Germinal (37 page)

Finally M. Hennebeau came in, with his frock-coat buttoned up in the military manner, and wearing the trim little rosette of his decoration in his lapel. He spoke first:

‘So here you are!…And up in arms, it appears.'

And he broke off to add, with stiff courtesy:

‘Be seated. I like nothing better than to talk.'

The miners looked round for somewhere to sit. Some ventured to occupy a chair, but the rest were put off by the embroidered silk and preferred to stand.

There was a further silence. M. Hennebeau had rolled his armchair across in front of the fireplace and now quickly took stock, trying to recall their faces. He had just recognized Pierron hiding in the back row; and now his eyes came to rest on Étienne, sitting opposite him.

‘So,' he began, ‘and what have you come to tell me?'

He was expecting the young man to speak and was so surprised to see Maheu step forward that he could not help adding:

‘What! You? Such a good worker, and always so reasonable, one of Montsou's old guard, whose family's been working down the mine since the first coal was cut!…Oh, this is not good, not good at all. I don't like seeing you here at the head of these troublemakers!'

Maheu listened, his eyes on the floor. Then he began, quiet and hesitant at first:

‘Sir, that's exactly why the men have chosen me, because I'm a peaceful man and I've never done anyone any harm. Surely that must prove to you this isn't just a matter of a few hotheads wanting a fight, or people with the wrong ideas trying to stir up trouble. We only want what's fair. We've had enough of starving to death, and it seems to us high time that we came to some arrangement, so that at least we can have enough bread to live on each day.'

His voice grew firmer. He looked up and continued, with his eyes fixed on M. Hennebeau:

‘You know very well we can't accept your new system…They say we're not doing the timbering right. And it's true. We don't give it the time we should. But if we did, our day's pay would be even less, and since we don't earn enough to live on as it is, that would be the final straw, you might as well say goodbye to the lot of us. But pay us more and we'll do better timbering. We'll put in the proper time it should take, instead of trying to hew as much coal as we can just because that's the only work that earns money. No other system's possible. If you
want the job doing, you've got to pay for it…But no, what do you come up with instead? Really, it just beggars belief! You lower the rate per tub and then pretend to make up the reduction by paying for the timbering separately. If that was actually true, you'd still be robbing us because timbering always takes longer. But what really makes us angry is that it isn't even true. The Company's not compensating us at all, it's simply pocketing two centimes for every tub of coal. It's as simple as that!'

‘Yes, that's right, that's right,' the other delegates muttered when they saw M. Hennebeau about to interrupt with a curt wave of the hand.

But in any case Maheu was not about to stop. Now that he was launched, the words came automatically. Occasionally he would listen to himself in astonishment, as though he were a stranger talking. These were things that had been building up inside him, things he didn't even know were there, and that now came pouring out of him, straight from the heart. He described their poverty, the hard work, the animal existence, the wife and children at home crying out with hunger. He referred to the recent disastrous pay-days and the derisory pay that was eaten into by fines and temporary lay-offs. How were they supposed to take that home to a family in tears? Had the Company decided to finish them off once and for all?

‘Because we came to tell you, sir,' he said finally, ‘that if it's a question of dying, we'd rather die doing nothing. That way, at least, we spare ourselves the exhaustion…We've left the pits, and we'll only go down again if the Company accepts our conditions. It wants to reduce the rate per tub and pay for the timbering separately. Well, we want the system we had before, and on top of that we want five centimes more per tub…And now it's up to you to decide whether you believe in justice and the value of work.'

Some of the miners could be heard saying:

‘That's it…That's what we all think…We only want what's right.'

Others nodded silently in agreement. The sumptuous room had melted away, with its gilt and its embroidered silks and its mysterious assembly of old things; and they weren't even
conscious of the carpet any more, crushed beneath their heavy shoes.

‘Will you listen to me or not!' shouted M. Hennebeau finally, beginning to get angry. ‘First of all, it's not true that the Company is making two centimes on each tub…Let's look at the figures.'

A chaotic discussion followed. In an effort to sow division, M. Hennbeau appealed to Pierron, who muttered something non-committal. Levaque, on the other hand, led the more aggressive contingent, but he got things mixed up and kept making assertions without knowing the facts. The loud hubbub of voices seemed to be absorbed by the heavy curtains and the hothouse atmosphere.

‘If you're all going to talk at once,' said M. Hennebeau, ‘we shall never reach agreement.'

He had regained his composure, together with the brusque but not unfriendly courtesy of a manager who has been given a job to do and intends to see it carried out. Since the very beginning of the discussion he had been watching Étienne, trying to find some way of making him break the silence that he seemed intent on maintaining. Accordingly, in a sudden change of tack, he stopped talking about the two centimes and began to broaden the discussion.

‘No, come on now, admit the truth. It's all this recent agitation that's got you in a froth. Really, it's as though some plague had come among working men, and even the best ones catch it…Oh, you don't need to tell me, I can see somebody's been at you. You used to be so peaceable before. That's it, isn't it? Somebody's been saying you can have jam today, that it's your turn to be the masters…And now they've made you sign up to this International everyone's talking about, a horde of thieves and robbers whose one ambition is to destroy society – '

Now Étienne did interrupt:

‘You're mistaken, sir. Not one collier in Montsou has joined yet. But if they're pushed any further, every man in every pit will join. It all depends on the Company.'

From then on the battle lay between M. Hennebeau and Étienne, as though the other miners were no longer present.

‘The Company provides for these men, you're wrong to threaten it. This year alone it has spent three hundred thousand francs building villages for the miners, and it gets a return of less than two per cent on that. Not to mention the pensions it pays out, and the free coal, and the medicines it distributes. You seem an intelligent enough young man, and in just a few months you've become one of our most skilful workers. Wouldn't you do better to tell people things that are true rather than ruining your future by mixing with the wrong sort? Yes, I do mean Rasseneur. We had to part company, he and us, if we were going to save our pits from all that socialist rot…You're always round at his place, and I'm sure he gave you the idea of setting up this provident fund, which incidentally we would be happy to tolerate if it were only for savings, except that we think it's a weapon to be used against us, an emergency fund to pay for the costs of war. And while we're on the subject, I may as well tell you that the Company intends to exercise control over that fund.'

Étienne let him go on, gazing steadily at him with a nervous quivering of the lips. The last sentence made him smile, and he replied simply:

‘So I take it, sir, that you are laying down a new condition, since up till now there has been no demand to exercise control…Our wish, I regret to say, is that the Company should take less of a part in our lives, not more, and that instead of playing the role of bountiful provider, it should simply do what's fair and pay us what is our due – meaning pay us the money
we
make but which
it
takes a share of. Is it right every time there's a crisis to let workers die of starvation so you don't have to cut the shareholders' dividend?…You can say what you will, sir, but the new system is a disguised pay-cut, and that's what sickens us, because if the Company needs to make economies, it is very wrong of it to do so exclusively on the backs of the workers.'

‘Ah, now we come to it!' cried M. Hennebeau. ‘I was wondering when you'd start accusing us of starving the people and living off the sweat of their toil! How can you talk such rubbish, when you must know perfectly well the enormous risks entailed
in investing capital in industry, and particularly in an industry like mining? A fully-equipped pit costs today in the region of one and a half to two million francs, and then there's all the hard work before you begin to see even a modest return on such a huge investment! Almost half the mining companies in France have gone bankrupt…Anyway, it's stupid accusing the successful ones of being cruel. While their workers are feeling the pain, so are they. Do you not think that the Company has got just as much to lose in the present crisis as you have? It can't decide the level of pay all on its own, it has to compete or go under. So blame the facts, not the Company…But you don't want to listen, do you? You don't want to understand!'

‘Oh yes, we do,' Étienne replied. ‘We understand perfectly well that there can be no improvement for us as long as things continue the way they are, and that's exactly why sooner or later the workers will make sure things happen differently.'

This statement, so temperately couched, was made almost in a whisper, but with such tremulous menace and conviction that there was a long silence. A wave of embarrassment and apprehension disturbed the quiet repose of the drawing-room. The other members of the deputation did not quite follow, but they sensed none the less that here, surrounded by this leisured ease, their comrade had just laid claim to their rightful share; and once again they began to cast sideways glances at the warm curtains and the comfortable seats, and at all this expense, when the price of the smallest ornament would have kept them in soup for a month.

Eventually a pensive M. Hennebeau rose to his feet, preparing to send them away. Everyone else stood up also. Étienne gently nudged Maheu in the elbow, and he began to speak, awkward and tongue-tied once more:

‘Well, if that's all you have to say in reply, sir…We shall tell the others that you reject our terms.'

‘But, my dear fellow,' exclaimed M. Hennebeau, ‘I have rejected nothing!…I am just a paid employee, like you. I have no more say in what is decided than the youngest pit-boy. I receive my instructions, and my sole function is to see that they are properly carried out. I have said to you what I thought it my
duty to say to you, but I should certainly refrain from deciding the matter…You have brought me your demands, I shall pass them on to the Board of Directors, and I shall let you know how it responds.'

He spoke with the correctness of the senior administrator taking care not to become involved in the issues and deploying the soulless courtesy of a simple instrument of authority. And now the miners looked at him with suspicion, wondering what his game was, what it might pay him to lie, what ways he might have of lining his own pocket, positioned as he was like this between them and the true masters. A devious sort, perhaps, since he was paid like a worker and yet he lived so well!

Étienne risked a further intervention:

‘But you must see how regrettable it is, sir, that we cannot plead our case in person. There are many things we could explain and reasons we could give that inevitably you wouldn't know about yourself…If only we knew who to talk to!'

M. Hennebeau was not angry. In fact he smiled:

‘Ah well now, if you're not going to have confidence in me, that complicates matters…It would mean you having to try elsewhere.'

The men's eyes followed as he gestured vaguely in the direction of one of the drawing-room windows. Where was ‘elsewhere'? Paris probably. But they didn't quite know, and wherever it was, it seemed like a distant, forbidding place, some remote and sacred region where that unknown deity squatted on its throne deep in the inner recesses of its temple. They would never ever set eyes on this god, they just sensed it, as a force weighing from afar on the ten thousand colliers of Montsou. And when the manager spoke, this force was behind him, concealed and speaking in oracles.

They felt defeated. Even Étienne shrugged as though to say they would do better to leave. M. Hennebeau gave Maheu a friendly tap on the arm and asked him news of Jeanlin.

‘That was a harsh lesson all right, and to think you're the one who defends the bad timbering!…Think it over, my friends, and you'll soon see that a strike would be a disaster for everyone concerned. Within a week you'll all be starving to death. How
are you going to manage?…Anyway, I'm counting on your good sense, and I'm sure you'll be going back down by next Monday at the latest.'

They all took their leave, tramping out of the room like a herd of animals, with their heads bowed and offering not a word of response to this prospect of surrender. As he saw them out, the manager had perforce to summarize their meeting: on one side the Company and its new rates, on the other the workers with their demand for an increase of five centimes per tub. And, so that they should be under no illusion, he felt obliged to warn them that the Board of Directors would certainly reject their terms.

‘And think twice before you do anything silly,' he said again, uneasy at their silence.

Out in the hall Pierron made a very low bow while Levaque made a point of putting his cap back on. Maheu was searching for something more to say, but once again Étienne gave him a nudge. And off they went, accompanied by this ominous silence. The only sound was of the door banging shut behind them.