Complete Works of Emile Zola (498 page)

When she was in her bed mother Coupeau became positively unbearable. It is true though that the little room in which she slept with Nana was not at all gay. There was barely room for two chairs between the beds. The wallpaper, a faded gray, hung loose in long strips. The small window near the ceiling let in only a dim light. It was like a cavern. At night, as she lay awake, she could listen to the breathing of the sleeping Nana as a sort of distraction; but in the day-time, as there was no one to keep her company from morning to night, she grumbled and cried and repeated to herself for hours together, as she rolled her head on the pillow:

“Good heavens! What a miserable creature I am! Good heavens! What a miserable creature I am! They’ll leave me to die in prison, yes, in prison!”

As soon as anyone called, Virginie or Madame Boche, to ask after her health, she would not reply directly, but immediately started on her list of complaints: “Oh, I pay dearly for the food I eat here. I’d be much better off with strangers. I asked for a cup of tisane and they brought me an entire pot of hot water. It was a way of saying that I drank too much. I brought Nana up myself and she scurries away in her bare feet every morning and I never see her again all day. Then at night she sleeps so soundly that she never wakes up to ask me if I’m in pain. I’m just a nuisance to them. They’re waiting for me to die. That will happen soon enough. I don’t even have a son any more; that laundress has taken him from me. She’d beat me to death if she wasn’t afraid of the law.”

Gervaise was indeed rather hasty at times. The place was going to the dogs, everyone’s temper was getting spoilt and they sent each other to the right about for the least word. Coupeau, one morning that he had a hangover, exclaimed: “The old thing’s always saying she’s going to die, and yet she never does!” The words struck mother Coupeau to the heart. They frequently complained of how much she cost them, observing that they would save a lot of money when she was gone.

When at her worst that winter, one afternoon, when Madame Lorilleux and Madame Lerat had met at her bedside, mother Coupeau winked her eye as a signal to them to lean over her. She could scarcely speak. She rather hissed than said in a low voice:

“It’s becoming indecent. I heard them last night. Yes, Clump-clump and the hatter. And they were kicking up such a row together! Coupeau’s too decent for her.”

And she related in short sentences, coughing and choking between each, that her son had come home dead drunk the night before. Then, as she was not asleep, she was easily able to account for all the noises, of Clump-clump’s bare feet tripping over the tiled floor, the hissing voice of the hatter calling her, the door between the two rooms gently closed, and the rest. It must have lasted till daylight. She could not tell the exact time, because, in spite of her efforts, she had ended by falling into a dose.

“What’s most disgusting is that Nana might have heard everything,” continued she. “She was indeed restless all the night, she who usually sleeps so sound. She tossed about and kept turning over as though there had been some lighted charcoal in her bed.”

The other two women did not seem at all surprised.

“Of course!” murmured Madame Lorilleux, “it probably began the very first night. But as it pleases Coupeau, we’ve no business to interfere. All the same, it’s not very respectable.”

“As for me,” declared Madame Lerat through clenched teeth, “if I’d been there, I’d have thrown a fright into them. I’d have shouted something, anything. A doctor’s maid told me once that the doctor had told her that a surprise like that, at a certain moment, could strike a woman dead. If she had died right there, that would have been well, wouldn’t it? She would have been punished right where she had sinned.”

It wasn’t long until the entire neighborhood knew that Gervaise visited Lantier’s room every night. Madame Lorilleux was loudly indignant, calling her brother a poor fool whose wife had shamed him. And her poor mother, forced to live in the midst of such horrors. As a result, the neighbors blamed Gervaise. Yes, she must have led Lantier astray; you could see it in her eyes. In spite of the nasty gossip, Lantier was still liked because he was always so polite. He always had candy or flowers to give the ladies.
Mon Dieu!
Men shouldn’t be expected to push away women who threw themselves at them. There was no excuse for Gervaise. She was a disgrace. The Lorilleuxs used to bring Nana up to their apartment in order to find out more details from her, their godchild. But Nana would put on her expression of innocent stupidity and lower her long silky eyelashes to hide the fire in her eyes as she replied.

In the midst of this general indignation, Gervaise lived quietly on, feeling tired out and half asleep. At first she considered herself very sinful and felt a disgust for herself. When she left Lantier’s room she would wash her hands and scrub herself as if trying to get rid of an evil stain. If Coupeau then tried to joke with her, she would fly into a passion, and run and shiveringly dress herself in the farthest corner of the shop; neither would she allow Lantier near her soon after her husband had kissed her. She would have liked to have changed her skin as she changed men. But she gradually became accustomed to it. Soon it was too much trouble to scrub herself each time. Her thirst for happiness led her to enjoy as much as she could the difficult situation. She had always been disposed to make allowances for herself, so why not for others? She only wanted to avoid causing trouble. As long as the household went along as usual, there was nothing to complain about.

Then, after all, she could not be doing anything to make Coupeau stop drinking; matters were arranged so easily to the general satisfaction. One is generally punished if one does what is not right. His dissoluteness had gradually become a habit. Now it was as regular an affair as eating and drinking. Each time Coupeau came home drunk, she would go to Lantier’s room. This was usually on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Sometimes on other nights, if Coupeau was snoring too loudly, she would leave in the middle of the night. It was not that she cared more for Lantier, but just that she slept better in his room.

Mother Coupeau never dared speak openly of it. But after a quarrel, when the laundress had bullied her, the old woman was not sparing in her allusions. She would say that she knew men who were precious fools and women who were precious hussies, and she would mutter words far more biting, with the sharpness of language pertaining to an old waistcoat-maker. The first time this had occurred Gervaise looked at her straight in the face without answering. Then, also avoiding going into details, she began to defend herself with reasons given in a general sort of way. When a woman had a drunkard for a husband, a pig who lived in filth, that woman was to be excused if she sought for cleanliness elsewhere. Once she pointed out that Lantier was just as much her husband as Coupeau was. Hadn’t she known him since she was fourteen and didn’t she have children by him?

Anyway, she’d like to see anyone make trouble for her. She wasn’t the only one around the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or. Madame Vigouroux, the coal-dealer had a merry dance from morning to night. Then there was the grocer’s wife, Madame Lehongre with her brother-in-law.
Mon Dieu!
What a slob of a fellow. He wasn’t worth touching with a shovel. Even the neat little clockmaker was said to have carried on with his own daughter, a streetwalker. Ah, the entire neighborhood. Oh, she knew plenty of dirt.

One day when mother Coupeau was more pointed than usual in her observations, Gervaise had replied to her, clinching her teeth:

“You’re confined to your bed and you take advantage of it. Listen! You’re wrong. You see that I behave nicely to you, for I’ve never thrown your past life into your teeth. Oh! I know all about it. No, don’t cough. I’ve finished what I had to say. It’s only to request you to mind your own business, that’s all!”

The old woman almost choked. On the morrow, Goujet having called about his mother’s washing when Gervaise happened to be out, mother Coupeau called him to her and kept him some time seated beside her bed. She knew all about the blacksmith’s friendship, and had noticed that for some time past he had looked dismal and wretched, from a suspicion of the melancholy things that were taking place. So, for the sake of gossiping, and out of revenge for the quarrel of the day before, she bluntly told him the truth, weeping and complaining as though Gervaise’s wicked behavior did her some special injury. When Goujet quitted the little room, he leant against the wall, almost stifling with grief. Then, when the laundress returned home, mother Coupeau called to her that Madame Goujet required her to go round with her clothes, ironed or not; and she was so animated that Gervaise, seeing something was wrong, guessed what had taken place and had a presentiment of the unpleasantness which awaited her.

Very pale, her limbs already trembling, she placed the things in a basket and started off. For years past she had not returned the Goujets a sou of their money. The debt still amounted to four hundred and twenty-five francs. She always spoke of her embarrassments and received the money for the washing. It filled her with shame, because she seemed to be taking advantage of the blacksmith’s friendship to make a fool of him. Coupeau, who had now become less scrupulous, would chuckle and say that Goujet no doubt had fooled around with her a bit, and had so paid himself. But she, in spite of the relations she had fallen into with Coupeau, would indignantly ask her husband if he already wished to eat of that sort of bread. She would not allow anyone to say a word against Goujet in her presence; her affection for the blacksmith remained like a last shred of her honor. Thus, every time she took the washing home to those worthy people, she felt a spasm of her heart the moment she put a foot on their stairs.

“Ah! it’s you, at last!” said Madame Goujet sharply, on opening the door to her. “When I’m in want of death, I’ll send you to fetch him.”

Gervaise entered, greatly embarrassed, not even daring to mutter an excuse. She was no longer punctual, never came at the time arranged, and would keep her customers waiting for days on end. Little by little she was giving way to a system of thorough disorder.

“For a week past I’ve been expecting you,” continued the lace-mender. “And you tell falsehoods too; you send your apprentice to me with all sorts of stories; you are then busy with my things, you will deliver them the same evening, or else you’ve had an accident, the bundle’s fallen into a pail of water. Whilst all this is going on, I waste my time, nothing turns up, and it worries me exceedingly. No, you’re most unreasonable. Come, what have you in your basket? Is everything there now? Have you brought me the pair of sheets you’ve been keeping back for a month past, and the chemise which was missing the last time you brought home the washing?”

“Yes, yes,” murmured Gervaise, “I have the chemise. Here it is.”

But Madame Goujet cried out. That chemise was not hers, she would have nothing to do with it. Her things were changed now; it was too bad! Only the week before, there were two handkerchiefs which hadn’t her mark on them. It was not to her taste to have clothes coming from no one knew where. Besides that, she liked to have her own things.

“And the sheets?” she resumed. “They’re lost, aren’t they? Well! Woman, you must see about them, for I insist upon having them to-morrow morning, do you hear?”

There was a silence which particularly bothered Gervaise when she noticed that the door to Goujet’s room was open. If he was in there, it was most annoying that he should hear these just criticisms. She made no reply, meekly bowing her head, and placing the laundry on the bed as quickly as possible.

Matters became worse when Madame Goujet began to look over the things, one by one. She took hold of them and threw them down again saying:

“Ah! you don’t get them up nearly so well as you used to do. One can’t compliment you every day now. Yes, you’ve taken to mucking your work — doing it in a most slovenly way. Just look at this shirt-front, it’s scorched, there’s the mark of the iron on the plaits; and the buttons have all been torn off. I don’t know how you manage it, but there’s never a button left on anything. Oh! now, here’s a petticoat body which I shall certainly not pay you for. Look there! The dirt’s still on it, you’ve simply smoothed it over. So now the things are not even clean!”

She stopped whilst she counted the different articles. Then she exclaimed:

“What! This is all you’ve brought? There are two pairs of stockings, six towels, a table-cloth, and several dish-cloths short. You’re regularly trifling with me, it seems! I sent word that you were to bring me everything, ironed or not. If your apprentice isn’t here on the hour with the rest of the things, we shall fall out, Madame Coupeau, I warn you.”

At this moment Goujet coughed in his room. Gervaise slightly started.
Mon Dieu!
How she was treated before him. And she remained standing in the middle of the rooms, embarrassed and confused and waiting for the dirty clothes; but after making up the account Madame Goujet had quietly returned to her seat near the window, and resumed the mending of a lace shawl.

“And the dirty things?” timidly inquired the laundress.

“No, thank you,” replied the old woman, “there will be no laundry this week.”

Gervaise turned pale. She was no longer to have the washing. Then she quite lost her head; she was obliged to sit down on a chair, for her legs were giving way under her. She did not attempt to vindicate herself. All that she would find to say was:

“Is Monsieur Goujet ill?”

Yes, he was not well. He had been obliged to come home instead of returning to the forge, and he had gone to lie down on his bed to get a rest. Madame Goujet talked gravely, wearing her black dress as usual and her white face framed in her nun-like coif. The pay at the forge had been cut again. It was now only seven francs a day because the machines did so much of the work. This forced her to save money every way she could. She would do her own washing from now on. It would naturally have been very helpful if the Coupeaus had been able to return her the money lent them by her son; but she was not going to set the lawyers on them, as they were unable to pay. As she was talking about the debt, Gervaise lowered her eyes in embarrassment.