follow this last operation. When the chain was thoroughly cleansed, it
appeared a dull red color. It was finished, and ready to be delivered.

"They're always delivered like that, in their rough state," the
zinc-worker explained. "The polishers rub them afterwards with cloths."

Gervaise felt her courage failing her. The heat, more and more intense,
was suffocating her. They kept the door shut, because Lorilleux caught
cold from the least draught. Then as they still did not speak of the
marriage, she wanted to go away and gently pulled Coupeau's jacket. He
understood. Besides, he also was beginning to feel ill at ease and vexed
at their affectation of silence.

"Well, we're off," said he. "We mustn't keep you from your work."

He moved about for a moment, waiting, hoping for a word or some allusion
or other. At length he decided to broach the subject himself.

"I say, Lorilleux, we're counting on you to be my wife's witness."

The chainmaker pretended, with a chuckle, to be greatly surprised;
whilst his wife, leaving her draw-plates, placed herself in the middle
of the work-room.

"So it's serious then?" murmured he. "That confounded Young Cassis, one
never knows whether he is joking or not."

"Ah! yes, madame's the person involved," said the wife in her turn, as
she stared rudely at Gervaise. "_Mon Dieu!_ We've no advice to give
you, we haven't. It's a funny idea to go and get married, all the same.
Anyhow, it's your own wish. When it doesn't succeed, one's only got
oneself to blame, that's all. And it doesn't often succeed, not often,
not often."

She uttered these last words slower and slower, and shaking her head,
she looked from the young woman's face to her hands, and then to her
feet as though she had wished to undress her and see the very pores of
her skin. She must have found her better than she expected.

"My brother is perfectly free," she continued more stiffly. "No doubt
the family might have wished--one always makes projects. But things take
such funny turns. For myself, I don't want to have any unpleasantness.
Had he brought us the lowest of the low, I should merely have said:
'Marry her and go to blazes!' He was not badly off though, here with
us. He's fat enough; one can very well see he didn't fast much; and he
always found his soup hot right on time. I say, Lorilleux, don't you
think madame's like Therese--you know who I mean, that woman who used to
live opposite, and who died of consumpti