Germinal - Emile Zola [207]
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Mme Hennebeau said quietly. ‘They must have looted the meat counter. It looks more like a scrag-end of pork.’
Then she gave a start and fell silent. Mme Grégoire had nudged her with her knee. The pair of them stood there open-mouthed. The young ladies, who had gone very pale, ceased their questions and watched with wide eyes as this crimson apparition vanished into the depths of the night.
Étienne raised his axe again. But the general sense of uneasiness persisted, and the corpse lying across the road now served to protect the shop. Many people had drawn back. It was as though they had all suddenly had their fill. Maheu was standing with a very grim expression on his face when he heard a voice whispering in his ear and telling him to make a run for it. He turned and saw Catherine, still in her man’s coat, grime-stained and out of breath. He waved her away. He would not listen and made as if to hit her. Gesturing in despair, she hesitated for a moment and then ran towards Étienne:
‘Quick, run for it, the gendarmes are coming!’
He, too, told her to go away and shouted abuse; and as he did so, he could feel his cheeks still stinging from the slaps she had given him. But she would not be put off. She forced him to drop the axe, and with both arms began to drag him away. He could not match her strength.
‘I promise you, the gendarmes are coming! You’ve got to listen to me…Chaval went to fetch them, if you must know. He shouldn’t have done it, so I came to warn you…You must get away. I don’t want them to catch you.’
And Catherine led him away just as they began to hear the heavy clatter of hooves in the distance, approaching along the cobbled road. At once the cry went up: ‘The gendarmes! The gendarmes!’ There was chaos as everyone made a run for it, such a wild flight that within a couple of minutes the road was clear, absolutely empty, as though it had been swept by a hurricane. All that was left was the dark patch of shadow made by Maigrat’s corpse where it lay on the white ground. Outside Tison’s only Rasseneur remained, with a look of open relief on his face, applauding the easy victory of the men with sabres; and as Montsou lay silent and deserted, with not a light to be seen, the bourgeois sweated behind closed shutters, not daring to look out, teeth chattering. The plain had now merged with the pitch darkness, and all that could be seen were the blast-furnaces and the coke-ovens, blazing away against the backdrop of a doom-laden sky. The sound of thundering hooves drew closer, and suddenly the gendarmes were there in the street, visible only as one dark, solid mass. Following behind, under their protection, the pastryman’s cart arrived from Marchiennes at last: and a delivery-boy jumped down and calmly proceeded to unload the vol-au-vent cases.
PART VI
I
The first fortnight in February came and went, and a bitter cold spell prolonged the hard winter, offering no mercy to the poor, wretched people. The authorities had once again come to carry out their investigations: the Prefect from Lille, a public prosecutor and a general. The gendarmes had not sufficed, and troops had arrived to occupy Montsou, a whole regiment of them, camped out from Beugnies to Marchiennes. Armed guards were posted at the pit-shafts, and soldiers stood watch over the machinery. The manager’s house, the Company yards and even the houses of some of the bourgeois all bristled with bayonets. The only sound to be heard along the cobbled highway was the slow tramp of army patrols. On top of the spoil-heap at Le Voreux, in the icy wind that blew there constantly, a sentry was permanently positioned, like a lookout standing watch over the entire plain; and every two hours, as though this were enemy territory, the calls of the changing guard would ring out:
‘Who goes there?…Step forward! Password!’
There had been no resumption of work anywhere. On the contrary, the strike had spread: Crèvecœur, Mirou and Madeleine had ceased production, like Le Voreux; Feutry-Cantel and La Victoire were losing more workers