And he looked at Gervaise’s face, red with weeping. When he saw that the bed had not been slept in, he shook his head gently; then he went to the children’s couch where they were sleeping, looking as rosy as cherubs, and, lowering his voice, he said, “Come, the old man’s not been home, has he? Don’t worry yourself, Madame Lantier. He’s very much occupied with politics. When they were voting for Eugene Sue the other day, he was acting almost crazy. He has very likely spent the night with some friends blackguarding crapulous Bonaparte.” “No, no,” she murmured with an effort. “You don’t think that. I know where Lantier is. You see, we have our little troubles like the rest of the world!” Coupeau winked his eye, to indicate he was not a dupe of this falsehood; and he went off, after offering to fetch her milk, if she did not care to go out: she was a good and courageous woman, and might count upon him on any day of trouble. As soon as he was gone, Gervaise again returned to the window. At the Barriere, the tramp of the drove still continued in the morning air: locksmiths in short blue blouses, masons in white jackets, house painters in overcoats over long smocks. From a distance the crowd looked like a chalky smear of neutral hue composed chiefly of faded blue and dingy gray. When one of the workers occasionally stopped to light his pipe the others kept plodding past him, without sparing a laugh or a word to a comrade. With cheeks gray as clay, their eyes were continually drawn toward Paris which was swallowing them one by one. At both corners of the Rue des Poissonniers however, some of the men slackened their pace as they neared the doors of the two wine-dealers who were taking down their shutters; and, before entering, they stood on the edge of the pavement, looking sideways over Paris, with no strength in their arms and already inclined for a day of idleness. Inside various groups were already buying rounds of drinks, or just standing around, forgetting their troubles, crowding up the place, coughing, spitting, clearing their throats with sip after sip. Gervaise was watching Pere Colombe’s wineshop to the left of the street, where she thought she had seen Lantier, when a stout woman, bareheaded and wearing an apron called to her from the middle of the roadway: “Hey, Madame Lantier, you’re up very early!” Gervaise leaned out. “Why! It’s you, Madame Boche! Oh! I’ve got a lot of work to-day!” “Yes, things don’t do themselves, do they?”