Germinal, Émile Zola [readict .txt] 📗

Loud vociferations now drowned his voice, the women especially abused him. But he continued to hold his own, experiencing a certain relief in this frankness with which he expressed his disciplinarian nature. Since he was ruined in any case, he thought platitudes a useless cowardice. But their numbers went on increasing; nearly five hundred were pushing towards the door, and he might have been torn to pieces if his head captain had not pulled him violently back.

“For mercy’s sake, sir! There will be a massacre. What is the good of letting men be killed for nothing?”

He struggled and protested in one last cry thrown at the crowd:

“You set of brigands, you will know what, when we are strongest again!”

They led him away; the hustling of the crowd had thrown the first ranks against the staircase so that the rail was twisted. It was the women who pushed and screamed and urged on the men. The door yielded at once; it was a door without a lock, simply closed by a latch. But the staircase was too narrow for the pushing crowd, which would have taken long to get in if the rear of the besiegers had not gone off to enter by other openings. Then they poured in on all sides⁠—by the shed, the screening-place, the boiler buildings. In less than five minutes the whole pit belonged to them; they swarmed at every story in the midst of furious gestures and cries, carried away by their victory over this master who resisted.

Maheu, in terror, had rushed forward among the first, saying to Étienne:

“They must not kill him!”

The latter was already running; then, when Étienne understood that Deneulin had barricaded himself in the captains’ room, he replied:

“Well, would it be our fault? such a madman!”

He was feeling anxious, however, being still too calm to yield to this outburst of anger. His pride of leadership also suffered on seeing the band escape from his authority and become enraged, going beyond the cold execution of the will of the people, such as he had anticipated. In vain he called for coolness, shouting that they must not put right on their enemies’ side by acts of useless destruction.

“To the boilers!” shouted Mother Brulé. “Put out the fires!”

Levaque, who had found a file, was brandishing it like a dagger, dominating the tumult with a terrible cry:

“Cut the cables! cut the cables!”

Soon they all repeated this; only Étienne and Maheu continued to protest, dazed, and talking in the tumult without obtaining silence. At last the former was able to say:

“But there are men below, mates!”

The noise redoubled and voices arose from all sides:

“So much the worse!⁠—Ought not to go down!⁠—Serve the traitors right!⁠—Yes, yes, let them stay there!⁠—And then, they have the ladders!”

Then, when this idea of the ladders had made them still more obstinate, Étienne saw that he would have to yield. For fear of a greater disaster he hastened towards the engine, wishing at all events to bring the cages up, so that the cables, being cut above the shaft, should not smash them by falling down with their enormous weight. The engine-man had disappeared as well as the few daylight workers; and he took hold of the starting lever, manipulating it while Levaque and two other climbed up the metal scaffold which supported the pulleys. The cages were hardly fixed on the keeps when the strident sound was heard of the file biting into the steel. There was deep silence, and this noise seemed to fill the whole pit; all raised their heads, looking and listening, seized by emotion. In the first rank Maheu felt a fierce joy possess him, as if the teeth of the file would deliver them from misfortune by eating into the cable of one of these dens of wretchedness, into which they would never descend again.

But Mother Brulé had disappeared by the shed stairs still shouting:

“The fires must be put out! To the boilers! to the boilers!”

Some women followed her. Maheude hastened to prevent them from smashing everything, just as her husband had tried to reason with the men. She was the calmest of them; one could demand one’s rights without making a mess in people’s places. When she entered the boiler building the women were already chasing away the two stokers, and the Brulé, armed with a large shovel, and crouching down before one of the stoves, was violently emptying it, throwing the red-hot coke on to the brick floor, where it continued to burn with black smoke. There were ten stoves for the five boilers. Soon the women warmed to the work, the Levaque manipulating her shovel with both hands, Mouquette raising her clothes up to her thighs so as not to catch fire, all looking red in the reflection of the flames, sweating and dishevelled in this witch’s kitchen. The piles of coal increased, and the burning heat cracked the ceiling of the vast hall.

“Enough, now!” cried Maheude; “the storeroom is afire.”

“So much the better,” replied Mother Brulé. “That will do the work. Ah, by God! haven’t I said that I would pay them out for the death of my man!”

At this moment Jeanlin’s shrill voice was heard:

“Look out! I’ll put it out, I will! I’ll let it all off!”

He had come in among the first, and had kicked his legs about among the crowd, delighted at the fray and seeking out what mischief he could do; the idea had occurred to him to turn on the discharge taps and let off the steam.

The jets came out with the violence of volleys; the five boilers were emptied with the sound of a tempest, whistling in such a roar of thunder that one’s ears seemed to bleed. Everything had disappeared in the midst of the vapour, the hot coal grew pale, and the women were nothing more than shadows with broken gestures. The child alone appeared mounted on the gallery, behind the whirlwinds of white steam, filled with