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Updated: May 31, 2025
It was not long before Gervaise realized she had made a mistake, for when she was one day late with her October rent Mme Boche complained to the proprietor, who came blustering to her shop with his hat on. Of course, too, the Lorilleuxs extended the right hand of fellowship at once to the Boche people. There came a day, however, when Gervaise found it necessary to call on the Lorilleuxs.
"Nothing is better before soup," declared Boche, smacking his lips. Mother Coupeau had placed herself opposite the door to see the faces the Lorilleuxs would make. She pulled Gervaise by the skirt and dragged her into the back-room. And as they both leant over the soup they conversed rapidly in a low voice. "Huh! What a sight!" said the old woman. "You couldn't see them; but I was watching.
Still, the Lorilleuxs delighted in talking sympathetically to Gervaise about the affair between Lantier and Virginie. The Boches maintained they had never seen a more handsome couple. The odd thing in all this was that the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or seemed to have no objection to this new arrangement which everyone thought was progressing nicely.
But when Mamma Coupeau had gone a few steps Gervaise called her back into the shop and, taking her wedding ring from her finger, said: "Take this, too, for we shall need all the money we can get today." And when the old woman came back with twenty-five francs she clapped her hands with joy. She ordered six bottles of wine with seals to drink with the roast. The Lorilleuxs would be green with envy.
There was an endless procession of gossiping women. Gervaise took pride in the comforting warmth of her shop and welcomed those who came in, "holding a salon," as the Lorilleuxs and the Boches remarked meanly. Gervaise was always thoughtful and generous. Sometimes she even invited poor people in if she saw them shivering outside.
Virginie and her husband jumped at this and sent for the concierge, who consented to the arrangement on condition that the new tenants would become security for the two quarters then due. This was agreed upon. The Coupeaus would take a room on the sixth floor near the Lorilleuxs.
But Virginie was triumphant, for she had her way, and the Lorilleuxs did not spare Gervaise the description of a case or a jar. It was said in the street that Lantier had deserted Gervaise, that she gave him no peace running after him, but this was not true, for he went and came to her apartment as he pleased. Scandal was connecting his name and Virginie's.
The hearse was at the door to the great edification of the tradespeople of the neighborhood, who said under their breath that the Coupeaus had best pay their debts. "It is shameful," Gervaise was saying at the same moment, speaking of the Lorilleuxs. "These people have not even brought a bouquet of violets for their mother."
As the Lorilleuxs always grumbled at having to part with the five francs for mother Coupeau, he explained that an action could be brought against them. They must think that they had a set of fools to deal with! It was ten francs a month which they ought to give! And he would go up himself for the ten francs so boldly and yet so amiably that the chainmaker never dared refuse them.
Thus the party had seemed to melt away, some disappearing behind the others, all accompanying one another, and being lost sight of in the surrounding darkness, to the accompaniment of a final uproar, a furious quarrel between the Lorilleuxs, and an obstinate and mournful "trou la la, trou la la," of old Bru's.
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