"I say, Lorilleux, we're counting on you to be my wife's witness."

The chainmaker pretended, with a chuckle, to be greatly surprised;
whilst his wife, leaving her draw-plates, placed herself in the middle
of the work-room.

"So it's serious then?" murmured he. "That confounded Young Cassis, one
never knows whether he is joking or not."

"Ah! yes, madame's the person involved," said the wife in her turn, as
she stared rudely at Gervaise. "_Mon Dieu!_ We've no advice to give
you, we haven't. It's a funny idea to go and get married, all the same.
Anyhow, it's your own wish. When it doesn't succeed, one's only got
oneself to blame, that's all. And it doesn't often succeed, not often,
not often."

She uttered these last words slower and slower, and shaking her head,
she looked from the young woman's face to her hands, and then to her
feet as though she had wished to undress her and see the very pores of
her skin. She must have found her better than she expected.

"My brother is perfectly free," she continued more stiffly. "No doubt
the family might have wished--one always makes projects. But things take
such funny turns. For myself, I don't want to have any unpleasantness.
Had he brought us the lowest of the low, I should merely have said:
'Marry her and go to blazes!' He was not badly off though, here with
us. He's fat enough; one can very well see he didn't fast much; and he
always found his soup hot right on time. I say, Lorilleux, don't you
think madame's like Therese--you know who I mean, that woman who used to
live opposite, and who died of consumption?"