Emile kept his word. He did not absent himself from home during the week, and contented himself with writing Monsieur de Boisguilbault an affectionate letter to set his mind at rest concerning his sentiments, in case the suspicious old man should take alarm because he did not see him. He followed his father like a shadow; he even asked him for employment, and devoted himself to the construction of the factory like one who took the deepest interest in the success of the undertaking. But, as it is not natural to do violence to one's own heart for long, it was impossible for him to push the indolent workmen. Monsieur Cardonnet derived no sort of benefit from the employment of men of that description. They lacked energy, and the rivalry of the more active produced discouragement in them instead of emulation. They were well paid, but, as they saw, from the master's dissatisfaction, that they would not be retained long, they determined to make the most of the present, and consequently economized in their food. When Emile saw them sitting on the damp stones, with their feet in the mud, eating a piece of black bread and raw onions, like the Hebrew slaves employed in building the Pyramids, he had such a feeling of compassion for them that he would have preferred giving them his own blood to drink, to abandoning them to that slow death of toil and starvation. Thereupon, he tried to persuade his father, since he could not save all those numerous lives, to afford them at all events some temporary relief by feeding them better than they fed themselves, or by giving them, at least, a little wine. But Monsieur Cardonnet reminded him, only too justly, that, as all the vines were frozen in the preceding year, they could not obtain wine in that country except at a very high price, and that it was for the table of the bourgeois only. Where no general system of economy was practised, it was easy to prove that economy in special directions was powerless to bring about any important amelioration, and to demonstrate, by the unanswerable evidence of figures, that they must either abandon the idea of building or compel the mechanic to undergo the unpleasant necessities of his position. Monsieur Cardonnet did his utmost to remedy the evil, but that utmost was confined within narrow limits. Emile submitted and sighed; he could give Gilberte no stronger proof of his love than to hold his peace. "Well," said Monsieur Cardonnet, "I see that you will never be very sharp in the matter of superintending; but when I am no longer in this world, it will be enough if you realize the need of having a good superintendent in my place. The material part of the work is the least poetic; you will find your field of activity in the direction of art and science, which have their place in manufacturing as in everything else. Come to my study, help me to understand the things that escape my comprehension, and place your genius at the service of my energy."