[*] Figures prominently in La Terre (The Earth) and La
     Debacle (The Downfall).

As long as these poor little things remained a burden to the house, Antoine grumbled.  They were useless mouths that lessened his own share.  He vowed, like his brother, that he would have no more children, those greedy creatures who bring their parents to penury.  It was something to hear him bemoan his lot when they sat five at table, and the mother gave the best morsels to Jean, Lisa, and Gervaise.

“That’s right,” he would growl; “stuff them, make them burst!”

Whenever Fine bought a garment or a pair of boots for them, he would sulk for days together.  Ah! if he had only known, he would never had had that pack of brats, who compelled him to limit his smoking to four sous’ worth of tobacco a day, and too frequently obliged him to eat stewed potatoes for dinner, a dish which he heartily detested.

Later on, however, as soon as Jean and Gervaise earned their first francs, he found some good in children after all.  Lisa was no longer there.  He lived upon the earnings of the two others without compunction, as he had already lived upon their mother.  It was a well-planned speculation on his part.  As soon as little Gervaise was eight years old, she went to a neighbouring dealer’s to crack almonds; she there earned ten sous a day, which her father pocketed right royally, without even a question from Fine as to what became of the money.  The young girl was next apprenticed to a laundress, and as soon as she received two francs a day for her work, the two francs strayed in a similar manner into Macquart’s hands.  Jean, who had learnt the trade of a carpenter, was likewise despoiled on pay-days, whenever Macquart succeeded in catching him before he had handed the money to his mother.  If the money escaped Macquart, which sometimes happened, he became frightfully surly.  He would glare at his wife and children for a whole week, picking a quarrel for nothing, although he was, as yet, ashamed to confess the real cause of his irritations.  On the next pay-day, however, he would station himself on the watch, and as soon as he had succeeded in pilfering the youngster’s earnings, he disappeared for days together.

Gervaise, beaten and brought up in the streets among all the lads of the neighbourhood, became a mother when she was fourteen years of age.  The father of her child was not eighteen years old.  He was a journeyman tanner named Lantier.  At first Macquart was furious, but he calmed down somewhat when he learnt that Lantier’s mother, a worthy woman, was willing to take charge of the child.  He kept Gervaise, however; she was then already earning twenty-five sous a day, and he therefore avoided all question of marriage.  Four years later she had a second child, which was likewise taken in by Lantier’s mother.  This time Macquart shut his eyes altogether.  And when Fine timidly suggested that it was time to come to some understanding with the tanner, in order to end a state of things which made people chatter, he flatly declared that his daughter should not leave him, and that he would give her to her lover later on, “when he was worthy of her, and had enough money to furnish a home.”