LAssommoir | Page 7

everything with her
chlorine and her brushes; so now I do the washing myself. It's so much
saved; it only costs the soap. I say, you should have put those shirts to
soak. Those little rascals of children, on my word! One would think
their bodies were covered with soot."
Gervaise, having undone her bundle, was spreading out the little ones'
shirts, and as Madame Boche advised her to take a pailful of lye, she
answered, "Oh, no! warm water will do. I'm used to it." She had sorted
her laundry with several colored pieces to one side. Then, after filling
her tub with four pails of cold water from the tap behind her, she
plunged her pile of whites into it.
"You're used to it?" repeated Madame Boche. "You were a
washerwoman in your native place, weren't you, my dear?"
Gervaise, with her sleeves pushed back, displayed the graceful arms of
a young blonde, as yet scarcely reddened at the elbows, and started
scrubbing her laundry. She spread a shirt out on the narrow rubbing
board which was water-bleached and eroded by years of use. She

rubbed soap into the shirt, turned it over, and soaped the other side.
Before replying to Madame Boche she grasped her beetle and began to
pound away so that her shouted phrases were punctuated with loud and
rhythmic thumps.
"Yes, yes, a washerwoman--When I was ten--That's twelve years
ago--We used to go to the river--It smelt nicer there than it does
here--You should have seen, there was a nook under the trees, with
clear running water--You know, at Plassans--Don't you know
Plassans?--It's near Marseilles."
"How you go at it!" exclaimed Madame Boche, amazed at the strength
of her blows. "You could flatten out a piece of iron with your little
lady-like arms."
The conversation continued in a very high volume. At times, the
concierge, not catching what was said, was obliged to lean forward. All
the linen was beaten, and with a will! Gervaise plunged it into the tub
again, and then took it out once more, each article separately, to rub it
over with soap a second time and brush it. With one hand she held the
article firmly on the plank; with the other, which grasped the short
couch-grass brush, she extracted from the linen a dirty lather, which fell
in long drips. Then, in the slight noise caused by the brush, the two
women drew together, and conversed in a more intimate way.
"No, we're not married," resumed Gervaise. "I don't hide it. Lantier isn't
so nice for any one to care to be his wife. If it weren't for the children! I
was fourteen and he was eighteen when we had our first one. It
happened in the usual way, you know how it is. I wasn't happy at home.
Old man Macquart would kick me in the tail whenever he felt like it,
for no reason at all. I had to have some fun outside. We might have
been married, but--I forget why--our parents wouldn't consent."
She shook her hands, which were growing red in the white suds. "The
water's awfully hard in Paris."
Madame Boche was now washing only very slowly. She kept leaving
off, making her work last as long as she could, so as to remain there, to

listen to that story, which her curiosity had been hankering to know for
a fortnight past. Her mouth was half open in the midst of her big, fat
face; her eyes, which were almost at the top of her head, were gleaming.
She was thinking, with the satisfaction of having guessed right.
"That's it, the little one gossips too much. There's been a row."
Then, she observed out loud, "He isn't nice, then?"
"Don't mention it!" replied Gervaise. "He used to behave very well in
the country; but, since we've been in Paris, he's been unbearable. I must
tell you that his mother died last year and left him some money-- about
seventeen hundred francs. He would come to Paris, so, as old Macquart
was forever knocking me about without warning, I consented to come
away with him. We made the journey with two children. He was to set
me up as a laundress, and work himself at his trade of a hatter. We
should have been very happy; but, you see, Lantier's ambitious and a
spendthrift, a fellow who only thinks of amusing himself. In short, he's
not worth much. On arriving, we went to the Hotel Montmartre, in the
Rue Montmartre. And then there were dinners, and cabs, and the
theatre; a watch for himself and a silk dress for me, for he's not unkind
when he's got the money. You understand, he went in for everything,
and so well that at the end of two months