Complex sentence: The main characters are Roubaud, the deputy station master at Le Havre, his wife Severine and Jacques Lantier an engine driver on the line and the family link with the rest of Les Rougon-Macquart series.
Split into simpler sentences: The main characters are Roubaud, the deputy station master at Le Havre, his wife Severine, and Jacques Lantier. Lantier is an engine driver on the line and the family link with the rest of Les Rougon-Macquart series.