u're surprised to see me as
we're at daggers drawn. But I've come neither for you nor myself you may
be quite sure. It's for mother Coupeau that I've come. Yes, I have
come to see if we're going to let her beg her bread from the charity of
others."

"Ah, well, that's a fine way to burst in upon one!" murmured Madame
Lorilleux. "One must have a rare cheek."

And she turned her back and resumed drawing her gold wire, affecting to
ignore her sister-in-law's presence. But Lorilleux raised his pale face
and cried:

"What's that you say?"

Then, as he had heard perfectly well, he continued:

"More back-bitings, eh? She's nice, mother Coupeau, to go and cry
starvation everywhere! Yet only the day before yesterday she dined here.
We do what we can. We haven't got all the gold of Peru. Only if she goes
about gossiping with others she had better stay with them, for we don't
like spies."

He took up the piece of chain and turned his back also, adding as though
with regret:

"When everyone gives five francs a month, we'll give five francs."

Gervaise had calmed down and felt quite chilled by the wooden looking
faces of the Lorilleux. She had never once set foot in their rooms
without experiencing a certain uneasiness. With her eyes fixed on the
floor, staring at the holes of the wooden grating through which the
waste gold fell she now explained herself in a reasonable manner. Mother
Coupeau had three children; if each one gave five francs it would only
make fifteen francs, and really that was not enough, one could not live
on it; they must at least triple the sum. But Lorilleux cried out.
Where did she think he could steal fifteen francs a month? It was quite
amusing, people thought he was rich simply because he had gold in his
place. He began then to criticize mother Coupeau: she had to have
her morning coffee, she took a sip of brandy now and then, she was as
demanding as if she were rich. _Mon Dieu!_ Sure, everyone liked the
good things of life. But if you've never saved a sou, you had to do what
other folks did and do without. Besides, mother Coupeau wasn't too old
to work. She could see well enough when she was trying to pick a choice
morsel from the platter. She was just an old spendthrift trying to get
others to provide her with comforts. Even had he had the means, he would
have considered it wrong to support any one in idleness.

Gervaise remained conciliatory, and peaceably argued against all this
bad reasoning