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After this visit they expressed their astonishment that a man so distinguished could ever have seen anything in Wooden Legs to admire. By degrees, therefore, people had become accustomed to seeing him and no longer expressed their horror or amazement. Goujet was the only one who was disturbed. If Lantier came in while he was there he at once departed and avoided all intercourse with him.
She was wild to know what it contained. She remembered that in one corner was a pile of stockings, a shirt or two and an old hat. Were those things still there? Was she to be confronted with those tattered relics of the past? Lantier did not lift the lid, however; he rose and, going to the table, held his glass high in his hands. "To your health, madame!" he said.
It was there in that hotel that the seeds of her present life had been sown. She stood still and looked up at the window of the room she had occupied and recalled her youth passed with Lantier and the manner in which he had left her. But she was young then and soon recovered from the blow. That was twenty years ago, and now what was she?
He approved, too, of Goujet, declaring that it was a good thing never to be thirsty. Again he made a move to depart and go to his work when Lantier, with his dictatorial air, reminded him that he had not paid his score and that he could not go off in that way, even if it were to his duty. "I am sick of the words 'work' and 'duty," muttered Mes-Bottes.
Gervaise sat with her hands clasped convulsively, breathless with fear, expecting to hear a cry of rage from the street and see one of the two men fall to the ground. Virginie and Mme Boche had something of the same feeling. Coupeau had been so overcome by the fresh air that when he rushed forward to take Lantier by the collar he missed his footing and found himself seated quietly in the gutter.
Gervaise exchanged a look with Mme Boche and Virginie. What did this mean? As the women watched them the two men began to walk up and down in front of the shop. They were talking earnestly. Coupeau seemed to be urging something, and Lantier refusing. Finally Coupeau took Lantier's arm and almost dragged him toward the shop. "I tell you, you must!" he cried.
He's ambitious and a spendthrift, and at the end of two months we came to the Hôtel Boncoeur." The gossip continued and Gervaise had nearly finished when she recognised, a few tubs away, the tall Virginie, her supposed rival in the affections of Lantier, and the sister of Adèle. Suddenly some laughter arose at the door of the wash-house and Claude and Etienne ran to Gervaise through the puddles.
Virginie, who was behind the counter, opening and shutting drawer after drawer, with a face that lengthened as she found each empty, shook her fist at him indignantly. She had begun to think he saw Nana very often. She did not speak, but Mme Lerat, who had just come in, said with a significant look: "And where did you see her?" "Oh, in a carriage," answered Lantier with a laugh.
With a fresh pang of disappointment she pressed her handkerchief to her lips to restrain her sobs. A fresh, youthful voice caused her to turn around. "Lantier has not come in then?" "No, Monsieur Coupeau," she answered, trying to smile. The speaker was a tinsmith who occupied a tiny room at the top of the house.
Gervaise stood aghast at the disgusting sight that met her eyes as she entered the room where Coupeau lay wallowing on the floor. She shuddered and turned away. This sight annihilated every ray of sentiment remaining in her heart. "What am I to do?" she said piteously. "I can't stay here!" Lantier snatched her hand. "Gervaise," he said, "listen to me."
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