Germinal | Page 5

years longer,
to my sixtieth, so as to get the pension of one hundred and eighty francs.
If I wished them good evening to-day they would give me a hundred
and fifty at once. They are cunning, the beggars. Besides, I am sound,
except my legs. You see, it's the water which has got under my skin
through being always wet in the cuttings. There are days when I can't
move a paw without screaming." A spasm of coughing interrupted him
again. "And that makes you cough so," said Étienne. But he vigorously
shook his head. Then, when he could speak: "No, no! I caught cold a
month ago. I never used to cough; now I can't get rid of it. And the
queer thing is that I spit, that I spit----" The rasping was again heard in
his throat, followed by the black expectoration. "Is it blood?" asked
Étienne, at last venturing to question him. Bonnemort slowly wiped his
mouth with the back of his hand. "It's coal. I've got enough in my
carcass to warm me till I die. And it's five years since I put a foot down
below. I stored it up, it seems, without knowing it; it keeps you alive!"
There was silence. The distant hammer struck regular blows in the pit,
and the wind passed by with its moan, like a cry of hunger and
weariness coming out of the depths of the night. Before the flames
which grew low, the old man went on in lower tones, chewing over
again his old recollections. Ah, certainly: it was not yesterday that he
and his began hammering at the seam. The family had worked for the
Montsou Mining Company since it started, and that was long ago, a
hundred and six years already. His grandfather, Guillaume Maheu, an
urchin of fifteen then, had found the rich coal at Réquillart, the
Company's first pit, an old abandoned pit to-day down below near the
Fauvelle sugar works. All the country knew it, and as a proof, the
discovered seam was called the Guillaume, after his grandfather. He
had not known him--a big fellow, it was said, very strong, who died of
old age at sixty. Then his father, Nicolas Maheu, called Le Rouge,
when hardly forty years of age had died in the pit, which was being
excavated at that time: a land-slip, a complete slide, and the rock drank

his blood and swallowed his bones. Two of his uncles and his three
brothers, later on, also left their skins there. He, Vincent Maheu, who
had come out almost whole, except that his legs were rather shaky, was
looked upon as a knowing fellow. But what could one do? One must
work; one worked here from father to son, as one would work at
anything else. His son, Toussaint Maheu, was being worked to death
there now, and his grandsons, and all his people, who lived opposite in
the settlement. A hundred and six years of mining, the youngsters after
the old ones, for the same master. Eh? there were many bourgeois that
could not give their history so well! "Anyhow, when one has got
enough to eat!" murmered Étienne again. "That is what I say. As long
as one has bread to eat one can live." Bonnemort was silent; and his
eyes turned towards the settlement, where lights were appearing one by
one. Four o'clock struck in the Montsou tower and the cold became
keener. "And is your company rich?" asked Étienne. The old man
shrugged his shoulders, and then let them fall as if overwhelmed
beneath an avalanche of gold. "Ah, yes! Ah, yes! Not perhaps so rich as
its neighbour, the Anzin Company. But millions and millions all the
same. They can't count it. Nineteen pits, thirteen at work, the Voreux,
the Victoire, Crévecoeur, Mirou, St. Thomas, Madeleine, Feutry-Cantel,
and still more, and six for pumping or ventilation, like Réquillart. Ten
thousand workers, concessions reaching over sixty-seven communes,
an output of five thousand tons a day, a railway joining all the pits, and
workshops, and factories! Ah, yes! ah, yes! there's money there!" The
rolling of trains on the stages made the big yellow horse prick his ears.
The cage was evidently repaired below, and the landers had got to work
again. While he was harnessing his beast to re-descend, the carman
added gently, addressing himself to the horse: "Won't do to chatter,
lazy good-for-nothing! If Monsieur Hennebeau knew how you waste
your time!" Étienne looked thoughtfully into the night. He asked:
"Then Monsieur Hennebeau owns the mine?" "No," explained the old
man, "Monsieur Hennebeau is only the general manager; he is paid just
the same as us." With a gesture the young man pointed into the
darkness. "Who does it all belong to, then?"