Page:Germinal - Zola - 1925.djvu/361

GERMINAL which the pale reflection of the white gardens lit up the room as by moonshine.

The emptied house was now in its last agony, having reached a final stage of nakedness. The mattress ticks had followed the wool to the dealers; then the sheets had gone, the linen, everything that could be sold. One evening they had sold a handkerchief of the grandfather's for two sous. Tears fell over each object of the poor household which had to go, and the mother was still lamenting that one day she had carried away in her skirt the rose cardboard box, her man's old present, as one would carry away a child to get rid of it on some doorstep. They were bare; they had only their skins left to sell, so worn-out and injured that no one would have given a farthing for them. They no longer even took the trouble to search, they knew that there was nothing left, that they had come to the end of everything, that they must not hope even for a candle, or a fragment of coal, or a potato; and they were waiting to die, only grieved about the children, for it was useless cruelty to have got the little girl ill before strangling her.

"At last! here he is!" said Maheude.

A black figure passed before the window. The door opened. But it was not Dr. Vanderhagen; they recognised the new curé, Abbé Ranvier, who did not seem surprised at coming on this dead house, without light, without fire, without bread. He had already been to three neighbouring houses, going from family to family, picking up those who were willing, like Dansaert with his two policemen; and at once he exclaimed, in his feverish fanatic's voice:

"Why were you not at Mass on Sunday, my children? You are wrong, the Church alone can save you. Now promise me to come next Sunday."

Maheu, after staring at him, went on walking heavily, without a word. It was Maheude who replied:

"To Mass, sir? What for? Isn't the good God making fun of us? Look here! what has my little girl done to Him up there to be shaking with fever? It seems that we hadn't enough misery, that He had to make her ill, too, when I can't even give her a cup of warm gruel."

Then the priest stood and talked at length. He spoke of the strike, this terrible wretchedness, this exasperated rancour of [349]