"What!"
Then he made up his mind, and looking the other man in the face bravely:
"I, too, have sent him a letter, if you want me to tell you; and in that letter I have begged him not to come. Yes, I think we ought to manage our own affairs ourselves, without turning to strangers."
Étienne, losing his self-possession and trembling with anger, turned his eyes on his mate's and stammered:
"You've done that, you've done that?"
"I have done that, certainly! and you know that I trust Pluchart; he's a knowing fellow and reliable, one can get on with him. But you see I don't care a damn for your ideas, I don't! Politics, Government, and all that, I don't care a damn for it! What I want is for the miner to be better treated. I have worked down below for twenty years, I've sweated down there with fatigue and misery, and I've sworn to make it easier for the poor beggars who are there still; and I know well enough you'll never get anything with all your ideas, you'll only make the men's fate more miserable still. When they are forced by hunger to go down again, they will be more crushed than ever; the Company will pay them with strokes of the stick, like a runaway dog who is brought back to his kennel. That's what I want to prevent, do you see!"
He raised his voice, protruding his belly and squarely planted on his big legs. The man's whole patient, reasonable nature was revealed in clear phrases, which flowed abundantly without an effort. Was it not absurd to believe that with one stroke one could change the world, putting the workers in the place of the masters and dividing gold as one divides an apple? It would, perhaps, take thousands and thousands of years for that to be realized. There, hold your tongue, with your miracles! The most sensible plan was, if one did not wish to break one's nose, to go straight forward, to demand possible reforms, in short, to improve the lot of the workers on every occasion. He did his best, so far as he occupied himself with it, to bring the Company to better terms; if not, damn it all! they would only starve by being obstinate.
Étienne had let him speak, his own speech cut short by indignation. Then he cried:
"Haven't you got any blood in your veins, by God?"
At one moment he would have struck him, and to resist the temptation he rushed about the hall with long strides, venting his fury on the benches through which he made a passage.