Thérèse Raquin (17 page)

When they all arrived on the upper floor, Therese withdrew almost
immediately, with Madame Raquin and Suzanne, the men remaining in
the dining-room, while the bride performed her toilet for the night.
Laurent, nerveless and depressed, did not experience the least
impatience, but listened complacently to the coarse jokes of old Michaud
and Grivet, who indulged themselves to their hearts' content, now
that the ladies were no longer present. When Suzanne and Madame Raquin
quitted the nuptial apartment, and the old mercer in an unsteady voice
told the young man that his wife awaited him, he started. For an instant
he remained bewildered. Then he feverishly grasped the hands extended
to him, and entered the room, clinging to the door like a man under the
influence of drink.

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

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

Therese was seated on a low chair to the right of the chimney, staring
fixedly at the bright flames, with her chin in her hand. She did not
turn her head when Laurent entered. Clothed in a petticoat and linen
night-jacket bordered with lace, she looked snowy white in the bright
light of the fire. Her jacket had become disarranged, and part of her
rosy shoulder appeared, half hidden by a tress of raven hair.

Laurent advanced a few paces without speaking, and took off his coat
and waistcoat. When he stood in his shirt sleeves, he again looked at
Therese, who had not moved, and he seemed to hesitate. Then, perceiving
the bit of shoulder, he bent down quivering, to press his lips to it.
The young woman, abruptly turning round, withdrew her shoulder, and in
doing 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 with
terror and disgust.

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

It was more than a couple of years since the two sweethearts had
found themselves shut up alone in this room. They had arranged
no love-meetings since the day when Therese had gone to the Rue
Saint-Victor to convey to Laurent the idea of murder. Prudence had kept
them apart. Barely had they, at long intervals, ventured on a pressure
of the hand, or a stealthy kiss. After the murder of Camille, they had
restrained their passion, awaiting the nuptial night. This had at last
arrived, and now they remained anxiously face to face, overcome with
sudden discomfort.

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

In despair, they sought to find within them a little of that passion
which formerly had devoured them. Their frames seemed deprived of
muscles and nerves, and their embarrassment and anxiety increased. They
felt ashamed of remaining so silent and gloomy face to face with one
another. They would have liked to have had the strength to squeeze each
other 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 played
an atrocious comedy in order to be able to love in peace, and they sat
there, one on either side of a mantelshelf, rigid, exhausted, their
minds disturbed and their frames lifeless! Such a denouement appeared
to them horribly and cruelly ridiculous. It was then that Laurent
endeavoured to speak of love, to conjure up the remembrances of other
days, appealing to his imagination for a revival of his tenderness.

"Therese," he said, "don't you recall our afternoons in this room? Then
I came in by that door, but today I came in by this one. We are free
now. 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 flame
without listening. Laurent went on:

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

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

The young man, more troubled and anxious, resumed:

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

Laurent ceased speaking. His throat had suddenly become dry, and he was
choking, unable to continue. On hearing the name of Camille, Therese
received a violent shock. The two murderers contemplated one another,
stupefied, pale, and trembling. The yellow gleams of light from the
fire continued to dance on ceiling and walls, the soft odour of roses
lingered in the air, the crackling of the wood broke the silence with
short, sharp reports.

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

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

Therese, understanding what he desired, strove to answer his questions.
They chatted about the weather, endeavouring to force on a commonplace
conversation. 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 man
hastened to speak about the roses, the fire, about everything he saw
before him. The young woman, with an effort, rejoined in monosyllables,
so as not to allow the conversation to drop. They had drawn back from
one another, and were giving themselves easy airs, endeavouring to
forget whom they were, treating one another as strangers brought
together by chance.

But, in spite of themselves, by a strange phenomenon, whilst they
uttered these empty phrases, they mutually guessed the thoughts
concealed in their banal words. Do what they would, they both thought
of Camille. Their eyes continued the story of the past. They still
maintained by looks a mute discourse, apart from the conversation they
held aloud, which ran haphazard. The words they cast here and there
had no signification, being disconnected and contradictory; all their
intelligence was bent on the silent exchange of their terrifying
recollections.

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

Moreover, unconscious of the syllables they pronounced, they followed
their secret thoughts sentence by sentence; they might abruptly have
continued their confidences aloud, without ceasing to understand each
other. This sort of divination, this obstinacy of their memory in
presenting to themselves without pause, the image of Camille, little
by little drove them crazy. They thoroughly well perceived that they
guessed the thoughts of one another, and that if they did not hold their
tongues, the words would rise of themselves to their mouths, to name the
drowned man, and describe the murder. Then they closely pinched their
lips and ceased their conversation.

In the overwhelming silence that ensued, the two murderers continued
to converse about their victim. It appeared to them that their eyes
mutually penetrated their flesh, and buried clear, keen phrases in their
bodies. At moments, they fancied they heard themselves speaking aloud.
Their senses changed. Sight became a sort of strange and delicate
hearing. They so distinctly read their thoughts upon their countenances,
that these thoughts took a peculiarly piercing sound that agitated all
their organism. They could not have understood one another better, had
they 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 of
their first interview in the shop. Then the recollections had come one
by one in order; they had related their hours of love, their moments of
hesitation and anger, the terrible incident of the murder. It was then
that 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 do
so.

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

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

Laurent looked as if he expected this question. He had been reading it
for 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 their
hands towards the flame as if an icy puff of wind had suddenly passed
through the warm room. For an instant they maintained silence, coiled up
like 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 aside
some hideous vision, and rising went towards the bed. Then, returning
violently 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 half
thrown back, with her elbow resting on the marble mantelpiece. She gazed
at the neck of her husband. On the white skin she had just caught sight
of a pink spot. The rush of blood to the head, increased the size of
this 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 her
husband, 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 in
his 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 the
truth.

"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 Therese
to kiss the scar, convinced that the lips of this woman would appease
the thousand pricks lacerating his flesh, and with raised chin he
presented his extended neck for the embrace. Therese, who was almost
lying back on the marble chimney-piece, gave a supreme gesture of
disgust, and in a supplicating voice exclaimed: