The Drinking Den Read online

  Coupeau said, very well then, but he’d settle up at once; that way, there’ll be no argument. There was no reason why decent folk should have to pay for drunkards. And, as it happened, Mes-Bottes, after searching his pockets for some time, found only three francs, seven sous – well, why had they left him kicking his heels on the Saint-Denis road? He couldn’t stand there getting soaked, so he had broken into the five-franc piece. It was their fault, so there! He’d give them the three francs, keeping the seven sous for his tobacco the next day. Coupeau was furious; he would have struck him if Gervaise had not tugged at his coat, imploring him not to, terrified. So he decided to borrow two francs from Lorilleux, who at first refused, then lent them to him surreptitiously (because his wife, naturally, would have disapproved).

  Meanwhile, M. Madinier had picked up a plate. The young or unaccompanied ladies, Mme Lerat, Mme Fauconnier and Mlle Remanjou, were the first to put in their five-franc pieces, discreetly. After that, the gentlemen went into a huddle at the far end of the room to do the sums. There were fifteen of them, which made seventy-five francs. When the money was all in the plate, each man added five sous for the waiters. It took a quarter of an hour of tedious calculation before it was settled to everybody’s satisfaction.

  But when M. Madinier, who wanted to deal directly with the boss, had asked for the wine merchant to come up, they were all astonished to hear him say, with a smile, that it wasn’t nearly enough. There were extras. And, when the word ‘extras’ was greeted with furious exclamations, he spelled them out: twenty-five litres of wine, instead of twenty, which was the amount agreed upon in advance; the oeufs à la neige, which he had added when he saw that the dessert course was a bit meagre; and finally a flask of rum, along with the coffee, in case some people liked it. At this, a huge row broke out. Coupeau, feeling it was his responsibility, defended himself: he had never mentioned twenty litres; as for the egg custard, that was part of the dessert course; too bad if the innkeeper had chosen to add it of his own free will. As for the flask of rum, it was a con, a way of pushing up the bill by slipping liqueurs on to the table when no one was expecting them.

  ‘There’s an extra six francs to pay,’ the wine merchant insisted. ‘Give me my six francs… And I’m not even counting that gentleman’s three loaves of bread, either!’

  The whole group pressed around him, pinned him in a circle of angry gestures and a yelp of voices, strangled with fury. The women, in particular, abandoned all reserve and refused to put in another centime. Yes, indeed! Thank you very much, this was a fine wedding banquet! That was Mlle Remanjou, who wasn’t getting roped into another dinner like this one! Mme Fauconnier thought the food was not at all good; at home, she could have made you a mouth-watering little something for her forty sous. Mme Gaudron complained bitterly at having been pushed down to the worst end of the table, next to Mes-Bottes, who had shown not the slightest consideration for her. In the end, this sort of function always turned out badly. If you wanted to have people at your wedding, you should invite them as your guests, for goodness’ sake! Gervaise, who had taken refuge with Mother Coupeau at one of the windows, said nothing, shamed by the sense that all these recriminations were rebounding on her.

  Eventually, M. Madinier went off with the wine merchant and they could be heard arguing downstairs. Then, half an hour later, he returned. He had settled, giving the restauranteur three francs. But the company remained angry, irritated, constantly returning to the matter of those extras. And the clamour was increased by a violent outburst on the part of Mme Boche. She had not relaxed her watch on Boche and noticed him in a corner, clasping Mme Lerat round the waist; at which, she threw a carafe at him with all her might and it shattered against the wall.

  ‘One can see that your husband is in the clothing trade, Madame,’ the tall widow said, pursing her lips in a very significant way. ‘He runs after every skirt he sees… And he does so even after the smart kicks I gave him under the table.’

  The evening was ruined. The mood became more and more sour. M. Madinier suggested a song, but Bibi-la-Grillade, who had a fine voice, had just vanished; and Mlle Remanjou, who was leaning on a window-sill, saw him under the acacia trees, gallivanting around with a buxom, bareheaded lass. The cornet and the two violins were playing ‘The Mustard Vendor’, a quadrille where the dancers clapped hands in the pastourelle.23 At this, there was a stampede: Mes-Bottes and the Gaudrons went down and even Boche left. Through the windows, they could see the couples whirling among the leaves, coloured a crude, theatrical green by the lanterns hanging from the branches. The night, swooning in the heat, slept without a breath. In the room, a serious conversation had started between Lorilleux and M. Madinier, while the ladies, not knowing how to appease their thirst for anger, were looking over their dresses, to see if any stains had landed on them.

  Mme Lerat’s fringes must have dipped in the coffee. Mme Fauconnier’s silk dress was covered in gravy. Mother Coupeau’s green shawl, which had fallen off a chair, had just been found in a corner, crumpled and trodden on. But it was Mme Lorilleux above all who refused to calm down. She had a stain on her back, and however much they swore that she didn’t, she could feel it. In the end, twisting in front of a mirror, she managed to catch sight of it.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ she yelled. ‘It’s chicken fat. The waiter will pay for this dress. I’ll take him to court. Oh, that really puts the cap on the day! I’d have done better to stay in bed. In any case, I’m off. I’ve had it up to here with this confounded wedding of theirs!’

  She left in a fury, making the stairs shake beneath her feet. Lorilleux ran after her, but the best he could manage was to persuade her to wait for five minutes on the pavement, if they were to leave together. She should have left straight after the storm, as she wanted to. Coupeau would make up to her for today. When he learned how upset she was, he seemed worried; and Gervaise, to spare him any trouble, agreed to leave immediately. So they all embraced and M. Madinier said he would take charge of seeing that Mother Coupeau got home. Mme Boche was going to take Claude and Etienne to sleep at her house for the first night. Their mother had nothing to worry about: the kids would sleep on some chairs, laden down with indigestion from the egg custard. The newly-weds were finally on their way out with Lorilleux, leaving the remainder of the group at the wine merchant’s, when a battle started downstairs, on the dance-floor, between theirs and another party: Boche and Mes-Bottes, who had been kissing a lady, didn’t want to return her to two soldiers to whom she belonged and were threatening to sweep them all away, lock, stock and barrel, while the cornet and the two violins pressed on deafeningly with the polka from The Pearl Fishers.

  It was barely eleven o’clock. On the Boulevard de la Chapelle and through the whole district of La Goutte-d’Or, the fortnight’s pay-day, falling that particular Saturday, had created a huge, drunken din. Mme Lorilleux was waiting twenty yards from the Moulin d’Argent, standing under a gaslight. She took Lorilleux’s arm and stepped out ahead, without looking round, at such a pace that Gervaise and Coupeau were quite out of breath following them. From time to time, they stepped off the pavement to give way to a drunk who had fallen down and was lying with his hooves in the air. Lorilleux turned round, trying to patch things up.

  ‘We’ll take you to your front door,’ he said.

  But Mme Lorilleux, in a loud voice, said it seemed odd to spend one’s wedding night in that dreadful hole, the Hôtel Boncoeur. Couldn’t they have delayed the marriage, saved up a few sous and bought some furniture, so that they could go back to their own home for the first night? Oh, it would be really nice for the two of them, in an attic-room where the rent was ten francs and they couldn’t even get a breath of air.

  ‘I’ve given notice about that,’ Coupeau protested, timidly. ‘We’re not staying up there, we’re keeping Gervaise’s room, which is larger.’

  Mme Lorilleux was so taken aback that she swung round.

  ‘Well, if that isn’t the limit!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’r
e going to sleep in Tip-Tap’s room!’

  Gervaise went white. The nickname, which was being said to her face for the first time, struck her like a blow. Then she grasped the meaning of what her sister-in-law was saying: Tip-Tap’s room was the one where she had lived for a month with Lantier, a room still cluttered with the remnants of her past life. Coupeau did not see that; he was just hurt by the nickname.

  ‘You’ve no business to go sticking names on other people,’ he snapped. ‘Perhaps you don’t know that they call you Carrot-Head in the neighbourhood, because of your hair. There, you don’t like that, do you? Why shouldn’t we keep on the first-floor room? The children won’t be there tonight; we’ll be just fine.’

  Mme Lorilleux said nothing, maintaining a dignified silence and extremely annoyed at being called Carrot-Head. Coupeau, to console Gervaise, gently pressed her arm; and he even managed to cheer her up, by telling her that they were starting off in married life with the sum of just seven sous: three big coins and a little one, which he jingled in his trouser pocket with his hand. When they reached the Hôtel Boncoeur, they said good-night to one another as distantly as possible. Then, just as Coupeau was trying to push the two women towards each other for a kiss, telling them not to be stupid, a drunkard, who had appeared to be heading past them on the right, made a sudden swerve to the left and threw himself between them.

  ‘Well, I never! It’s Old Bazouge!’ Lorilleux said. ‘He’s had his quota for the day.’

  Gervaise, startled, pressed against the door of the house. Bazouge, an undertaker in his fifties, was wearing a pair of black trousers spattered with mud, a black coat fastened on his shoulder and a dented black leather hat, flattened in some fall or other.

  ‘Don’t worry, he won’t harm you,’ Lorilleux said. ‘He’s one of the neighbours: third room down the passage, before you get to ours. A nice thing it would be, if his bosses were to see him like this.’

  Meanwhile, Old Bazouge was offended by the young woman’s terror.

  ‘Come, come,’ he stammered. ‘We don’t eat people in my job. I’m as good as anyone else, darling… True, I’ve had a bit to drink. When there’s work on, you have to keep oiling the wheels. I can’t see you or anyone else here taking a bloke that weighs six hundred pounds from the fourth floor down to street level with only two to carry him, and without dropping him… Give me happy faces, that’s what I like.’

  But Gervaise merely shrank further into the shadow of the door, with an overwhelming desire to burst into tears, which was spoiling her day of gentle happiness. She had no more thought of kissing her sister-in-law, but begged Coupeau to get rid of the drunk. So Bazouge, staggering, gave a gesture expressing philosophical disdain.

  ‘It won’t stop you getting there, darling. You may even be happy to go, one day. Yes, there are some women I know who would thank you for taking them off.’

  And, as the Lorilleux made up their minds to take him away, he turned round and stammered one last remark, between his hiccups.

  ‘When you’re dead… now, you listen to me… when you’re dead, you’re a long time dead!’

  CHAPTER 4

  There followed four years’ hard work.1 In their neighbourhood, Gervaise and Coupeau were a good couple, who kept themselves to themselves, didn’t fight and took a regular Sunday walk over to Saint-Ouen. The wife did twelve-hour days at Mme Fauconnier’s and yet managed to keep her home as clean as a new penny, in addition to serving a meal for the family twice a day. The man didn’t get drunk, brought home his fortnightly pay-packet and smoked a pipe at his window, before going to bed, to take the air. They were quoted as an example because of their kindness and decency. And, since the two of them together earned nearly nine francs a day, people worked out that they must be putting aside a tidy sum.

  However, especially in the early days, they had to scrimp and save to make ends meet. The wedding had left them with a debt of two hundred francs. Then, they hated living at the Hôtel Boncoeur. They found it disgusting and full of undesirable types. They dreamed of having their own home, with their own furniture, which they could take care of. Twenty times, they worked out how much they would need: in round figures, it came to three hundred and fifty francs, if they wanted to start off without having a hard time to keep their heads above water and have a saucepan or casserole dish when they needed it. They could see no chance of saving such a large sum within two years; but then they had a stroke of luck: an old gentleman from Plassans asked them to send him Claude, the elder of the two boys, so he could put him in boarding-school – a generous notion on the part of an eccentric art-lover who had been very impressed by some sketches of people that the kid had done. Claude had been costing them the shirts off their backs, and now that they had only the younger boy, Etienne,2 to support, they put aside the three hundred and fifty francs in seven and a half months. On the day when they bought their furniture, at a second-hand shop in the Rue Belhomme, they went for a walk before going home along the outer boulevards, their hearts bursting with great joy. They had a bed, a bedside table, a chest of drawers with a marble top, a cupboard, a round table with a waxed cloth and six chairs, everything in old walnut – not to mention the bedclothes, linen and almost-new kitchen utensils. To them, this seemed to mark the moment when they finally and seriously took their place in life – an event that, by making them owners of property, gave them some standing among the well-set-up people of the neighbourhood.

  For the past two months, they had been concerned with the choice of somewhere to live. What they wanted most of all was to rent a flat in the big house in the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or, but there was not a single room to let, so they had to give up this long-cherished dream. Underneath, if the truth be told, Gervaise was not sorry: the idea of living only a few doors away from the Lorilleux had made her quite scared. They looked elsewhere. Coupeau, quite rightly, was keen not to move too far from Mme Fauconnier’s, so that Gervaise could slip home at any time of the day. And finally they did find somewhere, a big room, with a small room off it and a kitchen, in the Rue Neuve de la Goutte-d’Or, almost opposite the laundry. It was a little, two-storey house, with a steep staircase at the top of which were just two apartments, one on the right, the other on the left; the lower floor being occupied by a man who gave carriages out for hire and kept them in sheds round a huge courtyard opening into the street. The young woman was delighted: it was like living in a small town again: no busybodies next door, no gossip to worry about, just a tranquil spot that reminded her of a backstreet in Plassans, behind the ramparts; and, to cap it all, she could see her own window from the laundry, if she craned her neck, without putting down her iron.

  They moved on the April quarter-day.3 Gervaise was now eight months pregnant; but she showed a fine spirit, laughing and saying that the child would help her while she was working; she could feel its little fists pushing inside her and giving her strength. What! She took not the least notice of Coupeau when he said she should have a lie down and take it easy! She’d lie down when the contractions started. That would be quite soon enough, because now, with another mouth to feed, they would really have to put their backs into it. She was the one who cleaned the apartment, before helping her husband to put back the furniture. She worshipped that furniture, wiping it down lovingly and breaking her heart at the slightest scratch. She would stop dead, as though she had hit herself, when she knocked any piece of it with the broom. The chest of drawers was especially dear to her: she thought how beautiful and solid it was, with that air of seriousness about it. One of her dreams, which she did not dare mention to anyone, was to have a clock to put on it, right in the middle of the marble top – the effect would be quite splendid. Had it not been for the baby that was on the way, she might have risked buying her clock, but as it was she put it off until later, with a sigh.

  The family were enchanted with their new abode. Etienne’s bed was in the small room, which was large enough for another child’s cot. The kitchen was no bigger than the back of your hand a
nd very dark; but if you left the door open you could see quite well. After all, Gervaise did not have to cook for thirty people; all she needed was room to make a stew. As for the main room, it was their pride and joy. As soon as they got up, they drew the curtains across the recess – curtains in white calico – and at once the bedroom was transformed into a dining-room, with the table in the middle and the wardrobe and chest of drawers facing one another. As the open fire could consume as much as fifteen sous’ worth of coal a day, they blocked it off. Instead a little iron stove, standing on the marble slab, gave them heat even in the depth of winter for seven sous. Coupeau had done his best to decorate the walls, while promising further embellishments later on. A tall engraving showing a Marshal of France,4 prancing about with his baton in his hand, between a cannon and a heap of cannon-balls, took the place of a mirror. Above the chest of drawers were the family photographs, in two rows, to the right and left of an old china stoup for holy water, with gilt decoration, where they kept the matches. On a corner of the wardrobe stood a bust of Pascal, and on the other side, one of Béranger,5 the first grave, the other smiling, close to the cuckoo clock, so that they seemed to be listening to its ticking. It really was a lovely room.

  ‘Guess how much we are paying here?’ Gervaise would ask everyone who came to see them.

  And when they overestimated her rent, she enjoyed a little triumph, delighted at being so well housed for so little, and exclaimed: ‘One hundred and fifty francs, not a penny more! There! It’s a gift, isn’t it?’

  The Rue Neuve de la Goutte-d’Or itself played a large part in their feeling of satisfaction. Gervaise lived in the street, constantly going back and forth from her own house to Mme Fauconnier’s. Coupeau, nowadays, would go downstairs in the evening to smoke his pipe on the doorstep. The street, which had no pavement and was full of pot-holes, went uphill. At the top end, towards the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or, there were dark shops with dirty windows: shoemakers, coopers, a dubious grocer’s store and a wine merchant’s, which had gone bankrupt some weeks earlier, its shutters now closed and covered with posters. At the other end, going into Paris, four-storey houses blocked off the sky; the ground floors were occupied by laundries, one on top of the other, in a bunch; the only exception was the window of a small-town barber and wig-maker’s, painted green and full of soft-coloured bottles, which brightened up this overshadowed corner with its shiny copper signs, always highly polished. But the most cheerful part of the street was in the middle, where the buildings were lower and more widely-spaced, letting in air and light. The sheds of the coach-maker and the nearby soda-water factory, with the wash-house on the other side, created a vast, silent open area, in which the muffled voices of the washerwomen and the regular breathing of the steam-engine seemed to intensify the sense of withdrawal. Patches of wasteland and narrow alleyways, running between the black walls, turned this part of the street into a village. Coupeau, amused by the the sight of the occasional passer-by hopping over the constant streams of soapy water, said that it reminded him of a little place in the country where one of his uncles had taken him when he was five. Gervaise’s great joy, to the left of her window, was a tree in a courtyard, an acacia with one of its branches reaching out, its meagre greenery enough to lend charm to the whole street.