by Emile Zola
Étienne waited.
‘Get up. We can start again if you want.’
Chaval made no reply, but after lying there dazed for a few seconds he began to stir and to stretch his limbs. He struggled painfully to his knees, where he paused bent double for a moment while his hand rummaged in his pocket on some invisible errand. Then, as he got to his feet, he lunged forward again, and a wild cry burst from his bulging throat.
But Catherine had seen: and in spite of herself she screamed, from the heart, surprising even herself as though she had just admitted a preference she didn’t even know she had.
‘Watch out! He’s got his knife!’
Étienne had only just had time to ward off the first thrust with his arm. His woollen jersey was cut by the thick blade, one of those blades that are attached to a boxwood handle by a copper ferrule. Already he had grabbed hold of Chaval’s wrist, and a fierce struggle ensued, with Étienne thinking that he would be lost if he let go, and his opponent jerking his arm away repeatedly in order to break free and strike again. Slowly the weapon was coming lower and lower, their straining limbs were beginning to give out, and twice Étienne felt the cold touch of steel against his skin; but with one last, supreme effort he squeezed Chaval’s wrist so hard that the knife fell from his open hand. Both men flung themselves to the ground at once, and it was Étienne who reached it first and now brandished it in his turn. He had Chaval pinned to the floor beneath his knee, and he was threatening to slit his throat.
‘Right, you cheating bastard, you’ve had it this time!’
Within him he sensed a terrible prompting, blotting out all else. It surged up from his entrails and pounded inside his skull, a sudden, crazed desire to kill, a desperate thirst for blood. Never before had he had such a strong attack as this. And yet he wasn’t drunk. And as he struggled to resist this hereditary evil, he shook violently like some maniacal lover trembling on the brink of rape. At length he managed to control himself and tossed the knife behind him, spluttering in a hoarse voice:
‘Get up. And bugger off.’
This time Rasseneur had rushed forward, but without trying too hard to come between them in case he should get hit by mistake. He didn’t want anyone getting killed on his premises, and he became so angry that his wife, standing at the counter, told him that he always did get roused too quick. Souvarine, who had almost got the knife in his legs, was now finally getting round to lighting his cigarette. Was that it? Catherine continued to stare in stupefaction at the two men, both of them still alive.
‘Bugger off!’ Étienne said again. ‘Go on, or I really will finish you off!’
Chaval rose to his feet and with the back of his hand wiped away the blood that was still pouring from his nose; and then, his chin spattered with blood, his eye blackened, he sloped off in sullen fury at his defeat. Automatically Catherine made to follow him. Then he drew himself up, and his hatred poured out in a torrent of obscene abuse.
‘Oh no you don’t. Oh no! If it’s him you want, then fucking sleep with him, you filthy slut! And don’t you set foot in my house again either, if you want to live!’
He slammed the door after him. A heavy silence fell in the warm room, where the only sound was the gentle puttering of the coal. On the floor all that remained were the upturned chair and a spattering of blood, which was gradually soaking into the sand.
IV
After they left Rasseneur’s, Étienne and Catherine walked along in silence. It was beginning to thaw, a slow, chilly thaw that dirtied the snow without really melting it. In the ghostly pale sky the full moon could be glimpsed behind large clouds that were being swept along by a gale, high above them, like black rags; down below there was not a breath of wind, and all that could be heard was the water dripping from the roofs and the gentle thud as another lump of whiteness slid to the ground.
Étienne felt awkward with this female companion he had suddenly acquired, and in his embarrassment he could think of nothing to say. The idea of taking her into hiding with him at Réquillart seemed ridiculous. He had wanted to escort her home to her parents in the village; but she had refused with a look of absolute terror: no, no, anything rather than become a burden to them, especially after abandoning them in such a despicable way! Since then neither of them had spoken, and they trudged along at random down paths that were becoming rivers of mud. At first they had headed towards Le Voreux; then they turned right and passed between the spoil-heap and the canal.
‘But you’ve got to sleep somewhere,’ Étienne said eventually. ‘I mean, if I had a room of my own, I’d gladly take you with me…’
But in a moment of curious shyness he stopped short. He remembered their previous passionate desire for each other, and their hesitations and the sense of embarrassement that had got in the way. Did this mean he still wanted her, then, that he should feel awkward like this and sense his heart warming with renewed attraction? The memory of her slapping him at Gaston-Marie now excited him instead of making him resentful. And to his surprise it suddenly seemed perfectly natural and feasible that he should take her with him to Réquillart.
‘Come on, you decide. Where do you want me to take you? Do you really still hate me so much that you won’t go with me?’
She was slowly following him, but her clogs kept slipping on the ruts and she found it difficult to keep up. Without looking up, she muttered:
‘I’ve got enough troubles as it is, for God’s sake, I don’t need any more. Where would be the good if I did what you’re asking? I’ve got a man, and you’ve got someone too.’
She meant La Mouquette. She thought he was going with her because that had been the rumour for the past fortnight; and when he swore to Catherine that he wasn’t, she just shook her head, recalling the evening she’d seen them kissing each other on the mouth.
‘It’s a shame, isn’t it, all this stupid nonsense?’ he said softly, stopping for a moment. ‘We could have got on so well together!’
She gave a little shiver and answered him:
‘Oh, there’s nothing to be sorry about. You’re not missing much. If you only knew what a useless specimen I am. I hardly weigh more than a tuppenny tub of butter, and I think the way I’m made I’ll never be a proper woman!’
And she continued to speak freely, accusing herself for the long delay in the onset of her puberty as though it were her own fault. Even though she had had a man it diminished her, it meant she was still no more than a girl. At least there’s some excuse when you can actually have a baby.
‘My poor little thing,’ Étienne said softly, suddenly feeling great pity for her.
They were standing at the bottom of the spoil-heap, hidden in the shadow cast by the enormous mound. An inkblack cloud was just then passing in front of the moon; they couldn’t even see their faces any more, but their breath mingled and their mouths sought each other out for the kiss they had so tormentedly longed for all these months past. But suddenly the moon appeared again, and above them, on top of the rocks that were white with moonlight, they saw the outline of the sentry standing stiffly to attention. And so, still without ever having kissed, they drew back, parted by their modesty of old, which was a mixture of angry resentment, physical reserve and a great deal of friendship. Slowly they resumed their walking, up to their ankles in slush.
‘So your mind’s made up? You don’t want to?’ asked Étienne.
‘No,’ she said. ‘You after Chaval? Then somebody else after you?…No, the whole thing disgusts me. Anyway, I get no pleasure out of it, so what’s the point?’
They fell silent and walked on a hundred paces without exchanging a further word.
‘Do you at least know where you’re going?’ he continued. ‘I can’t just leave you out here alone on a night like this.’
She replied simply:
‘I’m going home. Chaval is my man, and it’s the only place I have to sleep.’
‘But he’ll beat the daylights out of you!’
There was silence again. She had m
erely shrugged in resignation. He would beat her, and when he had tired of beating her, then he would stop. But wasn’t that better than roaming the streets like a beggar? Besides, she was getting used to the beatings, and she told herself by way of consolation that eight out of ten girls ended up no better off than she was. And if he married her some day, well, that would actually be quite decent of him.
Étienne and Catherine had automatically headed in the direction of Montsou, and as they drew nearer, their silences grew longer and longer. Already it was as if they had never been together. Étienne could think of nothing that might make her change her mind, even though it pained him deeply to see her go back to Chaval. His heart was breaking, but he had little better to offer her himself: a life of poverty, a life on the run, perhaps even no future at all if a soldier’s bullet should blow his brains out. Perhaps it was wiser after all to endure the suffering one was used to rather than swap it for another kind. And so, with his eyes fixed on the ground, he escorted her home to her man; and he offered no protest when she stopped on the main road at the corner by the Company yards, twenty metres short of Piquette’s bar, and said:
‘Don’t come any further. If he sees you, it’ll just mean another row.’
The church clock was striking eleven. The bar was closed, but light could be seen through chinks in the shutters.
‘Goodbye,’ she murmured.
She had given him her hand but he refused to let go of it, and it was only by slow, determined effort that she managed to retrieve it and depart. Without a backward glance she unlatched the little sidedoor and let herself in. He did not leave, however, but continued to stand there, on the very same spot, staring at the house and anxiously wondering what was happening inside. He listened intently, dreading that he might hear the howling screams of a woman being beaten. But the house remained dark and silent, and all he saw was a light appearing at a firstfloor window; and when this window opened and he recognized the slender shadow leaning out into the road, he stepped forward.
Then Catherine whispered very softly:
‘He’s not back yet. I’m going to bed…Please go away, please.’
Étienne left. The thaw was gathering pace: water was streaming from the roofs, and a damp sweat seemed to be running off every wall and fence throughout the jumble of industrial buildings that stretched away into the darkness on this side of the town. His first thought was to make for Réquillart; ill with exhaustion and sick at heart, he wanted nothing more than to disappear into the void below ground. But then he remembered Le Voreux and thought about the Belgian workers who were about to go down, and the comrades in the village who were fed up with the continual presence of the soldiers and determined not to have outsiders working in their pit. And so once more he walked along the canal, through the puddles of melted snow.
As he reached the spoil-heap, the moon was riding high. He looked up at the sky and saw the clouds scudding past, whipped along by the great wind that was blowing up there; but now they were whiter, unravelling in thin streaks and passing over the face of the moon with the blurred transparency of troubled water; and they followed so fast one upon the other that the moon was veiled only for a moment and kept reappearing again in all its clarity.
His eyes filled with this brilliance, Étienne was just lowering his gaze when he caught sight of something on top of the spoil-heap. The sentry, frozen stiff by the cold, was now walking up and down, twenty-five paces towards Marchiennes and then back in the direction of Montsou. The white flash of the bayonet could be seen above his dark silhouette, itself sharply etched against the pallor of the sky. But what had attracted Étienne’s attention, over behind the hut where Bonnemort used to shelter on stormy nights, was a moving shadow, an animal crawling stealthily forward, which he at once recognized as Jeanlin, with his long, supple back like a ferret’s. Unable to be seen by the sentry, the little devil was no doubt about to play some trick on him, for he was always going on about the soldiers and asking when they would ever be rid of these murderers who had been sent here to shoot the people.
For a moment Étienne wondered if he should call out to him, to stop him doing anything silly. Just as the moon went behind a cloud, he had seen him getting ready to pounce; but then the moon came out again, and the child was still crouching there. On each occasion the sentry would come as far as the hut, then turn on his heels and walk away. Suddenly, just as another cloud cast everything into darkness, Jeanlin sprang on to the sentry’s shoulders in one enormous bound, like a wild cat, clung on by his nails, and plunged his opened knife into the man’s throat from behind. The soldier’s horsehair collar obstructed the blade, and Jeanlin had to press the handle in with both hands and pull it towards him using the full weight of his body. He was used to slitting chicken’s throats, having caught them unawares behind some farm building. It was all over so quickly that the only sound in the darkness was a muffled cry, followed by the clatter of the gun as it fell to the ground. The moon was already gleaming a brilliant white once more.
Rooted to the spot in astonishment, Étienne continued to watch. His intended shout vanished back into his chest. Above him the spoil-heap was deserted, and no shadowy figure was now to be seen outlined against the stampeding clouds. He ran up as fast as he could and found Jeanlin crouching beside the body, which lay flat on its back with arms outstretched. In the bright moonlight the red trousers and grey overcoat stood out starkly against the snow. Not a drop of blood had fallen: the knife was still lodged in the man’s throat up to the hilt.
In a fit of unthinking rage he knocked the boy over with his fist beside the corpse.
‘Why on earth did you do that?’ he stammered in disbelief.
Jeanlin struggled to his knees and crawled away on all fours, arching his bony spine like a cat. His large ears and jutting jaw were quivering, and his eyes blazed with the excitement of his dirty deed.
‘In God’s name, why did you do that?’
‘Dunno. Just felt like it.’
It was the only reply he could manage. For three days now he had felt like it. The idea had been tormenting him, and he had thought about it so much that it had made his head hurt, right there, behind the eyes. And anyway why should he give a damn about these bloody soldiers who’d only come to make a nuisance of themselves in the miners’ backyard? Having heard all the rousing speeches in the forest and the calls to death and destruction throughout the pits, he had retained five or six key words, which he repeated to himself like a child playing at revolutions. And that was all he knew, nobody had put him up to it, he had thought of it all by himself, just like he sometimes fancied stealing onions from a field.
Étienne was appalled at the idea of these criminal urges quietly seething inside the child’s head, and he gave him a kick to send him packing, as though he were a dumb animal. He was afraid that they might have heard the sentry’s muffled cry from the guardroom at Le Voreux, and each time the moon came out from behind a cloud he would glance over towards the pit. But nothing had stirred, so he bent over and touched the man’s hands, which were gradually turning to ice; and he listened in vain to the silent heart beneath the greatcoat. All that could be seen of the knife was the bone handle, on which a romantic motto was carved in black letters: the simple word ‘Love’.
His eyes travelled up from the throat to the face. All of a sudden he recognized the young soldier: it was Jules, the raw recruit he had spoken to one morning. And he felt an enormous wave of pity at the sight of this fair, gentle face all covered in freckles. The blue eyes were wide open, gazing at the sky with that fixed stare Étienne had seen before as he scanned the horizon searching for his native soil. Where was this Plogoff that had appeared to him as in a sundrenched vision? Somewhere over yonder. Far away the sea would be roaring on this stormy night. Perhaps this gale that was passing so high above them had already swept across his moorland. Two women would be standing there, the mother and the sister, holding on to their bonnets in the wind and gazing into the distance as if they
, too, might see far enough and discover what the boy was doing all those miles away. Now they would wait for ever. What a truly dreadful thing it was that poor devils should kill each other like this and all on account of the rich!
But they would have to get rid of the body, and at first Étienne considered throwing it into the canal. But he was deterred by the thought that it would certainly be found. He then became extremely worried; time was ticking by, what should he do? He had a sudden inspiration: if he could carry it as far as Réquillart, he could bury it there for all eternity.
‘Come over here,’ he ordered Jeanlin.
The child was wary.
‘No, you’ll only hit me again. Anyway, I’ve got something to do. Bye.’
He had indeed arranged to meet Bébert and Lydie, at a secret hidingplace they’d made for themselves under the timberstack at Le Voreux. It was all to be a big adventure, sleeping away from home so as to be part of the action if people started stoning the living daylights out of the Belgians when they tried to go down the pit.
‘Do as I say,’ Étienne insisted. ‘Come over here, or I’ll call the soldiers and they’ll cut your head off.’
As Jeanlin was making up his mind, Étienne rolled up his handkerchief and wrapped it tightly round the soldier’s neck, leaving the knife in place because it was stopping the blood from pouring out. The snow was melting, and the ground bore no traces of blood nor signs of a struggle.
