She kept leaving off, making her work last as long as she could, so as to remain there, to listen to that story, which her curiosity had been hankering to know for a fortnight past.

Her mouth was half open in the midst of her big, fat face; her eyes, which were almost at the top of her head, were gleaming.
She was thinking, with the satisfaction of having guessed right.
"That's it, the little one gossips too much.

There's been a row." Then, she observed out loud, "He isn't nice, then ?" "Don't mention it!" replied Gervaise.

"He used to behave very well in the country; but, since we've been in Paris, he's been unbearable.
I must tell you that his mother died last year and left him some money--about seventeen hundred francs.

He would come to Paris, so, as old Macquart was forever knocking me about without warning, I consented to come away with him.