“It’s because he promised to come home. Yes, he’s to bring me some money. And as I have absolute need of something—”
Silence followed. Madame Lorilleux was roughly fanning the fire of the stove; Lorilleux had lowered his nose over the bit of chain between his fingers, while Boche continued laughing, puffing out his face till it looked like the full moon.
“If I only had ten sous,” muttered Gervaise, in a low voice.
The silence persisted.
“Couldn’t you lend me ten sous? Oh! I would return them to you this evening!”
Madame Lorilleux turned round and stared at her. Here was a wheedler trying to get round them. To-day she asked them for ten sous, to-morrow it would be for twenty, and there would be no reason to stop. No, indeed; it would be a warm day in winter if they lent her anything.
“But, my dear,” cried Madame Lorilleux. “You know very well that we haven’t any money! Look! There’s the lining of my pocket. You can search us. If we could, it would be with a willing heart, of course.”
“The heart’s always there,” growled Lorilleux. “Only when one can’t, one can’t.”
Gervaise looked very humble and nodded her head approvingly. However, she did not take herself off. She squinted at the gold, at the gold tied together hanging on the walls, at the gold wire the wife was drawing out with all the strength of her little arms, at the gold links lying in a heap under the husband’s knotty fingers. And she thought that the least bit of this ugly black metal would suffice to buy her a good dinner. The workroom was as dirty as ever, full of old iron, coal dust and sticky oil stains, half wiped away; but now, as Gervaise saw it, it seemed resplendent with treasure, like a money changer’s shop. And so she ventured to repeat softly: “I would return them to you, return them without fail. Ten sous wouldn’t inconvenience you.”
Her heart was swelling with the effort she made not to own that she had had nothing to eat since the day before. Then she felt her legs give way. She was frightened that she might burst into tears, and she still stammered: