Chapter Chapter 9 · 第9章

Eleven o'clock struck at the little church in the Deux-Cent-Quarante

settlement, a brick chapel to which Abbé Joire came to say mass

on Sundays. In the school beside it, also of brick, one heard the

faltering voices of the children, in spite of windows closed against

the outside cold. The wide passages, divided into little gardens,

back to back, between the four large blocks of uniform houses, were

deserted; and these gardens, devastated by the winter, exhibited

the destitution of their marly soil, lumped and spotted by the last

vegetables. They were making soup, chimneys were smoking, a woman

appeared at distant intervals along the fronts, opened a door and

disappeared. From one end to the other, on the pavement, the pipes

dripped into tubs, although it was no longer raining, so charged was

this grey sky with moistness. And the village, built altogether in the

midst of the vast plain, and edged by its black roads as by a mourning

border, had no touch of joyousness about it save the regular bands of

its red tiles, constantly washed by showers.

When Maheude returned, she went out of her way to buy potatoes from

an overseer's wife whose crop was not yet exhausted. Behind a curtain

of sickly poplars, the only trees in these flat regions, was a group

of isolated buildings, houses placed four together, and surrounded

by their gardens. As the Company reserved this new experiment for

the captains, the workpeople called this corner of the hamlet the

settlement of the Bas-de-Soie, just as they called their own settlement

Paie-tes-Dettes, in good-humoured irony of their wretchedness.

"Eh! Here we are," said Maheude, laden with parcels, pushing in Lénore

and Henri, covered with mud and quite tired out.

In front of the fire Estelle was screaming, cradled in Alzire's arms.

The latter, having no more sugar and not knowing how to soothe her, had

decided to pretend to give her the breast. This ruse often succeeded.

But this time it was in vain for her to open her dress, and to press

the mouth against the lean breast of an eight-year-old invalid; the

child was enraged at biting the skin and drawing nothing.

"Pass her to me," cried the mother as soon as she found herself free;

"she won't let us say a word."

When she had taken from her bodice a breast as heavy as a leather

bottle, to the neck of which the brawler hung, suddenly silent, they

were at last able to talk. Otherwise everything was going on well; the

little housekeeper had kept up the fire and had swept and arranged the

room. And in the silence they heard upstairs the grandfather's snoring,

the same rhythmic snoring which had not stopped for a moment.

"What a lot of things!" murmured Alzire, smiling at the provisions. "If

you like, mother, I'll make the soup."

The table was encumbered: a parcel of clothes, two loaves, potatoes,

butter, coffee, chicory, and half a pound of pig's chitterlings.

"Oh! the soup!" said Maheude with an air of fatigue. "We must gather

some sorrel and pull up some leeks. No! I will make some for the men

afterwards. Put some potatoes on to boil; we'll eat them with a little

butter and some coffee, eh? Don't forget the coffee!"

But suddenly she thought of the brioche. She looked at the empty hands

of Lénore and Henri who were fighting on the floor, already rested and

lively. These gluttons had slyly eaten the brioche on the road. She

boxed their ears, while Alzire, who was putting the saucepan on the

fire, tried to appease her.

"Let them be, mother. If the brioche was for me, you know I don't mind

a bit. They were hungry, walking so far."

Midday struck; they heard the clogs of the children coming out of

school. The potatoes were cooked, and the coffee, thickened by a good

half of chicory, was passing through the percolator with a singing

noise of large drops. One corner of the table was free; but the mother

only was eating there. The three children were satisfied with their

knees; and all the time the little boy with silent voracity looked,

without saying anything, at the chitterlings, excited by the greasy

paper.

Maheude was drinking her coffee in little sips, with her hands round

the glass to warm them, when Father Bonnemort came down. Usually

he rose late, and his breakfast waited for him on the fire. But

to-day he began to grumble because there was no soup. Then, when his

daughter-in-law said to him that one cannot always do what one likes,

he ate his potatoes in silence. From time to time he got up to spit in

the ashes for cleanliness, and, settled in his chair, he rolled his

food round in his mouth, with lowered head and dull eyes.

"Ah! I forgot, mother," said Alzire. "The neighbour came--"

Her mother interrupted her.

"She bothers me!"

There was a deep rancour against the Levaque woman, who had pleaded

poverty the day before to avoid lending her anything; while she knew

that she was just then in comfort, since her lodger, Bouteloup, had

paid his fortnight in advance. In the settlement they did not usually

lend from household to household.

"Here! you remind me," said Maheude. "Wrap up a millful of coffee. I

will take it to Pierronne; I owe it her from the day before yesterday."

And when her daughter had prepared the packet she added that she

would come back immediately to put the men's soup on the fire. Then

she went out with Estelle in her arms, leaving old Bonnemort to chew

his potatoes leisurely, while Lénore and Henri fought for the fallen

parings.

Instead of going round, Maheude went straight across through the

gardens, for fear lest Levaque's wife should call her. Her garden was

just next to that of the Pierrons, and in the dilapidated trellis-work

which separated them there was a hole through which they fraternized.

The common well was there, serving four households. Beside it, behind

a clump of feeble lilacs, was situated the shed, a low building full

of old tools, in which were brought up the rabbits which were eaten on

feast days. One o'clock struck; it was the hour for coffee, and not a

soul was to be seen at the doors or windows. Only a workman belonging

to the earth-cutting, waiting the hour for descent, was digging up his

patch of vegetable ground without raising his head. But as Maheude

arrived opposite the other block of buildings, she was surprised to see

a gentleman and two ladies in front of the church. She stopped a moment

and recognized them; it was Madame Hennebeau bringing her guests,

the decorated gentleman and the lady in the fur mantle, to see the

settlement.

"Oh! why did you take this trouble?" exclaimed Pierronne, when Maheude

had returned the coffee. "There was no hurry."

She was twenty-eight, and was considered the beauty of the settlement,

dark, with a low forehead, large eyes, straight mouth, and coquettish

as well; with the neatness of a cat, and with a good figure, for she

had had no children. Her mother, Brulé, the widow of a pikeman who

died in the mine, after having sent her daughter to work in a factory,

swearing that she should never marry a collier, had never ceased to be

angry since she had married, somewhat late, Pierron, a widower with a

girl of eight. However, the household lived very happily, in the midst

of chatter, of scandals which circulated concerning the husband's

complaisance and the wife's lovers. No debts, meat twice a week, a

house kept so clean that one could see oneself in the saucepans. As an

additional piece of luck, thanks to favours, the Company had authorized

her to sell bon-bons and biscuits, jars of which she exhibited, on two

boards, behind the window-panes. This was six or seven sous profit a

day, and sometimes twelve on Sundays. The only drawback to all this

happiness was Mother Brulé, who screamed with all the rage of an old

revolutionary, having to avenge the death of her man on the masters,

and little Lydie, who pocketed, in the shape of frequent blows, the

passions of the family.

"How big she is already!" said Pierronne, simpering at Estelle.

"Oh! the trouble that it gives! Don't talk of it!" said Maheude. "You

are lucky not to have any. At least you can keep clean."

Although everything was in order in her house, and she scrubbed every

Saturday, she glanced with a jealous housekeeper's eye over this clean

room, in which there was even a certain coquetry, gilt vases on the

sideboard, a mirror, three framed prints.

Pierronne was about to drink her coffee alone, all her people being at

the pit.

"You'll have a glass with me?" she said.

"No, thanks; I've just swallowed mine."

"What does that matter?"

In fact, it mattered nothing. And both began drinking slowly. Between

the jars of biscuits and bon-bons their eyes rested on the opposite

houses, of which the little curtains in the windows formed a row,

revealing by their greater or less whiteness the virtues of the

housekeepers. Those of the Levaques were very dirty, veritable kitchen

clouts, which seemed to have wiped the bottoms of the saucepans.

"How can they live in such dirt?" murmured Pierronne.

Then Maheude began and did not stop. Ah! if she had had a lodger like

that Bouteloup she would have made the household go. When one knew how

to do it, a lodger was an excellent thing. Only one ought not to sleep

with him. And then the husband had taken to drink, beat his wife, and

ran after the singers at the Montsou café-concerts.

Pierronne assumed an air of profound disgust. These singers gave all

sort of diseases. There was one at Joiselle who had infected a whole

pit.

"What surprises me is that you let your son go with their girl."

"Ah, yes! but just stop it then! Their garden is next to ours. Zacharie

was always there in summer with Philoméne behind the lilacs, and they

didn't put themselves out on the shed; one couldn't draw water at the

well without surprising them."

It was the usual history of the promiscuities of the settlement; boys

and girls became corrupted together, throwing themselves on their

backsides, as they said, on the low, sloping roof of the shed when

twilight came on. All the putters got their first child there when they

did not take the trouble to go to Réquillart or into the cornfields. It

was of no consequence; they married afterwards, only the mothers were

angry when their lads began too soon, for a lad who married no longer

brought anything into the family.

"In your place I would have done with it," said Pierronne, sensibly.

"Your Zacharie has already filled her twice, and they will go on and

get spliced. Anyhow, the money is gone."

Maheude was furious and raised her hands.

"Listen to this: I will curse them if they get spliced. Doesn't

Zacharie owe us any respect? He has cost us something, hasn't he? Very

well. He must return it before getting a wife to hang on him. What will

become of us, eh, if our children begin at once to work for others?

Might as well die!"

However, she grew calm.

"I'm speaking in a general way; we shall see later. It is fine and

strong, your coffee; you make it proper."

And after a quarter of an hour spent over other stories, she ran off,

exclaiming that the men's soup was not yet made. Outside, the children

were going back to school; a few women were showing themselves at

their doors, looking at Madame Hennebeau, who, with lifted finger, was

explaining the settlement to her guests. This visit began to stir up

the village. The earth-cutting man stopped digging for a moment, and

two disturbed fowls took fright in the gardens.

As Maheude returned, she ran against the Levaque woman who had come out

to stop Dr. Vanderhaghen, a doctor of the Company, a small hurried man,

overwhelmed by work, who gave his advice as he walked.

"Sir," she said, "I can't sleep; I feel ill everywhere. I must tell you

about it."

He spoke to them all familiarly, and replied without stopping:

"Just leave me alone; you drink too much coffee."

"And my husband, sir," said Maheude in her turn, "you must come and see

him. He always has those pains in his legs."

"It is you who take too much out of him. Just leave me alone!"

The two women were left to gaze at the doctor's retreating back.

"Come in, then," said the Levaque woman, when she had exchanged a

despairing shrug with her neighbour. "You know, there is something new.

And you will take a little coffee. It is quite fresh."

Maheude refused, but without energy. Well! a drop, at all events, not

to disoblige. And she entered.

The room was black with dirt, the floor and the walls spotted with

grease, the sideboard and the table sticky with filth; and the stink

of a badly kept house took you by the throat. Near the fire, with his

elbows on the table and his nose in his plate, Bouteloup, a broad stout

placid man, still young for thirty-five, was finishing the remains

of his boiled beef, while standing in front of him, little Achille,

Philoméne's first-born, who was already in his third year, was looking

at him in the silent, supplicating way of a gluttonous animal. The

lodger, very kind behind his big brown beard, from time to time stuffed

a piece of meat into his mouth.

"Wait till I sugar it," said the Levaque woman, putting some brown

sugar beforehand into the coffee-pot.

Six years older than he was, she was hideous and worn out, with her

bosom hanging on her belly, and her belly on her thighs, with a

flattened muzzle, and greyish hair always uncombed. He had taken her

naturally, without choosing, the same as he did his soup in which he

found hairs, or his bed of which the sheets lasted for three months.

She was part of the lodging; the husband liked repeating that good

reckonings make good friends.

"I was going to tell you," she went on, "that Pierronne was seen

yesterday prowling about on the Bas-de-Soie side. The gentleman you

know of was waiting for her behind Rasseneur's, and they went off

together along the canal. Eh! that's nice, isn't it? A married woman!"

"Gracious!" said Maheude; "Pierron, before marrying her, used to give

the captain rabbits; now it costs him less to lend his wife."

Bouteloup began to laugh enormously, and threw a fragment of sauced

bread into Achille's mouth. The two women went on relieving themselves

with regard to Pierronne--a flirt, no prettier than any one else, but

always occupied in looking after every freckle of her skin, in washing

herself, and putting on pomade. Anyhow, it was the husband's affair,

if he liked that sort of thing. There were men so ambitious that they

would wipe the masters' behinds to hear them say thank you. And they

were only interrupted by the arrival of a neighbour bringing in a

little urchin of nine months, Désirée, Philoméne's youngest; Philoméne,

taking her breakfast at the screening-shed, had arranged that they

should bring her little one down there, where she suckled it, seated

for a moment in the coal.

"I can't leave mine for a moment, she screams directly," said Maheude,

looking at Estelle, who was asleep in her arms.

But she did not succeed in avoiding the domestic affair which she had

read in the other's eyes.

"I say, now we ought to get that settled."

At first the two mothers, without need for talking about it, had agreed

not to conclude the marriage. If Zacharie's mother wished to get her

son's wages as long as possible, Philoméne's mother was enraged at the

idea of abandoning her daughter's wages. There was no hurry; the second

mother had even preferred to keep the little one, as long as there was

only one; but when it began to grow and eat and another one came, she

found that she was losing, and furiously pushed on the marriage, like a

woman who does not care to throw away her money.

"Zacharie has drawn his lot," she went on, "and there's nothing in the

way. When shall it be?"

"Wait till the fine weather," replied Maheude, constrainedly. "They

are a nuisance, these affairs! As if they couldn't wait to be married

before going together! My word! I would strangle Catherine if I knew

that she had done that."

The other woman shrugged her shoulders.

"Let be! she'll do like the others."

Bouteloup, with the tranquillity of a man who is at home, searched

about on the dresser for bread. Vegetables for Levaque's soup, potatoes

and leeks, lay about on a corner of the table, half-peeled, taken up

and dropped a dozen times in the midst of continual gossiping. The

woman was about to go on with them again when she dropped them anew and

planted herself before the window.

"What's that there? Why, there's Madame Hennebeau with some people.

They are going into Pierronne's."

At once both of them started again on the subject of Pierronne. Oh!

whenever the Company brought any visitors to the settlement they never

failed to go straight to her place, because it was clean. No doubt

they never told them stories about the head captain. One can afford to

be clean when one has lovers who earn three thousand francs, and are

lodged and warmed, without counting presents. If it was clean above it

was not clean underneath. And all the time that the visitors remained

opposite, they went on chattering.

"There, they are coming out," said the Levaque woman at last. "They are

going all around. Why, look, my dear--I believe they are going into

your place."

Maheude was seized with fear. Who knows whether Alzire had sponged over

the table? And her soup, also, which was not yet ready! She stammered a

good-day, and ran off home without a single glance aside.

But everything was bright. Alzire, very seriously, with a cloth in

front of her, had set about making the soup, seeing that her mother did

not return. She had pulled up the last leeks from the garden, gathered

the sorrel, and was just then cleaning the vegetables, while a large

kettle on the fire was heating the water for the men's baths when they

should return. Henri and Lénore were good for once, being absorbed in

tearing up an old almanac. Father Bonnemort was smoking his pipe in

silence. As Maheude was getting her breath Madame Hennebeau knocked.

"You will allow me, will you not, my good woman?"

Tall and fair, a little heavy in her superb maturity of forty

years, she smiled with an effort of affability, without showing too

prominently her fear of soiling her bronze silk dress and black velvet

mantle.

"Come in, come in," she said to her guests. "We are not disturbing

any one. Now, isn't this clean again! And this good woman has seven

children! All our households are like this. I ought to explain to you

that the Company rents them the house at six francs a month. A large

room on the ground floor, two rooms above, a cellar, and a garden."

The decorated gentleman and the lady in the fur cloak, arrived that

morning by train from Paris, opened their eyes vaguely, exhibiting on

their faces their astonishment at all these new things which took them

out of their element.

"And a garden!" repeated the lady. "One could live here! It is

charming!"

"We give them more coal than they can burn," went on Madame Hennebeau.

"A doctor visits them twice a week; and when they are old they receive

pensions, although nothing is held back from their wages."

"A Thebaid! a real land of milk and honey!" murmured the gentleman in

delight.

Maheude had hastened to offer chairs. The ladies refused. Madame

Hennebeau was already getting tired, happy for a moment to amuse

herself in the weariness of her exile by playing the part of exhibiting

the beasts, but immediately disgusted by the sickly odour of

wretchedness, in spite of the special cleanliness of the houses into

which she ventured. Besides, she was only repeating odd phrases which

she had overheard, without ever troubling herself further about this

race of workpeople who were labouring and suffering beside her.

"What beautiful children!" murmured the lady, who thought them hideous,

with their large heads beneath their bushy, straw-coloured hair.

And Maheude had to tell their ages; they also asked her questions about

Estelle, out of politeness. Father Bonnemort respectfully took his pipe

out of his mouth; but he was not the less a subject of uneasiness, so

worn out by his forty years underground, with his stiff limbs, deformed

body, and earthy face; and as a violent spasm of coughing took him

he preferred to go and spit outside, with the idea that his black

expectoration would make people uncomfortable.

Alzire received all the compliments. What an excellent little

housekeeper, with her cloth! They congratulated the mother on having a

little daughter so sensible for her age. And none spoke of the hump,

though looks of uneasy compassion were constantly turned towards the

poor little invalid.

"Now!" concluded Madame Hennebeau, "if they ask you about our

settlements at Paris you will know what to reply. Never more noise than

this, patriarchal manners, all happy and well off as you see, a place

where you might come to recruit a little, on account of the good air

and the tranquillity."

"It is marvellous, marvellous!" exclaimed the gentleman, in a final

outburst of enthusiasm.

They left with that enchanted air with which people leave a booth in

a fair, and Maheude, who accompanied them, remained on the threshold

while they went away slowly, talking very loudly. The streets were

full of people, and they had to pass through several groups of women,

attracted by the news of their visit, which was hawked from house to

house.

Just then, Levaque, in front of her door, had stopped Pierronne, who

was drawn by curiosity. Both of them affected a painful surprise. What

now? Were these people going to bed at the Maheus'? But it was not so

very delightful a place.

"Always without a sou, with all that they earn! Lord! when people have

vices!"

"I have just heard that she went this morning to beg at Piolaine, and

Maigrat, who had refused them bread, has given them something. We know

how Maigrat pays himself!"

"On her? Oh, no! that would need some courage. It's Catherine that he's

after."

"Why, didn't she have the cheek to say just now that she would strangle

Catherine if she were to come to that? As if big Chaval for ever so

long had not put her backside on the shed!"

"Hush! here they are!"

Then Levaque and Pierronne, with a peaceful air and without impolite

curiosity, contented themselves with watching the visitors out of the

corners of their eyes. Then by a gesture they quickly called Maheude,

who was still carrying Estelle in her arms. And all three, motionless,

watched the well-clad backs of Madame Hennebeau and her guests slowly

disappear. When they were some thirty paces off, the gossiping

recommenced with redoubled vigour.

"They carry plenty of money on their skins; worth more than themselves,

perhaps."

"Ah, sure! I don't know the other, but the one that belongs here, I

wouldn't give four sous for her, big as she is. They do tell stories--"

"Eh? What stories?"

"Why, she has men! First, the engineer."

"That lean, little creature! Oh, he's too small! She would lose him in

the sheets."

"What does that matter, if it amuses her? I don't trust a woman who

puts on such proud airs and never seems to be pleased where she is.

Just look how she wags her rump, as if she felt contempt for us all. Is

that nice?"

The visitors went along at the same slow pace, still talking, when a

carriage stopped in the road, before the church. A gentleman of about

forty-eight got out of it, dressed in a black frock-coat, and with a

very dark complexion and an authoritative, correct expression.

"The husband," murmured Levaque, lowering her voice, as if he could

hear her, seized by that hierarchical fear which the manager inspired

in his ten thousand workpeople. "It's true, though, that he has a

cuckold's head, that man."

Now the whole settlement was out of doors. The curiosity of the women

increased. The groups approached each other, and were melted into one

crowd; while bands of urchins, with unwiped noses and gaping mouths,

dawdled along the pavements. For a moment the schoolmaster's pale head

was also seen behind the school-house hedge. Among the gardens, the

man who was digging stood with one foot on his spade, and with rounded

eyes. And the murmur of gossiping gradually increased, with a sound of

rattles, like a gust of wind among dry leaves.

It was especially before the Levaques' door that the crowd was

thickest. Two women had come forward, then ten, then twenty. Pierronne

was prudently silent now that there were too many ears about. Maheude,

one of the more reasonable, also contented herself with looking on;

and to calm Estelle, who was awake and screaming, she had tranquilly

drawn out her suckling animal's breast, which hung swaying as if pulled

down by the continual running of its milk. When M. Hennebeau had

seated the ladies in the carriage, which went off in the direction of

Marchiennes, there was a final explosion of clattering voices, all the

women gesticulating and talking in each other's faces in the midst of a

tumult as of an ant-hill in revolution.

But three o'clock struck. The workers of the earth-cutting, Bouteloup

and the others, had set out. Suddenly around the church appeared

the first colliers returning from the pit with black faces and damp

garments, folding their arms and expanding their backs. Then there was

confusion among the women: they all began to run home with the terror

of housekeepers who had been led astray by too much coffee and too much

tattle, and one heard nothing more than this restless cry, pregnant

with quarrels:

"Good Lord, and my soup! and my soup which isn't ready!"