"Get off with you! We have nothing against you! Get off with you!"
"This doesn't concern you," said Maheude. "Let us attend to our own affairs."
And from behind, the Levaque woman added, more violently:
"Must we eat you to get through? Just clear out of the bloody place!"
Even Lydie's shrill voice was heard. She had crammed herself in more closely, with Bébert, and was saying, in a high voice:
"Oh, the pale-livered pigs!"
Catherine, a few paces off, was gazing and listening, stupefied by new scenes of violence, into the midst of which ill luck seemed to be always throwing her. Had she not suffered too much already? What fault had she committed, then, that misfortune would never give her any rest? The day before she had understood nothing of the fury of the strike; she thought that when one has one's share of blows it is useless to go and seek for more. And now her heart was swelling with hatred; she remembered what Étienne had often told her when they used to sit up; she tried to hear what he was now saying to the soldiers. He was treating them as mates; he reminded them that they also belonged to the people, and that they ought to be on the side of the people against those who took advantage of their wretchedness.
But a tremor ran through the crowd, and an old woman rushed up. It was Mother Brulé, terrible in her leanness, with her neck and arms in the air, coming up at such a pace that the wisps of her grey hair blinded her.
"Ah! by God! here I am," she stammered, out of breath; "that traitor Pierron, who shut me up in the cellar!"
And without waiting she fell on the soldiers, her black mouth belching abuse.