บทที่ บทที่ 6 · GOUJET AT HIS FORGE

. GOUJET AT HIS FORGE

One autumnal afternoon Gervaise, who had been to carry a basket of

clothes home to a customer who lived a good way off, found herself in

La Rue des Poissonniers just as it was growing dark. It had rained in

the morning, and the air was close and warm. She was tired with her

walk and felt a great desire for something good to eat. Just then she

lifted her eyes and, seeing the name of the street, she took it into

her head that she would call on Goujet at his forge. But she would ask

for Etienne, she said to herself. She did not know the number, but she

could find it, she thought. She wandered along and stood bewildered,

looking toward Montmartre; all at once she heard the measured click of

hammers and concluded that she had stumbled on the place at last. She

did not know where the entrance to the building was, but she caught a

gleam of a red light in the distance; she walked toward it and was met

by a workman.

"Is it here, sir," she said timidly, "that my child--a little boy,

that is to say--works? A little boy by the name of Etienne?"

"Etienne! Etienne!" repeated the man, swaying from side to side. The

wind brought from him to her an intolerable smell of brandy, which

caused Gervaise to draw back and say timidly:

"Is it here that Monsieur Goujet works?"

"Ah, Goujet, yes. If it is Goujet you wish to see go to the left."

Gervaise obeyed his instructions and found herself in a large room

with the forge at the farther end. She spoke to the first man she saw,

when suddenly the whole room was one blaze of light. The bellows had

sent up leaping flames which lit every crevice and corner of the dusty

old building, and Gervaise recognized Goujet before the forge with two

other men. She went toward him.

"Madame Gervaise!" he exclaimed in surprise, his face radiant with

joy, and then seeing his companions laugh and wink, he pushed Etienne

toward his mother. "You came to see your boy," he said; "he does his

duty like a hero.

"I am glad of it," she answered, "but what an awful place this is to

get at!"

And she described her journey, as she called it, and then asked why

no one seemed to know Etienne there.

"Because," said the blacksmith, "he is called Zou Zou here, as his

hair is cut short as a Zouave's."

This visit paid by Gervaise to the forge was only the first of many

others. She often went on Saturdays when she carried the clean linen

to Mme Goujet, who still resided in the same house as before. The

first year Gervaise had paid them twenty francs each month, or rather

the difference between the amount of their washing, seven or eight

francs, and the twenty which she agreed upon. In this way she had paid

half the money she had borrowed, when one quarter day, not knowing

to whom to turn, as she had not been able to collect her bills

punctually, she ran to the Goujets' and borrowed the amount of her

rent from them. Twice since she had asked a similar favor, so that the

amount of her indebtedness now stood at four hundred and twenty-five

francs.

Now she no longer paid any cash but did their washing. It was not that

she worked less hard or that her business was falling off. Quite the

contrary; but money had a way of melting away in her hands, and she

was content nowadays if she could only make both ends meet. What was

the use of fussing, she thought? If she could manage to live that was

all that was necessary. She was growing quite stout withal.

Mme Goujet was always kind to Gervaise, not because of any fear of

losing her money, but because she really loved her and was afraid of

her going wrong in some way.

The Saturday after the first visit paid by Gervaise to the forge was

also the first of the month. When she reached Mme Goujet's her basket

was so heavy that she panted for two good minutes before she could

speak. Every one knows how heavy shirts and such things are.

"Have you brought everything?" asked Mme Goujet, who was very exacting

on this point. She insisted on every piece being returned each week.

Another thing she exacted was that the clothes should be brought back

always on the same day and hour.

"Everything is here," answered Gervaise with a smile. "You know I

never leave anything behind."

"That is true," replied the elder woman. "You have many faults, my

dear, but not that one yet."

And while the laundress emptied her basket, laying the linen on

the bed, Mme Goujet paid her many compliments. She never burned her

clothes or ironed off the buttons or tore them, but she did use a

trifle too much bluing and made her shirts too stiff.

"Feel," she said; "it is like pasteboard. My son never complains,

but I know he does not like them so."

"And they shall not be so again," said Gervaise. "No one ever touches

any of your things but myself, and I would do them over ten times

rather than see you dissatisfied."

She colored as she spoke.

"I have no intention of disparaging your work," answered Mme Goujet.

"I never saw anyone who did up laces and embroideries as you do, and

the fluting is simply perfect; the only trouble is a little too much

starch, my dear. Goujet does not care to look like a fine gentleman."

She took up her book and drew a pen through the pieces as she spoke.

Everything was there. She brought out the bundle of soiled clothes.

Gervaise put them in her basket and hesitated.

"Madame Goujet," she said at last, "if you do not mind I should like

to have the money for this week's wash."

The account this month was larger than usual, ten francs and over.

Mme Goujet looked at her gravely.

"My child," she said slowly, "it shall be as you wish. I do not refuse

to give you the money if you desire it; only this is not the way to

get out of debt. I say this with no unkindness, you understand. Only

you must take care."

Gervaise, with downcast eyes, received the lesson meekly. She needed

the ten francs to complete the amount due the coal merchant, she said.

But her friend heard this with a stern countenance and told her

she should reduce her expenses, but she did not add that she, too,

intended to do the same and that in future she should do her washing

herself, as she had formerly done, if she were to be out of pocket

thus.

When Gervaise was on the staircase her heart was light, for she cared

little for the reproof now that she had the ten francs in her hand;

she was becoming accustomed to paying one debt by contracting another.

Midway on the stairs she met a tall woman coming up with a fresh

mackerel in her hand, and behold! it was Virginie, the girl whom she

had whipped in the lavatory. The two looked each other full in the

face. Gervaise instinctively closed her eyes, for she thought the girl

would slap her in the face with the mackerel. But, no; Virginie gave a

constrained smile. Then the laundress, whose huge basket filled up the

stairway and who did not choose to be outdone in politeness, said:

"I beg your pardon--"

"Pray don't apologize," answered Virginie in a stately fashion.

And they stood and talked for a few minutes with not the smallest

allusion, however, to the past.

Virginie, then about twenty-nine, was really a magnificent-looking

woman, head well set on her shoulders and a long, oval face crowned by

bands of glossy black hair. She told her history in a few brief words.

She was married. Had married the previous spring a cabinetmaker who

had given up his trade and was hoping to obtain a position on the

police force. She had just been out to buy this mackerel for him.

"He adores them," she said, "and we women spoil our husbands, I think.

But come up. We are standing in a draft here."

When Gervaise had, in her turn, told her story and added that Virginie

was living in the very rooms where she had lived and where her child

was born, Virginie became still more urgent that she should go up. "It

is always pleasant to see a place where one has been happy," she said.

She herself had been living on the other side of the water but had got

tired of it and had moved into these rooms only two weeks ago. She was

not settled yet. Her name was Mme Poisson.

"And mine," said Gervaise, "is Coupeau."

Gervaise was a little suspicious of all this courtesy. Might not some

terrible revenge be hidden under it all? And she determined to be well

on her guard. But as Virginie was so polite just now she must be

polite in her turn.

Poisson, the husband, was a man of thirty-five with a mustache and

imperial; he was seated at a table near the window, making little

boxes. His only tools were a penknife, a tiny saw and a gluepot; he

was executing the most wonderful and delicate carving, however. He

never sold his work but made presents of it to his friends. It amused

him while he was awaiting his appointment.

Poisson rose and bowed politely to Gervaise, whom his wife called an

old friend. But he did not speak, his conversational powers not being

his strong point. He cast a plaintive glance at the mackerel, however,

from time to time. Gervaise looked around the room and described her

furniture and where it had stood. How strange it was, after losing

sight of each other so long, that they should occupy the same

apartment! Virginie entered into new details. He had a small

inheritance from his aunt, and she herself sewed a little, made a

dress now and then. At the end of a half-hour Gervaise rose to depart;

Virginie went to the head of the stairs with her, and there both

hesitated. Gervaise fancied that Virginie wished to say something

about Lantier and Adele, but they separated without touching on these

disagreeable topics.

This was the beginning of a great friendship. In another week Virginie

could not pass the shop without going in, and sometimes she remained

for two or three hours. At first Gervaise was very uncomfortable;

she thought every time Virginie opened her lips that she would hear

Lantier's name. Lantier was in her mind all the time she was with Mme

Poisson. It was a stupid thing to do, after all, for what on earth

did she care what had become of Lantier or of Adele? But she was,

nonetheless, curious to know something about them.

Winter had come, the fourth winter that the Coupeaus had spent in La

Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. This year December and January were especially

severe, and after New Year's the snow lay three weeks in the street

without melting. There was plenty of work for Gervaise, and her shop

was delightfully warm and singularly quiet, for the carriages made

no noise in the snow-covered streets. The laughs and shouts of the

children were almost the only sounds; they had made a long slide and

enjoyed themselves hugely.

Gervaise took especial pleasure in her coffee at noon. Her apprentices

had no reason to complain, for it was hot and strong and unadulterated

by chicory. On the morning of Twelfth-day the clock had struck twelve

and then half past, and the coffee was not ready. Gervaise was ironing

some muslin curtains. Clemence, with a frightful cold, was, as usual,

at work on a man's shirt. Mme Putois was ironing a skirt on a board,

with a cloth laid on the floor to prevent the skirt from being soiled.

Mamma Coupeau brought in the coffee, and as each one of the women took

a cup with a sigh of enjoyment the street door opened and Virginie

came in with a rush of cold air.

"Heavens!" she cried. "It is awful! My ears are cut off!"

"You have come just in time for a cup of hot coffee," said Gervaise

cordially.

"And I shall be only too glad to have it!" answered Virginie with a

shiver. She had been waiting at the grocer's, she said, until she was

chilled through and through. The heat of that room was delicious, and

then she stirred her coffee and said she liked the damp, sweet smell

of the freshly ironed linen. She and Mamma Coupeau were the only ones

who had chairs; the others sat on wooden footstools, so low that they

seemed to be on the floor. Virginie suddenly stooped down to her

hostess and said with a smile:

"Do you remember that day at the lavatory?"

Gervaise colored; she could not answer. This was just what she had

been dreading. In a moment she felt sure she would hear Lantier's

name. She knew it was coming. Virginie drew nearer to her. The

apprentices lingered over their coffee and told each other as they

looked stupidly into the street what they would do if they had an

income of ten thousand francs. Virginie changed her seat and took

a footstool by the side of Gervaise, who felt weak and cowardly and

helpless to change the conversation or to stave off what was coming.

She breathlessly awaited the next words, her heart big with an emotion

which she would not acknowledge to herself.

"I do not wish to give you any pain," said Virginie blandly. "Twenty

times the words have been on my lips, but I hesitated. Pray don't

think I bear you any malice."

She tipped up her cup and drank the last drop of her coffee. Gervaise,

with her heart in her mouth, waited in a dull agony of suspense,

asking herself if Virginie could have forgiven the insult in the

lavatory. There was a glitter in the woman's eyes she did not like.

"You had an excuse," Virginie added as she placed her cup on the

table. "You had been abominably treated. I should have killed

someone." And then, dropping her little-affected tone, she continued

more rapidly:

"They were not happy, I assure you, not at all happy. They lived in a

dirty street, where the mud was up to their knees. I went to breakfast

with them two days after he left you and found them in the height of

a quarrel. You know that Adele is a wretch. She is my sister, to be

sure, but she is a wretch all the same. As to Lantier--well, you know

him, so I need not describe him. But for a yes or a no he would not

hesitate to thresh any woman that lives. Oh, they had a beautiful

time! Their quarrels were heard all over the neighborhood. One day

the police were sent for, they made such a hubbub."

She talked on and on, telling things that were enough to make the hair

stand up on one's head. Gervaise listened, as pale as death, with a

nervous trembling of her lips which might have been taken for a smile.

For seven years she had never heard Lantier's name, and she would

not have believed that she could have felt any such overwhelming

agitation. She could no longer be jealous of Adele, but she smiled

grimly as she thought of the blows she had received in her turn from

Lantier, and she would have listened for hours to all that Virginia

had to tell, but she did not ask a question for some time. Finally

she said:

"And do they still live in that same place?"

"No indeed! But I have not told you all yet. They separated a week

ago."

"Separated!" exclaimed the clearstarcher.

"Who is separated?" asked Clemence, interrupting her conversation

with Mamma Coupeau.

"No one," said Virginie, "or at least no one whom you know."

As she spoke she looked at Gervaise and seemed to take a positive

delight in disturbing her still more. She suddenly asked her what

she would do or say if Lantier should suddenly make his appearance,

for men were so strange; no one could ever tell what they would do.

Lantier was quite capable of returning to his old love. Then Gervaise

interrupted her and rose to the occasion. She answered with grave

dignity that she was married now and that if Lantier should appear

she would ask him to leave. There could never be anything more between

them, not even the most distant acquaintance.

"I know very well," she said, "that Etienne belongs to him, and if

Lantier desires to see his son I shall place no obstacle in his way.

But as to myself, Madame Poisson, he shall never touch my little

finger again! It is finished."

As she uttered these last words she traced a cross in the air to seal

her oath, and as if desirous to put an end to the conversation, she

called out to her women:

"Do you think the ironing will be done today if you sit still? To

work! To work!"

The women did not move; they were lulled to apathy by the heat, and

Gervaise herself found it very difficult to resume her labors. Her

curtains had dried in all this time, and some coffee had been spilled

on them, and she must wash out the spots.

"Au revoir!" said Virginie. "I came out to buy a half pound of cheese.

Poisson will think I am frozen to death!"

The better part of the day was now gone, and it was this way every

day, for the shop was the refuge and haunt of all the chilly people

in the neighborhood. Gervaise liked the reputation of having the

most comfortable room in the _Quartier_, and she held her receptions,

as the Lorilleux and Boche clique said, with a sniff of disdain. She

would, in fact, have liked to bring in the very poor whom she saw

shivering outside. She became very friendly toward a journeyman

painter, an old man of seventy, who lived in a loft of the house,

where he shivered with cold and hunger. He had lost his three sons

in the Crimea, and for two years his hand had been so cramped by

rheumatism that he could not hold a brush.

Whenever Gervaise saw Father Bru she called him in, made a place for

him near the stove and gave him some bread and cheese. Father Bru,

with his white beard and his face wrinkled like an old apple, sat

in silent content for hours at a time, enjoying the warmth and the

crackling of the coke.

"What are you thinking about?" Gervaise would say gaily.

"Of nothing--of all sorts of things," he would reply with a dazed air.

The workwomen laughed and thought it a good joke to ask if he were in

love. He paid little heed to them but relapsed into silent thought.

From this time Virginie often spoke to Gervaise of Lantier, and one

day she said she had just met him. But as the clearstarcher made no

reply Virginie then said no more. But on the next day she returned to

the subject and told her that he had talked long and tenderly of her.

Gervaise was much troubled by these whispered conversations in the

corner of her shop. The name of Lantier made her faint and sick at

heart. She believed herself to be an honest woman. She meant, in every

way, to do right and to shun the wrong, because she felt that only in

doing so could she be happy. She did not think much of Coupeau because

she was conscious of no shortcomings toward him. But she thought of

her friend at the forge, and it seemed to her that this return of her

interest in Lantier, faint and undecided as it was, was an infidelity

to Goujet and to that tender friendship which had become so very

precious to her. Her heart was much troubled in these days. She dwelt

on that time when her first lover left her. She imagined another day

when, quitting Adele, he might return to her--with that old familiar

trunk.

When she went into the street it was with a spasm of terror. She

fancied that every step behind her was Lantier's. She dared not

look around lest his hand should glide about her waist. He might

be watching for her at any time. He might come to her door in the

afternoon, and this idea brought a cold sweat to her forehead, because

he would certainly kiss her on her ear as he had often teased her by

doing in the years gone by. It was this kiss she dreaded. Its dull

reverberation deafened her to all outside sounds, and she could hear

only the beatings of her own heart. When these terrors assailed her

the forge was her only asylum, from whence she returned smiling and

serene, feeling that Goujet, whose sonorous hammer had put all her

bad dreams to flight, would protect her always.

What a happy season this was after all! The clearstarcher always

carried a certain basket of clothes to her customer each week, because

it gave her a pretext for going into the forge, as it was on her

way. As soon as she turned the corner of the street in which it was

situated she felt as lighthearted as if she were going to the country.

The black charcoal dust in the road, the black smoke rising slowly

from the chimneys, interested and pleased her as much as a mossy path

through the woods. Afar off the forge was red even at midday, and

her heart danced in time with the hammers. Goujet was expecting her

and making more noise than usual, that she might hear him at a great

distance. She gave Etienne a light tap on his cheek and sat quietly

watching these two--this man and boy, who were so dear to her--for an

hour without speaking. When the sparks touched her tender skin she

rather enjoyed the sensation. He, in his turn, was fully aware of

the happiness she felt in being there, and he reserved the work which

required skill for the time when she could look on in wonder and

admiration. It was an idyl that they were unconsciously enacting all

that spring, and when Gervaise returned to her home it was in a spirit

of sweet content.

By degrees her unreasonable fears of Lantier were conquered. Coupeau

was behaving very badly at this time, and one evening as she passed

the Assommoir she was certain she saw him drinking with Mes-Bottes.

She hurried on lest she should seem to be watching him. But as she

hastened she looked over her shoulder. Yes, it was Coupeau who was

tossing down a glass of liquor with an air as if it were no new

thing. He had lied to her then; he did drink brandy. She was in utter

despair, and all her old horror of brandy returned. Wine she could

have forgiven--wine was good for a working man--liquor, on the

contrary, was his ruin and took from him all desire for the food that

nourished and gave him strength for his daily toil. Why did not the

government interfere and prevent the manufacture of such pernicious

things?

When she reached her home she found the whole house in confusion. Her

employees had left their work and were in the courtyard. She asked

what the matter was.

"It is Father Bijard beating his wife; he is as drunk as a fool, and

he drove her up the stairs to her room, where he is murdering her.

Just listen!"

Gervaise flew up the stairs. She was very fond of Mme Bijard, who was

her laundress and whose courage and industry she greatly admired. On

the sixth floor a little crowd was assembled. Mme Boche stood at an

open door.

"Have done!" she cried. "Have done, or the police will be summoned."

No one dared enter the room, because Bijard was well known to be like

a madman when he was tipsy. He was rarely thoroughly sober, and on the

occasional days when he condescended to work he always had a bottle

of brandy at his side. He rarely ate anything, and if a match had been

touched to his mouth he would have taken fire like a torch.

"Would you let her be killed?" exclaimed Gervaise, trembling from head

to foot, and she entered the attic room, which was very clean and very

bare, for the man had sold the very sheets off the bed to satisfy his

mad passion for drink. In this terrible struggle for life the table

had been thrown over, and the two chairs also. On the floor lay the

poor woman with her skirts drenched as she had come from the washtub,

her hair streaming over her bloody face, uttering low groans at each

kick the brute gave her.

The neighbors whispered to each other that she had refused to give

him the money she had earned that day. Boche called up the staircase

to his wife:

"Come down, I say; let him kill her if he will. It will only make one

fool the less in the world!"

Father Bru followed Gervaise into the room, and the two expostulated

with the madman. But he turned toward them, pale and threatening;

a white foam glistened on his lips, and in his faded eyes there was a

murderous expression. He grasped Father Bru by the shoulder and threw

him over the table and shook Gervaise until her teeth chattered and

then returned to his wife, who lay motionless, with her mouth wide

open and her eyes closed; and during this frightful scene little

Lalie, four years old, was in the corner, looking on at the murder

of her mother. The child's arms were round her sister Henriette,

a baby who had just been weaned. She stood with a sad, solemn face

and serious, melancholy eyes but shed no tears.

When Bijard slipped and fell Gervaise and Father Bru helped the poor

creature to her feet, who then burst into sobs. Lalie went to her

side, but she did not cry, for the child was already habituated to

such scenes. And as Gervaise went down the stairs she was haunted by

the strange look of resignation and courage in Lalie's eyes; it was

an expression belonging to maturity and experience rather than to

childhood.

"Your husband is on the other side of the street," said Clemence

as soon as she saw Gervaise; "he is as tipsy as possible!"

Coupeau reeled in, breaking a square of glass with his shoulder as

he missed the doorway. He was not tipsy but drunk, with his teeth set

firmly together and a pinched expression about the nose. And Gervaise

instantly knew that it was the liquor of the Assommoir which had

vitiated his blood. She tried to smile and coaxed him to go to bed.

But he shook her off and as he passed her gave her a blow.

He was just like the other--the beast upstairs who was now snoring,

tired out by beating his wife. She was chilled to the heart and

desperate. Were all men alike? She thought of Lantier and of her

husband and wondered if there was no happiness in the world.