GERMINAL
ventilation, like Réquillart. Ten thousand workers, concessions reaching over sixty-seven communes, an out-put of five thousand tons a day, a railway joining all the pits, and workshops, and factories! Ah! yes, ah! yes! there’s money there!”
The rolling of trams on the stages made the big yellow horse prick his ears. The cage was evidently repaired below, and the landers had got to work again. While he was harnessing his beast to re-descend, the carman added gently, addressing himself to the horse:
“Won’t do to chatter, lazy good-for-nothing! If Monsieur Hennebeau knew how you waste your time!”
Étienne thoughtfully looked into the night. He asked:
“Then Monsieur Hennebeau owns the mine?”
“No,” explained the old man, “Monsieur Hennebeau is only the general manager; he is paid just the same as us.”
With a gesture the young man pointed into the darkness.
“Who does it all belong to, then?”
But Bonnemort was for a moment so suffocated by a new and violent spasm that he could not get his breath. Then, when he had expectorated and wiped the black froth from his lips, he replied in the rising wind:
“Eh? all that belong to? Nobody knows. To people.”
And with his hand he pointed in the darkness to a vague spot, an unknown and remote place, inhabited by those people for whom the Maheus had been hammering at the seam for more than a century. His voice assumed a tone of religious awe; it was as if he were speaking of an inaccessible tabernacle containing a sated and crouching god to whom they had given all their flesh and whom they had never seen.
“At all events, if one can get enough bread to eat,” repeated Étienne, for the third time, without any apparent transition.
“Indeed, yes; if we could always get bread, it would be too good.”
The horse had started; the carman, in his turn, disappeared, with the trailing step of an invalid. Near the tipping-cradle the workman had not stirred, gathered up in a ball, burying his chin between his knees, with his great dim eyes fixed on emptiness.
When he had picked up his bundle, Étienne still remained
[9]
