Gervaise removed her hands from her face and looked. When she beheld Virginie in front of her, amidst three or four women, speaking low and staring at her, she was seized with a mad rage. Her arms in front of her, searching the ground, she stumbled forward a few paces. Trembling all over, she found a bucket full of water, grabbed it with both hands, and emptied it at Virginie. “The virago!” yelled tall Virginie. She had stepped back, and her boots alone got wet. The other women, who for some minutes past had all been greatly upset by Gervaise’s tears, jostled each other in their anxiety to see the fight. Some, who were finishing their lunch, got on the tops of their tubs. Others hastened forward, their hands smothered with soap. A ring was formed. “Ah! the virago!” repeated tall Virginie. “What’s the matter with her? She’s mad!” Gervaise, standing on the defensive, her chin thrust out, her features convulsed, said nothing, not having yet acquired the Paris gift of street gab. The other continued: “Get out! This girl’s tired of wallowing about in the country; she wasn’t twelve years old when the soldiers were at her. She even lost her leg serving her country. That leg’s rotting off.” The lookers-on burst out laughing. Virginie, seeing her success, advanced a couple of steps, drawing herself up to her full height, and yelling louder than ever: “Here! Come a bit nearer, just to see how I’ll settle you! Don’t you come annoying us here. Do I even know her, the hussy? If she’d wetted me, I’d have pretty soon shown her battle, as you’d have seen. Let her just say what I’ve ever done to her. Speak, you vixen; what’s been done to you?” “Don’t talk so much,” stammered Gervaise. “You know well enough. Some one saw my husband last night. And shut up, because if you don’t I’ll most certainly strangle you.” “Her husband! That’s a good one! As if cripples like her had husbands! If he’s left you it’s not my fault. Surely you don’t think I’ve stolen him, do you? He was much too good for you and you made him sick. Did you keep him on a leash? Has anyone here seen her husband? There’s a reward.” The laughter burst forth again. Gervaise contented herself with continually murmuring in a low tone of voice: “You know well enough, you know well enough. It’s your sister. I’ll strangle her—your sister.” “Yes, go and try it on with my sister,” resumed Virginie sneeringly. “Ah! it’s my sister! That’s very likely. My sister looks a trifle different to you; but what’s that to me? Can’t one come and wash one’s clothes in peace now? Just dry up, d’ye hear, because I’ve had enough of it!” But it was she who returned to the attack, after giving five or six strokes with her beetle, intoxicated by the insults she had been giving utterance to, and worked up into a passion. She left off and recommenced again, speaking in this way three times: