He would always say: "In our trade, you have to have steady legs." Gervaise had taken up her basket again.

She did not rise from her seat however, but held the basket on her knees, with a vacant look in her eyes and lost in thought, as though the young workman's words had awakened within her far-off thoughts of existence.

And she said again, slowly, and without any apparent change of manner: "_Mon Dieu_! I'm not ambitious; I don't ask for much.

My desire is to work in peace, always to have bread to eat and a decent place to sleep in, you know; with a bed, a table, and two chairs, nothing more.

If I can, I'd like to raise my children to be good citizens.