the easy-chair the Lorilleuxs had
brought, with his right leg stretched out on a stool. This joker,
who used to laugh at the people who slipped down on frosty days, felt
greatly put out by his accident. He had no philosophy. He had spent
those two months in bed, in cursing, and in worrying the people about
him. It was not an existence, really, to pass one's life on one's back,
with a pin all tied up and as stiff as a sausage. Ah, he certainly knew
the ceiling by heart; there was a crack, at the corner of the alcove,
that he could have drawn with his eyes shut. Then, when he was made
comfortable in the easy-chair, it was another grievance. Would he be
fixed there for long, just like a mummy?

Nobody ever passed along the street, so it was no fun to watch. Besides,
it stank of bleach water all day. No, he was just growing old; he'd have
given ten years of his life just to go see how the fortifications were
getting along. He kept going on about his fate. It wasn't right, what
had happened to him. A good worker like him, not a loafer or a drunkard,
he could have understood in that case.

"Papa Coupeau," said he, "broke his neck one day that he'd been boozing.
I can't say that it was deserved, but anyhow it was explainable. I had
had nothing since my lunch, was perfectly quiet, and without a drop of
liquor in my body; and yet I came to grief just because I wanted to turn
round to smile at Nana! Don't you think that's too much? If there is a
providence, it certainly arranges things in a very peculiar manner. I,
for one, shall never believe in it."

And when at last he was able to use his legs, he retained a secret
grudge against work. It was a handicraft full of misfortunes to pass
one's days, like the cats, on the roofs of the houses. The employers
were no fools! They sent you to your death--being far too cowardly to
venture themselves on a ladder--and stopped at home in safety at their
fire-sides without caring a hang for the poorer classes; and he got to
the point of saying that everyone ought to fix the zinc himself on his
own house. _Mon Dieu_! It was the only fair way to do it! If you don't
want the rain to come in, do the work yourself. He regretted he
hadn't learned another trade, something more pleasant, something less
dangerous, maybe cabinetmaking. It was really his father's fault. Lots
of fathers have the foolish habit of shoving their sons into their own
line of work.

For another two months Coupeau hobbled