he were
moving in. She joked about it and continued calmly without blushing at
the allusions with which he was always surrounding her. She stood for
anything from him as long as he didn't get rough. She only got angry
once when he pulled a strand of her hair while trying to force a kiss
from her.

Towards the end of June, Coupeau lost his liveliness. He became most
peculiar. Gervaise, feeling uneasy at some of his glances, barricaded
herself in at night. Then, after having sulked ever since the Sunday, he
suddenly came on the Tuesday night about eleven o'clock and knocked at
her room. She would not open to him; but his voice was so gentle and so
trembling that she ended by removing the chest of drawers she had pushed
against the door. When he entered, she thought he was ill; he looked so
pale, his eyes were so red, and the veins on his face were all swollen.
And he stood there, stuttering and shaking his head. No, no, he was not
ill. He had been crying for two hours upstairs in his room; he wept like
a child, biting his pillow so as not to be heard by the neighbors. For
three nights past he had been unable to sleep. It could not go on like
that.

"Listen, Madame Gervaise," said he, with a swelling in his throat and on
the point of bursting out crying again; "we must end this, mustn't we?
We'll go and get married. It's what I want. I've quite made up my mind."

Gervaise showed great surprise. She was very grave.

"Oh! Monsieur Coupeau," murmured she, "whatever are you thinking of?
You know I've never asked you for that. I didn't care about it--that was
all. Oh, no, no! it's serious now; think of what you're saying, I beg of
you."

But he continued to shake his head with an air of unalterable
resolution. He had already thought it all over. He had come down because
he wanted to have a good night. She wasn't going to send him back to
weep again he supposed! As soon as she said "yes," he would no longer
bother her, and she could go quietly to bed. He only wanted to hear her
say "yes." They could talk it over on the morrow.

"But I certainly can't say 'yes' just like that," resumed Gervaise. "I
don't want you to be able to accuse me later on of having incited you to
do a foolish thing. You shouldn't be so insistent, Monsieur Coupeau. You
can't really be sure that you're in love with me. If you didn't see
me for a week, it might fade away. Sometimes men get married and then
there's day after day, stretching out into an