"This certainly does not promise very well!"

Coupeau shook his head angrily. Lorilleux should pay for this evening!
Was there ever such a miser? To care if one carried off three grains
of gold in the dust on one's shoes. All the stories his sister told
were pure fictions and malice. His sister never meant him to marry;
his eating with them saved her at least four sous daily. But he did
not care whether they appeared on the twenty-ninth of July or not;
he could get along without them perfectly well.

But Gervaise, as she descended the staircase, felt her heart swell
with pain and fear. She did not like the strange shadows on the dimly
lit stairs. From behind the doors, now closed, came the heavy
breathing of sleepers who had gone to their beds on rising from the
table. A faint laugh was heard from one room, while a slender thread
of light filtered through the keyhole of the old lady who was still
busy with her dolls, cutting out the gauze dresses with squeaking
scissors. A child was crying on the next floor, and the smell from
the sinks was worse than ever and seemed something tangible amid this
silent darkness. Then in the courtyard, while Coupeau pulled the cord,
Gervaise turned and examined the house once more. It seemed enormous
as it stood black against the moonless sky. The gray facades rose tall
and spectral; the windows were all shut. No clothes fluttered in the
breeze; there was literally not the smallest look of life, except in
the few windows that were still lighted. From the damp corner of the
courtyard came the drip-drip of the fountain. Suddenly it seemed to
Gervaise as if the house were striding toward her and would crush her
to the earth. A moment later she smiled at her foolish fancy.

"Take care!" cried Coupeau.