"He simply wanted to go down the mine again, to suffer and to struggle; and he thought angrily of those 'people' Bonnemort had told him about, and of the squat and sated deity to whom ten thousand starving men and women daily offered up their flesh without ever knowing who or what this god might be." Part I, page 71.

"Jeanlin departed, hands in pockets, dragging his feet and, though he was only a skinny ten-year-old, rolling his puny shoulders like an old miner." Part II, page 135.

"That evening, in the Advantage, the decision was taken to strike. Rasseneur had ceased to oppose it, and Souvarine accepted it as a first step. Etienne summed the matter up; if it was a strike the Company wanted, then a strike they could have." Part III, page 186.

"Everyone had stat down again at the table, and there they remained without a word...