L'Assommoir - Émile Zola (best romantic books to read txt) 📗

their Latin, did not even know a word of what they were saying. They buried a person just in the same way that they would have baptized or married him, without the least feeling in their heart.

Happily, the cemetery was not far off, the little cemetery of La Chapelle, a bit of a garden which opened on to the Rue Marcadet. The procession arrived disbanded, with stampings of feet and everybody talking of his own affairs. The hard earth resounded, and many would have liked to have moved about to keep themselves warm. The gaping hole beside which the coffin was laid was already frozen over, and looked white and stony, like a plaster quarry; and the followers, grouped round little heaps of gravel, did not find it pleasant standing in such piercing cold, whilst looking at the hole likewise bored them. At length a priest in a surplice came out of a little cottage. He shivered, and one could see his steaming breath at each de profundis that he uttered. At the final sign of the cross he bolted off, without the least desire to go through the service again. The sexton took his shovel, but on account of the frost, he was only able to detach large lumps of earth, which beat a fine tune down below, a regular bombardment of the coffin, an enfilade of artillery sufficient to make one think the wood was splitting. One may be a cynic; nevertheless that sort of music soon upsets one’s stomach. The weeping recommenced. They moved off, they even got outside, but they still heard the detonations. My-Boots, blowing on his fingers, uttered an observation aloud.

“Tonnerre de Dieu! poor mother Coupeau won’t feel very warm!”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the zinc-worker to the few friends who remained in the street with the family, “will you permit us to offer you some refreshments?”

He led the way to a wine shop in the Rue Marcadet, the “Arrival at the Cemetery.” Gervaise, remaining outside, called Goujet, who was moving off, after again nodding to her. Why didn’t he accept a glass of wine? He was in a hurry; he was going back to the workshop. Then they looked at each other a moment without speaking.

“I must ask your pardon for troubling you about the sixty francs,” at length murmured the laundress. “I was half crazy, I thought of you—”

“Oh! don’t mention it; you’re fully forgiven,” interrupted the blacksmith. “And you know, I am quite at your service if any misfortune should overtake you. But don’t say anything to mamma, because she has her ideas, and I don’t wish to cause her annoyance.”

She gazed at him. He seemed to her such a good man, and sad-looking, and so handsome. She was on the verge of accepting his former proposal, to go away with him and find happiness together somewhere else. Then an evil thought came to her. It was the idea of borrowing the six months’ back rent from him.

She trembled and resumed in a caressing tone of voice:

“We’re still friends, aren’t we?”

He shook his head as he answered:

“Yes, we’ll always be friends. It’s just that, you know, all is over between us.”

And he went off with long strides, leaving Gervaise bewildered, listening to his last words which rang in her ears with the clang of a big bell. On entering the wine shop, she seemed to hear a hollow voice within her which said, “All is over, well! All is over; there is nothing more for me to do if all is over!” Sitting down, she swallowed a mouthful of bread and cheese, and emptied a glass full of wine which she found before her.

The wine shop was a single, long room with a low ceiling occupied by two large tables on which loaves of bread, large chunks of Brie cheese and bottles of wine were set out. They ate informally, without a tablecloth. Near the stove at the back the undertaker’s helpers were finishing their lunch.

“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed Monsieur Madinier, “we each have our time. The old folks make room for the young ones. Your lodging will seem very empty to you now when you go home.”

“Oh! my brother is going to give notice,” said Madame Lorilleux quickly. “That shop’s ruined.”

They had been working upon Coupeau. Everyone was urging him to give up the lease. Madame Lerat herself, who had been on very good terms with Lantier and Virginie for some time past, and who was tickled with the idea that they were a trifle smitten with each other, talked of bankruptcy and prison, putting on the most terrified airs. And suddenly, the zinc-worker, already overdosed with liquor, flew into a passion, his emotion turned to fury.

“Listen,” cried he, poking his nose in his wife’s face; “I intend that you shall listen to me! Your confounded head will always have its own way. But, this time, I intend to have mine, I warn you!”

“Ah! well,” said Lantier, “one never yet brought her to reason by fair words; it wants a mallet to drive it into her head.”

For a time they both went on at her. Meanwhile, the Brie was quickly disappearing and the wine bottles were pouring like fountains. Gervaise began to weaken under this persistent pounding. She answered nothing, but hurried herself, her mouth ever full, as though she had been very hungry. When they got tired, she gently raised her head and said,

“That’s enough, isn’t it? I don’t care a straw for the shop! I want no more of it. Do you understand? It can go to the deuce! All is over!”

Then they ordered some more bread and cheese and talked business. The Poissons took the rest of the lease and agreed to be answerable for the two quarters’ rent overdue. Boche, moreover, pompously agreed to the arrangement in the landlord’s name. He even then and there let a lodging to the Coupeaus—the vacant one on the sixth floor, in the same passage as the Lorilleuxs’ apartment. As for Lantier, well! He would like to keep his room, if it did not inconvenience the Poissons. The policeman bowed; it did not inconvenience him at all; friends always get on together, in spite of any difference in their political ideas. And Lantier, without mixing himself up any more in the matter, like a man who has at length settled his little business, helped himself to an enormous slice of bread and cheese; he leant back in his chair and ate devoutly, his blood tingling beneath his skin, his whole body burning with a sly joy, and he blinked his eyes to peep first at Gervaise, and then at Virginie.

“Hi! Old Bazouge!” called Coupeau, “come and have a drink. We’re not proud; we’re all workers.”

The four undertaker’s helpers, who had started to leave, came back to raise glasses with the group. They thought that the lady had weighed quite a bit and they had certainly earned a glass of wine. Old Bazouge gazed steadily at Gervaise without saying a word. It made her feel uneasy though and she got up and left the men who were beginning to show signs of being drunk. Coupeau began to sob again, saying he was feeling very sad.

That evening when Gervaise found herself at home again, she remained in a stupefied state on a chair. It seemed to her that the rooms were immense and deserted. Really, it would be a good riddance. But it was certainly not only mother Coupeau that she had left at the bottom of the hole in the little garden of the Rue Marcadet. She missed too many things, most likely a part of her life, and her shop, and her pride of being an employer, and other feelings besides, which she had buried on that day. Yes, the walls were bare, and her heart also; it was a complete clear out, a tumble into the pit. And she felt too tired; she would pick herself up again later on if she could.

At ten o’clock, when undressing, Nana cried and stamped. She wanted to sleep in mother Coupeau’s bed. Her mother tried to frighten her; but the child was too precocious. Corpses only filled her with a great curiosity; so that, for the sake of peace, she was allowed to lie down in mother Coupeau’s place. She liked big beds, the chit; she spread herself out and rolled about. She slept uncommonly well that night in the warm and pleasant feather bed.