Germinal - Emile Zola [65]
The Grégoires delegated the distribution of alms to Cécile. It was their idea of giving her a good education. One had to be charitable, they said, their house was God’s house. Moreover, they flattered themselves that they were intelligent about their charity, being forever concerned that they should not be duped and encourage evil ways. Hence they never gave money, never! Not so much as ten sous, not even two sous, because, of course, as everyone knew, the moment you gave the poor so much as two sous, they drank them. And so their alms were always given in kind, and particularly in the form of warm clothing, which they distributed to destitute children during the winter.
‘Oh, the poor little darlings!’ cried Cécile. ‘Just look how pale they are after their long walk in the cold!…Honorine, quick, go and fetch the parcel. It’s in my wardrobe.’
The servants, too, looked at these poor wretches with that compassion tinged with guilt which is felt by those who know where their next meal is coming from. While the chambermaid went upstairs, the cook, not thinking, set the remainder of the brioche down on the table and stood there aimlessly.
‘As it happens,’ Cécile said, ‘I’ve still got two wool dresses and some scarves. Oh, the little darlings will be lovely and warm in them, you’ll see.’
La Maheude found her tongue at last and stammered:
‘Thank you very much, Mademoiselle…You are all very kind…’
Her eyes had filled with tears. She thought the five-franc piece was now secure, and her only worry was how she should ask for it if it wasn’t offered. The maid had still not returned and there was a moment of embarrassed silence. The little ones clung to their mother’s skirts and gazed wide-eyed at the brioche.
‘Are these your only two?’ asked Mme Grégoire, for something to say.
‘Oh no, Madame. I have seven.’
M. Grégoire, who had gone back to reading his newspaper, gave an indignant start:
‘Seven children? But whatever for, in God’s name?’ ‘It’s unwise,’ the old lady said softly.
La Maheude gestured vaguely by way of apology. What could you do? It wasn’t something you thought about, a child just came along, naturally. And then when it was grown, it brought in some money and generally kept things going. In their house, for example, they could have managed if it weren’t for Grandpa who was getting all stiff and for the fact that out of the whole bunch of them only her eldest daughter and two of her sons were yet old enough to work down the mine. But you still had to feed the little ones all the same, even though they didn’t do anything.
‘So,’ Mme Grégoire continued, ‘have you all been working in the mine for long?’
La Maheude’s wan face lit up in a grin:
‘Oh, yes, indeed we have…Myself, I worked down the mine till I was twenty. When I had my second, the doctor said it would be the death of me, because apparently it was doing something nasty to my bones. Anyway, that’s when I got married, and then there was enough for me to do round the house…But on my husband’s side now…They’ve been working down the mine since for ever. As far back as my grandfather’s grandfather…well, no one knows exactly, but since the very start anyway, when they began digging for coal over at Réquillart.’
M. Grégoire gazed pensively at this woman and her pitiful children, at their waxen flesh and their colourless hair, at the process of degeneration evident in their stunted growth, at the anaemia that was gradually eating away at them, at the baleful ugliness of the starving. There was another silence, and all that could be heard was the sound of the coal burning and releasing the occasional spurt of gas. The moist, warm air in the room was heavy with the cosiness of domestic ease that brings peaceful slumber to contented bourgeois hearths.
‘What can she be doing?’ cried Cécile impatiently. ‘Mélanie, do go up and tell her that the parcel is at the bottom of the wardrobe, on the left.’
Meanwhile M. Grégoire voiced aloud the conclusions to which he had been brought by the sight of these hungry people.
‘Life can be hard, it is very true; but, my good