The Beast Within - Emile Zola [146]
‘Can you imagine it?’ she said. ‘It was here, in this room, last February, when there was all that trouble with the Sub-Prefect ... we’d had lunch. It was lovely ... just like us eating now, at that table, there ... He knew nothing of course ... Why should I tell him all about it? Then all of a sudden, just because of a ring, an old present, something of no importance ... I don’t know how it happened ... Suddenly he knew everything ... Darling, you can’t imagine what he did to me ...’
She was shaking. He felt her hands on his naked flesh, clutching him.
‘He punched me and knocked me to the floor ... He dragged me round the room by my hair ... He lifted his foot and threatened to kick me in the face ... I shall never forget it as long as I live ... And then he started to hit me again ... Oh my God ... If I told you all the questions he asked me ... what he forced me to tell him! I’m being honest with you, Jacques. I don’t have to tell you all this, but I want you to know. I couldn’t bear to repeat half of what he forced me to tell him ... it was disgusting! But he would have killed me; I know he would! I suppose he loved me ... It must have been awful for him to suddenly find out about it like that. Perhaps I should have told him before we got married ... it would have been more honest. But it was in the past, it was forgotten ... can you understand? I’ve never seen anyone so insanely jealous. He was like an animal ... Jacques darling, will you stop loving me now you know all this?’
Jacques had not moved. He lay there thinking, absolutely still, with Séverine’s arms around him, encircling his neck and his waist like the coils of a snake. He was amazed; he had never suspected anything like this. Everything seemed to have become more complicated. The legacy had been a much simpler way of explaining things! But he preferred it like this. The knowledge that they had not killed merely for money dispelled a vague feeling of contempt he had sometimes felt towards her, even when she was in his arms.
‘Why should I stop loving you?’ he said. ‘What you did in the past doesn’t bother me; it’s none of my business. You’re married to Roubaud; for all I know, you might have been married to somebody else too.’
There was a silence. They hugged each other so tightly they could hardly breathe. He felt her hard, swollen breasts against his body.
‘So you were Grandmorin’s mistress. What a strange thought!’
She drew herself across him and lifted her mouth to his, kissing him and murmuring: ‘You’re the only one I love. I’ve never loved anyone but you. If only you knew. With them, I didn’t even know what love meant. But you, darling ... you make me so happy!’
He felt her hands upon him and was inflamed with desire. She was offering herself to him, wanting him and drawing him passionately towards her. He longed to take her, yet he held her away from him at arms’ length.
‘Not now,’ he said. ‘Later! Tell me about Grandmorin.’
Her whole body shook, and, in a barely audible whisper, she confessed.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘we killed him.’
As the memory came back to her, her shudder of desire became a shudder of death.5 At the moment of supreme ecstasy her agony was about to begin again. Her head slowly began to swim. She pressed her face to her lover’s neck and continued in the same low whisper: ‘He made me write to the President, telling him to leave Paris on the same train as us, but to keep out of sight until it reached Rouen ... I sat in a corner seat, shaking with fright, horrified at the thought of the awful thing we were about to do ... Opposite me there was a woman dressed in black. She said nothing. She terrified me. I couldn’t see her properly but I imagined she could read our thoughts and that she knew exactly what we were planning to do ... It took two hours to get from Paris to Rouen. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t move. I kept my eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. I could feel Roubaud sitting next to me. He didn’t move either. What was so terrible was that I knew the awful things he was