At the restaurant Coupeau ordered at once some bread and ham; then seeing that Boche and Bibi-la-Grillade were really hungry, he ordered more wine and more meat. His mother could eat nothing, and Gervaise, who was dying of thirst, drank glass after glass of water barely reddened with wine. "This is my affair," said Coupeau, going to the counter where he paid four francs, five sous. The guests began to arrive. Mme Fauconnier, stout and handsome, was the first. She wore a percale gown, ecru ground with bright figures, a rose-colored cravat and a bonnet laden with flowers. Then came Mlle Remanjon in her scanty black dress, which seemed so entirely a part of herself that it was doubtful if she laid it aside at night. The Gaudron household followed. The husband, enormously stout, looked as if his vest would burst at the least movement, and his wife, who was nearly as huge as himself, was dressed in a delicate shade of violet which added to her apparent size. "Ah," cried Mme Lerat as she entered, "we are going to have a tremendous shower!" And she bade them all look out the window to see how black the clouds were. Mme Lerat, Coupeau's eldest sister, was a tall, thin woman, very masculine in appearance and talking through her nose, wearing a puce-colored dress that was much too loose for her. It was profusely trimmed with fringe, which made her look like a lean dog just coming out of the water. She brandished an umbrella as she talked, as if it had been a walking stick. As she kissed Gervaise she said: "You have no idea how the wind blows, and it is as hot as a blast from a furnace!" Everybody at once declared they had felt the storm coming all the morning. Three days of extreme heat, someone said, always ended in a gust. "It will blow over," said Coupeau with an air of confidence, "but I wish my sister would come, all the same." Mme Lorilleux, in fact, was very late. Mme Lerat had called for her, but she had not then begun to dress. "And," said the widow in her brother's ear, "you never saw anything like the temper she was in!" They waited another half-hour. The sky was growing blacker and blacker. Clouds of dust were rising along the street, and down came the rain. And it was in the first shower that Mme Lorilleux arrived, out of temper and out of breath, struggling with her umbrella, which she could not close. "I had ten minds," she exclaimed, "to turn back. I wanted you to wait until next Saturday. I knew it would rain today--I was certain of it!" Coupeau tried to calm her, but she quickly snubbed him. Was it he, she would like to know, who was to pay for her dress if it were spoiled? She wore black silk, so tight that the buttonholes were burst out, and it showed white on the shoulders,--while the skirt was so scant that she could not take a long step. The other women, however, looked at her silk with envy.