had seen him enter a dancing-hall
opposite, and, five or six paces behind, little Adele, a burnisher.

Towards five o'clock Gervaise awoke, stiff and sore. Seated on the edge
of the bed, her eyes veiled in tears, she glanced round the wretched
room, furnished with a chest of drawers, three chairs and a little
greasy table on which stood a broken water-jug. On the mantelpiece was a
bundle of pawn tickets. It was the best room of the lodging house, the
Hotel Boncoeur, in the Boulevard de la Chapelle.

The two children were sleeping side by side. Claude was eight years of
age, while Etienne was only four. The bedewed gaze of their mother
rested upon them and she burst into a fresh fit of sobbing. Then she
returned to the window and searched the distant pavements with her eyes.

About eight Lantier returned. He was a young fellow of twenty-six, a
short, dark, and handsome Provencal. He pushed her aside, and when she
upbraided him, shook her violently, and then sent her out to pawn a few
ragged, soiled garments. When she returned with a five-franc-piece he
slipped it into his pocket and lay down on the bed and appeared to fall
asleep. Reassured by his regular breathing, she gathered together a
bundle of dirty clothes and went out to a wash-house near by.

Madame Boche, the doorkeeper of the Hotel Boncoeur, had kept a place for
her, and immediately started talking, without leaving off her work.

"No, we're not married" said Gervaise presently. "Lantier isn't so nice
that one should care to be his wife. We have lived together eight years.
In the country he was very good to me, but his mother died last year and
left him seventeen hundred francs. He would come to Paris, and since
then I don't know what to make of him. He's ambitious and a spendthrift,
and at the end of two months we came to the Hotel Boncoeur."

The gossip continued and Gervaise had nearly finished when she
recognised, a few tubs away, the tall Virginie, her supposed rival in
the affections of Lantier, and the sister of Adele. Suddenly some
laughter arose at the door of the wash-house and Claude and Etienne ran
to Gervaise through the puddles. Claude had the key of the room on his
finger, and he exclaimed in his clear voice, "Papa's gone. He jumped off
the bed, put all the things in the box and carried it down to a cab.
He's gone."

Gervaise rose to her feet, ghastly pale, unable to cry.

"Come, my dear," murmured Madame Boche.

"If you but knew," she s