Lantier

“ The policeman bowed; it did not inconvenience him at all; friends always get on together, in spite of any difference in their political ideas. And Lantier, without mixing himself up any more in the matter, like a man who has at length settled his little business, helped himself to an enormous slice of bread and cheese; he leant back in his chair and ate devoutly, his blood tingling beneath his skin, his whole body burning with a sly joy, and he blinked his eyes to peep first at Gervaise, and then at Virginie.
“Hi! Old Bazouge!” called Coupeau, “come and have a drink. We’re not proud ”

“ It was true that he regarded Lantier as a bit of a high flyer. He accused him of avoiding hard liquor and teased him because he could read and spoke like an educated man. Still, he accepted him as a regular comrade. They were ideally suited to each other and friendship between men is more substantial than love for a woman.
Coupeau and Lantier were forever going out junketing together. Lantier would now borrow money from Gervaise—ten francs, twenty francs at a time, whenever he smelt there was money in the house. ”

“ Was there ever a man more respectful?
But out of mischief or worse, the woman contrived to get the two into a corner one day and then led the conversation into a most dangerous direction. Lantier, in reply to some question, said in measured tones that his heart was dead, that he lived now only for his son. He never thought of Claude, who was away. He embraced Etienne every night but soon forgot he was in the room and amused himself with Clémence.
Then Gervaise began to realize that the past was dead. Lantier had brought back to her the memory of Plassans and the Hôtel Boncœur. ”

“ On the following Saturday Coupeau, who had not come home to dinner, brought Lantier with him towards ten o’clock. They had had some sheep’s trotters at Chez Thomas at Montmartre.
“You mustn’t scold, wife,” said the zinc-worker. “We’re sober, as you can see. Oh! there’s no fear with him; he keeps one on the straight road.”
And he related how they happened to meet in the Rue Rochechouart. After dinner Lantier had declined to have a drink at the “Black Ball,” saying that when one was married to a pretty and worthy little woman, one ought not to go liquoring-up at all the wineshops. ”

“ When such a scamp as Lantier found a woman happy and comfortable, he was always wretched until he had made her so too. Virginie said she would go for the onions. "Women," she observed sententiously, "should protect each other, as well as serve each other, in such matters." When she returned she reported that Lantier was no longer there. The conversation around the stove that evening never once drifted from that subject. Mme Boche said that she, under similar circumstances, should tell her husband, but Gervaise was horror-struck at this and begged her never to breathe one single word about it. ”

“ Near her on a low chair lounged Lantier, and he was, as usual, eating candy.
"Really, Madame Coupeau," cried Virginie, "can't you do better than that? You have left all the dirt in the corners. Don't you see? Oblige me by doing that over again."
Gervaise obeyed. She went back to the corner and scrubbed it again. She was on her hands and knees, with her sleeves rolled up over her arms. Her old skirt clung close to her stout form, and the sweat poured down her face.
"The more elbow grease she uses, the more she shines," said Lantier sententiously with his mouth full. ”

“ There was not an article beyond the furniture left in the room, except a woman's fichu that seemed to have caught on a nail near the chimney. The children's bed was pulled out into the center of the room; the bureau drawers were wide open, displaying their emptiness. Lantier had washed and had used the last of the pomade—two cents' worth on the back of a playing card—the dirty water in which he had washed still stood in the basin. He had forgotten nothing; the corner hitherto occupied by his trunk now seemed to Gervaise a vast desert. ”

“ This is the Parisian art world as it really was, with nothing improbable or overstrained in the narrative, save its very first chapter, in which romanticism is certainly allowed full play.
It is quite possible that some readers may not judge Claude Lantier, the ‘hero,’ very favourably; he is like the dog in the fable who forsakes the substance for the shadow ”

“ At the College of Plassans, while still in the lowest form, Claude Lantier, Pierre Sandoz, and another lad named Louis Dubuche, had been three inseparables. Sprung from three different classes of society, by no means similar in character, but simply born in the same year at a few months’ interval, they had become friends at once and for aye, impelled thereto by certain secret affinities, the still vague promptings of a common ambition, the dawning consciousness of possessing greater intelligence than the set of dunces who maltreated them. ”

“ LANTIER (JACQUES) , the second son of Gervaise Macquart and Auguste Lantier, was born at Plassans in 1844. He was six years old when his parents went to Paris with his brothers, Claude and Etienne, leaving him with his godmother, Aunt Phasie, who sent him to the School of Arts and Crafts. After two years passed on the Orleans Railway, he became an engineer of the first-class on the Western Railway. At twenty-six he was a tall, handsome man, with dark hair and a clear complexion. ”

“ Partly moved by a desire for revenge on Gervaise, she did so, and Lantier retained with the Poissons the place as a lodger he formerly occupied with the Coupeaus. Soon after, he became Virginie’s lover, and, by paying nothing for his support, while he gradually ate the contents of the shop, he accomplished the downfall of the Poissons in much the same manner as he had already ruined the Coupeaus. ”

“ I saw you go into the Grand-Balcon with that streetwalker Adèle. You have made a charming choice. She wears fine clothes and is clean. Yes, and she has reason to be, certainly; there is not a man in that restaurant who does not know her far better than an honest girl should be known!"
Lantier leaped from the bed. His eyes were as black as night and his face deadly pale.
"Yes," repeated his wife, "I mean what I say. Madame Boche will not keep her or her sister in the house any longer, because there are always a crowd of men hanging on the staircase." ”

“ Finally when the gas was lit and Lantier renewed his proposition of the cafe she consented. After all, why should she not go? Why should she refuse all pleasures because her husband chose to behave in this disgraceful way? If he would not come in she would go out.
They hurried through their dinner, and as she went out with Lantier at eight o'clock Gervaise begged Nana and Mamma Coupeau to go to bed early. The shop was closed, and she gave the key to Mme Boche, telling her that if Coupeau came in it would be as well to look out for the lights. ”

“ Lantier was not wasteful in certain ways, for he never gave a garçon more than two sous after he had served a meal that cost some seven or eight francs.
They never alluded to these dinners the next morning at their simple breakfast with Gervaise. Naturally people cannot frolic and work, too, and since Lantier had become a member of his household Coupeau had never lifted a tool. He knew every drinking shop for miles around and would sit and guzzle deep into the night, not always pleased to find himself deserted by Lantier, who never was known to be overcome by liquor. ”

“ His mother died last year and left him about seventeen hundred francs. He wished to come to Paris, and as Father Macquart was in the habit of hitting me in the face without any warning, I said I would come, too, which we did, with the two children. I meant to be a fine laundress, and he was to continue with his trade as a hatter. We might have been very happy. But, you see, Lantier is extravagant; he likes expensive things and thinks of his amusement before anything else. He is not good for much, anyhow! ”

“ He’ll get used to you. He must learn to know people. We can’t stay mad. We should have made up a long time ago for his sake. I’d rather have my head cut off than keep a father from seeing his own son.”
Having thus delivered himself, he talked of finishing the bottle of brandy. All three clinked glasses again. Lantier showed no surprise, but remained perfectly calm. By way of repaying the zinc-worker’s politeness he persisted in helping him put up the shutters before taking his departure. ”

“ He said that young men needed to see a bit of the country. The morning that Etienne left Lantier made a speech to him, kissed him and ended by saying:
“Never forget that a workingman is not a slave, and that whoever is not a workingman is a lazy drone.”
The household was now able to get into the new routine. Gervaise became accustomed to having dirty laundry lying all around. Lantier was forever talking of important business deals. ”

“ Her latest mania was to go and play in the blacksmith shop opposite; she would pass the entire day swinging on the shafts of the carts; she would hide with bands of urchins in the remotest corners of the gray courtyard, lighted up with the red glare of the forge; and suddenly she would reappear, running and shouting, unkempt and dirty and followed by the troop of urchins, as though a sudden clash of the hammers had frightened the ragamuffins away. Lantier alone could scold her ”

“ The Lorilleuxs, delighted at the idea that Clump-clump would no longer have a shop, approved the plan immensely. One could hardly conceive the great cost a shop was. If she only earned three francs working for others she at least had no expenses; she did not risk losing large sums of money. They repeated this argument to Coupeau, urging him on; he drank a great deal and remained in a continuous fit of sensibility, weeping all day by himself in his plate. As the laundress seemed to be allowing herself to be convinced, Lantier looked at the Poissons and winked. ”

“ Finally Coupeau took Lantier's arm and almost dragged him toward the shop.
"I tell you, you must!" he cried. "You shall drink a glass of wine with us. Men will be men all the world over. My wife and I know that perfectly well."
Mme Lerat had finished her song and seated herself with the air of being utterly exhausted. She asked for a glass of wine. When she sang that song, she said, she was always torn to pieces, and it left her nerves in a terrible state.
Lantier had been placed at the table by Coupeau and was eating a piece of cake, leisurely dipping it into his glass of wine. ”

“ Etienne could sleep in the shop, on a mattress on the floor, that was all.
“No, no,” said Lantier, “I cannot accept. It would inconvenience you too much. I know that it’s willingly offered, but we should be too warm all jumbled up together. Besides, you know, each one likes his liberty. I should have to go through your room, and that wouldn’t be exactly funny.”
“Ah, the rogue!” resumed the zinc-worker, choking with laughter, banging his fist down on the table, “he’s always thinking of something smutty! But, you joker, we’re of an inventive turn of mind! ”

“ Bibi-the-Smoker accepted a plum. He was, no doubt, waiting there on that bench for someone to stand him a drink. Lantier, however, took the part of the employers; they often had some very hard times, as he who had been in business himself well knew. The workers were a bad lot, forever getting drunk! They didn’t take their work seriously. Sometimes they quit in the middle of a job and only returned when they needed something in their pockets. Then Lantier would switch his attack to the employers. ”

“ Yes, Monsieur Lantier was on the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette with a blonde and she followed them. They had gone into a shop where the worn-out and used-up woman had bought some shrimps. Then they went to the Rue de La Rochefoucauld. Monsieur Lantier had waited on the pavement in front of the house while his lady friend went in alone. Then she had beckoned to him from the window to join her.
No matter how Clemence went on with the story Gervaise went on peacefully ironing a white dress. Sometimes she smiled faintly. These southerners, she said, are all crazy about women ”

“ Lantier seemed to be waiting, while Gervaise kept busy and tried to keep her countenance expressionless. Finally, while she was making a bundle of the dirty clothes thrown in a corner, behind the trunk, he at length opened his lips and asked:
“What are you doing there? Where are you going?”
She did not answer at first. Then, when he furiously repeated his question, she made up her mind, and said:
“I suppose you can see for yourself. I’m going to wash all this. The children can’t live in filth.”
He let her pick up two or three handkerchiefs. ”

“ Claude Lantier, the eldest son of Auguste Lantier and Gervaise Macquart (La Fortune des Rougon and L’Assommoir) , had been educated at Plassans by an old gentleman who was interested in his childish skill in drawing. His benefactor died, leaving him a sum which yielded an annual income of a thousand francs, and he came to Paris to follow an artistic career. There he met Dubuche, Pierre Sandoz, and others of his former schoolboy friends, and the little band formed a coterie of revolutionary spirits, whose aim was to introduce new ideas and drastic changes into the accepted canons of art. ”