Part 2 of Gone With The Wind

After being (too young) a widow with one baby boy Wade, the distressed Scarlett headed to Atlanta to visit Charles Hamilton’s relative: Aunt Pittypat. There she stayed with Melanie (Ashley’s wife) who was staying there too during the war. At this part Mitchell took us to see the other side of the war. Atlanta was flooding with wounded men at hospitals, and women volunteered in hospital committees to take care of them. Here we can imagine how Scarlett’s life has been turned over so quickly. Just before the war she was a young innocent girl whose purpose in life is to appear as beautifully as she could and to attract as many young men as possible. Now, she was a widow—and being a widow at that time meant women should wear black dress without accessories, and must appeared always in mourning state, and stayed away from parties and other amusement events. If in Part 1 Scarlett tried to ignore the upcoming civil war, now she must face it; she even took part in it.

Rather annoyingly, Mitchell wrote quite much about how Scarlett hated war because she must knit, sew, and work hard at hospitals, while all she wanted was dancing at the parties; and how she felt her life was unfair because she was a widow, while other girls at her age—even who was much less attractive than her—could dance and flirt freely. I can hardly keep on reading this, and must skip several pages until the situation have changed. It happened at a fund-raising bazaar, held to get fund for financing the war, where Scarlett met Rhett Butler—a blockade runner who supplied luxuries supplies for Atlanta. Mitchell gave Rhett a bigger portion at this part, we got to know him by appearance (which reminded me to stereotypical Harlequin’s male protagonists) as well as his liberal way of thinking.

Then Rhett slowly reshape Scarlett’s mind, by starting to ask her to dance at the bazaar, which naturally shocked everybody. Here the rebellious character of Scarlett started to appear, she did not afraid of what people said about her, she just wanted to do what she liked. In the middle of Scarlett’s transformation (from a mourning widow to a radiant young woman), we could see the dreadful effect of the war which was beginning to creep in. The tension grew when the Confederate armies experienced some losses, and took many lives of people whom Scarlett knew well. Now she began to realize the terrible shape of the war.

Even though Ashley did not have large portion in this part, he is still my favorite character so far. My favorite passage of this part was what Ashley wrote in his letter to Melanie—which Scarlett secretly read but failed to understand the meaning because she focused only to search any signs that Ashley still loved her… oh poor-silly-Scarlet :(

“I am not afraid of danger or capture or wounds or even death, if death must come, but I do fear that once this war is over, we will never get back to the old times. And I belong in those old times. I do not belong in this mad present of killing and I fear I will not fit into any future, try though I may. I do not know what the future will bring, but it cannot be as beautiful or as satisfying as the past.”

When eventually the armies went home for Christmas, poor Scarlett (once again) began her longing for Ashley’s attention to make sure whether he still loved her. She could finally have a moment to speak privately, only to hear that Ashley begged her to look after Melanie during his absent. After that Confederate kept losing battle, and in one of it Ashley got captures by the Yankee while Melanie was getting pregnant. Life began to get harder for Scarlett… And meanwhile, prices began to rise, foods were rare, and Atlanta struggled from the war. This was what Rhett has tried to explain to Southern people who took war as a glorious way to prove that they were better than the other. Here Scarlett began to understand the meaning of Ashley’s letter, for he had the same idea as Rhett’s about the war. When Scarlett asked Rhett, why Ashley kept fighting at the war while he has already known the truth, Rhett simply said that it was because Ashley’s a gentleman. Well, I can’t say who’s right or wrong, for I always admire people who hold their principles, but if I had to choose between Rhett and Ashley, I would choose Ashley :) At least until this Part 2…

Part 2 is a slightly better reading than part 1, with the war coming. Scarlett still showed her selfish, indifferent character, but her life was not full of fun anymore, now she began to struggle from the war—although it was all still in her own mind frame. I was still often annoyed at her, but I really hope she would gradually learn her lessons and transform to a more reasonable woman in next parts!

What about you? How do you think about this Part 2? Don’t forget to share your thoughts in the Update Posts page, and see what others thought about it.

Maheude in Germinal

Among many female characters on Germinal, the most interesting one is Maheude. Maheude is a wife of a mine worker named Maheu. Actually Maheude was only in her beginning of forty years old, however poverty, child laboring and hard-working has made her body loose and looked like she was fifty. Maheude represented women on the lower social class in 19^th century (in France in this case). Like other women, Maheude went to work at the pit since she was very young. Then after having seven children, her strength was decreasing and became not too productive for the Company so that she was forced to stay at home. Being the household manager was not an easy thing. Maheude should manage to feed ten mouths (the father, the mother, the grandfather and seven children) from whatever they earned from the mine, and it was sooo very little that they often must ask for credit from the groceries store.

In the early chapters, I have asked myself why the Maheus kept ‘producing’ children if they could hardly feed them all? I realized then that part of the purpose of having children was to bring home as much money as they can get by sending the children to pit when they grown up enough to do it. I know it sounds weird and unfair, but that’s how they survived against the extreme poverty at that time.

Maheude in 'Germinal' movie

Maheude was a woman with a strong character and a better moral compared to other women around the pit. Despite of her poverty, she still had a pride not to beg for anything, a principle that she persistently hold to; for Maheude, hoping for other’s generosity by telling them how hard your life was, was not begging. When Maheude received a bag of fine clothes from a rich family, while what she needed most was food, she could not ask for money to buy food, because it would be begging. The shopkeeper of a grocery store near the settlements was a playboy, he used the women’s poverty for his own benefit. When a woman asked for credit, he would grant it if she or her daughter agreed to sleep with him. When Maheude came with no money to have groceries, she was forced to give the man a false promise of sending for her daughter Catherine to him sometime, a promise that she never kept and resulted to no more credits from the store afterwards, even when the families left in hunger.

In short, it was Maheude that protected and supported the family in the whole story. Unfortunately, it was also Maheude who suffered the most from the miners’ strike. **spoiler alert** Maheude lost, one after another, her husband and three children, while another son got limped from an accident, which meant he brought home less money. Here you would see Maheude’s extremely strong personality; instead of breaking down, she managed to keep living her life. **spoiler ends** She knew how to put first things first. Although at first Maheude—in her rage towards the Company who put them all into extreme poverty—detested the idea of going back to work until the Company has fulfilled their requisition, in the end she obliged to act the opposite. Not only letting the children back to work, Maheude herself must get to work, even if it was the lightest job with the lowest wage in order to survive.

© Bridgeman Art Library / Bibliotheque
Nationale, Paris, France /
Archives Charmet [source]

What I like most of her was despite the great suffers she must endured because of the strike, Maheude never hated Étienne who had transplanted the idea of striking in the miners' minds at first place. She did not treat him badly after the event, like others did, she kept the friendship with him. Other than that, it’s only Maheude—a woman who suffered the most—who still hold a vague hope of a better future, who rejected to surrender just like that. It is Maheude who could see that it was just the beginning of something bigger than that, the germination!

I would always see Maheude as a very brave woman, who never lost hopes for the better, and hold to her principle to the last. She was poor in life but not poor in soul.

Courrier Sud / Southern Mail (Pesawat Pos Selatan)

[conclusion in English is at the bottom of this post]

Ini adalah buku kedua karya Antoine de Saint-Exupery yang kubaca setelah The Little Prince. Courrier Sud (judul aslinya) ini merupakan karya fiksi pertama Exupery, bertutur tentang pilot pesawat pos bernama Jacques Bernis. Seperti semua novel-novelnya, Courrier Sud ini juga mewakili pengalaman Exupery sendiri sebagai pilot pesawat pos yang tugasnya mengirimkan surat-surat antara Paris – Dakar agar cepat tiba di tujuan, lebih cepat daripada lewat kereta api yang lebih lazim saat itu. Pesawat terbang jaman itu belumlah secanggih sekarang, sehingga pilot harus lebih banyak menggunakan instingnya ketika cuaca buruk, apalagi ketika berada di sekitar gurun pasir Sahara yang sangat luas. Menjadi pilot pesawat saat itu adalah pekerjaan yang penuh bahaya, dan suka duka menjadi pilot ini dituangkan ke dalam novel ini beserta—kemungkinan besar—curahan hati Exupery sendiri tentang hidupnya dan kisah cintanya.

Courrier Sud ini dituturkan oleh sahabat Bernis. Aku melihat Bernis sebagai manusia yang tidak cocok berada di manapun (doesn’t belong anywhere). Semenjak kecil Bernis dan si sahabat merasa bahwa hidup mereka sangat membosankan, selalu dibatasi banyak aturan, selalu dapat diduga, tak menarik sama sekali. Hal ini berlanjut, khususnya bagi Bernis yang—di sepanjang buku ini, lewat ungkapan-ungkapan puitis—merasa orang-orang dan dunia di sekitarnya tak pernah bergerak atau berubah.

“Ternyata, semuanya tetap sama….”

 Sebaliknya, Bernis merasakan kebebasan ketika ia berada di udara, sendirian dalam kokpit pesawat yang dikendarainya. Rasa kebebasan ini terungkap lewat kilasan-kilasan alam sekitarnya yang ia saksikan dari ketinggian, yang banyak menghiasi buku ini.

“Masing-masing (orang-orang yang dulu dikenalnya) terpenjara oleh diri sendiri, dibatasi oleh rem samar-samar, dan tidak seperti dia, si anak yang bebas, si anak malang, si penyihir.”

Apakah itu berarti bahwa Bernis lantas bahagia karena menjadi pilot? Ternyata tidak, orang-orang saat itu memandang aktivitas ‘berkendara di udara’ adalah sesuatu yang aneh. Bahkan lewat kutipan di atas kita melihat bahwa Bernis disebut sebagai ‘si penyihir’ (yang bisa terbang, menyalahi kodrat manusia). Bernis yang malang, Bernis yang kesepian, yang ditolak, namun juga tak kerasan berada di dunianya. Ia mencintai seorang wanita yang adalah sahabatnya semenjak kecil: Geneviève. Setelah keduanya dewasa, Bernis mendapati jurang yang amat lebar yang memisahkan dirinya dengan Geneviève, karena si wanita adalah orang yang amat terikat pada kehidupannya, pada semua miliknya, sementara Bernis adalah orang yang bebas lepas dari segala keterikatan dunia.

“Kebiasaan-kebiasaan, peraturan-peraturan, hukum-hukum, semua yang tidak kau (Bernis) rasakan kegunaannya, semua yang telah kau hindari… Hal itulah yang telah memberi-nya (Geneviève) sebuah bingkai. Untuk tetap ada, kita membutuhkan kenyataan-kenyataan yang mempunyai keberlangsungan di sekeliling kita. Meski dianggap tak masuk akal atau tak adil, semua itu hanyalah suatu bahasa. Dan Geneviève, jika dia kau bawa pergi, akan kehilangan dirinya.”

Membaca ini aku agak tersentak. Bukankah nasihat sahabat Bernis ini seolah menampar kita semua yang terbiasa hidup nyaman dalam ‘bingkai-bingkai’ yang kita pasang disekeliling kita, sehingga kita lupa pada hakikat hidup ini yang sesungguhnya? Lagipula kutipan itu justru lebih relevan bagi kita yang hidup di jaman internet dan teknologi maju ini, yang begitu terikat pada gadget, teknologi dsb. hingga bila kita harus meninggalkan semua itu sebentar saja, kita merasa seolah lumpuh? Bukankah ini absurd?

Menurutku Bernis mengalami kesepian, bukan saat berada di pesawat sendirian, melainkan justru saat ada di dunia. Karena ia tak seperti manusia lainnya, mereka semua hanya melihat lingkup terbatas dunia mereka sendiri, sementara Bernis—dan seharusnya kita semua—memandang hidup ini jauh lebih luas, lebih agung daripada sekedar rutinitas dan benda-benda mati yang mampu kita indrai. Membaca kotbah seorang pastor saat Bernis berada di Gereja Notre-Dame ini mengingatkanku pada Jostein Gaarder, seorang penulis fiksi-filosofis yang lewat Dunia Sophie juga mengingatkan kita akan hakikat alam semesta dan kehidupan yang sesungguhnya:

“Anda sekalian telah menyatukan perjalanan bintang, wahai generasi baru peneliti, dan Anda sekalian tidak mengenalinya lagi. Dia adalah sebuah tanda dalam buku Anda, tetapi bukan lagi cahaya; seorang anak kecil lebih tahu mengenai hal itu daripada Anda.

Anda sekalian telah menemukan semua hal sampai kaidah-kaidah yang mengatur cinta kasih manusia, tetapi cinta kasih itu sendiri terlepas dari tanda-tanda Anda; seorang gadis muda lebih mengetahuinya daripada Anda.”

Di jaman modern ini kita semua sudah kehilangan makna banyak hal dalam hidup. ‘Terbanglah’ seperti Bernis, jangan menutup diri seperti Geneviève; **spoiler** yang karena tak mau kehilangan hal-hal yang nyata namun sebenarnya fana, malah kehilangan kesempatan merasakan keagungan cinta yang tak nampak namun sebenarnya nyata. **spoiler ends**

Ah ternyata….kisah yang awalnya hanya tampak sebagai curhat seorang pilot belaka, ternyata menyimpan filosofi yang mengagumkan. Tak heran bila sebuah label ‘novel agung dunia’ tersemat di sampul buku ini, yang tadinya kukira hanyalah akal-akalan promosi saja, namun kini kusadari, itulah yang telah kudapat dari buku ini.

Empat bintang untuk Courrier Sud, sebuah novel bermakna indah, dibalut kalimat-kalimat puitis yang seringkali tak mampu aku pahami, mungkin karena itu aku tak sanggup memberinya nilai mutlak (satu bintang kusimpan untukku sendiri, mungkin suatu hari nanti aku akan mampu menyibak seluruh artinya…atau…seperti halnya alam semesta, selalu akan ada hal-hal yang tak mampu kita pahami hingga kapanpun, dan itu yang membuat alam semesta atau buku ini begitu agung? Mungkin…)

Judul: Courrier Sud (terjemahan: Pesawat Pos Selatan)

Penulis: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Penerjemah: Prof. Dr. Apsanti Djokosujatno (guru besar sastra & kritikus)

Penerbit: Komodo books

Terbit: Februari 2012

Tebal: 190 hlm.

Conclusion:

At first I thought Courrier Sud (or Southern Mail) was just a story about a pilot, maybe a kind of Exupéry’s autobiographical story, but I was completely wrong! Like The Little Prince, this is a philosophical thinking which Exupéry has wrapped in a simple story about the life and love of a pilot named Jacques Bernis. Bernis’s job is to carry express mail from Paris to Dakkar (this is a new innovation because at that time mail were delivered by train). Plane and navigation were new at that time, and it needed a big courage for a man to drive a plane. Ordinary people even mocked Bernis as ‘ghost’ or ‘wizard’. Travelling on air was beyond many people’s common sense.

On the other hand, Bernis felt that ordinary life was unbearable; life which was limited by orders and routines. Exupéry emphasized the different way of thinking by creating a love story of Bernis and a girl from his childhood named Geneviève. Unlike Bernis, Geneviève loved orders and formalities; that when Bernis asked her to runaway with him from her previous unhappy life, Geneviève found it too difficult because she has already bound to her home and everything she possessed, that she could not live freely as Bernis wanted.

I saw Bernis as a lonely person, he did belong to the world he supposed to live, and only when he was alone in his cockpit that he felt quiet and absorbed in the beauty of nature. I believe that in those occasions, Bernis actually felt the presence of God through His creation. Bernis also felt that everything in ordinary life was stagnant, never changed.

From Courrier Sud I learned—not only about the unreliability of the planes at that time, the dangers of being a pilot, and the beautiful scenes from above—but also a divine knowledge of living our life. Instead of limited ourselves with everything that modern life offers us, we should provide more time to contemplate the true meaning of it; to be more like Bernis than like Geneviève. And all of these were beautifully crafted by Exupéry in poetic sentences, makes me love this book more!

I give four stars for Courrier Sud, for although I know this is a remarkable work, there are still several parts of the story that I could not get into the exact meaning. Maybe that's why I love it, because I know I can go back to this book some day and maybe next time I’ll be able to extract new meanings from it. Maybe…

My Favorite Review: Classics Club September Meme

This month’s meme for The Classics Club is quite interesting. While we are all busy with our reads and reviews, we were encouraged by the moderators to “socialize” with other members (which, by the way, had reached 221! Wow..!!) by creating a meme which permit us to promote another member. This way we can get to know each other, as I think it’s impossible to read all the reviews or to visit the entire member’s blogs. So, here is the meme…

Pick a classic someone else in the club has read from our big review list. Link to their review and offer a quote from their post describing their reaction to the book. What about their post makes you excited to read that classic in particular?

Thanks to The Classics Club blog, I can finally find one review that has made me adding Toni Morrison’s book ‘Beloved’ to my list recently. Fortunately there is only one review for Beloved, it’s from Nishita’s blog.

I was instantly struck by Nishita's review opening:

“What kind of mother cuts her child’s head off with a hacksaw? A mother who felt she had no alternative, that she was actually protecting her child from worse fates.”

While book bloggers cautiously write their review to not revealing any spoilers, this one just pointed it out in the beginning! But it worked for me, this book caught my interest at once. I have always thought Beloved is a kind of romance book (lesson: never judge a book from it’s title!), so reading that spoiler made me curious. What is this book really about? And after reading the entire review, I just knew that I must read this one, for I always love books that is rich of humanity aspects with a slight touch of psychology. This paragraph only strengthened my decision to pick up this book:

“It’s also hard to read how an entire race was kept so backward for so long. There is a section where a newly freed slave is so happy when he receives a coin for helping somebody load stuff in a van. He walks around with the coin, and is so amazed that he can go into a shop and buy something with it. It’s just written so beautifully, and so much from the heart.
And that’s why I love this book. The writing just feels like an outpouring from the heart. You can feel every emotion felt by Sethe, and the other characters in the story in their own voices.”              

I've just bought this 2nd hand copy online,
can't wait to receive & read it!

Thanks to Nishita, your spoiler really made me curious! :)

Weekend Quote 5: Gone With The Wind

Gone With The Wind depicted the American civil war between the Southerner and the Yankees. Just like any other wars, people were so anxious to take part in it; young men joined the army in the hope to be heroes of the country. They were willingly to sacrifice their lives for they believed they’d done it sacredly for their beloved country. But was it really so? Margaret Mitchell—through this book—asked us to see the truth, that war was only inflicted by certain parties for their own sakes; war was not something sacred, it only brought poverty and misery to the people, and lives would have changed completely for them.

This weekend I will share a quote from Ashley Wilkes, one of the young men who have joined the troop, one of the many who have enough sense to realize the truth, and gloomily foreseen the worse future of their lives. He was saying these in his letter to his wife.

“I am not afraid of danger or capture or wounds or even death, if death must come, but I do fear that once this war is over, we will never get back to the old times. And I belong in those old times. I do not belong in this mad present of killing and I fear I will not fit into any future, try though I may. I do not know what the future will bring, but it cannot be as beautiful or as satisfying as the past.”

Weekend Quote is hosted by Half-Filled Attic. Feel free to join. You can:

• Give the context of the quote
• Give your opinion whether you agree or disagree with it
• Share your experience related to the quote
• Share similar quotes you remember
• Or anything else. Just have fun with the quote.

Part 1 of Gone With The Wind

Finally…I have just finished the first part for Gone With The Wind Read Along. This read along does not have any deadline for reading each part, everyone have their own paces; however as the host, I feel like I must be ahead from everyone. The problem is, I was a bit struggling with this part. Mitchell focused this opening part to explain the social condition in the Southern America when the civil war was beginning to come closer.

Mitchell also started to built in this part, Scarlett O’Hara’s character when she was sixteen years old, and all she was thinking was only how to get men attracted to her. Frankly speaking, I failed to have sympathy for Scarlett. To me she was spoiled, childish, self-centered, and narrow minded. I’m going to say foolish too, but I realized that she was only sixteen then and was grown up in 19 century when the only purpose in women’s lives was only to get married. Still, I was almost disgusted at Scarlett’s minds, I have never read any book with a main protagonist as annoying as Scarlett. I almost could not find any positive personality from Scarlett other than being persistent in what she wanted (if that could be assumed as a positive side).

The main story was about Scarlett who loved Ashley Wilkes, a young man who was far different from her. The Wilkes had a like in books and music, something that Southern people thought ridiculous. Although Ashley never mentioned it, Scarlett always imagined that Ashley loved her in return and would someday propose to marry her. However, instead of nurturing their relationship, Scarlett also flirted with any other men, only because she felt that she was the most attractive young lady in the county, to whom men’s interests should be poured to (I always HATE girls like this!) and that she must always get what she wanted.

How surprised Scarlett was when she heard that Ashley would be engaged to his cousin. And half of part one was dedicated to tell about Scarlett’s tricks to thwart the engagement. And what do you think she did after knowing the fact? Learned from her mistakes? Wiped in broken heart? No! She did another stupid mistake, decided to marry a young man (a rich one) whom she never even liked or thought about. Unfortunately (or fortunately for Scarlett?) the war arrived, the young men must joined the troop, and Charles (Scarlett’s husband) must left Scarlett who was pregnant. And what do you think she felt about the baby? She did not take any care of it, she even forgot that she have had a baby. Scarlett always thought about herself, what she must have had, what she lost, what others should have treated her, etc etc…

Rhett Butler did appeared in the last chapters, as a snob young man who—I think—has similar characters as Scarlett. And besides that annoying Scarlett, several chapters were dedicated to describe about Gerald and Ellen O’Hara (Scarlett’s parents); how Gerald who was Irish could have settled in the South and have built Tara and the plantation, and how he married Ellen. These chapters were quite long in narration (and made me drowsy sometimes) but I found the history and the struggles quite interesting.

In short, if Jillian hasn’t warned me that Gone With The Wind was not a (pure) romance novel, I would think that I’m reading a bulk chicklit novel, and would definitely have given up. However, as I knew that this is an epic tale, and I am only on Part 1, I will keep reading this and hope everything will get better in the next parts. But first I need to grab another book before getting to Part 2 and to calm my mind down, or otherwise I will keep shouting to Scarlett through Part 2 and won’t enjoy the reading :))

Oh, and this is a quote of what Ashley told Scarlett about love and marriage, which makes sense.

“Love isn’t enough to make a successful marriage when two people are as different as we are. You would want all of a man, Scarlett, his body, his heart, his soul, his thoughts… And you would be hurt, and then you would come to hate me—how bitterly! You would hate the books I read and the music I loved, because they took me away from you even for a moment.”

How about you? What have you found in Part One? Don’t forget to share it in the Update Posts page, and hop to other blogs as well!

Étienne Lantier on Germinal

Étienne was the protagonist in this book about mine workers in their struggle under the bourgeoisie’s power. Étienne was the son of Gervaise and Lantier in L’Assommoir, born from the drunkard parents. Without any money he came to the settlement after having thumped his former boss. Étienne, despite of his poverty and unlike any other miners, was quite an educated man. He liked to discuss politics with his comrade and read a lot of books, especially books about socialism. And not only reading, he was thirsty of all the new knowledge and absorbed them all in his leisure time.

Although not described in detail in this book, I choose to imagine Étienne as a quite handsome young man with a polite manner. He had a shyness towards a woman, that when it’s obvious that Catherine (one of the female protagonist) also liked him, Étienne still wordlessly in front of her. In short, Étienne was an outsider. Not only that he came from other town, but he had a manner of self respect and of ‘higher level’. Maybe if his parents did not that poor, he could have been educated and being one of the bourgeoisies. It was he who first felt the need to do something against the unfair treatment towards the mine workers, while the workers themselves had been accustomed to submission and passive obedience.

So with the combination of his concerns and his knowledge, he started to share his ideas about demanding their rights against the bosses. Then suddenly Étienne became a leader (and I imagine that he seemed to fit that position, with his handsome face, educated mind and he learned fast the skill of effectively talking to a crowd). Little leader at first, then the snow ball rolled, and there he was, ready to lead a strike, a big strike of thousands of men and women! Here I then saw his weakness. He became proud of himself, he enjoyed the sense of being a leader, of overpowering his comrades, when everybody listened to what he said, and did what he told them. He overestimated his own capability though, with his only short self-education, he just thrown the theories into practices, never having thoroughly calculated and planned his movement.

I don’t know whether alcoholism was hereditary, but Étienne noticed himself that when his body has contaminated from certain numbers of alcohol, he would lose control, and brutality would came to him out of nowhere. That was why he thumped his former boss, and that’s why he lost his temper during the strike. Was that because he inherited some bad cells from his drunkard parents? I don’t know…. Through the entire story I have been hoping that Étienne won’t fall at the temptation of drinking. Let him always be in his consciousness that had prevented many killing attempt from his comrades.

One thing I like from him was how he loved and treated Catherine. Unlike his comrades, Étienne treated women tenderly, he had a respect for them. Especially with Catherine, although he knew that men often bumped at their women just like that, and although he knew that Catherine had a crush on him and would be submissive enough to him, he never forced her. It might partly because of his shyness, but I prefer to believe that somehow Étienne had a respect to Catherine because he really loved her. Étienne  never blamed Catherine for choosing Chaval, and on the day of the disaster on the pit, Étienne—despite of his decision not to go down again and calling them who did that a coward—decided finally to go working only to protect Catherine from the angry Chaval.

And when the disaster came, Étienne always protected Catherine, covering her with life as best as he could. How sweet those scenes were….

What I love the most of him was that he always found new hope from the bitter falls. People do make mistakes, but at the end it’s how they do out of it that’s important. When he knew that the comrades turned away from him with hatred, he did not give himself long time to regret, he knew what he must do, going from there to renew his knowledge and to make himself useful at other place.