Virginie now frequently spoke to Gervaise of Lantier.
She seemed to find amusement in filling her mind with ideas of her old lover just for the pleasure of embarrassing her by making suggestions.
One day she related that she had met him; then, as the laundress took no notice, she said nothing further, and it was only on the morrow that she added he had spoken about her for a long time, and with a great show of affection.
Gervaise was much upset by these reports whispered in her ear in a corner of the shop.
The mention of Lantier’s name always caused a worried sensation in the pit of her stomach.
She certainly thought herself strong; she wished to lead the life of an industrious woman, because labor is the half of happiness.
So she never considered Coupeau in this matter, having nothing to reproach herself with as regarded her husband, not even in her thoughts.
But with a hesitating and suffering heart, she would think of the blacksmith.
It seemed to her that the memory of Lantier — that slow possession which she was resuming — rendered her unfaithful to Goujet, to their unavowed love, sweet as friendship.
She passed sad days whenever she felt herself guilty towards her good friend.
She would have liked to have had no affection for anyone but him outside of her family.
It was a feeling far above all carnal thoughts, for the signs of which upon her burning face Virginie was ever on the watch.
As soon as spring came Gervaise often went and sought refuge with Goujet.
She could no longer sit musing on a chair without immediately thinking of her first lover; she pictured him leaving Adele, packing his clothes in the bottom of their old trunk, and returning to her in a cab.
The days when she went out, she was seized with the most foolish fears in the street; she was ever thinking she heard Lantier’s footsteps behind her. She did not dare turn round, but tremblingly fancied she felt his hands seizing her round the waist.
He was, no doubt, spying upon her; he would appear before her some afternoon; and the bare idea threw her into a cold perspiration, because he would to a certainty kiss her on the ear, as he used to do in former days solely to tease her.
It was this kiss which frightened her; it rendered her deaf beforehand; it filled her with a buzzing amidst which she could only distinguish the sound of her heart beating violently.
So, as soon as these fears seized upon her, the forge was her only shelter; there, under Goujet’s protection, she once more became easy and smiling, as his sonorous hammer drove away her disagreeable reflections.
What a happy time!
The laundress took particular pains with the washing of her customer in the Rue des Portes-Blanches; she always took it home herself because that errand, every Friday, was a ready excuse for passing through the Rue Marcadet and looking in at the forge.
The moment she turned the corner of the street she felt light and gay, as though in the midst of those plots of waste land surrounded by grey factories, she were out in the country; the roadway black with coal-dust, the plumage of steam over the roofs, amused her as much as a moss-covered path leading through masses of green foliage in a wood in the environs; and she loved the dull horizon, streaked by the tall factory-chimneys, the Montmartre heights, which hid the heavens from view, the chalky white houses pierced with the uniform openings of their windows.
She would slacken her steps as she drew near, jumping over the pools of water, and finding a pleasure in traversing the deserted ins and outs of the yard full of old building materials.
Right at the further end the forge shone with a brilliant light, even at mid-day.
Her heart leapt with the dance of the hammers.
When she entered, her face turned quite red, the little fair hairs at the nape of her neck flew about like those of a woman arriving at some lovers’ meeting.
Goujet was expecting her, his arms and chest bare, whilst he hammered harder on the anvil on those days so as to make himself heard at a distance.
He divined her presence, and greeted her with a good silent laugh in his yellow beard.
But she would not let him leave off his work; she begged him to take up his hammer again, because she loved him the more when he wielded it with his big arms swollen with muscles.
She would go and give Etienne a gentle tap on the cheek, as he hung on to the bellows, and then remain for an hour watching the rivets.
The two did not exchange a dozen words. They could not have more completely satisfied their love if alone in a room with the door double-locked.
The snickering of Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, did not bother them in the least, for they no longer even heard him.
At the end of a quarter of an hour she would begin to feel slightly oppressed; the heat, the powerful smell, the ascending smoke, made her dizzy, whilst the dull thuds of the hammers shook her from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet.
Then she desired nothing more; it was her pleasure.
Had Goujet pressed her in his arms it would not have procured her so sweet an emotion.
She drew close to him that she might feel the wind raised by his hammer beat upon her cheek, and become, as it were, a part of the blow he struck.
When the sparks made her soft hands smart, she did not withdraw them; on the contrary, she enjoyed the rain of fire which stung her skin.
He for certain, divined the happiness which she tasted there; he always kept the most difficult work for the Fridays, so as to pay his court to her with all his strength and all his skill; he no longer spared himself at the risk of splitting the anvils in two, as he panted and his loins vibrated with the joy he was procuring her.
All one spring-time their love thus filled Goujet with the rumbling of a storm.
It was an idyll amongst giant-like labor in the midst of the glare of the coal fire, and of the shaking of the shed, the cracking carcass of which was black with soot.
All that beaten iron, kneaded like red wax, preserved the rough marks of their love.
When on the Fridays the laundress parted from Golden-Mug, she slowly reascended the Rue des Poissonniers, contented and tired, her mind and her body alike tranquil.
Little by little, her fear of Lantier diminished; her good sense got the better of her.
At that time she would still have led a happy life, had it not been for Coupeau, who was decidedly going to the bad.
One day she just happened to be returning from the forge, when she fancied she recognized Coupeau inside Pere Colombe’s l’Assommoir, in the act of treating himself to a round of vitriol in the company of My-Boots, Bibi-the-Smoker, and Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst.
She passed quickly by, so as not to seem to be spying on them.
But she glanced back; it was indeed Coupeau who was tossing his little glass of bad brandy down his throat with a gesture already familiar.
He lied then; so he went in for brandy now!
She returned home in despair; all her old dread of brandy took possession of her.
She forgave the wine, because wine nourishes the workman; all kinds of spirit, on the contrary, were filth, poisons which destroyed in the workman the taste for bread.
Ah! the government ought to prevent the manufacture of such horrid stuff!