Germinal - Emile Zola [75]
‘The mess they make!’ muttered La Maheude, picking the clothes off the floor in order to hang them up to dry. ‘Alzire, mop up a bit, will you?’
But she was interrupted by a row going on on the other side of the wall. A man was cursing and swearing, a woman was crying, and there were sounds of a battle going on, with a shuffling and stamping of feet and a dull thumping sound as though someone were punching an empty marrow.
‘The usual song and dance,’ Maheu observed calmly, as he scraped the bottom of his basin with his spoon. ‘Funny, though. Bouteloup said the soup was ready.’
‘Ready indeed!’ said La Maheude. ‘I saw the vegetables still sitting on the table, not even peeled yet.’
The shouting grew louder, and there was a terrible thud, which shook the wall, followed by a long silence.
Then, swallowing a last spoonful, Maheu said with an air of calm and judicial finality:
‘If the soup wasn’t ready, it’s understandable.’
And having downed a full glass of water he attacked the brawn. He cut small squares off it, which he speared with the end of his knife and ate off his bread, without a fork. Nobody spoke while Father was eating. He preferred to eat in silence; he didn’t recognize it as Maigrat’s usual brawn, it must have come from elsewhere, but he asked no questions. He simply inquired whether the old man was still asleep upstairs. No, Grandpa had gone out for his usual walk. Then silence once more.
But the smell of meat had attracted the attention of Lénore and Henri, who were having fun making streams on the floor with the spilled bathwater. They both came and stood next to their father, the little boy in front of his sister. Their eyes followed each piece, watching expectantly as it left the plate and staring in consternation as it disappeared into his mouth. Seeing how they turned pale and licked their lips, their father eventually realized how desperate they were to have some.
‘Have the children had any?’ he asked.
When his wife hesitated:
‘You know I don’t like it. It’s unfair. And it puts me off my food to have them hanging round me begging for scraps.’
‘Of course they’ve had some!’ she shouted angrily. ‘But if you listened to them, you could give them your share and everyone else’s and they’d still be stuffing themselves till they burst…Tell him, Alzire. We’ve all had some brawn, haven’t we?’
‘Of course we have, Mummy,’ replied the little hunch-backed girl, who in such circumstances could lie with truly adult aplomb.
Lénore and Henri stood there shocked, outraged by such a barefaced fib, when they themselves got thrashed if they didn’t tell the truth. Their little hearts rose up, and they longed to protest that they had not been present when the others had eaten theirs.
‘Off you go now,’ their mother repeated as she herded them to the other end of the room. ‘You should be ashamed of yourselves, always sticking your nose in your father’s plate like that. And anyway, what if he were the only one who could have some? He’s been out working, hasn’t he, whereas all you good-for-nothing little scamps do is cost money. And cost more than you ought to boot!’
Maheu called them back. He sat Lénore on his left knee, Henri on his right; then he finished off the brawn with them as though they were having a doll’s party. He cut each of them their share, in little pieces. The children devoured them with glee.
When he had finished, he said to his wife:
‘No, don’t pour my coffee just yet. I’ll have a wash first…Here, give me a hand with this dirty water.’
They grabbed hold of the tub by its handles and were emptying it into the drain outside the front door when Jeanlin came