The judge had gone straight to the factory on leaving the train, relying upon the surprise, the unexpectedness, of his arrival to disclose to him at a glance what was taking place.

Unluckily he had found no one.  The blinds of the little house at the foot of the garden had been closed for two weeks.  Pere Achille informed him that the ladies were at their respective country seats where the partners joined them every evening.

Fromont Jeune had left the factory very early; Risler Aine had just gone.  Frantz decided to speak to old Sigismond.  But it was Saturday, the regular pay-day, and he must needs wait until the long line of workmen, extending from Achille’s lodge to the cashier’s grated window, had gradually dispersed.

Although very impatient and very depressed, the excellent youth, who had lived the life of a Paris workingman from his childhood, felt a thrill of pleasure at finding himself once more in the midst of the animated scenes peculiar to that time and place.  Upon all those faces, honest or vicious, was an expression of satisfaction that the week was at an end.  You felt that, so far as they were concerned, Sunday began at seven o’clock Saturday evening, in front of the cashier’s little lamp.

One must have lived among workingmen to realize the full charm of that one day’s rest and its solemnity.  Many of these poor creatures, bound fast to unhealthful trades, await the coming of the blessed Sunday like a puff of refreshing air, essential to their health and their life.  What an overflow of spirits, therefore, what a pressing need of noisy mirth!  It seems as if the oppression of the week’s labor vanishes with the steam from the machinery, as it escapes in a hissing cloud of vapor over the gutters.

One by one the workmen moved away from the grating, counting the money that glistened in their black hands.  There were disappointments, mutterings, remonstrances, hours missed, money drawn in advance; and above the tinkling of coins, Sigismond’s voice could be heard, calm and relentless, defending the interests of his employers with a zeal amounting to ferocity.

Frantz was familiar with all the dramas of pay-day, the false accents and the true.  He knew that one man’s wages were expended for his family, to pay the baker and the druggist, or for his children’s schooling.

Another wanted his money for the wine-shop or for something even worse.  And the melancholy, downcast shadows passing to and fro in front of the factory gateway—­he knew what they were waiting for—­that they were all on the watch for a father or a husband, to hurry him home with complaining or coaxing words.

Oh! the barefooted children, the tiny creatures wrapped in old shawls, the shabby women, whose tear-stained faces were as white as the linen caps that surmounted them.

Oh! the lurking vice that prowls about on pay-day, the candles that are lighted in the depths of dark alleys, the dirty windows of the wine-shops where the thousand-and-one poisonous concoctions of alcohol display their alluring colors.