Free Germinal by Émile Zola

caught a cold, last month. I never used to cough, but now I just can’t get rid of it…And the funny part is I keep coughing this stuff up. More and more of it.’
    A rasp rose in his throat, and he spat black phlegm.
    â€˜Is it blood?’ Étienne asked, eventually daring to put the question.
    Slowly Bonnemort wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
    â€˜It’s coal…I’ve got enough coal inside this carcass of mine to keep me warm for the rest of my days. And it’s five whole years since I was last down the mine. Seems I was storing it up without even knowing. Ah well, it’s a good preservative!’
    There was silence; the distant, rhythmic sound of hammering could be heard coming from the pit, and the moan of the wind continued to sweep past, like a cry of hunger and exhaustion rising from the depths of the night. Standing beside the startled flickering of the flames, the old man went on, lowering his voice as he revisited his memories. Oh yes indeed! He and his family were old hands at cutting the coal! They’d been working for the Montsou Mining Company ever since the beginning, and that was a long time ago, one hundred and six years to be precise. It was his grandfather, Guillaume Maheu, then a lad of fifteen, who had discovered soft coal at Réquillart, which had become the Company’s first pit but was now just an old disused shaft, over near the Fauvelle sugar-refinery. That much was common knowledge, and proof was that the new seam had been called the Guillaume seam, after his grandfather’s Christian name. He hadn’t known him himself, but he’d been a big man by all accounts, and very strong. Died in his bed at the age of sixty. Then there was his father, Nicolas Maheu, known as Maheu the Red. He’d died when he was barely forty, at Le Voreux, back when they were still sinking the shaft; a rock-fall it was, completely flattened him, swallowed him whole, bones, flesh, blood, the lot. Two of his uncles and then, later on, his own three brothers had all lost their lives down there. As for him, Vincent Maheu, he’d managed to escape more or less unscathed, apart from his gammy legs, that is, and everyone thought him a clever bastard for doing so. But what else could you do? You had to work, and this was simply what they did, from father toson, the same as they’d have done any other job. And now here was his own son, Toussaint Maheu, working himself to death down the pit, and his grandsons too, and everybody else who lived over there in the village. A hundred and six years of cutting coal, first the old men, then the kids, and all for the same boss. There weren’t many bourgeois, were there, who could trace their ancestry for you quite so neatly?
    â€˜So long as we’ve got something to eat!’ Étienne muttered again.
    â€˜That’s just what I say. As long as there’s bread to eat, we’ll survive.’
    Bonnemort fell silent, his gaze directed towards the village where gleams of light were beginning to appear one after the other.
    Four o’clock was chiming on the Montsou clock-tower. The cold was getting even sharper.
    â€˜So it’s rich then, is it, this Company of yours?’ Étienne went on.
    The old man’s shoulders rose in a shrug and then sagged as though beneath an avalanche of gold coins.
    â€˜Oh, yes, it’s rich all right…though maybe not as rich as the one next door, the one at Anzin. 6 But it’s got millions and millions all the same…They’ve lost count. Nineteen pits they have, with thirteen producing coal – like Le Voreux, La Victoire, Crèvecœur, Mirou, Saint-Thomas, Madeleine, Feutry-Cantel and the others – and then six for drainage or ventilation, like Réquillart…Ten thousand workers, concessions stretching over sixty-seven communes, a production level of five thousand tons a day, a railway linking all the pits, and workshops, and