Page:Germinal - Zola - 1925.djvu/114

GERMINAL without passing over it, making him shine like her three saucepans on Saturdays after a big clean. Only she began to sweat with this tremendous exertion of her arms, so exhausted and out of breath that her words were choked.

"At last he called me an old nuisance. We shall have bread until Saturday, and the best is that he has lent me five francs. I have got butter, coffee, and chicory from him. I was even going to get the meat and potatoes there, only I saw that he was grumbling. Seven sous for the chitterlings, eighteen for the potatoes, and I've got three francs seventy-five left for a ragoût and a meat soup. Eh, I don't think I've wasted my morning?"

Now she began to wipe him, plugging with a towel the parts that would not dry. Feeling happy and without of the future debt, he burst out laughing and took her in his arms.

"Leave me alone, stupid! You are damp, and wetting me. Only I'm afraid Maigrat has an idea."

She was about to speak of Catherine, she stopped. What was the good of disturbing him? It would only lead to endless discussion.

"What idea?" he asked.

"Why, ideas of robbing us. Catherine will have to pluck the bill carefully."

He took her in his arms again, and this time did not let her go. The bath always finished in this way: she enlivened him by the hard rubbing, and then by the towels which tickled the hairs of his arms and chest. Besides, among all his mates of the settlement it was the hour for stupidities, when more children were planted than were wanted. At night all the family were about. He pushed her towards the table, jesting like a worthy man who was enjoying the only good moment of the day, calling that taking his dessert, and a dessert which cost nothing. She, with her loose figure and breast, struggled a little for fun.

"You are stupid! My Lord! you are stupid! And there's Estelle looking at us. Wait till I turn her head."

"Oh, bosh! at three months; as if she understood!"

When he got up Maheu simply put on a dry pair of breeches. He liked, when he was clean and had taken his pleasure with his wife, to remain naked for a while. On his white skin, the whiteness of an anemic girl, the scratches and gashes of the coal left tattoo-marks, grafts as the miners called them; and he was [102]