GERMINAL
She was following him slowly, delayed by the painful slipping of her sabots into the ruts; and without raising her head she murmured:
"I have enough trouble, good God! don't give me any more. What good would it do us, what you ask, now that I have a lover and you have a woman yourself?"
She meant Mouquette. She believed that he still went with this girl, as the rumour ran for the last fortnight; and when he swore to her that it was not so she shook her head, for she remembered the evening when she had seen them eagerly kissing each other.
"Isn't it a pity, all this nonsense?" he whispered, stopping. "We might understand each other so well."
She shuddered slightly and replied:
"Never mind, you've nothing to be sorry for; you don't lose much. If you knew what a trumpery thing I am—no bigger than two ha'porth of butter, so ill made that I shall never become a woman, sure enough!"
And she went on freely accusing herself, as though the long delay of her puberty had been her own fault. In spite of the man whom she had had, this lessened her, placed her among the urchins. One has some excuse, at any rate, when one can produce a child.
"My poor little one!" said Étienne, with deep pity, in a very low voice.
They were at the foot of the pit-bank, hidden in the shadow of the enormous pile. An inky cloud was just then passing over the moon; they could no longer even distinguish their faces, their breaths were mingled, their lips were seeking each other for that kiss which had tormented them with desire for months. But suddenly the moon reappeared, and they saw the sentinel above them, at the top of the rocks white with light, standing out erect on the Voreux. And before they had kissed an emotion of modesty separated them, that old modesty in which there was something of anger, a vague repugnance, and much friendship. They set out again heavily, up to their ankles in mud.
"Then it's settled. You don't want to have anything to do with me?" asked Étienne.
"No," she said. "You after Chaval; and after you another,
[367]
