‘Christ Almighty! Are we nearly there yet?’ he groaned crossly, gasping for breath, every bone in his body aching.
They were there. After a kilometre the passage widened, and they reached a part of the road that was still remarkably well preserved. It was the terminus of the old haulage road, which had been hollowed out against the grain of the rock and looked like a natural grotto. Étienne had to stop, for he could see Jeanlin up ahead setting his candle down between two rocks and generally making himself comfortable with the calm, relieved air of a man who is glad to be home. The place had been thoroughly fitted out and turned into a cosy dwelling. In one corner a pile of hay provided a soft bed; some old timbers had been stacked to make a table, and on it there was everything, from bread and apples to half-empty bottles of gin. It was a real robber’s den, full of plunder amassed over many weeks, and useless plunder too, like the soap and polish that had been stolen for the sheer hell of it. And all alone in the middle of his spoils sat little, selfish Jeanlin, gloating like some pirate king.
‘You don’t give a bloody damn, do you?’ Étienne shouted, having caught his breath. ‘You just come down here and stuff your face while the rest of us up there are busy starving to death, is that it?’
Jeanlin, dumbstruck, was trembling. But when he recognized Étienne, he quickly recovered his equanimity.
‘Would you like to join me?’ he said eventually. ‘A nice piece of grilled cod, perhaps?…Look.’
He was still clutching his dried cod and had begun to scrape the fly dirt off it with a shiny new knife, one of those small, bone-handled sheath-knives that have mottoes on them. This one simply said: ‘Love’.
‘That’s a good-looking knife you’ve got there,’ Étienne commented.
‘It’s a present from Lydie,’ replied Jeanlin, omitting to mention that Lydie had stolen it on his orders from a street-seller in Montsou, outside the Severed Head.
Then, as he carried on scraping, he added proudly:
‘It’s nice, my place, isn’t it?…A bit warmer than it is up there, and it smells a damn sight better, too!’
Étienne had sat down, curious to make the boy talk. His anger had gone, and he was intrigued by this little scoundrel who could show such courage and industry in the pursuit of his vicious ways. And indeed it did feel nice and cosy down here in this hole: it was not too hot, and the temperature remained constant whatever the season, like a warm bath, while the harsh December weather chapped the skin of the poor wretches up above. As time passed, the disused roads lost their noxious gases; the firedamp had gone, and the only smell left was of musty old timbers, a subtle aroma of ether with a sharp hint of clove. Moreover, the wood itself took on a fascinating appearance, like pale-yellow marble fringed with whitish lace and draped in fluffy growths like braids of silk and pearls. Others were covered in fungus. And white moths flew about, and snow-white flies and spiders, a whole population of colourless insects that had never known the sun.
‘Aren’t you ever scared?’ asked Étienne.
Jeanlin looked at him in astonishment.
‘Scared of what? There’s only me here.’
By now the cod had finally been scraped clean. Jeanlin lit a small fire, spread the embers, and began to grill it. Then he cut a loaf into two. It all made for an extremely salty feast, but delicious all the same for hardened stomachs.
Étienne had accepted his portion.
‘Now I see why you’ve been getting fat while the rest of us have been getting thin. But it’s not right, you know, pigging out on your own like this…Don’t you ever think about other people?’
‘Why on earth! It’s not my fault if they’re stupid!’
‘Mind you, you’re right to hide. If your father found out you were stealing, he’d soon sort you out.’
‘And I suppose the bourgeois don’t steal from us! You’re the one who’s always saying they do. When I pinched this bread from Maigrat’s, it was only what he owed us anyway.’
Nonplussed, Étienne fell silent and continued to eat. He looked at Jeanlin and his thin snout-like face, his green eyes and big ears, a degenerate throwback possessed of intuitive intelligence and native cunning who was gradually reverting to his former animal state. The mine had created him and now it had destroyed him by breaking his legs.
‘What about Lydie?’ Étienne began again. ‘Do you bring her down here sometimes?’
Jeanlin laughed scornfully.
‘Her? Not on your life!…Women just talk all the time!’
And he went on laughing, full of enormous contempt for both Lydie and Bébert. Did you ever see such fools! It tickled him hugely to think how easily they swallowed all his nonsense and went home empty-handed while he was down here eating cod in the warm. Then he declared with all the seriousness of a little philosopher:
‘You’re much better off on your own. That way you never fall out with anyone!’
Étienne had finished his bread. He downed a mouthful of gin. For a moment he wondered ungratefully if he was going to repay Jeanlin’s hospitality by hauling him up to the daylight by his ear and telling him never to steal again or else his father would hear about it. But as he surveyed this underground hideaway, he began to have an idea: who knows if one day he might not need it for himself or his comrades, if things started going badly wrong up there above ground? He made the boy swear not to stay out all night again, as he had been doing recently whenever he dropped off to sleep on his hay. Then Étienne took a stump of candle and left first, leaving Jeanlin to tidy his home in peace.
Despite the severe cold, La Mouquette had been waiting anxiously for him, seated on an old beam. When she caught sight of him, she threw her arms round his neck; and it was as though he had plunged a knife into her heart when he told her that he did not want to see her any more. My God! Why not? Surely she loved him enough? Afraid that he might succumb to his desire to go inside with her, he walked her towards the road and explained as gently as he could that she was compromising him in the eyes of his comrades, that she was endangering the political cause. She was amazed: what on earth had it got to do with politics? Eventually she decided that he must be ashamed of her – not that she was offended, it was perfectly natural – and so she offered to let him slap her in public so as to give the impression that they had broken up. But he would still see her from time to time, just for a little while. She pleaded madly with him, promising to keep out of sight and that she wouldn’t keep him more than five minutes. Étienne was very torn, but continued to refuse. He had to. Then, by way of goodbye, he made to kiss her. Imperceptibly they had reached the first houses in Montsou, and they were standing there with their arms round each other under a broad full moon when a female figure passed them and gave a sudden start as if she had tripped on a stone.
‘Who is it?’ Étienne asked anxiously.
‘It’s Catherine,’ La Mouquette replied. ‘She’s on her way back from Jean-Bart.’
The female figure was now disappearing into the distance, head bowed and dragging her feet as though she were very tired. Étienne watched her go, wretched at the thought of having been seen by her, and his heart heavy with groundless remorse. She had someone of her own, didn’t she? Had she not made him suffer just like this when she had given herself to that man here on this very same Réquillart road? But it made him miserable all the same to think that he had now done the same to her in return.
‘Shall I tell you something?’ La Mouquette murmured tearfully as she left him. ‘The reason you don’t want me is because you’ve got your eye on somebody else.’
Next day the weather was glorious, with a bright frosty sky, one of those fine winter days when the hard earth rings like iron underfoot. By one o’clock Jeanlin had already vanished from the house; but he had to wait for Bébert behind the church, and they very nearly left without Lydie, who had again been locked in the cellar by her mother. She had just been let out and handed a basket with instructions to fill it with dandelion leaves before she came home or else s
he’d be locked up for the whole night with the rats for company. Terrified, therefore, she wanted to go and pick the salad at once; but Jeanlin talked her out of it. They would see about that later. For a long time now Rasseneur’s large rabbit Poland had been preying on his mind, and just as he was passing the Advantage, the rabbit happened to come out on to the road. In an instant he grabbed it by the ears and stuffed it into Lydie’s basket; and off the three of them dashed. What fun they were going to have making it run like a dog all the way to the forest.
But they stopped to watch Zacharie and Mouquet who, after a beer with two comrades, were just starting their big game of crosse. They were playing for a brand-new cap and a red silk neckerchief, which had been deposited at Rasseneur’s. The four players, playing in pairs, were bidding for the first leg, from Le Voreux to Paillot Farm, a distance of nearly three kilometres; and Zacharie won with a bid of seven strokes against Mouquet’s eight. The cholette, a small boxwood egg, had been placed on the cobbled road sharp end up. Each player had his crosse, a mallet with a slanting iron head and a long handle tightly bound with string. They began at two o’clock precisely. In his first go, a series of three successive strokes, Zacharie hit the cholette a masterly four hundred metres across fields of beet, it being forbidden to play the game in the villages or along the roads on account of the fatal accidents that had occurred. Mouquet, a strong player also, was able to hit the cholette so hard that with a single stroke he drove it a hundred and fifty metres back in the opposite direction. And so the game continued, with one side driving forward and the other back, all at great speed, which left their feet severely bruised by the frozen ridges between the ploughed furrows.
At first Jeanlin, Bébert and Lydie had run along behind the players, excited by the spectacle of these mighty drives. Then they remembered that Poland was in the basket they were jolting about, and so, abandoning the game in the middle of the countryside, they released the rabbit to see how fast she could run. And off she went, with the three of them in hot pursuit; and they chased her hard for an hour, twisting and turning, yelling their heads off to scare her in one direction or another, throwing their arms wide to catch her only to end up clutching at thin air. If she hadn’t been in the early stages of pregnancy, they would never have caught her.
As they were catching their breath, the sound of cursing made them look round. They had ended up back in the middle of the game of crosse, and Zacharie had just nearly split his brother’s skull open. The players were on their fourth leg: from Paillot Farm they had headed towards Quatre-Chemins, from Quatre-Chemins towards Montoire, and now they were trying to get from Montoire to Pré-des-Vaches in six strokes. That meant they had covered two and a half leagues in one hour, not to mention stopping for a few beers at Vincent’s bar and then at the Three Wise Men. Mouquet had won the bidding this time. He had two strokes left and was certain of victory, when Zacharie, gleefully exploiting the rules, drove back so accurately that the cholette rolled into a deep ditch. Mouquet’s playing partner could not get it out, and all was lost. The four of them were shouting their heads off and getting more and more worked up, for the scores were level. They would have to start a new leg. From Pré-des-Vaches it was only two kilometres to the tip of Les Herbes-Rousses, a matter of five strokes. And there they could have a drink at Lerenard’s.
But Jeanlin had other ideas. He let the players go on ahead and then took a piece of string from his pocket and tied it to Poland’s left hind paw. And what fun that was, with the rabbit running along in front of the three young rascals, hoisting its thigh and limping in such a pathetic fashion that they had never laughed so much in their lives. Then they tied the string round her neck so that she could run properly; and when she became tired, they dragged her along on her stomach or her back as if she were a toy on wheels. This lasted more than an hour, and the rabbit was almost gasping her last when they shoved her quickly back in the basket having heard the players near Cruchot wood. Once again they had strayed into the path of their game.
By this stage Zacharie, Mouquet and the other two men were covering enormous distances, pausing only to have a beer in every bar they fixed on as their goal. From Les Herbes-Rousses they had made for Buchy, then La Croix-de-Pierre, then Chamblay. The earth rang out beneath their feet as they raced along in relentless pursuit of the cholette, which kept bouncing off the ice. The weather was perfect: there was no mud to get stuck in, and the only risk was a broken leg. In the dry air the cholette exploded off their mallets like gunfire. Their muscular hands gripped the twine-bound handles, and with their whole bodies they launched themselves into the drive as though an ox were to be slain; and so they continued, for hour upon hour, from one end of the plain to the other, over ditches and hedges, over road embankments and low boundary walls. You needed stout bellows in your chest and iron hinges in your knees. For the hewers it was a wonderful way of stretching their legs after all the time spent underground. There were some fanatics of twenty-five who could cover ten leagues in a game. But by the age of forty you stopped; you were just too heavy.
Five o’clock struck, and dusk was already falling. Just one more leg, as far as the forest of Vandame, a decider to see who would get the cap and scarf; and Zacharie, with his satirical indifference to politics, thought it would be a great joke if they suddenly just dropped in on their comrades like this. As for Jeanlin, though he might have given the appearance of simply wanting to roam about the countryside, the forest had been his one goal since leaving the village. When Lydie, full of anxious remorse, started talking about returning to Le Voreux to gather dandelion leaves, Jeanlin was indignant and started threatening her. Were they to miss the meeting? He personally intended to hear what the grown-ups had to say. He chivvied Bébert to keep going and, as a way of entertaining the two of them over the short distance to the trees, he suggested letting Poland go and throwing stones at her as she tried to escape. His real intention was to kill her, for he now longed to take her down to his den at Réquillart and eat her. The rabbit ran off again, nose twitching, ears back; one stone grazed her back, another cut her tail; and despite the gathering darkness she would have died there and then if the youngsters had not spotted Étienne and Maheu standing in the middle of a clearing. They pounced on her frantically and put her back in the basket. Almost at the same moment Zacharie, Mouquet and the two other men, now on their final stroke, drove the cholette and saw it roll to within a few metres of the clearing. They had arrived bang in the middle of the meeting.
Since dusk, people throughout the region had been slowly making their way towards the purple thickets of the forest, silent shadows streaming across the empty plain along every highway and byway, some walking alone, others in groups. Every village was emptying, and even the women and children were leaving, as though setting off for a stroll beneath the clear open sky. By now the roads were sunk in darkness and the advancing throng could no longer be seen, but as it stole towards its common destination its presence could be felt, a myriad of steps with one single purpose. Along the hedgerows, between the bushes, all that could be heard was a quiet shuffling and a faint murmuring of voices in the night.
M. Hennebeau was riding home just then, and he listened to these far-away sounds. He had passed many couples this fine winter’s evening, a whole procession of them out for a stroll. Still more lovers off to take their pleasure behind some wall or other, mouth against mouth! Was not this what he usually encountered, girls flat on their backs in some ditch and good-for-nothing lads busy enjoying the only pleasure that didn’t cost money! And to think that these fools complained about life, when they could have love, the one and only happiness, and as much as they jolly well pleased! He would gladly starve like them if he could start life over again with a woman who would give herself to him on the bare ground, unreservedly, body and soul. In his own unhappiness he was not to be consoled, and he envied these poor wretched people. Head bowed, he rode slowly home, deep in despair at all these noises he could hear far away in the countryside a
nd which for him could only be the sounds of love.
VII
The clearing was at Le Plan-des-Dames, where a vast open space had been created by some recent tree-felling. It sloped gently and was ringed by tall forest, magnificent beeches whose straight, regular trunks provided a colonnade of white pillars stained green with lichen. Some still lay like fallen giants among the grass, while over to the left a pile of sawn logs stood in a tidy cube. The cold had sharpened with the dusk, and the frozen moss crackled underfoot. At ground level it was pitch black, but the topmost branches of the trees were etched against the pale sky, where a full moon was rising on the horizon and beginning to snuff out the stars.
Almost three thousand miners had come to the meeting, a swarming mass of men, women and children that gradually filled the clearing and overflowed under the trees. As the latecomers continued to arrive, a sea of faces stretched away in the darkness into the further reaches of the forest. And amid the icy stillness a deep murmur of voices could be heard, like a stormy moan of wind.