Emile Zola Germinal (Oxford) PART VI

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PART VI 

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CHAPTER I 

The first fortnight of February went by, with the hard winter 

still gripping the miserable wretches pitilessly in its bitter cold. 

Again the authorities had swept through the region, sending 

the Prefect from Lille, a public prosecutor, and a general. And 

not content with sending in the gendarmes, the army had 

come* to occupy Montsou with a whole regiment, whose men 

were camped out from Beaugnies to Marchiennes. Armed 

pickets guarded the pits, and there were soldiers posted by 

every engine. The manager’s villa, the Company yards, and 

even the houses of some of the bourgeoisie bristled with 

bayonets. 7 'here was no escaping the slow march of the squads 

patrolling up and down the cobbled streets. There was a 

sentry permanently standing guard on top of the slag-heap at 

Le Voreux, keeping watch over the featureless plain, facing the 

icy wind that blew up there; and every two hours the call of 

the changing of the watch rang out, as if on a hostile frontier. 

‘Halt! Who goes there.^ ... Advance, and give the pass¬ 

word!’ 

Work had not started up again anywhere. On the contrary, 

the strike had hardened: Crevecceur, Mirou, and Madeleine 

had stopped producing, like Le Voreux; Feutry-Cantel and La 

Victoire lost more workers each morning; at Saint-Thomas, 

which had previously been untouched, there were gaps in the 

ranks. Now that they were faced with the force of arms, the 

miners offered a quiet but obstinate resistance, for their pride 

had been wounded. The villages looked as if they had been left 

abandoned in the middle of the beetfields. Not a workman 

stirred, only the odd one might occasionally be seen, out on his 

own, looking away as he walked past the red-trousered troops. 

And amid this sullen peace, this passive resistance to the rifles 

that surrounded them, they showed the deceptive gentleness 

and the patient, forced obedience of wild beasts in cages, their 

eyes on the trainer, ready to snap his head off the moment he 

turns his back. The Company, ruined by the cessation of 

work, was talking of taking on miners from Le Borinage* on 

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the Belgian frontier, but didn’t dare do so; thus the battle lines 

remained static between the colliers, who stayed indoors, and 

the troops guarding the abandoned pits. 

The very next morning after the terrible riot, this armed 

peace had arisen spontaneously, hiding a panic so deep that as 

little as possible was said about the damage and the atrocities. 

The official inquiry established that Maigrat had died from his 

fall, and the dreadful mutilation of his body was kept inexplicit, 

leaving it surrounded with an instant halo of legend. For its 

part, the Company declined to make public the damage it had 

suffered, just as the Gregoires preferred not to compromise the 

reputation of their daughter with the scandal of a trial, where 

she would have had to give evidence. However, there had been 

a few arrests, of bystanders as usual, all dazed, witless, and 

totally ignorant. By mistake they had taken Pierron in hand¬ 

cuffs to Marchiennes, which had his comrades laughing for 

days. Rasseneur, too, had almost been marched away by a pair 

of gendarmes. The management settled for drawing up lists of 

people to sack, sending whole batches of workmen their book¬ 

lets: Maheu had received his, Levaque too, like thirty-four of 

their comrades in village Two Hundred and Forty alone. And 

the full rigour of the law was invoked against Etienne, who 

had disappeared on the night of the affray, but search as they 

might, they found no trace of him. Driven by personal hatred, 

Chaval had denounced him, but refused to name anyone else, 

yielding to Catherine’s plea to him to spare her parents. As the 

days went by, there was a feeling of unfinished business; 

people were waiting for the end, their hearts sick with tension. 

At Montsou from now on the bourgeoisie woke with a start 

in the middle of every night, their ears ringing with imaginary 

bells tolling and their nostrils reeking with the stench of 

gunpowder. But what finally drove them mad was a sermon by 

their new vicar. Father Ranvier, the skinny, red-eyed priest 

who had succeeded Father Joire. How different he was from 

that discreet, smiling, plump, and inoffensive man, whose only 

concern had been to avoid trouble and enjoy peace and quiet! 

Hadn’t Father Ranvier dared take the defence of the disgraceful 

bandits who were the shame of the region? He found excuses 

for the strikers, and made a vicious attack on the bourgeoisie, 

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whose fault it all was. It was the bourgeoisie who had stripped 

the Church of its ancient rights and was now misusing them, 

which had turned this world into a cursed place of injustice 

and suffering; it was the bourgeoisie that was encouraging the 

misunderstanding and was leading everyone to the brink of an 

appalling catastrophe, through its atheism, its refusal to return 

to the faith and the fraternal traditions of the early Christians. 

And he had dared to threaten the rich, he had warned them 

that, if they kept stubbornly refusing to hear the word of God, 

God would surely go over to the side of the poor: he would 

triumph over the faithless seekers after pleasure, and take back 

all their riches and redistribute them to the humble of the 

earth, in the pursuit of his glory. The devout church wives 

trembled at his words, the notary declared that it smacked of 

the worst brand of socialism, they all imagined the vicar 

brandishing his crucifix at the head of an armed mob, destroy¬ 

ing with a few wild strokes the bourgeoisie that had been born 

in 1789. 

When Monsieur Hennebeau was informed of what was 

happening, he merely shrugged his shoulders and said: 

‘If he becomes too much of a nuisance the Bishop will get 

rid of him for us.’ 

And while this wave of panic was sweeping back and forth 

right across the countryside, Etienne had gone to ground, in 

the depths of Requillart, in Jeanlin’s lair. Nobody imagined 

that he was hiding so close by, for his cool cheek in choosing 

to take refuge down the mine itself, in the abandoned gallery 

of an old pit, had thrown his pursuers off the scent. Up above, 

the mouth of the tunnel was blocked by sloe bushes and 

hawthorn shrubs which had sprouted up between the broken 

beams of the pulley frame; nobody dared enter; you had to 

know the routine, swing from the roots of the mountain ash, 

swallow your fear, let go, and drop down into the dark to reach 

the rungs that were still strong enough to take your weight; 

and there were other obstacles protecting Etienne, the suffocat¬ 

ing heat of the well, the 120 metres of dangerous descent, 

then sliding painfully along on your belly for a quarter of a 

league, between the ever-narrowing walls of the tunnel, before 

you could discover the traitor’s cave and its pirate’s hoard. 

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376 

Here he lived surrounded by lavish provisions; he had found 

some gin, the remains of the dried cod, and all sorts of other 

supplies. The great bed of hay was excellent, there wasn’t a 

single draught in the room, which was bathed in a perfectly 

even warmth. The only problem was the imminent lack of 

light. Jeanlin, who had become his appointed purveyor, show¬ 

ing all the caution and cunning of the native delighted to dupe 

the occupying forces, brought him everything he wanted, 

including pomade, but was unable to lay his hands on a packet 

of candles. 

By the fifth day, Etienne only lit a candle when he needed 

to eat. The food stuck in his throat if he tried to swallow it in 

the dark. This utter, endless night, with its invariable black¬ 

ness, was a source of great suffering. Although he could sleep 

safely and eat his fill and was snug and warm, he had never in 

his life felt his head so invaded by darkness. It seemed to press 

down on him so that it crushed the life out of his own 

thoughts. Now he was living from robbery! Despite his commun¬ 

ist theories, the old scruples inherited from his moral education 

made themselves felt, and he restricted himself to dry bread, 

eating as little of it as possible. But what was the point.^* 

He had to live on, his task was unfinished. He also felt 

burdened by another source of shame, remorse for his wild 

drinking session, when, in the bitter cold, the gin on an empty 

stomach had thrown him at Chaval with a knife in his hand. 

That stirred up within him a whole unknown area of terror, 

his hereditary ill, his long heritage of drunkenness, unable to 

stand a drop of alcohol without falling into a homicidal fury. 

Would he end up a murderer,^^ When he had reached this 

haven, in the deep peace of the bowels of the earth, he had felt 

suddenly sated with violence, and slept for two whole days 

with the sleep of a gorged and stupefied beast; and his disgust 

persisted, he woke to find his muscles aching, his mouth 

bitter, his head swimming, as if he had been out on some 

terrible drinking spree. A week went by; but the Maheus, 

although they knew where he was, were unable to send him a 

candle: he had to accept his blindness, even when eating. 

Now Etienne spent hours at a time stretched out on the hay. 

He was racked with vague ideas which he hadn’t suspected to 

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377 

find in his head. He had a sensation of superiority that set him 

apart from his comrades, as the knowledge he was acquiring 

from his studies seemed to make his whole being expand. He 

had never reflected so much, and he wondered why he had felt 

so disgusted the day after his wild race from pit to pit; but he 

didn’t dare answer his own question; there were memories that 

shocked him, the baseness of what people desired, the crude¬ 

ness of their instincts, the smell of ail that misery hanging in 

the air. Despite the torment he felt in the darkness, he found 

himself starting to dread the moment when he would have to 

return to the village. How revolting they were, these wretches 

piled one on top of the other, washing in each other’s dirty 

water! Not a single one of them could hold a serious political 

conversation, they lived just like cattle, always surrounded by 

the same suffocating smell of onions! He would like to open up 

new horizons for them, to lead them towards the comfort and 

the good manners of the bourgeoisie, making them the masters; 

but how long it would take! And he felt he lacked the courage, 

plunged in the prison of hunger, to wait for victory to come. 

Gradually his vanity at being their leader and his constant 

concern to think on their behalf were detaching him from 

them, and creating within him the sou! of one of those 

bourgeois that he so detested. 

One evening Jeanlin brought him the remains of a candle 

that he had stolen from a carter’s lantern; and Etienne was 

greatly relieved. When the darkness finally made him feel 

dazed, weighing so heavily on his head that he thought he 

would go mad, he lit it for a moment; then, as soon as he had 

dispelled his nightmares, he put the light out, as wary of 

wasting the life-giving light as he was of wasting bread itself. 

The silence throbbed in his ears, and he heard nothing but the 

scurrying of bands of rats, the creaking of old timber, and the 

tiny sounds made by a spider spinning its web. And as his eyes 

tried to penetrate the warm surrounding void, he kept returning 

to his obsession; that is, what his comrades were doing up 

above. Leaving them in the lurch would have seemed to him 

to be the most abject cowardice. If he was hiding out in this 

way, it was to remain free to be able to give them advice and 

act without constraint. 

Germinal 

378 

His long musings had clarified his ambitions: while awaiting 

something better, he would have liked to be Pluchart, give up 

work, and devote himself entirely to politics, but on his own, 

in a clean room, arguing that mental work absorbed all one’s 

vital energies and required absolute peace and quiet. 

At the start of the second week, when Jeanlin told him that 

the gendarmes thought he had crossed over into Belgium, 

Etienne thought it was safe to leave his hiding place at night¬ 

time. He wanted to check up on the situation, to see whether 

they should continue their struggle. He himself had thought 

the game was up even before the strike, and had doubted a 

successful outcome, but he had merely yielded to the pressure 

of events; and now, after feeling the intoxication of rebellion, 

he returned to these first doubts, since he despaired of making 

the Company give way. But he couldn’t yet admit it to 

himself, he was still tortured by doubt when he thought of 

the misery of defeat, and of the heavy responsibility for the 

suffering which would weigh on his shoulders. Wouldn’t the 

end of the strike mean the end of his role and the collapse of 

his ambitions, reducing his existence to the mindless routine of 

the mine and the repulsive life of the village.^ And sincerely, 

without mean or mendacious calculation, he tried to rekindle 

his faith in the strike, to persuade himself that resistance was 

still possible, that capitalism was bound to destroy itself in the 

wake of the heroic suicide of labour. 

And indeed throughout the land there were long and ruinous 

consequences. At night, when he wandered round the country¬ 

side like a wolf venturing forth from the forest, he could 

almost hear the crash of bankruptcies re-echoing from end to 

end of the plain. Every road he walked down offered up its 

closed, dead factories, with their buildings rotting beneath the 

wan sky. The sugar-refineries had been especially hard hit; the 

Hoton and the Fauvelle refineries, after reducing the number 

of their workers, had been the latest to collapse. At Dutilleul’s 

flour-mill the last grindstone had ceased to turn on the second 

Saturday of the month, and the Bleuze ropeworks, which made 

mine cables, was killed off for good by the local stoppages. Over 

at Marchiennes the situation worsened daily; all the furnaces at 

the Gagebois glassworks had been extinguished, there were 

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constant redundancies at the Sonneville building works, only 

one of the blast-furnaces of Les Forges was lit, and not a 

single battery of coke ovens lit the horizon. The strike of the 

Montsou colliers, born of the industrial slump which had been 

worsening for the past two years, had aggravated it, and was 

now precipitating the debacle. To the causes of the slump—^the 

drying up of orders from America, and the log-jam of capital 

tied up in superfluous production—there now had to be added 

the sudden lack of coal for the few boilers which were still 

working; and that was the direst disaster of all, this lack of the 

very life-blood of the machines that the pits were no longer 

producing. Terrified by the scale of the slump, the Company 

had diminished its production and driven its miners to starva¬ 

tion, and so by the end of December had inevitably found 

itself without a single piece of coal at the pit-head. The long 

chain of disasters was all infernally logical, one collapse brought 

on another, the industries fell like dominoes, knocking each 

other down in such a rapid series of catastrophes that the 

repercussions were felt as far away as the heart of the neigh¬ 

bouring cities of Lille, Douai, and Valenciennes, where 

whole families were ruined by runaway bankers reneging on 

their obligations. 

Often, as he rounded a bend in the road, Etienne would 

stop in the middle of the icy darkness to listen to the ruins 

crashing down around him. He drank in the night air, and was 

seized by a lust for destruction, a hope that when dawn broke 

it would reveal the extermination of the old order, leaving not 

a fortune standing, with equality cutting society down to 

ground level like a scythe. But what fascinated him most in 

this holocaust were the Company’s pits. He started walking 

again, blinded by the darkness, visiting them one by one, 

delighted with each new depredation that he discovered. There 

were more and more rock falls, and the longer the tunnels lay 

neglected, the more serious they became. Above the northern 

sector of Mirou, the subsidence of the ground was so pro¬ 

nounced that the Joiselle road had collapsed over a distance of 

a hundred metres, as if hit by some earthquake; and the 

Company was .so worried by the rumours surrounding these 

accidents that it had compensated the owners of the fields 

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380 

which had subsided, without haggling. Crevecoeur and 

Madeleine, where the rock was very unstable, were starting to 

become blocked up. There was talk of two deputies being 

buried alive at La Victoire; and a flood at Feutry-Cantel; they 

had had to line a kilometre of gallery at Saint-Thomas with 

bricks, where the timber was breaking up on all sides because 

it hadn’t been properly maintained. Thus each hour that 

passed brought enormous expenses, ravaging the shareholders’ 

dividends, rapidly destroying the pits, which threatened in the 

long term to swallow up the famous Montsou deniers, which 

had multiplied a hundredfold over the previous century. 

So, in the face of this series of blows, Etienne’s hopes were 

raised again; he finally came to believe that a third month of 

resistance would bring about the downfall of the monster, 

crouching sluggish and bloated out there in its lair, in the 

hidden depths of its tabernacle. He knew that the trouble at 

Montsou had shaken the Parisian press quite seriously, unleash¬ 

ing a violent polemic between establishment and opposition 

newspapers, over terrifying stories that were exploited above 

all in order to attack the International, which the Emperor and 

his government were scared of, after first encouraging it; and 

since the Board could hardly claim to be unconcerned by what 

was happening, two of their members had deigned to travel 

down to undertake an inquiry, but with an air of reluctance, 

and seemingly uninterested in the result, so much so, appar¬ 

ently, that they only stayed for three days, declaring as they 

left that everything was just perfect. And yet Etienne had been 

assured unofficially that those gentlemen had worked non-stop 

throughout their stay, had been rushing about feverishly, up to 

their elbows in negotiations that none of their entourage was 

allowed to mention. And Etienne accused them of whistling in 

the dark, and he came to see their precipitate departure as a 

panic-stricken flight; now he felt certain that he would triumph, 

since these much-feared men were dropping the reins. 

Yet the very next night Etienne was in despair again. The 

Company was too well supported to be knocked sideways so 

easily: it could lose millions, and later it would get the money 

back from the workers, forcing them to eat less. That night, 

having struck out as far as Jean-Bart, he guessed the truth. 

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381 

when a supervisor told him that there was already talk of ceding 

Vandame to Montsou. They said that Deneulin’s household 

was in the grips of the direst misery, the pauperization of the 

rich, with the father ill with frustration, prematurely aged by 

his financial worries, and his daughters struggling to satisfy 

their creditors and keep the shirts on their backs. The starving 

miners in the villages suffered less than this bourgeois family, 

living in a house where they had to hide for fear of people 

seeing that they were reduced to drinking water. Work had not 

started again at Jean~Bart, and they had had to replace the 

pump at Gaston-Marie; not to mention the fact that, despite all 

the speed with which this had been done, the pit had started to 

flood, which caused considerable expense. And finally Deneulin 

had taken the risk of asking the Gregoires for a loan of a 

hundred thousand francs, and their refusal, although expected, 

had finished him off: if they refused, it was out of kindness to 

him, in order to spare him an impossible struggle; and they 

advised him to sell. He repeated his refusal, vehemently. He 

was furious at the idea of paying for the strike, he’d rather burst 

a blood vessel, choke with apoplexy, and drop down dead. But 

what was the alternative.? He had listened to their offers. They 

wanted to beat him down, to undervalue that superb prize, a pit 

that had been renovated and refurbished, and where only a lack 

of ready credit paralysed its exploitation. Now he would be 

lucky if he could get enough out of it to get his creditors off his 

back. He had spent two days arguing with the representatives of 

the Board who had invaded Montsou, furious at their casual 

exploitation of his difficulties, crying out in his booming voice 

that he would never surrender. And that had settled the affair; 

they had returned to Paris to wait patiently until he gave up the 

ghost. Etienne sensed the return of the pendulum that would 

compensate them for disaster, and felt discouraged again at the 

invincible power of the major capitalists, who were so battle- 

hardened that they were able to thrive on defeat, by eating the 

corpses of their lesser brethren who fell at their sides. 

Fortunately Jeanlin brought him some good news the next 

day. At Le Voreux, the lining of the pit looked likely to burst, 

water was breaking through all of the joints, and they had had 

to put a team of carpenters to work to repair it in great haste. 

Germinal 

382 

Until then, Etienne had avoided Le Voreux, worried by the 

ever-present black silhouette of the sentry posted on top of the 

slag-heap, overlooking the plain. They couldn’t avoid him, he 

stood up against the sky, towering aloft like the regimental 

standard. Towards three o’clock in the morning, the sky 

clouded over, and Etienne went over to the pit, where his 

comrades informed him of the precarious state of the shaft 

lining: they even thought that the whole thing needed urgently 

replacing, which would have prevented any production for 

three months. He spent a long time roaming around listening 

to the blows of the carpenters’ mallets down in the shaft. He 

felt his heart leap at the thought of this wound that they were 

forced to bandage. 

At daybreak, as he was returning home, he saw the sentry 

on the slag-heap again. This time he was sure to be spotted. 

He walked on, thinking how these soldiers were taken from the 

ranks of the people, and then armed against the people. How 

easy the revolution would have been if only the army could 

have come out and declared itself in its favour! It would be 

enough if the workman or the peasant in their barracks could 

remember what their own origins were. This was the supreme 

peril, the great terror that sent shivers down bourgeois spines, 

the thought of a possible defection by the troops. In a couple 

of hours they would be swept aside, exterminated, along with 

all the pleasures and abominations of their iniquitous lives. 

Already people were saying that whole regiments had been 

infected by socialism. Was it true? Would justice arrive, burst¬ 

ing forth from the cartridges provided by the bourgeoisie? And 

seizing on another hope, the young man dreamed that the 

regiment whose garrisons guarded the pits would join the 

strike, would gun down each and every member of the Com¬ 

pany indiscriminately, and at last hand over the mines to the 

miners. 

As he felt his head spinning with such notions, he suddenly 

realized that he was already climbing up the slag-heap. Why 

shouldn’t he have a chat with the soldier? That would give him 

an idea of what they really thought. He continued to advance, 

looking unconcerned, pretending to scavenge for odd pieces of 

timber left in the rubble. The sentry still didn’t move. 

Part VI 383 

‘Well, comrade, it’s lousy weather, isn’t it!’ said Etienne at 

last. ‘I think we’re going to have some snow.’ 

The soldier was a short young man, with very fair hair, with 

a pale, gentle face, covered in freckles. He looked ill at ease in 

his cape, like a new recruit. 

‘Yes, I think so, you’re right,’ he murmured. 

And he turned his blue eyes slowly up towards the livid sky, 

and studied the smoky dawn, whose soot weighed down over 

the distant plain like so much lead. 

‘Aren’t they fools, to stick you up there leaving you frozen 

to the marrow!’ Etienne continued. ‘Anyone would think we 

were expecting the Cossacks* to attack! .. . And you know 

what a wind there always is up here, don’t you.’ 

The little soldier was shivering uncomplainingly. There was 

a little drystone cabin where old Bonnemort used to take 

shelter on stormy nights; but the soldier had his orders not to 

leave the top of the slag-heap, so he didn’t move an inch, 

although his hands were frozen so stiff that he could no longer 

feel his rifle. He was one of a garrison of sixty men guarding 

Le Voreux; and since the harsh sentry duty came round 

regularly, he had nearly breathed his last up there once already, 

when his feet had gone lifeless with the cold. But his duty 

demanded it, and his passive spirit of obedience made him 

even more numb and unresponsive, so that he answered 

Etienne’s questions in the stammering tones of a half-sleeping 

child. 

Etienne tried in vain for a quarter of an hour to get him to 

talk politics. He said yes or no without seeming to understand; 

some of his comrades reckoned that their captain was a republi¬ 

can; as for himself, he had no notion, he didn’t mind either 

way. If they ordered him to shoot he would shoot, to avoid 

being punished. 

The workman listened, swayed by the hatred that the people 

felt for the army, hatred of these brothers whose hearts were 

seduced away from them merely by dressing their behinds in a 

pair of red trousers. 

‘So, what’s your name thcnP 

‘Jules.’ 

‘And where are you from.^’ 

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384 

‘From Plogoff, over there.' 

He stretched out his arm, haphazardly. It was in Brittany, 

that was all he could say. His small, pale face lit up, he started 

to laugh, as he warmed to his theme. 

‘I live with my mother and my sister. They’re waiting for 

me to come back, of course. My, but that won’t be a day too 

soon . .. When I left they came with me as far as Pont-fAbbe. 

We borrowed the Lepalmecs’ horse, but he nearly broke his 

legs coming down from Audierne. Cousin Charles met us with 

some sausages, but the women were too upset, we couldn’t 

swallow a thing ... Oh, God! Oh, God! I’m so far from home!’ 

Tears came to his eyes, although he continued to laugh. The 

barren moors of Plogoff, that wild extremity of the Raz 

constantly swept by storms, appeared to him dazzling with 

sunshine, tinted with the pink of its heather in full bloom. 

‘Listen,’ he asked, ‘if I don’t get any reprimands, do you 

think they’ll let me have a month’s leave in two years’ time.^’ 

Then Etienne spoke of Provence, which he had left when he 

was just a lad. Day was breaking, and snowflakes started to drift 

through the mud-coloured sky. And at last he started to get 

anxious, as he noticed Jeanlin roaming around in the brambles. 

The boy was astonished to see Etienne up there, and waved to 

warn him to leave. Etienne was wondering if there was any 

point to his dream of fraternizing with the soldiers. It would 

take years and years still, he felt upset at his futile attempt, as if 

he had expected to succeed. But he suddenly understood the 

meaning of Jeanlin’s signal: they were coming to change the 

guard; and off he went, running home to go to earth at 

Requillart, his heart breaking once again in the face of certain 

defeat; while the lad, trotting alongside him, accused that dirty 

slob of a trooper of calling out the garrison to shoot at them. 

At the top of the slag-heap Jules remained motionless, his 

eyes peering sightlessly into the falling snow. The sergeant and 

his men arrived, and the regulation cries were exchanged. 

‘Halt! Who goes there.^ Advance, and give the password!’ 

And their heavy steps could then be heard returning, ringing 

out firmly as if in occupied territory. Despite the growing 

daylight, nothing stirred in the villages, where the colliers were 

lying low, fuming with rage at this military regime. 

Part VI 

385 

CHAPTER II 

For two days it had been snowing; then that morning it had 

stopped, and the whole vast white carpet was frozen solid; thus 

this black country with its inky roads, whose walls and trees 

were covered in coal-dust, was white all over, absolutely white, 

stretching to infinity. Beneath the snow, village Two Hundred 

and Forty lay flattened, as if it had been obliterated. Not a curl 

of smoke rose from a rooftop. The houses had no fires, they 

were as cold as the paving stones on the roads, and they gave 

off no warmth to thaw the thick blanket covering the tiles. It 

looked like a massive quarry of white slabs, covering the white 

plain, like a dead village, wrapped in a shroud. Along the roads 

only the passing patrols had left the muddy traces of their 

march. 

At the Maheus\ the last shovelful of coal chips had been 

burnt the day before; and there was no question of scavenging 

any more on the slag-heap during such bitter weather, when 

even the sparrows couldn’t find a blade of grass. Alzire was at 

death’s door, from stubbornly persisting in searching through 

the snow with her poor weak little hands. La Maheude had to 

wrap her up in a scrap of blanket, and wait for Dr Vander- 

haghen to call, after going round to his house twice without 

being able to find him in; however, the maid had just said that 

her master would go to the village before nightfall, so she 

stood guard in front of the window, while the sick child, who 

had insisted on getting out of bed, sat shivering on a chair, in 

the illusion that it was warmer there beside the cold stove. Old 

Bonnemort sat opposite, his legs poorly again, and seemed to 

have fallen asleep. Neither Lenore nor Henri was home yet; 

they were out on the road combing the countryside with 

Jeanlin, begging for coppers. Only Maheu moved, pacing 

heavily back and forth in the bare room, bumping clumsily 

into the wall at each turn, like a bewildered animal failing to 

notice the bars of its cage. The oil had been used up too; but 

the reflections from the snow outside were so white that they 

made the room glow slightly, despite the fact that night had 

fallen. 

Germinal 

386 

They heard the sound of clogs, and La Levaque threw the 

door open brusquely, in a temper, shouting as soon as she 

crossed the threshold: 

‘So you’re the one that said I was forcing my lodger to give 

me twenty sous every time he slept with me!’ 

La Maheude shrugged her shoulders. 

‘Leave me alone, I never said a thing .. . And anyway, who 

told you that?’ 

‘They told me you said it, never mind who told me . .. and 

you even said that you could hear us playing our dirty games 

through the wall, and that the dirt was piling up in our house 

because I spent all my time flat on my back ... So tell me you 

didn’t say so, then!’ 

Every day fresh quarrels broke out, as a result of the 

women’s continual gossiping. Between neighbouring house¬ 

holds with adjoining doors there were daily disputes and 

reconciliations. But never before had they been at each other’s 

throats with such bitter ill will. Since the start of the strike, 

their rancour had been exacerbated by hunger, and they felt 

the need to lash out; an argument between two women tended 

to finish with a bloody show-down between their menfolk. 

And just at that moment Levaque arrived, dragging Boute- 

loup along with him by force. 

‘Here’s our friend, let him say whether he gave my wife 

twenty sous to sleep with her.’ 

The lodger, hiding his meekness and fear behind his thick 

beard, protested, stammering. 

‘Oh, never in my life, never ever!’ 

With this, Levaque became threatening, raising his fist in 

front of Maheu’s face. 

‘You know, I don’t like that one little bit. If you’ve got a 

wife like that, you should beat her up . .. If you don’t, it 

means that you believe what she says, doesn’t it?’ 

‘For heaven’s sake!’ cried Maheu, furious at the interruption 

to his gloomy musings, ‘What the hell is all this stupid gossip 

about? Haven’t we got enough problems? Bugger off or I’ll 

belt you one .. . And anyway, who said it was my wife who 

said it?’ 

‘Who said so?... It was La Pierronne who said so.’ 

Part VI 387 

La Maheude shrieked with laughter; and turned round to 

face La Levaque: 

‘Oh, so it was La Pierronne . . . Well, I might as well tell 

you what she told me. If you want to know, she said you slept 

with both of your men together, one on top and the other under¬ 

neath!’ 

After that, any sort of agreement was out of the question. 

They all took offence, the Levaques riposting with the informa¬ 

tion that La Pierronne had had more home truths to tell about 

the Maheus, that they had sold Catherine, and that the whole 

family, including even the children, was rotting away with 

some filthy disease that Etienne had picked up at the Volcan. 

‘She said that, did she, she said that!’ screamed Maheu. ‘All 

right then! I’ll go and see her myself, and if she says what they 

say she said I’ll stuff my fist in her teeth.’ 

He was already outside, with the Levaques in his wake to 

bear witness, while Bouteloup, who detested arguments, went 

inside on the quiet. Excited by the idea of the show-down, La 

Maheude, too, was on her way out, when a cry from Alzire 

drew her up short. She folded the ends of the blanket over the 

shivering body, and went back to looking out of the window, 

with her eyes gazing into the distance. And still the doctor 

didn’t come! 

At the door of the Pierrons’, Maheu and the Levaques met 

Lydie, who was tramping about in the snow. The house was 

closed, but a ray of light was visible through a crack in the 

shutters: and at first the child answered their questions with 

embarrassment: no, her dad wasn’t there, he had gone to the 

laundry to see old Ma Brule, to fetch a bundle of washing. 

Then she became confused, and refused to say what her mum 

was doing. But in the end she let it all slip out, with a sullen, 

vindictive laugh: her mum had thrown her out, because Mon¬ 

sieur Dansaert was there, and she was stopping them from 

talking. Dansaert had been in the village since the morning, 

accompanied by two gendarmes, trying to rally the workmen, 

putting pressure on the weak ones, announcing on all sides 

that if they didn’t go down to Le Voreux on Monday, the 

Company was determined to take on workmen from Belgium. 

And, as night was falling, he had sent away the gendarmes, 

Germinal 

388 

when he saw that La Pierronne was on her own; then he had 

stayed with her to drink a glass of gin, in front of a roaring 

fire. 

‘Shh! Be quiet, this we must see!’ murmured Levaque, with 

a bawdy laugh. ‘We’ll get back to our argument later .., Clear 

off, you little bitch!’ 

Lydie stepped back a few paces, while he put his eye to the 

crack in the shutter. He spluttered under his breath, arching 

his back, and a tremor ran down his spine. Then it was La 

Levaque’s turn to look; but she said it was disgusting, and 

clasped her stomach as if she were having an attack of dia¬ 

rrhoea. Maheu, who had pushed her out of the way, wanted to 

look too, and then declared that at least you got your money’s 

worth. And they started again, each taking a peep in turn, as if 

it were a show. The room was sparklingly clean, and was lit by 

a great fire; there were cakes on the table, with a bottle and 

glasses, a right old carnival. So much so that what they saw 

finally made the men see red, whereas, in normal circum¬ 

stances, they would have laughed about it for six months 

afterwards. 

It would have been funny enough if she had merely been 

lying on her back with her skirt round her neck and having 

herself stuffed up till it came out of her ears. But, God 

almighty! Wasn’t it filthy to have it away by a roaring fire, 

with a provision of biscuits to keep up her strength, when her 

comrades hadn’t a crust of bread or a handful of coal-dust! 

‘Here’s Dad!’ cried Lydie, and made her escape, 

Pierron was calmly returning from the laundry, with his 

bundle of washing over his shoulder. Maheu addressed him 

directly. 

‘Hey there, I hear your wife said we sold Catherine and that 

we all had the clap at home ... But how about you, then, does 

the gent who scrubs your wife’s fanny pay you to stay away 

from home.^’ 

Pierron was dumbfounded and didn’t understand a word of 

it, when La Pierronne, taking fright at the sound of the 

hubbub of voices, lost her senses completely and half-opened 

the door, to see what was happening. They saw that she was 

flushed, that her bodice was undone, and her skirt still hitched 

Part VI 

389 

up into her belt, while, at the back of the room, Dansaert was 

desperately putting his trousers back on. Then he made a run 

for it, terrified that the manager might get to hear of his 

overman’s scandalous behaviour. Then all hell broke loose, with 

laughter and hissing and insults. 

‘You’re always saying that other women are dirty,’ La 

Levaque shouted at La Pierronne, ‘but it’s no wonder you’re 

so clean, if you get one of the bosses to scrub you night and 

day!’ 

‘Oh, yes, she can talk!’ Levaque chipped in. ‘Just look at 

this bitch who said my wife was sleeping with me and the 

lodger, one on top and the other underneath! ... Oh, yes, they 

told me you said so.’ 

But La Pierronne had recovered her composure, and stood 

up to the flood of insults with a contemptuous air, certain of 

her superior wealth and beauty. 

‘I said what I said, so leave me alone, then! .. . What 

business of yours is it what I do, you’re all jealous because we 

put some money by in the savings bank! Get along with you, 

whatever you say, my husband knows perfectly well why 

Monsieur Dansaert was here.’ 

And indeed Pierron defended his wife vehemently. The 

quarrel changed direction, as they called him the Company’s 

whore, snout, and lapdog, and accused him of hiding away to eat 

all sorts of titbits which the bosses gave him in exchange for his 

treachery. In reply he claimed that Maheu had put threatening 

letters under his door, with a dagger and crossbones drawn on 

the paper. And, inevitably, it all finished in an indiscriminate 

punch-up among the men, as all the women’s quarrels did, since 

even the gentlest among them had become enraged with hunger. 

Maheu and Levaque rushed at Pierron with fists flying, and they 

had to be prised apart. When old Ma Brule arrived back from the 

laundry, blood was pouring from her son-in-law’s nose. When 

she was informed of the state of play, she merely remarked: 

‘That slob’s a disgrace to all of us.’ 

The street became deserted again, not a shadow stained the 

bare whiteness of the snow, and the whole village relapsed into 

its usual state of deathly stillness, with everyone dying of 

starvation and gripped by the bitter cold. 

390 Germinal 

‘And the doctor?’ asked Maheu, closing the door behind 

him. 

‘Didn’t come,’ replied La Maheude, who hadn’t moved 

from the window. 

‘Little ones back?’ 

‘No, not yet.’ 

Maheu started pacing heavily back and forth again from 

wall to wall, looking like a stunned ox. Sitting stiffly on his 

chair, old Bonnemort hadn’t even raised his head. Alzire too 

was silent, trying not to shiver, to avoid upsetting them; but 

despite her courage in the face of suffering, she did tremble so 

violently on occasion that they could hear the skinny body of 

the sick girl shivering beneath the blanket; while with her big 

staring eyes she watched the lunar glow that lit the ceiling with 

reflections from the stark white gardens outside. 

Now the house, empty of all possessions and stripped to the 

bone, had entered into its death agony. The canvas mattress- 

covers had followed the woollen stuffing to the second-hand 

shop; then the sheets had gone, and all their linen, anything 

that could be sold. One evening they had sold one of Grand¬ 

father’s handkerchiefs for two sous. The poor family shed tears 

for every object that they had to relinquish, and La Maheude 

still wept at having one day had to carry off hidden in her skirt 

the pink cardboard box which had been a gift from her man, 

as if she had been carrying a child that she wanted to abandon 

on someone’s doorstep. They were stripped bare, they had 

nothing to sell but their skins, not that anyone would have 

given a fig for this soiled and wasted commodity. So they 

didn’t even look for anything else, they knew there was nothing 

left, that it was the end of everything, that they had no hope of 

finding a candle end, nor a piece of coal, nor even a potato; 

and they sat waiting to die, which angered them only for the 

sake of the children, for they were revolted by the gratuitous 

cruelty that had made the poor little girl a cripple before 

choking her to death. 

‘At last, there he is!’ said La Maheude. 

A dark figure went past the window. The door opened. But 

it wasn’t Dr Vanderhaghen; they recognized the new vicar. 

Father Ranvier, who showed no surprise at finding the house 

Part VI 

391 

he entered dead, with no light, no fire, and no bread. He had 

already left three other houses nearby, going from family to 

family, trying to recruit men of goodwill, just like Dansaert 

with his gendarmes; and he came straight to the point, with his 

feverish, fanatical voice. 

‘Why didn’t you come to mass on Sunday, my children.^ 

You do yourselves wrong, only the Church can save you . .. 

Look now, promise me that you’ll come next week.’ 

Maheu looked at him, but then started up his heavy pacing 

again, without speaking a word. It was La Maheude who 

replied. 

‘Go to mass, Father, whatever for.^ Isn’t God making fools 

of us all? .., Look! What harm has my little girl ever done 

him, and she’s trembling all over with fever! Don’t you think 

we were wretched enough, without him making her ill, when I 

can’t even get a cup of warm tea for her?’ 

Then the priest, still standing there, made a long speech. He 

used the strike, their dreadful suffering, and the furious resent¬ 

ment that hunger had filled them with, to teach a lesson 

exalting the glory of religion, displaying all the ardour of a 

missionary preaching to savages. He said that the Church was 

on the side of the poor, that one day it would make justice 

triumph, and would bring down the wrath of God on the 

iniquities of the rich. And that day would soon dawn, for the 

rich had usurped the place of God, and had started ruling 

without God, having impiously seized power. But if the work¬ 

ers wanted the fruits of the earth to be fairly distributed, they 

should place themselves immediately in the hands of their 

priests, as on the death of Jesus the humble and meek had 

followed the apostles. What strength the Pope would have, 

what an army the clergy would dispose of, once they were able 

to take command of the innumerable masses of the workers! In 

a single week the wicked would be banished from the world, 

unworthy masters would be deposed, and they would see the 

true kingdom of God, with everyone rewarded according to his 

deserts, and universal happiness deriving from the just regula¬ 

tion of labour. 

Listening to him La Maheude heard echoes of Etienne’s 

voice, when he had sat up late at night during the autumn. 

392 

Germinal 

announcing the imminent end of all their problems. But she 

had never trusted a man in a cassock. 

‘That’s all very well, the way you tell it. Father,’ she said, 

‘but it’s only because you don’t get on with the bourgeois .. . 

All our other vicars used to dine with the manager, and 

threaten us with hell fire as soon as we asked for bread.’ 

He continued his argument, speaking of the deplorable 

misunderstanding that had arisen between the Churqh and the 

people. Now in veiled phrases he attacked the city priests, 

bishops, and ecclesiastical dignitaries who were bloated with 

pleasure and sated with power, supporting the liberal bour¬ 

geoisie in their imbecile blindness, not realizing that it was 

that same bourgeoisie that deprived them of their influence in 

the world. Deliverance would come from the country priests, 

who would all rise up together to re-establish the kingdom 

of Christ, with the aid of the poor; he seemed already to see 

himself at their head, and, straightening his bony back as if he 

were an outlaw chief, or an evangelical revolutionary, his eyes 

filled with such light that they lit up the dark room around 

him. He was carried away by his own ardent preaching in a 

spate of mystical language, which the poor folk had long since 

given up trying to grasp. 

‘We don’t need all those words,’ Maheu grumbled roughly. 

‘You’d have done better to start by bringing us some bread.’ 

‘Come to Mass on Sunday,’ cried the priest. ‘God will see to 

everything!’ 

And off he went, entering the Levaques’ house to convert 

them in their turn, floating so buoyantly on the tide of his 

dream of the final triumph of the Church, showing such 

disdain for the facts, that he did the rounds of the villages 

thus, taking no alms, walking with empty hands through this 

army of people dying from starvation, seeing himself as just 

another poor devil, but thinking their suffering was a spur to 

salvation. 

Maheu still kept pacing up and down, and nothing could be 

heard above his stubborn tramping, which shook the very 

flagstones. There was a noise like a rusty pulley creaking, as 

old Bonnemort spat into the cold fireplace. Then the rhythm 

of Maheu’s steps started up again. Alzire, dazed by her fever, 

Part VI 

393 

had started to ramble deliriously in a low voice, laughing, 

believing that it was hot, and that she was out playing in the 

sunshine. 

‘Damn and blast our luck!’ muttered La Maheude, after 

touching her cheeks. ‘Now she’s burning ... I don’t think the 

bastard’s going to come now, the thugs must have stopped him 

from coming.’ 

She meant the doctor, and the Company. And yet she 

uttered an exclamation of joy when she saw the door open 

again. But her arms fell back by her sides, and she remained 

motionless and grim-faced. 

‘Good-evening,’ said Etienne quietly, when he had carefully 

closed the door again. 

He often called in like this when it was fully dark. The 

Maheus had learned of his hide-out on the second day. But 

they had kept his secret, and nobody in the village was sure 

what had become of the young man. This gave him a legendary 

aura. They still had faith in him, and mysterious rumours 

abounded: he would return with an army, and with trunks full 

of gold; and they sat still waiting devotedly for their ideal to be 

miraculously realized, for him to lead them forthwith into the 

city of justice that he had promised. Some said they had seen 

him sitting in a carriage with three gentlemen on the road to 

Marchiennes; others affirmed that he had gone to England and 

wouldn’t be back for another two days. In the end, however, 

their suspicions were roused; some jokers accused him of 

hiding out in a wine cellar with La Mouquette to keep him 

warm; for they knew of this affair and took a dim view of it. 

And his popularity started to be eaten away by a gradual 

disaffection, as the numbers of the disillusioned slowly grew. 

‘Bloody awful weather!’ he added. ‘And you.? Nothing new? 

Still going from bad to worse?... They tell me young Negrel’s 

gone to Belgium to recruit in Le Borinage. Heavens above, if 

it’s true, we’re done for!’ 

He had been racked by a sudden shudder as he entered this 

dark, icy room, where he had to wait for his eyes to grow 

accustomed to the gloom before he could see its wretched 

occupants, who only showed up as darker masses among the 

shadows. He felt the revulsion and unease of the working man 

394 

Germinal 

who has risen out of his class, become refined through study, 

and harbours further ambitions. What misery, and what a 

smell, and all those bodies squeezed up against each other, and 

the terrible pity that seized him by the throat! The sight of 

this agony shook him so violently that he felt at a loss for 

words, as he tried to persuade them to give in. 

But Maheu had suddenly come to a halt in front of Etienne. 

‘Belgians! They’ll never dare, the useless buggers! . .. Let 

them send their Belgians down, if they want us to smash up 

the pits!’ 

Looking embarrassed, Etienne explained that they couldn’t 

lift a finger, that the soldiers who were guarding the pits 

would protect the Belgian workers who went down the mine. 

But Maheu clenched his fists, especially angry at the idea of 

having their bayonets stuck in his back, as he put it. So now 

the colliers were no longer masters in their own house? Were 

they to be treated like galley-slaves, to be forced to work at 

gun-point? He loved his pit, and felt quite sad at not having 

been down for two months. So he saw red at the thought of 

this insult, the threat to send down foreigners in his place. 

Then he remembered that he had been sent his booklet by the 

Company, and his heart broke. 

‘I don’t know why I should get angry,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t 

belong to their dump any more .. . when they’ve driven me 

away from here I can just go out and die on the roadside.’ 

‘Give over!’ said fitienne. ‘If you want, they’ll take your 

booklet back again tomorrow. They don’t want to lose good 

workmen.’ 

He broke off, astonished to hear Alzire laughing quietly in 

her feverish delirium. He hadn’t yet noticed the stiff shadow 

of old Bonnemort, and the cheerfulness of the sick child 

shattered him. This time things had gone too far, if the 

children were starting to die. With his voice quivering he 

made his decision. 

‘Look, it can’t go on like this, we haven’t got a chance . . . 

We must give in.’ 

La Maheude, who had been silent and motionless until 

then, suddenly burst out, and shouted in his face, forgetting 

propriety and swearing at him like a man: 

Part VI 

395 

‘What d’you mean, mate? Bloody hell, what right have you 

got to say that?’ 

He wanted to explain his reasons, but she wouldn’t let him 

speak. 

‘Don’t keep on, for Christ’s sake, or I’ll punch you in the 

face, although I’m a woman ... So we’ve been at death’s door 

for two months, I’ve sold all my possessions, my children have 

fallen ill, and nothing’s going to happen, the injustice goes on 

as before? ... Oh, do you know what, when I think of that, I 

feel sick to the very heart. No, never! I’d rather burn it all 

down and kill the lot of them than give up now.’ 

She pointed at Maheu in the darkness, with a sweeping, 

threatening gesture. 

‘Listen to me. If my man goes back down the mine, I’ll wait 

on the road for him and spit in his face and call him a coward!’ 

Etienne couldn’t see her, but he felt her hot breath in his 

face as if she were a hound at the kill; and he drew back, 

overcome by this furious commitment that he had caused. He 

found her so changed that he hardly recognized her, from 

being such a good woman formerly, reproaching him with his 

violence, saying that one should never wish for another person’s 

death, and now at this moment refusing to listen to reason, 

speaking of killing people all around her. It was no longer 

Etienne but La Maheude who was talking politics, demanding 

that the bourgeoisie be swept aside, calling for the revival of 

the Republic and the guillotine, to rid the earth of the thieving 

rich, who grow fat on the toil of the starving masses. 

‘Yes, I could flay them alive with my own two hands ... 

Perhaps you’re right, and we’ve had enough! Our turn has 

come, you said it yourself... When I think that our fathers 

and grandfathers and grandfathers’ fathers, and all the family 

before them, have suffered what we’re suffering, and that our 

sons and our sons’ sons will still keep on suffering, it drives me 

mad, I could grab a knife and . .. The other day we didn’t go 

far enough. We should have razed Montsou to the ground, to 

the last brick. And you know what? The only thing I regret is 

having stopped the old man strangling the girl from La 

Piolaine . . . They don’t care if hunger strangles my kids, do 

they?’ 

Germinal 

396 

She spat out her words as if she were wielding an axe, 

shattering the darkness. The blocked horizon had failed to 

clear, and the impossible ideal was turning to poison, in the 

depths of her mind crazed with suffering. 

‘You don’t understand what I mean,’ Etienne managed to 

say, beating a retreat. ‘We could come to an understanding 

with the Company: I know that the mines have made heavy 

losses. I’m sure they’d want to make some arrangement.’ 

‘No, not on your life!’ she screamed. 

And, at that same moment, Lenore and Henri came back 

empty-handed. A gentleman had given them two sous; but, 

because the sister had kept kicking her brother, they had 

dropped the two sous in the snow; and although Jeanlin had 

joined in the search with them, they hadn’t been able to find 

the money again. 

‘Where is Jeanlin, then?’ 

‘He ran off. Mum, he said he was busy.’ 

Etienne listened, his heart breaking. Previously she would 

have threatened to kill them if they tried to beg. Now she sent 

them out on the roads herself, and she said they ought all to go 

out, all 10,000 miners from Montsou, taking their sticks and 

their knapsacks like the olden-day poor, and roam round the 

countryside scaring the wits out of people. 

Then the feeling of anguish in the dark room deepened. The 

kids had come back hungry, they wanted to eat, why wasn’t 

anyone eating? And they grumbled, mooched around sulkily, and 

ended up treading on the toes of their dying sister, who gave out a 

feeble groan. Their mother was beside herself, and smacked 

them, as far as she could catch them in the darkness. Then, as 

they cried louder and louder for bread, she burst into tears, 

slumped down on the floor, and sat down to embrace all three of 

them in a single hug, the two kids and the little invalid; and her 

tears flowed for a long time, in a flood of nervous relief which left 

her weak and washed out, stammering the same phrases twenty 

times over, calling for death: ‘My God, why don’t you take us? 

God, take us, have pity on us, put an end to it!’ The grandfather 

remained as motionless as a gnarled old tree, battered by the 

wind and the rain, while the father marched back and forth 

between the chimney and the dresser, without turning his head. 

Pan VI 

397 

But the door opened, and this time it was Dr Vander- 

haghen. 

‘Heavens!’ he said. ‘You won’t spoil your eyesight reading 

by candlelight. .. Quickly now. I’m in a hurry.’ 

As usual, he complained, because he was exhausted with 

work. Luckily he had some matches, and Maheu had to light 

six, one after the other, holding them up, while he examined 

the patient. They took off the blanket they had wrapped her 

in, and in the flickering light they saw her shivering, as thin as 

a little bird dying in the snow, so frail that only her hump 

stood out from her bones. Yet she was smiling, with the 

distant smile of the dying, her eyes staring wide open, while 

her poor hands clutched at her hollow chest. And while her 

mother asked in despair what was the sense in God taking the 

child before the mother, when she was the only one who 

helped her in the house, and so clever and gentle, the doctor 

raised his voice angrily. 

‘Look! There she goes ... She’s died of hunger, your 

damned child. And she’s not alone, I saw another one just 

down the road , . . You all call me out, but I can’t do a thing, 

what you need to cure you is meat.’ 

Maheu had dropped the match, which was burning his 

fingers; and the darkness closed in again on the little corpse, 

which was still warm. The doctor had run off again. Etienne 

could hear nothing in the dark room but the sobbing of La 

Maheude, who kept repeating her call for death in an endless 

and funereal lament: 

‘God, it’s my turn, take me now! . . . God, take my man, 

take the others, for pity’s sake, put an end to it!’ 

CHAPTER III 

That Sunday evening, when it struck eight o’clock, Souvarine 

was already alone in the bar of the Avantage, at his usual 

place, leaning his head back against the wall. There wasn’t a 

single miner who could find two sous to buy himself a pint, 

and the bars had never had so few customers. So Madame 

Germinal 

398 

Rasseneur, with nothing to do but wait at the bar, lapsed into 

an irritable silence; while Rasseneur, standing in front of the 

cast-iron fireplace, seemed to meditate studiously on the 

reddish smoke rising from the coals. 

Suddenly the heavy peace of the overheated rooms was 

interrupted by three brief taps on one of the window panes, 

and Souvarine turned his head to look. He got up, having 

recognized the signal which Etienne had already used several 

times to call him, when he saw from the outside that he was 

sitting at an empty table, smoking his cigarette. But before the 

mechanic had reached the door, Rasseneur had opened it; and 

recognizing the man he saw in front of him by the light of the 

window, he said: 

‘Are you afraid that I’ll sell you down the river? ... You 

can talk better in here than out on the road.’ 

Etienne came in. Madame Rasseneur politely offered him a 

pint, but he brushed it aside. The publican added: 

‘It didn’t take long for me to guess where you’re hiding. If I 

was a spy like your friends say I am, I would have sent the 

gendarmes in a week ago.’ 

‘You don’t need to make excuses,’ replied the young man. ‘I 

know you never went in for that kind of game ... You can 

have different ideas and still feel respect for someone, can’t 

you?’ 

And silence fell again. Souvarine had gone back to his chair, 

and was leaning back against the wall, with his eyes gazing 

dreamily at the smoke from his cigarette; but his nervous 

fingers were twitching with anxiety, and he ran them over his 

knees, missing the warm fur of Poland, who was not there that 

evening; and he felt an unconscious malaise, there was some¬ 

thing lacking, although he couldn’t tell just what. 

Etienne sat down at the other side of the table, and finally 

said: 

‘It’s tomorrow they start work again at Le Voreux. The 

Belgians have arrived with young Negrel.’ 

‘Yes, they waited till nightfall before they moved them in,’ 

muttered Rasseneur, who was still standing. ‘I hope we’re not 

going to have another massacre!’ 

Then, raising his voice, he went on: 

Part VI 

399 

‘Now, you know I don’t want to start another argument 

with you, but it’s going to turn nasty in the end, if you persist 

any longer .. . Look! Your own story is absolutely the same as 

the story of your International. I met Pluchart the day before 

yesterday in Lille, where I had some business. It seems his 

set-up is failing to bits.’ 

He gave the details. The Association, after winning over 

workers the world over in a surge of propaganda, which, still 

made the bourgeoisie shiver to think about it, was now devoured 

and destroyed a little more each day by internal conflicts of 

vanity and ambition. Since the anarchists had taken control 

and expelled the gradualists* of the early days, everything was 

collapsing; the original goal, to reform the wage system, was 

getting lost through the bickering of sects, and the educated 

cadres were losing their power to organize because of their 

hatred of discipline. And already one could foresee the ultimate 

failure of this mass rising, which for a moment had threatened 

to blow away the old corrupt society with a single blast. 

‘It’s making Pluchart ill,’ Rasseneur went on. ‘And he’s lost 

his voice, into the bargain. Yet he will keep on speaking, he 

wants to go to Paris to speak ... and he has told me three 

times that our strike has had it.’ 

Etienne kept his eyes fixed on the floor, and let him have his 

say, without interrupting him. The day before, he had spoken 

with some comrades, and he felt blowing over him a wind of 

suspicion and resentment, the first signs of unpopularity, and 

omens of defeat. And he sat looking gloomy, although he 

refused to admit his discouragement to a man who had pre¬ 

dicted that the crowd would boo him in his turn, the day when 

it wanted to avenge itself of some mistake. 

‘No doubt the strike has had it, 1 know that as well as 

Pluchart,’ he went on. ‘But that’s not surprising. We were 

reluctant to accept the strike, we didn’t think we were going to 

beat the Company ... But people get carried away, they start 

hoping for all sorts of things, and when things turn nasty, they 

forget that it was bound to happen, they bewail their fate and 

they argue over it as if it was a plague sent from heaven.’ 

‘Well then,’ said Rasseneur, ‘if you think the game is over, 

why don’t you get your comrades to see reason.?’ 

400 

Germinal 

The young man stared at him. 

‘Listen, that’s enough of that... You’ve got your ideas and 

I’ve got mine. I came in here to show you that I still respect 

you despite everything. But I still think that even if we kill 

ourselves trying, our starving bodies will serve the cause of the 

people more than all your sensible politics .. . Oh, if one of 

those bloody soldiers could strike me down with a bullet to the 

heart, what a fine way to go that would be!’ 

His eyes had watered as he uttered this cry, which echoed 

with the secret desire of the vanquished for the last refuge, 

where he might have been released from his torments for ever. 

‘Well said!’ declared Madame Rasseneur, who cast her 

husband a glance blazing with contempt, fuelled by her radical 

opinions. 

Souvarine, whose eyes were swimming with tears, made 

nervous gestures with his hands, although he seemed not to 

have listened. His fair, feminine face, his fine nose, and small 

sharp teeth took on a primitive air of mystical reverie, full of 

bloodthirsty visions. But he had started dreaming out loud, 

and responded suddenly in the middle of the conversation to a 

comment made by Rasseneur about the International. 

‘They are all cowards, there was only one man who could 

have turned their set-up into a terrible machine of destruction. 

But they’d have had to really want to, nobody has the will, and 

that’s why the revolution will abort once again.’ 

He continued in disgusted tones to lament the imbecility of 

men, while the two others felt disturbed by these sleepwalker’s 

confidences, this voice arising from the depths of night. In 

Russia, nothing was going right, he was in despair at the news 

which he had received. His former comrades were all turning 

into politicians, these famous nihilists who had made all Europe 

tremble; these sons of priests, these petty bourgeois or mer¬ 

chants, couldn’t see further ahead than national liberation, 

they seemed to believe that killing their own tyrant would lead 

to the salvation of the world; and, as soon as he spoke to them 

of razing the old human race to the ground like a ripe 

cornfield, as soon as he pronounced the childish word ‘repub¬ 

lic’, he felt himself misunderstood, treated as a dangerous 

refugee from his class, henceforth enrolled among the number 

Part VI 

401 

of the failed princes of revolutionary cosmopolitanism. Yet his 

patriotic heart continued to struggle, and he repeated his 

favourite slogan with painful bitterness: 

‘A load of rubbish! . .. They’ll never get anywhere, with 

their load of rubbish!’ 

Then, lowering his voice again, he repeated in bitter phrases 

his old dream of fraternity. He had only renounced his rank 

and his fortune and joined the workers in the hope of at last 

seeing the foundation of this new society of communal work. 

All his money had long since found its way into the pockets of 

the lads in the mining village, and he had shown himself as 

kind as a brother to the colliers, smiling at their suspicions, 

and persuading them to appreciate him as a peaceful, quiet, 

and conscientious workman. But despite everything, he hadn’t 

been able to get through to them, he remained an alien, with 

his contempt for all bonds, his desire to remain modest, with 

no thought for bravado or personal enjoyment. And that very 

morning he had been particularly exasperated by a news item 

which had been in all the papers. 

His voice changed, his eyes cleared and lit upon Etienne, 

and he addressed himself directly to him. 

‘Can you understand this.^ Some millinery workers at Mar¬ 

seilles who won the first prize of a hundred thousand francs in 

the lottery, and who immediately bought investments, declaring 

that they were going to live a life of idleness! ... Yes, that’s 

what you all want, all you French workers, you want to find 

some buried treasure, and then hide yourselves away and live a 

life of selfish idleness. You may well complain about the rich, 

but you don’t have the courage to give to the poor the money 

that fortune sends you. You will never be worthy of happiness, 

as long as you possess anything yourselves, and your hatred of 

the bourgeoisie stems solely from your furious urge to become 

bourgeois in their place.’ 

Rasseneur burst out laughing, for the notion that the two 

workers from Marseilles should have given up their first prize 

seemed stupid to him. But Souvarine turned pale, and his 

distressed face became frightening, as he was seized by one of 

those righteous angers that exterminate nations. He cried: 

‘You will all be mown down, cast aside, scattered to the 

402 

Germinal 

winds. There will come a man who will annihilate your race of 

clowns and hedonists. And then, mark my words, look at my 

hands, if I could, I would seize the whole earth between my 

hands and shake it until it crumbled into pieces and buried 

you beneath the rubble.’ 

‘Well said,’ repeated Madame Rasseneur, with polite 

enthusiasm. 

There was another silence. Then Etienne talked again of the 

workers from Le Borinage. He asked Souvarine for information 

on the measures that had been taken at Le Voreux. But the 

mechanic had relapsed into his own preoccupations, and hardly 

bothered to answer, he only knew that they were going to 

supply the soldiers guarding the pit with cartridges; and the 

nervous twitching of his fingers on his knees increased to the 

point where he finally realized what was missing, the soft, 

soothing fur of his pet rabbit. 

‘Where has Poland got to.^’ he asked. 

The landlord laughed again, and looked at his wife. After a 

brief, embarrassed silence, he made up his mind. 

‘Poland.^ She’s nice and warm.’ 

Since her escapade with Jeanlin, when she must have been 

injured, the fat rabbit’s litters had all been stillborn; and so as 

not to feed a useless mouth, they had resigned themselves, that 

very day, to serve her up with boiled potatoes. 

‘Yes, you’ve already had one of her legs for dinner ... Eh? 

You were licking your lips all through the meal!’ 

At first Souvarine failed to understand. Then he turned 

very pale, and clenched his teeth to fight back a wave of 

nausea; while, despite his stoic intentions, two large tears 

swelled his eyelids. 

But nobody had time to notice how upset he was, for the 

door suddenly burst open, and Chaval appeared, pushing 

Catherine before him. After getting tipsy on beer and boasting 

in all the bars of Montsou, he had hit on the idea of coming to 

the Avantage to show his former friends that he wasn’t afraid. 

He entered, saying to his mistress: 

‘God almighty, I swear you’re going to drink a pint in there, 

and I’ll punch anyone in the face if they give me any dirty 

looks!’ 

Part VI 

403 

When Catherine saw Etienne, she stopped short, and turned 

dead white. And when Chaval saw him too, he grinned unpleas¬ 

antly. 

^Madame Rasseneur, two pints! We’re toasting the return to 

work.’ 

She poured the beer, silently, for she was a woman who 

never refused anyone a glass of beer. Silence had fallen, 

neither the landlord nor the other two men had moved from 

their places. 

'I know some people who said that I’m a snout,’ Chaval 

continued, with an arrogant air, /and I’m waiting for those 

people to try to repeat it to my face, so we can see what they 

mean at last.’ 

Nobody replied, the men turned their heads and looked 

absent-mindedly at the walls. 

‘On the one hand you have your idle buggers, and then you 

have those as aren’t idle buggers,’ he continued, speaking 

louder. ‘I have nothing to hide, I’ve left Deneulin’s lousy 

dump and I’m going back under tomorrow at Le Voreux with 

a dozen Belgians, that they’ve asked me to look after, because 

they respect me. And if anyone sees anything wrong in that, 

he’s only got to say so, and we’ll have a chat about it.’ 

Then, since every provocative statement he made was met 

with the same disdainful silence, he flew at Catherine. 

‘Will you drink, for Christ’s sake! ... Drink to the death of 

all the bastards who refuse to work!’ 

She raised her glass, but her hand trembled, so that you 

could hear the slight clinking of the two glasses. Now Chaval 

had brought out of his pocket a handful of shiny coins, which 

he showed off with drunken ostentation, saying that he had 

earned it with his own sweat, and he challenged the buggers to 

show as much as ten sous. He was exasperated by the attitude 

of his colleagues, and launched into outright insults. 

‘So, when it’s safe and dark the moles creep out of their 

holes, do they.^ Do we have to wait till the gendarmes are 

asleep before we can see the bandits.^’ 

Etienne rose to his feet, very calm, but his mind made up. 

‘Listen, you’re getting on my nerves ... Yes, you are a 

snout, your money stinks of some fresh plot, and I feel 

404 

Germinal 

revolted at the idea of touching your mercenary skin. But 

never mind that, you take it from me, it’s been clear for a long 

time that there’s not room here for both of us.’ 

Chaval clenched his fists. 

‘Well then, it does take a lot to get you worked up, doesn’t 

it, you cowardly bastard! Just you on your own, that suits me 

fine! And you’ll pay me for the shit that I’ve had from you!’ 

Catherine made as if to get between them, pleading with 

open arms; but they didn’t need to push her out of the way, 

she felt that the fight had to happen, and she slowly drew back 

of her own accord. She stood back against the wall, remaining 

unable to speak, and paralysed with anguish, staring wide-eyed 

at these two men who were about to kill each other for her 

sake. 

Madame Rasseneur coolly removed the beer mugs from the 

bar, so they wouldn’t get broken. Then she sat down on the 

bench, showing no unseemly curiosity. Yet you couldn’t let 

two old mates tear themselves to pieces like that, and Rasseneur 

stubbornly tried to intervene, but Souvarine had to take hold 

of his shoulder and lead him back to the table, saying: 

‘It’s nothing to do with you .., One of them’s got to give, 

the weak must give way to the strong.’ 

Without waiting to be attacked Chaval lashed out into the 

air with his fists. He was the taller man, and loose-limbed, he 

aimed a series of savage, slashing blows at Etienne’s face with 

both fists, one after the other, as if he had been wielding a pair 

of sabres. And he kept on talking, and striking theatrical poses, 

working himself up with volleys of insults. 

‘Ah, you bleeding swine, I’ll have your nose, I will. I’ll have 

your nose and stuff it! ,,. Let’s have a look at your mug, let’s 

see that little slut-fucking face. I’m going to mash it into 

pigswill, and then we’ll see if the tarts still lift up their skirts 

for you.’ 

Etienne said nothing, but clenched his teeth, and settled 

down to defend his small frame, in the regulation pose, one fist 

guarding his chest and the other his face; and every time he 

got a chance, he unleashed a punch like an iron spring, jabbing 

fiercely at his opponent. 

At first neither did the other much harm. Chaval’s flailing 

Part VI 

405 

arms and Etienne’s cautious parries didn’t make for a decisive 

encounter. They knocked a chair over, and their heavy shoes 

trampled the white sand all over the stone floor. But they 

eventually became out of breath, and you could hear them 

wheezing, w^hile their red faces shone as if lit from inside by 

braziers, whose flames shone out of their eyes. 

‘Got you,’ screamed Chaval, ‘a hit, on your carcass!’ 

And in fact his fist, swinging sideways like a scythe, had 

pummelled his opponent’s shoulder. Etienne held back a groan 

of pain, and all that could be heard was a dull thud that 

battered his muscles. And he countered with a blow to the 

centre of Chaval’s chest which would have split his ribs if he 

hadn’t sidestepped with one of his typical goat-like leaps. All 

the same, the punch landed on his left side still hard enough to 

make him stagger and gasp for breath. He was furious to feel 

his arms going weak with the pain, and he rushed forward like 

a wild beast, aiming a kick at Etienne’s belly, hoping to tear it 

open with his heel, 

‘Hey, mind your guts!’ he stammered in a choking voice. 

‘I’ll rip them out and throw them to the dogs!’ 

Etienne sidestepped the kick, so indignant at this infringe¬ 

ment of the rules of decent fighting that he broke his silence. 

‘Shut up, you brute! And no feet, for Christ’s sake, or I’ll 

get a chair and knock your head off.’ 

Then the battle grew fiercer. Rasseneur was shocked, and 

was ready to try to intervene again, if his wife hadn’t stopped 

him with a stern look; didn’t two customers have the right to 

settle their affairs in their establishment? So Rasseneur merely 

placed himself in front of the hearth, for he was afraid they 

might tumble into the fire. Souvarine still looked untroubled, 

and had rolled himself a cigarette, although he had forgotten 

to light it. Catherine stayed motionless against the wall; but 

her hands rose unconsciously to clutch her waist; and she 

twisted and tore at her dress, in rhythmical spasms. She put ail 

her effort into not crying, into not getting one of them killed 

by shouting for her favourite, and she was so desperate that 

she couldn’t even remember which one it was she preferred. 

Soon Chaval grew weary and drenched in sweat, and started 

lashing out at random. Despite his fury, Etienne continued to 

Germinal 

406 

maintain his guard, parrying almost all of the punches, al¬ 

though one or two struck him glancingly. He had an ear split, 

one of Chaval’s nails had gouged a strip of flesh out of his 

neck, and he was so feverishly hot that he too started spitting 

out oaths, as he thrust out with a murderous right jab. Once 

again, Chaval jumped to move his chest out of the line of fire; 

but he had lowered his head, and Etienne’s fist struck him in 

the face, smashing into his nose and battering his eye. Blood 

immediately started gushing from his nostrils, while his eye 

swelled up, and turned blue and puffy. And the poor fellow, 

blinded by this red flood, dazed by the battering his head had 

taken, his arms milling wildly around in mid-air, walked 

straight into another punch right in the centre of his chest, 

which finished him off There was a crack, and he fell flat on 

his back, collapsing like a sack of plaster being dumped on the 

ground. 

Etienne waited. 

‘Get up. If you want any more, we can carry on.’ 

Chaval did not answer, but after lying stunned for a few 

seconds, started moving on the ground, stretching his limbs. 

He struggled painfully to his knees, and stayed bent double for 

a moment, plunging his hand deep into his pocket, groping for 

something Etienne couldn’t see. Then when he had managed 

to stand up he rushed forward again, his throat throbbing with 

a savage scream. 

But Catherine had seen; and despite herself a great cry came 

from her throat, astonishing her as it revealed a preference she 

hadn’t been aware of herself 

‘Look out! He’s got a knife!’ 

Etienne only just had time to ward off the first thrust with 

his arm. The wool of his jersey was cut by the wide blade, 

which was held in its boxwood handle by a copper hoop. 

Etienne immediately grabbed hold of Chaval’s wrist, and a 

frightening struggle ensued, for he realized that he was lost if 

he let go, while his opponent shook his arm violently, trying to 

get free to strike him again. The blade gradually dropped 

downwards, their stiff limbs started to ache, and twice Etienne 

felt the cold touch of steel against his skin; and he forced 

himself to make a supreme effort, screwing Chaval’s wrist into 

Part VI 

407 

such a vice-like grip that the knife fell from his open hand. 

They both threw themselves to the floor, but it was Etienne 

who picked up the knife and now it was his turn to brandish it. 

Pressing Chaval backwards under his knee, he threatened to 

slit his throat. 

‘Now, you bloody bastard of a traitor, come and get it!’ 

A dreadful voice rising from deep inside him deafened him. 

It came from the pit of his stomach, and throbbed like a 

hammer inside his head, shrieking its frenzied lust for murder, 

its need to taste blood. He had never felt so shaken by an 

attack before. Yet he wasn’t drunk. And he fought down this 

hereditary evil, shivering desperately like a crazed lover teeter¬ 

ing on the brink of rape. He finally brought himself under 

control, and threw the knife behind him, stuttering in a husky 

voice: 

‘Get up, go away!’ 

This time Rasseneur had rushed over, but without quite 

daring to get between them, in case he fell victim to a stray cut. 

He didn’t want any murders on his premises, and he became so 

angry that his wife, standing upright at the bar, told him that he 

was getting too nervous, as usual. Souvarine, who had nearly 

been knifed in the leg, decided it was time to light his cigarette. 

Did that mean that the fight was over? Catherine stood watching, 

dazed at the sight of the two men, both of whom were still alive. 

‘Go away!’ Etienne repeated. ‘Go away or I’ll kill you!’ 

Chaval stood up, used the back of his hand to wipe away the 

blood that was still pouring from his nose; and, with blood- 

streaked jaws and blackened eye, he stumbled away, furious at 

his defeat. Catherine walked mechanically after him. Then he 

stopped short, turned to face her, and spat out his hatred in a 

stream of vile oaths. 

‘Oh, no, oh no you don’t, it’s him you want, so you can 

sleep with him now, you filthy cow! And don’t come near my 

house again if you value your bloody hide!’ 

He slammed the door violently, A deep silence settled on 

the warm room, and nothing could be heard but the crackling 

and spitting of the coal in the fire. The only signs of the 

struggle were an upturned chair and a trail of blood, whose 

drops were soaked up by the sand on the stone floor. 

4o8 

Germinal 

CHAPTER IV 

When they had left Rasseneur’s, Etienne and Catherine 

walked on silently. A slow, chilly thaw had started, dirtying 

the snow without melting it. The outline of a full moon could 

be seen in the livid sky behind the ragged clouds billowing 

high above as the raging wind whipped them furiously on; and 

on the earth below not a breath of wind stirred; all you could 

hear was the water dripping from the roof and the occasional 

soft fall of a white lump of snow. 

Etienne was embarrassed by this woman that he had sud¬ 

denly acquired, and was so ill at ease that he could think of 

nothing to say. The idea of taking her along with him and 

hiding her at Requillart seemed ridiculous. He would have 

liked to take her back to her parents’ home in the village; but 

she refused, looking terrified: no, not that, anything rather 

than be a burden to them again after leaving them so unfairly! 

And neither of them said another word, and they tramped on 

at random down the roads which were changing into rivers of 

mud. At first they went down towards Le Voreux; then they 

turned off to the right, and passed between the slag-heap and 

the canal. 

‘But you’ve got to sleep somewhere,’ he said at last. ‘If I 

had a room, I’d be pleased to take you in .. 

But a strange attack of shyness interrupted him. He remem¬ 

bered their past, their urgent desires of former times, and the 

feelings of tact and shame which had prevented them from 

coming together. Might he still want her? For he felt disturbed, 

he felt a new warmth of desire rise in his heart. The memory 

of the slaps which she had given him, at Gaston-Marie, 

excited him now, instead of filling him with resentment. And 

he couldn’t help being surprised, as he found the idea of 

taking her to Requillart becoming perfectly natural, and easy 

to accomplish. 

‘Look, you decide, where do you want me to take you? ... 

Do you really detest me so much that you refuse to come along 

with me?’ 

She followed him slowly, delayed by the awkward slipping 

Part VI 

409 

of her clogs in the ruts; and, without looking up, she mur¬ 

mured: 

‘I’ve got enough trouble, God knows, without you causing 

me more. What good would it do us, what you’re asking, now 

that I’ve got a lover and you’ve got a woman yourself?’ 

It was La Mouquette she was referring to. She thought he 

had taken up with her, as the rumour had been going the 

rounds for the last fortnight, and when he swore that it wasn’t 

true, she shook her head, she reminded him of the evening 

when she had seen them kissing on the mouth. 

‘It’s a crying shame, all that nonsense, isn’t it?’ he went on, 

under his breath, and stopped still. ‘We would have got on so 

well together!’ 

She trembled slightly, and replied: 

‘Come on, no regrets, you haven’t lost much; if you only 

knew what a weed I am, I’ve got no more flesh on me than a 

pat of butter, and I’m so badly made that I’ll never grow into 

a woman, that’s for sure!’ 

And she continued talking quite openly, blaming herself for 

her long-delayed puberty as if it were her fault. 

For, despite the man that she had had, this diminished her, 

and relegated her to the ranks of the children. At least you’ve 

got an excuse, when you can have a baby. 

‘My poor child!’ said Etienne quietly, seized by a great 

feeling of pity. 

They were at the foot of the slag-heap, hidden in the shadow 

of its enormous mass. An ink-biack cloud passed in front of the 

moon at that moment, and they could no longer see each other’s 

faces, but their breath mingled, and their lips were drawn 

together, towards the kiss that they had yearned for in agony for 

months. But suddenly the moon reappeared, and they saw the 

sentry at the top of Le Voreux standing high above them on 

the rocks, which shone in the white light, silhouetted against 

the moon. And still without ever having kissed, a feeling of 

modesty drew them apart, that old modesty which was mingled 

with anger, vague distaste, and a great deal of friendship. They 

set off again awkwardly, trudging through ankle-deep slush. 

‘So you’ve made up your mind, you don’t want to?’ asked 

Etienne. 

410 Germinal 

‘No,’ she said. ‘You after Chavai, eh? And after you, some¬ 

one else ... No, that’s disgusting, I don’t enjoy it at all, so 

why should I bother?’ 

They fell silent and walked a hundred or so paces further 

without exchanging a word. 

Etienne broke the silence: 

‘Do you at least know where you’re going? I can’t leave you 

out alone on a night like this.’ 

She replied openly: 

‘I’m going home. Chaval’s my man, there’s no reason to 

sleep anywhere else.’ 

‘But he’ll beat you to a pulp!’ 

They fell silent again. She shrugged her shoulders, resigned 

to her fate. He would beat her, and when he was tired of 

beating her, he’d stop: but wasn’t that better than tramping 

the roads like a beggar? Besides, she was getting used to 

getting knocked about by him, and said, to console herself, 

that eight girls out of ten were no better off than she was. And 

if her sweetheart were to marry her one day, it would be really 

nice of him. 

fitienne and Catherine had been walking unconsciously in 

the direction of Montsou, and the nearer they came, the longer 

their silences grew. It was already as if they had not been 

together. He found no argument to convince her, despite the 

heavy sadness he felt at seeing her return to Chavai. His heart 

was breaking, but he hardly had anything better to offer her; 

with his life of misery and hiding, any night might be their 

last if a soldier’s bullet were to blow his head off. Perhaps, in 

fact, it was more sensible to carry on suffering just as they 

were, without tempting fate to make them suffer more. So he 

led her back to her sweetheart, not looking up at her, and he 

made no protest when she stopped him on the main road at 

the turning to the yards, twenty metres away from Piquette’s, 

saying: 

‘Don’t come any further. If he saw you, that would cause 

more trouble.’ 

The church bells chimed eleven, the bar was closed, but 

light could be seen through chinks in the shutters. 

‘Farewell,’ she murmured. 

She had held out her hand to him. He kept hold of it, and 

she had to wrench it free, slowly and awkwardly, in order to 

leave him. Without turning back, she entered by the side-door, 

which was on the latch. But Etienne didn’t withdraw, he stood 

motionless on the spot, staring at the house, worried by what 

was going to happen inside. He strained his ears, trembling at 

the thought that he would hear her being beaten. The house 

remained dark and silent, he only saw one window light up, on 

the first floor, and, as that window opened and he recognized 

the slim figure leaning out and looking down at the road, he 

went closer. 

Then Catherine whispered very quietly: 

‘He hasn’t come home, I’m going to bed ... Please go away, 

I beg of you!’ 

Etienne went away. The thaw was increasing, the roofs were 

running with water, and a damp sweat broke out on all the 

walls, fences, and murky buildings of this industrial suburb, 

lost in the darkness. At first he headed towards Requillart, sick 

with fatigue and sadness, having only one desire, to disappear 

below ground, to be swallowed up by the earth. Then the 

thought of Le Voreux came to him, he thought of the Belgian 

workers who were due to go down there, of his comrades in 

the village exasperated by the soldiers, and determined not to 

tolerate foreigners in their pit. And he went back along the 

canal bank again, amid the piles of slush. 

Just as he was passing the slag-heap again, the moon came 

out very brightly. He raised his eyes to look at the sky, where 

the clouds were racing by, lashed on by the great wind 

blowing high up; but they started to grow whiter, break up, 

and become thinner, taking on the milky transparency of 

troubled water as they crossed the face of the moon; and they 

followed each other so rapidly that the moon only stayed 

veiled for a few moments at a time before constantly reappear¬ 

ing, clear and bright. 

His eyes dazzled with this pure light, Etienne averted his 

gaze, but stopped suddenly as he noticed something happening 

at the top of the slag-heap. The sentry, stiff with cold, was 

walking up and down now, taking twenty-five paces towards 

Marchiennes, then returning towards Montsou. You could see 

412 

Germinal 

the white flash of the bayonet, above his black silhouette, 

which showed up clearly against the pale sky. But what caught 

Etienne’s attention was a shadowy figure moving behind the 

hut where old Bonnemort used to shelter on stormy nights; it 

was the shadow of an animal crouching low and stalking its 

prey, and he immediately recognized Jeanlin, by his back, 

which seemed long and boneless, like a weasel’s. The sentry 

couldn’t see him, and the piratical child must have been 

preparing some practical joke, for he was constantly fuming 

against the soldiers, asking when they would be rid of these 

murderers that they sent out with rifles to kill people. 

For a moment Etienne hesitated, wondering whether he 

should call out to him, in case he was about to do something 

stupid. The moon was hidden again; he had seen Jeanlin 

crouch down ready to spring, but when the moon appeared 

again the child was still crouching. At each turn the sentry 

marched up to the hut, then turned his back to it and marched 

off again. Then suddenly, as a cloud cast its shadow, Jeanlin 

jumped on to the shoulders of the soldier, with an enormous 

leap like a wildcat, hung on with his nails, and plunged an 

open knife into his throat. The horse-hair collar resisted the 

blade, and he had to press on the handle with both hands and 

put all of the weight of his body behind it. He had often cut 

the throats of chickens that he had caught behind some farm 

outbuilding. It was over so quickly that there was just one 

muffled cry in the darkness, as the rifle fell to the ground with 

a metallic clatter. The moon had already reappeared and was 

shining with its bright white light as before. 

Etienne was struck dumb with astonishment, unable to 

move or to stop watching. He strangled a cry that rose at the 

back of his throat. The slag-heap above him was bare, no 

shadow now stood out against the frantic racing of the clouds. 

And he ran up, to find Jeanlin on all fours by the corpse, 

which lay flat on its back with its arms outstretched. In the 

snow, beneath the limpid moonlight, the red trousers and the 

grey greatcoat showed up starkly. Not a drop of blood had 

flowed, the knife was still up to its hilt in the throat. 

Without pausing to reflect he lashed out furiously with his 

fist and felled the boy, beside the body. 

Part VI 

413 

‘Why did you do that?’ he stammered, bewildered. 

Jeanlin got to his knees, and stretched forward on his hands, 

with his narrow spine arching like a cat’s; his big ears, green 

eyes, and prominent jaw quivered and burned, still trembling 

with the thrill of his exploit. 

‘For Christ’s sake! Why did you do that?’ 

‘I don’t know. I just felt like it.’ 

And he stuck at that. For three days he had felt the urge. It 

had been torturing him, his head had been aching, there, 

behind the ears, from thinking so much about it. Why should 

they worry, with these bloody soldiers who had come to push 

the colliers around in their own backyard? From the violent 

speeches in the forest, and the cries of death and devastation 

that tore through the pits, he had retained five or six words, 

which he kept repeating, like a child playing at revolution. 

And that was all he could say, no one had pushed him into 

doing it, it had come to him just like that, like the urge to steal 

onions he saw in a field. 

Etienne, who was horrified by the grisly birth of this crime 

in the depths of a child’s mind, kicked him away again, as if he 

were a dumb animal. He trembled to think that the garrison at 

Le Voreux might have heard the stifled cry of the sentry, and 

he stole a glance at the pit each time the moon came out. But 

nothing had stirred, and he bent forward, touching the hands, 

which were turning to ice, listening to the heart, which had 

stopped beating beneath the greatcoat. All you could see of the 

knife was its bone handle, where the gallant motto ‘Love’ was 

carved in black letters. 

His eyes went from the throat to the face. Suddenly, he 

recognized the young soldier: it was Jules, the new recruit, 

who had spoken to him that morning. And he was seized by a 

great feeling of pity, seeing this mild, fair face, covered in 

freckles. The blue eyes were wide open, looking at the sky, 

with the staring gaze that he had seen him turn towards the 

horizon, seeking out his homeland. Where was this Plogoff, 

which appeared to him bathed in sunshine? Over there, over 

there. Far away the sea was roaring in the stormy darkness. 

The wind which passed by so high overhead had perhaps 

blown over his native moors. Two women stood there, the 

414 Germinal 

mother and the sister, holding their windswept bonnets, and 

they too were watching, as if they could see what their boy was 

doing at this moment, beyond the leagues which separated 

them from him. Now they would wait forever. What an 

abominable thing it was for poor wretches to kill each other for 

the sake of the rich. 

But he had to dispose of the corpse, and at first Etienne 

thought of throwing it into the canal. But he abandoned this 

idea because they would be certain to find it. Then his anxiety 

became critical, time was pressing, what should he decide.^ He 

had a sudden inspiration: if he could carry the body to 

Requiliart, he could bury it away for ever. 

^Come here,’ he said to Jeanlin. 

The boy was suspicious. 

‘No, you’ll only hit me. And anyway, I’ve got business. 

Good-night.’ 

And in fact he had arranged to meet Bebert and Lydie in a 

hide hollowed out underneath the stack of timber at Le 

Voreux. It was part of a major plan, to spend the night out, to 

be there in case people were going to stone the Belgians and 

break their bones when they went down next morning. 

‘Listen,’ Etienne repeated, ‘come here, or I’ll call the sol¬ 

diers, and they’ll cut off your head.’ 

And as Jeanlin consented to obey, he rolled his handkerchief 

into a bandage to tie round the neck of the soldier, without 

taking the knife out, for it was preventing the blood from 

flowing. The snow was melting, and there were neither blood¬ 

stains nor footprints to betray the struggle. 

‘Take the legs.’ 

Jeanlin took the legs, Etienne grabbed hold of the shoulders, 

after fixing the rifle on his back; and the two of them walked 

slowly down the slag-heap, trying not to disturb any loose 

rocks. Luckily the moon had gone behind a cloud. But as they 

walked quickly along the canal bank it came out again and 

shone brightly: it would be a miracle if the garrison didn’t 

notice them. They hurried along without exchanging a word, 

although they were handicapped by the swaying of the corpse, 

and had to put it down every hundred metres. At the corner of 

the road to Requiliart, a noise sent shivers down their spines. 

Part VI 

415 

and they only just had time to hide behind a wall to avoid a 

patrol. Further on, a man bumped into them, but he was 

drunk, and went off, cursing them. And when they eventually 

arrived at the old pit, they were covered in sweat, and so upset 

that their teeth were chattering. 

Etienne had guessed that it would not be easy to get the 

soldier down the ladder well. It was terribly exhausting. First 

of all, Jeanlin stayed up above and slid the body down, while 

Etienne, holding on to the undergrowth, accompanied it, to 

help it past the first two landings, where there were broken 

rungs. Then with every ladder he had to start the same 

procedure, going down ahead of it and taking it in his arms; 

and there were thirty of these ladders, 210 metres in all, and 

all the time he felt the body pushing down on top of him. The 

rifle was digging into his spine, and he didn’t want the boy to 

go and find the candle end, which he was jealously keeping for 

himself There was no point, anyway, for the light would only 

have got in their way, in this narrow channel. However, when 

they arrived at the loading bay, out of breath, he sent the boy 

to get the candle. He sat down beside the body, waiting in 

darkness for Jeanlin to return, his heart beating furiously. 

As soon as Jeanlin reappeared with the light, Etienne asked 

his advice, for the child had searched through these old 

workings, including the chinks in the rock where grown men 

couldn’t pass. They set off again, dragging the dead man 

nearly a kilometre, through a labyrinth of ruined tunnels. 

Finally the roof got lower and they found themselves on their 

knees beneath a crumbling rock face, held up by some half- 

broken props. It was like a long chest, which made a coffin for 

the young soldier to lie in; they deposited the rifle by his side; 

then, kicking hard with their heels, they broke right through 

the props, taking the risk of burying themselves into the 

bargain. The rock face immediately started to crack, and they 

only just had time to crawl out on their hands and knees. 

When Etienne turned round, unable to resist the urge to look, 

the roof was still collapsing, slowly crushing the body under its 

enormous mass. And then there was nothing left to see but the 

dense mass of earth. 

Once they were back home, Jeanlin stretched out on the hay 

4i6 Germinal 

in the corner of his bandit’s lair, and murmured, broken with 

fatigue: 

‘Damn! The kids will just have to wait for me, I need an 

hour’s sleep.’ 

Etienne had blown out the candle, of which there was only a 

small scrap left. He too was aching all over, but he couldn’t 

sleep, he was assailed by painful, nightmarish thoughts hammer¬ 

ing away at his brain. Soon only one of them subsisted, 

tormenting him, and confronting him with a question which 

he couldn’t answer: why had he not struck Chaval down when 

he had him at knife-point? And why had this child just slit the 

throat of a soldier whose name he didn’t even know? His 

revolutionary faith was deeply shaken by his disturbing feelings 

over the courage it took to kill a man and when it was right to 

do so. Was he a coward, then? In the hay, the boy had started 

to snore sonorously like a drunkard, as if he had a hangover 

from the intoxication of the murder. And Etienne was repulsed 

and irritated to know that he was there, and to have to listen to 

him. Suddenly he shuddered, a gust of panic had blown over 

his face. Something seemed to brush past him as a sob arose 

from the depths of the earth. The image of the young soldier, 

lying back there with his gun by his side, underneath the 

rocks, sent a shiver down his spine and made his hair stand on 

end. It was ridiculous, but the whole mine seemed to fill with 

voices, he had to light the candle again, and he didn’t regain 

his composure until he could see by its weak light that the 

tunnels were empty. 

For another quarter of an hour he reflected, still ravaged by 

the same struggle, his eyes staring at the burning wick. But it 

started spluttering, the wick was doused, and everything was 

plunged in darkness. He felt himself gripped by another fit of 

shivering, and he could have hit Jeanlin for snoring so loudly. 

The boy’s company became so unbearable that he ran off, 

tortured by a need for fresh air, hurrying along the tunnels 

and up the well as if he had heard a ghost hot on his heels. 

Once above ground, amid the ruins of Requillart, Etienne 

was at last able to breathe freely. Since he hadn’t dared kill, it 

was for him to die; and this thought of death, which he had 

already intuitively entertained, became lodged in his mind, as a 

Part VI 

417 

last hope. To die pluckily for the revolution would solve 

everything, it would settle his account for better or for worse, 

it would save him from any more worries. If his comrades 

attacked the Belgians, he would be in the front line, and with a 

bit of luck he might get shot. So his step became firmer as he 

went back to prowl around Le Voreux. Two o’clock struck, 

and a loud buzz of voices emerged from the deputies’ room, 

where the garrison which held the pit was billeted. The 

disappearance of the sentry had deeply upset the garrison; they 

had gone to wake the captain and, after carefully examining 

the ground, they concluded that the sentry had deserted. And 

watching from the shadows, Etienne remembered what the 

young soldier had told him about this republican captain. Who 

knew whether he might not be persuaded to go over to the side 

of the people.^ The troops would point their rifles down at the 

ground, and that could give the signal for a massacre of the 

bourgeoisie. A new dream swept him away, and he no longer 

thought of dying; for several hours he stood with his feet in 

the mud, and a drizzle of melting snow dripping on his 

shoulders, excited by the hope that victory might still be 

possible. 

He watched out for the Belgians until five o’clock. Then he 

noticed that the Company had been clever enough to house 

them at Le Voreux overnight. The descent was already under 

way, and the handful of strikers from village Two Hundred 

and Forty who were posted as scouts were wondering whether 

to warn their comrades. It was Etienne who warned them that 

they had been tricked, and they ran off, while he waited 

behind the slag-heap on the tow-path. Six o’clock struck, and 

the muddy sky was growing paler, in the russet light of dawn, 

when Father Ranvier emerged from a path, with his cassock 

hitched up around his skinny legs. Each Monday he went to 

say mass at the chapel of a convent, the other side of the pit. 

‘Good-morning, my friend,’ he cried loudly, after taking a 

good look at the young man, with his fiery eyes. 

But Etienne didn’t answer. Far off he had seen a woman 

passing under the trestles of Le Voreux, and he rushed over, 

full of anxiety, for he thought he had recognized Catherine. 

Since midnight Catherine had been wandering along the 

Germinal 

418 

slushy roads. When Chaval had arrived home and found her in 

bed, he had hit her to make her get up. He shouted at her to 

leave straight away by the door unless she wanted to go out 

through the window; and weeping, hardly clothed, her legs 

kicked black and blue, she had had to go downstairs, to be 

thrown outside with a last punch. She felt so numb at this 

brutal separation that she had sat down on a milestone, looking 

at the house, waiting patiently for him to call her back; for it 

couldn’t be true, he must be waiting for her, he would tell her 

to come back up when he saw her shivering away there with 

no one to invite her in. 

Then, after two hours, dying of cold from sitting motionless 

like a dog thrown out into the street, she made up her mind 

and left Montsou. But then she walked back again, without 

daring to call up from the pavement or knock on the door. At 

last she went off again, straight down the cobbles of the main 

road, deciding to go to her parents’ in the village. But when 

she arrived there, she felt such a wave of shame that she raced 

past the gardens, fearing that someone might recognize her, 

despite the fact that everyone was fast asleep, slumbering 

heavily behind drawn shutters. And then she started wandering 

about, terrified by the slightest noise, scared stiff of being 

picked up and taken as a tramp to the house of ill fame in 

Marchiennes, the threat of which had been haunting her like a 

nightmare for months. Twice she stumbled into Le Voreux, 

took fright at the loud voices coming from the garrison, ran 

away breathlessly, looking over her shoulder to see if she was 

being pursued. The narrow lane which led to Requillart was 

still full of drunken men, but she returned there in the vague 

hope of meeting the man she had sent packing a few hours 

earlier. 

Chaval was intending to go down that morning; and the 

thought of this drew Catherine back to the pit, although she 

realized that it was useless to talk to him: it was all over 

between them. There was no longer any work at Jean-Bart, 

and he had sworn he would strangle her if she went back to 

work at Le Voreux, where he was afraid she would compromise 

him. So what could she do? Go somewhere else, die of 

starvation, or yield to every passing man who wanted to beat 

Part VI 

419 

her into submission? She dragged her feet along the road, 

stumbling over the ruts with aching legs, splashed with mud 

right up her back. The thaw was now making the roads run 

with rivers of mud, but she waded in deeper and deeper, 

walking ceaselessly, not daring to seek out a rock to sit on. 

Day dawned. Catherine had just recognized Chaval’s back 

as he cautiously walked round the slag-heap, when she espied 

Bebert and Lydie, peeping out of their hiding-place under the 

stack of timber. I'hey had spent the night on the look-out, 

without daring to go home, because Jeanlin had ordered them 

to wait for him; and while he slept off the aftermath of his 

murder at Requillart, the two children had huddled up in each 

other’s arms to keep warm. The wind blew between the poles 

of oak and chestnut, and they cuddled up close together, as if 

they were in some abandoned woodman’s hut. Lydie didn’t 

dare declare openly how she suffered to be treated like an 

under-age battered wife, nor could Bebert pluck up the courage 

to complain of the blows that his leader bruised his cheeks 

with; but when all was said and done he had gone too far, 

risking their lives and limbs in his crazy escapades, then 

refusing to share any of the spoils; and their hearts rose in 

revolt, and they finally got round to kissing each other, al¬ 

though he had forbidden them, even if they ran the risk of 

their absent leader coming to beat them as he had threatened. 

But no blows materialized, so they continued to kiss gently, 

without thinking of doing anything more, putting into their 

kisses ail their growing, pent-up passion, all their latent, 

martyred tenderness. They had kept each other warm in this 

way all night long, so happy hidden in the depths of their 

secluded hideaway that they couldn’t remember when they 

had ever been happier, even at the Sainte-Barbe fair, when 

they had had fritters to eat and wine to drink. 

A sudden loud trumpeting made Catherine tremble. She 

looked up, and saw the garrison at Le Voreux taking up their 

arms. Etienne came running up, and Bebert and Lydie tumbled 

suddenly out of their hide. And in the distance, against the 

growing light of dawn, they could see a mob of men and 

women coming down from the village, angrily waving their 

arms. 

420 

Germinal 

CHAPTER V 

All the entrances to Le Voreux had just been closed; and the 

sixty soldiers, with their rifles at their sides, were blocking the 

way to the only door left open, the one that led to the entrance 

hall by way of a narrow staircase, which gave on to the 

deputies’ room and the changing shed. The captain had drawn 

his men up in two lines, with their backs to the brick wall, so 

that no one could attack them from behind. 

At first the mob of miners from the village kept their 

distance. There were no more than thirty of them, and they 

raised their voices in harsh confusion as they tried to agree 

what to do. 

La Maheude was the first to arrive, having hastily tied up 

her dishevelled hair in a kerchief; she was carrying Estelle still 

asleep in her arms, and repeated feverishly: 

‘No one must enter and no one must leave! We must trap 

them all inside!’ 

Maheu agreed, when old Mouque just at that moment 

arrived from Requillart. They tried to stop him getting 

through. But he struggled, he said that his horses still had to 

eat their oats and he didn’t give a stuff for the revolution. And 

anyway, one horse was already dead and they needed him to 

get it out. Etienne helped the old stableman through, and the 

soldiers let him go up to the pit. And a quarter of an hour 

later, as the mob of strikers, which had been growing gradually 

larger, became threatening, a wide door on the ground floor 

was reopened, and some men appeared, dragging the dead 

horse, still wrapped in the rope net, a pitiful bag of bones, 

which they then abandoned amid the puddles of melting snow. 

The crowd was so shaken that no one prevented them from 

going back inside and barricading the door again. For everyone 

had recognized the horse from its head, which was bent back 

stiffly against its flanks. A whispered rumour ran round the 

crowd. 

‘It’s Trompette, isn’t it? It’s Trompette.’ 

And it was indeed Trompette. Since he had gone under¬ 

ground, he had never been able to become acclimatized. He 

Part VI 

42 i 

remained listless, taking no pleasure in his work, as if he were 

tortured by the thought of the missing daylight. In vain 

Bataille, the longest-serving horse in the mine, nuzzled up to 

his ribs in friendly fashion, and nibbled his neck, to pass on a 

little of his ten years’ experience of underground resignation. 

These caresses only aggravated Trompette’s melancholy, and 

his skin shivered as he felt the confidences of this comrade 

who had grown old in the darkness; and both of them, every 

time they nuzzled each other in passing, seemed to be lament¬ 

ing, the old one for not being able to remember, the young one 

for not being able to forget. In the stables they were neighbours 

at the same stall, and they spent their time with heads hung 

low, breathing into each other’s faces, endlessly exchanging 

their reminiscences of daylight, visions of green grass, white 

roads, yellow light, and so on. Then when Trompette was 

drenched in sweat, and lay dying in agony on his bed of straw, 

Bataille started to nuzzle him desperately, with short sobbing 

sniffs. He felt him growing cold, the mine was taking away his 

last pleasure, this friend who had fallen from above bringing 

fine fresh smells reminding him of his youth in the open air. 

And he had broken his tether, whinnying with fear, when he 

realized that the other horse had stopped moving. 

Mouque, meanwhile, had alerted the deputy a week before. 

But why should they worry about a sick horse at such a 

moment! These gentlemen were not keen on moving horses. 

But now they’d have to remove it. The day before the stable¬ 

man had spent an hour tying Trompette up, with the help of 

two other men. They harnessed Bataille to take him to the 

shaft. Slowly, the old horse pulled and dragged his dead 

comrade through a tunnel so narrow that he had to push his 

way through, running the risk of skinning him; and he shook 

his head from side to side, distressed by the sound of the 

heavy body rubbing along the face of the rock on its way to the 

knacker’s yard. At the pit bottom, when they had unharnessed 

him, he followed with weary eyes the preparations for raising 

him up, as the body was pushed on rollers, over the sump, and 

the net fixed underneath a cage. Finally the loaders rang their 

dinner bells, and he raised his neck to watch him leave, gently 

at first, then suddenly plunging into darkness, flying away for 

422 

Germinal 

ever up into the heights of this black hole. Thus he remained 

with his neck stretched out; perhaps his flickering animal 

memory recalled something of the world above. But it was all 

over, his comrade would never see anything again, and he too, 

one day, would follow him up there, tied up in a miserable 

bundle. His legs started to tremble, the draught of air from the 

distant countryside stifled him; and he seemed intoxicated 

when he lumbered back to the stables. 

In the entrance hall the colliers were downcast, looking at 

the corpse of Trompette. A woman said: 

‘At least a man can decide whether he wants to go below or 

not!’ 

But a new flood of people arrived from the village, with 

Levaque marching at their head, followed by La Levaque and 

Bouteloup, and shouting: 

‘Death to the Belgians! No foreigners here! Kill them, kill!’ 

They all rushed forwards, and Etienne had to stop them. He 

approached the captain, a tall thin man, hardly more than 

twenty-eight years old, with a desperate but resolute face; and 

he explained things to him, trying to win him over, and 

studying the effect of his words. What was the point of taking 

the risk of starting a useless massacre.^ Wasn’t justice on the 

side of the miners.^ All men were brothers, they should be able 

to reach an agreement. When he heard the word ‘republic’, the 

captain reacted nervously. But he maintained his military 

bearing, and said roughly: 

‘Keep back! Don’t force me to do my duty.’ 

Three times Etienne tried again. But behind him his com¬ 

rades were getting impatient. The rumour spread that Mon¬ 

sieur Hennebeau was at the pit, and they threatened to winch 

him down by the neck, to see if he wanted to hew his coal 

himself. But it was a false rumour, only Negrel and Dansaert 

were there; both of them showed their faces momentarily at a 

window of the entrance hall: the overman held back, embar¬ 

rassed since his adventure with La Pierronne, while the engin¬ 

eer boldly raked the crowd with his small, gleaming eyes, 

smiling with the cheerful contempt that he cast over all men 

and all things. There was a round of booing, then the two men 

disappeared. And in their place, only Souvarine’s fair features 

Part VI 

423 

could be seen. It happened to be his turn on duty> he hadn’t 

left his engine for a single day since the start of the strike, and 

he spoke to nobody, as he had become more and more absorbed 

in his obsession, which seemed to gleam like a dagger from the 

depths of his pale eyes. 

‘Keep back!’ the captain repeated at the top of his voice. ‘I 

don’t have to agree anything with you, I have to guard the pit, 

and guard it I shall .. . And if you don’t stop trying to push 

my men back, I’ll have to stop you by force.’ 

Despite his firm voice, he had grown paler, as he felt ever 

more anxious, faced with this rising tide of miners. He was 

due to be replaced at midday; but fearing that he would not be 

able to hold out that long, he had just sent one of the pit boys 

to Montsou to ask for reinforcements. 

He was answered with vociferous shouting. 

‘Death to the foreigners! Death to the Belgians .. . We want 

to be masters in our own house!’ 

Etienne fell back, discouraged. It was all over, the only 

thing left to do was fight and die. So he stopped holding his 

comrades back, and the crowd swept forward towards the 

small squad. They were nearly 400 strong, as the local villages 

emptied and more people came running up. They were all 

shouting the same cry, and Maheu and Levaque said furiously 

to the soldiers: 

‘Clear off! We’ve got nothing against you, clear off!’ 

‘It’s got nothing to do with you,’ La Maheude went on. 

‘Mind your own business and let us mind ours.’ 

And behind her La Levaque added, more violently: 

‘Do you want us to have to eat you alive to get through.? 

Please be so kind as to bugger off!’ 

And even Lydie, who had plunged into the thick of the 

action with Bebert, could be heard piping up in her shrill little 

voice: 

‘Useless bunch, all in a row!’ 

Catherine, standing a few steps further back, watched and 

listened, looking bewildered at this new outbreak of violence 

which her bad luck had led her into yet again. Hadn’t she 

suffered enough already? What wrong could she have done to 

be so hounded by misfortune? Right up to the previous day 

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she had understood nothing of the passions aroused by the 

strike, thinking that, when you already have more than your 

fair share of being knocked about, there’s no point in going out 

looking for more trouble; but now her heart was bursting with 

a need to express its hatred, she remembered what Etienne 

used to tell them in the evening by the fireside, she tried to 

hear what he was saying to the soldiers now. He was calling 

them his comrades, reminding them that they came from the 

people too, so that they should side with the people, against 

those who exploited their suffering. 

But then a long, rippling movement passed through the 

crowd and an old woman rushed forward. It was old Ma 

Brule, terrifyingly thin, her neck arid her arms uncovered, and 

she had dashed up at such a speed that strands of her grey hair 

had blown into her eyes and were blinding her. 

‘Ah, God be praised, I made it!’ she stammered, fighting for 

breath. ‘That traitor Pierron shut me up in the cellar!’ 

And without further ado she flew at the troops, spewing 

forth insults from her black mouth. 

‘Load of scoundrels! Load of scum! You lick your masters’ 

boots and you only dare to fight the poor!’ 

Then the others joined in and the insults flew thick and fast. 

Some of them still cried, ‘Up with the soldiers! Down the 

shaft with the officer!’ But soon there was only one clamour: 

‘Down with the bastards, blast their red trousers!’ But these 

men, who had listened unmoved, with silent, fixed expressions, 

to appeals for fraternity and friendly attempts to persuade 

them to change sides, maintained the same passive stiffness 

under this hail of insults. Behind them, the captain had drawn 

his sword; and, as the crowd moved in closer and closer, 

threatening to crush them against the wall, he ordered them to 

present bayonets. They obeyed, and a twin line of steel spikes 

sprang forward, pointing at the chests of the strikers. 

‘Oh, the bastards!’ screamed old Ma Brule, as she fell back. 

But already everyone had started to move back towards 

them in an intoxicated contempt of death. Some of the women 

rushed forward. La Maheude and La Levaque cried: 

‘Kill us then, kill us! We want our rights.’ 

Levaque, ignoring the danger of cutting himself, had 

Part VI 

425 

grabbed a bunch of bayonets in his hands, and he shook the 

three blades, pulling them towards him, in an attempt to tear 

them off the rifles; and he twisted them, with his strength 

magnified tenfold by his anger, while Bouteloup stood aside, 

wishing he hadn’t followed his comrade, and calmly let him 

get on with it. 

‘Come on, then, let’s see what you’re made of,’ Maheu went 

on. ‘Come on and have a go, if you’ve got any guts!’ 

And he opened his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt, showing 

off his naked chest, with his hairy flesh tattooed with coal. He 

pushed up against the tips of the bayonets, and his terrible 

insolence and bravado forced the soldiers back. One of the 

blades had pricked his chest; this goaded him furiously and he 

tried to push it further in, to crack his ribs. 

‘Cowards, you don’t dare ... There are another ten thousand 

behind us. Oh yes, you can kill us, but there will be ten 

thousand more to kill.’ 

The position of the soldiers became critical, for they had 

received strict orders not to use their arms except as a last 

resort. But how could they stop these madmen from skewering 

themselves if they wanted to? Besides which they had less and 

less room for manoeuvre, for they had been forced up against 

the wall and could retreat no further. But their little squad, a 

mere handful of men against the rising tide of miners, held 

fast, and carried out their captain’s crisp orders coolly and 

carefully. The latter stood there, with his eyes gleaming and 

his lips nervously sealed, possessed by a single fear, which was 

to see them lose their self-restraint under the volley of insults. 

Already one young sergeant, a tall thin man whose sparse 

moustache was bristling, had started blinking with alarming 

nervousness. Close by him, a hardened veteran of a dozen 

campaigns, whose skin was worn from exposure to all kinds of 

hardship, had turned pale when he saw his bayonet twisted 

like a straw. Another, who must have been a raw recruit, fresh 

from ploughing the fields, went bright red every time he heard 

himself called a bastard or a swine. And there was no let-up in 

the abuse, as the miners shook their fists at them and blasted 

their faces with vile words, and broadsides of accusations and 

threats. It needed all the force of their strict instructions to 

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426 

keep them there, their military discipline imposing on their 

expressionless faces a proud but sad silence. 

A clash seemed inevitable, when they saw Richomme, the 

deputy, whose white hair made him look like a friendly old 

gendarme, emerge from behind the troops, shaking with emo¬ 

tion. He spoke up, 

‘For heaven’s sake, isn’t this stupid! We can’t let this 

ridiculous state of affairs continue.’ 

And he thrust himself between the bayonets and the miners. 

‘Comrades, listen to me ... You know that I’m an old 

workman and I’ve never stopped being one of you. Well then, 

in God’s name, I promise you that if you don’t obtain justice 

I’ll go to see the bosses myself and tell them what to do ... 

But this is going too far, you won’t get anywhere by using foul 

language on these decent men and trying to get your own 

stomachs cut open.’ 

They listened to him, and hesitated. But just then, unfortu¬ 

nately, young Negrel’s sharp profile appeared overhead. He 

must have been afraid that they would accuse him of sending a 

deputy, instead of taking the risk of going himself; and he tried 

to speak. But his voice was drowned in such an awful tumult 

that he was forced simply to shrug his shoulders and leave the 

window again. After that, however hard Richomme begged 

them repeatedly in his own name to settle the dispute among 

friends, they rejected his arguments, and treated him with 

suspicion. But he persisted, and stayed in their midst, 

‘For heaven’s sake! They can break my head open along 

with yours, but I’m not going to leave you, while you’re still 

acting so foolishly!’ 

Etienne, whom he begged to help him get them to see 

reason, shrugged his shoulders in despair. It was too late, they 

numbered more than 500 by now. And it wasn’t only the 

extremists who had gathered to throw out the Belgians: there 

were the curious onlookers, and the jokers who had come to 

enjoy the fun of a fight. In the middle of one group, some 

distance away, Zacharie and Philomene were standing watching 

the show, so unperturbed that they had brought the two little 

children, Achille and Desiree. A new crowd came flooding in 

from Requillart, including Mouquet and La Mouquette: he 

Part VI 

427 

immediately went over to see his friend Zacharie, grinning and 

clapping him on the shoulder; while La Mouquette trotted 

along excitedly at the front of the wildest group. 

Meanwhile, the captain kept turning round once a minute to 

look down the road towards Montsou. The reinforcements that 

he had requested hadn’t arrived, and his sixty men could hold 

out no longer. 

Finally he thought he would risk a dramatic gesture, and he 

ordered his men to load their rifles in front of the crowd. The 

soldiers obeyed the order, but the disturbance increased, with 

an outburst of bravado and mockery. 

Old Ma Brule, La Levaque, and the other women sneered: 

‘Look, the idle buggers are going to the range for some 

target practice!’ 

La Maheude, with Estelle’s small body clinging to her 

breast, because the child had woken up and started crying, 

came so close that the sergeant asked her what she meant by 

dragging the poor little kid along with her. 

‘What the hell has it got to do with you.?’ she replied. ‘Take 

a shot, if you dare.’ 

The men shook their heads in contempt. Not one of them 

imagined that anyone would shoot at them. 

‘There aren’t any bullets in their cartridges,’ said Levaque. 

‘Are we Cossacks.?’ shouted Maheu. ‘You can’t shoot at 

Frenchmen, for God’s sake!’ 

Others repeated that, when they had fought in the Crimean 

War,* they hadn’t been afraid of bullets. And they all contin¬ 

ued to throw themselves at the rifles. If the soldiers had 

started firing at that moment the crowd would have been 

mown down. 

La Mouquette, who was in the front row, was choking with 

fury at the thought that the soldiers wanted to shoot holes in 

the women’s bodies. She had spat out her foulest oaths at 

them, and couldn’t find any more demeaning insults, when 

suddenly, attacking the troops with the last and most mortally 

wounding weapon in her repertory, she displayed her arse 

under their very noses. She lifted her skirts with both hands, 

and thrust out her buttocks, exaggerating their enormous size 

and roundness. 

Germinal 

428 

‘There you are, that’s what I think of you! And it’s a shame 

it’s so clean, you dirty bastards!’ 

She bowed and bobbed and turned so that everyone had his 

share of the vision, and with every thrust that she offered, she 

repeated: 

‘One for the officer! One for the sergeant! And one for the 

troops!’ 

A gale of laughter arose, Bebert and Lydie were doubled up 

with laughter, and even Etienne, despite his gloomy apprehen¬ 

sions, applauded this impertinent show of nudity. Everyone, 

from the jokers to the fanatics, started to boo the soldiers, as if 

they had seen them bespattered with a volley of filth; only 

Catherine stood to one side, standing on a pile of old timbers, 

and kept silent, her throat choked with a rush of blood, filled 

with a hatred whose heat she felt rising within her. 

But there was another rush at the soldiers. The captain 

decided to take some prisoners, to calm his men’s nerves. La 

Mouquette jumped quickly out of their grasp, dodging between 

the legs of her comrades. Three miners, Levaque and two 

others, were snatched out of the most violent group, and kept 

under arrest in the deputies’ room. 

From the window above, Negrel and Dansaert shouted to 

the captain to come inside and shut himself up with them. He 

refused, for he sensed that these buildings, whose doors had 

no locks, would be taken by storm, and that if he were inside 

he would suffer the shame of being disarmed. Already his 

small band of men was straining at the bit, and they couldn’t 

retreat from a crowd of wretches in clogs. The sixty men, with 

their backs to the wall and their rifles loaded, faced the crowd 

again. 

At first there was a movement of withdrawal, and a deep 

silence. The strikers remained astonished at this show of 

strength. Then a cry arose, demanding that the prisoners be 

released immediately. Voices could be heard claiming that they 

were being stabbed to death inside the building. And without 

being prompted, they were all swept along by the same urgent 

need for revenge; they all ran over to the nearby stacks of 

bricks, made of clay from the local marl, and baked on site. 

The children lugged them out one by one, the women filled 

Part VI 

429 

their skirts with them. Soon everyone had his own munitions 

at his feet, and the stoning commenced. 

It was old Ma Brule who was the first to take up position. 

She cracked the bricks over her bony knees, and, first with the 

right hand, then with the left, she threw both halves. La 

Levaque almost put her shoulders out of joint, and, being fat 

and flabby, had to go in very close in order to hit her target, 

despite the pleas of Bouteloup, who dragged her back, in the 

hope of leading her away now that her husband was safely out 

of the way. All the women got excited. La Mouquette, unwill¬ 

ing to cover herself in blood by trying to break the bricks on 

her far too fleshy thighs, preferred to throw them whole. Even 

the children went up to the front line, and Bebert showed 

Lydie how to dispatch them by bowling them underarm. 

There was a series of muffled thuds as they landed like a storm 

of giant hailstones. And suddenly, amid all these furies, Cather¬ 

ine could be seen, her fists in the air, brandishing half-bricks 

herself, throwing them with all the force her small arms could 

muster. She couldn’t have said why, but she was suffocating, 

and was overcome with a desire to kill. Surely it would have to 

stop soon, this life of blasted misery. She had had enough of 

being beaten and thrown out by her man, of wading like a 

stray dog through the mud on the road, without even being 

able to ask her father for a bowl of soup, for he was as starving 

as she was. Things had never got any better, in fact they had 

only got worse, for as long as she could remember; and she 

broke her bricks, and threw them straight ahead of her, with 

the one idea of sweeping all before her, her eyes so flushed 

with blood that she couldn’t even see whose jaw she might be 

breaking. 

Etienne, who had been standing facing the soldiers, nearly 

had his skull split open. His ear swelled up, and as he turned 

round, he was shaken to realize that the brick had been flung 

by Catherine’s frenzied hands; and he risked his life standing 

there looking at her instead of moving out of range. A lot of 

other people stayed there out of sheer fascination for a fight, 

without trying to lend a hand. Mouquet commented on the 

throws, as if it were a coconut shy: ‘Oh, good shot, there!’ and 

‘Bad luck, try again!’ He laughed and nudged Zacharie, because 

430 

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he was arguing with Philomene now, after smacking Achille 

and Desiree, who had wanted to climb up on to his back to see 

better. There was a whole group of spectators lining the road 

far into the distance. And, at the top of the hill leading to the 

village, old Bonnemort had just appeared, limping along on a 

walking stick, and then stopping motionless, silhouetted against 

the rust-coloured sky. 

As soon as the first bricks had started flying, Richomme, the 

deputy, had taken up his stance again between the soldiers and 

the miners. He pleaded and urged alternately, heedless of the 

danger, so desperate that great tears were running down his 

cheeks. His words were lost in the din, but his large grey 

moustache could be seen quivering. 

But the hail of bricks became harder, for the men had now 

followed the women’s example and started throwing. 

Then La Maheude noticed that Maheu was hanging back, 

looking unhappy. His hands were empty. 

‘What’s up with you, then?’ she cried. ‘Are you going to let 

your comrades down and send them to prison? ... Oh, if I 

didn’t have this child with me, you’d see something!’ 

Estelle was clutching her neck and screaming, preventing 

her from joining old Ma Brule and the others. And as her man 

didn’t seem to be paying attention to what she was saying, she 

used her feet to shove a pile of bricks between his legs. 

‘For God’s sake! Will you take hold of those! Do you want 

me to spit in your eye in front of everyone to give you the 

courage to act?’ 

He went very red, broke the bricks, and threw them. She 

lashed him with her tongue, dazing and numbing him with the 

murderous words that she spat out behind him, crushing her 

daughter in her arms against her breast; and he kept moving 

forwards, until he found himself facing the rifles. 

The small squad of soldiers almost disappeared beneath the 

hail of stones. Luckily they were aimed too high, and merely 

pitted the wall. But what could they do? The idea of turning 

round and going home struck the captain momentarily and 

turned his face purple; but by now it wasn’t even possible, for 

they would be skinned alive if they made the slightest move. A 

brick had just broken the peak of his cap, and blood was 

Part VI 

431 

dripping from his forehead. Several of his men were wounded; 

he realized then that they had lost patience, and that an 

unbridled instinct for self-preservation would soon take pre¬ 

cedence over any orders from their superiors. The sergeant 

suddenly shouted, ‘God almighty!’ as his left shoulder was 

nearly dislocated, his flesh bruised by a dull blow, thwacking 

into him like a paddle into a pile of washing. Twice the recruit 

had been hit glancing blows; one of his thumbs was broken, 

and his right knee was smarting fiercely: would they have to 

put up with it much longer.^ A piece of brick bounced up and 

hit the veteran in the groin; his face went green, and he raised 

his rifle with his thin arms trembling. Three times the captain 

almost gave the order to fire. He was tortured with anguish, 

and for a few seconds, which seemed to last an age, he felt 

struggling within him all the conflicting ideas, duties, and 

beliefs he held as a man and a soldier. The hail of bricks 

increased, and he was just opening his mouth, ready to shout, 

‘Fire!’ when the rifles went off all by themselves, first three 

shots, then five, then a broadside from the whole squad, and 

finally a single shot after a long pause, amid a deep silence. 

Everyone was stupefied. They had fired.* The crowd was 

staggered, and remained motionless, unable to believe it as yet. 

But some heart-rending cries arose, while the bugle sounded 

the order to cease fire. And there was a frenzied panic, as they 

ran desperately through the mud to escape the hail of bullets 

like a herd of stampeding cattle. 

Bebert and Lydie had collapsed on top of each other, hit by 

the first few shots, the little girl struck in the face, and the boy 

with a bullet hole beneath his left shoulder. She had been 

knocked flat off her feet, and lay lifeless on the ground. But 

with the last convulsive movements of his death agony he 

seized her in his arms as if he had wanted to take her again, as 

he had taken her in the depths of the dark hideaway where 

they had just spent their last night together. Then Jeanlin, 

who had arrived from Requillart at that very moment, still 

drowsy with sleep, came hopping through the smoke, and saw 

him embrace his little wife, and die. 

The next five shots had felled old Ma Brule and Richomme, 

the deputy. Struck in the back just as he was pleading with his 

432 

Germinal 

comrades, he had fallen to his knees, and, slumping on to one 

hip, he lay on the ground gasping, his eyes full of the tears that 

he had wept. The old woman, with her breast blasted open, 

had fallen flat on her back as stiff and brittle as a bunch of 

firewood, spluttering a last oath as she choked in her own 

blood. 

But then the squad^s main broadside had swept over the 

terrain, mowing down the bystanders a hundred paces away 

who had come to enjoy watching the fight. Mouquet received 

a bullet in his mouth, which smashed him open and knocked 

him down at the feet of Zacharie and Philomene, whose two 

kids were splashed with red. At the same moment La Mou- 

quette was hit in the stomach by two bullets. She had seen the 

soldiers take aim and, with an instinctive movement of generos¬ 

ity, had thrown herself in front of Catherine, shouting to her 

to watch out; she screamed out loud, and fell down backwards, 

knocked over by the force of the shots. Etienne ran up 

intending to pick her up and take her away, but she gave a sign 

which said that it was all over. Then she choked, without 

ceasing to smile at both of them, as if she was happy to see 

them together, now that she was going away. 

It seemed to be all over; the storm of bullets had even swept 

as far as the fronts of the houses in the village, when the last, 

single shot was fired, some time after the others. 

Maheu was struck right in the heart; he bent double and fell 

face downwards in a black, sooty puddle. 

La Maheude bent down, uncomprehending. 

‘Hey, old man, get up. It’s nothing serious, is it.?’ 

Her hands were still encumbered with Estelle, so she had to 

tuck her under her arm, in order to turn her man’s head 

towards her. 

‘Come on, speak up! Where does it hurt.?’ 

His eyes were empty, and his mouth dribbled bloody foam. 

She understood: he was dead. Then, with her daughter stuck 

like a bundle under her arm, she stayed sitting in the mire, 

looking at her man with a bemused air. 

The pit was clear. The captain had nervously removed his 

cap, which had been torn by a stone, and then nervously put it 

back on again; yet he maintained his stiff, pale demeanour. 

Part VI 

433 

even in the face of the greatest disaster of his career, while his 

men reloaded their rifles with expressionless faces. The terri¬ 

fied faces of Negrel and Dansaert could be seen at the window 

of the landing-stage. Souvarine was standing behind them, his 

brow marked with a great frown, as if his obsession had been 

printed threateningly across it. On the other side of the 

horizon, at the edge of the plateau, Bonnemort had not moved, 

propped up on his walking stick with one hand, the other hand 

shading his eyes to help give him a better view of his family 

and friends being slaughtered down below. The wounded were 

screaming, and the dead were freezing in their broken postures, 

spattered with the liquid slush from the thaw, and sinking into 

the mud here and there between the inky patches of coal 

which had reappeared through the dirty shreds of melting 

snow. And amid these tiny little human corpses, looking so 

poor and wretchedly thin, lay the carcass of Trompette, a great 

pile of dead flesh, monstrous but tragic. 

Etienne had not been killed. He was standing watching over 

Catherine, who had collapsed with fatigue and distress, when a 

vibrant voice made him start. It was Father Ranvier, who had 

returned from saying mass; he raised both his arms into the air 

and, in a prophetic fury, called down the wrath of God on the 

assassins. He announced the arrival of the age of justice, and 

the imminent extermination of the bourgeoisie by fire sent 

from heaven, since they had brought their crimes to a climax 

by having the workers and the poor of the earth massacred. 

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PART VII