The rare days on which he worked, he placed a bottle of brandy beside his blacksmith's vise, gulping some of it down every half hour.

He could not keep himself going any other way.

He would have blazed away like a torch if anyone had placed a lighted match close to his mouth.
"But we mustn't let her be murdered!" said Gervaise, all in a tremble.
And she entered.

The room, an attic, and very clean, was bare and cold, almost emptied by the drunken habits of the man, who took the very sheets from the bed to turn them into liquor.

During the struggle the table had rolled away to the window, the two chairs, knocked over, had fallen with their legs in the air.