Germinal - Emile Zola [224]
‘By Christ, I tell you you’re coming in here and you’re going to have a beer, and I’ll smash anyone’s face in that so much as looks at me!’
Seeing Étienne there, Catherine was taken aback, and the colour drained from her face. When Chaval spotted him also, he gave a nasty snigger.
‘Two beers, please, Madame Rasseneur! We’re celebrating the return to work!’
Without saying a word, she poured the beer with the air of one who will always serve a customer. Everyone had fallen silent, and neither Rasseneur nor the other two men had moved from their places.
‘I know some as have accused me of informing,’ Chaval continued with a swagger, ‘and I’m waiting for them to say it to my face so we can have the matter out once and for all.’
No one answered him, and the men turned away to gaze absently at the walls.
‘There are bastards as works and some as don’t,’ he went on, raising his voice. ‘Me, I’ve got nothing to hide. I’ve quit Deneulin’s rotten outfit and tomorrow I’m going down Le Voreux with twelve Belgians. People think well of me there, so they’ve put me in charge of them. And if anyone doesn’t like it, he can say so, and then we’ll see.’
When his attempts at provocation met with the same contemptuous silence, he rounded on Catherine:
‘Drink, for God’s sake!…Come on, let’s drink to the death of all them bastards that refuse to work!’
She joined him in the toast, but her hand was trembling so much that there was a noisy clink as the glasses met. Chaval had now taken a fistful of shiny coins from his pocket, which he proceeded to display with drunken ostentation, saying that it took the sweat of a man’s brow to earn that sort of money and challenging idle layabouts to produce even ten sous. His comrades’ response infuriated him, so he resorted to direct insults.
‘Moles come out at night, it seems? The gendarmes must be asleep if the robbers are about!’
Étienne had now risen to his feet with calm resolve.
‘Look, you’re getting on my nerves…Yes, you are an informer, and your money must mean you’ve betrayed us again. And the very thought of even touching your toady skin turns my stomach. But no matter! I’m your man. It’s high time one of us sorted the other out.’
Chaval clenched his fists.
‘Christ, it doesn’t half take a lot to get you going, you cowardly bugger!…Just you, then? Fine. Well, I can tell you, you’re going to pay for all those filthy things they did to me!’
Stretching her arms out imploringly, Catherine stepped between them, but they had no difficulty in moving her aside, for she could sense the inevitability of this fight, and slowly she backed away of her own accord. She stood silently against the wall, so paralysed with anxiety that she did not even tremble, and stared wide-eyed at these two men who were going to kill each other on account of her.
Mme Rasseneur calmly removed the glasses from the counter in case they got broken. Then she sat down again on her bench, demonstrating a discreet lack of interest in the proceedings. But it was Rasseneur’s view that two former comrades simply could not be allowed to beat the life out of each other like this, and he persistently attempted to intervene. Souvarine had to grab him by the shoulder and lead him back to the table, saying:
‘It’s none of your business…Even two’s a crowd for them, so let the fittest survive.’
Without waiting to be attacked, Chaval was already punching the air. He was the taller of the two, an ungainly figure, and using both arms he made furious slashing movements in the direction of Étienne’s face, as if he were wielding a pair of sabres. And he kept on talking, playing to the gallery and working himself up even further by unleashing a stream of insults:
‘Right,