“ when a father gets drunk like hers did, he isn’t a father, but a dirty beast one longs to be rid of. ”
Émile Zola, L'Assommoir (1877). copy citation
| Author | Émile Zola |
|---|---|
| Source | L'Assommoir |
| Topic | father beast |
| Date | 1877 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8600/8600-h/8600-h.htm |
Context
“She had nothing of her own, excepting her allowance of blows, before coiling herself up between the rags of a sheet, where she shivered under her little black skirt, which she stretched out by way of a blanket. No, that cursed life could not continue; she was not going to leave her skin in it. Her father had long since ceased to count for her; when a father gets drunk like hers did, he isn’t a father, but a dirty beast one longs to be rid of. And now, too, her mother was doing down the hill in her esteem. She drank as well. She liked to go and fetch her husband at Pere Colombe’s, so as to be treated; and she willingly sat down, with none of the air of disgust that she had assumed on the first occasion, draining glasses indeed at one gulp, dragging her elbows over the table for hours and leaving the place with her eyes starting out of her head.”
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