Germinal - Emile Zola [49]
‘Come and look at Battle!’ the workers called to each other, entertained by the antics of their old favourite. ‘He’s having a chat with his new comrade!’
Now untied, Trumpet still did not move. He continued to lie on his side, garrotted by fear, as if he could still feel the net tightening round him. Eventually they got him to his feet with the flick of a whip, and he stood there dazed, his legs quivering. And as old Mouque led them away, the two horses pursued their fraternal acquaintance.
‘Well? Now can we go up?’ Maheu inquired.
The cages had to be emptied first, and in any case there were still ten minutes to go before it was time for the ascent. Gradually the coal-faces were emptying, and all the miners were making their way back along the roadways. Some fifty men had already gathered, soaked to the skin and shivering, their lungs a prey to the pneumonia that threatened from every side with every draught of air. Pierron, for all his smooth exterior, slapped his daughter Lydie for leaving the coal-face early. Zacharie slyly pinched La Mouquette – for the warmth, he said. But unrest was growing as Chaval and Levaque spread word of the engineer’s threat to lower the rate per tub and pay them separately for timbering; noisy protests greeted the proposal, and the spirit of rebellion began to germinate here in this tiny space some six hundred metres below the surface of the earth. Soon they could contain themselves no longer, and these men who were filthy with coal and frozen stiff from waiting now accused the Company of killing half its workers underground while they let the other half die of starvation. Étienne listened to them, trembling with outrage.
‘Hurry up! Hurry up!’ the deputy called Richomme kept shouting at the onsetters.
He was trying to hasten preparations for the ascent, not wanting to have to reprimand the men and pretending not to hear them. However, the protests became so loud that he was obliged to intervene. Behind him people were shouting that things couldn’t go on like this for ever and that one fine day the whole bloody lot would go up with a bang.
‘You’re a sensible fellow,’ he told Maheu. ‘Tell them to be quiet. When you haven’t got the fire-power, it’s always best to hold your peace.’
But Maheu, who had calmed down and was beginning to grow nervous, was spared having to intervene, for all at once everyone fell silent. Négrel and Dansaert were emerging from one of the roadways on their way back from their inspection, and both were covered in sweat like everyone else. Habit and discipline meant that the men stood back as the engineer walked through the group without a word. He climbed into one tub, the overman into another, and five pulls on the signal-rope followed – for a ‘special meat load’, as they called it when it was the bosses themselves. And amid the sullen silence the cage vanished upwards into thin air.
VI
In the cage taking him to the surface, squashed into a tub with four other people, Étienne made up his mind to take to the open road once more and continue his hungry search for work. He might as well die straight away as go back down that hell-hole and not even earn enough to live on. Catherine was in a tub higher up, so he could not now feel that lovely,