Complete Works of Emile Zola (1079 page)

“Kiss me, my darling,” she repeated, “while we have still a minute left. He will be here, you know. He might knock from one moment to another, now, if he has walked quick. As you will not go downstairs to arrange matters beforehand, do not fail to bear this in mind: I shall let him in. You will be behind the door; and do not wait, do it at once! Oh! at once, to get it over! I love you so fondly, we shall be so happy! He is nothing but a wicked man, who makes me suffer, and who is the sole obstacle to our happiness. Kiss me, oh! so hard, so hard! Kiss me as if you were going to devour me, so that nothing may remain of me beyond yourself!”

Jacques, feeling behind him with his right hand, had secured the knife without turning round. And for a moment he remained in the same position tightening his grasp on the weapon. Could the feeling that had come over him be a return of that thirst to avenge those very ancient offences, the exact recollection of which escaped him, that rancour amassed from male to male since the first deception in the depths of the caverns? He fixed his wild eyes on Séverine. He now only required to lay her dead on her back, like a prey torn from others. The gate of terror opened on the dark sexual chasm Love, even unto death. Destroy, to have more absolute possession.

“Kiss me, kiss me!” she pleaded.

She presented her submissive face in imploring tenderness, displaying her bare neck at the part where it voluptuously met the bosom. And he, seeing her white skin as in a burst of flame, raised his fist armed with the knife. But she perceived the flash of the blade and started back, gaping in surprise and terror.

“Jacques, Jacques!” she cried; “me? Good God! Why?”

With set teeth and answering not a word, he pursued her. A brief struggle brought her again beside the bed. She shrank from him, haggard, without defence, her night-dress in shreds.

“Why? good God! Why?” she continued asking.

His fist came down, and the knife stuck the inquiry in her throat. In striking, he twisted the blade round in a frightful compulsion of the hand which satisfied itself. It was the same blow as President Grandmorin had received, inflicted at the same place, and with the same fury. Did she shriek? He never knew. The Paris express flew by at this moment with such violence and rapidity that it shook the floor; and Séverine was dead, as if struck down in this tempestuous blast.

Jacques, standing motionless, now looked at her, stretched at his feet before the bed. The riot of the train was dying away in the distance as he gazed upon her in the oppressive silence of the red bedroom. On the ground, amidst those red hangings, those red curtains, she bled profusely. A crimson stream trickled down between her breasts, spreading over the abdomen to one of the lower limbs, whence it fell in great drops upon the floor. Her night-dress, rent half asunder, was drenched with it. He could never have believed she had so much blood.

But what retained him there, haunted, was the abominable look of terror that the face of this pretty, gentle, docile woman took in death. The black hair stood on end as a helmet of horror, dark as night. The blue eyes, immeasurably wide open, were still inquiring, aghast, terrified at the mystery. Why? why had he murdered her? And she had just been reduced to nothing, carried off in the fatality of murder, a creature irresponsible, whom life had rolled from vice into blood, and who had remained tender and innocent notwithstanding, for she had never understood.

Jacques was astonished. He heard the sniffing of animals, the grunting of wild boars, the roaring of lions; and he became calm, it was himself breathing. At last! at last! he had gratified his thirst — he had killed! Yes; he had done that. He felt elevated by ungovernable joy, by intense delight at the full satisfaction of his everlasting desire. He experienced surprising pride, an aggrandisement of his male sovereignty. He had slaughtered the woman. He possessed her as he had so long desired to possess her, entirely to the point of destroying her. She had ceased to belong, she never would belong any more to anybody. And a bitter recollection recurred to him, that of the other murdered victim, the corpse of President Grandmorin which he had seen on that terrible night five hundred yards from the house. This delicate body before him, so white, striped with red, was the same human shred, the broken puppet, the limp rag that a knife makes of a creature.

Yes, that was it. He had killed, and he had this thing on the ground. She had just been hurled down like the other; but on her back, the left arm doubled under her right side, twisted, half-torn from her shoulder. Was it not on the night when the body of the President was found that with heart beating fit to burst, he had sworn to dare in his turn, in a prurience for murder which exasperated him like a concupiscence at the sight of the slaughtered man? Ah! if he could only have the pluck, satisfy himself, drive in the knife! This had germinated and developed within him obscurely. For a year, not an hour had gone by without him having advanced towards the inevitable result. Even with his arms about the neck of this woman, and amidst her kisses, the secret work was approaching its termination; and the two murders had become united. Did not the one show the logic of the other?

The clatter of a house falling down, a jolting of the floor drew Jacques from his gaping contemplation of the dead woman. Were the doors flying into splinters? Had people arrived to arrest him? He looked around, but only to find dull, silent solitude. Ah! yes; another train! But the man who would be knocking at the door below, the man whom he wished to kill! He had completely forgotten him. If he regretted nothing, he already judged himself an idiot. What! what had happened? The woman he loved, who loved him passionately, was lying on the floor with her throat cut; while the husband, the obstacle to his happiness, was still alive, and still advancing step by step in the obscurity. He had been unable to wait for this man, who for months had been so sparing of the scruples of his education, and of the ideas of humanity slowly acquired and transmitted; with contempt for his own interest, he had just been carried away by the heredity of violence, by that craving to commit murder, which in the primitive forests threw animal upon animal.

Does anyone kill as the result of reasoning? People only kill by an impulse of blood and nerves — the necessity to live, the joy of being strong. He now merely experienced the lassitude of one satiated. Then he became scared and endeavoured to understand, but without finding anything else than astonishment and the bitter sadness of the irreparable as a result of his gratified passion.

The sight of the unfortunate creature, who still gazed at him with her look of terrified interrogation, became atrocious. Wishing to turn away his eyes, he abruptly felt the sensation of another white form rising up at the foot of the bed. Could this be the double of the murdered woman? Then he recognised Flore. She had already returned, while he had the fever after the accident. Doubtless she was triumphant, at this moment, at being avenged.

He turned icy cold with terror. He asked himself what he could be thinking of, to loiter thus in this room. He had killed, he was gorged, satiated, intoxicated with the dreadful wine of crime. Stumbling against the knife which had remained on the ground, he fled, rolling down the stairs. He opened the front door giving on the perron, as if the small one would not have been sufficiently wide, and dashed out into the pitch-dark night where his furious gallop became lost. He never turned round. The dubious-looking house, set down aslant at the edge of the line, remained open and desolate behind him, in its abandonment of death.

Cabuche, that night as on the others, had found his way through the hedge, and was prowling under the window of Séverine. He knew very well that Roubaud was expected, and was not astonished at the light filtering through a chink in one of the shutters. But this man bounding from the top of the steps, this frantic gallop like that of an animal tearing away into the country, struck him dumbfounded with surprise. It was already too late to pursue the fugitive, and the quarryman remained bewildered, full of uneasiness and hesitation before the open door, gaping upon the black hole formed by the vestibule. What had occurred? Should he enter? The heavy silence, the absolute stillness while the lamp continued burning in the upper room, gave him pangs of anguish.

At last, making up his mind, he groped his way upstairs. Before the door of the red bedroom, which had also been left open, he stopped. In the placid light, he seemed to perceive in the distance a heap of petticoats lying at the foot of the bedstead. No doubt Séverine was undressed. He called gently to her, feeling alarmed, while his veins began throbbing violently. Then he caught sight of the blood, and understood. With a terrible cry that came from his lacerated heart, he sprang forward. Great God! It was she, assassinated, struck down there in her pitiful nudity. He thought her still rattling, and felt such despair, such painful shame at seeing her quite nude in her agony; that he lifted her in a fraternal transport, in his open arms, and, placing her on the bed, drew the sheet over her.

But in this clasp, the only tenderness between them, he covered his chest and both his hands with blood. He was streaming with her gore; and at this moment he saw that Roubaud and Misard were there. Finding all the doors open, they also had just decided to come upstairs. The husband arrived late, having stopped to talk with the gatekeeper, who had then accompanied him, continuing the conversation on the way. Both, in stupefaction, turned their eyes on Cabuche, whose hands were dripping with blood like those of a butcher.

“The same stroke as for the President,” said Misard at last, while he examined the wound.

Roubaud wagged his head up and down without answering, unable to take his eyes off Séverine, off that look of abominable terror, with the hair standing on end above the forehead, and the blue eyes immeasurably wide open, inquiring: Why?

CHAPTER XII

THREE months later, on a warm June night, Jacques was driving the Havre express that had left Paris at 6.30. His engine, No. 608, was quite new, and he began to know it thoroughly. It was not easy to handle, being restive and capricious, after the manner of those young nags which require to be broken in by hard work before they take kindly to harness. He often swore at it, and regretted La Lison. Moreover, he had to watch this new locomotive very closely, and to constantly keep his hand on the reversing-wheel. But on this particular night the sky was so delightfully serene, that he felt inclined to be indulgent, and allowed the engine to travel along as it would, while he found enjoyment in inhaling great draughts of fresh air. Never had he been blessed with such splendid health. He was untroubled with remorse, and presented the appearance of a man relieved of anxiety, and who was perfectly tranquil and happy.

He who, as a rule, never spoke on the journey, began to joke with Pecqueux, whom the management had left with him as fireman.

“What has come to you?” he inquired. “You’ve got your eyes about you like a man who has been drinking nothing but water.”

Pecqueux, in fact, contrary to his habit, seemed to have taken nothing and to be very gloomy.

“It is necessary to have your eyes about you,” he answered in a harsh voice, “when you want to see what is going on.”

Jacques looked at him in distrust, like a man who has not a clear conscience. The week before he had been making love to the sweetheart of his comrade, that terrible Philomène, who for some time past had been purring round him like a lean, amorous cat. He had no affection for her, but wanted to ascertain whether he was cured, now that he had satisfied his frightful craving. Could he make love to this one without plunging a knife into her throat? On two occasions when he had been out with her, he had felt nothing, no uncomfortable feeling, no shiver. His great joy, his appeased and smiling manner must be due, without his being aware of it, to the happiness he experienced at being like any other man.

Pecqueux having opened the fire-box of the engine to throw in coal, Jacques stopped him.

“No, no,” said he, “do not make up too much fire. It is going along very well.”

The fireman in a grumbling tone uttered some abusive remarks about the locomotive in reply, and Jacques, so as not to get angry, avoided answering him. But he felt that the former cordial understanding of three, no longer existed; for the good friendship between him, his comrade, and the engine had vanished with the destruction of La Lison. They now quarrelled about trifles, about a nut screwed up too tight, about a shovel of coal carelessly laid on the bars. And he determined to be more prudent in regard to Philomène, not wishing to come to open warfare on the narrow foot-plate, which afforded him and his fireman standing room as they were borne onward.

So long as Pecqueux played the part of an obedient dog, devoted to such a point that he was ready to strangle an enemy in gratitude for the kind treatment he received, for being permitted to take his little naps, and to polish off the remains in the provision basket, the pair lived like brothers, silent in the daily danger, and, indeed, having no need of words to understand one another. But it would become a pandemonium if they ceased to agree, pent-up side by side, and swayed to and fro in the oscillation of the engine while struggling together. It so happened that the preceding week, the company had been compelled to separate the driver and fireman on the Cherbourg express, because having been set at variance by a woman, the driver had taken to bullying his fireman, who no longer obeyed him. From words they went to blows, until regular stand-up fights occurred on the journey, without a thought for the long tail of passengers rolling along behind them full speed.

Pecqueux opened the fire-box twice more and threw on coal in disobedience to orders, thereby seeking, no doubt, a quarrel; but Jacques, with an air of having all his attention centred on his driving, feigned not to notice him, merely taking the precaution to turn the wheel of the injector on each occasion, to reduce the pressure. It was so mild, the gentle fresh breeze as they cut through space was so pleasant on this warm July night. At 11.5, when the express reached Havre, the two men polished up the engine with an appearance of being on the same good terms as formerly.