The Beast Within - Emile Zola [113]
‘It’s so good of you to come!’ she would say. ‘I heard the express arrive and I was thinking about you.’
When he stayed for lunch, she always did him proud. She quickly got to know his likes and dislikes and would go out especially to buy new-laid eggs for him. She made him feel welcome, like a good housewife receiving a friend of the family, and for the time being at least, he had no reason to suppose that she was doing it out of any other motive than wanting to be pleasant and needing something to do.
‘You’ll come again on Monday, won’t you,’ she would say. ‘There’ll be some fresh cream!’
By the end of a month, however, by which time Jacques was a regular visitor, the rift between Roubaud and his wife had become more pronounced. Séverine more and more preferred to sleep on her own and contrived to share the bed with her husband as little as possible. Roubaud, who had been such a passionate, violent lover when they were first married, made no attempt to force her. His love-making had always lacked finesse; she had resigned herself to it as a dutiful wife, accepting that it had to be, but taking no pleasure in it. Since the crime, however, without knowing why, she found that it had become unbearable; it left her feeling exhausted and frightened. Once, when the candle was still alight, she had cried out; she had the distinct impression that the face peering down into hers, red and contorted, was the face of the murderer. Thereafter, it made her tremble every time; she had the horrible feeling that the murder was being re-enacted, as if he had thrown her on to her back and had a knife in his hand. It was ridiculous, but it left her shaking with fear. Roubaud for his part gradually tired of insisting; her resistance robbed him of his pleasure. It seemed that their terrible crisis and the shedding of blood had produced in them the weariness and indifference that normally come with old age. On nights when they could not avoid sleeping in the same bed, they slept on opposite sides. Jacques undoubtedly helped to bring about this divorce. His presence drew them out of their self-obsession. He freed them from each other.
Roubaud felt no remorse. He had been frightened about what might happen to him before the case was shelved, and his main concern was about losing his job. But he still regretted nothing. Perhaps, if he had had to do it all over again, he would not have involved his wife; women tended to panic too easily, and if Séverine was drifting away from him, it was because he had placed too great a burden on her shoulders. Had he not dragged her into this terrifying and acrimonious partnership in crime, she would still have been his to command. But that was how things were and he just had to put up with it. He had to make a real effort these days to recall his feelings when Séverine had first confessed to him and he had decided that he must murder Grandmorin if he was to go on living. It had seemed to him then that if he hadn’t killed him, life would have been impossible. But now, the flames of jealousy had died down, and there was no longer that unbearable, burning desire for revenge; a feeling of numbness had come over him, as if the blood he had spilt had somehow congealed the blood in his own veins. It was no longer obvious to him why the murder had seemed so necessary. He even began to wonder if it had been worth it. It wasn’t that he regretted doing it; it was more a vague feeling of disappointment, a sense that people often do the most terrible things in order to achieve happiness, without becoming one bit happier than they were before. Although by nature a talkative man, he would go for long periods without speaking; he sat thinking to himself and getting himself more and more confused, ending up even more depressed than before. Every day now, in order to avoid his wife’s company after mealtimes, he would climb up on to the station roof and sit perched on the top,