All Saints' Day was near. It was very cold. At five o'clock, night
came. Marianne has risen slowly from her seat and gone to close the
window, which she had opened for a few minutes to let some fresh air
into the room. Ah! how dark and cheerless is the weather! On the
pavements it must be difficult to walk, so thickly coated are they with
slippery mud--mud that is everywhere, mud and standing puddles. A hard
winter is commencing. The charcoal seller will want a great deal of
money.
Ah, well--that is an expense that has been foreseen. The charcoal man
and the baker have to be paid; and with courage and health it can be
done.
In spite of the hissing wind and the biting cold, Marianne rested on
her elbows at the open window for a moment; it refreshed her head.
She was so tired. Since the morning she had hardly quitted her work,
and sewing is so wearisome. Four children, the two eldest at school,
the third at the asylum; the fourth, still quite young, in its
white-curtained cradle.
The needle must be kept stitching, stitching, there must be no going
to sleep over the work; but both ends could be made to meet, and that
is the chief thing. Jacques Houdaille is a good workman, thirty-seven
years of age, with a solid backbone, as he says. He works his full
time; skulking is not in his way, he leaves that to fellows with hay in
their sabots; he has youngsters, and they must be fed--that's all he
knows. Besides, the missis has her notions: she is proud of herself,
she'd not have any debts in the neighbourhood.
Poor Jacques! he had not always been so reasonable, and there was a
time when his life had not been so well led.
Marianne, feeling the cold, which raised the handkerchief covering her
shoulders and pierced beneath her dress, shut the window and moved
about the room, putting things in order, then, after lighting her lamp,
resumed her place near the stove.
The work she was doing was wanted speedily, and she wished to finish
it. It was Saturday, and there is so much to be done on Sunday, where
there is a workman's clothes to be mended and a family of young
children to be tended.
But while plying the needle she reflected.
[Illustration: "MARIANNE SHUT THE WINDOW."]
No, it was a fact, her Jacques had not always reasoned so justly. It
was not that he was naturally fickle; he was an honest, hard-working
man, a good workman at his trade, open-hearted, devoted to his
wife, whom he had married for love, and adoring his children. But
he was feeble-minded, ignorant, fond of listening to glib talkers,
phrasemongers, and unable to refuse the offer of a glass; and, one
glass drunk, a second followed, and at the third he lost his head, and
gave himself up to a drinking bout.
Ah! Marianne had not laughed every day at that time, and that had
not been all. In those days Jacques sometimes only brought home from
five-and-twenty to thirty francs a week: that was not a sum on which
they could live; lodgings cost dear, and Marianne, who was still young,
liked to dress as well as other people.
Then poverty came, the man was out of heart, and, during several
months, did no work. That was anything but a gay time.
But all that was over. Marianne, as well as seeing to the home and
attending to the children, made her fifty sous a-day. It was no great
thing, but with Jacques's wages, they were not badly off; for the
blacksmith now earned from sixty to seventy francs a week--nine and
ten francs a day and overtime, for which he was paid double. It was
not much to talk of, but the workmen had had nothing to complain about
for some length of time. Certainly, as Jacques said, there was still a
good deal to be done; there was still wanting insurance against want of
employment, accidents, and the infirmities of age. But everything could
not be done at once, and Jacques did not grumble; he hoped it would all
come right in time. He was a philosopher.
They were living then in a very small town, where the population was
not large. But the proprietors of the factory where he worked were good
men, who understood that men must be enabled to live by their labour,
and that the price of everything was high. They even talked of one day
giving the factory hands a share in the profits of the enterprise.
"That's only a dream," said Jacques Houdaille. "There's amongst us a
pack of idlers and incompetents, who don't earn even the wages they
get now; and then the workman knows nothing about account-keeping, and
likes to see his way clearly; I only know what I am paid."
Marianne laughed as she thought of her husband's rough way of speaking.
What more could be expected of him? He hammered iron all day, swinging
heavy sledge-hammers, bare-armed, in the red light of the forge.
That kind of work did not give him polite manners, but he was so
kind-hearted, and could express himself so tenderly when he chose: so
long as he kept from drink; and he had refrained already for several
months.
And Marianne, as she cast her eyes about her, felt a thrill of
happiness. She was in her own home, and everything in it had been
gained without owing a sou to anybody: the neat furniture, a handsome,
brightly polished commode with its marble top, and on the mantelpiece
a large gilt clock, "warranted for two years." It was comfort, almost
ease! Oh, if it would only last for ever! And why should it not?
Seven o'clock struck.
"Heavens! I must see to my dinner!"