"No--no! Not to the hospital--to our own home."

In vain did they tell her that the expenses would be very great if
she nursed him at home.

"No--no!" she said. "I will show them the way. He is my husband,
is he not? And I will take care of him myself."

And Coupeau was carried home, and as the litter was borne through the
_Quartier_ the women crowded together and extolled Gervaise. She
was a little lame, to be sure, but she was very energetic, and she
would save her man.

Mme Boche took Nana home and then went about among her friends to tell
the story with interminable details.

"I saw him fall," she said. "It was all because of the child; he was
going to speak to her, when down he went. Good lord! I trust I may
never see such another sight."

For a week Coupeau's life hung on a thread. His family and his friends
expected to see him die from one hour to another. The physician, an
experienced physician whose every visit cost five francs, talked of
a lesion, and that word was in itself very terrifying to all but
Gervaise, who, pale from her vigils but calm and resolute, shrugged
her shoulders and would not allow herself to be discouraged. Her man's
leg was broken; that she knew very well, "but he need not die for
that!" And she watched at his side night and day, forgetting her
children and her home and everything but him.