talked
through her nose. She was unattractively dressed in a puce-colored robe
that hung loosely on her and had such long dangling fringes that
they made her look like a skinny poodle coming out of the water. She
brandished her umbrella like a club. After greeting Gervaise, she said,
"You've no idea. The heat in the street is like a slap on the face.
You'd think someone was throwing fire at you."

Everyone agreed that they knew the storm was coming. It was in the air.
Monsieur Madinier said that he had seen it as they were coming out of
the church. Lorilleux mentioned that his corns were aching and he hadn't
been able to sleep since three in the morning. A storm was due. It had
been much too hot for three days in a row.

"Well, maybe it will just be a little mist," Coupeau said several times,
standing at the door and anxiously studying the sky. "Now we have to
wait only for my sister. We'll start as soon as she arrives."

Madame Lorilleux was late. Madame Lerat had stopped by so they could
come together, but found her only beginning to get dressed. The two
sisters had argued. The widow whispered in her brother's ear, "I left
her flat! She's in a dreadful mood. You'll see."

And the wedding party had to wait another quarter of an hour, walking
about the wineshop, elbowed and jostled in the midst of the men who
entered to drink a glass of wine at the bar. Now and again Boche, or
Madame Fauconnier, or Bibi-the-Smoker left the others and went to the
edge of the pavement, looking up at the sky. The storm was not passing
over at all; a darkness was coming on and puffs of wind, sweeping along
the ground, raised little clouds of white dust. At the first clap of
thunder, Mademoiselle Remanjou made the sign of the cross. All the
glances were anxiously directed to the clock over the looking-glass; it
was twenty minutes to two.

"Here it goes!" cried Coupeau. "It's the angels who're weeping."

A gush of rain swept the pavement, along which some women flew, holding
down their skirts with both hands. And it was in the midst of this
first shower that Madame Lorilleux at length arrived, furious and out of
breath, and struggling on the threshold with her umbrella that would not
close.

"Did any one ever see such a thing?" she exclaimed. "It caught me just
at the door. I felt inclined to go upstairs again and take my things
off. I should have been wise had I done so. Ah! it's a pretty wedding! I
said how it would be. I wanted to