Meantime Gervaise, with money borrowed from
Goujet, a man who loved her with almost idyllic affection, had started
a laundry of her own. She was successful for a time, in spite of her
husband's growing intemperance and an increasing desire in herself
for ease and good living; but deterioration had begun, and with the
reappearance of Lantier, her old lover, it became rapid. Coupeau was by
this time a confirmed loafer and drunkard, while Gervaise was growing
careless and ease-loving. Lantier, having become a lodger with the
Coupeaus, ceased doing any work, and as he never paid anything for his
board, his presence not unnaturally hastened the downfall of his hosts.
Circumstances conspired to renew the old relations between Gervaise and
Lantier, and by easy stages she descended that somewhat slippery stair
which leads to ruin. The shop was given up, and she again got employment
in the laundry of Madame Fauconnier, though she was no longer the
capable workwoman of former times. Nana, her daughter, vicious from
childhood, had taken to evil courses; her husband had at least one
attack of delirium tremens; and she herself was fast giving way
to intemperance.
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