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Updated: May 26, 2025
I said to my brother I could not understand how he could marry a woman with two children. You must not be angry if I think of his interests; it is only natural. You do not look very strong. Say, Lorilleux, don't you think that Madame looks delicate?" This courteous pair made no allusion to her lameness, but Gervaise felt it to be in their minds.
Mme Lerat presently reappeared. She had come round by the street to give a more ceremonious aspect to the affair. She held the door open while Mme Lorilleux, in a silk dress, stood on the threshold. All the guests rose, and Gervaise went forward to meet her sister and kissed her, as had been agreed upon. "Come in! Come in!" she said. "We are friends again."
But suddenly she perceived that Mme Goujet not having come, there was an empty seat next to Mme Lorilleux. "We are thirteen," she said, much disturbed, as she fancied this to be an additional proof of the misfortune which for some time she had felt to be hanging over them. The ladies, who were seated, started up.
She held the shop-door wide open whilst Madame Lorilleux, wearing a silk dress, stopped at the threshold. All the guests had risen from their seats; Gervaise went forward and kissing her sister-in-law as had been agreed, said: "Come in. It's all over, isn't it? We'll both be nice to each other." And Madame Lorilleux replied: "I shall be only too happy if we're so always."
Mon Dieu! how pleasant it was out of doors, one could breathe there! That evening everyone in the tenement was discussing Coupeau's strange malady. The Boches invited Gervaise to have a drink with them, even though they now considered Clump-clump beneath them, in order to hear all the details. Madame Lorilleux and Madame Poisson were there also.
Coupeau, who was furious, would have knocked him over had not Gervaise, greatly frightened, pulled him by his coat, and begged him to keep cool. He decided to borrow the two francs of Lorilleux, who after refusing them, lent them on the sly, for his wife would never have consented to his doing so. Monsieur Madinier went round with a plate.
What a child you are! Let's call on them this evening. I've warned you, haven't I? You'll find my sister rather stiff. Lorilleux, too, isn't always very amiable. In reality they are greatly annoyed, because if I marry, I shall no longer take my meals with them, and it'll be an economy the less. But that doesn't matter, they won't turn you out. Do this for me, it's absolutely necessary."
Twice weekly the shop was swept out carefully, the sweepings collected and burned and the ashes sifted. This recovered up to twenty-five or thirty francs' worth of gold a month. Madame Lorilleux could not take her eyes from Gervaise's shoes. "There's no reason to get angry," murmured she with an amiable smile. "But, perhaps madame would not mind looking at the soles of her shoes."
Madame Lorilleux was loudly indignant, calling her brother a poor fool whose wife had shamed him. And her poor mother, forced to live in the midst of such horrors. As a result, the neighbors blamed Gervaise. Yes, she must have led Lantier astray; you could see it in her eyes. In spite of the nasty gossip, Lantier was still liked because he was always so polite.
Madame Lorilleux turned round and stared at her. Here was a wheedler trying to get round them. To-day she asked them for ten sous, to-morrow it would be for twenty, and there would be no reason to stop. No, indeed; it would be a warm day in winter if they lent her anything. "But, my dear," cried Madame Lorilleux. "You know very well that we haven't any money! Look! There's the lining of my pocket.
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