His chiefs pointed him out as a model driver, who did not drink and who did not run after petticoats. His tipsy comrades made fun of his exaggeration of good conduct, and the others were secretly alarmed when they saw him fall into his silent, melancholy fits, with eyes dim and ashy countenance. How many hours did he recollect having passed, all those hours of freedom, shut up like a monk in his cell, in that little room in the Rue Cardinet, whence the depôt at Batignolles, to which his engine belonged, could be seen.
Jacques made an effort to rise. What was he doing there in the grass, on this mild and hazy winter night? The country remained plunged in shadow. There was only light above, where the moon lit up the thin fog, the immense ground-glass-like cupola which concealed it from view, with a pale yellow reflex. Below, the black earth slumbered in the immobility of death. Come! it must be near nine o'clock. The best thing to do would be to return to the house, and go to bed. But, in his torpor, he saw himself back at the Misards, ascending the staircase to the loft, stretching himself on the hay against the plank partition separating him from the room occupied by Flore. She would be there, he would hear her breathing; and, as he was aware that she never locked her door, he would be able to join her. His shivering fit returned. He was racked again with such a violent sob at the image of this girl, that he once more sank to the ground.
He had wanted to kill her—wanted to kill her! Great God! He was choking in anguish at the thought that he would go and kill her in her bed, presently, if he returned to the house. He might well be without a weapon; he might cover his head with his two arms to render himself powerless, but he felt that the male, independent of his own will, would thrust open the door and strangle the girl, urged to the crime by a thirst to avenge the ancient wrong. No, no! He had better pass the night beating about the neighbourhood, than return there. Bounding to his feet he fled again.
Then, once more, for half an hour, he tore across the dark country as if an unchained pack of devils followed howling at his heels. He ascended the hills, he plunged down into the narrow gorges. He went through two streams, one after the other, drenching himself to the hips. A bush, barring his progress, exasperated him. His only thought was to go straight on, further, still further, to flee, to flee from the other one, the mad animal he felt within him; but the beast accompanied him, it flew along as fast as he did. For months he had fancied he had driven it from him; he had pursued the same life as other people; and, now, he had to begin again, he would have to resume the struggle to prevent the brute leaping upon the first woman he chanced to brush against in the street.
Nevertheless, the intense silence and vast solitude appeased him a little, and made him dream of a life as mute and lonely as this desolate land, where he would stroll about always, without ever meeting a soul. He must have turned round without noticing it, for he found himself kicking against the metals on the opposite side of the line, after describing a wide circle among the slopes, bristling with bushes, above the tunnel. He started back in the irritable uneasiness of once more falling upon the living. Then, with the intention of taking a short cut behind a hillock, he lost his way, to find it again before the railway hedge, just at the exit from the tunnel on the down-line, opposite the field where he had been sobbing a short time previously; and, tired to death, he remained motionless, when the thunder of a train issuing from the bowels of the earth, at first slight, but becoming louder and louder every second, attracted his attention. It was the Havre express which had left Paris at 6.30 and passed by there at 9.25; the train he drove every two days.
Jacques first of all saw the dark mouth of the tunnel lit up, like the opening to an oven ablaze with faggots. Then the engine burst out with a tremendous crash amidst the dazzling splendour of its great round eye the lantern in front whose fire bored into the country, illuminating the metals for a long way ahead, with a double line of flame. It came like a thunderbolt; the carriages followed one another immediately afterwards, the small square windows of the doors, brilliant with luminosity, displayed compartments full of travellers, flying past at such a whirling speed, that there afterwards remained a doubt in the mind of the spectator, as to what the eye had seen.
And Jacques, very distinctly, at that precise quarter of a second, perceived through the flaming glass of a coupé window, one man holding another down on the seat, and plunging a knife into his throat; while a dark heap, perhaps a third person, perhaps some articles of luggage fallen from the rack, weighed with all its weight on the convulsed legs of the victim. But the train had already dashed past, and was disappearing in the direction of La Croix-de-Maufras, displaying naught of itself in the dense obscurity, but the three lights at the back—the red triangle.
The young man, riveted to the spot, followed the train with his eyes as its thunder gradually died away, leaving the deathlike peacefulness of the surroundings undisturbed. Was he sure he had seen what he thought? And now he hesitated. He no longer dared affirm the reality of this vision which came and went in a flash. Not one single feature of the two actors in the drama remained vivid. The dark heap must have been a travelling-rug that had fallen across the body of the victim. Nevertheless, he thought he had first of all caught sight of a pale profile beneath waves of thick hair. But all this became confused, and evaporated as in a dream. For an instant, the profile he had evoked reappeared, and then definitely vanished. Doubtless it was nothing more than imagination; and all this gave him an icy chill. It seemed to him so extraordinary, that at last he admitted he must have been the victim of hallucination, due to the frightful crisis he had just passed through.
Jacques walked about for nearly another hour, his head loaded with confused thoughts. He felt broken down, but relief came, and his fever left him. He ended by turning in the direction of La Croix-de-Maufras, but without having decided to do so. Then when he found himself before the house of the gatekeeper, he was determined he would not go in, that he would sleep in the little shed built against one of the walls. But a ray of light passed under the door, and pushing it open, without giving a thought to what he was doing, a strange sight stopped him on the threshold.
Misard had disturbed the butter-jar in the corner, and, on the ground on all fours, a lighted lantern beside him, he was sounding the wall with little taps of the knuckle, searching. The noise made by the door opening, made him stand up, but he did not show the least confusion. He merely remarked in the most natural tone of voice imaginable: