by Emile Zola
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 18482 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:
‘You’d have done better to stay and earn something here, instead of bringing us treats.’
She now poured out all her pent-up abuse, throwing in Catherine’s face all the things that she had been saying about her for the past month. Getting involved with a man and her only sixteen, and running off like that when her family hadn’t a penny! You’d have to be the most unnatural of daughters to do such a thing. One could forgive a stupid mistake, but no mother could ever forget a dirty trick like that. And it wasn’t as if they’d kept her on a tight leash either! No, not at all, she’d been as free as the air to come and go as she pleased. All they’d asked was that she came home at night.
‘Eh? What’s got into you? At your age?’
Catherine stood motionless beside the table, hanging her head and listening. Her thin, girlish body quivered from head to toe, and she tried to blurt out a reply:
‘Oh, if the decision was left to me…As if I enjoyed any of it…It’s him. What he wants I have to want too, don’t I? Because he’s stronger than me. It’s as simple as that…Who knows why things turn out like they do? Anyway, what’s done is done, there’s no going back. As soon him as another now. He’ll just have to marry me.’
She was defending herself but in an unrebellious sort of way, with the meek resignation of the young girl who has to submit to the male from an early age. Wasn’t that the way of things? She’d never imagined anything else: raped behind the spoil-heap, a mother at sixteen, and then a life of wretched poverty together – if her lover married her, that was. And if she blushed with shame and trembled in this way, it was only because she was so upset at being treated like a whore in front of this young man whose presence overwhelmed her and made her feel such despair.
Étienne, meanwhile, had got up and pretended to see to the fire, so as to keep out of the row. But their eyes met, and he found her pale and exhausted-looking, though pretty all the same, with those bright eyes of hers surrounded by a face that was gradually turning brown; and a strange feeling came over him, a sense that his resentment had all gone and that he simply wanted her to be happy with this man she had preferred to him. He still felt the need to look after her, and he wanted to go to Montsou and force the man to treat her properly. But she saw only pity in this continuing tenderness and took his staring as a sign of disdain. And she felt such a constriction in her heart that she choked on her words and could stammer out no further excuses.
‘Yes, that’s right. You’d much better hold your tongue,’ La Maheude continued mercilessly. ‘If you’re here to stay, then come in. If not, clear off, and you can count yourself lucky that I’ve got my hands full at the minute, otherwise by now you’d have got a good kick you know where.’
Almost as if this threat had suddenly been carried out, Catherine received a violent kick full in the buttocks, which left her reeling with pain and shock. It was Chaval, who had burst in through the open door and lashed out at her with his foot like some crazed beast. He had been watching her from outside for the last m
inute or so.
‘You whore!’ he screamed. ‘I followed you. I knew bloody well you came here for a good fuck! And so you pay him, do you? Treating him to the coffee you’ve bought with my money!’
La Maheude and Étienne were so astonished that they did not move as Chaval waved his arms about like a madman and tried to chase Catherine towards the door.
‘Get the bloody hell out of here!’
As she cowered in a corner of the room, he turned on her mother:
‘And a fine job you do, keeping watch for her while your slut of a daughter is lying upstairs with her legs in the air.’
Eventually, having grabbed Catherine by the wrist, he started shaking her and trying to drag her outside. In the doorway he turned once more towards La Maheude, who was still unable to move from her chair. She had quite forgotten to cover her breast. Estelle had fallen asleep with her face buried in her mother’s woollen skirt; and the enormous, naked breast just hung there, like the udder of some particularly productive cow.
‘And when the daughter’s away, it’s the mother that gets screwed!’ screamed Chaval. ‘That’s right! Go on! Show that bastard of a lodger what you’ve got. Any old piece of meat will do him!’
At that, Étienne was ready to hit Chaval. He had been afraid that a fight might destroy the atmosphere of calm in the village, and this had kept him from snatching Catherine out of the man’s hands. But now it was his turn to be furious, and the two men stood face to face, with blood in their eyes. Theirs was an ancient hatred, a long, unspoken, jealous rivalry, and it burst into the open. This time one of them would have to pay.
‘Watch yourself!’ Étienne spluttered through clenched teeth. ‘I’ll soon sort you out.’
‘Just you try!’ answered Chaval.
They stared at each other for a few seconds longer, standing so close that each could feel the other’s hot breath burning into his face. Then Catherine took hold of her lover’s hand and pleaded with him to leave. And she dragged him away from the village, running by his side without a backward glance.
‘What an animal!’ Étienne muttered under his breath, slamming the door. He was shaking with anger so much that he had to sit down again.
Opposite him, La Maheude had still not moved. She waved her hand dismissively, and an awkward silence followed, heavy with their unspoken thoughts. Étienne could not keep his eyes off her breast, and its lava-flow of white flesh disturbed him with its dazzling brightness. Yes, she was forty and her figure had gone – every bit the trusty female who has had too many children – but many a man still desired her broad, solid frame and the long, full face that had once been beautiful. Slowly and calmly she had grasped her breast with both hands and replaced it under her blouse. A corner of pink flesh refused to disappear, so she pressed it back with her finger and buttoned herself up. And she became once more the frump in her old, loose-fitting jacket, dressed in black from head to foot.
‘He’s a pig,’ she said finally. ‘Only a filthy pig could think such disgusting things…Not that I bloody care! It wasn’t worth wasting my breath on him.’
Then she looked Étienne in the eye and said frankly:
‘I have my faults all right, but that’s not one of them…Only two men have ever laid a finger on me, a putter long ago, when I was fifteen, and then Maheu. If he’d left me like the first one, God knows what might have happened to me. Not that I’m boasting about being faithful either. If people behave themselves, it’s often because they haven’t had a chance not to…But I’m just saying how it is, and there are some women round here who couldn’t say the same, could they?’
‘That’s true enough,’ replied Étienne, getting to his feet.
And off he went, while La Maheude decided to relight the fire and pulled two chairs together to set the sleeping Estelle down on them. If Maheu had managed to catch a fish and sell it, they might have some soup after all.
Outside night was already falling, and Étienne walked along in the freezing cold, his bowed head full of black thoughts. He no longer felt anger against Chaval nor pity for the poor girl he was treating so badly. The brutal scene was gradually fading to a blur as his mind was recalled to the prospect of everyone else’s suffering and the terrible reality of their poverty. What he saw was a village without bread, a village of women and children who would go to bed hungry that night, a whole community straining to keep up the struggle on an empty stomach. And the doubt that sometimes overcame him now returned amid the awful melancholy of the dusk and tortured him with misgivings that were stronger than any he had known. What a terrifying responsibility he was taking on! Was he going to drive them still further, make them pursue their stubborn resistance despite the fact that the money and credit were all gone? And how would it all end if no help came, if hunger were to get the better of their courage? Suddenly he could see how it would be, the full calamity: children dying, mothers sobbing, while the men, starved and gaunt, went back down the pits. And on he walked, stumbling over the stones in his path, consumed with unbearable anguish at the thought that the Company would win and that he would have brought disaster upon his comrades.
When he looked up, he found himself outside Le Voreux. The dark, hulking mass of its buildings seemed to be settling lower in the gathering darkness. In the middle of the deserted yard, large, motionless shadows crowded the space, lending it the air of an abandoned fortress. When the winding-engine stopped, the place seemed to give up its soul. At this hour of the night there was not a sign of life anywhere, no lantern shining, not even a voice; and within the vast nothingness that the pit had become, even the sound of the drainage-pump seemed to issue from some mysterious, far-away place, like the gasps of a dying man.
As Étienne gazed at the scene, his pulse began to quicken. The workers might be starving, but the Company was eating into its millions. Why should it necessarily prove the stronger in this war between labour and money? Whatever happened, victory would cost it dear. They would see afterwards who counted the greater number of casualties. Once more he felt a lust for battle, a fierce desire to put an end to their wretched poverty once and for all, even at the price of death. The whole village might just as well perish straight away if the only alternative was to die one by one of famine and injustice. He recalled things from his ill-digested reading, instances of people setting fire to their own town in order to halt the enemy and vague stories about mothers saving their children from slavery by smashing their skulls on the ground, and men starving themselves to death rather than eat the bread of tyrants. His spirits soared and his black thoughts began to glow with the warm cheer of optimism, banishing all doubt and making him ashamed of his momentary cowardice. And as his confidence returned, so did his swelling pride, bearing him up on a wave of joy at being the leader, at seeing men and women ready to sacrifice themselves in the execution of his orders, and he was consumed with his ever-evolving dream of the power he would enjoy on the night of victory. He could see it all now, the moment of simple grandeur as he refused to take the reins of power and, as their master, handed authority back to the people.
But he was roused with a start by the voice of Maheu, who told him of his good fortune in catching a superb trout and selling it for three francs. They would have their soup. Étienne told Maheu to return to the village on his own, that he would be along later. Then he went and sat at a table in the Advantage, waiting for a customer to leave before telling Rasseneur firmly that he intended to write and tell Pluchart to come at once. He had made up his mind: he was going to organize a private meeting, for victory seemed assured if the colliers of Montsou would join the International en masse.
IV
The meeting was fixed for the following Thursday at two o’clock in the Jolly Fellow, the bar run by Widow Desire. She was outraged by the suffering being inflicted on her children and was in permanent high dudgeon about the situation, especially since people had stopped coming to her bar. She had never known less thirst during a strike, the heavy drinkers having shut themse
lves away at home for fear of disobeying the order to stay out of trouble. The result was that the main street of Montsou, once seething with people during the ducasse, now lay gloomily silent, a place of desolation. With no more beer running off the counters or out of people’s bladders, the gutters were dry. The only thing to be seen along the road outside Casimir’s bar and the Progress was the pale faces of the landladies anxiously looking out for approaching customers; while in Montsou itself the whole row of bars and taverns was deserted, from Lenfant’s at one end past Piquette’s and the Severed Head to Tison’s at the other. Only the Saint-Éloi, where the deputies went, was still serving the occasional beer. Even the Volcano was empty, and its ladies unemployed, bereft of takers, even though they would have cut their price from ten sous to five, since times were hard. It was as though someone had died and broken everyone’s heart.
‘God damn it!’ Widow Desire had exclaimed, slapping both hands on her thighs. ‘It’s all the fault of the men in blue. I don’t care if they do put me in bloody prison. I’ll soon show ’em!’
For her all representatives of authority, like all bosses, were ‘the men in blue’, a term of general abuse in which she included all enemies of the people. Therefore she had accepted Étienne’s request with delight: her entire establishment was at the miners’ disposal, they could use the dance-hall at no charge, and she would send out the invitations herself if that was what the law required. Anyway, so much the better if the law wasn’t happy! She’d like to see a long face on it! The next day Étienne brought her fifty letters to sign, which he had got copied by neighbours in the village who were able to write; and then they sent the letters off to all the mines, to the men who had been part of the deputation and to others they were sure of. The ostensible agenda was to discuss whether or not to continue the strike; but in reality they would be coming to hear Pluchart, and they were relying on him to give a speech that would lead to people joining the International en masse.
