At first it was arranged that they should merely wash the paint.
But this paint, originally maroon, was so dirty and so sad-looking, that Gervaise allowed herself to be tempted to have the whole of the frontage painted a light blue with yellow moldings.
Then the repairs seemed as though they would last for ever.
Coupeau, as he was still not working, arrived early each morning to see how things were going.
Boche left the overcoat or trousers on which he was working to come and supervise.
Both of them would stand and watch with their hands behind their backs, puffing on their pipes.
The painters were very merry fellows who would often desert their work to stand in the middle of the shop and join the discussion, shaking their heads for hours, admiring the work already done.
The ceiling had been whitewashed quickly, but the paint on the walls never seemed to dry in a hurry.
Around nine o’clock the painters would arrive with their paint pots which they stuck in a corner. They would look around and then disappear.
Perhaps they went to eat breakfast. Sometimes Coupeau would take everyone for a drink — Boche, the two painters and any of Coupeau’s friends who were nearby. This meant another afternoon wasted.
Gervaise’s patience was thoroughly exhausted, when, suddenly, everything was finished in two days, the paint varnished, the paper hung, and the dirt all cleared away.
The workmen had finished it off as though they were playing, whistling away on their ladders, and singing loud enough to deafen the whole neighborhood.
The moving in took place at once.
During the first few days Gervaise felt as delighted as a child.
Whenever she crossed the road on returning from some errand, she lingered to smile at her home.
From a distance her shop appeared light and gay with its pale blue signboard, on which the word “Laundress” was painted in big yellow letters, amidst the dark row of the other frontages.
In the window, closed in behind by little muslin curtains, and hung on either side with blue paper to show off the whiteness of the linen, some shirts were displayed, with some women’s caps hanging above them on wires.
She thought her shop looked pretty, being the same color as the heavens.
Inside there was more blue; the paper, in imitation of a Pompadour chintz, represented a trellis overgrown with morning-glories.
A huge table, taking up two-thirds of the room, was her ironing-table. It was covered with thick blanketing and draped with a strip of cretonne patterned with blue flower sprays that hid the trestles beneath.
Gervaise was enchanted with her pretty establishment and would often seat herself on a stool and sigh with contentment, delighted with all the new equipment.
Her first glance always went to the cast-iron stove where the irons were heated ten at a time, arranged over the heat on slanting rests.
She would kneel down to look into the stove to make sure the apprentice had not put in too much coke.
The lodging at the back of the shop was quite decent.
The Coupeaus slept in the first room, where they also did the cooking and took their meals; a door at the back opened on to the courtyard of the house.
Nana’s bed was in the right hand room, which was lighted by a little round window close to the ceiling.
As for Etienne, he shared the left hand room with the dirty clothes, enormous bundles of which lay about on the floor.
However, there was one disadvantage — the Coupeaus would not admit it at first — but the damp ran down the walls, and it was impossible to see clearly in the place after three o’clock in the afternoon.
In the neighborhood the new shop produced a great sensation.
The Coupeaus were accused of going too fast, and making too much fuss.
They had, in fact, spent the five hundred francs lent by the Goujets in fitting up the shop and in moving, without keeping sufficient to live upon for a fortnight, as they had intended doing.
The morning that Gervaise took down her shutters for the first time, she had just six francs in her purse.
But that did not worry her, customers began to arrive, and things seemed promising.
A week later on the Saturday, before going to bed, she remained two hours making calculations on a piece of paper, and she awoke Coupeau to tell him, with a bright look on her face, that there were hundreds and thousands of francs to be made, if they were only careful.
“Ah, well!” said Madame Lorilleux all over the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or, “my fool of a brother is seeing some funny things!
All that was wanting was that Clump-clump should go about so haughty.
It becomes her well, doesn’t it?”
The Lorilleuxs had declared a feud to the death against Gervaise.
To begin with, they had almost died of rage during the time while the repairs were being done to the shop.
If they caught sight of the painters from a distance, they would walk on the other side of the way, and go up to their rooms with their teeth set.
A blue shop for that “nobody,” it was enough to discourage all honest, hard-working people!
Besides, the second day after the shop opened the apprentice happened to throw out a bowl of starch just at the moment when Madame Lorilleux was passing.
The zinc-worker’s sister caused a great commotion in the street, accusing her sister-in-law of insulting her through her employees.
This broke off all relations.
Now they only exchanged terrible glares when they encountered each other.
“Yes, she leads a pretty life!” Madame Lorilleux kept saying.
“We all know where the money came from that she paid for her wretched shop!
She borrowed it from the blacksmith; and he springs from a nice family too!
Didn’t the father cut his own throat to save the guillotine the trouble of doing so? Anyhow, there was something disreputable of that sort!”
She bluntly accused Gervaise of flirting with Goujet.