Part 26

Towards half-past seven, as the sun was rising, another noise went round, reassuring the impatient. It was a false alarm, a mere military parade, such as the general had sometimes ordered since the strike, at the request of the prefect of Lille. The strikers detested this official, whom they accused of having deceived them with the promise of a conciliatory intervention, which was limited, every week, to marching troops through Montsou, to keep them in awe. So, when the dragoons and gendarmes quietly took the road back to Marchiennes, after contenting themselves with deafening the coronds with the trot of their horses on the hard earth, the miners mocked this innocent of a prefect, with his soldiers who turned tail when things began to heat up. Until nine o'clock, they made merry, with peaceful faces, in front of the houses, while they followed with their eyes, on the pavement, the good-natured backs of the last gendarmes. At the bottom of their great beds, the bourgeois of Montsou still slept, heads in the pillows. At the Manager's office, they had just seen Madame Hennebeau leave by carriage, leaving Monsieur Hennebeau at work no doubt, for the hotel, closed and mute, seemed dead. No pit was guarded by military; it was the fatal lack of foresight at the hour of danger, the natural stupidity of catastrophes, all that a government can commit in the way of faults, as soon as it is a question of having intelligence of the facts. And nine o'clock was striking, when the colliers at last took the road to Vandame, to go to the meeting decided on the evening before, in the forest.

Besides, Étienne understood at once that he would not have, over there at Jean-Bart, the three thousand comrades he had counted on. Many believed the demonstration postponed, and the worst was that two or three bands, already on the way, were going to compromise the cause, if he did not nevertheless put himself at their head. Nearly a hundred, who had set out before daybreak, had taken refuge under the beeches of the forest, awaiting the others. Souvarine, whom the young man went up to consult, shrugged his shoulders: ten resolute fellows did more work than a crowd; and he plunged again into a book open before him, he refused to have anything to do with it. That threatened to turn again to sentiment, when it would have been enough to burn Montsou, which was very simple. As Étienne was going out by the alley of the house, he caught sight of Rasseneur seated before the cast-iron stove, very pale, while his wife, grown tall in her eternal black dress, was rating him in sharp and polite words.

Maheu was of the opinion that one must keep one's word. Such a meeting was sacred. However, the night had calmed their fever, all of them; he, now, feared a misfortune; and he explained that their duty was to be there, to keep the comrades in the right. La Maheude approved with a sign. Étienne repeated with complacency that one must act revolutionarily, without attacking the life of persons. Before leaving, he refused his share of a loaf, which had been given him the evening before, with a bottle of gin; but he drank three small glasses one after another, simply to fight the cold; even he took away a gourd full of it. Alzire would mind the children. Old Bonnemort, his legs sick from having run too much the day before, had stayed in bed.

They did not go off together, out of prudence. For a long time, Jeanlin had disappeared. Maheu and La Maheude slipped away on their side, slanting towards Montsou, while Étienne directed himself towards the forest, where he wanted to rejoin the comrades. On the way, he overtook a band of women, among whom he recognised La Brûlé and La Levaque: they were eating chestnuts as they walked, which Mouquette had brought, they swallowed the skins so that it would stay better on their stomachs. But, in the forest, he found no one, the comrades were already at Jean-Bart. Then he took to his heels, he arrived before the pit, at the moment when Levaque and a hundred others were entering the yard. From everywhere, miners were emerging, the Maheus by the high road, the women across the fields, all scattered, without chiefs, without arms, naturally flowing there, like overflowing water that follows the slopes. Étienne caught sight of Jeanlin, climbed on a footbridge, installed as at a spectacle. He ran faster, he entered with the first. They were scarcely three hundred.

There was a hesitation, when Deneulin showed himself at the top of the staircase leading to the landing.

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

After seeing the calash disappear, from which his daughters were still laughing at him, he had come back to the pit, seized again with a vague uneasiness. Yet all there was in good order, the descent had taken place, the winding was working, and he was reassuring himself again, he was talking with the head porter, when they signalled to him the approach of the strikers. Quickly, he had posted himself at a window of the screening-shed; and, before this swelling flood that was invading the yard, he had the immediate consciousness of his powerlessness. How defend these buildings open on all sides? Scarcely could he have grouped some twenty of his workmen around him. He was lost.

--What do you want? he repeated, pale with repressed anger, making an effort to courageously accept his disaster.

There were pushings and growlings in the crowd. Étienne ended by detaching himself, saying:

--Sir, we do not come to do you harm. But the work must cease everywhere.

Deneulin treated him squarely as an imbecile.

--Do you think you are going to do me good, if you stop the work at my place? It is as if you fired a gun at my back, point-blank... Yes, my men are at the bottom, and they will not come up, or you must assassinate me first!

This roughness of speech raised a clamour. Maheu had to hold back Levaque, who was rushing forward, threatening, while Étienne still parleyed, seeking to convince Deneulin of the legitimacy of their revolutionary action. But the latter answered with the right to work. Besides, he refused to discuss such nonsense, he wanted to be master in his own house. His only remorse was not having there four gendarmes to sweep away this rabble.

--Exactly, it is my fault, I deserve what happens to me. With fellows of your sort, there is only force. It is like the government which imagines it can buy you by concessions. You will fling it down, that is all, when it shall have furnished you with arms.

Étienne, shivering, still contained himself. He lowered his voice.

--I beg you, sir, give the order to bring up your workmen. I do not answer for being master of my comrades. You can avoid a misfortune.

--No, leave me alone! Do I know you? You are not of my works, you have nothing to debate with me... There are only brigands who run the country thus to pillage houses.

Vociferations now covered his voice, the women especially insulted him. And he, continuing to face them, felt a relief, in this frankness which emptied his authoritarian heart. Since it was ruin anyway, he found useless platitudes cowardly. But their number was always increasing, nearly five hundred already were rushing towards the door, and he was going to be cut to pieces, when his head porter violently drew him back.

--For mercy's sake, Sir!... It is going to be a massacre. What is the use of getting men killed for nothing?

He was struggling, he protested, in a last cry, thrown to the crowd.

--Pack of bandits, you will see it, when we have become the strongest again!

They were carrying him off, a shoving had just thrown the first of the band against the staircase, whose rail was twisted. It was the women who pushed, yelping, exciting the men. The door gave way at once, a door without a lock, simply fastened with a latch. But the staircase was too narrow, the crush, squeezed, could not have entered for a long time, if the tail of the besiegers had not taken to passing by the other openings. Then, it overflowed from all sides, from the cabin, from the screening-shed, from the boiler building. In less than five minutes, the whole pit belonged to them, they were beating its three storeys, in the midst of a fury of gestures and cries, carried away in the rush of their victory over this master who resisted.

Maheu, frightened, had dashed forward among the first, saying to Étienne:

--He must not be killed!

The latter was already running; then, when he had understood that Deneulin had barricaded himself in the porters' room, he answered:

--Afterwards? would it be our fault? Such a madman!

However, he was full of uneasiness, too calm still to yield to this fit of anger. He suffered also in his pride as chief, seeing the band escape his authority, enraging itself outside the cold execution of the people's will, such as he had foreseen it. Vainly, he called for coolness, he cried that one must not give their enemies reason, by acts of useless destruction.

--To the boilers! howled La Brûlé. Let us put out the fires!

Levaque, who had found a file, was waving it like a poignard, dominating the tumult with a terrible cry:

--Cut the cables! cut the cables!

All soon repeated it, alone, Étienne and Maheu continued to protest, stunned, speaking in the tumult, without obtaining silence. At last, the first could say:

--But there are men at the bottom, comrades!

The uproar redoubled, voices broke from all sides.

--So much the worse! they should not have gone down!... It serves the traitors right!... Yes, yes, let them stay there!... Besides, they have the ladders!

Then, when this idea of the ladders had made them persist the more, Étienne understood that he must yield. In fear of a greater disaster, he precipitated himself towards the engine, wanting at least to bring up the cages, so that the cables, sawn above the shaft, could not crush them with their enormous weight, in falling upon them. The engine-man had disappeared, as well as the few day-workmen; and he seized the starting-bar, he manoeuvred, while Levaque and two others climbed the cast-iron frame which supported the pulleys. The cages were scarcely fixed on the bolts, when one heard the strident noise of the file biting the steel. A great silence fell, this noise seemed to fill the whole pit, all raised their heads, looked, listened, seized with emotion. In the front rank, Maheu felt a fierce joy take hold of him, as if the teeth of the file had delivered them from misfortune, in eating the cable of one of those misery-holes, where one would descend no more.

But La Brûlé had disappeared by the staircase of the cabin, still howling:

--The fires must be overturned! to the boilers! to the boilers!

Women were following her. La Maheude hastened to prevent them from breaking everything, just as her man had wanted to reason the comrades. She was the calmest, one could claim one's right, without doing damage in people's houses. When she entered the boiler building, the women were already driving out the two stokers, and La Brûlé, armed with a great shovel, crouched before one of the furnaces, was violently emptying it, throwing the incandescent coal on the bricked yard, where it continued to burn with a black smoke. There were ten furnaces for the five generators. Soon, the women wore themselves out at it, La Levaque working her shovel with both hands, Mouquette tucking up to the thighs so as not to catch fire, all bloody in the reflection of the fire, sweating and dishevelled from this sabbath cooking. The heaps of coal were mounting, the ardent heat cracked the ceiling of the vast hall.

--Enough now! cried La Maheude. The cookhouse is blazing.

--So much the better! answered La Brûlé. It will be work done... Ah! God's name! I said well I would make them pay for the death of my man!

At this moment, one heard Jeanlin's shrill voice.

--Look out! I am going to put out, me! I let go all!

Entered among the first, he had frisked across the crush, delighted with this brawl, seeking what harm he could do; and the idea had come to him to turn the discharge cocks, to let off the steam. The jets went off with the violence of gunshots, the five boilers emptied with a storm-breath, hissing in such a thundering roar, that the ears bled. All had disappeared in the midst of the vapour, the coal grew pale, the women were no more than shadows with broken gestures. Alone, the child appeared, mounted on the gallery, behind the whirlwinds of white mist, the face ravished, the mouth split by the joy of having unchained this hurricane.

This lasted nearly a quarter of an hour. They had thrown a few buckets of water on the heaps, to finish extinguishing them: all threat of fire was removed. But the anger of the crowd did not fall, whipped on the contrary. Men were coming down with hammers, the women themselves were arming with iron bars; and they spoke of bursting the generators, of breaking the machines, of demolishing the pit.

Étienne, warned, hastened to run up with Maheu. He himself was getting drunk, carried away in this warm fever of revenge. He struggled yet, he conjured them to be calm, now that the cut cables, the extinguished fires, the emptied boilers rendered work impossible. He was still not listened to, he was going to be overflowed again, when hoots rose outside, at a low small door, where the ladder-stoop opened.

--Down with the traitors!... Oh! the dirty faces of cowards!... Down! down!

It was the coming out of the bottom workmen that was beginning. The first, blinded by the broad daylight, stayed there, blinking. Then, they defiled, trying to gain the road and flee.

--Down with the cowards! down with the false brothers!

All the band of strikers had run up. In less than three minutes, there remained not a man in the buildings, the five hundred from Montsou ranged themselves in two files, to force to pass between this double hedge those of Vandame who had had the treachery to go down. And, at each new miner appearing on the door of the stoop, with ragged clothes and the black mud of work, the hoots redoubled, ferocious jokes welcomed him: oh! that one, three inches of legs, and the arse at once! and that one, the nose eaten by the whores of the Volcan! and that other, whose eyes pissed wax enough to furnish ten cathedrals! and that other, the big one without buttocks, long like a Lent! A tub-woman who rolled out, enormous, the breast in the belly and the belly in the behind, raised a furious laugh. They wanted to touch, the jests grew worse, turned to cruelty, blows of the fist were going to rain; while the defile of the poor devils continued, shivering, silent under the insults, awaiting the blows with a sidelong look, happy when they could at last gallop out of the pit.

--Ah there! how many are there, in there? asked Étienne.

He was astonished to see them always coming out, he was irritated at the idea that it was not a question of a few workmen, pressed by hunger, terrorised by the porters. Had they then lied to him, in the forest? almost all Jean-Bart had gone down. But a cry escaped him, he precipitated himself, catching sight of Chaval standing on the threshold.

--God's name! is it to this meeting that you make us come?

Imprecations burst out, there was a push to throw themselves on the traitor. What! he had sworn with them, the evening before, and they found him at the bottom, in company with the others? It was then to make fun of the world!

--Take him away! to the shaft! to the shaft!

Chaval, pale with fear, stammered, sought to explain himself. But Étienne cut his words, beside himself, seized with the fury of the band.

--You wanted to be in it, you shall be... Come! march, you bloody muzzle!

Another clamour covered his voice. Catherine, in her turn, had just appeared, dazzled in the clear sun, terrified to fall amid these savages. And, the legs broken from the hundred and two ladders, the palms bleeding, she was puffing, when La Maheude, on seeing her, sprang forward, the hand high.

--Ah! slut, you too!... When your mother is dying of hunger, you betray her for your pimp!

Maheu held back the arm, prevented the slap. But he was shaking his daughter, he was enraging like his wife to reproach her with her conduct, both losing their heads, crying louder than the comrades.

The sight of Catherine had finished exasperating Étienne. He repeated:

--On the way! to the other pits! and you come with us, dirty pig!

Chaval had scarcely the time to take his clogs again at the cabin, and to throw his woollen jacket on his frozen shoulders. All were dragging him, forcing him to gallop in their midst. Distraught, Catherine was also putting on her clogs, buttoning at her neck the old man's jacket with which she had covered herself since the cold; and she ran behind her lover, she did not want to leave him, for they were going to massacre him, surely.

Then, in two minutes, Jean-Bart emptied itself. Jeanlin, who had found a calling-horn, was blowing, uttering raucous sounds, as if he had gathered oxen. The women, La Brûlé, La Levaque, Mouquette were tucking up their skirts to run; while Levaque, a hatchet in the hand, manoeuvred it like a drum-major's cane. Other comrades were always arriving, they were near a thousand, without order, flowing again on the road in an overflowing torrent. The way out was too narrow, palisades were broken.

--To the pits! down with the traitors! no more work!

And Jean-Bart fell abruptly to a great silence. Not a man, not a breath. Deneulin came out of the porters' room, and alone, defending by a gesture that one follow him, he visited the pit. He was pale, very calm. First, he stopped before the shaft, raised his eyes, looked at the cut cables: the ends of steel hung useless, the bite of the file had left a live wound, a fresh sore that shone in the black of the greases. Next, he went up to the engine, contemplated the motionless connecting-rod, like the articulation of a colossal member struck with paralysis, touched the metal already cooled, whose cold gave him a shiver, as if he had touched a dead man. Then, he went down to the boilers, walked slowly before the extinguished furnaces, gaping and flooded, tapped his foot on the generators which sounded the void. Come! it was quite finished, his ruin was completing itself. Even if he mended the cables, if he relit the fires, where would he find men? Fifteen days more of strike, he was in bankruptcy. And, in this certainty of his disaster, he had no more hatred against the brigands of Montsou, he felt the complicity of all, a general fault, centuries-old. Brutes no doubt, but brutes who did not know how to read and who were dying of hunger.

IV

And the band, by the bare plain, all white with frost, under the pale winter sun, went off, overflowing the road, across the beetroot fields.

From the Fourche-aux-Boeufs, Étienne had taken the command of it. Without stopping, he cried orders, he organised the march. Jeanlin, at the head, was galloping sounding in his horn a barbarous music. Then, in the front ranks, the women advanced, some armed with sticks, La Maheude with wild eyes that seemed to seek afar the promised city of justice; La Brûlé, La Levaque, Mouquette, lengthening all their legs under their rags, like soldiers departed for war. In case of bad encounter, one would see well if the gendarmes would dare strike women. And the men followed, in a confusion of herd, in a tail that widened, bristling with iron bars, dominated by the single hatchet of Levaque, whose edge glittered in the sun. Étienne, in the centre, lost not sight of Chaval, whom he forced to march before him; while Maheu, behind, sombre of look, threw glances on Catherine, the only woman among these men, obstinate to trot near her lover, so that one did him no harm. Bare heads were dishevelling in the open air, one heard only the clapping of clogs, like a gallop of loosed cattle, carried away in the savage sounding of Jeanlin.

But, at once, a new cry rose.

--Bread! bread! bread!

It was noon, the hunger of the six weeks of strike was waking in the empty bellies, whipped by this course in the open field. The rare crusts of the morning, the few chestnuts of Mouquette, were already far; and the stomachs cried, and this suffering added itself to the rage against the traitors.

--To the pits! no more work! bread!

Étienne, who had refused to eat his share, at the coron, felt in the chest an unbearable sensation of tearing. He did not complain; but, by a mechanical gesture, he took his gourd from time to time, he swallowed a mouthful of gin, so shivering, that he believed he needed that to go to the end. His cheeks were heating, a flame lit his eyes. However, he kept his head, he wanted still to avoid useless damages.

As they arrived at the Joiselle road, a hewer from Vandame, who had joined the band out of vengeance against his master, threw the comrades towards the right, howling:

--To Gaston-Marie! must stop the pump! must let the waters demolish Jean-Bart!

The carried-away crowd was already turning, despite the protests of Étienne, who besought them to let the waters exhaust themselves. What use to destroy the galleries? that revolted his workman's heart, despite his resentment. Maheu, he too, found it unjust to take it against a machine. But the hewer always launched his cry of vengeance, and Étienne had to cry louder:

--To Mirou! there are traitors at the bottom!... To Mirou! to Mirou!

With a gesture, he had driven the band back on the left road, while Jeanlin, taking the head again, blew stronger. A great eddy was produced. Gaston-Marie, for this time, was saved.

And the four kilometres which separated them from Mirou were covered in a half-hour, almost at a running pace, across the endless plain. The canal, on this side, cut it with a long ribbon of ice. Only, the stripped trees of the banks, changed by the frost into giant candelabra, broke its flat uniformity, prolonged and lost in the sky of the horizon, like in a sea. An undulation of the grounds hid Montsou and Marchiennes, it was the naked immensity.

They were arriving at the pit, when they saw a porter plant himself on a footbridge of the screening-shed, to receive them. All knew well father Quandieu, the dean of the porters of Montsou, an old man all white of skin and of hairs, who was nearing his seventy years, a true miracle of fine health in the mines.

--What are you coming to do here, pack of loafers? he cried.

The band stopped. It was no longer a master, it was a comrade; and a respect held them before this old workman.

--There are men at the bottom, said Étienne. Make them come out.

--Yes, there are men, resumed father Quandieu, there are a good six dozen, the others were afraid of you, wicked beggars!... But I warn you that not one will come out, or that you will have to deal with me!

Exclamations ran, the men pushed, the women advanced. Quickly descended from the footbridge, the porter was barring the door, now.

Then, Maheu wanted to intervene.

--Old man, it is our right, how shall we arrive at the strike being general, if we do not force the comrades to be with us?

The old man remained a moment mute. Evidently, his ignorance in matter of coalition equalled that of the hewer. At last, he answered:

--It is your right, I do not say. But, me, I know only the orders... I am alone, here. The men are at the bottom until three o'clock, and they will stay there until three o'clock.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”