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Then Mme Lerat and Virginie vied with each other in the stories they told of Clemence and himself what they did and said whenever her back was turned and now they were sure, since she had left the establishment, that he went regularly to see her. "Well, what of it?" asked Gervaise, her voice trembling. "What have I to do with that?"
A covered wagon drove into the courtyard bearing the inscription, "Lerat, Confectioner, Fecamp; Wedding Breakfasts," and from the back of the wagon Ludivine and a kitchen helper were taking out large flat baskets which emitted an appetizing odor.
Mme Lerat compressed her lips and said morosely: "Of course. I might have known that!" Mme Lerat was a hard-working woman. No man had ever put his nose within her door since her widowhood, and yet her instincts were thoroughly bad; every word uttered by others bore to her ears a double meaning, a coarse allusion sometimes so deeply veiled that no one but herself could grasp its meaning.
Madame Lerat, very intimate just then with Virginie, who confided in her, had that moment entered the shop, and hearing Lantier's remark, she pouted ridiculously, and asked: "What do you mean, you saw her?" "Oh, in the street here," answered the hatter, who felt highly flattered, and began to laugh and twirl his moustaches. "She was in a carriage and I was floundering on the pavement.
Moreover he had some pressing work to attend to, and he returned almost directly to his room, after having stalked about with a face put on for the occasion. Madame Lorilleux and Madame Lerat embraced the Coupeaus and wiped their eyes, from which a few tears were falling.
What a fool, not even to know what to do with a corpse! Had she then never buried anyone in her life? Madame Lerat had to go to the neighbors and borrow a crucifix; she brought one back which was too big, a cross of black wood with a Christ in painted cardboard fastened to it, which covered the whole of mother Coupeau's chest, and seemed to crush her under its weight.
Mme Lorilleux, in fact, was very late. Mme Lerat had called for her, but she had not then begun to dress. "And," said the widow in her brother's ear, "you never saw anything like the temper she was in!" They waited another half-hour. The sky was growing blacker and blacker. Clouds of dust were rising along the street, and down came the rain.
He had brought the journal. Mme Lerat put on her spectacles and read the article aloud, standing in front of the window as she did so. She had the build of a policeman, and she drew herself up to her full height, while her nostrils seemed to compress themselves whenever she uttered a gallant epithet.
She told the most preposterous tales to Mme Lerat about Gervaise of her new finery and of cakes and delicacies eaten in the corner and many other things of infinitely more consequence. Then in a little while she turned against the Lorilleuxs and talked of them in the most bitter manner. At the height of her illness it so happened that her two daughters met one afternoon at her bedside.
The three women round about her stared fixedly at the envelope, a big, crumpled, dirty receptacle, as it lay clasped in her small gloved hands. It was too late now Mme Lerat would not go to Rambouillet till tomorrow, and Nana entered into long explanations. "There's company waiting for you," the lady's maid repeated. But Nana grew excited again.
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