Complete Works of Emile Zola (1603 page)

“We need not go in — we two. We will wait here on the staircase. We can sit on a step up above.”

To this Bonnaire readily acceded.

“That’s right. Be patient for a while, and if I get the key I will show it to you, and you can go up and go to bed.”

 As he spoke Josine and Nanet had disappeared in the thick darkness of the staircase. Even their breathing could not be heard. They had found a hiding-place somewhere up there.

Then Bonnaire went up, guiding Luc, warning him about the height of the steps and advising him to hold fast by the rope which served the purpose of a hand-railing.

“There, monsieur; here we are. Don’t stir, for, indeed, the landings are not wide, and if you were to tumble over you might have a bad fall.”

He opened the door, and made Luc enter first, from politeness, into a good-sized room, lighted by the yellow flame of a kerosene lamp. Late as it was, La Toupe was sitting by the lamp darning some ragged clothes, while her father, old Linot, sat in the shadow, and had dropped off to sleep, with his pipe gone out but still between his teeth. In a bed in one corner were sleeping the two children, Lucien and Antoinette, one six years old and the other four. Outside of this living-room, which was kitchen and dining-room also, there were only two others — one was the bedroom of old father Linot, the other that of the married pair.

Amazed at seeing her husband come home at this unusual hour, La Toupe, whom he had not warned beforehand, raised her head.

“Why, what has brought you home?”

He did not wish at once to begin with the fierce quarrel he foresaw would take place when she heard that he had quitted the Pit; he thought he had better begin by what concerned Josine and Nanet, so he answered evasively:

“Yes — I had finished, so I came home.”

Then, without giving her time to ask another question, he introduced Luc.

“See — here is a gentleman, a friend of Monsieur Jordan, who has come to ask me to do something for him. He will tell you what.”

More and more surprised, and at once standing on the defensive, La Toupe turned round on the young man, who at once noticed the strong likeness she bore to her brother, Ragu. Small and angry, she had the same sharp face and the same thick red hair; the low forehead, the thin nose, and the same stern jaws. Her complexion was pink, and its freshness still made her good-looking. She seemed young, though she was twenty-eight, and this explained the fancy which had led Bonnaire to marry her, even though he was well aware what her disposition was. And the marriage once consummated, she made her husband wretched by her constant fits of anger. He had to give way to her in all things — little details of daily life — for the sake of peace. She was a coquette by nature; her sole ambition was to be finely dressed, and to possess ornaments; therefore, it was only when she received a present of some new article of wearing apparel that she manifested any amiability whatever.

Luc, when he had made up his mind to speak to her, realized the necessity of gaining her favor, in the first instance, by a compliment. On his entrance the room had struck him as pleasant, but he perceived that this must have been due to the care of the housekeeper, for its miserable furniture was of the poorest description.

He approached the bed, and as he did so he exclaimed:

“Oh, what beautiful children; they look like sleeping angels.”

La Toupe smiled, but she regarded him steadily and expectantly, being very well aware that this gentleman would not have inconvenienced himself to seek her if he had not wished to obtain something from her of consequence to himself. And when he proceeded to come to the point, and to relate how he had found Josine turned out-of-doors, and fainting with hunger on the stairs, she made a violent gesture and clinched her heavy jaws. Then, without answering the gentleman, she turned to her husband, saying furiously:

“
What’s the meaning of all this story? Is it any of my business?”

Bonnaire, being appealed to, tried in his kindly and conciliatory manner to appease her.

“If Ragu has sent you the key, you must really let the poor creature have it; for if he is down at Caffiaux’s he will probably pass the night there, and you cannot let a woman and a child sleep out-of-doors.”

“Yes, I have the key. Yes, Ragu sent it to me, and he did it on purpose that the hussy should not return and establish herself in his house with her good-for-nothing brother. But I do not concern myself with such disgusting tricks. I only know one thing; that it is Ragu who sent me the key, and that it is Ragu to whom I shall return it.”

Then, when her husband tried once more to soften her, she silenced him violently, saying:

“Once and for all, do you intend to force me to associate with my brother’s mistress? I can tell you she is one who had better be left to starve at a distance, since she is abandoned enough to let herself be taken up with in this manner.... Do you think it is proper that this little brother, whom she drags everywhere, should sleep up there in a little dark den beside her and Ragu?... No, no, every one for himself, and it makes very little difference whether she comes to the gutter sooner or later.”

Luc listened to this outburst indignantly and with a burning heart. In this woman he again met with that hardness and absence of pity which respectable women of the working-class display to others of their sex, who, in their desperate struggle for existence, fall into error. But La Toupe manifested, in addition to these, a gloomy jealousy and hatred of the pretty, attractive, loving-hearted girl, whom men admired, and to whom they would have given gold chains and silk dresses if she had taken pains to please them. From the day she discovered that her brother had just bought Josine a little silver ring she had hated her.

Luc contented himself with saying, in a voice that trembled with pity, “One must be kind, madame.”

La Toupe had no time to answer; there was a noise of heavy, stumbling steps on the staircase, and the door was opened by a trembling hand. It was Ragu, followed by Bourron, who had not parted from him, after the manner of drunkards when they have drunk together. Ragu was still sufficiently sober to tear himself away from Caffiaux’s, saying that, after all, he must go back to work the next day. And he had come to his sister’s house, with his companion, to take back his key.

“Your key!” cried La Toupe, viciously; “here, take it!... And understand that I will not keep it for you again, for I have just been abused to induce me to give it to that good-for-nothing girl of yours. The next time you want to turn any one out-of-doors, attend to it yourself.”

Ragu, mollified, no doubt, by wine, began to laugh.

“Josine is stupid.... If she had had any spirit she would have come to drink a glass with us, instead of crying.... Women never know how to treat men.”

He was not allowed to complete expounding his idea, for Bourron, thin and shrewd, and laughing aimlessly with his air of everlasting amusement, let himself drop into a chair, saying to Bonnaire:

“Come, tell me, is it true that you are going to leave the factory?”

La Toupe turned round with a bounce, as if a bolt of lightning had struck behind her.

“
What! he is going to leave the factory?”

There was a moment’s silence, and then Bonnaire, courageously, made his decision.

“Yes, I am going to leave the factory. I cannot do otherwise.”

“
You intend to leave the factory — you mean to leave the factory?” she screamed, furious and thunderstruck, as she came and planted herself before him. “It is not enough, then, that you should take on your shoulders this disgusting strike, which has forced us to use up all our savings in the last two months, but now you must undertake to pay the damages.... We are to die of hunger, then, and I am to go without clothes?”

He answered quietly, without allowing himself to become angry.

“It is possible that you may not have a new dress for New Year’s Day, and it may be that we shall go hungry, but I say again that I am doing what I ought to do.”

She did not yield; she approached him and screamed in his face.

“Ah, indeed, do you imagine that any one will thank you for doing so? Your friends do not hesitate to say already that without you and your strike they would not have suffered with hunger for these two months. And do you know what else they will say when they hear that you have left the factory? They will say that it is a very good thing, and that you are nothing but an imbecile.... I will never let you do such an idiotic thing. Do you understand? You shall go back to work to-morrow morning.”

Bonnaire looked at her fixedly with his clear, straightforward gaze. If he habitually yielded to her on points of domestic policy, if he allowed her to reign despotically in household affairs, he could become adamant when a question of conscience was concerned. Therefore, he contented himself by saying, without raising his voice, but in a masterful tone, which she understood very well:

“You will do me the kindness to be silent. This matter is one that concerns us men, and it is one of which women — you yourself, for instance — know nothing; you will be wise not to occupy yourself with it.... You are very agreeable, but if you do not wish that we should quarrel, you had better attend to your mending.”

So saying, he pushed her towards the chair under the lamp and obliged her to sit down. Completely overpowered, but trembling with an anger which she knew from experience to be useless, she resumed her needle, and affected to take no interest in questions which, nevertheless, touched her closely. Père Linot, awakened by the sound of voices, relighted his pipe without manifesting any surprise at seeing so many people in the room, and listened to what was going on with the air of an ancient philosopher, to whom these things were of no moment. Even the children themselves, Lucien and Antoinette, were roused from their sleep, and lay in their little bed with their great eyes wide open, apparently trying to understand the important questions discussed by their elders.

Luc had remained standing, and Bonnaire now addressed himself to him, as though to make him a witness to what he said.

“You will agree with me, monsieur, that every one must respect his own honor.... The strike was inevitable, and if it was to be done over again I should act as I did before; I mean, that I should do everything in my power to excite my comrades to seek justice. Something more than bare food is necessary to existence, and work ought to command a fair price, unless we are to resign ourselves to being absolute slaves. We have so much right on our side that Monsieur Delaveau has been obliged to yield on all points, for he has been forced to accept our new scale of wages.... But now it is plain to me that the man himself is furious, and that, as my wife says, some one must pay the piper. If I do not leave to-day of my own free will, he will find a pretext for turning me out-of-doors tomorrow. Then, why should I remain, simply to act as a continual occasion for quarrels? No, no, if I did so, the result would be annoyances of all kinds to be borne by my comrades, and that would be wrong on my part.... I made believe to go back, because my comrades talked of continuing the strike if I did not. But now that they have all returned to work, and everything is quiet, I prefer to withdraw, since I realize that it is best for me to do so. The matter will be easily settled; no one now will leave on my account, and I shall be doing what I ought to do.... Every one has his own honor to consider, monsieur, and this is mine.”

He said these things with a grand simplicity, and with a manner so quiet and so determined that Luc was profoundly moved. This common workman whom he had seen covered with soot, working diligently and silently at his furnace — this man who a moment before had shown himself so mild and gentle, so full of kindly tolerance in his own household — now rose suddenly to be a hero in the cause of labor, and revealed himself as one of those unknown stragglers who give their whole existence to the cause of justice, and who do, indeed, belong to a universal brotherhood, since they lay down their lives, in silence, for others.

La Toupe repeated, violently, without stopping her needle:

“And we shall suffer with hunger!”

“And we shall suffer with hunger, it is very likely,” said Bonnaire. “But I shall sleep with a good conscience.”

Ragu began to sneer.

“Oh, to suffer with hunger,” he said. “That is of no use; you never get anything by it. I don’t defend the owners; they are a hard-hearted lot. Only, since they are necessary to us, it is best to come to an understanding with them in the end, and to do what they wish to some extent.”

He continued in this joking strain, and as he did so he showed the workings of his own mind. He was an average workman, neither good nor bad, the spoiled product of the wage system, such as it has become under the actual organization of labor. He complained loudly of the capitalists; he rebelled against forced labor; he was even capable of revolt for a brief period. But the influences of heredity were too much for him; he had, at bottom, a slavish heart, and was in bondage to a profound respect for established tradition; he was consumed with a secret envy of the owner, the supreme master, the possessor of all things enjoyable, and he really possessed no ambition except the secret one of some day occupying the other’s place, in order that he might, in his turn, enter into the joys of possession. His ideal, in short, was to do nothing, and he wished to be an owner in order to do nothing.

“Ah, that rascal Delaveau; I should like to change places with him for a week. It would amuse me to see him going to make up the furnaces, while I smoked big cigars all the time. And we shall all be owners, you understand, in the new order of things that is coming.”

This idea caused Bourron the greatest entertainment for he was always in a condition of speechless amusement at Ragu when they had been drinking together.

“That is very true,” he cried. “Ah, to think of the good times there will be when we are masters!”

Bonnaire shrugged his shoulders, full of contempt for this low conception of the future victory of labor over capital. He himself had read, he had reflected, he believed he understood. He began to speak again, excited by what had just been said, and wishing to show himself in the right. Luc recognized the socialistic idea, as it is interpreted by its partisans. It demands, in the first place, that the nation shall take possession of the soil, and of the implements of labor, in order to make both of these common property, and to distribute them anew. Labor will then be reorganized; it will be rendered universal and obligatory in such a manner that the remuneration for it shall be proportionate to the hours of work performed by each person. The point where Bonnaire got into trouble was the practicability of reaching this social condition under such regulations; and, in particular, he failed to demonstrate the actual working of the system, which would require for its execution a complicated machinery of direction and control, necessitating a severe and onerous state police. But when Luc, who did not go to this extreme in his humanitarian principles, made some objections, Bonnaire answered him with the tranquil assurance of the firm believer.