When
Gervaise had fallen into poverty, Etienne, who was by that time a
stoker on an engine, was able to send his mother a five-franc piece
occasionally. L'Assommoir.
In a moment of passion Etienne struck his chief, and was at once
dismissed from his employment. An industrial crisis existed at the time,
and, finding it impossible to get work, he tramped from place to place
till eventually he arrived at Montsou, worn out with fatigue and want.
At the Voreux pit he chanced to get work in a gang led by Maheu, and
went underground for the first time. The work was hard and distasteful
to him, but he was unwilling to give it up, and was perhaps influenced
by the bright eyes of Catherine Maheu, who toiled alongside him. He
became more and more impressed with the sense of the hardships of
the miners' lives, and his mind was also influenced by Souvarine, a
confessed anarchist, beside whom he lodged. Gradually Etienne began to
indoctrinate his companions with a spirit of revolt, and when the great
strike broke out he became the leader. He did not, however, accept the
extreme doctrines of Souvarine, and endeavoured to dissuade the strikers
from doing damage to property.
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