Now that her eyesight was getting dimmer and dimmer she only had one regular house cleaning job but she was able to pick up some small jobs now and again.
On the day on which Nana was three years old, Coupeau, on returning home in the evening, found Gervaise quite upset.

She refused to talk about it; there was nothing at all the matter with her, she said.

But, as she had the table all wrong, standing still with the plates in her hands, absorbed in deep reflection, her husband insisted upon knowing what was the matter.
"Well, it is this," she ended by saying, "the little draper's shop in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, is to let.

I saw it only an hour ago, when going to buy some cotton.

It gave me quite a turn." It was a very decent shop, and in that big house where they dreamed of living in former days.