He shuddered. The thought of possessing her, the thought of their two bodies falling together on to the bed seared into his brain. From somewhere in the troubled darkness of his flesh, from deep down amidst the stirrings of his wounded desire, there came the sudden, irresistible urge to kill.
‘I must kill him,’ he said. ‘I can’t sleep with you again, until I’ve killed him, do you hear. I must kill him! Kill him! Kill him!’
His voice became louder and louder. He stood up, saying it again and again. He felt himself grown in stature; it was as if, by simply repeating the words to himself, he had regained his composure and strengthened his resolve. Without a word he walked slowly over to the table and looked down at the knife, its blade open, shining. He picked it up mechanically, closed it and put it into his pocket. He stood there, his hands hanging loosely at his sides, a faraway look in his eyes, lost in thought. It would not be easy. Two deep lines furrowed his brow as he pondered the difficulties that lay ahead. To help himself think more clearly, he walked over to the window, opened it and stood with his face to the cool evening air. His wife had got up from the bed and had come to stand behind him. A new fear had taken hold of her. She did not dare speak to him and she waited, looking out at the broad sweep of sky and trying to guess what desperate schemes were taking shape inside his head.
As night began to fall, the distant houses stood out as dark silhouettes; a purplish mist settled over the huge expanse of the railway station below them. The deep cutting that led out towards Batignolles lay sunk beneath swirling clouds of ash which drifted up between the girders of the Pont de l’Europe. From the sky above Paris a last pale glimmer of daylight fell on to the glass roofs of the great train sheds. Inside the station all was shrouded in dark. Along the platforms, little points of light pierced the gloom as the gas lamps were lit. A beam of light shone from the headlamp of the train for Dieppe, crammed with passengers, all its doors closed, waiting for the traffic manager to give the right-away. There was a problem in getting the train off on time; the starting signal still showed red. The train had to be held in the station while a small locomotive came to clear some carriages that had accidentally come adrift in a shunting operation. In the gathering darkness, an endless stream of trains picked its way through the intricate network of lines between rows of carriages that stood waiting in the sidings. A train left for Argenteuil, followed by another for Saint-Germain. A train arrived from Cherbourg — a very long train. Signals were continually changing, engines blew their whistles, shunters sounded their horns; everywhere you looked there were lights — red lights, green lights, amber lights, white lights — a scene of utter confusion in the lurid glow of the departing day. It seemed that the trains were all going to collide with each other, but they found their way through, sometimes running close together side by side and then going their separate ways, all with the same smooth, snake-like movement, before they disappeared from view in the gathering darkness. The train for Dieppe was finally given the all clear; it blew its whistle and began to move out of the station. A few spots of rain had begun to fall; it was going to be a wet night.
Roubaud turned away from the window. There was a dark, determined look in his eyes. It was as if the approaching night had forced its way inside him. He had decided; his plan was made. The light was fading fast; he looked at the cuckoo clock to see the time.
‘Twenty past five,’ he said aloud.
He was amazed. One hour! Even less than that! So much had happened! It seemed as though they had been in that room, locked in mortal combat, for weeks.
‘Twenty past five,’ he repeated. ‘We still have time.’
Séverine did not dare ask him what he was going to do. She watched him anxiously as he felt inside the cupboard, eventually taking out a sheet of writing paper, a small bottle of ink and a pen.
‘You’re going to write a letter,’ he said.
‘Who to?’ she asked.
‘To him,’ he replied. ‘Come and sit down.’
She instinctively backed away from the chair, even though she still wasn’t sure what he wanted her to do. But he pulled her forwards and sat her down at the table with such force that she dared not move.
‘Write this,’ he said. “‘Take the 6.30 express this evening and make sure you’re not seen until we get to Rouen.”’
She had the pen in her hand, but her hand was shaking. A wave of fear ran through her at the premonition of unknown horrors that these few simple words evoked. She raised her eyes from the table and looked at him, imploringly.
‘What are you going to do?’ she said. ‘Tell me, love! I beg you!’
‘Write!’ he said. ‘Write!’
His voice was harsh, inexorable. He looked her straight in the eyes, calmly and quietly, but so purposefully that she felt crushed, reduced to nothing.
‘You’ll see what I’m going to do,’ he said. ‘You’ll see because you’re going to do it with me. It’s something we can share. Something that will keep us together. Something no one can ever take away from us.’
He terrified her. She drew back.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to know. I’m not writing anything until I know.’
Without saying a word, he took hold of her hand, a child’s hand, small, fragile; he gripped it as if in a vice, with a grip of iron, until she felt her hand was about to break. A violent pain ran through her as if his very will were boring its way into her flesh. She let out a cry. Something seemed to snap inside her; she had surrendered herself to him. This passive, sweet-natured, innocent woman could do nothing but obey. The instrument of love had become the instrument of death.
‘Write!’ he said. ‘Write!’
She wrote. Her hand hurt terribly, and she could hardly direct the pen.
‘Good,’ he said, when he had the letter in his hands. ‘It’s just right. I’m going out for a bit. You can tidy up here while I’m gone and get our things ready. I’ll be back for you later.’
He was now perfectly calm. He stood in front of the mirror and straightened his tie. Then he put on his hat and left. She heard him turn the door key twice and take it from the lock. It was getting darker and darker. She remained seated at the table, listening to the sounds from outside. From the room next door, where the woman from the newspaper kiosk lived, there came a continuous, low whining — a dog, no doubt, that she had forgotten to let out. In the room downstairs, the piano had stopped playing. All that could now be heard was the cheerful clatter of saucepans and dinner plates; the two young housewives were busy in their kitchen, Claire preparing a mutton stew and Sophie getting a salad ready. Séverine sat there exhausted, listening to their happy laughter, her heart aching, as the darkness gathered around her.
At a quarter past six sharp, the locomotive for the Le Havre express emerged from beneath the Pont de l’Europe, backed to its train and was coupled up. Because of the unusual amount of traffic there was not room to bring the train in under the covered roof of the mainline station, and it was waiting under the open sky alongside the platform, which extended like a narrow jetty out into the inky blackness of the night. A line of gas lamps ran along it like a string of little smoky stars. It had just stopped raining, and there was a cold, damp chill in the air. A mist had gathered. Through it, across the vast, open space beyond, could be seen the little pale lights of the houses in the Rue de Rome. There was a sombre grandeur about it all. Everything was still wet from the rain; here and there a red light pierced the night like a splash of blood; dark shapes loomed out of the mist — locomotives, freight wagons and rows of empty carriages waiting in the sidings. From the depths of this lake of darkness there emerged sounds — giant gasps of breath like someone dying of a fever, sudden sharp whistles like the screams of women being violated, the dismal wailing of horns and the rumble of traffic in the nearby streets. Someone was shouting orders to attach another carriage to the train. The locomotive waiting at the head of the express released a great jet of steam from its safety valve, which rose high into the night sky and dispersed as tiny flecks of cloud drifting like white tears across the funereal blackness that draped the heavens.
At twenty past six Roubaud and Séverine appeared on the platform. Séverine had just taken the key back to Madame Victoire on her way past the lavatories next to the waiting rooms. Roubaud was pushing her forward like the typical husband in a hurry whose wife has kept him waiting, he brusque and impatient with his hat pushed back, she holding her hat-veil tightly to her face and walking more hesitantly, as if about to faint with weariness. A stream of passengers was making its way up the platform. The couple joined the crowd and walked along the train looking for an empty first-class compartment. All around them people were hurriedly trying to get things ready for the train to leave; porters were wheeling barrows of luggage up to the luggage van at the front; one of the inspectors was trying to find a compartment for a large family; the assistant traffic manager was checking the couplings, shining his signal lamp down between the carriages to make sure that they were all in place and the screws properly tightened.
17
Roubaud eventually found an empty compartment and was about to help Séverine get into it when he was spotted by the stationmaster, Monsieur Vandorpe, who happened to be walking past with his assistant for the mainline section, Monsieur Dauvergne, both of them with their hands behind their backs, watching the preparations for attaching the extra carriage to the train. They exchanged greetings and felt obliged to stop and chat.
The two men were keen to know about Roubaud’s brush with the Sub-Prefect. He assured them that everything had been sorted out and that the matter was now closed. They told him that there had been an accident at Le Havre that morning; it had come through on the telegraph. Apparently one of the locomotives that worked the 6.30 express on Thursdays and Saturdays, a locomotive named
La Lison,
had broken a coupling-rod just as it was coming into the station. It was being repaired, but the engine driver, Jacques Lantier, who came from the same part of the world as Roubaud, and his fireman, Pecqueux, Madame Victoire’s husband, would both be stuck in Le Havre for the next two days. Séverine stood waiting by the open door of the compartment while her husband affected a show of high spirits, laughing and joking with his two colleagues. Suddenly the train moved backwards several metres with a violent jolt, as the engine reversed the leading carriages on to the one that was being added, carriage number 293. It had a coupé compartment
18
that had been individually reserved. Dauvergne’s son, Henri, who was travelling on the train as one of the guards, had recognized Séverine through her veil and had quickly pulled her to one side to stop her being hit by the open door. He smiled and offered a polite apology. He told her that the private compartment was for one of the directors of the railway company, who had ordered it only half an hour before the train was due to leave. For no apparent reason she gave a nervous little laugh. Henri dashed off to see to the train, delighted to have met Séverine; more than once he had thought what a lovely woman she would be to have as a mistress.
The station clock said six twenty-seven. Three more minutes! Suddenly Roubaud, who had been keeping a careful eye on the waiting-room doors all the time he had been chatting with the stationmaster, turned on his heels and went to rejoin his wife. But the carriage had moved, and their compartment was now a few steps further down the platform. Roubaud turned round, pushed his wife forward and, taking her by the wrist, helped her to climb into the train. Powerless to resist, Séverine kept looking anxiously over her shoulder; there was something happening, and she wanted to know what it was. It was a passenger, arriving at the last minute and carrying only a travelling rug. He was wearing a heavy, blue overcoat with the collar turned up, and his hat pulled down over his eyes. All that could be seen of his face, in the flickering light of the gas lamps, was a few wisps of white beard. Monsieur Vandorpe and Monsieur Dauvergne, despite the latecomer’s all too obvious wish not to be seen, had moved forward to greet him. They followed him as he walked along the train. He only acknowledged them when they had passed three carriages and arrived in front of the reserved compartment. He opened the door and quickly got in. Séverine had recognized him and was shaking uncontrollably. She collapsed on to the carriage seat. Roubaud seized her by the arm, tightening his grip in a final triumphant gesture of possession. He now knew that the deed would be done.
In one minute the station clock would sound the half hour. A newsvendor was valiantly trying to persuade people to buy his last remaining copies of the evening paper; a few passengers still stood on the platform, finishing their cigarettes. All of a sudden everyone got into the train. Two inspectors walked along it from each end, closing the doors with a bang. Roubaud, thinking he had chosen a compartment that was empty, discovered to his annoyance that one of the window-seats was occupied by a person dressed in black, who sat there and neither moved nor spoke; he assumed it was a woman in mourning. To make matters worse, the carriage door was suddenly flung open again, and two more passengers were bundled into the compartment, a fat man and his equally fat wife, who collapsed on to the seat, breathless. Roubaud swore to himself angrily. The train was ready to leave. A fine drizzle had begun to fall. Trains continued to thread their way through the rain-swept night; all that could be seen were moving rows of lights from the carriage windows. Green lights shone through the gloom; here and there a lineman’s lamp bobbed and curtsied close to the ground. All else was darkness, a vast impenetrable darkness, save for the two train sheds of the mainline station, illumined by the pallid glow from the gas lamps. Darkness engulfed everything; sounds faded to nothing. Suddenly the air was rent by a great gush of steam from the locomotive, as the cylinder taps were opened. White clouds swirled up into the sky, unfolding like the shroud of some ghastly apparition, and shot through with dark streaks of smoke. Once again, a cloud of soot drifted across the Paris sky, reddened by the fiery glow from the engine below.