Human Beast: The Emile Zola Society Edition

by Emile Zola

  Jacques shook hands with the crossing-keeper and advised Séverine to accept his invitation.

  ‘He’s right,’ he said. ‘We might be here for hours. You could die of cold.’

  But Séverine appeared reluctant. She was well wrapped up, she said. And she didn’t like the idea of walking three hundred metres through the snow. Flore came up to her, looked her straight in the face and said, ‘Come on, madame, I’ll carry you.’

  And even before she had time to say yes, Séverine found herself being lifted off her feet by two strong, muscular arms and carried away like a child. Flore put her down on the other side of the track, where the snow had been trodden underfoot and she wouldn’t sink in. Some of the passengers began to laugh in amazement. What a girl! If we had a dozen like her, we’d clear the snow in a couple of hours.

  Meanwhile, the offer of shelter in the gatekeeper’s cottage, where there would be a fire and perhaps some bread and wine, had passed along the train. Once people realized they were in no immediate danger, the panic began to subside. Even so, the situation was decidedly unpleasant. The foot-warmers were getting cold, it was nine o’clock, and unless help arrived soon, people would be getting hungry and thirsty. They could be stuck there for ages; they might even have to spend the night there. The passengers were divided about what to do. There were those who simply abandoned hope and wouldn’t leave the train, shutting themselves inside, wrapping themselves in their rugs and stretching out on the seats as if they were waiting to die. Others preferred to risk a trek through the snow in the hope of finding somewhere better, determined at all costs to avoid the awful prospect of freezing to death in a broken-down train. These latter constituted quite a sizeable group: the elderly businessman and his young wife, the Englishwoman with her two daughters, the young man from Le Havre, the American and a dozen others, all of them ready to set off into the snow.

  Jacques tried to persuade Séverine to go with Flore, assuring her that he would come and tell her how things were progressing, the minute he could get away. Flore was eyeing them disapprovingly. Jacques made an effort to be polite and friendly towards her.

  ‘Flore,’ he said, ‘would you take these ladies and gentlemen with you? Misard and the others can stay with me. We’ll make a start and do what we can until help arrives.’

  Cabuche, Ozil and Misard had in fact immediately taken shovels and had gone to join Pecqueux and the principal guard, who were already digging away the snow. The little team worked hard to free the engine, removing the snow from under the wheels and flinging it on to the bank. They worked in silence; all that could be heard was the determined sound of shovelling amidst the eerie silence of this world of snow. As the little group of passengers walked away, they took one last look at the train, standing there all forlorn, a thin black line beneath the heavy layer of snow that pressed down upon it. All the doors had been closed and the windows pulled up. The snow still fell; silently, inexorably, the train was slowly but surely being buried.

  Flore had again offered to carry Séverine in her arms, but she had declined the offer, determined to go on foot like the others. The three-hundred-metre walk to the cottage was not easy, especially in the cutting, where they sank in up to their waists. On two occasions they had to go and rescue the fat Englishwoman, who had become half buried. Her two daughters continued to find the whole thing hilarious; they were thoroughly enjoying themselves. The young wife of the elderly gentleman slipped and was helped up by the young man from Le Havre, while her husband ranted on to the American about the dreadful state of things in France. Once they were through the cutting the going became easier. But they were now walking along an embankment. They advanced in single file, battered by the wind and taking care not to fall over the edge; with all the snow that had fallen, they couldn’t tell where it was, which made progress very dangerous. But eventually they arrived at the cottage. Flore took the passengers into the kitchen. She couldn’t provide chairs for everybody because there were at least twenty people crammed into the room. Fortunately, the room was fairly large. Her solution was to go and fetch some planks and set up a couple of benches, using the chairs she had. She threw some wood on to the fire and shrugged her shoulders, as if to say she couldn’t be expected to do anything more. All this time, she hadn’t spoken a word. She now stood looking round at everyone, with her big green eyes and her blonde hair, like some wild, Nordic savage. There were only two faces she recognized, having noticed them frequently through the carriage windows over the last few months: the American and the young man from Le Havre. She studied them carefully, as one might examine a flying insect when settled, which could not be examined on the wing. They seemed strange; having seen nothing of them but their faces, she hadn’t imagined them to be quite like this. As for everyone else, they seemed to be of a different race, people from another planet who had dropped out of the sky, walking into her kitchen and bringing with them styles of dress, ways of behaviour and topics of conversation that she would never have expected to find there. The Englishwoman was telling the businessman’s young wife that she was on her way to join her eldest son in India, where he had an important position in the civil service, while the young wife joked about her bad luck on the very first occasion she had chosen to accompany her husband to London, where he went twice a year. They all dreaded the prospect of being cut off in such an out-of-the-way place; they would have to eat and sleep here. How on earth would they manage? Flore stood listening to them, without moving. She caught Séverine’s eye as she sat on a chair in front of the fire and motioned her towards the adjoining room.

  ‘Mother,’ she said as she went in, ‘here’s Madame Roubaud. Would you like to speak to her?’

  Phasie lay on her bed; her face was a sickly yellow, and her legs were badly swollen. She was so ill that she hadn’t left her bed for a fortnight. She spent all day long in this dingy room, nearly suffocated by the heat from an iron stove, dwelling continually on the fear that obsessed her, and with nothing to distract her but the shaking of the house every time a train thundered past.

  ‘Ah, Madame Roubaud,’ she murmured. ‘Yes, of course.’

  Flore told her about the accident, and all the people she had brought to the house, who were through there in the kitchen. But Phasie showed no interest.

  ‘Good! Good!’ she kept repeating, in the same weary voice.

  Then she suddenly remembered something and raised her head for a moment.

  ‘Flore,’ she said, ‘if Madame would like to go and look at her house, you know that the keys are hanging next to the cupboard.’

  Séverine shook her head. The thought of going back to La Croix-de-Maufras in all this snow and in such gloomy weather made her shudder. No, there was nothing she especially wanted to see. She would rather stay here and wait in the warm.

  ‘Do sit down, madame,’ said Flore. ‘It’s much better here than in the kitchen. We shall never have enough bread for all these people. But if you’re hungry, I’m sure I’ll be able to find some for you.’

  She had brought up a chair and was doing her best to be pleasant, making an obvious effort to curb her usual rough manner of dealing with people. But she couldn’t take her eyes off Séverine, as if she were trying to read her mind and resolve a question that had been puzzling her for some time. This show of politeness was dictated by a need to get close to her, to stare at her and touch her in order to discover an answer.

  Séverine thanked her and sat by the stove, preferring to be left there alone with a sick woman and hoping that Jacques would soon come to find her. Two hours went by. Eventually the heat from the stove made her fall asleep. Suddenly, Flore, who had had to keep answering demands from the kitchen, opened the door and called out gruffly, ‘Come through; she’s in here.’

  It was Jacques. He had come with good news. The man who had been sent to Barentin had just returned with a team of helpers - thirty soldiers who had been stationed at likely trouble spots in case of emergency. They were all hard at work with picks and sho
vels. But it was going to take a long time. They probably wouldn’t be leaving before nightfall.

  ‘You’ll be all right here,’ he said. ‘Just be patient! You won’t let Madame Roubaud starve, will you, Aunt Phasie?’

  On seeing her big boy, as she called him, Phasie had, with great difficulty, sat up in her bed. She looked at him and listened to his voice, suddenly brought back to life and happy again. Jacques came up to her bed.

  ‘Of course I won’t,’ she declared. ‘Oh, my boy! My big boy! You’re here! It was you who was stuck in the snow! And that silly girl never told me!’

  She turned towards her daughter and spoke to her sternly: ‘At least try and be polite. Go and see to those ladies and gentlemen. Look after them. Make sure they don’t all go complaining to the management that we’re a lot of peasants.’

  Flore had stood watching Jacques and Séverine. For a moment she hesitated, wondering whether to disobey her mother and stay where she was. But she decided she would discover nothing by remaining; they wouldn’t give themselves away in her mother’s presence. She went out saying nothing, without taking her eyes off them.

  ‘What’s the matter, Aunt Phasie?’ said Jacques, clearly worried. ‘Aren’t you able to get out of bed? Do you feel really ill?’

  She pulled him towards her and made him sit on the edge of the bed. She appeared to have forgotten all about Séverine, who had tactfully moved further away. Speaking in almost a whisper, she told him all her worries.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s serious. It’s a miracle I’m still alive. I almost died, but I’m a bit better now. I think I’ll pull through again this time.’

  Jacques looked at her, horrified to see how she had declined. There was nothing left of the fine, healthy woman he had known before.

  ‘Poor Aunt Phasie!’ he said. ‘Are you still getting those cramps and dizzy spells?’

  She squeezed his hand tight and lowered her voice further: ‘I caught him at it! I’d given up trying to find out what he was putting the poison in. I never drank or ate anything he touched. But it made no difference. Every night it still felt as if my tummy was on fire. Well, he was putting it in the salt. One night I saw him doing it. I put salt on everything, and a lot too, to make sure it’s healthy to eat!’

  Jacques had felt that his own malady was cured from the moment he had become Séverine’s lover, and since then he had often thought about this tale of slow, deliberate poisoning as one thinks of a nightmare; he couldn’t believe it was real. He gently squeezed the poor woman’s hands in his, trying to calm her down.

  ‘Do you really think he’s been trying to poison you?’ he said. ‘You have to be really sure before you start saying things like that. It’s been going on too long. It’s more likely to be some illness the doctors don’t recognize.’

  ‘An illness!’ she exclaimed scornfully. ‘Yes, it’s an illness I’ve caught off him! As for the doctors, you’re right. Two of them came to see me and they couldn’t understand it. They couldn’t even agree between themselves. I never want to see a doctor here again. Can you believe it? He was sticking it in the salt! I swear I saw him doing it! He’s after my thousand francs. The thousand francs Dad left me. He thinks that once he’s got rid of me, he’ll find where I’ve hidden them. But he won’t! They’re somewhere where nobody will ever find them. Never! I can die in peace. No one will ever get my thousand francs!’

  ‘But Aunt Phasie, if I were you and I was as certain as that, I’d call the police.’

  She was horrified at this suggestion.

  ‘Oh, no!’ she said, ‘I’m not having the police here! It’s got nothing to do with them. This is a matter between him and me. I know he wants to get rid of me, and I don’t want to be got rid of, as you can imagine! So I’ll just have to look after myself, won’t I? I’ll have to be a bit more careful! Putting it in the salt! Who’d have thought it? A little runt like him! A little squirt you could fit in your pocket, getting the better of a big, strong woman like me! Once he’s got his teeth into you there’s no stopping him!’

  She shuddered and gasped for breath before continuing.

  ‘Never mind,’ she said, ‘it’s not going to work this time. I’m getting better. I’ll be back on my feet in a fortnight. And he’ll have to be really clever to catch me out again. I’m curious to see what he gets up to. If he finds some other way of poisoning me, it’ll be because he’s cleverer than me. If that happens, too bad! I’m done for! I don’t want anyone getting involved. It’s between him and me!’

  Jacques thought it must be the illness that was putting such dark thoughts into her head and he tried to make a joke of it. But all of a sudden she began to shake under the bedclothes.

  ‘Here he is!’ she whispered. ‘I can sense when he’s coming.’

  Sure enough, a second or two later, in walked Misard. Phasie had turned deathly pale. She was terrified, just as a colossus instinctively fears the tiny insect that pricks its flesh. Despite her determination to outwit Misard single-handed, she had developed a growing fear of him that she was not prepared to admit to. Misard on the other hand, who the minute he opened the door had clearly spotted Jacques and Phasie talking together, now appeared not even to have noticed them; he stood there with a vacant expression on his face, mincing his words and grovelling abjectly in front of Séverine.

  ‘I thought that madame might perhaps wish to take this opportunity of inspecting her property. I am at your service, madame. If madame would like me to accompany her ...’

  Séverine once again declined. But his voice whined on and on.

  ‘I imagine madame was surprised about the fruit ... It really wasn’t worth the cost of sending it; it was all rotten ... And then there was a gale that did so much damage ... It is such a pity that madame cannot sell her house! There was one gentleman, but he wanted repairs carried out. Of course I am entirely at madame’s disposal; she may count on me to act in her best interests.’

  He insisted on serving her some bread and pears - pears from his own garden, he said, which weren’t rotten. She accepted.

  As he walked through the kitchen, Misard had told the other passengers that work on clearing the line was progressing but that it would still take another four or five hours. The clock had just chimed midday. Everyone groaned, for they were all getting very hungry. Flore told them that she didn’t have enough bread to feed everyone but that she did have some wine. She had just come from the cellar with ten litre-bottles, which she placed on the table in a row. Then, of course, there weren’t enough glasses, so people had to share - the Englishwoman and her two daughters, the elderly gentleman and his young wife. The young wife had acquired a new admirer in the person of the young man from Le Havre, who was waiting on her hand and foot and showing her the utmost solicitude and consideration. He went away and came back with some apples and a loaf of bread, which he had found in the woodshed. Flore was annoyed, saying that the bread was for her sick mother. But the young man had already cut it and was sharing it out among the ladies, beginning with the young wife, who smiled at him, obviously feeling highly honoured. Her husband had still not calmed down and was taking no notice of his wife, extolling the commercial achievements of New York to the American. Never had the two young English girls bitten into apples with such relish. Their mother was very tired and half asleep. Two women sat on the floor in front of the fire, exhausted by the long wait. A few of the men went outside for a smoke to help pass the time and came back in, frozen stiff and shivering. Everyone was becoming more and more disgruntled; they were still hungry and tired and they were growing restless and impatient. The scene in the kitchen resembled a party of survivors from a shipwreck, people from the modern world who had had the misfortune to be marooned on a desert island.

  As Misard kept walking in and out of the room, leaving the door open behind him, Aunt Phasie was able to see everything from her sickbed. These were the people that she too had seen flashing past the window for almost a year, as she dragged herself backwards and f
orwards between her bed and her chair. It was only rarely now that she could get outside; her days and nights were spent alone, stuck in this room, looking out of the window, with no other company than the trains that came speeding past. She had always complained about living in such an outlandish place, where no one ever came to see her, and now a whole crowd of people had suddenly dropped out of the blue! To think that there in her own kitchen, amongst all those people rushing madly about their business, not one of them suspected a thing, not one of them knew about the poison being put in her salt! She couldn’t get over it. It was so ingenious! She wondered how God could allow anyone to perform such a crafty trick without it being spotted. Enough people went past their front door, thousands and thousands of them, but they were all in such a rush. Not one of them could have imagined that, here in this little house, someone was calmly and quietly killing her. Aunt Phasie looked at them one by one, all these people who had dropped from the skies, and reflected that when you were so busy it wasn’t surprising if you walked into some untoward situation without noticing it.

  ‘Are you coming back to the train?’ Misard asked Jacques.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jacques, ‘I’ll follow you.’

  Misard went out, shutting the door behind him. Phasie held Jacques back and whispered into his ear: ‘If I peg it, you watch his face when he can’t find the money! It makes me laugh to think about it. So I shall die happy!’

  ‘But then, Aunt Phasie, no one would find it. Aren’t you going to leave it to your daughter?’

  ‘Leave it to Flore! So that he can take it off her! I should think not! I’m not even leaving it to you, dear, because you’re a bit soft too. He’d find a way of getting his hands on it. I’m leaving it to nobody ... except the earth! And when I die I’ll have it all to myself!’

  She was now very weak. Jacques laid her back on the bed and calmed her down, giving her a kiss and promising to come and see her again soon. She appeared to drop off to sleep. Jacques walked over to Séverine, who was still sitting beside the stove. He smiled at her and raised a finger to warn her not to make a noise. He came up behind her. Without a sound, she threw her head back, offering him her lips. He leaned over her, quietly put his mouth to hers and kissed her passionately. As their lips came together, they closed their eyes. When they opened them again, they were horrified to see Flore, who had walked in through the door, standing in front of them, staring at them.