day long. However, they had not yet come
to blows, with the exception of a few impulsive smacks, which somehow
flew about at the height of their quarrels. The saddest part of the
business was that they had opened the cage of affection; all their
better feelings had taken flight, like so many canaries. The genial
warmth of father, mother and child, when united together and wrapped up
in each other, deserted them, and left them shivering, each in his or
her own corner. All three--Coupeau, Gervaise and Nana--were always in
the most abominable tempers, biting each other's noses off for nothing
at all, their eyes full of hatred; and it seemed as though something
had broken the mainspring of the family, the mechanism which, with happy
people, causes hearts to beat in unison. Ah! it was certain Gervaise was
no longer moved as she used to be when she saw Coupeau at the edge of a
roof forty or fifty feet above the pavement. She would not have pushed
him off herself, but if he had fallen accidentally, in truth it would
have freed the earth of one who was of but little account. The days when
they were more especially at enmity she would ask him why he didn't come
back on a stretcher. She was awaiting it. It would be her good luck they
were bringing back to her. What use was he--that drunkard? To make her
weep, to devour all she possessed, to drive her to sin. Well! Men so
useless as he should be thrown as quickly as possible into the hole and
the polka of deliverance be danced over them. And when the mother said
"Kill him!" the daughter responded "Knock him on the head!" Nana read
all of the reports of accidents in the newspapers, and made reflections
that were unnatural for a girl. Her father had such good luck an omnibus
had knocked him down without even sobering him. Would the beggar never
croak?

In the midst of her own poverty Gervaise suffered even more because
other families around her were also starving to death. Their corner of
the tenement housed the most wretched. There was not a family that ate
every day.

Gervaise felt the most pity for Pere Bru in his cubbyhole under the
staircase where he hibernated. Sometimes he stayed on his bed of straw
without moving for days. Even hunger no longer drove him out since
there was no use taking a walk when no one would invite him to dinner.
Whenever he didn't show his face for several days, the neighbors would
push open his door to see if his troubles were over. No, he was still