The Drinking Den Page 23

  ‘Come on, let’s begin,’ said Goujet, himself putting one of the pieces of iron, the size of a girl’s fist, into the frame.

  Bec-Salé (also known as Drinks-Without-Thirst) leaned back and swung Dédèle with both hands. Small, dessicated, with his goat’s beard and wolfish eyes shining under his shock of hair, he staggered at every swing of the hammer, leaping from the ground as though thrown up by his own momentum. He was a raging bull who fought with his iron, irritated at finding it so hard. He even gave a grunt of satisfaction when he thought that he had dealt it a telling blow. Hard liquor might soften another man’s arms, but he needed it in his veins in place of blood; the drop he had just taken warmed him like a boiler and he felt he had the mighty strength of a steam-engine. So it was that the iron, that evening, was afraid of him, and he flattened it softer than a plug of tobacco. And Dédèle was dancing: you should have seen her! She performed the entrechat, with her feet in the air, like a piece of stuff at the Elysée-Montmartre2 showing her underwear – because everything depended on not hanging around, iron is such a tricky bastard, it cools down immediately, just so that it can show its contempt for the hammer. In thirty blows, Bec-Salé (also known as Drinks-Without-Thirst) had shaped the head of his bolt. But he was panting for breath, his eyes bulging, consumed with rage at the sound of his arms cracking. So, carried away, dancing and yelling, he threw another couple of blows, just to vent his anger and have revenge for his trouble. And when he removed it from the frame, the bolt was deformed, with its head all to one side like a hunchback.

  ‘There we are! Isn’t that a beauty?’ he said anyway, cocky as ever, showing off his work to Gervaise.

  ‘I’m no expert, Monsieur,’ the laundress replied hesitantly.

  But she could clearly see the marks of Dédèle’s last two footprints on the bolt and was secretly delighted, pressing her lips together so as not to burst out laughing, because now Goujet had everything on his side.

  It was Gueule-d’Or’s turn. Before starting he threw the laundress a look that was full of tenderness and self-assurance. Then, without hurrying, he stood back and brought the hammer down, in great regular swings. His technique was the classical one, precise, agile and well balanced. In his two hands, Fifine did not dance a wild cancan, kicking her legs up over her skirts, but rose and fell in perfect time, like a noble lady solemnly leading some old-fashioned minuet. Fifine’s heels gravely beat the measure and dug into the hot iron on the head of the bolt with poise and skill, firstly crushing the metal in the centre, then shaping it with a series of rhythmically precise blows. Of course, it was not hard liquor that Gueule-d’Or had in his veins, but blood, pure blood that pulsed round forcefully right down to the hammer and governed every stroke. At work, the man was magnificent! The great flame from the furnace shone directly on him. His short hair, falling in curls across his low forehead, and the fine ringlets of his yellow beard, caught the reflection and lit all his face with their golden threads, making it undeniably a face of gold. In addition to which, he had a neck like a marble column, white as the neck of a child, a broad chest, wide enough for a woman to sleep on, and sculpted arms and shoulders that seemed to have been modelled on those of a giant in a museum. When he flexed his muscles to strike, you could see them swell like mountains of flesh rolling and hardening under the skin; his shoulders, his chest and his neck filled, and he spread a glow around him, becoming handsome and all-powerful, like a benificent deity. He had already brought Fifine down twenty times, keeping his eyes fixed on the iron and breathing out with every stroke, showing nothing more than two drops of sweat that ran down from his temples. He was counting: twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three… Fifine calmly went on with her great lady’s curtsies.

  ‘What a show-off!’ muttered Bec-Salé (also known as Drinks-Without-Thirst), with a snigger.

  Gervaise, standing opposite Gueule-d’Or, watched him with an affectionate smile. My God! How stupid men were! Surely it was a form of courtship, this hammering away by the two of them at their bolts! Oh, she knew just what was going on: they were fighting it out with hammer blows; they were like two great red cockerels strutting around in front of a little white hen. What would they think of next? Sometimes, the heart really does have a strange way of declaring its feelings. Yes, it was for her benefit, this thundering of Dédèle and Fifine on the anvil; it was for her benefit that all this iron was flattened; it was for her benefit that this whole forge was shaking, blazing with fire and filled with a spray of bright sparks. They were forging their love for her and quarrelling about who would do it better. And, yes, it did give her pleasure, underneath, because women like compliments. Gueule-d’Or’s hammer blows, in particular, found an echo in her heart where they rang out, as on the anvil, in a clear melody that harmonized with the blood throbbing through her veins. It may seem stupid, but she felt that something was being driven into her, something solid, something of the iron of the bolt. At dusk before coming into the forge, walking along the damp pavements, she had had a vague need, a desire for something nice to eat; now she felt satisfied, as though Gueule-d’Or’s hammer blows had nourished her. Oh, she had no doubt that he would win! He was the one she would belong to. Bec-Salé (also known as Drinks-Without-Thirst) was too ugly, in his dirty jacket and overalls, jumping around like a loose monkey. And so she waited, very red, yet happy with the raging heat, experiencing a feeling of joy at being shaken from head to foot by Fifine’s last swings.

  Goujet was still counting.

  ‘And twenty-eight!’ he said finally, putting down the hammer. ‘It’s finished, you can look.’

  The head of the bolt was smooth and clear-cut, without a flaw: a veritable jeweller’s piece, as round as a moulded billiard ball. The workers looked on nodding their heads: there was no denying it, you had to take your hat off to him. Bec-Salé (also known as Drinks-Without-Thirst) did his best to make a joke of it, but he was floundering and eventually went back to his anvil, tail between his legs. Meanwhile, Gervaise had pressed up against Goujet, as if trying to see better. Etienne had put down the bellows and the forge once more filled with darkness, the sunset of a red star suddenly plunging them into pitch black. And the blacksmith and the laundress were swept with tenderness on feeling this blackness surround them, in that shed grimed with soot and iron filings, exuding an odour of scrap metal. They could not have felt more alone if they had had an assignation in some thicket in the Bois de Vincennes. He took her hand as though he had conquered her.

  Outside, they did not say a word to one another. He could find nothing to say, except that she could have taken Etienne with her, if he had not had another half-hour of work. Eventually, when he was leaving, he called her back, trying to keep her for a few minutes longer.

  ‘Come now, you haven’t seen everything… Really, it’s very interesting.’

  He took her across to the right into another shed, where his boss was installing a whole mechanized factory. At the threshold, she shrank back, seized by an instinctive fear. The vast room was vibrating, shaken by the machines, and huge shadows moved around, spattered with red lights. But he smiled and reassured her: there was nothing to be afraid of, except that she should be careful not to let her skirts drag too near the machinery. He went first, and she followed, into this deafening clamour made up of every kind of whistle and snort, in the midst of clouds of steam inhabited by vague forms, of blackened men hurrying about their business and of gesticulating machines, so that she could not make out which was which. The walkways were very narrow and you had to step over obstacles, avoid holes or stand back to get out of the way of a truck. You could not hear yourself speak. For the moment, she could see nothing, everything was a blur. Then, as she felt the sensation of a great beating of wings above her head, she glanced up and stopped to look at the driving belts, long ribbons that formed a gigantic spider’s web across the ceiling, each thread of which was constantly unwinding. The steam-engine was hidden in a corner, behind a little brick wall, and the belts seemed to be travelling
on their own, acquiring their movement from the depths of the shadows, with a continuous, regular sliding that was as soft as the flight of a night bird. But she almost fell, stumbling against one of the ventilator pipes that branched out across the earth floor, giving its breath of sharp wind to the little furnaces close to the machines. And this is what he started by showing her, turning the wind on a fire, so that wide flames burst out on all four sides in the shape of a fan, a collar of dazzling, lacy fire, faintly tinged with red: the light was so bright that the workers’ little lamps seemed like spots of shadow in sunlight. After that, he raised his voice to offer some explanations and went through the different machines: the mechanical scissors, which devoured iron bars, cutting off a piece with each bite and spitting them out, one by one, from behind; the tall, complicated machines for making bolts and rivets, stamping out the heads with a single punch from their powerful screws; the trimmers, with a cast-iron flywheel and a ball, also in cast-iron, which beat the air furiously as it smoothed rough edges; the thread-cutters, operated by women, that put the threads on nuts and their bolts, with a tick-tack of steel cogs shining with grease. In this way she could follow every stage of the work, from the iron in the form of bars, standing up against the walls, to the completed bolts and rivets, boxes of which littered the corners. Now she understood and nodded, giving a smile; but even so she felt a lump in her throat, anxious at being so small and soft among all these brutal shapers of metal, turning round from time to time with a start at a loud noise from one of the trimmers. She was getting used to the dark and, when a furnace suddenly threw up a blaze of light from its collar of flames, was able to make out the recesses where men stood motionless, controlling the breathless dance of the flywheels. And, despite herself, her gaze kept returning repeatedly to the ceiling – to the life, to the very blood of these machines, the agile flight of the belts, looking up to see this massive, silent force travelling across the dim void among the roof-beams.

  Meanwhile, Goujet had paused in front of one of the rivet-making machines. He stayed there, staring, thoughtful, his head lowered. The machine was striking off forty-millimetre rivets with the calm ease of a giant; and, in truth, nothing could be simpler. The stoker took a piece of iron from the furnace, the striker placed it in the frame, which was under a constant stream of water to keep the steel tempered, and that was it: the screw came down and the bolt fell to the ground, its head as round as if it had been shaped in a mould. In twelve hours, this damned mechanism could manufacture hundreds of kilos. There was no malice in Goujet, but there were times when he could happily have taken Fifine and thumped her into all this metalwork, in sheer anger at the fact that its arms were stronger than his. It made him very unhappy, even when he thought about it sensibly, telling himself that flesh could not fight against iron. One day, of course, the machine would kill off the worker. Already their daily wage had fallen from twelve francs to nine, and there was talk of reducing it still further. And, when it came down to it, there was nothing at all amusing about these huge animals, which turned out rivets and bolts as they might have done lengths of sausage. He looked at this one for three full minutes without speaking; he scowled, and his fine blond beard bristled threateningly. Then, little by little, his features softened into a look of gentle resignation. He turned to Gervaise, who was pressed against him, and said, with a sad smile:

  ‘What about that! It easily outstrips us. But perhaps in the long run it will serve the good of all.’

  Gervaise couldn’t give a damn for the good of all. She considered that the machine bolts were badly made.

  ‘See what I mean?’ she yelled, passionately. ‘They are too well-made. I prefer yours. There, at least, you can feel the hand of an artist.’

  Hearing her speak like that made him very happy, because for a second he had been afraid that she would despise him after seeing the machines. Damn it! He might be stronger than Bec-Salé (also known as Drinks-Without-Thirst), but the machines were stronger than he was. When at last he said goodbye to her in the yard, he was so happy that he pressed her hands until he almost crushed them.

  The laundress went to the Goujets every Saturday to take back their washing. They were still living in the little house in the Rue Neuve de la Goutte-d’Or. In the first year, she had been regularly paying them back twenty francs a month out of the five hundred they had lent her; so as not to complicate matters, they left settlement until the end of the month and she added the amount necessary to make up the twenty francs, because the Goujets’ laundry would not amount to more than seven or eight francs a month. She had just paid off about half the amount when one settlement day, when some customers had let her down and she did not know where else to turn, she had to go to the Goujets and borrow her rent from them. Twice after that, she had appealed to them again, to pay her workers, so that the debt had risen again to four hundred and twenty-five francs. Now she was not giving them a single sou, but paying off the debt solely through the laundry. It was not that she was working less or that her business was in trouble. On the contrary. But the housekeeping was short, money just seemed to melt away and she was happy when she managed to make ends meet. Good Lord, as long as they could live, no? One shouldn’t complain. She was putting on weight, giving in to little treats and indulging her growing waistline, no longer having the strength to upset herself by thinking about the future. Too bad! The money would keep coming in somehow. It would just rust if you put it to one side. All this time, Madame Goujet behaved like a mother to Gervaise. Sometimes she would lecture her mildly, not because of her money, but because she was fond of her and worried that she might get into trouble. She didn’t even mention her money. In short, she was very discreet about the whole matter.

  The day after Gervaise’s visit to the forge happened to be the last Saturday of the month. When she arrived at the Goujets’, where she insisted on going herself, her basket had weighed so heavily on her arms that it was two full minutes before she could catch her breath. People don’t know how heavy washing is, especially when there are sheets in it.

  ‘Have you brought everything?’ Mme Goujet asked.

  She was very strict on this point. She demanded that her washing be brought back without a single item missing: it was a matter of keeping things tidy, she said. Another demand was that the laundress should come on precisely the right day and always at the same hour: in that way, no one wasted any time.

  ‘Oh, it’s all there,’ said Gervaise with a smile. ‘You know I never leave anything behind.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Mme Goujet agreed. ‘You are slipping in some ways but not yet in that.’

  While the laundress was emptying her basket, laying the linen out on the bed, the old woman sang her praises. She didn’t burn the clothes or tear them, as so many others did, or tear the buttons off with the iron; the only thing was that she put in too much blue and starched the shirt-fronts too heavily.

  ‘Look here, it’s like board,’ she continued, making one shirt-front crack. ‘My son doesn’t complain, but it cuts into his neck. Tomorrow, when we come back from Vincennes, his neck will be all bloody.’

  ‘Oh, no, don’t say that!’ Gervaise exclaimed, devastated. ‘Dress-shirts should be a little stiff, if you don’t want a napkin round your body. Look at any gentleman… I do all your linen myself. None of my girls ever touches it, and I assure you I take good care of it, I would do it ten times over if necessary because it’s for you, you understand…’

  She was blushing slightly as she stammered out the end of the sentence. She was afraid of giving away the pleasure that she took in ironing Goujet’s shirts herself. Of course, she had no improper thoughts about them, but she was a little ashamed even so.

  ‘Oh, I’m not saying anything against your work,’ said Mme Goujet. ‘You do it perfectly, I know. Now this bonnet is impeccable. Only you can bring out the embroidery like that. And the fluted frills are so even! Now, I can recognize your handiwork at once. When you give so much as a dishcloth to another laundre
ss, it shows. No? Just use a little less starch, that’s all. Goujet doesn’t want to look like a gentleman.’

  While she was talking, she had taken the book and was crossing off the items one by one. Everything was indeed there. When they settled up, she saw that Gervaise was charging six sous for a bonnet. She exclaimed over it, but had to admit that the laundress was not expensive for everyday items; no, men’s shirts, five sous, women’s underwear, four sous, pillowcases, one and a half, aprons one sou: this was not dear, considering that many laundresses took half, or even a whole sou, more for all these things. Then, after Gervaise had called out the dirty linen for the old woman to write it down and put it in her basket, she did not leave, but stood there awkwardly with a request on her lips that made her very embarrassed.

  ‘Madame Goujet,’ she said, at last. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll take the money for the laundry this month.’

  As it happened the month was a very big one and the bill that they had just drawn up together amounted to ten francs seven sous. Mme Goujet looked at her for a moment with a serious expression on her face, then answered:

  ‘My child, it shall be as you wish. I don’t want to refuse you the money if you need it. But this is not the way to pay off your debt. I’m saying this for your sake, you know. It’s true: you must be careful.’

  Gervaise hung her head and took this admonishment, stammering that the ten francs were to make up the money for a bill that she had signed with her coal merchant. But Mme Goujet became more stern at the word ‘bill’.3 She gave her own case as an example. Since Goujet’s daily wage had been reduced from twelve to nine francs, she had cut down on expenses. If one was foolish when young, one starved in old age. However, she restrained herself and didn’t tell Gervaise that she gave her the washing just so that she could pay off her debt; at one time, she had done it all herself, and she could do so again, if the laundry was going to be costing her so much. When Gervaise had the ten francs and seven sous, she thanked Mme Goujet and hurriedly left. Going down the stairs, she felt pleased with things, she even wanted to dance, because she was already growing used to the worries and sordidness of money, and such embarrassments left her only with the joy of having escaped from them, until next time.