Germinal - Emile Zola [140]
It was Étienne’s turn to colour. The two men had stopped shouting, and there was now bitterness and ill-will in their cold hostility. Antagonism breeds extremism, and it was turning one into the zealous revolutionary and the other into an excessive advocate of caution, taking them beyond what they really thought and forcing them to adopt positions of which they then became prisoners. And the expression on Souvarine’s fair, girlish face as he listened to them was one of silent disdain, the crushing contempt of one who is ready to sacrifice his own life, anonymously, without even the glory of being a martyr.
‘That’s aimed at me, I suppose?’ Étienne inquired. ‘Jealous, are you?’
‘Jealous of what?’ Rasseneur retorted. ‘I’m not claiming to be anyone special. I’m not the one trying to create a branch of the International at Montsou just so he can be secretary of it.’
Étienne was about to interrupt, but Rasseneur forestalled him:
‘Admit it! You don’t give a damn about the International. You just want to be our leader and play the educated gentleman who corresponds with the wonderful Federal Council for the Département du Nord.’
There was silence. Étienne quivered:
‘Very well, then…I thought I’d been careful not to act out of turn. I’ve always consulted you, because I knew you’d been involved in the struggle here long before I came. But no, since you obviously can’t stand to work with anyone else, I shall now act alone…And I can tell you for a start that this meeting’s going to go ahead, with or without Pluchart, and that the comrades will join whether you like it or not.’
‘Oh, will they?’ Rasseneur muttered under his breath. ‘We’ll soon see about that…You’ll have to persuade them to pay their subscription first.’
‘Not at all. The International lets men on strike defer their subscription. We can pay later. But it will come to our aid immediately.’
With this Rasseneur lost his temper:
‘Fine. We’ll see, then…I’m coming to this meeting of yours, and I’m going to speak. These are my friends, and I’m not going to let you turn their heads. I’ll show them where their real interests lie. And then we’ll see who they intend to listen to. Me, who they’ve known this past thirty years, or you, who’s made a bloody mess of everything in less than one…No, that’s enough. Not another bloody word. This time it’s to the death.’
And out he went, slamming the door behind him. The paper streamers shook beneath the ceiling, and the gold-coloured shields bounced against the walls. Then a heavy silence fell in the large hall.
Souvarine was still sitting at the table, quietly smoking. Étienne paced up and down for a moment in silence, and then out it poured. Was it his fault if the men were deserting that fat, lazy bastard and siding with him now? He hadn’t set out to be popular, he didn’t really even know how it had come about, why everyone in the village looked on him as a friend, why the miners trusted him, why he had such power over them at present. He was indignant at the accusation that he was making matters worse so as to further his ambitions, and he thumped his chest by way of protesting solidarity with his brothers.
Suddenly he stopped in front of Souvarine and said loudly:
‘You know, if I thought a friend of mine was going to lose so much as a single drop of blood over this, I’d emigrate to America this very minute.’
Souvarine shrugged, and his lips parted once more in a thin smile:
‘Oh, blood,’ he said softly. ‘What does that matter? It’s good for the soil.’
Étienne began to calm down and went and sat opposite Souvarine, propping his elbows on the table. He was unnerved by his fair complexion and those dreamy eyes that would occasionally turn red and assume a look of wild savagery. In some curious way they seemed to sap his will. Without his comrade even needing to speak, indeed overpowered by his very silence,