Germinal | Page 4

at each indication. "I have been there." "With us here things are
going on at present," added the carman; "but the pits have lowered their
output. And see opposite, at the Victoire, there are also only two
batteries of coke furnaces alight." He expectorated, and set out behind
his sleepy horse, after harnessing it to the empty trams. Now Étienne
could oversee the entire country. The darkness remained profound, but
the old man's hand had, as it were, filled it with great miseries, which
the young man unconsciously felt at this moment around him
everywhere in the limitless tract. Was it not a cry of famine that the
March wind rolled up across this naked plain? The squalls were furious:
they seemed to bring the death of labour, a famine which would kill
many men. And with wandering eyes he tried to pierce shades,
tormented at once by the desire and by the fear of seeing. Everything
was hidden in the unknown depths of the gloomy night. He only
perceived, very far off, the blast furnaces and the coke ovens. The latter,
with their hundreds of chimneys, planted obliquely, made lines of red
flame; while the two towers, more to the left, burnt blue against the
blank sky, like giant torches. It resembled a melancholy conflagration.
No other stars rose on the threatening horizon except these nocturnal
fires in a land of coal and iron. "You belong to Belgium, perhaps?"
began again the carman, who had returned behind Étienne. This time he

only brought three trams. Those at least could be tipped over; an
accident which had happened to the cage, a broken screw nut, would
stop work for a good quarter of an hour. At the bottom of the pit bank
there was silence; the landers no longer shook the stages with a
prolonged vibration. One only heard from the pit the distant sound of a
hammer tapping on an iron plate. "No, I come from the South," replied
the young man. The workman, after having emptied the trains, had
seated himself on the earth, glad of the accident, maintaining his savage
silence; he had simply lifted his large, dim eyes to the carman, as if
annoyed by so many words. The latter, indeed, did not usually talk at
such length. The unknown man's face must have pleased him that he
should have been taken by one of these itchings for confidence which
sometimes make old people talk aloud even when alone. "I belong to
Montsou," he said, "I am called Bonnemort." "Is it a nickname?" asked
Étienne, astonished. The old man made a grimace of satisfaction and
pointed to the Voreux: "Yes, yes; they have pulled me three times out
of that, torn to pieces, once with all my hair scorched, once with my
gizzard full of earth, and another time with my belly swollen with
water, like a frog. And then, when they saw that nothing would kill me,
they called me Bonnemort for a joke." His cheerfulness increased, like
the creaking of an ill-greased pulley, and ended by degenerating into a
terrible spasm of coughing. The fire basket now clearly lit up his large
head, with its scanty white hair and flat, livid face, spotted with bluish
patches. He was short, with an enormous neck, projecting calves and
heels, and long arms, with massive hands falling to his knees. For the
rest, like his horse, which stood immovable, without suffering from the
wind, he seemed to be made of stone; he had no appearance of feeling
either the cold or the gusts that whistled at his ears. When he coughed
his throat was torn by a deep rasping; he spat at the foot of the basket
and the earth was blackened. Étienne looked at him and at the ground
which he had thus stained. "Have you been working long at the mine?"
Bonnemort flung open both arms. "Long? I should think so. I was not
eight when I went down into the Voreux and I am now fifty-eight.
Reckon that up! I have been everything down there; at first trammer,
then putter, when I had the strength to wheel, then pikeman for
eighteen years. Then, because of my cursed legs, they put me into the
earth cutting, to bank up and patch, until they had to bring me up,

because the doctor said I should stay there for good. Then, after five
years of that, they made me carman. Eh? that's fine--fifty years at the
mine, forty-five down below." While he was speaking, fragments of
burning coal, which now and then fell from the basket, lit up his pale
face with their red reflection. "They tell me to rest," he went on, "but
I'm not going to; I'm not such a fool. I can get on for two