Monomaniac (La bête humaine) — Section 11

Séverine met Jacques once a fortnight, on Thursday and Saturday.

And, one night, when she had told him about the revolver, they both felt considerably alarmed.

As a matter of fact, Roubaud never went so far as the depôt. But this circumstance did not divest their walks of an aspect of danger, which added to their charm.

Moreover, they had found a delightful nook, behind the cottage of the Sauvagnats, a sort of alley, between some enormous heaps of coal, which formed the only street in a strange town of great, square, black-marble palaces.

There, they were completely hidden.

This girl, who had killed, was his ideal.

His cure seemed to him more certain every day, because he had fondled her, his lips upon her lips, absorbing her very soul, without that furious envy having been aroused, to master her by slaughtering her.

And so these happy meetings followed one upon another.

The two sweethearts never wearied for a moment of seeking one another, of strolling together in the obscurity, between the great heaps of coal that deepened the darkness around them.

One night in July, Jacques, to reach Havre at 11. 05, the fixed time, had to urge on La Lison, as if the stifling heat had made the engine idle.

From Rouen, a storm accompanied him on the left, following the valley of the Seine, with great brilliant flashes; and, from time to time, he turned round anxiously, for Séverine was to meet him that night.

He feared that if this storm burst too soon, it would prevent her going out.

And so, when he had succeeded in attaining the station before the rain, he felt impatient with the passengers, who seemed as if they would never finish leaving the carriages.

Roubaud was on the platform, glued there for the night.

"The deuce!"

said he, laughing.

"What a hurry you're in to get off to bed!

Pleasant dreams!"

"Thanks," answered Jacques.

After driving back the train, he whistled, and made his way to the depôt. The flaps of the immense door were open.

La Lison penetrated the engine-house, a sort of gallery with double lines, about sixty yards long, and built to accommodate six locomotives.

Within, it was very dark.

Four gas-burners did not suffice to dispel the obscurity, which they seemed to deepen into four great moving shadows.

But, at moments, the vivid flashes of lightning, set the glazed roof and the tall windows to right and left, ablaze; and one then distinguished, as in a flame of fire, the cracked walls, the timber black with smoke, all the tumble-down wretchedness of this out-of-date building.

Two locomotives were already there, cold and slumbering.

Pecqueux at once began to put out the fire.

He violently raked it, and, the live coal escaping from the cinder-box, fell into the pit below.

"I'm dying of hunger," said he.

"I shall go and have a mouthful.

Are you coming?"

Jacques did not reply.

In spite of his hurry, he did not wish to leave La Lison before the lights had been extinguished, and the boiler emptied.

This was a scruple, the habit of a good driver, wherefrom he never departed.

When he had time, he remained there until he had examined and wiped everything, with all the care that is taken to groom a favourite nag.

It was only when the water ran gurgling into the pit, that he exclaimed: "Hurry on, hurry on!"

A formidable flash of lightning interrupted him.

This time, the tall windows stood out so distinctly against the flaming sky, that the very numerous broken panes of glass could have been counted.

To the left, a thin sheet of iron, which had remained fixed in one of the vices serving for the repairs, resounded with the prolonged vibration of a bell.

All the antiquated timber-work of the roof had cracked.

"The devil!"

simply said the fireman.

The driver made a gesture of despair.

This put an end to his appointment, and the more so, as a perfect deluge was now pouring down on the engine-house.

The violence of the rain threatened to break the glazed roof.

Up there some of the panes of glass must also have been broken, for big raindrops were falling on La Lison in clusters.

A

violent wind entered by the doors which had been left open, and anyone might have fancied that the body of the old structure was about to be swept away.

Pecqueux was getting to the end of his work on the locomotive.

"There!"

said he; "we shall be able to see better to-morrow.

I have no need to tidy it up any more to-night."

And, returning to his former idea, he added: "I must get something to eat.

It's raining too hard to go and stick oneself on one's mattress."

The canteen, indeed, was at hand, against the depôt itself; while the company had been obliged to rent a house--Rue François-Mazeline--where beds had been provided for the drivers and firemen who passed the night at Havre.

In such a deluge, they would have got drenched to the skin before arriving there.

Jacques had to make up his mind to follow Pecqueux, who had taken the small basket belonging to his chief, to save him the trouble of carrying it.

He knew that this basket still contained two slices of cold veal, some bread, and a bottle of wine that had hardly been touched; and it was simply this knowledge that made him feel hungry.

The rain increased.

Another clap of thunder had just shaken the engine-house.

When the two men went away on the left, by the small door leading to the canteen, La Lison was already becoming cold.

The engine slumbered, abandoned, in the obscurity, lit up by the vivid flashes of lightning, with the heavy drops of rain falling on its flanks.

Hard by, a water-crane, imperfectly turned off, continued dripping, and formed a pool that ran between the wheels of the locomotive into the pit.

But Jacques wished to wash before entering the canteen.

Warm water and buckets were always to be found in an adjoining room.

Drawing a piece of soap from his basket, he removed the dirt from his travel-begrimed hands and face; and, as he had taken the precaution to bring a second lot of clothes with him, in accordance with the advice given to the drivers, he was able to change his garments from head to foot, as he was accustomed to do, for that matter, each night on his arrival at Havre, when he had an appointment with Séverine.

Pecqueux was already waiting in the canteen, having only just dipped the tip of his nose, and the ends of his fingers, in the water.

This canteen simply consisted of a small, bare room painted yellow, where there was nothing but a stove to warm the food, and a table fixed in the ground, and covered with a sheet of zinc, by way of tablecloth.

A couple of forms completed the furniture.

The men had to bring their own victuals, and eat off a piece of paper with the points of their knives.

Light entered the room through a large window.

"What a vile downpour!"

exclaimed Jacques, planting himself before the panes of glass.

Pecqueux had settled himself on a form at the table.

"You are not going to eat then?"

he inquired.

"No, mate.

Finish my bread and meat, if you care for it.

I've no appetite."

The other, without more ado, fell upon the veal, and emptied the bottle.

He frequently met with similar luck, for his chief was a poor eater; and he loved him the better, in his canine-like fidelity, for all the crumbs picked up in this way, behind him.

With his mouth full, he resumed after a silence: "The rain!

What do we care about that, so long as we're under cover?

Only, if it continues, I shall cut you, and be off next door."

He began laughing, for he made no secret of his mode of life; and, no doubt, had told the driver all about his intrigue with Philomène Sauvagnat.

Jacques muttered an oath, as he perceived the deluge of rain increase in violence, after showing signs of abating.

Pecqueux, with the last mouthful of meat at the end of his knife, again gave a good-humoured laugh.

"You must have something to do then, to-night?"

said he.

"Well, they can't reproach us two with wearing out the mattresses, over there, in the Rue François-Mazeline."

Jacques quickly left the window.

"Why?"

he inquired.

"Well, you're just like me.

Since the spring, you never turn in till two or three o'clock in the morning," answered the other.

He seemed to know something.

Perhaps he had caught them together.

In each room the bedsteads were in couples: fireman and driver.

The railway authorities sought to bind these men to one another as firmly as possible, on account of their work, which necessitated such a close understanding.

And so, Jacques was not astonished that the fireman should have noticed the late hours he kept, particularly as he had formerly been so regular.

"I suffer from headache," remarked the driver, for want of something better to say; "and it does me good to walk out at night-time."

But the fireman was already excusing himself.

"Oh!

you know," he broke in, "you are free to do as you please.

What I said, was only by way of a joke.

And if you should meet with any trouble one of these days, don't mind coming to me, because I'm ready to do anything you like."

Without explaining his meaning more clearly, Pecqueux grasped him by the hand, pressing it fit to crush it, so as to make him understand that he was at his service, body and soul.

Then, crumpling up the greasy paper which the meat had been in, he threw it away, and placed the empty bottle in the basket, performing this little service like a careful servant accustomed to the broom and sponge.

And, as the rain obstinately continued, although the thunder had ceased, he exclaimed: "Well, I'm off, and leave you to your own business!"

"Oh!"

said Jacques, "as there are no signs of it clearing up, I shall go and lie down on a camp bedstead!"

Beside the depôt was a room with mattresses protected by canvas slips, where the men rested in their clothes when they had only to wait three or four hours at Havre.

So, as soon as Jacques saw the fireman disappear in the downpour of rain, he risked it in his turn, and ran to the drivers' quarters.

But he did not lie down.

He stood on the threshold of the wide-open door, stifled by the oppressive heat within, where another driver, stretched on his back, was snoring with his mouth wide open.

A few more minutes passed, and Jacques could not make up his mind to abandon all hope.

In his exasperation against this disgusting rain, he felt an increasing wild desire to gain, in spite of all, the place where he and Séverine were to meet; so as at least to have the pleasure of being there himself, even if he no longer expected to find his sweetheart.

With spasmodic precipitation, he at last dashed through the rain.

He reached their favourite corner, and followed the dark alley formed by the heaps of coal.

And, as the sharp rain whipped his face and blinded him, he went as far as the tool-house, where he and Séverine had already once found shelter.

He seemed to think he would be less lonely there.

Jacques was entering the dense obscurity of this retreat when a couple of slender arms entwined him, and a pair of warm lips rested on his own.

Séverine was there.

"Goodness gracious!

is it you?"

he exclaimed.

"Yes," she answered; "I saw the storm approaching, and ran here before the rain came down.

What a time you have been!"

"You expected me then?"

"Oh!

yes.

I waited, waited----" They had seated themselves on a pile of empty sacks, listening to the pouring rain beating, with increased violence, on the roof.

The last train from Paris, which was just coming in, passed by, roaring, whistling, rocking the ground.

All at once Jacques rose.

On seating himself a few moments before, he had by chance found the handle of a hammer beneath his hand, and he was now deluged with intense joy.

It was all over then!

He had not grasped that hammer and smashed the skull of his sweetheart.

She was his own, without a battle, without that instinctive craving to fling her lifeless on her back, like a prey torn from others.

He no longer thirsted to avenge those very ancient offences, whose exact details escaped his memory, that rancour stored up from male to male since the first deceptions in the depths of caverns.

No. This girl had cured him, because he saw she was different from the others, violent in her weakness, reeking with human gore, which encircled her in a sort of cuirass of horror.

She predominated over him, he, who had never dared do as she had done.

Séverine was also lost in reflections.

Her heart had been pining after love--absolute, constant love; and it was frightful cruelty that these recent events should have cast her, haggard and anxious, into such abominations.

Fate had dragged her in mire and blood with such violence that her beautiful blue eyes, though still naïve, had preserved a look of terror-stricken expansion beneath her tragic crest of raven hair.

"Oh!

my darling, carry me off, keep me with you!"

she exclaimed; "your desires shall be mine."

"No, no, my treasure," replied Jacques, who had again seated himself beside her, "you are mistress.

I am only here to love and obey you."

The hours passed.

The rain had ceased some time.

The station was plunged in absolute silence, troubled only by a distant and indistinct moan rising from the sea.

Suddenly a pistol-shot brought them to their feet with a start.

Day was about to break.

A pale spot whitened the sky above the mouth of the Seine.

What could be the meaning of that shot?

Their imprudence, this folly of remaining together so late, made them, in swift imagination, picture to themselves the husband pursuing them with a revolver.

"Don't venture out!"

exclaimed Jacques.

"Wait!

I'll go and see!"

Jacques had prudently advanced to the door, and there, in the dense darkness that still prevailed, he could hear men advancing at the double.

He recognised the voice of Roubaud, urging forward the watchmen, shouting to them that the thieves were three in number, that he had distinctly seen them stealing coal.

For some weeks not a night had passed without hallucinations of the same kind about imaginary brigands.

On this occasion, he had fired haphazard into the gloom.

"Quick!

quick!"

exclaimed the young man; "let us be off!

They will come and search this place.

Run as fast as you can!"

She fell into his arms.

They stifled one another, lips to lips.

Then Séverine tripped lightly through the depôt, protected by the high wall, while he quietly disappeared among the heaps of coal.

And it was only just time, for Roubaud, as he had foreseen, insisted on searching the tool-house.

He vowed the thieves must be there.

The lanterns of the watchmen danced on a level with the ground.

There were words, and in the end they all turned back towards the station, irritated at this fruitless chase; while Jacques, with his mind at ease, at last determined to make his way to the Rue François-Mazeline and go to bed.

The meetings between him and Séverine continued throughout the summer.

Nor were they interrupted when the cold weather came at the commencement of October.

She arrived wrapped in an ample cloak, and, to be screened from the frigid air outside, they barricaded themselves in the tool-house by means of an iron bar that they had found there.

In this little retreat they were at home.

The November hurricanes could roar, and tear the slates from the roofs, without inconveniencing them.

Jacques no longer had any doubt that he was cured of his frightful hereditary complaint, for since he had known Séverine he had never been troubled by thoughts of murder.

Occasionally he suddenly remembered what she had done--that assassination, avowed by her eyes alone, on the bench in the Batignolles Square; but he had no inclination to learn the details.

She, on the contrary, seemed more and more tormented by the desire to reveal everything.

At times he felt her bursting with her secret; and, in anxiety, he would at once close her mouth with a kiss, sealing up the avowal.

Why place this stranger between them?

Could they affirm that it would not interfere with their happiness?

He suspected danger, and felt his old shiver return at the bare idea of raking up this sanguinary story.

And she, no doubt, guessed his thoughts.

Roubaud, since the summer, had grown stouter, and in proportion as his wife recovered her gaiety and the bloom of her twenty years, he grew older and seemed more overcast.

In four months he had greatly changed, as she often said.

He continued to cordially grasp the hand of Jacques, inviting him to the lodging, never happy but when he had him at his table.

Only this diversion no longer sufficed.

He frequently took himself off as soon as he had swallowed the last mouthful, sometimes leaving his comrade with his wife, pretending he was stifling, and required fresh air.

The truth was that he now frequented a small café on the Cours Napoléon, where he met M. Cauche, the commissary of police attached to the station.

He drank but little, merely a few small glasses of rum; but he had acquired a taste for gambling, which was turning to a passion.

He only recovered energy, and forgot the past, when the cards were in his hand, and he found himself engrossed in an interminable series of games at piquet.

M.

Cauche, a frightful gambler, had suggested having something on the game, and they had made the stake five francs.

From that moment, Roubaud, astonished not to have found himself out before, was burning with a thirst for gain, with that scorching fever brought on by money won which ravages a man to the point of making him stake his position, even his life, on a throw of the dice.

So far his work had not suffered.

He escaped as soon as free, returning home at three or four o'clock in the morning, on nights when he was off duty.

His wife never complained.

She only reproached him with coming back more sullen than before; for he was pursued by extraordinary bad luck, and ultimately got into debt.

The first quarrel broke out between Séverine and Roubaud one evening.

Without hating him as yet, she had reached the point of enduring him with difficulty, for she felt that he weighed on her existence.

She would have been so bright, so happy, had he not burdened her with his presence.

She experienced no remorse at deceiving him.

Was it not his own fault?

Had he not almost thrust her to the brink of the precipice?

In the slow process of their disunion, to cure themselves of the uneasiness that upset them, both found consolation after their own hearts.

As he had taken to gambling, she could very well have a sweetheart.

But what angered her more than anything, what she would not accept without revolt, was the inconvenience to which they were subjected by the continual losses of her husband.

Since the five-franc pieces of the family flew to the café on the Cours Napoléon, she at times did not know how to pay her washerwoman, and was deprived of all sorts of delicacies and little toilet comforts.

On this particular evening, it was about the purchase of a pair of boots which she really required, that they began quarrelling.

He, on the point of going out, not finding a knife on the table wherewith to cut himself a piece of bread, had taken the big knife, the weapon lying in a drawer of the sideboard.

She kept her eyes on him while he refused the fifteen francs for the boots, not having them, not knowing where to get them; and she obstinately repeated her demand, forcing him to renew his refusal, which, little by little, took a tone of exasperation.

All at once she pointed out to him with her finger, the place in the parquetry where the spectres slumbered, telling him there was money there, and that she wanted some.

He turned very pale, and let go the knife, which fell into the drawer.

At first she thought he was going to beat her, for he approached her, stammering that the money there might rot, that he would sooner cut off his hand than touch it again.

And with fists clenched he threatened to knock her down if she dared, in his absence, to raise the piece of parquetry and steal even a centime.

Never!

never!

It was dead and buried.

She also had lost her colour, feeling faint at the idea of rummaging in that place.

No; let poverty come, both would die of hunger close by the treasure.

And, in fact, neither of them referred to the subject again, even on days when more than usually pinched.

If they happened to place a foot on the spot, they felt such a sharp burning pain that they ended by giving it a wide berth.

Then, other disputes arose, in regard to La Croix-de-Maufras.

Why did they not sell the house?

And they mutually accused one another of having done nothing that should have been done, to hasten the sale.

He always violently refused to attend to the matter, and on the rare occasions when Séverine wrote to Misard on the subject, it was only to receive vague replies: no inquiries had been made by anyone, the fruit had come to nothing, the vegetables would not grow for want of water.

Little by little, the tranquillity that had settled upon the couple after the crisis, became troubled in this manner, and seemed swept away in a terrible return of wrath.

All the germs of unrest, the hidden money, the sweetheart introduced on the scene, had developed, parting them and irritating one against the other.

And, in this increasing agitation, life was about to become a pandemonium.

As if by a fatal counter-shock, everything was going wrong in the vicinity of the Roubauds.

A fresh gust of tittle-tattle and discussions whistled down the corridor.

Philomène had just violently broken off all connection with Madame Lebleu, in consequence of a calumny of the latter, who accused the former of selling her a fowl that had died of sickness.

But the real reason of the rupture was the better understanding that prevailed between Philomène and Séverine.

Pecqueux having one night met Madame Roubaud arm in arm with Jacques, Séverine at once put aside her former scruples and made advances to the secret wife of the fireman; and Philomène, very much flattered at this connection with a lady, who without contestation was considered the adornment and distinction of the railway station, had just turned against the wife of the cashier, that old wretch, as she called her, who was capable of setting mountains at variance.

Philomène now declared that all the fault lay with Madame Lebleu, telling everybody that the lodging looking on the street belonged to the Roubauds, and that it was an abomination not to give it them.

Matters, therefore, began to look very bad for Madame Lebleu, and the more so, as her obstinacy in watching Mademoiselle Guichon, in order to surprise her with the station-master, threatened also to cause her serious trouble.

She still failed to catch them, but she had the imprudence to get caught herself, her ear on the alert, stuck to the keyhole.

And M. Dabadie, exasperated at being spied upon in this manner, had intimated to the assistant station-master, Moulin, that if Roubaud again claimed the lodging, he was ready to countersign the letter.

Moulin, who, although as a rule, little given to gossip, having repeated this remark, the lodgers had nearly come to blows, from door to door, all along the corridor, so high ran the excitement that had been thus revived.

Amidst these disturbances, which became more and more frequent, Séverine had but one quiet day in the week, the Friday.

In October she had placidly displayed the audacity to invent a pretext for frequently running up to Paris, the first that entered her head, a pain in the knee, which required the attention of a specialist.

Each Friday, she left by the 6. 40 express in the morning, which was driven by Jacques, and after passing the day with him at the capital, returned by the 6. 30 express in the evening.

At first, she had thought it only right to give her husband news of her knee: it was better, it was worse, and so forth.

Then, perceiving he turned a deaf ear to what she said, she had coolly ceased speaking to him on the subject.

But ever and anon she would cast her eyes on him, wondering whether he knew.

How was it that this ferociously jealous man, who, blinded by blood, had killed a fellow being in an idiotic rage, how was it that he had reached the point of permitting her to have a sweetheart?

She could not believe it, she simply thought he must be getting stupid.

One icy cold night in December, Séverine was sitting up very late for her husband.

The next morning, a Friday, she was to take the express before daybreak; and on such evenings as these, she had the habit of getting a very nice gown ready, and preparing her other garments, so as to be rapidly dressed, immediately she jumped out of bed.

At last, she retired to rest, and ended by falling off to sleep about one o'clock.

Roubaud had not returned home.

Already, on two occasions, he had only made his appearance at early dawn, his increasing passion for play being such that he could not tear himself away from the café, where a small room at the back was gradually being transformed into a gambling hell.

They now played for high stakes at écarté.

Happy to be alone, in a pleasant frame of mind at the prospect of a delightful day on the morrow, the young woman slumbered soundly, in the gentle warmth of the bedclothes.

But, as three o'clock was about to strike, she was awakened by a singular noise.

First of all she did not understand, she fancied she must be dreaming and went to sleep again.

Then came a dull sound, as of someone pushing against something, followed by cracking of wood, as if somebody was trying to force open a door.

A sharp rent, more violent than the other sounds, brought her to a sitting posture in bed.

She was frightened to death;

someone was certainly trying to burst the lock in the corridor.

For a minute or two she dared not move, but listened with drumming ears.

Then she had the courage to get up, and look.

She walked noiselessly across the room with bare feet, and gently set the door ajar, so chilled with cold that she turned quite pale, and the sight that met her eyes in the dining-room, riveted her to the spot in surprise and horror.

Roubaud, grovelling on the ground, raising himself on his elbows, had just torn away the dreaded piece of parquetry with the assistance of a chisel.

A candle, set down beside him, afforded light while casting his enormous shadow on the ceiling.

And at that moment, with his face bent over the hole which cut the parquetry with a black slit, he was peering with dilated eyes within.

His cheeks were flushed, and he wore his assassin-like expression.

Brutally he plunged his hand into the aperture, and, in his trembling agitation, finding nothing, he had to bring the candle nearer.

Then at the bottom of the hole appeared the purse, notes, and watch.

Séverine uttered an involuntary cry, and Roubaud turned round, terrified.

At first he failed to recognise her, and seeing her there, all in white, with a look of horror on her countenance, no doubt took her for a spectre.

"What are you doing there?"

she demanded.

Then, understanding, avoiding to answer, he only gave a sullen growl.

But he still looked at her, inconvenienced by her presence, wishing to send her back to bed.

And not a reasonable word came to his lips.

He simply felt inclined to box her ears, as she stood there shivering in her night-dress.

"So," she continued, "you refuse me a pair of boots, and you take the money for yourself because you have lost."

This remark at once enraged him.

Was she going to spoil his life again, to set herself in front of his pleasures--this woman whom he no longer cared for?

Again he rummaged in the hole, but only took from it the purse containing the 300 frcs.

in gold.

And when he had fixed the piece of parquetry in its place with his heel, he went and flung these words in her face, through his set teeth: "Go to the deuce!

I shall act as I choose.

Am I asking you what you are going to do, by-and-by, at Paris?"

Then, with a furious shrug of the shoulders, he returned to the café, leaving the candle on the floor.

Séverine picked it up, and went back to bed, cold as ice.

But, unable to get to sleep again, she kept the candle alight, waiting, with her eyes wide open, until the time came for the departure of the express, and gradually growing burning hot.

It was now certain that there had been a progressive disorganisation, like an infiltration of the crime, which was decomposing this man, and which had worn out every bond between them.

Roubaud knew.