She had recently been on fairly good terms with the Lorilleuxs, but she saw Boche sitting by the stove. He seemed very much at home, telling funny stories.
“What do you want?” repeated Lorilleux.
“You haven’t seen Coupeau?” Gervaise finally stammered at last.
“I thought he was here.”
The chainmakers and the concierge sneered.
No, for certain, they hadn’t seen Coupeau.
They didn’t stand treat often enough to interest Coupeau.
Gervaise made an effort and resumed, stuttering:
“It’s because he promised to come home. Yes, he’s to bring me some money. And as I have absolute need of something — “
Silence followed.
Madame Lorilleux was roughly fanning the fire of the stove; Lorilleux had lowered his nose over the bit of chain between his fingers, while Boche continued laughing, puffing out his face till it looked like the full moon.
“If I only had ten sous,” muttered Gervaise, in a low voice.
The silence persisted.
“Couldn’t you lend me ten sous?
Oh! I would return them to you this evening!”
Madame Lorilleux turned round and stared at her.
Here was a wheedler trying to get round them.
To-day she asked them for ten sous, to-morrow it would be for twenty, and there would be no reason to stop.
No, indeed; it would be a warm day in winter if they lent her anything.
“But, my dear,” cried Madame Lorilleux. “You know very well that we haven’t any money!
Look! There’s the lining of my pocket.
You can search us.
If we could, it would be with a willing heart, of course.”
“The heart’s always there,” growled Lorilleux. “Only when one can’t, one can’t.”
Gervaise looked very humble and nodded her head approvingly.
However, she did not take herself off. She squinted at the gold, at the gold tied together hanging on the walls, at the gold wire the wife was drawing out with all the strength of her little arms, at the gold links lying in a heap under the husband’s knotty fingers.
And she thought that the least bit of this ugly black metal would suffice to buy her a good dinner.
The workroom was as dirty as ever, full of old iron, coal dust and sticky oil stains, half wiped away; but now, as Gervaise saw it, it seemed resplendent with treasure, like a money changer’s shop.
And so she ventured to repeat softly:
“I would return them to you, return them without fail. Ten sous wouldn’t inconvenience you.”
Her heart was swelling with the effort she made not to own that she had had nothing to eat since the day before.
Then she felt her legs give way. She was frightened that she might burst into tears, and she still stammered:
“It would be kind of you!
You don’t know. Yes, I’m reduced to that, good Lord — reduced to that!”
Thereupon the Lorilleuxs pursed their lips and exchanged covert glances.
So Clump-clump was begging now!
Well, the fall was complete.
But they did not care for that kind of thing by any means.
If they had known, they would have barricaded the door, for people should always be on their guard against beggars — folks who make their way into apartments under a pretext and carry precious objects away with them; and especially so in this place, as there was something worth while stealing.
One might lay one’s fingers no matter where, and carry off thirty or forty francs by merely closing the hands.
They had felt suspicious several times already on noticing how strange Gervaise looked when she stuck herself in front of the gold.
This time, however, they meant to watch her.
And as she approached nearer, with her feet on the board, the chainmaker roughly called out, without giving any further answer to her question:
“Look out, pest — take care; you’ll be carrying some scraps of gold away on the soles of your shoes. One would think you had greased them on purpose to make the gold stick to them.”
Gervaise slowly drew back.
For a moment she leant against a rack, and seeing that Madame Lorilleux was looking at her hands, she opened them and showed them, saying softly, without the least anger, like a fallen women who accepts anything:
“I have taken nothing; you can look.”
And then she went off, because the strong smell of the cabbage soup and the warmth of the workroom made her feel too ill.
Ah! the Lorilleuxs did not detain her.
Good riddance; just see if they opened the door to her again.