Complete Works of Emile Zola (1037 page)

At a quarter past six, the locomotive of the Havre express, issuing from the Pont de l’Europe, was switched on to its train and there secured. Owing to the metals being occupied, they had been unable to lodge this train under the marquee of the main lines. It waited in the open air beside a prolongation of the platform forming a sort of narrow jetty, in the gloom of an inky sky, where the poorly furnished row of gas lamps displayed but a line of smoky stars.

A shower had just ceased, leaving behind a trace of icy dampness spread over this vast uncovered space, which the mist threw back as far as the pale glimmers on the façades in the Rue de Rome. This immense, dreary expanse, bathed in water, here and there studded with a gory light, was broken up by opaque lumps, engines, and solitary carriages, parts of trains in repose on the shunting lines. And from the depths of this sheet of darkness came sounds, — giant-like respirations, breathless with fever, whistles resembling the piercing shrieks of women, distant, lamentable blasts of horns mingled with a rumble in the adjoining streets. Orders were shouted out to add on a carriage. The engine of the express stood motionless, losing by a valve a great jet of steam, which ascended into all this obscurity to spread into small clouds and sprinkle the boundless veil of mourning drawn across the sky with white tears.

At twenty minutes past six, Roubaud and Séverine appeared. She had just returned the key to Mother Victoire, as she passed by the lavatory, near the waiting-rooms. And Roubaud, impatient and blunt, his hat on the back of his head, urged her on, after the fashion of a husband with no time to lose, who is being delayed by his wife; while she, with her veil drawn tight over her face, advanced slowly as if broken down with fatigue.

Joining the flood of passengers streaming along the platform, they followed the line of carriages, on the look-out for an empty first-class compartment. The footway became alive with porters rolling trucks of luggage to the van at the head of the train. An inspector was busy finding seats for a numerous family, the assistant station-master on duty, with his signal lantern in his hand, glanced at the couplings, to see that the spreaders had been properly screwed up. And Roubaud, having at length found an empty compartment, was about to assist Séverine to get in, when he perceived M. Vandorpe, the head-station-master, strolling along in company with M. Dauvergne, his deputy-chief of the main lines, both watching the manœuvre connected with the carriage that was being added to the train. Roubaud, exchanging greetings with them, found it necessary to stop and have a chat First of all they spoke of the business with the sub-prefect, which had terminated to the satisfaction of everyone. Then the conversation turned to an accident that had happened in the morning at Havre, the news having come by telegraph. A locomotive, called La Lison, which on Thursday and Saturday took the 6.30 express, had broken its connecting-rod, just as the train entered the station; and the repairs would give two days holiday to Jacques Lantier, the driver, who came from the same part of the country as Roubaud, and to his fireman, Pecqueux, the husband of Mother Victoire.

Séverine remained standing before the door of the compartment, while her husband affected great freedom of mind in conversation with these gentlemen, raising his voice and laughing. But there came a shock, and the train recoiled a few yards. It was the locomotive, driving back the first carriages to the one that had just been added on, the No. 293, so as to have a reserved coupé. And Henri Dauvergne, the son, who accompanied the train as headguard, having recognised Séverine through her veil, had prevented her from receiving a knock from the wide-open door, by pulling her away without ceremony. Then, excusing himself, smiling, very amiable, he explained that the coupé was for one of the directors of the company, who had sent to ask for it half an hour before the time for the train to start. She gave a little, senseless laugh, and he ran off to attend to his work.

The clock marked 6.27. Three minutes more. Roubaud, who was watching the doors of the waiting-rooms in the distance, while chatting with the station-master, suddenly left the latter to return to Séverine. But the carriage having moved back, they had to make their way to the empty compartment a few paces off. Roubaud pushed his wife along, and with an effort of the wrist, made her get into the carriage; while she, in her anxious docility, looked instinctively behind her, to see what was going on.

A passenger behind time had just arrived, carrying only a rug in his hand. He had the broad collar of his blue top-coat turned up, and the rim of his bowler hat brought down so low over his eyebrows that nothing could be seen of his face, in the vacillating gaslight, but a bit of white beard. M. Vandorpe and M. Dauvergne advanced and followed the passenger, notwithstanding his evident desire to avoid being seen. He only greeted them three carriages further on, when in front of the reserved coupé, in which he hurriedly took a seat. It was the President. Séverine, in a tremble, sank down on a seat, her husband bruised her arm in his grasp, as if in a final act of taking possession of her, exulting, now that he was certain of doing the thing he had thought out in his mind.

A minute later the half hour would strike. A newspaper seller stubbornly offered the evening editions, a few passengers still strolled along the platform finishing cigarettes. But all took their seats. The inspectors could be heard coming from both ends of the train, closing the doors. And Roubaud, who had met with the disagreeable surprise of perceiving a sombre form occupying a corner in the compartment which he had thought empty, no doubt a woman in mourning, who remained mute and motionless, could not restrain an exclamation of real anger, when the door opened again, and an inspector pushed in a stout man and a stout woman, who flopped down on a seat, gasping.

They were about to start. The very fine rain had recommenced, drowning the vast, dark expanse, which was crossed incessantly by trains that presented nothing distinguishable but a moving line of small, bright windows. Green lights had been lit, a few lanterns danced on a level with the ground; and there was nothing else, nothing but black immensity, where alone appeared the marquees of the main lines, pale with a dim reflex of gas. All had disappeared, even the sounds had become muffled. The roar of the engine, opening its exhaust pipes, to let out a whirling wave of white steam, alone could be heard. A cloud ascended, unrolling like the winding-sheet of an apparition, and divided by dense black smoke springing from some invisible source. The sky was once more obscured, a volume of soot flew over nocturnal Paris, ablaze with luminosity.

Then the assistant station-master on duty, raised his lantern for the engine-driver to inquire if the line was free. Two whistles were heard; and away, near the box of the pointsman, the red light vanished, to be succeeded by a white one. The headguard, standing at the door of his van, awaited the order to start, which he transmitted. The driver gave a long whistle, and opening the regulator, set the locomotive moving. They were off. At first the motion was imperceptible, then the train rolled along. Darting under the Pont de l’Europe, it plunged towards the Batignolles tunnel. All that could be seen of it were the three lights behind, the red triangle looking like gaping wounds. For a few seconds longer, it could be followed in the chilling darkness of night. Now it flew on its way, and nothing now could stop this train, launched at full speed. It disappeared.

CHAPTER II

THE house at La Croix-de-Maufras stands aslant, in a garden which the railway has cut in two, and is so near the metals that it feels the shock of every train passing by. A single journey suffices to bear it away in memory. The entire multitude, who have flown along the line, are aware of its existence at this spot, without knowing aught about it. Always closed, it looks as if deserted in distress, with its grey shutters turning green through the effects of the rain beating against them from the west. Standing in a wilderness, it seems to increase the solitude of this out-of-the-way corner, where scarcely a soul breathes for three or four miles around.

The only other house there, is that of the gate-keeper, at the angle where the road crosses the rails on its way to Doinville, four miles off. Low in build, the walls seamed with cracks, the tiles of the root devoured by moss, it lies crushed, with a neglectful aspect of poverty, in the middle of the garden surrounding it — a garden planted with vegetables, enclosed by a quickset hedge, and where a great well rises almost as high as the habitation itself.

The level crossing is just half-way between the two stations of Malaunay and Barentin, being three miles from each. It is but little used. The old decaying gate rarely rolls back, save for the stone-drays from the quarries at Bécourt, half a league distant in the forest. It would be difficult to imagine a more out-of-the-way place, or one more completely separated from humanity, for the long tunnel in the direction of Malaunay, cuts off every road, and the only way to communicate with Barentin is by a neglected pathway beside the line. Visitors therefore are scarce.

On this particular evening, as night was drawing in, a traveller who had just left a train from Havre, at Barentin, followed with long strides the pathway of La Croix-de-Maufras. The country thereabouts is but one uninterrupted set of hills and dales, a sort of waving of the soil, which the railway crosses on embankments and in cuttings, alternately. The continual unevenness of the ground, the ascents and descents on either side of the line, make walking difficult and add to the feeling of deep solitude. The impoverished, whitish land lies fallow, the hillocks are crowned with small woods, while brooks, shaded with willows, run at the bottom of the narrow ravines. Certain chalky elevations are absolutely bare, and sterile hills succeed one another in the silence and abandonment of death. The young, lusty traveller hastened his steps, as if to escape from the sadness of the twilight, falling so gently over this desolate country.

In the garden of the gate-keeper, a girl was drawing water at the well: a tall lass of eighteen; fair, robust, with thick lips, greenish eyes, a low forehead, and a heavy head of hair. She was not pretty, and had the heavy hips and muscular arms of a young man. As soon as she perceived the traveller coming down the path, she let go the pail and ran to the garden gate, exclaiming:

“Hullo! Jacques!”

He raised his head. He had just completed his twenty-seventh year. He also was tall, and very dark. A handsome fellow, with his round face and regular features, which nevertheless were marred by too heavy a jaw. His thick hair curled, as did his moustache, which was so full, so black, that it seemed to add to the pallidness of his complexion. From his delicate skin, carefully shaved on the cheeks, anyone would have taken him for a gentleman, had it not been for the indelible imprint of the workman that he bore on his engine-driver hands, which were already turning yellow with grease, although remaining small and flexible.

“Good evening, Flore,” he simply said.

But his large dark eyes, studded with golden sparks, had become troubled with a reddish cloud, which made them dim. The lids were blinking, the eyes turned away in sudden constraint, and he experienced a feeling of uneasiness that went so far as to cause him suffering. His whole frame instinctively made a movement as if to draw back.

She, standing motionless, her eyes looking straight at him, had perceived this involuntary shudder, that came on him, and which he endeavoured to master, each time that he approached a woman. It seemed to make her quite serious and sad. Then, when he asked her, in view of concealing his embarrassment, if her mother was at home, although knowing she was unwell and unable to leave the house, the girl only answered with a nod, standing aside so that he might come in without touching her; and, erect and proud, she returned without a word to the well.

Jacques crossed the small garden at his rapid stride, and entered the dwelling. There, in the centre of the first room, a sort of large kitchen where the family took their meals and lived, Aunt Phasie, as he had called her from infancy, was alone, seated near the table on a rush-bottomed chair, with her legs wrapped in an old shawl. She was a cousin of his father, a Lantier, who had stood godmother to him; and who, when he was no more than six, had taken car of him, at the time when his father and mother had flown off to Paris, and there disappeared. He had then remained at Plassans, where, later on, he had followed the classes at the École des Arts et Métiers. He bore Aunt Phasie great gratitude, and was in the habit of saying that if he had made his way, it was entirely due to her.

When he became a driver of the first class in the Western Railway Company, after passing a couple of years on the Orleans Railway, he had found his godmother married again to a level crossing gate-keeper named Misard, and exiled with the two daughters of her first marriage to this out-of-the-way place, called La Croix-de-Maufras. At the present time Aunt Phasie, although barely forty-five, and who formerly had been so tall and strong, looked sixty. Moreover, she had grown thin and yellow, and was a prey to constant shivers.

She welcomed Jacques with joy.

“What! is it you, Jacques?” she exclaimed. “Ah! my bonny lad, what a surprise!”

He kissed her cheeks, explaining that he had suddenly come into a couple of days enforced holiday. La Lison, his engine, on reaching Havre in the morning, had broken its connecting-rod; and as the repairs would take four-and-twenty hours, he would not resume duty until the following evening for the 6.40 express. So he had come over to see her. He would sleep there, and catch the 7.26 train from Barentin in the morning. And he kept her poor, withered hands in his own, telling her how anxious her last letter had made him.

“Ah! yes, my lad, I am not well, I am not at all well. How nice of you to have guessed my desire to see you! But I know what little time you have of your own, and did not dare ask you to run over. Anyhow, here you are, and I have so much, so much on my mind!”

She broke off to cast a timid glance out of the window. On the other side of the metals, in the twilight, her husband could be perceived in his box, one of those wooden huts erected every four or five miles along the line, and connected by telegraph to ensure the satisfactory running of the trains. While his wife, and, later on, Flore, had been placed in charge of the gate at the level crossing, Misard had been made a watchman of the line.