Gervaise declared that she wasn’t mad at anybody. So much did she want her own shop that she even spoke up for the Lorilleuxs, saying that they weren’t mean at heart and that she would be able to get along just fine with them. When they went to bed, Coupeau fell asleep immediately, but she stayed awake, planning how she could arrange the new place even though she hadn’t yet made up her mind completely.
On the morrow, when she was alone, she could not resist removing the glass cover from the clock, and taking a peep at the savings-bank book. To think that her shop was there, in those dirty pages, covered with ugly writing! Before going off to her work, she consulted Madame Goujet, who highly approved her project of setting up in business for herself; with a husband like hers, a good fellow who did not drink, she was certain of getting on, and of not having her earnings squandered. At the luncheon hour Gervaise even called on the Lorilleuxs to ask their advice; she did not wish to appear to be doing anything unknown to the family. Madame Lorilleux was struck all of a heap. What! Clump-clump was going in for a shop now! And her heart bursting with envy, she stammered, and tried to pretend to be pleased: no doubt the shop was a convenient one—Gervaise was right in taking it. However, when she had somewhat recovered, she and her husband talked of the dampness of the courtyard, of the poor light of the rooms on the ground floor. Oh! it was a good place for rheumatism. Yet, if she had made up her mind to take it, their observations, of course, would not make her alter her decision.
That evening Gervaise frankly owned with a laugh that she would have fallen ill if she had been prevented from having the shop. Nevertheless, before saying “it’s done!” she wished to take Coupeau to see the place, and try and obtain a reduction in the rent.
“Very well, then, to-morrow, if you like,” said her husband. “You can come and fetch me towards six o’clock at the house where I’m working, in the Rue de la Nation, and we’ll call in at the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or on our way home.”
Coupeau was then finishing the roofing of a new three-storied house. It so happened that on that day he was to fix the last sheets of zinc. As the roof was almost flat, he had set up his bench on it, a wide shutter supported on two trestles. A beautiful May sun was setting, giving a golden hue to the chimney-pots. And, right up at the top, against the clear sky, the workman was quietly cutting up his zinc with a big pair of shears, leaning over the bench, and looking like a tailor in his shop cutting out a pair of trousers. Close to the wall of the next house, his boy, a youngster of seventeen, thin and fair, was keeping the fire of the chafing dish blazing by the aid of an enormous pair of bellows, each puff of which raised a cloud of sparks.
“Hi! Zidore, put in the irons!” cried Coupeau.
The boy stuck the soldering irons into the midst of the charcoal, which looked a pale rose color in the daylight. Then he resumed blowing. Coupeau held the last sheet of zinc. It had to be placed at the edge of the roof, close to the gutter-pipe; there was an abrupt slant there, and the gaping void of the street opened beneath. The zinc-worker, just as though in his own home, wearing his list-shoes, advanced, dragging his feet, and whistling the air, “Oh! the little lambs.” Arrived in front of the opening, he let himself down, and then, supporting himself with one knee against the masonry of a chimney-stack, remained half-way out over the pavement below. One of his legs dangled. When he leant back to call that young viper, Zidore, he held on to a corner of the masonry, on account of the street beneath him.
“You confounded dawdler! Give me the irons! It’s no use looking up in the air, you skinny beggar! The larks won’t tumble into your mouth already cooked!”
But Zidore did not hurry himself. He was interested in the neighboring roofs, and in a cloud of smoke which rose from the other side of Paris, close to Grenelle; it was very likely a fire. However, he came and laid down on his stomach, his head over the opening, and he passed the irons to Coupeau. Then the latter commenced to solder the sheet. He squatted, he stretched, always managing to balance himself, sometimes seated on one side, at other times standing on the tip of one foot, often only holding on by a finger. He had a confounded assurance, the devil’s own cheek, familiar with danger, and braving it. It knew him. It was the street that was afraid, not he. As he kept his pipe in his mouth, he turned round every now and then to spit onto the pavement.
“Look, there’s Madame Boche,” he suddenly exclaimed and called down to her. “Hi! Madame Boche.”