In the meantime the strike is over, with a remarkably low loss of life. All is quiet, they report, all is quiet. In the deserted harbour there is yet water that laps against the quays. In the dark and silent forest there is a leaf that falls. Behind the polished panelling the white ant eats away the wood. Nothing is ever quiet, except for fools.
So, there is no longer striking, nor work, but both simultaneously, that is to say something else: a magic of work, a trompel'oeil, a scenodrama (so as not to say a melodrama) of production, a collective dramaturgy on the empty stage of the social.
He asked about the newspaper strike, and true to form, he couldn't understand why both parties didn't simply communicate with each other and solve their problems. I told him not everyone was as smart as he was.
"Harriet Hanson was an eleven-year-old girl working in the mill. She later recalled: I worked in a lower room where I had heard the proposed strike fully, if not vehemently, discussed. I had been an ardent listener to what was said against this attempt at "oppression" on the part of the corporation, and naturally I took sides with the strikers. When the day came on which the girls were to turn out, those in the upper rooms started first, and so many of them left that our mill was at once shut down. Then, when the girls in my room stood irresolute, uncertain what to do. . . I, who began to think they would not go out, after all their talk, became impatient, and started on ahead, saying, with childish bravado, " I don't care what you do . . . I am going to turn out, whether anyone else does or not," and I marched out, and was following by the others. As I looked back at the long line that followed me, I was more proud than I have ever since. . ."