Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 31, 2025
The Lorilleuxs shrugged their shoulders as the door closed. They hoped they had seen the last of her face. She had brought all her misfortunes on her own head, and she had, therefore, no right to expect any assistance from them. Boche joined in these animadversions, and all three considered themselves avenged for the blue shop and all the rest. "I know her!" said Mme Lorilleux.
Gervaise had been calm and smiling all day, but she had quietly watched her husband with the Lorilleuxs. She thought Coupeau was afraid of his sister cowardly, in fact.
Mamma Coupeau would certainly give her consent at once, as she never refused her only son anything. The thing was that the Lorilleuxs were supposed to be earning ten francs a day or more and that gave them a certain authority. Coupeau would never dare to get married unless his wife was acceptable to them. "I have spoken to them of you, they know our plans," explained he to Gervaise. "Come now!
Gervaise was greatly disappointed, but she had no time to say much just then: she was beginning to be anxious about Coupeau he ought to be in then, too, where were the Lorilleuxs? She called Mme Lerat, who had arranged the reconciliation, and bade her go and see. Mme Lerat put on her hat and shawl with excessive care and departed. A solemn hush of expectation pervaded the room.
At the end of the month they adored him. The Boches, whom he flattered by going to pay his respects in their concierge's lodge, went into ecstasies over his politeness. As soon as the Lorilleuxs knew who he was, they howled at the impudence of Gervaise in bringing her former lover into her home.
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.
Yes, somewhere, her beast of a man and the Lorilleuxs, the Boches, and the Poissons too; in fact, the whole neighborhood, which she had such contempt for. She sent all Paris there with a gesture of supreme carelessness, and was pleased to be able to revenge herself in this style. One could get used to almost anything, but still, it is hard to break the habit of eating.
Well, after that when Madame Boches swept the corridors on Saturdays, she always left a pile of trash before the Lorilleuxs' door. "It isn't to be wondered at!" Madame Lorilleux would exclaim, "Clump-clump's always stuffing them, the gluttons! Ah! they're all alike; but they had better not annoy me! I'll complain to the landlord.
The Lorilleuxs threatened to move out if that wayward niece of theirs brought men trailing in after her. It was disgusting. The staircase was full of them. The Boches said that they felt sympathy for the old gentleman because he had fallen for a tramp. He was really a respectable businessman, they had seen his button factory on the Boulevard de la Villette.
The tripe-seller called to the grocer's men, the little clockmaker came out on to the pavement, the neighbors leant out of their windows; and all these people talked about the scallop with its white cotton fringe. Ah! the Coupeaus would have done better to have paid their debts. But as the Lorilleuxs said, when one is proud it shows itself everywhere and in spite of everything. "It's shameful!"
Word Of The Day
Others Looking