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Updated: June 8, 2025
Coupeau, a zinc-worker who occupied a ten franc room on the top floor, having seen the door unlocked, had walked in as friends will do. "You know," he continued, "I'm now working over there in the hospital. What beautiful May weather, isn't it? The air is rather sharp this morning." And he looked at Gervaise's face, red with weeping.
Just listen to me, both of you!" At this Nana turned round in a fury, whilst Gervaise had to spread out her arms to protect the things which Coupeau talked of tearing. The child looked her father straight in the face; then, forgetting the modest bearing inculcated by her confessor, she said, clinching her teeth: "Pig!" As soon as the zinc-worker had had his soup he went off to sleep.
The zinc-worker, sure enough, lacked education; but the hatter had too much, or at least he had education in the same way that dirty people have a white shirt, with uncleanliness underneath it. One night, she dreamt that she was on the edge of a wall; Coupeau was knocking her into it with a blow of his fist, whilst Lantier was tickling her in the ribs to make her fall quicker. Well!
He came when the zinc-worker was there, inquiring after his health the moment he passed the door and affecting to have solely called on his account. Then clean-shaven, his hair nicely combed and always wearing his overcoat, he would take a seat by the window and converse politely with the manners of an educated man. It was thus that the Coupeaus learnt little by little the details of his life.
Opposite to him, Gervaise, in a frock of black Orleans stuff, and bareheaded, was finishing her plum, which she held by the stalk between the tips of her fingers. The zinc-worker, having lit his cigarette, placed his elbows on the table, and said, "Then it's to be 'No, is it?" "Oh, most decidedly 'No, Monsieur Coupeau," she replied.
It shines full on your head!" The zinc-worker caught hold of the ironing-table to save himself from falling. It was the first time he had been so drunk. Until then he had sometimes come home slightly tipsy, but nothing more. This time, however, he had a black eye, just a friendly slap he had run up against in a playful moment.
She smiled faintly; then she murmured: "It's a girl." "Right!" the zinc-worker replied, joking so as to enliven her, "I ordered a girl! Well, now I've got what I wanted! You do everything I wish!" And, taking the child up in his arms, he continued: "Let's have a look at you, miss! You've got a very black little mug. It'll get whiter, never fear.
She was already raising her head to tell the zinc-worker, when the young woman closed her mouth by an energetic gesture, and, in a low voice, so as not to be heard up there, she told her of her fear: she was afraid, by showing herself suddenly, of giving her husband a shock which might make him lose his balance. During the four years, she had only been once to fetch him at his work.
"She's a sister now nothing but a sister," murmured Lantier. From that evening Lantier frequently called at the Rue de la Goutte d'Or. He came when the zinc-worker was there, inquiring after his health the moment he passed the door, and affecting to have solely called for him.
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