Page:Germinal - Zola - 1925.djvu/323

GERMINAL also reached him concerning the panic of the police and the troops, wandering along the roads, and always with their backs to the pit attacked. They might kill one another, and destroy everything! He put his head between his hands again, with his fingers over his eyes, and buried himself in the deep silence of the empty house, where he only heard now and then the noise of the cook's saucepans at her large fire, preparing the evening's dinner.

The twilight was already darkening the room; it was five o'clock when a disturbance made M. Hennebeau jump, as he sat dazed and inert with his elbows in his papers. He thought that it was the two wretches coming back. But the tumult increased, and a terrible cry broke out just as he was going to the window.

"Bread! bread! bread!"

It was the strikers, now invading Montsou, while the police, expecting an attack on the Voreux, were galloping off in the opposite direction to occupy that pit.

Just then, two kilomètres away from the first houses, a little beyond the crossways where the main road cut the Vandame road, Madame Hennebeau and the young ladies had witnessed the passing of the mob. The day had been spent pleasantly at Marchiennes; it had been a delightful lunch with the manager of the Forges, then an interesting visit to the workshops and to the neighbouring glassworks to occupy the afternoon; and as they were now going home in the limpid decline of the beautiful winter day, Cécile had had the whim to drink a glass of milk, as she noticed a little farm near the edge of the road. They all then got down from the carriage, and Négrel gallantly leapt off his horse; while the peasant-woman, alarmed by all these fine people, rushed about, and spoke of laying a cloth before serving the milk. But Lucie and Jeanne wanted to see the cow milked, and they went into the cattle-shed with their cups, making a little rural party, and laughing greatly at the litter, in which they buried themselves.

Madame Hennebeau, with her complacent maternal air, was drinking with the edge of her lips, when a strange snorting noise from without disturbed her.

"What is that, then?"

The cattle-shed, built at the edge of the road, had a large [311]