Page:Germinal - Zola - 1925.djvu/473

GERMINAL them to introduce some spoonfuls of soup between his clenched teeth. It was only in the Réquillart gallery that he recognised someone standing before him, the engineer, Négrel; and these two men, who felt contempt for each other—the rebellious workman and the sceptical master—threw themselves on each other's necks, sobbing loudly in the deep upheaval of all the humanity within them. It was an immense sadness, the misery of generations, the extremity of grief to which life can fall.

At the surface, Maheude, stricken down near dead Catherine, uttered a cry, then anothers then another—very long, deep, incessant moans. Several corpses had already been brought up, and placed in a row on the ground: Chaval, who was thought to have been crushed beneath a landslip, a trammer, and two hewers, also crushed, with brainless skulls and bellies swollen with water. Women in the crowd went out of their minds, tearing their skirts and scratching their faces. When Étienne was at last taken out, after having been accustomed to the lamps and fed a little, he appeared fleshless, and his hair was quite white. People turned away and shuddered at this old man. Maheude left off crying to stare at him stupidly with her large fixed eyes. [461]