الفصل الفصل 5 · 第5章

Maheu, without looking at his watch which he had left in his jacket,

stopped and said:

"One o'clock directly. Zacharie, is it done?"

The young man had just been at the planking. In the midst of his labour

he had been lying on his back, with dreamy eyes, thinking over a game

of hockey of the night before. He woke up and replied:

"Yes, it will do; we shall see to-morrow."

And he came back to take his place at the cutting. Levaque and Chaval

had also dropped their picks. They were all resting. They wiped their

faces on their naked arms and looked at the roof, in which slaty masses

were cracking. They only spoke about their work.

"Another chance," murmured Chaval, "of getting into loose earth. They

didn't take account of that in the bargain."

"Rascals!" growled Levaque. "They only want to bury us in it."

Zacharie began to laugh. He cared little for the work and the rest,

but it amused him to hear the Company abused. In his placid way Maheu

explained that the nature of the soil changed every twenty metres. One

must be just; they could not foresee everything. Then, when the two

others went on talking against the masters, he became restless, and

looked around him.

"Hush! that's enough."

"You're right," said Levaque, also lowering his voice; "it isn't

wholesome."

A morbid dread of spies haunted them, even at this depth, as if the

shareholders' coal, while still in the seam, might have ears.

"That won't prevent me," added Chaval loudly, in a defiant manner,

"from lodging a brick in the belly of that damned Dansaert, if he talks

to me as he did the other day. I won't prevent him, I won't, from

buying pretty girls with a white skin."

This time Zacharie burst out laughing. The head captain's love for

Pierronne was a constant joke in the pit. Even Catherine rested on her

shovel at the bottom of the cutting, holding her sides, and in a few

words told Étienne the joke; while Maheu became angry, seized by a fear

which he could not conceal.

"Will you hold your tongue, eh? Wait till you're alone if you want to

get into trouble."

He was still speaking when the sound of steps was heard in the upper

gallery. Almost immediately the engineer of the mine, little Négrel,

as the workmen called him among themselves, appeared at the top of the

cutting, accompanied by Dansaert, the head captain.

"Didn't I say so?" muttered Maheu. "There's always someone there,

rising out of the ground."

Paul Négrel, M. Hennebeau's nephew, was a young man of twenty-six,

refined and handsome, with curly hair and brown moustache. His pointed

nose and sparkling eyes gave him the air of an amiable ferret of

sceptical intelligence, which changed into an abrupt authoritative

manner in his relations with the workmen. He was dressed like them, and

like them smeared with coal; to make them respect him he exhibited a

dare-devil courage, passing through the most difficult spots and always

first when landslips or fire-damp explosions occurred.

"Here we are, are we not, Dansaert?" he asked.

The head captain, a coarse-faced Belgian, with a large sensual nose,

replied with exaggerated politeness:

"Yes, Monsieur Négrel. Here is the man who was taken on this morning."

Both of them had slid down into the middle of the cutting. They made

Étienne come up. The engineer raised his lamp and looked at him without

asking any questions.

"Good," he said at last. "But I don't like unknown men to be picked up

from the road. Don't do it again."

He did not listen to the explanations given to him, the necessities of

work, the desire to replace women by men for the haulage. He had begun

to examine the roof while the pikemen had taken up their picks again.

Suddenly he called out:

"I say there, Maheu; have you no care for life? By heavens! you will

all be buried here!"

"Oh! it's solid," replied the workman tranquilly.

"What! solid! but the rock is giving already, and you are planting

props at more than two metres, as if you grudged it! Ah! you are all

alike. You will let your skull be flattened rather than leave the seam

to give the necessary time to the timbering! I must ask you to prop

that immediately. Double the timbering--do you understand?"

And in face of the unwillingness of the miners who disputed the point,

saying that they were good judges of their safety, he became angry.

"Go along! when your heads are smashed, is it you who will have to bear

the consequences? Not at all! it will be the Company which will have to

pay you pensions, you or your wives. I tell you again that we know you;

in order to get two extra trams by evening you would sell your skins."

Maheu, in spite of the anger which was gradually mastering him, still

answered steadily:

"If they paid us enough we should prop it better."

The engineer shrugged his shoulders without replying. He had descended

the cutting, and only said in conclusion, from below:

"You have an hour. Set to work, all of you; and I give you notice that

the stall is fined three francs."

A low growl from the pikemen greeted these words. The force of the

system alone restrained them, that military system which, from the

trammer to the head captain, ground one beneath the other. Chaval

and Levaque, however, made a furious gesture, while Maheu restrained

them by a glance, and Zacharie shrugged his shoulders chaffingly. But

Étienne was, perhaps, most affected. Since he had found himself at the

bottom of this hell a slow rebellion was rising within him. He looked

at the resigned Catherine, with her lowered back. Was it possible to

kill oneself at this hard toil, in this deadly darkness, and not even

to gain the few pence to buy one's daily bread?

However, Négrel went off with Dansaert, who was content to approve by

a continual movement of his head. And their voices again rose; they

had just stopped once more, and were examining the timbering in the

gallery, which the pikemen were obliged to look after for a length of

ten metres behind the cutting.

"Didn't I tell you that they care nothing?" cried the engineer. "And

you! why, in the devil's name, don't you watch them?"

"But I do--I do," stammered the head captain. "One gets tired of

repeating things."

Négrel called loudly:

"Maheu! Maheu!"

They all came down. He went on:

"Do you see that? Will that hold? It's a twopenny-halfpenny

construction! Here is a beam which the posts don't carry already, it

was done so hastily. By Jove! I understand how it is that the mending

costs us so much. It'll do, won't it? if it lasts as long as you have

the care of it; and then it may go smash, and the Company is obliged to

have an army of repairers. Look at it down there; it is mere botching!"

Chaval wished to speak, but he silenced him.

"No! I know what you are going to say. Let them pay you more, eh? Very

well! I warn you that you will force the managers to do something: they

will pay you the planking separately, and proportionately reduce the

price of the trams. We shall see if you will gain that way! Meanwhile,

prop that over again, at once; I shall pass to-morrow."

Amid the dismay caused by this threat he went away. Dansaert, who had

been so humble, remained behind a few moments, to say brutally to the

men:

"You get me into a row, you here. I'll give you something more than

three francs fine, I will. Look out!"

Then, when he had gone, Maheu broke out in his turn:

"By God! what's fair is fair! I like people to be calm, because that's

the only way of getting along, but at last they make you mad. Did you

hear? The tram lowered, and the planking separately! Another way of

paying us less. By God it is!"

He looked for someone upon whom to vent his anger, and saw Catherine

and Étienne swinging their arms.

"Will you just fetch me some wood! What does it matter to you? I'll put

my foot into you somewhere!"

Étienne went to carry it without rancour for this rough speech, so

furious himself against the masters that he thought the miners too

good-natured. As for the others, Levaque and Chaval had found relief in

strong language. All of them, even Zacharie, were timbering furiously.

For nearly half an hour one only heard the creaking of wood wedged in

by blows of the hammer.

They no longer spoke, they snorted, became enraged with the rock, which

they would have hustled and driven back by the force of their shoulders

if they had been able.

"That's enough," said Maheu at last, worn out with anger and fatigue.

"An hour and a half! A fine day's work! We shan't get fifty sous! I'm

off. This disgusts me."

Though there was still half an hour of work left he dressed himself.

The others imitated him. The mere sight of the cutting enraged them. As

the putter had gone back to the haulage they called her, irritated at

her zeal: let the coal take care of itself. And the six, their tools

under their arms, set out to walk the two kilometres back, returning to

the shaft by the road of the morning.

At the chimney Catherine and Étienne were delayed while the pikemen

slid down. They met little Lydie, who stopped in a gallery to let them

pass, and told them of the disappearance of Mouquette, whose nose had

been bleeding so much that she had been away an hour, bathing her face

somewhere, no one knew where. Then, when they left her, the child began

again to push her tram, weary and muddy, stiffening her insect-like

arms and legs like a lean black ant struggling with a load that was too

heavy for it. They let themselves down on their backs, flattening their

shoulders for fear of scratching the skin on their foreheads, and they

walked so close to the polished rock at the back of the stalls that

they were obliged from time to time to hold on to the woodwork, so that

their backsides should not catch fire, as they said jokingly.

Below they found themselves alone. Red stars disappeared afar at a

bend in the passage. Their cheerfulness fell, they began to walk with

the heavy step of fatigue, she in front, he behind. Their lamps were

blackened. He could scarcely see her, drowned in a sort of smoky mist;

and the idea that she was a girl disturbed him because he felt that it

was stupid not to embrace her, and yet the recollection of the other

man prevented him. Certainly she had lied to him: the other was her

lover, they lay together on all those heaps of slaty coal, for she had

a loose woman's gait. He sulked without reason, as if she had deceived

him. She, however, every moment turned round, warned him of obstacles,

and seemed to invite him to be affectionate. They were so lost here,

it would have been so easy to laugh together like good friends! At

last they entered the large haulage gallery; it was a relief to the

indecision from which he was suffering; while she once more had a

saddened look, the regret for a happiness which they would not find

again.

Now the subterranean life rumbled around them with a continual passing

of captains, the come and go of the trams drawn by trotting horses.

Lamps starred the night everywhere. They had to efface themselves

against the rock to leave the path free to shadowy men and beasts,

whose breath came against their faces. Jeanlin, running barefooted

behind his tram, cried out some naughtiness to them which they could

not hear amid the thunder of the wheels. They still went on, she now

silent, he not recognizing the turnings and roads of the morning, and

fancying that she was leading him deeper and deeper into the earth; and

what specially troubled him was the cold, an increasing cold which he

had felt on emerging from the cutting, and which caused him to shiver

the more the nearer they approached the shaft. Between the narrow walls

the column of air now blew like a tempest. He despaired of ever coming

to the end, when suddenly they found themselves in the pit-eye hall.

Chaval cast a sidelong glance at them, his mouth drawn with suspicion.

The others were there, covered with sweat in the icy current, silent

like himself, swallowing their grunts of rage. They had arrived

too soon and could not be taken to the top for half an hour, more

especially since some complicated manoeuvres were going on for

lowering a horse. The porters were still rolling the trams with the

deafening sound of old iron in movement, and the cages were flying up,

disappearing in the rain which fell from the black hole. Below, the

sump, a cesspool ten metres deep, filled with this streaming water,

also exhaled its muddy moisture. Men were constantly moving around the

shaft, pulling the signal cords, pressing on the arms of levers, in the

midst of this spray in which their garments were soaked. The reddish

light of three open lamps cut out great moving shadows and gave to this

subterranean hall the air of a villainous cavern, some bandits' forge

near a torrent.

Maheu made one last effort. He approached Pierron, who had gone on duty

at six o'clock.

"Here! you might as well let us go up."

But the porter, a handsome fellow with strong limbs and a gentle face,

refused with a frightened gesture.

"Impossible: ask the captain. They would fine me."

Fresh growls were stifled. Catherine bent forward and said in Étienne's

ear:

"Come and see the stable, then. That's a comfortable place!"

And they had to escape without being seen, for it was forbidden to go

there. It was on the left, at the end of a short gallery. Twenty-five

metres in length and nearly four high, cut in the rock and vaulted with

bricks, it could contain twenty horses. It was, in fact, comfortable

there. There was a pleasant warmth of living beasts, the good odour of

fresh and well-kept litter. The only lamp threw out the calm rays of a

night-light. There were horses there, at rest, who turned their heads,

with their large infantine eyes, then went back to their hay, without

haste, like fat well-kept workers, loved by everybody.

But as Catherine was reading aloud their names, written on zinc plates

over the mangers, she uttered a slight cry, seeing something suddenly

rise before her. It was Mouquette, who emerged in fright from a pile of

straw in which she was sleeping. On Monday, when she was overtired with

her Sunday's spree, she gave herself a violent blow on the nose, and

left her cutting under the pretence of seeking water, to bury herself

here with the horses in the warm litter. Her father, being weak with

her, allowed it, at the risk of getting into trouble.

Just then, Mouque, the father, entered, a short, bald, worn-out looking

man, but still stout, which is rare in an old miner of fifty. Since he

had been made a groom, he chewed to such a degree that his gums bled in

his black mouth. On seeing the two with his daughter, he became angry.

"What are you up to there, all of you? Come! up! The jades, bringing

a man here! It's a fine thing to come and do your dirty tricks in my

straw."

Mouquette thought it funny, and held her sides. But Étienne, feeling

awkward, moved away, while Catherine smiled at him. As all three

returned to the pit-eye, Bébert and Jeanlin arrived there also with a

train of tubs. There was a stoppage for the manoeuvring of the cages,

and the young girl approached their horse, caressed it with her hand,

and talked about it to her companion. It was Bataille, the _doyen_

of the mine, a white horse who had lived below for ten years. These

ten years he had lived in this hole, occupying the same corner of the

stable, doing the same task along the black galleries without ever

seeing daylight. Very fat, with shining coat and a good-natured air,

he seemed to lead the existence of a sage, sheltered from the evils of

the world above. In this darkness, too, he had become very cunning.

The passage in which he worked had grown so familiar to him that he

could open the ventilation doors with his head, and he lowered himself

to avoid knocks at the narrow spots. Without doubt, also, he counted

his turns, for when he had made the regulation number of journeys he

refused to do any more, and had to be led back to his manger. Now

that old age was coming on, his cat's eyes were sometimes dimmed with

melancholy. Perhaps he vaguely saw again, in the depths of his obscure

dreams, the mill at which he was born, near Marchiennes, a mill placed

on the edge of the Scarpe, surrounded by large fields over which the

wind always blew. Something burnt in the air--an enormous lamp, the

exact appearance of which escaped his beast's memory--and he stood with

lowered head, trembling on his old feet, making useless efforts to

recall the sun.

Meanwhile, the manoeuvres went on in the shaft, the signal hammer had

struck four blows, and the horse was being lowered; there was always

excitement at such a time, for it sometimes happened that the beast

was seized by such terror that it was landed dead. When put into a net

at the top it struggled fiercely; then, when it felt the ground no

longer beneath it, it remained as if petrified and disappeared without

a quiver of the skin, with enlarged and fixed eyes. This animal being

too big to pass between the guides, it had been necessary, when hooking

it beneath the cage, to pull down the head and attach it to the flanks.

The descent lasted nearly three minutes, the engine being slowed as

a precaution. Below, the excitement was increasing. What then? Was

he going to be left on the road, hanging in the blackness? At last

he appeared in his stony immobility, his eye fixed and dilated with

terror. It was a bay horse hardly three years of age, called Trompette.

"Attention!" cried Father Mouque, whose duty it was to receive it.

"Bring him here, don't undo him yet."

Trompette was soon placed on the metal floor in a mass. Still he did

not move: he seemed in a nightmare in this obscure infinite hole, this

deep hall echoing with tumult. They were beginning to unfasten him

when Bataille, who had just been unharnessed, approached and stretched

out his neck to smell this companion who lay on the earth. The workmen

jokingly enlarged the circle. Well! what pleasant odour did he find in

him? But Bataille, deaf to mockery, became animated. He probably found

in him the good odour of the open air, the forgotten odour of the sun

on the grass. And he suddenly broke out into a sonorous neigh, full of

musical gladness, in which there seemed to be the emotion of a sob. It

was a greeting, the joy of those ancient things of which a gust had

reached him, the melancholy of one more prisoner who would not ascend

again until death.

"Ah! that animal Bataille!" shouted the workmen, amused at the antics

of their favourite, "he's talking with his mate."

Trompette was unbound, but still did not move. He remained on his

flank, as if he still felt the net restraining him, garrotted by fear.

At last they got him up with a lash of the whip, dazed and his limbs

quivering. And Father Mouque led away the two beasts, fraternizing

together.

"Here! Is it ready yet?" asked Maheu.

It was necessary to clear the cages, and besides it was yet ten

minutes before the hour for ascending. Little by little the stalls

emptied, and the miners returned from all the galleries. There were

already some fifty men there, damp and shivering, their inflamed

chests panting on every side. Pierron, in spite of his mawkish face,

struck his daughter Lydie, because she had left the cutting before

time. Zacharie slyly pinched Mouquette, with a joke about warming

himself. But the discontent increased; Chaval and Levaque narrated the

engineer's threat, the tram to be lowered in price, and the planking

paid separately. And exclamations greeted this scheme, a rebellion was

germinating in this little corner, nearly six hundred metres beneath

the earth. Soon they could not restrain their voices; these men, soiled

by coal, and frozen by the delay, accused the Company of killing half

their workers at the bottom, and starving the other half to death.

Étienne listened, trembling.

"Quick, quick!" repeated the captain, Richomme, to the porters.

He hastened the preparations for the ascent, not wishing to be hard,

pretending not to hear. However, the murmurs became so loud that he

was obliged to notice them. They were calling out behind him that this

would not last always, and that one fine day the whole affair would be

smashed up.

"You're sensible," he said to Maheu; "make them hold their tongues.

When one hasn't got power one must have sense."

But Maheu, who was getting calm, and had at last become anxious, did

not interfere. Suddenly the voices fell; Négrel and Dansaert, returning

from their inspection, entered from a gallery, both of them sweating.

The habit of discipline made the men stand in rows while the engineer

passed through the group without a word. He got into one tram, and the

head captain into another, the signal was sounded five times, ringing

for the butcher's meat, as they said for the masters; and the cage flew

up in the air in the midst of a gloomy silence.