Germinal - Emile Zola [241]
And so it was that on the following Wednesday morning three members of the Board were to be seen arriving in Montsou. The little town, hitherto shocked and not daring to rejoice in the massacre, now breathed again and tasted the joy of being saved at last. As it happened, there had been a marked improvement in the weather, and there was now bright sunshine, the sunshine of early February whose warmth begins to tinge the lilac shoots with green. The shutters of the Board’s offices had been thrown open, and the huge building seemed to have sprung back to life; the most reassuring rumours began to issue forth, how the gentlemen had been deeply affected by the disaster and how they had hastened to the scene to open their paternal arms and embrace the wayward miners. Now that the blow had been delivered, admittedly rather more violently than they would have wished, they were falling over themselves in their desire to rescue the situation, and they took a number of welcome if overdue measures. First, they dismissed the Belgian workers and made a great fuss about what an enormous concession this was to their workforce. Next, they ended the military occupation of the pits, which were no longer under threat from the crushed miners. By their efforts also a line was drawn under the affair of the vanished sentry at Le Voreux. The whole area had been searched and neither the rifle nor the corpse had been found, and so it was decided to post him as a deserter even though a crime was still suspected. In all matters they endeavoured in this way to take the heat out of the situation, fearful of what the morrow might bring and considering it dangerous to acknowledge their powerlessness in the face of a savage mob let loose on the creaking timbers of the old order. At the same time these attempts at conciliation did not prevent them from getting on with their own administrative affairs, for Deneulin had been seen returning to the Board’s offices, where he had meetings with M. Hennebeau. Negotiations were in hand for the purchase of Vandame, and it was confidently expected that Deneulin would soon accept the gentlemen’s terms.
But what caused a particular stir throughout the district were the large yellow notices that the directors had had posted in great numbers on the walls. They carried these few lines, in very large print: ‘Workers of Montsou, we do not wish the misguided behaviour whose sorry consequences you have witnessed in recent days to deprive workers of good sense and goodwill of their livelihood. We shall therefore reopen all pits on Monday morning, and when work has resumed, we shall investigate with due care and consideration all areas where it may be possible to make some improvement. We shall do everything that is just and within our power.’ In one morning the ten thousand colliers filed past these notices. Not one of them said anything; many just shook their heads, while others simply sloped off without any trace of a reaction on their impassive faces.
Until then Village Two Hundred and Forty had persisted in its fierce resistance. It was as though the comrades’ blood that had turned the mud at the pit red now barred the way for the others. Barely a dozen had gone back down, Pierron and a few toadies of his sort, and people merely watched them grimly as they departed and returned, without a gesture or threat of any kind. Accordingly the notice posted on the wall of the church was greeted with sullen suspicion. There was no mention of the men who had been sacked: did that mean that the Company was refusing to take them back? The fear of reprisals, together with the thought of protesting as comrades against