“Oh, most decidedly ‘No,’ Monsieur Coupeau,” she replied.  “You’ll find someone else prettier than I am who won’t have two monkeys to drag about with her.”

But she did not repulse him entirely, and as, in his urgency, Coupeau made a point of offering marriage, little by little Gervaise gave way.  At last, after a month, she yielded.

“How you do tease me,” she murmured.  “Well, then, yes.  Ah, we’re perhaps doing a very foolish thing.”

During the following days Coupeau sought to get Gervaise to call on his sister in the Rue de la Goutte d’Or, but the young woman showed a great dread of this visit to the Lorilleux.  Coupeau was in no wise dependent on his sister, only the Lorilleux had the reputation of earning as much as ten francs a day as gold chain makers, and on that ground they exercised special authority.  They lived on the sixth floor in a tenement house crammed with tenants of every degree of squalor.  They were so busy that they could not cease their work, and welcomed their new relative with but a few cold words.  Her reception was very trying to Gervaise, but the disappointment of herself and Coupeau was dispelled when the Lorilleux agreed to attend the wedding and pay their share of the wedding dinner.

Gervaise did not want to have guests at her wedding.  What was the use of spending money?  Besides, it seemed quite unnecessary to show off her marriage before the whole neighbourhood.  But Coupeau exclaimed at this.  One could not be married without having a spread, and at length he got her to consent.

They formed a party of twelve, including the Lorilleux and some of Coupeau’s comrades who frequented the “Assommoir.”  The day was excessively hot.  At the mayor’s they had to wait their turn and thus were late at the church.  On the way the men had some beer and after the religious ceremony they adjourned to a wine-shop.  Then a heavy storm preventing a proposed excursion into the country before dinner, they went to the Louvre.  The general opinion was that the pictures were quite wonderful.  Shut out of the galleries with still two hours to spare, the party decided to take a short walk and filled up the interval in climbing to the top of the Vendome monument.

Then the wedding party, feeling very lively, sat down to the long-desired feast.  The repast was pronounced fairly good.  It was accompanied by quantities of cheap wine and enlivened with much coarse joking, becoming violent as the discussion turned on politics.  Quiet being obtained, there followed the settling-up squabble with the landlord.  Each paid his share and Coupeau found himself starting married life on seven sous, the day’s entertainment having cost him over forty francs.