"You can do it if you'll work."
"That is all I ask," replied Perrine.
"Well, that's all right. You won't stop at ten sous; you'll soon get a franc or perhaps two, then later on you'll marry a good workingman who'll earn three. Between you, that'll be five francs a day. With that you're rich ... if you don't drink; but one mustn't drink. It's a good thing that M. Vulfran can give employment to the whole county. There is the land, to be sure, but tilling ground can't provide a living to all who have to be fed."
Whilst the old nurse babbled this advice with the importance and the authority of a woman accustomed to having her word respected, Rosalie was getting some linen from a closet, and Perrine, who, while listening, had been looking at her, saw that the sheets were made of a thick yellow canvas. It was so long since she had slept in sheets that she ought to think herself fortunate to get even these, hard though they were. La Rouquerie on her tramps had never spent money for a bed, and a long time ago the sheets they had in the wagon, with the exception of those kept for her mother, had been sold or worn to rags.
She went with Rosalie across the yard where about twenty men, women and children were seated on a clump of wood or standing about, talking and smoking, waiting for the hour to retire. How could all these people live in the old house, which seemed far from large?
At the sight of the attic, after Rosalie had lit a candle stuck behind a wire trellis, Perrine understood. In a space of six yards long and a little more than three wide, six beds were placed along the length of the walls, and the passage between the beds was only one yard wide. Six people, then, had to spend the night in a place where there was scarcely room for two. Although a little window opened on the yard opposite the door, there was a rank, sharp odor which made Perrine gasp. But she said nothing.
"Well," said Rosalie, "you think it's a bit small, eh?"
"Yes, it is, rather," was all she said.
"Four sous a night is not one hundred sous, you know," remarked Rosalie.
"That is true," answered Perrine, with a smothered sigh.