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By Root 1753 0

and terrifying stories were circulating and being used in particular against the International, which the Emperor and his government had at first encouraged but which it now viewed with increasing apprehension. Moreover, since the Company’s Board of Directors could no longer continue to turn a deaf ear to what was going on, two of its members had deigned to come and hold an inquiry, but with such a reluctant air and with such apparent lack of concern for how things would turn out, so thoroughly uninterested, in fact, that they had left three days later saying that everything was perfectly fine. But Étienne had learned from other sources that during their visit these gentlemen had been in permanent session, working at fever pitch and investigating all manner of things which no one in their entourage was prepared to divulge. Whistling in the dark was how Étienne saw it, and he even managed to interpret their hurried departure as sheer panic. Now he was certain of victory, for those fearsome gentlemen had clearly thrown in the towel.

But by the following night Étienne was once more in despair. The Company was just too solid to be so easily broken: it could lose millions but it would soon retrieve them at the workers’ expense by trimming their wages. That night, having gone as far as Jean-Bart, he realized the truth when a supervisor mentioned to him that there was talk of letting Montsou take over Vandame. It was said that the Deneulins were in a pitiful state, suffering the misery of the rich who have fallen on hard times: the financial worries had aged Deneulin, and he was ill from the sheer frustration of being unable to do anything, while his daughters fought with their creditors and tried to save what clothes they could. There was less suffering in the starving villages than there was in this well-to-do household where they had to drink water in secret for fear anyone should see them do it. Work had not resumed at Jean-Bart, and the pump had had to be replaced at Gaston-Marie, in addition to which, even though they had acted with all speed, there had been some initial flood damage and the repairs were going to be costly. Deneulin had finally plucked up courage to ask the Grégoires for a loan of a hundred thousand francs, and their refusal, which he had in any case expected, had been the final straw. If they refused, they said, it was out of kindness, to spare him an impossible struggle; and they advised him to sell. He still refused, vehemently. It infuriated him that the cost of the strike should fall on him, and he hoped he would die of a rush of blood to the head, choked by apoplexy. But what was to be done? He had listened to the various offers. People tried to beat him down, to minimize the value of this splendid prize, this pit that had been completely renovated and refitted, where only a lack of ready cash was preventing production. He would be jolly lucky to recoup a sufficient sum to pay off his creditors. For two whole days he had wrangled with the two Board directors who had descended on Montsou, infuriated by the calm manner in which they were taking advantage of his difficulties: ‘Never!’ he would shout at them in his thunderous voice. And there the matter rested, for they returned to Paris to wait patiently for him to give up the ghost. Étienne saw only too well how one man’s misfortune became another man’s gain, and once more it discouraged him deeply to think of the invincible power wielded by the sheer weight of capital, so strong in adversity that it grew fat on the defeat of others, gobbling up the small fry who fell by the wayside.

Fortunately, on the following day, Jeanlin brought him a piece of good news. At Le Voreux the lining of the main pit-shaft was threatening to give way, water was seeping in through every joint, and a team of joiners had had to be sent in to repair the damage as a matter of urgency.

Until then Étienne had avoided Le Voreux, unnerved by the ever-present black silhouette of the sentry up on the spoil-heap, overlooking the plain. You couldn’t miss him, planted there against