The Beast Within - Emile Zola [202]
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m willing. We will do it.’
Jacques lay there thinking. He had stopped kissing her. There was a long silence. They both remained motionless in each other’s arms, lost in contemplation of the deed that was to be perpetrated. It had been decided; their minds were made up. Gradually they became aware of their two bodies, locked together in an ever-tightening embrace. Séverine loosened her arms and drew away from him.
‘What excuse can we use to get him here?’ she said. ‘Whatever we tell him, the earliest train he can catch is at eight o’clock, when he comes off duty, and he won’t be here before ten, which is even better ... I know! We can say it’s about the buyer for the house. Misard spoke to me about him; he’s supposed to be coming to have a look at it the day after tomorrow, in the morning! I’ll send my husband a telegram first thing in the morning, telling him his presence is essential. He’ll be here tomorrow night. You can leave in the afternoon and be back before he arrives. It will be dark, with no moon ... nothing can go wrong. It’s all working out perfectly.’
‘Yes, perfectly,’ said Jacques.
They embraced each other and made love, fainting in ecstasy. When they finally went to sleep, still in each other’s arms, a vast silence descended on the house. It was still not daylight, but the first signs of dawn were beginning to whiten the shadows that had hidden them from each other like a dark mantle. Jacques slept until ten o’clock, in a deep, dreamless sleep. When he opened his eyes, he found himself alone. Séverine had gone to her room across the landing to get dressed. A shaft of bright sunlight fell through the window, giving an incandescent glow to the red hangings around the bed and the red wall coverings. The whole room seemed to be aflame. The house was shaking with the noise of a passing train. It must have been the train that had woken him up. He was dazzled by the sunlight and the blaze of red all around him. Then he remembered. It had been decided. That night, when this blinding sun had disappeared, he would kill.
The day passed as the two of them had planned. Before breakfast, Séverine asked Misard to go to Doinville with the telegram for her husband. At about three o‘clock, as Cabuche was there and could see what he was doing, Jacques made very obvious preparations for leaving. Cabuche even accompanied him as he left to catch the 4.14 train at Barentin, partly because he had nothing else to do, and partly because he vaguely felt he had something in common with him, Jacques being the lover of the woman he so much desired himself. Jacques arrived at Rouen at twenty to five. He got off the train and booked into an inn near the station, run by a woman who came from his own home town. He told her that in the morning he intended to call in on some friends before going back to Paris to start work again. He was very tired, however; he was still recovering from his injuries and he’d overtaxed himself. At six o’clock he went to his room to sleep. He had chosen a room on the ground floor, which had a window opening on to a quiet back street. Ten minutes later he was on his way back to La Croix-de-Maufras, having climbed out of the window without being seen, and carefully leaving the shutter open so that he could get back in again unperceived.
It wasn’t until a quarter past nine that Jacques found himself back outside the lonely house, standing empty and forlorn, at an angle to the railway line. It was very dark; the front of the house was completely closed up and not a single light was visible. Once again he felt the pang of anxiety, the feeling of awful sadness that seemed to herald the fateful calamity which awaited him there. As arranged with Séverine, he threw three pebbles against the shutters of the red room. He then walked round to the back of the house, where eventually a door quietly opened. He closed it behind