The Drinking Den (61 page)

‘He's sleeping,' the head doctor murmured.

And he pointed out the man's face to the other two. Coupeau's eyes were closed and there were little nervous tics running all over his face. He was still more frightful like this, flat on his back, with his jaw jutting out and wearing the twisted mask of a dead man having nightmares. But the doctors, noticing the feet, went to examine them with great interest. The feet were still dancing. Even though Coupeau was asleep, his feet danced. Yes, the boss could snore away, it was none of their business, they went on with what they were doing, without slowing or speeding up at all. They were real mechanical feet, feet having fun while they could.

Meanwhile, when she saw the doctors put their hands on her man's chest, Gervaise wanted to feel him herself. She went up quietly and put a hand on his shoulder, leaving it there for a minute. My God! Whatever was going on in there? The shivering went right to the depths of his flesh; even the bones must be throbbing. Shudders and undulations came up from far away and ran along like a river under the skin. When she pressed on it a little, she felt the agonized cries from deep inside. With the naked eye, one could see only the little waves making furrows, as on the surface of a whirlpool; but in the depths, there must be a dreadful commotion. What a frightful business – like a mole at work! It was the vitriol from the drinking den bashing away in there with its pickaxe. The whole body was permeated with it; and, by God, the task eventually had to be finished, shattering
Coupeau to pieces and carrying him away in a continuous, all-over shuddering of his whole body.

The doctors left. After an hour, Gervaise, who had stayed behind with the junior doctor, said again quietly:

‘Monsieur, Monsieur, he's dead…'

But, looking at Coupeau's feet, the doctor shook his head. The naked feet, outside the bed, were not very clean, and the toenails were long; and they were still jumping. More hours passed. Suddenly, the feet stiffened and remained motionless. At this, the junior doctor turned to Gervaise and said:

‘That's it.'

Only death had stopped those feet.

When Gervaise got back to the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, she found a whole gaggle of women at the Boches' chattering away loudly nineteen to the dozen. She thought they were waiting for her to arrive with news, as they had on the other days.

‘He's snuffed it,' she said as she quietly pushed open the door, her face haggard and bewildered.

They were not listening. The whole house was in turmoil. Something incredible! Poisson had found his wife with Lantier. No one was quite sure of the facts, because everyone told the story in a different way. What it came down to was that Poisson had surprised them just when they were not expecting it. There were even supplementary details that the ladies exchanged through pinched lips. The sight had, naturally, driven Poisson to quite uncharacteristic fury. A real tiger, he was! This man of few words, who seemed to go around with a pole up his backside, had begun to roar and leap around. Then, it all went quiet. Lantier must have explained it all to the husband. Too bad, it couldn't go on. And Boche announced that the daughter of the people who owned the restaurant next door was definitely taking on the premises to set up a tripe shop there. That sly devil the hatter loved tripe.

Gervaise, seeing Mme Lorilleux and Mme Lerat come in, said in an expressionless voice:

‘He's snuffed it. My God, after four days leaping and yelling!'

So there was nothing the two sisters could do, except take out their handkerchiefs. Their brother had had plenty of faults, but he was their
brother, after all. Boche shrugged his shoulders, saying loudly enough for everyone to hear:

‘Huh! That's one drunkard less!'

From that day onwards, since Gervaise often lost her head, one of the sights of the house was to watch her doing Coupeau. They no longer needed to ask for it, she would put on the performance for free, her hands and feet trembling, while she let out little spontaneous cries. No doubt, she had picked this up in Sainte-Anne, spending too long watching her husband. But she had no luck: she didn't die of it as he had. With her, it was nothing more than the grimacing of a monkey that had escaped from somewhere, and urchins would throw cabbage stalks at her in the street.

She hung on like this for months. She slipped further and further down, accepting every degradation and starving a little every day. As soon as she had four
sous
, she would drink and start hammering the walls. People would give her all the dirty jobs to do. One evening, they bet that she would not eat something disgusting, and she did, just for ten
sous
. M. Marescot had decided to evict her from the room on the sixth floor; but as Old Bru had just been found dead in his hole under the staircase, the landlord was willing to let her have that little nook. Now she was in Old Bru's cubby-hole. It was there, on some old straw, that she starved, her belly empty and her bones chilled to the marrow. The earth, it seemed, was rejecting her. She lost her wits and didn't even think to throw herself on to the cobbles from the sixth floor, to have done with it. Death had to take her little by little, piece by piece, dragging her right to the end of the awful life she had made for herself. No one even knew exactly what she died of. There was talk of cold and warmth, but the fact was that she died of poverty, of the filth and weariness of her ruined life. She died of letting herself go, as the Lorilleux said. One morning, as there was a bad smell in the corridor, people remembered that they hadn't seen her for two days, and discovered her already decaying in her cubby-hole.

It was Old Bazouge himself who came, with his pauper's box under his arm, to parcel her up. He was still pretty drunk that day, but a good fellow even so, and merry as a lark. When he recognized the
customer he had to deal with, he delivered himself of some philosophical reflections as he got his things ready.

‘Everyone goes there in the end… No need to push and shove, there's room for us all… And it's silly to be in a hurry, because you only get there more slowly… As far as I'm concerned, I want only to give satisfaction. Some want it, others not. Now, let's try this and see how it goes… Here's one who didn't want to, then she did. So she had to wait. And now, it's over, and she's got what she wanted! Hey-ho, off we go!'

And when he picked Gervaise up in his large hands, he had a moment of tenderness for her, gently lifting this woman who had had such a fancy for him for so long. So, laying her down at the bottom of the coffin with fatherly concern, he mumbled, between two hiccups:

‘Now listen here: it's me, Bibi-la-Gaîeté, called the ladies' consolation. There, you're happy now. So sleep, my sweet one.'