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By Root 1643 0

didn’t stop him groaning with pain. His household was in ruins, his whole life a source of grief. The very thought of it choked him, and he gave what sounded like the gasp of a dying man. Things didn’t go right just because you had bread. Who was idiot enough to think that happiness in this world comes from having a share of its wealth? These starry-eyed revolutionaries could destroy society and build another one if they liked, but it wouldn’t add one jot to the sum total of human joy. They could hand out a slice of bread to every man, woman and child, but not one of them would be the slightest bit less miserable. Indeed they would be spreading yet more unhappiness across the face of the earth, for the fact was that one day even the dogs would howl in despair when they had finally stirred everyone from the tranquillity of sated instinct and raised them to the higher suffering of unfulfilled desire. No, the only good in life lay in not being – or, if one had to be, then in being a tree, a stone, or even less than that, the grain of sand that cannot bleed beneath the grinding heel of a passer-by.

And in his frustration and torment tears filled M. Hennebeau’s eyes and began to course in burning drops down the length of his cheeks. The road was fading from view in the gathering dusk when the first stones began to rain against the front wall of the house. No longer angry at these starving people, maddened only by the running sore of his heart, he continued to mutter through his tears:

‘You fools! You fools!’

But the cry of empty stomachs was louder, and the howling rose like a raging tempest, sweeping all before it:

‘We want bread! We want bread!’

VI

Being slapped by Catherine had sobered Étienne up, and he had continued to lead the comrades. But as he urged them on towards Montsou in his hoarse voice, he could hear another voice within him, the voice of reason, asking in astonishment what the point of it all was. He had not meant for any of this to happen, so how had it come about that, having set off for Jean-Bart with the intention of keeping a cool head and preventing disaster, he now found himself ending a day of mounting violence by laying siege to the manager’s house?

And indeed it was Étienne who had just cried ‘Halt!’ But he had done so to protect the Company yards, which people had begun to talk of ransacking. Now that the stones were already bouncing off the front wall of the house, he was trying desperately to think of some legitimate prey upon which to unleash the mob and so prevent even more serious disasters. As he stood helpless and alone in the middle of the road, someone called to him. It was a man standing in the door of Tison’s bar, where the landlady had hastily put up the shutters and left only the doorway clear.

‘Yes, it’s me…Listen for a second.’

It was Rasseneur. Some thirty men and women, almost all from Village Two Hundred and Forty, had come to find out what was going on, having spent the earlier part of the day at home; and they had rushed into the bar when they saw the strikers approaching. Zacharie was sitting at one table with his wife Philomène, while further in sat Pierron and La Pierronne, their backs turned and their faces hidden. Not that anyone was actually drinking, they had simply taken refuge there.

Étienne recognized Rasseneur and was beginning to move away when Rasseneur added:

‘Rather not see me here, eh?…Well, I warned you. And now the trouble’s starting. You can demand all the bread you want, but bullets are all you’ll get.’

Étienne then walked back and gave his answer:

‘What I don’t want to see are cowards standing about twiddling their thumbs while the rest of us are busy risking our necks.’

‘What are you going to do? Loot the manager’s house?’

‘What I’m going to do is to stick by my friends, even if we do all get killed.’

A despairing Étienne then rejoined the crowd, ready to die. Three children were standing in the road throwing stones: he gave them a mighty kick and told them loudly, for the benefit of the comrades, that smashing windows wouldn’t get anyone