Germinal - Emile Zola [268]
Cécile, quite pink with health and enjoying the pure fresh air, was laughing and joking, but Mme Hennebeau grimaced with distaste and muttered:
‘It’s not a very pretty sight, I must say.’
The two engineers began to laugh. They tried to make it interesting for the visitors by taking them round everywhere and explaining how the pumps operated and how the pile-driver did its work. But the ladies were starting to fret. It gave them goose-pimples when they learned that the pumps would need to keep going for years, perhaps six or seven, before the pit-shaft was rebuilt and all the water had been drained from the mine. No, they would rather think about something else, an upsetting scene like this only gave you bad dreams.
‘Let’s go,’ said Mme Hennebeau, making for her carriage.
Jeanne and Lucie protested. What! So soon! The drawing wasn’t finished yet! They wanted to stay, their father could bring them on for dinner that evening. And so only M. Hennebeau climbed into the carriage beside his wife, for he too wished to talk to Négrel.
‘Very well, you go on ahead,’ said M. Grégoire. ‘We’ll catch you up. We have a little visit to make in the village. No more than five minutes…Off you go. We’ll reach Réquillart by the time you do.’
He climbed in after Mme Grégoire and Cécile; and while the other carriage sped off along the canal, theirs slowly made its way up the hill.
Their excursion was to include an act of charity. Zacharie’s death had filled them with pity for the tragic Maheu family, whom everyone was talking about. They didn’t feel sorrow for the father, that scoundrel of a man who killed soldiers and who had had to be shot dead like a wolf. But they were touched by the mother, that poor woman who’d lost her son when she’d only just lost her husband, and when her daughter might even now be lying dead beneath the ground. Moreover there was some talk of an ailing grandfather, and a boy crippled in a rock-fall, and a little girl who had died of hunger during the strike. So, while this family had partly deserved its misfortunes, because of its hateful attitude, the Grégoires had nevertheless decided to demonstrate the broad-mindedness of their charity and their wish to forgive and forget by bringing alms to them in person. Two carefully wrapped parcels were stowed under a seat in the carriage.
An old woman directed the coachman to the Maheus’ house, number sixteen in the second block. But when the Grégoires alighted with their parcels and knocked, there was no answer. They eventually resorted to banging on the door with their fists, but still there was no response. The house echoed mournfully, like some cold, dark place that has been emptied by death and then abandoned for a long time.
‘There’s nobody there,’ Cécile said disappointedly. ‘How tiresome! What are we going to do with all these things?’
Suddenly the door of the adjoining house opened, and La Levaque appeared.
‘Oh, Monsieur! Madame! I do beg your pardon! Please forgive me, Mademoiselle!…It must be my neighbour you want. She’s not in. She’s at Réquillart…’
She poured out the whole story and kept saying how people had to help each other and how she was looking after Lénore and Henri so that their mother could go and wait down at the mine. She had spotted the parcels and began to talk about her poor daughter who’d been widowed, expatiating on her own poverty with a covetous gleam in her eye. Then she mumbled hesitantly:
‘I’ve got the key. If Monsieur and Madame really want…The grandfather’s in.’
The Grégoires looked at her in astonishment. The grandfather was in! But nobody was answering. Was he asleep, then? But when La Levaque finally opened the door, the spectacle which greeted their eyes brought them up short.
There was Bonnemort, alone, sitting on a chair in front of the empty grate and staring into space. Around him the room looked bigger now, devoid of the cheering presence of the cuckoo clock and the varnished pine furniture; all that remained, hanging against the crude green walls,