Emile Zola Germinal (Oxford) Part IV

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PART IV 

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CHAPTER I 

That Monday, the Hennebeaus had invited the Gregoires 

and their daughter Cecile round to lunch. They had arranged 

a full day’s entertainment: after lunch Paul Negrel was going 

to show the ladies round one of the mines, Saint-Thomas, 

which was being luxuriously refitted. But all this was little 

more than a friendly charade; Madame Hennebeau had organ¬ 

ized the outing in order to precipitate the marriage between 

Cecile and Paul. 

And suddenly that very Monday at four in the morning the 

strike had just broken out.* When the Company had applied 

its new wage structure on the first of December, the miners 

had stayed calm. At the end of the fortnight, on pay-day, no 

one had made the slightest protest. All the staff from the 

manager down to the humblest supervisor thought the rates 

had been accepted; so there was considerable surprise in the 

morning at this declaration of war whose tactics and organiza¬ 

tion seemed to suggest the presence of a strong leader. 

At five o’clock Dansaert woke Monsieur Hennebeau to warn 

him that not a single man had gone down the pit at Le 

Voreux. He had come through village Two Hundred and 

Forty, and found it plunged in sleep, with all its doors and 

windows closed. And as soon as the manager had jumped out 

of bed, his eyes still swollen with sleep, he was swamped: 

every quarter of an hour another messenger arrived, and 

dispatches fell on to his desk as thick as hailstones. At first he 

hoped that the rebellion was limited to Le Voreux; but the 

news became worse by the minute: there was Mirou, there was 

Crevecoeur, and then there was Madeleine, where only the 

stablemen had turned up for work; there were La Victoire and 

Feutry-Cantel, the most loyal pits, where the work-force was 

down by a third; only Saint-Thomas was working at full 

strength and seemed unaffected by the action. Until nine 

o’clock he dictated dispatches, sending them by telegraph* in 

all directions, to the Prefect at Lille,* to the directors of the 

Company, warning the authorities and asking for instructions. 

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He had sent Negrel to tour the neighbouring pits, to get 

accurate information. 

Suddenly Monsieur Hennebeau remembered the lunch; and 

he was just about to send the coachman to warn the Gregoires 

that the outing would have to be postponed when he hesitated, 

his nerve failed him, although he had had no trouble in 

preparing his plan of action in a few curt, military-style 

phrases. He went up to see Madame Hennebeau, whose cham¬ 

bermaid was in the last stages of arranging her hair in her 

boudoir. 

‘So they’re on strike, are they.?’ she said casually, when he 

had explained his problem and asked her opinion. ‘Well, then, 

what’s that to us?... We’re not going to stop eating, are we?’ 

And she persisted; it was no use his telling her that the 

lunch would be spoiled, that the visit to Saint-Thomas would 

have to be cancelled; she had an answer to everything: why 

should they waste a meal that was already in the oven? And as 

for visiting the pit, they could always decide to give up that 

idea later on if it looked as if it was going to be a problem. 

‘Besides,’ she said, when the chambermaid had left, ‘you 

know why I want to invite these good people. This marriage 

ought to mean more to you than the pranks your workmen get 

up to ,.. Anyway, I’ve made up my mind, so don’t contradict 

me.’ 

As he watched her, his hard, inscrutable features twitched 

slightly, despite his habitual self-control, betraying the secret 

pain of a bruised heart. She had left her shoulders uncovered, 

and, although she was already past her prime, she was radiant 

and still desirable, the goddess Ceres, with her ripe autumnal 

charms. 

For a moment he was seized with a rough desire to take her, 

to plunge his face between her swelling breasts, in the warmth 

of this luxuriously intimate and sensually feminine room, 

which was .spiced with the disturbing fragrance of musk; but 

he drew back, for they had slept apart for the last ten years. 

‘Fair enough,’ he said as he left her. ‘We won’t change a 

thing.’ 

Monsieur Hennebeau had been born in the Ardennes. His 

beginnings in life had been difficult, for he had been a 

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penniless orphan, raised on the streets of Paris. He had managed 

to struggle through the curriculum of the Ecole des Mines, and 

at twenty-four he had left for La Grand-Combe to become the 

engineer at the Sainte-Barbe mine. Three years later he was 

appointed divisional engineer at the Maries collieries in the 

Pas-de-Calais; and it was there that he married the daughter of 

a rich cloth merchant from Arras, the sort of lucky prize that 

tended to fall into the laps of mining-school graduates. For 

fifteen years the couple had lived in the same small provincial 

town, without a single event interrupting the monotony of their 

existence, not even the birth of a child. Madame Hennebeau, 

who had been brought up to respect money, became increas¬ 

ingly irritated, and contemptuous of her husband, who worked 

hard to earn such a moderate salary, and who brought her none 

of the glamorous satisfaction she had dreamed of at boarding 

school. He was strictly honest, refused any financial speculation, 

and carried out bis professional functions with an almost 

military devotion to duty. Their discord had grown, aggravated 

by one of those strange mismatches of the flesh which can 

freeze the warmest heart: he adored his wife, and she had all 

the sensuality of a voluptuous blonde, but already they slept 

apart, ill at ease with each other, quick to take offence. She 

soon took a lover, unbeknown to her husband. Finally he left 

the Pas-de-Calais to take up an office job in Paris, thinking that 

she would be grateful for this. But Paris finally separated them, 

for she had dreamed of Paris since she had dressed her first doll 

as a child, and they had hardly been there a week before she 

had shed all her provincial airs, become suddenly elegant, and 

thrown herself into all the luxurious follies of the period. The 

ten years she spent there were filled with a grand passion, 

which she flaunted in public, until her lover abandoned her, 

and she nearly died of grief. This time her husband had not 

been able to preserve his ignorance, and he resigned himself to 

the situation after a series of dreadful scenes, rendered powerless 

by this woman’s tranquil impropriety, as she took her pleasure 

wherever she found it. It was after her abandonment, when he 

saw how ill with grief she had become, that he had accepted the 

management of the Montsou collieries, hoping that life in the 

sober black countryside might bring her to her senses. 

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Since they had moved to Montsou, the Hennebeaus had 

relapsed into the irritable boredom of the early days of their 

marriage. At first she appeared to be soothed by the unbroken 

peace and quiet, finding solace in the monotonous flatness of the 

surrounding plains; and she buried herself away like a woman 

whose life was over, acting as if her heart were dead for ever, so 

detached from the world that she didn’t even care that she was 

putting on weight. Then, behind this mask of indifference, a last 

fever broke out, a sudden urge to live again, which she kept 

under control by indulging her tastes in refitting and furnishing 

their small official villa. She said it was hideous, and filled it 

with tapestries and trinkets and all sorts of artistic luxuries, 

which were talked about as far away as Lille. By now she was 

exasperated with the whole area, its stupid fields stretching as 

far as the eye could see, and its endless black roads, with never 

a tree to be seen, was crawling with repulsive creatures who 

disgusted and frightened her. She started to complain of living 

in exile, and accused her husband of having sacrificed her 

happiness for the sake of his 40,000-franc salary, which was a 

pittance hardly even adequate for the household expenses. 

Couldn’t he have done like the others, demanded a partnership 

and a share in the business, done something successful for once.?^ 

And she lost no opportunity to remind him of this, showing all 

the cruelty of the heiress who has provided the fortune. He 

remained polite, and took refuge in a duplicitous administrative 

coolness, ravaged by his desire for the woman, one of those late 

but violent desires which increase with age. He had never had 

her as a lover, and he was haunted by an obsessive fantasy, to 

have her fully to himself for once, as she was when she gave 

herself to other men. Every morning he dreamed of winning her 

affections in the evening; then, when he looked into her 

cold eyes and felt that her whole being expressed her rejection of 

him, he avoided even touching her hand. It was a sickness 

whose suffering, although concealed beneath his rigid exterior, 

was incurable, the suffering of a tender soul secretly tortured at 

failing to find happiness in his marriage. After six months, when 

the villa was finally furnished and Madame Hennebeau had lost 

interest in it, she fell into a state of languor and boredom, 

claiming to be dying of exile and happy to succumb. 

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And then Paul Negrel arrived in Montsou. His mother was 

the widow of a captain from Provence, living in Avignon on a 

small pension, and she had dined off bread and water in order 

to send her son to study to be a military engineer at the Ecole 

Polytechnique. He had graduated with a mediocre diploma, 

and his uncle. Monsieur Hennebeau, had recently bought him 

out of the army and offered him a job as engineer at Le 

Voreux. tVom that moment on he was treated as one of the 

family, and even had his own room. Living and eating with the 

Hennebeaus enabled him to send his mother half his salary of 

3,000 francs. In order to disguise his generosity. Monsieur 

Hennebeau spoke of the problems that a young man would 

face if he had to set up home from scratch in one of the little 

chalets reserved for the mining engineers. Madame Hennebeau 

had immediately assumed the role of the bountiful aunt, 

calling her nephew by his first name, and making sure he had 

everything he needed. During the first months especially, she 

overflowed with maternal advice on every conceivable topic. 

But she remained very feminine with him, and gradually let 

him into her confidence. This lad was so young and so 

practical, his intelligence was so uncluttered, he held such 

philosophical theories of love, and she was amused by the 

lively pessimism which often lit up his slim face, with its sharp 

little nose. Naturally enough she ended up one night in his 

arms; seeming to yield out of kindness, although she told him 

that her heart was burnt out and that she wanted him only as a 

friend. And in fact she wasn’t jealous, she teased him about 

the tram girls, whom he found repulsive, and almost turned 

sulky when she discovered that he had no ribald youthful 

escapades to entertain her with. Then she became engrossed 

with the idea of marrying him off, and dreamed of sacrificing 

herself to the pursuit of some rich girl on his behalf. But their 

relationship continued to flourish, and she devoted all her 

emotional resources as a woman of leisure and experience into 

grooming and cosseting her little playmate. 

Two years went by in this way. One night Monsieur Hen¬ 

nebeau had his suspicions when he heard a pair of naked feet 

brush past his bedroom door. But he was too shocked at the 

thought that she could have started a new affair in their own 

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home, under his own roof, between a mother and a son, to 

believe it. And besides, the very next day his wife revealed that 

she had chosen Cecile Gregoire for her nephew. She was so 

enthusiastically wrapped up in her plans for this marriage that 

he blushed at his own monstrous imagination. So he simply 

felt grateful to the young man for making the household less 

gloomy since his arrival. 

As he came down from her boudoir into the hall, Monsieur 

Hennebeau happened to meet Paul, who had just come in. He 

seemed amused by the talk of the strike. 

‘Well, then,?’ asked his uncle. 

‘Well, then. I’ve been round the villages. They seem very 

quiet in there ... I think that they are just going to send a 

delegation.’ 

But at that moment Madame Hennebeau’s voice called 

down from the first floor. 

‘Is that you, Paul? .. . Come up and tell me the news. 

Aren’t those people silly to misbehave, when they’re so well 

offl’ 

And the manager had to abandon all hope of obtaining any 

further information, since his wife had kidnapped his messen¬ 

ger. He went back to sit at his desk, on which a new pile of 

dispatches had collected. 

At eleven o’clock, when the Gregoires arrived, they were 

surprised to find Hippolyte, the manservant, standing guard, 

and he bundled them into the house rather unceremoniously, 

as soon as he had had time to cast an anxious glance up and 

down the road. The drawing-room curtains were drawn, and 

they were ushered straight into the study, where Monseiur 

Hennebeau apologized for such a welcome; but the drawing¬ 

room gave on to the road, and it was pointless to provoke 

people deliberately. 

‘Good heavens! Do you mean that you haven’t heard?’ he 

went on, when he saw their surprise. 

When Monsieur Gregoire heard that the strike had finally 

broken out, he shrugged his shoulders placidly. Bah! It would 

come to nothing, they were honest workmen at heart. Nodding 

her head, Madame Gregoire confirmed his belief in the tradi¬ 

tional submissiveness of the coal-miners; while Cecile, who 

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was in a particularly cheerful mood, bursting with health and 

resplendent in a nasturtium^coloured outfit, was amused at the 

talk of a strike, which reminded her of her visits to the villages 

to distribute alms. 

But Madame Hennebeau, with Negrel in tow, made her 

appearance, swathed in black silk. 

‘Oh, how tiresome!’ she cried as she entered the doorway. 

‘As if those people couldn’t have waited! ... Just fancy, Paul 

refuses to take us round Saint-Thomas.’ 

‘We’ll have to stay here, then,’ said Monsieur Gregoire, 

obligingly. ‘But we shall enjoy ourselves just as much,’ 

So far Paul had merely welcomed Cecile and her mother 

with a formal bow. Annoyed with this lack of enthusiasm, his 

aunt propelled him towards the girl with a flash of her eyes; 

then, when she heard them laughing together, she enveloped 

them with her maternal gaze. 

Meanwhile Monsieur Hennebeau finished reading his dis¬ 

patches and drafted some replies. Around him the conversation 

continued, his wife explaining that she hadn’t touched a thing 

in the study, letting him keep the faded red wallpaper, the 

clumsy old mahogany furniture, and the scruffy cardboard 

filing boxes. Three-quarters of an hour went by, and they 

were ready to go in to lunch, when the manservant announced 

the arrival of Monsieur Deneulin, who came in looking some¬ 

what overwrought, but went straight to pay his respects to 

Madame Hennebeau. 

‘Oh, you’re here, are you.^’ he said when he saw the Gre- 

goires. And then he turned to the manager and addressed him 

urgently. 

‘So this is it then.^ I’ve just heard about it from my engineer 

... At my pit all the men went down this morning. But it 

could spread. I’m worried ... Tell me, what’s it like at your 

He had just arrived on horseback, and his degree of concern 

could be judged from his loud voice and abrupt gestures, 

which made him seem like a retired cavalry officer. 

Monsieur Hennebeau was starting to fill him in on the exact 

state of affairs, when Hippolyte opened the dining-room door. 

So he broke off to say: 

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‘Stay and have lunch with us. Fll tell you the rest over 

dessert.’ 

‘Yes, if you like,’ replied Deneulin, so intent on his mission 

that he accepted outright, oblivious of etiquette. 

He realized, however, that he had been impolite, and he 

turned to Madame Hennebeau to apologize. But she was all 

charm. When she had had a seventh place laid for him she 

settled her guests: Madame Gregoire and Cecile on either side 

of her husband, then Monsieur Gregoire on her right and 

Deneulin on her left; and then finally Paul, whom she placed 

between the young lady and her father. As they were tucking 

in to the hors-d'ceuvre she smiled, and said: 

‘You’ll have to excuse me, I wanted to give you oysters ... 

You know there’s a delivery of Ostends at Marchiennes on 

Mondays, and I intended to send the cook in the carriage .,. 

But she was afraid they might throw stones at her ...’ 

They all broke out into a great roar of cheerful laughter. 

They found the story very funny. 

‘Shh!’ said Monsieur Hennebeau, looking nervously towards 

the windows, from which they could see the road. ‘There’s no 

need for everybody to know we’re having a party this 

morning.’ 

‘Well, this is one slice of garlic sausage they won’t get,’ 

declared Monsieur Gregoire, 

They broke out laughing again, but more discreetly. The 

guests all started to feel at ease in the room, which was 

decorated with Flemish tapestries and furnished with antique 

oak cabinets. The silverware gleamed through the glass panels 

of the dressers, and there was a great copper chandelier, whose 

shiny golden surface reflected the green foliage of a palm and 

an aspidistra, planted in majolica pots. Outside, the December 

day was made even icier by a bitter north-east wind. But not a 

draught could be felt in the house, which seemed as warm as a 

greenhouse, and was suffused with the scent of a pineapple, 

cut into slices and served in a crystal bowl, 

‘Perhaps we ought to draw the curtains?’ suggested Negrel, 

who was amused by the idea of terrifying the Gregoires. 

The chambermaid, who was helping the manservant, took 

this to be an order and went over to the window. This gave 

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rise to an interminable series of jokes: nobody put their knife 

or their glass on the table without taking elaborate precautions; 

each successive dish was greeted as if it had been saved from 

the pillage of some plundered city; yet behind their strained 

hilarity there was a hidden fear, which was betrayed by 

involuntary glances in the direction of the road, as if a gang of 

starving beggars lay in wait outside, spying on the table. 

After the scrambled eggs and truffles came the fresh trout. 

The conversation had turned to the industrial slump, which 

had been getting worse for the last eighteen months. 

‘It was inevitable,’ said Deneulin. ‘The affluence of these last 

years was bound to end like this ... Just think of the enormous 

amount of capital that has been tied up, in railways, and ports 

and canals, think of all the money wasted in absurd speculation. 

Even round here they set up enough sugar-refineries for three 

times the annual harvest of the Department ... And, my 

word, the money’s started to dry up now, and we’ve got to 

wait for people to get their interest back from the millions 

they’ve spent: that’s why there’s been fatal overproduction and 

a large-scale commercial slump,’ 

Monsieur Hennebeau challenged this theory, but he agreed 

that the years of prosperity had spoiled the workers. 

‘When I think’, he cried, ‘that these fellows used to be able 

to make as much as six francs a day in our collieries, twice 

what they’re earning now! And they lived well, and they 

developed a taste for luxury ... Today, of course, it seems 

hard to them to go back to being frugal like they were before.’ 

‘Monsieur Gregoire,’ Madame Hennebeau broke in, ‘I beg 

of you, have a little more trout ,.. They are delicious, aren’t 

they.^’ 

The manager continued: 

‘But are we really to blame? We have suffered grievously too 

... Since our factories have been closing one by one, we have had 

the devil’s own job to unload our stock; and with the accelerating 

fall in demand, we have been forced to lower our production 

costs . .. That’s what the workers refuse to understand.’ 

Silence reigned. The manservant brought in the roast par¬ 

tridge, while the chambermaid started to pour out the Chateau 

Chambertin for the guests. 

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Germinal 

‘There’s been a famine in India,’ Deneulin went on in an 

undertone, as if he were talking to himself. ‘And when America 

cancelled her orders for iron and cast iron, she dealt our 

furnaces a dreadful blow. It’s all linked, one tremor is enough 

to shake the whole world . .. And our Empire was so proud of 

our rate of industrial growth!’ 

He tucked into his partridge wing. Then he raised his voice: 

‘The worst thing is, that to lower the production costs, 

logically, we ought to produce more: otherwise, we have to 

make the savings by reducing wages, and the workers are right 

to say that we are making them pay our bills.’ 

This admission, which he had been led into by his own 

honesty, gave rise to an argument. The ladies were not having 

much fun. Besides, they were all busy with the business of 

eating, their hunger still hardly abated. When the manservant 

came back in, he looked as if he wished to speak, then he 

hesitated. 

‘What is it,^’ asked Monsieur Hennebeau. ‘If it’s more 

dispatches, give them to me, I’m expecting some replies.’ 

‘No, Sir, it’s Monsieur Dansaert in the hall ... But he’s 

afraid of disturbing you.’ 

The manager begged his guests to excuse him, and asked 

the overman to come in. Dansaert remained standing, at a 

distance from the table; while everyone turned round to look 

at this big man, who was breathless with the news he had to 

tell. The villages were peaceful; but they had decided to send a 

delegation, which was due to arrive in a few minutes’ time. 

‘That’s fine, thank you,’ said Monsieur Hennebeau. ‘I want 

you to report morning and evening, is that understood?’ 

And, as soon as Dansaert had left, they started joking again. 

They wolfed down the Russian salad, declaring that there was 

not a moment to be lost if they wanted to finish it in peace. 

And their hilarity knew no bounds. When, after Negrel had 

asked the chambermaid for some bread, she had replied with a 

‘Yes, Sir’ so quiet and terrified that it sounded as if she could 

feel an army of brigands breathing down her neck, ready for 

rape and murder, Madame Hennebeau said condescendingly: 

‘You can speak up. They haven’t come yet.’ 

The manager, who had received another pile of letters and 

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dispatches, insisted on reading one of the letters out loud. It 

was a letter from Pierron, in which, in formal and respectful 

language, he advised that he felt bound to go on strike with his 

comrades in order to avoid maltreatment; and he added that he 

had not even been able to refuse to take part in the delegation, 

although he disapproved of the initiative. 

‘So much for the freedom of the worker!’ cried Monsieur 

Hennebeau. 

And so they got back to the subject of the strike, and asked 

for his opinion. 

‘Oh,’ he replied, ‘it won’t be the first time ... They’ll take 

a week’s holiday, or at most a fortnight, like the last time. 

They’ll go on a pub crawl; then when they start to get really 

hungry, they’ll go back down under again.’ 

Deneulin shook his head, 

‘I’m not so sure ,.. This time they seem better organized. 

Haven’t they got a provident fund.^’ 

‘Yes, but they’ve got hardly more than three thousand 

francs: what can they do with ... I suspect a certain 

Etienne Lantier of being their ringleader. He’s a good work¬ 

man, I’d be sorry to have to give him his booklet, like we had 

to do with the famous Rasseneur, who continues to poison Le 

Voreux with his ideas as well as his beer ... No matter, within 

a week half of the men will have returned to work, and in a 

fortnight all ten thousand will be back underground.’ 

He had no doubt about it. His only worry was the possibility 

of his own disgrace if headquarters were to put the blame for 

the strike on his shoulders, P'or some time now he had felt that 

he was out of favour. So, abandoning the spoonful of Russian 

salad which he had taken, he reread the latest dispatches from 

Paris, and tried to interpret all the overtones in their replies to 

his queries. The others let him leave the table, and they felt 

rather like soldiers eating their last rations on the battlefield 

before the shooting started. 

Then the ladies started to offer their opinions. Madame 

Gregoire felt sorry for those poor people who were going to 

suffer from hunger; and Cecile had already started to plan the 

distribution of coupons for bread and meat. 

But Madame Hennebeau was astonished at the idea that the 

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colliers of Montsou might be badly off. Weren’t they extraordi¬ 

narily lucky people, to be housed, heated, and cared for by the 

Company? In her indifference to the common herd, she knew 

only what she had been told, which was the lesson she always 

used to recite in order to impress visiting Parisians; and she 

had ended up believing it herself, so that she felt indignant at 

the ingratitude of the people. 

Meanwhile Negrel continued to frighten Monsieur Gregoire. 

He found Cecile not unattractive, and he didn’t mind marrying 

her to keep his aunt’s favour; but he brought no amorous 

passion to the business, for he was an experienced young man 

who no longer lost his head, as he put it. He claimed to be a 

republican, which didn’t prevent him from handling his work¬ 

force with the utmost severity, and making subtle fun of them, 

when there were ladies in the audience. 

‘I don’t share my uncle’s optimism,’ he went on. ‘I’m afraid 

there will be serious disturbances ... So, Monsieur Gregoire, 

I’d advise you to lock up La Piolaine. You might get looted.’ 

At that very moment, without abandoning the smile that 

illuminated his kindly face, Monsieur Gregoire was expressing 

paternal sentiments towards the miners even more fervently 

than his wife. 

‘Looted, me?’ he cried out in stupefaction. ‘Why ever would 

they want to loot me?’ 

‘Aren’t you a shareholder in Montsou? You do nothing, you 

live off the labour of others. In fact you are the original 

capitalist monster, with no mitigating features ... You can be 

sure that if the revolution ever triumphs, they will force you to 

hand over your fortune, as stolen goods.’ 

Monsieur Gregoire immediately lost his childish tranquillity, 

his habitual, uncritical serenity. He stammered: 

‘What, my fortune stolen goods! Didn’t my great-grand¬ 

father work hard to make his small investment prosper? 

Haven’t we shouldered all the risks of running the business? 

And have I ever used any of the income unwisely myself?’ 

Madame Hennebeau was alarmed to see that the mother 

and daughter too were white with fear, and she hastened to 

intervene, saying: 

‘Paul is only joking, my dear Monsieur Gregoire.’ 

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But Monsieur Gregoire was beside himself. As the manserv¬ 

ant went by with a platter of crayfish, he took three, mechani¬ 

cally, and started absent-mindedly crunching at the claws. 

‘Oh! I don’t say that there aren’t shareholders who don’t 

play the game. For instance. I’ve heard that some ministers 

received shares in Montsou as perks for services rendered to 

the Company. And then there’s a distinguished person whose 

name I won’t mention, a duke who’s our biggest shareholder, 

whose whole life is the most ostentatious scandal, he throws 

millions down the drain chasing women, showing off, and 

buying unnecessary luxuries . .. But you know us, we never do 

anything wasteful, we wouldn’t dream of such extravagance! 

We don’t speculate, we try to live soberly on what we have, 

and even give some to the poor! .. . For heaven’s sake! our 

workers would have to be the most arrant scoundrels to want 

to take so much as a pin that belonged to usl’ 

Negrel had to intervene personally in order to calm him 

down, although he was greatly amused by his anger. The 

crayfish were passed round again, and a restrained crunching 

of shells accompanied the conversation as it veered round to 

politics. Monsieur Gregoire argued, with a tremulous voice, 

that he was a Liberal, in spite of all this; and that he regretted 

the overthrow of Louis-Philippe.* As for Deneulin, he was in 

favour of strong government, and declared that the Emperor 

had gone too far down the road of dangerous concessions.* 

‘Remember 1789,’* he vSaid. ‘It was the nobles who made 

the Revolution possible through their complicity and their 

taste for new philosophical ideas .. . Well, there you are, the 

bourgeoisie today is playing the same idiotic game, encouraging 

liberalism, enjoying destruction, and flattering the people ... 

Oh, yes, you are sharpening the monster’s teeth so that it can 

devour us. And it will devour us, you can count on iti’ 

The ladies silenced him and tried to change the subject, 

asking for news of his daughters. Lucie was at Marchiennes, 

where she was singing with a friend; Jeanne was painting the 

portrait of an old beggarman. But he gave this information 

absent-mindedly, and he kept his eyes glued to the manager, 

who was absorbed in reading his dispatches, and had forgotten 

about his guests. Behind these flimsy pieces of paper he could 

212 

Germinal 

feel the weight of Paris, where the orders of the Board would 

decide the outcome of the strike. So he couldn’t resist harping 

back to his main concern. 

‘Well, what are you going to do.^’ he asked brusquely. 

Monsieur Hennebeau jumped, then evaded the issue with 

the vaguest of phrases. 

‘We’ll have to wait and see.’ 

‘Of course you have quite a mattress to fall back on, you can 

hold out,’ Deneulin said, thinking aloud again. ‘But I’ll go 

under straight away, if the strike reaches Vandame. It’s all 

very well to have renovated Jean-Bart, I can only survive on a 

single pit if there’s no break in production ... Oh, it’s no 

laughing matter for me, I assure you!’ 

This involuntary confession seemed to impress Monsieur 

Hennebeau. As he listened a plan took shape in his mind: if 

the strike turned nasty, why shouldn’t he make the most of it, 

and leave things to fester until his neighbour was ruined, then 

buy out his concession for a song? That would be the best way 

of buying himself back into favour with the Board, who had 

been dreaming for years of getting their hands on Vandame. 

‘If Jean-Bart is such a nuisance to you,’ he said, laughing, 

‘why don’t you get rid of it?’ 

But Deneulin already regretted having made his confession. 

‘Over my dead body!’ he cried. 

His vehemence caused some amusement, and they finally 

forgot about the strike when the dessert arrived. An apple 

charlotte with meringue attracted fulsome praise all round. 

Then the ladies started discussing the recipe for the pineapple, 

which was also judged to be exquisite. And then the fruit 

arrived, grapes and pears, putting the finishing touch to the 

feeling of mellow ease which accompanies the end of a copious 

meal. Everyone spoke at once, and the mood turned sentimen¬ 

tal, as the manservant served them a hock, instead of cham¬ 

pagne, which they felt would have been too predictable. 

And the marriage of Paul and Cecile definitely took a step 

forward in the atmosphere of bonhomie encouraged by the 

dessert. The young man’s aunt had cast him such urgent looks 

that he forced himself to be pleasant, using his charms and 

flattery to win back the Gregoires from their shock at the idea 

Part IV 

213 

of being looted. For a moment Monsieur Hennebeau, seeing 

his wife and his nephew in such close harmony, felt his 

dreadful suspicions rise up within him again, as if he had 

caught them holding hands rather than exchanging glances. 

But he was soon reassured again by the thought of the marriage 

which was being planned before his very eyes. 

Hippolyte was serving the coffee when the chambermaid ran 

up in a state of terror. 

‘Sir, Sir, theyVe here!’ 

It was the delegation. Doors slammed, and a wave of panic 

rippled through to the assembled company in the adjoining 

room. 

‘Show them into the drawing-room,’ said Monsieur Hen¬ 

nebeau. 

The guests, who were still sitting round the table, felt 

momentarily unnerved, and exchanged worried glances. But 

then they started joking again: they pretended to put the 

remains of the sugar in their pockets, and spoke of hiding the 

silver. But the manager refused to laugh, and the laughter died 

away, to be replaced by whispering, as the heavy footsteps of 

the delegates being shown into the drawing-room and tramp¬ 

ling over the carpet reverberated close at hand. 

Lowering her voice, Madame Hennebeau said to her 

husband: 

‘1 hope that you are going to drink your coffee.’ 

‘Of course,’ he replied, ‘they’ll just have to wait.’ 

He was nervous, and pricked up his ears to listen to what 

was happening in the next r(X)m, although he looked entirely 

absorbed by his coffee. 

Paul and Cecile had just got up, and he had persuaded her 

to have a dangerous peep through the keyhole. They were 

trying not to laugh, and were talking under their breath. 

‘Can you see them.?’ 

‘Yes ... I can see one fat one, with two other little men 

behind him.’ 

‘Well, don’t they look awful.?’ 

‘Not at all, they look very nice.’ 

Suddenly Monsieur Hennebeau leapt up from his chair, 

saying that the coffee was too hot and that he would drink it 

214 

Germinal 

afterwards. As he went out he put his finger to his lips to 

counsel prudence. Everyone else remained seated, silently, not 

daring to move, listening intently and uncomfortably to the 

muffled sound of gruff male voices. 

CHAPTER II 

The day before, during a meeting held at Rasseneur’s, Etienne 

and some friends had chosen the delegates who were to meet 

the management the next day. That evening, when La Ma- 

heude found out that her man was to be one of them, she was 

upset, and asked him if he wanted to get them thrown out of 

their home. Maheu himself had not been keen to accept. When 

the moment for action arrived, they both relapsed into the 

traditional resignation of their kind, however unjust their 

wretched poverty, for they were fearful of what the morrow 

might bring, and preferred instead to bow to authority. Usually 

Maheu himself relied on his wife’s judgement for the running 

of their lives, for her advice was always wise. This time 

however he finally showed his anger, all the more so because 

deep down he shared her doubts. 

‘Leave me alone, for Christ’s sake,’ he said as he went to 

bed, turning his back on her. ‘That would be a fine thing to 

do, to let my comrades down!... I’m only doing my duty.’ 

She came to bed too. Neither of them spoke. Then, after a 

long silence, she answered him: 

‘You’re right, you should go. But don’t forget, dear, that we 

haven’t got a chance.’ 

Noon was striking as they sat down to eat, for the appoint¬ 

ment was for one o’clock, at the Avantage, where they had 

agreed to meet before setting out for Monsieur Hennebeau’s. 

They had potatoes, but as there was only one small piece of 

butter left, nobody touched it. They would save it to spread on 

their bread in the evening. 

‘You know that we’re counting on you to speak,’ Etienne 

said suddenly to Maheu. 

Maheu was transfixed, his voice shaking with emotion. 

Partly 

215 

‘Oh, no, that’s the limit!’ cried La Maheude. ‘I don’t mind 

him going, but I’m not going to have him play leader ... 

Anyway, why him rather than someone else?’ 

So fitienne explained, with all his ardour and eloquence. 

Maheu was the best workman in the pit, the most popular and 

the most respected, the one whose good sense was quoted as 

an example. Thus the miners’ claims would take on real 

importance, if they were voiced by him. The first idea had 

been that he, Etienne, should speak, but he hadn’t been at 

Montsou long enough. They would pay more attention to 

someone local. And besides, his mates were relying on their 

interests being defended by the most worthy man: he couldn’t 

refuse, it would be cowardly. 

La Maheude looked desperate. 

‘Go on then, my dear man, ruin yourself for the sake of the 

others. I don’t care, why should I?’ 

‘But I’ll never be able to,’ stammered Maheu. ‘I’ll say all 

the wrong things.’ 

Etienne, who was pleased to see that he accepted, clapped 

him on the shoulder. 

‘You only have to say what you feel, and everything will be 

fine.’ 

Old Bonnemort was sitting there waiting for his swollen legs 

to recover, but he had his mouth full, so he just listened, and 

nodded his head. They all fell silent . .. When they had 

potatoes to eat the children always stuffed their mouths full 

and were very well behaved. When he had swallowed his 

mouthful, the old man murmured sagely: 

‘You can say what you like, and you might as well not have 

said anything at all . .. Oh, I’ve seen a lot. I’ve seen ’em all! 

Forty years ago they threw us out of the manager’s offices, and 

they drew their swords on us! Maybe they’ll let you in today, 

but you won’t get any more sense out of them than out of a 

brick wall.. . Heavens! they’re the ones who are sitting on the 

money, they don’t give a damn!’ 

Silence fell again. Maheu and Etienne got up and left the 

family sitting gloomily over their empty plates. As they went 

out, they picked up Pierron and Levaque, then all four of 

them went round to Rasseneur’s, where the delegates from the 

2 i6 

Germinal 

neighbouring villages were arriving in small groups. Then, 

when the twenty members of the delegation had all gathered 

there, they drew up the conditions that they thought should 

replace those imposed by the Company; and finally they left 

for Montsou. 

The bitter north-east wind swept over the cobbles. It was 

striking two o’clock as they arrived. 

At first the manservant told them to wait, closing the door 

in their faces; but then, when he returned, he let them into the 

drawing-room and drew back the curtains. Daylight filtered 

gently through the frills of the lace guipure. And the miners, 

left on their own, did not dare sit down, feeling embarrassed, 

although they were all perfectly clean, and had shaved that 

morning, combed their yellow hair and moustaches, and put 

their best woollen clothes on. They fingered their caps uneasily, 

and looked out of the corners of their eyes at the furniture, 

which was an amalgam of every style imaginable that the 

current taste for antiquity had made fashionable: Henri II 

armchairs, Louis XV chairs, an Italian cabinet from the seven¬ 

teenth century and a Spanish contador* from the fifteenth, an 

altar-front used as a mantelpiece, and gold braid taken from 

antique chasubles and sewn on to the portieres* All this old 

gold and tawny-hued silk, with its air of ecclesiastical luxury, 

filled them with respectful discomfort. The oriental carpets 

seemed to entangle their feet in their deep woollen pile. But 

what overcame them most powerfully was the heat from the 

stove, filling the room so evenly it took them by surprise, 

especially since their cheeks were frozen from the icy wind. 

F'ive minutes passed. Their embarrassment increased, in the 

comfort of this luxurious and secluded room. 

At last Monsieur Hennebeau came in, his frock coat formally 

buttoned like an officer’s, and the little rosette of his Legion 

d’honneur adorning his buttonhole in regulation fashion. He 

spoke first, 

‘Ah, there you are! ... I hear that you are planning a 

rebellion ...’ 

And he broke off, to add with studied politeness: 

‘Sit down, I’m perfectly happy to talk things over.’ 

The miners turned round, looking for something to sit on. 

Part IV 

217 

Some took the risk of sitting on the chairs; while the others, 

intimidated by the embroidered silk, preferred to remain 

standing. 

There was a pause. Monsieur Hennebeau, who had pulled 

his armchair up to the fireside, looked them carefully up and 

down, trying to recall their faces. He had just recognized 

Pierron, hidden in the back row; and his gaze fell upon 

Etienne, sitting opposite him. 

‘Now then/ he asked, ‘what have you got to say for your¬ 

selves?’ 

He expected to hear the young man speak up, and he was so 

surprised to see Maheu come forward, that he couldn’t help 

adding: 

‘Whatever next! You’ve always been a sensible man and a 

good workman, you’ve grown up at Montsou and your family 

has worked down the mine since the first shaft was sunk! . .. 

Oh, this is a bad business, it hurts me to see you at the head of 

these malcontents!’ 

Maheu listened, with his eyes lowered. Then he started, at 

first with a gruff, hesitant voice. 

‘Sir, it’s because I’m a peaceful man with no complaints 

against my name that my comrades have chosen me. That 

should show you that it’s not a rebellion by hotheads or 

rabble-rousers trying to make trouble for the sake of it. We 

only want justice, we are fed up with dying of hunger, and we 

thought it was time to sort things out, to make sure we at least 

had some bread to eat every day.’ 

His voice had got stronger. He raised his eyes, and contin¬ 

ued, looking straight at the manager: 

‘You know very well that we can’t accept your new system 

... We’ve been accused of skimping on the timbering. It’s 

true that we don’t spend long enough on it. But if we did, our 

working day would be even shorter, and since we can’t earn 

enough to feed ourselves as it is, it would be all over for us, 

we’d all be wiped out like a clean slate. Pay us more and we’ll 

put better props up, we’ll spend as long as we should on the 

timbering, instead of exhausting ourselves hacking away, which 

is the only thing we get paid for. There’s no other way 

possible, the work’s got to be paid for if we’ve got to do it. . . 

2i8 

Germinal 

And what did you come up with instead? Something we’d 

never even dreamed of in our worst nightmares, for heaven’s 

sake! You lower the price of a tub of coal, then you say you’ll 

pay for the timbering separately to make up for the loss. If 

that was true, it’d still be daylight robbery, because the 

timbering would still take us longer. But what makes us 

furious is that it’s not even true: the Company isn’t paying us 

the difference at all, it’s just pocketing two centimes for every 

tub-load, that’s all!’ 

‘Yes, he’s right, it’s the truth,’ the other delegates muttered, 

when they saw that Monsieur Hennebeau was reacting vio¬ 

lently, as if he were about to interrupt Maheu. 

However, Maheu himself silenced the manager. Now that 

he had got going, the words came out unaided. At times he 

listened in surprise to the sound of his own voice, as if some 

stranger were speaking within him. Things which had been 

building up deep down inside him, things which he didn’t 

even know he thought, came tumbling out as if his heart 

would burst. He spoke of the wretched poverty they all 

suffered, their exhausting labour, their animal existence, their 

wives and children at home reduced to tears from hunger. He 

mentioned the last few dreadful pay packets, the pathetic 

fortnightly pittance whittled away by fines and lay-offs, which 

reduced their families to tears when they brought it home. Did 

the Company want to destroy them for good? 

‘So there you are. Sir,’ he eventually concluded, ‘that is why 

we have come to tell you that if we’re going to die because we 

can’t make enough to live on, we’d rather die doing nothing. 

At least we won’t wear ourselves out .. . Now that we’ve 

walked out of the pit, we are not going back down again unless 

the Company accepts our conditions. They want to lower the 

price of the tub, and pay separately for the timbering. What 

we want is to keep things as they were, and in addition we 

want an extra five centimes a tub .., Now it’s up to you to 

show that you’re on the side of justice and labour.’ 

Several of the miners raised their voices. 

‘That’s right . .. He’s said what we all think ... We only 

want what’s right.’ 

Others, although they said nothing, nodded their heads in 

Part IV 

219 

approval. The luxurious room with its old gold and embroid¬ 

ery, and its mysterious accumulation of ancient bric-a-brac, 

had dissolved into thin air; and they no longer felt the carpet 

that they were trampling under their heavy feet. 

‘Give me a chance to reply,’ Monsieur Hennebeau finally 

shouted, getting angry. ‘First of all, it isn’t true that the 

Company makes two centimes on every tub . .. Let’s have a 

look at the figures.’ 

A confused argument followed. The manager tried to divide 

the men against each other, asked Pierron to speak, but he 

declined, stammering, and it was Levaque who took the most 

aggressive stance, offering confused explanations, and alleging 

facts that he was unable to substantiate. The rising hubbub of 

voices became an indistinguishable mass, muffled by the tap¬ 

estries and the heat. 

‘If you all talk at once,’ Monsieur Hennebeau broke in, 

‘we’ll never reach an agreement.’ 

He had calmed down again, and was showing no signs of 

resentment, the bluff politeness of the manager who is acting 

on instructions and intends to make sure that they are re¬ 

spected, Right from the beginning of the discussion he had 

been watching Etienne, and looking for an opportunity to get 

round to drawing the young man out of the silence into which 

he had withdrawn. So, dropping the question of the two 

centimes, he suddenly opened up the debate. 

‘No, let’s get to the bottom of things, you are being worked 

on by vile agitators, there’s a veritable plague abroad among 

the work-force now, and it’s corrupting the best of you . .. 

Oh! there’s no need for anyone to confess, I can see that 

you’ve been changed, you were so peaceful before. It’s true, 

isn’t it.^ You’ve been promised milk and honey instead of 

bread and butter, they’ve told you it’s your turn to be the 

masters .. . And now they’ve enrolled you in the famous 

International, which is an army of brigands dreaming of 

destroying society ...’ 

Then Etienne interrupted him. 

‘There you are wrong. Sir. Not a single collier from Montsou 

has joined yet. But if they are provoked, every man in every 

pit will enrol. It all depends on the Company.’ 

220 

Germinal 

From this moment on, combat was joined by Etienne and 

Monsieur Hennebeau, as if the other miners were not there. 

‘The Company is sheer providence for its employees, you 

are wrong to threaten it. This year it spent three hundred 

thousand francs on building mining villages, which bring in 

less than two per cent profit, not to mention the pensions it 

pays, nor the free coal and medical care. You’re an intelligent 

man, in a few months you’ve become one of our best workmen, 

wouldn’t you do better to broadcast the true facts rather than 

dissipate your energy on keeping bad company? Yes, I mean 

Rasseneur, you know that we had to let him go in order to 

protect our pits from his socialist filth ... You’re always 

being seen in his company, and I’m sure he’s the one who has 

forced you to set up your provident fund, which we would be 

pleased enough to allow if we thought it was just a savings 

scheme, but we can see that it’s meant to be a weapon to use 

against us, a fighting fund to subsidize your battle. And while 

we’re on that subject, I must inform you that the Company 

intends to keep a check on those funds.’ 

Etienne let him keep talking, looking into his eyes, but his 

lips were affected by a slight nervous twitch. On hearing the 

last statement he smiled, and simply replied: 

‘So now that’s a new demand from the management, isn’t it. 

Sir, for you haven’t claimed the right to check it previously .. . 

Unfortunately, what we want is less interference from the 

Company, and instead of it claiming to offer charity, we want 

it quite simply to be fair and to give us our due, our fair share 

in the profits we create for it. Is it fair that every time there’s a 

slump the workers die of hunger in order to safeguard the 

shareholders’ dividends? ... I don’t see how you can deny, 

Sir, that the new system is a disguised cut in wages, and that’s 

what we find intolerable, for if the Company does have to 

make savings, there’s no reason why they should all be borne 

by the workers.’ 

‘Ah! Here we are at last!’ cried Monsieur Hennebeau. ‘I was 

waiting for that, accusing us of starving the people and living 

off the sweat of their brows! How can you say such stupid 

things, when you must know what enormous risks capital 

investment is subject to in industry, in the mines for instance? 

Part IV 

221 

A properly equipped pit today costs between fifteen hundred 

thousand and two million francs; and it’s long enough before 

you get your petty interest back from the mass of capital that 

you’ve sunk into it! Nearly half of the mining companies in 

France have gone bankrupt ... Besides, it’s stupid to accuse 

the successful ones of cruelty. When their workers suffer, they 

suffer too. Do you think that the Company hasn’t as much to 

lose as you have, in the current slump? It can’t decide wages 

on its own, it has to obey the laws of competition or go bust. 

Argue with the state of the economy, not the Company. But 

you don’t want to listen, you don’t want to understand!’ 

‘Oh yes we do,’ said the young man, ‘we understand very 

well that nothing can improve for us as long as things continue 

as they are, and that’s exactly the reason why sooner or later 

the workers are going to make sure that something changes.’ 

Although these words were moderate enough in sub¬ 

stance, they were pronounced with such quiet conviction and 

dangerous emotion that a sudden silence fell. A feeling of 

embarrassment and a shudder of fear ran through the suddenly 

thoughtful company. Although they didn’t follow the details 

of the argument, the other delegates felt that their comrade 

had staked their claim to a share in the surrounding luxury; 

and they started to cast sidelong glances at the warm tapestries, 

the comfortable chairs, and the whole luxurious environment, 

where the tiniest trinket would have paid for a month’s supply 

of soup. 

At last Monsieur Hennebeau, who had remained pensive for 

a moment, got up to invite them to leave. Everyone rose when 

he did. Etienne gently nudged Maheu’s elbow; and Maheu 

spoke up again, with a voice that had already become embar¬ 

rassed and awkward again: 

‘Well, Sir, is that all you have to say to us?.. . We’ll have to 

tell the men that you’ve rejected our terms,’ 

‘But, my good man,’ the manager cried, ‘I haven’t rejected 

anything! I’m a wage-earner like yourself, I have no more say 

here than the youngest pit boy. I get my orders, and my only 

concern is to make sure that they are carried out properly. All 

I’ve said to you is what I feel it’s my duty to tell you, but the 

last thing I can do is take a decision ... You express your 

222 Germinal 

demands, I pass them on to the Board, and Til give you their 

answer as soon as I get it.’ 

He had adopted the impartial tone of the civil servant, 

avoiding emotional involvement in the dispute, speaking drily 

but courteously as if he were a neutral instrument of authority. 

But now the miners were unconvinced by him; they were 

suspicious of his motives, and wondered what lay behind this 

approach, why he found it in his interest to tell lies, and they 

imagined that he must be cheating them or stealing from the 

Company, by setting himself up between them and the real 

bosses, and they assumed that he must be on the fiddle, since 

he was paid like a worker, but lived like a lord! 

Etienne took it upon himself to intervene again. 

‘In that case. Sir, it is most unfortunate that we can’t put 

our case to the people in charge. We could explain a lot, we 

could clear up so many misunderstandings which you can’t be 

expected to see from our point of view ... If only we knew 

who to talk to!’ 

Monsieur Hennebeau showed no anger. He even smiled. 

‘Good heavens! We are getting confused. If you don’t trust 

me any longer, you’ll have to go higher up.’ 

The delegates followed the vague gesture he made with his arm 

in the direction of one of the windows. Where exactly was higher 

{ip? Paris, obviously. But they couldn’t quite put their fingers on 

it, and it receded frighteningly into the distance, into a sacred and 

inaccessible land, ruled by an unknown god, lying in wait in the 

depths of his tabernacle. They would never meet him, they could 

only feel his power at a distance, weighing on the destinies of the 

10,000 colliers of Montsou. And when the manager spoke, it was 

this hidden, oracular power that bore him up. 

They felt enormously depressed. Even Etienne had to shrug 

his shoulders and tel! them that they might as well go; while 

Monsieur Hennebeau took Maheu amicably by the arm and 

asked him for news of Jeanlin. 

‘That should certainly give you food for thought, when you 

feel like defending bad timbering! ... If you stop to think, my 

friends, you will understand that a strike would be a disaster 

for everyone. You’ll die of hunger before the week’s out: how 

will you manage? .., But I’m sure that I can count on your 

Part IV 

223 

good sense and that you will go back down to work again by 

Monday at the latest.’ 

Then they all left, stumbling over each other like a herd of 

animals as they went out of the drawing-room, their shoulders 

bowed, refusing to say a word in reply to this plea for 

submission. The manager, who saw them out, was obliged to 

conclude the discussion: the Company on the one hand with 

its new tariff, and the workers on the other with their request 

for an increase of five centimes per tub. In order not to foster 

any illusions, he felt bound to warn them that their terms were 

sure to be rejected by the Board. 

‘Think it over before you do anything rash,’ he repeated, 

worried by their silence. 

In the hall, Pierron bowed with exaggerated politeness, but 

Levaque made a show of putting his cap back on. Maheu was 

trying to think of a parting word, when Etienne, once again, 

nudged his elbow. And they all left, with nothing dispelling 

the ominous silence but the loud banging of the door as it 

slammed shut behind them. 

When Monsieur Hennebeau came back into the dining¬ 

room, he found that his guests had got to the liqueurs, but 

were silent and motionless. He explained the situation rapidly 

to Deneulin, whose face darkened and fell. Then, while he 

finished off his cold coffee, they tried to change the subject of 

conversation. But even the Gregoires came back to the strike, 

astonished that there were no laws to prevent the workmen 

from downing their tools. Paul reassured Cecile, and declared 

that they would call in the gendarmes. 

After a while Madame Hennebeau called the manservant. 

‘Hippolyte, before we go into the drawing-room, open the 

windows to let some air in.’ 

CHAPTER III 

Two weeks had gone by; and, on the Monday of the third 

week, the attendance records received by the management 

indicated a further decrease in the number of men reporting 

224 

Germinal 

for work. That morning they had expected more people to go 

back to work; but the Board’s obstinacy in refusing to yield 

exasperated the miners. Le Voreux, Crevecoeur, Mirou, and 

Madeleine were no longer the only pits lying idle; at La 

Victoire and at Feutry-Gintel there were now hardly more 

than a quarter of the men at work; and even Saint-Thomas 

was affected. Gradually the strike was becoming general. 

At the Le Voreux pit-head a heavy silence reigned. The 

whole works seemed dead, the yards and buildings deserted 

and abandoned. Under the grey December sky, three or four 

tubs stranded up on the overhead track expressed a silent, 

inanimate sadness. Down below, between the legs of the 

trestles, the stock of coal was nearly used up, leaving the earth 

naked and black; while the stacks of timber props were rotting 

in the rain. At the quayside on the canal, a half-laden barge 

was moored, as if it had fallen asleep in the murky water; and 

on the deserted slag-heap, whose decomposing sulphur contin¬ 

ued to smoulder in spite of the rain, a cart raised its melancholy 

arms. But it was above all the buildings which seemed lifeless, 

the screening shed with its shutters closed, the headgear which 

no longer vibrated with the rumblings from the landing-stage, 

the strangely cool generator room, and the giant chimney too 

wide for its few wisps of smoke. The winding engine was only 

fired in the mornings. The stablemen took fodder down for 

the horses, and the deputies went down below unaccompanied, 

like ordinary workmen now, keeping a look-out for the disasters 

which are liable to beset tunnels as soon as they cease to be 

maintained; then, after nine o’clock, the rest of the service was 

carried out using ladders. And above these moribund buildings, 

buried in their shroud of black dust, the only thing that could 

still be heard was the exhaust of the pump breathing out with 

its loud and protracted panting, the last sign of life at the pit, 

which would be swallowed up by flood water if that breathing 

were to cease. 

Over on the plain beyond, village Two Hundred and Forty 

seemed lifeless, too. The Prefect had hurried down from Lille, 

and a company of gendarmes had come to guard the highway; 

but when they saw that the strikers were peaceful, the Prefect 

and the gendarmes had decided to go home. The mining 

Part IV 

225 

village had never before set such a good example for its 

neighbours on the vast plain. In order to avoid going out to 

the pubs, the men spent the whole day at home in bed; the 

women, forced to ration their coffee, were less nervous, and 

less excited by gossip and quarrels; and even the gangs of 

children seemed to understand, behaving themselves so well 

that they ran about barefoot and were careful not to make a 

noise when they got into a fight. The slogan which was 

repeated and passed from mouth to mouth was: we've got to 

behave ourselves. 

And yet the Maheus' house was filled with a continual 

coming and going of people. As secretary, Etienne had divided 

out the 3,000 francs from the provident fund among the most 

needy families; then a few hundred francs more had been 

raised by subscriptions and collections here and there. But 

already their combined resources were running out, the miners 

had no money left to support the strike, and starvation was 

looming. Maigrat, having at first promised a fortnight's credit, 

had suddenly changed his mind after the first week, cutting off 

their supplies of food. Usually he followed the directives of the 

Company; perhaps, then, the Company had decided to force a 

swift conclusion by starving the villages. In any case, Maigrat 

acted in an arbitrary and tyrannical way, offering or withhold¬ 

ing his bread depending on the looks of the girl that the 

parents sent to do the shopping; and he closed his door most 

sharply on La Maheude, seething with resentment and wanting 

to punish her for making him lose Catherine. The last nail in 

their coffin was the weather, which turned absolutely freezing, 

so that the housewives saw their supplies of coal diminish, and 

were worried by the knowledge that it couldn't be replenished 

by production from the pits as long as the men refused to go 

back to work. As if it wasn’t bad enough to die of hunger, they 

would die of cold as well. 

The Maheu household was short of everything. The Le- 

vaques still had enough to eat, having borrowed a twenty-franc 

piece from Bouteloup. As for the Pierrons, they still had some 

money left; but, in order not to seem any less starving than the 

others, afraid that they would be approached for loans, they 

bought on credit from Maigrat, who would have given La 

226 

Germinal 

Pierronne the freedom of his shop if she had only offered to 

lift her skirt for him. By the Saturday many families had gone 

to bed with no supper. And yet, despite the prospect of days of 

terrible deprivation, not a single complaint could be heard, 

everyone observed the conventions, calmly and courageously. 

They showed absolute confidence, an almost religious faith, 

making an unconditional self-sacrifice like a persecuted confes¬ 

sional minority. Since they had been shown the promised land 

of justice, they were ready to suffer on the road to universal 

happiness. Hunger went to their heads, and, in their wretched, 

hallucinating eyes, the flat, dull horizon had never seemed to 

open up on to such a vast and infinite perspective. When their 

eyes became blurred with fatigue, they could see the ideal city 

of their dreams beyond the horizon, but now somehow close 

and real; there all men were brothers, in a golden age where 

meals and labour were shared between equals. Nothing could 

shake their conviction that they were already on the threshold. 

The fund was empty, the Company would never yield, every 

day could only make the situation worse, and yet they kept 

faith in their hope, showing a blithe contempt for reality. Even 

if the earth were to quake beneath their feet, a miracle would 

save them. This faith replaced their missing bread and warmed 

their stomachs. When the Maheus, like the others, had swal¬ 

lowed their watery soup all too quickly, they glided off into a 

state approaching vertigo, dreaming ecstatically of a better life, 

with the same conviction that drove the early Christians into 

the arena. 

From now on Etienne became the undisputed leader. During 

their evening conversations, he made oracular statements, as 

he continued his studies and developed firm opinions on 

everything. He spent his nights reading, he received more and 

more letters; he had even subscribed to The Avenger^ a socialist 

broadsheet from Belgium, and this review, the first of its kind 

which anyone in the village had seen, had brought him extra¬ 

ordinary prestige in the eyes of his comrades. His growing 

popularity made him daily more excited. Keeping up an 

extensive correspondence, discussing the fate of the workers in 

every corner of the province, holding consultations for the 

miners from Le Voreux, above all becoming a focus of attention 

Part IV 

227 

and feeling the whole world revolving around him, constantly 

boosted his vanity, especially as he had scaled these heights after 

being a mere mechanic and hewer with greasy black hands. In 

fact, he had moved up a rung, he had entered the despised world 

of the bourgeoisie, enjoying intellectual and material satisfactions, 

although he couldn’t admit this to himself He still felt awkward 

about one thing, his lack of formal education, which made him 

embarrassed and shy as soon as he found himself face to face with 

a gentleman dressed in a frock coat. Although he continued to 

learn, devouring every book he could lay hands on, his lack of 

method made the process of assimilation very slow, and he 

became so confused that he came to know more things than he 

was able to understand. So it was that, in his more sensible 

moments, he lost confidence in his mission, and feared that he 

was not the right man for the situation. Perhaps they should have 

chosen a barrister or a scholar, someone who could speak and act 

without compromising his comrades? But he soon rebelled 

against these doubts. No, not a barrister! They were all 

scoundrels, exploiting their knowledge in order to grow fat on the 

backs of the people! Whatever the outcome of the crisis, the 

workers had to settle their own affairs. And he started to dream 

again of becoming a popular leader: once Montsou was at his feet, 

Paris would beckon from the misty distance, and, who knows, 

election to Parliament, speaking to a packed audience from the 

hallowed benches, and he saw himself slaying the bourgeoisie in 

the first speech ever made to Parliament by a working man. 

For some days, Etienne had been puzzled. Pluchart kept 

writing letter after letter, offering to come to Montsou, in 

order to whip up the fervour of the strikers. The idea was to 

organize a private meeting, which the mechanic would preside 

over; and behind this project was the idea of using the strike to 

win over the miners, who until then had been suspicious, to 

the International. Etienne was worried that this might cause 

trouble, but he would still have let Pluchart come, if Rasseneur 

hadn’t been highly critical of such an intervention. Despite his 

new power, Etienne had to take into consideration the opinions 

of the publican, who had given service for longer, and who had 

loyal supporters among his customers. So he continued to 

hesitate, and didn’t know how to reply. 

228 

Germinal 

And then, on Monday towards four o’clock, a new letter 

arrived from Lille, while Etienne was on his own with La 

Maheude in the downstairs room. Maheu, bored with the 

enforced idleness, had gone fishing: if he managed to catch a 

decent fish, below the canal lock, they would sell it to buy 

bread with. Old Bonnemort and little Jeanlin had just slipped 

away to stretch their newly healthy legs; while the children 

had gone out with Alzire, who spent hours on the slag-heap 

scavenging for cinders. Sitting by the pathetic fire, which they 

dared no longer stoke up, La Maheude had unbuttoned her 

corsage, let one of her breasts hang down over her belly, and 

was feeding Estelle. 

When the young man folded his letter up after reading it, 

she enquired: 

‘Is it good news,^ Are they going to send us any money?’ 

He shook his head, and she continued: 

‘I don’t know how we’re going to survive till the end of next 

week .. . Never mind, we’ll survive somehow or other. When 

you’ve got justice on your side it keeps you going, doesn’t it? 

We’ll beat them in the end.’ 

She had now come to approve of the strike, within reason. 

It would have been better to gain satisfaction from the Com¬ 

pany without stopping work. But since they had stopped, they 

shouldn’t start again until they had obtained justice. She 

absolutely refused to budge from that principle. Rather die 

than seem to be in the wrong when they were in the right! 

‘Ah!’ cried Etienne, ‘what we could do with is a nice little 

outbreak of cholera to get rid of all those parasites from the 

Company!’ 

‘Oh, no,’ she replied, ‘you shouldn’t wish for anyone’s 

death. It wouldn’t get us anywhere, more of them would 

spring up to take their places ,,. All I ask is for them to come 

to their senses, and I don’t see why not, there are nice people 

in all walks of life ... You know I don’t agree with your 

politics at all.’ 

She did indeed frequently criticize him for the violence of 

his language, and for being too aggressive. You wanted your 

work to be paid for at the price it was worth, that was only 

right; but why get so involved in everything, including the 

Part IV 

229 

bourgeoisie and the government? Why interfere in other 

people’s business, when you could only get into trouble? But 

she still respected him, because he didn’t get drunk, and he 

paid his forty-five francs’ rent regularly. When a man was well 

behaved, you could excuse his other faults. 

Then fitienne spoke of the Republic, which would provide 

bread for all. But La Maheude shook her head, for she 

remembered the 1848 Revolution,* a dreadful year which had 

left them stripped to the bone, her and her husband, at the 

beginning of their marriage. She let herself go in this reminis¬ 

cence of their tribulations with an expressionless voice, her 

eyes unfocused, and her bosom uncovered, while her baby 

daughter Estelle had fallen asleep on her lap without relinquish¬ 

ing the breast. And Etienne, his thoughts elsewhere, stared at 

the massive breast, whose soft whiteness contrasted so starkly 

with the blotchy, yellow complexion of her face. 

‘Not a farthing,’ she murmured, ‘not a crumb to eat, and ail 

the pits stopped work. And what did it all come to? The poor 

starving to death, like today!’ 

But at that moment the door opened and they were reduced 

to silence as Catherine walked in. Since eloping with Chavai, 

she had not shown her face in the village again. She was so 

unsure of herself that she did not close the door behind her, 

but just stood there trembling and speechless. She had hoped 

to find her mother on her own, and the sight of the young man 

spoiled the sentence she had been preparing in her mind on 

the way. 

‘What the hell have you come here for?’ cried La Maheude, 

without even getting up from her chair. ‘I don’t want to see 

you again, be off with you.’ 

Then Catherine tried to pull herself together and say her 

piece. 

‘Mum, here’s some coffee and sugar ... Yes, it’s for the 

children . .. I’ve done overtime, I did it for them . ..’ 

She brought out of her pockets a pound of coffee and a 

pound of sugar, and plucked up the courage to place them on 

the table. She had been feeling upset by the fact that Le 

Voreux was on strike while she was working at Jean-Bart, and 

the only way she could think of of helping her parents a little 

230 

Germinal 

like this was to use the pretext of the children. But this 

kindness failed to disarm her mother, who replied: 

‘Instead of bringing us treats you would have done better to 

stay at home and earn us more bread.’ 

She vented her feelings by attacking her daughter, throwing 

in her face everything that she had been saying about her for 

the last month. Going off with a man and getting tied down at 

sixteen, when you had a family in need! You’d have to be the 

most unnatural of daughters. You could forgive a silly mistake, 

but a mother could never forget such an act. And even then, 

you could understand it if they had kept her locked in! Far 

from it, she had been as free as the air as long as she came 

home to sleep at night. 

‘Whatever got into you, at your age.^’ 

Catherine, who was standing motionless beside the table, 

listened, with lowered head. Her skinny, undeveloped body was 

shaking as she tried to reply, in short, breathless sentences. 

‘Oh, if it was only me, for all the fun I get! .. . It’s him. 

When he wants to I’ve got to want to too, haven’t I? Because, 

you see, he’s stronger than me ... You can’t tell how things 

are going to turn out, can you.^ Anyway, what’s done is done, 

and you can’t undo it, it doesn’t make any difference now, 

whether it’s him or someone else. I’ll have to get married.’ 

She defended herself, not on account of any sense of rebel¬ 

lion, but only with the passive resignation of all girls who 

come under the male thumb at an early age. Wasn’t it the 

common fate.^ She had never dreamed of anything else, a 

rough and tumble behind the slag-heap, a child at sixteen, 

then poverty and unhappiness in marriage, if her lover would 

marry her. And she only blushed for shame, and trembled 

so, because she was shaken to be treated as a tramp in front 

of this lad, whose presence made her feel oppressed and 

desperate. 

Meanwhile Etienne had got up and busied himself with 

stoking the dying embers of the fire, so as to keep out of the 

argument. But their eyes met. She looked pale and exhausted, 

but she was still pretty, with bright, clear eyes, and a browner 

face than he remembered; and he experienced a strange feeling 

as his resentment ebbed away; he would have simply liked her 

Part IV 

231 

to be happy, with this man that she had chosen in preference 

to him. He felt the need to look after her, the urge to go to 

Montsou to force the fellow to respect her properly. But she 

saw nothing but pity in this constant show of tenderness, and 

thought he must despise her to keep staring at her like that. 

Then her heart felt so heavy that she choked and was unable 

to stammer any further words of apology. 

‘That’s right, you might as well shut up,’ broke in La 

Maheude, still unmoved. ‘If you’ve come home to stay, come 

in; otherwise get out of here right away, and think yourself 

lucky that I’m busy, otherwise I’d have given you a good kick 

you know where.’ 

As if this threat had suddenly materialized, Catherine re¬ 

ceived a flying kick in the behind, with a violence that stunned 

her with shock and pain. It was Chaval, who had rushed in 

through the open doorway, and had lashed out at her like an 

enraged beast. He had been watching her from outside for a 

minute or two. 

‘Ah, you bitch!’ he shouted, ‘I’ve been following you, I was 

sure you’d come round here to get yourself fucked up to the 

eyeballs! And you’re paying the bugger! I paid for the coffee 

that you’re pouring down the bastard’s throat!’ 

La Maheude and Etienne were so stunned that they re¬ 

mained rooted to the spot. Chaval pushed Catherine violently 

towards the door. 

‘Will you get out of here, for Christ’s sake!’ 

And as she hid in a corner of the room, he lashed out at her 

mother. 

‘So that’s what you’re up to, then, you keep watch down¬ 

stairs, while your whore of a daughter lies flat on her back 

upstairs with her legs apart.’ 

Finally he grabbed Catherine by the wrist, shook her, and 

dragged her outside. When he reached the door, he turned 

round again to face La Maheude, who sat glued to her chair. 

In the turmoil she had forgotten to put her breast away. 

Estelle had fallen asleep, face down, half-buried in her woollen 

skirt; and the massive breast swung naked and free like the 

udder of a milch cow. 

‘When the daughter’s not on the job, it’s the mother’s turn 

232 

Germinal 

to get screwed,’ shouted Chaval. ‘Go on, flash your meat at 

him! Your dirty old lodger’s got a strong stomach, hasn’t he?’ 

At that, Etienne wanted to hit his workmate. Only his fear 

of alerting the whole village if he started a fight had prevented 

him from snatching Catherine away from Chaval. But now he 

too was carried away by his fury, and the two men found 

themselves face to face, with the blood rushing to their faces. 

Their deep-rooted hatred and long-suppressed jealousy burst 

out into the open. Now each wanted to finish off the other. 

‘Watch out!’ Etienne muttered between his clenched teeth. 

‘I’ll flay you alive.’ 

‘Just you try!’ replied Chaval. 

They stood watching each other for a few seconds more, 

standing so close that each could feel the other’s hot breath on 

his cheeks. And it was Catherine who pleaded with her lover 

and pulled him out of the house and the village, running 

straight ahead without looking back. 

‘What a brute!’ muttered Etienne, slamming the door vio¬ 

lently, shaken with such anger than he had to sit down again. 

Opposite him La Maheude had still not moved. She raised 

her arms in despair, and then there was a long silence, heavy 

with the painful things they were unable to say. Despite his 

efforts to avoid it, Etienne’s gaze kept returning to her breast, 

with its almost liquid expanse of white flesh, which he now 

found both voluptuous and embarrassing. Of course she was 

over forty and she had lost her figure from too many pregnan¬ 

cies, like any prolific mother; but many men still found her 

desirable, she was strong and well built, with a long, full face 

which retained traces of her former girlish beauty. Slowly and 

unhurriedly she had taken her breast in both hands and put it 

back in place. A rebellious pink extremity resisted, which she 

thrust back with her fingers, then she buttoned up her cami¬ 

sole, and slumped back in her chair, and became just a 

shapeless black body once more. 

‘He’s a pig,’ she said at last. ‘Only a filthy pig could have 

such disgusting ideas . . . Why should I care! He didn’t 

deserve a reply.’ 

Then, still looking the young man in the face, she added, 

with her voice unwavering: 

Part IV 

233 

‘I have my faults, of course, but not that one ... Pve only 

ever been touched by two men, a trammer in the past, when I 

was fifteen, and then Maheu. If he’d left me like the first one 

did, God alone knows what would have happened, and if I’ve 

behaved myself ever since we’ve been married, that doesn’t 

mean I’m a saint, because when we don’t do anything wrong, 

it’s often because we haven’t had the chance ... But I’m 

telling the truth, and I know some of our neighbours who 

couldn’t say as much, don’t you?’ 

*That’s perfectly true,’ replied Etienne, standing up. 

And he went out, while she tried to light the fire again, after 

placing Estelle, who was still asleep, on two chairs. If Father 

had caught a fish and sold it, they would still be able to make 

some soup. 

Outside night was already falling, and Etienne walked away 

into the freezing darkness, plunged in gloom and despair. He 

no longer felt anger against the man and pity for the girl he 

was abusing. The violent scene receded and became blurred in 

his mind while he started thinking about the universal suffering 

and the abominable poverty of the people. He thought of the 

whole village without bread, its women and children who 

would go hungry that evening, the whole populace engaged in 

the struggle, despite their empty stomachs. And the doubts 

which disturbed him on occasion were now rekindled within 

him, in this dreadfully melancholy twilight, torturing him with 

misgivings which he had never felt so violently before. What a 

terrible responsibility he had taken upon himself! Should he 

still spur them on, now that there was neither money nor 

credit left? And how would things turn out, if no help arrived, 

if everyone’s spirits were vanquished by hunger? Suddenly, he 

saw a vision of disaster: children dying, mothers sobbing, 

while the men, thin and haggard, marched back down into the 

pits. Etienne kept on walking, without noticing the stones he 

stumbled over, filled with intolerable anguish at the idea that 

the Company would win and that he would have led his 

comrades to disaster. 

When he raised his head, he saw that he had arrived at Le 

Voreux. The dark bulk of the buildings loomed heavily in the 

growing darkness. Rising up from the deserted pit-head and its 

234 

Germinal 

network of great, still shadows, they looked like part of an 

abandoned fortress. As soon as the winding engine stopped, 

the life went out of the walls. At this time of night, nothing 

stirred, not a lantern, not a voice; and even the exhaust from 

the pump itself was only a far-off death-rattle, rising from 

heaven knows where, as the whole pit slithered into oblivion. 

As Etienne watched, the blood came coursing back into his 

heart. The workers might be suffering from hunger, but that 

meant that the Company would be breaking into its millions. 

Did it have to be the winner, in this war of labour against 

capital? Whatever happened, victory would cost it dear. After¬ 

wards, each side would have to count its casualties. He was 

swept along once again by a militant frenzy, by a fierce need to 

put an end to poverty, even if the price to be paid was death. 

It would be better for the village to die there and then, rather 

than continue to die little by little every day from famine and 

injustice. A mixture of ill-digested ideas from books he had 

read passed through his mind, examples of inhabitants who 

had burnt their cities to stop the enemy, vague stories where 

mothers saved children from slavery by dashing their heads 

against stones, where men let themselves starve to death rather 

than eat the bread of tyrants. This carried him away, and a 

blaze of good cheer rose up from the ashes of his attack of 

darkest despair, banishing doubt and making him ashamed of 

his momentary cowardice. And, as his faith was rekindled, he 

felt borne upward by great gusts of pride, by the thrill of being 

a leader and seeing himself obeyed even if it meant a sacrifice, 

and by the burgeoning dream of the power he would assume 

on the night of his triumph. Already he pictured the simple 

grandeur of the scene, with his refusal to seize power, and his 

decision to return all authority to the people when he had 

become master. 

But he awoke, and shivered at Maheu’s voice telling him of 

his good luck in catching a superb trout and selling it for three 

francs. They would have their soup after ail. So he let his 

comrade return to the village, saying that he would follow on 

later; and he went in to sit down at the Avantage, waiting for a 

customer to leave so that he could warn Rasseneur openly that 

he was going to write to Pluchart to come as soon as possible. 

Part IV 

235 

He had taken his decision: he wanted to organize a private 

meeting, for he felt that victory was assured, as long as the 

miners of Montsou joined the International en masse. 

CHAPTER IV 

It was at the Bon-Joyeux, run by the Widow Desir, that the 

private meeting was arranged, for Thursday at two o’clock. 

The widow, who was outraged by the suffering imposed on 

the colliers, whom she considered her children, was in a state 

of constant fury, especially since her tavern was nearly empty. 

They had never had a less thirsty strike; even the heavy 

drinkers locked themselves in at home, for fear of disobeying 

the policy of sobriety. So Montsou, which was packed with 

people at the time of the Ducasse fair, now revealed its wide 

street in all its silence, dullness, and desolation. The beer had 

ceased flowing into and out of the miners’ bellies; the gutters 

were dry. On the cobbles outside Casimir’s bar and the 

Progres Inn, the only signs of human life to be seen were the 

pale faces of the landladies looking hopefully down the street; 

then, at Montsou itself, the whole row of pubs was deserted, 

from the Lenfant to the Tison, including the Piquette and the 

Tete-Coupee; only the Saint-Eloi Inn, which was patronized 

by the deputies, was still serving up the odd pint; and the 

solitude was felt even at the Volcan, whose ladies were unem¬ 

ployed for lack of admirers, although they had lowered their 

price from ten sous to five in view of the hard times. The 

whole country seemed to be wallowing in a state of mourning. 

‘God almighty!’ Widow Desir had yelled, slapping her thighs 

with her open palms, ‘I blame the gendarmes! Let them clap 

me in gaol, but I’ll have their guts for garters!’ 

For her all the authorities, all the bosses, were gendarmes, 

which was a term of general abuse which she used to character¬ 

ize the enemies of the people. She had been thrilled by 

Etienne’s request: her whole house belonged to the miners, she 

would lend her dance hall free, and she would send out the 

invitations herself, since the law required her to. Besides, if the 

Germinal 

236 

law was annoyed, so much the better, they’d just have to lump 

it. The very next morning the young man brought her nearly 

fifty letters to sign, which he had had copied by some of his 

literate neighbours in the village; and they sent these letters off 

to the pits, to the delegates and a number of other reliable 

men. Ostensibly, their agenda was to discuss the continuation 

of the strike; but in fact they were expecting Pluchart to come 

and deliver a speech in order to urge mass membership of the 

International. 

On the Thursday morning Etienne felt a sudden pang of 

anxiety, when he saw no sign of his former foreman, who had 

sent a dispatch promising to be there on Wednesday evening. 

Whatever could have happened.^ He was dismayed not to be 

able to talk things over with him before the meeting. At nine 

o’clock he went over to Montsou, hoping that the mechanic 

might have gone there direct without stopping at Le Voreux. 

‘No, I haven’t seen your friend,’ answered Widow Desir. 

‘But everything’s ready, why not come and have a look.^’ 

She led him into the dance hall. The decorations had not 

changed, there were the same streamers strung across the 

ceiling and meeting in a wreath of coloured paper flowers, and 

the arms of the saints, painted in gold on cardboard shields, 

lining the walls. The only difference was that they had replaced 

the musicians’ stage with a table and three chairs in one corner; 

and the hall itself was set out with rows of benches, placed 

diagonally. 

‘That’s perfect,’ said Etienne. 

‘And, you know,’ the widow continued, ‘you must make 

yourself at home. You can shout the roof down ... If the 

gendarmes come, they’ll have to march over my dead body.’ 

Despite his concern, he couldn’t help smiling as he looked 

at her, because of her enormous size, with a pair of breasts 

either of which it would have taken all a man’s energies to 

embrace; which led people to say that, even with six lovers a 

week, she needed two at a time every night, because of the size 

of the task. 

But Etienne was astonished to see Rasseneur and Souvarine 

come in; and as the widow turned to leave the three of them in 

the great empty hall, he cried out: 

Part IV 

237 

‘You’re early, aren’t you!’ 

Souvarine, who had been working the night shift at Le 

Voreux, because the mechanics weren’t on strike, had come 

out of sheer curiosity. As for Rasseneur, he had been looking 

embarrassed for two days now, and his round face had lost its 

indulgent smile. 

‘Pluchart hasn’t arrived, and I’m very worried,’ Etienne 

added. 

The publican looked away and replied between his teeth; 

‘I’m not surprised, I don’t think he’s coming.’ 

‘What do you mean.?’ 

Then Rasseneur pulled himself up and looked Etienne in 

the face and spoke out simply: 

‘The truth is, that I sent him a letter, too; and in my letter I 

begged him not to come ,.. That’s right, I think that we 

ought to settle our own affairs, without involving outsiders.’ 

Etienne was beside himself and, trembling with anger, he 

stared his comrade in the face, and kept repeating: 

‘You didn’t! You can’t have!’ 

‘Yes, that’s just what I did do. And you know 1 believe in 

Pluchart! He’s tough and he’s clever, he’s a good man to have 

by your .side .., But the problem is, you see, that I don’t give 

a damn for your ideas! I don’t give a damn for government 

and politics and all that! What I want is better treatment for 

the miners. I worked below ground for twenty years, and I 

sweated so much with poverty and fatigue that I swore I 

would try to make things easier for the poor buggers I left 

down there; and I can feel it in my bones, you’re not going to 

get anywhere with all this performance, you’re going to make 

the condition of the workers even more wretched ... When 

they’re forced by hunger to go back to work, the Company will 

lay it on even thicker, it’ll reward them by beating them black 

and blue, sending them running back like dogs that have 

escaped from their kennels!’ 

He raised his voice, and stood his ground squarely, with his 

stout legs and imposing stomach. And all of his patience and 

good sense poured forth in an untroubled flow of effortlessly 

clear declarations. Wasn’t it foolish to believe that you could 

change the world at a stroke, put the workers in charge of the 

Germinal 

238 

bosses, and share out the money like an apple? You would 

need thousands and thousands of years even if it ever did come 

to pass. So you could stop pestering him with your miracles! 

The most sensible thing to do, if you didn’t want to come a 

cropper, was to behave yourself, make realistic claims, in fact 

improve the workers’ conditions at every possible opportunity. 

That’s what he would do, if he was in charge, he’d make the 

Company improve conditions; instead of which, damn and 

blast it, they would all end up dead if they were so stubborn. 

Etienne had let him talk on, his indignation preventing him 

from replying. Then he cried out: 

‘Great heavens! Haven’t you a drop of blood in your veins?’ 

For a moment, he felt like hitting him; and to resist the 

temptation, he strode violently across the hall, venting his fury 

on the benches, which he kicked aside as he made his way 

forward. 

‘You might at least close the door,’ Souvarine remarked. 

‘We don’t want everyone to hear us.’ 

After he had gone to close the door himself, he sat down 

calmly on one of the chairs on the stage. He had rolled a 

cigarette, and he looked at the other two with his soft, critical 

air, and his lips curled in a knowing smile. 

‘When you get angry, we get nowhere,’ Rasseneur replied 

judiciously. ‘I thought at first that you were a man of good 

sense. It was fine to advise your comrades to keep quiet, to 

force them to stay at home, and to use your influence over 

them to make sure they behaved within the law. And now you 

want to throw them to the wolves!’ 

After each foray through the benches, Etienne kept coming 

back up to the publican, seizing him by the shoulders, and 

shaking him, shouting his replies into his face. 

‘But by all that’s holy! I do want to keep the peace. Yes, I 

did impose discipline! And, yes, I am still advising them to 

stay at home! But in the end we mustn’t allow people to make 

fools of us! You enjoy staying cool, don’t you, but I don’t, 

there are times when I feel that my head’s going to burst.’ 

Now Etienne made his own confession. He mocked his 

novice’s illusions, and his religious dreams of a compassionate 

society where justice would triumph and all men would be 

Part IV 

239 

brothers. But if you were just going to fold your arms and sit 

back and wait, then you could stay there till the end of the 

world and man would still be eating man, like a pack of 

wolves. No! You had to do something about it, otherwise 

injustice would be eternal, the rich would go on sucking the 

blood of the poor for ever. So he couldn’t excuse himself for 

the stupidity of having said previously that politics should be 

kept out of social problems. He was ignorant then, and since 

then he had read books, and studied. Now his ideas had 

matured, he was proud to say that he could think systemati¬ 

cally. But he didn’t explain it very well, for his arguments 

were full of the confused remnants of a number of theories* 

that he had successively worked through and abandoned. 

Looming largest was still Karl Marx’s idea that capital had 

been acquired through theft, that it was the right and duty of 

labour to win back this stolen wealth. As for the practical 

means, he had at first followed Proudhon in believing in the 

mirage of mutual credit, of a vast bank of exchange, which 

would cut out all middle men; then, at a later stage, Lassalle’s 

co-operative societies, funded by the State, gradually transform¬ 

ing the planet into one great industrial city, had fascinated 

him, until the day when he had felt disillusioned, realizing the 

difficulty of keeping control of such a creation; and latterly he 

had come to adopt collectivization, requiring all the instru¬ 

ments of production to be owned by the community. But it all 

remained vague, he had no idea how to put this new idea into 

practice, inhibited as he was by rational and emotional scruples, 

not daring to support the extreme claims of the most sectarian 

believers. He would go so far as to say that the workers should 

take charge of the government of the country, first of all. Then 

afterwards, they would have to see how things turned out. 

‘But what’s got into you.? Why are you defending the 

bourgeoisie.?’ he added violently, returning to stand right in 

front of the publican. ‘You used to say it yourself, before: it 

just can’t last, something’s got to give!’ 

Rasseneur flushed slightly. 

‘Yes, I did say so. And if something does happen, you know 

that I won’t be afraid to come forward ... But what I do object 

to is increasing the chaos to better your personal position.’ 

Germinal 

240 

Now it was Etienne’s turn to flush. The two men had 

stopped shouting; they had turned bitter and spiteful, feeling 

cold and hostile as their rivalry was revealed. That was the 

fundamental reason behind the exaggerated difference between 

the systems they expounded, throwing one into revolutionary 

excess and forcing the other into an affectation of prudence, so 

that they both tended to get transported in spite of themselves 

to extremes which did not represent their true convictions, as 

they found themselves caught up in the fatal logic of the roles 

which they had found thrust upon them. And as he listened to 

them, Souvarine’s pale, effeminate face betrayed a silent con¬ 

tempt, the crushing contempt of a man ready to pay with his 

life, in total obscurity, without even the compensation of 

recognition as a martyr. 

‘You wouldn’t mean me, by any chance.^’ asked Etienne. 

‘Are you jealous.?’ 

‘Jealous of what,?’ asked Rasseneur. ‘I don’t claim to be a 

great man. I’m not trying to found a branch of the International 

at Montsou so that I can become its secretary.’ 

His opponent tried to interrupt him, but he continued: 

‘Why don’t you admit it? You don’t care a damn about the 

International, you’re just itching to take charge, so that you 

can live like a lord corresponding away with the famous 

Federal Council for the Nord Department!’ 

For a while silence reigned. Then Etienne replied, still 

trembling: 

‘All right ... I thought I was doing everything the proper 

way. I always consulted you, because I knew that you had 

been involved in the struggle here, long before me. But, since 

you can’t bear to work with someone else. I’ll work on my own 

from now on .. . And first of all I’m warning you that the 

meeting will take place, even if Pluchart doesn’t come, and 

that our comrades will join whether you like it or not.’ 

‘Oh, will they?’ muttered the publican. ‘It’s not as easy 

as all that .. . First you’ve got to get them to pay the 

subscription.’ 

‘That’s not true. The International allows striking workers 

to wait. We’ll pay later, but they’ll come to our assistance 

straight away.’ 

Part IV 

241 

That made Rasseneur see red. 

‘All right then, weMl see .. . Pm coming to your meeting 

myself, and I shall speak. You can count on me, Pm not going 

to let you confuse my friends, Pll explain where their true 

interests lie. We’ll see whether they prefer to follow me, whom 

they’ve known for thirty years, or you, who’ve turned 

everything upside down round here in less than one ... No, 

Pve had enough! To hell with you! It’s you or me now, a fight 

to the finish!’ 

And he went out, slamming the door behind him. The 

flowery streamers flapped against the ceiling, and the gilded 

coats of arms jumped away from the walls. Then the large hall 

relapsed into its previous state of peaceful torpor. 

Souvarine was still sitting at the table, smoking peacefully. 

After walking up and down for a moment in silence, Etienne 

felt the need to relieve his pent-up feelings. Was it his fault if 

people forsook that great layabout and followed him instead? 

And he denied trying to become popular, he didn’t even know 

how it had come about, how he had won the friendship of the 

villagers, the confidence of the miners, and the power that he 

now had over them. He was indignant at the accusation that he 

was trying to cause trouble in order to further his own 

ambitions, and thumped his chest, protesting his fraternal 

loyalty. 

Suddenly, stopping in front of Souvarine, he cried out: 

‘You know, if I thought I would cause a friend to spill a 

single drop of his blood, I’d run away to America tomorrow!’ 

The mechanic shrugged his shoulders, and a faint smile 

flickered over his lips again, 

‘Oh, blood,’ he muttered. ‘What difference does that make? 

It’s good for the soil.’ 

Etienne calmed down, took a chair, and sat down at the 

other side of the table, cupping his chin in his hands. This 

pale face, whose dreamy eyes were sometimes lit by a fierce 

and fiery gleam, worried him, and exercised a strange influence 

on his will-power. Without his comrade needing to speak, he 

was persuaded by his very silence, feeling himself gradually 

won over. 

‘Look,’ he asked, ‘what would you do in my place? Wasn’t I 

242 Germinal 

right to insist on positive action? ... Isn't it best if we join this 

Association?' 

Souvarine let a stream of smoke flow slowly from his lips; 

then he answered^ using his favourite term: 

‘A load of rubbish! But meanwhile, it's better than nothing 

. .. Besides, their International will be successful sooner than 

you think. He’s taking charge.' 

'Who do you mean?’ 

'The man himself!' 

He said this under his breath, with an air of religious 

fervour, looking toward the East. He was speaking of the 

master, of Bakunin* the exterminating angel. 

‘He’s the only man who can deliver the sledgehammer blow 

we need to get things moving,’ he continued, ‘while all your 

intellectuals are cowards, waiting for things to evolve ... In 

three years’ time, under his command, the International should 

be able to overthrow the old world order.' 

Etienne listened very attentively. He ached to know more, 

to understand this cult of destruction, on whose subject the 

mechanic dropped only the darkest hints, as if he were keeping 

its mysteries for himself. 

‘But I wish you’d explain .. . What is your aim?’ 

‘To destroy everything .,. No more nations, no more 

governments, no more property, no more God, and no more 

religion.’ 

‘Fair enough. But then what does that leave you with?’ 

‘With the primal, unstructured community, with a new 

world, and a new beginning to everything.’ 

‘And by what means? How are you going to set about it?’ 

‘By fire and the sword, and poison if need be. The bandit is 

the real hero, the popular avenger, the active revolutionary 

who despises phrases lifted from literature. What we need is a 

series of shattering terrorist attacks which will terrify the 

authorities and awaken the people.’ 

While he spoke, Souvarine took on a terrible appearance. 

He drew himself up ecstatically in his chair, a mystical light 

burning in his pale eyes, his delicate hands clenching the edge 

of the table as if they would throttle it. Gripped with fear, 

Etienne looked at him, thinking of the garbled stories which 

Part IV 

243 

had been passed on to him, of mines placed in the cellars of 

the Tsar’s palace, of police chiefs hunted down and torn to 

shreds with knives like wild boars, of his mistress, the only 

woman he had ever loved, hanged one rainy morning in 

Moscow* while, watching from the crowd, he embraced her 

with his eyes for the last time. 

‘No, surely not!’ murmured Etienne, sweeping these abomi¬ 

nable visions away with a vigorous wave of his arm, ‘we 

haven’t reached those extremes in our country. Murder and 

arson we will never accept! It’s monstrous, it’s unjust, all our 

comrades would rise up to strangle the guilty party.’ 

Apart from which, he still failed to understand. It wasn’t in 

his or his comrades’ nature to be attracted by this dismal 

dream of a whole world exterminated, razed to the ground like 

a field of rye. And afterwards, what would they do, how would 

the nations rise again? He demanded an answer. 

‘Tell me what your programme is. The rest of us want to 

know where we’re going.’ 

Then Souvarine concluded calmly, his gaze misty and 

unfocused: 

‘All arguments about the future are criminal, because they 

prevent sheer destruction, and obstruct the progress of the 

revolution.’ 

This made Etienne laugh, despite the cold shiver that the 

reply sent down his spine. In fact he admitted openly that 

there was some sense in these ideas, whose terrifying simplicity 

attracted him. However, it would make Rasseneur’s task too 

easy, if they retailed them unadulterated to their comrades. 

They had to think of practicalities. 

Widow Desir offered them lunch. They accepted and went 

into the bar, which was separated from the dance hall by a 

sliding partition during the week. When they had finished 

their omelettes and cheese, the mechanic wanted to leave, and, 

as Etienne tried to persuade him to stay, he said: 

‘What’s the point? You’d only be repeating the same use¬ 

less load of rubbish! ... I’ve heard enough of it already. 

Good-night.’ 

And he left, gentle and obstinate as ever, his cigarette still 

dangling from his lips. 

Germinal 

244 

Etienne’s anxiety mounted, ft was one o’clock, and it looked 

certain that Pluchart had not kept his word. Towards half-past 

one, the delegates started to arrive, and Etienne had to greet 

them, since he wanted to check who was coming in, for fear 

that the Company would be sending the usual spies. He 

examined each letter of invitation, scrutinized ail the faces; 

many of them, however, could be allowed in without a letter of 

invitation; as long as he recognized them the door would be 

opened. As two o’clock struck, he saw Rasseneur arrive, and 

calmly proceed to finish his pipe at the bar, chatting away in 

leisurely fashion. This insolent lack of concern made him even 

more nervous, especially since some of the audience had come 

just for fun, like Zacharie, Mouquet, and a few others too: 

they didn’t give a damn about the strike, they thought it was a 

great laugh to have nothing to do; and they had settled down 

at tables in the bar to spend their last few coins on a pint, 

cracking jokes and sneering at their more gullible comrades for 

their eagerness to receive a crashingly boring lecture. 

Another quarter of an hour went by. The audience started 

to become impatient. Then Etienne in desperation came to a 

decision. But just as he was about to enter the hall, Widow 

Desir, who had been hanging out of the window, cried out: 

‘Look, there he is, your gentleman’s arrived!’ 

And Pluchart it was. He arrived in a carriage drawn by a 

tired old nag. He jumped straight out on to the cobbles, a slim 

and rather sleek man, despite his somewhat large, square head, 

and wearing a fine black woollen frock coat over the Sunday 

best of a well-to-do working man. It was now five years since 

he had last wielded a spanner, and he had become very careful 

how he dressed, and especially how his hair was groomed. He 

was vainly proud of his success as a popular orator; but he still 

walked stiffly, and his nails, worn away by working with metal, 

had obstinately refused to grow again. He was an extremely 

active man, who tirelessly criss-crossed the countryside, trying 

to implant his ideas. 

‘Oh, I hope you’re not angry!’ he said, anticipating questions 

and reproaches. ‘Yesterday morning a lecture at Preuilly, then 

a meeting at Valen9ay in the evening. Today lunch at Marchi- 

ennes with Sauvagnat .. . Anyway, I did find a cab. I’m 

Part IV 

245 

exhausted, you can tell by my voice. But it doesn’t matter, I’ll 

speak all the same.’ 

He was just about to enter the Bon-Joyeux when he remem¬ 

bered something. 

‘Heavens above! I nearly forgot the cards! We’d have made 

right fools of ourselves!’ 

He went back to the cab, which the driver was putting away 

in the yard, and he drew a little black wooden case out of the 

luggage compartment, and tucked it under his arm. 

Etienne walked radiantly in his shadow, while Rasseneur, 

who was quite overcome, dared not hold out his hand, although 

Pluchart immediately grasped it and shook it, and mentioned 

his letter casually in passing: what a strange idea! Why 

shouldn’t they hold this meeting? You should always hold 

meetings, if you got the chance. Widow Desir offered him a 

drink, but he refused. No need! He never drank when he had 

to speak. And besides he was in a hurry because that evening 

he was hoping to go on to Joiselle, where he wanted to discuss 

things with Legoujeux. Then they all went through into the 

dance hall in a group. Maheu and Levaque, who had turned 

up late, followed the gentlemen in. And then the door was 

locked, so that they wouldn’t be disturbed, which remark led 

the hecklers to laugh even louder, and Zacharie shouted to 

Mouquet that anyone would think the whole damn village was 

bedding down for a right old orgy. 

There were nearly a hundred miners waiting on the benches, 

in the musty air of the hall, where the odour of the last dance 

still lingered in the tepid air. Whispered comments spread all 

round the room, and heads turned, while the newcomers sat 

down in the empty seats reserved for them. Everyone looked at 

the gentleman from Lille, whose black frock coat surprised his 

audience and made them feel ill at ease. 

But at Etienne’s suggestion they immediately set up a 

committee. He called out the names, and the others approved 

with raised hands. Pluchart was appointed chairman, then 

Maheu and Etienne himself were nominated as deputies. There 

was a scraping of chairs, as the committee members took their 

seats; and for a moment the chairman seemed to have disap¬ 

peared under the table, where he was depositing the case, 

Germinal 

246 

which he had been firmly holding on to until then. When he 

resurfaced, he rapped lightly on the table with his knuckles to 

command attention; then he started speaking, with his hoarse 

voice: 

‘Citizens. . 

A side-door opened, which made him stop speaking. It was 

Widow Desir, who had gone round through the kitchen to get 

in, bringing six beer mugs on a tray. 

‘No need to move,' she murmured. ‘Talking is thirsty 

work.’ 

Maheu took the tray and Pluchart was able to continue. He 

said how touched he was by the friendly welcome extended to 

him by the miners of Montsou, and he apologized for his late 

arrival, mentioning his tiredness and his sore throat. Then he 

granted citizen Rasseneur’s request to speak. 

Rasseneur had already taken up his position beside the 

table, near the mugs. He stood up on a chair which had been 

turned round to serve as a rostrum. He seemed very emotional, 

and coughed before he launched out in full voice: 

‘Comrades.. 

The source of his influence over the pit workers was his 

eloquence, the casual ease with which he was able to talk to 

them for hours without ever getting tired. He never ventured 

the slightest gesture, but would stand motionless and smiling, 

deafening and drowning them with words, until they all cried 

out, ‘Yes, of course, you’re right!’ And yet, today, as soon as 

he started to speak he sensed a covert resistance. So he 

proceeded cautiously. He dealt only with the continuation of 

the strike, waiting to attract their applause, before confronting 

the question of the International. Certainly, their honour 

required them to reject the demands of the Company; but 

what suffering this entailed! What a terrible future was in store 

for them if they had to hold out much longer. And, without 

actually proposing that they abandon the strike, he sapped 

their resolve, describing the villages dying of hunger, and 

wondering what unsuspected resources the partisans of resist¬ 

ance were counting on. Three or four friends started to 

applaud, but this only underlined the cold impassivity of the 

majority and their mounting irritation as he persisted in his 

Part IV 

247 

argument. Then, when he felt it was hopeless trying to win 

them over, he gave way to his anger, and predicted all sorts of 

misfortune if they allowed themselves to be swept into provoca¬ 

tive action at the instigation of outsiders. 

Two-thirds of the audience had risen to their feet in anger, 

trying to stop him continuing, because they felt he was insult¬ 

ing them by treating them as if they were badly behaved 

children. But Rasseneur stood his ground, took regular swigs 

of his beer, and kept on talking regardless of the surrounding 

uproar, crying violently that no man alive, he was sure, would 

be able to stop him doing his duty! 

Pluchart had stood up. As he had no bell, he banged on the 

table with his fist, repeating in his hoarse voice: 

‘Citizens .. . citizens . . 

At last he obtained a measure of calm, and the meeting 

voted to terminate Rasseneur’s address. The delegates who 

had represented the pits in the interview with the manager led 

on the others, who were equally goaded by hunger and eager 

for new ideas. The vote was a foregone conclusion. 

‘You don’t give a damn, do you.^ You’ve got plenty to eat!’ 

screamed Levaque, shaking his fist at Rasseneur. 

Etienne had leaned over behind the president to pacify 

Maheu, who had gone very red, furious as he was at such a 

hypocritical speech. 

‘Citizens,’ said Pluchart, ‘I beg you to allow me to speak.’ 

There was a complete silence. Then he spoke. His voice 

emerged awkwardly and hoarsely, but he knew how to deal 

with it, he was constantly on the road, and his laryngitis was 

part of his agenda. After a while he started forcing his voice 

and exploiting it for its pathos. Opening his arms wide and 

letting his shoulders sway in time to his rhythmical prose, he 

preached a kind of rhetorical sermon, with an almost religious 

delivery, allowing his sentences to die away in a subdued echo 

which seemed to lend them all the more authority. 

He focused his speech on the greatness and the benefits of 

the International, which had always been his introductory ploy 

when he had to speak in a new place. He explained its aim, the 

emancipation of the workers; then he explained its impressive 

structure, from the village at the base and the region higher 

Germinal 

248 

up, to the nation still higher, and the whole of humanity as its 

summit. His arms rose progressively, building up the layers, 

constructing the great cathedral of the world of the future. 

Then there was its internal structure: he read out the statutes, 

spoke of the congresses, explaining the growing importance of 

their activities and the expansion of their programme, which at 

first had merely argued for higher wages but had now moved 

on to tackle the dissolution of society in order to put an end to 

the whole class of hired labour. There would be no more 

nationalities, and the workers of the whole world would be 

united in the common cause of justice, sweeping away the 

corrupt bourgeoisie and finally founding a free society where 

anyone who didn’t work would receive nothing! His voice 

roared and vibrated, and the paper flowers up on the low 

smoky ceiling danced nervously to the booming echoes of his 

words. 

The faces of his audience seemed to be swept by a tide of 

emotion. Voices shouted: 

‘That’s right!. .. Count us ini’ 

But he continued speaking. They would conquer the world 

within three years. And he listed the nations that were already 

being won over. People were queueing up on all sides asking to 

join. No new religion had ever won such a following. Then 

when they were the masters they would rewrite the laws and it 

would be their old masters who would feel their hands at their 

throats. 

‘Yes! Right!... It’s their turn now, send them down!’ 

He motioned for silence. Now he came on to the question of 

strikes. In principle he disapproved, they were too slow an 

instrument, and they tended to make the suffering of the 

workers even worse. But until they could find something 

better, when they became inevitable, you had to make up your 

mind to use them, for they did have the advantage of undermin¬ 

ing the capitalist order. And this being the case, he explained 

how the International was providential for the strikers, quoting 

examples: in Paris, when the bronzeworkers had struck, their 

bosses had caved in to all of their demands, terrified at the 

news that the International was flying to their help; in London, 

they had saved the miners at one colliery, by repatriating at 

Part IV 

249 

their expense a convoy of Belgian workers who had been 

drafted in by the owner of the mine. You only needed to 

become a member, to make the companies tremble, now that 

the workers were organizing themselves into a great army of 

labour, and determined to die for each other, rather than 

remain the slaves of capitalist society. 

He was interrupted by a round of applause. He mopped his 

brow with his handkerchief, but refused the mug of beer that 

Maheu offered him. When he tried to start speaking again, he 

was interrupted by renewed applause. 

‘That’s itl’ he said quickly to Etienne. ‘They’re ready for it 

. .. Qiiick! the cards!’ 

He had dived under the table, and reappeared with his little 

black wooden case. 

‘Citizens,’ he shouted, making himself heard above the din, 

‘here are the membership cards. Let the delegates through and 

I’ll give them the cards to distribute .. . then we’ll settle all 

the other details afterwards.’ 

Rasseneur leapt up and started protesting again. Etienne for 

his part was getting nervous, because he was supposed to make 

a speech. There was a state of considerable confusion. Levaque 

was waving his fists as if he were about to start a fight. Maheu 

was standing up and speaking, but it was impossible to make 

out a word of what he was saying. As the agitation increased, 

the dust rose up from the floorboards, the fine dust of former 

dances, turning the air sour with the powerful odour of the 

tram girls and the pit boys. 

Suddenly the side-door opened, and Widow Desir planted 

her stomach and bosom in the doorway and bellowed 

thunderously.: 

‘Shut up for Christ’s sake!... The gendarmes are here!’ 

It was the local superintendent who had arrived, rather late 

in the day, to close down the meeting and make a report. He 

was accompanied by four gendarmes. For five minutes the 

widow had been keeping them busy at the door, telling them 

that she had a right to do what she liked on her own premises, 

that there was nothing wrong in entertaining a few friends. 

But then they brushed her aside, so she ran in to warn her 

‘children’. 

250 

Germinal 

‘You must go out this way,’ she continued. ‘There’s a 

bloody gendarme guarding the courtyard. Never mind, my 

little woodstore gives on to the alleyway ... Get a move on, 

there!’ 

The superintendent was already beating on the door with 

his fist; and as nobody opened up to let him in, he threatened 

to break it down. An informer must have been at work, for he 

shouted that the meeting was illegal, because there were a 

number of miners there without invitations. 

In the hall the confusion mounted. They couldn’t just run 

off like that, they hadn’t even voted, either on joining the 

International or on continuing the strike. Everyone wanted to 

talk at once. Finally the chairman hit on the idea of a vote by 

popular acclaim. Arms were raised, and the delegates declared 

hastily that they requested membership on behalf of their 

absent comrades. And in this way the 10,000 colliers of Mont- 

sou became members of the International. 

Meanwhile, however, the rout had commenced. Widow 

Desir was protecting their retreat by leaning her back against 

the door, which the gendarmes were battering away at with the 

butts of their rifles. The miners leapt over the benches, 

running out through the kitchen and the woodstore one after 

the other. Rasseneur was one of the first to escape, followed by 

Levaque, forgiving him his offence in the hope of being stood 

a drink to help him recover. Etienne went and salvaged the 

little case, and then waited with Pluchart and Maheu, who 

made it a point of honour to be last out. Just as they were on 

their way out, the lock burst, and the superintendent found 

himself faced with the last barricade, Widow Desir’s bosom 

and stomach. 

‘Now what’s the point in breaking my house down.?’ she 

asked. ‘You can see there’s nobody here.’ 

The superintendent, who was a stolid man, with no taste for 

drama, merely threatened to take her to prison. He took 

himself and his four gendarmes off to draw up his report, 

accompanied by guffaws from Zacharie and Mouquet, who 

were so delighted by the clever trick which their comrades had 

pulled off that they had lost all fear of the firepower of the law. 

Outside in the alley Etienne, who was hampered by the 

Part IV 

251 

case, took to his heels, followed by the others. He suddenly 

thought of Pierron, and wondered why he hadn’t seen him; 

and Maheu, still running, replied that he was ill: a diplomatic 

illness, for fear of compromising himself. They tried to get 

Pluchart to wait; but without stopping he declared that he had 

to leave immediately for Joiselle, where Legoujeux was waiting 

for instructions. So they shouted ‘bon voyage’ but kept on 

running, showing the gendarmes their heels as they all cantered 

through Montsou. They exchanged a few words whenever 

they could catch their breath. Etienne and Maheu were laugh¬ 

ing with excitement, certain now of their triumph: once the 

International sent help, it would be the Company’s turn to beg 

them to go back to work. And, as their galloping boots rang 

out along the cobbled road, another feeling mingled with the 

hope that surged up in their breasts, something bitter and 

fierce, a violence which the wind blew feverishly into the 

villages in every corner of the region. 

CHAPTER V 

Another fortnight went by. It was the beginning of January, 

with a cold mist blanketing the vast plain. The poverty and 

suffering had grown worse, the villages were getting hourly 

closer to their end, with the mounting famine. Four thousand 

francs sent from London by the International had given them 

no more than three days’ bread. Then they had received 

nothing more. The death of this great hope dampened their 

spirits. Who could they count on, now that their own brothers 

had abandoned them? They felt lost amid the depths of 

winter, cut off from the world outside. 

By Tuesday, village Two Hundred and Forty had no provi¬ 

sions left. Etienne and the delegates had left no stone unturned: 

they canvassed for new subscriptions in the neighbouring 

towns, and even as far away as Paris; they made collections, 

organized lectures. Most of these efforts came to nothing, for 

public opinion, which had at first been stirred, relapsed into 

indifference as the strike dragged on tediously, with no exciting 

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dramatic incidents. The meagre charitable offerings which 

were donated were hardly enough to keep the poorest families 

alive. The others survived by pawning clothes, and selling off 

utensils and furnishings piece by piece to the flea market. 

Everything disappeared, the woollen stuffing from the mat¬ 

tresses, the pots and pans from the kitchen, even the furniture. 

For a brief period they thought they were saved: the small 

shopkeepers of Montsou, who had been put out of business by 

Maigrat, had offered credit to try to win back their customers 

from him; and, for a week, Verdonck the grocer, and the two 

bakers, Carouble and Smelten, did keep open shop; but their 

own financial reserves ran out, and all three had to stop. The 

bailiffs rubbed their hands gleefully, for the net result was a 

mountain of debts which would weigh long and heavy on the 

miners. There was no more credit to be had anywhere, not so 

much as one old saucepan left to sell, they might as well lie 

down and die in a corner like a pack of mangy dogs. 

Etienne would have sold his own flesh. He had had to give 

up his income from fees; he had gone to Marchiennes to pawn 

his best trousers and his frock coat, happy to keep the Maheus’ 

cooking pot simmering a little longer. The only thing he kept 

was his pair of boots, he kept them to make sure that he looked 

after his feet, he said. He despaired at the idea that the strike 

had started too soon, before they had had time to build up the 

provident fund. He saw this as the sole cause of the disaster, 

for the workers would surely triumph over the bosses one day, 

when they had saved enough money to put up an effective 

resistance. And he recalled Souvarine’s words, accusing the 

Company of encouraging the strike in order to wipe out the 

first reserves accumulated by the fund. 

When he looked around the village, where the poor people had 

no bread to eat and no fire to light, he was shaken. He preferred to 

go out, and tire himself by taking long walks. One evening when 

he was coming back home, walking past Requillart, he noticed an 

old woman who had collapsed by the roadside. Doubtless she was 

dying of starvation; and after he had picked her up, he started to 

call out to a girl that he saw on the other side of the fence. 

‘Hey there, hallo!’ he said, recognizing La Mouquette. 

‘Come here and help, we’ve got to get her to drink something.’ 

Part IV 

253 

La Mouquette, moved to tears, went quickly inside, into the 

tumbledown shack that her father had set up amid the ruins of 

the old pit-head. She came straight back out with some bread 

and gin. The gin brought the old woman round and she 

started to eat the bread greedily without saying a word. She 

was a miner’s mother from a village near Cougny, and she had 

fallen here on her way back from Joiselle, where she had tried 

in vain to borrow ten sous from one of her sisters. When she 

had eaten, she went off, still dazed. 

Etienne had stayed outside waiting on the waste ground, 

where the ruined sheds of the old Requillart mine could just 

be glimpsed through the brambles. 

‘Well then, aren’t you going to come in for a little drink.^’ 

La Mouquette asked him, cheerfully. 

And, as he hesitated, she added: 

‘So you’re still scared of me, are you.^’ 

He followed her, won over by her laughter. He was moved 

by her generous gesture in giving the old lady her bread. She 

didn’t want to take him into her father’s room, so she took him 

into her own instead, where she immediately poured out two 

little glasses of gin. Her room was very clean, and he compli¬ 

mented her on it. Moreover the family didn’t seem to be in 

need of anything: the father was still working as a stableman at 

Le Voreux; and in order to keep herself busy she had taken a 

job as a laundress, which brought in thirty sous a day. Just 

because you enjoy fooling around with men, that doesn’t mean 

you’re bone idle. 

‘Look,’ she murmured suddenly, coming up to him and 

putting her arm round him gently, ‘why don’t you want to 

love me.^’ 

Now it was his turn to laugh, for she had come out with it 

so sweetly and innocently. 

‘But I do like you, a lot,’ he replied. 

‘No, that’s not what I mean ... You know I want to, ever 

so badly. Why not.^ It would be so nice for me!’ 

It was true that she had been after him for six months. He 

watched as she clung to him, wrapping her trembling arms 

round him, raising her face in such a plea for love that he was 

very moved. Her plump, round face had nothing beautiful 

254 

Germinal 

about it^ and her complexion was sallow and mottled with 

coal-dust; but such a flame burnt in her eyes that her whole 

body radiated charm and urgent desire, making her seem 

young and fresh and pink. And in the end, faced with this 

humble, ardent offering, he dared no longer refuse. 

‘Oh! you do like me,’ she stammered, in ecstasy. ‘Oh! you 

do like me!’ 

And she gave herself to him, awkwardly, swooningly, as if 

she were a virgin making love for the first time, with the first 

man she had ever known. Then, when he left her, it was she 

who rushed to express her gratitude: she said thank you, she 

kissed his hands. 

Etienne felt a bit ashamed at this sudden windfall. You 

could hardly be proud of gaining La Mouquette’s favours. As 

he left, he swore to himself that he wouldn’t do it again. And 

yet, thinking back on it, he felt kindly towards her, she was a 

good girl. 

And besides, when he got back to the village, the grave news 

which he heard made him forget his escapade. The rumour 

was abroad that the Company might perhaps agree to make 

concessions, if the delegates made a new approach to the 

manager. At any rate, the deputies had spread this rumour. 

The truth was that, as the bitter struggle dragged on, the 

mines were suffering even more than the miners. The stubborn¬ 

ness of both sides was leading them to ruin: while the workers 

were dying of hunger, the owners were watching their capital 

bleed away. Every day of lost production cost them hundreds 

of thousands of francs. An idle machine is a dead machine. 

The plant and fittings deteriorated, the starved bank balances 

started to crumble away like sand dunes in the wind. As soon 

as the meagre stock of coal at the pit-heads had been used up, 

their customers warned that they would have to seek provision 

from Belgium; and that boded ill for the future. But what 

frightened the Company most, although it took pains to hide 

it, was the increasing damage to the tunnels and the coal-faces. 

The deputies couldn’t keep up with the repairs, the props 

were breaking up all over the place, there were rock falls 

almost by the hour. Soon the disaster seemed of such a scale 

that it would require long months of repair before any coal 

Part IV 

255 

could be cut again. Already stories were getting around: at 

Crevec(Eur 300 metres of tunnel had collapsed at once, block¬ 

ing access to the Cinq-Paumes seam; at Madeleine, the Maugre- 

tout seam had started splitting and filling up with water. The 

management refused to acknowledge these problems until two 

new accidents occurring one after the other suddenly forced 

them to admit what was happening. One morning, near La 

Piolaine, the ground started to split above the northern section 

of Mirou, where there had been a rock fall the day before; and 

the following day there was a collapse inside Le Voreux which 

rocked a whole street in the village so severely that two houses 

were nearly reduced to rubble. 

Etienne and the delegates were reluctant to risk a new 

approach without knowing the intentions of the Board. 

Dansaert, when they asked his advice, was evasive: it was true 

that they sincerely regretted the misunderstanding, they would 

do everything in their power to come to an agreement; but he 

wouldn’t give any details. In the end they decided that they 

should go round to see Monsieur Hennebeau, so that they 

wouldn’t be in the wrong if anyone tried later on to accuse 

them of depriving the Company of its chance to admit its 

shortcomings. Nevertheless, they swore that they would make 

no concessions, that they would stick to their demands come 

what may, since theirs were the only Just terms. 

The meeting took place on the Tuesday morning, the day 

when the village had reached the depths of deprivation. It was 

less cordial than the earlier one. Maheu spoke again, explaining 

that his comrades had sent him to ask whether these gentlemen 

had anything new to say to them. At first Monsieur Hennebeau 

affected surprise: he had received no orders, nothing could 

change as long as the miners persisted with their scurrilous 

rebellion; and his stiff authoritarian stance produced the most 

regrettable effect, so much so that, if the delegates had come 

with conciliatory intentions, the manner of their reception 

would have been enough to stiffen their resistance. Then the 

manager said he was willing to find grounds for mutual 

concessions: so if the workers would agree to the timbering 

being paid for separately, the Company would add two cent¬ 

imes to the payment, to avoid the accusation of profiteering. 

Germinal 

256 

Moreover, he added that he was taking the initiative of this 

offer himself, that nothing had been decided, and that he 

thought he could safely say that he could extract this concession 

from headquarters in Paris, But the delegates refused and 

repeated their demands: maintaining the existing system, but 

with a rise of five centimes per tub. So he then admitted that if 

they accepted his offer he was empowered to ratify it immedi¬ 

ately, and he urged them to accept, for the sake of their wives 

and children who were dying of hunger. They still looked at 

the ground, stubbornly refusing to budge, and they said no, 

repeatedly, shaking with emotion. 

They parted brusquely. Monsieur Hennebeau slammed the 

doors behind them, Etienne, Maheu, and the others went 

away, their heavy boots striking the cobbles with the silent 

rage of victims who had reached the end of their tether. 

Towards two o’clock, the women from the village mounted 

their own delegation, to see Maigrat, The only hope they had 

left was to soften this man, to wrench another week’s credit 

from him. It was La Maheude’s idea, with her incurable belief 

in people’s good nature. She persuaded Ma Brule and La 

Levaque to go with her; as for La Pierronne, she excused 

herself on the grounds that she couldn’t leave Pierron, whose 

illness still hadn’t cleared up. Other women joined the group, 

until there were nearly twenty of them. When the bourgeois of 

Montsou saw their dark and wretched forms looming up, 

straggling right across the road, they shook their heads 

anxiously. Doors were smartly closed, and one lady hid her 

silver. This was the first time they had been known to make 

such a direct approach, and nothing could have been a worse 

omen: it usually meant that things were going to the dogs 

when the women took to the streets in groups like that. At 

Maigrat’s there was a violent scene. At first he let them in with 

a malicious laugh, pretending to believe that they had come to 

pay off their debts: how nice of them to get together and bring 

him the money they owed all at once. Then as soon as La 

Maheude had started speaking, he pretended to lose his temper. 

What did they take him for? More credit? Did they want to 

force him out on the streets to beg? No, not one single potato, 

not the tiniest crumb of bread! And he advised them to go 

Part IV 

^S1 

back to Verdonck the grocer and Carouble and Smelten the 

bakers, since that was where they did their shopping nowadays. 

The women looked humble and intimidated as they listened to 

him, making their apologies, while watching his eyes to see if 

he would relent. He started cracking jokes, offering the whole 

shop to old Ma Brule if she would take him for a sweetheart. 

They were all so lacking in courage that they merely laughed; 

and La Levaque even took him up on the offer, saying that she 

herself was quite prepared to go along with his wishes. But he 

immediately became coarse again, and thrust them out through 

the doorway. As they were reluctant to leave, and kept pleading 

their case, he manhandled one of them. The others, out on the 

pavement, called him a scab, while La Maheude, raising her 

arms in the air in a rush of vengeful indignation, cried a plague 

on him, such a man didn’t deserve to live. 

They returned lugubriously to the village. When they saw 

their wives return empty-handed, the men lowered their eyes. 

It was over, the day would close without even a spoonful of 

soup; and more days stretched out their icy shadows in front 

of them, without the slightest glimmer of hope. But they had 

gone into this willingly, and no one was prepared to give in. 

This surfeit of misery made them even more stubborn and 

silent, like hunted animals, resolved to die at the bottom of 

their lair rather than emerge. Who would have dared be the 

first to talk of surrender.^ Everyone had sworn with his com¬ 

rades that they would ail stand firm to the last, and stand firm 

they would, ju.st as they stood firm at the pit when someone 

was buried under a rock fall. It was hardly surprising, for they 

had been so well trained to resign themselves: it was easy 

enough to tighten your belt for a week when you had been 

swallowing fire and water since the age of twelve; and their 

loyalty was thus augmented by a kind of soldierly dignity, 

showing pride in their profession, having come to feel that 

there was a sacrificial glory in their daily struggle with death. 

At the Maheus’ it was a dreadful evening. They ail sat 

silently around the dying fire where the last cake of scavenged 

cinders was smoking away. After emptying the mattress hand¬ 

ful by handful they had decided two days earlier to sell the 

cuckoo clock for three francs; and the room seemed dead and 

Germinal 

258 

empty now that it no longer echoed to the sound of its familiar 

ticking. The only luxury item left now was the pink cardboard 

box on the middle of the sideboard; an old present from 

Maheu which La Maheude treasured as if it were made of 

precious metal. Since the two good chairs had gone, old 

Bonnemort and the children huddled together on a mouldy old 

bench which they had brought in from the garden. And the 

livid twilight as it fell seemed to increase the cold. 

‘What can we do?’ La Maheude kept repeating, as she 

huddled up close to the stove. 

Etienne remained standing, looking at the portraits of the 

Emperor and the Empress, which were still pinned to the wall. 

He would have liked to tear them down long ago, if the family 

hadn’t forbidden him, in order to keep some decoration. And 

so he muttered between his teeth: 

‘To think that we won’t get two sous from those layabouts 

stuck up there watching us starve to death!’ 

‘What if I took the box?’ ventured La Maheude, after 

hesitating a moment, and turning pale. 

Maheu, who had been sitting on the edge of the table with 

his head on his chest and his legs dangling, suddenly sat bolt 

upright. 

‘No, I won’t hear of it!’ 

La Maheude got up painfully and walked round the room. 

How in God’s name could they have been reduced to such 

wretchedness! Not a crumb in the cupboard, nothing left to 

sell, nobody had any idea how to get even a loaf of bread! And 

the fire was about to go out! She flew at Alzire, who had been 

sent that morning to the slag-heap and had come back empty- 

handed, saying that the Company had banned any scavenging. 

Did they care a damn about the Company? As if you were 

stealing something if you picked up the pieces of waste coal! 

The little girl sounded desperate as she told how a man had 

threatened to hit her; but she promised to go back the next day 

even if he did hit her. 

‘And that scoundrel Jeanlin?’ cried his mother. ‘Where’s he 

got to now, I ask you? ... He was supposed to be fetching 

some leaves: we could at least have had something to chew on, 

like animals! You see, he won’t come home tonight. He spent 

Part IV 

259 

last night out. I don’t know what he’s up to but the ruffian 

always seems to have a full stomach.’ 

‘Perhaps’, said Etienne, ‘he picks up some money by the 

roadside.’ 

At this she brandished her fists furiously in the air. 

‘The thought of it! .. . My children begging! I’d rather kill 

them and myself straight away after.’ 

Maheu had slumped down against the edge of the table 

again. Lenore and Henri, who were dismayed that nobody was 

starting to eat, began to whine; while old Bonnemort silently 

and philosophically rolled his tongue around the inside of his 

mouth to cheat his hunger. Nobody spoke, as they all felt 

numbed by this aggravation of their suffering, the grandfather 

coughing and spitting up black phlegm, and seized by fresh 

attacks of his rheumatism, which was turning to dropsy; the 

father asthmatic, his knees swollen with water, the mother and 

the children eaten away by hereditary scrofula and anaemia. 

No doubt it went with the job: they only complained about it 

when they started to die from lack of food; and already people 

were dropping like flies in the village. Yet they had to find 

something for supper. What could they do and where could 

they go, for heaven’s sake.^ 

Then, in the twilight whose dismal gloom made the room 

increasingly darker, Etienne, who had been hesitating for a 

moment, came to a heart-rending decision. 

‘Wait for me,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go out for a moment.’ 

And he left. He had thought of La Mouquette. She was 

bound to have a loaf of bread, and would be pleased to give 

them it. He was annoyed at having to return to Requillart: the 

girl would kiss his hands with her servile and amorous airs; 

but you couldn’t let down friends in need, he’d be kind to her 

again, if he had to. 

‘I’ll go out and ask around, too,’ said La Maheude. ‘It’s too 

crazy.’ 

She opened the door which the young man had just closed, 

and she slammed it violently behind her, leaving the others 

dumb and motionless, in the wan light of a candle end which 

Alzire had just lit. Outside she stopped short, struck by a 

sudden thought. Then she went in to the Levaques’. 

26o Germinal 

‘Look, I lent you a loaf of bread the other day. How about 

giving me one back.’ 

But she stopped abruptly; what she saw was hardly encourag¬ 

ing, and the house reeked of poverty even more than hers. 

La Levaque was staring blankly at their cold fireplace, while 

Levaque, who had been out drinking with some nailsmiths on 

an empty stomach, was slumped over the table asleep. Boute- 

loup was leaning back rubbing his shoulders mechanically 

against the wall, with the surprised look of the easygoing 

fellow whose savings have been pillaged and who is shocked at 

having to tighten his belt. 

‘A loaf of bread, oh, dear me,’ La Levaque replied, ‘I was 

just thinking of asking you for one myself’ 

Then, as her husband groaned painfully in his sleep, she 

pushed his face down on to the table. 

‘Shut up, you pig! Serves you right if it rots your guts! ... 

Instead of getting people to stand you drinks, couldn’t you 

have asked one of your friends to give you twenty sous.^’ 

She went on swearing to relieve her feelings, amid the filth 

of the house, already abandoned for so long that an unbearable 

smell wafted up from the floor. Everything could go hang, she 

didn’t care a stuff! Her son, that little beggar Bebert, hadn’t 

shown his face since the morning, and she shouted that she’d 

be well rid of him if he never came home again. Then she said 

she was going to bed. At least she’d be warm there. She gave 

Bouteloup a shake. 

‘Look alive! Let’s go upstairs .. . the fire’s out, there’s no 

need to keep the candle alight just to look at the empty plates 

... Come on, move yourself, Louis, I said we’re going to bed. 

We can keep each other warm, we’ll feel better ,, . And let 

that drunken bastard die of cold down here on his own!’ 

When she was outside again, La Maheude cut straight 

across the gardens to go to the Pierrons’. She could hear 

laughter. She knocked, and there was a sudden silence. It was 

a full minute before they opened the door for her. 

‘Oh, so it’s you!’ cried La Pierronne, affecting complete 

surprise. ‘I thought it was the doctor.’ 

Without giving her time to reply, she continued, pointing at 

Pierron, who was sitting in front of a great coal fire. 

‘Oh, he’s not well at all, he’s still just as ill. His face looks 

well enough, but it’s eating away at his stomach. So he has to 

have the warmth, we’re burning everything we’ve got.’ 

Sure enough, Pierron did look sprightly, with his rosy 

complexion and his firm flesh. He tried ineffectually to wheeze 

as if he were ill. Besides, La Maheude had just caught a strong 

whiff of rabbit as she entered: it was obvious that they had 

hidden the dish. There were still some stray crumbs on the 

table; and right in the middle there was a bottle of wine they 

had forgotten to remove. 

‘Mum’s gone to Montsou to try to get a loaf of bread,’ La 

Pierronne continued. ‘We’re sitting here biting our nails wait¬ 

ing for her.’ 

But her voice died away into a croak as she followed her 

neighbour’s gaze and discovered the bottle. She pulled herself 

together straight away, and gave the reason: yes, it was wine, 

the bourgeois from La Piolaine had brought the bottle for her 

man, because the doctor had prescribed a cure of claret. And 

she couldn’t praise those fine people enough; especially the 

young lady, who wasn’t too proud to call on the workers and 

distribute her aims herself! 

‘I know,’ said La Maheude, ‘I know them.’ 

Her heart missed a beat at the thought that it’s always the 

least needy who attract help. You could count on it, those 

Piolaine people would have tried to top up the river with water 

from their well if they could. How had she missed them in the 

village.? Perhaps she might still have got something out of them. 

‘The reason I came’, she finally admitted, ‘was to see if you 

had better luck than us .. . Even if you just had a bit of 

vermicelli, we’d pay you back later.’ 

La Pierronne suddenly sounded desperate. 

‘Nothing at all, dear. Not the tiniest grain of semolina ... If 

Mum isn’t back it must be because she’s had no luck. We’ll 

have to go to bed hungry.’ 

At that moment there was the sound of crying in the cellar 

and she went to bang on the door. It was that slut Lydie that 

she’d locked up, she said, to punish her for not getting home 

until five o’clock, after wandering around all day. They 

couldn’t keep her under control, .she kept disappearing. 

262 

Germinal 

However, La Maheude remained rooted to the spot, unable 

to make up her mind to leave. The great fire filled her with 

hurtful pangs of warmth, and the thought of the meal they 

were enjoying carved a hole in her stomach. It was plain that 

they had dispatched the old girl and locked up the kid so that 

they could wolf down their rabbit on the sly. Oh, you could 

say what you liked, when a woman misbehaved it didn’t do her 

family any harm! 

‘Good-night,’ she said suddenly. 

Outside night had fallen, and from behind the clouds the 

moon shed a murky light on the ground. Instead of walking 

back across the gardens. La Maheude went the long way 

round, so miserable that she was unable to face going home. 

But as she walked past the dead terraces, starvation seeped 

from every door, and every knock rang hollow. What was the 

point in knocking.? It would just pile on the agony. After weeks 

of not eating, even the smell of onion had disappeared, that 

strong smell which betrayed the presence of the village from 

far across the countryside; now there was only a smell like that 

of ancient tombs, or musty caves where nothing living survives. 

The muffled sounds of stifled tears and stray oaths died away; 

and in the gradually thickening silence you could hear the 

sleep of hunger coming and the collapse of bodies as they 

slumped on to their beds, racked by the nightmares invoked 

by their empty bellies. 

As she passed by the church, she saw a shadow slip rapidly 

past. She hurried hopefully towards the vicar of Montsou, 

Father Joire, whom she had just recognized. He came on 

Sundays to say mass at the miners’ chapel: he must have just 

left the vestry, where he had gone to settle some business. He 

hurried by, keeping his eyes on the ground, a plump and 

friendly looking man, wishing to live in peace with all mankind. 

If he went about his business by night, it must be to avoid 

compromising himself by mingling with the miners. Besides, 

people said that he had just been offered promotion, and even 

that he had been walking around with his successor, a skinny 

priest with blazing red eyes. 

‘Father, Father,’ stammered La Maheude. 

But he did not stop. 

Part IV 

263 

'Good-evening, my good woman, good-evening.’ 

She found herself in front of her own house again. Her legs 

would carry her no further, so she went inside. 

Nobody had moved. Maheu was still slumped over the edge 

of the table. Old Bonnemort and the children were huddled 

together on the bench trying to keep each other warm. And 

nobody had spoken a word, only the candle had burnt down so 

low that soon they wouldn’t even have any light. When they 

heard the door the children turned their heads, but on seeing 

that their mother had returned empty-handed, they started 

staring at the floor again, choking back their strong urge to 

cry, for fear of being scolded. La Maheude slumped back into 

her seat again, near the dying fire. Nobody asked her any 

questions, the silence continued. They had ail understood, 

they thought there was no point in tiring themselves further 

by talking; and as they sat waiting, they felt crushed and 

depressed, waiting for their last chance, that Etienne might 

somehow come up with some help from somewhere. The 

minutes dragged by and became hours. In the end they gave 

up hope. 

When Etienne reappeared, he was carrying a dozen cold 

potatoes wrapped up in a cloth. 

‘This is all I could find,’ he said. 

La Mouquette hadn’t any bread either: and it was her own 

dinner that she had made into a bundle for him, kissing him 

passionately. 

‘No thanks,’ he said to La Maheude when she offered him 

his share. ‘I’ve already eaten.’ 

it wasn’t true, and he looked bleakly at the children as they 

wolfed down their food. Their father and mother also held 

back, in order to leave them more, but it was the old man who 

greedily swallowed all that was left. They had to take a potato 

back off him to give to Alzire. 

Then Etienne told them that he had had some news. The 

Company, angered by the obstinacy of the strikers, was talking 

of sacking the miners who were involved. That would surely 

mean war. And then there was an even more serious rumour: 

the Company boasted of persuading large numbers of men to 

go back to work: the next day. La Victoire and Feutry-Cantel 

Germinal 

264 

should be back to full strength; and even at Madeleine and 

Mirou they counted on a third of them going back. The 

Maheus were exasperated. 

‘My God!’ cried Maheu, Sf we find the traitors we must 

deal with them!’ 

And he stood up, carried away by his suffering, and cried: 

‘Tomorrow evening, in the forest! . . . Since they’ve already 

stopped us talking at the Bon-Joyeux, we’ll be more at home 

in the forest.’ 

His shouting had awakened old Bonnemort, who had fallen 

asleep after his gluttonous meal. It was the old rallying cry, the 

meeting-place for miners in olden days when they went off to 

plot resistance to the king’s men. 

‘Yes, let’s go, off to Vandame! Count me in!’ 

La Maheude shook her fists. 

‘We’ll all go. We’ll put an end to this injustice and 

treachery!’ 

Etienne decided that they would spread the word around all 

the mining villages to meet the next evening. But the fire was 

dead, as it had been at the Levaques’, and the candle suddenly 

went out. There was no coal left, and no oil, so they had to feel 

their way to bed in the dark and bitter cold which froze their 

bones. The children were crying. 

CHAPTER VI 

Jea.nlin was better now, and able to walk again; but his bones 

were so badly set that he limped with both legs, and he was 

quite a sight to behold, waddling like a duck, but still scuttling 

around as fast as ever, and still as cunning as a wicked, 

thieving fox. 

That evening, at twilight, Jeanlin was keeping watch on the 

road towards Requillart, accompanied by his faithful followers, 

Bebert and Lydie. He had laid an ambush on a patch of waste 

ground, behind a fence, opposite a tumbledown grocer’s which 

backed on to a fork in the road. An old woman who was almost 

blind was setting out three or four sacks of lentils and beans. 

Part IV 

265 

black with soot; and there was an ancient piece of dry cod, hung 

up in the doorway, streaked with fly dirt, which he was 

watching through narrowed eyes. He had already twice dis¬ 

patched Bebert to unhook it. But, each time, someone had 

appeared round the bend in the road. There’s always someone 

who gets in the way just when you’re ready to do business! 

A man on horseback appeared, and the children threw 

themselves down flat on the ground at the bottom of the fence 

when they recognized Monsieur Hennebeau. Since the begin¬ 

ning of the strike, he was often to be seen riding out along the 

highways and byways, travelling alone through the rebellious 

mining villages, calmly but courageously faring abroad to 

check up on the lie of the land. Nobody had ever thrown the 

least stone at his face, his only encounters were with taciturn 

men who were reluctant to greet him, and he mostly discovered 

courting couples who cared nothing for politics, and were busy 

taking their fill of pleasure in any odd corner. Trotting along 

on his mare, he passed by with his head held high, to avoid 

embarrassing anyone, his heart bursting with unsatisfied desires 

as he rode through this display of amorous debauchery. He 

saw the brats perfectly clearly, the boys piled up on top of the 

girls. Even the kids were joining in the fun in order to rub 

their sad bodies together! His eyes watered, and he disappeared, 

sitting bolt upright in the saddle, with his frock coat buttoned 

tightly like a military uniform. 

‘Hell’s bells!’ said Jeanlin. ‘Will it never end .. . Go, Bebert, 

go! Go for the tail!’ 

But this time two men came along, and the kid stifled an oath 

when he heard the voice of his brother Zacharie, who was in the 

process of telling Mouquet how he had found a forty-sou coin 

sewn into the hem of his wife’s skirt. They were both laughing 

heartily and slapping each other on the back. Mouquet thought 

it would be a fine idea to have a good old game of cross* the next 

day: they’d set out at two o’clock from the Avantage, and go 

down towards Montoire, near Marchiennes. Zacharie accepted. 

Why should people pester them with the strike.*^ Better to have a 

laugh since they couldn’t do any work anyway! And they were 

just turning the corner when Etienne, who was coming up from 

the canal, stopped them, and struck up a conversation. 

266 

Germinal 

‘Are they going to spend the night here?’ asked Jeanlin, 

exasperated. ‘It’s getting dark, and the old girl’s taking her 

sacks in.’ 

Another miner was walking down towards Requillart. 

Etienne walked away with him; and, as they passed by the 

fence, the boy heard them talking about the forest: they’d had 

to put the meeting off until the next day for fear of not being 

able to alert all the mining villages in one day. 

‘Look,’ Jeanlin murmured to his two comrades, ‘the balloon 

goes up tomorrow. Got to be there. Right? We’ll go in the 

afternoon.’ 

And now that the coast was clear at last, he dispatched 

Bebert on his mission. 

‘Go for it! Go for the tail! . . . And watch out, the old girl’s 

got her broom.’ 

Luckily it was now quite dark. Bebert had leapt up to grab 

the cod, and his weight had broken the string. He ran off, 

waving it overhead like a kite, followed by the other two, and 

the three of them hared off. The grocer came out of her shop, 

astonished and bemused, unable to identify the gang as they 

vanished into the darkness. 

These little scoundrels had turned into the .scourge of the 

countryside, which they had gradually invaded like a tribe of 

barbarians. At first they had been satisfied with the pit-head 

yard at Le Voreux, tumbling around in the piles of coal, which 

left them as black as negroes, playing hide and seek in the 

wood stacks, where they got lost as if they were in the depths 

of some virgin forest. Then they had taken over the slag-heap, 

sliding down its bare patches on their bottoms, even though it 

was boiling hot from the internal combustion; they slipped in 

and out of the brambles which had grown over the older parts 

of the pit, and spent whole days out of sight playing quiet, 

mischievous games, like naughty little mice. Then their cam¬ 

paigns became bolder, and they went off to do battle among 

the brick heaps until they bled, ran wild in the fields eating all 

sorts of juicy grasses, without even any bread to help them 

down, scavenged the banks of the canal to catch small fry in 

the mud and swallow them raw, wandering ever further afield, 

travelling for miles to reach the thickets of Vandame, where 

Part IV 

267 

they holed up to gorge themselves on strawberries in spring, 

and hazelnuts and bilberries in summer. Soon they roamed 

victorious over the whole vast plain. 

But what spurred them on in the raids they mounted in 

every direction from Montsou to Marchiennes, their greedy 

young eyes ablaze, was a growing delight in sacking and 

looting. Jeanlin remained the captain of these expeditions, 

directing his troops in their pillage, ravaging onion fields, 

looting orchards, raiding shelves in shops. In the country 

people accused the striking miners, and they talked of a great 

organized band. One day Jeanlin had even forced Lydie to rob 

her mother, getting her to bring two dozen barley-sugar sticks 

that La Pierronne kept in a jar on one of the window ledges; 

and the little girl hadn’t betrayed him, despite being beaten 

black and blue, so great was her fear of his authority. The 

worst of it was that he kept the largest share for himself. 

Bebert, too, had to hand over his booty, and was happy if his 

captain kept the lot, as long as he didn’t beat him. 

Over the last few days, Jeanlin had been taking things to 

extremes. He beat Lydie up as if she were his lawfully wedded 

wife, and he exploited Bebert’s credulity to get him embroiled 

in awkward situations, delighted at the idea of making an ass 

of the clumsy lad, who was stronger than he was, and who 

could have felled him with a single blow of his fist if he had 

thought of it. He despised them both, and treated them as his 

slaves, telling them that he had a princess for a mistress, and 

that they would be unworthy of appearing in her presence. 

And indeed, over the last week he had taken to disappearing 

suddenly, at the end of a road, at a fork in the path, wherever 

he happened to find himself, having first pocketed the swag 

and ordered them with a threatening air to go back to the 

village. 

And that was what happened this evening. 

‘Give it here,’ he said, snatching the cod fronA his friend’s 

hands, when all three of them had stopped at a bend in the 

road, near Requillart. 

Bebert protested. 

‘Look, I want some. I was the one who got it.’ 

‘What d’you mean.^’ Jeanlin cried. ‘You’ll get some if I give 

268 Germinal 

you some, and you can bet it won’t be tonight: tomorrow, if 

there’s any left.’ 

He gave Lydie a few encouraging thumps, and pushed the 

two of them into line together like soldiers shouldering arms. 

Then he went behind them. 

‘Now you’re going to stay there for five minutes without 

turning round ... I swear by God that if you turn round 

you’ll be eaten alive by wild beasts . .. And then you must go 

straight home, and if Bebert tries to touch Lydie on the way. 

I’ll know about it, and I’ll thump the pair of you.’ 

Then he disappeared into the shadows with such skill that 

they didn’t even hear the sound of his bare feet. The two 

children stood stock .still for five whole minutes, not daring to 

look round behind them in case their invisible tormentor was 

waiting to hit them. Gradually a great affection had grown up 

between them in their common terror. He kept dreaming of 

taking hold of her and squeezing her tightly in his arms the 

way he had seen other people do it; and she would have liked 

it to happen, because that would have been a nice change, to 

be gently caressed. But neither of them would have dared to 

disobey their orders. When they started back, although it was 

pitch-dark, they didn’t venture to embrace, but walked side by 

side, plunged in love and despair, certain that if they were to 

touch, the avenging captain would charge up from behind and 

trounce them. 

At the same moment Etienne had returned to Requillart. 

The previous night La Mouquette had begged him to return, 

and he had come back, despite feeling ashamed, caught by a 

desire which he refused to admit to himself for this girl who 

worshipped him as if he were a saint. His reason for going 

back, in any case, had been to break off the affair. He would 

see her, he would explain to her that she must stop running 

after him, because of his comrades. It was no time to be 

enjoying themselves, it wasn’t fair to be wallowing in such 

pleasure when people were dying of hunger. And since he 

hadn’t found her at home, he had decided to wait, and was 

watching every figure that passed in the shadows. 

Beneath the ruined headgear, the old shaft gaped open, half- 

obstructed. One beam .sticking straight out with a bit of 

roofing attached to it looked like a gallows raised over the 

black hole; two trees, a plane tree and a mountain ash, had 

grown up between the crumbling kerbstones, and seemed to 

spring up from the depths of the earth. It was a wild and 

abandoned place, the grassy, tangled entrance to an abyss, 

cluttered with old bits of wood, and invaded by sloe bushes 

and hawthorn hedges that teemed with warblers at nesting 

time. In order to save having to spend considerable sums on 

keeping it in good condition, the Company had been talking 

for the last ten years of filling in this disused pit; but they were 

waiting until they had installed a ventilation system* at Le 

Voreux, for the ventilation chamber for the two pits, which 

were interconnected, was sited at the bottom of Requillart, 

whose former ventilation shaft served as its chimney. They 

had simply shored up the inner lining by wedging props in 

sideways to block the winding shaft tunnels, and they had 

abandoned the upper tunnels, maintaining only the bottom 

section, in which there blazed the enormous, hellish coal 

furnace whose powerful blast drew in tempestuous draughts of 

air right through the neighbouring pit. As a precaution, so that 

it was still possible to go into the pit and out again, they had 

given instructions to maintain the ladder well; only nobody 

actually did it, so the ladders were rotten with damp, and some 

platforms had already collapsed. At the surface, an overgrown 

bramble blocked the entrance to the well; and as the first 

ladder had lost a number of rungs, you had to swing down 

from the root of the mountain ash if you wanted to reach it, 

then let yourself drop by guesswork into the darkness. 

Etienne was waiting patiently, hidden behind a bush, when 

he heard something slithering slowly through the branches. It 

sounded like a grass snake fleeing from danger. But he was 

suddenly taken aback to see a match being lit, and watched 

speechless as he recognized Jeanlin lighting a candle and 

disappearing down into the depths of the earth. His curiosity 

was so aroused that he went up to the edge of the hole: the boy 

had disappeared, but a dim light could be seen down on the 

second platform. He hesitated for a moment, then let himself 

slide down, keeping hold of the roots as he went, expecting to 

fall down the whole length of the 524-metre depth of the pit, 

270 

Germinal 

but then he felt that he had touched a rung. From that point 

he climbed carefully down. Jeanlin must have heard nothing. 

Etienne could still see the light plunging lower beneath him, 

while the boy’s shadow danced monstrously and menacingly, 

as he lurched downwards with his crippled gait. He swung 

down as nimbly as a monkey, using his hands and feet and 

even his chin to hold on with when there were no rungs. The 

seven-metre ladders stretched downwards one after the other, 

some of them still strong, others shaky and creaking, ready to 

break; the narrow platforms swept by, so green and rotten that 

it was like walking on moss; and as you went deeper down, the 

heat from the ventilation flue became stifling, a veritable 

furnace, although luckily it had not been working at full 

strength since the start of the strike, for at full blast, when the 

furnace devoured its s,ooo kilograms of coal a day, you couldn’t 

have ventured near it without being roasted alive. 

‘Damn and blast the little rat!’ Etienne swore as he felt 

himself suffocating. ‘Where the hell is he going?’ 

Twice he had nearly fallen headlong, as his feet slipped on 

the damp wood. If only he had had a candle like the boy; but 

time and again he bumped into something, he could only 

guide himself by the faint glimmer that kept plunging down 

below him. He must have been on at least his twentieth ladder, 

and still he kept plunging downwards. So he started to count 

them: twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, and still he went 

down, lower and lower. His head throbbed with the burning 

heat, it felt as if he was falling into an oven. At last he reached 

a loading bay, and he caught sight of the candle disappearing 

down the end of a tunnel. Thirty ladders, that made about two 

hundred and ten metres. 

‘How long is he going to make me run after him?’ he 

wondered. ‘I bet he’s going to earth in the stables.’ 

But over to the left, the route to the stables was blocked by 

a rock fall. The chase recommenced, but it was even more 

difficult and dangerous. Frightened bats suddenly fluttered up 

into the air and clung to the ceiling of the loading bay. He had 

to make haste so as not to lose sight of the light, and flung 

himself into the tunnel he had seen it go down; only, where 

the child had been able to get through easily, slithering like a 

Part IV 

271 

serpent, he couldn’t squeeze through without bruising his 

limbs. This tunnel, like all the disused passages, had become 

narrower and was still getting narrower every day, with the 

ceaseless movements of the earth; and in some places it had 

shrunk to the width of a narrow gully, and would eventually 

disappear altogether. As he worked his way half-strangled 

through this passage, the torn and splintered pit-props became 

a menace, threatening to rip his flesh open or impale him as he 

passed with their jagged, sword-like spikes. He had to take 

great care as he edged his way forward, on all fours or flat on 

his belly, groping his way forward into the darkness ahead of 

him. Suddenly a family of rats scurried past, their feet pummel¬ 

ling him from head to toe in their panicky flight. 

‘God almighty! When are we going to get to the end of it 

all,’ he groaned breathlessly, his back aching. 

But that was it. After about a kilometre the gully opened up 

and they came out into a remarkably well preserved part of the 

passage. It was the end of the old haulage road, cut across the 

grain of the rock, opening out into something like a natural 

cave. He had to stop as he saw the child place the candle down 

on the ground between a couple of stones, settle down, and 

make himself comfortable, seeming relieved and relaxed as if 

he felt quite at home. There was a whole provision of comforts 

which made the end of the tunnel into a cosy dwelling. In one 

corner there was a pile of hay on the ground which made a soft 

bed; on some old props set up to form a table there was a 

whole larder of supplies, bread, apples, and half-drunk bottles 

of gin: a real robber’s den, supplied with the fruits of weeks of 

pillage, even including useless booty, bits of soap and wax 

polish which were stolen for the sheer pleasure of stealing. 

And the child sat there alone surrounded by his loot, enjoying 

it with the selfish pleasure of a pirate king. 

‘Hey, you, who the hell do you think you are,’ shouted Etienne, 

when he had had time to catch his breath, ‘coming down here to 

stuff your face while the rest of us are dying of hunger up there?’ 

Jeanlin was dumbstruck, and trembled. But when he recog¬ 

nized the young man, he soon recovered. 

‘Will you have something to eat?’ he finally said, ‘How 

about a bit of grilled cod?... Try .some.’ 

272 

Germinal 

He had brought his cod safely home, and had started to 

clean off the fly dirt with a shiny new knife, one of those small 

sheath-knives with a motto engraved on its bone handle. This 

one was inscribed with the single world ‘Love’. 

‘You’ve got a nice knife,’ Etienne remarked. 

‘It was a present from Lydie,’ Jeanlin replied, omitting to 

mention that Lydie had stolen it at his bidding from a hawker 

at Montsou, outside the Tete-Coupee bar. 

Then, while he carried on scraping, he added proudly: 

‘I’ve made it really comfortable here, haven’t L? ... It’s a 

damn sight warmer than up there, and it doesn’t half smell 

better, too!’ 

Etienne had sat down, and was curious to hear what he had 

to say. He didn’t feel angry any more, he felt interested in this 

delinquent child, who put so much honest effort into his 

misbehaviour. And in fact he did appreciate the comfort at the 

bottom of this hole: the heat was bearable, with an even 

temperature in all seasons, rather like a warm bath, while up 

above ground the sharp December cold was freezing his 

wretched comrades rigid. As they aged, the tunnels lost their 

noxious gases, all the firedamp had gone, and the only smell 

left was the scent of the old pit-props going musty, with their 

subtle whiff of ether, as if spiced with a hint of cloves. Besides, 

these props had become quite a sight, yellowish and pale like 

marble, fringed with whitish lace, while flaky excrescences 

seemed to drape them in an embroidery of silk and pearls. 

Others were covered with clouds of fungus. And there were 

swarms of white moths, snowy flies, and spiders, an albino 

population which would never know the sun. 

‘Aren’t you afraid down here?’ asked Etienne. 

Jeanlin looked up at him in astonishment. 

‘What of? There’s only me here.’ 

And now he had finished scraping the cod. He lit a small 

wood fire, spread out the hot ashes, and grilled it. Then he 

divided up a loaf of bread. It was a rough and salty feast, but 

tasted divine to their hardened stomachs. 

Etienne had accepted his share. 

‘I’m not surprised that you’re getting fatter while the rest of 

us are withering away. Don’t you realize what a slob you are to 

Part IV 

m 

stuff yourself like that? . .. What about the others, don’t you 

ever think of them?’ 

‘Why should I, if they’re so damn stupid?’ 

‘Though it’s a good job you’ve got a hide-out; if your father 

found out you were thieving, he wouldn’t half let you have it.’ 

‘As if the bourgeois weren’t robbing us themselves! You’re 

always saying so yourself. When I filched some bread from 

Maigrat it was only what he owed us in the first place.’ 

Etienne fell silent, with his mouth full. That made him 

think. He looked at the boy, with his sharp features, green 

eyes, and big ears; his degenerate frame harboured a kind of 

occult intelligence and primitive cunning, as if he was slowly 

reverting to his animal origins. The mine had shaped him, but 

then it had broken his legs. 

‘And what about Lydie,’ Etienne asked again, ‘do you bring 

her down here sometimes?’ 

Jeanlin laughed contemptuously. 

‘That kid? You bet I don’t! .. . Women can’t keep their 

mouths shut.’ 

And he laughed again, full of boundless contempt for Lydie 

and Bebert, Did you ever see such dopey children? The 

thought of them swallowing all his schemes and going away 

empty-handed, while he sat there in comfort eating his cod, 

tickled his ribs with delight. Then he concluded philosophi¬ 

cally, despite his youth: 

‘You’re better off on your own, there’s nobody to disagree 

with.’ 

Etienne had finished his bread. He took a swig at the gin. 

For a moment he had wondered whether he wouldn’t repay 

Jeanlin’s hospitality by dragging him out of his hide by the ear 

and ordering him to give up his outlaw career, threatening to 

tell his father all about it if he didn’t. But, as he examined this 

underground retreat, an idea came to him: how did he know 

that he might not need it, for his comrades or for himself, in 

case things turned nasty up above? So he made the boy swear 

not to spend the whole night out, as he had taken to doing on 

occasion, when he fell asleep in the hay; and, taking up a 

candle end, he left first, leaving the lad to tidy up in his own 

good time. 

274 

Germinal 

La Mouquette, who was sitting out on an old beam waiting 

for him, despite the severe cold, was starting to lose hope that 

he would come. When she saw him she flung her arms around 

his neck; and when he told her that he had decided not to see 

her any more, she felt as if he had plunged a dagger in her 

heart. For God’s sake, why ever not.^^ Didn’t she love him as 

much as ever? Since he himself was afraid of yielding to an 

urge to go inside with her, he drew her over towards the road, 

and explained to her, as gently as possible, that she would 

compromise him in the eyes of his comrades, that she was 

ruining his political credibility. She was astonished, whatever 

could it have to do with politics? Then the thought struck her 

that he was ashamed of being seen with her; but still she 

wasn’t offended, it was natural enough; and she offered to let 

him slap her face in public, so that they would seem to be 

breaking up. But he’d come back to see her, just one more 

time, every now and then. Desperately she pleaded with him, 

she promised she’d stay hidden, she’d only take five minutes 

of his rime. He was very touched, but he kept refusing. Then 

as he made to leave her he agreed at least to kiss her goodbye. 

Step by step they had arrived at the first houses of Montsou, 

and they had their arms right round each other, beneath the 

bright, full moon, when a woman who was passing by gave a 

sudden start, as if she had tripped against a stone. 

^Who’s that?’ asked Etienne, worried. 

‘That was Catherine,’ La Mouquette replied. ‘She’s on her 

way back from Jean-Bart.’ 

The young woman was moving away now, with her head 

lowered and her legs unsteady, looking very tired. And Etienne 

watched her, feeling despair at having been seen by her, his 

heart breaking with groundless remorse. Wasn’t she going out 

with a man? Hadn’t she made him suffer just as much over 

there on the road to Requillart, when she had given herself to 

that man? But all the same, he felt sad to have paid her back in 

kind. 

‘Want to know what I think?’ murmured La Mouquette 

tearfully as she left. ‘If you don’t want me, it’s because you 

fancy someone else.’ 

The next day the weather was glorious, the air bright and 

Pan IV 

^IS 

frosty, one of those fine winter days when the hard earth rings 

out like crystal under your feet. At one o’clock sharp Jeanlin 

had run off; but he had to wait for Bebert behind the church, 

and they nearly had to go without Lydie, who had been shut 

in the cellar by her mother again. She had just been let out 

and handed a basket, with instructions that, if she didn’t bring 

it back full of dandelion leaves, she’d be locked in with the rats 

all night long. So because she was afraid she wanted to go off 

and gather her leaves straight away. Jeanlin put her off, saying 

they would get round to it later. For some time now he’d had a 

bee in his bonnet about Poland, the Rasseneurs’ big fat rabbit, 

and he was just going past the A vantage, when at that very 

moment the rabbit emerged on to the road in front of him. He 

pounced on her and grabbed her by the ears, then stuffed her 

into the girl’s basket; and all three of them cantered off. They 

would have a great time making her run like a dog all the way 

to the forest. 

But they stopped to watch Zacharie and Mouquet, who, 

after they had drunk a pint with two other mates, were starting 

their great game of cross. The prizes were a new cap and a 

red silk scarf, deposited with Rasseneur. The four players, in 

two pairs, were bidding for the first leg, from Le Voreux to 

the Paillot farm, nearly three kilometres; and it was Zacharie 

who won, by bidding to do it in seven strokes, while Mouquet 

bid eight. The small, boxwood ball, shaped like an egg, was 

placed upright on the cobbles. Each man had a club, whose 

iron head was set crosswise at the end of a long wooden 

handle, which was bound tightly with twine. Two o’clock 

chimed as they set off Zacharie went first, and took only three 

strokes to make a magnificent drive of over four hundred 

metres across the beetfields; for it was forbidden to play in 

the village or on the roads, because people had been killed in 

the past. Mouquet, who was also a tough player, returned the 

drive with such muscle power that his single shot knocked the 

ball a hundred and fifty metres back the other way. And so 

the game progressed, one team driving forward, the other team 

returning the ball, both constantly on the run, and bruising 

their feet on the frozen furrows of the ploughed earth. 

At first, Jeanlin, Bebert, and Lydie had galloped along 

Germinal 

276 

behind the players, excited by their mighty swipes. Then they 

remembered Poland, who was being jolted around in their 

basket; and, breaking away from the game when it was out in 

the open countryside, they had let the rabbit go to see how fast 

she could run. She took off and they dived after her. They 

chased her for an hour, helter-skelter, twisting and turning, 

screaming to frighten her, their arms opening wide and then 

snapping shut on the empty air. If she hadn’t been expecting 

yet again, they would never have caught her. 

As they paused to catch their breath, the sound of swearing 

made them turn their heads. They had stumbled across the 

game of cross again, and Zacharie had only just missed splitting 

his brother’s head open. The players were on the fourth leg: 

from the Paillot farm they had run out towards Quatre- 

Chemins, then from Quatre-Chemins to Montoire; and now 

they had bid to drive from Montoire to Le Pre-des-Vaches in 

six shots. That made two and a half leagues in an hour; not 

counting the time spent downing pints at Vincent’s bar and 

the Trois Sages beershop. This time it was Mouquet who was 

on top. He had two more shots to loose off, and there was no 

doubt that he would win, when Zacharie gleefully took his 

turn and returned the ball so skilfully that it rolled down deep 

into a ditch. Mouquet’s partner couldn’t get it out, which was 

a disaster. All four players started shouting furiously, and 

everyone joined in the uproar, for the teams were neck and 

neck, and they were going to have to start all over again. But 

from Le Pre-des-Vaches it was not much more than two 

kilometres to the next stop, at Les Herbes-Rousses: five shots. 

Once there, they would slake their thirst at Lerenard’s. 

But then Jeanlin had an idea. He waited for the players to 

go, then got a piece of string out of his pocket and tied it on to 

one of Poland’s hind paws, the left one. And that was terrific 

fun, the rabbit running along in front of the three tearaways, 

stretching its legs with such a pathetic limp that they laughed 

fit to bust. Then they tied the string round her neck, to let her 

gallop a bit; and when she was tired, they dragged her along 

like a toy carriage, first on her belly, and then on her back. 

They spent a whole hour at this pastime, and the rabbit was at 

her last gasp, but they had to stuff her quickly back into the 

Part IV 

277 

basket when they reached the Cruchot woods and heard the 

players, whose game they had run into again. 

Now Zacharie, Mouquet, and the other two were well into 

their stride, stopping only to down a pint in every bar that 

counted as a marker. P"rom Les Herbes-Rousses they had run 

over to Buchy, then to La Croix-de-Pierre, then to Chamblay. 

The ground echoed to the clatter of their feet, as they galloped 

relentlessly after the ball, which bounced over the frozen soil: 

the conditions were favourable, you couldn’t sink into the 

mud, the only danger was you might break a leg. The heavy 

shots rang out through the dry air as sharply as gunfire. Their 

muscular hands gripped the twine-bound handles, the move¬ 

ment rippled right through their bodies as if they were pole- 

axing oxen; and they kept at it for hours, from one end of the 

plain to the other, over ditches and hedges, road embankments 

and low farm walls. You had to have a pretty good pair of 

bellows in your chest and cast-iron hinges in your knees. The 

hewers seemed to use the game to blast the mine out of their 

systems. Some of the twenty-five-year-old fanatics would hack 

away over ten leagues of countryside. At forty you couldn’t 

play any more, you couldn’t work up the speed. 

Five o’clock struck, and dusk was falling already. There was 

just one leg left, up to Vandame forest, to decide who would 

win the cap and silk scarf; and Zacharie joked about it with his 

vulgar indifference to politics: wouldn’t it be fun to end up 

there with the lads.? As for Jeanlin, since they had left the 

village he had been making for the forest, despite his pretence 

of running around aimlessly. He objected indignantly and 

threatened Lydie, when, assailed by fright and remorse, she 

asked him to let her go back to Le Voreux to pick dandelion 

leaves, and he asked her threateningly whether she intended to 

make them miss the meeting—he wanted to know what the old 

men had to say. He egged Bebert on, and offered to liven up 

the re.st of the trip as far as the trees by letting Poland off the 

leash and throwing stones at her. He had an obscure desire to 

kill her, and an urge to carry her off and eat her down in his 

den at Requillart. The rabbit raced off again, flaring her 

nostrils and flattening her ears; one stone grazed her back, 

another cut her tail; and, despite the gathering darkness, she 

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278 

would soon have breathed her last if the rascals hadn’t spied 

Maheu and Etienne standing in the middle of a clearing. They 

pounced urgently on to the beast and got her back inside the 

basket. At almost the same moment Zacharie, Mouquet, and 

the others made their last drives, which sent the ball to a point 

only a few metres away from the clearing. The whole group 

fell right into the middle of the meeting. 

From all over the countryside, as soon as dusk began falling, 

along every road and pathway that crossed the flat plain, there 

came a long procession of silently gliding shadowy forms, some 

slipping past on their own, others in groups, making their way 

towards the purple thickets of the forest. All the villages 

emptied, the women and even the children left as if they were 

just going out for a walk in the clear night air. Now the roads 

were cloaked in darkness and you could no longer see the 

crowds on the march as they glided towards the same goal; you 

could only dimly sense their presence as the rhythm of their 

hesitant footsteps seemed to shuffle to the beat of a single 

heart. All that could be heard between the hedges and among 

the bushes was a slight swishing sound and the faint whisper 

of nocturnal life. 

Monsieur Hennebeau, who happened to be returning home 

at that moment, riding his mare, listened to these eerie sounds. 

He had passed a whole string of couples walking slowly along, 

enjoying the beautiful winter evening. An endless stream of 

courting couples whose lips already mingled as they went to 

take their pleasure somewhere behind a wall. Wasn’t that what 

he usually came across, girls on their backside in every ditch, 

layabouts stoking up with the only genuinely free pleasure.^ 

And the fools complained that they had problems, when they 

could stuff their bellies full of the priceless happiness of 

making love! He would have been more than happy to die of 

hunger just like them, if he could start his life over again with 

a woman who would lie down on the ground and submit to 

him, open up her body and her soul to him. He felt a wave of 

inconsolable misery, of envy for these wretches. He rode 

home with lowered head, slowing his horse as the long-drawn- 

out murmurs emerging from the depths of the pitch-black 

countryside spoke to him of endless kisses. 

Partly 

279 

CHAPTER VII 

THEY met at Le Plan-des-Dames> in a great clearing^ recently 

opened by some tree-fellers* It stretched away in a gentle 

slope, surrounded by a high thicket of lofty beeches, whose 

regular line of straight trunks made a white colonnade, speckled 

green with lichen; and some, like fallen statues, still lay 

stretched out full length in the grass, while to the left could be 

seen the neat cube of a pile of sawn logs. The cold sharpened 

as twilight fell, and the frozen moss crackled underfoot. It was 

pitch-black at ground level, but the topmost branches stood 

out clearly against the pale sky, where the full moon rising on 

the horizon had started to blot out the stars. 

Nearly 3,000 colliers had come to the meeting, and a teeming 

crowd of men, women, and children gradually filled the clear¬ 

ing and spilled over into the edge of the wood; but still 

latecomers kept arriving, until the sea of faces, swimming in 

darkness, poured into the neighbouring copses. A murmuring 

sound arose like a stormy wind from the still, frozen forest. 

Etienne stood at the top, overlooking the slope, with Rasse- 

neur and Maheu. A quarrel had broken out, and you could 

hear the voices in sudden rough bursts. Close by, people were 

listening: Levaque shaking his fists, Pierron turning his back 

on them, very worried at not having been able to use his fever 

as an excuse any longer; and there was also old Bonnemort and 

old Mouque, side by side, on a log, looking lost in their 

thoughts. Then behind them were the jokers, Zacharie, Mou- 

quet, and others, who had only come for a laugh; while a 

group of women on the other hand had gathered together as 

solemnly as if they were attending a church service. La Ma- 

heude nodded her silent agreement with the muttered oaths of 

La Levaque. Philomene was coughing with the bronchitis that 

caught up with her every winter. Only La Mouquette laughed 

out loud, amused by old Ma Brule’s description of her daugh¬ 

ter, the shameless hussy who banished her so that she could 

stuff herself with rabbit and sold her favours for food behind 

her spineless husband’s back. And Jeanlin had taken up posi¬ 

tion on the pile of logs, dragging Lydie up with him and 

28 o 

Germinal 

forcing Bebert to follow, so that all three of them rose up in 

the air over the heads of the crowd. 

The quarrel had been started by Rasseneur, who wanted to 

set up a properly elected committee. He was still furious at 

having been defeated at the Bon-Joyeux; and he had sworn to 

himself that he would get his revenge, for he was convinced 

that he would recover his former authority when he came face 

to face, not with the delegates, but with the ordinary miners. 

Etienne was exasperated at the ridiculous idea of appointing 

this futile committee out in the middle of the forest. Since 

they were being hunted like wolves, they ought themselves to 

act with wild revolutionary violence. 

When he realized that there was no end to the dispute in 

sight, he suddenly turned and tried to bring the crowd to 

order. He leapt up on to a tree trunk and shouted: 

‘Comrades, comrades!’ 

The confused babble of the crowd tailed off into a prolonged 

sigh, while Maheu tried to silence Rasseneur, who was still 

protesting. Etienne carried on speaking in ringing tones. 

‘Comrades, if they won’t let us speak out, and now that 

they’ve sent the gendarmes out to get us as if we were bandits, 

we’ve got to discuss our problems out here! We’re free out 

here, we’re on our own ground, nobody can come to shut us 

up, we’re as free as the birds and the beasts!’ 

He was answered by a thunderous round of cries and 

exclamations. 

‘Yes, it’s ours, it’s our forest, we’ve got a right to talk here 

... Go on!’ 

Then Etienne stood motionless for a moment on his tree 

trunk. The moon was still too low on the horizon to throw 

light on any but the topmost branches; and the crowd, who 

were gradually settling down and falling silent, remained 

plunged in darkness. Etienne also looked black, but his dark 

shadowy mass loomed over the crowd from the top of the 

slope like a statue. 

Slowly he raised his arm, and started his speech; but instead 

of speaking roughly now, he had adopted the unemotional tones 

of a simple delegate of the people delivering a report. At last 

he was able to make the speech that the superintendent had 

Part IV 

281 

interrupted at the Bon-Joyeux; and he started with a brief 

historical survey of the strike, presenting facts and nothing but 

the facts in what he hoped was the language of pure science. 

First he expressed his reluctance to strike: the miners hadn’t 

wanted to, they had been forced into it by the management 

when they imposed their new tariff for timbering. Then he 

reminded them of the first approach made by the delegates to 

the manager, the hypocrisy of the Board, and, after the second 

delegation, their belated concession, the ten centimes that they 

had agreed to restore after attempting to steal them. Now that 

was as far as they had got; he gave them the figures which 

showed that the emergency fund was empty, listed the uses 

made of the aid that they had received, and said a few words to 

excuse the International, Pluchart, and the others for not being 

able to do more for them, because of their concern to plan for 

world-wide victory. Thus the situation was getting worse every 

day, and the Company was returning people’s booklets and 

threatening to employ Belgian workers; in addition, they were 

intimidating the weaker spirits and had persuaded a certain 

number of miners to go back down to work again. He kept 

insisting on the bad news, while continuing to speak in a 

toneless voice. He spoke of the triumph of starvation, the 

death of hope, and the last, feverish throes of their will to 

resist. And then suddenly, without raising his voice, he 

concluded: 

‘These are the circumstances, comrades, in which you have 

to reach a decision tonight. Do you want the strike to continue? 

And, if so, what do you propose to do in order to beat the 

Company?’ 

A deep silence fell from the starry sky. The crowd was 

invisible in the darkness, and struck dumb by this speech 

which choked their spirits; and all that could be heard through 

the trees was a sigh of despair. 

But Etienne had already started up again in a different tone 

of voice. Already he no longer spoke as the secretary of the 

association, but as leader, or rather, as apostle entrusted with 

revealing the truth. Were there any cowards among them who 

would go back on their word? Really? Would they have 

suffered for a month to no avail? They would go back down 

282 

Germinal 

the pit with their tails between their legs, and their endless 

suffering would start up all over again! Wouldn’t it be better 

to die straight away and at least make the attempt to overthrow 

the tyranny of capital which was starving the workers to death? 

Wasn’t it a fool’s game, how could they bear it any longer, 

how could they allow themselves to be bullied by hunger, 

waiting until it finally drove even the mildest among them 

once more to rebel? And he portrayed the exploitation of the 

miners, explaining how they bore the whole brunt of every 

crisis, and every disaster, seeing themselves reduced to starva¬ 

tion as soon as the requirements of competition caused a 

reduction in revenue. No! The timbering tariff was not accept¬ 

able, it was only a crafty way of saving money by robbing each 

man of an hour’s wages every day. This time they had gone 

too far, the time would come when the wretched of the earth 

would feel they had been pushed to their limit, and they would 

demand justice. 

He stood still, his arms outstretched. 

The crowd was shaken with a long tremor at the sound of 

the word ‘justice’, and they broke out in applause, which 

swept through the gathering with a sound like the wind 

rustling through autumn leaves. Voices cried out: 

‘Justice!.. , The time has come, justice!’ 

Etienne gradually warmed to his theme. He didn’t have the 

smooth and easy fluency of Rasseneur. He was frequently lost 

for words, and he had to twist his sentences round, and 

wrench them out of himself with an effort that shook his 

shoulders. And yet each of these verbal struggles resulted in 

some lively, popular image which caught the imagination of 

the audience; while his gestures were those of a workman 

accomplishing some physical task, as he hunched up his shoul¬ 

ders and then stretched out his arms to thrust his fists forward, 

with his jaws following the rhythm, as if to bite. This also had 

an extraordinary effect on his comrades. Everyone agreed that, 

although he was small of stature, he imposed his presence. 

‘Wage-earning is a new form of slavery,’ he continued in a 

more vibrant tone. ‘The mine should belong to the miner, as 

the sea does to the fisherman, and as the land does to the 

farmer ... Make no mistake! The mine is your property, it 

Part IV 283 

belongs to all of you, for you have paid for it for over a century 

with blood and starvation!’ 

He launched right into obscure legal considerations, includ¬ 

ing the intricate details of the special legislation on mines, and 

he became confused. The depths of the earth, like its surface, 

belonged to the nation: and yet a vile privilege allowed private 

companies to have the monopoly of it; all the more so because 

for Montsou the alleged legality of the concessions was compli¬ 

cated by the pacts signed formerly with the inheritors of the 

old feudal domains, according to the old custom of the Hainault 

region. The miners then had only to repossess what was theirs 

by right; and he held out his arms to embrace the whole 

countryside beyond the forest. At that moment the moon rose 

clear of the horizon, and its light, filtering through the topmost 

branches, shone on him. When the crowd, which was still 

plunged in darkness, saw him thus, his arms outstretched, 

bathed in white light, showering them with wealth, they 

cheered him again, with a long round of applause. 

‘Yes! True! He’s right! Bravo!’ 

And then Etienne dived into his favourite topic, the assign¬ 

ment of the instruments of labour to the collective, as he 

rehearsed it in a single phrase, whose rebarbative ring gave 

him an almost physical satisfaction. Now his own transforma¬ 

tion was complete. Starting with the brotherly love of the 

novice, hoping to improve the condition of the wage-earner, he 

had finished up with the intention of abolishing the system 

altogether. Since the meeting at the Bon-Joyeux, when his idea 

of the collective had still been humanitarian and untheorized, 

he had formulated a rigid and complicated programme, whose 

every article he could debate scientifically. He argued first that 

freedom could only be obtained through the destruction of the 

State.* Then, when the people had seized control of the 

government, the reforms could begin: the return to the primi¬ 

tive community, the substitution of a free and egalitarian 

family for the oppressive family of traditional morality, absolute 

civil, political, and economic equality, the guarantee of indi¬ 

vidual independence thanks to the integral possession of the 

instruments and the fruits of their labour, and finally a free 

vocational training at the expense of the collective. That would 

Germinal 

284 

mean they would have to recast entirely the old corrupt 

society; he attacked marriage and the laws of inheritance, he 

would limit everyone’s right to personal wealth, he would 

overthrow the dead weight of centuries of iniquity, and he 

made a well-rehearsed sweeping movement with his arm, the 

great swing of the reaper cutting down a field of ripe corn with 

his scythe; and he went on to rebuild with the other hand, 

reconstructing the humanity of the future, showing the house 

of truth and justice starting to rise up in the dawn of the 

twentieth century. At this peak of mental tension his rational 

arguments faltered and gave way to the obsession of the 

prophet. Scruples of sense and sensibility were swept aside, as 

nothing seemed easier than creating this new world: he had 

planned it all in detail, he spoke of it as if it were a machine 

that he could piece together in a couple of hours, and he would 

not flinch in the face of fire or the sword, 

‘Our time has come,’ he shouted, in a final outburst. ‘It’s 

our turn now to be powerful and wealthy!’ 

The sound of applause echoed across to him in the clearing 

from the depths of the forest. By now the moon was shedding 

its white light on the whole clearing, giving sharper outline to 

what had been merely a shapeless ocean of heads, shining right 

into the murky depths of the forest between the great shadowy 

trunks. And beneath the chill air there rose a furious mass of 

faces, with gleaming eyes and open mouths, a tumult of 

people, men, women, and children, driven by starvation to 

demand restitution of the heritage which had been stolen from 

them. They forgot the cold as his burning words lit a fire in 

their hearts. A religious fervour lifted them towards the heav¬ 

ens, with the urgency that inspired the early Christians to 

hope that the reign of justice was about to materialize. Many 

of Etienne’s more obscure phrases had escaped them, such 

technical and abstract arguments were over their heads; but 

their very obscurity and abstraction seemed to promise more, 

and to bear them aloft in a glowing cloud of expectation. What 

a dream, to be the masters, to see an end to their suffering, 

even to accede to the realm of pleasure! 

‘That’s it, for heaven’s sake, it’s our turn! . .. Death to the 

oppressors!’ 

Part IV 

285 

The women screamed in delirium, La Maheude lost her 

sang-froid, her head spinning from hunger. La Levaque was 

screaming, old Ma Brule was beside herself, waving her arms 

like a witch, and Philomene was shaken by a fit of coughing, 

while La Mouquette was so worked up that she shouted words 

of love at the speaker. Among the men, Maheu was won over 

and let out an angry war-cry, between a trembling Pierron and 

a garrulous Levaque; while the mockers, Zacharie and Mou- 

quet, felt ill at ease but tried to keep joking, expressing 

astonishment that their comrade could make such a long 

speech without stopping for a drink. But up on his log-pile 

Jeanlin was creating even more fuss, egging on Bebert and 

Lydie, and brandishing the basket where Poland lay half-dead. 

The uproar started anew. Etienne savoured the intoxicating 

taste of popularity. He felt his power take on material form in 

those 3,000 chests whose hearts he caused to beat in tune with 

his every word. If Souvarine had deigned to come, he would 

have applauded his ideas once he recognized them, and would 

have been pleased with the progress of his pupil in anarchy 

and approved of his programme, except for the chapter on 

education, a left-over of his childish naivety, for it was the 

salutary force of holy ignorance that would bathe his own men 

with its baptismal waters. As for Rasseneur, he shrugged his 

shoulders in anger and contempt. 

‘Will you let me speak!’ he .shouted at Etienne. 

The latter leapt down from his tree trunk. 

‘Go on, talk, and we’ll see if they’ll listen to you,’ 

Rasseneur had already taken his place and was motioning 

for silence. But the hubbub didn’t die down, for his name ran 

through the crowd, from those in the front rows who had 

recognized him to those at the back lost among the beeches; 

yet nobody would listen to him, for he was a fallen idol, and 

just to look at him infuriated his former disciples. His smooth 

eloquence and his soothing, cheerful language had long kept 

them charmed, but now seemed to be like weak tea, designed 

to lull them into a cowardly sleep. He spoke in vain, his voice 

swallowed up in the noise, trying to piece together his usual 

arguments for reconciliation, the impossibility of changing the 

world by sudden decree, and the need to let social change 

286 

Germinal 

evolve gradually: he was mocked and hissed, the defeat which 

he had suffered at the Bon-Joyeux was aggravated and con¬ 

firmed, They finally started throwing bits of frozen moss at 

him, and one woman cried out: 

‘Down with the traitor!’ 

He explained that the mine couldn’t become the property of 

the miner, as the loom belongs to the weaver, and he said that 

he would prefer the workers to share in the profits, because 

the worker with a stake in the business would be treated like 

one of the family. 

‘Down with the traitor!’ came the cry, repeated now by a 

thousand voices, while stones started to fly through the air. 

Then he went pale, and his eyes filled with tears of despair. 

His whole existence collapsed, twenty years of fraternal ambi¬ 

tions disintegrated under the ungrateful attacks of the mob. He 

got down from the tree trunk, struck to the heart, having lost 

the will to continue. 

‘Does that make you laugh.^’ he stammered, turning to the 

triumphant Etienne, ‘AH right, I just hope that it happens to 

you ... And it will, you mark my words!’ 

And, as if to disclaim any responsibility for the misfortunes 

which he foresaw, he let his arms fall to his sides, and went off 

alone into the silent, white countryside. 

People started booing, and, surprisingly, old Bonnemort 

showed up standing on the trunk, talking amid the uproar. Up 

until then he and Mouque had remained absorbed, with their 

usual air of being wrapped up in old stories. Doubtless he was 

succumbing to one of those sudden fits of verbosity which 

from time to time stirred up the past within him so violently 

that the memories welled up and spilled forth from his lips for 

hours on end. A deep silence fell as everyone listened to this 

old man, standing pale and ghostly in the moonlight; and since 

he was talking about things that had no immediate bearing on 

the argument, long stories that nobody could follow, the effect 

was even more arresting. It was his own youth he was talking 

about, he told of the death of his two uncles buried alive at Le 

Voreux, then he went on to the congestion of the lungs that 

had carried off his wife. Yet he stuck to his point: things had 

never worked properly, and never would. So they too had held 

Part IV 

287 

a meeting right there in the forest, five hundred of them, 

because the king refused to reduce their working hours; but 

then he interrupted his own train of thought, and started 

telling them about a different strike: he had seen so many! 

They all ended up under the trees, sometimes like here, at Le 

Plan-des-Dames, sometimes over there at La Charbonnerie, or 

further away, near Le Saut-du-Loup. Sometimes it was freez¬ 

ing cold, sometimes it was burning hot. One evening it had 

rained so hard that they had gone back home again without 

being able to have a discussion at all. Then the king’s soldiers 

arrived and it ended up in a shooting match. 

‘We raised our hands like that, we swore not to go back 

down ... Oh, I swore, yes, I swore I wouldn’t!’ 

The crowd was listening open-mouthed, seized with mis¬ 

givings, when Etienne, who had been following the scene, 

jumped on to the fallen tree and stood up beside the old man. 

He had just recognized Chaval among his friends in the 

front row. The idea that Catherine must be there had re¬ 

kindled his passion, with a desire to be applauded before her 

very eyes. 

‘Comrades, now you’ve heard what one of our elders has 

suffered, and what our children will suffer, if we don’t put a 

stop to these thieves and assassins.’ 

He was implacable, never had he spoken so violently. He 

held on to Bonnemort with one arm, displaying him like an 

emblem of poverty and mourning, crying for vengeance. In a 

few rapid phrases he ran through the fate of the Maheu family 

from their beginnings, worn out by the mine, devoured by the 

Company, still starving after a hundred years of hard labour; 

and he contrasted this with the Board of Directors, sitting 

there with bloated bellies, positively dripping with money, and 

the whole crew of shareholders, kept in luxury for a hundred 

years like fancy women with no need to work, just pampering 

their bodies. Wasn’t it horrifying: a whole race of men dying 

below ground from father to son, just to help out government 

ministers with their expense accounts and to enable generations 

of nobles and bourgeois to throw parties or grow fat staying at 

home by the fireside! He had studied the diseases of miners, 

and he listed them one by one, in all their horrifying detail: 

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Germinal 

anaemia, scrofula, the black phlegm of bronchitis, suffocation 

from asthma, paralysis from rheumatism. These wretched folk, 

thrown as fodder to the machines, herded like cattle into the 

mining villages, were gradually absorbed by the big companies 

who regulated their slavery, threatening to enlist all the workers 

of the nation, all their millions of arms, for the wealth of a few 

thousand layabouts. But the miner was no longer an ignorant 

brute, trodden down into the depths of the earth. Deep down 

in the mines an army was growing, a future crop of citizens, 

germinating like seeds that would burst through the earth’s 

crust one day into the bright sunshine. And then they would 

see if, after forty years of service, they dared offer a hundred- 

and-fifty-franc pension to an old man of sixty, whose guts 

were full of coal and whose legs were pickled in the water that 

gushed from the coal-face. Oh yes, labour would call capital to 

account, challenging the anonymous god, who lay hidden in 

his mysterious tabernacle, somewhere out of sight of the 

workers, gorged on the blood of the sick and dying that he fed 

on! They would go to find him, they would see his face lit 

clearly at last in the blaze of his dwelling as it burnt to the 

ground, he would drown in his own blood like a filthy swine, 

that foul idol that fed on human flesh! 

He fell silent, his arm still stretching into the darkness, 

challenging the enemy out there, wherever he might be, even 

at the other end of the earth. This time the clamour of the 

crowd was so loud that the good citizens of Montsou heard it, 

and looked out towards Vandame, quaking with fear at the 

thought of some awful rock fall. The birds of the night 

wheeled over the woods, silhouetted against the great white 

sky. 

He decided to conclude immediately: 

‘Comrades, what is your decision? ... Do you vote to 

continue the strike?’ 

‘Yes! We do!’ the voices screamed. 

‘And what measures will you take? ... We are sure to lose, 

if any cowards go back down to work tomorrow.’ 

Voices were raised again, in a tempestuous blast: 

‘Death to all cowards!’ 

‘So you decide to remind them of their duty, of their solemn 

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oath . .. This is what we can do: go to the pits, persuade the 

traitors to join us, show the Company that we are united and 

that we will die rather than yield.’ 

‘He’s right, to the pits! To the pits!’ 

All the while he had been speaking, Etienne had been 

seeking out Catherine’s face among the mass of pale, turbulent 

figures swaying before him. He was sure she wasn’t there. But 

he could still see Chaval, who was sneering and shrugging his 

shoulders ostentatiously, consumed with jealousy, ready to sell 

his soul for a taste of such popularity. 

‘And if there are any spies among us, comrades,’ Etienne 

continued, ‘they had better watch out, we know who they are 

... Yes, I can see some colliers from Vandame who haven’t 

left their pit yet. . .’ 

‘Do you mean me.^’ asked Chaval, with an air of bravado. 

‘You or anyone like you . .. But since you’ve spoken, you 

should understand that people with enough to eat have nothing 

to tell those who go hungry. You’re working at Jean-Bart. ..’ 

A raucous voice interrupted: 

‘Oh, you could say he’s working ... or you could say he’s 

found a woman to go to work for him.’ 

Chaval’s face flushed, and he swore. 

‘For God’s sake! Is it a crime to work, then.^’ 

‘Yes!’ cried Etienne. ‘When your comrades are starving for 

the good of their neighbours it’s a crime to be selfish and suck 

up to the bosses. If the strike had been general, we would have 

mastered them long ago . . . Should any man from Vandame 

have gone down to work when Montsou was out on strike.^ 

The best thing would have been for work to stop all over the 

region, at Monsieur Deneulin’s as well as here. Do you hear.^ 

You’re nothing but traitors at the coal-face at Jean-Bart, you 

are all traitors!’ 

Around Chaval the crowd became threatening, fists were 

raised, and cries of ‘Kill them! Kill them!’ started to ring out. 

He went pale. But in his furious urge to get the better of 

Etienne he was inspired by a new idea, 

‘Just listen to me, now! Come to Jean-Bart tomorrow and 

you’ll see if I’m working! . . . We’re on your side, they sent me 

to tell you. We must put out the furnaces, and the mechanics 

290 

Germinal 

too must come out on strike. I don’t care if that makes the 

pumps stop! The water will ruin the pits and that’ll put an end 

to the whole bloody farce.’ 

He was applauded wildly in his turn, and from then on 

Etienne lost control of the meeting. Speaker after speaker 

stood on the tree trunk, gesticulated amid the uproar, making 

wild proposals. They were possessed with the divine folly of 

inspired believers, the impatience of a religious sect which, 

tired of waiting for the promised miracle to happen, decides to 

accomplish it unaided. They saw red, as their heads were light 

with hunger and spinning with visions of fire and slaughter, of 

a glorious apotheosis from which universal happiness would 

arise. The tranquil moonlight bathed this ocean swell, and the 

depths of the forest swathed their murderous cries in its 

silence. The only sound to be heard was the crunching of 

frozen moss beneath their feet; while the beeches, rising 

straight and strong, with the delicate tracery of their branches 

standing out darkly against the white sky, were deaf and blind 

to the miserable wretches surging at their feet. 

As the crowd ebbed and flowed. La Maheude found herself 

next to Maheu, and both of them, taking leave of their senses, 

carried away by the gradually rising exasperation that had been 

racking them for months, applauded Levaque, who was asking 

for the heads of the engineers. Pierron had disappeared, and 

Bonnemort and Mouque were both talking at once, saying 

confused but violent things, which nobody followed. For a 

laugh, Zacharie called for the churches to be demolished, while 

Mouquet struck at the ground with his cross club, for the 

sheer pleasure of making even more noise. The women were 

like furies: La Levaque with her hands on her hips flew at 

Philomene, accusing her of laughing; La Mouquette said she 

would kick the gendarmes to pieces where it hurt most; old 

Ma Brule, who had just slapped Lydie for turning up with no 

salad and no basket, started thrashing the air around her, 

aiming punches at all the bosses that she would have liked to 

get hold of. For a moment Jeanlin had felt stunned, for a pit 

boy had told Bebert that Madame Rasseneur had seen them 

steal Poland; but having decided that he’d go back on the sly 

to let the creature go free near the door of the A vantage, he 

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291 

shouted even louder, drew out his new knife and made it spring 

open, brandishing its shining blade with pride. 

‘Comrades! comrades!’ repeated Etienne, exhausted and 

hoarse from trying to obtain peace and quiet for a moment, to 

get them to agree to take a final decision. 

At last they agreed to listen. 

‘Comrades! Tomorrow morning at Jean-Bart, is that agreed?’ 

‘Yes, you bet, Jean-Bart here we come! Death to all traitors!’ 

The tempest of their 3,000 voices filled the heavens and 

gradually dissolved in the clear, bright moonlight. 

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