— Keep steady!
Hold your skirts right round you! beware of the dirty bloke behind you!
— Mon Dieu! she’s down and the scoundrels laugh!
— Scoundrels!
Blackguards!
Brigands!”
He dealt blows into space, caught hold of his blanket and rolled it into a bundle against his chest, as though to protect the latter from the violence of the bearded men whom he beheld.
Then, an attendant having hastened to the spot, Gervaise withdrew, quite frozen by the scene.
But when she returned a few days later, she found Coupeau completely cured.
Even the nightmares had left him; he could sleep his ten hours right off as peacefully as a child and without stirring a limb.
So his wife was allowed to take him away.
The house surgeon gave him the usual good advice on leaving and advised him to follow it.
If he recommenced drinking, he would again collapse and would end by dying.
Yes, it solely depended upon himself.
He had seen how jolly and healthy one could become when one did not get drunk.
Well, he must continue at home the sensible life he had led at Sainte-Anne, fancy himself under lock and key and that dram-shops no longer existed.
“The gentleman’s right,” said Gervaise in the omnibus which was taking them back to the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or.
“Of course he’s right,” replied Coupeau. Then, after thinking a minute, he resumed: “Oh! you know, a little glass now and again can’t kill a man; it helps the digestion.”
And that very evening he swallowed a glass of bad spirit, just to keep his stomach in order.
For eight days he was pretty reasonable.
He was a great coward at heart; he had no desire to end his days in the Bicetre mad-house.
But his passion got the better of him; the first little glass led him, in spite of himself, to a second, to a third and to a fourth, and at the end of a fortnight, he had got back to his old ration, a pint of vitriol a day.
Gervaise, exasperated, could have beaten him.
To think that she had been stupid enough to dream once more of leading a worthy life, just because she had seen him at the asylum in full possession of his good sense!
Another joyful hour had flown, the last one no doubt!
Oh! now, as nothing could reclaim him, not even the fear of his near death, she swore she would no longer put herself out; the home might be all at sixes and sevens, she did not care any longer; and she talked also of leaving him. Then hell upon earth recommenced, a life sinking deeper into the mire, without a glimmer of hope for something better to follow.
Nana, whenever her father clouted her, furiously asked why the brute was not at the hospital.
She was awaiting the time when she would be earning money, she would say, to treat him to brandy and make him croak quicker.
Gervaise, on her side, flew into a passion one day that Coupeau was regretting their marriage.
Ah! she had brought him her saucy children; ah! she had got herself picked up from the pavement, wheedling him with rosy dreams!
Mon Dieu! he had a rare cheek!
So many words, so many lies.
She hadn’t wished to have anything to do with him, that was the truth.
He had dragged himself at her feet to make her give way, whilst she was advising him to think well what he was about.
And if it was all to come over again, he would hear how she would just say “no!”
She would sooner have an arm cut off.
Yes, she’d had a lover before him; but a woman who has had a lover, and who is a worker, is worth more than a sluggard of a man who sullies his honor and that of his family in all the dram-shops.
That day, for the first time, the Coupeaus went in for a general brawl, and they whacked each other so hard that an old umbrella and the broom were broken.
Gervaise kept her word.
She sank lower and lower; she missed going to her work oftener, spent whole days in gossiping, and became as soft as a rag whenever she had a task to perform.
If a thing fell from her hands, it might remain on the floor; it was certainly not she who would have stooped to pick it up.
She took her ease about everything, and never handled a broom except when the accumulation of filth almost brought her to the ground.
The Lorilleuxs now made a point of holding something to their noses whenever they passed her room; the stench was poisonous, said they.
Those hypocrites slyly lived at the end of the passage, out of the way of all these miseries which filled the corner of the house with whimpering, locking themselves in so as not to have to lend twenty sou pieces.
Oh! kind-hearted folks, neighbors awfully obliging! Yes, you may be sure!
One had only to knock and ask for a light or a pinch of salt or a jug of water, one was certain of getting the door banged in one’s face.
With all that they had vipers’ tongues.
They protested everywhere that they never occupied themselves with other people. This was true whenever it was a question of assisting a neighbor; but they did so from morning to night, directly they had a chance of pulling any one to pieces.
With the door bolted and a rug hung up to cover the chinks and the key-hole, they would treat themselves to a spiteful gossip without leaving their gold wire for a moment.
The fall of Clump-clump in particular kept them purring like pet cats.