Soon, Trompette lay sprawled on the cast-iron floor, motionless, like a heap. He still didn’t move, lost in the nightmare of that dark, endless hole, that deep room echoing with uproar. They were beginning to untie him when Bataille, unhitched a moment earlier, approached and stretched out his neck to sniff this companion who had fallen from the earth like this. The workers widened the circle, joking. Well, what pleasant scent did he find on him? But Bataille grew lively, deaf to their mockery. Perhaps he breathed in the sweet scent of open air, the long-forgotten smell of sunshine on the grass. And suddenly, he broke into a loud neigh, a melody of joy, carrying the tenderness of a sob. It was a welcome, the joy of those old things, of which a puff reached him—a melancholy for one more prisoner who would only ascend again in death.
From “Germinal” by Émile Zola (Translated into English)
Zola described the coal miners’ life of misery with such profound prose that—like Uncle Tom’s Cabin—helped change the history of humanity. In the novel, nothing represents the coal miners’ life as much as the horses’ fate does. The workers descended the animals to the mine’s entrails to toil when they were foals and grew up there in the ignominious darkness and coal dust until their deaths years later. Zola’s magistral prose makes us readers shiver, describing the arrival of a young horse and the old nag’s reaction: “But Bataille grew lively, deaf to their mockery. Perhaps he breathed in the sweet scent of open air, the long-forgotten smell of sunshine on the grass. And suddenly, he broke into a loud neigh, a melody of joy, carrying the tenderness of a sob. It was a welcome, the joy of those old things, of which a puff reached him—a melancholy for one more prisoner who would only ascend again in death.”
Original text:
Bientôt, Trompette fut couché sur les dalles de fonte, comme une masse. Il ne bougeait toujours pas, il semblait dans le cauchemar de ce trou obscur, infini, de cette salle profonde, retentissante de vacarme. On commençait à le délier, lorsque Bataille, dételé depuis un instant, s’approcha allongea le cou pour flairer ce compagnon, qui tombait ainsi de la terre. Les ouvriers élargirent le cercle en plaisantant. Eh bien ! quelle bonne odeur lui trouvait-il ? Mais Bataille s’animait, sourd aux moqueries. Il lui trouvait sans doute la bonne odeur du grand air, l’odeur oubliée du soleil dans les herbes. Et il éclata tout à coup d’un hennissement sonore, d’une musique d’allégresse, où il semblait y avoir l’attendrissement d’un sanglot. C’était la bienvenue, la joie de ces choses anciennes dont une bouffée lui arrivait, la mélancolie de ce prisonnier de plus qui ne remonterait que mort.
