She was infinitely astonished at the smallness of the atelier, at the blackened walls and at the terrible heat. Tiny drops bedewed the waxed forehead of Lorilleux himself, while Mme Lorilleux threw off her sack and stood in bare arms and chemise half slipped off. "And the gold?" asked Gervaise softly. Her eager eyes searched the corners, hoping to discover amid all the dirt something of the splendor of which she had dreamed. But Coupeau laughed. "Gold?" he said. "Look! Here it is--and here--and here again, at your feet." He pointed in succession to the fine thread with which his sister was busy and at another package of wire hung against the wall near the vice; then falling down on his hands and knees, he gathered up from the floor, on the tip of his moistened finger, several tiny specks which looked like needle points. Gervaise cried out, "That surely is not gold! That black metal which looks precisely like iron!" Her lover laughed and explained to her the details of the manufacture in which his brother-in-law was engaged. The wire was furnished them in coils, just as it hung against the wall, and then they were obliged to heat and reheat it half a dozen times during their manipulations, lest it should break. Considerable strength and a vast deal of skill were needed, and his sister had both. He had seen her draw out the gold until it was like a hair. She would never let her husband do it because he always had a cough. All this time Lorilleux was watching Gervaise stealthily, and after a violent fit of coughing he said with an air as if he were speaking to himself: "I make columns." "Yes," said Coupeau in an explanatory voice, "there are four different kinds of chains, and his style is called a column." Lorilleux uttered a little grunt of satisfaction, all the time at work, with the tiny pincers held between very dirty nails. "Look here, Cadet-Cassis," he said. "This very morning I made a little calculation. I began my work when I was only twelve years old. How many yards do you think I have made up to this day?" He lifted his pale face. "Eight thousand! Do you understand? Eight thousand! Enough to twist around the necks of all the women in this _Quartier_." Gervaise returned to her chair, entirely disenchanted. She thought it was all very ugly and uninteresting. She smiled in order to gratify the Lorilleuxs, but she was annoyed and troubled at the profound silence they preserved in regard to her marriage, on account of which she had called there that evening. These people treated her as if she were simply a spectator whose curiosity had induced Coupeau to bring her to see their work.