by Emile Zola
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.
Chaval accompanied Catherine along the road. He walked close beside her, arms by his side but pushing her with his hip, guiding her while all the time pretending not to. Suddenly she realized that he had made her leave the road and that they were now on the narrow path that led to Réquillart. But she had no time to get cross; already his arm was round her waist and he was turning her head with his smooth patter. Silly girl, being afraid like that! How could anyone want to harm a pretty little thing like her? She was as soft and gentle as silk, so tender he could almost eat her. As Catherine felt his warm breath behind her ear and on her neck, her whole body began to quiver. She could hardly breathe and found no reply. He really did seem to love her. The previous Saturday night, when she had blown out the candle, she had lain there in bed wondering what would happen if he were to make his move like this; and when she fell asleep she had dreamed that she stopped saying no, that the prospect of pleasure had weakened her resolve. So why now did the same prospect fill her with revulsion and even somehow with a sense of regret? As he stroked the back of her neck with his moustache, so gently that she began to close her eyes, the shadow of another man, of the person she had glimpsed so briefly that morning, passed across the darkness of her unseeing pupils.
Catherine suddenly looked about her. Chaval had led her to the ruins of Réquillart, and she recoiled with a shudder at the sight of the dark, dilapidated shed.
‘Oh no, oh no,’ she muttered. ‘Please, let me go.’
She was beginning to panic out of some instinctive fear of the male, the kind of fear that makes
muscles tauten in self-defence even when girls are perfectly willing but sense that nothing will halt the man’s all-conquering advance. Though not ignorant of life she felt threatened in her virginity as though by a terrifying blow, by a wound whose pain, as yet unknown, she feared.
‘No, no, I don’t want to! I’ve told you, I’m too young…Really I am! Later on, maybe, when I’m ready for it at least.’
‘That just means it’s safe, you idiot!’ he growled in a low voice. ‘Anyway, what difference does it make?’
But he said no more. He grabbed her firmly and shoved her under what remained of the shed. She fell back on to the coils of old rope and ceased to resist, submitting herself to the male even though she was not yet ready for him and doing so out of that inborn passivity which, from childhood onwards, soon had mining girls like her flat on their backs in the open air. Her terrified protestations died away, and all that could be heard was the man, panting hotly.
Étienne, meanwhile, had stayed where he was and listened. One more girl taking the plunge! Having now witnessed the whole performance, he stood up to leave, feeling a disturbing mixture of jealous excitement and mounting anger. He stopped trying to be tactful and stepped smartly over the beams: that particular couple would be far too busy by now to worry about him. So he was surprised, having gone a hundred paces along the road, when he turned round and saw that they were already on their feet and apparently on their way back to the village like him. The man had his arm round the girl’s waist once more, holding her to him with an air of gratitude and continually whispering in her ear, whereas she was the one who seemed to be annoyed by the delay and in a hurry to get home.
Étienne was then seized with a sudden, overriding desire: to see their faces. It was silly, and he quickened his step in order to stop himself. But his feet slowed despite himself and, eventually, at the first street-lamp, he hid in the shadows. He was thoroughly astonished to recognize Chaval and Catherine as they went past. At first he wasn’t sure: was this girl in a dark-blue dress and a bonnet really her? Was this the young scamp he’d seen wearing trousers, with a cotton cap pulled down over her ears? That’s why she’d been able to walk right past him at Réquillart without his realizing who she was. But now he was in no doubt, for he had just seen those limpid green eyes again, like deep, clear springs. What a slut! And for no reason at all he suddenly felt a terrible urge to get his own back on her by despising her. Girl’s clothes didn’t suit her either, what’s more: she looked dreadful!
Slowly Catherine and Chaval had gone past, quite unaware of being watched like this. He was busy trying to make her stop so that he could kiss her behind the ear, while she had begun to linger under his caresses, which were making her laugh. Étienne, now behind them and obliged to follow, was irritated to find them blocking his path and to be forced to witness this exasperating spectacle. So it was true what she’d promised him that morning, that she hadn’t yet been with a man; and to think that he hadn’t believed her, that he’d held back so as not to be like the other fellow! And now he’d let her be taken from under his very nose! He’d even been stupid enough to sit there enjoying the thrill of watching them at it! It was infuriating, and he clenched his fists; he could readily have killed that man in one of those terrible moments of his when he saw red and felt the desperate urge to slaughter.
They continued on for another half-hour. When Chaval and Catherine came to Le Voreux, they slowed down even more, stopping twice by the canal and three times beside the spoil-heap, for by now they were both in high spirits and absorbed in their amorous little games. Étienne had to stop too when they did, in case they saw him. He tried to persuade himself that he had but one, cynical, regret: that this would teach him to be polite and easy on the girls! Once they were past Le Voreux and he could have gone back to have dinner at Rasseneur’s, he continued instead to follow them. He accompanied them all the way back to the village and stood there waiting in the shadows for a quarter of an hour before Chaval finally let Catherine go home. Now that he had made sure they were no longer together, he went on walking, far along the road to Marchiennes, simply trudging along with his mind a blank, too miserable and upset to go and shut himself away in a room.
It was not until one hour later, towards nine, that Étienne made his way back through the village, having told himself that he really ought to have something to eat and go to bed if he was to be up at four the next morning. The village was already asleep, plunged in darkness beneath the blackness of the night. Not a single gleam of light filtered through the closed shutters, and row after row of houses lay deep in slumber like so many barracks filled with snoring soldiers. A solitary cat made off across the deserted gardens. It was day’s end, the final stupor of workers who had slumped from their tables into bed, stunned by food and sheer exhaustion.
Back at Rasseneur’s a light was still burning in the bar, where a mechanic and two other miners from the day shift were drinking their beer. But before going in Étienne paused and took one last look out into the darkness. He found the same black immensity that he had seen that morning when he had arrived in the middle of a gale. In front of him Le Voreux squatted like some evil beast, barely visible, dotted here and there with a few pinpricks of light from the lanterns. The three braziers up on the spoil-heap blazed away in mid-air like bloodshot moons, and from time to time the shadows of old Bonnemort and his yellow horse could be seen passing across them in enormous silhouette. Out on the bare and empty plain beyond, everything lay submerged in darkness: Montsou, Marchiennes, the forest of Vandame and the vast sea of beetfields and cornfields where, like distant lighthouses, the blast-furnaces with their flames of blue and the coke-ovens with their flames of red alone provided the last vestiges of light. Little by little the night crept in like a black flood. Rain had begun to fall now, slow, steady rain that blotted out the yawning darkness with its relentless streaming; and only one voice could still be heard, the long, slow gasps of the drainage-pump, panting, panting, night and day.
PART III
I
The next day, and on the days that followed, Étienne returned to work at the pit. He gradually became accustomed to it, and his life began to shape itself round this new form of labour and the novel routines which he had found so hard at the beginning. Only one episode of note interrupted the monotony of the first fortnight, a brief fever that kept him in bed for forty-eight hours with aching limbs and a throbbing head, during which time he kept having semi-delirious visions of pushing his tub along a road that was too narrow for his body to pass through. But this was simply the debilitating result of his apprenticeship, an excess of fatigue from which he soon recovered.
Days followed days; weeks and months went by. Now, like his comrades, he would get up at three in the morning, drink his coffee, and set off with the bread-and-butter sandwich that Mme Rasseneur had prepared the night before. As he walked to the pit he would regularly bump into old Bonnemort on his way home to bed, and in the afternoon he would pass Bouteloup coming in the opposite direction to begin his shift. Étienne had acquired his own cap, trousers and cotton jacket, and he too would shiver and warm his back at the roaring fire in the changing-room. Then there was the wait, barefoot, at the pit-head, with its howling draughts. He no longer noticed the winding-engine or its thick, brass-studded limbs of steel gleaming above him in the shadows, nor the cables that flitted up and down with the silent, black swoop of some nocturnal bird, nor the cages that rose and vanished in ceaseless succession amid the din of clanking signals, barked commands and tubs rumbling across the iron floor. His lamp wasn’t burning properly, the damned lamp-man must have forgotten to clean it; and he began to thaw only once Mouquet had got them all into the cages with a few laddish whacks on the bottom for the girls. The cage left its keeps and fell like a stone into a well without his so much as raising his head to catch a last glimpse of the light above. The thought of a possible crash never occurred to him now, and he felt at home as he descended into the darkness with the water r
aining down on top of him. After Pierron had unloaded them all at the bottom with his usual canting servility, the daily tramp of the herd began as each team of miners wearily headed off to its own coal-face. He could now find his way round the mine’s roads better than he could the streets of Montsou, and he knew where to turn, where to duck, where to step over a puddle. He was so familiar with these two kilometres underground that he could have walked them without a lamp and with his hands in his pockets. And each time there were the same encounters: a deputy shining his lamp in their faces, old Mouque fetching a horse, Bébert leading a snorting Battle, Jeanlin running along behind the train to shut the ventilation doors, a plump Mouquette or a skinny Lydie pushing their tubs.
In due course Étienne also began to suffer less from the humidity and airlessness at the coal-face. The chimney now seemed an ideal way up, as though he himself had somehow become molten and could pass through chinks in the rock where once he wouldn’t even have ventured his hand. He could breathe in the coal-dust without discomfort, he could see perfectly well in the dark, and he sweated normally, having got used to feeling wet clothes against his skin all day long. Moreover, he no longer squandered his energy in clumsy movements, and his comrades were amazed at the speed and skill with which he now did things. After three weeks he was spoken of as one of the best putters in the pit: no one rolled his tub up the slope more smartly than he did, nor then dispatched it more neatly. His slim figure allowed him to squeeze past everything, and for all that his arms were as white and slender as a woman’s, there seemed to be iron beneath that delicate skin so stoutly did they do their work. He never complained, as a matter of pride no doubt, not even when he was gasping with exhaustion. His only failing was that he couldn’t take a joke, and he would flare up the moment anyone criticized him. Otherwise he was accepted and looked on as a real miner even as the crushing mould of daily routine gradually reduced him to the level of a machine.
