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Once she pointed out that Lantier was just as much her husband as Coupeau was. Hadn't she known him since she was fourteen and didn't she have children by him? Anyway, she'd like to see anyone make trouble for her. She wasn't the only one around the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. Madame Vigouroux, the coal-dealer had a merry dance from morning to night.
Then Coupeau found out from the proprietress that Nana was being corrupted by that little floozie Leonie, who had given up flower-making to go on the street. Nana was being tempted by the jingle of cash and the lure of adventure on the streets. In the tenement in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, Nana's old fellow was talked about as a gentleman everyone was acquainted with.
From the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or a large clearing could now be seen, a dash of sunlight and open air; and in place of the gloomy buildings which had hidden the view in this direction there rose up on the Boulevard Ornano a perfect monument, a six-storied house, carved all over like a church, with clear windows, which, with their embroidered curtains, seemed symbolical of wealth.
The people of the neighborhood had ended by greatly esteeming her, for one did not find many customers so kind as she was, paying punctually, never caviling or higgling. She bought her bread of Madame Coudeloup, in the Rue des Poissonniers; her meat of stout Charles, a butcher in the Rue Polonceau; her groceries at Lehongre's, in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, almost opposite her own shop.
She refused to give any explanation, saying, in fact, there really was nothing the matter, but she finally became so abstracted that she stood still with the plates in her hand as she laid the table for dinner, and her husband insisted on an explanation. "If you must know," she said, "that little shop in La Rue de la Goutte-d'Or is vacant.
Oh! it isn't possible you still love me. Good-bye, good-bye; it would smother us both; it would be more than we could stand." And she darted through Madame Goujet's room and found herself outside on the pavement again. When she recovered her senses she had rung at the door in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or and Boche was pulling the string.
"Oh, I'm quite easy; he's too big a muff. We'll pay him back his money. But, really, if he had to deal with some people, he'd find himself pretty well duped." On the morrow the Coupeaus took the shop. All day long, Gervaise was running from Rue Neuve de la Goutte-d'Or.
"You know," said he, "I can see the Hotel Boncoeur when I'm up there. Yesterday you were at the window, and I waved my arms, but you didn't notice me." They had already gone about a hundred paces along the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, when he stood still and raising his eyes, said: "That's the house. I was born farther on, at No. 22. But this house is, all the same, a fine block of masonry!
She refused to talk about it; there was nothing at all the matter with her, she said. But, as she had the table all wrong, standing still with the plates in her hands, absorbed in deep reflection, her husband insisted upon knowing what was the matter. "Well, it is this," she ended by saying, "the little draper's shop in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, is to let.
When Gervaise got back to the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or she found at the Boches' a number of women who were cackling in excited tones. She thought they were awaiting her to have the latest news, the same as the other days. "He's gone," said she, quietly, as she pushed open the door, looking tired out and dull. But no one listened to her. The whole building was topsy-turvy.
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