and beautiful white teeth. In short she was
a pretty blonde, and had it not been for her crippled leg she might have
ranked amongst the comeliest. She was now in her twenty-eighth year, and
had grown considerably plumper. Her fine features were becoming puffy,
and her gestures were assuming a pleasant indolence.

At times she occasionally seemed to forget herself on the edge of a
chair, whilst she waited for her iron to heat, smiling vaguely and with
an expression of greedy joy upon her face. She was becoming fond of
good living, everybody said so; but that was not a very grave fault, but
rather the contrary. When one earns sufficient to be able to buy good
food, one would be foolish to eat potato parings. All the more so as she
continued to work very hard, slaving to please her customers, sitting
up late at night after the place was closed, whenever there was anything
urgent.

She was lucky as all her neighbors said; everything prospered with
her. She did the washing for all the house--M. Madinier, Mademoiselle
Remanjou, the Boches. She even secured some of the customers of her
old employer, Madame Fauconnier, Parisian ladies living in the Rue du
Faubourg-Poissonniere. As early as the third week she was obliged to
engage two workwomen, Madame Putois and tall Clemence, the girl who
used to live on the sixth floor; counting her apprentice, that little
squint-eyed Augustine, who was as ugly as a beggar's behind, that made
three persons in her employ. Others would certainly have lost their
heads at such a piece of good fortune. It was excusable for her to slack
a little on Monday after drudging all through the week. Besides, it was
necessary to her. She would have had no courage left, and would have
expected to see the shirts iron themselves, if she had not been able to
dress up in some pretty thing.

Gervaise was always so amiable, meek as a lamb, sweet as sugar. There
wasn't any one she disliked except Madame Lorilleux. While she was
enjoying a good meal and coffee, she could be indulgent and forgive
everybody saying: "We have to forgive each other--don't we?--unless
we want to live like savages." Hadn't all her dreams come true? She
remembered her old dream: to have a job, enough bread to eat and a
corner in which to sleep, to bring up her children, not to be beaten,
and to die in her own bed. She had everything she wanted now and more
than she had ever expected. She laughed, thinking of delaying dying in
her own be