Germinal - Emile Zola [61]
II
Up in the bedroom, where the shutters were still closed, grey bars of daylight had filtered through and spread like a fan across the ceiling. The close atmosphere had grown even stuffier as everyone continued with their night’s sleep: Lénore and Henri in each other’s arms, Alzire lying on her hump with her head lolling back; while old Bonnemort, who now had Zacharie and Jeanlin’s bed all to himself, was snoring away with his mouth open. Not a sound was to be heard from the recess on the landing where La Maheude had dropped off again in the middle of feeding Estelle, with her breast hanging to one side and her daughter lying across her stomach, replete with milk and likewise fast asleep, half suffocating amid the soft flesh of her mother’s breasts.
Downstairs the cuckoo clock struck six. From along the village streets came the sound of doors slamming and then the clatter of clogs along the pavement: it was the women who worked in the screening-shed setting off for the pit. And silence fell once more until seven. Then shutters were thrown back, and the sound of yawning and coughing could be heard through partition walls. For a long time a coffee-mill could be heard grinding away, but still no one stirred in the bedroom.
But suddenly a distant sound of slapping and screaming made Alzire sit up in bed. Realizing what the time was, she ran barefoot to rouse her mother.
‘Mummy, Mummy, it’s late. Remember, you’ve got to go out…Careful! You’ll crush Estelle.’
And she retrieved the child, who was nearly smothered beneath a huge molten mass of breast.
‘Heaven help us!’ La Maheude spluttered, rubbing her eyes. ‘We’re all so exhausted we could sleep the whole day long…Dress Lénore and Henri for me, will you? I’ll take them with me. And you’d better look after Estelle. I don’t want to drag her out in this dreadful weather, in case she catches something.’
She washed in a hurry and then pulled on an old blue skirt, the cleanest she had, and a loose-fitting jacket of grey wool, which she had put two patches in the day before.
‘And then there’s the soup, for heaven’s sake!’ she muttered again.
While her mother rushed downstairs, Alzire went back to the bedroom with Estelle, who had begun to scream. But she was used to the little girl’s tantrums, and although only eight she already had a woman’s knowledge of the tender wiles that would soothe and distract her. Gently she laid her down in her own bed, which was still warm, and lulled her back to sleep by giving her a finger to suck. Not before time, moreover, because another racket broke out: and she had at once to go and make the peace between Lénore and Henri, who had finally woken up. These two children did not get on, and the only time they would gently put their arms round each other was when they were asleep. The moment she woke, Lénore, aged six, fell on Henri, who was two years younger and let himself be hit without hitting back. Both of them had the same oversized head, which looked as though it had been inflated and was covered in yellow hair that stuck up. Alzire had to drag her sister off him by the legs and threaten to give her a good hiding. Then there was much stamping of feet as she washed them and at each item of clothing she tried to put on them. They left the shutters closed so as not to disturb old Bonnemort while he slept. He was still snoring, despite the terrible hullabaloo the children were making.
‘It’s ready! Are you nearly all done up there?’ shouted La Maheude.
She had pulled back the shutters, raked the fire and put on some more coal. Her one hope was that the old man had not finished off all the soup, but she found the saucepan wiped clean, and so she cooked a handful of vermicelli she’d been saving for the last three days. They could eat it plain, without butter, since the small piece that was left the day before would now be gone; but she was surprised to see that Catherine had somehow managed miraculously to leave a small knob of it after making their pieces. This time, however, the kitchen dresser was well and