through which laundry could be seen hanging on brass wires. The steam
engine's smokestack exhaled puffs of white smoke to the right of the
water tanks.

Gervaise was used to puddles and did not bother to tuck her skirts up
before making her way through the doorway, which was cluttered with jars
of bleaching water. She was already acquainted with the mistress of the
wash-house, a delicate little woman with red, inflamed eyes, who sat in
a small glazed closet with account books in front of her, bars of soap
on shelves, balls of blue in glass bowls, and pounds of soda done up
in packets; and, as she passed, she asked for her beetle and her
scouring-brush, which she had left to be taken care of the last time
she had done her washing there. Then, after obtaining her number, she
entered the wash-house.

It was an immense shed, with large clear windows, and a flat ceiling,
showing the beams supported on cast-iron pillars. Pale rays of light
passed through the hot steam, which remained suspended like a milky
fog. Smoke arose from certain corners, spreading about and covering the
recesses with a bluish veil. A heavy moisture hung around, impregnated
with a soapy odor, a damp insipid smell, continuous though at moments
overpowered by the more potent fumes of the chemicals. Along the
washing-places, on either side of the central alley, were rows of
women, with bare arms and necks, and skirts tucked up, showing colored
stockings and heavy lace-up shoes. They were beating furiously,
laughing, leaning back to call out a word in the midst of the din, or
stooping over their tubs, all of them brutal, ungainly, foul of speech,
and soaked as though by a shower, with their flesh red and reeking.

All around the women continuously flowed a river from hot-water buckets