"No, we are not married," said Gervaise. "I do not intend to lie about it. Lantier is not so nice that a woman need be very anxious to be his wife. If it were not for the children! I was fourteen and he was eighteen when the first one was born. The other child did not come for four years. I was not happy at home. Papa Macquart, for the merest trifle, would beat me. I might have married, I suppose." She dried her hands, which were red under the white soapsuds. "The water is very hard in Paris," she said. Mme Boche had finished her work long before, but she continued to dabble in the water merely as an excuse to hear this story, which for two weeks had excited her curiosity. Her mouth was open, and her eyes were shining with satisfaction at having guessed so well. "Oh yes, just as I knew," she said to herself, "but the little woman talks too much! I was sure, though, there had been a quarrel." Then aloud: "He is not good to you then?" "He was very good to me once," answered Gervaise, "but since we came to Paris he has changed. His mother died last year and left him about seventeen hundred francs. He wished to come to Paris, and as Father Macquart was in the habit of hitting me in the face without any warning, I said I would come, too, which we did, with the two children. I meant to be a fine laundress, and he was to continue with his trade as a hatter. We might have been very happy. But, you see, Lantier is extravagant; he likes expensive things and thinks of his amusement before anything else. He is not good for much, anyhow! "We arrived at the Hotel Montmartre. We had dinners and carriages, suppers and theaters, a watch for him, a silk dress for me--for he is not selfish when he has money. You can easily imagine, therefore, at the end of two months we were cleaned out. Then it was that we came to Hotel Boncœur and that this life began." She checked herself with a strange choking in the throat. Tears gathered in her eyes. She finished brushing her linen. "I must get my scalding water," she murmured. But Mme Boche, much annoyed at this sudden interruption to the long-desired confidence, called the boy. "Charles," she said, "it would be very good of you if you would bring a pail of hot water to Madame Lantier, as she is in a great hurry." The boy brought a bucketful, and Gervaise paid him a sou. It was a sou for each bucket. She turned the hot water into her tub and soaked her linen once more and rubbed it with her hands while the steam hovered round her blonde head like a cloud. "Here, take some of this," said the concierge as she emptied into the water that Gervaise was using the remains of a package of bicarbonate of soda. She offered her also some _eau de Javelle_, but the young woman refused. It was only good, she said, for grease spots and wine stains. "I thought him somewhat dissipated," said Mme Boche, referring to Lantier without naming him.