Part 6

Other miners from the cut at ground level were arriving, fresh bands that, one by one, plunged into the pit. It was the three o'clock descent, still more men whom the shaft was devouring, and whose crews would replace the bargaining of the hewers, down in the galleries. The mine never rested, there were human insects burrowing into the rock night and day, six hundred metres beneath the beet fields.

Meanwhile, the youngsters walked in front. Jeanlin was entrusting Bébert with a complicated scheme, to get four sous' worth of tobacco on credit; while Lydie, respectfully, kept her distance. Catherine followed with Zacharie and Étienne. No one spoke. And it was only in front of the Avantage tavern that Maheu and Levaque caught up with them.

—Here we are, said the former to Étienne. Will you come in?

They parted. Catherine had remained motionless for a moment, looking one last time at the young man with her great eyes, of a greenish clarity like spring water, and whose black face further hollowed the crystal. She smiled, she disappeared with the others, on the rising path that led to the settlement.

The tavern stood between the village and the pit, at the crossing of the two roads. It was a brick house of two storeys, whitewashed from top to bottom with lime, brightened around the windows with a broad sky-blue border. On a square sign, nailed above the door, one read in yellow letters: At the Avantage, shop kept by Rasseneur. Behind, stretched a skittle alley, enclosed by a living hedge. And the Company, which had done everything to buy this plot, enclosed in its vast lands, was desolate at this tavern, sprung up in the open field, open at the very exit of the Voreux.

—Come in, Maheu repeated to Étienne.

The room, small, had a bright bareness, with its white walls, its three tables and dozen of chairs, its counter of fir, large as a kitchen sideboard. A dozen mugs at most were there, three bottles of liqueur, a carafe, a small zinc cashbox with a pewter tap, for the beer; and nothing else, not a picture, not a shelf, not a game. In the cast-iron fireplace, varnished and shining, a paste of coal burned softly. On the flagstones, a fine layer of white sand drank the continual dampness of this land soaked with water.

—A mug, ordered Maheu of a big blonde girl, the daughter of a neighbour who sometimes kept the room. Is Rasseneur there?

The girl turned the tap, answering that the master would soon return. Slowly, in one draught, the miner emptied half the mug, to sweep away the dust that obstructed his throat. He offered nothing to his companion. A single customer, another miner wet and smeared, was seated before a table and drank his beer in silence, with an air of deep meditation. A third came in, was served at a gesture, paid and went away, without having said a word.

But a stout man of thirty-eight, clean-shaven, round-faced, appeared with a good-natured smile. It was Rasseneur, a former hewer whom the Company had dismissed three years before, following a strike. A very good workman, he spoke well, put himself at the head of all complaints, had ended by being the chief of the discontented. His wife already kept a shop, as did many miners' wives; and, when he was thrown onto the pavement, he remained a tavern-keeper himself, found money, planted his tavern opposite the Voreux, like a provocation to the Company. Now, his house prospered, he was becoming a centre, he was growing rich on the angers he had little by little breathed into the hearts of his former comrades.

—It's the lad I hired this morning, Maheu explained at once. Have you one of your two rooms free, and will you give him credit for a fortnight?

Rasseneur's broad face suddenly expressed great distrust. He examined Étienne with a glance and answered, without troubling to show regret:

—Both my rooms are taken. Impossible.

The young man expected this refusal; and yet he suffered from it, he wondered at the sudden unease he felt at going away. No matter, he would go, when he had his thirty sous. The miner who was drinking at a table had left. Others, one by one, still came in to clear their throats, then set off again with the same loose-limbed step. It was a simple washing, without joy or passion, the mute contentment of a need.

—So, nothing? asked Rasseneur in a peculiar tone of Maheu, who was finishing his beer in little sips.

The latter turned his head and saw that Étienne alone was there.

—It's that we quarrelled again... Yes, over the timbering.

He told the story. The tavern-keeper's face had reddened, a sanguine emotion swelled it, bursting from his skin and eyes in flames. At last, he exploded.

—Ah well! if they take it into their heads to lower the prices, they're done for.

Étienne made him uneasy. However, he continued, casting sidelong looks at him. And he had reticences, hints, he spoke of the manager, M. Hennebeau, of his wife, of his nephew little Négrel, without naming them, repeating that it couldn't go on like this, that it must break one of these fine mornings. Misery was too great, he cited the factories that were closing, the workers who were leaving. For a month, he had given more than six pounds of bread a day. He had been told, the day before, that M. Deneulin, the owner of a neighbouring pit, did not know how to keep going. Besides, he had just received a letter from Lille, full of worrying details.

—You know, he murmured, it comes from that person you saw here one evening.

But he was interrupted. His wife came in in her turn, a tall lean eager woman, with a long nose, violet cheekbones. She was in politics much more radical than her husband.

—Pluchart's letter, she said. Ah! if that one were master, things wouldn't be long improving!

Étienne had been listening for a moment, understanding, growing passionate, at these ideas of misery and revenge.

This name, abruptly thrown out, made him start. He said aloud, as if in spite of himself:

—I know him, Pluchart.

They looked at him, he had to add:

—Yes, I'm an engine-man, he was my foreman, at Lille... A capable man, I've often talked with him.

Rasseneur examined him again; and there was, on his face, a rapid change, a sudden sympathy. At last, he said to his wife:

—It's Maheu who brings me this gentleman, a hurrier of his, to see if there isn't a room upstairs, and if we couldn't give credit for a fortnight.

Then, the matter was settled in four words. There was a room, the lodger had left that morning. And the tavern-keeper, very excited, opened up further, while repeating that he asked only the possible of the bosses, without demanding, like so many others, things too hard to obtain. His wife shrugged her shoulders, wanted her rights, absolutely.

—Good evening, interrupted Maheu. All that won't stop us going down, and as long as we go down, there'll be folk who'll die of it... Look at you, you're hearty, three years since you got out of it.

—Yes, I've recovered a lot, declared Rasseneur complaisantly.

Étienne went to the door, thanking the miner who was leaving; but the latter shook his head, without adding a word, and the young man watched him climb painfully the path to the settlement. Madame Rasseneur, busy serving customers, had just asked him to wait a minute, so that she might take him to his room, where he would wash. Should he stay? A hesitation had seized him again, a discomfort that made him regret the liberty of the great roads, hunger in the sun, suffered with the joy of being his own master. It seemed to him that he had lived there for years, since his arrival on the spoil-heap, amid the gusts, to the hours passed under the earth, flat on his belly in the black galleries. And he recoiled from beginning again, it was unjust and too hard, his man's pride rebelled, at the idea of being a beast that one blinds and crushes.

While Étienne struggled thus, his eyes, wandering over the immense plain, little by little perceived it. He wondered, he had not pictured the horizon so, when old Bonnemort had pointed it out to him with a gesture, in the depths of the darkness. Before him, he indeed found the Voreux, in a fold of the ground, with its buildings of wood and brick, the tarred screening-shed, the belfry covered with slates, the engine-house and the tall chimney of a pale red, all of it huddled, with a malignant air. But, around the buildings, the yard stretched, and he had not imagined it so large, changed into a lake of ink by the rising waves of the coal stock, bristling with the tall trestles that carried the rails of the footbridges, cluttered in a corner with the store of timber, like the harvest of a mown forest. To the right, the spoil-heap barred the view, colossal as a giants' barricade, already covered with grass in its older part, consumed at the other end by an inner fire that had burned for a year, with a thick smoke, leaving on the surface, amid the wan grey of the shales and sandstones, long trails of bloody rust. Then, the fields unrolled, endless fields of wheat and beet, bare at this time of year, marshes with hard vegetation, cut by a few stunted willows, distant meadows, separated by thin files of poplars. Very far off, small white patches indicated towns, Marchiennes to the north, Montsou to the south; while the forest of Vandame, to the east, bordered the horizon with the violet line of its stripped trees. And, under the livid sky, in the low light of this winter afternoon, it seemed that all the black of the Voreux, all the flying dust of the coal had fallen upon the plain, powdering the trees, sanding the roads, seeding the earth.

Étienne looked, and what surprised him above all was a canal, the river Scarpe canalised, which he had not seen in the night. From the Voreux to Marchiennes, this canal ran straight, a ribbon of dull silver two leagues long, an avenue bordered with great trees, raised above the low grounds, fleeing to infinity with the perspective of its green banks, its pale water where slid the vermilion stern of the barges. Near the pit, there was a wharf, moored boats, which the tubs of the footbridges filled directly. Then, the canal made a bend, cut diagonally across the marshes; and all the soul of this flat plain seemed to be there, in that geometrical water which crossed it like a great road, carrying coal and iron.

Étienne's gaze rose from the canal to the settlement, built on the plateau, and of which he distinguished only the red tiles. Then, it returned toward the Voreux, stopped, at the foot of the clay slope, at two enormous piles of bricks, manufactured and baked on the spot. A branch of the Company's railway passed behind a palisade, serving the pit. They must be sending down the last miners of the cut at ground level. Alone, a wagon pushed by men gave an acute cry. It was no longer the unknown of the darkness, the inexplicable thunders, the blazings of unknown stars. Far off, the blast-furnaces and coke-ovens had paled with the dawn. There remained there, without cease, only the escape of the pump, always blowing with the same heavy long breath, the breath of an ogre whose grey vapour he now distinguished, and whom nothing could sate.

Then, Étienne, abruptly, decided. Perhaps he had thought to see again Catherine's clear eyes, up there, at the entrance to the settlement. Perhaps it was rather a wind of revolt, that came from the Voreux. He did not know, he wanted to go back down into the mine to suffer and fight, he thought violently of those folk Bonnemort spoke of, of that replete and crouching god, to whom ten thousand starving men gave their flesh, without knowing him.

Second Part

I

The Grégoire property, the Piolaine, lay two kilometres from Montsou, toward the east, on the Joiselle road. It was a large square house, without style, built at the beginning of the last century. Of the vast lands that at first depended on it, there remained only some thirty hectares, walled, of easy upkeep. They were known especially for the orchard and kitchen-garden, celebrated for their fruit and vegetables, the finest in the country. Besides, the park was lacking, a small wood supplied its place. The avenue of old lindens, a vault of foliage three hundred metres long, planted from the gate to the steps, was one of the curiosities of this flat plain, where one counted the great trees, from Marchiennes to Beaugnies.

That morning, the Grégoires had risen at eight o'clock. Usually, they scarcely moved an hour later, sleeping much, with passion; but the night's storm had unnerved them. And, while her husband had gone at once to see if the wind had done any damage, Madame Grégoire had just come down to the kitchen, in slippers and a flannel dressing-gown. Short, stout, already fifty-eight years old, she kept a large doll-like and astonished face, under the dazzling whiteness of her hair.

—Mélanie, she said to the cook, if you were to make the brioche this morning, since the dough is ready. Mademoiselle won't be up for half an hour, and she could eat it with her chocolate... Eh! it would be a surprise.

The cook, a lean old woman who had served them for thirty years, began to laugh.

—That's true, the surprise would be famous... My stove is lit, the oven must be hot; and then, Honorine will help me a bit.

Honorine, a girl of about twenty, taken in as a child and brought up in the house, now served as lady's maid. For all staff, besides these two women, there was only the coachman, Francis, charged with the heavy work. A gardener and a garden-woman looked after the vegetables, fruit, flowers and poultry-yard. And, as the service was patriarchal, of a familiar gentleness, this little world lived in good friendship.

Madame Grégoire, who had meditated in her bed on the brioche surprise, stayed to see the dough put in the oven. The kitchen was immense, and one guessed it the important room, by its extreme cleanliness, by the arsenal of saucepans, utensils, pots that filled it. It smelled good of good food. Provisions overflowed the racks and cupboards.

—And see it's nicely browned, won't you? recommended Madame Grégoire in passing into the dining-room.

Despite the calorifier that heated the whole house, a coal fire brightened this room. Besides, there was no luxury: the large table, the chairs, a mahogany sideboard; and, alone, two deep armchairs betrayed the love of comfort, the long happy digestions. They never went to the drawing-room, they stayed there, in the family.

Just then, M. Grégoire came in, dressed in a thick fustian waistcoat, rosy himself for his sixty years, with large honest and good features, in the snow of his curled hair. He had seen the coachman and gardener: no important damage, only a chimney-pipe knocked down. Each morning, he liked to glance over the Piolaine, which was not large enough to cause him worries, and from which he drew all the joys of a proprietor.

—And Cécile? he asked, isn't she getting up today, then?

—I can't understand it, answered his wife. It seemed to me I heard her stir.

The table was laid, three bowls on the white cloth. They sent Honorine to see what had become of Mademoiselle. But she came down at once, holding back laughs, stifling her voice, as if she spoke upstairs, in the chamber.

—Oh! if Monsieur and Madame could see Mademoiselle!... She's sleeping, oh! she's sleeping, like a little Jesus... You'd never think it, it's a pleasure to look at her.

The father and mother exchanged tender glances. He said smiling:

—Are you coming to see?

—Poor darling! she murmured. I'm going.

And they went up together. The chamber was the only luxurious one in the house, hung with blue silk, furnished with lacquered pieces, white with blue lines, a spoiled child's whim satisfied by the parents. In the vague whiteness of the bed, under the half-light falling from the parting of a curtain, the young girl slept, a cheek resting on her bare arm. She was not pretty, too healthy, too well-built, ripe at eighteen; but she had superb flesh, a freshness of milk, with her chestnut hair, her round face with the little determined nose, lost between the cheeks. The coverlet had slipped, and she breathed so softly, that her breath did not even lift her already heavy breast.

—That cursed wind must have kept her from closing her eyes, said the mother softly.

The father, with a gesture, imposed silence on her. Both leaned, looked with adoration, in her virgin nakedness, at this daughter so long desired, whom they had had late, when they no longer hoped for her. They saw her perfect, not too fat, never well enough fed. And she still slept, without feeling them near her, their faces against hers. Yet, a light wave troubled her motionless face. They trembled lest she wake, they went away on tiptoe.

—Hush! said M. Grégoire at the door. If she hasn't slept, we must let her sleep.

—As long as she likes, the darling, added Madame Grégoire. We'll wait.

They went down, settled into the armchairs of the dining-room; while the maids, laughing at Mademoiselle's heavy sleep, held the chocolate on the stove without grumbling. He had taken a newspaper; she was knitting a large wool bed-cover. It was very warm, not a sound came from the silent house.

The Grégoires' fortune, some forty thousand francs of income, was entirely in a share of the Montsou mines. They told with complaisance its origin, which dated from the very creation of the Company.

Toward the beginning of the last century, a fit of madness had declared itself, from Lille to Valenciennes, for the search of coal. The successes of the concession-holders, who were later to form the Anzin Company, had exalted all heads. In each commune, they bored the soil; and societies were created, and concessions sprang up in a night. But, among the obstinates of the epoch, Baron Desrumaux had certainly left the memory of the most heroic intelligence. For forty years, he had struggled without weakening, amid continual obstacles: first fruitless researches, new pits abandoned after long months of work, landslides that filled the holes, sudden floods that drowned the workers, hundreds of thousands of francs thrown into the earth; then, the worries of administration, the panics of shareholders, the fight with the landed lords, resolved not to recognise the royal concessions, if one refused to treat with them first. He had just founded the Desrumaux, Fauquenoix and Co. society, to work the Montsou concession, and the pits were beginning to yield feeble profits, when two neighbouring concessions, that of Cougny, belonging to the Count of Cougny, and that of Joiselle, belonging to the Cornille and Jenard society, had nearly crushed him under the terrible assault of their competition. Happily, on 25 August 1760, a treaty intervened between the three concessions and united them into one. The Company of the Montsou mines was created, such as it still exists today. For the distribution, they had divided, according to the standard of the money of the time, the total property into twenty-four sous, each of which subdivided into twelve deniers, which made two hundred and eighty-eight deniers; and, as the denier was of ten thousand francs, the capital represented a sum of nearly three millions. Desrumaux, agonising but victorious, had had, in the division, six sous and three deniers.

In those years, the baron possessed the Piolaine, from which depended three hundred hectares, and he had in his service, as steward, Honoré Grégoire, a lad from Picardy, the great-grandfather of Léon Grégoire, father of Cécile. At the time of the Montsou treaty, Honoré, who hid in a stocking some fifty thousand francs of savings, yielded trembling to his master's unshakable faith. He took out ten thousand livres in fine crowns, he took a denier, with the terror of robbing his children of that sum. His son Eugène indeed received very thin dividends; and, as he had turned bourgeois and had the folly to eat the other forty thousand francs of the paternal inheritance in a disastrous partnership, he lived rather meanly. But the interest of the denier rose little by little, the fortune began with Félicien, who could realise a dream with which his grandfather, the old steward, had lulled his childhood: the purchase of the dismembered Piolaine, which he had as national property, for a derisory sum. However, the following years were bad, they had to await the outcome of the revolutionary catastrophes, then the bloody fall of Napoleon. And it was Léon Grégoire who benefited, in a stupefying progression, from the timid and anxious investment of his great-great-grandfather. These ten poor thousand francs grew, widened, with the prosperity of the Company. From 1820, they yielded a hundred per cent, ten thousand francs. In 1844, they produced twenty thousand; in 1850, forty. There were two years finally, the dividend had risen to the prodigious figure of fifty thousand francs: the value of the denier, quoted at the Lille Exchange at a million, had centupled in a century.

M. Grégoire, whom one advised to sell, when this course of a million was reached, had refused, with his smiling and paternal air. Six months later, an industrial crisis broke out, the denier fell to six hundred thousand francs. But he still smiled, he regretted nothing, for the Grégoires now had an obstinate faith in their mine. It would rise again, God was not so solid. Then, to this religious belief, was mixed a profound gratitude for a value, which, for a century, had nourished the family doing nothing. It was like a divinity of their own, that their selfishness surrounded with a cult, the benefactress of the hearth, rocking them in their great bed of laziness, fattening them at their greedy table. From father to son, it endured: why risk displeasing fate, by doubting it? And there was, at the bottom of their fidelity, a superstitious terror, the fear that the million of the denier might have suddenly melted, had they realised it and put it in a drawer. They saw it safer in the earth, whence a people of miners, generations of starving men, extracted it for them, a little each day, according to their needs.

Besides, happiness rained on this house. M. Grégoire, very young, had married the daughter of a Marchiennes pharmacist, an ugly miss, without a sou, whom he adored and who had returned it all, in felicity. She had shut herself in her household, ecstatic before her husband, having no other will than his; never did different tastes separate them, a same ideal of well-being confounded their desires; and they lived thus for forty years, in tenderness and mutual little cares. It was a regulated existence, the forty thousand francs eaten without noise, the savings spent on Cécile, whose late birth had for a moment upset the budget. Even today, they satisfied each of her whims: a second horse, two other carriages, dresses from Paris. But they tasted there a further joy, they found nothing too fine for their daughter, with such personal horror of display, that they had kept the fashions of their youth. Any expense that did not profit them seemed stupid.

Suddenly, the door opened, and a loud voice cried:

—Well! what then, you're breakfasting without me!

It was Cécile, up from bed, eyes swollen with sleep. She had simply pinned up her hair and slipped on a white wool dressing-gown.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”