Germinal - Emile Zola [96]
‘Let’s go to the Volcano!’ Levaque said suddenly, now thoroughly well oiled.
The others laughed, unsure whether to agree, but then followed their comrade through the growing crowds who had come for the ducasse. In the long, narrow room at the Volcano, on a platform of wooden planks that had been erected at the far end, five singers – the worst that the prostitute population of Lille could provide – were busy parading themselves, monstrously grotesque in their gestures and their décolletage; and the customers paid ten sous whenever they fancied having one of them behind the platform. They were mostly putter lads and banksmen, but there were pit-boys of fourteen too; in short the entire youth of the pits, and all of them drinking more gin than beer. A few older miners tried their luck also, these being the local womanizers whose home life was not quite what it might be.
Once their party was seated round a small table, Étienne buttonholed Levaque to explain his idea about the provident fund. He had all the proselytizing zeal of the newly converted who believe they are on a mission.
‘Each member could easily afford to contribute twenty sous a month,’ he repeated. ‘Once all those twenty sous had mounted up over four or five years, we’d have a sizeable sum; and when you’ve got money, you can do anything, can’t you? Whatever the circumstances…Eh? What do you say?’
‘Well, I’ve nothing against the idea,’ Levaque replied absently. ‘We must talk about it again some time.’
He had his eyes on an enormous blonde girl, and when Maheu and Pierron finished their beers and suggested they leave rather than wait for the next song, he insisted on remaining behind.
Étienne followed them outside, where he found La Mouquette; she appeared to be following them. She was always there watching him with her big, staring eyes and laughing in her good-natured way as though to say: ‘Do you want to?’ Étienne made a joke of it and shrugged, whereupon she gestured angrily and disappeared into the crowd.
‘Where’s Chaval?’ asked Pierron.
‘That’s a point,’ Maheu replied. ‘He’s sure to be at Piquette’s…Let’s go and see.’
But as the three of them arrived at Piquette’s, there was a fight going on at the door and they stopped. Zacharie was brandishing his fist at a stocky, placid-looking fellow, a Walloon3 nailer, while Chaval stood watching with his hands in his pockets.
‘Look, there’s Chaval,’ Maheu said. ‘He’s with Catherine.’
For five long hours Maheu’s daughter and her lover had been strolling about the fair. All the way into Montsou, along the broad street that winds its way down between low, brightly painted houses, there had been a constant flow of people, streaming along in the sunshine like a colony of ants, tiny specks in the vastness of the bare and empty plain. The ubiquitous black mud had dried, and a cloud of black dust rose into the air where it was blown along like a storm-cloud. On each side of the road the bars were crammed with people, and the tables spilled out on to the pavement where there was a double row of stalls, a kind of open-air bazaar selling scarves and mirrors for the girls, knives and caps for the lads, as well as various sweet things such as biscuits and sugared almonds. Archery was going on in front of the church, and people were playing bowls opposite the Company yards. At the corner of the road to Joiselle, beside the Board of Directors’ office, a piece of ground had been fenced off with planks, and people were crowding round watching a cockfight between two large, red cockerels with iron spurs