calmly cut himself a piece of bread; his stomach felt empty because he hadn’t eaten, Aunt Phasie having taken an unconscionably long time to die. He ate standing up, walking backwards and forwards, putting things in their place. Now and then he would be seized by a fit of coughing that bent him double. He was half-dead himself, as thin as a bone, with no strength left in him and the colour gone from his hair. It looked as though his final victory would be very short-lived. But it didn’t worry him. He had destroyed her. She had been a fine, handsome, healthy woman, and he’d eaten her life away, as woodworm eats away oak! There she lay — on her back, finished, reduced to nothing! And he was still alive! A thought suddenly occurred to him; he knelt down and took a pan from under the bed containing some bran-water that had been prepared as an enema. Ever since she had begun to suspect he was trying to kill her, Misard had been putting the rat poison into her enemas rather than mixing it with the salt.1 This was something that had never occurred to her; she should have had more sense. She had taken the poison without knowing it, and this time it had finished her off. Having emptied the pan outside, he came back and mopped down the bedroom floor to remove the stains. Why had she been so stubborn? She had thought she could outwit him! Well, serve her right! When husband and wife are secretly trying to see each other into the grave, you need to keep your eyes open. He chuckled to himself. It amused him to think of her unknowingly imbibing poison through her bottom while being so careful to watch what went into her mouth. Just then an express went by, shaking the house like a rushing wind. Although this was a regular occurrence, Misard jumped and turned towards the window. Ah, yes, he thought, the never-ending stream! All those people! They came from far and wide, all in such a hurry to get wherever it was they were going, and all of them either oblivious or indifferent to anything they trampled underfoot on their way. In the deep silence that settled on the house after the train had gone by, Misard caught sight of the dead woman’s eyes, staring at him, wide open. Their fixed gaze seemed to be watching his every movement, and the corners of her mouth were turned up in a mocking sneer.
Misard, who normally never let things bother him, suddenly found himself feeling annoyed. He could hear her saying to him, ‘Go on, start looking!’ One thing was certain; she hadn’t taken her money with her, and now that she was dead, he would eventually find it. She should have given it to him and not made such a fuss about it; it would have saved him a lot of trouble. The eyes followed him everywhere. ‘Go on,’ she was saying, ‘start looking!’ He had never dared search the bedroom while she had been alive. He glanced round it. He would try the cupboard first. He took the keys from under her pillow, rummaged through the shelves of linen, emptied the two drawers and even took them out to see if there was a hiding place behind them. There was nothing! Next he turned his attention to the bedside table. He removed the marble top and turned it over. Again, nothing! He looked behind the mirror above the mantelpiece, a little mirror bought at a fair and fixed to the wall by two nails. He poked behind it with a flat ruler, but only succeeded in dislodging an accumulation of black fluff. ‘Go on, keep looking!’ In order to avoid the staring eyes that he felt were watching him, he got down on his hands and knees and went round the room tapping the floor with his knuckles, listening for a hollow sound that might indicate a space beneath. Several tiles were loose, and he pulled them up. Nothing! Still nothing! When he got back to his feet, the eyes were still staring at him; he turned round and tried to stare back into the unblinking gaze of the corpse. The corners of her lips had now retracted further, emphasizing her horrible grin. He felt sure she was mocking him. ‘Go on,’ she was saying, ‘keep looking!’ By now he had worked himself up into a frenzy. He went