The Monomaniac (La bête humaine)

by Émile Zola

Nevertheless, the examining-magistrate having heard at the commencement of the inquiry, of the intimacy between the victim and Jacques, took measures to ascertain how the latter had passed his time on the day of the murder; but, apart from the accused acknowledging that he had accompanied Jacques to Barentin, to catch the 4.14 train in the afternoon; the innkeeper at Rouen took her solemn oath that the young man, who had gone to bed immediately after his dinner, did not leave his room until the next morning at about seven o'clock. And, moreover, a lover does not slaughter without any reason, a sweetheart whom he adores, and with whom he has never had the slightest quarrel. It would be absurd. No, no; only one murderer was possible, a murderer who was evident, the liberated convict found there red-handed, with the knife at his feet, that brute beast who had related a rigmarole to the representative of justice, fit to send him off to sleep.

But when M. Denizet reached this point he for a moment felt embarrassed, notwithstanding his conviction and his scent, which, said he, gave him better information than proofs. In a first search made at the hovel of the accused, on the outskirts of the forest of Bécourt, absolutely nothing had been found. It having been impossible to prove robbery, it became necessary to discover another motive for the crime. All at once, in the hazard of an examination, Misard put him on the track, by relating that he had one night seen Cabuche scale the wall of the property to look through the window of the room occupied by Madame Roubaud who was going to bed.

Jacques, on being questioned in his turn, quietly related what he knew: the mute adoration of the quarryman for the wife of the assistant station-master, his ardent desire to be of service to her, ever running after her as if fastened to her apron strings. No room, therefore, remained for doubt: bestial passion alone had urged him to the crime. Everything became quite clear: the man returning by the door to which he might have a key, leaving it open in his excitement, then the struggle which had brought about the murder.

Nevertheless, one final objection to this theory occurred to the examining-magistrate. It appeared singular that the man, aware of the imminent arrival of the husband, should have chosen the very hour when Roubaud might surprise him. But on careful consideration this circumstance turned against the accused, and completely overwhelmed him by establishing that he must have acted under the influence of a supreme crisis, driven crazy by the thought that if he failed to take advantage of the time when Séverine was still alone, he would lose her for ever, as she would be leaving on the morrow. From that moment, the conviction of the examining-magistrate was complete and unalterable.

Harassed by interrogations, taken and retaken through the skein of clever questions, careless of the traps laid for him, Cabuche obstinately abided by his first version. He was passing along the road, breathing the fresh night air, when an individual brushed against him as he tore headlong away. The fugitive dashed by him so rapidly in the obscurity, that he could not even say which way he fled.

Then, seized with anxiety and having cast a glance at the house, he perceived that the door stood wide open, and he ended by making up his mind to enter and go upstairs. There he found the dead woman, who was still warm, and who looked at him with her great eyes. In lifting her on the bed, thinking her still alive, he covered himself with blood. That was all he knew, and he repeated the same tale, never varying in a single detail, with an air of confining himself to a story arranged beforehand. When an effort was made to make him say something more, he looked wild, and remained silent, after the fashion of a man of limited intelligence who did not understand.

The first time M. Denizet addressed questions to him on the subject of his intense passion for the deceased, he became very red, like some lad reproached with his first love affair; and he denied, he resisted the accusation of having thought of becoming intimate with this lady, as if it was something very wicked and unavowable, a delicate and also a mysterious matter, buried in the innermost recess of his heart, and which he was not called upon to unbosom to anyone. No, no! He did not love her. He never desired any intimacy with her. They would never make him speak of what seemed to him a profanation, now that she was dead.

But this obstinacy in denying a fact that several of the witnesses affirmed, turned against him. Naturally, according to the theory of the prosecution, it was to his interest to conceal his furious passion. And when the examining-magistrate, assembling all the proofs, sought to tear the truth from him by striking a decisive blow, accusing him point blank of murder and rape, he flew into a mad rage of protestation. He do that! he who respected as a saint! The gendarmes who were called in, had to put restraint on him; while he, with great oaths, talked of strangling the whole show. The examining-magistrate put him down as a most dangerous, cunning scoundrel, but whose violence broke out in spite of all, and proved a sufficient avowal of the crimes he denied.

Each time the murder was brought up, Cabuche flew into a fury, shouting that it was the other one, the mysterious fugitive, who had committed the crime. The inquiry had gone so far when M. Denizet, by chance, made a discovery which suddenly transformed the case, and gave it ten times more importance. He scented out the truth, as he remarked. Influenced by a sort of presentiment, he searched the hovel occupied by Cabuche, a second time, himself; and behind a beam, came upon a hiding-place where he found ladies' gloves and pocket-handkerchiefs, while beneath them lay a gold watch, which he recognised with great delight. This was the watch belonging to President Grandmorin which the examining-magistrate had so ardently endeavoured to trace formerly. It was a strong watch with two initials entwined, and inside the case it bore the number of the maker, 2516. The whole business stood out illuminated, as in a flash of lightning, the past became connected with the present, and when he had joined the chain of facts together again, their logic enchanted him.

But the consequences would stretch so far that, without alluding to the watch, he at first questioned Cabuche about the gloves and pocket-handkerchiefs. The accused for an instant had the avowal ready on the lips; yes, he adored her to such an extent as to kiss the gowns she had worn, to pick up, to steal behind her, anything she happened to let fall: bits of laces, hooks, pins. Then a feeling of shame and invincible modesty made him silent. When the judge, making up his mind, thrust the watch before his eyes, he looked at it bewildered. He remembered perfectly; he had been surprised to find the watch tied up in the corner of a pocket-handkerchief that he had taken from under a bolster and carried away with him as a prize. Then it had remained in his hut, while he racked his brain thinking how he could return it.