Germinal (76 page)

An old woman directed the coachman to the Maheus' house, number sixteen in the second block. But when the Grégoires alighted with their parcels and knocked, there was no answer. They eventually resorted to banging on the door with their fists, but still there was no response. The house echoed mournfully, like some cold, dark place that has been emptied by death and then abandoned for a long time.

‘There's nobody there,' Cécile said disappointedly. ‘How tiresome! What are we going to do with all these things?'

Suddenly the door of the adjoining house opened, and La Levaque appeared.

‘Oh, Monsieur! Madame! I do beg your pardon! Please forgive me, Mademoiselle!…It must be my neighbour you want. She's not in. She's at Réquillart…'

She poured out the whole story and kept saying how people had to help each other and how she was looking after Lénore and Henri so that their mother could go and wait down at the mine. She had spotted the parcels and began to talk about her poor daughter who'd been widowed, expatiating on her own poverty with a covetous gleam in her eye. Then she mumbled hesitantly:

‘I've got the key. If Monsieur and Madame really want…The grandfather's in.'

The Grégoires looked at her in astonishment. The grandfather was in! But nobody was answering. Was he asleep, then? But when La Levaque finally opened the door, the spectacle which greeted their eyes brought them up short.

There was Bonnemort, alone, sitting on a chair in front of the empty grate and staring into space. Around him the room looked bigger now, devoid of the cheering presence of the cuckoo clock and the varnished pine furniture; all that remained, hanging against the crude green walls, were the portraits of the Emperor and Empress, their pink lips smiling down with an official air of benevolence. The old man did not move, nor did his eyelids blink at the sudden light from the doorway; rather he sat with
an imbecilic air as if he had not even seen all these people come in. At his feet lay his plate of ash, like a litter-tray set down for a cat.

‘You mustn't mind his manners,' La Levaque said obligingly. ‘Appears he's a bit cracked in the head. He's not said a word for the past fortnight.'

But Bonnemort began to shake as a rasping sound seemed to rise up from the depths of his stomach, and he spat a thick, black gob of phlegm into the plate. The ash was saturated, a black sludge where he had heaved up all the coal-dust that had ever passed down his throat. Again he was still. He never moved now, except every once in a while like this to spit.

Unnerved and physically disgusted, the Grégoires attempted nevertheless to find a few friendly and encouraging words to say.

‘So, my good man,' said Papa. ‘Got a bit of a cold, have you?'

Bonnemort continued to stare straight ahead of him at the wall, and again there was a heavy silence.

‘They ought to make you a cup of tea,' said Mamma.

He just sat there not saying a word.

‘But wait, Papa,' Cécile said softly. ‘People did say he was ill. We ought to have realized…'

She stopped, thoroughly embarrassed. Having set a dish of stew and two bottles of wine down on the table, she was untying the second parcel and lifting out an enormous pair of shoes. This was the gift they had intended for the grandfather; and, holding a shoe in each hand, she stared in dismay at the swollen feet of this man who would never walk again.

‘A bit late, eh, old chap?' M. Grégoire went on, trying to ease the situation. ‘Not to worry. They'll always come in useful somehow.'

Bonnemort heard nothing and said nothing, and his face wore a terrifying expression of cold, hard stone.

Cécile then gingerly put the shoes down beside the wall. But despite her best efforts the hobnails clattered on the floor; and the enormous shoes sat there looking completely out of place in the room

‘Oh, don't wait for him to say ‘‘thank you''!' cried La Levaque,
who had shot a glance of deepest envy at the shoes. ‘You might as well give a pair of spectacles to a duck. Begging your pardon!'

And on she went, trying to lure the Grégoires into her own house in the hope of touching their hearts with its prospect. Eventually she thought of a pretext and began to sing the praises of Henri and Lénore, saying what nice, sweet children they were, and how intelligent too, and how they replied like little angels whenever anyone asked them a question. They would be able to tell Monsieur and Madame anything they wished to know.

‘Do you want to come next door for a moment, my dear?' M. Grégoire asked Cécile, glad of the chance to leave.

‘Yes, I'll be along presently.'

Cécile remained alone with Bonnemort. She had stayed behind out of trembling fascination because she thought she recognized the old man. But where had she seen this pale, square, coal-stained face before? Suddenly she remembered. She saw herself once more surrounded by a screaming crowd of people and felt the cold hands closing round her neck. Yes, it was him, it was the same man, and she looked down at the hands resting on his knees, the hands of someone who had spent his entire working life squatting on his knees and whose whole strength was in his wrists, wrists that were still firm and strong despite his age. Bonnemort had been showing gradual signs of coming back to life, and he now noticed Cécile and began to examine her with his usual gaping expression. His cheeks flushed, and a nervous tic began to pull at his mouth, from which dribbled a thin trickle of black saliva. They faced each other, as though irresistibly drawn together, she in her bloom, plump and fresh-cheeked from the long hours of idleness and the sated well-being of her sort, he swollen with liquid and as pitifully hideous as some broken-down animal, just one in a long line of men destroyed by a hundred years of hunger and toil.

Ten minutes later, the Grégoires, surprised not to see Cécile, went back to the Maheus' house, where they let out a terrible scream. Their daughter was lying on the floor, blue in the face, having been strangled. On her neck were red marks that looked as though they had been left by some giant's fist. Bonnemort,
having staggered forward on his paralysed legs, had collapsed beside her, unable to get up again. His fingers were still bent, and he was staring up at them with bulging, imbecilic eyes. He had broken his dish when he fell, spilling the ash, and the black sludge of his phlegm had splashed across the room. But the huge pair of shoes was still sitting there lined up against the wall, untouched.

It never proved possible to establish exactly what had happened. Why had Cécile gone so close to him? How had Bonne-mort, riveted to his chair, been able to grab her by the throat? Clearly, once he had got hold of her, he must have gripped her tight for all he was worth and not let go, toppling over on to the ground with her and stifling her screams until she breathed her last. For not a single sound or cry had been heard through the thin partition separating the two houses. He must have had a sudden fit of madness, an inexplicable urge to murder at the sight of this young girl's white neck. Such savagery was astonishing on the part of this sick old man who had always been very much the stout fellow following orders like some obedient animal, and never one for the new ideas. What deep sense of grievance, unknown to himself, had slowly festered inside him and risen thus from his gut to his skull? The horror of it was such that people decided he must have acted unconsciously, that it was the crime of an idiot.

Meanwhile the Grégoires were down on their knees, sobbing and choking with grief. Their beloved little girl, this daughter they had wanted for so long and then showered with all their riches, whose bedroom they would creep into to make sure she was asleep, who could never be well enough fed, who was never plump enough! Their life was in ruins, for what was the point of living now that they would have to live without her?

La Levaque was screaming wildly:

‘Oh God, what's the old bugger gone and done? Who would ever have thought such a thing?…And La Maheude won't be back till evening. Perhaps I should run and fetch her.'

Overwhelmed by their suffering, the Grégoires made no reply.

‘It would be best, wouldn't it?…I'll go now.'

But as she was leaving she caught sight of the shoes. The
whole village was in uproar, and a crowd was already forming outside. Somebody might steal them. And anyway there were no men left in the Maheu household to wear them. She quietly removed them. They must be just Bouteloup's size.

At Réquillart the Hennebeaus waited a long time for the Grégoires, talking to Négrel. He had come up from the mine and was giving them details: they hoped to break through to the trapped miners that evening, but they'd only be bringing out bodies, it was still as silent as the grave down there. La Maheude was sitting behind the engineer on the beam, listening ashen-faced, when La Levaque arrived to tell her about the old man's remarkable exploit. Her only reaction was a gesture of impatient annoyance. Nevertheless she followed her.

Mme Hennebeau was on the verge of fainting. How perfectly dreadful! That poor little Cécile, who had been so cheerful all day and so full of life but one hour earlier. Hennebeau had to usher her into old Mouque's shack for a moment. There, with fumbling hands, he loosened her stays, and his head spun with the scent of musk that rose from her open corset. And while she tearfully embraced Négrel, himself appalled by this death which had put an end to his marriage plans, her husband watched them grieving together and felt relieved. This tragedy solved everything, for he would rather keep his nephew than fear that the coachman might be next.

At the bottom of the pit-shaft the wretched people who had been left behind were screaming with terror. The water had now risen to waist-level. The noise of the torrent was deafening, and with the final collapse of the tubbing it seemed as though the end of the world had come; but the greatest horror was the whinnying of the horses shut up in the stable, the terrible, unforgettable death-cry of animals being slaughtered.

Mouque had let go of Battle. The old horse stood there trembling, staring wide-eyed at the rising flood. The pit-bottom
was filling up rapidly, and they could see the greenish water spreading wider and wider in the red glow cast by the three lamps still burning up near the ceiling. Suddenly, as he began to feel the icy water through his coat, Battle took off at a furious gallop and disappeared down one of the haulage roads.

A rout ensued, as everyone tried to follow the horse.

‘We've bloody had it here!' shouted Mouque. ‘We'll have to try Réquillart.'

Now they were all swept along by the one idea that they might be able to get out through the adjoining disused mine if they reached it before being cut off. The twenty of them scurried along in single file, holding their lamps up high so that the water wouldn't put them out. Fortunately the roadway sloped imperceptibly uphill, and they continued forward for two hundred metres against the flow of the current without the water-level gaining on them. Dormant superstitions sprang newly to life in their frightened souls, and they called upon the earth for mercy, this earth that was taking its revenge by spouting blood because somebody had severed one of its arteries. One old man was muttering long-forgotten prayers and crossing his fingers to calm the evil spirits of the mine.

But at the first crossroads an argument broke out. The stableman wanted to go left, while others swore that they would save time if they went right. A minute was lost.

‘You can all bloody die here if you want!' Chaval shouted savagely. ‘I'm going this way.'

He headed off right, and two comrades followed him. The others continued to run after old Mouque, who had grown up in the Réquillart mine. But he, too, was unsure and didn't know which direction to take. They were all losing their heads and even the older ones could no longer recognize the roads, which seemed to have twisted themselves into an inextricable knot before their very eyes. At each fork they came to, further uncertainty stopped them in their tracks, and yet they had to choose one way or the other.

Étienne was running along at the back, slowed down by Catherine, who was paralysed with fear and exhaustion. He would have gone right, with Chaval, because he thought that
that was the proper direction; but he had let him go, even if it meant never getting out of the mine. In any case the rout had continued, and other comrades had gone their own way, so that now there were only seven of them behind old Mouque.

‘Put your arms round my neck and I'll carry you,' Étienne told Catherine, seeing her falter.

‘No, leave me be,' she muttered. ‘I can't go on. I'd rather die here and now.'

They had fallen fifty metres behind, and he was just picking her up, despite her resistance, when they suddenly found the way ahead blocked: an enormous slab of rock had collapsed in front of them and cut them off from the others. The floodwater was already seeping through the earth, causing subsidence everywhere. They had to retrace their steps, and soon they lost all sense of direction. This was it, there was no chance now of getting out through Réquillart. Their only hope was to reach the upper coal-faces, where somebody might come and rescue them if the floodwater fell.

Eventually Étienne recognized the Guillaume seam.

‘Right,' he said. ‘I know where we are. Christ Almighty, we were on the right track before! But that's no bloody good to us now!…Look, let's go straight on, and then we'll climb up through the chimney.'

The water was lapping against their chests, and progress was very slow. As long as they had light, they would still have hope; and so they put out one of the lamps, to save on oil, intending to pour it into the other lamp later. They had just reached the chimney when a noise behind them made them turn round. Was it other comrades who had been forced back this way after being blocked like them? There was a kind of snorting sound in the distance and, inexplicably, a storm seemed to be approaching and churning the water into foam. Then they screamed when a massive white shape loomed out of the darkness. It was trying to reach them, but the roof props were too close together and it was jammed.