The action of the novel centres on people who work to earn a living and who have more limited means.

The Dauvergnes receive two full-time salaries. The father is an assistant stationmaster at the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris, and the son, Henri, is a mainline guard. Between them they earn 6,000 francs. They also enjoy subsidized accommodation and heating allowances. The family lives very comfortably and enjoys luxuries such as a piano and a cage of exotic birds.

Jacques is a top-link train driver. He earns 2,800 francs and with bonuses for fuel economies and maintaining his locomotive he increases this to 4,000francs.

Pecqueux, Jacques’s fireman, earns 2,800 francs including bonuses, in other words slightly less than Jacques. Pecqueux squanders most of his income on drink.

Roubaud, an assistant stationmaster at Le Havre, earns approximately 2,000 francs, which is less than half the allegedly ‘meagre’ salary of Denizet. His wife’s shopping spree at the Bon Marché (chapter I) comes to 300 francs, which represents the total of her savings during the winter. The novel does not specify what Roubaud allows her for housekeeping (she pays for laundry and domestic help). Roubaud is surprised at her extravagance; 300 francs is almost as much as two months of his salary. Roubaud’s gambling debts at one point amount to 1,000 francs a month, which is half his annual salary. The 10,000 francs stolen from Grandmorin, which enable him to continue gambling, represent five years’ salary. Roubaud is provided with accommodation and also enjoys first-class concessions for rail travel.

Misard earns 1,200 francs as a section operator. He has come down in the world, having previously earned more as a platelayer. Misard is also provided with accommodation (the level-crossing keeper’s cottage). He is determined to get his hands on the 1,000 francs left to his wife by her father. The money would be the equivalent of almost a year’s salary. He offers ‘hospitality’ to the passengers stranded in the blizzard and seizes the opportunity to scrounge money from them.

Madame Victoire is paid 100 francs as a lavatory attendant but receives 1,400 francs in tips. She is also provided with accommodation and fuel allowances. Roubaud reflects that if her husband did not spend all his money on drink they would be earning between them over twice as much as himself.

At the lower end of the scale, Phasie, before becoming ill, was paid 50 francs for looking after the level-crossing. This job has now been passed to Flore.

In 1870, a national guard in Paris earned 1.50 francs a day. This would have been a basic survival salary.

Acknowledgements

The Introduction and explanatory notes to this translation owe a great debt to the inspirational scholarship of F. W. J. Hemmings and Henri Mitterand, in particular to Mitterand’s ‘Étude’ in the Pléiade edition of La Bête humaine (1966) and his more recently published two-volume Zola (Paris: Fayard, 2001).

I would like to thank my friends and colleagues at the University of Bolton for their interest and encouragement — in particular Jon Glover, Ken Hahlo and Barry Wood. The historians Gerry Bryant, Bill Luckin and Bertrand Taithe have also given much valued guidance. Raymond Watton’s inexhaustible knowledge about railways and his long experience of driving steam locomotives have helped elucidate the technical elements in the novel. Claudette Guérin has provided culinary advice and explained certain nineteenth-century colloquialisms. Above all I must thank my wife Janet for her technical assistance, for reading through the translation so carefully and for sharing her valuable critical insights. This translation would not have been possible without her constant support.

THE BEAST WITHIN

I

Roubaud walked into the room and placed his one-pound loaf, his pate and his bottle of white wine on the table.