Germinal (38 page)

When M. Hennebeau came back into the dining-room, he found his guests sitting silent and motionless in front of their liqueurs. He quickly briefed Deneulin, whose expression grew even more sombre. Then, as he drank his cold coffee, everyone tried to talk about something else. But the Grégoires themselves returned to the subject of the strike and expressed their astonishment that there were no laws preventing the workers from leaving their work. Paul tried to reassure Cécile, saying that the gendarmes were on their way.

Finally Mme Hennebeau summoned her servant:

‘Hippolyte, would you open the windows before we go into the drawing-room and let some fresh air in?'

A fortnight had elapsed, and on the Monday of the third week the attendance lists sent to management indicated a further reduction in the number of men working underground. They had been counting on a general return to work that morning, but because of the Board's intransigence the miners' resistance was hardening. Le Voreux, Crèecœur, Mirou and Madeleine were no longer the only pits out on strike; at La Victoire and Feutry-Cantel barely a quarter of the colliers were going down; and even Saint-Thomas was now affected. Gradually the strike was spreading.

At Le Voreux a heavy silence hung over the pit-yard with that hushed vacancy of a deserted workplace where labour has ceased and life departed. Along the overhead railway, etched against the grey December sky, three or four abandoned tubs sat with the mute dejection of mere things. Underneath, between the trestle-supports, the dwindling coal-piles had left the ground bare and black; and the stock of timbering stood rotting in the rain. At the canal jetty a half-laden barge lay abandoned, as though dozing on the murky water; while up on the deserted spoil-heap, where decomposing sulphide continued to smoke despite the wet, the shafts of a solitary cart rose forlornly into the air. But it was the buildings especially that seemed to be sinking into torpor: the screening-shed with its closed shutters, the headgear that had ceased to echo with the rumble of the pit-head beneath, and the boiler-house where the fire-grates had cooled and whose huge chimney now seemed excessively wide for the occasional wisp of smoke. The winding-engine was fired up only in the mornings. The stablemen delivered fodder to the horses down the pit, where the sole people working were the deputies, miners once more as they endeavoured to prevent the damage to the roads that inevitably occurs when these are no longer properly maintained. From nine o'clock onwards any further maintenance work had to be carried out by using the ladders for access. And over these lifeless buildings, wrapped in their black shroud of coal-dust, hung the steam from the
drainage-pump as it continued its slow, heavy panting, the last vestiges of life in a pit, which would be destroyed by flooding if this panting should ever stop.

Opposite, on its plateau, Village Two Hundred and Forty seemed dead also. The Prefect had hastened from Lille to visit the scene, and gendarmes had patrolled the roads; but with the strikers remaining perfectly calm, Prefect and gendarmes alike had decided to return home. Never had the village set a better example throughout the vast plain. The men would sleep all day to avoid going drinking; the women rationed their consumption of coffee and became more reasonable, less obsessed with gossip and feuding; and even the gangs of children seemed to understand, so well behaved that they ran about barefoot and scrapped without making a noise. The watchword, repeated and passed on from person to person, was simple: there was to be no trouble.

Nevertheless the Maheus' house was constantly full of people coming and going. It was here that Étienne, as secretary, had shared out the three thousand francs in the provident fund among the most needy families. After that a few hundred francs more had come in from various sources, some as fund contributions and some from collections, but their resources were running out now. The miners had no money left to carry on the strike, and hunger was staring them in the face. Maigrat had promised everyone a fortnight's credit but then suddenly changed his mind after the first week and cut off supplies. Generally he did what the Company told him, so perhaps they were trying to force the issue by making everyone starve. On top of which he acted like some capricious tyrant, providing or withholding bread depending on the looks of the girl the parents had sent for their food; and he was never open for La Maheude, since he bore her a deep grudge and wanted to punish her for the fact that he had not yet had Catherine. To make matters even worse the weather was bitterly cold, and the women watched their supply of coal dwindling with the anxious thought that it would not be replenished as long as the men refused to go down the pits. As if it were not enough that they were going to die of hunger, they were now going to freeze to death as well.

The Maheus were already running short of everything. The Levaques could still eat, thanks to a twenty-franc piece lent by Bouteloup. As for the Pierrons, they still had money; but in order to appear as destitute as everyone else – in case anyone should ask them for a loan – they bought on credit at Maigrat's, who would have let La Pieronne have his entire shop if she'd only lift her skirt for him. Since Saturday many families had gone to bed without supper. But, as they faced up to the terrible days ahead, not one complaint was heard, and everyone heeded the watchword with steadfast courage. Despite everything they had absolute confidence in the outcome, a kind of religious faith, like some nation of zealots blindly offering up the gift of their own selves. They had been promised the new dawn of justice, and so they were ready to suffer in the pursuit of universal happiness. Hunger turned their heads, and closed horizons had never opened on to broader vistas for these men and women who were drunk on their own deprivation. They beheld before them, as their eyes grew dim with fatigue, the ideal city of their dreams, a city now close at hand and almost real, where the golden age had come to pass, where all men were brothers, living and working in the common cause. Nothing could shake their absolute conviction that now at last they were entering its gates. The provident fund was exhausted, the Company would not yield, the situation would worsen with each day, and yet still they hoped and still they scoffed at life's realities. Even if the earth should open up beneath their feet, a miracle would surely save them. Such faith took the place of bread and warmed their bellies. When the Maheus, like the others, had downed their thin and watery soup, only too soon digested, they would become elated at this dizzying prospect and their minds would fill with ecstatic visions of a better life such as had once caused the early martyrs to be thrown to the lions.

From this point on Étienne was the undisputed leader. During their evening conversations he was the oracle, and his studies continued to sharpen his judgement and give him firm opinions on all issues. He would read all night long, and received more and more letters. He had even begun to subscribe to
The Avenger
, a socialist paper published in Belgium, and the arrival
of this journal, the first ever seen in the village, had caused him to be held in exceptional regard among his comrades. With each day that passed he became more and more intoxicated with his growing popularity. To be corresponding like this with a wide range of people, to be debating the workers' future up and down the region, to be giving individual advice to the miners of Le Voreux, and – most especially – to have become the centre of things and to feel the world revolving round him, it all served constantly to feed his vanity. Him! The ex-mechanic, the coal-worker with the filthy black hands! He was going up in the world, he was becoming one of the detested bourgeois and, without admitting as much to himself, he was beginning to enjoy the pleasures of the intellect and the comforts of easy living. Only one thing still gave him pause, the awareness of his lack of a formal education, which made him embarrassed and timid the moment he found himself in the presence of anyone in a frock-coat. Though he continued to teach himself and read everything he could, his want of method made the process of assimilation very slow, leading eventually to a state of confusion in which he knew things but had not understood them. Indeed in some of his more rational moments he had doubts about his mission and feared that he might not after all be the man the world was waiting for. Perhaps it needed a lawyer, a man of learning capable of speaking and acting without endangering his comrades' cause? But he soon rejected the idea and recovered his poise. No, no, they didn't want lawyers! Crooks, the lot of them, using their knowledge to get fat at the people's expense! It would all turn out as it might, but the workers were better off fending for themselves. And once again he would nurse his fond dream of becoming the people's leader: Montsou at his feet, Paris in the misty distance and, who knows, election to the Chamber of Deputies, addressing the Assembly
¹
in its opulent setting? He could just see himself there fulminating against an astonished bourgeoisie in the first parliamentary speech ever made by a working man.

For the past few days Étienne had been in a quandary. Pluchart kept writing letter after letter offering to come to Montsou to raise the strikers' morale. The idea was to arrange a private
meeting, which Étienne would chair, but behind this lay the intention of using the strike to recruit the miners to the International, which they had so far regarded with suspicion. Étienne was worried that there might be trouble, but he would nevertheless have allowed Pluchart to come if Rasseneur had not been so strongly against his intervening. Despite his power and influence Étienne had to reckon with Rasseneur, who had served the cause for longer and still had a number of supporters among his customers. And so he was still hesitating, not knowing how to reply.

That particular Monday, at about four in the afternoon, yet another letter arrived from Lille, just as Étienne was sitting with La Maheude in the downstairs room. Maheu, irritable on account of the enforced idleness, had gone fishing: if he was lucky enough to catch a nice fish, below the canal lock, they would sell it and buy bread. Bonnemort and young Jeanlin had recently gone for a walk, to try out their new legs, while the little ones had left with Alzire, who spent hours on the spoil-heap scavenging for half-burned cinders. Next to the paltry fire, which nobody dared keep going now, La Maheude sat with her blouse undone feeding Estelle from a breast which hung down to her stomach.

When Étienne folded up the letter, she inquired:

‘Good news? Are they going to send us some money?'

He shook his head, and she went on:

‘I just don't know how we're going to manage this week…Still, we'll get through somehow, I expect. It gives you heart, doesn't it, when you've got right on your side? You know you'll win out in the end.'

By now she was in favour of the strike, but in a reasonable way. It would have been better to force the Company to deal with them fairly without stopping work. But stopped they had, and they should not return until justice was theirs. On that point she was implacable. She'd rather die than appear to have been in the wrong, especially when they actually were in the right!

‘Oh,' Étienne burst out, ‘if only we could have a nice cholera epidemic that would wipe out all those Company people who are busy exploiting us!'

‘No, no,' she retorted, ‘you mustn't wish anyone dead. Anyway, it wouldn't get us very far, others would come along and take their place…All I ask is that the people we do have to deal with start seeing sense. And I expect they will, because there are always some decent people around…You know I don't hold with all your politics.'

And it was true. She was given to blaming him for the vehemence of his language, and she accused him of being aggressive. If people wanted to get paid a fair wage, all well and good; but why bother with all these other things, all this stuff about the bourgeoisie and the government? Why get involved in other people's business when it would only end in tears? And yet she continued to respect him for the fact that he never got drunk and that he continued to pay her regularly his forty-five francs for board and lodging. When a man was honest in his dealings, you could forgive him the rest.

Étienne then talked about the Republic and how it would provide bread for all. But La Maheude shook her head, for she could remember 1848
²
and what a miserable year that had been, when she and Maheu had been left without a penny to their name in the first days of their marriage. In a sad, absent voice she began to reminisce about all the problems they had had, her eyes gazing into space and her breast still exposed as her daughter Estelle fell asleep in her lap without letting go. Similarly engrossed, Étienne stared at this enormous breast and its soft whiteness that was so different from the ravaged, yellowing skin of her face.

‘Not a penny,' she whispered. ‘Not a crumb to eat, and every pit out on strike. The old, old story, in fact, of the poor starving to death. Just like now!'

But at that moment the door opened, and they stared in speechless astonishment as Catherine walked in. She had not been seen in the village since the day she ran off with Chaval. She was in such a state that she just stood there, mute and trembling, leaving the door open behind her. She had been counting on finding her mother alone, and the sight of Étienne robbed her of the speech she had been mentally preparing on the way over.

‘What the hell are you doing here?' La Maheude shouted from where she sat. ‘I don't want anything more to do with you. Just go away.'

Catherine struggled for her lines:

‘I've brought some coffee and sugar, Mum…I have, for the children…I've been working extra hours, and I thought they…'

From her pockets she produced a pound of coffee and a pound of sugar, which she ventured to place on the table. She had been tormented by the thought of everyone being on strike at Le Voreux while she continued to work at Jean-Bart, and this was all she had been able to think of as a way of helping her parents out, on the pretext of being concerned for the children. But her kindness failed to disarm her mother, who retorted: