Complete Works of Emile Zola (1057 page)

Séverine was also lost in reflections. Her heart had been pining after love — absolute, constant love; and it was frightful cruelty that these recent events should have cast her, haggard and anxious, into such abominations. Fate had dragged her in mire and blood with such violence that her beautiful blue eyes, though still naïve, had preserved a look of terror-stricken expansion beneath her tragic crest of raven hair.

“Oh! my darling, carry me off, keep me with you!” she exclaimed; “your desires shall be mine.”

“No, no, my treasure,” replied Jacques, who had again seated himself beside her, “you are mistress. I am only here to love and obey you.”

The hours passed. The rain had ceased some time. The station was plunged in absolute silence, troubled only by a distant and indistinct moan rising from the sea. Suddenly a pistol-shot brought them to their feet with a start. Day was about to break. A pale spot whitened the sky above the mouth of the Seine. What could be the meaning of that shot? Their imprudence, this folly of remaining together so late, made them, in swift imagination, picture to themselves the husband pursuing them with a revolver.

“Don’t venture out!” exclaimed Jacques. “Wait! Ill go and see!”

Jacques had prudently advanced to the door, and there, in the dense darkness that still prevailed, he could hear men advancing at the double. He recognised the voice of Roubaud, urging forward the watchmen, shouting to them that the thieves were three in number, that he had distinctly seen them stealing coal. For some weeks not a night had passed without hallucinations of the same kind about imaginary brigands. On this occasion, he had fired haphazard into the gloom.

“Quick! quick!” exclaimed the young man; “let us be off! They will come and search this place. Run as fast as you can!”

She fell into his arms. They stifled one another, lips to lips. Then Séverine tripped lightly through the depot, protected by the high wall, while he quietly disappeared among the heaps of coal. And it was only just time, for Roubaud, as he had foreseen, insisted on searching the tool-house. He vowed the thieves must be there. The lanterns of the watchmen danced on a level with the ground. There were words, and in the end they all turned back towards the station, irritated at this fruitless chase; while Jacques, with his mind at ease, at last determined to make his way to the Rue François-Mazeline and go to bed.

The meetings between him and Séverine continued throughout the summer. Nor were they interrupted when the cold weather came at the commencement of October. She arrived wrapped in an ample cloak, and, to be screened from the frigid air outside, they barricaded themselves in the tool-house by means of an iron bar that they had found there. In this little retreat they were at home. The November hurricanes could roar, and tear the slates from the roofs, without inconveniencing them.

Jacques no longer had any doubt that he was cured of his frightful hereditary complaint, for since he had known Séverine he had never been troubled by thoughts of murder. Occasionally he suddenly remembered what she had done — that assassination, avowed by her eyes alone, on the bench in the Batignolles Square; but he had no inclination to learn the details. She, on the contrary, seemed more and more tormented by the desire to reveal everything. At times he felt her bursting with her secret; and, in anxiety, he would at once close her mouth with a kiss, sealing up the avowal. Why place this stranger between them? Could they affirm that it would not interfere with their happiness? He suspected danger, and felt his old shiver return at the bare idea of raking up this sanguinary story. And she, no doubt, guessed his thoughts.

Roubaud, since the summer, had grown stouter, and in proportion as his wife recovered her gaiety and the bloom of her twenty years, he grew older and seemed more overcast. In four months he had greatly changed, as she often said. He continued to cordially grasp the hand of Jacques, inviting him to the lodging, never happy but when he had him at his table. Only this diversion no longer sufficed. He frequently took himself off as soon as he had swallowed the last mouthful, sometimes leaving his comrade with his wife, pretending he was stifling, and required fresh air.

The truth was that he now frequented a small café on the Cours Napoleon, where he met M. Cauche, the commissary of police attached to the station. He drank but little, merely a few small glasses of rum; but he had acquired a taste for gambling, which was turning to a passion. He only recovered energy, and forgot the past, when the cards were in his hand, and he found himself engrossed in an interminable series of games at piquet. M. Cauche, a frightful gambler, had suggested having something on the game, and they had made the stake five francs.

From that moment, Roubaud, astonished not to have found himself out before, was burning with a thirst for gain, with that scorching fever brought on by money won which ravages a man to the point of making him stake his position, even his life, on a throw of the dice. So far his work had not suffered. He escaped as soon as free, returning home at three or four o’clock in the morning, on nights when he was off duty. His wife never complained. She only reproached him with coming back more sullen than before; for he was pursued by extraordinary bad luck, and ultimately got into debt.

“the
first quarrel broke out between Séverine and Roubaud one evening. Without hating him as yet, she had reached the point of enduring him with difficulty, for she felt that he weighed on her existence. She would have been so bright, so happy, had he not burdened her with his presence. She experienced no remorse at deceiving him. Was it not his own fault? Had he not almost thrust her to the brink of the precipice? In the slow process of their disunion, to cure themselves of the uneasiness that upset them, both found consolation after their own hearts. As he had taken to gambling, she could very well have a sweetheart.

But what angered her more than anything, what she would not accept without revolt, was the inconvenience to which they were subjected by the continual losses of her husband. Since the five-franc pieces of the family flew to the café on the Cours Napoleon, she at times did not know how to pay her washerwoman, and was deprived of all sorts of delicacies and little toilet comforts.

On this particular evening, it was about the purchase of a pair of boots which she really required, that they began quarrelling. He, on the point of going out, not finding a knife on the table wherewith to cut himself a piece of bread, had taken the big knife, the weapon lying in a drawer of the sideboard. She kept her eyes on him while he refused the fifteen francs for the boots, not having them, not knowing where to get them; and she obstinately repeated her demand, forcing him to renew his refusal, which, little by little, took a tone of exasperation.

All at once she pointed out to him with her finger, the place in the parquetry where the spectres slumbered, telling him there was money there, and that she wanted some. He turned very pale, and let go the knife, which fell into the drawer. At first she thought he was going to beat her, for he approached her, stammering that the money there might rot, that he would sooner cut off his hand than touch it again. And with fists clenched he threatened to knock her down if she dared, in his absence, to raise the piece of parquetry and steal even a centime. Never! never! It was dead and buried.

She also had lost her colour, feeling faint at the idea of rummaging in that place. No; let poverty come, both would die of hunger close by the treasure. And, in fact, neither of them referred to the subject again, even on days when more than usually pinched. If they happened to place a foot on the spot, they felt such a sharp burning pain that they ended by giving it a wide berth.

Then, other disputes arose, in regard to La Croix-de-Maufras. Why did they not sell the house? And they mutually accused one another of having done nothing that should have been done, to hasten the sale. He always violently refused to attend to the matter, and on the rare occasions when Séverine wrote to Misard on the subject, it was only to receive vague replies: no inquiries had been made by anyone, the fruit had come to nothing, the vegetables would not grow for want of water.

Little by little, the tranquillity that had settled upon the couple after the crisis, became troubled in this manner, and seemed swept away in a terrible return of wrath. All the germs of unrest, the hidden money, the sweetheart introduced on the scene, had developed, parting them and irritating one against the other. And, in this increasing agitation, life was about to become a pandemonium.

As if by a fatal counter-shock, everything was going wrong in the vicinity of the Roubauds. A fresh gust of tittle-tattle and discussions whistled down the corridor. Philomène had just violently broken off all connection with Madame Lebleu, in consequence of a calumny of the latter, who accused the former of selling her a fowl that had died of sickness. But the real reason of the rupture was the better understanding that prevailed between Philomène and Séverine. Pecqueux having one night met Madame Roubaud arm in arm with Jàcques, Séverine at once put aside her former scruples and made advances to the secret wife of the fireman; and Philomène, very much flattered at this connection with a lady, who without contestation was considered the adornment and distinction of the railway station, had just turned against the wife of the cashier, that old wretch, as she called her, who was capable of setting mountains at variance.

Philomène now declared that all the fault lay with Madame Lebleu, telling everybody that the lodging looking on the street belonged to the Roubauds, and that it was an abomination not to give it them. Matters, therefore, began to look very bad for Madame Lebleu, and the more so, as her obstinacy in watching Mademoiselle Guichon, in order to surprise her with the station-master, threatened also to cause her serious trouble. She still failed to catch them, but she had the imprudence to get caught herself, her ear on the alert, stuck to the keyhole. And M. Dabadie, exasperated at being spied upon in this manner, had intimated to the assistant station-master, Moulin, that if Roubaud again claimed the lodging, he was ready to countersign the letter. Moulin, who, although as a rule, little given to gossip, having repeated this remark, the lodgers had nearly come to blows, from door to door, all along the corridor, so high ran the excitement that had been thus revived.

Amidst these disturbances, which became more and more frequent, Séverine had but one quiet day in the week, the Friday. In October she had placidly displayed the audacity to invent a pretext for frequently running up to Paris, the first that entered her head, a pain in the knee, which required the attention of a specialist. Each Friday, she left by the 6.40 — express in the morning, which was driven by Jacques, and after passing the day with him at the capital, returned by the 6.30 express in the evening.

At first, she had thought it only right to give her husband news of her knee: it was better, it was worse, and so forth. Then, perceiving he turned a deaf ear to what she said, she had coolly ceased speaking to him on the subject. But ever and anon she would cast her eyes on him, wondering whether he knew. How was it that this ferociously jealous man, who, blinded by blood, had killed a fellow being in an idiotic rage, how was it that he had reached the point of permitting her to have a sweetheart? She could not believe it, she simply thought he must be getting stupid.

One icy cold night in December, Séverine was sitting up very late for her husband. The next morning, a Friday, she was to take the express before daybreak; and on such evenings as these, she had the habit of getting a very nice gown ready, and preparing her other garments, so as to be rapidly dressed, immediately she jumped out of bed.

At last, she retired to rest, and ended by falling off to sleep about one o’clock. Roubaud had not returned home. Already, on two occasions, he had only made his appearance at early dawn, his increasing passion for play being such that he could not tear himself away from the café, where a small room at the back was gradually being transformed into a gambling hell. They now played for high stakes at écarté.

Happy to be alone, in a pleasant frame of mind at the prospect of a delightful day on the morrow, the young woman slumbered soundly, in the gentle warmth of the bedclothes. But, as three o’clock was about to strike, she was awakened by a singular noise. First of all she did not understand, she fancied she must be dreaming and went to sleep again.

Then came a dull sound, as of someone pushing against something, followed by cracking of wood, as if somebody was trying to force open a door. A sharp rent, more violent than the other sounds, brought her to a sitting posture in bed. She was frightened to death; someone was certainly trying to burst the lock in the corridor. For a minute or two she dared not move, but listened with drumming ears. Then she had the courage to get up, and look. She walked noiselessly across the room with bare feet, and gently set the door ajar, so chilled with cold that she turned quite pale, and the sight that met her eyes in the dining-room, riveted her to the spot in surprise and horror.

Roubaud, grovelling on the ground, raising himself on his elbows, had just tom away the dreaded piece of parquetry with the assistance of a chisel. A candle, set down beside him, afforded light while casting his enormous shadow on the ceiling. And at that moment, with his face bent over the hole which cut the parquetry with a black slit, he was peering with dilated eyes within. His cheeks were flushed, and he wore his assassin-like expression. Brutally he plunged his hand into the aperture, and, in his trembling agitation, finding nothing, he had to bring the candle nearer. Then at the bottom of the hole appeared the purse, notes, and watch.

Séverine uttered an involuntary cry, and Roubaud turned round, terrified. At first he failed to recognise her, and seeing her there, all in white, with a look of horror on her countenance, no doubt took her for a spectre.

“What are you doing there?” she demanded.

Then, understanding, avoiding to answer, he only gave a sullen growl. But he still looked at her, inconvenienced by her presence, wishing to send her back to bed. And not a reasonable word came to his lips. He simply felt inclined to box her ears, as she stood there shivering in her nightdress.