a real mess now. The day
before, the bailiffs had been; the policeman was about to lose his
place; as for Lantier, he was now making up to the daughter of the
restaurant keeper next door, a fine woman, who talked of setting up as a
tripe-seller. Ah! it was amusing, everyone already beheld a tripe-seller
occupying the shop; after the sweets should come something substantial.
And that blind Poisson! How could a man whose profession required him to
be so smart fail to see what was going on in his own home? They stopped
talking suddenly when they noticed that Gervaise was off in a corner by
herself imitating Coupeau. Her hands and feet were jerking. Yes, they
couldn't ask for a better performance! Then Gervaise started as if
waking from a dream and hurried away calling out good-night to everyone.

On the morrow, the Boches saw her start off at twelve, the same as on
the two previous days. They wished her a pleasant afternoon. That day
the corridor at Sainte-Anne positively shook with Coupeau's yells and
kicks. She had not left the stairs when she heard him yelling:

"What a lot of bugs!--Come this way again that I may squash you!--Ah!
they want to kill me! ah! the bugs!--I'm a bigger swell than the lot of
you! Clear out, damnation! Clear out."

For a moment she stood panting before the door. Was he then fighting
against an army? When she entered, the performance had increased and was
embellished even more than on previous occasions. Coupeau was a raving
madman, the same as one sees at the Charenton mad-house! He was throwing
himself about in the center of the cell, slamming his fists everywhere,
on himself, on the walls, on the floor, and stumbling about punching
empty space. He wanted to open the window, and he hid himself, defended
himself, called, answered, produced all this uproar without the least
assistance, in the exasperated way of a man beset by a mob of people.
Then Gervaise understood that he fancied he was on a roof, laying down
sheets of zinc. He imitated the bellows with his mouth, he moved the
iron about in the fire and knelt down so as to pass his thumb along the
edges of the mat, thinking that he was soldering it. Yes, his handicraft
returned to him at the moment of croaking; and if he yelled so loud, if
he fought on his roof, it was because ugly scoundrels were preventing
him doing his work properly. On all the neighboring roofs were villains
mocking and tormenting him. Besides that, the jokers were lett