Part 32

Maheu was still pacing; nothing could be heard but that regular tramping, which made the flagstones tremble. There was the sound of a rust-eaten pulley, and old Bonnemort spat into the cold hearth. Then the cadence of the footsteps began again. Alzire, drowsy with fever, had begun to delirium in a low voice, laughing, believing it was warm and that she was playing in the sun.

--A fine kettle of fish! murmured Maheude, after touching her cheeks, now she's burning up... I'm not waiting for that swine any longer, the scoundrels must have forbidden him to come.

She was speaking of the doctor and the Company. Yet she gave a cry of joy when she saw the door open again. But her arms fell, she remained upright, her face dark.

--Good evening, said Étienne in a half-voice, after carefully closing the door behind him.

Often he arrived like this, in the black of night. The Maheus, from the second day on, had learned of his hiding place. But they kept the secret; no one in the settlement knew exactly what had become of the young man. This surrounded him with a legend. They went on believing in him; mysterious rumors circulated: he was going to reappear with an army, with chests full of gold; and it was still the religious expectation of a miracle, the realized ideal, the sudden entrance into the city of justice he had promised them. Some said they had seen him in a carriage, in the company of three gentlemen, on the road to Marchiennes; others affirmed he was still in England for two days more. In the long run, however, mistrust began; jokers accused him of hiding in a cellar, where Mouquette kept him warm; for this well-known liaison had done him harm. It was, amid his popularity, a slow falling away, the muffled surge of the convinced seized with despair, whose number, little by little, was bound to swell.

--What dog weather! he added. And you, nothing new, always from bad to worse?... I was told little Négrel had gone to Belgium to fetch Borains. Ah! good God, we're done for, if that's true!

A shiver had seized him, on entering this frozen and dark room, where his eyes had to grow accustomed to see the unfortunates, whom he guessed at by a deepening of the shadow. He felt that repugnance, that unease of the worker risen out of his class, refined by study, worked upon by ambition. What misery, and the smell, and the bodies in a heap, and the frightful pity that clutched at his throat! The sight of this agony upset him to such a degree that he sought for words, to counsel them to submit.

But Maheu had violently planted himself before him, crying:

--Borains! they wouldn't dare, the bastards!... Let them bring Borains down if they want us to smash the pits!

With an embarrassed air, Étienne explained that one wouldn't be able to stir, that the soldiers guarding the pits would protect the descent of the Belgian workers. And Maheu clenched his fists, irritated above all, as he said, at having those bayonets in his back. So the miners were no longer masters in their own house? they were treated like galley slaves, to force them to work, with loaded rifles? He loved his shaft, it gave him a heavy sorrow not to have gone down it for two months. Also he saw red, at the idea of this insult, of those foreigners they threatened to introduce there. Then the memory that his book had been returned to him broke his heart.

--I don't know why I'm getting angry, he murmured. Me, I'm no longer one of their crowd... When they've driven me from here, I can well die on the road.

--Leave it be! said Étienne. If you want, they'll take your book back tomorrow. They don't dismiss good workers.

He broke off, surprised to hear Alzire, who was laughing softly, in the delirium of her fever. He had as yet only made out the stiffened shadow of old Bonnemort, and this sick child's gaiety frightened him. It was too much, this time, if the little ones began to die of it. In a trembling voice, he made up his mind.

--Look here, this can't go on, we're done for... We must give in.

Maheude, motionless and silent until then, burst out suddenly, shouting in his face, using the familiar tu and swearing like a man:

--What are you saying? It's you saying that, good God!

He wanted to give reasons, but she would not let him speak.

--Don't repeat it, good God! or, woman as I am, I'll slap my hand in your face... So we'd have been dying for two months, I'd have sold my household, my little ones would have fallen sick from it, and nothing would have been accomplished, and the injustice would begin again!... Ah! you see, when I think of that, the blood chokes me. No! no! me, I'd burn everything, I'd kill everything now, rather than give in.

She pointed to Maheu in the darkness, with a great threatening gesture.

--Hear that, if my man goes back to the pit, it's me who'll wait for him on the road, to spit in his face and call him a coward!

Étienne did not see her, but he felt a heat, like the breath of a barking beast; and he had drawn back, seized, before this raging which was his own work. He found her so changed that he no longer recognized her, she who had once been so sensible, reproaching him for his violence, saying one should wish no one dead, and now refusing to hear reason, talking of killing the world. It was no longer he, it was she who discoursed politics, who wanted to sweep away the bourgeois at one stroke, who demanded the republic and the guillotine, to rid the earth of those rich thieves, fattened on the toil of the starving.

--Yes, with my ten fingers, I'd flay them... Enough of this, perhaps! our turn has come, you said so yourself... When I think that the father, the grandfather, the father of the grandfather, all those before, suffered what we suffer, and that our sons, the sons of our sons will suffer it still, that drives me mad, I'd take a knife... The other day, we didn't do enough. We should have laid Montsou flat, to the last brick. And, you didn't know? I have but one regret, it's not having let the old man strangle the Piolaine girl... They let hunger strangle my own little ones well enough!

Her words fell like axe-blows, into the night. The closed horizon had not willed to open; the impossible ideal turned to poison, in the depths of that skull cracked by sorrow.

--You misunderstood me, was at last able to say Étienne, who was retreating. One should arrive at an understanding with the Company: I know the pits are suffering greatly, no doubt she would consent to an arrangement.

--No, nothing at all! she howled.

Just then, Lénore and Henri, who were coming home, arrived with empty hands. A gentleman had indeed given them two sous; but, as the sister kept kicking the little brother, the two sous had fallen into the snow; and Jeanlin having set about looking for them with them, they had not been found again.

--Where is he, Jeanlin?

--Mama, he's slipped off, he said he had business.

Étienne listened, his heart breaking. Formerly, she threatened to kill them, if they ever held out their hands. Today, she sent them herself onto the roads, she spoke of them all going, the ten thousand miners of Montsou, taking the staff and scrip of old paupers, beating the frightened countryside.

Then the anguish grew still more, in the black room. The kids came home with hunger, they wanted to eat, why didn't one eat? and they grumbled, dragged themselves about, ended by crushing the feet of their dying sister, who gave a moan. Out of herself, the mother slapped them, at random in the darkness. Then, as they cried louder asking for bread, she melted into tears, fell seated on the floor, seized them in one embrace, them and the little invalid; and, for a long while, her weeping flowed, in a nervous relaxation that left her limp, annihilated, stammering the same phrase twenty times over, calling for death: "My God, why do you not take us? my God, take us out of pity, to have done!" The grandfather kept his immobility of an old tree twisted under rain and wind, while the father paced from hearth to sideboard, without turning his head.

But the door opened, and this time it was Doctor Vanderhaghen.

--The devil! said he, the candle won't spoil your sight... Hurry up, I'm in a hurry.

As usual, he grumbled, worn out with work. He fortunately had matches, the father had to light six, one by one, and hold them, so that he could examine the sick girl. Unwrapped from her coverlet, she shivered under this wavering light, with the thinness of a dying bird in the snow, so wasted one no longer saw but her hump. She smiled though, with a stray smile of the dying, eyes very wide, while her poor hands clutched at her hollow chest. And, as the mother, suffocating, asked if it was reasonable to take, before her, the only child who helped her in the house, so intelligent, so gentle, the doctor grew angry.

--There! she's going... She's dying of hunger, your damned girl. And she's not the only one, I've seen another, next door... You call me all, I can do nothing, it's meat you need to cure you.

Maheu, his fingers burnt, had let go the match; and the darkness fell again on the little corpse still warm. The doctor had set off running. Étienne heard no longer in the black room but Maheude's sobs, who repeated her call of death, that lugubrious and endless lament:

--My God, it's my turn, take me!... My God, take my man, take the others, out of pity, to have done!

III

That Sunday, from eight o'clock on, Souvarine remained alone in the Avantage room, at his accustomed place, his head against the wall. Not a miner knew where to find the two sous for a mug, never had the drinking-shops had fewer customers. Also Madame Rasseneur, motionless at the counter, kept an irritated silence; while Rasseneur, standing before the cast-iron fireplace, seemed to follow, with a reflective air, the reddish smoke of the coal.

Suddenly, in that heavy peace of rooms overheated, three sharp little taps, struck against a windowpane, turned Souvarine's head. He rose, he had recognized the signal by which Étienne had already several times called him, when he saw him from outside smoking his cigarette, seated at an empty table. But, before the engine-man had reached the door, Rasseneur had opened it; and, recognizing the man who was there, in the window's light, he was saying to him:

--Are you afraid I'll betray you?... You'll be better to talk here than on the road.

Étienne entered. Madame Rasseneur politely offered him a mug, which he refused with a gesture. The tavern-keeper added:

--I've long guessed where you're hiding. If I were a spy as your friends say, I'd have sent the gendarmes after you eight days ago.

--You needn't defend yourself, answered the young man, I know you've never eaten that bread... One can have different ideas and still think well of each other.

And silence reigned again. Souvarine had taken up his chair, back to the wall, eyes lost on the smoke of his cigarette; but his feverish fingers were agitated with unease, he passed them along his knees, seeking the warm fur of Poland, absent that evening; and it was an unconscious discomfort, a thing missing, without his quite knowing which.

Seated on the other side of the table, Étienne said at last:

--It's tomorrow work resumes at the Voreux. The Belgians have arrived with little Négrel.

--Yes, they were landed at nightfall, murmured Rasseneur, who remained standing. Provided we don't kill each other again!

Then, raising his voice:

--No, you see, I don't want to start quarreling with you again, only it'll end badly if you persist further... Look! your story is exactly that of your International. I met Pluchart the day before yesterday at Lille, where I had business. It's coming apart, his machine, it seems.

He gave details. The Association, after having conquered the workers of the whole world, in a surge of propaganda, at which the bourgeoisie still shuddered, was now devoured, destroyed a little each day, by the inward battle of vanities and ambitions. Since the anarchists triumphed there, driving out the evolutionists of the first hour, everything cracked, the primitive aim, the reform of wages, was drowning amid the pulling of the sects, the learned frames disorganized in hatred of discipline. And already one could foresee the final miscarriage of that levée en masse, which had threatened for an instant to sweep away in one breath the old rotten society.

--Pluchart is sick of it, pursued Rasseneur. Besides, he has no voice at all any more. Still, he talks all the same, he wants to go talk in Paris... And he repeated to me three times that our strike is done for.

Étienne, eyes to the ground, let him say all, without interrupting. The day before, he had talked with comrades, he felt passing over him breaths of rancor and suspicion, those first breaths of unpopularity, which announce defeat. And he remained gloomy, he would not avow his dejection, face to face with a man who had predicted to him that the crowd would hoot him in turn, the day it had to avenge a disappointment.

--No doubt the strike is done for, I know it as well as Pluchart, he resumed. But that was foreseen, that. We accepted this strike against our will, we didn't count on finishing with the Company... Only, one gets drunk, one begins to hope for things, and when it turns bad, one forgets one should have expected it, one laments and quarrels as before a catastrophe fallen from the sky.

--Then, asked Rasseneur, if you believe the game lost, why don't you make the comrades listen to reason?

The young man looked at him fixedly.

--Listen, enough of this... You have your ideas, I have mine. I came into your house, to show you I think well of you all the same. But I still think that, if we die of toil, our starved carcasses will serve the people's cause more than all your politics of a wise man... Ah! if one of those swine of soldiers could lodge a bullet in my heart, how gallant it would be to end thus!

His eyes had moistened, in that cry where burst the secret desire of the vanquished, the refuge where he would have wished to lose his torment forever.

--Well said! declared Madame Rasseneur, who, with a look, threw at her husband all the disdain of her radical opinions.

Souvarine, eyes drowned, groping with his nervous hands, seemed not to have heard. His blonde girlish face, with the thin nose, the little pointed teeth, grew wild in a mystic reverie, where passed bloody visions. And he had begun to dream aloud, he was answering a word of Rasseneur's on the International, caught in the middle of the conversation.

--They are all cowards, there was but one man to make of their machine the terrible instrument of destruction. But one would have to will it, no one wills, and that is why the revolution will miscarry once more.

He continued, in a voice of disgust, to lament the imbecility of men, while the two others remained troubled by these sleepwalker confidences, made to the shadows. In Russia, nothing advanced, he was in despair at the news he had received. His old comrades all turned to politicians, the famous nihilists at whom Europe trembled, sons of priests, petty bourgeois, shopkeepers, rose no higher than national liberation, seemed to believe in the world's deliverance when they should have killed the despot; and, as soon as he spoke to them of razing old humanity like a ripe harvest, as soon as he even pronounced the childish word republic, he felt misunderstood, disturbing, debased henceforth, enrolled among the failed princes of revolutionary cosmopolitanism. His patriot heart struggled yet, it was with a painful bitterness that he repeated his favorite word:

--Foolishness!... Never will they get out of it, with their foolishness!

Then, lowering his voice still more, in bitter phrases, he told his old dream of brotherhood. He had renounced his rank and his fortune, he had put himself with the workers, only in the hope of seeing at last founded that new society of labor in common. All the sous from his pockets had long passed to the urchins of the settlement, he had shown for the miners a brother's tenderness, smiling at their distrust, winning them by his quiet air of an exact worker and little talker. But, decidedly, the fusion was not happening, he remained a stranger to them, with his contempt for all ties, his will to keep himself brave, outside the vainglories and the enjoyments. And he was above all, since morning, exasperated by the reading of a minor fact running in the newspapers.

His voice changed, his eyes cleared, fixed on Étienne, and he addressed him directly.

--Do you understand that, you? those hatter workers of Marseille who won the big prize of a hundred thousand francs, and who, straightway, bought annuities, declaring they were going to live without doing anything!... Yes, it's your idea, all of you, the French workers, to dig up a treasure, to eat it alone afterward, in a corner of selfishness and laziness. You may cry against the rich as you will, the courage fails you to return to the poor the money that fortune sends you... Never will you be worthy of happiness, as long as you have something of your own, and your hatred of the bourgeois comes uniquely from your raging need to be bourgeois in their place.

Rasseneur burst out laughing, the idea that the two Marseille workers should have renounced the big prize seemed stupid to him. But Souvarine paled, his decomposed face became frightful, in one of those religious rages which exterminate peoples. He cried:

--You will all be reaped, toppled, thrown to rot. He will be born, the one who will annihilate your race of poltroons and pleasure-seekers. And, look! you see my hands, if my hands could, they would take the earth thus, they would shake it till it broke in crumbs, so that you all remained under the ruins.

--Well said! repeated Madame Rasseneur, with her polite and convinced air.

Another silence fell. Then Étienne spoke again of the workers of the Borinage. He questioned Souvarine on the arrangements that had been made, at the Voreux. But the engine-man, fallen back into his preoccupation, barely answered, knew only that cartridges were to be distributed to the soldiers guarding the pit; and the nervous unease of his fingers on his knees grew to such a point that he ended by having consciousness of what was missing them, the soft and calming fur of the familiar rabbit.

--Where then is Poland? he asked.

The tavern-keeper had a fresh laugh, looking at his wife. After a short embarrassment, he decided.

--Poland? she's warm.

Since her adventure with Jeanlin, the big doe-rabbit, wounded no doubt, had done nothing but dead litters; and, not to feed a useless mouth, one had resigned oneself, that very day, to dress her with the potatoes.

--Yes, you ate a thigh of her this evening... Eh? you licked your fingers!

Souvarine had not understood at first. Then, he grew very pale, a nausea contracted his chin; while, despite his will to stoicism, two great tears swelled his eyelids.

But there was no time to notice this emotion, the door had brutally opened, and Chaval had appeared, pushing Catherine before him. After getting drunk on beer and braggadocio in all the taverns of Montsou, the idea had come to him to go to the Avantage and show the old friends he was not afraid. He entered, saying to his mistress:

--Good God! I tell you you're going to drink a mug in there, I'll smash the face of the first who looks at me sideways!

Catherine, at the sight of Étienne, seized, remained all white. When he had caught sight of him in turn, Chaval sneered with an evil air.

--Madame Rasseneur, two mugs! We're drinking to the resumption of work.

Without a word, she poured, as a woman who refused her beer to no one. A silence had fallen, neither the tavern-keeper nor the two others had budged from their places.

--I know some who said I was a spy, resumed Chaval arrogantly, and I'm waiting for those to repeat it a bit to my face, so we get it settled at last.

No one answered, the men turned their heads, vaguely looked at the walls.

--There are the lazy, and there are the not lazy, he continued louder. Me I have nothing to hide, I left the dirty shack at Deneulin's, I go down tomorrow to the Voreux with twelve Belgians, that they gave me to lead, because I'm esteemed. And, if that bothers anyone, he can say so, we'll talk of it.

Then, as the same disdainful silence greeted his provocations, he flew at Catherine.

--Will you drink, good God!... Drink with me to the dying of all the bastards who refuse to work!

She drank, but with so trembling a hand, that one heard the light tinkling of the two glasses. He, now, had drawn from his pocket a handful of white coin, which he displayed with a drunkard's ostentation, saying it was with his sweat one earned that, and he defied the lazy to show ten sous. The attitude of the comrades exasperated him, he came to direct insults.

--So, it's at night the moles come out? The gendarmes must be asleep for one to meet the brigands?

Étienne had risen, very calm, resolved.

--Listen, you bore me... Yes, you're a spy, your money still stinks of some treachery, and it disgusts me to touch your sold skin. No matter! I'm your man, it's long enough one of the two should eat the other.

Chaval clenched his fists.

--Come now! one has to say things to heat you up, bloody coward!... You alone, I'm willing! and you'll pay me for the filth that was done me!

With supplicating arms, Catherine advanced between them; but they had not the trouble to push her back, she felt the necessity of the fight, she drew back of herself, slowly. Standing against the wall, she remained mute, so paralyzed with anguish that she no longer shuddered, eyes wide open on those two men who were going to kill each other for her.

Madame Rasseneur, simply, removed the mugs from her counter, for fear they be broken. Then, she reseated herself on the bench, without showing undue curiosity. One could not however let two old comrades cut each other's throats thus, Rasseneur persisted in intervening, and it took Souvarine's taking him by a shoulder, bringing him back near the table, saying:

--That's no concern of yours... There's one too many, it's for the strongest to live.

Already, without waiting for the attack, Chaval was launching into the void his closed fists. He was the taller, loose-limbed, aiming at the face, with furious backhand blows, of both arms, one after the other, as if he maneuvered a pair of sabers. And he kept talking, he posed for the gallery, with volleys of insults, which excited him.

--Ah! bloody pimp, I'll have your nose! It's your nose I want to stick somewhere!... Give your mug then, mirror of whores, that I make pig-swill of it, and we'll see after if the slut-women run after you!

Mute, teeth clenched, Étienne gathered himself in his small stature, playing the correct game, chest and face covered by his two fists; and he watched, he unleashed them with a stiffness of springs, in terrible straight blows.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”