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Updated: June 24, 2025
Madame Lerat, eldest of the Coupeaus, was a tall, gaunt woman who talked through her nose. She was unattractively dressed in a puce-colored robe that hung loosely on her and had such long dangling fringes that they made her look like a skinny poodle coming out of the water. She brandished her umbrella like a club. After greeting Gervaise, she said, "You've no idea.
Mme Lerat looked at the man out of the corners of her eyes. "You must tell me everything," she said. While they talked they went from shop to shop, and their arms grew full of small packages, but they hurried back, still talking of the gentleman. "It may be a good thing," said Mme Lerat, "if his intentions are only honorable."
Finally, Madame Lerat suggested in a friendly tone: "Listen, it should be Monsieur Poisson; yes, Monsieur Poisson." But, as the others did not appear to understand, she added in a more flattering manner still: "Why, yes, of course, it should be Monsieur Poisson, who's accustomed to the use of arms." And she passed the kitchen knife to the policeman.
It's stupid not to know anyone who'll give you three hundred francs." She racked her brains. She would have sent Mme Lerat, whom she was expecting that very morning, to Rambouillet. The counteraction of her sudden fancy spoiled for her the triumph of last night. Among all those men who had cheered her, to think that there wasn't one to bring her fifteen louis!
The Lorilleux were furious enough to explode, especially since Madame Lerat was now back on good terms with the Coupeaus. One day the two sisters, the flower-maker and the chainmaker came to blows about Gervaise because Madame Lerat dared to express approval of the way she was taking care of their mother.
He put up with Mme Lerat and her encumbrances, with Louiset and the mournful complaints peculiar to a child who is being eaten up with the rottenness inherited from some unknown father. But he spent hours worse than these.
Madame Lerat was finishing the last chorus. The ladies were singing all together as they twisted their handkerchiefs. "The child that is lost is the child of God's love." The singer was greatly complimented and she resumed her seat affecting to be quite broken down.
They declared it had a very queer look to see him and his wife always with strangers rather than with his own family, and Mme Lorilleux began to say hateful things again of Gervaise. Mme Lerat, on the contrary, took her part, while Mamma Coupeau tried to please everyone.
Yes, it would do if it were taken in at the waist. Then Mme Lorilleux looked at the bed and the wardrobe and asked if there was nothing else belonging to her mother. Here Mme Lerat interfered. The Coupeaus, she said, had taken care of her mother, and they were entitled to all the trifles she had left. The night seemed endless.
Twice a week, regularly, Bosc had indigestion. One evening as Mme Lerat was withdrawing from the scene in high dudgeon because she had noticed a copious dinner she was not destined to eat in process of preparation, she could not prevent herself asking brutally who paid for it all. Nana was taken by surprise; she grew foolish and began crying.
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