Bab Bab 35 · 第35章

The shots fired at Montsou had reached as far as Paris with a

formidable echo. For four days all the opposition journals had been

indignant, displaying atrocious narratives on their front pages:

twenty-five wounded, fourteen dead, including three women and two

children. And there were prisoners taken as well; Levaque had become a

sort of hero, and was credited with a reply of antique sublimity to the

examining magistrate. The empire, hit in mid career by these few balls,

affected the calm of omnipotence, without itself realizing the gravity

of its wound. It was simply an unfortunate collision, something lost

over there in the black country, very far from the Parisian boulevards

which formed public opinion; it would soon be forgotten. The Company

had received official intimation to hush up the affair, and to put

an end to a strike which from its irritating duration was becoming a

social danger.

So on Wednesday morning three of the directors appeared at Montsou. The

little town, sick at heart, which had not dared hitherto to rejoice

over the massacre, now breathed again, and tasted the joy of being

saved. The weather, too, had become fine; there was a bright sun--one

of those first February days which, with their moist warmth, tip the

lilac shoots with green. All the shutters had been flung back at the

administration building, the vast structure seemed alive again. And

cheering rumours were circulating; it was said that the directors,

deeply affected by the catastrophe, had rushed down to open their

paternal arms to the wanderers from the settlements. Now that the

blow had fallen--a more vigorous one doubtless than they had wished

for--they were prodigal in their task of relief, and decreed measures

that were excellent though tardy. First of all they sent away the

Borains, and made much of this extreme concession to their workmen.

Then they put an end to the military occupation of the pits, which

were no longer threatened by the crushed strikers. They also obtained

silence regarding the sentinel who had disappeared from the Voreux;

the district had been searched without finding either the gun or the

corpse, and although there was a suspicion of crime, it was decided

to consider the soldier a deserter. In every way they thus tried to

attenuate matters, trembling with fear for the morrow, judging it

dangerous to acknowledge the irresistible savagery of a crowd set free

amid the falling structure of the old world. And besides, this work of

conciliation did not prevent them from bringing purely administrative

affairs to a satisfactory conclusion; for Deneulin had been seen to

return to the administration buildings, where he met M. Hennebeau.

The negotiations for the purchase of Vandame continued, and it was

considered certain that Deneulin would accept the Company's offers.

But what particularly stirred the country were the great yellow posters

which the directors had stuck up in profusion on the walls. On them

were to be read these few lines, in very large letters: "Workers of

Montsou! We do not wish that the errors of which you have lately seen

the sad effects should deprive sensible and willing workmen of their

livelihood. We shall therefore reopen all the pits on Monday morning,

and when work is resumed we shall examine with care and consideration

those cases in which there may be room for improvement. We shall, in

fact, do all that is just or possible to do." In one morning the ten

thousand colliers passed before these placards. Not one of them spoke,

many shook their heads, others went away with trailing steps, without

changing one line in their motionless faces.

Up till now the settlement of the Deux-Cent-Quarante had persisted in

its fierce resistance. It seemed that the blood of their mates, which

had reddened the mud of the pit, was barricading the road against

the others. Scarcely a dozen had gone down, merely Pierron and some

sneaks of his sort, whose departure and arrival were gloomily watched

without a gesture or a threat. Therefore a deep suspicion greeted the

placard stuck on to the church. Nothing was said about the returned

certificates in that. Would the Company refuse to take them on again?

and the fear of retaliations, the fraternal idea of protesting against

the dismissal of the more compromised men, made them all obstinate

still. It was dubious; they would see. They would return to the pit

when these gentlemen were good enough to put things plainly. Silence

crushed the low houses. Hunger itself seemed nothing; all might die now

that violent death had passed over their roofs.

But one house, that of the Maheus, remained especially black and mute

in its overwhelming grief. Since she had followed her man to the

cemetery, Maheude kept her teeth clenched. After the battle, she had

allowed Étienne to bring back Catherine muddy and half dead; and as she

was undressing her, before the young man, in order to put her to bed,

she thought for a moment that her daughter also had received a ball

in the belly, for the chemise was marked with large patches of blood.

But she soon understood that it was the flood of puberty, which was

at last breaking out in the shock of this abominable day. Ah! another

piece of luck, that wound! A fine present, to be able to make children

for the gendarmes to kill; and she never spoke to Catherine, nor did

she, indeed, talk to Étienne. The latter slept with Jeanlin, at the

risk of being arrested, seized by such horror at the idea of going back

to the darkness of Réquillart that he would have preferred a prison.

A shudder shook him, the horror of the night after all those deaths,

an unacknowledged fear of the little soldier who slept down there

underneath the rocks. Besides, he dreamed of a prison as of a refuge

in the midst of the torment of his defeat; but they did not trouble

him, and he dragged on his wretched hours, not knowing how to weary out

his body. Only at times Maheude looked at both of them, at him and her

daughter, with a spiteful air, as though she were asking them what they

were doing in her house.

Once more they were all snoring in a heap. Father Bonnemort occupied

the former bed of the two youngsters, who slept with Catherine now

that poor Alzire no longer dug her hump into her big sister's ribs. It

was when going to bed that the mother felt the emptiness of the house

by the coldness of her bed, which was now too large. In vain she took

Estelle to fill the vacancy; that did not replace her man, and she wept

quietly for hours. Then the days began to pass by as before, always

without bread, but without the luck to die outright; things picked up

here and there rendered to the wretches the poor service of keeping

them alive. Nothing had changed in their existence, only her man was

gone.

On the afternoon of the fifth day, Étienne, made miserable by the sight

of this silent woman, left the room, and walked slowly along the paved

street of the settlement. The inaction which weighed on him impelled

him to take constant walks, with arms swinging idly and lowered head,

always tortured by the same thought. He tramped thus for half an hour,

when he felt, by an increase in his discomfort, that his mates were

coming to their doors to look at him. His little remaining popularity

had been driven to the winds by that fusillade, and he never passed

now without meeting fiery looks which pursued him. When he raised his

head there were threatening men there, women drawing aside the curtains

from their windows; and beneath this still silent accusation and the

restrained anger of these eyes, enlarged by hunger and tears, he became

awkward and could scarcely walk straight. These dumb reproaches seemed

to be always increasing behind him. He became so terrified, lest he

should hear the entire settlement come out to shout its wretchedness at

him, that he returned shuddering. But at the Maheus' the scene which

met him still further agitated him. Old Bonnemort was near the cold

fireplace, nailed to his chair ever since two neighbours, on the day

of the slaughter, had found him on the ground, with his stick broken,

struck down like an old thunder-stricken tree. And while Lénore and

Henri, to beguile their hunger, were scraping, with deafening noise, an

old saucepan in which cabbages had been boiled the day before, Maheude,

after having placed Estelle on the table, was standing up threatening

Catherine with her fist.

"Say that again, by God! Just dare to say that again!"

Catherine had declared her intention to go back to the Voreux. The

idea of not gaining her bread, of being thus tolerated in her mother's

house, like a useless animal that is in the way, was becoming every

day more unbearable; and if it had not been for the fear of Chaval she

would have gone down on Tuesday.

She said again, stammering:

"What would you have? We can't go on doing nothing. We should get

bread, anyhow."

Maheude interrupted her.

"Listen to me: the first one of you who goes to work, I'll do for you.

No, that would be too much, to kill the father and go on taking it out

of the children! I've had enough of it; I'd rather see you all put in

your coffins, like him that's gone already."

And her long silence broke out into a furious flood of words. A fine

sum Catherine would bring her! hardly thirty sous, to which they might

add twenty sous if the bosses were good enough to find work for that

brigand Jeanlin. Fifty sous, and seven mouths to feed! The brats were

only good to swallow soup. As to the grandfather, he must have broken

something in his brain when he fell, for he seemed imbecile; unless it

had turned his blood to see the soldiers firing at his mates.

"That's it, old man, isn't it? They've quite done for you. It's no good

having your hands still strong; you're done for."

Bonnemort looked at her with his dim eyes without understanding. He

remained for hours with fixed gaze, having no intelligence now except

to spit into a plate filled with ashes, which was put beside him for

cleanliness.

"And they've not settled his pension, either," she went on. "And I'm

sure they won't give it, because of our ideas. No! I tell you that

we've had too much to do with those people who bring ill luck."

"But," Catherine ventured to say, "they promise on the placard--"

"Just let me alone with your damned placard! More birdlime for catching

us and eating us. They can be mighty kind now that they have ripped us

open."

"But where shall we go, mother? They won't keep us at the settlement,

sure enough."

Maheude made a vague, terrified gesture. Where should they go to? She

did not know at all; she avoided thinking, it made her mad. They would

go elsewhere--somewhere. And as the noise of the saucepan was becoming

unbearable, she turned round on Lénore and Henri and boxed their ears.

The fall of Estelle, who had been crawling on all fours, increased the

disturbance. The mother quieted her with a push--a good thing if it had

killed her! She spoke of Alzire; she wished the others might have that

child's luck. Then suddenly she burst out into loud sobs, with her head

against the wall.

Étienne, who was standing by, did not dare to interfere. He no longer

counted for anything in the house, and even the children drew back from

him suspiciously. But the unfortunate woman's tears went to his heart,

and he murmured:

"Come, come! courage! we must try to get out of it."

She did not seem to hear him, and was bemoaning herself now in a low

continuous complaint.

"Ah! the wretchedness! is it possible? Things did go on before these

horrors. We ate our bread dry, but we were all together; and what has

happened, good God! What have we done, then, that we should have such

troubles--some under the earth, and the others with nothing left but

to long to get there too? It's true enough that they harnessed us

like horses to work, and it's not at all a just sharing of things to

be always getting the stick and making rich people's fortunes bigger

without hope of ever tasting the good things. There's no pleasure in

life when hope goes. Yes, that couldn't have gone on longer; we had to

breathe a bit. If we had only known! Is it possible to make oneself so

wretched through wanting justice?"

Sighs swelled her breast, and her voice choked with immense sadness.

"Then there are always some clever people there who promise you that

everything can be arranged by just taking a little trouble. Then one

loses one's head, and one suffers so much from things as they are that

one asks for things that can't be. Now, I was dreaming like a fool; I

seemed to see a life of good friendship with everybody; I went off into

the air, my faith! into the clouds. And then one breaks one's back when

one tumbles down into the mud again. It's not true; there's nothing

over there of the things that people tell of. What there is, is only

wretchedness, ah! wretchedness, as much as you like of it, and bullets

into the bargain."

Étienne listened to this lamentation, and every tear struck him with

remorse. He knew not what to say to calm Maheude, broken by her

terrible fall from the heights of the ideal. She had come back to the

middle of the room, and was now looking at him; she addressed him with

contemptuous familiarity in a last cry of rage:

"And you, do you talk of going back to the pit, too, after driving us

out of the bloody place! I've nothing to reproach you with; but if I

were in your shoes I should be dead of grief by now after causing such

harm to the mates."

He was about to reply, but then shrugged his shoulders in despair. What

was the good of explaining, for she would not understand in her grief?

And he went away, for he was suffering too much, and resumed his wild

walk outside.

There again he found the settlement apparently waiting for him, the

men at the doors, the women at the windows. As soon as he appeared

growls were heard, and the crowd increased. The breath of gossip,

which had been swelling for four days, was breaking out in a universal

malediction. Fists were stretched towards him, mothers spitefully

pointed him out to their boys, old men spat as they looked at him. It

was the change which follows on the morrow of defeat, the fatal reverse

of popularity, an execration exasperated by all the suffering endured

without result. He had to pay for famine and death.

Zacharie, who came up with Philoméne, hustled Étienne as he went out,

grinning maliciously.

"Well, he gets fat. It's filling, then, to live on other people's

deaths?"

The Levaque woman had already come to her door with Bouteloup. She

spoke of Bébert, her youngster, killed by a bullet, and cried:

"Yes, there are cowards who get children murdered! Let him go and look

for mine in the earth if he wants to give it me back!"

She was forgetting her man in prison, for the household was going on

since Bouteloup remained; but she thought of him, however, and went on

in a shrill voice:

"Get along! rascals may walk about while good people are put away!"

In avoiding her, Étienne tumbled on to Pierronne, who was running

up across the gardens. She had regarded her mother's death as a

deliverance, for the old woman's violence threatened to get them

hanged; nor did she weep over Pierron's little girl, that street-walker

Lydie--a good riddance. But she joined in with her neighbours with the

idea of getting reconciled with them.

"And my mother, eh, and the little girl? You were seen; you were hiding

yourself behind them when they caught the lead instead of you!"

What was to be done? Strangle Pierronne and the others, and fight the

whole settlement? Étienne wanted to do so for a moment. The blood was

throbbing in his head, he now looked upon his mates as brutes, he was

irritated to see them so unintelligent and barbarous that they wanted

to revenge themselves on him for the logic of facts. How stupid it all

was! and he felt disgust at his powerlessness to tame them again; and

satisfied himself with hastening his steps as though he were deaf to

abuse. Soon it became a flight; every house hooted him as he passed,

they hastened on his heels, it was a whole nation cursing him with a

voice that was becoming like thunder in its overwhelming hatred. It

was he, the exploiter, the murderer, who was the sole cause of their

misfortune. He rushed out of the settlement, pale and terrified, with

this yelling crowd behind his back. When he at last reached the main

road most of them left him; but a few persisted, until at the bottom

of the slope before the Avantage he met another group coming from the

Voreux.

Old Mouque and Chaval were there. Since the death of his daughter

Mouquette, and of his son Mouquet, the old man had continued to act

as groom without a word of regret or complaint. Suddenly, when he saw

Étienne, he was shaken by fury, tears broke out from his eyes, and a

flood of coarse words burst from his mouth, black and bleeding from his

habit of chewing tobacco.

"You devil! you bloody swine! you filthy snout! Wait, you've got to pay

me for my poor children; you'll have to come to it!"

He picked up a brick, broke it, and threw both pieces.

"Yes! yes! clear him off!" shouted Chaval, who was grinning in

excitement, delighted at this vengeance. "Every one gets his turn; now

you're up against the wall, you dirty hound!"

And he also attacked Étienne with stones. A savage clamour arose; they

all took up bricks, broke them, and threw them, to rip him open, as

they would like to have done to the soldiers. He was dazed and could

not flee; he faced them, trying to calm them with phrases. His old

speeches, once so warmly received, came back to his lips. He repeated

the words with which he had intoxicated them at the time when he could

keep them in hand like a faithful flock; but his power was dead, and

only stones replied to him. He had just been struck on the left arm,

and was drawing back, in great peril, when he found himself hemmed in

against the front of the Avantage.

For the last few moments Rasseneur had been at his door.

"Come in," he said simply.

Étienne hesitated; it choked him to take refuge there.

"Come in; then I'll speak to them."

He resigned himself, and took refuge at the other end of the parlour,

while the innkeeper filled up the doorway with his broad shoulders.

"Look here, my friends, just be reasonable. You know very well that

I've never deceived you. I've always been in favour of quietness, and

if you had listened to me, you certainly wouldn't be where you are now."

Rolling his shoulders and belly, he went on at length, allowing his

facile eloquence to flow with the lulling gentleness of warm water. And

all his old success came back; he regained his popularity, naturally

and without an effort, as if he had never been hooted and called a

coward a month before. Voices arose in approval: "Very good! we are

with you! that is the way to put it!" Thundering applause broke out.

Étienne, in the background, grew faint, and there was bitterness at his

heart. He recalled Rasseneur's prediction in the forest, threatening

him with the ingratitude of the mob. What imbecile brutality! What an

abominable forgetfulness of old services! It was a blind force which

constantly devoured itself. And beneath his anger at seeing these

brutes spoil their own cause, there was despair at his own fall and

the tragic end of his ambition. What! was it already done for! He

remembered hearing beneath the beeches three thousand hearts beating

to the echo of his own. On that day he had held his popularity in both

hands. Those people belonged to him; he felt that he was their master.

Mad dreams had then intoxicated him. Montsou at his feet, Paris beyond,

becoming a deputy perhaps, crushing the middle class in a speech, the

first speech ever pronounced by a workman in a parliament. And it

was all over! He awakened, miserable and detested; his people were

dismissing him by flinging bricks.

Rasseneur's voice rose higher:

"Never will violence succeed; the world can't be remade in a day. Those

who have promised you to change it all at one stroke are either making

fun of you or they are rascals!"

"Bravo! bravo!" shouted the crowd.

Who then was the guilty one? And this question which Étienne put to

himself overwhelmed him more than ever. Was it in fact his fault, this

misfortune which was making him bleed, the wretchedness of some, the

murder of others, these women, these children, lean, and without bread?

He had had that lamentable vision one evening before the catastrophe.

But then a force was lifting him, he was carried away with his mates.

Besides, he had never led them, it was they who led him, who obliged

him to do things which he would never have done if it were not for the

shock of that crowd pushing behind him. At each new violence he had

been stupefied by the course of events, for he had neither foreseen

nor desired any of them. Could he anticipate, for instance, that his

followers in the settlement would one day stone him? These infuriated

people lied when they accused him of having promised them an existence

all fodder and laziness. And in this justification, in this reasoning,

in which he tried to fight against his remorse, was hidden the anxiety

that he had not risen to the height of his task; it was the doubt of

the half-cultured man still perplexing him. But he felt himself at the

end of his courage, he was no longer at heart with his mates; he feared

this enormous mass of the people, blind and irresistible, moving like a

force of nature, sweeping away everything, outside rules and theories.

A certain repugnance was detaching him from them--the discomfort of his

new tastes, the slow movement of all his being towards a superior class.

At this moment Rasseneur's voice was lost in the midst of enthusiastic

shouts:

"Hurrah for Rasseneur! he's the fellow! Bravo, bravo!"

The innkeeper shut the door, while the band dispersed; and the two men

looked at each other in silence. They both shrugged their shoulders.

They finished up by having a drink together.

On the same day there was a great dinner at Piolaine; they were

celebrating the betrothal of Négrel and Cécile. Since the previous

evening the Grégoires had had the dining-room waxed and the

drawing-room dusted. Mélanie reigned in the kitchen, watching over the

roasts and stirring the sauces, the odour of which ascended to the

attics. It had been decided that Francis, the coachman, should help

Honorine to wait. The gardener's wife would wash up, and the gardener

would open the gate. Never had the substantial, patriarchal old house

been in such a state of gaiety.

Everything went off beautifully, Madame Hennebeau was charming with

Cécile, and she smiled at Négrel when the Montsou lawyer gallantly

proposed the health of the future household. M. Hennebeau was also very

amiable. His smiling face struck the guests. The report circulated that

he was rising in favour with the directors, and that he would soon be

made an officer of the Legion of Honour, on account of the energetic

manner in which he had put down the strike. Nothing was said about

recent events; but there was an air of triumph in the general joy,

and the dinner became the official celebration of a victory. At last,

then, they were saved, and once more they could begin to eat and sleep

in peace. A discreet allusion was made to those dead whose blood the

Voreux mud had yet scarcely drunk up. It was a necessary lesson: and

they were all affected when the Grégoires added that it was now the

duty of all to go and heal the wounds in the settlements. They had

regained their benevolent placidity, excusing their brave miners, whom

they could already see again at the bottom of the mines, giving a good

example of everlasting resignation. The Montsou notables, who had now

left off trembling, agreed that this question of the wage system ought

to be studied, cautiously. The roasts came on; and the victory became

complete when M. Hennebeau read a letter from the bishop announcing

Abbé Ranvier's removal. The middle class throughout the province

had been roused to anger by the story of this priest who treated

the soldiers as murderers. And when the dessert appeared the lawyer

resolutely declared that he was a free-thinker.

Deneulin was there with his two daughters. In the midst of the joy, he

forced himself to hide the melancholy of his ruin. That very morning he

had signed the sale of his Vandame concession to the Montsou Company.

With the knife at his throat he had submitted to the directors'

demands, at last giving up to them that prey they had been on the

watch for so long, scarcely obtaining from them the money necessary

to pay off his creditors. He had even accepted, as a lucky chance, at

the last moment, their offer to keep him as divisional engineer, thus

resigning himself to watch, as a simple salaried servant, over that pit

which had swallowed up his fortune. It was the knell of small personal

enterprises, the approaching disappearance of the masters, eaten up,

one by one, by the ever-hungry ogre of capital, drowned in the rising

flood of great companies. He alone paid the expenses of the strike;

he understood that they were drinking to his disaster when they drank

to M. Hennebeau's rosette. And he only consoled himself a little when

he saw the fine courage of Lucie and Jeanne, who looked charming in

their done-up toilettes, laughing at the downfall, like happy tomboys

disdainful of money.

When they passed into the drawing-room for coffee, M. Grégoire drew his

cousin aside and congratulated him on the courage of his decision.

"What would you have? Your real mistake was to risk the million of your

Montsou denier over Vandame. You gave yourself a terrible wound, and it

has melted away in that dog's labour, while mine, which has not stirred

from my drawer, still keeps me comfortably doing nothing, as it will

keep my grandchildren's children."