Germinal - Emile Zola [90]
‘Ah, Pluchart!’ exclaimed Rasseneur, next to the table where his two lodgers were sitting. ‘What’s he doing now?’
For the previous two months Étienne had been in regular correspondence with Pluchart, the mechanic he’d known in Lille. He had thought he would write and tell him about finding a job in Montsou, and Pluchart was now indoctrinating him, realizing how useful Étienne could be for spreading propaganda among the miners.
‘He’s doing fine, the Association’s going very well. People are joining all over the place, it seems.’
‘What do you think about this organization of theirs?’ Rasseneur asked Souvarine.
Souvarine, who was gently scratching Poland’s head, blew out a plume of smoke and murmured gently:
‘More nonsense.’
But Étienne had the bit between his teeth. Fundamentally rebellious by nature and in the first flush of his ignorant illusions, he was immediately attracted by the idea of labour’s struggle against capital. They were talking about the International Association of Workers, the famous International that had just been founded in London.3 Wasn’t it just wonderful, a plan of action that would at last bring justice to all? No more national frontiers, the workers of the world uniting and rising up to ensure that they each received their due wage. And how simple and yet grand the organization was. At the lowest level you had the section, which represented the district; then you had the federation, which brought together all the sections in one province; then came the nation, and finally, above that, humanity itself, embodied in a General Council on which each nation was represented by a corresponding secretary. Before six months were up, they would have conquered the world and be laying down the law to the bosses if they tried to be difficult.
‘It’s all nonsense!’ Souvarine repeated. ‘That Karl Marx of yours is still at the stage where he thinks he can just let nature take its course. No politics, no conspiracies, isn’t that the way of it? Everything out in the open, and all with the sole aim of getting better wages…And as for his idea of gradual evolution, don’t make me laugh! No. Put every town and city to the torch, mow people down, raze everything to the ground, and when there’s absolutely nothing left of this rotten, stinking world, then maybe, just maybe, a better one will grow up in its place.’
Étienne started laughing. He didn’t always understand what his comrade said, and this theory about destroying everything seemed something of a pose. As for Rasseneur, who was even more pragmatically minded and preferred the sensible approach of the man with a position in life, he didn’t even bother to be irritated. But he did want to be quite clear about the matter.
‘So, then. Are you going to try and start a section here in Montsou?’
This was what Pluchart wanted as secretary of the Federation of the Département du Nord, and he laid particular stress on the various ways the Association could help the miners if ever they were to come out on strike. Étienne did in fact think that a strike was imminent: the business over the timbering would turn out badly, and it only needed the Company to make one more demand and every single pit would be up in arms.
‘But the subscriptions are a problem, though,’ Rasseneur said in a measured tone. ‘Fifty centimes a year for the general fund and two francs for the section. It may not seem much, but I bet a lot of them will refuse to pay.’
‘Especially,’ Étienne added, ‘as we ought to start by setting up a miners’ provident fund, which could if necessary be used as a fighting fund…At any rate, it’s time we thought about these things. I’m game if the others are.’
There was a silence. The paraffin lamp was smoking away on the counter. Through the door, which was wide open, they could distinctly hear a stoker down at Le Voreux shovelling coal into one of the boilers that powered the drainage-pump.
‘And everything’s so expensive now!’ continued Mme Rasseneur, who had just come in