L’Assommoir by Emile Zola (page 4)

Everything was cooked in oil: being a Provencal, that was what he adored. He made the omelets himself, which were as tough as leather. He superintended Mamma Coupeau and insisted that the beefsteaks should be thoroughly cooked, until they were like the soles of an old shoe. He watched the salad to see that nothing went in which he did not like. His favorite dish was vermicelli, into which he poured half a bottle of oil. This he and Gervaise ate together, for the others, being Parisians, could not be induced to taste it.

By degrees Lantier attended to all those affairs which fall to the share of the master of the house and to various details of their business, in addition. He insisted that if the five francs which the Lorilleux people had agreed to pay toward the support of Mamma Coupeau was not forthcoming they should go to law about it. In fact, ten francs was what they ought to pay. He himself would go and see if he could not make them agree to that. He went up at once and asked them in such a way that he returned in triumph with the ten francs. And Mme Lerat, too, did the same at his representation. Mamma Coupeau could have kissed Lantier’s hands, who played the part, besides, of an arbiter in the quarrels between the old woman and Gervaise.

The latter, as was natural, sometimes lost patience with the old woman, who retreated to her bed to weep. He would bluster about and ask if they were simpletons, to amuse people with their disagreements, and finally induced them to kiss and be friends once more.

He expressed his mind freely in regard to Nana also. In his opinion she was brought up very badly, and here he was quite right, for when her father cuffed her her mother upheld her, and when, in her turn, the mother reproved, the father made a scene.

Nana was delighted at this and felt herself free to do much as she pleased.

She had started a new game at the farriery opposite. She spent entire days swinging on the shafts of the wagons. She concealed herself, with her troop of followers, at the back of the dark court, redly lit by the forge, and then would make sudden rushes with screams and whoops, followed by every child in the neighborhood, reminding one of a flock of martins or sparrows.

Lantier was the only one whose scoldings had any effect. She listened to him graciously. This child of ten years of age, precocious and vicious, coquetted with him as if she had been a grown woman. He finally assumed the care of her education. He taught her to dance and to talk slang!

Thus a year passed away. The whole neighborhood supposed Lantier to be a man of means–otherwise how did the Coupeaus live as they did? Gervaise, to be sure, still made money, but she supported two men who did nothing, and the shop, of course, did not make enough for that. The truth was that Lantier had never paid one sou, either for board or lodging. He said he would let it run on, and when it amounted to a good sum he would pay it all at once.

After that Gervaise never dared to ask him for a centime. She got bread, wine and meat on credit; bills were running up everywhere, for their expenditures amounted to three and four francs every day. She had never paid anything, even a trifle on account, to the man from whom she had bought her furniture or to Coupeau’s three friends who had done the work in Lantier’s room. The tradespeople were beginning to grumble and treated her with less politeness.

But she seemed to be insensible to this; she chose the most expensive things, having thrown economy to the winds, since she had given up paying for things at once. She always intended, however, to pay eventually and had a vague notion of earning hundreds of francs daily in some extraordinary way by which she could pay all these people.

About the middle of summer Clemence departed, for there was not enough work for two women; she had waited for her money for some weeks. Lantier and Coupeau were quite undisturbed, however. They were in the best of spirits and seemed to be growing fat over the ruined business.

In the _Quartier_ there was a vast deal of gossip. Everybody wondered as to the terms on which Lantier and Gervaise now stood. The Lorilleuxs viciously declared that Gervaise would be glad enough to resume her old relations with Lantier but that he would have nothing to do with her, for she had grown old and ugly. The Boche people took a different view, but while everyone declared that the whole arrangement was a most improper one, they finally accepted it as quite a matter of course and altogether natural.

It is quite possible there were other homes which were quite as open to invidious remarks within a stone’s throw, but these Coupeaus, as their neighbors said, were good, kind people. Lantier was especially ingratiating. It was decided, therefore, to let things go their own way undisturbed.

Gervaise lived quietly indifferent to, and possibly entirely unsuspicious of, all these scandals. By and by it came to pass that her husband’s own people looked on her as utterly heartless. Mme Lerat made her appearance every evening, and she treated Lantier as if he were utterly irresistible, into whose arms any and every woman would be only too glad to fall. An actual league seemed to be forming against Gervaise: all the women insisted on giving her a lover.

But she saw none of these fascinations in him. He had changed, unquestionably, and the external changes were all in his favor. He wore a frock coat and had acquired a certain polish. But she who knew him so well looked down into his soul through his eyes and shuddered at much she saw there. She could not understand what others saw in him to admire. And she said so one day to Virginie. Then Mme Lerat and Virginie vied with each other in the stories they told of Clemence and himself–what they did and said whenever her back was turned–and now they were sure, since she had left the establishment, that he went regularly to see her.

“Well, what of it?” asked Gervaise, her voice trembling. “What have I to do with that?”

But she looked into Virginie’s dark brown eyes, which were specked with gold and emitted sparks as do those of cats. But the woman put on a stupid look as she answered:

“Why, nothing, of course; only I should think you would advise him not to have anything to do with such a person.”

Lantier was gradually changing his manner to Gervaise. Now when he shook hands with her he held her fingers longer than was necessary. He watched her incessantly and fixed his bold eyes upon her. He leaned over her so closely that she felt his breath on her cheek. But one evening, being alone with her, he caught her in both arms. At that moment Goujet entered. Gervaise wrenched herself free, and the three exchanged a few words as if nothing had happened. Goujet was very pale and seemed embarrassed, supposing that he had intruded upon them and that she had pushed Lantier aside only because she did not choose to be embraced in public.

The next day Gervaise was miserable, unhappy and restless. She could not iron a handkerchief. She wanted to see Goujet and tell him just what had happened, but ever since Etienne had gone to Lille she had given up going to the forge, as she was quite unable to face the knowing winks with which his comrades received her. But this day she determined to go, and, taking an empty basket on her arms, she started off, pretending that she was going with skirts to some customers in La Rue des Portes-Blanches.

Goujet seemed to be expecting her, for she met him loitering on the corner.

“Ah,” he said with a wan smile, “you are going home, I presume?”

He hardly knew what he was saying, and they both turned toward Montmartre without another word. They merely wished to go away from the forge. They passed several manufactories and soon found themselves with an open field before them. A goat was tethered near by and bleating as it browsed, and a dead tree was crumbling away in the hot sun.

“One might almost think oneself in the country,” murmured Gervaise.

They took a seat under the dead tree. The clearstarcher set the basket down at her feet. Before them stretched the heights of Montmartre, with its rows of yellow and gray houses amid clumps of trees, and when they threw back their heads a little they saw the whole sky above, clear and cloudless, but the sunlight dazzled them, and they looked over to the misty outlines of the _faubourg_ and watched the smoke rising from tall chimneys in regular puffs, indicating the machinery which impelled it. These great sighs seemed to relieve their own oppressed breasts.

“Yes,” said Gervaise after a long silence. “I have been on a long walk, and I came out–“

She stopped. After having been so eager for an explanation she found herself unable to speak and overwhelmed with shame. She knew that he as well as herself had come to that place with the wish and intention of speaking on one especial subject, and yet neither of them dared to allude to it. The occurrence of the previous evening weighed on both their souls.

Then with a heart torn with anguish and with tears in her eyes, she told him of the death of Mme Bijard, who had breathed her last that morning after suffering unheard-of agonies.

“It was caused by a kick of Bijard’s,” she said in her low, soft voice; “some internal injury. For three days she has suffered frightfully. Why are not such men punished? I suppose, though, if the law undertook to punish all the wretches who kill their wives that it would have too much to do. After all, one kick more or less: what does it matter in the end? And this poor creature, in her desire to save her husband from the scaffold, declared she had fallen over a tub.”

Goujet did not speak. He sat pulling up the tufts of grass.

“It is not a fortnight,” continued Gervaise, “since she weaned her last baby, and here is that child Lalie left to take care of two mites. She is not eight years old but as quiet and sensible as if she were a grown woman, and her father kicks and strikes her too. Poor little soul! There are some persons in this world who seem born to suffer.”

Goujet looked at her and then said suddenly, with trembling lips:

“You made me suffer yesterday.”

Gervaise clasped her hands imploringly, and he continued:

“I knew of course how it must end; only you should not have allowed me to think–“

He could not finish. She started up, seeing what his convictions were. She cried out:

“You are wrong! I swear to you that you are wrong! He was going to kiss me, but his lips did not touch me, and it is the very first time that he made the attempt. Believe me, for I swear–on all that I hold most sacred–that I am telling you the truth.”

But the blacksmith shook his head. He knew that women did not always tell the truth on such points. Gervaise then became very grave.

“You know me well,” she said; “you know that I am no liar. I again repeat that Lantier and I are friends. We shall never be anything more, for if that should ever come to pass I should regard myself as the vilest of the vile and should be unworthy of the friendship of a man like yourself.” Her face was so honest, her eyes were so clear and frank, that he could do no less than believe her. Once more he breathed freely. He held her hand for the first time. Both were silent. White clouds sailed slowly above their heads with the majesty of swans. The goat looked at them and bleated piteously, eager to be released, and they stood hand in hand on that bleak slope with tears in their eyes.

“Your mother likes me no longer,” said Gervaise in a low voice. “Do not say no; how can it be otherwise? We owe you so much money.”

He roughly shook her arm in his eagerness to check the words on her lips; he would not hear her. He tried to speak, but his throat was too dry; he choked a little and then he burst out:

“Listen to me,” he cried; “I have long wished to say something to you. You are not happy. My mother says things are all going wrong with you, and,” he hesitated, “we must go away together and at once.”

She looked at him, not understanding him but impressed by this abrupt declaration of a love from him, who had never before opened his lips in regard to it.

“What do you mean?” she said.

“I mean,” he answered without looking in her face, “that we two can go away and live in Belgium. It is almost the same to me as home, and both of us could get work and live comfortably.”

The color came to her face, which she would have hidden on his shoulder to hide her shame and confusion. He was a strange fellow to propose an elopement. It was like a book and like the things she heard of in high society. She had often seen and known of the workmen about her making love to married women, but they did not think of running away with them.

“Ah, Monsieur Goujet!” she murmured, but she could say no more.

“Yes,” he said, “we two would live all by ourselves.”

But as her self-possession returned she refused with firmness.

“It is impossible,” she said, “and it would be very wrong. I am married and I have children. I know that you are fond of me, and I love you too much to allow you to commit any such folly as you are talking of, and this would be an enormous folly. No; we must live on as we are. We respect each other now. Let us continue to do so. That is a great deal and will help us over many a roughness in our paths. And when we try to do right we are sure of a reward.”

He shook his head as he listened to her, but he felt she was right. Suddenly he snatched her in his arms and kissed her furiously once and then dropped her and turned abruptly away. She was not angry, but the locksmith trembled from head to foot. He began to gather some of the wild daisies, not knowing what to do with his hands, and tossed them into her empty basket. This occupation amused him and tranquillized him. He broke off the head of the flowers and, when he missed his mark and they fell short of the basket, laughed aloud.

Gervaise sat with her back against the tree, happy and calm. And when she set forth on her walk home her basket was full of daisies, and she was talking of Etienne.

In reality Gervaise was more afraid of Lantier than she was willing to admit even to herself. She was fully determined never to allow the smallest familiarity, but she was afraid that she might yield to his persuasions, for she well knew the weakness and amiability of her nature and how hard it was for her to persist in any opposition to anyone.

Lantier, however, did not put this determination on her part to the test. He was often alone with her now and was always quiet and respectful. Coupeau declared to everyone that Lantier was a true friend. There was no nonsense about him; he could be relied upon always and in all emergencies. And he trusted him thoroughly, he declared. When they went out together–the three–on Sundays he bade his wife and Lantier walk arm in arm, while he mounted guard behind, ready to cuff the ears of anyone who ventured on a disrespectful glance, a sneer or a wink.

He laughed good-naturedly before Lantier’s face, told him he put on a great many airs with his coats and his books, but he liked him in spite of them. They understood each other, he said, and a man’s liking for another man is more solid and enduring than his love for a woman.

Coupeau and Lantier made the money fly. Lantier was continually borrowing money from Gervaise–ten francs, twenty francs–whenever he knew there was money in the house. It was always because he was in pressing need for some business matter. But still on those same days he took Coupeau off with him and at some distant restaurant ordered and devoured such dishes as they could not obtain at home, and these dishes were washed down by bottle after bottle of wine.

Coupeau would have preferred to get tipsy without the food, but he was impressed by the elegance and experience of his friend, who found on the carte so many extraordinary sauces. He had never seen a man like him, he declared, so dainty and so difficult. He wondered if all southerners were the same as he watched him discussing the dishes with the waiter and sending away a dish that was too salty or had too much pepper.

Neither could he endure a draft: his skin was all blue if a door was left open, and he made no end of a row until it was closed again.

Lantier was not wasteful in certain ways, for he never gave a _garcon_ more than two sous after he had served a meal that cost some seven or eight francs.

They never alluded to these dinners the next morning at their simple breakfast with Gervaise. Naturally people cannot frolic and work, too, and since Lantier had become a member of his household Coupeau had never lifted a tool. He knew every drinking shop for miles around and would sit and guzzle deep into the night, not always pleased to find himself deserted by Lantier, who never was known to be overcome by liquor.

About the first of November Coupeau turned over a new leaf; he declared he was going to work the next day, and Lantier thereupon preached a little sermon, declaring that labor ennobled man, and in the morning arose before it was light to accompany his friend to the shop, as a mark of the respect he felt. But when they reached a wineshop on the corner they entered to take a glass merely to cement good resolutions.

Near the counter they beheld Bibi-la-Grillade smoking his pipe with a sulky air.

“What is the matter, Bibi?” cried Coupeau.

“Nothing,” answered his comrade, “except that I got my walking ticket yesterday. Perdition seize all masters!” he added fiercely.

And Bibi accepted a glass of liquor. Lantier defended the masters. They were not so bad after all; then, too, how were the men to get along without them? “To be sure,” continued Lantier, “I manage pretty well, for I don’t have much to do with them myself!”

“Come, my boy,” he added, turning to Coupeau; “we shall be late if we don’t look out.”

Bibi went out with them. Day was just breaking, gray and cloudy. It had rained the night before and was damp and warm. The street lamps had just been extinguished. There was one continued tramp of men going to their work.

Coupeau, with his bag of tools on his shoulder, shuffled along; his footsteps had long since lost their ring.

“Bibi,” he said, “come with me; the master told me to bring a comrade if I pleased.”

“It won’t be me then,” answered Bibi. “I wash my hands of them all. No more masters for me, I tell you! But I dare say Mes-Bottes would be glad of the offer.”

And as they reached the Assommoir they saw Mes-Bottes within. Notwithstanding the fact that it was daylight, the gas was blazing in the Assommoir. Lantier remained outside and told Coupeau to make haste, as they had only ten minutes.

“Do you think I will work for your master?” cried Mes-Bottes. “He is the greatest tyrant in the kingdom. No, I should rather suck my thumbs for a year. You won’t stay there, old man! No, you won’t stay there three days, now I tell you!”

“Are you in earnest?” asked Coupeau uneasily.

“Yes, I am in earnest. You can’t speak–you can’t move. Your nose is held close to the grindstone all the time. He watches you every moment. If you drink a drop he says you are tipsy and makes no end of a row!”

“Thanks for the warning. I will try this one day, and if the master bothers me I will just tell him what I think of him and turn on my heel and walk out.”

Coupeau shook his comrade’s hand and turned to depart, much to the disgust of Mes-Bottes, who angrily asked if the master could not wait five minutes. He could not go until he had taken a drink. Lantier entered to join in, and Mes-Bottes stood there with his hat on the back of his head, shabby, dirty and staggering, ordering Father Colombe to pour out the glasses and not to cheat.

At that moment Goujet and Lorilleux were seen going by. Mes-Bottes shouted to them to come in, but they both refused–Goujet saying he wanted nothing, and the other, as he hugged a little box of gold chains close to his heart, that he was in a hurry.

“Milksops!” muttered Mes-Bottes. “They had best pass their lives in the corner by the fire!”

Returning to the counter, he renewed his attack on Father Colombe, whom he accused of adulterating his liquors.

It was now bright daylight, and the proprietor of the Assommoir began to extinguish the lights. Coupeau made excuses for his brother-in-law, who, he said, could never drink; it was not his fault, poor fellow! He approved, too, of Goujet, declaring that it was a good thing never to be thirsty. Again he made a move to depart and go to his work when Lantier, with his dictatorial air, reminded him that he had not paid his score and that he could not go off in that way, even if it were to his duty.

“I am sick of the words ‘work’ and ‘duty,'” muttered Mes-Bottes.

They all paid for their drinks with the exception of Bibi-la-Grillade, who stooped toward the ear of Father Colombe and whispered a few words. The latter shook his head, whereupon Mes-Bottes burst into a torrent of invectives, but Colombe stood in impassive silence, and when there was a lull in the storm he said:

“Let your friends pay for you then–that is a very simple thing to do.”

By this time Mes-Bottes was what is properly called howling drunk, and as he staggered away from the counter he struck the bag of tools which Coupeau had over his shoulder.

“You look like a peddler with his pack or a humpback. Put it down!”

Coupeau hesitated a moment, and then slowly and deliberately, as if he had arrived at a decision after mature deliberation, he laid his bag on the ground.

“It is too late to go this morning. I will wait until after breakfast now. I will tell him my wife was sick. Listen, Father Colombe, I will leave my bag of tools under this bench and come for them this afternoon.”

Lantier assented to this arrangement. Of course work was a good thing, but friends and good company were better; and the four men stood, first on one foot and then on the other, for more than an hour, and then they had another drink all round. After that a game of billiards was proposed, and they went noisily down the street to the nearest billiard room, which did not happen to please the fastidious Lantier, who, however, soon recovered his good humor under the effect of the admiration excited in the minds of his friends by his play, which was really very extraordinary.

When the hour arrived for breakfast Coupeau had an idea.

“Let us go and find Bec Sali. I know where he works. We will make him breakfast with us.”

The idea was received with applause. The party started forth. A fine drizzling rain was now falling, but they were too warm within to mind this light sprinkling on their shoulders.

Coupeau took them to a factory where his friend worked and at the door gave two sous to a small boy to go up and find Bec Sali and to tell him that his wife was very sick and had sent for him.

Bec Sali quickly appeared, not in the least disturbed, as he suspected a joke.

“Aha!” he said as he saw his friend. “I knew it!” They went to a restaurant and ordered a famous repast of pigs’ feet, and they sat and sucked the bones and talked about their various employers.

“Will you believe,” said Bec Sali, “that mine has had the brass to hang up a bell? Does he think we are slaves to run when he rings it? Never was he so mistaken–“

“I am obliged to leave you!” said Coupeau, rising at last with an important air. “I promised my wife to go to work today, and I leave you with the greatest reluctance.”

The others protested and entreated, but he seemed so decided that they all accompanied him to the Assommoir to get his tools. He pulled out the bag from under the bench and laid it at his feet while they all took another drink. The clock struck one, and Coupeau kicked his bag under the bench again. He would go tomorrow to the factory; one day really did not make much difference.

The rain had ceased, and one of the men proposed a little walk on the boulevards to stretch their legs. The air seemed to stupefy them, and they loitered along with their arms swinging at their sides, without exchanging a word. When they reached the wineshop on the corner of La Rue des Poissonniers they turned in mechanically. Lantier led the way into a small room divided from the public one by windows only. This room was much affected by Lantier, who thought it more stylish by far than the public one. He called for a newspaper, spread it out and examined it with a heavy frown. Coupeau and Mes-Bottes played a game of cards, while wine and glasses occupied the center of the table.

“What is the news?” asked Bibi.

Lantier did not reply instantly, but presently, as the others emptied their glasses, he began to read aloud an account of a frightful murder, to which they listened with eager interest. Then ensued a hot discussion and argument as to the probable motives for the murder.

By this time the wine was exhausted, and they called for more. About five all except Lantier were in a state of beastly intoxication, and he found them so disgusting that, as usual, he made his escape without his comrades noticing his defection.

Lantier walked about a little and then, when he felt all right, went home and told Gervaise that her husband was with his friends. Coupeau did not make his appearance for two days. Rumors were brought in that he had been seen in one place and then in another, and always alone. His comrades had apparently deserted him. Gervaise shrugged her shoulders with a resigned air.

“Good heavens!” she said. “What a way to live!” She never thought of hunting him up. Indeed, on the afternoon of the third day, when she saw him through the window of a wineshop, she turned back and would not pass the door. She sat up for him, however, and listened for his step or the sound of his hand fumbling at the lock.

The next morning he came in, only to begin the same thing at night again. This went on for a week, and at last Gervaise went to the Assommoir to make inquiries. Yes, he had been there a number of times, but no one knew where he was just then. Gervaise picked up the bag of tools and carried them home.

Lantier, seeing that Gervaise was out of spirits, proposed that she should go with him to a cafe concert. She refused at first, being in no mood for laughing; otherwise she would have consented, for Lantier’s proposal seemed to be prompted by the purest friendliness. He seemed really sorry for her trouble and, indeed, assumed an absolutely paternal air.

Coupeau had never stayed away like this before, and she continually found herself going to the door and looking up and down the street. She could not keep to her work but wandered restlessly from place to place. Had Coupeau broken a limb? Had he fallen into the water? She did not think she could care so very much if he were killed, if this uncertainty were over, if she only knew what she had to expect. But it was very trying to live in this suspense.

Finally when the gas was lit and Lantier renewed his proposition of the cafe she consented. After all, why should she not go? Why should she refuse all pleasures because her husband chose to behave in this disgraceful way? If he would not come in she would go out.

They hurried through their dinner, and as she went out with Lantier at eight o’clock Gervaise begged Nana and Mamma Coupeau to go to bed early. The shop was closed, and she gave the key to Mme Boche, telling her that if Coupeau came in it would be as well to look out for the lights.

Lantier stood whistling while she gave these directions. Gervaise wore her silk dress, and she smiled as they walked down the street in alternate shadow and light from the shopwindows.

The cafe concert was on the Boulevard de Rochechoumart. It had once been a cafe and had had a concert room built on of rough planks.

Over the door was a row of glass globes brilliantly illuminated. Long placards, nailed on wood, were standing quite out in the street by the side of the gutter.

“Here we are!” said Lantier. “Mademoiselle Amanda makes her debut tonight.”

Bibi-la-Grillade was reading the placard. Bibi had a black eye, as if he had been fighting.

“Hallo!” cried Lantier. “How are you? Where is Coupeau? Have you lost him?”

“Yes, since yesterday. We had a little fight with a waiter at Baquets. He wanted us to pay twice for what we had, and somehow Coupeau and I got separated, and I have not seen him since.”

And Bibi gave a great yawn. He was in a disgraceful state of intoxication. He looked as if he had been rolling in the gutter.

“And you know nothing of my husband?” asked Gervaise.

“No, nothing. I think, though, he went off with a coachman.”

Lantier and Gervaise passed a very agreeable evening at the cafe concert, and when the doors were closed at eleven they went home in a sauntering sort of fashion. They were in no hurry, and the night was fair, though a little cool. Lantier hummed the air which Amanda had sung, and Gervaise added the chorus. The room had been excessively warm, and she had drunk several glasses of wine.

She expressed a great deal of indignation at Mlle Amanda’s costume. How did she dare face all those men, dressed like that? But her skin was beautiful, certainly, and she listened with considerable curiosity to all that Lantier could tell her about the woman.

“Everybody is asleep,” said Gervaise after she had rung the bell three times.

The door was finally opened, but there was no light. She knocked at the door of the Boche quarters and asked for her key.

The sleepy concierge muttered some unintelligible words, from which Gervaise finally gathered that Coupeau had been brought in by Poisson and that the key was in the door.

Gervaise stood aghast at the disgusting sight that met her eyes as she entered the room where Coupeau lay wallowing on the floor.

She shuddered and turned away. This sight annihilated every ray of sentiment remaining in her heart.

“What am I to do?” she said piteously. “I can’t stay here!”

Lantier snatched her hand.

“Gervaise,” he said, “listen to me.”

But she understood him and drew hastily back.

“No, no! Leave me, Auguste. I can manage.”

But Lantier would not obey her. He put his arm around her waist and pointed to her husband as he lay snoring, with his mouth wide open.

“Leave me!” said Gervaise, imploringly, and she pointed to the room where her mother-in-law and Nana slept.

“You will wake them!” she said. “You would not shame me before my child? Pray go!”

He said no more but slowly and softly kissed her on her ear, as he had so often teased her by doing in those old days. Gervaise shivered, and her blood was stirred to madness in her veins.

“What does that beast care?” she thought. “It is his fault,” she murmured; “all his fault. He sends me from his room!”

And as Lantier drew her toward his door Nana’s face appeared for a moment at the window which lit her little cabinet.

The mother did not see the child, who stood in her nightdress, pale with sleep. She looked at her father as he lay and then watched her mother disappear in Lantier’s room. She was perfectly grave, but in her eyes burned the sensual curiosity of premature vice.

CHAPTER IX

CLOUDS IN THE HORIZON

That winter Mamma Coupeau was very ill with an asthmatic attack, which she always expected in the month of December.

The poor woman suffered much, and the depression of her spirits was naturally very great. It must be confessed that there was nothing very gay in the aspect of the room where she slept. Between her bed and that of the little girl there was just room for a chair. The paper hung in strips from the wall. Through a round window near the ceiling came a dreary gray light. There was little ventilation in the room, which made it especially unfit for the old woman, who at night, when Nana was there and she could hear her breathe, did not complain, but when left alone during the day, moaned incessantly, rolling her head about on her pillow.

“Ah,” she said, “how unhappy I am! It is the same as a prison. I wish I were dead!”

And as soon as a visitor came in–Virginie or Mme Boche–she poured out her grievances. “I should not suffer so much among strangers. I should like sometimes a cup of tisane, but I can’t get it; and Nana–that child whom I have raised from the cradle–disappears in the morning and never shows her face until night, when she sleeps right through and never once asks me how I am or if she can do anything for me. It will soon be over, and I really believe this clearstarcher would smother me herself–if she were not afraid of the law!”

Gervaise, it is true, was not as gentle and sweet as she had been. Everything seemed to be going wrong with her, and she had lost heart and patience together. Mamma Coupeau had overheard her saying that she was really a great burden. This naturally cut her to the heart, and when she saw her eldest daughter, Mme Lerat, she wept piteously and declared that she was being starved to death, and when these complaints drew from her daughter’s pocket a little silver, she expended it in dainties.

She told the most preposterous tales to Mme Lerat about Gervaise–of her new finery and of cakes and delicacies eaten in the corner and many other things of infinitely more consequence. Then in a little while she turned against the Lorilleuxs and talked of them in the most bitter manner. At the height of her illness it so happened that her two daughters met one afternoon at her bedside. Their mother made a motion to them to come closer. Then she went on to tell them, between paroxysms of coughing, that her son came home dead drunk the night before and that she was absolutely certain that Gervaise spent the night in Lantier’s room. “It is all the more disgusting,” she added, “because I am certain that Nana heard what was going on quite as well as I did.”

The two women did not appear either shocked or surprised.

“It is none of our business,” said Mme Lorilleux. “If Coupeau does not choose to take any notice of her conduct it is not for us to do so.”

All the neighborhood were soon informed of the condition of things by her two sisters-in-law, who declared they entered her doors only on their mother’s account, who, poor thing, was compelled to live amid these abominations.

Everyone accused Gervaise now of having perverted poor Lantier. “Men will be men,” they said; “surely you can’t expect them to turn a cold shoulder to women who throw themselves at their heads. She has no possible excuse; she is a disgrace to the whole street!”

The Lorilleuxs invited Nana to dinner that they might question her, but as soon as they began the child looked absolutely stupid, and they could extort nothing from her.

Amid this sudden and fierce indignation Gervaise lived–indifferent, dull and stupid. At first she loathed herself, and if Coupeau laid his hand on her she shivered and ran away from him. But by degrees she became accustomed to it. Her indolence had become excessive, and she only wished to be quiet and comfortable.

After all, she asked herself, why should she care? If her lover and her husband were satisfied, why should she not be too? So the household went on much as usual to all appearance. In reality, whenever Coupeau came in tipsy, she left and went to Lantier’s room to sleep. She was not led there by passion or affection; it was simply that it was more comfortable. She was very like a cat in her choice of soft, clean places.

Mamma Coupeau never dared to speak out openly to the clearstarcher, but after a dispute she was unsparing in her hints and allusions. The first time Gervaise fixed her eyes on her and heard all she had to say in profound silence. Then without seeming to speak of herself, she took occasion to say not long afterward that when a woman was married to a man who was drinking himself to death a woman was very much to be pitied and by no means to blame if she looked for consolation elsewhere.

Another time, when taunted by the old woman, she went still further and declared that Lantier was as much her husband as was Coupeau–that he was the father of two of her children. She talked a little twaddle about the laws of nature, and a shrewd observer would have seen that she–parrotlike–was repeating the words that some other person had put into her mouth. Besides, what were her neighbors doing all about her? They were not so extremely respectable that they had the right to attack her. And then she took house after house and showed her mother-in-law that while apparently so deaf to gossip she yet knew all that was going on about her. Yes, she knew–and now seemed to gloat over that which once had shocked and revolted her.

“It is none of my business, I admit,” she cried; “let each person live as he pleases, according to his own light, and let everybody else alone.”

One day when Mamma Coupeau spoke out more clearly she said with compressed lips:

“Now look here, you are flat on your back and you take advantage of that fact. I have never said a word to you about your own life, but I know it all the same–and it was atrocious! That is all! I am not going into particulars, but remember, you had best not sit in judgment on me!”

The old woman was nearly suffocated with rage and her cough.

The next day Goujet came for his mother’s wash while Gervaise was out. Mamma Coupeau called him into her room and kept him for an hour. She read the young man’s heart; she knew that his suspicions made him miserable. And in revenge for something that had displeased her she told him the truth with many sighs and tears, as if her daughter-in-law’s infamous conduct was a bitter blow to her.

When Goujet left her room he was deadly pale and looked ten years older than when he went in. The old woman had, too, the additional pleasure of telling Gervaise on her return that Mme Goujet had sent word that her linen must be returned to her at once, ironed or unironed. And she was so animated and comparatively amiable that Gervaise scented the truth and knew instinctively what she had done and what she was to expect with Goujet. Pale and trembling, she piled the linen neatly in a basket and set forth to see Mme Goujet. Years had passed since she had paid her friends one penny. The debt still stood at four hundred and twenty-five francs. Each time she took the money for her washing she spoke of being pressed just at that time. It was a great mortification for her.

Coupeau was, however, less scrupulous and said with a laugh that if she kissed her friend occasionally in the corner it would keep things straight and pay him well. Then Gervaise, with eyes blazing with indignation, would ask if he really meant that. Had he fallen so low? Nor should he speak of Goujet in that way in her presence.

Every time she took home the linen of these former friends she ascended the stairs with a sick heart.

“Ah, it is you, is it?” said Mme Goujet coldly as she opened the door. Gervaise entered with some hesitation; she did not dare attempt to excuse herself. She was no longer punctual to the hour or the day–everything about her was becoming perfectly disorderly.

“For one whole week,” resumed the lace mender, “you have kept me waiting. You have told me falsehood after falsehood. You have sent your apprentice to tell me that there was an accident–something had been spilled on the shirts, they would come the next day, and so on. I have been unnecessarily annoyed and worried, besides losing much time. There is no sense in it! Now what have you brought home? Are the shirts here which you have had for a month and the skirt which was missing last week?”

“Yes,” said Gervaise, almost inaudibly; “yes, the skirt is here. Look at it!”

But Mme Goujet cried out in indignation.

That skirt did not belong to her, and she would not have it. This was the crowning touch, if her things were to be changed in this way. She did not like other people’s things.

“And the shirts? Where are they? Lost, I suppose. Very well, settle it as you please, but these shirts I must have tomorrow morning!”

There was a long silence. Gervaise was much disturbed by seeing that the door of Goujet’s room was wide open. He was there, she was sure, and listening to all these reproaches which she knew to be deserved and to which she could not reply. She was very quiet and submissive and laid the linen on the bed as quickly as possible.

Mme Goujet began to examine the pieces.

“Well! Well!” she said. “No one can praise your washing nowadays. There is not a piece here that is not dirtied by the iron. Look at this shirt: it is scorched, and the buttons are fairly torn off by the root. Everything comes back–that comes at all, I should say–with the buttons off. Look at that sack: the dirt is all in it. No, no, I can’t pay for such washing as this!”

She stopped talking–while she counted the pieces. Then she exclaimed:

“Two pairs of stockings, six towels and one napkin are missing from this week. You are laughing at me, it seems. Now, just understand, I tell you to bring back all you have, ironed or not ironed. If in an hour your woman is not here with the rest I have done with you, Madame Coupeau!”

At this moment Goujet coughed. Gervaise started. How could she bear being treated in this way before him? And she stood confused and silent, waiting for the soiled clothes.

Mme Goujet had taken her place and her work by the window.

“And the linen?” said Gervaise timidly.

“Many thanks,” said the old woman. “There is nothing this week.”

Gervaise turned pale; it was clear that Mme Goujet meant to take away her custom from her. She sank into a chair. She made no attempt at excuses; she only asked a question.

“Is Monsieur Goujet ill?”

“He is not well; at least he has just come in and is lying down to rest a little.”

Mme Goujet spoke very slowly, almost solemnly, her pale face encircled by her white cap, and wearing, as usual, her plain black dress.

And she explained that they were obliged to economize very closely. In future she herself would do their washing. Of course Gervaise must know that this would not be necessary had she and her husband paid their debt to her son. But of course they would submit; they would never think of going to law about it. While she spoke of the debt her needle moved rapidly to and fro in the delicate meshes of her work.

“But,” continued Mme Goujet, “if you were to deny yourself a little and be careful and prudent, you could soon discharge your debt to us; you live too well; you spend too freely. Were you to give us only ten francs each month–“

She was interrupted by her son, who called impatiently, “Mother! Come here, will you?”

When she returned she changed the conversation. Her son had undoubtedly begged her to say no more about this money to Gervaise. In spite of her evident determination to avoid this subject, she returned to it again in about ten minutes. She knew from the beginning just what would happen. She had said so at the time, and all had turned out precisely as she had prophesied. The tinworker had drunk up the shop and had left his wife to bear the load by herself. If her son had taken her advice he would never have lent the money. His marriage had fallen through, and he had lost his spirits. She grew very angry as she spoke and finally accused Gervaise openly of having, with her husband, deliberately conspired to cheat her simplehearted son.

“Many women,” she exclaimed, “played the parts of hypocrites and prudes for years and were found out at the last!”

“Mother! Mother!” called Goujet peremptorily.

She rose and when she returned said:

“Go in; he wants to see you.”

Gervaise obeyed, leaving the door open behind her. She found the room sweet and fresh looking, like that of a young girl, with its simple pictures and white curtains.

Goujet, crushed by what he had heard from Mamma Coupeau, lay at full length on the bed with pale face and haggard eyes.

“Listen!” he said. “You must not mind my mother’s words; she does not understand. You do not owe me anything.”

He staggered to his feet and stood leaning against the bed and looking at her.

“Are you ill?” she said nervously.

“No, not ill,” he answered, “but sick at heart. Sick when I remember what you said and see the truth. Leave me. I cannot bear to look at you.”

And he waved her away, not angrily, but with great decision. She went out without a word, for she had nothing to say. In the next room she took up her basket and stood still a moment; Mme Goujet did not look up, but she said:

“Remember, I want my linen at once, and when that is all sent back to me we will settle the account.”

“Yes,” answered Gervaise. And she closed the door, leaving behind her all that sweet odor and cleanliness on which she had once placed so high a value. She returned to the shop with her head bowed down and looking neither to the right nor the left.

Mother Coupeau was sitting by the fire, having left her bed for the first time. Gervaise said nothing to her–not a word of reproach or congratulation. She felt deadly tired; all her bones ached, as if she had been beaten. She thought life very hard and wished that it were over for her.

Gervaise soon grew to care for nothing but her three meals per day. The shop ran itself; one by one her customers left her. Gervaise shrugged her shoulders half indifferently, half insolently; everybody could leave her, she said: she could always get work. But she was mistaken, and soon it became necessary for her to dismiss Mme Putois, keeping no assistant except Augustine, who seemed to grow more and more stupid as time went on. Ruin was fast approaching. Naturally, as indolence and poverty increased, so did lack of cleanliness. No one would ever have known that pretty blue shop in which Gervaise had formerly taken such pride. The windows were unwashed and covered with the mud scattered by the passing carriages. Within it was still more forlorn: the dampness of the steaming linen had ruined the paper; everything was covered with dust; the stove, which once had been kept so bright, was broken and battered. The long ironing table was covered with wine stains and grease, looking as if it had served a whole garrison. The atmosphere was loaded with a smell of cooking and of sour starch. But Gervaise was unconscious of it. She did not notice the torn and untidy paper and, having ceased to pay any attention to personal cleanliness, was hardly likely to spend her time in scrubbing the greasy floors. She allowed the dust to accumulate over everything and never lifted a finger to remove it. Her own comfort and tranquillity were now her first considerations.

Her debts were increasing, but they had ceased to give her any uneasiness. She was no longer honest or straightforward. She did not care whether she ever paid or not, so long as she got what she wanted. When one shop refused her more credit she opened an account next door. She owed something in every shop in the whole _Quartier_. She dared not pass the grocer or the baker in her own street and was compelled to make a lengthy circuit each time she went out. The tradespeople muttered and grumbled, and some went so far as to call her a thief and a swindler.

One evening the man who had sold her the furniture for Lantier’s room came in with ugly threats.

Such scenes were unquestionably disagreeable. She trembled for an hour after them, but they never took away her appetite.

It was very stupid of these people, after all, she said to Lantier. How could she pay them if she had no money? And where could she get money? She closed her eyes to the inevitable and would not think of the future. Mamma Coupeau was well again, but the household had been disorganized for more than a year. In summer there was more work brought to the shop–white skirts and cambric dresses. There were ups and downs, therefore: days when there was nothing in the house for supper and others when the table was loaded.

Mamma Coupeau was seen almost daily, going out with a bundle under her apron and returning without it and with a radiant face, for the old woman liked the excitement of going to the Mont-de-Piete.

Gervaise was gradually emptying the house–linen and clothes, tools and furniture. In the beginning she took advantage of a good week to take out what she had pawned the week before, but after a while she ceased to do that and sold her tickets. There was only one thing which cost her a pang, and that was selling her clock. She had sworn she would not touch it, not unless she was dying of hunger, and when at last she saw her mother-in-law carry it away she dropped into a chair and wept like a baby. But when the old woman came back with twenty-five francs and she found she had five francs more than was demanded by the pressing debt which had caused her to make the sacrifice, she was consoled and sent out at once for four sous’ worth of brandy. When these two women were on good terms they often drank a glass together, sitting at the corner of the ironing table.

Mamma Coupeau had a wonderful talent for bringing a glass in the pocket of her apron without spilling a drop. She did not care to have the neighbors know, but, in good truth, the neighbors knew very well and laughed and sneered as the old woman went in and out.

This, as was natural and right, increased the prejudice against Gervaise. Everyone said that things could not go on much longer; the end was near.

Amid all this ruin Coupeau thrived surprisingly. Bad liquor seemed to affect him agreeably. His appetite was good in spite of the amount he drank, and he was growing stout. Lantier, however, shook his head, declaring that it was not honest flesh and that he was bloated. But Coupeau drank all the more after this statement and was rarely or ever sober. There began to be a strange bluish tone in his complexion. His spirits never flagged. He laughed at his wife when she told him of her embarrassments. What did he care, so long as she provided him with food to eat? And the longer he was idle, the more exacting he became in regard to this food.

He was ignorant of his wife’s infidelity, at least, so all his friends declared. They believed, moreover, that were he to discover it there would be great trouble. But Mme Lerat, his own sister, shook her head doubtfully, averring that she was not so sure of his ignorance.

Lantier was also in good health and spirits, neither too stout nor too thin. He wished to remain just where he was, for he was thoroughly well satisfied with himself, and this made him critical in regard to his food, as he had made a study of the things he should eat and those he should avoid for the preservation of his figure. Even when there was not a cent he asked for eggs and cutlets: nourishing and light things were what he required, he said. He ruled Gervaise with a rod of iron, grumbled and found fault far more than Coupeau ever did. It was a house with two masters, one of whom, cleverer by far than the other, took the best of everything. He skimmed the Coupeaus, as it were, and kept all the cream for himself. He was fond of Nana because he liked girls better than boys. He troubled himself little about Etienne.

When people came and asked for Coupeau it was Lantier who appeared in his shirt sleeves with the air of the man of the house who is needlessly disturbed. He answered for Coupeau, said it was one and the same thing.

Gervaise did not find this life always smooth and agreeable. She had no reason to complain of her health. She had become very stout. But it was hard work to provide for and please these two men. When they came in, furious and out of temper, it was on her that they wreaked their rage. Coupeau abused her frightfully and called her by the coarsest epithets. Lantier, on the contrary, was more select in his phraseology, but his words cut her quite as deeply. Fortunately people become accustomed to almost everything in this world, and Gervaise soon ceased to care for the reproaches and injustice of these two men. She even preferred to have them out of temper with her, for then they let her alone in some degree; but when they were in a good humor they were all the time at her heels, and she could not find a leisure moment even to iron a cap, so constant were the demands they made upon her. They wanted her to do this and do that, to cook little dishes for them and wait upon them by inches.

One night she dreamed she was at the bottom of a well. Coupeau was pushing her down with his fists, and Lantier was tickling her to make her jump out quicker. And this, she thought, was a very fair picture of her life! She said that the people of the _Quartier_ were very unjust, after all, when they reproached her for the way of life into which she had fallen. It was not her fault. It was not she who had done it, and a little shiver ran over her as she reflected that perhaps the worst was not yet.

The utter deterioration of her nature was shown by the fact that she detested neither her husband nor Lantier. In a play at the Gaite she had seen a woman hate her husband and poison him for the sake of her lover. This she thought very strange and unnatural. Why could the three not have lived together peaceably? It would have been much more reasonable!

In spite of her debts, in spite of the shifts to which her increasing poverty condemned her, Gervaise would have considered herself quite well off, but for the exacting selfishness of Lantier and Coupeau.

Toward autumn Lantier became more and more disgusted, declared he had nothing to live on but potato parings and that his health was suffering. He was enraged at seeing the house so thoroughly cleared out, and he felt that the day was not far off when he must take his hat and depart. He had become accustomed to his den, and he hated to leave it. He was thoroughly provoked that the extravagant habits of Gervaise necessitated this sacrifice on his part. Why could she not have shown more sense? He was sure he didn’t know what would become of them. Could they have struggled on six months longer, he could have concluded an affair which would have enabled him to support the whole family in comfort.

One day it came to pass that there was not a mouthful in the house, not even a radish. Lantier sat by the stove in somber discontent. Finally he started up and went to call on the Poissons, to whom he suddenly became friendly to a degree. He no longer taunted the police officer but condescended to admit that the emperor was a good fellow after all. He showed himself especially civil to Virginie, whom he considered a clever woman and well able to steer her bark through stormy seas.

Virginie one day happened to say in his presence that she should like to establish herself in some business. He approved the plan and paid her a succession of adroit compliments on her capabilities and cited the example of several women he knew who had made or were making their fortunes in this way.

Virginie had the money, an inheritance from an aunt, but she hesitated, for she did not wish to leave the _Quartier_ and she did not know of any shop she could have. Then Lantier led her into a corner and whispered to her for ten minutes; he seemed to be persuading her to something. They continued to talk together in this way at intervals for several days, seeming to have some secret understanding.

Lantier all this time was fretting and scolding at the Coupeaus, asking Gervaise what on earth she intended to do, begging her to look things fairly in the face. She owed five or six hundred francs to the tradespeople about her. She was behindhand with her rent, and Marescot, the landlord, threatened to turn her out if they did not pay before the first of January.

The Mont-de-Piete had taken everything; there was literally nothing but the nails in the walls left. What did she mean to do?

Gervaise listened to all this at first listlessly, but she grew angry at last and cried out:

“Look here! I will go away tomorrow and leave the key in the door. I had rather sleep in the gutter than live in this way!”

“And I can’t say that it would not be a wise thing for you to do!” answered Lantier insidiously. “I might possibly assist you to find someone to take the lease off your hands whenever you really conclude to leave the shop.”

“I am ready to leave it at once!” cried Gervaise violently. “I am sick and tired of it.”

Then Lantier became serious and businesslike. He spoke openly of Virginie, who, he said, was looking for a shop; in fact, he now remembered having heard her say that she would like just such a one as this.

But Gervaise shrank back and grew strangely calm at this name of Virginie.

She would see, she said; on the whole, she must have time to think. People said a great many things when they were angry, which on reflection were found not to be advisable.

Lantier rang the changes on this subject for a week, but Gervaise said she had decided to employ some woman and go to work again, and if she were not able to get back her old customers she could try for new ones. She said this merely to show Lantier that she was not so utterly downcast and crushed as he had seemed to take for granted was the case.

He was reckless enough to drop the name of Virginie once more, and she turned upon him in a rage.

“No, no, never!” She had always distrusted Virginie, and if she wanted the shop it was only to humiliate her. Any other woman might have it, but not this hypocrite, who had been waiting for years to gloat over her downfall. No, she understood now only too well the meaning of the yellow sparks in her cat’s eyes. It was clear to her that Virginie had never forgotten the scene in the lavatory, and if she did not look out there would be a repetition of it.

Lantier stood aghast at this anger and this torrent of words, but presently he plucked up courage and bade her hold her tongue and told her she should not talk of his friends in that way. As for himself, he was sick and tired of other people’s affairs; in future he would let them all take care of themselves, without a word of counsel from him.

January arrived, cold and damp. Mamma Coupeau took to her bed with a violent cold which she expected each year at this time. But those about her said she would never leave the house again, except feet first.

Her children had learned to look forward to her death as a happy deliverance for all. The physician who came once was not sent for again. A little tisane was given her from time to time that she might not feel herself utterly neglected. She was just alive; that was all. It now became a mere question of time with her, but her brain was clear still, and in the expression of her eyes there were many things to be read–sorrow at seeing no sorrow in those she left behind her and anger against Nana, who was utterly indifferent to her.

One Monday evening Coupeau came in as tipsy as usual and threw himself on the bed, all dressed. Gervaise intended to remain with her mother-in-law part of the night, but Nana was very brave and said she would hear if her grandmother moved and wanted anything.

About half-past three Gervaise woke with a start; it seemed to her that a cold blast had swept through the room. Her candle had burned down, and she nastily wrapped a shawl around her with trembling hands and hurried into the next room. Nana was sleeping quietly, and her grandmother was dead in the bed at her side.

Gervaise went to Lantier and waked him.

“She is dead,” she said.

“Well, what of it?” he muttered, half asleep. “Why don’t you go to sleep?”

She turned away in silence while he grumbled at her coming to disturb him by the intelligence of a death in the house.

Gervaise dressed herself, not without tears, for she really loved the cross old woman whose son lay in the heavy slumbers of intoxication.

When she went back to the room she found Nana sitting up and rubbing her eyes. The child realized what had come to pass and trembled nervously in the face of this death of which she had thought much in the last two days, as of something which was hidden from children.

“Get up!” said her mother in a low voice. “I do not wish you to stay here.”

The child slipped from her bed slowly and regretfully, with her eyes fixed on the dead body of her grandmother.

Gervaise did not know what to do with her or where to send her. At this moment Lantier appeared at the door. He had dressed himself, impelled by a little shame at his own conduct.

“Let the child go into my room,” he said, “and I will help you.”

Nana looked first at her mother and then at Lantier and then trotted with her little bare feet into the next room and slipped into the bed that was still warm.

She lay there wide awake with blazing cheeks and eyes and seemed to be absorbed in thought.

While Lantier and Gervaise were silently occupied with the dead Coupeau lay and snored.

Gervaise hunted in a bureau to find a little crucifix which she had brought from Plassans, when she suddenly remembered that Mamma Coupeau had sold it. They each took a glass of wine and sat by the stove until daybreak.

About seven o’clock Coupeau woke. When he heard what had happened he declared they were jesting. But when he saw the body he fell on his knees and wept like a baby. Gervaise was touched by these tears and found her heart softer toward her husband than it had been for many a long year.

“Courage, old friend!” said Lantier, pouring out a glass of wine as he spoke.

Coupeau took some wine, but he continued to weep, and Lantier went off under pretext of informing the family, but he did not hurry. He walked along slowly, smoking a cigar, and after he had been to Mme Lerat’s he stopped in at a _cremerie_ to take a cup of coffee, and there he sat for an hour or more in deep thought.

By nine o’clock the family were assembled in the shop, whose shutters had not been taken down. Lorilleux only remained for a few moments and then went back to his shop. Mme Lorilleux shed a few tears and then sent Nana to buy a pound of candles.

“How like Gervaise!” she murmured. “She can do nothing in a proper way!”

Mme Lerat went about among the neighbors to borrow a crucifix. She brought one so large that when it was laid on the breast of Mamma Coupeau the weight seemed to crush her.

Then someone said something about holy water, so Nana was sent to the church with a bottle. The room assumed a new aspect. On a small table burned a candle, near it a glass of holy water in which was a branch of box.

“Everything is in order,” murmured the sisters; “people can come now as soon as they please.”

Lantier made his appearance about eleven. He had been to make inquiries in regard to funeral expenses.

“The coffin,” he said, “is twelve francs, and if you want a Mass, ten francs more. A hearse is paid for according to its ornaments.”

“You must remember,” said Mme Lorilleux with compressed lips, “that Mamma must be buried according to her purse.”

“Precisely!” answered Lantier. “I only tell you this as your guide. Decide what you want, and after breakfast I will go and attend to it all.”

He spoke in a low voice, oppressed by the presence of the dead. The children were laughing in the courtyard and Nana singing loudly.

Gervaise said gently:

“We are not rich, to be sure, but we wish to do what she would have liked. If Mamma Coupeau has left us nothing it was not her fault and no reason why we should bury her as if she were a dog. No, there must be a Mass and a hearse.”

“And who will pay for it?” asked Mme Lorilleux. “We can’t, for we lost much money last week, and I am quite sure you would find it hard work!”

Coupeau, when he was consulted, shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of profound indifference. Mme Lerat said she would pay her share.

“There are three of us,” said Gervaise after a long calculation; “if we each pay thirty francs we can do it with decency.”

But Mme Lorilleux burst out furiously:

“I will never consent to such folly. It is not that I care for the money, but I disapprove of the ostentation. You can do as you please.”

“Very well,” replied Gervaise, “I will. I have taken care of your mother while she was living; I can bury her now that she is dead.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gervaise heard but did not seem to heed.

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

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

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

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

Lantier interposed and said soothingly:

“Never mind! We will talk of it another time–tomorrow, possibly.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You are not angry now?” she said entreatingly.

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

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

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

“If you want the shop, take it!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER X

DISASTERS AND CHANGES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then her husband went into a perfect rage:

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

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

“Beast!” That was all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mme Lorilleux said to Mme Boche on their way home:

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

Gervaise told Boche that she thought the shop admirably arranged. She had looked forward to an evening of torture and was surprised that she had not experienced a pang.

Nana, as she undressed, asked her mother if the girl on the next floor, who had been married the week before, wore a dress of muslin like hers.

But this was the last bright day in that household. Two years passed away, and their prospects grew darker and their demoralization and degradation more evident. They went without food and without fire, but never without brandy.

They found it almost impossible to meet their rent, and a certain January came when they had not a penny, and Father Boche ordered them to leave.

It was frightfully cold, with a sharp wind blowing from the north.

M. Marescot appeared in a warm overcoat and his hands encased in warm woolen gloves and told them they must go, even if they slept in the gutter. The whole house was oppressed with woe, and a dreary sound of lamentation arose from most of the rooms, for half the tenants were behindhand. Gervaise sold her bed and paid the rent. Nana made nothing as yet, and Gervaise had so fallen off in her work that Mme Fauconnier had reduced her wages. She was irregular in her hours and often absented herself from the shop for several days together but was none the less vexed to discover that her old employee, Mme Putois, had been placed above her. Naturally at the end of the week Gervaise had little money coming to her.

As to Coupeau, if he worked he brought no money home, and his wife had ceased to count upon it. Sometimes he declared he had lost it through a hole in his pocket or it had been stolen, but after a while he ceased to make any excuses.

But if he had no cash in his pockets it was because he had spent it all in drink. Mme Boche advised Gervaise to watch for him at the door of the place where he was employed and get his wages from him before he had spent them all, but this did no good, as Coupeau was warned by his friends and escaped by a rear door.

The Coupeaus were entirely to blame for their misfortunes, but this is just what people will never admit. It is always ill luck or the cruelty of God or anything, in short, save the legitimate result of their own vices.

Gervaise now quarreled with her husband incessantly. The warmth of affection of husband and wife, of parents for their children and children for their parents had fled and left them all shivering, each apart from the other.

All three, Coupeau, Gervaise and Nana, watched each other with eyes of baleful hate. It seemed as if some spring had broken–the great mainspring that binds families together.

Gervaise did not shudder when she saw her husband lying drunk in the gutter. She would not have pushed him in, to be sure, but if he were out of the way it would be a good thing for everybody. She even went so far as to say one day in a fit of rage that she would be glad to see him brought home on a shutter. Of what good was he to any human being? He ate and he drank and he slept. His child learned to hate him, and she read the accidents in the papers with the feelings of an unnatural daughter. What a pity it was that her father had not been the man who was killed when that omnibus tipped over!

In addition to her own sorrows and privations, Gervaise, whose heart was not yet altogether hard, was condemned to hear now of the sufferings of others. The corner of the house in which she lived seemed to be consecrated to those who were as poor as herself. No smell of cooking filled the air, which, on the contrary, was laden with the shrill cries of hungry children, heavy with the sighs of weary, heartbroken mothers and with the oaths of drunken husbands and fathers.

Gervaise pitied Father Bru from the bottom of her heart; he lay the greater part of the time rolled up in the straw in his den under the staircase leading to the roof. When two or three days elapsed without his showing himself someone opened the door and looked in to see if he were still alive.

Yes, he was living; that is, he was not dead. When Gervaise had bread she always remembered him. If she had learned to hate men because of her husband her heart was still tender toward animals, and Father Bru seemed like one to her. She regarded him as a faithful old dog. Her heart was heavy within her whenever she thought of him, alone, abandoned by God and man, dying by inches or drying, rather, as an orange dries on the chimney piece.

Gervaise was also troubled by the vicinity of the undertaker Bazonge–a wooden partition alone separated their rooms. When he came in at night she could hear him throw down his glazed hat, which fell with a dull thud, like a shovelful of clay, on the table. The black cloak hung against the wall rustled like the wings of some huge bird of prey. She could hear his every movement, and she spent most of her time listening to him with morbid horror, while he–all unconscious–hummed his vulgar songs and tipsily staggered to his bed, under which the poor woman’s sick fancy pictured a dead body concealed.

She had read in some paper a dismal tale of some undertaker who took home with him coffin after coffin–children’s coffins–in order to make one trip to the cemetery suffice. When she heard his step the whole corridor was pervaded to her senses with the odor of dead humanity.

She would as lief have resided at Pere-Lachaise and watched the moles at their work. The man terrified her; his incessant laughter dismayed her. She talked of moving but at the same time was reluctant to do so, for there was a strange fascination about Bazonge after all. Had he not told her once that he would come for her and lay her down to sleep in the shadow of waving branches, where she would know neither hunger nor toil?

She wished she could try it for a month. And she thought how delicious it would be in midwinter, just at the time her quarter’s rent was due. But, alas, this was not possible! The rest and the sleep must be eternal; this thought chilled her, and her longing for death faded away before the unrelenting severity of the bonds exacted by Mother Earth.

One night she was sick and feverish, and instead of throwing herself out of the window as she was tempted to do, she rapped on the partition and called loudly:

“Father Bazonge! Father Bazonge!”

The undertaker was kicking off his slippers, singing a vulgar song as he did so.

“What is the matter?” he answered.