Thérèse Raquin (6 page)

"But previous to this depression, what nights of anger I had. Down there
at Vernon, in my frigid room, I bit my pillow to stifle my cries. I beat
myself, taxed myself with cowardice. My blood was on the boil, and I
would have lacerated my body. On two occasions, I wanted to run away, to
go straight before me, towards the sun; but my courage failed. They had
turned me into a docile brute with their tame benevolence and sickly
tenderness. 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, from
a feeling of a sort of disdainful indifference. I pitied the child. When
I played with him, I felt my fingers sink into the flesh of his limbs
as into damp clay. I took him because my aunt offered him to me, and
because I never intended to place any restraint on my actions on his
account.

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

Therese drew herself up, bending backward, her fingers imprisoned in the
massive hands of Laurent, gazing at his broad shoulders, and enormous
neck.

"You, I love you," she continued. "I loved you from the day Camille
pushed you into the shop. You have perhaps no esteem for me, because I
gave way at once. Truly, I know not how it happened. I am proud. I am
passionate. I would have liked to have beaten you, the first day, when
you 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 was
ready to commit a crime.

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

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

On her part Therese seemed to revel in daring. The only precaution she
would take when expecting her lover was to tell her aunt she was going
upstairs to rest. But then, when he was there she never bothered about
avoiding noise, walking about and talking. At first this terrified
Laurent.

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

Therese would laugh. "Who cares, you are always so worried. She is at
her 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, but
soon he grew used to the risks of these meetings, only a few yards from
the 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, Laurent
became frantic. Therese laughed as she saw him searching for his
waistcoat and hat. She grabbed his arm and pushed him down at the foot
of 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 covered
them 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 the
younger woman pretended to be asleep. Laurent, under all the clothes was
in a panic.

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

Therese, opening her eyes and yawning, answered that she had a terrible
migraine. She begged her aunt to let her sleep some more. The old lady
left 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. She
would see the cat, sitting motionless and dignified, looking at them.
"Look at Francois," she said to Laurent. "You'd think he understands and
is planning to tell Camille everything to-night. He knows a thing or two
about us. Wouldn't it be funny if one day, in the shop, he just started
talking."

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

Laurent was perfectly happy of an evening, in the shop. He generally
returned from the office with Camille. Madame Raquin had formed quite
a motherly affection for him. She knew he was short of cash, and
indifferently nourished, that he slept in a garret; and she had told
him, once for all, that a seat would always be kept for him at their
table. She liked this young fellow with that expansive feeling that old
women 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 to
dinner, after leaving the office for the night, he and Camille went for
a stroll on the quays. Both found satisfaction in this intimacy. They
dawdled along, chatting with one another, which prevented them feeling
dull, and after a time decided to go and taste the soup prepared by
Madame Raquin. Laurent opened the shop door as if he were master of
the house, seated himself astride a chair, smoking and expectorating as
though at home.

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

Laurent had made a correct guess: he had become the sweetheart of the
woman, the friend of the husband, the spoilt child of the mother. Never
had he enjoyed such a capital time. His position in the family struck
him 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 of
being prudent and calm that he did not even keep watch on his gestures
and speech. The egotism he displayed in the enjoyment of his good
fortune, shielded him from any fault. All that kept him from kissing
Therese in the shop was the fear that he would not be allowed to come
any more. He would not have cared a bit about hurting Camille and his
mother.

Therese, who was of a more nervous and quivering temperament, was
compelled to play a part, and she played it to perfection, thanks to the
clever hypocrisy she had acquired in her bringing up. For nearly fifteen
years, she had been lying, stifling her fever, exerting an implacable
will to appear gloomy and half asleep. It cost her nothing to keep this
mask on her face, which gave her an appearance of icy frigidity.

When Laurent entered the shop, he found her glum, her nose longer, her
lips thinner. She was ugly, cross, unapproachable. Nevertheless, she
did not exaggerate her effects, but only played her former part, without
awakening attention by greater harshness. She experienced extraordinary
pleasure in deceiving Camille and Madame Raquin. She was aware she was
doing wrong, and at times she felt a ferocious desire to rise from table
and smother Laurent with kisses, just to show her husband and aunt that
she was not a fool, and that she had a sweetheart.

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

The nature of the circumstances seemed to have made this woman for this
man, and to have thrust one towards the other. The two together, the
woman nervous and hypocritical, the man sanguineous and leading the
life of a brute, formed a powerful couple allied. The one completed the
other, and they mutually protected themselves. At night, at table, in
the pale light of the lamp, one felt the strength of their union, at
the 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 the
transparent shadow and cool atmosphere, arose friendly conversation.
The family and their guest sat close together round the table. After
the dessert, they chatted about a thousand trifles of the day, about
incidents that had occurred the day before, about their hopes for the
morrow.

Camille liked Laurent, as much as he was capable of liking anybody,
after the fashion of a contented egotist, and Laurent seemed to show him
equal attachment. Between them there was an exchange of kind sentences,
of obliging gestures, and thoughtful attentions. Madame Raquin, with
placid countenance, contributed her peacefulness to the tranquillity
of the scene, which resembled a gathering of old friends who knew one
another to the heart, and who confidently relied on the faith of their
friendship.

Therese, motionless, peaceful like the others, observed this joy, this
smiling depression of these people of the middle class, and in her heart
there was savage laughter; all her being jeered, but her face maintained
its frigid rigidity. Ah! how she deceived these worthy people, and how
delighted she was to deceive them with such triumphant impudence. Her
sweetheart, at this moment, was like a person unknown to her, a comrade
of her husband, a sort of simpleton and interloper concerning whom she
had no need to concern herself. This atrocious comedy, these duperies of
life, this comparison between the burning kisses in the daytime, and the
indifference played at night, gave new warmth to the blood of the young
woman.

When by chance Madame Raquin and Camille went downstairs, Therese
bounded from her chair, to silently, and with brutal energy, press her
lips to those of her sweetheart, remaining thus breathless and choking
until she heard the stairs creak. Then, she briskly seated herself
again, and resumed her glum grimace, while Laurent calmly continued the
interrupted conversation with Camille. It was like a rapid, blinding
flash 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 one
of these gatherings. As a measure of prudence he desired to be known and
esteemed by the friends of Camille. So he had to lend an ear to the idle
talk of Grivet and old Michaud. The latter always related the same tales
of robbery and murder, while Grivet spoke at the same time about his
clerks, his chiefs, and his administration, until the young man
sought refuge beside Olivier and Suzanne, whose stupidity seemed less
wearisome. But he soon asked for the dominoes.

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

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

One afternoon, as Laurent was leaving his office to run and meet Therese
who was expecting him, his chief gave him to understand that in future
he was forbidden to absent himself. He had taken too many holidays
already, and the authorities had decided to dismiss him if he again went
out in office hours.

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

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

Camille came into the shop, and Laurent was obliged to withdraw without
giving any further information, leaving Therese under the disagreeable
influence of this abrupt and unpleasant announcement. Exasperated at
anyone daring to interfere with her delectation, she passed a sleepless
night, 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 meet
for the purpose of consulting and coming to an understanding. The young
woman, on this occasion, gave her sweetheart another appointment which
for the second time he failed to keep, and she then had but one fixed
idea—to see him at any cost.