The Beast Within - Emile Zola [137]
She pulled him towards her and made him sit on the edge of the bed. She appeared to have forgotten all about Séverine, who had tactfully moved further away. Speaking in almost a whisper, she told him all her worries.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s serious. It’s a miracle I’m still alive. I almost died, but I’m a bit better now. I think I’ll pull through again this time.’
Jacques looked at her, horrified to see how she had declined. There was nothing left of the fine, healthy woman he had known before.
‘Poor Aunt Phasie!’ he said. ‘Are you still getting those cramps and dizzy spells?’
She squeezed his hand tight and lowered her voice further: ‘I caught him at it! I’d given up trying to find out what he was putting the poison in. I never drank or ate anything he touched. But it made no difference. Every night it still felt as if my tummy was on fire. Well, he was putting it in the salt. One night I saw him doing it. I put salt on everything, and a lot too, to make sure it’s healthy to eat!’
Jacques had felt that his own malady was cured from the moment he had become Séverine’s lover, and since then he had often thought about this tale of slow, deliberate poisoning as one thinks of a nightmare; he couldn’t believe it was real. He gently squeezed the poor woman’s hands in his, trying to calm her down.
‘Do you really think he’s been trying to poison you?’ he said. ‘You have to be really sure before you start saying things like that. It’s been going on too long. It’s more likely to be some illness the doctors don’t recognize.’
‘An illness!’ she exclaimed scornfully. ‘Yes, it’s an illness I’ve caught off him! As for the doctors, you’re right. Two of them came to see me and they couldn’t understand it. They couldn’t even agree between themselves. I never want to see a doctor here again. Can you believe it? He was sticking it in the salt! I swear I saw him doing it! He’s after my thousand francs. The thousand francs Dad left me. He thinks that once he’s got rid of me, he’ll find where I’ve hidden them. But he won’t! They’re somewhere where nobody will ever find them. Never! I can die in peace. No one will ever get my thousand francs!’
‘But Aunt Phasie, if I were you and I was as certain as that, I’d call the police.’
She was horrified at this suggestion.
‘Oh, no!’ she said, ‘I’m not having the police here! It’s got nothing to do with them. This is a matter between him and me. I know he wants to get rid of me, and I don’t want to be got rid of, as you can imagine! So I’ll just have to look after myself, won’t I? I’ll have to be a bit more careful! Putting it in the salt! Who’d have thought it? A little runt like him! A little squirt you could fit in your pocket, getting the better of a big, strong woman like me! Once he’s got his teeth into you there’s no stopping him!’
She shuddered and gasped for breath before continuing.
‘Never mind,’ she said, ‘it’s not going to work this time. I’m getting better. I’ll be back on my feet in a fortnight. And he’ll have to be really clever to catch me out again. I’m curious to see what he gets up to. If he finds some other way of poisoning me, it’ll be because he’s cleverer than me. If that happens, too bad! I’m done for! I don’t want anyone getting involved. It’s between him and me!’
Jacques thought it must be the illness that was putting such dark thoughts into her head and he tried to make a joke of it. But all of a sudden she began to shake under the bedclothes.
‘Here he is!’ she whispered. ‘I can sense when he’s coming.’
Sure enough, a second or two later, in walked Misard. Phasie had turned deathly pale. She was terrified, just as a colossus instinctively fears the tiny insect that pricks its flesh. Despite her determination to outwit Misard single-handed, she had developed a growing fear of him that she was not prepared to admit to. Misard on the other hand, who the minute he opened the door had clearly spotted Jacques and Phasie talking together, now appeared not even to have noticed them; he stood there with a vacant expression on