Monomaniac (La bête humaine) — Section 17

Nevertheless, they continued to meet outside, until they could see one another at her home, in the new, conquered lodging.

Winter approached its term, and the month of February proved very mild.

They prolonged their walks, sauntering for hours over the open ground adjoining the station.

Séverine continued to make her trip to Paris every Friday; and now she did not offer her husband the slightest explanation.

For the neighbours, the old pretext, a bad knee sufficed; and she also said that she went to see her wet-nurse, Mother Victoire, who was a long time getting through her convalescence at the hospital.

Both Séverine and Jacques still took great pleasure in these journeys.

He showed himself particularly attentive to his locomotive; she, delighted to see him less gloomy, found amusement in looking out of the window, notwithstanding that she began to know every little hill and clump of trees on the way.

From Havre to Motteville were meadows, flat fields separated by green hedges and planted with apple-trees; then as far as Rouen came a stretch of irregular, desert land.

After Rouen, the Seine streamed by.

They crossed it at Sotteville, at Oissel, at Pont-de-l'Arche.

Now it constantly reappeared, expanding to great breadth across the vast plains.

From Gaillon it was hardly once lost to view.

It ran on the left, slackening in speed between its low banks, bordered with poplars and willows.

The train, darting along a hillside, abandoned the river at Bonnières to abruptly meet it once more on issuing from the Rolleboise tunnel at Rosny.

It seemed like a friendly companion on the journey, and was crossed three times again before reaching Paris.

As the train sped gaily on its way, Mantes appeared with its belfry amidst the trees, Triel with its white limekilns, Poissy, which the line severed in twain, in the very heart of the town.

Next came the two green screens of Saint Germain forest, the slope of Colombes, bursting with lilac, and they were in the outskirts of Paris.

The city could be perceived from the bridge at Asnières; the distant Arc de Triomphe, towering above sordid buildings, bristling with factory chimneys.

The engine plunged beneath Batignolles, and the passengers streamed from the carriages on to the platform of the echoing station.

Until night Séverine and Jacques were free, and belonged to one another.

On the return journey, it being dark, she closed her eyes, enjoying her happiness over again.

But morning and night, each time she passed La Croix-de-Maufras, she advanced her head; and, without discovering herself, cast a furtive glance outside the carriage, certain that she would there find Flore, erect before the gate of the level-crossing, presenting the flag in its case, and embracing the train with her flaming eyes.

Since the snowy day when this girl had caught them kissing one another, Jacques had warned Séverine to be careful of her.

He was no longer ignorant of that passion of a wild creature wherewith she had pursued him from her earliest years.

He felt that she was jealous, and that she possessed virile energy, as well as unbridled and deadly rancour.

Moreover, she must be well-informed in regard to matters concerning Séverine, for he remembered her allusion to the intimacy of the President with a certain young lady whom no one suspected, and for whom he had found a husband.

If she knew this, she must assuredly have penetrated the mystery of the crime.

Doubtless, she would be talking or writing, so as to avenge herself by a denunciation.

But days and weeks passed without anything happening.

He still found her there, planted rigidly at her post beside the line, with her flag.

Far away, as soon as she was able to catch sight of the locomotive, he felt the sensation of her burning eyes.

She saw him, notwithstanding the smoke, and embraced all his frame in her glance, following him in the lightning flash amidst the thunder of the wheels.

And the train was scrutinised at the same time, pierced through and through, inspected from the first carriage to the last; she always discovered the other one, the rival, whom she now knew to be there every Friday.

And Séverine might well advance her head but a trifle, impelled by the imperious necessity to look.

She was seen.

Their eyes crossed like rapiers.

The train was already far away, devouring space;

and one person remained on the ground, powerless to follow it, raging at the happiness it bore along.

Flore seemed to be growing.

Jacques found her taller at each journey, and felt uneasy at her taking no action, wondering what plan would ripen in the head of this great, gloomy girl, whose motionless apparition he could not avoid.

There was also one of the servants of the company, that headguard, Henri Dauvergne, who inconvenienced Séverine and Jacques.

He happened to be in charge of this Friday train, and he displayed importunate amiability towards the young woman.

The attentions of Henri became so apparent, that Roubaud observed them with sneering countenance on the mornings when he was on duty at the departure from Havre.

The headguard was in the habit of reserving an entire compartment for his wife, and took pains to see she was comfortable there, feeling the foot-warmer to make sure the water was hot, and so forth.

On one occasion the husband, while continuing a chat with Jacques, attracted his notice to the proceedings of the young man with a wink, as if to inquire whether he permitted that kind of thing.

In the family quarrels, Roubaud flatly accused his wife of making love to the pair.

And Séverine imagined, for an instant, that Jacques also had this belief, which was the cause of his sadness.

In a burst of tears, she protested her innocence, telling him to kill her if she were unfaithful.

But he merely laughed, and, turning very pale, embraced her, saying he was convinced of her fidelity, and that he sincerely hoped he would never kill anybody.

The first evenings of March were frightful, and they were obliged to interrupt their meetings.

The trips to Paris, the few hours of freedom sought so far away, were no longer enough for Séverine.

She experienced an increasing desire to have Jacques with her, always with her, to live together, without ever leaving one another.

And her execration for her husband increased.

The mere presence of this man threw her into an unhealthy and intolerable state of excitement.

She so docile, with all the complacence of a tender-hearted woman, became irritated as soon as it was a question of Roubaud, flying into a passion at the least opposition he made to her will.

On such occasions the shade of her raven hair seemed to darken the limpid blue of her eyes.

She became fierce, accusing him of having so thoroughly spoilt her existence that henceforth it would be impossible to live together.

Had not he done it all?

If they were no longer as man and wife, if she had a sweetheart, was it not his own fault?

His sluggish tranquillity, the look of indifference with which he met her anger, his round shoulders, his enlarged stomach, all that dreadful fat, resembling happiness, completed her exasperation, she who suffered.

Her one thought, now, was to break with him, to get away, to go and begin life again elsewhere.

Oh!

could she but commence again, wipe out the past, return to the life she led previous to all these abominations, find herself as she was at fifteen, and love, and be loved, and live as she dreamed of living then!

For a week, she courted the idea of taking flight: she would leave with Jacques, they would conceal themselves in Belgium, where they would set up housekeeping as a hard-working young couple.

But she had not spoken to him on the subject.

Obstacles had at once come in the way: their irregular position, the constant anxiety in which they would find themselves, and particularly the annoyance of leaving her fortune to her husband--the money, La Croix-de-Maufras.

By a donation to the survivor of the pair--which is possible in France, and cannot be revoked without the consent of both parties--they had willed everything away; and she found herself in his power, in that legal tutelage of a wife which tied her hands.

Rather than leave, and abandon even a sou, she would have preferred to die there.

One day when he came up, livid, to say that crossing the line in front of a locomotive he had felt the buffer graze his elbow, she reflected that if he had been killed, she would have been free.

She observed him with her great staring eyes; why on earth did he not die, since she had ceased to love him, and he was now in the way of everyone?

From that moment the dream of Séverine changed: Roubaud had been killed in an accident, and she left with Jacques for America.

But they were married.

They had sold La Croix-de-Maufras, and realised all the fortune.

Behind them they left nothing they were afraid of.

If they emigrated, it was to be born again in the arms of one another.

Over there, naught would exist of the events she wished to forget, and she could imagine she was beginning a new life.

As she had made a mistake, she would engage in the experience of happiness again at the commencement.

He would find employment; she could undertake something else.

They would make their fortune.

Perhaps children might come, and there would be a new existence of labour and felicity.

As soon as she was alone in bed in the morning, and while engaged on her embroidery in the daytime, she resumed the construction of this castle in the air, modifying, enlarging, ceaselessly adding delightful details to it, and ended by imagining herself overwhelmed with joy and riches.

She, who formerly went out so rarely, had now a passion for going to see the mail-steamers put to sea: she ran down to the jetty, leant over the balustrade, followed the smoke of the vessel until it became lost in the haze of the offing; and she fancied herself on deck with Jacques, already far from France, steaming for the paradise of her dreams.

One evening in the month of March, Jacques having taken the risk of going up to see her, related that he had brought one of his old schoolfellows in his train from Paris, who was leaving for New York, to bring out a new invention, a machine for making buttons; and, as he wanted an engineer as partner, he had offered to take the driver with him.

Oh!

it was a magnificent enterprise, only requiring the investment of 30,000 frcs.

, a matter of £1,200, and in which there were perhaps millions to be made.

Jacques merely mentioned the subject casually, and concluded by saying that he had of course refused the offer.

Nevertheless, he felt a bit sorry, for it is hard to turn the back on fortune when it comes to one.

Séverine, on her feet, listened to him with vacant eyes.

Was not this her dream which was going to be realised?

"Ah!"

murmured she at last, "we would start to-morrow----" He raised his head in surprise, and interrupted her with the inquiry: "What do you mean by we would start?"

"Yes, if he were dead," she replied.

She had not named Roubaud, but he understood, and gave a vague gesture to say that, unfortunately, he was not dead.

"We would set out," she resumed in her slow, deep voice, "and we should be so happy over there!

I could get the 30,000 frcs.

by selling the property, and I should still have enough to enable us to settle down.

You could turn the cash to account; I would arrange a little home, where we would love one another with all our might.

Oh!

it would be so nice, so nice!"

And she added, very low: "Far from all recollection of the past, and only new times ahead of us!"

He felt deeply affected.

Their two hands joined, and pressed one another instinctively.

Then came a pause, both Séverine and Jacques being rapt in this hope.

It was she who broke the silence.

"All the same, it would be best for you to see your friend again before his departure, and ask him not to take a partner without letting you know," she suggested.

Once more he was surprised.

"What is the use of that?"

he inquired.

"Good heavens!

Who knows?"

she answered.

"The other day, with that locomotive!

Another second and I was free.

One is alive in the morning, and dead at night.

Is it not true?"

Looking at him fixedly, she repeated: "Ah!

if he were only dead!"

"But you don't want me to kill him, do you?"

he inquired, trying to smile.

Thrice she answered no; but her eyes said yes--those eyes of a tender-hearted woman, who had abandoned herself to the inexorable cruelty of her passion.

As he had killed another, why should not he be killed himself?

This idea had abruptly begun to assert itself as a consequence of the crime, a necessary termination to the difficulty.

Kill him and go away: nothing could be more simple.

When he was once dead, everything would be over, and she could begin again.

She saw no other solution possible, and her resolution was irrevocably taken; but, not having the courage of her violence, she continued, in slightly wavering tones, to say no. Jacques, standing with his back to the sideboard, still affected to smile.

He had just caught sight of the knife lying there.

"If you want me to kill him," said he, his smile broadening into a laugh, "you must give me the knife.

I already have the watch, and this will help to make me a small museum."

"Take the knife," she gravely answered.

And when he had put it in his pocket, as if to carry on the joke to the end, he kissed her.

"And now, good-night," he said.

"I shall go and see my friend at once, and tell him to wait.

If it does not rain next Saturday, come and meet me behind the cottage of Sauvagnat, eh?

Is that understood?

And rest assured that we will kill no one.

It's only a joke."

Nevertheless, in spite of the late hour, Jacques went down towards the port to find the comrade leaving on the morrow.

He spoke to him of a legacy he might receive, and asked for a fortnight before giving a definite answer.

Then, on his way back towards the station by the great dark avenues, he thought the matter over, and felt astonished at what he had just done.

Had he then resolved to kill Roubaud, since he was disposing of his wife and money?

No, indeed, he had come to no decision, and if he took these precautions, it was no doubt in case he should decide.

But the recollection of Séverine entered his mind, the burning pressure of her hand, her fixed eyes saying yes, while her lips said no. She evidently wanted him to kill her husband.

He felt very much troubled.

What should he do?

When Jacques returned to the Rue François-Mazeline and lay down in his bed, beside that of Pecqueux, who was snoring, he could not sleep.

Do what he would, his brain set to work on this idea of murder, this web of a drama that he was arranging, and whose most far-reaching consequences he calculated.

He thought.

He weighed the reasons for, and the reasons against.

Summing up calmly, without the least excitement, after reflection, everything was in favour of the crime.

Was not Roubaud the sole obstacle to his happiness?

With Roubaud dead, he would marry Séverine, whom he adored.

Besides, there was the money--a fortune.

He would give up his hard handicraft, and in his turn become an employer of labour, in that America of which he heard his comrades talk as of a country where engine-men shovelled in the gold.

His new existence, over there, would unfold like a dream: a wife who passionately loved him, millions to be earned at once, a grand style of living, unlimited scope for ambition; in fact, anything he pleased.

And to realise this dream he had only to make a movement, only to suppress a man, the insect, the plant in your way on the path, and which you trample on.

He was not even interesting, this man who had now grown fat and heavy, who was plunged in that stupid passion for cards, which had destroyed his former energy.

Why spare him?

There was nothing, absolutely nothing to plead in his favour.

Everything condemned him, because in response to each question, came the answer that it was to the interest of others he should die.

To hesitate would be idiotic and cowardly.

Jacques bounded in his bed, starting at a thought, at first vague, and then abruptly so piercing that he felt it like a prick in his skull.

He, who from childhood desired to kill, who was ravaged to the point of torture by the horror of that fixed idea, why did he not kill Roubaud?

Perhaps, on this selected victim, he would for ever assuage his thirst for murder; and, in that way, he would not only do a good stroke of business, but he would be cured as well.

Cured, great God!

He became bathed in perspiration.

He saw himself with the knife in his hand, striking at the throat of Roubaud as the latter had struck the President, and become satisfied and appeased in proportion as the wound bled upon his hands.

He would kill him.

He was resolved to do so, for that would give him his cure, as well as the woman he adored, and fortune.

As he had to kill somebody, since he must kill, he would kill this man, with the knowledge at all events that what he did was done rationally, by interest and logic.

Three o'clock in the morning had just struck, when this decision was arrived at, and Jacques endeavoured to sleep.

He was already dozing off when a violent start brought him up in his bed in a sitting posture, choking.

Kill this man!

Great God!

had he the right?

When a fly pestered him he crushed it with a smack.

One day when a cat got between his legs he broke its spine by a kick, without wishing to do so, it is true.

But this man, his fellow creature!

He had to resume all his reasoning to prove to himself that he had a right to commit murder--the right of the strong who find the weak in their way and devour them.

It was he whom the wife of the other one loved at this hour, and she wanted to be free to marry him and bring him what she possessed.

When two wolves met in the wood, and a she-wolf was there, did not the stronger rid himself of the other with his fangs?

And in ancient times, when men found refuge in the caverns, like the wolves, did not the coveted woman belong to that man in the band who could win her in the blood of his rivals?

Then, as this was the law of life, it should be obeyed, apart from the scruples invented later on to regulate existence in common.

Little by little his right appeared to him absolute, and he felt his resolution affirmed.

On the morrow he would select the spot and hour, and make preparations for the deed.

Doubtless it would be best to stab Roubaud at night on the station premises, during one of his rounds, so as to convey the impression that he had fallen a victim to some thieves he had surprised.

He knew a good place, over there behind the coal heaps, if Roubaud could only be attracted to the spot.

In spite of his desire to sleep, he could not help arranging the scene then, debating in his mind where he would place himself, how he would strike, so as to stretch his victim at his feet; and insensibly, invincibly, as he went into the smallest details, his repugnance returned, inner protestation gained the upper hand.

No, no, he would not deal the blow!

It appeared to him monstrous, a thing that could not be done, impossible.

The civilised man within him, influenced by the power acquired through education, by the slowly erected and indestructible edifice of ideas handed down to him, revolted.

Kill not!

He had taken in that law at the breast, with the milk of generations.

His refined brain, furnished with scruples, repelled the thought of murder with horror, as soon as he began to reason about it.

Yes, kill by necessity, instinctively, in a fit of passion; but kill deliberately, by calculation and interest, no, he could never, never do it!

Dawn was breaking when Jacques succeeded in dozing off, but his sleep was so light that the debate continued confusedly in his mind, causing him abominable suffering.

The ensuing days were the most painful of his existence.

He avoided Séverine.

Dreading her look, he sent her word not to come to the appointment on the Saturday.

But the following Monday he was obliged to meet her; and, as he had feared, her great blue eyes, so soft and deep, filled him with anguish.

She did not refer to the subject, she did not make a sign, nor say a word to urge him on, only her eyes were full of the thing, questioning, imploring him.

He hardly knew which way to turn to avoid their impatient and reproachful gaze.

He always found them fixed on his own eyes, in an expression of astonishment that he could hesitate to be happy.

When he kissed her at parting, he abruptly strained her to him, to give her to understand that he had resolved to act.

And so, indeed, he had, until he reached the bottom of the stairs and found himself struggling with his conscience again.

When he saw her, two days later, he was pale with confusion, and had the furtive look of a coward who hesitates in face of a necessary action.

She burst into sobs without saying a word, weeping with her arms round his neck, horribly unhappy; and he, quite unhinged, felt the utmost contempt for himself.

He must put an end to it.

"On Thursday, over there, will you?"

she inquired in a low voice.

"Yes, on Thursday I will wait for you," he answered.

On that particular Thursday the night was very dark, a starless sky, opaque and heavy, loaded with mist from the sea.

Jacques, as usual, arrived the first, and, standing behind the cottage of the Sauvagnats, watched for Séverine.

But the gloom was so intense, and she hurried along so lightly, that she brushed against him before he caught sight of her, making him start.

She was already in his arms, and alarmed at feeling him tremble, she murmured: "Did I frighten you?"

"No, no," he replied, "I was expecting you.

Let us walk on; no one can see us."

And with their arms round the waists of one another, they strolled slowly over the vacant ground.

There were but few gas-lamps on this side of the depôt. In some gloomy quarters there were none at all;

whereas they swarmed in the distance, near the station, like a quantity of bright sparks.

Jacques and Séverine walked about for a long time without a word.

She had rested her head on his shoulder, and raised it ever and anon to kiss him on the chin; while he, bending down, returned the kiss on her forehead at the roots of her hair.

The grave, solitary stroke of one o'clock in the morning, had just resounded from air the distant churches.

If they failed to speak, it was because they felt they were both thinking.

They were thinking of nothing but that one subject.

It was impossible for them to be together now without finding themselves beset by it.

The mental debate continued.

What was the use of saying useless words aloud, as it was necessary to act?

When she raised herself against him for a caress, she felt the knife, which formed a lump in his pocket.

Could it be possible that he had made up his mind?

But her thoughts were too much for her, and her lips parted in a murmur that was scarcely audible: "Just now he came upstairs; I was wondering what for.

Then I saw him take his revolver, which he had forgotten.

He is certainly going to make a round."

They resumed silence, and it was only twenty paces further on that he, in his turn, remarked: "Last night some thieves took away the lead from here.

He will come along presently for sure."

She gave a little shudder; both became silent, and they walked on more slowly.

Then she had a doubt: was it really the knife that formed the lump in his pocket?

Twice she stooped down knocking against it to get a better idea.

Then, being still uncertain, she let her hand drop, and felt.

It was the knife sure enough.

And Jacques, understanding her thoughts, suddenly strained her to him stammering into her ear: "He will come, and you shall be free."

The murder was decided.

They no longer seemed to be walking.

It appeared to them that some strange force sent them along just above the ground.

Their senses had, all at once, become extremely acute, particularly the touch, for their hands, resting one in the other, were in pain, and the slightest brush of the lips was like a scratch.

They also heard sounds which were lost a moment before--the rumble, the distant puffs of the engines, the muffled shocks, footsteps wandering in the depth of the obscurity.

And they could see into the night; they distinguished the black spots of objects as if a mist had been removed from their eyes, they were able to follow the sharp curves described in the air by a passing bat.

They stopped, motionless, at the corner of a heap of coal, ears and eyes on the alert, and with all their beings in a state of tension; they now spoke in whispers.

"Did you hear that?"

she inquired.

"Over there, somebody calling."

"No," he replied, "they're putting a carriage into the coach-house."

"But there, someone is walking on our left," said she.

"I heard the sound on the gravel."

"No, no," he answered, "rats are running over the coal heaps, and some of the pieces rolled down."

Several minutes passed.

Suddenly it was she who strained him to her more closely.

"There he is!"

she exclaimed.

"Where?

I can't see him," said he.

"He has turned round the shed of the slow-train goods department," she continued.

"He is coming straight towards us.

Look at his shadow, passing along the white wall!"

"Do you think it is?

That dark spot?

Then he must be alone," he said.

"Yes, alone.

He is alone," she repeated.

And at this decisive moment she passionately threw herself on his neck, she pressed her burning lips to his.

It was a prolonged embrace, in which she would have wished to have conveyed her own blood to him.

How she loved him!

and how she execrated the other!

Ah!

had she but dared, twenty times over she would have done the business herself, to spare him the horror; but her hands were unequal to the effort, she felt herself too feeble, it required the fist of a man.

And this kiss, which was without end, was all she could breathe to him of her own courage.

A locomotive whistled in the distance, casting to the night a melancholy lamentation of distress.

At regular intervals they could hear the loud strokes of a colossal hammer coming from an undeterminable direction.

The vapour ascending from the sea sailed across the sky in chaotic confusion, while drifting shreds seemed at moments to extinguish the bright sparks of the gas-lamps.

When Séverine at length removed her mouth from his, it seemed as if she had ceased to exist, as if all her soul had passed into him.

Jacques abruptly opened the knife.

But with a stifled oath, he exclaimed: "It's all up!

He's off!"

And so it was.

The moving shadow, after approaching to within fifty paces of them, had just turned to the left, and was retreating with the even step of a night watchman who had no cause for alarm.

Then she pushed him.

"Go on, go on!"

said she.

And they both started.

He ahead; she close at his heels.

They glided behind the man, hunting him down, careful not to make a noise.

Then as they took a short cut across a shunting-line, they found him twenty paces at the most away.

They had to take advantage of every bit of wall for shelter.

One false step would have betrayed them.

"We shall never reach him," said he, in a hollow voice.

"If he attains the box of the pointsman he will escape."

She continued, repeating behind him: "Go on, go on!"

At this minute, surrounded by the vast flat waste ground plunged in obscurity, amidst the nocturnal desolation of a great railway station, he was resolved to act, as in that solitude which is the natural attendant on assassination.

And while he stealthily hastened his steps, he became excited, reasoning with himself, supplying himself with arguments that were to make this murder a wise, legitimate action, logically debated and decided on.

It certainly was a right that he would be exercising, the right even of life, as this blood of another was indispensable to his own existence.