This human inundation kept pouring down into Paris to be constantly swallowed up.

Gervaise leaned further out at the risk of falling when she thought she recognized Lantier among the throng.

She pressed the handkerchief tighter against her mouth, as though to push back the pain within her.
The sound of a young and cheerful voice caused her to leave the window.
"So the old man isn't here, Madame Lantier ?" "Why, no, Monsieur Coupeau," she replied, trying to smile.
Coupeau, a zinc-worker who occupied a ten franc room on the top floor, having seen the door unlocked, had walked in as friends will do.
"You know," he continued, "I'm now working over there in the hospital.
What beautiful May weather, isn't it?
The air is rather sharp this morning." And he looked at Gervaise's face, red with weeping.

When he saw that the bed had not been slept in, he shook his head gently; then he went to the children's couch where they were sleeping, looking as rosy as cherubs, and, lowering his voice, he said, "Come, the old man's not been home, has he?
Don't worry yourself, Madame Lantier.

He's very much occupied with politics.