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Still, when Coupeau left her in front of Madame Fauconnier's shop, he was allowed to hold her hand for a moment. For a month the young woman and the zinc-worker were the best of friends. He admired her courage, when he beheld her half killing herself with work, keeping her children tidy and clean, and yet finding time at night to do a little sewing.
Gervaise now shuffled along in her slippers, without caring a rap for anyone. You might have called her a thief in the street, she wouldn't have turned round. For a month past she hadn't looked at Madame Fauconnier's; the latter had had to turn her out of the place to avoid disputes.
The street, Rue Neuve de la Goutte d'Or, played an important part in their contentment. Gervaise's whole life was there, as she traveled back and forth endlessly between her home and Madame Fauconnier's laundry. Coupeau now went down every evening and stood on the doorstep to smoke his pipe. The poorly-paved street rose steeply and had no sidewalks.
The clearstarcher, meanwhile, was going from bad to worse. She had been dismissed from Mme Fauconnier's and in the last few weeks had worked for eight laundresses, one after the other dismissed from all for her untidiness. As she seemed to have lost all skill in ironing, she went out by the day to wash and by degrees was entrusted with only the roughest work.
The wife worked twelve hours a day at Madame Fauconnier's, and still found means to keep their lodging as clean and bright as a new coined sou and to prepare the meals for all her little family, morning and evening. The husband never got drunk, brought his wages home every fortnight, and smoked a pipe at his window in the evening, to get a breath of fresh air before going to bed.
Gervaise, in her turn, had made her preparations, had worked late into the night and laid aside thirty francs. She had set her heart on a silk mantelet marked thirteen francs, which she had seen in a shopwindow. She paid for it and bought for ten francs from the husband of a laundress who had died in Mme Fauconnier's house a delaine dress of a deep blue, which she made over entirely.
It seemed to her that she was once more in the country no neighbors, no gossip, no interference and from the place where she stood and ironed all day at Mme Fauconnier's she could see the windows of her own room. They moved in the month of April. Gervaise was then near her confinement, but it was she who cleaned and put in order her new home.
When she left the room there was not a sound except the stifled laughter of the little ones. It was then after ten, and the sun was shining brightly in at the window. Gervaise, on reaching the boulevard, turned to the left and followed the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. As she passed Mme Fauconnier's shop she nodded to the woman.
She turned away with a laugh and begged him not to talk any more nonsense. The house might stand or fall they would never have a room in it together. But Coupeau, all the same, was not reproved when he held her hand longer than was necessary in bidding her farewell when they reached Mme Fauconnier's laundry.
When she left the room, Claude's and Etienne's gentle laughter alone disturbed the great silence beneath the blackened ceiling. It was ten o'clock. A ray of sunshine entered by the half open window. On the Boulevard, Gervaise turned to the left, and followed the Rue Neuve de la Goutte-d'Or. As she passed Madame Fauconnier's shop, she slightly bowed her head.
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