The Beast Within - Emile Zola [180]
Having finally taken her decision, she began to consider how she could put her plan into action. She came back to the idea of removing a section of the track. It seemed the most practical solution; it was certain to work and would be easy to do. She simply needed to knock the keys out of the rail-chairs with a hammer and pull the rail off the sleepers. She had the tools, and in such a deserted spot no one would see her. The best place would be at the far end of the cutting, towards Barentin, where the line was on a curve and crossed a valley on an embankment, seven or eight metres high. The train would come off the rails and crash down the side of the embankment. But the timing was crucial and would not be easy. The express from Le Havre came past on the up line at sixteen minutes past eight. The only train before that was a stopping train at seven fifty-five. This gave her twenty minutes to do what she had to, which was ample. Between the trains that were timetabled, however, they often sent out an unscheduled goods train, especially when the goods depot was busy. If that happened, her efforts would all have been in vain. How could she make sure that it was the express that crashed? For a long time she sat weighing up the possibilities. Outside it was still dark. She had not trimmed the candle; the wick had become charred and burned with a long, sooty flame.
Misard returned just as a goods train from Rouen was approaching. He had been searching through the woodpile, and his hands were filthy. He was out of breath, and furious at having found nothing. In his impotent frenzy he once more started looking under the furniture, in the chimney, everywhere. The goods train came slowly clanking past; it seemed as if it would never end. The wheels let out a series of heavy thuds as the train rolled by, each one sending a jolt through the house that shook the dead woman as she lay on her bed. As Misard stretched out his arm to take a little picture from the wall, he once again met the staring eyes, watching him. The grinning lips moved.
He went pale and shivered with a mixture of fear and anger.
‘I know what you’re saying!’ he muttered. “‘Keep looking!” You’ll see! I’ll find it, damn you! Even if I have to take the house apart stone by stone and dig up the whole neighbourhood!’
The goods train had finally gone past and was rumbling slowly away into the night. The dead woman had stopped moving but continued to look at her husband; a look of such scorn and triumph that he once again walked from the room, without closing the door behind him.
Misard had interrupted Flore in the middle of her reflections. She stood up and closed the door. She didn’t want him coming back again and disturbing her mother. Suddenly, to her own amazement, she heard herself saying: ‘Ten minutes before will be enough.’
It would only take ten minutes to lift the rail. If no other train had been signalled ten minutes before the express was due, she could go ahead. Once she had taken her decision and knew what she was going to do, her anxiety left her and she became quite calm.
Day dawned at about five o’clock, fresh and perfectly clear. Although it was still quite chilly, she pulled the window wide open. The sweet morning air streamed into the gloomy bedroom, blowing away the candle smoke and the sickly smell of death. The sun was still below the horizon, behind a clump of trees on top of a hill. Suddenly it rose into the sky, in a splash of crimson, spilling down the hillside and flooding the sunken lanes and by-ways, as the earth rejoiced at the yearly return of spring. She had known it the night before; it was going to be a fine morning, a morning bursting with youth and radiant health, a morning that makes one feel glad to be alive. How good it would be to be out there, free to go where she wished, walking along untrodden pathways, wandering over hill and dale. She turned from the window and came back to the middle of the room. She noticed with surprise that the candle was almost out, flickering in