‘Give him my money! Never! I’d rather die! I’ve hidden it! No one will ever find it! Never! Not even if they turn the house upside down! I tell you, he’s been looking everywhere, hoping to lay his greedy hands on it! I’ve heard him in the night, tapping on the walls. Well, he can go on looking for all he’s worth. It makes me laugh to see him poking around all over the house. We shall see who dies first, him or me! I’m careful now. I don’t eat a thing if he’s been anywhere near it. Even if I was the first to die, he still wouldn’t get the money. I’d rather see it buried.’
She fell back on to her chair, exhausted. The sound of Misard’s horn came in through the window. He was standing at the door of his cabin, setting the signal for a train to Le Havre. Despite her determination not to give in to him over the legacy, she was secretly frightened of him, and her fear was growing, just as a giant fears the bite of a tiny insect. The rumble of the approaching train could be heard in the distance, a stopping train that had left Paris at twelve forty-five that afternoon. They heard it emerge from the tunnel, the bark of its exhaust getting suddenly louder as it ran out into the open country. It came thundering past them, its wheels pounding on the track, its long string of carriages whisked along behind it like an unstoppable hurricane.
Jacques watched as the line of little square windows rushed by, each with the shape of a passenger outlined in it. In an attempt to take Phasie’s mind off her gloomy thoughts, he said jokingly, ‘Aunt, you grumble about never seeing anyone from one week to the next, but look at all those people!’
At first she didn’t understand him.
‘What people?’ she asked him, puzzled. ‘Oh, you mean the people in the train! A fat lot of good they are! I don’t know them from Adam, and you can’t stop and have a chat with them!’
Jacques laughed.
‘But, Aunt Phasie, you know me,’ he said, ‘and I go past nearly every day.’
‘Oh, I know you,’ she answered. ‘And I know the time of your train. I look out for you, driving the engine. But you go so fast! Yesterday you gave me a little wave, like this, but I didn’t even have time to wave back! That’s no way of getting to know people.’
The thought of all the people that went rushing past on the trains, backwards and forwards, day after day, while she sat there on her own in the silence of her room, left her wondering. She looked out at the railway line. It was almost dark. When she was fit and well and could move about, standing at the crossing, holding her flag, she never thought about things like this. But now, having to spend days on end tied to her chair, with nothing else to think about but how to cope with her husband’s murderous schemes, she found all manner of vague, half-formed notions floating around inside her head. It was strange: here was she, living in a wilderness, miles from anywhere, with no one to talk to, when day and night an endless stream of men and women came rushing past her front door in trains that came and went like thunder, nearly shaking the house down, and vanishing as quickly as they had come. It wasn’t just French people either; there were people from everywhere, foreigners, people from the other side of the world. No one was content to stay at home these days; all the peoples of the world, so it was said, would soon be one big family. Such was progress! All men would be brothers, moving as one towards the Promised Land! She tried to put a figure on them, working out a rough estimate of passengers per carriage, but there were so many that she lost count. There were one or two faces she thought she recognized — a gentleman with a white beard, an Englishman perhaps, who made the same journey to Paris every week, and a little lady with brown hair who travelled regularly on Wednesdays and Saturdays. But they came and went in a flash; she could never be sure she had actually seen them. The faces were an indistinct blur, all merging into each other and all ending up looking alike. The stream flowed on, leaving nothing behind. What saddened her most was the thought that all these people, rushing constantly past her window, flaunting their wealth and finery and always in a hurry to be somewhere else, were totally unaware that she was there and that her life was at risk. Even if one night her husband finished her off, the trains would still pass by each other a few feet from her corpse without anyone even suspecting that a murder had been committed in this isolated house.
Phasie sat gazing at the window. It was impossible to explain to Jacques precisely what she was thinking. She hardly understood it herself. Then, as if her thoughts had suddenly crystallized, she said, ‘It’s a fine invention; there’s no denying it. It gets people about quickly, it broadens the mind ... But a beast will always be a beast. You can go on inventing better machines till the cows come home. It won’t change a thing. In the end we’re at the mercy of beasts.’
Jacques nodded his agreement. For the last minute or two he had been watching Flore, who was opening the crossing-gate for a wagon from the quarry carrying two huge blocks of stone. The road was only ever used by wagons from the quarries at Brécourt, so at night the gate was kept locked, and it was very seldom that Flore was disturbed. Jacques watched her as she chatted with the short, dark-skinned man who drove the wagon.
‘Is Cabuche ill?’ he asked Phasie. ‘That’s his cousin Louis driving the horses, isn’t it? Poor old Cabuche! Do you see much of him these days?’
She raised her hands without answering and let out a long sigh. The previous autumn something terrible had happened, and it had done nothing to improve her health. Her younger daughter, Louisette, who was working as a maid for Madame Bonnehon at Doinville, had run away in the middle of the night. She had been badly knocked about and was scared out of her wits. She ran for help to her sweetheart Cabuche, in his shack in the forest, but when she got there she died. There were rumours that she had been maltreated by Grandmorin, but nobody dared say anything publicly. Aunt Phasie knew what had happened, but she couldn’t bring herself to repeat it.8 All she eventually said was: ‘No, Cabuche doesn’t come here any more. He keeps himself to himself. Poor Louisette! She was so pretty, so innocent. She was a dear! She really loved me! She would have looked after me! Flore does her best, of course; I can’t complain. But there’s something crazy about her; she’s got a will of her own. She disappears for hours on end. Sometimes I hardly dare speak to her. And she has such tantrums! It’s sad. Very sad.’
Jacques was watching the quarry wagon as it moved over the crossing. The wheels had become stuck between the tracks. The driver was cracking his whip, and Flore was shouting at the top of her voice, trying to urge on the horses.
‘Goodness me,’ said Jacques, ‘I hope a train doesn’t come; there’d be a nasty accident!’
‘Oh, you needn’t worry,’ said Aunt Phasie. ‘Flore may be a bit weird sometimes, but she knows how to do her job. She keeps her eyes open. We haven’t had an accident for five years, thank God. Before we came here, there was a man who was cut in two. All we’ve had is a cow that nearly caused a derailment. Poor thing; they found its body here, and its head down there, by the tunnel. No, you can sleep easy when Flore’s around.’
The wagon had got across and they could hear the wheels bumping in the ruts as it lumbered off down the road.
‘Tell me, Jacques,’ said Aunt Phasie, when the wagon had disappeared, ‘are you feeling all right these days?’
She had an obsessive interest in people’s health: not only her own, but everyone else’s too.
‘Do you remember those funny turns you used to have when you were at home?’ she continued. ‘The doctor couldn’t work them out.’
A worried look crept into his eyes.
‘I feel fine,’ he said.
‘Are you sure you’re telling me the truth?’ she said. ‘Have they stopped? You used to get a splitting headache behind your ears, and sudden temperatures, and bouts of depression. You’d go and hide yourself away, like a frightened animal.’
Jacques was becoming more and more disturbed. He interrupted her.
‘Listen, Aunt,’ he said tersely, ‘I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me. Nothing at all!’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said. ‘Anyway, if you were ill it wouldn’t make me any better, would it? Besides, you should be well at your age! Ah, good health, what could be better? It really was kind of you to come and see me when you could have gone and enjoyed yourself somewhere else. You can have some supper and you can sleep upstairs in the attic, in the room next to Flore’s.’
Once again she was interrupted by the sound of Misard’s horn. It was now dark outside, and as they looked through the window they could dimly make out the shape of her husband talking to someone else. It had just struck six, and he was handing over to the night man who was replacing him. At last he was relieved of duty, after a twelve-hour stint cooped up in his cabin, sitting on a little stool in front of a table underneath the instrument panel, with a stove that got so hot that for most of the time he had to leave the door wide open.
‘Here he comes; he’s finished work,’ murmured Aunt Phasie, all her fears returning. The train that had just been signalled was approaching, a long, heavy train, getting louder and louder. Aunt Phasie was so weak that Jacques had to lean forward so that she could hear him. It upset him to see the pitiful state she was in; he wished there was something he could do to comfort her.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘if he really is up to something, it might make him think twice if he knew that he had me to reckon with. Why not let me look after your money for you?’
Once again she protested vehemently.
‘That thousand francs is mine!’ she insisted. ‘I wouldn’t give it to you any more than I’d give it to him! I tell you I’d sooner die.’
Just then the train went past, like a violent storm sweeping all before it. The house shook, buffeted by a great gust of wind. The train was heading for Le Havre and it was packed; there was to be a grand celebration on the following day, Sunday, for the launching of a new ship. Even though it was moving so fast, through the lighted carriage windows they caught sight of compartments crammed with passengers, rows of heads all in a line, tightly packed together, each with its own face on it. They rushed by, one after another, and disappeared. So many people! The same crowd endlessly streaming past their window, with the wheels of the carriages drumming in their ears, locomotives blowing their whistles, telegraphs buzzing and bells ringing! The railway was like a giant creature, a colossus that lay sprawled across the country, its head in Paris, its backbone stretching the length of the main line, its arms and legs spreading out sideways along the branch lines and its hands and feet at Le Havre and at other towns it found its way to. On and on it went, soulless, triumphant, striding towards the future, straight as a die, wilfully disregarding whatever shreds of humanity survived on either side of it, hidden from view yet still clinging to their own hardy inner life,9 their ceaseless round of passion and crime.
It was Flore who came in first. She lit the lamp, a small paraffin lamp without a shade, and then laid the table. She said nothing. She hardly looked at Jacques, who stood with his back to her at the window. She had left some cabbage soup on the stove to keep it hot and was beginning to serve it when Misard walked in. He didn’t seem in the least surprised to find Jacques there. Perhaps he had seen him arrive, but he didn’t ask him what brought him there and he appeared totally indifferent towards him; he gave him a quick handshake, a cursory greeting and that was all. It was left to Jacques to explain, a second time, how his engine had broken a coupling-rod and how he thought he might come and say hello to his godmother and spend the night there. Misard slowly nodded his head as he listened, as much as to say that that was all right by him. Everyone sat down to eat. They ate slowly, and for a while no one spoke. Phasie, who since the morning hadn’t taken her eyes off the pot of soup that had been simmering on the stove, accepted a bowlful. But when her husband got up from the table to give her her iron water from a jug in which some nails had been left to soak, which Flore had forgotten to do, she refused to take it. Misard, unobtrusive, frail and with a nasty little cough, didn’t seem to notice the anxious way she watched his every movement. When she asked for some salt, as there wasn’t any on the table, he told her that she shouldn’t put so much salt on her food and that that was what was making her ill. He got up again to fetch some and brought her a little pinch on a spoon. She took it without hesitation, declaring that salt was a great purifier. They talked about the exceptionally mild weather they had been having for the last few days, and about a derailment at Maromme. Jacques was coming to the conclusion that his godmother must be having waking nightmares; he really couldn’t see anything odd about this dreamy-eyed, mild-mannered little man. They sat talking for more than an hour. Twice the night man had sounded his horn, and Flore had left the room for a moment or two. The trains went by, shaking the glasses on the table, but nobody seemed to notice.
When the horn sounded a third time, Flore, who had just cleared everything away, went out, leaving her mother and the two men sitting at the table with a bottle of apple brandy. The three of them sat there for another half hour. Then Misard, who for the last few minutes had been looking intently into one of the corners of the room, picked up his cap and with a simple ‘good night’ walked out. He went poaching in the streams near by, where there were superb eels, and he never went to bed before he had been to check his ground-lines.
Once he had gone, Phasie looked at Jacques.
‘What do you make of that?’ she said. ‘Did you see the way he was looking into that corner? He was thinking I might have hidden my money behind the butter pot. I know him. You mark my words! Tonight he’ll move it to see if it’s there.’
She had broken out into a sweat and was shaking from head to toe.
‘See, it’s happening again! He’s drugged my food. I’ve got a bitter taste in my mouth as if I’d swallowed a lot of old pennies. But I swear I haven’t taken anything from him. It’s enough to make you throw yourself in the river! I can’t take any more tonight. I’d better get to bed. I’ll say goodbye to you now. If you’re leaving at seven twenty-six it’ll be too early for me. Come and see me again, won’t you. Let’s hope I’m still here.’
Jacques had to help her into the bedroom, where she lay down and went to sleep, exhausted. Left alone, he wondered whether he too shouldn’t go up to the attic and get some sleep. But it was still only ten to eight. Sleep could come later; he decided he would take a walk outside. The little paraffin lamp was left burning on the table, and the empty house slept quietly, shaken from time to time by the thunder of a passing train.
Once outside, Jacques was surprised to discover how soft the night air felt. Perhaps there was more rain on the way. A milky white cloud had spread itself across the entire sky, and the full moon, hidden behind it out of sight, filled the heavens with a reddish glow. He could see the countryside clearly; the nearby fields, the hills and the trees stood out black in the uniformly pale light of the moon, no brighter than a night-light. He wandered round the little vegetable garden and then thought he would go for a walk towards Doinville, as the road was less steep in that direction. He was about to set off when he caught sight of the house standing on its own on the other side of the railway track. He opened the wicket gate beside the level-crossing, the main gate being already shut for the night, and crossed the railway line. The house was one he recognized; he had looked at it from the lurching footplate of his locomotive every time he drove the train past. For some reason it haunted him; he had a vague notion that it was somehow connected with his own life. He had the same feelings each time — initially a kind of fear that it might no longer be there, and then a strange uneasiness when he discovered that it still was. Never had he seen either the doors or the windows open. The only thing he had managed to find out about it was that it belonged to President Grandmorin. He was seized by an irresistible desire to take a closer look, to see what he might discover.
For some time he stood in the road, facing the railings. He then took a few paces back and stood on tiptoe to try to get a better view. Where the railway cut through the garden, it had left
only a narrow strip of ground with a wall round it in front of the steps to the main door. At the back of the house, however, there was a larger piece of ground, surrounded by a simple hedge. The whole place had a dismal, forsaken appearance, standing there abandoned, in the misty red glow from the night sky. He felt a shiver run through him and he was about to turn away when he noticed a gap in the hedge. Telling himself that he had nothing to fear, he stepped through. He felt his heart beating. Suddenly, as he came round a small, tumbledown greenhouse, he saw a shadowy figure crouching by the door. He stopped quickly.
‘What are you doing here?’ he exclaimed with astonishment.
It was Flore.
‘You can see what I’m doing,’ she said, trying to make her voice sound calm, for his appearance had taken her by surprise.
‘I’m helping myself to this twine. It’s all been left here to rot; it’s no use to anyone. I use it in the garden, so I come and take what I want.’
She had a big pair of scissors in her hand and was sitting on the ground, untangling lengths of twine and cutting it when it got caught in a knot.
‘Doesn’t the owner come here any more?’ asked Jacques.
She laughed.
‘The President’s hardly likely to show his face round here,’ she said, ‘after what happened to Louisette! So I’m taking his twine.’
Jacques was silent for a while, recalling the sad tale of Louisette’s death. He frowned.
‘Do you believe what Louisette said?’ he asked. ‘That Grandmorin tried to rape her, and she got hurt when it turned nasty?’
Flore suddenly became angry.
‘Louisette never lied,’ she protested. ‘Nor Cabuche either! Cabuche is my friend.’
‘I bet he’s your lover, too,’ said Jacques.
‘You’d be scraping the barrel if you had him as a lover,’ she said. ‘He’s my friend. I haven’t got any lovers and I don’t want any.’
She raised her head defiantly. Her thick blonde hair fell down over her face. Her lithe, muscular body exuded a sense of wild, wilful independence. She had acquired something of a reputation locally. There were stories of her pulling a farm wagon single-handed from the path of an oncoming train and stopping a runaway goods wagon as it careered out of control down the Barentin incline towards an approaching express. These astonishing feats of strength made her much sought after by the young men in the neighbourhood, all the more so because they thought at first she would be an easy catch, always wandering off into the fields as soon as she had finished work and finding some hidden spot where she could just lie on the ground gazing quietly into the sky undisturbed. But the first who were rash enough to approach her never wished to repeat the experience. She used to spend hours bathing in a nearby stream, naked. A group of lads, the same age as her, got together to go to watch her. Without even bothering to get dressed, she had grabbed hold of one of them and knocked him nearly senseless. No one tried to spy on her again. There was an even stranger story about her treatment of a signalman at the junction for Dieppe at the other end of the tunnel, a man called Ozil, a perfectly ordinary sort of chap, about thirty years old, whom she seemed to fancy, or so it was said. One night, thinking she wanted to make love, he had put his hands on her, and she had nearly beaten him to death with a stick. She held men in utter contempt, like an Amazon. Most people took this as proof that she was a bit wrong in the head.