Germinal - Emile Zola [111]
‘Certainly, sir…I can assure the Company Secretary that…’
Outside, where Étienne was waiting for him, Maheu exploded.
‘I’m a bloody hopeless fool, I should have answered him back!…Not even enough to buy bread, and then I have to listen to all that nonsense! But you’re right, it’s you he’s got it in for. He says people’s minds have been poisoned. But what the hell can we do? He’s quite right. Knuckle down and be grateful, it’s the only sensible thing.’
Maheu fell silent, torn between anger and apprehension. Étienne brooded darkly. Once again they found themselves among the groups of men blocking the roadway, and the discontent was growing, a muttering of otherwise peaceable men, without violence of gesture but rumbling like a terrible, gathering storm over the dense throng. The few who could count had done the sums, and word was spreading about the two centimes the Company would gain on the timbering, causing even the most level-headed among them to warm with outrage. But more than anything it was a feeling of fury at the disastrously low pay, the fury of hungry people rebelling against lay-offs sand fines. Already they lacked enough to eat, so what was to become of them if their pay was cut even further? In the bars people voiced their anger openly, which left their throats so dry that what little money they had received remained where it lay on the counter.
Neither Étienne nor Maheu said a word on the way home from Montsou. When her husband walked in, La Maheude, alone with the children, could see at once that he was empty-handed.
‘Well, that’s nice!’ she said. ‘What about my coffee and the sugar and the meat? A piece of veal wouldn’t have broken the bank, would it?’
He remained silent, desperately trying to choke back his feelings. Then the heavy features of a man toughened by years of working down the mines began to swell with despair, and large tears sprang from his eyes, falling like warm rain. He slumped on a chair, crying like a child, and threw the fifty francs on to the table.
‘There,’ he stammered, ‘see what I’ve brought you…And that’s for the work all of us did.’
La Maheude looked at Étienne and noted his silent air of defeat. Then she, too, wept. How was she to feed nine people for a fortnight on fifty francs? Her eldest had left home, the old man could scarcely move his legs any more: soon they’d all be dead. Alzire threw her arms round her mother’s neck, appalled by her tears. Estelle was wailing, Lénore and Henri sobbed.
And soon, from all over the village, the same cry of anguish went up. The men were back now, and every household was grieving over the catastrophe of their depleted pay. Doors opened, women appeared, screaming into the open air as though their laments could not be contained beneath the ceilings of their cramped homes. A fine drizzle was falling, but they didn’t feel it as they called out to each other from the pavements and held out the palms of their hands to show how little money they had received.
‘Look what they’ve given him. It’s a bloody joke, isn’t it?’
‘What about me? I’ve not even got enough to buy the fortnight’s bread.’
‘And me! You can count it if you like. I’m just going to have to sell my blouses again.’
La Maheude had gone outside like the others. A group formed round La Levaque, who was shouting the loudest; for her drunkard of a husband hadn’t even come home yet, and she could guess that whether the pay was large or small, it would simply melt away at the Volcano. Philomène was keeping an eye out for Maheu, so Zacharie wouldn’t get his hands on the money first. La Pierronne was the only one who seemed fairly calm, since that mealy-mouthed informer Pierron had managed