However, just as Luc passed into the large foundry where the great steam-hammer began to pound away, forging the armature of a gigantic bridge, the rolling-machinery was suddenly stopped, and an interval ensued pending the starting of another section. Fauchard then drew nearer to his old mates, and some conversation ensued between them.
'So things are going all right here; you are satisfied, eh?' he inquired.
'Satisfied, no doubt,' Bonnaire replied. 'The working day is only one of eight hours, and as what one does is diversified, one doesn't get so tired as formerly, and the work seems pleasanter.'
He, so tall and strong, with his broad, good-natured, healthy face, was one of the chief mainstays of the new works. He belonged to the council of management, and felt very grateful to Luc for having taken him on at the moment when he had been obliged to quit the Abyss, and could not think of the morrow without apprehension. With his uncompromising Collectivist principles, however, he suffered at seeing La Crêcherie governed by a régime of mere association, in which capital retained its great influence. The revolutionary within him, the dreamer of the absolute, protested against such a thing. But at the same time he was sensible, he worked, and urged his mates to work with all devotion, until they should be able to judge the result of the experiment.
'And so,' resumed Fauchard, 'you earn a lot of money, double what you used to, eh?'
Ragu, with that evil laugh of his, began to jest: 'Oh! the double, indeed! Say a hundred francs a day, without counting the champagne and the cigars!'
He had simply followed Bonnaire's example in taking work at La Crêcherie. And though he did not find himself badly off, thanks to the relative comfort he enjoyed there, on the other hand the orderliness and preciseness of everything could scarcely be to his taste, for he was again becoming a railer, turning his happiness into derision.
'A hundred francs!' cried Fauchard in stupefaction. 'You earn a hundred francs, you do?'
Bourron, who still remained Ragu's shadow, then tried to improve on what his mate had said: 'Oh! a hundred francs just to begin with!' said he. 'And one is treated to the roundabouts on Sundays.'
But whilst the others sneered, Bonnaire shrugged his shoulders with disdainful gravity. 'Can't you see,' he exclaimed, 'that they are talking folly and making fun of you? Everything considered, after the division of the profits our daily earnings do not amount to much more than they did formerly. Only at each settlement they increase a little, and it's certain that they will some day become superb. Then, too, we have all sorts of advantages, our future is assured, and living costs us much less than formerly, thanks to our co-operative stores and the gay little houses which are let to us almost for nothing. Certainly this isn't yet real justice, but all the same we are on the road to it.'