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Updated: May 8, 2025
And as Lantier drew her toward his door Nana's face appeared for a moment at the window which lit her little cabinet. The mother did not see the child, who stood in her nightdress, pale with sleep. She looked at her father as he lay and then watched her mother disappear in Lantier's room. She was perfectly grave, but in her eyes burned the sensual curiosity of premature vice.
The Lorilleuxs, delighted at the idea that she would lose her shop, declared that Lantier's idea was an excellent one. They gave Coupeau a push and repeated it to him. Gervaise seemed to be disposed to yield, and then Virginie spoke in the blandest of tones. "I will take the lease off your hands," she said, "and will arrange the back rent with your landlord." "No, no!
"Clearly so," replied the young woman, leaning back with her head against the wall and gazing into the air. However, Florent now saw Lacaille, the costermonger, and Alexandre, the porter, Claude Lantier's friend, come into the little room. In the past these two had long remained at the other table in the sanctum; they did not belong to the same class as the others.
Gervaise exchanged a look with Mme Boche and Virginie. What did this mean? As the women watched them the two men began to walk up and down in front of the shop. They were talking earnestly. Coupeau seemed to be urging something, and Lantier refusing. Finally Coupeau took Lantier's arm and almost dragged him toward the shop. "I tell you, you must!" he cried.
Gervaise's and Lantier's trunk, wide open, in one corner, displayed its emptiness, and a man's old hat right at the bottom almost buried beneath some dirty shirts and socks; whilst, against the walls, above the articles of furniture, hung a shawl full of holes, and a pair of trousers begrimed with mud, the last rags which the dealers in second-hand clothes declined to buy.
One evening the dealer from whom she had purchased Lantier's furniture made a scene in the street. Scenes like this upset her at the time, but were soon forgotten and never spoiled her appetite. What a nerve to bother her like that when she had no money to pay. They were all robbers anyway and it served them right to have to wait.
At first Gervaise was very uncomfortable; she thought every time Virginie opened her lips that she would hear Lantier's name. Lantier was in her mind all the time she was with Mme Poisson. It was a stupid thing to do, after all, for what on earth did she care what had become of Lantier or of Adele? But she was, nonetheless, curious to know something about them.
On evenings when Coupeau became bored being alone with his wife up in their tiny hole under the roof, he would go down for Lantier and invite him up. He thought their dump was too dreary without Lantier's company so he patched things up between Gervaise and Lantier whenever they had a falling out. In the midst of all this Lantier put on the most consequential airs.
Then Gervaise, tortured by Lantier's presence, could not restrain her tears; it seemed to her that the song was relating her own suffering, that she was the lost child, abandoned by its mother, and whom God was going to take under his protection. Clemence was now very drunk and she burst into loud sobbing and placed her head down onto the table in an effort to smother her gasps.
Soon Lantier's visits to the Coupeaus were accepted as perfectly natural; he was in the good graces of everyone along the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. Goujet was the only one who remained cold. If he happened to be there when Lantier arrived, he would leave at once as he didn't want to be obliged to be friendly to him.
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