L'Assommoir

"Don't scold, wife," said Coupeau; "we have not been drinking, you see; we can walk perfectly straight." And he went on to say how they had met each other quite by accident in t...

Gervaise had waited and watched for Lantier until two in the morning. Then chilled and shivering, she turned from the window and threw herself across the bed, where she fell int...

Coupeau, who was smoking outside, had seen her as she crossed the street with her linen and compelled her to enter. Her huge basket was on the floor, back of the little table wh...

The poor woman suffered much, and the depression of her spirits was naturally very great. It must be confessed that there was nothing very gay in the aspect of the room where sh...

The new lodging of the Coupeaus was next that of the Bijards. Almost opposite their door was a closet under the stairs which went up to the roof--a mere hole without light or ve...

Nana was growing fast--fair, fresh and dimpled--her skin velvety, like a peach, and eyes so bright that men often asked her if they might not light their pipes at them. Her mass...

Four years of hard and incessant toil followed this day. Gervaise and Coupeau were wise and prudent. They worked hard and took a little relaxation on Sundays. The wife worked tw...

The nineteenth of June was the clearstarcher's birthday. There was always an excuse for a fete in the Coupeau mansion; saints were invented to serve as a pretext for idleness an...

Gervaise did not care for any great wedding. Why should they spend their money so foolishly? Then, too, she felt a little ashamed and did not care to parade their marriage befor...

The weather was intensely cold about the middle of January. Gervaise had not been able to pay her rent, due on the first. She had little or no work and consequently no food to s...

The Boche couple, on the first of April, moved also and took the loge of the great house in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. Things had turned out very nicely for Gervaise who, having...

One autumnal afternoon Gervaise, who had been to carry a basket of clothes home to a customer who lived a good way off, found herself in La Rue des Poissonniers just as it was g...

The next day Gervaise received ten francs from her son Etienne, who had steady work. He occasionally sent her a little money, knowing that there was none too much of that commod...