“The coffin is twelve francs,” said he.
“If you desire a mass, it will be ten francs more.
Then there’s the hearse, which is charged for according to the ornaments.”
“Oh! it’s quite unnecessary to be fancy,” murmured Madame Lorilleux, raising her head in a surprised and anxious manner.
“We can’t bring mamma to life again, can we?
One must do according to one’s means.”
“Of course, that’s just what I think,” resumed the hatter.
“I merely asked the prices to guide you. Tell me what you desire; and after lunch I will give the orders.”
They were talking in lowered voices.
Only a dim light came into the room through the cracks in the shutters.
The door to the little room stood half open, and from it came the deep silence of death.
Children’s laughter echoed in the courtyard.
Suddenly they heard the voice of Nana, who had escaped from the Boches to whom she had been sent.
She was giving commands in her shrill voice and the children were singing a song about a donkey.
Gervaise waited until it was quiet to say:
“We’re not rich certainly; but all the same we wish to act decently. If mother Coupeau has left us nothing, it’s no reason for pitching her into the ground like a dog. No; we must have a mass, and a hearse with a few ornaments.”
“And who will pay for them?” violently inquired Madame Lorilleux.
“Not we, who lost some money last week; and you either, as you’re stumped. Ah! you ought, however, to see where it has led you, this trying to impress people!”
Coupeau, when consulted, mumbled something with a gesture of profound indifference, and then fell asleep again on his chair.
Madame Lerat said that she would pay her share.
She was of Gervaise’s opinion, they should do things decently.
Then the two of them fell to making calculations on a piece of paper: in all, it would amount to about ninety francs, because they decided, after a long discussion, to have a hearse ornamented with a narrow scallop.
“We’re three,” concluded the laundress.
“We’ll give thirty francs each.
It won’t ruin us.”
But Madame Lorilleux broke out in a fury.
“Well! I refuse, yes, I refuse!
It’s not for the thirty francs.
I’d give a hundred thousand, if I had them, and if it would bring mamma to life again.
Only, I don’t like vain people.
You’ve got a shop, you only dream of showing off before the neighborhood.
We don’t fall in with it, we don’t. We don’t try to make ourselves out what we are not.
Oh! you can manage it to please yourself.
Put plumes on the hearse if it amuses you.”
“No one asks you for anything,” Gervaise ended by answering.
“Even though I should have to sell myself, I’ll not have anything to reproach myself with.
I’ve fed mother Coupeau without your help, and I can certainly bury her without your help also. I already once before gave you a bit of my mind; I pick up stray cats, I’m not likely to leave your mother in the mire.”
Then Madame Lorilleux burst into tears and Lantier had to prevent her from leaving.
The argument became so noisy that Madame Lerat felt she had to go quietly into the little room and glance tearfully at her dead mother, as though fearing to find her awake and listening.
Just at this moment the girls playing in the courtyard, led by Nana, began singing again.
“Mon Dieu! how those children grate on one’s nerves with their singing!” said Gervaise, all upset and on the point of sobbing with impatience and sadness.
Turning to the hatter, she said: “Do please make them leave off, and send Nana back to the concierge’s with a kick.”
Madame Lerat and Madame Lorilleux went away to eat lunch, promising to return.
The Coupeaus sat down to eat a bite without much appetite, feeling hesitant about even raising a fork.
After lunch Lantier went to the undertaker’s again with the ninety francs. Thirty had come from Madame Lerat and Gervaise had run, with her hair all loose, to borrow sixty francs from Goujet.
Several of the neighbors called in the afternoon, mainly out of curiosity. They went into the little room to make the sign of the cross and sprinkle some holy water with the boxwood sprig.
Then they sat in the shop and talked endlessly about the departed.
Mademoiselle Remanjou had noticed that her right eye was still open. Madame Gaudron maintained that she had a fine complexion for her age.
Madame Fauconnier kept repeating that she had seen her having coffee only three days earlier.
Towards evening the Coupeaus were beginning to have had enough of it.