Germinal - Emile Zola [60]
‘Oh, things aren’t that bad! I’m just joking…Heavens above, you’re probably right. The easiest way to make money is to let other people make it for you.’
They changed the subject. Cécile returned to the matter of her cousins, whose interests she found as fascinating as she found them shocking. Mme Grégoire promised to take her daughter to see the two dear girls on the first fine day that presented itself. M. Grégoire, meanwhile, wore an absent expression, his thoughts elsewhere. He added loudly:
‘You know, if I were you, I wouldn’t persevere. I’d negotiate with Montsou…They’re extremely keen, and you’d get your money back.’
He was referring to the long-running feud that existed between the concessions at Montsou and Vandame. Despite the latter’s small size, it exasperated its powerful neighbour to have this square league of territory that didn’t belong to it stuck bang in the middle of its own sixty-seven area divisions. Having tried in vain to put it out of business, the Montsou Mining Company was now plotting to buy it on the cheap as soon as it showed any signs of going under. The battle continued to rage unabated, with each mine’s tunnels ending a mere two hundred metres short of the other’s. Though the managers and the engineers might behave perfectly civilly to one another, it was a fight to the death.
Deneulin’s eyes had blazed.
‘Never!’ he shouted in his turn. ‘Montsou shall never get its hands on Vandame so long as I live…I had dinner at Hennebeau’s on Thursday, and I could see him sniffing around me. Indeed last autumn, when the big guns on the Board of Directors had their meeting, they were already falling over themselves to be nice to me…Oh, I know their sort all right! The dukes and the marquises, the generals and ministers! Highway robbers, the lot of them, just lurking round the corner ready to have the shirt off your back!’
And so he went on. Not that M. Grégoire was going to defend the Board. Its six directors, whose posts had been created under the terms of the settlement in 1760, ran the Company like despots, and when one of them died, the five remaining directors chose the new member of the Board from among the shareholders who were rich and powerful. In the view of the owner of La Piolaine, as a man careful in his ways, these gentlemen sometimes lacked a certain moderation in their excessive desire for money.
Mélanie had come to clear the table. Outside the dogs began to bark again, and Honorine was just on her way to the front door when Cécile, needing air after all this warmth and food, left the table.
‘No, let me. It must be for my lesson.’
Deneulin, too, had risen to his feet. He watched the girl leave the room and then asked with a smile:
‘Well, and what about this marriage with young Négrel?’
‘Nothing’s been decided,’ said Mme Grégoire. ‘It’s just an idea at this stage…It needs some proper thought.’
‘I have no doubt,’ he replied, with a knowing laugh. ‘I understand that the nephew and the aunt…But what I can’t get over is the way Madame Hennebeau makes such a fuss of Cécile all the time.’
M. Grégoire was indignant. Such a distinguished lady, and fully fourteen years older than the young man! It was monstrous, such things were beyond a joke. Deneulin, still laughing, shook him by the hand and took his leave.
‘It’s still not her!’ said Cécile, who came back into the room. ‘It’s that woman with her two children. You know, Mummy, the miner’s wife we met…Do they have to be shown in here?’
They hesitated. Were they very dirty? No, not too dirty, and they would leave their clogs on the front steps. Father and mother were already settled in their two large armchairs and digesting their breakfast. The unwelcome prospect of having to move decided the matter.
‘Show them in, Honorine.’
And so in came La Maheude and her little ones, frozen, starving, and filled with nervous apprehension at the sight of this room which was so warm and smelled