He was of no more than average height but he looked very fit. He prided himself on his appearance — the shape of his head, his low forehead, his strong neck, his round face, his fresh colouring and the glint in his big, bright eyes. His eyebrows met in a bristly line across his forehead, lending his face a permanent frown, like a jealous lover. He had married a woman fifteen years younger than himself and he often looked in the mirror; he found it reassuring.

He heard footsteps on the stairs and ran to open the door. But it was a woman who sold newspapers at the station, coming home next door. He walked back across the room. On the sideboard he noticed a box decorated with sea-shells. It was something he remembered, a present from Séverine to Madame Victoire, who had nursed her when she was a baby. It was a tiny little thing, but one glance had reminded him of how he came to marry her. It was now almost three years ago.

He had been born in Plassans,10 in the South of France. His father was a carter. He had completed his military service and gained his sergeant’s stripes and had then worked for several years as a porter at the station at Mantes. He had been promoted to head porter at Barentin, and it was there that he had made the acquaintance of the woman he fell in love with, when she came to catch the train on her way back from Doinville with Mademoiselle Berthe, the daughter of President Grandmorin.11 Séverine Aubry came from a fairly humble background; she was the youngest daughter of a gardener on the Grandmorins’ estate, who had died while in their employ. But the President, who was Séverine’s godfather and guardian, simply doted on her. He arranged to have her looked after at the château, and she and his daughter became the closest of friends. He sent them both to the same boarding school in Rouen. Séverine had such a naturally genteel manner that for some time Roubaud resigned himself to worshipping her from afar, with the same sort of passion as a working-class person who has risen in the world might covet a fine piece of jewellery that he thought was worth a lot of money. Séverine was the only love of his life, and he would have been quite happy to marry her without a penny, just for the pleasure of knowing she was his. When he eventually plucked up courage to ask for her hand, he found himself better off than he could ever have dreamed. Not only did Séverine become his wife, with a dowry of ten thousand francs, but the President, who by then had retired and was a member of the board of directors of the Western Railway Company, took Roubaud himself under his wing. On the day after his marriage he had been promoted to assistant stationmaster at Le Havre. This was due partly, no doubt, to the fact that he had a very respectable work record; he was reliable, punctual and honest, not particularly intelligent perhaps, but very practical — all very laudable qualities which might explain why his application had been so quickly approved and why he had made such rapid progress. But Roubaud was inclined to think that he owed his success entirely to his wife. He simply worshipped her.

He opened the tin of sardines. His patience was beginning to wear thin. They had agreed to meet at three o’clock. Where could she be? Surely she wasn’t going to tell him it took a whole day to buy a pair of boots and half a dozen blouses. As he walked back in front of the mirror, he caught sight of himself again, his eyebrows bristling, his face set in a harsh scowl. In Le Havre he never worried about what she might be up to. But here in Paris he found himself imagining her involved in all sorts of escapades, secret assignations and deceptions.