The Beast Within - Emile Zola [224]
‘You can bugger off!’ retorted Jacques. ‘Just you be careful I don’t start talking ... Why don’t you try looking in the salt-box? It might be there!’
Misard went pale, continuing to look at Jacques with blood-shot eyes. He seemed to have a sudden flash of inspiration.
‘The salt-box!’ he exclaimed. ‘You’re right, there’s a place under the drawer I haven’t looked in!’
He quickly paid for his glass of wine and ran off to the station to see if he still had time to catch the 7.10. When he got back to his cottage, the endless search would continue.
Later that evening, when they had eaten and while they were waiting for the train at ten to one, Philomène persuaded Jacques to go for a walk with her. She led him through dark alleyways out into the neighbouring countryside. It was a sultry July night, very hot and with no moon. She leaned on his arm, breathing heavily. Twice, thinking she heard footsteps behind them, she had turned to look, but it was so dark she could see no one. Jacques was finding the oppressive weather very tiresome. Since the murder he had been feeling calm, relaxed and in good health, but a little earlier, as he had been sitting at the dinner table, he had felt the return of a vague unease every time Philomène’s hands had come in contact with him. It must have been due to tiredness, or perhaps it was the heavy weather that was affecting him. But now, as he walked along, holding her against him, he felt the terrible stirrings of his old desire, gathering strength and filling him with a sense of unspeakable dread. He had thought he was cured. He had proved it. He had made love to Philomène in order to convince himself and he had felt nothing. He became so agitated that he would have removed himself from her arms, fearing some dreadful recurrence of his malady, had not the surrounding darkness reassured him. Never, not even in the darkest days of his terrible affliction, would he have killed if he could not actually see his victim. But suddenly, as they were walking beside a grassy bank in a quiet lane, she pulled him to the ground and lay on her back in front of him. The monstrous urge returned. A wild frenzy took hold of him. He felt around in the grass for a weapon, a stone to smash her head open. He shook himself, got to his feet and fled in panic. Behind him he heard a man shouting and swearing, and the sounds of a violent struggle.
‘You bitch! I waited to see what your game was, just to make sure!’
‘It’s not true. Let me go!’
‘So it’s not true, eh! He won’t get away, you mark my words. I know who he is. I’ll get even with him, you’ll see. If you tell me it’s not true again, I’ll ...’
Jacques vanished into the night, running not from Pecqueux, whom he had recognized, but from himself, wild with grief.
One murder had not been enough! He had killed Séverine, and it had not satisfied his thirst for blood! That morning he had thought he was cured. And now it was beginning again. First one, then another, and then another! He might gorge himself and gain a few weeks’ respite, but his terrible hunger would return and would never be satisfied. He would kill woman after woman, and there would be no end to it. And now, he didn’t even need to see his victim for his desire to be aroused; he only had to feel her, warm in his arms, and he would yield to his murderous lust, to the savage male instinct which demanded female blood. Life was at an end; all that lay before him was a night of darkness, an eternity of despair, from which there could be no escape.
A few days later Jacques was back at work. He avoided his comrades, keeping himself to himself, wrapped in his own thoughts. After several stormy sessions in the Chamber, war had been declared.7 There had already been a skirmish at one of the frontier towns,8 and it had apparently been successful. For a week, the mobilization of troops had been straining the resources of the railway companies to breaking point. Regular services were disrupted and there were long delays