No wonder they had laughed at him in the past.

A glass of wine never hurt anybody.

He only drank wine though, never brandy.
Wine never made you sick, didn't get you drunk, and helped you to live longer.

Soon though, several times, after a day of idleness in going from one building job to another, he came home half drunk.

On those occasions Gervaise pretended to have a terrible headache and kept their door closed so that the Goujets wouldn't hear Coupeau's drunken babblings.
Little by little, the young woman lost her cheerfulness.