She was putting on weight and this caused her to become a bit lazy. She no longer had the energy that she had in the past. Oh well, there was always something coming in.
Madame Goujet felt a motherly concern for Gervaise and sometimes reprimanded her.
This wasn’t due to the money owed but because she liked her and didn’t want to see her get into difficulties.
She never mentioned the debt. In short, she behaved with the utmost delicacy.
The morrow of Gervaise’s visit to the forge happened to be the last Saturday of the month.
When she reached the Goujets, where she made a point of going herself, her basket had so weighed on her arms that she was quite two minutes before she could get her breath.
One would hardly believe how heavy clothes are, especially when there are sheets among them.
“Are you sure you’ve brought everything?” asked Madame Goujet.
She was very strict on that point.
She insisted on having her washing brought home without a single article being kept back for the sake of order, as she said.
She also required the laundress always to come on the day arranged and at the same hour; in that way there was no time wasted.
“Oh! yes, everything is here,” replied Gervaise smiling.
“You know I never leave anything behind.”
“That’s true,” admitted Madame Goujet; “you’ve got into many bad habits but you’re still free of that one.”
And while the laundress emptied her basket, laying the linen on the bed, the old woman praised her; she never burnt the things nor tore them like so many others did, neither did she pull the buttons off with the iron; only she used too much blue and made the shirt-fronts too stiff with starch.
“Just look, it’s like cardboard,” continued she, making one crackle between her fingers.
“My son does not complain, but it cuts his neck. To-morrow his neck will be all scratched when we return from Vincennes.”
“No, don’t say that!” exclaimed Gervaise, quite grieved.
“To look nice, shirts must be rather stiff, otherwise it’s as though one had a rag on one’s body.
You should just see what the gentlemen wear. I do all your things myself.
The workwomen never touch them and I assure you I take great pains.
I would, if necessary, do everything over a dozen times, because it’s for you, you know.”
She slightly blushed as she stammered out the last words.
She was afraid of showing the great pleasure she took in ironing Goujet’s shirts.
She certainly had no wicked thoughts, but she was none the less a little bit ashamed.
“Oh! I’m not complaining of your work; I know it’s perfection,” said Madame Goujet. “For instance, you’ve done this cap splendidly, only you could bring out the embroidery like that.
And the flutings are all so even.
Oh! I recognize your hand at once.
When you give even a dish-cloth to one of your workwomen I detect it at once.
In future, use a little less starch, that’s all!
Goujet does not care to look like a stylish gentleman.”
She had taken out her notebook and was crossing off the various items. Everything was in order.
She noticed that Gervaise was charging six sous for each bonnet. She protested, but had to agree that it was in line with present prices.
Men’s shirts were five sous, women’s underdrawers four sous, pillow-cases a sou and a half, and aprons one sou. No, the prices weren’t high. Some laundresses charged a sou more for each item.
Gervaise was now calling out the soiled clothes, as she packed them in her basket, for Madame Goujet to list. Then she lingered on, embarrassed by a request which she wished to make.
“Madame Goujet,” she said at length, “if it does not inconvenience you, I would like to take the money for the month’s washing.”
It so happened that that month was a very heavy one, the account they had made up together amounting to ten francs, seven sous.
Madame Goujet looked at her a moment in a serious manner, then she replied: “My child, it shall be as you wish.
I will not refuse you the money as you are in need of it. Only it’s scarcely the way to pay off your debt; I say that for your sake, you know. Really now, you should be careful.”
Gervaise received the lecture with bowed head and stammering excuses. The ten francs were to make up the amount of a bill she had given her coke merchant.
But on hearing the word “bill,” Madame Goujet became severer still. She gave herself as an example; she had reduced her expenditure ever since Goujet’s wages had been lowered from twelve to nine francs a day.
When one was wanting in wisdom whilst young, one dies of hunger in one’s old age.
But she held back and didn’t tell Gervaise that she gave her their laundry only in order to help her pay off the debt. Before that she had done all her own washing, and she would have to do it herself again if the laundry continued taking so much cash out of her pocket.
Gervaise spoke her thanks and left quickly as soon as she had received the ten francs seven sous.
Outside on the landing she was so relieved she wanted to dance.
She was becoming used to the annoying, unpleasant difficulties caused by a shortage of money and preferred to remember not the embarrassment but the joy in escaping from them.
It was also on that Saturday that Gervaise met with a rather strange adventure as she descended the Goujets’ staircase.
She was obliged to stand up close against the stair-rail with her basket to make way for a tall bare-headed woman who was coming up, carrying in her hand a very fresh mackerel, with bloody gills, in a piece of paper.
She recognized Virginie, the girl whose face she had slapped at the wash-house.
They looked each other full in the face.