enfilade of artillery sufficient to make one think the wood
was splitting. One may be a cynic; nevertheless that sort of music soon
upsets one's stomach. The weeping recommenced. They moved off, they even
got outside, but they still heard the detonations. My-Boots, blowing on
his fingers, uttered an observation aloud.

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_ poor mother Coupeau won't feel very warm!"

"Ladies and gentlemen," said the zinc-worker to the few friends who
remained in the street with the family, "will you permit us to offer you
some refreshments?"

He led the way to a wine shop in the Rue Marcadet, the "Arrival at the
Cemetery." Gervaise, remaining outside, called Goujet, who was moving
off, after again nodding to her. Why didn't he accept a glass of wine?
He was in a hurry; he was going back to the workshop. Then they looked
at each other a moment without speaking.

"I must ask your pardon for troubling you about the sixty francs," at
length murmured the laundress. "I was half crazy, I thought of you--"

"Oh! don't mention it; you're fully forgiven," interrupted the
blacksmith. "And you know, I am quite at your service if any misfortune
should overtake you. But don't say anything to mamma, because she has
her ideas, and I don't wish to cause her annoyance."

She gazed at him. He seemed to her such a good man, and sad-looking, and
so handsome. She was on the verge of accepting his former proposal, to
go away with him and find happiness together somewhere else. Then an
evil thought came to her. It was the idea of borrowing the six months'
back rent from him.

She trembled and resumed in a caressing tone of voice:

"We're still friends, aren't we?"

He shook his head as he answered:

"Yes, we'll always be friends. It's just that, you know, all is over
between us."

And he went off with long strides, leaving Gervaise bewildered,
listening to his last words which rang in her ears with the clang of a
big bell. On entering the wine shop, she seemed to hear a hollow voice
within her which said, "All is over, well! All is over; there is
nothing more for me to do if all is over!" Sitting down, she swallowed a
mouthful of bread and cheese, and emptied a glass full of wine which she
found before her.

The wine shop was a single, long room with a low ceiling occupied by two
large tables on which loaves of bread, large chunks of Brie cheese and
bottles of wine were set out. They ate informally, without a tablecloth.
Near the