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By Root 1649 0

done so prevent him. But there could be no doubt that she had lied to him: that man was her lover, they must be at it all the time on every available spoil-heap, for she already knew how to swing her hips like a slut. He sulked, quite without reason, as if she had been unfaithful to him. She, on the other hand, kept turning round to warn him about obstacles in his path, as though encouraging him to be more friendly. They were completely lost, they could have had such fun together! But eventually they came out into the main haulage roadway. Étienne felt released from his agony of indecision, while Catherine gave him one last look of sadness, full of regret for a moment of happiness that might never come their way again.

They now found themselves surrounded by the commotion of life underground, as deputies passed at regular intervals and tub-trains came and went, hauled along at the trot by the horses. An endless succession of Davy lamps pricked the darkness. They had to press themselves against the rock to let the shadowy presences of man and beast go past, feeling their breath on their faces as they did so. Jeanlin, running barefoot behind his train, yelled some piece of wickedness at them, but it was lost amid the rumble of the wheels. On they went, she now silent, he unable to recognize a single fork or junction from that morning’s journey and imagining that she was leading him further and further astray beneath the earth. What ailed him most was the cold: it had felt increasingly chilly ever since they had left the coal-face, and the closer they came to the shaft, the more he shivered. Once again the air being funnelled between the narrow walls was blowing like a gale. They were beginning to despair of ever reaching the shaft when suddenly they found themselves at pit-bottom.

Chaval looked at them askance, his lips pursed in suspicion. The others, similarly silent, were standing there sweating in the icy draughts and busy trying to swallow their sense of grievance. They had arrived too early and were not being allowed up for another half-hour, especially as some elaborate operation was under way to bring down a horse. The onsetters were still loading tubs into the cages, with a deafening noise of clanking metal, and the cages would vanish up into the driving rain falling from the black hole. Down below, the bougnou – a sump ten metres deep where all the water gathered – gave off its own slimy dampness. Men were milling about constantly in the vicinity of the shaft, pulling signal-ropes, pressing levers, their clothes drenched by the spray. The reddish glow from the three open lamps cast huge moving shadows and lent this underground chamber the air of a robbers’ den, like a bandit forge beside a mountain stream.

Maheu made one last attempt. He approached Pierron, who had begun his shift at six, and said:

‘Come on, surely you could let us go up?’

But the onsetter, a handsome fellow with strong limbs and a gentle face, refused with a gesture of alarm:

‘I just can’t. Ask the deputy…I’d get fined.’

There was further muttering. Catherine leaned over and whispered in Étienne’s ear:

‘Come and see the stable. It’s nice and warm in there.’

And they had to slip away without being seen, because it was forbidden to go in there. The stable was situated on the left, at the end of a short roadway. Hollowed out of the rock and measuring twenty-five metres long by four metres high, it had a vaulted brick ceiling and could accommodate twenty horses. It was indeed nice and cosy in there, warm with the heat of living animals and smelling sweetly of fresh, clean straw. The one single lamp shone steadily like a nightlight. The horses resting there turned to look, with wide, childlike eyes, and then went back to munching their oats, unhurriedly, the picture of well-fed workers whom everybody loves.

But as Catherine was reading out the names on the metal labels above the mangers, she gave a little cry when a human form suddenly rose up in front of her. It was La Mouquette emerging startled from the pile of straw where she had been sleeping.