They talked of nothing but masked balls and theatres.
"Have you seen Adele Page, in 'Les Trois Mousquetaires ?' And Melingue?
And Marie Laurent?
Oh! Marie Laurent!" The actors' doublets, the embroidered costumes of the queens of melodrama, appeared before them in the white light of the necklaces forming beneath their fingers.
In summer the work was less pressing.

It was the dull season.

In the intense heat, when through the drawn blinds fruit-sellers could be heard in the street, crying their mirabelles and Queen Claudes, the workgirls slept heavily, their heads on the table.

Or perhaps Malvina would go and ask Mademoiselle Le Mire for a copy of the 'Journal pour Tous,' and read aloud to the others.
But little Chebe did not care for the novels.

She carried one in her head much more interesting than all that trash.
The fact is, nothing could make her forget the factory.