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Updated: October 20, 2025
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? the style of a modern Addison.
If he came home a little bit elevated, he went to bed, and two hours afterwards he was all right again. But Coupeau was becoming a continual drag on his wife. Most of his time and few earnings were wasted in Colombe's "Assommoir." And Nana, between her mother's toil and her father's shiftlessness, ran wild about the streets. Then one day Coupeau came in drunk.
Three weeks later, about half-past eleven one fine sunny morning, Gervaise and Coupeau, the tinworker, were eating some brandied fruit at the Assommoir. Coupeau, who was smoking outside, had seen her as she crossed the street with her linen and compelled her to enter. Her huge basket was on the floor, back of the little table where they sat.
Well, men so useless as he should be thrown as quickly as possible into the hole, and the polka of deliverance be danced over them. VI. The Final Ruin Presently, Gervaise took to fuddling with her husband at the "Assommoir." She sank lower than ever; she missed going to her work oftener, gossipped for whole days, and became as soft as a rag whenever she had any work to do.
But Coupeau exclaimed at this. One could not be married without having a spread, and at length he got her to consent. They formed a party of twelve, including the Lorilleux and some of Coupeau's comrades who frequented the "Assommoir." The day was excessively hot. At the mayor's they had to wait their turn and thus were late at the church.
Before the Assommoir stood a crowd waiting their turn and room within, and as a respectable tradesman passed he said with a shake of the head that many a man would be drunk that night in Paris. And over this scene hung the dark sky, low and clouded.
Coupeau reeled in, breaking a square of glass with his shoulder as he missed the doorway. He was not tipsy but drunk, with his teeth set firmly together and a pinched expression about the nose. And Gervaise instantly knew that it was the liquor of the Assommoir which had vitiated his blood. She tried to smile and coaxed him to go to bed. But he shook her off and as he passed her gave her a blow.
The clearstarcher was very pale and so much agitated that she could hardly stand. Virginie knew at once and, leaning over her, looked in at the restaurant and saw Lantier quietly dining. "I turned my foot," said Gervaise when she could speak. Finally at the Assommoir they found Coupeau and Poisson. They were standing in the center of an excited crowd.
True it is that we still continued to subscribe to his library, true it is that we still continued to go to church, true it is that we turned our faces away when Mdlle. de Maupin or the Assommoir was spoken of; to all appearance we were as good and chaste as even Mudie might wish us; and no doubt he looked back upon his forty years of effort with pride; no doubt he beat his manly breast and said, "I have scorched the evil one out of the villa; the head of the serpent is crushed for evermore;" but lo, suddenly, with all the horror of an earthquake, the slumbrous law courts awoke, and the burning cinders of fornication and the blinding and suffocating smoke of adultery were poured upon and hung over the land.
It was the liquor of the Assommoir, working like a mole through muscle, nerves, bone and marrow. The doctors went away, and Gervaise, at the end of another hour, said to the young surgeon: "He is dead, sir." But the surgeon, looking at the feet, said: "No," for those poor feet were still dancing. Another hour, and yet another passed.
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