beetle-pounding

Updated: May 14, 2025

Soon even the last of the beetle-pounding stopped. With full mouths, the washerwomen could only make gestures. It became so quiet that the grating sound of the fireman shoveling coal into the engine's firebox could be heard at regular intervals from far at the other end. Gervaise was washing her colored things in the hot water thick with lather, which she had kept for the purpose.

Émile Zola - L'Assommoir