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.