bacon, the roast goose. The inner room was lit by three fires. Butter
was sizzling in the pans and emitting a sharp odor of burnt flour.

Mother Coupeau and Gervaise, with white aprons tied on, were bustling
all around, cleaning parsley, dashing for salt and pepper, turning the
meat. They had sent Coupeau away so as not to have him underfoot, but
they still had plenty of people looking in throughout the afternoon. The
luscious smells from the kitchen had spread through the entire building
so that neighboring ladies came into the shop on various pretexts, very
curious to see what was being cooked.

Virginie put in an appearance towards five o'clock. She had again seen
Lantier; really, it was impossible to go down the street now without
meeting him. Madame Boche also had just caught sight of him standing at
the corner of the pavement with his head thrust forward in an uncommonly
sly manner. Then Gervaise who had at that moment intended going for a
sou's worth of burnt onions for the pot-au-feu, began to tremble from
head to foot and did not dare leave the house; the more so, as the
concierge and the dressmaker put her into a terrible fright by relating
horrible stories of men waiting for women with knives and pistols hidden
beneath their overcoats. Well, yes! one reads of such things every day
in the newspapers. When one of those scoundrels gets his monkey up
on discovering an old love leading a happy life he becomes capable
of everything. Virginie obligingly offered to run and fetch the burnt
onions. Women should always help one another, they could not let that
little thing be murdered. When she returned she said that Lantier was no
longer there; he had probably gone off on finding he was discovered.
In spite of that thought, he was the subject of conversation around
the saucepans until night-time. When Madame Boche advised her to inform
Coupeau, Gervaise became really terrified, and implored her not to say
a word about it. Oh, yes, wouldn't that be a nice situation! Her husband
must have become suspicious already because for the last few days, at
night, he would swear to himself and bang the wall with his fists. The
mere thought that the two men might destroy each other because of her
made her shudder. She knew that Coupeau was jealous enough to attack
Lantier with his shears.

While the four of them had been deep in contemplating this drama, the
saucepans on the banked coals of the stoves had been quietly simmering.