LAssommoir | Page 3

got a lot
of work to-day!"
"Yes, things don't do themselves, do they?"
The conversation continued between roadway and window. Madame
Boche was concierge of the building where the "Two-Headed Calf"
was on the ground floor. Gervaise had waited for Lantier more than
once in the concierge's lodge, so as not to be alone at table with all the
men who ate at the restaurant. Madame Boche was going to a tailor
who was late in mending an overcoat for her husband. She mentioned
one of her tenants who had come in with a woman the night before and
kept everybody awake past three in the morning. She looked at
Gervaise with intense curiosity.
"Is Monsieur Lantier, then, still in bed?" she asked abruptly.
"Yes, he's asleep," replied Gervaise, who could not avoid blushing.
Madame Boche saw the tears come into her eyes; and, satisfied no
doubt, she turned to go, declaring men to be a cursed, lazy set. As she
went off, she called back:
"It's this morning you go to the wash-house, isn't it? I've something to
wash, too. I'll keep you a place next to me, and we can chat together."
Then, as if moved with sudden pity, she added:
"My poor little thing, you had far better not remain there; you'll take
harm. You look quite blue with cold."
Gervaise still obstinately remained at the window during two mortal
hours, till eight o'clock. Now all the shops had opened. Only a few
work men were still hurrying along.
The working girls now filled the boulevard: metal polishers, milliners,
flower sellers, shivering in their thin clothing. In small groups they
chattered gaily, laughing and glancing here and there. Occasionally
there would be one girl by herself, thin, pale, serious- faced, picking

her way along the city wall among the puddles and the filth.
After the working girls, the office clerks came past, breathing upon
their chilled fingers and munching penny rolls. Some of them are gaunt
young fellows in ill-fitting suits, their tired eyes still fogged from sleep.
Others are older men, stooped and tottering, with faces pale and drawn
from long hours of office work and glancing nervously at their watches
for fear of arriving late.
In time the Boulevards settle into their usual morning quiet. Old folks
come out to stroll in the sun. Tired young mothers in bedraggled skirts
cuddle babies in their arms or sit on a bench to change diapers.
Children run, squealing and laughing, pushing and shoving.
Then Gervaise felt herself choking, dizzy with anguish, all hopes gone;
it seemed to her that everything was ended, even time itself, and that
Lantier would return no more. Her eyes vacantly wandered from the
old slaughter-house, foul with butchery and with stench, to the new
white hospital which, through the yawning openings of its ranges of
windows, disclosed the naked wards, where death was preparing to
mow. In front of her on the other side of the octroi wall the bright
heavens dazzled her, with the rising sun which rose higher and higher
over the vast awaking city.
The young woman was seated on a chair, no longer crying, and with
her hands abandoned on her lap, when Lantier quietly entered the room.
"It's you! It's you!" she cried, rising to throw herself upon his neck.
"Yes, it's me. What of it?" he replied. "You are not going to begin any
of your nonsense, I hope!"
He had pushed her aside. Then, with a gesture of ill-humor he threw his
black felt hat to the chest of drawers. He was a young fellow of
twenty-six years of age, short and very dark, with a handsome figure,
and slight moustaches which his hand was always mechanically
twirling. He wore a workman's overalls and an old soiled overcoat,
which he had belted tightly at the waist, and he spoke with a strong

Provencal accent.
Gervaise, who had fallen back on her chair, gently complained, in short
sentences: "I've not had a wink of sleep. I feared some harm had
happened to you. Where have you been? Where did you spend the night?
For heaven's sake! Don't do it again, or I shall go crazy. Tell me
Auguste, where have you been?"
"Where I had business, of course," he returned shrugging his shoulders.
"At eight o'clock, I was at La Glaciere, with my friend who is to start a
hat factory. We sat talking late, so I preferred to sleep there. Now, you
know, I don't like being spied upon, so just shut up!"
The young woman recommenced sobbing. The loud voices and the
rough movements of Lantier, who upset the chairs, had awakened the
children. They sat up in bed, half naked, disentangling their hair with
their tiny hands, and, hearing their mother weep, they uttered terrible