Drink

The early days of Émile Edouard Charles Antoine Zola were

sordid and unromantic. He was born at Paris, on April 2, 1840,

his father dying while the son was quite young, and leaving

his family no legacy except a lawsuit against the municipality

of the town of Aix. And it was at Aix, which figures in many

of his novels under the name of "Plassans," that Zola received

the first part of his education. Later he went to Paris and

Marseilles, but failed to get his degree. A period of terrible

poverty followed, Zola existing as best he might in a garret

at Paris, and employing his hours in writing. Towards the

beginning of 1862 he obtained a position as clerk in a

publishing house at a salary of a pound a week. Two years

after his first novel, "Contes à Ninon," appeared. The book

was only moderately successful, but attracted sufficient

attention to justify Zola in abandoning clerking, and taking

seriously to literature. There followed a long series of

powerful and realistic studies of social life, each of

unquestioned ability, but failing to win the popularity which

was later accorded to Zola's works. The turning-point came in

1877 with the publication of "Drink" ("L'Assommoir"). Its

success was extraordinary, and its author found himself the

most widely-read writer in France. The story belongs to the

"realistic" school, and, although objections may be raised

against its nauseating details, there is no mistaking its

graphic power and truth to a certain phase of life. Zola was

accidentally suffocated by charcoal fumes on September 29,

1902.

_I.--The Lodgers of the Hôtel Boncoeur_

Gervaise had waited up for Lantier until two in the morning, exposed in

a thin loose jacket to the night air at the window. Then, chilled and

drowsy, she had thrown herself across the bed, bathed in tears. For a

week he had not appeared till late, alleging that he had been in search

of work. This evening she thought she had seen him enter a dancing-hall

opposite, and, five or six paces behind, little Adèle, a burnisher.

Towards five o'clock Gervaise awoke, stiff and sore. Seated on the edge

of the bed, her eyes veiled in tears, she glanced round the wretched

room, furnished with a chest of drawers, three chairs and a little

greasy table on which stood a broken water-jug. On the mantelpiece was a

bundle of pawn tickets. It was the best room of the lodging house, the

Hôtel Boncoeur, in the Boulevard de la Chapelle.

The two children were sleeping side by side. Claude was eight years of

age, while Étienne was only four. The bedewed gaze of their mother

rested upon them and she burst into a fresh fit of sobbing. Then she

returned to the window and searched the distant pavements with her eyes.

About eight Lantier returned. He was a young fellow of twenty-six, a

short, dark, and handsome Provençal. He pushed her aside, and when she

upbraided him, shook her violently, and then sent her out to pawn a few

ragged, soiled garments. When she returned with a five-franc-piece he

slipped it into his pocket and lay down on the bed and appeared to fall

asleep. Reassured by his regular breathing, she gathered together a

bundle of dirty clothes and went out to a wash-house near by.

Madame Boche, the doorkeeper of the Hôtel Boncoeur, had kept a place for

her, and immediately started talking, without leaving off her work.

"No, we're not married" said Gervaise presently. "Lantier isn't so nice

that one should care to be his wife. We have lived together eight years.

In the country he was very good to me, but his mother died last year and

left him seventeen hundred francs. He would come to Paris, and since

then I don't know what to make of him. He's ambitious and a spendthrift,

and at the end of two months we came to the Hôtel Boncoeur."

The gossip continued and Gervaise had nearly finished when she

recognised, a few tubs away, the tall Virginie, her supposed rival in

the affections of Lantier, and the sister of Adèle. Suddenly some

laughter arose at the door of the wash-house and Claude and Etienne ran

to Gervaise through the puddles. Claude had the key of the room on his

finger, and he exclaimed in his clear voice, "Papa's gone. He jumped off

the bed, put all the things in the box and carried it down to a cab.

He's gone."

Gervaise rose to her feet, ghastly pale, unable to cry.

"Come, my dear," murmured Madame Boche.

"If you but knew," she said at length. "He sent me this morning to pawn

the last of my things so that he could pay the cab." And she burst out

crying. Then, seeing the tall Virginie, with other women, staring at

her, a mad rage seized her, and noticing a bucket of water, she threw

its contents with all her might. A fierce quarrel ensued, ending in a

hand-to-hand conflict with flowing blood and torn garments. When her

rival was driven to flight Gervaise returned to her deserted lodgings.

Her tears again took possession of her. Lantier had forgotten nothing.

Even a little hand-glass and the packet of pawn tickets were gone.

_II.--Gervaise and Coupeau_

About three weeks later, at half-past eleven one beautiful day of

sunshine, Gervaise and Coupeau, the zinc-worker, were partaking together

of plums preserved in brandy at the "Assommoir" kept by old Colombe.

Coupeau, who had been smoking a cigarette on the pavement, had prevailed

on her to go inside as she crossed the road returning from taking home a

customer's washing; and her large square laundress's basket was on the

floor beside her, behind the little zinc-covered table.

Coupeau was making a fresh cigarette. He was very clean in a cap and a

short blue linen blouse, laughing and showing his white teeth. With a

projecting under jaw, and slightly snub nose, he had yet handsome

chestnut eyes, and the face of a jolly dog, and a good fellow. His

coarse, curly hair stood erect. His skin still preserved the softness of

his twenty-six years. Opposite to him, Gervaise, in a frock of black

Orleans stuff, and bareheaded, was finishing her plum, which she held by

the stalk between the tips of her fingers.

The zinc-worker, having lit his cigarette, placed his elbows on the

table, and said, "Then it's to be 'No,' is it?"

"Oh, most decidedly 'No,' Monsieur Coupeau," she replied. "You'll find

someone else prettier than I am who won't have two monkeys to drag about

with her."

But she did not repulse him entirely, and as, in his urgency, Coupeau

made a point of offering marriage, little by little Gervaise gave way.

At last, after a month, she yielded.

"How you do tease me," she murmured. "Well, then, yes. Ah, we're perhaps

doing a very foolish thing."

During the following days Coupeau sought to get Gervaise to call on his

sister in the Rue de la Goutte d'Or, but the young woman showed a great

dread of this visit to the Lorilleux. Coupeau was in no wise dependent

on his sister, only the Lorilleux had the reputation of earning as much

as ten francs a day as gold chain makers, and on that ground they

exercised special authority. They lived on the sixth floor in a tenement

house crammed with tenants of every degree of squalor. They were so busy

that they could not cease their work, and welcomed their new relative

with but a few cold words. Her reception was very trying to Gervaise,

but the disappointment of herself and Coupeau was dispelled when the

Lorilleux agreed to attend the wedding and pay their share of the

wedding dinner.

Gervaise did not want to have guests at her wedding. What was the use of

spending money? Besides, it seemed quite unnecessary to show off her

marriage before the whole neighbourhood. But Coupeau exclaimed at this.

One could not be married without having a spread, and at length he got

her to consent.

They formed a party of twelve, including the Lorilleux and some of

Coupeau's comrades who frequented the "Assommoir." The day was

excessively hot. At the mayor's they had to wait their turn and thus

were late at the church. On the way the men had some beer and after the

religious ceremony they adjourned to a wine-shop. Then a heavy storm

preventing a proposed excursion into the country before dinner, they

went to the Louvre. The general opinion was that the pictures were quite

wonderful. Shut out of the galleries with still two hours to spare, the

party decided to take a short walk and filled up the interval in

climbing to the top of the Vendome monument.

Then the wedding party, feeling very lively, sat down to the

long-desired feast. The repast was pronounced fairly good. It was

accompanied by quantities of cheap wine and enlivened with much coarse

joking, becoming violent as the discussion turned on politics. Quiet

being obtained, there followed the settling-up squabble with the

landlord. Each paid his share and Coupeau found himself starting married

life on seven sous, the day's entertainment having cost him over forty

francs.

There were four years of hard work after this. Gervaise worked twelve

hours a day at Madame Fauconnier's, the laundress, and still found means

to keep their lodging clean and bright as a son. Coupeau never got drunk

and brought his wages home regularly from the zinc-works. During the

earlier days especially, they had to work slavishly to make ends meet.

The marriage had burdened them with a two-hundred-franc debt. Then, too,

they hated the Hôtel Boncoeur. It was a disgusting place and they

dreamed of a home of their own. Then there came a piece of good luck.

Claude was taken off their hands by an old gentleman who had been struck

by some of his sketches. Eight months later they were able to furnish a

room and a kitchen in a house nearly facing Madame Fauconnier's. There,

soon after, Nana was born. They had two good friends in Jean Goujet, a

blacksmith, and his mother. They went out nearly every Sunday with the

Goujes.

_III.--Starting on the Down Road_

No great change took place in their affairs until one day Coupeau fell

from the roof of a house and was laid up for three months. Lying idle so

long he lost the habit of work, and as he grew stronger again, he wasted

his time and Gervaise's earnings in drinking shops. But he slapped his

chest as he boasted that he never drank anything but wine, always wine,

never brandy. Money grew scarcer and Gervaise's one ambition--a laundry

of her own--seemed to fade away. But the Goujets came to her aid, and

lent her five hundred francs to begin business with. Engaging three

assistants, Gervaise was able, with her industry and beautiful work and

her cheerful face and manner, to obtain plenty of custom and to lay up

money again.

Never before had Gervaise shown so much complaisance. She was as quiet

as a lamb and as good as bread. In her slight gluttonous forgetfulness,

when she had lunched well and taken her coffee, she yielded to the

necessity for a general indulgence all round. Her common saying was "One

must forgive one another if one does not wish to live like savages."

When people talked of her kindness she laughed. It would never have

suited her to have been cruel. She protested, she said, no merit was due

to her for being kind. Had not all her dreams been realised? Had she any

other ambition in life?

It was to Coupeau especially that Gervaise behaved so well. Never an

angry word, never a complaint behind her husband's back. The zinc-worker

had at last resumed work, and as his employment was at the other side of

Paris, she gave him every morning forty sous for his luncheon, his drink

and his tobacco. Only two days out of every six Coupeau would stop on

the way, drink the forty sous with a friend, and return home to lunch

with some grand story or other. Once even he did not take the trouble to

go far, he treated himself and four others to a regular feast at the

"Capuchin," on the Barriere de la Chapelle. Then, as his forty sous were

not sufficient, he had sent the waiter to his wife with the bill, and to

say that he was under lock for the balance. She laughed and shrugged her

shoulders. Where was the harm if her good man amused himself a little

while? You must give men a long rein if you want to live peaceably at

home. Gracious powers! It was easy to understand. Coupeau still suffered

from his leg; besides, he was drawn in sometimes. He was obliged to do

as the others did, or else he would pass for a muff. It was really a

matter of no consequence. If he came home a little bit elevated, he went

to bed, and two hours afterwards he was all right again.

But Coupeau was becoming a continual drag on his wife. Most of his time

and few earnings were wasted in Colombe's "Assommoir." And Nana, between

her mother's toil and her father's shiftlessness, ran wild about the

streets.

Then one day Coupeau came in drunk. He almost smashed a pane of glass

with his shoulder as he missed the door. He was in a state of absolute

drunkenness, with his teeth clinched and his nose inflamed. And Gervaise

at once recognised the "vitriol" of the "Assommoir" in the poisoned

blood which made his skin quite pale. She tried to make fun and get him

to bed, as she had done on the days when the wine had made him merry,

but he pushed her aside, without opening his lips, and raised his fist

to her in passing as he went to bed of his own accord. Then she grew

cold. She thought of the men she knew--of her husband, of Goujet, of

Lantier--her heart breaking, despairing of ever being happy.

_IV.--Lantier's Return_

At this stage of Coupeau's affairs Virginie reappeared. She expressed

great joy in meeting her former foe, declaring that she retained no bad

feeling. She mentioned that Gervaise might be interested to know that

she had recently seen Lantier in the neighbourhood. Gervaise received

the news with apparent indifference. Then, on the evening of her _fête_

Lantier appeared and, strangely enough, it was the zinc-worker who,

heated with the festival drinking, welcomed him most warmly.

Gervaise, feeling meek and stupid, gazed at them one after the other. At

first when her husband pushed her old lover into the shop, she could not

believe it possible; the walls would fall in and crush the whole of

them. Then, seeing the two men seated together, and without so much as

the muslin curtains moving, she suddenly thought it the most natural

thing in the world.

On the following Saturday Coupeau brought Lantier home with him in the

evening. He remained standing and avoided looking at Gervaise.

Coupeau looked at them, and then spoke his mind very plainly. They were

not going to behave like a couple of geese, he hoped. The past was the

past, was it not? If people nursed grudges after nine and ten years, one

would end by no longer seeing anybody. No, no, he carried his heart in

his hand, he did. He knew who he had to deal with, a worthy woman and a

worthy man--in short, two friends.

"Oh! that's certain, quite certain," repeated Gervaise.

"She's a sister now--nothing but a sister," murmured Lantier.

From that evening Lantier frequently called at the Rue de la Goutte

d'Or. He came when the zinc-worker was there, inquiring after his health

the moment he passed the door, and affecting to have solely called for

him. Then, shaved, his hair nicely divided, and always wearing his

overcoat, he would take a seat by the window, and converse politely with

the manners of a man who had received a good education. Thus the

Coupeaus learnt little by little some particulars of his life.

During the last eight years he had for a while managed a hat factory;

and when they asked him why he had retired from it, he merely alluded to

the rascality of a partner. He was forever saying that he was on the

point of making a first-class arrangement; some wholesale manufacturers

were about to establish him in business and trust him with an enormous

stock. Meanwhile, he did nothing whatever but walk about like a

gentleman. In his effusiveness Coupeau suggested that Lantier become a

lodger, and overruled all objections. Nevertheless, Lantier showed no

intention for a long while of trespassing on the bibulous good nature of

Coupeau.

_V.--The Beginning of the End_

Coupeau was now becoming a confirmed drunkard and presently Lantier

ceased paying for his lodging, talking of clearing up everything as soon

as he had completed an agreement. Thus Gervaise had two men to support,

while her increasing indolence and gluttony continuously reduced her

earnings. Custom began to fall away faster and faster and soon they were

living almost entirely on credit. Then Madame Coupeau, who had come to

live with her son and Gervaise soon after the shop was opened, died. The

funeral was celebrated with pomp and feast greatly in excess of the

resources of the Coupeaus and helped considerably towards the final

ruin.

As they were sitting down to the funeral meal the landlord presented

himself, looking very grave, and wearing a broad decoration on his frock

coat. He bowed in silence, and went straight to the little room, where

he knelt down. He was very pious; he prayed in the accustomed manner of

a priest, then made the sign of the cross in the air, whilst he

sprinkled the body with the sprig of box. All the family leaving the

table, stood up, greatly moved. Mr. Marescot, having ended his

devotions, passed into the shop and said to the Coupeaus, "I have called

for the two quarters' rent which remain unpaid. Can you give it me?"

"No, sir, not quite," stammered Gervaise. "You will understand, with the

misfortune which has--"

"No doubt, but everyone has his troubles," resumed the landlord,

spreading out his immense fingers. "I am very sorry, but I cannot wait

any longer. If I am not paid by the morning after to-morrow, I shall be

forced to have recourse to expulsion."

Gervaise, struck dumb, imploringly clasped her hands, her eyes full of

tears. With an energetic shake of his big bony head, he gave her to

understand that all supplications were useless. Besides, the respect due

to the dead forbade all discussion. He discreetly retired, walking

backwards.

Gervaise was persuaded by the jealous Lorilleux to resign the lease of

her shop to Virginie and her husband. That evening when Gervaise found

herself at home again after the funeral she continued in a stupefied

state on a chair. It seemed to her that the rooms were very large and

deserted. Really, it would be a good riddance. But it was certainly not

only mother Coupeau that she missed. She missed, too, many other things,

very likely a part of her life, and her shop, and her pride of being an

employer, and other sentiments besides, which she had buried on that

day. Yes, the walls were bare, and her heart also; it was an absolute

deplenishment, a tumble into the pit.

It was the beginning of the end. She got employment with her old

employer, Madame Fauconnier, but presently she began to be looked upon

with disfavour. She was not nearly so expert; she did her work so

clumsily that the mistress had reduced her wages to forty sous a day,

the price paid to the stupidest. With all that she was very proud and

very susceptible, throwing at everybody's head her former position of a

person in business. Some days she never appeared at all, whilst on

others she would leave in the midst of her work through nothing but a

fit of temper. After these outbursts, she would be taken back out of

charity, which embittered her still more.

As for Coupeau, he did perhaps work, but in that case he certainly made

a present of his labour to the government; for Gervaise never saw his

money. She no longer looked in his hands when he returned home on

paydays. He arrived swinging his arms, his pockets empty, and often

without his handkerchief. Good gracious! Yes, he had lost his fogle, or

else some rascally comrade had sneaked it. At first he made excuses; he

invented all sorts of lies--ten francs for a subscription, twenty francs

fallen through a hole which he showed in his pocket, fifty francs

disbursed in paying off imaginary debts. After a little, he no longer

troubled himself to give any explanations. The money evaporated, that

was all!

Yes, it was their fault if they descended lower and lower every season.

But that is the sort of thing one never tells one self, especially when

one is down in the gutter. They accused their bad fortune; they

pretended that fate was against them. Their home had become a little

hell by this time. They bickered away the whole day. However, they had

not yet come to blows, with the exception of a few smacks which somehow

were given at the height of their disputes. The saddest thing was that

they had opened the cage of affection; the better feelings had all taken

flight like so many canaries. The loving warmth of father, mother, and

child, when united and wrapped up in each other, deserted them, and left

them shivering, each in his or her own corner. The whole three--Coupeau,

Gervaise, and Nana--were ever ready to seize one another by the hair,

biting each other for nothing at all, their eyes full of hatred. What

use was he, that drunkard? thought Gervaise. To make her weep, to eat up

all she possessed, to drive her to sin. Well, men so useless as he

should be thrown as quickly as possible into the hole, and the polka of

deliverance be danced over them.

_VI.--The Final Ruin_

Presently, Gervaise took to fuddling with her husband at the

"Assommoir." She sank lower than ever; she missed going to her work

oftener, gossipped for whole days, and became as soft as a rag whenever

she had any work to do. If a thing fell from her hands, it might remain

on the floor; it was certainly not she who would have bent down to pick

it up. She intended to save her bacon. She took her ease, and never

handled a broom except when the accumulation of filth almost upset her.

She could keep no work, and at last came to scrub out the shop and rooms

for Virginie. She came on Saturday morning with a pail and a scrubbing

brush, without appearing to suffer in the least at having to perform a

dirty, humble duty, a charwoman's work, in the home where she had

reigned as the beautiful, fair-haired mistress--for thirty sous. It was

a last humiliation, the end of her pride. Virginie must have enjoyed

herself, for a yellowish flame darted from her cat's eyes. At last she

was revenged for that thrashing she had received at the wash-house, and

which she had never forgotten.

Coupeau went from worse to worse. He was not sober once in six months.

Then he fell ill and had to go to the asylum, but when he came out

repaired he would begin to pull himself to bits again and need another

mending. In three years he went seven times to the asylum in this

fashion, until he died in the extremities of delirium.

Gervaise was next compelled to descend to begging of Lorilleux and his

wife. But they refused her a son or a crumb and laughed at her. It was

terrible. She remembered her ideal of former days; to work quietly,

always having bread to eat and a tidy home to sleep in, to bring up her

children not to be thrashed, and to die in her bed. No, really, it was

droll how all that was be? coming realised! She no longer worked, she no

longer ate, she slept on filth; all that was left for her to do was to

die on the pavement, and it would not take long if, on getting into her

room, she could only screw up enough courage to fling herself out of the

window. What increased her ugly laugh was the remembrance of her grand

hope of retiring into the country after twenty years spent in ironing.

Well! she was on her way to the country. She was about to have her green

corner in the Père-Lachaise cemetery.

Gervaise lasted in this state several months. She fell lower and lower

still, dying of starvation a little every day. As soon as she had four

sous, she drank and fought the walls. Her landlord had decided to turn

her out of her room on the sixth floor, but allowed her to turn into a

hole under the staircase. It was inside there, on some old straw, that

her teeth chattered, whilst her stomach was empty and her bones were

frozen. The earth would not have her evidently. She was becoming

idiotic; she did not even think of making an end of herself by jumping

out of the sixth floor window on to the pavement of the court-yard

beneath. Death was to take her little by little, bit by bit, dragging

her thus to the end through the accursed existence she had made for

herself. It was never even exactly known what she did die of. There was

some talk of a cold, but the truth was she died of privation, and of the

filth and hardship of her spoilt life. Over-gorging and dissoluteness

killed her, said the Lorilleux.