Listen, can't you hear her shrieks ?" Gervaise hastened to the spot.

She felt some friendship for her washer-woman, Madame Bijard, who was a very courageous woman.

She had hoped to put a stop to what was going on.

Upstairs, on the sixth floor the door of the room was wide open, some lodgers were shouting on the landing, whilst Madame Boche, standing in front of the door, was calling out: "Will you leave off?
I shall send for the police; do you hear ?" No one dared to venture inside the room, because it was known that Bijard was like a brute beast when he was drunk.

As a matter of fact, he was scarcely ever sober.