Germinal - Emile Zola [181]
The men faltered when Deneulin appeared at the top of the steps leading to the pit-head.
‘What do you want?’ he asked loudly.
Having seen the carriage depart with his daughters gaily bidding him farewell, he had returned to the pit, filled with renewed unease. Yet everything seemed to be in order: the workers had gone down, the extraction of coal was proceeding, and he was beginning to take heart once more as he chatted with the overman when someone told him about the approaching strikers. He had at once taken up a position by the window in the screening-shed; and as the swelling crowd poured into the yard, he was immediately aware of his powerlessness. How could he defend these buildings that were open on all sides to anyone who cared to enter? He could barely have mustered twenty workers to protect him. He was lost.
‘What do you want?’ he asked again, pale with suppressed anger and trying hard to put a brave face on his defeat.
There was jostling and muttering among the crowd. Eventually Étienne stepped forward and said:
We mean you no harm, sir. But all work must stop.’
Deneulin replied to him as if he were quite clearly an idiot.
‘What good do you think you’ll do by stopping work here? You might as well shoot me in the back, point blank…Yes, my men are below, and they’re not coming up unless you kill me first.’
This plain speaking caused an uproar. Maheu had to restrain Levaque, who lunged forward with a menacing air, while Étienne continued to parley, trying to convince Deneulin of the legitimacy of their revolutionary action. But the latter’s response was that everyone had the right to work. And anyway he wasn’t about to discuss such nonsense, he intended to be the master on his own premises. His only regret was that he didn’t have four gendarmes there to rid him of this riff-raff.
‘Of course, I can see it’s my own fault. I deserve what I get. Force is the only way with fellows like you. It’s the same with the government. It thinks it can buy you off with concessions, but you’ll simply shoot it dead the moment it gives you the arms.’
Étienne was shaking but still managing to restrain himself. He lowered his voice:
‘I would ask you, sir, to order your men up. I cannot answer for what my comrades may do. You have it in your power to avoid a disaster.’
‘No. You can go to hell! Anyway, who are you? You’re not one of my men, you’ve no business with me…And the whole lot of you are no better than thieves and bandits, rampaging round the countryside like this robbing people of their property.’
His voice was now drowned by shouting, and the women in particular hurled insults at him. But he continued to hold firm, and it was a relief to be able to speak his authoritarian mind so frankly. Since he was ruined whatever happened, he considered it cowardly to engage in useless platitudes. But the numbers were continually growing, there were now nearly five hundred miners advancing towards the door, and he was just about to be set upon when his overman dragged him back.
‘For pity’s sake, sir!…There’ll be a wholesale massacre. There’s no point getting men killed for nothing.’
Deneulin refused to give in, and he flung one last protest at the crowd.
‘You’re just a bunch of common criminals. But you’ll see. Just you wait till we’ve got the upper hand again!’
He was led away: the crowd had surged forward, pressing the people at the front against the stairway and bending the handrail. It was the women pushing from behind, goading the men with their shrill cries. The door, which had no lock and was simply fastened with a latch, gave way immediately. But