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Updated: May 26, 2025
It was scarcely eleven o'clock. On the Boulevard de la Chapelle, and in the entire neighborhood of the Goutte-d'Or, the fortnight's pay, which fell due on that Saturday, produced an enormous drunken uproar. Madame Lorilleux was waiting beneath a gas-lamp about twenty paces from the Silver Windmill.
The heat in the street is like a slap on the face. You'd think someone was throwing fire at you." Everyone agreed that they knew the storm was coming. It was in the air. Monsieur Madinier said that he had seen it as they were coming out of the church. Lorilleux mentioned that his corns were aching and he hadn't been able to sleep since three in the morning. A storm was due.
The Lorilleux, without going and eating consecrated bread in church, plumed themselves on their religious sentiments. "It shall be next Sunday, if you like," said the chainmaker. And Gervaise having consented by a nod, everyone kissed her and told her to take good care of herself. They also wished the baby good-bye.
I found a starving cat in the street the other night and took it in. I can take in your mother too. She shall want for nothing. Good heavens, what people!" Mme Lorilleux snatched up a saucepan. "Clear out," she said hoarsely. "I will never give one sou no, not one sou toward her keep. I understand you! You will make my mother work for you like a slave and put my five francs in your pocket!
During the following days Coupeau sought to get Gervaise to call some evening on his sister in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or; but the young woman, who was very timid, showed a great dread of this visit to the Lorilleux. She knew that Coupeau had a lingering fear of that household, even though he certainly wasn't dependent on his sister, who wasn't even the oldest of the family.
The other two women did not seem at all surprised. "Of course!" murmured Madame Lorilleux, "it probably began the very first night. But as it pleases Coupeau, we've no business to interfere. All the same, it's not very respectable." "As for me," declared Madame Lerat through clenched teeth, "if I'd been there, I'd have thrown a fright into them. I'd have shouted something, anything.
And he resumed his minute task, his face again in the reflection of a glass globe full of green-colored water, through which the lamp shed a circle of bright light over his work. "Take the chairs!" called out Madame Lorilleux in her turn. "It's that lady, isn't it? Very well, very well!"
One of his sisters, a widow of thirty-six, worked in a flower shop and lived in the Batignolles section, on Rue des Moines. The other sister was thirty years old now. She had married a deadpan chainmaker named Lorilleux. That's where he was going now. They lived in a big tenement on the left side. He ate with them in the evenings; it saved a bit for all of them.
Gervaise, frightened, squeezed up against the door of the hotel. Old Bazouge, an undertaker's helper of some fifty years of age, had his black trousers all stained with mud, his black cape hooked on to his shoulder, and his black feather hat knocked in by some tumble he had taken. "Don't be afraid, he's harmless," continued Lorilleux.
And the family, in spite of itself, gradually fell into the ordinary mode of life, and lost some portion of its respect. "You must have a mouthful with us," said Gervaise to Madame Lerat and Madame Lorilleux, when they returned. "We're too sad; we must keep together." They laid the cloth on the work-table. Each one, on seeing the plates, thought of the feastings they had had on it.
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