Germinal

"Get along with you," said the mother, driving them to the other end of the room."You ought to be ashamed of being always in your father's plate; and even if he was the only one to have any, doesn't he work, while all you, a lot of good-for-nothings, can't do anything but spend!Yes, and the more the bigger you are."

Maheu called them back.He seated Lénore on his left thigh, Henri on the right; then he finished the chitterlings by playing at dinner with them.He cut small pieces, and each had his share.The children devoured with delight.

When he had finished, he said to his wife:

"No, don't give me my coffee.I'm going to wash first; and just give me a hand to throw away this dirty water."

They took hold of the handles of the tub and emptied it into the gutter before the door, when Jeanlin came down in dry garments, breeches and a woollen blouse, too large for him, which were weary of fading on his brother's back.Seeing him slinking out through the open door, his mother stopped him.

"Where are you off to?"

"Over there."

"Over where?Listen to me.You go and gather a dandelion salad for this evening.Eh, do you hear?If you don't bring a salad back you'll have to deal with me."

"All right!"

Jeanlin set out with hands in his pockets, trailing his sabots and slouching along, with his slender loins of a ten-year-old urchin, like an old miner. In his turn, Zacharie came down, more carefully dressed, his body covered by a black woollen knitted jacket with blue stripes. His father called out to him not to return late; and he left, nodding his head with his pipe between his teeth, without replying. Again the tub was filled with warm water. Maheu was already slowly taking off his jacket. At a look, Alzire led Lénore and Henri outside to play. The father did not like washing en famille, as was practised in many houses in the settlement.He blamed no one, however; he simply said that it was good for the children to dabble together.

"What are you doing up there?"cried Maheude, up the staircase.

"I'm mending my dress that I tore yesterday," replied Catherine.

"All right.Don't come down, your father is washing."

Then Maheu and Maheude were left alone.The latter decided to place Estelle on a chair, and by a miracle, finding herself near the fire the child did not scream, but turned towards her parents the vague eyes of a little creature without intelligence.He was crouching before the tub quite naked, having first plunged his head into it, well rubbed with that black soap the constant use of which discoloured and made yellow the hair of the race.Afterwards he got into the water, lathered his chest, belly, arms, and thighs, scraping them energetically with both fists.His wife, standing by, watched him.

"Well, then," she began, "I saw your eyes when you came in.You were bothered, eh?and it eased you, those provisions.Fancy!those Piolaine people didn't give me a sou!Oh!they are kind enough; they have dressed the little ones and I was ashamed to ask them, for it crosses me to ask for things."

She interrupted herself a moment to wedge Estelle into the chair lest she should tip over.The father continued to work away at his skin, without hastening by a question this story which interested him, patiently waiting for light.

"I must tell you that Maigrat had refused me, oh!straight!like one kicks a dog out of doors.Guess if I was on a spree!They keep you warm, woollen garments, but they don't put anything into your stomach, eh!"

He lifted his head, still silent.Nothing at Piolaine, nothing at Maigrat's: then where?But, as usual, she was pulling up her sleeves to wash his back and those parts which he could not himself easily reach.Besides, he liked her to soap him, to rub him everywhere till she almost broke her wrists.She took soap and worked away at his shoulders while he held himself stiff so as to resist the shock.

"Then I returned to Maigrat's, and said to him, ah, I said something to him!And that it didn't do to have no heart, and that evil would happen to him if there were any justice.That bothered him; he turned his eyes and would like to have got away."

From the back she had got down to the buttocks and was pushing into the folds, not leaving any part of the body without passing over it, making him shine like her three saucepans on Saturdays after a big clean.Only she began to sweat with this tremendous exertion of her arms, so exhausted and out of breath that her words were choked.

"At last he called me an old nuisance.We shall have bread until Saturday, and the best is that he has lent me five francs.I have got butter, coffee, and chicory from him.I was even going to get the meat and potatoes there, only I saw that he was grumbling.Seven sous for the chitterlings, eighteen for the potatoes, and I've got three francs seventy-five left for a ragout and a meat soup.Eh, I don't think I've wasted my morning!"

Now she began to wipe him, plugging with a towel the parts that would not dry.Feeling happy and without thinking of the future debt, he burst out laughing and took her in his arms.

"Leave me alone, stupid!You are damp, and wetting me.Only I'm afraid Maigrat has ideas——"

She was about to speak of Catherine, but she stopped.What was the good of disturbing him?It would only lead to endless discussion.

"What ideas?"he asked.

"Why, ideas of robbing us.Catherine will have to examine the bill carefully."

He took her in his arms again, and this time did not let her go.The bath always finished in this way: she enlivened him by the hard rubbing, and then by the towels which tickled the hairs of his arms and chest.Besides, among all his mates of the settlement it was the hour for stupidities, when more children were planted than were wanted.At night all the family were about.He pushed her towards the table, jesting like a worthy man who was enjoying the only good moment of the day, calling that taking his dessert, and a dessert which cost him nothing.She, with her loose figure and breast, struggled a little for fun.

"You are stupid!My Lord!you are stupid!And there's Estelle looking at us.Wait till I turn her head."

"Oh, bosh!at three months; as if she understood!"

When he got up Maheu simply put on a dry pair of breeches.He liked, when he was clean and had taken his pleasure with his wife, to remain naked for a while.On his white skin, the whiteness of an anaemic girl, the scratches and gashes of the coal left tattoo-marks, grafts as the miners called them; and he was proud of them, and exhibited his big arms and broad chest shining like veined marble.In summer all the miners could be seen in this condition at their doors.He even went there for a moment now, in spite of the wet weather, and shouted out a rough joke to a comrade, whose breast was also naked, on the other side of the gardens.Others also appeared.And the children, trailing along the pathways, raised their heads and also laughed with delight at all this weary flesh of workers displayed in the open air.

While drinking his coffee, without yet putting on a shirt, Maheu told his wife about the engineer's anger over the planking.He was calm and unbent, and listened with a nod of approval to the sensible advice of Maheude, who showed much common sense in such affairs.She always repeated to him that nothing was gained by struggling against the Company.She afterwards told him about Madame Hennebeau's visit.Without saying so, both of them were proud of this.

"Can I come down yet?"asked Catherine, from the top of the staircase.

"Yes, yes; your father is drying himself."

The young girl had put on her Sunday dress, an old frock of rough blue poplin, already faded and worn in the folds.She had on a very simple bonnet of black tulle.

"Hallo!you're dressed.Where are you going to?"

"I'm going to Montsou to buy a ribbon for my bonnet.I've taken off the old one; it was too dirty."

"Have you got money, then?"

"No!but Mouquette promised to lend me half a franc."

The mother let her go.But at the door she called her back.

"Here!don't go and buy that ribbon at Maigrat's.He will rob you, and he will think that we are rolling in wealth."

The father, who was crouching down before the fire to dry his neck and shoulders more quickly, contented himself with adding:

"Try not to dawdle about at night on the road."

In the afternoon, Maheu worked in his garden.Already he had sown potatoes, beans, and peas; and he now set about replanting cabbage and lettuce plants, which he had kept fresh from the night before.This bit of garden furnished them with vegetables, except potatoes of which they never had enough.He understood gardening very well, and could even grow artichokes, which was treated as sheer display by the neighbours.As he was preparing the bed, Levaque just then came out to smoke a pipe in his own square, looking at the cos lettuces which Bouteloup had planted in the morning; for without the lodger's energy in digging nothing would have grown there but nettles.And a conversation arose over the trellis.Levaque, refreshed and excited by thrashing his wife, vainly tried to take Maheu off to Rasseneur's.Why, was he afraid of a glass?They could have a game at skittles, lounge about for a while with the mates, and then come back to dinner.That was the way of life after leaving the pit.No doubt there was no harm in that, but Maheu was obstinate; if he did not replant his lettuces they would be faded by to-morrow.In reality he refused out of good sense, not wishing to ask a farthing from his wife out of the change of the five-franc piece.

Five o'clock was striking when Pierronne came to know if it was with Jeanlin that her Lydie had gone off.Levaque replied that it must be something of that sort, for Bébert had also disappeared, and those rascals always went prowling about together.When Maheu had quieted them by speaking of the dandelion salad, he and his comrade set about joking the young woman with the coarseness of good-natured devils.She was angry, but did not go away, in reality tickled by the strong words which made her scream with her hands to her sides.A lean woman came to her aid, stammering with anger like a clucking hen.Others in the distance on their doorsteps confided their alarms. Now the school was closed; and all the children were running about, there was a swarm of little creatures shouting and tumbling and fighting; while those fathers who were not at the public-house were resting in groups of three or four, crouching on their heels as they did in the mine, smoking their pipes with an occasional word in the shelter of a wall.Pierronne went off in a fury when Levaque wanted to feel if her thighs were firm; and he himself decided to go alone to Rasseneur's, since Maheu was still planting.

Twilight suddenly came on; Maheude lit the lamp, irritated because neither her daughter nor the boys had come back.She could have guessed as much; they never succeeded in taking together the only meal of the day at which it was possible for them to be all round the table.Then she was waiting for the dandelion salad.What could he be gathering at this hour, in this blackness of an oven, that nuisance of a child!A salad would go so well with the stew which was simmering on the fire—potatoes, leeks, sorrel, fricasseed with fried onion.The whole house smelt of that fried onion, that good odour which gets rank so soon, and which penetrates the bricks of the settlements with such infection that one perceives it far off in the country, the violent flavour of the poor man's kitchen.

Maheu, when he left the garden at nightfall, at once fell into a chair with his head against the wall.As soon as he sat down in the evening he went to sleep.The clock struck seven; Henri and Lénore had just broken a plate in persisting in helping Alzire, who was laying the table, when Father Bonnemort came in first, in a hurry to dine and go back to the pit.Then Maheude woke up Maheu.

"Come and eat!So much the worse!They are big enough to find the house.The nuisance is the salad!"

---

CHAPTER V

At Rasseneur's, after having eaten his soup, Étienne went back into the small chamber beneath the roof and facing the Voreux, which he was to occupy, and fell on to his bed dressed as he was, overcome with fatigue.In two days he had not slept four hours.When he awoke in the twilight he was dazed for a moment, not recognizing his surroundings; and he felt such uneasiness and his head was so heavy that he rose, painfully, with the idea of getting some fresh air before having his dinner and going to bed for the night.

Outside, the weather was becoming milder: the sooty sky was growing copper-coloured, laden with one of those warm rains of the Nord, the approach of which one feels by the moist warmth of the air, and the night was coming on in great mists which drowned the distant landscape of the plain.Over this immense sea of reddish earth the low sky seemed to melt into black dust, without a breath of wind now to animate the darkness.It was the wan and deathly melancholy of a funeral.

Étienne walked straight ahead at random, with no other aim but to shake off his fever.When he passed before the Voreux, already growing gloomy at the bottom of its hole and with no lantern yet shining from it, he stopped a moment to watch the departure of the day-workers.No doubt six o'clock had struck; landers, porters from the pit-eye, and grooms were going away in bands, mixed with the vague and laughing figures of the screening girls in the shade.

At first it was Brulé and her son-in-law, Pierron.She was abusing him because he had not supported her in a quarrel with an overseer over her reckoning of stones.

"Get along!damned good-for-nothing!Do you call yourself a man to lower yourself like that before one of these beasts who devour us?"

Pierron followed her peacefully, without replying.At last he said:

"I suppose I ought to jump on the boss?Thanks for showing me how to get into a mess!"

"Bend your backside to him, then," she shouted."By God!if my daughter had listened to me!It's not enough for them to kill the father.Perhaps you'd like me to say 'thank you.'No, I'll have their skins first!"

Their voices were lost.Étienne saw her disappear, with her eagle nose, her flying white hair, her long, lean arms that gesticulated furiously.But the conversation of two young people behind caused him to listen.He had recognized Zacharie, who was waiting there, and who had just been addressed by his friend Mouquet.

"Are you here?"said the latter."We will have something to eat, and then off to the Volcan."

"Directly.I've something to attend to."

"What, then?"

The lander turned and saw Philoméne coming out of the screening-shed.He thought he understood.

"Very well, if it's that.Then I go ahead."

"Yes, I'll catch you up."

As he went away, Mouquet met his father, old Mouque, who was also coming out of the Voreux.The two men simply wished each other good evening, the son taking the main road while the father went along by the canal.

Zacharie was already pushing Philoméne in spite of her resistance into the same solitary path.She was in a hurry, another time; and the two wrangled like old housemates.There was no fun in only seeing one another out of doors, especially in winter, when the earth is moist and there are no wheatfields to lie in.

"No, no, it's not that," he whispered impatiently."I've something to say to you."He led her gently with his arm round her waist.Then, when they were in the shadow of the pit-bank, he asked if she had any money.

"What for?"she demanded.

Then he became confused, spoke of a debt of two francs which had reduced his family to despair.

"Hold your tongue!I've seen Mouquet; you're going again to the Volcan with him, where those dirty singer-women are."

He defended himself, struck his chest, gave his word of honour.Then, as she shrugged her shoulders, he said suddenly:

"Come with us if it will amuse you.You see that you don't put me out.What do I want to do with the singers?Will you come?"

"And the little one?"she replied."How can one stir with a child that's always screaming?Let me go back, I guess they're not getting on at the house."

But he held her and entreated.See!it was only not to look foolish before Mouquet to whom he had promised.A man could not go to bed every evening like the fowls.She was overcome, and pulled up the skirt of her gown; with her nail she cut the thread and drew out some half-franc pieces from a corner of the hem.For fear of being robbed by her mother she hid there the profit of the overtime work she did at the pit.

"I've got five, you see," she said, "I'll give you three.Only you must swear that you'll make your mother decide to let us marry.We've had enough of this life in the open air.And mother reproaches me for every mouthful I eat.Swear first."

She spoke with the soft voice of a big, delicate girl, without passion, simply tired of her life.He swore, exclaimed that it was a sacred promise; then, when he had got the three pieces, he kissed her, tickled her, made her laugh, and would have pushed things to an extreme in this corner of the pit-bank, which was the winter chamber of their household, if she had not again refused, saying that it would not give her any pleasure.She went back to the settlement alone, while he cut across the fields to rejoin his companion.

Étienne had followed them mechanically, from afar, without understanding, regarding it as a simple rendezvous.The girls were precocious in the pits; and he recalled the Lille work-girls whom he had waited for behind the factories, those bands of girls, corrupted at fourteen, in the abandonment of their wretchedness.But another meeting surprised him more.He stopped.

At the bottom of the pit-bank, in a hollow into which some large stones had slipped, little Jeanlin was violently snubbing Lydie and Bébert, seated one at his right, the other at his left.

"What do you say?Eh?I'll slap each of you if you want more.Who thought of it first, eh?"

In fact, Jeanlin had had an idea.After having roamed about in the meadows, along the canal, for an hour, gathering dandelions with the two others, it had occurred to him, before this pile of salad, that they would never eat all that at home; and instead of going back to the settlement he had gone to Montsou, keeping Bébert to watch, and making Lydie ring at the houses and offer the dandelions.He was experienced enough to know that, as he said, girls could sell what they liked.In the ardour of business, the entire pile had disappeared; but the girl had gained eleven sous.And now, with empty hands, the three were dividing the profits.

"That's not fair!"Bébert declared."Must divide into three.If you keep seven sous we shall only have two each."

"What?not fair!"replied Jeanlin furiously."I gathered more first of all."

The other usually submitted with timid admiration and a credulity which always made him the dupe.Though older and stronger, he even allowed himself to be struck.But this time the sight of all that money excited him to rebellion.

"He's robbing us, Lydie, isn't he?If he doesn't share, we'll tell his mother."

Jeanlin at once thrust his fist beneath the other's nose.

"Say that again!I'll go and say at your house that you sold my mother's salad.And then, you silly beast, how can I divide eleven sous into three?Just try and see, if you're so clever.Here are your two sous each.Just look sharp and take them, or I'll put them in my pocket."

Bébert was vanquished and accepted the two sous.Lydie, who was trembling, had said nothing, for with Jeanlin she experienced the fear and the tenderness of a little beaten woman.When he held out the two sous to her she advanced her hand with a submissive laugh.But he suddenly changed his mind.

"Eh!what will you do with all that?Your mother will nab them, sure enough, if you don't know how to hide them from her.I'd better keep them for you.When you want money you can ask me for it."

And the nine sous disappeared.To shut her mouth he had put his arms around her laughingly and was rolling with her over the pit-bank.She was his little wife, and in the dark corners they used to try together the love which they heard and saw in their homes behind partitions, through the cracks of doors.They knew everything, but they were able to do nothing, being too young, fumbling and playing for hours at the games of vicious puppies.He called that playing at papa and mama; and when he chased her she ran away and let herself be caught with the delicious trembling of instinct, often angry, but always yielding, in the expectation of something which never came.

As Bébert was not admitted to these games and received a cuffing whenever he wanted to touch Lydie, he was always constrained, agitated by anger and uneasiness when the other two were amusing themselves, which they did not hesitate to do in his presence.His one idea, therefore, was to frighten them and disturb them, calling out that someone could see them.

"It's all up!There's a man looking."

This time he told the truth; it was Étienne, who had decided to continue his walk.The children jumped up and ran away, and he passed by round the bank, following the canal, amused at the terror of these little rascals.No doubt it was too early at their age, but they saw and heard so much that one would have to tie them up to restrain them.Yet Étienne became sad.

A hundred paces farther on he came across more couples.He had arrived at Réquillart, and there, around the old ruined mine, all the girls of Montsou prowled about with their lovers.It was the common rendezvous, the remote and deserted spot to which the putters came to get their first child when they dared not risk the shed.The broken palings opened to every one the old yard, now become a nondescript piece of ground, obstructed by the ruins of the two sheds which had fallen in, and by the skeletons of the large buttresses which were still standing.Derelict trams were lying about, and piles of old rotting wood, while a dense vegetation was reconquering this corner of ground, displaying itself in thick grass, and springing up in young trees that were already vigorous.Every girl found herself at home here; there were concealed holes for all; their lovers placed them over beams, behind the timber, in the trams; they even lay elbow to elbow without troubling about their neighbours.And it seemed that around this extinguished engine, near this shaft weary of disgorging coal, there was a revenge of creation in the free love which, beneath the lash of instinct, planted children in the bellies of these girls who were yet hardly women.

Yet a caretaker lived there, old Mouque, to whom the Company had given up, almost beneath the destroyed tower, two rooms which were constantly threatened by destruction from the expected fall of the last walls.He had even been obliged to shore up a part of the roof, and he lived there very comfortably with his family, he and Mouquet in one room, Mouquette in the other.As the windows no longer possessed a single pane, he had decided to close them by nailing up boards; one could not see well, but it was warm.For the rest, this caretaker cared for nothing: he went to look after his horses at the Voreux, and never troubled himself about the ruins of Réquillart, of which the shaft only was preserved, in order to serve as a chimney for a fire which ventilated the neighbouring pit.

It was thus that Father Mouque was ending his old age in the midst of love.Ever since she was ten Mouquette had been lying about in all the corners of the ruins, not as a timid and still green little urchin like Lydie, but as a girl who was already big, and a mate for bearded lads.The father had nothing to say, for she was considerate, and never introduced a lover into the house.Then he was used to this sort of accident.When he went to the Voreux, when he came back, whenever he came out of his hole, he could scarcely put a foot down without treading on a couple in the grass; and it was worse if he wanted to gather wood to heat his soup or look for burdocks for his rabbit at the other end of the enclosure.Then he saw one by one the voluptuous noses of all the girls of Montsou rising up around him, while he had to be careful not to knock against the limbs stretched out level with the paths.Besides, these meetings had gradually ceased to disturb either him who was simply taking care not to stumble, or the girls whom he allowed to finish their affairs, going away with discreet little steps like a worthy man who was at peace with the ways of nature.Only just as they now knew him he at last also knew them, as one knows the rascally magpies who become corrupted in the pear-trees in the garden.Ah!youth!youth!how it goes on, how wild it is!Sometimes he wagged his chin with silent regret, turning away from the noisy wantons who were breathing too loudly in the darkness.Only one thing put him out of temper: two lovers had acquired the bad habit of embracing outside his wall.It was not that it prevented him from sleeping, but they leaned against the wall so heavily that at last they damaged it.

Every evening old Mouque received a visit from his friend, Father Bonnemort, who regularly before dinner took the same walk.The two old men spoke little, scarcely exchanging ten words during the half-hour that they spent together.But it cheered them thus to think over the days of old, to chew their recollections over again without need to talk of them.At Réquillart they sat on a beam side by side, saying a word and then sinking into their dreams, with faces bent towards the earth.No doubt they were becoming young again.Around them lovers were turning over their sweethearts; there was a murmur of kisses and laughter; the warm odour of the girls arose in the freshness of the trodden grass.It was now forty-three years since Father Bonnemort had taken his wife behind the pit; she was a putter, so slight that he had placed her on a tram to embrace her at ease.Ah!those were fine days.And the two old men, shaking their heads, at last left each other, often without saying good night.

That evening, however, as Étienne arrived, Father Bonnemort, who was getting up from the beam to return to the settlement, said to Mouque:

"Good night, old man.I say, you knew Roussie?"

Mouque was silent for a moment, rocked his shoulders; then, returning to the house:

"Good night, good night, old man."

Étienne came and sat on the beam, in his turn.His sadness was increasing, though he could not tell why.The old man, whose disappearing back he watched, recalled his arrival in the morning, and the flood of words which the piercing wind had dragged from his silence.What wretchedness!And all these girls, worn out with fatigue, who were still stupid enough in the evening to fabricate little ones, to yield flesh for labour and suffering!It would never come to an end if they were always filling themselves with starvelings.Would it not be better if they were to shut up their bellies, and press their thighs together, as at the approach of misfortune?Perhaps these gloomy ideas only stirred confusedly in him because he was alone, while all the others at this hour were going about taking their pleasure in couples.The mild weather stifled him a little, occasional drops of rain fell on his feverish hands.Yes, they all came to it; it was something stronger than reason.

Just then, as Étienne remained seated motionless in the shadow, a couple who came down from Montsou rustled against him without seeing him as they entered the uneven Réquillart ground.The girl, certainly a virgin, was struggling and resisting with low whispered supplications, while the lad in silence was pushing her towards the darkness of a corner of the shed, still upright, under which there were piles of old mouldy rope.It was Catherine and big Chaval.But Étienne had not recognized them in passing, and his eyes followed them; he was watching for the end of the story, touched by a sensuality which changed the course of his thoughts.Why should he interfere?When girls refuse it is because they like first to be forced.

On leaving the settlement of the Deux-Cent-Quarante Catherine had gone to Montsou along the road.From the age of ten, since she had earned her living at the pit, she went about the country alone in the complete liberty of the colliers' families; and if no man had possessed her at fifteen it was owing to the tardy awakening of her puberty, the crisis of which had not yet arrived.When she was in front of the Company's Yards she crossed the road and entered a laundress's where she was certain to find Mouquette; for the latter stayed there from morning till night, among women who treated each other with coffee all round.But she was disappointed; Mouquette had just then been regaling them in her turn so thoroughly that she was not able to lend the half-franc she had promised.To console her they vainly offered a glass of hot coffee.She was not even willing that her companion should borrow from another woman.An idea of economy had come to her, a sort of superstitious fear, the certainty that that ribbon would bring her bad luck if she were to buy it now.

She hastened to regain the road to the settlement, and had reached the last houses of Montsou when a man at the door of the Piquette Estaminet called her:

"Eh!Catherine!where are you off to so quick?"

It was lanky Chaval.She was vexed, not because he displeased her, but because she was not inclined to joke.

"Come in and have a drink.A little glass of sweet, won't you?"

She refused politely; the night was coming on, they were expecting her at home.He had advanced, and was entreating her in a low voice in the middle of the road.It had been his idea for a long time to persuade her to come up to the room which he occupied on the first story of the Estaminet Piquette, a fine room for a household, with a large bed.Did he frighten her, that she always refused?She laughed good-naturedly, and said that she would come up some day when children didn't grow.Then, one thing leading to another, she told him, without knowing how, about the blue ribbon which she had not been able to buy.

"But I'll pay for it," he exclaimed.

She blushed, feeling that it would be best to refuse again, but possessed by a strong desire to have the ribbon.The idea of a loan came back to her, and at last she accepted on condition that she should return to him what he spent on her.They began to joke again: it was agreed that if she did not sleep with him she should return him the money.But there was another difficulty when he talked of going to Maigrat's.

"No, not Maigrat's; mother won't let me."

"Why?is there any need to say where one goes?He has the best ribbons in Montsou."

When Maigrat saw lanky Chaval and Catherine coming to his shop like two lovers who are buying their engagement gifts, he became very red, and exhibited his pieces of blue ribbon with the rage of a man who is being made fun of.Then, when he had served the young people, he planted himself at the door to watch them disappear in the twilight; and when his wife came to ask him a question in a timid voice, he fell on her, abusing her, and exclaiming that he would make them repent some day, the filthy creatures, who had no gratitude, when they ought all to be on the ground licking his feet.

Lanky Chaval accompanied Catherine along the road.He walked beside her, swinging his arms; only he pushed her by the hip, conducting her without seeming to do so.She suddenly perceived that he had made her leave the pavement and that they were taking the narrow Réquillart road.But she had no time to be angry; his arm was already round her waist, and he was dazing her with a constant caress of words.How stupid she was to be afraid!Did he want to hurt such a little darling, who was as soft as silk, so tender that he could have devoured her?And he breathed behind her ear, in her neck, so that a shudder passed over the skin of her whole body.She felt stifled, and had nothing to reply.It was true that he seemed to love her.On Saturday evenings, after having blown out the candle, she had asked herself what would happen if he were to take her in this way; then, on going to sleep, she had dreamed that she would no longer refuse, quite overcome by pleasure.Why, then, at the same idea to-day did she feel repugnance and something like regret?While he was tickling her neck with his moustache so softly that she closed her eyes, the shadow of another man, of the lad she had seen that morning, passed over the darkness of her closed eyelids.

Catherine suddenly looked around her.Chaval had conducted her into the ruins of Réquillart and she recoiled, shuddering, from the darkness of the fallen shed.

"Oh!no!oh, no!"she murmured, "please let me go!"The fear of the male had taken hold of her, that fear which stiffens the muscles in an impulse of defence, even when girls are willing, and feel the conquering approach of man.Her virginity which had nothing to learn took fright as at a threatening blow, a wound of which she feared the unknown pain.

"No, no!I don't want to!I tell you that I am too young.It's true!Another time, when I am quite grown up."

He growled in a low voice:

"Stupid!There's nothing to fear.What does that matter?"

But without speaking more he had seized her firmly and pushed her beneath the shed.And she fell on her back on the old ropes; she ceased to protest, yielding to the male before her time, with that hereditary submission which from childhood had thrown down in the open air all the girls of her race.Her frightened stammering grew faint, and only the ardent breath of the man was heard.

Étienne, however, had listened without moving.Another who was taking the leap!And now that he had seen the comedy he got up, overcome by uneasiness, by a kind of jealous excitement in which there was a touch of anger.He no longer restrained himself; he stepped over the beams, for those two were too much occupied now to be disturbed.He was surprised, therefore, when he had gone a hundred paces along the path, to find that they were already standing up, and that they appeared, like himself, to be returning to the settlement.The man again had his arm round the girl's waist, and was squeezing her, with an air of gratitude, still speaking in her neck; and it was she who seemed in a hurry, anxious to return quickly, and annoyed at the delay.

Then Étienne was tormented by the desire to see their faces.It was foolish, and he hastened his steps, so as not to yield to it; but his feet slackened of their own accord, and at the first lamppost he concealed himself in the shade.He was petrified by horror when he recognized Catherine and lanky Chaval.He hesitated at first: was it indeed she, that young girl in the coarse blue dress, with that bonnet?Was that the urchin whom he had seen in breeches, with her head in the canvas cap?That was why she could pass so near him without his recognizing her.But he no longer doubted; he had seen her eyes again, with their greenish limpidity of spring water, so clear and so deep.What a wench!And he experienced a furious desire to avenge himself on her with contempt, without any motive.Besides, he did not like her as a girl: she was frightful.

Catherine and Chaval had passed him slowly.They did not know that they were watched.He held her to kiss her behind the ear, and she began to slacken her steps beneath his caresses, which made her laugh.Left behind, Étienne was obliged to follow them, irritated because they barred the road and because in spite of himself he had to witness these things which exasperated him.It was true, then, what she had sworn to him in the morning: she was not any one's mistress; and he, who had not believed her, who had deprived himself of her in order not to act like the other!and who had let her be taken beneath his nose, pushing his stupidity so far as to be dirtily amused at seeing them!It made him mad!he clenched his hands, he could have devoured that man in one of those impulses to kill in which he saw everything red.

The walk lasted for half an hour.When Chaval and Catherine approached the Voreux they slackened their pace still more; they stopped twice beside the canal, three times along the pit-bank, very cheerful now and occupied with little tender games.Étienne was obliged to stop also when they stopped, for fear of being perceived.He endeavoured to feel nothing but a brutal regret: that would teach him to treat girls with consideration through being well brought up!Then, after passing the Voreux, and at last free to go and dine at Rasseneur's, he continued to follow them, accompanying them to the settlement, where he remained standing in the shade for a quarter of an hour, waiting until Chaval left Catherine to enter her home.And when he was quite sure that they were no longer together, he set off walking afresh, going very far along the Marchiennes road, stamping, and thinking of nothing, too stifled and too sad to shut himself up in a room.

It was not until an hour later, towards nine o'clock, that Étienne again passed the settlement, saying to himself that he must eat and sleep, if he was to be up again at four o'clock in the morning.The village was already asleep, and looked quite black in the night.Not a gleam shone from the closed shutters, the house fronts slept, with the heavy sleep of snoring barracks.Only a cat escaped through the empty gardens.It was the end of the day, the collapse of workers falling from the table to the bed, overcome with weariness and food.

At Rasseneur's, in the lighted room, an engine-man and two day-workers were drinking.But before going in Étienne stopped to throw one last glance into the darkness.He saw again the same black immensity as in the morning when he had arrived in the wind.Before him the Voreux was crouching, with its air of an evil beast, its dimness pricked with a few lantern lights.The three braziers of the bank were burning in the air, like bloody moons, now and then showing the vast silhouettes of Father Bonnemort and his yellow horse.And beyond, in the flat plain, shade had submerged everything, Montsou, Marchiennes, the forest of Vandame, the immense sea of beetroot and of wheat, in which there only shone, like distant lighthouses, the blue fires of the blast furnaces, and the red fires of the coke ovens.Gradually the night came on, the rain was now falling slowly, continuously, burying this void in its monotonous streaming.Only one voice was still heard, the thick, slow respiration of the pumping engine, breathing both by day and by night.

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PART THREE

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CHAPTER I

On the next day, and the days that followed, Étienne continued his work at the pit.He grew accustomed to it; his existence became regulated by this labour and to these new habits which had seemed so hard to him at first.Only one episode interrupted the monotony of the first fortnight: a slight fever which kept him in bed for forty-eight hours with aching limbs and throbbing head, dreaming in a state of semi-delirium that he was pushing his tram in a passage that was so narrow that his body would not pass through.It was simply the exhaustion of his apprenticeship, an excess of fatigue from which he quickly recovered.

And days followed days, until weeks and months had slipped by.Now, like his mates, he got up at three o'clock, drank his coffee, and carried off the double slice of bread and butter which Madame Rasseneur had prepared for him the evening before.Regularly as he went every morning to the pit, he met old Bonnemort who was going home to sleep, and on leaving in the afternoon he crossed Bouteloup who was going to his task.He had his cap, his breeches and canvas jacket, and he shivered and warmed his back in the shed before the large fire.Then came the waiting with naked feet in the receiving-room, swept by furious currents of air.But the engine, with its great steel limbs starred with copper shining up above in the shade, no longer attracted his attention, nor the cables which flew by with the black and silent motion of a nocturnal bird, nor the cages rising and plunging unceasingly in the midst of the noise of signals, of shouted orders, of trams shaking the metal floor.His lamp burnt badly, that confounded lamp-man could not have cleaned it; and he only woke up when Mouquet bundled them all off, roguishly smacking the girls' flanks.The cage was unfastened, and fell like a stone to the bottom of a hole without causing him even to lift his head to see the daylight vanish.He never thought of a possible fall; he felt himself at home as he sank into the darkness beneath the falling rain.Below at the pit-eye, when Pierron had unloaded them with his air of hypocritical mildness, there was always the same tramping as of a flock, the yard-men each going away to his cutting with trailing steps.He now knew the mine galleries better than the streets of Montsou; he knew where he had to turn, where he had to stoop, and where he had to avoid a puddle.He had grown so accustomed to these two kilometres beneath the earth, that he could have traversed them without a lamp, with his hands in his pockets.And every time the same meetings took place: a captain lighting up the faces of the passing workmen, Father Mouque leading a horse, Bébert conducting the snorting Bataille, Jeanlin running behind the tram to close the ventilation doors, and big Mouquette and lean Lydie pushing their trams.

After a time, also, Étienne suffered much less from the damp and closeness of the cutting.The chimney or ascending passage seemed to him more convenient for climbing up, as if he had melted and could pass through cracks where before he would not have risked a hand.He breathed the coal-dust without difficulty, saw clearly in the obscurity, and sweated tranquilly, having grown accustomed to the sensation of wet garments on his body from morning to night.Besides, he no longer spent his energy recklessly; he had gained skill so rapidly that he astonished the whole stall.In three weeks he was named among the best putters in the pit; no one pushed a tram more rapidly to the upbrow, nor loaded it afterwards so correctly.His small figure allowed him to slip about everywhere, and though his arms were as delicate and white as a woman's, they seemed to be made of iron beneath the smooth skin, so vigorously did they perform their task.He never complained, out of pride no doubt, even when he was panting with fatigue.The only thing they had against him was that he could not take a joke, and grew angry as soon as any one trod on his toes.In all other respects he was accepted and looked upon as a real miner, reduced beneath this pressure of habit, little by little, to a machine.

Maheu regarded Étienne with special friendship, for he respected work that was well done.Then, like the others, he felt that this lad had more education than himself; he saw him read, write, and draw little plans; he heard him talking of things of which he himself did not know even the existence.This caused him no astonishment, for miners are rough fellows who have thicker heads than engine-men; but he was surprised at the courage of this little chap, and at the cheerful way he had bitten into the coal to avoid dying of hunger.He had never met a workman who grew accustomed to it so quickly.So when hewing was urgent, and he did not wish to disturb a pikeman, he gave the timbering over to the young man, being sure of the neatness and solidity of his work.The bosses were always bothering him about the damned planking question; he feared every hour the appearance of the engineer Négrel, followed by Dansaert, shouting, discussing, ordering everything to be done over again, and he remarked that his putter's timbering gave greater satisfaction to these gentlemen, in spite of their air of never being pleased with anything, and their repeated assertions that the Company would one day or another take radical measures.Things dragged on; a deep discontent was fomenting in the pit, and Maheu himself, in spite of his calmness, was beginning to clench his fists.

There was at first some rivalry between Zacharie and Étienne.One evening they were even coming to blows.But the former, a good lad though careless of everything but his own pleasure, was quickly appeased by the friendly offer of a glass, and soon yielded to the superiority of the new-comer.Levaque was also on good terms with him, talking politics with the putter, who, as he said, had his own ideas.The only one of the men in whom he felt a deep hostility was lanky Chaval: not that they were cool towards each other, for, on the contrary, they had become companions; only when they joked their eyes seemed to devour each other.Catherine continued to move among them as a tired, resigned girl, bending her back, pushing her tram, always good-natured with her companion in the putting, who aided her in his turn, and submissive to the wishes of her lover, whose caresses she now received openly.It was an accepted situation, a recognized domestic arrangement to which the family itself closed its eyes to such a degree that Chaval every evening led away the putter behind the pit-bank, then brought her back to her parents' door, where he finally embraced her before the whole settlement.Étienne, who believed that he had reconciled himself to the situation, often teased her about these walks, making crude remarks by way of joke, as lads and girls will at the bottom of the cuttings; and she replied in the same tone, telling in a swaggering way what her lover had done to her, yet disturbed and growing pale when the young man's eyes chanced to meet hers.Then both would turn away their heads, not speaking again, perhaps, for an hour, looking as if they hated each other because of something buried within them and which they could never explain to each other.

The spring had come.On emerging from the pit one day Étienne had received in his face a warm April breeze, a good odour of young earth, of tender greenness, of large open air; and now, every time he came up the spring smelt sweeter, warmed him more, after his ten hours of labour in the eternal winter at the bottom, in the midst of that damp darkness which no summer had ever dissipated.The days grew longer and longer; at last, in May, he went down at sunrise when a vermilion sky lit up the Voreux with a mist of dawn in which the white vapour of the pumping-engine became rose-coloured.There was no more shivering, a warm breath blew across the plain, while the larks sang far above.Then at three o'clock he was dazzled by the now burning sun which set fire to the horizon, and reddened the bricks beneath the filth of the coal.In June the wheat was already high, of a blue green, which contrasted with the black green of the beetroots.It was an endless vista undulating beneath the slightest breeze; and he saw it spread and grow from day to day, and was sometimes surprised, as if he had found it in the evening more swollen with verdure than it had been in the morning.The poplars along the canal were putting on their plumes of leaves.Grass was invading the pit-bank, flowers were covering the meadows, a whole life was germinating and pushing up from this earth beneath which he was groaning in misery and fatigue.

When Étienne now went for a walk in the evening he no longer startled lovers behind the pit-bank.He could follow their track in the wheat and divine their wanton birds' nests by eddies among the yellowing blades and the great red poppies.Zacharie and Philoméne came back to it out of old domestic habit; Mother Brulé, always on Lydie's heels, was constantly hunting her out with Jeanlin, buried so deeply together that one had to tread on them before they made up their minds to get up; and as to Mouquette, she lay about everywhere—one could not cross a field without seeing her head plunge down while only her feet emerged as she lay at full length.But all these were quite free; the young man found nothing guilty there except on the evenings when he met Catherine and Chaval.Twice he saw them on his approach tumble down in the midst of a field, where the motionless stalks afterwards remained dead.Another time, as he was going along a narrow path, Catherine's clear eyes appeared before him, level with the wheat, and immediately sank.Then the immense plain seemed to him too small, and he preferred to pass the evening at Rasseneur's, in the Avantage.

"Give me a glass, Madame Rasseneur.No, I'm not going out to-night; my legs are too stiff."

And he turned towards a comrade, who always sat at the bottom table with his head against the wall.

"Souvarine, won't you have one?"

"No, thanks; nothing."

Étienne had become acquainted with Souvarine through living there side by side.He was an engine-man at the Voreux, and occupied the furnished room upstairs next to his own.He must have been about thirty years old, fair and slender, with a delicate face framed by thick hair and a slight beard.His white pointed teeth, his thin mouth and nose, with his rosy complexion, gave him a girlish appearance, an air of obstinate gentleness, across which the grey reflection of his steely eyes threw savage gleams. In his poor workman's room there was nothing but a box of papers and books.He was a Russian, and never spoke of himself, so that many stories were afloat concerning him.The colliers, who are very suspicious with strangers, guessing from his small middle-class hands that he belonged to another caste, had at first imagined a romance, some assassination, and that he was escaping punishment.But then he had behaved in such a fraternal way with them, without any pride, distributing to the youngsters of the settlement all the sous in his pockets, that they now accepted him, reassured by the term "political refugee" which circulated about him—a vague term, in which they saw an excuse even for crime, and, as it were, a companionship in suffering.

During the first weeks, Étienne had found him timid and reserved, so that he only discovered his history later on.Souvarine was the latest born of a noble family in the Government of Tula.At St.Petersburg, where he studied medicine, the socialistic enthusiasm which then carried away all the youth in Russia had decided him to learn a manual trade, that of a mechanic, so that he could mix with the people, in order to know them and help them as a brother.And it was by this trade that he was now living after having fled, in consequence of an unsuccessful attempt against the tsar's life: for a month he had lived in a fruiterer's cellar, hollowing out a mine underneath the road, and charging bombs, with the constant risk of being blown up with the house.Renounced by his family, without money, expelled from the French workshops as a foreigner who was regarded as a spy, he was dying of starvation when the Montsou Company had at last taken him on at a moment of pressure.For a year he had laboured there as a good, sober, silent workman, doing day-work one week and night-work the next week, so regularly that the masters referred to him as an example to the others.

"Are you never thirsty?"said Étienne to him, laughing.

And he replied with his gentle voice, almost without an accent:

"I am thirsty when I eat."

His companion also joked him about the girls, declaring that he had seen him with a putter in the wheat on the Bas-de-Soie side.Then he shrugged his shoulders with tranquil indifference.What should he do with a putter?Woman was for him a boy, a comrade, when she had the fraternal feeling and the courage of a man.What was the good of having a possible act of cowardice on one's conscience?He desired no bond, either woman or friend; he would be master of his own life and those of others.

Every evening towards nine o'clock, when the inn was emptying, Étienne remained thus talking with Souvarine.He drank his beer in small sips, while the engine-man smoked constant cigarettes, of which the tobacco had at last stained his slender fingers.His vague mystic's eyes followed the smoke in the midst of a dream; his left hand sought occupation by nervously twitching; and he usually ended by installing a tame rabbit on his knees, a large doe with young, who lived at liberty in the house.This rabbit, which he had named Poland, had grown to worship him; she would come and smell his trousers, fawn on him and scratch him with her paws until he took her up like a child.Then, lying in a heap against him, her ears laid back, she would close her eyes; and without growing tired, with an unconscious caressing gesture, he would pass his hand over her grey silky fur, calmed by that warm living softness.

"You know I have had a letter from Pluchart," said Étienne one evening.

Only Rasseneur was there.The last client had departed for the settlement, which was now going to bed.

"Ah!"exclaimed the innkeeper, standing up before his two lodgers."How are things going with Pluchart?"

During the last two months, Étienne had kept up a constant correspondence with the Lille mechanician, whom he had told of his Montsou engagement, and who was now indoctrinating him, having been struck by the propaganda which he might carry on among the miners.

"The association is getting on very well.It seems that they are coming in from all sides."

"What have you got to say, eh, about their society?"asked Rasseneur of Souvarine.

The latter, who was softly scratching Poland's head, blew out a puff of smoke and muttered, with his tranquil air:

"More foolery!"

But Étienne grew enthusiastic.A predisposition for revolt was throwing him, in the first illusions of his ignorance, into the struggle of labour against capital.It was the International Working Men's Association that they were concerned with, that famous International which had just been founded in London.Was not that a superb effort, a campaign in which justice would at last triumph?No more frontiers; the workers of the whole world rising and uniting to assure to the labourer the bread that he has earned.And what a simple and great organization!Below, the section which represents the commune; then the federation which groups the sections of the same province; then the nation; and then, at last, humanity incarnated in a general council in which each nation was represented by a corresponding secretary.In six months it would conquer the world, and would be able to dictate laws to the masters should they prove obstinate.

"Foolery!"repeated Souvarine."Your Karl Marx is still only thinking about letting natural forces act.No politics, no conspiracies, is it not so?Everything in the light of day, and simply to raise wages.Don't bother me with your evolution!Set fire to the four corners of the town, mow down the people, level everything, and when there is nothing more of this rotten world left standing, perhaps a better one will grow up in its place."

Étienne began to laugh.He did not always take in his comrade's sayings; this theory of destruction seemed to him an affectation.Rasseneur, who was still more practical, like a man of solid common sense did not condescend to get angry.He only wanted to have things clear.

"Then, what?Are you going to try and create a section at Montsou?"

This was what was desired by Pluchart, who was secretary to the Federation of the Nord.He insisted especially on the services which the association would render to the miners should they go out on strike.Étienne believed that a strike was imminent: this timbering business would turn out badly; any further demands on the part of the Company would cause rebellion in all the pits.

"It's the subscriptions that are the nuisance," Rasseneur declared, in a judicial tone."Half a franc a year for the general fund, two francs for the section; it looks like nothing, but I bet that many will refuse to give it."

"All the more," added Étienne, "because we must first have here a Provident Fund, which we can use if need be as an emergency fund.No matter, it is time to think about these things.I am ready if the others are."

There was silence.The petroleum lamp smoked on the counter.Through the large open door they could distinctly hear the shovel of a stoker at the Voreux stoking the engine.

"Everything is so dear!"began Madame Rasseneur, who had entered and was listening with a gloomy air as if she had grown up in her everlasting black dress."When I tell you that I've paid twenty-two sous for eggs!It will have to burst up."

All three men this time were of the same opinion.They spoke one after the other in a despairing voice, giving expression to their complaints.The workers could not hold out; the Revolution had only aggravated their wretchedness; only the bourgeois had grown fat since '89, so greedily that they had not even left the bottom of the plates to lick.Who could say that the workers had had their reasonable share in the extraordinary increase of wealth and comfort during the last hundred years?They had made fun of them by declaring them free.Yes, free to starve, a freedom of which they fully availed themselves.It put no bread into your cupboard to go and vote for fine fellows who went away and enjoyed themselves, thinking no more of the wretched voters than of their old boots.No!one way or another it would have to come to an end, either quietly by laws, by an understanding in good fellowship, or like savages by burning everything and devouring one another.Even if they never saw it, their children would certainly see it, for the century could not come to an end without another revolution, that of the workers this time, a general hustling which would cleanse society from top to bottom, and rebuild it with more cleanliness and justice.

"It will have to burst up," Madame Rasseneur repeated energetically.

"Yes, yes," they all three cried."It will have to burst up."Souvarine was now tickling Poland's ears, and her nose was curling with pleasure.He said in a low voice, with abstracted gaze, as if to himself:

"Raise wages—how can you?They're fixed by an iron law to the smallest possible sum, just the sum necessary to allow the workers to eat dry bread and get children.If they fall too low, the workers die, and the demand for new men makes them rise.If they rise too high, more men come, and they fall.It is the balance of empty bellies, a sentence to a perpetual prison of hunger."

When he thus forgot himself, entering into the questions that stir an educated socialist, Étienne and Rasseneur became restless, disturbed by his despairing statements which they were unable to answer.

"Do you understand?"he said again, gazing at them with his habitual calmness; "we must destroy everything, or hunger will reappear.Yes, anarchy and nothing more; the earth washed in blood and purified by fire!Then we shall see!"

"Monsieur is quite right," said Madame Rasseneur, who, in her revolutionary violence, was always very polite.

Étienne, in despair at his ignorance, would argue no longer.He rose, remarking:

"Let's go to bed.All this won't save one from getting up at three o'clock."

Souvarine, having blown away the cigarette-end which was sticking to his lips, was already gently lifting the big rabbit beneath the belly to place it on the ground.Rasseneur was shutting up the house.They separated in silence with buzzing ears, as if their heads had swollen with the grave questions they had been discussing.

And every evening there were similar conversations in the bare room around the single glass which Étienne took an hour to empty.A crowd of obscure ideas, asleep within him, were stirring and expanding.Especially consumed by the need of knowledge, he had long hesitated to borrow books from his neighbour, who unfortunately had hardly any but German and Russian works.At last he had borrowed a French book on Co-operative Societies—mere foolery, said Souvarine; and he also regularly read a newspaper which the latter received, the Combat, an Anarchist journal published at Geneva.In other respects, notwithstanding their daily relations, he found him as reserved as ever, with his air of camping in life, without interests or feelings or possessions of any kind.

Towards the first days of July, Étienne's situation began to improve.In the midst of this monotonous life, always beginning over again, an accident had occurred.The stalls in the Guillaume seam had come across a shifting of the strata, a general disturbance in the layers, which certainly announced that they were approaching a fault; and, in fact, they soon came across this fault which the engineers, in spite of considerable knowledge of the soil, were still ignorant of.This upset the pit; nothing was talked of but the lost seam, which was to be found, no doubt, lower down on the other side of the fault.The old miners were already expanding their nostrils, like good dogs, in a chase for coal.But, meanwhile, the hewers could not stand with folded arms, and placards announced that the Company would put up new workings to auction.

Maheu, on coming out one day, accompanied Étienne and offered to take him on as a pikeman in his working, in place of Levaque who had gone to another yard.The matter had already been arranged with the head captain and the engineer, who were very pleased with the young man.So Étienne merely had to accept this rapid promotion, glad of the growing esteem in which Maheu held him.

In the evening they returned together to the pit to take note of the placards.The cuttings put up to auction were in the Filonniére seam in the north gallery of the Voreux.They did not seem very advantageous, and the miner shook his head when the young man read out the conditions.On the following day when they had gone down, he took him to see the seam, and showed him how far away it was from the pit-eye, the crumbly nature of the earth, the thinness and hardness of the coal.But if they were to eat they would have to work.So on the following Sunday they went to the auction, which took place in the shed and was presided over by the engineer of the pit, assisted by the head captain, in the absence of the divisional engineer.From five to six hundred miners were there in front of the little platform, which was placed in the corner, and the bidding went on so rapidly that one only heard a deep tumult of voices, of shouted figures drowned by other figures.

For a moment Maheu feared that he would not be able to obtain one of the forty workings offered by the Company.All the rivals went lower, disquieted by the rumours of a crisis and the panic of a lock-out.Négrel, the engineer, did not hurry in the face of this panic, and allowed the offers to fall to the lowest possible figures, while Dansaert, anxious to push matters still further, lied with regard to the quality of the workings.In order to get his fifty metres, Maheu struggled with a comrade who was also obstinate; in turn they each took off a centime from the tram; and if he conquered in the end it was only by lowering the wage to such an extent, that the captain Richomme, who was standing behind him, muttered between his teeth, and nudged him with his elbow, growling angrily that he could never do it at that price.

When they came out Étienne was swearing.And he broke out before Chaval, who was returning from the wheatfields in company with Catherine, amusing himself while his father-in-law was absorbed in serious business.

"By God!"he exclaimed, "it's simply slaughter!Today it is the worker who is forced to devour the worker!"

Chaval was furious.He would never have lowered it, he wouldn't.And Zacharie, who had come out of curiosity, declared that it was disgusting.But Étienne with a violent gesture silenced them.

"It will end some day, we shall be the masters!"

Maheu, who had been mute since the auction, appeared to wake up.He repeated:

"Masters!Ah!bad luck!it can't be too soon!"

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CHAPTER II

It was Montsou feast-day, the last Sunday in July.Since Saturday evening the good housekeepers of the settlement had deluged their parlours with water, throwing bucketfuls over the flags and against the walls; and the floor was not yet dry, in spite of the white sand which had been strewn over it, an expensive luxury for the purses of the poor.But the day promised to be very warm; it was one of those heavy skies threatening storm, which in summer stifle this flat bare country of the Nord.

Sunday upset the hours for rising, even among the Maheus.While the father, after five o'clock, grew weary of his bed and dressed himself, the children lay in bed until nine.On this day Maheu went to smoke a pipe in the garden, and then came back to eat his bread and butter alone, while waiting.He thus passed the morning in a random manner; he mended the tub, which leaked; stuck up beneath the clock a portrait of the prince imperial which had been given to the little ones.However, the others came down one by one.Father Bonnemort had taken a chair outside, to sit in the sun, while the mother and Alzire had at once set about cooking.Catherine appeared, pushing before her Lénore and Henri, whom she had just dressed.Eleven o'clock struck, and the odour of the rabbit, which was boiling with potatoes, was already filling the house when Zacharie and Jeanlin came down last, still yawning and with their swollen eyes.

The settlement was now in a flutter, excited by the feast-day, and in expectation of dinner, which was being hastened for the departure in bands to Montsou.Troops of children were rushing about.Men in their shirt-sleeves were trailing their old shoes with the lazy gait of days of rest.Windows and doors, opened wide in the fine weather, gave glimpses of rows of parlours which were filled with movement and shouts and the chatter of families.And from one end to the other of the frontages, there was a smell of rabbit, a rich kitchen smell which on this day struggled with the inveterate odour of fried onion.

The Maheus dined at midday.They made little noise in the midst of the chatter from door to door, in the coming and going of women in a constant uproar of calls and replies, of objects borrowed, of youngsters hunted away or brought back with a slap.Besides, they had not been on good terms during the last three weeks with their neighbours, the Levaques, on the subject of the marriage of Zacharie and Philoméne.The men passed the time of day, but the women pretended not to know each other.This quarrel had strengthened the relations with Pierronne, only Pierronne had left Pierron and Lydie with her mother, and set out early in the morning to spend the day with a cousin at Marchiennes; and they joked, for they knew this cousin; she had a moustache, and was head captain at the Voreux.Maheude declared that it was not proper to leave one's family on a feast-day Sunday.

Beside the rabbit with potatoes, a rabbit which had been fattening in the shed for a month, the Maheus had meat soup and beef.The fortnight's wages had just fallen due the day before.They could not recollect such a spread.Even at the last St.Barbara's Day, the fete of the miners when they do nothing for three days, the rabbit had not been so fat nor so tender.So the ten pairs of jaws, from little Estelle, whose teeth were beginning to appear, to old Bonnemort, who was losing his, worked so heartily that the bones themselves disappeared.The meat was good, but they could not digest it well; they saw it too seldom.Everything disappeared; there only remained a piece of boiled beef for the evening.They could add bread and butter if they were hungry.

Jeanlin went out first.Bébert was waiting for him behind the school, and they prowled about for a long time before they were able to entice away Lydie, whom Brulé, who had decided not to go out, was trying to keep with her.When she perceived that the child had fled, she shouted and brandished her lean arms, while Pierron, annoyed at the disturbance, strolled quietly away with the air of a husband who can amuse himself with a good conscience, knowing that his wife also has her little amusements.

Old Bonnemort set out at last, and Maheu decided to have a little fresh air after asking Maheude if she would come and join him down below.No, she couldn't at all, it was nothing but drudgery with the little ones; but perhaps she would, all the same; she would think about it: they could easily find each other.When he got outside he hesitated, then he went into the neighbours' to see if Levaque was ready.There he found Zacharie, who was waiting for Philoméne, and the Levaque woman started again on that everlasting subject of marriage, saying that she was being made fun of and that she would have an explanation with Maheude once and for all.Was life worth living when one had to keep one's daughter's fatherless children while she went off with her lover?Philoméne quietly finished putting on her bonnet, and Zacharie took her off, saying that he was quite willing if his mother was willing.As Levaque had already gone, Maheu referred his angry neighbour to his wife and hastened to depart.Bouteloup, who was finishing a fragment of cheese with both elbows on the table, obstinately refused the friendly offer of a glass.He would stay in the house like a good husband.

Gradually the settlement was emptied; all the men went off one behind the other, while the girls, watching at the doors, set out in the opposite direction on the arms of their lovers.As her father turned the corner of the church, Catherine perceived Chaval, and, hastening to join him, they took together the Montsou road.And the mother remained alone, in the midst of her scattered children, without strength to leave her chair, where she was pouring out a second glass of boiling coffee, which she drank in little sips.In the settlement there were only the women left, inviting each other to finish the dregs of the coffee-pots, around tables that were still warm and greasy with the dinner.

Maheu had guessed that Levaque was at the Avantage, and he slowly went down to Rasseneur's.In fact, behind the bar, in the little garden shut in by a hedge, Levaque was having a game of skittles with some mates.Standing by, and not playing, Father Bonnemort and old Mouque were following the ball, so absorbed that they even forgot to nudge each other with their elbows.A burning sun struck down on them perpendicularly; there was only one streak of shade by the side of the inn; and Étienne was there drinking his glass before a table, annoyed because Souvarine had just left him to go up to his room.Nearly every Sunday the engine-man shut himself up to write or to read.

"Will you have a game?"asked Levaque of Maheu.

But he refused: it was too hot, he was already dying of thirst.

"Rasseneur," called Étienne, "bring a glass, will you?"

And turning towards Maheu:

"I'll stand it, you know."

They now all treated each other familiarly.Rasseneur did not hurry himself, he had to be called three times; and Madame Rasseneur at last brought some lukewarm beer.The young man had lowered his voice to complain about the house: they were worthy people, certainly, people with good ideas, but the beer was worthless and the soup abominable!He would have changed his lodgings ten times over, only the thought of the walk from Montsou held him back.One day or another he would go and live with some family at the settlement.

"Sure enough!"said Maheu in his slow voice, "sure enough, you would be better in a family."

But shouts now broke out.Levaque had overthrown all the skittles at one stroke.Mouque and Bonnemort, with their faces towards the ground, in the midst of the tumult preserved a silence of profound approbation.And the joy at this stroke found vent in jokes, especially when the players perceived Mouquette's radiant face behind the hedge.She had been prowling about there for an hour, and at last ventured to come near on hearing the laughter.

"What!are you alone?"shouted Levaque."Where are your sweethearts?"

"My sweethearts!I've stabled them," she replied, with a fine impudent gaiety."I'm looking for one."

They all offered themselves, throwing coarse chaff at her.She refused with a gesture and laughed louder, playing the fine lady.Besides, her father was watching the game without even taking his eyes from the fallen skittles.

"Ah!"Levaque went on, throwing a look towards Étienne: "one can tell where you're casting sheep's eyes, my girl!You'll have to take him by force."

Then Étienne brightened up.It was in fact around him that the putter was revolving.And he refused, amused indeed, but without having the least desire for her.She remained planted behind the hedge for some minutes longer, looking at him with large fixed eyes; then she slowly went away, and her face suddenly became serious as if she were overcome by the powerful sun.

In a low voice Étienne was again giving long explanations to Maheu regarding the necessity for the Montsou miners to establish a Provident Fund."Since the Company professes to leave us free," he repeated, "what is there to fear?We only have their pensions and they distribute them according to their own idea, since they don't hold back any of our pay.Well, it will be prudent to form, outside their good pleasure, an association of mutual help on which we can count at least in cases of immediate need."

And he gave details, and discussed the organization, promising to undertake the labour of it.

"I am willing enough," said Maheu, at last convinced."But there are the others; get them to make up their minds."

Levaque had won, and they left the skittles to empty their glasses.But Maheu refused to drink a second glass; he would see later on, the day was not yet done.He was thinking about Pierron.Where could he be?No doubt at the Lenfant Estaminet.And, having persuaded Étienne and Levaque, the three set out for Montsou, at the same moment that a new band took possession of the skittles at the Avantage.

On the road they had to pause at the Casimir Bar, and then at the Estaminet du Progrés.Comrades called them through the open doors, and there was no way of refusing.Each time it was a glass, two if they were polite enough to return the invitation.They remained there ten minutes, exchanging a few words, and then began again, a little farther on, knowing the beer, with which they could fill themselves without any other discomfort than having to piss it out again in the same measure, as clear as rock water.At the Estaminet Lenfant they came right upon Pierron, who was finishing his second glass, and who, in order not to refuse to touch glasses, swallowed a third.They naturally drank theirs also.Now there were four of them, and they set out to see if Zacharie was not at the Estaminet Tison.It was empty, and they called for a glass, in order to wait for him a moment.Then they thought of the Estaminet Saint-Éloi and accepted there a round from Captain Richomme.Then they rambled from bar to bar, without any pretext, simply saying that they were having a stroll.

"We must go to the Volcan!"suddenly said Levaque, who was getting excited.

The others began to laugh, and hesitated.Then they accompanied their comrade in the midst of the growing crowd.In the long narrow room of the Volcan, on a platform raised at the end, five singers, the scum of the Lille prostitutes, were walking about, low-necked and with monstrous gestures, and the customers gave ten sous when they desired to have one behind the stage.There was especially a number of putters and landers, even trammers of fourteen, all the youth of the pit, drinking more gin than beer.A few old miners also ventured there, and the worst husbands of the settlements, those whose households were falling into ruin.

As soon as the band was seated round a little table, Étienne took possession of Levaque to explain to him his idea of the Provident Fund.Like all new converts who have found a mission, he had become an obstinate propagandist.

"Every member," he repeated, "could easily pay in twenty sous a month.As these twenty sous accumulated they would form a nice little sum in four or five years, and when one has money one is ready, eh, for anything that turns up?Eh, what do you say to it?"

"I've nothing to say against it," replied Levaque, with an abstracted air."We will talk about it."

He was excited by an enormous blonde, and determined to remain behind when Maheu and Pierron, after drinking their glasses, set out without waiting for a second song.

Outside, Étienne who had gone with them found Mouquette, who seemed to be following them.She was always there, looking at him with her large fixed eyes, laughing her good-natured laugh, as if to say: "Are you willing?"The young man joked and shrugged his shoulders.Then, with a gesture of anger, she was lost in the crowd.

"Where, then, is Chaval?"asked Pierron.

"True!"said Maheu."He must surely be at Piquette's.Let us go to Piquette's."

But as they all three arrived at the Estaminet Piquette, sounds of a quarrel arrested them at the door; Zacharie with his fist was threatening a thick-set phlegmatic Walloon nail-maker, while Chaval, with his hands in his pockets, was looking on.

"Hullo!there's Chaval," said Maheu quietly; "he is with Catherine."

For five long hours the putter and her lover had been walking about the fair.All along the Montsou road, that wide road with low bedaubed houses winding downhill, a crowd of people wandered up and down in the sun, like a trail of ants, lost in the flat, bare plain.The eternal black mud had dried, a black dust was rising and floating about like a storm-cloud.

On both sides the public-houses were crowded; there were rows of tables to the street, where stood a double rank of hucksters at stalls in the open air, selling neck-handkerchiefs and looking-glasses for the girls, knives and caps for the lads; to say nothing of sweetmeats, sugar-plums, and biscuits.In front of the church archery was going on.Opposite the Yards they were playing at bowls.At the corner of the Joiselle road, beside the Administration buildings, in a spot enclosed by fences, crowds were watching a cock-fight, two large red cocks, armed with steel spurs, their breasts torn and bleeding.Farther on, at Maigrat's, aprons and trousers were being won at billiards.And there were long silences; the crowd drank and stuffed itself without a sound; a mute indigestion of beer and fried potatoes was expanding in the great heat, still further increased by the frying-pans bubbling in the open air.

Chaval bought a looking-glass for nineteen sous and a handkerchief for three francs, to give to Catherine. At every turn they met Mouque and Bonnemort, who had come to the fair and, in meditative mood, were plodding heavily through it side by side. Another meeting made them angry; they caught sight of Jeanlin inciting Bébert and Lydie to steal bottles of gin from an extemporized bar installed at the edge of an open piece of ground. Catherine succeeded in boxing her brother's ears; the little girl had already run away with a bottle. These imps of Satan would certainly end in a prison. Then, as they arrived before another bar, the Tête-Coupée, it occurred to Chaval to take his sweetheart in to a competition of chaffinches which had been announced on the door for the past week. Fifteen nail-makers from the Marchiennes nail works had responded to the appeal, each with a dozen cages; and the gloomy little cages in which the blinded finches sat motionless were already hung upon a paling in the inn yard. It was a question as to which, in the course of an hour, should repeat the phrase of its song the greatest number of times. Each nail-maker with a slate stood near his cages to mark, watching his neighbours and watched by them. And the chaffinches had begun, the chichouïeux with the deeper note, the batisecouics with their shriller note, all at first timid, and only risking a rare phrase, then, excited by each other's songs, increasing the pace; then at last carried away by such a rage of rivalry that they would even fall dead. The nail-makers violently whipped them on with their voices, shouting out to them in Walloon to sing more, still more, yet a little more, while the spectators, about a hundred people, stood by in mute fascination in the midst of this infernal music of a hundred and eighty chaffinches all repeating the same cadence out of time. It was a batisecouic which gained the first prize, a metal coffee-pot.

Catherine and Chaval were there when Zacharie and Philoméne entered.They shook hands, and all stayed together.But suddenly Zacharie became angry, for he discovered that a nail-maker, who had come in with his mates out of curiosity, was pinching his sister's thigh.She blushed and tried to make him be silent, trembling at the idea that all these nail-makers would throw themselves on Chaval and kill him if he objected to her being pinched.She had felt the pinch, but said nothing out of prudence.Her lover, however, merely made a grimace, and as they all four now went out the affair seemed to be finished.But hardly had they entered Piquette's to drink a glass, when the nail-maker reappeared, making fun of them and coming close up to them with an air of provocation.Zacharie, insulted in his good family feelings, threw himself on the insolent intruder.

"That's my sister, you swine!Just wait a bit, and I'm damned if I don't make you respect her."

The two men were separated, while Chaval, who was quite calm, only repeated:

"Let be!it's my concern.I tell you I don't care a damn for him."

Maheu now arrived with his party, and quieted Catherine and Philoméne who were in tears.The nail-maker had disappeared, and there was laughter in the crowd.To bring the episode to an end, Chaval, who was at home at the Estaminet Piquette, called for drinks.Étienne had touched glasses with Catherine, and all drank together—the father, the daughter and her lover, the son and his mistress—saying politely: "To your good health!"Pierron afterwards persisted in paying for more drinks.And they were all in good humour, when Zacharie grew wild again at the sight of his comrade Mouquet, and called him, as he said, to go and finish his affair with the nail-maker.

"I shall have to go and do for him!Here, Chaval, keep Philoméne with Catherine.I'm coming back."

Maheu offered drinks in his turn.After all, if the lad wished to avenge his sister it was not a bad example.But as soon as she had seen Mouquet, Philoméne felt at rest, and nodded her head.Sure enough the two chaps would be off to the Volcan!

On the evenings of feast-days the fair was terminated in the ball-room of the Bon-Joyeux.It was a widow, Madame Désir, who kept this ball-room, a fat matron of fifty, as round as a tub, but so fresh that she still had six lovers, one for every day of the week, she said, and the six together for Sunday.She called all the miners her children; and grew tender at the thought of the flood of beer which she had poured out for them during the last thirty years; and she boasted also that a putter never became pregnant without having first stretched her legs at her establishment.There were two rooms in the Bon-Joyeux: the bar which contained the counter and tables; then, communicating with it on the same floor by a large arch, was the ball-room, a large hall only planked in the middle, being paved with bricks round the sides.It was decorated with two garlands of paper flowers which crossed one another, and were united in the middle by a crown of the same flowers; while along the walls were rows of gilt shields bearing the names of saints—St.Éloi, patron of the iron-workers; St.Crispin, patron of the shoemakers; St.Barbara, patron of the miners; the whole calendar of corporations.The ceiling was so low that the three musicians on their platform, which was about the size of a pulpit, knocked their heads against it.When it became dark four petroleum lamps were fastened to the four corners of the room.

On this Sunday there was dancing from five o'clock with the full daylight through the windows, but it was not until towards seven that the rooms began to fill.Outside, a gale was rising, blowing great black showers of dust which blinded people and sleeted into the frying-pans.Maheu, Étienne, and Pierron, having come in to sit down, had found Chaval at the Bon-Joyeux dancing with Catherine, while Philoméne by herself was looking on.Neither Levaque nor Zacharie had reappeared.As there were no benches around the ball-room, Catherine came after each dance to rest at her father's table.They called Philoméne, but she preferred to stand up.The twilight was coming on; the three musicians played furiously; one could only see in the hall the movement of hips and breasts in the midst of a confusion of arms. The appearance of the four lamps was greeted noisily, and suddenly everything was lit up—the red faces, the dishevelled hair sticking to the skin, the flying skirts spreading abroad the strong odour of perspiring couples.Maheu pointed out Mouquette to Étienne: she was as round and greasy as a bladder of lard, revolving violently in the arms of a tall, lean lander.She had been obliged to console herself and take a man.

At last, at eight o'clock, Maheude appeared with Estelle at her breast, followed by Alzire, Henri, and Lénore.She had come there straight to her husband without fear of missing him.They could sup later on; as yet nobody was hungry, with their stomachs soaked in coffee and thickened with beer.Other women came in, and they whispered together when they saw, behind Maheude, the Levaque woman enter with Bouteloup, who led in by the hand Achille and Désirée, Philoméne's little ones.The two neighbours seemed to be getting on well together, one turning round to chat with the other.On the way there had been a great explanation, and Maheude had resigned herself to Zacharie's marriage, in despair at the loss of her eldest son's wages, but overcome by the thought that she could not hold it back any longer without injustice.She was trying, therefore, to put a good face on it, though with an anxious heart, as a housekeeper who was asking herself how she could make both ends meet now that the best part of her purse was going.

"Place yourself there, neighbour," she said, pointing to a table near that where Maheu was drinking with Étienne and Pierron.

"Is not my husband with you?"asked the Levaque woman.

The others told her that he would soon come.They were all seated together in a heap, Bouteloup and the youngsters so tightly squeezed among the drinkers that the two tables only formed one.There was a call for drinks.Seeing her mother and her children Philoméne had decided to come near.She accepted a chair, and seemed pleased to hear that she was at last to be married; then, as they were looking for Zacharie, she replied in her soft voice:

"I am waiting for him; he is over there."

Maheu had exchanged a look with his wife.She had then consented?He became serious and smoked in silence.He also felt anxiety for the morrow in face of the ingratitude of these children, who got married one by one leaving their parents in wretchedness.

The dancing still went on, and the end of a quadrille drowned the ball-room in red dust; the walls cracked, a cornet produced shrill whistling sounds like a locomotive in distress; and when the dancers stopped they were smoking like horses.

"Do you remember?"said the Levaque woman, bending towards Maheude's ear; "you talked of strangling Catherine if she did anything foolish!"

Chaval brought Catherine back to the family table, and both of them standing behind the father finished their glasses.

"Bah!"murmured Maheude, with an air of resignation, "one says things like that—.But what quiets me is that she will not have a child; I feel sure of that.You see if she is confined, and obliged to marry, what shall we do for a living then?"

Now the cornet was whistling a polka, and as the deafening noise began again, Maheu, in a low voice, communicated an idea to his wife.Why should they not take a lodger?Étienne, for example, who was looking out for quarters?They would have room since Zacharie was going to leave them, and the money that they would lose in that direction would be in part regained in the other.Maheude's face brightened; certainly it was a good idea, it must be arranged.She seemed to be saved from starvation once more, and her good humour returned so quickly that she ordered a new round of drinks.

Étienne, meanwhile, was seeking to indoctrinate Pierron, to whom he was explaining his plan of a Provident Fund.He had made him promise to subscribe, when he was imprudent enough to reveal his real aim.

"And if we go out on strike you can see how useful that fund will be.We can snap our fingers at the Company, we shall have there a fund to fight against them.Eh?don't you think so?"

Pierron lowered his eyes and grew pale; he stammered:

"I'll think over it.Good conduct, that's the best Provident Fund."

Then Maheu took possession of Étienne, and squarely, like a good man, proposed to take him as a lodger.The young man accepted at once, anxious to live in the settlement with the idea of being nearer to his mates.The matter was settled in three words, Maheude declaring that they would wait for the marriage of the children.

Just then, Zacharie at last came back, with Mouquet and Levaque.The three brought in the odours of the Volcan, a breath of gin, a musky acidity of ill-kept girls.They were very tipsy and seemed well pleased with themselves, digging their elbows into each other and grinning.When he knew that he was at last to be married Zacharie began to laugh so loudly that he choked.Philoméne peacefully declared that she would rather see him laugh than cry.As there were no more chairs, Bouteloup had moved so as to give up half of his to Levaque.And the latter, suddenly much affected by realizing that the whole family party was there, once more had beer served out.

"By the Lord!we don't amuse ourselves so often!"he roared.

They remained there till ten o'clock.Women continued to arrive, either to join or to take away their men; bands of children followed in rows, and the mothers no longer troubled themselves, pulling out their long pale breasts, like sacks of oats, and smearing their chubby babies with milk; while the little ones who were already able to walk, gorged with beer and on all fours beneath the table, relieved themselves without shame.It was a rising sea of beer, from Madame Désir's disembowelled barrels, the beer enlarged every belly, flowing from noses, eyes, and everywhere.So puffed out was the crowd that every one had a shoulder or knee poking into his neighbour; all were cheerful and merry in thus feeling each other's elbows.A continuous laugh kept their mouths open from ear to ear.The heat was like an oven; they were roasting and felt themselves at ease with glistening skin, gilded in a thick smoke from the pipes; the only discomfort was when one had to move away; from time to time a girl rose, went to the other end, near the pump, lifted her clothes, and then came back.Beneath the garlands of painted paper the dancers could no longer see each other, they perspired so much; this encouraged the trammers to tumble the putters over, catching them at random by the hips.But where a girl tumbled with a man over her, the cornet covered their fall with its furious music; the swirl of feet wrapped them round as if the ball had collapsed upon them.

Someone who was passing warned Pierron that his daughter Lydie was sleeping at the door, across the pavement.She had drunk her share of the stolen bottle and was tipsy.He had to carry her away in his arms while Jeanlin and Bébert, who were more sober, followed him behind, thinking it a great joke.This was the signal for departure, and several families came out of the Bon-Joyeux, the Maheus and the Levaques deciding to return to the settlement.At the same moment Father Bonnemort and old Mouque also left Montsou, walking in the same somnambulistic manner, preserving the obstinate silence of their recollections.And they all went back together, passing for the last time through the fair, where the frying-pans were coagulating, and by the estaminets, from which the last glasses were flowing in a stream towards the middle of the road.The storm was still threatening, and sounds of laughter arose as they left the lighted houses to lose themselves in the dark country around.Panting breaths arose from the ripe wheat; many children must have been made on that night.They arrived in confusion at the settlement.Neither the Levaques nor the Maheus supped with appetite, and the latter kept on dropping off to sleep while finishing their morning's boiled beef.

Étienne had led away Chaval for one more drink at Rasseneur's.

"I am with you!"said Chaval, when his mate had explained the matter of the Provident Fund."Put it there!you're a fine fellow!"

The beginning of drunkenness was flaming in Étienne's eyes.He exclaimed:

"Yes, let's join hands.As for me, you know I would give up everything for the sake of justice, both drink and girls.There's only one thing that warms my heart, and that is the thought that we are going to sweep away these bourgeois."

---

CHAPTER III

Towards the middle of August, Étienne settled with the Maheus, Zacharie having married and obtained from the Company a vacant house in the settlement for Philoméne and the two children.During the first days, the young man experienced some constraint in the presence of Catherine.There was a constant intimacy, as he everywhere replaced the elder brother, sharing Jeanlin's bed over against the big sister's.Going to bed and getting up he had to dress and undress near her, and see her take off and put on her garments.When the last skirt fell from her, she appeared of pallid whiteness, that transparent snow of anaemic blondes; and he experienced a constant emotion in finding her, with hands and face already spoilt, as white as if dipped in milk from her heels to her neck, where the line of tan stood out sharply like a necklace of amber.He pretended to turn away; but little by little he knew her: the feet at first which his lowered eyes met; then a glimpse of a knee when she slid beneath the coverlet; then her bosom with little rigid breasts as she leant over the bowl in the morning.She would hasten without looking at him, and in ten seconds was undressed and stretched beside Alzire, with so supple and snake-like a movement that he had scarcely taken off his shoes when she disappeared, turning her back and only showing her heavy knot of hair.

She never had any reason to be angry with him.If a sort of obsession made him watch her in spite of himself at the moment when she lay down, he avoided all practical jokes or dangerous pastimes.The parents were there, and besides he still had for her a feeling, half of friendship and half of spite, which prevented him from treating her as a girl to be desired, in the midst of the abandonment of their now common life in dressing, at meals, during work, where nothing of them remained secret, not even their most intimate needs.All the modesty of the family had taken refuge in the daily bath, for which the young girl now went upstairs alone, while the men bathed below one after the other.

At the end of the first month, Étienne and Catherine seemed no longer to see each other when in the evening, before extinguishing the candle, they moved about the room, undressed.She had ceased to hasten, and resumed her old custom of doing up her hair at the edge of her bed, while her arms, raised in the air, lifted her chemise to her thighs, and he, without his trousers, sometimes helped her, looking for the hairpins that she had lost.Custom killed the shame of being naked; they found it natural to be like this, for they were doing no harm, and it was not their fault if there was only one room for so many people.Sometimes, however, a trouble came over them suddenly, at moments when they had no guilty thought.After some nights when he had not seen her pale body, he suddenly saw her white all over, with a whiteness which shook him with a shiver, which obliged him to turn away for fear of yielding to the desire to take her.On other evenings, without any apparent reason, she would be overcome by a panic of modesty and hasten to slip between the sheets as if she felt the hands of this lad seizing her.Then, when the candle was out, they both knew that they were not sleeping but were thinking of each other in spite of their weariness.This made them restless and sulky all the following day; they liked best the tranquil evenings when they could behave together like comrades.

Étienne only complained of Jeanlin, who slept curled up.Alzire slept lightly, and Lénore and Henri were found in the morning, in each other's arms, exactly as they had gone to sleep.In the dark house there was no other sound than the snoring of Maheu and Maheude, rolling out at regular intervals like a forge bellows.On the whole, Étienne was better off than at Rasseneur's; the bed was tolerable and the sheets were changed every month.He had better soup, too, and only suffered from the rarity of meat.But they were all in the same condition, and for forty-five francs he could not demand rabbit to every meal.These forty-five francs helped the family and enabled them to make both ends meet, though always leaving some small debts and arrears; so the Maheus were grateful to their lodger; his linen was washed and mended, his buttons sewn on, and his affairs kept in order; in fact he felt all around him a woman's neatness and care.

It was at this time that Étienne began to understand the ideas that were buzzing in his brain. Up till then he had only felt an instinctive revolt in the midst of the inarticulate fermentation among his mates. All sorts of confused questions came before him: Why are some miserable? why are others rich? why are the former beneath the heel of the latter without hope of ever taking their place? And his first stage was to understand his ignorance. A secret shame, a hidden annoyance, gnawed him from that time; he knew nothing, he dared not talk about these things which were working in him like a passion—the equality of all men, and the equity which demanded a fair division of the earth's wealth. He thus took to the methodless study of those who in ignorance feel the fascination of knowledge. He now kept up a regular correspondence with Pluchart, who was better educated than himself and more advanced in the Socialist movement. He had books sent to him, and his ill-digested reading still further excited his brain, especially a medical book entitled Hygiéne du Mineur, in which a Belgian doctor had summed up the evils of which the people in coal mines were dying; without counting treatises on political economy, incomprehensible in their technical dryness, Anarchist pamphlets which upset his ideas, and old numbers of newspapers which he preserved as irrefutable arguments for possible discussions.Souvarine also lent him books, and the work on Co-operative Societies had made him dream for a month of a universal exchange association abolishing money and basing the whole social life on work.The shame of his ignorance left him, and a certain pride came to him now that he felt himself thinking.

During these first months Étienne retained the ecstasy of a novice; his heart was bursting with generous indignation against the oppressors, and looking forward to the approaching triumph of the oppressed.He had not yet manufactured a system, his reading had been too vague.Rasseneur's practical demands were mixed up in his mind with Souvarine's violent and destructive methods, and when he came out of the Avantage, where he was to be found nearly every day railing with them against the Company, he walked as if in a dream, assisting at a radical regeneration of nations to be effected without one broken window or a single drop of blood.The methods of execution remained obscure; he preferred to think that things would go very well, for he lost his head as soon as he tried to formulate a programme of reconstruction.He even showed himself full of illogical moderation; he often said that we must banish politics from the social question, a phrase which he had read and which seemed a useful one to repeat among the phlegmatic colliers with whom he lived.

Every evening now, at the Maheus', they delayed half an hour before going up to bed.Étienne always introduced the same subject.As his nature became more refined he found himself wounded by the promiscuity of the settlement.Were they beasts to be thus penned together in the midst of the fields, so tightly packed that one could not change one's shirt without exhibiting one's backside to the neighbours?And how bad it was for health; and boys and girls were forced to grow corrupt together.

"Lord!"replied Maheu, "if there were more money there would be more comfort.All the same it's true enough that it's good for no one to live piled up like that.It always ends with making the men drunk and the girls big-bellied."

And the family began to talk, each having his say, while the petroleum lamp vitiated the air of the room, already stinking of fried onion.No, life was certainly not a joke.One had to work like a brute at labour which was once a punishment for convicts; one left one's skin there oftener than was one's turn, all that without even getting meat on the table in the evening.No doubt one had one's feed; one ate, indeed, but so little, just enough to suffer without dying, overcome with debts and pursued as if one had stolen the bread.When Sunday came one slept from weariness.The only pleasures were to get drunk and to get a child with one's wife; then the beer swelled the belly, and the child, later on, left you to go to the dogs.No, it was certainly not a joke.

Then Maheude joined in.

"The bother is, you see, when you have to say to yourself that it won't change.When you're young you think that happiness will come some time, you hope for things; and then the wretchedness begins always over again, and you get shut up in it.Now, I don't wish harm to any one, but there are times when this injustice makes me mad."

There was silence; they were all breathing with the vague discomfort of this closed-in horizon.Father Bonnemort only, if he was there, opened his eyes with surprise, for in his time people used not to worry about things; they were born in the coal and they hammered at the seam, without asking for more; while now there was an air stirring which made the colliers ambitious.

"It don't do to spit at anything," he murmured."A good glass is a good glass.As to the masters, they're often rascals; but there always will be masters, won't there?What's the use of racking your brains over those things?"

Étienne at once became animated.What!The worker was to be forbidden to think!Why!that was just it; things would change now because the worker had begun to think.In the old man's time the miner lived in the mine like a brute, like a machine for extracting coal, always under the earth, with ears and eyes stopped to outward events.So the rich, who governed, found it easy to sell him and buy him, and to devour his flesh; he did not even know what was going on.But now the miner was waking up down there, germinating in the earth just as a grain germinates; and some fine day he would spring up in the midst of the fields: yes, men would spring up, an army of men who would re-establish justice.Is it not true that all citizens are equal since the Revolution, because they vote together?Why should the worker remain the slave of the master who pays him?The big companies with their machines were crushing everything, and one no longer had against them the ancient guarantees when people of the same trade, united in a body, were able to defend themselves.It was for that, by God, and for no other reason, that all would burst up one day, thanks to education.One had only to look into the settlement itself: the grandfathers could not sign their names, the fathers could do so, and as for the sons, they read and wrote like schoolmasters.Ah!it was springing up, it was springing up, little by little, a rough harvest of men who would ripen in the sun!From the moment when they were no longer each of them stuck to his place for his whole existence, and when they had the ambition to take a neighbour's place, why should they not hit out with their fists and try for the mastery?

Maheu was shaken but remained full of doubts.

"As soon as you move they give you back your certificate," he said."The old man is right; it will always be the miner who gets all the trouble, without a chance of a leg of mutton now and then as a reward."

Maheude, who had been silent for a while, awoke as from a dream.

"But if what the priests tell is true, if the poor people in this world become the rich ones in the next!"

A burst of laughter interrupted her; even the children shrugged their shoulders, being incredulous in the open air, keeping a secret fear of ghosts in the pit, but glad of the empty sky.

"Ah!bosh!the priests!"exclaimed Maheu."If they believed that, they'd eat less and work more, so as to reserve a better place for themselves up there.No, when one's dead, one's dead."

Maheude sighed deeply.

"Oh, Lord, Lord!"

Then her hands fell on to her knees with a gesture of immense dejection:

"Then if that's true, we are done for, we are."

They all looked at one another.Father Bonnemort spat into his handkerchief, while Maheu sat with his extinguished pipe, which he had forgotten, in his mouth.Alzire listened between Lénore and Henri, who were sleeping on the edge of the table.But Catherine, with her chin in her hand, never took her large clear eyes off Étienne while he was protesting, declaring his faith, and opening out the enchanting future of his social dream.Around them the settlement was asleep; one only heard the stray cries of a child or the complaints of a belated drunkard.In the parlour the clock ticked slowly, and a damp freshness arose from the sanded floor in spite of the stuffy air.

"Fine ideas!"said the young man; "why do you need a good God and his paradise to make you happy?Haven't you got it in your own power to make yourselves happy on earth?"

With his enthusiastic voice he spoke on and on.The closed horizon was bursting out; a gap of light was opening in the sombre lives of these poor people.The eternal wretchedness, beginning over and over again, the brutalizing labour, the fate of a beast who gives his wool and has his throat cut, all the misfortune disappeared, as though swept away by a great flood of sunlight; and beneath the dazzling gleam of fairyland justice descended from heaven.Since the good God was dead, justice would assure the happiness of men, and equality and brotherhood would reign.A new society would spring up in a day just as in dreams, an immense town with the splendour of a mirage, in which each citizen lived by his work, and took his share in the common joys.The old rotten world had fallen to dust; a young humanity purged from its crimes formed but a single nation of workers, having for their motto: "To each according to his deserts, and to each desert according to its performance."And this dream grew continually larger and more beautiful and more seductive as it mounted higher in the impossible.

At first Maheude refused to listen, possessed by a deep dread.No, no, it was too beautiful; it would not do to embark upon these ideas, for they made life seem abominable afterwards, and one would have destroyed everything in the effort to be happy.When she saw Maheu's eyes shine, and that he was troubled and won over, she became restless, and exclaimed, interrupting Étienne:

"Don't listen, my man!You can see he's only telling us fairy-tales.Do you think the bourgeois would ever consent to work as we do?"

But little by little the charm worked on her also.Her imagination was aroused and she smiled at last, entering his marvellous world of hope.It was so sweet to forget for a while the sad reality!When one lives like the beasts with face bent towards the earth, one needs a corner of falsehood where one can amuse oneself by regaling on the things one will never possess.And what made her enthusiastic and brought her into agreement with the young man was the idea of justice.

"Now, there you're right!"she exclaimed."When a thing's just I don't mind being cut to pieces for it.And it's true enough!it would be just for us to have a turn."

Then Maheu ventured to become excited.

"Blast it all!I am not rich, but I would give five francs to keep alive to see that.What a hustling, eh?Will it be soon?And how can we set about it?"

Étienne began talking again.The old social system was cracking; it could not last more than a few months, he affirmed roundly.As to the methods of execution, he spoke more vaguely, mixing up his reading, and fearing before ignorant hearers to enter on explanations where he might lose himself.All the systems had their share in it, softened by the certainty of easy triumph, a universal kiss which would bring to an end all class misunderstandings; without taking count, however, of the thick-heads among the masters and bourgeois whom it would perhaps be necessary to bring to reason by force.And the Maheus looked as if they understood, approving and accepting miraculous solutions with the blind faith of new believers, like those Christians of the early days of the Church, who awaited the coming of a perfect society on the dunghill of the ancient world.Little Alzire picked up a few words, and imagined happiness under the form of a very warm house, where children could play and eat as long as they liked.Catherine, without moving, her chin always resting in her hand, kept her eyes fixed on Étienne, and when he stopped a slight shudder passed over her, and she was quite pale as if she felt the cold.

But Maheude looked at the clock.

"Past nine!Can it be possible?We shall never get up to-morrow."

And the Maheus left the table with hearts ill at ease and in despair.It seemed to them that they had just been rich and that they had now suddenly fallen back into the mud.Father Bonnemort, who was setting out for the pit, growled that those sort of stories wouldn't make the soup better; while the others went upstairs in single file, noticing the dampness of the walls and the pestiferous stuffiness of the air.Upstairs, amid the heavy slumber of the settlement when Catherine had got into bed last and blown out the candle, Étienne heard her tossing feverishly before getting to sleep.

Often at these conversations the neighbours came in: Levaque, who grew excited at the idea of a general sharing; Pierron, who prudently went to bed as soon as they attacked the Company.At long intervals Zacharie came in for a moment; but politics bored him, he preferred to go off and drink a glass at the Avantage.As to Chaval, he would go to extremes and wanted to draw blood.Nearly every evening he passed an hour with the Maheus; in this assiduity there was a certain unconfessed jealousy, the fear that he would be robbed of Catherine.This girl, of whom he was already growing tired, had become precious to him now that a man slept near her and could take her at night.

Étienne's influence increased; he gradually revolutionized the settlement.His propaganda was unseen, and all the more sure since he was growing in the estimation of all.Maheude, notwithstanding the caution of a prudent housekeeper, treated him with consideration, as a young man who paid regularly and neither drank nor gambled, with his nose always in a book; she spread abroad his reputation among the neighbours as an educated lad, a reputation which they abused by asking him to write their letters.He was a sort of business man, charged with correspondence and consulted by households in affairs of difficulty.Since September he had thus at last been able to establish his famous Provident Fund, which was still very precarious, only including the inhabitants of the settlement; but he hoped to be able to obtain the adhesion of the miners at all the pits, especially if the Company, which had remained passive, continued not to interfere.He had been made secretary of the association and he even received a small salary for the clerking.This made him almost rich.If a married miner can with difficulty make both ends meet, a sober lad who has no burdens can even manage to save.

From this time a slow transformation took place in Étienne.Certain instincts of refinement and comfort which had slept during his poverty were now revealed.He began to buy cloth garments; he also bought a pair of elegant boots; he became a big man.The whole settlement grouped round him.The satisfaction of his self-love was delicious; he became intoxicated with this first enjoyment of popularity; to be at the head of others, to command, he who was so young, and but the day before had been a mere labourer, this filled him with pride, and enlarged his dream of an approaching revolution in which he was to play a part.His face changed: he became serious and put on airs, while his growing ambition inflamed his theories and pushed him to ideas of violence.

But autumn was advancing, and the October cold had blighted the little gardens of the settlement.Behind the thin lilacs the trammers no longer tumbled the putters over on the shed, and only the winter vegetables remained, the cabbages pearled with white frost, the leeks and the salads.Once more the rains were beating down on the red tiles and flowing down into the tubs beneath the gutters with the sound of a torrent.In every house the stove piled up with coal was never cold, and poisoned the close parlours.It was the season of wretchedness beginning once more.

In October, on one of the first frosty nights, Étienne, feverish after his conversation below, could not sleep.He had seen Catherine glide beneath the coverlet and then blow out the candle.She also appeared to be quite overcome, and tormented by one of those fits of modesty which still made her hasten sometimes, and so awkwardly that she only uncovered herself more.In the darkness she lay as though dead; but he knew that she also was awake, and he felt that she was thinking of him just as he was thinking of her: this mute exchange of their beings had never before filled them with such trouble.The minutes went by and neither he nor she moved, only their breathing was embarrassed in spite of their efforts to retain it.Twice over he was on the point of rising and taking her.It was idiotic to have such a strong desire for each other and never to satisfy it.Why should they thus sulk against what they desired?The children were asleep, she was quite willing; he was certain that she was waiting for him, stifling, and that she would close her arms round him in silence with clenched teeth.Nearly an hour passed.He did not go to take her, and she did not turn round for fear of calling him.The more they lived side by side, the more a barrier was raised of shames, repugnancies, delicacies of friendship, which they could not explain even to themselves.

---

CHAPTER IV

"Listen," said Maheude to her man, "when you go to Montsou for the pay, just bring me back a pound of coffee and a kilo of sugar."

He was sewing one of his shoes, in order to spare the cobbling.

"Good!"he murmured, without leaving his task.

"I should like you to go to the butcher's too.A bit of veal, eh?It's so long since we saw it."

This time he raised his head.

"Do you think, then, that I've got thousands coming in?The fortnight's pay is too little as it is, with their confounded idea of always stopping work."

They were both silent.It was after breakfast, one Saturday, at the end of October.The Company, under the pretext of the derangement caused by payment, had on this day once more suspended output in all their pits.Seized by panic at the growing industrial crisis, and not wishing to augment their already considerable stock, they profited by the smallest pretexts to force their ten thousand workers to rest.

"You know that Étienne is waiting for you at Rasseneur's," began Maheude again."Take him with you; he'll be more clever than you are in clearing up matters if they haven't counted all your hours."

Maheu nodded approval.

"And just talk to those gentlemen about your father's affair.The doctor's on good terms with the directors.It's true, isn't it, old un, that the doctor's mistaken, and that you can still work?"

For ten days Father Bonnemort, with benumbed paws, as he said, had remained nailed to his chair.She had to repeat her question, and he growled:

"Sure enough, I can work.One isn't done for because one's legs are bad.All that is just stories they make up, so as not to give the hundred-and-eighty-franc pension."

Maheude thought of the old man's forty sous, which he would, perhaps, never bring in any more, and she uttered a cry of anguish:

"My God!we shall soon be all dead if this goes on."

"When one is dead," said Maheu, "one doesn't get hungry."

He put some nails into his shoes, and decided to set out.The Deux-Cent-Quarante settlement would not be paid till towards four o'clock.The men did not hurry, therefore, but waited about, going off one by one, beset by the women, who implored them to come back at once.Many gave them commissions, to prevent them forgetting themselves in public-houses.

At Rasseneur's Étienne had received news.Disquieting rumours were flying about; it was said that the Company were more and more discontented over the timbering.They were overwhelming the workmen with fines, and a conflict appeared inevitable.That was, however, only the avowed dispute; beneath it there were grave and secret causes of complication.

Just as Étienne arrived, a comrade, who was drinking a glass on his return from Montsou, was telling that an announcement had been stuck up at the cashier's; but he did not quite know what was on the announcement.A second entered, then a third, and each brought a different story.It seemed certain, however, that the Company had taken a resolution.

"What do you say about it, eh?"asked Étienne, sitting down near Souvarine at a table where nothing was to be seen but a packet of tobacco.

The engine-man did not hurry, but finished rolling his cigarette.

"I say that it was easy to foresee.They want to push you to extremes."

He alone had a sufficiently keen intelligence to analyse the situation.He explained it in his quiet way.The Company, suffering from the crisis, had been forced to reduce their expenses if they were not to succumb, and it was naturally the workers who would have to tighten their bellies; under some pretext or another the Company would nibble at their wages.For two months the coal had been remaining at the surface of their pits, and nearly all the workshops were resting.As the Company did not dare to rest in this way, terrified at the ruinous inaction, they were meditating a middle course, perhaps a strike, from which the miners would come out crushed and worse paid.Then the new Provident Fund was disturbing them, as it was a threat for the future, while a strike would relieve them of it, by exhausting it when it was still small.

Rasseneur had seated himself beside Étienne, and both of them were listening in consternation.They could talk aloud, because there was no one there but Madame Rasseneur, seated at the counter.

"What an idea!"murmured the innkeeper; "what's the good of it?The Company has no interest in a strike, nor the men either.It would be best to come to an understanding."

This was very sensible.He was always on the side of reasonable demands.Since the rapid popularity of his old lodger, he had even exaggerated this system of possible progress, saying they would obtain nothing if they wished to have everything at once.In his fat, good-humoured nature, nourished on beer, a secret jealousy was forming, increased by the desertion of his bar, into which the workmen from the Voreux now came more rarely to drink and to listen; and he thus sometimes even began to defend the Company, forgetting the rancour of an old miner who had been turned off.

"Then you are against the strike?"cried Madame Rasseneur, without leaving the counter.

And as he energetically replied, "Yes!"she made him hold his tongue.

"Bah!you have no courage; let these gentlemen speak."

Étienne was meditating, with his eyes fixed on the glass which she had served to him.At last he raised his head.

"I dare say it's all true what our mate tells us, and we must get resigned to this strike if they force it on us.Pluchart has just written me some very sensible things on this matter.He's against the strike too, for the men would suffer as much as the masters, and it wouldn't come to anything decisive.Only it seems to him a capital chance to get our men to make up their minds to go into his big machine.Here's his letter."

In fact, Pluchart, in despair at the suspicion which the International aroused among the miners at Montsou, was hoping to see them enter in a mass if they were forced to fight against the Company.In spite of his efforts, Étienne had not been able to place a single member's card, and he had given his best efforts to his Provident Fund, which was much better received.But this fund was still so small that it would be quickly exhausted, as Souvarine said, and the strikers would then inevitably throw themselves into the Working Men's Association so that their brothers in every country could come to their aid.

"How much have you in the fund?"asked Rasseneur."Hardly three thousand francs," replied Étienne, "and you know that the directors sent for me yesterday.Oh!they were very polite; they repeated that they wouldn't prevent their men from forming a reserve fund.But I quite understood that they wanted to control it.We are bound to have a struggle over that."

The innkeeper was walking up and down, whistling contemptuously."Three thousand francs!what can you do with that!It wouldn't yield six days' bread; and if we counted on foreigners, such as the people in England, one might go to bed at once and turn up one's toes.No, it was too foolish, this strike!"

Then for the first time bitter words passed between these two men who usually agreed together at last, in their common hatred of capital.

"We shall see!and you, what do you say about it?"repeated Étienne, turning towards Souvarine.

The latter replied with his usual phrase of habitual contempt.

"A strike?Foolery!"

Then, in the midst of the angry silence, he added gently:

"On the whole, I shouldn't say no if it amuses you; it ruins the one side and kills the other, and that is always so much cleared away.Only in that way it will take quite a thousand years to renew the world.Just begin by blowing up this prison in which you are all being done to death!"

With his delicate hand he pointed out the Voreux, the buildings of which could be seen through the open door.But an unforeseen drama interrupted him: Poland, the big tame rabbit, which had ventured outside, came bounding back, fleeing from the stones of a band of trammers; and in her terror, with fallen ears and raised tail, she took refuge against his legs, scratching and imploring him to take her up.When he had placed her on his knees, he sheltered her with both hands, and fell into that kind of dreamy somnolence into which the caress of this soft warm fur always plunged him.

Almost at the same time Maheu came in.He would drink nothing, in spite of the polite insistence of Madame Rasseneur, who sold her beer as though she made a present of it.Étienne had risen, and both of them set out for Montsou.

On pay-day at the Company's Yards, Montsou seemed to be in the midst of a fete as on fine Sunday feast-days.Bands of miners arrived from all the settlements.The cashier's office being very small, they preferred to wait at the door, stationed in groups on the pavement, barring the way in a crowd that was constantly renewed.Hucksters profited by the occasion and installed themselves with their movable stalls that sold even pottery and cooked meats.But it was especially the estaminets and the bars which did a good trade, for the miners before being paid went to the counters to get patience, and returned to them to wet their pay as soon as they had it in their pockets.But they were very sensible, except when they finished it at the Volcan.As Maheu and Étienne advanced among the groups they felt that on that day a deep exasperation was rising up.It was not the ordinary indifference with which the money was taken and spent at the publics.Fists were clenched and violent words were passing from mouth to mouth.

"Is it true, then," asked Maheu of Chaval, whom he met before the Estaminet Piquette, "that they've played the dirty trick?"

But Chaval contented himself by replying with a furious growl, throwing a sidelong look on Étienne.Since the working had been renewed he had hired himself on with others, more and more bitten by envy against this comrade, the new-comer who posed as a boss and whose boots, as he said, were licked by the whole settlement.This was complicated by a lover's jealousy.He never took Catherine to Réquillart now or behind the pit-bank without accusing her in abominable language of sleeping with her mother's lodger; then, seized by savage desire, he would stifle her with caresses.

Maheu asked him another question:

"Is it the Voreux's turn now?"

And when he turned his back after nodding affirmatively, both men decided to enter the Yards.

The counting-house was a small rectangular room, divided in two by a grating.On the forms along the wall five or six miners were waiting; while the cashier assisted by a clerk was paying another who stood before the wicket with his cap in his hand.Above the form on the left, a yellow placard was stuck up, quite fresh against the smoky grey of the plaster, and it was in front of this that the men had been constantly passing all the morning.They entered two or three at a time, stood in front of it, and then went away without a word, shrugging their shoulders as if their backs were crushed.

Two colliers were just then standing in front of the announcement, a young one with a square brutish head and a very thin old one, his face dull with age.Neither of them could read; the young one spelt, moving his lips, the old one contented himself with gazing stupidly.Many came in thus to look, without understanding.

"Read us that there!"said Maheu, who was not very strong either in reading, to his companion.

Then Étienne began to read him the announcement.It was a notice from the Company to the miners of all the pits, informing them that in consequence of the lack of care bestowed on the timbering, and being weary of inflicting useless fines, the Company had resolved to apply a new method of payment for the extraction of coal.Henceforward they would pay for the timbering separately, by the cubic metre of wood taken down and used, based on the quantity necessary for good work.The price of the tub of coal extracted would naturally be lowered, in the proportion of fifty centimes to forty, according to the nature and distance of the cuttings, and a somewhat obscure calculation endeavoured to show that this diminution of ten centimes would be exactly compensated by the price of the timbering.The Company added also that, wishing to leave every one time to convince himself of the advantages presented by this new scheme, they did not propose to apply it till Monday, the 1st of December.

"Don't read so loud over there," shouted the cashier."We can't hear what we are saying."

Étienne finished reading without paying attention to this observation.His voice trembled, and when he had reached the end they all continued to gaze steadily at the placard.The old miner and the young one looked as though they expected something more; then they went away with depressed shoulders.

"Good God!"muttered Maheu.

He and his companions sat down absorbed, with lowered heads, and while files of men continued to pass before the yellow paper they made calculations.Were they being made fun of?They could never make up with the timbering for the ten centimes taken off the tram.At most they could only get to eight centimes, so the Company would be robbing them of two centimes, without counting the time taken by careful work.This, then, was what this disguised lowering of wages really came to.The Company was economizing out of the miners' pockets.

"Good Lord!Good Lord!"repeated Maheu, raising his head."We should be bloody fools if we took that."

But the wicket being free he went up to be paid.The heads only of the workings presented themselves at the desk and then divided the money between their men to save time.

"Maheu and associates," said the clerk, "Filonniére seam, cutting No.7."

He searched through the lists which were prepared from the inspection of the tickets on which the captains stated every day for each stall the number of trams extracted.Then he repeated:

"Maheu and associates, Filonniére seam, cutting No.7.One hundred and thirty-five francs."

The cashier paid.

"Beg pardon, sir," stammered the pikeman in surprise."Are you sure you have not made a mistake?"

He looked at this small sum of money without picking it up, frozen by a shudder which went to his heart.It was true he was expecting bad payment, but it could not come to so little or he must have calculated wrong.When he had given their shares to Zacharie, Étienne, and the other mate who replaced Chaval, there would remain at most fifty francs for himself, his father, Catherine, and Jeanlin.

"No, no, I've made no mistake," replied the clerk."There are two Sundays and four rest days to be taken off; that makes nine days of work."Maheu followed this calculation in a low voice: nine days gave him about thirty francs, eighteen to Catherine, nine to Jeanlin.As to Father Bonnemort, he only had three days.No matter, by adding the ninety francs of Zacharie and the two mates, that would surely make more.

"And don't forget the fines," added the clerk."Twenty francs for fines for defective timbering."

The pikeman made a gesture of despair.Twenty francs of fines, four days of rest!That made out the account.To think that he had once brought back a fortnight's pay of full a hundred and fifty francs when Father Bonnemort was working and Zacharie had not yet set up house for himself!

"Well, are you going to take it?"cried the cashier impatiently."You can see there's someone else waiting.If you don't want it, say so."

As Maheu decided to pick up the money with his large trembling hand the clerk stopped him.

"Wait: I have your name here.Toussaint Maheu, is it not?The general secretary wishes to speak to you.Go in, he is alone."

The dazed workman found himself in an office furnished with old mahogany, upholstered with faded green rep.And he listened for five minutes to the general secretary, a tall sallow gentleman, who spoke to him over the papers of his bureau without rising.But the buzzing in his ears prevented him from hearing.He understood vaguely that the question of his father's retirement would be taken into consideration with the pension of a hundred and fifty francs, fifty years of age and forty years' service.Then it seemed to him that the secretary's voice became harder.There was a reprimand; he was accused of occupying himself with politics; an allusion was made to his lodger and the Provident Fund; finally he was advised not to compromise himself with these follies, he, who was one of the best workmen in the mine.He wished to protest, but could only pronounce words at random, twisting his cap between his feverish fingers, and he retired, stuttering:

"Certainly, sir—I can assure you, sir——"

Outside, when he had found Étienne who waiting for him, he broke out:

"Well, I am a bloody fool, I ought to have replied!Not enough money to get bread, and insults as well!Yes, he has been talking against you; he told me the settlement was being poisoned.And what's to be done?Good God!bend one's back and say thank you.He's right, that's the wisest plan."

Maheu fell silent, overcome at once by rage and fear.Étienne was gloomily thinking.Once more they traversed the groups who blocked the road.The exasperation was growing, the exasperation of a calm race, the muttered warning of a storm, without violent gestures, terrible to see above this solid mass.A few men understanding accounts had made calculations, and the two centimes gained by the Company over the wood were rumoured about, and excited the hardest heads.But it was especially the rage over this disastrous pay, the rebellion of hunger against the rest days and the fines.Already there was not enough to eat, and what would happen if wages were still further lowered?In the estaminets the anger grew loud, and fury so dried their throats that the little money taken went over the counters.

From Montsou to the settlement Étienne and Maheu never exchanged a word.When the latter entered, Maheude, who was alone with the children, noticed immediately that his hands were empty.

"Well, you're a nice one!"she said."Where's my coffee and my sugar and the meat?A bit of veal wouldn't have ruined you."

He made no reply, stifled by the emotion he had been keeping back.Then the coarse face of this man hardened to work in the mines became swollen with despair, and large tears broke from his eyes and fell in a warm rain.He had thrown himself into a chair, weeping like a child, and throwing fifty francs on the table:

"Here," he stammered."That's what I've brought you back.That's our work for all of us."

Maheude looked at Étienne, and saw that he was silent and overwhelmed.Then she also wept.How were nine people to live for a fortnight on fifty francs?Her eldest son had left them, the old man could no longer move his legs: it would soon mean death.Alzire threw herself round her mother's neck, overcome on hearing her weep.Estelle was howling, Lénore and Henri were sobbing.

And from the entire settlement there soon arose the same cry of wretchedness.The men had come back, and each household was lamenting the disaster of this bad pay.The doors opened, women appeared, crying aloud outside, as if their complaints could not be held beneath the ceilings of these small houses.A fine rain was falling, but they did not feel it, they called one another from the pavements, they showed one another in the hollow of their hands the money they had received.

"Look!they've given him this.Do they want to make fools of people?"

"As for me, see, I haven't got enough to pay for the fortnight's bread with."

"And just count mine!I should have to sell my shifts!"

Maheude had come out like the others.A group had formed around the Levaque woman, who was shouting loudest of all, for her drunkard of a husband had not even turned up, and she knew that, large or small, the pay would melt away at the Volcan.Philoméne watched Maheu so that Zacharie should not get hold of the money.Pierronne was the only one who seemed fairly calm, for that sneak of a Pierron always arranged things, no one knew how, so as to have more hours on the captain's ticket than his mates.But Mother Brulé thought this cowardly of her son-in-law; she was among the enraged, lean and erect in the midst of the group, with her fists stretched towards Montsou.

"To think," she cried, without naming the Hennebeaus, "that this morning I saw their servant go by in a carriage!Yes, the cook in a carriage with two horses, going to Marchiennes to get fish, sure enough!"

A clamour arose, and the abuse began again.That servant in a white apron taken to the market of the neighbouring town in her master's carriage aroused indignation.While the workers were dying of hunger they must have their fish, at all costs!Perhaps they would not always be able to eat their fish: the turn of the poor people would come.And the ideas sown by Étienne sprang up and expanded in this cry of revolt.It was impatience before the promised age of gold, a haste to get a share of the happiness beyond this horizon of misery, closed in like the grave.The injustice was becoming too great; at last they would demand their rights, since the bread was being taken out of their mouths.The women especially would have liked at once to take by assault this ideal city of progress, in which there was to be no more wretchedness.It was almost night, and the rain increased while they were still filling the settlement with their tears in the midst of the screaming helter-skelter of the children.

That evening at the Avantage the strike was decided on.Rasseneur no longer struggled against it, and Souvarine accepted it as a first step.Étienne summed up the situation in a word: if the Company really wanted a strike then the Company should have a strike.

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CHAPTER V

A week passed, and work went on suspiciously and mournfully in expectation of the conflict.

Among the Maheus the fortnight threatened to be more meagre than ever.Maheude grew bitter, in spite of her moderation and good sense.Her daughter Catherine, too, had taken it into her head to stay out one night.On the following morning she came back so weary and ill after this adventure that she was not able to go to the pit; and she told with tears how it was not her fault, for Chaval had kept her, threatening to beat her if she ran away.He was becoming mad with jealousy, and wished to prevent her from returning to Étienne's bed, where he well knew, he said, that the family made her sleep.Maheude was furious, and, after forbidding her daughter ever to see such a brute again, talked of going to Montsou to box his ears.But, all the same, it was a day lost, and the girl, now that she had this lover, preferred not to change him.

Two days after there was another incident.On Monday and Tuesday Jeanlin, who was supposed to be quietly engaged on his task at the Voreux, had escaped, to run away into the marshes and the forest of Vandame with Bébert and Lydie.He had seduced them; no one knew to what plunder or to what games of precocious children they had all three given themselves up.He received a vigorous punishment, a whipping which his mother applied to him on the pavement outside before the terrified children of the settlement.Who could have thought such a thing of children belonging to her, who had cost so much since their birth, and who ought now to be bringing something in?And in this cry there was the remembrance of her own hard youth, of the hereditary misery which made of each little one in the brood a bread-winner later on.

That morning, when the men and the girl set out for the pit, Maheude sat up in her bed to say to Jeanlin:

"You know that if you begin that game again, you little beast, I'll take the skin off your bottom!"

In Maheu's new stall the work was hard.This part of the Filonniére seam was so thin that the pikemen, squeezed between the wall and the roof, grazed their elbows at their work.It was, too, becoming very damp; from hour to hour they feared a rush of water, one of those sudden torrents which burst through rocks and carry away men.The day before, as Étienne was violently driving in his pick and drawing it out, he had received a jet of water in his face; but this was only an alarm; the cutting simply became damper and more unwholesome.Besides, he now thought nothing of possible accidents; he forgot himself there with his mates, careless of peril.They lived in fire-damp without even feeling its weight on their eyelids, the spider's-web veil which it left on the eyelashes.Sometimes when the flame of the lamps grew paler and bluer than usual it attracted attention, and a miner would put his head against the seam to listen to the low noise of the gas, a noise of air-bubbles escaping from each crack.But the constant threat was of landslips; for, besides the insufficiency of the timbering, always patched up too quickly, the soil, soaked with water, would not hold.

Three times during the day Maheu had been obliged to add to the planking.It was half-past two, and the men would soon have to ascend.Lying on his side, Étienne was finishing the cutting of a block, when a distant growl of thunder shook the whole mine.

"What's that, then?"he cried, putting down his axe to listen.

He had at first thought that the gallery was falling in behind his back.

But Maheu had already glided along the slope of the cutting, saying:

"It's a fall!Quick, quick!"

All tumbled down and hastened, carried away by an impulse of anxious fraternity.Their lamps danced at their wrists in the deathly silence which had fallen; they rushed in single file along the passages with bent backs, as though they were galloping on all fours; and without slowing this gallop they asked each other questions and threw brief replies.Where was it, then?In the cuttings, perhaps.No, it came from below; no, from the haulage.When they arrived at the chimney passage, they threw themselves into it, tumbling one over the other without troubling about bruises.

Jeanlin, with skin still red from the whipping of the day before, had not run away from the pit on this day.He was trotting with naked feet behind his tram, closing the ventilation doors one by one; when he was not afraid of meeting a captain he jumped on to the last tram, which he was not allowed to do for fear he should go to sleep.But his great amusement was, whenever the tram was shunted to let another one pass, to go and join Bébert, who was holding the reins in front.He would come up slyly without his lamp and vigorously pinch his companion, inventing mischievous monkey tricks, with his yellow hair, his large ears, his lean muzzle, lit up by little green eyes shining in the darkness.With morbid precocity, he seemed to have the obscure intelligence and the quick skill of a human abortion which had returned to its animal ways.

In the afternoon, Mouque brought Bataille, whose turn it was, to the trammers; and as the horse was snuffing in the shunting, Jeanlin, who had glided up to Bébert, asked him:

"What's the matter with the old hack to stop short like that?He'll break my legs."

Bébert could not reply; he had to hold in Bataille, who was growing lively at the approach of the other tram.The horse had smelled from afar his comrade, Trompette, for whom he had felt great tenderness ever since the day when he had seen him disembarked in the pit.One might say that it was the affectionate pity of an old philosopher anxious to console a young friend by imparting to him his own resignation and patience; for Trompette did not become reconciled, drawing his trams without any taste for the work, standing with lowered head blinded by the darkness, and for ever regretting the sun.So every time that Bataille met him he put out his head snorting, and moistened him with an encouraging caress.

"By God!"swore Bébert, "there they are, licking each other's skins again!"

Then, when Trompette had passed, he replied, on the subject of Bataille:

"Oh, he's a cunning old beast!When he stops like that it's because he guesses there's something in the way, a stone or a hole, and he takes care of himself; he doesn't want to break his bones.To-day I don't know what was the matter with him down there after the door.He pushed it, and stood stock-still.Did you see anything?"

"No," said Jeanlin."There's water, I've got it up to my knees."

The tram set out again.And, on the following journey, when he had opened the ventilation door with a blow from his head, Bataille again refused to advance, neighing and trembling.At last he made up his mind, and set off with a bound.

Jeanlin, who closed the door, had remained behind.He bent down and looked at the mud through which he was paddling, then, raising his lamp, he saw that the wood had given way beneath the continual bleeding of a spring.Just then a pikeman, one Berloque, who was called Chicot, had arrived from his cutting, in a hurry to go to his wife who had just been confined.He also stopped and examined the planking.And suddenly, as the boy was starting to rejoin his train, a tremendous cracking sound was heard, and a landslip engulfed the man and the child.

There was deep silence.A thick dust raised by the wind of the fall passed through the passages.Blinded and choked, the miners came from every part, even from the farthest stalls, with their dancing lamps which feebly lighted up this gallop of black men at the bottom of these molehills.When the first men tumbled against the landslip, they shouted out and called their mates.A second band, come from the cutting below, found themselves on the other side of the mass of earth which stopped up the gallery.It was at once seen that the roof had fallen in for a dozen metres at most.The damage was not serious.But all hearts were contracted when a death-rattle was heard from the ruins.

Bébert, leaving his tram, ran up, repeating:

"Jeanlin is underneath!Jeanlin is underneath!"

Maheu, at this very moment, had come out of the passage with Zacharie and Étienne.He was seized with the fury of despair, and could only utter oaths:

"My God!my God!my God!"

Catherine, Lydie, and Mouquette, who had also rushed up, began to sob and shriek with terror in the midst of the fearful disorder, which was increased by the darkness.The men tried to make them be silent, but they shrieked louder as each groan was heard.

The captain, Richomme, had come up running, in despair that neither Négrel, the engineer, nor Dansaert was at the pit.With his ear pressed against the rocks he listened; and, at last, said those sounds could not come from a child.A man must certainly be there.Maheu had already called Jeanlin twenty times over.Not a breath was heard.The little one must have been smashed up.

And still the groans continued monotonously.They spoke to the agonized man, asking him his name.The groaning alone replied.

"Look sharp!"repeated Richomme, who had already organized a rescue, "we can talk afterwards."

From each end the miners attacked the landslip with pick and shovel.Chaval worked without a word beside Maheu and Étienne, while Zacharie superintended the removal of the earth.The hour for ascent had come, and no one had touched food; but they could not go up for their soup while their mates were in peril.They realized, however, that the settlement would be disturbed if no one came back, and it was proposed to send off the women.But neither Catherine nor Mouquette, nor even Lydie, would move, nailed to the spot with a desire to know what had happened, and to help.Levaque then accepted the commission of announcing the landslip up above—a simple accident, which was being repaired.It was nearly four o'clock; in less than an hour the men had done a day's work; half the earth would have already been removed if more rocks had not slid from the roof.Maheu persisted with such energy that he refused, with a furious gesture, when another man approached to relieve him for a moment.

"Gently!"said Richomme at last, "we are getting near.We must not finish them off."

In fact the groaning was becoming more and more distinct.It was a continuous rattling which guided the workers; and now it seemed to be beneath their very picks.Suddenly it stopped.

In silence they all looked at one another, and shuddered as they felt the coldness of death pass in the darkness.They dug on, soaked in sweat, their muscles tense to breaking.They came upon a foot, and then began to remove the earth with their hands, freeing the limbs one by one.The head was not hurt.They turned their lamps on it, and Chicot's name went round.He was quite warm, with his spinal column broken by a rock.

"Wrap him up in a covering, and put him in a tram," ordered the captain."Now for the lad; look sharp."

Maheu gave a last blow, and an opening was made, communicating with the men who were clearing away the soil from the other side.They shouted out that they had just found Jeanlin, unconscious, with both legs broken, still breathing.It was the father who took up the little one in his arms, with clenched jaws constantly uttering "My God!"to express his grief, while Catherine and the other women again began to shriek.

A procession was quickly formed.Bébert had brought back Bataille, who was harnessed to the trams. In the first lay Chicot's corpse, supported by Étienne; in the second, Maheu was seated with Jeanlin, still unconscious, on his knees, covered by a strip of wool torn from the ventilation door.They started at a walking pace.On each tram was a lamp like a red star.Then behind followed the row of miners, some fifty shadows in single file.Now that they were overcome by fatigue, they trailed their feet, slipping in the mud, with the mournful melancholy of a flock stricken by an epidemic.It took them nearly half an hour to reach the pit-eye.This procession beneath the earth, in the midst of deep darkness, seemed never to end through galleries which bifurcated and turned and unrolled.

At the pit-eye Richomme, who had gone on before, had ordered an empty cage to be reserved.Pierron immediately loaded the two trams. In the first Maheu remained with his wounded little one on his knees, while in the other Étienne kept Chicot's corpse between his arms to hold it up.When the men had piled themselves up in the other decks the cage rose.It took two minutes.The rain from the tubbing fell very cold, and the men looked up towards the air impatient to see daylight.

Fortunately a trammer sent to Dr. Vanderhaghen's had found him and brought him back.Jeanlin and the dead man were placed in the captains' room, where, from year's end to year's end, a large fire burnt.A row of buckets with warm water was ready for washing feet; and, two mattresses having been spread on the floor, the man and the child were placed on them.Maheu and Étienne alone entered.Outside, putters, miners, and boys were running about, forming groups and talking in a low voice.

As soon as the doctor had glanced at Chicot:

"Done for!You can wash him."

Two overseers undressed and then washed with a sponge this corpse blackened with coal and still dirty with the sweat of work.

"Nothing wrong with the head," said the doctor again, kneeling on Jeanlin's mattress."Nor the chest either.Ah!it's the legs which have given."

He himself undressed the child, unfastening the cap, taking off the jacket, drawing off the breeches and shirt with the skill of a nurse.And the poor little body appeared, as lean as an insect, stained with black dust and yellow earth, marbled by bloody patches.Nothing could be made out, and they had to wash him also.He seemed to grow leaner beneath the sponge, the flesh so pallid and transparent that one could see the bones.It was a pity to look on this last degeneration of a wretched race, this mere nothing that was suffering and half crushed by the falling of the rocks.When he was clean they perceived the bruises on the thighs, two red patches on the white skin.

Jeanlin, awaking from his faint, moaned.Standing up at the foot of the mattress with hands hanging down, Maheu was looking at him and large tears rolled from his eyes.

"Eh, are you the father?"said the doctor, raising his eyes; "no need to cry then, you can see he is not dead.Help me instead."

He found two simple fractures.But the right leg gave him some anxiety, it would probably have to be cut off.

At this moment the engineer, Négrel, and Dansaert, who had been informed, came up with Richomme.The first listened to the captain's narrative with an exasperated air.He broke out: Always this cursed timbering!Had he not repeated a hundred times that they would leave their men down there!and those brutes who talked about going out on strike if they were forced to timber more solidly.The worst was that now the Company would have to pay for the broken pots.M.Hennebeau would be pleased!

"Who is it?"he asked of Dansaert, who was standing in silence before the corpse which was being wrapped up in a sheet.

"Chicot!one of our good workers," replied the chief captain."He has three children.Poor chap!"

Dr. Vanderhaghen ordered Jeanlin's immediate removal to his parents'.Six o'clock struck, twilight was already coming on, and they would do well to remove the corpse also; the engineer gave orders to harness the van and to bring a stretcher.The wounded child was placed on the stretcher while the mattress and the dead body were put into the van.

Some putters were still standing at the door talking with some miners who were waiting about to look on.When the door reopened there was silence in the group.A new procession was then formed, the van in front, then the stretcher, and then the train of people.They left the mine square and went slowly up the road to the settlement.The first November cold had denuded the immense plain; the night was now slowly burying it like a shroud fallen from the livid sky.

Étienne then in a low voice advised Maheu to send Catherine on to warn Maheude so as to soften the blow.The overwhelmed father, who was following the stretcher, agreed with a nod; and the young girl set out running, for they were now near.But the van, that gloomy well-known box, was already signalled.Women ran out wildly on to the paths; three or four rushed about in anguish, without their bonnets.Soon there were thirty of them, then fifty, all choking with the same terror.Then someone was dead?Who was it?The story told by Levaque after first reassuring them, now exaggerated their nightmare: it was not one man, it was ten who had perished, and who were now being brought back in the van one by one.

Catherine found her mother agitated by a presentiment; and after hearing the first stammered words Maheude cried:

"The father's dead!"

The young girl protested in vain, speaking of Jeanlin.Without hearing her, Maheude had rushed forward.And on seeing the van, which was passing before the church, she grew faint and pale.The women at their doors, mute with terror, were stretching out their necks, while others followed, trembling as they wondered before whose house the procession would stop.

The vehicle passed; and behind it Maheude saw Maheu, who was accompanying the stretcher.Then, when they had placed the stretcher at her door and when she saw Jeanlin alive with his legs broken, there was so sudden a reaction in her that she choked with anger, stammering, without tears:

"Is this it?They cripple our little ones now!Both legs!My God!What do they want me to do with him?"

"Be still, then," said Dr. Vanderhaghen, who had followed to attend to Jeanlin."Would you rather he had remained below?"

But Maheude grew more furious, while Alzire, Lénore, and Henri were crying around her.As she helped to carry up the wounded boy and to give the doctor what he needed, she cursed fate, and asked where she was to find money to feed invalids.The old man was not then enough, now this rascal too had lost his legs!And she never ceased; while other cries, more heart-breaking lamentations, were heard from a neighbouring house: Chicot's wife and children were weeping over the body.It was now quite night, the exhausted miners were at last eating their soup, and the settlement had fallen into a melancholy silence, only disturbed by these loud outcries.

Three weeks passed.It was found possible to avoid amputation; Jeanlin kept both his legs, but he remained lame.On investigation the Company had resigned itself to giving a donation of fifty francs.It had also promised to find employment for the little cripple at the surface as soon as he was well.All the same their misery was aggravated, for the father had received such a shock that he was seriously ill with fever.

Since Thursday Maheu had been back at the pit and it was now Sunday.In the evening Étienne talked of the approaching date of the 1st of December, preoccupied in wondering if the Company would execute its threat.They sat up till ten o'clock waiting for Catherine, who must have been delaying with Chaval.But she did not return.Maheude furiously bolted the door without a word.Étienne was long in going to sleep, restless at the thought of that empty bed in which Alzire occupied so little room.

Next morning she was still absent; and it was only in the afternoon, on returning from the pit, that the Maheus learnt that Chaval was keeping Catherine.He created such abominable scenes with her that she had decided to stay with him.To avoid reproaches he had suddenly left the Voreux and had been taken on at Jean-Bart, M.Deneulin's mine, and she had followed him as a putter.The new household still lived at Montsou, at Piquette's.

Maheu at first talked of going to fight the man and of bringing his daughter back with a kick in the backside.Then he made a gesture of resignation: what was the good?It always turned out like that; one could not prevent a girl from sticking to a man when she wanted to.It was much better to wait quietly for the marriage.But Maheude did not take things so easily.

"Did I beat her when she took this Chaval?"she cried to Étienne, who listened in silence, very pale."See now, tell me!you, who are a sensible man.We have left her free, haven't we?because, my God!they all come to it.Now, I was in the family way when the father married me.But I didn't run away from my parents, and I should never have done so dirty a trick as to carry the money I earned to a man who had no want of it before the proper age.Ah!it's disgusting, you know.People will leave off getting children!"

And as Étienne still replied only by nodding his head, she insisted:

"A girl who went out every evening where she wanted to!What has she got in her skin, then, not to be able to wait till I married her after she had helped to get us out of difficulties?Eh?it's natural, one has a daughter to work.But there!we have been too good, we ought not to let her go and amuse herself with a man.Give them an inch and they take an ell."

Alzire nodded approvingly.Lénore and Henri, overcome by this storm, cried quietly, while the mother now enumerated their misfortunes: first Zacharie who had had to get married; then old Bonnemort who was there on his chair with his twisted feet; then Jeanlin who could not leave the room for ten days with his badly-united bones; and now, as a last blow, this jade Catherine, who had gone away with a man!The whole family was breaking up.There was only the father left at the pit.How were they to live, seven persons without counting Estelle, on his three francs?They might as well jump into the canal in a band.

"It won't do any good to worry yourself," said Maheu in a low voice, "perhaps we have not got to the end."

Étienne, who was looking fixedly at the flags on the floor, raised his head, and murmured with eyes lost in a vision of the future:

"Ah!it is time!it is time!"

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PART FOUR

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CHAPTER I

On that Monday the Hennebeaus had invited the Grégoires and their daughter Cécile to lunch.They had formed their plans: on rising from table, Paul Négrel was to take the ladies to a mine, Saint-Thomas, which had been luxuriously reinstalled.But this was only an amiable pretext; this party was an invention of Madame Hennebeau's to hasten the marriage of Cécile and Paul.

Suddenly, on this very Monday, at four o'clock in the morning, the strike broke out.When, on the 1st of December, the Company had adopted the new wage system, the miners remained calm.At the end of the fortnight not one made the least protest on pay-day.Everybody, from the manager down to the last overseer, considered the tariff as accepted; and great was their surprise in the morning at this declaration of war, made with a tactical unity which seemed to indicate energetic leadership.

At five o'clock Dansaert woke M.Hennebeau to inform him that not a single man had gone down at the Voreux.The settlement of the Deux-Cent-Quarante, which he had passed through, was sleeping deeply, with closed windows and doors.And as soon as the manager had jumped out of bed, his eyes still swollen with sleep, he was overwhelmed.Every quarter of an hour messengers came in, and dispatches fell on his desk as thick as hail.At first he hoped that the revolt was limited to the Voreux; but the news became more serious every minute.There was the Mirou, the Crévecœur, the Madeleine, where only the grooms had appeared; the Victoire and Feutry-Cantel, the two best disciplined pits, where the men had been reduced by a third; Saint-Thomas alone numbered all its people, and seemed to be outside the movement.Up to nine o'clock he dictated dispatches, telegraphing in all directions, to the prefect of Lille, to the directors of the Company, warning the authorities and asking for orders.He had sent Négrel to go round the neighbouring pits to obtain precise information.

Suddenly M.Hennebeau recollected the lunch; and he was about to send the coachman to tell the Grégoires that the party had been put off, when a certain hesitation and lack of will stopped him—the man who in a few brief phrases had just made military preparations for a field of battle.He went up to Madame Hennebeau, whose hair had just been done by her lady's maid, in her dressing-room.

"Ah!they are on strike," she said quietly, when he had told her."Well, what has that to do with us?We are not going to leave off eating, I suppose?"

And she was obstinate; it was vain to tell her that the lunch would be disturbed, and that the visit to Saint-Thomas could not take place.She found an answer to everything.Why lose a lunch that was already cooking?And as to visiting the pit, they could give that up afterwards if the walk was really imprudent.

"Besides," she added, when the maid had gone out, "you know that I am anxious to receive these good people.This marriage ought to affect you more than the follies of your men.I want to have it, don't contradict me."

He looked at her, agitated by a slight trembling, and the hard firm face of the man of discipline expressed the secret grief of a wounded heart.She had remained with naked shoulders, already over-mature, but still imposing and desirable, with the broad bust of a Ceres gilded by the autumn.For a moment he felt a brutal desire to seize her, and to roll his head between the breasts she was exposing in this warm room, which exhibited the private luxury of a sensual woman and had about it an irritating perfume of musk, but he recoiled; for ten years they had occupied separate rooms.

"Good!"he said, leaving her."Do not make any alterations."

M.Hennebeau had been born in the Ardennes.In his early life he had undergone the hardships of a poor boy thrown as an orphan on the Paris streets.After having painfully followed the courses of the École des Mines, at the age of twenty-four he had gone to the Grand' Combe as engineer to the Sainte-Barbe mine.Three years later he became divisional engineer in the Pas-de-Calais, at the Marles mines.It was there that he married, wedding, by one of those strokes of fortune which are the rule among the Corps des Mines, the daughter of the rich owner of a spinning factory at Arras.For fifteen years they lived in the same small provincial town, and no event broke the monotony of existence, not even the birth of a child.An increasing irritation detached Madame Hennebeau, who had been brought up to respect money, and was disdainful of this husband who gained a small salary with such difficulty, and who enabled her to gratify none of the satisfactions of vanity which she had dreamed of at school.He was a man of strict honesty, who never speculated, but stood at his post like a soldier.The lack of harmony had only increased, aggravated by one of those curious misunderstandings of the flesh which freeze the most ardent; he adored his wife, she had the sensuality of a greedy blonde, and already they slept apart, ill at ease and wounded.From that time she had a lover of whom he was ignorant.At last he left the Pas-de-Calais to occupy a situation in an office at Paris, with the idea that she would be grateful to him.But Paris only completed their separation, that Paris which she had desired since her first doll, and where she washed away her provincialism in a week, becoming a woman of fashion at once, and throwing herself into all the luxurious follies of the period.The ten years which she spent there were filled by a great passion, a public intrigue with a man whose desertion nearly killed her.This time the husband had not been able to keep his ignorance, and after some abominable scenes he resigned himself, disarmed by the quiet unconsciousness of this woman who took her happiness where she found it.It was after the rupture, and when he saw that she was ill with grief, that he had accepted the management of the Montsou mines, still hoping also that she would reform down there in that desolate black country.

The Hennebeaus, since they had lived at Montsou, returned to the irritated boredom of their early married days.At first she seemed consoled by the great quiet, soothed by the flat monotony of the immense plain; she buried herself in it as a woman who has done with the world; she affected a dead heart, so detached from life that she did not even mind growing stout.Then, beneath this indifference a final fever declared itself, the need to live once more, and she deluded herself for six months by organizing and furnishing to her taste the little villa belonging to the management.She said it was frightful, and filled it with upholstery, bric-a-brac, and all sorts of artistic luxuries which were talked of as far as Lille.Now the country exasperated her, those stupid fields spread out to infinity, those eternal black roads without a tree, swarming with a horrid population which disgusted and frightened her.Complaints of exile began; she accused her husband of having sacrificed her to a salary of forty thousand francs, a trifle which hardly sufficed to keep the house up.Why could he not imitate others, demand a part for himself, obtain shares, succeed in something at last?And she insisted with the cruelty of an heiress who had brought her own fortune.He, always restrained, and taking refuge in the deceptive coldness of a man of business, was torn by desire for this creature, one of those late desires which are so violent and which increase with age.He had never possessed her as a lover; he was haunted by a continual image, to have her once to himself as she had given herself to another.Every morning he dreamed of winning her in the evening; then, when she looked at him with her cold eyes, and when he felt that everything within her denied itself to him, he even avoided touching her hand.It was a suffering without possible cure, hidden beneath the stiffness of his attitude, the suffering of a tender nature in secret anguish at the lack of domestic happiness.At the end of six months, when the house, being definitely furnished, no longer occupied Madame Hennebeau, she fell into the languor of boredom, a victim who was being killed by exile, and who said that she was glad to die of it.

Just then Paul Négrel arrived at Montsou.His mother, the widow of a Provence captain, living at Avignon on a slender income, had had to content herself with bread and water to enable him to reach the École Polytechnique.He had come out low in rank, and his uncle, M.Hennebeau, had enabled him to leave by offering to take him as engineer at the Voreux.From that time he was treated as one of the family; he even had his room there, his meals there, lived there, and was thus enabled to send to his mother half his salary of three thousand francs.To disguise this kindness M.Hennebeau spoke of the embarrassment to a young man of setting up a household in one of those little villas reserved for the mine engineers.Madame Hennebeau had at once taken the part of a good aunt, treating her nephew with familiarity and watching over his comfort.During the first months, especially, she exhibited an overwhelming maternity with her advice regarding the smallest subjects.But she remained a woman, however, and slid into personal confidences.This lad, so young and so practical, with his unscrupulous intelligence, professing a philosopher's theory of love, amused her with the vivacity of the pessimism which had sharpened his thin face and pointed nose.One evening he naturally found himself in her arms, and she seemed to give herself up out of kindness, while saying to him that she had no heart left, and wished only to be his friend.In fact, she was not jealous; she joked him about the putters, whom he declared to be abominable, and she almost sulked because he had no young man's pranks to narrate to her.Then she was carried away by the idea of getting him married; she dreamed of sacrificing herself and of finding a rich girl for him.Their relations continued a plaything, a recreation, in which she felt the last tenderness of a lazy woman who had done with the world.

Two years had passed by.One night M.Hennebeau had a suspicion when he heard naked feet passing his door.But this new adventure revolted him, in his own house, between this mother and this son!And besides, on the following day his wife spoke to him about the choice of Cécile Grégoire which she had made for her nephew.She occupied herself over this marriage with such ardour that he blushed at his own monstrous imagination.He only felt gratitude towards the young man who, since his arrival, had made the house less melancholy.

As he came down from the dressing-room, M.Hennebeau found that Paul, who had just returned, was in the vestibule.He seemed to be quite amused by the story of this strike.

"Well?"asked his uncle.

"Well, I've been round the settlements.They seem to be quite sensible in there.I think they will first send you a deputation."

But at that moment Madame Hennebeau's voice called from the first story:

"Is that you, Paul?Come up, then, and tell me the news.How queer they are to make such a fuss, these people who are so happy!"

And the manager had to renounce further information, since his wife had taken his messenger.He returned and sat before his desk, on which a new packet of dispatches was placed.

At eleven o'clock the Grégoires arrived, and were astonished when Hippolyte, the footman, who was placed as sentinel, hustled them in after an anxious glance at the two ends of the road.The drawing-room curtains were drawn, and they were taken at once into the study, where M.Hennebeau apologized for their reception; but the drawing-room looked over the street and it was undesirable to seem to offer provocations.

"What!you don't know?"he went on, seeing their surprise.

M.Grégoire, when he heard that the strike had at last broken out, shrugged his shoulders in his placid way.Bah!it would be nothing, the people were honest.With a movement of her chin, Madame Grégoire approved his confidence in the everlasting resignation of the colliers; while Cécile, who was very cheerful that day, feeling that she looked well in her capuchin cloth costume, smiled at the word "strike," which reminded her of visits to the settlements and the distribution of charities.

Madame Hennebeau now appeared in black silk, followed by Négrel.

"Ah!isn't it annoying!"she said, at the door."As if they couldn't wait, those men!You know that Paul refuses to take us to Saint-Thomas."

"We can stay here," said M.Grégoire, obligingly."We shall be quite pleased."

Paul had contented himself with formally saluting Cécile and her mother.Angry at this lack of demonstrativeness, his aunt sent him with a look to the young girl; and when she heard them laughing together she enveloped them in a maternal glance.

M.Hennebeau, however, finished reading his dispatches and prepared a few replies.They talked near him; his wife explained that she had not done anything to this study, which, in fact, retained its faded old red paper, its heavy mahogany furniture, its cardboard files, scratched by use.Three-quarters of an hour passed and they were about to seat themselves at table when the footman announced M.Deneulin.He entered in an excited way and bowed to Madame Hennebeau.

"Ah!you here!"he said, seeing the Grégoires.

And he quickly spoke to the manager:

"It has come, then?I've just heard of it through my engineer.With me, all the men went down this morning.But the thing may spread.I'm not at all at ease.How is it with you?"

He had arrived on horseback, and his anxiety betrayed itself in his loud speech and abrupt gestures, which made him resemble a retired cavalry officer.

M.Hennebeau was beginning to inform him regarding the precise situation, when Hippolyte opened the dining-room door.Then he interrupted himself to say:

"Lunch with us.I will tell you more at dessert."

"Yes, as you please," replied Deneulin, so full of his thoughts that he accepted without ceremony.

He was, however, conscious of his impoliteness and turned towards Madame Hennebeau with apologies. She was very charming, however. When she had had a seventh plate laid she placed her guests: Madame Grégoire and Cécile by her husband, then M. Grégoire and Deneulin at her own right and left; then Paul, whom she put between the young girl and her father. As they attacked the hors-d'œuvre she said, with a smile:

"You must excuse me; I wanted to give you oysters.On Monday, you know, there was an arrival of Ostend oysters at Marchiennes, and I meant to send the cook with the carriage.But she was afraid of being stoned—"

They all interrupted her with a great burst of gaiety.They thought the story very funny.

"Hush!"said M.Hennebeau, vexed, looking at the window, through which the road could be seen."We need not tell the whole country that we have company this morning."

"Well, here is a slice of sausage which they shan't have," M.Grégoire declared.

The laughter began again, but with greater restraint.Each guest made himself comfortable, in this room upholstered with Flemish tapestry and furnished with old oak chests.The silver shone behind the panes of the sideboards; and there was a large hanging lamp of red copper, whose polished surfaces reflected a palm and an aspidistra growing in majolica pots.Outside, the December day was frozen by a keen north-east wind.But not a breath of it entered; a green-house warmth developed the delicate odour of the pineapple, sliced in a crystal bowl.

"Suppose we were to draw the curtains," proposed Négrel, who was amused at the idea of frightening the Grégoires.

The housemaid, who was helping the footman, treated this as an order and went and closed one of the curtains.This led to interminable jokes: not a glass or a plate could be put down without precaution; every dish was hailed as a waif escaped from the pillage in a conquered town; and behind this forced gaiety there was a certain fear which betrayed itself in involuntary glances towards the road, as though a band of starvelings were watching the table from outside.

After the scrambled eggs with truffles, trout came on.The conversation then turned to the industrial crisis, which had become aggravated during the last eighteen months.

"It was inevitable," said Deneulin, "the excessive prosperity of recent years was bound to bring us to it.Think of the enormous capital which has been sunk, the railways, harbours, and canals, all the money buried in the maddest speculations.Among us alone sugar works have been set up as if the department could furnish three beetroot harvests.Good heavens!and to-day money is scarce, and we have to wait to catch up the interest of the expended millions; so there is a mortal congestion and a final stagnation of business."

M.Hennebeau disputed this theory, but he agreed that the fortunate years had spoilt the men.

"When I think," he exclaimed, "that these chaps in our pits used to gain six francs a day, double what they gain now!And they lived well, too, and acquired luxurious tastes.To-day, naturally, it seems hard to them to go back to their old frugality."

"Monsieur Grégoire," interrupted Madame Hennebeau, "let me persuade you, a little more trout.They are delicious, are they not?"

The manager went on:

"But, as a matter of fact, is it our fault?We, too, are cruelly struck.Since the factories have closed, one by one, we have had a deuce of a difficulty in getting rid of our stock; and in face of the growing reduction in demand we have been forced to lower our net prices.It is just this that the men won't understand."

There was silence.The footman presented roast partridge, while the housemaid began to pour out Chambertin for the guests.

"There has been a famine in India," said Deneulin in a low voice, as though he were speaking to himself."America, by ceasing to order iron, has struck a heavy blow at our furnaces.Everything holds together; a distant shock is enough to disturb the world.And the empire, which was so proud of this hot fever of industry!"

He attacked his partridge wing.Then, raising his voice:

"The worst is that to lower the net prices we ought logically to produce more; otherwise the reduction bears on wages, and the worker is right in saying that he has to pay the damage."

This confession, the outcome of his frankness, raised a discussion.The ladies were not at all interested.Besides, all were occupied with their plates, in the first zest of appetite.When the footman came back, he seemed about to speak, then he hesitated.

"What is it?"asked M.Hennebeau."If there are letters, give them to me.I am expecting replies."

"No, sir.It is Monsieur Dansaert, who is in the hall.But he doesn't wish to disturb you."

The manager excused himself, and had the head captain brought in.The latter stood upright, a few paces from the table, while all turned to look at him, huge, out of breath with the news he was bringing.The settlements were quiet; only it had now been decided to send a deputation.It would, perhaps, be there in a few minutes.

"Very well; thank you," said M.Hennebeau."I want a report morning and evening, you understand."

And as soon as Dansaert had gone, they began to joke again, and hastened to attack the Russian salad, declaring that not a moment was to be lost if they wished to finish it.The mirth was unbounded when Négrel, having asked the housemaid for bread, she replied, "Yes, sir," in a voice as low and terrified as if she had behind her a troop ready for murder and rape.

"You may speak," said Madame Hennebeau complacently."They are not here yet."

The manager, who now received a packet of letters and dispatches, wished to read one of his letters aloud.It was from Pierron, who, in respectful phrases, gave notice that he was obliged to go out on strike with his comrades, in order to avoid ill-treatment; and he added that he had not even been able to avoid taking part in the deputation, although he blamed that step.

"So much for liberty of work!"exclaimed M.Hennebeau.

Then they returned to the strike, and asked him his opinion.

"Oh!"he replied, "we have had them before.It will be a week, or, at most, a fortnight, of idleness, as it was last time.They will go and wallow in the public-houses, and then, when they are hungry, they will go back to the pits."

Deneulin shook his head:

"I'm not so satisfied; this time they appear to be better organized.Have they not a Provident Fund?"

"Yes, scarcely three thousand francs.What do you think they can do with that?I suspect a man called Étienne Lantier of being their leader.He is a good workman; it would vex me to have to give him his certificate back, as we did of old to the famous Rasseneur, who still poisons the Voreux with his ideas and his beer.No matter, in a week half the men will have gone down, and in a fortnight the ten thousand will be below."

He was convinced.His only anxiety was concerning his own possible disgrace should the directors put the responsibility of the strike on him.For some time he had felt that he was diminishing in favour.So leaving the spoonful of Russian salad which he had taken, he read over again the dispatches received from Paris, endeavouring to penetrate every word.His guests excused him; the meal was becoming a military lunch, eaten on the field of battle before the first shots were fired.

The ladies then joined in the conversation.Madame Grégoire expressed pity for the poor people who would suffer from hunger; and Cécile was already making plans for distributing gifts of bread and meat.But Madame Hennebeau was astonished at hearing of the wretchedness of the Montsou colliers.Were they not very fortunate?People who were lodged and warmed and cared for at the expense of the Company!In her indifference for the herd, she only knew the lessons she had learnt, and with which she had surprised the Parisians who came on a visit.She believed them at last, and was indignant at the ingratitude of the people.

Négrel, meanwhile, continued to frighten M.Grégoire.Cécile did not displease him, and he was quite willing to marry her to be agreeable to his aunt, but he showed no amorous fever; like a youth of experience, who, he said, was not easily carried away now.He professed to be a Republican, which did not prevent him from treating his men with extreme severity, or from making fun of them in the company of the ladies.

"Nor have I my uncle's optimism, either," he continued."I fear there will be serious disturbances.So I should advise you, Monsieur Grégoire, to lock up Piolaine.They may pillage you."

Just then, still retaining the smile which illuminated his good-natured face, M.Grégoire was going beyond his wife in paternal sentiments with regard to the miners.

"Pillage me!"he cried, stupefied."And why pillage me?"

"Are you not a shareholder in Montsou!You do nothing; you live on the work of others.In fact you are an infamous capitalist, and that is enough.You may be sure that if the revolution triumphs, it will force you to restore your fortune as stolen money."

At once he lost his child-like tranquillity, his serene unconsciousness.He stammered:

"Stolen money, my fortune!Did not my great-grandfather gain, and hardly, too, the sum originally invested?Have we not run all the risks of the enterprise, and do I today make a bad use of my income?"

Madame Hennebeau, alarmed at seeing the mother and daughter also white with fear, hastened to intervene, saying:

"Paul is joking, my dear sir."

But M.Grégoire was carried out of himself.As the servant was passing round the crayfish he took three of them without knowing what he was doing and began to break their claws with his teeth.

"Ah!I don't say but what there are shareholders who abuse their position.For instance, I have been told that ministers have received shares in Montsou for services rendered to the Company.It is like a nobleman whom I will not name, a duke, the biggest of our shareholders, whose life is a scandal of prodigality, millions thrown into the street on women, feasting, and useless luxury.But we who live quietly, like good citizens as we are, who do not speculate, who are content to live wholesomely on what we have, giving a part to the poor: Come, now!your men must be mere brigands if they came and stole a pin from us!"

Négrel himself had to calm him, though amused at his anger.The crayfish were still going round; the little crackling sound of their carapaces could be heard, while the conversation turned to politics, M.Grégoire, in spite of everything and though still trembling, called himself a Liberal and regretted Louis Philippe.As for Deneulin, he was for a strong Government; he declared that the Emperor was gliding down the slope of dangerous concessions.

"Remember '89," he said."It was the nobility who made the Revolution possible, by their complicity and taste for philosophic novelties.Very well!the middle class to-day are playing the same silly game with their furious Liberalism, their rage for destruction, their flattery of the people.Yes, yes, you are sharpening the teeth of the monster that will devour us.It will devour us, rest assured!"

The ladies bade him be silent, and tried to change the conversation by asking him news of his daughters.Lucie was at Marchiennes, where she was singing with a friend; Jeanne was painting an old beggar's head.But he said these things in a distracted way; he constantly looked at the manager, who was absorbed in the reading of his dispatches and forgetful of his guests.Behind those thin leaves he felt Paris and the directors' orders, which would decide the strike.At last he could not help yielding to his preoccupation.

"Well, what are you going to do?"he asked suddenly.

M.Hennebeau started; then turned off the question with a vague phrase.

"We shall see."

"No doubt you are solidly placed, you can wait," Deneulin began to think aloud."But as for me, I shall be done for if the strike reaches Vandame.I shall have reinstalled Jean-Bart in vain; with a single pit, I can only get along by constant production.Ah!I am not in a very pleasant situation, I can assure you!"

This involuntary confession seemed to strike M.Hennebeau.He listened and a plan formed within him: in case the strike turned out badly, why not utilize it by letting things run down until his neighbour was ruined, and then buy up his concession at a low price?That would be the surest way of regaining the good graces of the directors, who for years had dreamed of possessing Vandame.

"If Jean-Bart bothers you as much as that," said he, laughing, "why don't you give it up to us?"

But Deneulin was already regretting his complaints.He exclaimed:

"Never, never!"

They were amused at his vigour and had already forgotten the strike by the time the dessert appeared.An apple-charlotte meringue was overwhelmed with praise.Afterwards the ladies discussed a recipe with respect to the pineapple which was declared equally exquisite.The grapes and pears completed their happy abandonment at the end of this copious lunch.All talked excitedly at the same time, while the servant poured out Rhine wine in place of champagne which was looked upon as commonplace.

And the marriage of Paul and Cécile certainly made a forward step in the sympathy produced by the dessert.His aunt had thrown such urgent looks in his direction, that the young man showed himself very amiable, and in his wheedling way reconquered the Grégoires, who had been cast down by his stories of pillage.For a moment M.Hennebeau, seeing the close understanding between his wife and his nephew, felt that abominable suspicion again revive, as if in this exchange of looks he had surprised a physical contact.But again the idea of the marriage, made here before his face, reassured him.

Hippolyte was serving the coffee when the housemaid entered in a fright.

"Sir, sir, they are here!"

It was the delegates.Doors banged; a breath of terror was passing through the neighbouring rooms.

Around the table the guests were looking at one another with uneasy indecision.There was silence.Then they tried to resume their jokes: they pretended to put the rest of the sugar in their pockets, and talked of hiding the plate.But the manager remained grave; and the laughter fell and their voices sank to a whisper, while the heavy feet of the delegates who were being shown in tramped over the carpet of the next room.

Madame Hennebeau said to her husband, lowering her voice:

"I hope you will drink your coffee."

"Certainly," he replied."Let them wait."

He was nervous, listening to every sound, though apparently occupied with his cup.

Paul and Cécile got up, and he made her venture an eye to the keyhole.They were stifling their laughter and talking in a low voice.

"Do you see them?"

"Yes, I see a big man and two small ones behind."

"Haven't they ugly faces?"

"Not at all; they are very nice."

Suddenly M.Hennebeau left his chair, saying the coffee was too hot and he would drink it afterwards.As he went out he put a finger to his lips to recommend prudence.They all sat down again and remained at table in silence, no longer daring to move, listening from afar with intent ears jarred by these coarse male voices.

---

CHAPTER II

The previous day, at a meeting held at Rasseneur's, Étienne and some comrades had chosen the delegates who were to proceed on the following day to the manager's house.When, in the evening, Maheude learnt that her man was one of them, she was in despair, and asked him if he wanted them to be thrown on the street.Maheu himself had agreed with reluctance.Both of them, when the moment of action came, in spite of the injustice of their wretchedness fell back on the resignation of their race, trembling before the morrow, preferring still to bend their backs to the yoke.In the management of affairs he usually gave way to his wife, whose advice was sound.This time, however, he grew angry at last, all the more so since he secretly shared her fears.

"Just leave me alone, will you?"he said, going to bed and turning his back."A fine thing to leave the mates now!I'm doing my duty."

She went to bed in her turn.Neither of them spoke.Then, after a long silence, she replied:

"You're right; go.Only, poor old man, we are done for."

Midday struck while they were at lunch, for the rendezvous was at one o'clock at the Avantage, from which they were to go together to M.Hennebeau's.They were eating potatoes.As there was only a small morsel of butter left, no one touched it.They would have bread and butter in the evening.

"You know that we reckon on you to speak," said Étienne suddenly to Maheu.

The latter was so overcome that he was silent from emotion.

"No, no!that's too much," cried Maheude."I'm quite willing he should go there, but I don't allow him to go at the head.Why him, more than any one else?"

Then Étienne, with his fiery eloquence, began to explain.Maheu was the best worker in the pit, the most liked, and the most respected; whose good sense was always spoken of.In his mouth the miners' claims would carry decisive weight.At first Étienne had arranged to speak, but he had been at Montsou for too short a time.One who belonged to the country would be better listened to.In fact, the comrades were confiding their interests to the most worthy; he could not refuse, it would be cowardly.

Maheude made a gesture of despair.

"Go, go, my man; go and be killed for the others.I'm willing, after all!"

"But I could never do it," stammered Maheu."I should say something stupid."

Étienne, glad to have persuaded him, struck him on the shoulder.

"Say what you feel, and you won't go wrong."

Father Bonnemort, whose legs were now less swollen, was listening with his mouth full, shaking his head.There was silence.When potatoes were being eaten, the children were subdued and behaved well.Then, having swallowed his mouthful, the old man muttered slowly:

"You can say what you like, and it will be all the same as if you said nothing.Ah!I've seen these affairs, I've seen them!Forty years ago they drove us out of the manager's house, and with sabres too!Now they may receive you, perhaps, but they won't answer you any more than that wall.Lord!they have money, why should they care?"

There was silence again; Maheu and Étienne rose, and left the family in gloom before the empty plates.On going out they called for Pierron and Levaque, and then all four went to Rasseneur's, where the delegates from the neighbouring settlements were arriving in little groups.When the twenty members of the deputation had assembled there, they settled on the terms to be opposed to the Company's, and then set out for Montsou.The keen north-east wind was sweeping the street.As they arrived, it struck two.

At first the servant told them to wait, and shut the door on them; then, when he came back, he introduced them into the drawing-room, and opened the curtains.A soft daylight entered, sifted through the lace.And the miners, when left alone, in their embarrassment did not dare to sit; all of them very clean, dressed in cloth, shaven that morning, with their yellow hair and moustaches.They twisted their caps between their fingers, and looked sideways at the furniture, which was in every variety of style, as a result of the taste for the old-fashioned: Henry II easy-chairs, Louis XV chairs, an Italian cabinet of the seventeenth century, a Spanish contador of the fifteenth century, with an altar-front serving as a chimney-piece, and ancient chasuble trimming reapplied to the curtains.This old gold and these old silks, with their tawny tones, all this luxurious church furniture, had overwhelmed them with respectful discomfort.The eastern carpets with their long wool seemed to bind their feet.But what especially suffocated them was the heat, heat like that of a hot-air stove, which surprised them as they felt it with cheeks frozen from the wind of the road.Five minutes passed by and their awkwardness increased in the comfort of this rich room, so pleasantly warm.At last M.Hennebeau entered, buttoned up in a military manner and wearing on his frock-coat the correct little bow of his decoration.He spoke first.

"Ah!here you are!You are in rebellion, it seems."

He interrupted himself to add with polite stiffness:

"Sit down, I desire nothing better than to talk things over."

The miners turned round looking for seats.A few of them ventured to place themselves on chairs, while the others, disturbed by the embroidered silks, preferred to remain standing.

There was a period of silence.M.Hennebeau, who had drawn his easy-chair up to the fireplace, was rapidly looking them over and endeavouring to recall their faces.He had recognized Pierron, who was hidden in the last row, and his eyes rested on Étienne who was seated in front of him.

"Well," he asked, "what have you to say to me?"

He had expected to hear the young man speak and he was so surprised to see Maheu come forward that he could not avoid adding:

"What!you, a good workman who have always been so sensible, one of the old Montsou people whose family has worked in the mine since the first stroke of the axe!Ah!it's a pity, I'm sorry that you are at the head of the discontented."

Maheu listened with his eyes down.Then he began, at first in a low and hesitating voice.

"It is just because I am a quiet man, sir, whom no one has anything against, that my mates have chosen me.That ought to show you that it isn't just a rebellion of blusterers, badly-disposed men who want to create disorder.We only want justice, we are tired of starving, and it seems to us that the time has come when things ought to be arranged so that we can at least have bread every day."

His voice grew stronger.He lifted his eyes and went on, while looking at the manager.

"You know quite well that we cannot agree to your new system.They accuse us of bad timbering.It's true we don't give the necessary time to the work.But if we gave it, our day's work would be still smaller, and as it doesn't give us enough food at present, that would mean the end of everything, the sweep of the clout that would wipe off all your men.Pay us more and we will timber better, we will give the necessary hours to the timbering instead of putting all our strength into the picking, which is the only work that pays.There's no other arrangement possible; if the work is to be done it must be paid for.And what have you invented instead?A thing which we can't get into our heads, don't you see?You lower the price of the tram and then you pretend to make up for it by paying for all timbering separately.If that was true we should be robbed all the same, for the timbering would still take us more time.But what makes us mad is that it isn't even true; the Company compensates for nothing at all, it simply puts two centimes a tram into its pocket, that's all."

"Yes, yes, that's it," murmured the other deputies, noticing M.Hennebeau make a violent movement as if to interrupt.

But Maheu cut the manager short.Now that he had set out his words came by themselves.At times he listened to himself with surprise as though a stranger were speaking within him.It was the things amassed within his breast, things he did not even know were there, and which came out in an expansion of his heart.He described the wretchedness that was common to all of them, the hard toil, the brutal life, the wife and little ones crying from hunger in the house.He quoted the recent disastrous payments, the absurd fortnightly wages, eaten up by fines and rest days and brought back to their families in tears.Was it resolved to destroy them?

"Then, sir," he concluded, "we have come to tell you that if we've got to starve we would rather starve doing nothing.It will be a little less trouble.We have left the pits and we don't go down again unless the Company agrees to our terms. The Company wants to lower the price of the tram and to pay for the timbering separately.We ask for things to be left as they were, and we also ask for five centimes more the tram.Now it is for you to see if you are on the side of justice and work."

Voices rose among the miners.

"That's it—he has said what we all feel—we only ask what's reason."

Others, without speaking, showed their approval by nodding their heads.The luxurious room had disappeared, with its gold and its embroideries, its mysterious piling up of ancient things; and they no longer even felt the carpet which they crushed beneath their heavy boots.

"Let me reply, then," at last exclaimed M.Hennebeau, who was growing angry."First of all, it is not true that the Company gains two centimes the tram.Let us look at the figures."

A confused discussion followed.The manager, trying to divide them, appealed to Pierron, who hid himself, stammering.Levaque, on the contrary, was at the head of the more aggressive, muddling up things and affirming facts of which he was ignorant.The loud murmurs of their voices were stifled beneath the hangings in the hot-house atmosphere.

"If you all talk at the same time," said M.Hennebeau, "we shall never come to an understanding."

He had regained his calmness, the rough politeness, without bitterness, of an agent who has received his instructions, and means that they shall be respected.From the first word he never took his eye off Étienne, and manœuvred to draw the young man out of his obstinate silence.Leaving the discussion about the two centimes, he suddenly enlarged the question.

"No, acknowledge the truth: you are yielding to abominable incitations.It is a plague which is now blowing over the workers everywhere, and corrupting the best.Oh!I have no need for any one to confess.I can see well that you have been changed, you who used to be so quiet.Is it not so?You have been promised more butter than bread, and you have been told that now your turn has come to be masters.In fact, you have been enrolled in that famous International, that army of brigands who dream of destroying society."

Then Étienne interrupted him.

"You are mistaken, sir.Not a single Montsou collier has yet enrolled.But if they are driven to it, all the pits will enroll themselves.That depends on the Company."

From that moment the struggle went on between M.Hennebeau and Étienne as though the other miners were no longer there.

"The Company is a Providence for the men, and you are wrong to threaten it.This year it has spent three hundred thousand francs in building settlements which only return two per cent, and I say nothing of the pensions which it pays, nor of the coals and medicines which it gives.You who seem to be intelligent, and who have become in a few months one of our most skilful workmen, would it not be better if you were to spread these truths, rather than ruin yourself by associating with people of bad reputation?Yes, I mean Rasseneur, whom we had to turn off in order to save our pits from socialistic corruption.You are constantly seen with him, and it is certainly he who has induced you to form this Provident Fund, which we would willingly tolerate if it were merely a means of saving, but which we feel to be a weapon turned against us, a reserve fund to pay the expenses of the war.And in this connection I ought to add that the Company means to control that fund."

Étienne allowed him to continue, fixing his eyes on him, while a slight nervous quiver moved his lips.He smiled at the last remark, and simply replied:

"Then that is a new demand, for until now, sir, you have neglected to claim that control.Unfortunately, we wish the Company to occupy itself less with us, and instead of playing the part of Providence to be merely just with us, giving us our due, the profits which it appropriates.Is it honest, whenever a crisis comes, to leave the workers to die with hunger in order to save the shareholders' dividends?Whatever you may say, sir, the new system is a disguised reduction of wages, and that is what we are rebelling against, for if the Company wants to economize it acts very badly by only economizing on the men."

"Ah!there we are!"cried M.Hennebeau."I was expecting that—the accusation of starving the people and living by their sweat.How can you talk such folly, you who ought to know the enormous risks which capital runs in industry—in the mines, for example?A well-equipped pit today costs from fifteen hundred thousand francs to two millions; and it is difficult enough to get a moderate interest on the vast sum that is thus swallowed.Nearly half the mining companies in France are bankrupt.Besides, it is stupid to accuse those who succeed of cruelty.When their workers suffer, they suffer themselves.Can you believe that the Company has not as much to lose as you have in the present crisis?It does not govern wages; it obeys competition under pain of ruin.Blame the facts, not the Company.But you don't wish to hear, you don't wish to understand."

"Yes," said the young man, "we understand very well that our lot will never be bettered as long as things go on as they are going; and that is the reason why some day or another the workers will end by arranging that things shall go differently."

This sentence, so moderate in form, was pronounced in a low voice, but with such conviction, tremulous in its menace, that a deep silence followed.A certain constraint, a breath of fear passed through the polite drawing-room.The other delegates, though scarcely understanding, felt that their comrade had been demanding their share of this comfort; and they began to cast sidelong looks over the warm hangings, the comfortable seats, all this luxury of which the least knick-knack would have bought them soup for a month.

At last M.Hennebeau, who had remained thoughtful, rose as a sign for them to depart.All imitated him.Étienne had lightly pushed Maheu's elbow, and the latter, his tongue once more thick and awkward, again spoke.

"Then, sir, that is all that you reply?We must tell the others that you reject our terms."

"I, my good fellow!"exclaimed the manager, "I reject nothing.I am paid just as you are.I have no more power in the matter than the smallest of your trammers.I receive my orders, and my only duty is to see that they are executed.I have told you what I thought I ought to tell you, but it is not for me to decide.You have brought me your demands.I will make them known to the directors, then I will tell you their reply."

He spoke with the correct air of a high official avoiding any passionate interest in the matter, with the courteous dryness of a simple instrument of authority.And the miners now looked at him with distrust, asking themselves what interest he might have in lying, and what he would get by thus putting himself between them and the real masters.A schemer, perhaps, this man who was paid like a worker, and who lived so well!

Étienne ventured to intervene again.

"You see, sir, how unfortunate it is that we cannot plead our cause in person.We could explain many things, and bring forward many reasons of which you could know nothing, if we only knew where we ought to go."

M.Hennebeau was not at all angry.He even smiled.

"Ah!it gets complicated as soon as you have no confidence in me; you will have to go over there."

The delegates had followed the vague gesture of his hand toward one of the windows.Where was it, over there?Paris, no doubt.But they did not know exactly; it seemed to fall back into a terrible distance, in an inaccessible religious country, where an unknown god sat on his throne, crouching down at the far end of his tabernacle.They would never see him; they only felt him as a force far off, which weighed on the ten thousand colliers of Montsou.And when the director spoke he had that hidden force behind him delivering oracles.

They were overwhelmed with discouragement; Étienne himself signified by a shrug of the shoulders that it would be best to go; while M.Hennebeau touched Maheu's arm in a friendly way and asked after Jeanlin.

"That is a severe lesson now, and it is you who defend bad timbering.You must reflect, my friends; you must realize that a strike would be a disaster for everybody.Before a week you would die of hunger.What would you do?I count on your good sense, anyhow; and I am convinced that you will go down on Monday, at the latest."

They all left, going out of the drawing-room with the tramping of a flock and rounded backs, without replying a word to this hope of submission.The manager, who accompanied them, was obliged to continue the conversation.The Company, on the one side, had its new tariff; the workers, on the other, their demand for an increase of five centimes the tram.In order that they might have no illusions, he felt he ought to warn them that their terms would certainly be rejected by the directors.

"Reflect before committing any follies," he repeated, disturbed at their silence.

In the porch Pierron bowed very low, while Levaque pretended to adjust his cap.Maheu was trying to find something to say before leaving, when Étienne again touched his elbow.And they all left in the midst of this threatening silence.The door closed with a loud bang.

When M.Hennebeau re-entered the dining-room he found his guests motionless and silent before the liqueurs.In two words he told his story to Deneulin, whose face grew still more gloomy.Then, as he drank his cold coffee, they tried to speak of other things.But the Grégoires themselves returned to the subject of the strike, expressing their astonishment that no laws existed to prevent workmen from leaving their work.Paul reassured Cécile, stating that they were expecting the police.

At last Madame Hennebeau called the servant:

"Hippolyte, before we go into the drawing-room just open the windows and let in a little air."

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CHAPTER III

A fortnight had passed, and on the Monday of the third week the lists sent up to the managers showed a fresh decrease in the number of the miners who had gone down.It was expected that on that morning work would be resumed, but the obstinacy of the directors in not yielding exasperated the miners.The Voreux, Crévecœur, Mirou, and Madeleine were not the only pits resting; at the Victoire and at Feutry-Cantel only about a quarter of the men had gone down; even Saint-Thomas was affected.The strike was gradually becoming general.

At the Voreux a heavy silence hung over the pit-mouth.It was a dead workshop, these great empty abandoned Yards where work was sleeping.In the grey December sky, along the high foot-bridges three or four empty trams bore witness to the mute sadness of things.Underneath, between the slender posts of the platforms, the stock of coal was diminishing, leaving the earth bare and black; while the supplies of wood were mouldering beneath the rain.At the quay on the canal a barge was moored, half-laden, lying drowsily in the murky water; and on the deserted pit-bank, in which the decomposed sulphates smoked in spite of the rain, a melancholy cart showed its shafts erect.But the buildings especially were growing torpid, the screening-shed with closed shutters, the steeple in which the rumbling of the receiving-room no more arose, and the machine-room grown cold, and the giant chimney too large for the occasional smoke.The winding-engine was only heated in the morning.The grooms sent down fodder for the horses, and the captains worked alone at the bottom, having become labourers again, watching over the damages that took place in the passages as soon as they ceased to be repaired; then, after nine o'clock the rest of the service was carried on by the ladders.And above these dead buildings, buried in their garment of black dust, there was only heard the escapement of the pumping-engine, breathing with its thick, long breath all that was left of the life of the pit, which the water would destroy if that breathing should cease.

On the plain opposite, the settlement of the Deux-Cent-Quarante seemed also to be dead.The prefect of Lille had come in haste and the police had tramped all the roads; but in face of the calmness of the strikers, prefect and police had decided to go home again.Never had the settlement given so splendid an example in the vast plain.The men, to avoid going to the public-house, slept all day long; the women while dividing the coffee became reasonable, less anxious to gossip and quarrel; and even the troops of children seemed to understand it all, and were so good that they ran about with naked feet, smacking each other silently.The word of command had been repeated and circulated from mouth to mouth; they wished to be sensible.

There was, however, a continuous coming and going of people in the Maheus' house.Étienne, as secretary, had divided the three thousand francs of the Provident Fund among the needy families; afterwards from various sides several hundred francs had arrived, yielded by subscriptions and collections.But now all their resources were exhausted; the miners had no more money to keep up the strike, and hunger was there, threatening them.Maigrat, after having promised credit for a fortnight, had suddenly altered his mind at the end of a week and cut off provisions.He usually took his orders from the Company; perhaps the latter wished to bring the matter to an end by starving the settlements.He acted besides like a capricious tyrant, giving or refusing bread according to the look of the girl who was sent by her parents for provisions; and he especially closed his door spitefully to Maheude, wishing to punish her because he had not been able to get Catherine.To complete their misery it was freezing very hard, and the women watched their piles of coal diminish, thinking anxiously that they could no longer renew them at the pits now that the men were not going down.It was not enough to die of hunger, they must also die of cold.

Among the Maheus everything was already running short.The Levaques could still eat on the strength of a twenty-franc piece lent by Bouteloup.As to the Pierrons, they always had money; but in order to appear as needy as the others, for fear of loans, they got their supplies on credit from Maigrat, who would have thrown his shop at Pierronne if she had held out her petticoat to him.Since Saturday many families had gone to bed without supper, and in face of the terrible days that were beginning not a complaint was heard, all obeyed the word of command with quiet courage.There was an absolute confidence in spite of everything, a religious faith, the blind gift of a population of believers.Since an era of justice had been promised to them they were willing to suffer for the conquest of universal happiness.Hunger exalted their heads; never had the low horizon opened a larger beyond to these people in the hallucination of their misery.They saw again over there, when their eyes were dimmed by weakness, the ideal city of their dream, but now growing near and seeming to be real, with its population of brothers, its golden age of labour and meals in common.Nothing overcame their conviction that they were at last entering it.The fund was exhausted; the Company would not yield; every day must aggravate the situation; and they preserved their hope and showed a smiling contempt for facts.If the earth opened beneath them a miracle would save them.This faith replaced bread and warmed their stomachs.When the Maheus and the others had too quickly digested their soup, made with clear water, they thus rose into a state of semi-vertigo, that ecstasy of a better life which has flung martyrs to the wild beasts.

Étienne was henceforth the unquestioned leader. In the evening conversations he gave forth oracles, in the degree to which study had refined him and made him able to enter into difficult matters. He spent the nights reading, and received a large number of letters; he even subscribed to the Vengeur, a Belgian Socialist paper, and this journal, the first to enter the settlement, gained for him extraordinary consideration among his mates.His growing popularity excited him more every day.To carry on an extensive correspondence, to discuss the fate of the workers in the four corners of the province, to give advice to the Voreux miners, especially to become a centre and to feel the world rolling round him—continually swelled the vanity of the former engine-man, the pikeman with greasy black hands.He was climbing a ladder, he was entering this execrated middle class, with a satisfaction to his intelligence and comfort which he did not confess to himself.He had only one trouble, the consciousness of his lack of education, which made him embarrassed and timid as soon as he was in the presence of a gentleman in a frock-coat.If he went on instructing himself, devouring everything, the lack of method would render assimilation very slow, and would produce such confusion that at last he would know much more than he could understand.So at certain hours of good sense he experienced a restlessness with regard to his mission—a fear that he was not the man for the task.Perhaps it required a lawyer, a learned man, able to speak and act without compromising the mates?But an outcry soon restored his assurance.No, no; no lawyers!They are all rascals; they profit by their knowledge to fatten on the people.Let things turn out how they will, the workers must manage their own affairs.And his dream of popular leadership again soothed him: Montsou at his feet, Paris in the misty distance, who knows?The elections some day, the tribune in a gorgeous hall, where he could thunder against the middle class in the first speech pronounced by a workman in a parliament.

During the last few days Étienne had been perplexed.Pluchart wrote letter after letter, offering to come to Montsou to quicken the zeal of the strikers.It was a question of organizing a private meeting over which the mechanic would preside; and beneath this plan lay the idea of exploiting the strike, to gain over to the International these miners who so far had shown themselves suspicious.Étienne feared a disturbance, but he would, however, have allowed Pluchart to come if Rasseneur had not violently blamed this proceeding.In spite of his power, the young man had to reckon with the innkeeper, whose services were of older date, and who had faithful followers among his clients.So he still hesitated, not knowing what to reply.