The Beast Within - Emile Zola [159]
The weeks went by. With so much money at his disposal, Roubaud’s passion for gambling knew no bounds. It wasn’t that he wagered large sums of money, but he was constantly dogged by the worst luck imaginable. Little losses every day soon added up to large amounts. By the end of the month he had nothing left and was once again heavily in debt. He didn’t dare carry on playing, which made him feel quite ill. He tried hard to overcome the temptation but he almost ended up having to take to his bed. The knowledge that there were another nine banknotes lying beneath the dining-room floor went round and round in his head all day long; he could see them through the floorboards and felt them burning the soles of his feet. To think that, if he had wanted to, he could have taken another one! But he had vowed not to; he would sooner put his hand into the fire than go feeling under the floor again! Then, one evening when Séverine had gone to sleep early, he lifted the floorboard, furious with himself for giving in and feeling so miserable that his eyes filled with tears. Why resist? Why suffer? It was pointless; he now knew that he would take the banknotes, one by one, until there were none left.
The next morning, Séverine happened to notice a new scratch in one of the pieces at the edge of the parquet. She bent down and saw that it had been lifted. Clearly her husband was still helping himself to the money. She suddenly felt very angry, which surprised her, as normally money matters didn’t bother her. More to the point, she had thought that she too would rather starve than lay hands on money that was tainted. But surely this money belonged to her as much as to him! Why should he make use of it secretly, without even telling her about it? All day long she was tormented by the desire to know for certain whether the money had been taken; she would have lifted the floorboard herself to see, but the thought of feeling around down there on her own sent a shiver down her spine. Perhaps the dead man’s ghost would rise from beneath the floor! The thought terrified her; it was childish, she knew, but she couldn’t bear to stay in the room. She picked up her work and shut herself in her bedroom.
That evening, as the two of them sat silently eating the remains of a stew, it again annoyed her to see his eyes continually wandering towards the corner of the parquet floor where the money was hidden.
‘You’ve taken some more, haven’t you?’ she said suddenly.
He looked up in surprise.
‘Taken some more what?’ he replied.
‘Oh, don’t come the innocent, you know very well what I mean ... I won’t have you taking that money, do you hear! It’s no more yours than mine! It makes me feel ill to know you’re stealing it.’
Roubaud did his best to avoid arguments. The only time they were together was the bare minimum that being married to each other imposed; they spent whole days without exchanging a word, coming and going like two strangers, totally indifferent to each other and leading their own separate lives. He simply shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.
But Séverine was angry and wanted to settle this hidden money business once and for all; it had worried her since the day of the murder.
‘I insist on an answer,’ she shouted. ‘I defy you to say you haven’t touched it!’
‘What’s it got to do with you?’ he answered.
‘What it’s got to do with me is that it turns my stomach! It frightens me! Today I couldn’t stay in the room. Every time you move that floorboard