GERMINAL
CHAPTER IV
LISTEN," said Maheude to her man, "when you go to Montsou for the pay, just bring me back a pound of coffee and a kilo of sugar."
He was sewing one of his shoes, in order to spare the cobbling.
"Good!" he murmured, without leaving his task.
"I should like to get you to go to the butcher's. A bit of veal, eh? It's so long since we saw it."
This time he raised his head.
"Do you think, then, that I've got thousands coming in? The fortnight's pay is too little as it is, with their confounded idea of always stopping work."
They were both silent. It was after breakfast, one Saturday, at the end of October. The Company, under the pretext of the derangement caused by payment, had on this day once more suspended the output in all their pits. Seized by panic at the growing industrial crisis, and not wishing to augment their already considerable stock, they profited by the smallest pretexts to force their ten thousand workers to rest.
"You know that Étienne is waiting for you at Rasseneur's," began Maheude again. "Take him with you; he'll be more clever than you are in clearing up matters if they haven't counted all your hours."
Maheu nodded approval.
"And just talk to those gentlemen about your father's affair. The doctor's on good terms with the directors. It's true, isn't it, old un, that the doctor's mistaken, and that you can still work?"
For ten days Father Bonnemort, with benumbed paws, as he said, had remained nailed to his chair. She had to repeat her question, and he growled:
"Sure enough, I can work. One isn't done for because one's legs are bad. All that is just stories they make up, so as not to give one the hundred-and-eighty franc pension."
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