The Drinking Den (52 page)

One Saturday, when she came home, Nana found her father and mother in a dreadful state. Coupeau had fallen across the bed and was snoring, Gervaise was slumped in a chair, her head rolling and her eyes, vacant and unsettling, staring into space. She had forgotten to heat up the dinner, some remains of a stew. A candle, which she had not snuffed out, lit the shameful poverty of the slum-dwelling.

‘Is that you, sweetie?' Gervaise stammered. ‘Oh, no! Your father's really going to give you a hiding!'

Nana said nothing, but stood there quite pale, looking at the cold pan, the bare table and the dismal room to which this couple of old soaks had brought the ghastly horror of their drunken stupor. Without taking off her hat, she went once round the room, opened the door and, with gritted teeth, walked out.

‘Are you going back down?' her mother asked, unable to turn her head.

‘Yes, I've forgotten something. I'll be back… Good-night.'

But she didn't come back. The next day, the Coupeaus, sobering up, had a blazing row, each blaming the other for Nana's disappearance. Oh, she was a long way off by now, if she was still running! As people say to children about sparrows, the parents could try putting a grain
of salt on her tail, then they might catch her. It was a terrible blow that further crushed Gervaise's spirit, because she realized full well that the girl's fall, now that she was getting herself laid, would plunge her, Gervaise, deeper into degradation, alone, with no child to consider, with nothing to stop her sliding as far down as she could go. Yes, that unnatural creature had carried away the last shred of her decency in her filthy petticoats. And she got drunk for three days on end, furious, clenching her fists, her mouth full of obscenities directed against her slut of a daughter. Coupeau, after going round the outer boulevards and examining every prostitute who passed, went back to smoking his pipe, calm as you please. The only thing was that, during mealtimes, he would sometimes spring up waving his arms and brandishing a knife, yelling that he had been dishonoured. Then he would sit down to finish his soup.

In the house, where every month some girl would fly away like a canary out of an open cage, no one was surprised by what had happened to the Coupeaus. But the Lorilleux were delighted. Ah, hadn't they said that the girl would shit all over them. It was just what they deserved, all flower-makers went to the bad. The Boches and the Poissons also crowed over it, making a big display of their own virtue. Only Lantier obliquely excused Nana. Of course, he would say with his puritanical air, it was quite improper for a young lady to be galivanting around; but then, he added, with a glint in his eye, the lass was too pretty, by God, to put up with poverty at her age.

‘Don't you know?' Mme Lorilleux exclaimed one day in the Boches' lodge, where the little clique were having coffee. ‘Well, true as true, it was Tip-Tap who sold her daughter… Yes, sold her! I have proof of it! The old guy who was to be seen morning and night on the stairs was already going up there to settle the money. It was as plain as day. Then, only yesterday, someone saw the two of them together, the girl with her old goat, at the Ambigu. On my honour! They are together, so you see…'

They finished their coffee, talking about it. After all, it was possible; even worse things happened. So eventually even the most serious people in the neighbourhood were repeating the charge that Gervaise had sold her daughter.

Gervaise, nowadays, was slopping around in slippers, not giving a damn for anyone. They could have called her a thief in the street and she would not have turned round. It was a month since she had worked for Mme Fauconnier, who had had to sack her to avoid arguments. In the course of a few weeks, she had been with eight laundresses; she would do two or three days in each laundry, then she would be dismissed because she was making such a mess of the work, going about it carelessly, leaving it dirty, losing her head to the point where she had lost her skill. Finally, realizing that she was failing, she left ironing and went back to washing by the day in the wash-house on the Rue Neuve. Paddling around, beating out the filth, returning to what was roughest and simplest about the job – she could manage that, though it pulled her a little further down the slope of degradation. For one thing, the wash-house was no beauty salon. When she emerged from it, she was like a mud-splattered dog, soaking wet, blue-skinned. Meanwhile, she was getting fatter and fatter, despite her days without food, and her leg was now so twisted that she could not walk near people without almost knocking them down, because she was limping so much.

Needless to say, when she descends to this level, a woman loses all respect for herself. Gervaise had put aside her former pride, her desire to look attractive and her need for feelings, decency and consideration. One could kick her anywhere, back and front, but it wouldn't affect her; she had become too soft and indifferent. So Lantier had completely let her drop, he didn't even pinch her bottom for old time's sake, but she seemed not to have noticed this end of a long relationship, languidly sustained until it was abandoned in a spirit of mutual weariness. For her, it was just one less task to perform. Even the affair between Lantier and Virginie left her totally unmoved, so great was her indifference to all that kind of nonsense, which had tormented her so much before. She would have held a candle to light them to bed, had they wanted. Everyone by now was aware of what was going on; the affair between the hatter and the shop-girl was public knowledge. It was very convenient for them too, because that cuckold Poisson had a night duty one day in three, which kept him shivering on some deserted pavement while at home his wife and his neighbour were keeping each other warm. Oh, they were not bothered! They would hear his boots slowly
stamping along the shop-fronts, in the black, empty street, and not even poke their noses above the blanket. A constable will never abandon his post, will he? So they stayed calm until daybreak, despoiling his property while he kept watch on the property of others. The whole neighbourhood around the Goutte-d'Or chuckled at the joke: they were amused by this cuckolding of authority. In any case, Lantier had established his rights: the shop and its owner went together. He had just gobbled up a laundress; now he was munching on a sweet-shop owner; and if they were to be followed by haberdashers, stationers and milliners, his jaws were wide enough to swallow them all.

No, there never was a man who had it so sweet and easy. It was a good choice of Lantier's, advising Virginie to open a confectioner's shop. He was too much of a Provençal not to have a sweet tooth: he could have lived off boiled sweets, gums, dragees and chocolate – especially dragees, which he called ‘sugar almonds': they tickled his fancy so much that they brought a little froth to his lips. For a year, he had been living on nothing but sweets. He would open the drawers and take out handfuls for himself, when Virginie told him to look after the shop. Often, while he was chatting, with five or six people around, he would take the cover off a jar on the counter, put his hand in, take something out and put it in his mouth; the jar stayed open and would soon empty. Nobody noticed it any longer; it was just a habit, he said. Then he thought up the idea of a never-ending cold, a tickle in the throat, which he said needed soothing. He was still not working, but had larger and larger deals in prospect. Just now, he was working on a magnificent invention, the umbrella-hat, a hat which would be transformed on the head into a brolly at the first drops of rain; and he promised Poisson half of the profits. He would even borrow twenty-franc pieces off him, for his experiments. Meanwhile, the shop was melting on his tongue: all the merchandise went past there, even chocolate cigars and red confectionary pipes. When he was bursting with sweetmeats and, in a rush of tenderness, he allowed himself one last lick on the owner, in a corner of the shop, she would find him all sugary, with lips like pralines. What a delicious man to kiss! Honestly, he was turning into a real honey-pot. The Boches used to say that he needed only to dip his finger in his coffee to make it like syrup.

Sweetened by this endless dessert, Lantier became paternal towards Gervaise. He gave her advice and told her off for not enjoying work any longer. Good heavens! At her age, a woman should know how to look after herself. And he accused her of always having been greedy. But, since one must hold out a hand to people, even when they scarcely deserve it, he tried to find odd jobs for her. In this way, he persuaded Virginie to let Gervaise come in once a week to wash down the shop and the bedrooms; she knew how to use caustic soda and she earned thirty
sous
a time. Gervaise would come in on Saturday morning, with a pail and her brush, not seeming to suffer from the fact that she was returning to do an unpleasant and lowly task, a mere dishwasher's job, in this house where she had once presided as the beautiful blonde laundress. It was one final humiliation, the last gasp of her pride.

One Saturday, she had really hard work of it. It had rained for three days and the customers' feet seemed to have brought all the mud from the streets into the shop. Virginie was behind the counter, playing the lady, with her hair properly dressed, wearing a little collar and lace sleeves. Beside her on the narrow bench of red imitation leather, Lantier was lounging, entirely at home, like the real boss of the place. From time to time, he would dip his hand idly into a jar of mint pastilles, just so as to have some sugar to eat, as usual.

‘Now then, Madame Coupeau,' Virginie called, as she followed the washerwoman's work with pursed lips, ‘you're leaving some dirt in that corner there. Scrub that a bit better for me, would you?'

Gervaise did as she was told. She went back to the corner and started washing it again. Kneeling on the ground, surrounded by dirty water, she was bent double, her shoulder-blades sticking out and her arms stiff and purple. Her old skirt, now wet, was sticking to her buttocks. There on the floor she looked like a heap of something unpleasant, her hair loose, the holes in her blouse revealing her swollen body, lumps of soft flesh swaying around, rolling and jumping, shaken by the heavy work; and she was sweating so much that large drops were falling from her damp face.

‘The more elbow-grease you give it, the more it shines,' Lantier said solemnly, his mouth full of mints.

Virginie, leaning back like a princess, her eyes half closed, went on with her comments as she watched the scrubbing.

‘A little further to the right. Now, pay special attention to the woodwork… You know, I wasn't very pleased last Saturday. The marks were still there.'

And the two of them, the hatter and the sweet-shop owner, pulled themselves up on their thrones, while Gervaise grovelled at their feet in the black grime. Virginie must have been enjoying it, because her cat's eyes lit up for a moment with yellow sparks, and she looked towards Lantier with a thin smile. At last, this was her revenge for that beating she had taken in the wash-house, for which she had never forgiven Gervaise.

Meanwhile, when Gervaise stopped scrubbing, you could hear a faint sound of sawing coming from the back room. Through the open door, against the pale light from the yard, one could see the profile of Poisson, who had a day's holiday and was taking advantage of the leisure to indulge his passion for little boxes. He was sitting in front of a table and, with great care, was cutting arabesques in the walnut lid of a cigar box.

‘Listen, Badingue!' shouted Lantier, who had started to use the nickname again, in an affectionate way. ‘I'd like to reserve your box, as a present for a young lady!'

Virginie pinched him, but the hatter, gallantly, still smiling, repaid good for ill by tickling her knee under the counter, then took his hand away in a quite natural manner when the husband looked up, revealing his goatee and his red moustache, bristling in his sallow face.

‘As it happens, Auguste,' said the constable, ‘I was just working on one for you. It was a token of friendship.'

‘Ah, well, by Jove, I'll keep your little whatsit,' Lantier went on with a smile. ‘You know, I'll hang it on a ribbon around my neck.'

Then, suddenly, as though this idea had awoken another:

‘By the way,' he exclaimed, ‘I met Nana yesterday evening.'

At once, the emotion aroused by this news made Gervaise sit down in the puddle of dirty water filling the shop. She stayed there, sweating, breathless, with her brush in her hand.

She simply murmured: ‘Oh!'

‘Yes, I was going down the Rue des Martyrs, watching a little thing mincing along on the arm of some old guy in front of me, and I thought: Now, don't I know that bottom? So I speeded up and found myself walking right alongside Nana… Well, you know, you have no need to feel sorry for her: she's happy as can be, with a pretty woollen dress on her, a gold cross round her neck and a saucy look to cap it all!'

‘Oh!' Gervaise repeated, in a duller voice.

Lantier, who had finished the mints, took a barley-sugar from another jar.

‘She's a real little flirt, that girl!' he continued. ‘Would you believe: she signalled to me to follow her, cool as you like. Then, she dumped her old man somewhere, in a café – yep, he's a real picture, the old bloke! Sucked dry! Well, after that she met me under a doorway. What a charmer! Sweetness itself, putting it on and nuzzling up to you like a little puppy! Yes, she gave me a kiss and wanted news of everyone. I tell you, I was really pleased to see her.'