r is seeing some funny things! All that was wanting
was that Clump-clump should go about so haughty. It becomes her well,
doesn't it?"

The Lorilleuxs had declared a feud to the death against Gervaise. To
begin with, they had almost died of rage during the time while the
repairs were being done to the shop. If they caught sight of the
painters from a distance, they would walk on the other side of the way,
and go up to their rooms with their teeth set. A blue shop for that
"nobody," it was enough to discourage all honest, hard-working people!
Besides, the second day after the shop opened the apprentice happened to
throw out a bowl of starch just at the moment when Madame Lorilleux
was passing. The zinc-worker's sister caused a great commotion in
the street, accusing her sister-in-law of insulting her through her
employees. This broke off all relations. Now they only exchanged
terrible glares when they encountered each other.

"Yes, she leads a pretty life!" Madame Lorilleux kept saying. "We all
know where the money came from that she paid for her wretched shop! She
borrowed it from the blacksmith; and he springs from a nice family too!
Didn't the father cut his own throat to save the guillotine the trouble
of doing so? Anyhow, there was something disreputable of that sort!"

She bluntly accused Gervaise of flirting with Goujet. She lied--she
pretended she had surprised them together one night on a seat on the
exterior Boulevards. The thought of this liaison, of pleasures that her
sister-in-law was no doubt enjoying, exasperated her still more, because
of her own ugly woman's strict sense of propriety. Every day the same
cry came from her heart to her lips.

"What does she have, that wretched cripple, for people to fall in love
with her? Why doesn't any one want me?"

She busied herself in endless gossiping among the neighbors. She told
them the whole story. The day the Coupeaus got married she turned up her
nose at her. Oh, she had a keen nose, she could smell in advance how
it would turn out. Then, Clump-clump pretended to be so sweet, what a
hypocrite! She and her husband had only agreed to be Nana's godparents
for the sake of her brother. What a bundle it had cost, that fancy
christening. If Clump-clump were on her deathbed she wouldn't give her a
glass of water, no matter how much she begged.

She didn't want anything to do with such a shameless baggage. Little
Nana would always be welcome when she came up to s