And while the mother turned over in bed, sweetly caressed by the warmth of the bedroom, planning to sleep a half-hour more close to the enormous Batiste, who snored noisily, Roseta continued her evolutions. She placed her poor meal in a basket, passed a comb through her light-blond hair, which looked as though the sun had absorbed its colour, and tied the handkerchief under her chin. Before going out, she looked with the tender solicitousness of an elder sister, to see if the little ones who slept on the floor, all in the same room, were well covered. They lay there in a row from the eldest to the youngest, from the overgrown Batistet to the little tot who as yet could hardly talk, like a row of organ pipes.
"Good-bye, until tonight!" shouted the brave girl, and passing her arm through the handle of the basket, she closed the door of the farm-house, placing the key underneath.
It was already daylight. In the bluish light of dawn the procession of workers could be seen passing over the paths and roads, all walking in the same direction, drawn by the life of the city.
Groups of graceful spinning-mill girls passed by, marching with an even step, swinging with jaunty grace their right arms which cut the air like a strong oar, and all screaming in chorus every time that any strapping young fellow saluted them from the neighbouring fields with coarse jests.
Roseta walked to the city alone. Well did the poor child know her companions, daughters and sisters of those who hated her family so bitterly.
Several of them were working in the factory, and the poor little yellow-haired girl, making a show of courage more than once, had to defend herself by sheer scratching. Taking advantage of her carelessness, they threw dirty things into her lunch-basket; made her break the earthenware dish of which she was reminded so many times, and never passed near her in the mill without trying to push her over the smoking kettle where the cocoon was being soaked while they called her a pauper, and applied similar eulogies to her and her family.
On the way she fled from them as from a throng of furies, and felt safe only when she was inside the factory, an ugly old building close to the market, whose façades, painted in water-colours the century before, still preserved between peeling paint and cracks certain groups of rose-coloured legs, and profiles of bronzed colour, remnants of medallions, and mythological paintings.