Germinal - Émile Zola (romantic story to read .TXT) 📗

He had sworn never to go down again; whence then came this sudden decision, arising from his lips without thought of his, without even a moment’s discussion? There was now such calm within him, so complete a cure of his doubts, that he persisted like a man saved by chance, who has at last found the only harbour from his torment. So he refused to listen to her when she became alarmed, understanding that he was devoting himself for her and fearing the ill words which would greet him at the pit. He laughed at everything; the placards promised pardon and that was enough.

“I want to work; that’s my idea. Let us dress and make no noise.”

They dressed themselves in the darkness, with a thousand precautions. She had secretly prepared her miner’s clothes the evening before; he took a jacket and breeches from the cupboard; and they did not wash themselves for fear of knocking the bowl. All were asleep, but they had to cross the narrow passage where the mother slept. When they started, as ill luck would have it, they stumbled against a chair. She woke and asked drowsily:

“Eh! what is it?”

Catherine had stopped, trembling, and violently pressing Étienne’s hand.

“It’s me; don’t trouble yourself,” he said. “I feel stifled and am going outside to breathe a bit.”

“Very well.”

And Maheude fell asleep again. Catherine dared not stir. At last she went down into the parlour and divided a slice of bread-and-butter which she had reserved from a loaf given by a Montsou lady. Then they softly closed the door and went away.

Souvarine had remained standing near the Avantage, at the corner of the road. For half an hour he had been looking at the colliers who were returning to work in the darkness, passing by with the dull tramp of a herd. He was counting them, as a butcher counts his beasts at the entrance to the slaughterhouse, and he was surprised at their number; even his pessimism had not foreseen that the number of cowards would have been so great. The stream continued to pass by, and he grew stiff, very cold, with clenched teeth and bright eyes.

But he started. Among the men passing by, whose faces he could not distinguish, he had just recognized one by his walk. He came forward and stopped him.

“Where are you going to?”

Étienne, in surprise, instead of replying, stammered:

“What! you’ve not set out yet!”

Then he confessed he was going back to the pit. No doubt he had sworn; only it could not be called life to wait with folded arms for things which would perhaps happen in a hundred years; and, besides, reasons of his own had decided him.

Souvarine had listened to him, shuddering. He seized him by the shoulder, and pushed him towards the settlement.

“Go home again; I want you to. Do you understand?”

But Catherine having approached, he recognized her also. Étienne protested, declaring that he allowed no one to judge his conduct. And the engine-man’s eyes went from the young girl to her companion, while he stepped back with a sudden, relinquishing movement. When there was a woman in a man’s heart, that man was done for; he might die. Perhaps he saw again in a rapid vision his mistress hanging over there at Moscow, that last link cut from his flesh, which had rendered him free of the lives of others and of his own life. He said simply:

“Go.”

Étienne, feeling awkward, was delaying, and trying to find some friendly word, so as not to separate in this manner.

“Then you’re still going?”

“Yes.”

“Well, give me your hand, old chap. A pleasant journey, and no ill feeling.”

The other stretched out an icy hand. Neither friend nor wife.

“Goodbye for good this time.”

“Yes, goodbye.”

And Souvarine, standing motionless in the darkness, watched Étienne and Catherine entering the Voreux.

III

At four o’clock the descent began. Dansaert, who was personally installed at the marker’s office in the lamp cabin, wrote down the name of each worker who presented himself and had a lamp given to him. He took them all, without remark, keeping to the promise of the placards. When, however, he noticed Étienne and Catherine at the wicket, he started and became very red, and was opening his mouth to refuse their names; then, he contented himself with the triumph, and a jeer. Ah! ah! so the strong man was thrown? The Company was, then, in luck since the terrible Montsou wrestler had come back to it to ask for bread? Étienne silently took his lamp and went towards the shaft with the putter.

But it was there, in the receiving-room, that Catherine feared the mates’ bad words. At the very entrance she recognized Chaval, in the midst of some twenty miners, waiting till a cage was free. He came furiously towards her, but the sight of Étienne stopped him. Then he affected to sneer with an offensive shrug of the shoulders.

Very good! he didn’t care a hang, since the other had come to occupy the place that was still warm; good riddance! It only concerned the gentleman if he liked the leavings; and beneath the exhibition of this contempt he was again seized by a tremor of jealousy, and his eyes flamed. For the rest, the mates did not stir, standing silent, with eyes lowered. They contented themselves with casting a sidelong look at the newcomers; then, dejected and without anger, they again stared fixedly at the mouth of the shaft, with their lamps in their hands, shivering beneath their thin jackets, in the constant draughts of this large room. At last the cage was wedged on to the keeps, and they were ordered to get in. Catherine and Étienne were squeezed in one tram, already containing Pierron and two pikemen. Beside them, in the other tram, Chaval was loudly saying to Father Mouque that the directors had made a mistake in not taking advantage of the opportunity to free the pits of the blackguards who were corrupting them; but the old groom,