orty sous were
not sufficient, he had sent the waiter to his wife with the bill, and to
say that he was under lock for the balance. She laughed and shrugged her
shoulders. Where was the harm if her good man amused himself a little
while? You must give men a long rein if you want to live peaceably at
home. Gracious powers! It was easy to understand. Coupeau still suffered
from his leg; besides, he was drawn in sometimes. He was obliged to do
as the others did, or else he would pass for a muff. It was really a
matter of no consequence. If he came home a little bit elevated, he went
to bed, and two hours afterwards he was all right again.

But Coupeau was becoming a continual drag on his wife. Most of his time
and few earnings were wasted in Colombe's "Assommoir." And Nana, between
her mother's toil and her father's shiftlessness, ran wild about the
streets.

Then one day Coupeau came in drunk. He almost smashed a pane of glass
with his shoulder as he missed the door. He was in a state of absolute
drunkenness, with his teeth clinched and his nose inflamed. And Gervaise
at once recognised the "vitriol" of the "Assommoir" in the poisoned
blood which made his skin quite pale. She tried to make fun and get him
to bed, as she had done on the days when the wine had made him merry,
but he pushed her aside, without opening his lips, and raised his fist
to her in passing as he went to bed of his own accord. Then she grew
cold. She thought of the men she knew--of her husband, of Goujet, of
Lantier--her heart breaking, despairing of ever being happy.

_IV.--Lantier's Return_

At this stage of Coupeau's affairs Virginie reappeared. She expressed
great joy in meeting her former foe, declaring that she retained no bad
feeling. She mentioned that Gervaise might be interested to know that
she had recently seen Lantier in the neighbourhood. Gervaise received
the news with apparent indifference. Then, on the evening of her _fete_
Lantier appeared and, strangely enough, it was the zinc-worker who,
heated with the festival drinking, welcomed him most warmly.

Gervaise, feeling meek and stupid, gazed at them one after the other. At
first when her husband pushed her old lover into the shop, she could not
believe it possible; the walls would fall in and crush the whole of
them. Then, seeing the two men seated together, and without so much as
the muslin curtains moving, she suddenly thought it the most natural
thing in the world.

On t