Germinal - Emile Zola [275]
And so their appalling new life began. Seated on the ground a few metres apart, neither Chaval nor Étienne would open his mouth. After a comment from the former, the latter extinguished his lamp; the extra light was a pointless luxury. Then they fell silent again. Catherine had lain down beside Étienne, worried by the looks that her former lover kept giving her. The hours went by: they could hear the gentle murmur of the water as it continued to rise, while heavy thuds and distant reverberations bore witness to the final disintegration of the mine. When the lamp ran out of oil and they had to open another one to light it, the fear of firedamp gave them momentary pause; but they would rather have been blown up there and then than survive in darkness; and nothing did blow up, there was no firedamp. They lay down again, and the hours began to tick by once more.
A sound disturbed Étienne and Catherine, who raised their heads to look. Chaval had decided to eat: he had cut himself half a slice of buttered bread and was chewing it slowly so as not to be tempted to swallow it whole. Tormented by hunger, they watched him.
‘Sure you won’t have some?’ he asked Catherine with a provocative air. ‘You’re wrong not to.’
She had lowered her eyes, fearful that she might yield to temptation as cramp gripped her stomach so hard that it brought tears to her eyes. But she knew what he was asking. Already that morning she had felt his breath on her neck; seeing her in the other man’s company had rekindled his former desire for her. She knew that blazing look in his eye as he appealed to her to join him, the same blazing look she had seen during his fits of jealousy when he would beat her up with his fists and accuse her of doing all manner of unspeakable things with her mother’s lodger. And she didn’t want that. She was terrified that if she went back to him she would be setting the two men at each other’s throats, here in this narrow cave where they were facing death. My God! Could they not at least all breathe their last together as friends!
Étienne would rather have died of starvation than ask Chaval for a mouthful of bread. The silence grew heavier, and another stretch of eternity seemed to go by as the minutes slowly passed, the next one no different from the last, each without hope. They had now been shut up together for a day. The second lamp was burning low, and they lit the third.
Chaval started on the other slice of bread and grunted:
‘Come here, you fool.’
Catherine shuddered. Étienne had turned away to leave her free to go. But when she didn’t move, he whispered to her softly:
‘Go on, love.’
The tears that she had been holding back now poured down her cheeks. She cried for a long time, neither having the strength to get up nor knowing whether or not she was hungry, but aching her whole body through. Étienne had got up and was pacing up and down, vainly tapping out the miners’ tattoo and infuriated at having to spend the last remaining vestiges of his life down here, cheek by jowl with a rival he detested. There wasn’t even enough room for them to die apart! Ten paces only, and then he had to turn round and there he was tripping over him again! And then there was the poor girl. Here they were fighting over her underneath the bloody ground! She would belong to whoever survived the other, and if he himself went first, Chaval would steal her from him once again. Time dragged by as hour followed hour, and the revolting consequences of their life at close quarters grew worse, with their foul breath and the stench of bodily needs satisfied in full view of each other. Twice Étienne lunged at the rock as though to cleave it asunder with his own bare fists.
Another day was drawing to a close, and Chaval had sat down next to Catherine to share his last half-slice of bread with her. She was painfully chewing each mouthful, and he was making her pay for each one with a caress, determined in his jealousy to have her once more, and in the other man’s presence. Past