Page:Germinal - Zola - 1925.djvu/438

GERMINAL sounds ceased, the downfall stopped, and there was again deep silence.

For an hour the Voreux remained thus, broken into, as though bombarded by an army of barbarians. There was no more crying out; the enlarged circle of spectators merely looked on. Beneath the piled-up beams of the sifting-shed, fractured tipping-cradles could be made out with broken and twisted hoppers. But the rubbish had especially accumulated at the receiving-room, where there had been a rain of bricks, and large portions of wall and masses of plaster had fallen in. The iron scaffold which bore the pulleys had bent, half buried in the pit; a cage was still suspended, a torn cable end was hanging; then there was a hash of trams, metal plates, and ladders. By some chance the lamp-cabin remained standing, exhibiting on the left its bright rows of little lamps. And at the end of its disembowelled chamber, the engine could be seen seated squarely on its massive foundation of masonry; its copper was shining, and its huge steel limbs seemed to possess indestructible muscles. The enormous crank, bent in the air, looked like the powerful knee of some giant quietly reposing in his strength.

After this hour of respite, M. Hennebeau's hopes began to rise. The movement of the soil must have come to an end, and there would be some chance of saving the engine and the remainder of the buildings. But he would not yet allow anyone to approach, considering another half-hour's patience desirable. This waiting became unbearable; the hope increased the anguish, and all hearts were beating quickly. A dark cloud, growing large at the horizon, hastened the twilight, a sinister day-fall over this wreck of earth's tempests. Since seven o'clock they had been there without moving or eating.

And suddenly, as the engineers were cautiously advancing, a supreme convulsion of the soil put them to flight. Subterranean detonations broke out; a whole monstrous artillery was cannonading in the gulf. At the surface, the last buildings were tipped over and crushed. At first a sort of whirlwind carried away the rubbish from the sifting-shed and the receiving-room. The boiler buildings afterwards burst and disappeared. Then it was the low square tower, where the pumping engine was groaning, which fell on its face like a man mown down by a bullet. And then a terrible thing was seen; the engine, dis- [426]