Part 24

There was shoving, and La Maheude found herself next to Maheu, and the two of them, out of their right minds, swept up in the slow exasperation that had been building in them for months, approved of Levaque, who was going further and demanding the heads of the engineers. Pierron had disappeared. Bonnemort and Mouque were both talking at once, saying vague and violent things that could not be made out. As a joke, Zacharie called for the demolition of the churches, while Mouquet, his stick in hand, beat the ground with it, simply to add to the noise. The women were working themselves into a rage: La Levaque, fists on hips, was scrapping with Philomène, whom she accused of having laughed; La Mouquette spoke of kicking the gendarmes apart somewhere; La Brûlé, who had just slapped Lydie for finding her without basket or lettuce, kept on dealing slaps into the empty air, for all the bosses she would have liked to get hold of. For a moment Jeanlin had been left speechless, Bébert having learned from a young miner that Madame Rasseneur had seen them steal Poland; but when he had decided he would go back and furtively let the beast loose at the door of L'Avantage, he yelled louder, he opened his new knife, brandishing the blade, glorying in making it shine.

--Comrades! comrades! Étienne kept repeating, exhausted, hoarse from trying to obtain a minute of silence, to come to a final understanding.

At last they listened to him.

--Comrades! tomorrow morning, at Jean-Bart, is it agreed?

--Yes, yes, at Jean-Bart! death to the traitors!

The storm of those three thousand voices filled the sky and died away in the pure light of the moon.

Fifth Part

I

At four o'clock the moon had set, and it was a very black night. Everything was still asleep at the Deneulins', the old brick house remained mute and dark, doors and windows shut, at the end of the large untended garden that separated it from the Jean-Bart pit. On the other façade passed the deserted road to Vandame, a large village hidden behind the forest, about three kilometres away.

Deneulin, tired from having spent part of the previous day below, was snoring, nose against the wall, when he dreamed someone was calling him. He ended by waking, really heard a voice, ran to open the window. It was one of his foremen, standing in the garden.

--What is it? he asked.

--Sir, it's a revolt, half the men refuse to work and are preventing the others from going down.

He understood poorly, his head heavy and buzzing with sleep, seized by the great cold as by an icy shower.

--Force them to go down, damn it! he stammered.

--It's been going on for an hour, the foreman went on. So we had the idea of coming to fetch you. You're the only one who might perhaps make them see reason.

--Very well, I'm going.

He dressed quickly, his mind clear now, very uneasy. The house might have been looted, neither the cook nor the manservant had stirred. But on the other side of the landing, alarmed voices were whispering; and when he went out, he saw the door of his daughters open, and both appeared, dressed in white dressing-gowns thrown on in haste.

--Father, what is it?

The elder, Lucie, was already twenty-two, tall, dark, with a superb air; while Jeanne, the younger, scarcely nineteen, was small, with golden hair, of a caressing grace.

--Nothing serious, he answered to reassure them. It seems some noisy fellows are making a racket down there. I'm going to see.

But they cried out against it, they would not let him leave without taking something hot. Otherwise he would come back ill, his stomach ruined, as always. He struggled, gave his word of honour he was in too much of a hurry.

--Listen, Jeanne finally said, hanging on his neck, you're going to drink a little glass of rum and eat two biscuits; or I stay like this, and you're forced to take me with you.

He had to give in, swearing the biscuits would choke him. Already they were going down ahead of him, each with her candlestick. Below, in the dining-room, they hurried to serve him, one pouring the rum, the other running to the pantry for a packet of biscuits. Having lost their mother very young, they had brought themselves up, rather badly, spoiled by their father, the elder haunted by the dream of singing on the stage, the younger mad about painting, with a boldness of taste that made her unusual. But when the establishment had had to be cut down, following serious business difficulties, there had suddenly emerged, in these wildly fanciful girls, very sensible and very shrewd housekeepers, whose eye detected centime errors in the accounts. Today, with their boyish ways as artists, they kept the purse, pared down the pennies, scolded the suppliers, forever mended their clothes, and finally managed to make the growing straitness of the house decent.

--Eat, papa, Lucie kept repeating.

Then, noticing the preoccupation he was sinking back into, silent, gloomy, she was seized again with fear.

--It must be serious, for you to make that face?... I say, we're staying with you, they can do without us at that lunch.

She spoke of a party planned for the morning. Madame Hennebeau was to go, in her carriage, first to fetch Cécile at the Grégoires'; then she would come for them, and they would all go to Marchiennes, to lunch at the Forges, where the director's wife had invited them. It was a chance to visit the workshops, the blast-furnaces and the coke-ovens.

--Of course, we're staying, Jeanne declared in her turn.

But he grew angry.

--What an idea! I tell you it's nothing... Do me the favour of getting back into your beds, and dress for nine o'clock, as agreed.

He kissed them, hurried away. The sound of his boots was heard fading over the frozen ground of the garden.

Jeanne carefully pushed in the stopper of the rum, while Lucie locked up the biscuits. The room had the cold cleanliness of rooms where the table is poorly served. And both took advantage of this early descent to see if anything had been left untidied the evening before. A towel was lying about, the manservant would be scolded. At last they went back up.

While he cut across by the narrow paths of his kitchen-garden, Deneulin thought of his compromised fortune, of that Montsou dividend, that million he had realized dreaming of decupling it, and which today ran such great risks. It was an unbroken series of bad luck, enormous unforeseen repairs, ruinous conditions of working, then the disaster of this industrial crisis, just as the profits were beginning. If the strike broke out at his place, he was done for. He pushed open a small door: the pit buildings were guessed at, in the black night, by a deepening of shadow, starred with a few lanterns.

Jean-Bart did not have the importance of the Voreux, but the renewed installation made it a pretty pit, in the engineers' phrase. They had not been content to widen the shaft by a metre fifty and sink it to seven hundred and eight metres deep, they had re-equipped it anew, new engine, new cages, a whole new plant, established according to the latest refinements of science; and even a search for elegance was found as far as the buildings, a screening-shed with a cut-out valance, a headframe adorned with a clock, a receiving-room and an engine-room, rounded like the apse of a renaissance chapel, which the chimney topped with a spiral of mosaic, made of black bricks and red bricks. The pump was placed on the other shaft of the concession, at the old Gaston-Marie pit, reserved solely for drainage. Jean-Bart, to right and left of the winding, had only two small shafts, that of a steam ventilator and that of the ladders.

In the morning, from three o'clock, Chaval had arrived first, leading the mates astray, convincing them they must imitate those of Montsou and ask for an increase of five centimes per tub. Soon the four hundred underground workers had overflowed from the cabin into the receiving-room, amid a tumult of gestures and cries. Those who wanted to work held their lamps, barefoot, the shovel or the pick under the arm; while the others, still in clogs, the coat on their shoulders because of the great cold, barred the shaft; and the foremen had grown hoarse trying to bring order, to beg them to be reasonable, not to prevent those from going down who were willing.

But Chaval flew into a rage when he caught sight of Catherine in breeches and jacket, her head tight in the blue hood. He had, on getting up, brutally told her to stay in bed. She, in despair at this stoppage of work, had followed him all the same, for he never gave her any money, she often had to pay for herself and for him; and what would become of her, if she earned nothing more? A fear obsessed her, the fear of a brothel in Marchiennes, where herscheuses without bread and without shelter ended.

--God damn! cried Chaval, what the hell are you doing here?

She stammered that she had no income and wanted to work.

--So you're against me, you bitch!... Get back home at once, or I'll see you back with a clog in the arse!

Timidly she drew back, but she did not leave, resolved to see how things would turn.

Deneulin was arriving by the screening stairway. Despite the weak light of the lanterns, with a quick glance he took in the scene, this crowd drowned in shadow, whose every face he knew, the hewers, the loaders, the putters, the herscheuses, down to the young miners. In the nave, new and still clean, the stopped work waited: the engine, under pressure, had light steam whistlings; the cages remained hung on the motionless cables; the tubs, abandoned on the way, encumbered the cast-iron flags. Scarcely eighty lamps had been taken, the others were burning in the lamp-room. But one word from him would doubtless suffice, and all the life of labour would begin again.

--Well! what is happening, my children? he asked at full voice. What is angering you? Explain it to me, we'll come to an understanding.

Usually he showed himself paternal to his men, while demanding much work. Authoritative, with a brusque manner, he first tried to win them by a heartiness that had the blare of a trumpet; and he often made himself loved, the workers above all respected in him the man of courage, ever in the seams with them, first in danger, whenever an accident terrified the pit. Twice, after firedamp blasts, he had been sent down, tied by a rope under the armpits, when the bravest drew back.

--Come now, he went on, you're not going to make me repent of having answered for you. You know I refused a post of gendarmes... Speak quietly, I'm listening.

All were silent now, embarrassed, drawing away from him; and it was Chaval who finally said:

--Here it is, Monsieur Deneulin, we can't go on working, we must have five centimes more per tub.

He seemed surprised.

--What! five centimes! On what grounds this demand? I, for my part, don't complain of your timbering, I don't want to impose a new tariff on you, like the Montsou Company.

--Maybe, but the mates at Montsou are in the right all the same. They're rejecting the tariff and demanding an increase of five centimes, because there's no way to work properly, with the present haggling... We want five centimes more, isn't that so, you others?

Voices approved, the noise broke out again, amid violent gestures. Little by little all drew near in a tight circle.

A flame lit Deneulin's eyes, while his grip, the grip of a man fond of strong government, tightened, for fear of yielding to the temptation to seize one of them by the scruff of the neck. He preferred to discuss, to talk reason.

--You want five centimes, and I grant the work is worth them. Only, I can't give them to you. If I gave them to you, I'd simply be done for... Understand that I must live first, so that you may live. And I'm at the end, the least increase in cost price would make me tumble... Two years ago, remember, at the last strike, I gave in, I still could. But that rise in wages was none the less ruinous, for here are two years I've been struggling... Today, I'd rather close the shop at once, than not know, next month, where to find money to pay you.

Chaval had a nasty laugh, facing this master who told his affairs so frankly to his men. The others lowered their noses, stubborn, incredulous, refusing to get into their skulls that a boss did not make millions off his workers.

Then Deneulin insisted. He explained his struggle against Montsou ever on the watch, ready to devour him, if one evening he had the clumsiness to break his back. It was a savage competition, which forced him to economize, all the more since the great depth of Jean-Bart increased his cost of extraction, an unfavourable condition barely compensated by the great thickness of the coal seams. Never would he have raised wages, after the last strike, without the necessity he had been in of imitating Montsou, for fear of seeing his men leave him. And he threatened them with the morrow, what a fine result for them, if they forced him to sell, to pass under the terrible yoke of the Company! He did not throne far off, in an unknown tabernacle; he was not one of those shareholders who pay managers to shear the miner, and whom the latter has never seen; he was a boss, he risked something other than his money, he risked his intelligence, his health, his life. The stoppage of work would simply be death, for he had no stock, and yet he had to ship the orders. On the other hand, the capital of his plant could not lie idle. How would he meet his engagements? who would pay the interest on the sums his friends had entrusted to him? It would be bankruptcy.

--And there it is, my good fellows! he said in conclusion. I'd like to convince you... One doesn't ask a man to cut his own throat, does one? and whether I give you your five centimes or let you strike, it's as if I cut my own throat.

He fell silent. Growls ran through them. Part of the miners seemed to hesitate. Several went back near the shaft.

--At least, said a foreman, let everyone be free... Who are those who want to work?

Catherine had stepped forward among the first. But Chaval, furious, pushed her back, crying:

--We're all agreed, there's only the good-for-nothings who betray their mates!

From then on, conciliation seemed impossible. Cries broke out again, shovings drove the men from the shaft, at risk of crushing them against the walls. For a moment the manager, in despair, tried to struggle alone, to reduce this crowd by force; but it was useless madness, he had to withdraw. And he remained some minutes, at the back of the receiver's office, breathless on a chair, so lost in his impotence that not an idea came to him. At last he calmed, he told an overseer to go fetch Chaval; then, when the latter had consented to the interview, he dismissed everyone with a gesture.

--Leave us.

Deneulin's idea was to see what this fellow had in his belly. From the first words, he felt him vain, devoured by jealous passion. Then he took him by flattery, affected to be astonished that a worker of his merit should thus compromise his future. To hear him, he had long had his eye on him for a rapid promotion; and he ended by flatly offering to make him a foreman, later. Chaval listened, silent, fists at first clenched, then little by little relaxed. A whole working was going on at the bottom of his skull: if he stuck to the strike, he would never be more than Étienne's lieutenant, while another ambition opened, that of passing among the bosses. A heat of pride rose to his face and intoxicated him. Besides, the band of strikers, which he had awaited since morning, would no longer come at this hour; some obstacle must have stopped them, gendarmes perhaps: it was high time to submit. But he still refused with his head, played the incorruptible man, with great indignant slaps on his heart. At last, without telling the boss of the rendezvous he had given those of Montsou, he promised to calm the mates and decide them to go down.

Deneulin stayed hidden, the foremen themselves kept apart. For an hour they heard Chaval harangue, argue, standing on a tub in the receiving-room. Part of the workers hooted him, a hundred and twenty went off, exasperated, persisting in the resolution he had made them take. It was already past seven, day was breaking, very clear, a bright day of hard frost. And suddenly the movement of the pit recommenced, the stopped work continued. It was first the engine whose rod plunged, unwinding and winding the cables on the bobbins. Then, amid the clamour of signals, the descent was made, the cages filled, engulfed themselves, came up again, the shaft swallowed its ration of young miners, herscheuses and hewers; while, on the cast-iron flags, the putters pushed the tubs, in a rolling of thunder.

--God damn! what are you doing there? cried Chaval to Catherine who was waiting her turn. Will you go down and not loaf!

At nine o'clock, when Madame Hennebeau arrived in her carriage, with Cécile, she found Lucie and Jeanne all ready, very elegant despite their twenty-times-remade clothes. But Deneulin was surprised, on seeing Négrel who accompanied the carriage on horseback. What, the men were free? Then Madame Hennebeau explained in her motherly air that she had been frightened, that the roads were full of ugly faces, they said, and she preferred to take a defender. Négrel laughed, reassured them: nothing alarming, threats of bawlers as always, but not one who would dare throw a stone through a window. Still joyful at his success, Deneulin told of the repressed revolt of Jean-Bart. Now he said he was quite easy. And, on the Vandame road, while these young ladies got into the carriage, all made merry over this superb day, without guessing far off, in the country, the long shiver that was swelling, the people on the march whose gallop they would have heard, had they laid their ear to the earth.

--Well! it's agreed, repeated Madame Hennebeau. This evening you come fetch these young ladies and dine with us... Madame Grégoire has likewise promised to come fetch Cécile.

--Count on me, answered Deneulin.

The carriage left in the direction of Vandame. Jeanne and Lucie had leaned out, to laugh again at their father, left standing at the edge of the path; while Négrel trotted gallantly, behind the fleeing wheels.

They crossed the forest, took the road from Vandame to Marchiennes. As they neared the Tartaret, Jeanne asked Madame Hennebeau if she knew the Côte-Verte; and the latter, despite her five years' stay already in the country, confessed she had never been that way. Then they made a detour. The Tartaret, at the edge of the wood, was an uncultivated moor, of volcanic sterility, beneath which, for centuries, a burning coal-mine had been on fire. It was lost in legend, the miners of the country told a story: the fire of heaven falling on this Sodom of the earth's bowels, where the herscheuses soiled themselves with abominations; so that they had not even had time to come up, and that today still they flamed at the bottom of this hell. The calcined rocks, dark red, were covered with an efflorescence of alum, like a leprosy. Sulphur grew, in a yellow flower, at the edge of the fissures. At night, the brave who dared risk an eye at these holes swore they saw flames there, the criminal souls grilling in the inner embers. Wandering gleams ran along the ground, hot vapours, poisoning the filth and the foul kitchen of the devil, smoked continually. And, like a miracle of eternal spring, amid this accursed moor of the Tartaret, the Côte-Verte rose with its always green lawns, its beeches whose leaves renewed themselves ceaselessly, its fields where up to three crops ripened. It was a natural greenhouse, heated by the fire of the deep seams. Never did snow stay there. The enormous bouquet of verdure, beside the bare trees of the forest, blossomed in this December day, without the frost having even browned its edges.

Soon the carriage sped across the plain. Négrel joked at the legend, explained how fire most often caught at the bottom of a mine, by the fermentation of coal dust; when one could not master it, it burned without end; and he cited a pit in Belgium which had been flooded, by diverting and throwing a river into the shaft. But he fell silent, bands of miners crossed the carriage every minute, for some instants. They passed silent, with sidelong looks, staring at this luxury which forced them to step aside. Their number ever increased, the horses had to walk at a footpace, on the little bridge of the Scarpe. What was happening, that this people should be thus on the roads? These young ladies grew frightened, Négrel began to scent some brawl, in the quivering countryside; and it was a relief when they at last arrived at Marchiennes. Under the sun which seemed to extinguish them, the batteries of the coke-ovens and the towers of the blast-furnaces let loose smokes, whose eternal soot rained in the air.

II

At Jean-Bart, Catherine had been rolling for an hour already, pushing the tubs to the relay; and she was soaked with such a flood of sweat that she stopped a moment to wipe her face.

From the bottom of the seam, where he was hewing at the vein with the mates of the bargain, Chaval was surprised, when he no longer heard the rumbling of the wheels. The lamps burned badly, the coal dust prevented seeing.

--What now? he cried.

When she had answered that she was surely melting, and felt her heart coming loose, he replied furiously:

--Stupid, do like us, take off your shirt!

It was at seven hundred and eight metres, to the north, in the first roadway of the Désirée vein, which three kilometres separated from the landing. When they spoke of this region of the pit, the miners of the country turned pale and lowered their voice, as if they had spoken of hell; and they most often contented themselves with nodding the head, as men who preferred not to talk of those depths of burning embers. As the galleries sank toward the north, they drew near the Tartaret, they penetrated into the inner fire, which, up there, calcined the rocks. The seams, at the point reached, had a mean temperature of forty-five degrees. One was there in the full accursed city, amid the flames which the passers-by of the plain saw through the fissures, spitting sulphur and abominable vapours.

Catherine, who had already taken off her jacket, hesitated, then also removed her breeches; and, arms bare, thighs bare, the shirt drawn tight at the hips by a cord, like a smock, she set to rolling again.

--All the same, that'll be better, she said aloud.

In her suffocation there was a vague fear. For five days that they had worked there, she had thought of the tales with which her childhood had been lulled, of those herscheuses of olden times who burned under the Tartaret, in punishment for things one dared not repeat. No doubt she was too big now to believe such nonsense; but yet, what would she have done, if suddenly she had seen come out of the wall a girl red as a stove, with eyes like firebrands? This idea redoubled her sweats.

At the relay, eighty metres from the seam, another herscheuse took the tub and rolled it eighty metres further, to the foot of the incline, so that the receiver might send it down with those coming from the upper roadways.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”