to was that she would wait five minutes on the pavement outside, if he
wanted them to go off together. She ought to have left directly after
the storm, as she wished to do. She would make Coupeau sorry for that
day. Coupeau was dismayed when he heard how angry she was. Gervaise
agreed to leave at once to avoid embarrassing him any more.

There was a flurry of quick good-night kisses. Monsieur Madinier was to
escort mother Coupeau home. Madame Boche would take Claude and Etienne
with her for the bridal night. The children were sound asleep on chairs,
stuffed full from the dinner. Just as the bridal couple and Lorilleux
were about to go out the door, a quarrel broke out near the dance floor
between their group and another group. Boche and My-Boots were kissing a
lady and wouldn't give her up to her escorts, two soldiers.

It was scarcely eleven o'clock. On the Boulevard de la Chapelle, and in
the entire neighborhood of the Goutte-d'Or, the fortnight's pay, which
fell due on that Saturday, produced an enormous drunken uproar. Madame
Lorilleux was waiting beneath a gas-lamp about twenty paces from the
Silver Windmill. She took her husband's arm, and walked on in front
without looking round, at such a rate, that Gervaise and Coupeau got
quite out of breath in trying to keep up with them. Now and again they
stepped off the pavement to leave room for some drunkard who had fallen
there. Lorilleux looked back, endeavoring to make things pleasant.

"We will see you as far as your door," said he.

But Madame Lorilleux, raising her voice, thought it a funny thing to
spend one's wedding night in such a filthy hole as the Hotel Boncoeur.
Ought they not to have put their marriage off, and have saved a few
sous to buy some furniture, so as to have had a home of their own on