The Beast Within - Emile Zola [100]
‘There you are at last!’ she cried, as he emerged on to the street. ‘I thought I must have made a mistake. You did say to meet you at the corner of the Rue Saussure, didn’t you?’
She didn’t wait for him to reply.
‘Is that where you live?’ she said, looking up at the building.
He hadn’t told her, but the reason he had arranged to meet her here was because the engine shed that he was supposed to be taking her to stood almost directly opposite. However, Séverine’s question had rather embarrassed him; he thought that, in an effort to be friendly, she might ask him to show her his room, which was so barely furnished and so untidy that he was ashamed of it.
‘I don’t exactly live here,’ he said, ‘I just come here to roost. Come on, we’ll have to hurry. I think the foreman might already have left.’
Indeed, when they reached the foreman’s little house behind the engine shed inside the station precinct, he was not there. They walked from one end of the engine shed to the other and still could not find him. Everyone they spoke to told them that if they wanted to be sure of catching him, they should come back at four o’clock; he would be in the repair shops.
‘All right,’ said Séverine, ‘we’ll come back.’
When they were outside again and she found herself alone with Jacques, she asked him, ‘If you’re not doing anything, would you mind if I wait with you?’
He could hardly refuse. Besides, even though she made him feel strangely uneasy, he was beginning to find her company increasingly congenial. Every time she looked at him with her soft blue eyes, he felt the bad mood, which he had been quite determined to stay in for the rest of the day, gradually melting away. She looked so gentle, so timid ... she must be very affectionate, he thought, like a faithful dog that you couldn’t bear to hurt.
‘Of course I won’t leave you,’ he said, speaking less sharply. ‘But we have over an hour to kill. Would you like to go to a café ?’
She smiled at him, delighted to hear him at last sounding a little more affable.
‘Oh no,’ she protested, ‘I don’t want to be indoors; I would rather we went for a walk ... in the open air ... wherever you want.’
She gently slipped her arm into his. Now that he was no longer covered in dirt from driving the train, she found him quite handsome. He was wearing a suit, which made him look quite well to do, yet, despite his smart appearance, there was about him a sort of proud independence, a sense of being out in the open air, braving danger day by day. Never before had she noticed how good-looking he was - a round face with regular features, a very dark moustache and white skin. Only his eyes disturbed her. They were flecked with gold, but there was something shifty about them, and he held them constantly averted. Was he refusing to look at her because he didn’t want to become too involved, because he wanted to remain free to do as he chose, perhaps even to denounce her? A shudder ran through her whenever she thought of the Secretary-General’s study in the Rue du Rocher, where her fate was being decided. What would become of her? All she wanted was to feel that the man whose arm she was holding was hers, hers completely; she wanted to be able to raise her head towards him and see him look long and deeply into her eyes. Then she would know that he was hers. It was not that she was in love with him; the thought had not entered her head. She simply wanted to have him under her control, to know that she need no longer fear him.
For a few minutes they walked together without speaking, picking their way through the throng of passers-by, at times even having to step off the pavement and walk in the road amongst the traffic.