Page:Germinal - Zola - 1925.djvu/248

GERMINAL somewhere. The minutes went by, and at last they no longer reckoned on this.

When Étienne re-appeared, he held a cloth containing a dozen potatoes, cooked but cold.

"That's all that I've found," he said.

With Mouquette also bread was wanting; it was her dinner which she had forced him to take in this cloth, kissing him with all her heart.

"Thanks," he said to Maheude, who offered him his share; "I've eaten over there."

It was not true, and he gloomily watched the children throw themselves on the food. The father and mother also restrained themselves, in order to leave more; but the old man greedily swallowed everything. They had to take a potato away from him for Alzire.

Then Étienne said that he had heard news. The Company, irritated by the obstinacy of the strikers, talked of giving back their certificates to the compromised miners. Certainly, the Company was for war. And a more serious rumour circulated; they boasted on having persuaded a large number of men to go down again. On the next day the Victoire and Feutry-Cantel would be complete; even at Madeleine and Mirou there would be a third of the men. The Maheus were exasperated.

"By God!" shouted the father, "if there are traitors, we must settle their account."

And standing up, yielding to the fury of his suffering:

"To-morrow evening, to the forest! Since they won't let us come to an understanding at the Bon-Joyeux, we can be at home in the forest!"

This cry had aroused old Bonnemort, who had grown drowsy after his gluttony. It was the old rallying cry, the rendezvous where the miners of old days used to plot their resistance to the King's soldiers.

"Yes, yes, to Vandame! I'm with you if you go there!"

Maheude made an energetic gesture.

"We will all go. That will finish these injustices and treacheries."

Étienne decided that the rendezvous should be announced to all the settlements for the following evening. But the fire [236]