There was no denying it, one might blow about the place without raising a grain of dust; and the tiled floor shone like a mirror.
Madame Goujet made her enter her son’s room, just to see it. It was pretty and white like the room of a young girl; an iron bedstead with muslin curtains, a table, a washstand, and a narrow bookcase hanging against the wall.
Then there were pictures all over the place, figures cut out, colored engravings nailed up with four tacks, and portraits of all kinds of persons taken from the illustrated papers.
Madame Goujet said with a smile that her son was a big baby. He found that reading in the evening put him to sleep, so he amused himself looking at pictures.
Gervaise spent an hour with her neighbor without noticing the passing of time.
Madame Goujet had gone to sit by the window and work on her lace. Gervaise was fascinated by the hundreds of pins that held the lace, and she felt happy to be there, breathing in the good clean atmosphere of this home where such a delicate task enforced a sort of meditative silence. The Goujets were worth visiting.
They worked long hours, and placed more than a quarter of their fortnight’s earnings in the savings-bank.
In the neighborhood everyone nodded to them, everyone talked of their savings.
Goujet never had a hole in his clothes, always went out in a clean short blue blouse, without a stain.
He was very polite, and even a trifle timid, in spite of his broad shoulders.
The washerwomen at the end of the street laughed to see him hold down his head when he passed them.
He did not like their oaths, and thought it disgusting that women should be constantly uttering foul words.
One day, however, he came home tipsy.
Then Madame Goujet, for sole reproach, held his father’s portrait before him, a daub of a painting hidden away at the bottom of a drawer; and, ever since that lesson, Goujet never drank more than was good for him, without however, any hatred of wine, for wine is necessary to the workman.
On Sundays he walked out with his mother, who took hold of his arm. He would generally conduct her to Vincennes; at other times they would go to the theatre.
His mother remained his passion. He still spoke to her as though he were a little child.
Square-headed, his skin toughened by the wielding of the heavy hammer, he somewhat resembled the larger animals: dull of intellect, though good-natured all the same.
In the early days of their acquaintance, Gervaise embarrassed him immensely.
Then in a few weeks he became accustomed to her.
He watched for her that he might carry up her parcels, treated her as a sister, with an abrupt familiarity, and cut out pictures for her.
One morning, however, having opened her door without knocking, he beheld her half undressed, washing her neck; and, for a week, he did not dare to look her in the face, so much so that he ended by making her blush herself.
Young Cassis, with the casual wit of a born Parisian, called Golden Mouth a dolt.
It was all right not to get drunk all the time or chase women, but still, a man must be a man, or else he might as well wear skirts.
Coupeau teased him in front of Gervaise, accusing him of making up to all the women in the neighborhood. Goujet vigorously defended himself against the charge.
But this didn’t prevent the two workingmen from becoming best of friends.
They went off to work together in the mornings and sometimes had a glass of beer together on the way home.
It eventually came about that Golden Mouth could render a service to Young Cassis, one of those favors that is remembered forever.
It was the second of December.
The zinc-worker decided, just for the fun of it, to go into the city and watch the rioting.
He didn’t really care about the Republic, or Napoleon or anything like that, but he liked the smell of gunpowder and the sound of the rifles firing.
He would have been arrested as a rioter if the blacksmith hadn’t turned up at the barricade at just that moment and helped him escape.
Goujet was very serious as they walked back up the Rue du Faubourg Poissonniere.
He was interested in politics and believed in the Republic.
But he had never fired a gun because the common people were getting tired of fighting battles for the middle classes who always seemed to get the benefit of them.
As they reached the top of the slope of the Rue du Faubourg Poissonniere, Goujet turned to look back at Paris and the mobs.
After all, some day people would be sorry that they just stood by and did nothing. Coupeau laughed at this, saying you would be pretty stupid to risk your neck just to preserve the twenty-five francs a day for the lazybones in the Legislative Assembly.
That evening the Coupeaus invited the Goujets to dinner.
After desert Young Cassis and Golden Mouth kissed each other on the cheek.
Their lives were joined till death.
For three years the existence of the two families went on, on either side of the landing, without an event.
Gervaise was able to take care of her daughter and still work most of the week.
She was now a skilled worker on fine laundry and earned up to three francs a day.
She decided to put Etienne, now nearly eight, into a small boarding-school on Rue de Chartres for five francs a week.
Despite the expenses for the two children, they were able to save twenty or thirty francs each month.
Once they had six hundred francs saved, Gervaise often lay awake thinking of her ambitious dream: she wanted to rent a small shop, hire workers, and go into the laundry business herself.
If this effort worked, they would have a steady income from savings in twenty years. They could retire and live in the country.
Yet she hesitated, saying she was looking for the right shop. She was giving herself time to think it over.
Their savings were safe in the bank, and growing larger.
So, in three years’ time she had only fulfilled one of her dreams — she had bought a clock.
But even this clock, made of rosewood with twined columns and a pendulum of gilded brass, was being paid for in installments of twenty-two sous each Monday for a year.