GERMINAL
out a sou. Otherwise they would have been able to go on until Saturday, like the others.
Maigrat, with protruded belly and folded arms, shook his head at every supplication.
"Only two loaves, Monsieur Maigrat. I am reasonable, I don't ask for coffee. Only two three-pound loaves a day."
"No," he shouted at last, at the top of his voice.
His wife had appeared, a pitiful creature who passed all her days over a ledger, without even daring to lift her head. She moved away, frightened at seeing this unfortunate woman turning her ardent beseeching eyes towards her. It was said that she yielded the conjugal bed to the putters among the customers. It was a known fact that when a miner wished to prolong his credit, he had only to send his daughter or his wife, plain or pretty, it mattered not, provided they were complacent.
Maheude, still imploring Maigrat with her look, felt herself uncomfortable under the pale keenness of his small eyes, which seemed to undress her. It made her angry; she would have understood before she had had seven children, when she was young. And she went off, violently dragging Lénore and Henri, who were occupied in picking up nut-shells from the gutter where they were making investigations.
"This won't bring you luck, Monsieur Maigrat, remember!"
Now there only remained the Piolaine people. If these would not throw her a five-franc piece she might as well lie down and die. She had taken the Joiselle road on the left. The administration building was there at the corner of the road, a veritable brick palace, where the great people from Paris, princes and generals and members of the Government, came every autumn to give large dinners. As she walked she was already spending the five francs: first bread, then coffee, afterwards a quarter of butter, a bushel of potatoes for the morning soup and the evening stew; finally, perhaps, a bit of pigs' chitterlings, for the father needed meat.
The Curé of Montsou, Abbé Joire, was passing, holding up his cassock, with the delicate air of a fat well-nourished cat afraid ⟨of⟩ wetting her fur. He was a gentleman who pretended not to ⟨in⟩terest himself in anything, so as not to vex either the ⟨wo⟩rkers or the masters.
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