GERMINAL
repeated Catherine, standing before her two brothers, who were still wallowing with their noses in the bolster.
She had to seize the elder by the shoulder and shake him; then, while he was muttering abuse, it came into her head to uncover them by snatching away the sheet. That seemed funny to her, and she began to laugh when she saw the two boys struggling with naked legs.
“Stupid, leave me alone,” growled Zacharie in ill-temper, sitting up. “I don’t like tricks. Good Lord! Say it’s time to get up?”
He was lean and ill-made, with a long face and a chin which showed signs of a sprouting beard, yellow hair, and the anemic pallor which belonged to his whole family.
His shirt had rolled up to his belly, and he lowered it, not from modesty but because he was not warm.
“It has struck downstairs,” repeated Catherine; "come! up! father’s angry."
Jeanlin, who had rolled himself up, closed his eyes, saying:
“Go and hang yourself; I'm going to sleep.”
She laughed again, the laugh of a good-natured girl. He was so small, his limbs so thin, with enormous joints, enlarged by scrofula, that she took him up in her arms. But he kicked about, his apish face, pale and wrinkled, with its green eyes and great ears, grew pale with the rage of weakness. He said nothing, he bit her right breast.
“Beastly fellow!” she murmured, keeping back a cry and putting him on the floor.
Alzire was silent, with the sheet tucked under her chin, but she had not gone to sleep. With her intelligent invalid’s eyes she followed her sister and her two brothers, who were now dressing. Another quarrel broke out around the pan, the boys hustled the young girl because she was so long washing herself. Shirts flew about; and, while still half-asleep, they eased themselves without shame, with the tranquil satisfaction of a litter of puppies that have grown up together. Catherine was ready first. She put on her miner’s breeches, then her canvas jacket, and fastened the blue cap on her knotted hair; in these clean Monday clothes she had the appearance of a little man; nothing remained to indicate her sex except the slight roll of her hips.
[13]
