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L'Assommoir by Émile Zola
page 80 of 351 (22%)
Remanjon in her scanty black dress, which seemed so entirely a part
of herself that it was doubtful if she laid it aside at night. The
Gaudron household followed. The husband, enormously stout, looked as
if his vest would burst at the least movement, and his wife, who was
nearly as huge as himself, was dressed in a delicate shade of violet
which added to her apparent size.

"Ah," cried Mme Lerat as she entered, "we are going to have a
tremendous shower!" And she bade them all look out the window
to see how black the clouds were.

Mme Lerat, Coupeau's eldest sister, was a tall, thin woman, very
masculine in appearance and talking through her nose, wearing a
puce-colored dress that was much too loose for her. It was profusely
trimmed with fringe, which made her look like a lean dog just coming
out of the water. She brandished an umbrella as she talked, as if it
had been a walking stick. As she kissed Gervaise she said:

"You have no idea how the wind blows, and it is as hot as a blast
from a furnace!"

Everybody at once declared they had felt the storm coming all the
morning. Three days of extreme heat, someone said, always ended in
a gust.

"It will blow over," said Coupeau with an air of confidence, "but
I wish my sister would come, all the same."

Mme Lorilleux, in fact, was very late. Mme Lerat had called for her,
but she had not then begun to dress. "And," said the widow in her
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