The Beast Within - Emile Zola [211]
Jacques’s mind was on something else; he didn’t seem to be listening.
‘What’s the point of getting worked up about it?’ he muttered. ‘What’s it got to do with us? If the law doesn’t know what it’s doing, there’s not much we can do to help.’
He suddenly turned pale and sat looking into space.
‘The only one I feel sorry for is that poor woman,’ he said. ‘That poor woman!’
‘Well, I’ve got a woman,’ Pecqueux exclaimed angrily, ‘and if anyone started messing with her, I’d strangle the pair of them. They could cut my head off — I couldn’t care less!’
There was another silence. Philomène shrugged her shoulders dismissively and refilled the glasses. Deep down, Pecqueux disgusted her. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. He wasn’t looking after himself; he was dirty, and his clothes were in tatters. Since breaking her leg, Madame Victoire had been unable to get about; she had had to give up her job at the lavatories and had been admitted to a home. She was no longer there to molly-coddle him, to slip him the odd silver coin and mend his clothes, in case his other woman, the one in Le Havre, accused her of neglecting ‘their man’. She pulled a face. Jacques looked clean and smart and so much more attractive.
‘Is it your Paris woman you’d strangle?’ she gibed. ‘Who’d want to run off with her?’
‘Never you mind!’ he muttered.
Philomène raised her glass, taunting him: ‘Here’s to you! You can bring me your dirty washing. I’ll get it washed and mended. You’re a disgrace ... to both of us. Cheers, Monsieur Jacques!’
Jacques shuddered, as if he were emerging from a dream. Since the murder, he had felt absolutely no remorse and had experienced a sense of relief and physical well-being, but now and then the thought of Séverine moved his gentle nature to the point of tears. Trying to hide his emotion, he raised his glass and suddenly blurted out: ‘Did you know there’s going to be a war?’
‘Surely not!’ exclaimed Philomène. ‘Who against?’
‘Against the Prussians, of course ... just because some prince of theirs wants to be King of Spain!1 That’s all they talked about yesterday in the Assembly.’
‘That’ll be fun!’ Philomène grumbled. ‘As if they haven’t caused us enough trouble already, with their elections and plebiscites and riots in Paris2 ... If there’s going to be fighting, will all the men get called up?’
‘Oh, we’ll be all right,’ said Jacques. ‘They’ll need to keep the railways running ... but it’s going to make life difficult. There’ll be soldiers and provisions to be transported ... Anyway, if it happens, we’ll just have to do our duty.’
Whereupon he stood up, realizing that she had slipped one of her legs under his. Pecqueux noticed it too; he went red in the face and clenched his fist.
‘Come on,’ said Jacques, ‘it’s time for bed.’
‘Yes,’ Pecqueux muttered, ‘it certainly is.’
He had grabbed Philomène by the arm and was squeezing it so hard that she felt it would break. Stifling a cry of pain, she whispered into Jacques’s ear, as Pecqueux knocked back his brandy, ‘Be careful. When he’s had a drink he can get really rough.’
Just then they heard heavy footsteps coming down the stairs.
‘It’s my brother,’ said Philomène in a panic. ‘Quick, you’ll have to go!’
They hadn’t walked twenty paces from the house when they heard the sound of blows, followed by screams. Philomène was being given a beating, like a little girl who’d been caught stealing jam from the cupboard. Jacques stopped and wanted to go back to help her, but Pecqueux restrained him.
‘It’s none of your business,’ he said. ‘The bitch! She deserves all she gets!’
Jacques and Pecqueux reached the Rue François-Mazeline and went to bed without exchanging