III.—The Strike.
Jacques returned late in the night. He was not drunk, as Marianne feared he would be; but he was highly excited and talked of nothing less than setting fire to the factory they had quitted the evening before.
Next day he was no calmer. He was hardly at home all day. In the evening, Marianne, looking out of window, saw that something was in the air. The workmen were gathered in knots in the street, or walking about and talking together excitedly. On the following day Jacques did what he had never before done, made "Saint Monday." On Tuesday he returned to the factory, but it was with all the pains in the world and with prayers and tears that Marianne was able to induce him to do so.
"We are going to keep on till the end of the week," he said, when he returned home at night. And, sure enough, on Friday night he came back with a triumphant air, and threw his bag of tools into a corner of the room.
"It's done!" he said.
"What is done?" cried Marianne, in alarm.
"The factory, from to-night, is picketed."
"Picketed!"
"Yes, every hand forbidden to enter it: the first of ours who enters the gates will be a dead man!"
"By what right?"
"Because we've come out on strike!"
"On strike!" repeated Marianne, shuddering at that terrific word. "Then you are not going to work—will have no more wages to receive; but what is to become of us, then? How are we to live?"
"Oh! don't worry yourself about that," replied the blacksmith, feeling a little uneasy in spite of his words; "we have funds, we shall all get two francs a day."
"Two francs—and four children!"
"You have some savings?"
"And when they are gone?"
"Oh, don't bother me!—so long as the workman gets his rights. We've had enough of this miserable existence."
"Miserable on what you have been earning?" said Marianne. "Look about you. In this very house, on the first floor, there is a family: the husband alone works, and has a salary of only eighteen hundred francs a year."
"Only eighteen hundred!"
"That's five francs a day, and you earn double that."
"I suppose that is so—when you count it up."
"Well, these people have three children, and when they go out they are dressed like princes."
"Yes, but they don't eat."
"You mean they don't drink. Well, they find the means for going out on Sundays, for going once or twice a year to the theatre, to receive friends—in short, they appear to be at ease, and make no complaint as to their condition."
"What!" cried the blacksmith, bringing down his clenched fist heavily on the table, "do you compare me with a paper-scratcher? Are such things as him men at all? He has not even a trade! A paper-scratcher!—a pack of useless idlers the whole lot of them—as bad as tradesmen and the rest of the bloodsuckers!"
"AT THE CABARET."
Marianne saw that he had no other answer to give. For some time he was no longer himself. He did not get exactly drunk, but he was constantly in a state that was half-way towards intoxication, and a mere nothing roused his anger. It was still worse some days later, and if the wife was resigned, the mother asked herself in terror, whether it was possible for her to continue to live with him. He did no work, and his days were spent at the cabaret, sometimes part of his nights. He, formerly so kind and tender to his wife, regarded her with nothing but savage looks; and as to his children, of whom he had been so fond, he ceased to notice them even.
Marianne cried when she was alone, for it was the future which, more than all, terrified her. There was no more money coming in, and her little savings, so painfully amassed, were, day by day, dwindling. She had been obliged to sell a railway share, a tiny piece of paper of which she had been so proud. Linen, clothes, all took the same road; the handsome gilt clock had to be sold, the commode—even the children's playthings and books, one day, when they were hungry.
It must be told, too, that she herself earned nothing. Not only had work been brought to a standstill since the outset of that detestable strike: people who had, before that, employed her, now shut their doors in her face.
"We don't give work to the wife of a striker," they said.
She had swallowed her tears and had felt a movement of anger. Was it her fault that it had happened? More than all, was it the fault of her poor little ones, who, if the present state of things continued, would become destitute? No; but it was a contest—war between classes. What a frightful misfortune that men could not come to an understanding and help, rather than hate and fight, each other!