Germinal - Emile Zola [272]
It was Battle. After leaving the loading area he had been galloping along the dark roadways in a state of panic. He seemed to know his way round this underground city which had been his home for the past eleven years; and he could see perfectly clearly in the never-ending blackness that had been his life. On and on he galloped, ducking his head and picking up his feet, racing along the earth’s narrow entrails and filling them with his own large body. Turning after turning came and went, paths would fork, but he never once hesitated. Where was he heading? Towards some yonder horizon perhaps, towards his vision of younger days, the mill where he was born on the banks of the Scarpe, and a distant memory of the sun burning up above like a lamp. He wanted to live, and his animal memories were stirring; he longed to breathe the air of the plains once more, and it drove him on, on towards the hole in the ground that would lead out into the light beneath a warm sky. And all his old docility was swept away by a new spirit of rebellion against a pit that had first taken away his sight and now sought to kill him. The water was pursuing him, whipping his flanks and nagging at his quarters. But the further he went the narrower the roadways became, as the roof became lower and the sides began to bulge inwards. But he galloped on none the less, grazing against the walls and leaving tatters of flesh on the timber props. It was as though the mine were pressing in on him from every side, trying to capture him and crush the life out of him.
As he came nearer, Étienne and Catherine watched the rocks seize him in a stranglehold. The horse stumbled, breaking both forelegs. With one last effort he dragged himself forward for a few metres, but his haunches were wedged and he could not get through; he was trapped, caught in a noose by the earth itself. Blood was pouring from his head as he stretched out his neck and searched with wide, glazed eyes for some other way through the rock. The water was rapidly covering him, and he began to whinny with the same long, agonized cry that the other horses had given when they died in the stable. It was an appalling death as the old animal lay there in the depths of the earth, wedged tight, his bones broken, fighting for his life far from the light of day. His cry of distress went on and on, and even when the water washed over his mane it continued, only more rasping as he stretched his mouth wide, up into the air. There was one last, muffled snort, like the gurgle from a filling barrel. Then a deep silence fell.
‘Oh, my God! Take me away!’ sobbed Catherine. ‘Oh, my God! I’m so frightened, I don’t want to die…Take me away! Take me away!’
She had seen death. The collapse of the shaft, the flooding of the mine, none of it had had the immediate horror of Battle’s dying screams. And she could still hear them: her ears rang, her whole body shook with them.
‘Take me away! Take me away!’
Étienne had grabbed her and was dragging her away. It was high time in any case: as they began to climb the chimney, the water was already up to their shoulders. He had to help her, for she no longer had the strength to hold on to the timbering. Three times he thought he’d lost her and that she was about to fall back into the deep sea of water whose rising tide was still growling at their heels. However, they were able to rest for a few minutes when they reached the first level, which was still clear. But the water soon appeared again, and they had to hoist themselves up once more. And they went on climbing for hours as the floodwater pursued them from one level to