Germinal Émile Zola (e reader books .txt) 📖

to leave more; but the old man greedily swallowed everything. They had to take a potato away from him for Alzire.

Then Étienne said that he had heard news. The Company, irritated by the obstinacy of the strikers, talked of giving back their certificates to the compromised miners. Certainly, the Company was for war. And a more serious rumour circulated: they boasted of having persuaded a large number of men to go down again. On the next day the Victoire and Feutry-Cantel would be complete; even at Madeleine and Mirou there would be a third of the men. The Maheus were furious.

“By God!” shouted the father, “if there are traitors, we must settle their account.”

And standing up, yielding to the fury of his suffering:

“Tomorrow evening, to the forest! Since they won’t let us come to an understanding at the Bon-Joyeux, we can be at home in the forest!”

This cry had aroused old Bonnemort, who had grown drowsy after his gluttony. It was the old rallying-cry, the rendezvous where the miners of old days used to plot their resistance to the king’s soldiers.

“Yes, yes, to Vandame! I’m with you if you go there!”

Maheude made an energetic gesture.

“We will all go. That will finish these injustices and treacheries.”

Étienne decided that the rendezvous should be announced to all the settlements for the following evening. But the fire was dead, as with the Levaques, and the candle suddenly went out. There was no more coal and no more oil; they had to feel their way to bed in the intense cold which contracted the skin. The little ones were crying.

VI

Jeanlin was now well and able to walk; but his legs had united so badly that he limped on both the right and left sides, and moved with the gait of a duck, though running as fast as formerly with the skill of a mischievous and thieving animal.

On this evening, in the dusk on the Réquillart road, Jeanlin, accompanied by his inseparable friends, Bébert and Lydie, was on the watch. He had taken ambush in a vacant space, behind a paling opposite an obscure grocery shop, situated at the corner of a lane. An old woman who was nearly blind displayed there three or four sacks of lentils and haricots, black with dust; and it was an ancient dried codfish, hanging by the door and stained with fly-blows, to which his eyes were directed. Twice already he had sent Bébert to unhook it. But each time someone had appeared at the bend in the road. Always intruders in the way, one could not attend to one’s affairs.

A gentleman went by on horseback, and the children flattened themselves at the bottom of the paling, for they recognized M. Hennebeau. Since the strike he was often thus seen along the roads, riding alone amid the rebellious settlements, ascertaining, with quiet courage, the condition of the country. And never had a stone whistled by his ears; he only met men who were silent and slow to salute him; most often he came upon lovers, who cared nothing for politics and took their fill of pleasure in holes and corners. He passed by on his trotting mare with head directed straight forward, so as to disturb nobody, while his heart was swelling with an unappeased desire amid this gormandizing of free love. He distinctly saw these small rascals, the little boys on the little girl in a heap. Even the youngsters were already amusing themselves in their misery! His eyes grew moist, and he disappeared, sitting stiffly on his saddle, with his frock-coat buttoned up in a military manner.

“Damned luck!” said Jeanlin. “This will never finish. Go on, Bébert! Hang on to its tail!”

But two men once more appeared, and the child again stifled an oath when he heard the voice of his brother Zacharie narrating to Mouquet how he had discovered a two-franc piece sewn into one of his wife’s petticoats. They both grinned with satisfaction, slapping each other on the shoulder. Mouquet proposed a game of crosse for the next day; they would leave the Avantage at two o’clock, and go to the Montoire side, near Marchiennes. Zacharie agreed. What was the good of bothering over the strike? as well amuse oneself, since there’s nothing to do. And they turned the corner of the road, when Étienne, who was coming along the canal, stopped them and began to talk.

“Are they going to bed here?” said Jeanlin, in exasperation. “Nearly night; the old woman will be taking in her sacks.”

Another miner came down towards Réquillart. Étienne went off with him, and as they passed the paling the child heard them speak of the forest; they had been obliged to put off the rendezvous to the following day, for fear of not being able to announce it in one day to all the settlements.

“I say, there,” he whispered to his two mates, “the big affair is for tomorrow. We’ll go, eh? We can get off in the afternoon.”

And the road being at last free, he sent Bébert off.

“Courage! hang on to its tail. And look out! the old woman’s got her broom.”

Fortunately the night had grown dark. Bébert, with a leap, hung on to the cod so that the string broke. He ran away, waving it like a kite, followed by the two others, all three galloping. The woman came out of her shop in astonishment, without understanding or being able to distinguish this band now lost in the darkness.

These scoundrels had become the terror of the country. They gradually spread themselves over it like a horde of savages. At first they had been satisfied with the yard at the Voreux, tumbling into the stock of coal, from which they would emerge looking like Negroes, playing at hide-and-seek amid the supply of wood, in which they lost themselves as in the depths of a virgin forest. Then they had taken the pit-bank by assault; they would seat themselves on it and slide down the bare portions