back-room. And as they both leant over the soup they conversed
rapidly in a low voice.

"Huh! What a sight!" said the old woman. "You couldn't see them; but I
was watching. When she caught sight of the table her face twisted around
like that, the corners of her mouth almost touched her eyes; and as for
him, it nearly choked him, he coughed and coughed. Now just look at
them over there; they've no saliva left in their mouths, they're chewing
their lips."

"It's quite painful to see people as jealous as that," murmured
Gervaise.

Really the Lorilleuxs had a funny look about them. No one of course
likes to be crushed; in families especially when the one succeeds, the
others do not like it; that is only natural. Only one keeps it in, one
does not make an exhibition of oneself. Well! The Lorilleuxs could not
keep it in. It was more than a match for them. They squinted--their
mouths were all on one side. In short it was so apparent that the other
guests looked at them, and asked them if they were unwell. Never would
they be able to stomach this table with its fourteen place-settings, its
white linen table cloth, its slices of bread cut in advance, all in the
style of a first-class restaurant. Mme. Lorilleux went around the table,
surreptitiously fingering the table cloth, tortured by the thought that
it was a new one.

"Everything's ready!" cried Gervaise as she reappeared with a smile, her
arms bare and her little fair curls blowing over her temples.

"If the boss would only come," resumed the laundress, "we might begin."

"Ah, well!" said Madame Lorilleux, "the soup will be cold by then.
Coupeau always forgets. You shouldn't have let him go off."

It was already half-past six. Everything was burning now; the goose
would be overdone. Then Gervaise, feeling quite dejected, talked
of sending someone to all the wineshops in the neighborhood to find
Coupeau. And as Goujet offered to go, she decided to accompany him.
Virginie, anxious about her husband went also. The three of them,
bareheaded, quite blocked up the pavement. The blacksmith who wore his
frock-coat, had Gervaise on his left arm and Virginie on his right; he
was doing the two-handled basket as he said; and it seemed to them such
a funny thing to say that they stopped, unable to move their legs for
laughing. They looked at themselves in the pork-butcher's glass and
laughed more than ever. Beside Goujet, all in black, the two women
looked like two speckled hen