For two months they had been looking for an apartment. They wished,
of all things, to take one in the old house where Mme Lorilleux
lived, but there was not one single room to be rented, and they were
compelled to relinquish the idea. Gervaise was reconciled to this more
easily, since she did not care to be thrown in any closer contact with
the Lorilleuxs. They looked further. It was essential that Gervaise
should be near her friend and employer Mme Fauconnier, and they
finally succeeded in their search and were indeed in wonderful luck,
for they obtained a large room with a kitchen and tiny bedroom just
opposite the establishment of the laundress. It was a small house,
two stories, with one steep staircase, and was divided into two
lodgings--the one on the right, the other on the left, while the
lower floor was occupied by a carriage maker.

Gervaise was delighted. It seemed to her that she was once more in the
country--no neighbors, no gossip, no interference--and from the place
where she stood and ironed all day at Mme Fauconnier's she could see
the windows of her own room.

They moved in the month of April. Gervaise was then near her
confinement, but it was she who cleaned and put in order her new home.
Every penny as of consequence, she said with pride, now that they
would soon have another other mouth to feed. She rubbed her furniture,
which was of old mahogany, good, but secondhand, until it shone like
glass and was quite brokenhearted when she discovered a scratch. She
held her breath if she knocked it when sweeping. The commode was her
especial pride; it was so dignified and stately. Her pet dream, which,
however, she kept to herself, was someday to have a clock to put
in the center of the marble slab. If there had not been a baby in