The Beast Within - Emile Zola [155]
The train was constantly stopping and starting. They had passed through two short tunnels, at Courcelles and at Neuilly. Any minute now! It would not take more than a second!
‘Did you go to the seaside this summer?’ the old lady asked.
‘Yes, we spent six weeks in Brittany, miles from anywhere. It was heaven! Then during September we stayed at my father-in-law’s in Poitou; he owns a lot of woodland down there.’
‘And aren’t you going to the Midi for winter?’
‘Yes, we’ll be at Cannes from the fifteenth ... The house is already booked. It’s got a really lovely garden facing the sea. We’ve sent someone on ahead to get things ready ... It’s not that we don’t like the cold, but it’s so nice to be in the sun ... We shall be back in March. Next year we’re going to stay in Paris. In a couple of years’ time, when baby’s grown up, we’ll do some travelling. I don’t know, life seems one long holiday!’8
She seemed to be brimming over with happiness, so happy in fact that she turned towards Jacques, a man she had never met, and smiled at him. As she did so, the bow on her bonnet-strings shifted, the medallion slipped to one side, and he saw her neck, rosy pink, with a little hollow at its base that formed a patch of golden shadow.
Jacques’s fingers tightened on the handle of the knife; he had made his decision.
‘That’s where I’ll do it,’ he thought to himself. ‘In the tunnel, just before Passy! We’re nearly there!’
But when the train stopped at Trocadéro, a railway employee who knew him got into the compartment and started telling him about an engine driver and his fireman who had been convicted of stealing coal. Everything started to become confused; later, Jacques was never able to piece together exactly what happened. The woman sitting next to him had carried on laughing, radiating such happiness that it worked its way into him and calmed him down. Perhaps he had stayed on the train with the two women until it reached Auteuil, but he couldn’t recall them getting off. He ended up finding himself walking along the Seine, but how he got there he didn’t know. What he did remember very clearly was standing on the bank of the river and throwing away the knife, which he had kept tucked inside his sleeve. After that he could remember nothing. His mind was a blank; he was totally empty. The creature that had taken hold of him was no more; it had gone when he threw away the knife. He must have carried on walking for hours, following streets, crossing squares, going wherever his legs took him. People and houses slipped past him like ghosts. He must have gone somewhere to eat; he recalled a room crowded with people, and white plates on the tables. He also retained a vivid image of a red poster in an empty shop window. After that, all he was aware of was a black abyss, a void, in which there was neither time nor space, and where, for centuries perhaps, he had lain unconscious.
When he came to, Jacques found himself back in his little room in the Rue Cardinet, slumped across his bed, fully dressed. He had found his way there by instinct, like an exhausted dog dragging itself back to its kennel. He could not remember climbing the stairs or going to sleep. When he woke up, it came as a shock to suddenly find himself in possession of his senses again, as if emerging from a coma. Had he slept for three hours or three days? Then it all came back to him; he had spent the night with Séverine, she had told him about the murder, and he had rushed out like a beast of prey in search of blood. He had taken leave of his senses but was now beginning to come back to himself. He was horrified to think of the things he had done and to know that he had been powerless to prevent them. He suddenly remembered that Séverine was still waiting for him. He leaped to his feet and looked at his watch; it was already four o‘clock. His mind felt empty, and he was now perfectly calm, as if his blood had been drained from him. He hurried back to the Impasse d’Amsterdam.
Séverine had slept soundly until midday. When she woke up she was surprised to