Germinal - Emile Zola [186]
‘What the bloody hell do you lot want,’ he shouted, ‘wandering about the countryside like this?’
The mob came to a halt. They were no longer dealing with a boss but a comrade, and their respect for the old worker gave them pause.
‘There are men below,’ Étienne said. ‘Tell them to come up.’
‘Yes, there are! A good six dozen,’ Quandieu replied. ‘Everyone else is too scared of you, you buggers!…But I can tell you here and now, not one of them is coming up, or you’ll have me to answer to!’
People started shouting; the men jostled, and the women stepped forward. The deputy quickly came down from the railway and blocked their path to the door.
Maheu tried to intervene.
‘Come on, mate, we’re within our rights. How are we going to have a general strike if we can’t force the comrades to join us?’
The old man was silent for a moment. Plainly his ignorance of the procedures of joint action was as great as Maheu’s. Finally he replied:
‘Within your rights? That’s as may be. But I have my orders, and there’s only me here. The men are down there till three, and till three they’ll stay.’
His last few words were lost amid the booing. Fists were raised, and already the women were screaming at him, so that he could feel their hot breath on his face. But he stood his ground, his head held high, with his snow-white hair and little pointed beard; and courage lent such power to his voice that he could be heard quite clearly above the din.
‘As God is my witness, you shall not pass!…As sure as night follows day, I’d rather die than have you lay a finger on those cables…So stop your pushing and shoving, or I’ll throw myself down the shaft here and now!’
This caused a great stir, and the crowd drew back in shocked amazement. He continued:
‘And which bastard among you doesn’t understand that?…I’m just a worker, the same as the rest of you. I’ve been told to guard the place, and guard it I will.’
And this was the limit of Quandieu’s logic as, with a soldier’s sense of duty, he refused to yield, standing there with his narrow head and his eyes that had been dimmed by the gloomy darkness of half a century spent working underground. The comrades gazed at him, moved by what he said, for somewhere within them this soldierly obedience, this sense of brotherhood and resigned acceptance in the face of danger, had struck a chord. Thinking them not yet persuaded, he insisted:
‘I will! I’ll throw myself down the shaft here and now!’
The mob reacted as one: everybody wheeled round and made off down the road to the right, racing away across the countryside and into the distance. Once more the cries went up:
‘To Madeleine! And Crèvecœur! Everybody out! We want bread! We want bread!’
But in the middle of this onward rush a scuffle had broken out. Chaval had evidently tried to take advantage of the situation and escape, for Étienne had just grabbed him by the arm and was threatening to beat the daylights out of him if he so much as tried anything. Chaval, meanwhile, was struggling to get free and protesting furiously:
‘What the hell is this? It’s a free country, isn’t it? I’ve been freezing to death for the last hour, and I need a wash. Let go of me!’
It was true that sweat had glued the coal-dust to his skin, which was becoming quite painful, and his jersey afforded little protection against the elements.
‘Keep moving, or you’ll soon see what sort of a wash you get,’ Étienne replied. ‘This’ll teach you to go round stirring things.’
On they raced, and eventually Étienne looked round to find Catherine, who was still keeping up. It pained him to sense her close by and to know that she was in a wretched state, shivering from the cold in her scruffy man’s jacket and her muddy trousers. She must have been fit to drop, and yet still she kept on running.
‘It’s all right. You can go,’ he said finally.
Catherine appeared not to hear. But her eyes met Étienne’s and shot him a brief look of reproach. And on she ran. Why did he want her to abandon