Page:Storm Over Paris.pdf/212

Chapter 26

In the three years that had passed there had been a complete change of workers at the small furrier shop on the Place Gambetta. Not long after Anna's disappearance Pierre had also left.

His work as a nailer, shaping the fur skins on the board, had never been to his fancy. Driven into that cheap trade by the direct need to support his widowed mother, Pierre tried to adjust himself, but never had given up hope that the day would come when he could put away his tools and say-"Enough!"

What attracted him were the huge factories with their thousands of workers, men and women who did not need to be taught the elementary economic facts of life or to be shown the need for joining a union. He wanted to be a part of the masses who were aware of the world about them, of their position as working men, of their rights. These vast factories were like the future in embryo growing into the City of Man, the Commonwealth of Brothers. He often used to attend meetings of the workers, where clenched fists were brandished in the air and angry voices boomed out. He loved this atmosphere, seething with unrest and discontent, and was only afraid lest the great day of reckoning come when he was still trapped among the fur-skins, with rusty nails between his teeth.

He wasted no time on women. His Party life left no