red. The clamor of the hammers had ceased. She was advancing
carefully when a workman, his face blackened with coal-dust and wearing
a goatee passed near her, casting a side-glance with his pale eyes.

"Sir," asked she, "it's here is it not that a boy named Etienne works?
He's my son."

"Etienne, Etienne," repeated the workman in a hoarse voice as he twisted
himself about. "Etienne; no I don't know him."

An alcoholic reek like that from old brandy casks issued from his mouth.
Meeting a woman in this dark corner seemed to be giving the fellow
ideas, and so Gervaise drew back saying:

"But yet it's here that Monsieur Goujet works, isn't it?"

"Ah! Goujet, yes!" said the workman; "I know Goujet! If you come for
Goujet, go right to the end."

And turning round he called out at the top of his voice, which had a
sound of cracked brass:

"I say Golden-Mug, here's a lady wants you!"

But a clanging of iron drowned the cry! Gervaise went to the end. She
reached a door and stretching out her neck looked in. At first she could
distinguish nothing. The forge had died down, but there was still a
little glow which held back the advancing shadows from its corner. Great
shadows seemed to float in the air. At times black shapes passed before
the fire, shutting off this last bit of brightness, silhouettes of
men so strangely magnified that their arms and legs were indistinct.
Gervaise, not daring to venture in, called from the doorway in a faint
voice:

"Monsieur Goujet! Monsieur Goujet!"

Suddenly all became lighted up. Beneath the puff of the bellows a jet
of white flame had ascended and the whole interior of the shed could be
seen, walled in by wooden planks, with openings roughly plastered over,
and brick walls reinforcing the corners. Coal-ash had painted the whole
expanse a sooty grey. Spider webs hung from the beams like rags hung up
to dry, heavy with the accumulated dust of years. On shelves along the
walls, or hanging from nails, or tossed into corners, she saw rusty
iron, battered implements and huge tools. The white flame flared higher,
like an explosion of dazzling sunlight revealing the trampled dirt
underfoot, where the polished steel of four anvils fixed on blocks took
on a reflection of silver sprinkled with gold.

Then Gervaise recognized Goujet in front of the forge by his beautiful
yellow beard. Etienne was blowing the bellows. Two other workmen were
there, but she only beheld Goujet and walked forward