第 二十一 章 · 第21章

Another fortnight had passed by. It was the beginning of January and

cold mists benumbed the immense plain. The misery had grown still

greater, and the settlements were in agony from hour to hour beneath

the increasing famine. Four thousand francs sent by the International

from London had scarcely supplied bread for three days, and then

nothing had come. This great dead hope was beating down their courage.

On what were they to count now since even their brothers had abandoned

them? They felt themselves separated from the world and lost in the

midst of this deep winter.

On Tuesday no resources were left in the Deux-Cent-Quarante

settlement. Étienne and the delegates had multiplied their energies.

New subscriptions were opened in the neighbouring towns, and even in

Paris; collections were made and lectures organized. These efforts

came to nothing. Public opinion, which had at first been moved, grew

indifferent now that the strike dragged on for ever, and so quietly,

without any dramatic incidents. Small charities scarcely sufficed to

maintain the poorer families. The others lived by pawning their clothes

and selling up the household piece by piece. Everything went to the

brokers, the wool of the mattresses, the kitchen utensils, even the

furniture. For a moment they thought themselves saved, for the small

retail shopkeepers of Montsou, killed out by Maigrat, had offered

credit to try and get back their custom; and for a week Verdonck, the

grocer, and the two bakers, Carouble and Smelten, kept open shop, but

when their advances were exhausted all three stopped. The bailiffs

were rejoicing; there only resulted a piling up of debts which would

for a long time weigh upon the miners. There was no more credit to be

had anywhere and not an old saucepan to sell; they might lie down in a

corner to die like mangy dogs.

Étienne would have sold his flesh. He had given up his salary and had

gone to Marchiennes to pawn his trousers and cloth coat, happy to set

the Maheus' pot boiling once more. His boots alone remained, and he

retained these to keep a firm foothold, he said. His grief was that

the strike had come on too early, before the Provident Fund had had

time to swell. He regarded this as the only cause of the disaster, for

the workers would surely triumph over the masters on the day when they

had saved enough money to resist. And he recalled Souvarine's words

accusing the Company of pushing forward the strike to destroy the fund

at the beginning.

The sight of the settlement and of these poor people without bread or

fire overcame him. He preferred to go out and to weary himself with

distant walks. One evening, as he was coming back and passing near

Réquillart, he perceived an old woman who had fainted by the roadside.

No doubt she was dying of hunger; and having raised her he began to

shout to a girl whom he saw on the other side of the paling.

"Why! is it you?" he said, recognizing Mouquette. "Come and help me

then, we must give her something to drink."

Mouquette, moved to tears, quickly went into the shaky hovel which her

father had set up in the midst of the ruins. She came back at once with

gin and a loaf. The gin revived the old woman, who without speaking bit

greedily into the bread. She was the mother of a miner who lived at a

settlement on the Cougny side, and she had fallen there on returning

from Joiselle, where she had in vain attempted to borrow half a franc

from a sister. When she had eaten she went away dazed.

Étienne stood in the open field of Réquillart, where the crumbling

sheds were disappearing beneath the brambles.

"Well, won't you come in and drink a little glass?" asked Mouquette

merrily.

And as he hesitated:

"Then you're still afraid of me?"

He followed her, won by her laughter. This bread, which she had given

so willingly, moved him. She would not take him into her father's room,

but led him into her own room, where she at once poured out two little

glasses of gin. The room was very neat and he complimented her on it.

Besides, the family seemed to want for nothing; the father continued

his duties as a groom at the Voreux while she, saying that she could

not live with folded arms, had become a laundress, which brought her in

thirty sous a day. One may amuse oneself with men but one isn't lazy

for all that.

"I say," she murmured, all at once coming and putting her arms round

him prettily, "why don't you like me?"

He could not help laughing, she had done this in so charming a way.

"But I like you very much," he replied.

"No, no, not like I mean. You know that I am dying of longing. Come, it

would give me so much pleasure."

It was true, she had desired him for six months. He still looked at her

as she clung to him, pressing him with her two tremulous arms, her face

raised with such supplicating love that he was deeply moved. There was

nothing beautiful in her large round face, with its yellow complexion

eaten by the coal; but her eyes shone with flame, a charm rose from

her skin, a trembling of desire which made her rosy and young. In face

of this gift which was so humble and so ardent he no longer dared to

refuse.

"Oh! you are willing," she stammered, delighted. "Oh! you are willing!"

And she gave herself up with the fainting awkwardness of a virgin, as

if it was for the first time, and she had never before known a man.

Then when he left her, it was she who was overcome with gratitude; she

thanked him and kissed his hands.

Étienne remained rather ashamed of this good fortune. Nobody boasted

of having had Mouquette. As he went away he swore that it should not

occur again, but he preserved a friendly remembrance of her; she was a

capital girl.

When he got back to the settlement, he found serious news which made

him forget the adventure. The rumour was circulating that the Company

would, perhaps, agree to make a concession if the delegates made

a fresh attempt with the manager. At all events some captains had

spread this rumour. The truth was, that in this struggle the mine

was suffering even more than the miners. On both sides obstinacy was

piling up ruin: while labour was dying of hunger, capital was being

destroyed. Every day of rest carried away hundreds of thousands of

francs. Every machine which stops is a dead machine. Tools and material

are impaired, the money that is sunk melts away like water drunk by

the sand. Since the small stock of coal at the surface of the pits was

exhausted, customers talked of going to Belgium, so that in future they

would be threatened from that quarter. But what especially frightened

the Company, although the matter was carefully concealed, was the

increasing damage to the galleries and workings. The captains could

not cope with the repairs, the timber was falling everywhere, and

landslips were constantly taking place. Soon the disasters became so

serious that long months would be needed for repairs before hewing

could be resumed. Already stories were going about the country: at

Crévecoeur three hundred metres of road had subsided in a mass,

stopping up access to the Cinq-Paumes; at Madeleine the Maugrétout seam

was crumbling away and filling with water. The management refused to

admit this, but suddenly two accidents, one after the other, had forced

them to avow it. One morning, near Piolaine, the ground was found

cracked above the north gallery of Mirou which had fallen in the day

before; and on the following day the ground subsided within the Voreux,

shaking a corner of a suburb to such an extent that two houses nearly

disappeared.

Étienne and the delegates hesitated to risk any steps without knowing

the directors' intentions. Dansaert, whom they questioned, avoided

replying: certainly, the misunderstanding was deplored, and everything

would be done to bring about an agreement; but he could say nothing

definitely. At last, they decided that they would go to M. Hennebeau

in order to have reason on their side; for they did not wish to be

accused, later on, of having refused the Company an opportunity of

acknowledging that it had been in the wrong. Only they vowed to yield

nothing and to maintain, in spite of everything, their terms, which

were alone just.

The interview took place on Tuesday morning, when the settlement was

sinking into desperate wretchedness. It was less cordial than the

first interview. Maheu was still the speaker, and he explained that

their mates had sent them to ask if these gentlemen had anything new

to say. At first M. Hennebeau affected surprise: no order had reached

him, nothing could be changed so long as the miners persisted in their

detestable rebellion; and this official stiffness produced the worst

effects, so that if the delegates had gone out of their way to offer

conciliation, the way in which they were received would only have

served to make them more obstinate. Afterwards the manager tried to

seek a basis of mutual concession; thus, if the men would accept the

separate payment for timbering, the Company would raise that payment

by the two centimes which they were accused of profiting by. Besides,

he added that he would take the offer on himself, that nothing was

settled, but that he flattered himself he could obtain this concession

from Paris. But the delegates refused, and repeated their demands: the

retention of the old system, with a rise of five centimes a tram. Then

he acknowledged that he could treat with them at once, and urged them

to accept in the name of their wives and little ones dying of hunger.

And with eyes on the ground and stiff heads they said no, always no,

with fierce vigour. They separated curtly. M. Hennebeau banged the

doors. Étienne, Maheu, and the others went off stamping with their

great heels on the pavement in the mute rage of the vanquished pushed

to extremes.

Towards two o'clock the women of the settlement, on their side, made

an application to Maigrat. There was only this hope left, to bend this

man and to wrench from him another week's credit. The idea originated

with Maheude, who often counted too much on people's good-nature. She

persuaded the Brulé and the Levaque to accompany her; as to Pierronne,

she excused herself, saying that she could not leave Pierron, whose

illness still continued. Other women joined the band till they numbered

quite twenty. When the inhabitants of Montsou saw them arrive, gloomy

and wretched, occupying the whole width of the road, they shook their

heads anxiously. Doors were closed, and one lady hid her plate. It was

the first time they had been seen thus, and there could not be a worse

sign: usually everything was going to ruin when the women thus took to

the roads. At Maigrat's there was a violent scene. At first, he had

made them go in, jeering and pretending to believe that they had come

to pay their debts: that was nice of them to have agreed to come and

bring the money all at once. Then, as soon as Maheude began to speak he

pretended to be enraged. Were they making fun of people? More credit!

Then they wanted to turn him into the street? No, not a single potato,

not a single crumb of bread! And he told them to be off to the grocer

Verdonck, and to the bakers Carouble and Smelten, since they now dealt

with them. The women listened with timid humility, apologizing, and

watching his eyes to see if he would relent. He began to joke, offering

his shop to the Brulé if she would have him as a lover. They were all

so cowardly that they laughed at this; and the Levaque improved on it,

declaring that she was willing, she was. But he at once became abusive,

and pushed them towards the door. As they insisted, suppliantly, he

treated one brutally. The others on the pavement shouted that he had

sold himself to the Company, while Maheude, with her arms in the air,

in a burst of avenging indignation, cried out for his death, exclaiming

that such a man did not deserve to eat.

The return to the settlement was melancholy. When the women came back

with empty hands, the men looked at them and then lowered their heads.

There was nothing more to be done, the day would end without a spoonful

of soup; and the other days extended in an icy shadow, without a ray

of hope. They had made up their minds to it, and no one spoke of

surrender. This excess of misery made them still more obstinate, mute

as tracked beasts, resolved to die at the bottom of their hole rather

than come out. Who would dare to be first to speak of submission?

They had sworn with their mates to hold together, and hold together

they would, as they held together at the pit when one of them was

beneath a landslip. It was as it ought to be; it was a good school

for resignation down there. They might well tighten their belts for

a week, when they had been swallowing fire and water ever since they

were twelve years of age; and their devotion was thus augmented by the

pride of soldiers, of men proud of their profession, who in their daily

struggle with death had gained a pride in sacrifice.

With the Maheus it was a terrible evening. They were all silent, seated

before the dying fire in which the last cinders were smoking. After

having emptied the mattresses, handful by handful, they had decided

the day before to sell the clock for three francs and the room seemed

bare and dead now that the familiar tick-tack no longer filled it with

sound. The only object of luxury now, in the middle of the sideboard,

was the rose cardboard box, an old present from Maheu, which Maheude

treasured like a jewel. The two good chairs had gone; Father Bonnemort

and the children were squeezed together on an old mossy bench brought

in from the garden. And the livid twilight now coming on seemed to

increase the cold.

"What's to be done?" repeated Maheude, crouching down in the corner by

the oven.

Étienne stood up, looking at the portraits of the Emperor and Empress

stuck against the wall. He would have torn them down long since if

the family had not preserved them for ornament. So he murmured, with

clenched teeth:

"And to think that we can't get two sous out of these damned idiots,

who are watching us starve!"

"If I were to take the box?" said the woman, very pale, after some

hesitation.

Maheu, seated on the edge of the table, with his legs dangling and his

head on his chest, sat up.

"No! I won't have it!"

Maheude painfully rose and walked round the room. Good God! was it

possible that they were reduced to such misery? The cupboard without

a crumb, nothing more to sell, no notion where to get a loaf! And the

fire, which was nearly out! She became angry with Alzire, whom she had

sent in the morning to glean on the pit-bank, and who had come back

with empty hands, saying that the Company would not allow gleaning. Did

it matter a hang what the Company wanted? As if they were robbing any

one by picking up the bits of lost coal! The little girl, in despair,

told how a man had threatened to hit her; then she promised to go back

next day, even if she was beaten.

"And that imp, Jeanlin," cried the mother; "where is he now, I should

like to know? He ought to have brought the salad; we can browse on

that like beasts, at all events! You will see, he won't come back.

Yesterday, too, he slept out. I don't know what he's up to; the rascal

always looks as though his belly were full."

"Perhaps," said Étienne, "he picks up sous on the road."

She suddenly lifted both fists furiously.

"If I knew that! My children beg! I'd rather kill them and myself too."

Maheu had again sunk down on the edge of the table. Lénore and Henri,

astonished that they had nothing to eat, began to moan; while old

Bonnemort, in silence, philosophically rolled his tongue in his mouth

to deceive his hunger. No one spoke any more; all were becoming

benumbed beneath this aggravation of their evils; the grandfather,

coughing and spitting out the black phlegm, taken again by rheumatism

which was turning to dropsy; the father asthmatic, and with knees

swollen with water; the mother and the little ones scarred by scrofula

and hereditary anaemia. No doubt their work made this inevitable; they

only complained when the lack of food killed them off; and already they

were falling like flies in the settlement. But something must be found

for supper. My God! where was it to be found, what was to be done?

Then, in the twilight, which made the room more and more gloomy with

its dark melancholy, Étienne, who had been hesitating for a moment, at

last decided with aching heart.

"Wait for me," he said. "I'll go and see somewhere."

And he went out. The idea of Mouquette had occurred to him. She would

certainly have a loaf, and would give it willingly. It annoyed him to

be thus forced to return to Réquillart; this girl would kiss his hands

with her air of an amorous servant; but one did not leave one's friends

in trouble; he would still be kind with her if need be.

"I will go and look round, too," said Maheude, in her turn. "It's too

stupid."

She reopened the door after the young man and closed it violently,

leaving the others motionless and mute in the faint light of a

candle-end which Alzire had just lighted. Outside she stopped and

thought for a moment. Then she entered the Levaque's house.

"Tell me: I lent you a loaf the other day. Could you give it me back?"

But she stopped herself. What she saw was far from encouraging; the

house spoke of misery even more than her own.

The Levaque woman, with fixed eyes, was gazing into her burnt-out fire,

while Levaque, made drunk on his empty stomach by some nail-makers,

was sleeping on the table. With his back to the wall, Bouteloup was

mechanically rubbing his shoulders with the amazement of a good-natured

fellow who has eaten up his savings, and is astonished at having to

tighten his belt.

"A loaf! ah! my dear," replied the Levaque woman, "I wanted to borrow

another from you!"

Then, as her husband groaned with pain in his sleep, she pushed his

face against the table.

"Hold your row, bloody beast! So much the better if it burns your guts!

Instead of getting people to pay for your drinks, you ought to have

asked twenty sous from a friend."

She went on relieving herself by swearing, in the midst of this dirty

household, already abandoned so long that an unbearable smell was

exhaling from the floor. Everything might smash up, she didn't care a

hang! Her son, that rascal Bébert, had also disappeared since morning,

and she shouted that it would be a good riddance if he never came back.

Then she said that she would go to bed. At least she could get warm.

She hustled Bouteloup.

"Come along, up we go. The fire's out. No need to light the candle to

see the empty plates. Well, are you coming, Louis? I tell you that we

must go to bed. We can cuddle up together there, that's a comfort. And

let this damned drunkard die here of cold by himself!"

When she found herself outside again, Maheude struck resolutely across

the gardens towards Pierron's house. She heard laughter. As she knocked

there was sudden silence. It was a full minute before the door was

opened.

"What! is it you?" exclaimed Pierronne with affected surprise. "I

thought it was the doctor."

Without allowing her to speak, she went on, pointing to Pierron, who

was seated before a large coal fire:

"Ah! he makes no progress, he makes no progress at all. His face looks

all right; it's in his belly that it takes him. Then he must have

warmth. We burn all that we've got."

Pierron, in fact, looked very well; his complexion was good and his

flesh fat. It was in vain that he breathed hard in order to play the

sick man. Besides, as Maheude came in she perceived a strong smell

of rabbit; they had certainly put the dish out of the way. There

were crumbs strewed over the table, and in the very midst she saw a

forgotten bottle of wine.

"Mother has gone to Montsou to try and get a loaf," said Pierronne

again. "We are cooling our heels waiting for her."

But her voice choked; she had followed her neighbour's glance, and

her eyes also fell on the bottle. Immediately she began again, and

narrated the story. Yes, it was wine; the Piolaine people had brought

her that bottle for her man, who had been ordered by the doctor to take

claret. And her thankfulness poured forth in a stream. What good people

they were! The young lady especially; she was not proud, going into

workpeople's houses and distributing her charities herself.

"I see," said Maheude; "I know them."

Her heart ached at the idea that the good things always go to the least

poor. It was always so, and these Piolaine people had carried water to

the river. Why had she not seen them in the settlement? Perhaps, all

the same, she might have got something out of them.

"I came," she confessed at last, "to know if there was more going with

you than with us. Have you just a little vermicelli by way of loan?"

Pierronne expressed her grief noisily.

"Nothing at all, my dear. Not what you can call a grain of semolina. If

mother hasn't come back, it's because she hasn't succeeded. We must go

to bed supperless."

At this moment crying was heard from the cellar, and she grew angry and

struck her fist against the door. It was that gadabout Lydie, whom she

had shut up, she said, to punish her for not having returned until five

o'clock, after having been roaming about the whole day. One could no

longer keep her in order; she was constantly disappearing.

Maheude, however, remained standing; she could not make up her mind to

leave. This large fire filled her with a painful sensation of comfort;

the thought that they were eating there enlarged the void in her

stomach. Evidently they had sent away the old woman and shut up the

child, to blow themselves out with their rabbit. Ah! whatever people

might say, when a woman behaved ill, that brought luck to her house.

"Good night," she said, suddenly.

Outside night had come on, and the moon behind the clouds was lighting

up the earth with a dubious glow. Instead of traversing the gardens

again, Maheude went round, despairing, afraid to go home again.

But along the dead frontages all the doors smelled of famine and

sounded hollow. What was the good of knocking? There was wretchedness

everywhere. For weeks since they had had nothing to eat. Even the odour

of onion had gone, that strong odour which revealed the settlement from

afar across the country; now there was nothing but the smell of old

vaults, the dampness of holes in which nothing lives. Vague sounds were

dying out, stifled tears, lost oaths; and in the silence which slowly

grew heavier one could hear the sleep of hunger coming on, the collapse

of bodies thrown across beds in the nightmares of empty bellies.

As she passed before the church she saw a shadow slip rapidly by. A

gleam of hope made her hasten, for she had recognized the Montsou

priest, Abbé Joire, who said mass on Sundays at the settlement chapel.

No doubt he had just come out of the sacristy, where he had been called

to settle some affair. With rounded back he moved quickly on, a fat

meek man, anxious to live at peace with everybody. If he had come at

night it must have been in order not to compromise himself among the

miners. It was said, too, that he had just obtained promotion. He had

even been seen walking about with his successor, a lean man, with eyes

like live coals.

"Sir, sir!" stammered Maheude.

But he would not stop.

"Good night, good night, my good woman."

She found herself before her own door. Her legs would no longer carry

her, and she went in.

No one had stirred. Maheu still sat dejected on the edge of the table.

Old Bonnemort and the little ones were huddled together on the bench

for the sake of warmth. And they had not said a word, and the candle

had burnt so low that even light would soon fail them. At the sound of

the door the children turned their heads; but seeing that their mother

brought nothing back, they looked down on the ground again, repressing

the longing to cry, for fear of being scolded. Maheude fell back into

her place near the dying fire. They asked her no questions, and the

silence continued. All had understood, and they thought it useless to

weary themselves more by talking; they were now waiting, despairing and

without courage, in the last expectation that perhaps Étienne would

unearth help somewhere. The minutes went by, and at last they no longer

reckoned on this.

When Étienne reappeared, he held a cloth containing a dozen potatoes,

cooked but cold.

"That's all that I've found," he said.

With Mouquette also bread was wanting; it was her dinner which she had

forced him to take in this cloth, kissing him with all her heart.

"Thanks," he said to Maheude, who offered him his share; "I've eaten

over there."

It was not true, and he gloomily watched the children throw themselves

on the food. The father and mother also restrained themselves, in order

to leave more; but the old man greedily swallowed everything. They had

to take a potato away from him for Alzire.

Then Étienne said that he had heard news. The Company, irritated by the

obstinacy of the strikers, talked of giving back their certificates

to the compromised miners. Certainly, the Company was for war. And a

more serious rumour circulated: they boasted of having persuaded a

large number of men to go down again. On the next day the Victoire and

Feutry-Cantel would be complete; even at Madeleine and Mirou there

would be a third of the men. The Maheus were furious.

"By God!" shouted the father, "if there are traitors, we must settle

their account."

And standing up, yielding to the fury of his suffering:

"To-morrow evening, to the forest! Since they won't let us come to an

understanding at the Bon-Joyeux, we can be at home in the forest!"

This cry had aroused old Bonnemort, who had grown drowsy after his

gluttony. It was the old rallying-cry, the rendezvous where the miners

of old days used to plot their resistance to the king's soldiers.

"Yes, yes, to Vandame! I'm with you if you go there!"

Maheude made an energetic gesture.

"We will all go. That will finish these injustices and treacheries."

Étienne decided that the rendezvous should be announced to all the

settlements for the following evening. But the fire was dead, as with

the Levaques, and the candle suddenly went out. There was no more coal

and no more oil; they had to feel their way to bed in the intense cold

which contracted the skin. The little ones were crying.