The _rez-de-chaussee_ was divided into enormous workshops and lit by windows black with dust. The forge of a locksmith blazed in one; from another came the sound of a carpenter's plane, while near the doorway a pink stream from a dyeing establishment poured into the gutter. Pools of stagnant water stood in the courtyard, all littered with shavings and fragments of charcoal. A few pale tufts of grass struggled up between the flat stones, and the whole courtyard was lit but dimly. In the shade near the water faucet three small hens were pecking with the vain hope of finding a worm, and Gervaise looked about her, amazed at the enormous place which seemed like a little world and as interested in the house as if it were a living creature. "Are you looking for anyone?" asked the concierge, coming to her door considerably puzzled. But the young woman explained that she was waiting for a friend and then turned back toward the street. As Coupeau still delayed, she returned to the courtyard, finding in it a strange fascination. The house did not strike her as especially ugly. At some of the windows were plants--a wallflower blooming in a pot--a caged canary, who uttered an occasional warble, and several shaving mirrors caught the light and shone like stars. A cabinetmaker sang, accompanied by the regular whistling sounds of his plane, while from the locksmith's quarters came a clatter of hammers struck in cadence. At almost all the open windows the laughing, dirty faces of merry children were seen, and women sat with their calm faces in profile, bending over their work. It was the quiet time--after the morning labors were over and the men were gone to their work and the house was comparatively quiet, disturbed only by the sounds of the various trades. The same refrain repeated hour after hour has a soothing effect, Gervaise thought. To be sure, the courtyard was a little damp. Were she to live there, she should certainly prefer a room on the sunny side. She went in several steps and breathed that heavy odor of the homes of the poor--an odor of old dust, of rancid dirt and grease--but as the acridity of the smells from the dyehouse predominated, she decided it to be far better than the Hotel Boncœur. She selected a window--a window in the corner on the left, where there was a small box planted with scarlet beans, whose slender tendrils were beginning to wind round a little arbor of strings. "I have made you wait too long, I am afraid," said Coupeau, whom she suddenly heard at her side. "They make a great fuss when I do not dine there, and she did not like it today, especially as my sister had bought veal. You are looking at this house," he continued. "Think of it--it is always lit from top to bottom. There are a hundred lodgers in it. If I had any furniture I would have had a room in it long ago. It would be very nice here, wouldn't it?"