She got upset if Coupeau tried to wind it; she liked to be the only one to lift off the glass dome.
It was under the glass dome, behind the clock, that she hid her bank book.
Sometimes, when she was dreaming of her shop, she would stare fixedly at the clock, lost in thought.
The Coupeaus went out nearly every Sunday with the Goujets.
They were pleasant little excursions, sometimes to have some fried fish at Saint-Ouen, at others a rabbit at Vincennes, in the garden of some eating-house keeper without any grand display.
The men drank sufficient to quench their thirst, and returned home as right as nine-pins, giving their arms to the ladies.
In the evening before going to bed, the two families made up accounts and each paid half the expenses; and there was never the least quarrel about a sou more or less.
The Lorilleuxs became jealous of the Goujets.
It seemed strange to them to see Young Cassis and Clump-clump going places all the time with strangers instead of their own relations.
But, that’s the way it was; some folks didn’t care a bit about their family.
Now that they had saved a few sous, they thought they were really somebody.
Madame Lorilleux was much annoyed to see her brother getting away from her influence and begin to continually run down Gervaise to everyone.
On the other hand, Madame Lerat took the young wife’s side.
Mother Coupeau tried to get along with everybody. She only wanted to be welcomed by all three of her children. Now that her eyesight was getting dimmer and dimmer she only had one regular house cleaning job but she was able to pick up some small jobs now and again.
On the day on which Nana was three years old, Coupeau, on returning home in the evening, found Gervaise quite upset.
She refused to talk about it; there was nothing at all the matter with her, she said.
But, as she had the table all wrong, standing still with the plates in her hands, absorbed in deep reflection, her husband insisted upon knowing what was the matter.
“Well, it is this,” she ended by saying, “the little draper’s shop in the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or, is to let. I saw it only an hour ago, when going to buy some cotton.
It gave me quite a turn.”
It was a very decent shop, and in that big house where they dreamed of living in former days.
There was the shop, a back room, and two other rooms to the right and left; in short, just what they required. The rooms were rather small, but well placed.
Only, she considered they wanted too much; the landlord talked of five hundred francs.
“So you’ve been over the place, and asked the price?” said Coupeau.
“Oh! you know, only out of curiosity!” replied she, affecting an air of indifference.
“One looks about, and goes in wherever there’s a bill up — that doesn’t bind one to anything. But that shop is altogether too dear.
Besides, it would perhaps be foolish of me to set up in business.”
However, after dinner, she again referred to the draper’s shop.
She drew a plan of the place on the margin of a newspaper. And, little by little, she talked it over, measuring the corners, and arranging the rooms, as though she were going to move all her furniture in there on the morrow.
Then Coupeau advised her to take it, seeing how she wanted to do so; she would certainly never find anything decent under five hundred francs; besides they might perhaps get a reduction.
He knew only one objection to it and that was living in the same house as the Lorilleux, whom she could not bear.
Gervaise declared that she wasn’t mad at anybody.
So much did she want her own shop that she even spoke up for the Lorilleuxs, saying that they weren’t mean at heart and that she would be able to get along just fine with them.
When they went to bed, Coupeau fell asleep immediately, but she stayed awake, planning how she could arrange the new place even though she hadn’t yet made up her mind completely.
On the morrow, when she was alone, she could not resist removing the glass cover from the clock, and taking a peep at the savings-bank book.
To think that her shop was there, in those dirty pages, covered with ugly writing!
Before going off to her work, she consulted Madame Goujet, who highly approved her project of setting up in business for herself; with a husband like hers, a good fellow who did not drink, she was certain of getting on, and of not having her earnings squandered.
At the luncheon hour Gervaise even called on the Lorilleuxs to ask their advice; she did not wish to appear to be doing anything unknown to the family.
Madame Lorilleux was struck all of a heap.
What!
Clump-clump was going in for a shop now!
And her heart bursting with envy, she stammered, and tried to pretend to be pleased: no doubt the shop was a convenient one — Gervaise was right in taking it.
However, when she had somewhat recovered, she and her husband talked of the dampness of the courtyard, of the poor light of the rooms on the ground floor.
Oh! it was a good place for rheumatism.
Yet, if she had made up her mind to take it, their observations, of course, would not make her alter her decision.
That evening Gervaise frankly owned with a laugh that she would have fallen ill if she had been prevented from having the shop.
Nevertheless, before saying “it’s done!” she wished to take Coupeau to see the place, and try and obtain a reduction in the rent.
“Very well, then, to-morrow, if you like,” said her husband.
“You can come and fetch me towards six o’clock at the house where I’m working, in the Rue de la Nation, and we’ll call in at the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or on our way home.”
Coupeau was then finishing the roofing of a new three-storied house.
It so happened that on that day he was to fix the last sheets of zinc.