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The Project Gutenberg EBook of L'Assommoir, by Emile Zola
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: L'Assommoir
Author: Emile Zola
Posting Date: March 22, 2013 [EBook #8558]
Release Date: July, 2005
First Posted: July 23, 2003
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK L'ASSOMMOIR ***
Produced by Cam Venezuela, Earle Beach, Eric Eldred, and
the Distributed Online Proofing Team
L'ASSOMMOIR
By Emile Zola
CHAPTER I
GERVAISE
Gervaise had waited and watched for Lantier until two in the morning.
Then chilled and shivering, she turned from the window and threw
herself across the bed, where she fell into a feverish doze with her
cheeks wet with tears. For the last week when they came out of the
Veau a Deux Tetes, where they ate, he had sent her off to bed with the
children and had not appeared until late into the night and always
with a story that he had been looking for work.
This very night, while she was watching for his return, she fancied
she saw him enter the ballroom of the Grand-Balcon, whose ten windows
blazing with lights illuminated, as with a sheet of fire, the black
lines of the outer boulevards. She caught a glimpse of Adele, a pretty
brunette who dined at their restaurant and who was walking a few steps
behind him, with her hands swinging as if she had just dropped his
arm, rather than pass before the bright light of the globes over the
door in his company.
When Gervaise awoke about five o'clock, stiff and sore, she burst into
wild sobs, for Lantier had not come in. For the first time he had
slept out. She sat on the edge of the bed, half shrouded in the canopy
of faded chintz that hung from the arrow fastened to the ceiling by a
string. Slowly, with her eyes suffused with tears, she looked around
this miserable _chambre garnie_, whose furniture consisted of a
chestnut bureau of which one drawer was absent, three straw chairs
and a greasy table on which was a broken-handled pitcher.
Another bedstead--an iron one--had been brought in for the children.
This stood in front of the bureau and filled up two thirds of the
room.
A trunk belonging to Gervaise and Lantier stood in the corner wide
open, showing its empty sides, while at the bottom a man's old hat lay
among soiled shirts and hose. Along the walls and on the backs of the
chairs hung a ragged shawl, a pair of muddy pantaloons and a dress or
two--all too bad for the old-clothes man to buy. In the middle of the
mantel between two mismated tin candlesticks was a bundle of pawn
tickets from the Mont-de-Piete. These tickets were of a delicate shade
of rose.
The room was the best in the hotel--the first floor looking out on the
boulevard.
Meanwhile side by side on the same pillow the two children lay calmly
sleeping. Claude, who was eight years old, was breathing calmly and
regularly with his little hands outside of the coverings, while
Etienne, only four, smiled with one arm under his brother's neck.
When their mother's eyes fell on them she had a new paroxysm of sobs
and pressed her handkerchief to her mouth to stifle them. Then with
bare feet, not stopping to put on her slippers which had fallen off,
she ran to the window out of which she leaned as she had done half the
night and inspected the sidewalks as far as she could see.
The hotel was on the Boulevard de la Chapelle, at the left of the
Barriere Poissonniers. It was a two-story building, painted a deep red
up to the first floor, and had disjointed weather-stained blinds.
Above a lantern with glass sides was a sign between the two windows:
HOTEL BONCOEUR
KEPT BY
MARSOULLIER
in large yellow letters, partially obliterated by the dampness.
Gervaise, who was prevented by the lantern from seeing as she desired,
leaned out still farther, with her handkerchief on her lips. She
looked to the right toward the Boulevard de Rochechoumart, where
groups of butchers stood with their bloody frocks before their
establishments, and the fresh breeze brought in whiffs, a strong
animal smell--the smell of slaughtered cattle.
She looked to the left, following the ribbonlike avenue, past the
Hospital de Lariboisiere, then building. Slowly, from one end to the
other of the horizon, did she follow the wall, from behind which in
the nightime she had heard strange groans and cries, as if some fell
murder were being perpetrated. She looked at it with horror, as if in
some dark corner--dark with dampness and filth--she should distinguish
Lantier--Lantier lying dead with his throat cut.
When she gazed beyond this gray and interminable wall she saw a great
light, a golden mist waving and shimmering with the dawn of a new
Parisian day. But it was to the Barriere Poissonniers that her eyes
persistently returned, watching dully the uninterrupted flow of men
and cattle, wagons and sheep, which came down from Montmartre and
from La Chapelle. There were scattered flocks dashed like waves on
the sidewalk by some sudden detention and an endless succession of
laborers going to their work with their tools over their shoulders
and their loaves of bread under their arms.
Suddenly Gervaise thought she distinguished Lantier amid this crowd,
and she leaned eagerly forward at the risk of falling from the window.
With a fresh pang of disappointment she pressed her handkerchief to
her lips to restrain her sobs.
A fresh, youthful voice caused her to turn around.
"Lantier has not come in then?"
"No, Monsieur Coupeau," she answered, trying to smile.
The speaker was a tinsmith who occupied a tiny room at the top of the
house. His bag of tools was over his shoulder; he had seen the key in
the door and entered with the familiarity of a friend.
"You know," he continued, "that I am working nowadays at the hospital.
What a May this is! The air positively stings one this morning."
As he spoke he looked closely at Gervaise; he saw her eyes were red
with tears and then, glancing at the bed, discovered that it had not
been disturbed. He shook his head and, going toward the couch where
the children lay with their rosy cherub faces, he said in a lower
voice:
"You think your husband ought to have been with you, madame. But don't
be troubled; he is busy with politics. He went on like a mad man the
other day when they were voting for Eugene Sue. Perhaps he passed the
night with his friends abusing that reprobate Bonaparte."
"No, no," she murmured with an effort. "You think nothing of that kind.
I know where Lantier is only too well. We have our sorrows like the
rest of the world!"
Coupeau gave a knowing wink and departed, having offered to bring her
some milk if she did not care to go out; she was a good woman, he told
her and might count on him any time when she was in trouble.
As soon as Gervaise was alone she returned to the window.
From the Barriere the lowing of the cattle and the bleating of the
sheep still came on the keen, fresh morning air. Among the crowd she
recognized the locksmiths by their blue frocks, the masons by their
white overalls, the painters by their coats, from under which hung
their blouses. This crowd was cheerless. All of neutral tints--grays
and blues predominating, with never a dash of color. Occasionally a
workman stopped and lighted his pipe, while his companions passed on.
There was no laughing, no talking, but they strode on steadily with
cadaverous faces toward that Paris which quickly swallowed them up.
At the two corners of La Rue des Poissonniers were two wineshops,
where the shutters had just been taken down. Here some of the workmen
lingered, crowding into the shop, spitting, coughing and drinking
glasses of brandy and water. Gervaise was watching the place on the
left of the street, where she thought she had seen Lantier go in, when
a stout woman, bareheaded and wearing a large apron, called to her
from the pavement,
"You are up early, Madame Lantier!"
Gervaise leaned out.
"Ah, is it you, Madame Boche! Yes, I am up early, for I have much to
do today."
"Is that so? Well, things don't get done by themselves, that's sure!"
And a conversation ensued between the window and the sidewalk. Mme
Boche was the concierge of the house wherein the restaurant Veau a
Deux Tetes occupied the _rez-de-chaussee_.
Many times Gervaise had waited for Lantier in the room of this woman
rather than face the men who were eating. The concierge said she had
just been round the corner to arouse a lazy fellow who had promised to
do some work and then went on to speak of one of her lodgers who had
come in the night before with some woman and had made such a noise
that every one was disturbed until after three o'clock.
As she gabbled, however, she examined Gervaise with considerable
curiosity and seemed, in fact, to have come out under the window for
that express purpose.
"Is Monsieur Lantier still asleep?" she asked suddenly.
"Yes, he is asleep," answered Gervaise with flushing cheeks.
Madame saw the tears come to her eyes and, satisfied with her
discovery, was turning away when she suddenly stopped and called out:
"You are going to the lavatory this morning, are you not? All right
then, I have some things to wash, and I will keep a place for you next
to me, and we can have a little talk!"
Then as if moved by sudden compassion, she added:
"Poor child, don't stay at that window any longer. You are purple with
cold and will surely make yourself sick!"
But Gervaise did not move. She remained in the same spot for two
mortal hours, until the clock struck eight. The shops were now
all open. The procession in blouses had long ceased, and only an
occasional one hurried along. At the wineshops, however, there was
the same crowd of men drinking, spitting and coughing. The workmen in
the street had given place to the workwomen. Milliners' apprentices,
florists, burnishers, who with thin shawls drawn closely around them
came in bands of three or four, talking eagerly, with gay laughs
and quick glances. Occasionally one solitary figure was seen, a
pale-faced, serious woman, who walked rapidly, neither looking to
the right nor to the left.
Then came the clerks, blowing on their fingers to warm them, eating a
roll as they walked; young men, lean and tall, with clothing they had
outgrown and with eyes heavy with sleep; old men, who moved along with
measured steps, occasionally pulling out their watches, but able, from
many years' practice, to time their movements almost to a second.
The boulevards at last were comparatively quiet. The inhabitants were
sunning themselves. Women with untidy hair and soiled petticoats were
nursing their babies in the open air, and an occasional dirty-faced
brat fell into the gutter or rolled over with shrieks of pain or joy.
Gervaise felt faint and ill; all hope was gone. It seemed to her that
all was over and that Lantier would come no more. She looked from the
dingy slaughterhouses, black with their dirt and loathsome odor, on to
the new and staring hospital and into the rooms consecrated to disease
and death. As yet the windows were not in, and there was nothing to
impede her view of the large, empty wards. The sun shone directly in
her face and blinded her.
She was sitting on a chair with her arms dropping drearily at her side
but not weeping, when Lantier quietly opened the door and walked in.
"You have come!" she cried, ready to throw herself on his neck.
"Yes, I have come," he answered, "and what of it? Don't begin any
of your nonsense now!" And he pushed her aside. Then with an angry
gesture he tossed his felt hat on the bureau.
He was a small, dark fellow, handsome and well made, with a delicate
mustache which he twisted in his fingers mechanically as he spoke.
He wore an old coat, buttoned tightly at the waist, and spoke with
a strongly marked Provencal accent.
Gervaise had dropped upon her chair again and uttered disjointed
phrases of lamentation.
"I have not closed my eyes--I thought you were killed! Where have you
been all night? I feel as if I were going mad! Tell me, Auguste, where
have you been?"
"Oh, I had business," he answered with an indifferent shrug of his
shoulders. "At eight o'clock I had an engagement with that friend,
you know, who is thinking of starting a manufactory of hats. I was
detained, and I preferred stopping there. But you know I don't like
to be watched and catechized. Just let me alone, will you?"
His wife began to sob. Their voices and Lantier's noisy movements as
he pushed the chairs about woke the children. They started up, half
naked with tumbled hair, and hearing their mother cry, they followed
her example, rending the air with their shrieks.
"Well, this is lovely music!" cried Lantier furiously. "I warn you,
if you don't all stop, that out of this door I go, and you won't see
me again in a hurry! Will you hold your tongue? Good-by then; I'll
go back where I came from."
He snatched up his hat, but Gervaise rushed toward him, crying:
"No! No!"
And she soothed the children and stifled their cries with kisses and
laid them tenderly back in their bed, and they were soon happy and
merrily playing together. Meanwhile the father, not even taking off
his boots, threw himself on the bed with a weary air. His face was
white from exhaustion and a sleepless night; he did not close his
eyes but looked around the room.
"A nice-looking place, this!" he muttered.
Then examining Gervaise, he said half aloud and half to himself:
"So! You have given up washing yourself, it seems!"
Gervaise was only twenty-two. She was tall and slender with delicate
features, already worn by hardships and anxieties. With her hair
uncombed and shoes down at the heel, shivering in her white sack, on
which was much dust and many stains from the furniture and wall where
it had hung, she looked at least ten years older from the hours of
suspense and tears she had passed.
Lantier's word startled her from her resignation and timidity.
"Are you not ashamed?" she said with considerable animation. "You know
very well that I do all I can. It is not my fault that we came here.
I should like to see you with two children in a place where you can't
get a drop of hot water. We ought as soon as we reached Paris to have
settled ourselves at once in a home; that was what you promised."
"Pshaw," he muttered; "You had as much good as I had out of our
savings. You ate the fatted calf with me--and it is not worth while
to make a row about it now!"
She did not heed his word but continued:
"There is no need of giving up either. I saw Madame Fauconnier, the
laundress in La Rue Neuve. She will take me Monday. If you go in with
your friend we shall be afloat again in six months. We must find some
kind of a hole where we can live cheaply while we work. That is the
thing to do now. Work! Work!"
Lantier turned his face to the wall with a shrug of disgust which
enraged his wife, who resumed:
"Yes, I know very well that you don't like to work. You would like to
wear fine clothes and walk about the streets all day. You don't like
my looks since you took all my dresses to the pawnbrokers. No, no,
Auguste, I did not intend to speak to you about it, but I know very
well where you spent the night. I saw you go into the Grand-Balcon
with that streetwalker Adele. You have made a charming choice. She
wears fine clothes and is clean. Yes, and she has reason to be,
certainly; there is not a man in that restaurant who does not know
her far better than an honest girl should be known!"
Lantier leaped from the bed. His eyes were as black as night and his
face deadly pale.
"Yes," repeated his wife, "I mean what I say. Madame Boche will not
keep her or her sister in the house any longer, because there are
always a crowd of men hanging on the staircase."
Lantier lifted both fists, and then conquering a violent desire to
beat her, he seized her in his arms, shook her violently and threw her
on the bed where the children were. They at once began to cry again
while he stood for a moment, and then, with the air of a man who
finally takes a resolution in regard to which he has hesitated, he
said:
"You do not know what you have done, Gervaise. You are wrong--as you
will soon discover."
For a moment the voices of the children filled the room. Their mother,
lying on their narrow couch, held them both in her arms and said over
and over again in a monotonous voice:
"If you were not here, my poor darlings! If you were not here! If you
were not here!"
Lantier was lying flat on his back with his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
He was not listening; his attention was concentrated on some fixed
idea. He remained in this way for an hour and more, not sleeping, in
spite of his evident and intense fatigue. When he turned and, leaning
on his elbow, looked about the room again, he found that Gervaise had
arranged the chamber and made the children's bed. They were washed
and dressed. He watched her as she swept the room and dusted the
furniture.
The room was very dreary still, however, with its smoke-stained
ceiling and paper discolored by dampness and three chairs and
dilapidated bureau, whose greasy surface no dusting could clean.
Then while she washed herself and arranged her hair before the small
mirror, he seemed to examine her arms and shoulders, as if instituting
a comparison between herself and someone else. And he smiled a
disdainful little smile.
Gervaise was slightly, very slightly, lame, but her lameness was
perceptible, only on such days as she was very tired. This morning,
so weary was she from the watches of the night, that she could hardly
walk without support.
A profound silence reigned in the room; they did not speak to each
other. He seemed to be waiting for something. She, adopting an
unconcerned air, seemed to be in haste.
She made up a bundle of soiled linen that had been thrown into a
corner behind the trunk, and then he spoke:
"What are you doing? Are you going out?"
At first she did not reply. Then when he angrily repeated the question
she answered:
"Certainly I am. I am going to wash all these things. The children
cannot live in dirt."
He threw two or three handkerchiefs toward her, and after another long
silence he said:
"Have you any money?"
She quickly rose to her feet and turned toward him; in her hand she
held some of the soiled clothes.
"Money! Where should I get money unless I had stolen it? You know very
well that day before yesterday you got three francs on my black skirt.
We have breakfasted twice on that, and money goes fast. No, I have no
money. I have four sous for the lavatory. I cannot make money like
other women we know."
He did not reply to this allusion but rose from the bed and passed in
review the ragged garments hung around the room. He ended by taking
down the pantaloons and the shawl and, opening the bureau, took out a
sack and two chemises. All these he made into a bundle, which he threw
at Gervaise.
"Take them," he said, "and make haste back from the pawnbroker's."
"Would you not like me to take the children?" she asked. "Heavens! If
pawnbrokers would only make loans on children, what a good thing it
would be!"
She went to the Mont-de-Piete, and when she returned a half-hour later
she laid a silver five-franc piece on the mantelshelf and placed the
ticket with the others between the two candlesticks.
"This is what they gave me," she said coldly. "I wanted six francs,
but they would not give them. They always keep on the safe side there,
and yet there is always a crowd."
Lantier did not at once take up the money. He had sent her to the
Mont-de-Piete that he might not leave her without food or money, but
when he caught sight of part of a ham wrapped in paper on the table
with half a loaf of bread he slipped the silver piece into his vest
pocket.
"I did not dare go to the milk woman," explained Gervaise, "because
we owe her for eight days. But I shall be back early. You can get some
bread and some chops and have them ready. Don't forget the wine too."
He made no reply. Peace seemed to be made, but when Gervaise went to
the trunk to take out some of Lantier's clothing he called out:
"No--let that alone."
"What do you mean?" she said, turning round in surprise. "You can't
wear these things again until they are washed! Why shall I not take
them?"
And she looked at him with some anxiety. He angrily tore the things
from her hands and threw them back into the trunk.
"Confound you!" he muttered. "Will you never learn to obey? When I say
a thing I mean it--"
"But why?" she repeated, turning very pale and seized with a terrible
suspicion. "You do not need these shirts; you are not going away. Why
should I not take them?"
He hesitated a moment, uneasy under the earnest gaze she fixed upon
him. "Why? Why? Because," he said, "I am sick of hearing you say that
you wash and mend for me. Attend to your own affairs, and I will
attend to mine."
She entreated him, defended herself from the charge of ever having
complained, but he shut the trunk with a loud bang and then sat down
upon it, repeating that he was master at least of his own clothing.
Then to escape from her eyes, he threw himself again on the bed,
saying he was sleepy and that she made his head ache, and finally
slept or pretended to do so.
Gervaise hesitated; she was tempted to give up her plan of going to
the lavatory and thought she would sit down to her sewing. But at last
she was reassured by Lantier's regular breathing; she took her soap
and her ball of bluing and, going to the children, who were playing
on the floor with some old corks, she said in a low voice:
"Be very good and keep quiet. Papa is sleeping."
When she left the room there was not a sound except the stifled
laughter of the little ones. It was then after ten, and the sun was
shining brightly in at the window.
Gervaise, on reaching the boulevard, turned to the left and followed
the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. As she passed Mme Fauconnier's shop she
nodded to the woman. The lavatory, whither she went, was in the middle
of this street, just where it begins to ascend. Over a large low
building towered three enormous reservoirs for water, huge cylinders
of zinc strongly made, and in the rear was the drying room, an
apartment with a very high ceiling and surrounded by blinds through
which the air passed. On the right of the reservoirs a steam engine
let off regular puffs of white smoke. Gervaise, habituated apparently
to puddles, did not lift her skirts but threaded her way through the
part of _eau de Javelle_ which encumbered the doorway. She knew
the mistress of the establishment, a delicate woman who sat in a
cabinet with glass doors, surrounded by soap and bluing and packages
of bicarbonate of soda.
As Gervaise passed the desk she asked for her brush and beater, which
she had left to be taken care of after her last wash. Then having
taken her number, she went in. It was an immense shed, as it were,
with a low ceiling--the beams and rafters unconcealed--and lighted by
large windows, through which the daylight streamed. A light gray mist
or steam pervaded the room, which was filled with a smell of soapsuds
and _eau de Javelle_ combined. Along the central aisle were tubs
on either side, and two rows of women with their arms bare to the
shoulders and their skirts tucked up stood showing their colored
stockings and stout laced shoes.
They rubbed and pounded furiously, straightening themselves
occasionally to utter a sentence and then applying themselves again
to their task, with the steam and perspiration pouring down their red
faces. There was a constant rush of water from the faucets, a great
splashing as the clothes were rinsed and pounding and banging of the
beaters, while amid all this noise the steam engine in the corner kept
up its regular puffing.
Gervaise went slowly up the aisle, looking to the right and the left.
She carried her bundle under her arm and limped more than usual, as
she was pushed and jarred by the energy of the women about her.
"Here! This way, my dear," cried Mme Boche, and when the young woman
had joined her at the very end where she stood, the concierge, without
stopping her furious rubbing, began to talk in a steady fashion.
"Yes, this is your place. I have kept it for you. I have not much to
do. Boche is never hard on his linen, and you, too, do not seem to
have much. Your package is quite small. We shall finish by noon, and
then we can get something to eat. I used to give my clothes to a woman
in La Rue Pelat, but bless my heart, she washed and pounded them all
away, and I made up my mind to wash myself. It is clear gain, you see,
and costs only the soap."
Gervaise opened her bundle and sorted the clothes, laying aside all
the colored pieces, and when Mme Boche advised her to try a little
soda she shook her head.
"No, no!" she said. "I know all about it!"
"You know?" answered Boche curiously. "You have washed then in your
own place before you came here?"
Gervaise, with her sleeves rolled up, showing her pretty, fair arms,
was soaping a child's shirt. She rubbed it and turned it, soaped and
rubbed it again. Before she answered she took up her beater and began
to use it, accenting each phrase or rather punctuating them with her
regular blows.
"Yes, yes, washed--I should think I had! Ever since I was ten years
old. We went to the riverside, where I came from. It was much nicer
than here. I wish you could see it--a pretty corner under the trees
by the running water. Do you know Plassans? Near Marseilles?"
"You are a strong one, anyhow!" cried Mme Boche, astonished at the
rapidity and strength of the woman. "Your arms are slender, but they
are like iron."
The conversation continued until all the linen was well beaten and
yet whole! Gervaise then took each piece separately, rinsed it, then
rubbed it with soap and brushed it. That is to say, she held the cloth
firmly with one hand and with the other moved the short brush from
her, pushing along a dirty foam which fell off into the water below.
As she brushed they talked.
"No, we are not married," said Gervaise. "I do not intend to lie about
it. Lantier is not so nice that a woman need be very anxious to be
his wife. If it were not for the children! I was fourteen and he was
eighteen when the first one was born. The other child did not come for
four years. I was not happy at home. Papa Macquart, for the merest
trifle, would beat me. I might have married, I suppose."
She dried her hands, which were red under the white soapsuds.
"The water is very hard in Paris," she said.
Mme Boche had finished her work long before, but she continued to
dabble in the water merely as an excuse to hear this story, which for
two weeks had excited her curiosity. Her mouth was open, and her eyes
were shining with satisfaction at having guessed so well.
"Oh yes, just as I knew," she said to herself, "but the little woman
talks too much! I was sure, though, there had been a quarrel."
Then aloud:
"He is not good to you then?"
"He was very good to me once," answered Gervaise, "but since we came
to Paris he has changed. His mother died last year and left him about
seventeen hundred francs. He wished to come to Paris, and as Father
Macquart was in the habit of hitting me in the face without any
warning, I said I would come, too, which we did, with the two
children. I meant to be a fine laundress, and he was to continue with
his trade as a hatter. We might have been very happy. But, you see,
Lantier is extravagant; he likes expensive things and thinks of his
amusement before anything else. He is not good for much, anyhow!
"We arrived at the Hotel Montmartre. We had dinners and carriages,
suppers and theaters, a watch for him, a silk dress for me--for he is
not selfish when he has money. You can easily imagine, therefore, at
the end of two months we were cleaned out. Then it was that we came
to Hotel Boncoeur and that this life began." She checked herself with
a strange choking in the throat. Tears gathered in her eyes. She
finished brushing her linen.
"I must get my scalding water," she murmured.
But Mme Boche, much annoyed at this sudden interruption to the
long-desired confidence, called the boy.
"Charles," she said, "it would be very good of you if you would bring
a pail of hot water to Madame Lantier, as she is in a great hurry."
The boy brought a bucketful, and Gervaise paid him a sou. It was a sou
for each bucket. She turned the hot water into her tub and soaked her
linen once more and rubbed it with her hands while the steam hovered
round her blonde head like a cloud.
"Here, take some of this," said the concierge as she emptied into the
water that Gervaise was using the remains of a package of bicarbonate
of soda. She offered her also some _eau de Javelle_, but the
young woman refused. It was only good, she said, for grease spots
and wine stains.
"I thought him somewhat dissipated," said Mme Boche, referring to
Lantier without naming him.
Gervaise, leaning over her tub and her arms up to the elbows in the
soapsuds, nodded in acquiescence.
"Yes," continued the concierge, "I have seen many little things."
But she started back as Gervaise turned round with a pale face and
quivering lips.
"Oh, I know nothing," she continued. "He likes to laugh--that is
all--and those two girls who are with us, you know, Adele and
Virginie, like to laugh too, so they have their little jokes together,
but that is all there is of it, I am sure."
The young woman, with the perspiration standing on her brow and
her arms still dripping, looked her full in the face with earnest,
inquiring eyes.
Then the concierge became excited and struck her breast, exclaiming:
"I tell you I know nothing whatever, nothing more than I tell you!"
Then she added in a gentle voice, "But he has honest eyes, my dear.
He will marry you, child; I promise that he will marry you!"
Gervaise dried her forehead with her damp hand and shook her head.
The two women were silent for a moment; around them, too, it was very
quiet. The clock struck eleven. Many of the women were seated swinging
their feet, drinking their wine and eating their sausages, sandwiched
between slices of bread. An occasional economical housewife hurried
in with a small bundle under her arm, and a few sounds of the pounder
were still heard at intervals; sentences were smothered in the full
mouths, or a laugh was uttered, ending in a gurgling sound as the wine
was swallowed, while the great machine puffed steadily on. Not one
of the women, however, heard it; it was like the very respiration of
the lavatory--the eager breath that drove up among the rafters the
floating vapor that filled the room.
The heat gradually became intolerable. The sun shone in on the left
through the high windows, imparting to the vapor opaline tints--the
palest rose and tender blue, fading into soft grays. When the women
began to grumble the boy Charles went from one window to the other,
drawing down the heavy linen shades. Then he crossed to the other
side, the shady side, and opened the blinds. There was a general
exclamation of joy--a formidable explosion of gaiety.
All this time Gervaise was going on with her task and had just
completed the washing of her colored pieces, which she threw over a
trestle to drip; soon small pools of blue water stood on the floor.
Then she began to rinse the garments in cold water which ran from a
spigot near by.
"You have nearly finished," said Mme Boche. "I am waiting to help you
wring them."
"Oh, you are very good! It is not necessary though!" answered the
young woman as she swashed the garments through the clear water. "If
I had sheets I would not refuse your offer, however."
Nevertheless, she accepted the aid of the concierge. They took up a
brown woolen skirt, badly faded, from which poured out a yellow stream
as the two women wrung it together.
Suddenly Mme Boche cried out:
"Look! There comes big Virginie! She is actually coming here to wash
her rags tied up in a handkerchief."
Gervaise looked up quickly. Virginie was a woman about her own age,
larger and taller than herself, a brunette and pretty in spite of the
elongated oval of her face. She wore an old black dress with flounces
and a red ribbon at her throat. Her hair was carefully arranged and
massed in a blue chenille net.
She hesitated a moment in the center aisle and half shut her eyes,
as if looking for something or somebody, but when she distinguished
Gervaise she went toward her with a haughty, insolent air and
supercilious smile and finally established herself only a short
distance from her.
"That is a new notion!" muttered Mme Boche in a low voice. "She was
never known before to rub out even a pair of cuffs. She is a lazy
creature, I do assure you. She never sews the buttons on her boots.
She is just like her sister, that minx of an Adele, who stays away
from the shop two days out of three. What is she rubbing now? A skirt,
is it? It is dirty enough, I am sure!"
It was clear that Mme Boche wished to please Gervaise. The truth was
she often took coffee with Adele and Virginie when the two sisters
were in funds. Gervaise did not reply but worked faster than before.
She was now preparing her bluing water in a small tub standing on
three legs. She dipped in her pieces, shook them about in the colored
water, which was almost a lake in hue, and then, wringing them, she
shook them out and threw them lightly over the high wooden bars.
While she did this she kept her back well turned on big Virginie. But
she felt that the girl was looking at her, and she heard an occasional
derisive sniff. Virginie, in fact, seemed to have come there to
provoke her, and when Gervaise turned around the two women fixed their
eyes on each other.
"Let her be," murmured Mme Boche. "She is not the one, now I tell
you!"
At this moment, as Gervaise was shaking her last piece of linen, she
heard laughing and talking at the door of the lavatory.
"Two children are here asking for their mother!" cried Charles.
All the women looked around, and Gervaise recognized Claude and
Etienne. As soon as they saw her they ran toward her, splashing
through the puddle's, their untied shoes half off and Claude, the
eldest, dragging his little brother by the hand.
The women as they passed uttered kindly exclamations of pity, for
the children were evidently frightened. They clutched their mother's
skirts and buried their pretty blond heads.
"Did Papa send you?" asked Gervaise.
But as she stooped to tie Etienne's shoes she saw on Claude's finger
the key of her room with its copper tag and number.
"Did you bring the key?" she exclaimed in great surprise. "And why,
pray?"
The child looked down on the key hanging on his finger, which he had
apparently forgotten. This seemed to remind him of something, and he
said in a clear, shrill voice:
"Papa is gone!"
"He went to buy your breakfast, did he not? And he told you to come
and look for me here, I suppose?"
Claude looked at his brother and hesitated. Then he exclaimed:
"Papa has gone, I say. He jumped from the bed, put his things in
his trunk, and then he carried his trunk downstairs and put it on
a carriage. We saw him--he has gone!"
Gervaise was kneeling, tying the boy's shoe. She rose slowly with a
very white face and with her hands pressed to either temple, as if she
were afraid of her head cracking open. She could say nothing but the
same words over and over again:
"Great God! Great God! Great God!"
Mme Boche, in her turn, interrogated the child eagerly, for she was
charmed at finding herself an actor, as it were, in this drama.
"Tell us all about it, my dear. He locked the door, did he? And then
he told you to bring the key here?" And then, lowering her voice, she
whispered in the child's ear:
"Was there a lady in the carriage?" she asked.
The child looked troubled for a moment but speedily began his story
again with a triumphant air.
"He jumped off the bed, put his things in the trunk, and he went
away."
Then as Mme Boche made no attempt to detain him, he drew his brother
to the faucet, where the two amused themselves in making the water
run.
Gervaise could not weep. She felt as if she were stifling. She covered
her face with her hands and turned toward the wall. A sharp, nervous
trembling shook her from head to foot. An occasional sobbing sigh or,
rather, gasp escaped from her lips, while she pressed her clenched
hands more tightly on her eyes, as if to increase the darkness of the
abyss in which she felt herself to have fallen.
"Come! Come, my child!" muttered Mme Boche.
"If you knew! If you only knew all!" answered Gervaise. "Only this
very morning he made me carry my shawl and my chemises to the
Mont-de-Piete, and that was the money he had for the carriage."
And the tears rushed to her eyes. The recollection of her visit to the
pawnbroker's, of her hasty return with the money in her hand, seemed
to let loose the sobs that strangled her and was the one drop too
much. Tears streamed from her eyes and poured down her face. She did
not think of wiping them away.
"Be reasonable, child! Be quiet," whispered Mme Boche. "They are all
looking at you. Is it possible you can care so much for any man? You
love him still, although such a little while ago you pretended you did
not care for him, and you cry as if your heart would break! Oh lord,
what fools we women are!"
Then in a maternal tone she added:
"And such a pretty little woman as you are too. But now I may as
well tell you the whole, I suppose? Well then, you remember when
I was talking to you from the sidewalk and you were at your window?
I knew then that it was Lantier who came in with Adele. I did not see
his face, but I knew his coat, and Boche watched and saw him come
downstairs this morning. But he was with Adele, you understand. There
is another person who comes to see Virginie twice a week."
She stopped for a moment to take breath and then went on in a lower
tone still.
"Take care! She is laughing at you--the heartless little cat! I bet
all her washing is a sham. She has seen her sister and Lantier well
off and then came here to find out how you would take it."
Gervaise took her hands down from her face and looked around. When
she saw Virginie talking and laughing with two or three women a wild
tempest of rage shook her from head to foot. She stooped with her arms
extended, as if feeling for something, and moved along slowly for a
step or two, then snatched up a bucket of soapsuds and threw it at
Virginie.
"You devil! Be off with you!" cried Virginie, starting back. Only her
feet were wet.
All the women in the lavatory hurried to the scene of action. They
jumped up on the benches, some with a piece of bread in their hands,
others with a bit of soap, and a circle of spectators was soon formed.
"Yes, she is a devil!" repeated Virginie. "What has got into the
fool?" Gervaise stood motionless, her face convulsed and lips apart.
The other continued:
"She got tired of the country, it seems, but she left one leg behind
her, at all events."
The women laughed, and big Virginie, elated at her success, went on
in a louder and more triumphant tone:
"Come a little nearer, and I will soon settle you. You had better have
remained in the country. It is lucky for you that your dirty soapsuds
only went on my feet, for I would have taken you over my knees and
given you a good spanking if one drop had gone in my face. What is
the matter with her, anyway?" And big Virginie addressed her audience:
"Make her tell what I have done to her! Say! Fool, what harm have I
ever done to you?"
"You had best not talk so much," answered Gervaise almost inaudibly;
"you know very well where my husband was seen yesterday. Now be quiet
or harm will come to you. I will strangle you--quick as a wink."
"Her husband, she says! Her husband! The lady's husband! As if a
looking thing like that had a husband! Is it my fault if he has
deserted her? Does she think I have stolen him? Anyway, he was much
too good for her. But tell me, some of you, was his name on his
collar? Madame has lost her husband! She will pay a good reward,
I am sure, to anyone who will carry him back!"
The women all laughed. Gervaise, in a low, concentrated voice,
repeated:
"You know very well--you know very well! Your sister--yes, I will
strangle your sister!"
"Oh yes, I understand," answered Virginie. "Strangle her if you
choose. What do I care? And what are you staring at me for? Can't
I wash my clothes in peace? Come, I am sick of this stuff. Let me
alone!"
Big Virginie turned away, and after five or six angry blows with her
beater she began again:
"Yes, it is my sister, and the two adore each other. You should see
them bill and coo together. He has left you with these dirty-faced
imps, and you left three others behind you with three fathers! It was
your dear Lantier who told us all that. Ah, he had had quite enough
of you--he said so!"
"Miserable fool!" cried Gervaise, white with anger.
She turned and mechanically looked around on the floor; seeing
nothing, however, but the small tub of bluing water, she threw that
in Virginie's face.
"She has spoiled my dress!" cried Virginie, whose shoulder and one
hand were dyed a deep blue. "You just wait a moment!" she added as
she, in her turn, snatched up a tub and dashed its contents at
Gervaise. Then ensued a most formidable battle. The two women ran up
and down the room in eager haste, looking for full tubs, which they
quickly flung in the faces of each other, and each deluge was heralded
and accompanied by a shout.
"Is that enough? Will that cool you off?" cried Gervaise.
And from Virginie:
"Take that! It is good to have a bath once in your life!"
Finally the tubs and pails were all empty, and the two women began to
draw water from the faucets. They continued their mutual abuse while
the water was running, and presently it was Virginie who received
a bucketful in her face. The water ran down her back and over her
skirts. She was stunned and bewildered, when suddenly there came
another in her left ear, knocking her head nearly off her shoulders;
her comb fell and with it her abundant hair.
Gervaise was attacked about her legs. Her shoes were filled with
water, and she was drenched above her knees. Presently the two women
were deluged from head to foot; their garments stuck to them, and they
dripped like umbrellas which had been out in a heavy shower.
"What fun!" said one of the laundresses as she looked on at a safe
distance.
The whole lavatory were immensely amused, and the women applauded
as if at a theater. The floor was covered an inch deep with water,
through which the termagants splashed. Suddenly Virginie discovered
a bucket of scalding water standing a little apart; she caught it and
threw it upon Gervaise. There was an exclamation of horror from the
lookers-on. Gervaise escaped with only one foot slightly burned, but
exasperated by the pain, she threw a tub with all her strength at the
legs of her opponent. Virginie fell to the ground.
"She has broken her leg!" cried one of the spectators.
"She deserved it," answered another, "for the tall one tried to scald
her!"
"She was right, after all, if the blonde had taken away her man!"
Mme Boche rent the air with her exclamations, waving her arms
frantically high above her head. She had taken the precaution to place
herself behind a rampart of tubs, with Claude and Etienne clinging to
her skirts, weeping and sobbing in a paroxysm of terror and keeping up
a cry of "Mamma! Mamma!" When she saw Virginie prostrate on the ground
she rushed to Gervaise and tried to pull her away.
"Come with me!" she urged. "Do be sensible. You are growing so angry
that the Lord only knows what the end of all this will be!"
But Gervaise pushed her aside, and the old woman again took refuge
behind the tubs with the children. Virginie made a spring at the
throat of her adversary and actually tried to strangle her. Gervaise
shook her off and snatched at the long braid hanging from the girl's
head and pulled it as if she hoped to wrench it off, and the head
with it.
The battle began again, this time silent and wordless and literally
tooth and nail. Their extended hands with fingers stiffly crooked,
caught wildly at all in their way, scratching and tearing. The red
ribbon and the chenille net worn by the brunette were torn off; the
waist of her dress was ripped from throat to belt and showed the
white skin on the shoulder.
Gervaise had lost a sleeve, and her chemise was torn to her waist.
Strips of clothing lay in every direction. It was Gervaise who was