This was a fine time for Antoine Macquart.  He dressed like a gentleman, in frock-coats and trousers of the finest cloth.  Cleanly shaved, and almost fat, he was no longer the emaciated ragged vagabond who had been wont to frequent the taverns.  He dropped into cafes, read the papers, and strolled on the Cours Sauvaire.  He played the gentleman as long as he had any money in his pocket.  At times of impecuniosity he remained at home, exasperated at being kept in his hovel and prevented from taking his customary cup of coffee.  On such occasions he would reproach the whole human race with his poverty, making himself ill with rage and envy, until Fine, out of pity, would often give him the last silver coin in the house so that he might spend his evening at the cafe.  This dear fellow was fiercely selfish.  Gervaise, who brought home as much as sixty francs a month, wore only thin cotton frocks, while he had black satin waistcoats made for him by one of the best tailors in Plassans.

Jean, the big lad who earned three or four francs a day, was perhaps robbed even more impudently.  The cafe where his father passed entire days was just opposite his master’s workshop, and while he had plane or saw in hand he could see “Monsieur” Macquart on the other side of the way, sweetening his coffee or playing piquet with some petty annuitant.  It was his money that the lazy old fellow was gambling away.  He, Jean, never stepped inside a cafe, he never had so much as five sous to pay for a drink.  Antoine treated him like a little girl, never leaving him a centime, and always demanding an exact account of the manner in which he had employed his time.  If the unfortunate lad, led away by some of his mates, wasted a day somewhere in the country, on the banks of the Viorne, or on the slopes of Garrigues, his father would storm and raise his hand, and long bear him a grudge on account of the four francs less that he received at the end of the fortnight.  He thus held his son in a state of dependence, sometimes even looking upon the sweethearts whom the young carpenter courted as his own.  Several of Gervaise’s friends used to come to the Macquarts’ house, work-girls from sixteen to eighteen years of age, bold and boisterous girls who, on certain evenings, filled the room with youth and gaiety.  Poor Jean, deprived of all pleasure, ever kept at home by the lack of money, looked at these girls with longing eyes; but the childish life which he was compelled to lead had implanted invincible shyness in him; in playing with his sister’s friends, he was hardly bold enough to touch them with the tips of his fingers.  Macquart used to shrug his shoulders with pity.

“What a simpleton!” he would mutter, with an air of ironical superiority.

And it was he who would kiss the girls, when his wife’s back was turned.  He carried his attentions even further with a little laundress whom Jean pursued rather more earnestly than the others.  One fine evening he stole her almost from his arms.  The old rogue prided himself on his gallantry.