Complete Works of Emile Zola (1036 page)

Uttering another frightful oath, he exclaimed:

“You did something wrong! Something wrong! Something wrong!”

As he repeated the words, his rage increased, and he belaboured her with his fists, each time he pronounced them, as if to drive them into her flesh. His voice at last became so thick with anger, that it hissed, and ceased to be intelligible. It was only then that he heard her, quite weak from his blows, saying “No.” She could imagine no other defence. She denied the accusation, so that he might not kill her. And this utterance, this obstinate clinging to the lie, made him completely furious.

“Confess that you did something wrong,” said he.

“No, no!” she answered.

He had caught hold of her again, supporting her in his arms, preventing her from resuming her position with her face against the bed-covering, like some poor creature hiding herself. He forced her to look him in the face.

“Confess that you did something wrong,” he repeated.

But, slipping down, she escaped, and tried to gain the door. In a bound he was upon her again, his fist raised; and furiously, at one blow, near the table, he felled her. He threw himself beside her, he seized her by the hair to nail her to the boards. For an instant they remained thus, on the ground, face to face, without moving. And in the frightful silence, could be heard, ascending from the floor below, the singing and laughter of the young Dauvergnes, whose piano, fortunately, frantically poured forth its notes, stifling the sound of the struggle. It was Claire singing nursery-rhymes, while Sophie accompanied her with all her might.

“Confess that you did something wrong,” said he.

No longer daring to say no, she remained silent.

“Confess that you did something wrong,” he exclaimed with an oath, “or I’ll rip you open!”

He would have killed her; she could see it distinctly in his eyes. In falling, she had perceived the knife, open on the table, and now she fancied she saw the flash of the blade again. She thought he was extending his arm. She was overcome by cowardice, by an abandonment of herself and everything, a necessity to have done with the matter.

“Well, yes,” said she, “it’s true. Let me go.”

What followed was abominable. This avowal, which he had so violently exacted, had just come upon him, point blank, like something impossible and monstrous. It seemed that he could never have imagined such an infamy. He caught hold of her head, and knocked it against a leg of the table. She struggled, and he dragged her across the room by the hair, scattering the chairs.

Each time she made an effort to rise he knocked her back on the floor by a blow from his fist. And he did this panting, with clenched teeth, in savage and senseless fury. The table, thrust away, almost upset the stove. Blood and hair were sticking to a corner of the sideboard. When they recovered breath, stupefied and reeking with this horror, weary of striking and of being struck, they had got close to the bed again; she, still stretched on the floor, he squatting down, holding her by the shoulders. And they had breathing time. Below, the music continued. The laughter rippled away, sonorous, and very youthful.

Roubaud, with a jerk, raised Séverine into a sitting posture, setting her back against the bedstead. Then, still on his knees, weighing down on her shoulders, he could at last speak. He had ceased beating her; he tortured her with questions. She wept. She was so upset that she could not utter a word; and, raising his hand, he half stunned her with a blow from his palm. Three times, at intervals, receiving no answer, he slapped her face. Why should she struggle any longer? She was already half dead. He would have torn out her heart with those horny fingers of a former workman. And so, the cross-examination proceeded, with the threatening fist uplifted, ready to strike if she hesitated in her replies.

All at once he shook her, and inquired with an oath:

“Why did you marry me? Don’t you know it was infamous to deceive me in this manner? There are thieves in prison, who have not half what you have on their conscience. So you despised me? You were not in love with me? Eh! why did you marry me?”

She gave a vague gesture. She did not exactly know, now. She was happy to marry him, hoping to get rid of the other. There are so many things one would rather not do, and which one does, because they are after all the wisest. No, she did not love him; and she carefully avoided telling him that had it not been for this business, never would she have consented to become his wife.

Séverine, by an effort, had risen to her feet. With a vigour that was extraordinary in such a weak, vanquished creature, she had thrust Roubaud from her. And as she freed her hand he felt the ring, the little golden serpent with the ruby head, forgotten on her finger. He tore it off, crushed it beneath his heel in another fit of rage. Then he began striding up and down, from one end of the room to the other, mute and distracted. She sank down, seated at the edge of the bed, staring at him with her great fixed eyes. And a terrible silence ensued.

The fury of Roubaud was not calmed. No sooner did it seem to moderate a little, than it returned at once in great waves of increased volume, which bore him along in their vertiginous flood. No longer under self-control, he struck about in space, a victim to all the gusts of the violent tempest lacerating him, only to awaken to the imperative necessity of appeasing the howling brute within him. It was a physical, an immediate necessity, a thirst for vengeance that wrung his body, and which would leave him no repose until it had been satisfied.

Without stopping in his walk, he struck his temples with his two fists, and he stammered out in a voice of anguish:

“What shall I do?”

As he had not killed this woman at once, he would not kill her now. His cowardice in allowing her to live exasperated his anger, for it was cowardly. It was because he still cared for her that he had not strangled her. Nevertheless, he could not keep her with him, after what he had discovered. Then he would have to drive her out, put her into the street, never to see her again? And at this thought, a fresh flood of suffering overwhelmed him. He experienced an execrable feeling of disgust when he recognised that he would not even do this. What then? It only remained for him to accept the abomination, and to take this woman back to Havre, there to continue to live quietly together, as if nothing had occurred. No, no! Death rather. Death for both of them that very instant! He was stirred with such intense distress that his head seemed to have gone astray, and he cried out louder than before:

“What shall I do?”

 — Séverine, from the bed, where she remained seated, continued following him with her great eyes. She had always felt the calm affection of a comrade for him, and the excessive grief in which she now saw him plunged, aroused her pity. The ugly words and blows she would have excused, if this wild fit of passion had caused her less surprise — a surprise that she had not yet got over. Passive and docile, she had consented to her marriage simply from a desire to settle down, and she was at a loss to understand such an outburst of jealousy about a former error which she repented.

She watched her husband, going and coming, turning furiously round, as she would have watched a wolf, or an animal of some other species. What was the matter with him? There were so many husbands without anger. The thing that terrified her was to perceive the brute, whose presence she had suspected for three years, from certain sullen growls, at this moment unchained, mad and ready to bite. What could she say to him to avert a misfortune?

At each turn he came near the bed before her. She awaited him there, and had sufficient courage to address him.

“My dear, listen,” said she.

But he heard not. He went back to the other end of the room, like a bit of straw beaten about in a storm.

“What shall I do? What shall I do?” he continued asking.

At last she seized him by the wrist, and retained him a minute.

“My dear, listen,” she said. “You know it was I who refused to go to Doinville. I should never have gone there again. Never!. Never! It is you I love.”

“Look here,” he answered, “if I am to live, I must kill the other! I must kill him! — kill him!”

His voice rose louder. He repeated the word, erect, grown taller, as if this utterance, in bringing him to a resolution, also brought him calm. He ceased speaking. He walked slowly to the table, and there, with a gesture of indifference looked at the knife, whose shimmering blade was wide open. He closed, and put it in his pocket. Then, with his arms swinging at his sides, his eyes lost in space, he remained at the same place thinking. Obstacles that presented themselves to some plan he was elaborating in his brain, caused two great wrinkles to appear on his forehead. To get the better of his difficulty, he went and opened the window, standing before it with his face in the chilly air of twilight. His wife in another fright stood up behind him; and, not daring to question him, waited with her face to the expansive sky, endeavouring to guess what was passing in that hard skull.

In the falling shades of night, the distant houses stood out black, and a violescent mist clouded the vast site of the station. The deep cutting seemed as if smothered in dust, particularly in the direction of Batignolles, and the ironwork of the Pont de l’Europe began to fade away. Towards Paris a final gleam of daylight whitened the windows of the great iron marquees, but within they became densely obscure. Suddenly one saw a glitter of sparks. The men were lighting the gas-lamps along the platforms. Here a great white spot was formed by the lantern on the engine of the Dieppe train, crowded with passengers. The doors of the compartments were already closed, and the driver only awaited the order of the assistant station-master on duty, to start. But some hindrance had occurred. The red signal of the pointsman closed the line, while a small locomotive came and picked up a few carriages, which a defective manoeuvre had left behind.

Trains flew along without intermission, in the increasing darkness, over the complicated network of rails, threading their way through lines of carriages standing motionless on sidings. One started for Argenteuil, another for Saint Germain. A very long train arrived from Cherbourg. Signals succeeded one another, accompanied by whistles and blasts of the horn. Lights appeared on every side, one by one: red, green, yellow, white. There seemed to be a regular confusion at this troubled hour when day glides into night, and it looked as if a tremendous smash would ensue. But everything passed on. The trains brushed by each other, detaching themselves from the entanglement, in a smooth, creeping motion that could only be perceived indistinctly in the deep crepuscule. But the red light of the pointsman was effaced, the Dieppe train blew its whistle, and rolled off. A few drops of rain began to fall from the wan sky. It was going to be a wet night.

When Roubaud turned round, it was with a face cloudy and obstinate, as if overcast by the shadow of this night that was drawing in. He had made up his mind. His plan was formed. In the vanishing darkness, he looked at the cuckoo clock, and exclaimed aloud:

“Twenty minutes past five!”

He was astounded; one hour, barely one hour, and so much to do! It seemed to him that they had been devouring one another there for weeks.

“Twenty minutes past five!” he muttered. “We shall have enough time.”

Séverine, without daring to ask a question, continued following him with her anxious eyes. She saw him rummage in the cupboard, and bring out some notepaper, a small bottle of ink, and a pen.

“What!” she exclaimed. “Are you going to write a letter? To whom?”

“To him. Sit down.”

And, as she instinctively drew away from the chair, ignoring as yet what he was about to exact from her, he brought her back, and weighed her down so heavily as he seated her at table, that she remained there.

Write this: ‘Leave to-night by the 6.30 express, and do not show yourself before you arrive at Rouen.’” She held the pen, but her hand trembled. Her fright increased at the thought of all the unknown gaping before her in those two simple lines. And she had the courage to raise her head, and say in a pleading tone:

“What are you going to do, my dear? I beg you to tell me.”

He only repeated, in his loud, inexorable voice:

“Write, write!”

Then, with his eyes on her eyes, without anger, without ugly words, but with such obstinacy that she felt the weight crushing and annihilating her, he answered:

“What I am going to do, you will see, well enough. And listen, what I am going to do, I mean you to do with me. In that way we shall remain together. There will be something binding between us.”

He terrified her. She drew back again.

“No, no; I want to know!” she exclaimed. “I will not write without knowing.”

Then, ceasing to speak, he took her hand — the small, delicate hand of a child, and pressed it in his iron fist, with the continuous pressure of a vice, until he almost crushed it. He was driving his will into her flesh with the pain. She uttered a cry. All her spirit was broken, all her will surrendered. Ignorant creature as she had remained, in her passive gentleness, she could but obey. Instrument of love, instrument of death.

“Write, write!” he repeated again.

And she wrote painfully, with her poor, sore hand.

“That’s all right; you are very good,” said he, when he had the letter. “Now tidy the place up a bit, and get everything ready. I’ll come back and fetch you.”

He was quite calm. He arranged the bow of his tie before the looking-glass, put on his hat, and took himself off. She heard him double-lock the door, and remove the key. Night was drawing in more and more. For an instant she remained seated, her ear catching every sound outside. A continual, low whine came from the adjoining room in occupation of the newspaper woman: no doubt a little dog forgotten by its mistress. Below, in the apartment of the Dauvergnes, the piano had become silent. There was now a merry clatter of stewpans and crockery. The two little housekeepers were busy in their kitchen, Claire looking after a mutton stew, Sophie picking a salad. And Séverine, prostrated, listened to their laughter in the frightful distress of this falling night.