Authors: Émile Zola
For a week, the newly-married couple passed the nights in this fashion,
dozing and getting a little rest in the daytime, Therese behind the
counter in the shop, Laurent in his office. At night they belonged to
pain and fear. And the strangest part of the whole business was the
attitude they maintained towards each other. They did not utter one word
of love, but feigned to have forgotten the past; and seemed to accept,
to tolerate one another like sick people, feeling secret pity for their
mutual sufferings.
Both hoped to conceal their disgust and fear, and neither seemed to
think of the peculiar nights they passed, which should have enlightened
them as to the real state of their beings. When they sat up until
morning, barely exchanging a word, turning pale at the least sound, they
looked as if they thought all newly-married folk conducted themselves
in the same way, during the first days of their marriage. This was the
clumsy hypocrisy of two fools.
They were soon so overcome by weariness that they one night decided
to lie on the bed. They did not undress, but threw themselves, as they
were, on the quilt, fearing lest their bare skins should touch, for they
fancied they would receive a painful shock at the least contact. Then,
when they had slept thus, in an anxious sleep, for two nights, they
risked removing their clothes, and slipping between the sheets. But
they remained apart, and took all sorts of precautions so as not to come
together.
Therese got into bed first, and lay down close to the wall. Laurent
waited until she had made herself quite comfortable, and then ventured
to stretch himself out at the opposite edge of the mattress, so that
there was a broad space between them. It was there that the corpse of
Camille lay.
When the two murderers were extended under the same sheet, and had
closed their eyes, they fancied they felt the damp corpse of their
victim, lying in the middle of the bed, and turning their flesh icy
cold. It was like a vile obstacle separating them. They were seized with
fever and delirium, and this obstacle, in their minds, became material.
They touched the corpse, they saw it spread out, like a greenish and
dissolved shred of something, and they inhaled the infectious odour of
this lump of human putrefaction. All their senses were in a state of
hallucination, 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 Therese
violently in his arms; but he dared not move. He said to himself that he
could not extend his hand, without getting it full of the soft flesh of
Camille. Next he fancied that the drowned man came to sleep between
them so as to prevent them clasping one another, and he ended by
understanding that Camille was jealous.
Nevertheless, ever and anon, they sought to exchange a timid kiss, to
see what would happen. The young man jeered at his wife, and ordered
her to embrace him. But their lips were so cold that it seemed as if
the dead man had got between their mouths. Both felt disgusted. Therese
shuddered 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 hallucination
brought the countenance of the drowned man before Therese, she closed
her eyes, keeping her terror to herself, not daring to speak to her
husband of her vision, lest she should bring on a still more terrible
crisis. And it was just the same with Laurent. When driven to
extremities, he, in a fit of despair, accused Therese of being afraid
of Camille. The name, uttered aloud, occasioned additional anguish. The
murderer raved.
"Yes, yes," he stammered, addressing the young woman, "you are afraid of
Camille. I can see that plain enough! You are a silly thing, you have
no pluck at all. Look here! just go to sleep quietly. Do you think your
husband will come and pull you out of bed by the heels, because I happen
to be sleeping with you?"
This idea that the drowned man might come and pull them out of bed by
the heels, made the hair of Laurent stand on end, and he continued with
greater violence, while still in the utmost terror himself.
"I shall have to take you some night to the cemetery. We will open the
coffin Camille is in, and you will see what he looks like! Then you will
perhaps cease being afraid. Go on, he doesn't know we threw him in the
water."
Therese with her head under the bedclothes, was uttering smothered
groans.
"We threw him into the water, because he was in our way," resumed her
husband. "And we'll throw him in again, will we not? Don't act like a
child. Show a little strength. It's silly to trouble our happiness. You
see, my dear, when we are dead and underground, we shall be neither less
nor more happy, because we cast an idiot in the Seine, and we shall have
freely enjoyed our love which will have been an advantage. Come, give me
a kiss."
The young woman kissed him, but she was icy cold, and half crazy, while
he shuddered as much as she did.
For a fortnight Laurent was asking himself how he could kill Camille
again. 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 the
murderers thought that having committed the crime, they could love one
another in peace, their resuscitated victim arrived to make their touch
like ice. Therese was not a widow. Laurent found that he was mated to a
woman who already had a drowned man for husband.
Little by little, Laurent became furiously mad, and resolved to drive
Camille 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, at
last, to take his wife in his arms, and crush the spectre of his victim
rather 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, had
alone brought him into the room of the young woman. When he had found
himself there, in the position of master, he had become a prey to such
atrocious attacks, that it had not even occurred to him to attempt
the cure. And he had remained overwhelmed for three weeks, without
remembering that he had done everything to obtain Therese, and now that
she was in his possession, he could not touch her without increased
suffering.
His excessive anguish drew him from this state of dejection. In
the first moment of stupor, amid the strange discouragement of the
wedding-night, he had forgotten the reasons that had urged him to marry.
But his repeated bad dreams had aroused in him a feeling of sullen
irritation, which triumphed over his cowardice, and restored his memory.
He remembered he had married in order to drive away nightmare, by
pressing his wife closely to his breast. Then, one night, he abruptly
took Therese in his arms, and, at the risk of passing over the corpse of
the drowned man, drew her violently to him.
The young woman, who was also driven to extremes, would have cast
herself into the fire had she thought that flames would have purified
her flesh, and delivered her from her woe. She returned Laurent his
advances, 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 took
the place of love. When their limbs touched, it was like falling on live
coal. They uttered a cry, pressing still closer together, so as not
to leave room for the drowned man. But they still felt the shreds of
Camille, which were ignobly squeezed between them, freezing their skins
in parts, whilst in others they were burning hot.
Their kisses were frightfully cruel. Therese sought the bite
that Camille had given in the stiff, swollen neck of Laurent, and
passionately pressed her lips to it. There was the raw sore; this wound
once healed, and the murderers would sleep in peace. The young woman
understood this, and she endeavoured to cauterise the bad place with the
fire of her caresses. But she scorched her lips, and Laurent thrust her
violently away, giving a dismal groan. It seemed to him that she was
pressing a red-hot iron to his neck. Therese, half mad, came back.
She wanted to kiss the scar again. She experienced a keenly voluptuous
sensation in placing her mouth on this piece of skin wherein Camille had
buried his teeth.
At one moment she thought of biting her husband in the same place, of
tearing 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 that
she 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 he
experienced was too acute, and each time his wife presented her lips, he
pushed her back. They struggled in this manner with a rattling in their
throats, writhing in the horror of their caresses.
They distinctly felt that they only increased their suffering. They
might well strain one another in these terrible clasps, they cried out
with pain, they burnt and bruised each other, but were unable to calm
their frightfully excited nerves. Each strain rendered their disgust
more intense. While exchanging these ghastly embraces, they were a prey
to the most terrible hallucinations, imagining that the drowned man was
dragging them by the heels, and violently jerking the bedstead.
For a moment they let one another go, feeling repugnance and invincible
nervous agitation. Then they determined not to be conquered. They
clasped each other again in a fresh embrace, and once more were obliged
to separate, for it seemed as if red-hot bradawls were entering their
limbs. At several intervals they attempted in this way to overcome their
disgust, by tiring, by wearing out their nerves. And each time their
nerves became irritated and strained, causing them such exasperation,
that they would perhaps have died of enervation had they remained in the
arms of one another. This battle against their own bodies excited them
to madness, and they obstinately sought to gain the victory. Finally,
a more acute crisis exhausted them. They received a shock of such
incredible violence that they thought they were about to have a fit.
Cast back one on each side of the bed, burning and bruised, they began
to sob. And amidst their tears, they seemed to hear the triumphant
laughter 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 deplored
his want of power to thrust him away, and Therese trembled lest the
corpse should have the idea of taking advantage of the victory to press
her, in his turn, in his arms, in the quality of legitimate master.
They had made a supreme effort. In face of their defeat, they understood
that, in future, they dared not exchange the smallest kiss. What they
had attempted, in order to drive away their terror, had plunged them
into greater fright. And, as they felt the chill of the corpse, which
was now to separate them for ever, they shed bitter tears, asking
themselves, with anguish, what would become of them.
In accordance with the hopes of old Michaud, when doing his best to
bring about the marriage of Therese and Laurent, the Thursday evenings
resumed 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 they
were trembling with anxiety, lest they should be definitely dismissed.
The idea that the door of the shop would no doubt at last be closed to
them, terrified Michaud and Grivet, who clung to their habits with the
instinct and obstinacy of brutes. They said to themselves that the old
woman and young widow would one day go and weep over the defunct at
Vernon or elsewhere, and then, on Thursday nights, they would not know
what to do. In the mind's eye they saw themselves wandering about the
arcade in a lamentable fashion, dreaming of colossal games at dominoes.
Pending the advent of these bad times, they timidly enjoyed their final
moments of happiness, arriving with an anxious, sugary air at the shop,
and repeating to themselves, on each occasion, that they would perhaps
return no more. For over a year they were beset with these fears. In
face of the tears of Madame Raquin and the silence of Therese, they
dared not make themselves at ease and laugh. They felt they were no
longer at home as in the time of Camille; it seemed, so to say, that
they were stealing every evening they passed seated at the dining-room
table. It was in these desperate circumstances that the egotism of
Michaud urged him to strike a masterly stroke by finding a husband for
the widow of the drowned man.
On the Thursday following the marriage, Grivet and Michaud made
a triumphant entry into the dining-room. They had conquered. The
dining-room belonged to them again. They no longer feared dismissal.
They came there as happy people, stretching out their legs, and cracking
their former jokes, one after the other. It could be seen from their
delighted and confident attitude that, in their idea, a revolution had
been accomplished. All recollection of Camille had been dispelled. The
dead husband, the spectre that cast a chill over everyone, had
been driven away by the living husband. The past and its joys were
resuscitated. Laurent took the place of Camille, all cause for sadness
disappeared, the guests could now laugh without grieving anyone; and,
indeed, it was their duty to laugh to cheer up this worthy family who
were good enough to receive them.
Henceforth, Grivet and Michaud, who for nearly eighteen months had
visited the house under the pretext of consoling Madame Raquin, could
set their little hypocrisy aside, and frankly come and doze opposite one
another to the sharp ring of the dominoes.