Page:Germinal - Zola - 1925.djvu/336

GERMINAL had gone perfectly; Madame Hennebeau and the young ladies were already knocking when some women, who had been warned, rushed into the lane. Then everything was spoilt. The door was not opened, and Négrel in vain sought to burst it open with his shoulder. The rush of women increased, and fearing they would be carried away, he adopted the desperate method of pushing his aunt and the young girls before him, in order to reach the front steps, by passing through the besiegers. But this manœuvre led to a hustling. They were not left free, a shouting band followed them, while the crowd floated up to right and to left, without understanding, simply astonished at these dressed-up ladies lost in the midst of the battle. At this moment the confusion was so great that it led to one of those curious mistakes which can never be explained. Lucie and Jeanne reached the steps, and slipped in through the door, which the housemaid opened; Madame Hennebeau had succeeded in following them, and behind them Négrel at last came in, and then bolted the door, feeling sure that he had seen Cécile go in first. She was no longer there, having disappeared on the way, so carried away by fear, that she had turned her back to the house, and had herself moved into the thick of danger.

At once the cry arose:

"Hurrah for the people! Death to the bourgeois! To death with them!"

A few of those in the distance, beneath the veil which hid her face, mistook her for Madame Hennebeau; others said she was a friend of the manager's wife, the young wife of a neighboring manufacturer who was execrated by his men. And besides it mattered little, it was her silk dress, her fur mantle, even the white feather in her hat, which exasperated them. She smelled of perfume, she wore a watch, she had the delicate skin of a lazy woman who had never touched coal.

"Stop!" shouted Mother Brûlé, "we'll put it on your arse, that lace!"

"The lazy sluts steal it from us," said the Levaque. "They stick fur on to their skins while we are dying of cold. Just strip her naked, to show her how to live!"

At once Mouquette rushed forward.

"Yes, yes! whip her!"

And the women, in this savage rivalry, struggled and stretched [324]