Complete Works of Emile Zola (1043 page)

But he held his tongue, on seeing a tall, lean woman come from a shed beside which they were standing. She proved to be Philomène Sauvagnat, sister of the chief of the depot, and the second Madame Pecqueux. The couple must have been talking together in the shed, when Pecqueux came out to call to the assistant station-master. Philomène still looked young in spite of her two-and-thirty years, but was raw-boned, with a flat chest, a long head, and flaming eyes. She had the reputation of drinking. Her occupation consisted in keeping house for her brother, who lived in a cottage near the engine-depot, which she very much neglected. They came from Auvergne, and the brother, an obstinate man and a strict disciplinarian, greatly esteemed by his superiors, had met with the utmost vexation on account of this sister, even to the point of being threatened with dismissal. And, if the company bore with her, now, on his account, he only kept her with him because of the family tie. But this did not prevent him belabouring her so severely with blows whenever he caught her at fault, that he frequently left her half dead on the floor. She had commenced an intrigue with Pecqueux about a year before; but it was only Séverine, who had fallen out with her, thinking it due to Mother Victoire for her to do so. Having already been in the habit of avoiding her as much as possible, from a feeling of innate pride, she had subsequently ceased to greet her.

“Well, Pecqueux, I shall see you again, later on!” said Philomène saucily. “I’ll leave you now, as M. Roubaud has a moral lecture to read you, on behalf of his wife.”

Pecqueux, who was a good-natured fellow, continued laughing.

“No, no, stay,” he answered. “He’s only joking.”

“I can’t,” retorted Philomène. “I must run and take these two eggs from my hens, to Madame Lebleu, to whom I promised them.”

She had purposely let fly this name, being aware of the secret rivalry between the wife of the cashier, and the wife of the assistant station-master, affecting to be on the best of terms with the former, so as to enrage the other. But she remained, nevertheless, becoming all at once interested, when she heard the fireman inquiring for news of the affair with the sub-prefect.

“So it’s all settled; and you’re very glad of it, are you not, M. Roubaud?” inquired Pecqueux.

“Very pleased indeed,” answered the assistant station-master.

Pecqueux gave a cunning wink.

“Oh! you had no need to be anxious,” said he, “because when one has a big-wig behind one, eh? You know who I mean. My wife also is very grateful to him.”

The assistant station-master interrupted this allusion to President Grandmorin, by abruptly remarking:

“And so you only leave to-night?”

“Yes,” answered the other; “the repairs to La Lison will soon be finished. They’re completing the adjustment of the connecting-rod. And I’m waiting for my driver, who has gone for an airing. Do you know him, Jacques Lantier? He comes from the same neighbourhood as yourself.” Roubaud did not answer for an instant, but stood there as if absent-minded. Then, recovering himself with a start, he exclaimed:

“Eh! Jacques Lantier, the driver? Of course I know him! Oh! you understand, enough to say good-day and good-night. It was here that we came across one another, for he is my junior, and I never saw him down there at Plassans. Last autumn he did my wife a little service, in the form of an errand to some cousins at Dieppe. He’s a capable young fellow, according to all I hear.”

He spoke at random, with abundance of verbosity. All at once he went off with the remark:

“Good day, Pecqueux. I’ve got to take a look round here.” It was only then that Philomène moved away at her long stride; while Pecqueux, standing motionless, with his hands thrust into his pockets, laughing at ease at his laziness on this bright morning, was astonished to see the assistant station-master rapidly returning, after limiting his inspection to circumambulating the shed. He had not been long taking his look round. What on earth could he have come to spy out?

Nine o’clock was on the point of striking, as Roubaud returned under the marquee. He walked to the end, near the parcel office, where he gave a look, without appearing to find what he sought; and then, impatiently, strode back again, peering inquiringly at the offices of the different departments, one after the other. The station, at this hour, was quiet and deserted. He alone wandered about, more and more enervated at this peacefulness, in the torment of a man menaced with a catastrophe, who at last ardently hopes for it to come. His composure was exhausted. He found it impossible to remain for a minute in the same place. Now his eyes never quitted the clock. Nine, five minutes past. As a rule he only went up to his rooms for the knife-and-fork breakfast at ten, after the departure of the 9.50 train. But all at once the thought struck him that Séverine must also be waiting there in expectancy; and he proceeded to join her.

In the corridor, Madame Lebleu, at this precise moment, was opening the door to Philomène, who had run round in neighbourly fashion, with untidy hair, and held a couple of eggs in her hand. They remained on the threshold, so that Roubaud had to enter his apartment before their eyes. He had his key, and was as quick as he could be. Notwithstanding, in the rapid opening and closing of the door, they perceived Séverine, seated on a chair in the dining-room, with her hands idle, her profile pale, and her body motionless. And Madame Lebleu, dragging in Philomène and closing her own door, related that she had already seen Séverine in the same state, in the early part of the morning. No doubt the business with the sub-prefect was taking a bad turn. But no; and Philomène explained that she had hastened to make a call because she had news; and she repeated what she had just heard the assistant station-master say himself. The two women were then lost in conjectures. It was the same at each of their meetings — gossiping without end.

“They’ve had their hair combed, my dear,” said Madame Lebleu. “I’d stake my life on it They’re tottering on their pedestals.”

“Ah! my dear lady,” answered Philomène,
“
if we could only be rid of them!”

The rivalry between the Lebleus and the Roubauds, which had become more and more envenomed, simply arose from a question of apartments. All the first floor of the main station building, served to lodge members of the staff; and the central corridor, a regular corridor of a second-rate hotel, painted yellow, lighted from above, separated the floor in two, with lines of brown doors to right and left. Only the windows of the apartments on the right, looked on the courtyard facing the entrance, which was planted with old elms, and above these an admirable view spread out in the direction of Ingouville; while the apartments on the left, with semicircular, squatty windows, opened right on the marquee of the station, whose high slanting roof of zinc and dirty glass barred the horizon from view. Nothing could be more gay than the one side, with the constant animation in the courtyard, the verdure of the trees, the broad expanse of country; nothing more dismal than the other, where it was almost impossible to see, and where the sky was shut out as in a prison.

On the front, resided the station-master, the assistant station-master Moulin, and the Lebleus; on the back, the Roubauds and Mademoiselle Guichon, the office-keeper, without counting three rooms reserved to inspectors who made occasional visits. It was an established fact that the two assistant station-masters had always lodged side by side. If the Lebleus were there, it was due to an act of politeness on the part of the gentleman who had been succeeded by Roubaud, and who, being a widower without children, had thought proper to show Madame Lebleu the courtesy of giving up his apartments to her. But should not this lodging have gone to the Roubauds? Was it fair to relegate them to the back of the building, when they had the right to be on the front? So long as the two households had lived in harmony, Séverine had given way to her neighbour, her senior by twenty years, who, moreover, was in bad health, being so stout that she was constantly troubled with fits of choking. War had only been declared, since the day Philomène set the two women at variance, by her abominable tongue.

“You know,” resumed the latter, “that they are quite capable of having taken advantage of their trip to Paris, to ask for your ejectment. I am told that they have written a long letter to the manager, setting forth their claim.”

Madame Lebleu was suffocating.

“The wretches!” she exclaimed. “And I am sure they have been doing their best to get the office-keeper on their side. For the past fortnight she has hardly greeted me. There is another one who is no better than she should be! But I’m watching her.”

She lowered her voice to say that Mademoiselle Guichon must be carrying on an intrigue with the station-master. Their doors faced one another. It was M. Dabadie, a widower, and the father of a grown-up daughter still at school, who had brought this thirty-year-old blonde to the station. Already faded, she was silent, slim, and supple as a serpent. She must have been a sort of governess. And it was impossible to catch her, so noiselessly did she glide along through the narrowest apertures.

“Oh! I shall succeed in finding it out,” continued Madame Lebleu. “I will not be ridden down. We are here, and here we remain. All worthy people are on our side. Is it not so, my dear?”

Indeed, all the station was impassioned with this battle of the lodgings. The corridor, particularly, was tom asunder by it. It was only the assistant station-master Moulin, satisfied at being on the front, who did not take much interest in the matter. He was married to a little, timid, delicate woman, whom nobody ever saw, but who presented him with a baby every twenty months. —

“Anyhow,” concluded Philomène,
“
if they are tottering on their pedestals, this shock will not bring them down. Be on your guard, for they know someone of great influence.”

She still held her two eggs, and she presented them, eggs laid that same morning, which she had just taken from under her hens, and the old lady was effusive in thanks.

“Oh! how kind of you!” said she. “You are spoiling me, I declare. Come and have a chat more frequently. You know that my husband is always in his counting-house; and I have a tedious time of it, riveted here on account of my poor legs! What would become of me, if those wretches were to take away my view?”

Then, as she accompanied her, and opened the door, she placed a finger on her lips.

“Hush! Let us listen,” said she.

Both of them remained standing in the corridor for five full minutes, holding their breath, without a movement. They bent their heads, with ears turned towards the dining-room of the Roubauds; but not a sound came from that direction. Deathlike silence reigned within. And, in fear of being surprised, they at last separated, giving each other a nod, without pronouncing a word. While one went off on tip-toe, the other closed her door so gently, that the catch could hardly be heard entering the socket At 9.20 Roubaud was again below under the marquee superintending the making-up of the 9.50 slow train; and, in spite of all his efforts to keep calm, he gesticulated more than ever, stamping his feet, and turning round at every moment to examine the platform from one end to the other. But nothing came, and his hands trembled with impatience.

Then, abruptly, as he was looking behind him, and searching again all over the station, he heard a telegraph boy, out of breath, close to him, saying:

“Monsieur Roubaud, do you know where the station-master, and the commissary of police are? I have got telegrams for them, and have been running after them for the last ten minutes.”

He turned round with such a stiffening of all his being, that not a muscle of his face moved. His eyes were fixed on the two telegrams which the lad held in his hand. And this time, from the excited look of the latter, he felt convinced that the catastrophe had come at last.

“Monsieur Dabadie passed by here a short time ago,” said he tranquilly.

And never had he felt himself so cool, with an intelligence so bright, prepared for the defence from head to foot.

“Look!” he resumed; “here is Monsieur Dabadie coming towards us.”

In fact, the station-master was returning from the goods train department. As soon as he had run his eye over the telegram, he exclaimed:

“There has been a murder on the line. The inspector at Rouen telegraphs to me to that effect.”

“What?” inquired Roubaud; “a murder among our staff?”

“No, no,” answered the station-master. “The murder of a passenger in a coupé. The body was thrown out almost at the exit from the tunnel of Malaunay at post 153. And the victim is one of our directors, President Grandmorin.”

The assistant station-master immediately exclaimed:

“The President! Ah! my poor wife, what a terrible blow it will be for her!”

The tone was so natural, so pitiful, that it for a moment arrested the attention of M. Dabadie.

“Ah! true enough!” said he; “you knew him. Such a worthy man, was he not?
”

Then, turning to the other telegram addressed to the commissary of police, he added:

“This must be from the examining-magistrate, no doubt for some formality. And, as it is only 9.25, Monsieur Cauche is not yet here, naturally. Let someone run to the Café du Commerce, on the Cours Napoléon. He will be found there for certain.”

Five minutes later M. Cauche arrived, brought to the scene by a porter. Formerly an officer, he looked upon the post he occupied as a sinecure, and never put in an appearance at the station before ten o’clock, when he strolled about for a moment or two, and returned to the café. This drama, which had burst upon him between a couple of games at piquet, had first of all astonished him, for the matters that passed through his hands were not, as a rule, very grave. But the telegram came from the examining-magistrate at Rouen; and, if it arrived twelve hours after the discovery of the body, it was because this magistrate had first of all telegraphed to the station-master at Paris, to ascertain under what circumstances the victim had set out on his journey. Having found out the number of the train, and that of the carriage, he had only then sent orders to the commissary of police to examine the coupé in carriage 293 if it still happened to be at Harve. The ill-humour that M. Cauche displayed at having been disturbed needlessly, as he had at first fancied, at once gave place to an attitude of extreme importance, proportionate to the exceptional gravity that the affair began to assume.