Germinal - Emile Zola [107]
‘It’s not thousands I’m collecting, you know…A fortnight’s pay just doesn’t stretch these days, what with them bloody making us stop work all the time.’
They both fell silent. It was after lunch, one Saturday towards the end of October. Once again the Company had cited the disruption caused by pay-day as an excuse for halting production throughout its pits. Panicked by the worsening industrial crisis, and not wanting to add to its already considerable stockpiles, it was using the slightest pretext to deprive its ten thousand employees of work.
‘You know Étienne’s going to be waiting for you at Rasseneur’s,’ La Maheude continued. ‘Why not take him with you? He’ll be better at sorting things out if they don’t pay you your full number of hours.’
Maheu nodded.
‘And ask them about that business with your father. The doctor’s in cahoots with management over it…Isn’t that right, Grandpa? The doctor’s got it all wrong. You’re still fit to work, aren’t you?’
For the past ten days old Bonnemort had not moved from his chair; his pegs had gone to sleep, as he put it. She had to ask him again.
‘Of course I can work,’ he growled. ‘No one’s done for just cos their legs is playing up. It’s all stuff and nonsense, so they don’t have to pay me that hundred and eighty francs for my pension.’
La Maheude thought of the forty sous that the old man might never earn again, and she gave an anxious cry:
‘My God! We’ll all be dead soon if things go on like this.’
‘At least when you’re dead,’ said Maheu, ‘you don’t feel hungry any more.’
He knocked a few more nails into his shoes and eventually left.
Those who lived in Village Two Hundred and Forty would not be paid until four o’clock or thereabouts. So the men were in no hurry, lingering at home before setting off one by one, and then pursued by entreaties from their wives to make sure and come straight home again. Many were given errands to run, so they wouldn’t end up in the bars drowning their sorrows.
At Rasseneur’s Étienne had come in search of news. Worrying rumours were circulating, and the Company was said to be getting more and more dissatisfied with the standard of timbering. The miners were being fined heavily now, there was bound to be a stand-off. Anyway, that wasn’t the real problem. There was far more to it than that, there were deeper issues at stake.
In fact, just as Étienne arrived, a workmate who had come in for a beer on his way back from Montsou was busy telling everybody about how there was a notice up in the cashier’s office; but he didn’t rightly know what it said. Another man appeared, then a third; and each one had a different story. What was clear, however, was that the Company had come to some sort of a decision.
‘What do you think?’ Étienne asked, as he sat down beside Souvarine at a table where the only visible refreshment was a packet of tobacco.
Souvarine took his time to finish rolling a cigarette.
‘I think it’s been obvious all along. They want to force you to the brink.’
He was the only one with sufficient intelligence to analyse the situation accurately, and he explained it with his usual calm. Faced with the crisis, the Company had been forced to reduce its costs in order to avoid going under; and naturally the workers were the ones who were going to have to tighten their belts. The Company would gradually whittle their wages down, using whatever pretext came to hand. Coal had been piling up at the pit-heads for two months now, since all the factories were idle. But the Company didn’t dare lay off its own workers because it would be ruinous not to maintain the plant, and so it was looking for some middle way, perhaps a strike, which would bring its workforce to heel and leave it less well paid than before. Last but not least, it was worried about the provident fund: this could prove to be a threat one day, whereas a strike now would eliminate it by depleting the fund while it was still small.
Rasseneur had sat down next to Étienne, and the two of them listened in consternation. They could talk freely since there was only Mme Rasseneur