He said no more but slowly and softly kissed her on her ear, as he had so often teased her by doing in those old days. Gervaise shivered, and her blood was stirred to madness in her veins. "What does that beast care?" she thought. "It is his fault," she murmured; "all his fault. He sends me from his room!" And as Lantier drew her toward his door Nana's face appeared for a moment at the window which lit her little cabinet. The mother did not see the child, who stood in her nightdress, pale with sleep. She looked at her father as he lay and then watched her mother disappear in Lantier's room. She was perfectly grave, but in her eyes burned the sensual curiosity of premature vice. CHAPTER IX CLOUDS IN THE HORIZON That winter Mamma Coupeau was very ill with an asthmatic attack, which she always expected in the month of December. The poor woman suffered much, and the depression of her spirits was naturally very great. It must be confessed that there was nothing very gay in the aspect of the room where she slept. Between her bed and that of the little girl there was just room for a chair. The paper hung in strips from the wall. Through a round window near the ceiling came a dreary gray light. There was little ventilation in the room, which made it especially unfit for the old woman, who at night, when Nana was there and she could hear her breathe, did not complain, but when left alone during the day, moaned incessantly, rolling her head about on her pillow. "Ah," she said, "how unhappy I am! It is the same as a prison. I wish I were dead!" And as soon as a visitor came in--Virginie or Mme Boche--she poured out her grievances. "I should not suffer so much among strangers. I should like sometimes a cup of tisane, but I can't get it; and Nana--that child whom I have raised from the cradle--disappears in the morning and never shows her face until night, when she sleeps right through and never once asks me how I am or if she can do anything for me. It will soon be over, and I really believe this clearstarcher would smother me herself--if she were not afraid of the law!" Gervaise, it is true, was not as gentle and sweet as she had been. Everything seemed to be going wrong with her, and she had lost heart and patience together. Mamma Coupeau had overheard her saying that she was really a great burden. This naturally cut her to the heart, and when she saw her eldest daughter, Mme Lerat, she wept piteously and declared that she was being starved to death, and when these complaints drew from her daughter's pocket a little silver, she expended it in dainties.