GERMINAL
They sat down to table at last with the smoking chocolate in their cups, and for a long time talked of nothing but the brioche. Meélanie and Honorine remained to give details about the cooking and watched them stuffing themselves with greasy lips, saying that it was a pleasure to make a cake when one saw the masters enjoying it so much.
But the dogs began to bark loudly; perhaps they announced the music mistress, who came from Marchiennes on Mondays and Fridays. A professor of literature also came. All the young girl’s education was thus carried on at Piolaine in happy ignorance, with her childish whims, throwing the book out of the window as soon as anything wearied her.
“It is M. Deneulin,” said Honorine, returning.
Behind her, Deneulin, a cousin of M. Grégoire’s, appeared without ceremony; with his loud voice, his quick gestures, he had the appearance of an old cavalry officer. Although over fifty, his short hair and thick moustache were as black as ink.
“Yes! It is I. Good-day! Don’t disturb yourselves.”
He had sat down amid the family’s exclamations. They turned at last to their chocolate.
“Have you anything to tell me?” asked M. Grégoire.
“No! nothing at all,”” Deneulin hastened to reply. “I came out on horseback to rub off the rust a bit, and as I passed your door I thought I would just look in.”
Cécile questioned him about Jeanne and Lucie, his daughters. They were perfectly well, the first was always at her painting, while the other, the eldest, was training her voice at the piano from morning till night. And there was a slight quiver in his voice, a disquiet which he concealed beneath bursts of gaiety.
M. Grégoire began again:
“And everything goes well at the pit?”
“Well, I am upset over this dirty crisis. Ah! we are paying for the prosperous years! They have built too many workshops, put down too many railways, invested too much capital with a view to a large return, and to-day the money is asleep. They can’t get any more to make the whole thing work. Luckily, things are not desperate; I shall get out of it somehow.”
Like his cousin he had inherited a denier in the Montsou
[70]
