"You are going to the lavatory this morning, are you not? All right then, I have some things to wash, and I will keep a place for you next to me, and we can have a little talk!" Then as if moved by sudden compassion, she added: "Poor child, don't stay at that window any longer. You are purple with cold and will surely make yourself sick!" But Gervaise did not move. She remained in the same spot for two mortal hours, until the clock struck eight. The shops were now all open. The procession in blouses had long ceased, and only an occasional one hurried along. At the wineshops, however, there was the same crowd of men drinking, spitting and coughing. The workmen in the street had given place to the workwomen. Milliners' apprentices, florists, burnishers, who with thin shawls drawn closely around them came in bands of three or four, talking eagerly, with gay laughs and quick glances. Occasionally one solitary figure was seen, a pale-faced, serious woman, who walked rapidly, neither looking to the right nor to the left. Then came the clerks, blowing on their fingers to warm them, eating a roll as they walked; young men, lean and tall, with clothing they had outgrown and with eyes heavy with sleep; old men, who moved along with measured steps, occasionally pulling out their watches, but able, from many years' practice, to time their movements almost to a second. The boulevards at last were comparatively quiet. The inhabitants were sunning themselves. Women with untidy hair and soiled petticoats were nursing their babies in the open air, and an occasional dirty-faced brat fell into the gutter or rolled over with shrieks of pain or joy. Gervaise felt faint and ill; all hope was gone. It seemed to her that all was over and that Lantier would come no more. She looked from the dingy slaughterhouses, black with their dirt and loathsome odor, on to the new and staring hospital and into the rooms consecrated to disease and death. As yet the windows were not in, and there was nothing to impede her view of the large, empty wards. The sun shone directly in her face and blinded her. She was sitting on a chair with her arms dropping drearily at her side but not weeping, when Lantier quietly opened the door and walked in. "You have come!" she cried, ready to throw herself on his neck. "Yes, I have come," he answered, "and what of it? Don't begin any of your nonsense now!" And he pushed her aside. Then with an angry gesture he tossed his felt hat on the bureau. He was a small, dark fellow, handsome and well made, with a delicate mustache which he twisted in his fingers mechanically as he spoke. He wore an old coat, buttoned tightly at the waist, and spoke with a strongly marked Provencal accent. Gervaise had dropped upon her chair again and uttered disjointed phrases of lamentation. "I have not closed my eyes--I thought you were killed! Where have you been all night? I feel as if I were going mad! Tell me, Auguste, where have you been?"