Germinal (61 page)

‘So what's your name?'

‘Jules.'

‘And where are you from?'

‘From Plogoff, over yonder.'

He gestured randomly with his arm. It was in Brittany, that was all he knew. His small, pale face lit up, and he began to laugh with renewed cheer and warmth.

‘I have a mother and sister back there. They can't wait for me to come home, of course. Though it'll be some time yet…When I left, they came with me as far as Pont-l'Abbé. We borrowed the horse from the Lepalmecs, and he nearly broke his legs on the journey down from Audierne. My cousin Charles met us with some sausages, but the women were crying so much we just couldn't enjoy them…Oh God, oh God, how far away home seems now!'

Tears sprang to his eyes although he continued to laugh. He had a vision of the bleak Plogoff moorland and the wild, storm-wracked Pointe du Raz all bathed in dazzling sunshine, in the season of pink heather.

‘Tell me,' he said, ‘if I behave myself, do you think I might get a month's leave in two years' time?'

Then Étienne talked about Provence, which he had left when he was very small. It was getting lighter now, and snowflakes were beginning to flutter down from a grubby sky. But eventually he became anxious when he saw Jeanlin prowling about among the brambles, amazed to see him up there. The boy was beckoning to him. Why dream of fraternizing with the military? It would take years and years, and his futile attempt depressed him, as though he had expected to succeed. But suddenly he
understood what Jeanlin's gesture meant: the sentry was about to be relieved. And so Étienne left to return to Réquillart, running to earth with a heavy heart once more at the certain prospect of defeat; and Jeanlin raced along beside him, accusing that dirty bastard of a soldier of calling out to the guard to shoot at them.

Up on the spoil-heap Jules had not moved, and he went on gazing out into the falling snow. The sergeant was approaching with his men, and the regulation calls were exchanged.

‘Who goes there?…Step forward! Password!'

Then heavy footsteps could be heard receding into the distance, like the ringing gait of a conqueror. Though it was now light, nothing stirred in the villages; and the miners continued to rage in silence beneath the jackboot.

Snow had been falling for two days. That morning it had stopped, and had now frozen hard in one vast sheet: the entire region, which had once been black, with its inky roads and its walls and trees covered in coal-dust, was now one single expanse of uniform whiteness stretching to infinity. Buried beneath the snow, Village Two Hundred and Forty seemed to have disappeared. Not a wisp of smoke was to be seen coming from its roof-tops. Without fires the houses were as cold as the stones in the road, and there was nothing to melt the thick layer of snow covering the tiles. The place looked like a quarry of white slabstones set in the midst of the white plain, like some vision of a dead village draped in a shroud. Along the streets only the passing patrols had trampled the snow into a muddy mess.

At the Maheus' the last shovelful of gleanings from the spoil-heap had been burned the evening before; and in this terrible weather it was out of the question to think of fetching some more when even the sparrows were unable to find a blade of glass. Alzire, whose poor little hands had stubbornly scrabbled through the snow, was dying. La Maheude had had to wrap her
in a scrap of blanket as she waited for Dr Vanderhaghen, whom she had been to see twice already without finding him in. The maid, however, had just promised her that the doctor would visit her in the village before dark, and so La Maheude was standing by the window watching out for him while the sick girl, who had insisted on coming downstairs, sat shivering on a chair in the fond belief that she was warmer there next to the cold stove. Opposite her sat old Bonnemort, his legs bad again, apparently asleep. Neither Lénore nor Henri was home yet, still out tramping the highways and byways with Jeanlin, asking people if they had any spare change. Only Maheu moved about, lumbering up and down the other side of the bare room and bumping into the wall each time with the dazed look of an animal that can no longer see the bars of its cage. The paraffin-oil, too, was finished; but the reflection from the snow outside was still so bright that it dimly lit the room even though night had fallen.

There was a sound of clogs, and La Levaque burst in like a gale, beside herself with fury and shouting at La Maheude from the open doorway:

‘So it was you that told everyone I made my lodger give me twenty sous each time he slept with me!'

La Maheude shrugged.

‘Leave me be. I never said such a thing…Anyway, who told you I did?'

‘Somebody told me, never mind who…And you said you could hear our dirty goings-on through the wall, and that my place was filthy because I was always flat on my back…Just try telling me again you never said it!'

Quarrels like this broke out every day as a result of the women's constant gossiping, and, particularly between families who lived next door to each other, it was one daily round of rows and reconciliation. But never before had they gone for each other with such bitter ill-will. Since the start of the strike hunger had sharpened everyone's grudges, and there was a general desire to come to blows: an argument between two women would end in a fight to the death between two men.

Indeed at that very moment Levaque himself arrived, dragging Bouteloup with him by force:

‘Here he is. Let's hear him say whether he gave my wife twenty sous to sleep with her!'

Their meek lodger was shocked and started mumbling a protest into his beard:

‘What an idea. No, of course not. Never.'

At once Levaque turned nasty and shoved a fist under Maheu's nose.

‘I'm not having it, you hear? When a man's got a wife like that, he should beat some sense into her…Or maybe you actually believe what she's been saying?'

‘What
is
all this, for Christ's sake?' Maheu exclaimed, furious at being roused from his gloom. ‘Who are you trying to stir up with all this ‘‘he said'' and ‘‘she said''? Haven't we got enough problems already? Bugger off, or you'll get this in your face! And anyway, who told you my wife said such a thing?'

‘Who told me?…I'll tell you who told me! La Pierronne!'

La Maheude gave a shrill laugh and turned towards La Levaque:

‘So La Pierronne told you, did she?…Well, just let me tell you what she told me! Oh yes! She said you were sleeping with the two men at once, one beneath and one on top!'

After that any reconciliation was out of the question. Everybody was angry, and the Levaques retorted that La Pierronne had told them all sorts about the Maheus, like how they'd sold Catherine off, and how Étienne had caught a dose at the Volcano, and now the whole filthy lot of them had it, even the children.

‘She said that! She said that!' Maheu screamed. ‘Right. I'm off. And if she admits to my face she said it, I'll knock her bloody block off.'

Already he had rushed outside, pursued by the Levaques, who wanted to see this, while Bouteloup, who hated scenes, sloped off home. Incensed by the row, La Maheude, too, was about to leave when a moan from Alzire detained her. She pulled the ends of the blanket over the little girl's shivering body and
resumed her position by the window, where she gazed blankly into the distance. Still the doctor didn't come!

Outside the Pierrons' door Maheu and the Levaques ran into Lydie, who was pacing up and down in the snow. The house was shut up, but a chink of light could be seen through one of the shutters; and the child replied to their questions with some embarrassment: no, her father wasn't in, he had gone to meet La Brûlé at the wash-house so as to carry the washing home. Then she became flustered and refused to say what her mother was doing. Eventually she revealed all, with a vindictive snigger: her mother had thrown her out because M. Dansaert was there and they couldn't talk if she was around. Dansaert had been touring the village since morning in the company of two gendarmes in an attempt to recruit some workers, putting pressure on the weak and announcing to all and sundry that if they didn't go back to work at Le Voreux next Monday the Company had decided to take on men from Belgium. And at dusk, finding La Pierronne alone, he had sent the gendarmes away and stayed to drink a glass of gin with her in front of her warm fire.

‘Shh! Be quiet, this we must see!' Levaque whispered, giving a dirty laugh. ‘The other business can wait…And you can hop it, you little hussy!'

Lydie stepped back a few paces, while he put his eye to the crack in the shutter. He gave short muffled cries of exclamation as his back rose and shuddered. Then it was La Levaque's turn to look; but she announced, as though she were about to vomit, that the whole thing was disgusting. Wanting to have a look, too, Maheu pushed her out of the way, and then declared that you certainly got value for money! And they repeated the process, each taking a turn to look, just like in a peep-show. The sitting-room, which was sparklingly clean, looked bright and cheerful with its roaring fire; there were cakes on the table, as well as a bottle and some glasses – quite a party, in fact. So much so that the sight of it all was enough to infuriate the two men, they who in other circumstances would have laughed at the episode for a good six months. The fact that she was lying there with her skirts in the air getting screwed for all she was worth was funny all right. But God Almighty if it wasn't a rotten
trick to be doing it in front of such a huge fire and after getting her strength up with all those biscuits when the comrades hadn't a crumb of bread or a lump of coal to their name!

‘Here's Father!' cried Lydie as she made her escape.

Pierron was returning from the wash-house, minding his own business, with the bundle of washing over one shoulder. Maheu bearded him at once:

‘Here you! I've been told that your wife said I sold Catherine and that everyone in our house has got a dose of the clap…So, tell me, what's he paying you for her, eh? You know who I mean, the fellow that's screwing her stupid right at this very minute.'

Taken by surprise, Pierron was completely nonplussed when La Pierronne, alarmed by the sound of all these voices, forgot herself and opened the door a little to see what was going on. There she stood, all red, her bodice unbuttoned, her skirt still hitched up and tucked into her belt, while in the background Dansaert was desperately pulling on his trousers. The overman made his escape and disappeared from view, terrified that a story of this kind would soon reach the ears of the manager. Then all hell broke loose as people laughed and jeered and flung insults at each other.

‘And you're the one who's always saying how filthy everyone else is!' La Levaque shouted at La Pierronne. ‘No wonder you're so clean if you're getting the bosses to scrub the floor for you!'

‘Oh, she's a fine one to talk, she is!' said Levaque, taking up the theme. ‘That's the bitch who said my wife sleeps with me and the lodger together, one beneath and one on top!…Oh, yes, that's what they told me you said.'

But La Pierronne had recovered her composure, and she listened unbowed to the insults and the crude remarks, thoroughly disdainful in the certainty that she was richer and prettier than any of them.

‘I said what I said, so now clear off…Do you hear me? What business is it of yours what I get up to? You're all just jealous and resent us because we've got money to put in the bank! Oh, yes, you can say what you like, but my husband knows perfectly well why Monsieur Dansaert was in our house.'

And indeed by now Pierron was angrily defending his wife. So they rounded on him instead, calling him a lackey, a grass, the Company's poodle, accusing him of locking himself in at home so that he could stuff himself on the choice morsels with which the bosses paid him for his treachery. He retaliated, claiming that Maheu had been slipping threatening notes under his door, one with a dagger and crossbones on it. And of course it all ended with the men fighting, just like all the other rows the women had started ever since hunger had turned even the mildest among them into a fury. Maheu and Levaque laid into Pierron with their fists, and they had to be dragged off him.

The blood was pouring from her son-in-law's nose when La Brûlé in turn arrived from the wash-house. Once they had told her what was going on, all she said was:

‘That pig's a disgrace to me.'

The street was once again deserted, with not a shadow to blot the bare whiteness of the snow; and the village, having relapsed into its state of mortal inactivity, continued to starve to death surrounded by the intense cold.

‘Any sign of the doctor?' Maheu asked, closing the door after him.

‘He's not been,' replied La Maheude, who was still standing by the window.

‘Are the little ones back?'

‘No, not yet.'

Maheu resumed his heavy pacing, from one wall to the other, like some dazed ox. Old Bonnemort, sitting stiffly on his chair, had not even raised his head. Alzire, too, was silent and tried not to shiver, so as not to upset them; but despite her courage in the midst of her suffering she sometimes shook so violently that one could hear her thin, ailing young body almost rattling under the blanket. Meanwhile her big, wide eyes stared up at the ceiling where the pale reflection from the white gardens outside filled the room as though with moonlight.

They had reached their final hour: the house had been completely emptied, stripped terminally bare. The mattress covers had followed the wool stuffing to the second-hand shop; then the sheets had followed, and their linen, anything that could be
sold. One evening they had got two sous for one of Grandpa's handkerchiefs. Tears were shed over each object that the penniless household found it had to part with, and La Maheude still rued the day she had taken along the little pink box, an old present from Maheu, wrapped in her skirt, as though she were taking an infant off to abandon it on someone's doorstep. They were destitute, and all they had left to sell was the skin on their bodies, which in any case was so damaged and used that no one would have paid a penny for it. So now they didn't even bother to search for something to sell, they knew there wasn't anything, that the end had come, that there was no hope of their ever again having a candle or a piece of coal or a potato; and as they waited to die, their only grievance was on behalf of the children, for they were outraged by the pointless cruelty of the little girl being afflicted with illness before she then starved to death anyway.