was standing, hands crossed over belly or held behind back. The drinking
groups crowded close to one another. Some groups, by the casks, had to
wait a quarter of an hour before being able to order their drinks of
Pere Colombe.

"Hallo! It's that aristocrat, Young Cassis!" cried My-Boots, bringing
his hand down roughly on Coupeau's shoulder. "A fine gentleman, who
smokes paper, and wears shirts! So we want to do the grand with our
sweetheart; we stand her little treats!"

"Shut up! Don't bother me!" replied Coupeau, greatly annoyed.

But the other added, with a chuckle, "Right you are! We know what's
what, my boy. Muffs are muffs, that's all!"

He turned his back after leering terribly as he looked at Gervaise. The
latter drew back, feeling rather frightened. The smoke from the pipes,
the strong odor of all those men, ascended in the air, already foul with
the fumes of alcohol; and she felt a choking sensation in her throat,
and coughed slightly.

"Oh, what a horrible thing it is to drink!" said she in a low voice.

And she related that formerly at Plassans she used to drink anisette
with her mother. But on one occasion it nearly killed her, and that
disgusted her with it; now, she could never touch any liqueurs.

"You see," added she, pointing to her glass, "I've eaten my plum; only I
must leave the juice, because it would make me ill."

For himself, Coupeau couldn't understand how anyone could drink glass
after glass of cheap brandy. A brandied plum occasionally could not
hurt, but as for cheap brandy, absinthe and the other strong stuff, no,
not for him, no matter how much his comrades teased him about it.
He stayed out on the sidewalk when his friends went into low
establishments. Coupeau's father had smashed his head open one day when
he fell from the eaves of No. 25 on Rue Coquenard. He was drunk. This
memory keep Coupeau's entire family from the drink. Every time Coupeau
passed that spot, he thought he would rather lick up water from the
gutter than accept a free drink in a bar. He would always say: "In our
trade, you have to have steady legs."

Gervaise had taken up her basket again. She did not rise from her seat
however, but held the basket on her knees, with a vacant look in her
eyes and lost in thought, as though the young workman's words had
awakened within her far-off thoughts of existence. And she said again,
slowly, and without any apparent change of manner:

"_Mon Dieu_! I'm not ambitious; I