L'Assommoir by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780192593184
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2019-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

By now the whole company was quite carried away, and they took up the chorus, the men drumming their heels to the beat and the ladies tapping out the time on their glasses with their knives. They all bawled:

Now who the hell will buy the drinks,*

Buy the drinks for the pa … for the pa …

Now who the hell will buy the drinks,

The drinks for the whole patrol?

The glass in the shop-windows rang, and the singers’ powerful breath made the muslin curtains fly about. Virginie, meanwhile, had vanished a couple of times, and on returning had bent over Gervaise to whisper something in her ear. When she came back the third time she said to Gervaise under cover of the din:

‘My dear, he’s still at François’s, pretending to read the paper … I know there must be something fishy going on.’

She was talking about Lantier. It was Lantier she was keeping an eye on. At each fresh report, Gervaise looked worried.

‘Is he pissed?’ she asked Virginie.

‘No’ the tall brunette replied. ‘He looks quite sober. That’s what I don’t like. I ask you, why’s he hanging about in a bar if he’s sober? … My God! I just hope nothing’s going to happen!’

The laundress, very upset, begged her to be quiet. All of a sudden complete silence had fallen. Madame Putois had risen to her feet to sing “Pirate Ship Ahoy!”. The guests, silent and intent, were watching her: even Poisson had put his pipe on the edge of the table, the better to hear her. Tiny and impassioned, she stood rigidly erect, her face white under her black bonnet; she kept thrusting her left fist forward with proud conviction as she boomed, in a voice bigger than she was:

A pirate bold, my hearties,

Is chasing us for slaughter;

Damnation to the sea wolf!

We’ll never give him quarter!

Man the guns, my hearties,

Here’s rum to toast their doom;

Death to the bold sea rovers!

The sea shall be their tomb!

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