Germinal Émile Zola (e reader books .txt) 📖

Provident Fund had had time to swell. He regarded this as the only cause of the disaster, for the workers would surely triumph over the masters on the day when they had saved enough money to resist. And he recalled Souvarine’s words accusing the Company of pushing forward the strike to destroy the fund at the beginning.

The sight of the settlement and of these poor people without bread or fire overcame him. He preferred to go out and to weary himself with distant walks. One evening, as he was coming back and passing near Réquillart, he perceived an old woman who had fainted by the roadside. No doubt she was dying of hunger; and having raised her he began to shout to a girl whom he saw on the other side of the paling.

“Why! is it you?” he said, recognizing Mouquette. “Come and help me then, we must give her something to drink.”

Mouquette, moved to tears, quickly went into the shaky hovel which her father had set up in the midst of the ruins. She came back at once with gin and a loaf. The gin revived the old woman, who without speaking bit greedily into the bread. She was the mother of a miner who lived at a settlement on the Cougny side, and she had fallen there on returning from Joiselle, where she had in vain attempted to borrow half a franc from a sister. When she had eaten she went away dazed.

Étienne stood in the open field of Réquillart, where the crumbling sheds were disappearing beneath the brambles.

“Well, won’t you come in and drink a little glass?” asked Mouquette merrily.

And as he hesitated:

“Then you’re still afraid of me?”

He followed her, won by her laughter. This bread, which she had given so willingly, moved him. She would not take him into her father’s room, but led him into her own room, where she at once poured out two little glasses of gin. The room was very neat and he complimented her on it. Besides, the family seemed to want for nothing; the father continued his duties as a groom at the Voreux while she, saying that she could not live with folded arms, had become a laundress, which brought her in thirty sous a day. One may amuse oneself with men but one isn’t lazy for all that.

“I say,” she murmured, all at once coming and putting her arms round him prettily, “why don’t you like me?”

He could not help laughing, she had done this in so charming a way.

“But I like you very much,” he replied.

“No, no, not like I mean. You know that I am dying of longing. Come, it would give me so much pleasure.”

It was true, she had desired him for six months. He still looked at her as she clung to him, pressing him with her two tremulous arms, her face raised with such supplicating love that he was deeply moved. There was nothing beautiful in her large round face, with its yellow complexion eaten by the coal; but her eyes shone with flame, a charm rose from her skin, a trembling of desire which made her rosy and young. In face of this gift which was so humble and so ardent he no longer dared to refuse.

“Oh! you are willing,” she stammered, delighted. “Oh! you are willing!”

And she gave herself up with the fainting awkwardness of a virgin, as if it was for the first time, and she had never before known a man. Then when he left her, it was she who was overcome with gratitude; she thanked him and kissed his hands.

Étienne remained rather ashamed of this good fortune. Nobody boasted of having had Mouquette. As he went away he swore that it should not occur again, but he preserved a friendly remembrance of her; she was a capital girl.

When he got back to the settlement, he found serious news which made him forget the adventure. The rumour was circulating that the Company would, perhaps, agree to make a concession if the delegates made a fresh attempt with the manager. At all events some captains had spread this rumour. The truth was, that in this struggle the mine was suffering even more than the miners. On both sides obstinacy was piling up ruin: while labour was dying of hunger, capital was being destroyed. Every day of rest carried away hundreds of thousands of francs. Every machine which stops is a dead machine. Tools and material are impaired, the money that is sunk melts away like water drunk by the sand. Since the small stock of coal at the surface of the pits was exhausted, customers talked of going to Belgium, so that in future they would be threatened from that quarter. But what especially frightened the Company, although the matter was carefully concealed, was the increasing damage to the galleries and workings. The captains could not cope with the repairs, the timber was falling everywhere, and landslips were constantly taking place. Soon the disasters became so serious that long months would be needed for repairs before hewing could be resumed. Already stories were going about the country: at Crévecœur three hundred metres of road had subsided in a mass, stopping up access to the Cinq-Paumes; at Madeleine the Maugrétout seam was crumbling away and filling with water. The management refused to admit this, but suddenly two accidents, one after the other, had forced them to avow it. One morning, near Piolaine, the ground was found cracked above the north gallery of Mirou which had fallen in the day before; and on the following day the ground subsided within the Voreux, shaking a corner of a suburb to such an extent that two houses nearly disappeared.

Étienne and the delegates hesitated to risk any steps without knowing the directors’ intentions. Dansaert, whom they questioned, avoided replying: certainly, the misunderstanding was deplored, and everything would be done to bring about an agreement; but he could say nothing definitely. At last, they decided that