“A glass,” ordered Maheu of a big fair girl, a neighbour’s daughter who sometimes took charge of the place. “Is Rasseneur in?”
The girl turned the tap, replying that the master would soon return. In a long, slow gulp, the miner emptied half his glass to sweep away the dust which filled his throat. He offered nothing to his companion. One other customer, a damp and besmeared miner, was seated before the table, drinking his beer in silence, with an air of deep meditation. A third entered, was served in response to a gesture, paid and went away without uttering a word.
But a stout man of thirty-eight, with a round shaven face and a good-natured smile, now appeared. It was Rasseneur, a former pikeman whom the Company had dismissed three years ago, after a strike. A very good workman, he could speak well, put himself at the head of every opposition, and had at last become the chief of the discontented. His wife already held a license, like many miners’ wives; and when he was thrown on to the street he became an innkeeper himself; having found the money, he placed his inn in front of the Voreux as a provocation to the Company. Now his house had prospered; it had become a centre, and he was enriched by the animosity he had gradually fostered in the hearts of his old comrades.
“This is a lad I hired this morning,” said Maheu at once. “Have you got one of your two rooms free, and will you give him credit for a fortnight?”
Rasseneur’s broad face suddenly expressed great suspicion. He examined Étienne with a glance, and replied, without giving himself the trouble to express any regret:
“My two rooms are taken. Can’t do it.”
The young man expected this refusal; but it hurt him nevertheless, and he was surprised at the sudden grief he experienced in going. No matter; he would go when he had received his thirty sous. The miner who was drinking at a table had left. Others, one by one, continued to come in to clear their throats, then went on their road with the same slouching gait. It was a simple swilling without joy or passion, the silent satisfaction of a need.
“Then, there’s no news?” Rasseneur asked in a peculiar tone of Maheu, who was finishing his beer in small gulps.
The latter turned his head, and saw that only Étienne was near.
“There’s been more squabbling. Yes, about the timbering.” He told the story. The innkeeper’s face reddened, swelling with emotion, which flamed in his skin and eyes. At last he broke out:
“Well, well! if they decide to lower the price they are done for.”
Étienne constrained him. However he went on, throwing sidelong glances in his direction. And there were reticences, and implications; he was talking of the manager, M. Hennebeau, of his wife, of his nephew, the little Négrel, without naming them, repeating that this could not go on, that things were bound to smash up one of these fine days. The misery was too great; and he spoke of the workshops that were closing, the workers who were going away. During the last month he had given more than six pounds of bread a day. He had heard the day before, that M. Deneulin, the owner of a neighbouring pit, could scarcely keep going. He had also received a letter from Lille full of disturbing details.
“You know,” he whispered, “it comes from that person you saw here one evening.”
But he was interrupted. His wife entered in her turn, a tall woman, lean and keen, with a long nose and violet cheeks. She was a much more radical politician than her husband.
“Pluchart’s letter,” she said. “Ah! if that fellow was master things would soon go better.”
Étienne had been listening for a moment; he understood and became excited over these ideas of misery and revenge. This name, suddenly uttered, caused him to start. He said aloud, as if in spite of himself:
“I know him—Pluchart.”
They looked at him. He had to add:
“Yes, I am an engine-man: he was my foreman at Lille. A capable man. I have often talked with him.”
Rasseneur examined him afresh; and there was a rapid change on his face, a sudden sympathy. At last he said to his wife:
“It’s Maheu who brings me this gentleman, one of his putters, to see if there is a room for him upstairs, and if we can give him credit for a fortnight.”
Then the matter was settled in four words. There was a room; the lodger had left that morning. And the innkeeper, who was very excited, talked more freely, repeating that he only asked possibilities from the masters, without demanding, like so many others, things that were too hard to get. His wife shrugged her shoulders and demanded justice, absolutely.
“Good evening,” interrupted Maheu. “All that won’t prevent men from going down, and as long as they go there will be people working themselves to death. Look how fresh you are, these three years that you’ve been out of it.”
“Yes, I’m very much better,” declared Rasseneur, complacently.
Étienne went as far as the door, thanking the miner, who was leaving; but the latter nodded his head without adding a word, and the young man watched him painfully climb up the road to the settlement. Madame Rasseneur, occupied with serving customers, asked him to wait a minute, when she would show him his room, where he could clean himself. Should he remain? He again felt hesitation, a discomfort which made him regret the freedom of the open road, the hunger beneath the sun, endured with the joy of being one’s own master. It seemed to him that he had lived years from his
