Again Jacques blew the whistle, after Pecqueux had opened the exhaust pipe. The two guards were at their posts. Mizard, Ozil, and Cabuche, had got on the footboard of the leading van; and the train slowly issued from the cutting between the soldiers, armed with their shovels, who had stood back to right and left along the base of the slopes. Then it stopped before the house of the gatekeeper to pick up the passengers.
Flore was there, in front. Ozil and Cabuche joined her and remained at her side; while Misard was now assiduous in his attentions, greeting the ladies and gentlemen who left his dwelling, and collecting the silver pieces. So at last the deliverance had come. But they had waited too long. All these people were shivering with cold, dying of hunger and exhaustion. The English lady led off her two daughters, who were half asleep; the young man from Havre got into the same compartment as the pretty dark lady, who looked very languid, and made himself most agreeable to the husband. And what with the slush caused by the trampled-down snow, the pushing, the free and easy manners, anyone might almost have imagined himself present at the entraining of a troop in flight, who had lost even the instinct of decent behaviour.
For an instant, Aunt Phasie appeared at the window of her room. Curiosity had bought her from her mattress, and she had dragged herself there to see. Her great hollow eyes of sickness watched this unknown crowd, these passers-by of the world on the move, whom she would never look on again, who were brought there and borne away by the tempest.
Séverine left the house the last. Turning her head she smiled at Jacques, who leant over to follow her to her carriage with his eyes. And Flore, who was on the look-out for them, again turned pale at this tranquil exchange of tenderness. Abruptly she drew nearer to Ozil, whom hitherto she had repelled, as if now, in her hatred, she felt the need of a man.
The headguard gave the signal. La Lison answered with a plaintive whistle; and Jacques this time started off, not to stop again before Rouen. It was six o'clock. Night was completing its descent from the black sky on to the white earth; but a pale, and frightfully melancholy reflex remained nearly level with the ground, lighting up the desolation of the ravaged country. And, in this uncertain glimmer, the house of La Croix-de-Maufras rose up aslant, more dilapidated than ever, and all black in the midst of the snow, with the notice nailed to the shut-up front, "For Sale."
[CHAPTER VIII]
The train did not reach the Paris terminus before 10.40 at night. There had been a stoppage of twenty minutes at Rouen to give the passengers time to dine; and Séverine had hastened to telegraph to her husband that she would only return to Havre by the express on the following night.
As they left Mantes, Pecqueux had an idea. Mother Victoire, his wife, had been at the hospital for a week, laid up with a severely sprained ankle occasioned by a fall; and, as he could find a bed at the house of some friends, he desired to offer their room to Madame Roubaud. She would be much more comfortable than at a hotel in the neighbourhood, and could remain there until the following night as if she were at home. And, when she approached the locomotive, among the swarm of passengers who at last left the carriages under the marquee, Jacques advised her to accept, at the same time holding out to her the key which the fireman had given him. But Séverine hesitated.