MOTHER BOUGNE. You're right, Girard. When I was a kid, and there was no machines--leastways, not to speak of--we was all better off. Women stayed at home, and they'd got enough to do. Why, my old grandmother used to fetch water from the well and be out pickin' up sticks before it was light of a mornin'! Yes, and women made their own bread, and did their washin', and made their bits of things themselves! Now it's machines for everythin', and they say to us: "Come into the factory and you'll earn big money." And we come, like silly kids! Why, fancy me, eight years old, taken out of the village and bunged into a spinnin' mill! Then, when I was married, there was me in a workman's dwellin'. You turn a tap for your water, don't fetch it; baker's bread, and your bit of dinner from the cookshop, or preserved meat out of a tin. You don't make a fire, you turn on the gas; your stockin's and togs all fetched out of a shop. There ain't no need for the women to stay at home no longer, so they cuts down the men's wages and puts us in the factories. We ain't got time to suckle our kids; and now they don't want young 'uns any more! But when you're in the factory, they make yer pay through the nose for yer gas and yer water, and baker's bread and ready-made togs; and you've got nothin' left out of yer bit of wages, and you're as poor as ever; and you're only a "hand" at machines in the damp and smoke, instead of bein' in your own house an' decent like. What are you fussin' about, Girard? Don't you see that we _can't_ go back to the old times now? A woman ain't got a house now, only a little room with nothin' but a dirty bed to sleep on! And I tell you, Girard, you've got to let us earn our livin' like that now, because it's you and the likes of you that's brought us to it. GIRARD. Well, after all, we've got to look after our living. The women want to take it from us. MOTHER BOUGNE. It's because they haven't got any themselves, my lad. They've got to live as well as you, you see. GIRARD. And supposing there isn't enough living for everybody? MOTHER BOUGNE. The strongest'll get it and the weak 'uns'll be done in. GIRARD. Well, we've not made the world, and we're not going to have our work taken away from us. CONSTANCE. And we're not, either. DESCHAUME. Damn it all, we've got to live. BERTHE. Well, we've got to live too. The kids has got to live and we've got to live. One would think we was brute beasts. CONSTANCE. We say just the same as you. We've not made the world, it ain't our fault. _During the last few speeches women have appeared at the door to the right and have remained on the threshold, becoming excited by the conversation._ A WOMAN [_at the door_] It ain't our fault. _Some men show themselves at the door at the back._ A MAN. So much the worse for you. ANOTHER WOMAN. We've got to live, we've got to live! ANOTHER MAN. Ain't we got to live too? THERESE. Well, don't drink so much.