Old folks come out to stroll in the sun.

Tired young mothers in bedraggled skirts cuddle babies in their arms or sit on a bench to change diapers.
Children run, squealing and laughing, pushing and shoving.
Then Gervaise felt herself choking, dizzy with anguish, all hopes gone; it seemed to her that everything was ended, even time itself, and that Lantier would return no more.

Her eyes vacantly wandered from the old slaughter-house, foul with butchery and with stench, to the new white hospital which, through the yawning openings of its ranges of windows, disclosed the naked wards, where death was preparing to mow.

In front of her on the other side of the octroi wall the bright heavens dazzled her, with the rising sun which rose higher and higher over the vast awaking city.
The young woman was seated on a chair, no longer crying, and with her hands abandoned on her lap, when Lantier quietly entered the room.
"It's you! It's you!" she cried, rising to throw herself upon his neck.
"Yes, it's me.

What of it ?" he replied.