Page:Germinal - Zola - 1925.djvu/254

GERMINAL the earth. It was a corner of abandoned wildness, the grassy and fibrous entry of a gulf, embarrassed with old wood, planted with hawthorns and sloe trees, which were peopled in the spring by warblers in their nests. Wishing to avoid the great expense of keeping it up, the Company, for the last ten years, had proposed to fill up this dead pit; but they were waiting to install an air-shaft in the Voreux, for the ventilation furnace of the two pits, which communicated, was placed at the foot of Réquillart, of which the former winding shaft served as a conduit. They were content to consolidate the tubbing by beams placed across, preventing extraction, and they had neglected the upper galleries to watch only over the lower gallery, in which blazed the furnace, the enormous coal fire, with so powerful a draught that the rush of air produced the wind of a tempest from one end to the other of the neighbouring mine. As a precaution, in order that they could still go up and down, the order had been given to furnish the conduit with ladders; only, as no one took charge of them, the ladders were rotting with dampness, and in some places had already given way. Above, a large briar stopped the entry of the passage, and, as the first ladder had lost some rungs, it was necessary, in order to reach it, to hang on to the root of the mountain ash, and then to take one's chance and fall into the blackness.

Étienne was waiting patiently, hidden behind a bush, when he heard a long rustling. He thought at first that it was the timid flight of a snake. But the sudden gleam of a match astonished him, and he was stupefied on recognising Jeanlin, who was lighting a candle, and now burying himself in the earth. He was seized with curiosity, and approached the hole; the child had disappeared, and a gaint gleam came from the second ladder. Étienne hesitated a moment, and then let himself go, holding on to the roots. He thought for a moment that he was about to leap down the whole five hundred and eighty mètres of the mine, but at last he felt a rung, and descended gently. Jeanlin had evidently heard nothing.

Étienne constantly saw the light sinking beneath him, while the little one's shadow, colossal and disturbing, danced with the deformed gait of his distorted limbs. He kicked about his legs with the skill of a monkey, catching on with hands, feet, or chin where the rungs were wanting. Ladders, seven mètres [242]