Germinal - Emile Zola [122]
He had just ridden over, and his anxiety was evident in his loud voice and brusque gestures, which gave him the air of a retired cavalry officer.
M. Hennebeau was in the middle of bringing him up to date when Hippolyte opened the dining-room door. So he broke off and said:
‘Why not have lunch with us? Then I can tell you the rest over dessert.’
‘Yes, if you like,’ Deneulin replied, so preoccupied that he forgot his manners.
He realized his discourtesy, however, and turned to apologize to Mme Hennebeau. She, of course, was charming. Once she had ordered a seventh place to be laid, she seated her guests: Mme Grégoire and Cécile on either side of her husband, then M. Grégoire and Deneulin beside herself, which left Paul to sit between Cécile and her father. As they began the hors-d’œuvre, she resumed conversation with a smile:
‘Do forgive me, I had wanted to serve you oysters…On Mondays, as you know, Marchiennes has a delivery of Ostends, and I had intended to send cook in the carriage…But she was worried that people might throw stones at her – ’
Everyone burst out laughing. They found this idea most amusing.
‘Shh!’ said M. Hennebeau rather crossly, looking towards the windows from where they could see out on to the road. ‘The whole world doesn’t need to know we’re having guests today.’
‘Well, here’s one slice of sausage they’re not going to get their hands on!’ declared M. Grégoire.
They started laughing again, but more discreetly. The guests began to feel at ease in the room, with its Flemish tapestries and old oak cabinets. Silverware gleamed from glass-fronted sideboards, while above them hung a large brass chandelier with rounded sides that reflected the greenery of a palm tree and an aspidistra, which were growing in majolica pots. Outside it was a bitterly cold December day, with a keen north-east wind blowing. But not a draught was to be felt indoors; it was as warm as a greenhouse, and this brought out the delicate scent of the cut pineapple that was sitting in a crystal bowl.
‘Should we not close the curtains?’ suggested Négrel, who was enjoying the idea of terrifying the Grégoires.
Mme Hennebeau’s maid, who was helping Hippolyte, took this as an order and went to draw one of the curtains. This was the cue for endless jokes as everyone affected extravagant care in setting down their glass or fork, and they all greeted each course as though it had been rescued from looters in a newly conquered city. But beneath the forced merriment lay an unspoken fear, evident from all the involuntary glances towards the road, as if a band of starving ne’er-do-wells were out there spying on their table.
After the scrambled egg with truffles came the river trout. The conversation had now switched to the industrial crisis, which had been worsening for the past eighteen months.
‘It was inevitable,’ Deneulin said. ‘There’s been too much prosperity recently, so it was bound to come…Just think of the enormous capital sums that have been tied up in the railways and the docks and the canals, and all the money that’s been sunk into the most speculative schemes. Even round here they’ve built so many sugar-refineries you’d think the region was producing three beet harvests a year…And now money’s scarce, of course, and people have got to wait for a return on all the millions they’ve spent. Which is why there is this fatal gridlock in the system and why businesses are just not growing.’
M. Hennebeau disputed this interpretation of events, but he did concede that the good years had spoiled the workers.
‘When I think,’ he cried, ‘that these fellows used to be able to make as much as six francs a day in our pits, double what they’re getting now. And they lived well on it, too, and started developing expensive tastes…Well, of course, today they find it hard to go back to their frugal ways.’
‘Please, Monsieur Grégoire,’ Mme Hennebeau cut in, ‘won’t you have a little more trout…Such a lovely, delicate flavour, don’t you think?’
The manager continued:
‘But it’s not really our fault, is it? We’ve been just