h me; it doesn't
become you to sneer at it now!"

Apparently not listening, Gervaise went on with her own thought. "If we
work hard we can get out of the hole we're in. Madame Fauconnier, the
laundress on Rue Neuve, will start me on Monday. If you work with your
friend from La Glaciere, in six months we will be doing well. We'll have
enough for decent clothes and a place we can call our own. But we'll
have to stick with it and work hard."

Lantier turned over towards the wall, looking greatly bored. Then
Gervaise lost her temper.

"Yes, that's it, I know the love of work doesn't trouble you much.
You're bursting with ambition, you want to be dressed like a gentleman.
You don't think me nice enough, do you, now that you've made me pawn
all my dresses? Listen, Auguste, I didn't intend to speak of it, I would
have waited a bit longer, but I know where you spent the night; I saw
you enter the 'Grand-Balcony' with that trollop Adele. Ah! you choose
them well! She's a nice one, she is! She does well to put on the airs
of a princess! She's been the ridicule of every man who frequents the
restaurant."

At a bound Lantier sprang from the bed. His eyes had become as black as
ink in his pale face. With this little man, rage blew like a tempest.

"Yes, yes, of every man who frequents the restaurant!" repeated the
young woman. "Madame Boche intends to give them notice, she and her long
stick of a sister, because they've always a string of men after them on
the staircase."

Lantier raised his fists; then, resisting the desire of striking her,
he seized hold of her by the arms, shook her violently and sent her
sprawling upon the bed of the children, who recommenced crying. And
he lay down again, mumbling, like a man resolving on something that he
previously hesitated to do:

"You don't know what you've done, Gervaise. You've made a big mistake;
you'll see."

For an instant the children continued sobbing. Their mother, who
remained bending over the bed, held them both in her embrace, and kept
repeating the same words in a monotonous tone of voice.

"Ah! if it weren't for you! My poor little ones! If it weren't for you!
If it weren't for you!"

Stretched out quietly, his eyes raised to the faded strip of chintz,
Lantier no longer listened, but seemed to be buried in a fixed idea. He
remained thus for nearly an hour, without giving way to sleep, in spite
of the fatigue which weighed his eyelids down.

He finally turned tow