Germinal - Emile Zola [125]
‘Just remember ’89,’7 he said. ‘It was the nobility who made the Revolution possible by their complicity and their taste for the latest intellectual fashions…Well, it’s the same today with the bourgeoisie. They’re playing the same foolish game with this passion for liberalism and this crazy desire to destroy how things were, and all this sucking up to the people…Yes, you’re just sharpening the monster’s teeth so it can devour us faster. And devour us it will, make no mistake!’
The ladies bid him be quiet and tried to change the subject by asking him for news of his daughters. Lucie was at Marchiennes, singing with a friend; Jeanne was painting the portrait of an old beggar. He told them all this with a distracted air, his eyes fixed on M. Hennebeau, who was engrossed in his telegrams and oblivious of his guests. Beyond those thin sheets of paper he sensed Paris and the Board of Directors. Their orders would determine the outcome of the strike, and so he could not help coming back to the subject that preoccupied him.
‘Well, what will you do?’ he asked abruptly.
M. Hennebeau gave a start and then passed the matter off with a non-committal reply:
‘We shall see.’
‘No doubt you will,’ said Deneulin, as he began to think aloud. ‘You’re strong enough, you can afford to wait. But it’ll be the ruin of me if the strike spreads to Vandame. It was all very well my modernizing Jean-Bart, but I can’t survive on only one pit unless I can keep the production going uninterrupted…At any rate, I can’t see myself making a fortune, that’s for sure.’
This involuntary admission seemed to strike a chord in M. Hennebeau. As he listened, a plan was forming in his mind: if the strike should get worse, why not use the situation and let things get so bad that his neighbour was eventually ruined, and then he could buy back the concession at a knock-down price. That was the one sure way to get back into favour with the Board of Directors, who had been dreaming for years of one day getting their hands on Vandame.
‘If Jean-Bart’s such a weight round your neck,’ he laughed, ‘why not let us have it?’
But already Deneulin regretted what he had said.
‘Not on your life!’ he cried.
Everyone was amused by this vehemence, and they had forgotten about the strike by the time the dessert appeared. An apple charlotte topped with meringue received wide acclaim. Then the ladies started discussing a recipe, on account of the pineapple, which which was judged to be equally delicious. A dish of fruit – grapes and pears – added a final touch to that sense of happy surrender which comes at the end of copious meals. Everyone had become rather emotional, and they were all talking at once as Hippolyte went round pouring them some hock, rather than champagne, which was considered common.
And the marriage between Paul and Cécile came a step nearer thanks to the warm sympathies fostered during this dessert. Paul’s aunt had been looking at Négrel so imploringly that he became his charming self once more, and with his winning ways he soon renewed his conquest of a Grégoire family still crushed by his talk of looting. For a moment, seeing this close understanding between his wife and nephew, M. Hennebeau again had a horrible suspicion, as if he had witnessed not an exchange of glances but a squeeze of the hand. But once more he was reassured by the spectacle of this marriage being planned here in front of his very eyes.
Hippolyte was serving the coffee, when the maid rushed in looking terrified:
‘Sir! Sir! They’re here!’
It was the deputation. Doors banged, and the panic could be heard passing from room to room.
‘Show them into the drawing-room,’ said M. Hennbeau.
Round the table the guests had exchanged uneasy looks. There was silence. Then they tried to make light of it again, pretending to put the remainder of the sugar in their pockets and talking about hiding the cutlery. But when M. Hennebeau continued to look serious, the laughter ceased, and their