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Updated: April 30, 2025
She got upset if Coupeau tried to wind it; she liked to be the only one to lift off the glass dome. It was under the glass dome, behind the clock, that she hid her bank book. Sometimes, when she was dreaming of her shop, she would stare fixedly at the clock, lost in thought. The Coupeaus went out nearly every Sunday with the Goujets.
That was where she had met her husband while he was still in the army. But she got tired of it, and wanted to come back to the Goutte-d'Or neighborhood where she knew everyone. She had only been living in the rooms opposite the Goujets for two weeks. Oh! everything was still a mess, but they were slowly getting it in order. Then, still on the staircase, they finally told each other their names.
It was a wonderful clock, rosewood with fluted columns and gilt moldings and pendulum. She kept her bankbook under the glass shade, and often when she was thinking of her shop she stood with her eyes fixed on the clock, as if she were waiting for some especial and solemn moment. The Coupeaus and the Goujets now went out on Sundays together.
When Gervaise finally took her leave, Goujet was so happy that he almost crushed her with a hug. The laundress went every Saturday to the Goujets to deliver their washing. They still lived in the little house in the Rue Neuve de la Goutte-d'Or.
Very pale, her limbs already trembling, she placed the things in a basket and started off. For years past she had not returned the Goujets a sou of their money. The debt still amounted to four hundred and twenty-five francs. She always spoke of her embarrassments and received the money for the washing.
He only drank wine though, never brandy. Wine never made you sick, didn't get you drunk, and helped you to live longer. Soon though, several times, after a day of idleness in going from one building job to another, he came home half drunk. On those occasions Gervaise pretended to have a terrible headache and kept their door closed so that the Goujets wouldn't hear Coupeau's drunken babblings.
Goujet took her water pails every morning and filled them at the tap on Rue des Poissonniers, saving her two sous a day. After dinner, if no family came to visit, the Goujets would come over to visit with the Coupeaus. Until ten o'clock, the blacksmith would smoke his pipe and watch Gervaise busy with her invalid. He would not speak ten words the entire evening.
After all, some day people would be sorry that they just stood by and did nothing. Coupeau laughed at this, saying you would be pretty stupid to risk your neck just to preserve the twenty-five francs a day for the lazybones in the Legislative Assembly. That evening the Coupeaus invited the Goujets to dinner. After desert Young Cassis and Golden Mouth kissed each other on the cheek.
She had therefore paid off nearly half the sum owing, when one quarter day, not knowing what to do, some of her customers not having kept their promises, she had been obliged to go to the Goujets and borrow from them sufficient for her rent.
She, her husband, mother Coupeau, and Madame Lerat, already made four members of the family. She would also have the Goujets and the Poissons.
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