It was to prove far from easy, however. This dispute had been the subject of heated debate before; everyone on the corridor knew about it. But things had now come to a head. Madame Lebleu, feeling herself threatened, made no secret of her objections. It would kill her if she was shut up in a dingy room at the back, with only the station roof to look at; it would be like living in a prison cell! How could she be expected to live in a pokey little hole like that, when she was used to a nice, bright room with a fine view, where she could watch all the passengers coming and going? Her legs were so bad she couldn’t get out for a walk; she’d just have to sit looking at a lead roof! They might as well just kill her and have done with it! But no matter how upset she got, in the end she had to admit she was only living there as the result of a favour; the previous assistant stationmaster, Roubaud’s predecessor, had let them have it because he was a bachelor and lived on his own. Her husband had even written a letter undertaking to return it if the new assistant stationmaster wanted it. The letter could no longer be found, and Madame Lebleu denied that it had ever existed. The more untenable her position seemed to be, the more violent and aggressive she became. At one point she tried to get Madame Moulin, the other assistant stationmaster’s wife, on her side by involving her in the quarrel; Madame Moulin, she claimed, had seen Madame Roubaud kissing men on the stairs. Moulin had got very angry. His wife was a quiet, retiring person, whom you hardly ever saw. She had been reduced to tears; she swore she had seen nothing and had said no such thing. For a week the arguments raged from one end of the corridor to the other. Madame Lebleu’s mistake, which was eventually to lead to her downfall, was to annoy Mademoiselle Guichon, the office secretary, by constantly prying into her affairs. Madame Lebleu was convinced that Mademoiselle Guichon spent every evening with the stationmaster. It had become an obsession; she had a pathological desire to catch her out, exacerbated by the fact that she had been spying on her for two years and had discovered absolutely nothing, not a whisper. Yet she was sure they were sleeping together; it drove her mad. It made Mademoiselle Guichon very angry that she could neither leave nor return to her apartment without being watched, and she had asked that Madame Lebleu be moved to the other side of the corridor. That way there would be an apartment between them, they wouldn’t be living opposite each other, and she would no longer have to walk past her door every day. It was becoming obvious that Monsieur Dabadie, the stationmaster, who hitherto had not wanted to get involved in all this arguing, was now beginning to lose sympathy with Monsieur and Madame Lebleu, which did not augur well.
The situation was made worse by other personal animosities. Philomène now supplied Séverine with new-laid eggs, and every time she saw Madame Lebleu in the corridor, she made a point of being rude to her. As Madame Lebleu deliberately left her door open to annoy everybody, whenever Philomène walked past there were always unpleasant exchanges between them. The friendship between Séverine and Philomène had reached the stage where they were sharing each other’s secrets; Philomène was bringing messages from Jacques to his mistress when he couldn’t risk coming himself. She would come with her eggs, tell her when her meetings with Jacques had to be rearranged, explain how he’d had to be careful the night before and how they’d spent an hour together at her place. Sometimes when Jacques couldn’t come, he was quite happy to while away the time at the Sauvagnats, chatting with the shed foreman. He used to go there with his fireman, Pecqueux; it was as if he needed to distract himself and was frightened of spending an evening alone. Even when Pecqueux went off drinking in the sailors’ bars, he would call on Philomène, give her a message to take to Séverine and then sit down and stay for hours. Gradually Philomène became drawn into his love affair. She grew quite fond of him; all her previous lovers had treated her roughly. Jacques had delicate hands; he seemed so very sad, but he was always polite and gentle towards her. These were delights she had never sampled. With Pecqueux, it was like being married; he was always getting drunk and he gave her more cuffs than cuddles. But when she carried some little endearment from Jacques to Séverine, she herself tasted the sweet flavour of forbidden fruit. One day she confided in him, complaining about Pecqueux. She didn’t trust him; he seemed a genial sort of chap, but when he got drunk he could be really nasty. Jacques noticed that she was looking after herself better; she was still very thin and rather unkempt, but not unattractive, with lovely soulful eyes. She was drinking less and keeping the house tidier. One evening her brother heard her talking with a man and came in, his hand raised ready to strike her, but when he saw who it was he simply offered them a bottle of cider. Philomène always made Jacques very welcome, and he seemed to enjoy his visits there; he was able to forget his worries. Philomène became a very close friend of Séverine and went round telling everyone that Madame Lebleu was an old cow!
One night she met the two lovers behind her little garden and accompanied them in the dark to the tool-shed where they used to hide.
‘You’re too kind to her,’ Philomène said to Séverine. ‘The apartment belongs to you. If it was me, I’d drag her out by her hair! I don’t know why you put up with her.’
But Jacques didn’t want to make a fuss.
‘Monsieur Dabadie’s seeing to it,’ he said. ‘It’s best to wait till it’s sorted out officially.’
‘Before the end of the month I’ll be sleeping in her bedroom,’ declared Séverine, ‘and we’ll be able to see each other whenever we want.’
In the dark, Philomène sensed Séverine gently squeezing Jacques’s arm at the thought of their being together. She left them and went back to her house. She had only walked a few paces when she stopped, turned round and hid herself in the shadows. It moved her to know that they were together. She felt no jealousy; she simply wished she could love and be loved like them.
With every day that went by, Jacques was becoming more and more depressed. On two occasions when he could have seen Séverine he had invented excuses not to. The fact that he sometimes stayed so long at the Sauvagnats was also in order to avoid seeing her. He still loved her; indeed the longer his love remained unfulfilled, the stronger it grew. But now, whenever she took him in her arms, he felt his fearful malady returning. His head began to spin, and he would quickly draw away from her, frozen with terror; he felt as if he were no longer himself and that the beast was about to seize him in its jaws. He had tried to exhaust himself by driving the long-distance trains, asking to work overtime and standing on a lurching footplate for twelve hours at a stretch in the teeth of the gale. The other drivers all grumbled about what a hard job it was; they said it would finish a man off in twenty years. Jacques wished he could be finished off straight away. He couldn’t do enough to tire himself out; he was only happy when he was being swept along on La Lison, with nothing else to think about, staring ahead on the lookout for signals. At the end of a journey he would collapse on to his bed before he had even had time to wash himself. But the minute he woke up, his obsession returned to torment him. Once more he tried to devote himself to La Lison, spending hours cleaning her and making Pecqueux polish the metalwork until it shone like silver. Inspectors who travelled on the footplate with him always congratulated him. But Jacques shook his head; he knew there was something wrong. Ever since they had been caught in the snow, La Lison had not been the sturdy, reliable engine she used to be. The pistons and valve gear had been repaired, but she had lost something of her soul, that mysterious perfection of balance and timing which certain locomotives acquire, as if by magic, when they are first assembled. It distressed him; her poor performance led to bitter complaints and unreasonable requests to his superiors for pointless repairs and impractical improvements. They were all refused. Jacques became more and more despondent, convinced that there was something seriously wrong with La Lison and that she would never run properly again. His feelings towards her had changed. Why bother to look after her? Whatever he loved he destroyed! He now loved her with a fierce, desperate passion that neither anguish nor weariness could
assuage.
Séverine had noticed the change in him. It saddened her; she thought he must be upset because of her, because of what she had told him. When he shuddered in her arms and suddenly turned away from her kiss, she thought it must be that he remembered the murder and that she horrified him. She hadn’t dared mention it again and regretted ever having spoken of it. It amazed her to think how she had come to confess to him as they lay together in a strange bed, burning with passion. She could no longer remember how urgent then was her need to confide; she was simply happy to have him with her, knowing that he shared her secret. She certainly loved him and desired him more than ever, now that he knew everything. Her passion was insatiable. She was at last a woman roused; she wished to be taken and embraced, to love, not as a mother, but as a lover. Jacques meant everything to her, and she spoke no more than the truth when she told him how she longed to melt into him, for it was her cherished dream that he might take her and keep her as a part of his own body. She remained the quiet, gentle woman she had always been. Her only pleasure came from Jacques; she wished she could have curled up like a cat and slept on his lap from morning till night. The only feeling she now had about the murder was astonishment that she had ever been involved in it; she also seemed to have remained pure and undefiled, despite the foul treatment she had received during her youth. But it was all a long time ago; she could smile about it now. She wouldn’t even have felt angry towards her husband, had he not stood in her way. But the more her love for Jacques grew and the more she needed him, the more she despised Roubaud. Now that Jacques knew about the murder and had forgiven her, he was her master; she would do his bidding and he could dispose of her as he wished. She had asked him to give her a photograph of himself;2 she took it to bed with her and went to sleep with her lips pressed against the picture, feeling sad to see him so unhappy, yet unable to work out exactly what was wrong.
Meanwhile they continued to meet outside until they could move into Séverine’s newly acquired apartment, where they would be able see each other whenever they wished. Winter was drawing to a close. That February, the weather was very mild; they walked for hours on end round the station yards and precincts. Jacques never wanted to stop; he always preferred to be on the move. But when Séverine clung to his shoulder and compelled him to sit down and make love to her, he always insisted that it was somewhere dark, terrified that if he caught even a glimpse of her naked flesh he would strike her down dead. As long as he could not see her he might be able to resist. In Paris, where she still accompanied him every Friday, he always made sure the curtains were pulled to, telling her that making love in broad daylight spoiled his pleasure. She now made this weekly trip without bothering to give her husband any explanation. As for the neighbours, she used the old excuse of having treatment for her knee, and also told them that she went to visit her foster-mother, Madame Victoire, whose convalescence in hospital was taking longer than expected. For both of them the outing always provided a welcome change. On this occasion Jacques was particularly interested in seeing how the engine performed, and Séverine was delighted to see him in better spirits. The journey, for her, was always a pleasure, although by now she was getting to know every little hill and clump of trees along the way. From Le Havre to Motteville the line ran through meadows and flat fields, surrounded by hedges and planted with apple trees. Then, as far as Rouen, the country became more hilly and deserted. After Rouen the railway followed the Seine, crossing it at Sotteville, Oissel and Pontde-l’ Arche. The river then broadened out across the open plain, now and then rejoining the railway at various points along the line. After Gaillon the line ran alongside the river, which flowed more slowly to its left, between low banks lined with poplar and willow. The railway followed the foot of the hillside, leaving the river at Bonnières, only to rejoin it at Rosny, at the other end of the Rolleboise tunnel. The river kept company with the train for the whole journey; the line crossed it three more times before reaching Paris. The journey continued: Mantes with its church tower among the trees, Triel with its white chalk-pits, Poissy, where the line cut right through the centre of the town, the two green walls of the forest of Saint-Germain, the slopes of Colombes abloom with lilac, and finally the outskirts of the capital and a glimpse of Paris as the train crossed the Pont d’Asnières, with the Arc de Triomphe in the distance rising above rows of shabby houses and bristling factory chimneys.3 The train plunged into the Batignolles tunnel, ran into the noisy station, and the passengers all got off. Jacques and Séverine then had the whole day to themselves, free to do as they wished. The return journey was made in the dark. Séverine would close her eyes and relive the pleasures of the day. But whether it was morning or night, every time they passed La Croix-de-Maufras, she glanced quickly out of the window, making sure she couldn’t be seen, for she knew that Flore would be standing beside the level-crossing, with her flag in its holster, watching the train with blazing eyes.
Ever since Flore had seen them kissing, on the day of the blizzard, Jacques had warned Séverine to be wary of her. He now knew the fierce, naive passion she had harboured for him since her youth, and he sensed she was jealous, smarting like a jilted lover, seething with unbridled, murderous resentment. What was more, he suspected she knew things. He remembered her mentioning the President having an affair with a young girl that nobody knew about, and that he had married her off. If she knew that, she must surely have guessed who killed him; she probably intended to speak or write to someone, to take her revenge by denouncing her. But days and weeks went by, and nothing happened; the only time he ever saw her was at her position beside the railway line, standing stiffly to attention, holding her flag. As soon as she spotted the train approaching in the distance, Jacques felt her eyes burning into him. She could see him despite the smoke; her eyes seemed to latch on to him and follow him, as the train sped past with a deafening roar. She inspected the carriages as they went by, from the first to the last, peering into them, looking, searching. And every time, she saw her sitting there, the woman who had stolen the man she loved and whom she now knew travelled on the train every Friday. She was always leaning forwards, as if there were something she must see; it was the merest inclination of the head, but enough for Flore to spot her. The glances of the two women crossed like swords, and the train had gone, carrying with it her only chance of happiness. Flore was left standing at her post, feeling angry and frustrated. Every time the train went past, she seemed to Jacques to grow taller. It worried him that she had done nothing, and he wondered what scheme was being hatched in the mind of this dark, menacing figure as it stood motionless beside the railway line whenever he passed.
There was also another railway employee who bothered them — Henri Dauvergne, the guard. He had been assigned to the Friday express, and his politeness towards Séverine was becoming embarrassing. He had realized she was having an affair with the train driver and told himself that his turn would perhaps come later. Roubaud would make jokes about it if he was on morning duty when the train left Le Havre. The reasons for Dauvergne’s behaviour were patently obvious; he would reserve a whole compartment just for her, help her into the train and check the foot-warmer. Once even, Roubaud was chatting quietly with Jacques, when he winked in the direction of Dauvergne, who was engaged in his usual little game, as if to ask Jacques how he managed to put up with it. Whenever they argued, Roubaud would baldly accuse his wife of sleeping with both of them. For a while Séverine imagined that Jacques thought so too, and that that was what was making him unhappy. One day she burst into tears, protesting her innocence and telling him to kill her if ever she was unfaithful to him. Jacques had turned very pale and had made a joke about it, kissing her and telling her that he knew she had done nothing wrong and that he hoped he would never kill anyone.
During the first few evenings in March the weather was dreadful, and they weren’t able to meet. The trips to Paris and their few hours of freedom there no longer satisfied Séverine. She felt a growing need to have Jacques to herse
lf, all to herself, to live together with him day and night, and never leave him. Her loathing for her husband increased; his mere presence made her feel sick with nervous irritation. It was becoming unbearable. This gentle woman, previously so loving and compliant, now lost her temper the minute she had anything to do with her husband and flew into a rage if he made the least attempt to prevent her doing what she wanted. Her clear blue eyes seemed to take on the dark colouring of her hair. She became totally intractable, accusing him of wrecking her life and making it impossible for them to continue living together. It was all because of him. If their marriage was in ruins and she had taken a lover, it was his fault. His sluggish apathy, his indifference when she got angry, the way he slouched around, apparently content with life, and growing repulsively fat and flabby, was more than she could bear. She had to get away from him, make a break, find a new life somewhere else! This was all she could think of. If only she could make a fresh start, put the past behind her, and begin her life again as it was before all these dreadful things happened. If only she could be fifteen again, and love and be loved, and live as she had dreamed of living then! She spent a week dreaming of how she might escape. She would leave with Jacques. They would hide somewhere in Belgium and find a house to live in like any other hard-working young couple. But even before she had spoken to Jacques about it, she immediately foresaw all sorts of complications: their situation would be most irregular, they could never feel settled, and above all, she would be leaving everything she possessed in the hands of her husband — all her money and La Croix-de-Maufras. They had each made wills leaving everything to the surviving spouse. Besides, she was in his power, since in law the wife was considered the dependant of her husband. She would rather stay where she was and die than leave and lose a single penny. One day Roubaud came back looking very shaken; he said he’d just crossed the line in front of an oncoming locomotive and the buffer had caught him on the elbow. It occurred to her that if he had died she would be free. She gazed at him open-eyed. Why could he not die? He no longer loved her and he was in everybody’s way!