第 二十六 章 · 第26章

From early morning, before daylight, a tremor had agitated the

settlements, and that tremor was now swelling through the roads and

over the whole country. But the departure had not taken place as

arranged, for the news had spread that cavalry and police were scouring

the plain. It was said that they had arrived from Douai during the

night, and Rasseneur was accused of having betrayed his mates by

warning M. Hennebeau; a putter even swore that she had seen the servant

taking a dispatch to the telegraph office. The miners clenched their

fists and watched the soldiers from behind their shutters by the pale

light of the early morning.

Towards half-past seven, as the sun was rising, another rumour

circulated, reassuring the impatient. It was a false alarm, a simple

military promenade, such as the general occasionally ordered since

the strike had broken out, at the desire of the prefect of Lille. The

strikers detested this official; they reproached him with deceiving

them by the promise of a conciliatory intervention, which was limited

to a march of troops into Montsou every week, to overawe them. So when

the cavalry and police quietly took the road back to Marchiennes, after

contenting themselves with deafening the settlements by the stamping of

their horses over the hard earth, the miners jeered at this innocent

prefect and his soldiers who turned on their heels when things were

beginning to get hot. Up till nine o'clock they stood peacefully about,

in good humour, before their houses, following with their eyes up the

streets the meek backs of the last gendarmes. In the depths of their

large beds the good people of Montsou were still sleeping, with their

heads among the feathers. At the manager's house, Madame Hennebeau had

just been seen setting out in the carriage, leaving M. Hennebeau at

work, no doubt, for the closed and silent villa seemed dead. Not one

of the pits had any military guard; it was a fatal lack of foresight

in the hour of danger, the natural stupidity which accompanies

catastrophes, the fault which a government commits whenever there is

need of precise knowledge of the facts. And nine o'clock was striking

when the colliers at last took the Vandame road, to repair to the

rendezvous decided on the day before in the forest.

Étienne had very quickly perceived that he would certainly not find

over at Jean-Bart the three thousand comrades on whom he was counting.

Many believed that the demonstration was put off, and the worst was

that two or three bands, already on the way, would compromise the cause

if he did not at all costs put himself at their head. Almost a hundred,

who had set out before daylight, were taking refuge beneath the forest

beeches, waiting for the others. Souvarine, whom the young man went

up to consult, shrugged his shoulders; ten resolute fellows could do

more work than a crowd; and he turned back to the open book before

him, refusing to join in. The thing threatened to turn into sentiment

when it would have been enough to adopt the simple method of burning

Montsou. As Étienne left the house he saw Rasseneur, seated before the

metal stove and looking very pale, while his wife, in her everlasting

black dress, was abusing him in polite and cutting terms.

Maheu was of opinion that they ought to keep their promise. A

rendezvous like this was sacred. However, the night had calmed their

fever; he was now fearing misfortune, and he explained that it was

their duty to go over there to maintain their mates in the right path.

Maheude approved with a nod. Étienne repeated complacently that it

was necessary to adopt revolutionary methods, without attempting any

person's life. Before setting out he refused his share of a loaf that

had been given him the evening before, together with a bottle of gin;

but he drank three little glasses, one after the other, saying that

he wanted to keep out the cold; he even carried away a tinful. Alzire

would look after the children. Old Bonnemort, whose legs were suffering

from yesterday's walk, remained in bed.

They did not go away together, from motives of prudence. Jeanlin had

disappeared long ago. Maheu and Maheude went off on the side sloping

towards Montsou; while Étienne turned towards the forest, where he

proposed to join his mates. On the way he caught up a band of women

among whom he recognized Mother Brulé and the Levaque woman; as they

walked they were eating chestnuts which Mouquette had brought; they

swallowed the skins so as to feel more in their stomachs. But in the

forest he found no one; the men were already at Jean-Bart. He took the

same course, and arrived at the pit at the moment when Levaque and

some hundreds others were penetrating into the square. Miners were

coming up from every direction--the men by the main road, the women by

the fields, all at random, without leaders, without weapons, flowing

naturally thither like water which runs down a slope. Étienne perceived

Jeanlin, who had climbed up on a foot-bridge, installed as though at

a theatre. He ran faster, and entered among the first. There were

scarcely three hundred of them.

There was some hesitation when Deneulin showed himself at the top of

the staircase which led to the receiving-room.

"What do you want?" he asked in a loud voice.

After having watched the disappearance of the carriage, from which

his daughters were still laughing towards him, he had returned to the

pit overtaken by a strange anxiety. Everything, however, was found in

good order. The men had gone down; the cage was working, and he became

reassured again, and was talking to the head captain when the approach

of the strikers was announced to him. He had placed himself at a window

of the screening-shed; and in the face of this increasing flood which

filled the square, he at once felt his impotence. How could he defend

these buildings, open on every side? he could scarcely group some

twenty of his workmen round himself. He was lost.

"What do you want?" he repeated, pale with repressed anger, making an

effort to accept his disaster courageously.

There were pushes and growls amid the crowd. Étienne at last came

forward, saying:

"We do not come to injure you, sir, but work must cease everywhere."

Deneulin frankly treated him as an idiot.

"Do you think you will benefit me if you stop work at my place? You

might just as well fire a gun off into my back. Yes, my men are below,

and they shall not come up, unless you mean to murder me first!"

These rough words raised a clamour. Maheu had to hold back Levaque,

who was pushing forward in a threatening manner, while Étienne went on

discussing, and tried to convince Deneulin of the lawfulness of their

revolutionary conduct. But the latter replied by the right to work.

Besides, he refused to discuss such folly; he meant to be master in his

own place. His only regret was that he had not four gendarmes here to

sweep away this mob.

"To be sure, it is my fault; I deserve what has happened to me. With

fellows of your sort force is the only argument. The Government thinks

to buy you by concessions. You will throw it down, that's all, when it

has given you weapons."

Étienne was quivering, but still held himself in. He lowered his voice.

"I beg you, sir, give the order for your men to come up. I cannot

answer for my mates. You may avoid a disaster."

"No! be good enough to let me alone! Do I know you? You do not belong

to my works, you have no quarrel with me. It is only brigands who thus

scour the country to pillage houses."

Loud vociferations now drowned his voice, the women especially abused

him. But he continued to hold his own, experiencing a certain relief in

this frankness with which he expressed his disciplinarian nature. Since

he was ruined in any case, he thought platitudes a useless cowardice.

But their numbers went on increasing; nearly five hundred were pushing

towards the door, and he might have been torn to pieces if his head

captain had not pulled him violently back.

"For mercy's sake, sir! There will be a massacre. What is the good of

letting men be killed for nothing?"

He struggled and protested in one last cry thrown at the crowd:

"You set of brigands, you will know what, when we are strongest again!"

They led him away; the hustling of the crowd had thrown the first ranks

against the staircase so that the rail was twisted. It was the women

who pushed and screamed and urged on the men. The door yielded at

once; it was a door without a lock, simply closed by a latch. But the

staircase was too narrow for the pushing crowd, which would have taken

long to get in if the rear of the besiegers had not gone off to enter

by other openings. Then they poured in on all sides--by the shed, the

screening-place, the boiler buildings. In less than five minutes the

whole pit belonged to them; they swarmed at every story in the midst

of furious gestures and cries, carried away by their victory over this

master who resisted.

Maheu, in terror, had rushed forward among the first, saying to Étienne:

"They must not kill him!"

The latter was already running; then, when Étienne understood that

Deneulin had barricaded himself in the captains' room, he replied:

"Well, would it be our fault? such a madman!"

He was feeling anxious, however, being still too calm to yield to this

outburst of anger. His pride of leadership also suffered on seeing the

band escape from his authority and become enraged, going beyond the

cold execution of the will of the people, such as he had anticipated.

In vain he called for coolness, shouting that they must not put right

on their enemies' side by acts of useless destruction.

"To the boilers!" shouted Mother Brulé. "Put out the fires!"

Levaque, who had found a file, was brandishing it like a dagger,

dominating the tumult with a terrible cry:

"Cut the cables! cut the cables!"

Soon they all repeated this; only Étienne and Maheu continued to

protest, dazed, and talking in the tumult without obtaining silence. At

last the former was able to say:

"But there are men below, mates!"

The noise redoubled and voices arose from all sides:

"So much the worse!--Ought not to go down!--Serve the traitors

right!--Yes, yes, let them stay there!--And then, they have the

ladders!"

Then, when this idea of the ladders had made them still more obstinate,

Étienne saw that he would have to yield. For fear of a greater disaster

he hastened towards the engine, wishing at all events to bring the

cages up, so that the cables, being cut above the shaft, should not

smash them by falling down with their enormous weight. The engine-man

had disappeared as well as the few daylight workers; and he took hold

of the starting lever, manipulating it while Levaque and two other

climbed up the metal scaffold which supported the pulleys. The cages

were hardly fixed on the keeps when the strident sound was heard of

the file biting into the steel. There was deep silence, and this

noise seemed to fill the whole pit; all raised their heads, looking

and listening, seized by emotion. In the first rank Maheu felt a

fierce joy possess him, as if the teeth of the file would deliver

them from misfortune by eating into the cable of one of these dens of

wretchedness, into which they would never descend again.

But Mother Brulé had disappeared by the shed stairs still shouting:

"The fires must be put out! To the boilers! to the boilers!"

Some women followed her. Maheude hastened to prevent them from smashing

everything, just as her husband had tried to reason with the men. She

was the calmest of them; one could demand one's rights without making

a mess in people's places. When she entered the boiler building the

women were already chasing away the two stokers, and the Brulé, armed

with a large shovel, and crouching down before one of the stoves,

was violently emptying it, throwing the red-hot coke on to the brick

floor, where it continued to burn with black smoke. There were ten

stoves for the five boilers. Soon the women warmed to the work, the

Levaque manipulating her shovel with both hands, Mouquette raising her

clothes up to her thighs so as not to catch fire, all looking red in

the reflection of the flames, sweating and dishevelled in this witch's

kitchen. The piles of coal increased, and the burning heat cracked the

ceiling of the vast hall.

"Enough, now!" cried Maheude; "the store-room is afire."

"So much the better," replied Mother Brulé. "That will do the work. Ah,

by God! haven't I said that I would pay them out for the death of my

man!"

At this moment Jeanlin's shrill voice was heard:

"Look out! I'll put it out, I will! I'll let it all off!"

He had come in among the first, and had kicked his legs about among the

crowd, delighted at the fray and seeking out what mischief he could do;

the idea had occurred to him to turn on the discharge taps and let off

the steam.

The jets came out with the violence of volleys; the five boilers were

emptied with the sound of a tempest, whistling in such a roar of

thunder that one's ears seemed to bleed. Everything had disappeared

in the midst of the vapour, the hot coal grew pale, and the women

were nothing more than shadows with broken gestures. The child alone

appeared mounted on the gallery, behind the whirlwinds of white steam,

filled with delight and grinning broadly in the joy of unchaining this

hurricane.

This lasted nearly a quarter of an hour. A few buckets of water had

been thrown over the heaps to complete their extinction; all danger of

a fire had gone by, but the anger of the crowd had not subsided; on

the contrary, it had been whipped up. Men went down with hammers, even

the women armed themselves with iron bars; and they talked of smashing

boilers, of breaking engines, and of demolishing the mine.

Étienne, forewarned, hastened to come up with Maheu. He himself was

becoming intoxicated and carried away by this hot fever of revenge. He

struggled, however, and entreated them to be calm, now that, with cut

cables, extinguished fires, and empty boilers, work was impossible.

He was not always listened to; and was again about to be carried away

by the crowd, when hoots arose outside at a little low door where the

ladder passage emerged.

"Down with the traitors!--Oh! the dirty chops of the cowards!--Down

with them! down with them!"

The men were beginning to come up from below. The first arrivals,

blinded by the daylight, stood there with quivering eyelids. Then they

moved away, trying to gain the road and flee.

"Down with the cowards! down with the traitors!"

The whole band of strikers had run up. In less than three minutes there

was not a man left in the buildings; the five hundred Montsou men were

ranged in two rows, and the Vandame men, who had had the treachery to

go down, were forced to pass between this double hedge. And as every

fresh miner appeared at the door of the passage, covered with the

black mud of work and with garments in rags, the hooting redoubled,

and ferocious jokes arose. Oh! look at that one!--three inches of legs

and then his arse! and this one with his nose eaten by those Volcan

girls! and this other, with eyes pissing out enough wax to furnish

ten cathedrals! and this other, the tall fellow without a rump and as

long as Lent! An enormous putter-woman, who rolled out with her breast

to her belly and her belly to her backside, raised a furious laugh.

They wanted to handle them, the joking increased and was turning to

cruelty, blows would soon have rained; while the row of poor devils

came out shivering and silent beneath the abuse, with sidelong looks in

expectation of blows, glad when they could at last rush away out of the

mine.

"Hallo! how many are there in there?" asked Étienne.

He was astonished to see them still coming out, and irritated at the

idea that it was not a mere handful of workers, urged by hunger,

terrorized by the captains. They had lied to him, then, in the forest;

nearly all Jean-Bart had gone down. But a cry escaped from him and he

rushed forward when he saw Chaval standing on the threshold.

"By God! is this the rendezvous you called us to?"

Imprecations broke out and there was a movement of the crowd towards

the traitor. What! he had sworn with them the day before, and now they

found him down below with the others! Was he, then, making fools of

people?

"Off with him! To the shaft! to the shaft!"

Chaval, white with fear, stammered and tried to explain. But Étienne

cut him short, carried out of himself and sharing the fury of the band.

"You wanted to be in it, and you shall be in it. Come on! take your

damned snout along!"

Another clamour covered his voice. Catherine, in her turn, had just

appeared, dazzled by the bright sunlight, and frightened at falling

into the midst of these savages. She was panting, with legs aching from

the hundred and two ladders, and with bleeding palms, when Maheude,

seeing her, rushed forward with her hand up.

"Ah! slut! you, too! When your mother is dying of hunger you betray her

for your bully!"

Maheu held back her arm, and stopped the blow. But he shook his

daughter; he was enraged, like his wife; he threw her conduct in her

face, and both lost their heads, shouting louder than their mates.

The sight of Catherine had completed Étienne's exasperation. He

repeated:

"On we go to the other pits, and you come with us, you dirty devil!"

Chaval had scarcely time to get his sabots from the shed and to throw

his woollen jacket over his frozen shoulders. They all dragged him on,

forcing him to run in the midst of them. Catherine, bewildered, also

put on her sabots, buttoning at her neck her man's old jacket, with

which she kept off the cold; and she ran behind her lover, she would

not leave him, for surely they were going to murder him.

Then in two minutes Jean-Bart was emptied. Jeanlin had found a horn

and was blowing it, producing hoarse sounds, as though he were

gathering oxen together. The women--Mother Brulé, the Levaque, and

Mouquette--raised their skirts to run, while Levaque, with an axe in

his hand, manipulated it like a drum-major's stick. Other men continued

to arrive; they were nearly a thousand, without order, again flowing on

to the road like a torrent let loose. The gates were too narrow, and

the palings were broken down.

"To the pits!--Down with the traitors!--No more work!"

And Jean-Bart fell suddenly into a great silence. Not a man was left,

not a breath was heard. Deneulin came out of the captains' room, and

quite alone, with a gesture forbidding any one to follow him, he went

over the pit. He was pale and very calm.

At first he stopped before the shaft, lifting his eyes to look at the

cut cables; the steel ends hung useless, the bite of the file had

left a living scar, a fresh wound which gleamed in the black grease.

Afterwards he went up to the engine, and looked at the crank, which

was motionless, like the joint of a colossal limb struck by paralysis.

He touched the metal, which had already cooled, and the cold made him

shudder as though he had touched a corpse. Then he went down to the

boiler-room, walked slowly before the extinguished stoves, yawning

and inundated, and struck his foot against the boilers, which sounded

hollow. Well! it was quite finished; his ruin was complete. Even if he

mended the cables and lit the fires, where would he find men? Another

fortnight's strike and he would be bankrupt. And in this certainty of

disaster he no longer felt any hatred of the Montsou brigands; he felt

that all had a complicity in it, that it was a general agelong fault.

They were brutes, no doubt, but brutes who could not read, and who were

dying of hunger.