Germinal - Emile Zola [59]
‘Yes, it is I. Good-morning…No, no, please don’t get up.’
While the family were still busy exclaiming at his arrival, he took a seat. At length they returned to their chocolate.
‘Is there something you wished to tell me?’ M. Grégoire asked.
‘No, nothing at all,’ M. Deneulin replied hastily. ‘I was out for a ride – I like to keep my hand in, you know – and since I was passing your gate, I just thought I’d call and say hallo.’
Cécile asked him how his daughters Jeanne and Lucie were. They were very well. Jeanne was forever painting, and Lucie, the elder, was always at the piano practising her singing from morning till night. There was a slight catch in his voice, an uneasiness which he was endeavouring to hide beneath his hearty good humour.
‘And is everything all right at the pit?’ M. Grégoire continued.
‘Ah, this damned slump. The men and I are not having an easy time of it…We’re paying for the good years, I’m afraid! Too many factories were put up, too many railways were built, and everyone was so eager to achieve enormous levels of output that too much capital was invested at once. And now the money’s all tied up and there isn’t any left to keep the whole thing turning…Still, fortunately all is not lost. I’ll get by somehow.’
Like his cousin he had inherited a denier in the Montsou mines. But in his case, being an engineer and a man of enterprise, he had been consumed with the ambition to make a royal fortune and he had been quick to sell when the denier had reached the million mark. For months he had been hatching a plan. His wife had inherited the small concession of Vandame from an uncle, but only two pits in the concession were still open, Jean-Bart and Gaston-Marie, and both of them were in such a poor state of repair and had such defective equipment that it scarcely paid to work them. Well, his dream was to modernize Jean-Bart. He wanted to restore its winding-engine and widen its shaft for better access while keeping Gaston-Marie for drainage purposes only. There was gold to be had by the shovelful, as he put it. The idea was a good one. Except that the million had now been spent on the renovations, and this damned slump had come just at the very moment when high yields were about to prove him right. Added to which he was a poor businessman. He was generous to his workers in his own gruff sort of way, and since the death of his wife he had allowed himself to be swindled by various means. Also he had been letting his daughters have a free rein; the elder one talked of going on the stage, while the younger had already had three landscapes rejected by the Salon Hanging Committee.4 The two girls neverthless remained cheerful in the face of their adversity, and the growing threat of poverty had revealed them to be very astute housekeepers.
‘You see, Léon,’ he went on in a hesitant voice, ‘you were wrong not to sell when I did. Now everything’s on the slide and your chance has gone…Whereas if you’d entrusted your money to me, you’d soon have seen what we could have achieved at Vandame, and in our very own mine!’
M. Grégoire calmly finished his chocolate. He replied evenly:
‘Never!…You know perfectly well that I don’t wish to speculate. I live a peaceful life, it would be just too silly to go bothering my head over business matters. And as far as Montsou is concerned, the shares can keep on going down, we’ll still always have enough to meet our needs. You mustn’t be so greedy, for goodness sake! Anyway, mark my words, you’re the one who’ll be feeling the pinch some day, because Montsou will start going up again and the children of Cécile’s children will still be getting their daily bread from it.’
Deneulin listened to him with an awkward smile.
‘So,’ he said quietly, ‘if I asked you to put a hundred thousand francs into my business, you would refuse?’
But at the sight of the Gr