Lantier did not pick up the five franc piece directly. He would rather that she got change, so as to leave her some of it. But he decided to slip it into his waistcoat pocket, when he noticed a small piece of ham wrapped up in paper, and the remains of a loaf on the chest of drawers. “I didn’t dare go to the milkwoman’s, because we owe her a week,” explained Gervaise. “But I shall be back early; you can get some bread and some chops whilst I’m away, and then we’ll have lunch. Bring also a bottle of wine.” He did not say no. Their quarrel seemed to be forgotten. The young woman was completing her bundle of dirty clothes. But when she went to take Lantier’s shirts and socks from the bottom of the trunk, he called to her to leave them alone. “Leave my things, d’ye hear? I don’t want ’em touched!” “What’s it you don’t want touched?” she asked, rising up. “I suppose you don’t mean to put these filthy things on again, do you? They must be washed.” She studied his boyishly handsome face, now so rigid that it seemed nothing could ever soften it. He angrily grabbed his things from her and threw them back into the trunk, saying: “Just obey me, for once! I tell you I won’t have ’em touched!” “But why?” she asked, turning pale, a terrible suspicion crossing her mind. “You don’t need your shirts now, you’re not going away. What can it matter to you if I take them?” He hesitated for an instant, embarrassed by the piercing glance she fixed upon him. “Why—why—” stammered he, “because you go and tell everyone that you keep me, that you wash and mend. Well! It worries me, there! Attend to your own business and I’ll attend to mine, washerwomen don’t work for dogs.” She supplicated, she protested she had never complained; but he roughly closed the trunk and sat down upon it, saying, “No!” to her face. He could surely do as he liked with what belonged to him! Then, to escape from the inquiring looks she leveled at him, he went and laid down on the bed again, saying that he was sleepy, and requesting her not to make his head ache with any more of her row. This time indeed, he seemed to fall asleep. Gervaise, for a while, remained undecided. She was tempted to kick the bundle of dirty clothes on one side, and to sit down and sew. But Lantier’s regular breathing ended by reassuring her. She took the ball of blue and the piece of soap remaining from her last washing, and going up to the little ones who were quietly playing with some old corks in front of the window, she kissed them, and said in a low voice: “Be very good, don’t make any noise; papa’s asleep.” When she left the room, Claude’s and Etienne’s gentle laughter alone disturbed the great silence beneath the blackened ceiling. It was ten o’clock. A ray of sunshine entered by the half open window.