The Beast Within - Emile Zola [59]
Flore uttered a little cry of surprise.
‘It’s the President!’ she said.
Jacques leaned forward closer to see, brushing his hair against hers. He gasped for breath as he gorged his eyes on the sight in front of him.
‘The President... the President...’ he kept repeating, mystified.
‘Yes,’ said Flore. ‘It’s the President... old Grandmorin.’
She continued to examine the face, now deathly white, its mouth twisted into a horrible grimace, its eyes staring in terror. Rigor mortis had begun to set in, and its features were already becoming stiff. Flore let the head drop; it fell back to the ground, and the wound closed up again.
‘That’s the end of your fun and games!’ she muttered under her breath. ‘This is the result of one of his affairs; I’ll bet you anything. Ah! Poor Louisette! ... The swine! He’s got what he deserved!’
There was a long silence. Flore put the lamp back on the ground and waited, casting occasional glances at Jacques, who stood on the other side of the body, unable to move, dazed and totally overwhelmed by what he had just seen. It must have been almost eleven o‘clock. After the embarrassing scene earlier that evening, she was reluctant to be the first to speak. Suddenly they heard voices; it was her father on his way back with the stationmaster. She didn’t want them to see her there, so, plucking up her courage, she said, ‘Are you coming back to sleep?’
The question took Jacques by surprise and for a moment he appeared torn. He searched desperately for some excuse.
‘No,’ he said.
There was no reaction from Flore, but from the way her arms hung limp at her side Jacques could tell that she was disappointed. As if she were trying to make amends for having refused him earlier, she began to plead with him, asking him again, ‘Will you not come back to the house? Will I never see you again?’
‘No!’ said Jacques. ‘No! No! No!’
The approaching voices were now very near. Without attempting to shake his hand, for Jacques seemed to be trying deliberately to keep the corpse between them, without even saying cheerio as she always used to do when they had been friends as children, Flore walked away and vanished into the night. Jacques heard the sharp intake of her breath, as though she were fighting back tears.
A moment later the stationmaster arrived with Misard and two other railwaymen. He too checked the identity of the body. Yes, it was certainly President Grandmorin. He recognized him because he used to see him getting off the train at Barentin every time he came to visit his sister at Doinville. He said that the body could be left where it had fallen. He covered it with a coat, which one of the men had brought with him. The stationmaster had sent one of his assistants on the eleven o’clock train from Barentin to report the news to the Public Prosecutor at Rouen, but there was little chance that he would be able to get there before five or six in the morning because he would also have to bring the examining magistrate, the clerk of the court and a doctor. The stationmaster arranged with his men to guard the body; they would take turns throughout the night so that someone was there all the time, keeping watch with the lamp.
Jacques thought that he might sleep in one of the station buildings at Barentin; his train wasn’t due to leave for Le Havre until seven twenty.13 But he couldn’t bring himself to leave; he stood there for a long time, unable to tear himself away, mesmerized. The thought of the examining magistrate coming to inspect the scene disturbed him, almost as if he considered himself to be an accomplice to the murder. Should he say what he had seen as the express went by? He decided at first that he would; after all, he had nothing to fear. Besides it was his duty to speak; of that there was no question. But then he wondered whether