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Madame Lerat and Madame Lorilleux went away to eat lunch, promising to return. The Coupeaus sat down to eat a bite without much appetite, feeling hesitant about even raising a fork. After lunch Lantier went to the undertaker's again with the ninety francs. Thirty had come from Madame Lerat and Gervaise had run, with her hair all loose, to borrow sixty francs from Goujet.
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.
The Lorilleuxs would be crushed. For a fortnight past it had been the Coupeaus' dream to crush the Lorilleuxs. Was it not true that those sly ones, the man and his wife, a truly pretty couple, shut themselves up whenever they had anything nice to eat as though they had stolen it? Yes, they covered up the window with a blanket to hide the light and make believe that they were already asleep in bed.
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."
He should have blamed himself for eating himself out of house and home, but instead he blamed the Coupeaus for letting themselves be ruined in less than two years. He thought Gervaise was too extravagant. What was going to happen to them now? One evening in December they had no dinner at all. There was not a radish left.
"Oh, I'm quite easy; he's too big a muff. We'll pay him back his money. But, really, if he had to deal with some people, he'd find himself pretty well duped." On the morrow the Coupeaus took the shop. All day long, Gervaise was running from Rue Neuve de la Goutte-d'Or.
Mme Boche advised Gervaise to watch for him at the door of the place where he was employed and get his wages from him before he had spent them all, but this did no good, as Coupeau was warned by his friends and escaped by a rear door. The Coupeaus were entirely to blame for their misfortunes, but this is just what people will never admit.
Soon Lantier's visits to the Coupeaus were accepted as perfectly natural; he was in the good graces of everyone along the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. Goujet was the only one who remained cold. If he happened to be there when Lantier arrived, he would leave at once as he didn't want to be obliged to be friendly to him.
He ruled Gervaise with a rod of iron, grumbled and found fault far more than Coupeau ever did. It was a house with two masters, one of whom, cleverer by far than the other, took the best of everything. He skimmed the Coupeaus, as it were, and kept all the cream for himself. He was fond of Nana because he liked girls better than boys. He troubled himself little about Etienne.
He confessed to them confidentially that he was the real boss of the building. It was he who decided who got eviction notices and who could become tenants. He collected all the rents and kept them for a couple of weeks in his bureau drawer. That evening the Coupeaus, to express their gratitude to the Boches, sent them two bottles of wine as a present.
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