At night, Paris City was as bright as day, lit by the gas lamps, with an endless stream of pedestrians on the streets—even busier than in daytime. Many workers didn't get off work until 8 p.m. It was only then that they could finally catch their breath, go out to buy some daily necessities, and take a stroll to relax their weary bodies from a busy day.
In contrast, the shabby shantytown outside of Antoine Town was still pitch-black, with only the occasional scream or curse indicating that people lived there.
However, this area was considered one of the better off outskirts of Paris, as it was not far from the factory-dense Antoine Town. People living here didn't have trouble finding work in the town, and although it didn't pay much, it was just enough to fill their stomachs.
At that moment, in a small hut made of broken planks, a woman in her forties, with a head wrapped in a grey-white cloth and wearing a grey coarse linen dress patched up countless times, was vigorously washing clothes by the dim starlight coming through the window.
"Dom, go and hang it up. Don't hang it too close to the Franks' clothes; watch out for his wife taking them again."
She lifted a black coat out of the basin and handed it to a boy of about ten, then put her swollen fingers into her mouth to temporarily relieve the severe pain with the warmth of her mouth.
She then glanced at the figure on the bed beside her, hesitated for a moment, then withdrew her finger and said, "Paul, did you hear? The government said we could go to the tax office to appeal the previous unreasonable taxes..."
The man on the bed tried to turn towards her but was so exhausted that he couldn't even move a finger and responded vaguely, "Hmm, I heard Mr. Pierre mention it during the day."
The woman got up excitedly and walked towards the bed, but suddenly felt something soft underfoot. A sharp squeak rang out in the dim room and a rat darted out the window.
Startled by the sudden scene, the woman staggered and knocked over the wooden tub for washing clothes. Ice-cold water immediately flooded her shoes.
She groped to set the tub upright and found that there was not much water left in it. She then began to mutter with a sobbing tone, "It's over, all over, I'm afraid I can't finish washing these clothes tonight..."
If she could not deliver the washed clothes on time, she would be fined 5 sous. That meant tomorrow morning, two children would have no breakfast, or she and all the children would only have half the usual amount of bread.
The man on the bed, hearing the commotion, struggled to get up, reached for the dining table to get his bearings, and hurried over to support his wife, patting her back to comfort her, "Don't worry, my dear, we'll go to the Tini River to draw water right away. There should be still time."
He grabbed the wooden bucket and lifted it, then turned to the boy outside and called out loudly, "Dom, take care of your brothers; your mother and I will be back soon!"
A moment later, four boys aged four to ten leaned against the creaking doorframe, watching their parents' figures disappear into the night.
Mrs. Leono, holding a large wooden basin, whispered behind her husband, "I'm sorry, Paul... This won't affect your work tomorrow, will it?"
The man silently shook his head. The lack of three hours of sleep would definitely make it difficult for him to recover his strength tomorrow, but he didn't want to worry his wife, so he chose not to speak of it.
He could simply volunteer to "go down the pit" tomorrow; that way, he would have to haul less dirt. Although it was not his turn to "go down the pit," a few days of nausea and vomiting were preferable to having his wages docked.
As they walked through the night, Mrs. Leono revisited the previous topic, saying to the figure beside her, "Paul, maybe we could give the tax office a try. I kept all those receipts and penalty documents from back then. If we really could..."
Leono sighed, tiredly, "It's no use. It's just a way for the bureaucrats to showcase their achievements. Mr. Boka has paid a lump sum tax to the King; how could the tax office officials afford to offend him?"
After another moment of silence, the woman looked up at the starry sky and slowly said, "Darling, do you remember our old Sophie?"
Sophie was their old horse, of course. But that was five years ago.
"That year, she kept farting and wouldn't eat, so weak that she could hardly stand. You said we might as well sell her to the butcher. Later, I fed her oats for half a month, and she recovered unexpectedly! The next year, with her help, we harvested a full 270 bushels of wheat! Remember how we danced around the threshing floor, and I was pregnant with Joan at that time..."
Leono grumbled, "Why do you bring this up?"
"That was the happiest time of my life!" she exclaimed, lifting the wooden basin high just as she did when she carried Dom, their eldest son, dancing in the village threshing floor. "We should try it. Boka shouldn't have taken our land and old Sophie. If we could get those back, we could return to the village and continue...
"Even if the officials at the tax office really don't care, we can't be worse off than we are now, can we?"
Leono spoke calmly, "But it would delay us at least a whole day. As I passed Kols Street, I saw the tax office was already surrounded by crowds. It might not even be enough to queue for a day.
"You know, if I miss a day of work, we will have no bread. And I might also be fined a day's wage, which would mean..."
"It's okay, I can take on 10 more pieces of clothing from tomorrow, and in half a month, we should barely have saved enough for a day's worth of bread."