3 Books To Know French Literature. Victor Hugo
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to dine with the Hennebeaus, where they would find Cécile. The estate seemed asleep, with its avenue of deserted limes, its kitchen garden and its orchard bared by the winter. Nothing was stirring in the house, and the closed windows were dulled by the warm steam within. Out of the profound silence an impression of good-natured comfort arose, the patriarchal sensation of good beds and a good table, the wise happiness of the proprietor's existence.
Without stopping, the band cast gloomy looks through the grating and at the length of protecting walls, bristling with broken bottles. The cry arose again:
"Bread! bread! bread!"
The dogs alone replied, by barking ferociously, a pair of Great Danes, with rough coats, who stood with open jaws. And behind the closed blind there were only the servants. Mélanie the cook and Honorine the housemaid, attracted by this cry, pale and perspiring with fear at seeing these savages go by. They fell on their knees, and thought themselves killed on hearing a single stone breaking a pane of a neighbouring window. It was a joke of Jeanlin's; he had manufactured a sling with a piece of cord, and had just sent a little passing greeting to the Grégoires. Already he was again blowing his horn, the band was lost in the distance, and the cry grew fainter:
"Bread! bread! bread!"
They arrived at Gaston-Marie in still greater numbers, more than two thousand five hundred madmen, breaking everything, sweeping away everything, with the force of a torrent which gains strength as it moves. The police had passed here an hour earlier, and had gone off towards Saint-Thomas, led astray by some peasants; in their haste they had not even taken the precaution of leaving a few men behind to guard the pit. In less than a quarter of an hour the fires were overturned, the boilers emptied, the buildings torn down and devastated. But it was the pump which they specially threatened. It was not enough to stop it in the last expiring breath of its steam; they threw themselves on it as on a living person whose life they required.
"The first blow is yours!" repeated Étienne, putting a hammer into Chaval's hand. "Come! you have sworn with the others!"
Chaval drew back trembling, and in the hustling the hammer fell; while other men, without waiting, battered the pump with blows from iron bars, blows from bricks, blows from anything they could lay their hands on. Some even broke sticks over it. The nuts leapt off, the pieces of steel and copper were dislocated like torn limbs. The blow of a shovel, delivered with full force, fractured the metal body; the water escaped and emptied itself, and there was a supreme gurgle like an agonizing death-rattle.
That was the end, and the mob found themselves outside again, madly pushing on behind Étienne, who would not let Chaval go.
"Kill him! the traitor! To the shaft! to the shaft!"
The livid wretch, clinging with imbecile obstinacy to his fixed idea, continued to stammer his need of cleaning himself.
"Wait, if that bothers you, said the Levaque woman. "Here! here's a bucket!"
There was a pond there, an infiltration of the water from the pump. It was white with a thick layer of ice; and they struck it and broke the ice, forcing him to dip his head in this cold water.
"Duck then," repeated Mother Brulé. "By God! if you don't duck we'll shove you in. And now you shall have a drink of it; yes, yes, like a beast, with your jaws in the trough!"
He had to drink on all fours. They all laughed, with cruel laughter. One woman pulled his ears, another woman threw in his face a handful of dung found fresh on the road. His old woollen jacket in tatters no longer held together. He was haggard, stumbling, and with struggling movements of his hips he tried to flee.
Maheu had pushed him, and Maheude was among those who grew furious, both of them satisfying their old spite; even Mouquette, who generally remained such good friends with her old lovers, was wild with this one, treating him as a good-for-nothing, and talking of taking his breeches down to see if he was still a man.
Étienne made her hold her tongue.
"That's enough. There's no need for all to set to it. If you like, you, we will just settle it together."
His fists closed and his eyes were lit up with homicidal fury; his intoxication was turning into the desire to kill.
"Are you ready? One of us must stay here. Give him a knife; I've got mine."
Catherine, exhausted and terrified, gazed at him. She remembered his confidences, his desire to devour a man when he had drunk, poisoned after the third glass, to such an extent had his drunkards of parents put this beastliness into his body. Suddenly she leapt forward, struck him with both her woman's hands, and choking with indignation shouted into his face:
"Coward! coward! coward! Isn't it enough, then, all these abominations? You want to kill him now that he can't stand upright any longer!"
She turned towards her father and her mother; she turned towards the others.
"You are cowards! cowards! Kill me, then, with him! I will tear your eyes out, I will, if you touch him again. Oh! the cowards!"
And she planted herself before her man to defend him, forgetting the blows, forgetting the life of misery, lifted up by the idea that she belonged to him since he had taken her, and that it was a shame for her when they so crushed him.
Étienne had grown pale beneath this girl's blows. At first he had been about to knock her down; then, after having wiped his face with the movement of a man who is recovering from intoxication, he said to Chaval, in the midst of deep silence:
"She is right; that's enough. Off you go."
Immediately Chaval was away, and Catherine galloped behind him. The crowd gazed at them as they disappeared round a corner of the road; but Maheude muttered:
"You were wrong; ought to have kept him. He is sure to be after some treachery."
But the mob began to march on again. Five o'clock was about to strike. The sun, as red as a furnace on the edge of the horizon, seemed to set fire to the whole plain. A pedlar who was passing informed them that the military were descending from the Crévecœur side. Then they turned. An order ran:
"To Montsou! To the manager!—Bread! bread! bread!"
Chapter V
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M. Hennebeau had placed himself in front of his study window to watch the departure of the carriage which was taking away his wife to lunch at Marchiennes. His eyes followed Négrel for a moment, as he trotted beside the carriage door. Then he quietly returned and seated himself at his desk. When neither his wife nor his nephew animated the place with their presence the house seemed empty. On this day the coachman was driving his wife; Rose, the new housemaid, had leave to go out till five o'clock; there only remained Hippolyte, the valet de chambre, trailing about the rooms in slippers, and the cook, who had been occupied since dawn in struggling with her saucepans, entirely absorbed in the dinner which was to be given in the evening. So M. Hennebeau promised himself a day of serious work in this deep calm of the deserted house.
Towards nine o'clock, although he had received orders to send every one away, Hippolyte took the liberty of announcing Dansaert, who was bringing news. The manager then heard, for the first time, of the meeting in the forest the evening before; the details were very precise, and he listened while thinking of the intrigue with Pierronne, so well known that two or three anonymous letters every week denounced the licentiousness of the head captain. Evidently the husband had talked, and no doubt the wife had, too. He even took advantage of the occasion; he let the head captain know that he was aware of everything, contenting himself with recommending prudence for fear of a scandal. Startled by these reproaches in the midst of his report, Dansaert denied, stammered excuses, while his great nose confessed the crime by its sudden redness. He did not insist, however, glad to get off so easily; for, as a rule, the manager displayed the implacable severity of the virtuous man whenever an employee