David's Reviews > La Bête humaine

One could say humans have a beastly nature.

Roubaud was a man going places. He worked his way up to the station master of Havre train station, part of The West Company Railway, with services from Paris to Havre. He has a beautiful young wife, Séverine. They make a great couple. He was ambitious.

One day she was not keen on making a trip with her husband to meet with the company president Grandmorin at his big house in the country, la Croix-de-Maufras. You know those business meetings - impress the boss with your enchanting wife. Perplexed that his wife refused to go, Roubaud plied her until he discovered her secret - at the age of 16 she lost her virginity with the president. She was not his only victim. Such a beast. Did I tell you that Roubaud is a very jealous man?

Later that same night, Jacques Lantier,* a young brash train engineer discovered his boss dead along the railway tracks. His throat had been slit. So begins a classic “who done it” with Zola mixing railways with murder.

*Jacques is the brother to CLaude Lantier, the artist from L’Oeuvre

The Roubauds are the key suspects but you know people with connections. They can point the finger elsewhere. When the will is revealed, Roubaud gets possession of the country house, la Croix-de-Maufras. In the mean time Roubaud asks the young engineer Lantier to escort his wife back to Paris. His job was to keep an eye on her. He did that all too well.

Of course, when two young people are together over time, sparks fly. This is a problem for Lantier because his cousin Flore also had her eye on him. And a bigger problem for the jealous husband. Love triangles with jealous people never end well, do they?

Speaking of love, the other major love in this book is the love of trains, both by our author and of course, Jacques Lantier the engineer. He truly loved La Lison, that beast of a train engine. Powerful, sleek, full of horse power. The descriptions are steamy. Sorry, bad pun.

In Thérèse Raquin, one of Zola’s early books (1867), he referred to the young couple as nothing other than being “la bête humaine.” A beast is a wild animal that hunts down and kills its prey. A human beast is ruthless, driven by carnal desires and cares little other than getting what they want. Add in love and jealousy, and that beast is a very dangerous thing.

This is definitely Zola’s darkest book to date and one of his last books of the Rougon-Macquart series, published in 1890. It is truly a wild ride.

Les Rougon-Macquart #17