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The water lay on the uneven sidewalk in pools, reflecting all the lights from the Assommoir. Finally she determined on a bold step: she opened the door and deliberately walked up to her husband. After all, why should she not ask him why he had not kept his promise of taking her to the circus? At any rate, she would not stay out there in the rain and melt away like a cake of soap.
They deliberately lighted their pipes and then with rounded shoulders slouched along, dragging their feet after them. Gervaise mechanically watched a group of three, one man much taller than the other two, who seemed to be hesitating as to what they should do next. Finally they came directly to the Assommoir. "I know them," said Coupeau, "or rather I know the tall one.
No! This life could not last. She no longer cared for her father. He had thoroughly disgusted her, and now her mother drank too. Gervaise went to the Assommoir nightly for her husband, she said and remained there. When Nana saw her mother sometimes as she passed the window, seated among a crowd of men, she turned livid with rage, because youth has little patience with the vice of intemperance.
I had read a few chapters of the "Assommoir," as it appeared in La République des Lettres; I had cried, "ridiculous, abominable," only because it is characteristic of me to instantly form an opinion and assume at once a violent attitude. But now I bought up the back numbers of the Voltaire, and I looked forward to the weekly exposition of the new faith with febrile eagerness.
M. Emile Zola had not written his 'Assommoir. Count Bismarck had only just brought to a successful termination the first part of his trimachy; Sadowa and Sedan were yet unfought. Garibaldi had won Naples, and Cavour had said, "If we did for ourselves what we are doing for Italy, we should be great scoundrels;" but Garibaldi had not yet failed at Mentana, nor had Austria ceded Venice.
In translation, only a strictly classical language should be used; no word of slang, or even word of modern origin should be employed; the translator's aim should be never to dissipate the illusion of an exotic. If I were translating the "Assommoir" into English, I should strive after a strong, flexible, but colourless language, something what shall I say? a sort of a modern Addison.
"I promised my wife to go to work today, and I leave you with the greatest reluctance." The others protested and entreated, but he seemed so decided that they all accompanied him to the Assommoir to get his tools. He pulled out the bag from under the bench and laid it at his feet while they all took another drink. The clock struck one, and Coupeau kicked his bag under the bench again.
Unless some other courageous man had arisen to tear the veil away from before human life, such as it is in so-called civilised communities, and show society its own self in all its rottenness, foulness, and hypocrisy so that on more than one occasion, shrinking guiltily from its own image, it has denounced the plain unvarnished truth as libel there would have been no 'Nana' and no 'Pot Bouille, no 'Assommoir, and no 'Germinal. And no 'La Terre. 'La Debacle, and 'Lourdes, and 'Rome, 'Paris, and 'Fecondite, and all the other books that have flowed from Emile Zola's busy pen would have remained unwritten.
Returning to the counter, he renewed his attack on Father Colombe, whom he accused of adulterating his liquors. It was now bright daylight, and the proprietor of the Assommoir began to extinguish the lights. Coupeau made excuses for his brother-in-law, who, he said, could never drink; it was not his fault, poor fellow!
He almost smashed a pane of glass with his shoulder as he missed the door. He was in a state of absolute drunkenness, with his teeth clinched and his nose inflamed. And Gervaise at once recognised the "vitriol" of the "Assommoir" in the poisoned blood which made his skin quite pale.
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