Germinal - Emile Zola [74]
But then the clock struck three. Bouteloup and the other stonemen had left for work. Suddenly, at the corner by the church, the first miners could be seen returning from the pit, faces black, clothes sopping wet, with their arms folded across their chests and their shoulders hunched. Whereupon all the women rushed off home, a stampede of panic-stricken housewives caught out by too much gossiping and too much coffee. And soon all that could be heard was one single cry, fraught with the remonstrations to come:
‘Oh my God! The soup! I haven’t made the soup!’
IV
When Maheu returned home, having left Étienne at Rasseneur’s, he found Catherine, Zacharie and Jeanlin seated at the table finishing their soup. They were so hungry after they got back from the pit that they ate as they were, in their wet clothes, without even bothering to wash. Nobody waited for anyone else; the table was permanently laid from morning till night, and there was always someone sitting there having a meal as and when the working day permitted.
From the door Maheu caught sight of the groceries. He said nothing, but his worried face lit up. All morning the thought of the empty dresser and a house without coffee or butter had been troubling him, and as he tapped away at the seam in the stifling, airless heat of the coal-face, he kept having sharp pangs of anxiety. How would his wife have got on? And what were they going to do if she came back empty-handed? But here they were with everything they needed. She would tell him all about it later. He laughed with relief.
Already Catherine and Jeanlin had got up from the table and were drinking their coffee standing; while Zacharie, still hungry after his soup, was cutting himself a large slice of bread, which he spread with butter. He could perfectly well see the brawn laid out on a plate, but he didn’t touch it; if there was only one portion, it meant the meat was for Father. They had all washed their soup down with a large swig of fresh water, that clear, refreshing liquid that serves so well when money is short.
‘I haven’t got any beer,’ said La Maheude, after Father had sat down in his turn. ‘I wanted to keep a bit of money back…But if you want, Alzire can go and fetch you a pint.’
He beamed at her. What, she had money left over, too!
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I’ve had some already. That’ll do me fine.’
And Maheu slowly began, spoonful by spoonful, to devour the soggy mass of bread, potatoes, leeks and sorrel piled up in the small basin he used for a plate. Still holding Estelle, La Maheude helped Alzire make sure that her father had everything he wanted, passing him the butter and the brawn too, and putting his coffee back on the stove so that it would be nice and hot for him.
Meanwhile beside the fire the ablutions began, in a half-barrel that had been turned into a bath-tub. Catherine, who went first, had filled it with warm water; and she calmly undressed, removing her cap, her jacket, her trousers and finally her shirt, just as she had since she was eight years old and having grown up to see no harm in it. She would simply turn away and, with her front towards the fire, rub herself vigorously with black soap. Nobody took any notice of her, even Lénore and Henri were no longer curious to see how she was shaped. Once she was clean she went upstairs completely naked, leaving her wet shirt and the rest of her clothes in a heap on the floor. But then a quarrel broke out between the two brothers. Jeanlin had quickly jumped into the tub, on the grounds that Zacharie was still eating; and now his brother was shoving him out of the way, claiming that it was his turn and shouting that just because