Maheu woke up suddenly. What had he got in his bones, then? Here he was going to sleep again like a good-for-nothing. And he swore so vigorously that the children became still. Zacharie and Jeanlin finished washing with slow weariness. Alzire, with her large, open eyes, continually stared. The two youngsters, Lénore and Henri, in each other’s arms, had not stirred, breathing in the same quiet way in spite of the noise.
“Catherine, give me the candle,” called out Maheu.
She finished buttoning her jacket, and carried the candle into the closet, leaving her brothers to look for their clothes by what light came through the door. Her father jumped out of bed. She did not stop, but went downstairs in her coarse woollen stockings, feeling her way, and lighted another candle in the parlour, to prepare the coffee. All the sabots of the family were beneath the sideboard.
“Will you be still, vermin?” began Maheu, again, exasperated by Estelle’s cries which still went on.
He was short, like old Bonnemort, and resembled him, with his strong head, his flat, livid face, beneath yellow hair cut very short. The child screamed more than ever, frightened by those great knotted arms which were held above her.
“Leave her alone; you know that she won’t be still,” said his wife, stretching herself in the middle of the bed.
She also had just awakened and was complaining how disgusting it was never to be able to finish the night. Could they not go away quietly? Buried in the clothes she only showed her long face with large features of a heavy beauty, already disfigured at thirty-nine by her life of wretchedness and the seven children she had borne. With her eyes on the ceiling she spoke slowly, while her man dressed himself. They both ceased to hear the little one, who was strangling herself with screaming.
“Eh? You know I haven’t a penny and this is only Monday: still six days before the fortnight’s out. This can’t go on. You, all of you, only bring in nine francs. How do you expect me to go on? We are ten in the house.”
“Oh! nine francs!” exclaimed Maheu. “I and Zacharie three: that makes six, Catherine and the father, two: that makes four: four and six, ten, and Jeanlin one, that makes eleven.”
“Yes, eleven, but there are Sundays and the off-days. Never more than nine, you know.”
He did not reply, being occupied in looking on the ground for his leather belt. Then he said, on getting up:
“Mustn’t complain. I am sound all the same. There’s more than one at forty-two who are put to the patching.”
“Maybe, old man, but that does not give us bread. Where am I to get it from, eh? Have you got nothing?”
“I’ve got two coppers.”
“Keep them for a half-pint. Good Lord! where am I to get it from? Six days! it will never end. We owe sixty francs to Maigrat, who turned me out of doors day before yesterday. That won’t prevent me from going to see him again. But if he goes on refusing—”
And Maheude continued in her melancholy voice, without moving her head, only closing her eyes now and then beneath the dim light of the candle. She said the cupboard was empty, the little ones asking for bread and butter, even the coffee was done, and the water caused colic, and the long days passed in deceiving hunger with boiled cabbage leaves. Little by little she had been obliged to raise her voice, for Estelle’s screams drowned her words. These cries became unbearable. Maheu seemed all at once to hear them, and, in a fury, snatched the little one up from the cradle and threw it on the mother’s bed, stammering with rage:
“Here, take her; I’ll do for her! Damn the child! It wants for nothing: it sucks, and it complains louder than all the rest!”
Estelle began, in fact, to suck. Hidden beneath the clothes and soothed by the warmth of the bed, her cries subsided into the greedy little sound of her lips.
“Haven’t the Piolaine people told you to go and see them?” asked the father, after a period of silence.
The mother bit her lip with an air of discouraged doubt.
“Yes, they met me; they were carrying clothes for poor children. Yes, I’ll take Lénore and Henri to them this morning. If they only give me a few pence!”
There was silence again.
Maheu was ready. He remained a moment motionless, then added, in his hollow voice:
“What is it that you want? Let things be, and see about the soup. It’s no good talking, better be at work down below.”
“True enough,” replied Maheude. “Blow out the candle: I don’t need to see the colour of my thoughts.”
He blew out the candle. Zacharie and Jeanlin were already going down; he followed them, and the wooden staircase creaked beneath their heavy feet, clad in wool. Behind them the closet and the room were again dark. The children slept; even Alzire’s eyelids were closed; but the mother now remained with her eyes open in the darkness, while, pulling at her breast, the pendent breast of an exhausted woman, Estelle was purring like a kitten.
Down below, Catherine had at first occupied herself with the fire, which was burning in the iron grate, flanked by two ovens. The Company distributed every month, to each family, eight hectolitres of a hard slatey coal, gathered in the passages. It
