There are some men who live upon their mistresses.  Antoine Macquart lived on his wife and children with as much shamelessness and impudence.  He did not feel the least compunction in pillaging the home and going out to enjoy himself when the house was bare.  He still assumed a supercilious air, returning from the cafe only to rail against the poverty and wretchedness that awaited him at home.  He found the dinner detestable, he called Gervaise a blockhead, and declared that Jean would never be a man.  Immersed in his own selfish indulgence, he rubbed his hands whenever he had eaten the best piece in the dish; and then he smoked his pipe, puffing slowly, while the two poor children, overcome with fatigue, went to sleep with their heads resting on the table.  Thus Macquart passed his days in lazy enjoyment.  It seemed to him quite natural that he should be kept in idleness like a girl, to sprawl about on the benches of some tavern, or stroll in the cool of the day along the Cours or the Mail.  At last he went so far as to relate his amorous escapades in the presence of his son, who listened with glistening eyes.  The children never protested, accustomed as they were to see their mother humble herself before her husband.

Fine, that strapping woman who drubbed him soundly when they were both intoxicated, always trembled before him when she was sober, and allowed him to rule despotically at home.  He robbed her in the night of the coppers which she had earned during the day at the market, but she never dared to protest, except by veiled rebukes.  Sometimes, when he had squandered the week’s money in advance, he accused her, poor thing, who worked herself to death, of being stupid and not knowing how to manage.  Fine, as gentle as a lamb, replied, in her soft, clear voice, which contrasted so strangely with her big figure, that she was no longer twenty years old, and that money was becoming hard to earn.  In order to console herself, she would buy a pint of aniseed, and drink little glassfuls of it with her daughter of an evening, after Antoine had gone back to the cafe.  That was their dissipation.  Jean went to bed, while the two women remained at the table, listening attentively in order to remove the bottle and glasses at the first sound.

When Macquart was late, they often became intoxicated by the many “nips” they thus thoughtlessly imbibed.  Stupefied and gazing at each other with vague smiles, this mother and daughter would end by stuttering.  Red patches appeared on Gervaise’s cheeks; her delicate doll-like face assumed a look of maudlin beatitude.  Nothing could be more heart-rending than to see this wretched, pale child, aglow with drink and wearing the idiotic smile of a confirmed sot about her moist lips.  Fine, huddled up on her chair, became heavy and drowsy.  They sometimes forgot to keep watch, or even lacked the strength to remove the bottle and glasses when Antoine’s footsteps were heard on the stairs.  On these occasions blows were freely exchanged among the Macquarts.  Jean had to get up to separate his father and mother and make his sister go to bed, as otherwise she would have slept on the floor.