THE STRIKE By A. G. Nory

Translated and adapted by FRANK J. MORLOCK

EText by Dagny
This Etext is for private use only. No republication for profit in 
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http://www.cadytech.com/dumas/personnage.asp?key=130

                    
                     C 2003

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CHARACTERS

CLAUDIN CERVOISE, miner

STRIKERS

AN OFFICER

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Six o'clock, in the room outside the office of the chief engineer. On the walls, posters bearing in large letters: RULES. A series of pictures titled: LIST OF BENEFACTORS. On the chimney office files. A table. A door giving on a stairway. A door giving entry to the engineer's office. A window overlooking the great court yard of the factory. Two or three chairs.

CLAUDIN: (entering and speaking to the office boy in the wings) That's fine, that's fine. I will wait for the Engineer! It's not time that's lacking unfortunately. (closing the door) For the seven weeks since the strike was declared at Puyereux, no one knows how to employ one's time. You cannot think of having a drink since there's not enough money for food. Ah! misfortune from God! when will we reach the end of our sufferings? (sceptically) Perhaps tomorrow. — Perhaps never. (desolated) I almost believe it will be never. All the same it's a hell of an idea they had, the comrades have delegated me alone to soften up the Chief Engineer. I didn't want to, but Severus Tranchant — a troublemaker — said to me: Claudin Cervoise, you are the oldest Overseer of mines in Puyereux, you are respected by the directors, you will succeed where others would fail — me most of all. They call me bull-headed: It's a defect as much in civilian life as in the military. You're not, Papa Claudin, you have only to recall your life dedicated to mining Puyereux. You will speak of this frightful existence of labor, of insufficient wages. You will speak of your sufferings, which were those of your parents for almost a century, which will be those of your children, and threaten to weigh eternally on our descendants if we don't straighten it out. You will speak of our homes without bread where the tearful outbursts of children whose stomachs scream famine mixed with the oaths of those swearing at parents powerless to give them bread. You will say that we are cursed by fatigue, which tears death rattles from us, but that we cannot accept a lowering of wages which do not allow us to subsist. We are not revolutionaries in Puyereux, but men who are reclaiming the right to exist and who are protesting against a being condemned to die of hunger. Tell them that the company has no admissible interest to let a strike continue in the course of which its mines are filled with water, the supports rot and the machinery rusts. He speaks well, that satanic Tranchant! At last I accepted to try to soften the Chief Engineer by — by — What! Sonofabitch! (he paces about for a while and stops abruptly) Watch out for explosions if I lose myself in subterranean shafts of the conversation. The Chief Engineer will show me if the drainage pump is functioning — He's in charge there, the Chief Engineer. It's not that he's a bad man. — No! He is very courageous! The first to be in danger if there is a collapse or an explosion, but with him: orders are orders. That's all he understands — It's true that he would croak if the shareholders wanted his skin. — What time is it? (looking at the door to the Engineer's office) Twenty to seven. What's the engineer doing? (going to the entrance) The office boy is capable of locking me in. (opening the door) You know, Bastien, he's not here. (closes the door and sits by the window) Hum! Hmm! The Chief Engineer — Hmm! If I called him Mr. Dumont — he'd think I was being very familiar. The Engineer in chief! Hmm! of the mining company of Puyereux. It's not too bad for a start — of Puyereux I've come on behalf of the comrades for the sole purpose of saying that to you. How to tell him that the company is making us croak from starvation to purchase truffles for his shareholders? Ah — the way (he pulls a bottle from an inside pocket of his clothing) another of Severus Tranchant's ideas. He's even the one who pays for the gin, for since day before yesterday we haven't had a centime at home. (he drinks a swig) Twenty sluts! That burns — but it is pleasant all the same. Yet another gulp. (drinks again) Enough! I'll get drunk and drunkenness, when you are starving, is bad advice. It's not the time to make an uproar. I will tell the Chief Engineer; the strike, by being prolonged, won't put bread into mouths of the miners or the coffers of the shareholders. I am a brave man, you know it. I am asking only in my name and the name of those who sent me to you, Mr. Chief Engineer, to pay us enough so we can eat bread every day. It's not the presence of troops and scabs that will lead to the end of the conflict between the company and the miners — it — it (taking another long drink. As he drinks seven o'clock strikes; the noise of a key turning in a lock can be heard) Yes, between the company and the unfortunate miners, the exploited, sonofabitch! (the alcohol begins to have an effect) I am for peace, me, Claudin Cervoise, but all the same I don't want to be screwed too bad. (drinks) Soldiers! as if they were going against Prussians. Ah! bad luck! (he falls into a chair)

VOICES: (outside) Down with the traitors! down! down! False comrades to the lantern! Hey! Hey! Let's screw them with water!

CLAUDIN: Drown the scabs! Sonofabitch! They are false comrades who prevent our claims from being taken seriously. They treat us like brutes. They will see one of these days what animals who are dying of starvation can do.

VOICES: Bread! Bread! Bread!

CLAUDIN: Clutch your empty wombs, poor women! Lament the kids, the golden crusts are not made to be crushed under your famished teeth.

VOICES: Bread! bread! (a drum roll soon followed by a cavalry trumpet) Soldiers! Long live the army! Bread!

CLAUDIN: (trying to see through the window) This wall prevents me from seeing outside. (turning back toward the office) Engineer of misfortune, why don't you come! (strides around feverishly)

OFFICER'S VOICE: Disperse! Don't force us to fire!

CLAUDIN: Huh! Fire! The worker's are demanding bread, they're on their last legs, exhausted. Ah! Misfortune upon misfortune.

VOICES: Long live the army! Long live our comrades! The dragoons are charging. Escape if you can. Bread!

(Shouts, howls of pain, trumpet sounds.)

CLAUDIN: To say it's like this every day! (the noises continue) You'd say the directors have sworn our ruin. I know quite well they are not wedded to foreign approval, but good God! they are gnawing on part of the main body to prevent the little ones from dying of famine! (walks and stops before the pictures of the benefactors) It's like these here, the benefactors. I ask a bit, what they have done for us? If they constructed nurseries, schools, a hospital, it's our money that paid the expenses. I admit they gave some thousand notes to begin with — but the huge sum was sweated out of us. Benefactors! Benefactors of their strong boxes. This damn engineer still isn't coming. He must be plotting a nasty trick. (he drinks)

(The noises increase, shouts, howls.)

VOICES: Release him! You aren't going to kill him. Long live Severus Tranchant! Cowards! Don't bludgeon him! Cowards! cowards! Ah! ah!

CLAUDIN: They are killing Severus! (rushes towards the door, which resists) Locked! Sonofabitch!

(Roll of drums, trumpet blare.)

CLAUDIN: I want to leave! (going to the window) Two stories. It's too high to jump. Ah! through the office of this blackguard of an engineer of this cruel Dumont. (tries to go into the Engineer's office) Locked! Damnation! (returning) I am a prisoner in this beastly hole!

VOICES: Bread! bread! Death to scabs! No foreigners in Puyereux! Long live France! Long live the army! Bread! bread!

CLAUDIN: Always that shout: bread! Yesterday, soldiers shared their bowls with our kids. Poor children, will they have this godsend tonight?

VOICES: Into the canal with the traitors! Death!

(Noises.)

OFFICER'S VOICE: Make way!

VOICES: Beat them! Mercy! No! No! Traitors! Got to get into the mine! Strike them! (howls of pain) Harder! harder! (howlings, hoots, brutish laughter) To the pits! Cut the cables. Bread! bread!

CLAUDIN: Rage is taking their guts! It's the madness of starvation.

(Shouts and howls.)

VOICES: The police! The charge! The charge!

(Howls, noises of cavalry.)

CLAUDIN: The police are charging. If only my wife and my children have gone back home! My God! Protect them!

VOICES: Save yourself if you can. Louis, Little Pierre —

CLAUDIN: My kids' names! I want to get out. (he shakes the door again) Bastien! Bastien! Son of a bitch! Flunkey! Scumbag!

VOICES: Louis! Louis!

CLAUDIN: That's my wife's voice!

VOICES: Louis! Louis! The horses! Ah!

CLAUDIN: I have to see! what to do? This is madness! Ah! the table! (he violently drags the table to the window then standing on it, he looks outside) The police are driving everybody back. Marie! Marie! I am too far away. Perhaps she's already got home with the children. The police are moving. The crowd is scattering. I see Marie under the street lamp. The kids are with her. Marie! Marie! Go home, wretched woman! She's looking. She recognized my voice. I am locked in the office of the engineer! Try to find Bastien! Tell him!

WOMAN'S VOICE: (very far away) Is that you there, Claudin?

CLAUDIN: It's me.

(Distant roll of drums.)

VOICES: Claudin Cervoise is a prisoner; let's free him. Break down the gates.

CLAUDIN: (emptying his flask) Break everything, sonofabitch! Everything's got to be smashed today. Could I be drunk? I'm talking like a mad man. I don't want to be carried away by rage (shouting, howling) and yet, goddamit! Rage is gripping my heart, hearing my kind yell under the brutal pressure of cavalry.

VOICES: Let's free my husband! Charlot, father is in there.

CLAUDIN: There's my older son — this is going to hum a bit.

(Roll of drums is heard distinctly, the blows of hammers are heard striking the factory gates.)

CLAUDIN: Soldiers!

VOICES: Long live the army!

OFFICER'S VOICE: Make room! Stop hammering on the gate!

VOICES: Captain, my father is a prisoner. Officer, my husband is a prisoner.

OFFICER: Keep you distance!

VOICES: Screw off in your camp and leaves us to unravel our business!

CLAUDIN: (still on the table) The women are throwing themselves on the bayonets as if they wanted gather wheat. The officer is making his man fall back! Charlot keeps flailing. Bold kid! The comrades are advancing! They are throwing bricks! They're hurling them. Sonofabitch! some soldiers are hit.

OFFICER'S VOICE: Don't fire! Don't fire!

CLAUDIN: The bricks are raining down. What rage! Heads emptied by famine are seeing red. Marie! Charlot! the little ones. The officer has fallen. The Engineer is rushing in front of the soldiers, who shoulder him aside. Brave Dumont. My kids! My wife! My —

(Roar of fire by the platoon.)

CLAUDIN: Ahhh!

(Claudin releases his grasp and falls by the window. Shouting, howls.)

CURTAIN