Germinal - Emile Zola [56]
M. Grégoire had just returned. He was wearing his thick, fustian jacket, and he looked pink himself for his sixty years, with his strong features and an honest, kindly face wreathed in curls of snowy white hair. He had spoken to the coachman and the gardener; no major damage to report, just one chimney-pot down. Every morning he liked to cast an eye over La Piolaine, which was not large enough to give much cause for concern and yet afforded him all the pleasures of ownership.
‘What’s the matter with Cécile?’ he inquired. ‘Isn’t she getting up today?’
‘I really don’t know,’ his wife replied. ‘I did think I heard her moving about.’
The table had been laid with three bowls on the white tablecloth. Honorine was sent to see what had become of Mademoiselle. But she came back down almost at once, stifling her giggles and lowering her voice as if she were still up in the bedroom.
‘Oh, if Monsieur and Madame could only see Mademoiselle now!…She’s sleeping like…oh, just like a little baby Jesus
…Really, you can’t imagine. She looks such a picture!’
Father and mother exchanged affectionate glances.
‘Are you coming?’ he said with a smile.
‘Oh, the poor little darling!’ she murmured. ‘Yes, I’m coming.’
And together they went upstairs. Cécile’s bedroom was the one luxurious room in the house: it had blue silk hangings and white lacquer furniture picked out in blue, the whim of a spoiled child who had been indulged by her parents. Bathed in the half-light coming through a small gap in the curtains, the girl lay sleeping in the shadowy whiteness of the bed, one cheek propped on a bare arm. She was not pretty; she looked too wholesome and full of health for that, being already fully grown at the age of eighteen. But she had wonderful, milk-white skin, as well as chestnut-brown hair, a round face and an obstinate little nose buried between two plump cheeks. The bedcover had slipped down, and her breathing was so gentle that her already ample bosom neither rose nor fell.
‘That cursed wind will have kept her awake all night,’ her mother said softly.
Father gestured to her to hush. They both leaned over and gazed adoringly at her innocent, unclothed form, at this daughter they had wanted for so long and whom they had conceived when they had ceased to hope. In their eyes she was perfect, not at all too fat, indeed never adequately fed. And she slept on, oblivious to their presence by her side, to their faces next to hers. But a slight tremor ruffled her impassive features. Concerned in case she should wake, they departed on tiptoe.
‘Shh!’ M. Grégoire said when they reached the door. ‘If she hasn’t slept, we mustn’t disturb her.’
‘The poor darling can sleep as long as she likes,’ Mme Grégoire concurred. ‘We can wait for her.’
They went downstairs and ensconced themselves in the armchairs in the dining-room. Meanwhile the maids were happy to keep the chocolate warm on the stove, entertained by the thought of Mademoiselle having such a long lie-in. M. Grégoire had picked up a newspaper; his wife was knitting a large woollen bedspread. It was very warm in the room, and not a sound was to be heard coming from the silent house.
The Grégoire fortune brought in an annual income of some forty thousand francs1 and derived entirely from a holding in the Montsou mines. They loved telling the story of its origins, which went back to the earliest days of the Company itself.
Towards the beginning of the previous century, from Lille as far as Valenciennes, there had been a mad rush to discover coal. The success of the concession-holders who were later to found the Anzin Mining Company had turned the heads of one and all. In every district people were busy taking soil samples; companies were set up, and concessions materialized overnight. But among all the determined pioneers