he other
room she took up her basket; but she did not go home. She stood there
trying to find something to say. Madame Goujet continued her mending
without raising her head. It was she who at length said:

"Well! Good-night; send me back my things and we will settle up
afterwards."

"Yes, it will be best so--good-night," stammered Gervaise.

She took a last look around the neatly arranged room and thought as she
shut the door that she seemed to be leaving some part of her better self
behind. She plodded blindly back to the laundry, scarcely knowing where
she was going.

When Gervaise arrived, she found mother Coupeau out of her bed, sitting
on a chair by the stove. Gervaise was too tired to scold her. Her bones
ached as though she had been beaten and she was thinking that her life
was becoming too hard to bear. Surely a quick death was the only escape
from the pain in her heart.

After this, Gervaise became indifferent to everything. With a vague
gesture of her hand she would send everybody about their business. At
each fresh worry she buried herself deeper in her only pleasure, which
was to have her three meals a day. The shop might have collapsed.
So long as she was not beneath it, she would have gone off willingly
without a chemise to her back. And the little shop was collapsing, not
suddenly, but little by little, morning and evening. One by one
the customers got angry, and sent their washing elsewhere. Monsieur
Madinier, Mademoiselle Remanjou, the Boches themselves had returned to
Madame Fauconnier, where they could count on great punctuality. One
ends by getting tired of asking for a pair of stockings for three weeks
straight, and of putting on shirts with grease stains dating from the
previous Sunday. Gervaise, without losing a bite, wished them a pleasant
journey, and spoke her mind about them, saying that she was precious
glad she would no longer have to poke her nose into their filth. The
entire neighborhood could quit her; that would relieve her of the piles
of stinking junk and give her less work to do.

Now her only customers were those who didn't pay regularly, the
street-walkers, and women like Madame Gaudron, whose laundry smelled so
bad that not one of the laundresses on the Rue Neuve would take it. She
had to let Madame Putois go, leaving only her apprentice, squint-eyed
Augustine, who seemed to grow more stupid as time passed. Frequently
there was not even enough work for the two of them and th