Complete Works of Emile Zola (1055 page)

He was not a thief. He would sooner die of hunger within arms’ reach of the treasure, as he said, than profit by a centime, or sell the watch. The money of this old man, to whom he had dealt out justice — money, stained with infamy and blood? No! no! it was not clean enough for an honest man to finger. And he did not even give a thought to the house at La Croix-de-Maufras, which he had accepted as a present. The act of plundering the victim, of carrying off those notes in the abomination of murder, alone revolted him and aroused his conscience to the pitch of making him start back in fright at the idea of touching the ill-gotten gain.

Nevertheless, he had not had the courage to burn the notes; and then, one night, to go and cast watch and purse in the sea. If simple prudence urged him to act thus, inexorable instinct protested against the destruction. Unconsciously, he felt respect for such a large sum of money, and he could never have made up his mind to annihilate it. At the commencement, on the first night, he had thrust it under his pillow, considering no other place sufficiently secure. On the following days, he had exerted his ingenuity to discover hiding-places, changing them each morning, agitated at the least sound, in fear of the police arriving with a search-warrant. Never had he displayed so much imagination.

At last, at the end of artifices, weary of trembling, he one day had the coolness to take the money and watch, hidden the previous evening under the paquetry; and, now, for nothing in the world would he put his hand there. It was like a charnel house, a hole pregnant with terror and death, where spectres awaited him. He even avoided, when moving about the room, to place his feet on that part of the floor. The idea of doing so, caused him an unpleasant sensation, made him fancy he would receive a slight shock in the legs.

When Séverine sat down before the window in the afternoon, she would draw back her chair so as not to be exactly over this skeleton which they kept under their floor. They never spoke of the matter to one another, endeavouring to think they would get accustomed to it; and, at length, they became irritable at remembering’ the thing again, at feeling it there at every hour, more and more importunate, beneath the soles of their boots. And this uncomfortable sensation was all the more singular, as they in no way suffered from the knife, the beautiful new knife purchased by the wife, and which the husband had stuck into the throat of the sweetheart. It had been simply washed, and lay in a drawer. Sometimes Mother Simon used it to cut the bread.

Amidst the peacefulness in which they were living, Roubaud had just introduced another cause of trouble, which was slowly gaining ground, by forcing Jacques to visit them. The duties of the engine-driver brought him three times a week to Havre. On Monday, from 10.35 in morning, to 6.20 at night. On Thursday and Saturday, from 11.5 at night, to 6.40 — in the morning. And on the first Monday after the journey Séverine had made to Paris, the assistant station-master displayed effusive affability towards him.

“Come, comrade,” said he, “you cannot refuse to have a snack with us. The deuce! you were very obliging to my wife, and I owe you some thanks!”

Twice in a month, Jacques had thus accepted an invitation to lunch. It seemed that Roubaud, inconvenienced at the long silence that now prevailed when he met his wife at table, felt a relief as soon as he could place a guest between them. He at once recalled amusing anecdotes, chatted and joked.

“Come as often as possible,” said he; “you can see you are not in the way.”

One Thursday night, as Jacques, who had washed himself, was thinking of going off to bed, he met the assistant station-master strolling round the depot; and, notwithstanding the late hour, the latter, disinclined to walk back alone, persuaded the young man to accompany him to the station. Once there he insisted on taking him to his rooms. Séverine was still up, and reading. They drank a glass or two together, and played cards until after midnight.

Henceforth the luncheons on Monday, and the little evening parties on Thursday and Saturday, became a habit.

It was Roubaud, himself, when the comrade once missed a day, who kept a look-out for him, and brought him home, reproaching him with his neglect. But he became more and more gloomy, and it was only in the company of his new friend that he was really in good spirits. This man, who had first of all so cruelly alarmed him, whom he should now have held in execration as the witness — the living vision of things he wished to forget — had, on the contrary, become necessary to him, perhaps for the simple reason that he knew what had occurred, and had not spoken. This position took the form of a powerful bond, a sort of complicity between them. The assistant station-master had often looked at the other in a knowing way, pressing his hand with a sudden burst of feeling, and with a violence that surpassed the simple expression of good fellowship.

But it was particularly at home that Jacques became a source of diversion. There, Séverine also welcomed him with gaiety, uttering an exclamation as soon as he entered, like a woman bestirred by a thrill of pleasure. She put aside everything — her embroidery, her book, escaping from the gloomy somnolence, in which she passed her time, in a torrent of words and laughter.

“Ah! how nice of you to have come! I heard the express, and thought of you,” she would say.

When he lunched there, it was a fête. She had already learnt his tastes, and went out herself for fresh eggs. And she did this in a very nice way, like a good housewife who welcomes the friend of the family, without giving him any cause to attribute her actions to aught else than a desire to be agreeable, and divert herself.

“Come again on Monday, you know,” said she. “We shall have cream.”

Only, when at the end of the month, he had made himself at home there, the separation between the Roubauds became more pronounced. Jacques certainly assisted to bring about this informal divorce by his presence, which drew them from the gloom into which they had fallen. He delivered both of them.

Roubaud had no remorse. He had only been afraid of the consequences, before the case was shelved, and his greatest anxiety had been the dread of losing his place. At present, he felt no regret. Perhaps, though, had he to do the business over again, he would not make his wife take a part in it. Women lose their spirit at once. His wife was escaping from him, because he had placed on her shoulders, a load too heavy to bear. He would have remained the master, had he not descended with her to the terrifying and quarrelsome comradeship of crime.

But this was how things were, and it became imperative to put up with them; the more so, as he had to make a regular effort, to place himself again in the same frame of mind, as when, after the confession, he had considered the murder necessary to his existence. It seemed to him, at that time, that if he had not killed this man, he would not have been able to live. At present, his jealous flame having died out, himself freed from the intolerable burn, assailed by a feeling of torpidity, as if the blood of his heart had become thickened by all the blood he had spilt, the necessity for the murder did not appear to him so evident.

He had come to the pass of inquiring of himself, whether killing was really worth the trouble. This was not repentance; it was at most a disillusion, the idea that people often do things they would not own to, in order to become happy, without being any the more so. He, usually so talkative, fell into prolonged spells of silence, into confused reflections, from which he issued more gloomy than before. Every day, now, to avoid remaining face to face with his wife, after the meals, he went on the roof and seated himself on the gable. There, in the breeze from the offing, soothing himself in vague dreams, he smoked his pipe, gazing beyond the city at the steamers disappearing on the horizon, bound to distant seas.

But one evening, Roubaud felt a revival of that savage jealousy of former times. He had been to find Jacques at the depot, and was bringing him up to his rooms to take a dram, when he met Henri Dauvergne, the headguard, coming down the staircase. The latter appeared confused, and explained that he had been to see Madame Roubaud on an errand confided to him by his sisters. The truth was that for some time past, he had been running after Séverine, to make love to her.

The assistant station-master violently addressed his wife at the door.

“What did that fellow come up again about?” he roughly inquired. “You know that he plagues me!”

“But, my dear, it was for a pattern of embroidery,” she answered.

“Embroidery, indeed!” he rejoined. “I’ll give him embroidery! Do you think I’m such a fool as not to understand what he comes here for? And as to you, take care!” He advanced towards her, his fists clenched, and she stepped back, white as a sheet, astonished at the violence of this anger, in the state of calm indifference for one another, in which they lived. But he was already recovering his self-possession, and, addressing his companion, he said:

“Whoever heard of such a thing? Fellows who tumble into your home with the idea that your wife will immediately fall into their arms, and that the husband, very much flattered, will shut his eyes! It makes my blood boil. Look here, if such a thing did happen, I would strangle my wife, oh! on the spot! And this young gentleman had better not show his face here again, or I’ll settle his business for him. Isn’t it disgusting?”

Jacques, who felt very uncomfortable at the scene, hardly knew how to look. Was this exaggerated anger intended for him? Was the husband giving him a warning? He felt more at ease when the latter gaily resumed:

“As to you, I know you would very soon fling him out at the door. No matter. Séverine, bring us something to drink out of. Jacques, touch glasses with us.”

He patted Jacques on the shoulder, and Séverine, who had also recovered, smiled at the two men. Then they all drank together, and passed a very pleasant hour.

It was thus that Roubaud brought his wife and comrade together, with an air of good friendship, and without seeming to think of the possible consequences. This outburst of jealousy became the very cause of a closer intimacy, and of a great deal of secret tenderness, strengthened by outpourings of the heart, between Jacques and Séverine. For, having seen her again two days after this scene, he expressed his pity that she should have been the object of such brutal treatment; while she, with eyes bathed in tears, confessed, with an involuntary overflow of grief, what little happiness she met with in her home.

From that moment, they had found a subject of conversation for themselves alone, a complicity of friendship wherein they ended by understanding one another at a sign. At each visit, he questioned her with his eyes, to ascertain if she had met with any fresh cause for sadness. She answered in the same way, by a simple motion of the eyelids. Moreover, their hands sought each other behind the back of the husband. Becoming bolder, they corresponded by long pressures, relating, at the tips of their warm fingers, the increasing interest the one took in the smallest incidents connected with the existence of the other.

Rarely did they have the good fortune to meet for a minute, in the absence of Roubaud. They always found him there, between them, in that melancholy dining-room; and they did nothing to escape him, never having had the thought to make an appointment at some distant corner of the station. Up to then, it was a matter of real affection between them; they were led along by keen sympathy, and Roubaud caused them but slight inconvenience, as a glance, a pressure of the hand, sufficed for them to comprehend one another.

The first time Jacques whispered in the ear of Séverine, that he would wait for her on the following Thursday at midnight, behind the depot, she revolted, and violently withdrew her hand. It was her week of liberty, the week when her husband was engaged on night duty. But she was very much troubled at the thought of leaving her home, to go and meet this young man so far away, in the darkness of the station premises. Never had she felt so confused. It resembled the fright of innocent maids with throbbing hearts. She did not give way at once. He had to beg and pray of her for more than a fortnight, before she consented, notwithstanding her own burning desire to take this nocturnal walk.

It was at the commencement of June The evenings became intensely hot, and were but slightly refreshed by the sea breeze. Jacques had already waited for her three times, always in the hope that she would join him, notwithstanding her refusal. On this particular night, she had again said no. The sky was without a moon, and cloudy. Not a star shone through the dense haze that obscured everything. As he stood watching in the dark, he perceived her coming along at last, attired in black, and with silent tread. It was so sombre that she would have brushed against him without recognising him, had he not caught her in his arms and given her a kiss. She uttered a little cry, quivering. Then, laughingly, she left her lips on his. But that was all; she would never consent to sit down in one of the sheds surrounding them. They walked about, and chatted in low tones, pressing one to the other.

Just there, was a vast open space, occupied by the depot and other buildings, all the land that is shut in by the Rue Verte and the Rue François-Mazeline, both of which cut the line at level crossings: a sort of immense piece of waste ground, encumbered with shunting lines, reservoirs, water-cranes, buildings of all sorts — the two great engine-houses, the cottage of the Sauvagnats, surrounded by a tiny kitchen-garden, the workshops, the block where the drivers and firemen slept. And nothing was more easy than to escape observation, to lose oneself, as in the thick of a wood, among those deserted lanes with their inextricable maze of turnings. For an hour, they enjoyed delicious solitude, relieving their hearts in friendly words stored-up there so long. For she would only consent to speak of affection. She had told him, at once, that she would never be his, that it would be too wicked to tarnish this pure friendship, of which she felt so proud, being jealous of her own self-esteem. Then he accompanied her to the Rue Verte, where their lips joined in a long kiss, and she returned home.