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.