Germinal - Emile Zola [64]
Maigrat stood there, arms crossed above his bulging paunch, and shook his head each time she pleaded:
‘Just two loaves, Monsieur Maigrat. I’m a reasonable woman, I’m not asking for coffee or anything…Just two three-pound loaves a day.’
‘No!’ he shouted finally, at the top of his voice.
His wife had appeared on the scene, a scrawny creature who spent her days bent over the ledger not so much as daring to lift her head. She darted away, alarmed by the sight of this unfortunate woman turning towards her with a desperate, beseeching look in her eyes. People said that she regularly vacated the marital bed when the putters came shopping. Indeed it was common knowledge: when a miner needed more credit, he had only to send round his daughter or his wife, no matter whether they were pretty or plain, just as long as they were obliging.
La Maheude, who was still staring imploringly at Maigrat, felt embarrassed to be subjected to the pale gleam of his little eyes as they undressed her. It made her angry. Fair enough, perhaps, when she was still young, before she’d had seven children, but now…And she left, dragging Lénore and Henri away from the walnut shells they were collecting from the gutter where they’d been thrown.
‘This will bring you bad luck, Monsieur Maigrat. Just you wait and see.’
Now her only chance was the bourgeois at La Piolaine. If they didn’t part with a hundred sous, then she and her family might as well all lie down and die. She had turned left on to the track that led to Joiselle. The Board’s office stood here, at the corner of the road, a veritable palace of brick where the bigwigs from Paris all came to hold their grand dinners every autumn, together with princes and generals and various people in the government. As she walked along she was already mentally spending the hundred sous: first bread, then some coffee; after that, a quarter kilo of butter, and a bushel of potatoes for the morning soup and the vegetable stew in the evening; and lastly perhaps a little brawn, because Maheu needed his meat.
The priest at Montsou, Father Joire, was passing by, holding up his cassock with the fastidiousness of some large and well-nourished cat that does not wish to get itself wet. He was a gentle sort and affected to take no interest in anything in the hope that he might anger neither the workers nor their bosses.
‘Good-morning, Father.’
He kept on walking, smiling at the children and leaving her stranded in the middle of the road. She had no religion, but she had momentarily imagined that this priest might be about to give her something.
And off they went again, through the black, sticky mud. They still had two kilometres to go, and the little ones, rather put out and no longer finding this fun, needed more and more to be dragged. To the right and left of the road followed a succession of yet more derelict patches of waste ground surrounded by rotting fences and yet more smoke-stained factory buildings bristling with tall chimneys. When they reached open country, the vast, flat earth spread out before them, an ocean of brown, upturned soil stretching away to the purple line of the Vandame forest on the horizon and without even a single tree to suggest the presence of a mast upon its waves.
‘Mummy, Mummy, carry me.’
And she carried them each in turn. There were puddles in the pot-holed road, and she had to hitch up her skirt so as not to be all dirty when they arrived. Three times she nearly fell, the damned cobblestones were so slippery. And when they finally came out at the front steps of the house, two enormous dogs rushed at them, barking so loudly that the little ones started screaming with fright. The coachman had to use his whip.
‘Leave your clogs here and come in,’ said Honorine.
In the dining-room mother and children stood stock-still, dazed by the sudden warmth and feeling very uncomfortable at being stared at by this old gentleman and this old lady stretched out in their armchairs.
‘My child,’ said the latter, ‘it’s time for your little deed.