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By Root 1364 0

by two other men whom he didn’t at first recognize. They had heard his distress signal, and Misard, who was off duty at the time, had come to help, accompanied by his two friends, with whom he happened to be having a glass of white wine, the quarryman Cabuche, who was prevented from working by the snow, and the signalman Ozil, who had walked through the tunnel from Malaunay to pay his respects to Flore. Despite her show of indifference towards him, he still had his heart set on her. Flore, being the big strapping girl she was, with the strength and courage of any man, had come along too, out of curiosity. For both her and her father this was quite an event; it wasn’t every day that a train stopped outside their front door. They had been living there for five years and had watched the trains go thundering by, in fair weather and in foul, every hour of the day and night. They seemed to rush past them like a gush of wind; not one of them had even slowed down. They watched them fly into the distance and disappear without knowing a thing about them. The whole world passed in front of their house, a crowd of living souls whisked by at high speed, and all they ever saw of them were faces, glimpsed in a flash; sometimes faces they would never see again, sometimes faces they might recognize because they always appeared on a particular day, but all faces without names. And here, in the snow, was a train unloading its passengers at their very door! The natural order had been turned upside down. They looked at all these unknown people who found themselves stranded on the railway line, gazing at them open-eyed, like savages gathering on some far-flung shore to witness a group of shipwrecked Europeans. Through the open doors they could see women wrapped in furs, and there were men walking beside the train in heavy overcoats. The sight of such wealth and luxury, cast adrift on this sea of ice, made them stand and stare in amazement.

Flore did, however, recognize Séverine. She always looked out for Jacques’s train whenever it went by and for some weeks she had noticed the presence of this woman on the Friday-morning express, particularly because she looked out of the window as she approached the level-crossing, to catch a glimpse of her property at La Croix-de-Maufras. Flore’s eyes darkened as she saw her and Jacques whispering to each other.

‘Why! Madame Roubaud!’ exclaimed Misard, also recognizing her and immediately assuming his obsequious manner. ‘What a terrible thing to happen! You can’t stay out here. You must come down to our house.’

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