Gervaise still hobbled about, going up and down, with the idea of walking forever. At times, she felt drowsy and almost went to sleep, rocked, as it were, by her lame leg; then she looked round her with a start, and noticed she had walked a hundred yards unconsciously. Her feet were swelling in her ragged shoes. The last clear thought that occupied her mind was that her hussy of a daughter was perhaps eating oysters at that very moment. Then everything became cloudy; and, albeit, she remained with open eyes, it required too great an effort for her to think. The only sensation that remained to her, in her utter annihilation, was that it was frightfully cold, so sharply, mortally cold, she had never known the like before. Why, even dead people could not feel so cold in their graves. With an effort she raised her head, and something seemed to lash her face. It was the snow, which had at last decided to fall from the smoky sky—fine thick snow, which the breeze swept round and round. For three days it had been expected and what a splendid moment it chose to appear. Woken up by the first gusts, Gervaise began to walk faster. Eager to get home, men were running along, with their shoulders already white. And as she suddenly saw one who, on the contrary, was coming slowly towards her under the trees, she approached him and again said: “Sir, just listen—” The man has stopped. But he did not seem to have heard her. He held out his hand, and muttered in a low voice: “Charity, if you please!” They looked at one another. Ah! _Mon Dieu!_ They were reduced to this—Pere Bru begging, Madame Coupeau walking the streets! They remained stupefied in front of each other. They could join hands as equals now. The old workman had prowled about the whole evening, not daring to stop anyone, and the first person he accosted was as hungry as himself. Lord, was it not pitiful! To have toiled for fifty years and be obliged to beg! To have been one of the most prosperous laundresses in the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or and to end beside the gutter! They still looked at one another. Then, without saying a word, they went off in different directions under the lashing snow.