Germinal - Emile Zola [167]
People started shoving and pushing, and La Maheude found herself next to Maheu; and now, after months of growing frustration and having lost all sense of proportion, they both supported Levaque when he went one further than everybody else and called for the death of the engineers. Pierron had disappeared. Bonnemort and Mouque were both talking at once and saying vague and terrible things that no one quite understood. As a joke Zacharie called on them to demolish the churches, while Mouquet, who was still holding his crosse, banged it on the ground just to add to the racket. The women were in a frenzy: La Levaque, hands on hips, was ready for a fight with Philomène, whom she accused of laughing; La Mouquette said she would soon sort the gendarmes out with a good kick up the you-know-where; La Brûlé had just slapped Lydie, having come across her without basket or salad leaves, and was continuing to beat the air in an imaginary assault on all the bosses she would dearly have laid her hands on. Jeanlin had panicked for a moment when Bébert heard from a pit-boy that Mme Rasseneur had seen them take Poland; but once he had decided he would take the rabbit back to the Advantage and quietly release it outside the door, he began to yell louder; and he got out his new knife and brandished the blade, proudly making it gleam.
‘Comrades! Comrades!’ an exhausted Étienne kept repeating in a hoarse voice, as he tried to obtain a moment’s silence and conclude the meeting.
Eventually they paid attention.
‘Comrades! Are we agreed? Tomorrow morning at Jean-Bart!’
‘Yes! Yes! Jean-Bart! Death to the scabs!’
And a tempest of three thousand voices filled the sky and died away in the pure light of the moon.
PART V
I
At four o’clock the moon had set, and it was pitch dark. Everyone was still asleep in the Deneulin household; and the old brick house stood dark and silent, with its doors and windows shut, at the end of the large, untidy garden that lay between it and the Jean-Bart mine. Along the other side of the house ran the now deserted road to Vandame, a small town about three kilometres away and hidden from view by the forest.
Deneulin, tired from having spent part of the previous day down the pit, was snoring with his face to the wall when he dreamed that someone was calling him. When he eventually woke up, he heard a real voice and rushed to open the window. It was one of his deputies, standing in the garden below.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘It’s mutiny, sir. Half the men are refusing to work, and they won’t let the others go down.’
Deneulin did not understand at first. His head felt dizzy and heavy with sleep, and the cold air struck him with the force of an icy shower.
‘Then damn well make them go down!’ he spluttered.
‘It’s been going on for an hour now,’ the deputy continued, ‘so we thought we’d better come and fetch you. You’re the only one who can maybe make them see sense.’
‘All right, I’m coming.’
He quickly got dressed: his mind had cleared, and he was very worried. They could easily have looted the house, for neither the cook nor the manservant had stirred. But from across the landing he could hear the sound of anxious voices; and when he came out, he saw the door to his daughters’ bedroom open and the two girls appear, having hurriedly