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GERMINAL he went on speaking in spite of the tumult, taking repeated gulps of beer, and shouting violently that the man was not born who would prevent him from doing his duty.

Pluchart had risen. As he had no bell he struck his fist on the table, repeating in his hoarse voice:

"Citizens, citizens!"

At last he obtained a little quiet and the meeting, when consulted, brought Rasseneur's speech to an end. The delegates who had represented the pits in the interview with the manager led the others, all enraged by starvation and agitated by new ideas. The voting was decided in advance.

"You don't care a damn, you don't! you can eat!" yelled Levaque, thrusting out his fist at Rasseneur.

Étienne leaned over behind the chairman's back to appease Maheu, who was very red, and carried out of himself by this hypocritical discourse.

"Citizens!" said Pluchart, "allow me to speak!"

There was deep silence. He spoke. His voice sounded painful and hoarse; but he was used to it on his journeys, and took his laryngitis about him with his programme. Gradually his voice expanded and he produced pathetic effects with it. With open arms and accompanying his periods with a swaying of his shoulders, he had an eloquence which recalled the pulpit, a religious method of sinking the ends of his sentences with a monotonous roll which at last carried conviction.

His discourse centred on the greatness and the advantages of the International; it was that with which he always started in every new locality. He explained its aim, the emancipation of the workers; he showed its imposing structure—below the Commune, higher the Province, still higher the Nation, and at the summit Humanity. His arms moved slowly at each stage, preparing the immense cathedral of the future world. Then there was the interior administration: he read the statutes, spoke of the congresses, pointed out the growing importance of the work, the enlargement of the programme, which, starting from the discussion of wages, was now working towards a social liquidation, to have done with the wage system. No more nationalities. The workers of the whole world would be re-united by a common need for justice, sweeping away the middle-class corruption, founding, at last, a free society, in [221]