She would become quite ill if they did not let her get up.

In the evening, when Coupeau returned home, she told him all her worries; no doubt she had confidence in Madame Boche, only it put her beside herself to see a stranger installed in her room, opening the drawers, and touching her things.
On the morrow the concierge, on returning from some errand, found her up, dressed, sweeping and getting her husband's dinner ready; and it was impossible to persuade her to go to bed again.

They were trying to make a fool of her perhaps! It was all very well for ladies to pretend to be unable to move.

When one was not rich one had no time for that sort of thing.

Three days after her confinement she was ironing petticoats at Madame Fauconnier's, banging her irons and all in a perspiration from the great heat of the stove.
On the Saturday evening, Madame Lorilleux brought her presents for her godchild--a cup that cost thirty-five sous, and a christening dress, plaited and trimmed with some cheap lace, which she had got for six francs, because it was slightly soiled.