When Coupeau remained motionless on his pillow, Gervaise left, having nothing to say, nor anything in her pocket that could comfort him.
Outside, she turned to look up at the monumental structure of the hospital and recalled the days when Coupeau was working there, putting on the zinc roof, perched up high and singing in the sun.

He wasn't drinking in those days.

She used to watch for him from her window in the Hotel Boncoeur and they would both wave their handkerchiefs in greeting.
Now, instead of being on the roof like a cheerful sparrow, he was down below.

He had built his own place in the hospital where he had come to die.

_Mon Dieu!_ It all seemed so far way now, that time of young love.
On the day after the morrow, when Gervaise called to obtain news of him, she found the bed empty.