Complete Works of Emile Zola (515 page)

He did not answer, and she repeated, in a tone of despairing agony: “Is that all I get from you?”

“
Mon Dieu!
I’ve no coin,” he roared, turning round in a fury. “Just leave me alone, eh? Or else I’ll hit you.”

He was already raising his fist. She drew back, and seemed to make up her mind. “All right, I’ll leave you. I guess I can find a man.”

The zinc-worker laughed at this. He pretended to make a joke of the matter, and strengthened her purpose without seeming to do so. That was a fine idea of hers, and no mistake! In the evening, by gaslight, she might still hook a man. He recommended her to try the Capuchin restaurant where one could dine very pleasantly in a small private room. And, as she went off along the Boulevard, looking pale and furious he called out to her: “Listen, bring me back some dessert. I like cakes! And if your gentleman is well dressed, ask him for an old overcoat. I could use one.”

With these words ringing in her ears, Gervaise walked softly away. But when she found herself alone in the midst of the crowd, she slackened her pace. She was quite resolute. Between thieving and the other, well she preferred the other; for at all events she wouldn’t harm any one. No doubt it wasn’t proper. But what was proper and what was improper was sorely muddled together in her brain. When you are dying of hunger, you don’t philosophize, you eat whatever bread turns up. She had gone along as far as the Chaussee-Clignancourt. It seemed as if the night would never come. However, she followed the Boulevards like a lady who is taking a stroll before dinner. The neighborhood in which she felt so ashamed, so greatly was it being embellished, was now full of fresh air.

Lost in the crowd on the broad footway, walking past the little plane trees, Gervaise felt alone and abandoned. The vistas of the avenues seemed to empty her stomach all the more. And to think that among this flood of people there were many in easy circumstances, and yet not a Christian who could guess her position, and slip a ten sous piece into her hand! Yes, it was too great and too beautiful; her head swam and her legs tottered under this broad expanse of grey sky stretched over so vast a space. The twilight had the dirty-yellowish tinge of Parisian evenings, a tint that gives you a longing to die at once, so ugly does street life seem. The horizon was growing indistinct, assuming a mud-colored tinge as it were. Gervaise, who was already weary, met all the workpeople returning home. At this hour of the day the ladies in bonnets and the well-dressed gentlemen living in the new houses mingled with the people, with the files of men and women still pale from inhaling the tainted atmosphere of workshops and workrooms. From the Boulevard Magenta and the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonniere, came bands of people, rendered breathless by their uphill walk. As the omnivans and the cabs rolled by less noiselessly among the vans and trucks returning home empty at a gallop, an ever-increasing swarm of blouses and blue vests covered the pavement. Commissionaires returned with their crotchets on their backs. Two workmen took long strides side by side, talking to each other in loud voices, with any amount of gesticulation, but without looking at one another; others who were alone in overcoats and caps walked along the curbstones with lowered noses; others again came in parties of five or six, following each other, with pale eyes and their hands in their pockets and not exchanging a word. Some still had their pipes, which had gone out between their teeth. Four masons poked their white faces out of the windows of a cab which they had hired between them, and on the roof of which their mortar-troughs rocked to and fro. House-painters were swinging their pots; a zinc-worker was returning laden with a long ladder, with which he almost poked people’s eyes out; whilst a belated plumber, with his box on his back, played the tune of “The Good King Dagobert” on his little trumpet. Ah! the sad music, a fitting accompaniment to the tread of the flock, the tread of the weary beasts of burden.

Suddenly on raising her eyes she noticed the old Hotel Boncoeur in front of her. After being an all-night cafe, which the police had closed down, the little house was now abandoned; the shutters were covered with posters, the lantern was broken, and the whole building was rotting and crumbling away from top to bottom, with its smudgy claret-colored paint, quite moldy. The stationer’s and the tobacconist’s were still there. In the rear, over some low buildings, you could see the leprous facades of several five-storied houses rearing their tumble-down outlines against the sky. The “Grand Balcony” dancing hall no longer existed; some sugar-cutting works, which hissed continually, had been installed in the hall with the ten flaming windows. And yet it was here, in this dirty den — the Hotel Boncoeur — that the whole cursed life had commenced. Gervaise remained looking at the window of the first floor, from which hung a broken shutter, and recalled to mind her youth with Lantier, their first rows and the ignoble way in which he had abandoned her. Never mind, she was young then, and it all seemed gay to her, seen from a distance. Only twenty years.
Mon Dieu!
and yet she had fallen to street-walking. Then the sight of the lodging house oppressed her and she walked up the Boulevard in the direction of Montmartre.

The night was gathering, but children were still playing on the heaps of sand between the benches. The march past continued, the workgirls went by, trotting along and hurrying to make up for the time they had lost in looking in at the shop windows; one tall girl, who had stopped, left her hand in that of a big fellow, who accompanied her to within three doors of her home; others as they parted from each other, made appointments for the night at the “Great Hall of Folly” or the “Black Ball.” In the midst of the groups, piece-workmen went by, carrying their clothes folded under their arms. A chimney sweep, harnessed with leather braces, was drawing a cart along, and nearly got himself crushed by an omnibus. Among the crowd which was now growing scantier, there were several women running with bare heads; after lighting the fire, they had come downstairs again and were hastily making their purchases for dinner; they jostled the people they met, darted into the bakers’ and the pork butchers’, and went off again with all despatch, their provisions in their hands. There were little girls of eight years old, who had been sent out on errands, and who went along past the shops, pressing long loaves of four pounds’ weight, as tall as they were themselves, against their chests, as if these loaves had been beautiful yellow dolls; at times these little ones forgot themselves for five minutes or so, in front of some pictures in a shop window, and rested their cheeks against the bread. Then the flow subsided, the groups became fewer and farther between, the working classes had gone home; and as the gas blazed now that the day’s toil was over, idleness and amusement seemed to wake up.

Ah! yes; Gervaise had finished her day! She was wearier even than all this mob of toilers who had jostled her as they went by. She might lie down there and croak, for work would have nothing more to do with her, and she had toiled enough during her life to say: “Whose turn now? I’ve had enough.” At present everyone was eating. It was really the end, the sun had blown out its candle, the night would be a long one.
Mon Dieu!
To stretch one’s self at one’s ease and never get up again; to think one had put one’s tools by for good and that one could ruminate like a cow forever! That’s what is good, after tiring one’s self out for twenty years! And Gervaise, as hunger twisted her stomach, thought in spite of herself of the fete days, the spreads and the revelry of her life. Of one occasion especially, an awfully cold day, a mid-Lent Thursday. She had enjoyed herself wonderfully well. She was very pretty, fair-haired and fresh looking at that time. Her wash-house in the Rue Neuve had chosen her as queen in spite of her leg. And then they had had an outing on the boulevards in carts decked with greenery, in the midst of stylish people who ogled her. Real gentlemen put up their glasses as if she had been a true queen. In the evening there was a wonderful spread, and then they had danced till daylight. Queen; yes Queen! With a crown and a sash for twenty-four hours — twice round the clock! And now oppressed by hunger, she looked on the ground, as if she were seeking for the gutter in which she had let her fallen majesty tumble.

She raised her eyes again. She was in front of the slaughter-houses which were being pulled down; through the gaps in the facade one could see the dark, stinking courtyards, still damp with blood. And when she had gone down the Boulevard again, she also saw the Lariboisiere Hospital, with its long grey wall, above which she could distinguish the mournful, fan-like wings, pierced with windows at even distances. A door in the wall filled the neighborhood with dread; it was the door of the dead in solid oak, and without a crack, as stern and as silent as a tombstone. Then to escape her thoughts, she hurried further down till she reached the railway bridge. The high parapets of riveted sheet-iron hid the line from view; she could only distinguish a corner of the station standing out against the luminous horizon of Paris, with a vast roof black with coal-dust. Through the clear space she could hear the engines whistling and the cars being shunted, in token of colossal hidden activity. Then a train passed by, leaving Paris, with puffing breath and a growing rumble. And all she perceived of this train was a white plume, a sudden gust of steam which rose above the parapet and then evaporated. But the bridge had shaken, and she herself seemed impressed by this departure at full speed. She turned round as if to follow the invisible engine, the noise of which was dying away.

She caught a glimpse of open country through a gap between tall buildings. Oh, if only she could have taken a train and gone away, far away from this poverty and suffering. She might have started an entirely new life! Then she turned to look at the posters on the bridge sidings. One was on pretty blue paper and offered a fifty-franc reward for a lost dog. Someone must have really loved that dog!

Gervaise slowly resumed her walk. In the smoky fog which was falling, the gas lamps were being lighted up; and the long avenues, which had grown bleak and indistinct, suddenly showed themselves plainly again, sparkling to their full length and piercing through the night, even to the vague darkness of the horizon. A great gust swept by; the widened spaces were lighted up with girdles of little flames, shining under the far-stretching moonless sky. It was the hour when, from one end of the Boulevard to the other, the dram-shops and the dancing-halls flamed gayly as the first glasses were merrily drunk and the first dance began. It was the great fortnightly pay-day, and the pavement was crowded with jostling revelers on the spree. There was a breath of merrymaking in the air — deuced fine revelry, but not objectionable so far. Fellows were filling themselves in the eating-houses; through the lighted windows you could see people feeding, with their mouths full and laughing without taking the trouble to swallow first. Drunkards were already installed in the wineshops, squabbling and gesticulating. And there was a cursed noise on all sides, voices shouting amid the constant clatter of feet on the pavement.

“Say, are you coming to sip?” “Make haste, old man; I’ll pay for a glass of bottled wine.” “Here’s Pauline! Shan’t we just laugh!” The doors swung to and fro, letting a smell of wine and a sound of cornet playing escape into the open air. There was a gathering in front of Pere Colombe’s l’Assommoir, which was lighted up like a cathedral for high mass.
Mon Dieu!
you would have said a real ceremony was going on, for several capital fellows, with rounded paunches and swollen cheeks, looking for all the world like professional choristers, were singing inside. They were celebrating Saint-Pay, of course — a very amiable saint, who no doubt keeps the cash box in Paradise. Only, on seeing how gaily the evening began, the retired petty tradesmen who had taken their wives out for a stroll wagged their heads, and repeated that there would be any number of drunken men in Paris that night. And the night stretched very dark, dead-like and icy, above this revelry, perforated only with lines of gas lamps extending to the four corners of heaven.

Gervaise stood in front of l’Assommoir, thinking that if she had had a couple of sous she could have gone inside and drunk a dram. No doubt a dram would have quieted her hunger. Ah! what a number of drams she had drunk in her time! Liquor seemed good stuff to her after all. And from outside she watched the drunk-making machine, realizing that her misfortune was due to it, and yet dreaming of finishing herself off with brandy on the day she had some coin. But a shudder passed through her hair as she saw it was now almost dark. Well, the night time was approaching. She must have some pluck and sell herself coaxingly if she didn’t wish to kick the bucket in the midst of the general revelry. Looking at other people gorging themselves didn’t precisely fill her own stomach. She slackened her pace again and looked around her. There was a darker shade under the trees. Few people passed along, only folks in a hurry, who swiftly crossed the Boulevards. And on the broad, dark, deserted footway, where the sound of the revelry died away, women were standing and waiting. They remained for long intervals motionless, patient and as stiff-looking as the scrubby little plane trees; then they slowly began to move, dragging their slippers over the frozen soil, taking ten steps or so and then waiting again, rooted as it were to the ground. There was one of them with a huge body and insect-like arms and legs, wearing a black silk rag, with a yellow scarf over her head; there was another one, tall and bony, who was bareheaded and wore a servant’s apron; and others, too — old ones plastered up and young ones so dirty that a ragpicker would not have picked them up. However, Gervaise tried to learn what to do by imitating them; girlish-like emotion tightened her throat; she was hardly aware whether she felt ashamed or not; she seemed to be living in a horrible dream. For a quarter of an hour she remained standing erect. Men hurried by without even turning their heads. Then she moved about in her turn, and venturing to accost a man who was whistling with his hands in his pockets, she murmured, in a strangled voice: