Authors: Émile Zola
"It is not true," said she. "What you relate is monstrous. You have no
right to reproach me with my weakness towards you. I can speak in regard
to you, as you speak of me. Before I knew you, I was a good woman, who
never wronged a soul. If I drove you mad, it was you made me madder
still. Listen Laurent, don't let us quarrel. I have too much to reproach
you with."
"What can you reproach me with?" he inquired.
"No, nothing," she answered. "You did not save me from myself, you took
advantage of my surrender, you chose to spoil my life. I forgive you
all that. But, in mercy, do not accuse me of killing Camille. Keep your
crime for yourself. Do not seek to make me more terrified than I am
already."
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 a
chair, sat down beside her.
"Listen," he began in a voice that he endeavoured to render calm, "it is
cowardly to refuse to take your share in the crime. You know perfectly
well that as we did the deed together, you know you are as guilty as I
am. 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 recall
what passed during the two years following the murder. Do you want a
proof? 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 did
everything. He does not torment me at night as he does you."
"Camille leaves me in peace," said Laurent, pale and trembling, "it is
you who see him before you in your nightmares. I have heard you shout
out."
"Don't say that," angrily exclaimed the young woman. "I have never
shouted out. I don't wish the spectre to appear. Oh! I understand, you
want to drive it away from yourself. I am innocent, I am innocent!"
They looked at one another in terror, exhausted with fatigue, fearing
they had evoked the corpse of the drowned man. Their quarrels invariably
ended in this way; they protested their innocence, they sought to
deceive themselves, so as to drive away their bad dreams. They made
constant efforts, each in turn, to reject the responsibility of the
crime, 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 in
duping themselves by their oaths. Both had a perfect recollection of all
the circumstances connected with the murder, and their eyes avowed what
their lips denied.
Their falsehoods were puerile, their affirmations ridiculous. It was the
wordy dispute of two wretches who lied for the sake of lying, without
succeeding in concealing from themselves that they did so. Each took the
part of accuser in turn, and although the prosecution they instituted
against one another proved barren of result, they began it again every
evening with cruel tenacity.
They were aware that they would prove nothing, that they would not
succeed in effacing the past, and still they attempted this task, still
they returned to the charge, spurred on by pain and terror, vanquished
in advance by overwhelming reality. The sole advantage they derived from
their disputes, consisted in producing a tempest of words and cries, and
the riot occasioned in this manner momentarily deafened them.
And all the time their anger lasted, all the time they were accusing one
another, the paralysed woman never ceased to gaze at them. Ardent joy
sparkled in her eyes, when Laurent raised his broad hand above the head
of Therese.
Matters now took a different aspect. Therese, driven into a corner by
fright, not knowing which way to turn for a consoling thought, began to
weep 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 felt
compassionate in the early days of her second marriage, and this feeling
now returned, as a necessary and fatal reaction.
When the young woman had struggled with all her nervous energy against
the spectre of Camille, when she had lived in sullen irritation for
several months up in arms against her sufferings, seeking to get the
better of them by efforts of will, she all at once experienced such
extraordinary lassitude that she yielded vanquished. Then, having become
a woman again, even a little girl, no longer feeling the strength
to stiffen herself, to stand feverishly erect before her terror, she
plunged into pity, into tears and regret, in the hope of finding some
relief. She sought to reap advantage from her weakness of body and mind.
Perhaps the drowned man, who had not given way to her irritation, would
be more unbending to her tears.
Her remorse was all calculation. She thought that this would no doubt be
the best way to appease and satisfy Camille. Like certain devotees, who
fancy they will deceive the Almighty, and secure pardon by praying
with their lips, and assuming the humble attitude of penitence, Therese
displayed humility, striking her chest, finding words of repentance,
without having anything at the bottom of her heart save fear and
cowardice. Besides, she experienced a sort of physical pleasure in
giving way in this manner, in feeling feeble and undone, in abandoning
herself to grief without resistance.
She overwhelmed Madame Raquin with her tearful despair. The paralysed
woman 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 fearlessly
confess her faults and plead for forgiveness. As soon as she felt
inclined to cry, to divert herself by sobbing, she knelt before the
impotent old lady, and there, wailing and choking, performed to her
alone a scene of remorse which weakened but relieved her.
"I am a wretch," she stammered, "I deserve no mercy. I deceived you, I
drove your son to his death. Never will you forgive me. And yet, if
you 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 die
here at your feet, overwhelmed by shame and grief."
She spoke in this manner for hours together, passing from despair to
hope, condemning and then pardoning herself; she assumed the voice,
brief and plaintive in turn, of a little sick girl; she flattened
herself on the ground and drew herself up again, acting upon all the
ideas of humility and pride, of repentance and revolt that entered her
head. Sometimes even, forgetting she was on her knees before Madame
Raquin, she continued her monologue as in a dream. When she had made
herself thoroughly giddy with her own words, she rose staggering and
dazed, to go down to the shop in a calmer frame of mind, no longer
fearing to burst into sobs before her customers. When she again felt
inclined for remorse, she ran upstairs and knelt at the feet of the
impotent woman. This scene was repeated ten times a day.
Therese never reflected that her tears, and display of repentance must
impose ineffable anguish on her aunt. The truth was that if she had
desired to invent a torment to torture Madame Raquin, it would not have
been possible to have found a more frightful one than the comedy of
remorse she performed before her. The paralysed woman could see the
egotism concealed beneath these effusions of grief. She suffered
horribly from these long monologues which she was compelled to listen to
at every instant, and which always brought the murder of Camille before
her eyes. She could not pardon, she never departed from the implacable
thought of vengeance that her impotency rendered more keen, and all day
long she had to listen to pleas for pardon, and to humble and cowardly
prayers.
She would have liked to give an answer; certain sentences of her niece
brought crushing refusals to her lips, but she had to remain mute and
allow Therese to plead her cause without once interrupting her.
The impossibility of crying out and stopping her ears caused her
inexpressible torture. The words of the young woman entered her mind,
slow and plaintive, as an irritating ditty. At first, she fancied the
murderers inflicted this kind of torture on her out of sheer diabolical
cruelty. Her sole means of defence was to close her eyes, as soon as her
niece 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 fit
of repentance, she feigned she had perceived a gleam of mercy in the
eyes 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, who
was unable to throw her head backward so as to avoid the embrace. The
cold skin on which Therese placed her lips, caused her violent disgust.
She fancied this disgust, like the tears of remorse, would be an
excellent remedy to appease her nerves; and she continued to kiss the
impotent old woman daily, by way of penitence, and also to relieve
herself.
"Oh! How good you are!" she sometimes exclaimed. "I can see my tears
have touched you. Your eyes are full of pity. I am saved."
Then she smothered her with caresses, placing the head of the infirm
old lady on her knees, kissing her hands, smiling at her happily,
and attending to all her requirements with a display of passionate
affection. After a time, she believed in the reality of this comedy,
she imagined she had obtained the pardon of Madame Raquin, and spoke of
nothing but the delight she experienced at having secured her pardon.
This was too much for the paralysed woman. It almost killed her. At the
kisses of her niece, she again felt that sensation of bitter repugnance
and rage which came over her, morning and night, when Laurent took her
in his arms to lift her up, or lay her down. She was obliged to submit
to the disgusting caresses of the wretch who had betrayed and killed her
son. She could not even use her hand to wipe away the kisses that this
woman left on her cheeks; and, for hours and hours together, she felt
these kisses burning her.
She became the doll of the murderers of Camille, a doll that they
dressed, that they turned to right and left, and that they made use of
according to their requirements and whims. She remained inert in their
hands, as if she had been a lay-figure, and yet she lived, and became
excited and indignant at the least contact with Therese or Laurent.
What particularly exasperated her was the atrocious mockery of the young
woman, who pretended she perceived expressions of mercy in her eyes,
when she would have liked to have brought down fire from heaven on the
head of the criminal. She frequently made supreme efforts to utter a
cry of protestation, and loaded her looks with hatred. But Therese, who
found it answered her purpose to repeat twenty times a day that she
was pardoned, redoubled her caresses, and would see nothing. So the
paralysed woman had to accept the thanks and effusions that her heart
repelled. Henceforth, she lived in a state of bitter but powerless
irritation, face to face with her yielding niece who displayed adorable
acts of tenderness to recompense her for what she termed her heavenly
goodness.
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 this
to trouble me."
The remorse of Therese caused him peculiar agitation. His suffering
increased now that his accomplice dragged herself about him, with eyes
red by weeping, and supplicating lips. The sight of this living example
of regret redoubled his fright and added to his uneasiness. It was like
an everlasting reproach wandering through the house. Then he feared that
repentance would one day drive his wife to reveal everything. He would
have preferred her to remain rigid and threatening, bitterly defending
herself against his accusations. But she had changed her tactics. She
now readily recognised the share she had taken in the crime. She even
accused herself. She had become yielding and timid, and starting from
this point implored redemption with ardent humility. This attitude
irritated Laurent, and every evening the quarrels of the couple became
more afflicting and sinister.
"Listen to me," said Therese to her husband, "we are very guilty. We
must repent if we wish to enjoy tranquillity. Look at me. Since I have
been weeping I am more peaceable. Imitate me. Let us say together that
we are justly punished for having committed a horrible crime."
"Bah!" roughly answered Laurent, "you can say what you please. I know
you are deucedly clever and hypocritical. Weep, if that diverts you. But
I must beg you not to worry me with your tears."
"Ah!" said she, "you are bad. You reject remorse. You are cowardly. You
acted 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 you
are. I ought to have saved my husband from your hands. Oh! I am aware
of all the horror of my fault. But I have sought pardon, and I have
succeeded, Laurent, whereas you continue to lead a disconsolate life.
You have not even had the feeling to spare my poor aunt the sight of
your vile anger. You have never even addressed a word of regret to her."
And she embraced Madame Raquin, who shut her eyes. She hovered round
her, raising the pillow that propped up her head, and showing her all
kinds of attention. Laurent was infuriated.
"Oh, leave her alone," he cried. "Can't you see that your services, and
the very sight of you are odious to her. If she could lift her hand she
would slap your face."