Girard. If you don't, we'll turn the job in.
Thérèse. And I tell you that we shall take your places.
Deschaume. Rats! You can't do it.
Thérèse. We couldn't at one time, that's true. But now we've got the machines. The machines drove the women from their homes. Up to lately one had to have a man's strength for the work; now, by just pulling a lever, a woman can do as much and more than the strongest man. The machines revenge us.
Deschaume. We'll smash the things.
Girard. She's right. By God, she's right! It's them machines has done it. If any one had told my grandfather a time would come when one chap could keep thousands of spindles running and make hundreds of pairs of stockings in a day, and yards and yards of woollen stuff, and socks and shirts and all, why grandfather'd've thought everybody'd have shirts and socks and comforters and shoes, and there'd be no more hard work and empty bellies. Curse the damned things! We works longer hours, and there's just as many bare feet and poor devils shivering for want of clothes. The machines were to give us everything, blast 'em! The workers are rotten fools! The damned machines have made nothing but hate between them that own them and them that work them. They've used up the women and even the children; and it's all to sell the things they make to niggers or Chinamen; and maybe we'll have war about it. They've made the middle classes rich, and they're the starvation of all of us; and after they've done all that, here are the women, our own women, want to help 'em to best us!
Mother Bougne. You're right, Girard. When I was a kid, and there was no machines—leastways, not to speak of—we was all better off. Women stayed at home, and they'd got enough to do. Why, my old grandmother used to fetch water from the well and be out pickin' up sticks before it was light of a mornin'! Yes, and women made their own bread, and did their washin', and made their bits of things themselves! Now it's machines for everythin', and they say to us: "Come into the factory and you'll earn big money." And we come, like silly kids! Why, fancy me, eight years old, taken out of the village and bunged into a spinnin' mill! Then, when I was married, there was me in a workman's dwellin'. You turn a tap for your water, don't fetch it; baker's bread, and your bit of dinner from the cookshop, or preserved meat out of a tin. You don't make a fire, you turn on the gas; your stockin's and togs all fetched out of a shop. There ain't no need for the women to stay at home no longer, so they cuts down the men's wages and puts us in the factories. We ain't got time to suckle our kids; and now they don't want young 'uns any more! But when you're in the factory, they make yer pay through the nose for yer gas and yer water, and baker's bread and ready-made togs; and you've got nothin' left out of yer bit of wages, and you're as poor as ever; and you're only a "hand" at machines in the damp and smoke, instead of bein' in your own house an' decent like. What are you fussin' about, Girard? Don't you see that we can't go back to the old times now? A woman ain't got a house now, only a little room with nothin' but a dirty bed to sleep on! And I tell you, Girard, you've got to let us earn our livin' like that now, because it's you and the likes of you that's brought us to it.
Girard. Well, after all, we've got to look after our living. The women want to take it from us.
Mother Bougne. It's because they haven't got any themselves, my lad. They've got to live as well as you, you see.
Girard. And supposing there isn't enough living for everybody?