Part 25

--Damn it! you're making yourself comfortable, said this woman, a thin widow of thirty, when she caught sight of Catherine in her shift. Me, I can't, the brats from the level are annoying me with their filth.

--Ah well! replied the young girl, I don't care about the men! I'm suffering too much.

She set off again, pushing an empty tub. The worst was that, in this main level, another cause joined with the nearness of the Tartaret to make the heat unbearable. They were passing old workings, an abandoned gallery of Gaston-Marie, very deep, where a firedamp explosion, ten years earlier, had set the seam on fire, which was still burning, behind the 'corroi', the clay wall built there and continually repaired, in order to limit the disaster. Deprived of air, the fire should have gone out; but no doubt unknown currents fed it, it had been burning for ten years, it heated the clay of the corroi like the bricks of an oven are heated, to the point that one felt the baking from it as one passed. And it was along this walling, for a length of more than a hundred metres, that the haulage was done, in a temperature of sixty degrees.

After two trips, Catherine was suffocating again. Fortunately, the roadway was wide and convenient, in this Désirée seam, one of the thickest in the region. The bed was one metre ninety, the workers could stand upright. But they would have preferred the work with twisted neck, and a little coolness.

--Ah! here, are you sleeping? Chaval violently began again, as soon as he stopped hearing Catherine move. Who the hell gave me a jade of this sort? Will you fill your tub and haul!

She was at the bottom of the face, leaning on her shovel; and a sickness was overcoming her, while she looked at them all with a stupid air, without obeying. She saw them badly, in the reddish glow of the lamps, entirely naked like beasts, so black, so caked with sweat and coal, that their nakedness did not embarrass her. It was a dark task, monkey backs that stretched, an infernal vision of singed limbs, exhausting themselves amid dull blows and groans. But they distinguished her better no doubt, for the picks stopped tapping, and they teased her for having taken off her breeches.

--Hey! you'll catch cold, watch out!

--Why, she's got real legs! Say, Chaval, there's enough for two!

--Oh! we'd have to see. Lift that. Higher! higher!

Then Chaval, without getting angry at these laughs, fell upon her again.

--Is that done, for God's sake!... Ah! for filth, she's good. She'd stay there, hearing it till tomorrow.

Painfully, Catherine had decided to fill her tub; then, she pushed it. The gallery was too wide for her to brace herself against both sides of the timbering, her bare feet twisted in the rails, where they sought a foothold, while she moved slowly, her arms stiffened forward, her waist broken. And, as soon as she went along the corroi, the torment of the fire began again, the sweat fell at once from all her body, in enormous drops, like a storm rain. Barely at a third of the relay, she was streaming, blinded, soiled herself also with a black mud. Her narrow shift, as if soaked in ink, stuck to her skin, rode up to her loins with the movement of her thighs; and she was so painfully bridled by it, that she had to abandon the work again.

What was the matter with her, that day? Never had she felt thus cotton in her bones. It must be bad air. The ventilation was not happening, at the bottom of this distant roadway. One breathed all sorts of vapours that came out of the coal with a little bubbling noise of a spring, so abundant sometimes, that the lamps refused to burn; not to speak of the firedamp, of which one no longer took care, so much did the seam blow it in the workers' faces, from one fortnight to the other. She knew it well, this bad air, this dead air as the miners say, below heavy suffocating gases, above light gases that ignite and blast all the stalls of a pit, hundreds of men, in a single clap of thunder. Since her childhood, she had swallowed so much of it, that she was astonished to bear it so badly, her ears ringing, her throat on fire.

Unable to go on, she felt a need to take off her shift. It was turning to torture, this linen whose slightest folds cut her, burned her. She resisted, wanted to haul again, was forced to stand up. Then, quickly, telling herself she would cover up at the relay, she took off everything, the cord, the shift, so feverish, that she would have torn the skin, could she have. And, now naked, pitiable, reduced to the trot of the female begging her life through the mud of the roads, she laboured, her rump smeared with soot, with dirt up to the belly, like a cab-horse. On all fours, she pushed.

But a despair came to her, she was not relieved, to be naked. What to take off still? The buzzing in her ears deafened her, it seemed to her she felt a vice grip her temples. She fell on her knees. The lamp, wedged in the coal of the tub, seemed to her to go out. Alone, the intention of turning up the wick survived, amid her confused ideas. Twice she wanted to examine it, and the two times, as she set it before her, on the ground, she saw it pale, as if it too lacked breath. Suddenly, the lamp went out. Then, all rolled into the depths of darkness, a millstone turned in her head, her heart faltered, stopped beating, numbed in turn by the immense fatigue that was putting her limbs to sleep. She had fallen backward, she was agonizing in the asphyxiating air, close to the ground.

--I believe, for God's sake! that she's loafing again, Chaval's voice growled.

He listened from the top of the face, heard not the noise of wheels.

--Hey! Catherine, damned snake!

The voice was lost far off, in the black gallery, and not a breath answered.

--Want me to come make you stir, me!

Nothing moved, always the same deathly silence. Furious, he came down, he ran with his lamp, so violently that he nearly stumbled on the body of the hauler, who blocked the roadway. Agape, he looked at her. What was wrong with her? It wasn't a sham at least, a story to have a nap? But the lamp, which he had lowered to light her face, threatened to go out. He raised it, lowered it again, ended by understanding: it must be a stroke of bad air. His violence had fallen, the devotion of the miner awoke, face to face with the comrade in peril. Already he was crying for someone to bring him her shift; and he had seized in both arms the naked and fainting girl, he was lifting her as high as possible. When they had thrown their clothes on his shoulders, he set off at a run, supporting his burden with one hand, carrying the two lamps with the other. The deep galleries unrolled, he galloped, took to the right, took to the left, went to seek life in the icy air of the plain, which the ventilator blew. At last, a noise of a spring stopped him, the trickling of an infiltration flowing from the rock. He found himself at a crossways of a large haulage gallery, which formerly served Gaston-Marie. The ventilation there blew in a storm wind, the coolness there was so great, that he was shaken by a shiver, when he had seated on the ground, against the timbering, his mistress still unconscious, eyes closed.

--Catherine, come on, for God's sake! no joking... Hold up a bit while I wet this in the water.

He was dismayed to see her so limp. Yet, he could wet his shirt in the spring, and he washed her face with it. She was like a dead woman, already buried at the bottom of the earth, with her slender body of a late-grown girl, where the forms of puberty still hesitated. Then, a shudder ran over her child's throat, over her belly and thighs of a little wretch, deflowered before her age. She opened her eyes, she stammered:

--I'm cold.

--Ah! I like that better, by God! cried Chaval relieved.

He dressed her again, easily slipped on the shift, swore at the trouble he had to pass on the breeches, for she could not help much. She remained dazed, did not understand where she was, nor why she was naked. When she remembered, she was ashamed. How had she dared take off everything! And she questioned him: had anyone seen her thus, without even a handkerchief at the waist, to hide herself? He, who was laughing, invented stories, told her that he had just brought her there, in the middle of all the comrades making a lane. What an idea also to have listened to his advice and bared her behind! Then, he gave his word that the comrades must not even know if she was round or square, so stiffly had he galloped.

--Good Lord! but I'm freezing, said he, dressing in his turn.

Never had she seen him so kind. Usually, for one good word he said to her, she at once caught two stupid ones. It would have been so good to live in agreement! A tenderness penetrated her, in the languor of her fatigue. She smiled at him, she murmured:

--Kiss me.

He kissed her, he lay down beside her, waiting until she could walk.

--You see, she resumed, you were wrong to shout back there, for I couldn't go on, true! In the face still, you're less hot; but if you knew how one cooks, at the bottom of the roadway!

--Sure, he answered, we'd be better under the trees... You have a hard time in that stall, that, I suspect, poor girl.

She was so touched to hear him admit it, that she played the brave one.

--Oh! it's a bad disposition. Then, today, the air is poisoned... But you'll see, presently, if I'm a snake. When one must work, one works, isn't it? Me, I'd rather die of it than give up.

There was a silence. He, held her by the waist with one arm, pressing her against his chest, to keep her from taking ill. She, although she already felt the strength to return to the stall, forgot herself with delight.

--Only, she continued very low, I should like you to be kinder... Yes, one is so happy, when one loves a little.

And she began to cry softly.

--But I love you, he cried, since I took you with me.

She answered only with a shake of the head. Often, there were men who took women, to have them, caring nothing for their happiness. Her tears flowed hotter, it now despaired her, to think of the good life she would lead, had she fallen on another lad, whose arm she would always have felt passed thus at her waist. Another? and the vague image of that other rose in her heavy emotion. But it was finished, she had only the desire to live to the end with that one, if he would only not jostle her so hard.

--Then, she said, do try to be like that from time to time.

Sobs cut her words, and he kissed her again.

--Are you silly!... Look! I swear to be kind. One isn't meaner than another, you know!

She looked at him, she began to smile again through her tears. Perhaps he was right, one rarely met happy women. Then, although she distrusted his oath, she abandoned herself to the joy of seeing him amiable. My God! if it could have lasted! Both had recovered; and, as they clasped in a long embrace, footsteps made them stand up. Three comrades, who had seen them pass, arrived to find out.

They set off together. It was near ten o'clock, and they breakfasted in a cool corner, before returning to sweat at the bottom of the face. But they were finishing the double slice of their bread-and-butter, they were going to drink a gulp of coffee from their flask, when a rumour, coming from the distant stalls, worried them. What now? was it another accident? They stood up, they ran. Hewers, haulers, brats crossed them every instant; and none knew, all cried, it must be a great misfortune. Little by little, the whole mine was alarming, frantic shadows emerged from the galleries, the lanterns danced, fled into the darkness. Where was it? why was it not said?

Suddenly, a deputy appeared crying:

--They're cutting the cables! they're cutting the cables!

Then, panic blew. It was a furious gallop across the dark roadways. Heads were lost. Why were they cutting the cables? and who cut them, when the men were below? That seemed monstrous.

But the voice of another deputy burst out, then was lost.

--Those from Montsou are cutting the cables! Everybody out!

When he understood, Chaval stopped Catherine short. The idea that he would meet those from Montsou up there, if he went out, numbed his legs. So it had come, that band he thought in the gendarmes' hands! For an instant, he thought of turning back and going up by Gaston-Marie; but the winding was no longer done there. He swore, hesitating, hiding his fear, repeating that it was stupid to run like that. They weren't going to leave them below, perhaps!

The deputy's voice rang out again, drew near.

--Everybody out! To the ladders! to the ladders!

And Chaval was carried away with the comrades. He jostled Catherine, he accused her of not running fast enough. Did she want them to stay alone in the pit, to die of hunger? for the Montsou ruffians were capable of breaking the ladders, without waiting for the world to be out. This abominable supposition finished by deranging them all, there was no longer, along the galleries, but a raging rout, a race of madmen to see who would arrive first, to go up before the others. Men cried that the ladders were broken, that no one would get out. And, when they began to emerge in terrified groups into the landing stage, it was a veritable engulfment: they threw themselves toward the shaft, they crushed themselves at the narrow door of the ladder compartment; while an old horse-keeper, who had prudently just put the horses back in the stable, looked at them with an air of disdainful unconcern, accustomed to nights passed in the pit, certain that one would always get him out of there.

--For God's sake! will you go up ahead of me! said Chaval to Catherine. At least, I'll hold you, if you fall.

Dazed, suffocated by this three-kilometre run which had again drenched her in sweat, she abandoned herself, without understanding, to the eddies of the crowd. Then, he pulled her by the arm, to break it; and she uttered a plaint, her tears sprang: already he forgot his oath, never would she be happy.

--Get along then! he roared.

But he frightened her too much. If she went up ahead of him, all the time he would brutalize her. So she resisted, while the distraught flood of comrades pushed them aside. The leakings of the shaft fell in big drops, and the landing floor, shaken by the trampling, trembled above the sump, the muddy well, ten metres deep. Exactly, it was at Jean-Bart, two years earlier, that a terrible accident, the breaking of a cable, had overturned the cage into the bottom of the sump, in which two men had drowned. And all thought of it, they would all stay there, if they piled on the planks.

--Damned thick-head! cried Chaval, die then, I'll be rid of you!

He went up, and she followed him.

From bottom to day, there were a hundred and two ladders, of about seven metres, each set on a narrow landing which took the width of the compartment, and in which a square hole barely allowed the passage of the shoulders. It was like a flat chimney, seven hundred metres high, between the shaft wall and the partition of the winding compartment, a damp, black and endless tube, where the ladders superposed themselves, almost straight, by regular storeys. It took a solid man twenty-five minutes to climb this giant column. Besides, the compartment served only in cases of catastrophe.

Catherine, at first, went up briskly. Her bare feet were made to the cutting scaling of the roadways and did not suffer from the square rungs, covered with an iron rod, which prevented wear. Her hands, hardened by the hauling, gripped without fatigue the uprights, too thick for her. And even that occupied her, took her from her grief, this unforeseen ascent, this long serpent of men slipping, hoisting themselves, three per ladder, so well that the head would emerge at day, when the tail would still drag on the sump. They were not there yet, the first must be barely at a third of the shaft. No one spoke anymore, only the feet rolled with a dull noise; while the lamps, like travelling stars, spaced themselves from bottom to top, in an ever-growing line.

Behind her, Catherine heard a brat count the ladders. That gave her the idea to count them too. They had already climbed fifteen, and were arriving at a landing. But, at the same instant, she bumped into Chaval's legs. He swore, crying at her to be careful. From near to near, the whole column stopped, immobilized itself. What then? what was happening? and each found his voice to question and terrify himself. The anguish increased from the bottom, the unknown from up there strangled them more, as they neared the day. Someone announced that they must go back down, that the ladders were broken. It was the preoccupation of all, the fear of finding themselves in the void. Another explanation descended from mouth to mouth, the accident of a hewer slipped from a rung. One did not know exactly, cries prevented hearing, were they going to sleep there? At last, without being better informed, the ascent resumed, with the same slow and painful movement, amid the rolling of feet and the dancing of lamps. It would be higher up, surely, the broken ladders.

At the thirty-second ladder, as they passed a third landing, Catherine felt her legs and arms stiffen. At first, she had felt light pricklings on the skin. Now, she lost the sensation of iron and wood, under the feet and in the hands. A vague pain, gradually biting, heated her muscles. And, in the dizziness that invaded her, she remembered the stories of grandfather Bonnemort, from the time there was no compartment and that girls of ten brought up the coal on their shoulders, along the ladders planted bare; so well that, when one of them slipped, or simply a piece of coal rolled from a basket, three or four children tumbled at once, head down. The cramps of her limbs became unbearable, never would she reach the end.

New stops let her breathe. But the terror which, each time, blew from above, finished by dizzying her. Above and below her, the breathings clogged, a vertigo detached itself from this endless ascent, whose nausea shook her with the others. She suffocated, drunk with darkness, exasperated by the crushing of the walls against her flesh. And she also shivered from the dampness, the body in sweat under the big drops that soaked her. They approached the level, the rain beat so hard, that it threatened to put out the lamps.

Twice, Chaval questioned Catherine, without obtaining an answer. What the hell was she doing down there, had she dropped her tongue? She could well tell him if she held up. They had been climbing for half an hour; but so heavily, that he was only at the fifty-ninth ladder. Forty-three more. Catherine ended by stammering that she held up all the same. He would have called her a snake, had she confessed her weariness. The iron of the rungs must be cutting her feet, it seemed to him they were sawing her there, to the bone. After each armful, she expected to see her hands let go the uprights, peeled and stiffened to the point of not being able to close the fingers; and she thought she fell backward, the shoulders torn, the thighs dislocated, in their continual effort. It was especially from the slight slope of the ladders that she suffered, from this almost straight planting, which forced her to hoist herself by the strength of the wrists, the belly stuck to the wood. The breathlessness of the breaths now covered the rolling of steps, an enormous rattle, decupled by the partition of the compartment, rose from the bottom, expired at the day. There was a moan, words ran, a brat had just opened his skull on the edge of a landing.

And Catherine climbed. They passed the level. The rain had ceased, a fog weighed down the cellar air, poisoned with an odour of old iron and damp wood. Mechanically, she obstinately repeated low to count: eighty-one, eighty-two, eighty-three; nineteen more. These figures, repeated, sustained her alone by their rhythmic balancing. She no longer had consciousness of her movements. When she raised her eyes, the lamps whirled in a spiral. Her blood flowed, she felt herself dying, the least breath would precipitate her. The worst was that those below now pushed, and the whole column rushed, yielding to the growing anger of its fatigue, to the furious need to see the sun again. Some comrades, the first, had come out; so there were no broken ladders; but the idea that one could still break some, to keep the last from coming out, when others already breathed up there, finished by making them mad. And, as a new stop occurred, oaths burst, all continued to climb, jostling, passing over bodies, to arrive anyway.

Then, Catherine fell. She had cried Chaval's name, in a desperate call. He did not hear, he was fighting, he drove his heel into a comrade's ribs, to be before him. She was rolled, trampled. In her faint, she dreamed: it seemed to her she was one of the little haulers of yore, and that a piece of coal, slipped from a basket, above her, had just thrown her to the bottom of the shaft, like a sparrow hit by a pebble. Only five ladders remained to climb, they had taken nearly an hour. Never did she know how she arrived at the day, carried by shoulders, held by the strangling of the compartment. Suddenly, she found herself in a dazzlement of sun, amid a hooting, yelling crowd.

III

Since the morning, before day, a shudder had agitated the corons, that shudder which swelled at this hour along the paths, in the whole countryside. But the agreed departure could not take place, a news was spreading, dragoons and gendarmes were beating the plain. They told they had arrived from Douai during the night, they accused Rasseneur of having sold the comrades, by warning M. Hennebeau; even a hauler swore she had seen the servant pass, who carried the dispatch to the telegraph. The miners clenched their fists, watched for the soldiers, behind their blinds, in the pale light of dawn.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”