Germinal - Emile Zola [178]
At first Catherine climbed cheerfully enough. Her bare feet were used to the sharpness of the coal along the roadway floors, and so the protective iron edging on the square rungs did not bother her. Her hands, hardened by pushing tubs, grasped the uprights easily enough even though they were too thick for her grip. Indeed this unexpected climb helped to occupy her mind and to take her out of her misery, as she became one of a long, snaking line of people coiling and hoisting its way upwards, three to a ladder, so long a line indeed that the head of the snake would emerge at the top while the tail was still dragging over the sump at the bottom. But they were not there yet, and the people at the top could scarcely have reached a third of the way up. Nobody was talking now, and the only sound was the dull rumble and thud of feet; and the lamps spaced out at regular intervals looked like an unravelling string of wandering stars.
Behind her Catherine heard a pit-boy counting the ladders, which made her want to count them too. They had already climbed fifteen, and they were coming to a loading-bay. But just at that moment she bumped into Chaval’s legs. He swore and told her to be more careful. One by one, the whole column of people slowed to a halt. What now? What had happened? Everyone found their voices again and started asking frightened questions. Their anxiety had been increasing ever since they had left the bottom, and the closer they drew to the daylight the more they were gripped by fear about what would happen to them once they reached the surface. Someone said they had to go back down, the ladders were broken. This was what everyone had been afraid of, that they might find themselves marooned in the void. Another explanation was passed down from mouth to mouth: a hewer had slipped and fallen from a ladder. Nobody knew what to believe, and the shouting prevented them from hearing properly. Were they all going to spend the night there? Eventually, without them being any the wiser, they began to climb again, in the same slow, laborious way as before, amid the rumble of feet and the bobbing of lamps. No doubt the broken ladders were further up!
By the thirty-second ladder, as they were passing a third loading-bay, Catherine felt her arms and legs grow stiff. At first she had sensed a slight prickling of the skin. Now she could no longer feel the wood and metal beneath her hands and feet. Her muscles ached, and the pain, slight at first, was gradually becoming more acute. In her dazed state she remembered Grandpa Bonnemort’s stories about the days when there was no proper ladder shaft and girls of ten would carry the coal up on their shoulders by means of ladders that were completely unprotected and simply placed against the wall of the shaft; so that when one of them slipped or even a piece of coal just fell out of a basket, three or four children would be sent flying, head first. The cramp was becoming unbearable, she would never make it to the top.
Further delays allowed her some respite. But these repeated waves of panic passing down the ladders eventually made her dizzy. Above and below her she could hear that people were having increasing difficulty in breathing: the interminable ascent was beginning to make them giddy, and like everyone else she wanted to be sick. Fighting for air, she felt almost drunk on the darkness, and the walls of the shaft seemed to press maddeningly against her flesh. The wet conditions made her shiver, as large drops of water fell on her sweat-drenched body. They were nearing the water table, and the water was raining down so heavily that it threatened to put out the lamps.
Twice Chaval asked Catherine a question but received no reply. What was she up to down there? Had she lost her tongue? She could at least tell him if she was all right. They had been climbing for half an hour now, but so laboriously that they had reached only