The other women around them no longer laughed.

Several had gone off saying that it quite upset them; those who remained stretched out their necks, their eyes lighted up with a gleam of cruelty, admiring the pluck displayed.

Madame Boche had led Claude and Etienne away, and one could hear at the other end of the building the sound of their sobs, mingled with the sonorous shocks of the two beetles.

But Gervaise suddenly yelled.

Virginie had caught her a whack with all her might on her bare arm, just above the elbow.