that he would find work at
the Labor Agency, and so he started, well provided with papers and
certificates, and carrying another pair of shoes, a pair of trousers and
a shirt in a blue handkerchief at the end of his stick.

And he had walked almost without stopping, day and night, along
interminable roads, in sun and rain, without ever reaching that
mysterious country where workmen find work. At first he had the fixed
idea that he must only work as a carpenter, but at every carpenter's
shop where he applied he was told that they had just dismissed men on
account of work being so slack, and, finding himself at the end of his
resources, he made up his mind to undertake any job that he might
come across on the road. And so by turns he was a navvy, stableman,
stonecutter; he split wood, lopped the branches of trees, dug wells,
mixed mortar, tied up fagots, tended goats on a mountain, and all for a
few pence, for he only obtained two or three days' work occasionally
by offering himself at a shamefully low price, in order to tempt the
avarice of employers and peasants.

And now for a week he had found nothing, and had no money left, and
nothing to eat but a piece of bread, thanks to the charity of some women
from whom he had begged at house doors on the road. It was getting dark,
and Jacques Randel, jaded, his legs failing him, his stomach empty, and
with despair in his heart, was walking barefoot on the grass by the side
of the road, for he was taking care of his last pair of shoes, as
the other pair had already ceased to exist for a long time. It was a
Saturday, toward the end of autumn. The heavy gray clouds were being
driven rapidly through the sky by the gusts of wind which whistled
among the trees, and one felt that it would rain soon. The country was
deserted at that hour on the eve of Sunday. Here and there in the fields
there rose up stacks of wheat straw, like huge yellow mushrooms, and the
fields looked bare, as they had already been sown for the next year.

Randel was hungry, with the hunger of some wild animal, such a hunger as
drives wolves to attack men. Worn out and weakened with fatigue, he took
longer strides, so as not to take so many steps, and with heavy head,
the blood throbbing in his temples, with red eyes and dry mouth, he
grasped his stick tightly in his hand, with a longing to strike the
first passerby who might be going home to supper.

He looked at the sides of the road, imagining he saw potato