Ah! she had brought him her saucy children; ah! she had got herself picked up from the pavement, wheedling him with rosy dreams! _Mon Dieu!_ he had a rare cheek! So many words, so many lies.

She hadn't wished to have anything to do with him, that was the truth.

He had dragged himself at her feet to make her give way, whilst she was advising him to think well what he was about.

And if it was all to come over again, he would hear how she would just say "no!" She would sooner have an arm cut off.

Yes, she'd had a lover before him; but a woman who has had a lover, and who is a worker, is worth more than a sluggard of a man who sullies his honor and that of his family in all the dram-shops.
That day, for the first time, the Coupeaus went in for a general brawl, and they whacked each other so hard that an old umbrella and the broom were broken.
Gervaise kept her word.