But, all on a sudden, he snored.
Then Gervaise gave a sigh of relief, happy in knowing that he was at length quiet, and sleeping off his intoxication on two good mattresses.
And she spoke out in the silence, in a slow and continuous voice, without taking her eyes off her work.
“You see, he hasn’t his reason, one can’t be angry.
Were I to be harsh with him, it would be of no use.
I prefer to agree with him and get him to bed; then, at least, it’s over at once and I’m quiet.
Besides, he isn’t ill-natured, he loves me very much.
You could see that just a moment ago when he was desperate to give me a kiss.
That’s quite nice of him. There are plenty of men, you know, who after drinking a bit don’t come straight home but stay out chasing women.
Oh, he may fool around with the women in the shop, but it doesn’t lead to anything. Clemence, you mustn’t feel insulted.
You know how it is when a man’s had too much to drink. He could do anything and not even remember it.”
She spoke composedly, not at all angry, being quite used to Coupeau’s sprees and not holding them against him.
A silence settled down for a while when she stopped talking.
There was a lot of work to get done.
They figured they would have to keep at it until eleven, working as fast as they could.
Now that they were undisturbed, all of them were pounding away.
Bare arms were moving back and forth, showing glimpses of pink among the whiteness of the laundry.
More coke had been put into the stove and the sunlight slanted in between the sheets onto the stove.
You could see the heat rising up through the rays of the sun.
It became so stifling that Augustine ran out of spit and was forced to lick her lips.
The room smelled of the heat and of the working women.
The white lilies in the jar were beginning to fade, yet they still exuded a pure and strong perfume.
Coupeau’s heavy snores were heard like the regular ticking of a huge clock, setting the tempo for the heavy labor in the shop.
On the morrow of his carouses, the zinc-worker always had a headache, a splitting headache which kept him all day with his hair uncombed, his breath offensive, and his mouth all swollen and askew.
He got up late on those days, not shaking the fleas off till about eight o’clock; and he would hang about the shop, unable to make up his mind to start off to his work.
It was another day lost.
In the morning he would complain that his legs bent like pieces of thread, and would call himself a great fool to guzzle to such an extent, as it broke one’s constitution.
Then, too, there were a lot of lazy bums who wouldn’t let you go and you’d get to drinking more in spite of yourself.
No, no, no more for him.
After lunch he would always begin to perk up and deny that he had been really drunk the night before. Maybe just a bit lit up.
He was rock solid and able to drink anything he wanted without even blinking an eye.
When he had thoroughly badgered the workwomen, Gervaise would give him twenty sous to clear out.
And off he would go to buy his tobacco at the “Little Civet,” in the Rue des Poissonniers, where he generally took a plum in brandy whenever he met a friend.
Then, he spent the rest of the twenty sous at old Francois’s, at the corner of the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or, where there was a famous wine, quite young, which tickled your gullet.
This was an old-fashioned place with a low ceiling. There was a smoky room to one side where soup was served.
He would stay there until evening drinking because there was an understanding that he didn’t have to pay right away and they would never send the bill to his wife.
Besides he was a jolly fellow, who would never do the least harm — a chap who loved a spree sure enough, and who colored his nose in his turn but in a nice manner, full of contempt for those pigs of men who have succumbed to alcohol, and whom one never sees sober!
He always went home as gay and as gallant as a lark.
“Has your lover been?” he would sometimes ask Gervaise by way of teasing her.
“One never sees him now; I must go and rout him out.”
The lover was Goujet.
He avoided, in fact, calling too often for fear of being in the way, and also of causing people to talk.
Yet he frequently found a pretext, such as bringing the washing; and he would pass no end of time on the pavement in front of the shop.
There was a corner right at the back in which he liked to sit, without moving for hours, and smoke his short pipe.
Once every ten days, in the evening after his dinner, he would venture there and take up his favorite position. And he was no talker, his mouth almost seemed sewn up, as he sat with his eyes fixed on Gervaise, and only removed his pipe to laugh at everything she said.
When they were working late on a Saturday he would stay on, and appeared to amuse himself more than if he had gone to a theatre.
Sometimes the women stayed in the shop ironing until three in the morning.
A lamp hung from the ceiling and spread a brilliant light making the linen look like fresh snow.
The apprentice would put up the shop shutters, but since these July nights were scorching hot, the door would be left open.
The later the hour the more casual the women became with their clothes while trying to be comfortable.