elling in the next room. There were Etienne, Pauline, Nana
and little Victor Fauconnier. It had been decided to lay a table for the
four of them, and they had been told to be very good. That squint-eyed
Augustine who had to look after the stoves was to eat off her knees.

"Mamma! Mamma!" suddenly screamed Nana, "Augustine is dipping her bread
in the Dutch oven!"

The laundress hastened there and caught the squint-eyed one in the act
of burning her throat in her attempts to swallow without loss of time a
slice of bread soaked in boiling goose fat. She boxed her ears when the
young monkey called out that it was not true. When, after the boiled
beef, the stewed veal appeared, served in a salad-bowl, as they did not
have a dish large enough, the party greeted it with a laugh.

"It's becoming serious," declared Poisson, who seldom spoke.

It was half-past seven. They had closed the shop door, so as not to be
spied upon by the whole neighborhood; the little clockmaker opposite
especially was opening his eyes to their full size and seemed to take
the pieces from their mouths with such a gluttonous look that it
almost prevented them from eating. The curtains hung before the windows
admitted a great white uniform light which bathed the entire table with
its symmetrical arrangement of knives and forks and its pots of flowers
enveloped in tall collars of white paper; and this pale fading light,
this slowly approaching dusk, gave to the party somewhat of an air of
distinction. Virginie looked round the closed apartment hung with muslin
and with a happy criticism declared it to be very cozy. Whenever a cart
passed in the street the glasses jingled together on the table cloth and
the ladies were obliged to shout out as loud as the men. But there was
not much conversation; they all behaved very respectably and were very
attentive to each other. Coupeau alone wore a blouse, because as he said
one need not stand on ceremony with friends and besides which the blouse
was the workman's garb of honor. The ladies, laced up in their bodices,
wore their hair in plaits greasy with pomatum in which the daylight was
reflected; whilst the gentlemen, sitting at a distance from the table,
swelled out their chests and kept their elbows wide apart for fear of
staining their frock coats.

Ah! thunder! What a hole they were making in the stewed veal! If they
spoke little, they were chewing in earnest. The salad-bowl was becoming
emptier and emptier