Germinal (24 page)

‘What have you got to say for yourselves, eh?…You can each have your share of this fist if you think you can start demanding things…Whose idea was it in the first place, eh?'

It had indeed been Jeanlin's idea. After spending an hour roaming about the fields beside the canal picking dandelions with the two others, it had occurred to him as he gazed at the amount they had collected that they would never eat all that at home; and instead of going back to the village he'd gone to Montsou, taking Bébert along to keep watch and making Lydie ring the doorbells of the bourgeois and offer to sell them some dandelion salad. Already versed in the ways of the world, he said that girls could sell whatever they had a mind to. In the heat of the commercial moment they'd sold the whole lot, but Lydie had made eleven sous. And now, bereft of salad, the three of them were sharing out the proceeds.

‘It's not fair!' Bébert protested. ‘You should divide by three…If you keep seven, that'll only leave us two each.'

‘What do you mean ‘‘not fair''?' Jeanlin retorted furiously. ‘I picked more of them than you did, for a start.'

Bébert usually conceded out of timorous respect, forever the gullible victim. Though older and stronger he even allowed himself to be punched. But this time the prospect of so much money stirred him to resistance.

‘He's diddling us, isn't he, Lydie?…If he doesn't share properly, we'll tell his mother on him.'

At once Jeanlin stuck a fist under his nose.

‘You just say that once more and I'll go and tell yours how you sold my mum's salad…Anyway, you bloody idiot, how am I supposed to divide eleven by three? You try it if you're so clever…So there's two sous for each of you. Quick, take 'em or I'll stick 'em back in my pocket.'

Bébert had no answer and accepted the two sous. Lydie, who was trembling, had said nothing for, like the child equivalent of a battered wife, she felt afraid of Jeanlin and yet loved him too. As he offered her the two sous, she reached out her hand with a submissive smile. But he suddenly changed his mind.

‘No, wait. What bloody use is two sous to you?…Your mother'll only pinch 'em off you. Bound to, unless you hide them. I'd better look after them. Whenever you need money, you can just ask me.'

And the nine sous vanished. To keep her quiet, he grabbed her and rolled her over on the spoil-heap. She was his little woman, and together in dark corners they would experiment at the love they heard and saw going on at home behind partition walls or through cracks in the door. They knew all about it but had scarcely the means; as yet too young, they spent hours groping each other and pretending to do it like two naughty young puppies. He called it ‘playing mums and dads', and whenever he took her off somewhere, she eagerly followed. She trembled with the delicious instinctive thrill of it as she allowed herself to be taken; and though he often did things that made her cross, she always yielded in the hope of something which never came.

Since Bébert was not allowed to participate in these particular games and got thumped each time he tried to touch Lydie, he felt angry and put out and didn't know where to look when the pair of them messed about like this together, which they did quite happily in his presence. Hence his one idea was to scare them and to interrupt them by shouting that someone was looking.

‘It's no good. There's a man watching.'

In this case it was true, for Étienne had decided to continue his walk. The children leaped up and ran away as he came past the corner of the spoil-heap and continued along the edge of the
canal, amused to see the rascals get such a fright. No doubt it was too soon for them to be up to this kind of thing at their age; but, well, they saw such goings-on and heard such filthy stories, you'd have to have tied them up if you wanted to stop them. Nevertheless, deep down, he found it depressing.

A hundred paces further on he encountered more couples. He had reached Réquillart, and here at the old, ruined mine every girl in Montsou was to be found loitering with her man. It was where everybody met, a remote, deserted spot where the putters came and conceived their first babies when they didn't want to risk it on the shed roof back at home. The broken fences meant that everyone could get into the old pit-yard, which was now a wasteland littered with the remains of two collapsed sheds and the still-standing supports of the overhead railway. Disused tubs lay strewn about, and half-rotten timbering stood stacked in piles, while lush vegetation was vigorously reclaiming the place in the form of thick grass and some young trees, which had sprouted and were already sturdy. Each girl felt at home here: there were secret places for all, and their lovers could have their wicked way with them on top of the beams, behind the woodpiles or inside the tubs. They made themselves as comfortable as they could, cheek by jowl and yet oblivious to their neighbours. And it was as though, all around the defunct headgear and this shaft that was weary of disgorging its coal, creation itself were taking its revenge, as though unfettered love, lashed by instinct, were busy planting babies in the wombs of these girls who were hardly yet women.

All the same a caretaker still lived there, old Mouque. The Company had let him have two rooms situated almost directly beneath the derelict headgear, whose last remaining beams threatened daily to come crashing down on top of them. He had even had to prop up part of his roof. But he and his family were comfortable living there, with himself and Mouquet in one room and La Mouquette in the other. As there wasn't a single pane of glass left in the windows, they had decided to board them up: this made it dark indoors, but at least it was warm. In fact the caretaker had nothing to take care of; he simply went off to look after his horses at Le Voreux and never bothered about the
ruins of Réquillart, where all that was kept under repair was the mine-shaft itself so that it could serve as a flue for the engine which ventilated the neighbouring pit.

And this was how old Mouque came to be living out his days surrounded by young love. From the age of ten La Mouquette had been having sex in every corner of the ruins, not, like Lydie, as a timid and unripe little urchin-child, but as a girl who had filled out and was ready for boys with beards. There was nothing her father could say or do about it, for she always showed him proper respect and never asked any of her boyfriends into the house. Anyway, he was used to such things. Whether he was on his way out to Le Voreux or coming home again, the moment he ventured out of his lair he was always tripping over some couple hidden in the grass. Even worse, whenever he wanted to fetch some wood to cook his soup or pick some burdock for his rabbit over on the far side of the mine, there all the girls of Montsou would be, popping their pretty little noses up out of the grass, and he had to be careful where he trod so as not to step on any of the legs stretched out across the path. But gradually such encounters had ceased to trouble either party, neither himself, who simply tried to make sure that he didn't trip over, nor the girls themselves, whom he left to get on with the business in hand as he tiptoed discreetly away like a good fellow who has no quarrel with the workings of nature. Except that just as they had now got to know him, so too he had come to recognize them, the way one recognizes amorous magpies disporting in the pear trees in the garden. Oh, these youngsters! They were always at it, they simply never stopped! Sometimes he shook his head in silent regret as he turned away from the noisy trollops panting loudly in the dark. Only one thing actually annoyed him: a particular pair of lovers had acquired the unfortunate habit of embracing against the outside wall of his room. Not that it kept him awake at night or anything of that sort; it was just that they pushed so hard that they were gradually damaging the wall.

Every evening old Mouque was visited by his friend Bonnemort, who would regularly take the same walk before dinner. The two old codgers barely spoke and rarely exchanged more
than a dozen words during the half-hour they spent in each other's company. But it cheered them up to be together like this, to reflect on past times and turn things over in their minds without ever feeling the need to talk about them. At Réquillart they would sit on a beam, side by side, utter a word or two, and then off they went, nose to the ground, thinking old thoughts and dreaming old dreams. No doubt it made them feel young again. All around them the lads were lifting young lasses' skirts, there was kissing and whispering and laughing, and the warm aroma of girls rose in the air, mingling with the cool scent of crushed grass. It was behind this pit, forty-three years ago, that old Bonnemort had first had his wife, such a skinny little putter that he had been able to pick her up and sit her on a tub so as to kiss her more easily. Ah, those were the days! And the two old men would shake their heads and finally take their leave, often without even saying goodbye.

That particular evening, however, as Étienne arrived, Bonnemort was just getting up from the beam to return to the village and saying to Mouque:

‘Good-night, my old friend…Incidentally, did you ever know that girl they called La Roussie?'

Mouque was silent for a moment, then shrugged; and as he went back into his house, he simply said:

‘Good-night, my old friend, good-night.'

Étienne came and sat on the beam. He felt even sadder now, without knowing quite why. The sight of the old fellow disappearing into the distance reminded him of his arrival that morning and how the nagging insistence of the wind had made this otherwise taciturn man so voluble. All this hardship! And all these girls, shattered with exhaustion but stupid enough come the evening to make babies for themselves, yet more flesh fit only for toil and suffering! There would be no end to it if they just went on producing more hungry mouths to feed. Would they not have done better to stop up their wombs and cross their legs in recognition of the impending disaster? But perhaps he was only mulling over such gloomy thoughts because he was fed up at finding himself alone while everyone else was pairing off to take their pleasure. He felt suffocated in the muggy
atmosphere, and a few spots of rain were beginning to fall on his feverish hands. Yes, they all went the same way, and reason was powerless to alter the fact.

Just then, as Étienne sat motionless in the dark, a couple coming down from Montsou happened to brush past without seeing him as they made their way into the overgrown yard. The girl, obviously a virgin, was struggling to break free, resisting and pleading with the man in soft, urgent whispers while he silently pushed her nevertheless towards the dark recesses of a piece of shed that was still standing, under which lay a pile of old, mouldering rope. It was Catherine, accompanied by the tall figure of Chaval. But Étienne had not recognized them as they went past, and his eyes followed them, watching to see how things would turn out and overtaken by a quickening of sensual interest, which quite altered the course of his reflections. After all, why interfere? If girls say no, it's only because they like a spot of rough treatment first.

On leaving Village Two Hundred and Forty, Catherine had walked to Montsou along the main road. Since the age of ten, when she had begun to earn her living at the pit, she had been used to going about the countryside on her own like this with the complete freedom that was customary among mining families; and if, at the age of fifteen, no man had yet laid a hand on her, it was because she was a late developer and still awaiting the onset of puberty. When she reached the Company yards, she crossed the street and went into a laundry-woman's house where she knew she would find La Mouquette; for the latter virtually lived there, in the company of women who treated each other to endless cups of coffee from morning to night. But she was disappointed to discover that La Mouquette had just bought her round of coffees and so could not lend her the ten sous she'd promised. By way of consolation they offered Catherine a glass of steaming hot coffee, but she would not hear of La Mouquette borrowing the money off another woman on her behalf. She had a sudden urge to economize, a kind of superstitious fear amounting almost to certainty that if she bought the ribbon now it would bring her bad luck.

She hurriedly set off back to Montsou, and she was just
reaching the first houses when a man hailed her from the door of Piquette's bar.

‘Hey, Catherine, where are you off to in such a hurry?'

It was Chaval. She was vexed, not because she didn't like him but because she was in no mood for a laugh.

‘Come in and have a drink…A small glass of sweet wine or something?'

She refused politely: it was getting dark, and they were expecting her back home. Chaval, meanwhile, had stepped forward and was now quietly pleading with her in the middle of the street. He had been trying for some time to persuade her to come up to his room on the first floor of Piquette's, a lovely room with a nice double bed in it. Why did she keep saying no? Was she afraid of him, then? She laughed good-naturedly and said she'd come up the day people stopped having babies. Then the conversation led on from one thing to another and, without knowing how, she started talking about the blue ribbon she hadn't been able to buy.

‘But I'll buy you one, then!' he exclaimed.

She blushed, thinking that it would be best to refuse again but all the while longing to have her piece of ribbon. The idea of a loan occurred to her once more, and so she eventually accepted on condition that she would pay back the money he spent on her. They made a joke of it: it was agreed that if she never did sleep with him, she would repay him the money. But there was a further difficulty when he talked of going to Maigrat's.

‘No, not Maigrat's. Mum told me not to go there.'

‘That doesn't matter. You don't need to say where you got it!…He sells the prettiest ribbons in Montsou!'

When Maigrat saw Chaval and Catherine walk into his shop like a pair of lovers buying themselves a wedding present, he went red in the face and showed them the blue ribbons he had with the fury of a man who knows he's being mocked. After the young couple had made their purchase he stood at the door and watched them disappear into the twilight; and when his wife came and timidly asked him about something, he rounded on her, insulting her and shouting that one day he'd make the dirty
beggars show some gratitude, he'd have them flat on their faces grovelling at his feet.