donât make a noise. Dadâs asleep.â
When she left, Claude and Etienneâs hushed laughter was the only sound to be heard under the dark ceiling in the deep silence of the room. It was ten oâclock. A ray of sunlight was streaming through the half-open window.
On the main road, Gervaise turned left and went down the Rue Neuve de la Goutte-dâOr. 6 As she went past Mme Fauconnierâs small shop, she greeted her with a little nod. The wash-house was halfway down the street, at the point where it started to go uphill. Above a flat-roofed building, you could see the round grey bulk of three huge water tanks, cylinders of galvanized metal studded with rivets, while behind them loomed the drying-room, a tall secondâstorey area enclosed on all sides by shutters with narrow slats, for the air to blow through, behind which items of washing could be seen drying on lines of brass wire. The narrow pipe from the engine, to the right of the tanks, puffed out whiffs of white steam in rough, regular breaths. Without holdingup her skirts Gervaise, who was used to puddles, went in through a doorway cluttered with tubs of bleach. She was already acquainted with the manageress, a delicate little woman with unhealthy eyes, who sat behind a window, with the registers in front of her, in a little room where there were cakes of soap on shelves, balls of blueing in jars and pounds of bicarbonate of soda weighed out into packets. As she went past, Gervaise asked for the beetle 7 and brush that she had left for the manageress to look after, after her last wash. Then, taking her number, she went in.
The washâhouse was a vast shed with a flat roof, supported by visible beams on cast-iron pillars and enclosed by wide clear-glass windows, which admitted the pale daylight so that it could pass freely through the hot steam that hung like a milky mist. Here and there, wisps of smoke were rising, spreading out to cover the back of the shed with a blueish veil. A heavy dampness rained down, laden with the smell of soap â a moist, insipid, persistent smell, in which, from time to time, stronger whiffs of bleach would dominate. Along the washing-boards that lined both sides of the central aisle were rows of women, their arms naked to the shoulders, their necks bare and their skirts tucked in to reveal coloured stockings and heavy, laced-up shoes. They were beating fiercely, laughing, throwing their heads back to shout something through the din or leaning forward into their tubs, foul-mouthed, brutish, ungainly, soaked through, their flesh reddened and steaming. Around and underneath them, a great stream coursed by, coming from buckets of hot water carried along and tipped out in a single movement, or else from open taps of cold water pissing down, the splashes off the beetles, the drips from rinsed garments, all running off in rivulets across the sloping stone floor from the ponds in which their feet paddled. And, in the midst of the cries, the rhythmical beating noises and the murmurous sound of rain â this tempestuous clamour deadened by the damp roof â the steam-engine, over to the right, completely whitened by a fine dew, panted and snored away unceasingly, its flywheel shivering and dancing, seeming to regulate this monstrous din.
Gervaise, meanwhile, was looking to right and left as she advanced with short steps down the aisle. She had her parcel of washing underher arm, one hip raised, her limp more pronounced than ever in the throng of women who jostled her as they went past.
âOver here, sweetie!â thundered Mme Boche.
Then, when the young woman came over to join her, on the left, at the end of the line, the concierge, who was rubbing away ferociously at a sock, began to speak, in short phrases, without pausing in her work.
âYou slip in here, Iâve kept you a place⦠Oh, I shanât be long! Boche keeps his clothes pretty clean⦠What about you? It wonât take you
When she left, Claude and Etienneâs hushed laughter was the only sound to be heard under the dark ceiling in the deep silence of the room. It was ten oâclock. A ray of sunlight was streaming through the half-open window.
On the main road, Gervaise turned left and went down the Rue Neuve de la Goutte-dâOr. 6 As she went past Mme Fauconnierâs small shop, she greeted her with a little nod. The wash-house was halfway down the street, at the point where it started to go uphill. Above a flat-roofed building, you could see the round grey bulk of three huge water tanks, cylinders of galvanized metal studded with rivets, while behind them loomed the drying-room, a tall secondâstorey area enclosed on all sides by shutters with narrow slats, for the air to blow through, behind which items of washing could be seen drying on lines of brass wire. The narrow pipe from the engine, to the right of the tanks, puffed out whiffs of white steam in rough, regular breaths. Without holdingup her skirts Gervaise, who was used to puddles, went in through a doorway cluttered with tubs of bleach. She was already acquainted with the manageress, a delicate little woman with unhealthy eyes, who sat behind a window, with the registers in front of her, in a little room where there were cakes of soap on shelves, balls of blueing in jars and pounds of bicarbonate of soda weighed out into packets. As she went past, Gervaise asked for the beetle 7 and brush that she had left for the manageress to look after, after her last wash. Then, taking her number, she went in.
The washâhouse was a vast shed with a flat roof, supported by visible beams on cast-iron pillars and enclosed by wide clear-glass windows, which admitted the pale daylight so that it could pass freely through the hot steam that hung like a milky mist. Here and there, wisps of smoke were rising, spreading out to cover the back of the shed with a blueish veil. A heavy dampness rained down, laden with the smell of soap â a moist, insipid, persistent smell, in which, from time to time, stronger whiffs of bleach would dominate. Along the washing-boards that lined both sides of the central aisle were rows of women, their arms naked to the shoulders, their necks bare and their skirts tucked in to reveal coloured stockings and heavy, laced-up shoes. They were beating fiercely, laughing, throwing their heads back to shout something through the din or leaning forward into their tubs, foul-mouthed, brutish, ungainly, soaked through, their flesh reddened and steaming. Around and underneath them, a great stream coursed by, coming from buckets of hot water carried along and tipped out in a single movement, or else from open taps of cold water pissing down, the splashes off the beetles, the drips from rinsed garments, all running off in rivulets across the sloping stone floor from the ponds in which their feet paddled. And, in the midst of the cries, the rhythmical beating noises and the murmurous sound of rain â this tempestuous clamour deadened by the damp roof â the steam-engine, over to the right, completely whitened by a fine dew, panted and snored away unceasingly, its flywheel shivering and dancing, seeming to regulate this monstrous din.
Gervaise, meanwhile, was looking to right and left as she advanced with short steps down the aisle. She had her parcel of washing underher arm, one hip raised, her limp more pronounced than ever in the throng of women who jostled her as they went past.
âOver here, sweetie!â thundered Mme Boche.
Then, when the young woman came over to join her, on the left, at the end of the line, the concierge, who was rubbing away ferociously at a sock, began to speak, in short phrases, without pausing in her work.
âYou slip in here, Iâve kept you a place⦠Oh, I shanât be long! Boche keeps his clothes pretty clean⦠What about you? It wonât take you
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