The following day was devoted to repairing in some degree the confusion caused by the inundation. Monsieur Cardonnet, despite his strength of character, was profoundly disturbed when he discovered at every step some unforeseen damage in one or another of the innumerable details of his undertaking; his workmen were demoralized. The water, which kept the factory in operation and whose power it was yet impossible to control, imparted an irregular movement to the machinery, increasing in force as it struggled to escape over the dams. The proprietor was grave and thoughtful; he was secretly annoyed on account of the lack of presence of mind in the men he employed, who seemed to him more machine-like than the machinery. He had accustomed them to passive, blind obedience, and he realized that, at critical moments, when the will of a single man becomes insufficient, slaves are the worst servants who can be found. He did not call upon Emile to assist him; on the contrary, whenever the young man came and offered his services, he put him aside on various pretexts, as if he were really distrustful of him. This method of punishing him was the most mortifying one to an impulsive, generous heart. Emile tried to find consolation with his mother; but good Madame Cardonnet was totally lacking in energy, and the ennui which the constant prostration and, as it were, stupor of her mental faculties caused all her friends, became in her son's case an unconquerable feeling of depression, when she tried to divert and entertain him. She too treated him like a child, and by her manifestations of affection arrived at the same galling result as her husband. Lacking sufficient strength of mind to sound the abyss that lay between the two men, and yet possessing sufficient intelligence to realize its existence, she turned from it with terror, and strove to play on the brink with her son, as if it were possible to deceive herself. She took him through the house and the gardens, making a thousand foolish observations and trying to prove to him that she was unhappy because the river had overflowed. "If you had come a day sooner," she said, "you would have seen how lovely and neat and well-kept everything was! I looked forward to having your coffee served in a pretty clump of jasmine that stood on the edge of the terrace yonder; but alas! there's no trace of it now: the very ground has been carried away, and the water has given us this nasty black mud and all these stones in exchange." "Cheer up, dear mother," said Emile, "we shall soon give it all back to you; if father's workmen haven't time, I will be your gardener. You will tell me how it was all arranged; indeed I saw it; it was like a lovely dream. I had an opportunity to admire your enchanted gardens, your lovely flowers from the top of the hill, opposite here; and in an instant they were ruined and destroyed before my eyes; but this damage can all be repaired: don't grieve so; others are more to be pitied!"