An old gentleman in Plassans sent for Claude to place him at school. He was a very eccentric old gentleman, fond of pictures and art. Claude was a great expense to his mother, and when Etienne alone was at home they saved the three hundred and fifty francs in seven months. The day they purchased their furniture they took a long and happy walk together, for it was an important step they had taken--important not only in their own eyes but in those of the people around them. For two months they had been looking for an apartment. They wished, of all things, to take one in the old house where Mme Lorilleux lived, but there was not one single room to be rented, and they were compelled to relinquish the idea. Gervaise was reconciled to this more easily, since she did not care to be thrown in any closer contact with the Lorilleuxs. They looked further. It was essential that Gervaise should be near her friend and employer Mme Fauconnier, and they finally succeeded in their search and were indeed in wonderful luck, for they obtained a large room with a kitchen and tiny bedroom just opposite the establishment of the laundress. It was a small house, two stories, with one steep staircase, and was divided into two lodgings--the one on the right, the other on the left, while the lower floor was occupied by a carriage maker. Gervaise was delighted. It seemed to her that she was once more in the country--no neighbors, no gossip, no interference--and from the place where she stood and ironed all day at Mme Fauconnier's she could see the windows of her own room. They moved in the month of April. Gervaise was then near her confinement, but it was she who cleaned and put in order her new home. Every penny as of consequence, she said with pride, now that they would soon have another other mouth to feed. She rubbed her furniture, which was of old mahogany, good, but secondhand, until it shone like glass and was quite brokenhearted when she discovered a scratch. She held her breath if she knocked it when sweeping. The commode was her especial pride; it was so dignified and stately. Her pet dream, which, however, she kept to herself, was someday to have a clock to put in the center of the marble slab. If there had not been a baby in prospect she would have purchased this much-coveted article at once, but she sighed and dismissed the thought. Etienne's bed was placed in the tiny room, almost a closet, and there was room for the cradle by its side. The kitchen was about as big as one's hand and very dark, but by leaving the door open one could see pretty well, and as Gervaise had no big dinners to get she managed comfortably. The large room was her pride. In the morning the white curtains of the alcove were drawn, and the bedroom was transformed into a lovely dining room, with its table in the middle, the commode and a wardrobe opposite each other. A tiny stove kept them warm in cold weather for seven sous per day.