‘Come in.’
The first room, Mme Goujet’s, had been piously preserved just as she left it. The lace frame was lying on a chair near the window, beside the large armchair that seemed to be waiting for the old lace-maker to return. The bed was made and she could have slept there if she had left the cemetery to spend the evening with her son. The room had a stillness about it, an atmosphere of goodness and decency.
‘Come in,’ the blacksmith repeated, more loudly.
She did as he said, fearful, like a woman from the streets coming into somewhere respectable. He was quite pale and trembling at the idea of bringing a woman into his dead mother’s room like this. They tiptoed across the floor as though trying to avoid the shame of being heard. Then, after he had pushed Gervaise into his room, he closed the door. Here, he was in his own place. It was the same narrow bedroom that she remembered, a lodger’s room, with a little iron bedstead and white curtains. However, the cut-out pictures on the walls had spread even further and now reached the ceiling. Gervaise didn’t dare come forward in the bright light and shrank back, away from the lamp. So, without a word, in a fit of passion, he tried to grasp her and crush her in his arms. But she was overcome with faintness and murmured:
‘My God! Oh, my God!’
The stove, damped down with coal-dust, was still burning and the remains of a stew, which the blacksmith had left to keep warm for when he came back, was steaming in front of the ashpan. Gervaise, thawing out in the heat of the room, would have gone down on all fours to eat from the dish. Unable to control herself, her stomach torn apart, she bent down with a sigh. But Goujet had realized what she wanted. He put the stew on the table, cut some bread and poured her a drink.
‘Thank you, thank you!’ she said. ‘Oh, how kind you are! Thank you!’
She was stammering, unable to form the words. When she picked up the fork, she was trembling so much that it fell from her hand. The hunger gripped her so that her head shook like an old woman’s. She had to pick the food up with her fingers. When she put the first potato in her mouth, she started to sob. Great tears ran down her cheeks and fell on the bread. She kept on eating, greedily devouring the bread, wet from her tears, breathing heavily, her chin twitching. Goujet forced her to drink so that she would not suffocate; and the glass clattered against her teeth.
‘Would you like some more bread?’ he asked softly.
She was weeping, she said yes, then no, she didn’t know. Oh, Lord, how good and sad it is to eat when you are dying!
He stood in front of her and looked. Now he could see her clearly in the bright light from the lamp. How old and decrepit she was! The warmth was melting the snow on her hair and her clothes and water was pouring off her. Her poor nodding head was quite grey, grey locks tossed by the wind, and her neck had sunk into her shoulders; it made you want to weep to see her like that, thickened, ugly and fat. He recalled the love he had felt for her, when she was fresh and pink, tapping her irons and showing the baby’s fold that left such a pretty collar round her neck. At that time, he used to stare at her for hours, satisfied just to see her. Later, she came to the forge and they enjoyed such pleasure when he would beat his iron, while she followed the dancing of the hammer. How many times then had he bitten his pillow at night, longing to have her like this in his room! Oh, he would have broken her, had he taken her then, he desired her so much! Now she was his, he could have her. She was finishing her bread and wiping up her own tears from the bottom of the dish, the big, silent tears that were still falling into her food.
Gervaise got up. She had finished. She stayed for a moment with her head bent, embarrassed, not knowing if he wanted her. Then, thinking she could see a spark in his eyes, she put her hand on her bodice, undoing the top button. But Goujet had fallen to his knees, he was taking her hands and saying softly:
‘I love you, Madame Gervaise. Oh, I love you still, despite everything, I swear!’
‘Don’t say that, Monsieur Goujet!’ she exclaimed, horrified at seeing him at her feet. ‘No, don’t say that. I can’t bear it!’
And when he repeated that he could not have two such loves in his life, she became even more desperate.
‘No, no. I don’t want that any more, I’m too ashamed… For the love of God, get up! I am the one who should be on the ground.’
He got up, shaking all over and stammered:
‘Would you allow me to kiss you?’
Overwhelmed with surprise and emotion, she could not speak, but she nodded. For heaven’s sake! She was his, he could do what he liked with her. But he merely extended his lips.
‘That’s enough between us, Madame Gervaise,’ he murmured. ‘That’s all our friendship, isn’t it?’
He kissed her on the forehead, on a lock of her grey hair. He had not kissed anyone since his mother died. Only his good friend Gervaise remained for him in this life. So when he had kissed her with so much respect, he stepped back and fell across his bed, his throat shaken with sobs. Gervaise could not stay there any longer. It was too sad, too frightful, meeting again in these circumstances when they loved one another. She called to him:
‘I love you, Monsieur Goujet, I love you, too… Oh, I realize that it is not possible… Farewell, farewell! It would suffocate us both!’
She ran through Mme Goujet’s room and found herself outside in the street. When she regained her senses, she was ringing at the house in the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or. Boche released the door catch for her. The house was completely dark and she stepped inside as though in mourning. At this time of night, the gaping, shabby porch seemed like an open maw. To think that at one time she had aspired to have a corner of this barracks! Had her ears been blocked, for her not to hear then the dreadful music of despair groaning behind its walls? Since the day she first set foot here, she had started to go downhill. Yes, it must bring bad luck to be piled one on top of the other in these great working—class tenements: you could catch the cholera of poverty. That evening, everybody seemed to be dead. All she could hear were the Boches snoring on the right, while on the left, Lantier and Virginie gave off a purring sound, like cats who are not sleeping, but enjoying the warmth with eyes closed. In the courtyard, she imagined herself to be in the midst of a real cemetery. The snow made a pale square on the ground, while the tall façades rose, livid grey, without a single light, like the walls of a ruined building. And not a sigh came out of this whole village, shrouded in darkness, stiff with cold and hunger. She had to step over a black stream, a pond that had flowed out of the dyeworks, steaming and cutting a muddy trail through the whiteness of the snow. The colour of the liquid mirrored her thoughts. The tender blues and soft pinks had ceased to flow for her!
Then, climbing up the six floors in the dark, she was unable to suppress a laugh, a cruel laugh, which hurt her. She remembered what had once been her ideal: to quietly get on with her work, always have bread to eat and a reasonably decent hole in which to sleep, to bring her children up well, not to be beaten and to die in her bed. No, honestly, it was quite funny the way it was all turning out! She was no longer working, she was no longer eating, she slept in filth, her daughter was a whore, her husband beat her black and blue; nothing was left for her now except to die on the street – and that would happen soon enough, if she could find the courage to throw herself out of the window when she got home. You might think that she had asked heaven for an income of thirty thousand francs and a position in life! Well, it’s true, in this life, however modest your wishes, you may still end up penniless. Not even a crust and a bed – that’s the common lot of humanity. And what made her laugh even more was to recall her fine hopes of retiring to the country, after twenty years in the laundry business. Well, the countryside was where she was headed; she wanted her little patch of greenery in the Père Lachaise.
By the time she started down the corridor, she was like a madwoman. Her poor head was reeling. Her grief came, underneath it all, from having said a last farewell to the blacksmith. It was over between them and th
ey would never meet again. But on top of that all the other feelings of unhappiness were pouring in and addling her mind. As she went by she looked in at the Bijards and saw Lalie dead, seeming happy to be laid out, asleep for all eternity. Well, children were luckier than grown-ups. And since there was a ray of light under Old Bazouge’s door, she went straight in to see him, with a furious desire to be gone on the same journey as the little girl.
That jolly old fellow Bazouge had come back, that evening, in a state of extreme merriment. He had had such a bellyful that he was snoring on the floor, despite the cold; and it didn’t seem to prevent him from enjoying a pleasant dream, because he appeared to be laughing away in his sleep. The candle was still burning, casting its light on his clothes: his black hat flattened in a corner, his black cloak pulled up over his knees, as a kind of blanket.
When she saw him, Gervaise gave out such a wail that it woke him up.
‘For Christ’s sake, close the door! It’s bitterly cold here! What! Is it you? What’s the matter? What do you want?’
So Gervaise held out her arms, no longer knowing what she was saying, and begged him passionately, in a stammering voice:
‘Take me away! I’ve had enough, I want to go… Don’t hold anything against me… I didn’t know; my God! One never knows, when one isn’t ready! Oh, yes, the day comes when you are glad to go. Take me, take me! I’ll be grateful for it!’
She fell to her knees, shaken all over with a desire that drained the blood from her features. Never before had she prostrated herself before a man in this way. Old Bazouge’s face, with his twisted mouth and his skin smeared with the dust of burials, seemed to her as lovely and resplendent as a sun. The old man, however, was only half awake and thought this must be some kind of joke.
‘Now, then!’ he said. ‘You mustn’t tease me!’
‘Take me!’ Gervaise repeated, with increased fervour. ‘Do you remember one evening when I knocked on the wall, and afterwards said it wasn’t true, because I was still too silly… But now, look, give me your hands, I’m not afraid any more. Take me to bye-byes, you’ll feel it if I move… Oh, that’s all I wish for! I’ll love you for it!’
Bazouge, always a bit of a ladies’ man, thought he should not give the push to one who seemed to have such a fancy for him. She was not in her prime, but she still had some good points when she made an effort.
‘You’re only too right there,’ he said, with conviction. ‘I put away another three today who would have given me a fine tip if they could have reached for their pockets. The trouble is, my dear, it can’t be managed just like that.’
‘Take me, take me!’ Gervaise cried. ‘I want to go!’
‘Damn it, there’s a little procedure to be gone through first… You know: click!’
And he made a noise in his throat as though swallowing his tongue. Then, thinking this was a good joke, he sniggered.
Gervaise had slowly got to her feet. So, was this another one who could do nothing for her? She went back to her room in a daze and threw herself on the straw, feeling sorry that she had ever eaten. No, definitely, poverty didn’t kill quickly enough.
CHAPTER 13
Coupeau went out on a spree that night. The next day, Gervaise got ten francs from her son Etienne, who was a mechanic on the railway and would send her a hundred sous from time to time, knowing that there was not a lot of money in the house. She put a stew on and ate it all by herself, because that rotter Coupeau did not come back the next day, either. There was no sign of him on Monday, or on Tuesday. A whole week went by. Heck! If some woman had gone off with him, it would be a stroke of luck. Then, on Sunday, Gervaise got a printed form, which scared her at first because it looked like a letter from the police; but she needn’t have worried. It was just to tell her that the swine was dying at the hospital of Sainte-Anne. The paper put it more politely, but it came to the same thing. Yes, a woman had carried Coupeau off, and it was Sophie Giddy-Head, the drunkard’s last date.
Puh! Gervaise wasn’t going to put herself out. He knew the way, he could quite easily get himself back home from the asylum; they had cured him there so many times that they would no doubt play the same rotten trick on her and get him back on his feet. Hadn’t someone told her that very morning that for the past week Coupeau had been seen, drunk as a lord, going round all the wine shops in Belleville in the company of Mes-Bottes. Exactly. Mes-Bottes was even the one paying for it; he must have got his hands on his old woman’s purse and taken the savings that she had earned you know how. Oh, it was really clean money they were drinking there, money that could give you every sort of disease. So much the better, if Coupeau had got a belly-ache. And what made Gervaise most angry was the idea that these two selfish buggers hadn’t even thought of coming to get her, to invite her out for a drop. Can you imagine it! A week-long spree and not one little present for the ladies? Those who drink alone, die alone; and that’s all there is to it!
However, on Monday, as Gervaise had a nice little meal for the evening, some haricot beans and a bit of wine, she gave herself the excuse that a walk would give her an appetite. The letter from the asylum was getting on her nerves, sitting there on the chest of drawers. The snow had melted and the weather was mild as milk, soft and grey, with a touch of cold in the air that put a spring in your step. She set out at midday, because it was a fair distance; she had to walk right across Paris, with that leg of hers still trailing behind. Moreover, the streets were full of people, but the people entertained her and she arrived in good spirits. When she had given her name, they told her a frightful story. It seems that Coupeau had been pulled out of the river at the Pont-Neuf. He had jumped over the parapet, thinking he saw a bearded man blocking his way. A fine jump, no? As for how Coupeau managed to be on the Pont-Neuf in the first place, that was something that even he could not explain.
Meanwhile, a warder was showing Gervaise the way. As they were climbing a staircase, she heard a howling that chilled her to the marrow of her bones.
‘See? He’s giving a proper concert!’ the warder said.
‘Who is?’ she asked.
‘Why, your man! He’s been screaming like that since the day before yesterday. And he dances, as you’ll see.’
Oh, my God! What a sight! She remained rooted to the spot. The cell was padded from top to bottom. There were two straw mats on the ground, one on top of the other, and in one corner a mattress and a bolster, nothing more. Inside the cell, Coupeau was leaping around and shouting, like a carnival figure from La Courtille,1 with his smock in shreds and his limbs waving around; but not a funny carnival figure, no; a figure whose antics made your hair stand on end. He was disguised as The-One-About-To-Die. Heavens, what a one-man show! He crashed against the window, came away backwards with his arms beating time, shaking his hands as if he wanted to break them and send them flying into everyone’s face. You meet jokers in pubs who imitate this, but theirs is a poor imitation; if you want to see how cute it is, you have to see the drunkard’s dance done for real. The song is quite something, too, a continual carnival whoop, with mouth wide open, emitting the same notes, like an off-key trombone, for hours on end. Coupeau’s cry was that of an animal with a crushed paw. Let the orchestra strike up, take your partners!
‘My Lord! What’s wrong with him? What’s wrong with him?’ Gervaise kept saying, scared out of her wits.
A young doctor, a great pink, fair-haired lad in a white apron, was calmly sitting there, taking notes. It was an interesting case, so he remained with the patient.
‘Stay for a moment, if you like,’ he told the laundress. ‘But keep calm… Try to talk to him, he won’t recognize you.’
Indeed, Coupeau did not even seem to notice his wife. She had not had a good look at him as she came in, he was leaping around so much. When she did look at him closely, she was amazed. God, was it possible for him to have such a face, with those bloodshot eyes and scabby lips? She would certainly not have recognized him. To start with, he was grimacing too much, without sa
ying why, his mouth would suddenly twist round, his nostrils flare and his cheeks shrink until he had a face like an animal. His skin was so hot that the air was steaming around him, and his hide looked as though it were varnished, pouring with a heavy sweat that dripped off him. Despite his furious waltz, one could still grasp that he was not comfortable, but that his head was heavy and all his limbs ached.
Gervaise had gone over to the doctor, who was drumming his fingers on the back of his chair.
‘I say, Monsieur, is it serious then, this time?’
The doctor shook his head without answering.
‘Tell me, isn’t he saying something there, quietly? No? Can you hear what he’s saying?’
‘Things that he can see,’ the young man muttered. ‘Be quiet and let me listen.’
Coupeau was talking in broken phrases; but a spark of fun lit up his eyes. He was looking at the floor, on the right, on the left, and walking around, as though he were strolling through the Bois de Vincennes, talking to himself.
‘Oh, that’s nice, that’s sweet… There are little houses, a real fair. And such pretty music! What a feast! They’re breaking the dishes, in there… Very smart! Now it’s lighting-up time; red balloons in the air and they’re bouncing around, they’re flying away. Oh, oh! So many lanterns in the trees! Isn’t that pretty! It’s pissing down all around, fountains, waterfalls, singing water, singing in a choirboy’s voice… They’re glorious, the waterfalls!’
He was standing up, as though trying to hear the delightful song of the water. He was breathing in deeply, imagining that he was enjoying the cool rain from the fountains. Then, bit by bit, his face reverted to an expression of pain and anxiety, and he bent double, running faster around the walls of the cell, muttering threats.