The Beast Within (55 page)

Jacques was surprised to see that Misard seemed no different. So it was possible to kill, without any fuss, and continue one’s life as before. Indeed, after his initial bout of frantic searching for the money, Misard had slipped back into his old apathetic ways, keeping himself to himself, like someone who didn’t want to be disturbed. In the end, he had done away with his wife to no purpose; she was the winner and he was the loser. He turned the house upside down and still found nothing, not a single centime. Only his eyes revealed his constant preoccupation — worried, prying eyes that peered at you from an ashen face. He continually saw the dead woman’s large, staring eyes and hideous grin and heard her voice telling him to ‘Keep looking!’ He looked and looked; he could not give his mind a moment’s rest. He racked his brains ceaselessly, trying to guess where the money might be buried, thinking of possible hiding places, eliminating those he had already tried and getting so excited when he thought of a new one that he would immediately drop whatever he was doing and run to see. But all to no avail! It became unbearable, an agonizing retribution, a kind of cerebral insomnia that kept his addled brain alert and thinking, in spite of himself, as the obsession ticked steadily away inside his head. When he sounded his horn, once for down trains and twice for up trains, he was searching. When he answered the bells in his cabin and pushed the buttons on his control panel to block or clear the line, he was still searching. He never stopped searching, searching desperately, all day long as he sat at his desk doing nothing, and all through the night, hardly able to stay awake, alone in the darkness and silence of the countryside, like an exile banished to the far ends of the earth. Old Madame Ducloux, who for the time being was looking after the level-crossing and who was very keen to find herself a husband, looked after him most solicitously and was very worried that he never seemed to close his eyes.

One night, Jacques, who by now was able to take a few steps around his bedroom, had got up and walked over to the window, when he saw a lamp moving in and out of the Misards’ cottage. It must have been Misard looking for the money! The following night, as he was looking out of the window again, he saw a tall dark shape standing in the road, under the window of the room next to his, in which Séverine slept. To his amazement he saw that it was Cabuche. He didn’t know why, but instead of feeling annoyed it made him feel sad and rather sorry for him. Poor Cabuche! A clumsy great fellow like him, stuck out there in the dark like a tame watchdog! Séverine was such a small girl, and, objectively speaking, not exactly pretty, yet with her jet-black hair and her periwinkle blue eyes, she obviously possessed the sort of charm that could captivate even a great oaf like Cabuche and make him stand at her door all night long, like a frightened little boy. He recalled his eagerness to do jobs for her, the slavish looks he gave her when he offered to help her. There was no doubt about it, Cabuche was in love with her and desired her. The next day he watched him carefully and saw him surreptitiously pick up a hairpin that had fallen from her chignon while she had been making the bed. He hid it in his hand so as not to have to give it back to her. Jacques thought of all the agonies he had suffered as a result of his own sexual desires and how his troubles and fears were coming back as his health returned.

Another two days went by. The week was nearly over, and, as the doctor had predicted, the injured were ready to go back to work. One morning, Jacques was standing at the window when he saw a brand new locomotive go past with his fireman, Pecqueux, waving to him from the footplate as if he were telling him to come and join him. But he was in no hurry to get back to his job. He preferred to stay where he was and wait for things to take their course. On the same day he once again heard peals of fresh, young laughter from downstairs, sounds of girlish merriment that echoed through the dismal house like the noise of a school at playtime. He knew it was the two young Dauvergne girls but he didn’t speak about it to Séverine. Séverine, in fact, was out of the room for most of the day and didn’t seem able to stay with him for more than five minutes. Then in the evening, the house once again became as silent as the grave. She sat in his room looking rather pale and serious. Jacques looked hard at her and asked, ‘Has Henri gone? Have his sisters taken him home?’

‘Yes,’ she answered tersely.

‘So are we alone at last? Just you and me?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘just you and me. Tomorrow we must part. I shall go back to Le Havre. We can’t stay camping out in this wilderness for ever.’

Jacques continued to look at her, smiling awkwardly.

‘You’re sorry he’s left, aren’t you?’ he said suddenly.

The question took her by surprise, and she started to deny it, but he stopped her.

‘I’m not trying to pick a quarrel with you,’ he said. ‘You can see I’m not jealous. You once told me to kill you if you were unfaithful, didn’t you? Well, I don’t think I look like a lover who is thinking of killing his mistress ... but you hardly moved from that room downstairs. I couldn’t have you to myself for a minute. It reminded me of what your husband once told me. He said that one of these days you would sleep with Dauvergne. Not for pleasure, but just to do something different.’

‘Something different, something different,’ she repeated slowly.

She had stopped trying to protest her innocence; she suddenly felt impelled to be completely honest with him.

‘All right,’ she said, ‘it’s true. You and I don’t need to hide anything from each other; we share too many secrets already ... Dauvergne has been after me for months. He knew that we were lovers, and thought it would make no difference to me if I was his lover too. When I was with him downstairs, he spoke about it again and said he was head over heels in love with me. He seemed so grateful to me for looking after him and he was so tender and affectionate that, yes, for a moment I thought I might fall in love with him too, do something different, something better, something quiet and gentle ... not exactly pleasure perhaps, but something that would have calmed me ...’

She broke off, and paused for a moment before continuing.

‘You and I have no future,’ she said. ‘We can go no further. We’re stuck. All our dreams of sailing away and being rich and happy in America, that wonderful future which depended on you ... it’s all gone, because you couldn’t do it ... I’m not blaming you Jacques ... perhaps it’s just as well it never happened ... but you must understand that there’s nothing more I can hope for from you. Tomorrow will be no different from yesterday ... there will be the same problems, the same anxieties.’

Jacques let her talk, only speaking when he saw that she had finished.

‘Is that why you slept with him?’ he asked.

She had moved across the bedroom, but came back towards him.

‘I didn’t sleep with him,’ she said, with a shrug of her shoulders. ‘I don’t have to try and convince you because I know you will believe me; there’s no point in our lying to each other. No, I couldn’t bring myself to do it ... any more than you could bring yourself to kill Roubaud. Does it surprise you that a woman can’t give herself to a man, even when she decides that, all things considered, it would be in her interest to do so? I didn’t really give it too much thought. It has never cost me anything to be nice ... to give pleasure, I mean ... to my husband, or to you when I saw how much you loved me. But this time I couldn’t do it. I didn’t even let him kiss me on the lips, I promise you. He just kissed my hands. He’ll be waiting for me in Paris; he seemed so disappointed that I didn’t want to leave him thinking he had no hope.’

Jacques believed her. She was right; he could tell she wasn’t lying. But his anxiety was beginning to return. He felt the terrifying curse of his desire stirring within him as he thought of himself alone with her in that isolated house, with the flame of their passion rekindled. He wished he could get away.

‘But there’s someone else as well,’ he exclaimed. ‘There’s Cabuche!’

She turned towards him.

‘Ah! You’ve noticed,’ she said. ‘You’ve noticed that too. Yes, it’s true. There’s Cabuche. What’s the matter with all these men! Cabuche hasn’t said a word to me, but I’ve seen him wringing his hands together when we kiss. When I sit close to you and take your hand, he runs away and cries. He steals my belongings ... gloves, handkerchiefs ... they keep disappearing. He carries them off to his hovel, as trophies ... Surely you don’t imagine I could give myself to an overgrown brute like him; I’d be terrified. Anyway, he hasn’t said a thing ... big chaps like him are sometimes very shy; they might be desperately in love, but they don’t demand a thing. You could leave me alone with him for a month, and he wouldn’t as much as touch me ... any more than he did Louisette; of that I am now quite certain.’

At this reminder of the past their eyes met, and they looked at each other in silence, remembering all that had happened between them — their meeting at the examining magistrate’s office in Rouen, their first magical trip to Paris, their secret lovers’ meetings in Le Havre, and all that had occurred since, both the good and the bad. She drew close to him, so close that he could feel the warmth of her breath.

‘No,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t give myself to Henri, and I certainly couldn’t give myself to Cabuche. I couldn’t give myself to anyone ... And do you know why? I’ll tell you, because now I know, and I know I’m right. It’s because you have taken me ... taken all of me. What other word is there? You have taken me, like something you seize in both hands and carry away and use every minute of the day, a possession. Before you, I hadn’t belonged to anyone. But now I’m yours, and I’ll be yours for ever ... even if you don’t want me to be, and even if I don’t want to be either ... I don’t know how to explain it. It was simply the way we met. Other men frightened me ... disgusted me. But with you it has been wonderful, a blessing from heaven ... Jacques, you are the only one I love. I can never love anyone but you!’

She put out her arms to draw him towards her and was about to lay her head on his shoulder and offer her lips to his. But he took hold of her hands and held her away from him, panic-stricken and terrified, as he felt the old familiar tremor run through his body and the blood pulsing through his brain. He heard the same ringing in his ears, the same pounding and clamouring in his head as when he had his terrible attacks as a youth. For some time already, he had been unable to make love to Séverine in broad daylight or even by the light of a candle for fear that the mere sight of her might drive him mad. But now there was a lamp beside the bed, shining brightly on both of them, and the reason he was shaking and becoming so agitated was no doubt because he had glimpsed the white curve of her breasts, through the unfastened top of her dressing-gown.

Séverine continued to entreat him, with ever-increasing passion.

‘What does it matter if we have no future together? Even if I don’t expect you to change my life and I know that tomorrow will bring us the same problems and torments as before, I don’t care. I want nothing more than to live out my life and to share my suffering with you. We’ll go back to Le Havre. Things can carry on as they like. If only I can be with you for an hour from time to time, like this ... I haven’t slept for three nights. I’ve been lying in my room across the landing, longing to come and join you. But you’ve been so ill and you seemed so unhappy that I didn’t dare ... Let me stay with you tonight. It will be lovely, I promise you. I’ll curl up small so as not to disturb you. It’s the last night we shall be here ... in this house, away from everything. Listen! Not a sound! Nothing! No one will come. We’re on our own ... completely on our own. No one would know if we died in each other’s arms.’

Jacques, aroused by her caresses and his furious desire to possess her, having no weapon, stretched out his hands to strangle her, when Séverine, from force of habit, turned and put out the lamp. He took her in his arms and carried her to the bed. It was one of their most passionate nights of love ... a night like no other ... the only time they had ever been truly as one, lost in each other. Their pleasure left them exhausted and so drained of strength that they lost all feeling in their bodies. They lay tight in each other’s arms, but they did not sleep. As on the night Séverine had confessed her secret to him in Madame Victoire’s room in Paris, Jacques listened without speaking as she whispered softly into his ear. Perhaps that night, before putting out the lamp, she had sensed death brush past her. Until that day, she had lain in her lover’s arms quite happily, oblivious to the ever-present threat of being murdered. But a little shiver of death had run through her; a fear she could not explain made her press herself against him, seeking protection. As she lay beside him, breathing gently, it was as if she were surrendering her soul to him.

‘Oh, my darling, if only you had been able to do it, how happy we would have been in America! I’m not asking you again to do something you cannot do. But it was such a beautiful dream! Just a moment ago I felt frightened. I don’t know why. I feel as if something is threatening me. It’s childish, I know. I keep looking behind me, as if there were someone there, about to strike me down... You’re the only one who can look after me, darling. My happiness depends on you. You are my only reason for living.’

Without answering, he held her closer, expressing in his embrace what he could not say in words — all his unspoken feelings, his genuine desire to be good to her, the deep love she had always inspired in him. Yet earlier that evening he had wanted to kill her. If she had not turned to put out the light, he would certainly have strangled her. He would never be cured. His attacks were dictated by circumstance; he would never know or even begin to understand what caused them. Why had it happened that evening, when he had discovered how faithful she was to him, how open and trusting? Was it that the more she loved him, the more he sought to imprison her in the dark confines of his male egoism, even if it meant destroying her? He wanted to possess her, dead, like a handful of dust!