THERESE RAQUIN

By Emile Zola

Translated and edited with a preface by Edward Vizetelly

PREFACE

This volume, "Therese Raquin, " was Zola's third book, but it was theone that first gave him notoriety, and made him somebody, as the sayinggoes. 

While still a clerk at Hachette's at eight pounds a month, engaged inchecking and perusing advertisements and press notices, he had alreadyin 1864 published the first series of "Les Contes a Ninon"--a reprint ofshort stories contributed to various publications; and, in the followingyear, had brought out "La Confession de Claude. " Both these books wereissued by Lacroix, a famous go-ahead publisher and bookseller in thosedays, whose place of business stood at one of the corners of theRue Vivienne and the Boulevard Montmartre, and who, as Lacroix, Verboeckhoven et Cie. , ended in bankruptcy in the early seventies. 

"La Confession de Claude" met with poor appreciation from the generalpublic, although it attracted the attention of the Public Prosecutor, who sent down to Hachette's to make a few inquiries about the author, but went no further. When, however, M. Barbey d'Aurevilly, in a criticalweekly paper called the "Nain Jaune, " spitefully alluded to this ratherdaring novel as "Hachette's little book, " one of the members of the firmsent for M. Zola, and addressed him thus:

"Look here, M. Zola, you are earning eight pounds a month with us, whichis ridiculous for a man of your talent. Why don't you go into literaturealtogether? It will bring you wealth and glory. "

Zola had no choice but to take this broad hint, and send in hisresignation, which was at once accepted. The Hachettes did not requirethe services of writers of risky, or, for that matter, any other novels, as clerks; and, besides, as Zola has told us himself, in an interviewwith my old friend and employer, [*] the late M. Fernand Xau, Editor ofthe Paris "Journal, " they thought "La Confession de Claude" a triflestiff, and objected to their clerks writing books in time which theyconsidered theirs, as they paid for it. 

 [*] He sent me to Hamburg for ten days in 1892 to report on the appalling outbreak of cholera in that city, with the emoluments of ten pounds a day, besides printing several articles from my pen on Parisian topics. --E. V. 

Zola, cast, so to say, adrift, with "Les Contes a Ninon" and "LaConfession de Claude" as scant literary baggage, buckled to, and setabout "Les Mysteres de Marseille" and "Therese Raquin, " while at thesame time contributing art criticisms to the "Evenement"--a series ofarticles which raised such a storm that painters and sculptors were inthe habit of purchasing copies of the paper and tearing it up in thefaces of Zola and De Villemessant, the owner, whenever they chanced tomeet them. Nevertheless it was these articles that first drew attentionto Manet, who had hitherto been regarded as a painter of no account, andmany of whose pictures now hang in the Luxembourg Gallery. 

"Therese Raquin" originally came out under the title of "A Love Story"in a paper called the "Artiste, " edited by that famous art critic andcourtier of the Second Empire, Arsene Houssaye, author of "Les GrandesDames, " as well as of those charming volumes "Hommes et Femmes du 18emeSiecle, " and many other works. 

Zola received no more than twenty-four pounds for the serial rights ofthe novel, and he consented at the insistence of the Editor, who pointedout to him that the periodical was read by the Empress Eugenie, to drawhis pen through certain passages, which were reinstated when the storywas published in volume form. I may say here that in this translation, I have adopted the views of the late M. Arsene Houssaye; and, if I haveallowed the appalling description of the Paris Morgue to stand, it is, first of all, because it constitutes a very important factor in thestory; and moreover, it is so graphic, so true to life, as I have seenthe place myself, times out of number, that notwithstanding its horror, it really would be a loss to pass it over. 

Well, "Therese Raquin" having appeared as "A Love Story" in the"Artiste, " was then published as a book, in 1867, by that same Lacroixas had issued Zola's preceding efforts in novel writing. I was livingin Paris at the time, and I well recall the yell of disapprobation withwhich the volume was received by the reviewers. Louis Ulbach, thena writer on the "Figaro, " to which Zola also contributed, and whosubsequently founded and edited a paper called "La Cloche, " whenZola, curiously enough, became one of his critics, made a particularlyvirulent attack on the novel and its author. Henri de Villemessant, theEditor, authorised Zola to reply to him, with the result that a vehementdiscussion ensued in print between author and critic, and "ThereseRaquin" promptly went into a second edition, to which Zola appended apreface. 

I have not thought it necessary to translate this preface, which isa long and rather tedious reply to the reviewers of the day. It willsuffice to say, briefly, that the author meets the strictures of hiscritics by pointing out and insisting on the fact, that he has simplysought to make an analytic study of temperament and not of character. 

"I have selected persons, " says he, "absolutely swayed by their nervesand blood, deprived of free will, impelled in every action of life, by the fatal lusts of the flesh. Therese and Laurent are human brutes, nothing more. I have sought to follow these brutes, step by step, in thesecret labour of their passions, in the impulsion of their instincts, in the cerebral disorder resulting from the excessive strain on theirnerves. "

EDWARD VIZETELLY SURBITON, 1 December, 1901. 

THERESE RAQUIN

CHAPTER I

At the end of the Rue Guenegaud, coming from the quays, you find theArcade of the Pont Neuf, a sort of narrow, dark corridor running fromthe Rue Mazarine to the Rue de Seine. This arcade, at the most, isthirty paces long by two in breadth. It is paved with worn, loose, yellowish tiles which are never free from acrid damp. The square panesof glass forming the roof, are black with filth. 

On fine days in the summer, when the streets are burning with heavy sun, whitish light falls from the dirty glazing overhead to drag miserablythrough the arcade. On nasty days in winter, on foggy mornings, theglass throws nothing but darkness on the sticky tiles--unclean andabominable gloom. 

To the left are obscure, low, dumpy shops whence issue puffs of air ascold as if coming from a cellar. Here are dealers in toys, cardboardboxes, second-hand books. The articles displayed in their windows arecovered with dust, and owing to the prevailing darkness, can only beperceived indistinctly. The shop fronts, formed of small panes of glass, streak the goods with a peculiar greenish reflex. Beyond, behindthe display in the windows, the dim interiors resemble a number oflugubrious cavities animated by fantastic forms. 

To the right, along the whole length of the arcade, extends a wallagainst which the shopkeepers opposite have stuck some small cupboards. Objects without a name, goods forgotten for twenty years, are spreadout there on thin shelves painted a horrible brown colour. A dealer inimitation jewelry, has set up shop in one of these cupboards, and theresells fifteen sous rings, delicately set out on a cushion of blue velvetat the bottom of a mahogany box. 

Above the glazed cupboards, ascends the roughly plastered black wall, looking as if covered with leprosy, and all seamed with defacements. 

The Arcade of the Pont Neuf is not a place for a stroll. You take it tomake a short cut, to gain a few minutes. It is traversed by busypeople whose sole aim is to go quick and straight before them. You seeapprentices there in their working-aprons, work-girls taking home theirwork, persons of both sexes with parcels under their arms. There arealso old men who drag themselves forward in the sad gloaming that fallsfrom the glazed roof, and bands of small children who come to the arcadeon leaving school, to make a noise by stamping their feet on the tilesas they run along. Throughout the day a sharp hurried ring of footsteps, resounds on the stone with irritating irregularity. Nobody speaks, nobody stays there, all hurry about their business with bent heads, stepping out rapidly, without taking a single glance at the shops. Thetradesmen observe with an air of alarm, the passers-by who by a miraclestop before their windows. 

The arcade is lit at night by three gas burners, enclosed in heavysquare lanterns. These jets of gas, hanging from the glazed roof whereonthey cast spots of fawn-coloured light, shed around them circles of paleglimmer that seem at moments to disappear. The arcade now assumes theaspect of a regular cut-throat alley. Great shadows stretch along thetiles, damp puffs of air enter from the street. Anyone might take theplace for a subterranean gallery indistinctly lit-up by three funerallamps. The tradespeople for all light are contented with the faint rayswhich the gas burners throw upon their windows. Inside their shops, theymerely have a lamp with a shade, which they place at the corner of theircounter, and the passer-by can then distinguish what the depths of theseholes sheltering night in the daytime, contain. On this blackish lineof shop fronts, the windows of a cardboard-box maker are flaming: twoschist-lamps pierce the shadow with a couple of yellow flames. And, onthe other side of the arcade a candle, stuck in the middle of an argandlamp glass, casts glistening stars into the box of imitation jewelry. The dealer is dozing in her cupboard, with her hands hidden under hershawl. 

A few years back, opposite this dealer, stood a shop whose bottle-greenwoodwork excreted damp by all its cracks. On the signboard, made of along narrow plank, figured, in black letters the word: MERCERY. And onone of the panes of glass in the door was written, in red, the name ofa woman: _Therese Raquin_. To right and left were deep show cases, linedwith blue paper. 

During the daytime the eye could only distinguish the display of goods, in a soft, obscured light. 

On one side were a few linen articles: crimped tulle caps at two andthree francs apiece, muslin sleeves and collars: then undervests, stockings, socks, braces. Each article had grown yellow and crumpled, and hung lamentably suspended from a wire hook. The window, from top tobottom, was filled in this manner with whitish bits of clothing, whichtook a lugubrious aspect in the transparent obscurity. The new caps, ofbrighter whiteness, formed hollow spots on the blue paper covering theshelves. And the coloured socks hanging on an iron rod, contributedsombre notes to the livid and vague effacement of the muslin. 

On the other side, in a narrower show case, were piled up large ballsof green wool, white cards of black buttons, boxes of all colours andsizes, hair nets ornamented with steel beads, spread over rounds ofbluish paper, fasces of knitting needles, tapestry patterns, bobbins ofribbon, along with a heap of soiled and faded articles, which doubtlesshad been lying in the same place for five or six years. All the tintshad turned dirty grey in this cupboard, rotting with dust and damp. 

In summer, towards noon, when the sun scorched the squares and streetswith its tawny rays, you could distinguish, behind the caps in the otherwindow, the pale, grave profile of a young woman. This profile issuedvaguely from the darkness reigning in the shop. To a low parchedforehead was attached a long, narrow, pointed nose; the pale pink lipsresembled two thin threads, and the short, nervy chin was attachedto the neck by a line that was supple and fat. The body, lost in theshadow, could not be seen. The profile alone appeared in its olivewhiteness, perforated by a large, wide-open, black eye, and as thoughcrushed beneath thick dark hair. This profile remained there for hours, motionless and peaceful, between a couple of caps for women, whereon thedamp iron rods had imprinted bands of rust. 

At night, when the lamp had been lit, you could see inside the shopwhich was greater in length than depth. At one end stood a smallcounter; at the other, a corkscrew staircase afforded communicationwith the rooms on the first floor. Against the walls were show cases, cupboards, rows of green cardboard boxes. Four chairs and a tablecompleted the furniture. The shop looked bare and frigid; the goods weredone up in parcels and put away in corners instead of lying hither andthither in a joyous display of colour. 

As a rule two women were seated behind the counter: the young woman withthe grave profile, and an old lady who sat dozing with a smile on hercountenance. The latter was about sixty; and her fat, placid face lookedwhite in the brightness of the lamp. A great tabby cat, crouching at acorner of the counter, watched her as she slept. 

Lower down, on a chair, a man of thirty sat reading or chatting ina subdued voice with the young woman. He was short, delicate, and inmanner languid. With his fair hair devoid of lustre, his sparse beard, his face covered with red blotches, he resembled a sickly, spoilt childarrived at manhood. 

Shortly before ten o'clock, the old lady awoke. The shop was thenclosed, and all the family went upstairs to bed. The tabby cat followedthe party purring, and rubbing its head against each bar of thebanisters. 

The lodging above comprised three apartments. The staircase led to adining-room which also did duty as drawing-room. In a niche on theleft stood a porcelain stove; opposite, a sideboard; then chairs werearranged along the walls, and a round table occupied the centre. At thefurther end a glazed partition concealed a dark kitchen. On each side ofthe dining-room was a sleeping apartment. 

The old lady after kissing her son and daughter-in-law withdrew. Thecat went to sleep on a chair in the kitchen. The married coupleentered their room, which had a second door opening on a staircase thatcommunicated with the arcade by an obscure narrow passage. 

The husband who was always trembling with fever went to bed, while theyoung woman opened the window to close the shutter blinds. She remainedthere a few minutes facing the great black wall, which ascends andstretches above the arcade. She cast a vague wandering look upon thiswall, and, without a word she, in her turn, went to bed in disdainfulindifference. 

CHAPTER II

Madame Raquin had formerly been a mercer at Vernon. For close uponfive-and-twenty years, she had kept a small shop in that town. A fewyears after the death of her husband, becoming subject to fits offaintness, she sold her business. Her savings added to the price of thissale placed a capital of 40, 000 francs in her hand which she invested sothat it brought her in an income of 2, 000 francs a year. This sum amplysufficed for her requirements. She led the life of a recluse. Ignoringthe poignant joys and cares of this world, she arranged for herself atranquil existence of peace and happiness. 

At an annual rental of 400 francs she took a small house with a gardendescending to the edge of the Seine. This enclosed, quiet residencevaguely recalled the cloister. It stood in the centre of large fields, and was approached by a narrow path. The windows of the dwelling openedto the river and to the solitary hillocks on the opposite bank. The goodlady, who had passed the half century, shut herself up in this solitaryretreat, where along with her son Camille and her niece Therese, shepartook of serene joy. 

Although Camille was then twenty, his mother continued to spoil him likea little child. She adored him because she had shielded him from death, throughout a tedious childhood of constant suffering. The boy contractedevery fever, every imaginable malady, one after the other. Madame Raquinstruggled for fifteen years against these terrible evils, which arrivedin rapid succession to tear her son away from her. She vanquished themall by patience, care, and adoration. Camille having grown up, rescuedfrom death, had contracted a shiver from the torture of the repeatedshocks he had undergone. Arrested in his growth, he remained short anddelicate. His long, thin limbs moved slowly and wearily. But his motherloved him all the more on account of this weakness that arched his back. She observed his thin, pale face with triumphant tenderness when shethought of how she had brought him back to life more than ten timesover. 

During the brief spaces of repose that his sufferings allowed him, the child attended a commercial school at Vernon. There he learnedorthography and arithmetic. His science was limited to the four rules, and a very superficial knowledge of grammar. Later on, he took lessonsin writing and bookkeeping. Madame Raquin began to tremble when advisedto send her son to college. She knew he would die if separated from her, and she said the books would kill him. So Camille remained ignorant, andthis ignorance seemed to increase his weakness. 

At eighteen, having nothing to do, bored to death at the delicateattention of his mother, he took a situation as clerk with a linenmerchant, where he earned 60 francs a month. Being of a restless natureidleness proved unbearable. He found greater calm and better health inthis labour of a brute which kept him bent all day long over invoices, over enormous additions, each figure of which he patiently added up. Atnight, broken down with fatigue, without an idea in his head, he enjoyedinfinite delight in the doltishness that settled on him. He had toquarrel with his mother to go with the dealer in linen. She wanted tokeep him always with her, between a couple of blankets, far from theaccidents of life. 

But the young man spoke as master. He claimed work as children claimtoys, not from a feeling of duty, but by instinct, by a necessity ofnature. The tenderness, the devotedness of his mother had instilled intohim an egotism that was ferocious. He fancied he loved those who pitiedand caressed him; but, in reality, he lived apart, within himself, loving naught but his comfort, seeking by all possible means to increasehis enjoyment. When the tender affection of Madame Raquin disgusted him, he plunged with delight into a stupid occupation that saved him frominfusions and potions. 

In the evening, on his return from the office, he ran to the bank of theSeine with his cousin Therese who was then close upon eighteen. One day, sixteen years previously, while Madame Raquin was still a mercer, herbrother Captain Degans brought her a little girl in his arms. He hadjust arrived from Algeria. 

"Here is a child, " said he with a smile, "and you are her aunt. Themother is dead and I don't know what to do with her. I'll give her toyou. "

The mercer took the child, smiled at her and kissed her rosy cheeks. Although Degans remained a week at Vernon, his sister barely put aquestion to him concerning the little girl he had brought her. Sheunderstood vaguely that the dear little creature was born at Oran, andthat her mother was a woman of the country of great beauty. The Captain, an hour before his departure, handed his sister a certificate of birthin which Therese, acknowledged by him to be his child, bore his name. Herejoined his regiment, and was never seen again at Vernon, being killeda few years later in Africa. 

Therese grew up under the fostering care of her aunt, sleeping in thesame bed as Camille. She who had an iron constitution, received thetreatment of a delicate child, partaking of the same medicine as hercousin, and kept in the warm air of the room occupied by the invalid. For hours she remained crouching over the fire, in thought, watching theflames before her, without lowering her eyelids. 

This obligatory life of a convalescent caused her to retire withinherself. She got into the habit of talking in a low voice, of movingabout noiselessly, of remaining mute and motionless on a chair withexpressionless, open eyes. But, when she raised an arm, when sheadvanced a foot, it was easy to perceive that she possessed felinesuppleness, short, potent muscles, and that unmistakable energy andpassion slumbered in her soporous frame. Her cousin having fallendown one day in a fainting fit, she abruptly picked him up andcarried him--an effort of strength that turned her cheeks scarlet. Thecloistered life she led, the debilitating regimen to which she foundherself subjected, failed to weaken her thin, robust form. Only her facetook a pale, and even a slightly yellowish tint, making her lookalmost ugly in the shade. Ever and anon she went to the window, andcontemplated the opposite houses on which the sun threw sheets of gold. 

When Madame Raquin sold her business, and withdrew to the little placebeside the river, Therese experienced secret thrills of joy. Her aunthad so frequently repeated to her: "Don't make a noise; be quiet, " thatshe kept all the impetuosity of her nature carefully concealed withinher. She possessed supreme composure, and an apparent tranquillity thatmasked terrible transports. She still fancied herself in the room ofher cousin, beside a dying child, and had the softened movements, theperiods of silence, the placidity, the faltering speech of an old woman. 

When she saw the garden, the clear river, the vast green hillocksascending on the horizon, she felt a savage desire to run and shout. Shefelt her heart thumping fit to burst in her bosom; but not a muscle ofher face moved, and she merely smiled when her aunt inquired whether shewas pleased with her new home. 

Life now became more pleasant for her. She maintained her supple gait, her calm, indifferent countenance, she remained the child brought upin the bed of an invalid; but inwardly she lived a burning, passionateexistence. When alone on the grass beside the water, she would lie downflat on her stomach like an animal, her black eyes wide open, her bodywrithing, ready to spring. And she stayed there for hours, without athought, scorched by the sun, delighted at being able to thrust herfingers in the earth. She had the most ridiculous dreams; she lookedat the roaring river in defiance, imagining that the water was aboutto leap on her and attack her. Then she became rigid, preparing for thedefence, and angrily inquiring of herself how she could vanquish thetorrent. 

At night, Therese, appeased and silent, stitched beside her aunt, witha countenance that seemed to be dozing in the gleam that softly glidedfrom beneath the lamp shade. Camille buried in an armchair thoughtof his additions. A word uttered in a low voice, alone disturbed, atmoments, the peacefulness of this drowsy home. 

Madame Raquin observed her children with serene benevolence. She hadresolved to make them husband and wife. She continued to treat her sonas if he were at death's door; and she trembled when she happened toreflect that she would one day die herself, and would leave him aloneand suffering. In that contingency, she relied on Therese, saying toherself that the young girl would be a vigilant guardian beside Camille. Her niece with her tranquil manner, and mute devotedness, inspired herwith unlimited confidence. She had seen Therese at work, and wished togive her to her son as a guardian angel. This marriage was a solution tothe matter, foreseen and settled in her mind. 

The children knew for a long time that they were one day to marry. Theyhad grown up with this idea, which had thus become familiar and naturalto them. The union was spoken of in the family as a necessary andpositive thing. Madame Raquin had said:

"We will wait until Therese is one-and-twenty. "

And they waited patiently, without excitement, and without a blush. 

Camille, whose blood had become impoverished by illness, had remaineda little boy in the eyes of his cousin. He kissed her as he kissed hismother, by habit, without losing any of his egotistic tranquillity. Helooked upon her as an obliging comrade who helped him to amuse himself, and who, if occasion offered, prepared him an infusion. When playingwith her, when he held her in his arms, it was as if he had a boy todeal with. He experienced no thrill, and at these moments the ideahad never occurred to him of planting a warm kiss on her lips as shestruggled with a nervous laugh to free herself. 

The girl also seemed to have remained cold and indifferent. At timesher great eyes rested on Camille and fixedly gazed at him with sovereigncalm. On such occasions her lips alone made almost imperceptible littlemotions. Nothing could be read on her expressionless countenance, whichan inexorable will always maintained gentle and attentive. Theresebecame grave when the conversation turned to her marriage, contentingherself with approving all that Madame Raquin said by a sign of thehead. Camille went to sleep. 

On summer evenings, the two young people ran to the edge of the water. Camille, irritated at the incessant attentions of his mother, at timesbroke out in open revolt. He wished to run about and make himself ill, to escape the fondling that disgusted him. He would then drag Theresealong with him, provoking her to wrestle, to roll in the grass. One day, having pushed his cousin down, the young girl bounded to her feet withall the savageness of a wild beast, and, with flaming face and bloodshoteyes, fell upon him with clenched fists. Camille in fear sank to theground. 

Months and years passed by, and at length the day fixed for the marriagearrived. Madame Raquin took Therese apart, spoke to her of her fatherand mother, and related to her the story of her birth. The young girllistened to her aunt, and when she had finished speaking, kissed her, without answering a word. 

At night, Therese, instead of going into her own room, which was onthe left of the staircase, entered that of her cousin which was on theright. This was all the change that occurred in her mode of life. Thefollowing day, when the young couple came downstairs, Camille hadstill his sickly languidness, his righteous tranquillity of an egotist. Therese still maintained her gentle indifference, and her restrainedexpression of frightful calmness. 

CHAPTER III

A week after the marriage, Camille distinctly told his mother that heintended quitting Vernon to reside in Paris. Madame Raquin protested:she had arranged her mode of life, and would not modify it in any way. Thereupon her son had a nervous attack, and threatened to fall ill, ifshe did not give way to his whim. 

"Never have I opposed you in your plans, " said he; "I married my cousin, I took all the drugs you gave me. It is only natural, now, when I havea desire of my own, that you should be of the same mind. We will move atthe end of the month. "

Madame Raquin was unable to sleep all night. The decision Camille hadcome to, upset her way of living, and, in despair, she sought to arrangeanother existence for herself and the married couple. Little by little, she recovered calm. She reflected that the young people might havechildren, and that her small fortune would not then suffice. It wasnecessary to earn money, to go into business again, to find lucrativeoccupation for Therese. The next day she had become accustomed to theidea of moving, and had arranged a plan for a new life. 

At luncheon she was quite gay. 

"This is what we will do, " said she to her children. "I will go to Paristo-morrow. There I will look out for a small mercery business for sale, and Therese and myself will resume selling needles and cotton, whichwill give us something to do. You, Camille, will act as you like. Youcan either stroll about in the sun, or you can find some employment. "

"I shall find employment, " answered the young man. 

The truth was that an idiotic ambition had alone impelled Camille toleave Vernon. He wished to find a post in some important administration. He blushed with delight when he fancied he saw himself in the middle ofa large office, with lustring elbow sleeves, and a pen behind his ear. 

Therese was not consulted: she had always displayed such passiveobedience that her aunt and husband no longer took the trouble to askher opinion. She went where they went, she did what they did, without acomplaint, without a reproach, without appearing even to be aware thatshe changed her place of residence. 

Madame Raquin came to Paris, and went straight to the Arcade of the PontNeuf. An old maid at Vernon had sent her to one of her relatives whoin this arcade kept a mercery shop which she desired to get rid of. The former mercer found the shop rather small, and rather dark; but, in passing through Paris, she had been taken aback by the noise in thestreets, by the luxuriously dressed windows, and this narrow gallery, this modest shop front, recalled her former place of business which wasso peaceful. She could fancy herself again in the provinces, and shedrew a long breath thinking that her dear children would be happy inthis out-of-the-way corner. The low price asked for the business, causedher to make up her mind. The owner sold it her for 2, 000 francs, and therent of the shop and first floor was only 1, 200 francs a year. MadameRaquin, who had close upon 4, 000 francs saved up, calculated that shecould pay for the business and settle the rent for the first year, without encroaching on her fortune. The salary Camille would bereceiving, and the profit on the mercery business would suffice, shethought, to meet the daily expenses; so that she need not touch theincome of her funded money, which would capitalise, and go towardsproviding marriage portions for her grandchildren. 

She returned to Vernon beaming with pleasure, relating that she hadfound a gem, a delightful little place right in the centre of Paris. Little by little, at the end of a few days, in her conversations ofan evening, the damp, obscure shop in the arcade became a palace; shepictured it to herself, so far as her memory served her, as convenient, spacious, tranquil, and replete with a thousand inestimable advantages. 

"Ah! my dear Therese, " said she, "you will see how happy we shall be inthat nook! There are three beautiful rooms upstairs. The arcade isfull of people. We will make charming displays. There is no fear of ourfeeling dull. "

But she did not stop there. All her instinct of a former shopkeeperwas awakened. She gave advice to Therese, beforehand, as to buying andselling, and posted her up in all the tricks of small tradespeople. At length, the family quitted the house beside the Seine, and on theevening of the same day, were installed in the Arcade of the Pont Neuf. 

When Therese entered the shop, where in future she was to live, itseemed to her that she was descending into the clammy soil of a grave. She felt quite disheartened, and shivered with fear. She looked at thedirty, damp gallery, visited the shop, and ascending to the first floor, walked round each room. These bare apartments, without furniture, lookedfrightful in their solitude and dilapidation. The young woman couldnot make a gesture, or utter a word. She was as if frozen. Her aunt andhusband having come downstairs, she seated herself on a trunk, her handsrigid, her throat full of sobs, and yet she could not cry. 

Madame Raquin, face to face with reality, felt embarrassed, and ashamedof her dreams. She sought to defend her acquisition. She found a remedyfor every fresh inconvenience that was discovered, explaining theobscurity by saying the weather was overcast, and concluded by affirmingthat a sweep-up would suffice to set everything right. 

"Bah!" answered Camille, "all this is quite suitable. Besides, we shallonly come up here at night. I shall not be home before five or sixo'clock. As to you two, you will be together, so you will not be dull. "

The young man would never have consented to inhabit such a den, hadhe not relied on the comfort of his office. He said to himself thathe would be warm all day at his administration, and that, at night, hewould go to bed early. 

For a whole week, the shop and lodging remained in disorder. Therese hadseated herself behind the counter from the first day, and she did notmove from that place. Madame Raquin was astonished at this depressedattitude. She had thought that the young woman would try to adorn herhabitation. That she would place flowers at the windows, and ask for newpapers, curtains and carpets. When she suggested some repairs, some kindof embellishment, her niece quietly replied:

"What need is there for it? We are very well as we are. There is nonecessity for luxury. "

It was Madame Raquin who had to arrange the rooms and tidy up the shop. Therese at last lost patience at seeing the good old lady incessantlyturning round and round before her eyes; she engaged a charwoman, andforced her aunt to be seated beside her. 

Camille remained a month without finding employment. He lived as littleas possible in the shop, preferring to stroll about all day; and hefound life so dreadfully dull with nothing to do, that he spokeof returning to Vernon. But he at length obtained a post in theadministration of the Orleans Railway, where he earned 100 francs amonth. His dream had become realised. 

He set out in the morning at eight o'clock. Walking down the RueGuenegaud, he found himself on the quays. Then, taking short steps withhis hands in his pockets, he followed the Seine from the Institut to theJardin des Plantes. This long journey which he performed twice daily, never wearied him. He watched the water running along, and he stoppedto see the rafts of wood descending the river, pass by. He thought ofnothing. Frequently he planted himself before Notre Dame, to contemplatethe scaffolding surrounding the cathedral which was then undergoingrepair. These huge pieces of timber amused him although he failed tounderstand why. Then he cast a glance into the Port aux Vins as he wentpast, and after that counted the cabs coming from the station. 

In the evening, quite stupefied, with his head full of some silly storyrelated to his office, he crossed the Jardin des Plantes, and went tohave a look at the bears, if he was not in too great a hurry. There heremained half an hour, leaning over the rails at the top of the pit, observing the animals clumsily swaying to and fro. The behaviour ofthese huge beasts pleased him. He examined them with gaping mouth androunded eyes, partaking of the joy of an idiot when he perceived thembestir themselves. At last he turned homewards, dragging his feet along, busying himself with the passers-by, with the vehicles, and the shops. 

As soon as he arrived he dined, and then began reading. He had purchasedthe works of Buffon, and, every evening, he set himself to peruse twentyto thirty pages, notwithstanding the wearisome nature of the task. Healso read in serial, at 10 centimes the number, "The History of theConsulate and Empire" by Thiers, and "The History of the Girondins" byLamartine, as well as some popular scientific works. He fancied he waslabouring at his education. At times, he forced his wife to listen tocertain pages, to particular anecdotes, and felt very much astonishedthat Therese could remain pensive and silent the whole evening, withoutbeing tempted to take up a book. And he thought to himself that his wifemust be a woman of very poor intelligence. 

Therese thrust books away from her with impatience. She preferred toremain idle, with her eyes fixed, and her thoughts wandering and lost. But she maintained an even, easy temper, exercising all her will torender herself a passive instrument, replete with supreme complaisanceand abnegation. 

The shop did not do much business. The profit was the same regularlyeach month. The customers consisted of female workpeople living in theneighbourhood. Every five minutes a young girl came in to purchase a fewsous worth of goods. Therese served the people with words that were everthe same, with a smile that appeared mechanically on her lisp. MadameRaquin displayed a more unbending, a more gossipy disposition, and, totell the truth, it was she who attracted and retained the customers. 

For three years, days followed days and resembled one another. Camilledid not once absent himself from his office. His mother and wife hardlyever left the shop. Therese, residing in damp obscurity, in gloomy, crushing silence, saw life expand before her in all its nakedness, eachnight bringing the same cold couch, and each morn the same empty day. 

CHAPTER IV

One day out of seven, on the Thursday evening, the Raquin familyreceived their friends. They lit a large lamp in the dining-room, andput water on the fire to make tea. There was quite a set out. Thisparticular evening emerged in bold relief from the others. It had becomeone of the customs of the family, who regarded it in the light of amiddle-class orgie full of giddy gaiety. They did not retire to restuntil eleven o'clock at night. 

At Paris Madame Raquin had found one of her old friends, the commissaryof police Michaud, who had held a post at Vernon for twenty years, lodging in the same house as the mercer. A narrow intimacy had thus beenestablished between them; then, when the widow had sold her business togo and reside in the house beside the river, they had little by littlelost sight of one another. Michaud left the provinces a few monthslater, and came to live peacefully in Paris, Rue de Seine, on hispension of 1, 500 francs. One rainy day, he met his old friend in theArcade of the Pont Neuf, and the same evening dined with the family. 

The Thursday receptions began in this way: the former commissary ofpolice got into the habit of calling on the Raquins regularly once aweek. After a while he came accompanied by his son Olivier, a greatfellow of thirty, dry and thin, who had married a very little woman, slow and sickly. This Olivier held the post of head clerk in the sectionof order and security at the Prefecture of Police, worth 3, 000 francs ayear, which made Camille feel particularly jealous. From the first dayhe made his appearance, Therese detested this cold, rigid individual, who imagined he honoured the shop in the arcade by making a display ofhis great shrivelled-up frame, and the exhausted condition of his poorlittle wife. 

Camille introduced another guest, an old clerk at the Orleans Railway, named Grivet, who had been twenty years in the service of the company, where he now held the position of head clerk, and earned 2, 100 francsa year. It was he who gave out the work in the office where Camille hadfound employment, and the latter showed him certain respect. Camille, inhis day dreams, had said to himself that Grivet would one day die, and that he would perhaps take his place at the end of a decade orso. Grivet was delighted at the welcome Madame Raquin gave him, andhe returned every week with perfect regularity. Six months later, hisThursday visit had become, in his way of thinking, a duty: he wentto the Arcade of the Pont Neuf, just as he went every morning to hisoffice, that is to say mechanically, and with the instinct of a brute. 

From this moment, the gatherings became charming. At seven o'clockMadame Raquin lit the fire, set the lamp in the centre of the table, placed a box of dominoes beside it, and wiped the tea service which wasin the sideboard. Precisely at eight o'clock old Michaud and Grivet metbefore the shop, one coming from the Rue de Seine, and the other fromthe Rue Mazarine. As soon as they entered, all the family went up to thefirst floor. There, in the dining-room, they seated themselves round thetable waiting for Olivier Michaud and his wife who always arrived late. When the party was complete, Madame Raquin poured out the tea. Camilleemptied the box of dominoes on the oilcloth table cover, and everyonebecame deeply interested in their hands. Henceforth nothing could beheard but the jingle of dominoes. At the end of each game, the playersquarrelled for two or three minutes, then mournful silence was resumed, broken by the sharp clanks of the dominoes. 

Therese played with an indifference that irritated Camille. She tookFrancois, the great tabby cat that Madame Raquin had brought fromVernon, on her lap, caressing it with one hand, whilst she placed herdominoes with the other. These Thursday evenings were a torture to her. Frequently she complained of being unwell, of a bad headache, so as notto play, and remain there doing nothing, and half asleep. An elbow onthe table, her cheek resting on the palm of her hand, she watched theguests of her aunt and husband through a sort of yellow, smoky mistcoming from the lamp. All these faces exasperated her. She looked fromone to the other in profound disgust and secret irritation. 

Old Michaud exhibited a pasty countenance, spotted with red blotches, one of those death-like faces of an old man fallen into secondchildhood; Grivet had the narrow visage, the round eyes, the thin lipsof an idiot. Olivier, whose bones were piercing his cheeks, gravelycarried a stiff, insignificant head on a ridiculous body; as to Suzanne, the wife of Olivier, she was quite pale, with expressionless eyes, whitelips, and a soft face. And Therese could not find one human being, notone living being among these grotesque and sinister creatures, with whomshe was shut up; sometimes she had hallucinations, she imagined herselfburied at the bottom of a tomb, in company with mechanical corpses, who, when the strings were pulled, moved their heads, and agitated theirlegs and arms. The thick atmosphere of the dining-room stifled her; theshivering silence, the yellow gleams of the lamp penetrated her withvague terror, and inexpressible anguish. 

Below, to the door of the shop, they had fixed a bell whose sharp tinkleannounced the entrance of customers. Therese had her ear on the alert;and when the bell rang, she rapidly ran downstairs quite relieved, delighted at being able to quit the dining-room. She slowly served thepurchaser, and when she found herself alone, she sat down behind thecounter where she remained as long as possible, dreading going upstairsagain, and in the enjoyment of real pleasure at no longer having Grivetand Olivier before her eyes. The damp air of the shop calmed the burningfever of her hands, and she again fell into the customary grave reverie. 

But she could not remain like this for long. Camille became angry at herabsence. He failed to comprehend how anyone could prefer the shop to thedining-room on a Thursday evening, and he leant over the banister, tolook for his wife. 

"What's the matter?" he would shout. "What are you doing there? Whydon't you come up? Grivet has the devil's own luck. He has just wonagain. "

The young woman rose painfully, and ascending to the dining-room resumedher seat opposite old Michaud, whose pendent lips gave heartrendingsmiles. And, until eleven o'clock, she remained oppressed in her chair, watching Francois whom she held in her arms, so as to avoid seeing thecardboard dolls grimacing around her. 

CHAPTER V

One Thursday, Camille, on returning from his office, brought with him agreat fellow with square shoulders, whom he pushed in a familiar mannerinto the shop. 

"Mother, " he said to Madame Raquin, pointing to the newcomer, "do yourecognise this gentleman?"

The old mercer looked at the strapping blade, seeking among herrecollections and finding nothing, while Therese placidly observed thescene. 

"What!" resumed Camille, "you don't recognise Laurent, little Laurent, the son of daddy Laurent who owns those beautiful fields of corn outJeufosse way. Don't you remember? I went to school with him; he cameto fetch me of a morning on leaving the house of his uncle, who was ourneighbour, and you used to give him slices of bread and jam. "

All at once Madame Raquin recollected little Laurent, whom she foundvery much grown. It was quite ten years since she had seen him. She nowdid her best to make him forget her lapse of memory in greeting him, by recalling a thousand little incidents of the past, and by adopting awheedling manner towards him that was quite maternal. Laurent had seatedhimself. With a peaceful smile on his lips, he replied to the questionsaddressed to him in a clear voice, casting calm and easy glances aroundhim. 

"Just imagine, " said Camille, "this joker has been employed at theOrleans-Railway-Station for eighteen months, and it was only to-nightthat we met and recognised one another--the administration is so vast, so important!"

As the young man made this remark, he opened his eyes wider, and pinchedhis lips, proud to be a humble wheel in such a large machine. Shakinghis head, he continued:

"Oh! but he is in a good position. He has studied. He already earns1, 500 francs a year. His father sent him to college. He had read for thebar, and learnt painting. That is so, is it not, Laurent? You'll dinewith us?"

"I am quite willing, " boldly replied the other. 

He got rid of his hat and made himself comfortable in the shop, while Madame Raquin ran off to her stewpots. Therese, who had not yetpronounced a word, looked at the new arrival. She had never seen such aman before. Laurent, who was tall and robust, with a florid complexion, astonished her. It was with a feeling akin to admiration, that shecontemplated his low forehead planted with coarse black hair, his fullcheeks, his red lips, his regular features of sanguineous beauty. Foran instant her eyes rested on his neck, a neck that was thick and short, fat and powerful. Then she became lost in the contemplation of his greathands which he kept spread out on his knees: the fingers were square;the clenched fist must be enormous and would fell an ox. 

Laurent was a real son of a peasant, rather heavy in gait, with anarched back, with movements that were slow and precise, and anobstinate tranquil manner. One felt that his apparel concealed round andwell-developed muscles, and a body of thick hard flesh. Therese examinedhim with curiosity, glancing from his fists to his face, and experiencedlittle shivers when her eyes fell on his bull-like neck. 

Camille spread out his Buffon volumes, and his serials at 10 centimesthe number, to show his friend that he also studied. Then, as ifanswering an inquiry he had been making of himself for some minutes, hesaid to Laurent:

"But, surely you must know my wife? Don't you remember that littlecousin who used to play with us at Vernon?"

"I had no difficulty in recognising Madame, " answered Laurent, lookingTherese full in the face. 

This penetrating glance troubled the young woman, who, nevertheless, gave a forced smile, and after exchanging a few words with Laurent andher husband, hurried away to join her aunt, feeling ill at ease. 

As soon as they had seated themselves at table, and commenced the soup, Camille thought it right to be attentive to his friend. 

"How is your father?" he inquired. 

"Well, I don't know, " answered Laurent. "We are not on good terms; weceased corresponding five years ago. "

"Bah!" exclaimed the clerk, astonished at such a monstrosity. 

"Yes, " continued the other, "the dear man has ideas of his own. As heis always at law with his neighbours, he sent me to college, in the fondhope that later on, he would find in me an advocate who would win himall his actions. Oh! daddy Laurent has naught but useful ambitions; heeven wants to get something out of his follies. "

"And you wouldn't be an advocate?" inquired Camille, more and moreastonished. 

"Faith, no, " answered his friend with a smile. "For a couple of yearsI pretended to follow the classes, so as to draw the allowance of 1, 200francs which my father made me. I lived with one of my college chums, who is a painter, and I set about painting also. It amused me. Thecalling is droll, and not at all fatiguing. We smoked and joked all thelivelong day. "

The Raquin family opened their eyes in amazement. 

"Unfortunately, " continued Laurent, "this could not last. My fatherfound out that I was telling him falsehoods. He stopped my 100 francsa month, and invited me to return and plough the land with him. I thentried to paint pictures on religious subjects which proved bad business. As I could plainly see that I was going to die of hunger, I sent art tothe deuce and sought employment. My father will die one of these days, and I am waiting for that event to live and do nothing. "

Laurent spoke in a tranquil tone. In a few words he had just related acharacteristic tale that depicted him at full length. In reality he wasan idle fellow, with the appetite of a full-blooded man for everything, and very pronounced ideas as to easy and lasting employment. The onlyambition of this great powerful frame was to do nothing, to grovel inidleness and satiation from hour to hour. He wanted to eat well, sleepwell, to abundantly satisfy his passions, without moving from his place, without running the risk of the slightest fatigue. 

The profession of advocate had terrified him, and he shuddered atthe idea of tilling the soil. He had plunged into art, hoping to findtherein a calling suitable to an idle man. The paint-brush struck himas being an instrument light to handle, and he fancied success easy. His dream was a life of cheap sensuality, a beautiful existence full ofhouris, of repose on divans, of victuals and intoxication. 

The dream lasted so long as daddy Laurent sent the crown pieces. Butwhen the young man, who was already thirty, perceived the wolf at thedoor, he began to reflect. Face to face with privations, he felt himselfa coward. He would not have accepted a day without bread, for the utmostglory art could bestow. As he had said himself, he sent art to thedeuce, as soon as he recognised that it would never suffice to satisfyhis numerous requirements. His first efforts had been below mediocrity;his peasant eyes caught a clumsy, slovenly view of nature; his muddy, badly drawn, grimacing pictures, defied all criticism. 

But he did not seem to have an over-dose of vanity for an artist; he wasnot in dire despair when he had to put aside his brushes. All he reallyregretted was the vast studio of his college chum, where he had beenvoluptuously grovelling for four or five years. He also regretted thewomen who came to pose there. Nevertheless he found himself at ease inhis position as clerk; he lived very well in a brutish fashion, and hewas fond of this daily task, which did not fatigue him, and soothedhis mind. Still one thing irritated him: the food at the eighteen sousordinaries failed to appease the gluttonous appetite of his stomach. 

As Camille listened to his friend, he contemplated him with all theastonishment of a simpleton. This feeble man was dreaming, in a childishmanner, of this studio life which his friend had been alluding to, andhe questioned Laurent on the subject. 

"So, " said he, "there were lady models who posed before you in thenude?"

"Oh! yes, " answered Laurent with a smile, and looking at Therese, whohad turned deadly pale. 

"You must have thought that very funny, " continued Camille, laughinglike a child. "It would have made me feel most awkward. I expect youwere quite scandalised the first time it happened. "

Laurent had spread out one of his great hands and was attentivelylooking at the palm. His fingers gave slight twitches, and his cheeksbecame flushed. 

"The first time, " he answered, as if speaking to himself, "I fancy Ithought it quite natural. This devilish art is exceedingly amusing, onlyit does not bring in a sou. I had a red-haired girl as model who wassuperb, firm white flesh, gorgeous bust, hips as wide as . . . "

Laurent, raising his head, saw Therese mute and motionless opposite, gazing at him with ardent fixedness. Her dull black eyes seemed liketwo fathomless holes, and through her parted lips could be perceived therosy tint of the inside of her mouth. She seemed as if overpowered bywhat she heard, and lost in thought. She continued listening. 

Laurent looked from Therese to Camille, and the former painterrestrained a smile. He completed his phrase by a broad voluptuousgesture, which the young woman followed with her eyes. They were atdessert, and Madame Raquin had just run downstairs to serve a customer. 

When the cloth was removed Laurent, who for some minutes had beenthoughtful, turned to Camille. 

"You know, " he blurted out, "I must paint your portrait. "

This idea delighted Madame Raquin and her son, but Therese remainedsilent. 

"It is summer-time, " resumed Laurent, "and as we leave the office atfour o'clock, I can come here, and let you give me a sitting for acouple of hours in the evening. The picture will be finished in a week. "

"That will be fine, " answered Camille, flushed with joy. "You shall dinewith us. I will have my hair curled, and put on my black frock coat. "

Eight o'clock struck. Grivet and Michaud made their entry. Olivier andSuzanne arrived behind them. 

When Camille introduced his friend to the company, Grivet pinched hislips. He detested Laurent whose salary, according to his idea, had risenfar too rapidly. Besides, the introduction of a new-comer was quite animportant matter, and the guests of the Raquins could not receive anindividual unknown to them, without some display of coldness. 

Laurent behaved very amicably. He grasped the situation, and did hisbest to please the company, so as to make himself acceptable to them atonce. He related anecdotes, enlivened the party by his merry laughter, and even won the friendship of Grivet. 

That evening Therese made no attempt to go down to the shop. Sheremained seated on her chair until eleven o'clock, playing and talking, avoiding the eyes of Laurent, who for that matter did not troublehimself about her. The sanguineous temperament of this strapping fellow, his full voice and jovial laughter, troubled the young woman and threwher into a sort of nervous anguish. 

CHAPTER VI

Henceforth, Laurent called almost every evening on the Raquins. He livedin the Rue Saint-Victor, opposite the Port aux Vins, where he rented asmall furnished room at 18 francs a month. This attic, pierced at thetop by a lift-up window, measured barely nine square yards, and Laurentwas in the habit of going home as late as possible at night. Previous tohis meeting with Camille, the state of his purse not permitting him toidle away his time in the cafes, he loitered at the cheap eating-houseswhere he took his dinner, smoking his pipe and sipping his coffeeand brandy which cost him three sous. Then he slowly gained the RueSaint-Victor, sauntering along the quays, where he seated himself on thebenches, in mild weather. 

The shop in the Arcade of the Pont Neuf became a charming retreat, warmand quiet, where he found amicable conversation and attention. Hesaved the three sous his coffee and brandy cost him, and gluttonouslyswallowed the excellent tea prepared by Madame Raquin. He remainedthere until ten o'clock, dozing and digesting as if he were at home; andbefore taking his departure, assisted Camille to put up the shutters andclose the shop for the night. 

One evening, he came with his easel and box of colours. He was tocommence the portrait of Camille on the morrow. A canvas was purchased, minute preparations made, and the artist at last took the work in handin the room occupied by the married couple, where Laurent said the lightwas the best. 

He took three evenings to draw the head. He carefully trailed thecharcoal over the canvas with short, sorry strokes, his rigid, colddrawing recalling in a grotesque fashion that of the primitive masters. He copied the face of Camille with a hesitating hand, as a pupil copiesan academical figure, with a clumsy exactitude that conveyed a scowl tothe face. On the fourth day, he placed tiny little dabs of colour onhis palette, and commenced painting with the point of the brush; hethen dotted the canvas with small dirty spots, and made short strokesaltogether as if he had been using a pencil. 

At the end of each sitting, Madame Raquin and Camille were in ecstasies. But Laurent said they must wait, that the resemblance would soon come. 

Since the portrait had been commenced, Therese no longer quitted theroom, which had been transformed into a studio. Leaving her aunt alonebehind the counter, she ran upstairs at the least pretext, and forgotherself watching Laurent paint. 

Still grave and oppressed, paler and more silent, she sat down andobserved the labour of the brushes. But this sight did not seem to amuseher very much. She came to the spot, as though attracted by some power, and she remained, as if riveted there. Laurent at times turned round, with a smile, inquiring whether the portrait pleased her. But she barelyanswered, a shiver ran through her frame, and she resumed her meditativetrance. 

Laurent, returning at night to the Rue Saint-Victor, reasoned withhimself at length, discussing in his mind, whether he should become thelover of Therese, or not. 

"Here is a little woman, " said he to himself, "who will be my sweetheartwhenever I choose. She is always there, behind my back, examining, measuring me, summing me up. She trembles. She has a strange face thatis mute and yet impassioned. What a miserable creature that Camille is, to be sure. "

And Laurent inwardly laughed as he thought of his pale, thin friend. Then he resumed:

"She is bored to death in that shop. I go there, because I have nowhereelse to go to, otherwise they would not often catch me in the Arcadeof the Pont Neuf. It is damp and sad. A woman must be wearied to deaththere. I please her, I am sure of it; then, why not me rather thananother?"

He stopped. Self-conceit was getting the better of him. Absorbed inthought, he watched the Seine running by. 

"Anyhow, come what may, " he exclaimed, "I shall kiss her at the firstopportunity. I bet she falls at once into my arms. "

As he resumed his walk, he was seized with indecision. 

"But she is ugly, " thought he. "She has a long nose, and a big mouth. Besides, I have not the least love for her. I shall perhaps get myselfinto trouble. The matter requires reflection. "

Laurent, who was very prudent, turned these thoughts over in his headfor a whole week. He calculated all the possible inconveniences of anintrigue with Therese, and only decided to attempt the adventure, whenhe felt convinced that it could be attended by no evil consequences. Therese would have every interest to conceal their intimacy, and hecould get rid of her whenever he pleased. Even admitting that Camillediscovered everything, and got angry, he would knock him down, ifhe became spiteful. From every point of view that matter appeared toLaurent easy and engaging. 

Henceforth he enjoyed gentle quietude, waiting for the hour to strike. He had made up his mind to act boldly at the first opportunity. In thefuture he saw comfortable evenings, with all the Raquins contributing tohis enjoyment: Therese giving him her love, Madame Raquin wheedling himlike a mother, and Camille chatting with him so that he might not feeltoo dull, at night, in the shop. 

The portrait was almost completed, but the opportunity he desired didnot occur. Therese, depressed and anxious, continued to remain in theroom. But so did Camille, and Laurent was in despair at being unableto get rid of him. Nevertheless, the time came when he found himselfobliged to mention that the portrait would be finished on the morrow, and Madame Raquin thereupon announced that they would celebrate thecompletion of the work of the artist by dining together. 

The next day, when Laurent had given the canvas the last touch, all thefamily assembled to go into raptures over the striking resemblance. Theportrait was vile, a dirty grey colour with large violescent patches. Laurent could not use even the brightest colours, without makingthem dull and muddy. In spite of himself he had exaggerated the wancomplexion of his model, and the countenance of Camille resembled thegreenish visage of a person who had met death by drowning. The grimacingdrawing threw the features into convulsions, thus rendering the sinisterresemblance all the more striking. But Camille was delighted; hedeclared that he had the appearance of a person of distinction on thecanvas. 

When he had thoroughly admired his own face, he declared he would go andfetch a couple of bottles of champagne. Madame Raquin went down to theshop, and the artist was alone with Therese. 

The young woman had remained seated, gazing vaguely in front of her. Laurent hesitated. He examined the portrait, and played with hisbrushes. There was not much time to lose. Camille might come back, andthe opportunity would perhaps not occur again. The painter abruptlyturned round, and found himself face to face with Therese. 

They contemplated one another for a few seconds. Then, with a violentmovement, Laurent bent down, and pressed the young woman to him. Throwing back her head he crushed her mouth beneath his lips. She madea savage, angry effort at revolt, and, then all at once gave in. Theyexchanged not a word. The act was silent and brutal. 

CHAPTER VII

The two sweethearts from the commencement found their intriguenecessary, inevitable and quite natural. At their first interview theyconversed familiarly, kissing one another without embarrassment, andwithout a blush, as if their intimacy had dated back several years. Theylived quite at ease in their new situation, with a tranquillity and anindependence that were perfect. 

They made their appointments. Therese being unable to go out, it wasarranged that Laurent should come to see her. In a clear, firm voice theyoung woman explained to him the plan she had conceived. The interviewwould take place in the nuptial chamber. The sweetheart would pass bythe passage which ran into the arcade, and Therese would open the dooron the staircase to him. During this time, Camille would be at hisoffice, and Madame Raquin below, in the shop. This was a daringarrangement that ought to succeed. 

Laurent accepted. There was a sort of brutal temerity in his prudence, the temerity of a man with big fists. Choosing a pretext, he obtainedpermission from his chief to absent himself for a couple of hours, andhastened to the Arcade of the Pont Neuf. 

The dealer in imitation jewelry was seated just opposite the door ofthe passage, and he had to wait until she was busy, until some youngwork-girl came to purchase a ring or a brooch made of brass. Then, rapidly entering the passage, he ascended the narrow, dark staircase, leaning against the walls which were clammy with damp. He stumbledagainst the stone steps, and each time he did so, he felt a red-hot ironpiercing his chest. A door opened, and on the threshold, in the midst ofa gleam of white light he perceived Therese, who closing the door afterhim, threw her arms about his neck. 

Laurent was astonished to find his sweetheart handsome. He had neverseen her before as she appeared to him then. Therese, supple and strong, pressed him in her arms, flinging her head backward, while on her visagecoursed ardent rays of light and passionate smiles. This face seemed asif transfigured, with its moist lips and sparkling eyes. It now hada fond caressing look. It radiated. She was beautiful with the strongbeauty born of passionate abandon. 

When Laurent parted from her, after his initial visit, he staggered likea drunken man, and the next day, on recovering his cunning prudent calm, he asked himself whether he should return to this young woman whosekisses gave him the fever. First of all he positively decided to keep tohimself. Then he had a cowardly feeling. He sought to forget, to avoidseeing Therese, and yet she always seemed to be there, implacablyextending her arms. The physical suffering that this spectacle causedhim became intolerable. 

He gave way. He arranged another meeting, and returned to the Arcade ofthe Pont Neuf. 

From that day forth, Therese entered into his life. He did not yetaccept her, although he bore with her. He had his hours of terror, his moments of prudence, and, altogether this intrigue caused himdisagreeable agitation. But his discomfort and his fears disappeared. The meetings continued and multiplied. 

Therese experienced no hesitation. She went straight where her passionurged her to go. This woman whom circumstances had bowed down, and whohad at length drawn herself up erect, now revealed all her being andexplained her life. 

"Oh! if you only knew, " said she, "how I have suffered. I was broughtup in the tepid damp room of an invalid. I slept in the same bed asCamille. At night I got as far away from him as I could, to avoid thesickly odour of his body. He was naughty and obstinate. He would nottake his physic unless I shared it with him. To please my aunt I wasobliged to swallow a dose of every drug. I don't know how it is Ihave survived. They made me ugly. They robbed me of the only thing Ipossessed, and it is impossible for you to love me as I love you. "

She broke off and wept, and after kissing Laurent, continued with bitterhatred:

"I do not wish them any harm. They brought me up, they received me, and shielded me from misery. But I should have preferred abandonment totheir hospitality. I had a burning desire for the open air. When quiteyoung, my dream was to rove barefooted along the dusty roads, holdingout my hand for charity, living like a gipsy. I have been told that mymother was a daughter of the chief of a tribe in Africa. I have oftenthought of her, and I understood that I belonged to her by blood andinstinct. I should have liked to have never parted from her, and to havecrossed the sand slung at her back. 

"Ah! what a childhood! I still feel disgust and rebellion, when I recallthe long days I passed in the room where Camille was at death's door. I sat bent over the fire, stupidly watching the infusions simmer, andfeeling my limbs growing stiff. And I could not move. My aunt scolded meif I made a noise. Later on, I tasted profound joy in the little housebeside the river; but I was already half feeble, I could barely walk, and when I tried to run I fell down. Then they buried me alive in thisvile shop. "

After a pause, she resumed:

"You will hardly credit how bad they have made me. They have turnedme into a liar and a hypocrite. They have stifled me with theirmiddle-class gentleness, and I can hardly understand how it is thatthere is still blood in my veins. I have lowered my eyes, and givenmyself a mournful, idiotic face like theirs. I have led their deathlikelife. When you saw me I looked like a blockhead, did I not? I was grave, overwhelmed, brutalised. I no longer had any hope. I thought of flingingmyself into the Seine. 

"But previous to this depression, what nights of anger I had. Down thereat Vernon, in my frigid room, I bit my pillow to stifle my cries. I beatmyself, taxed myself with cowardice. My blood was on the boil, and Iwould have lacerated my body. On two occasions, I wanted to run away, togo straight before me, towards the sun; but my courage failed. They hadturned me into a docile brute with their tame benevolence and sicklytenderness. Then I lied, I always lied. I remained there quite gentle, quite silent, dreaming of striking and biting. "

After a silence, she continued:

"I do not know why I consented to marry Camille. I did not protest, froma feeling of a sort of disdainful indifference. I pitied the child. WhenI played with him, I felt my fingers sink into the flesh of his limbsas into damp clay. I took him because my aunt offered him to me, andbecause I never intended to place any restraint on my actions on hisaccount. 

"I found my husband just the same little suffering boy whose bed Ihad shared when I was six years old. He was just as frail, just asplaintive, and he still had that insipid odour of a sick child that hadbeen so repugnant to me previously. I am relating all this so that youmay not be jealous. I was seized with a sort of disgust. I rememberedthe physic I had drank. I got as far away from him as the bed wouldallow, and I passed terrible nights. But you, you----"

Therese drew herself up, bending backward, her fingers imprisoned in themassive hands of Laurent, gazing at his broad shoulders, and enormousneck. 

"You, I love you, " she continued. "I loved you from the day Camillepushed you into the shop. You have perhaps no esteem for me, because Igave way at once. Truly, I know not how it happened. I am proud. I ampassionate. I would have liked to have beaten you, the first day, whenyou kissed me. I do not know how it was I loved you; I hated you rather. The sight of you irritated me, and made me suffer. When you were there, my nerves were strained fit to snap. My head became quite empty. I wasready to commit a crime. 

"Oh! how I suffered! And I sought this suffering. I waited for you toarrive. I loitered round your chair, so as to move in your breath, todrag my clothes over yours. It seemed as though your blood cast puffs ofheat on me as I passed, and it was this sort of burning cloud in whichyou were enveloped, that attracted me, and detained me beside you inspite of my secret revolt. You remember when you were painting here:a fatal power attracted me to your side, and I breathed your air withcruel delight. I know I seemed to be begging for kisses, I felt ashamedof my bondage, I felt I should fall, if you were to touch me. But I gaveway to my cowardice, I shivered with cold, waiting until you chose totake me in your arms. "

When Therese ceased speaking, she was quivering, as though proud atbeing avenged. In this bare and chilly room were enacted scenes ofburning lust, sinister in their brutality. 

On her part Therese seemed to revel in daring. The only precaution shewould take when expecting her lover was to tell her aunt she was goingupstairs to rest. But then, when he was there she never bothered aboutavoiding noise, walking about and talking. At first this terrifiedLaurent. 

"For God's sake, " he whispered, "don't make so much noise. Madame Raquinwill hear. "

Therese would laugh. "Who cares, you are always so worried. She is ather counter and won't leave. She is too afraid of being robbed. Besides, you can hide. "

Laurent's passion had not yet stifled his native peasant caution, butsoon he grew used to the risks of these meetings, only a few yards fromthe old woman. 

One day, fearing her niece was ill, Madame Raquin climbed the stairs. Therese never bothered to bolt the bedroom door. 

At the sound of the woman's heavy step on the wooden stairs, Laurentbecame frantic. Therese laughed as she saw him searching for hiswaistcoat and hat. She grabbed his arm and pushed him down at the footof the bed. With perfect self-possession she whispered:

"Stay there. Don't move. "

She threw all his clothes that were lying about over him and coveredthem with a white petticoat she had taken off. Without losing her calm, she lay down, half-naked, with her hair loose. 

When Madame Raquin quietly opened the door and tiptoed to the bed theyounger woman pretended to be asleep. Laurent, under all the clothes wasin a panic. 

"Therese, " asked the old lady with some concern, "are you all right, mydear?"

Therese, opening her eyes and yawning, answered that she had a terriblemigraine. She begged her aunt to let her sleep some more. The old ladyleft the room as quietly as she had entered it. 

"So you see, " Therese said triumphantly, "there is no reason to worry. These people are not in love. They are blind. "

At other times Therese seemed quite mad, wandering in her mind. Shewould see the cat, sitting motionless and dignified, looking at them. "Look at Francois, " she said to Laurent. "You'd think he understands andis planning to tell Camille everything to-night. He knows a thing or twoabout us. Wouldn't it be funny if one day, in the shop, he just startedtalking. "

This idea was delightful to Therese but Laurent felt a shudder runthrough him as he looked at the cat's big green eyes. Therese's hold onhim was not total and he was scared. He got up and put the cat out ofthe room. 

CHAPTER VIII

Laurent was perfectly happy of an evening, in the shop. He generallyreturned from the office with Camille. Madame Raquin had formed quitea motherly affection for him. She knew he was short of cash, andindifferently nourished, that he slept in a garret; and she had toldhim, once for all, that a seat would always be kept for him at theirtable. She liked this young fellow with that expansive feeling that oldwomen display for people who come from their own part of the country, bringing with them memories of the past. 

The young man took full advantage of this hospitality. Before going todinner, after leaving the office for the night, he and Camille went fora stroll on the quays. Both found satisfaction in this intimacy. Theydawdled along, chatting with one another, which prevented them feelingdull, and after a time decided to go and taste the soup prepared byMadame Raquin. Laurent opened the shop door as if he were master ofthe house, seated himself astride a chair, smoking and expectorating asthough at home. 

The presence of Therese did not embarrass him in the least. He treatedthe young woman with friendly familiarity, paying her commonplacecompliments without a line of his face becoming disturbed. Camillelaughed, and, as his wife confined herself to answering his friend inmonosyllables, he firmly believed they detested one another. One day heeven reproached Therese with what he termed her coldness for Laurent. 

Laurent had made a correct guess: he had become the sweetheart of thewoman, the friend of the husband, the spoilt child of the mother. Neverhad he enjoyed such a capital time. His position in the family struckhim as quite natural. He was on the most friendly terms with Camille, in regard to whom he felt neither anger nor remorse. He was so sure ofbeing prudent and calm that he did not even keep watch on his gesturesand speech. The egotism he displayed in the enjoyment of his goodfortune, shielded him from any fault. All that kept him from kissingTherese in the shop was the fear that he would not be allowed to comeany more. He would not have cared a bit about hurting Camille and hismother. 

Therese, who was of a more nervous and quivering temperament, wascompelled to play a part, and she played it to perfection, thanks to theclever hypocrisy she had acquired in her bringing up. For nearly fifteenyears, she had been lying, stifling her fever, exerting an implacablewill to appear gloomy and half asleep. It cost her nothing to keep thismask on her face, which gave her an appearance of icy frigidity. 

When Laurent entered the shop, he found her glum, her nose longer, herlips thinner. She was ugly, cross, unapproachable. Nevertheless, shedid not exaggerate her effects, but only played her former part, withoutawakening attention by greater harshness. She experienced extraordinarypleasure in deceiving Camille and Madame Raquin. She was aware she wasdoing wrong, and at times she felt a ferocious desire to rise from tableand smother Laurent with kisses, just to show her husband and aunt thatshe was not a fool, and that she had a sweetheart. 

At moments, she felt giddy with joy; good actress as she provedherself, she could not on such occasions refrain from singing, when hersweetheart did not happen to be there, and she had no fear of betrayingherself. These sudden outbursts of gaiety charmed Madame Raquin, whotaxed her niece with being too serious. The young woman, moreover, decked the window of her room with pots of flowers, and then had newpaper hung in the apartment. After this she wanted a carpet, curtainsand rosewood furniture. 

The nature of the circumstances seemed to have made this woman for thisman, and to have thrust one towards the other. The two together, thewoman nervous and hypocritical, the man sanguineous and leading thelife of a brute, formed a powerful couple allied. The one completed theother, and they mutually protected themselves. At night, at table, inthe pale light of the lamp, one felt the strength of their union, atthe sight of the heavy, smiling face of Laurent, opposite the mute, impenetrable mask of Therese. 

Those evenings were pleasant and calm. In the silence, in thetransparent shadow and cool atmosphere, arose friendly conversation. The family and their guest sat close together round the table. Afterthe dessert, they chatted about a thousand trifles of the day, aboutincidents that had occurred the day before, about their hopes for themorrow. 

Camille liked Laurent, as much as he was capable of liking anybody, after the fashion of a contented egotist, and Laurent seemed to show himequal attachment. Between them there was an exchange of kind sentences, of obliging gestures, and thoughtful attentions. Madame Raquin, withplacid countenance, contributed her peacefulness to the tranquillityof the scene, which resembled a gathering of old friends who knew oneanother to the heart, and who confidently relied on the faith of theirfriendship. 

Therese, motionless, peaceful like the others, observed this joy, thissmiling depression of these people of the middle class, and in her heartthere was savage laughter; all her being jeered, but her face maintainedits frigid rigidity. Ah! how she deceived these worthy people, and howdelighted she was to deceive them with such triumphant impudence. Hersweetheart, at this moment, was like a person unknown to her, a comradeof her husband, a sort of simpleton and interloper concerning whom shehad no need to concern herself. This atrocious comedy, these duperies oflife, this comparison between the burning kisses in the daytime, and theindifference played at night, gave new warmth to the blood of the youngwoman. 

When by chance Madame Raquin and Camille went downstairs, Theresebounded from her chair, to silently, and with brutal energy, press herlips to those of her sweetheart, remaining thus breathless and chokinguntil she heard the stairs creak. Then, she briskly seated herselfagain, and resumed her glum grimace, while Laurent calmly continued theinterrupted conversation with Camille. It was like a rapid, blindingflash of lightning in a leaden sky. 

On Thursday, the evening became a little more animated. Laurent, although bored to death, nevertheless made a point of not missing oneof these gatherings. As a measure of prudence he desired to be known andesteemed by the friends of Camille. So he had to lend an ear to the idletalk of Grivet and old Michaud. The latter always related the same talesof robbery and murder, while Grivet spoke at the same time about hisclerks, his chiefs, and his administration, until the young mansought refuge beside Olivier and Suzanne, whose stupidity seemed lesswearisome. But he soon asked for the dominoes. 

It was on Thursday evening that Laurent and Therese arranged the dayand hour of their meeting. In the bustle attending the departure, whenMadame Raquin and Camille accompanied the guest to the door of thearcade, the young woman approached Laurent, to whom she spoke in anundertone, as she pressed his hand. At times, when all had turned theirbacks, she kissed him, out of a sort of bravado. 

The life of shocks and appeasements, lasted eight months. Thesweethearts lived in complete beatitude; Therese no longer felt dull, and was perfectly contented. Laurent satiated, pampered, fatter thanbefore, had but one fear, that of seeing this delightful existence cometo an end. 

CHAPTER IX

One afternoon, as Laurent was leaving his office to run and meet Theresewho was expecting him, his chief gave him to understand that in futurehe was forbidden to absent himself. He had taken too many holidaysalready, and the authorities had decided to dismiss him if he again wentout in office hours. 

Riveted to his chair, he remained in despair until eventide. He had toearn his living, and dared not lose his place. At night the wrathfulcountenance of Therese was a torture to him, and he was unable to findan opportunity to explain to her how it was he had broken his word. Atlength, as Camille was putting up the shutters, he briskly approachedthe young woman, to murmur in an undertone:

"We shall be unable to see one another any more. My chief refuses togive me permission to go out. "

Camille came into the shop, and Laurent was obliged to withdraw withoutgiving any further information, leaving Therese under the disagreeableinfluence of this abrupt and unpleasant announcement. Exasperated atanyone daring to interfere with her delectation, she passed a sleeplessnight, arranging extravagant plans for a meeting with her sweetheart. The following Thursday, she spoke with Laurent for a minute at the most. Their anxiety was all the keener as they did not know where to meetfor the purpose of consulting and coming to an understanding. The youngwoman, on this occasion, gave her sweetheart another appointment whichfor the second time he failed to keep, and she then had but one fixedidea--to see him at any cost. 

For a fortnight Laurent was unable to speak to Therese alone, and hethen felt how necessary this woman had become to his existence. Farfrom experiencing any uneasiness, as formerly, at the kisses which hisladylove showered on him, he now sought her embraces with the obstinacyof a famished animal. A sanguineous passion had lurked in his muscles, and now that his sweetheart was taken from him, this passion burst outin blind violence. He was madly in love. This thriving brutish natureseemed unconscious in everything. He obeyed his instincts, permittingthe will of his organism to lead him. 

A year before, he would have burst into laughter, had he been toldhe would become the slave of a woman, to the point of risking histranquillity. The hidden forces of lust that had brought about thisresult had been secretly proceeding within him, to end by casting him, bound hand and foot, into the arms of Therese. At this hour, he was indread lest he should omit to be prudent. He no longer dared go of anevening to the shop in the Arcade of the Pont Neuf lest he should commitsome folly. He no longer belonged to himself. His ladylove, with herfeline suppleness, her nervous flexibility, had glided, little bylittle, into each fibre of his body. This woman was as necessary to hislife as eating and drinking. 

He would certainly have committed some folly, had he not received aletter from Therese, asking him to remain at home the following evening. His sweetheart promised him to call about eight o'clock. 

On quitting the office, he got rid of Camille by saying he was tired, and should go to bed at once. Therese, after dinner, also played herpart. She mentioned a customer who had moved without paying her, andacting the indignant creditor who would listen to nothing, declared thatshe intended calling on her debtor with the view of asking for paymentof the money that was due. The customer now lived at Batignolles. MadameRaquin and Camille considered this a long way to go, and thought itdoubtful whether the journey would have a satisfactory result; but theyexpressed no surprise, and allowed Therese to set out on her errand inall tranquillity. 

The young woman ran to the Port aux Vins, gliding over the slipperypavement, and knocking up against the passers-by, in her hurry to reachher destination. Beads of perspiration covered her face, and her handswere burning. Anyone might have taken her for a drunken woman. Sherapidly ascended the staircase of the hotel, and on reaching the sixthfloor, out of breath, and with wandering eyes, she perceived Laurent, who was leaning over the banister awaiting her. 

She entered the garret, which was so small that she could barely turnround in it, and tearing off her hat with one hand leant against thebedstead in a faint. Through the lift-up window in the roof, which waswide open, the freshness of the evening fell upon the burning couch. 

The couple remained some time in this wretched little room, as thoughat the bottom of a hole. All at once, Therese heard a clock in theneighbourhood strike ten. She felt as if she would have liked to havebeen deaf. Nevertheless, she looked for her hat which she fastened toher hair with a long pin, and then seating herself, slowly murmured:

"I must go. "

Laurent fell on his knees before her, and took her hands. 

"Good-bye, till we see each other again, " said she, without moving. 

"No, not till we see each other again!" he exclaimed, "that is tooindefinite. When will you come again?"

She looked him full in the face. 

"Do you wish me to be frank with you?" she inquired. "Well, then, totell you the truth, I think I shall come no more. I have no pretext, andI cannot invent one. "

"Then we must say farewell, " he remarked. 

"No, I will not do that!" she answered. 

She pronounced these words in terrified anger. Then she added moregently, without knowing what she was saying, and without moving from herchair:

"I am going. "

Laurent reflected. He was thinking of Camille. 

"I wish him no harm, " said he at length, without pronouncing the name:"but really he is too much in our way. Couldn't you get rid of him, sendhim on a journey somewhere, a long way off?"

"Ah! yes, send him on a journey!" resumed the young woman, nodding herhead. "And do you imagine a man like that would consent to travel? Thereis only one journey, that from which you never return. But he will buryus all. People who are at their last breath, never die. "

Then came a silence which was broken by Laurent who remarked:

"I had a day dream. Camille met with an accident and died, and I becameyour husband. Do you understand?"

"Yes, yes, " answered Therese, shuddering. 

Then, abruptly bending over the face of Laurent, she smothered it withkisses, and bursting into sobs, uttered these disjoined sentences amidsther tears:

"Don't talk like that, for if you do, I shall lack the strength to leaveyou. I shall remain here. Give me courage rather. Tell me we shall seeone another again. You have need of me, have you not? Well, one of thesedays we shall find a way to live together. "

"Then come back, come back to-morrow, " said Laurent. 

"But I cannot return, " she answered. "I have told you. I have nopretext. "

She wrung her hands and continued:

"Oh! I do not fear the scandal. If you like, when I get back, I willtell Camille you are my sweetheart, and return here. I am trembling foryou. I do not wish to disturb your life. I want to make you happy. "

The prudent instincts of the young man were awakened. 

"You are right, " said he. "We must not behave like children. Ah! if yourhusband were to die!"

"If my husband were to die, " slowly repeated Therese. 

"We would marry, " he continued, "and have nothing more to fear. What anice, gentle life it would be!"

The young woman stood up erect. Her cheeks were pale, and she looked ather sweetheart with a clouded brow, while her lips were twitching. 

"Sometimes people die, " she murmured at last. "Only it is dangerous forthose who survive. "

Laurent did not reply. 

"You see, " she continued, "all the methods that are known are bad. "

"You misunderstood me, " said he quietly. "I am not a fool, I wish tolove you in peace. I was thinking that accidents happen daily, that afoot may slip, a tile may fall. You understand. In the latter event, thewind alone is guilty. "

He spoke in a strange voice. Then he smiled, and added in a caressingtone:

"Never mind, keep quiet. We will love one another fondly, and livehappily. As you are unable to come here, I will arrange matters. Shouldwe remain a few months without seeing one another, do not forget me, andbear in mind that I am labouring for your felicity. "

As Therese opened the door to leave, he seized her in his arms. 

"You are mine, are you not?" he continued. "You swear to belong to me, at any hour, when I choose. "

"Yes!" exclaimed the young woman. "I am yours, do as you please withme. "

For a moment they remained locked together and mute. Then Therese toreherself roughly away, and, without turning her head, quitted the garretand went downstairs. Laurent listened to the sound of her footstepsfading away. 

When he heard the last of them, he returned to his wretched room, andwent to bed. The sheets were still warm. Without closing the window, he lay on his back, his arms bare, his hands open, exposed to the freshair. And he reflected, with his eyes on the dark blue square that thewindow framed in the sky. 

He turned the same idea over in his head until daybreak. Previous to thevisit of Therese, the idea of murdering Camille had not occurred to him. He had spoken of the death of this man, urged to do so by the facts, irritated at the thought that he would be unable to meet his sweetheartany more. And it was thus that a new corner of his unconscious naturecame to be revealed. 

Now that he was more calm, alone in the middle of the peaceful night, hestudied the murder. The idea of death, blurted out in despair between acouple of kisses, returned implacable and keen. Racked by insomnia, andunnerved by the visit of Therese, he calculated the disadvantages andthe advantages of his becoming an assassin. 

All his interests urged him to commit the crime. He said to himself thatas his father, the Jeufosse peasant, could not make up his mind to die, he would perhaps have to remain a clerk another ten years, eating incheap restaurants, and living in a garret. This idea exasperated him. Onthe other hand, if Camille were dead, he would marry Therese, he wouldinherit from Madame Raquin, resign his clerkship, and saunter about inthe sun. Then, he took pleasure in dreaming of this life of idleness; hesaw himself with nothing to do, eating and sleeping, patiently awaitingthe death of his father. And when the reality arose in the middle of hisdream, he ran up against Camille, and clenched his fists to knock himdown. 

Laurent desired Therese; he wanted her for himself alone, to have heralways within reach. If he failed to make the husband disappear, thewoman would escape him. She had said so: she could not return. He wouldhave eloped with her, carried her off somewhere, but then both woulddie of hunger. He risked less in killing the husband. There would beno scandal. He would simply push a man away to take his place. In hisbrutal logic of a peasant, he found this method excellent and natural. His innate prudence even advised this rapid expedient. 

He grovelled on his bed, in perspiration, flat on his stomach, with hisface against the pillow, and he remained there breathless, stifling, seeing lines of fire pass along his closed eyelids. He asked himself howhe would kill Camille. Then, unable to breathe any more, he turned roundat a bound to resume his position on his back, and with his eyes wideopen, received full in the face, the puffs of cold air from the window, seeking in the stars, in the bluish square of sky, a piece of adviceabout murder, a plan of assassination. 

And he found nothing. As he had told his ladylove, he was neither achild nor a fool. He wanted neither a dagger nor poison. What he soughtwas a subtle crime, one that could be accomplished without danger; asort of sinister suffocation, without cries and without terror, a simpledisappearance. Passion might well stir him, and urge him forward; allhis being imperiously insisted on prudence. He was too cowardly, toovoluptuous to risk his tranquillity. If he killed, it would be for acalm and happy life. 

Little by little slumber overcame him. Fatigued and appeased, he sankinto a sort of gentle and uncertain torpor. As he fell asleep, hedecided he would await a favourable opportunity, and his thoughts, fleeting further and further away, lulled him to rest with the murmur:

"I will kill him, I will kill him. "

Five minutes later, he was at rest, breathing with serene regularity. 

Therese returned home at eleven o'clock, with a burning head, and herthoughts strained, reaching the Arcade of the Pont Neuf unconsciousof the road she had taken. It seemed to her that she had just comedownstairs from her visit to Laurent, so full were her ears of the wordsshe had recently heard. She found Madame Raquin and Camille anxious andattentive; but she answered their questions sharply, saying she hadbeen on a fools' errand, and had waited an hour on the pavement for anomnibus. 

When she got into bed, she found the sheets cold and damp. Her limbs, which were still burning, shuddered with repugnance. Camille soonfell asleep, and for a long time Therese watched his wan face reposingidiotically on the pillow, with his mouth wide open. Therese drew awayfrom her husband. She felt a desire to drive her clenched fist into thatmouth. 

CHAPTER X

More than three weeks passed. Laurent came to the shop every evening, looking weary and unwell. A light bluish circle surrounded his eyes, andhis lips were becoming pale and chapped. Otherwise, he still maintainedhis obtuse tranquillity, he looked Camille in the face, and showed himthe same frank friendship. Madame Raquin pampered the friend of thefamily the more, now that she saw him giving way to a sort of low fever. 

Therese had resumed her mute, glum countenance and manner. She was moremotionless, more impenetrable, more peaceful than ever. She did not seemto trouble herself in the least about Laurent. She barely looked athim, rarely exchanged a word with him, treating him with perfectindifference. Madame Raquin, who in her goodness of heart, felt painedat this attitude, sometimes said to the young man:

"Do not pay attention to the manner of my niece, I know her; her faceappears cold, but her heart is warm with tenderness and devotedness. "

The two sweethearts had no more meetings. Since the evening in theRue Saint-Victor they had not met alone. At night, when they foundthemselves face to face, placid in appearance and like strangers to oneanother, storms of passion and dismay passed beneath the calm flesh oftheir countenance. And while with Therese, there were outbursts of fury, base ideas, and cruel jeers, with Laurent there were sombre brutalities, and poignant indecisions. Neither dared search to the bottom of theirbeings, to the bottom of that cloudy fever that filled their brains witha sort of thick and acrid vapour. 

When they could press the hands of one another behind a door, withoutspeaking, they did so, fit to crush them, in a short rough clasp. Theywould have liked, mutually, to have carried off strips of their fleshclinging to their fingers. They had naught but this pressure of handsto appease their feelings. They put all their souls into them, and askedfor nothing more from one another. They waited. 

One Thursday evening, before sitting down to the game of dominoes, theguests of the Raquin family had a chat, as usual. A favourite subjectof conversation was afforded by the experiences of old Michaud who wasplied with questions respecting the strange and sinister adventureswith which he must have been connected in the discharge of his formerfunctions. Then Grivet and Camille listened to the stories of thecommissary with the affrighted and gaping countenances of small childrenlistening to "Blue Beard" or "Tom Thumb. " These tales terrified andamused them. 

On this particular Thursday, Michaud, who had just given an account ofa horrible murder, the details of which had made his audience shudder, added as he wagged his head:

"And a great deal never comes out at all. How many crimes remainundiscovered! How many murderers escape the justice of man!"

"What!" exclaimed Grivet astonished, "you think there are foul creatureslike that walking about the streets, people who have murdered and arenot arrested?"

Olivier smiled with an air of disdain. 

"My dear sir, " he answered in his dictatorial tone, "if they are notarrested it is because no one is aware that they have committed amurder. "

This reasoning did not appear to convince Grivet, and Camille came tohis assistance. 

"I am of the opinion of M. Grivet, " said he, with silly importance. "Ishould like to believe that the police do their duty, and that I neverbrush against a murderer on the pavement. "

Olivier considered this remark a personal attack. 

"Certainly the police do their duty, " he exclaimed in a vexed tone. "Still we cannot do what is impossible. There are wretches who havestudied crime at Satan's own school; they would escape the DivinityHimself. Isn't that so, father?"

"Yes, yes, " confirmed old Michaud. "Thus, while I was at Vernon--youperhaps remember the incident, Madame Raquin--a wagoner was murderedon the highway. The corpse was found cut in pieces, at the bottom of aditch. The authorities were never able to lay hands on the culprit. Heis perhaps still living at this hour. Maybe he is our neighbour, andperhaps M. Grivet will meet him on his way home. "

Grivet turned pale as a sheet. He dared not look round. He fancied themurderer of the wagoner was behind him. But for that matter, he wasdelighted to feel afraid. 

"Well, no, " he faltered, hardly knowing what he said, "well, no, Icannot believe that. But I also have a story: once upon a time a servantwas put in prison for stealing a silver spoon and fork belonging toher master and mistress. Two months afterwards, while a tree was beingfelled, the knife and fork were discovered in the nest of a magpie. Itwas the magpie who was the thief. The servant was released. You see thatthe guilty are always punished. "

Grivet triumphed. Olivier sneered. 

"Then, they put the magpie in prison, " said he. 

"That is not what M. Grivet meant to say, " answered Camille, annoyed tosee his chief turned into ridicule. "Mother, give us the dominoes. "

While Madame Raquin went to fetch the box, the young man, addressingMichaud, continued:

"Then you admit the police are powerless, that there are murdererswalking about in the sunshine?"

"Unfortunately, yes, " answered the commissary. 

"It is immoral, " concluded Grivet. 

During this conversation, Therese and Laurent had remained silent. Theyhad not even smiled at the folly of Grivet. Both leaning with theirarms on the table, looking slightly pale, and with a vague expression intheir eyes, listened. At one moment those dark, ardent orbs had met. Andsmall drops of perspiration pearled at the roots of the hair of Therese, while chilly puffs of breath gave imperceptible shivers to the skin ofLaurent. 

CHAPTER XI

Sometimes on a Sunday, when the weather was fine, Camille forced Thereseto go out with him, for a walk in the Champs Elysees. The young womanwould have preferred to remain in the damp obscurity of the arcade, forthe exercise fatigued her, and it worried her to be on the arm of herhusband, who dragged her along the pavement, stopping before the shopwindows, expressing his astonishment, making reflections, and thenfalling into ridiculous spells of silence. 

But Camille insisted on these Sunday outings, which gave him thesatisfaction of showing off his wife. When he met a colleague, particularly one of his chiefs, he felt quite proud to exchange bowswith him, in the company of Madame. Besides, he walked for the sakeof walking, and he did so almost in silence, stiff and deformed in hisSunday clothes, dragging along his feet, and looking silly and vain. Itmade Therese suffer to be seen arm in arm with such a man. 

On these walking-out days, Madame Raquin accompanied her children to theend of the arcade, where she embraced them as if they were leaving on ajourney, giving them endless advice, accompanied by fervent prayers. 

"Particularly, beware of accidents, " she would say. "There are so manyvehicles in the streets of Paris! Promise me not to get in a crowd. "

At last she allowed them to set out, but she followed them aconsiderable distance with her eyes, before returning to the shop. Herlower limbs were becoming unwieldy which prohibited her taking longwalks. 

On other occasions, but more rarely, the married couple went out ofParis, as far as Saint-Ouen or Asnieres, where they treated themselvesto a dish of fried fish in one of the restaurants beside the river. These were regarded as days of great revelry which were spoken of amonth beforehand. Therese engaged more willingly, almost with joy, inthese excursions which kept her in the open air until ten or eleveno'clock at night. Saint-Ouen, with its green isles, reminded her ofVernon, and rekindled all the wild love she had felt for the Seine whena little girl. 

She seated herself on the gravel, dipped her hands in the water, feelingfull of life in the burning heat of the sun, attenuated by the freshpuffs of breeze in the shade. While she tore and soiled her frock onthe stones and clammy ground, Camille neatly spread out hispocket-handkerchief and sank down beside her with endless precautions. Latterly the young couple almost invariably took Laurent with them. Heenlivened the excursion by his laughter and strength of a peasant. 

One Sunday, Camille, Therese and Laurent left for Saint-Ouen afterbreakfast, at about eleven o'clock. The outing had been projected a longtime, and was to be the last of the season. Autumn approached, and thecold breezes at night, began to make the air chilly. 

On this particular morning, the sky maintained all its blue serenity. It proved warm in the sun and tepid in the shade. The party decided thatthey must take advantage of the last fine weather. 

Hailing a passing cab they set out, accompanied by the pitifulexpressions of uneasiness, and the anxious effusions of the old mercer. Crossing Paris, they left the vehicle at the fortifications, and gainedSaint-Ouen on foot. It was noon. The dusty road, brightly lit up by thesun, had the blinding whiteness of snow. The air was intensely warm, heavy and pungent. Therese, on the arm of Camille, walked with shortsteps, concealing herself beneath her umbrella, while her husband fannedhis face with an immense handkerchief. Behind them came Laurent, who hadthe sun streaming fiercely on the back of his neck, without appearing tonotice it. He whistled and kicked the stones before him as he strolledalong. Now and again there was a fierce glint in his eyes as he watchedTherese's swinging hips. 

On reaching Saint-Ouen, they lost no time in looking for a cluster oftrees, a patch of green grass in the shade. Crossing the water to anisland, they plunged into a bit of underwood. The fallen leaves coveredthe ground with a russety bed which cracked beneath their feet withsharp, quivering sounds. Innumerable trunks of trees rose up erect, like clusters of small gothic columns; the branches descended to theforeheads of the three holiday makers, whose only view was the expiringcopper-like foliage, and the black and white stems of the aspens andoaks. They were in the wilderness, in a melancholy corner, in a narrowclearing that was silent and fresh. All around them they heard themurmur of the Seine. 

Camille having selected a dry spot, seated himself on the ground, afterlifting up the skirt of his frock coat; while Therese, amid a loudcrumpling of petticoats, had just flung herself among the leaves. Laurent lay on his stomach with his chin resting on the ground. 

They remained three hours in this clearing, waiting until it becamecooler, to take a run in the country before dinner. Camille talked abouthis office, and related silly stories; then, feeling fatigued, he lethimself fall backward and went to sleep with the rim of his hat overhis eyes. Therese had closed her eyelids some time previously, feigningslumber. 

Laurent, who felt wide awake, and was tired of his recumbent position, crept up behind her and kissed her shoe and ankle. For a month his lifehad been chaste and this walk in the sun had set him on fire. Here hewas, in a hidden retreat, and unable to hold to his breast the womanwho was really his. Her husband might wake up and all his prudentcalculations would be ruined by this obstacle of a man. So he lay, flaton the ground, hidden by his lover's skirts, trembling with exasperationas he pressed kiss after kiss upon the shoe and white stocking. Theresemade no movement. Laurent thought she was asleep. 

He rose to his feet and stood with his back to a tree. Then he perceivedthat the young woman was gazing into space with her great, sparklingeyes wide open. Her face, lying between her arms, with her hands claspedabove her head, was deadly pale, and wore an expression of frigidrigidity. Therese was musing. Her fixed eyes resembled dark, unfathomable depths, where naught was visible save night. She did notmove, she did not cast a glance at Laurent, who stood erect behind her. 

Her sweetheart contemplated her, and was almost affrighted to see herso motionless and mute. He would have liked to have bent forward, andclosed those great open eyes with a kiss. But Camille lay asleepclose at hand. This poor creature, with his body twisted out of shape, displaying his lean proportions, was gently snoring. Under the hat, half concealing his face, could be seen his mouth contorted into a sillygrimace in his slumber. A few short reddish hairs on a bony chin sulliedhis livid skin, and his head being thrown backward, his thin wrinkledneck appeared, with Adam's apple standing out prominently in brick redin the centre, and rising at each snore. Camille, spread out on theground in this fashion, looked contemptible and vile. 

Laurent who looked at him, abruptly raised his heel. He was going tocrush his face at one blow. 

Therese restrained a cry. She went a shade paler than before, closedher eyes and turned her head away as if to avoid being bespattered withblood. 

Laurent, for a few seconds, remained with his heel in the air, above theface of the slumbering Camille. Then slowly, straightening his leg, hemoved a few paces away. He reflected that this would be a form of murdersuch as an idiot would choose. This pounded head would have set all thepolice on him. If he wanted to get rid of Camille, it was solely for thepurpose of marrying Therese. It was his intention to bask in the sun, after the crime, like the murderer of the wagoner, in the story relatedby old Michaud. 

He went as far as the edge of the water, and watched the running riverin a stupid manner. Then, he abruptly turned into the underwood again. He had just arranged a plan. He had thought of a mode of murder thatwould be convenient, and without danger to himself. 

He awoke the sleeper by tickling his nose with a straw. Camille sneezed, got up, and pronounced the joke a capital one. He liked Laurent onaccount of his tomfoolery, which made him laugh. He now roused his wife, who kept her eyes closed. When she had risen to her feet, and shaken herskirt, which was all crumpled, and covered with dry leaves, the partyquitted the clearing, breaking the small branches they found in theirway. 

They left the island, and walked along the roads, along the bywayscrowded with groups in Sunday finery. Between the hedges ran girlsin light frocks; a number of boating men passed by singing; files ofmiddle-class couples, of elderly persons, of clerks and shopmen withtheir wives, walked the short steps, besides the ditches. Each roadwayseemed like a populous, noisy street. The sun alone maintained itsgreat tranquility. It was descending towards the horizon, casting onthe reddened trees and white thoroughfares immense sheets of pale light. Penetrating freshness began to fall from the quivering sky. 

Camille had ceased giving his arm to Therese. He was chatting withLaurent, laughing at the jests, at the feats of strength of his friend, who leapt the ditches and raised huge stones above his head. The youngwoman, on the other side of the road, advanced with her head bentforward, stooping down from time to time to gather an herb. When she hadfallen behind, she stopped and observed her sweetheart and husband inthe distance. 

"Heh! Aren't you hungry?" shouted Camille at her. 

"Yes, " she replied. 

"Then, come on!" said he. 

Therese was not hungry; but felt tired and uneasy. She was in ignoranceas to the designs of Laurent, and her lower limbs were trembling withanxiety. 

The three, returning to the riverside, found a restaurant, where theyseated themselves at table on a sort of terrace formed of planks in anindifferent eating-house reeking with the odour of grease and wine. Thisplace resounded with cries, songs, and the clatter of plates and dishes. In each private room and public saloon, were parties talking in loudvoices, and the thin partitions gave vibrating sonority to all thisriot. The waiters, ascending to the upper rooms, caused the staircase toshake. 

Above, on the terrace, the puffs of air from the river drove away thesmell of fat. Therese, leaning over the balustrade, observed the quay. To right and left, extended two lines of wine-shops and shanties ofshowmen. Beneath the arbours in the gardens of the former, amid the fewremaining yellow leaves, one perceived the white tablecloths, the dabsof black formed by men's coats, and the brilliant skirts of women. People passed to and fro, bareheaded, running, and laughing; and withthe bawling noise of the crowd, was mingled the lamentable strains ofthe barrel organs. An odour of dust and frying food hung in the calmair. 

Below Therese, some tarts from the Latin Quarter were dancing in a ringon a patch of worn turf singing an infantine roundelay. With hats fallenon their shoulders, and hair unbound, they held one another by thehands, playing like little children. They still managed to find a smallthread of fresh voice, and their pale countenances, ruffled by brutalcaresses, became tenderly coloured with virgin-like blushes, while theirgreat impure eyes filled with moisture. A few students, smoking cleanclay pipes, who were watching them as they turned round, greeted themwith ribald jests. 

And beyond, on the Seine, on the hillocks, descended the serenityof night, a sort of vague bluish mist, which bathed the trees intransparent vapour. 

"Heh! Waiter!" shouted Laurent, leaning over the banister, "what aboutthis dinner?"

Then, changing his mind, he turned to Camille and said:

"I say, Camille, let us go for a pull on the river before sitting downto table. It will give them time to roast the fowl. We shall be bored todeath waiting an hour here. "

"As you like, " answered Camille carelessly. "But Therese is hungry. "

"No, no, I can wait, " hastened to say the young woman, at whom Laurentwas fixedly looking. 

All three went downstairs again. Passing before the rostrum where thelady cashier was seated, they retained a table, and decided on a menu, saying they would return in an hour. As the host let out pleasure boats, they asked him to come and detach one. Laurent selected a skiff, whichappeared so light that Camille was terrified by its fragility. 

"The deuce, " said he, "we shall have to be careful not to move about inthis, otherwise we shall get a famous ducking. "

The truth was that the clerk had a horrible dread of the water. AtVernon, his sickly condition did not permit him, when a child, to go anddabble in the Seine. Whilst his schoolfellows ran and threw themselvesinto the river, he lay abed between a couple of warm blankets. Laurenthad become an intrepid swimmer, and an indefatigable oarsman. Camillehad preserved that terror for deep water which is inherent in women andchildren. He tapped the end of the boat with his foot to make sure ofits solidity. 

"Come, get in, " cried Laurent with a laugh, "you're always trembling. "

Camille stepped over the side, and went staggering to seat himself atthe stern. When he felt the planks under him, he was at ease, and jokedto show his courage. 

Therese had remained on the bank, standing grave and motionless besideher sweetheart, who held the rope. He bent down, and rapidly murmured inan undertone:

"Be careful. I am going to pitch him in the river. Obey me. I answer foreverything. "

The young woman turned horribly pale. She remained as if riveted to theground. She was rigid, and her eyes had opened wider. 

"Get into the boat, " Laurent murmured again. 

She did not move. A terrible struggle was passing within her. Shestrained her will with all her might, to avoid bursting into sobs, andfalling to the ground. 

"Ah! ah!" cried Camille. "Laurent, just look at Therese. It's she who isafraid. She'll get in; no, she won't get in. "

He had now spread himself out on the back seat, his two arms on thesides of the boat, and was showing off with fanfaronade. The chuckles ofthis poor man were like cuts from a whip to Therese, lashing and urgingher on. She abruptly sprang into the boat, remaining in the bows. Laurent grasped the skulls. The skiff left the bank, advancing slowlytowards the isles. 

Twilight came. Huge shadows fell from the trees, and the water ranblack at the edges. In the middle of the river were great, pale, silvertrails. The boat was soon in full steam. There, all the sounds of thequays softened; the singing, and the cries came vague and melancholy, with sad languidness. The odour of frying and dust had passed away. Theair freshened. It turned cold. 

Laurent, resting on his skulls, allowed the boat to drift along in thecurrent. 

Opposite, rose the great reddish mass of trees on the islands. The twosombre brown banks, patched with grey, were like a couple of broad bandsstretching towards the horizon. The water and sky seemed as if cut fromthe same whitish piece of material. Nothing looks more painfully calmthan an autumn twilight. The sun rays pale in the quivering air, the oldtrees cast their leaves. The country, scorched by the ardent beams ofsummer, feels death coming with the first cold winds. And, in the sky, there are plaintive sighs of despair. Night falls from above, bringingwinding sheets in its shade. 

The party were silent. Seated at the bottom of the boat drifting withthe stream, they watched the final gleams of light quitting the tallbranches. They approached the islands. The great russety masses grewsombre; all the landscape became simplified in the twilight; the Seine, the sky, the islands, the slopes were naught but brown and grey patcheswhich faded away amidst milky fog. 

Camille, who had ended by lying down on his stomach, with his head overthe water, dipped his hands in the river. 

"The deuce! How cold it is!" he exclaimed. "It would not be pleasant togo in there head foremost. "

Laurent did not answer. For an instant he had been observing the twobanks of the river with uneasiness. He advanced his huge hands to hisknees, tightly compressing his lips. Therese, rigid and motionless, withher head thrown slightly backward, waited. 

The skiff was about to enter a small arm of the river, that was sombreand narrow, penetrating between two islands. Behind one of these islandscould be distinguished the softened melody of a boating party who seemedto be ascending the Seine. Up the river in the distance, the water wasfree. 

Then Laurent rose and grasped Camille round the body. The clerk burstinto laughter. 

"Ah, no, you tickle me, " said he, "none of those jokes. Look here, stop;you'll make me fall over. "

Laurent grasped him tighter, and gave a jerk. Camille turning round, perceived the terrifying face of his friend, violently agitated. Hefailed to understand. He was seized with vague terror. He wanted toshout, and felt a rough hand seize him by the throat. With the instinctof an animal on the defensive, he rose to his knees, clutching the sideof the boat, and struggled for a few seconds. 

"Therese! Therese!" he called in a stifling, sibilant voice. 

The young woman looked at him, clinging with both hands to the seat. Theskiff creaked and danced upon the river. She could not close her eyes, a frightful contraction kept them wide open riveted on the hideousstruggle. She remained rigid and mute. 

"Therese! Therese!" again cried the unfortunate man who was in thethroes of death. 

At this final appeal, Therese burst into sobs. Her nerves had given way. The attack she had been dreading, cast her to the bottom of the boat, where she remained doubled up in a swoon, and as if dead. 

Laurent continued tugging at Camille, pressing with one hand on histhroat. With the other hand he ended by tearing his victim away fromthe side of the skiff, and held him up in the air, in his powerful arms, like a child. As he bent down his head, his victim, mad with rage andterror, twisted himself round, and reaching forward with his teeth, buried them in the neck of his aggressor. And when the murderer, restraining a yell of pain, abruptly flung the clerk into the river, thelatter carried a piece of his flesh away with him. 

Camille fall into the water with a shriek. He returned to the surfacetwo or three times, uttering cries that were more and more hollow. 

Laurent, without losing a second, raised the collar of his coat to hidehis wound. Then seizing the unconscious Therese in his arms, he capsizedthe skiff with his foot, as he fell into the Seine with the young woman, whom he supported on the surface, whilst calling in a lamentable voicefor help. 

The boating party he had heard singing behind the point of the island, understanding that an accident had happened, advanced with long, rapidstrokes of the oars, and rescued the immerged couple. While Therese waslaid on a bench, Laurent gave vent to his despair at the death of hisfriend. Plunging into the water again, he searched for Camille in placeswhere he knew he was not to be found, and returned in tears, wringinghis hands, and tearing his hair, while the boating party did their bestto calm and console him. 

"It is all my fault, " he exclaimed. "I ought never to have allowed thatpoor fellow to dance and move about as he did. At a certain moment weall three found ourselves on one side of the boat, and we capsized. Aswe fell into the water, he shouted out to me to save his wife. "

In accordance with what usually happens under similar circumstances, three or four young fellows among the boating party, maintained thatthey had witnessed the accident. 

"We saw you well enough, " said they. "And, then, hang it all, a boat isnot so firm as a dancing floor. Ah! the poor little woman, it'll be anice awakening for her. "

They took their oars, and towing the capsized skiff behind them, conducted Therese and Laurent to the restaurant, where the dinner wasready to be served. 

The restaurant keeper and his wife were worthy people who placed theirwardrobe at the service of the drenched pair. When Therese recoveredconsciousness, she had a nervous attack, and burst into heartrendingsobs. It became necessary to put her to bed. Nature assisted thesinister comedy that had just been performed. 

As soon as the young woman became calmer, Laurent entrusting her tothe care of the host and his wife, set out to return to Paris, wherehe wished to arrive alone to break the frightful intelligence to MadameRaquin, with all possible precautions. The truth was that he feared thenervous feverish excitement of Therese, and preferred to give her timeto reflect, and learn her part. 

It was the boating men who sat down to the dinner prepared for Camille. 

CHAPTER XII

Laurent, in the dark corner of the omnibus that took him back to Paris, continued perfecting his plan. He was almost certain of impunity, andhe felt heavy, anxious joy, the joy of having got over the crime. Onreaching the gate at Clichy, he hailed a cab, and drove to the residenceof old Michaud in the Rue de Seine. It was nine o'clock at night when hearrived. 

He found the former commissary of police at table, in the company ofOlivier and Suzanne. The motive of his visit was to seek protection, incase he should be suspected, and also to escape breaking the frightfulnews to Madame Raquin himself. Such an errand was strangely repugnant tohim. He anticipated encountering such terrible despair that he feared hewould be unable to play his part with sufficient tears. Then the griefof this mother weighed upon him, although at the bottom of his heart, hecared but little about it. 

When Michaud saw him enter, clothed in coarse-looking garments that weretoo tight for him, he questioned him with his eyes, and Laurent gave anaccount of the accident in a broken voice, as if exhausted with griefand fatigue. 

"I have come to you, " said he in conclusion, "because I do not know whatto do about the two poor women so cruelly afflicted. I dare not go tothe bereaved mother alone, and want you to accompany me. "

As he spoke, Olivier looked at him fixedly, and with so straight aglance that he terrified him. The murderer had flung himself head downamong these people belonging to the police, with an audacity calculatedto save him. But he could not repress a shudder as he felt their eyesexamining him. He saw distrust where there was naught but stupor andpity. 

Suzanne weaker and paled than usual, seemed ready to faint. Olivier, whowas alarmed at the idea of death, but whose heart remained absolutelycold, made a grimace expressing painful surprise, while by habithe scrutinised the countenance of Laurent, without having the leastsuspicion of the sinister truth. As to old Michaud, he utteredexclamations of fright, commiseration, and astonishment; he fidgetedon his chair, joined his hands together, and cast up his eyes to theceiling. 

"Ah! good heavens, " said he in a broken voice, "ah! good heavens, whata frightful thing! To leave one's home, and die, like that, all of asudden. It's horrible. And that poor Madame Raquin, his mother, whatevershall we say to her? Certainly, you were quite right to come and findus. We will go with you. "

Rising from his seat, he walked hither and thither about the apartment, stamping with his feet, in search of his hat and walking-stick; and, ashe bustled from corner to corner, he made Laurent repeat the details ofthe catastrophe, giving utterance to fresh exclamations at the end ofeach sentence. 

At last all four went downstairs. On reaching the entrance to the Arcadeof the Pont Neuf, Laurent was stopped by Michaud. 

"Do not accompany us any further, " said he; "your presence would be asort of brutal avowal which must be avoided. The wretched mother wouldsuspect a misfortune, and this would force us to confess the truthsooner than we ought to tell it to her. Wait for us here. "

This arrangement relieved the murderer, who shuddered at the thoughtof entering the shop in the arcade. He recovered his calm, and beganwalking up and down the pavement, going and coming, in perfect peace ofmind. At moments, he forgot the events that were passing. He looked atthe shops, whistled between his teeth, turned round to ogle the womenwho brushed past him. He remained thus for a full half-hour in thestreet, recovering his composure more and more. 

He had not eaten since the morning, and feeling hungry he entered apastrycook's and stuffed himself with cakes. 

A heartrending scene was passing at the shop in the arcade. Notwithstanding precautions, notwithstanding the soft, friendlysentences of old Michaud, there came a moment when Madame Raquinunderstood that her son had met with misfortune. From that moment, she insisted on knowing the truth with such a passionate outburst ofdespair, with such a violent flow of tears and shrieks, that her oldfriend could not avoid giving way to her. 

And when she learnt the truth, her grief was tragic. She gave hollowsobs, she received shocks that threw her backward, in a distractingattack of terror and anguish. She remained there choking, utteringfrom time to time a piercing scream amidst the profound roar of heraffliction. She would have dragged herself along the ground, had notSuzanne taken her round the waist, weeping on her knees, and raisingher pale countenance towards her. Olivier and his father on their feet, unnerved and mute, turned aside their heads, being disagreeably affectedat this painful sight which wounded them in their egotism. 

The poor mother saw her son rolling along in the thick waters of theSeine, a rigid and horribly swollen corpse; while at the same time, sheperceived him a babe, in his cradle, when she drove away death bendingover him. She had brought him back into the world on more than tenoccasions; she loved him for all the love she had bestowed on him duringthirty years. And now he had met his death far away from her, all atonce, in the cold and dirty water, like a dog. 

Then she remembered the warm blankets in which she had enveloped him. What care she had taken of her boy! What a tepid temperature he had beenreared in! How she had coaxed and fondled him! And all this to see himone day miserably drown himself! At these thoughts Madame Raquin felt atightening at the throat, and she hoped she was going to die, strangledby despair. 

Old Michaud hastened to withdraw. Leaving Suzanne behind to look afterthe mercer, he and Olivier went to find Laurent, so that they mighthurry to Saint-Ouen with all speed. 

During the journey, they barely exchanged a few words. Each of themburied himself in a corner of the cab which jolted along over thestones. There they remained motionless and mute in the obscurity thatprevailed within the vehicle. Ever and anon a rapid flash from a gaslamp, cast a bright gleam on their faces. The sinister event that hadbrought them together, threw a sort of dismal dejection upon them. 

When they at length arrived at the restaurant beside the river, theyfound Therese in bed with burning head and hands. The landlord told themin an undertone, that the young woman had a violent fever. The truth wasthat Therese, feeling herself weak in character and wanting in courage, feared she might confess the crime in one of her nervous attacks, andhad decided to feign illness. 

Maintaining sullen silence, she kept her lips and eyes closed, unwillingto see anyone lest she should speak. With the bedclothes to her chin, her face half concealed by the pillow, she made herself quite small, anxiously listening to all that was said around her. And, amidst thereddish gleam that passed beneath her closed lids, she could still seeCamille and Laurent struggling at the side of the boat. She perceivedher husband, livid, horrible, increased in height, rearing up straightabove the turbid water, and this implacable vision heightened thefeverish heat of her blood. 

Old Michaud endeavoured to speak to her and console her. But she made amovement of impatience, and turning round, broke out into a fresh fit ofsobbing. 

"Leave her alone, sir, " said the restaurant keeper, "she shudders at theslightest sound. You see, she wants rest. "

Below, in the general room, was a policeman drawing up a statement ofthe accident. Michaud and his son went downstairs, followed by Laurent. When Olivier had made himself known as an upper official at thePrefecture of Police, everything was over in ten minutes. The boatingmen, who were still there, gave an account of the drowning in itssmallest details, describing how the three holiday-makers had falleninto the water, as if they themselves had witnessed the misfortune. HadOlivier and his father the least suspicion, it would have been dispelledat once by this testimony. 

But they had not doubted the veracity of Laurent for an instant. On thecontrary, they introduced him to the policeman as the best friend of thevictim, and they were careful to see inserted in the report, thatthe young man had plunged into the water to save Camille Raquin. Thefollowing day, the newspapers related the accident with a great displayof detail: the unfortunate mother, the inconsolable widow, the noble andcourageous friend, nothing was missing from this event of the day, whichwent the round of the Parisian press, and then found an echo in theprovinces. 

When the report was completed, Laurent experienced lively joy, whichpenetrated his being like new life. From the moment his victim hadburied his teeth in his neck, he had been as if stiffened, actingmechanically, according to a plan arranged long in advance. The instinctof self-preservation alone impelled him, dictating to him his words, affording him advice as to his gestures. 

At this hour, in the face of the certainty of impunity, the bloodresumed flowing in his veins with delicious gentleness. The police hadpassed beside his crime, and had seen nothing. They had been duped, forthey had just acquitted him. He was saved. This thought caused him toexperience a feeling of delightful moisture all along his body, a warmththat restored flexibility to his limbs and to his intelligence. Hecontinued to act his part of a weeping friend with incomparable scienceand assurance. At the bottom of his heart, he felt brutal satisfaction;and he thought of Therese who was in bed in the room above. 

"We cannot leave this unhappy woman here, " said he to Michaud. "She isperhaps threatened with grave illness. We must positively take her backto Paris. Come, let us persuade her to accompany us. "

Upstairs, he begged and prayed of Therese to rise and dress, and allowherself to be conducted to the Arcade of the Pont Neuf. When the youngwoman heard the sound of his voice, she started, and stared at him witheyes wide open. She seemed as if crazy, and was shuddering. Painfullyshe raised herself into a sitting posture without answering. The menquitted the room, leaving her alone with the wife of the restaurantkeeper. When ready to start, she came downstairs staggering, and wasassisted into the cab by Olivier. 

The journey was a silent one. Laurent, with perfect audacity andimpudence, slipped his hand along the skirt of Therese and caught herfingers. He was seated opposite her, in a floating shadow, and could notsee her face which she kept bowed down on her breast. As soon as hehad grasped her hand, he pressed it vigorously, retaining it untilthey reached the Rue Mazarine. He felt the hand tremble; but it was notwithdrawn. On the contrary it ever and anon gave a sudden caress. 

These two hands, one in the other, were burning; the moist palmsadhered, and the fingers tightly held together, were hurt at eachpressure. It seemed to Laurent and Therese that the blood from onepenetrated the chest of the other, passing through their joined fists. These fists became a live fire whereon their lives were boiling. Amidstthe night, amidst the heartrending silence that prevailed, the furiousgrips they exchanged, were like a crushing weight cast on the head ofCamille to keep him under water. 

When the cab stopped, Michaud and his son got out the first, and Laurentbending towards his sweetheart gently murmured:

"Be strong, Therese. We have a long time to wait. Recollect. "

Then the young woman opened her lips for the first time since the deathof her husband. 

"Oh! I shall recollect, " said she with a shudder, and in a voice lightas a puff of breath. 

Olivier extended his hand, inviting her to get down. On this occasion, Laurent went as far as the shop. Madame Raquin was abed, a prey toviolent delirium. Therese dragged herself to her room, where Suzannehad barely time to undress her before she gave way. Tranquillised, perceiving that everything was proceeding as well as he could wish, Laurent withdrew, and slowly gained his wretched den in the rueSaint-Victor. 

It was past midnight. Fresh air circulated in the deserted, silentstreets. The young man could hear naught but his own footstepsresounding on the pavement. The nocturnal coolness of the atmospherecheered him up; the silence, the darkness gave him sharp sensations ofdelight, and he loitered on his way. 

At last he was rid of his crime. He had killed Camille. It was a matterthat was settled, and would be spoken of no more. He was now going tolead a tranquil existence, until he could take possession of Therese. The thought of the murder had at times half choked him, but now that itwas accomplished, he felt a weight removed from his chest, and breathedat ease, cured of the suffering that hesitation and fear had given him. 

At the bottom of his heart, he was a trifle hebetated. Fatigue hadrendered his limbs and thoughts heavy. He went in to bed and sleptsoundly. During his slumber slight nervous crispations coursed over hisface. 

CHAPTER XIII

The following morning, Laurent awoke fresh and fit. He had slept well. The cold air entering by the open window, whipped his sluggish blood. Hehad no clear recollection of the scenes of the previous day, and had itnot been for the burning sensation at his neck, he might have thoughtthat he had retired to rest after a calm evening. 

But the bite Camille had given him stung as if his skin had been brandedwith a red-hot iron. When his thoughts settled on the pain this gashcaused him, he suffered cruelly. It seemed as though a dozen needleswere penetrating little by little into his flesh. 

He turned down the collar of his shirt, and examined the wound in awretched fifteen sous looking-glass hanging against the wall. It formeda red hole, as big as a penny piece. The skin had been torn away, displaying the rosy flesh, studded with dark specks. Streaks of bloodhad run as far as the shoulder in thin threads that had dried up. Thebite looked a deep, dull brown colour against the white skin, and wassituated under the right ear. Laurent scrutinised it with curved backand craned neck, and the greenish mirror gave his face an atrociousgrimace. 

Satisfied with his examination, he had a thorough good wash, saying tohimself that the wound would be healed in a few days. Then he dressed, and quietly repaired to his office, where he related the accident in anaffected tone of voice. When his colleagues had read the account in thenewspapers, he became quite a hero. During a whole week the clerks atthe Orleans Railway had no other subject of conversation: they were allproud that one of their staff should have been drowned. Grivet neverceased his remarks on the imprudence of adventuring into the middleof the Seine, when it was so easy to watch the running water from thebridges. 

Laurent retained a feeling of intense uneasiness. The decease of Camillehad not been formally proved. The husband of Therese was indeed dead, but the murderer would have liked to have found his body, so as toobtain a certificate of death. The day following the accident, afruitless search had been made for the corpse of the drowned man. It wasthought that it had probably gone to the bottom of some hole near thebanks of the islands, and men were actively dragging the Seine to getthe reward. 

In the meantime Laurent imposed on himself the task of passing eachmorning by the Morgue, on the way to his office. He had made up his mindto attend to the business himself. Notwithstanding that his heart rosewith repugnance, notwithstanding the shudders that sometimes ran throughhis frame, for over a week he went and examined the countenance of allthe drowned persons extended on the slabs. 

When he entered the place an unsavoury odour, an odour of freshly washedflesh, disgusted him and a chill ran over his skin: the dampness of thewalls seemed to add weight to his clothing, which hung more heavily onhis shoulders. He went straight to the glass separating the spectatorsfrom the corpses, and with his pale face against it, looked. Facing himappeared rows of grey slabs, and upon them, here and there, the nakedbodies formed green and yellow, white and red patches. While someretained their natural condition in the rigidity of death, others seemedlike lumps of bleeding and decaying meat. At the back, against the wall, hung some lamentable rags, petticoats and trousers, puckered against thebare plaster. Laurent at first only caught sight of the wan ensemble ofstones and walls, spotted with dabs of russet and black formed bythe clothes and corpses. A melodious sound of running water broke thesilence. 

Little by little he distinguished the bodies, and went from one to theother. It was only the drowned that interested him. When several humanforms were there, swollen and blued by the water, he looked at themeagerly, seeking to recognise Camille. Frequently, the flesh on thefaces had gone away by strips, the bones had burst through the mellowskins, the visages were like lumps of boned, boiled beef. Laurenthesitated; he looked at the corpses, endeavouring to discover the leanbody of his victim. But all the drowned were stout. He saw enormousstomachs, puffy thighs, and strong round arms. He did not know what todo. He stood there shuddering before those greenish-looking rags, whichseemed like mocking him, with their horrible wrinkles. 

One morning, he was seized with real terror. For some moments, he hadbeen looking at a corpse, taken from the water, that was small in buildand atrociously disfigured. The flesh of this drowned person was so softand broken-up that the running water washing it, carried it away bit bybit. The jet falling on the face, bored a hole to the left of the nose. And, abruptly, the nose became flat, the lips were detached, showing thewhite teeth. The head of the drowned man burst out laughing. 

Each time Laurent fancied he recognised Camille, he felt a burningsensation in the heart. He ardently desired to find the body of hisvictim, and he was seized with cowardice when he imagined it before him. His visits to the Morgue filled him with nightmare, with shudders thatset him panting for breath. But he shook off his fear, taxing himselfwith being childish, when he wished to be strong. Still, in spite ofhimself, his frame revolted, disgust and terror gained possession of hisbeing, as soon as ever he found himself in the dampness, and unsavouryodour of the hall. 

When there were no drowned persons on the back row of slabs, he breathedat ease; his repugnance was not so great. He then became a simplespectator, who took strange pleasure in looking death by violence in theface, in its lugubriously fantastic and grotesque attitudes. This sightamused him, particularly when there were women there displaying theirbare bosoms. These nudities, brutally exposed, bloodstained, and inplaces bored with holes, attracted and detained him. 

Once he saw a young woman of twenty there, a child of the people, broadand strong, who seemed asleep on the stone. Her fresh, plump, white formdisplayed the most delicate softness of tint. She was half smiling, withher head slightly inclined on one side. Around her neck she had a blackband, which gave her a sort of necklet of shadow. She was a girl who hadhanged herself in a fit of love madness. 

Each morning, while Laurent was there, he heard behind him the comingand going of the public who entered and left. 

The morgue is a sight within reach of everybody, and one to whichpassers-by, rich and poor alike, treat themselves. The door stands open, and all are free to enter. There are admirers of the scene who go out oftheir way so as not to miss one of these performances of death. If theslabs have nothing on them, visitors leave the building disappointed, feeling as if they had been cheated, and murmuring between their teeth;but when they are fairly well occupied, people crowd in front of themand treat themselves to cheap emotions; they express horror, they joke, they applaud or whistle, as at the theatre, and withdraw satisfied, declaring the Morgue a success on that particular day. 

Laurent soon got to know the public frequenting the place, that mixedand dissimilar public who pity and sneer in common. Workmen looked inon their way to their work, with a loaf of bread and tools under theirarms. They considered death droll. Among them were comical companionsof the workshops who elicited a smile from the onlookers by making wittyremarks about the faces of each corpse. They styled those who had beenburnt to death, coalmen; the hanged, the murdered, the drowned, thebodies that had been stabbed or crushed, excited their jeering vivacity, and their voices, which slightly trembled, stammered out comicalsentences amid the shuddering silence of the hall. 

There came persons of small independent means, old men who were thin andshrivelled-up, idlers who entered because they had nothing to do, andwho looked at the bodies in a silly manner with the pouts of peaceful, delicate-minded men. Women were there in great numbers: youngwork-girls, all rosy, with white linen, and clean petticoats, whotripped along briskly from one end of the glazed partition to the other, opening great attentive eyes, as if they were before the dressed shopwindow of a linendraper. There were also women of the lower orderslooking stupefied, and giving themselves lamentable airs; andwell-dressed ladies, carelessly dragging their silk gowns along thefloor. 

On a certain occasion Laurent noticed one of the latter standing at afew paces from the glass, and pressing her cambric handkerchief to hernostrils. She wore a delicious grey silk skirt with a large black lacemantle; her face was covered by a veil, and her gloved hands seemedquite small and delicate. Around her hung a gentle perfume of violet. 

She stood scrutinising a corpse. On a slab a few paces away, wasstretched the body of a great, big fellow, a mason who had recentlykilled himself on the spot by falling from a scaffolding. He had a broadchest, large short muscles, and a white, well-nourished body; death hadmade a marble statue of him. The lady examined him, turned him roundand weighed him, so to say, with her eyes. For a time, she seemed quiteabsorbed in the contemplation of this man. She raised a corner of herveil for one last look. Then she withdrew. 

At moments, bands of lads arrived--young people between twelve andfifteen, who leant with their hands against the glass, nudging oneanother with their elbows, and making brutal observations. 

At the end of a week, Laurent became disheartened. At night he dreamtof the corpses he had seen in the morning. This suffering, this dailydisgust which he imposed on himself, ended by troubling him to such apoint, that he resolved to pay only two more visits to the place. Thenext day, on entering the Morgue, he received a violent shock in thechest. Opposite him, on a slab, Camille lay looking at him, extended onhis back, his head raised, his eyes half open. 

The murderer slowly approached the glass, as if attracted there, unable to detach his eyes from his victim. He did not suffer; he merelyexperienced a great inner chill, accompanied by slight pricks on hisskin. He would have thought that he would have trembled more violently. For fully five minutes, he stood motionless, lost in unconsciouscontemplation, engraving, in spite of himself, in his memory, all thehorrible lines, all the dirty colours of the picture he had before hiseyes. 

Camille was hideous. He had been a fortnight in the water. His facestill appeared firm and rigid; the features were preserved, but the skinhad taken a yellowish, muddy tint. The thin, bony, and slightly tumefiedhead, wore a grimace. It was a trifle inclined on one side, with thehair sticking to the temples, and the lids raised, displaying the dullglobes of the eyes. The twisted lips were drawn to a corner of the mouthin an atrocious grin; and a piece of blackish tongue appearedbetween the white teeth. This head, which looked tanned and drawn outlengthwise, while preserving a human appearance, had remained all themore frightful with pain and terror. 

The body seemed a mass of ruptured flesh; it had suffered horribly. You could feel that the arms no longer held to their sockets; and theclavicles were piercing the skin of the shoulders. The ribs formed blackbands on the greenish chest; the left side, ripped open, was gapingamidst dark red shreds. All the torso was in a state of putrefaction. The extended legs, although firmer, were daubed with dirty patches. Thefeet dangled down. 

Laurent gazed at Camille. He had never yet seen the body of a drownedperson presenting such a dreadful aspect. The corpse, moreover, lookedpinched. It had a thin, poor appearance. It had shrunk up in its decay, and the heap it formed was quite small. Anyone might have guessedthat it belonged to a clerk at 1, 200 francs a year, who was stupid andsickly, and who had been brought up by his mother on infusions. Thismiserable frame, which had grown to maturity between warm blankets, wasnow shivering on a cold slab. 

When Laurent could at last tear himself from the poignant curiosity thatkept him motionless and gaping before his victim, he went out and begunwalking rapidly along the quay. And as he stepped out, he repeated:

"That is what I have done. He is hideous. "

A smell seemed to be following him, the smell that the putrefying bodymust be giving off. 

He went to find old Michaud, and told him he had just recognized Camillelying on one of the slabs in the Morgue. The formalities were performed, the drowned man was buried, and a certificate of death delivered. Laurent, henceforth at ease, felt delighted to be able to bury hiscrime in oblivion, along with the vexatious and painful scenes that hadfollowed it. 

CHAPTER XIV

The shop in the Arcade of the Pont Neuf remained closed for three days. When it opened again, it appeared darker and damper. The shop-frontdisplay, which the dust had turned yellow, seemed to be wearing themourning of the house; the various articles were scattered at sixesand sevens in the dirty windows. Behind the linen caps hanging fromthe rusty iron rods, the face of Therese presented a more olive, a moresallow pallidness, and the immobility of sinister calm. 

All the gossips in the arcade were moved to pity. The dealer inimitation jewelry pointed out the emaciated profile of the young widowto each of her customers, as an interesting and lamentable curiosity. 

For three days, Madame Raquin and Therese had remained in bed withoutspeaking, and without even seeing one another. The old mercer, proppedup by pillows in a sitting posture, gazed vaguely before her with theeyes of an idiot. The death of her son had been like a blow on the headthat had felled her senseless to the ground. For hours she remainedtranquil and inert, absorbed in her despair; then she was at timesseized with attacks of weeping, shrieking and delirium. 

Therese in the adjoining room, seemed to sleep. She had turned her faceto the wall, and drawn the sheet over her eyes. There she laystretched out at full length, rigid and mute, without a sob raising thebed-clothes. It looked as if she was concealing the thoughts that madeher rigid in the darkness of the alcove. 

Suzanne, who attended to the two women, went feebly from one to theother, gently dragging her feet along the floor, bending her wax-likecountenance over the two couches, without succeeding in persuadingTherese, who had sudden fits of impatience, to turn round, or inconsoling Madame Raquin, whose tears began to flow as soon as a voicedrew her from her prostration. 

On the third day, Therese, rapidly and with a sort of feverish decision, threw the sheet from her, and seated herself up in bed. She thrust backher hair from her temples, and for a moment remained with her hands toher forehead and her eyes fixed, seeming still to reflect. Then, shesprang to the carpet. Her limbs were shivering, and red with fever;large livid patches marbled her skin, which had become wrinkled inplaces as if she had lost flesh. She had grown older. 

Suzanne, on entering the room, was struck with surprise to find herup. In a placid, drawling tone, she advised her to go to bed again, andcontinue resting. Therese paid no heed to her, but sought her clothesand put them on with hurried, trembling gestures. When she was dressed, she went and looked at herself in a glass, rubbing her eyes, and passingher hands over her countenance, as if to efface something. Then, withoutpronouncing a syllable, she quickly crossed the dining-room and enteredthe apartment occupied by Madame Raquin. 

She caught the old mercer in a moment of doltish calm. When Thereseappeared, she turned her head following the movements of the young widowwith her eyes, while the latter came and stood before her, mute andoppressed. The two women contemplated one another for some seconds, theniece with increasing anxiety, the aunt with painful efforts of memory. Madame Raquin, at last remembering, stretched out her trembling arms, and, taking Therese by the neck, exclaimed:

"My poor child, my poor Camille!"

She wept, and her tears dried on the burning skin of the young widow, who concealed her own dry eyes in the folds of the sheet. Thereseremained bending down, allowing the old mother to exhaust her outburstof grief. She had dreaded this first interview ever since the murder;and had kept in bed to delay it, to reflect at ease on the terrible partshe had to play. 

When she perceived Madame Raquin more calm, she busied herself abouther, advising her to rise, and go down to the shop. The old mercerhad almost fallen into dotage. The abrupt apparition of her niece hadbrought about a favourable crisis that had just restored her memory, andthe consciousness of things and beings around her. She thanked Suzannefor her attention. Although weakened, she talked, and had ceasedwandering, but she spoke in a voice so full of sadness that at momentsshe was half choked. She watched the movements of Therese with suddenfits of tears; and would then call her to the bedside, and embrace heramid more sobs, telling her in a suffocating tone that she, now, hadnobody but her in the world. 

In the evening, she consented to get up, and make an effort to eat. Therese then saw what a terrible shock her aunt had received. The legsof the old lady had become so ponderous that she required a stick toassist her to drag herself into the dining-room, and there she thoughtthe walls were vacillating around her. 

Nevertheless, the following day she wished the shop to be opened. Shefeared she would go mad if she continued to remain alone in her room. She went down the wooden staircase with heavy tread, placing her twofeet on each step, and seated herself behind the counter. From that dayforth, she remained riveted there in placid affliction. 

Therese, beside her, mused and waited. The shop resumed its gloomy calm. 

CHAPTER XV

Laurent resumed calling of an evening, every two or three days, remaining in the shop talking to Madame Raquin for half an hour. Thenhe went off without looking Therese in the face. The old mercer regardedhim as the rescuer of her niece, as a noble-hearted young man who haddone his utmost to restore her son to her, and she welcomed him withtender kindness. 

One Thursday evening, when Laurent happened to be there, old Michaudand Grivet entered. Eight o'clock was striking. The clerk and the formercommissary of police had both thought, independently of one another, that they could resume their dear custom, without appearing importunate, and they arrived at the same moment, as if urged by the same impulse. Behind them, came Olivier and Suzanne. 

Everyone went upstairs to the dining-room. Madame Raquin who expectednobody, hastened to light the lamp, and prepare the tea. When all wereseated round the table, each before a cup, when the box of dominoeshad been emptied on the board, the old mother, with the past suddenlybrought back to her, looked at her guests, and burst into sobs. Therewas a vacant place, that of her son. 

This despair cast a chill upon the company and annoyed them. Everycountenance wore an air of egotistic beatitude. These people fell illat ease, having no longer the slightest recollection of Camille alive intheir hearts. 

"Come, my dear lady, " exclaimed old Michaud, slightly impatiently, "youmust not give way to despair like that. You will make yourself ill. "

"We are all mortal, " affirmed Grivet. 

"Your tears will not restore your son to you, " sententiously observedOlivier. 

"Do not cause us pain, I beg you, " murmured Suzanne. 

And as Madame Raquin sobbed louder, unable to restrain her tears, Michaud resumed:

"Come, come, have a little courage. You know we come here to give yousome distraction. Then do not let us feel sad. Let us try to forget. Weare playing two sous a game. Eh! What do you say?"

The mercer stifled her sobs with a violent effort. Perhaps she wasconscious of the happy egotism of her guests. She dried her tears, butwas still quite upset. The dominoes trembled in her poor hands, and themoisture in her eyes prevented her seeing. 

The game began. 

Laurent and Therese had witnessed this brief scene in a grave andimpassive manner. The young man was delighted to see these Thursdayevenings resumed. He ardently desired them to be continued, aware thathe would have need of these gatherings to attain his end. Besides, without asking himself the reason, he felt more at ease among these fewpersons whom he knew, and it gave him courage to look Therese in theface. 

The young woman, attired in black, pale and meditative, seemed to him topossess a beauty that he had hitherto ignored. He was happy to meether eyes, and to see them rest upon his own with courageous fixedness. Therese still belonged to him, heart and soul. 

CHAPTER XVI

A fortnight passed. The bitterness of the first hours was softening;each day brought additional tranquillity and calm; life resumed itscourse with weary languidness, and with the monotonous intellectualinsensibility which follows great shocks. At the commencement, Laurentand Therese allowed themselves to drift into this new existence whichwas transforming them; within their beings was proceeding a silentlabour which would require analysing with extreme delicacy if onedesired to mark all its phases. 

It was not long before Laurent came every night to the shop as formerly. But he no longer dined there, he no longer made the place a loungeduring the entire evening. He arrived at half-past nine, and remaineduntil he had put up the shutters. It seemed as if he was accomplishing aduty in placing himself at the service of the two women. If he happenedoccasionally to neglect the tiresome job, he apologised with thehumility of a valet the following day. On Thursdays he assisted MadameRaquin to light the fire, to do the honours of the house, and displayedall kinds of gentle attentions that charmed the old mercer. 

Therese peacefully watched the activity of his movements round abouther. The pallidness of her face had departed. She appeared in betterhealth, more smiling and gentle. It was only rarely that her lips, becoming pinched in a nervous contraction, produced two deep pleatswhich conveyed to her countenance a strange expression of grief andfright. 

The two sweethearts no longer sought to see one another in private. Notonce did they suggest a meeting, nor did they ever furtively exchangea kiss. The murder seemed to have momentarily appeased their warmth. Inkilling Camille, they had succeeded in satisfying their passion. Theircrime appeared to have given them a keen pleasure that sickened anddisgusted them of their embraces. 

They had a thousand facilities for enjoying the freedom that had beentheir dream, and the attainment of which had urged them on to murder. Madame Raquin, impotent and childish, ceased to be an obstacle. Thehouse belonged to them. They could go abroad where they pleased. Butlove did not trouble them, its fire had died out. They remained there, calmly talking, looking at one another without reddening and withouta thrill. They even avoided being alone. In their intimacy, they foundnothing to say, and both were afraid that they appeared too cold. When they exchanged a pressure of the hand, they experienced a sort ofdiscomfort at the touch of their skins. 

Both imagined they could explain what made them so indifferent andalarmed when face to face with one another. They put the coldness oftheir attitude down to prudence. Their calm, according to them, was theresult of great caution on their part. They pretended they desired thistranquillity, and somnolence of their hearts. On the other hand, theyregarded the repugnance, the uncomfortable feeling experienced as aremains of terror, as the secret dread of punishment. Sometimes, forcingthemselves to hope, they sought to resume the burning dreams of otherdays, and were quite astonished to find they had no imagination. 

Then, they clung to the idea of their forthcoming marriage. They fanciedthat having attained their end, without a single fear to trouble them, delivered over to one another, their passion would burn again, andthey would taste the delights that had been their dream. This prospectbrought them calm, and prevented them descending to the void hollowedout beneath them. They persuaded themselves they loved one another asin the past, and they awaited the moment when they were to be perfectlyhappy bound together for ever. 

Never had Therese possessed so placid a mind. She was certainly becomingbetter. All her implacable, natural will was giving way. She felt happyat night, alone in her bed; no longer did she find the thin face, andpiteous form of Camille at her side to exasperate her. She imaginedherself a little girl, a maid beneath the white curtains, lyingpeacefully amidst the silence and darkness. Her spacious, and slightlycold room rather pleased her, with its lofty ceiling, its obscurecorners, and its smack of the cloister. 

She even ended by liking the great black wall which rose up before herwindow. Every night during one entire summer, she remained for hoursgazing at the grey stones in this wall, and at the narrow strips ofstarry sky cut out by the chimneys and roofs. She only thought ofLaurent when awakened with a start by nightmare. Then, sitting up, trembling, with dilated eyes, and pressing her nightdress to her, shesaid to herself that she would not experience these sudden fears, if shehad a man lying beside her. She thought of her sweetheart as of a dogwho would have guarded and protected her. 

Of a daytime, in the shop, she took an interest in what was going onoutside; she went out at her own instigation, and no longer livedin sullen revolt, occupied with thoughts of hatred and vengeance. Itworried her to sit musing. She felt the necessity of acting and seeing. From morning to night, she watched the people passing through thearcade. The noise, and going and coming diverted her. She becameinquisitive and talkative, in a word a woman, for hitherto she had onlydisplayed the actions and ideas of a man. 

From her point of observation, she remarked a young man, a student, wholived at an hotel in the neighbourhood, and who passed several timesdaily before the shop. This youth had a handsome, pale face, with thelong hair of a poet, and the moustache of an officer. Therese thoughthim superior looking. She was in love with him for a week, in love likea schoolgirl. She read novels, she compared the young man to Laurent, and found the latter very coarse and heavy. Her reading revealed to herromantic scenes that, hitherto, she had ignored. She had only loved withblood and nerves, as yet, and she now began to love with her head. Then, one day, the student disappeared. No doubt he had moved. In a few hoursTherese had forgotten him. 

She now subscribed to a circulating library, and conceived a passion forthe heroes of all the stories that passed under her eyes. This suddenlove for reading had great influence on her temperament. She acquirednervous sensibility which caused her to laugh and cry without anymotive. The equilibrium which had shown a tendency to be established inher, was upset. She fell into a sort of vague meditation. At moments, she became disturbed by thoughts of Camille, and she dreamt of Laurentand fresh love, full of terror and distrust. She again became a preyto anguish. At one moment she sought for the means of marrying hersweetheart at that very instant, at another she had an idea of runningaway never to see him again. 

The novels, which spoke to her of chastity and honour, placed a sortof obstacle between her instincts and her will. She remained theungovernable creature who had wanted to struggle with the Seine and whohad thrown herself violently into illicit love; but she was consciousof goodness and gentleness, she understood the putty face and lifelessattitude of the wife of Olivier, and she knew it was possible to behappy without killing one's husband. Then, she did not see herself in avery good light, and lived in cruel indecision. 

Laurent, on his side, passed through several different phases of loveand fever. First of all he enjoyed profound tranquility; he seemed asif relieved of an enormous weight. At times he questioned himself withastonishment, fancying he had had a bad dream. He asked himself whetherit was really true that he had flung Camille into the water, and hadseen his corpse on the slab at the Morgue. 

The recollection of his crime caused him strange surprise; never couldhe have imagined himself capable of murder. He so prudent, so cowardly, shuddered at the mere thought, ice-like beads of perspiration stoodout on his forehead when he reflected that the authorities might havediscovered his crime and guillotined him. Then he felt the cold knife onhis neck. So long as he had acted, he had gone straight before him, withthe obstinacy and blindness of a brute. Now, he turned round, and at thesight of the gulf he had just cleared, grew faint with terror. 

"Assuredly, I must have been drunk, " thought he; "that woman must haveintoxicated me with caresses. Good heavens! I was a fool and mad! Irisked the guillotine in a business like that. Fortunately it passed offall right. But if it had to be done again, I would not do it. "

Laurent lost all his vigor. He became inactive, and more cowardly andprudent than ever. He grew fat and flabby. No one who had studied thisgreat body, piled up in a lump, apparently without bones or muscles, would ever have had the idea of accusing the man of violence andcruelty. 

He resumed his former habits. For several months, he proved himself amodel clerk, doing his work with exemplary brutishness. At night, hetook his meal at a cheap restaurant in the Rue Saint-Victor, cutting hisbread into thin slices, masticating his food slowly, making his repastlast as long as possible. When it was over, he threw himself backagainst the wall and smoked his pipe. Anyone might have taken him fora stout, good-natured father. In the daytime, he thought of nothing; atnight, he reposed in heavy sleep free from dreams. With his face fat androsy, his belly full, his brain empty, he felt happy. 

His frame seemed dead, and Therese barely entered his mind. Occasionallyhe thought of her as one thinks of a woman one has to marry later on, inthe indefinite future. He patiently awaited the time for his marriage, forgetful of the bride, and dreaming of the new position he would thenenjoy. He would leave his office, he would paint for amusement, andsaunter about hither and thither. These hopes brought him night afternight, to the shop in the arcade, in spite of the vague discomfort heexperienced on entering the place. 

One Sunday, with nothing to do and being bored, he went to see hisold school friend, the young painter he had lived with for a time. Theartist was working on a picture of a nude Bacchante sprawled on somedrapery. The model, lying with her head thrown back and her torsotwisted sometimes laughed and threw her bosom forward, stretching herarms. As Laurent smoked his pipe and chatted with his friend, he kepthis eyes on the model. He took the woman home with him that evening andkept her as his mistress for many months. The poor girl fell in lovewith him. Every morning she went off and posed as a model all day. Thenshe came back each evening. She didn't cost Laurent a penny, keepingherself out of her own earnings. Laurent never bothered to find outabout her, where she went, what she did. She was a steadying influencein his life, a useful and necessary thing. He never wondered if he lovedher and he never considered that he was being unfaithful to Therese. Hesimply felt better and happier. 

In the meanwhile the period of mourning that Therese had imposed onherself, had come to an end, and the young woman put on light-colouredgowns. One evening, Laurent found her looking younger and handsomer. But he still felt uncomfortable in her presence. For some time past, sheseemed to him feverish, and full of strange capriciousness, laughing andturning sad without reason. This unsettled demeanour alarmed him, for heguessed, in part, what her struggles and troubles must be like. 

He began to hesitate, having an atrocious dread of risking histranquillity. He was now living peacefully, in wise contentment, and hefeared to endanger the equilibrium of his life, by binding himself toa nervous woman, whose passion had already driven him crazy. But he didnot reason these matters out, he felt by instinct all the anguish hewould be subjected to, if he made Therese his wife. 

The first shock he received, and one that roused him in hissluggishness, was the thought that he must at length begin to think ofhis marriage. It was almost fifteen months since the death of Camille. For an instant, Laurent had the idea of not marrying at all, of jiltingTherese. Then he said to himself that it was no good killing a man fornothing. In recalling the crime, and the terrible efforts he had made tobe the sole possessor of this woman who was now troubling him, he feltthat the murder would become useless and atrocious should he not marryher. Besides, was he not bound to Therese by a bond of blood and horror?Moreover, he feared his accomplice; perhaps, if he failed to marry her, she would go and relate everything to the judicial authorities out ofvengeance and jealousy. With these ideas beating in his head the feversettled on him again. 

Now, one Sunday the model did not return; no doubt she had found awarmer and more comfortable place to lodge. Laurent was only moderatelyupset, but he felt a sudden gap in his life without a woman lying besidehim at night. In a week his passions rebelled and he began spendingentire evenings at the shop again. He watched Therese who was stillpalpitating from the novels which she read. 

After a year of indifferent waiting they both were again tormented bydesire. One evening while shutting up the shop, Laurent spoke to Theresein the passage. 

"Do you want me to come to your room to-night, " he asked passionately. 

She started with fear. "No, let's wait. Let's be prudent. "

"It seems to me that I've already waited a long time, " he went on. "I'msick of waiting. "

Therese, her hands and face burning hot, looked at him wildly. Sheseemed to hesitate, and then said quickly:

"Let's get married. "

CHAPTER XVII

Laurent left the arcade with a strained mind. Therese had filled himwith the old longing lusts again. He walked along with his hat in hishand, so as to get the fresh air full in his face. 

On reaching the door of his hotel in the Rue Saint-Victor, he was afraidto go upstairs, and remain alone. A childish, inexplicable, unforeseenterror made him fear he would find a man hidden in his garret. Never hadhe experienced such poltroonery. He did not even seek to account forthe strange shudder that ran through him. He entered a wine-shop andremained an hour there, until midnight, motionless and silent ata table, mechanically absorbing great glasses of wine. Thinking ofTherese, his anger raged at her refusal to have him in her room thatvery night. He felt that with her he would not have been afraid. 

When the time came for closing the shop, he was obliged to leave. But hewent back again to ask for matches. The office of the hotel was onthe first floor. Laurent had a long alley to follow and a few stepsto ascend, before he could take his candle. This alley, this bit ofstaircase which was frightfully dark, terrified him. Habitually, hepassed boldly through the darkness. But on this particular night hehad not even the courage to ring. He said to himself that in a certainrecess, formed by the entrance to the cellar, assassins were perhapsconcealed, who would suddenly spring at his throat as he passed along. 

At last he pulled the bell, and lighting a match, made up his mind toenter the alley. The match went out. He stood motionless, breathless, without the courage to run away, rubbing lucifers against the damp wallin such anxiety that his hand trembled. He fancied he heard voices, and the sound of footsteps before him. The matches broke between hisfingers; but he succeeded in striking one. The sulphur began to boil, toset fire to the wood, with a tardiness that increased his distress. Inthe pale bluish light of the sulphur, in the vacillating glimmer, hefancied he could distinguish monstrous forms. Then the match crackled, and the light became white and clear. 

Laurent, relieved, advanced with caution, careful not to be without amatch. When he had passed the entrance to the cellar, he clung to theopposite wall where a mass of darkness terrified him. He next brisklyscaled the few steps separating him from the office of the hotel, andthought himself safe when he held his candlestick. He ascended to theother floors more gently, holding aloft his candle, lighting all thecorners before which he had to pass. The great fantastic shadows thatcome and go, in ascending a staircase with a light, caused him vaguediscomfort, as they suddenly rose and disappeared before him. 

As soon as he was upstairs, and had rapidly opened his door and shuthimself in, his first care was to look under his bed, and make a minuteinspection of the room to see that nobody was concealed there. He closedthe window in the roof thinking someone might perhaps get in thatway, and feeling more calm after taking these measures, he undressed, astonished at his cowardice. He ended by laughing and calling himself achild. Never had he been afraid, and he could not understand this suddenfit of terror. 

He went to bed. When he was in the warmth beneath the bedclothes, heagain thought of Therese, whom fright had driven from his mind. Do whathe would, obstinately close his eyes, endeavour to sleep, he felt histhoughts at work commanding his attention, connecting one with theother, to ever point out to him the advantage he would reap by marryingas soon as possible. Ever and anon he would turn round, saying tohimself:

"I must not think any more; I shall have to get up at eight o'clockto-morrow morning to go to my office. "

And he made an effort to slip off to sleep. But the ideas returned oneby one. The dull labour of his reasoning began again; and he soon foundhimself in a sort of acute reverie that displayed to him in the depthsof his brain, the necessity for his marriage, along with the argumentshis desire and prudence advanced in turn, for and against the possessionof Therese. 

Then, seeing he was unable to sleep, that insomnia kept his body in astate of irritation, he turned on his back, and with his eyes wide open, gave up his mind to the young woman. His equilibrium was upset, he againtrembled with violent fever, as formerly. He had an idea of getting up, and returning to the Arcade of the Pont Neuf. He would have the irongate opened, and Therese would receive him. The thought sent his bloodracing. 

The lucidity of his reverie was astonishing. He saw himself in thestreets walking rapidly beside the houses, and he said to himself:

"I will take this Boulevard, I will cross this Square, so as to arrivethere quicker. "

Then the iron gate of the arcade grated, he followed the narrow, dark, deserted corridor, congratulating himself at being able to go up toTherese without being seen by the dealer in imitation jewelry. Nexthe imagined he was in the alley, in the little staircase he had sofrequently ascended. He inhaled the sickly odour of the passage, hetouched the sticky walls, he saw the dirty shadow that hung about there. And he ascended each step, breathless, and with his ear on the alert. Atlast he scratched against the door, the door opened, and Therese stoodthere awaiting him. 

His thoughts unfolded before him like real scenes. With his eyes fixedon darkness, he saw. When at the end of his journey through the streets, after entering the arcade, and climbing the little staircase, he thoughthe perceived Therese, ardent and pale, he briskly sprang from his bed, murmuring:

"I must go there. She's waiting for me. "

This abrupt movement drove away the hallucination. He felt the chill ofthe tile flooring, and was afraid. For a moment he stood motionless onhis bare feet, listening. He fancied he heard a sound on the landing. And he reflected that if he went to Therese, he would again have to passbefore the door of the cellar below. This thought sent a cold shiverdown his back. Again he was seized with fright, a sort of stupidcrushing terror. He looked distrustfully round the room, where hedistinguished shreds of whitish light. Then gently, with anxious, hastyprecautions, he went to bed again, and there huddling himself together, hid himself, as if to escape a weapon, a knife that threatened him. 

The blood had flown violently to his neck, which was burning him. He puthis hand there, and beneath his fingers felt the scar of the bite hehad received from Camille. He had almost forgotten this wound and wasterrified when he found it on his skin, where it seemed to be gnawinginto his flesh. He rapidly withdrew his hand so as not to feel the scar, but he was still conscious of its being there boring into and devouringhis neck. Then, when he delicately scratched it with his nail, theterrible burning sensation increased twofold. So as not to tear theskin, he pressed his two hands between his doubled-up knees, and heremained thus, rigid and irritated, with the gnawing pain in his neck, and his teeth chattering with fright. 

His mind now settled on Camille with frightful tenacity. Hitherto thedrowned man had not troubled him at night. And behold the thought ofTherese brought up the spectre of her husband. The murderer dared notopen his eyes, afraid of perceiving his victim in a corner of the room. At one moment, he fancied his bedstead was being shaken in a peculiarmanner. He imagined Camille was beneath it, and that it was he who wastossing him about in this way so as to make him fall and bite him. Withhaggard look and hair on end, he clung to his mattress, imagining thejerks were becoming more and more violent. 

Then, he perceived the bed was not moving, and he felt a reaction. Hesat up, lit his candle, and taxed himself with being an idiot. He nextswallowed a large glassful of water to appease his fever. 

"I was wrong to drink at that wine-shop, " thought he. "I don't knowwhat is the matter with me to-night. It's silly. I shall be worn outto-morrow at my office. I ought to have gone to sleep at once, when Igot into bed, instead of thinking of a lot of things. That is what gaveme insomnia. I must get to sleep at once. "

Again he blew out the light. He buried his head in the pillow, feelingslightly refreshed, and thoroughly determined not to think any more, andto be no more afraid. Fatigue began to relax his nerves. 

He did not fall into his usual heavy, crushing sleep, but glided lightlyinto unsettled slumber. He simply felt as if benumbed, as if plungedinto gentle and delightful stupor. As he dozed, he could feel his limbs. His intelligence remained awake in his deadened frame. He had drivenaway his thoughts, he had resisted the vigil. Then, when he becameappeased, when his strength failed and his will escaped him, histhoughts returned quietly, one by one, regaining possession of hisfaltering being. 

His reverie began once more. Again he went over the distance separatinghim from Therese: he went downstairs, he passed before the cellar at arun, and found himself outside the house; he took all the streets he hadfollowed before, when he was dreaming with his eyes open; he entered theArcade of the Pont Neuf, ascended the little staircase and scratched atthe door. But instead of Therese, it was Camille who opened the door, Camille, just as he had seen him at the Morgue, looking greenish, andatrociously disfigured. The corpse extended his arms to him, with a vilelaugh, displaying the tip of a blackish tongue between its white teeth. 

Laurent shrieked, and awoke with a start. He was bathed in perspiration. He pulled the bedclothes over his eyes, swearing and getting into a ragewith himself. He wanted to go to sleep again. And he did so as before, slowly. 

The same feeling of heaviness overcame him, and as soon as his will hadagain escaped in the languidness of semi-slumber, he set out again. Hereturned where his fixed idea conducted him; he ran to see Therese, andonce more it was the drowned man who opened the door. 

The wretch sat up terrified. He would have given anything in the worldto be able to drive away this implacable dream. He longed for heavysleep to crush his thoughts. So long as he remained awake, he hadsufficient energy to expel the phantom of his victim; but as soon as helost command of his mind it led him to the acme of terror. 

He again attempted to sleep. Then came a succession of deliciousspells of drowsiness, and abrupt, harrowing awakenings. In his furiousobstinacy, he still went to Therese, but only to always run against thebody of Camille. He performed the same journey more than ten times over. He started all afire, followed the same itinerary, experienced the samesensations, accomplished the same acts, with minute exactitude; andmore than ten times over, he saw the drowned man present himself to beembraced, when he extended his arms to seize and clasp his love. 

This same sinister catastrophe which awoke him on each occasion, gaspingand distracted, did not discourage him. After an interval of a fewminutes, as soon as he had fallen asleep again, forgetful of the hideouscorpse awaiting him, he once more hurried away to seek the young woman. 

Laurent passed an hour a prey to these successive nightmares, to thesebad dreams that followed one another ceaselessly, without any warning, and he was struck with more acute terror at each start they gave him. 

The last of these shocks proved so violent, so painful that hedetermined to get up, and struggle no longer. Day was breaking. A gleamof dull, grey light was entering at the window in the roof which cut outa pale grey square in the sky. 

Laurent slowly dressed himself, with a feeling of sullen irritation, exasperated at having been unable to sleep, exasperated at allowinghimself to be caught by a fright which he now regarded as childish. Ashe drew on this trousers he stretched himself, he rubbed his limbs, he passed his hands over his face, harassed and clouded by a feverishnight. And he repeated:

"I ought not to have thought of all that, I should have gone to sleep. Had I done so, I should be fresh and well-disposed now. "

Then it occurred to him that if he had been with Therese, she would haveprevented him being afraid, and this idea brought him a little calm. Atthe bottom of his heart he dreaded passing other nights similar to theone he had just gone through. 

After splashing some water in his face, he ran the comb through hishair, and this bit of toilet while refreshing his head, drove away thefinal vestiges of terror. He now reasoned freely, and experienced noother inconvenience from his restless night, than great fatigue in allhis limbs. 

"I am not a poltroon though, " he said to himself as he finisheddressing. "I don't care a fig about Camille. It's absurd to think thatthis poor devil is under my bed. I shall, perhaps, have the same idea, now, every night. I must certainly marry as soon as possible. WhenTherese has me in her arms, I shall not think much about Camille. Shewill kiss me on the neck, and I shall cease to feel the atrocious burnthat troubles me at present. Let me examine this bite. "

He approached his glass, extended his neck and looked. The scarpresented a rosy appearance. Then, Laurent, perceiving the marks of theteeth of his victim, experienced a certain emotion. The blood flewto his head, and he now observed a strange phenomenon. The ruby floodrushing to the scar had turned it purple, it became raw and sanguineous, standing out quite red against the fat, white neck. Laurent at the sametime felt a sharp pricking sensation, as if needles were being thrustinto the wound, and he hurriedly raised the collar of his shirt again. 

"Bah!" he exclaimed, "Therese will cure that. A few kisses will suffice. What a fool I am to think of these matters!"

He put on his hat, and went downstairs. He wanted to be in the openair and walk. Passing before the door of the cellar, he smiled. Nevertheless, he made sure of the strength of the hook fastening thedoor. Outside, on the deserted pavement, he moved along with short stepsin the fresh matutinal air. It was then about five o'clock. 

Laurent passed an atrocious day. He had to struggle against theoverpowering drowsiness that settled on him in the afternoon at hisoffice. His heavy, aching head nodded in spite of himself, but heabruptly brought it up, as soon as he heard the step of one of hischiefs. This struggle, these shocks completed wearing out his limbs, while causing him intolerable anxiety. 

In the evening, notwithstanding his lassitude, he went to see Therese, only to find her feverish, extremely low-spirited, and as weary ashimself. 

"Our poor Therese has had a bad night, " Madame Raquin said to him, as soon as he had seated himself. "It seems she was suffering fromnightmare, and terrible insomnia. I heard her crying out on severaloccasions. This morning she was quite ill. "

Therese, while her aunt was speaking, looked fixedly at Laurent. Nodoubt, they guessed their common terror, for a nervous shudder ran overtheir countenances. Until ten o'clock they remained face to face withone another, talking of commonplace matters, but still understandingeach other, and mutually imploring themselves with their eyes, to hastenthe moment when they could unite against the drowned man. 

CHAPTER XVIII

Therese also had been visited by the spectre of Camille, during thisfeverish night. 

After over a year of indifference, Laurent's sudden attentions hadaroused her senses. As she tossed herself about in insomnia, she hadseen the drowned man rise up before her; like Laurent she had writhedin terror, and she had said as he had done, that she would no longer beafraid, that she would no more experience such sufferings, when she hadher sweetheart in her arms. 

This man and woman had experienced at the same hour, a sort of nervousdisorder which set them panting with terror. A consanguinity had becomeestablished between them. They shuddered with the same shudder; theirhearts in a kind of poignant friendship, were wrung with the sameanguish. From that moment they had one body and one soul for enjoymentand suffering. 

This communion, this mutual penetration is a psychological andphysiological phenomenon which is often found to exist in beings whohave been brought into violent contact by great nervous shocks. 

For over a year, Therese and Laurent lightly bore the chain riveted totheir limbs that united them. In the depression succeeding the acutecrisis of the murder, amidst the feelings of disgust, and the need forcalm and oblivion that had followed, these two convicts might fancy theywere free, that they were no longer shackled together by iron fetters. The slackened chain dragged on the ground. They reposed, they foundthemselves struck with a sort of delightful insensibility, they soughtto love elsewhere, to live in a state of wise equilibrium. But fromthe day when urged forward by events, they came to the point of againexchanging burning sentences, the chain became violently strained, andthey received such a shock, that they felt themselves for ever linked toone another. 

The day following this first attack of nightmare, Therese secretly setto work to bring about her marriage with Laurent. It was a difficulttask, full of peril. The sweethearts trembled lest they should commit animprudence, arouse suspicions, and too abruptly reveal the interest theyhad in the death of Camille. 

Convinced that they could not mention marriage themselves, they arrangeda very clever plan which consisted in getting Madame Raquin herself, andthe Thursday evening guests, to offer them what they dared not ask for. It then only became necessary to convey to these worthy people the ideaof remarrying Therese, and particularly to make them believe that thisidea originated with themselves, and was their own. 

The comedy was long and delicate to perform. Therese and Laurenttook the parts adapted to them, and proceeded with extreme prudence, calculating the slightest gesture, and the least word. At the bottomof their hearts, they were devoured by a feeling of impatience thatstiffened and strained their nerves. They lived in a state of constantirritation, and it required all their natural cowardice to compel themto show a smiling and peaceful exterior. 

If they yearned to bring the business to an end, it was because theycould no longer remain separate and solitary. Each night, the drownedman visited them, insomnia stretched them on beds of live coal andturned them over with fiery tongs. The state of enervation in which theylived, nightly increased the fever of their blood, which resulted inatrocious hallucinations rising up before them. 

Therese no longer dared enter her room after dusk. She experienced thekeenest anguish, when she had to shut herself until morning in thislarge apartment, which became lit-up with strange glimmers, and peopledwith phantoms as soon as the light was out. She ended by leaving hercandle burning, and by preventing herself falling asleep, so as toalways have her eyes wide open. But when fatigue lowered her lids, shesaw Camille in the dark, and reopened her eyes with a start. In themorning she dragged herself about, broken down, having only slumberedfor a few hours at dawn. 

As to Laurent, he had decidedly become a poltroon since the night hehad taken fright when passing before the cellar door. Previous to thatincident he had lived with the confidence of a brute; now, at the leastsound, he trembled and turned pale like a little boy. A shudder ofterror had suddenly shaken his limbs, and had clung to him. At night, he suffered even more than Therese; and fright, in this great, soft, cowardly frame, produced profound laceration to the feelings. He watchedthe fall of day with cruel apprehension. On several occasions, he failedto return home, and passed whole nights walking in the middle of thedeserted streets. 

Once he remained beneath a bridge, until morning, while the rain poureddown in torrents; and there, huddled up, half frozen, not daring to riseand ascend to the quay, he for nearly six hours watched the dirty waterrunning in the whitish shadow. At times a fit of terror brought him flatdown on the damp ground: under one of the arches of the bridge he seemedto see long lines of drowned bodies drifting along in the current. Whenweariness drove him home, he shut himself in, and double-locked thedoor. There he struggled until daybreak amidst frightful attacks offever. 

The same nightmare returned persistently: he fancied he fell fromthe ardent clasp of Therese into the cold, sticky arms of Camille. Hedreamt, first of all, that his sweetheart was stifling him in a warmembrace, and then that the corpse of the drowned man pressed him to hischest in an ice-like strain. These abrupt and alternate sensations ofvoluptuousness and disgust, these successive contacts of burning loveand frigid death, set him panting for breath, and caused him to shudderand gasp in anguish. 

Each day, the terror of the lovers increased, each day their attacks ofnightmare crushed and maddened them the more. They no longer relied ontheir kisses to drive away insomnia. By prudence, they did not daremake appointments, but looked forward to their wedding-day as a day ofsalvation, to be followed by an untroubled night. 

It was their desire for calm slumber that made them wish for theirunion. They had hesitated during the hours of indifference, both beingoblivious of the egotistic and impassioned reasons that had urged themto the crime, and which were now dispelled. It was in vague despair thatthey took the supreme resolution to unite openly. At the bottom of theirhearts they were afraid. They had leant, so to say, one on the otherabove an unfathomable depth, attracted to it by its horror. Theybent over the abyss together, clinging silently to one another, whilefeelings of intense giddiness enfeebled their limbs and gave themfalling madness. 

But at the present moment, face to face with their anxious expectationand timorous desires, they felt the imperative necessity of closingtheir eyes, and of dreaming of a future full of amorous felicity andpeaceful enjoyment. The more they trembled one before the other, thebetter they foresaw the horror of the abyss to the bottom of whichthey were about to plunge, and the more they sought to make promisesof happiness to themselves, and to spread out before their eyes theinvincible facts that fatally led them to marriage. 

Therese desired her union with Laurent solely because she was afraidand wanted a companion. She was a prey to nervous attacks that drove herhalf crazy. In reality she reasoned but little, she flung herself intolove with a mind upset by the novels she had recently been reading, and a frame irritated by the cruel insomnia that had kept her awake forseveral weeks. 

Laurent, who was of a stouter constitution, while giving way to histerror and his desire, had made up his mind to reason out his decision. To thoroughly prove to himself that his marriage was necessary, thathe was at last going to be perfectly happy, and to drive away the vaguefears that beset him, he resumed all his former calculations. 

His father, the peasant of Jeufosse, seemed determined not to die, andLaurent said to himself that he might have to wait a long time for theinheritance. He even feared that this inheritance might escape him, andgo into the pockets of one of his cousins, a great big fellow who turnedthe soil over to the keen satisfaction of the old boy. And he wouldremain poor; he would live the life of a bachelor in a garret, with abad bed and a worse table. Besides, he did not contemplate working allhis life; already he began to find his office singularly tedious. Thelight labour entrusted to him became irksome owing to his laziness. 

The invariable result of these reflections was that supreme happinessconsisted in doing nothing. Then he remembered that if he had drownedCamille, it was to marry Therese, and work no more. Certainly, thethought of having his sweetheart all to himself had greatly influencedhim in committing the crime, but he had perhaps been led to it stillmore, by the hope of taking the place of Camille, of being looked afterin the same way, and of enjoying constant beatitude. Had passion aloneurged him to the deed, he would not have shown such cowardice andprudence. The truth was that he had sought by murder to assure himself acalm, indolent life, and the satisfaction of his cravings. 

All these thoughts, avowedly or unconsciously, returned to him. To findencouragement, he repeated that it was time to gather in the harvestanticipated by the death of Camille, and he spread out before him, theadvantages and blessings of his future existence: he would leave hisoffice, and live in delicious idleness; he would eat, drink and sleep tohis heart's content; he would have an affectionate wife beside him; and, he would shortly inherit the 40, 000 francs and more of Madame Raquin, for the poor old woman was dying, little by little, every day; in aword, he would carve out for himself the existence of a happy brute, andwould forget everything. 

Laurent mentally repeated these ideas at every moment, since hismarriage with Therese had been decided on. He also sought otheradvantages that would result therefrom, and felt delighted when he founda new argument, drawn from his egotism, in favour of his union with thewidow of the drowned man. But however much he forced himself to hope, however much he dreamed of a future full of idleness and pleasure, henever ceased to feel abrupt shudders that gave his skin an icy chill, while at moments he continued to experience an anxiety that stifled hisjoy in his throat. 

CHAPTER XIX

In the meanwhile, the secret work of Therese and Laurent was productiveof results. The former had assumed a woeful and despairing demeanourwhich at the end of a few days alarmed Madame Raquin. When the oldmercer inquired what made her niece so sad, the young woman played thepart of an inconsolable widow with consummate skill. She spoke in avague manner of feeling weary, depressed, of suffering from her nerves, without making any precise complaint. When pressed by her aunt withquestions, she replied that she was well, that she could not imaginewhat it was that made her so low-spirited, and that she shed tearswithout knowing why. 

Then, the constant choking fits of sobbing, the wan, heartrendingsmiles, the spells of crushing silence full of emptiness and despair, continued. 

The sight of this young woman who was always giving way to her grief, who seemed to be slowly dying of some unknown complaint, ended byseriously alarming Madame Raquin. She had, now, no one in the wholeworld but her niece, and she prayed the Almighty every night to preserveher this relative to close her eyes. A little egotism was mingled withthis final love of her old age. She felt herself affected in the slightconsolations that still assisted her to live, when it crossed her mindthat she might die alone in the damp shop in the arcade. From that time, she never took her eyes off her niece, and it was with terror that shewatched her sadness, wondering what she could do to cure her of hersilent despair. 

Under these grave circumstances, she thought she ought to take theadvice of her old friend Michaud. One Thursday evening, she detained himin the shop, and spoke to him of her alarm. 

"Of course, " answered the old man, with that frank brutality he hadacquired in the performance of his former functions, "I have noticed forsome time past that Therese has been looking sour, and I know very wellwhy her face is quite yellow and overspread with grief. "

"You know why!" exclaimed the widow. "Speak out at once. If we couldonly cure her!"

"Oh! the treatment is simple, " resumed Michaud with a laugh. "Your niecefinds life irksome because she had been alone for nearly two years. Shewants a husband; you can see that in her eyes. "

The brutal frankness of the former commissary, gave Madame Raquin apainful shock. She fancied that the wound Therese had received throughthe fatal accident at Saint-Ouen, was still as fresh, still as cruelat the bottom of her heart. It seemed to her that her son, once dead, Therese could have no thought for a husband, and here was Michaudaffirming, with a hearty laugh, that Therese was out of sorts becauseshe wanted one. 

"Marry her as soon as you can, " said he, as he took himself off, "if youdo not wish to see her shrivel up entirely. That is my advice, my dearlady, and it is good, believe me. "

Madame Raquin could not, at first, accustom herself to the thought thather son was already forgotten. Old Michaud had not even pronouncedthe name of Camille, and had made a joke of the pretended illness ofTherese. The poor mother understood that she alone preserved at thebottom of her heart, the living recollection of her dear child, and shewept, for it seemed to her that Camille had just died a second time. 

Then, when she had had a good cry, and was weary of mourning, shethought, in spite of herself, of what Michaud had said, and becamefamiliar with the idea of purchasing a little happiness at the cost of amarriage which, according to her delicate mind, was like killing her sonagain. 

Frequently, she gave way to feelings of cowardice when she came face toface with the dejected and broken-down Therese, amidst the icy silenceof the shop. She was not one of those dry, rigid persons who find bitterdelight in living a life of eternal despair. Her character was full ofpliancy, devotedness, and effusion, which contributed to make up hertemperament of a stout and affable good lady, and prompted her to livein a state of active tenderness. 

Since her niece no longer spoke, and remained there pale and feeble, herown life became intolerable, while the shop seemed to her like a tomb. What she required was to find some warm affection beside her, someliveliness, some caresses, something sweet and gay which would help herto wait peacefully for death. It was these unconscious desires that madeher accept the idea of marrying Therese again; she even forgot her sona little. In the existence of the tomb that she was leading, came a sortof awakening, something like a will, and fresh occupation for the mind. She sought a husband for her niece, and this search gave her matter forconsideration. 

The choice of a husband was an important business. The poor old ladythought much more of her own comfort than of Therese. She wishedto marry her niece in order to be happy herself, for she had keenmisgivings lest the new husband of the young woman should come andtrouble the last hours of her old age. The idea that she was about tointroduce a stranger into her daily existence terrified her. It was thisthought alone that stopped her, that prevented her from talking openlywith her niece about matrimony. 

While Therese acted the comedy of weariness and dejection with thatperfect hypocrisy she had acquired by her education, Laurent took thepart of a sensible and serviceable man. He was full of little attentionsfor the two women, particularly for Madame Raquin, whom he overwhelmedwith delicate attention. Little by little he made himself indispensablein the shop; it was him alone who brought a little gaiety into thisblack hole. When he did not happen to be there of an evening, the oldmercer searched round her, ill at ease, as if she missed something, being almost afraid to find herself face to face with the despairingTherese. 

But Laurent only occasionally absented himself to better prove hispower. He went to the shop daily, on quitting his office, and remainedthere until the arcade was closed at night. He ran the errands, andhanded Madame Raquin, who could only walk with difficulty, the smallarticles she required. Then he seated himself and chatted. He hadacquired the gentle penetrating voice of an actor which he employed toflatter the ears and heart of the good old lady. In a friendly way, he seemed particularly anxious about the health of Therese, like atender-hearted man who feels for the sufferings of others. On repeatedoccasions, he took Madame Raquin to one side, and terrified her byappearing very much alarmed himself at the changes and ravages he saidhe perceived on the face of the young woman. 

"We shall soon lose her, " he murmured in a tearful voice. "We cannotconceal from ourselves that she is extremely ill. Ah! alas, for our poorhappiness, and our nice tranquil evenings!"

Madame Raquin listened to him with anguish. Laurent even had theaudacity to speak of Camille. 

"You see, " said he to the mercer, "the death of my poor friend has beena terrible blow to her. She had been dying for the last two years, sincethat fatal day when she lost Camille. Nothing will console her, nothingwill cure her. We must be resigned. "

These impudent falsehoods made the old lady shed bitter tears. Thememory of her son troubled and blinded her. Each time the name ofCamille was pronounced, she gave way, bursting into sobs. She would haveembraced the person who mentioned her poor boy. Laurent had noticedthe trouble, and outburst of tender feeling that this name produced. Hecould make her weep at will, upset her with such emotion that she failedto distinguish the clear aspect of things; and he took advantage of thispower to always hold her pliant and in pain in his hand, as it were. 

Each evening in spite of the secret revolt of his trembling inner being, he brought the conversation to bear on the rare qualities, on the tenderheart and mind of Camille, praising his victim with most shamelessimpudence. At moments, when he found the eyes of Therese fixed with astrange expression on his own, he shuddered, and ended by believingall the good he had been saying about the drowned man. Then he held histongue, suddenly seized with atrocious jealousy, fearing that the youngwidow loved the man he had flung into the water, and whom he now laudedwith the conviction of an enthusiast. 

Throughout the conversation Madame Raquin was in tears, and unable todistinguish anything around her. As she wept, she reflected that Laurentmust have a loving and generous heart. He alone remembered her son, healone still spoke of him in a trembling and affected voice. She driedher eyes, gazing at the young man with infinite tenderness, and feelingthat she loved him as her own child. 

One Thursday evening, Michaud and Grivet were already in thedining-room, when Laurent coming in, approached Therese, and with gentleanxiety inquired after her health. He seated himself for a moment besideher, performing for the edification of the persons present, his partof an alarmed and affectionate friend. As the young couple sat closetogether, exchanging a few words, Michaud, who was observing them, bent down, and said in a low voice to the old mercer, as he pointed toLaurent:

"Look, there is the husband who will suit your niece. Arrange thismarriage quickly. We will assist you if it be necessary. "

This remark came as a revelation to Madame Raquin. She saw, at once, allthe advantages she would derive, personally, from the union of Thereseand Laurent. The marriage would tighten the bonds already connecting herand her niece with the friend of her son, with that good-natured fellowwho came to amuse them in the evening. 

In this manner, she would not be introducing a stranger into her home, she would not run the risk of unhappiness. On the contrary, while givingTherese a support, she added another joy to her old age, she found asecond son in this young man who for three years had shown her suchfilial affection. 

Then it occurred to her that Therese would be less faithless to thememory of Camille by marrying Laurent. The religion of the heartis peculiarly delicate. Madame Raquin, who would have wept to see astranger embrace the young widow, felt no repulsion at the thought ofgiving her to the comrade of her son. 

Throughout the evening, while the guests played at dominoes, the oldmercer watched the couple so tenderly, that they guessed the comedyhad succeeded, and that the denouement was at hand. Michaud, beforewithdrawing, had a short conversation in an undertone with MadameRaquin. Then, he pointedly took the arm of Laurent saying he wouldaccompany him a bit of the way. As Laurent went off, he exchanged arapid glance with Therese, a glance full of urgent enjoinment. 

Michaud had undertaken to feel the ground. He found the young man verymuch devoted to the two ladies, but exceedingly astonished at the ideaof a marriage between Therese and himself. Laurent added, in an unsteadytone of voice, that he loved the widow of his poor friend as a sister, and that it would seem to him a perfect sacrilege to marry her. Theformer commissary of police insisted, giving numerous good reasons witha view to obtaining his consent. He even spoke of devotedness, and wentso far as to tell the young man that it was clearly his duty to give ason to Madame Raquin and a husband to Therese. 

Little by little Laurent allowed himself to be won over, feigning togive way to emotion, to accept the idea of this marriage as one fallenfrom the clouds, dictated by feelings of devotedness and duty, as oldMichaud had said. When the latter had obtained a formal answer in theaffirmative, he parted with his companion, rubbing his hands, for hefancied he had just gained a great victory. He prided himself on havinghad the first idea of this marriage which would convey to the Thursdayevenings all their former gaiety. 

While Michaud was talking with Laurent, slowly following the quays, Madame Raquin had an almost identical conversation with Therese. At themoment when her niece, pale and unsteady in gait, as usual, was about toretire to rest, the old mercer detained her an instant. She questionedher in a tender tone, imploring her to be frank, and confess the causeof the trouble that overwhelmed her. Then, as she only obtained vaguereplies, she spoke of the emptiness of widowhood, and little by littlecame to talk in a more precise manner of the offer of a second marriage, concluding by asking Therese, plainly, whether she had not a secretdesire to marry again. 

Therese protested, saying that such a thought had never entered hermind, and that she intended remaining faithful to Camille. MadameRaquin began to weep. Pleading against her heart, she gave her niece tounderstand that despair should not be eternal; and, finally, in responseto an exclamation of the young woman saying she would never replaceCamille, Madame Raquin abruptly pronounced the name of Laurent. Then sheenlarged with a flood of words on the propriety and advantages of suchan union. She poured out her mind, repeating aloud all she had beenthinking during the evening, depicting with naive egotism, the pictureof her final days of happiness, between her two dear children. Therese, resigned and docile, listened to her with bowed head, ready to givesatisfaction to her slightest wish. 

"I love Laurent as a brother, " said she grievously, when her aunt hadceased speaking. "But, as you desire it, I will endeavour to love himas a husband. I wish to make you happy. I had hoped that you wouldhave allowed me to weep in peace, but I will dry my tears, as it is aquestion of your happiness. "

She kissed the old lady, who remained surprised and frightened at havingbeen the first to forget her son. As Madame Raquin went to bed, shesobbed bitterly, accusing herself of having less strength than Therese, and of desiring, out of egotism, a marriage that the young widowaccepted by simple abnegation. 

The following morning, Michaud and his old friend had a shortconversation in the arcade, before the door of the shop, where theycommunicated to one another the result of their efforts, and agreed tohurry matters on by forcing the young people to become affianced thesame evening. 

At five o'clock, Michaud was already in the shop when Laurent entered. As soon as the young man had seated himself, the former commissary ofpolice said in his ear:

"She accepts. "

This blunt remark was overheard by Therese who remained pale, with hereyes impudently fixed on Laurent. The two sweethearts looked at eachother for a few seconds as if consulting. Both understood that they mustaccept the position without hesitation, and finish the business at onestroke. Laurent, rising, went and took the hand of Madame Raquin, whomade every effort to restrain her tears. 

"Dear mother, " said he smiling, "I was talking about your felicity, lastnight, with M. Michaud. Your children wish to make you happy. "

The poor old lady, on hearing herself called "dear mother, " allowed hertears to flow. She quietly seized the hand of Therese and placed it inthat of Laurent, unable to utter a single word. 

The two sweethearts shivered on feeling their skins touch, and remainedwith their burning fingers pressed together, in a nervous clasp. After apause, the young man, in a hesitating tone, resumed:

"Therese, shall we give your aunt a bright and peaceful existence?"

"Yes, " feebly replied the young woman, "we have a duty to perform. "

Then Laurent, becoming very pale, turned towards Madame Raquin, andadded:

"When Camille fell into the water, he shouted out to me: 'Save my wife, I entrust her to you. ' I believe I am acting in accordance with his lastwish in marrying Therese. "

Therese, on hearing these words, let go the hand of Laurent. Shehad received a shock like a blow in the chest. The impudence of hersweetheart overwhelmed her. She observed him with a senseless look, while Madame Raquin, half stifled by sobs, stammered:

"Yes, yes, my friend, marry her, make her happy; my son, from the depthof his tomb, will thank you. "

Laurent, feeling himself giving way, leant on the back of a chair, whileMichaud, who was himself moved to tears, pushed him towards Therese withthe remark:

"Kiss one another. It will be your betrothal. "

When the lips of the young man came in contact with the cheeks of thewidow, he experienced a peculiarly uncomfortable feeling, while thelatter abruptly drew back, as if the two kisses of her sweetheart burnther. This was the first caress he had given her in the presence ofwitnesses. All her blood rushed to her face, and she felt herself redand burning. 

After this crisis, the two murderers breathed. Their marriage wasdecided on. At last they approached the goal they had so long had inview. Everything was settled the same evening. The Thursday following, the marriage was announced to Grivet, as well as to Olivier and hiswife. Michaud, in communicating the news to them, did not conceal hisdelight. He rubbed his hands, repeating as he did so:

"It was I who thought of it. It is I who have married them. You will seewhat a nice couple they'll make!"

Suzanne silently embraced Therese. This poor creature, who was halfdead, and as white as a sheet, had formed a friendship for the rigid andsombre young widow. She showed her a sort of childlike affection mingledwith a kind of respectful terror. Olivier complimented the aunt andniece, while Grivet hazarded a few spicy jokes that met with middlingsuccess. Altogether the company were delighted, enchanted, and declaredthat everything was for the best; in reality all they thought about wasthe wedding feast. 

Therese and Laurent were clever enough to maintain a suitable demeanour, by simply displaying tender and obliging friendship to one another. Theygave themselves an air of accomplishing an act of supreme devotedness. Nothing in their faces betrayed a suspicion of the terror and desirethat disturbed them. Madame Raquin watched the couple with faint smiles, and a look of feeble, but grateful goodwill. 

A few formalities required fulfilling. Laurent had to write to hisfather to ask his consent to the marriage. The old peasant of Jeufossewho had almost forgotten that he had a son at Paris, answered him, infour lines, that he could marry, and go and get hanged if he chose. Hegave him to understand that being resolved never to give him a sou, he left him master of his body, and authorised him to be guilty of allimaginable follies. A permission accorded in such terms, caused Laurentsingular anxiety. 

Madame Raquin, after reading the letter of this unnatural father, in atransport of kind-heartedness, acted very foolishly. She made over toher niece the 40, 000 francs and more, that she possessed, strippingherself entirely for the young couple, on whose affection she relied, with the desire of being indebted to them for all her happiness. 

Laurent brought nothing into the community, and he even gave it tobe understood that he did not always intend to remain in his presentemployment, but would perhaps take up painting again. In any case, thefuture of the little family was assured; the interest on the money putaside added to the profit on the mercery business, would be sufficientto keep three persons comfortably. As a matter of fact it was only justsufficient to make them happy. 

The preparations for the marriage were hurried on, the formalities beingabridged as much as possible, and at last the welcome day arrived. 

CHAPTER XX

In the morning, Laurent and Therese, awoke in their respective rooms, with the same feeling of profound joy in their hearts: both said tothemselves that their last night of terror had passed. They would nolonger have to sleep alone, and they would mutually defend themselvesagainst the drowned man. 

Therese looked around her, giving a strange smile as she measured hergreat bed with her eyes. She rose and began to slowly dress herself, inanticipation of the arrival of Suzanne, who was to come and assist herwith her bridal toilet. 

Laurent, on awakening, sat up in bed, and remained in that position fora few minutes, bidding farewell to his garret, which struck him as vile. At last he was to quit this kennel and have a wife. It was in the monthof December and he shivered. He sprang on the tile floor, saying tohimself that he would be warm at night. 

A week previously, Madame Raquin, knowing how short he was of money, hadslipped a purse into his hand containing 500 francs, which representedall her savings. The young man had accepted this present withoutdifficulty, and had rigged himself out from tip to toe. Moreover, themoney of the old mercer permitted him to make Therese the customarypresents. 

The black trousers, dress coat, white waistcoat, shirt and cambric tie, hung spread out on a couple of chairs. Laurent washed, perfumed himselfwith a bottle of eau de Cologne, and then proceeded to carefully attirehimself. He wished to look handsome. As he fastened his collar, a collarwhich was high and stiff, he experienced keen pain in the neck. Thebutton escaped from his fingers. He lost patience. The starched linenseemed to cut into his flesh. Wishing to see what was the matter, heraised his chin, and perceived the bite Camille had given him lookingquite red. The collar had slightly galled the scar. 

Laurent pressed his lips together, and turned pale; the sight of thismark seaming his neck, frightened and irritated him at this moment. Hecrumpled up the collar, and selected another which he put on with everyprecaution, and then finished dressing himself. As he went downstairshis new clothes made him look rigid. With his neck imprisoned in theinflexible linen, he dared not turn his head. At every movement he made, a pleat pinched the wound that the teeth of the drowned man had made inhis flesh, and it was under the irritation of these sharp pricks, thathe got into the carriage, and went to fetch Therese to conduct her tothe town-hall and church. 

On the way, he picked up a clerk employed at the Orleans RailwayCompany, and old Michaud, who were to act as witnesses. When theyreached the shop, everyone was ready: Grivet and Olivier, the witnessesof Therese, were there, along with Suzanne, who looked at the bride aslittle girls look at dolls they have just dressed up. Although MadameRaquin was no longer able to walk, she desired to accompany the coupleeverywhere, so she was hoisted into a conveyance and the party set out. 

Everything passed off in a satisfactory manner at the town-hall andchurch. The calm and modest attitude of the bride and bridegroom wasremarked and approved. They pronounced the sacramental "yes" with anemotion that moved Grivet himself. They were as if in a dream. Whetherseated, or quietly kneeling side by side, they were rent by ragingthoughts that flashed through their minds in spite of themselves, andthey avoided looking at one another. When they seated themselves intheir carriage, they seemed to be greater strangers than before. 

It had been decided that the wedding feast should be a family affairat a little restaurant on the heights of Belleville. The Michauds andGrivet alone were invited. Until six in the evening, the wedding partydrove along the boulevards, and then repaired to the cheap eating-housewhere a table was spread with seven covers in a small private roompainted yellow, and reeking of dust and wine. 

The repast was not accompanied by much gaiety. The newly married pairwere grave and thoughtful. Since the morning, they had been experiencingstrange sensations, which they did not seek to fathom. From thecommencement, they had felt bewildered at the rapidity with whichthe formalities and ceremony were performed, that had just bound themtogether for ever. 

Then, the long drive on the boulevards had soothed them and made themdrowsy. It appeared to them that this drive lasted months. Nevertheless, they allowed themselves to be taken through the monotonous streetswithout displaying impatience, looking at the shops and people withsparkless eyes, overcome by a numbness that made them feel stupid, andwhich they endeavoured to shake off by bursting into fits of laughter. When they entered the restaurant, they were weighed down by oppressivefatigue, while increasing stupor continued to settle on them. 

Placed at table opposite one another, they smiled with an air ofconstraint, and then fell into the same heavy reverie as before, eating, answering questions, moving their limbs like machines. Amidst the idlelassitude of their minds, the same string of flying thoughts returnedceaselessly. They were married, and yet unconscious of their newcondition, which caused them profound astonishment. They imagined anabyss still separated them, and at moments asked themselves how theycould get over this unfathomable depth. They fancied they were livingprevious to the murder, when a material obstacle stood between them. 

Then they abruptly remembered they would occupy the same apartment thatnight, in a few hours, and they gazed at one another in astonishment, unable to comprehend why they should be permitted to do so. They did notfeel they were united, but, on the contrary, were dreaming that they hadjust been violently separated, and one cast far from the other. 

The silly chuckling of the guests beside them, who wished to hear themtalk familiarly, so as to dispel all restraint, made them stammer andcolour. They could never make up their minds to treat one another assweethearts in the presence of company. 

Waiting had extinguished the flame that had formerly fired them. Allthe past had disappeared. They had forgotten their violent passion, they forgot even their joy of the morning, that profound joy they hadexperienced at the thought that they would no more be afraid. They weresimply wearied and bewildered at all that was taking place. Theevents of the day turned round and round in their heads, appearingincomprehensible and monstrous. They sat there mute and smiling, expecting nothing, hoping for nothing. Mingled with their dejection ofspirits, was a restless anxiety that proved vaguely painful. 

At every movement Laurent made with his neck, he felt a sharp burndevouring his flesh; his collar cut and pinched the bite of Camille. While the mayor read out to him the law bearing on marriage, while thepriest spoke to him of the Almighty, at every minute of this long day, he had felt the teeth of the drowned man entering his skin. At times, he imagined a streak of blood was running down his chest, and wouldbespatter his white waistcoat with crimson. 

Madame Raquin was inwardly grateful to the newly married couple fortheir gravity. Noisy joy would have wounded the poor mother. In hermind, her son was there, invisible, handing Therese over to Laurent. 

Grivet had other ideas. He considered the wedding party sad, and wantedto enliven it, notwithstanding the looks of Michaud and Olivier whichriveted him to his chair each time he wished to get up and say somethingsilly. Nevertheless, he managed to rise once and propose a toast. 

"I drink to the offspring of monsieur and madame, " quoth he in asprightly tone. 

It was necessary to touch glasses. Therese and Laurent had turnedextremely pale on hearing this sentence. They had never dreamed thatthey might have children. The thought flashed through them like an icyshiver. They nervously joined glasses with the others, examining oneanother, surprised and alarmed to find themselves there, face to face. 

The party rose from table early. The guests wished to accompany thenewly married pair to the nuptial chamber. It was barely half-pastnine when they all returned to the shop in the arcade. The dealer inimitation jewelry was still there in her cupboard, before the box linedwith blue velvet. She raised her head inquisitively, gazing at theyoung husband and wife with a smile. The latter caught her eyes, and wasterrified. It struck her that perhaps this old woman was aware of theirformer meetings, by having noticed Laurent slipping into the littlecorridor. 

When they all arrived on the upper floor, Therese withdrew almostimmediately, with Madame Raquin and Suzanne, the men remaining inthe dining-room, while the bride performed her toilet for the night. Laurent, nerveless and depressed, did not experience the leastimpatience, but listened complacently to the coarse jokes of old Michaudand Grivet, who indulged themselves to their hearts' content, nowthat the ladies were no longer present. When Suzanne and Madame Raquinquitted the nuptial apartment, and the old mercer in an unsteady voicetold the young man that his wife awaited him, he started. For an instanthe remained bewildered. Then he feverishly grasped the hands extendedto him, and entered the room, clinging to the door like a man under theinfluence of drink. 

CHAPTER XXI

Laurent carefully closed the door behind him, and for a moment or twostood leaning against it, gazing round the apartment in anxiety andembarrassment. 

A clear fire burned on the hearth, sending large sheets of light dancingon ceiling and walls. The room was thus lit-up by bright vacillatinggleams, that in a measure annulled the effects of the lamp placed ona table in their midst. Madame Raquin had done her best to conveya coquettish aspect to the apartment. It was one mass of white, andperfumed throughout, as if to serve as a nest for young, fresh love. Thegood lady, moreover, had taken pleasure in adding a few bits of lace tothe bed, and in filling the vases on the chimney-piece with bunches ofroses. Gentle warmth and pleasant fragrance reigned over all, and not asound broke the silence, save the crackling and little sharp reports ofthe wood aglow on the hearth. 

Therese was seated on a low chair to the right of the chimney, staringfixedly at the bright flames, with her chin in her hand. She did notturn her head when Laurent entered. Clothed in a petticoat and linennight-jacket bordered with lace, she looked snowy white in the brightlight of the fire. Her jacket had become disarranged, and part of herrosy shoulder appeared, half hidden by a tress of raven hair. 

Laurent advanced a few paces without speaking, and took off his coatand waistcoat. When he stood in his shirt sleeves, he again looked atTherese, who had not moved, and he seemed to hesitate. Then, perceivingthe bit of shoulder, he bent down quivering, to press his lips to it. The young woman, abruptly turning round, withdrew her shoulder, and indoing so, fixed on Laurent such a strange look of repugnance and horror, that he shrank back, troubled and ill at ease, as if himself seized withterror and disgust. 

Laurent then seated himself opposite Therese, on the other side of thechimney, and they remained thus, silent and motionless, for fully fiveminutes. At times, tongues of reddish flame escaped from the wood, andthen the faces of the murderers were touched with fleeting gleams ofblood. 

It was more than a couple of years since the two sweethearts hadfound themselves shut up alone in this room. They had arrangedno love-meetings since the day when Therese had gone to the RueSaint-Victor to convey to Laurent the idea of murder. Prudence had keptthem apart. Barely had they, at long intervals, ventured on a pressureof the hand, or a stealthy kiss. After the murder of Camille, they hadrestrained their passion, awaiting the nuptial night. This had at lastarrived, and now they remained anxiously face to face, overcome withsudden discomfort. 

They had but to stretch forth their arms to clasp one another in apassionate embrace, and their arms remained lifeless, as if worn outwith fatigue. The depression they had experienced during the daytime, now oppressed them more and more. They observed one another with timidembarrassment, pained to remain so silent and cold. Their burning dreamsended in a peculiar reality: it sufficed that they should have succeededin killing Camille, and have become married, it sufficed that the lipsof Laurent should have grazed the shoulder of Therese, for their lust tobe satisfied to the point of disgust and horror. 

In despair, they sought to find within them a little of that passionwhich formerly had devoured them. Their frames seemed deprived ofmuscles and nerves, and their embarrassment and anxiety increased. Theyfelt ashamed of remaining so silent and gloomy face to face with oneanother. They would have liked to have had the strength to squeeze eachother to death, so as not to pass as idiots in their own eyes. 

What! they belonged one to the other, they had killed a man, and playedan atrocious comedy in order to be able to love in peace, and they satthere, one on either side of a mantelshelf, rigid, exhausted, theirminds disturbed and their frames lifeless! Such a denouement appearedto them horribly and cruelly ridiculous. It was then that Laurentendeavoured to speak of love, to conjure up the remembrances of otherdays, appealing to his imagination for a revival of his tenderness. 

"Therese, " he said, "don't you recall our afternoons in this room? ThenI came in by that door, but today I came in by this one. We are freenow. We can make love in peace. "

He spoke in a hesitating, spiritless manner, and the young woman, huddled up on her low chair, continued gazing dreamily at the flamewithout listening. Laurent went on:

"Remember how I used to dream of staying a whole night with you? Idreamed of waking up in the morning to your kisses, now it can cometrue. "

Therese all at once started as though surprised to hear a voicestammering in her ears. Turning towards Laurent, on whose countenancethe fire, at this moment, cast a broad reddish reflection, she gazed athis sanguinary face, and shuddered. 

The young man, more troubled and anxious, resumed:

"We have succeeded, Therese; we have broken through all obstacles, andwe belong to one another. The future is ours, is it not? A future oftranquil happiness, of satisfied love. Camille is no longer here----"

Laurent ceased speaking. His throat had suddenly become dry, and he waschoking, unable to continue. On hearing the name of Camille, Theresereceived a violent shock. The two murderers contemplated one another, stupefied, pale, and trembling. The yellow gleams of light from thefire continued to dance on ceiling and walls, the soft odour of roseslingered in the air, the crackling of the wood broke the silence withshort, sharp reports. 

Remembrances were abandoned. The spectre of Camille which had beenevoked, came and seated itself between the newly married pair, in frontof the flaming fire. Therese and Laurent recognised the cold, damp smellof the drowned man in the warm air they were breathing. They said tothemselves that a corpse was there, close to them, and they examinedone another without daring to move. Then all the terrible story of theircrime was unfolded in their memory. The name of their victim sufficedto fill them with thoughts of the past, to compel them to go through allthe anguish of the murder over again. They did not open their lips, butlooked at one another, and both at the same time were troubled with thesame nightmare, both with their eyes broached the same cruel tale. 

This exchange of terrified looks, this mute narration they were aboutto make to themselves of the murder, caused them keen and intolerableapprehension. The strain on their nerves threatened an attack, theymight cry out, perhaps fight. Laurent, to drive away his recollections, violently tore himself from the ecstasy of horror that enthralled him inthe gaze of Therese. He took a few strides in the room; he removed hisboots and put on slippers; then, returning to his former place, hesat down at the chimney corner, and tried to talk on matters ofindifference. 

Therese, understanding what he desired, strove to answer his questions. They chatted about the weather, endeavouring to force on a commonplaceconversation. Laurent said the room was warm, and Therese replied that, nevertheless, a draught came from under the small door on the staircase, and both turned in that direction with a sudden shudder. The young manhastened to speak about the roses, the fire, about everything he sawbefore him. The young woman, with an effort, rejoined in monosyllables, so as not to allow the conversation to drop. They had drawn back fromone another, and were giving themselves easy airs, endeavouring toforget whom they were, treating one another as strangers broughttogether by chance. 

But, in spite of themselves, by a strange phenomenon, whilst theyuttered these empty phrases, they mutually guessed the thoughtsconcealed in their banal words. Do what they would, they both thoughtof Camille. Their eyes continued the story of the past. They stillmaintained by looks a mute discourse, apart from the conversation theyheld aloud, which ran haphazard. The words they cast here and therehad no signification, being disconnected and contradictory; all theirintelligence was bent on the silent exchange of their terrifyingrecollections. 

When Laurent spoke of the roses, or of the fire, of one thing oranother, Therese was perfectly well aware that he was reminding herof the struggle in the skiff, of the dull fall of Camille; and, whenTherese answered yes or no to an insignificant question, Laurentunderstood that she said she remembered or did not remember a detail ofthe crime. They charted it in this manner open-heartedly without needingwords, while they spoke aloud of other matters. 

Moreover, unconscious of the syllables they pronounced, they followedtheir secret thoughts sentence by sentence; they might abruptly havecontinued their confidences aloud, without ceasing to understand eachother. This sort of divination, this obstinacy of their memory inpresenting to themselves without pause, the image of Camille, littleby little drove them crazy. They thoroughly well perceived that theyguessed the thoughts of one another, and that if they did not hold theirtongues, the words would rise of themselves to their mouths, to name thedrowned man, and describe the murder. Then they closely pinched theirlips and ceased their conversation. 

In the overwhelming silence that ensued, the two murderers continuedto converse about their victim. It appeared to them that their eyesmutually penetrated their flesh, and buried clear, keen phrases in theirbodies. At moments, they fancied they heard themselves speaking aloud. Their senses changed. Sight became a sort of strange and delicatehearing. They so distinctly read their thoughts upon their countenances, that these thoughts took a peculiarly piercing sound that agitated alltheir organism. They could not have understood one another better, hadthey shouted in a heartrending voice:

"We have killed Camille, and his corpse is there, extended between us, making our limbs like ice. "

And the terrible confidence continued, more manifest, more resounding, in the calm moist air of the room. 

Laurent and Therese had commenced the mute narration from the day oftheir first interview in the shop. Then the recollections had come oneby one in order; they had related their hours of love, their moments ofhesitation and anger, the terrible incident of the murder. It was thenthat they pinched their lips, ceasing to talk of one thing and another, in fear lest they should all at once name Camille without desiring to doso. 

But their thoughts failing to cease, had then led them into greatdistress, into the affrighted period of expectancy following the crime. They thus came to think of the corpse of the drowned man extended on aslab at the Morgue. Laurent, by a look, told Therese all the horror hehad felt, and the latter, driven to extremities, compelled by a hand ofiron to part her lips, abruptly continued the conversation aloud:

"You saw him at the Morgue?" she inquired of Laurent without namingCamille. 

Laurent looked as if he expected this question. He had been reading itfor a moment on the livid face of the young woman. 

"Yes, " answered he in a choking voice. 

The murderers shivered, and drawing nearer the fire, extended theirhands towards the flame as if an icy puff of wind had suddenly passedthrough the warm room. For an instant they maintained silence, coiled uplike balls, cowering on their chairs. Then Therese, in a hollow voice, resumed:

"Did he seem to have suffered much?"

Laurent could not answer. He made a terrified gesture as if to put asidesome hideous vision, and rising went towards the bed. Then, returningviolently with open arms, he advanced towards Therese. 

"Kiss me, " said he, extending his neck. 

Therese had risen, looking quite pale in her nightdress, and stood halfthrown back, with her elbow resting on the marble mantelpiece. She gazedat the neck of her husband. On the white skin she had just caught sightof a pink spot. The rush of blood to the head, increased the size ofthis spot, turning it bright red. 

"Kiss me, kiss me, " repeated Laurent, his face and neck scarlet. 

The young woman threw her head further back, to avoid an embrace, and pressing the tip of her finger on the bite Camille had given herhusband, addressed him thus:

"What have you here? I never noticed this wound before. "

It seemed to Laurent as if the finger of Therese was boring a hole inhis throat. At the contact of this finger, he suddenly started backward, uttering a suppressed cry of pain. 

"That, " he stammered, "that----"

He hesitated, but he could not lie, and in spite of himself, he told thetruth. 

"That is the bite Camille gave me. You know, in the boat. It is nothing. It has healed. Kiss me, kiss me. "

And the wretch craned his neck which was burning him. He wanted Thereseto kiss the scar, convinced that the lips of this woman would appeasethe thousand pricks lacerating his flesh, and with raised chin hepresented his extended neck for the embrace. Therese, who was almostlying back on the marble chimney-piece, gave a supreme gesture ofdisgust, and in a supplicating voice exclaimed:

"Oh! no, not on that part. There is blood. "

She sank down on the low chair, trembling, with her forehead betweenher hands. Laurent remained where he stood for a moment, looking stupid. Then, all at once, with the clutch of a wild beast, he grasped the headof Therese in his two great hands, and by force brought her lips to thebite he had received from Camille on his neck. For an instant he kept, he crushed, this head of a woman against his skin. Therese had givenway, uttering hollow groans. She was choking on the neck of Laurent. When she had freed herself from his hands, she violently wiped hermouth, and spat in the fire. She had not said a word. 

Laurent, ashamed of his brutality, began walking slowly from the bedto the window. Suffering alone--the horrible burn--had made him exact akiss from Therese, and when her frigid lips met the scorching scar, he felt the pain more acutely. This kiss obtained by violence had justcrushed him. The shock had been so painful, that for nothing in theworld would he have received another. 

He cast his eyes upon the woman with whom he was to live, and who satshuddering, doubled up before the fire, turning her back to him; and herepeated to himself that he no longer loved this woman, and that she nolonger loved him. 

For nearly an hour Therese maintained her dejected attitude, while Laurent silently walked backward and forward. Both inwardlyacknowledged, with terror, that their passion was dead, that they hadkilled it in killing Camille. The embers on the hearth were gently dyingout; a sheet of bright, clear fire shone above the ashes. Little bylittle, the heat of the room had become stifling; the flowers werefading, making the thick air sickly, with their heavy odour. 

Laurent, all at once, had an hallucination. As he turned round, comingfrom the window to the bed, he saw Camille in a dark corner, betweenthe chimney and wardrobe. The face of his victim looked greenish anddistorted, just as he had seen it on the slab at the Morgue. He remainedglued to the carpet, fainting, leaning against a piece of furniture forsupport. At a hollow rattle in his throat, Therese raised her head. 

"There, there!" exclaimed Laurent in a terrified tone. 

With extended arm, he pointed to the dark corner where he perceivedthe sinister face of Camille. Therese, infected by his terror, went andpressed against him. 

"It is his portrait, " she murmured in an undertone, as if the face ofher late husband could hear her. 

"His portrait?" repeated Laurent, whose hair stood on end. 

"Yes, you know, the painting you did, " she replied. "My aunt was to haveremoved it to her room. No doubt she forgot to take it down. "

"Really; his portrait, " said he. 

The murderer had some difficulty in recognising the canvas. In histrouble he forgot that it was he who had drawn those clashing strokes, who had spread on those dirty tints that now terrified him. Terror madehim see the picture as it was, vile, wretchedly put together, muddy, displaying the grimacing face of a corpse on a black ground. His ownwork astonished and crushed him by its atrocious ugliness; particularlythe two eyes which seemed floating in soft, yellowish orbits, remindinghim exactly of the decomposed eyes of the drowned man at the Morgue. For a moment, he remained breathless, thinking Therese was telling anuntruth to allay his fears. Then he distinguished the frame, and littleby little became calm. 

"Go and take it down, " said he in a very low tone to the young woman. 

"Oh! no, I'm afraid, " she answered with a shiver. 

Laurent began to tremble again. At moments the frame of the picturedisappeared, and he only saw the two white eyes giving him a long, steady look. 

"I beg you to go and unhook it, " said he, beseeching his companion. 

"No, no, " she replied. 

"We will turn it face to the wall, and then it will not frighten us, " hesuggested. 

"No, " said she, "I cannot do it. "

The murderer, cowardly and humble, thrust the young woman towards thecanvas, hiding behind her, so as to escape the gaze of the drowned man. But she escaped, and he wanted to brazen the matter out. Approaching thepicture, he raised his hand in search of the nail, but the portrait gavesuch a long, crushing, ignoble look, that Laurent after seeking tostare it out, found himself vanquished, and started back overpowered, murmuring as he did so:

"No, you are right, Therese, we cannot do it. Your aunt shall take itdown to-morrow. "

He resumed his walk up and down, with bowed head, feeling the portraitwas staring at him, following him with its eyes. At times, he could notprevent himself casting a side glance at the canvas; and, then, in thedepth of the darkness, he still perceived the dull, deadened eyes of thedrowned man. The thought that Camille was there, in a corner, watchinghim, present on his wedding night, examining Therese and himself, endedby driving him mad with terror and despair. 

One circumstance, which would have brought a smile to the lips of anyoneelse, made him completely lose his head. As he stood before the fire, heheard a sort of scratching sound. He turned pale, imagining it camefrom the portrait, that Camille was descending from his frame. Thenhe discovered that the noise was at the small door opening on thestaircase, and he looked at Therese who also showed signs of fear. 

"There is someone on the staircase, " he murmured. "Who can be comingthat way?"

The young woman gave no answer. Both were thinking of the drowned man, and their temples became moist with icy perspiration. They sought refugetogether at the end of the room, expecting to see the door suddenlyopen, and the corpse of Camille fall on the floor. As the soundcontinued, but more sharply and irregularly, they thought their victimmust be tearing away the wood with his nails to get in. For the space ofnearly five minutes, they dared not stir. Finally, a mewing was heard, and Laurent advancing, recognised the tabby cat belonging to MadameRaquin, which had been accidentally shut up in the room, and wasendeavouring to get out by clawing at the door. 

Francois, frightened by Laurent, sprang upon a chair at a bound. Withhair on end and stiffened paws, he looked his new master in the face, ina harsh and cruel manner. The young man did not like cats, and Francoisalmost terrified him. In this moment of excitement and alarm, heimagined the cat was about to fly in his face to avenge Camille. Hefancied the beast must know everything, that there were thoughts inhis strangely dilated round eyes. The fixed gaze of the animal causedLaurent to lower his lids. As he was about to give Francois a kick, Therese exclaimed:

"Don't hurt him. "

This sentence produced a strange impression on Laurent, and an absurdidea got into his head. 

"Camille has entered into this cat, " thought he. "I shall have to killthe beast. It looks like a human being. "

He refrained from giving the kick, being afraid of hearing Francoisspeak to him with the voice of Camille. Then he said to himself thatthis animal knew too much, and that he should have to throw it out ofthe window. But he had not the pluck to accomplish his design. Francoismaintained a fighting attitude. With claws extended, and back curvedin sullen irritation, he followed the least movement of his enemy withsuperb tranquillity. The metallic sparkle of his eyes troubled Laurent, who hastened to open the dining-room door, and the cat fled with ashrill mew. 

Therese had again seated herself before the extinguished fire. Laurentresumed his walk from bed to window. It was thus that they awaitedday-light. They did not think of going to bed; their hearts werethoroughly dead. They had but one, single desire: to leave the room theywere in, and where they were choking. They experienced a real discomfortin being shut up together, and in breathing the same atmosphere. Theywould have liked someone to be there to interrupt their privacy, todrag them from the cruel embarrassment in which they found themselves, sitting one before the other without opening their lips, and unableto resuscitate their love. Their long silences tortured them, silenceloaded with bitter and despairing complaints, with mute reproaches, which they distinctly heard in the tranquil air. 

Day came at last, a dirty, whitish dawn, bringing penetrating cold withit. When the room had filled with dim light, Laurent, who was shivering, felt calmer. He looked the portrait of Camille straight in the face, and saw it as it was, commonplace and puerile. He took it down, andshrugging his shoulders, called himself a fool. Therese had risenfrom the low chair, and was tumbling the bed about for the purpose ofdeceiving her aunt, so as to make her believe they had passed a happynight. 

"Look here, " Laurent brutally remarked to her, "I hope we shall sleepwell to-night! There must be an end to this sort of childishness. "

Therese cast a deep, grave glance at him. 

"You understand, " he continued. "I did not marry for the purpose ofpassing sleepless nights. We are just like children. It was you whodisturbed me with your ghostly airs. To-night you will try to be gay, and not frighten me. "

He forced himself to laugh without knowing why he did so. 

"I will try, " gloomily answered the young woman. 

Such was the wedding night of Therese and Laurent. 

CHAPTER XXII

The following nights proved still more cruel. The murderers had wishedto pass this part of the twenty-four hours together, so as to be ableto defend themselves against the drowned man, and by a strange effect, since they had been doing so, they shuddered the more. They wereexasperated, and their nerves so irritated, that they underwentatrocious attacks of suffering and terror, at the exchange of a simpleword or look. At the slightest conversation between them, at the leasttalk, they had alone, they began raving, and were ready to draw blood. 

The sort of remorse Laurent experienced was purely physical. His body, his irritated nerves and trembling frame alone were afraid of thedrowned man. His conscience was for nothing in his terror. He did notfeel the least regret at having killed Camille. When he was calm, whenthe spectre did not happen to be there, he would have committed themurder over again, had he thought his interests absolutely required it. 

During the daytime he laughed at himself for his fright, making up hismind to be stronger, and he harshly rebuked Therese, whom he accused oftroubling him. According to what he said, it was Therese who shuddered, it was Therese alone who brought on the frightful scenes, at night, inthe bedroom. And, as soon as night came, as soon as he found himselfshut in with his wife, icy perspiration pearled on his skin, and hisframe shook with childish terror. 

He thus underwent intermittent nervous attacks that returned nightly, and threw his senses into confusion while showing him the hideousgreen face of his victim. These attacks resembled the accesses of somefrightful illness, a sort of hysteria of murder. The name of illness, of nervous affection, was really the only one to give to the terror thatLaurent experienced. His face became convulsed, his limbs rigid, hisnerves could be seen knotting beneath his skin. The body sufferedhorribly, while the spirit remained absent. The wretch felt norepentance. His passion for Therese had conveyed a frightful evil tohim, and that was all. 

Therese also found herself a prey to these heavy shocks. But, in herterror, she showed herself a woman: she felt vague remorse, unavowedregret. She, at times, had an inclination to cast herself on her kneesand beseech the spectre of Camille to pardon her, while swearingto appease it by repentance. Maybe Laurent perceived these acts ofcowardice on the part of Therese, for when they were agitated by thecommon terror, he laid the blame on her, and treated her with brutality. 

On the first nights, they were unable to go to bed. They waited fordaylight, seated before the fire, or pacing to and fro as on the eveningof the wedding-day. The thought of lying down, side by side, on thebed, caused them a sort of terrifying repugnance. By tacit consent, theyavoided kissing one another, and they did not even look at their couch, which Therese tumbled about in the morning. 

When overcome with fatigue, they slept for an hour or two in thearmchairs, to awaken with a start, under the influence of the sinisterdenouement of some nightmare. On awakening, with limbs stiff and tired, shivering all over with discomfort and cold, their faces marbled withlivid blotches, they contemplated one another in bewilderment astonishedto see themselves there. And they displayed strange bashfulness towardseach other, ashamed at showing their disgust and terror. 

But they struggled against sleep as much as they could. They seatedthemselves, one on each side of the chimney, and talked of a thousandtrifles, being very careful not to let the conversation drop. There wasa broad space between them in front of the fire. When they turned theirheads, they imagined that Camille had drawn a chair there, and occupiedthis space, warming his feet in a lugubrious, bantering fashion. Thisvision, which they had seen on the evening of the wedding-day, returnedeach night. 

And this corpse taking a mute, but jeering part, in their interviews, this horribly disfigured body ever remaining there, overwhelmed themwith continued anxiety. Not daring to move, they half blinded themselvesstaring at the scorching flames, and, when unable to resist any longer, they cast a timid glance aside, their eyes irritated by the glowingcoal, created the vision, and conveyed to it a reddish glow. 

Laurent, in the end, refused to remain seated any longer, withoutavowing the cause of this whim to Therese. The latter understood that hemust see Camille as she saw him; and, in her turn, she declared thatthe heat made her feel ill, and that she would be more comfortable a fewsteps away from the chimney. Pushing back her armchair to the foot ofthe bed, she remained there overcome, while her husband resumed his walkin the room. From time to time, he opened the window, allowing the icyair of the cold January night to fill the apartment, and this calmed hisfever. 

For a week, the newly-married couple passed the nights in this fashion, dozing and getting a little rest in the daytime, Therese behind thecounter in the shop, Laurent in his office. At night they belonged topain and fear. And the strangest part of the whole business was theattitude they maintained towards each other. They did not utter one wordof love, but feigned to have forgotten the past; and seemed to accept, to tolerate one another like sick people, feeling secret pity for theirmutual sufferings. 

Both hoped to conceal their disgust and fear, and neither seemed tothink of the peculiar nights they passed, which should have enlightenedthem as to the real state of their beings. When they sat up untilmorning, barely exchanging a word, turning pale at the least sound, theylooked as if they thought all newly-married folk conducted themselvesin the same way, during the first days of their marriage. This was theclumsy hypocrisy of two fools. 

They were soon so overcome by weariness that they one night decidedto lie on the bed. They did not undress, but threw themselves, as theywere, on the quilt, fearing lest their bare skins should touch, for theyfancied they would receive a painful shock at the least contact. Then, when they had slept thus, in an anxious sleep, for two nights, theyrisked removing their clothes, and slipping between the sheets. Butthey remained apart, and took all sorts of precautions so as not to cometogether. 

Therese got into bed first, and lay down close to the wall. Laurentwaited until she had made herself quite comfortable, and then venturedto stretch himself out at the opposite edge of the mattress, so thatthere was a broad space between them. It was there that the corpse ofCamille lay. 

When the two murderers were extended under the same sheet, and hadclosed their eyes, they fancied they felt the damp corpse of theirvictim, lying in the middle of the bed, and turning their flesh icycold. It was like a vile obstacle separating them. They were seized withfever and delirium, and this obstacle, in their minds, became material. They touched the corpse, they saw it spread out, like a greenish anddissolved shred of something, and they inhaled the infectious odour ofthis lump of human putrefaction. All their senses were in a state ofhallucination, conveying intolerable acuteness to their sensations. 

The presence of this filthy bedfellow kept them motionless, silent, abstracted with anguish. Laurent, at times, thought of taking Thereseviolently in his arms; but he dared not move. He said to himself that hecould not extend his hand, without getting it full of the soft flesh ofCamille. Next he fancied that the drowned man came to sleep betweenthem so as to prevent them clasping one another, and he ended byunderstanding that Camille was jealous. 

Nevertheless, ever and anon, they sought to exchange a timid kiss, tosee what would happen. The young man jeered at his wife, and orderedher to embrace him. But their lips were so cold that it seemed as ifthe dead man had got between their mouths. Both felt disgusted. Thereseshuddered with horror, and Laurent who heard her teeth chattering, railed at her:

"Why are you trembling?" he exclaimed. "Are you afraid of Camille? Ah!the poor man is as dead as a doornail at this moment. "

Both avoided saying what made them shudder. When an hallucinationbrought the countenance of the drowned man before Therese, she closedher eyes, keeping her terror to herself, not daring to speak to herhusband of her vision, lest she should bring on a still more terriblecrisis. And it was just the same with Laurent. When driven toextremities, he, in a fit of despair, accused Therese of being afraidof Camille. The name, uttered aloud, occasioned additional anguish. Themurderer raved. 

"Yes, yes, " he stammered, addressing the young woman, "you are afraid ofCamille. I can see that plain enough! You are a silly thing, you haveno pluck at all. Look here! just go to sleep quietly. Do you think yourhusband will come and pull you out of bed by the heels, because I happento be sleeping with you?"

This idea that the drowned man might come and pull them out of bed bythe heels, made the hair of Laurent stand on end, and he continued withgreater violence, while still in the utmost terror himself. 

"I shall have to take you some night to the cemetery. We will open thecoffin Camille is in, and you will see what he looks like! Then you willperhaps cease being afraid. Go on, he doesn't know we threw him in thewater. "

Therese with her head under the bedclothes, was uttering smotheredgroans. 

"We threw him into the water, because he was in our way, " resumed herhusband. "And we'll throw him in again, will we not? Don't act like achild. Show a little strength. It's silly to trouble our happiness. Yousee, my dear, when we are dead and underground, we shall be neither lessnor more happy, because we cast an idiot in the Seine, and we shall havefreely enjoyed our love which will have been an advantage. Come, give mea kiss. "

The young woman kissed him, but she was icy cold, and half crazy, whilehe shuddered as much as she did. 

For a fortnight Laurent was asking himself how he could kill Camilleagain. He had flung him in the water; and yet he was not dead enough, because he came every night to sleep in the bed of Therese. While themurderers thought that having committed the crime, they could love oneanother in peace, their resuscitated victim arrived to make their touchlike ice. Therese was not a widow. Laurent found that he was mated to awoman who already had a drowned man for husband. 

CHAPTER XXIII

Little by little, Laurent became furiously mad, and resolved to driveCamille from his bed. He had first of all slept with his clothes on, then he had avoided touching Therese. In rage and despair, he wanted, atlast, to take his wife in his arms, and crush the spectre of his victimrather than leave her to it. This was a superb revolt of brutality. 

The hope that the kisses of Therese would cure him of his insomnia, hadalone brought him into the room of the young woman. When he had foundhimself there, in the position of master, he had become a prey to suchatrocious attacks, that it had not even occurred to him to attemptthe cure. And he had remained overwhelmed for three weeks, withoutremembering that he had done everything to obtain Therese, and now thatshe was in his possession, he could not touch her without increasedsuffering. 

His excessive anguish drew him from this state of dejection. Inthe first moment of stupor, amid the strange discouragement of thewedding-night, he had forgotten the reasons that had urged him to marry. But his repeated bad dreams had aroused in him a feeling of sullenirritation, which triumphed over his cowardice, and restored his memory. He remembered he had married in order to drive away nightmare, bypressing his wife closely to his breast. Then, one night, he abruptlytook Therese in his arms, and, at the risk of passing over the corpse ofthe drowned man, drew her violently to him. 

The young woman, who was also driven to extremes, would have castherself into the fire had she thought that flames would have purifiedher flesh, and delivered her from her woe. She returned Laurent hisadvances, determined to be either consumed by the caresses of this man, or to find relief in them. 

And they clasped one another in a hideous embrace. Pain and horror tookthe place of love. When their limbs touched, it was like falling on livecoal. They uttered a cry, pressing still closer together, so as notto leave room for the drowned man. But they still felt the shreds ofCamille, which were ignobly squeezed between them, freezing their skinsin parts, whilst in others they were burning hot. 

Their kisses were frightfully cruel. Therese sought the bitethat Camille had given in the stiff, swollen neck of Laurent, andpassionately pressed her lips to it. There was the raw sore; this woundonce healed, and the murderers would sleep in peace. The young womanunderstood this, and she endeavoured to cauterise the bad place with thefire of her caresses. But she scorched her lips, and Laurent thrust herviolently away, giving a dismal groan. It seemed to him that she waspressing a red-hot iron to his neck. Therese, half mad, came back. She wanted to kiss the scar again. She experienced a keenly voluptuoussensation in placing her mouth on this piece of skin wherein Camille hadburied his teeth. 

At one moment she thought of biting her husband in the same place, oftearing away a large piece of flesh, of making a fresh and deeper wound, that would remove the trace of the old one. And she said to herself thatshe would no more turn pale when she saw the marks of her own teeth. But Laurent shielded his neck from her kisses. The smarting pain heexperienced was too acute, and each time his wife presented her lips, hepushed her back. They struggled in this manner with a rattling in theirthroats, writhing in the horror of their caresses. 

They distinctly felt that they only increased their suffering. Theymight well strain one another in these terrible clasps, they cried outwith pain, they burnt and bruised each other, but were unable to calmtheir frightfully excited nerves. Each strain rendered their disgustmore intense. While exchanging these ghastly embraces, they were a preyto the most terrible hallucinations, imagining that the drowned man wasdragging them by the heels, and violently jerking the bedstead. 

For a moment they let one another go, feeling repugnance and invinciblenervous agitation. Then they determined not to be conquered. Theyclasped each other again in a fresh embrace, and once more were obligedto separate, for it seemed as if red-hot bradawls were entering theirlimbs. At several intervals they attempted in this way to overcome theirdisgust, by tiring, by wearing out their nerves. And each time theirnerves became irritated and strained, causing them such exasperation, that they would perhaps have died of enervation had they remained in thearms of one another. This battle against their own bodies excited themto madness, and they obstinately sought to gain the victory. Finally, a more acute crisis exhausted them. They received a shock of suchincredible violence that they thought they were about to have a fit. 

Cast back one on each side of the bed, burning and bruised, they beganto sob. And amidst their tears, they seemed to hear the triumphantlaughter of the drowned man, who again slid, chuckling, under the sheet. They had been unable to drive him from the bed and were vanquished. Camille gently stretched himself between them, whilst Laurent deploredhis want of power to thrust him away, and Therese trembled lest thecorpse should have the idea of taking advantage of the victory to pressher, in his turn, in his arms, in the quality of legitimate master. 

They had made a supreme effort. In face of their defeat, they understoodthat, in future, they dared not exchange the smallest kiss. What theyhad attempted, in order to drive away their terror, had plunged theminto greater fright. And, as they felt the chill of the corpse, whichwas now to separate them for ever, they shed bitter tears, askingthemselves, with anguish, what would become of them. 

CHAPTER XXIV

In accordance with the hopes of old Michaud, when doing his best tobring about the marriage of Therese and Laurent, the Thursday eveningsresumed their former gaiety, as soon as the wedding was over. 

These evenings were in great peril at the time of the death of Camille. The guests came, in fear, into this house of mourning; each week theywere trembling with anxiety, lest they should be definitely dismissed. 

The idea that the door of the shop would no doubt at last be closed tothem, terrified Michaud and Grivet, who clung to their habits with theinstinct and obstinacy of brutes. They said to themselves that the oldwoman and young widow would one day go and weep over the defunct atVernon or elsewhere, and then, on Thursday nights, they would not knowwhat to do. In the mind's eye they saw themselves wandering about thearcade in a lamentable fashion, dreaming of colossal games at dominoes. 

Pending the advent of these bad times, they timidly enjoyed their finalmoments of happiness, arriving with an anxious, sugary air at the shop, and repeating to themselves, on each occasion, that they would perhapsreturn no more. For over a year they were beset with these fears. Inface of the tears of Madame Raquin and the silence of Therese, theydared not make themselves at ease and laugh. They felt they were nolonger at home as in the time of Camille; it seemed, so to say, thatthey were stealing every evening they passed seated at the dining-roomtable. It was in these desperate circumstances that the egotism ofMichaud urged him to strike a masterly stroke by finding a husband forthe widow of the drowned man. 

On the Thursday following the marriage, Grivet and Michaud madea triumphant entry into the dining-room. They had conquered. Thedining-room belonged to them again. They no longer feared dismissal. They came there as happy people, stretching out their legs, and crackingtheir former jokes, one after the other. It could be seen from theirdelighted and confident attitude that, in their idea, a revolution hadbeen accomplished. All recollection of Camille had been dispelled. Thedead husband, the spectre that cast a chill over everyone, hadbeen driven away by the living husband. The past and its joys wereresuscitated. Laurent took the place of Camille, all cause for sadnessdisappeared, the guests could now laugh without grieving anyone; and, indeed, it was their duty to laugh to cheer up this worthy family whowere good enough to receive them. 

Henceforth, Grivet and Michaud, who for nearly eighteen months hadvisited the house under the pretext of consoling Madame Raquin, couldset their little hypocrisy aside, and frankly come and doze opposite oneanother to the sharp ring of the dominoes. 

And each week brought a Thursday evening, each week those lifeless andgrotesque heads which formerly had exasperated Therese, assembled roundthe table. The young woman talked of showing these folk the door; theirbursts of foolish laughter and silly reflections irritated her. ButLaurent made her understand that such a step would be a mistake; it wasnecessary that the present should resemble the past as much as possible;and, above all, they must preserve the friendship of the police, ofthose idiots who protected them from all suspicion. Therese gave way. The guests were well received, and they viewed with delight a futurefull of a long string of warm Thursday evenings. 

It was about this time that the lives of the couple became, in a way, divided in two. 

In the morning, when day drove away the terror of night, Laurent hastilydressed himself. But he only recovered his ease and egotistic calm whenin the dining-room, seated before an enormous bowl of coffee and milk, which Therese prepared for him. Madame Raquin, who had become even morefeeble and could barely get down to the shop, watched him eating with amaternal smile. He swallowed the toast, filled his stomach and little bylittle became tranquillised. After the coffee, he drank a small glass ofbrandy which completely restored him. Then he said "good-bye" to MadameRaquin and Therese, without ever kissing them, and strolled to hisoffice. 

Spring was at hand; the trees along the quays were becoming covered withleaves, with light, pale green lacework. The river ran with caressingsounds below; above, the first sunny rays of the year shed gentlewarmth. Laurent felt himself another man in the fresh air; he freelyinhaled this breath of young life descending from the skies of Apriland May; he sought the sun, halting to watch the silvery reflectionstreaking the Seine, listening to the sounds on the quays, allowingthe acrid odours of early day to penetrate him, enjoying the clear, delightful morn. 

He certainly thought very little about Camille. Sometimes he listlesslycontemplated the Morgue on the other side of the water, and his mindthen reverted to his victim, like a man of courage might think ofa silly fright that had come over him. With stomach full, and facerefreshed, he recovered his thick-headed tranquillity. He reached hisoffice, and passed the whole day gaping, and awaiting the time to leave. He was a mere clerk like the others, stupid and weary, without anidea in his head, save that of sending in his resignation and takinga studio. He dreamed vaguely of a new existence of idleness, and thissufficed to occupy him until evening. 

Thoughts of the shop in the arcade never troubled him. At night, afterlonging for the hour of release since the morning, he left his officewith regret, and followed the quays again, secretly troubled andanxious. However slowly he walked, he had to enter the shop at last, andthere terror awaited him. 

Therese experienced the same sensations. So long as Laurent was notbeside her, she felt at ease. She had dismissed her charwoman, sayingthat everything was in disorder, and the shop and apartment filthydirty. She all at once had ideas of tidiness. The truth was that shefelt the necessity of moving about, of doing something, of exercisingher stiff limbs. She went hither and thither all the morning, sweeping, dusting, cleaning the rooms, washing up the plates and dishes, doingwork that would have disgusted her formerly. These household duties kepther on her feet, active and silent, until noon, without allowing hertime to think of aught else than the cobwebs hanging from the ceilingand the greasy plates. 

On the stroke of twelve, she went to the kitchen to prepare lunch. Attable, Madame Raquin was pained to see her always rising to fetch thedishes; she was touched and annoyed at the activity displayed by herniece; she scolded her, and Therese replied that it was necessary toeconomise. When the meal was over, the young woman dressed, and at lastdecided to join her aunt behind the counter. There, sleep overtookher; worn out by her restless nights, she dozed off, yielding to thevoluptuous feeling of drowsiness that gained her, as soon as she satdown. 

These were only light spells of heaviness, replete with vague charm thatcalmed her nerves. The thoughts of Camille left her; she enjoyed thattranquil repose of invalids who are all at once freed from pain. She felt relieved in body, her mind free, she sank into a gentle andrepairing state of nothingness. Deprived of these few calm moments, shewould have broken down under the tension of her nervous system. Thesespells of somnolence gave her strength to suffer again, and becometerrified the ensuing night. As a matter of fact she did not sleep, she barely closed her lids, and was lost in a dream of peace. When acustomer entered, she opened her eyes, served the few sous worth ofarticles asked for, and fell back into the floating reverie. 

In this manner she passed three or four hours of perfect happiness, answering her aunt in monosyllables, and yielding with real enjoyment tothese moments of unconsciousness which relieved her of her thoughts, andcompletely overcame her. She barely, at long intervals, cast a glanceinto the arcade, and was particularly at her ease in cloudy weather, when it was dark and she could conceal her lassitude in the gloom. 

The damp and disgusting arcade, crossed by a lot of wretched drenchedpedestrians, whose umbrellas dripped upon the tiles, seemed to her likean alley in a low quarter, a sort of dirty, sinister corridor, whereno one would come to seek and trouble her. At moments, when she saw thedull gleams of light that hung around her, when she smelt the bitterodour of the dampness, she imagined she had just been buried alive, thatshe was underground, at the bottom of a common grave swarming with dead. And this thought consoled and appeased her, for she said to herself thatshe was now in security, that she was about to die and would suffer nomore. 

But sometimes she had to keep her eyes open; Suzanne paid her a visit, and remained embroidering near the counter all the afternoon. The wifeof Olivier, with her putty face and slow movements, now pleased Therese, who experienced strange relief in observing this poor, broken-upcreature, and had made a friend of her. She loved to see her at herside, smiling with her faint smile, more dead than alive, and bringinginto the shop the stuffy odour of the cemetery. When the blue eyes ofSuzanne, transparent as glass, rested fixedly on those of Therese, thelatter experienced a beneficent chill in the marrow of her bones. 

Therese remained thus until four o'clock, when she returned to thekitchen, and there again sought fatigue, preparing dinner for Laurentwith febrile haste. But when her husband appeared on the threshold shefelt a tightening in the throat, and all her being once more became aprey to anguish. 

Each day, the sensations of the couple were practically the same. Duringthe daytime, when they were not face to face, they enjoyed delightfulhours of repose; at night, as soon as they came together, bothexperienced poignant discomfort. 

The evenings, nevertheless, were calm. Therese and Laurent, whoshuddered at the thought of going to their room, sat up as long aspossible. Madame Raquin, reclining in a great armchair, was placedbetween them, and chatted in her placid voice. She spoke of Vernon, still thinking of her son, but avoiding to mention him from a sort offeeling of diffidence for the others; she smiled at her dear children, and formed plans for their future. The lamp shed its faint gleams on herwhite face, and her words sounded particularly sweet in the silence andstillness of the room. 

The murderers, one seated on each side of her, silent and motionless, seemed to be attentively listening to what she said. In truth they didnot attempt to follow the sense of the gossip of the good old lady. Theywere simply pleased to hear this sound of soft words which preventedthem attending the crash of their own thoughts. They dared notcast their eyes on one another, but looked at Madame Raquin to givethemselves countenances. They never breathed a word about going tobed; they would have remained there until morning, listening to theaffectionate nonsense of the former mercer, amid the appeasement shespread around her, had she not herself expressed the desire to retire. It was only then that they quitted the dining-room and entered theirown apartment in despair, as if casting themselves to the bottom of anabyss. 

But they soon had much more preference for the Thursday gatherings, than for these family evenings. When alone with Madame Raquin, they wereunable to divert their thoughts; the feeble voice of their aunt, and hertender gaiety, did not stifle the cries that lacerated them. They couldfeel bedtime coming on, and they shuddered when their eyes caught sightof the door of their room. Awaiting the moment when they would be alone, became more and more cruel as the evening advanced. On Thursday night, on the contrary, they were giddy with folly, one forgot the presence ofthe other, and they suffered less. Therese ended by heartily longing forthe reception days. Had Michaud and Grivet not arrived, she would havegone and fetched them. When strangers were in the dining-room, betweenherself and Laurent, she felt more calm. She would have liked to alwayshave guests there, to hear a noise, something to divert her, and detachher from her thoughts. In the presence of other people, she displayed asort of nervous gaiety. Laurent also recovered his previous merriment, returning to his coarse peasant jests, his hoarse laughter, hispractical jokes of a former canvas dauber. Never had these gatheringsbeen so gay and noisy. 

It was thus that Laurent and Therese could remain face to face, once aweek, without shuddering. 

But they were soon beset with further anxiety. Paralysis was little bylittle gaining on Madame Raquin, and they foresaw the day when shewould be riveted to her armchair, feeble and doltish. The poor old ladyalready began to stammer fragments of disjointed phrases; her voice wasgrowing weaker, and her limbs were one by one losing their vitality. She was becoming a thing. It was with terror that Therese and Laurentobserved the breaking up of this being who still separated them, andwhose voice drew them from their bad dreams. When the old mercer losther intelligence, and remained stiff and silent in her armchair, theywould find themselves alone, and in the evening would no longer be ableto escape the dreadful face to face conversation. Then their terrorwould commence at six o'clock instead of midnight. It would drive themmad. 

They made every effort to give Madame Raquin that health which hadbecome so necessary to them. They called in doctors, and bestowed on thepatient all sorts of little attentions. Even this occupation of nursescaused them to forget, and afforded them an appeasement that encouragedthem to double in zeal. They did not wish to lose a third partywho rendered their evenings supportable; and they did not wish thedining-room and the whole house to become a cruel and sinister spot liketheir room. 

Madame Raquin was singularly touched at the assiduous care they took ofher. She applauded herself, amid tears, at having united them, and athaving abandoned to them her forty thousand francs. Never, since thedeath of her son, had she counted on so much affection in her finalmoments. Her old age was quite softened by the tenderness of her dearchildren. She did not feel the implacable paralysis which, in spite ofall, made her more and more rigid day by day. 

Nevertheless, Therese and Laurent continued to lead their doubleexistence. In each of them there were like two distinct beings: anervous, terrified being who shuddered as soon as dusk set in, and atorpid forgetful being, who breathed at ease when the sun rose. Theylived two lives, crying out in anguish when alone, and peacefullysmiling in company. Never did their faces, in public, show the slightesttrace of the sufferings that had reached them in private. They appearedcalm and happy, and instinctively concealed their troubles. 

To see them so tranquil in the daytime, no one would have suspectedthe hallucinations that tortured them every night. They would have beentaken for a couple blessed by heaven, and living in the enjoyment offull felicity. Grivet gallantly called them the "turtle-doves. " Whenhe jested about their fatigued looks, Laurent and Therese barely turnedpale, and even succeeded in forcing on a smile. They became accustomedto the naughty jokes of the old clerk. 

So long as they remained in the dining-room, they were able to keeptheir terror under control. The mind could not imagine the frightfulchange that came over them, as soon as they were shut up in theirbedroom. On the Thursday night, particularly, this transformation wasso violently brutal, that it seemed as if accomplished in a supernaturalworld. The drama in the bedroom, by its strangeness, by its savagepassion, surpassed all belief, and remained deeply concealed withintheir aching beings. Had they spoken of it, they would have been takenfor mad. 

"How happy those sweethearts are!" frequently remarked old Michaud. "They hardly say a word, but that does not prevent them thinking. I betthey devour one another with kisses when we have gone. "

Such was the opinion of the company. Therese and Laurent came to bespoken of as a model couple. All the tenants in the Arcade of the PontNeuf extolled the affection, the tranquil happiness, the everlastinghoneymoon of the married pair. They alone knew that the corpse ofCamille slept between them; they alone felt, beneath the calm exteriorof their faces, the nervous contractions that, at night, horriblydistorted their features, and changed the placid expression of theirphysiognomies into hideous masks of pain. 

CHAPTER XXV

At the expiration of four months, Laurent thought of taking advantageof the profit he had calculated on deriving from his marriage. He wouldhave abandoned his wife, and fled from the spectre of Camille, threedays after the wedding, had not his interest detained him at the shop inthe arcade. He accepted his nights of terror, he remained in the anguishthat was choking him, so as not to be deprived of the benefit of hiscrime. 

If he parted from Therese, he would again be plunged in poverty, andbe forced to retain his post; by remaining with her, he would, on thecontrary, be able to satisfy his inclination for idleness, and to liveliberally, doing nothing, on the revenue Madame Raquin had placed in thename of his wife. Very likely he would have fled with the 40, 000 francs, had he been able to realise them; but the old mercer, on the advice ofMichaud, had shown the prudence to protect the interests of her niece inthe marriage contract. 

Laurent, in this manner, found himself attached to Therese by a powerfulbond. As a set-off against his atrocious nights, he determined at leastto be kept in blissful laziness, well fed, warmly clothed, and providedwith the necessary cash in his pocket to satisfy his whims. At thisprice alone, would he consent to sleep with the corpse of the drownedman. 

One evening, he announced to Madame Raquin and his wife that he had sentin his resignation, and would quit his office at the end of a fortnight. Therese gave a gesture of anxiety. He hastened to add that he intendedtaking a small studio where he would go on with his painting. He spokeat length about the annoyance of his employment, and the broad horizonsthat Art opened to him. Now that he had a few sous and could make abid for success, he wished to see whether he was not capable of greatachievements. 

The speech he made on this subject simply concealed a ferocious desireto resume his former studio life. Therese sat with pinched lips withoutreplying; she had no idea of allowing Laurent to squander the smallfortune that assured her liberty. When her husband pressed her withquestions in view of obtaining her consent, she answered curtly, givinghim to understand that if he left his office, he would no longer beearning any money, and would be living entirely at her expense. 

But, as she spoke, Laurent observed her so keenly, that he troubled her, and arrested on her lips the refusal she was about to utter. She fanciedshe read in the eyes of her accomplice, this menacing threat:

"If you do not consent, I shall reveal everything. "

She began to stammer, and Madame Raquin exclaimed that the desire of herdear son was no more than what was just, and that they must give him themeans to become a man of talent. The good lady spoilt Laurent as she hadspoilt Camille. Quite mollified by the caresses the young man lavishedon her, she belonged to him, and never failed to take his part. 

It was therefore decided that Laurent should have a studio, and receiveone hundred francs a month pocket-money. The budget of the family wasarranged in this way: the profits realised in the mercery business wouldpay the rent of the shop and apartment, and the balance would almostsuffice for the daily expenses of the family; Laurent would receive therent of his studio and his one hundred francs a month, out of the twothousand and a few hundred francs income from the funded money, theremainder going into the general purse. In that way the capital wouldremain intact. This arrangement somewhat tranquillised Therese, whonevertheless made her husband swear that he would never go beyond thesum allowed him. But as to that matter, she said to herself that Laurentcould not get possession of the 40, 000 francs without her signature, andshe was thoroughly determined that she would never place her name to anydocument. 

On the morrow, Laurent took a small studio in the lower part of the RueMazarine, which his eye had been fixed on for a month. He did not meanto leave his office without having a refuge where he could quietly passhis days far away from Therese. At the end of the fortnight, he badeadieu to his colleagues. Grivet was stupefied at his departure. A youngman, said he, who had such a brilliant future before him, a young manwho in the space of four years, had reached a salary that he, Grivet, had taken twenty years to attain! Laurent stupefied him still more, whenhe told him he was going to give his whole time to painting. 

At last the artist installed himself in his studio, which was a sortof square loft about seven or eight yards long by the same breadth. Theceiling which inclined abruptly in a rapid slope, was pierced by a largewindow conveying a white raw light to the floor and blackish walls. The sounds in the street did not ascend so high. This silent, wan room, opening above on the sky, resembled a hole, or a vault dug out of greyclay. Laurent furnished the place anywise; he brought a couple of chairswith holes in the rush seats, a table that he set against the wall sothat it might not slip down, an old kitchen dresser, his colour-box andeasel; all the luxury in the place consisted of a spacious divan whichhe purchased for thirty francs from a second-hand dealer. 

He remained a fortnight without even thinking of touching his brushes. He arrived between eight and nine o'clock in the morning, smoked, stretched himself on the divan, and awaited noon, delighted that it wasmorning, and that he had many hours of daylight before him. At twelvehe went to lunch. As soon as the meal was over, he hastened back, to bealone, and get away from the pale face of Therese. He next went throughthe process of digestion, sleeping spread out on the divan untilevening. His studio was an abode of peace where he did not tremble. Oneday his wife asked him if she might visit this dear refuge. He refused, and as, notwithstanding his refusal, she came and knocked at the door, he refrained from opening to her, telling her in the evening that hehad spent the day at the Louvre Museum. He was afraid that Therese mightbring the spectre of Camille with her. 

Idleness ended by weighing heavily on his shoulders, so he purchased acanvas and colours, and set to work. As he had not sufficient money topay models, he resolved to paint according to fancy, without troublingabout nature, and he began the head of a man. 

But at this time, he did not shut himself up so much as he had done;he worked for two or three hours every morning and passed the afternoonstrolling hither and thither in Paris and its vicinity. It was oppositethe Institut, on his return from one of these long walks, that heknocked up against his old college friend, who had met with a nicelittle success, thanks to the good fellowship of his comrades, at thelast Salon. 

"What, is it you?" exclaimed the painter. "Ah! my poor Laurent, I hardlyrecognise you. You have lost flesh. "

"I am married, " answered Laurent in an embarrassed tone. 

"Married, you!" said the other. "Then I am not surprised to see you lookso funny: and what are you doing now?"

"I have taken a small studio, " replied Laurent; "and I paint a little, in the morning. "

Then, in a feverish voice, he briefly related the story of his marriage, and explained his future plans. His friend observed him with an airof astonishment that troubled and alarmed him. The truth was that thepainter no longer found in the husband of Therese, the coarse, commonfellow he had known formerly. It seemed to him that Laurent wasacquiring a gentlemanly bearing; his face had grown thinner, and hadtaken the pale tint of good taste, while his whole frame looked moreupright and supple. 

"But you are becoming a handsome chap, " the artist could not refrainfrom exclaiming. "You are dressed like an ambassador, in the lateststyle. Who's your model?"

Laurent, who felt the weight of the examination he was undergoing, didnot dare to abruptly take himself off. 

"Will you come up to my studio for a moment?" he at last asked hisfriend, who showed no signs of leaving him. 

"Willingly, " answered the latter. 

The painter, who could not understand the change he noticed in his oldcomrade, was anxious to visit his studio. He had no idea of climbingfive floors to gaze on the new pictures of Laurent, which assuredlywould disgust him; he merely wished to satisfy his curiosity. 

When he had reached the studio, and had glanced at the canvases hangingagainst the walls, his astonishment redoubled. They comprised fivestudies, two heads of women, and three of men painted with real vigour. They looked thick and substantial, each part being dashed off withmagnificent dabs of colour on a clear grey background. The artistquickly approached, and was so astounded that he did not even seek toconceal his amazement. 

"Did you do those?" he inquired of Laurent. 

"Yes, " replied the latter. "They are studies that I intend to utilise ina large picture I am preparing. "

"Come, no humbug, are you really the author of those things?"

"Eh! Yes. Why should I not be the author of them?"

The painter did not like to answer what he thought, which was asfollows:

"Because those canvases are the work of an artist, and you have neverbeen anything but a vile bungler. "

For a long time, he remained before the studies in silence. Certainlythey were clumsy, but they were original, and so powerfully executedthat they indicated a highly developed idea of art. They were life-like. Never had this friend of Laurent seen rough painting so full of highpromise. When he had examined all the canvases, he turned to the authorof them and said:

"Well, frankly, I should never have thought you capable of painting likethat. Where the deuce did you learn to have talent? It is not usually athing that one acquires. "

And he considered Laurent, whose voice appeared to him more gentle, while every gesture he made had a sort of elegance. The artist hadno idea of the frightful shock this man had received, and which hadtransformed him, developing in him the nerves of a woman, along withkeen, delicate sensations. No doubt a strange phenomenon had beenaccomplished in the organism of the murderer of Camille. It is difficultfor analysis to penetrate to such depths. Laurent had, perhaps, becomean artist as he had become afraid, after the great disorder that hadupset his frame and mind. 

Previously, he had been half choked by the fulness of his blood, blindedby the thick vapour of breath surrounding him. At present, grownthin, and always shuddering, his manner had become anxious, while heexperienced the lively and poignant sensations of a man of nervoustemperament. In the life of terror that he led, his mind had growndelirious, ascending to the ecstasy of genius. The sort of moral malady, the neurosis wherewith all his being was agitated, had developed anartistic feeling of peculiar lucidity. Since he had killed, his frameseemed lightened, his distracted mind appeared to him immense; and, inthis abrupt expansion of his thoughts, he perceived exquisite creations, the reveries of a poet passing before his eyes. It was thus that hisgestures had suddenly become elegant, that his works were beautiful, andwere all at once rendered true to nature, and life-like. 

The friend did not seek further to fathom the mystery attending thisbirth of the artist. He went off carrying his astonishment along withhim. But before he left, he again gazed at the canvases and said toLaurent:

"I have only one thing to reproach you with: all these studies havea family likeness. The five heads resemble each other. The women, themselves, have a peculiarly violent bearing that gives them theappearance of men in disguise. You will understand that if you desireto make a picture out of these studies, you must change some of thephysiognomies; your personages cannot all be brothers, or brothers andsisters, it would excite hilarity. "

He left the studio, and on the landing merrily added:

"Really, my dear boy, I am very pleased to have seen you. Henceforth, Ishall believe in miracles. Good heavens! How highly respectable you dolook!"

As he went downstairs, Laurent returned to the studio, feeling very muchupset. When his friend had remarked that all his studies of heads borea family likeness, he had abruptly turned round to conceal his paleness. The fact was that he had already been struck by this fatal resemblance. Slowly entering the room, he placed himself before the pictures, andas he contemplated them, as he passed from one to the other, ice-likeperspiration moistened his back. 

"He is quite right, " he murmured, "they all resemble one another. Theyresemble Camille. "

He retired a step or two, and seated himself on the divan, unable toremove his eyes from the studies of heads. The first was an old man witha long white beard; and under this white beard, the artist traced thelean chin of Camille. The second represented a fair young girl, whogazed at him with the blue eyes of his victim. Each of the other threefaces presented a feature of the drowned man. It looked like Camillewith the theatrical make-up of an old man, of a young girl, assumingwhatever disguise it pleased the painter to give him, but stillmaintaining the general expression of his own countenance. 

There existed another terrible resemblance among these heads: they allappeared suffering and terrified, and seemed as though overburdened withthe same feeling of horror. Each of them had a slight wrinkle to theleft of the mouth, which drawing down the lips, produced a grimace. Thiswrinkle, which Laurent remembered having noticed on the convulsed faceof the drowned man, marked them all with a sign of vile relationship. 

Laurent understood that he had taken too long a look at Camille at theMorgue. The image of the drowned man had become deeply impressed on hismind; and now, his hand, without his being conscious of it, never failedto draw the lines of this atrocious face which followed him everywhere. 

Little by little, the painter, who was allowing himself to fall backon the divan, fancied he saw the faces become animated. He had fiveCamilles before him, five Camilles whom his own fingers had powerfullycreated, and who, by terrifying peculiarity were of various ages and ofboth sexes. He rose, he lacerated the pictures and threw them outside. He said to himself that he would die of terror in his studio, were he topeople it with portraits of his victim. 

A fear had just come over him: he dreaded that he would no more be ableto draw a head without reproducing that of the drowned man. He wished toascertain, at once, whether he were master of his own hand. He placed awhite canvas on his easel; and, then, with a bit of charcoal, sketchedout a face in a few lines. The face resembled Camille. Laurent swiftlyeffaced this drawing and tried another. 

For an hour he struggled against futility, which drove along hisfingers. At each fresh attempt, he went back to the head of the drownedman. He might indeed assert his will, and avoid the lines he knew sowell. In spite of himself, he drew those lines, he obeyed his musclesand his rebellious nerves. He had first of all proceeded rapidly withhis sketches; he now took pains to pass the stick of charcoal slowlyover the canvas. The result was the same: Camille, grimacing and inpain, appeared ceaselessly. 

The artist sketched the most different heads successively: the heads ofangels, of virgins with aureoles, of Roman warriors with their helmets, of fair, rosy children, of old bandits seamed with scars; and thedrowned man always, always reappeared; he became, in turn, angel, virgin, warrior, child and bandit. 

Then, Laurent plunged into caricature: he exaggerated the features, he produced monstrous profiles, he invented grotesque heads, butonly succeeded in rendering the striking portrait of his victim morehorrible. He finished by drawing animals, dogs and cats; but even thedogs and cats vaguely resembled Camille. 

Laurent then became seized with sullen rage. He smashed the canvas withhis fist, thinking in despair of his great picture. Now, he must putthat idea aside; he was convinced that, in future, he would draw nothingbut the head of Camille, and as his friend had told him, faces all alikewould cause hilarity. He pictured to himself what his work would havebeen, and perceived upon the shoulders of his personages, men and women, the livid and terrified face of the drowned man. The strange picture hethus conjured up, appeared to him atrociously ridiculous and exasperatedhim. 

He no longer dared to paint, always dreading that he would resuscitatehis victim at the least stroke of his brush. If he desired to livepeacefully in his studio he must never paint there. This thought thathis fingers possessed the fatal and unconscious faculty of reproducingwithout end the portrait of Camille, made him observe his hand interror. It seemed to him that his hand no longer belonged to him. 

CHAPTER XXVI

The crisis threatening Madame Raquin took place. The paralysis, whichfor several months had been creeping along her limbs, always ready tostrangle her, at last took her by the throat and linked her body. Oneevening, while conversing peacefully with Therese and Laurent, sheremained in the middle of a sentence with her mouth wide open: she feltas if she was being throttled. When she wanted to cry out and call forhelp, she could only splutter a few hoarse sounds. Her hands and feetwere rigid. She found herself struck dumb, and powerless to move. 

Therese and Laurent rose from their chairs, terrified at this stroke, which had contorted the old mercer in less than five seconds. When shebecame rigid, and fixed her supplicating eyes on them, they pressed herwith questions in order to ascertain the cause of her suffering. Unableto reply, she continued gazing at them in profound anguish. 

They then understood that they had nothing but a corpse before them, acorpse half alive that could see and hear, but could not speak to them. They were in despair at this attack. At the bottom of their hearts, theycared little for the suffering of the paralysed woman. They mourned overthemselves, who in future would have to live alone, face to face. 

From this day the life of the married couple became intolerable. Theypassed the most cruel evenings opposite the impotent old lady, who nolonger lulled their terror with her gentle, idle chatter. She reposed inan armchair, like a parcel, a thing, while they remained alone, oneat each end of the table, embarrassed and anxious. This body no longerseparated them; at times they forgot it, confounding it with thearticles of furniture. 

They were now seized with the same terror as at night. The dining-roombecame, like the bedroom, a terrible spot, where the spectre of Camillearose, causing them to suffer an extra four or five hours daily. As soonas twilight came, they shuddered, lowering the lamp-shade so as not tosee one another, and endeavouring to persuade themselves that MadameRaquin was about to speak and thus remind them of her presence. If theykept her with them, if they did not get rid of her, it was because hereyes were still alive, and they experienced a little relief in watchingthem move and sparkle. 

They always placed the impotent old lady in the bright beam of the lamp, so as to thoroughly light up her face and have it always before them. This flabby, livid countenance would have been a sight that otherscould not have borne, but Therese and Laurent experienced such need forcompany, that they gazed upon it with real joy. 

This face looked like that of a dead person in the centre of which twoliving eyes had been fixed. These eyes alone moved, rolling rapidly intheir orbits. The cheeks and mouth maintained such appalling immobilitythat they seemed as though petrified. When Madame Raquin fell asleep andlowered her lids, her countenance, which was then quite white and mute, was really that of a corpse. Therese and Laurent, who no longer feltanyone with them, then made a noise until the paralysed woman raised hereyelids and looked at them. In this manner they compelled her to remainawake. 

They regarded her as a distraction that drew them from their bad dreams. Since she had been infirm, they had to attend to her like a child. Thecare they lavished on her forced them to scatter their thoughts. In themorning Laurent lifted her up and bore her to her armchair; at night heplaced her on her bed again. She was still heavy, and he had to exertall his strength to raise her delicately in his arms, and carry her. Itwas also he who rolled her armchair along. The other attentions fellto Therese. She dressed and fed the impotent old lady, and sought tounderstand her slightest wish. 

For a few days Madame Raquin preserved the use of her hands. She couldwrite on a slate, and in this way asked for what she required; then thehands withered, and it became impossible for her to raise them or holda pencil. From that moment her eyes were her only language, and itwas necessary for her niece to guess what she desired. The youngwoman devoted herself to the hard duties of sick-nurse, which gave heroccupation for body and mind that did her much good. 

So as not to remain face to face, the married couple rolled the armchairof the poor old lady into the dining-room, the first thing in themorning. They placed her between them, as if she were necessary to theirexistence. They caused her to be present at their meals, and at alltheir interviews. When she signified the desire to retire to herbedroom, they feigned not to understand. She was only of use tointerrupt their private conversations, and had no right to live apart. 

At eight o'clock, Laurent went to his studio, Therese descended to theshop, while the paralyzed woman remained alone in the dining-room untilnoon; then, after lunch, she found herself without company again untilsix o'clock. Frequently, during the day, her niece ran upstairs, and, hovering round her, made sure she did not require anything. The friendsof the family were at a loss for sufficiently laudatory phrases whereinto extol the virtues of Therese and Laurent. 

The Thursday receptions continued, the impotent old lady being present, as in the past. Her armchair was advanced to the table, and from eighto'clock till eleven she kept her eyes open, casting penetrating glancesfrom one to another of her guests in turn. On the first few of theseevenings, old Michaud and Grivet felt some embarrassment in the presenceof the corpse of their old friend. They did not know what countenance toput on. They only experienced moderate sorrow, and they were inquiringin their minds in what measure it would be suitable to display theirgrief. Should they speak to this lifeless form? Should they refrainfrom troubling about it? Little by little, they decided to treat MadameRaquin as though nothing had happened to her. They ended by feigningto completely ignore her condition. They chatted with her, puttingquestions and giving the answers, laughing both for her and forthemselves, and never permitting the rigid expression on the countenanceto baffle them. 

It was a strange sight: these men who appeared to be speaking sensiblyto a statue, just as little girls talk to their dolls. The paralysedwoman sat rigid and mute before them, while they babbled, multiplyingtheir gestures in exceedingly animated conversations with her. Michaudand Grivet prided themselves on their correct attitude. In acting asthey did, they believed they were giving proof of politeness; they, moreover, avoided the annoyance of the customary condolences. Theyfancied that Madame Raquin must feel flattered to find herself treatedas a person in good health; and, from that moment, it became possiblefor them to be merry in her presence, without the least scruple. 

Grivet had contracted a mania. He affirmed that Madame Raquin andhimself understood one another perfectly; and that she could not look athim without him at once comprehending what she desired. This was anotherdelicate attention. Only Grivet was on every occasion in error. Hefrequently interrupted the game of dominoes, to observe the infirm womanwhose eyes were quietly following the game, and declare that she wantedsuch or such a thing. On further inquiry it was found that she wantednothing at all, or that she wanted something entirely different. Thisdid not discourage Grivet, who triumphantly exclaimed:

"Just as I said!" And he began again a few moments later. 

It was quite another matter when the impotent old lady openly expresseda desire; Therese, Laurent, and the guests named one object afteranother that they fancied she might wish for. Grivet then made himselfremarkable by the clumsiness of his offers. He mentioned, haphazard, everything that came into his head, invariably offering the contrary towhat Madame Raquin desired. But this circumstance did not prevent himrepeating:

"I can read in her eyes as in a book. Look, she says I am right. Is itnot so, dear lady? Yes, yes. "

Nevertheless, it was no easy matter to grasp the wishes of the poor oldwoman. Therese alone possessed this faculty. She communicated fairlywell with this walled-up brain, still alive, but buried in a lifelessframe. What was passing within this wretched creature, just sufficientlyalive to be present at the events of life, without taking part in them?She saw and heard, she no doubt reasoned in a distinct and clearmanner. But she was without gesture and voice to express the thoughtsoriginating in her mind. Her ideas were perhaps choking her, and yetshe could not raise a hand, nor open her mouth, even though one of hermovements or words should decide the destiny of the world. 

Her mind resembled those of the living buried by mistake, who awakenin the middle of the night in the earth, three or four yards below thesurface of the ground. They shout, they struggle, and people pass overthem without hearing their atrocious lamentations. 

Laurent frequently gazed at Madame Raquin, his lips pressed together, his hands stretched out on his knees, putting all his life into hissparkling and swiftly moving eyes. And he said to himself:

"Who knows what she may be thinking of all alone? Some cruel drama mustbe passing within this inanimate frame. "

Laurent made a mistake. Madame Raquin was happy, happy at the care andaffection bestowed on her by her dear children. She had always dreamedof ending in this gentle way, amidst devotedness and caresses. Certainlyshe would have been pleased to have preserved her speech, so as to beable to thank the friends who assisted her to die in peace. But sheaccepted her condition without rebellion. The tranquil and retiredlife she had always led, the sweetness of her character, prevented herfeeling too acutely the suffering of being mute and unable to make amovement. She had entered second childhood. She passed days withoutweariness, gazing before her, and musing on the past. She even tastedthe charm of remaining very good in her armchair, like a little girl. 

Each day the sweetness and brightness of her eyes became morepenetrating. She had reached the point of making them perform the dutiesof a hand or mouth, in asking for what she required and in expressingher thanks. In this way she replaced the organs that were wanting, in amost peculiar and charming manner. Her eyes, in the centre of her flabbyand grimacing face, were of celestial beauty. 

Since her twisted and inert lips could no longer smile, she smiled withadorable tenderness, by her looks; moist beams and rays of dawn issuedfrom her orbits. Nothing was more peculiar than those eyes which laughedlike lips in this lifeless countenance. The lower part of the faceremained gloomy and wan, while the upper part was divinely lit up. It was particularly for her beloved children that she placed all hergratitude, all the affection of her soul into a simple glance. WhenLaurent took her in his arms, morning and night, to carry her, shethanked him lovingly by looks full of tender effusion. 

She lived thus for weeks, awaiting death, fancying herself shelteredfrom any fresh misfortune. She thought she had already received hershare of suffering. But she was mistaken. One night she was crushed by afrightful blow. 

Therese and Laurent might well place her between them, in the fulllight, but she was no longer sufficiently animated to separate anddefend them against their anguish. When they forgot that she was thereand could hear and see them, they were seized with folly. PerceivingCamille, they sought to drive him away. Then, in unsteady tones, they allowed the truth to escape them, uttering words that revealedeverything to Madame Raquin. Laurent had a sort of attack, duringwhich he spoke like one under the influence of hallucination, and theparalysed woman abruptly understood. 

A frightful contraction passed over her face, and she experienced sucha shock that Therese thought she was about to bound to her feet andshriek, but she fell backward, rigid as iron. This shock was all themore terrible as it seemed to galvanise a corpse. Sensibility which hadfor a moment returned, disappeared; the impotent woman remained morecrushed and wan than before. Her eyes, usually so gentle, had becomedark and harsh, resembling pieces of metal. 

Never had despair fallen more rigorously on a being. The sinister truth, like a flash of flame, scorched the eyes of the paralysed woman andpenetrated within her with the concussion of a shaft of lightning. Hadshe been able to rise, to utter the cry of horror that ascended to herthroat, and curse the murderers of her son, she would have sufferedless. But, after hearing and understanding everything, she was forcedto remain motionless and mute, inwardly preserving all the glare of hergrief. 

It seemed to her that Therese and Laurent had bound her, riveted her toher armchair to prevent her springing up, and that they took atrociouspleasure in repeating to her, after gagging her to stifle her cries--

"We have killed Camille!"

Terror and anguish coursed furiously in her body unable to find anissue. She made superhuman efforts to raise the weight crushing her, toclear her throat and thus give passage to her flood of despair. In vaindid she strain her final energy; she felt her tongue cold against herpalate, she could not tear herself from death. Cadaverous impotence heldher rigid. Her sensations resembled those of a man fallen into lethargy, who is being buried, and who, bound by the bonds of his own frame, hearsthe deadened sound of the shovels of mould falling on his head. 

The ravages to which her heart was subjected, proved still moreterrible. She felt a blow inwardly that completely undid her. Herentire life was afflicted: all her tenderness, all her goodness, all herdevotedness had just been brutally upset and trampled under foot. Shehad led a life of affection and gentleness, and in her last hours, whenabout to carry to the grave a belief in the delight of a calm life, avoice shouted to her that all was falsehood and all crime. 

The veil being rent, she perceived apart from the love and friendshipwhich was all she had hitherto been able to see, a frightful picture ofblood and shame. She would have cursed the Almighty had she been able toshout out a blasphemy. Providence had deceived her for over sixty years, by treating her as a gentle, good little girl, by amusing her withlying representations of tranquil joy. And she had remained a child, senselessly believing in a thousand silly things, and unable to see lifeas it really is, dragging along in the sanguinary filth of passions. Providence was bad; it should have told her the truth before, or haveallowed her to continue in her innocence and blindness. Now, it onlyremained for her to die, denying love, denying friendship, denyingdevotedness. Nothing existed but murder and lust. 

What! Camille had been killed by Therese and Laurent, and they hadconceived the crime in shame! For Madame Raquin, there was such afathomless depth in this thought, that she could neither reason itout, nor grasp it clearly. She experienced but one sensation, that ofa horrible disaster; it seemed to her that she was falling into a dark, cold hole. And she said to herself:

"I shall be smashed to pieces at the bottom. "

After the first shock, the crime appeared to her so monstrous that itseemed impossible. Then, when convinced of the misbehaviour and murder, by recalling certain little incidents which she had formerly failed tounderstand, she was afraid of going out of her mind. Therese and Laurentwere really the murderers of Camille: Therese whom she had reared, Laurent whom she had loved with the devoted and tender affection ofa mother. These thoughts revolved in her head like an immense wheel, accompanied by a deafening noise. 

She conjectured such vile details, fathomed such immense hypocrisy, assisting in thought at a double vision so atrocious in irony, that shewould have liked to die, mechanical and implacable, pounded her brainwith the weight and ceaseless action of a millstone. She repeated toherself:

"It is my children who have killed my child. "

And she could think of nothing else to express her despair. 

In the sudden change that had come over her heart, she no longerrecognised herself. She remained weighed down by the brutal invasion ofideas of vengeance that drove away all the goodness of her life. Whenshe had been thus transformed, all was dark inwardly; she felt the birthof a new being within her frame, a being pitiless and cruel, who wouldhave liked to bite the murderers of her son. 

When she had succumbed to the overwhelming stroke of paralysis, when sheunderstood that she could not fly at the throats of Therese and Laurent, whom she longed to strangle, she resigned herself to silence andimmobility, and great tears fell slowly from her eyes. Nothing couldbe more heartrending than this mute and motionless despair. Those tearscoursing, one by one, down this lifeless countenance, not a wrinkleof which moved, that inert, wan face which could not weep with itsfeatures, and whose eyes alone sobbed, presented a poignant spectacle. 

Therese was seized with horrified pity. 

"We must put her to bed, " said she to Laurent, pointing to her aunt. 

Laurent hastened to roll the paralysed woman into her bedroom. Then, ashe stooped down to take her in his arms, Madame Raquin hoped that somepowerful spring would place her on her feet; and she attempted a supremeeffort. The Almighty would not permit Laurent to press her to his bosom;she fully anticipated he would be struck down if he displayed suchmonstrous impudence. But no spring came into action, and heaven reservedits lightning. Madame Raquin remained huddled up and passive likea bundle of linen. She was grasped, raised and carried along by theassassin; she experienced the anguish of feeling herself feeble andabandoned in the arms of the murderer of Camille. Her head rolled on tothe shoulder of Laurent, whom she observed with eyes increased in volumeby horror. 

"You may look at me, " he murmured. "Your eyes will not eat me. "

And he cast her brutally on the bed. The impotent old lady fellunconscious on the mattress. Her last thought had been one of terror anddisgust. In future, morning and night, she would have to submit to thevile pressure of the arms of Laurent. 

CHAPTER XXVII

A shock of terror alone had made the married pair speak, and avow theircrime in the presence of Madame Raquin. Neither one nor the other wascruel; they would have avoided such a revelation out of feelings ofhumanity, had not their own security already made it imperative on theirpart to maintain silence. 

On the ensuing Thursday, they felt particularly anxious. In the morning, Therese inquired of Laurent whether he considered it prudent to leavethe paralysed woman in the dining-room during the evening. She knew alland might give the alarm. 

"Bah!" replied Laurent, "it is impossible for her to raise her littlefinger. How can she babble?"

"She will perhaps discover a way to do so, " answered Therese. "I havenoticed an implacable thought in her eyes since the other evening. "

"No, " said Laurent. "You see, the doctor told me it was absolutelyall over with her. If she ever speaks again it will be in the finaldeath-rattle. She will not last much longer, you may be sure. It wouldbe stupid to place an additional load on our conscience by preventingher being present at the gathering this evening. "

Therese shuddered. 

"You misunderstand me, " she exclaimed. "Oh! You are right. There hasbeen enough crime. I meant to say that we might shut our aunt up in herown room, pretending she was not well, and was sleeping. "

"That's it, " replied Laurent, "and that idiot Michaud would go straightinto the room to see his old friend, notwithstanding. It would be acapital way to ruin us. "

He hesitated. He wanted to appear calm, and anxiety gave a tremor to hisvoice. 

"It will be best to let matters take their course, " he continued. "Thesepeople are as silly as geese. The mute despair of the old woman willcertainly teach them nothing. They will never have the least suspicionof the thing, for they are too far away from the truth. Once the ordealis over, we shall be at ease as to the consequences of our imprudence. All will be well, you will see. "

When the guests arrived in the evening, Madame Raquin occupied her usualplace, between the stove and table. Therese and Laurent feigned to bein good spirits, concealing their shudders and awaiting, in anguish, theincident that was bound to occur. They had brought the lamp-shade verylow down, so that the oilcloth table covering alone was lit up. 

The guests engaged in the usual noisy, common-place conversation thatinvariably preceded the first game of dominoes. Grivet and Michaud didnot fail to address the usual questions to the paralysed woman, on thesubject of her health, and to give excellent answers to them, as wastheir custom. After which, the company, without troubling any furtherabout the poor old lady, plunged with delight into the game. 

Since Madame Raquin had become aware of the horrible secret, she hadbeen awaiting this evening with feverish impatience. She had gatheredtogether all her remaining strength to denounce the culprits. Up to thelast moment, she feared she would not be present at the gathering; shethought Laurent would make her disappear, perhaps kill her, or at leastshut her up in her own apartment. When she saw that her niece and nephewallowed her to remain in the dining-room, she experienced lively joy atthe thought of attempting to avenge her son. 

Aware that her tongue was powerless, she resorted to a new kind oflanguage. With astonishing power of will, she succeeded, in a measure, in galvanising her right hand, in slightly raising it from her knee, where it always lay stretched out, inert; she then made it creep littleby little up one of the legs of the table before her, and thus succeededin placing it on the oilcloth table cover. Then, she feebly agitated thefingers as if to attract attention. 

When the players perceived this lifeless hand, white and nerveless, before them, they were exceedingly surprised. Grivet stopped short, with his arm in the air, at the moment when he was about to play thedouble-six. Since the impotent woman had been struck down, she had nevermoved her hands. 

"Hey! Just look, Therese, " cried Michaud. "Madame Raquin is agitatingher fingers. She probably wants something. "

Therese could not reply. Both she and Laurent had been following theexertion of the paralysed woman, and she was now looking at the handof her aunt, which stood out wan in the raw light of the lamp, likean avenging hand that was about to speak. The two murderers waited, breathless. 

"Of course, " said Grivet, "she wants something. Oh! We thoroughlyunderstand one another. She wants to play dominoes. Eh! Isn't it so, dear lady?"

Madame Raquin made a violent sign indicating that she wanted nothing ofthe kind. She extended one finger, folded up the others with infinitedifficulty, and began to painfully trace letters on the table cover. She had barely indicated a stroke or two, when Grivet again exclaimed intriumph:

"I understand; she says I do right to play the double-six. "

The impotent woman cast a terrible glance at the old clerk, and returnedto the word she wished to write. But Grivet interrupted her at everymoment, declaring it was needless, that he understood, and he thenbrought out some stupidity. Michaud at last made him hold his tongue. 

"The deuce! Allow Madame Raquin to speak, " said he. "Speak, my oldfriend. "

And he gazed at the oilcloth table cover as if he had been listening. But the fingers of the paralysed woman were growing weary. They hadbegun the word more than ten times over, and now, in tracing this word, they wandered to right and left. Michaud and Olivier bent forward, andbeing unable to read, forced the impotent old lady to resume the firstletters. 

"Ah! Bravo!" exclaimed Olivier, all at once, "I can read it, this time. She has just written your name, Therese. Let me see: '_Therese and_----'Complete the sentence, dear lady. "

Therese almost shrieked in anguish. She watched the finger of her auntgliding over the oilcloth, and it seemed to her that this finger tracedher name, and the confession of her crime in letters of fire. Laurenthad risen violently, with half a mind to fling himself on the paralysedwoman and break her arm. When he saw this hand return to life to revealthe murder of Camille, he thought all was lost, and already felt theweight and frigidity of the knife on the nape of his neck. 

Madame Raquin still wrote, but in a manner that became more and morehesitating. 

"This is perfect. I can read it very well indeed, " resumed Olivier afteran instant, and with his eyes on the married pair. "Your aunt writesyour two names: '_Therese and Laurent_. '"

The old lady made sign after sign in the affirmative, casting crushingglances on the murderers. Then she sought to complete the sentence, but her fingers had stiffened, the supreme will that galvanised them, escaped her. She felt the paralysis slowly descending her arm and againgrasping her wrist. She hurried on, and traced another word. 

Old Michaud read out in a loud voice:

"_Therese and Laurent have----_"

And Olivier inquired:

"What have your dear children?"

The murderers, seized with blind terror, were on the point of completingthe sentence aloud. They contemplated the avenging hand with fixedand troubled eyes, when, all at once this hand became convulsed, andflattened out on the table. It slipped down and fell on the knee of theimpotent woman like a lump of inanimate flesh and bone. The paralysishad returned and arrested the punishment. Michaud and Olivier sat downagain disappointed, while Therese and Laurent experienced such keen joythat they felt like fainting under the influence of the sudden rush ofblood that beat in their bosoms. 

Grivet who felt vexed at not having been believed on trust, thoughtthe moment had arrived to regain his infallibility, by completing theunfinished sentence. While every one was endeavouring to supply themissing words, he exclaimed:

"It is quite clear. I can read the whole phrase in the eyes of the lady. It is not necessary for her to write on the table to make me understand;a mere look suffices. She means to say:

"Therese and Laurent have been very kind to me. "

Grivet, on this occasion, had cause to be proud of his imagination, forall the company were of his opinion; and the guests began to sing thepraises of the married couple, who were so good for the poor lady. 

"It is certain, " old Michaud gravely remarked, "that Madame Raquinwishes to bear testimony to the tender affection her children lavish onher, and this does honour to the whole family. "

Then, taking up his dominoes again, he added:

"Come, let us continue. Where were we? Grivet was about to play thedouble-six, I think. "

Grivet played the double six, and the stupid, monotonous game went on. 

The paralysed woman, cut up by frightful despair, looked at her hand, which had just betrayed her. She felt it as heavy as lead, now; neverwould she be able to raise it again. Providence would not permit Camilleto be avenged. It withdrew from his mother the only means she had ofmaking known the crime to which he had fallen a victim. And the wretchedwoman said to herself that she was now only fit to go and join her childunderground. She lowered her lids, feeling herself, henceforth, useless, and with the desire of imagining herself already in the darkness of thetomb. 

CHAPTER XXVIII

For two months, Therese and Laurent had been struggling in the anguishof their union. One suffered through the other. Then hatred slowlygained them, and they ended by casting angry glances at one another, full of secret menace. 

Hatred was forced to come. They had loved like brutes, with hot passion, entirely sanguineous. Then, amidst the enervation of their crime, theirlove had turned to fright, and their kisses had produced a sort ofphysical terror. At present, amid the suffering which marriage, whichlife in common imposed on them, they revolted and flew into anger. 

It was a bitter hatred, with terrible outbursts. They felt they were inthe way of one another, and both inwardly said that they would lead atranquil existence were they not always face to face. When in presenceof each other, it seemed as if an enormous weight were stifling them, and they would have liked to remove this weight, to destroy it. Theirlips were pinched, thoughts of violence passed in their clear eyes, anda craving beset them to devour one another. 

In reality, one single thought tormented them: they were irritated attheir crime, and in despair at having for ever troubled their lives. Hence all their anger and hatred. They felt the evil incurable, thatthey would suffer for the murder of Camille until death, and this ideaof perpetual suffering exasperated them. Not knowing whom to strike, they turned in hatred on one another. 

They would not openly admit that their marriage was the final punishmentof the murder; they refused to listen to the inner voice that shoutedout the truth to them, displaying the story of their life before theireyes. And yet, in the fits of rage that bestirred them, they both sawclearly to the bottom of their anger, they were aware it was the furiousimpulse of their egotistic nature that had urged them to murder in orderto satisfy their desire, and that they had only found in assassination, an afflicted and intolerable existence. They recollected the past, theyknew that their mistaken hopes of lust and peaceful happiness had alonebrought them to remorse. Had they been able to embrace one another inpeace, and live in joy, they would not have mourned Camille, they wouldhave fattened on their crime. But their bodies had rebelled, refusingmarriage, and they inquired of themselves, in terror, where horror anddisgust would lead them. They only perceived a future that would behorrible in pain, with a sinister and violent end. 

Then, like two enemies bound together, and who were making violentefforts to release themselves from this forced embrace, they strainedtheir muscles and nerves, stiffening their limbs without succeeding inreleasing themselves. At last understanding that they would never beable to escape from their clasp, irritated by the cords cutting intotheir flesh, disgusted at their contact, feeling their discomfortincrease at every moment, forgetful, and unable to bear their bonds amoment longer, they addressed outrageous reproaches to one another, inthe hope of suffering loss, of dressing the wounds they inflicted onthemselves, by cursing and deafening each other with their shouts andaccusations. 

A quarrel broke out every evening. It looked as though the murdererssought opportunities to become exasperated so as to relax their rigidnerves. They watched one another, sounded one another with glances, examined the wounds of one another, discovering the raw parts, andtaking keen pleasure in causing each other to yell in pain. They livedin constant irritation, weary of themselves, unable to support a word, agesture or a look, without suffering and frenzy. Both their beingswere prepared for violence; the least display of impatience, themost ordinary contrariety increased immoderately in their disorderedorganism, and all at once, took the form of brutality. A mere nothingraised a storm that lasted until the morrow. A plate too warm, an openwindow, a denial, a simple observation, sufficed to drive them intoregular fits of madness. 

In the course of the discussion, they never failed to bring up thesubject of the drowned man. From sentence to sentence they came tomutual reproaches about this drowning business at Saint-Ouen, castingthe crime in the face of one another. They grew excited to the pitchof fury, until one felt like murdering the other. Then ensued atrociousscenes of choking, blows, abominable cries, shameless brutalities. As arule, Therese and Laurent became exasperated, in this manner, after theevening meal. They shut themselves up in the dining-room, so that thesound of their despair should not be heard. There, they could devourone another at ease. At the end of this damp apartment, of this sort ofvault, lighted by the yellow beams of the lamp, the tone of their voicestook harrowing sharpness, amidst the silence and tranquillity of theatmosphere. And they did not cease until exhausted with fatigue; thenonly could they go and enjoy a few hours' rest. Their quarrels became, in a measure, necessary to them--a means of procuring a few hours' restby stupefying their nerves. 

Madame Raquin listened. She never ceased to be there, in her armchair, her hands dangling on her knees, her head straight, her face mute. Sheheard everything, and not a shudder ran through her lifeless frame. Her eyes rested on the murderers with the most acute fixedness. Hermartyrdom must have been atrocious. She thus learned, detail by detail, all the events that had preceded and followed the murder of Camille. Little by little her ears became polluted with an account of the filthand crimes of those whom she had called her children. 

These quarrels of the married couple placed her in possession of themost minute circumstances connected with the murder, and spread out, one by one, before her terrified mind, all the episodes of the horribleadventure. As she went deeper into this sanguinary filth, she pleaded inher mind for mercy, at times, she fancied she was touching the bottom ofthe infamy, and still she had to descend lower. Each night, she learntsome new detail. The frightful story continued to expand before her. It seemed like being lost in an interminable dream of horror. The firstavowal had been brutal and crushing, but she suffered more from theserepeated blows, from these small facts which the husband and wifeallowed to escape them in their fits of anger, and which lit up thecrime with sinister rays. Once a day, this mother heard the accountof the murder of her son; and, each day this account became morehorrifying, more replete with detail, and was shouted into her ears withgreater cruelty and uproar. 

On one occasion, Therese, taken aback with remorse, at the sight ofthis wan countenance, with great tears slowly coursing down its cheeks, pointed out her aunt to Laurent, beseeching him with a look to hold histongue. 

"Well, what of it? Leave me alone!" exclaimed the latter in a brutaltone, "you know very well that she cannot give us up. Am I more happythan she is? We have her cash, I have no need to constrain myself. "

The quarrel continued, bitter and piercing, and Camille was killed overagain. Neither Therese nor Laurent dared give way to the thoughts ofpity that sometimes came over them, and shut the paralysed woman inher bedroom, when they quarrelled, so as to spare her the story of thecrime. They were afraid of beating one another to death, if they failedto have this semi-corpse between them. Their pity yielded to cowardice. They imposed ineffable sufferings on Madame Raquin because they requiredher presence to protect them against their hallucinations. 

All their disputes were alike, and led to the same accusations. As soonas one of them accused the other of having killed this man, there came afrightful shock. 

One night, at dinner, Laurent who sought a pretext for becomingirritable, found that the water in the decanter was lukewarm. Hedeclared that tepid water made him feel sick, and that he wanted itfresh. 

"I was unable to procure any ice, " Therese answered dryly. 

"Very well, I will deprive myself of drinking, " retorted Laurent. 

"This water is excellent, " said she. 

"It is warm, and has a muddy taste, " he answered. "It's like water fromthe river. "

"Water from the river?" repeated Therese. 

And she burst out sobbing. A juncture of ideas had just occurred in hermind. 

"Why do you cry?" asked Laurent, who foresaw the answer, and turnedpale. 

"I cry, " sobbed the young woman, "I cry because--you know why--Oh! GreatGod! Great God! It was you who killed him. "

"You lie!" shouted the murderer vehemently, "confess that you lie. If Ithrew him into the Seine, it was you who urged me to commit the murder. "

"I! I!" she exclaimed. 

"Yes, you! Don't act the ignorant, " he replied, "don't compel me toforce you to tell the truth. I want you to confess your crime, to takeyour share in the murder. It will tranquillise and relieve me. "

"But _I_ did not drown Camille, " she pleaded. 

"Yes, you did, a thousand times yes!" he shouted. "Oh! You feignastonishment and want of memory. Wait a moment, I will recall yourrecollections. "

Rising from table, he bent over the young woman, and with crimsoncountenance, yelled in her face:

"You were on the river bank, you remember, and I said to you in anundertone: 'I am going to pitch him into the water. ' Then you agreed toit, you got into the boat. You see that we murdered him together. "

"It is not true, " she answered. "I was crazy, I don't know what I did, but I never wanted to kill him. You alone committed the crime. "

These denials tortured Laurent. As he had said, the idea of having anaccomplice relieved him. Had he dared, he would have attempted to proveto himself that all the horror of the murder fell upon Therese. Hemore than once felt inclined to beat the young woman, so as to make herconfess that she was the more guilty of the two. 

He began striding up and down, shouting and raving, followed by thepiercing eyes of Madame Raquin. 

"Ah! The wretch! The wretch!" he stammered in a choking voice, "shewants to drive me mad. Look, did you not come up to my room one evening, did you not intoxicate me with your caresses to persuade me to ridyou of your husband? You told me, when I visited you here, that hedispleased you, that he had the odour of a sickly child. Did I thinkof all this three years ago? Was I a rascal? I was leading the peacefulexistence of an upright man, doing no harm to anybody. I would not havekilled a fly. "

"It was you who killed Camille, " repeated Therese with such desperateobstinacy that she made Laurent lose his head. 

"No, it was you, I say it was you, " he retorted with a terrible burstof rage. "Look here, don't exasperate me, or if you do you'll suffer forit. What, you wretch, have you forgotten everything? You who maddened mewith your caresses! Confess that it was all a calculation in your mind, that you hated Camille, and that you had wanted to kill him for a longtime. No doubt you took me as a sweetheart, so as to drive me to put anend to him. "

"It is not true, " said she. "What you relate is monstrous. You have noright to reproach me with my weakness towards you. I can speak in regardto you, as you speak of me. Before I knew you, I was a good woman, whonever wronged a soul. If I drove you mad, it was you made me madderstill. Listen Laurent, don't let us quarrel. I have too much to reproachyou with. "

"What can you reproach me with?" he inquired. 

"No, nothing, " she answered. "You did not save me from myself, you tookadvantage of my surrender, you chose to spoil my life. I forgive youall that. But, in mercy, do not accuse me of killing Camille. Keep yourcrime for yourself. Do not seek to make me more terrified than I amalready. "

Laurent raised his hand to strike her in the face. 

"Beat me, I prefer that, " said she, "I shall suffer less. "

And she advanced her head. But he restrained himself, and taking achair, sat down beside her. 

"Listen, " he began in a voice that he endeavoured to render calm, "it iscowardly to refuse to take your share in the crime. You know perfectlywell that as we did the deed together, you know you are as guilty as Iam. Why do you want to make my load heavier, by saying you are innocent?If you were so, you would not have consented to marry me. Just recallwhat passed during the two years following the murder. Do you want aproof? If so I will go and relate everything to the Public Prosecutor, and you will see whether we are not both condemned. "

They shuddered, and Therese resumed:

"Men may, perhaps, condemn me, but Camille knows very well that you dideverything. He does not torment me at night as he does you. "

"Camille leaves me in peace, " said Laurent, pale and trembling, "it isyou who see him before you in your nightmares. I have heard you shoutout. "

"Don't say that, " angrily exclaimed the young woman. "I have nevershouted out. I don't wish the spectre to appear. Oh! I understand, youwant to drive it away from yourself. I am innocent, I am innocent!"

They looked at one another in terror, exhausted with fatigue, fearingthey had evoked the corpse of the drowned man. Their quarrels invariablyended in this way; they protested their innocence, they sought todeceive themselves, so as to drive away their bad dreams. They madeconstant efforts, each in turn, to reject the responsibility of thecrime, defending themselves as though they were before a judge and jury, and accusing one another. 

The strangest part of this attitude was that they did not succeed induping themselves by their oaths. Both had a perfect recollection of allthe circumstances connected with the murder, and their eyes avowed whattheir lips denied. 

Their falsehoods were puerile, their affirmations ridiculous. It was thewordy dispute of two wretches who lied for the sake of lying, withoutsucceeding in concealing from themselves that they did so. Each took thepart of accuser in turn, and although the prosecution they institutedagainst one another proved barren of result, they began it again everyevening with cruel tenacity. 

They were aware that they would prove nothing, that they would notsucceed in effacing the past, and still they attempted this task, stillthey returned to the charge, spurred on by pain and terror, vanquishedin advance by overwhelming reality. The sole advantage they derived fromtheir disputes, consisted in producing a tempest of words and cries, andthe riot occasioned in this manner momentarily deafened them. 

And all the time their anger lasted, all the time they were accusing oneanother, the paralysed woman never ceased to gaze at them. Ardent joysparkled in her eyes, when Laurent raised his broad hand above the headof Therese. 

CHAPTER XXIX

Matters now took a different aspect. Therese, driven into a corner byfright, not knowing which way to turn for a consoling thought, began toweep aloud over the drowned man, in the presence of Laurent. 

She abruptly became depressed, her overstrained nerves relaxed, her unfeeling and violent nature softened. She had already feltcompassionate in the early days of her second marriage, and this feelingnow returned, as a necessary and fatal reaction. 

When the young woman had struggled with all her nervous energy againstthe spectre of Camille, when she had lived in sullen irritation forseveral months up in arms against her sufferings, seeking to get thebetter of them by efforts of will, she all at once experienced suchextraordinary lassitude that she yielded vanquished. Then, having becomea woman again, even a little girl, no longer feeling the strengthto stiffen herself, to stand feverishly erect before her terror, sheplunged into pity, into tears and regret, in the hope of finding somerelief. She sought to reap advantage from her weakness of body and mind. Perhaps the drowned man, who had not given way to her irritation, wouldbe more unbending to her tears. 

Her remorse was all calculation. She thought that this would no doubt bethe best way to appease and satisfy Camille. Like certain devotees, whofancy they will deceive the Almighty, and secure pardon by prayingwith their lips, and assuming the humble attitude of penitence, Theresedisplayed humility, striking her chest, finding words of repentance, without having anything at the bottom of her heart save fear andcowardice. Besides, she experienced a sort of physical pleasure ingiving way in this manner, in feeling feeble and undone, in abandoningherself to grief without resistance. 

She overwhelmed Madame Raquin with her tearful despair. The paralysedwoman became of daily use to her. She served as a sort of praying-desk, as a piece of furniture in front of which Therese could fearlesslyconfess her faults and plead for forgiveness. As soon as she feltinclined to cry, to divert herself by sobbing, she knelt before theimpotent old lady, and there, wailing and choking, performed to heralone a scene of remorse which weakened but relieved her. 

"I am a wretch, " she stammered, "I deserve no mercy. I deceived you, Idrove your son to his death. Never will you forgive me. And yet, ifyou only knew how I am rent by remorse, if you only knew how I suffer, perhaps you would have pity. No, no pity for me. I should like to diehere at your feet, overwhelmed by shame and grief. "

She spoke in this manner for hours together, passing from despair tohope, condemning and then pardoning herself; she assumed the voice, brief and plaintive in turn, of a little sick girl; she flattenedherself on the ground and drew herself up again, acting upon all theideas of humility and pride, of repentance and revolt that entered herhead. Sometimes even, forgetting she was on her knees before MadameRaquin, she continued her monologue as in a dream. When she had madeherself thoroughly giddy with her own words, she rose staggering anddazed, to go down to the shop in a calmer frame of mind, no longerfearing to burst into sobs before her customers. When she again feltinclined for remorse, she ran upstairs and knelt at the feet of theimpotent woman. This scene was repeated ten times a day. 

Therese never reflected that her tears, and display of repentance mustimpose ineffable anguish on her aunt. The truth was that if she haddesired to invent a torment to torture Madame Raquin, it would not havebeen possible to have found a more frightful one than the comedy ofremorse she performed before her. The paralysed woman could see theegotism concealed beneath these effusions of grief. She sufferedhorribly from these long monologues which she was compelled to listen toat every instant, and which always brought the murder of Camille beforeher eyes. She could not pardon, she never departed from the implacablethought of vengeance that her impotency rendered more keen, and all daylong she had to listen to pleas for pardon, and to humble and cowardlyprayers. 

She would have liked to give an answer; certain sentences of her niecebrought crushing refusals to her lips, but she had to remain mute andallow Therese to plead her cause without once interrupting her. The impossibility of crying out and stopping her ears caused herinexpressible torture. The words of the young woman entered her mind, slow and plaintive, as an irritating ditty. At first, she fancied themurderers inflicted this kind of torture on her out of sheer diabolicalcruelty. Her sole means of defence was to close her eyes, as soon as herniece knelt before her, then although she heard, she did not see her. 

Therese, at last, had the impudence to kiss her aunt. One day, in a fitof repentance, she feigned she had perceived a gleam of mercy in theeyes of the paralysed woman; and she dragged herself along on her knees, she raised herself up, exclaiming in a distracted tone:

"You forgive me! You forgive me!"

Then she kissed the forehead and cheeks of the poor old creature, whowas unable to throw her head backward so as to avoid the embrace. Thecold skin on which Therese placed her lips, caused her violent disgust. She fancied this disgust, like the tears of remorse, would be anexcellent remedy to appease her nerves; and she continued to kiss theimpotent old woman daily, by way of penitence, and also to relieveherself. 

"Oh! How good you are!" she sometimes exclaimed. "I can see my tearshave touched you. Your eyes are full of pity. I am saved. "

Then she smothered her with caresses, placing the head of the infirmold lady on her knees, kissing her hands, smiling at her happily, and attending to all her requirements with a display of passionateaffection. After a time, she believed in the reality of this comedy, she imagined she had obtained the pardon of Madame Raquin, and spoke ofnothing but the delight she experienced at having secured her pardon. 

This was too much for the paralysed woman. It almost killed her. At thekisses of her niece, she again felt that sensation of bitter repugnanceand rage which came over her, morning and night, when Laurent took herin his arms to lift her up, or lay her down. She was obliged to submitto the disgusting caresses of the wretch who had betrayed and killed herson. She could not even use her hand to wipe away the kisses that thiswoman left on her cheeks; and, for hours and hours together, she feltthese kisses burning her. 

She became the doll of the murderers of Camille, a doll that theydressed, that they turned to right and left, and that they made use ofaccording to their requirements and whims. She remained inert in theirhands, as if she had been a lay-figure, and yet she lived, and becameexcited and indignant at the least contact with Therese or Laurent. 

What particularly exasperated her was the atrocious mockery of the youngwoman, who pretended she perceived expressions of mercy in her eyes, when she would have liked to have brought down fire from heaven on thehead of the criminal. She frequently made supreme efforts to utter acry of protestation, and loaded her looks with hatred. But Therese, whofound it answered her purpose to repeat twenty times a day that shewas pardoned, redoubled her caresses, and would see nothing. So theparalysed woman had to accept the thanks and effusions that her heartrepelled. Henceforth, she lived in a state of bitter but powerlessirritation, face to face with her yielding niece who displayed adorableacts of tenderness to recompense her for what she termed her heavenlygoodness. 

When Therese knelt before Madame Raquin, in the presence of her husband, he brutally brought her to her feet. 

"No acting, " said he. "Do I weep, do I prostrate myself? You do all thisto trouble me. "

The remorse of Therese caused him peculiar agitation. His sufferingincreased now that his accomplice dragged herself about him, with eyesred by weeping, and supplicating lips. The sight of this living exampleof regret redoubled his fright and added to his uneasiness. It was likean everlasting reproach wandering through the house. Then he feared thatrepentance would one day drive his wife to reveal everything. He wouldhave preferred her to remain rigid and threatening, bitterly defendingherself against his accusations. But she had changed her tactics. Shenow readily recognised the share she had taken in the crime. She evenaccused herself. She had become yielding and timid, and starting fromthis point implored redemption with ardent humility. This attitudeirritated Laurent, and every evening the quarrels of the couple becamemore afflicting and sinister. 

"Listen to me, " said Therese to her husband, "we are very guilty. Wemust repent if we wish to enjoy tranquillity. Look at me. Since I havebeen weeping I am more peaceable. Imitate me. Let us say together thatwe are justly punished for having committed a horrible crime. "

"Bah!" roughly answered Laurent, "you can say what you please. I knowyou are deucedly clever and hypocritical. Weep, if that diverts you. ButI must beg you not to worry me with your tears. "

"Ah!" said she, "you are bad. You reject remorse. You are cowardly. Youacted as a traitor to Camille. "

"Do you mean to say that I alone am guilty?" he inquired. 

"No, " she replied, "I do not say that. I am guilty, more guilty than youare. I ought to have saved my husband from your hands. Oh! I am awareof all the horror of my fault. But I have sought pardon, and I havesucceeded, Laurent, whereas you continue to lead a disconsolate life. You have not even had the feeling to spare my poor aunt the sight ofyour vile anger. You have never even addressed a word of regret to her. "

And she embraced Madame Raquin, who shut her eyes. She hovered roundher, raising the pillow that propped up her head, and showing her allkinds of attention. Laurent was infuriated. 

"Oh, leave her alone, " he cried. "Can't you see that your services, andthe very sight of you are odious to her. If she could lift her hand shewould slap your face. "

The slow and plaintive words of his wife, and her attitudes ofresignation, gradually drove him into blinding fits of anger. Heunderstood her tactics; she no longer wished to be at one with him, butto set herself apart wrapped in her regret, so as to escape the claspof the drowned man. And, at moments, he said to himself that she hadperhaps taken the right path, that tears might cure her of her terror, and he shuddered at the thought of having to suffer, and contend withfright alone. 

He also would have liked to repent, or at least to have performed thecomedy of repentance, to see what effect it would have. Unable to findthe sobs and necessary words, he flung himself into violence again, stirring up Therese so as to irritate her and lead her back with himto furious madness. But the young woman took care to remain inert, to answer his cries of anger by tearful submission, and to meet hiscoarseness by a proportionate display of humility and repentance. Laurent was thus gradually driven to fury. To crown his irritation, Therese always ended with the panegyric of Camille so as to display thevirtues of the victim. 

"He was good, " said she, "and we must have been very cruel to assailsuch a warm-hearted man who had never a bad thought. "

"He was good, yes, I know, " jeered Laurent. "You mean to say he was afool. You must have forgotten! You pretended you were irritated atthe slightest thing he said, that he could not open his mouth withoutletting out some stupidity. "

"Don't jeer, " said Therese. "It only remains for you to insult the manyou murdered. You know nothing about the feelings of a woman, Laurent;Camille loved me and I loved him. "

"You loved him! Ah! Really what a capital idea, " exclaimed Laurent. "Andno doubt it was because you loved your husband, that you took me as asweetheart. I remember one day when we were together, that you told meCamille disgusted you, when you felt the end of your fingers enter hisflesh as if it were soft clay. Oh! I know why you loved me. You requiredmore vigorous arms than those of that poor devil. "

"I loved him as a sister, " answered Therese. "He was the son of mybenefactress. He had all the delicate feelings of a feeble man. Heshowed himself noble and generous, serviceable and loving. And we killedhim, good God! good God!"

She wept, and swooned away. Madame Raquin cast piercing glances at her, indignant to hear the praise of Camille sung by such a pair of lips. Laurent who was unable to do anything against this overflow of tears, walked to and fro with furious strides, searching in his head for somemeans to stifle the remorse of Therese. 

All the good he heard said of his victim ended by causing him poignantanxiety. Now and again he let himself be caught by the heartrendingaccents of his wife. He really believed in the virtues of Camille, andhis terror redoubled. But what tried his patience beyond measure wasthe comparison that the widow of the drowned man never failed to drawbetween her first and second husband, and which was all to the advantageof the former. 

"Well! Yes, " she cried, "he was better than you. I would sooner he werealive now, and you in his place underground. "

Laurent first of all shrugged his shoulders. 

"Say what you will, " she continued, becoming animated, "although Iperhaps failed to love him in his lifetime, yet I remember all his goodqualities now, and do love him. Yes, I love him and hate you, do youhear? For you are an assassin. "

"Will you hold your tongue?" yelled Laurent. 

"And he is a victim, " she went on, notwithstanding the threateningattitude of her husband, "an upright man killed by a rascal. Oh! I amnot afraid of you. You know well enough that you are a miserable wretch, a brute of a man without a heart, and without a soul. How can you expectme to love you, now that you are reeking with the blood of Camille?Camille was full of tenderness for me, and I would kill you, do youhear, if that could bring him to life again, and give me back his love. "

"Will you hold your tongue, you wretch?" shouted Laurent. 

"Why should I hold my tongue?" she retorted. "I am speaking the truth. I would purchase forgiveness at the price of your blood. Ah! How Iweep, and how I suffer! It is my own fault if a scoundrel, such as you, murdered my husband. I must go, one of these nights, and kiss the groundwhere he rests. That will be my final rapture. "

Laurent, beside himself, rendered furious by the atrocious pictures thatTherese spread out before his eyes, rushed upon her, and threw her down, menacing her with his uplifted fist. 

"That's it, " she cried, "strike me, kill me! Camille never once raisedhis hand to me, but you are a monster. "

And Laurent, spurred on by what she said, shook her with rage, beat her, bruised her body with his clenched fists. In two instances he almoststrangled her. Therese yielded to his blows. She experienced keendelight in being struck, delivering herself up, thrusting her bodyforward, provoking her husband in every way, so that he might half killher again. This was another remedy for her suffering. She slept betterat night when she had been thoroughly beaten in the evening. MadameRaquin enjoyed exquisite pleasure, when Laurent dragged her niece alongthe floor in this way, belabouring her with thumps and kicks. 

The existence of the assassin had become terrible since the day whenTherese conceived the infernal idea of feeling remorse and of mourningCamille aloud. From that moment the wretch lived everlastingly withhis victim. At every hour, he had to listen to his wife praising andregretting her first husband. The least incident became a pretext:Camille did this, Camille did that, Camille had such and such qualities, Camille loved in such and such a way. 

It was always Camille! Ever sad remarks bewailing his death. Theresehad recourse to all her spitefulness to render this torture, which sheinflicted on Laurent so as to shield her own self, as cruel as possible. She went into details, relating a thousand insignificant incidentsconnected with her youth, accompanied by sighs and expressions ofregret, and in this manner, mingled the remembrance of the drowned manwith every action of her daily life. 

The corpse which already haunted the house, was introduced there openly. It sat on the chairs, took its place at table, extended itself on thebed, making use of the various articles of furniture, and of the objectslying about hither and thither. Laurent could touch nothing, not a fork, not a brush, without Therese making him feel that Camille had touched itbefore him. 

The murderer being ceaselessly thrust, so to say, against the man he hadkilled, ended by experiencing a strange sensation that very nearly drovehim out of his mind. By being so constantly compared to Camille, bymaking use of the different articles Camille had used, he imagined hewas Camille himself, that he was identical with his victim. Then, withhis brain fit to burst, he blew at his wife to make her hold her tongue, so as to no longer hear the words that drove him frantic. All theirquarrels now ended in blows. 

CHAPTER XXX

A time came when Madame Raquin, in order to escape the sufferings sheendured, thought of starving herself to death. She had reached theend of her courage, she could no longer support the martyrdom that thepresence of the two murderers imposed on her, she longed to find supremerelief in death. Each day her anguish grew more keen, when Thereseembraced her, and when Laurent took her in his arms to carry her alonglike a child. She determined on freeing herself from these claspsand caresses that caused her such horrible disgust. As she had notsufficient life left within her to permit of her avenging her son, shepreferred to be entirely dead, and to leave naught in the hands of theassassins but a corpse that could feel nothing, and with which theycould do as they pleased. 

For two days she refused all nourishment, employing her remainingstrength to clench her teeth or to eject anything that Therese succeededin introducing into her mouth. Therese was in despair. She was askingherself at the foot of which post she should go to weep and repent, whenher aunt would be no longer there. She kept up an interminable discourseto prove to Madame Raquin that she should live. She wept, she evenbecame angry, bursting into her former fits of rage, opening the jaw ofthe paralysed woman as you open that of an animal which resists. MadameRaquin held out, and an odious scene ensued. 

Laurent remained absolutely neutral and indifferent. He was astonishedat the efforts of Therese to prevent the impotent old woman committingsuicide. Now that the presence of the old lady had become useless tothem he desired her death. He would not have killed her, but as shewished to die, he did not see the use of depriving her of the means todo so. 

"But, let her be!" he shouted to his wife. "It will be a good riddance. We shall, perhaps, be happier when she is no longer here. "

This remark repeated several times in the hearing of Madame Raquin, caused her extraordinary emotion. She feared that the hope expressedby Laurent might be realised, and that after her death the couple wouldenjoy calm and happiness. And she said to herself that it would becowardly to die, that she had no right to go away before she had seenthe end of the sinister adventure. Then, only, could she descend intodarkness, to say to Camille:

"You are avenged. "

The idea of suicide became oppressive, when she all at once reflectedthat she would sink into the grave ignorant as to what had happenedto the two murderers of her son. There, she would lie in the coldand silent earth, eternally tormented by uncertainty concerning thepunishment of her tormentors. To thoroughly enjoy the slumber of death, she must be hushed to rest by the sweet delight of vengeance, she mustcarry away with her a dream of satisfied hatred, a dream that would lastthroughout eternity. So she took the food her niece presented to her, and consented to live on. 

Apart from this, it was easy for her to perceive that the climax couldnot be far off. Each day the position of the married couple becamemore strained and unbearable. A crash that would smash everything wasimminent. At every moment, Therese and Laurent started up face to facein a more threatening manner. It was no longer at nighttime, alone, that they suffered from their intimacy; entire days were passed amidstanxiety and harrowing shocks. It was one constant scene of pain andterror. They lived in a perfect pandemonium, fighting, rendering allthey did and said bitter and cruel, seeking to fling one another to thebottom of the abyss which they felt beneath their feet, and falling intoit together. 

Ideas of separation had, indeed, occurred to both of them. Each hadthought of flight, of seeking some repose far from this Arcade of thePont Neuf where the damp and filth seemed adapted to their desolatedlife. But they dared not, they could not run away. It seemed impossiblefor them to avoid reviling each other, to avoid remaining there tosuffer and cause pain. They proved obstinate in their hatred andcruelty. A sort of repulsion and attraction separated and kept themtogether at the same time. They behaved in the identical manner of twopersons who, after quarrelling, wish to part, and who, nevertheless, continue returning to shout out fresh insults at one another. 

Moreover, material obstacles stood in the way of flight. What werethey to do with the impotent woman? What could be said to the Thursdayevening guests? If they fled, these people would, perhaps, suspectsomething. At this thought, they imagined they were being pursued anddragged to the guillotine. So they remained where they were throughcowardice, wretchedly dragging out their lives amidst the horror oftheir surroundings. 

During the morning and afternoon, when Laurent was absent, Therese wentfrom the dining-room to the shop in anxiety and trouble, at a loss toknow what to do to fill up the void in her existence that daily becamemore pronounced. When not kneeling at the feet of Madame Raquin orreceiving blows and insults from her husband, she had no occupation. Assoon as she was seated alone in the shop, she became dejected, watchingwith a doltish expression, the people passing through the dirty, darkgallery. She felt ready to die of sadness in the middle of this gloomyvault, which had the odour of a cemetery, and ended by begging Suzanneto come and pass entire days with her, in the hope that the presence ofthis poor, gentle, pale creature might calm her. 

Suzanne accepted her offer with delight; she continued to feel a sort ofrespectful friendship for Therese, and had long desired to come and workwith her, while Olivier was at his office. Bringing her embroidery withher, she took the vacant chair of Madame Raquin behind the counter. 

From that day Therese rather neglected her aunt. She went upstairsless frequently to weep on her knees and kiss the deathlike face of theinvalid. She had something else to do. She made efforts to listen withinterest to the dilatory gossip of Suzanne, who spoke of her home, andof the trivialities of her monotonous life. This relieved Therese of herown thoughts. Sometimes she caught herself paying attention to nonsensethat brought a bitter smile to her face. 

By degrees, she lost all her customers. Since her aunt had been confinedto her armchair upstairs, she had let the shop go from bad to worse, abandoning the goods to dust and damp. A smell of mildew hung in theatmosphere, spiders came down from the ceiling, the floor was but rarelyswept. 

But what put the customers to flight was the strange way in whichTherese sometimes welcomed them. When she happened to be upstairs, receiving blows from Laurent or agitated by a shock of terror, and thebell at the shop door tinkled imperiously, she had to go down, barelytaking time to do up her hair or brush away the tears. On such occasionsshe served the persons awaiting her roughly; sometimes she even sparedherself the trouble of serving, answering from the top of the staircase, that she no longer kept what was asked for. This kind of off-handbehaviour, was not calculated to retain custom. 

The little work-girls of the quarter, who were used to the sweetamiability of Madame Raquin, were driven away by the harshness and wildlooks of Therese. When the latter took Suzanne with her to keep hercompany, the defection became complete. To avoid being disturbedin their gossip, the two young woman managed to drive away the fewremaining purchasers who visited the shop. Henceforth, the mercerybusiness ceased to bring in a sou towards the household expenses, and itbecame necessary to encroach on the capital of forty thousand francs andmore. 

Sometimes, Therese absented herself the entire afternoon. No one knewwhere she went. Her reason for having Suzanne with her was no doubtpartly for the purpose of securing company but also to mind the shop, while she was away. When she returned in the evening, worn out, hereyelids heavy with exhaustion, it was to find the little wife of Olivierstill behind the counter, bowed down, with a vague smile on her lips, inthe same attitude as she had left her five hours previously. 

Therese had a bad fright about five months after her marriage toLaurent. She found out she was pregnant and detested the thought ofhaving a child of Laurent's. She had the fear that she would give birthto a drowned body. She thought that she could feel inside herself asoft, decomposing corpse. No matter what, she had to rid herself of thischild. She did not tell Laurent. One day she cruelly provoked him andturned her stomach towards him, hoping to receive a kick. He kicked herand she let him go on kicking her in the stomach until she thoughtshe would die. The next day her wish was fulfilled and she had amiscarriage. 

Laurent also led a frightful existence. The days seemed insupportablylong; each brought the same anguish, the same heavy weariness whichoverwhelmed him at certain hours with crushing monotony and regularity. He dragged on his life, terrified every night by the recollections ofthe day, and the expectation of the morrow. He knew that henceforth, allhis days would resemble one another, and bring him equal suffering. Andhe saw the weeks, months and years gloomily and implacably awaiting him, coming one after the other to fall upon him and gradually smother him. 

When there is no hope in the future, the present appears atrociouslybitter. Laurent no longer resisted, he became lumpish, abandoninghimself to the nothingness that was already gaining possession of hisbeing. Idleness was killing him. In the morning he went out, withoutknowing where to go, disgusted at the thought of doing what he had doneon the previous day, and compelled, in spite of himself, to do it again. He went to his studio by habit, by mania. 

This room, with its grey walls, whence he could see naught but a baresquare of sky, filled him with mournful sadness. He grovelled on thedivan heavy in thought and with pendent arms. He dared not touch abrush. He had made fresh attempts at painting, but only to find on eachoccasion, the head of Camille appear jeering on the canvas. So as not togo out of his mind, he ended by throwing his colour-box into a corner, and imposing the most absolute idleness on himself. This obligatorylaziness weighed upon him terribly. 

In the afternoon, he questioned himself in distress to find out whathe should do. For half an hour, he remained on the pavement in the RueMazarine, thinking and hesitating as to how he could divert himself. Herejected the idea of returning to the studio, and invariably decidedon going down the Rue Guenegaud, to walk along the quays. And, untilevening, he went along, dazed and seized with sudden shudders wheneverhe looked at the Seine. Whether in his studio or in the streets, hisdejection was the same. The following day he began again. He passedthe morning on his divan, and dragged himself along the quays in theafternoon. This lasted for months, and might last for years. 

Occasionally Laurent reflected that he had killed Camille so as todo nothing ever afterwards, and now that he did nothing, he was quiteastonished to suffer so much. He would have liked to force himself to behappy. He proved to his own satisfaction, that he did wrong to suffer, that he had just attained supreme felicity, consisting in crossing hisarms, and that he was an idiot not to enjoy this bliss in peace. But hisreasoning exploded in the face of facts. He was constrained to confess, at the bottom of his heart, that this idleness rendered his anguishthe more cruel, by leaving him every hour of his life to ponder on thedespair and deepen its incurable bitterness. Laziness, that brutishexistence which had been his dream, proved his punishment. At moments, he ardently hoped for some occupation to draw him from his thoughts. Then he lost all energy, relapsing beneath the weight of implacablefatality that bound his limbs so as to more surely crush him. 

In truth, he only found some relief when beating Therese, at night. Thisbrutality alone relieved him of his enervated anguish. 

But his keenest suffering, both physical and moral, came from the biteCamille had given him in the neck. At certain moments, he imagined thatthis scar covered the whole of his body. If he came to forget the past, he all at once fancied he felt a burning puncture, that recalled themurder both to his frame and mind. 

When under the influence of emotion, he could not stand beforea looking-glass without noticing this phenomenon which he had sofrequently remarked and which always terrified him; the blood flew tohis neck, purpling the scar, which then began to gnaw the skin. 

This sort of wound that lived upon him, which became active, flushed, and biting at the slightest trouble, frightened and tortured him. Heended by believing that the teeth of the drowned man had planted aninsect there which was devouring him. The part of his neck where thescar appeared, seemed to him to no longer belong to his body; itwas like foreign flesh that had been stuck in this place, a piece ofpoisoned meat that was rotting his own muscles. 

In this manner, he carried the living and devouring recollection of hiscrime about with him everywhere. When he beat Therese, she endeavouredto scratch the spot, and sometimes dug her nails into it making him howlwith pain. She generally pretended to sob, as soon as she caught sightof the bite, so as to make it more insufferable to Laurent. All herrevenge for his brutality, consisted in martyrising him in connectionwith this bite. 

While shaving, he had frequently been tempted to give himself a gashin the neck, so as to make the marks of the teeth of the drowned mandisappear. When, standing before the mirror, he raised his chin andperceived the red spot beneath the white lather, he at once flew into arage, and rapidly brought the razor to his neck, to cut right into theflesh. But the sensations of the cold steel against his skin alwaysbrought him to his senses, and caused him to feel so faint that he wasobliged to seat himself, and wait until he had recovered sufficientcourage to continue shaving. 

He only issued from his torpor at night to fall into blind and puerilefits of anger. When tired of quarreling with Therese and beating her, he would kick the walls like a child, and look for something he couldbreak. This relieved him. 

He had a particular dislike for the tabby cat Francois who, as soon ashe appeared, sought refuge on the knees of Madame Raquin. If Laurent hadnot yet killed the animal, it was because he dared not take hold ofhim. The cat looked at him with great round eyes that were diabolicalin their fixedness. He wondered what these eyes which never left him, wanted; and he ended by having regular fits of terror, and imagining allsorts of ridiculous things. 

When at table--at no matter what moment, in the middle of a quarrel orof a long silence--he happened, all at once, to look round, and perceiveFrancois examining him with a harsh, implacable stare, he turned paleand lost his head. He was on the point of saying to the cat:

"Heh! Why don't you speak? Tell me what it is you want with me. "

When he could crush his paw or tail, he did so in affrighted joy, themewing of the poor creature giving him vague terror, as though heheard a human cry of pain. Laurent, in fact, was afraid of Francois, particularly since the latter passed his time on the knees of theimpotent old lady, as if in the centre of an impregnable fortress, whence he could with impunity set his eyes on his enemy. The murdererof Camille established a vague resemblance between this irritated animaland the paralysed woman, saying to himself that the cat, like MadameRaquin, must know about the crime and would denounce him, if he everfound a tongue. 

At last, one night, Francois looked at Laurent so fixedly, that thelatter, irritated to the last pitch, made up his mind to put an end tothe annoyance. He threw the window of the dining-room wide open, andadvancing to where the cat was seated, grasped him by the skin at theback of the neck. Madame Raquin understood, and two big tearsrolled down her cheeks. The cat began to swear, and stiffen himself, endeavouring to turn round and bite the hand that grasped him. ButLaurent held fast. He whirled the cat round two or three times in theair, and then sent him flying with all the strength of his arm, againstthe great dark wall opposite. Francois went flat against it, andbreaking his spine, fell upon the glass roof of the arcade. All nightthe wretched beast dragged himself along the gutter mewing hoarsely, while Madame Raquin wept over him almost as much as she had done overCamille. Therese had an atrocious attack of hysterics, while the wailingof the cat sounded sinisterly, in the gloom below the windows. 

Laurent soon had further cause for anxiety. He became alarmed at acertain change he observed in the attitude of his wife. 

Therese became sombre and taciturn. She no longer lavished effusionsof repentance and grateful kisses on Madame Raquin. In presence of theparalysed woman, she resumed her manner of frigid cruelty and egotisticindifference. It seemed as though she had tried remorse, and finding norelief had turned her attention to another remedy. Her sadness was nodoubt due to her inability to calm her life. 

She observed the impotent old woman with a kind of disdain, as a uselessthing that could no longer even serve her for consolation. She now onlybestowed on her the necessary attention to prevent her dying of hunger. From this moment she dragged herself about the house in silence anddejection. She multiplied her absences from the shop, going out asfrequently as three and four times a week. 

It was this change in her mode of life, that surprised and alarmedLaurent. He fancied that her remorse had taken another form, and was nowdisplayed by this mournful weariness he noticed in her. This wearinessseemed to him more alarming than the chattering despair she hadoverwhelmed him with previously. She no longer spoke, she no longerquarrelled with him, she seemed to consign everything to the depths ofher being. He would rather have heard her exhausting her endurance thansee her keep in this manner to herself. He feared that one day shewould be choking with anguish, and to obtain relief, would go and relateeverything to a priest or an examining magistrate. 

Then these numerous absences of Therese had frightful significance inhis eyes. He thought she went to find a confidant outside, that she waspreparing her treason. On two occasions he tried to follow her, and losther in the streets. He then prepared to watch her again. A fixed ideagot into his head: Therese, driven to extremities by suffering, wasabout to make disclosures, and he must gag her, he must arrest herconfession in her throat. 

CHAPTER XXXI

One morning, Laurent, instead of going to his studio, took up a positionat a wine-shop situated at one of the corners of the Rue Guenegaud, opposite the studio. From there, he began to examine the persons whoissued from the passage on to the pavement of the Rue Mazarine. Hewas watching for Therese. The previous evening, the young woman hadmentioned that she intended going out next day and probably would not behome until evening. 

Laurent waited fully half an hour. He knew that his wife always went bythe Rue Mazarine; nevertheless, at one moment, he remembered that shemight escape him by taking the Rue de Seine, and he thought of returningto the arcade, and concealing himself in the corridor of the house. Buthe determined to retain his seat a little longer, and just as he wasgrowing impatient he suddenly saw Therese come rapidly from the passage. 

She wore a light gown, and, for the first time, he noticed that herattire appeared remarkably showy, like a street-walker. She twistedher body about on the pavement, staring provokingly at the men who camealong, and raising her skirt, which she clutched in a bunch in her hand, much higher than any respectable woman would have done, in orderto display her lace-up boots and stockings. As she went up the RueMazarine, Laurent followed her. 

It was mild weather, and the young woman walked slowly, with her headthrown slightly backward and her hair streaming down her back. The menwho had first of all stared her in the face, turned round to take aback view. She passed into the Rue de l'Ecole de Medecine. Laurentwas terrified. He knew that somewhere in this neighbourhood, was aCommissariat of Police, and he said to himself that there could nolonger be any doubt as to the intentions of his wife, she was certainlyabout to denounce him. Then he made up his mind to rush after her, ifshe crossed the threshold of the commissariat, to implore her, to beather if necessary, so as to compel her to hold her tongue. At a streetcorner she looked at a policeman who came along, and Laurent trembledwith fright, lest she should stop and speak to him. In terror of beingarrested on the spot if he showed himself, he hid in a doorway. 

This excursion proved perfect agony. While his wife basked in the sunon the pavement, trailing her skirt with nonchalance and impudence, shameless and unconcerned, he followed behind her, pale and shuddering, repeating that it was all over, that he would be unable to save himselfand would be guillotined. Each step he saw her take, seemed to him astep nearer punishment. Fright gave him a sort of blind conviction, andthe slightest movement of the young woman added to his certainty. Hefollowed her, he went where she went, as a man goes to the scaffold. 

Suddenly on reaching the former Place Saint-Michel, Thereseadvanced towards a cafe that then formed the corner of the RueMonsieur-le-Prince. There she seated herself in the centre of a group ofwomen and students, at one of the tables on the pavement, and familiarlyshook hands with all this little crowd. Then she called for absinthe. 

She seemed quite at ease, chatting with a fair young man who no doubthad been waiting for her some time. Two girls came and leant overthe table where she sat, addressing her affectionately in their huskyvoices. Around her, women were smoking cigarettes, men were embracingwomen in the open street, before the passers-by, who never even turnedtheir heads. Low words and hoarse laughter reached Laurent, who remainedmotionless in a doorway on the opposite side of the street. 

When Therese had finished her absinthe, she rose, and leaning on the armof the fair young man, went down the Rue de la Harpe. Laurent followedthem as far as the Rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts, where he noticed them entera lodging-house. He remained in the middle of the street with his eyeson the front of the building. Presently his wife showed herself foran instant at an open window on the second floor, and he fancied heperceived the hands of the pale young man encircling her waist. Then, the window closed with a sharp clang. 

Laurent understood. Without waiting a moment longer, he tranquilly tookhimself off reassured and happy. 

"Bah!" said he to himself, as he went towards the quays. "It's better, after all, that she should have a sweetheart. That will occupy her mind, and prevent her thinking of injuring me. She's deucedly more clever thanI am. "

What astonished him, was that he had not been the first to think ofplunging into vice, which might have driven away his terror. But histhoughts had never turned in that direction, and, moreover, he had notthe least inclination for riotous living. The infidelity of his wife didnot trouble him in the least. He felt no anger at the knowledge that shewas in the arms of another man. On the contrary, he seemed to enjoythe idea. He began to think that he had been following the wife of acomrade, and laughed at the cunning trick the woman was playing herhusband. Therese had become such a stranger to him, that he no longerfelt her alive in his heart. He would have sold her, bound hand andfoot, a hundred times over, to purchase calm for one hour. 

As he sauntered along, he enjoyed the sudden, delightful reaction thathad just brought him from terror to peace. He almost thanked his wifefor having gone to a sweetheart, when he thought her on her way to acommissary of police. This adventure had come to an unforeseen end thatagreeably surprised him. It distinctly showed him that he had done wrongto tremble, and that he, in his turn, should try vice, in order to seewhether such a course would not relieve him by diverting his thoughts. 

On returning to the shop in the evening, Laurent decided that he wouldask his wife for a few thousand francs, and that he would resort tohigh-handed measures to obtain them. Reflection told him that vice wouldbe an expensive thing, for a man. He patiently awaited Therese, who hadnot yet come in. When she arrived, he affected gentleness, and refrainedfrom breathing a word about having followed her in the morning. She wasslightly tipsy, and from her ill-adjusted garments, came that unpleasantodour of tobacco and spirits that is met with in public drinking places. Completely exhausted, and with cheeks as pale as death, she advanced atan unsteady gait and with a head quite heavy from the shameless fatigueof the day. 

The dinner passed in silence. Therese ate nothing. At dessert Laurentplaced his elbows on the table, and flatly asked her for 5, 000 francs. 

"No, " she answered dryly. "If I were to give you a free hand, you'dbring us to beggary. Aren't you aware of our position? We are going asfast as ever we can to the dogs. "

"That may be, " he quietly resumed. "I don't care a fig, I intend to havemoney. "

"No, a thousand times no!" she retorted. "You left your place, themercery business is in a very bad way, and the revenue from my marriageportion is not sufficient to maintain us. Every day I encroach on theprincipal to feed you and give you the one hundred francs a month youwrung from me. You will not get anything beyond that, do you understand?So it's no use asking. "

"Just reflect, " he replied, "and don't be so silly as to refuse. I tellyou I mean to have 5, 000 francs, and I shall have them. You'll give themme, in spite of all. "

This quiet determination irritated Therese and put the finishing touchto her intoxication. 

"Ah! I know what it is, " she cried, "you want to finish as you began. We have been keeping you for four years. You only came to us to eat anddrink, and since then you've been at our charge. Monsieur does nothing, Monsieur has arranged so as to live at my expense with his arms foldedone over the other. No, you shall have nothing, not a sou. Do you wantme to tell you what you are? Well then, you are a------"

And she pronounced the word. Laurent began to laugh, shrugging hisshoulders. He merely replied:

"You learn some pretty expressions in the company you keep now. "

This was the only allusion he ventured to make to the love affairs ofTherese. She quickly raised her head, and bitterly replied:

"Anyhow, I don't keep the company of murderers. "

Laurent became very pale, and for a moment remained silent, with hiseyes fixed on his wife; then, in a trembling voice, he resumed:

"Listen, my girl, don't let us get angry; there is no good in thatneither for you nor me. I've lost all courage. We had better come to anunderstanding if we wish to avoid a misfortune. If I ask you for 5, 000francs it is because I want them; and I will even tell you what I intendto do with them, so as to ensure our tranquillity. "

He gave her a peculiar smile, and continued:

"Come, reflect, let me have your last word. "

"I have thoroughly made up my mind, " answered the young woman, "and itis as I have told you. You shall not have a sou. "

Her husband rose violently. She was afraid of being beaten; she croucheddown, determined not to give way to blows. But Laurent did not evenapproach her, he confined himself to telling her in a frigid tone thathe was tired of life, and was about to relate the story of the murder tothe commissary of police of the quarter. 

"You drive me to extremes, " said he, "you make my life unbearable. Iprefer to have done with it. We shall both be tried and condemned. Andthere will be an end to it all. "

"Do you think you'll frighten me?" shouted his wife. "I am as weary asyou are. I'll go to the commissary of police myself, if you don't. Ah!Indeed, I am quite ready to follow you to the scaffold, I'm not a cowardlike you. Come along, come along with me to the commissary. "

She had risen, and was making her way to the staircase. 

"That's it, " stammered Laurent, "let's go together. "

When they were down in the shop they looked at once another, anxious andalarmed. It seemed as though they were riveted to the ground. The fewseconds they had taken to run downstairs had suffered to show them, asin a flash, all the consequences of a confession. They saw at the samemoment, suddenly and distinctly: gendarmes, prison, assize-court andguillotine. This made them feel faint, and they were tempted to throwthemselves on their knees, one before the other, to implore one anotherto remain, and reveal nothing. Fright and embarrassment kept themmotionless and mute for two or three minutes. Therese was the first tomake up her mind to speak and give way. 

"After all, " said she, "I am a great fool to quarrel with you about thismoney. You will succeed in getting hold of it and squandering it, oneday or another. I may just as well give it you at once. "

She did not seek to conceal her defeat any further. She seated herselfat the counter, and signed a cheque for 5, 000 francs, which Laurent wasto present to her banker. There was no more question of the commissaryof police that evening. 

As soon as Laurent had the gold in his pocket, he began to lead ariotous life, drinking to excess, and frequenting women of ill-repute. He slept all day and stayed out all night, in search of violent emotionsthat would relieve him of reality. But he only succeeded in becomingmore oppressed than before. When the company were shouting aroundhim, he heard the great, terrible silence within him; when one of hisladyloves kissed him, when he drained his glass, he found naught at thebottom of his satiety, but heavy sadness. 

He was no longer a man for lust and gluttony. His chilled being, asif inwardly rigid, became enervated at the kisses and feasts. Feelingdisgusted beforehand, they failed to arouse his imagination or to excitehis senses and stomach. He suffered a little more by forcing himselfinto a dissolute mode of life, and that was all. Then, when he returnedhome, when he saw Madame Raquin and Therese again, his weariness broughton frightful fits of terror. And he vowed he would leave the houseno more, that he would put up with his suffering, so as to becomeaccustomed to it, and be able to conquer it. 

For a month Therese lived, like Laurent, on the pavement and in thecafes. She returned daily for a moment, in the evening to feed MadameRaquin and put her to bed, and then disappeared again until the morrow. She and her husband on one occasion were four days without setting eyeson each other. At last, she experienced profound disgust at the lifeshe was leading, feeling that vice succeeded no better with her than thecomedy of remorse. 

In vain had she dragged through all the lodging-houses in the LatinQuarter, in vain had she led a low, riotous life. Her nerves wereruined. Debauchery ceased to give her a sufficiently violent shock torender her oblivious of the past. She resembled one of those drunkardswhose scorched palates remain insensible to the most violent spirits. She had done with lust, and the society of her paramours only worriedand wearied her. Then, she quitted them as useless. 

She now fell a prey to despondent idleness which kept her at home, ina dirty petticoat, with hair uncombed, and face and hands unwashed. Sheneglected everything and lived in filth. 

When the two murderers came together again face to face, in thismanner, after having done their best to get away from each other, they understood that they would no longer have strength to struggle. Debauchery had rejected them, it had just cast them back to theiranguish. Once more they were in the dark, damp lodging in the arcade;and, henceforth, were as if imprisoned there, for although they hadoften attempted to save themselves, never had they been able tosever the sanguinary bond attaching them. They did not even think ofattempting a task they regarded as impossible. They found themselves sourged on, so overwhelmed, so securely fastened together by events, thatthey were conscious all resistance would be ridiculous. They resumedtheir life in common, but their hatred became furious rage. 

The quarrels at night began again. But for that matter, the blowsand cries lasted all day long. To hatred distrust was now added, anddistrust put the finishing touch to their folly. 

They were afraid of each other. The scene that had followed the demandfor 5, 000 francs, was repeated morning and night. They had the fixedidea that they wanted to give one another up. From that standpoint theydid not depart. When either of them said a word, or made a gesture, theother imagined that he or she, as the case might be, intended to goto the commissary of police. Then, they either fought or implored oneanother to do nothing. 

In their anger, they shouted out that they would run and revealeverything, and terrified each other to death. After this theyshuddered, they humbled themselves, and promised with bitter tears tomaintain silence. They suffered most horribly, but had not the courageto cure themselves by placing a red-hot iron on the wound. If theythreatened one another to confess the crime, it was merely to striketerror into each other and drive away the thought, for they would neverhave had strength to speak and seek peace in punishment. 

On more than twenty occasions, they went as far as the door of thecommissariat of police, one following the other. Now it was Laurent whowanted to confess the murder, now Therese who ran to give herselfup. But they met in the street, and always decided to wait, after aninterchange of insults and ardent prayers. 

Every fresh attack made them more suspicious and ferocious than before. From morning till night they were spying upon one another. Laurentbarely set his foot outside the lodging in the arcade, and if, perchance, he did absent himself, Therese never failed to accompany him. Their suspicions, their fright lest either should confess, broughtthem together, united them in atrocious intimacy. Never, since theirmarriage, had they lived so tightly tied together, and never had theyexperienced such suffering. But, notwithstanding the anguish theyimposed on themselves, they never took their eyes off one another. Theypreferred to endure the most excruciating pain, rather than separate foran hour. 

If Therese went down to the shop, Laurent followed, afraid that shemight talk to a customer; if Laurent stood in the doorway, observing thepeople passing through the arcade, Therese placed herself beside him tosee that he did not speak to anyone. When the guests were assembled onThursday evenings, the murderers addressed supplicating glances to eachother, listening to one another in terror, one accomplice expecting theother to make some confession, and giving an involving interpretation tosentences only just commenced. 

Such a state of warfare could not continue any longer. 

Therese and Laurent had both reached the point of pondering on theadvisability of extricating themselves from the consequences of theirfirst crime, by committing a second. It became absolutely necessary thatone of them should disappear so that the other might enjoy some repose. This reflection came to them both at the same time; both felt the urgentnecessity for a separation, and both desired that it should be eternal. The murder that now occurred to their minds, seemed to them natural, fatal and forcibly brought about by the murder of Camille. They did noteven turn the matter over in their heads but welcomed the idea as theonly means of safety. Laurent determined he would kill Therese becauseshe stood in his way, because she might ruin him by a word, and becauseshe caused him unbearable suffering. Therese made up her mind that shewould kill Laurent, for the same reasons. 

The firm resolution to commit another murder somewhat calmed them. They formed their plans. But in that respect they acted with feverishexcitement, and without any display of excessive prudence. They onlythought vaguely of the probable consequences of a murder committedwithout flight and immunity being ensured. They felt the invinciblenecessity to kill one another, and yielded to this necessity likefurious brutes. They would not have exposed themselves for their firstcrime, which they had so cleverly concealed, and yet they risked theguillotine, in committing a second, which they did not even attempt tohide. 

Here was a contradiction in their conduct that they never so much ascaught sight of. Both simply said to themselves that if they succeededin fleeing, they would go and live abroad, taking all the cash withthem. Therese, a fortnight or three weeks before, had drawn from thebank the few thousand francs that remained of her marriage portion, andkept them locked up in a drawer--a circumstance that had not escapedLaurent. The fate of Madame Raquin did not trouble them an instant. 

A few weeks previously, Laurent had met one of his old college friends, now acting as dispenser to a famous chemist, who gave considerableattention to toxicology. This friend had shown him over the laboratorywhere he worked, pointing out to him the apparatus and the drugs. 

One night, after he had made up his mind in regard to the murder, andas Therese was drinking a glass of sugar and water before him, Laurentremembered that he had seen in this laboratory a small stoneware flagon, containing prussic acid, and that the young dispenser had spoken to himof the terrible effects of this poison, which strikes the victim downwith sudden death, leaving but few traces behind. And Laurent said tohimself, that this was the poison he required. On the morrow, succeedingin escaping the vigilance of Therese, he paid his friend a visit, andwhile he had his back turned, stole the small stoneware flagon. 

The same day, Therese took advantage of the absence of Laurent, to sendthe large kitchen knife, with which they were in the habit of breakingthe loaf sugar, and which was very much notched, to be sharpened. Whenit came back, she hid it in a corner of the sideboard. 

CHAPTER XXXII

The following Thursday, the evening party at the Raquins, as the guestscontinued to term the household of their hosts, was particularly merry. It was prolonged until half-past eleven, and as Grivet withdrew, hedeclared that he had never passed such a pleasant time. 

Suzanne, who was not very well, never ceased talking to Therese of herpain and joy. Therese appeared to listen to her with great interest, her eyes fixed, her lips pinched, her head, at moments, bending forward;while her lowering eyelids cast a cloud over the whole of her face. 

Laurent, for his part, gave uninterrupted attention to the tales of oldMichaud and Olivier. These gentlemen never paused, and it was only withdifficulty that Grivet succeeded in getting in a word edgeways betweena couple of sentences of father and son. He had a certain respectfor these two men whom he considered good talkers. On that particularevening, a gossip having taken the place of the usual game, he naivelyblurted out that the conversation of the former commissary of policeamused him almost as much as dominoes. 

During the four years, or thereabouts, that the Michauds and Grivet hadbeen in the habit of passing the Thursday evenings at the Raquins', theyhad not once felt fatigued at these monotonous evenings that returnedwith enervating regularity. Never had they for an instant suspected thedrama that was being performed in this house, so peaceful and harmoniouswhen they entered it. Olivier, with the jest of a person connected withthe police, was in the habit of remarking that the dining-room savouredof the honest man. Grivet, so as to have his say, had called the placethe Temple of Peace. 

Latterly, on two or three different occasions, Therese explained thebruises disfiguring her face, by telling the guests she had fallen down. But none of them, for that matter, would have recognised the marks ofthe fist of Laurent; they were convinced as to their hosts being a modelpair, replete with sweetness and love. 

The paralysed woman had not made any fresh attempt to reveal to themthe infamy concealed behind the dreary tranquillity of the Thursdayevenings. An eye-witness of the tortures of the murderers, andforeseeing the crisis which would burst out, one day or another, broughton by the fatal succession of events, she at length understood thatthere was no necessity for her intervention. And from that moment, sheremained in the background allowing the consequences of the murder ofCamille, which were to kill the assassins in their turn, to take theircourse. She only prayed heaven, to grant her sufficient life to enableher to be present at the violent catastrophe she foresaw; her onlyremaining desire was to feast her eyes on the supreme suffering thatwould undo Therese and Laurent. 

On this particular evening, Grivet went and seated himself beside her, and talked for a long time, he, as usual, asking the questions andsupplying the answers himself. But he failed to get even a glance fromher. When half-past eleven struck, the guests quickly rose to theirfeet. 

"We are so comfortable with you, " said Grivet, "that no one ever thinksof leaving. "

"The fact is, " remarked Michaud by way of supporting the old clerk, "Inever feel drowsy here, although I generally go to bed at nine o'clock. "

Olivier thought this a capital opportunity for introducing his littlejoke. 

"You see, " said he, displaying his yellow teeth, "this apartment savoursof honest people: that is why we are so comfortable here. "

Grivet, annoyed at being forestalled, began to declaim with an emphaticgesture:

"This room is the Temple of Peace!"

In the meanwhile, Suzanne, who was putting on her hat, remarked toTherese:

"I will come to-morrow morning at nine o'clock. "

"No, " hastened to answer the young woman in a strange, troubled tone, "don't come until the afternoon I have an engagement in the morning. "

She accompanied the guests into the arcade, and Laurent also went downwith a lamp in his hand. As soon as the married couple were alone, both heaved a sigh of relief. They must have been devoured by secretimpatience all the evening. Since the previous day they had become moresombre, more anxious in presence of one another. They avoided looking ateach other, and returned in silence to the dining-room. Their hands gaveslight convulsive twitches, and Laurent was obliged to place the lamp onthe table, to avoid letting it fall. 

Before putting Madame Raquin to bed they were in the habit of settingthe dining-room in order, of preparing a glass of sugar and waterfor the night, of moving hither and thither about the invalid, untileverything was ready. 

When they got upstairs on this particular occasion, they sat down aninstant with pale lips, and eyes gazing vaguely before them. Laurent wasthe first to break silence:

"Well! Aren't we going to bed?" he inquired, as if he had just startedfrom a dream. 

"Yes, yes, we are going to bed, " answered Therese, shivering as thoughshe felt a violent chill. 

She rose and grasped the water decanter. 

"Let it be, " exclaimed her husband, in a voice that he endeavoured torender natural, "I will prepare the sugar and water. You attend to youraunt. "

He took the decanter of water from the hands of his wife and poured outa glassful. Then, turning half round, he emptied the contents of thesmall stoneware flagon into the glass at the same time as he dropped alump of sugar into it. In the meanwhile, Therese had bent down beforethe sideboard, and grasping the kitchen knife sought to slip it into oneof the large pockets hanging from her waist. 

At the same moment, a strange sensation which comes as a warning noteof danger, made the married couple instinctively turn their heads. Theylooked at one another. Therese perceived the flagon in the hands ofLaurent, and the latter caught sight of the flash of the blade in thefolds of the skirt of his wife. 

For a few seconds they examined each other, mute and frigid, the husbandnear the table, the wife stooping down before the sideboard. And theyunderstood. Each of them turned icy cold, on perceiving that bothhad the same thought. And they were overcome with pity and horrorat mutually reading the secret design of the other on their agitatedcountenances. 

Madame Raquin, feeling the catastrophe near at hand, watched them withpiercing, fixed eyes. 

Therese and Laurent, all at once, burst into sobs. A supreme crisisundid them, cast them into the arms of one another, as weak as children. It seemed to them as if something tender and sweet had awakened in theirbreasts. They wept, without uttering a word, thinking of the vile lifethey had led, and would still lead, if they were cowardly enough tolive. 

Then, at the recollection of the past, they felt so fatigued anddisgusted with themselves, that they experienced a huge desire forrepose, for nothingness. They exchanged a final look, a look ofthankfulness, in presence of the knife and glass of poison. Therese tookthe glass, half emptied it, and handed it to Laurent who drank off theremainder of the contents at one draught. The result was like lightning. The couple fell one atop of the other, struck down, finding consolation, at last, in death. The mouth of the young woman rested on the scar thatthe teeth of Camille had left on the neck of her husband. 

The corpses lay all night, spread out contorted, on the dining-roomfloor, lit up by the yellow gleams from the lamp, which the shade castupon them. And for nearly twelve hours, in fact until the following dayat about noon, Madame Raquin, rigid and mute, contemplated them at herfeet, overwhelming them with her heavy gaze, and unable to sufficientlygorge her eyes with the hideous sight. 

AFTERWORD

The idea of the plot of "Therese Raquin, " according to M. Paul Alexis, Zola's biographer, came from a novel called "La Venus de Gordes"contributed to the "Figaro" by Adolphe Belot and Ernest Daudet--thebrother of Alphonse Daudet--in collaboration. In this story the authorsdealt with the murder of a man by his wife and her paramour, followed bythe trial of the murderers at the assizes. Zola, in noticing the book inthe "Figaro, " when it arrived for review, pointed out that a much morepowerful story might be written on the same subject by invoking divineinstead of human justice. For instance, showing the two murderers safefrom earthly consequences, yet separated by the pool of blood betweenthem, haunted by their crime, and detesting one another for the deeddone together. 

It then occurred to Zola to write the tale on these lines himself. Convinced that the idea was good, he elaborated it with the greatestcare and all the skill at his command, the result being that he produceda volume which proved his first genuine success, and which is stillconsidered by many to be his very best book. 

EDWARD VIZETELLY

SURBITON, 1 December, 1901.