The Beast Within - Emile Zola [36]
Roubaud pulled Séverine from the floor and propped her against the side of the bed. He knelt in front of her, still holding her down. Then, when he was at last able to speak, came a barrage of questions. His desire to know the truth was insatiable. He was no longer beating her, but this was another form of torture.
‘So you slept with him, you bitch! Say it! You slept with him! An old man like him! How old were you? Tell me! I bet you were no more than a girl. A little schoolgirl.’
She suddenly burst into tears and could not speak for crying.
‘Tell me, damn you! I bet you weren’t even ten when he started playing around with you. The dirty sod! That’s why he had you brought up out there at Doinville. Just so he could have his way with you, the bastard! Tell me, damn you, or I’ll start again!’
Tears were streaming down her face. She couldn’t speak. He raised his hand and struck her again, making her head spin. Still she did not answer him. Three times he struck her, each time repeating the same question.
‘How old were you, you bitch? Tell me! How old were you?’
She was too weak to resist. She felt as if the life were draining from her. He could have clawed her heart out with his clumsy, workman’s fingers. And still the questions came. She told him everything, so overcome with shame and terror that she spoke in a barely audible whisper. Roubaud, inflamed with jealousy, grew angrier and angrier as each painful chapter in the story unfolded. He wanted to know everything. He made her repeatedly go back over what she had already said, down to the last detail, in order to make sure he had got all the facts. He knelt in front of her with his ear pressed to the poor girl’s lips, listening in horror as the confession continued. All the time he held his fist raised above her, ready to strike her again at the least thing she refused to tell him.
Once again he heard the story of the years at Doinville — when she had first gone there as a child, and later when she was a young girl. Where had it happened? In the woods in the great park? In a corner of some dark passageway in the château? The President had obviously already had his eyes on her when he asked her to stay there after his gardener died and had her brought up with his own daughter. It must have started when the children used to run away in the middle of a game if they saw him coming, while she waited behind, with her pretty little face looking up at him and smiling, so that he could give her a pat on the cheek as he walked past. And later on, if she wasn’t frightened to go and ask him favours and always managed to get what she wanted, perhaps it was because she knew she could twist him round her little finger, whilst he, who was so strict and formal with other people, fed her the same blandishments he used to seduce all his servants. It was revolting. An old lecher, getting her to give him kisses as if he were her grand-father, watching her grow out of childhood, placing his hand on her, getting bolder every time he touched her, not able to wait until she had grown up!
Roubaud was breathless.
‘How old were you? Tell me! How old were you?’
‘Sixteen and a half.’
‘You’re a liar!’
Why should she lie, for goodness’ sake? She shrugged her shoulders. She was beyond caring and she was sick with fatigue.
‘Where were you, the first time