Madame Lorilleux said that she had saved enough people’s lives to know how to go about it.
She accused the young wife of pushing her aside, of driving her away from her own brother’s bed.
Certainly that Clump-clump ought to be concerned about Coupeau’s getting well, for if she hadn’t gone to Rue de la Nation to disturb him at his job, he would never had fallen.
Only, the way she was taking care of him, she would certainly finish him.
When Gervaise saw that Coupeau was out of danger, she ceased guarding his bedside with so much jealous fierceness.
Now, they could no longer kill him, and she let people approach without mistrust.
The family invaded the room.
The convalescence would be a very long one; the doctor had talked of four months.
Then, during the long hours the zinc-worker slept, the Lorilleux talked of Gervaise as of a fool. She hadn’t done any good by having her husband at home.
At the hospital they would have cured him twice as quickly.
Lorilleux would have liked to have been ill, to have caught no matter what, just to show her that he did not hesitate for a moment to go to Lariboisiere.
Madame Lorilleux knew a lady who had just come from there.
Well!
She had had chicken to eat morning and night.
Again and again the two of them went over their estimate of how much four months of convalescence would cost; workdays lost, the doctor and the medicines, and afterward good wine and fresh meat.
If the Coupeaus only used up their small savings, they would be very lucky indeed.
They would probably have to do into debt.
Well, that was to be expected and it was their business.
They had no right to expect any help from the family, which couldn’t afford the luxury of keeping an invalid at home.
It was just Clump-clump’s bad luck, wasn’t it?
Why couldn’t she have done as others did and let her man be taken to hospital?
This just showed how stuck up she was.
One evening Madame Lorilleux had the spitefulness to ask Gervaise suddenly:
“Well! And your shop, when are you going to take it?”
“Yes,” chuckled Lorilleux, “the landlord’s still waiting for you.”
Gervaise was astonished.
She had completely forgotten the shop; but she saw the wicked joy of those people, at the thought that she would no longer be able to take it, and she was bursting with anger.
From that evening, in fact, they watched for every opportunity to twit her about her hopeless dream.
When any one spoke of some impossible wish, they would say that it might be realized on the day that Gervaise started in business, in a beautiful shop opening onto the street.
And behind her back they would laugh fit to split their sides.
She did not like to think such an unkind thing, but, really, the Lorilleuxs now seemed to be very pleased at Coupeau’s accident, as it prevented her setting up as a laundress in the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or.
Then she also wished to laugh, and show them how willingly she parted with the money for the sake of curing her husband.
Each time she took the savings-bank book from beneath the glass clock-tower in their presence, she would say gaily:
“I’m going out; I’m going to rent my shop.”
She had not been willing to withdraw the money all at once. She took it out a hundred francs at a time, so as not to keep such a pile of gold and silver in her drawer; then, too, she vaguely hoped for some miracle, some sudden recovery, which would enable them not to part with the entire sum.
At each journey to the savings-bank, on her return home, she added up on a piece of paper the money they had still left there.
It was merely for the sake of order.
Their bank account might be getting smaller all the time, yet she went on with her quiet smile and common-sense attitude, keeping the account straight.
It was a consolation to be able to use this money for such a good purpose, to have had it when faced with their misfortune.
While Coupeau was bed-ridden the Goujets were very kind to Gervaise.
Madame Goujet was always ready to assist. She never went to shop without stopping to ask Gervaise if there was anything she needed, sugar or butter or salt. She always brought over hot bouillon on the evenings she cooked pot au feu. Sometimes, when Gervaise seemed to have too much to do, Madame Goujet helped her do the dishes, or cleaned the kitchen herself.
Goujet took her water pails every morning and filled them at the tap on Rue des Poissonniers, saving her two sous a day.
After dinner, if no family came to visit, the Goujets would come over to visit with the Coupeaus.
Until ten o’clock, the blacksmith would smoke his pipe and watch Gervaise busy with her invalid.
He would not speak ten words the entire evening.
He was moved to pity by the sight of her pouring Coupeau’s tea and medicine into a cup, or stirring the sugar in it very carefully so as to make no sound with the spoon.
It stirred him deeply when she would lean over Coupeau and speak in her soft voice.
Never before had he known such a fine woman.
Her limp increased the credit due her for wearing herself out doing things for her husband all day long. She never sat down for ten minutes, not even to eat.
She was always running to the chemist’s. And then she would still keep the house clean, not even a speck of dust.