Germinal - Emile Zola [127]
There was another silence: Maheu and Étienne got up and left the family sitting gloomily in front of their empty plates. On their way out they collected Pierron and Levaque, and then the four of them headed for Rasseneur’s, where the delegates from the surrounding villages were arriving in small groups. When the twenty members of the deputation had gathered there, they agreed on the conditions they were going to state to the Company; and off they set for Montsou. The bitter north-east wind was sweeping across the road. Two o’clock struck as they arrived.
At first Hippolyte told them to wait, and then shut the door in their faces. When he returned, he showed them into the drawing-room and opened the outer curtains. Soft daylight filtered through the lace behind. Having been left alone in the room, the miners were afraid to sit down, and waited awkwardly, all clean and scrubbed, with their yellow hair and moustaches, for they had shaved that morning and put on their best clothes. As they stood nervously fingering their caps, they threw sideways glances at the furniture. Many different styles were represented, with that eclecticism which the taste for antiques has made fashionable: Henri II armchairs, some Louis XV occasional chairs, a seventeenth-century Italian cabinet, a fifteenth-century contador,1 an altar-front, which hung as a valance from the mantelpiece, and embroidered panels taken from old chasubles and stitched on to the door-curtains. All this ecclesiastical finery of antique gold and old fawn-coloured silks had filled them with uneasy respect, and the thick wool pile of the Oriental carpets seemed to wind itself round their feet. But what felt most overwhelming of all was the heat, this extraordinary enveloping heat provided by the central-heating system, which brought a glow to cheeks still frozen from the icy wind along the road. Five minutes went by. And their awkwardness grew, amid the sumptuous ease of a room so comfortably insulated from the world.
Finally M. Hennebeau came in, with his frock-coat buttoned up in the military manner, and wearing the trim little rosette of his decoration in his lapel. He spoke first:
‘So here you are!…And up in arms, it appears.’
And he broke off to add, with stiff courtesy:
‘Be seated. I like nothing better than to talk.’
The miners looked round for somewhere to sit. Some ventured to occupy a chair, but the rest were put off by the embroidered silk and preferred to stand.
There was a further silence. M. Hennebeau had rolled his armchair across in front of the fireplace and now quickly took stock, trying to recall their faces. He had just recognized Pierron hiding in the back row; and now his eyes came to rest on Étienne, sitting opposite him.
‘So,’ he began, ‘and what have you come to tell me?’
He was expecting the young man to speak and was so surprised to see Maheu step forward that he could not help adding:
‘What! You? Such a good worker, and always so reasonable, one of Montsou’s old guard, whose family’s been working down the mine since the first coal was cut!…Oh, this is not good, not good at all. I don’t like seeing you here at the head of these troublemakers!’
Maheu listened, his eyes on the floor. Then he began, quiet and hesitant at first:
‘Sir, that’s exactly why the men have chosen me, because I’m a peaceful man and I’ve never done anyone any harm. Surely that must prove to you this isn’t just a matter of a few hotheads wanting a fight, or people with the wrong ideas trying to stir up trouble. We only want what’s fair. We’ve had enough of starving to death, and it seems to us high time that we came to some arrangement, so that at least we can have enough bread to live on each day.’
His voice grew firmer. He looked up and continued, with his eyes fixed on M. Hennebeau:
‘You know very well we