L'Assommoir: Chapter 5

Chapter 5

AMBITIOUS DREAMS

The Boche couple, on the first of April, moved also and took the loge
of the great house in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. Things had turned out
very nicely for Gervaise who, having always got on very comfortably
with the concierge in the house in Rue Neuve, dreaded lest she should
fall into the power of some tyrant who would quarrel over every drop
of water that was spilled and a thousand other trifles like that. But
with Mme Boche all would go smoothly.

The day the lease was to be signed and Gervaise stood in her new home
her heart swelled with joy. She was finally to live in that house like
a small town, with its intersecting corridors instead of streets.

She felt a strange timidity--a dread of failure--when she found
herself face to face with her enterprise. The struggle for bread was a
terrible and an increasing one, and it seemed to her for a moment that
she had been guilty of a wild, foolhardy act, like throwing herself
into the jaws of a machine, for the planes in the cabinetmaker's shop
and the hammers in the locksmith's were dimly grasped by her as a part
of a great whole.

The water that ran past the door that day from the dyer's was pale
green. She smiled as she stepped over it, accepting this color as a
happy augury. She, with her husband, entered the loge, where Mme Boche
and the owner of the building, M. Marescot, were talking on business.

Gervaise, with a thrill of pain, heard Boche advise the landlord to
turn out the dressmaker on the third floor who was behindhand with her
rent. She wondered if she would ever be turned out and then wondered
again at the attitude assumed by these Boche people, who did not seem
to have ever seen her before. They had eyes and ears only for the
landlord, who shook hands with his new tenants but, when they spoke
of repairs, professed to be in such haste that morning that it would
be necessary to postpone the discussion. They reminded him of certain
verbal promises he had made, and finally he consented to examine the
premises.

The shop stood with its four bare walls and blackened ceiling. The
tenant who had been there had taken away his own counters and cases.
A furious discussion took place. M. Marescot said it was for them
to embellish the shop.

"That may be," said Gervaise gently, "but surely you cannot call
putting on a fresh paper, instead of this that hangs in strips, an
embellishment. Whitening the curbing, too, comes under, the head of
necessary repairs." She only required these two things.

Finally Marescot, with a desperate air, plunged his hands deep in his
pockets, shrugged his shoulders and gave his consent to the repairs on
the ceiling and to the paper, on condition that she would pay for half
the paper, and then he hurried away.

When he had departed Boche clapped Coupeau on the shoulder. "You may
thank me for that!" he cried and then went on to say that he was the
real master of the house, that he settled the whole business of the
establishment, and it was a nod and look from him that had influenced
M. Marescot. That evening Gervaise, considering themselves in debt to
Boche, sent him some wine.

In four days the shop should have been ready for them, but the repairs
hung on for three weeks. At first they intended simply to have the
paint scrubbed, but it was so shabby and worn that Gervaise repainted
at her own expense. Coupeau went every morning, not to work, but to
inspect operations, and Boche dropped the vest or pantaloons on which
he was working and gave the benefit of his advice, and the two men
spent the whole day smoking and spitting and arguing over each stroke
of the brush. Some days the painters did not appear at all; on others
they came and walked off in an hour's time, not to return again.

Poor Gervaise wrung her hands in despair. But finally, after two days
of energetic labor, the whole thing was done, and the men walked off
with their ladders, singing lustily.

Then came the moving, and finally Gervaise called herself settled in
her new home and was pleased as a child. As she came up the street
she could see her sign afar off:

CLEARSTARCHER

LACES AND EMBROIDERIES
DONE UP WITH ESPECIAL CARE

The first word was painted in large yellow letters on a pale blue
ground.

In the recessed window shut in at the back by muslin curtains lay
men's shirts, delicate handkerchiefs and cuffs; all these were on
blue paper, and Gervaise was charmed. When she entered the door all
was blue there; the paper represented a golden trellis and blue
morning-glories. In the center was a huge table draped with
blue-bordered cretonne to hide the trestles.

Gervaise seated herself and looked round, happy in the cleanliness of
all about her. Her first glance, however, was directed to her stove,
a sort of furnace whereon ten irons could be heated at once. It was a
source of constant anxiety lest her little apprentice should fill it
too full of coal and so injure it.

Behind the shop was her bedroom and her kitchen, from which a door
opened into the court. Nana's bed stood in a little room at the right,
and Etienne was compelled to share his with the baskets of soiled
clothes. It was all very well, except that the place was very damp
and that it was dark by three o'clock in the afternoon in winter.

The new shop created a great excitement in the neighborhood. Some
people declared that the Coupeaus were on the road to ruin; they
had, in fact, spent the whole five hundred francs and were penniless,
contrary to their intentions. The morning that Gervaise first took
down her shutters she had only six francs in the world, but she was
not troubled, and at the end of a week she told her husband after two
hours of abstruse calculations that they had taken in enough to cover
their expenses.

The Lorilleuxs were in a state of rage, and one morning when the
apprentice was emptying, on the sly, a bowl of starch which she had
burned in making, just as Mme Lorilleux was passing, she rushed in and
accused her sister-in-law of insulting her. After this all friendly
relations were at an end.

"It all looks very strange to me," sniffed Mme Lorilleux. "I can't
tell where the money comes from, but I have my suspicions." And she
went on to intimate that Gervaise and Goujet were altogether too
intimate. This was the groundwork of many fables; she said Wooden Legs
was so mild and sweet that she had deceived her to the extent that
she had consented to become Nana's godmother, which had been no small
expense, but now things were very different. If Gervaise were dying
and asked her for a glass of water she would not give it. She could
not stand such people. As to Nana, it was different; they would
always receive her. The child, of course, was not responsible for her
mother's crimes. Coupeau should take a more decided stand and not put
up with his wife's vile conduct.

Boche and his wife sat in judgment on the quarrel and gave as their
opinion that the Lorilleuxs were much to blame. They were good
tenants, of course. They paid regularly. "But," added Mme Boche, "I
never could abide jealousy. They are mean people and were never known
to offer a glass of wine to a friend."

Mother Coupeau visited her son and daughter successive days, listened
to the tales of each and said never a word in reply.

Gervaise lived a busy life and took no notice of all this foolish
gossip and strife. She greeted her friends with a smile from the door
of her shop, where she went for a breath of fresh air. All the people
in the neighborhood liked her and would have called her a great beauty
but for her lameness. She was twenty-eight and had grown plump. She
moved more slowly, and when she took a chair to wait for her irons
to heat she rose with reluctance. She was growing fond of good
living--that she herself admitted--but she did not regard it as a
fault. She worked hard and had a right to good food. Why should she
live on potato parings? Sometimes she worked all night when she had
a great deal of work on hand.

She did the washing for the whole house and for some Parisian ladies
and had several apprentices, besides two laundresses. She was making
money hand over fist, and her good luck would have turned a wiser head
than her own. But hers was not turned; she was gentle and sweet and
hated no one except her sister-in-law. She judged everybody kindly,
particularly after she had eaten a good breakfast. When people called
her good she laughed. Why should she not be good? She had seen all her
dreams realized. She remembered what she once said--that she wanted to
work hard, have plenty to eat, a home to herself, where she could
bring up her children, not be beaten and die in her bed! As to dying
in her bed, she added she wanted that still, but she would put it off
as long as possible, "if you please!" It was to Coupeau himself that
Gervaise was especially sweet. Never a cross or an impatient word had
he heard from her lips, and no one had ever known her complain of him
behind his back. He had finally resumed his trade, and as the shop
where he worked was at the other end of Paris, she gave him every
morning forty sous for his breakfast, his wine and tobacco. Two days
out of six, however, Coupeau would meet a friend, drink up his forty
sous and return to breakfast. Once, indeed, he sent a note, saying
that his account at the cabaret exceeded his forty sous. He was in
pledge, as it were; would his wife send the money? She laughed and
shrugged her shoulders. Where was the harm in her husband's amusing
himself a little? A woman must give a man a long rope if she wished
to live in peace and comfort. It was not far from words to blows--she
knew that very well.

The hot weather had come. One afternoon in June the ten irons were
heating on the stove; the door was open into the street, but not a
breath of air came in.

"What a melting day!" said Gervaise, who was stooping over a great
bowl of starch. She had rolled up her sleeves and taken off her sack
and stood in her chemise and white skirt; the soft hair in her neck
was curling on her white throat. She dipped each cuff in the starch,
the fronts of the shirts and the whole of the skirts. Then she rolled
up the pieces tightly and placed them neatly in a square basket after
having sprinkled with clear water all those portions which were not
starched.

"This basket is for you, Madame Putois," she said, "and you will have
to hurry, for they dry so fast in this weather."

Mine Putois was a thin little woman who looked cool and comfortable
in her tightly buttoned dress. She had not taken her cap off but stood
at the table, moving her irons to and fro with the regularity of an
automaton. Suddenly she exclaimed:

"Put on your sack, Clemence; there are three men looking in, and I
don't like such things."

Clemence grumbled and growled. What did she care what she liked? She
could not and would not roast to suit anybody.

"Clemence, put on your sack," said Gervaise. "Madame Putois is
right--it is not proper."

Clemence muttered but obeyed and consoled herself by giving the
apprentice, who was ironing hose and towels by her side, a little
push. Gervaise had a cap belonging to Mme Boche in her hand and was
ironing the crown with a round ball, when a tall, bony woman came in.
She was a laundress.

"You have come too soon, Madame Bijard!" cried Gervaise. "I said
tonight. It is very inconvenient for me to attend to you at this
hour." At the same time, however, Gervaise amiably laid down her work
and went for the dirty clothes, which she piled up in the back shop.
It took the two women nearly an hour to sort them and mark them with
a stitch of colored cotton.

At this moment Coupeau entered.

"By Jove!" he said. "The sun beats down on one's head like a hammer."
He caught at the table to sustain himself; he had been drinking; a
spider web had caught in his dark hair, where many a white thread
was apparent. His under jaw dropped a little, and his smile was good
natured but silly.

Gervaise asked her husband if he had seen the Lorilleuxs in rather
a severe tone; when he said no she smiled at him without a word of
reproach.

"You had best go and lie down," she said pleasantly. "We are very
busy, and you are in our way. Did I say thirty-two handkerchiefs,
Madame Bijard? Here are two more; that makes thirty-four."

But Coupeau was not sleepy, and he preferred to remain where he was.
Gervaise called Clemence and bade her to count the linen while she
made out the list. She glanced at each piece as she wrote. She knew
many of them by the color. That pillow slip belonged to Mme Boche
because it was stained with the pomade she always used, and so on
through the whole. Gervaise was seated with these piles of soiled
linen about her. Augustine, whose great delight was to fill up the
stove, had done so now, and it was red hot. Coupeau leaned toward
Gervaise.

"Kiss me," he said. "You are a good woman."

As he spoke he gave a sudden lurch and fell among the skirts.

"Do take care," said Gervaise impatiently. "You will get them all
mixed again." And she gave him a little push with her foot, whereat
all the other women cried out.

"He is not like most men," said Mme Putois; "they generally wish to
beat you when they come in like this."

Gervaise already regretted her momentary vexation and assisted her
husband to his feet and then turned her cheek to him with a smile,
but he put his arm round her and kissed her neck. She pushed him
aside with a laugh.

"You ought to be ashamed!" she said but yielded to his embrace, and
the long kiss they exchanged before these people, amid the sickening
odor of the soiled linen and the alcoholic fumes of his breath, was
the first downward step in the slow descent of their degradation.

Mme Bijard tied up the linen and staggered off under their weight
while Gervaise turned back to finish her cap. Alas! The stove and the
irons were alike red hot; she must wait a quarter of an hour before
she could touch the irons, and Gervaise covered the fire with a couple
of shovelfuls of cinders. She then hung a sheet before the window to
keep out the sun. Coupeau took a place in the corner, refusing to
budge an inch, and his wife and all her assistants went to work on
each side of the square table. Each woman had at her right a flat
brick on which to set her iron. In the center of the table a dish of
water with a rag and a brush in it and also a bunch of tall lilies
in a broken jar.

Mme Putois had attacked the basket of linen prepared by Gervaise, and
Augustine was ironing her towels, with her nose in the air, deeply
interested in a fly that was buzzing about. As to Clemence, she was
polishing off her thirty-fifth shirt; as she boasted of this great
feat Coupeau staggered toward her.

"Madame," she called, "please keep him away; he will bother me, and
I shall scorch my shirt."

"Let her be," said Gervaise without any especial energy. "We are in
a great hurry today!"

Well, that was not his fault; he did not mean to touch the girl;
he only wanted to see what she was about.

"Really," said his wife, looking up from her fluting iron, "I think
you had best go to bed."

He began to talk again.

"You need not make such a fuss, Clemence; it is only because these
women are here, and--"

But he could say no more; Gervaise quietly laid one hand on his mouth
and the other on his shoulder and pushed him toward his room. He
struggled a little and with a silly laugh asked if Clemence was not
coming too.

Gervaise undressed her husband and tucked him up in bed as if he had
been a child and then returned to her fluting irons in time to still
a grand dispute that was going on about an iron that had not been
properly cleaned.

In the profound silence that followed her appearance she could hear
her husband's thick voice:

"What a silly wife I've got! The idea of putting me to bed in broad
daylight!"

Suddenly he began to snore, and Gervaise uttered a sigh of relief.
She used her fluting iron for a minute and then said quietly:

"There is no need of being offended by anything a man does when he
is in this state. He is not an accountable being. He did not intend
to insult you. Clemence, you know what a tipsy man is--he respects
neither father nor mother."

She uttered these words in an indifferent, matter-of-fact way, not in
the least disturbed that he had forgotten the respect due to her and
to her roof and really seeing no harm in his conduct.

The work now went steadily on, and Gervaise calculated they would
be finished by eleven o'clock. The heat was intense; the smell of
charcoal deadened the air, while the branch of white lilies slowly
faded and filled the room with their sweetness.

The day after all this Coupeau had a frightful headache and did not
rise until late, too late to go to his work. About noon he began to
feel better, and toward evening was quite himself. His wife gave him
some silver and told him to go out and take the air, which meant with
him taking some wine.

One glass washed down another, but he came home as gay as a lark and
quite disgusted with the men he had seen who were drinking themselves
to death.

"Where is your lover?" he said to his wife as he entered the shop.
This was his favorite joke. "I never see him nowadays and must hunt
him up."

He meant Goujet, who came but rarely, lest the gossips in the
neighborhood should take it upon themselves to gabble. Once in about
ten days he made his appearance in the evening and installed himself
in a corner in the back shop with his pipe. He rarely spoke but
laughed at all Gervaise said.

On Saturday evenings the establishment was kept open half the night. A
lamp hung from the ceiling with the light thrown down by a shade. The
shutters were put up at the usual time, but as the nights were very
warm the door was left open, and as the hours wore on the women pulled
their jackets open a little more at the throat, and he sat in his
corner and looked on as if he were at a theater.

The silence of the street was broken by a passing carriage. Two
o'clock struck--no longer a sound from outside. At half-past two a
man hurried past the door, carrying with him a vision of flying arms,
piles of white linen and a glow of yellow light.

Goujet, wishing to save Etienne from Coupeau's rough treatment, had
taken him to the place where he was employed to blow the bellows, with
the prospect of becoming an apprentice as soon as he was old enough,
and Etienne thus became another tie between the clearstarcher and the
blacksmith.

All their little world laughed and told Gervaise that her friend
worshiped the very ground she trod upon. She colored and looked like
a girl of sixteen.

"Dear boy," she said to herself, "I know he loves me, but never has
he said or will he say a word of the kind to me!" And she was proud
of being loved in this way. When she was disturbed about anything her
first thought was to go to him. When by chance they were left alone
together they were never disturbed by wondering if their friendship
verged on love. There was no harm in such affection.

Nana was now six years old and a most troublesome little sprite. Her
mother took her every morning to a school in the Rue Polonceau, to
a certain Mlle Josse. Here she did all manner of mischief. She put
ashes into the teacher's snuffbox, pinned the skirts of her companions
together. Twice the young lady was sent home in disgrace and then
taken back again for the sake of the six francs each month. As soon as
school hours were over Nana revenged herself for the hours of enforced
quiet she had passed by making the most frightful din in the courtyard
and the shop.

She found able allies in Pauline and Victor Boche. The whole great
house resounded with the most extraordinary noises--the thumps of
children falling downstairs, little feet tearing up one staircase
and down another and bursting out on the sidewalk like a band of
pilfering, impudent sparrows.

Mme Gaudron alone had nine--dirty, unwashed and unkempt, their
stockings hanging over their shoes and the slits in their garments
showing the white skin beneath. Another woman on the fifth floor had
seven, and they came out in twos and threes from all the rooms. Nana
reigned over this band, among which there were some half grown and
others mere infants. Her prime ministers were Pauline and Victor;
to them she delegated a little of her authority while she played
mamma, undressed the youngest only to dress them again, cuffed them
and punished them at her own sweet will and with the most fantastic
disposition. The band pranced and waded through the gutter that ran
from the dyehouse and emerged with blue or green legs. Nana decorated
herself and the others with shavings from the cabinetmaker's, which
they stole from under the very noses of the workmen.

The courtyard belonged to all of these children, apparently, and
resounded with the clatter of their heels. Sometimes this courtyard,
however, was not enough for them, and they spread in every direction
to the infinite disgust of Mme Boche, who grumbled all in vain. Boche
declared that the children of the poor were as plentiful as mushrooms
on a dung heap, and his wife threatened them with her broom.

One day there was a terrible scene. Nana had invented a beautiful
game. She had stolen a wooden shoe belonging to Mme Boche; she bored
a hole in it and put in a string, by which she could draw it like a
cart. Victor filled it with apple parings, and they started forth in
a procession, Nana drawing the shoe in front, followed by the whole
flock, little and big, an imp about the height of a cigar box at the
end. They all sang a melancholy ditty full of "ahs" and "ohs." Nana
declared this to be always the custom at funerals.

"What on earth are they doing now?" murmured Mme Boche suspiciously,
and then she came to the door and peered out.

"Good heavens!" she cried. "It is my shoe they have got."

She slapped Nana, cuffed Pauline and shook Victor. Gervaise was
filling a bucket at the fountain, and when she saw Nana with her nose
bleeding she rushed toward the concierge and asked how she dared
strike her child.

The concierge replied that anyone who had a child like that had
best keep her under lock and key. The end of this was, of course,
a complete break between the old friends.

But, in fact, the quarrel had been growing for a month. Gervaise,
generous by nature and knowing the tastes of the Boche people, was
in the habit of making them constant presents--oranges, a little
hot soup, a cake or something of the kind. One evening, knowing that
the concierge would sell her soul for a good salad, she took her
the remains of a dish of beets and chicory. The next day she was
dumfounded at hearing from Mlle Remanjon how Mme Boche had thrown the
salad away, saying that she was not yet reduced to eating the leavings
of other people! From that day forth Gervaise sent her nothing more.
The Boches had learned to look on her little offerings as their right,
and they now felt themselves to be robbed by the Coupeaus.

It was not long before Gervaise realized she had made a mistake, for
when she was one day late with her October rent Mme Boche complained
to the proprietor, who came blustering to her shop with his hat on.
Of course, too, the Lorilleuxs extended the right hand of fellowship
at once to the Boche people.

There came a day, however, when Gervaise found it necessary to call on
the Lorilleuxs. It was on Mamma Coupeau's account, who was sixty-seven
years old, nearly blind and helpless. They must all unite in doing
something for her now. Gervaise thought it a burning shame that a
woman of her age, with three well-to-do children, should be allowed
for a moment to regard herself as friendless and forsaken. And as her
husband refused to speak to his sister, Gervaise said she would.

She entered the room like a whirlwind, without knocking. Everything
was just as it was on that night when she had been received by them
in a fashion which she had never forgotten or forgiven. "I have come,"
cried Gervaise, "and I dare say you wish to know why, particularly
as we are at daggers drawn. Well then, I have come on Mamma Coupeau's
account. I have come to ask if we are to allow her to beg her bread
from door to door----"

"Indeed!" said Mme Lorilleux with a sneer, and she turned away.

But Lorilleux lifted his pale face.

"What do you mean?" he asked, and as he had understood perfectly,
he went on:

"What is this cry of poverty about? The old lady ate her dinner with
us yesterday. We do all we can for her, I am sure. We have not the
mines of Peru within our reach, but if she thinks she is to run to
and fro between our houses she is much mistaken. I, for one, have no
liking for spies." He then added as he took up his microscope, "When
the rest of you agree to give five francs per month toward her support
we will do the same." Gervaise was calmer now; these people always
chilled the very marrow in her bones, and she went on to explain her
views. Five francs were not enough for each of the old lady's children
to pay. She could not live on fifteen francs per month.

"And why not?" cried Lorilleux. "She ought to do so. She can see well
enough to find the best bits in a dish before her, and she can do
something toward her own maintenance." If he had the means to indulge
such laziness he should not consider it his duty to do so, he added.

Then Gervaise grew angry again. She looked at her sister-in-law and
saw her face set in vindictive firmness.

"Keep your money," she cried. "I will take care of your mother. I
found a starving cat in the street the other night and took it in. I
can take in your mother too. She shall want for nothing. Good heavens,
what people!"

Mme Lorilleux snatched up a saucepan.

"Clear out," she said hoarsely. "I will never give one sou--no, not
one sou--toward her keep. I understand you! You will make my mother
work for you like a slave and put my five francs in your pocket! Not
if I know it, madame! And if she goes to live under your roof I will
never see her again. Be off with you, I say!"

"What a monster!" cried Gervaise as she shut the door with a bang. On
the very next day Mme Coupeau came to her. A large bed was put in the
room where Nana slept. The moving did not take long, for the old lady
had only this bed, a wardrobe, table and two chairs. The table was
sold and the chairs new-seated, and the old lady the evening of her
arrival washed the dishes and swept up the room, glad to make herself
useful. Mme Lerat had amused herself by quarreling with her sister,
to whom she had expressed her admiration of the generosity evinced
by Gervaise, and when she saw that Mme Lorilleux was intensely
exasperated she declared she had never seen such eyes in anybody's
head as those of the clearstarcher. She really believed one might
light paper at them. This declaration naturally led to bitter words,
and the sisters parted, swearing they would never see each other
again, and since then Mme Lerat had spent most of her evenings at
her brother's.

Three years passed away. There were reconciliations and new quarrels.
Gervaise continued to be liked by her neighbors; she paid her bills
regularly and was a good customer. When she went out she received
cordial greetings on all sides, and she was more fond of going out in
these days than of yore. She liked to stand at the corners and chat.
She liked to loiter with her arms full of bundles at a neighbor's
window and hear a little gossip.

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