Human Beast: The Emile Zola Society Edition

  A similar sort of lethargy appeared to have affected the Roubauds’ neighbours. The corridor on which they lived, which was normally buzzing with rumour and gossip, was now silent. When Philomène came to call on Madame Lebleu, they hardly raised their voices. Both women had been surprised by the way things had turned out and now, when they spoke of Roubaud, it was with a mixture of scorn and pity. It was quite obvious what madame had got up to in Paris in order to keep him in a job! Anyway, Roubaud’s name was mud, and nothing would ever convince them he was innocent. The cashier’s wife was now confident that her neighbours were no longer in a position to take her apartment from her and she treated them with contempt, walking past them very stiffly and refusing to acknowledge them. In the end she even managed to alienate Philomène, who came to see her less and less, finding her too stuck up and irritating. Madame Lebleu, for want of anything better to do, still kept an eye open for any goings-on between Mademoiselle Guichon and the stationmaster, Monsieur Dabadie, not that she ever discovered anything. In the corridor the only sound to be heard was the shuffle of her felt slippers. One day followed another, and nothing stirred. A whole month went by. Peace reigned. After all the turmoil, everything seemed to sink into a deep slumber.

  For the Roubauds, however, there was one thing that continued to disturb them and make them feel uneasy. It was a section of the parquet flooring in their dining room. Whenever they chanced to look at it all their old fears returned. It was to the left of the window, a piece of edging which they had lifted and then put back into place in order to hide the watch and the ten thousand francs that they had taken from Grandmorin’s body, along with about three hundred francs in gold, in a purse. Roubaud had only taken them from Grandmorin’s pockets to make it look like a robbery. He wasn’t a thief and he would sooner starve, as he put it, than spend a single centime or sell the watch. It had belonged to a man who had defiled his wife and who had got his just deserts; it was tainted money, unclean ... No! It wasn’t fit to be touched by a self-respecting man like himself. He had been willing to accept the legacy of La Croix-de-Maufras, and he now no longer gave it a thought. But what he couldn’t come to terms with was the thought of going through Grandmorin’s pockets and taking his money after he had brutally murdered him; it played on his conscience and left him feeling shocked and frightened. Yet he had never got round to burning the money or going out one night and throwing the watch and the purse in the sea. He knew that this would be the wisest thing to do, but some obscure instinct prevented him. He had a subconscious respect for money; he could never have brought himself to simply get rid of such a large amount. At first, on the night of the murder, he had put it under his pillow, unable to think of anywhere safe enough to hide it. He spent the next few days racking his brains to think of hiding places. He tried one after another but kept changing them every day, frightened, at the least sound, that someone would present himself at his door with a search-warrant. Never had his ingenuity been so thoroughly tested. Eventually he ran out of ideas; his anxiety had worn him out. One day he couldn’t be bothered to look any further and had simply left the money and the watch under the floorboard, where he had hidden them the day before. Now he wouldn’t disturb them for anything in the world; it was a place of death, of unspeakable horrors, a charnel house where ghosts lay in wait for him. He avoided walking on this particular strip of parquet; it gave him an unpleasant feeling and seemed to send a slight shock up his legs. In the afternoon, when Séverine sat in front of the window, she would draw her chair back so that it wasn’t placed directly above the corpse that lay hidden beneath the floor. They didn’t talk to each other about it and tried to convince themselves that they would get used to it. But, to their annoyance, they couldn’t stop thinking about it; they sensed it there, under their feet, every minute of the day, refusing to go away. The unease it caused them was all the more surprising because they weren’t at all bothered about the knife, the beautiful new knife which Séverine had bought her husband and which he had plunged into her lover’s throat. It had simply been washed and left in the bottom of a drawer; Madame Simon sometimes used it to cut the bread.

  The Roubauds’ peaceful existence was further disturbed by another increasingly troublesome arrangement. At Roubaud’s insistence, Jacques had regularly been joining them for meals. Being in charge of the Paris express meant that Jacques returned to Le Havre three times a week: on Monday from ten thirty-five in the morning to six twenty in the evening, and on Thursday and Saturday from five past eleven at night to six forty the following morning. He had first invited him on the Monday following Séverine’s trip to Paris and he would not take no for an answer.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘you’re not going to refuse a bite to eat with us, are you? You’ve been very good to my wife, and I owe you a favour in return.’

  So Jacques had accepted his invitation to have lunch with them twice a month. It appeared that Roubaud had become embarrassed by the long silences between him and his wife whenever they ate together and he was relieved to have a guest to join them. He soon found plenty to talk about again and chatted and joked.

  ‘Come as often as you like,’ he said. ‘It’s no trouble at all.’

  One Thursday evening, just as Jacques had finished cleaning himself and was about to return to his lodgings to get some sleep, he met Roubaud wandering around the engine shed. Although it was quite late, Roubaud, not wanting to return home alone, had asked Jacques to accompany him as far as the station and had then invited him back to his apartment. Séverine was still up, reading a book. They had a drink together and played cards until past midnight.

  From then on, the Monday lunches and the little get-togethers on Thursday and Saturday evenings became a regular occurrence. If Jacques failed to turn up, Roubaud himself would go and find him and tell him off for forgetting to come. He grew more and more depressed and was only ever really happy when he was with his new friend. This fellow, who had at first so frightened him and whom, even now, he had good cause to loathe, as the witness and living reminder of all the terrible things he sought to forget, had on the contrary become indispensable to him, perhaps for the very reason that he knew the truth and had not talked. It remained a secret that they shared, a bond between them, a pact. Often Roubaud would give Jacques a knowing look and shake his hand with a sudden warmth of feeling that expressed far more than simple friendship.

  None the less, the presence of Jacques helped the Roubauds to take their mind off things. Séverine, too, was always pleased to see him, greeting him with a little cry of pleasure whenever he came through the door. She would drop whatever she was doing, her embroidery or her book, and talk and laugh, only too happy to escape the dull tedium in which she lived from day to day.

  ‘It’s so good of you to come!’ she would say. ‘I heard the express arrive and I was thinking about you.’

  When he stayed for lunch, she always did him proud. She quickly got to know his likes and dislikes and would go out especially to buy new-laid eggs for him. She made him feel welcome, like a good housewife receiving a friend of the family, and for the time being at least, he had no reason to suppose that she was doing it out of any other motive than wanting to be pleasant and needing something to do.

  ‘You’ll come again on Monday, won’t you,’ she would say. ‘There’ll be some fresh cream!’

  By the end of a month, however, by which time Jacques was a regular visitor, the rift between Roubaud and his wife had become more pronounced. Séverine more and more preferred to sleep on her own and contrived to share the bed with her husband as little as possible. Roubaud, who had been such a passionate, violent lover when they were first married, made no attempt to force her. His love-making had always lacked finesse; she had resigned herself to it as a dutiful wife, accepting that it had to be, but taking no pleasure in it. Since the crime, however, without knowing why, she found that it had become unbearable; it left her feeling exhausted and frightened. Once, when the candle was still alight, she had cried
out; she had the distinct impression that the face peering down into hers, red and contorted, was the face of the murderer. Thereafter, it made her tremble every time; she had the horrible feeling that the murder was being re-enacted, as if he had thrown her on to her back and had a knife in his hand. It was ridiculous, but it left her shaking with fear. Roubaud for his part gradually tired of insisting; her resistance robbed him of his pleasure. It seemed that their terrible crisis and the shedding of blood had produced in them the weariness and indifference that normally come with old age. On nights when they could not avoid sleeping in the same bed, they slept on opposite sides. Jacques undoubtedly helped to bring about this divorce. His presence drew them out of their self-obsession. He freed them from each other.

  Roubaud felt no remorse. He had been frightened about what might happen to him before the case was shelved, and his main concern was about losing his job. But he still regretted nothing. Perhaps, if he had had to do it all over again, he would not have involved his wife; women tended to panic too easily, and if Séverine was drifting away from him, it was because he had placed too great a burden on her shoulders. Had he not dragged her into this terrifying and acrimonious partnership in crime, she would still have been his to command. But that was how things were and he just had to put up with it. He had to make a real effort these days to recall his feelings when Séverine had first confessed to him and he had decided that he must murder Grandmorin if he was to go on living. It had seemed to him then that if he hadn’t killed him, life would have been impossible. But now, the flames of jealousy had died down, and there was no longer that unbearable, burning desire for revenge; a feeling of numbness had come over him, as if the blood he had spilt had somehow congealed the blood in his own veins. It was no longer obvious to him why the murder had seemed so necessary. He even began to wonder if it had been worth it. It wasn’t that he regretted doing it; it was more a vague feeling of disappointment, a sense that people often do the most terrible things in order to achieve happiness, without becoming one bit happier than they were before. Although by nature a talkative man, he would go for long periods without speaking; he sat thinking to himself and getting himself more and more confused, ending up even more depressed than before. Every day now, in order to avoid his wife’s company after mealtimes, he would climb up on to the station roof and sit perched on the top, with the breeze from the open sea playing on his face, smoking pipe after pipe, in a world of his own, looking out over the town and watching the steamers disappearing over the horizon to the ocean beyond.

  One evening Roubaud’s old, fierce jealousy was rearoused. He had gone out to look for Jacques at the engine shed and was bringing him back home for a drink when he met Henri Dauvergne, the guard, coming down the stairs. Dauvergne appeared embarrassed and explained that he had just called in to see Madame Roubaud on an errand from his sisters. The truth was that he had had his eye on Séverine for some time and hoped to make an impression on her.

  Roubaud opened the door and angrily confronted his wife:

  ‘What’s that Dauvergne character doing here again? You know I can’t stand him!’

  ‘Stop getting so upset, dear,’ she answered, ‘he came to pick up an embroidery pattern.’

  ‘Embroidery pattern, my foot! Do you think I’m so stupid I don’t know what he’s after? You’d better watch your step!’

  He advanced towards her, his fists clenched. Séverine stepped back from him, her face white. They had been quietly ignoring each other over the last few weeks, and this sudden outburst of temper amazed her. But his anger quickly subsided.

  ‘It’s true,’ he said, turning to Jacques, ‘there are jokers like him that come waltzing into your house and think your wife is going to throw herself into their arms while her husband is supposed to feel highly honoured and turn a blind eye! It makes my blood boil ... I tell you, if I had a wife who did that, I wouldn’t ask questions, I’d just strangle her ... Just make sure that smart alec doesn’t come here again, or I’ll give him what for! It makes you sick, doesn’t it?’

  Jacques found the whole scene highly embarrassing and didn’t know quite how to react. Was this display of anger for his benefit? Was it a husband’s warning? His worries were dispelled when Roubaud continued with a laugh:

  ‘Come on, you daft thing, I’m only joking. I know you wouldn’t stand any nonsense from him. Go and get us some glasses! Let’s all have a drink.’

  He patted Jacques on the shoulder, and Séverine, having recovered from her shock, looked at them and smiled. They then had a drink and spent a very pleasant hour together.

  And so it was that Roubaud helped and encouraged the friendship between his wife and his companion, without appearing to realize what it might lead to. Roubaud’s display of jealousy even prompted a greater intimacy between Jacques and Séverine, a secret sharing of affection and whispered confidences. When Jacques saw her again two days later, he told her how sorry he was that Roubaud had treated her so roughly, while she, with tears in her eyes and unable to hide her unhappiness from him, confessed what little joy her marriage had brought her. From then on, Séverine had someone in whom she could confide, a friend who sympathized. They came to understand each other through little signs and gestures. Every time he came, he would glance at her inquiringly, to know if Roubaud had done anything new to upset her. She would answer in the same manner, with a quick flutter of her eyelids. When Roubaud’s back was turned, their hands would quickly meet. As they grew bolder, they allowed their hands to remain together, seeking through little movements and tightenings of their fingers to share each other’s thoughts. They rarely had the good fortune to be together for more than a minute on their own; Roubaud, ever more depressed, was always there, sitting at the table between them. They made no attempt to try to get away from him; it never occurred to them that they might arrange to meet elsewhere, in some quiet corner of the station building. For the time being, Roubaud’s presence did not stand in the way of the growing friendship and the warm feeling that was developing between them; they were able to say all they needed to say with a mere look or a squeeze of the hand.

  When Jacques first whispered into Séverine’s ear that he would be waiting for her the following Thursday at midnight behind the engine shed, she was shocked, and snatched her hand away from him. It was her week of freedom; her husband was on night duty. But the thought of leaving the apartment and walking through the station in the dark to an assignation with another man scared her. Her mind was filled with doubts she had never experienced before, like an innocent young virgin, her heart all aflutter. At first she declined his offer. Jacques had to keep asking her for nearly a fortnight, before she finally relented, although the thought of this nocturnal rendezvous had made her heart burn with excitement. It was the beginning of June; the nights were very warm and barely cooled by the breeze from the sea. Jacques had already waited for her three times, hoping that she would come to meet him despite her refusal. This evening she had again said no. There was no moon, the sky was overcast and not a single star could be seen through the heavy pall of mist that filled the air. Standing in the shadows, Jacques at last saw her approaching, dressed in black, moving forward without a sound. It was so dark that she might have brushed past him without seeing him, but he caught her in his arms and kissed her. She gave a little cry of surprise. Then, with a laugh, she allowed her lips to remain upon his. Jacques suggested they might sit in one of the nearby sheds, but Séverine refused. They walked on, pressing themselves close to each other, talking in whispers. The engine shed yard occupied the entire area between the Rue Verte and the Rue François-Mazeline, each of which has a level-crossing over the railway line. The place was a vast piece of open ground, filled with sidings, storage tanks, water hydrants and buildings of every type and description - the two great sheds for the locomotives, the Sauvagnats’ little house standing in its tiny vegetable garden, the ramshackle assortment of repair shops and the mess-room for the engine drivers and firemen. In such a tangle of
deserted paths and alleyways it was easy for them to wander unseen, to disappear as if into the heart of a wood. For a whole hour they walked together, happy to be alone, exchanging the endearments that they had for so long stored in their hearts. She would not hear him talk of love; she had told him straight away that she could never be his, that she needed above all to regain her self-respect and that it would be wrong to sully a friendship as pure as theirs, a friendship of which she was so proud. He accompanied her as far as the Rue Verte, their lips met once more in a long kiss, and she returned home.

  At just about the same time, Roubaud was beginning to nod off to sleep in the old leather armchair in the assistant stationmaster’s office. Twenty times every night he would have to shake himself awake, get up and stretch his legs. Up until nine o‘clock he had to supervise the arrival and departure of the night trains. He also had to see to the fish train, overseeing the shunting operations, checking the couplings and inspecting the delivery notices. Then, when the express from Paris had arrived and had been backed on to a siding, he would sit in his office at a corner of the table and eat his lonely supper - a little cold meat from their evening meal between two slices of bread. The last arrival, a stopping train from Rouen, got in at half past midnight. The deserted platforms then fell silent, only a few gas lamps were left burning, and in the chill of nightfall the whole station fell asleep. The only other staff Roubaud had to help him were two foremen and four or five workmen, who were all snoring their heads off on the mess-room floor, while he, whose job it was to wake them up the minute they were needed, had to sleep with one ear cocked. To prevent weariness from overtaking him before it grew light, he would set his alarm clock for five, when he had to be on his feet to see in the first train from Paris. Sometimes, however, especially of late, he found sleep impossible and he would spend the night tossing and turning restlessly in his armchair. When this happened he would go out and do the rounds, or walk down to the signalman in his cabin and have a chat. Eventually the stillness of the night and the great expanse of dark sky above calmed his nerves. Following a scuffle with some intruders, he had been armed with a revolver, which he kept fully loaded in his pocket. Often he would walk around until dawn, stopping to take aim the minute he thought he saw something moving in the darkness and then walking on again, feeling vaguely disappointed that he hadn’t had to shoot. It came as a relief when the sky began to grow light and the huge station emerged pale and ghostly from the shadows. Now that day was breaking as early as three o’clock, he would return to his office, sink into his armchair and sleep like a log, until his alarm clock woke him up with a start.