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By Root 1287 0

him rush headlong to the spot and the horrible fascination that now held him fixed there had resulted in the sudden, acute realization, sensed in every fibre of his body, that the man he had seen in the train, the man who was holding a knife, had dared to do the deed! He had followed his desire to its end! He had killed! If only he were not a coward! If only he could satisfy his desire! If only he could kill! For ten years he had been tortured by the desire to kill. His mind was in turmoil; he despised himself and he admired the man who had committed this murder. Above all, he felt the need to look at the body in front of him, an insatiable desire to feast his eyes on this tattered shred of human life, on the broken puppet, the limp rag that, before the knife had struck, had been a living creature. What he had merely dreamed of that man had actually done, and there was the body in front of him. If he killed, the body would be like that, there, on the ground. His heart was beating fit to burst. At the sight of this tragic corpse his craving to kill grew more intense, like lust that is denied gratification. He took a step nearer, like a nervous child trying to overcome its fear. Yes! He would do it! When the time came, he would do it!

There was a sudden rumble of wheels behind him, and he leaped to one side. A train was approaching; he had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t even heard it. He would have been run over; it was only the heat from the engine and the loud hiss of steam that had brought him to his senses. The train roared past him, throwing out fiery clouds of smoke. Yet more people! All on their way to Le Havre for the celebrations the following day! A child pressed its nose to one of the windows, peering out at the dark countryside. He saw faces, men’s faces. A young woman lowered one of the windows and threw out a piece of paper, smeared with butter and sugar. The train with its happy crowd of revellers was already a good way off, unaware that its wheels had passed within an inch of the corpse that lay beside the track. There it was, face down, in the dim light of the lamp. Not a sound disturbed the eerie stillness of the night.

Jacques was suddenly seized by a desire to see the wound while there was no one else there. The only thing that held him back was the thought that if he moved the head it might be noticed. He had reckoned that Misard and the stationmaster wouldn’t be back for another three-quarters of an hour. The minutes slipped by. Jacques thought of Misard; how pathetic he was, how slow and unbothered! But he too had the courage to kill, and to kill as coolly as you please, with poison! It must be easy to kill, then! Everybody did it! He took another step nearer. The thought of seeing the wound made his flesh tingle, as if he had been stung. He wanted to see how it had been done and where the blood had run! He wanted to see the red hole! If he replaced the head carefully, no one would know. But something else held him back — a fear that he refused to admit to, the fear of blood itself. It had always been the same; whatever he had wanted to do, desire had been accompanied by fear. He still had another quarter of an hour before the others returned. He was about to touch the body when a sound beside him made him jump back.

It was Flore. She had come to look at the body, too. Accidents had always fascinated her. The minute she heard that an animal had been knocked down or that someone had been run over by a train she would come running to see. She had got dressed again to come to inspect the corpse. She took one look and, without hesitation, she bent down, raised the lamp with one hand and with the other took hold of the head and turned it over.

‘Watch what you’re doing,’ mumbled Jacques. ‘You’re not supposed to touch it.’

Flore merely shrugged her shoulders. They could now see the face in the yellow lamplight. It was the face of an old man. He had a large nose, hair that had once been blond and big blue staring eyes. Under his chin there was a terrible, gaping wound, a deep gash cut into his neck,