The Drinking Den (32 page)

‘And I bet that, next month, they'll have thought up another story! That explains why they cover up their window when they're eating a rabbit, doesn't it? We should be quite entitled to say to them: “Since you've got rabbit to eat, you could easily give a hundred
sous
to your mother.” Oh, they're such rotters! What would have become of you, if I hadn't taken you in with us?'

Mother Coupeau nodded. That day, she was entirely against the Lorilleux, because of the great feast that the Coupeaus were giving. She loved cooking, the gossip over the saucepans and the whole house turned upside-down by the celebration. In any case, she usually got
on well with Gervaise. At other times, on the days when they got on one another's nerves – something that happens in every family – the old woman grumbled at the dreadful misfortune of finding herself at the mercy of her daughter-in-law. Underneath, she must have had some affection for Mme Lorilleux – who was her own daughter, after all.

‘True, isn't it?' Gervaise went on. ‘You wouldn't be so well fed with them. No coffee, no tobacco, no treats! Tell me, would they have put two mattresses on your bed?'

‘No, of course not,' Mother Coupeau answered. ‘When they come in, I'm going to stand opposite the door, just to see the look on their faces.'

The look on the Lorilleux's faces made them laugh just to think of it. But they couldn't stand there, looking at the table. The Coupeaus had lunched very late, around one o'clock, on a little cold meat, because the three ovens were already busy and they did not want to dirty the plates that they had already washed for the evening. At four o'clock, the two women were on the final stretch. The goose was cooking in front of an upright roasting-pan, against the wall, beside the open window, and it was such a huge beast that they had had to force it into the roaster. Augustine, the boss-eyed one, was sitting on a little bench in the full glare of the fire and the reflector, gravely basting the goose with a long-handled spoon. Gervaise was dealing with the peas in bacon. Mother Coupeau, bewildered by all these different dishes, was going this way and that, waiting until it was time to put the pork and the veal on to heat up. At about five o'clock the guests started to arrive. First of all, came the two employees, Clémence and Mme Putois, both dressed up in their Sunday best, the first in blue, the second in black. Clémence was carrying a geranium, Mme Putois, a heliotrope; and Gervaise, whose hands were all white with flour, had to give each of them two big kisses, holding her hands out behind her. Then, hard on their heels, Virginie arrived, done up like a real lady, in a muslin print dress, with a scarf and hat, even though she had only to cross the street. She brought a pot of carnations. She took the laundress in her large arms and hugged her tightly. Finally, in came Boche with a pot of pansies, Mme Boche with a pot of mignonette, Mme Lerat with a
citronella, the soil from the pot having dirtied her violet merino dress. All of them kissed one another, and piled into the room, surrounded by the three ovens and the roasting-plate, the heat from which was stifling. Voices were drowned by the noise of food frying in the pans. Someone's dress brushed against the roaster and caused a tremendous furore. So strongly did it smell of goose that their nostrils widened. Gervaise made herself agreeable, thanking everybody for their flowers, even as she carried on thickening the sauce for the veal in the bottom of a dish. She had put all the pots of flowers in the shop, at the end of the table, without taking off their white-paper wrappings, so their soft odour mingled with the cooking smells.

‘Would you like a hand?' Virginie asked. ‘When I think: you've been working on all this spread for three days and it'll be gobbled up in no time!'

‘Goodness gracious!' Gervaise answered. ‘It wouldn't cook itself… No, don't get your hands dirty. Look, everything's ready. There's only the soup left to do.'

At this, they began to make themselves at home. The ladies put their shawls and bonnets down on the bed, then pinned up their skirts so as not to dirty them. Boche, who had sent his wife back to look after the door until it was time for dinner, was already pushing Clémence into the corner by the stove, asking if she was ticklish, while Clémence panted and twisted round, huddled up with her bosom bursting out of her bodice, because the very idea of being tickled sent shivers all over her. The other ladies, not wishing to get in the way of the cooks, had also just come out into the shop and were standing round the walls, facing the table; but as the conversation continued through the open door and no one could make themselves heard, they were constantly going back, invading the other room with loud bursts of noise and surrounding Gervaise, who forgot what she was doing while answering them, with a steaming spoon in her hand. They laughed and cracked outrageous jokes. Virginie said that she hadn't eaten for two days, to leave room for the feast, so that dirty-minded Clémence capped it by saying that she had made room that morning by having an enema, as the English do. At this, Boche offered his own recipe for immediate digestion, which was to squeeze oneself in a door, after every course;
this was another thing that the English did, which allowed them to go on eating for twelve hours on end, without causing a stomach upset. Isn't that right? It's only polite to eat, if one is invited to dinner. No one prepares veal, pork and goose just to give it to the cats. Oh, their hostess had nothing to worry about! They would clean it up so well that she wouldn't even have to wash the dishes the next day. And all of them seemed to be whetting their appetites by sniffing what was cooking on the stoves and the roaster. The ladies eventually began to behave like little girls, pushing one another around and running in and out of the rooms, shaking the floor, and stirring and intensifying the kitchen smells with their skirts, in a deafening racket where laughter mingled with the noise of Mother Coupeau's knife, chopping up the bacon.

Just as everyone was shouting and leaping about, having fun, Goujet chose to appear. He was so shy, with a big white rose-bush in his hands, that he didn't dare come in; the splendid plant came up to as high as his face, its flowers brushing against his yellow beard. Gervaise ran up to him, her cheeks flushed by the heat from the stoves. But he didn't know what to do with his flowerpot; and when she had taken it out of his hands, he stammered, not daring to kiss her. She was the one who had to get up on tiptoe and put her cheek to his lips; in fact, he was in such a state that he kissed her on the eye, so roughly that he could have blinded her. Both of them were left trembling with emotion.

‘Oh, Monsieur Goujet, it's lovely!' she said, putting the rose-bush down next to the other flowers, which it surpassed entirely by its whole plume of leaves.

‘Not at all, not at all,' he repeated, for want of anything better.

And, after giving a great sigh, he recovered slightly and declared that they should not expect his mother; she had her sciatica. Gervaise was very sorry to hear that, and talked about putting a piece of goose on one side, so determined was she that Mme Goujet should eat some of the bird. Meanwhile, there was no one else left to come. Coupeau must be prowling around somewhere in the neighbourhood with Poisson, whom he had gone to pick up at home after lunch; they were sure to come soon, having promised to be back by six o'clock at the latest. So, as the soup was almost done, Gervaise called over Mme Lerat to
tell her that she thought the time had come to go up and get the Lorilleux. Mme Lerat immediately put on a very serious air: she was the one who had been responsible for all the negotiations and for arranging how the reconciliation between the two families would be carried out. She put her shawl and bonnet back on and left, very stiff in her skirts, with an important look. Downstairs, the laundress carried on stirring her soup and her Italian pasta, in silence. Everyone suddenly became very grave and waited solemnly.

Mme Lerat was the first to reappear. She had been round by the street, in order to make more of an occasion of the reconciliation ceremony. She held the door of the shop wide open, while Mme Lorilleux, in her silk dress, stopped at the threshold. All the guests had stood up, and Gervaise came forward, kissed her sister-in-law as they had agreed, and said:

‘Come on in. It's all over, isn't it? We'll be nice to each other.'

To which Mme Lorilleux replied:

‘I ask nothing better than for it to be like that always.'

When she had come in, Lorilleux also stopped on the threshold as he, too, waited to be embraced before he came into the shop. Neither of them had brought a bouquet; they had decided not to, considering that it would seem too much like submitting to Tip-Tap if they were to bring flowers the first time. Meanwhile, Gervaise called to Augustine to give her two bottles; then, at one end of the table, she poured out glasses of wine and called everyone to sit down. They all took a glass and clinked them, drinking to good feeling in the family. There was a silence while everyone was drinking, the ladies raising their elbows in a single movement, and draining their glasses to the last drop.

‘There's nothing better before starting dinner,' Boche announced, clicking his tongue. ‘It's better than a kick up the backside.'

Mother Coupeau had taken up her place opposite the door to see the look on the Lorilleux's faces. She tugged at Gervaise's skirt and took her into the back room where the two of them bent over the soup, whispering eagerly.

‘What about that face!' said the old woman. ‘You couldn't see them, but I was watching carefully… Believe me, when she saw the table, her face twisted up like this, and the corners of her mouth went right
up to her eyes. As for him, he was really choked; he started to cough. Now look at them: their mouths are dry and they're biting their lips.'

‘It's sad to think that anybody can be so jealous,' Gervaise muttered.

The Lorilleux did, indeed, look a bit odd. Of course, nobody likes to be outshone: inside a family, especially, when some succeed, the others seethe with rage. Naturally. But you try not to show it, don't you? You don't make a spectacle of yourself. Well, the Lorilleux couldn't contain themselves, it was too much for them, they grimaced, their faces were all twisted up. In fact, it was so obvious that the other guests looked at them and asked if they felt quite well. Never would they be able to stomach the idea of the table, with its fourteen place-settings, its white cloth and napkins, its bread standing ready-sliced. You could have been in a restaurant in the centre of town. Mme Lorilleux walked round, looked down so as not to see the flowers, and surreptitiously felt the tablecloth, tortured by the idea that it must be a new one.

‘Here we are!' Gervaise exclaimed, coming back in with a smile, her arms bare and her fine blonde hair floating around her temples.

The guests shuffled round the table. They were all hungry, and yawned a little, looking impatient.

‘If only the boss would come,' the laundress went on, ‘we could get on with it.'

‘Oh, in that case,' said Mme Lorilleux, ‘the soup will have plenty of time to get cold. Coupeau is never on time. You shouldn't have let him go off like that.'

It was already half-past six. Now everything was burning, the goose would be overcooked. So Gervaise, in despair, talked about sending someone round to the local wine shop to see if they could find Coupeau. Then, as Goujet offered to go, she wanted to join him, and Virginie, concerned about her husband, went with them. The three of them, bare-headed, filled the pavement. The blacksmith, in his greatcoat, had Gervaise on his left arm and Virginie on the right: he was a two-handled basket, he said; and the remark seemed so amusing to them, that they stopped, overcome with laughter. Then they saw themselves in the pork-butcher's window and laughed even louder.
Next to Goujet, all in black, the two women looked like two speckled hens, the seamstress in her muslin dress covered in pink flowers and the laundress in a white cotton one with blue spots, her wrists uncovered and a little grey silk scarf around her neck. Every one turned round to look at them, so fresh and merry, dressed up like that on a weekday, brushing against the crowd that packed the Rue des Poissonniers on this warm June evening. But it was no laughing matter. They went directly to the door of every wine merchant's, craning their necks and looking along the counter. Had that devil Coupeau been on a pub crawl as far as the Arc-de-Triomphe? They had already searched the upper part of the street, looking into all the best places: in the
Petit-Civette
, famous for its plums; in Ma Baquet's, which sold wine from Orléans for eight
sous
; in the
Papillon
, the meeting-place of coachmen (who were demanding customers). Not a trace of Coupeau. Then, as they were going down towards the boulevard and passed in front of François' place, the local dive, Gervaise gave a little gasp.

‘What is it?' Goujet asked.

The laundress was not laughing any more. She was very pale and so upset that she almost fell over. Virginie suddenly understood why when, sitting at a table in François' café, she saw Lantier, calmly having dinner. The two women dragged the blacksmith on.

‘I twisted my ankle,' Gervaise said, when she was able to speak.

Eventually, at the end of the street, they found Coupeau and Poisson in Old Colombe's drinking den. They were standing, surrounded by a crowd of men. Coupeau, wearing a grey smock, was shouting, gesticulating furiously and banging his fist on the counter, while Poisson, who was not on duty that day, wrapped in his old brown coat, listened, his face silent and morose, his goatee beard and his red moustache bristling. Goujet left the women outside on the pavement and went across to put a hand on the roofer's shoulder. But when Coupeau saw Gervaise and Virginie outside, he got angry. Who had lumbered him with females like that? Now the skirts were chasing him! Well, he wasn't moving. They could eat their rotten dinner by themselves. To calm him down, Goujet had to accept a drink of some kind; even then, Coupeau deliberately stayed on a further five minutes at least, propping up the counter. When he did finally emerge, he told his wife:

‘I'm not pleased about this… I'm staying where my business is, you understand?'

She didn't answer, but she was shaking all over. She must have been talking to Virginie about Lantier, because the other woman hurried her husband and Goujet along, telling them to go first, then the two women positioned themselves on either side of Coupeau, to distract him and prevent him from seeing Lantier. He was not very drunk, and more stunned by shouting than drink. To tease them, since they seemed to want to take the left-hand pavement, he pushed them across on to the right-hand one. They ran along beside him, terrified, trying to stop him looking through François' door. But he must have known that Lantier was there, because Gervaise was dumbfounded at hearing him growl:

‘Yes, that's right! There's a chap we know in there, ducks! Don't take me for a complete idiot. Just let me catch you at it again, making eyes in his direction!'

And he started to shout obscenities. He wasn't the one she was looking for, with her bare elbows and her powdered face; it was her old pimp. Then, suddenly, he started to rant and rage against Lantier. Oh, the dirty devil! The bastard! One or other of them would have to end up, flat on his back there, like a drawn rabbit. All the while, Lantier appeared not to know what was going on, and slowly ate his veal in sorrel sauce. A crowd was starting to gather. Finally, Virginie dragged Coupeau away and, as soon as he got round the corner of the street, his anger quickly subsided. Despite that, it was a glummer party that returned to the shop than the one that had set out from it.

Round the table, the guests were waiting with long faces. The roofer shook hands all round, flirting a bit with the ladies. Gervaise, slightly worried, was whispering and showing everyone to their place. Then, suddenly, she noticed that Mme Goujet hadn't come, which meant that a place would remain empty, next to Mme Lorilleux.

‘There are thirteen of us!' she said, choked with emotion and seeing in this yet another proof of the misfortune that she felt had been dogging her for some time.

The ladies, already seated, got up again looking uneasy and annoyed. Mme Putois offered to leave because, she said, you shouldn't play
around with such things; in any case, she wouldn't eat a thing: it wouldn't do her any good. But Boche sniggered, saying that he preferred thirteen to fourteen; everyone would get a larger share, that's all.

‘Wait!' Gervaise said. ‘We can fix it.'

She went outside and called to Old Bru, who just happened to be crossing the road. The aged workman came in, bent double, stiff-limbed and expressionless.

‘Sit down, my good fellow,' the laundress said. ‘You'll join us for dinner, won't you?'

He merely nodded: he didn't mind, it was all the same to him.

‘Well, he'll do as well as another,' she went on, lowering her voice. ‘He doesn't often get a decent meal. At least he'll have one more feast in his life. And we needn't have any shame about stuffing ourselves, now.'

Goujet was so moved that he had tears in his eyes. The others felt sorry for the old man and thought it was a good idea, adding that it would bring them all good luck. The only thing was that Mme Lorilleux didn't seem too pleased at being next to him; she moved away, looking with disgust at his calloused hands, and his patched and faded smock. Old Bru hung his head, chiefly embarrassed by the napkin which was covering the plate in front of him. Eventually, he took it off and put it carefully on the edge of the table, without thinking to lay it across his knees.

At last, Gervaise brought in the soup with vermicelli and the guests were just picking up their spoons when Virginie pointed out that Coupeau had vanished again. Perhaps he had gone back to Père Colombe's. But the company was starting to get angry. This time, it was too bad: they weren't running after him. He could stay in the street if he wasn't hungry. And, while the spoons were scraping against the bottom of the plates, Coupeau reappeared with two pots, one under each arm: a wallflower and a balsam. Everyone clapped, while he, gallantly, went and put the pots down beside Gervaise's glass, one on the right, the other on the left. Then he bent over and kissed her:

‘I'd forgotten you, duck… Even so, we love each other all the same, on a day like today.'

‘He's in a very nice mood this evening, Monsieur Coupeau,' Clémence whispered to Boche. ‘He's had as much as he needs, just enough to be pleasant.'

The boss's good behaviour improved everyone's spirits, which had been briefly put out. Gervaise relaxed and was smiling again. The guests finished up the soup; then the bottles were brought on and they drank the first glass of wine, four fingers' worth of it, unmixed, to wash down the vermicelli. Next door, they could hear the children arguing: Etienne, Nana, Pauline and little Victor Fauconnier. It had been decided that they would have a table for the four of them, with instructions to behave. Boss-eyed Augustine, who was looking after the stoves, had to eat off her knees.

‘Mummy, Mummy!' Nana suddenly yelled. ‘Augustine is letting her bread drop into the roaster!'

The laundress ran in and caught the girl burning her mouth as she tried to swallow a piece of bread covered in scorching-hot goose fat. She gave her a slap because she protested, the right little rascal, that it wasn't true.

After the beef, when the
blanquette de veau
appeared (in its salad bowl, because the household had no other dish large enough), a wave of laughter ran round the company.

‘Things are starting to get serious,' said Poisson, who normally spoke very little.

It was half-past seven. They had closed the shop door, to stop the whole street spying on them – especially the watchmaker opposite, whose eyes were as big as saucers and looked so greedy that they seemed to grab each mouthful from them – which quite put them off eating. The curtains hanging in front of the windows cast a great even sweep of white light, without a shadow, across the table, with its still symmetrically arranged place-settings, and its pots of flowers wrapped in their tall paper collars; and the pale light of this slowly falling dusk made the whole company appear distinguished. Virginie found the word: she looked round the room, all closed in with muslin hangings, and announced that it was ‘lovely'. When a cart passed by in the street, the glasses jumped around on the table and the ladies had to shout as loud as the men. But there was not much conversation: they were on
their best behaviour, just exchanging compliments. Only Coupeau was in his working clothes, because, as he said, one doesn't have to dress up for friends and, in any case, a smock is a workman's badge of honour.

The ladies, tightly pulled into their bodices, had their hair wound round their heads and smoothed down with pomade so that it reflected the light, while the men, sitting back from the table, puffed out their chests and spread their elbows, so as not to spatter their coats.

My goodness, what a hole they made in the veal! They may not have been talking much, but they were keeping their jaws occupied all the same. The salad bowl was hollowed out, a spoon stuck in the sauce, a good sauce, thick and yellow and trembling like a jelly. From within it, they fished out the pieces of veal; and there were still some left. The bowl was passed from hand to hand, faces leaning over it and searching for mushrooms. The great loaves of bread, standing behind the guests against the wall, seemed to melt away. Between mouthfuls you could hear the glasses thumping on the table. The sauce was a little too salted; it took four litres of wine to wash down that confounded
blanquette
, which slipped past your throat like a cream, then set fire to your stomach. And there was no time to draw breath before the pork, sitting on its dish surrounded by large round potatoes, arrived in a cloud of steam. There was a gasp. By golly, that was it! Something everybody liked! This would give them all a good appetite; and every eye cast a sidelong glance on the dish as they wiped their knives on a piece of bread, to be ready. Then, when they had each been served, they nudged one another with their elbows and chatted away with their mouths full. Wasn't that right? What a lovely rib of pork this was! Something soft, yet firm that you felt travelling the whole length of your gut, right down to the toes. And the potatoes: sheer delight! This course was not salted but, just for the sake of the potatoes, it needed a rinse every so often. They uncorked another four litres. The plates were wiped so clean that they didn't change them for the peas. Oh, vegetables didn't take up any room; you could eat them by the spoonful and not worry about them. Real gourmet food, ladies' stuff, so to speak. The best thing about the peas were the bits of bacon, grilled to perfection and smelling of horses' hooves. Two litres were enough.

‘Mummy, Mummy!' Nana shouted suddenly. ‘Augustine is putting her hands in my plate!'

‘You're getting on my nerves. Give her a slap!' Gervaise said, stuffing peas into herself.

In the room next door, at the children's table, Nana was playing the mistress of the house. She had sat down next to Victor and put her brother Etienne beside little Pauline; in that way, they became married couples having a party. To start with, Nana had served her guests very graciously, with the condescending manners of a grown-up; but now she gave in to her love of bacon pieces and kept them all for herself. Boss-eyed Augustine, slyly hovering around the children, took advantage of this to grab handfuls of the bacon from her, on the excuse of redistributing them. Nana was furious and bit her wrist.

‘Now, now!' Augustine muttered. ‘I'll tell your mother that after the veal you asked Victor to give you a kiss.'

However, order was restored: Gervaise and Mother Coupeau arrived to take the goose off the spit. At the big table, they were leaning back in their chairs, taking a breather. The men unbuttoned their waistcoats and the ladies wiped their faces in their napkins. The meal had been, so to speak, suspended; only one or two of the guests, their jaws chewing away, continued to swallow great mouthfuls of bread, without even being aware of it. They waited, letting the food settle down. Night had fallen gradually; a dirty, ash-grey light was gathering behind the curtains. When Augustine put down two lighted lamps, one at each end of the table, the disarray was revealed: the greasy plates and forks, the tablecloth stained with wine and covered in breadcrumbs. The smell that wafted around them was so strong that it stifled them. Meanwhile, noses were drawn towards the kitchen, and certain hot odours coming out of it.

‘Can I lend a hand?' asked Virginie.

She got up and went into the next room. One by one, all the other women followed and gathered round the roaster where they watched attentively as Gervaise and Mother Coupeau pulled at the bird. Then cries went up in which you could hear the children's shrill voices and joyful yells. There was a triumphal re-entry, Gervaise carrying the goose, with stiffly outstretched arms, her face sweating, but beaming
in a great, silent grin. Behind her, the women, laughing with her, while Nana, at the very end, her eyes excessively wide, stood on tiptoe to get a look. And when at last the goose was on the table, huge, golden brown, pouring with fat, they didn't set about it straight away. There was a moment of astonishment, of respectful surprise, that left them all speechless. They pointed the creature out to one another with winks and nods: hell and damnation! What a girl! Look at those thighs, that belly!

‘Here's one that didn't get fat just licking the wall!' Boche said.

So then they started to analyse the creature in detail. Gervaise gave them the facts: it was the finest bird she could find at the poulterer's on the Faubourg Poissonnière; it weighed twelve and a half pounds on the coal merchant's scale; they had used the same amount – a whole bushel – of coal to cook her; and she had given up three bowls of fat. Virginie interrupted to boast that she had seen the bird raw: you could have eaten her like that, her flesh was so pure and white, with a skin like a blonde, huh? All the men laughed with ribald greed. Lorilleux and Mme Lorilleux, however, turned up their noses, choked at seeing such a bird on Tip-Tap's table.

‘Well, we're not going to eat it as it is,' the laundress said eventually. ‘Who's going to cut? No, no, I can't! It's too big, it scares me.'

Coupeau volunteered. Heavens, it was quite simple! You grabbed hold of the limbs and pulled it apart; the pieces tasted just as good afterwards. But they protested and forcibly took the kitchen knife away from the roofer; when he carved, he left a proper shambles in the plate. It took them a moment to think of some well-meaning type; then, eventually, Mme Lerat said cajolingly:

‘Listen, Monsieur Poisson should do it… Definitely, Monsieur Poisson…'