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By Root 1299 0

the railway a train sped past on the down line. She seemed pleased. Her plan was going to work. The down line had obviously been cleared; the other must still be blocked, as there didn’t yet seem to be any trains passing in that direction. She followed a hedge. All around, the countryside lay silent and deserted. There was no hurry; there wouldn’t be another train until the express from Paris, which wasn’t due until nine twenty-five. She continued to follow the hedge, walking slowly and calmly through the darkness, as if out on one of her habitual solitary excursions. Before reaching the tunnel, however, she climbed over the hedge and, still walking at the same leisurely pace, proceeded along the railway line itself, towards the oncoming express. She had to be careful to avoid being seen by the watchman, as when she used to visit Ozil at the other end of the tunnel. Once inside the tunnel, she continued walking forwards, further and further into the darkness. It was not the same as the week before; she was no longer frightened of turning round and losing her sense of direction, there was not the usual feeling of crazy excitement pounding inside her head, the feeling of being deafened, with the tunnel closing in around her, and of losing all sense of time and place. But this no longer mattered to her. She didn’t ask why she was doing this. She wasn’t thinking at all. She had but one resolve. She must keep walking, walking ahead, until the train came, and then, when she saw its headlamp shining in the darkness, she must continue walking, straight towards it.

What surprised her, however, was that she seemed to have been walking for hours. How long in coming was the death she craved! For a moment, the thought that it might never come, that she might continue to walk on and on, endlessly, began to disturb her. Her feet were aching. Would she be obliged to rest, and wait for death to come to her as she lay across the rails? No, it would be unworthy! She must keep walking to the very end. She must walk to her death like the proud, unconquered woman she was! Far away in the distance, she saw the headlamp of the express, like a single, tiny star, twinkling in the darkness of the sky. Her strength returned, and she continued forward. The train had not yet reached the tunnel. There was no sound of it coming; there was simply a tiny, bright light, gradually getting bigger. She drew herself up to her full height, like a graceful statue, and advanced steadily, with long firm strides, as if to greet a friend as she came towards her.8 The train had entered the tunnel; the noise was coming nearer, shaking the ground like an approaching hurricane. The star was now a huge eye, growing bigger and bigger and seeming to leap from its dark socket. For some unexplained reason, perhaps simply so that she should take nothing with her when she died, she emptied her pockets, and without pausing in her heroic progress, placed her belongings beside the track — a handkerchief, a bunch of keys, a piece of string and two knives. She took the headscarf from round her neck, unfastened her blouse and let it hang from her shoulders. The eye had become a fiery blaze, like the open mouth of a furnace belching out flames; she could feel the monster’s hot, steaming breath, and the sound of thunder grew louder and louder. She continued to walk forwards, her eyes fixed on the approaching conflagration, drawn towards it like a moth attracted by a candle in the dark. At the final, terrible moment of impact, the final embrace, she stood straight and tall, as if in a last gesture of defiance and revolt she wished to seize hold of this colossus and strike it to the ground. Her head struck the headlamp and it went out.

It was more than an hour later when they came to retrieve the body. The driver had seen the tall, pale figure walking towards the train, like a strange, frightening apparition illuminated by the shaft of brilliant light from the headlamp. When the lamp had suddenly gone out, the train was plunged into total darkness as it roared through the tunnel. The