[CHAPTER VI]
THE BASKET-MAKERS OF VAUX-LES-PALAMIES
The long hot days of summer pursued their stifling way, yet were all too short for the work we had in hand. There were families to be visited, case-papers to be written up, card-indexes to be filled in, and bales to be unpacked. There were clothes to be sorted, there were people in their hundreds to be fitted with coats and trousers and shirts and underlinen and skirts and blouses, and the thousand and one things to be coped with in the Clothes-room. When Satan visits Relief workers he always lives in the Clothes-room. And there he takes a malicious delight in turning the contents of the shelves upside down and in hiding from view the outfit you chose so carefully yesterday evening for Madame Hougelot, or Madame Collignon, so that when you come to look for it in the morning, lo! it is gone. And Madame is waiting with her six children on the stairs, and the hall is a whirlpool of slowly-circling humanity, who want everything under the sun and much that is above it.
Truly the way of the Relief worker is hard. But it has its compensations. You live for a month, for instance, on one exquisite episode. You are giving a party; you have invited some fifteen hundred guests. You spread them out over several days, bien entendu, and in the generosity of your heart you decide that each shall have a present. You sit at the receipt of custom, issuing your cards with the name of each guest written thereon, and to you comes Madame Ponnain. (That is not her real name, but it serves.) Yes, she is a refugee and she has two children. She would like three cards. Bon. You inscribe her name, you gaze at her questioningly.
"There is Georgette, she has two years."
Bon. Georgette is inscribed.
And then?
Madame hesitates. There is the baby.