Human Beast: The Emile Zola Society Edition

by Emile Zola

  Séverine lay in the bed, where, the night before, in total darkness, they had made love so passionately. She did not move; her head rested motionless on the pillow, her eyes following him backwards and forwards. She too felt anxious, afraid that tonight, as before, his courage might fail him. She simply wanted to have done with it and start afresh. Her only concern was to be loved and to surrender herself to the man who loved her. She had given herself entirely to the man who had won her heart; towards her husband, whom she had never wanted, she felt nothing. He was being got rid of because he stood in their way; it was perfectly natural. It was only when she dwelled upon it that she felt at all moved by the awfulness of the crime they were about to commit; the minute she stopped thinking about blood and the horrible practicalities of the murder, she became quite calm again, as sweet and docile as a child. Well as she thought she knew him, there was something about Jacques’s appearance that puzzled her. He had the same round, good-looking face, the same curly hair, dark moustache and brown eyes with the little flecks of gold in them, but his jaw was pushed forward in a savage grimace that made him appear almost deformed.3 As he came towards her, he had looked at her, but as if he were doing his best not to, and a red mist seemed to dull his eyes. He jumped back, his whole body recoiling from her. Why was he trying to avoid her? Was he beginning to lose his nerve again? For some time now, totally unaware that her life was in danger whenever she was with him, Séverine had attributed the inexplicable, instinctive fear she felt in his presence to the possibility that their relationship might shortly come to an end. She suddenly realized that if Jacques could not now bring himself to kill Roubaud, he would run away, never to return. She determined that this time he would kill him, and that if need be she would somehow give him the strength to do it. Another train passed by outside, an endless goods train, with a long string of wagons, invading the deep silence of the room with its interminable clatter. Séverine raised herself on her elbow, waiting for the noise to fade into the distance and disappear into the stillness of the night.

  ‘Another quarter of an hour!’ said Jacques. ‘He’ll be past the Bécourt wood by now. He’s half-way. I can’t stand this waiting!’

  As he turned to walk back towards the window, he found Séverine standing beside the bed in her nightdress.

  ‘Why don’t we go downstairs with the lamp,’ she suggested. ‘You could decide where you’re going to stand. I’ll show you how I’m going to open the door and you can see what you need to do.’

  Jacques backed away from her, trembling.

  ‘No! Not the lamp!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘We can easily hide it afterwards,’ she said. ‘We need to know what we’re doing.’

  ‘No, no!’ he stammered. ‘Get back into bed.’

  She took no notice, advancing towards him with the invincible, triumphant smile of the woman who knows she is irresistible. Once he was in her arms, he would yield to her nakedness and do as she wished. She continued to talk to him, coaxing him, trying to allay his fear.

  ‘What is it, darling?’ she said. ‘Anyone would think you are frightened of me. The minute I come near you, you try to avoid me. If only you knew how much I need you at this moment. I want to know that you are there, that we are together, now and for ever. Do you understand?’

  She had driven him back against the table. He could retreat from her no further. He had never seen her like this, with her nightdress unfastened and her hair tied up over her head, utterly naked, her neck laid bare and her breasts exposed. He was gasping for breath, fighting to control himself, reeling from the rush of blood to his head as his murderous desire rose within him. He remembered that the knife lay on the table behind him. He could almost feel it; all he had to do was stretch out his hand.

  With a supreme effort he managed once again to stammer, ‘Please, I beg you, get back into bed.’

  Séverine was convinced that his shaking was due to uncontrollable desire. It made her feel almost proud. Why should she obey him? That night she wanted to be loved, loved beyond measure, loved to distraction. She pressed herself against him, softly, invitingly.

  ‘Darling,’ she whispered. ‘Kiss me. Kiss me as you’ve never kissed me before. Show me how much you love me. It will give us courage. We shall need all the courage we have. Our love must be a love that has no equal, a love greater than any love on earth, if we are to do what we have to do ... Kiss me. Give me your heart. Give me your soul.’

  It was as if he were being strangled. He couldn’t breathe. There were voices screaming inside his skull, deafening him. Burning pains pierced his head, starting behind his ears and spreading to his arms and legs. He felt as if he were being chased from his own body, trampled underfoot by the unnamed creature, the beast within that now possessed him. Her nakedness made his senses reel; he would not be able to control his hands. She pressed her breasts against him and offered him her neck, so white and delicate, so irresistibly tempting. The sharp, warm scent of her body overcame him, sending him into a wild paroxysm of desire. He felt as if he were swaying endlessly backwards and forwards. He could no longer resist; his will had been torn from him, obliterated.

  ‘Kiss me, darling,’ she pleaded, ‘while we still have time ... He’ll be here in a moment. If he has walked quickly, he could knock at the door any second now. If you won’t come with me downstairs, remember ... I will open the door. You stand behind it. Don’t hesitate. Do it straight away. Straight away, so that it’s over and done with ... I love you so much! We’re going to be so happy! Roubaud is a wicked man. He’s been cruel to me. He’s the only thing that stands in the way of our happiness ... Kiss me, darling. Kiss me violently. Kiss me as if you were eating me. Kiss me so there’s nothing left of me that is not yours!’

  Without turning round, Jacques felt behind him with his right hand and took hold of the knife. For a moment he remained where he was, with the knife clasped in his hand. Was this the return of his desire to avenge ancient wrongs that were lost in the mists of time, the accumulated bitterness that had been passed down from man to man since the first infidelity in some primeval cave? He stared at Séverine, wild-eyed. He had but one desire, to fling her dead over his shoulder like a trophy won in combat. The fearful door that guarded the dark abyss of sexual desire lay open. If she loved him she must die. To possess her fully he must kill her.

  ‘Kiss me, kiss me ...’ she insisted.

  She threw back her head, offering herself to him, gently imploring him, exposing her bare neck above the voluptuous curve of her breasts. At the sight of her white flesh, Jacques, like a fire suddenly bursting into flame, raised the knife to stab her. Séverine saw the glint of the blade and flung herself backwards, with a look of utter astonishment and terror on her face.

  ‘Jacques, Jacques!’ she screamed. ‘My God! Why me? Why? Why?’

  Jacques made no answer. He clenched his teeth and walked towards her. There was a brief struggle and he pulled her back to the bed. She shrank away from him, terrified, defenceless, her nightdress torn open.

  ‘Oh God! Why?’

  He brought down the knife and the question froze on her lips. As he struck her, he had twisted the knife, as if his hand were asserting its own devilish will. It was identical to the way in which Roubaud had stabbed Grandmorin — in exactly the same place and with the same ferocity. Whether she cried out he never knew. Just at that moment the Paris express went by, so fast and with such a commotion that it made the floorboards shake. Séverine lay dead, as if struck down by the passing hurricane.

  Jacques stood looking at her, stretched out at his feet beside the bed. The sound of the train vanished in the distance. Still he looked at her, in the empty silence of the red room. Séverine lay on the floor, surrounded by the red wall coverings and the red curtains, bleeding profusely, a red stream running down between her breasts, spreading across her stomach to one of her thighs and dripping in thick blobs on to the floor. Her nightdress, torn apart, was soaked in blood. He would never have thought that she c
ould bleed so much. What caused him to stand staring at her, mesmerized, was the look of unspeakable terror imprinted on the dead face of this once pretty, charming, inoffensive woman. Her black hair, tied up over her head, seemed like some ghastly head-dress, sombre as the night. Her periwinkle-blue eyes, staring at him wide open, questioned him, bewildered, terrified, uncomprehending. Why, why had he killed her? She had been taken away and destroyed, as murder took its inevitable course, an unsuspecting victim whom life had dragged through the mud and drawn into crime, never understanding why it had happened, and despite everything, tender-hearted and innocent to the end.

  Jacques stood in amazement. His head rang with the cry of some savage beast, the squealing of a wild boar, the roaring of a lion. As he grew calmer, he realized it was the sound of his own breathing. At last! At last he had done it! He had killed! Yes, this was his doing! A sense of unbridled joy, an extraordinary feeling of elation bore him aloft. He savoured the long-awaited fulfilment of his desire. He felt a curious sort of pride, an enhanced sense of his male superiority. He had killed this woman, and he now possessed her as he had so long desired to possess her, totally and utterly, even to the point of destroying her. She was now no more and would never belong to anyone else. He suddenly had a vivid recollection of the other victim of murder, of Grandmorin’s body, which he had seen on that dreadful night only five hundred metres from where he stood now. The delicate body that lay at his feet, its white skin streaked with red, had like Grandmorin been reduced by the single thrust of a knife from a living creature to a tattered shred, a broken puppet, a limp rag. This was what murder was. He had murdered, and his victim lay on the floor. Like Grandmorin, she had fallen over, but on to her back, her legs spread apart, her left arm folded under her body and her right arm twisted and almost wrenched from her shoulder. It was on that night, when the sight of the murdered man had turned his irresistible itch to kill into an all-consuming desire, making his heart beat with excitement, that he had sworn he would one day find the courage to do this thing himself. He must not be a coward. He must follow his instinct. He must take a knife and kill. Without his realizing it, this idea had taken root and gradually grown inside his head. During the last year not a single hour had passed without it bringing him closer to the inevitable; even when he was holding Séverine in his arms and she was kissing him, the deadly process had continued. And now the two murders linked hands; the one was simply the logical outcome of the other.

  As he gazed blankly at the dead woman, Jacques was awakened from his musings by a tremendous banging and clattering that sounded through the house and made the floor shake. Was someone breaking the doors open? Had they come to arrest him? He looked out of the window. Outside, nothing stirred. All was quiet. Ah yes, he thought, another train! He suddenly remembered the man who was about to knock on the door downstairs, the man he had been going to kill. He had forgotten all about him. Although he had no regrets, he was already beginning to think that he had acted foolishly. What had happened? The woman he loved, and who passionately loved him, lay dead on the floor, with her throat slit, whilst her husband, the man who had stood in the way of his happiness, was still alive and walking towards him, step by step, out there in the dark. During the last few months, what had spared Roubaud was the sense of right and wrong that Jacques had acquired from his upbringing, a sense of the value of human life that had been gradually passed down from generation to generation. But that night, he had hardly been able to wait for Roubaud to arrive. Then, disregarding all he stood to gain, he had been carried away by an inherited streak of violence, by the same killer instinct that in the primeval forests drove one animal to slay another. There was nothing rational about killing. One was driven to kill by some physical, nervous impulse, a remnant of the primitive struggle for survival, a desire to live and celebrate one’s superior strength. Having gratified his desire, Jacques felt exhausted. He was frightened and tried to understand what had happened; but his gratification left him with only a sense of amazement and deep bitterness that what had been done could not be undone. The sight of his pathetic victim, still staring at him with a look of terror and incomprehension in her eyes, was becoming unbearable. He was about to look away, when he suddenly had the impression that there was another white figure standing at the foot of the bed. Was it the dead woman’s ghost? He looked again and saw that it was Flore. She had come back to him once before, when he was delirious after the accident. This must have been her moment of triumph, her moment of revenge! He froze in terror. What was he doing, waiting here in this room? He had killed. He was sated, replete, intoxicated with the fearful sweetness of his crime. He fled, tripping over the knife which had been left on the floor and, almost tumbling down the stairs in his haste, ran to the big door at the front of the house, as if the back door would be too small for him. He flung it open, rushed out into the inky blackness and vanished like a madman into the night. He did not stop to look behind him. The sinister house, set at an angle to the railway line, stood with its door wide open, stark and silent as the grave.

  That night, as on previous nights, Cabuche had walked through the hedge into the garden and had been waiting beneath Séverine’s window. He knew that she was expecting Roubaud and wasn’t surprised to see a light shining through a gap in one of the shutters. What did surprise him and root him to the spot, however, was the sight of a man rushing down the steps at the front of the house and making off into the fields like some crazed animal. He had disappeared before he had time to set off after him. Cabuche was worried. He stood before the open door, peering into the dark entrance hall, wondering what he should do. What was going on? Should he go in? The dead silence and the complete stillness of the house, even though there was still a light in the room upstairs, made him feel increasingly uneasy.

  He finally decided he must go in and groped his way up the stairs. He stopped outside the bedroom door, which also had been left open. From where he stood, he thought he could see a pile of underclothes lying on the floor in a pool of light cast by the lamp. Séverine must have got undressed. He called softly. Suddenly he was frightened; his heart was beating wildly. Then he saw the blood. He immediately knew what had happened. He leaped forward. A terrible, heart-broken cry came from his mouth. Oh God! It was Séverine! Murdered! Flung in pitiful nakedness to the floor! He thought she might still be breathing. He was filled with such despair, such an agony of shame, to see her dying naked in front of him, that he threw his arms around her in a respectful embrace, raised her from the floor and laid her on the bed, drawing up the sheet in order to cover her. As he had lifted her in his arms, in the one and only demonstration of love that he was ever able to offer her, he had got blood on his hands and chest. He was covered in her blood. At the same moment he saw that Roubaud and Misard had entered the room. They too, finding the doors of the house wide open, had decided to climb the stairs. Roubaud was late because he had stopped to talk to the crossing-keeper, and Misard had accompanied him to the house while continuing their conversation. They looked at Cabuche in disbelief. His hands were dripping with blood, like a butcher’s.

  ‘Just like Grandmorin,’ Misard finally commented, after examining the wound.

  Roubaud nodded, without saying anything. He could not take his eyes from Séverine, from the mask of sheer terror which congealed her face, from the black hair tied up over her head, and the blue eyes, staring wildly, beseeching ... ‘Why?’

  XII

  Three months later, on a warm night in June, Jacques was driving the Le Havre express, which had left Paris at six thirty. His new locomotive, number 608, was fresh from the works. Jacques had been entrusted with running her in — with her ‘initiation’ as he put it. Although he was getting to know the locomotive, she didn’t handle easily; she was awkward and temperamental, like a young horse that has to be broken in before it will accept the harness. He swore at her frequently; he really missed La Lison. He had to watch her very carefully; he could hardly take his hand off the reversing wheel. T
hat night, however, the sky was so beautifully calm that Jacques felt more able to relax and give the locomotive its head. He breathed in the sweet night air. He had never felt better. He felt no remorse; he even seemed relieved and quite at peace with himself.

  Although he didn’t usually talk when driving the engine, he was teasing Pecqueux, who had been allowed to stay with him as his fireman.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ he was saying. ‘How come you’re so wide awake? Have you given up drinking?’

  It was true, Pecqueux seemed for once to be perfectly sober, and not at all his usual jovial self.

  ‘You have to be wide awake,’ he answered gruffly, ‘if you want to see what’s going on around you!’

  Jacques looked at him uneasily, as if there were something on his conscience. The week before, he had enjoyed the favours of Pecqueux’s mistress, the redoubtable Philomène, who had been pestering him for some time, like a scrawny cat on heat. He had taken her, not for sexual gratification, but to find out whether, having satisfied his desire to kill, he was finally cured. Could he make love to Philomène without wanting to slit her throat? He had made love to her twice already, and there had been no sign of his old malady, not a flicker, nothing. Without him realizing it, his present good humour and happy, relaxed manner must have been due to the pleasure of discovering that he was now no different from other men.