Other visitors who figure prominently in the story are Madame Josserand’s brother, Uncle Bachelard, a dissipated widower, and his nephew Gueulin; the Abbé Mouret, ever ready to throw the mantle of religion over the back-slidings of his flock, and Madame Hédouin, the frigid directress of “The Ladies’ Paradise,” where Octave is originally engaged. The remaining “locataires” are Madame Juzeur, a lady who only reads poetry, and who was deserted by her husband after a single week of matrimonial, bliss; a workwoman who has a garret under the slates; and last, but not least, an author who lives on the second floor. He is rarely ever seen, he makes no one’s acquaintance, and thereby excites the enmity of everyone.
All these, the author of course excepted, pass and repass before the reader, and each is at once individual and representative; even the maid-servants—who only answer “yes” and “no” to their masters and mistresses—are adroitly characterised. We see them in their kitchens engaged in their daily occupations: while peeling onions and gutting rabbits and fish they call to and abuse each other from window to window. There is Julie, the belle of the attics, of whose perfume and pomatum Trublot makes liberal use when he honours her with a visit; there is fat Adèle whose dirty habits and slovenly ways make of her a butt whereat is levelled the ridicule and scorn of her fellow-servants; there are the lovers, Hippolyte and Clémence, whose carnal intercourse affords to Madame Duveyrier much ground for uneasiness, and in the end necessitates the intervention of the Abbé. Never were the manners and morals of servants so thoroughly sifted before, never was the relationship which their lives bear to those of their masters and mistresses so cunningly contrasted. The courtyard of the house echoes with their quarrelling voices, and it is there, in a scene of which Swift might be proud, that is spoken the last and terrible word of scorn which Émile Zola flings against the “bourgeoisie.” From her kitchen window a fellow-servant of Julie’s is congratulating her on being about to leave, and wishing that she may find a better place. To which Julie replies, “Toutes les baraques se ressemblent. Au jour d’aujourd’hui, qui a fait l’une a fait l’autre. C’est cochon et compagnie.”