Germinal - Emile Zola [99]
‘Sit yourself down, love,’ she said, pointing to a table near where Maheu was having a drink with Étienne and Pierron.
‘Isn’t my husband with you?’ asked La Levaque.
His comrades told her he’d be back soon. Everyone squeezed in, Bouteloup, the little ones, all so tightly packed amid the pressing throng of drinkers that the two tables merged into one. They ordered some beer. Seeing her mother and children, Philomène had finally decided to come and join them. She accepted the offer of a seat and seemed happy at the news that she was at last to be married. When they asked where Zacharie was, she replied in her usual flat tone:
‘I’m expecting him any moment. He’s not far away.’
Maheu had exchanged a look with his wife. So she had agreed, then? He became pensive and smoked in silence. He, too, was thinking anxiously about what tomorrow would bring, and about the ingratitude of these children who, one by one, were going to get married and leave their parents destitute.
People continued to dance, and the final steps of a quadrille filled the hall with a reddish dust. The place was bursting at the seams now, and a cornet was sounding a series of high-pitched whistles, like a locomotive in distress. When the dancers came to a stop, they were steaming like horses.
‘Do you remember,’ La Levaque asked, leaning towards La Maheude’s ear, ‘how you said you’d strangle Catherine if she did anything silly!’
Chaval had escorted Catherine back to the family table, and the two of them were now standing behind Maheu finishing their beer.
‘Oh, well,’ La Maheude answered softly in a resigned tone. ‘One says these things but…Anyway, my one consolation is that she can’t have children yet. I know that for a fact!…Just imagine if she were to have one, too, and I had to find her a husband. What would we live on then?’
The whistling cornet was now playing a polka; and as the deafening noise began again, Maheu whispered to his wife what he had in mind. Why didn’t they take a lodger? Étienne, for example. He was looking to board somewhere. With Zacharie leaving they’d have enough room, and they could make back some of the money they were losing. La Maheude’s face lit up: of course, what a good idea, they must do it. It seemed to her as though she had been saved from starvation once again, and her good humour returned so promptly that she proceeded to order another round of beer.
Étienne, meanwhile, was trying to indoctrinate Pierron and explaining his plans for a provident fund. He had already persuaded him to join when he made the mistake of revealing his real purpose.
‘And if we came out on strike, you can see how useful the fund would be. We could tell the Company to go to hell because we’d have the beginnings of a fighting fund…So it’s a deal then? You’ll join?’
Pierron had lowered his eyes and turned pale.
‘I’ll think about it,’ he stammered. ‘Good behaviour, though, that’s the best provident fund.’
Maheu interrupted Étienne and offered there and then, in his blunt, friendly way, to take him in as a lodger. The young man accepted in the same spirit, keen as he was to live in the miners’ village and share more in the life of his comrades. The matter was quickly settled, though La Maheude said they’d have to wait till the two children were married.
At that very moment Zacharie finally turned up, with Mouquet and Levaque. The three of them reeked of the Volcano, of gin and the sharp, musky scent of loose women. They were very drunk and looked extremely pleased with themselves, nudging each other and sniggering. When he learned they were finally marrying him off, Zacharie