side with blue paper to show off the
whiteness of the linen, some shirts were displayed, with some women's
caps hanging above them on wires. She thought her shop looked pretty,
being the same color as the heavens.

Inside there was more blue; the paper, in imitation of a Pompadour
chintz, represented a trellis overgrown with morning-glories. A huge
table, taking up two-thirds of the room, was her ironing-table. It
was covered with thick blanketing and draped with a strip of cretonne
patterned with blue flower sprays that hid the trestles beneath.

Gervaise was enchanted with her pretty establishment and would often
seat herself on a stool and sigh with contentment, delighted with all
the new equipment. Her first glance always went to the cast-iron stove
where the irons were heated ten at a time, arranged over the heat on
slanting rests. She would kneel down to look into the stove to make sure
the apprentice had not put in too much coke.

The lodging at the back of the shop was quite decent. The Coupeaus slept
in the first room, where they also did the cooking and took their meals;
a door at the back opened on to the courtyard of the house. Nana's bed
was in the right hand room, which was lighted by a little round window
close to the ceiling. As for Etienne, he shared the left hand room with
the dirty clothes, enormous bundles of which lay about on the floor.
However, there was one disadvantage--the Coupeaus would not admit it
at first--but the damp ran down the walls, and it was impossible to see
clearly in the place after three o'clock in the afternoon.

In the neighborhood the new shop produced a great sensation. The
Coupeaus were accused of going too fast, and making too much fuss.
They had, in fact, spent the five hundred francs lent by the Goujets in
fitting up the shop and in moving, without keeping sufficient to live
upon for a fortnight, as they had intended doing. The morning that
Gervaise took down her shutters for the first time, she had just six
francs in her purse. But that did not worry her, customers began to
arrive, and things seemed promising. A week later on the Saturday,
before going to bed, she remained two hours making calculations on a
piece of paper, and she awoke Coupeau to tell him, with a bright look on
her face, that there were hundreds and thousands of francs to be made,
if they were only careful.

"Ah, well!" said Madame Lorilleux all over the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or,
"my fool of a brothe