Page:Germinal - Zola - 1925.djvu/302

GERMINAL noise seemed to fill the whole pit; all raised their heads, looking and listening, seized by emotion. In the first rank Maheu felt a fierce joy possess him, as if the teeth of the file would deliver them from misfortune by eating into the cable of one of these dens of wretchedness, into which they would never descend again.

But Mother Brûlé had disappeared by the shed stairs still shouting:

"The fires must be put out! To the boilers! to the boilers!"

Some women followed her. Maheude hastened to prevent them from smashing everything, just as her husband had tried to reason with the men. She was the calmest of them; one could demand one's rights without making a mess in people's places. When she entered the boiler building the women were already chasing away the two stokers, and the Brûlé, armed with a large shovel, and crouching down before one of the stoves, was violently emptying it, throwing the red-hot coke on to the brick floor, where it continued to burn with black smoke. There were ten stoves for the five boilers. Soon the women warmed to the work, the Levaque manipulating her shovel with both hands, Mouquette raising her clothes up to her thighs so as not to catch fire, all looking red in the reflection of the flames, sweating and dishevelled in this witch's kitchen. The piles of coal increased, and the burning heat cracked the ceiling of the vast hall.

"Enough, now!" cried Maheude; "the store-room is afire."

"So much the better," replied Mother Brûlé. That will do the work. Ah, by God! haven't I said that I would pay them out for the death of my man!"

At this moment Jeanlin's shrill voice was heard.

"Look out! I'll put it out, I will! I'll let it all off!"

He had come in among the first, and had kicked his legs about among the crowd, delighted at the fray and, seeking out what mischief he could do; the idea had occurred to him to turn on the discharge taps to let off steam.

The jets came out with the violence of volleys; the five boilers were emptied with the sound of a tempest, whistling in such a roar of thunder that one's ears seemed to bleed. Everything had disappeared in the midst of the vapour, the hot coal grew pale, and the women were nothing more than shadows with broken gestures. The child alone appeared mounted on the gallery, [290]