dle of the shop, whist they sent to the Lariboisiere Hospital for a
stretcher. He was still breathing.

Gervaise, sobbing, was kneeling on the floor beside him, her face
smudged with tears, stunned and unseeing. Her hands would reach to feel
her husband's limbs with the utmost gentleness. Then she would draw back
as she had been warned not to touch him. But a few seconds later she
would touch him to assure herself that he was still warm, feeling
somehow that she was helping him.

When the stretcher at length arrived, and they talked of starting for
the hospital, she got up, saying violently:

"No, no, not to the hospital! We live in the Rue Neuve de la
Goutte-d'Or."

It was useless for them to explain to her that the illness would cost
her a great deal of money, if she took her husband home. She obstinately
repeated:

"Rue Neuve de la Goutte-d'Or; I will show you the house. What can it
matter to you? I've got money. He's my husband, isn't he? He's mine, and
I want him at home."

And they had to take Coupeau to his own home. When the stretcher was
carried through the crowd which was crushing up against the chemist's
shop, the women of the neighborhood were excitedly talking of Gervaise.
She limped, the dolt, but all the same she had some pluck. She would
be sure to save her old man; whilst at the hospital the doctors let the
patients die who were very bad, so as not to have the bother of trying
to cure them. Madame Boche, after taking Nana home with her, returned,
and gave her account of the accident, with interminable details, and
still feeling agitated with the emotion she had passed through.

"I was going to buy a leg of mutton; I was there, I saw him fall,"
repeated she. "It was all through the little one; he turned to look at
her, and bang! Ah! good heavens! I never want to see such a sight again.
However, I must be off to get my leg of mutton."

For a week Coupeau was very bad. The family, the neighbors, everyone,
expected to see him turn for the worse at any moment. The doctor--a very
expensive doctor, who charged five francs for each visit--apprehended
internal injuries, and these words filled everyone with fear. It was
said in the neighborhood that the zinc-worker's heart had been injured
by the shock. Gervaise alone, looking pale through her nights of
watching, serious and resolute, shrugged her shoulders. Her old man's
right leg was broken, everyone knew that; it would be set for him, and
that was al