Monomaniac (La bête humaine) — Section 19

Then, eighty feet distant, beside the line, where they stood riveted in terror, Misard and Cabuche with their arms in the air, Flore with her eyes starting from her head, witnessed this frightful scene: the front part of the train rising up almost perpendicularly, seven carriages ascending one on the top of the other, to fall back with an abominable crash in a confused downfall of wreckage.

The first three carriages were reduced to atoms, the four others formed a mountain, an entanglement of staved-in roofs, broken wheels, doors, chains, buffers, interspersed with pieces of glass.

And what had been heard particularly, was the pounding of the machine against the stones--a heavy crash terminating in a cry of agony.

La Lison, ripped open, toppled over to the left, on the other side of the stone dray; while the stones, split asunder, flew about in splinters as in the explosion of a mine, and four out of the five horses, bowled over and dragged along the ground, were killed on the spot.

The back half of the train, comprising six carriages, remained intact.

They had come to a standstill without even leaving the metals.

Cries arose from the wreckage, appeals in words that were drowned by inarticulate howls, like those of wild beasts.

"Help!

help!

Oh!

my God!

I am dying!

Help!

help!"

In the midst of the riot and confusion of the smash, nothing could be heard or seen distinctly.

La Lison, thrown over on the side, the under part rent open, was losing steam in rumbling puffs, similar to a furious rattle in the throat of a giant, at places where taps had been torn away, and where pipes had burst.

An inexhaustible white cloud of vapour rolled round and round just on a level with the ground; while the embers, red as blood, fallen from the fire-box, added their black smoke.

The chimney, in the violence of the shock, had entered the ground.

At the place where it had stood, the frame was broken, bending the two frame-plates; and with the wheels in the air, similar to a monstrous steed, torn open by some formidable rip of a horn, La Lison displayed its twisted connecting-rods, its broken cylinders, its slide valves and their eccentrics flattened out--one huge, frightful wound, gaping in the open air, whence vitality continued issuing with the fracas of enraged despair.

Beside the locomotive lay the horse, which had not been killed at once, with his two fore hoofs cut off and his belly ripped up.

By his erect head, the neck stiffened in a spasm of atrocious pain, he could be perceived rattling the death agony with a terrible neigh, which failed to reach the ear in the thunder of the agonising engine.

The cries were stifled, unheard, lost, wafted away.

"Save me!

Kill me!

I am suffering too atrociously.

Kill me!

Kill me at once!"

In this deafening tumult, and blinding smoke, the doors of the carriages remaining intact opened, and a swarm of bewildered travellers sprang out.

Falling down on the line, they struggled with feet and fists to rise again.

Then as soon as they found themselves on firm ground, with the open country before them, they fled as fast as they could run, clearing the hedge, cutting across country, ceding to the sole instinct of getting far away from the danger, very, very far.

Howling women and men disappeared in the depths of the woods.

Séverine, trampled under foot, with her hair about her back and her gown in shreds, at last got free; but she did not flee.

Running towards the roaring engine, she found herself face to face with Pecqueux.

"Jacques!

Jacques!

He is safe, is he not?"

she inquired.

The fireman, who, by a miracle, had not even sprained a joint, was hurrying in the same direction, his heart swelling with pity at the idea of his driver being beneath that heap of wreckage.

They had journeyed, they had suffered so much together in the continual fatigue of the high winds!

And their engine, their poor engine, the good friend so cherished by both, which lay there on its back, losing its last breath of steam!

"I jumped off," he stammered, "and know nothing, nothing at all.

Come on, come on, quick!"

Beside the line they ran up against Flore, who had been watching them advancing towards her.

Stupefied at the act she had committed, at the massacre she had accomplished, she had not yet moved.

It was all over, and it was well.

Her only feeling was one of relief at having performed a necessity, without the least thought of pity for the pain of the other victims, whom she did not even notice.

But when she recognised Séverine, her eyes opened immeasurably wide, and a cloud of frightful suffering darkened her pale countenance.

Eh?

what?

this woman lived, when he was certainly dead!

This piercing grief at her assassinated love, at this stab which she had given herself right in the heart, abruptly revealed to her all the abomination of her crime.

She had done this, she had killed him, she had killed all these people!

A loud cry lacerated her throat, she twisted her arms, she ran madly forward, exclaiming: "Jacques, oh!

Jacques!

He is there.

He was thrown backward, I saw him.

Jacques, Jacques!"

she called.

The death rattle of La Lison had become subdued.

It had taken the form of a hoarse moan which grew weaker and weaker, and the increasing clamour of the wounded could now be heard in tones more and more heartrending.

The smoke remained thick.

The enormous heap of wreckage, whence issued the voices of the tortured and terrified beings, seemed enveloped in a black cloud of dust that remained motionless in the sun.

What could be done?

Where commence?

How could these wretched victims be reached?

"Jacques!"

Flore continued calling.

"I tell you he looked at me," she added, "and that he was thrown off there, under the tender.

Come along quickly!

Help me!"

Cabuche and Misard had just picked up Henri, the headguard, who at the last second had also leapt from the train.

He had dislocated his ankle, and they seated him on the ground against the hedge, where, half-stunned and mute, he watched the rescue of the passengers without appearing to suffer.

"Cabuche, come and help me!"

cried Flore; "I tell you, Jacques is under there!"

The quarryman did not hear her.

He ran to the assistance of the other wounded, and carried away a young woman whose legs were dangling down broken.

It was Séverine who rushed forward to answer the appeal of Flore.

"Jacques, Jacques?"

said she inquiringly.

"Where is he?

I will help you."

"That's it, help me, you!"

Their hands met.

Together they tugged at a broken wheel.

But the delicate fingers of Séverine could do nothing, while the other with her sturdy fists broke through the obstacles.

"Be careful!"

said Pecqueux, who also began to assist in the work.

And he sharply stopped Séverine just as she was going to tread on an arm cut off at the shoulder, which was still clothed in a blue cloth sleeve.

She started back in horror.

And yet she did not recognise the sleeve.

It was an unknown arm that had rolled there from a body they would doubtless find elsewhere.

This gave her such a fit of trembling that she seemed as if paralysed, standing weeping, watching the others working, incapable even of removing the splinters of glass which cut her hands.

Then the rescue of the dying, the search for the dead proved full of anguish and danger, for the live coal had set the pieces of wood alight, and to put a stop to this commencement of a fire it became necessary to throw shovels of earth over them.

While someone ran to Barentin to ask for assistance, and a telegram left for Rouen, the removal of the wreckage proceeded as briskly as possible, everyone putting a hand to the work with great courage.

Many of the runaways had returned, ashamed of their panic.

But the relief party had to advance with infinite precautions, the transfer of each bit of wreckage requiring the utmost care, for fears were entertained lest the heap might perchance collapse and finish off the poor wretches in its midst.

Some of the wounded emerged from the pile, still buried up to their chests, crushed as if in a vice, and howling.

The rescuers laboured a quarter of an hour to deliver one victim as white as a sheet, who, far from complaining, said he felt no pain, and had nothing the matter with him; but when he had been extricated, he was found to be without his legs, and expired immediately, having neither seen nor felt the horrible mutilation in his fit of fright.

An entire family were dragged from a second-class compartment that had caught fire: the father and mother wounded in the knees, the grandmother with a broken arm; but neither did they feel their injuries.

They were sobbing and calling their little girl who had disappeared in the smash--a fair-headed mite, barely three years old, who was discovered safe and sound under a strip of roofing with a merry, smiling face.

Another little girl drenched in blood and with her poor, tiny hands crushed, had been carried aside pending the discovery of her parents.

She remained alone and unknown, breathing with such difficulty that she could not utter a word; but her face was convulsed into an expression of ineffable terror as soon as anyone approached her.

The shock having twisted the iron-fittings of the carriage doors, it was found impossible to open them, and it became necessary to enter the compartments through the broken glass.

Four corpses had already been taken out and placed side by side along the line.

About ten wounded extended on the ground, were waiting near the dead bodies, there being no doctor to dress their wounds, and no assistance of any kind.

The clearance of the wreckage had barely commenced, and a new victim was found under each bit of lumber, while the heap, streaming and palpitating with this human butchery, never seemed to decrease.

"But I tell you that Jacques is under there!"

cried Flore, relieving herself by obstinately repeating this expression, which she uttered without reason, as the lamentation of her despair.

"He is calling.

There, there!

Listen!"

she added.

The tender lay buried beneath the carriages, which after running one atop of the other, had then tumbled over; and, in fact, since the locomotive had been making less noise, a heavy masculine voice could be distinguished roaring in the midst of the pile.

As the work advanced the clamour of these agonising tones became more subdued, but they revealed such atrocious pain that the rescue party, unable to bear them any longer, gave way and called out themselves.

Then, at last, when the excavators reached the victim whose legs they had liberated, and whom they were dragging towards them, the roar of suffering ceased.

The man was dead!

"No," said Flore, "it is not Jacques.

He is lower down.

He is underneath."

And with her arms of a warrior woman, she raised the wheels and cast them to a distance, she twirled the zinc of the roofs, broke the doors, tore away the bits of chain.

And as soon as she came to a corpse or a person who was wounded, she called for someone to remove the body, determined not to slacken for a second in her maddening search.

Cabuche, Pecqueux, and Misard worked behind her, while Séverine, enfeebled by standing so long on her feet, had just seated herself on the bench of a shattered carriage.

But Misard, gentle and indifferent, again overcome by his sluggishness, anxious to avoid too much fatigue, was always ready to carry away the bodies.

And both he and Flore looked at the corpses, as if they hoped to recognise them from among the multitude of thousands and thousands of faces who, in ten years, had filed past before their eyes at full steam, leaving only the confused recollection of a crowd conveyed there and borne away in a flash.

No; it was still that unknown wave of the advancing world, as anonymous in brutal, accidental death, as in that hasty life which brought it tearing past them onward to the future; and they could not name, they could give no information about the heads, furrowed with horror, of these poor creatures struck down on their road, trampled under foot, similar to those soldiers whose bodies fill the trenches in opposing the charge of an enemy ascending to the assault.

Nevertheless, Flore fancied she had found one person to whom she had spoken on the day the train was blocked in the snow: that American whose profile she had at last come to know familiarly, without being aware of his name, or anything about him or his.

Misard carried him along with the other dead bodies, come no one knew whence, bound for no one knew where, and stopped there.

Then came a heartrending scene: in a first-class compartment turned topsy-turvy they had just discovered a young couple, doubtless newly married, thrown one upon the other in such an unfortunate position that the woman, who was uppermost, crushed the man, and could not make a movement to relieve him.

He was choking, he already had the death rattle in his throat; while she, in terror, with her mouth free, her heart rent asunder at the thought that she was killing him, distractedly implored the relief party to make haste.

And when they had delivered both, it was she who all at once breathed her last, a blow from one of the buffers having ripped open her side.

And the man, coming to himself again, clamoured with grief, kneeling beside the dead body whose eyes remained full of tears.

A dozen corpses and about thirty wounded passengers had now been removed.

The workers were setting the tender free.

Flore paused, ever and anon, thrusting her head among the splintered wood, the twisted iron, searching ardently with her eyes to see if she could perceive the driver.

Suddenly she uttered a loud cry.

"I can see him!"

she exclaimed.

"He is under here.

Look!

There is his arm, with his blue woollen jacket.

He doesn't move; he doesn't breathe!"

And, rising from her recumbent position, she swore like a man.

"Be quick!"

she shouted with an oath.

"Get him out from there!"

She made a fruitless effort with both hands to tear away a plank belonging to one of the carriages, which other pieces of wreckage prevented coming towards her.

So, running off, she returned with the hatchet that served to chop the wood at home; and brandishing it as a woodcutter wields his axe in the middle of an oak-tree forest, she fell upon the plank with a volley of furious blows.

The men, standing aside, allowed her to do as she would, while shouting to her to be careful.

But Jacques was the only wounded person there, and he lay sheltered under an entanglement of axle-trees and wheels.

Moreover, she paid no attention to what was said.

Her spirit being fairly roused, certain of herself, she proceeded with irresistible determination.

Each stroke battered down the wood, cut through an obstacle.

With her fair hair streaming free, her bodice torn open displaying her bare arms, she resembled some terrible reaper cleaving a way through the destruction she had wrought.

The final blow falling upon an axletree, broke the iron of the hatchet in two.

Then, assisted by the others, she put aside the wheels which had protected the young man from being crushed to death, and she was the first to seize him and bear him away in her arms.

"Jacques, Jacques!"

she cried.

"He is alive; he is breathing.

Ah!

Great God!

he lives.

I knew I saw him fall, and that he was there!"

Séverine, who was distracted, followed her.

Between them they laid him down at the foot of the hedge beside Henri, who continued gazing, stupefied, as if not understanding where he was, nor what went on around him.

Pecqueux, who had approached, remained standing before his driver quite unhinged at seeing him in this deplorable state; while the two women, now kneeling down, one to the right the other to the left, supported the head of the poor fellow, watching in anguish for the slightest shiver on his face.

At length Jacques opened his lids.

His troubled look fell upon Flore and Séverine, one after the other, but he did not appear to recognise them.

They failed to arouse his interest.

But his eyes having encountered the expiring locomotive, a few feet away, first of all assumed a wild expression, then, settling on the object, vacillated with increasing emotion.

He recognised La Lison well, and the sight brought everything back to him: the two blocks of stone across the rails, the abominable shock, the crushing sensation he had experienced, at the same moment, within both the engine and himself, and from which he had emerged alive, while the locomotive had assuredly come to an end.

It was not the fault of the engine if it had been intractable; for it had always felt the effects of the accident in the snow; without counting, that age makes limbs heavy and joints stiff, which is as applicable to machinery as to living creatures.

And so, overwhelmed with grief at seeing La Lison direfully wounded, in the last throes of death, he readily forgave.

Poor La Lison had but a few minutes more.

It was becoming cold.

The live coal in the fire-box was turning into cinders, the steam that had escaped in such violence from its open flanks, was exhausting itself with the low moan of a weeping child.

The locomotive always so bright, now lay on its back in a black bed of coal, soiled with earth and foam.

It had met with the tragic end of a costly animal struck down in the public street.

At one moment, it had been possible to perceive its mechanism at work through its shattered plates: the pistons beating like twin-hearts, the steam circulating in the slide valves as the blood of its veins; but the connecting-rods merely moved in a jerky fashion, after the manner of convulsive human arms, and constituted the final efforts of life.

Its spirit was ebbing away along with the power that gave it life, that huge breath whereof it could not absolutely free itself.

The eviscerated giantess sank lower still, passing little by little into very gentle slumber, and ended by emitting not a sound.

La Lison was dead.

And the heap of iron, steel, and copper, lying there, this pounded colossal mass with the barrel ripped asunder, the scattered limbs, the interior mechanism smashed, exposed to broad daylight, displayed the frightfully mournful aspect of some enormous human corpse, of a whole world that had lived, and from which life had just been torn in anguish.

Then Jacques, understanding that La Lison was no more, closed his eyes, desiring to die also; moreover, he was so weak that he fancied himself borne away in the final little puff of the engine; and tears, trickling from his closed lids, drenched his cheeks.

This was too much for Pecqueux who had remained there motionless with a lump in his throat.

Their dear friend had gone, and here was his driver wishing to follow.

So the happy family of three was at an end.

All over those journeys of hundreds of leagues they made together without exchanging a word, and yet all three understanding one another so well, that they had no need to make even a sign to comprehend.

Ah!

poor La Lison, as gentle as strong, so beautiful when sparkling in the sun!

And Pecqueux, who, nevertheless, had not been drinking, burst into violent sobs, unable to master the hiccoughs that agitated his huge frame.

Séverine and Flore were also in despair at this fresh fainting fit of Jacques.

The latter of the two women running home, returned with camphorated spirit, and began to friction him for the sake of doing something.

But amidst their anguish they were exasperated by the interminable death agony of the horse, who had his two fore-hoofs cut off, the only survivor of the team of five.

He lay close to them, uttering a constant neigh, a cry that sounded almost human.

It was so shrill and so expressive of frightful pain, that two of the wounded gained by the contagion, also began howling like animals.

Never had a death-cry rent the air in such a deep, ever memorable complaint.

It made the blood run icy cold.

The torture became atrocious.

Voices, trembling with pity and anger, inveighed against it, beseeching the rescue party to put an end to the misery of this wretched horse, who was in such terrible suffering, and whose endless death rattle, now that the engine had expired, continued like the final lamentation of the catastrophe.

Then Pecqueux, still sobbing, picked up the hatchet with the shattered steel head, and at a single blow, right in front of the skull, pole-axed him.

Silence now fell on the scene of massacre.

Assistance came at last, after waiting a couple of hours.

In the shock of the collision the carriages had all been thrown to the left, so that the down-line could be cleared in a few hours.

A train from Rouen, consisting of three carriages and a pilot-engine, had just brought the chief-secretary to the Prefect and the Imperial Procurator, along with some engineers and doctors of the company--quite a swarm of active, busy personages; while M. Bessière, the station-master at Barentin, was already attacking the wreckage with a gang of workmen.

Extraordinary bustle and excitement prevailed in this out-of-the-way place, usually so silent and deserted.

The travellers, who had issued from the accident safe and sound, had not yet lost the frenzy of their panic, which asserted itself in a febrile necessity to keep on the move.

Some, terrified at the idea of again seating themselves in a railway carriage, endeavoured to hire vehicles; others, seeing it was impossible to find even a wheel-barrow, already became anxious about eating and sleeping.

Everybody wished to send off telegrams, and several people set out for Barentin on foot taking messages with them.

While the representatives of the government, assisted by the servants of the railway company, commenced an inquiry, the doctors hastily proceeded to dress the wounds of the injured.

Many had lost consciousness and lay in pools of blood.

Others, tortured by tweezers and needles, murmured in feeble voices.

Altogether there were fifteen passengers killed and thirty-two seriously hurt.

The corpses remained in a row on the ground at the foot of the hedge, with their faces to the sky pending identification.

No one, save a little substitute, a fair and rosy young man full of zeal, troubled about them.

And he searched their pockets to see if he could find any papers, visiting-cards, or letters, which would enable him to ticket each of them with a name and address.

Meanwhile, a gaping crowd had gathered about him; for, although there was no house within a league around, a number of idlers had arrived, no one could say whence--some thirty men, women, and children, who simply stood in the way without lending any assistance.

And the black dust, the veil of smoke and vapour that had enveloped everything, having dispersed, the radiant April morning burst triumphant upon the scene of massacre, bathing the dead and dying, the ripped-up La Lison, and the pile of wreckage, in gentle, gay streams of bright sun; while the gang of workmen engaged in clearing the line reminded one of ants repairing the damage done to their hill by the feet of a thoughtless passer-by.

Jacques continued unconscious, and Séverine, stopping a doctor as he came along, besought his assistance.

The latter examined the young man without discovering any visible wound, but fearing internal lesions on account of the thin streaks of blood that appeared between his lips, he declined to express a formal opinion, but advised that Jacques should be removed as speedily, and with as little jolting as possible, and put to bed.

Jacques, at the touch of hands passing over him, had again opened his eyes with a suppressed ejaculation of pain.

This time he recognised Séverine, and stammered in a wandering manner: "Take me away--take me away!"

Flore bent forward, and Jacques moving his head recognised her also.

His eyes at once took the terrified expression of a child, and he turned back towards Séverine, shrinking from the other with a look of hatred and horror.

"Take me away, immediately, immediately!"

said he.

Then Séverine, troubling no more about Flore than if she had not been present, inquired in a most affectionate tone: "Will you let me take you to La Croix-de-Maufras?

It is just opposite;

and if you consent we shall be at home there."

And still agitated, with his eyes fixed on the other, he acquiesced.

"Anywhere you please, immediately," said he.

Flore, who remained motionless, turned pale as death at his look of terrified execration.

And so, in this carnage of innocent people, she had not succeeded in killing them, neither the one nor the other: the woman had come out of it without a scratch; and now he would perhaps escape.

She had only succeeded in throwing them together all alone in this solitary house.

She saw them comfortable there, the sweetheart recovered, convalescent; the girl full of attention, recompensed for her vigils by continual caresses, both prolonging the honeymoon of the catastrophe in absolute liberty and far from the world.

She turned icy cold, and cast her eyes on the dead she had slaughtered to no purpose.

At this moment, Flore, in the glance she had given to the butchery, perceived Misard and Cabuche, who were being questioned by some gentlemen--the judicial authorities assuredly.

In fact, the Imperial Procurator and the chief secretary to the Prefect were endeavouring to ascertain how this stone dray had got across the line.

Misard maintained that he had not left his post, while at the same time, he was unable to give any precise information as to what had happened.

He really knew nothing, so he pretended he had been busy with his apparatus, and had his back turned.

Cabuche, who had not yet recovered his composure, related a long, confused story about how he had committed the imprudence of leaving his team, in order to take a look at the corpse of the dead woman, how the horses had moved on alone, and how the young girl had been unable to stop them.

Embroiling himself, he began again without succeeding in making himself understood.

A mad desire for liberty, again caused the frozen blood of Flore to flow warm.

She wished for freedom of action, freedom to reflect and come to a decision of her own accord, having never required the assistance of anyone to get into the right path.

What was the good of waiting to be annoyed with questions, perhaps to be arrested?

For, apart from the crime, there had been neglect of duty, and she would be held responsible.

Nevertheless, she remained where she was, feeling unable to quit the spot so long as Jacques stayed there.

Séverine had so begged and prayed of Pecqueux to procure a stretcher, that he at last secured one, and returned from his errand with a comrade, to carry off the injured driver.

The doctor had persuaded the young woman to allow Henri, the headguard, to be accommodated at her house also.

He merely seemed to be suffering from swimming in the head, as if momentarily struck senseless by the shock.

He would be removed after the other one.

As Séverine bent forward to unbutton the collar of Jacques which was troubling him, she kissed him openly on the eyes, wishing to give him courage to support being moved.

"Never mind," she murmured; "we shall be happy."

He returned her kiss smiling.

And to Flore this was the supreme rent that tore him from her for ever.

It seemed to her that her blood, also, was now flowing from an incurable wound.

She fled when they carried him away; but, in passing before the low habitation, she perceived the death-chamber through the window, with the pale spot formed by the candle burning in broad daylight, beside the body of her mother.

During the accident the corpse of the dead woman had remained alone, with the head half turned aside, the eyes wide open, the mouth twisted, as if she were watching all these people whom she did not know, being crushed to death.

Flore dashed away, and immediately turning the corner formed by the Doinville road, struck out to the left among the bushes.

She was familiar with every innermost corner of the district, and she could now defy the gendarmes to catch her should they happen to be in pursuit.

So she abruptly ceased running, continuing at a slow walk towards a hiding-place--an excavation above the tunnel, where she loved to conceal herself on days when she felt sad.

Raising her eyes, she saw by the sun that it was noon.

When she was in her den, she stretched herself on the hard rock, and remained motionless with her hands clasped behind her neck reflecting.

It was not until then that she felt a frightful void within her.

A sensation of being dead gradually numbed her limbs.

This was not remorse at having uselessly slaughtered all these people, for it required an effort on her part to experience regret and horror at what she had done.

No, but she was now certain that Jacques had seen her holding back the horses; and she had just understood, as she noticed him shrink away, that he felt the same terrified repulsion for her as one has for monsters.

He would never forget.

However, when you miss doing away with other people, you must not commit the same blunder with yourself.

By-and-by, she would put an end to her existence.

She had no other hope.

She felt the absolute necessity of resorting to this extremity, since she had been there, recovering calm and reasoning.

Her fatigue and complete prostration alone prevented her rising to seek a weapon, and die there and then.

And yet, from the midst of the invincible somnolence that settled on her, again came the love of life, a craving for felicity, a final dream of being happy also, considering she had left the other two to the bliss of living freely together.

Why not await night, to run off and join Ozil, who adored her and would very well know how to defend her?

Then her thoughts became gentle and confused, and she fell into a sound sleep, free from dreams.

When Flore awoke, night had completely set in.

Not knowing where she was, she felt about her, and at once remembered everything, on touching the naked rock whereon she lay.

Then the implacable necessity presented itself like a thunderbolt: she must die.

It seemed as if that cowardly sensation of gentleness, that faltering when life seemed still possible, had vanished with the fatigue.

No, no; death alone was good.

She could not live in the midst of all this blood, with her tattered heart, and execrated by the only man she cared for, who belonged to another.

Now that she had the strength, she must die.

Flore rose, and left the hole in the rocks.

She did not hesitate, for instinct had just told her where she should go.

Looking towards the stars, she could see it was close on nine o'clock.

As she reached the railway, a train flew by at full speed, on the down-line, which seemed to give her pleasure: all would be well.

Evidently they had cleared this line, whereas the other, no doubt, was still blocked, for the trains did not seem to be running.

Now she followed the hedge amidst the deadly silence of the wild surroundings.

There was no hurry, there would be no train before the Paris express, and that would not be there until 9. 25. She continued her walk in the dense darkness very calmly, and at short strides, as if she had been making one of her usual excursions by the deserted pathways of the neighbourhood.

Nevertheless, before coming to the tunnel, she made her way through the hedge, and advanced along the metals themselves, at her dawdling gait, walking to meet the express.

She had to keep her wits about her, so as not to be seen by the watchman, as was her custom each time she ran over on a visit to Ozil.

And, in the tunnel, she continued walking, still, still advancing.

But it was not as on the last occasion.

She was no longer afraid, should she turn round, of losing the exact notion of the direction she wished to take.

The tunnel folly was not beating in her skull, obliterating all idea of time and space, amidst the thunder of the sounds crashing beneath the vault.

What mattered it to her?

She did not reason, she did not even think, she had but one fixed resolution: to walk, walk before her until she met the train, and then to still walk on, straight to the lantern, as soon as she should see it flaming in the night.

Nevertheless, Flore felt astonished, for she fancied she had been going along thus for hours.

What a distance it was, this death that she desired!

The idea that she would not encounter it, that she would walk leagues and leagues without striking against it, caused her momentary despair.