by Emile Zola
‘Whatever gave her that idea!’ Mme Boche went on, in a lower voice. ‘She’s never even washed a pair of sleeves… She’s a real lazybones, believe me! A dressmaker who doesn’t even sew the buttons on her own boots! And her sister, the polisher, is just the same – that slut Adèle, who misses work two days out of three. No one knows their father or mother and no one knows what they live on – though I could tell you a thing or two about that… What’s she rubbing away at over there? Huh? A skirt? It’s in a right state, it must have some pretty tales to tell, that skirt!’
What Mme Boche wanted, of course, was to please Gervaise. The truth was that she often took coffee with Adèle and Virginie, when the two girls had some money. Gervaise said nothing, but got on with her work as fast as she could, her hands burning. She had just done her blueing, in a little tub on a three-legged stand. She soaked her white linens, shook them around a bit in the tinted water, which had an almost crimson sheen, and, after wringing them lightly, hung them on the upper wooden bars. All the time that she was doing this, she made a point of keeping her back towards Virginie, but she could hear her sniggering and feel her sideways glances on her back. Virginie seemed to have come there solely to provoke her. For one moment, Gervaise turned round and they stared at one another.
‘Don’t take no notice of her,’ Mme Boche murmured. ‘No point in you tearing each other’s hair out… And I tell you, there’s nothing in it! She’s not the one!’
At that moment, while the young woman was hanging up her last garment to dry, there was laughter at the wash-house door.
‘Two kids asking for their mum!’ Charles shouted.
All the women craned their necks. Gervaise recognized Claude and Etienne. As soon as they saw her, they ran over, through the puddles of water, thumping the heels of their unlaced shoes against the stone floor. Claude, the elder, was holding his little brother’s hand. As they went past, the women gave exclamations of affection, seeing that they were a bit scared, but smiling all the same. They came to a stop in front of their mother, still holding on to one another, their blond heads looking up at her.
‘Was it Dad that sent you?’ Gervaise asked.
But as she bent to tie up Etienne’s shoes, she saw that dangling from one finger Claude had the key to the room with its numbered copper tag.
‘What’s this? You’ve got the key?’ she said, in astonishment. ‘Why’s that?’
The child glanced down, as if remembering the key, which he seemed to have forgotten, was on his finger, and said in a loud, clear voice:
‘Daddy’s gone.’
‘He went to buy something for dinner. Did he tell you to come here for me?’
Claude looked at his brother and hesitated, not knowing what to say; then, without pausing to draw breath, he continued:
‘Daddy’s gone, he jumped out of bed, put all his things in the trunk, took the trunk down to a cab… He’s gone.’
Gervaise, who was squatting down, got up slowly, bringing her hands to her ashen cheeks and temples, as if she could hear her head breaking open. She could only think of one thing to say and repeated it twenty times in the same tone of voice: ‘Oh, my God!… Oh, my God!… Oh, my God!’
Mme Boche, on the other hand was questioning the child in her turn, delighted to find herself involved in this affair.
‘Now, come on, sweetie, tell us all about it… He shut the door and told you to bring the key, did he?’
And, lowering her voice, whispered in Claude’s ear: ‘Was there a lady in the cab?’
The child seemed confused again. He went back to his story, repeating with an air of triumph: ‘He jumped out of bed, put all his things in the trunk, and he left…’
At this, Mme Boche let him go, so he dragged his brother over to the tap and they started to play with it, making the water run.
Gervaise was beyond tears. She felt stifled, still holding her head between her hands and half sitting on the tub. Brief shudders ran through her and from time to time she gave a deep sigh, at the same time pressing her fists harder against her eyes, as though seeking oblivion in the blackness of abandonment – a pit of darkness into which she felt she was falling.
‘Come, come now, sweetie, what the hell?’ Mme Boche murmured.
‘If only you knew, if only you knew!’ she said at last, in a quiet voice.
‘He sent me this morning to the pawnshop with my shawl and my blouses, to get the money to pay for that cab…’
She wept. The memory of her trip to the pawnbroker’s had reminded her of a particular incident from the morning and brought the sobs welling up from her throat where they had been stifling her. That trip was an abomination, the pain at the centre of her despair. The tears were running down her chin, already wet from her hands, but she didn’t think to wipe it with her handkerchief.
‘Hush, hush! Be sensible, now, people are looking,’ Mme Boche said, fussing about her. ‘I don’t know how you can get so upset over a man! Are you still in love with him, then, you poor thing? A moment ago, you didn’t have a good word for him, now look at you, weeping over him, breaking your heart… My God, what fools we are!’
Then she adopted a maternal tone.
‘A pretty little thing like you! If you’ll let me… I can tell you everything now, I suppose. You remember how I came by your window earlier? Well, I had my suspicions then… You see, last night, when Adèle came back, I heard a man’s footsteps alongside hers. I wanted to know what was going on, so I had a look up the stairs. The party in question was on the second floor by that time, but I definitely recognized Monsieur Lantier’s coat. Boche, who was on the lookout this morning, saw him coming down, without turning a hair… That was with Adèle, you understand. Virginie’s got a gentleman now, that she goes to visit two or three times a week. Even so, it’s not decent, because they’ve only got the one room and an alcove, so I don’t know quite where Virginie can have slept.’
She paused for a moment, turned round, then continued in her coarse, gruff voice: ‘She’s laughing to see you cry, that heartless bitch over there. I bet whatever you like that washing of hers is just an excuse… She packed the other two off and came down here to see how you were taking it.’
Gervaise removed her hands and looked. Seeing Virginie in front of her, standing amid with three or four other women, whispering and staring at her, she was seized with an insane fury. Holding her arms in front of her and searching about the floor, she turned round, trembling in every limb, took a few steps, found a full bucket, grasped it in both hands and hurled the contents at the bigger woman.
‘The old hag!’ Virginie shouted.
She had leaped back and only her button boots were splashed. But the wash–house, which had been engrossed for a time by the young woman’s tears, hurried forward to watch the coming battle. Some women, still finishing their sandwiches, climbed up on the tubs, while others, their hands covered in soap, ran forward and formed a circle.
‘Oh, the old hag!’ Virginie repeated. ‘What’s got into the loopy bitch?’
Gervaise had halted, her chin thrust forward and her face contorted. She said nothing in reply, not having acquired the Parisian gift of the gab. The other woman went on:
‘Just look at her! Got tired of the country, where soldiers used to make a mattress of her before she was even twelve, and left a leg behind there… Rotted away with the clap, that leg did –’
There was a burst of laughter. Virginie, flushed with success, took a couple of steps forward, drew herself up to her full height and shouted more loudly still:
‘Yeah! Come over here and I’ll take care of you! I tell you this, you’d have done better not to come bothering us… What does she mean to me, the cow? I’d have given her backside a good tanning if she’d splashed me, I can tell you. Perhaps she’d like to tell us what I’ve done to her… Come on, you trollop, what’ve I done to you?’
‘Don’t go on like that,’ Gervaise stuttered. ‘You know very well… My husband was seen, last night…
And shut your mouth or, I promise, I’ll wring your neck.’
‘Her husband! Huh, that’s a good one! The lady’s husband! As though anyone had a husband with that leg of hers! It’s not my fault he’s left you. I don’t suppose you think I stole him. Do you want to frisk me now? If you really want to know, he was pissed off with you, poor man. He was too good for you… I hope he was wearing his collar at least? Anyone found this lady’s husband? There’s a reward out–’
There was another burst of laughter. Gervaise simply muttered, almost in a whisper: ‘You know very well, you know very well… It was that sister of yours, I’ll strangle her –’
‘Yes, you take it up with my sister,’ Virginie said, sneering. ‘So, it’s my sister, is it? Well, it could be: she’s got a damn sight more style than you… But what business is it of mine? Can’t one do one’s washing in peace around here nowadays? Leave me alone, you hear, I’ve had enough of this.’
But she was the one who started up again, after five or six thumps with the beetle, carried away, intoxicated with insults, stopping and starting three times:
‘Well, if you really want to know, yes, it was my sister. Now are you happy? They’re crazy about one another. You should see them necking and spooning. So he’s left you with your bastards! A pretty pair of kids, with scabs all over their faces. One belongs to a gendarme, doesn’t it? And you killed off three others, because you didn’t want to be overloaded when you came up to Paris… Your Lantier told us all about it. Oh, he’s got some fine stories; he’s sick to death of your old carcass.’
‘Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!’ Gervaise screamed, beside herself, trembling wildly.
She turned round, looking on the ground again and, only finding the small tub, grabbed it by its stand and hurled the blueing water into Virginie’s face.
‘The doxy! She’s done for my dress!’ the other girl yelled. The whole of one shoulder was wet and her left hand dyed blue. ‘Just wait, you whore!’
In her turn, she caught hold of a bucket and emptied it over the young woman. At this, a mighty battle began. The pair of them ran the length of the tubs, grabbing full buckets and coming back to throw them at each other. Each deluge was accompanied by an outburst of insults; even Gervaise was answering back now.
‘There, you scum! That one got you all right. Perhaps it will cool your arse.’
‘Oh, the old sow! Take that for your filth, to clean you up for once in your life.’
‘Yes? I’ll teach you a thing or two, you stinking fish.’
‘There’s another! Wash your mouth out and get ready for your evening’s wait on the corner of the Rue Belhomme.’9
In the end, they were filling the buckets at the taps and, while waiting for them to fill up, carried on hurling insults at one another. The first buckets had been badly aimed and hardly touched them; but now they were getting their eye in. Virginie was the first to have a bucket load full in the face. The water got past the neck of her dress and ran down her back and across her breasts, pouring underneath her clothes. She was still recovering when a second bucketful came in from the side, slapping hard against her left ear and soaking her bun, which unwound like a piece of string. Gervaise was hit first on the legs. A bucket of water filled her shoes, splashing up as far as her thighs, while two more drenched her hips. In any case, it soon became impossible to judge the effect of the shots. Both women were streaming with water from head to foot, their bodices clinging to their shoulders and skirts stuck to their haunches, made thinner and stiffer, shivering and streaming with water in all directions like umbrellas in a downpour.
‘What a right spectacle they are!’ said the gruff voice of one onlooker.
The whole wash-house was being entertained. The spectators had moved back, to avoid the splashes. Applause and jokes ran round the throng, in the midst of the swishing noise from the buckets, which, emptied out at full force, sounded like a lock opening on a canal. The ground was awash and the two women were paddling around up to their ankles. Then Virginie tried a dirty trick: suddenly catching hold of a bucket of boiling washing, which one of her neighbours had ordered, she threw it. There was a shout. Everyone thought Gervaise had been badly scalded, but only her left foot was slightly burned. But, with all her strength, maddened by the pain, without even filling it this time, she threw a bucket between Virginie’s legs, and the other woman fell.
All the washerwomen started to speak at once.
‘She’s broken her leg!’
‘So what? The other one wanted to boil her alive!’
‘If you ask me, the blonde’s in the right – after all, if they took her man away from her…’
Mme Boche raised her arms heavenwards, with loud exclamations. She had sensibly found a place between two tubs, where the children, Claude and Etienne, were weeping and gasping for breath, horrified, hanging on to her dress, with their unceasing cry, ‘Mum! Mum!’ stifled by sobs. When she saw Virginie fall, Mme Boche ran up and started pulling Gervaise away by her skirt, saying over and over: ‘Now, now! Come on, let’s go! Be reasonable. I’ve come over quite faint, I swear I have! Did you ever see such a massacre?’
However, she moved back and took refuge again with the children, between the two tubs. Virginie had just pounced on Gervaise and got her by the neck: she was wringing her throat, trying to strangle her. Gervaise gave a violent heave and shook herself free, then grasped Virginie’s hair, hanging on to it as though trying to pull off her head. Battle resumed, in silence, without a cry or a curse. They did not wrestle body to body, but went for one another’s faces with open hands and hooked fingers, pinching and scratching whatever they could grasp. The tall girl’s red ribbon and blue chenille band were torn off and her bodice ripped at the neck, revealing a whole naked shoulder, while the blonde Gervaise, dishevelled, missing one sleeve of her white shift (though she didn’t know how), had a tear in her chemise that revealed the cleavage of her bosom. Torn shreds of cloth were flying in all directions. Virginie was the first to draw blood, leaving three long scratches on Gervaise’s face from the mouth to below the chin, and Gervaise was protecting her eyes, shutting them at each slap, for fear of being blinded. Virginie was not bleeding yet. Gervaise aimed for her ears, furious at not being able to take hold of them, until finally she grabbed an earring, a yellow glass pendant. She pulled and split the ear; the blood flowed.
‘They’re killing each other! Pull them apart, the bitches!’ several voices exclaimed.
The washerwomen had drawn closer, and divided into two camps: one lot was urging the two women on, like fighting dogs; the others, more timid, shaking all over, turned their heads away: they had had enough and kept saying that for sure they would be ill if it continued. A general battle was about to break out. The two sides called each other heartless or good-for-nothing, and bare arms were waved; three slaps rang out.
But Mme Boche was looking round for the boy: ‘Charles! Charles! Where on earth has he got to?’
She found him in the front row, watching with folded arms. He was a big lad, with a great thick neck. He was laughing, enjoying the sight of the bits of flesh that the two women had left displayed. The little blonde was plump as a quail: it would be a laugh if her shift was torn off.
‘I say,’ he mumbled, with a wink. ‘She’s got a birthmark under her arm.’
‘What! So this is where you are!’ Mme Boche exclaimed when she saw him. ‘And why aren’t you helping to separate them? You could do it, if you wanted…’
‘No, thank you! Not by myself!’ he said calmly. ‘Do you think I want my eye scratched like the other day? Not likely! It’s not my job, I’d be at it all day long. Don’t worry, anyway. It does them good to bleed for a while; it tenderizes them.’
So the concierge said she would get the constables; but the manageress, the delicate little woman with the sick eyes, strongly objected to this. She said several times: ‘No, no, I don’t want none of that. It gives the place a bad name.’
The struggle meanwhile was continuing, o
n the ground. Suddenly, Virginie got up on her knees. She had just picked up a beetle and was waving it over her head. Her voice had altered, to a harsh snarl.
‘So that’s what you want, is it? Get your dirty clothes ready, then.’
Gervaise quickly reached out and took another wooden beetle for herself and held it up like a club. Her voice, too, was hoarse.
‘So, you want a full wash, do you? I’ll have your skin for dishcloths!’
For an instant, they stayed there, kneeling, threatening one another. Their hair hanging down over their faces, panting, muddied, swollen, they watched and waited, pausing to catch their breath. Gervaise made the first move, her stick catching Virginie across the shoulder. Then she dodged to one side to avoid the counter, which just caught her hip. Now, once started, they set to work, beating one another as washerwomen beat their clothes, roughly and rhythmically. When one did strike home, the noise was muffled, like a blow struck in a full tub of water.
Around them, the women were no longer laughing. Several had left, saying that they were sickened by it, while the rest, those who had stayed behind, were craning their necks, their eyes lit with a cruel glint, considering that the girls were putting on a great show. Mme Boche had taken Claude and Etienne away and, from the far end, they could be heard sobbing over the loud thumps of the two beetles.
Suddenly, Gervaise let out a yell. Virginie had just struck her with full force on her naked arm, above the elbow. A red mark appeared and the arm immediately started to swell. At this, she hurled herself forward; the spectators thought she was going to beat the other woman’s brains out.
‘Stop! Stop!’ they shouted.