



Produced by John Bickers; Dagny





L'ASSOMMOIR

By Emile Zola




CHAPTER I.

Gervaise had waited up for Lantier until two in the morning. Then,
shivering from having remained in a thin loose jacket, exposed to the
fresh air at the window, she had thrown herself across the bed, drowsy,
feverish, and her cheeks bathed in tears.

For a week past, on leaving the "Two-Headed Calf," where they took
their meals, he had sent her home with the children and never reappeared
himself till late at night, alleging that he had been in search of work.
That evening, while watching for his return, she thought she had seen
him enter the dancing-hall of the "Grand-Balcony," the ten blazing
windows of which lighted up with the glare of a conflagration the dark
expanse of the exterior Boulevards; and five or six paces behind him,
she had caught sight of little Adele, a burnisher, who dined at the same
restaurant, swinging her hands, as if she had just quitted his arm so as
not to pass together under the dazzling light of the globes at the door.

When, towards five o'clock, Gervaise awoke, stiff and sore, she broke
forth into sobs. Lantier had not returned. For the first time he had
slept away from home. She remained seated on the edge of the bed, under
the strip of faded chintz, which hung from the rod fastened to the
ceiling by a piece of string. And slowly, with her eyes veiled by tears,
she glanced round the wretched lodging, furnished with a walnut chest
of drawers, minus one drawer, three rush-bottomed chairs, and a little
greasy table, on which stood a broken water-jug. There had been added,
for the children, an iron bedstead, which prevented any one getting to
the chest of drawers, and filled two-thirds of the room. Gervaise's and
Lantier's trunk, wide open, in one corner, displayed its emptiness, and
a man's old hat right at the bottom almost buried beneath some dirty
shirts and socks; whilst, against the walls, above the articles of
furniture, hung a shawl full of holes, and a pair of trousers begrimed
with mud, the last rags which the dealers in second-hand clothes
declined to buy. In the centre of the mantel-piece, lying between two
odd zinc candle-sticks, was a bundle of pink pawn-tickets. It was
the best room of the hotel, the first floor room, looking on to the
Boulevard.

The two children were sleeping side by side, with their heads on the
same pillow. Claude, aged eight years, was breathing quietly, with his
little hands thrown outside the coverlet; while Etienne, only four
years old, was smiling, with one arm round his brother's neck. And
bare-footed, without thinking to again put on the old shoes that had
fallen on the floor, she resumed her position at the window, her eyes
searching the pavements in the distance.

The hotel was situated on the Boulevard de la Chapelle, to the left
of the Barriere Poissonniere. It was a building of two stories high,
painted a red, of the color of wine dregs, up to the second floor, and
with shutters all rotted by the rain. Over a lamp with starred panes
of glass, one could manage to read, between the two windows, the words,
"Hotel Boncoeur, kept by Marsoullier," painted in big yellow letters,
several pieces of which the moldering of the plaster had carried away.
The lamp preventing her seeing, Gervaise raised herself on tiptoe, still
holding the handkerchief to her lips. She looked to the right, towards
the Boulevard Rochechouart, where groups of butchers, in aprons smeared
with blood, were hanging about in front of the slaughter-houses; and the
fresh breeze wafted occasionally a stench of slaughtered beasts. Looking
to the left, she scanned a long avenue that ended nearly in front of
her, where the white mass of the Lariboisiere Hospital was then in
course of construction. Slowly, from one end of the horizon to the
other, she followed the octroi wall, behind which she sometimes heard,
during night time, the shrieks of persons being murdered; and she
searchingly looked into the remote angles, the dark corners, black with
humidity and filth, fearing to discern there Lantier's body, stabbed to
death.

She looked at the endless gray wall that surrounded the city with its
belt of desolation. When she raised her eyes higher, she became aware of
a bright burst of sunlight. The dull hum of the city's awakening already
filled the air. Craning her neck to look at the Poissonniere gate, she
remained for a time watching the constant stream of men, horses, and
carts which flooded down from the heights of Montmartre and La Chapelle,
pouring between the two squat octroi lodges. It was like a herd of
plod