‘Admit you slept with him!’
She was too frightened to go on denying it. She said nothing.
‘Admit it! Admit you slept with him, damn you, or I’ll slit your throat!’
She knew he meant it; she could tell from the look in his eyes. As she fell down, she had noticed the knife. It was lying on the table, open. She had seen the glint of the blade and she thought he was trying to reach it. She no longer had the courage to face up to him. She was beyond caring — about herself or about anything. She just wanted to get it over and done with.
‘All right then, it’s true. I did. Now let me go.’
What happened next was dreadful. The admission, which he had been trying with such violence to force from her, left him feeling stunned. It was impossible, monstrous. He could conceive of nothing more disgusting. He seized her head and banged it against the leg of the table. She struggled to get away from him but he dragged her across the floor by her hair, scattering chairs all round the room. Every time she tried to stand up he struck her with his fist and sent her flying to the floor. His breath came in short, sharp bursts. His teeth were clenched; he was like a crazed animal, demented. They crashed against the table and nearly overturned the stove. There were smears of blood and strands of hair stuck to the corner of the sideboard. They staggered back towards the bed, gasping for breath, dazed and sickened by the force of his onslaught. They were both exhausted, he from striking her and she from the beating he had inflicted. Séverine lay slumped on the floor. Roubaud crouched behind her, still holding her by the shoulders. The blood pounded in their ears. From below rose the sound of music and the girls’ happy laughter.
Roubaud pulled Séverine from the floor and propped her against the side of the bed. He knelt in front of her, still holding her down. Then, when he was at last able to speak, came a barrage of questions. His desire to know the truth was insatiable. He was no longer beating her, but this was another form of torture.
‘So you slept with him, you bitch! Say it! You slept with him! An old man like him! How old were you? Tell me! I bet you were no more than a girl. A little schoolgirl.’
She suddenly burst into tears and could not speak for crying.
‘Tell me, damn you! I bet you weren’t even ten when he started playing around with you. The dirty sod! That’s why he had you brought up out there at Doinville. Just so he could have his way with you, the bastard! Tell me, damn you, or I’ll start again!’
Tears were streaming down her face. She couldn’t speak. He raised his hand and struck her again, making her head spin. Still she did not answer him. Three times he struck her, each time repeating the same question.
‘How old were you, you bitch? Tell me! How old were you?’
She was too weak to resist. She felt as if the life were draining from her. He could have clawed her heart out with his clumsy, workman’s fingers. And still the questions came. She told him everything, so overcome with shame and terror that she spoke in a barely audible whisper. Roubaud, inflamed with jealousy, grew angrier and angrier as each painful chapter in the story unfolded. He wanted to know everything. He made her repeatedly go back over what she had already said, down to the last detail, in order to make sure he had got all the facts. He knelt in front of her with his ear pressed to the poor girl’s lips, listening in horror as the confession continued. All the time he held his fist raised above her, ready to strike her again at the least thing she refused to tell him.
Once again he heard the story of the years at Doinville — when she had first gone there as a child, and later when she was a young girl. Where had it happened? In the woods in the great park? In a corner of some dark passageway in the château? The President had obviously already had his eyes on her when he asked her to stay there after his gardener died and had her brought up with his own daughter. It must have started when the children used to run away in the middle of a game if they saw him coming, while she waited behind, with her pretty little face looking up at him and smiling, so that he could give her a pat on the cheek as he walked past. And later on, if she wasn’t frightened to go and ask him favours and always managed to get what she wanted, perhaps it was because she knew she could twist him round her little finger, whilst he, who was so strict and formal with other people, fed her the same blandishments he used to seduce all his servants. It was revolting. An old lecher, getting her to give him kisses as if he were her grand-father, watching her grow out of childhood, placing his hand on her, getting bolder every time he touched her, not able to wait until she had grown up!
Roubaud was breathless.
‘How old were you? Tell me! How old were you?’
‘Sixteen and a half.’
‘You’re a liar!’
Why should she lie, for goodness’ sake? She shrugged her shoulders. She was beyond caring and she was sick with fatigue.
‘Where were you, the first time it happened?’
‘At La Croix-de-Maufras.’
For a moment he said nothing. A sickly look crept into his eyes as he next began to speak.
‘Tell me what he did to you.’
She remained silent. He raised his fist.
‘You wouldn’t believe me,’ she said.
‘Tell me even so,’ he said. ‘He couldn’t manage it, could he?’ She nodded. He was right; he couldn’t manage it.
Then came an endless stream of questions. He wanted to know everything, down to the very last detail. He used words that sank below the level of decency and he asked her things that broke the bounds of all modesty. She kept her mouth tightly closed, answering him with a mere nod or shake of the head, thinking that perhaps it might make it easier for both of them once the story was out. But for him every new revelation intensified his suffering. If she had taken a lover and had a normal affair, the images that now came to torment him would have disturbed him less. But this was something unnatural; it curdled his mind and drove the poisoned blade of jealousy twisting and turning deep inside him. Life was no longer possible; the awful truth would be with him for ever.
A loud sob came from his throat: ‘Good God! It can’t be true! No! It’s not possible! It can’t be true!’
He shook her violently.
‘Why did you marry me, you bitch? Why did you lie to me, damn you? There are women locked up in prison with less on their conscience than you! You hated me, didn’t you? You never loved me, did you? Why did you marry me? Tell me!’
She waved a hand vaguely. How could she answer him? Just then she hardly knew anything.
She had been happy to marry him at the time and she had hoped it would enable her to get away from Grandmorin. There were all sorts of things that you didn’t particularly want to do, but that you did all the same, because they seemed the most sensible at the time. No, she didn’t love him. What she refrained from telling him, though, was that, had it not been for this business with Grandmorin, she would never have agreed to marry him at all.
‘He wanted to fix you up with a husband, didn’t he? And he found a right mug! He wanted to set things up so that he could carry on seeing you! And he has carried on seeing you, hasn’t he? You’ve been there twice. That’s what he wanted you for, wasn’t it?’
Once again she nodded.
‘And that’s why he was inviting you again this time, wasn’t it? You’d have gone on seeing him for ever, you dirty bitch! For ever and ever! I’ll strangle you!’
His hands were already clenched and reaching out to grab her by the throat. At last she managed to find her voice.
‘You’re not being fair,’ she said. ‘I was the one who said I didn’t want to go. It was you who kept on trying to make me — remember? I had to get annoyed with you to make you shut up. I’ve had enough of him. It’s over. Couldn’t you see? It’s finished. I never want anything more to do with him! Never!’
He sensed she was telling the truth, but it gave him no comfort. What had taken place between this man and her could not be altered. It remained, like a dagger planted in his chest, a searing pain that would not go away. He was powerless to undo what had been done, and it was an agony to him. He had still not taken his hands from her. He put his face up to hers, peering into her eyes as if mesmerized, drawn like an insect to probe the truth of her confession from the blood that pulsed through the tiny blue veins. He spoke quietly, as someone in a dream, someone obsessed.
‘At La Croix-de-Maufras! The red bedroom! I remember it. The window looks out on to the railway. The bed’s directly opposite. That’s where he ... No wonder he says he’s going to leave the place to you. You’ve earned it! He got a good bargain, putting your savings into the bank for you and giving you a dowry! A judge, worth millions! So respected! So learned! So high up! I’m not surprised he managed to turn a few heads! But what if it turned out he was your father?
16
Tell me that.’
With an almighty effort Séverine pulled herself to her feet and, despite the pitifully bruised and battered condition she was in, angrily pushed Roubaud away from her.
‘Never!’ she shouted angrily. ‘Never say that! Beat me! Kill me! Do what you like with me! But never say that; it’s a lie!’
Roubaud still held on to her by one hand.
‘You must know something about it,’ he said. ‘You’re only getting so worked up because you think it might be true.’
She pulled her hand away from him and as she did so he felt the ring, the little snake with the ruby head that by now he had completely forgotten about. He tore it from her finger and in a renewed access of fury crushed it with his heel on the floor. He then walked up and down the room, saying nothing, stunned. Séverine collapsed on to the edge of the bed and sat watching him with big, frightened eyes. The terrible silence continued.
Roubaud’s fury had not abated; there would be a brief lull, but each time it came flooding back stronger than ever, as if he were drunk — wave upon wave of anger sweeping through him, making his head reel and leaving him dazed. He was no longer himself. He lashed out wildly at the air around him and lurched blindly about the room, the plaything of the violent storm that assailed him. He was driven by a single overriding need; he must appease the beast that raged within him. It was a physical need, urgent and imperious, like a craving for revenge which racked his body and would allow him no respite until it was sated.
As he paced the length of the room he beat his fists against his head, crying desperately, ‘What am I to do? What am I to do?’
He might have killed her there and then. But he hadn’t, and now the moment had gone. His cowardice at not killing her tormented him even more, for cowardice it was, and he knew it. He still desired her, the bitch; and that was why he hadn’t strangled her. But he couldn’t keep her now. So what was he to do? Send her packing? Throw her out on to the street and tell her never to come back? He realized he couldn’t do even that, and a new wave of revulsion swept over him, a feeling of awful sickness. What could he do? Was he simply to accept what she had told him, go back with her to Le Havre and carry on living the quiet life they’d had before, as if nothing had happened? It was impossible! He would rather he were dead! He would rather they were both dead! Why wait longer?
He was so overcome with the horror of it all that he was shouting louder and louder, like a man who had lost his senses, ‘What am I to do?’
Séverine sat watching him from the bed, her eyes wide with amazement. To her he had never been anything more than a friend, but she had loved him with all the steady, affectionate love that a friend can give. Seeing him now so distraught, she found herself beginning to pity him. She might have forgiven him the abuse and even the beating; but it was the sheer ferocity of his reaction that she could not understand. It left her feeling bewildered. She was by nature a docile, passive person. She was still only a girl when she had submitted to the gratification of an old man’s desire; later she had agreed to be married so that everything might be sorted out. She failed to understand how anyone could be so insanely jealous over little misdeeds that she now regretted with all her heart. There was not an ounce of vice in her; she had not known what it was to be sexually aroused. Despite all that had happened she had remained chaste, and retained some of the blissful naivety of a child. She now watched her husband pacing backwards and forwards and turning furiously about the room, as she might have watched a wolf, or some creature of a different species. What had got into him? She had never seen such anger in a man. What terrified her was the sense of an animal nature, something she had dimly perceived on previous occasions during the three years of their marriage, now unleashed, driven wild and ready to pounce. What could she say to him to prevent some awful catastrophe?
Each time he walked back across the room, he came to the foot of the bed and stood facing her. She waited for him as he came towards her. At last she plucked up her courage and spoke:
‘Love, listen to me ...’
But he didn’t hear her. He kept pacing the room, like a wisp of straw blown about in a gale.
‘What am I to do? What am I to do?’
Eventually she managed to seize his wrist and made him stand still for a moment.
‘Listen to me, love,’ she pleaded. ‘I was the one who didn’t want to go to Doinville. I would never have gone there again. Never! You’re the one I love.’
She spoke softly, trying to calm his temper, drawing him towards her and raising her lips so that he might kiss her. He had fallen on to the bed beside her but he suddenly pushed her away, horrified.
‘So now you want to make love, you bitch! A moment ago you didn’t fancy it; you didn’t want me. And now you do, just so you can say you’ve got me back again! You think I can’t resist it, don’t you! Just because I’m a man! I’d sooner burn in hell! I’d sooner burn in hell, I tell you, than make love to the likes of you!’