The Beast Within - Emile Zola [197]
Jacques was surprised to see that Misard seemed no different. So it was possible to kill, without any fuss, and continue one’s life as before. Indeed, after his initial bout of frantic searching for the money, Misard had slipped back into his old apathetic ways, keeping himself to himself, like someone who didn’t want to be disturbed. In the end, he had done away with his wife to no purpose; she was the winner and he was the loser. He turned the house upside down and still found nothing, not a single centime. Only his eyes revealed his constant preoccupation — worried, prying eyes that peered at you from an ashen face. He continually saw the dead woman’s large, staring eyes and hideous grin and heard her voice telling him to ‘Keep looking!’ He looked and looked; he could not give his mind a moment’s rest. He racked his brains ceaselessly, trying to guess where the money might be buried, thinking of possible hiding places, eliminating those he had already tried and getting so excited when he thought of a new one that he would immediately drop whatever he was doing and run to see. But all to no avail! It became unbearable, an agonizing retribution, a kind of cerebral insomnia that kept his addled brain alert and thinking, in spite of himself, as the obsession ticked steadily away inside his head. When he sounded his horn, once for down trains and twice for up trains, he was searching. When he answered the bells in his cabin and pushed the buttons on his control panel to block or clear the line, he was still searching. He never stopped searching, searching desperately, all day long as he sat at his desk doing nothing, and all through the night, hardly able to stay awake, alone in the darkness and silence of the countryside, like an exile banished to the far ends of the earth. Old Madame Ducloux, who for the time being was looking after the level-crossing and who was very keen to find herself a husband, looked after him most solicitously and was very worried that he never seemed to close his eyes.
One night, Jacques, who by now was able to take a few steps around his bedroom, had got up and walked over to the window, when he saw a lamp moving in and out of the Misards’ cottage. It must have been Misard looking for the money! The following night, as he was looking out of the window again, he saw a tall dark shape standing in the road, under the window of the room next to his, in which Séverine slept. To his amazement he saw that it was Cabuche. He didn’t know why, but instead of feeling annoyed it made him feel sad and rather sorry for him. Poor Cabuche! A clumsy great fellow like him, stuck out there in the dark like a tame watchdog! Séverine was such a small girl, and, objectively speaking, not exactly pretty, yet with her jet-black hair and her periwinkle blue eyes, she obviously possessed the sort of charm that could captivate even a great oaf like Cabuche and make him stand at her door all night long, like a frightened little boy. He recalled his eagerness to do jobs for her, the slavish looks he gave her when he offered to help her. There was no doubt about it, Cabuche was in love with her and desired her. The next day he watched him carefully and saw him surreptitiously pick up a hairpin that had fallen from her chignon while she had been making the bed. He hid it in his