He said that he was working.

Anything is possible, isn't it?
And Gervaise, although she had been caught many and many a time, had ended by relying on this coin.

After all sorts of incidents, she herself couldn't find as much as a duster to wash in the whole neighborhood; and even an old lady, whose rooms she did, had just given her the sack, charging her with swilling her liqueurs.

No one would engage her, she was washed up everywhere; and this secretly suited her, for she had fallen to that state of indifference when one prefers to croak rather than move one's fingers.
At all events, if Coupeau brought his pay home they would have something warm to eat.

And meanwhile, as it wasn't yet noon, she remained stretched on the mattress, for one doesn't feel so cold or so hungry when one is lying down.
The bed was nothing but a pile of straw in a corner.