The Beast Within - Emile Zola [160]
He looked at her with big, staring eyes, struggling to find an answer.
‘What’s it got to do with you if I take some of his money? I’m not forcing you to put your hands on it. It’s for me. What I do with it is my business.’
She raised her hand to slap him, but managed to stop herself. It was unbearable. She looked at him in despair; he disgusted her.
‘I don’t understand you,’ she said. ‘You used to be an honest man ... You wouldn’t have stolen a penny from anyone ... I could have forgiven you for what you did; you weren’t in your right mind. You made me lose my head too ... But this money! ... This awful money! You said you wanted nothing to do with it and now you’re stealing it, bit by bit, just for your own amusement! What’s happened to you? How could you sink so low?’
What she said seemed to bring him momentarily to his senses; he was suddenly amazed to realize he had been reduced to stealing money. He could no longer remember how he had managed to lower himself to this or piece together the bits of his life that the murder had undone. He couldn’t understand how this new life, this new person, had come to exist, with his marriage in ruins and his wife estranged from him and despising him. But it was too late; what was done could not be undone. He waved his hands in the air as if to dispel these unpleasant thoughts from his mind.
‘When it’s no fun at home,’ he muttered, ‘you go and get your pleasures somewhere else. As you don’t love me any more ...’
‘No, I certainly don’t love you ...’
He looked at her and thumped the table with his fist; he was purple with rage.
‘Right! You can mind your own damned business then!’ he shouted. ‘Do I stop you enjoying yourself? Do I tell you what you should or shouldn’t do? I don’t know why I put up with you! Any decent-minded bloke would kick you out of the house! Perhaps then I wouldn’t steal!’
She went white. It had often occurred to her that when a jealous husband is so tormented within himself that he turns a blind eye to his wife having a lover, it must indicate some mental gangrene, taking over everything, clouding his judgement and destroying his mind. But she was not going to give in to him; it was not she who was to blame. She was choking with rage.
‘I forbid you to touch that money!’ she screamed.
He had finished eating. He slowly folded his serviette and got up from the table.
‘All right then,’ he sneered, ‘we’ll share it.’
He was already on his knees, about to lift the floorboard. She rushed forward and placed her foot on it.
‘No! No!’ she cried. ‘You know I’d rather die. Don’t open it! I can’t bear to look!’
That evening, Séverine had arranged to meet Jacques behind the goods station. When she got back home, after midnight, the thought of the argument earlier that evening came back to her. She went into her bedroom and turned the key twice. Roubaud was on night duty, so she needn’t worry that he might come back home to sleep, as he sometimes did. She lay in bed with the cover wrapped round her and the lamp dimmed. Yet she could not sleep. Why had she refused to share the money? The idea of using it no longer seemed so outrageous. After all, she had accepted the legacy of La Croix-de-Maufras. Why not take the money as well? A shudder ran through her. No! Never! The fact that it was money didn’t bother her; what she couldn’t bring herself to lay her hands on without fear of burning her fingers was money that had been stolen from a corpse, the ill-gotten gains of a murder. On the other hand, she reasoned with herself, beginning to think more calmly, if she did take it, it wouldn’t be in order to spend it, it would be to hide it somewhere else, to bury it in a place known only to her, where it would lie hidden for ever. If she did it now, she would still have saved half of it from the hands of her husband. It would prevent him from taking it all for himself, and he would no longer be able to gamble money that belonged to her. The clock