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When she entered their room in the day-time, she often found Lalie tied to the foot of the iron bedstead; it was an idea of the locksmith's, before going out, to tie her legs and her body with some stout rope, without anyone being able to find out why a mere whim of a brain diseased by drink, just for the sake, no doubt, of maintaining his tyranny over the child when he was no longer there.
Mon Dieu! what misery! What woe! Stones would have wept. Lalie was bare, with only the remnants of a camisole on her shoulders by way of chemise; yes, bare, with the grievous, bleeding nudity of a martyr. She had no flesh left; her bones seemed to protrude through the skin. From her ribs to her thighs there extended a number of violet stripes the marks of the whip forcibly imprinted on her.
Several times she had found Lalie tied to the foot of the bedstead an idea that had entered her father's brain, no one knew why, a whim of his disordered brain, disordered by liquor, which probably arose from his wish to tyrannize over the child, even when he was no longer there. Lalie sometimes was left there all day and once all night.
He did not even raise himself but lay sprawling on his back, his head buried in his pillow, making the big whip crack about the room with the noise of a postillion starting his horses. Then, lowering his arm he lashed Lalie in the middle of the body, encircling her with the whip and unwinding it again as though she were a top.
When he saw Lalie lying down he walked to the corner and took up the long whip, from which he slowly unwound the lash. "This is a good joke!" he said. "The idea of your daring to go to bed at this hour. Come, up with you!" He snapped the whip over the bed, and the child murmured softly: "Do not strike me, Papa. I am sure you will be sorry if you do. Do not strike me!" "Up with you!" he cried.
Then, besides that, all her other thoughts of misfortune pressed upon her, and almost caused her head to split. As she passed she poked her nose in at the Bijards' and beheld Lalie dead, with a look of contentment on her face at having at last been laid out and slumbering forever. Ah, well! children were luckier than grown-up people.
He heated sous in the frying pan, then placed them on a corner of the mantle-piece; and he called Lalie, and told her to fetch a couple of pounds of bread. The child took up the sous unsuspectingly, uttered a cry and threw them on the ground, shaking her burnt hand. Then he flew into a fury. Who had saddled him with such a piece of carrion? She lost the money now!
No, one could never imagine the ferocious ideas which may sprout from the depths of a drunkard's brain. One afternoon, for instance, Lalie having made everything tidy was playing with the children. The window was open, there was a draught, and the wind blowing along the passage gently shook the door. "It's Monsieur Hardy," the child was saying. "Come in, Monsieur Hardy.
I could hear you dancing about from downstairs. Now then, come here! Nearer and full face. I don't want to sniff you from behind. Am I touching you that you tremble like a mass of giblets? Take my shoes off." Lalie turned quite pale again and, amazed at not receiving her usual drubbing, took his shoes off. He had seated himself on the edge of the bed.
And Gervaise took this slender creature for example, whose eyes alone told the story of her misery and hardships, for in the Coupeau family the vitriol of the Assommoir was doing its work of destruction. Gervaise had seen a whip. Gervaise had learned to dread it, and this dread inspired her with tenderest pity for Lalie.
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