Monomaniac (La bête humaine) — Section 10

CHAPTER VI

A month passed, and great tranquillity again pervaded the lodging occupied by the Roubauds, on the first floor of the railway station, over the waiting-rooms.

With them, with their neighbours in the corridor, with all this little crowd of public servants subjected to an existence regulated by the clock, life had resumed its monotony.

And it seemed as if nothing violent or abnormal had taken place.

The noisy and scandalous Grandmorin case was quietly being forgotten, was about to be shelved, owing to the apparent inability of the authorities to discover the criminal.

After Cabuche had been locked up a fortnight, the examining-magistrate, Denizet, had ordered his discharge, on the ground that there was not sufficient evidence against him.

And a romantic fable was now being arranged by the police: that of an unknown murderer on whom it was impossible to lay hands, a criminal adventurer, who was everywhere at the same time, who was accused of all the murders, and who vanished in smoke, at the mere sight of the officers.

It was now only at long intervals that a few jokes about this fabulous murderer were revived in the opposition press, which became intensely excited as the general elections drew near.

The pressure of the government, the violence of the prefects, every day furnished other subjects for indignant articles; and the newspapers were so busy with these matters that they gave no further attention to the case.

It had ceased to interest the public, who no longer even spoke on the subject.

What had completed the tranquillity of the Roubauds was the happy way in which the other difficulty, connected with the will of President Grandmorin, had been smoothed over.

On the advice of Madame Bonnehon, the Lachesnayes had at last consented to accept the will, partly because they did not wish to revive the scandal, and also because they were very uncertain as to the result of an action.

And the Roubauds, placed in possession of their legacy, had for the past week been the owners of La Croix-de-Maufras, house and garden, estimated to be worth about 40,000 frcs.

, a matter of £1,600. They had immediately decided on selling the place, which haunted them like a nightmare, and on selling it in a lump, with the furniture, just as it stood, without repairing it, and without even sweeping out the dust.

But, as it would not have fetched anything like its value at an auction, there being few purchasers who would consent to retire to such solitude, they had resolved to await an amateur, and had nailed up an immense board on the front of the house, setting forth that it was for sale, which could easily be read by persons in the frequent trains that passed.

This notice in great letters, this desolation to be disposed of, added to the sadness of the closed shutters, and of the garden invaded with briars.

Roubaud, having absolutely refused to go there, even to take a look round, and make certain necessary arrangements, Séverine had paid a visit to the house one afternoon, and had left the keys with the Misards, telling them to show any possible purchasers who might make inquiries, over the property.

Possession could be arranged in a couple of hours, for there was even linen in the cupboards.

And from that moment, there being nothing further to trouble the Roubauds, they passed each day in blissful expectation of the morrow.

The house would end by being sold, they would invest the money, and everything would go on very well.

Besides, they forgot all about it, living as if they were never going to quit the three rooms they occupied: the dining-room, with the door opening on the corridor; the bedroom, fairly large, on the right; the small, stuffy kitchen on the left.

Even the roofing over the platforms, before their windows, that zinc slope shutting out the view like the wall of a prison, instead of exasperating them, as formerly, seemed to bring calm, increasing that sensation of infinite repose, of recomforting peace, wherein they felt secure.

In any case, the neighbours could not see them, there were no prying eyes always in front of them peering into their home; and, spring having set in, they now only complained of the stifling heat, of the blinding reflex from the zinc, fired by the first rays of the sun.

After that frightful shock, which for two months had caused them to live in a constant tremble, they enjoyed this reaction of absorbing insensibility, in perfect bliss.

They only desired never to move again, happy to be simply alive, without trembling and without suffering.

Never had Roubaud been so exact and conscientious.

During the week of day duty, he was on the platform at five in the morning.

He did not go up to breakfast until ten, and came down again an hour later, remaining there until five in the evening--eleven hours full of work.

During the week of night duty, he had not even the brief rest afforded by a meal at home, for he supped in his office.

He bore this hard servitude with a sort of satisfaction, seeming to take pleasure in it, entering into details, wishing to see to everything, to do everything, as if he found oblivion in fatigue; the return of a well-balanced, normal life.

Séverine, for her part, almost always alone, a widow one week out of two, and who during the other week, only saw her husband at luncheon and dinner-time, displayed all the energy of a good housewife.

She had been in the habit of sitting down to embroidery, detesting to put her hand to household work, which an old woman, called Mother Simon, came to do, from nine to twelve.

But since she had recovered tranquillity at home, and felt certain of remaining there, she had been occupied with ideas of cleaning and arranging things; and she now only seated herself, after rummaging everywhere in the apartment.

Both slept soundly.

In their rare conversations at meal-times, as on the nights which they passed together, they never once alluded to the case, considering it at an end, and buried.

For Séverine, particularly, life once more became extremely pleasant.

Her idleness returned.

Again she abandoned the housework to Mother Simon, like a young lady brought up for no greater exertion than fine needlework.

She had commenced an interminable task, consisting in embroidering an entire bedcover, which threatened to occupy her to the end of her days.

She rose rather late, delighted to remain alone in bed, rocked by the trains leaving and coming in, which told her how the hours fled, as exactly as if her eyes had been on a clock.

In the early days of her married life, these violent sounds in the station--the whistling, the shocks of turn-tables, the rolls of thunder, the abrupt oscillations, like earthquakes, which made both her and the furniture totter--had driven her half crazy.

Then, by degrees, she had become accustomed to them; the sonorous and vibrating railway station formed part of her existence; and, now, she liked it, finding tranquillity in all this bustle and uproar.

Until lunch-time, she went from one room to another, talking to the charwoman, with her hands idle.

Then, she passed the long afternoons, seated before the dining-room window, with her work generally on her lap, delighted at doing nothing.

During the weeks when her husband came up at daylight, to go to bed, she heard him snoring until dark;

and these had become her good weeks--those during which she lived as formerly, before her marriage, having the whole bed to herself, enjoying her time after rising, as she thought proper, with the entire day before her, to do as she liked.

She rarely went out.

All she could see of Havre, was the smoke of the neighbouring factories, whose great turbillions of black stained the sky above the zinc roof, which shut out the view at a few yards from her eyes.

The city was there, behind this perpetual wall; she always felt its presence, and her annoyance at being unable to see it had, in the end, subsided.

Five or six pots of wallflowers and verbenas, which she cultivated in the gutter, gave her a small garden to enliven her solitude.

At times she spoke of herself as of a recluse in the depths of a wood.

Roubaud, in his moments of idleness, would get out of the window, then, passing to the end of the gutter, would ascend the zinc slope, seating himself on the top of the gable, overlooking the Cours Napoléon.

There he smoked his pipe, in the open air, towering above the city that lay spread out at his feet, above the docks planted with tall masts, and the pale green sea, expanding as far as the eye could roam.

It seemed that the same somnolence had gained the other households, near the Roubauds.

This corridor, where generally whistled such a terrible gale of gossip, was also wrapt in slumber.

When Philomène paid a visit to Madame Lebleu, barely a slight murmur could be heard.

Both of them, surprised at the turn matters had taken, now spoke of the assistant station-master with disdainful commiseration, convinced that his wife, to keep him in his post, had been up to her games at Paris.

He was now a man with a slur upon him, who would never free himself of certain suspicions.

And, as the wife of the cashier felt convinced that, henceforth, her neighbours would not have the power to take her lodging from her, she simply treated them with contempt, stiffening herself when she passed them, and neglecting to bow.

This behaviour even estranged Philomène, who called on her less and less frequently.

She considered her too proud, and no longer found amusement in her company.

Madame Lebleu, in order to have something to occupy her, continued to watch the intrigue between Mademoiselle Guichon and the station-master, M.

Dabadie, but without ever surprising them.

The almost imperceptible brush of his felt slippers along the corridor, could alone be heard.

Everything having thus settled down, a month of supreme peacefulness ensued, similar to the great calm that follows great catastrophes.

But one painful, anxious matter remained, to occasionally worry the Roubauds.

There was a particular part of the parquetry in the dining-room, whereon their eyes never chanced to rest, without an uncomfortable feeling again troubling them.

This spot was to the left of the window.

There they had taken up and put in place again, a piece of the pattern in the oak flooring, to hide beneath it the watch, and the 10,000 frcs.

(£400) which they had taken from the body of Grandmorin, as well as a purse containing about 300 frcs.

(£12) in gold.

Roubaud had only drawn the watch and money from the pockets of the victim, to convey the impression that the motive of the crime was robbery.

He was not a thief.

He would sooner die of hunger within arms' reach of the treasure, as he said, than profit by a centime, or sell the watch.

The money of this old man, to whom he had dealt out justice--money, stained with infamy and blood?

No!

no!

it was not clean enough for an honest man to finger.

And he did not even give a thought to the house at La Croix-de-Maufras, which he had accepted as a present.

The act of plundering the victim, of carrying off those notes in the abomination of murder, alone revolted him and aroused his conscience to the pitch of making him start back in fright at the idea of touching the ill-gotten gain.

Nevertheless, he had not had the courage to burn the notes; and then, one night, to go and cast watch and purse in the sea.

If simple prudence urged him to act thus, inexorable instinct protested against the destruction.

Unconsciously, he felt respect for such a large sum of money, and he could never have made up his mind to annihilate it.

At the commencement, on the first night, he had thrust it under his pillow, considering no other place sufficiently secure.

On the following days, he had exerted his ingenuity to discover hiding-places, changing them each morning, agitated at the least sound, in fear of the police arriving with a search-warrant.

Never had he displayed so much imagination.

At last, at the end of artifices, weary of trembling, he one day had the coolness to take the money and watch, hidden the previous evening under the parquetry; and, now, for nothing in the world would he put his hand there.

It was like a charnel house, a hole pregnant with terror and death, where spectres awaited him.

He even avoided, when moving about the room, to place his feet on that part of the floor.

The idea of doing so, caused him an unpleasant sensation, made him fancy he would receive a slight shock in the legs.

When Séverine sat down before the window in the afternoon, she would draw back her chair so as not to be exactly over this skeleton which they kept under their floor.

They never spoke of the matter to one another, endeavouring to think they would get accustomed to it; and, at length, they became irritable at remembering the thing again, at feeling it there at every hour, more and more importunate, beneath the soles of their boots.

And this uncomfortable sensation was all the more singular, as they in no way suffered from the knife, the beautiful new knife purchased by the wife, and which the husband had stuck into the throat of the sweetheart.

It had been simply washed, and lay in a drawer.

Sometimes Mother Simon used it to cut the bread.

Amidst the peacefulness in which they were living, Roubaud had just introduced another cause of trouble, which was slowly gaining ground, by forcing Jacques to visit them.

The duties of the engine-driver brought him three times a week to Havre.

On Monday, from 10. 35 in the morning, to 6. 20 at night.

On Thursday and Saturday, from 11. 05 at night, to 6. 40 in the morning.

And on the first Monday after the journey Séverine had made to Paris, the assistant station-master displayed effusive affability towards him.

"Come, comrade," said he, "you cannot refuse to have a snack with us.

The deuce!

you were very obliging to my wife, and I owe you some thanks!"

Twice in a month, Jacques had thus accepted an invitation to lunch.

It seemed that Roubaud, inconvenienced at the long silence that now prevailed when he met his wife at table, felt a relief as soon as he could place a guest between them.

He at once recalled amusing anecdotes, chatted and joked.

"Come as often as possible," said he; "you can see you are not in the way."

One Thursday night, as Jacques, who had washed himself, was thinking of going off to bed, he met the assistant station-master strolling round the depôt; and, notwithstanding the late hour, the latter, disinclined to walk back alone, persuaded the young man to accompany him to the station.

Once there he insisted on taking him to his rooms.

Séverine was still up, and reading.

They drank a glass or two together, and played cards until after midnight.

Henceforth the luncheons on Monday, and the little evening parties on Thursday and Saturday, became a habit.

It was Roubaud, himself, when the comrade once missed a day, who kept a look-out for him, and brought him home, reproaching him with his neglect.

But he became more and more gloomy, and it was only in the company of his new friend that he was really in good spirits.

This man, who had first of all so cruelly alarmed him, whom he should now have held in execration as the witness--the living vision of things he wished to forget--had, on the contrary, become necessary to him, perhaps for the simple reason that he knew what had occurred, and had not spoken.

This position took the form of a powerful bond, a sort of complicity between them.

The assistant station-master had often looked at the other in a knowing way, pressing his hand with a sudden burst of feeling, and with a violence that surpassed the simple expression of good fellowship.

But it was particularly at home that Jacques became a source of diversion.

There, Séverine also welcomed him with gaiety, uttering an exclamation as soon as he entered, like a woman bestirred by a thrill of pleasure.

She put aside everything--her embroidery, her book, escaping from the gloomy somnolence, in which she passed her time, in a torrent of words and laughter.

"Ah!

how nice of you to have come!

I heard the express, and thought of you," she would say.

When he lunched there, it was a fête.

She had already learnt his tastes, and went out herself for fresh eggs.

And she did this in a very nice way, like a good housewife who welcomes the friend of the family, without giving him any cause to attribute her actions to aught else than a desire to be agreeable, and divert herself.

"Come again on Monday, you know," said she.

"We shall have cream."

Only, when at the end of the month, he had made himself at home there, the separation between the Roubauds became more pronounced.

Jacques certainly assisted to bring about this informal divorce by his presence, which drew them from the gloom into which they had fallen.

He delivered both of them.

Roubaud had no remorse.

He had only been afraid of the consequences, before the case was shelved, and his greatest anxiety had been the dread of losing his place.

At present, he felt no regret.

Perhaps, though, had he to do the business over again, he would not make his wife take a part in it.

Women lose their spirit at once.

His wife was escaping from him, because he had placed on her shoulders, a load too heavy to bear.

He would have remained the master, had he not descended with her to the terrifying and quarrelsome comradeship of crime.

But this was how things were, and it became imperative to put up with them; the more so, as he had to make a regular effort, to place himself again in the same frame of mind, as when, after the confession, he had considered the murder necessary to his existence.

It seemed to him, at that time, that if he had not killed this man, he would not have been able to live.

At present, his jealous flame having died out, himself freed from the intolerable burn, assailed by a feeling of torpidity, as if the blood of his heart had become thickened by all the blood he had spilt, the necessity for the murder did not appear to him so evident.

He had come to the pass of inquiring of himself, whether killing was really worth the trouble.

This was not repentance; it was at most a disillusion, the idea that people often do things they would not own to, in order to become happy, without being any the more so.

He, usually so talkative, fell into prolonged spells of silence, into confused reflections, from which he issued more gloomy than before.

Every day, now, to avoid remaining face to face with his wife, after the meals, he went on the roof and seated himself on the gable.

There, in the breeze from the offing, soothing himself in vague dreams, he smoked his pipe, gazing beyond the city at the steamers disappearing on the horizon, bound to distant seas.

But one evening, Roubaud felt a revival of that savage jealousy of former times.

He had been to find Jacques at the depôt, and was bringing him up to his rooms to take a dram, when he met Henri Dauvergne, the headguard, coming down the staircase.

The latter appeared confused, and explained that he had been to see Madame Roubaud on an errand confided to him by his sisters.

The truth was that for some time past, he had been running after Séverine, to make love to her.

The assistant station-master violently addressed his wife at the door.

"What did that fellow come up again about?"

he roughly inquired.

"You know that he plagues me!"

"But, my dear, it was for a pattern of embroidery," she answered.

"Embroidery, indeed!"

he rejoined.

"I'll give him embroidery!

Do you think I'm such a fool as not to understand what he comes here for?

And as to you, take care!"

He advanced towards her, his fists clenched, and she stepped back, white as a sheet, astonished at the violence of this anger, in the state of calm indifference for one another, in which they lived.

But he was already recovering his self-possession, and, addressing his companion, he said: "Whoever heard of such a thing?

Fellows who tumble into your home with the idea that your wife will immediately fall into their arms, and that the husband, very much flattered, will shut his eyes!

It makes my blood boil.

Look here, if such a thing did happen, I would strangle my wife, oh!

on the spot!

And this young gentleman had better not show his face here again, or I'll settle his business for him.

Isn't it disgusting?"

Jacques, who felt very uncomfortable at the scene, hardly knew how to look.

Was this exaggerated anger intended for him?

Was the husband giving him a warning?

He felt more at ease when the latter gaily resumed: "As to you, I know you would very soon fling him out at the door.

No matter.

Séverine, bring us something to drink out of.

Jacques, touch glasses with us."

He patted Jacques on the shoulder, and Séverine, who had also recovered, smiled at the two men.

Then they all drank together, and passed a very pleasant hour.

It was thus that Roubaud brought his wife and comrade together, with an air of good friendship, and without seeming to think of the possible consequences.

This outburst of jealousy became the very cause of a closer intimacy, and of a great deal of secret tenderness, strengthened by outpourings of the heart, between Jacques and Séverine.

For, having seen her again two days after this scene, he expressed his pity that she should have been the object of such brutal treatment; while she, with eyes bathed in tears, confessed, with an involuntary overflow of grief, what little happiness she met with in her home.

From that moment, they had found a subject of conversation for themselves alone, a complicity of friendship wherein they ended by understanding one another at a sign.

At each visit, he questioned her with his eyes, to ascertain if she had met with any fresh cause for sadness.

She answered in the same way, by a simple motion of the eyelids.

Moreover, their hands sought each other behind the back of the husband.

Becoming bolder, they corresponded by long pressures, relating, at the tips of their warm fingers, the increasing interest the one took in the smallest incidents connected with the existence of the other.

Rarely did they have the good fortune to meet for a minute, in the absence of Roubaud.

They always found him there, between them, in that melancholy dining-room; and they did nothing to escape him, never having had the thought to make an appointment at some distant corner of the station.

Up to then, it was a matter of real affection between them; they were led along by keen sympathy, and Roubaud caused them but slight inconvenience, as a glance, a pressure of the hand, sufficed for them to comprehend one another.

The first time Jacques whispered in the ear of Séverine, that he would wait for her on the following Thursday at midnight, behind the depôt, she revolted, and violently withdrew her hand.

It was her week of liberty, the week when her husband was engaged on night duty.

But she was very much troubled at the thought of leaving her home, to go and meet this young man so far away, in the darkness of the station premises.

Never had she felt so confused.

It resembled the fright of innocent maids with throbbing hearts.

She did not give way at once.

He had to beg and pray of her for more than a fortnight, before she consented, notwithstanding her own burning desire to take this nocturnal walk.

It was at the commencement of June.

The evenings became intensely hot, and were but slightly refreshed by the sea breeze.

Jacques had already waited for her three times, always in the hope that she would join him, notwithstanding her refusal.

On this particular night, she had again said no. The sky was without a moon, and cloudy.

Not a star shone through the dense haze that obscured everything.

As he stood watching in the dark, he perceived her coming along at last, attired in black, and with silent tread.

It was so sombre that she would have brushed against him without recognising him, had he not caught her in his arms and given her a kiss.

She uttered a little cry, quivering.

Then, laughingly, she left her lips on his.

But that was all; she would never consent to sit down in one of the sheds surrounding them.

They walked about, and chatted in low tones, pressing one to the other.

Just there, was a vast open space, occupied by the depôt and other buildings, all the land that is shut in by the Rue Verte and the Rue François-Mazeline, both of which cut the line at level crossings: a sort of immense piece of waste ground, encumbered with shunting lines, reservoirs, water-cranes, buildings of all sorts--the two great engine-houses, the cottage of the Sauvagnats, surrounded by a tiny kitchen-garden, the workshops, the block where the drivers and firemen slept.

And nothing was more easy than to escape observation, to lose oneself, as in the thick of a wood, among those deserted lanes with their inextricable maze of turnings.

For an hour, they enjoyed delicious solitude, relieving their hearts in friendly words stored-up there so long.

For she would only consent to speak of affection.

She had told him, at once, that she would never be his, that it would be too wicked to tarnish this pure friendship, of which she felt so proud, being jealous of her own self-esteem.

Then he accompanied her to the Rue Verte, where their lips joined in a long kiss, and she returned home.

At that same hour, in the office of the assistant station-masters, Roubaud began to doze in an old leather armchair, which he quitted twenty times in the course of the night, with aching limbs.

Up to nine o'clock, he had to be present at the arrival and departure of the night trains.

The tidal train engaged his particular attention: there were the manœuvres, the coupling, the way-bills to be closely scrutinised.

Then, when the Paris express had arrived and had been shunted, he supped alone in the office at a corner of the table, off a slice of cold meat between a couple of pieces of bread, which he had brought down from his lodging.

The last arrival, a slow train from Rouen, steamed in at half past twelve.

The platforms then became quite silent.

Only a few lamps remained alight, and the entire station lay at rest, in this quivering semi-obscurity.

Of all the staff there remained but a couple of foremen, and four or five porters, under the orders of the assistant station-master.

They slept like tops on the sloping plank platform in the quarters allotted to them; while Roubaud, obliged to rouse them at the least warning, could only doze with his ears open.

Lest he should succumb to fatigue, towards daybreak, he set his alarum at five o'clock, at which hour he had to be on his feet, to be present at the arrival of the Paris train.

But, occasionally, especially recently, he suffered from insomnia, and turned about in his armchair without being able to close his eyes.

Then he would get up and go out, take a look round, walk as far as the box of the pointsman, where he chatted an instant.

And the vast black sky, the sovereign peacefulness of the night, ultimately calmed his fever.

In consequence of a struggle with marauders, he had been supplied with a revolver, which he carried loaded in his pocket.

And he often walked about in this way, up to daybreak, stopping as soon as he perceived anything moving in the darkness, resuming his walk with a sort of vague feeling of regret at not having had to make use of his weapon.

He felt relieved when the sky whitened, and drew the great pale phantom of the station from darkness.

Now that day broke as early as three o'clock he went in, and, throwing himself into his armchair, slept like a dormouse, until his alarum brought him, with a start, to his feet.