Madame Lerat showed Bibi-the-Smoker how to make a rose by rolling the handle of her knife between her bony fingers.
All the while, their voices had been rising louder and louder, competing for attention. Shrill comments by Madame Fauconnier were heard. She complained about the girls who worked for her, especially a little apprentice who was nothing but a tart and had badly scorched some sheets the evening before.
“You may talk,” Lorilleux cried, banging his fist down on the table, “but gold is gold.”
And, in the midst of the silence caused by the statement of this fact, the only sound heard was Mademoiselle Remanjou’s shrill voice continuing:
“Then I turn up the skirt and stitch it inside. I stick a pin in the head to keep the cap on, and that’s all; and they are sold for thirteen sous a piece.”
She was explaining how she dressed her dolls to My-Boots, whose jaws were working slowly like grindstones. He did not listen, though he kept nodding his head, but looked after the waiters to prevent them removing any of the dishes he had not cleaned out. They had now finished a veal stew with green beans. The roast was brought in, two scrawny chickens resting on a bed of water cress which was limp from the warming oven.
Outside, only the higher branches of the acacias were touched by the setting sun. Inside, the greenish reflected light was thickened by wisps of steam rising from the table, now messy with spilled wine and gravy and the debris of the dinner. Along the wall were dirty dishes and empty bottles which the waiters had piled there like a heap of refuse. It was so hot that the men took off their jackets and continued eating in their shirt sleeves.
“Madame Boche, please don’t spread their butter so thick,” said Gervaise, who spoke but little, and who was watching Claude and Etienne from a distance.
She got up from her seat, and went and talked for a minute while standing behind the little ones’ chairs. Children did not reason; they would eat all day long without refusing a single thing; and then she herself helped them to some chicken, a little of the breast. But mother Coupeau said they might, just for once in a while, risk an attack of indigestion. Madame Boche, in a low voice accused Boche of caressing Madame Lerat’s knees. Oh, he was a sly one, but he was getting a little too gay. She had certainly seen his hand disappear. If he did it again, drat him! she wouldn’t hesitate throwing a pitcher of water over his head.
In the partial silence, Monsieur Madinier was talking politics. “Their law of May 31, is an abominable one. Now you must reside in a place for two years. Three millions of citizens are struck off the voting lists. I’ve been told that Bonaparte is, in reality, very much annoyed for he loves the people; he has given them proofs.”