He seated himself, and smoked as he watched her.
He probably had something very serious to say; he thought it over, let it ripen without being able to put it into suitable words.
At length, after a long silence, he appeared to make up his mind, and took his pipe out of his mouth to say all in a breath:
“Madame Gervaise, will you allow me to lend you some money?”
She was leaning over an open drawer, looking for some dish-cloths.
She got up, her face very red.
He must have seen her then, in the morning, standing in ecstacy before the shop for close upon ten minutes.
He was smiling in an embarrassed way, as though he had made some insulting proposal.
But she hastily refused. Never would she accept money from any one without knowing when she would be able to return it.
Then also it was a question of too large an amount.
And as he insisted, in a frightened manner, she ended by exclaiming:
“But your marriage?
I certainly can’t take the money you’ve been saving for your marriage!”
“Oh, don’t let that bother you,” he replied, turning red in his turn.
“I’m not going to be married now.
That was just an idea, you know. Really, I would much sooner lend you the money.”
Then they both held down their heads.
There was something very pleasant between them to which they did not give expression.
And Gervaise accepted.
Goujet had told his mother.
They crossed the landing, and went to see her at once.
The lace-mender was very grave, and looked rather sad as she bent her face over her tambour-frame.
She would not thwart her son, but she no longer approved Gervaise’s project; and she plainly told her why. Coupeau was going to the bad; Coupeau would swallow up her shop.
She especially could not forgive the zinc-worker for having refused to learn to read during his convalescence. The blacksmith had offered to teach him, but the other had sent him to the right about, saying that learning made people get thin.
This had almost caused a quarrel between the two workmen; each went his own way.
Madame Goujet, however, seeing her big boy’s beseeching glances, behaved very kindly to Gervaise.
It was settled that they would lend their neighbors five hundred francs; the latter were to repay the amount by installments of twenty francs a month; it would last as long as it lasted.
“I say, the blacksmith’s sweet on you,” exclaimed Coupeau, laughing, when he heard what had taken place.
“Oh, I’m quite easy; he’s too big a muff. We’ll pay him back his money.
But, really, if he had to deal with some people, he’d find himself pretty well duped.”
On the morrow the Coupeaus took the shop.
All day long, Gervaise was running from Rue Neuve de la Goutte-d’Or.
When the neighbors beheld her pass thus, nimble and delighted to the extent that she no longer limped, they said she must have undergone some operation.
CHAPTER V
It so happened that the Boches had left the Rue des Poissonniers at the April quarter, and were now taking charge of the great house in the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or.
It was a curious coincidence, all the same!
One thing that worried Gervaise who had lived so quietly in her lodgings in the Rue Neuve, was the thought of again being under the subjection of some unpleasant person, with whom she would be continually quarrelling, either on account of water spilt in the passage or of a door shut too noisily at night-time.
Concierges are such a disagreeable class!
But it would be a pleasure to be with the Boches.
They knew one another — they would always get on well together.
It would be just like members of the same family.
On the day the Coupeaus went to sign their lease, Gervaise felt her heart swollen with pride as she passed through the high doorway.
She was then at length going to live in that house as vast as a little town, with its interminable staircases, and passages as long and winding as streets.
She was excited by everything: the gray walls with varicolored rugs hanging from windows to dry in the sun, the dingy courtyard with as many holes in its pavement as a public square, the hum of activity coming through the walls.
She felt joy that she was at last about to realize her ambition. She also felt fear that she would fail and be crushed in the endless struggle against the poverty and starvation she could feel breathing down her neck.
It seemed to her that she was doing something very bold, throwing herself into the midst of some machinery in motion, as she listened to the blacksmith’s hammers and the cabinetmakers’ planes, hammering and hissing in the depths of the work-shops on the ground floor.
On that day the water flowing from the dyer’s under the entrance porch was a very pale apple green.
She smilingly stepped over it; to her the color was a pleasant omen.
The meeting with the landlord was to take place in the Boches’ room.
Monsieur Marescot, a wealthy cutler of the Rue de la Paix, had at one time turned a grindstone through the streets.