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.
Frantz was familiar with all these forms of misery; but never had they seemed to him so depressing, so harrowing as on that evening.
When the last man was paid, Sigismond came out of his office.

The two friends recognized each other and embraced; and in the silence of the factory, at rest for twenty-four hours and deathly still in all its empty buildings, the cashier explained to Frantz the state of affairs.
He described Sidonie's conduct, her mad extravagance, the total wreck of the family honor.

The Rislers had bought a country house at Asnieres, formerly the property of an actress, and had set up a sumptuous establishment there.