L’Assommoir by Emile Zola (page 3)

women are here, and–“

But he could say no more; Gervaise quietly laid one hand on his mouth and the other on his shoulder and pushed him toward his room. He struggled a little and with a silly laugh asked if Clemence was not coming too.

Gervaise undressed her husband and tucked him up in bed as if he had been a child and then returned to her fluting irons in time to still a grand dispute that was going on about an iron that had not been properly cleaned.

In the profound silence that followed her appearance she could hear her husband’s thick voice:

“What a silly wife I’ve got! The idea of putting me to bed in broad daylight!”

Suddenly he began to snore, and Gervaise uttered a sigh of relief. She used her fluting iron for a minute and then said quietly:

“There is no need of being offended by anything a man does when he is in this state. He is not an accountable being. He did not intend to insult you. Clemence, you know what a tipsy man is–he respects neither father nor mother.”

She uttered these words in an indifferent, matter-of-fact way, not in the least disturbed that he had forgotten the respect due to her and to her roof and really seeing no harm in his conduct.

The work now went steadily on, and Gervaise calculated they would be finished by eleven o’clock. The heat was intense; the smell of charcoal deadened the air, while the branch of white lilies slowly faded and filled the room with their sweetness.

The day after all this Coupeau had a frightful headache and did not rise until late, too late to go to his work. About noon he began to feel better, and toward evening was quite himself. His wife gave him some silver and told him to go out and take the air, which meant with him taking some wine.

One glass washed down another, but he came home as gay as a lark and quite disgusted with the men he had seen who were drinking themselves to death.

“Where is your lover?” he said to his wife as he entered the shop. This was his favorite joke. “I never see him nowadays and must hunt him up.”

He meant Goujet, who came but rarely, lest the gossips in the neighborhood should take it upon themselves to gabble. Once in about ten days he made his appearance in the evening and installed himself in a corner in the back shop with his pipe. He rarely spoke but laughed at all Gervaise said.

On Saturday evenings the establishment was kept open half the night. A lamp hung from the ceiling with the light thrown down by a shade. The shutters were put up at the usual time, but as the nights were very warm the door was left open, and as the hours wore on the women pulled their jackets open a little more at the throat, and he sat in his corner and looked on as if he were at a theater.

The silence of the street was broken by a passing carriage. Two o’clock struck–no longer a sound from outside. At half-past two a man hurried past the door, carrying with him a vision of flying arms, piles of white linen and a glow of yellow light.

Goujet, wishing to save Etienne from Coupeau’s rough treatment, had taken him to the place where he was employed to blow the bellows, with the prospect of becoming an apprentice as soon as he was old enough, and Etienne thus became another tie between the clearstarcher and the blacksmith.

All their little world laughed and told Gervaise that her friend worshiped the very ground she trod upon. She colored and looked like a girl of sixteen.

“Dear boy,” she said to herself, “I know he loves me, but never has he said or will he say a word of the kind to me!” And she was proud of being loved in this way. When she was disturbed about anything her first thought was to go to him. When by chance they were left alone together they were never disturbed by wondering if their friendship verged on love. There was no harm in such affection.

Nana was now six years old and a most troublesome little sprite. Her mother took her every morning to a school in the Rue Polonceau, to a certain Mlle Josse. Here she did all manner of mischief. She put ashes into the teacher’s snuffbox, pinned the skirts of her companions together. Twice the young lady was sent home in disgrace and then taken back again for the sake of the six francs each month. As soon as school hours were over Nana revenged herself for the hours of enforced quiet she had passed by making the most frightful din in the courtyard and the shop.

She found able allies in Pauline and Victor Boche. The whole great house resounded with the most extraordinary noises–the thumps of children falling downstairs, little feet tearing up one staircase and down another and bursting out on the sidewalk like a band of pilfering, impudent sparrows.

Mme Gaudron alone had nine–dirty, unwashed and unkempt, their stockings hanging over their shoes and the slits in their garments showing the white skin beneath. Another woman on the fifth floor had seven, and they came out in twos and threes from all the rooms. Nana reigned over this band, among which there were some half grown and others mere infants. Her prime ministers were Pauline and Victor; to them she delegated a little of her authority while she played mamma, undressed the youngest only to dress them again, cuffed them and punished them at her own sweet will and with the most fantastic disposition. The band pranced and waded through the gutter that ran from the dyehouse and emerged with blue or green legs. Nana decorated herself and the others with shavings from the cabinetmaker’s, which they stole from under the very noses of the workmen.

The courtyard belonged to all of these children, apparently, and resounded with the clatter of their heels. Sometimes this courtyard, however, was not enough for them, and they spread in every direction to the infinite disgust of Mme Boche, who grumbled all in vain. Boche declared that the children of the poor were as plentiful as mushrooms on a dung heap, and his wife threatened them with her broom.

One day there was a terrible scene. Nana had invented a beautiful game. She had stolen a wooden shoe belonging to Mme Boche; she bored a hole in it and put in a string, by which she could draw it like a cart. Victor filled it with apple parings, and they started forth in a procession, Nana drawing the shoe in front, followed by the whole flock, little and big, an imp about the height of a cigar box at the end. They all sang a melancholy ditty full of “ahs” and “ohs.” Nana declared this to be always the custom at funerals.

“What on earth are they doing now?” murmured Mme Boche suspiciously, and then she came to the door and peered out.

“Good heavens!” she cried. “It is my shoe they have got.”

She slapped Nana, cuffed Pauline and shook Victor. Gervaise was filling a bucket at the fountain, and when she saw Nana with her nose bleeding she rushed toward the concierge and asked how she dared strike her child.

The concierge replied that anyone who had a child like that had best keep her under lock and key. The end of this was, of course, a complete break between the old friends.

But, in fact, the quarrel had been growing for a month. Gervaise, generous by nature and knowing the tastes of the Boche people, was in the habit of making them constant presents–oranges, a little hot soup, a cake or something of the kind. One evening, knowing that the concierge would sell her soul for a good salad, she took her the remains of a dish of beets and chicory. The next day she was dumfounded at hearing from Mlle Remanjon how Mme Boche had thrown the salad away, saying that she was not yet reduced to eating the leavings of other people! From that day forth Gervaise sent her nothing more. The Boches had learned to look on her little offerings as their right, and they now felt themselves to be robbed by the Coupeaus.

It was not long before Gervaise realized she had made a mistake, for when she was one day late with her October rent Mme Boche complained to the proprietor, who came blustering to her shop with his hat on. Of course, too, the Lorilleuxs extended the right hand of fellowship at once to the Boche people.

There came a day, however, when Gervaise found it necessary to call on the Lorilleuxs. It was on Mamma Coupeau’s account, who was sixty-seven years old, nearly blind and helpless. They must all unite in doing something for her now. Gervaise thought it a burning shame that a woman of her age, with three well-to-do children, should be allowed for a moment to regard herself as friendless and forsaken. And as her husband refused to speak to his sister, Gervaise said she would.

She entered the room like a whirlwind, without knocking. Everything was just as it was on that night when she had been received by them in a fashion which she had never forgotten or forgiven. “I have come,” cried Gervaise, “and I dare say you wish to know why, particularly as we are at daggers drawn. Well then, I have come on Mamma Coupeau’s account. I have come to ask if we are to allow her to beg her bread from door to door—-“

“Indeed!” said Mme Lorilleux with a sneer, and she turned away.

But Lorilleux lifted his pale face.

“What do you mean?” he asked, and as he had understood perfectly, he went on:

“What is this cry of poverty about? The old lady ate her dinner with us yesterday. We do all we can for her, I am sure. We have not the mines of Peru within our reach, but if she thinks she is to run to and fro between our houses she is much mistaken. I, for one, have no liking for spies.” He then added as he took up his microscope, “When the rest of you agree to give five francs per month toward her support we will do the same.” Gervaise was calmer now; these people always chilled the very marrow in her bones, and she went on to explain her views. Five francs were not enough for each of the old lady’s children to pay. She could not live on fifteen francs per month.

“And why not?” cried Lorilleux. “She ought to do so. She can see well enough to find the best bits in a dish before her, and she can do something toward her own maintenance.” If he had the means to indulge such laziness he should not consider it his duty to do so, he added.

Then Gervaise grew angry again. She looked at her sister-in-law and saw her face set in vindictive firmness.

“Keep your money,” she cried. “I will take care of your mother. I found a starving cat in the street the other night and took it in. I can take in your mother too. She shall want for nothing. Good heavens, what people!”

Mme Lorilleux snatched up a saucepan.

“Clear out,” she said hoarsely. “I will never give one sou–no, not one sou–toward her keep. I understand you! You will make my mother work for you like a slave and put my five francs in your pocket! Not if I know it, madame! And if she goes to live under your roof I will never see her again. Be off with you, I say!”

“What a monster!” cried Gervaise as she shut the door with a bang. On the very next day Mme Coupeau came to her. A large bed was put in the room where Nana slept. The moving did not take long, for the old lady had only this bed, a wardrobe, table and two chairs. The table was sold and the chairs new-seated, and the old lady the evening of her arrival washed the dishes and swept up the room, glad to make herself useful. Mme Lerat had amused herself by quarreling with her sister, to whom she had expressed her admiration of the generosity evinced by Gervaise, and when she saw that Mme Lorilleux was intensely exasperated she declared she had never seen such eyes in anybody’s head as those of the clearstarcher. She really believed one might light paper at them. This declaration naturally led to bitter words, and the sisters parted, swearing they would never see each other again, and since then Mme Lerat had spent most of her evenings at her brother’s.

Three years passed away. There were reconciliations and new quarrels. Gervaise continued to be liked by her neighbors; she paid her bills regularly and was a good customer. When she went out she received cordial greetings on all sides, and she was more fond of going out in these days than of yore. She liked to stand at the corners and chat. She liked to loiter with her arms full of bundles at a neighbor’s window and hear a little gossip.

CHAPTER VI

GOUJET AT HIS FORGE

One autumnal afternoon Gervaise, who had been to carry a basket of clothes home to a customer who lived a good way off, found herself in La Rue des Poissonniers just as it was growing dark. It had rained in the morning, and the air was close and warm. She was tired with her walk and felt a great desire for something good to eat. Just then she lifted her eyes and, seeing the name of the street, she took it into her head that she would call on Goujet at his forge. But she would ask for Etienne, she said to herself. She did not know the number, but she could find it, she thought. She wandered along and stood bewildered, looking toward Montmartre; all at once she heard the measured click of hammers and concluded that she had stumbled on the place at last. She did not know where the entrance to the building was, but she caught a gleam of a red light in the distance; she walked toward it and was met by a workman.

“Is it here, sir,” she said timidly, “that my child–a little boy, that is to say–works? A little boy by the name of Etienne?”

“Etienne! Etienne!” repeated the man, swaying from side to side. The wind brought from him to her an intolerable smell of brandy, which caused Gervaise to draw back and say timidly:

“Is it here that Monsieur Goujet works?”

“Ah, Goujet, yes. If it is Goujet you wish to see go to the left.”

Gervaise obeyed his instructions and found herself in a large room with the forge at the farther end. She spoke to the first man she saw, when suddenly the whole room was one blaze of light. The bellows had sent up leaping flames which lit every crevice and corner of the dusty old building, and Gervaise recognized Goujet before the forge with two other men. She went toward him.

“Madame Gervaise!” he exclaimed in surprise, his face radiant with joy, and then seeing his companions laugh and wink, he pushed Etienne toward his mother. “You came to see your boy,” he said; “he does his duty like a hero.

“I am glad of it,” she answered, “but what an awful place this is to get at!”

And she described her journey, as she called it, and then asked why no one seemed to know Etienne there.

“Because,” said the blacksmith, “he is called Zou Zou here, as his hair is cut short as a Zouave’s.”

This visit paid by Gervaise to the forge was only the first of many others. She often went on Saturdays when she carried the clean linen to Mme Goujet, who still resided in the same house as before. The first year Gervaise had paid them twenty francs each month, or rather the difference between the amount of their washing, seven or eight francs, and the twenty which she agreed upon. In this way she had paid half the money she had borrowed, when one quarter day, not knowing to whom to turn, as she had not been able to collect her bills punctually, she ran to the Goujets’ and borrowed the amount of her rent from them. Twice since she had asked a similar favor, so that the amount of her indebtedness now stood at four hundred and twenty-five francs.

Now she no longer paid any cash but did their washing. It was not that she worked less hard or that her business was falling off. Quite the contrary; but money had a way of melting away in her hands, and she was content nowadays if she could only make both ends meet. What was the use of fussing, she thought? If she could manage to live that was all that was necessary. She was growing quite stout withal.

Mme Goujet was always kind to Gervaise, not because of any fear of losing her money, but because she really loved her and was afraid of her going wrong in some way.

The Saturday after the first visit paid by Gervaise to the forge was also the first of the month. When she reached Mme Goujet’s her basket was so heavy that she panted for two good minutes before she could speak. Every one knows how heavy shirts and such things are.

“Have you brought everything?” asked Mme Goujet, who was very exacting on this point. She insisted on every piece being returned each week. Another thing she exacted was that the clothes should be brought back always on the same day and hour.

“Everything is here,” answered Gervaise with a smile. “You know I never leave anything behind.”

“That is true,” replied the elder woman. “You have many faults, my dear, but not that one yet.”

And while the laundress emptied her basket, laying the linen on the bed, Mme Goujet paid her many compliments. She never burned her clothes or ironed off the buttons or tore them, but she did use a trifle too much bluing and made her shirts too stiff.

“Feel,” she said; “it is like pasteboard. My son never complains, but I know he does not like them so.”

“And they shall not be so again,” said Gervaise. “No one ever touches any of your things but myself, and I would do them over ten times rather than see you dissatisfied.”

She colored as she spoke.

“I have no intention of disparaging your work,” answered Mme Goujet. “I never saw anyone who did up laces and embroideries as you do, and the fluting is simply perfect; the only trouble is a little too much starch, my dear. Goujet does not care to look like a fine gentleman.”

She took up her book and drew a pen through the pieces as she spoke. Everything was there. She brought out the bundle of soiled clothes. Gervaise put them in her basket and hesitated.

“Madame Goujet,” she said at last, “if you do not mind I should like to have the money for this week’s wash.”

The account this month was larger than usual, ten francs and over. Mme Goujet looked at her gravely.

“My child,” she said slowly, “it shall be as you wish. I do not refuse to give you the money if you desire it; only this is not the way to get out of debt. I say this with no unkindness, you understand. Only you must take care.”

Gervaise, with downcast eyes, received the lesson meekly. She needed the ten francs to complete the amount due the coal merchant, she said.

But her friend heard this with a stern countenance and told her she should reduce her expenses, but she did not add that she, too, intended to do the same and that in future she should do her washing herself, as she had formerly done, if she were to be out of pocket thus.

When Gervaise was on the staircase her heart was light, for she cared little for the reproof now that she had the ten francs in her hand; she was becoming accustomed to paying one debt by contracting another.

Midway on the stairs she met a tall woman coming up with a fresh mackerel in her hand, and behold! it was Virginie, the girl whom she had whipped in the lavatory. The two looked each other full in the face. Gervaise instinctively closed her eyes, for she thought the girl would slap her in the face with the mackerel. But, no; Virginie gave a constrained smile. Then the laundress, whose huge basket filled up the stairway and who did not choose to be outdone in politeness, said:

“I beg your pardon–“

“Pray don’t apologize,” answered Virginie in a stately fashion.

And they stood and talked for a few minutes with not the smallest allusion, however, to the past.

Virginie, then about twenty-nine, was really a magnificent-looking woman, head well set on her shoulders and a long, oval face crowned by bands of glossy black hair. She told her history in a few brief words. She was married. Had married the previous spring a cabinetmaker who had given up his trade and was hoping to obtain a position on the police force. She had just been out to buy this mackerel for him.

“He adores them,” she said, “and we women spoil our husbands, I think. But come up. We are standing in a draft here.”

When Gervaise had, in her turn, told her story and added that Virginie was living in the very rooms where she had lived and where her child was born, Virginie became still more urgent that she should go up. “It is always pleasant to see a place where one has been happy,” she said. She herself had been living on the other side of the water but had got tired of it and had moved into these rooms only two weeks ago. She was not settled yet. Her name was Mme Poisson.

“And mine,” said Gervaise, “is Coupeau.”

Gervaise was a little suspicious of all this courtesy. Might not some terrible revenge be hidden under it all? And she determined to be well on her guard. But as Virginie was so polite just now she must be polite in her turn.

Poisson, the husband, was a man of thirty-five with a mustache and imperial; he was seated at a table near the window, making little boxes. His only tools were a penknife, a tiny saw and a gluepot; he was executing the most wonderful and delicate carving, however. He never sold his work but made presents of it to his friends. It amused him while he was awaiting his appointment.

Poisson rose and bowed politely to Gervaise, whom his wife called an old friend. But he did not speak, his conversational powers not being his strong point. He cast a plaintive glance at the mackerel, however, from time to time. Gervaise looked around the room and described her furniture and where it had stood. How strange it was, after losing sight of each other so long, that they should occupy the same apartment! Virginie entered into new details. He had a small inheritance from his aunt, and she herself sewed a little, made a dress now and then. At the end of a half-hour Gervaise rose to depart; Virginie went to the head of the stairs with her, and there both hesitated. Gervaise fancied that Virginie wished to say something about Lantier and Adele, but they separated without touching on these disagreeable topics.

This was the beginning of a great friendship. In another week Virginie could not pass the shop without going in, and sometimes she remained for two or three hours. At first Gervaise was very uncomfortable; she thought every time Virginie opened her lips that she would hear Lantier’s name. Lantier was in her mind all the time she was with Mme Poisson. It was a stupid thing to do, after all, for what on earth did she care what had become of Lantier or of Adele? But she was, nonetheless, curious to know something about them.

Winter had come, the fourth winter that the Coupeaus had spent in La Rue de la Goutte-d’Or. This year December and January were especially severe, and after New Year’s the snow lay three weeks in the street without melting. There was plenty of work for Gervaise, and her shop was delightfully warm and singularly quiet, for the carriages made no noise in the snow-covered streets. The laughs and shouts of the children were almost the only sounds; they had made a long slide and enjoyed themselves hugely.

Gervaise took especial pleasure in her coffee at noon. Her apprentices had no reason to complain, for it was hot and strong and unadulterated by chicory. On the morning of Twelfth-day the clock had struck twelve and then half past, and the coffee was not ready. Gervaise was ironing some muslin curtains. Clemence, with a frightful cold, was, as usual, at work on a man’s shirt. Mme Putois was ironing a skirt on a board, with a cloth laid on the floor to prevent the skirt from being soiled. Mamma Coupeau brought in the coffee, and as each one of the women took a cup with a sigh of enjoyment the street door opened and Virginie came in with a rush of cold air.

“Heavens!” she cried. “It is awful! My ears are cut off!”

“You have come just in time for a cup of hot coffee,” said Gervaise cordially.

“And I shall be only too glad to have it!” answered Virginie with a shiver. She had been waiting at the grocer’s, she said, until she was chilled through and through. The heat of that room was delicious, and then she stirred her coffee and said she liked the damp, sweet smell of the freshly ironed linen. She and Mamma Coupeau were the only ones who had chairs; the others sat on wooden footstools, so low that they seemed to be on the floor. Virginie suddenly stooped down to her hostess and said with a smile:

“Do you remember that day at the lavatory?”

Gervaise colored; she could not answer. This was just what she had been dreading. In a moment she felt sure she would hear Lantier’s name. She knew it was coming. Virginie drew nearer to her. The apprentices lingered over their coffee and told each other as they looked stupidly into the street what they would do if they had an income of ten thousand francs. Virginie changed her seat and took a footstool by the side of Gervaise, who felt weak and cowardly and helpless to change the conversation or to stave off what was coming. She breathlessly awaited the next words, her heart big with an emotion which she would not acknowledge to herself.

“I do not wish to give you any pain,” said Virginie blandly. “Twenty times the words have been on my lips, but I hesitated. Pray don’t think I bear you any malice.”

She tipped up her cup and drank the last drop of her coffee. Gervaise, with her heart in her mouth, waited in a dull agony of suspense, asking herself if Virginie could have forgiven the insult in the lavatory. There was a glitter in the woman’s eyes she did not like.

“You had an excuse,” Virginie added as she placed her cup on the table. “You had been abominably treated. I should have killed someone.” And then, dropping her little-affected tone, she continued more rapidly:

“They were not happy, I assure you, not at all happy. They lived in a dirty street, where the mud was up to their knees. I went to breakfast with them two days after he left you and found them in the height of a quarrel. You know that Adele is a wretch. She is my sister, to be sure, but she is a wretch all the same. As to Lantier–well, you know him, so I need not describe him. But for a yes or a no he would not hesitate to thresh any woman that lives. Oh, they had a beautiful time! Their quarrels were heard all over the neighborhood. One day the police were sent for, they made such a hubbub.”

She talked on and on, telling things that were enough to make the hair stand up on one’s head. Gervaise listened, as pale as death, with a nervous trembling of her lips which might have been taken for a smile. For seven years she had never heard Lantier’s name, and she would not have believed that she could have felt any such overwhelming agitation. She could no longer be jealous of Adele, but she smiled grimly as she thought of the blows she had received in her turn from Lantier, and she would have listened for hours to all that Virginia had to tell, but she did not ask a question for some time. Finally she said:

“And do they still live in that same place?”

“No indeed! But I have not told you all yet. They separated a week ago.”

“Separated!” exclaimed the clearstarcher.

“Who is separated?” asked Clemence, interrupting her conversation with Mamma Coupeau.

“No one,” said Virginie, “or at least no one whom you know.”

As she spoke she looked at Gervaise and seemed to take a positive delight in disturbing her still more. She suddenly asked her what she would do or say if Lantier should suddenly make his appearance, for men were so strange; no one could ever tell what they would do. Lantier was quite capable of returning to his old love. Then Gervaise interrupted her and rose to the occasion. She answered with grave dignity that she was married now and that if Lantier should appear she would ask him to leave. There could never be anything more between them, not even the most distant acquaintance.

“I know very well,” she said, “that Etienne belongs to him, and if Lantier desires to see his son I shall place no obstacle in his way. But as to myself, Madame Poisson, he shall never touch my little finger again! It is finished.”

As she uttered these last words she traced a cross in the air to seal her oath, and as if desirous to put an end to the conversation, she called out to her women:

“Do you think the ironing will be done today if you sit still? To work! To work!”

The women did not move; they were lulled to apathy by the heat, and Gervaise herself found it very difficult to resume her labors. Her curtains had dried in all this time, and some coffee had been spilled on them, and she must wash out the spots.

“Au revoir!” said Virginie. “I came out to buy a half pound of cheese. Poisson will think I am frozen to death!”

The better part of the day was now gone, and it was this way every day, for the shop was the refuge and haunt of all the chilly people in the neighborhood. Gervaise liked the reputation of having the most comfortable room in the _Quartier_, and she held her receptions, as the Lorilleux and Boche clique said, with a sniff of disdain. She would, in fact, have liked to bring in the very poor whom she saw shivering outside. She became very friendly toward a journeyman painter, an old man of seventy, who lived in a loft of the house, where he shivered with cold and hunger. He had lost his three sons in the Crimea, and for two years his hand had been so cramped by rheumatism that he could not hold a brush.

Whenever Gervaise saw Father Bru she called him in, made a place for him near the stove and gave him some bread and cheese. Father Bru, with his white beard and his face wrinkled like an old apple, sat in silent content for hours at a time, enjoying the warmth and the crackling of the coke.

“What are you thinking about?” Gervaise would say gaily.

“Of nothing–of all sorts of things,” he would reply with a dazed air.

The workwomen laughed and thought it a good joke to ask if he were in love. He paid little heed to them but relapsed into silent thought.

From this time Virginie often spoke to Gervaise of Lantier, and one day she said she had just met him. But as the clearstarcher made no reply Virginie then said no more. But on the next day she returned to the subject and told her that he had talked long and tenderly of her. Gervaise was much troubled by these whispered conversations in the corner of her shop. The name of Lantier made her faint and sick at heart. She believed herself to be an honest woman. She meant, in every way, to do right and to shun the wrong, because she felt that only in doing so could she be happy. She did not think much of Coupeau because she was conscious of no shortcomings toward him. But she thought of her friend at the forge, and it seemed to her that this return of her interest in Lantier, faint and undecided as it was, was an infidelity to Goujet and to that tender friendship which had become so very precious to her. Her heart was much troubled in these days. She dwelt on that time when her first lover left her. She imagined another day when, quitting Adele, he might return to her–with that old familiar trunk.

When she went into the street it was with a spasm of terror. She fancied that every step behind her was Lantier’s. She dared not look around lest his hand should glide about her waist. He might be watching for her at any time. He might come to her door in the afternoon, and this idea brought a cold sweat to her forehead, because he would certainly kiss her on her ear as he had often teased her by doing in the years gone by. It was this kiss she dreaded. Its dull reverberation deafened her to all outside sounds, and she could hear only the beatings of her own heart. When these terrors assailed her the forge was her only asylum, from whence she returned smiling and serene, feeling that Goujet, whose sonorous hammer had put all her bad dreams to flight, would protect her always.

What a happy season this was after all! The clearstarcher always carried a certain basket of clothes to her customer each week, because it gave her a pretext for going into the forge, as it was on her way. As soon as she turned the corner of the street in which it was situated she felt as lighthearted as if she were going to the country. The black charcoal dust in the road, the black smoke rising slowly from the chimneys, interested and pleased her as much as a mossy path through the woods. Afar off the forge was red even at midday, and her heart danced in time with the hammers. Goujet was expecting her and making more noise than usual, that she might hear him at a great distance. She gave Etienne a light tap on his cheek and sat quietly watching these two–this man and boy, who were so dear to her–for an hour without speaking. When the sparks touched her tender skin she rather enjoyed the sensation. He, in his turn, was fully aware of the happiness she felt in being there, and he reserved the work which required skill for the time when she could look on in wonder and admiration. It was an idyl that they were unconsciously enacting all that spring, and when Gervaise returned to her home it was in a spirit of sweet content.

By degrees her unreasonable fears of Lantier were conquered. Coupeau was behaving very badly at this time, and one evening as she passed the Assommoir she was certain she saw him drinking with Mes-Bottes. She hurried on lest she should seem to be watching him. But as she hastened she looked over her shoulder. Yes, it was Coupeau who was tossing down a glass of liquor with an air as if it were no new thing. He had lied to her then; he did drink brandy. She was in utter despair, and all her old horror of brandy returned. Wine she could have forgiven–wine was good for a working man–liquor, on the contrary, was his ruin and took from him all desire for the food that nourished and gave him strength for his daily toil. Why did not the government interfere and prevent the manufacture of such pernicious things?

When she reached her home she found the whole house in confusion. Her employees had left their work and were in the courtyard. She asked what the matter was.

“It is Father Bijard beating his wife; he is as drunk as a fool, and he drove her up the stairs to her room, where he is murdering her. Just listen!”

Gervaise flew up the stairs. She was very fond of Mme Bijard, who was her laundress and whose courage and industry she greatly admired. On the sixth floor a little crowd was assembled. Mme Boche stood at an open door.

“Have done!” she cried. “Have done, or the police will be summoned.”

No one dared enter the room, because Bijard was well known to be like a madman when he was tipsy. He was rarely thoroughly sober, and on the occasional days when he condescended to work he always had a bottle of brandy at his side. He rarely ate anything, and if a match had been touched to his mouth he would have taken fire like a torch.

“Would you let her be killed?” exclaimed Gervaise, trembling from head to foot, and she entered the attic room, which was very clean and very bare, for the man had sold the very sheets off the bed to satisfy his mad passion for drink. In this terrible struggle for life the table had been thrown over, and the two chairs also. On the floor lay the poor woman with her skirts drenched as she had come from the washtub, her hair streaming over her bloody face, uttering low groans at each kick the brute gave her.

The neighbors whispered to each other that she had refused to give him the money she had earned that day. Boche called up the staircase to his wife:

“Come down, I say; let him kill her if he will. It will only make one fool the less in the world!”

Father Bru followed Gervaise into the room, and the two expostulated with the madman. But he turned toward them, pale and threatening; a white foam glistened on his lips, and in his faded eyes there was a murderous expression. He grasped Father Bru by the shoulder and threw him over the table and shook Gervaise until her teeth chattered and then returned to his wife, who lay motionless, with her mouth wide open and her eyes closed; and during this frightful scene little Lalie, four years old, was in the corner, looking on at the murder of her mother. The child’s arms were round her sister Henriette, a baby who had just been weaned. She stood with a sad, solemn face and serious, melancholy eyes but shed no tears.

When Bijard slipped and fell Gervaise and Father Bru helped the poor creature to her feet, who then burst into sobs. Lalie went to her side, but she did not cry, for the child was already habituated to such scenes. And as Gervaise went down the stairs she was haunted by the strange look of resignation and courage in Lalie’s eyes; it was an expression belonging to maturity and experience rather than to childhood.

“Your husband is on the other side of the street,” said Clemence as soon as she saw Gervaise; “he is as tipsy as possible!”

Coupeau reeled in, breaking a square of glass with his shoulder as he missed the doorway. He was not tipsy but drunk, with his teeth set firmly together and a pinched expression about the nose. And Gervaise instantly knew that it was the liquor of the Assommoir which had vitiated his blood. She tried to smile and coaxed him to go to bed. But he shook her off and as he passed her gave her a blow.

He was just like the other–the beast upstairs who was now snoring, tired out by beating his wife. She was chilled to the heart and desperate. Were all men alike? She thought of Lantier and of her husband and wondered if there was no happiness in the world.

CHAPTER VII

A BIRTHDAY FETE

The nineteenth of June was the clearstarcher’s birthday. There was always an excuse for a fete in the Coupeau mansion; saints were invented to serve as a pretext for idleness and festivities. Virginie highly commended Gervaise for living luxuriously. What was the use of her husband drinking up everything? Why should she save for her husband to spend at all the wineshops in the neighborhood? And Gervaise accepted this excuse. She was growing very indolent and much stouter, while her lameness had perceptibly increased.

For a whole month they discussed the preparation for this fete; they talked over dishes and licked their lips. They must have something out of the common way. Gervaise was much troubled as to whom she should invite. She wanted exactly twelve at table, not one more or one less. She, her husband, her mother-in-law and Mme Lerat were four. The Goujets and Poissons were four more. At first she thought she would not ask her two women, Mme Putois and Clemence, lest it should make them too familiar, but as the entertainment was constantly under discussion before them she ended by inviting them too. Thus there were ten; she must have two more. She decided on a reconciliation with the Lorilleuxs, who had extended the olive branch several times lately. Family quarrels were bad things, she said. When the Boche people heard of this they showed several little courtesies to Gervaise, who felt obliged to urge them to come also. This made fourteen without counting the children. She had never had a dinner like this, and she was both triumphant and terrified.

The nineteenth fell on a Monday, and Gervaise thought it very fortunate, as she could begin her cooking on Sunday afternoon. On Saturday, while the women hurried through their work, there was an endless discussion as to what the dishes should be. In the last three weeks only one thing had been definitely decided upon–a roast goose stuffed with onions. The goose had been purchased, and Mme Coupeau brought it in that Mme Putois might guess its weight. The thing looked enormous, and the fat seemed to burst from its yellow skin.

“Soup before that, of course,” said Gervaise, “and we must have another dish.”

Clemence proposed rabbits, but Gervaise wanted something more distinguished. Mme Putois suggested a _blanquette du veau_.

That was a new idea. Veal was always good too. Then Mme Coupeau made an allusion to fish, which no one seconded. Evidently fish was not in favor. Gervaise proposed a sparerib of pork and potatoes, which brightened all their faces, just as Virginie came in like a whirlwind.

“You are just in season. Mamma Coupeau, show her the goose,” cried Gervaise.

Virginie admired it, guessed the weight and laid it down on the ironing table between an embroidered skirt and a pile of shirts. She was evidently thinking of something else. She soon led Gervaise into the back shop.

“I have come to warn you,” she said quickly. “I just met Lantier at the very end of this street, and I am sure he followed me, and I naturally felt alarmed on your account, my dear.”

Gervaise turned very pale. What did he want of her? And why on earth should he worry her now amid all the busy preparations for the fete? It seemed as if she never in her life had set her heart on anything that she was not disappointed. Why was it that she could never have a minute’s peace?

But Virginie declared that she would look out for her. If Lantier followed her she would certainly give him over to the police. Her husband had been in office now for a month, and Virginie was very dictatorial and aggressive and talked of arresting everyone who displeased her. She raised her voice as she spoke, but Gervaise implored her to be cautious, because her women could hear every word. They went back to the front shop, and she was the first to speak.

“We have said nothing of vegetables,” she said quietly.

“Peas, with a bit of pork,” said Virginie authoritatively.

This was agreed upon with enthusiasm.

The next day at three Mamma Coupeau lighted the two furnaces belonging to the house and a third one borrowed from Mme Boche, and at half-past three the soup was gently simmering in a large pot lent by the restaurant at the corner. They had decided to cook the veal and the pork the day previous, as those two dishes could be warmed up so well, and would leave for Monday only the goose to roast and the vegetables. The back shop was ruddy with the glow from the three furnaces–sauces were bubbling with a strong smell of browned flour. Mamma Coupeau and Gervaise, each with large white aprons, were washing celery and running hither and thither with pepper and salt or hurriedly turning the veal with flat wooden sticks made for the purpose. They had told Coupeau pleasantly that his room was better than his company, but they had plenty of people there that afternoon. The smell of the cooking found its way out into the street and up through the house, and the neighbors, impelled by curiosity, came down on all sorts of pretexts, merely to discover what was going on.

About five Virginie made her appearance. She had seen Lantier twice. Indeed, it was impossible nowadays to enter the street and not see him. Mme Boche, too, had spoken to him on the corner below. Then Gervaise, who was on the point of going for a sou’s worth of fried onions to season her soup, shuddered from head to foot and said she would not go out ever again. The concierge and Virginie added to her terror by a succession of stories of men who lay in wait for women, with knives and pistols hidden in their coats.

Such things were read every day in the papers! When such a scamp as Lantier found a woman happy and comfortable, he was always wretched until he had made her so too. Virginie said she would go for the onions. “Women,” she observed sententiously, “should protect each other, as well as serve each other, in such matters.” When she returned she reported that Lantier was no longer there. The conversation around the stove that evening never once drifted from that subject. Mme Boche said that she, under similar circumstances, should tell her husband, but Gervaise was horror-struck at this and begged her never to breathe one single word about it. Besides, she fancied her husband had caught a glimpse of Lantier from something he had muttered amid a volley of oaths two or three nights before. She was filled with dread lest these two men should meet. She knew Coupeau so well that she had long since discovered that he was still jealous of Lantier, and while the four women discussed the imminent danger of a terrible tragedy the sauces and the meats hissed and simmered on the furnaces, and they ended by each taking a cup of soup to discover what improvement was desirable.

Monday arrived. Now that Gervaise had invited fourteen to dine, she began to be afraid there would not be room and finally decided to lay the table in the shop. She was uncertain how to place the table, which was the ironing table on trestles. In the midst of the hubbub and confusion a customer arrived and made a scene because her linen had not come home on the Friday previous. She insisted on having every piece that moment–clean or dirty, ironed or rough-dry.

Then Gervaise, to excuse herself, told a lie with wonderful _sang-froid_. It was not her fault. She was cleaning her rooms. Her women would be at work again the next day, and she got rid of her customer, who went away soothed by the promise that her wash would be sent to her early the following morning.

But Gervaise lost her temper, which was not a common thing with her, and as soon as the woman’s back was turned called her by an opprobrious name and declared that if she did as people wished she could not take time to eat and vowed she would not have an iron heated that day or the next in her establishment. No! Not if the Grand Turk himself should come and entreat her on his knees to do up a collar for him. She meant to enjoy herself a little occasionally!

The entire morning was consumed in making purchases. Three times did Gervaise go out and come in, laden with bundles. But when she went the fourth time for the wine she discovered that she had not money enough. She could have got the wine on credit, but she could not be without money in the house, for a thousand little unexpected expenses arise at such times, and she and her mother-in-law racked their brains to know what they should do to get the twenty francs they considered necessary. Mme Coupeau, who had once been housekeeper for an actress, was the first to speak of the Mont-de-Piete. Gervaise laughed gaily.

“To be sure! Why had she not thought of it before?”

She folded her black silk dress and pinned it in a napkin; then she hid the bundle under her mother-in-law’s apron and bade her keep it very flat, lest the neighbors, who were so terribly inquisitive, should find it out, and then she watched the old woman from the door to see that no one followed her.

But when Mamma Coupeau had gone a few steps Gervaise called her back into the shop and, taking her wedding ring from her finger, said:

“Take this, too, for we shall need all the money we can get today.”

And when the old woman came back with twenty-five francs she clapped her hands with joy. She ordered six bottles of wine with seals to drink with the roast. The Lorilleuxs would be green with envy. For a fortnight this had been her idea, to crush the Lorilleuxs, who were never known to ask a friend to their table; who, on the contrary, locked their doors when they had anything special to eat. Gervaise wanted to give her a lesson and would have liked to offer the strangers who passed her door a seat at her table. Money was a very good thing and mighty pretty to look at, but it was good for nothing but to spend.

Mamma Coupeau and Gervaise began to lay their table at three o’clock. They had hung curtains before the windows, but as the day was warm the door into the street was open. The two women did not put on a plate or salt spoon without the avowed intention of worrying the Lorilleuxs. They had given them seats where the table could be seen to the best advantage, and they placed before them the real china plates.

“No, no, Mamma,” cried Gervaise, “not those napkins. I have two which are real damask.”

“Well! Well! I declare!” murmured the old woman. “What will they say to all this?”

And they smiled as they stood at opposite sides of this long table with its glossy white cloth and its places for fourteen carefully laid. They worshiped there as if it had been a chapel erected in the middle of the shop.

“How false they are!” said Gervaise. “Do you remember how she declared she had lost a piece of one of the chains when she was carrying them home? That was only to get out of giving you your five francs.”

“Which I have never had from them but just twice,” muttered the old woman.

“I will wager that next month they will invent another tale. That is one reason why they lock their doors when they have a rabbit. They think people might say, ‘If you can eat rabbits you can give five francs to your mother!’ How mean they are! What do they think would have become of you if I had not asked you to come and live here?”

Her mother-in-law shook her head. She was rather severe in her judgment of the Lorilleuxs that day, inasmuch as she was influenced by the gorgeous entertainment given by the Coupeaus. She liked the excitement; she liked to cook. She generally lived pretty well with Gervaise, but on those days which occur in all households, when the dinner was scanty and unsatisfactory, she called herself a most unhappy woman, left to the mercy of a daughter-in-law. In the depths of her heart she still loved Mme Lorilleux; she was her eldest child.

“You certainly would have weighed some pounds less with her,” continued Gervaise. “No coffee, no tobacco, no sweets. And do you imagine that they would have put two mattresses on your bed?”

“No indeed,” answered the old woman, “but I wish to see them when they first come in–just to see how they look!”

At four o’clock the goose was roasted, and Augustine, seated on a little footstool, was given a long-handled spoon and bidden to watch and baste it every few minutes. Gervaise was busy with the peas, and Mamma Coupeau, with her head a little confused, was waiting until it was time to heat the veal and the pork. At five the guests began to arrive. Clemence and Mme Putois, gorgeous to behold in their Sunday rig, were the first.

Clemence wore a blue dress and had some geraniums in her hand; Madame was in black, with a bunch of heliotrope. Gervaise, whose hands were covered with flour, put them behind her back, came forward and kissed them cordially.

After them came Virginie in scarf and hat, though she had only to cross the street; she wore a printed muslin and was as imposing as any lady in the land. She brought a pot of red carnations and put both her arms around her friend and kissed her.

The offering brought by Boche was a pot of pansies, and his wife’s was mignonette; Mme Lerat’s, a lemon verbena. The three furnaces filled the room with an overpowering heat, and the frying potatoes drowned their voices. Gervaise was very sweet and smiling, thanking everyone for the flowers, at the same time making the dressing for the salad. The perfume of the flowers was perceived above all the smell of cooking.

“Can’t I help you?” said Virginie. “It is a shame to have you work so hard for three days on all these things that we shall gobble up in no time.”

“No indeed,” answered Gervaise; “I am nearly through.”

The ladies covered the bed with their shawls and bonnets and then went into the shop that they might be out of the way and talked through the open door with much noise and loud laughing.

At this moment Goujet appeared and stood timidly on the threshold with a tall white rosebush in his arms whose flowers brushed against his yellow beard. Gervaise ran toward him with her cheeks reddened by her furnaces. She took the plant, crying:

“How beautiful!”

He dared not kiss her, and she was compelled to offer her cheek to him, and both were embarrassed. He told her in a confused way that his mother was ill with sciatica and could not come. Gervaise was greatly disappointed, but she had no time to say much just then: she was beginning to be anxious about Coupeau–he ought to be in–then, too, where were the Lorilleuxs? She called Mme Lerat, who had arranged the reconciliation, and bade her go and see.

Mme Lerat put on her hat and shawl with excessive care and departed. A solemn hush of expectation pervaded the room.

Mme Lerat presently reappeared. She had come round by the street to give a more ceremonious aspect to the affair. She held the door open while Mme Lorilleux, in a silk dress, stood on the threshold. All the guests rose, and Gervaise went forward to meet her sister and kissed her, as had been agreed upon.

“Come in! Come in!” she said. “We are friends again.”

“And I hope for always,” answered her sister-in-law severely.

After she was ushered in the same program had to be followed out with her husband. Neither of the two brought any flowers. They had refused to do so, saying that it would look as if they were bowing down to Wooden Legs. Gervaise summoned Augustine and bade her bring some wine and then filled glasses for all the party, and each drank the health of the family.

“It is a good thing before soup,” muttered Boche.

Mamma Coupeau drew Gervaise into the next room.

“Did you see her?” she said eagerly. “I was watching her, and when she saw the table her face was as long as my arm, and now she is gnawing her lips; she is so mad!”

It was true the Lorilleuxs could not stand that table with its white linen, its shining glass and square piece of bread at each place. It was like a restaurant on the boulevard, and Mme Lorilleux felt of the cloth stealthily to ascertain if it were new.

“We are all ready,” cried Gervaise, reappearing and pulling down her sleeves over her white arms.

“Where can Coupeau be?” she continued.

“He is always late! He always forgets!” muttered his sister. Gervaise was in despair. Everything would be spoiled. She proposed that someone should go out and look for him. Goujet offered to go, and she said she would accompany him. Virginie followed, all three bareheaded. Everyone looked at them, so gay and fresh on a week-day. Virginie in her pink muslin and Gervaise in a white cambric with blue spots and a gray silk handkerchief knotted round her throat. They went to one wineshop after another, but no Coupeau. Suddenly, as they went toward the boulevard, his wife uttered an exclamation.

“What is the matter?” asked Goujet.

The clearstarcher was very pale and so much agitated that she could hardly stand. Virginie knew at once and, leaning over her, looked in at the restaurant and saw Lantier quietly dining.

“I turned my foot,” said Gervaise when she could speak. Finally at the Assommoir they found Coupeau and Poisson. They were standing in the center of an excited crowd. Coupeau, in a gray blouse, was quarreling with someone, and Poisson, who was not on duty that day, was listening quietly, his red mustache and imperial giving him, however, quite a formidable aspect.

Goujet left the women outside and, going in, placed his hand on Coupeau’s shoulder, who, when he saw his wife and Virginie, fell into a great rage.

No, he would not move! He would not stand being followed about by women in this way! They might go home and eat their rubbishy dinner themselves! He did not want any of it!

To appease him Goujet was compelled to drink with him, and finally he persuaded him to go with him. But when he was outside he said to Gervaise:

“I am not going home; you need not think it!”

She did not reply. She was trembling from head to foot. She had been speaking of Lantier to Virginie and begged the other to go on in front, while the two women walked on either side of Coupeau to prevent him from seeing Lantier as they passed the open window where he sat eating his dinner.

But Coupeau knew that Lantier was there, for he said:

“There’s a fellow I know, and you know him too!”

He then went on to accuse her, with many a coarse word, of coming out to look, not for him, but for her old lover, and then all at once he poured out a torrent of abuse upon Lantier, who, however, never looked up or appeared to hear it.

Virginie at last coaxed Coupeau on, whose rage disappeared when they turned the corner of the street. They returned to the shop, however, in a very different mood from the one in which they had left it and found the guests, with very long faces, awaiting them.

Coupeau shook hands with the ladies in succession, with difficulty keeping his feet as he did so, and Gervaise, in a choked voice, begged them to take their seats. But suddenly she perceived that Mme Goujet not having come, there was an empty seat next to Mme Lorilleux.

“We are thirteen,” she said, much disturbed, as she fancied this to be an additional proof of the misfortune which for some time she had felt to be hanging over them.

The ladies, who were seated, started up. Mme Putois offered to leave because, she said, no one should fly in the face of Destiny; besides, she was not hungry. As to Boche, he laughed, and said it was all nonsense.

“Wait!” cried Gervaise. “I will arrange it.”

And rushing out on the sidewalk, she called to Father Bru, who was crossing the street, and the old man followed her into the room.

“Sit there,” said the clearstarcher. “You are willing to dine with us, are you not?”

He nodded acquiescence.

“He will do as well as another,” she continued in a low voice. “He rarely, if ever, had as much as he wanted to eat, and it will be a pleasure to us to see him enjoy his dinner.”

Goujet’s eyes were damp, so much was he touched by the kind way in which Gervaise spoke, and the others felt that it would bring them good luck. Mme Lorilleux was the only one who seemed displeased. She drew her skirts away and looked down with disgusted mien upon the patched blouse at her side.

Gervaise served the soup, and the guests were just lifting their spoons to their mouths when Virginie noticed that Coupeau had disappeared. He had probably returned to the more congenial society at the Assommoir, and someone said he might stay in the street; certainly no one would go after him, but just as they had swallowed the soup Coupeau appeared bearing two pots, one under each arm–a balsam and a wallflower. All the guests clapped their hands. He placed them on either side of Gervaise and, kissing her, he said:

“I forgot you, my dear, but all the same I loved you very much.”

“Monsieur Coupeau is very amiable tonight; he has taken just enough to make him good natured,” whispered one of the guests.

This little act on the part of the host brought back the smiles to the faces around the table. The wine began to circulate, and the voices of the children were heard in the next room. Etienne, Nana, Pauline and little Victor Fauconnier were installed at a small table and were told to be very good.

When the _blanquette du veau_ was served the guests were moved to enthusiasm. It was now half-past seven. The door of the shop was shut to keep out inquisitive eyes, and curtains hung before the windows. The veal was a great success; the sauce was delicious and the mushrooms extraordinarily good. Then came the sparerib of pork. Of course all these good things demanded a large amount of wine.

In the next room at the children’s table Nana was playing the mistress of the household. She was seated at the head of the table and for a while was quite dignified, but her natural gluttony made her forget her good manners when she saw Augustine stealing the peas from the plate, and she slapped the girl vehemently.

“Take care, mademoiselle,” said Augustine sulkily, “or I will tell your mother that I heard you ask Victor to kiss you.”

Now was the time for the goose. Two lamps were placed on the table, one at each end, and the disorder was very apparent: the cloth was stained and spotted. Gervaise left the table to reappear presently, bearing the goose in triumph. Lorilleux and his wife exchanged a look of dismay.

“Who will cut it?” said the clearstarcher. “No, not I. It is too big for me to manage!”

Coupeau said he could do it. After all, it was a simple thing enough–he should just tear it to pieces.

There was a cry of dismay.

Mme Lerat had an inspiration.

“Monsieur Poisson is the man,” she said; “of course he understands the use of arms.” And she handed the sergeant the carving knife. Poisson made a stiff inclination of his whole body and drew the dish toward him and went to work in a slow, methodical fashion. As he thrust his knife into the breast Lorilleux was seized with momentary patriotism, and he exclaimed:

“If it were only a Cossack!”

At last the goose was carved and distributed, and the whole party ate as if they were just beginning their dinner. Presently there was a grand outcry about the heat, and Coupeau opened the door into the street. Gervaise devoured large slices of the breast, hardly speaking, but a little ashamed of her own gluttony in the presence of Goujet. She never forgot old Bru, however, and gave him the choicest morsels, which he swallowed unconsciously, his palate having long since lost the power of distinguishing flavors. Mamma Coupeau picked a bone with her two remaining teeth.

And the wine! Good heavens, how much they drank! A pile of empty bottles stood in the corner. When Mme Putois asked for water Coupeau himself removed the carafes from the table. No one should drink water, he declared, in his house–did she want to swallow frogs and live things?–and he filled up all the glasses. Hypocrites might talk as much as they pleased; the juice of the grape was a mighty good thing and a famous invention!

The guests all laughed and approved; working people must have their wine, they said, and Father Noah had planted the vine for them especially. Wine gave courage and strength for work; and if it chanced that a man sometimes took a drop too much, in the end it did him no harm, and life looked brighter to him for a time. Goujet himself, who was usually so prudent and abstemious, was becoming a little excited. Boche was growing red, and the Lorilleux pair very pale, while Poisson assumed a solemn and severe aspect. The men were all more or less tipsy, and the ladies–well, the less we say of the ladies, the better.

Suddenly Gervaise remembered the six bottles of sealed wine she had omitted to serve with the goose as she had intended. She produced them amid much applause. The glasses were filled anew, and Poisson rose and proposed the health of their hostess.

“And fifty more birthdays!” cried Virginie.

“No, no,” answered Gervaise with a smile that had a touch of sadness in it. “I do not care to live to be very old. There comes a time when one is glad to go!”

A little crowd had collected outside and smiled at the scene, and the smell of the goose pervaded the whole street. The clerks in the grocery opposite licked their lips and said it was good and curiously estimated the amount of wine that had been consumed.

None of the guests were annoyed by being the subjects of observation, although they were fully aware of it and, in fact, rather enjoyed it. Coupeau, catching sight of a familiar face, held up a bottle, which, being accepted with a nod, he sent it out with a glass. This established a sort of fraternity with the street.

In the next room the children were unmanageable. They had taken possession of a saucepan and were drumming on it with spoons. Mamma Coupeau and Father Bru were talking earnestly. The old man was speaking of his two sons who had died in the Crimea. Ah, had they but lived, he would have had bread to eat in his old age!

Mme Coupeau, whose tongue was a little thick, said:

“Yes, but one has a good deal of unhappiness with children. Many an hour have I wept on account of mine.”

Father Bru hardly heard what she said but talked on, half to himself.

“I can’t get any work to do. I am too old. When I ask for any people laugh and ask if it was I who blacked Henri Quatre’s boots. Last year I earned thirty sous by painting a bridge. I had to lie on my back all the time, close to the water, and since then I have coughed incessantly.” He looked down at his poor stiff hands and added, “I know I am good for nothing. I wish I was by the side of my boys. It is a great pity that one can’t kill one’s self when one begins to grow old.”

“Really,” said Lorilleux, “I cannot see why the government does not do something for people in your condition. Men who are disabled–“

“But workmen are not soldiers,” interrupted Poisson, who considered it his duty to espouse the cause of the government. “It is foolish to expect them to do impossibilities.”

The dessert was served. In the center was a pyramid of spongecake in the form of a temple with melonlike sides, and on the top was an artificial rose with a butterfly of silver paper hovering over it, held by a gilt wire. Two drops of gum in the heart of the rose stood for dew. On the left was a deep plate with a bit of cheese, and on the other side of the pyramid was a dish of strawberries, which had been sugared and carefully crushed.

In the salad dish there were a few leaves of lettuce left.

“Madame Boche,” said Gervaise courteously, “pray eat these. I know how fond you are of salad.”

The concierge shook her head. There were limits even to her capacities, and she looked at the lettuce with regret. Clemence told how she had once eaten three quarts of water cresses at her breakfast. Mme Putois declared that she enjoyed lettuce with a pinch of salt and no dressing, and as they talked the ladies emptied the salad bowl.

None of the guests were dismayed at the dessert, although they had eaten so enormously. They had the night before them too; there was no need of haste. The men lit their pipes and drank more wine while they watched Gervaise cut the cake. Poisson, who prided himself on his knowledge of the habits of good society, rose and took the rose from the top and presented it to the hostess amid the loud applause of the whole party. She fastened it just over her heart, and the butterfly fluttered at every movement. A song was proposed–comic songs were a specialty with Boche–and the whole party joined in the chorus. The men kept time with their heels and the women with their knives on their glasses. The windows of the shop jarred with the noise. Virginie had disappeared twice, and the third time, when she came back, she said to Gervaise:

“My dear, he is still at the restaurant and pretends to be reading his paper. I fear he is meditating some mischief.”

She spoke of Lantier. She had been out to see if he were anywhere in the vicinity. Gervaise became very grave.

“Is he tipsy?” she asked.

“No indeed, and that is what troubled me. Why on earth should he stay there so long if he is not drinking? My heart is in my mouth; I am so afraid something will happen.”

The clearstarcher begged her to say no more. Mme Putois started up and began a fierce piratical song, standing stiff and erect in her black dress, her pale face surrounded by her black lace cap, and gesticulating violently. Poisson nodded approval. He had been to sea, and he knew all about it.

Gervaise, assisted by her mother-in-law, now poured out the coffee. Her guests insisted on a song from her, declaring that it was her turn. She refused. Her face was disturbed and pale, so much so that she was asked if the goose disagreed with her.

Finally she began to sing a plaintive melody all about dreams and rest. Her eyelids half closed as she ended, and she peered out into the darkness. Then followed a barcarole from Mme Boche and a romance from Lorilleux, in which figured perfumes of Araby, ivory throats, ebony hair, kisses, moonlight and guitars! Clemence followed with a song which recalled the country with its descriptions of birds and flowers. Virginie brought down the house with her imitation of a vivandiere, standing with her hand on her hip and a wineglass in her hand, which she emptied down her throat as she finished.

But the grand success of the evening was Goujet, who sang in his rich bass the _”Adieux d’Abd-et-Kader.”_ The words issued from his yellow beard like the call of a trumpet and thrilled everyone around the table.

Virginie whispered to Gervaise:

“I have just seen Lantier pass the door. Good heavens! There he is again, standing still and looking in.”

Gervaise caught her breath and timidly turned around. The crowd had increased, attracted by the songs. There were soldiers and shopkeepers and three little girls, five or six years old, holding each other by the hand, grave and silent, struck with wonder and admiration.

Lantier was directly in front of the door. Gervaise met his eyes and felt the very marrow of her bones chilled; she could not move hand or foot.

Coupeau called for more wine, and Clemence helped herself to more strawberries. The singing ceased, and the conversation turned upon a woman who had hanged herself the day before in the next street.

It was now Mme Lerat’s turn to amuse the company, but she needed to make certain preparations.

She dipped the corner of her napkin into a glass of water and applied it to her temples because she was too warm. Then she asked for a teaspoonful of brandy and wiped her lips.

“I will sing _’L’Enfant du Bon Dieu,’_” she said pompously.

She stood up, with her square shoulders like those of a man, and began:

_”L’Enfant perdu que sa mere abandonne, Troue toujours un asile au Saint lieu, Dieu qui le voit, le defend de son trone, L’Enfant perdu, c’est L’Enfant du bon Dieu.”_

She raised her eyes to heaven and placed one hand on her heart; her voice was not without a certain sympathetic quality, and Gervaise, already quivering with emotion caused by the knowledge of Lantier’s presence, could no longer restrain her tears. It seemed to her that she was the deserted child whom _le bon Dieu_ had taken under His care. Clemence, who was quite tipsy, burst into loud sobs. The ladies took out their handkerchiefs and pressed them to their eyes, rather proud of their tenderness of heart.

The men felt it their duty to respect the feeling shown by the women and were, in fact, somewhat touched themselves. The wine had softened their hearts apparently.

Gervaise and Virginie watched the shadows outside. Mme Boche, in her turn, now caught a glimpse of Lantier and uttered an exclamation as she wiped away her fast-falling tears. The three women exchanged terrified, anxious glances.

“Good heavens!” muttered Virginie. “Suppose Coupeau should turn around. There would be a murder, I am convinced.” And the earnestness of their fixed eyes became so apparent that finally he said:

“What are you staring at?”

And leaning forward, he, too, saw Lantier.

“This is too much,” he muttered, “the dirty ruffian! It is too much, and I won’t have it!”

As he started to his feet with an oath, Gervaise put her hand on his arm imploringly.

“Put down that knife,” she said, “and do not go out, I entreat of you.”

Virginie took away the knife that Coupeau had snatched from the table, but she could not prevent him from going into the street. The other guests saw nothing, so entirely absorbed were they in the touching words which Mme Lerat was still singing.

Gervaise sat with her hands clasped convulsively, breathless with fear, expecting to hear a cry of rage from the street and see one of the two men fall to the ground. Virginie and Mme Boche had something of the same feeling. Coupeau had been so overcome by the fresh air that when he rushed forward to take Lantier by the collar he missed his footing and found himself seated quietly in the gutter.

Lantier moved aside a little without taking his hands from his pockets.

Coupeau staggered to his feet again, and a violent quarrel commenced. Gervaise pressed her hands over her eyes; suddenly all was quiet, and she opened her eyes again and looked out.

To her intense astonishment she saw Lantier and her husband talking in a quiet, friendly manner.

Gervaise exchanged a look with Mme Boche and Virginie. What did this mean?

As the women watched them the two men began to walk up and down in front of the shop. They were talking earnestly. Coupeau seemed to be urging something, and Lantier refusing. Finally Coupeau took Lantier’s arm and almost dragged him toward the shop.

“I tell you, you must!” he cried. “You shall drink a glass of wine with us. Men will be men all the world over. My wife and I know that perfectly well.”

Mme Lerat had finished her song and seated herself with the air of being utterly exhausted. She asked for a glass of wine. When she sang that song, she said, she was always torn to pieces, and it left her nerves in a terrible state.

Lantier had been placed at the table by Coupeau and was eating a piece of cake, leisurely dipping it into his glass of wine. With the exception of Mme Boche and Virginie, no one knew him.

The Lorilleuxs looked at him with some suspicion, which, however, was very far from the mark. An awkward silence followed, broken by Coupeau, who said simply:

“He is a friend of ours!”

And turning to his wife, he added:

“Can’t you move round a little? Perhaps there is a cup of hot coffee!”

Gervaise looked from one to the other. She was literally dazed. When her husband first appeared with her former lover she had clasped her hands over her forehead with that instinctive gesture with which in a great storm one waits for the approach of the thunderclap.

It did not seem possible that the walls would not fall and crush them all. Then seeing the two men calmly seated together, it all at once seemed perfectly natural to her. She was tired of thinking about it and preferred to accept it. Why, after all, should she worry? No one else did. Everyone seemed to be satisfied; why should not she be also?

The children had fallen asleep in the back room, Pauline with her head on Etienne’s shoulder. Gervaise started as her eyes fell on her boy. She was shocked at the thought of his father sitting there eating cake without showing the least desire to see his child. She longed to awaken him and show him to Lantier. And then again she had a feeling of passing wonder at the manner in which things settled themselves in this world.

She would not disturb the serenity of matters now, so she brought in the coffeepot and poured out a cup for Lantier, who received it without even looking up at her as he murmured his thanks.

“Now it is my turn to sing!” shouted Coupeau.

His song was one familiar to them all and even to the street, for the little crowd at the door joined in the chorus. The guests within were all more or less tipsy, and there was so much noise that the policemen ran to quell a riot, but when they saw Poisson they bowed respectfully and passed on.

No one of the party ever knew how or at what hour the festivities terminated. It must have been very late, for there was not a human being in the street when they departed. They vaguely remembered having joined hands and danced around the table. Gervaise remembered that Lantier was the last to leave, that he passed her as she stood in the doorway. She felt a breath on her cheek, but whether it was his or the night air she could not tell.

Mme Lerat had refused to return to Batignolles so late, and a mattress was laid on the floor in the shop near the table. She slept there amid the debris of the feast, and a neighbor’s cat profited by an open window to establish herself by her side, where she crunched the bones of the goose all night between her fine, sharp teeth.

CHAPTER VIII

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE

The following Saturday Coupeau, who had not been home to dinner, came in with Lantier about ten o’clock. They had been eating pigs’ feet at a restaurant at Montmarte.

“Don’t scold, wife,” said Coupeau; “we have not been drinking, you see; we can walk perfectly straight.” And he went on to say how they had met each other quite by accident in the street and how Lantier had refused to drink with him, saying that when a man had married a nice little woman he had no business to throw away his money in that way. Gervaise listened with a faint smile; she had no idea of scolding. Oh no, it was not worth the trouble, but she was much agitated at seeing the two men together so soon again, and with trembling hands she knotted up her loosened hair.

Her workwomen had been gone some time. Nana and Mamma Coupeau were in bed, and Gervaise, who was just closing her shutters when her husband appeared, brought out some glasses and the remains of a bottle of brandy. Lantier did not sit down and avoided addressing her directly.

When she served him, however, he exclaimed:

“A drop, madame; a mere drop!”

Coupeau looked at them for a moment and then expressed his mind fully. They were no fools, he said, nor were they children. The past was the past. If people kept up their enmities for nine or ten years no one would have a soul to speak to soon. As for himself, he was made differently. He knew they were honest people, and he was sure he could trust them.

“Of course,” murmured Gervaise, hardly knowing what she said, “of course.”

“I regard her as a sister,” said Lantier, “only as a sister.”

“Give us your hand on that,” cried Coupeau, “and let us be good friends in the future. After all, a good heart is better than gold, and I estimate friendship as above all price.”

And he gave himself a little tap on his breast and looked about for applause, as if he had uttered rather a noble sentiment.

Then the three silently drank their brandy. Gervaise looked at Lantier and saw him for the first time, for on the night of the fete she had seen him, as it were, through a glass, darkly.

He had grown very stout, and his arms and legs very heavy. But his face was still handsome, although somewhat bloated by liquor and good living. He was dressed with care and did not look any older than his years. He was thirty-five. He wore gray pantaloons and a dark blue frock coat, like any gentleman, and had a watch and a chain on which hung a ring–a souvenir, apparently.

“I must go,” he said presently.

He was at the door when Coupeau recalled him to say that he must never pass without coming in to say, “How do you do?”

Meanwhile Gervaise, who had disappeared, returned, pushing Etienne before her. The boy was half asleep but smiled as he rubbed his eyes. When he saw Lantier he stared and looked uneasily from him to Coupeau.

“Do you know this gentleman?” said his mother.

The child looked away and did not answer, but when his mother repeated the question he made a little sign that he remembered him. Lantier, grave and silent, stood still. When Etienne went toward him he stooped and kissed the child, who did not look at him but burst into tears, and when he was violently reproached by Coupeau he rushed away.

“It is excitement,” said his mother, who was herself very pale.

“He is usually very good and very obedient,” said Coupeau. “I have brought him up well, as you will find out. He will soon get used to you. He must learn something of life, you see, and will understand one of these days that people must forget and forgive, and I would cut off my head sooner than prevent a father from seeing his child!”

He then proposed to finish the bottle of brandy. They all three drank together again. Lantier was quite undisturbed, and before he left he insisted on aiding Coupeau to shut up the shop. Then as he dusted his hands with his handkerchief he wished them a careless good night.

“Sleep well. I am going to try and catch the omnibus. I will see you soon again.”

Lantier kept his word and was seen from that time very often in the shop. He came only when Coupeau was home and asked for him before he crossed the threshold. Then seated near the window, always wearing a frock coat, fresh linen and carefully shaved, he kept up a conversation like a man who had seen something of the world. By degrees Coupeau learned something of his life. For the last eight years he had been at the head of a hat manufactory, and when he was asked why he had given it up he said vaguely that he was not satisfied with his partner; he was a rascal, and so on.

But his former position still imparted to him a certain air of importance. He said, also, that he was on the point of concluding an important matter–that certain business houses were in process of establishing themselves, the management of which would be virtually in his hands. In the meantime he had absolutely not one thing to do but to walk about with his hands in his pockets.

Any day he pleased, however, he could start again. He had only to decide on some house. Coupeau did not altogether believe this tale and insisted that he must be doing something which he did not choose to tell; otherwise how did he live?

The truth was that Lantier, excessively talkative in regard to other people’s affairs, was very reticent about his own. He lied quite as often as he spoke the truth and would never tell where he resided. He said he was never at home, so it was of no use for anyone to come and see him.

“I am very careful,” he said, “in making an engagement. I do not choose to bind myself to a man and find, when it is too late, that he intends to make a slave of me. I went one Monday to Champion at Monrouge. That evening Champion began a political discussion. He and I differed entirely, and on Tuesday I threw up the situation. You can’t blame me, I am sure, for not being willing to sell my soul and my convictions for seven francs per day!”

It was now November. Lantier occasionally brought a bunch of violets to Gervaise. By degrees his visits became more frequent. He seemed determined to fascinate the whole house, even the _Quartier_, and he began by ingratiating himself with Clemence and Mme Putois, showing them both the greatest possible attention.

These two women adored him at the end of a month. Mme Boche, whom he flattered by calling on her in her loge, had all sorts of pleasant things to say about him.

As to the Lorilleuxs, they were furious when they found out who he was and declared that it was a sin and a disgrace for Gervaise to bring him into her house. But one fine day Lantier bearded them in their den and ordered a chain made for a lady of his acquaintance and made himself so agreeable that they begged him to sit down and kept him an hour. After this visit they expressed their astonishment that a man so distinguished could ever have seen anything in Wooden Legs to admire. By degrees, therefore, people had become accustomed to seeing him and no longer expressed their horror or amazement. Goujet was the only one who was disturbed. If Lantier came in while he was there he at once departed and avoided all intercourse with him.

Gervaise was very unhappy. She was conscious of a returning inclination for Lantier, and she was afraid of herself and of him. She thought of him constantly; he had taken entire possession of her imagination. But she grew calmer as days passed on, finding that he never tried to see her alone and that he rarely looked at her and never laid the tip of his finger on her.

Virginie, who seemed to read her through and through, asked her what she feared. Was there ever a man more respectful?

But out of mischief or worse, the woman contrived to get the two into a corner one day and then led the conversation into a most dangerous direction. Lantier, in reply to some question, said in measured tones that his heart was dead, that he lived now only for his son. He never thought of Claude, who was away. He embraced Etienne every night but soon forgot he was in the room and amused himself with Clemence.

Then Gervaise began to realize that the past was dead. Lantier had brought back to her the memory of Plassans and the Hotel Boncoeur. But this faded away again, and, seeing him constantly, the past was absorbed in the present. She shook off these memories almost with disgust. Yes, it was all over, and should he ever dare to allude to former years she would complain to her husband.

She began again to think of Goujet almost unconsciously.

One morning Clemence said that the night before she had seen Lantier walking with a woman who had his arm. Yes, he was coming up La Rue Notre-Dame de Lorette; the woman was a blonde and no better than she should be. Clemence added that she had followed them until the woman reached a house where she went in. Lantier waited in the street until there was a window opened, which was evidently a signal, for he went into the house at once.

Gervaise was ironing a white dress; she smiled slightly and said that she believed a Provencal was always crazy after women, and at night when Lantier appeared she was quite amused at Clemence, who at once attacked him. He seemed to be, on the whole, rather pleased that he had been seen. The person was an old friend, he said, one whom he had not seen for some time–a very stylish woman, in fact–and he told Clemence to smell of his handkerchief on which his friend had put some of the perfume she used. Just then Etienne came in, and his father became very grave and said that he was in jest–that his heart was dead.

Gervaise nodded approval of this sentiment, but she did not speak.

When spring came Lantier began to talk of moving into that neighborhood. He wanted a furnished, clean room. Mme Boche and Gervaise tried to find one for him. But they did not meet with any success. He was altogether too fastidious in his requirements. Every evening at the Coupeaus’ he wished he could find people like themselves who would take a lodger.

“You are very comfortable here, I am sure,” he would say regularly.

Finally one night when he had uttered this phrase, as usual, Coupeau cried out:

“If you like this place so much why don’t you stay here? We can make room for you.”

And he explained that the linen room could be so arranged that it would be very comfortable, and Etienne could sleep on a mattress in the corner.

“No, no,” said Lantier; “it would trouble you too much. I know that you have the most generous heart in the world, but I cannot impose upon you. Your room would be a passageway to mine, and that would not be agreeable to any of us.”

“Nonsense,” said Coupeau. “Have we no invention? There are two windows; can’t one be cut down to the floor and used as a door? In that case you would enter from the court and not through the shop. You would be by yourself, and we by ourselves.”

There was a long silence, broken finally by Lantier.

“If this could be done,” he said, “I should like it, but I am afraid you would find yourselves too crowded.”

He did not look at Gervaise as he spoke, but it was clear that he was only waiting for a word from her. She did not like the plan at all; not that the thought of Lantier living under their roof disturbed her, but she had no idea where she could put the linen as it came in to be washed and again when it was rough-dry.

But Coupeau was enchanted with the plan. The rent, he said, had always been heavy to carry, and now they would gain twenty francs per month. It was not dear for him, and it would help them decidedly. He told his wife that she could have two great boxes made in which all the linen of the _Quartier_ could be piled.

Gervaise still hesitated, questioning Mamma Coupeau with her eyes. Lantier had long since propitiated the old lady by bringing her gumdrops for her cough.

“If we could arrange it I am sure–” said Gervaise hesitatingly.

“You are too kind,” remonstrated Lantier. “I really feel that it would be an intrusion.”

Coupeau flamed out. Why did she not speak up, he should like to know? Instead of stammering and behaving like a fool?

“Etienne! Etienne!” he shouted.

The boy was asleep with his head on the table. He started up.

“Listen to me. Say to this gentleman, ‘I wish it.’ Say just those words and nothing more.”

“I wish it!” stammered Etienne, half asleep.

Everybody laughed. But Lantier almost instantly resumed his solemn air. He pressed Coupeau’s hand cordially.

“I accept your proposition,” he said. “It is a most friendly one, and I thank you in my name and in that of my child.”

The next morning Marescot, the owner of the house, happening to call, Gervaise spoke to him of the matter. At first he absolutely refused and was as disturbed and angry as if she had asked him to build on a wing for her especial accommodation. Then after a minute examination of the premises he ended by giving his consent, only on condition, however, that he should not be required to pay any portion of the expense, and the Coupeaus signed a paper, agreeing to put everything into its original condition at the expiration of their lease.

That same evening Coupeau brought in a mason, a painter and a carpenter, all friends and boon companions of his, who would do this little job at night, after their day’s work was over.

The cutting of the door, the painting and the cleaning would come to about one hundred francs, and Coupeau agreed to pay them as fast as his tenant paid him.

The next question was how to furnish the room? Gervaise left Mamma Coupeau’s wardrobe in it. She added a table and two chairs from her own room. She was compelled to buy a bed and dressing table and divers other things, which amounted to one hundred and thirty francs. This she must pay for ten francs each month. So that for nearly a year they could derive no benefit from their new lodger.

It was early in June that Lantier took possession of his new quarters. Coupeau had offered the night before to help him with his trunk in order to avoid the thirty sous for a fiacre. But the other seemed embarrassed and said his trunk was heavy, and it seemed as if he preferred to keep it a secret even now where he resided.

He came about three o’clock. Coupeau was not there, and Gervaise, standing at her shop door, turned white as she recognized the trunk on the fiacre. It was their old one with which they had traveled from Plassans. Now it was banged and battered and strapped with cords.

She saw it brought in as she had often seen it in her dreams, and she vaguely wondered if it were the same fiacre which had taken him and Adele away. Boche welcomed Lantier cordially. Gervaise stood by in silent bewilderment, watching them place the trunk in her lodger’s room. Then hardly knowing what she said, she murmured:

“We must take a glass of wine together—-“

Lantier, who was busy untying the cords on his trunk, did not look up, and she added:

“You will join us, Monsieur Boche!”

And she went for some wine and glasses. At that moment she caught sight of Poisson passing the door. She gave him a nod and a wink which he perfectly understood: it meant, when he was on duty, that he was offered a glass of wine. He went round by the courtyard in order not to be seen. Lantier never saw him without some joke in regard to his political convictions, which, however, had not prevented the men from becoming excellent friends.

To one of these jests Boche now replied:

“Did you know,” he said, “that when the emperor was in London he was a policeman, and his special duty was to carry all the intoxicated women to the station house?”

Gervaise had filled three glasses on the table. She did not care for any wine; she was sick at heart as she stood looking at Lantier kneeling on the floor by the side of the trunk. She was wild to know what it contained. She remembered that in one corner was a pile of stockings, a shirt or two and an old hat. Were those things still there? Was she to be confronted with those tattered relics of the past?

Lantier did not lift the lid, however; he rose and, going to the table, held his glass high in his hands.

“To your health, madame!” he said.

And Poisson and Boche drank with him.

Gervaise filled their glasses again. The three men wiped their lips with the backs of their hands.

Then Lantier opened his trunk. It was filled with a hodgepodge of papers, books, old clothes and bundles of linen. He pulled out a saucepan, then a pair of boots, followed by a bust of Ledru Rollin with a broken nose, then an embroidered shirt and a pair of ragged pantaloons, and Gervaise perceived a mingled and odious smell of tobacco, leather and dust.

No, the old hat was not in the left corner; in its place was a pin cushion, the gift of some woman. All at once the strange anxiety with which she had watched the opening of this trunk disappeared, and in its place came an intense sadness as she followed each article with her eyes as Lantier took them out and wondered which belonged to her time and which to the days when another woman filled his life.

“Look here, Poisson,” cried Lantier, pulling out a small book. It was a scurrilous attack on the emperor, printed at Brussels, entitled _The Amours of Napoleon III_.

Poisson was aghast. He found no words with which to defend the emperor. It was in a book–of course, therefore, it was true. Lantier, with a laugh of triumph, turned away and began to pile up his books and papers, grumbling a little that there were no shelves on which to put them. Gervaise promised to buy some for him. He owned Louis Blanc’s _Histoire de Dix Ans_, all but the first volume, which he had never had, Lamartine’s _Les Girondins_, _The Mysteries of Paris_ and _The Wandering Jew_, by Eugene Sue, without counting a pile of incendiary volumes which he had picked up at bookstalls. His old newspapers he regarded with especial respect. He had collected them with care for years: whenever he had read an article at a cafe of which he approved, he bought the journal and preserved it. He consequently had an enormous quantity, of all dates and names, tied together without order or sequence.

He laid them all in a corner of the room, saying as he did so:

“If people would study those sheets and adopt the ideas therein, society would be far better organized than it now is. Your emperor and all his minions would come down a bit on the ladder–“

Here he was interrupted by Poisson, whose red imperial and mustache irradiated his pale face.

“And the army,” he said, “what would you do with that?”

Lantier became very much excited.

“The army!” he cried. “I would scatter it to the four winds of heaven! I want the military system of the country abolished! I want the abolition of titles and monopolies! I want salaries equalized! I want liberty for everyone. Divorces, too–“

“Yes; divorces, of course,” interposed Boche. “That is needed in the cause of morality.”

Poisson threw back his head, ready for an argument, but Gervaise, who did not like discussions, interfered. She had recovered from the torpor into which she had been plunged by the sight of this trunk, and she asked the men to take another glass. Lantier was suddenly subdued and drank his wine, but Boche looked at Poisson uneasily.

“All this talk is between ourselves, is it not?” he said to the policeman.

Poisson did not allow him to finish: he laid his hand on his heart and declared that he was no spy. Their words went in at one ear and out at another. He had forgotten them already.

Coupeau by this time appeared, and more wine was sent for. But Poisson dared linger no longer, and, stiff and haughty, he departed through the courtyard.

From the very first Lantier was made thoroughly at home. Lantier had his separate room, private entrance and key. But he went through the shop almost always. The accumulation of linen disturbed Gervaise, for her husband never arranged the boxes he had promised, and she was obliged to stow it away in all sorts of places, under the bed and in the corner. She did not like making up Etienne’s mattress late at night either.

Goujet had spoken of sending the child to Lille to his own old master, who wanted apprentices. The plan pleased her, particularly as the boy, who was not very happy at home, was impatient to become his own master. But she dared not ask Lantier, who had come there to live ostensibly to be near his son. She felt, therefore, that it was hardly a good plan to send the boy away within a couple of weeks after his father’s arrival.

When, however, she did make up her mind to approach the subject he expressed warm approval of the idea, saying that youths were far better in the country than in Paris.

Finally it was decided that Etienne should go, and when the morning of his departure arrived Lantier read his son a long lecture and then sent him off, and the house settled down into new habits.

Gervaise became accustomed to seeing the dirty linen lying about and to seeing Lantier coming in and going out. He still talked with an important air of his business operations. He went out daily, dressed with the utmost care and came home, declaring that he was worn out with the discussions in which he had been engaged and which involved the gravest and most important interests.

He rose about ten o’clock, took a walk if the day pleased him, and if it rained he sat in the shop and read his paper. He liked to be there. It was his delight to live surrounded by a circle of worshiping women, and he basked indolently in the warmth and atmosphere of ease and comfort, which characterized the place.

At first Lantier took his meals at the restaurant at the corner, but after a while he dined three or four times a week with the Coupeaus and finally requested permission to board with them and agreed to pay them fifteen francs each Saturday. Thus he was regularly installed and was one of the family. He was seen in his shirt sleeves in the shop every morning, attending to any little matters or receiving orders from the customers. He induced Gervaise to leave her own wine merchant and go to a friend of his own. Then he found fault with the bread and sent Augustine to the Vienna bakery in a distant _faubourg_. He changed the grocer but kept the butcher on account of his political opinions.

At the end of a month he had instituted a change in the cuisine.