Complete Works of Emile Zola (1064 page)

She shivered, and broke off to say, in a voice that had changed, and was almost merry:

“Isn’t it stupid, eh! darling, to still feel the cold in the marrow of one’s bones? And yet, I’m warm enough. Besides, you know there is nothing whatever to fear. The case is shelved, without counting that the bigwigs connected with the government are even less anxious than ourselves to throw light on it. Oh! I saw through it all, and am quite at ease!”

Then she added, without seeking to conceal her merriment:

“As for you, you can boast of having given us a rare fright! But tell me, I have often wondered — what was it you actually did see?”

“What I told the magistrate, nothing more,” he answered. “One man murdering another. You two behaved so strangely with me that you aroused my suspicions. At one moment I seemed to recognise your husband. It was only later on though, that I became absolutely certain—”

She gaily interrupted him:

“Yes, in the square. The day when I told you no. Do you remember? The first time we were alone in Paris together. How peculiar it was! I told you it was not us, and knew perfectly well that you thought the contrary. It was as if I had told you all about it, was it not? Oh! darling, I have often thought of that conversation, and I really believe it is since that day I love you.”

After a pause, she resumed the story of the crime: “The train flew through the tunnel, which is very long. It takes three minutes to reach the end, as you know. To me it seemed like an hour. The President had ceased talking, in consequence of the deafening clatter of clashing iron. And my husband at this last moment must have lost courage, for he still remained motionless. Only, in the dancing light of the lamp, I noticed his ears become violet. Was he going to wait until we were again in the open country? The crime seemed to me so fatally inevitable, that, henceforth, I had but one desire: to be no longer subjected to this torture of waiting, to have it all over. Why on earth did he not kill him, as the thing had to be done? I would have taken the knife and settled the matter myself, I was so exasperated with fear and suffering. He looked at me. No doubt he read my thoughts on my face. For all of a sudden, he fell upon the President, who had turned to glance through the glass at the door, grasping him by the shoulders.

“M. Grandmorin, in a scare, instinctively shook himself free, and stretched out his arm towards the alarm knob just above his head. He managed to graze it, but was seized again by my husband, and thrown down on the seat with such violence that he found himself doubled up. His open mouth uttered frantic yells, in stupefaction and terror, which were drowned in the uproar of the train; while I heard my husband distinctly repeating the word: Beast! beast! beast! in a passionate hiss. But the noise subsided, the train left the tunnel, the pale country appeared once more with the dark trees filing past. I had remained stiffened in my comer, pressing against the back of the coupé as far off as possible.

“How long did the struggle last? Barely a few seconds. And yet it seemed to me it would never end, that all the passengers were now listening to the cries, that the trees saw us. My husband, holding the open knife in his hand, could not strike the blow, being driven back, staggering on the floor of the carriage, by the kicks of his victim. He almost fell to his knees; and the train flew on, carrying us along full speed; while the locomotive whistled as we approached the level-crossing at La Croix-de-Maufras.

“Without me being able to recall afterwards how the thing occurred, I know it was then that I threw myself on the legs of the struggling man. Yes, I let myself fall like a bundle, crushing his two lower limbs with all my weight, so that he was unable to move them any more. And if I saw nothing, I felt it all: the shock of the knife in the throat, the long quivering of the body, and then death, which came with three hiccups, with a sound like the running-down of a broken clock. Oh! that quivering fit of agony! I still feel the echo of it in my limbs!”

Jacques, eager for details, wanted to interrupt her with questions. But she was now in a hurry to finish.

“No; wait,” said she. “As I rose from my seat we flashed past La Croix-de-Maufras. I distinctly perceived the front of the house with the shutters closed, and then the box of the gatekeeper. Another three miles, five minutes at the most, before reaching Barentin. The corpse was doubled-up on the seat, the blood running from it forming a large pool. And my husband, standing erect, besotted as if with drink, reeling in the swaying of the train, gazed on his victim as he wiped the knife with his pocket handkerchief. This lasted a minute, without either of us doing anything for our safety. If we kept this corpse with us, if we remained there, everything perhaps would be discovered when the train stopped at Barentin.

“But my husband had put the knife in his pocket. He seemed to wake up. I saw him search the clothes of the dead man, take his watch, his money, all he could find; and, opening the door, he did his utmost to thrust the body out on the line without taking it in his arms, being afraid of the blood. ‘Assist me,’ said he; ‘push at the same time as I do!’ I did not even attempt to try, my limbs were without feeling. With an oath he repeated, ‘Will you push with me?’

“The head, which had gone out first, hung down to the step; while the trunk, rolled into a ball, would not pass. And the train flew on. At last, in response to a stronger effort, the corpse turned over, and disappeared amidst the thunder of the wheels. ‘Ah! the beast; so it is all over!’ said my husband. Then, picking up the rug, he threw that out as well. There were now only us two standing before the pool of blood on the seat, where we dare not sit down. The open door continued beating backward and forward; and broken down and bewildered as I was, I did not at first understand what my husband was doing, when I saw him get out, and in his turn disappear.

“But he returned. ‘Come, quick, follow me,’ said he, ‘unless you want them to cut our heads off!’ I did not move. He became impatient ‘Come on,’ he repeated with an oath, ‘our compartment is empty.’ Our compartment empty! Then he had been there? Was he quite certain that the woman in black, who did not speak, whom one could not see, was he quite certain that she had not remained in a corner? ‘If you don’t come, I’ll throw you on the line like the other one!’ he threatened. He had entered the carriage, and pushed me as a brute, half mad. I found myself outside on the step, with my two hands clinging to the brass rail. Leaving the coupé after me, he carefully closed the door. ‘Go on, go on!’ said he. But I did not dare. I stood there, borne along in the whirling flight of the train, beaten by the wind which was blowing a gale. My hair came unbound, and I thought my stiffened fingers would lose their hold on the rail. ‘Go on!’ he exclaimed with another oath. He continued pushing me, and I had to advance, hand over hand, keeping close to the carriages, with my skirt and petticoats blowing about and embarrassing the action of my lower limbs. Already, in the distance, after a curve, one could see the lights of the Barentin station. The engine began to whistle. ‘Go on!’ repeated my husband still swearing at me.

“Oh! that infernal riot, that violent vacillation amidst which I walked! It seemed as if I had been caught in a storm that swept me along like a straw, to cast me against a wall. The country flew behind my back, the trees followed me in a furious gallop, turning over and over, twisted, each uttering a short moan as it passed. When I came to the end of the carriage, and had to take a stride to reach the footboard of the next, and grasp the other rod, I stopped, having lost all courage. Never should I have the strength to do it ‘Go on,’ said my husband, accompanying the words with his usual imprecation. He was behind, he gave me a push, and I closed my eyes. I know not how it was I continued to advance. Possibly by the force of instinct, as an animal who has planted his claws into something, and means not to fall. How was it, too, that nobody saw us? We passed before three carriages, one of which was a second-class carriage, completely crammed. I remember seeing the heads of the passengers ranged in a line, in the light of the lamp. I believe I should recognise them if I were to meet them one of these days. There was a stout man with red whiskers, and I particularly recollect two young girls who were leaning forward laughing.

“‘Go on! Go on!’ exclaimed my husband with two frightful oaths. And I hardly remember what followed. The lights at Barentin were drawing near, the locomotive whistled. My last sensation was one of being dragged along, carried anyhow, caught up by the hair. My husband must have grasped hold of me, opened the door over my shoulder, and thrown me into the compartment. I was reclining breathless and half fainting in a corner when we stopped; and, without making a movement, I heard my husband exchange a few words with the station-master. Then, when the train went on again, he sank down on the seat, exhausted also. Between Barentin and Havre neither of us said a word. Oh! I hate him! I hate him, for all those abominations he made me suffer!”

“And so you sank down on his legs, and felt him dying?” inquired Jacques.

The unknown was being revealed to him. A ferocious wave ascended from his inside, filling his head with a crimson vision. His curiosity about the murder returned.

“And then, the knife, you felt the knife go in?” he continued.

“Yes, with a thud,” she answered.

“Ah! a thud,” said he, “not a rip; you are sure of that?”

“No, no,” she replied; “nothing but a shock.”

“And then, he quivered, eh?” he suggested.

“Yes; he gave three twitches from top to toe, and they lasted so long that I even felt them in his feet,” she said.

“And those twitches stiffened him, did they not?” he persisted.

“Yes,” she answered. “The first was very long, the other two weaker.

“And then he died?” he continued. “And what effect did it have on you, when you felt him expire under the knife?”

“On me? Oh! I don’t know,” she said.

“You don’t know! Why tell stories?” he asked her. “Describe to me, describe to me your feeling, quite frankly. Was it pain?”

“No, no, not pain,” said she.

“Pleasure?” he inquired.

“Pleasure!” she answered, “Ah! no, not pleasure!”

“What then, my love?” he urged. “I implore you to tell me all. If you only knew — Tell me what one feels.”

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed. “How is it possible to describe it? It is frightful. You are borne away. Oh! so far, so far! I lived longer in that one minute than in all my previous life.”

The crimson reflex had disappeared from the ceiling, and the fire had died out. The room became cooler in the intense cold outside. Not a sound ascended from Paris, padded with snow. For a moment, the newsvendor in the adjoining room, could be heard snoring, and then the whole house subsided into complete silence. Séverine had succumbed to invincible slumber. The cuckoo clock had just struck three.

Jacques was unable to close his eyes, which a hand, invisible in the obscurity, seemed to keep open. He could now distinguish nothing in the room. Every object had disappeared, stove, furniture, and walls. He had to turn round to find the two pale squares of windows, which appeared motionless and faint as in a dream. Notwithstanding his excessive fatigue, prodigious cerebral activity kept him in a thrill, ceaselessly unwinding the same coil of ideas. Each time that, by an effort of will, he fancied himself slipping off to sleep, the same haunting pictures began filing by again, awakening the same sensations.

And the scene unfolded thus, with mechanical regularity, while his fixed, wide-open eyes became clouded, was that of the murder, detail by detail. It kept returning again and again, identically the same, gaining hold on him, driving him crazy. The knife entering the throat with a thud, the body giving three long twitches, life ebbing away in a flood of warm blood — a crimson flood which he fancied he felt coursing over his hands. Twenty, thirty times, the knife went in, and the body quivered. Oh! if he could but deal a blow like that, satisfy his long craving, learn what one experiences, become acquainted with that minute which is longer than a lifetime!

In spite of his effort to sleep, the invisible fingers kept his eyes open; and in the darkness the murder scene reappeared in all its sanguinary traits. Then, he ceased the struggle and remained a prey to the stubborn vision. He could hear within him the unfettered labour of the brain, the rumble of the whole machine. It came from long ago, from his youth. And yet he had fancied himself cured, for this desire to kill had been dead for months; but, since the story of that crime had been told him just now, he had never felt the feeling so intensely. An intolerable warmth ran up his spine, and at the back of the neck he felt a pricking, as if red-hot needles were boring into him. He became afraid of his hands, and imprisoned them under him, as if he dreaded some abomination on their part, some act that he was determined not to allow them to commit.

Each time the cuckoo clock struck, Jacques counted the strokes. Four o’clock, five o’clock, six o’clock. He longed for daylight, in the hope that dawn would dispel this nightmare. And now, he turned towards the windows, watching the panes of glass. But he could see naught save the vague reflex of the snow. At a quarter to five he had heard the through train arrive from Havre, with a delay of only forty minutes which proved that the line must be clear. And it was not until after seven that he saw the window panes slowly becoming milky white. At length the darkness in the apartment disappeared, to give; place to an uncertain glimmer, in which the furniture looked as if floating. The stove, the cupboard, the sideboard reappeared. He was still unable to close his lids. His eyes seemed determined to see.

All of a sudden, before it even became sufficiently light for him to distinguish the object, he had guessed that the knife he had used to cut the cake the previous night lay on the table. He now saw nothing but this knife, a small pointed weapon. And as day grew, all the clear rays from the two windows centred upon this thin blade. In terror of what his hands might do, he thrust them farther under him, for he could feel that they were agitated, in open revolt, more powerful than his own will. Would they cease to belong to him, those hands that came from another, bequeathed to him by some ancestor of the days when man strangled animals in the woods?