L'Assommoir

CHAPTER II-2

“Ah, well,” murmured she, “there’re three fellows who don’t seem inclined for work!”

“Why!” said Coupeau, “I know the tall one, it’s My-Boots, a comrade of mine.”

Pere Colombe’s l’Assommoir was now full. You had to shout to be heard. Fists often pounded on the bar, causing the glasses to clink. Everyone was standing, hands crossed over belly or held behind back. The drinking groups crowded close to one another. Some groups, by the casks, had to wait a quarter of an hour before being able to order their drinks of Pere Colombe.

“Hallo! It’s that aristocrat, Young Cassis!” cried My-Boots, bringing his hand down roughly on Coupeau’s shoulder. “A fine gentleman, who smokes paper, and wears shirts! So we want to do the grand with our sweetheart; we stand her little treats!”

“Shut up! Don’t bother me!” replied Coupeau, greatly annoyed.

But the other added, with a chuckle, “Right you are! We know what’s what, my boy. Muffs are muffs, that’s all!”

He turned his back after leering terribly as he looked at Gervaise. The latter drew back, feeling rather frightened. The smoke from the pipes, the strong odor of all those men, ascended in the air, already foul with the fumes of alcohol; and she felt a choking sensation in her throat, and coughed slightly.

“Oh, what a horrible thing it is to drink!” said she in a low voice.

And she related that formerly at Plassans she used to drink anisette with her mother. But on one occasion it nearly killed her, and that disgusted her with it; now, she could never touch any liqueurs.

“You see,” added she, pointing to her glass, “I’ve eaten my plum; only I must leave the juice, because it would make me ill.”

For himself, Coupeau couldn’t understand how anyone could drink glass after glass of cheap brandy. A brandied plum occasionally could not hurt, but as for cheap brandy, absinthe and the other strong stuff, no, not for him, no matter how much his comrades teased him about it. He stayed out on the sidewalk when his friends went into low establishments. Coupeau’s father had smashed his head open one day when he fell from the eaves of No. 25 on Rue Coquenard. He was drunk. This memory keep Coupeau’s entire family from the drink. Every time Coupeau passed that spot, he thought he would rather lick up water from the gutter than accept a free drink in a bar. He would always say: “In our trade, you have to have steady legs.”

Gervaise had taken up her basket again. She did not rise from her seat however, but held the basket on her knees, with a vacant look in her eyes and lost in thought, as though the young workman’s words had awakened within her far-off thoughts of existence. And she said again, slowly, and without any apparent change of manner:

“Mon Dieu! I’m not ambitious; I don’t ask for much. My desire is to work in peace, always to have bread to eat and a decent place to sleep in, you know; with a bed, a table, and two chairs, nothing more. If I can, I’d like to raise my children to be good citizens. Also, I’d like not to be beaten up, if I ever again live with a man. It’s not my idea of amusement.” She pondered, thinking if there was anything else she wanted, but there wasn’t anything of importance. Then, after a moment she went on, “Yes, when one reaches the end, one might wish to die in one’s bed. For myself, having trudged through life, I should like to die in my bed, in my own home.”

And she rose from her seat. Coupeau, who cordially approved her wishes, was already standing up, anxious about the time. But they did not leave yet. Gervaise was curious enough to go to the far end of the room for a look at the big still behind the oak railing. It was chugging away in the little glassed-in courtyard. Coupeau explained its workings to her, pointing at the different parts of the machinery, showing her the trickling of the small stream of limpid alcohol. Not a single gay puff of steam was coming forth from the endless coils. The breathing could barely be heard. It sounded muffled as if from underground. It was like a sombre worker, performing dark deeds in the bright daylight, strong but silent.

My-Boots, accompanied by his two comrades, came to lean on the railing until they could get a place at the bar. He laughed, looking at the machine. Tonnerre de Dieu, that’s clever. There’s enough stuff in its big belly to last for weeks. He wouldn’t mind if they just fixed the end of the tube in his mouth, so he could feel the fiery spirits flowing down to his heels like a river. It would be better than the tiny sips doled out by Pere Colombe! His two comrades laughed with him, saying that My-Boots was quite a guy after all.

The huge still continued to trickle forth its alcoholic sweat. Eventually it would invade the bar, flow out along the outer Boulevards, and inundate the immense expanse of Paris.

Gervaise stepped back, shivering. She tried to smile as she said:

“It’s foolish, but that still and the liquor gives me the creeps.”

Then, returning to the idea she nursed of a perfect happiness, she resumed: “Now, ain’t I right? It’s much the nicest isn’t it—to have plenty of work, bread to eat, a home of one’s own, and to be able to bring up one’s children and to die in one’s bed?”

“And never to be beaten,” added Coupeau gaily. “But I would never beat you, if you would only try me, Madame Gervaise. You’ve no cause for fear. I don’t drink and then I love you too much. Come, shall it be marriage? I’ll get you divorced and make you my wife.”

He was speaking low, whispering at the back of her neck while she made her way through the crowd of men with her basket held before her. She kept shaking her head “no.” Yet she turned around to smile at him, apparently happy to know that he never drank. Yes, certainly, she would say “yes” to him, except she had already sworn to herself never to start up with another man. Eventually they reached the door and went out.

When they left, l’Assommoir was packed to the door, spilling its hubbub of rough voices and its heavy smell of vitriol into the street. My-Boots could be heard railing at Pere Colombe, calling him a scoundrel and accusing him of only half filling his glass. He didn’t have to come in here. He’d never come back. He suggested to his comrades a place near the Barriere Saint-Denis where you drank good stuff straight.

“Ah,” sighed Gervaise when they reached the sidewalk. “You can breathe out here. Good-bye, Monsieur Coupeau, and thank you. I must hurry now.”

He seized her hand as she started along the boulevard, insisting, “Take a walk with me along Rue de la Goutte-d’Or. It’s not much farther for you. I’ve got to see my sister before going back to work. We’ll keep each other company.”

In the end, Gervaise agreed and they walked beside each other along the Rue des Poissonniers, although she did not take his arm. He told her about his family. His mother, an old vest-maker, now had to do housekeeping because her eyesight was poor. Her birthday was the third of last month and she was sixty-two. He was the youngest. One of his sisters, a widow of thirty-six, worked in a flower shop and lived in the Batignolles section, on Rue des Moines. The other sister was thirty years old now. She had married a deadpan chainmaker named Lorilleux. That’s where he was going now. They lived in a big tenement on the left side. He ate with them in the evenings; it saved a bit for all of them. But he had been invited out this evening and he was going to tell her not to expect him.

Gervaise, who was listening to him, suddenly interrupted him to ask, with a smile: “So you’re called ‘Young Cassis,’ Monsieur Coupeau?”

“Oh!” replied he, “it’s a nickname my mates have given me because I generally drink ‘cassis’ when they force me to accompany them to the wineshop. It’s no worse to be called Young Cassis than My-Boots, is it?”

“Of course not. Young Cassis isn’t an ugly name,” observed the young woman.

And she questioned him about his work. He was still working there, behind the octroi wall at the new hospital. Oh! there was no want of work, he would not be finished there for a year at least. There were yards and yards of gutters!

“You know,” said he, “I can see the Hotel Boncoeur when I’m up there. Yesterday you were at the window, and I waved my arms, but you didn’t notice me.”

They had already gone about a hundred paces along the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or, when he stood still and raising his eyes, said:

“That’s the house. I was born farther on, at No. 22. But this house is, all the same, a fine block of masonry! It’s as big as a barrack inside!”

Gervaise looked up, examining the facade. On the street side, the tenement had five stories, each with fifteen windows, whose black shutters with their broken slats gave an air of desolation to the wide expanse of wall. Four shops occupied the ground floor. To the right of the entrance, a large, greasy hash house, and to the left, a coal dealer, a notions seller, and an umbrella merchant. The building appeared even larger than it was because it had on each side a small, low building which seemed to lean against it for support. This immense, squared-off building was outlined against the sky. Its unplastered side walls were as bare as prison walls, except for rows of roughly jutting stones which suggested jaws full of decayed teeth yawning vacantly.

Gervaise was gazing at the entrance with interest. The high, arched doorway rose to the second floor and opened onto a deep porch, at the end of which could be seen the pale daylight of a courtyard. This entranceway was paved like the street, and down the center flowed a streamlet of pink-stained water.

“Come in,” said Coupeau, “no one will eat you.”

Gervaise wanted to wait for him in the street. However, she could not resist going through the porch as far as the concierge’s room on the right. And there, on the threshold, she raised her eyes. Inside, the building was six stories high, with four identical plain walls enclosing the broad central court. The drab walls were corroded by yellowish spots and streaked by drippings from the roof gutters. The walls went straight up to the eaves with no molding or ornament except the angles on the drain pipes at each floor. Here the sink drains added their stains. The glass window panes resembled murky water. Mattresses of checkered blue ticking were hanging out of several windows to air. Clothes lines stretched from other windows with family washing hanging to dry. On a third floor line was a baby’s diaper, still implanted with filth. This crowded tenement was bursting at the seams, spilling out poverty and misery through every crevice.

Each of the four walls had, at ground level, a narrow entrance, plastered without a trace of woodwork. This opened into a vestibule containing a dirt-encrusted staircase which spiraled upward. They were each labeled with one of the first four letters of the alphabet painted on the wall.

Several large work-shops with weather-blackened skylights were scattered about the court. Near the concierge’s room was the dyeing establishment responsible for the pink streamlet. Puddles of water infested the courtyard, along with wood shavings and coal cinders. Grass and weeds grew between the paving stones. The unforgiving sunlight seemed to cut the court into two parts. On the shady side was a dripping water tap with three small hens scratching for worms with their filth-smeared claws.