it true, Alzire, that we have all had some?”
“Sure enough, mother,” replied the little humpback, who under such circumstances could tell lies with the self-possession of a grown-up person.
Lénore and Henri stood motionless, shocked and rebellious at such lying, when they themselves were whipped if they did not tell the truth. Their little hearts began to swell, and they longed to protest, and to say that they, at all events, were not there when the others had some.
“Get along with you,” said the mother, driving them to the other end of the room. “You ought to be ashamed of being always in your father’s plate; and even if he was the only one to have any, doesn’t he work, while all you, a lot of good-for-nothings, can’t do anything but spend! Yes, and the more the bigger you are.”
Maheu called them back. He seated Lénore on his left thigh, Henri on the right; then he finished the brawn by playing at dinner with them. He cut small pieces, and each had his share. The children devoured with delight.
When he had finished, he said to his wife:
“No, don’t give me my coffee. I’m going to wash first; and just give me a hand to throw away this dirty water.”
They took hold of the handles of the tub and emptied it into the gutter before the door, when Jeanlin came down in dry garments, breeches and a woollen blouse, too large for him, which were weary of fading on his brother’s back. Seeing him slinking out through the open door, his mother stopped him.
“Where are you off to?”
“Over there.”
“Over where? Listen to me. You go and gather a dandelion salad for this evening. Eh, do you hear? If you don’t bring a salad back you’ll have to deal with me.”
“All right!”
Jeanlin set out with hands in his pockets, trailing his sabots and slouching along, with his slender loins of a ten-year-old urchin, like an old miner. In his turn, Zacharie came down, more carefully dressed, his body covered by a black woollen knitted jacket with blue stripes. His father called out to him not to return late; and he left, nodding his head with his pipe between his teeth, without replying. Again the tub was filled with warm water. Maheu was already slowly taking off his jacket. At a look, Alzire led Lénore and Henri outside to play. The father did not like washing en famille, as was practised in many houses in the settlement. He blamed no one, however; he simply said that it was good for the children to dabble together.
“What are you doing up there?” cried Maheude, up the staircase.
“I’m mending my dress that I tore yesterday,” replied Catherine.
“All right. Don’t come down, your father is washing.”
Then Maheu and Maheude were left alone. The latter decided to place Estelle on a chair, and by a miracle, finding herself near the fire the child did not scream, but turned towards her parents the vague eyes of a little creature without intelligence. He was crouching before the tub quite naked, having first plunged his head into it, well rubbed with that black soap the constant use of which discoloured and made yellow the hair of the race.
Afterwards he got into the water, lathered his chest, belly, arms, and thighs, scraping them energetically with both fists. His wife, standing by, watched him.
“Well, then,” she began, “I saw your eyes when you came in. You were bothered, eh? and it eased you, those provisions. Fancy! those Piolaine people didn’t give me a sou! Oh! they are kind enough; they have dressed the little ones and I was ashamed to ask them, for it crosses me to ask for things.”
She interrupted herself a moment to wedge Estelle into the chair lest she should tip over. The father continued to work away at his skin, without hastening by a question this story which interested him, patiently waiting for light.
“I must tell you that Maigrat had refused me, oh! straight! like one kicks a dog out of doors. Guess if I was on a spree! They keep you warm, woollen garments, but they don’t put anything into your stomach, eh!”
He lifted his head, still silent. Nothing at Piolaine, nothing at Maigrat’s: then where? But, as usual, she was pulling up her sleeves to wash his back and those parts which he could not himself easily reach. Besides, he liked her to soap him, to rub him everywhere till she almost broke her wrists. She took soap and worked away at his shoulders while he held himself stiff so as to resist the shock.
“Then I returned to Maigrat’s, and said to him, ah, I said something to him! And that it didn’t do to have no heart, and that evil would happen to him if there were any justice. That bothered him; he turned his eyes and would like to have got away.”
From the back she had got down to the buttocks and was pushing into the folds, not leaving any part of the body without passing over it, making him shine like her three saucepans on Saturdays after a big clean. Only she began to sweat with this tremendous exertion of her arms, so exhausted and out of breath that her words were choked.
“At last he called me an old nuisance. We shall have bread until Saturday, and the best is that he has lent me five francs. I have got butter, coffee, and chicory from him. I was even going to get the meat and potatoes there, only I saw that he was grumbling. Seven sous for the chitterlings, eighteen for the potatoes, and I’ve got three francs seventy-five left for a ragout and a meat soup. Eh, I don’t think I’ve wasted my morning!”
Now she began to wipe him, plugging with a towel the parts that would not dry. Feeling happy and without thinking of the future debt, he burst out laughing and took her in his arms.
“Leave me alone, stupid! You are damp, and wetting me. Only I’m afraid Maigrat has ideas ——”
She was about to speak of Catherine, but she stopped. What was the good of disturbing him? It would only lead to endless discussion.
“What ideas?” he asked.
“Why, ideas of robbing us. Catherine will have to examine the bill carefully.”
He took her in his arms again, and this time did not let her go. The bath always finished in this way: she enlivened him by the hard rubbing, and then by the towels which tickled the hairs of his arms and chest. Besides, among all his mates of the settlement it was the hour for stupidities, when more children were planted than were wanted. At night all the family were about. He pushed her towards the table, jesting like a worthy man who was enjoying the only good moment of the day, calling that taking his dessert, and a dessert which cost him nothing. She, with her loose figure and breast, struggled a little for fun.
“You are stupid! My Lord! you are stupid! And there’s Estelle looking at us. Wait till I turn her head.”
“Oh, bosh! at three months; as if she understood!”
When he got up Maheu simply put on a dry pair of breeches. He liked, when he was clean and had taken his pleasure with his wife, to remain naked for a while. On his white skin, the whiteness of an anaemic girl, the scratches and gashes of the coal left tattoo-marks, grafts as the miners called them; and he was proud of them, and exhibited his big arms and broad chest shining like veined marble. In summer all the miners could be seen in this condition at their doors. He even went there for a moment now, in spite of the wet weather, and shouted out a rough joke to a comrade, whose breast was also naked, on the other side of the gardens. Others also appeared. And the children, trailing along the pathways,
