Authors: Émile Zola
"This is perfect. I can read it very well indeed," resumed Olivier after
an instant, and with his eyes on the married pair. "Your aunt writes
your two names: '
Therese and Laurent
.'"
The old lady made sign after sign in the affirmative, casting crushing
glances 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 again
grasping 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 completing
the sentence aloud. They contemplated the avenging hand with fixed
and troubled eyes, when, all at once this hand became convulsed, and
flattened out on the table. It slipped down and fell on the knee of the
impotent woman like a lump of inanimate flesh and bone. The paralysis
had returned and arrested the punishment. Michaud and Olivier sat down
again disappointed, while Therese and Laurent experienced such keen joy
that they felt like fainting under the influence of the sudden rush of
blood that beat in their bosoms.
Grivet who felt vexed at not having been believed on trust, thought
the moment had arrived to regain his infallibility, by completing the
unfinished sentence. While every one was endeavouring to supply the
missing 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, for
all the company were of his opinion; and the guests began to sing the
praises of the married couple, who were so good for the poor lady.
"It is certain," old Michaud gravely remarked, "that Madame Raquin
wishes to bear testimony to the tender affection her children lavish on
her, 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 the
double-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; never
would she be able to raise it again. Providence would not permit Camille
to be avenged. It withdrew from his mother the only means she had of
making known the crime to which he had fallen a victim. And the wretched
woman said to herself that she was now only fit to go and join her child
underground. She lowered her lids, feeling herself, henceforth, useless,
and with the desire of imagining herself already in the darkness of the
tomb.
For two months, Therese and Laurent had been struggling in the anguish
of their union. One suffered through the other. Then hatred slowly
gained 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, their
love had turned to fright, and their kisses had produced a sort of
physical terror. At present, amid the suffering which marriage, which
life in common imposed on them, they revolted and flew into anger.
It was a bitter hatred, with terrible outbursts. They felt they were in
the way of one another, and both inwardly said that they would lead a
tranquil existence were they not always face to face. When in presence
of each other, it seemed as if an enormous weight were stifling them,
and they would have liked to remove this weight, to destroy it. Their
lips were pinched, thoughts of violence passed in their clear eyes, and
a craving beset them to devour one another.
In reality, one single thought tormented them: they were irritated at
their crime, and in despair at having for ever troubled their lives.
Hence all their anger and hatred. They felt the evil incurable, that
they would suffer for the murder of Camille until death, and this idea
of 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 punishment
of the murder; they refused to listen to the inner voice that shouted
out the truth to them, displaying the story of their life before their
eyes. And yet, in the fits of rage that bestirred them, they both saw
clearly to the bottom of their anger, they were aware it was the furious
impulse of their egotistic nature that had urged them to murder in order
to satisfy their desire, and that they had only found in assassination,
an afflicted and intolerable existence. They recollected the past, they
knew that their mistaken hopes of lust and peaceful happiness had alone
brought them to remorse. Had they been able to embrace one another in
peace, and live in joy, they would not have mourned Camille, they would
have fattened on their crime. But their bodies had rebelled, refusing
marriage, and they inquired of themselves, in terror, where horror and
disgust would lead them. They only perceived a future that would be
horrible in pain, with a sinister and violent end.
Then, like two enemies bound together, and who were making violent
efforts to release themselves from this forced embrace, they strained
their muscles and nerves, stiffening their limbs without succeeding in
releasing themselves. At last understanding that they would never be
able to escape from their clasp, irritated by the cords cutting into
their flesh, disgusted at their contact, feeling their discomfort
increase at every moment, forgetful, and unable to bear their bonds a
moment longer, they addressed outrageous reproaches to one another, in
the hope of suffering loss, of dressing the wounds they inflicted on
themselves, by cursing and deafening each other with their shouts and
accusations.
A quarrel broke out every evening. It looked as though the murderers
sought opportunities to become exasperated so as to relax their rigid
nerves. They watched one another, sounded one another with glances,
examined the wounds of one another, discovering the raw parts, and
taking keen pleasure in causing each other to yell in pain. They lived
in constant irritation, weary of themselves, unable to support a word, a
gesture or a look, without suffering and frenzy. Both their beings
were prepared for violence; the least display of impatience, the
most ordinary contrariety increased immoderately in their disordered
organism, and all at once, took the form of brutality. A mere nothing
raised a storm that lasted until the morrow. A plate too warm, an open
window, a denial, a simple observation, sufficed to drive them into
regular fits of madness.
In the course of the discussion, they never failed to bring up the
subject of the drowned man. From sentence to sentence they came to
mutual reproaches about this drowning business at Saint-Ouen, casting
the crime in the face of one another. They grew excited to the pitch
of fury, until one felt like murdering the other. Then ensued atrocious
scenes of choking, blows, abominable cries, shameless brutalities. As a
rule, Therese and Laurent became exasperated, in this manner, after the
evening meal. They shut themselves up in the dining-room, so that the
sound of their despair should not be heard. There, they could devour
one another at ease. At the end of this damp apartment, of this sort of
vault, lighted by the yellow beams of the lamp, the tone of their voices
took harrowing sharpness, amidst the silence and tranquillity of the
atmosphere. And they did not cease until exhausted with fatigue; then
only 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' rest
by 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. She
heard everything, and not a shudder ran through her lifeless frame.
Her eyes rested on the murderers with the most acute fixedness. Her
martyrdom 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 filth
and crimes of those whom she had called her children.
These quarrels of the married couple placed her in possession of the
most minute circumstances connected with the murder, and spread out,
one by one, before her terrified mind, all the episodes of the horrible
adventure. As she went deeper into this sanguinary filth, she pleaded in
her mind for mercy, at times, she fancied she was touching the bottom of
the infamy, and still she had to descend lower. Each night, she learnt
some new detail. The frightful story continued to expand before her.
It seemed like being lost in an interminable dream of horror. The first
avowal had been brutal and crushing, but she suffered more from these
repeated blows, from these small facts which the husband and wife
allowed to escape them in their fits of anger, and which lit up the
crime with sinister rays. Once a day, this mother heard the account
of the murder of her son; and, each day this account became more
horrifying, more replete with detail, and was shouted into her ears with
greater cruelty and uproar.
On one occasion, Therese, taken aback with remorse, at the sight of
this wan countenance, with great tears slowly coursing down its cheeks,
pointed out her aunt to Laurent, beseeching him with a look to hold his
tongue.
"Well, what of it? Leave me alone!" exclaimed the latter in a brutal
tone, "you know very well that she cannot give us up. Am I more happy
than she is? We have her cash, I have no need to constrain myself."
The quarrel continued, bitter and piercing, and Camille was killed over
again. Neither Therese nor Laurent dared give way to the thoughts of
pity that sometimes came over them, and shut the paralysed woman in
her bedroom, when they quarrelled, so as to spare her the story of the
crime. They were afraid of beating one another to death, if they failed
to have this semi-corpse between them. Their pity yielded to cowardice.
They imposed ineffable sufferings on Madame Raquin because they required
her presence to protect them against their hallucinations.
All their disputes were alike, and led to the same accusations. As soon
as one of them accused the other of having killed this man, there came a
frightful shock.
One night, at dinner, Laurent who sought a pretext for becoming
irritable, found that the water in the decanter was lukewarm. He
declared that tepid water made him feel sick, and that he wanted it
fresh.
"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 from
the river."
"Water from the river?" repeated Therese.
And she burst out sobbing. A juncture of ideas had just occurred in her
mind.
"Why do you cry?" asked Laurent, who foresaw the answer, and turned
pale.
"I cry," sobbed the young woman, "I cry because—you know why—Oh! Great
God! Great God! It was you who killed him."
"You lie!" shouted the murderer vehemently, "confess that you lie. If I
threw 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 to
force you to tell the truth. I want you to confess your crime, to take
your 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 feign
astonishment and want of memory. Wait a moment, I will recall your
recollections."
Rising from table, he bent over the young woman, and with crimson
countenance, yelled in her face:
"You were on the river bank, you remember, and I said to you in an
undertone: 'I am going to pitch him into the water.' Then you agreed to
it, 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 an
accomplice relieved him. Had he dared, he would have attempted to prove
to himself that all the horror of the murder fell upon Therese. He
more than once felt inclined to beat the young woman, so as to make her
confess that she was the more guilty of the two.
He began striding up and down, shouting and raving, followed by the
piercing eyes of Madame Raquin.
"Ah! The wretch! The wretch!" he stammered in a choking voice, "she
wants 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 rid
you of your husband? You told me, when I visited you here, that he
displeased you, that he had the odour of a sickly child. Did I think
of all this three years ago? Was I a rascal? I was leading the peaceful
existence of an upright man, doing no harm to anybody. I would not have
killed a fly."
"It was you who killed Camille," repeated Therese with such desperate
obstinacy that she made Laurent lose his head.
"No, it was you, I say it was you," he retorted with a terrible burst
of rage. "Look here, don't exasperate me, or if you do you'll suffer for
it. What, you wretch, have you forgotten everything? You who maddened me
with 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 long
time. No doubt you took me as a sweetheart, so as to drive me to put an
end to him."