the white suds. "The
water's awfully hard in Paris."

Madame Boche was now washing only very slowly. She kept leaving off,
making her work last as long as she could, so as to remain there, to
listen to that story, which her curiosity had been hankering to know for
a fortnight past. Her mouth was half open in the midst of her big, fat
face; her eyes, which were almost at the top of her head, were gleaming.
She was thinking, with the satisfaction of having guessed right.

"That's it, the little one gossips too much. There's been a row."

Then, she observed out loud, "He isn't nice, then?"

"Don't mention it!" replied Gervaise. "He used to behave very well in
the country; but, since we've been in Paris, he's been unbearable.
I must tell you that his mother died last year and left him some
money--about seventeen hundred francs. He would come to Paris, so, as
old Macquart was forever knocking me about without warning, I consented
to come away with him. We made the journey with two children. He was to
set me up as a laundress, and work himself at his trade of a hatter.
We should have been very happy; but, you see, Lantier's ambitious and a
spendthrift, a fellow who only thinks of amusing himself. In short, he's
not worth much. On arriving, we went to the Hotel Montmartre, in the Rue
Montmartre. And then there were dinners, and cabs, and the theatre; a
watch for himself and a silk dress for me, for he's not unkind when he's
got the money. You understand, he went in for everything, and so well
that at the end of two months we were cleaned out. It was then that we
came to live at the Hotel Boncoeur, and that this horrible life began."

She interrupted herself. A lump had suddenly risen in her throat, and
she could scarcely restrain her tears. She had finished brushing the
things.

"I must go and fetch my hot water," she murmured.

But Madame Boche, greatly disappointed at this break off in the
disclosures, called to the wash-house boy, who was passing, "My little
Charles, kindly get madame a pail of hot water; she's in a hurry."

The youth took the bucket and brought it back filled. Gervaise paid him;
it was a sou the pailful. She poured the hot water into the tub, and
soaped the things a last time with her hands, leaning over them in a
mass of steam, which deposited small beads of grey vapor in her light
hair.

"Here put some soda in, I've got some by me," said the concierge,
obligingly.

And she emptied into Gerva