minutes to get through. It seemed to me that we were in it for an hour ... The President had stopped talking because of the awful noise made by the train. My husband must have lost his nerve at the last minute, because he still made no move. The carriage lamp was swaying backwards and forwards, and all I could see was that his ears were going red ... Was he going to wait until we were out of the tunnel? For me it had now become so inevitable, so certain that I wanted only one thing: I wanted the awful suspense to be over, I wanted it to be over and done with. Why didn’t he kill him, since that was what he had to do? I would have taken the knife and done it myself, I was so terrified and worked up ... He looked at me and must have read my thoughts. Suddenly he threw himself at the President, who had turned towards the window, and grabbed him by the shoulders. The President didn’t know what was happening. He instinctively shook himself free and reached out to pull the communication cord, which was just above his head. He got his hand to it, but Roubaud pulled him back and flung him on to the seat, with such force that he was bent double. His mouth was wide open, screaming in terror and amazement, but his cries were drowned by the noise of the train. I could hear my husband’s voice, hissing with rage and shouting at him repeatedly: “You swine! You swine! You swine!” Suddenly the noise stopped; we were out of the tunnel and in the open countryside with dark trees rushing past the window ... I had remained where I was, rigid, pressing myself against the upholstery, trying to keep as far away as possible. How long did the struggle last? Probably no more than a few seconds, but it seemed to me that it would never end, that all the passengers in the train were listening to the shouts and that the trees were watching us. My husband had his knife open but he couldn’t get near the President. Grandmorin kept kicking him away, and the movement of the train made him lose his balance; he almost fell over. The train was travelling very fast; I heard it whistle as it approached the level-crossing at La Croix-de-Maufras ... That was when I threw myself over his legs to stop him struggling. I can’t remember now how I did it; I just fell on him like a bundle, pinning his legs down with all my weight so that he couldn’t move them. I couldn’t see a thing, but I felt it happen; the knife being thrust into his throat, the body writhing in agony, and his three dying gasps, like a broken clock unwinding. I can still feel that final shudder in my bones!’
Jacques was eager to know all the details. He wanted to stop and question her. But Séverine preferred to get her story over and done with.
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘As I stood up again, the train was running past La Croix-de-Maufras. I distinctly saw the front of the house, all closed up, and then the crossing-keeper’s hut. In another four kilometres, five minutes at the most, we would be at Barentin ... The body was slumped on the seat; the blood was running down into a thick pool on the floor. My husband just stood there, dazed, swaying from side to side with the movement of the train, staring at the body and wiping the knife with his handkerchief. This must have lasted a minute, without either of us giving a thought to how we were going to get out of such a dangerous situation. If we stayed in the compartment with the dead body, we were bound to be discovered when the train stopped at Barentin ... Roubaud had put the knife back in his pocket. Suddenly he seemed to wake up. I saw him going through Grandmorin’s pockets and taking his watch, his money and whatever he could find. He opened the carriage door and tried to push the body out on to the track. He didn’t want to lift it in his arms in case he got blood on his clothes. He was shouting, “Help me! Help me push!” I could hardly do a thing; my whole body felt numb. “For God’s sake, come and help me!” The body was half out of the door, with the head nearly touching the carriage footboard, but the legs were caught up underneath it, and it wouldn’t go