Old Bazouge gazed steadily at Gervaise without saying a word.
It made her feel uneasy though and she got up and left the men who were beginning to show signs of being drunk.
Coupeau began to sob again, saying he was feeling very sad.
That evening when Gervaise found herself at home again, she remained in a stupefied state on a chair.
It seemed to her that the rooms were immense and deserted.
Really, it would be a good riddance.
But it was certainly not only mother Coupeau that she had left at the bottom of the hole in the little garden of the Rue Marcadet.
She missed too many things, most likely a part of her life, and her shop, and her pride of being an employer, and other feelings besides, which she had buried on that day.
Yes, the walls were bare, and her heart also; it was a complete clear out, a tumble into the pit.
And she felt too tired; she would pick herself up again later on if she could.
At ten o’clock, when undressing, Nana cried and stamped.
She wanted to sleep in mother Coupeau’s bed.
Her mother tried to frighten her; but the child was too precocious.
Corpses only filled her with a great curiosity; so that, for the sake of peace, she was allowed to lie down in mother Coupeau’s place.
She liked big beds, the chit; she spread herself out and rolled about.
She slept uncommonly well that night in the warm and pleasant feather bed.
CHAPTER X
The Coupeaus’ new lodging was on the sixth floor, staircase B.
After passing Mademoiselle Remanjou’s door, you took the corridor to the left, and then turned again further along.
The first door was for the apartment of the Bijards.
Almost opposite, in an airless corner under a small staircase leading to the roof, was where Pere Bru slept.
Two doors further was Bazouge’s room and the Coupeaus were opposite him, overlooking the court, with one room and a closet.
There were only two more doors along the corridor before reaching that of the Lorilleuxs at the far end.
A room and a closet, no more.
The Coupeaus perched there now.
And the room was scarcely larger than one’s hand.
And they had to do everything in there — eat, sleep, and all the rest.
Nana’s bed just squeezed into the closet; she had to dress in her father and mother’s room, and her door was kept open at night-time so that she should not be suffocated.
There was so little space that Gervaise had left many things in the shop for the Poissons.
A bed, a table, and four chairs completely filled their new apartment but she didn’t have the courage to part with her old bureau and so it blocked off half the window. This made the room dark and gloomy, especially since one shutter was stuck shut.
Gervaise was now so fat that there wasn’t room for her in the limited window space and she had to lean sideways and crane her neck if she wanted to see the courtyard.
During the first few days, the laundress would continually sit down and cry.
It seemed to her too hard, not being able to move about in her home, after having been used to so much room.
She felt stifled; she remained at the window for hours, squeezed between the wall and the drawers and getting a stiff neck.
It was only there that she could breathe freely.
However, the courtyard inspired rather melancholy thoughts.
Opposite her, on the sunny side, she would see that same window she had dreamed about long ago where the spring brought scarlet vines.
Her own room was on the shady side where pots of mignonette died within a week.
Oh, this wasn’t at all the sort of life she had dreamed of.
She had to wallow in filth instead of having flowers all about her.
On leaning out one day, Gervaise experienced a peculiar sensation: she fancied she beheld herself down below, near the concierge’s room under the porch, her nose in the air, and examining the house for the first time; and this leap thirteen years backwards caused her heart to throb.
The courtyard was a little dingier and the walls more stained, otherwise it hadn’t changed much. But she herself felt terribly changed and worn. To begin with, she was no longer below, her face raised to heaven, feeling content and courageous and aspiring to a handsome lodging. She was right up under the roof, among the most wretched, in the dirtiest hole, the part that never received a ray of sunshine. And that explained her tears; she could scarcely feel enchanted with her fate.
However, when Gervaise had grown somewhat used to it, the early days of the little family in their new home did not pass off so badly.
The winter was almost over, and the trifle of money received for the furniture sold to Virginie helped to make things comfortable.
Then with the fine weather came a piece of luck, Coupeau was engaged to work in the country at Etampes; and he was there for nearly three months without once getting drunk, cured for a time by the fresh air.
One has no idea what a quench it is to the tippler’s thirst to leave Paris where the very streets are full of the fumes of wine and brandy.
On his return he was as fresh as a rose, and he brought back in his pocket four hundred francs with which they paid the two overdue quarters’ rent at the shop that the Poissons had become answerable for, and also the most pressing of their little debts in the neighborhood.
Gervaise thus opened two or three streets through which she had not passed for a long time.
She had naturally become an ironer again.
Madame Fauconnier was quite good-hearted if you flattered her a bit, and she was happy to take Gervaise back, even paying her the same three francs a day as her best worker.