No, that cursed life could not continue; she was not going to leave her skin in it.
Her father had long since ceased to count for her; when a father gets drunk like hers did, he isn’t a father, but a dirty beast one longs to be rid of.
And now, too, her mother was doing down the hill in her esteem.
She drank as well.
She liked to go and fetch her husband at Pere Colombe’s, so as to be treated; and she willingly sat down, with none of the air of disgust that she had assumed on the first occasion, draining glasses indeed at one gulp, dragging her elbows over the table for hours and leaving the place with her eyes starting out of her head.
When Nana passed in front of l’Assommoir and saw her mother inside, with her nose in her glass, fuddled in the midst of the disputing men, she was seized with anger; for youth which has other dainty thoughts uppermost does not understand drink.
On these evenings it was a pretty sight. Father drunk, mother drunk, a hell of a home that stunk with liquor, and where there was no bread.
To tell the truth, a saint would not have stayed in the place.
So much the worse if she flew the coop one of these days; her parents would have to say their mea culpa, and own that they had driven her out themselves.
One Saturday when Nana came home she found her father and her mother in a lamentable condition.
Coupeau, who had fallen across the bed was snoring.
Gervaise, crouching on a chair was swaying her head, with her eyes vaguely and threateningly staring into vacancy.
She had forgotten to warm the dinner, the remains of a stew.
A tallow dip which she neglected to snuff revealed the shameful misery of their hovel.
“It’s you, shrimp?” stammered Gervaise.
“Ah, well, your father will take care of you.”
Nana did not answer, but remained pale, looking at the cold stove, the table on which no plates were laid, the lugubrious hovel which this pair of drunkards invested with the pale horror of their callousness.
She did not take off her hat but walked round the room; then with her teeth tightly set, she opened the door and went out.
“You are doing down again?” asked her mother, who was unable even to turn her head.
“Yes; I’ve forgotten something.
I shall come up again. Good evening.”
And she did not return.
On the morrow when the Coupeaus were sobered they fought together, reproaching each other with being the cause of Nana’s flight.
Ah! she was far away if she were running still!
As children are told of sparrows, her parents might set a pinch of salt on her tail, and then perhaps they would catch her.
It was a great blow, and crushed Gervaise, for despite the impairment of her faculties, she realized perfectly well that her daughter’s misconduct lowered her still more; she was alone now, with no child to think about, able to let herself sink as low as she could fall.
She drank steadily for three days.
Coupeau prowled along the exterior Boulevards without seeing Nana and then came home to smoke his pipe peacefully. He was always back in time for his soup.
In this tenement, where girls flew off every month like canaries whose cages are left open, no one was astonished to hear of the Coupeaus’ mishap.
But the Lorilleuxs were triumphant.
Ah! they had predicted that the girl would reward her parents in this fashion.
It was deserved; all artificial flower-girls went that way.
The Boches and the Poissons also sneered with an extraordinary display and outlay of grief.
Lantier alone covertly defended Nana.
Mon Dieu! said he, with his puritanical air, no doubt a girl who so left her home did offend her parents; but, with a gleam in the corner of his eyes, he added that, dash it! the girl was, after all, too pretty to lead such a life of misery at her age.
“Do you know,” cried Madame Lorilleux, one day in the Boches’ room, where the party were taking coffee; “well, as sure as daylight, Clump-clump sold her daughter.
Yes she sold her, and I have proof of it!
That old fellow, who was always on the stairs morning and night, went up to pay something on account.
It stares one in the face.
They were seen together at the Ambigu Theatre — the young wench and her old tom cat.
Upon my word of honor, they’re living together, it’s quite plain.”
They discussed the scandal thoroughly while finishing their coffee.
Yes, it was quite possible.
Soon most of the neighborhood accepted the conclusion that Gervaise had actually sold her daughter.
Gervaise now shuffled along in her slippers, without caring a rap for anyone.
You might have called her a thief in the street, she wouldn’t have turned round.
For a month past she hadn’t looked at Madame Fauconnier’s; the latter had had to turn her out of the place to avoid disputes.
In a few weeks’ time she had successively entered the service of eight washerwomen; she only lasted two or three days in each place before she got the sack, so badly did she iron the things entrusted to her, careless and dirty, her mind failing to such a point that she quite forgot her own craft.
At last realizing her own incapacity she abandoned ironing; and went out washing by the day at the wash-house in the Rue Neuve, where she still jogged on, floundering about in the water, fighting with filth, reduced to the roughest but simplest work, a bit lower on the down-hill slopes.
The wash-house scarcely beautified her.