She wiped away the blood with the corner of her apron and quieted the babies, who were sobbing bitterly, as though they had received all the blows.
Whenever Gervaise thought of Lalie, she felt she had no right to complain for herself.

She wished she had as much patient courage as the little girl who was only eight years old and had to endure more than the rest of the women on their staircase put together.

She had seen Lalie living on stale bread for months and growing thinner and weaker.
Whenever she smuggled some remnants of meat to Lalie, it almost broke her heart to see the child weeping silently and nibbling it down only by little bits because her throat was so shrunken.

Gervaise looked on Lalie as a model of suffering and forgiveness and tried to learn from her how to suffer in silence.
In the Coupeau household the vitriol of l'Assommoir was also commencing its ravages.

Gervaise could see the day coming when her husband would get a whip like Bijard's to make her dance.
Yes, Coupeau was spinning an evil thread.