seek a refuge. And her wolf of a father
triumphed, calling her a virago, asking her if she had had enough and
whether she understood sufficiently that she was in future to give up
all hope of escaping from him.

But Gervaise suddenly entered the room, attracted by the child's howls.
On beholding such a scene she was seized with a furious indignation.

"Ah! you brute of a man!" cried she. "Leave her alone, you brigand! I'll
put the police on to you."

Bijard growled like an animal being disturbed, and stuttered:

"Mind your own business a bit, Limper. Perhaps you'd like me to put
gloves on when I stir her up. It's merely to warm her, as you can
plainly see--simply to show her that I've a long arm."

And he gave a final lash with the whip which caught Lalie across the
face. The upper lip was cut, the blood flowed. Gervaise had seized a
chair, and was about to fall on to the locksmith; but the child held her
hands towards her imploringly, saying that it was nothing and that it
was all over. She wiped away the blood with the corner of her apron
and quieted the babies, who were sobbing bitterly, as though they had
received all the blows.

Whenever Gervaise thought of Lalie, she felt she had no right to
complain for herself. She wished she had as much patient courage as the
little girl who was only eight years old and had to endure more than the
rest of the women on their staircase put together. She had seen Lalie
living on stale bread for months and growing thinner and weaker.
Whenever she smuggled some remnants of meat to Lalie, it almost broke
her heart to see the child weeping silently and nibbling it down only by
little bits because her throat was so shrunken. Gervaise looked on Lalie
as a model of suffering and forgiveness and tried to learn from her how
to suffer in silence.

In the Coupeau household the vitriol of l'Assommoir was also commencing
its ravages. Gervaise could see the day coming when her husband would
get a whip like Bijard's to make her dance.

Yes, Coupeau was spinning an evil thread. The time was past when a drink
would make him feel good. His unhealthy soft fat of earlier years had
melted away and he was beginning to wither and turn a leaden grey. He
seemed to have a greenish tint like a corpse putrefying in a pond. He
no longer had a taste for food, not even the most beautifully prepared
stew. His stomach would turn and his decayed teeth refuse to touch it.
A pint a day was his daily ration