He encouraged her with a smile; they had arrived! She had been hearing a voice all the way up from the bottom and she was gazing upward, wondering where it could be coming from, a voice so clear and piercing that it had dominated all the other sounds.

It came from a little old woman in an attic room who sang while putting dresses on cheap dolls.

When a tall girl came by with a pail of water and entered a nearby apartment, Gervaise saw a tumbled bed on which a man was sprawled, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

As the door closed behind her, Gervaise saw the hand-written card: "Mademoiselle Clemence, ironing." Now that she had finally made it to the top, her legs weary and her breath short, Gervaise leaned over the railing to look down.

Now it was the gaslight on the first floor which seemed a distant star at the bottom of a narrow well six stories deep.