He opened the tin of sardines. His patience was beginning to wear thin. They had agreed to meet at three o’clock. Where could she be? Surely she wasn’t going to tell him it took a whole day to buy a pair of boots and half a dozen blouses. As he walked back in front of the mirror, he caught sight of himself again, his eyebrows bristling, his face set in a harsh scowl. In Le Havre he never worried about what she might be up to. But here in Paris he found himself imagining her involved in all sorts of escapades, secret assignations and deceptions. The blood rushed to his head. He clenched his fists; they were hard and tough from the days when he used to work in the shunting yard pushing goods wagons around. Suddenly he had become a brute beast, an animal unaware of its own strength. He was so angry he could have beaten the life out of her.
Séverine popped her face round the door. The fresh air had brought the colour to her cheeks, and she looked full of the joys of spring.
‘Here I am,’ she said. ‘You must have thought I’d got lost.’
She was twenty-five years old, tall, slim and athletic. She was quite slightly built, but she had a good figure. At first glance she was not what you would call pretty; she had a long face and a rather large mouth, but beautiful shiny teeth. Yet she had an attractiveness all of her own — strangely appealing big blue eyes and thick dark hair.
Her husband made no answer; he stood looking at her with the uneasy, mistrustful expression which she knew only too well.
‘I’ve run all the way,’ she said. ‘There wasn’t a bus anywhere, and I didn’t want to have to pay for a cab, so I ran. Feel me; I’m all hot.’
‘Come off it,’ he said impatiently, ‘you can’t possibly have been in the Bon Marché12 all this time.’
Suddenly, like a child trying to get round her father, she flung her arms round his neck and placed her chubby little hand over his mouth.
‘Naughty, naughty!’ she said. ‘Stop being so grumpy. You know I love you.’
How could he have doubted her? She seemed so honest, so open, so trustworthy. He took her in his arms and hugged her tightly. His suspicions invariably ended like this. Séverine yielded to his embrace; she liked it when he made a fuss of her. He smothered her with kisses, but she did not respond. This was something that had always vaguely disturbed him; she remained passive, like a big child. She loved him as a daughter might love her father, but never as his lover.
‘There can’t have been much left on the shelves by the time you’d finished,’ said Roubaud.
‘I’ll tell you what I’ve bought,’ said Séverine. ‘But first, let’s eat. I’m starving ... Oh, I nearly forgot. I’ve bought you a little present ... But you’ve got to say “please”.’
She held her face up to his, laughing. Her right hand was hidden in her pocket, holding something she didn’t want him to see.
‘Come on,’ she said, ‘you have to say “please”.’
Roubaud was laughing too; he loved it when she teased him like this.
‘I give in,’ he said. ‘Please.’
She had bought him a knife, to replace one that he had lost; he had been moaning about it for a fortnight. He was delighted. It was a beauty! Brand new, with a lovely shiny blade and an ivory handle. He said he was going to use it straight away! Séverine was glad to see him so pleased and told him jokingly that he now had to pay her a penny, so that their friendship would not be severed.
‘Come on,’ she said, ‘let’s eat! No, please don’t close the window, leave it open for a bit, I’m so hot.’
She had walked over to the window where he was standing. She rested her head on his shoulder and stood for a while looking down at the station, sprawled out beneath them. The smoke had cleared for a moment, and the copper disc of the sun was sinking into the mist behind the houses in the Rue de Rome. A shunting engine was bringing in the train for Mantes. It had already been assembled and was due to leave at four twenty-five. The engine pushed the carriages up the platform under the station roof and was uncoupled. From the circle-line station, away to their left, came the clunk of buffers, as last-minute extra carriages were attached to the trains. Standing on its own on one of the middle tracks, its driver and fireman black with coal dust after the journey, a heavy locomotive which had just brought in a stopping train was waiting for the road back to the Batignolles engine shed. It waited patiently, as if tired and out of breath, a trickle of steam leaking from one of its valves. A red signal dropped with a clatter, and the engine moved off.
‘They certainly know how to enjoy themselves, those two Dauvergne girls!’ said Roubaud, as he came away from the window. ‘Just listen to them at that piano! I saw Henri a bit earlier. He asked to be remembered to you.’
‘Come on, let’s eat,’ said Séverine.
She helped herself to the sardines and started to eat hungrily. That sandwich at Mantes seemed ages ago. Coming to Paris always seemed to go to her head. She loved walking around the streets and she was itching to tell him what she had bought at the Bon Marché. Every spring she would spend all the money she had saved during the winter in one fell swoop. She preferred to buy everything in one go, she said; it worked out cheaper and made it worth the train journey. She couldn’t stop talking, hardly even pausing to swallow her food. Eventually, blushing, and looking a bit shamefaced, she told him how much she had spent ... Over three hundred francs!
Roubaud was amazed.
‘Good heavens!’ he said. ‘You must be the best-dressed stationmaster’s wife in the country! You told me you were only going to get a few blouses and a pair of boots!’
‘But darling, there were some real bargains! A silk scarf with the most beautiful stripes you’ve ever seen! And a gorgeous hat; a dream! Petticoats, ready-made, with embroidered trims round the edges! For next to nothing! I’d have had to pay twice the price in Le Havre. Anyway, I’ve arranged to have them sent on, so you’ll see.’
Roubaud couldn’t help laughing; she was so pretty, she seemed so happy, and she had such a pleading, apologetic look in her eyes. He loved these cosy little lunches, with just the two of them in a room all to themselves. It was so much nicer than going to a restaurant. Normally, Séverine drank only water. But today she was enjoying herself and drank a whole glass of white wine without giving it a thought. They finished the tin of sardines and started on the pate. Roubaud used his new knife to serve it. It was perfect; it cut beautifully.
‘So what about you?’ she asked. ‘Here’s me chattering away, and you haven’t told me how you’ve got on. What’s happening about the Sub-Prefect?’
Roubaud told her about his meeting with the traffic manager. He’d been given a real dressing down. He’d stood up for himself, of course, and told him what had really happened; how that stupid, toffee-nosed Sub-Prefect had insisted on taking his dog into a first-class compartment, even though there was a second-class carriage specially reserved for huntsmen and their hounds, and how they’d had an argument and ended up exchanging angry words. The manager said that he had been perfectly within his rights to insist on the regulations. The real problem was something he had said; something, in fact, that Roubaud admitted he had said: ‘You lot won’t be the masters for much longer!’ People were saying that he was a republican. There had recently been a considerable amount of debate at the opening of the 1869 session of Parliament and fears about the forthcoming general elections13 were making the government very edgy. He would certainly have been sent to another station had it not been for President Grandmorin, who had spoken up for him. Even so, he’d had to sign a letter of apology. It was Grandmorin himself who advised sending a letter; he even had it ready prepared.
Séverine interrupted him:
‘So it was just as well I wrote to him and we went to see him this morning before you got your telling off. I knew he’d sort things out.’
‘He’s obviously very fond of you,’ said Roubaud. ‘And he knows how to influence people. But what’s the point of trying to do your job properly? All right, they give credit where credit is due;
could show more initiative perhaps, conduct impeccable, does what he’s told, very willing. What more could you ask? But if I hadn’t been married to you, and if Grandmorin hadn’t spoken up for me just because he happened to have a soft spot for you, I’d have been out on my ear. They’d have sent me to some God-forsaken station in the middle of nowhere.’
Séverine had a steady, faraway look in her eyes.
‘Oh yes,’ she murmured, as if talking to herself, ‘he certainly knows how to influence people.’
For a while neither of them spoke. Séverine had stopped eating and sat gazing into the distance, with big wide eyes. She must have been thinking back to her childhood in the château at Doinville, just outside Rouen.
She had never known her mother, and was just thirteen when her father, Aubry, the gardener, died; and it was round about then that the President, who had lost his wife several years earlier, had taken her under his wing. He brought her up along with his own daughter, Berthe. The two girls were placed under the tutelage of Grandmorin’s sister, Madame Bonnehon, who had been married to a factory owner but who was, like Grandmorin, also widowed, and now owned the château. Berthe was two years older than Séverine and she had married six months after her. Her husband was a Monsieur de Lachesnaye, a judge in the Rouen law courts, a sour-faced, sickly-looking little man. Grandmorin had remained President of the Rouen law courts, in his native Normandy, up until only a year ago, when he retired, after a long and distinguished career. He was born in 1804, was appointed as deputy public prosecutor at Digne after the 1830 revolution and went on to hold similar posts at Fontainebleau and in Paris. He rose to become chief public prosecutor at Troyes, advocate-general at Rennes and eventually the presiding judge at Rouen. His fortune ran into millions. He had been a local government councillor14 since 1855. On the day that he retired, he was made a Commander of the Legion of Honour. To Séverine, he didn’t seem to have changed for as long as she could remember him — stocky, well built, his hair cut short and prematurely white, a lustrous golden white, the legacy of the fine blond hair of his youth. He wore a neat, close-cut beard, but no moustache. He had an angular, square-shaped face, with steely blue eyes and a prominent nose, which made him look very stern. He had an abrupt manner that was intimidating.
Roubaud raised his voice. Twice he had to ask her, ‘Séverine, what are you thinking about?’
She jumped. A small shiver ran through her, as if something had suddenly startled her.
‘Oh, nothing in particular,’ she answered.
‘Why aren’t you eating? Have you lost your appetite?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m fine.’
She drank the remaining wine from her glass and finished the slice of pate on her plate. Then, much to their consternation, they realized there was no more bread! The one-pound loaf had all been eaten and there was none left for the cheese. There were shouts and laughter as they ransacked the room and eventually found a stale crust at the back of Madame Victoire’s sideboard. Although the window had been left open, the room was still very stuffy. Séverine, sitting with her back to the stove, was getting hotter and hotter; the unexpected lunch and trying to talk and eat at the same time had brought the colour to her cheeks. Being together in Madame Victoire’s room reminded Roubaud of Grandmorin again. She’s another one who’s got a lot to thank him for, he thought.
Madame Victoire had been violated when she was very young. She had lost her baby, nursed Séverine when her mother had died in childbirth, married a fireman in the railway company and had then tried to eke out a living in Paris by taking in a bit of dressmaking, while her husband squandered every penny they earned. Fortunately, quite by chance, she had happened to bump into her foster child, which enabled her to renew her old contact with the President; Madame Victoire was another whom Grandmorin had taken under his wing. It was he who had arranged her present job with the Department of Health as a lavatory attendant at the first-class ladies’ toilets; and a very good job it was, too. The Company only paid her a hundred francs a year, but she received nearly fourteen hundred in tips. She was provided with free accommodation, the room that they were in now, and even had heating included. All in all, she was doing quite well for herself. Her husband, Pecqueux, was earning two thousand eight hundred francs, including bonuses, as a fireman, and Roubaud calculated that if he had actually brought the money home rather than spending it on binges in nearly every tavern along the line, they would have been making more than four thousand francs between them, which was twice as much as he was earning as an assistant stationmaster at Le Havre.15
‘I don’t suppose working in a public convenience is to every woman’s taste,’ said Roubaud. ‘But a job’s a job!’
Their hunger had by now subsided, and they ate more slowly, cutting little slices of cheese to make the meal last longer. Their conversation, too, had become more relaxed.
‘Oh yes,’ said Roubaud, ‘I forgot ... Why didn’t you accept Grandmorin’s invitation to stay with him at Doinville?’
He was beginning to feel the pleasant effects of the meal and was thinking of their visit earlier that morning to the house in the Rue du Rocher, near the station. He was back in the President’s large, plainly furnished study. Grandmorin was telling them that he proposed to go to Doinville the following day. Then, as if the thought had just occurred to him, he suggested he might travel with them that evening, on the 6.30 express. He could take his goddaughter on to his sister’s; she had been saying she wanted to see her for ages. But Séverine had come up with all manner of excuses, which, she said, ‘prevented’ her.
‘I couldn’t see any problem about going to Doinville,’ said Roubaud. ‘You could have stayed there till Thursday. I’d have managed all right on my own. It was silly. People like us can’t afford to refuse invitations from people in his position; it’s our only chance of getting on. He wasn’t pleased; you could tell. I kept trying to get you to agree; and then you started tugging on my coat. So in the end I said the same as you, but I really didn’t know why. Why didn’t you want to go? Come on, tell me!’
Séverine looked away and shrugged her shoulders impatiently.
‘I couldn’t just leave you on your own,’ she said.
‘That’s not the reason,’ said Roubaud. ‘In the three years we’ve been married, you’ve been to Doinville twice already, and stayed there a week. What was to stop you going there again?’
Séverine was becoming increasingly uneasy. She avoided looking him in the eyes.
‘I didn’t fancy it,’ she said. ‘You can’t force me to do something I don’t want to do.’
Roubaud opened his arms, as if to say that he wasn’t forcing her to do anything. There was something she was keeping back, and he knew it.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘you’re not telling the truth, are you? When you went last time, was Madame Bonnehon unpleasant to you?’
Not at all! Madame Bonnehon had always made her very welcome. What a lovely person she was — tall, well built, with beautiful blonde hair, and still remarkably good-looking, despite her fifty-five years. People said that since becoming a widow, and even while her husband was still alive, she’d had quite a few romances. Everybody at Doinville adored her. She made the château a place of sheer enchantment; and the whole of Rouen society used to come for visits, especially those in the legal profession. Many of Madame Bonnehon’s gentlemen friends were lawyers.
‘Were the Lachesnayes unkind to you? Come on, tell me.’
She had to admit that, since Berthe’s marriage to Monsieur de Lachesnaye, their friendship had not been what it used to be. Poor Berthe! Her looks didn’t improve. She was so plain, and she had a red nose! The good ladies of Rouen spoke very highly of her; she was a woman of distinction, they said. Being married to such an ugly, intractable, tight-fisted husband could so easily have rubbed off on her and made her as insufferable as him. But no, Berthe had been perfectly civil to her old friend, and Séverine wouldn’t hear a word said against her.
‘Well, then, it must be the President who’s done something to upset you,’ said Roubaud.
Séverine had been answering his questions quietly and calmly, but at this she suddenly flared up.
‘Don’t be stupid!’ she said sharply.
Her voice had suddenly become more agitated, and she spoke more quickly. You hardly ever saw him. He hid himself away in a cottage, in the grounds of the château, with a gate that opened on to a deserted country lane. He came and went as he pleased. No one ever knew whether he was there or not. He didn’t even tell his sister when he was coming. He took a carriage at Barentin, had himself driven to Doinville in the middle of the night, and then spent days on end shut up in his cottage without anyone knowing a thing about it ... He never bothered anybody!
‘I only asked because you’ve often said that when you were a child he used to scare you stiff.’
‘He didn’t scare me stiff, as you put it. Why must you always make things sound worse than they are? He didn’t laugh much, it’s true ... He had a way of staring you in the face, with his great big eyes ... it made you look away. I’ve seen people so nervous they couldn’t say a thing. Everyone was frightened of him because he was strict and very clever. But he never spoke unkindly to me. I always thought he had a soft spot for me ...’