The Drinking Den by Émile Zola

enjoying following three men, one tall and two shorter, who kept turning back every ten yards and eventually came back down the street, heading straight for Old Colombe’s drinking den.
    â€˜Well, now,’ she muttered, ‘there are three fine idlers!’
    â€˜And I know the tall one,’ said Coupeau. ‘It’s Mes-Bottes, a mate of mine.’
    The saloon had filled up. People were talking very loudly, with outbursts of shouting or laughter breaking through the thick murmur of hoarse voices. From time to time, fists pounding on the counter made the glasses tinkle. All standing, with their hands folded on their stomachs or clasped behind their backs, the drinkers formed little groups, pressed one against another; there were some of these associations, near the barrels, who had to wait quarter of an hour before being able to order a round from Old Colombe.
    â€˜Well, well, if it isn’t that swanky Cadet-Cassis!’ yelled Mes-Bottes, landing a hefty blow on Coupeau’s shoulder. ‘A fine gent who smokes papers and wears a shirt! I don’t doubt he’s trying to impress his lady friend by buying her titbits.’
    â€˜Now, now! You mind your mouth!’ Coupeau answered, very put out.
    The other man merely giggled.
    â€˜Enough of that! You’re no better than any of us, my good friend. A slob’s a slob, and that’s all there is to it!’
    He turned his back, after looking at Gervaise and giving a dreadful leer. She shrank back, slightly unnerved. The pipe smoke and the strong scent of all these men rose together into an atmosphere heavy with alcohol fumes, and she started to cough, stifled by it.
    â€˜My, it’s a dreadful thing, drinking,’ she said, in a half whisper; and she recalled how in the old days, in Plassans, with her mother, sheused to drink anisette; but one day it had nearly finished her, and this had put her off. She couldn’t abide strong drink after that.
    â€˜Look, there,’ she said, holding up her glass. ‘I’ve eaten my plum, but I’ll leave the liquid because it would do me no good.’
    Coupeau, too, was unable to understand how anyone could toss back whole glasses of spirits. There was nothing wrong with an occasional plum brandy, but when it came to gin, absinthe and that sort of muck, no thank you! Better leave it alone. Even though his mates teased him he stayed at the door when those drunkards went into the drinking den. Old Coupeau, who had been a roofer like himself, had cracked his head open on the pavement of Rue Coquenard, falling off the roof of No. 25, one day when he’d been on the bottle, and that memory had made the whole family abstemious. When Coupeau went down Rue Coquenard and saw the place, you could have got him to drink the water out of the gutter more easily than to accept a free tumbler in the wine merchant’s. And he concluded by saying: ‘In my job, you need to have all your wits about you.’
    Gervaise had picked up her basket. However, she did not stand up, keeping it on her knees instead and staring into the distance, dreaming, as though the young workman’s words had stirred in her some distant memories of a different life. Then she went on slowly, without any apparent link to what had been said before: ‘Heavens! I’m not ambitious, I don’t ask for much… My dream would be to work quietly, eat bread every day and have a fairly decent place to sleep: you know, a bed, a table and two chairs, nothing more… Oh, I’d also like to bring up my children and make good citizens of them, if I could… If there was anything else I’d like, it’s not to be hit, if ever I did settle down again with someone… That’s all, you know, nothing more…’
    She looked around, analysing her desires and not finding anything much apart from this that appealed to her. However, with a little hesitation, she continued:
    â€˜Yes, perhaps