Kabanata Kabanata 22 · 第22章

Jeanlin was now well and able to walk; but his legs had united so badly

that he limped on both the right and left sides, and moved with the

gait of a duck, though running as fast as formerly with the skill of a

mischievous and thieving animal.

On this evening, in the dusk on the Réquillart road, Jeanlin,

accompanied by his inseparable friends, Bébert and Lydie, was on the

watch. He had taken ambush in a vacant space, behind a paling opposite

an obscure grocery shop, situated at the corner of a lane. An old woman

who was nearly blind displayed there three or four sacks of lentils

and haricots, black with dust; and it was an ancient dried codfish,

hanging by the door and stained with fly-blows, to which his eyes were

directed. Twice already he had sent Bébert to unhook it. But each time

someone had appeared at the bend in the road. Always intruders in the

way, one could not attend to one's affairs.

A gentleman went by on horseback, and the children flattened themselves

at the bottom of the paling, for they recognized M. Hennebeau. Since

the strike he was often thus seen along the roads, riding alone amid

the rebellious settlements, ascertaining, with quiet courage, the

condition of the country. And never had a stone whistled by his ears;

he only met men who were silent and slow to salute him; most often he

came upon lovers, who cared nothing for politics and took their fill

of pleasure in holes and corners. He passed by on his trotting mare

with head directed straight forward, so as to disturb nobody, while his

heart was swelling with an unappeased desire amid this gormandizing of

free love. He distinctly saw these small rascals, the little boys on

the little girl in a heap. Even the youngsters were already amusing

themselves in their misery! His eyes grew moist, and he disappeared,

sitting stiffly on his saddle, with his frock-coat buttoned up in a

military manner.

"Damned luck!" said Jeanlin. "This will never finish. Go on, Bébert!

Hang on to its tail!"

But two men once more appeared, and the child again stifled an oath

when he heard the voice of his brother Zacharie narrating to Mouquet

how he had discovered a two-franc piece sewn into one of his wife's

petticoats. They both grinned with satisfaction, slapping each other on

the shoulder. Mouquet proposed a game of crosse for the next day; they

would leave the Avantage at two o'clock, and go to the Montoire side,

near Marchiennes. Zacharie agreed. What was the good of bothering over

the strike? as well amuse oneself, since there's nothing to do. And

they turned the corner of the road, when Étienne, who was coming along

the canal, stopped them and began to talk.

"Are they going to bed here?" said Jeanlin, in exasperation. "Nearly

night; the old woman will be taking in her sacks."

Another miner came down towards Réquillart. Étienne went off with him,

and as they passed the paling the child heard them speak of the forest;

they had been obliged to put off the rendezvous to the following

day, for fear of not being able to announce it in one day to all the

settlements.

"I say, there," he whispered to his two mates, "the big affair is for

to-morrow. We'll go, eh? We can get off in the afternoon."

And the road being at last free, he sent Bébert off.

"Courage! hang on to its tail. And look out! the old woman's got her

broom."

Fortunately the night had grown dark. Bébert, with a leap, hung on to

the cod so that the string broke. He ran away, waving it like a kite,

followed by the two others, all three galloping. The woman came out

of her shop in astonishment, without understanding or being able to

distinguish this band now lost in the darkness.

These scoundrels had become the terror of the country. They gradually

spread themselves over it like a horde of savages. At first they had

been satisfied with the yard at the Voreux, tumbling into the stock of

coal, from which they would emerge looking like Negroes, playing at

hide-and-seek amid the supply of wood, in which they lost themselves

as in the depths of a virgin forest. Then they had taken the pit-bank

by assault; they would seat themselves on it and slide down the bare

portions still boiling with interior fires; they glided among the

briers in the older parts, hiding for the whole day, occupied in the

quiet little games of mischievous mice. And they were constantly

enlarging their conquests, scuffling among the piles of bricks until

blood came, running about the fields and eating without bread all sorts

of milky herbs, searching the banks of the canals to take fish from the

mud and swallow them raw and pushing still farther, they travelled for

kilometres as far as the thickets of Vandame, under which they gorged

themselves with strawberries in the spring, with nuts and bilberries in

summer. Soon the immense plain belonged to them.

What drove them thus from Montsou to Marchiennes, constantly on the

roads with the eyes of young wolves, was the growing love of plunder.

Jeanlin remained the captain of these expeditions, leading the troop

on to all sorts of prey, ravaging the onion fields, pillaging the

orchards, attacking shop windows. In the country, people accused the

miners on strike, and talked of a vast organized band. One day, even,

he had forced Lydie to steal from her mother, and made her bring him

two dozen sticks of barley-sugar, which Pierronne kept in a bottle

on one of the boards in her window; and the little girl, who was

well beaten, had not betrayed him because she trembled so before his

authority. The worst was that he always gave himself the lion's share.

Bébert also had to bring him the booty, happy if the captain did not

hit him and keep it all.

For some time Jeanlin had abused his authority. He would beat Lydie as

one beats one's lawful wife, and he profited by Bébert's credulity to

send him on unpleasant adventures, amused at making a fool of this big

boy, who was stronger than himself, and could have knocked him over

with a blow of his fist. He felt contempt for both of them and treated

them as slaves, telling them that he had a princess for his mistress

and that they were unworthy to appear before her. And, in fact, during

the past week he would suddenly disappear at the end of a road or a

turning in a path, no matter where it might be, after having ordered

them with a terrible air to go back to the settlement. But first he

would pocket the booty.

This was what happened on the present occasion.

"Give it up," he said, snatching the cod from his mate's hands when

they stopped, all three, at a bend in the road near Réquillart.

Bébert protested.

"I want some, you know. I took it."

"Eh! what!" he cried. "You'll have some if I give you some. Not

to-night, sure enough; to-morrow, if there's any left."

He pushed Lydie, and placed both of them in line like soldiers

shouldering arms. Then, passing behind them:

"Now, you must stay there five minutes without turning. By God! if you

do turn, there will be beasts that will eat you up. And then you will

go straight back, and if Bébert touches Lydie on the way, I shall know

it and I shall hit you."

Then he disappeared in the shadow, so lightly that the sound of his

naked feet could not be heard. The two children remained motionless

for the five minutes without looking round, for fear of receiving a

blow from the invisible. Slowly a great affection had grown up between

them in their common terror. He was always thinking of taking her and

pressing her very tight between his arms, as he had seen others do and

she, too, would have liked it, for it would have been a change for

her to be so nicely caressed. But neither of them would have allowed

themselves to disobey. When they went away, although the night was very

dark, they did not even kiss each other; they walked side by side,

tender and despairing, certain that if they touched one another the

captain would strike them from behind.

Étienne, at the same hour, had entered Réquillart. The evening before

Mouquette had begged him to return, and he returned, ashamed, feeling

an inclination which he refused to acknowledge, for this girl who

adored him like a Christ. It was, besides, with the intention of

breaking it off. He would see her, he would explain to her that she

ought no longer to pursue him, on account of the mates. It was not a

time for pleasure; it was dishonest to amuse oneself thus when people

were dying of hunger. And not having found her at home, he had decided

to wait and watch the shadows of the passers-by.

Beneath the ruined steeple the old shaft opened, half blocked up.

Above the black hole a beam stood erect, and with a fragment of roof

at the top it had the profile of a gallows; in the broken walling of

the curbs stood two trees--a mountain ash and a plane--which seemed

to grow from the depths of the earth. It was a corner of abandoned

wildness, the grassy and fibrous entry of a gulf, embarrassed with old

wood, planted with hawthorns and sloe-trees, which were peopled in the

spring by warblers in their nests. Wishing to avoid the great expense

of keeping it up, the Company, for the last ten years, had proposed to

fill up this dead pit; but they were waiting to install an air-shaft

in the Voreux, for the ventilation furnace of the two pits, which

communicated, was placed at the foot of Réquillart, of which the former

winding-shaft served as a conduit. They were content to consolidate the

tubbing by beams placed across, preventing extraction, and they had

neglected the upper galleries to watch only over the lower gallery, in

which blazed the furnace, the enormous coal fire, with so powerful a

draught that the rush of air produced the wind of a tempest from one

end to the other of the neighbouring mine. As a precaution, in order

that they could still go up and down, the order had been given to

furnish the shaft with ladders; only, as no one took charge of them,

the ladders were rotting with dampness, and in some places had already

given way. Above, a large brier stopped the entry of the passage, and,

as the first ladder had lost some rungs, it was necessary, in order to

reach it, to hang on to a root of the mountain ash, and then to take

one's chance and drop into the blackness.

Étienne was waiting patiently, hidden behind a bush, when he heard a

long rustling among the branches. He thought at first that it was the

scared flight of a snake. But the sudden gleam of a match astonished

him, and he was stupefied on recognizing Jeanlin, who was lighting a

candle and burying himself in the earth. He was seized with curiosity,

and approached the hole; the child had disappeared, and a faint gleam

came from the second ladder. Étienne hesitated a moment, and then let

himself go, holding on to the roots. He thought for a moment that he

was about to fall down the whole five hundred and eighty metres of

the mine, but at last he felt a rung, and descended gently. Jeanlin

had evidently heard nothing. Étienne constantly saw the light sinking

beneath him, while the little one's shadow, colossal and disturbing,

danced with the deformed gait of his distorted limbs. He kicked his

legs about with the skill of a monkey, catching on with hands, feet,

or chin where the rungs were wanting. Ladders, seven metres in length,

followed one another, some still firm, others shaky, yielding and

almost broken; the steps were narrow and green, so rotten that one

seemed to walk in moss; and as one went down the heat grew suffocating,

the heat of an oven proceeding from the air-shaft which was,

fortunately, not very active now the strike was on, or when the furnace

devoured its five thousand kilograms of coal a day, one could not have

risked oneself here without scorching one's hair.

"What a dammed little toad!" exclaimed Étienne in a stifled voice;

"where the devil is he going to?"

Twice he had nearly fallen. His feet slid on the damp wood. If he had

only had a candle like the child! but he struck himself every minute;

he was only guided by the vague gleam that fled beneath him. He had

already reached the twentieth ladder, and the descent still continued.

Then he counted them: twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, and he

still went down and down. His head seemed to be swelling with the heat,

and he thought that he was falling into a furnace. At last he reached a

landing-place, and he saw the candle going off along a gallery. Thirty

ladders, that made about two hundred and ten metres.

"Is he going to drag me about long?" he thought. "He must be going to

bury himself in the stable."

But on the left, the path which led to the stable was closed by a

landslip. The journey began again, now more painful and more dangerous.

Frightened bats flew about and clung to the roof of the gallery. He

had to hasten so as not to lose sight of the light; only where the

child passed with ease, with the suppleness of a serpent, he could

not glide through without bruising his limbs. This gallery, like all

the older passages, was narrow, and grew narrower every day from the

constant fall of soil; at certain places it was a mere tube which would

eventually be effaced. In this strangling labour the torn and broken

wood became a peril, threatening to saw into his flesh, or to run him

through with the points of splinters, sharp as swords. He could only

advance with precaution, on his knees or belly, feeling in the darkness

before him. Suddenly a band of rats stamped over him, running from his

neck to his feet in their galloping flight.

"Blast it all! haven't we got to the end yet?" he grumbled, with aching

back and out of breath.

They were there. At the end of a kilometre the tube enlarged, they

reached a part of the gallery which was admirably preserved. It was

the end of the old haulage passage cut across the bed like a natural

grotto. He was obliged to stop, he saw the child afar, placing his

candle between two stones, and putting himself at ease with the quiet

and relieved air of a man who is glad to be at home again. This

gallery-end was completely changed into a comfortable dwelling. In

a corner on the ground a pile of hay made a soft couch; on some old

planks, placed like a table, there were bread, potatoes, and bottles of

gin already opened; it was a real brigand's cavern, with booty piled up

for weeks, even useless booty like soap and blacking, stolen for the

pleasure of stealing. And the child, quite alone in the midst of this

plunder, was enjoying it like a selfish brigand.

"I say, then, is this how you make fun of people?" cried Étienne, when

he had breathed for a moment. "You come and gorge yourself here, when

we are dying of hunger up above?"

Jeanlin, astounded, was trembling. But recognizing the young man, he

quickly grew calm.

"Will you come and dine with me?" he said at last. "Eh? a bit of

grilled cod? You shall see."

He had not let go his cod, and he began to scrape off the fly-blows

properly with a fine new knife, one of those little dagger knives, with

bone handles, on which mottoes are inscribed. This one simply bore the

word "Amour."

"You have a fine knife," remarked Étienne.

"It's a present from Lydie," replied Jeanlin, who neglected to add

that Lydie had stolen it, by his orders, from a huckster at Montsou,

stationed before the Tête-Coupée Bar.

Then, as he still scraped, he added proudly:

"Isn't it comfortable in my house? It's a bit warmer than up above, and

it feels a lot better!"

Étienne had seated himself, and was amused in making him talk. He was

no longer angry, he felt interested in this debauched child, who was

so brave and so industrious in his vices. And, in fact, he tasted

a certain comfort in the bottom of this hole; the heat was not too

great, an equal temperature reigned here at all seasons, the warmth of

a bath, while the rough December wind was chapping the skins of the

miserable people on the earth. As they grew old, the galleries became

purified from noxious gases, all the fire-damp had gone, and one only

smelled now the odour of old fermented wood, a subtle ethereal odour,

as if sharpened with a dash of cloves. This wood, besides, had become

curious to look at, with a yellowish pallor of marble, fringed with

whitish thread lace, flaky vegetations which seemed to drape it with an

embroidery of silk and pearls. In other places the timber was bristling

with toadstools. And there were flights of white butterflies, snowy

flies and spiders, a decolorized population for ever ignorant of the

sun.

"Then you're not afraid?" asked Étienne.

Jeanlin looked at him in astonishment.

"Afraid of what? I am quite alone."

But the cod was at last scraped. He lighted a little fire of wood,

brought out the pan and grilled it. Then he cut a loaf into two. It was

a terribly salt feast, but exquisite all the same for strong stomachs.

Étienne had accepted his share.

"I am not astonished you get fat, while we are all growing lean. Do you

know that it is beastly to stuff yourself like this? And the others?

you don't think of them!"

"Oh! why are the others such fools?"

"Well, you're right to hide yourself, for if your father knew you stole

he would settle you."

"What! when the bourgeois are stealing from us! It's you who are always

saying so. If I nabbed this loaf at Maigrat's you may be pretty sure

it's a loaf he owed us."

The young man was silent, with his mouth full, and felt troubled. He

looked at him, with his muzzle, his green eyes, his large ears, a

degenerate abortion, with an obscure intelligence and savage cunning,

slowly slipping back into the animality of old. The mine which had made

him had just finished him by breaking his legs.

"And Lydie?" asked Étienne again; "do you bring her here sometimes?"

Jeanlin laughed contemptuously.

"The little one? Ah, no, not I; women blab."

And he went on laughing, filled with immense disdain for Lydie and

Bébert. Who had ever seen such boobies? To think that they swallowed

all his humbug, and went away with empty hands while he ate the cod in

this warm place, tickled his sides with amusement. Then he concluded,

with the gravity of a little philosopher:

"Much better be alone, then there's no falling out."

Étienne had finished his bread. He drank a gulp of the gin. For a

moment he asked himself if he ought not to make a bad return for

Jeanlin's hospitality by bringing him up to daylight by the ear, and

forbidding him to plunder any more by the threat of telling everything

to his father. But as he examined this deep retreat, an idea occurred

to him. Who knows if there might not be need for it, either for mates

or for himself, in case things should come to the worst up above! He

made the child swear not to sleep out, as had sometimes happened when

he forgot himself in his hay, and taking a candle-end, he went away

first, leaving him to pursue quietly his domestic affairs.

Mouquette, seated on a beam in spite of the great cold, had grown

desperate in waiting for him. When she saw him she leapt on to his

neck; and it was as though he had plunged a knife into her heart when

he said that he wished to see her no more. Good God! why? Did she not

love him enough? Fearing to yield to the desire to enter with her, he

drew her towards the road, and explained to her as gently as possible

that she was compromising him in the eyes of his mates, that she was

compromising the political cause. She was astonished; what had that

got to do with politics? At last the thought occurred to her that

he blushed at being seen with her. She was not wounded, however; it

was quite natural; and she proposed that he should rebuff her before

people, so as to seem to have broken with her. But he would see her

just once sometimes. In distraction she implored him; she swore to keep

out of sight; she would not keep him five minutes. He was touched,

but still refused. It was necessary. Then, as he left her, he wished

at least to kiss her. They had gradually reached the first houses of

Montsou, and were standing with their arms round one another beneath a

large round moon, when a woman passed near them with a sudden start, as

though she had knocked against a stone.

"Who is that?" asked Étienne, anxiously.

"It's Catherine," replied Mouquette. "She's coming back from Jean-Bart."

The woman now was going away, with lowered head and feeble limbs,

looking very tired. And the young man gazed at her, in despair at

having been seen by her, his heart aching with an unreasonable remorse.

Had she not been with a man? Had she not made him suffer with the same

suffering here, on this Réquillart road, when she had given herself to

that man? But, all the same, he was grieved to have done the like to

her.

"Shall I tell you what it is?" whispered Mouquette, in tears, as she

left him. "If you don't want me it's because you want someone else."

On the next day the weather was superb; it was one of those clear

frosty days, the beautiful winter days when the hard earth rings like

crystal beneath the feet. Jeanlin had gone off at one o'clock, but

he had to wait for Bébert behind the church, and they nearly set out

without Lydie, whose mother had again shut her up in the cellar, and

only now liberated her to put a basket on her arm, telling her that

if she did not bring it back full of dandelions she should be shut up

with the rats all night long. She was frightened, therefore, and wished

to go at once for salad. Jeanlin dissuaded her; they would see later

on. For a long time Poland, Rasseneur's big rabbit, had attracted his

attention. He was passing before the Avantage when, just then, the

rabbit came out on to the road. With a leap he seized her by the ears,

stuffed her into the little girl's basket, and all three rushed away.

They would amuse themselves finely by making her run like a dog as far

as the forest.

But they stopped to gaze at Zacharie and Mouquet, who, after having

drunk a glass with two other mates, had begun their big game of

crosse. The stake was a new cap and a red handkerchief, deposited

with Rasseneur. The four players, two against two, were bidding for

the first turn from the Voreux to the Paillot farm, nearly three

kilometres; and it was Zacharie who won, with seven strokes, while

Mouquet required eight. They had placed the ball, the little boxwood

egg, on the pavement with one end up. Each was holding his crosse, the

mallet with its bent iron, long handle, and tight-strung network. Two

o'clock struck as they set out. Zacharie, in a masterly manner, at his

first stroke, composed of a series of three, sent the ball more than

four hundred yards across the beetroot fields; for it was forbidden to

play in the villages and on the streets, where people might be killed.

Mouquet, who was also a good player, sent off the ball with so vigorous

an arm that his single stroke brought the ball a hundred and fifty

metres behind. And the game went on, backwards and forwards, always

running, their feet bruised by the frozen ridges of the ploughed fields.

At first Jeanlin, Bébert, and Lydie had trotted behind the players,

delighted with their vigorous strokes. Then they remembered Poland,

whom they were shaking up in the basket; and, leaving the game in the

open country, they took out the rabbit, inquisitive to see how fast

she could run. She went off, and they fled after her; it was a chase

lasting an hour at full speed, with constant turns, with shouts to

frighten her, and arms opened and closed on emptiness. If she had not

been at the beginning of pregnancy they would never have caught her

again.

As they were panting the sound of oaths made them turn their heads.

They had just come upon the crosse party again, and Zacharie had nearly

split open his brother's skull. The players were now at their fourth

turn. From the Paillot farm they had gone off to the Quatre-Chemins,

then from the Quatre-Chemins to Montoire; and now they were going in

six strokes from Montoire to Pré-des-Vaches. That made two leagues and

a half in an hour; and, besides, they had had drinks at the Estaminet

Vincent and at the Trois-Sages Bar. Mouquet this time was ahead. He had

two more strokes to play, and his victory was certain, when Zacharie,

grinning as he availed himself of his privilege, played with so much

skill that the ball rolled into a deep pit. Mouquet's partner could

not get it out; it was a disaster. All four shouted; the party was

excited, for they were neck to neck; it was necessary to begin again.

From the Pré-des-Vaches it was not two kilometres to the point of

Herbes-Rousses, in five strokes. There they would refresh themselves at

Lerenard's.

But Jeanlin had an idea. He let them go on, and pulled out of his

pocket a piece of string which he tied to one of Poland's legs, the

left hind leg. And it was very amusing. The rabbit ran before the three

young rascals, waddling along in such an extraordinary manner that they

had never laughed so much before. Afterwards they fastened it round her

neck, and let her run off; and, as she grew tired, they dragged her on

her belly or on her back, just like a little carriage. That lasted for

more than an hour. She was moaning when they quickly put her back into

the basket, near the wood at Cruchot, on hearing the players whose game

they had once more came across.

Zacharie, Mouquet, and the two others were getting over the kilometres,

with no other rest than the time for a drink at all the inns which they

had fixed on as their goals. From the Herbes-Rousses they had gone on

to Buchy, then to Croix-de-Pierre, then to Chamblay. The earth rang

beneath the helter-skelter of their feet, rushing untiringly after the

ball, which bounded over the ice; the weather was good, they did not

fall in, they only ran the risk of breaking their legs. In the dry air

the great crosse blows exploded like firearms. Their muscular hands

grasped the strung handle; their entire bodies were bent forward, as

though to slay an ox. And this went on for hours, from one end of the

plain to the other, over ditches and hedges and the slopes of the road,

the low walls of the enclosures. One needed to have good bellows in

one's chest and iron hinges in one's knees. The pikemen thus rubbed

off the rust of the mine with impassioned zeal. There were some so

enthusiastic at twenty-five that they could do ten leagues. At forty

they played no more; they were too heavy.

Five o'clock struck; the twilight was already coming on. One more turn

to the Forest of Vandame, to decide who had gained the cap and the

handkerchief. And Zacharie joked, with his chaffing indifference for

politics; it would be fine to tumble down over there in the midst of

the mates. As to Jeanlin, ever since leaving the settlement he had

been aiming at the forest, though apparently only scouring the fields.

With an indignant gesture he threatened Lydie, who was full of remorse

and fear, and talked of going back to the Voreux to gather dandelions.

Were they going to abandon the meeting? he wanted to know what the old

people would say. He pushed Bébert, and proposed to enliven the end of

the journey as far as the trees by detaching Poland and pursuing her

with stones. His real idea was to kill her; he wanted to take her off

and eat her at the bottom of his hole at Réquillart. The rabbit ran

ahead, with nose in the air and ears back; a stone grazed her back,

another cut her tail, and, in spite of the growing darkness, she would

have been done for if the young rogues had not noticed Étienne and

Maheu standing in the middle of a glade. They threw themselves on the

animal in desperation, and put her back in the basket. Almost at the

same minute Zacharie, Mouquet, and the two others, with their last blow

at crosse, drove the ball within a few metres of the glade. They all

came into the midst of the rendezvous.

Through the whole country, by the roads and pathways of the flat plain,

ever since twilight, there had been a long procession, a rustling of

silent shadows, moving separately or in groups towards the violet

thickets of the forest. Every settlement was emptied, the women and

children themselves set out as if for a walk beneath the great clear

sky. Now the roads were growing dark; this walking crowd, all gliding

towards the same goal, could no longer be distinguished. But one felt

it, the confused tramping moved by one soul. Between the hedges, among

the bushes, there was only a light rustling, a vague rumour of the

voices of the night.

M. Hennebeau, who was at this hour returning home mounted on his mare,

listened to these vague sounds. He had met couples, long rows of

strollers, on this beautiful winter night. More lovers, who were going

to take their pleasure, mouth to mouth, behind the walls. Was it not

what he always met, girls tumbled over at the bottom of every ditch,

beggars who crammed themselves with the only joy that cost nothing?

And these fools complained of life, when they could take their supreme

fill of this happiness of love! Willingly would he have starved as they

did if he could begin life again with a woman who would give herself

to him on a heap of stones, with all her strength and all her heart.

His misfortune was without consolation, and he envied these wretches.

With lowered head he went back, riding his horse at a slackened pace,

rendered desperate by these long sounds, lost in the depth of the black

country, in which he heard only kisses.