第 十七 章 · 第17章

On that Monday the Hennebeaus had invited the Grégoires and their

daughter Cécile to lunch. They had formed their plans: on rising from

table, Paul Négrel was to take the ladies to a mine, Saint-Thomas,

which had been luxuriously reinstalled. But this was only an amiable

pretext; this party was an invention of Madame Hennebeau's to hasten

the marriage of Cécile and Paul.

Suddenly, on this very Monday, at four o'clock in the morning, the

strike broke out. When, on the 1st of December, the Company had

adopted the new wage system, the miners remained calm. At the end of

the fortnight not one made the least protest on pay-day. Everybody,

from the manager down to the last overseer, considered the tariff

as accepted; and great was their surprise in the morning at this

declaration of war, made with a tactical unity which seemed to indicate

energetic leadership.

At five o'clock Dansaert woke M. Hennebeau to inform him that not

a single man had gone down at the Voreux. The settlement of the

Deux-Cent-Quarante, which he had passed through, was sleeping deeply,

with closed windows and doors. And as soon as the manager had jumped

out of bed, his eyes still swollen with sleep, he was overwhelmed.

Every quarter of an hour messengers came in, and dispatches fell on his

desk as thick as hail. At first he hoped that the revolt was limited

to the Voreux; but the news became more serious every minute. There

was the Mirou, the Crévecoeur, the Madeleine, where only the grooms

had appeared; the Victoire and Feutry-Cantel, the two best disciplined

pits, where the men had been reduced by a third; Saint-Thomas alone

numbered all its people, and seemed to be outside the movement. Up to

nine o'clock he dictated dispatches, telegraphing in all directions,

to the prefect of Lille, to the directors of the Company, warning the

authorities and asking for orders. He had sent Négrel to go round the

neighbouring pits to obtain precise information.

Suddenly M. Hennebeau recollected the lunch; and he was about to send

the coachman to tell the Grégoires that the party had been put off,

when a certain hesitation and lack of will stopped him--the man who in

a few brief phrases had just made military preparations for a field of

battle. He went up to Madame Hennebeau, whose hair had just been done

by her lady's maid, in her dressing-room.

"Ah! they are on strike," she said quietly, when he had told her.

"Well, what has that to do with us? We are not going to leave off

eating, I suppose?"

And she was obstinate; it was vain to tell her that the lunch would be

disturbed, and that the visit to Saint-Thomas could not take place.

She found an answer to everything. Why lose a lunch that was already

cooking? And as to visiting the pit, they could give that up afterwards

if the walk was really imprudent.

"Besides," she added, when the maid had gone out, "you know that I am

anxious to receive these good people. This marriage ought to affect you

more than the follies of your men. I want to have it, don't contradict

me."

He looked at her, agitated by a slight trembling, and the hard firm

face of the man of discipline expressed the secret grief of a wounded

heart. She had remained with naked shoulders, already over-mature, but

still imposing and desirable, with the broad bust of a Ceres gilded by

the autumn. For a moment he felt a brutal desire to seize her, and to

roll his head between the breasts she was exposing in this warm room,

which exhibited the private luxury of a sensual woman and had about it

an irritating perfume of musk, but he recoiled; for ten years they had

occupied separate rooms.

"Good!" he said, leaving her. "Do not make any alterations."

M. Hennebeau had been born in the Ardennes. In his early life he had

undergone the hardships of a poor boy thrown as an orphan on the Paris

streets. After having painfully followed the courses of the École

des Mines, at the age of twenty-four he had gone to the Grand' Combe

as engineer to the Sainte-Barbe mine. Three years later he became

divisional engineer in the Pas-de-Calais, at the Marles mines. It was

there that he married, wedding, by one of those strokes of fortune

which are the rule among the Corps des Mines, the daughter of the rich

owner of a spinning factory at Arras. For fifteen years they lived in

the same small provincial town, and no event broke the monotony of

existence, not even the birth of a child. An increasing irritation

detached Madame Hennebeau, who had been brought up to respect money,

and was disdainful of this husband who gained a small salary with such

difficulty, and who enabled her to gratify none of the satisfactions

of vanity which she had dreamed of at school. He was a man of strict

honesty, who never speculated, but stood at his post like a soldier.

The lack of harmony had only increased, aggravated by one of those

curious misunderstandings of the flesh which freeze the most ardent;

he adored his wife, she had the sensuality of a greedy blonde, and

already they slept apart, ill at ease and wounded. From that time she

had a lover of whom he was ignorant. At last he left the Pas-de-Calais

to occupy a situation in an office at Paris, with the idea that she

would be grateful to him. But Paris only completed their separation,

that Paris which she had desired since her first doll, and where she

washed away her provincialism in a week, becoming a woman of fashion

at once, and throwing herself into all the luxurious follies of the

period. The ten years which she spent there were filled by a great

passion, a public intrigue with a man whose desertion nearly killed

her. This time the husband had not been able to keep his ignorance, and

after some abominable scenes he resigned himself, disarmed by the quiet

unconsciousness of this woman who took her happiness where she found

it. It was after the rupture, and when he saw that she was ill with

grief, that he had accepted the management of the Montsou mines, still

hoping also that she would reform down there in that desolate black

country.

The Hennebeaus, since they had lived at Montsou, returned to the

irritated boredom of their early married days. At first she seemed

consoled by the great quiet, soothed by the flat monotony of the

immense plain; she buried herself in it as a woman who has done with

the world; she affected a dead heart, so detached from life that she

did not even mind growing stout. Then, beneath this indifference a

final fever declared itself, the need to live once more, and she

deluded herself for six months by organizing and furnishing to her

taste the little villa belonging to the management. She said it was

frightful, and filled it with upholstery, bric-a-brac, and all sorts of

artistic luxuries which were talked of as far as Lille. Now the country

exasperated her, those stupid fields spread out to infinity, those

eternal black roads without a tree, swarming with a horrid population

which disgusted and frightened her. Complaints of exile began; she

accused her husband of having sacrificed her to a salary of forty

thousand francs, a trifle which hardly sufficed to keep the house up.

Why could he not imitate others, demand a part for himself, obtain

shares, succeed in something at last? And she insisted with the cruelty

of an heiress who had brought her own fortune. He, always restrained,

and taking refuge in the deceptive coldness of a man of business, was

torn by desire for this creature, one of those late desires which are

so violent and which increase with age. He had never possessed her as a

lover; he was haunted by a continual image, to have her once to himself

as she had given herself to another. Every morning he dreamed of

winning her in the evening; then, when she looked at him with her cold

eyes, and when he felt that everything within her denied itself to him,

he even avoided touching her hand. It was a suffering without possible

cure, hidden beneath the stiffness of his attitude, the suffering of a

tender nature in secret anguish at the lack of domestic happiness. At

the end of six months, when the house, being definitely furnished, no

longer occupied Madame Hennebeau, she fell into the languor of boredom,

a victim who was being killed by exile, and who said that she was glad

to die of it.

Just then Paul Négrel arrived at Montsou. His mother, the widow of

a Provence captain, living at Avignon on a slender income, had had

to content herself with bread and water to enable him to reach the

École Polytechnique. He had come out low in rank, and his uncle, M.

Hennebeau, had enabled him to leave by offering to take him as engineer

at the Voreux. From that time he was treated as one of the family; he

even had his room there, his meals there, lived there, and was thus

enabled to send to his mother half his salary of three thousand francs.

To disguise this kindness M. Hennebeau spoke of the embarrassment to

a young man of setting up a household in one of those little villas

reserved for the mine engineers. Madame Hennebeau had at once taken the

part of a good aunt, treating her nephew with familiarity and watching

over his comfort. During the first months, especially, she exhibited

an overwhelming maternity with her advice regarding the smallest

subjects. But she remained a woman, however, and slid into personal

confidences. This lad, so young and so practical, with his unscrupulous

intelligence, professing a philosopher's theory of love, amused her

with the vivacity of the pessimism which had sharpened his thin face

and pointed nose. One evening he naturally found himself in her arms,

and she seemed to give herself up out of kindness, while saying to

him that she had no heart left, and wished only to be his friend. In

fact, she was not jealous; she joked him about the putters, whom he

declared to be abominable, and she almost sulked because he had no

young man's pranks to narrate to her. Then she was carried away by the

idea of getting him married; she dreamed of sacrificing herself and of

finding a rich girl for him. Their relations continued a plaything, a

recreation, in which she felt the last tenderness of a lazy woman who

had done with the world.

Two years had passed by. One night M. Hennebeau had a suspicion when

he heard naked feet passing his door. But this new adventure revolted

him, in his own house, between this mother and this son! And besides,

on the following day his wife spoke to him about the choice of Cécile

Grégoire which she had made for her nephew. She occupied herself over

this marriage with such ardour that he blushed at his own monstrous

imagination. He only felt gratitude towards the young man who, since

his arrival, had made the house less melancholy.

As he came down from the dressing-room, M. Hennebeau found that Paul,

who had just returned, was in the vestibule. He seemed to be quite

amused by the story of this strike.

"Well?" asked his uncle.

"Well, I've been round the settlements. They seem to be quite sensible

in there. I think they will first send you a deputation."

But at that moment Madame Hennebeau's voice called from the first story:

"Is that you, Paul? Come up, then, and tell me the news. How queer they

are to make such a fuss, these people who are so happy!"

And the manager had to renounce further information, since his wife had

taken his messenger. He returned and sat before his desk, on which a

new packet of dispatches was placed.

At eleven o'clock the Grégoires arrived, and were astonished when

Hippolyte, the footman, who was placed as sentinel, hustled them in

after an anxious glance at the two ends of the road. The drawing-room

curtains were drawn, and they were taken at once into the study, where

M. Hennebeau apologized for their reception; but the drawing-room

looked over the street and it was undesirable to seem to offer

provocations.

"What! you don't know?" he went on, seeing their surprise.

M. Grégoire, when he heard that the strike had at last broken out,

shrugged his shoulders in his placid way. Bah! it would be nothing,

the people were honest. With a movement of her chin, Madame Grégoire

approved his confidence in the everlasting resignation of the colliers;

while Cécile, who was very cheerful that day, feeling that she looked

well in her capuchin cloth costume, smiled at the word "strike," which

reminded her of visits to the settlements and the distribution of

charities.

Madame Hennebeau now appeared in black silk, followed by Négrel.

"Ah! isn't it annoying!" she said, at the door. "As if they couldn't

wait, those men! You know that Paul refuses to take us to Saint-Thomas."

"We can stay here," said M. Grégoire, obligingly. "We shall be quite

pleased."

Paul had contented himself with formally saluting Cécile and her

mother. Angry at this lack of demonstrativeness, his aunt sent him with

a look to the young girl; and when she heard them laughing together she

enveloped them in a maternal glance.

M. Hennebeau, however, finished reading his dispatches and prepared a

few replies. They talked near him; his wife explained that she had not

done anything to this study, which, in fact, retained its faded old red

paper, its heavy mahogany furniture, its cardboard files, scratched

by use. Three-quarters of an hour passed and they were about to seat

themselves at table when the footman announced M. Deneulin. He entered

in an excited way and bowed to Madame Hennebeau.

"Ah! you here!" he said, seeing the Grégoires.

And he quickly spoke to the manager:

"It has come, then? I've just heard of it through my engineer. With me,

all the men went down this morning. But the thing may spread. I'm not

at all at ease. How is it with you?"

He had arrived on horseback, and his anxiety betrayed itself in his

loud speech and abrupt gestures, which made him resemble a retired

cavalry officer.

M. Hennebeau was beginning to inform him regarding the precise

situation, when Hippolyte opened the dining-room door. Then he

interrupted himself to say:

"Lunch with us. I will tell you more at dessert."

"Yes, as you please," replied Deneulin, so full of his thoughts that he

accepted without ceremony.

He was, however, conscious of his impoliteness and turned towards

Madame Hennebeau with apologies. She was very charming, however. When

she had had a seventh plate laid she placed her guests: Madame Grégoire

and Cécile by her husband, then M. Grégoire and Deneulin at her own

right and left; then Paul, whom she put between the young girl and her

father. As they attacked the _hors-d'oeuvre_ she said, with a

smile:

"You must excuse me; I wanted to give you oysters. On Monday, you know,

there was an arrival of Ostend oysters at Marchiennes, and I meant to

send the cook with the carriage. But she was afraid of being stoned--"

They all interrupted her with a great burst of gaiety. They thought the

story very funny.

"Hush!" said M. Hennebeau, vexed, looking at the window, through which

the road could be seen. "We need not tell the whole country that we

have company this morning."

"Well, here is a slice of sausage which they shan't have," M. Grégoire

declared.

The laughter began again, but with greater restraint. Each guest made

himself comfortable, in this room upholstered with Flemish tapestry

and furnished with old oak chests. The silver shone behind the panes

of the sideboards; and there was a large hanging lamp of red copper,

whose polished surfaces reflected a palm and an aspidistra growing

in majolica pots. Outside, the December day was frozen by a keen

north-east wind. But not a breath of it entered; a green-house warmth

developed the delicate odour of the pineapple, sliced in a crystal bowl.

"Suppose we were to draw the curtains," proposed Négrel, who was amused

at the idea of frightening the Grégoires.

The housemaid, who was helping the footman, treated this as an order

and went and closed one of the curtains. This led to interminable

jokes: not a glass or a plate could be put down without precaution;

every dish was hailed as a waif escaped from the pillage in a conquered

town; and behind this forced gaiety there was a certain fear which

betrayed itself in involuntary glances towards the road, as though a

band of starvelings were watching the table from outside.

After the scrambled eggs with truffles, trout came on. The conversation

then turned to the industrial crisis, which had become aggravated

during the last eighteen months.

"It was inevitable," said Deneulin, "the excessive prosperity of recent

years was bound to bring us to it. Think of the enormous capital which

has been sunk, the railways, harbours, and canals, all the money buried

in the maddest speculations. Among us alone sugar works have been set

up as if the department could furnish three beetroot harvests. Good

heavens! and to-day money is scarce, and we have to wait to catch up

the interest of the expended millions; so there is a mortal congestion

and a final stagnation of business."

M. Hennebeau disputed this theory, but he agreed that the fortunate

years had spoilt the men.

"When I think," he exclaimed, "that these chaps in our pits used to

gain six francs a day, double what they gain now! And they lived well,

too, and acquired luxurious tastes. To-day, naturally, it seems hard to

them to go back to their old frugality."

"Monsieur Grégoire," interrupted Madame Hennebeau, "let me persuade

you, a little more trout. They are delicious, are they not?"

The manager went on:

"But, as a matter of fact, is it our fault? We, too, are cruelly

struck. Since the factories have closed, one by one, we have had a

deuce of a difficulty in getting rid of our stock; and in face of

the growing reduction in demand we have been forced to lower our net

prices. It is just this that the men won't understand."

There was silence. The footman presented roast partridge, while the

housemaid began to pour out Chambertin for the guests.

"There has been a famine in India," said Deneulin in a low voice, as

though he were speaking to himself. "America, by ceasing to order iron,

has struck a heavy blow at our furnaces. Everything holds together; a

distant shock is enough to disturb the world. And the empire, which was

so proud of this hot fever of industry!"

He attacked his partridge wing. Then, raising his voice:

"The worst is that to lower the net prices we ought logically to

produce more; otherwise the reduction bears on wages, and the worker is

right in saying that he has to pay the damage."

This confession, the outcome of his frankness, raised a discussion.

The ladies were not at all interested. Besides, all were occupied with

their plates, in the first zest of appetite. When the footman came

back, he seemed about to speak, then he hesitated.

"What is it?" asked M. Hennebeau. "If there are letters, give them to

me. I am expecting replies."

"No, sir. It is Monsieur Dansaert, who is in the hall. But he doesn't

wish to disturb you."

The manager excused himself, and had the head captain brought in. The

latter stood upright, a few paces from the table, while all turned

to look at him, huge, out of breath with the news he was bringing.

The settlements were quiet; only it had now been decided to send a

deputation. It would, perhaps, be there in a few minutes.

"Very well; thank you," said M. Hennebeau. "I want a report morning and

evening, you understand."

And as soon as Dansaert had gone, they began to joke again, and

hastened to attack the Russian salad, declaring that not a moment was

to be lost if they wished to finish it. The mirth was unbounded when

Négrel, having asked the housemaid for bread, she replied, "Yes, sir,"

in a voice as low and terrified as if she had behind her a troop ready

for murder and rape.

"You may speak," said Madame Hennebeau complacently. "They are not here

yet."

The manager, who now received a packet of letters and dispatches,

wished to read one of his letters aloud. It was from Pierron, who,

in respectful phrases, gave notice that he was obliged to go out on

strike with his comrades, in order to avoid ill-treatment; and he added

that he had not even been able to avoid taking part in the deputation,

although he blamed that step.

"So much for liberty of work!" exclaimed M. Hennebeau.

Then they returned to the strike, and asked him his opinion.

"Oh!" he replied, "we have had them before. It will be a week, or, at

most, a fortnight, of idleness, as it was last time. They will go and

wallow in the public-houses, and then, when they are hungry, they will

go back to the pits."

Deneulin shook his head:

"I'm not so satisfied; this time they appear to be better organized.

Have they not a Provident Fund?"

"Yes, scarcely three thousand francs. What do you think they can do

with that? I suspect a man called Étienne Lantier of being their

leader. He is a good workman; it would vex me to have to give him his

certificate back, as we did of old to the famous Rasseneur, who still

poisons the Voreux with his ideas and his beer. No matter, in a week

half the men will have gone down, and in a fortnight the ten thousand

will be below."

He was convinced. His only anxiety was concerning his own possible

disgrace should the directors put the responsibility of the strike on

him. For some time he had felt that he was diminishing in favour. So

leaving the spoonful of Russian salad which he had taken, he read over

again the dispatches received from Paris, endeavouring to penetrate

every word. His guests excused him; the meal was becoming a military

lunch, eaten on the field of battle before the first shots were fired.

The ladies then joined in the conversation. Madame Grégoire expressed

pity for the poor people who would suffer from hunger; and Cécile was

already making plans for distributing gifts of bread and meat. But

Madame Hennebeau was astonished at hearing of the wretchedness of

the Montsou colliers. Were they not very fortunate? People who were

lodged and warmed and cared for at the expense of the Company! In her

indifference for the herd, she only knew the lessons she had learnt,

and with which she had surprised the Parisians who came on a visit.

She believed them at last, and was indignant at the ingratitude of the

people.

Négrel, meanwhile, continued to frighten M. Grégoire. Cécile did not

displease him, and he was quite willing to marry her to be agreeable to

his aunt, but he showed no amorous fever; like a youth of experience,

who, he said, was not easily carried away now. He professed to be

a Republican, which did not prevent him from treating his men with

extreme severity, or from making fun of them in the company of the

ladies.

"Nor have I my uncle's optimism, either," he continued. "I fear

there will be serious disturbances. So I should advise you, Monsieur

Grégoire, to lock up Piolaine. They may pillage you."

Just then, still retaining the smile which illuminated his good-natured

face, M. Grégoire was going beyond his wife in paternal sentiments with

regard to the miners.

"Pillage me!" he cried, stupefied. "And why pillage me?"

"Are you not a shareholder in Montsou! You do nothing; you live on the

work of others. In fact you are an infamous capitalist, and that is

enough. You may be sure that if the revolution triumphs, it will force

you to restore your fortune as stolen money."

At once he lost his child-like tranquillity, his serene

unconsciousness. He stammered:

"Stolen money, my fortune! Did not my great-grandfather gain, and

hardly, too, the sum originally invested? Have we not run all the risks

of the enterprise, and do I today make a bad use of my income?"

Madame Hennebeau, alarmed at seeing the mother and daughter also white

with fear, hastened to intervene, saying:

"Paul is joking, my dear sir."

But M. Grégoire was carried out of himself. As the servant was passing

round the crayfish he took three of them without knowing what he was

doing and began to break their claws with his teeth.

"Ah! I don't say but what there are shareholders who abuse their

position. For instance, I have been told that ministers have received

shares in Montsou for services rendered to the Company. It is like a

nobleman whom I will not name, a duke, the biggest of our shareholders,

whose life is a scandal of prodigality, millions thrown into the street

on women, feasting, and useless luxury. But we who live quietly, like

good citizens as we are, who do not speculate, who are content to live

wholesomely on what we have, giving a part to the poor: Come, now! your

men must be mere brigands if they came and stole a pin from us!"

Négrel himself had to calm him, though amused at his anger. The

crayfish were still going round; the little crackling sound of their

carapaces could be heard, while the conversation turned to politics,

M. Grégoire, in spite of everything and though still trembling, called

himself a Liberal and regretted Louis Philippe. As for Deneulin, he was

for a strong Government; he declared that the Emperor was gliding down

the slope of dangerous concessions.

"Remember '89," he said. "It was the nobility who made the Revolution

possible, by their complicity and taste for philosophic novelties. Very

well! the middle class to-day are playing the same silly game with

their furious Liberalism, their rage for destruction, their flattery of

the people. Yes, yes, you are sharpening the teeth of the monster that

will devour us. It will devour us, rest assured!"

The ladies bade him be silent, and tried to change the conversation by

asking him news of his daughters. Lucie was at Marchiennes, where she

was singing with a friend; Jeanne was painting an old beggar's head.

But he said these things in a distracted way; he constantly looked at

the manager, who was absorbed in the reading of his dispatches and

forgetful of his guests. Behind those thin leaves he felt Paris and the

directors' orders, which would decide the strike. At last he could not

help yielding to his preoccupation.

"Well, what are you going to do?" he asked suddenly.

M. Hennebeau started; then turned off the question with a vague phrase.

"We shall see."

"No doubt you are solidly placed, you can wait," Deneulin began to

think aloud. "But as for me, I shall be done for if the strike reaches

Vandame. I shall have reinstalled Jean-Bart in vain; with a single pit,

I can only get along by constant production. Ah! I am not in a very

pleasant situation, I can assure you!"

This involuntary confession seemed to strike M. Hennebeau. He listened

and a plan formed within him: in case the strike turned out badly,

why not utilize it by letting things run down until his neighbour was

ruined, and then buy up his concession at a low price? That would be

the surest way of regaining the good graces of the directors, who for

years had dreamed of possessing Vandame.

"If Jean-Bart bothers you as much as that," said he, laughing, "why

don't you give it up to us?"

But Deneulin was already regretting his complaints. He exclaimed:

"Never, never!"

They were amused at his vigour and had already forgotten the strike

by the time the dessert appeared. An apple-charlotte meringue was

overwhelmed with praise. Afterwards the ladies discussed a recipe with

respect to the pineapple which was declared equally exquisite. The

grapes and pears completed their happy abandonment at the end of this

copious lunch. All talked excitedly at the same time, while the servant

poured out Rhine wine in place of champagne which was looked upon as

commonplace.

And the marriage of Paul and Cécile certainly made a forward step in

the sympathy produced by the dessert. His aunt had thrown such urgent

looks in his direction, that the young man showed himself very amiable,

and in his wheedling way reconquered the Grégoires, who had been cast

down by his stories of pillage. For a moment M. Hennebeau, seeing

the close understanding between his wife and his nephew, felt that

abominable suspicion again revive, as if in this exchange of looks he

had surprised a physical contact. But again the idea of the marriage,

made here before his face, reassured him.

Hippolyte was serving the coffee when the housemaid entered in a fright.

"Sir, sir, they are here!"

It was the delegates. Doors banged; a breath of terror was passing

through the neighbouring rooms.

Around the table the guests were looking at one another with uneasy

indecision. There was silence. Then they tried to resume their jokes:

they pretended to put the rest of the sugar in their pockets, and

talked of hiding the plate. But the manager remained grave; and the

laughter fell and their voices sank to a whisper, while the heavy feet

of the delegates who were being shown in tramped over the carpet of the

next room.

Madame Hennebeau said to her husband, lowering her voice:

"I hope you will drink your coffee."

"Certainly," he replied. "Let them wait."

He was nervous, listening to every sound, though apparently occupied

with his cup.

Paul and Cécile got up, and he made her venture an eye to the keyhole.

They were stifling their laughter and talking in a low voice.

"Do you see them?"

"Yes, I see a big man and two small ones behind."

"Haven't they ugly faces?"

"Not at all; they are very nice."

Suddenly M. Hennebeau left his chair, saying the coffee was too hot and

he would drink it afterwards. As he went out he put a finger to his

lips to recommend prudence. They all sat down again and remained at

table in silence, no longer daring to move, listening from afar with

intent ears jarred by these coarse male voices.