Human Beast: The Emile Zola Society Edition

by Emile Zola

  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!

  ‘Darling, tell me, why am I frightened? Am I in danger?’

  ‘No, no, don’t worry; you’re in no danger.’

  ‘Sometimes I start shaking all over. All the time there’s something lurking behind me. I can’t see it, but I know it’s there ... Why am I frightened?’

  ‘There, there, don’t be frightened ... I love you and I’ll never let anyone hurt you ... See! How good it is when we’re together like this!’

  There was a long, blissful silence.

  ‘Oh, my darling,’ she continued in a soft, gentle whisper, ‘if only there could be night after night like this, night after night when we were together, the two of us, as one ... We could sell this house and take the money and sail away to America. We could meet up with your friend; he’s still waiting for you ... Not a day goes by when I don’t go to bed dreaming of our life over there ... Every night would be like tonight. You would make love to me, and I would be yours; we would fall asleep in each other’s arms ... But you can’t do it, I know. When I talk about it, it’s not because I’m trying to hurt you; it’s just that I can’t stop myself thinking about it.’

  There and then, Jacques decided. It was a decision he had taken many times before. If he was to avoid killing Séverine, he must kill Roubaud. This time, as before, he felt absolutely determined to go through with it; he would not be deterred.

  ‘No, I couldn’t bring myself to do it,’ he murmured. ‘But I will do it. I’ve promised you.’

  Séverine made a half-hearted attempt to dissuade him.

  ‘Please don’t make promises,’ she said. ‘It only makes us feel bad afterwards, if you can’t go through with it ... Besides, it’s horrible. You mustn’t do it. You really mustn’t.’

  ‘But it must be done,’ he said. ‘You know it must. And it’s because it must be done that I shall find the strength to do it ... I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it, and now we can; we’re alone, we’re not going to be disturbed, and we can be perfectly honest with each other.’

  Séverine had begun to resign herself. She let out a sigh. Her chest heaved, and her heart beat so fast that he could feel it against his own.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she muttered. ‘When I thought it would never happen, I wanted it to happen ... Now you say you mean to do it, I want to die.’

  They sat in silence: Jacques’s new-found resolve had left them lost for words. They could feel the desolate emptiness of the wild countryside around them. They were both very hot; they lay with their limbs entwined, their moist bodies melting into each other.

  His hand wandered over her, and he kissed her on the neck, beneath her chin.

  ‘We could get him to come here,’ whispered Séverine. ‘I could invent some excuse and send for him. I don’t know what, but we could think of something ... you could be waiting for him. You could hide somewhere ... it would be easy ... you wouldn’t be disturbed. That’s what we must do. What do you think?’

  He let her talk; his lips moved from her neck to her breast.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ was all he could reply.

  Séverine was deep in thought, working out the details of her plan. As it took shape in her head, she considered it and thought of ways it might be improved.

  ‘But we would still have to be careful, my darling,’ she said.

  ‘We can’t afford to do anything stupid. If we were to get ourselves arrested the next day, I’d rather stay as we are ... I read somewhere, I can’t remember where, in a novel probably, that the best thing to do is make it look like suicide. He’s been acting very strangely of late; he’s been so miserable and down in the dumps. It wouldn’t surprise anyone if they suddenly found out he’d come here and killed himself ... But we’d have to find a way of arranging things so that people would be convinced it was suicide ... wouldn’t we?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he murmured.

  She wondered how it could be done. She gasped for breath as he lifted her towards him to cover her breast with kisses.

  ‘We must make sure we leave no trace,’ she said. ‘Listen! If you slit his throat with this knife, we could simply lift him up and carry him on to the railway line. We could put his neck across one of the rails, do you see, so that the first train to come along would cut his head off. Then they could look for evidence as much as they liked. They wouldn’t find a wound. They wouldn’t find anything. Because his head would be completely crushed! What about that?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s very good.’

  They were becoming more and more excited. Séverine was almost laughing, very pleased with herself at having had such a bright idea. Jacques drew her towards him in a strong embrace, but she resisted him.

  ‘Not now,’ she said. ‘Wait a bit ... When I think about it, it’s still not quite right. If you stay here with me, suicide will look suspicious. You must leave. You must leave tomorrow, do you understand, openly, in front of Misard and Cabuche, so that your departure is witnessed. You must catch a train at Barentin and find some excuse for getting off at Rouen. Then, as soon as it gets dark, you must come back here. I’ll let you in by the back door. It’s only four leagues away; you can be back in less than three hours ... This time we’ve thought of everything! If you’re willing, we can do it.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m willing. We will do it.’

  Jacques lay there thinking. He had stopped kissing her. There was a long silence. They both remained motionless in each other’s arms, lost in contemplation of the deed that was to be perpetrated. It had been decided; their minds were made up. Gradually they became aware of their two bodies, locked together in an ever-tightening embrace. Séverine loosened her arms and drew away from him.

  ‘What excuse can we use to get him here?’ she said. ‘Wh
atever we tell him, the earliest train he can catch is at eight o’clock, when he comes off duty, and he won’t be here before ten, which is even better ... I know! We can say it’s about the buyer for the house. Misard spoke to me about him; he’s supposed to be coming to have a look at it the day after tomorrow, in the morning! I’ll send my husband a telegram first thing in the morning, telling him his presence is essential. He’ll be here tomorrow night. You can leave in the afternoon and be back before he arrives. It will be dark, with no moon ... nothing can go wrong. It’s all working out perfectly.’

  ‘Yes, perfectly,’ said Jacques.

  They embraced each other and made love, fainting in ecstasy. When they finally went to sleep, still in each other’s arms, a vast silence descended on the house. It was still not daylight, but the first signs of dawn were beginning to whiten the shadows that had hidden them from each other like a dark mantle. Jacques slept until ten o’clock, in a deep, dreamless sleep. When he opened his eyes, he found himself alone. Séverine had gone to her room across the landing to get dressed. A shaft of bright sunlight fell through the window, giving an incandescent glow to the red hangings around the bed and the red wall coverings. The whole room seemed to be aflame. The house was shaking with the noise of a passing train. It must have been the train that had woken him up. He was dazzled by the sunlight and the blaze of red all around him. Then he remembered. It had been decided. That night, when this blinding sun had disappeared, he would kill.

  The day passed as the two of them had planned. Before breakfast, Séverine asked Misard to go to Doinville with the telegram for her husband. At about three o‘clock, as Cabuche was there and could see what he was doing, Jacques made very obvious preparations for leaving. Cabuche even accompanied him as he left to catch the 4.14 train at Barentin, partly because he had nothing else to do, and partly because he vaguely felt he had something in common with him, Jacques being the lover of the woman he so much desired himself. Jacques arrived at Rouen at twenty to five. He got off the train and booked into an inn near the station, run by a woman who came from his own home town. He told her that in the morning he intended to call in on some friends before going back to Paris to start work again. He was very tired, however; he was still recovering from his injuries and he’d overtaxed himself. At six o’clock he went to his room to sleep. He had chosen a room on the ground floor, which had a window opening on to a quiet back street. Ten minutes later he was on his way back to La Croix-de-Maufras, having climbed out of the window without being seen, and carefully leaving the shutter open so that he could get back in again unperceived.

  It wasn’t until a quarter past nine that Jacques found himself back outside the lonely house, standing empty and forlorn, at an angle to the railway line. It was very dark; the front of the house was completely closed up and not a single light was visible. Once again he felt the pang of anxiety, the feeling of awful sadness that seemed to herald the fateful calamity which awaited him there. As arranged with Séverine, he threw three pebbles against the shutters of the red room. He then walked round to the back of the house, where eventually a door quietly opened. He closed it behind him and groped his way up the stairs, following the light footsteps that went before him. At the top of the stairs he stopped in amazement; by the light of a large lamp standing on the corner of a table, he saw that the bed was unmade, Séverine’s clothes were thrown over a chair and Séverine herself was in her nightdress, her legs bare, ready for bed, with her thick hair tied up over her head, exposing her neck.

  ‘Why have you gone to bed?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s better this way,’ she answered. ‘I’m sure it is. I had an idea. You see, when he arrives and I go down to let him in dressed like this, he’ll be less suspicious. I’ll tell him I had a migraine. Misard already thinks I’m not feeling well. Then, when they find him on the railway line, I’ll be able to say I never left this room.’1

  But Jacques was shaking.

  ‘No,’ he shouted angrily, ‘get dressed. You’ve got to be ready to help me. You can’t stay like that.’

  She was surprised at his reaction.

  ‘Why not, darling?’ she said, beginning to smile. ‘You don’t need to worry. I’m not cold, I promise you ... Feel me ... See how warm I am!’

  She moved towards him, invitingly, placing her bare arms around him. Her nightdress had slipped down over one shoulder, revealing her round breasts. Jacques drew away from her. He was becoming increasingly agitated.

  ‘Don’t be angry,’ she pleaded. ‘I’ll cuddle up in bed, and then you won’t be frightened I’ll catch cold.’

  Once she was back in bed with the sheet pulled up round her chin, Jacques seemed to grow a little calmer. Séverine talked happily about the various plans that had been running through her head.

  ‘As soon as he knocks, I go down and open the door. At first I thought I could just leave him to come up here, where you would be waiting for him. But if we had to get him back downstairs, it would be more difficult. Besides, there’s a parquet floor in this room, whereas the hall downstairs has tiles, which would make it easier to clean if there are splashes of blood ... While I was getting undressed, just before you arrived, I remembered a novel in which a murderer takes his clothes off in order to kill someone. You wash yourself afterwards, and there isn’t a stain on your clothes ... It makes sense, don’t you see ... Why don’t you take your clothes off? Why don’t we both get undressed?’

  He looked at her, terrified. But she looked as sweet and innocent as a little girl. She was simply concerned that everything went according to plan and that it was a success. She had been thinking about it carefully. But Jacques was horrified at the thought of them both naked and splashed with blood. Once more he felt the stirrings of his fearful malady.

  ‘No!’ he protested. ‘It’s barbaric! You’ll be suggesting we eat his heart next! How you must hate him!’

  Séverine’s face suddenly darkened. Jacques’s outburst had transported her from her carefully planned preparations to the horror of the deed. Her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘I’ve had too much to put up with these last few months,’ she wept. ‘How can I have any love for him? I’ve said it a hundred times: I’d do anything rather than stay with him another week. But you’re right. It’s awful that it should come to this. It shows how desperately we both want to be happy ... Anyway, we’ll go downstairs in the dark. You stand behind the door. When I’ve opened it and he’s inside, you do as you choose ... My only part in this is to help you, so that you don’t have to do everything yourself. This is the best I can think of.’

  Jacques had stopped in front of the table, his attention drawn to the knife, the weapon that Roubaud himself had already used to kill Grandmorin, and which Séverine had obviously put there for him to use now. It was open and the blade gleamed in the light of the lamp. He picked it up and examined it. Séverine looked at it too, saying nothing. Now that he was actually holding it, there was no point in mentioning it to him. Only when he replaced it on the table did she speak.

  ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘I’m not forcing you to do it. If you can’t face it, you still have time to go.’

  Jacques clenched his fist angrily.

  ‘Do you think I’m a coward?’ he exclaimed. ‘This time it will be done. I’ve given my word!’

  Just then the house was shaken by the noise of a train thundering past, so close that it seemed to be passing through the room itself.

  ‘That’s Roubaud’s train,’ he said. ‘The semi-fast for Paris. He will have got off at Barentin. He’ll be here in half an hour.’

  Neither of them spoke. There was a long silence. They thought of Roubaud, out there in the night, coming along the path towards them. Jacques began to walk mechanically backwards and forwards across the bedroom, as if he were counting Roubaud’s steps, each one bringing him closer and closer. One more, and then another, and when he took the last one, he would be lying in wait behind the hall door, and the minute he walked in he would plunge
the knife into his neck. Séverine lay in bed on her back, the sheet still pulled up round her chin, watching him walk up and down2 with big, staring eyes, her mind lulled by the rhythm of his steps, which came to her as an echo of the steps that were approaching from outside. One more and then another, getting relentlessly nearer! Nothing would stop them now. When they reached the house, she would jump out of bed and go downstairs in the dark in her bare feet to open the door. ‘Is that you, dear? Come in. I was in bed.’ But he wouldn’t have time to answer. He would fall to the ground in the dark, with his throat slit.

  Another train went by on the down line, the stopping train which passed La Croix-de-Maufras five minutes after the semi-fast. Jacques stopped in surprise. Only five minutes! Half an hour was going to be a long time to wait! He must keep moving. He started pacing up and down the room again. He was beginning to have doubts about himself. He was getting anxious, like one of those men whose nerves affect their virility. Would he be able to do it? He knew what was happening because it had happened ten or more times before. It always started off with him being convinced he could do it and determined to kill. He would then experience a tightening in his chest, his hands and feet would go cold, and his strength would suddenly fail him completely — his muscles would simply refuse to do what he wanted them to do. He tried to strengthen his resolve, as he had so often done before, by reminding himself of what he stood to gain by getting rid of Roubaud — the fortune awaiting him in America, being together with the woman he loved. The trouble was that when, a moment before, he had found Séverine half naked, he had thought he could no longer go through with it; the minute he sensed a return of his old affliction, he was no longer his own master. For a moment, the temptation had been almost too strong; Séverine was offering herself to him, and the knife lay open on the table. But he had not succumbed. He braced himself for the final effort. He could do it. He paced backwards and forwards from the door to the window, each time passing close to the bed, which he avoided looking at. The wait continued.