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The majority of the workwomen, obliged to put off most of their garments, are huddled together in this pestilential atmosphere, imprisoned in the machines, pressed one against the other, their bodies streaming with sweat, their feet bare to the ankle; and when a day, nominally of twelve hours but really of thirteen and a half, is over, they quit the workroom for home, the rags they wear barely protecting them from cold and damp."
No doubt Gervaise continued to earn money; but now that she had to support two men in doing nothing, the shop certainly could not suffice; more especially as the shop no longer had so good a reputation, customers were leaving and the workwomen were tippling from morning till night. The truth was that Lantier paid nothing, neither for rent nor board.
I'm not complaining of your work; I know it's perfection," said Madame Goujet. "For instance, you've done this cap splendidly, only you could bring out the embroidery like that. And the flutings are all so even. Oh! I recognize your hand at once. When you give even a dish-cloth to one of your workwomen I detect it at once. In future, use a little less starch, that's all!
"With much trouble," says Clrry, "I procured some fresh linen for them. But the workwomen having marked it with crowned letters, the Princesses were ordered to pick them out." The room in the great tower to which the King had been removed contained only one bed, and no other article of furniture.
The other workwomen Madeleine had selected herself. Many of them were young girls, well born, and bred in luxury, who had been compelled by sudden reverses to earn a livelihood. Madeleine often wondered how so many of this class had been thrown in her way. In reality, the class is a frightfully numerous one, and she had an intuitive faculty of discovering those of whom it was composed.
But as she was talking of starting on some shirts, she became quite pale. She was obliged to leave the work-shop, and cross the street doubled in two, holding on to the walls. One of the workwomen offered to accompany her; she declined, but begged her to go instead for the midwife, close by, in the Rue de la Charbonniere. This was only a false alarm; there was no need to make a fuss.
Desiring to break off this conversation, she seemed to awake with a start and called out to the women: "You ladies! Do you think all these clothes are going to iron themselves? Get to work!" The workwomen, slow from the heat and general laziness, didn't hurry themselves, but went right on talking, gossiping about other people they had known. Gervaise shook herself and got to her feet.
Here the weaver's shuttle flies, yonder gold is spun around slender threads of sheep guts, elsewhere costly materials are embroidered by women's nimble fingers with the prepared gold thread. There glass is blown, or weapons and iron utensils are forged. Finely polished knives split the pith of the papyrus, and long rows of workmen and workwomen gum the strips together.
"Yes, it is," she replied, in a low, sad tone. "I can't get along very fast. I have a constant pain in my side. And there are other reasons." The last sentence was spoken only half aloud, but sufficiently distinct for Berlaps to hear it. "I don't expect my workwomen," he said a little sharply, "to have any reasons for not finishing my work in good season, and bringing it in promptly.
Each lady had a number of workers, to whom she supplied patterns, pricked by herself, paying her workwomen at the end of every week, each day being notched on a tally. In the convent of Gesù Bambino, at Rome, curious specimens of old Spanish conventual work parchment patterns with lace in progress have been found.