But Lorilleux raised his pale face and cried: "What's that you say ?" Then, as he had heard perfectly well, he continued: "More back-bitings, eh?
She's nice, mother Coupeau, to go and cry starvation everywhere! Yet only the day before yesterday she dined here.
We do what we can.

We haven't got all the gold of Peru.

Only if she goes about gossiping with others she had better stay with them, for we don't like spies." He took up the piece of chain and turned his back also, adding as though with regret: "When everyone gives five francs a month, we'll give five francs." Gervaise had calmed down and felt quite chilled by the wooden looking faces of the Lorilleux.

She had never once set foot in their rooms without experiencing a certain uneasiness.

With her eyes fixed on the floor, staring at the holes of the wooden grating through which the waste gold fell she now explained herself in a reasonable manner.