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It was her own fault, why did she booze? Goujet no doubt thought she had been drinking, and that she was up to some nasty pranks. He looked at her while the snow scattered daisies over his beautiful yellow beard. Then as she lowered her head and stepped back he detained her. "Come," said he. And he walked on first. She followed him.
Before going off to her work, she consulted Madame Goujet, who highly approved her project of setting up in business for herself; with a husband like hers, a good fellow who did not drink, she was certain of getting on, and of not having her earnings squandered.
Virginie followed, all three bareheaded. Everyone looked at them, so gay and fresh on a week-day. Virginie in her pink muslin and Gervaise in a white cambric with blue spots and a gray silk handkerchief knotted round her throat. They went to one wineshop after another, but no Coupeau. Suddenly, as they went toward the boulevard, his wife uttered an exclamation. "What is the matter?" asked Goujet.
He was good at this; he could have flattened the Vendome column like a pancake. "Now then, off you go!" said Goujet, placing one of the pieces of iron, as thick as a girl's wrist, in the tool-hole. Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, leant back, and swung Dedele round with both hands.
She passed sad days whenever she felt herself guilty towards her good friend. She would have liked to have had no affection for anyone but him outside of her family. It was a feeling far above all carnal thoughts, for the signs of which upon her burning face Virginie was ever on the watch. As soon as spring came Gervaise often went and sought refuge with Goujet.
Coupeau always forgets. You shouldn't have let him go off." It was already half-past six. Everything was burning now; the goose would be overdone. Then Gervaise, feeling quite dejected, talked of sending someone to all the wineshops in the neighborhood to find Coupeau. And as Goujet offered to go, she decided to accompany him. Virginie, anxious about her husband went also.
Men's shirts were five sous, women's underdrawers four sous, pillow-cases a sou and a half, and aprons one sou. No, the prices weren't high. Some laundresses charged a sou more for each item. Gervaise was now calling out the soiled clothes, as she packed them in her basket, for Madame Goujet to list. Then she lingered on, embarrassed by a request which she wished to make.
And while the laundress emptied her basket, laying the linen on the bed, Mme Goujet paid her many compliments. She never burned her clothes or ironed off the buttons or tore them, but she did use a trifle too much bluing and made her shirts too stiff. "Feel," she said; "it is like pasteboard. My son never complains, but I know he does not like them so."
Gervaise, who felt her numbness leave her in the warmth of this room, would have gone down on all fours to eat out of the saucepan. Her hunger was stronger than her will; her stomach seemed rent in two; and she stooped down with a sigh. Goujet had realized the truth. He placed the stew on the table, cut some bread, and poured her out a glass of wine. "Thank you! Thank you!" said she.
His sweetheart Gervaise alone remained to him in life. And then, when he had kissed her with so much respect, he fell back across his bed with sobs rising in his throat. And Gervaise could not remain there any longer. It was too sad and too abominable to meet again under such circumstances when one loved. "I love you, Monsieur Goujet," she exclaimed. "I love you dearly, also.
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