They worked at all hours by gas.
The bakery was entered by a door that opened upon an ample patio, in
which was a shed of pierced zinc; this protected from the rain, or
tried to protect, at least, the loads of furze branch and the piles of
wood that were heaped up there.
From this patio a low door gave access to a long, but narrow and damp,
corridor that was everywhere black; only at the extreme end there was
a square of light that entered through a high window with a few
cracked, filthy panes,--a gloomy illumination.
When the eyes grew accustomed to the surrounding gloom they could make
out on the wall some delivery-baskets, bakers' peels, smocks, caps and
shoes hanging from nails, and on the ceiling thick, silvery cobwebs
covered with dust.
Half way along the corridor were a couple of doors opposite each
other; one led to the furnace, the other to the kneading room.
The furnace room was spacious, and the walls filmed with soot, so that
the place was as black as a camera obscura; a gas-jet burned in that
cavern, illuminating almost nothing. Before the mouth of the furnace,
against an iron shed, were placed the shovels; above, on the ceiling,
could be made out some large pipes that crossed each other.
The kneading room, less dark than the furnace room, was even more
somber. A pallid light shone in through the two windows that looked
into the patio, their panes encrusted with flour dust.
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