The Beast Within - Emile Zola [173]
He wanted to take Séverine in his arms, to lean against her, to be forgiven and comforted. But without a word she moved aside. He stretched out his hands towards her, only to feel her skirt slip through his fingers as she silently ran away. He started to run after her but quickly realized that it was pointless. To see her rush off like that was more than he could bear. Was it his weakness that had made her so angry? Did she despise him? He had decided it was better not to follow her, but now that he found himself alone in this vast, deserted railway yard, with the yellow lights of the gas lamps scattered across it like tears, he was seized with despair. He rushed back to his room to bury his head in his pillow and erase all the misery of his life from his mind.
About ten days later, towards the end of March, the Roubauds finally won their battle against the Lebleus. The management approved their request. It had had the full support of Monsieur Dabadie, especially as the missing letter from Lebleu, promising to vacate the apartment should it be required by the new assistant stationmaster, had been discovered by Mademoiselle Guichon while looking through the station’s files for some old bills. Madame Lebleu, in her frustration, made a great song and dance about having to move; the Roubauds were obviously doing their best to ensure her early demise, so she might as well move out straight away and have done with it. For three whole days, while the epoch-making move took place, the corridor was the scene of feverish activity. Even little Madame Moulin, normally so shy and unobtrusive, and hardly ever seen, got herself involved by carrying Séverine’s work-table across to her new apartment. But it was Philomène who was mainly to blame for the ill feeling that was caused. She was there on the first day, bundling things together, moving furniture about, and marching into the apartment at the front even before the tenants had left. It was Philomène who eventually showed Madame Lebleu the door, with the furniture from both apartments still lying jumbled together in the middle of the corridor. Philomène had come to show such an interest in Jacques and everything he did that Pecqueux had begun to grow suspicious. One day when he was in one of his drunken, bullying moods, he had taunted her and asked her if she was sleeping with Jacques, warning her that if he ever caught them together they would both live to regret it. This merely succeeded in increasing her attachment to Jacques all the more. She acted as their self-appointed housemaid, looking after both him and his mistress, in the hope that by serving the two of them she might have something of him for herself. When she had moved out the last chair, the doors were slammed shut. She then noticed that Madame Lebleu had left a stool behind. She opened the door again and flung it across the corridor. And that was that.
Slowly life returned to its old routine. Madame Lebleu sat glued to her armchair by her rheumatism, bored to death, her eyes full of tears because all she could see out of her window was the zinc cladding of the station roof, which shut out the sky. Séverine meanwhile sat at one of the windows at the front, working at her never-ending bed-cover, and looking down at the lively activity of the station forecourt. People and carriages were continually coming and going, the big trees along the pavements were already beginning to turn green with the early spring, and in the distance she could see the wooded slopes of the Ingouville hills, dotted with white summer houses. She was surprised to discover what little pleasure it gave her to finally have her dream come true, to find herself in the apartment she had so jealously coveted, so light and airy and sunny. Madame Simon, her cleaner, was always grumbling and getting annoyed because things weren’t in their usual place, and this made Séverine herself sometimes wish she had never left the ‘grotty little hovel next door’, as she put it, where at least the dirt didn’t show as much. As for Roubaud, he simply let things