She squinted at the gold, at the gold tied together hanging on the walls, at the gold wire the wife was drawing out with all the strength of her little arms, at the gold links lying in a heap under the husband's knotty fingers.

And she thought that the least bit of this ugly black metal would suffice to buy her a good dinner.

The workroom was as dirty as ever, full of old iron, coal dust and sticky oil stains, half wiped away; but now, as Gervaise saw it, it seemed resplendent with treasure, like a money changer's shop.

And so she ventured to repeat softly: "I would return them to you, return them without fail.

Ten sous wouldn't inconvenience you." Her heart was swelling with the effort she made not to own that she had had nothing to eat since the day before.