Jacques, left by himself, did not move, but continued gazing at this inert mass that had fallen there, and which the uncertain light, just above the ground, only revealed indistinctly. The agitation that had made him rush forward, the horrible attraction that held him there, ended in this keen thought which burst from all his being: the other one, the man he had caught sight of with the knife in his hand had dared! He had gratified his desire! He had killed. Ah! what would he give not to be a coward, to be able to satisfy himself at last, to plunge in the knife! He, who had been tortured by this thirst for ten years! In his fever, he felt contempt for himself, and admiration for the other; and, above all, he felt the necessity to gaze on the victim, the quenchless thirst to feast his eyes on this human remnant, this broken dancing-Jack, this limp rag, which the stab of a knife had made of a creature. What he dreamed of, the other had realised, and it was that. If he killed, he would have that on the ground. His heart beat fit to break. His prurience for murder became violent as concupiscence, at the sight of this tragic corpse. He took a step, approached nearer, after the manner of a child making himself familiar with an object he fears. Yes, he would dare, he would dare in his turn! But a roar behind his back, made him spring aside. A train arrived which he had not heard, being so taken up with the contemplation of the body. He would have been crushed to pieces had not the warm steam and the formidable puffing of the engine warned him in time. The train flew past in its hurricane of noise, smoke, and flame. This one also carried a great many people. The flood of travellers continued streaming towards Havre, for the fête on the morrow. A child was flattening his nose against a window, looking out at the black country; profiles of men appeared, while a young woman, lowering one of the glasses, threw out a paper stained with butter and sugar. Already the joyous train was flying away in the distance, listless of the corpse its wheels had almost grazed. And the body continued lying there on its face, indistinctly lit up by the lantern, amidst the melancholy peacefulness of night.