The little clockmaker, the grocery clerks, the tripe woman and the fruit woman all knew the song and joined in the chorus.
The entire street seemed to be getting drunk on the odors from the Coupeau party.
In the reddish haze from the two lamps, the noise of the party was enough to shut out the rumbling of the last vehicles in the street.
Two policemen rushed over, thinking there was a riot, but on recognizing Poisson, they saluted him smartly and went away between the darkened buildings.
Coupeau was now singing this verse:
“On Sundays at Petite Villette,
Whene’er the weather’s fine,
We call on uncle, old Tinette,
Who’s in the dustman line.
To feast upon some cherry stones
The young un’s almost wild,
And rolls amongst the dust and bones,
What a piggish child!
What a piggish child!”
Then the house almost collapsed, such a yell ascended in the calm warm night air that the shouters applauded themselves, for it was useless their hoping to be able to bawl any louder.
Not one of the party could ever recollect exactly how the carouse terminated.
It must have been very late, it’s quite certain, for not a cat was to be seen in the street.
Possibly too, they had all joined hands and danced round the table.
But all was submerged in a yellow mist, in which red faces were jumping about, with mouths slit from ear to ear.
They had probably treated themselves to something stronger than wine towards the end, and there was a vague suspicion that some one had played them the trick of putting salt into the glasses.
The children must have undressed and put themselves to bed.
On the morrow, Madame Boche boasted of having treated Boche to a couple of clouts in a corner, where he was conversing a great deal too close to the charcoal-dealer; but Boche, who recollected nothing, said she must have dreamt it.
Everyone agreed that it wasn’t very decent the way Clemence had carried on. She had ended by showing everything she had and then been so sick that she had completely ruined one of the muslin curtains.
The men had at least the decency to go into the street; Lorilleux and Poisson, feeling their stomachs upset, had stumblingly glided as far as the pork-butcher’s shop.
It is easy to see when a person has been well brought up.
For instance, the ladies, Madame Putois, Madame Lerat, and Virginie, indisposed by the heat, had simply gone into the back-room and taken their stays off; Virginie had even desired to lie on the bed for a minute, just to obviate any unpleasant effects.
Thus the party had seemed to melt away, some disappearing behind the others, all accompanying one another, and being lost sight of in the surrounding darkness, to the accompaniment of a final uproar, a furious quarrel between the Lorilleuxs, and an obstinate and mournful “trou la la, trou la la,” of old Bru’s.
Gervaise had an idea that Goujet had burst out sobbing when bidding her good-bye; Coupeau was still singing; and as for Lantier, he must have remained till the end.
At one moment even, she could still feel a breath against her hair, but she was unable to say whether it came from Lantier or if it was the warm night air.
Since Madame Lerat didn’t want to return to Les Batignolles at such a late hour, they took one of the mattresses off the bed and spread it for her in a corner of the shop, after pushing back the table.
She slept right there amid all the dinner crumbs.
All night long, while the Coupeaus were sleeping, a neighbor’s cat took advantage of an open window and was crunching the bones of the goose with its sharp teeth, giving the bird its final resting place.
CHAPTER VIII
On the following Saturday Coupeau, who had not come home to dinner, brought Lantier with him towards ten o’clock.
They had had some sheep’s trotters at Chez Thomas at Montmartre.
“You mustn’t scold, wife,” said the zinc-worker.
“We’re sober, as you can see. Oh! there’s no fear with him; he keeps one on the straight road.”
And he related how they happened to meet in the Rue Rochechouart.
After dinner Lantier had declined to have a drink at the
“Black Ball,” saying that when one was married to a pretty and worthy little woman, one ought not to go liquoring-up at all the wineshops.
Gervaise smiled slightly as she listened.
Oh! she was not thinking of scolding, she felt too much embarrassed for that.
She had been expecting to see her former lover again some day ever since their dinner party; but at such an hour, when she was about to go to bed, the unexpected arrival of the two men had startled her.
Her hands were quivering as she pinned back the hair which had slid down her neck.
“You know,” resumed Coupeau, “as he was so polite as to decline a drink outside, you must treat us to one here.
Ah! you certainly owe us that!”
The workwomen had left long ago.
Mother Coupeau and Nana had just gone to bed.
Gervaise, who had been just about to put up the shutters when they appeared, left the shop open and brought some glasses which she placed on a corner of the work-table with what was left of a bottle of brandy.
Lantier remained standing and avoided speaking directly to her.