‘Well, I’ve nothing against the idea,’ Levaque replied absently. ‘We must talk about it again some time.’
He had his eyes on an enormous blonde girl, and when Maheu and Pierron finished their beers and suggested they leave rather than wait for the next song, he insisted on remaining behind.
Étienne followed them outside, where he found La Mouquette; she appeared to be following them. She was always there watching him with her big, staring eyes and laughing in her good-natured way as though to say: ‘Do you want to?’ Étienne made a joke of it and shrugged, whereupon she gestured angrily and disappeared into the crowd.
‘Where’s Chaval?’ asked Pierron.
‘That’s a point,’ Maheu replied. ‘He’s sure to be at Piquette’s…Let’s go and see.’
But as the three of them arrived at Piquette’s, there was a fight going on at the door and they stopped. Zacharie was brandishing his fist at a stocky, placid-looking fellow, a Walloon3 nailer, while Chaval stood watching with his hands in his pockets.
‘Look, there’s Chaval,’ Maheu said. ‘He’s with Catherine.’
For five long hours Maheu’s daughter and her lover had been strolling about the fair. All the way into Montsou, along the broad street that winds its way down between low, brightly painted houses, there had been a constant flow of people, streaming along in the sunshine like a colony of ants, tiny specks in the vastness of the bare and empty plain. The ubiquitous black mud had dried, and a cloud of black dust rose into the air where it was blown along like a storm-cloud. On each side of the road the bars were crammed with people, and the tables spilled out on to the pavement where there was a double row of stalls, a kind of open-air bazaar selling scarves and mirrors for the girls, knives and caps for the lads, as well as various sweet things such as biscuits and sugared almonds. Archery was going on in front of the church, and people were playing bowls opposite the Company yards. At the corner of the road to Joiselle, beside the Board of Directors’ office, a piece of ground had been fenced off with planks, and people were crowding round watching a cockfight between two large, red cockerels with iron spurs on their legs and bloody gashes in their necks. Further on, at Maigrat’s, there was billiards, with aprons and trousers for prizes. And everywhere there were long silences as the throng quietly drank and guzzled in a mute orgy of indigestion. Quantity upon quantity of beer and chips was gradually consumed in the sweltering heat, itself made hotter still by all the frying-pans sizzling in the open air.
Chaval bought Catherine a mirror for nineteen sous and a scarf for three francs. As they went up and down the rows they kept bumping into Mouque and Bonnemort, who had come to see the fair and were slowly trudging through it, side by side, deep in thought. But another chance encounter made them cross, as they caught sight of Jeanlin inciting Bébert and Lydie to steal some bottles of gin from a temporary bar which had been set up on the edge of some waste ground. All Catherine could do was give her brother a clout, for Lydie had already fled clutching a bottle. Those little devils would end up in prison one day.
Then they came to the Severed Head, and Chaval thought he would take Catherine in to watch a songbird competition which had been advertised on the door for the past week. Fifteen nailers had turned up from the nail-works at Marchiennes, each with a dozen cages; and these little cages, each one covered so that the sightless bird inside remained quite still, were already in place, hanging from a fence in the yard. The object was to see which bird would repeat its song the greatest number of times in one hour. Each nailer would stand next to his own cages, recording the tally on a slate and keeping an eye on his neighbours just as they kept an eye on him. And then the birds began: the chichouïeux with their deeper note, the batisecouics with their high-pitched trill, all of them hesitant at first, venturing only a few snatches of song, then gradually getting each other going, increasing the tempo, and eventually becoming so carried away by the spirit of competition that some of them actually fell off their perch and died. The nailers would urge them on roughly, shouting at them in Walloon to keep singing, more, more, just one last little burst of song; while the spectators, a hundred or more of them, stood there in silence, riveted, surrounded by this infernal music of a hundred and eighty finches all repeating the same song at different intervals. A batisecouic won first prize, which was a metal coffee-pot.
Catherine and Chaval were still there when Zacharie and Philomène arrived. They shook hands and stood around together. But suddenly Zacharie flew into a rage when he caught a nailer, who had come along with his comrades out of curiosity, pinching his sister in the thigh. Catherine went bright red and told him to be quiet, terrified at the prospect of a punch-up and all these nailers rounding on Chaval if he were to make an issue of them pinching her. She had felt the man’s hand all right but thought it better not to say anything. But her lover simply sneered at him, and the four of them left; the matter seemed to be forgotten. Hardly had they arrived at Piquette’s for another drink, however, than the nailer showed up again, quite unconcerned, laughing in their faces with an air of provocation. Zacharie, his family honour at stake, had promptly set upon the insolent man.
‘That’s my sister, you bastard!…You wait and see if I don’t bloody teach you some respect!’
People rushed to separate the two men, while Chaval, who had remained very calm, reacted as before:
‘Leave him be. This is my business. And as far as I’m concerned, he can go to hell!’
Maheu arrived with his group, and he tried to comfort Catherine and Philomène, who were already in tears. By now people were laughing, and the nailer had gone. Piquette’s was Chaval’s local, and so to help everyone forget about the incident he ordered a round. Étienne found himself clinking glasses with Catherine, and they all drank together, the father, the daughter and her lover, the son and his mistress, all politely saying: ‘Cheers everyone!’ Then Pierron insisted on buying his round, and everyone seemed to be on the best of terms when Zacharie flew into a rage again on catching sight of his friend Mouquet. He shouted to him to come and help him sort that nailer out, as he put it.
‘I’ve got to get the bastard!…Here, Chaval, you and Catherine look after Philomène for me, will you? I’ll be back.’
Now it was Maheu’s turn to buy a round. After all, it wasn’t such a bad thing if the lad wanted to stick up for his sister. But Philomène, who had calmed down when she saw Mouquet arrive, just shook her head. You could be sure the buggers had gone off to the Volcano together.
Come the evening on ducasse days, everyone would end up at the Jolly Fellow. This dance-hall was run by Widow Desire, a stout matron of fifty who was as round as a barrel but still so full of energy that she had six lovers, one for each day of the week, she used to say, and all six at once on Sundays. She referred to the miners as her children in fond remembrance of the river of beer she had poured down them over the past thirty years; and she also liked to boast that no putter ever got pregnant without having first had a spot of slap and tickle at the Jolly Fellow. The place consisted of two rooms: the bar itself, where the counter and tables were, and then, on the same level but through a broad archway, the dance-hall. This was a huge room, with an area of wooden floor-boards in the middle surrounded by brick. The only decoration was provided by garlands of paper flowers strung from opposite corners of the ceiling and joined together in the middle by a wreath of matching flowers. Round the walls ran a line of gilt shields bearing the names of saints, like St Éloi, the patron saint of ironworkers, St Crispin, the patron saint of cobblers, St Barbe, the patron saint of miners, in fact the whole calendar of saints celebrated by tradesmen’s guilds. The ceiling was so low that the three musicians sitting on the stage, itself no bigger than a pulpit, banged their heads on it. To light the room in the evenings four paraffin lamps were hung, one in each corner.
That Sunday there was dancing from five o’clock onwards, when daylight was still streaming through the windows. But it was nearer seven by the time the rooms filled up
with people. Outside a storm was gathering: the wind had got up and was stirring large clouds of black dust, which got into everybody’s eyes and sizzled in the frying-pans. Maheu, Étienne and Pierron had come to the Jolly Fellow in search of somewhere to sit and found Chaval dancing with Catherine while Philomène stood watching on her own. Neither Levaque nor Zacharie had reappeared. Since there were no benches round the dance-floor, Catherine came and sat at her father’s table between dances. They called Philomène over, but she said she preferred to stand. The light was fading, the musicians were in full swing, and all that could be seen was a flurry of hips and busts and a general flailing of arms. There was a roar when the four lamps arrived, and suddenly everything was lit up, the red faces, the tumbling hair clinging to wet skin, the swirling skirts fanning the air with the pungent smell of sweating couples. Maheu drew Étienne’s attention to La Mouquette, round and plump like a bladder of lard, who was gyrating wildly in the arms of a tall, thin banksman. She must have decided to make do with someone else.
It was eight o’clock by the time La Maheude finally arrived with Estelle at her breast and her brood of Alzire, Henri and Lénore trailing behind her. She had come straight to the Jolly Fellow, knowing that that was where she would find Maheu. Supper could wait; no one was hungry, their stomachs were either full of coffee or bloated with beer. Other women arrived, and people began to whisper when they saw La Levaque walk in behind La Maheude and accompanied by Bouteloup, who was leading Philomène’s children, Achille and Désirée, by the hand. The two neighbours seemed to be on perfectly friendly terms as the one turned and chatted with the other. On their way over the women had had things out once and for all. La Maheude was now resigned to Zacharie’s marriage, and while she was wretched at the thought of losing her eldest child’s earnings, she had finally been won over by the realization that she couldn’t in all fairness hang on to him any longer. So she had tried to put a brave face on the matter, despite the anxiety she felt as a housewife wondering how on earth she was going to make ends meet now that such an important source of her housekeeping was leaving.
‘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 began to laugh so loudly he nearly choked. Unfazed, Philomène declared that she’d rather see him laugh than cry. Since there were no more chairs, Bouteloup had squeezed along to let Levaque share half of his; whereupon the latter, suddenly overcome at seeing everyone together like this in one big happy family, ordered yet another round of beer.
‘God! This is the life, eh?’ he roared.
They sat on till ten o’clock. Women were still arriving, trailing hordes of children and having come to collect their menfolk and take them home. The mothers among them, past caring, pulled out long, pale breasts like so many sacks of oats and splattered chubby babies with milk, while toddlers full of beer crawled on all fours beneath the tables and relieved themselves unconcernedly. And all around them rose a tide of beer from Widow Desire’s emptying barrels, turning bellies round and taut, flowing out of every orifice, from noses, eyes and elsewhere. There was such a general swelling among this mass of people that by now each of them had an elbow or a knee digging into their neighbour, and everyone beamed away merrily at being packed in so tight. In the continuous laughter mouths gaped fixedly, like cracks running from ear to ear. It was baking hot, and as they took their ease and bared their flesh, they all gently cooked, golden brown amid the thick pall of pipe smoke. The only disturbance came when they had to let someone past, for every so often a girl got up, went out to the place by the pump at the far end of the hall, hitched her skirts and then returned. Beneath the paper garlands the dancers were sweating so much they couldn’t see each other, which encouraged the pit-boys to try knocking the putters flying with a casual collision of backsides. But whenever a girl fell over with a man on top of her, the cornet’s furious tooting covered the sound of their fall, and they would be buried under a whirl of feet as though the whole dance-hall had rolled over them like a landslide.
Someone alerted Pierron as they passed that his daughter Lydie was asleep at the door and lying across the pavement. Having had her share of the stolen bottle, she was drunk, and he had to sling her over his shoulder and carry her home, while Jeanlin and Bébert, who could take their drink better, followed him at a distance, finding the whole thing very funny. This was the cue that it was time to go home. Families began to leave the Jolly Fellow, and the Maheus and the Levaques eventually decided to return to the village. At the same moment Bonnemort and old Mouque were also
leaving Montsou, still walking as though in their sleep and stubbornly absorbed in the silence of their memories. And they all went home together, taking one last walk through the fair, past the frying-pans and their congealing fat, past all the bars where the last beers were streaming out to the tables in the middle of the road. The storm was still brewing, and the sound of laughter rang in the air as they left the lights of Montsou behind and vanished into the blackness of the countryside. From the fields of ripe corn rose warm, urgent breath: many a child must have been fathered that night. They straggled limply into the village. Neither the Levaques nor the Maheus had much of an appetite for their supper, and the latter fell asleep as they tried to finish their leftover beef.
Étienne had taken Chaval off for another drink at Rasseneur’s.
‘Count me in!’ Chaval had said when his comrade explained to him about the provident fund. ‘Shake on it. Ah, you’re a good’un all right.’
Étienne’s shining eyes were beginning to show the effects of his drinking, and he cried:
‘Yes, let’s shake on it…I could go without everything, you know, the beer, the women, all of it, if we could just have justice. It’s the only thing I really care about, the thought that one day we’ll get rid of these bourgeois once and for all.’
III
Towards the middle of August Étienne moved in with the Maheus, once Zacharie had married and was able to obtain a vacant house in the village for Philomène and her two children; and at first the young man felt awkward in Catherine’s presence.
They lived in ceaseless and intimate proximity, for he was taking the elder brother’s place in all things and shared a bed with Jeanlin, just beside his big sister’s. In the mornings, and at night, he had to dress and undress next to her, and he could see her too as she removed her clothes or put them on again. When the last underskirt fell to the floor, there she would be in all her pale whiteness, with that snowy transparency of skin characteristic of the fair-haired anaemic; and he never failed to be shocked at seeing her so white (when her hands and face were already stained), as if she had been dipped in milk from her heels right up to her neck, where the hauling-rope had left its mark like an amber necklace. He pretended to look away, but gradually he came to know her: first the feet, visible to his lowered gaze; then a knee, glimpsed as she slid beneath the blanket; and later her firm little breasts as she bent over the wash-basin in the mornings. While she seemed to pay him no heed, she would nevertheless undress as quickly as possible and in no time was lying next to Alzire, having slithered into bed so fast, like a snake, that he had hardly got his shoes off before she was vanishing from view, with her back towards him and only her thick bun now to be seen.