them went over their estimate of how much
four months of convalescence would cost; workdays lost, the doctor and
the medicines, and afterward good wine and fresh meat. If the Coupeaus
only used up their small savings, they would be very lucky indeed. They
would probably have to do into debt. Well, that was to be expected and
it was their business. They had no right to expect any help from the
family, which couldn't afford the luxury of keeping an invalid at home.
It was just Clump-clump's bad luck, wasn't it? Why couldn't she have
done as others did and let her man be taken to hospital? This just
showed how stuck up she was.

One evening Madame Lorilleux had the spitefulness to ask Gervaise
suddenly:

"Well! And your shop, when are you going to take it?"

"Yes," chuckled Lorilleux, "the landlord's still waiting for you."

Gervaise was astonished. She had completely forgotten the shop; but she
saw the wicked joy of those people, at the thought that she would no
longer be able to take it, and she was bursting with anger. From that
evening, in fact, they watched for every opportunity to twit her about
her hopeless dream. When any one spoke of some impossible wish, they
would say that it might be realized on the day that Gervaise started in
business, in a beautiful shop opening onto the street. And behind her
back they would laugh fit to split their sides. She did not like to
think such an unkind thing, but, really, the Lorilleuxs now seemed to be
very pleased at Coupeau's accident, as it prevented her setting up as a
laundress in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or.

Then she also wished to laugh, and show them how willingly she parted
with the money for the sake of curing her husband. Each time she took
the savings-bank book from beneath the glass clock-tower in their
presence, she would say gaily:

"I'm going out; I'm going to rent my shop."

She had not been willing to withdraw the money all at once. She took it
out a hundred francs at a time, so as not to keep such a pile of gold
and silver in her drawer; then, too, she vaguely hoped for some miracle,
some sudden recovery, which would enable them not to part with the
entire sum. At each journey to the savings-bank, on her return home, she
added up on a piece of paper the money they had still left there. It
was merely for the sake of order. Their bank account might be getting
smaller all the time, yet she went on with her quiet smile and
common-sense attitude, keeping the