think well what he was about. And 
 if it was all to come over again, he would hear how she would just 
 say "no 1 " She would sooner have an arm cut off. Yes, she had 
 seen the moon before him; but a woman who has seen the 
 moon, and who is a worker, is worth more than a sluggard of a 
 man who sullies his honour and that of his family in all the 
 dram-shops. That day, for the first time, the Coupeaus went 
 . in for a general drubbing, and they whacked each other so 
 hard that an old umbrella and the broom were broken. 
 
 And Gervaise kept her word. She sank lower and lower ; 
 she missed going to her work oftener, spent whole days in 
 gossiping, and became as soft as a rag whenever she had a task 
 to perform. If a thing fell from her hands, it might remain 
 on the floor ; it was certainly not she who would have stooped 
 to pick it up. She intended to save her bacon. She took her 
 ease about everything, and never handled a broom except when 
 the accumulation, of filth almost brought her to the ground. 
 The Lorilleux now made a point of holding something to their 
 noses whenever they passed her room ; the stench was poison- 
 ous, said they. They slyly lived at the end of the passage, 
 out of the way of all these miseries which filled this corner of 
 the house with whines, locking themselves in so as not to have 
 to lend twenty sou pieces. Oh ! kind-hearted folks, neighbours 
 awfully obliging ! yes, you may bet ! One had only to knock 
 and ask for a light, or a pinch of salt, or a jug of water, one 
 was certain of getting the door banged in one's face. With 
 all that they had vipers' tongues. They cried everywhere that 
 they never occupied themselves with other people, whenever it 
 was a question of assisting their neighbour ; but they did so 
 from morning to night, directly they had a chance of pulling 
 any one to pieces. With the door bolted and a rug huug up
 
 328 THE " ASSOMMOIR. W 
 
 to cover the chinks and the key-hole, they would treat them- 
 selves to a spiteful gossip, without leaving their gold wire for a 
 moment. 
 
 The fall of the Hobbler especially made them purr the whole 
 day long, like cats being stroked. What poverty, what a pull- 
 down, my friends 1 They watched her when she went market- 
 ing, and laughed to themselves at the little bit of bread 
 which she brought back under her apron. They calculated 
 the days when she had only the empty cupboard to look at. 
 They knew the thickness of the dust in her home, the number 
 of dirty plates left lying about, each one of the growing aban- 
 donments of misery and idleness. And her dresses too, disgust- 
 ing tatters which even a rag-picker would not have handled ! 
 Oh, ye gods ! it was a funny shower that was pouring on this 
 beautiful blonde's mercery, this dollymop who used once to 
 give herself such airs in her lovely blue shop. That was where 
 the love of dissipating, of wantonising, and of gorging brought 
 one. 
 
 Gervaise, who had an idea of the way in which they spoke 
 of her, would take her shoes off, and place her ear against their 
 door; but the rug prevented her from hearing. She only 
 caught them one day calling her " big teats," because no doubfc 
 her frontage was rather developed, in spite of the bad food 
 which was emptying her skin. She was heartily sick of them ; 
 she continued to speah to them, to avoid remarks, though ex- 
 pecting nothing but unpleasantness from such nasty persons, 
 but no longer having strength even to give them as much as 
 they gave her, and to cast them off like a bundle of abuse. 
 And besides, damn it all ! she only wanted her own pleasure, 
 to sit in a heap twirling her thumbs, and only moving when it 
 was a question of amusing herself, nothing more. 
 
 One Saturday, Coupeau had promised to take her to the 
 circus. It was well worth while disturbing oneself to see ladies 
 galloping along on horses and jumping through paper hoops. 
 Coupeau had just finished a fortnight's work, he could well spare 
 a couple of francs ; and they had also arranged to dine out, 
 Nana having to work very late that evening at her employer's 
 because of some pressing order. But at seven o'clock there 
 was no Coupeau j at eight o'clock it was still the same. Ger- 
 vaise was furious. Her drunkard was certainly squandering his 
 earnings with his comrades at the dram-shops of the neighbour- 
 hood. She had washed a cap, and had been slaving since the 
 morning over the holes of an old dress, wishing to look decent.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOtB." 829 
 
 At last, towards nine o'clock, her stomach empty, her face purple 
 with rage, she decided to go down and look for Coupeau. 
 
 " Is it your husband you want ? " called Madame Boche, on 
 catching sight of her looking very glum. " He's at old Colombo's. 
 Boche has just been having some cherry brandy with him." 
 
 She uttered her thanks, and stalked stiffly along the pave- 
 ment with the determination of flying at Coupeau's eyes. A 
 fine rain was falling which made the walk more unpleasant still. 
 But when she reached the " Assommoir," the fear of receiving 
 the drubbing herself, if she badgered her old man, suddenly 
 calmed her and made her prudent. The shop was ablaze with 
 the lighted gas, the flames of which were as brilliant as suns, 
 and the bottles and jars illuminated the walls with their coloured 
 glass. She stood there an instant, stretching her neck, her eyes 
 close, to the window, between two bottles placed there for show, 
 watching Coupeau who was right at the back ; he was sitting 
 with some comrades at a little zinc table, all looking vague 
 and blue in the tobacco smoke ; and, as one could not hear 
 them yelling, it created a funny effect to see them gesti- 
 culating, with their chins thrust forward and their eyes 
 starting out of their heads. Good heavens ! was it really 
 possible that men could leave their wives and their homes to 
 shut themselves up thus in a hole where they were choking 1 
 
 The fain trickled down her neck; she drew herself up, and went 
 off to the exterior Boulevard, wrapt in thought and not daring 
 to enter. Ah well! Coupeau would have welcomed. her in a 
 pleasant way, he who objected to be spied upon ! Besides, it 
 really scarcely seemed to her the proper place for a respectable 
 woman. However, beneath the wet trees, a slight shiver passed 
 through her frame, and whilst she still hesitated, she could not 
 help thinking that she was going the right way to catch some 
 serious illness. Twice she went back and stood before the shop 
 window, her eyes again riveted to the glass, annoyed at still 
 beholding those confounded drunkards out of the rain and 
 yelling and drinking. The light of the "Assommoir" was reflected 
 in the puddles on the pavement, which simmered with little 
 bubbles caused by the dpwnpour. She hurried off and floundered 
 about in them, directly the door opened and closed with the 
 clang of its brass facings. At length, she thought she was too 
 foolish, and, pushing open the door, she walked straight up 
 to the table where Coupeau was sitting. After all, it was her 
 husband she. came for, was it not? and she was authorized in 
 doing so, because he had promised to take her to the circus that
 
 830 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 
 
 evening. So much the worse ! she had no desire to melt like a 
 cake of soap out oh the pavement. 
 
 " Hallo ! it's you, old woman ! " exclaimed the zinc-worker, 
 half choking with a chuckle. " Ah ! that's a good joke, by 
 Jove.! Isn't it a good joke now 1 " 
 
 They all laughed, My-Boots, Bibi-the-Smoker, and Salted- 
 Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst. Yes, they all thought 
 it a good joke, but they did not explain why. Gervaise re- 
 mained standing, feeling rather bewildered. Coupeau appeared 
 to her to 'be in a pleasant humour, so she ventured to say : 
 
 " You know we've somewhere to go. We must look sharp. 
 We shall still be in time to see something." 
 
 " I can't get up, I'm glued, oh ! without joking," resumed 
 Coupeau, who continued laughing. " Try, just to satisfy your- 
 self ; pull my arm, with all your strength, damn it ! harder than 
 that, tug away, up with it ! You see, it's that ass, old Colombe, 
 who's screwed me to his seat." 
 
 Gervaise had humoured him at this game ; and, when she 
 let go of his arm, the comrades thought the joke so good, that 
 they wriggled up against one another, brawling and rubbing 
 their shoulders like donkeys being thrashed. The zinc-worker's 
 mouth was slit by such a laugh, that you could see right 
 down his throat. 
 
 "You great noodle ! " said' he at length, "you can surely sit 
 down a minute. We're better here than splashing about out- 
 side. Well ! yes, I didn't come home, I had business to 
 attend to. Though you may pull a long face, it won't alter 
 matters. Make room you others." 
 
 " If madame would accept my knees, she would find them 
 softer than the seat," gallantly said My-Boots. 
 
 Gervaise, not wishing to attract attention, took a chair and 
 sat down at a short distance from the table. She looked at 
 what the men were drinking, some powerful brandy which shone 
 like gold in the glasses ; a little of it had dropped upon the 
 table, and Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, 
 dipped his finger in it, whilst conversing, and wrote a woman's 
 name " Eulalie," in big letters. She noticed that Bibi-the- 
 Smoker looked shockingly jaded, and thinner than a hundred- 
 weight of nails. My-Boot's nose was in full bloom, a regular 
 purple Burgundy dahlia. They were all four of them very 
 dirty, with their filthy bristly beards which could be smelt 
 from afar, their ragged blouses, and their black paws, the nails 
 of which were all in mourning. But, really, one might all the
 
 THE "ASSOHMOIK." 331 
 
 same be seen in their company, for though they had been 
 lushing ever since six o'clock, they still behaved themselves, 
 and were, in fact, just merry. Gervaise saw two others at the 
 counter having a gargle ; they were so screwed, that they 
 tossed the contents of their glasses under their chins and 
 soaked their shirts, fancying all the while they where rinsing 
 their mouths out. Stout old Colombe, thrusting put his enor- 
 mous arms, the peace-preservers of his establishment, quietly 
 poured out the goes. 
 
 The atmosphere was very warm, the smoke from the pipes 
 ascended in the blinding glare of the gas, amidst which it 
 rolled about like dust, drowning the customers in a gradually 
 thickening mist ; and from this cloud there issued a deafening 
 and confused uproar, cracked voices, clinking of glasses, oaths 
 and blows sounding like detonations. So Gervaise pulled a 
 very wry face, for such a sight, is not funny for a woman, 
 especially when she is not used to it; she was stifling, with a 
 smarting sensation in her eyes, and her head already feeling 
 , heavy from the alcoholic fumes exhaled by the whole place. 
 Then, she suddenly experienced the sensation of something 
 more unpleasant still behind her back. She turned round and 
 beheld the still, the machine which manufactured drunkards, 
 working away beneath the glass roof of the- narrow courtyard 
 with the profound trepidation of its hellish cookery. Of an 
 evening, the copper parts looked more mournful than ever, lit 
 up only on their rounded surface with one big red star; and 
 the shadow of the apparatus, on the wall at the back, formed 
 most abominable figures, bodies with tails, monsters opening 
 their jaws as though to swallow every one up. 
 
 "I say, mother Talk-too-much, don't make any of your 
 grimaces ! " cried Coupeau. " To blazes, you know, with all wet 
 blankets ! What'll you drink ] " 
 
 " Nothing, of course," replied the laundress. " I haven't 
 dined yet." 
 
 " Well.! that's all the more reason for having a glass; a drop 
 of something sustains one." 
 
 But, as she s'till retained her glum expression, My-Boots 
 again did the gallant. 
 
 " Madame probably likes sweet things," murmured he. 
 
 " I like men who don't get drunk," retorted she getting angry. 
 "Yes, I like a -fellow who brings home his earnings, and who 
 keeps. his word when he makes a promise." 
 
 "Ah I it's that which upsets you?" said the zinc-worker,
 
 S32 THE "ASSOMMOIE." 
 
 / 
 
 without ceasing to chuckle. " You want your share. Then, 
 big goose, why do you refuse a drink 1 Take it, it's so much to 
 the good." 
 
 She looked at him fixedly, in a grave manner, a wrinkle 
 marking her forehead with a black line. And she slowly re- 
 plied : 
 
 "Why, you're right, it's a good idea. That way, we can 
 drink up the coin together." 
 
 Bibi-the-Smoker rose from his seat to fetch her a glass of 
 aniseed. She drew her chair up to the table. Whilst she was 
 sipping her aniseed, a recollection suddenly flashed across her 
 mind, she remembered the plum she had taken with Coupeau, 
 near the door, in the old days, when he was courting her. At 
 that time, she used to leave the juice of fruits preserved in 
 brandy. And now, here was she going back to liqueurs. Oh ! 
 she knew herself well, she had not two liards of will. One 
 would only have had to have given her a walloping, across the 
 back to have made her regularly wallow in drink. The aniseed 
 even seemed to her very good, perhaps rather too sweet and 
 slightly sickening. And she licked her glass, whilst listening 
 to Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, relating his 
 amours with plump . Eulalie, she who hawked fish about the 
 streets, a precious cunning woman, a person who scented him 
 in the dram-shops, whilst pushing her truck along the roadway; 
 it was useless for his comrades to warn him and hide him, she 
 often caught him she had even, only the day before, given him 
 a smack in the face, just to teach him not to miss the work- 
 shop. That, at least, was funny. 
 
 Bibi-the Smoker and My-Boots, splitting with laughter, were 
 slapping Gervaise's shoulders, whilst she at length laughed, as 
 though being tickled and in spite of herself ; and they advised 
 her to take a lesson from plump Eulalie, and to bring her irons 
 and iron Coupeau's ears on the zinc tables of the dram-shops. 
 
 " Ah, well ! thanks," cried Coupeau, turning upside down 
 the glass his wife had emptied, " you pump it out pretty well. 
 Just look, you fellows, she doesn't take long over it." 
 
 " Will madame take another ? " asked Salted-Mouth, other- 
 wise Drink-without-Thirst. 
 
 No, she had had enough. Yet she hesitated. The aniseed 
 was warming the cockles of her heart. She would rather have 
 taken something stiffer to cure the pain in her stomach. And 
 she cast side glances at the drunkard manufacturing machine 
 behind her. That confounded pot, as round as the stomach of a
 
 THE " ASSOMMOm." 333 
 
 tinker's fat wife, with its nose that was so long and twisted, 
 sent a shiver down her back, a fear mingled with a desire. 
 Yes, one' might have thought it the metal pluck of some big 
 wicked woman, of some witch who was discharging drop by drop 
 the fire of her entrails. A fine source of poison, an operation 
 which should have been hidden away in a cellar, it was so brazen 
 and abominable 1 But all the same she would have liked to 
 have poked her nose inside it, to have sniffed the odour, have 
 tasted the filth, though the skin might have peeled off her 
 burnt tongue like the rind off an orange. 
 
 " What's that you're drinking ?" asked she slyly of the men, 
 her eyes lighted up by the beautiful golden colour of their 
 glasses. 
 
 " That, old woman," answered Coupeau, " is papa Colombo's 
 camphor. Don't be stupid now, and we'll give you a taste." 
 
 And when they had brought her a glass of the " vitriol," and 
 her jaws had contracted at the first mouthful, the zinc-worker 
 resumed, slapping his thighs : 
 
 " Eh ! it tickles your gullet ! Drink it off at a go. Each 
 glassful cheats the doctor of six francs." 
 
 At the second glass, Gervaise no longer felt the hunger which 
 had been tormenting her. Now she had made it up with 
 Coupeau, she no longer felt angry with him for not having kept 
 his word. They would go to the circus some other day ; it was 
 not so funny to see jugglers galloping about on horses. There 
 was no rain inside old Colombo's, and if the money went in 
 brandy, one at least had it in one's body ; one drank it limpid 
 and shining like beautiful liquid gold. Ah ! she was ready to 
 send the whole world to blazes ! Life was not so pleasant after 
 all; besides, it seemed some consolation to her to have her 
 share in squandering the cash. As she was comfortable, why 
 should . she not remain ? One might have a discharge of 
 artillery ; she did not care to budge, once she had settled down 
 in a heap. She nursed herself in a pleasant warmth, her bodice 
 sticking to her back, overcome by a feeling of comfort which 
 benumbed her limbs. She laughed all to herself, her elbows on 
 the table, a vacant look in her eyes, highly amused by two 
 customers, a fat heavy fellow and a dwarf, seated at a neigh- 
 bouring table, and kissing each other like loaves of bread, they 
 were so drunk. Yes, she laughed at the " Assommoir," at old 
 Colombo's full moon, a regular bladder of lard, at the customers 
 smoking their short clay pipes, yelling and spitting, and at the 
 big flames of gas which lighted up the looking-glasses and the
 
 334 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 bottles of liqueurs. The smell no longer inconvenienced her , 
 on the contrary, it tickled her nose, and she thought it verj> 
 pleasant. Her eyes slightly closed, whilst she breathed very 
 slowly, without the least feeling of suffocation, tasting the 
 enjoyment of the gentle slumber which was overcoming her. 
 Then, after her third glass, she let her chin fall on her hands ; 
 she could only see Coupeau and his comrades, and she remained 
 uose to nose with them, quite close, her cheeks warmed by their 
 breath, looking at their dirty beards as though she had been 
 counting the hairs. They were very drunk by this time. My- 
 Boots drivelled, his pipe between his teeth, with the dumb and 
 grave air of a dozing ox. Bibi-the-Smoker was telling a story 
 the manner in which he emptied a bottle at a draught, giving 
 it such a Jdss, that one instantly saw its bottom. Meanwhile 
 Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, had gone and 
 fetched the wheel of fortune from the counter, and was playing 
 with Coupeau for drinks. 
 
 " Two hundred ! You're lucky ; you get high numbers every 
 time." 
 
 The needle of the wheel grated, and the figure of Fortune, a 
 big red woman placed under glass, turned round and round 
 until it looked like a mere spot in the centre, similar to a wine 
 stain. 
 
 " Three hundred and fifty ! You must have been inside it, 
 you confounded lascar ! Ah ! damn it ! I sha'n't play any 
 more 1 " 
 
 And Gervaise amused herself with the wheel of fortune. She 
 was feeling awfully thirsty, and calling My-Boots " my child." 
 Behind her, the machine for manufacturing drunkards continued 
 working, with its murmur of an underground stream ; and she 
 despaired of ever stopping it, of exhausting it, filled with a 
 sullen. anger against it, feeling a longing to spring upon the big 
 still as upon some animal, to kick it with her heels and stave in. 
 its belly. Everything seemed to become confused ; she felt 
 herself seized by its copper claws, whilst the stream now flowed 
 through her body. 
 
 Then the room danced round, the gas-jets seemed to shoot 
 like stars. Gervaise was drunk. She heard a furious wrangle 
 between Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, and 
 that rascal old Colombe. There was a thief of a landlord who 
 wanted one to pay for what one had not had ! Yet one was 
 not at Bondy. Suddenly there was a scuffling, yells were heard,
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR. W 335 
 
 and tables were upset. It was old Colombo who was turning 
 the party out, without the least hesitation, and in the twinkling 
 of an eye. On the other side of the door they blackguarded 
 him, and called him scoundrel. It still rained, and blew icy 
 cold. Gervaise lost Coupeau, found him, and then lost him 
 again. She wished to go home ; she felt the shops to find her 
 way. This sudden darkness surprised her immensely. At the 
 corner of the Eue des Poissonniers, she sat down in the gutter 
 thinking she was at the wash-house. The water which flowed 
 along, caused her head to swim, and made her very ill At 
 length she arrived, she passed stiffly before the doorkeepers' 
 room where she perfectly recognised the Lorilleux and the 
 Poissons seated at the table, and who made grimaces of disgust 
 on beholding her in that sorry state. 
 
 She never remembered how she had got up the six flights of 
 stairs. Just as she was turning into the passage up at the top, 
 little Lalie, who heard her footstep, hastened to meet her, 
 opening her arms caressingly, and saying with a smile : 
 
 " Madame Gervaise, papa has not yet returned ; just come and 
 see my children sleeping. Oh 1 they look so pretty." 
 
 But, on beholding the laundress's besotted face she trem- 
 blingly drew back. She was acquainted with that brandy 
 laden breath, those pale eyes, that convulsed mouth. Then, 
 Gervaise stumbled past without uttering a word, whilst the 
 child, standing on the threshold of her room, followed her with 
 her dark eyes, grave and speechless.
 
 S3G 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Nana was growing up and becoming wayward. At fifteen 
 years old she had expanded like a calf, white skinned and very 
 fat, so plump indeed, you might have called her a ball. Yes, 
 such she was fifteen years old, with all her teeth and no stays. 
 A hussy's phiz, dipped in milk, a skin as soft as peach rind, a 
 funny nose, pink lips and eyes sparkling like tapers, which men 
 would have liked to light their pipes at. Her pile of fair hair, 
 the colour of fresh oats, seemed to have scattered gold dust 
 over her temples, freckle-like, as it were, giving her brow a 
 sunny crown. Ah ! a pretty doll, as the Lorilleux said, a dirty 
 nose that needed wiping, with fat shoulders which were as fully 
 rounded and as ripe in smell as those of a full grown woman. 
 
 Nana no longer put balls of paper into her bodice. A couple 
 of titties had come to her, a pair of bran new titties too, in 
 white satin. They did not inconvenience her, far from it j she 
 would have liked to have had an armful, and dreamt, in fact, 
 of growing a wet nurse's bubbies, so gluttonous and inconsider- 
 ate indeed is youth. What made her particularly tempting was 
 a nasty habit she had of protruding the tip of her tongue be- 
 tween her white teeth. No doubt on seeing herself in the 
 looking-glasses she had thought she was pretty like this; and so all 
 day long she poked her tongue out of her mouth in view of im- 
 proving her appearance. 
 
 " Hide your lying tongue," cried her mother, " make haste 
 and draw that red rag inside again ! " 
 
 Nana showed herself very coquettish. She did not always 
 wash her feet, but she bought such tight boots that she suffered 
 martyrdom in St Crispin's prison, and if folks questioned her 
 when she turned purple with pain, she answered that she had 
 the stomach-ache, so as to avoid confessing her coquetry. 
 When bread was lacking at home, it was difficult for her to 
 trick herself out. But she accomplished miracles, brought rib-
 
 1HE "ASSOMMOIR." 337 
 
 bons back from the workshop, and concocted toilettes dirty 
 dresses set off with bows and puffs. The summer was the 
 season of her greatest triumphs. With a cambric dress which 
 had cost her six francs, she filled the whole neighbourhood of the 
 Goutte-d'Or with her fair beauty. Yes, she was known from 
 the outer Boulevards to the Fortifications, and from the Chaussee 
 de Clignancourt to the Grande Rue of La Chapelle. Folks called 
 her " the little hen," for she was really as tender and as fresh 
 looking as a chicken. 
 
 One dress, especially, suited her to perfection. It was 
 covered with pink spots on a white ground, cut very simply and 
 without any trimmings. The skirt, which was rather short, 
 gave her feet full play. The loose open sleeves allowed her 
 arms to display themselves to the elbows. In a dark corner of 
 the stairs, so as to avoid a box on the ears from father Coupeau, 
 she pinned the upper part of her bodice back heart-wise, in view 
 of showing her snow white neck and shadowy amber bosom. 
 Nothing else, nothing but a pink ribbon tied round her fair 
 hair a ribbon, the ends of which waved over the nape of her 
 neck. She looked as fresh as a nosegay, dressed like this, ex- 
 haling the perfume of youth, the scent which comes from the 
 flesh of a child and a woman. 
 
 At this time, Sundays were her great days for meeting the 
 crowd, all the men who passed by and made her advances. She 
 waited the whole week for these occasions, tickled with little 
 longings, stifling, and feeling the need of fresh air, of a stroll in 
 the sunlight among the crowd of the faubourg, rigged out in its 
 Sunday aspect. Early in the morning she began to dress, stop- 
 ping for hours in her shift in front of the bit of glass hanging 
 over the chest of drawers ; but as everyone in the house could 
 see her through the window, her mother oft times grew angry, 
 and asked her if she hadn't pretty nearly finished walking about 
 as naked as a parsnip. But with bare legs and dishevelled 
 hair, with her 'chemise falling from her shoulders, she quietly 
 continued plastering corkscrew ringlets over her forehead with 
 sugared water, sewing buttons on to her boots or stitching her 
 dress. 
 
 Ah 1 she was just the ticket like that ! said father Coupeau 
 sneering and jeering at her, a real Magdalen in despair ! She 
 might have turned " savage woman " at a fair, and have shown 
 herself for a penny. Hide your meat, he used to say, and let 
 me eat my bread ! In fact she was adorable, white and dainty 
 under her overhanging golden fleece, losing temper to the point
 
 838 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 that her skin turned pink, not daring to answer her father, but 
 cutting her thread with her teeth with a hasty furious jerk 
 which shook her plump but youthful form. 
 
 Then immediately after breakfast she tripped downstairs into 
 the courtyard. The warm peacefulness of Sunday was sending 
 the house to sleep, the workshops were closed, the rooms 
 yawned with open windows, displaying tables already laid for the 
 evening meal, which awaited households engaged for the nonce 
 in picking up appetites on the fortifications. One woman on 
 the third floor was occupying her time in cleaning her room, roll- 
 ing her bed about, disturbing the furniture and singing the same 
 song for hours in a soft tearful voice. Then as work was 
 hushed, hi the midst of the empty, echoing courtyard, Nana, 
 Pauline and other big girls engaged in games of battledore and 
 shuttlecock. They were five or six who had sprouted together, 
 and had become the queens of the house, sharing the glances 
 of the masculine inmates. Whenever a man crossed the court- 
 yard shrill laughter arose, and the rustle of starched skirts 
 passed by like a gust of wind. Above them flamed the holiday 
 air, burning and heavy, drowsily lazy as it were, and whitened 
 by the dust scattered by the promenaders. 
 
 But the games were only an excuse for them to make off. 
 Suddenly stillness fell upon the house. The girls had glided 
 out into the street and made for the outer Boulevards. Then 
 linked arm in arm across the full breadth of the pavement, they 
 went off the whole six of them, clad in light colours with ribbons 
 tied around their bare heads. With bright eyes, darting 
 stealthy glances through their partially closed eyelids, they 
 took note of everything, and constantly threw back their necks 
 to laugh, displaying the fleshy part of their chins. Their line 
 became broken in moments of especial gaiety provoked by some 
 passing hunchback or some old woman waiting for her dog near 
 the street posts ; some of them then remained in the rear and 
 had to be dragged forward by the others; and meantime they 
 wriggled their hips, curvetted and pranced in view of attracting 
 attention, making their dresses crackle under their budding 
 forms. The street belonged to them ; they had grown up in it, 
 pulling up their skirts alongside the shop-fronts; even now they 
 trussed themselves up above their knees to re-fasten their 
 garters. In the midst of the pale and slow-paced crowd, be- 
 tween the stumpy trees of the Boulevard, they straggled hastily 
 onward from the Barriere Rochechouart to the Barriere Saint- 
 Denis, pushing against the people they met, winding in zig-zag
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 339 
 
 fashion through groups of bystanders, turning round and launch- 
 ing remarks in the midst of their fusee-like laughter. And 
 their, dresses sped along leaving behind them a trace of the in- 
 solence of youth j they displayed themselves in the open air, in 
 the blaze of light, with blackguard-like coarseness, and yet as 
 desirable and as tender as virgins returning with moist necks 
 from the bath. 
 
 Nana was in the centre with her pink dress all aglow in the 
 sunlight. She gave her arm to Pauline, whose costume, yellow 
 flowers on a white ground, glared in similar fashion, dotted as 
 it were with little flames. As they were the tallest of the baud, 
 the most- woman-like and most unblushing, they led the troop 
 and drew themselves up with breasts well forward whenever 
 they detected glances or heard complimentary remarks. The 
 others, the hussies, extended right and left, puffing themselves 
 out in order to attract attention. Nana and Pauline resorted 
 to the complicated devices of experienced coquettes. If they. 
 ran till th.ey were out of breath it was in view of shewing their 
 white, stockings and making the ribbons of their chignons wave 
 in the breeze. Then when they stopped, pretending to suffocate, 
 with palpitating breasts thrown back; you might have glanced 
 around and you would certainly have espied one of their sweet- 
 hearts, some young blood of the neighbourhood ; then they 
 walked on with languid steps, whispering laughingly to each 
 other and watching stealthily from under their eyelids. They 
 were especially eager for these chance meetings, among the 
 jostling throng on the pavement. Big fellows in Sunday attire, 
 jackets and felt hats, detained them for a moment at the edge 
 of the gutter, bantering and striving to squeeze their waists. 
 Young workmen, just in the twenties, in slovenly grey blouses, 
 talked slowly to them with crossed arms, puffing the smoke of 
 their short pipes up their noses. But all this was of no import- 
 ance ; f these chaps had sprouted up on the pavement at the 
 same time as themselves. Still amongst the lot they had 
 already made their choice. Pauline was always meeting 
 Madame Gaudron's son, a seventeen year old carpenter who 
 treated her to apples ; and Nana distinguished from one end of 
 the street to the other young Victor Fauconnier, the washer- 
 woman's son, with whom she exchanged kisses in dark corners. 
 But it did not go any further, they were too vicious to act im- 
 properly without knowledge. Only the talk was precious hot. 
 
 Then, when the sun set, the great delight of these hussies 
 was to stop and look at the mountebanks. Conjurors and
 
 340 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 
 
 strong men turned up and spread threadbare carpets on the 
 soil of the avenue. Loungers collected, and a circle formed, 
 whilst the mountebank in the centre tried his muscles under 
 his faded tights. Nana and Pauline would remain standing for 
 hours in the thickest of the crowd. Their pretty fresh dresses 
 became all creased and tumbled by rubbing against the men's 
 coats and dirty blouses. Their bare arms, their bare necks, 
 their bare heads grew heated amid the foul breathing of the 
 men, the offensive odour of wine and perspiration combined. 
 And they laughed in full enjoyment, nowise disgusted, but 
 rosier rather, as if they had been on their native dungheap. 
 Around them filthy words were exchanged in undisguised 
 indecency the remarks of drunken men. But, 'twas their 
 own language, they knew it well, and they turned round with a 
 smile, quietly unchaste, without a flush tinging their pallid 
 satin skins. 
 
 The only thing that vexed them was to meet their fathers, 
 especially when the latter had been drinking. So they watched 
 and warned one another. 
 
 "I say, Nana," Pauline would suddenly cry out, "here comes 
 father Coupeau ! " 
 
 " Eh ! he isn't drunk, oh ! dear no. not at all ! " said Naua, 
 greatly bothered. " I'm going to cut and run you know. I 
 don't want him to shake my fleas. Hallo ! how he stumbles 1 
 Good Lord, if he could only break his neck ! " 
 
 At other times, when Coupeau came straight up to her with- 
 out giving her time to run off, she crouched down, made herself 
 small and muttered: "Just you hide me, you others. He's 
 looking for me, and he promised he'd knock my head off if he 
 caught me ganging about." 
 
 Then, when the drunkard had passed them, she drew herself 
 up again, and all the others followed her with bursts of 
 laughter. He'll find her he will he won't 1 It was a true 
 game at hide and seek. One day, however, Boche had come 
 after Pauline and caught her by both ears, aud Coupeau had 
 driven Nana home with kicks behind. 
 
 When daylight waned, they took a last turn and went home 
 in the pallid dusk, through the tired crowd. The dust had 
 thickened in the atmosphere, attenuating the darkness of the 
 heavy sky. The Rue de la Goutte-d'Or might have been a 
 corner of some provincial town with the housewives gossiping 
 on the doorsteps, and their bursts of chatter disturbing the 
 warm silence of the neighbourhood void of vehicles. The girls
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 341 
 
 stopped for a minute in the courtyard, took up their battledores 
 and tried to make believe that they hadn't budged from the 
 spot. Then they went upstairs concocting some story which 
 they were often dispensed from repeating, as, for instance, when 
 they found their parents absorbed in cuffing one another, be- 
 cause the soup was over salted, or not hot enough. 
 
 Nana was, now a workgirl, and earned forty sous a day at 
 Titreville's place in the Rue du Caire, where she had served as 
 apprentice. The Coupeaus had kept her there, so that she 
 might remain under the eye of Madame Lerat, who had been 
 forewoman in the workroom for ten years. Of a morning, when 
 her mother looked at the cuckoo clock, off she went by herself, 
 looking very pretty with her shoulders tightly confined in her 
 old black dress, which was both too narrow and too short j and 
 Madame Lerat had to note the hour of her arrival, and tell it to 
 Gervaise. She was allowed twenty minutes to go from the Rue 
 de la Goutte-d'Or to the Rue du Caire, and it was enough, for 
 these young hussies have stag's legs. At times she arrived to 
 the minute, but so red and so out of breath that she certainly 
 had sped from the Barriere in ten minutes, after dawdling on 
 the road beforehand. More usually, however, she was seven or 
 eight minutes late ; and then she showed herself most coaxing 
 towards her aunt till night time, looking at her with suppli- 
 cating eyes and thus trying to touch her and induce her not to tell 
 her father. Madame Lerat who understood youthful vagaries, did 
 not tell the Coupeaus the truth, but she rebuked Nana with 
 interminable chatter, talking of her responsibility and of the 
 dangers a young girl was exposed to in the streets of Paris. 
 Ah ! good heavens ! wasn't she followed about herself? She 
 gazed at her niece with eyes bright with constantly recurring 
 unchaste ideas, and her senses kindled at the thought of pre- 
 serving this poor little kitten's virtue warm on the hob. 
 
 " Do you see," she repeated, " you must tell me everything. 
 I'm so fond of you that if any misfortune happened to you, I 
 should go and throw myself into the Seine. Do you hear, my 
 little puss ? If men talk to you, you must repeat everything to 
 me without omitting a word eh? Haven't they said any- 
 thing to you as yet ? Will you swear it ? " 
 
 Nana thereupon laughed, twisting her mouth in a funny 
 manner. No, no, men didn't talk to her. She walked too fast, 
 and besides what could they have had to say to her ? She had 
 nothing to do with them ; and assuming a simpleton's expres- 
 sion, she explained fepw it happened that sjip wp often
 
 842 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 she had stopped to look at some pictures in the shop windows, 
 or else she had accompanied Pauline to hear a story she knew. 
 Folios could follow her, if they did not believe her : she always 
 kept to the pavement on the left hand side; and sped along like a 
 vehicle, overtaking all the other girls and passing them by. To 
 tell the truth, Madame Lerat had one day surprised her with 
 her nose tilted upwards in the Rue du Petit-Carreau, while she 
 was laughing with three other hussies of her own class, at a 
 man who was shaving himself at a window ; but when her aunt 
 reproached her, she turned angry and swore that she had just 
 been jnto the baker's at the corner to buy a ha'penny roll. 
 
 "Oh 1 I watch, you needn't fear," said the widow to the 
 Coupeaus. "I will answer to you for her as I would answer for 
 myself. And rather than let a blackguard squeeze her, why I'd 
 step between them." 
 
 The workroom at Titreville's was a large apartment on the 
 first floor with a broad work-table standing on trestles in the 
 centre. Round the four walls, the plaster of which was visible 
 in parts where the dirty yellowish grey paper was torn away, 
 there were several stands covered with old cardboard boxes, 
 parcels, and discarded patterns, under a thick coating of 
 dust. The gas had left what appeared to be like a daub of soot 
 on the ceiling. The two windows opened so wide, that with- 
 out leaving the work-table, the girls could see the people walk- 
 ing past on the pavement over the way. 
 
 Madame Lerat arrived the first, in view of setting an example. 
 Then for a quarter of an hour the door swayed to and fro, and 
 all the workgirls straggled in, perspiring, with tumbled hair. 
 One July morning Nana arrived the last, as very often hap- 
 pened. " Ah me ! " she said, " it won't be a pity when I have 
 a carriage of my own." And without even taking off her hat, 
 one which she was weary of patching up, she approached the 
 window, and leant out, looking to the right and the left to see 
 what was going on in the street. 
 
 "What are you looking at?" asked Madame Lerat, suspi- 
 ciously. " Did your father come with you ? " 
 
 " No, you may be sure of that," answered Nana coolly. " I'm 
 looking at nothing I'm looking that it's awfully hot. It's 
 enough to make anyone ill to make them run like that." 
 
 It was a stifling hot morning. The workgirls had drawn 
 down the Venetian blinds, between which they could, spy out 
 into the street ; and they had at last begun working on either 
 sjcje pf tfre table, at the upper end of which sat Madame
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 848 
 
 They were eight in number, each with her pot of glue, pincers, 
 tools, and curling stand in front of her. On the work-table lay 
 a mass of wire, reels, cotton wool, green and brown paper, 
 leaves and petals cut out of silk, satin, or velvet. In the centre, 
 in the neck of a large decanter, one flower-girl had thrust a 
 little penny nosegay which had been fading on her breast since 
 the day before. 
 
 " Ah ! do you know," said Le*onie, a pretty girl with dark 
 hair, as she leant over her stand .curling the petals of a rose, 
 " it seems that poor Caroline is awfully miserable with that 
 fellow who used to wait for her every evening." 
 
 Nana, who was engaged in cutting narrow bands of green 
 paper, declared that this news in nowise surprised her, for the 
 fellow in question was constantly unfaithful ; only she did not 
 say unfaithful, a disgusting expression fell from her lips instead. 
 
 An undercurrent of gaiety spread through the workroom, and 
 Madame Lerat found it needful to make a show of severity. 
 She screwed up her nose, muttering: " You are chaste, my dear, 
 and no mistake ; you use nice language. I shall tell your father 
 of it, and we'll see if he's pleased." 
 
 Nana puffed out her cheeks as if to avoid bursting into 
 laughter. Her father, indeed ! Why, he used worse language 
 himself. But suddenly Le'onie swiftly whispered: "Eh ! take 
 care ; here comes madame ! " 
 
 And indeed Madame Titreville, a tall withered looking woman, 
 now entered the workroom. As a rule she remained down- 
 stairs in the shop. The workgirls lived in fear of her, for she 
 never joked. She went slowly round the work-table, over which 
 every one now remaind stooping, silent and active. She called 
 one workgirl a blockhead, and made her begin a daisy over 
 again. Then she went off, as stiffly as she had come. 
 
 " Bow ! wow ! " repeated Nana in the midst of a general 
 gfowl. 
 
 " Young ladies, really, young ladies I " said Madame Lerat, 
 striving to assume an air of severity. "You will compel me 
 to adopt measures " 
 
 But she was not listened to, for she was scarcely feared. She 
 showed herself too tolerant, titillated as it were by associating 
 with those girls whose eyes were full of merriment, taking them 
 aside to question them about their lovers, and telling them 
 their fortunes with cards when an end of the work-table happened 
 to be unencumbered. Her hard skin, her gendarme's carcass, 
 vibrated with a gossip ? s salutary joy when any doubtful subject
 
 844 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 was broached. The only thing she objected to was plain words; 
 but providing plain words were not used, anything might be 
 insinuated. 
 
 To tell the truth, Nana perfected her education in nice style 
 in the workroom ! No doubt she was already inclined to go 
 wrong. But this was the finishing stroke associating with a 
 lot of girls who were already worn out with misery and vice. 
 They all hobnobbed and rotted together, just the story of the 
 baskets of apples when there are rotten ones among them. 
 No doubt there was a make believe at decency in the presence 
 of strangers ; the girls avoided disgusting expressions, and pre- 
 tended to be well-brought up young people. Only, nasty re- 
 marks were exchanged in corners, in one another's ears, as fast 
 as could be managed. Two of them could not remain together 
 without at once wriggling with laughter as they related some- 
 thing improper. Then in the evening they saw each other home ; 
 and confidential revelations were exchanged stories calculated 
 to set the hair on end, which delayed the girls on the pavement, 
 and made them burn with desire in the midst of the elbowing 
 crowd. For those who had so far remained virgins like Nana, 
 the workroom had a pernicious atmosphere replete with the 
 odour of low music-halls and sleepless nights, brought there by 
 the more vicious girls, in their slovenly fastened hair and their 
 tumbled skirts so tumbled indeed that the wearers seemed to 
 have gone to bed in them. Over the work-table among the 
 bright fragile artificial flowers, there passed a perverted breath 
 typified by the idle languor which follows nights of vice, and 
 by the dark circles around the hussies' eyes the stamp of love 
 as Madame Lerat was wont to say. Nana sniffed and intoxicated 
 herself as it were when she was beside some girl who had al- 
 ready seen " the wolf." For a long while she had sat next to 
 big Lisa, who was said to be in an interesting condition ; and 
 she was ever casting glowing glances at her neighbour as though 
 she expected to see her suddenly expand and burst. As for 
 learning anything new, that was a difficult matter. The little 
 hussy knew everything, had learnt everything on the pavement 
 of the Rue de la v Goutte-d'Or. In the workroom however, she 
 saw precept carried into practice, and by degrees there came to 
 her a longing with cheek enough to do the same in her turn. 
 
 (t It's hot enough to make one stifle," she said, approaching 
 a window as if to draw the blind farther down ; but she leant 
 forward and again looked out both to the right and left. 
 
 At the same moment L^onie, who was watching a man
 
 THE " ASSOMMOm." 345 
 
 stationed on the foot pavement over the way, exclaimed, " "What's 
 that old fellow about? He's been spying here for the last 
 quarter of an houn" 
 
 "Some torn cat," said Madame Lerat. "JSTana, just come 
 and sit down i I forbade your remaining at the window." 
 
 Nana took up the stems of some violets she was rolling, and 
 the whole workroom turned its attention to the man in question. 
 He was a well-dressed individual with a frock coat on, and he 
 looked about fifty years old. He had a pale face, very serious 
 and dignified in expressipn, framed round with a well trimmed 
 grey beard. He remained for an hour in front of a herborist's 
 shop with his eyes fixed on the Venetian blinds of the workroom. 
 The flower-girls indulged in little bursts of laughter which died 
 away amid the noise of the street, and while leaning forward, 
 to all appearance busy with their work, they glanced askance 
 so as not to lose sight of the gentleman. 
 
 " Ah ! " remarked L6onie, " he wears glasses. He's a swell. 
 He's waiting for Augustine, no doubt." 
 
 But Augustine, a tall, ugly, fair-haired girl, sourly answered 
 that she did not like old men ; whereupon Madame Lerat, jerk- 
 ing her head, answered with a smile full of underhand meaning, 
 " That is a great mistake on your part, my dear ; the old ones 
 are more tender. " 
 
 At this moment Le*onie's neighbour, a plump little body, 
 whispered something in her ear, and Le"onie suddenly threw 
 herself back on her chair, seized with a fit of noisy laughter, 
 wriggling, looking at the gentleman and then laughing all the 
 louder. "That's it. Oh! that's it," she stammered. "How 
 dirty that Sophie is I " 
 
 "What did she say? What did she say?" asked the whole 
 workroom, aglow with curiosity. 
 
 Le'ome wiped the tears from her eyes without answering. 
 When she became somewhat calmer, she began curling her 
 flowers again and declared, " It can't be repeated." 
 
 The others insisted, but she shook her head, seized again with 
 a gust of gaiety. Thereupon Augustine, her left-hand neighbour, 
 besought her to whisper it to her ; and finally Le*onie consented 
 to do so, with her lips close to Augustine's ear. Augustine 
 threw herself back and wriggled with convulsive laughter in her 
 turn. Then she repeated the phrase to a girl next to her, and 
 from ear to ear it travelled round the room amid exclamations 
 and stifled laughter. When they were all of them acquainted 
 with Sophie's disgusting remark, they looked at one another and
 
 846 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 burst out laughing together, although a little flushed and con- 
 fused. Madame Lerat alone was not in the secret and she felt 
 extremely vexed. 
 
 "That's very impolite behaviour on your part, young ladies," 
 said she. " It is not right to whisper when other people are 
 present. Something indecent, no doubt ! Ah ! that's becom- 
 ing!" 
 
 However, she did not venture to ask what it was that Sophie 
 had said, despite her furious longing to learn it. But, for a 
 moment, looking dignified, with her nose pointed downwards, 
 she regaled herself with the chatter of the workgirls. None of 
 them could make a remark, the most innocent one in the world, 
 about her work, for instance, without the others interpreting it 
 maliciously; they distorted its meaning, and gave it a nasty 
 signification. And they connected everything with the gentle- 
 man who was waiting over the way they always contrived to 
 associate him with their allusions. Ah ! his ears must have 
 tingled, and no mistake ! They ended by saying some very 
 stupid things in their anxiety to be witty. Still, this did not 
 prevent them from finding the pastime an amusing one, and 
 excited, with sparkling eyes, they indulged in hotter remarks 
 than ever. Madame Lerat had no occasion to scold, for no plain 
 words were spoken. 
 
 You should have seen how Nana enjoyed all this merriment. 
 No word with a double -meaning escaped her. She, herself, 
 launched some very stiff ones, underscoring them with a move- 
 ment 'of the chin, sitting back, and feeling superlatively de- 
 lighted. ' She was at home in vice, like a fish is at home in 
 water. And meantime, whilst she wriggled on her chair, she 
 kept on preparing her violet stems with wonderful ease, and in 
 less time than you might have rolled a cigarette. One move- 
 ment to take a strip of green paper, and then, presto ! the paper 
 glided round the wire ; next a drop of gum on the top so as to 
 affix the flower, and it was done a fresh delicate bit of green, 
 fit to* be placed on a lady's bosom. The dexterity was in her 
 fingers, her' hussy's fingers, which were nimble and -supple, 
 double-jointed, as it were. This was all she had been able to 
 learn of the profession, and all the stems of the workroom were 
 entrusted to her, so skilfully did she prepare them. 
 
 However, the gentleman over the way had gone off. The 
 room grew calmer, and work was earned on in the sultry heat. 
 When twelve o'clock struck meal-time they all shook them- 
 selves. Nana, who had hastened to the window again, volun-
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 347 
 
 teered to do the errands if they liked. And Le"onie ordered ' a 
 penn'orth of shrimps, Augustine a screw of fried potatoes, Lisa 
 a bunch of radishes, Sophie a sausage. Then as Nana was 
 going downstairs, Madame Lerat, who found her partiality for 
 the window that morning rather curious, overtook her with her 
 long legs. 
 
 " Wait a bit," she said. " I'll go with you. I want to buy 
 something too." 
 
 But in the passage below" she perceived the gentleman, stuck 
 there like a candle, and exchanging glances with Nana. The 
 girl flushed very red, whereupon her aunt at once caught her by 
 the arm and made her trot over the pavement, whilst the in- 
 dividual followed behind. Ah ! so the torn cat had come for 
 Nana. "Well, that was nice ! At fifteen years and a half old, 
 to drag men about after her skirts ! And then Madame Lerat 
 hastily began to question her. Oh ! really, Nana didn't know ; 
 be had only been following her for five days, but she could not 
 poke her nose out of doors without stumbling on him. She be- 
 lieved he was in business ; yes, a manufacturer of bone buttons. 
 Madame Lerat was greatly impressed. She turned round and 
 glanced at the gentleman out of the corner of her. eye. 
 
 " One can see he's got a long purse," she muttered. " Listen 
 to me, pussy ; you must tell me everything. You have nothing 
 more to fear now." 
 
 Whilst speaking, they hastened from shop to shop to the 
 pork butcher's, the fruiterer's, the cook-shop ; and the errands 
 in greasy paper were piled up in their hands. Still they re- 
 mained amiable, curvetting and casting bright glances behind 
 them with gusts of gay laughter. Madame Lerat herself tried 
 the graceful, acting the young girl, on account of the button 
 manufacturer who was still following them. 
 
 u He is very distinguished looking," she declared as they re- 
 turned into the passage. " If he only had honourable views." 
 
 Then as they were going upstairs she suddenly seemed to 
 remember something. " By the way, tell me what the girls 
 were whispering to each other you know, what Sophie said?" 
 
 Nana did not make any ceremony. Only she caught Madame 
 Lerat by the neck and caused her to descend a couple of steps, 
 for, really, the remark in question could not be repeated aloud, 
 even on a staircase. And then she whispered it. Hot as it was, 
 her aunt merely jerked her head, opening her eyes and twisting 
 her mouth. At all events, she knew what it was now, and no 
 longer itefred with curiosity.
 
 848 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 The flower-girls eat off their knees, so as not to mess the work- 
 table. They hastily bolted their food, for eating bothered them, 
 and they preferred to spend the hour they were allowed for 
 their meal in watching the passers-by out of the window, or 
 indulging in confidential chit-chat in the corners. On that day 
 they tried to find out what had become of the gentleman who 
 had waited over the way during the morning, but he had alto- 
 gether disappeared. Madame Lerat and Nana glanced at each 
 other, but kept their mouths shut. It was already ten minutes 
 past one, and the girls did not seem at all in a hurry to take up 
 their pliers again when Le"onie suddenly articulated "prr- 
 rout," like house-painters do to call each other, in view of 
 signalling the mistress's approach. At once they all seated 
 themselves on their chairs again, with their noses bent over 
 their work. The next moment Madame Titreville came in and 
 severely made the round. 
 
 From this day forth Madame Lerat regaled herself with her 
 niece's first love adventure. She no longer left her, but ac- 
 companied her morning and evening, bringing her responsibility 
 well to the fore. This somewhat annoyed Nana, but all the 
 same she expanded with pride at seeing herself guarded like a 
 treasure ; and the talk she and her aunt indulged in, in the 
 street, with the button manufacturer behind them, inflamed her 
 and rather quickened her desire to take the jump. Oh ! her 
 aunt understood the feelings of the heart; she even com- 
 passionated the button manufacturer, this elderly gentleman, 
 who looked so respectable, for after all, sentimental feelings are 
 more deeply rooted among people of a certain age. Still she 
 watched. And yes, he would have to pass over her body be- 
 fore reaching her niece. 
 
 One evening she approached the gentleman, and told him, as 
 straight as a bullet, that his conduct was most improper. He 
 bowed to her politely, without answering, like an old satyr who 
 was accustomed to hear parents tell him to go about his 
 business. She really could not be cross with him, he was too 
 well mannered. Then came practical advice on love, allusions 
 to dirty blackguards of men, and all sorts of stories about hu'ssies 
 who had repented of their frailty, which left Nana in a state of 
 languor, with eyes gleaming brightly in her pale face. 
 
 One day, however, in the Rue du 'Faubourg-Poissonniere, the 
 button manufacturer ventured to poke his nose between the 
 aunt and the niece in view of muttering things which ought not 
 to have been said. Thereupon Madame Lerat was so frightened
 
 THE " ASSOMMOm.** 349 
 
 that she declared she no longer felt safe on her own account, 
 and she told the whole business to her brother. Then came 
 another row. There were some pretty rumpuses in the 
 Coupeaus' rooms. To begin with, the zinc-worker gave Nana a 
 hiding. What was that he learnt 1 ? The hussy gallivanted 
 with old men. All right. Only let her be caught philandering 
 out of doors again, she'd be done for ; he, her father, would cut 
 off her head in a jiffy. Had the like ever been seen before ! A 
 dirty nose who thought of dishonouring her family ! Thereupon 
 he shook her, declaring in God's name that she'd have to walk 
 straight, for he'd watch her himself in future. As soon as she 
 came home he searched her, and looked her well in the face to 
 see if she had a little mark on the eye, one of those little kisses 
 which steal there noiselessly. He smelt her and turned her 
 round. One evening she received another hiding on account of 
 his having found a black spot on her neck. The hussy dared 
 to say that it wasn't a sucking mark ! Yes, she called it a 
 bruise a bruise which Le"onie had made in playing. He'd give 
 her bruises indeed ; he'd prevent her gallivanting even if he 
 had to break her skittles. On other occasions, when he was in 
 a good humour, he bantered her and made fun of her. Really 
 now ! She was a nice bit for a man to make up to as flat as a 
 sole, with salt cellars above her chest big enough to shove a fist 
 into ! Nana, beaten for what she had not done, exposed to all 
 the crudity of her father's abominable charges, showed the 
 cunning infuriated submission of a hnnted animal 
 
 " Why don't you leave her alone ? " repeated Gervaise, who 
 was more reasonable. " You will end by making her wish to do 
 what she oughtn't by talking to her about it so much." 
 
 Ah ! yes, indeed, she did wish to do it. She itched all over, 
 longing to break loose and go the whole hog, as father Coupeau 
 said. He insisted so much on the subject that even an honest 
 girl would have fired up. Even, when he was abusing her, he 
 taught her things she did not know as yet, which, to say the 
 least, was astonishing. ' Then, little by little, she acquired some 
 singular habits. One morning he noticed her rummaging in a 
 paper bag and rubbing something on her face. It was rico 
 powder, which she plastered on her delicate satin-like skin with 
 perverse taste. He caught up, the paper bag and rubbed it over 
 her face, violently enough to graze her skin, and called her a 
 miller's daughter. On another occasion she brought some red 
 ribbons home, to do up her old black hat which she was so 
 ashamed of. And he asked her in a furious voice where she had
 
 850 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 got those ribbons from. Eh 1 She had earned them immorally, 
 or else she had bagged them ! A hussy or a thief, and perhaps 
 both together. On various occasions he caught her with some- 
 thing pretty in her hands a cornelian ring, a pair of cuffs with 
 lace edges, one of those silver-gilt heart-shaped lockets called 
 " Come and feel," which girls hang between their titties. 
 Coupeau wanted to destroy everything ; but she defended her 
 property frantically. It was her's ; a lady had given it to her, 
 or else she had obtained it from a girl at the workroom in ex- 
 change for something else. As for the locket, she had found it in 
 the Rue d'Aboukir. When her father crushed it with his heel, she 
 remained erect and pale, with clinched hands, whilst a feeling 
 of revolt came over her, inciting her to spring upon him and 
 tear something off him. For a couple of years she had dreamed 
 of having that locket, and there he had gone and flattened it. 
 No, she found that too strong ; there must be an end of it ! 
 
 However, Coupeau was more worrying than judicious in the 
 manner he ruled Nana. He was often in the wrong, and his 
 injustice exasperated the girL She at last left off attending the 
 workshop, and then when the zinc-worker gave her a hiding, she 
 declared she would not return to Titreville's again, for she was 
 always placed next to Augustine, who must have swallowed her 
 feet to have such a foul breath. Then Coupeau took her him- 
 self to the Rue du Caire, and requested the mistress of the 
 establishment to place her always next to Augustine, by way of 
 punishment. Every morning for a fortnight he took the trouble 
 to come down from the Barriere Poissonniere to escort Nana to 
 the door of the flower shop. And he remained for five minutes 
 on the footway, to make sure that she had gone in. But one 
 morning, while he was drinking a glass with a friend in a wine- 
 shop in the Rue Saint-Denis, he perceived the hussy darting 
 down the street. For a fortnight she had been deceiving him ; 
 instead of going into the workroom, she climbed a storey higher, 
 and sat down on the stairs, waiting till he had gone off. When 
 Coupeau began casting the blame en Madame Lerat, the latter 
 flatly replied that she would not accept it. She had told her 
 niece all she ought to tell her, to keep her on her guard against 
 men, and it was not her fault if the girl still had a liking for the 
 nasty beasts. Now, she washed her hands of the whole busi- 
 ness ; she swore she would not mix up in it, for she knew what 
 she knew. Scandal-mongering in the family ; yes, folks who 
 charged her with debauching Nana, and taking a wicked 
 pleasure in witnessing her immorality. On the other hand,
 
 THE "ASSOMM01R." 851 
 
 Coupeau learned from the mistress that Nana was led astray by 
 another workgirl, that little camel Le"onie, who had just 
 abandoned flower-making to lead au immoral life. No doubt, 
 the girl, merely gluttonous of pastry and gadding about in the 
 streets, might yet have, married with a wreath of orange blossom 
 on her head. But dash it ! One must make haste if she was 
 to be given to a husband, clean, intact, and complete like young 
 ladies who respect themselves. 
 
 In the 1 house in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, Nana's old fellow 
 was talked about as a gentleman everyone was acquainted with. 
 Oh ! he remained very polite, even a little timid, but awfully 
 obstinate and patient,, folio wing her ten paces behind like an 
 obedient poodle. Sometimes, indeed, he ventured into the 
 courtyard. One evening Madame Gaudron met him on the 
 second floor landing, and he glided down alongside the balusters 
 with his nose lowered, and looking as if on fire, but frightened. 
 And the Lorilleux threatened to move if their rag of a niece 
 brought any more men into the house behind her, for it was 
 becoming disgusting, the staircase was full of them, and one 
 could no longer go down without meeting some fellow or another 
 on every step, sniffing and waiting ; indeed, one might have 
 thought there was some dog on heat in the house. The Boches 
 pitied the fate of this poor gentleman, such a respectable 
 individual, who had fallen in love with a little hussy. After 
 all, he was in business, they had seen his button manufactory 
 on the Boulevard de la Villette, and he might have given a 
 woman a position if he had come across an honest girl. Thanks 
 to the particulars communicated by the doorkeepers, all the 
 people of the neighbourhood, even the Lorilleux themselves, 
 showed the greatest respect for the old fellow, when he passed 
 by at Nana's heels, with hanging lips, a pale face, and a frame- 
 work of grey beard becomingly cropped. 
 
 For the first month Nana was greatly amused with her old 
 fellow. You should have seen him always dogging her- a per- 
 fect dip-in- the-pot who felt her skirts behind, in the crowd, with- 
 out seeming to do , so. And his legs ! regular lucifers. No 
 more moss on hia pate, only four straight hairs falling on his 
 neck, so that she was always tempted to ask him where his 
 hairdresser lived. Ah ! what an old gaffer, he was comical a:id 
 no mistake. 
 
 Then, on finding him always behind her, she no longer 
 thought him so funny. She became afraid of him, and would 
 have called out if he had approached her. Often, when she
 
 852 . THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 stopped in front of a jeweller's shop, she heard him stammering 
 something behind her. And what he said was true ; she would 
 have liked to have had a cross with a velvet neck-band, or a 
 pair of coral earrings, so small, you would have thought they 
 were drops of blood. Indeed, without aspiring to jewellery she 
 could not remain a rag, she was tired of decking herself with 
 such refuse as she could pick up in the workrooms of the Hue 
 du Caire, and especially she had had enough of her hat, the 
 " caloquet," on which the flowers cribbed at Titreville's hung. 
 Trotting along in the mud, splashed by the vehicles, dazed by 
 the display in the shop windows, she had longings which twisted 
 her chest longings to be well dressed, to eat in the restaurants, 
 to go to the theatre, to have a room of her own with handsome 
 furniture. She paused, pale with desire, she felt a heat mount 
 within her from the pavement of Paris, she was seized with a 
 ferocious appetite to partake of the enjoyment which she 
 elbowed in the crowd on the footways. And it never missed ; 
 just at those very moments the old fellow whispered his pro- 
 posals into her ear. Ah ! how she would have shaken hands 
 with him in token of assent, if she had not been afraid of him, 
 if she had not experienced a sensation of revolt which strength- 
 ened her in her refusals and made her furious and disgusted 
 with man, and the unknown, despite all her vice. 
 
 However, when the winter arrived, life became impossible at 
 home. Nana had her hiding every night. When her father 
 was tired of beating her, her mother smacked her to teach her 
 how to behave. And very often it was a general set-to ; as 
 soon as one of them began to beat her, the other took her part, 
 so that all three of them ended by rolling on the tiled floor in 
 the midst of the broken crockery. And with all this, there 
 were short commons and they shivered with cold. Whenever 
 the girl bought anything pretty, a bow or a pair of sleeve-links, 
 her parents confiscated the purchase and drank what they 
 could get for it. She had nothing of her own, excepting her 
 allowance of blows, before coiling herself up between the rags 
 of a sheet, where she shivered under her little black skirt, 
 which she stretched out by way of a blanket. No, that cursed 
 life could not continue ; she was not going to leave her skin 
 in it. Her father had long since ceased to count for her ; when 
 a father gets drunk like her's did, he isn't a father, but a dirty 
 beast one longs to get rid of. And now, too, her mother was 
 going down the hill in her esteem. She drank as well. She 
 liked to go and fetch her husband at old Colombo's, so as to be
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 353 
 
 treated ; and she willingly sat down, with none of the air of 
 disgust that she had assumed on the first occasion, draining 
 glasses indeed at one gulp, dragging her elbows over the tables 
 for hours, and leaving the place with her eyes starting out of 
 her head. ' 
 
 When Nana passed in front of the " Assommoir " and saw 
 her mother inside, with her nose in her glass, fuddled in the 
 midst of the disputing men, she was seized with anger ; for 
 youth, which has other dainty thoughts uppermost, does not 
 understand drink. On these evenings it was a pretty sight. 
 Father drunk, mother drunk, a hell of a home that stunk with 
 liquor, and where there was no bread. To tell the truth, a 
 saint would not have stayed in the place* So much the worse 
 if she took French leave one of these days ; her parents might 
 say their mea culpa, and own that they had forced her out of 
 the house. 
 
 One Saturday when Nana came home she found her father 
 and her mother in a lamentable condition. Coupeau, who had 
 fallen across the bed, was snoring. Gervaise, crouching on a 
 ehair^ was swaying her head, with her eyes vaguely and 
 threateningly staring into vacancy. She had. forgotten to 
 warm the dinner, the remains of a stew. A tallow dip which 
 she neglected to snuff revealed the shameful misery of the room. 
 
 " It's you, caterpillar ? " stammered Gervaise. " Ah well, 
 your father will give you a dance." 
 
 Nana did not answer, but remained pale, looking at the cold 
 stove, the table on which no plates were laid, the lugubrious 
 hovel which this pair of drunkards invested with the pale 
 horror qf their callousness. She did not take off her hat, but 
 walked round the room ; then, with her teeth tightly set, she 
 opened the door and went out. 
 
 " You are going down again ? " asked hr mother, who was 
 unable even to turn her head. 
 
 '* Yes ; I've forgotten something. I shall come up again. 
 Good evening." 
 
 And she did not return. On the morrow wnen the Coupeaus 
 were sobered they fought together, reproaching each other With 
 being the cause of Nana's flight. Ah ! she was far away if she 
 were running still! As children are told of sparrows, her 
 parents might set a pinch of salt on her tail, and then perhaps 
 they would catch her. It was a great blow, and crushed Ger- 
 vaise, for, despite the impairment of her faculties, she realised 
 perfectly well that her daughter's misconduct lowered her still 
 
 z
 
 354 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 more ; she was alone now, with no child to respect, able to let 
 herself sink as low as she could fall. Yes, this heartless 
 creature had carried the last remnants of her mother's reputa- 
 tion away in her dirty skirts. And Gervaise drank furiously 
 for three days, with clinchsd fists and her mouth swollen with 
 abominable words respecting her hussy of a daughter. Coupeau, 
 after rolling round the outer Boulevards, and looking at all the 
 harlots who passed by, as if trying to find Nana among them, 
 took to smoking his pipe again quietly enough ; only, when he 
 was sitting at table at meal-time, he often sprang to his feet, 
 raising his arms in the air with a knife in his hand, and cry- 
 ing out that he was dishonoured, and then he sat down again 
 to finish his soup. 
 
 In the house, where girls flew off every month like canaries 
 whose cages are left open, no one was astonished to hear of the 
 Coupeaus' mishap. But the Lorilleux were triumphant Ah ! 
 they had predicted that the girl would reward her parents in 
 this fashion. It was deserved j all artificial flower-girls went 
 wrong. The Boches and the Poissons also sneered, with an 
 extraordinary display and outlay of virtue. Lantier alone 
 covertly defended Nana. Good Lord ! said he, with his puri- 
 tanical air, no doubt a girl who went on the town offended 
 against every law j but, with a gleam in the corner of his eyes, 
 he added that, dash it ! the girl was, after all, too pretty to lead 
 such a life of misery at her age. 
 
 " Do you know," cried Madame Lorilleux, one day in the 
 Boches' room, where the party were taking coffee, " well, as 
 sure as this is daylight, the Hobbler sold her daughter ! Yes, 
 she sold her, and I have proof of it ! The old fellow who was 
 always on the stairs morning and night, went up to pay some- 
 thing on account It stared one in the face. And, yesterday, 
 too ! Why, they were seen together at the Ambigu Theatre the 
 tabby and her torn. Ton my word of honour, they're together, 
 so you see it was so." 
 
 The gossips discussed the subject whilst finishing their coffee. 
 After all, it was possible ; stranger things than that had hap- 
 pened. And in the neighbourhood the most respectable folks 
 ended. by repeating that Gervaise had sold her daughter. 
 
 Gervaise now shuffled along in her slippers, without caring a 
 rap for any one. You might have called her a thief in the 
 street, she wouldn't have turned round. For a month past she 
 hadn't looked at Madame Fauconnier's ; the latter had had to 
 turn her out of the place to avoid disputes. In a few weeks'
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 865 
 
 time she had successively entered the service of eight washer- 
 women j she did two or three days' work in each place, and then 
 she got the sack, so badly did she iron the things entrusted to 
 her, careless and dirty, and losing her head to such a point that 
 she quite forgot her calling. At last, realising her own inca- 
 pacity, she abandoned ironing, and went out washing by the day 
 at the wash-house in the Rue Neuve, where she still jogged on, 
 floundering about in the water, fighting with filth, reduced to 
 the roughest but easiest work, a bit lower on the down-hill 
 slope. However, the wash-house scarcely beautified her. A real 
 mud-splashed dog when she came out of it, soaked, and showing 
 her blue skin. At the same time, she grew stouter and stouter, 
 despite her frequent dances before the empty sideboard, and her 
 leg became so crooked, that she could no longer walk beside 
 any one without the risk of knocking him over, so great indeed 
 was, her lameness. 
 
 Naturally enough, when a woman falls to this point, all her 
 pride leaves her. Gervaise had divested herself of all her old 
 self-respect, coquetry, and need of sentiment, propriety, and 
 politeness. You might have kicked her no matter where, she 
 did not feel kicks, for she had become too fat and flabby. Lan- 
 tier had altogether turned her up ; he no longer squeezed her, 
 oven for form's sake ; and she did not seem to notice this finish 
 of a long connection, slowly spun out, and ending in mutual 
 lassitude. It was work the less for her. Even Lantier's inti- 
 macy with Virginie left her quite calm, so great was her indif- 
 ference now for all the fondling that had once been so much to 
 her taste. Everyone was aware that the hatter and the grocer 
 were playing a tine game. They really had too much facility, 
 for every two days the luckless Poisson had to turn out on 
 night-duty, and shiver on the deserted pavement whilst his wife 
 and his neighbour kept their feet warm at home. Oh ! they 
 didn't disturb themselves, they heard his step resound as he 
 went slowly past the shop in the dark empty street, without as 
 much as poking their noses above the counterpane. A police- 
 man only knows his duty, of course, and they remained together 
 till daybreak tampering with his belongings, whilst the stern 
 fellow watched over other people's. The whole neighbourhood 
 of the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or laughed at this good joke. They 
 thought it capital fun that a representative of authority should 
 be thus disgraced. Besides, Lantier had conquered the corner. 
 The shop and the shopwoman went together. He had recently 
 eaten a washerwoman out of doors ; now he was nibbling a
 
 856 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 
 
 grocer up; and if be chose to turn to the dressmakers and the 
 feminine drapers and stationers, he had jaws wide enough to 
 swallow them all in turn. 
 
 No, never had a man been seen who rolled about in sweet- 
 meats as he did. Lantier had thought of himself when he 
 advised Virginie to deal in dainties. He was too much of a 
 Provincial not to adore sugared things ; and, in fact, he would 
 have lived off sugar candy, lozenges, pastilles, sugar plums, 
 and chocolate. Sugared almonds especially left a little froth on 
 his lips, so keenly did they tickle his palate. For a year he 
 had been living only on sweetmeats. He opened the drawers 
 and stu&ed himself, whenever Virginie asked him to mind the 
 shop. Often, when he was talking in presence of five or six 
 people, he would take the lid off a jar on the counter, dip his 
 hand into it, and begin to nibble at something sweet ; the glass 
 jar remained open, and its contents diminished. People ceased 
 paying attention to it, it was a mania of his, so he had declared. 
 Besides, he had devised a perpetual cold, an irritation of the 
 throat, which he always talked of calming. 
 
 He still did no work, for he had more and more important 
 schemes than ever in view. He was contriving a superb inven- 
 tion the umbrella-hat, a hat which transformed itself into a 
 gingham on your head as soon as a shower commenced to fall ; 
 and he promised Poisson half shares in the profits of it, and 
 even borrowed twenty franc pieces of him to defray the cost of 
 experiments. Meanwhile, the shop melted away on his tongue. 
 All the stock-in-trade followed suit, down to the chocolate 
 cigars and pipes in pink caramel. Whenever he was stuffed 
 with sweetmeats, and seized with a fit of tenderness, he paid him- 
 self with a last lick on the groceress in a corner, who found him 
 all sugar, with lips which tasted like burnt almonds. Such a 
 delightful man to kiss ! He was positively becoming all honey. 
 The Boches said he merely had to dip a finger into his coffee to 
 sweeten it. 
 
 Softened by this perpetual dessert, Lantier showed' himself 
 paternal towards Gervaise. He gave her advice and scolded 
 her because she no longer liked work. The deuce, indeed ! a 
 woman of her age ought to know how to turn herself round. 
 And he accused her of having always been a glutton. Never- 
 theless, as one ought to hold out a helping hand, even to folks 
 who don't deserve it, he tried to find her a little work. Thus 
 he had prevailed upon Virginie to let Gervaise come once a 
 week to scrub the shop and the rooms. That was the sort of
 
 GERVAISB REDUCED TO CLEANING OUT THE SHOP OF HER OLD 
 
 ENEMY YIRGINIB P- 357.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOm." 357 
 
 thing she understood, and on each occasion she earned her 
 thirty sous. Gervaise arrived on the Saturday morning with a 
 pail [and a scrubbing brush, without seeming to suffer in the 
 least at having to perform a dirty, humble duty, a charwoman's 
 work, in the dwelling-place where she had reigned as the 
 beautiful fair-haired mistress. It was a last humiliation, the 
 end of her pride. 
 
 One Saturday she had a hard job of it. It had rained for 
 three days, and the customers seemed to have brought all the 
 mud of the neighbourhood into the shop on the soles of their 
 boots. Virginie was at the counter, doing the grand, with her 
 hair well combed, -and wearing a little white collar and a pair 
 of lace cuffs. Beside her, on the narrow seat covered with red 
 American cloth, Lantier did the dandy, looking for all the world 
 as if he were at home, as if he were the real master of the place, 
 and from time to time he carelessly dipped his hand into a jar 
 of peppermint drops, just to nibble something sweet according 
 to his habit. 
 
 " I say, Madame Coupeau ! " cried Virginie, who was watch- 
 ing the scrubbing with compressed lips, " you have left some 
 dirt over there in that corner. Scrub that rather better, 
 please." 
 
 Gervaise obeyed. She returned to the corner and began to 
 scrub again. She bent double on her knees in the midst of the 
 dirty water, with her shoulders prominent, her arms full 
 stretched and purple with cold. Her old skirt, fairly soaked, 
 stuck to her figure. And there, on the floor, she looked a dirty, 
 ill-combed drab, the rents in her jacket showing her puffy 
 form, her fat, flabby flesh which heaved, swayed, and floundered 
 about whenever she was roughly shaken by her work ; and all 
 the while she perspired to such a point that from her moist 
 face big drops of sweat fell on to the floor. 
 
 "The more elbow grease one uses the more it shines," said 
 Lantier, sententiously, with his mouth full of peppermint drops. 
 
 Yirginie, who sat back with the demeanour of a princess, her 
 eyes but partly open, was still watching the scrubbing, and in- 
 dulging in remarks. " A little more on the right there. Take 
 care of the wainscot. You know I was not very well pleased 
 last Saturday. The stains remained." 
 
 And both together, the hatter and the grocer assumed a more 
 important air, as if they had been on a throne whilst Gervaise 
 dragged herself through the black mud at their feet. Virginie 
 must have enjoyed herself, for a yellowish flame darted from
 
 858 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 her cat's eyes, and she looked at Lantier with an insidious 
 smile. At last she was revenged for that hiding she had re- 
 ceived at the wash-house, and which she had never forgotten ! 
 
 However, whenever Gervaise ceased scrubbing, a sound of 
 sawing came from the back room. Through the open doorway, 
 Poisson's profile stood out agaiust the pale light of the court- 
 yard. He was on leave that day, and was profiting by his 
 leisure time, to indulge in his mania for making little boxes. 
 He was seated at a table, and was cutting out arabesques in a 
 cigar box with extraordinary care. 
 
 "I say, Badingue ! " cried Lantier, wHp had given him this 
 surname, again, out of friendship, " I shall want that box of 
 yours as a present for a young lady." 
 
 Virginie pinched the hatter, but without ceasing to smile ; he 
 repaid evil with good, gallantly caressing her knee under the 
 counter ; and he drew his hand up quite naturally, when the 
 husband at last raised his head, showing his red moustaches 
 and imperial bristling on his mud-coloured face. 
 
 " Quite so," said the policeman. " I was working for you, 
 Auguste, in view of presenting you with a token of friendship." 
 
 "Ah 1 if that's the case, I'll keep your little affair ! " rejoined 
 Lantier laughing. " I'll hang it round my neck with a ribbon." 
 
 Then, suddenly, as if this thought brought another one to his 
 memory, " By the way," he cried, " I met Nana last night" 
 
 This news caused Gervaise such emotion, that she sunk down 
 in the dirty water which covered the floor of the shop. She sat 
 there perspiring, and out of breath, with her scrubbing brush in 
 her hand. 
 
 " Ah ! " she muttered. 
 
 " Yes ; as I was going down the Rue des Martyrs, I caught 
 sight of a girl who was wriggling on the arm of an old fellow 
 in front of me, and I said to myself: I know that mug? I 
 stepped out and sure enough found myself face to face with 
 Nana. There's no need to pity her, she looked deuced happy, 
 with a pretty woollen dress on her back, a gold cross, and an 
 awfully pert expression." 
 
 " Ah ! " repeated Gervaise in a huskier voice. 
 
 Lantier who had finished the pastilles, took some barley-sugar 
 out of another jar. 
 
 " She's vicious the hussy," he resumed. " Do you know she 
 made a sign to me to follow her, with wonderful composure. 
 Then she left her old fellow somewhere in a cafe" oh, a won- 
 derful chap, the old bloke, quite used up ! and she came and
 
 THE "ASSOMMOrR." 359 
 
 joined me under a doorway. A perfect little serpent, pretty, 
 and doing the grand, and licking you like a little dog. Yes, 
 she kissed me, and wanted to have news of every one I was 
 very pleased to meet her." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Gervaise, for the third time. She drew herself 
 together, and still waited. Hadn't her daughter had a word 
 for her then. In the silence Poisson's saw could be heard again. 
 Lantier, who felt gay, was sucking his barley-sugar, and smack- 
 ing his lips. 
 
 ," Well, if / saw her, I should go over to the other side of the 
 street," interposed Virginie who had just pinched the hatter again 
 most ferociously. "Yes, I should blush to be recognised in 
 public by one of those drabs. It isn't because you are there. 
 Madame Coupeau, but your daughter is a rotten baggage. Why, 
 Poisson runs in girls who are no better than she is, every day." 
 
 Gervaise said nothing, nor did she move; her eyes were 
 fixed on vacancy. She ended by jerking her head to and fro, as 
 if in answer to her thoughts, whilst the hatter with a glutton- 
 ous mien, muttered : 
 
 "As for being rotten, a fellow would willingly stuif himself 
 with such rottenness. It's as tender as chicken." 
 
 But the grocer gave him such a terrible look, that he had to 
 pause find quiet her with some delicate attention. He watched 
 the policeman, and perceiving that he had his nose lowered over 
 his little box again, he profited of the opportunity to shove the 
 barley-sugar into Virginie's mouth. Thereupon she laughed at 
 him good naturedly, and turned all her anger against the char- 
 woman." 
 
 " Just make haste, eh $ The work doesn't advance, whilst 
 you remain stuck there like a street post. Come, look alive, 
 I don't want to flounder about in the water till night time." 
 
 And she added, hatefully, in a lower tone. " It isn't my fault, 
 if her daughter's gone on the town." 
 
 No doubt, Gervaise did not hear. She had begun to scrub 
 the floor again, with her back bent, and dragging herself along 
 with a frog-like motion. With both hands tightly clutching hold 
 of the brush, she pushed back the black flood which splashed 
 her with mud, even to the hair. Then after sweeping the dirty 
 water into the gutter, it only remained for her to rinse the 
 floor. 
 
 However after a pause Lantier, who felt bored, raised his 
 voice again, " Do you know, Badingue," he cried, " I met your 
 boss yesterday in the Rue de Rivoli. He looked awfully down
 
 360 -. THE "ASSOMMOIR.'' 
 
 in the mouth He hasn't six months' life left in his body. Ah I 
 after all with the life he leads " 
 
 He was talking of the Emperor. The policeman did not 
 raise his eyes, but curtly answered, " If you were the Govern- 
 ment you wouldn't be so fat." 
 
 "Oh, my dear fellow, if I were the Government," rejoined the 
 hatter, suddenly affecting an air of gravity, " things would go 
 on rather better, I give you my word for it. Thus, their foreign 
 policy, why for some time past it has been enough to make a 
 fellow sweat. If I I who speak to you only knew a journalist 
 to inspire him with my ideas." 
 
 He was growing animated, and as he had finished crunching 
 his barley-sugar, he opened a drawer from which he took a 
 number of jujubes which he swallowed, gesticulating, 
 
 " It's quite simple. Before anything else I should give Poland 
 her independence again, and I should establish a great Scandin- 
 avian state to keep the Giant of the North at bay. Then I 
 should make a republic out of all the little German states. As 
 for England, she's scarcely to be feared ; if she budged ever so 
 little, I should send a hundred thousand men to India. Add 
 to that I should send the Sultan back to Mecca and the Pope 
 to Jerusalem, belabouring their backs with the butt end of a 
 rifle. Eh ? Europe would soon be clean. Come, Badingue, just 
 look here." 
 
 He paused to take five or six jujubes in his hand. " Why it 
 wouldn't take longer than to swallow these." 
 
 And he threw one jujube after the other into his open mouth. 
 
 " The Emperor has another plan," said the policeman, after 
 reflecting for a couple of minutes. 
 
 " Oh leave me alone ! " rejoined the hatter. "We know what 
 his plan is? Europe doesn't care a curse for us. Every day 
 the Tuileries footmen pick your boss up under the table between 
 a couple of high life drabs." 
 
 But Poisson had risen to his feet. He came forward and 
 placed his hand on his heart, saying ; " You hurt me, Auguste. 
 Discuss, but don't indulge in personalities." 
 
 Thereupon Yirginie intervened, bidding them stop their row. 
 She didn't care a fig for Europe. How could two men, who 
 shared everything else, always be disputing about politics? For 
 a minute they mumbled some indistinct words. Then the 
 policeman, in view of showing that he harboured no spite, pro- 
 duced the cover of his little box which he had just finished ; it 
 bore the inscription in marquetry : " To Auguste, a token of
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIB." 361 
 
 friendship." Lantier, feeling exceedingly flattered, lounged back 
 and spread himself out so that he almost sat upon Virginie. 
 And the husband viewed the scene, with his face the colour of 
 an old wall, and his bleared eyes fairly expressionless; but all 
 the same at moments .the red hairs of his moustaches stood up 
 on end of their own accord in a very singular fashion, which 
 would have alarmed any man who was less sure of his business 
 than the hatter. 
 
 This beast of a Lantier had the quiet cheek which pleases 
 ladies. As Poisson turned his back he was seized with the idea 
 of printing a kiss on Madame Poisson's left eye. As a rule he 
 was stealthily prudent, but when he had been disputing about 
 politics he risked everything so as to show the wife his superi- 
 ority. These gloating caresses, cheekily stolen behind the 
 policeman's back, revenged him on the Empire which had turned 
 France into a house of ill-fame. Only on this occasion he had 
 forgotten Gervaise's presence. She had just finished rinsing 
 and wiping the shop, and she stood near the counter waiting for 
 her thirty sous. However the kiss on Virginie's eye left her 
 perfectly calm, as being quite natural, and as part of a business 
 she had no right to mix herself up in. Virginie seemed rather 
 vexed. She threw the thirty sous on to the counter in front of 
 Gervaise. The latter did not budge, but stood there waiting, 
 still palpitating with the effort she had made in scrubbing, and 
 looking as soaked and as ugly as a dog fished out of a sewer. 
 
 " Then she didn't tell you anything ? " she asked the hatter 
 at last. 
 
 " Who ? " he cried. " Ah, yes, you mean Nana. No, 
 nothing else. What a mouth she has, the little hussy ! real 
 strawberry jam." 
 
 And Gervaise went off with her thirty sous in her hand. 
 The holes in her shoes spat water forth like pumps, they were 
 real musical shoes, and played a tune as they left moist traces of 
 their broad sojes along the pavement. 
 
 In the neighbourhood, the feminine bibbers of her own class 
 now related that she drank to console herself for her daughter's 
 misconduct. She herself, when she gulped down her dram of 
 spirits on the counter, assumed a dramatic air, and tossed the 
 liquor into her mouth, wishing it would " do " for her. And 
 on the days when she came home boozed, she stammered that 
 it was all through grief. But honest folks shrugged their 
 shoulders ; they knew what that meant : ascribing the effects 
 of the peppery fire of the u Assommoir " to grief, indeed ; at
 
 362 TSE "ASSOMMOIB." 
 
 all events, she ought to have called it bottled grie No doubt, 
 at the beginning, she couldn't digest Nana's flight. All the 
 honest feelings remaining in her revolted at the thought ; and 
 besides, as a rule, a mother doesn't like to have to think that 
 her daughter, at that very moment perhaps, is being familiarly 
 addressed by the first chance comer. But Gervaise was already 
 too stultified, with a sick head and a crushed heart, to think of 
 the shame for long. With her it came and went. She remained 
 sometimes for a week together withoufthinking of her hussy ; 
 and then suddenly a tender or an angry feeling seized hold of 
 her, sometimes when she had her stomach empty, at others 
 when it was full, a furious longing to catch Nana in some 
 corner, where she would perhaps have kissed her, or perhaps 
 have beaten her, according to her fancy of the moment. She 
 ended by having a very confused idea of what was right and 
 what was wrong. Only Nana belonged to her, of course ; and 
 no one likes to see his belongings evaporate. 
 
 Whenever these thoughts came over her, Gervaise looked on 
 all sides in the streets with a bobby's eyes. Ah, if she had 
 only see*n her baggage, how quickly she would have brought 
 her home again ! The neighbourhood was being turned topsy- 
 turvy that year. The Boulevard Magenta and the Boulevard 
 Ornano were being pierced ; they were doing away with the old 
 Barriere Poissomriere, and cutting right through the outer Boule- 
 vard. The district could not be recognised. The whole of one 
 side of the Rue des Poissonniers had been pulled down. From 
 the Hue de la Goutte-d'Or a large clearing could now be seen, 
 a dash of sunlight and open air ; and in place of the gloomy 
 buildings which had hidden the view in this direction, there 
 rose up, on the Boulevard Ornano, a perfect monument, a six- 
 storeyed house, carved all over like a church, with clear 
 windows, which with their embroidered curtains seemed 
 symbolical of wealth. This white house, standing just in front 
 of the street, illuminated it with a jet of light as it were, and 
 every day it caused discussions between -Lantier and Poisson. 
 
 The hatter was never tired of talking about the demolitions 
 of Paris. He accused the Emperor of setting palaces every- 
 where, so as to drive the working classes into the provinces; 
 and the policeman, pale with concentrated anger, replied that 
 on the contrary, the Emperor thought of the working classes 
 before aught else, and that he would raze Paris to the ground 
 if needs be, with the sole object of procuring employment for 
 them. Gervaise was also extremely annoyed by these embellish-
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 363 
 
 ments, which disturbed the dark corner of the faubourg she was 
 accustomed to. Her vexation came from the fact that the 
 neighbourhood was being embellished just as she was going 
 downhill to ruin. When a person is in the gutter, he doesn't 
 care to have a sunray dart upon his head ; and so, on the days 
 when Gervaise was looking for Nana, she preferred to stride 
 over the building materials, flounder about on the unfinished 
 footways, and knock against the palings. The fine house on 
 the Boulevard Ornano was too much for her patience. Such 
 houses as that were only for drabs like Nana. 
 - However, she had several times had tidings of the girl. 
 There are always ready tongues anxious to pay you a sorry 
 compliment. Yes, she had been told that the hussy had turned 
 up her old protector, -just like the inexperienced girl she was. 
 She had got on capitally with this old fellow, petted, adored, 
 and free too, if she had only known how to set to work. But 
 youth is foolish, and she had no doubt gone off with some 
 stripling, no one knew exactly where. What seemed certain 
 was that one afternoon she had left her old protector on the 
 Place de la Bastille, just for half a minute, and the old fellow 
 was still waiting for her. Other persons swore they had seen 
 her since kicking up her heels at the " Grand Hall of Folly," 
 in the Rue de la Chapelle. Then it was that Gervaise took it 
 into her head to frequent all the dancing places of the neigh- 
 bourhood. She did not pass in front of a public ball-room 
 without going in. Coupeau accompanied her. At first they 
 merely made the round of the room, looking at the drabs who 
 were jumping about. But one evening, as they had some coin, 
 they sat down, and ordered a large bowl of hot wine in view of 
 regaling themselves and waiting to see if Nana would turn up. 
 At the end of a month or so, they had forgotten her, but they 
 frequented the balls for their own pleasure, liking to look at 
 the dancers. They would remain for hours without exchanging 
 a word, resting their elbows on the table, stultified amidst the 
 quaking of the floor, and yet no doubt amusing themselves as 
 they stared with pale eyes at the Barriere hussies, in the 
 stifling atmosphere and ruddy glow of the hall. 
 
 It happened one November evening that they went into the 
 "Grand Hall of .Folly " to warm themselves. Out of doors a 
 sharp wind cut you across the face. But the hall was crammed. 
 There was a thundering big swarm inside ; people at all the 
 tables, people in the middle, people up above, any amount of 
 meat. Yes, those who cared for tripes could enjoy themselves.
 
 364 THE "ASSOMMOIR. 1 * 
 
 When they had made the round twice without finding a vacant 
 table, they decided to remain standing and wait till somebody 
 went off. Coupeau was wagging on his legs, in a dirty blouse, 
 with an old cloth cap which had lost its peak flattened down on 
 his head. And as he intercepted the way, he saw a scraggy 
 young fellow who was wiping his coat-sleeve after elbowing him. 
 
 " I say ! " cried Coupeau in a fury, as he took his pipe out of 
 his black mouth. " Can't you apologise 1 And you play the 
 disgusted, eh ? because a fellow wears a blouse I " 
 
 The young man turned round and looked at the zinc-worker 
 from head to foot. 
 
 " I'll just teach you, you scraggy young scamp," continued 
 Coupeau, " that the blouse is the finest garment out ; yes ! the 
 garment of work. I'll wipe you if you like with my fists. Did 
 one ever hear of such a thing a ne'er-do-well insulting a 
 workman 1 " 
 
 Gervaise tried to calm him, but in vain. He drew himself 
 up in his rags, in full view, and struck his blouse, roaring : 
 " There's a man's chest under that ! " 
 
 Thereupon the young man dived into the midst of the crowd, 
 muttering : " What a dirty blackguard ! " 
 
 Coupeau wanted to follow and catch him. He wasn't going 
 to let himself be insulted by a fellow with a coat on. That one 
 wasn't even paid for ! Some second-hand toggery to impose 
 upon a girl with, without having to fork out a centime. If he 
 caught the chap again, he'd bring him down on his knees and 
 make him bow to the blouse. But the crush was too great ; 
 there was no means of walking. He and Gervaise turned slowly 
 round the dancers ; there were three rows of sightseers packed 
 close together, whose faces lighted up whenever a man sprawled 
 or a woman cocked her legs up in the air ; and as Coupeau and 
 Gervaise were both short, they raised themselves up on tiptoe, 
 trying to see something at all events the chignons and hats 
 that were bobbing about. The cracked brass instruments of 
 the orchestra were furiously thundering a quadrille, a perfect 
 tempest which made the hall shake ; while the dancers, striking 
 the floor with their feet, raised a cloud of dust which dimmed 
 the brightness of the gas. The heat was unbearable. 
 
 " Look there," said Gervaise suddenly. 
 
 "Look at what?" 
 
 " Why, at that velvet hat over there." 
 
 . They raised themselves up on tiptoe. On the left hand there 
 was ' an old black velvet hat trimmed with ragged feathers
 
 THE "ASSOHMOIR." 365 
 
 bobbing about regular hearse's plumes. It was dancing a 
 devil of a dance, this hat curvetting and whirling round, 
 diving down and then springing up again. Coupeau and 
 Gervaise lost sight of it as the people round about moved their 
 heads, but then suddenly they saw it again, swaying farther off 
 with such droll effrontery that folks laughed merely at the sight 
 of this dancing hat, without knowing what was underneath it. 
 
 " Well? " asked Coupeau. 
 
 "Don't you recognise that chignon?" muttered Gervaise 
 in a stifled voice. "May my head be cut off if it isn't 
 her." 
 
 With one shove the zinc-worker made his way through the 
 crowd. By the name of heaven, yes, it was Nana ! And in a 
 nice pickle too ! She had nothing on her back but an old silk 
 dress, all stained and sticky from having wiped the tables of 
 boozing dens, and with its flounces so torn that they fell in 
 tatters round about. Not even a bit of a shawl over her 
 shoulders ; no, she openly displayed her bare bodice with its 
 torn buttonholes. And to think that the hussy had had such 
 an attentive old protector, and had yet fallen to this condition, 
 merely for the sake of following some bully who beat her no 
 doubt! Nevertheless she had remained fresh and tempting, 
 with her, hair as frizzly as a poodle's, and her mouth bright pink 
 under that rascally hat of hers. 
 
 " Wait a bit, I'll make her dance ! " resumed Coupeau. 
 
 Naturally enough, Nana was not on her guard. You should 
 have seen .how she wriggled about ! She. twisted to the- right 
 and to the left, bending double as if she were going to break 
 herself in two, and darting her feet into her partner's face as if 
 she meant to split herself ! There was a crowd round her ; she 
 was applauded, and she caught up her skirts as high as her 
 knees and, quivering with the movement of the dance, spun 
 round and round like a whipping top, falling on to the floor 
 with her legs wide apart ; then she indulged in a modest little 
 dance^ with her breast and her hips undulating in wonderful 
 style. It made you positively long to carry her off into a 
 corner and cover her with kisses. 
 
 However, as Coupeau fell into the midst of the pastourelle 
 he disarranged the figure, and was cuffed by the bystanders. 
 
 ." I tell you it's my daughter ! " he cried ; " let me pass." 
 
 Nana was just going backwards, sweeping the floor with her 
 flounces, rounding her figure and wriggling it, so as to look all 
 the nicer. She received a masterly kick just in. the right
 
 366 THE "ASSOMMOm." 
 
 place, raised herself up, and turned quite pale on recognising 
 her father and mother. Bad luck and no mistake. 
 
 "Turn him out !" howled the dancers. 
 
 But Coupeau, who had just recognised his daughter's cavalier 
 as the scraggy young man in the coat, did not care a fig for 
 what people said. 
 
 " Yes, it's us," he roared. " Eh ? you didn't expect it. So 
 we catch you here, and with a whipper-snapper, too, who in- 
 sulted me a little while ago ! " 
 
 Gervaise, whose teeth were tight set, pushed him aside, ex- 
 claiming, "Shut lip. There's no need of so much explana- 
 tion." 
 
 And, stepping forward, she dealt Nana a couple of cuffs, 
 something nice. The first knocked the feathered hat on one 
 side, and the second left a red mark on the girl's white cheek. 
 Nana was too stupefied either to cry or resist. The orchestra 
 continued playing, the crowd grew angry and repeated savagely, 
 u Turn them out ! Turn them out !" 
 
 " Come, make haste j " resumed Gervaise. " Just walk in 
 front, and don't try to run off. You shall sleep hi prison if 
 you do." 
 
 The scraggy young man had . prudently disappeared. Nana 
 walked ahead, very stiff and still stupefied by her bad luck. 
 Whenever she showed the least unwillingness, a cuff from 
 Behind brought her back to the direction of the door. And 
 thus they went out, all three of them, amid the jeers and 
 banter of the spectators, whilst the orchestra finished playing 
 the pastourelle with such thunder that the trombones seemed 
 to be spitting bullets. 
 
 The old life began again. After sleeping for twelve hours in 
 her closet, Nana behaved very well for a week or so. She had 
 concocted herself a modest little dress, and wore a cap with 
 the strings tied under her chignon. Seized indeed with re- 
 markable fervour, she declared she would work at home, where 
 one could earn what one liked without hearing any nasty work- 
 room talk ; and she procured some work and installed herself 
 at a table, getting up at five o'clock in the morning on the first 
 few days to roll her violet stems. But when she had delivered a 
 few gross, she stretched her arms and yawned over her work, 
 with her hands cramped, for she had lost her knack of stem- 
 rolling, and suffocated, shut up like this at home after allowing 
 herself so much open air freedom during the last six months. 
 Then the glue dried lie petals and the green paper got stained-
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 367 
 
 with grease, and the flower-dealer came three times in person 
 to make a row and claim his spoiled materials. 
 
 Nana jogged on, constantly getting a hiding from her father, 
 and wrangling with her mother morning and night quarrels 
 in which the two women flung horrible words at each other's 
 head. It couldn't last ; the twelfth day the hussy took herself 
 off, with no more luggage than her modest dress on her back 
 and her cap on her ears. The Lorilleux, who had pursed their 
 lips on hearing of her return and repentance, nearly died of 
 laughter now. Second performance, eclipse number two, young 
 ladies for the reformatory take the train ! No, it was really 
 too comical. Nana took herself off in such an amusing style. 
 Well, if the Coupeaus wanted to keep her in future they must 
 shut her up in a cage. 
 
 In presence of other people the Coupeaus pretended they were 
 very glad to be rid of the girl, though in reality they were en- 
 raged. However rage can't last forever, and soon they heard 
 without even blinking that Nana was stalking the neighbour- 
 hood. Gervaise who accused her of doing it to disgrace them, 
 set herself above scandal she might meet her baggage on the 
 street, she said, she wouldn't even dirty her hand to cuff her ; 
 yes, it was all over, she might have seen her kicking the bucket 
 on the ground, lying naked on the pavement, and she would 
 have passed by without even thinking this cub had been littered 
 by her. 
 
 JSfana, meanwhile was enlivening the dancing halls of the 
 neighbourhood. She was known from the "Ball of Queen 
 Blanche " to the " Great Hall of Folly." When she entered the 
 " Elyse'e-Montmartre," folks climbed on to the tables to see her 
 do the " sniffing crawfish," during the figure of the pastourelle. 
 As she had twice been turned out of the " Chateau Rouge " ball, 
 she walked outside the door waiting for some one she knew to 
 escort her inside. The " Black Ball " on the outer Boulevard 
 and the " Grand Turk " in the Rue des Poissonniers, were re- 
 spectable places where she only went when she had clean petti- 
 coats on. Of all the jumping places of the neighbourhood, however, 
 those she most preferred were the "Hermitage Ball" in a damp 
 courtyard and " Robert's Ball " in the Impasse du Cadran, two 
 corrupt little halls, lighted up with half-a-dozen oil lamps, and 
 kept paternally, everyone pleased and everyone free, so much 
 so that the men and their girls kissed each other at their ease, 
 in the corners, without being disturbed. And meanwhile Nana 
 had ups and downs, perfect transformations, now tricked out
 
 368 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 
 
 like a stylish woman and now all dirt like a slut. Ah ! she had 
 a fine life. 
 
 On several occasions the Coupeaus fancied they saw their 
 daughter in some dirty den. They turned their backs and de- 
 camped in another direction so as not to be obliged to recognise 
 her. They didn't care to be laughed at by a whole dancing 
 hall again for the sake of bringing such a drab home. One 
 night as they were going to bed, however, someone knocked at 
 the door. It was Nana who quietly came to ask for a bed; and 
 in what a state, good heavens ! her head bare, her dress in 
 tatters, and her boots full of holes such a toilet as might have 
 led the police to run her in, and take her off to the De"p6t. 
 Naturally enough she received a hiding, and then she glutton- 
 ously fell on to a crust of stale bread and went to sleep, worn 
 out, with the last mouthful between her teeth. Then this sort 
 of life continued. When the girl picked up a bit, she took her- 
 self off. Neither seen nor known. The bird had flown. And 
 weeks and months elapsed and she seemed lost, when suddenly 
 up she turned again without even saying where she came from, 
 sometimes in such a filthy state you wouldn't have taken hold 
 of her with a pair of tongs, and scratched from top to bottom, 
 at others well-dressed but so weakened and emptied by riotous 
 living that she could no longer stand on her legs. Her par- 
 ents had to accustom themselves to it. Hidings were of no 
 good. They stamped on her, but it didn't prevent her from 
 looking on home as an inn, where she could lodge by the week. 
 She knew she should pay for her lodging with a hiding, so she 
 considered and came to receive it, if she thought it likely to be 
 profitable. Besides one grows tired of striking, and the Cou- 
 peaus ended by letting Nana do as she liked. She came home 
 or stayed away ; providing she didn't leave the door open, that 
 sufficed. After all, habit wears out self-respect like it wears 
 out everything else. 
 
 There was only one thing that really worried Gervaise. This 
 was to see her daughter come home in a dress with a train and 
 a hat covered with feathers. No, she couldn't stomach this 
 display. Nana might indulge in riotous living if she chose, 
 but when she came home to her mother's she ought to dress 
 like a workgirl. The dresses with trains caused quite a revolu- 
 tion in the house: the Lorilleux sneered; Lantier, whose mouth 
 watered, turned the girl round to sniff how nice she smelt; the 
 Boches had forbidden Pauline to associate with this baggage in 
 her frippery. And Gervaise was also angered by Nana's ex-
 
 THE "ASSOMMOm.* 369 
 
 hausted slumber, when after one of her fugues, she slept till 
 noon, with her breast bare, her chignon undone and still full 
 of hair pins, looking so white and breathing so feebly that she 
 seemed to be dead. Her mother shook her five or six times in the 
 course of the morning, threatening to throw a jugfull of water 
 over her. The sight of this handsome lazy girl, half-naked and 
 fat with vice, exasperated her, as she saw her lying there, sleep- 
 ing off the debauchery which puffed her out, and unable even 
 to wake up. Nana opened an eye, closed it again, and then 
 stretched herself out all the more. 
 
 One day, after reproaching her with the life she led, Gervaise 
 put her threat into execution by shaking her dripping hand over 
 Nana's body. Quite infuriated, the girl rolled herself up in the 
 sheet, and cried out : 
 
 " That's enough, mamma. It would be better not to talk 
 about men. You did what you liked and now I do what I like." 
 
 " What 1 what ! " stammered the mother. 
 
 " Yes, I never spoke to you about it, for it didn't concern 
 me ; but you didn't put yourself out at all ; I often saw you 
 walking about in your shift down-stairs when papa was snoring. 
 You don't care for it now, but others do. So just shut up ; you 
 shouldn't have set me the example." 
 
 Gervaise remained pale, with trembling hands, turning round 
 without knowing what she was about, whilst Nana, flattened 
 on her breast, embraced her pillow with both arms and sub- 
 sided into the torpor of her leaden slumber. 
 
 Coupeau growled, no longer sane enough to think of launch- 
 ing out a backhander. He was , altogether losing his mind. 
 And really there was no occasion to call him an unprincipled 
 father, for liquor deprived him of all consciousness of good and 
 evil. 
 
 Now it was a settled thing. He wasn't sober once in six 
 months ; then he was laid up and had to go into the Sainte- 
 Anne hospital; a pleasure trip for him. The Lorilleux said 
 that the Duke of Bowel-Twister had gone to visit his estates. 
 At the end of a few weeks he left the asylum, repaired and set 
 together again, and then he began to pull himself to bits once 
 more, till he was down on his back and needed anoder mend- 
 ing. In three years he went seven times to Sainte-Anne in this 
 fashion. The neighbourhood said that his cell was kept ready 
 for him. But the worst of the matter was that this obstinate 
 bibber demolished himself more and more each time, so that 
 from relapse to relapse one could foresee the final tumble, the 
 
 2 A
 
 870 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 last cracking of this shaky cask, all the hoops of which were 
 breaking away, one after the other. 
 
 At the same time, he forgot to improve in appearance ; a 
 perfect ghost to look at ! The poison was having terrible effects. 
 By dint of imbibing alcohol, his body shrunk up like the foeti 
 displayed in glass jars in chemical laboratories. When he ap- 
 proached a window you could see through his ribs, so skinny 
 had he become. With sunken cheeks, and dripping eyes from 
 which enough wax for a set of cathedral tapers exuded, he only 
 kept his truffle nose fine and red and flowery, like a pink in the 
 midst of his ravaged face. Those who knew his age, only forty 
 years just gone, shuddered when he passed by, bent, and un- 
 steady, looking as old as the streets themselves. And the 
 trembling of his hands increased, the right one danced to such 
 an extent, that sometimes he had to take his glass between both 
 fists to carry it to his lips. Oh ! that cursed trembling ! it was 
 the only thing that worried his addled brains. You could hear 
 him growling ferocious insults against those hands of his. On 
 other occasions you could see him contemplating them for 
 hours, watching them dance like frogs, without saying a word, 
 no longer angry, but looking rather as if he were trying to think 
 what internal mechanism was making them bob up and down 
 like that ; and one evening Gervaise had found him like this, 
 with two big tears dripping down his drunkard's scorched 
 cheeks. 
 
 The last summer, during which JSTana came home to spend 
 such of her nights as remained, after she had finished knocking 
 about, was especially bad for Coupeau. His voice changed en- 
 tirely as if liquor had set a new music in his throat. He be- 
 came deaf of one ear. Then in a few days his sight grew dim, 
 and he had to clutch hold of the balusters to prevent himself 
 from falling. As for his health, he had abominable headaches 
 and dizziness. All on a sudden he was seized with acute pains 
 in his arms and legs ; he turned pale ; was obliged to sit down, 
 and remained on a chair witless for hours ; indeed, after one 
 such attack, his arm remained paralysed for the whole day. 
 He took to his bed several times ; he rolled himself up and hid 
 himself under the sheet, breathing hard and continuously like 
 a suffering animal. Then the strange scenes of Sainte-Anne 
 began again. Suspicious and nervous, worried with a burning 
 fever, he rolled about in a mad rage, tearing h'is blouse and 
 biting the furniture with his convulsed jaws ; or else he sank 
 into a great state of emotion, complaining like a child, sobbing
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 8?1 
 
 and lamenting because nobody loved him. One night when 
 Gervaise and Nana returned home together they were surprised 
 not to find him hi his bed. He had laid the bolster in his 
 place. And when they discovered him, hiding between the bed 
 and the wall, his teeth were chattering, and he related that some 
 men had come to murder him. The two women were obliged 
 to put him to bed again and quiet him like a child. 
 
 Coupeau only knew one remedy, to screw a pint of spirits in- 
 side him, a whack in his stomach, which set him up right again. 
 This was how he doctored his gripes of a morning. His memory 
 had left him long ago, his brain was empty ; and he no sooner 
 found himself on his feet than he poked fun at illness. He had 
 never been ill. Yes, he had got to the point when a fellow 
 kicks the bucket declaring that he's quite well. And his wits 
 were going: a-wool-gathering hi other respects too. When Nana 
 came home after gadding about for six weeks or so, he seemed 
 to fancy she had returned from doing some errand in the neigh- 
 bourhood. Often when she was hanging on an acquaintance's 
 arm she met him and laughed at him without his recognising 
 her. . In short, he no longer counted for anything ; she might 
 have sat down on him if she had been at a loss for a chair. 
 
 When the first frosts came Nana took herself off once more, 
 under the pretence of going to the fruiterer's to see if there 
 were any baked pears. She scented winter and didn't care to 
 let her teeth chatter in front of the fireless stove. The Cou- 
 peaus simply called her a strumpet because they had waited 
 for the pears. No doubt she would come back again. The 
 other winter she had stayed away three weeks to fetch her 
 father a penn'orth of tobacco. But the months went by, and 
 the girl did not show herself. This time she must have in- 
 dulged in a hard gallop. When June arrived, she did not even 
 turn up with the sunshine. Evidently it was all over, she had 
 found new bread somewhere or other. One day when the 
 Coupeaus were hard-up they sold the girl's iron bedstead for 
 .six francs down, which they drank together at Saint-Ouen. 
 The bedstead had been in their way. 
 
 One morning in July Virginie called to Gervaise, who was 
 passing by, and asked her to lend a hand in washing up, for 
 Lantier had. entertained a couple of friends on the day before. 
 And while Gervaise was cleaning up the plates, and .dishes, 
 greasy with the traces of the spread, the hatter, who was still 
 digesting in the shop, suddenly called out : 
 
 " I say, do you know I saw Nana the other day."
 
 37? THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 Virginie, who was seated at the counter looking very care- 
 worn in front of the jars and drawers, which were already three 
 parts emptied, jerked her head furiously. She restrained her- 
 self so as not to say too much, but really it smelt very strong. 
 Lantier met Nana too often. Oh ! she was by no means sure 
 of him, he was a man to do even worse things than that when 
 a petticoat fancy came into his head. Madame Lerat, very 
 intimate just then with Virginie who confided in her, had that 
 moment entered the shop ; and hearing Lantier's remark she 
 pouted suggestively, and asked : 
 
 " In what sense did you see her ? " 
 
 " Oh, in the proper sense," answered the hatter, who felt 
 highly flattered, and began to laugh and twirl his moustaches. 
 " She was in a vehicle ; and I was floundering on the pavement. 
 Keally it was so, I swear it ! If it had been otherwise there 
 would be no occasion to disown it, for the young fellows of 
 position who are on intimate terms with her are devilish lucky ! " 
 
 His eyes had brightened, and he turned towards Gervaise who 
 was standing in the rear of the shop, wiping a dish. 
 
 " Yes, she was in a carriage, and wore such a stylish dress ! 
 I didn't recognise her, she looked so much like a lady of the 
 upper set, with her white teeth in her mug which was as fresh 
 as a flower. It was she who waved her glove to me. She has 
 raised a viscount I believe. Oh ! she's launched for good ! 
 She can afford to do without any of us ; she's head over heels in 
 happiness, the little beggar ! What . a love of a little kitten 1 
 no, you've no idea what a little kitten she is ! " 
 
 Gervaise was still wiping her plate, although it had long 
 since been clean and shiny. Virginie was reflecting, anxious 
 about a couple of bills which fell due on the morrow, and which 
 she didn't know how to pay ; whilst Lantier stout and fat, per- 
 spiring the sugar he fed off, ventured his enthusiasm for well- 
 dressed little hussies in the centre of the shop, which was 
 already three parts eaten up, and smelt of ruin. Yes, there 
 were only a few more burnt almonds to nibble, a little more 
 barley-sugar to suck, to clean the Poissons' business out. 
 Suddenly, on the pavement over the way, he pereeived the 
 policeman, who was on duty, pass by, buttoned up, with his 
 sword dangling by his side. And this made him all the gayer. 
 He compelled Virginie to look at her husband. 
 
 " Dear me," he muttered, " Badingue looks fine this morning ! 
 Be careful, see how stiff he walks. He must have stuck a glass 
 eye in his back to catch his criminals unawares."
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 873 
 
 When Gervaise went upstairs at home, she found Coupeau 
 seated on the bed, in the torpid state induced by one of his 
 attacks. He was looking at the window-panes with his dim 
 expressionless eyes. She sat herself down on a chair, tired out, 
 her hands, hanging beside her dirty skirts; and for a quarter 
 of an hour she remained in front of him without saying a word. 
 
 " I've had some news," she muttered at last. " Your 
 daughter's been seen. Yes, your daughter's precious stylish and 
 hasn't any more need of you. She's awfully happy she is ! Ah ! 
 God of heaven ! I'd give a great deal to be in her place." 
 
 Coupeau was still staring at the window-pane. But suddenly 
 he raised his ravaged face, and stammered with an idiotic 
 laugh : 
 
 " Come, my duck, I don't detain you. You're not yet so bad 
 looking when you wash yourself. As folks say, however old a 
 pot may be, it ends by finding its lid. And, after all, if it only 
 buttered our bread 1 "
 
 374 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 IT must have been the Saturday after quarter day, something 
 like the 12th or 13th January Gervaise didn't quite know. 
 She was losing her wits, for it was centuries since she had 
 had anything warm in her stomach. Ah ! what an infernal 
 week ! A complete clear out. Two loaves of four pounds each 
 on Tuesday, which had lasted till the Thursday; then a dry crust 
 found the night before, and finally not a crumb for thirty-six 
 hours, a real dance before the cupboard 1 What she did know, 
 by the way, what she felt on her back, was the frightful cold, a 
 black cold, a sky as grimy as a frying-pan, thick with snow 
 which obstinately refused to fall. When winter and. hunger 
 are. both together in your tripes, you may tighten your belt as 
 mUch as you like, it hardly feeds you. 
 
 Perhaps Coupeau would bring back some money in the even- 
 ing. He said that he was working. Everything is possible, eh ? 
 And Gervaise, although she had been caught many and many a 
 time, had ended by relying on this coin. After all sorts of 
 troubles, she herself couldn't find as much as a duster to wash 
 in the whole neighbourhood ; and even an old lady, whose rooms 
 she did, had just given her the sack, charging her with swilling 
 her liqueurs. No one would engage her, it was too hot for her 
 everywhere ; and this secretly suited her, for she had fallen to 
 that state of indifference, when one prefers to croak rather than 
 move one's fingers. At all events, if Coupeau brought his pay 
 home they would have something warm to eat. And mean- 
 while, as it wasn't yet noon, she remained stretched on the 
 mattress, for one doesn't feel so cold or so hungry when one is 
 lying down. 
 
 Gervaise called it a mattress; but to tell the truth it was 
 only a heap of straw in the corner. By degrees the sleeping 
 accommodation had found its way to the second-hand furniture 
 dealers in the neighbourhood. First of all, on days when they
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 875 
 
 were hard up, she had unsewn the mattress, and taken out 
 handfuls pf wool which she hid in her apron and sold for ten sous 
 a pound in the Rue Belhomme. Then when the mattress was 
 emptied, she had obtained thirty sous for the ticking, so as to 
 treat herself to some coffee one morning. The pillows had 
 followed, and then the bolster. There remained the wooden 
 framework of the bed, which she couldn't put under her arm on 
 account of the Boches, who would have called every one in the 
 house to the spot if they had seen the landlord's guarantee 
 oing off 
 
 ' And yet, one evening with Coupeau's assistance, she watched 
 the Boches who were feeding, and quietly removed the bedstead, 
 bit by bit, the sides, the back, and the framework at the bottom* 
 With the ten francs they thus procured, they fed for three days. 
 Didn't the straw mattress suffice 1 Even its ticking had joined 
 that of the woollen one, and so thus they had finished eating up 
 their .sleeping accommodation, allowing themselves an indigestion 
 of dry bread after a twenty-four hours' starve. The straw was 
 swept aside .with a broom, the dust was always turned over, and 
 it wasn't dirtier than anything else. 
 
 Gervai.se bent herself like a gun-trigger on the heap of straw, 
 with her clothes on, and her feet drawn up under her rag of a skirt, 
 so as to keep them warm. And huddled up, with her eyes wide 
 open, she turned some scarcely amusing ideas over in her mind 
 that morning. Ah ! no, dash it all, she couldn't continue living 
 without food. She no longer felt her hunger, only she had a 
 weight on her chest, and her brain seemed empty. Certainly, 
 there was nothing gay to look at in the four corners of the 
 hovel. A perfect kennel, now, where greyhounds, who wear 
 wrappers in the streets, would not even have lived in effigy. 
 Her pale eyes stared at the bare walls. Everything had long 
 since gone to " uncle's." All that remained were the chest of 
 drawers, the ,table, and a chair. Even the marble top of the 
 chest of drawers, and the drawers themselves, had evaporated 
 in the same direction as the bedstead. A fire could not have 
 cleaned them out more completely ; the little nick-nacks had 
 melted, beginning with the ticker, a twelve franc watch, down to 
 the family photos, the frames of which had been bought by a 
 woman keeping a second-hand store; a very obliging woman, 
 by the way, to whom Gervaise carried a saucepan, an iron, a 
 comb, and who gave her five, three, or two sous in exchange, 
 according to the article ; enough, at all events, to go upstairs 
 again with a bit of bread. But now there only remained a
 
 876 THE " ASSOMMOIB." 
 
 broken pair of snuffers, -which the woman refused to give her 
 even a sou for. 
 
 Oh ! if she could only have sold the rubbish and refuse, the 
 dust and the dirt, how speedily she would have opened shop, 
 for the room was filthy to behold ! She only saw cobwebs in 
 the corners, and although cobwebs are perhaps good for cuts, 
 there are, BO far, no merchants who buy them. Then, turning 
 her head, abandoning the idea of doing a bit of trade, Gervaise 
 gathered herself together more closely on her straw, preferring 
 to stare through the window at the snow-laden sky, at the dreary 
 daylight, which froze the marrow in her bones. 
 
 What a lot of worry ! Though, after all, what was the use 
 of putting herself in such a state, and puzzling her brains ? If 
 she had only been able to have a snooze. But her hole of a 
 home wouldn't go out of her mind. M. Marescot, the landlord, 
 had come in person the day before to tell them that he should 
 turn them out into the street if the two quarters' rent now over- 
 due were not paid during the ensuing week. Well, so he might, 
 they certainly couldn't be worse off on the pavement ! Fancy 
 this ape, in his overcoat and his woollen gloves, coming upstairs 
 to talk to them about rent, as if they had had a treasure hidden 
 somewhere ! By Jove ! instead of tightening her throat, she 
 would have begun by shoving something into her stomach ! 
 Really, now, she found this glutton altogether too provoking, 
 and she wished him somewhere else. 
 
 Just the same with that brute of a Coupeau, who couldn't 
 come home now without beating her ; she wished him in the 
 same place as the landlord. She sent them all there, wishing 
 to rid herself of everyone, and of life too. She was becoming a 
 real storehouse for blows. Coupeau had a cudgel, which he 
 called his ass's fan, and he fanned his old woman. You should 
 just have seen him giving her abominable sweatings, which 
 made her perspire all over. She was no better herself, for she 
 bit and scratched him. Then they stamped about in the empty 
 room, and gave each other such drubbings as were likely to 
 ease them of all taste for bread for good. But Gervaise ended 
 by not caring a fig for these thwacks, not more than she did for 
 anything else. Coupeau might celebrate Saint Monday for 
 weeks together, go off on the spree for months at a time, come 
 home mad with liquor, and seek to sharpen her as he said, she 
 had grown accustomed to it, she thought him plaguy, but 
 nothing more. It was on these occasions that she wished him 
 somewhere. Yes, somewhere, her beast of a man, and the Loril-
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 377 
 
 leux, tho Boches, and the Poissons too ; in fact, the whole 
 neighbourhood, which she had such contempt for. She sent all 
 Paris there with a gesture of supreme carelessness, and yet 
 pleased to be able to revenge herself in this style. 
 
 Unfortunately, although people may accustom themselves to 
 a good many things, no one has yet acquired the habit of doing 
 without food. And it was merely this that irritated Gervaise. 
 She didn't care a fig whether she were the lowest of the low, 
 fairly in the gutter; it was all the same to her if folks wiped 
 themselves when she passed near them. Bad manners no 
 .longer worried her, but hunger was always griping at her 
 bowels. Oh 1 she had bidden tit-bits good-bye, she had fallen 
 to devouring whatever she could get. On high days, now, she 
 bought parings and scraps of meat at the butchers, at the rate 
 of four sous a pound, meat which was tired of lying about, amT 
 blackening on a plate, and she cooked this in a saucepan with a 
 mess of potatoes. Or else she fried a bullock's heart, a dish 
 that made her lick her lips. 
 
 On other occasions, when she had some wine, she treated her- 
 self to a sop, a true parrot's pottage. Two sous' worth of Italian 
 cheese, bushels of white apples, quarts of dry beans, cooked in 
 their own juice, these also were dainties she was not often able 
 to indulge in now. She came down to " arlequins" in low 
 eating dens, where, for a sou, she had a pile of fish bones, mixed 
 with the parings of mouldy roast meat. She fell even lower, 
 she begged a charitable eating-house keeper to give her his cus- 
 tomers' dry crusts, and she made herself a bread sop, letting the 
 crusts simmer as long as possible on a neighbour's fire. On the 
 days when there was nothing to hope, she searched about with 
 the dogs, to see what might be lying outside the tradespeople's 
 doors before the dustmen went by; and thus, at times, she 
 came across rich men's food, rotten melons, stinking mackerel, 
 and chops, which she carefully inspected, for fear of maggots. 
 
 Yes, she" had come to this. The idea may be a repugnant 
 one to delicate-minded folks, but if they hadn't chewed anything 
 for three days running, we should hardly see them quarrelling 
 with their stomachs ; they would go down on all fours and eat 
 filth like other people. Ah ! the death of the poor, the empty 
 entrails, howling hunger, the animal appetite, that leads one 
 with chattering teeth to fill one's stomach with beastly refuse 
 in this great Paris, so bright and golden ! And to think that 
 Gervaise had filled her belly with fat goose ! Now, she might 
 wipe her nose with what was left of it. One day, when Coupeau
 
 878 THE "ASSOMMOHL" 
 
 bagged two bread tickets from her to go and sell then and get 
 some liquor, she nearly killed him -with the blow of a shovel, 
 so hungered and so enraged was she by this theft of a bit of 
 bread. 
 
 However, after a long contemplation of the pale sky, she had 
 fallen into a painful doze. She dreamt that the snow loading 
 the sky was falling on her, so cruelly did the cold pinch. Sud- 
 denly she sprang to her feet, awakened with a start by a shudder 
 of anguish. Good heavens ! was she going to die ? Shivering 
 and haggard she perceived that it was still daylight. Wouldn't 
 the night come then 1 How long the time seems when the 
 stomach is empty ! Her*s was waking up in its turn, and begin- 
 ning to torture her. Sinking on to the chair, with her head 
 bent and her hands between her legs to warm them, she began 
 to think what they would have for dinner, as soon as Coupeau 
 brought the money home : a loafj a quart of wine, and two plate- 
 fuls of tripe in the Lyonnese fashion. Three o'clock struck by 
 father Bazouge's clock. Yes, it was only three o'clock. Then 
 she began to cry, She would never have strength enough to 
 wait tUl seven. Her body swayed backwards and forwards, she 
 oscillated like a child nursing some sharp pain, bending herself 
 double and crushing her stomach, so as not to feel it. Ah ! an 
 accouchement is less painful than hunger ! And unable to ease 
 herself, seized with rage, she rose and stamped about, hoping to 
 send her hunger to sleep, by walking it to and fro like an infant. 
 For half an hour or so, she knocked against the four corners of 
 the empty room. Then, suddenly, she paused with a fixed stare. 
 So much the worse ! They might say what they liked ; she 
 would lick their feet if needs be, but she would go and ask the 
 Lorilleux to lend her ten sous. 
 
 At winter time, up these stairs of the house, the paupers* 
 stairs, there was a constant borrowing of ten sous and twenty 
 sous, petty services which these hungry beggars rendered each 
 other. Only they would rather have died than have applied to 
 the Lorilleux, for they knew they were too hard-fisted. Thus 
 Gervaise displayed remarkable courage in going to knock at 
 their door. She felt so frightened in the passage, that she ex- 
 perienced the sudden relief of people who ring a dentist's bell. 
 
 "Come in ! " cried the chain-maker in a sour voice. 
 
 How warm and nice it was inside. The forge was blazing, its 
 white flame lighting up the narrow workroom, whilst Madame 
 Lorilleux set a coil of gold wire to heat. Lorilleux, in front of 
 his worktable, was perspiring with the warmth as he soldered
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIB." 879 
 
 the links of a chain together. And it smelt nice ; some cab- 
 bage soup was simmering on the stove, exhaling a steam 
 which turned Gervaise's heart topsy turvy, and almost made 
 her faint. 
 
 " Ah ! it's you," growled Madame Lorilleux, without even 
 asking her to sit down. " What do you want ? * 
 .. Gervaise did not answer. She was not on such very bad 
 terms with the Lorilleux that week. But the request for the 
 ten sous stuck in her throat at sight of Boche seated at his ease 
 near the stove, talking scandal. He looked as if he didn't care 
 a curse for any one, the animal ! He laughed like a fool, with 
 his mouth curved and his cheeks so puffed out that they hid his 
 nose. 
 
 " What do you want $ " repeated Lorilleux. 
 " You haven't seen Coupeau ? " Gervaise finished by stammer- 
 ing at last. " I thought he was here." 
 
 The chain-makers and the doorkeeper sneered. No, for certain, 
 they hadn't seen Coupeau. They didn't stand treat often 
 enough to see Coupeau like that. Gervaise made an effort and 
 resumed, stuttering : 
 
 " It's because he promised to come home. Yes, he's to bring 
 me some money. And as I have absolute need of something " 
 Silence followed. Madame Lorilleux was roughly fanning the 
 fire of the stove ; Lorilleux had lowered his nose over the bit of 
 chain between his fingers, while Boche continued laughing, 
 puffing out his face till it looked like the full moon. 
 
 "If I only had ten sous," muttered Gervaise in a low voice. 
 The silence persisted. 
 
 " Couldn't you lend me ten sous ? Oh ! I would return them 
 to you this evening I " 
 
 Madame Lorilleux turned round and stared at her. Here was 
 a wheedler trying to get round them. To-day she asked them 
 for ten sous, to-morrow it would be for twenty, and there would 
 be no reason to stop. No, indeed ; it would be warm if they 
 lent her anything. 
 
 " But, my dear," cried Madame Lorilleux. " You know very 
 well that we haven't any money ! Look ! there's the lining of 
 my pocket. You can search us. If we could, ifc would be with 
 a willing heart, of course." 
 
 " The heart's always there," growled Lorilleux. " Only when 
 one can't, one can't." 
 
 Gervaise looked very humble, and nodded her head ap- 
 provingly. However, she did not take herself off. She squinted
 
 380 THE " ASSOMMOIR. M 
 
 at the gold, at the gold tied together hanging on the walls, at 
 the gold wire the wife was drawing out with all the strength of 
 her little arms, at the gold links lying in a heap under the 
 husband's knotty fingers. And she thought that the least bit 
 of this ugly black metal would suffice to buy her a good dinner. 
 The workroom was as dirty as ever, full of old iron, coal dust, 
 and sticky oil stains half wiped away ; but now, as Gervaise saw 
 it, it seemed resplendent with treasure, like a money-changer's 
 shop. And so she ventured to repeat softly ; " I would return 
 them to you, return them without fail. Ten sous wouldn't 
 inconvenience you." 
 
 Her heart was swelling with the effort she made not to own 
 that she had had nothing to eat since the day before. Then she 
 felt her legs give way ; she was frightened that she might burst 
 into tears, and she still stammered : 
 
 " It would be so kind of you ! You don't know. Yes, I'm 
 reduced to that, good Lord reduced to that ! " 
 
 Thereupon the Lorilleux pursed their lips, and exchanged 
 covert glances. So the Hobbler was begging now ! Well, the 
 fall was complete. But they did not care for that kind of thing 
 by any means ! If they had known, they would have barricaded 
 the door, for people should always be on their guard against 
 beggars, folks who make their way into apartments under a 
 pretext, and carry precious objects away with them j and 
 especially so in this place, as there was something worth while 
 stealing. One might lay one's fingers no matter where, and 
 carry off thirty or forty francs by merely closing the hands. 
 They had felt suspicious several times already on noticing how 
 strange Gervaise looked when she stuck herself in front of the 
 gold. This time, however, they meant to watch her. And as 
 she approached nearer, with her feet on the board, the chain- 
 maker roughly called out, without giving any further answer to 
 her question : " Look out, pest take care ; you'll be carrying 
 some scraps of gold away on the soles of your shoes. One 
 would think you had greased them on purpose to make the 
 gold stick to them." 
 
 Gervaise slowly drew back. For a moment she leant against 
 a rack, and seeing that Madame Lorilleux was looking at 
 her hands, she opened them and showed them, saying softly, 
 without the least anger, like a fallen woman who accepts every- 
 thing, 
 
 " I have taken nothing, you can look." 
 
 And then, she went off, because the strong smell of the
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 881 
 
 cabbage soup, and the warmth of the workroom, made her feel 
 .too ill. 
 
 Ah ! the Lorilleux did not detain her. Good riddance ; the 
 deuce if they opened the door to her again. They had seen enough 
 of her face. They didn't want other people's misery in their 
 rooms, especially when that misery was so well deserved. 
 They revelled in their selfish delight at being seated so cosily 
 in a warm room, with a dainty soup preparing for them. .Boche 
 also stretched himself, puffing with his cheeks still more and more, 
 so much, indeed, that his laugh really became indecent. They 
 were all nicely revenged on the Hobbler, for her former 
 manners, her blue shop, her spreads, and all the rest. It was 
 too satisfactory, it showed where the love of good living led 
 one. That's what became of women who were gluttonous and 
 idle, and immoral ! 
 
 " So that is the style now ? Begging for ten sous," cried 
 Madame Lorilleux behind Gervaise's back. " Wait a bit j I'll 
 lend her ten sous, and no mistake, to go and get drunk with." 
 
 Gervaise shuffled along the passage in her slippers, bending 
 her back and feeling heavy. On reaching her door she did not 
 open it -her room frightened her. It would be better to walk 
 about, she would learn patience. As she passed by she stretched 
 out her neck, peering into father Bru's kennel under the stairs. 
 There, for instance, was another one who must have a fine 
 appetite, for -he had breakfasted and dined by heart during the 
 last three days. However, he wasn't at home, there was only 
 his hole, and Gervaise felt somewhat jealous, thinking that 
 perhaps he had been invited somewhere. Then, as she reached 
 the Bijards', she heard some one complaining, and, as the key 
 was in the lock as usual, she opened the door and went in. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " she asked. 
 
 The room was very clean. One could see that Lalie had care- 
 fully swept it, and arranged everything during the morning. 
 Misery might blow into the room as much as it liked, carry off 
 the chattels and spread all its dirt and refuse about. Lalie, 
 however, came behind and tidied everything, imparting, at least, 
 some appearance of comfort within. She might not be rich, but 
 you realised, that there was a housewife in the place. That 
 afternoon her two little ones, Henriette and Jules, had found 
 some old pictures which they were cutting out in a corner. 
 But Gervaise was greatly surprised to see Lalie herself in bed, 
 looking very pale, with the sheet drawn up to her chin. 
 In bed, indeed, then she must be seriously ill 1
 
 382 
 
 " What is the matter with you ? " repeated Gervaise, feeling 
 anxious. 
 
 Lalie no longer complained. She slowly raised her white 
 eyelids, and tried to compel her lips to smile, although they 
 were convulsed by a shudder. 
 
 " There's nothing the matter with me," she whispered very 
 softly. " Really nothing at all." 
 
 Then, closing her eyes again, she added with an effort, " I 
 was too tired during the last few days, and so I'm doing the 
 idle ; I'm nursing myself, as you see." 
 
 But her childish face, streaked with livid stains, assumed 
 such an expression of anguish that Gervaise, forgetting her own 
 agony, joined her hands and fell on her knees near the bed. 
 For the last month she had seen the girl clinging to the walls 
 for support when she went about, bent double, indeed, by a 
 cough which seemed to presage a coffin. Now the poor child 
 could not even cough. She had a hiccough, and drops of blood 
 oozed from the corners of her mouth. 
 
 " It isn't my fault if I hardly feel strong," she murmured, as 
 if relieved. " I've tired myself to-day trying to put things to 
 rights. It's pretty tidy, isn't it 1 And I wanted to clean the 
 windows as well, but my legs failed me. How stupid ! How- 
 ever, when one has finished one can go to bed." 
 
 She paused to say, " Pray see if my little ones are not cutting 
 themselves with their scissors." 
 
 And then she relapsed into silence, trembling and listening 
 to a heavy footfall which was approaching up the stairs. 
 Suddenly father Bijard brutally opened the door. As usual he 
 was far gone, and his eyes shone with the furious madness im- 
 parted by the " vitriol " he had swallowed. When he perceived 
 Lalie in bed, he tapped on his thighs with a sneer, and took the 
 whip from where it hung. 
 
 "Ah ! by blazes, that's too strong," he growled, "we'll just 
 have a laugh. So the cows lie down on their straw at noon, 
 now ! Are you poking fun at me, you lazy^ beggar 1 Come, 
 quick now, up you get." 
 
 And he already cracked the whip over the bed. But the child 
 beggingly replied, 
 
 " Pray, papa, don't don't strike me. I swear to you you 
 would regret it. Don't strike ! " 
 
 "Will you jump up?" he roared still louder, "or else I'll 
 tickle your ribs ! Jump up, you little hound 1 "
 
 QEEVAISE INTERFERES TO PROTECT LALIE FROM BIJARD'fcS BRUTALITY. 
 
 p. a2.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 388 
 
 Then she softly said, " I can't do you understand ? I'm 
 going to die." 
 
 Gervaise had sprung upon Bijard and torn the whip away 
 from him. He stood bewildered in front of the bed. What 
 was the dirty nose talking about ? Do girls die so young without 
 even having been ill ? Some excuse to get sugar out of him no 
 doubt. Ahi he'd make inquiries, and if she lied let her look out ! 
 
 " You will see, it's the truth," she continued. ' " As long as I 
 could I avoided worrying you j but be kind now, and bid me 
 good-bye, papa." 
 
 Bijard wriggled his nose as if he fancied she was deceiving 
 him. And yet it was true she had a singular look, the serious 
 mien of a grown up person. The breath of death which passed 
 through the room in some measure sobered him. He gazed 
 around like a man awakened from a long sleep, saw the room 
 so tidy, the two children clean, playing and laughing. And 
 then he sank on to a chair stammering, " Our little mother, our 
 little mother." 
 
 These were the only words he could find to say, and yet they 
 were very tender ones for Lalie, who had never been so much 
 spoiled. She consoled her father. What especially worried her 
 was to go off like this without having completely brought her 
 little ones up. He would take care of them, would he not ? 
 With her dying breath she told him how they ought to be cared 
 for and kept clean. But stultified, with the fumes of drink 
 seizing hold of him again, he wagged his head, watching her 
 pass away with an uncertain stare. All kinds of things were 
 touched in him, but he could find no more to say, and he was 
 too utterly burnt with liquor to shed a tear. 
 
 " Listen," resumed Lalie, after a pause. " We owe four 
 francs and seven sous to the baker; you must pay that. 
 Madame Gaudron has an iron of ours, which you must get from 
 her. I wasn't able to make any soup this evening, but there's 
 some bread left, and you can put some potatoes to warm." 
 
 Till her last rattle, the poor kitten still remained " the little 
 mother." Surely "she could never be replaced ! She was dying 
 because she had had, at her age, a true mother's reason, because 
 her breast was too small and weak for so much maternity. 
 And if her ferocious beast of a father lost this treasure, it was 
 his own fault. After kicking the mother to death, hadn't he 
 murdered the daughter as well 1 The two good angels would 
 lie in the pauper's grave, and all that could be in store for him 
 was to kick the bucket like a dog in the gutter.
 
 384 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 
 
 However, Gervaise restrained herself not to burst out sobbing. 
 She extended her hands, desirous of easing the child, and as the 
 shred of a sheet was falling, she wished to tuck it in and arrange 
 the bed. Then 'the dying girl's poor little body was seen. Ah ! 
 Lord, what misery ! what woe ! Stones would have wept. 
 Lalie was bare, with only the remnants of a jacket on her 
 shoulders by way of chemise ; yes, bare, with the grievous, 
 bleeding nudity of a martyr. She had no flesh left j her bones 
 seemed to protrude through her skin. From her ribs to her 
 thighs there extended a number of violet stripes the marks of 
 the whip forcibly imprinted on her. A livid bruise, moreover, 
 encircled her left arm, as if the tender limb, scarcely larger than 
 a lucifer, had been crushed in a vice. There was also an im- 
 perfectly closed wound on her right leg, left there by some ugly 
 blow, and which opened again and again of a morning, when she 
 went about doing her errands. From head to foot, indeed, she 
 was but one bruise ! Oh ! this murdering of childhood ; those 
 heavy hands crushing this lovely girl ; how abominable that 
 such weakness should have such a weighty cross to bear ! 
 Again did Gervaise crouch down, no longer thinking of tucking 
 in the sheet, but overwhelmed by the pitiful sight of this 
 martyrdom ; and her trembling lips seemed to be seeking for 
 words of prayer. 
 
 " Madame Coupeau," murmured the child, " I beg you " 
 
 With her little arms she tried to draw up the sheet again, 
 ashamed as it were for her father. Bijard, as stultified as ever, 
 with his eyes on the corpse which was his own work, still 
 wagged his head, but more slowly, like a worried animal 
 might do. 
 
 When she had covered Lalie up again, Gervaise felt she could 
 not remain there any longer. The dying girl was growing 
 weaker and ceased speaking ; all that was left to her was her 
 gaze the dark look she had had as a resigned and thoughtful 
 child, and which she now fixed on her two little ones who were 
 still cutting .out their pictures. The room was growing gloomy, 
 and Bijard was working off his liquor while the poor girl was in 
 her death agonies. No, no, life was too abominable ! How 
 frightful it was ! how frightful ! And Gervaise took herself 
 off, and went down the stairs unwittingly, her head wandering 
 and so full of disgust that she would willingly have thrown her- 
 self under the wheels of an omnibus to have finished with her 
 own existence. 
 
 As she hastened on, growling against cursed fate, she suddenly
 
 GERVAISE WAITING IN COMPANY WITH OTHER WORKMEN'S WIVES 
 AT THE FACTORY DOOR ON A PAY-DAY. p. 385.
 
 THE " AS80MMOIB." 385 
 
 found herself in front of the place where Conpeau pretended 
 that he worked. Her legs had taken her there, and now her 
 stomach began singing its song again, the complaint of hunger 
 in ninety verses a complaint she knew by heart. However, 
 if she caught Coupeau as he left, she would be able to pounce 
 upon the coin at once, and buy some grub. A short hour's 
 waiting at the utmost ; she could surely stay that out, though 
 she had sucked her thumbs since the day before. 
 
 It was in the Rue de la Charbonniere, at the corner of the 
 Rue de Chartres, an open space where the wind played at hide 
 and seek. Dash it all ! stalking the pavement didn't warm 
 one. It would have been better if one had only had a fur 
 mantle. The sky retained its ugly leaden hue, and the snow, 
 amassed above, covered the neighbourhood with an icy cap. 
 Nothing fell, but the air was profoundly still, presaging a com- 
 plete disguise for Paris by-and-by a pretty ball dress, quite 
 white and new. Gervaise raised her nose, begging Providence 
 not to let the muslin fall yet awhile. She stamped her feet, 
 looked at a grocer's shop over the way, and then turned on her 
 heels, as it was not worth while sharpening her appetite by the 
 contemplation of good things. There was nothing amusing 
 round about. The few passers-by strode rapidly along, wrapped 
 up in comforters ; naturally enough one does not care to tarry 
 when the cold is griping one's hindquarters. However, 
 Gervaise perceived four or five women who were mounting 
 guard like herself outside the door of the zinc- works; un- 
 fortunate creatures of course -wives watching for the pay to 
 prevent it going to the dram-shop. There was a tall creature 
 with a gendarme's face stuck against the wall, ready to spring 
 on her husband as soon as he showed himself. A dark little 
 woman with a delicate humble air was walking about on the 
 other side of the way. Another one, a fat creature, had brought 
 her two kids with her. and was dragsnn^.them along, one on 
 
 . l f <J\~s W W/ 
 
 either hand, and both of them shivering and sobbing. And 
 all these women, Gervaise like the others, passed and repassed, 
 .exchanging glances, but without speaking to one another. A 
 pleasant meeting and no mistake. They didn't need to make 
 friends to learn what number they lived at. They could all 
 hang out the same signboard, " Misery & Co." It seemed to 
 make one feel even colder, to see them walk about in silence, 
 passing each other in this terrible January weather. 
 
 However, nobody as yet left the zinc-works. But presently 
 one workman appeared, then two, and then three, but these 
 
 2s
 
 386 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 were no doubt decent fellows who took their pay home regularly, 
 for they jerked their heads significantly as they saw the shadows 
 wandering up and down. The tall creature stuck closer than 
 ever to the side of the door, and suddenly fell upon a pale little 
 man, who was prudently poking his head out. Oh ! it was 
 soon settled ! She searched him and collared his coin. 
 Caught, no more money, not even enough to pay for a dram 1 
 Then the little man, looking very vexed and cast down, fol- 
 lowed his gendarme, weeping like a child. The workmen were 
 still coming out ; and as the fat mother with the two kids ap- 
 proached the door, a tall fellow, with a cunning look, who 
 noticed her, went hastily inside again to warn her husband; 
 and when the latter arrived he had stuffed a couple of cart 
 wheels away, two beautiful new five franc pieces, one in each 
 of his shoes. He took one of the kids on his arm, and went 
 off telling crams to his old woman, who was complaining. 
 There were other workmen also, mournful-looking fellows, who 
 carried in their clinched fists the pay for the three or five days' 
 work they had done during a fortnight, who reproached them- 
 selves with their own laziness, and took drunkards' oaths. But 
 the saddest thing of all was the grief of the dark little woman, 
 with the humble, delicate look ; her husband, a handsome 
 fellow, took himself off under her very nose, and so brutally 
 indeed that he almost knocked her down, and she went home 
 alone, stumbling past the shops and weeping all the tears in 
 her body. 
 
 At last the defile finished. Gervaise, who stood erect in the 
 middle of the street, was still watching the door. The look-out 
 seemed a bad one. A couple of workmen who were late ap- 
 peared on the threshold, but there were still no signs of Coupeau. 
 And when she asked the workmen if Coupeau wasn't coming, 
 they answered her, being up to snuff, that he had just gone off 
 by the back-door with Lantime'che. Gervaise understood what 
 this meant. Another of Coupeau's lies ; she could whistle for 
 him if she liked. Then, shuffling along in her worn-out shoes, 
 she went slowly down the Rue de la Charbonniere. Her dinner 
 was going off in front of her, and she shuddered as she saw it 
 running away in the yellow twilight. This time it was all over. 
 Not a copper, not a hope, nothing but night and hunger. Ah ! 
 a fine night to kick the bucket, this dirty night which was fall- 
 ing over her shoulders ! 
 
 She was walking heavily up the Rue des Poissonniers when 
 she suddenly heard Coupeau's voice. Yes, he was there, in the
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 387 
 
 " Little Civet," letting My-Boots treat him. That comical 
 chap, My-Boots, had been cunning enough at the end of last 
 summer to espouse in authentic fashion a lady who, although 
 rather advanced in years, had still preserved considerable traces 
 of beauty. She was a lady of the Rue des Martyrs, none of your 
 Barriere hussies. And you should have seen this fortunate mortal, 
 living like a man of means, with his hands in his pockets, well 
 clad and well fed. He could hardly be recognised, so fat had 
 he grown. His comrades said that his wife had as much work 
 as she liked among the gentlemen of her acquaintance. A wife 
 like that and a country-house is all one can wish for to embellish 
 one's life. And so Coupeau squinted admiringly at My-Boots. 
 Why, the lucky dog even had a gold ring on his little finger ! 
 
 Gervaise touched Coupeau on 'the shoulder just as he was 
 coming out of the " Little Civet." 
 
 " I say, I'm waiting ; I'm hungry. Is that all you stand ? " 
 
 But he silenced her in a capital style. " You're hungry, eh ? 
 Well, eat your hand, and keep t'other for to-morrow." 
 
 He considered it highly improper to do the dramatic in other 
 people's presence. What, he hadn't worked, and yet the bakers 
 kneaded bread all the same. Did she take him for a fool, to 
 come and try and frighten him with her stories ? 
 - " Do you want me to turn thief ? " she muttered, in a husky 
 voice. 
 
 My-Boots stroked- his chin in conciliatory fashion. ' ' No, 
 that's forbidden," said he. " But when a woman knows how to 
 manage " 
 
 And- Coupeau interrupted him to call out " Bravo ! " Yes, a 
 woman always ought to know how to manage. But his wife 
 had always been a helpless thing. It would be her fault if they 
 died on tho straw. Then he relapsed into his admiration for 
 My-Boots. How awfully fine he looked ! A regular landlord ; 
 with clean linen and swell shoes ! They were no common 
 stuff! His wife, at all events, knew how to row the boat ! 
 
 The two men walked towards the outer Boulevard, and Ger- 
 vaise followed them. After a pause, she resumed, talking 
 behind Coupeau's back : "I'm hungry; you know, I relied on you. 
 You must find me something to nibble." . : . 
 
 He did not answer, and she repeated, in a tone of despairing 
 agony : " Is that all you stand ?" 
 
 "But, dash it all, I've got no coin," he roared, turning 
 round in a fury. " Just leave me alone, eh ? or else I'll hit you."
 
 388 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 He was already raising his fist. She drew back, and seemed 
 to make up her mind. " All right, 111 leave you. I shall always 
 be able to find a man," 
 
 The zinc-worker laughed at this. He pretended to make a 
 joke of the matter, and strengthened her purpose without seem- 
 ing to do so. That was a fine idea of her's, and no mistake ! 
 In the evening, by gaslight, she might still make some conquests. 
 If she got hold of a man, he recommended her to try the 
 " Capuchin " restaurant, where capital fare was to be had in the 
 private rooms. And as she went off along the Boulevard, look- 
 ing pale and furious, he called out after her : " I say, just 
 listen, bring me back some dessert. I like cakes ; and if your 
 gentleman's well dressed, ask him for an old overcoat. I should 
 like to have one." 
 
 With these words ringing in her ears, Gervaise walked softly 
 away. But when she found herself alone in the midst of the 
 crowd, she slackened her pace. She was quite resolute. 
 Between thieving and doing that, she preferred that, for at all 
 events she wouldn't harm any one. She would only dispose of 
 herself. No doubt, it wasn't proper. But what was proper and 
 what was improper were sorely muddled together in her brain. 
 When you are dying of hunger, you don't philosophize, you eat 
 whatever bread turns up. She had gone along as far as the 
 ChausseVClign an court. It seemed as if the night would never 
 come. However, she followed the Boulevards like a lady who 
 is taking a stroll before dinner. The neighbourhood in which 
 she felt so ashamed, so greatly was it being embellished, was 
 now full of fresh air. The Boulevard Magenta, coming from 
 the heart of Paris, and the Boulevard Ornano going off into the 
 country, had pierced through the old Barriere, levelling a large 
 number of houses ; and at the flanks of the two long avenues, 
 still white with plaster, one could see the Faubourg -Poissonniere 
 and the Eue des Poissonniers, dark, dingy, and crooked. The 
 demolition of the octroi wall had long since widened the outer 
 Boulevard, allowing space for two paved roads, with a central 
 foot-walk planted with four rows of scrubby plane trees. The 
 view stretched as far as the horizon, along the broad highways 
 crowded- with pe'ople, and ending in a chaos of half-built houses. 
 But among the lofty new buildings there remained many totter- 
 ing hovels. Between the carved fagades there wers a number 
 of black dens, standing back, perfect kennels, with rags hanging 
 from their windows. Amid the rising luxury of Paris, the
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 3SD 
 
 misery of the faubourg was apparent, surrounding the hastily 
 erected new piles with dirt. 
 
 4 Lost in the crowd on the broad footway, walking past the 
 little plane trees, Gervaise felt alone and abandoned. The 
 vistas of the avenues seemed to empty her stomach all the 
 more. And to think that among this "flood of people there were 
 many in easy circumstances, and yet not a Christian who could 
 guess her position, and slip a ten sous piece into her hand ! Yes, 
 it was too great and too beautiful ; her head swam, and her legs 
 tottered under this broad expanse of grey sky stretched over 
 so vast a space. The twilight had the dirty-yellowish tinge of 
 Parisian evenings, a tint that gives you a longing to die at once, 
 so^ugly does street life seem. The horizon was growing indis- 
 tinct, assuming a mud-coloured tinge as it were. Gervaise, who 
 was already weary, met all the workpeople returning home. At 
 this hour of the day the ladies in bonnets, the well-dressed 
 gentlemen living in the new houses, mingled with the people, 
 with files of men and women still pale from inhaling the tainted 
 atmosphere of workshops and workrooms. From the Boulevard 
 Magenta and the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonnierey came bands of 
 people, rendered breathless by their uphill walk. As the 
 omnibuses and the cabs rolled by less noiselessly among the 
 vans and trucks returning home empty at a gallop, an ever- 
 increasing swarm of blouses and blue vests, covered the pave- 
 ment. Commissionaires returned with their crotchets on their 
 backs. Two workmen, stepping out, took long strides side by 
 side, talking to each other in loud voices, with any amount of 
 gesticulation, but without looking at one another ; others who 
 were alone, in overcoats and caps, walked along the curbstones 
 with lowered noses ; others, again, came in parties of five or six, 
 following each other, with pale eyes and their hands in their 
 pockets, and not exchanging a word. Some still had their pipes, 
 which had gone out, between their teeth. Four masons poked 
 their white faces out of the windows of a cab which they had 
 hired between them, and on the roof of which their mortar- 
 troughs rocked to and fro. House-painters were swinging their 
 pots ; a zinc-worker was returning laden with a long ladder, 
 with which he almost poked people's eyes out ; whilst a belated 
 dealer in filter-taps, with his box on his back, played the tune 
 of "The Good King Dagobert" on his little trumpet. Ah! the 
 sad music, a fitting accompaniment to the tread of the flock, the 
 tread of the weary beasts of burden. 
 
 Another day's work over I Really worktime was too long
 
 390 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 and came too often. Hardly time to fill one's stomach,, and 
 digest one's food ; and it would be daylight again, and the 
 collar of misery must be resumed. But, nevertheless, the 
 plucky ones whistled, stamping on the pavement, and darting 
 along, erect, with their mouths turned supper-wards. And 
 Gervaise let the crowd flow past her, careless of being knocked 
 against, elbowed to the right, and elbowed to the left, and still 
 carried onward by the tide. Men haven't the time to indulge 
 in gallantry when they are bent double with fatigue, and 
 pinched by hunger. 
 
 . Suddenly on raising her eyes she noticed the old H6tel 
 Boncosur in front of her. After being an ill-famed cafe", which 
 the police had shut up, the little house was now abandoned ; 
 the shutters were covered with posters, the lantern was broken, 
 and the whole building was rotting and crumbling away from 
 top to bottom, with its smudgy claret coloured paint, quite 
 mouldy. The stationer's and the tobacconist's were still there. 
 In the rear, over some low buildings, you could see the leprous 
 facades of several five-storeyed houses rearing their tumble- 
 down outlines against the sky. Tt^e " Grand Balcony " dancing 
 hall, alone, no longer existed ; some sugar-cutting works, which 
 hissed continually, had been installed in the hall with the ten 
 flaming windows. And yet it was here, in this den the Hotel 
 Boncceur that the whole cursed life had commenced. Ger- 
 vaise remained looking at the window of the fii-st floor, from 
 which hung a broken shutter, and recalled to mind her youth 
 with Lantier, their first rows and the ignoble way in which he 
 had abandoned her. Never mind, she was young then, and it 
 all seemed gay to her, seen from a distance. Only twenty 
 years, good Lord ! and yet she had fallen to the pavement. 
 Then the sight of the lodging house oppressed her and she 
 walked up the Boulevard in the direction of Montmartre. 
 
 The night was -gathering, but children were still playing on 
 the heaps of sand between the benches. The march past con- 
 tinued, the work-girls went by, trotting along and hurrying to 
 make up for the time they had lost in looking in at the shop 
 windows ; one tall girl who had stopped, left her hand in that 
 of a big fellow, who had accompanied her, three doors off from 
 her home ; others, as they parted from each other, made ap- 
 pointments for the night at the " Grand Hall of Folly " or the 
 " Black Ball." In the midst of the groups, piece-workmen 
 went by, carrying their clothes folded under their arms. A 
 plumber, harnessed with leather braces, was drawing a truck
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIB." 391 
 
 along, and nearly got himself crushed by an omnibus, owing to 
 his carelessness. Among the crowd which was now growing 
 scantier, there were several women running with bare heads ; 
 after lighting the fire, they had come down stairs again, and 
 were hastily making their purchases for dinner ; they jostled 
 the people they met, darted into the bakers' and the pork 
 butchers', and went off again with all despatch, their provisions in 
 their hands. There were little girls of eight years old, who had 
 been sent out on errands, and who went along past the shops, 
 pressing long loaves of four pounds' weight, as tall as they were 
 themselves, against their breasts, as if these loaves had been 
 beautiful yellow dolls ; at times these little ones forgot them- 
 selves for five minutes or so, in front of some pictures in a shop 
 window, and rested their cheeks against the bread. Then the 
 flow subsided, the groups became fewer and farther between, 
 ' the working, classes had gone home ; and as the gas blazed now 
 that the day's toil was over, idleness and amusement seemed to 
 wake up. 
 
 Ah ! yes, Gervaise had finished her day ! She was wearier even 
 than all this mob of 'toilers who had jostled her as they .went 
 by. She might lie down there and croak, for work would have 
 nothing more to do with her, and she had toiled enough during 
 her life to say : "Whose tnra now? I've had enough." At pre- 
 sent everyone was eating. It was really the end, the sun had 
 blown out its candle, the night would be a long one. Good 
 Lord 1 To stretch oneself at one's ease and never get up again, 
 to' think one had put one's tools by for good, and that one could 
 lie lazy for ever ! That's what is good, after tiring oneself out 
 .for twenty years ! And Gervaise, as hunger twisted her stomach, 
 thought in spite of herself of the fete days, the spreads and the 
 revelry of her life. Of one occasion especially, an awfully cold 
 day, a mid-Lent Thursday. She had enjoyed herself wonderfully 
 well. She was very pretty, fair-haired and fresh looking at 
 that time. Her wash-house in the Rue Neuve had chosen her 
 as queen in spite of her leg. And then they had had an outing 
 on the Boulevards in vehicles decked with green stuff, in the 
 midst of stylish people who ogled her. Real gentlemen put up 
 their glasses as if she had been a true queen. In the evening 
 there was a wonderful spread, and then they had danced till 
 daylight. Queen, yes Queen ! with a crown and a sash for 
 twenty-four hours twice round the clock] And now oppressed 
 by hunger, she loooked on the ground, as if she were seeking 
 for the gutter in which she had let her fallen majesty tumble.
 
 392 THE "ASSOMMOIR.' 
 
 She raised her eyes again. She was in front of the slaughter- 
 houses -which were being pulled down ; through the gaps in the 
 fagade one could see the dark, stinking courtyards still damp 
 with blood. And when she had gone down the Boulevard again, 
 she also saw the Lariboisiere Hospital, with its long grey wall, 
 above which she could distinguish the mournful fan-like wings 
 pierced with windows at even distances. A door in the wall 
 terrified the neighbourhood ; it was the door of the dead in 
 solid oak, and without a crack, as stern and as silent as a tomb- 
 stone. Then to escape her thoughts, she hurried further down 
 till she reached the railway bridge. The high parapets of 
 riveted sheet iron hid the line from view ; she could only dis- 
 tinguish a corner of the station standing out against the 
 luminous horizon of Paris, with a vast roof black with coal dust. 
 Through the clear space she could hear the engines whistling 
 and the trucks being shunted, in token of colossal hidden 
 activity. Then a train passed by, leaving Paris, with puffing 
 breath and a growing rumble. And all she perceived of this 
 train was a white plume, a sudden gust of steam which rose 
 above the parapet and then evaporated.' But the bridge had 
 shaken, and she herself seemed impressed by this departure at 
 full speed. She turned round as if to follow the invisible 
 engine, the noise of which was dying away. In this direction 
 she divined the existence of the country and fresh air, far away 
 beyond a cutting with tall isolated houses to the right and left, 
 erected without order, now showing their fronts, and now un- 
 plastered side-walls, with others painted over with giant 
 advertisements, and all of them dirtied by the smoke from the 
 engines with the same yellowish tinge. Ah ! if she had only 
 been able to go off like that, far from these abodes of misery and 
 suffering. Perhaps she might then have begun her life over 
 again. Then she found herself stupidly reading the bills posted 
 on the sheet-iron parapet. They were of every tint. One of 
 them a little one, of a pretty shade of blue promised fifty 
 francs reward for a bitch which had been lost. That animal 
 had been loved, plainly enough. 
 
 Gervaise slowly resumed her walk. In the smoky-shaded 
 fog which was falling, the gas lamps were being lighted up; 
 and the long avenues, which had grown black and indistinct, 
 suddenly showed themselves plainly again, sparkling to their 
 full length and piercing through the night, even to the vague 
 darkness of the horizon. A great gust swept by ; the widened 
 spaces were lighted up with girdles of little flames, shining under
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIB." 393 
 
 the far-stretching moonless sky. It was the hour when from 
 one end of the Boulevard to the other the dram-shops and the 
 dancing halls flamed gaily as the first glasses were merrily 
 drunk and the first dance began. It was the great fortnightly 
 pay-day, and the pavement was crowded with jostling revellers 
 on the spree. There was a breath of merrymaking in the air 
 deuced fine revelry, but not objectionable so far. Fellows 
 were filling themselves hi the eating-houses ; through the 
 lighted windows you could see people feeding, with their mouths 
 full, and laughing without taking the trouble to swallow. 
 Prunkards were already installed in the wine-shops, squabbling 
 and gesticulating. And there was a cursed noise on all sides, 
 voices shouting amid the constant clatter of feet on the pavement. 
 " I say ! are you coming to sip 1 " " Make haste, old man ; 
 I'll pay for <a glass of bottled wine." " Hallo ! here's Pauline ! 
 Sha'n't we just laugh ! " The doors swung to and fro, letting a 
 smell of wine and a sound of cornet playing escape into the 
 open air. There was a gathering in front of old Colombe's 
 "Assommoir," which was lighted up like a cathedralfor high mass ; 
 and, dash it all ! you would have said a real ceremony was going 
 on, for several capital fellows with rounded paunches and 
 swollen .cheeks, looking for all the world like professional 
 choristers, were singing inside. They were celebrating Saint- 
 Pay, of course a very amiable saint who no doubt keeps the 
 cash-box in Paradise. Only, on seeing how gaily the evening 
 began, the retired petty tradesmen who had taken their wives 
 out for a stroll wagged their heads and repeated that there 
 would be any number of drunken men in Paris that night. 
 And the night stretched very dark, dead-like and icy above 
 this revelry, , perforated only with lines of gas-lamps, extending 
 to the four corners of heaven. 
 
 'Gervaise stood in front of the "Assommoir," thinking that if she 
 had had a couple of sous she could have gone inside and drunk 
 a dram. No doubt a dram would have quieted her hunger. Ah ! 
 what a number of drams she had drunk in her time ! Liquor 
 seemed good stuff to her after all. And from outside she 
 watched the fuddling machine, realising that her misfortune waa 
 due to it,, and yet dreaming of finishing herself off with brandy 
 on the .day she had some coin. But a shudder passed through 
 her hair, as she saw that it was now almost dark. Well, the 
 night time was approaching. She must have some pluck and 
 show herself coaxing if she didn't wish to kick the bucket in the 
 midst of the general revelry. Looking at other people gorging
 
 394 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 themselves didn't precisely fill her own stomach. She slackened 
 her pace again, and looked around her. There was a darker 
 shade under the trees. Few people passed along, only folks in 
 a hurry who swiftly crossed the Boulevards. And on the broad, 
 dark, deserted footway, where the sound of the revelry died 
 away, women were standing and waiting. They remained for 
 long intervals, motionless, patient, and as stiff-looking as the 
 scrubby little plane trees ; then they slowly began to move, 
 dragging their slippers over the frozen soil, faking ten steps or 
 so and then waiting again, rooted as it were to the ground. 
 There was one of them with a huge body and insect-like arms 
 and legs, wearing a black silk rag, with a' yellow scarf over her 
 head ; there was another one, tall and bony, who was bare- 
 headed and wore a servant's apron ; and others, too old ones 
 plastered up, and young ones so dirty that a rag-picker would 
 not have picked them up. However, Gervaise tried to learn the 
 trade by imitating them ; girlish-like emotion tightened her 
 throat } she was hardly aware whether she felt ashamed or not 
 she seemed to be living in a horrible dream. For a quarter 
 of an hour she remained standing erect. Men hurried by with- 
 out even turning their heads. Then she moved about in her 
 turn, and venturing to accost a man who was whistling with 
 his hands in his pockets, she murmured in a strangled voice : 
 
 " Sir, just listen." 
 
 The man gave her a side glance and then went off, whistling 
 all the louder. 
 
 Gervaise grew bolder, and, with her stomach empty, she became 
 absorbed in this chase, fiercely rushing after her dinner, which 
 was still running away. She walked about for a long while, 
 without thinking of the flight of time or of the direction she took. 
 Around her the dark mute women went to and fro under the 
 trees like wild beasts in a cage. They stepped out of the shade 
 like apparitions, and passed under the light of a gas lamp with 
 their pale faces fully apparent ; then they grew vague again as 
 they went off into the darkness, with a white strip of petticoat 
 swaying to and fro. Men let themselves be stopped at times, 
 talked jokingly, and then started off again, laughing. Others 
 discreetly went away ten paces behind a woman. There was a 
 deal of muttering, quarrelling in an undertone, and furious 
 bargaining, which suddenly subsided into profound silence. 
 And as far as Gervaise went she saw these women standing like 
 sentinels in the fight; they seemed to be placed along the 
 whole length of the Boulevard. As soon as she met one, she
 
 GERVAISE IMPORTUNING THE PASSERS-BY AT NIGHT TIME. 
 
 p. 884
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 395 
 
 saw another twenty paces further on, and the file stretched out 
 unceasingly. Entire Paris was guarded. She grew enraged on 
 finding herself disdained, and, changing her place, she now per- 
 ambulated between the Chaussee de Clignancourt and the 
 Grande Rue of La Chapelle. 
 
 " Sir, just listen." 
 
 But the men passed by. She started from the slaughter- 
 houses, which stunk of blood. She glanced on her way at the 
 old H6tel Boncoeur, now closed. She passed in front of the 
 Laribpisiere hospital, and mechanically counted the number of 
 windows that were illuminated with a pale quiet glimmer, like 
 that of night-lights at the bedside of some agonising sufferers. 
 She crossed the railway bridge as the trains rushed by with a 
 noisy rumble, rending the air in twain with their shrill 
 whistling ! Ah ! how sad everything seemed at night-time ! 
 Then she turned on her heels again, and rilled her eyes with 
 the sight of the same houses, doing this ten and twenty times 
 without pausing, without resting for a minute on a bench. No ; 
 no one would have anything to do with her. ' Her shame 
 seemed to be increased by this contempt. She went down 
 towards the hospital again, and then returned towards the 
 slaughter-houses. It was her last promenade from the blood- 
 stained courtyards, where animals were stricken low, down to 
 the pale hospital wards, where death stiffened the patients 
 stretched between the sheets. It was between these two estab- 
 lishments that she had passed her life. 
 
 "Sir, just listen." 
 
 But suddenly she perceived her shadow on the ground. 
 When she approached a gas-lamp it gradually became less 
 vague, till it stood out at last in full force an enormous 
 shadow it was, positively grotesque, so portly had she become. 
 Her. stomach, breast, and hips, all equally flabby, jostled 
 together as it were. She walked so lame that the shadow 
 bobbed almost topsy-turvy at every step she took ; it looked 
 like a real Punch ! Then as she left the street lamp behind her, 
 the Punch grew taller, becoming in fact gigantic, filling the 
 whole Boulevard, bobbing to and fro in such style that it 
 seemed fated to smash its nose against the trees or the houses. 
 Good Lord ! how frightful she was ! She had never realised her 
 disfigurement so thoroughly. And she could not help looking at 
 her shadow ; indeed, she waited for the gas lamps, still watching 
 the Punch as it bobbed about Ah ! she had a pretty com- 
 panion- beside her ! What a figure ! It ought to attract men
 
 396 THE "ASSOMMOtH." 
 
 at once ! And. at the thought of her unsightliness, she lowered her 
 voice, and only just dared to stammer behind the passers-by ; 
 
 "Sir, just listen." 
 
 However, it must have been very late. Matters were grow- 
 ing bad in the neighbourhood. The eating-houses had shut 
 up, and voices, gruff with drink, could be heard disputing in 
 the wineshops. Kevelry was turning to quarrelling and fisti- 
 cuffs. A big ragged chap roared out, " I'll knock yer to bits ; 
 just number yer bones." A loose woman had quarrelled with a 
 fellow outside a dancing place, and was calling him " dirty 
 blackguard " and " sick pig," whilst he on his side kept on 
 repeating, " How about your sister ? " as if he could think of 
 nothing else. Drink seemed to have imparted a fierce desire 
 to indulge in blows, and the passers-by, who were now less 
 numerous, had pale contracted faces. There was a battle at 
 last ; one drunken fellow came down on his back, with all fours 
 raised in the air, whilst his comrade, thinking he had done 
 for him, ran off with his heavy shoes clattering over the 
 pavement. 
 
 There were bands of fellows braying beastly songs, then a deep 
 silence came, interrupted only by the hiccoughs and the falls of 
 drunkards. The fortnightly merriment always finished like 
 this ; so much wine had flowed since six o'clock, that now it was 
 about to stroll over the pavement. Such a mess, on the very 
 middle of the footways, for belated people with delicate minds 
 to step over, if they did not care to walk through it. The 
 neighbourhood was really clean ! If a foreigner had visited it 
 before the matutinal sweeping, he would have gone away with 
 a very nice opinion indeed. But the drunkards were at home, 
 and they didn't care a rap for Europe. By Jove ! knives slipped 
 out, and the little fete ended in bloodshed. Women walked 
 hastily along, men prowled round with wolves' eyes, the night 
 grew thicker, swollen with abomination. 
 
 Gervaise still hobbled about, going up and down,' with the 
 idea of walking for ever. At times, she felt drowsy, and went 
 to sleep, rocked, as it were, by her lame leg ; then she looked 
 round her with a start, and noticed she had walked a hundred 
 paces unconsciously. Her feet were swelling in her ragged 
 shoes. The last clear thought that occupied her mind was that 
 her hussy of a daughter was perhaps eating oysters at that very 
 moment. Then everything became cloudy; and, albeit, she 
 remained with open eyes, it required too great an effort for her 
 to think. And the only sensation that remained to her, in her
 
 THE "AsSSOMMOrR." 397 
 
 utter annihilation, was that it was frightfully cold, so sharply, 
 mortally cold, she had never known the like before. Why, even 
 dead people could not feel so cold in their graves. With an 
 effort she raised her head, and something seemed to lash her 
 face. . It was the snow, which had at last decided to fall from 
 the smoky sky fine thick snow, which the breeze swept round 
 and round. For three days it had been expected. It fell just 
 at the right time. 
 
 Woke up by the first gusts, Gervaise began to walk faster. 
 Eager to get home, men were running along, with their shoulders 
 already white. And, as she suddenly saw one who, on the con- 
 trary, was coming slowly towards her under the trees, she ap- 
 proached him, and again said : " Sir, just listen" 
 
 The man had stopped. But he did not seem to have heard 
 her. He held out his hand, and muttered in a low voice : 
 " Charity, if you please I " 
 
 They looked at one another. Ah ! good Lord ! They were 
 reduced to this father Bru begging, Madame Coupeau on the 
 town ! They remained stupefied in front of each other. They 
 could shake hands now. The old workman had prowled 
 about the whole evening, not daring to stop anyone, 
 and the first person he accosted was as hungry as himself. 
 Lord, was it not pitiful ! To have toiled for fifty years, and be 
 obliged to beg ! To. have been one of the most prosperous 
 washerwomen in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, and to end beside 
 the gutter 1 They still looked at one another. Then, with- 
 out saying a word, they went off in different directions under 
 the lashing snow. 
 
 It was a perfect tempest. On these heights, in the midst of 
 this open space, the fine snow revolved round and round, as 
 if the wind came from the four corners of heaven. You could 
 not see ten paces off, everything was confused in the midst of 
 this flying dust. The surroundings had disappeared, the Boule- 
 vard seemed to be dead, as if the storm had stretched the silence 
 of its white sheet over the hiccoughs of the last drunkards. Ger- 
 vfiise still went on, blinded, lost. She felt her way by touching 
 the trees. As she advanced, the gas lamps shone out amidst 
 the whiteness like torches. Then, suddenly, whenever she 
 crossed an open space, these lights failed her ; she was envel- 
 oped in the whirling snow, unable to distinguish anything to 
 guide hen Below stretched the ground, vaguely white ; grey walls 
 surrounded her, and when she paused, hesitating, and turning 
 her head, she divined that behind this icy veil extended the
 
 398 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 immense avenues with interminable vistas of gas-lamps the 
 black and deserted Infinite of Paris asleep. 
 
 She was standing where the outer Boulevard meets the Boule* 
 vards Magenta and Ornano, thinking of lying down on the 
 ground, when suddenly she heard a footfall. She began to run, 
 but the snow, blinded her, and the footsteps went off, without 
 her being able to tell whether it was to the right or to the left. 
 At last, however, she perceived a man's broad shoulders, a dark 
 form which was disappearing amid the snow. Oh ! she'd have 
 that one, he shouldn't escape her ! And she ran on all the 
 faster, reached him, and caught him by the blouse : " Sir, sir, 
 just listen " 
 
 The man turned round. It was Goujet. 
 So now she accosted Golden-Mug ! But what had she done 
 on earth to be tortured like this by Providence ? It was the 
 crowning blow to stumble against Goujet, and be seen by him, 
 pale and begging, like a Barriere drab. And it happened just 
 under a gas-lamp ; she could see her deformed shadow swaying 
 on the snow like a real caricature. You would have said she 
 was drunk. Good Lord ! not to have a crust of bread, or a drop 
 of wine in her body, and to be taken for a drunken woman ! It 
 was her own fault, why did she booze? Goujet no doubt 
 thought she had been drinking, and that she was up to some 
 nasty pranks. 
 
 However he looked at her while the snow scattered daisies 
 over his beautiful yellow beard. Then as she lowered her head 
 and stepped back he detained her. 
 " Come," said he. 
 
 And he walked on first. She followed him. They both 
 crossed the silent district, gliding noiselessly along the walls. 
 Poor Madame Goujet had died of rheumatism in the month of 
 October. Goujet still resided in the little house in the Rue 
 Neuve, living gloomily alone. On this occasion he was belated 
 because he had sat up nursing a wounded comrade. When he 
 had opened the door and lighted a lamp, he turned towards 
 Gervaise, who had remained humbly on the threshold. Then, 
 in a low voice, as if he were afraid his mother could still hear 
 him, he exclaimed, " Come in." 
 
 The first room, Madame Goujet's, was piously preserved in 
 the state she had left it. On a chair near the window lay the 
 tambour by the side of the large arm-chair, which seemed to be 
 waiting for the old lace -worker. The bed was made, and she 
 could have stretched herself beneath the sheets if she had left
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIB." 3D9 
 
 ;he cemetery to come and spend the evening with her child. 
 There was something solemn, a perfume of honesty and good- 
 less about the room. 
 
 " Come in," repeated the' blacksmith in a louder tone. 
 
 She went in, half frightened, like a disreputable girl gliding 
 .nto a respectable place. He was quite pale, and trembled at 
 :he thought of ushering a woman like this into his dead mother's 
 borne. They crossed the room on tiptoe, as if they were 
 ishamed to be heard. Then when he had pushed Gervaiseinto 
 iis own room he closed the door. Here he was at home. It 
 was the narrow closet she was acquainted with ; a schoolboy's 
 *oom, with a little iron bedstead hung with white curtains. On 
 ;he walls the engravings cut out of illustrated newspapers ha:l 
 gathered and spread, and they now reached to the ceiling. 
 The room looked -so pure that Gervaise did not dare to advance, 
 3ut retreated as far as she could from the lamp. Then without 
 i word, in a transport as it were, he tried to seize hold of her 
 ind press her in his arms. But her strength was giving way, 
 md she murmured : "Oh, my God ! oh, my God ! " 
 
 The fire in the stove, having been covered with coke-dust, 
 yas still alight, and the remains of a stew which Goujet had put 
 ;o warm, thinking he should return to dinner, was smoking in 
 ront of the cinders. Gervaise, who felt her numbness leave her in 
 ;he warmth of this room, would have gone down on all fours to eat 
 >ut of the saucepan. Her hunger was stronger than her will ; 
 ler stomach seemed rent in two j and she stooped down with a 
 sigh. But Goujet had realised the truth. He placed the stew on 
 ;he table, cut some bread, and poured her out a glass of wine. 
 
 "Thanks! thanks!" said she. "Oh, how kind you are! 
 Thanks ! " 
 
 She stammered; she could hardly articulate, When she 
 jaught hold of her fork she began to tremble so acutely that she 
 et it fall again. The hunger that possessed her made her wag 
 ler head. She carried the food to her mouth with her 
 ingers. As she stuffed the first potato into her mouth, she 
 )urst out sobbing. Big tears coursed down her cheeks and fell 
 >u to her bread. She still eat, gluttonously devouring this 
 )read thus moistened by her tears, and breathing very hard all 
 ;he while. Goujet compelled her to drink to prevent her from 
 tifling, and her glass chinked, as it were, against her teeth. 
 
 " Will you have, some more bread ? " he asked in an under- 
 .one. 
 
 She cried, she said "no," she said "yes," she didn't know.
 
 400 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 Ab, Lord ! how nice and yet how sad it is to eat when one 
 is starving. 
 
 And standing in front of her, he looked at her all the while ; 
 under the bright light cast by the lamp-shade he could see her 
 well. How aged and altered she seemed ! The heat was melt- 
 ing the snow on her hair and clothes, and she was dripping. 
 Her poor wagging head was quite grey ; there were any number 
 of grey locks which the wind had disarranged. Her neck sank 
 into her shoulders, as it were, and she had become so fat and 
 ugly, you might have cried on noticing the change. And he 
 recollected their love, when she was quite rosy, working with 
 her irons, and showing the child-like plait which set such a 
 charming necklace round her throat. In those times he had 
 watched her for hours, glad to look at her. Later on she had 
 come to the forge, and there they had enjoyed themselves whilst 
 he beat the iron, and she stood by watching his hammer dance. 
 Ah ! in those days, how often he had bit his pillow of a night- 
 time, longing to have her in his room ! Oh ! he would have 
 crushed her, had he taken hold of her then, so great was his 
 desire. And now she was his he could take her ! She was- 
 finishing her bread, soaking it in her tears which had fallen 
 into the saucepan, her big silent tears which still rolled down 
 on to her food. 
 
 Gervaise rose ; she had finished. She remained for a moment 
 with her head lowered, and ill at ease. Then, thinking she de- 
 tected a gleam in his eyes, she raised her hand to her jacket 
 and unfastened the top button. But Goujet had fallen on his 
 knees, and taking hold of her hands he exclaimed softly, 
 
 "I love you, Madame Gervaise; oh! I love you still and in 
 spite of everything, I swear it to you." 
 
 " Don't say that, Monsieur Goujet ! " she cried, maddened to 
 see him like this at her feet. " No, don't say that ; you grieve 
 me too much." 
 
 And as he repeated that he could never love twice in his life, 
 she became yet more despairing. 
 
 " No, no, I am too ashamed. For the love of God get up. 
 It is my place to be on the ground." 
 
 He rose, he trembled all over and stammered, " Will you 
 allow me to kiss you ? " 
 
 Overcome with surprise and emotion she could not speak, but 
 she assented with a nod of the head. After all, she was his j 
 he could do what he chose with her. But he merely protruded 
 his lips.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 401 
 
 " That suffices between us, Madame Gervaise," he muttered. 
 " It is all our friendship, is it not?" 
 
 He kissed her on the forehead on a lock of her grey hair. 
 He had not kissed any one since his mother's death. His sweet- 
 heart Gervaise alone remained to him in life. And then when 
 he had kissed her with o much respect, he fell back across his 
 bed with sobs rising in his throat. And Gervaise could not re- 
 main there any longer. It was too sad and too abominable to 
 meet again under such circumstances when one loved. " I love 
 you, Monsieur Goujet," she exclaimed. " I love you dearly also. 
 Oh ! it isn't possible, I understand it. Good-bye, good-bye, it 
 would stifle us both." 
 
 And she darted through Madame Goujet's room and found 
 herself outside on the pavement again. When she recovered 
 her senses, she had rung at the door in the Kue de la Goutte- 
 d'Or, and Boche was pulling the string. The house was quite 
 dark, and in the black night, the yawning, dilapidated porch 
 looked like an open mouth. To think that she had been am- 
 bitious of having a corner in this barracks ! Had her ears been 
 stopped up then, that she had not heard the cursed music of 
 despair which sounded behind the walls ? Since she had set foot 
 in the place she had begun to go downhill Yes, it must bring 
 bad luck to shut oneself up in these big workmen's houses ; the 
 cholera of misery was contagious there. That night everyone 
 seemed to have kicked the bucket. She only heard the Boches 
 sndring on the , right-hand side ; while Lantier and Virginie on 
 the left were purring like a couple of cats who are not asleep, 
 but have their eyes closed and feel warm. In the courtyard she 
 fancied she was in a perfect cemetery ; the snow paved the ground 
 with white ; the high frontages, livid grey in tint, rose up un- 
 lighted like ruined walls, and not a sigh could be heard ; it 
 seemed as if a whole village, stiffened with cold and hunger, 
 were buried here. She had to step over a black gutter water 
 from the dye-works which smoked and streaked the whiteness 
 of the snow with its muddy course. It was the 'colour of her 
 thoughts. The beautiful light blue and light pink waters had 
 long since flowed away ! 
 
 Then, whilst ascending the six flights in the dark, she could 
 not prevent herself from laughing ; an ugly laugh, .which hurt 
 her. She recalled her ideal of former days : to work quietly, 
 always have bread to eat and a tidy home to sleep in, to bring 
 up her children, not to be beaten, and to die in her bed. No, 
 really, it was comical how all that was becoming realised ! She 
 
 2o
 
 402 THE ' ' ASSOMMOIR. " . 
 
 no longer worked, she no longer eat, she slept on filth, her 
 daughter frequented all sorts of bad places, and her husband 
 drubbed her at all hours of the day ; all that was left for her to 
 do, was to die on the pavement, and it would not take long, if on 
 getting into her room she could only pluck up courage to fling 
 herself out of the window. Was it not enough to make one think 
 that she had asked heaven for thirty thousand francs a year 
 and no end of respect 1 Ah ! really, in this life it is no use 
 being modest, one only gets sat upon 1 Not even pap and a 
 nest, that is the common lot. 
 
 What increased her ugly laugh was the recollection of her 
 grand hope of retiring into the country after twenty years 
 passed in ironing. Well ! she was on her way to the country. 
 She was going to have her green corner in the Pere-Lachaise 
 cemetery. ( 
 
 When she entered the passage, she was like a madwoman. 
 Her poor head was whirling round. At heart, her great grief 
 was at having bid the blacksmith an eternal farewell. All was 
 ended between them, they would never see each other more. 
 Then, besides that, all her other thoughts of misfortune pressed 
 upon her and almost caused her head to split. As she passed, 
 she poked her nose in at the Bijards' and beheld Lalie dead, 
 with a look of contentment on her face at having at last cocked 
 her toes, and slumbering for ever. Ah well ! children were 
 luckier than grown up people ! And, as a glimmer of light 
 passed under old Bazouge's door, she walked boldly in, seized 
 with a mania for going off on the same journey as the little one. 
 
 That old joker Bazouge had come home that night in an ex- 
 traordinary state of gaiety. He' had had such a booze, that he 
 was snoring on the ground, in spite of the temperature ; and 
 that no doubt did not prevent him from dreaming something 
 pleasant, for he seemed to be laughing from his stomach as he 
 slept. The candle, which he had not put out, lighted up his 
 old garments, his black cloak which he had drawn over his 
 knees, as though it had been a rug. 
 
 On beholding him Gervaise uttered such a deep wailing, that 
 he awoke. 
 
 " Damnation ! shut the door ! It's so cold ! . Ah ! it's you 1 
 What's the mattter ? what do you want 1 " 
 
 Then Gervaise, stretching out her arms, no longer knowing 
 what she stuttered, began passionately to implore him. 
 
 " Oh ! take me away, I've had enough ; I want to go off. You 
 mustn't bear me any grudge. I didn't know, good heavens ! One
 
 nrrc AsSOMMOife." 403 
 
 never knows until one's ready. Oh ! yes, one's glad to go one 
 day ! Take me away, take me away, and I shall thank you." 
 
 And she fell on her knees, all shaken with a desire which 
 caused her to turn ghastly pale. Never before had she thus 
 dragged herself at a man's feet. Old Bazouge's mug, with 
 his mouth all on one side and his hide begrimed with the dust 
 of funerals, seemed to her as beautiful and resplendent as a sun. 
 The old fellow, who was .scarcely awake, thought, however, that 
 it was some practical joke. 
 
 " I say now," murmured he, " no jokes! " 
 
 "Take me away," repeated Gervaise, more ardently still, 
 "You remember, I knocked one. evening against the partition; 
 then I said that it wasn't true, because I was still a fool. But 
 see ! give me your hands, I'm no longer frightened. Take me 
 away to by-by ; you'll see how still I'll be. Oh ! that's all I 
 care for. Oh ! I'll love you so much ! " 
 
 Bazouge, ever gallant, thought that he 'ought not to be hasty 
 with a lady who appeared to have taken such a fancy to him. 
 She was falling to pieces, but all the same what remained was 
 very fine, especially when she was excited. 
 
 " What you say's very true," said he in a convinced manner. 
 " I packed up three more to-day, who would only have been too 
 glad to have given me something for myself, could they but 
 have got their hands to their pockets. But, little woman, it's 
 not so easily settled as all that" 
 
 " Take me away, take me away," continued Gervaise, " I want 
 to go off * 
 
 " Ah ! but there's a little operation to be gone through before- 
 hand you know, couic !" 
 
 And he made a noise in his throat, as though swallowing his 
 tongue. Then, thinking it a good joke, he chuckled. 
 
 Gervaise slowly rose to her feet. So he too could do nothing 
 for her. She went to her room and threw herself on her straw, 
 feeling stupid, and regretting she had eaten. Ah I no indeed, 
 misery did not kill quick enough.
 
 404 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THAT night, Coupeau went on the batter. Next day, Gervaise 
 received ten francs from her son Etienne, who was an engineer 
 on some railway. The youngster sent her a few francs from 
 tim'e to time, knowing that they were not very well off at 
 home. She made some soup, and eat it all alone, for that 
 scoundrel Coupeau did not return on the morrow. On the 
 Monday he was still absent, and on the Tuesday also. The 
 whole week went by. Ah, by Jove ! if a lady had only carried 
 him off, that would indeed have been a good piece of luck. 
 But on the Sunday it happened that Gervaise received a printed 
 paper, which frightened her at first, because it looked liked a 
 communication from the commissary of police. Afterwards she 
 became reassured; it was merely to inform her that her pig 
 was in a fair way to croak at Sainte-Anne. The paper was 
 worded more politely, only it amounted to the same thing. 
 Yes, it was, indeed, a lady who had got hold of Coupeau, and 
 her name was Sophie-Put-'em-to-Sleep, the drunkard's last 
 good friend. 
 
 Gervaise did not disturb herself. He knew the way ; he could 
 very well get home from the asylum by himself. They had 
 cured him there so often that they could once more do him the 
 sorry service of putting him on his pins again. Had she not 
 heard that very morning that for a week Coupeau had been 
 seen as round as a ball, rolling about Belleville from one dram- 
 shop to another in the company of My-Boots ? Exactly so ; 
 and it was My-Boots, too, who stood treat. He must have 
 hooked his missus's stocking with all the savings gained at the 
 pretty game you know of. 
 
 Ah, they were drinking some pretty money there, capable 
 of giving one every abominable disease imaginable ! So much 
 the better if it had given Coupeau the colic ! And Gervaise 
 Was especially furious when she considered that this lousy,
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIK." 405 
 
 selfish pair had not even thought of calling for her and stand- 
 ing her a .drink. Did ever any one hear of such a thing ? a 
 week's booze, and not the least gallantry shown to the ladies ! 
 When one swills by oneself, one may croak by oneself, there 
 now ! 
 
 However, on the Monday, as Gervaise had a nice little meal 
 for the evening, the remains of some beans and a pint of wine, 
 she pretended to herself that a walk would give her an appetite. 
 The letter from the asylum, which she had left lying on the 
 drawers, bothered her. The snow had melted, the day was 
 mild and grey, and on the whole fine, with just a slight keen- 
 ness in. the air which was invigorating. She started at noon, 
 for her walk was a long one. She had to cross Paris, and her 
 shank was always lagging. With that the streets were crowded ; 
 but the people amused her; she reached her destination very 
 pleasantly. When she had given her name, she was told a 
 most astounding story, to the effect that Coupeau had been 
 fished out of the river, close to the Pont-Neuf. He had jumped 
 over the parapet, under the impression that a bearded man was 
 barring his way. A fine jump, was it not 1 And as for finding 
 out how Coupeau got to be on the Pont-Neuf, that was a 
 matter he could not even explain himself. 
 
 One of the keepers escorted Gervaise. She was ascending a 
 staircase, when she heard howlings which made her shiver to 
 her very bones. 
 
 " Eh ! he's playing a nice music, isn't he ? " observed the 
 keeper. 
 . " Who is ? " asked she. 
 
 "Why, your old man ! He's been yelling like that evei 
 since the day before yesterday ; and he dances, you'll just see." 
 
 Ah, good heavens ! what a sight ! She stood as one trans- 
 fixed. The cell was padded from the floor to the ceiling. On 
 the floor there were two straw mats, one above the other; and 
 in a corner were spread a mattress and a bolster, nothing 
 more. Inside there, Coupeau was dancing and yelling. A 
 regular guy of the outskirts, with his blouse in tatters and his 
 limbs beating the air ; but not a funny guy oh, no ! a guy 
 whose terrible capers made every hair of your head stand on 
 end. He wore the mask of one about to die. By Jove ! what 
 a breakdown ! He bumped up against the window, then 
 retired backwards, beating time with his arms, and shaking his 
 hands as though he were trying to wrench them off and fling 
 them in somebody's face, One meets with jokers in the low
 
 W THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 dancing places, who imitate that, only they imitate it badly. 
 One must see this drunkard's rigadoon danced if one wishes to 
 know what it is like when gone through in earnest. The song 
 also has its merits, a continuous yell worthy of carnival-time, a 
 mouth wide open uttering the same hoarse trombone notes for 
 hours together. Coupeau had the howl of a beast with a 
 crushed paw. Strike up, music ! Gentlemen, choose your 
 partners ! 
 
 " Good Lord ! what is the matter with him ? what is the 
 matter with him ? " repeated Gervaise, seized with fear. 
 
 A house surgeon, a big fair fellow with a rosy countenance, 
 and wearing a white apron, was quietly sitting taking notes. 
 The case was a curious one; the doctor did not leave the 
 patient 
 
 " Stay a while if you like," said he to the laundress ; " but 
 keep quiet Try and speak to him, he will not recognise you." 
 Coupeau, indeed, did not even appear to see his wife. She 
 had only had a bad view of him on entering, he was wriggling 
 about so much. When she looked him full in the face, she 
 stood aghast Good heavens ! was it possible he had a counten- 
 ance like that, his eyes full of blood and his lips covered with 
 scabs 1 She would certainly never have known him. To begin 
 with, he was making too many grimaces, without saying why, 
 his mouth suddenly out of all shape, his nose curled up, his 
 cheeks drawn in, a perfect animal's muzzle. His skin was so 
 hot, the air steamed around him ; and his hide was as though 
 varnished, covered with a heavy sweat which trickled off him. 
 In his mad dance, one could see all the same that he was not at 
 his ease, his head was heavy and his limbs ached. 
 
 Gervaise drew near to the house surgeon, who was strumming 
 a tune with the tips of his fingers on the back of his chair. 
 " I say, sir, it's serious then, this time ? " 
 The house surgeon nodded his head without answering. 
 "I say, isn't he jabbering to himself? Eh ! don't you hear? 
 what's it about ? " 
 
 " About things he sees," murmured the young man. tl Keep 
 quiet, let me listen." 
 
 Coupeau was speaking in a jerky voice. A glimmer of fun 
 lit up his eyes. He looked on the floor, to the right, to the 
 left, and turned about, as though he had been strolling in the 
 Bo is de Yincennes, conversing with himself. 
 
 " Ah ! that's nice, that's grand ! There're cottages, a regular 
 And some jolly fine music ! What a Balthazar's feast !
 
 CaUPEAU'S NEVER-ENDENG DANCE IN THE PADDED ROOM OF 
 
 THE LUNATIC ASYLUM. p. *u.
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 407 
 
 They're smashing the crockery in there Awfully swell ! Now 
 it's being lit up ; red balls in the air, and it jumps, and it flies 1 
 Oh ! oh ! what a lot of lanterns in the trees ! It's confoundedly 
 pleasant ! There's water flowing everywhere, fountains, cas- 
 cades, water which sings, oh ! with the voice of a chorister 
 The cascades are grand ! " 
 
 And he drew himself up, as though the better to hear the 
 delicious song of the water ; he sucked in forcibly, fancying he 
 was drinking the fresh spray blown from the fountains. But, 
 little by little, his face resumed an agonised expression. Then, 
 he crouched down, and flew quicker than ever around the walls 
 of the cell, uttering low menaces. 
 
 " More traps, all that ! I thought as much Silence, you set 
 of swindlers ! Yes, you're making a fool of me. It's for that 
 that you're drinking and bawling inside there with your 
 strumpets I'll demolish you, you and your cottage ! Damna- 
 tion I will you leave me in peace ? " 
 
 He clinched his fists ; then he uttered a hoarse cry, stooping 
 as he ran. And he stuttered, his teeth chattering with fright. 
 
 " It's so that I may kill myself. No, I won't throw myself 
 in ! All that water means that I've no heart. No, I won't 
 throw myself in I " , 
 
 The cascades, which fled at his approach, advanced when he 
 retired. And, all on a sudden, he looked stupidly around him, 
 ' mumbling, in a voice which was scarcely audible : 
 " It isn't possible, they've set conjurers against me ! " 
 "I'm off, sir, good-night!" said Gervaise to the house 
 surgeon. " It upsets me too much ; I'll come again." 
 
 She was quite white. Coupeau was continuing his break- 
 down from the window to the mattress, and from the mattress 
 to the window, perspiring, toiling, beating the same time. Then 
 she hurried away. But though she scrambled down the stairs, 
 she still heard her husband's confounded jig until she reached 
 the bottom. Ah ! good heavens ! how pleasant it was out of 
 doors, one could breathe there 1 
 
 That evening, all the household talked of old Coupean's 
 strange illness. The Boches, who now treated the Hobbler in 
 a most off-hand manner, offered her, however, a drink in their 
 room, just to hear the details. Madame Lorilleux looked in, 
 and Madame Poisson also. They made endless remarks. 
 Boche had been acquainted with a carpenter who had gone 
 along the Rue Saint-Martin perfectly naked, and had died 
 dancing the polka; he used to drink absinthe. The ladies
 
 408 THE "ASSOMMOm." 
 
 wriggled with laughter, because it seemed to them very funny 
 all the same, although rather sad. Then, as they did not quite 
 comprehend, Gervaise pushed the people aside, and called for 
 room ; and, in the centre of the apartment, she acted Coupeau, 
 bawling, jumping, throwing herself about with the most abomin- 
 able grimaces, while the others were looking on. Yes, honour 
 bright ! it was exactly like that ! Then the others expressed 
 their amazement : it was not possible ! a man could not have 
 lasted three hours at such a game. Well ! she swore it on all 
 she held most sacred, Coupeau had been at it since the day 
 before, thirty-six hours already. Besides, if they did not be- 
 lieve her, they could go and see for themselves. 
 
 Madame Lorilleux, however, declared, thank you for nothing ! 
 she had had enough of Sainte-Anne ; she would even prevent 
 Lorilleux putting a foot inside there. As to Virginie, whose 
 shop was going from bad to worse, and who had a most funereal 
 face, she contented herself by murmuring that life was not 
 always gay, ah ! by Jove, no ! The glasses being emptied, 
 Gervaise wished the company good-night. Directly she had 
 left off speaking, her head assumed the crazy look of a mad- 
 woman, with her eyes wide open. No doubt she beheld her 
 husband stepping his waltz. 
 
 On getting up the next morning, Gervaise promised herself 
 she would not return to Sainte-Anne again. What use would it 
 be ? She did not want to go off her chump also. However,, 
 every ten minutes, she fell to musing, became absent-minded. 
 It would be curious though, if he were still throwing his legs 
 about. When twelve o'clock struck, she could no longer resist ; 
 she started off and did not notice how long the walk was, her 
 brain was so full of her desire to go and the dread of what 
 awaited her. 
 
 Oh ! there was no occasion for her to ask for news. She 
 heard Coupeau's song the moment she reached the foot of the 
 staircase. Just the same tune, just the same dance. She 
 might have thought herself going up again after having bqen 
 down for a minute. The attendant of the day before, who was 
 carrying some jugs of infusion along the corridor, winked his 
 eye as he met her, by way of doing the amiable. 
 
 " Still the same, then ? " said she. 
 
 " Oh ! still the same ! " he replied without stopping. 
 
 She entered, but she remained near the door, because there 
 were some people with Coupeau. The fair, rosy, house surgeon 
 was standing up, having given his chair to a bald old gentle*
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 409 
 
 man who was decorated and had a face like a martin. He was 
 no doubt the head doctor, for his glance was as sharp and 
 piercing as a gimlet. All the dealers in sudden death have a 
 glance like that. 
 
 Gervaise, however, had not come to look at this gentleman, 
 and she stood on tiptoe behind his bald pate, devouring Coupeau 
 with her eyes. This maniac was dancing and yelling still 
 louder than the day before. She remembered having seen in 
 former days, at the balls in mid-Lent, sturdy men from the 
 wash-house cut 'capers for a whole night ; but never, no never, 
 would she have imagined that a man could take pleasure in it 
 so long ; when she talked of pleasure, it was merely a figure of 
 speech, for there is no pleasure in turning somersaults in spite 
 of oneself, as though one had swallowed a powder magazine. 
 Coupeau, soaked with perspiration, smoked more, that was all. 
 His mouth seemed to have grown larger through force of shout- 
 ing. Oh ! ladies in the family way did well to keep outside. 
 He had walked so often from the mattress to the window, that 
 he had made quite a little path along the floor ; the matting 
 was worn away by his old shoes. 
 
 JSTo, really, it was not a pretty sight ; and Gervaise, all in a 
 tremble, asked herself why she had returned. To think that 
 the evening before, they accused her at the Bodies' of exagger- 
 ating the picture ! Ah ! well, sbe had not done half enough ! 
 Now, she saw better how Coupeau set about it, his eyes wide 
 open looking into vacancy, and she would never forget it. She 
 overheard a few words between the house surgeon and the head 
 doctor. The former was giving some details of the night : her 
 husband had talked and thrown himself about, that was what 
 it. amounted to. Then the bald-headed old gentleman, who 
 was not very polite by the way, at length appeared to become 
 aware of her presence ; and when the house surgeon had in- 
 formed him that she was the patient's wife, he began to question 
 her, in the harsh manner of a commissary of police. 
 " Did this man's father drink ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, just a little, like every one. He killed himself by 
 falling from a roof, one day when he was tipsy." 
 "Did his mother drink ?" 
 
 " Well ! sir, like every one else, you know, a drop here, a 
 drop there. Oh 1 the family is very respectable ! There was 
 a brother who died very young in convulsions." 
 
 The doctor looked at her with his piercing eye. .He resumed 
 in his rough voice :
 
 410 THE "ASSOMHOIB.* 
 
 " And you, do you drink 1 " 
 
 Gervaise stammered, protested, and placed her hand upon 
 her heart as though to take her solemn oath. 
 
 " You drink ! Take care, see where drink leads to. One 
 day or other, you will die thus." 
 
 Then, she remained close to the wall. The doctor had 
 turned his back on her. He squatted down, without troubling 
 himself as to whether his overcoat trailed in the dust of the 
 matting; for a long while he studied Coupeau's trembling, 
 waiting for its reappearance, following it with his glance. That 
 day the legs were going in their turn, the trembling had de- 
 scended frona the hands to the feet ; a regular puppet with his 
 strings being pulled, throwing his limbs about whilst the trunk 
 of his body remained as stiff as a piece of wood. The disease 
 increased little by little. It was like a musical box beneath 
 the skin ; it started off every three or four seconds, and rolled 
 along for an instant ; then it stopped, and then it started off 
 again, just the same as the little shiver which shakes stray 
 dogs in winter, when cold and standing in some doorway for 
 protection. Already the middle of the body and the shoulders 
 quivered like water on the point of boiling. It was a funny 
 demolition all the same, going off wriggling like a girl being 
 tickled. 
 
 Coupeau, meanwhile, was complaining in a hollow voice. 
 He seemed to suffer a great deal more than the day before. 
 His broken murmurs disclosed all sorts of ailments. Thousands 
 of pins were pricking him. He felt something heavy all about 
 his body ; some cold wet animal was crawling over his thighs 
 and digging its fangs into his flesh. Then there were other 
 animals sticking to his shoulders, tearing his back with their 
 claws. 
 
 " I'm thirsty, oh ! I'm thirsty ! " groaned he continually. 
 
 The house surgeon handed him a little lemonade from a 
 small shelf, Coupeau seized the mug in both hands, and greedily 
 took a mouthful, spilling half the liquid over himself ; but he 
 spat it out at once, with a furious disgust, exclaiming : 
 
 " Damnation ! it's brandy ! " 
 
 Then, on a sign from the doctor, the house surgeon tried to 
 make him drink some water, without leaving go of the bottle. 
 This time, he swallowed the mouthful, yelling as though he had 
 swallowed fire. 
 
 " It's brandy, damnation ! it's brandy! " 
 
 Since the night before, everything he had had to drink was
 
 . THE "ASSOMMOm." 411 
 
 branly. It redoubled his thirst, and he could no longer drink, 
 because everything burnt him. They had brought him some 
 bro.th, but they were evidently trying to poison him, for the 
 broth smelt of " vitriol." The bread was sour and mouldy. 
 There was nothing but poison around him.. The cell stank of 
 sulphur. He even accused persons of rubbing matches under 
 his nose to infect him. 
 
 . The. doctor had risen and was listening to Coupeau, who was 
 again beholding phantoms at mid-day. Was he not fancying 
 that he saw cobwebs on the walls as big as the sails of a ship ? 
 Then these cobwebs became nets with meshes which grew 
 smaller and larger, a queer sort of plaything ! Black balls 
 passed in and out of the meshes, regular jugglers' balls, at first 
 as small as marbles, and then as big as cannon balls ; and 
 they increased and they decreased in size, just for the sake of 
 bothering him. All on a sudden, he exclaimed : 
 
 "Oh ! the rats, there're the rats, now ! " 
 
 It was the balls changing into rats. These filthy animals 
 got fatter and fatter, passed through the net, and jumped on to 
 the mattress where they disappeared. There was also a 
 monkey which came out of the wall, and went back into the 
 wall, and which approached so near him each time, that 
 he drew back through fear of having his nose bitten off. 
 Suddenly, there was another change, the walls were pro- 
 bably cutting capers, for he yelled out, choking with terror 
 and rage : 
 
 " That's it, gee up ! shake me, I don't care ! Gee up i 
 shanty ! gee up ! tumble down ! Yes, ring the bells, you set 
 of crows ! play the organ to prevent my calling the police ! 
 And they've put a machine behind the wall, the lousy scoun- 
 drels ! I can hear it, it snorts, they're going to blow us up 
 Fire ! damnation ! fire ! There's a cry of fire ! there it 'blazes. 
 Oh ! it's getting lighter, lighter ! all the sky's burning, red 
 fires, green fires, yellow fires Hi ! help ! fire ! " 
 
 His cries became lost in a rattle. He now only mumbled 
 disconnected words, foaming at the mouth, his chin wet with 
 saliva. The doctor rubbed his nose with his finger, a move- 
 ment no doubt habitual with him in the presence of serious 
 cases. He turned to the house surgeon, and asked him in a 
 low voice : 
 
 " And the temperature, still the hundred degrees, is it not ? " 
 
 Yes, sir." 
 
 The doctor pouted. He continued there another two
 
 412 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 minutes, his eyes fixed on Coupeau. Then he shrugged his 
 shoulders, adding : 
 
 " The same treatment, broth, milk, lemonade, and the potion 
 of extract of quinine. Do not leave him, and call me if 
 necessary." 
 
 He went out, and Gervaise followed him, to ask him if there 
 was any hope. But he walked so stiffly along the corridor, 
 that she did not dare approach him. She stood rooted there a 
 minute, hesitating whether to return and look at her husband. 
 The time she had already passed there had been far from 
 pleasant. As she again heard him calling out that the lemonade 
 smelt of brandy, she hurried away, having had enough of the 
 >. performance. In the streets, the galloping of the horses and 
 'the noise of the vehicles made her fancy that all the inmates 
 of Sainte-Anne were at her heels. And that doctor who had 
 threatened her ! Eeally, she already thought she had the 
 complaint. 
 
 In the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, the Boches and the others were 
 naturally awaiting her. The moment she appeared, they called 
 her into the doorkeepers' room. Well ! was old Coupeau still 
 in the land of the living ? Good heavens ! yes, he still lived. 
 Boche seemed amazed and confounded ; he had bet a bottle 
 that old Coupeau would not last till the evening. What ! he 
 still lived ! And they all exhibited their astonishment, and 
 slapped their thighs. There was a fellow who lasted ! Madame 
 Lorilleux reckoned up the hoars : thirty-six hours and twenty- 
 four hours, sixty hours. By Jove ! already sixty hours that he 
 had been performing with his mouth and legs ! Such a feat of 
 strength had never been seen before. But Boche, who was 
 laughing on the wrong side of his mouth because of his bet, 
 questioned Gervaise with an air of doubt, asking her if she was 
 quite sure he had not filed off behind her back. Oh ! no, he 
 had no desire to, he jumped about too much. Then Boche, still 
 doiibting, begged her to show them again a little how he went 
 on, for them to see. Yes, yes, a little more ! the request was 
 general ! the company told her she would be very nice if she 
 would oblige, for just then two neighbours happened to be there 
 who had not been present the day before, and who had come 
 down purposely to see the performance. The doorkeeper called 
 to the persons to make room, they cleared the centre of the 
 apartment, pushing one another with their elbows, and quiver- 
 ing with curiosity. Gervaise, however, hung down her head. 
 Really, she was afraid of making herself ill. Desirous though
 
 TSE "ASSOMMOto." 413 
 
 of showing that she did not refuse for the sake of being pressed, 
 she tried two or three little leaps ; but she became quite queer, 
 and threw herself back; on her word of honour, she was not 
 equal to it ! . There was a murmur of disappointment ; it was 
 a pity, she imitated it perfectly. However, if she could not do 
 it, it was no use insisting ! And, on Virginie returning to her 
 shop, they forgot old Coupeau, to gossip about the Poissons and 
 their home, a regular bear-garden now. The day before, the 
 bailiffs had been ; the policeman was about to lose his place ; 
 as for Lantier, he was now making up to the girl of the eating- 
 house next door, a fine woman, who talked of setting up as a 
 tripe-seller. Ah ! it was amusing, everyone already beheld a tripe- 
 seller occupying the shop ; after sweeties should come something 
 substantial. That cuckold Poisson had a funny head altogether. 
 How, goodness gracious ! could a man, whose business it was 
 to be sharp, be such a noodle in his own home 1 But they 
 suddenly stopped talking on beholding Gervaise, whom they 
 had no longer been watching, and who was going through a 
 portion of her performance all alone in a corner of the room, her 
 hands and feet trembling like Coupeau's. Bravo ! that was it, 
 that was all they wanted. She stood with a bewildered look, 
 as though just awaking from a dream. Then, she went off erect, 
 wishing everyone (good-night. She was going to try and get a 
 little sleep. 
 
 On the morrow, the Boches saw her start off at twelve, the 
 same as on the two previous days. They wished her a pleasant 
 afternoon. That day the corridor at Sainte-Anne positively shook 
 with Coupeau's yells and kicks. She had not left the stairs, 
 when she heard him bellow : 
 
 " What a lot of bugs ! Come this way again that I may v 
 squash you ! Ah ! they want to kill me ! ah ! the bugs ! I'm 
 a bigger swell than the lot of you ! Clear, out, damnation ! 
 clear out ! " 
 
 For a moment she stood panting before the door. Was he then 
 fighting against an army ? When she entered, the performance 
 had increased and embellished. Coupeau was a raving madman, 
 the same as one sees at the Charenton mad-house ! He was 
 throwing himself about in the centre of the cell, placing his 
 hands everywhere, on himself, on the walls, on the floor, turning 
 head over heels, hitting into space ; and he wanted to open the 
 window, and he hid himself, defended himself, called, answered, 
 produced all this uproar without the least assistance, in the 
 exasperated way of a man beset by a mob of people. Then
 
 414 THE " ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 Gervaise understood that he fancied he was on a roof, laying 
 down sheets of zinc. He imitated, the bellows with his mouth, 
 he moved the iron about in the fire, and knelt down so as to 
 pass his thumb along the edges of the mat, thinking that he 
 was soldering it. Yes, his handicraft returned to him at the 
 moment of croaking ; and if he yelled so loud, if he fought on 
 his roof, it was because ugly scoundrels were preventing him 
 doing his work properly. On all the neighbouring roofs were 
 villains mocking and tormenting him. Besides that, the jokers 
 were letting troops of rats loose about his legs. Ah ! the filthy 
 beasts, he saw them always ! Though he kept crushing them, 
 bringing his foot down with all his strength, fresh strings 
 of them continued passing, until they quite covered the roof. 
 And there were spiders there too! He roughly pressed his 
 trousers against his thigh to squash some big spiders which had 
 crept up his leg. Jove's thunder ! he would never finish his 
 day's work, they wanted to destroy him, his employer would 
 send him to the Mazas prison. Then, whilst making haste, he 
 suddenly imagined he had a steam-engine in his stomach ; with 
 his mouth wide open, he puffed out the smoke, a dense smoke 
 which filled the cell, and found an outlet by the window ; and, 
 bending forward, still puffing, he I6oked outside at the cloud of 
 smoke as it unrolled and ascended to the sky, where it hid the 
 sun. 
 
 " Hallo!" cried he, "there's the band of the Chausse"e 
 Clignancourt, disguised as bears, with drums." 
 
 He remained crouching before the window, as though he had 
 been watching a procession in a street, from some house-top. 
 
 " There's the cavalcade, lions and panthers making grimaces 
 there're brats dressed up as dogs and cats there's tall C14- 
 mence, with her wig full of feathers. Ah ! by Jove ! she's turning 
 head over heels, she's showing all she's got ! I say, ducky, let's 
 slope Eh ! you confounded asses, just you leave her alone ! 
 don't fire, thunder ! don't fire " 
 
 His voice rose, hoarse and terrified, and he stooped down 
 quickly, saying that the police and the military were below, men 
 who were aiming at him with rifles. In the wall, he saw the 
 barrel, of a pistol pointed at his chest. They had come to take 
 the girl from him. 
 
 "Don't fire, damnation ! don't fire " 
 
 Then, the houses were falling in, he imitated the cracking of 
 a whole neighbourhood collapsing ; and all disappeared, all flew 
 off. But he had no time to take breath, 'other pictures passed
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 415 
 
 with extraordinary rapidity. A furious desire to speak filled his 
 mouth full of words "winch he uttered without any connection, 
 and with a gurgling sound in his throat. He continued to raise 
 his voice. 
 
 " Hallo, it's you 1 Good-day ! No jokes ! don't make me 
 swallow your hair." 
 
 And he passed his hand before his face, he blew to send the 
 hairs away. The house surgeon questioned him. 
 
 " Who is it you see ? w 
 
 " My wife, of course ! " 
 
 He was looking at the wall, with his back to Gervaise. The 
 latter had a rare fright, and she examined the wall, to see 
 if she also could not catch sight of herself there. He continued 
 talking. 
 
 " Now, you know, none of your wheedling I won't be tied up 
 Jupiter ! you are smart, you have got a fine dress. - Where did 
 you get it from, cow 1 You've been after the men again, camel ! 
 Wait a bit and I'll do for you ! Ah ! you're hiding your gentle- 
 man behind your skirts. Who is it, eh 1 Stoop down that I 
 may see Damnation it's him again ! " 
 
 Taking a terrible spring, he went head first against the wall ; 
 but the padding deadened the blow. One only heard his body 
 rebounding on to the matting, where the shock had sent him. 
 
 " Who is it you see ? " repeated the house surgeon, 
 
 " The hatter ! the hatter ! " yelled Coupeau. 
 
 And the house surgeon questioning Gervaise, the latter stut- 
 tered without being able to answer, for this scene stirred up 
 within her all the worries of her life. The zinc-worker thrust 
 out his fists. 
 
 " We'll settle this between us, young 'un ! It's full time I 
 did for you ! Ah ! you coolly come, with that strumpet on your 
 arm, ,to make a fool of me before everyone. Well ! I'm going 
 to throttle you yes, yes, I ! and without putting any gloves on 
 either ! I'll stop your swaggering. Take that. And hit ! hit ! 
 hit ! " 
 
 He hit ' about in space. Then rage took possession of him. 
 Having bumped against the wall in walking backwards, he 
 thought he was being attacked behind. He turned round, 
 and fiercely hammered away at the padding. He sprang about, 
 jumped from one corner to another, knocked his stomach, his 
 back, his shoulder, rolled over, and picked himself up again. 
 His bones softened,, his .flesh had a sound of damp tow. And 
 he accompanied this pretty game with atrocious threats, and
 
 416 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 
 
 wild and guttural cries. However the battle must have been 
 going badly for him, for his breathing became quicker, his eyes 
 were starting out of his head, and he seemed little by little 
 to be seized with the cowardice of a child. 
 
 " Murder ! murder ! Be off with you both. Oh ! the brutes, 
 they're laughing. There she is on her back, the strumpet ! 
 She must give in, it's settled. Ah ! the brigand, he's murder- 
 ing her ! He's cutting off her leg with his knife. The other 
 leg's on the ground, the stomach's in two, it's full of blood, Oh ! 
 my God oh ! my God oh ! my God- " 
 
 And, covered with perspiration, his hair standing on end, 
 looking. a frightful object, he retired backwards, violently wav- 
 ing his arms, as though to send the abominable sight from him. 
 He uttered two heart-rending wails, and fell flat on his back on 
 the mattress, against which his heels had caught. 
 
 "He's dead, sir,- he's dead!" said Gervaise, clasping her 
 hands. 
 
 The house surgeon had drawn near, and was pulling Coupeau 
 into the middle of the mattress. No, he was not dead. They 
 had taken his shoes off. His bare feet projected at the end, 
 and they were dancing all by themselves, one beside the other, 
 in time, a little hurried and regular dance. 
 
 Just then the head doctor entered. He had brought two of 
 his colleagues one thin, the other fat, and both decorated like 
 himself. All three scooped down without saying a word, and 
 examined the man all over ; then they rapidly conversed to- 
 gether in a low voice. They had uncovered Coupeau from his 
 thighs to his shoulders, and by standing on tiptoe Gervaise 
 could see the naked trunk spread out. Well ! it was complete. 
 The trembling had descended from the arms and ascended from 
 the legs, and now the trunk itself was getting lively ! The 
 puppet was positively wriggling its stomach about as well. 
 There were smiles along the ribs, a breathlessness of the bread- 
 basket, which seemed splitting with laughter. And everything 
 was moving, there was no denying it. The muscles were 
 dancing quadrilles, the skin was vibrating like a drum, the 
 hairs were bowing to each other as they waltzed. In short, it 
 was probably the great clear out, similar to the final gallop, 
 when day breaks and all the dancers hold each other by the 
 hand, and stamp their heels on the floor. 
 
 " He's sleeping," murmured the head doctor. 
 
 And he called the two others' attention to the man's counten- 
 ance. Coupeau, his eyes closed, had little nervous twinges
 
 THE " ASSOMAIOIR." 417 
 
 which drew up all his face. He was more hideous still, thus flat- 
 tened out, with his jaw projecting, and his visage deformed like 
 a corpse's that had suffered from nightmare ; but the doctors, 
 having caught sight of the feet, went and poked their noses 
 over them, with an air of profound interest. The feet were 
 still dancing. Though Coupeau slept the feet ^danced. Oh ! 
 their owner might snore, that did not concern them, they con- 
 tinued their little occupation without either hurrying or 
 slackening. Regular mechanical feet, feet which took their 
 pleasure wherever they found it. 
 
 Gervaise, having seen the doctors place their hands on her old 
 man, wished to feel him also. She approached gently, and laid a 
 hand on his shoulder, and she kept it there a minute. Good 
 heavens 1 whatever was taking place inside ? It danced down 
 into the very depths of the flesh, the bones themselves must 
 have been~jumping. Quiverings, undulations, coming from afar, 
 flowed like a river beneath the skin. When she pressed a little 
 she felt she distinguished the suffering cries of the marrow. 
 With the naked eye one only saw the little waving motions 
 forming dimples, like on the surface of an eddy ; but inside 
 there must have been a precious devastation going on. What 
 confounded work, a work worthy of a mole ! It was the 
 " vitriol " of the " Assommoir " pickaxing away in thera. The 
 whole body was soaked with it, and well 1 the work had to be 
 finished, crumbling up Coupeau, and carrying him off in the 
 general and continuous trembling of the entire carcass. 
 
 The doctors had gone away. At the end of an hour Gervaise, 
 who had remained with the house surgeon, repeated in a lowvoice, 
 
 " He's dead, sir he's dead ! " 
 
 But the house surgeon, who was watching the feet, shook his 
 head. The bare feet, projecting beyond the mattress, still 
 danced on. They were not particularly clean, and the nails 
 were long. Several more hours passed. All on a sudden they 
 stiffened and became motionless. Then the house surgeon 
 turned towards Gervaise, saying, 
 
 " It's over now." 
 
 Death alone had been able to stop those feet. 
 
 When Gervaise got back to the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, she 
 found, at the Boches', a number of women who were cackling 
 in excited tones. She thought they were awaiting her to have 
 the latest news, the same as the other days. 
 
 " He's croaked," said she, quietly, as she pushed open the 
 door, looking tired out and stupid. 
 
 2D
 
 416 THE "ASSOMMOffi." 
 
 But no one listened to her. The whole household was topsy- 
 turvy. Oh ! a most extraordinary story. Poisson had caught 
 his wife with Lantier. Exact details were not known, because 
 everyone had a different version. However, he had appeared 
 before them just when they were not expecting him. Some 
 further information was given which the ladies repeated to one 
 another as they pursed their lips. A sight like that had 
 naturally brought Poisson out of his shell He was a regular 
 tiger ! This man, who talked but little and who always seemed 
 to walk with a stick up his back, had begun to roar and jump 
 about. Then nothing more had been heard. Lantier had most 
 likely explained the matter to the husband. Anyhow, it could 
 not last much longer ; and Boche announced that the girl of 
 the eating-house next door was for certain going to take the 
 shop for selling tripe. That rogue of a hatter adored tripe. 
 
 On seeing Madame Lorilleux and Madame Lerat arrive, 
 Gervaise repeated faintly : 
 
 " He's croaked. Gracious goodness I four days dancing and 
 yelling " 
 
 Then the two sisters could not do otherwise than pull out 
 their handkerchiefs. Their brother had had many faults, but 
 after all he was their brother. Boche shrugged his shoulders, 
 and said loud enough to be heard by every one : 
 
 " Bah ! it's a drunkard the less ! " 
 
 From that day, as Gervaise often got a bit cracked, one of 
 the amusements of the house was to see her imitate Coupeau. 
 It was no longer necessary to press her, she gave the perform- 
 ance gratis, her hands and feet trembling as she uttered little 
 involuntary shrieks. No doubt she had caught that at Saiute- 
 Anne, through looking at her old man too long. But she was 
 not lucky, it did not kill her as it did him. It went no further 
 than making grimaces like an escaped monkey, which caused 
 the street urchins to pelt her with cabbage stalks. 
 
 Gervaise lasted in this state several months. She fell lower 
 and lower still, submitting to the grossest outrages, and dying 
 of starvation a little every day. As soon as she had four sous, 
 she drank and fought the walls. She was employed on all the 
 dirty errands of the neighbourhood. One evening some one 
 bet she would not eat something filthy, and she had eaten it to 
 earn ten sous. M. Marescot had decided to turn her out of her 
 room on the sixth floor. But, as old Bru was just about that 
 time found dead in his hole under the staircase, the landlord 
 had allowed her to turn into it. Now, she roosted there in
 
 8 
 
 R 
 
 a 
 
 p 
 
 H 
 
 J2 
 
 < 
 
 s 
 
 p 
 
 a
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR." 419 
 
 the place of old Bru. It was inside there, on some old straw, 
 that her teeth chattered, whilst her stomach was empty and 
 her bones were frozen. The earth would not have her appar- 
 ently. She was becoming idiotic, she did not even think of 
 making an end of herself by jumping out of the sixth floor 
 window on to the pavement of the courtyard below. Death 
 was to take her little by little, bit by bit, dragging her thus to 
 the end through the accursed existence she had made for 
 herself. It was never even exactly known what she did die 
 of. There was some talk of a cold ; but the truth was she 
 died of privation, and of the filth and hardship of her spoilt 
 life. Overgorging and dissoluteness killed her, according to 
 the Lorilleux. One morning, as there was a bad smell in the 
 passage, it was remembered that she had not been seen for two 
 days, and she was discovered already green in her hole. 
 
 It happened to be old Bazouge who came with the pauper's 
 coffin under his arm to pack her up. He was again precious 
 drunk that day, but a jolly fellow all the same, and as lively as 
 a cricket. When he recognised the customer he had to deal 
 with, he uttered several philosophical reflections whilst perform- 
 ing his little business. 
 
 " Every one goes. There's no occasion for jostling, there's 
 room for every one. And it's stupid being in a hurry, because 
 one does not arrive so quick. All I want to do is ,to please 
 everybody. Some will, others won't. What's the result ? 
 There's one who wouldn't, then she would. So she was made 
 to wait. , Anyhow, it's all right now, and, faith ! she's earned 
 it! Merrily \" 
 
 And when he took hold of Gervaise in his big dirty hands he 
 was seized with emotion, and he gently raised this woman who 
 had had so great a longing for him. Then, as he laid her out 
 with paternal care at the bottom of the coffin, he stuttered, bs- 
 tween two hiccoughs : 
 
 "You know now listen it's me, Bibi-the-Gay, called the 
 ladies' consoler. There, you're happy. Go by-by, my 
 beauty 1 " 
 
 THE END.
 
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 ILLUSTRATED WITH 16 FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS BY VARIOUS ARTISTS. 
 
 CONTENTS : 
 
 L A Pew Hours in the Delightful City. 
 II. Life at Marseilles. 
 lit. Southern Fare and Bouillabaisse. 
 IV. Nice and its Nefarious Neighbour. 
 V. Quito Another Nice. 
 VL I^om Nice to Bastia. 
 VH. -On Shore at Bastia. 
 VIII. The Diligence come to Life again. 
 IX. Sunday at Ajaccio. 
 X. The Hotel too soon. 
 XI. The House in St. Charles Street, 
 
 Ajaccio. 
 
 XII. A Winter City. 
 XIIL Genoa the Superb: the City of the 
 
 Leaning Tower. 
 XIV. Austere Bologna. 
 XV. A Day of the Dead. 
 
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 XVII. The two Homes. I. The Old. 
 XVIII. The Two Romes. II. The New. 
 XIX. The Two Homes. II.TheNew(cont.). 
 XX The Roman Season. 
 XX I. In the Vatican : Mosaics. 
 XXII. With the Tmppisbi in' the Cam- 
 
 pagna. 
 
 XXIII. From Naples to PompeiL 
 XXIV. The Show of a Long-Buried Past. 
 XXV. The " MoYimento " of Naples. 
 XXVI. In the Shade. 
 XXVII. Spring Time in Paris. 
 XXVIII." To All the Glories of France." 
 XXIX.-Le Roi Spleil and La Bell* Hour- 
 
 bonnalse. 
 XXX. A Queen's Plaything.
 
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 SOCIAL PHOTOGRAPHS. 
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 ILLUSTRATED WITH ABOUT 300 ENGRAVINGS BY WELL-KNOWN ARTISTS. 
 
 CdtMTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
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 A Widow with a Nice Little Estate An TJnniercenary.Pair of Jilts, 
 
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 Bella Martingale Pious Mrs. Palmhold Mrs. Decoy Mrs. Lawkins. 
 
 PUBLIC SCHOOLBOYS AND UNDERGRADUATES :-Drawbacks of Eton 
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 Undergraduates University Discipline Sporting and Athletic Undergraduates Reading and 
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 SOME WOMEN I HAVE KNOWN : An Ex-BeautyMiss Jenny Mndemolselk 
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 ROUGHS OF HIGH AND LOW DEGREE ; How Roughs are Made-The Noble- 
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 THE CORSARS; OR, LOVE AND LUCRE. 
 
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 AUTHOR or " THE WATERS OF MARAH," " SALLY," &c. 
 
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 PEOPLE I HAVE MET. . 
 
 BY E. C. GRENVILLE-MURRAY. 
 
 Illustrated with 64 tinted Page Engravings, from Designs by FRED, BARNARD. 
 
 The Old Iparl, 
 
 The Dowager. 
 
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 The College Don. 
 
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 The Ornamental Director.' 
 
 The Old Mali 
 
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 The Rector. The Doctor. The Bachelor. 
 
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 The Grandmother. 
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 The Butler. 
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 BY GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. 
 
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 Outward Bound. In Richmond The Wonderful Prairie City. 
 
 Thanksgi ving Day In New York. Genial Richmond. The Home of the Setting Sun, 
 
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 " This book is one of the most readable that has appeared for many a day. Few Englishmen 
 know so much of old and modern Paris as Mr. gala. Endowed with a facility to extract humour 
 from every phase of the world's stage, and blessed with a wondrous store of recondite lore.be 
 outdoes himself when he deals with a city like Paris that he knows so well, and that affords, such 
 an opportunity r f or bis pen." Truth. ' , 
 
 '"Paris Herself Again* is infinitely more amusing than most novels, and will give you 
 information which you can turn to advantage, and innumerable anecdotes for the dinner-table and 
 the smoking-room. There is no style so chatty and. so unwearying as that of which Mr. Sala is a 
 master." The World.
 
 12 VIZETELLY & CO.'S RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 ZOLA'S POWERFUL REALISTIC NOVELS. 
 
 In Crown Svo, price 6s. each. 
 
 PIPING HOT!, 
 
 ("POT-BOUILLE.") 
 
 Translated from the 63rd French edition. Illustrated with Sixteen Page 
 Engravings Try French Artists. 
 
 NANA: 
 
 TRANSLATED WITHOUT? ABRIDGMENT FROM THE 127TH FRENCH EDITION. 
 Illustrated with Twenty-Four Tinted Page Engravings, by French Artists, 
 
 Mr. HENRY JAMES on "NANA." 
 
 41 A novelist with a system, a. passionate conviction, a greM plan incontestable attributes of 
 M. Zola is not now to be easily found in England or the United States, where the story-teller's 
 art is almost exclusively feminine, is mainly in the hands of timid (even when very accomplished) 
 women, whose acquaintance with life is severely restricted, and who are not conspicuous for 
 general views. . The novel, moreover, among ourselves, is almost always addressed to young 
 unmarried ladies, or at least always assumes them to be a large part of the novelist's public. 
 
 " This fact, to a French story-teller, appears, of course, a damnable restriction, and M. Zola 
 would probably decline to take au itrieux any work produced under such unnatural conditions. 
 Half of life is a sealed book to young unmarried ladies, and how can a novel be worth anything 
 that deals only with half of life? These objections are perfectly valid, and it may be said that 
 our English system is 'a good thing for virgins and boys, and a bad thing for the novel itself, 
 when the novel is regarded as something 'more than a simple jeu etprit, and considered as a 
 composition that treats of life at large and helps us to l.-now." 
 
 THE "ASSOMMOIR;" 
 
 (The Prelude to " 
 
 TRANSLATED WITHOUT ABRIDGMENT FROM THE 97TH FRENCH EDITION. 
 Illustrated with Sixteen Tinted Page Engravings, by French Artists. : 
 
 " After reading Zola's novels it seems as if in all others, even in the truest, there were a veil 
 between the reader and the things described, and there is present to our minds the same diff erenco 
 as exists between the representations of human faces on canvas and the reflection of the same 
 faces in a mirror. It is like finding truth for the first time. 
 
 "Zola is one of the most moral novelists in France, and it is really astonishing how anyone 
 can doubt this. He makes us note the smell of vice, not its perfume : his nude figures are those 
 of the anatomical table, which do not inspire the slightest immoral thought ; there is not one of 
 his books,] not even the crudest, that does not leave behind it pure, firm, and unmistakable 
 aversion, or scorn, for the base passions of which he treats." Signer dt Amidt. 
 
 The above are published without the Illustrations, price 5s. each. 
 
 In Preparation. Uniform with the above Volumes. 
 
 THE RUSH FOR THE SPOIL, 
 GERMINAL; OR, MASTER AND MAN. 
 THERESE RAQUIN.
 
 VIZETELLY a* CO.'S RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 13 
 
 THE AEBIVAL OF THE ELEVEN YOUNG MEN AT NANA S EVENING PAETY,
 
 14 VIZETELLY S* CO:S RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 In large 8vo, handsomely bound and gilt, price 7s. Qd. 
 A KEW ILLUSTRATED 'EDITION OF M. EMILE ZOLA'S REALISTIC NOVEL, 
 
 ' NAN A. 
 
 Illustrated with upwards of 100 Engravings, nearly half of which are full-page. 
 
 TO BE FOLLOWED BY ILLUSTRATED EDITIONS OP 
 
 tHE "ASSOMMOIR," PIPING HOT, 
 
 AND THE REST OFJM. ZOLA'S MORE POPULAR WORKS, 
 
 JTn "Grown Bvo, handsomely bound and gilt, price 6s., the Third and Completely 
 
 Revised Edition of 
 
 THE STORY OF 
 
 THE DIAMOND NECKLACE, 
 
 COMPRISING A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF THE COUNTESS DE LA MOTTE, PRE* 
 
 TENDED CONFIDANTE OF MARIE'ANTOTNETTE, WITH PARTICULARS OF THE 
 
 .CAREERS OF THE OTHER ACTORS IN THIS REMARKABLE DRAMA. 
 
 $Y HENRY VIZETELLY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " BERLIN UNDER THE NEW EMPIRE," " PARIS IN PERIL," Ac. 
 
 niuslraled with an Exact Representation of the Diamond Necklace, from a contemporary 
 'Drawing, and a Portrait of tJie Countess de la Motte, engraved on Steel. 
 
 *'Mr. yizetelly's 'tale has all the interest of a romance which is too strange not to be true. 
 . . . His summing up of the evidence, both negative and positive, which exculpates Marie- 
 Antoinette from any complicity whatever with the scandalous intrigue in which she was 
 i-epresented as bearing a part, is admirable." Saturday Review. 
 
 "We can, without fear of contradiction, describe Mr. Henry Vizetelly's 'Story of the 
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 with skill and faithfulness, but also with tact and delicacy." Standard 
 
 "Had the most daring of our sensational novelists put forth the present plain unvarnished 
 statement of facts as a work of fiction, it would have been denounced as so violating all 
 probabilities as to be a positive insult to the common sense of the reader. Yet strange, startling, 
 incomprehensible as is the narrative which the author has here evolved, every word of it is true." 
 Notet and Queries. 
 
 .Z Large Crown 8vo, luindsomcly printed and bound, pi'ice 6*. 
 
 . tHE AMUSING 
 
 ADVENTURES OF GUZMAN OF ALFARAQUE. 
 
 .'." 4: SPANISH NOVEL. TRANSLATED BY EDWAED LOWDELL. 
 
 HIGHLY-FINISHED fNGRAVIHGS ON STEEL FROM DESIGNS BY STAHL. 
 
 *'i?he wit,"vivacity and variety of this masterpiece cannot be over-estimated." Morning Poft. 
 " A very well executed translation of a famous ' Rogue's Progress." 1 Spectator. 
 "The story is infinitely amusing, and illustrated as it is with several excellent designs on 
 eteel, it will be acceptable to a good many readers." Scotsman,
 
 VIZETELLY fr CO.'S RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 15 
 In Crown 8vo, attractively bound, price 2s. Gd. 
 
 THE RED CROSS, AND OTHER STORIES. 
 
 BT LTJIGI. 
 
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 " The plans of the tales are excellent. Many of the incidents are admirable, and there is a 
 good deal of pathos in the writing." Scotsman. 
 
 In Two Volumes, post Sro, price 10s. &d. 
 
 SOCIETY NOVELETTES. 
 
 By F. C. BURNAND, H. SAVILE CLARKE, E. E. FEANC1LLON, JOSEPH HATTON, 
 RICHARD JEFFEEIES, the Author of " A French Heiress in her own Chateau," fcc. &c. 
 
 -Illustrated with numerous Page and otJter Engravings, from Designs ly 
 It, Caldecott, ILinley Sambourne, M. E. Edwards, F. Dadd, &c. 
 
 "The reader will not be disappointed in the hopes raised by Messrs. Vise telly's pleasing 
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 reader might be sure of the unusual interest and amusement which these volumes supply." 
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 In Crown 8w, price 3s. Qd. 
 A NEW EDITION, COMPRISING MUCH ADDITIONAL: MATTER, OF 
 
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 LAYS OF THE SAINTLY; 
 
 OE, THE NEW GOLDEN LEGEND. 
 By the LONDON HERMIT (W. PARKE), 
 
 WITS SUMOEOUS ILLUSTRATIONS SY J. LEITCS. 
 
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 In Post 8t > 0,^7 t wje 2. Qd. 
 
 THE CHILDISHNESS AND BRUTALITY OF 
 
 THE TIME: 
 
 SOME PLAIN TETJTHS IN PLAIN LANGUAGE. 
 By HAKGBAVE JENNINGS, Author of "The Eosicrucians, " &c. 
 
 "Mr. Jennings has a knack of writing in good, racy, trenchant style. His sketch of behind 
 the scenes of the Opera, and his story of a mutiny on board an Indiaman of the old time, arc 
 penned with surprising freshness and spirit" Daily Ntws.
 
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 In Demy ito, handsomely printed and bound, with gilt edges, price 12s. 
 
 A HISTORY OF CHAMPAGNE; 
 
 WITH NOTES ON THE OTHER SPARKLING WINES OF FRANCE, 
 BY HENRY VIZETELLY. 
 
 CHEVALIER op THE OIIDER OF FRANZ-JOSEF. 
 
 WINE JTJKOB FOR GREAT BRITAIN AT THE VIENNA AND PARIS EXHIBITIONS OF 1878 AND 1878. 
 
 Illustrated with 350 Engravings, 
 
 FROM ORIGINAL SKETCHES AND PHOTOGRAPHS, ANCIENT MSS., EARLY PRINTED 
 BOOKS, RARE PRINTS, CARICATURES, ETC. 
 
 "A very agreeable medley of history, anecdote, geographical description, and such like 
 matter, distinguished by an accuracy not often found in such medleys, and illustrated in the 
 most abundant and pleasingly miscellaneous fashion." Daily Neust. 
 
 "Mr. Henry Viaetelly's handsome book about Champagne and other sparkling wines of 
 France is full of curious information and amusement. It should be widely read and appreciated. " 
 Saturday Review. . . . 
 
 " Mr. Henry Vizetelly has written a quarto volume on the ' History of Champagne,' In 
 which he has collected a large number of facts, many of them very curious and interesting. Many 
 of the woodcut* are excellent." Athenaeum. 
 
 In large imperial 8vo, price 6d. 
 
 THE SOCIAL ZOO; 
 
 SATIRICAL, SOCIAL, AND HUMOROUS SKETCHES BY THE BEST WRITERS. 
 Copiously Illustrated in Many Styles by well-known Artists. 
 
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 OUR GILDED. YOUTH. By E. C. GRENYILLE-MURRAY NICE GIRLS. By 
 
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 FLIRTS. By E. C. GRENVILLE-MURRAY OUR SILVERED YOUTH. 
 
 By E. C. GRENVILLE-MURRAY MILITARY MEN AS THEY WERE. 
 
 By E. DYNE FENTON. 
 
 In doiibk volumes, bound in scarlet cloth, price 2s. Gd. each. 
 NEW EDITIONS OF 
 
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 1,-THE MYSTERY OF ORCIVAL AND THE GILDED CLiaUE. 
 
 . LECOQ, THE DETECTIVE. 
 
 3.-DOSSIER NO. 113, AND THE LITTLE OLD MAN OF BATIG- 
 
 NOLLES. 
 
 4.-THE SLAVES OF PAKIS. 
 
 5.-THE LEROUGE CASE, AND OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY. 
 6.-THE COUNT'S MILLIONS. 7.-THE CATASTROPHE. 
 
 Uniform with the above, 
 
 THE OLD AGE OF LECOQ, THE DETECTIVE. 
 BY'F. DU BOISGOBEY.
 
 VIZETELLY &* CO.'S RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 17 
 
 fa, Small Post 8w, ornamental covers, Is. each. 
 
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 Miss Braddon And Gaboriau I " 
 
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 "M. Gaboriau is a skilful and brilliant writer, capable of so diverting the attention and 
 interest of his readers that not one word or line in his book will be skipped 'or road care- 
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 OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY. 
 
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 deal of art." London Figaro. 
 
 XECOQ THE DETECTIVE. Twovois. 
 
 "" In the art of forging a tangled chain of complicated incidents involved and in- 
 explicable until the last link is reached and the whole made clear, Mr. Wilkie Collins 
 is equalled, if not excelled, by M. Gaboriau. The same skill in constructing a story is 
 shown by both, as likewise the same ability to build up a superstructure of faets on a 
 foundation which, sound euough in appearance, is shattered when the long-concealed 
 touchstone of truth is at length applied to it." Brighton Herald. 
 
 THE GILDED CLIQUE. 
 
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 fascinating book." Hampshire Advertiser. 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF ORCIVAL. 
 
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 result. The ability displayed is unquestionable." Sheffield Independent. 
 
 DOSSIER NO. 113. 
 
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 never allowed to flag." Dumbarton Herald. 
 
 .THE LITTLE OLD MAN OF BATIGNOLLES. 
 THE SLAVES OF PARIS. Twovok 
 
 " Sensational, full of interest, cleverly conceived and wrought out with consummate 
 skill." Otford and Cambridge Journal. 
 
 THE COUNT'S MILLIONS. Twovok 
 INTRIGUES OF A FEMALE POISONER. 
 -THE CATASTROPHE.
 
 18 VIZETELLY fr CO.'S RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Publishing in Afonthly Volumes, Is. each. 
 TTNIFORM WITH GABOBIATTS SENSATIONAL NOVELS. 
 
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 FROMONT THE YOUNGER & RISLER THE ELDER. By 
 
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 SAMUEL BROHL AND PARTNER. By V, CHERBULIEZ. 
 
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 " Those who have read this singular story in the original need not be reminded of that 
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 VIZETELLY & CO.'S DECENT PUBLICATIONS. 19 
 
 fAYWARD DOSIA, & THE GENEROUS DIPLOMATIST. 
 
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 A NEW LEASE OF LIFE, & SAVING A DAUGHTER'S 
 
 DOWRY. By E. ABOUT. 
 
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 A WOMAN'S DIARY, & THE LITTLE COUNTESS. By 
 
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 story never flags." lift. 
 
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 GEORGE SAND. 
 
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 Eluttrated London Saw. 
 
 THE LOW-BORN LOVER'S REVENGE. By V. CHEBBULIEZ. 
 
 " ' The Low-born Lover's Bevenge ' is one of M. Cherbuliez's many exquisitely written 
 productions. The studies of human nature under -various influences, especially in the 
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 trated London A'etes. 
 
 THE NOTARY'S NOSE, AND OTHER AMUSING STORIES. 
 
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 DOCTOR CLAUDE ; OR, LOVE RENDERED DESPERATE. 
 
 By H. MALOT. Two yols. 
 
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 20 VIZETELLY 6- CO.'S DECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
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 TO THE FALL OF KHARTOUM AND THE DEATH 
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 Price Is. 6d. ornamental cover ; or 2s. 6d. in elegant cloth binding. 
 
 FACTS ABOUT PORT AND MADEIRA, 
 
 GLEANED DURING A TOUB IN THE AUTUMN OF 1877. 
 
 BY HENRY VIZETELLY. 
 
 WINE JUROR FOR GREAT BRITAIN AT THE VIENNA AND PARIS EXHIBITIONS OF 1S73 AND 1878. 
 With 100 Illustrations from Original Sketches and Photographs. 
 
 . BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 Price Is. 6d. ornamental cover ; or 2s. 6d. in elegant cloth binding. 
 
 FACTS ABOUT CHAMPAGNE 
 
 AND OTHER SPARKLING WINES, 
 
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 FACTS ABOUT SHERRY, 
 
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