Gervaise, fully clothed, was crouched on her pile of straw like a gundog, with her hands underneath her tattered skirt to keep warm. That day, she was thinking, huddled up with wide-open eyes, and her thoughts were not jolly. Oh, no, damn it! They couldn’t go on living like this, with nothing to eat! She no longer felt hunger; but she had a lead weight in her stomach and her head felt empty. Of course, there was nothing much to make her merry as she looked around the room. It was a real kennel now, where even those hussies who parade around the streets in fur coats would not be seen dead in. Her pale eyes looked around the bare walls. The pawnbroker had long since taken everything. All that remained was the chest of drawers, the table and one chair; and even then the marble and the drawers from the chest of drawers had followed down the same road as the bed. A fire could not have demolished the place better, the little knick-knacks had faded away, starting with the ticker, a twelve-franc watch, and the family photographs, a dealer having bought the frames off her – a very co-operative dealer to whom she had taken a saucepan, an iron and a comb in exchange for five sous, three sous or two sous, as it may be; in any case enough to go home with a piece of bread. Now nothing was left except an old, broken candle-snuffer, which the dealer had refused to take for a sou. But if there had been anyone to sell the rubbish to, or the dust and the grime, she would instantly have opened shop, because the room was in a dreadful state. She could see nothing but spiders’ webs in the corners, and spiders’ webs may be good for healing cuts but no tradesman yet has ever bought any. So, turning her head, giving up any hope of finding something to sell, she curled up a little more on her straw, preferring to look out of the window at the sky, heavy with snow on this gloomy day that chilled the marrow of her bones.
What a mess they were in! What was the point of getting worked up and racking one’s brains? If only she could have had a nap. But she kept thinking about her room, that madhouse. The owner, M. Marescot, had come himself the previous day to tell them that he would have them evicted if they didn’t pay the two overdue quarters’ rent within a week. So? He would evict them; they would be no worse on the street. Just look at that slob, with his overcoat and his woollen gloves, coming up to talk to them about quarter-days, as though they had a nest-egg hidden away somewhere. Bloody hell! If she had, she would have had a bite to eat instead of tightening her belt! Honestly, the fat old idiot was too much of a bore; as far as she was concerned, he was a real pain in the whatsit. He was just like that animal of hers, Coupeau, who no longer came home without hitting her. He could go to the same place as the landlord. Right now, that place, wherever it was, would need to be pretty big, because she would put everyone there, so much would she love to get rid of everybody and life itself. She was becoming a proper punch-ball. Coupeau had a cudgel that he called his donkey’s fan; and he would fan his old woman with it, with terrible blows that left her pouring with sweat; you should have seen him! She was not so gentle herself, biting and scratching. So they would beat each other round the empty room, hitting one another until they had beaten the hunger out of them. In the end, however, she came not to give a damn about the beatings, as about everything else. Coupeau could extend his long weekends to the end of the month, go out boozing for weeks, come home raging drunk and try to rearrange her features, she was so used to it all that she found it a bore, nothing more. And those were the days when he could vanish up her arse: yes, up her arse, the pig of a man! Up her arse, the Lorilleux, the Boches and the Poissons! Up her arse, the neighbourhood that despised her! All Paris could go there, she would stuff it in with a shove, a gesture of supreme indifference, only too pleased at putting it there, and feeling avenged.
Unfortunately, while one may get used to anything, no one has yet been able to get into the habit of not eating. This was the sole remaining thing that bugged Gervaise. She didn’t mind being the lowest of the low, in the depths of the gutter, and seeing people brush themselves down when she passed close to them. Bad behaviour didn’t worry her any more, but hunger still twisted her guts. She had said goodbye to treats, that was sure, and would devour whatever she found. Nowadays, a feast was when she could buy, at four sous a pound, some offcuts of meat that were tired of hanging around, turning black in a plate at the butcher’s; she would put them in a casserole with potatoes and boil them at the bottom of a pan. Or else she would fricassee an ox-heart, licking her lips over this paltry fare. At other times, when she had some wine, she would indulge in dunking some bread in it, a real parrot’s soup! Two sous’ worth of brawn, a bushel of potatoes, a quarter of haricot beans cooked in sauce: these were other treats that she couldn’t often afford. She was reduced to eating leftovers from dubious eating-houses, where she could get heaps of fish-bones mixed in with spoiled offcuts of roast meat for one sou. She descended even lower, begging a charitable restaurant owner to give her the bread that his customers had left on their plates and making a kind of bread soup from it, after leaving it to simmer for as long as possible on a neighbour’s stove. On days when there was nothing, she even went so far as to prowl with the dogs outside the doors of shops before the dustmen came. This was how she sometimes came to eat rich people’s food: rotten melons, mackerel that had gone off or cutlets where she had to search the knuckle to see if there were any maggots. Yes, this is how low she had sunk. No doubt sensitive people will be turned off by the idea; but if these sensitive people had had nothing to eat for three days, we should see whether their stomachs were so delicate; they would be down on all fours, eating out of the garbage like their friends. Alas, the death of the poor, their empty guts screaming with hunger, this need that makes them gnaw like beasts and cram foul things into their mouths, and all this in this great city of Paris, gilded and blazing with light! To think that Gervaise had once had her belly full of fat goose! Now she didn’t care a jot for it. One day, when Coupeau stole two bread coupons to resell them and buy drink, she almost killed him with a shovel, desperate with hunger and driven mad by the theft of that scrap of bread.
However, by dint of staring at the dull sky, she had fallen into an uncomfortable little sleep. She was dreaming that this sky full of snow had burst over her, the cold was so severe. Suddenly, she was on her feet, woken with a start by a great shudder of anxiety. My God! Perhaps she was dying! Shivering, chattering, she saw that it was still day. Would the night never come? How long the time seems when you have nothing in your belly! Her stomach too was waking up and torturing her. Letting herself fall on to the chair, her head bent and her hands between her thighs to keep warm, she was already working out what they would eat as soon as Coupeau brought some money: a loaf of bread, a litre of wine and two portions of tripe à la lyonnaise. Three o’clock rang on Old Bazouge’s cuckoo clock; it was only three. She began to cry then. She would never have the strength to wait until seven. Her whole body swayed, like that of a little girl rocking away some great sorrow, bent double, pressing down on her stomach, so as not to feel it. Oh, it is less painful to bear children than to starve! And, finding no relief, seized with fury, she got up and walked about, hoping to send her hunger back to sleep like a baby being rocked to sleep. For half an hour, she stumbled from one corner of the room to another. Then, suddenly, she stopped, staring ahead. Too bad! Let them say what they would, she would lick their feet if they wanted, but she was going to borrow ten sous from the Lorilleux.
In winter time, in that wing of the house, among the poverty-stricken, people were constantly borrowing ten sous, or twenty – little favours that these starvelings did for one another. However, one would rather die than approach the Lorilleux, because they were known to be too tight-fisted. In knocking on their door, Gervaise was exhibiting remarkable courage. She was so afraid that, in the corridor, she felt the sudden relief that people experience as they ring the dentist’s bell.
‘Come in,’ said the chain-maker, in his sharp voice.
How comfortable it was in there! The forge was blazing, lighting up the narrow workshop with its white flame, while Mme Loril
leux was putting a coil of gold wire to heat on it. Lorilleux, sitting at his workbench, was so hot that he was sweating as he soldered the links of a chain with his blowpipe. And it smelled good, too, with some cabbage soup simmering on the stove, giving out a steam that turned Gervaise’s stomach and made her feel faint.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ grumbled Mme Lorilleux, without even asking her to sit down. ‘What do you want?’
Gervaise did not reply. She was not on too bad terms with the Lorilleux that week, but the request for the ten sous stuck in her throat, because she had just seen Boche, blatantly sitting by the stove, there for a gossip. He had a look that suggested he didn’t give a damn for anyone, that brute! He was laughing like an arsehole, his mouth round and his cheeks so puffed out that they hid his nose – a real arsehole, in fact!
‘What do you want?’ Lorilleux repeated.
‘Have you seen Coupeau?’ Gervaise stammered out eventually. ‘I thought he was here.’
The chain-makers and the concierge giggled. No, of course they hadn’t seen Coupeau. They didn’t give out enough glasses of spirits for Coupeau to start dropping in just like that. Gervaise made an effort and carried on, still stammering:
‘Well, he promised me he’d come back… Yes, he’s meant to be bringing me some money… And since there’s something I really need… ’
There was an oppressive silence. Mme Lorilleux fanned the iron on the forge roughly, while Lorilleux had bent his head over the end of the chain, which was running out between his fingers, and Boche still had his mooning laugh, his mouth forming such a round hole that you wanted to stick your finger into it, just to see.
‘If I just had ten sous,’ Gervaise said in a low voice.
The silence was unbroken.
‘Couldn’t you lend me ten sous? I could give them back this evening… ’
Mme Lorilleux turned round and stared at her. Here was some cadger trying to squeeze them. Today, she would have ten sous; tomorrow it would be twenty and there would be no reason to stop there. No, thank you, we’ll have none of that. When the sun shines at midnight, perhaps.
‘But, my dear girl,’ she said, ‘you know quite well that we don’t have any money. Look, there’s the lining of my pocket. You can search us. Otherwise, we’d do it willingly, of course.’
‘The heart is willing,’ Lorilleux said. ‘But if we can’t, we can’t.’
Gervaise nodded, very humbly. However, she did not leave, she looked at the gold out of the corner of her eye – at the coils of gold hanging from the wall, the string of gold that the woman was drawing out of the drawplate with all the strength of her little arms, the gold links piled up under the husband’s gnarled fingers. And she thought that just one scrap of this ugly, blackish metal would have been enough to buy her a good dinner. That day, even though the workshop was dirty, with its old irons, its coal-dust and its grime of spilled oil, she saw it blazing with wealth, like a money-changer’s shop. And that was why she dared to repeat, softly:
‘I’ll give it back to you, of course I will… Ten sous: it wouldn’t hurt you.’
Her heart was bursting with the effort of holding back her confession that she had not eaten since the day before. Then she felt her legs giving way and was afraid of bursting into tears as she stammered once more:
‘It would be so good of you! You can’t imagine… Yes, this is what it’s come to, my God! This is what it’s come to… ’
The Lorilleux pursed their lips and gave each other a pinched look. Tip-Tap was begging now, was she? Well, then, her fall was complete. Now here was something they didn’t like. If they had known, they would have barred the door, because one should always be on one’s guard with beggars, people who insinuate themselves into your apartment on some pretext or other, then slip away with your treasures. It was all the more serious in that they did actually have something to steal; you could reach out anywhere and pick up thirty or forty francs’ worth just by closing your hand. They had already been suspicious several times before on noticing the odd face that Gervaise had on her when she saw the gold. This time they were certainly going to keep an eye on her. And since she was moving closer to them, walking across the wooden duckboard, the chain-maker shouted at her coarsely, otherwise ignoring her request:
‘Hey, there! You be careful or you’ll be taking away more scraps of gold on the soles of your shoes. In fact, one might think you had put grease on them so that it would stick.’
Gervaise slowly retreated. She had leaned against a shelf and, seeing Mme Lorilleux examining her hands, opened them wide and showed them to her, saying in a flat voice, without anger, like a fallen woman who will accept any insult:
‘I haven’t taken anything, you can see.’
And she left, because the strong smell of cabbage soup and the comfortable warmth of the workshop were making her ill.
The Lorilleux didn’t try to stop her, you can believe that! Good riddance and the devil take them if they opened to her again! They had seen enough of her face and didn’t want other people’s poverty and suffering around them, when these things were deserved. They positively wallowed in egotism, considering how clever they were to be here in the warm with a delicious soup waiting for them. Boche, too, was in expansive mood, puffing out his cheeks to such an extent that his laugh became quite indecent. They were all well and truly avenged for Tip-Tap’s earlier behaviour, for the blue shop, for the lavish meals and all the rest. It couldn’t be better, just proving where a love of food got you. Down with gourmands, lazybones and shameless hussies!
‘What do you think of that? Coming and begging for ten sous,’ Mme Lorilleux exclaimed as soon as Gervaise’s back was turned. ‘Yes, really! I’m going to lend her ten sous just like that, aren’t I? So that she can go and drink it.’
Gervaise dragged her feet along the corridor, weighed down, her shoulders hunched. When she reached her door, she didn’t go in, the room frightened her. She might as well walk, she would be warmer that way and the time would pass more quickly. As she went, she looked in on Old Bru’s cupboard under the stairs; there was another one who must have worked up a fine appetite, since he had been lunching and dining on air for three days. But he wasn’t there. His hole was empty: she felt a twinge of jealousy, imagining that someone might have invited him out. Then, as she was going past the Bijards’, she heard a sound of moaning and went in, since the key was still in the lock.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
The room was very clean. It was evident that Lalie only that morning had swept and tidied up. Even though the cold blast of destitution blew through it, carrying off the clothes and strewing its litter of dirt and rubbish, Lalie would come after, tidying everything up and making it look nice. It didn’t look rich but it smacked of housework in Lalie’s room. That day, her two children, Henriette and Jules, had found some old pictures, which they were quietly cutting out in a corner. But Gervaise was quite surprised to find Lalie lying down in her narrow trestle-bed, with the sheets up to her chin and very pale. Lalie in bed! Whatever next! She must be really ill!
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Gervaise asked, anxiously.
Lalie didn’t complain. She slowly raised her white eyelids and tried to smile, her lips convulsed by a shudder.
‘It’s nothing,’ she murmured very softly. ‘Truly. Nothing at all!’
Then, closing her eyes again, she said with an effort:
‘I have been getting so tired these last few days, so as you see I’m being lazy and spoiling myself.’
But her child’s face, covered in livid white blotches, had such an expression of extreme pain that Gervaise, forgetting her own suffering, clasped her hands and fell on her knees beside her. For the past month she had seen the girl support herself against the wall as she walked, doubled up with a cough that had a real graveyard ring to it. Now she could not even cough. She gave a hiccup and two ribbons of blood ran down from the corners of her mouth.
‘It’s not my fault, I’m not fe
eling very strong,’ she murmured, with something resembling relief. ‘I dragged myself around and tidied up a bit… It’s quite clean, isn’t it? I wanted to clean the windows, but my legs gave way under me. How silly it is! But then, when you’re done, you lie down.’
She paused and said:
‘Could you see that my children aren’t cutting themselves with their scissors.’
She fell silent, trembling at the sound of a heavy step coming up the stairs. Old Bijard flung open the door. As usual, he’d had his fill of drink and his eyes were blazing with the insanity of the poison. When he saw Lalie lying down, he slapped his thigh with a sneer and took down the great whip, snarling:
‘Now, that’s the limit! Good God! Just you wait! The cows are lying down in the barn in the middle of the day now, are they? Are you having us all on, you lazy baggage? Come on, up! Up! Out of there!’
He was already cracking the whip above the bed. But the child, begging him, kept on saying:
‘No, Father, please, don’t hit me! I promise you’ll be sorry. Don’t hit me.’
‘Out, will you!’ he yelled, even louder. ‘Out, or I’ll tickle your ribs! Get up, you little bitch!’
But she just said softly:
‘I can’t. Don’t you see, I can’t. I’m going to die.’
Gervaise had thrown herself at Bijard and seized the whip from him. He stood beside the trestle-bed, looking dazed. What was she saying now, the brat? Did people die at her age, without being ill? This was some trick to get him to give her something. Oh, don’t worry, he’d find out if she was lying…
‘You will see, it’s true,’ she whispered. ‘As long as I could, I spared you any suffering. Please, be good to me, Father, and bid me farewell.’