Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 24, 2025
Coupeau, when he was consulted, shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of profound indifference. Mme Lerat said she would pay her share. "There are three of us," said Gervaise after a long calculation; "if we each pay thirty francs we can do it with decency." But Mme Lorilleux burst out furiously: "I will never consent to such folly.
Coupeau was quite willing that Madame Lerat should take the child with her on the morrow to the place where she worked in the Rue du Caire. And they all talked very gravely of the duties of life. Boche said that Nana and Pauline were women now that they had partaken of communion. Poisson added that for the future they ought to know how to cook, mend socks and look after a house.
Do they think I'm to be sold so that they can get their bills paid? Why, look here, I'd rather die of hunger than deceive Fontan." "That's what I said," averred Mme Lerat. "'My niece, I said, 'is too noble-hearted!" Nana, however, was much vexed to learn that La Mignotte was being sold and that Labordette was buying it for Caroline Hequet at an absurdly low price.
The Coupeaus would not allow her to change, because she was there under the supervision of her aunt, Mme Lerat, who had been employed for many years in the same establishment.
At the same moment Leonie, who was watching a man stationed at the foot of the pavement over the way, exclaimed, "What's that old fellow about? He's been spying here for the last quarter of an hour." "Some tom cat," said Madame Lerat. "Nana, just come and sit down! I told you not to stand at the window."
Virginia began to talk of the country: she would like to be buried under a tree with flowers and grass on her grave. Mme Lerat said that in her wardrobe folded up in lavender was the linen sheet in which her body was to be wrapped. When the Poissons went away Lantier accompanied them in order, he said, to leave his bed for the ladies, who could take turns in sleeping there.
The husband, enormously stout, looked as if his vest would burst at the least movement, and his wife, who was nearly as huge as himself, was dressed in a delicate shade of violet which added to her apparent size. "Ah," cried Mme Lerat as she entered, "we are going to have a tremendous shower!" And she bade them all look out the window to see how black the clouds were.
Mme Maloir herself wrote in her bold English hand, "My darling little man," and then she told him not to come tomorrow because "that could not be" but hastened to add that "she was with him in thought at every moment of the day, whether she were near or far away." "And I end with 'a thousand kisses," she murmured. Mme Lerat had shown her approval of each phrase with an emphatic nod.
How Poisson had nearly murdered Lantier. Poisson was a tiger, and he ought to have seen what was going on long before. And Boche said the woman had taken the shop and that Lantier was, as usual, in luck again, for he adored tripe. In the meantime Gervaise went directly to Mme Lerat and Mme Lorilleux and said faintly: "He is dead after four days of horror."
Mme Lerat made her appearance every evening, and she treated Lantier as if he were utterly irresistible, into whose arms any and every woman would be only too glad to fall. An actual league seemed to be forming against Gervaise: all the women insisted on giving her a lover. But she saw none of these fascinations in him.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking