prompt:
Chapter: Henceforth, Laurent called almost every evening on the Raquins. He lived
in the Rue Saint-Victor, opposite the Port aux Vins, where he rented a
small furnished room at 18 francs a month. This attic, pierced at the
top by a lift-up window, measured barely nine square yards, and Laurent
was in the habit of going home as late as possible at night. Previous to
his meeting with Camille, the state of his purse not permitting him to
idle away his time in the cafes, he loitered at the cheap eating-houses
where he took his dinner, smoking his pipe and sipping his coffee
and brandy which cost him three sous. Then he slowly gained the Rue
Saint-Victor, sauntering along the quays, where he seated himself on the
benches, in mild weather.

The shop in the Arcade of the Pont Neuf became a charming retreat, warm
and quiet, where he found amicable conversation and attention. He
saved the three sous his coffee and brandy cost him, and gluttonously
swallowed the excellent tea prepared by Madame Raquin. He remained
there until ten o'clock, dozing and digesting as if he were at home; and
before taking his departure, assisted Camille to put up the shutters and
close the shop for the night.

One evening, he came with his easel and box of colours. He was to
commence the portrait of Camille on the morrow. A canvas was purchased,
minute preparations made, and the artist at last took the work in hand
in the room occupied by the married couple, where Laurent said the light
was the best.

He took three evenings to draw the head. He carefully trailed the
charcoal over the canvas with short, sorry strokes, his rigid, cold
drawing recalling in a grotesque fashion that of the primitive masters.
He copied the face of Camille with a hesitating hand, as a pupil copies
an academical figure, with a clumsy exactitude that conveyed a scowl to
the face. On the fourth day, he placed tiny little dabs of colour on
his palette, and commenced painting with the point of the brush; he
then dotted the canvas with small dirty spots, and made short strokes
altogether as if he had been using a pencil.

At the end of each sitting, Madame Raquin and Camille were in ecstasies.
But Laurent said they must wait, that the resemblance would soon come.

Since the portrait had been commenced, Therese no longer quitted the
room, which had been transformed into a studio. Leaving her aunt alone
behind the counter, she ran upstairs at the least pretext, and forgot
herself watching Laurent paint.

Still grave and oppressed, paler and more silent, she sat down and
observed the labour of the brushes. But this sight did not seem to amuse
her very much. She came to the spot, as though attracted by some power,
and she remained, as if riveted there. Laurent at times turned round,
with a smile, inquiring whether the portrait pleased her. But she barely
answered, a shiver ran through her frame, and she resumed her meditative
trance.

Laurent, returning at night to the Rue Saint-Victor, reasoned with
himself at length, discussing in his mind, whether he should become the
lover of Therese, or not.

"Here is a little woman," said he to himself, "who will be my sweetheart
whenever I choose. She is always there, behind my back, examining,
measuring me, summing me up. She trembles. She has a strange face that
is mute and yet impassioned. What a miserable creature that Camille is,
to be sure."

And Laurent inwardly laughed as he thought of his pale, thin friend.
Then he resumed:

"She is bored to death in that shop. I go there, because I have nowhere
else to go to, otherwise they would not often catch me in the Arcade
of the Pont Neuf. It is damp and sad. A woman must be wearied to death
there. I please her, I am sure of it; then, why not me rather than
another?"

He stopped. Self-conceit was getting the better of him. Absorbed in
thought, he watched the Seine running by.

"Anyhow, come what may," he exclaimed, "I shall kiss her at the first
opportunity. I bet she falls at once into my arms."

As he resumed his walk, he was seized with indecision.

"But she is ugly," thought he. "She has a long nose, and a big mouth.
Besides, I have not the least love for her. I shall perhaps get myself
into trouble. The matter requires reflection."

Laurent, who was very prudent, turned these thoughts over in his head
for a whole week. He calculated all the possible inconveniences of an
intrigue with Therese, and only decided to attempt the adventure, when
he felt convinced that it could be attended by no evil consequences.
Therese would have every interest to conceal their intimacy, and he
could get rid of her whenever he pleased. Even admitting that Camille
discovered everything, and got angry, he would knock him down, if
he became spiteful. From every point of view that matter appeared to
Laurent easy and engaging.

Henceforth he enjoyed gentle quietude, waiting for the hour to strike.
He had made up his mind to act boldly at the first opportunity. In the
future he saw comfortable evenings, with all the Raquins contributing to
his enjoyment: Therese giving him her love, Madame Raquin wheedling him
like a mother, and Camille chatting with him so that he might not feel
too dull, at night, in the shop.

The portrait was almost completed, but the opportunity he desired did
not occur. Therese, depressed and anxious, continued to remain in the
room. But so did Camille, and Laurent was in despair at being unable
to get rid of him. Nevertheless, the time came when he found himself
obliged to mention that the portrait would be finished on the morrow,
and Madame Raquin thereupon announced that they would celebrate the
completion of the work of the artist by dining together.

The next day, when Laurent had given the canvas the last touch, all the
family assembled to go into raptures over the striking resemblance. The
portrait was vile, a dirty grey colour with large violescent patches.
Laurent could not use even the brightest colours, without making
them dull and muddy. In spite of himself he had exaggerated the wan
complexion of his model, and the countenance of Camille resembled the
greenish visage of a person who had met death by drowning. The grimacing
drawing threw the features into convulsions, thus rendering the sinister
resemblance all the more striking. But Camille was delighted; he
declared that he had the appearance of a person of distinction on the
canvas.

When he had thoroughly admired his own face, he declared he would go and
fetch a couple of bottles of champagne. Madame Raquin went down to the
shop, and the artist was alone with Therese.

The young woman had remained seated, gazing vaguely in front of her.
Laurent hesitated. He examined the portrait, and played with his
brushes. There was not much time to lose. Camille might come back, and
the opportunity would perhaps not occur again. The painter abruptly
turned round, and found himself face to face with Therese.

They contemplated one another for a few seconds. Then, with a violent
movement, Laurent bent down, and pressed the young woman to him.
Throwing back her head he crushed her mouth beneath his lips. She made
a savage, angry effort at revolt, and, then all at once gave in. They
exchanged not a word. The act was silent and brutal.

The two sweethearts from the commencement found their intrigue
necessary, inevitable and quite natural. At their first interview they
conversed familiarly, kissing one another without embarrassment, and
without a blush, as if their intimacy had dated back several years. They
lived quite at ease in their new situation, with a tranquillity and an
independence that were perfect.

They made their appointments. Therese being unable to go out, it was
arranged that Laurent should come to see her. In a clear, firm voice the
young woman explained to him the plan she had conceived. The interview
would take place in the nuptial chamber. The sweetheart would pass by
the passage which ran into the arcade, and Therese would open the door
on the staircase to him. During this time, Camille would be at his
office, and Madame Raquin below, in the shop. This was a daring
arrangement that ought to succeed.

Laurent accepted. There was a sort of brutal temerity in his prudence,
the temerity of a man with big fists. Choosing a pretext, he obtained
permission from his chief to absent himself for a couple of hours, and
hastened to the Arcade of the Pont Neuf.

The dealer in imitation jewelry was seated just opposite the door of
the passage, and he had to wait until she was busy, until some young
work-girl came to purchase a ring or a brooch made of brass. Then,
rapidly entering the passage, he ascended the narrow, dark staircase,
leaning against the walls which were clammy with damp. He stumbled
against the stone steps, and each time he did so, he felt a red-hot iron
piercing his chest. A door opened, and on the threshold, in the midst of
a gleam of white light he perceived Therese, who closing the door after
him, threw her arms about his neck.

Laurent was astonished to find his sweetheart handsome. He had never
seen her before as she appeared to him then. Therese, supple and strong,
pressed him in her arms, flinging her head backward, while on her visage
coursed ardent rays of light and passionate smiles. This face seemed as
if transfigured, with its moist lips and sparkling eyes. It now had
a fond caressing look. It radiated. She was beautiful with the strong
beauty born of passionate abandon.

When Laurent parted from her, after his initial visit, he staggered like
a drunken man, and the next day, on recovering his cunning prudent calm,
he asked himself whether he should return to this young woman whose
kisses gave him the fever. First of all he positively decided to keep to
himself. Then he had a cowardly feeling. He sought to forget, to avoid
seeing Therese, and yet she always seemed to be there, implacably
extending her arms. The physical suffering that this spectacle caused
him became intolerable.

He gave way. He arranged another meeting, and returned to the Arcade of
the Pont Neuf.

From that day forth, Therese entered into his life. He did not yet
accept her, although he bore with her. He had his hours of terror,
his moments of prudence, and, altogether this intrigue caused him
disagreeable agitation. But his discomfort and his fears disappeared.
The meetings continued and multiplied.

Therese experienced no hesitation. She went straight where her passion
urged her to go. This woman whom circumstances had bowed down, and who
had at length drawn herself up erect, now revealed all her being and
explained her life.

"Oh! if you only knew," said she, "how I have suffered. I was brought
up in the tepid damp room of an invalid. I slept in the same bed as
Camille. At night I got as far away from him as I could, to avoid the
sickly odour of his body. He was naughty and obstinate. He would not
take his physic unless I shared it with him. To please my aunt I was
obliged to swallow a dose of every drug. I don't know how it is I
have survived. They made me ugly. They robbed me of the only thing I
possessed, and it is impossible for you to love me as I love you."

She broke off and wept, and after kissing Laurent, continued with bitter
hatred:

"I do not wish them any harm. They brought me up, they received me,
and shielded me from misery. But I should have preferred abandonment to
their hospitality. I had a burning desire for the open air. When quite
young, my dream was to rove barefooted along the dusty roads, holding
out my hand for charity, living like a gipsy. I have been told that my
mother was a daughter of the chief of a tribe in Africa. I have often
thought of her, and I understood that I belonged to her by blood and
instinct. I should have liked to have never parted from her, and to have
crossed the sand slung at her back.

"Ah! what a childhood! I still feel disgust and rebellion, when I recall
the long days I passed in the room where Camille was at death's door.
I sat bent over the fire, stupidly watching the infusions simmer, and
feeling my limbs growing stiff. And I could not move. My aunt scolded me
if I made a noise. Later on, I tasted profound joy in the little house
beside the river; but I was already half feeble, I could barely walk,
and when I tried to run I fell down. Then they buried me alive in this
vile shop."

After a pause, she resumed:

"You will hardly credit how bad they have made me. They have turned
me into a liar and a hypocrite. They have stifled me with their
middle-class gentleness, and I can hardly understand how it is that
there is still blood in my veins. I have lowered my eyes, and given
myself a mournful, idiotic face like theirs. I have led their deathlike
life. When you saw me I looked like a blockhead, did I not? I was grave,
overwhelmed, brutalised. I no longer had any hope. I thought of flinging
myself into the Seine.

"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.

For a fortnight Laurent was unable to speak to Therese alone, and he
then felt how necessary this woman had become to his existence. Far
from experiencing any uneasiness, as formerly, at the kisses which his
ladylove showered on him, he now sought her embraces with the obstinacy
of a famished animal. A sanguineous passion had lurked in his muscles,
and now that his sweetheart was taken from him, this passion burst out
in blind violence. He was madly in love. This thriving brutish nature
seemed unconscious in everything. He obeyed his instincts, permitting
the will of his organism to lead him.

A year before, he would have burst into laughter, had he been told
he would become the slave of a woman, to the point of risking his
tranquillity. The hidden forces of lust that had brought about this
result had been secretly proceeding within him, to end by casting him,
bound hand and foot, into the arms of Therese. At this hour, he was in
dread lest he should omit to be prudent. He no longer dared go of an
evening to the shop in the Arcade of the Pont Neuf lest he should commit
some folly. He no longer belonged to himself. His ladylove, with her
feline suppleness, her nervous flexibility, had glided, little by
little, into each fibre of his body. This woman was as necessary to his
life as eating and drinking.

He would certainly have committed some folly, had he not received a
letter from Therese, asking him to remain at home the following evening.
His sweetheart promised him to call about eight o'clock.

On quitting the office, he got rid of Camille by saying he was tired,
and should go to bed at once. Therese, after dinner, also played her
part. She mentioned a customer who had moved without paying her, and
acting the indignant creditor who would listen to nothing, declared that
she intended calling on her debtor with the view of asking for payment
of the money that was due. The customer now lived at Batignolles. Madame
Raquin and Camille considered this a long way to go, and thought it
doubtful whether the journey would have a satisfactory result; but they
expressed no surprise, and allowed Therese to set out on her errand in
all tranquillity.

The young woman ran to the Port aux Vins, gliding over the slippery
pavement, and knocking up against the passers-by, in her hurry to reach
her destination. Beads of perspiration covered her face, and her hands
were burning. Anyone might have taken her for a drunken woman. She
rapidly ascended the staircase of the hotel, and on reaching the sixth
floor, out of breath, and with wandering eyes, she perceived Laurent,
who was leaning over the banister awaiting her.

She entered the garret, which was so small that she could barely turn
round in it, and tearing off her hat with one hand leant against the
bedstead in a faint. Through the lift-up window in the roof, which was
wide open, the freshness of the evening fell upon the burning couch.

The couple remained some time in this wretched little room, as though
at the bottom of a hole. All at once, Therese heard a clock in the
neighbourhood strike ten. She felt as if she would have liked to have
been deaf. Nevertheless, she looked for her hat which she fastened to
her hair with a long pin, and then seating herself, slowly murmured:

"I must go."

Laurent fell on his knees before her, and took her hands.

"Good-bye, till we see each other again," said she, without moving.

"No, not till we see each other again!" he exclaimed, "that is too
indefinite. When will you come again?"

She looked him full in the face.

"Do you wish me to be frank with you?" she inquired. "Well, then, to
tell you the truth, I think I shall come no more. I have no pretext, and
I cannot invent one."

"Then we must say farewell," he remarked.

"No, I will not do that!" she answered.

She pronounced these words in terrified anger. Then she added more
gently, without knowing what she was saying, and without moving from her
chair:

"I am going."

Laurent reflected. He was thinking of Camille.

"I wish him no harm," said he at length, without pronouncing the name:
"but really he is too much in our way. Couldn't you get rid of him, send
him on a journey somewhere, a long way off?"

"Ah! yes, send him on a journey!" resumed the young woman, nodding her
head. "And do you imagine a man like that would consent to travel? There
is only one journey, that from which you never return. But he will bury
us all. People who are at their last breath, never die."

Then came a silence which was broken by Laurent who remarked:

"I had a day dream. Camille met with an accident and died, and I became
your husband. Do you understand?"

"Yes, yes," answered Therese, shuddering.

Then, abruptly bending over the face of Laurent, she smothered it with
kisses, and bursting into sobs, uttered these disjoined sentences amidst
her tears:

"Don't talk like that, for if you do, I shall lack the strength to leave
you. I shall remain here. Give me courage rather. Tell me we shall see
one another again. You have need of me, have you not? Well, one of these
days we shall find a way to live together."

"Then come back, come back to-morrow," said Laurent.

"But I cannot return," she answered. "I have told you. I have no
pretext."

She wrung her hands and continued:

"Oh! I do not fear the scandal. If you like, when I get back, I will
tell Camille you are my sweetheart, and return here. I am trembling for
you. I do not wish to disturb your life. I want to make you happy."

The prudent instincts of the young man were awakened.

"You are right," said he. "We must not behave like children. Ah! if your
husband were to die!"

"If my husband were to die," slowly repeated Therese.

"We would marry," he continued, "and have nothing more to fear. What a
nice, gentle life it would be!"

The young woman stood up erect. Her cheeks were pale, and she looked at
her sweetheart with a clouded brow, while her lips were twitching.

"Sometimes people die," she murmured at last. "Only it is dangerous for
those who survive."

Laurent did not reply.

"You see," she continued, "all the methods that are known are bad."

"You misunderstood me," said he quietly. "I am not a fool, I wish to
love you in peace. I was thinking that accidents happen daily, that a
foot may slip, a tile may fall. You understand. In the latter event, the
wind alone is guilty."

He spoke in a strange voice. Then he smiled, and added in a caressing
tone:

"Never mind, keep quiet. We will love one another fondly, and live
happily. As you are unable to come here, I will arrange matters. Should
we remain a few months without seeing one another, do not forget me, and
bear in mind that I am labouring for your felicity."

As Therese opened the door to leave, he seized her in his arms.

"You are mine, are you not?" he continued. "You swear to belong to me,
at any hour, when I choose."

"Yes!" exclaimed the young woman. "I am yours, do as you please with
me."

For a moment they remained locked together and mute. Then Therese tore
herself roughly away, and, without turning her head, quitted the garret
and went downstairs. Laurent listened to the sound of her footsteps
fading away.

When he heard the last of them, he returned to his wretched room, and
went to bed. The sheets were still warm. Without closing the window,
he lay on his back, his arms bare, his hands open, exposed to the fresh
air. And he reflected, with his eyes on the dark blue square that the
window framed in the sky.

He turned the same idea over in his head until daybreak. Previous to the
visit of Therese, the idea of murdering Camille had not occurred to him.
He had spoken of the death of this man, urged to do so by the facts,
irritated at the thought that he would be unable to meet his sweetheart
any more. And it was thus that a new corner of his unconscious nature
came to be revealed.

Now that he was more calm, alone in the middle of the peaceful night, he
studied the murder. The idea of death, blurted out in despair between a
couple of kisses, returned implacable and keen. Racked by insomnia, and
unnerved by the visit of Therese, he calculated the disadvantages and
the advantages of his becoming an assassin.

All his interests urged him to commit the crime. He said to himself that
as his father, the Jeufosse peasant, could not make up his mind to die,
he would perhaps have to remain a clerk another ten years, eating in
cheap restaurants, and living in a garret. This idea exasperated him. On
the other hand, if Camille were dead, he would marry Therese, he would
inherit from Madame Raquin, resign his clerkship, and saunter about in
the sun. Then, he took pleasure in dreaming of this life of idleness; he
saw himself with nothing to do, eating and sleeping, patiently awaiting
the death of his father. And when the reality arose in the middle of his
dream, he ran up against Camille, and clenched his fists to knock him
down.

Laurent desired Therese; he wanted her for himself alone, to have her
always within reach. If he failed to make the husband disappear, the
woman would escape him. She had said so: she could not return. He would
have eloped with her, carried her off somewhere, but then both would
die of hunger. He risked less in killing the husband. There would be
no scandal. He would simply push a man away to take his place. In his
brutal logic of a peasant, he found this method excellent and natural.
His innate prudence even advised this rapid expedient.

He grovelled on his bed, in perspiration, flat on his stomach, with his
face against the pillow, and he remained there breathless, stifling,
seeing lines of fire pass along his closed eyelids. He asked himself how
he would kill Camille. Then, unable to breathe any more, he turned round
at a bound to resume his position on his back, and with his eyes wide
open, received full in the face, the puffs of cold air from the window,
seeking in the stars, in the bluish square of sky, a piece of advice
about murder, a plan of assassination.

And he found nothing. As he had told his ladylove, he was neither a
child nor a fool. He wanted neither a dagger nor poison. What he sought
was a subtle crime, one that could be accomplished without danger; a
sort of sinister suffocation, without cries and without terror, a simple
disappearance. Passion might well stir him, and urge him forward; all
his being imperiously insisted on prudence. He was too cowardly, too
voluptuous to risk his tranquillity. If he killed, it would be for a
calm and happy life.

Little by little slumber overcame him. Fatigued and appeased, he sank
into a sort of gentle and uncertain torpor. As he fell asleep, he
decided he would await a favourable opportunity, and his thoughts,
fleeting further and further away, lulled him to rest with the murmur:

"I will kill him, I will kill him."

Five minutes later, he was at rest, breathing with serene regularity.

Therese returned home at eleven o'clock, with a burning head, and her
thoughts strained, reaching the Arcade of the Pont Neuf unconscious
of the road she had taken. It seemed to her that she had just come
downstairs from her visit to Laurent, so full were her ears of the words
she had recently heard. She found Madame Raquin and Camille anxious and
attentive; but she answered their questions sharply, saying she had
been on a fools' errand, and had waited an hour on the pavement for an
omnibus.

When she got into bed, she found the sheets cold and damp. Her limbs,
which were still burning, shuddered with repugnance. Camille soon
fell asleep, and for a long time Therese watched his wan face reposing
idiotically on the pillow, with his mouth wide open. Therese drew away
from her husband. She felt a desire to drive her clenched fist into that
mouth.

More than three weeks passed. Laurent came to the shop every evening,
looking weary and unwell. A light bluish circle surrounded his eyes, and
his lips were becoming pale and chapped. Otherwise, he still maintained
his obtuse tranquillity, he looked Camille in the face, and showed him
the same frank friendship. Madame Raquin pampered the friend of the
family the more, now that she saw him giving way to a sort of low fever.

Therese had resumed her mute, glum countenance and manner. She was more
motionless, more impenetrable, more peaceful than ever. She did not seem
to trouble herself in the least about Laurent. She barely looked at
him, rarely exchanged a word with him, treating him with perfect
indifference. Madame Raquin, who in her goodness of heart, felt pained
at this attitude, sometimes said to the young man:

"Do not pay attention to the manner of my niece, I know her; her face
appears cold, but her heart is warm with tenderness and devotedness."

The two sweethearts had no more meetings. Since the evening in the
Rue Saint-Victor they had not met alone. At night, when they found
themselves face to face, placid in appearance and like strangers to one
another, storms of passion and dismay passed beneath the calm flesh of
their countenance. And while with Therese, there were outbursts of fury,
base ideas, and cruel jeers, with Laurent there were sombre brutalities,
and poignant indecisions. Neither dared search to the bottom of their
beings, to the bottom of that cloudy fever that filled their brains with
a sort of thick and acrid vapour.

When they could press the hands of one another behind a door, without
speaking, they did so, fit to crush them, in a short rough clasp. They
would have liked, mutually, to have carried off strips of their flesh
clinging to their fingers. They had naught but this pressure of hands
to appease their feelings. They put all their souls into them, and asked
for nothing more from one another. They waited.

One Thursday evening, before sitting down to the game of dominoes, the
guests of the Raquin family had a chat, as usual. A favourite subject
of conversation was afforded by the experiences of old Michaud who was
plied with questions respecting the strange and sinister adventures
with which he must have been connected in the discharge of his former
functions. Then Grivet and Camille listened to the stories of the
commissary with the affrighted and gaping countenances of small children
listening to "Blue Beard" or "Tom Thumb." These tales terrified and
amused them.

On this particular Thursday, Michaud, who had just given an account of
a horrible murder, the details of which had made his audience shudder,
added as he wagged his head:

"And a great deal never comes out at all. How many crimes remain
undiscovered! How many murderers escape the justice of man!"

"What!" exclaimed Grivet astonished, "you think there are foul creatures
like that walking about the streets, people who have murdered and are
not arrested?"

Olivier smiled with an air of disdain.

"My dear sir," he answered in his dictatorial tone, "if they are not
arrested it is because no one is aware that they have committed a
murder."

This reasoning did not appear to convince Grivet, and Camille came to
his assistance.

"I am of the opinion of M. Grivet," said he, with silly importance. "I
should like to believe that the police do their duty, and that I never
brush against a murderer on the pavement."

Olivier considered this remark a personal attack.

"Certainly the police do their duty," he exclaimed in a vexed tone.
"Still we cannot do what is impossible. There are wretches who have
studied crime at Satan's own school; they would escape the Divinity
Himself. Isn't that so, father?"

"Yes, yes," confirmed old Michaud. "Thus, while I was at Vernon--you
perhaps remember the incident, Madame Raquin--a wagoner was murdered
on the highway. The corpse was found cut in pieces, at the bottom of a
ditch. The authorities were never able to lay hands on the culprit. He
is perhaps still living at this hour. Maybe he is our neighbour, and
perhaps M. Grivet will meet him on his way home."

Grivet turned pale as a sheet. He dared not look round. He fancied the
murderer of the wagoner was behind him. But for that matter, he was
delighted to feel afraid.

"Well, no," he faltered, hardly knowing what he said, "well, no, I
cannot believe that. But I also have a story: once upon a time a servant
was put in prison for stealing a silver spoon and fork belonging to
her master and mistress. Two months afterwards, while a tree was being
felled, the knife and fork were discovered in the nest of a magpie. It
was the magpie who was the thief. The servant was released. You see that
the guilty are always punished."

Grivet triumphed. Olivier sneered.

"Then, they put the magpie in prison," said he.

"That is not what M. Grivet meant to say," answered Camille, annoyed to
see his chief turned into ridicule. "Mother, give us the dominoes."

While Madame Raquin went to fetch the box, the young man, addressing
Michaud, continued:

"Then you admit the police are powerless, that there are murderers
walking about in the sunshine?"

"Unfortunately, yes," answered the commissary.

"It is immoral," concluded Grivet.

During this conversation, Therese and Laurent had remained silent. They
had not even smiled at the folly of Grivet. Both leaning with their
arms on the table, looking slightly pale, and with a vague expression in
their eyes, listened. At one moment those dark, ardent orbs had met. And
small drops of perspiration pearled at the roots of the hair of Therese,
while chilly puffs of breath gave imperceptible shivers to the skin of
Laurent.

Sometimes on a Sunday, when the weather was fine, Camille forced Therese
to go out with him, for a walk in the Champs Elysees. The young woman
would have preferred to remain in the damp obscurity of the arcade, for
the exercise fatigued her, and it worried her to be on the arm of her
husband, who dragged her along the pavement, stopping before the shop
windows, expressing his astonishment, making reflections, and then
falling into ridiculous spells of silence.

But Camille insisted on these Sunday outings, which gave him the
satisfaction of showing off his wife. When he met a colleague,
particularly one of his chiefs, he felt quite proud to exchange bows
with him, in the company of Madame. Besides, he walked for the sake
of walking, and he did so almost in silence, stiff and deformed in his
Sunday clothes, dragging along his feet, and looking silly and vain. It
made Therese suffer to be seen arm in arm with such a man.

On these walking-out days, Madame Raquin accompanied her children to the
end of the arcade, where she embraced them as if they were leaving on a
journey, giving them endless advice, accompanied by fervent prayers.

"Particularly, beware of accidents," she would say. "There are so many
vehicles in the streets of Paris! Promise me not to get in a crowd."

At last she allowed them to set out, but she followed them a
considerable distance with her eyes, before returning to the shop. Her
lower limbs were becoming unwieldy which prohibited her taking long
walks.

On other occasions, but more rarely, the married couple went out of
Paris, as far as Saint-Ouen or Asnieres, where they treated themselves
to a dish of fried fish in one of the restaurants beside the river.
These were regarded as days of great revelry which were spoken of a
month beforehand. Therese engaged more willingly, almost with joy, in
these excursions which kept her in the open air until ten or eleven
o'clock at night. Saint-Ouen, with its green isles, reminded her of
Vernon, and rekindled all the wild love she had felt for the Seine when
a little girl.

She seated herself on the gravel, dipped her hands in the water, feeling
full of life in the burning heat of the sun, attenuated by the fresh
puffs of breeze in the shade. While she tore and soiled her frock on
the stones and clammy ground, Camille neatly spread out his
pocket-handkerchief and sank down beside her with endless precautions.
Latterly the young couple almost invariably took Laurent with them. He
enlivened the excursion by his laughter and strength of a peasant.

One Sunday, Camille, Therese and Laurent left for Saint-Ouen after
breakfast, at about eleven o'clock. The outing had been projected a long
time, and was to be the last of the season. Autumn approached, and the
cold breezes at night, began to make the air chilly.

On this particular morning, the sky maintained all its blue serenity.
It proved warm in the sun and tepid in the shade. The party decided that
they must take advantage of the last fine weather.

Hailing a passing cab they set out, accompanied by the pitiful
expressions of uneasiness, and the anxious effusions of the old mercer.
Crossing Paris, they left the vehicle at the fortifications, and gained
Saint-Ouen on foot. It was noon. The dusty road, brightly lit up by the
sun, had the blinding whiteness of snow. The air was intensely warm,
heavy and pungent. Therese, on the arm of Camille, walked with short
steps, concealing herself beneath her umbrella, while her husband fanned
his face with an immense handkerchief. Behind them came Laurent, who had
the sun streaming fiercely on the back of his neck, without appearing to
notice it. He whistled and kicked the stones before him as he strolled
along. Now and again there was a fierce glint in his eyes as he watched
Therese's swinging hips.

On reaching Saint-Ouen, they lost no time in looking for a cluster of
trees, a patch of green grass in the shade. Crossing the water to an
island, they plunged into a bit of underwood. The fallen leaves covered
the ground with a russety bed which cracked beneath their feet with
sharp, quivering sounds. Innumerable trunks of trees rose up erect,
like clusters of small gothic columns; the branches descended to the
foreheads of the three holiday makers, whose only view was the expiring
copper-like foliage, and the black and white stems of the aspens and
oaks. They were in the wilderness, in a melancholy corner, in a narrow
clearing that was silent and fresh. All around them they heard the
murmur of the Seine.

Camille having selected a dry spot, seated himself on the ground, after
lifting up the skirt of his frock coat; while Therese, amid a loud
crumpling of petticoats, had just flung herself among the leaves.
Laurent lay on his stomach with his chin resting on the ground.

They remained three hours in this clearing, waiting until it became
cooler, to take a run in the country before dinner. Camille talked about
his office, and related silly stories; then, feeling fatigued, he let
himself fall backward and went to sleep with the rim of his hat over
his eyes. Therese had closed her eyelids some time previously, feigning
slumber.

Laurent, who felt wide awake, and was tired of his recumbent position,
crept up behind her and kissed her shoe and ankle. For a month his life
had been chaste and this walk in the sun had set him on fire. Here he
was, in a hidden retreat, and unable to hold to his breast the woman
who was really his. Her husband might wake up and all his prudent
calculations would be ruined by this obstacle of a man. So he lay, flat
on the ground, hidden by his lover's skirts, trembling with exasperation
as he pressed kiss after kiss upon the shoe and white stocking. Therese
made no movement. Laurent thought she was asleep.

He rose to his feet and stood with his back to a tree. Then he perceived
that the young woman was gazing into space with her great, sparkling
eyes wide open. Her face, lying between her arms, with her hands clasped
above her head, was deadly pale, and wore an expression of frigid
rigidity. Therese was musing. Her fixed eyes resembled dark,
unfathomable depths, where naught was visible save night. She did not
move, she did not cast a glance at Laurent, who stood erect behind her.

Her sweetheart contemplated her, and was almost affrighted to see her
so motionless and mute. He would have liked to have bent forward, and
closed those great open eyes with a kiss. But Camille lay asleep
close at hand. This poor creature, with his body twisted out of shape,
displaying his lean proportions, was gently snoring. Under the hat,
half concealing his face, could be seen his mouth contorted into a silly
grimace in his slumber. A few short reddish hairs on a bony chin sullied
his livid skin, and his head being thrown backward, his thin wrinkled
neck appeared, with Adam's apple standing out prominently in brick red
in the centre, and rising at each snore. Camille, spread out on the
ground in this fashion, looked contemptible and vile.

Laurent who looked at him, abruptly raised his heel. He was going to
crush his face at one blow.

Therese restrained a cry. She went a shade paler than before, closed
her eyes and turned her head away as if to avoid being bespattered with
blood.

Laurent, for a few seconds, remained with his heel in the air, above the
face of the slumbering Camille. Then slowly, straightening his leg, he
moved a few paces away. He reflected that this would be a form of murder
such as an idiot would choose. This pounded head would have set all the
police on him. If he wanted to get rid of Camille, it was solely for the
purpose of marrying Therese. It was his intention to bask in the sun,
after the crime, like the murderer of the wagoner, in the story related
by old Michaud.

He went as far as the edge of the water, and watched the running river
in a stupid manner. Then, he abruptly turned into the underwood again.
He had just arranged a plan. He had thought of a mode of murder that
would be convenient, and without danger to himself.

He awoke the sleeper by tickling his nose with a straw. Camille sneezed,
got up, and pronounced the joke a capital one. He liked Laurent on
account of his tomfoolery, which made him laugh. He now roused his wife,
who kept her eyes closed. When she had risen to her feet, and shaken her
skirt, which was all crumpled, and covered with dry leaves, the party
quitted the clearing, breaking the small branches they found in their
way.

They left the island, and walked along the roads, along the byways
crowded with groups in Sunday finery. Between the hedges ran girls
in light frocks; a number of boating men passed by singing; files of
middle-class couples, of elderly persons, of clerks and shopmen with
their wives, walked the short steps, besides the ditches. Each roadway
seemed like a populous, noisy street. The sun alone maintained its
great tranquility. It was descending towards the horizon, casting on
the reddened trees and white thoroughfares immense sheets of pale light.
Penetrating freshness began to fall from the quivering sky.

Camille had ceased giving his arm to Therese. He was chatting with
Laurent, laughing at the jests, at the feats of strength of his friend,
who leapt the ditches and raised huge stones above his head. The young
woman, on the other side of the road, advanced with her head bent
forward, stooping down from time to time to gather an herb. When she had
fallen behind, she stopped and observed her sweetheart and husband in
the distance.

"Heh! Aren't you hungry?" shouted Camille at her.

"Yes," she replied.

"Then, come on!" said he.

Therese was not hungry; but felt tired and uneasy. She was in ignorance
as to the designs of Laurent, and her lower limbs were trembling with
anxiety.

The three, returning to the riverside, found a restaurant, where they
seated themselves at table on a sort of terrace formed of planks in an
indifferent eating-house reeking with the odour of grease and wine. This
place resounded with cries, songs, and the clatter of plates and dishes.
In each private room and public saloon, were parties talking in loud
voices, and the thin partitions gave vibrating sonority to all this
riot. The waiters, ascending to the upper rooms, caused the staircase to
shake.

Above, on the terrace, the puffs of air from the river drove away the
smell of fat. Therese, leaning over the balustrade, observed the quay.
To right and left, extended two lines of wine-shops and shanties of
showmen. Beneath the arbours in the gardens of the former, amid the few
remaining yellow leaves, one perceived the white tablecloths, the dabs
of black formed by men's coats, and the brilliant skirts of women.
People passed to and fro, bareheaded, running, and laughing; and with
the bawling noise of the crowd was mingled the lamentable strains of
the barrel organs. An odour of dust and frying food hung in the calm
air.

Below Therese, some tarts from the Latin Quarter were dancing in a ring
on a patch of worn turf singing an infantine roundelay. With hats fallen
on their shoulders, and hair unbound, they held one another by the
hands, playing like little children. They still managed to find a small
thread of fresh voice, and their pale countenances, ruffled by brutal
caresses, became tenderly coloured with virgin-like blushes, while their
great impure eyes filled with moisture. A few students, smoking clean
clay pipes, who were watching them as they turned round, greeted them
with ribald jests.

And beyond, on the Seine, on the hillocks, descended the serenity
of night, a sort of vague bluish mist, which bathed the trees in
transparent vapour.

"Heh! Waiter!" shouted Laurent, leaning over the banister, "what about
this dinner?"

Then, changing his mind, he turned to Camille and said:

"I say, Camille, let us go for a pull on the river before sitting down
to table. It will give them time to roast the fowl. We shall be bored to
death waiting an hour here."

"As you like," answered Camille carelessly. "But Therese is hungry."

"No, no, I can wait," hastened to say the young woman, at whom Laurent
was fixedly looking.

All three went downstairs again. Passing before the rostrum where the
lady cashier was seated, they retained a table, and decided on a menu,
saying they would return in an hour. As the host let out pleasure boats,
they asked him to come and detach one. Laurent selected a skiff, which
appeared so light that Camille was terrified by its fragility.

"The deuce," said he, "we shall have to be careful not to move about in
this, otherwise we shall get a famous ducking."

The truth was that the clerk had a horrible dread of the water. At
Vernon, his sickly condition did not permit him, when a child, to go and
dabble in the Seine. Whilst his schoolfellows ran and threw themselves
into the river, he lay abed between a couple of warm blankets. Laurent
had become an intrepid swimmer, and an indefatigable oarsman. Camille
had preserved that terror for deep water which is inherent in women and
children. He tapped the end of the boat with his foot to make sure of
its solidity.

"Come, get in," cried Laurent with a laugh, "you're always trembling."

Camille stepped over the side, and went staggering to seat himself at
the stern. When he felt the planks under him, he was at ease, and joked
to show his courage.

Therese had remained on the bank, standing grave and motionless beside
her sweetheart, who held the rope. He bent down, and rapidly murmured in
an undertone:

"Be careful. I am going to pitch him in the river. Obey me. I answer for
everything."

The young woman turned horribly pale. She remained as if riveted to the
ground. She was rigid, and her eyes had opened wider.

"Get into the boat," Laurent murmured again.

She did not move. A terrible struggle was passing within her. She
strained her will with all her might, to avoid bursting into sobs, and
falling to the ground.

"Ah! ah!" cried Camille. "Laurent, just look at Therese. It's she who is
afraid. She'll get in; no, she won't get in."

He had now spread himself out on the back seat, his two arms on the
sides of the boat, and was showing off with fanfaronade. The chuckles of
this poor man were like cuts from a whip to Therese, lashing and urging
her on. She abruptly sprang into the boat, remaining in the bows.
Laurent grasped the skulls. The skiff left the bank, advancing slowly
towards the isles.

Twilight came. Huge shadows fell from the trees, and the water ran
black at the edges. In the middle of the river were great, pale, silver
trails. The boat was soon in full steam. There, all the sounds of the
quays softened; the singing, and the cries came vague and melancholy,
with sad languidness. The odour of frying and dust had passed away. The
air freshened. It turned cold.

Laurent, resting on his skulls, allowed the boat to drift along in the
current.

Opposite, rose the great reddish mass of trees on the islands. The two
sombre brown banks, patched with grey, were like a couple of broad bands
stretching towards the horizon. The water and sky seemed as if cut from
the same whitish piece of material. Nothing looks more painfully calm
than an autumn twilight. The sun rays pale in the quivering air, the old
trees cast their leaves. The country, scorched by the ardent beams of
summer, feels death coming with the first cold winds. And, in the sky,
there are plaintive sighs of despair. Night falls from above, bringing
winding sheets in its shade.

The party were silent. Seated at the bottom of the boat drifting with
the stream, they watched the final gleams of light quitting the tall
branches. They approached the islands. The great russety masses grew
sombre; all the landscape became simplified in the twilight; the Seine,
the sky, the islands, the slopes were naught but brown and grey patches
which faded away amidst milky fog.

Camille, who had ended by lying down on his stomach, with his head over
the water, dipped his hands in the river.

"The deuce! How cold it is!" he exclaimed. "It would not be pleasant to
go in there head foremost."

Laurent did not answer. For an instant he had been observing the two
banks of the river with uneasiness. He advanced his huge hands to his
knees, tightly compressing his lips. Therese, rigid and motionless, with
her head thrown slightly backward, waited.

The skiff was about to enter a small arm of the river, that was sombre
and narrow, penetrating between two islands. Behind one of these islands
could be distinguished the softened melody of a boating party who seemed
to be ascending the Seine. Up the river in the distance, the water was
free.

Then Laurent rose and grasped Camille round the body. The clerk burst
into laughter.

"Ah, no, you tickle me," said he, "none of those jokes. Look here, stop;
you'll make me fall over."

Laurent grasped him tighter, and gave a jerk. Camille turning round,
perceived the terrifying face of his friend, violently agitated. He
failed to understand. He was seized with vague terror. He wanted to
shout, and felt a rough hand seize him by the throat. With the instinct
of an animal on the defensive, he rose to his knees, clutching the side
of the boat, and struggled for a few seconds.

"Therese! Therese!" he called in a stifling, sibilant voice.

The young woman looked at him, clinging with both hands to the seat. The
skiff creaked and danced upon the river. She could not close her eyes,
a frightful contraction kept them wide open riveted on the hideous
struggle. She remained rigid and mute.

"Therese! Therese!" again cried the unfortunate man who was in the
throes of death.

At this final appeal, Therese burst into sobs. Her nerves had given way.
The attack she had been dreading, cast her to the bottom of the boat,
where she remained doubled up in a swoon, and as if dead.

Laurent continued tugging at Camille, pressing with one hand on his
throat. With the other hand he ended by tearing his victim away from
the side of the skiff, and held him up in the air, in his powerful arms,
like a child. As he bent down his head, his victim, mad with rage and
terror, twisted himself round, and reaching forward with his teeth,
buried them in the neck of his aggressor. And when the murderer,
restraining a yell of pain, abruptly flung the clerk into the river, the
latter carried a piece of his flesh away with him.

Camille fell into the water with a shriek. He returned to the surface
two or three times, uttering cries that were more and more hollow.

Laurent, without losing a second, raised the collar of his coat to hide
his wound. Then seizing the unconscious Therese in his arms, he capsized
the skiff with his foot, as he fell into the Seine with the young woman,
whom he supported on the surface, whilst calling in a lamentable voice
for help.

The boating party he had heard singing behind the point of the island,
understanding that an accident had happened, advanced with long, rapid
strokes of the oars, and rescued the immerged couple. While Therese was
laid on a bench, Laurent gave vent to his despair at the death of his
friend. Plunging into the water again, he searched for Camille in places
where he knew he was not to be found, and returned in tears, wringing
his hands, and tearing his hair, while the boating party did their best
to calm and console him.

"It is all my fault," he exclaimed. "I ought never to have allowed that
poor fellow to dance and move about as he did. At a certain moment we
all three found ourselves on one side of the boat, and we capsized. As
we fell into the water, he shouted out to me to save his wife."

In accordance with what usually happens under similar circumstances,
three or four young fellows among the boating party, maintained that
they had witnessed the accident.

"We saw you well enough," said they. "And, then, hang it all, a boat is
not so firm as a dancing floor. Ah! the poor little woman, it'll be a
nice awakening for her."

They took their oars, and towing the capsized skiff behind them,
conducted Therese and Laurent to the restaurant, where the dinner was
ready to be served.

The restaurant keeper and his wife were worthy people who placed their
wardrobe at the service of the drenched pair. When Therese recovered
consciousness, she had a nervous attack, and burst into heartrending
sobs. It became necessary to put her to bed. Nature assisted the
sinister comedy that had just been performed.

As soon as the young woman became calmer, Laurent entrusting her to
the care of the host and his wife, set out to return to Paris, where
he wished to arrive alone to break the frightful intelligence to Madame
Raquin, with all possible precautions. The truth was that he feared the
nervous feverish excitement of Therese, and preferred to give her time
to reflect, and learn her part.

It was the boating men who sat down to the dinner prepared for Camille.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Laurent visits the Raquins' apartment almost every evening, and not only because he must complete Camille' portrait. He is delighted by the good, free food and the comfortable atmosphere. And Therese is clearly attracted to the new guest; as Laurent works, she watches attentively. Laurent considers whether or not to take Therese as a lover. Finally, he decides in favor of an affair; other women are too expensive, and Camille is no threat. The portrait is at last finished, much to the pleasure of Camille and Mme Raquin. Camille even decides to buy celebratory champagne, leaving Laurent and Therese alone for a brief moment. This small opportunity is all Laurent needs; he grasps Therese, and despite the young woman's initial resistance, the two make love swiftly and brutally before Camille's return. So begins the long, tense, exhilarating affair between Therese and Laurent. The two lovers arrange secret meetings in Therese's bedroom during the day; Laurent finds excuses to leave work, and Therese leaves Mme Raquin to attend to the shop. Changes take place in the lovers, too. Intrigued but also unnerved by his wild new mistress, Laurent begins to see Therese as truly beautiful. And Therese reveals her deep-seated resentment for Camille and Mme Raquin, who subjected her to such a closed upbringing and offered her a life with so few possibilities. Therese also adopts a more reckless attitude. Though Laurent is genuinely afraid that Mme Raquin will discover the affair, Therese brushes off this possibility and seems to enjoy deceiving the old woman. Laurent is also unnerved by Francois, Mme Raquin's watchful cat, while Therese treats Francois as simply a comical, ridiculous presence. For once, all is well in the Passage du Pont-Neuf. Laurent enjoys the warm and reassuring atmosphere of the shop, and is on the best of terms with the entire Raquin household: doted on by Mme Raquin, admired by Camille, and cherished passionately by Therese. Therese herself feels calm, and revels in feelings of superiority to her aunt and husband, whom she has managed to deceive so deftly. She even uses the long-despised Thursday evenings to set new lovemaking sessions with Laurent. This state of supreme satisfaction lasts for eight months. One day at his office, Laurent is informed that he will lose his job if he takes any more time off. He realizes, with anguish, that this will keep him from seeing Therese and will lead to the end of his affair. Therese is informed of the new conditions later in the day by Laurent himself. Desperate herself, Therese tries to secure new meetings with Laurent, but the young man proceeds to break each newly-appointed rendezvous. Finally, Therese finds an excuse to leave Mme Raquin's shop one evening, with the intention of visiting Laurent in his apartment. Therese finds Laurent in the tiny garret room where he lives. And this meeting proves fateful. After indulging their passions, Therese and Laurent consider their options. Laurent is overcome with devotion, and tells Therese that he dreams of spending an entire night with her and waking up beside her. But throughout his speeches, he drops hints that Camille could go on a "journey" or succumb to an "accident." As soon as Therese leaves, Laurent realizes that he is determined not to give her up and that murdering Camille - an idea that had only just occurred to him - might be an effective way of securing the comfortable life he wants. Even Therese, when she gets home, feels murderous impulses toward the sleeping Camille. Though Laurent continues to frequent the shop in the Passage du Pont-Neuf, he only exchanges the smallest, slyest affections with Therese whenever they are alone. Otherwise, Therese has returned to her moody ways. Yet the Thursday evening guests continue to find sources of amusement and diversion, including the stories of crime and criminals told by Old Michaud. As Old Michaud explains to the guests one evening, there are numerous crimes that go undetected and numerous murderers who escape justice. This assertion shocks and frightens Grivet, who wants to believe that justice can be flawlessly administered. Therese and Laurent have their own reaction to Old Michaud's tales of unresolved crimes; they look right at one another and seem to tingle with anticipation. It is one of Camille's habits to go out walking in Central Paris on Sundays, often with Therese for company. Yet on one particularly beautiful Sunday, Camille, Therese, and Laurent decide to make an excursion to the countryside just outside the city, where they can enjoy the scenery and eat a meal together. They arrive at the islands around Saint-Ouen at about midday, and Camille falls asleep in a shady, tree-lined clearing. Laurent once again feels affinity for Therese and once again contemplates murdering Camille; he raises his foot over the sleeping man's head, yet decides against a move that would be so bloody and leave such irrefutable evidence. Camille awakens, and is delighted to find Laurent in a good humor. Camille and his companions then make their way to an eating house, where they order dinner, and decide to rent a boat. Yet the boat that Laurent picks out is light, and could easily tip over. However, Laurent coaxes both the reluctant Camille and the increasingly distressed Therese into the small boat. Therese knows what Laurent is planning; despite moments of hesitation, she decides to go along with his scheme. Once the boat drifts out of sight and behind some islands, Laurent sets the murder in motion. He grabs Camille by the neck, begins to strangle him, and manages to throw him into the river, but not before Camille wounds Laurent - biting into Laurent's neck and tearing away a piece of his flesh. Therese faints as she watches her husband struggle. Once Camille is in the water, he tries to swim but, weakened, sinks after a few attempts. Laurent then grabs the unconscious Therese, knocks over the boat, and alerts a party of oarsmen to the presumed accident. He then returns to shore and, after leaving Therese at a nearby restaurant, sets off for Paris to tell Mme Raquin the horrible news.