Then a procession was formed.
Nana came first dragging the wooden shoe.
Pauline and Victor walked on her right and left.
Then the entire crowd of urchins followed in order, the big ones first, the little ones next, jostling one another; a baby in long skirts about as tall as a boot with an old tattered bonnet cocked on one side of its head, brought up the rear.
And the procession chanted something sad with plenty of ohs! and ahs!
Nana had said that they were going to play at a funeral; the potato parings represented the body.
When they had gone the round of the courtyard, they recommenced. They thought it immensely amusing.
“What can they be up to?” murmured Madame Boche, who emerged from her room to see, ever mistrustful and on the alert.
And when she understood:
“But it’s my shoe!” cried she furiously.
“Ah, the rogues!”
She distributed some smacks, clouted Nana on both cheeks and administered a kick to Pauline, that great goose who allowed the others to steal her mother’s shoe.
It so happened that Gervaise was filling a bucket at the top.
When she beheld Nana, her nose bleeding and choking with sobs, she almost sprang at the concierge’s chignon.
It was not right to hit a child as though it were an ox.
One could have no heart, one must be the lowest of the low if one did so.
Madame Boche naturally replied in a similar strain.
When one had a beast of a girl like that one should keep her locked up.
At length Boche himself appeared in the doorway to call his wife to come in and not to enter into so many explanations with a filthy thing like her.
There was a regular quarrel.
As a matter of fact things had not gone on very pleasantly between the Boches and the Coupeaus for a month past.
Gervaise, who was of a very generous nature, was continually bestowing wine, broth, oranges and slices of cake on the Boches.
One night she had taken the remains of an endive and beetroot salad to the concierge’s room, knowing that the latter would have done anything for such a treat.
But on the morrow she became quite pale with rage on hearing Mademoiselle Remanjou relate how Madame Boche had thrown the salad away in the presence of several persons with an air of disgust and under the pretext that she, thank goodness, was not yet reduced to feeding on things which others had messed about.
From that time Gervaise took no more presents to the Boches — nothing.
Now the Boches seemed to think that Gervaise was stealing something which was rightfully theirs.
Gervaise saw that she had made a mistake. If she hadn’t catered to them so much in the beginning, they wouldn’t have gotten into the habit of expecting it and might have remained on good terms with her.
Now the concierge began to spread slander about Gervaise.
There was a great fuss with the landlord, Monsieur Marescot, at the October rental period, because Gervaise was a day late with the rent.
Madame Boche accused her of eating up all her money in fancy dishes. Monsieur Marescot charged into the laundry demanding to be paid at once. He didn’t even bother to remove his hat.
The money was ready and was paid to him immediately.
The Boches had now made up with the Lorilleuxs who now came and did their guzzling in the concierge’s lodge.
They assured each other that they never would have fallen out if it hadn’t been for Clump-clump.
She was enough to set mountains to fighting. Ah! the Boches knew her well now, they could understand how much the Lorilleuxs must suffer.
And whenever she passed beneath the doorway they all affected to sneer at her.
One day, Gervaise went up to see the Lorilleuxs in spite of this.
It was with respect to mother Coupeau who was then sixty-seven years old.
Mother Coupeau’s eyesight was almost completely gone. Her legs too were no longer what they used to be.
She had been obliged to give up her last cleaning job and now threatened to die of hunger if assistance were not forthcoming.
Gervaise thought it shameful that a woman of her age, having three children should be thus abandoned by heaven and earth.
And as Coupeau refused to speak to the Lorilleuxs on the subject saying that she, Gervaise, could very well go and do so, the latter went up in a fit of indignation with which her heart was almost bursting.
When she reached their door she entered without knocking.
Nothing had been changed since the night when the Lorilleuxs, at their first meeting had received her so ungraciously.
The same strip of faded woolen stuff separated the room from the workshop, a lodging like a gun barrel, and which looked as though it had been built for an eel.
Right at the back Lorilleux, leaning over his bench, was squeezing together one by one the links of a piece of chain, whilst Madame Lorilleux, standing in front of the vise was passing a gold wire through the draw-plate.
In the broad daylight the little forge had a rosy reflection.
“Yes, it’s I!” said Gervaise.
“I daresay you’re surprised to see me as we’re at daggers drawn.
But I’ve come neither for you nor myself you may be quite sure. It’s for mother Coupeau that I’ve come.
Yes, I have come to see if we’re going to let her beg her bread from the charity of others.”