Gervaise shut her eyes. She thought for a moment that she was going to be hit in the face with the fish.
But no, Virginie even smiled slightly.
Then, as her basket was blocking the staircase, the laundress wished to show how polite she, too, could be.
“I beg your pardon,” she said.
“You are completely excused,” replied the tall brunette.
And they remained conversing together on the stairs, reconciled at once without having ventured on a single allusion to the past.
Virginie, then twenty-nine years old, had become a superb woman of strapping proportions, her face, however, looking rather long between her two plaits of jet black hair.
She at once began to relate her history just to show off. She had a husband now; she had married in the spring an ex-journeyman cabinetmaker, who recently left the army, and who had applied to be admitted into the police, because a post of that kind is more to be depended upon and more respectable.
She had been out to buy the mackerel for him.
“He adores mackerel,” said she.
“We must spoil them, those naughty men, mustn’t we?
But come up.
You shall see our home. We are standing in a draught here.”
After Gervaise had told of her own marriage and that she had formerly occupied the very apartment Virginie now had, Virginie urged her even more strongly to come up since it is always nice to visit a spot where one had been happy.
Virginie had lived for five years on the Left Bank at Gros-Caillou. That was where she had met her husband while he was still in the army.
But she got tired of it, and wanted to come back to the Goutte-d’Or neighborhood where she knew everyone.
She had only been living in the rooms opposite the Goujets for two weeks.
Oh! everything was still a mess, but they were slowly getting it in order.
Then, still on the staircase, they finally told each other their names.
“Madame Coupeau.”
“Madame Poisson.”
And from that time forth, they called each other on every possible occasion Madame Poisson and Madame Coupeau, solely for the pleasure of being madame, they who in former days had been acquainted when occupying rather questionable positions.
However, Gervaise felt rather mistrustful at heart.
Perhaps the tall brunette had made it up the better to avenge herself for the beating at the wash-house by concocting some plan worthy of a spiteful hypocritical creature.
Gervaise determined to be upon her guard.
For the time being, as Virginie behaved so nicely, she would be nice also.
In the room upstairs, Poisson, the husband, a man of thirty-five, with a cadaverous-looking countenance and carroty moustaches and beard, was seated working at a table near the window.
He was making little boxes. His only tools were a knife, a tiny saw the size of a nail file and a pot of glue.
He was using wood from old cigar boxes, thin boards of unfinished mahogany upon which he executed fretwork and embellishments of extraordinary delicacy.
All year long he worked at making the same size boxes, only varying them occasionally by inlay work, new designs for the cover, or putting compartments inside.
He did not sell his work, he distributed it in presents to persons of his acquaintance.
It was for his own amusement, a way of occupying his time while waiting for his appointment to the police force.
It was all that remained with him from his former occupation of cabinetmaking.
Poisson rose from his seat and politely bowed to Gervaise, when his wife introduced her as an old friend.
But he was no talker; he at once returned to his little saw.
From time to time he merely glanced in the direction of the mackerel placed on the corner of the chest of drawers.
Gervaise was very pleased to see her old lodging once more.
She told them whereabouts her own furniture stood, and pointed out the place on the floor where Nana had been born.
How strange it was to meet like this again, after so many years! They never dreamed of running into each other like this and even living in the same rooms.
Virginie added some further details. Her husband had inherited a little money from an aunt and he would probably set her up in a shop before long. Meanwhile she was still sewing.
At length, at the end of a full half hour, the laundress took her leave.
Poisson scarcely seemed to notice her departure.
While seeing her to the door, Virginie promised to return the visit. And she would have Gervaise do her laundry.
While Virginie was keeping her in further conversation on the landing, Gervaise had the feeling that she wanted to say something about Lantier and her sister Adele, and this notion upset her a bit.
But not a word was uttered respecting those unpleasant things; they parted, wishing each other good-bye in a very amiable manner.
“Good-bye, Madame Coupeau.”
“Good-bye, Madame Poisson.”
That was the starting point of a great friendship.
A week later, Virginie never passed Gervaise’s shop without going in; and she remained there gossiping for hours together, to such an extent indeed that Poisson, filled with anxiety, fearing she had been run over, would come and seek her with his expressionless and death-like countenance.
Now that she was seeing the dressmaker every day Gervaise became aware of a strange obsession. Every time Virginie began to talk Gervaise had the feeling Lantier was going to be mentioned.