e, she
remained for a time watching the constant stream of men, horses, and
carts which flooded down from the heights of Montmartre and La Chapelle,
pouring between the two squat octroi lodges. It was like a herd of
plodding cattle, an endless throng widened by sudden stoppages into
eddies that spilled off the sidewalks into the street, a steady
procession of laborers on their way back to work with tools slung over
their back and a loaf of bread under their arm. This human inundation
kept pouring down into Paris to be constantly swallowed up. Gervaise
leaned further out at the risk of falling when she thought she
recognized Lantier among the throng. She pressed the handkerchief
tighter against her mouth, as though to push back the pain within her.

The sound of a young and cheerful voice caused her to leave the window.

"So the old man isn't here, Madame Lantier?"

"Why, no, Monsieur Coupeau," she replied, trying to smile.

Coupeau, a zinc-worker who occupied a ten franc room on the top floor,
having seen the door unlocked, had walked in as friends will do.

"You know," he continued, "I'm now working over there in the hospital.
What beautiful May weather, isn't it? The air is rather sharp this
morning."

And he looked at Gervaise's face, red with weeping. When he saw that the
bed had not been slept in, he shook his head gently; then he went to the
children's couch where they were sleeping, looking as rosy as cherubs,
and, lowering his voice, he said,

"Come, the old man's not been home, has he? Don't worry yourself, Madame
Lantier. He's very much occupied with politics. When they were voting
for Eugene Sue the other day, he was acting almost crazy. He has
very likely spent the night with some friends blackguarding crapulous
Bonaparte."

"No, no," she murmured with an effort. "You don't think that. I know
where Lantier is. You see, we have our little troubles like the rest of
the world!"

Coupeau winked his eye, to indicate he was not a dupe of this falsehood;
and he went off, after offering to fetch her milk, if she did not care
to go out: she was a good and courageous woman, and might count upon him
on any day of trouble.

As soon as he was gone, Gervaise again returned to the window. At the
Barriere, the tramp of the drove still continued in the morning air:
locksmiths in short blue blouses, masons in white jackets, house
painters in overcoats over long smocks. From a distance the crowd looked
like a chal