GERMINAL
PART IV
CHAPTER III
A FORTNIGHT had passed, and on the Monday of the
third week the lists sent up to the managers
showed a fresh decrease in the number of the
miners who had gone down. It was expected that on
that morning work would be resumed, but the
obstinacy of the directors in not yielding
exasperated the miners. The Voreux,
Crévecoeur, Mirou, and Madeleine were not
the only pits resting; at the Victoire and at
Feutry-Cantel only about a quarter of the men had
gone down; even Saint-Thomas was affected. The
strike was gradually becoming general.
At the Voreux a heavy silence hung over the
pit-mouth. It was a dead workshop, these great
empty abandoned Yards where work was sleeping. In
the grey December sky, along the high footbridges
three or four empty trains bore witness to the
mute sadness of things. Underneath, between the
slender posts of the platforms, the stock of coal
was diminishing, leaving the earth bare and black;
while the supplies of wood were mouldering beneath
the rain. At the quay on the canal a barge was
moored, half-laden, lying drowsily in the murky
water; and on the deserted pit-bank, in which the
decomposed sulphates smoked in spite of the rain,
a melancholy cart showed its shafts erect. But
the buildings especially were growing torpid, the
screening-shed with closed shutters, the steeple
in which the rumbling of the receiving-room no
more arose, and the machine-room grown cold, and
the giant chimney too large for the occasional
smoke. The winding-engine was only heated in the
morning. The grooms sent down fodder for the
horses, and the captains worked alone at the
bottom, having become labourers again, watching
over the damages that took place in the passages
as soon as they ceased to be repaired; then, after
nine o'clock the rest of the service was carried
on by the ladders. And above these dead
buildings, buried in their garment of black dust,
there was only heard the escapement of the
pumping-engine, breathing with its thick, long
breath all that was left of the life of the pit,
which the water would destroy if that breathing
should cease.
On the plain opposite, the settlement of the
Deux-Cent-Quarante seemed also to be dead. The
prefect of Lille had come in haste and the police
had tramped all the roads; but in face of the
calmness of the strikers, prefect and police had
decided to go home again. Never had the
settlement given so splendid an example in the
vast plain. The men, to avoid going to the
public-house, slept all day long; the women while
dividing the coffee became reasonable, less
anxious to gossip and quarrel; and even the troops
of children seemed to understand it all, and were
so good that they ran about with naked feet,
smacking each other silently. The word of command
had been repeated and circulated from mouth to
mouth; they wished to be sensible.
There was, however, a continuous coming and going
of people in the Maheus' house. Étienne,
as secretary, had divided the three thousand
francs of the provident fund among the needy
families; afterwards from various sides several
hundred francs had arrived, yielded by
subscriptions and collections. But now all their
resources were exhausted; the miners had no more
money to keep up the strike, and hunger was there,
threatening them.
Maigrat, after having promised credit for a
fortnight, had suddenly altered his mind at the
end of a week and cut off provisions. He usually
took his orders from the Company; perhaps the
latter wished to bring the matter to an end by
starving the settlements. He acted besides like a
capricious tyrant, giving or refusing bread
according to the look of the girl who was sent by
her parents for provisions; and he especially
closed his door spitefully to Maheude, wishing to
punish her because he had not been able to get
Catherine. To complete their misery it was
freezing very hard, and the women watched their
piles of coal diminish, thinking anxiously that
they could no longer renew them at the pits now
that the men were not going down. It was not
enough to die of hunger, they must also die of
cold.
Among the Maheus everything was already running
short. The Levaques could still eat on the
strength of a twenty-franc piece lent by
Bouteloup. As to the Pierrons, they always had
money; but in order to appear as needy as the
others, for fear of loans, they got their supplies
on credit from Maigrat, who would have thrown his
shop at Pierronne if she had held out her
petticoat to him. Since Saturday many families
had gone to bed without supper, and in face of the
terrible days that were beginning not a complaint
was heard, all obeyed the word of command with
quiet courage. There was an absolute confidence
in spite of everything, a religious faith, the
blind gift of a population of believers. Since an
era of justice had been promised to them they were
willing to suffer for the conquest of universal
happiness. Hunger exalted their heads; never had
the low horizon opened a larger beyond to these
people in the hallucination of their misery. They
saw again over there, when their eyes were dimmed
by weakness, the ideal city of their dream, but
now growing near and seeming to be real, with its
population of brothers, its golden age of labour
and meals in common. Nothing overcame their
conviction that they were at last entering it.
The fund was exhausted; the Company would not
yield; every day must aggravate the situation; and
they preserved their hope and showed a smiling
contempt for facts. If the earth opened beneath
them a miracle would save them. This faith
replaced bread and warmed their stomachs. When
the Maheus and the others had too quickly digested
their soup, made with clear water, they thus rose
into a state of semi-vertigo, that ecstasy of a
better life which has flung martyrs to the wild
beasts.
Étienne was henceforth the unquestioned
leader. In the evening conversations he gave
forth oracles, in the degree to which study had
refined him and made him able to enter into
difficult matters. He spent the nights reading,
and received a large number of letters; he even
subscribed to the Vengeur, a Belgian
Socialist paper, and this journal, the first to
enter the settlement, gained for him extraordinary
consideration among his mates. His growing
popularity excited him more every day. To carry
on an extensive correspondence, to discuss the
fate of the workers in the four corners of the
province, to give advice to the Voreux miners,
especially to become a centre and to feel the
world rolling round him--continually swelled the
vanity of the former engineman, the pike-man with
greasy black hands. He was climbing a ladder, he
was entering this execrated middle class, with a
satisfaction to his intelligence and comfort which
he did not confess to himself. He had only one
trouble, the consciousness of his lack of
education, which made him embarrassed and timid as
soon as he was in the presence of a gentleman in a
frock-coat. If he went on instructing himself,
devouring everything, the lack of method would
render assimilation very slow, and would produce
such confusion that at last he would know much
more than he could understand. So at certain
hours of good sense he experienced a restlessness
with regard to his mission--a fear that he was not
the man for the task. Perhaps it required a
lawyer, a learned man, able to speak and act
without compromising the mates? But an outcry
soon restored his assurance. No, no; no lawyers!
They are all rascals; they profit by their
knowledge to fatten on the people. Let things
turn out how they will, the workers must manage
their own affairs. And his dream of popular
leadership again soothed him: Montsou at his feet,
Paris in the misty distance, who knows? The
elections some day, the tribune in a gorgeous
hall, where he could thunder against the middle
class in the first speech pronounced by a workman
in a parliament.
During the last few days Étienne had been
perplexed. Pluchart wrote letter after letter,
offering to come to Montsou to quicken the zeal of
the strikers. It was a question of organizing a
private meeting over which the mechanic would
preside; and beneath this plan lay the idea of
exploiting the strike, to gain over to the
International these miners who so far had shown
themselves suspicious. Étienne feared a
disturbance, but he would, however, have allowed
Pluchart to come if Rasseneur had not violently
blamed this proceeding. In spite of his power,
the young man had to reckon with the innkeeper,
whose services were of older date, and who had
faithful followers among his clients. So he still
hesitated, not knowing what to reply.
On this very Monday, towards four o'clock, a new
letter came from Lille as Étienne was alone
with Maheude in the lower room. Maheu, weary of
idleness, had gone fishing; if he had the luck to
catch a fine fish under the sluice of the canal,
they could sell it to buy bread. Old Bonnemort
and little Jeanlin had just gone off to try their
legs, which were now restored; while the children
had departed with Alzire, who spent hours on the
pit-bank collecting cinders. Seated near the
miserable fire, which they no longer dared to keep
up, Maheude, with her dress unbuttoned and one
breast hanging out of her dress and falling to her
belly, was suckling Estelle.
When the young man had folded the letter, she
questioned him:
"Is the news good? Are they going to send us
any money?"
He shook his head, and she went on:
"I don't know what we shall do this week.
However, we'll hold on all the same. When one has
right on one's side, don't you think, it gives you
heart, and one ends always by being the
strongest?"
At the present time she was, to a reasonable
extent, in favour of the strike. It would have
been better to force the Company to be just
without leaving off work. But since they had left
it they ought not to go back to it without
obtaining justice. On this point she was
relentless. Better to die than to show oneself in
the wrong when one was right!
"Ah!" exclaimed Étienne, "if
a fine old cholera was to break out, that would
free us of all these Company exploiters."
"No, no," she replied, "we must not
wish any one dead. That wouldn't help us at all;
plenty more would spring up. Now I only ask that
they should get sensible ideas, and I expect they
will, for there are worthy people everywhere. You
know I'm not at all for your politics."
In fact she always blamed his violent language,
and thought him aggressive. It was good that they
should want their work paid for at what it was
worth, but why occupy oneself with such things as
the bourgeois and Government? Why mix oneself up
with other people's affairs, when one would get
nothing out of it but hard knocks? And she kept
her esteem for him because he did not get drunk,
and regularly paid his forty-five francs for board
and lodging. When a man behaves well one can
forgive him the rest.
Étienne then talked about the Republic,
which would give bread to everybody. But Maheude
shook her head, for she remembered 1848, an awful
year, which had left them as bare as worms, her
and her man, in their early housekeeping years.
She forgot herself in describing its horrors, in a
mournful voice, her eyes lost in space, her breast
open; while her infant, Estelle, without letting
it go, had fallen asleep on her knees. And
Étienne, also absorbed in thought, had his
eyes fixed on this enormous breast, of which the
soft whiteness contrasted with the muddy yellowish
complexion of her face.
"Not a farthing," she murmured,
"nothing to put between one's teeth, and all
the pits stopped. Just the same destruction of
poor people as to-day."
But at that moment the door opened, and they
remained mute with surprise before Catherine, who
then came in. Since her flight with Chaval she
had not reappeared at the settlement. Her emotion
was so great that, trembling and silent, she
forgot to shut the door. She expected to find her
mother alone, and the sight of the young man put
out of her head the phrases she had prepared on
the way.
"What on earth have you come here for?"
cried Maheude, without even moving from her chair.
"I don't want to have anything more to do
with you; get along."
Then Catherine tried to find words:
"Mother, it's some coffee and sugar; yes, for
the children. I've been thinking of them and done
overtime."
She drew out of her pockets a pound of coffee and
a pound of sugar, and took courage to place them
on the table. The strike at the Voreux troubled
her while she was working at Jean-Bart, and she
had only been able to think of this way of helping
her parents a little, under the pretext of caring
for the little ones. But her good nature did not
disarm her mother, who replied:
"Instead of bringing us sweets, you would
have done better to stay and earn bread for
us."
She overwhelmed her with abuse, relieving herself
by throwing in her daughter's face all that she
had been saying against her for the past month.
To go off with a man, to hang on to him at
sixteen, when the family was in want! Only the
most degraded of unnatural children could do it.
One could forgive a folly, but a mother never
forgot a trick like that. There might have been
some excuse if they had been strict with her. Not
at all; she was as free as air, and they only
asked her to come in to sleep.
"Tell me, what have you got in your skin, at
your age?"
Catherine, standing beside the table, listened
with lowered head. A quiver shook her thin
under-developed girlish body, and she tried to
reply in broken words:
"Oh! if it was only me, and the amusement
that I get! It's him. What he wants I'm obliged
to want too, aren't I? because, you see, he's the
strongest. How can one tell how things are going
to turn out? Anyhow it's done and can't be
undone; it may as well be him as another now.
He'll have to marry me."
She defended herself without a struggle, with the
passive resignation of a girl who has submitted to
the male at an early age. Was it not the common
lot? She had never dreamed of anything else;
violence behind the pit-bank, a child at sixteen,
and then a wretched household if her lover married
her. And she did not blush with shame; she only
quivered like this at being treated like a slut
before this lad, whose presence oppressed her to
despair.
Étienne had risen, however, and was
pretending to stir up the nearly extinct fire in
order not to interrupt the explanation. But their
looks met; he found her pale and exhausted;
pretty, indeed, with her clear eyes in the face
which had grown tanned, and he experienced a
singular feeling; his spite had vanished; he
simply desired that she should be happy with this
man whom she had preferred to him. He felt the
need to occupy himself with her still, a longing
to go to Montsou and force the other man to his
duty. But she only saw pity in his constant
tenderness; he must feel contempt for her to gaze
at her like that. Then her heart contracted so
that she choked, without being able to stammer any
more words of excuse.
"That's it, you'd best hold your
tongue," began the implacable Maheude.
"If you come back to stay, come in; else get
along with you at once, and think yourself lucky
that I'm not free just now, or I should have put
my foot into you somewhere before now."
As if this threat had suddenly been realized,
Catherine received a vigorous kick right behind,
so violent that she was stupefied with surprise
and pain. It was Chaval who had leapt in through
the open door to give her this lunge of a vicious
beast. For a moment he had watched her from
outside.
"Ah! slut," he yelled, "I've
followed you. I knew well enough you were coming
back here to get him to fill you. And it's you
that pay him, eh? You pour coffee down him with
my money!"
Maheude and Étienne were stupefied, and did
not stir. With a furious movement Chaval chased
Catherine towards the door.
"Out you go, by God!"
And as she took refuge in a corner he turned on
her mother.
"A nice business, keeping watch while your
whore of a daughter is kicking her legs
upstairs!"
At last he caught Catherine's wrist, shaking her
and dragging her out. At the door he again turned
towards Maheude, who was nailed to her chair. She
had forgotten to fasten up her breast. Estelle
had gone to sleep, and her face had slipped down
into the woollen petticoat; the enormous breast
was hanging free and naked like the udder of a
great cow.
"When the daughter is not at it, it's the
mother who gets herself plugged," cried
Chaval. "Go on, show him your meat! He
isn't disgusted--your dirty lodger!"
At this Étienne was about to strike his
mate. The fear of arousing the settlement by a
fight had kept him back from snatching Catherine
from Chaval's hands. But rage was now carrying
him away, and the two men were face to face with
inflamed eyes. It was an old hatred, a jealousy
long unacknowledged, which was breaking out. One
of them now must do for the other.
"Take care!" stammered Étienne,
with clenched teeth. "I'll do for you."
"Try!" replied Chaval.
They looked at one another for some seconds
longer, so close that their hot breaths burnt each
other's faces. And it was Catherine who
suppliantly took her lover's hand again to lead
him away. She dragged him out of the settlement,
fleeing without turning her head.
"What a brute!" muttered Étienne,
banging the door, and so shaken by anger that he
was obliged to sit down.
Maheude, in front of him, had not stirred. She
made a vague gesture, and there was silence, a
silence which was painful and heavy with unspoken
things. In spite of an effort his gaze again
returned to her breast, that expanse of white
flesh, the brilliance of which now made him
uncomfortable. No doubt she was forty, and had
lost her shape, like a good female who had
produced too much; but many would still desire
her, strong and solid, with the large long face of
a woman who had once been beautiful. Slowly and
quietly she was putting back her breast with both
hands. A rosy corner was still obstinate, and she
pushed it back with her finger, and then buttoned
herself up, and was now quite black and shapeless
in her old gown.
"He's a filthy beast," she said at last.
"Only a filthy beast could have such nasty
ideas. I don't care a hang what he says; it isn't
worth notice."
Then in a frank voice she added, fixing her eyes
on the young man:
"I have my faults, sure enough, but not that
one. Only two men have touched me--a putter, long
ago, when I was fifteen, and then Maheu. If he
had left me like the other, Lord! I don't quite
know what would have happened; and I don't pride
myself either on my good conduct with him since
our marriage, because, when one hasn't gone wrong,
it's often because one hasn't the chance. Only I
say things as they are, and I know neighbours who
couldn't say as much, don't you think?"
"That's true enough," replied
Étienne.
And he rose and went out, while she decided to
light the fire again, after having placed the
sleeping Éstelle on two chairs. If the
father caught and sold a fish they could manage to
have some soup.
Outside, night was already coming on, a frosty
night; and with lowered head Étienne walked
along, sunk in dark melancholy. It was no longer
anger against the man, or pity for the poor
ill-treated girl. The brutal scene was effaced
and lost, and he was thrown back on to the
sufferings of all, the abominations of
wretchedness. He thought of the settlement
without bread, these women and little ones who
would not eat that evening, all this struggling
race with empty bellies. And the doubt which
sometimes touched him awoke again in the frightful
melancholy of the twilight, and tortured him with
a discomfort which he had never felt so strongly
before. With what a terrible responsibility he
had burdened himself! Must he still push them on
in obstinate resistance, now that there was
neither money nor credit? And what would be the
end of it all if no help arrived, and starvation
came to beat down their courage? He had a sudden
vision of disaster; of dying children and sobbing
mothers, while the men, lean and pale, went down
once more into the pits. He went on walking, his
feet stumbling against the stones, and the thought
that the Company would be found strongest, and
that he would have brought misfortune on his
comrades, filled him with insupportable anguish.
When he raised his head he saw that he was in
front of the Voreux. The gloomy mass of buildings
looked sombre beneath the growing darkness. The
deserted square, obstructed by great motionless
shadows, seemed like the corner of an abandoned
fortress. As soon as the winding-engine stopped,
the soul left the place. At this hour of the
night nothing was alive, not a lantern, not a
voice; and the sound of the pump itself was only a
distant moan, coming one could not say whence, in
this annihilation of the whole pit.
As Étienne gazed the blood flowed back to
his heart. If the workers were suffering hunger,
the Company was encroaching on its millions. Why
should it prove the stronger in this war of labour
against gold? In any case, the victory would cost
it dear. They would have their corpses to count.
He felt the fury of battle again, the fierce
desire to have done with misery, even at the price
of death. It would be as well for the settlement
to die at one stroke as to go on dying in detail
of famine and injustice. His ill-digested reading
came back to him, examples of nations who had
burnt their towns to arrest the enemy, vague
histories of mothers who had saved their children
from slavery by crushing their heads against the
pavement, of men who had died of want rather than
eat the bread of tyrants. His head became
exalted, a red gaiety arose out of his crisis of
black sadness, chasing away doubt, and making him
ashamed of this passing cowardice of an hour. And
in this revival of his faith, gusts of pride
reappeared and carried him still higher; the joy
of being leader, of seeing himself obeyed, even to
sacrifice, the enlarged dream of his power, the
evening of triumph. Already he imagined a scene
of simple grandeur, his refusal of power,
authority placed in the hands of the people, when
it would be master.
But he awoke and started at the voice of Maheu,
who was narrating his luck, a superb trout which
he had fished up and sold for three francs.
They would have their soup. Then he left his mate
to return alone to the settlement, saying that he
would follow him; and he entered and sat down in
the Avantage, awaiting the departure of a client
to tell Rasseneur decisively that he should write
to Pluchart to come at once. His resolution was
taken; he would organize a private meeting, for
victory seemed to him certain if the Montsou
colliers adhered in a mass to the International.