At home in the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or, they spoke of Nana’s old man as a gentleman whom everyone knew. Oh, he was always very polite, even a little shy, but devilishly stubborn and patient, following behind her at ten paces like an obedient dog. Mme Goudron met him one evening on the second-floor landing, gliding along next to the banister with his head down, excited but fearful. The Lorilleux threatened to move if that scrap of a niece of theirs brought home any more men at her tail, because it was getting quite disgusting, the stairway was full of them and you couldn’t go down nowadays without seeing them on every step, sniffing and waiting; you would think there was a bitch on heat in this part of the house. The Boches felt sorry for the poor man, he was such a respectable sort, falling for a slut like her. After all, he was in trade, they’d seen his button factory in the Boulevard de la Villette, and he could have made quite a catch if he’d only happened to meet a decent girl. Thanks to the details given by the concierges, everyone in the neighbourhood, even including the Lorilleux, were very considerate towards the old man when he came by on Nana’s heels, his lower lip lolling in his pale face, with his grey beard, neatly trimmed.
For the first month, Nana was very entertained by her old guy. You should see him, always eagerly fussing around her – a real groper, feeling up her skirt from behind in the crowd, while pretending not to. And his legs! Pins like a blackbird’s, thin as matchsticks! No more moss on the stone, just four curls down the back of his neck, so that she always wanted to ask him the address of the barber who did his parting. What an old fogey! Must be a bit dotty!
Then, finding him constantly there, she began to consider him as no longer such a joke. She had a vague fear of him, and would have cried out if he had come too close. Often, when she stopped in front of a jeweller’s shop, she would suddenly hear him murmuring things behind her back. And what he said was true: she would like a cross with a velvet chain for her neck, or some little coral ear-rings, so small that you would have taken them for drops of blood. She had no great ambition to possess jewellery, but she really couldn’t stay shabby all her life, she was sick of having to patch herself up with rubbish from the workshops in the Rue du Caire, most of all she was sick of her hat, that old cap with its flowers filched from Titreville’s, which looked like horse droppings hanging like bells behind some wretched old man. So, trotting along in the mud, spattered by the passing carriages, blinded by the shining splendour of the shop-fronts, she felt longings twisting in the pit of her stomach, like pangs of hunger: the yearning to be well dressed, to eat in restaurants, to go to the theatre and to have a room of her own with nice furniture. She would go pale with desire and stop, feeling a warmth rise from the streets of Paris along her thighs, a savage appetite, telling her to sink her teeth into the pleasures that jostled her in the great hurly-burly of the streets. And infallibly just at that very moment her old man would whisper propositions in her ears. Oh, how willingly she would have agreed, if she had not felt this fear of him, an inner resistance that stiffened her resolve, making her angry and disgusted by the unknown mystery of the male, for all her natural leanings towards vice.
But when winter arrived, life for the Coupeaus became impossible. Every evening, Nana had her beating. When the father was tired of whipping her, the mother slapped her around a bit to teach her to behave. And, often as not, it was a general medley: as soon as one started hitting the girl, the other would defend her, until all three ended up rolling around on the floor, surrounded by broken crockery. In addition to that, they didn’t have enough to eat and they were freezing to death. If the girl bought something pretty, like a bit of ribbon or some buttons, the parents would confiscate the item, then sell it for whatever they could get. She had nothing she could call her own except her ration of slaps before going to bed with a scrap of a sheet, shivering under her little black skirt, which she spread out as her blanket. No, this damned life could not go on, she didn’t want to die here. She had long ceased to take any notice of her father; when a father drinks like hers did, he is no longer a father but a repulsive animal, which one would be only too glad to get rid of. Now her mother was also forfeiting her affection, because she too had started to drink. It was by choice that she went to look for her husband in Old Colombe’s, so that someone would offer her a glass; and she would quite happily sit down, without any of the fuss that she made the first time, knocking back one glass after another in a single gulp and leaving the place with her eyes bulging out of her head. When Nana, walking past the drinking den, saw her mother at the back of the room, her nose in a glass, near senseless amid the crude bawling of the men, she felt a rush of anger – because youth, its mind bent on other delights, cannot understand drink. They made a lovely picture on such evenings: the father a drunkard, the mother a drunkard; and a foul hole of a lodging where there was nothing to eat, poisoned by drink. In short, even a saint would not have stayed there. Too bad! One of these days she would be taking a run-out powder; her parents could beat their breasts and face up to the fact that they had driven her out themselves.
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 sett
le 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. H
e 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.