out, for she would have been ashamed to have been found there by any
man, had one come up. The pain passed away; she was able to open
her door, feeling relieved, and thinking that she had decidedly been
mistaken. That evening she was going to make a stew with some neck
chops. All went well while she peeled the potatoes. The chops were
cooking in a saucepan when the pains returned. She mixed the gravy as
she stamped about in front of the stove, almost blinded with her tears.
If she was going to give birth, that was no reason why Coupeau should
be kept without his dinner. At length the stew began to simmer on a
fire covered with cinders. She went into the other room, and thought she
would have time to lay the cloth at one end of the table. But she was
obliged to put down the bottle of wine very quickly; she no longer had
strength to reach the bed; she fell prostrate, and she had more pains
on a mat on the floor. When the midwife arrived, a quarter of an hour
later, she found mother and baby lying there on the floor.

The zinc-worker was still employed at the hospital. Gervaise would not
have him disturbed. When he came home at seven o'clock, he found her
in bed, well covered up, looking very pale on the pillow, and the child
crying, swathed in a shawl at it's mother's feet.

"Ah, my poor wife!" said Coupeau, kissing Gervaise. "And I was joking
only an hour ago, whilst you were crying with pain! I say, you don't
make much fuss about it--the time to sneeze and it's all over."

She smiled faintly; then she murmured: "It's a girl."

"Right!" the zinc-worker replied, joking so as to enliven her, "I
ordered a girl! Well, now I've got what I wanted! You do everything I
wish!" And, taking the child up in his arms, he continued: "Let's have a