Gervaise, who did not like arguments, usually interfered.
She roused herself from the torpor into which the sight of the box, full of the stale perfume of her past love, had plunged her, and she drew the three men’s attention to the glasses.
“Ah! yes,” said Lantier, becoming suddenly calm and taking his glass.
“Good health!”
“Good health!” replied Boche and Poisson, clinking glasses with him.
Boche, however, was moving nervously about, troubled by an anxiety as he looked at the policeman out of the corner of his eye.
“All this between ourselves, eh, Monsieur Poisson?” murmured he at length.
“We say and show you things to show off.”
But Poisson did not let him finish.
He placed his hand upon his heart, as though to explain that all remained buried there.
He certainly did not go spying about on his friends.
Coupeau arriving, they emptied a second quart.
Then the policeman went off by way of the courtyard and resumed his stiff and measured tread along the pavement.
At the beginning of the new arrangement, the entire routine of the establishment was considerably upset.
Lantier had his own separate room, with his own entrance and his own key. However, since they had decided not to close off the door between the rooms, he usually came and went through the shop.
Besides, the dirty clothes were an inconvenience to Gervaise because her husband never made the case he had promised and she had to tuck the dirty laundry into any odd corner she could find. They usually ended up under the bed and this was not very pleasant on warm summer nights.
She also found it a nuisance having to make up Etienne’s bed every evening in the shop.
When her employees worked late, the lad had to sleep in a chair until they finished.
Goujet had mentioned sending Etienne to Lille where a machinist he knew was looking for apprentices. As the boy was unhappy at home and eager to be out on his own, Gervaise seriously considered the proposal.
Her only fear was that Lantier would refuse.
Since he had come to live with them solely to be near his son, surely he wouldn’t want to lose him only two weeks after he moved in.
However he approved whole-heartedly when she timidly broached the matter to him. He said that young men needed to see a bit of the country.
The morning that Etienne left Lantier made a speech to him, kissed him and ended by saying:
“Never forget that a workingman is not a slave, and that whoever is not a workingman is a lazy drone.”
The household was now able to get into the new routine.
Gervaise became accustomed to having dirty laundry lying all around.
Lantier was forever talking of important business deals.
Sometimes he went out, wearing fresh linen and neatly combed.
He would stay out all night and on his return pretend that he was completely exhausted because he had been discussing very serious matters.
Actually he was merely taking life easy.
He usually slept until ten. In the afternoons he would take a walk if the weather was nice. If it was raining, he would sit in the shop reading his newspaper.
This atmosphere suited him. He always felt at his ease with women and enjoyed listening to them.
Lantier first took his meals at Francois’s, at the corner of the Rue des Poissonniers.
But of the seven days in the week he dined with the Coupeaus on three or four; so much so that he ended by offering to board with them and to pay them fifteen francs every Saturday.
From that time he scarcely ever left the house, but made himself completely at home there.
Morning to night he was in the shop, even giving orders and attending to customers.
Lantier didn’t like the wine from Francois’s, so he persuaded Gervaise to buy her wine from Vigouroux, the coal-dealer.
Then he decided that Coudeloup’s bread was not baked to his satisfaction, so he sent Augustine to the Viennese bakery on the Faubourg Poissonniers for their bread.
He changed from the grocer Lehongre but kept the butcher, fat Charles, because of his political opinions.
After a month he wanted all the cooking done with olive oil.
Clemence joked that with a Provencal like him you could never wash out the oil stains.
He wanted his omelets fried on both sides, as hard as pancakes.
He supervised mother Coupeau’s cooking, wanting his steaks cooked like shoe leather and with garlic on everything. He got angry if she put herbs in the salad. “They’re just weeds and some of them might be poisonous,” he declared.
His favorite soup was made with over-boiled vermicelli.
He would pour in half a bottle of olive oil.
Only he and Gervaise could eat this soup, the others being too used to Parisian cooking.
Little by little Lantier also came to mixing himself up in the affairs of the family.
As the Lorilleuxs always grumbled at having to part with the five francs for mother Coupeau, he explained that an action could be brought against them.
They must think that they had a set of fools to deal with!
It was ten francs a month which they ought to give!