Chapter: A time came when Madame Raquin, in order to escape the sufferings she
endured, thought of starving herself to death. She had reached the
end of her courage, she could no longer support the martyrdom that the
presence of the two murderers imposed on her, she longed to find supreme
relief in death. Each day her anguish grew more keen, when Therese
embraced her, and when Laurent took her in his arms to carry her along
like a child. She determined on freeing herself from these clasps
and caresses that caused her such horrible disgust. As she had not
sufficient life left within her to permit of her avenging her son, she
preferred to be entirely dead, and to leave naught in the hands of the
assassins but a corpse that could feel nothing, and with which they
could do as they pleased.

For two days she refused all nourishment, employing her remaining
strength to clench her teeth or to eject anything that Therese succeeded
in introducing into her mouth. Therese was in despair. She was asking
herself at the foot of which post she should go to weep and repent, when
her aunt would be no longer there. She kept up an interminable discourse
to prove to Madame Raquin that she should live. She wept, she even
became angry, bursting into her former fits of rage, opening the jaw of
the paralysed woman as you open that of an animal which resists. Madame
Raquin held out, and an odious scene ensued.

Laurent remained absolutely neutral and indifferent. He was astonished
at the efforts of Therese to prevent the impotent old woman committing
suicide. Now that the presence of the old lady had become useless to
them he desired her death. He would not have killed her, but as she
wished to die, he did not see the use of depriving her of the means to
do so.

"But, let her be!" he shouted to his wife. "It will be a good riddance.
We shall, perhaps, be happier when she is no longer here."

This remark repeated several times in the hearing of Madame Raquin,
caused her extraordinary emotion. She feared that the hope expressed
by Laurent might be realised, and that after her death the couple would
enjoy calm and happiness. And she said to herself that it would be
cowardly to die, that she had no right to go away before she had seen
the end of the sinister adventure. Then, only, could she descend into
darkness, to say to Camille:

"You are avenged."

The idea of suicide became oppressive, when she all at once reflected
that she would sink into the grave ignorant as to what had happened
to the two murderers of her son. There, she would lie in the cold
and silent earth, eternally tormented by uncertainty concerning the
punishment of her tormentors. To thoroughly enjoy the slumber of death,
she must be hushed to rest by the sweet delight of vengeance, she must
carry away with her a dream of satisfied hatred, a dream that would last
throughout eternity. So she took the food her niece presented to her,
and consented to live on.

Apart from this, it was easy for her to perceive that the climax could
not be far off. Each day the position of the married couple became
more strained and unbearable. A crash that would smash everything was
imminent. At every moment, Therese and Laurent started up face to face
in a more threatening manner. It was no longer at nighttime, alone,
that they suffered from their intimacy; entire days were passed amidst
anxiety and harrowing shocks. It was one constant scene of pain and
terror. They lived in a perfect pandemonium, fighting, rendering all
they did and said bitter and cruel, seeking to fling one another to the
bottom of the abyss which they felt beneath their feet, and falling into
it together.

Ideas of separation had, indeed, occurred to both of them. Each had
thought of flight, of seeking some repose far from this Arcade of the
Pont Neuf where the damp and filth seemed adapted to their desolated
life. But they dared not, they could not run away. It seemed impossible
for them to avoid reviling each other, to avoid remaining there to
suffer and cause pain. They proved obstinate in their hatred and
cruelty. A sort of repulsion and attraction separated and kept them
together at the same time. They behaved in the identical manner of two
persons who, after quarrelling, wish to part, and who, nevertheless,
continue returning to shout out fresh insults at one another.

Moreover, material obstacles stood in the way of flight. What were
they to do with the impotent woman? What could be said to the Thursday
evening guests? If they fled, these people would, perhaps, suspect
something. At this thought, they imagined they were being pursued and
dragged to the guillotine. So they remained where they were through
cowardice, wretchedly dragging out their lives amidst the horror of
their surroundings.

During the morning and afternoon, when Laurent was absent, Therese went
from the dining-room to the shop in anxiety and trouble, at a loss to
know what to do to fill up the void in her existence that daily became
more pronounced. When not kneeling at the feet of Madame Raquin or
receiving blows and insults from her husband, she had no occupation. As
soon as she was seated alone in the shop, she became dejected, watching
with a doltish expression, the people passing through the dirty, dark
gallery. She felt ready to die of sadness in the middle of this gloomy
vault, which had the odour of a cemetery, and ended by begging Suzanne
to come and pass entire days with her, in the hope that the presence of
this poor, gentle, pale creature might calm her.

Suzanne accepted her offer with delight; she continued to feel a sort of
respectful friendship for Therese, and had long desired to come and work
with her, while Olivier was at his office. Bringing her embroidery with
her, she took the vacant chair of Madame Raquin behind the counter.

From that day Therese rather neglected her aunt. She went upstairs
less frequently to weep on her knees and kiss the deathlike face of the
invalid. She had something else to do. She made efforts to listen with
interest to the dilatory gossip of Suzanne, who spoke of her home, and
of the trivialities of her monotonous life. This relieved Therese of her
own thoughts. Sometimes she caught herself paying attention to nonsense
that brought a bitter smile to her face.

By degrees, she lost all her customers. Since her aunt had been confined
to her armchair upstairs, she had let the shop go from bad to worse,
abandoning the goods to dust and damp. A smell of mildew hung in the
atmosphere, spiders came down from the ceiling, the floor was but rarely
swept.

But what put the customers to flight was the strange way in which
Therese sometimes welcomed them. When she happened to be upstairs,
receiving blows from Laurent or agitated by a shock of terror, and the
bell at the shop door tinkled imperiously, she had to go down, barely
taking time to do up her hair or brush away the tears. On such occasions
she served the persons awaiting her roughly; sometimes she even spared
herself the trouble of serving, answering from the top of the staircase,
that she no longer kept what was asked for. This kind of off-hand
behaviour, was not calculated to retain custom.

The little work-girls of the quarter, who were used to the sweet
amiability of Madame Raquin, were driven away by the harshness and wild
looks of Therese. When the latter took Suzanne with her to keep her
company, the defection became complete. To avoid being disturbed
in their gossip, the two young woman managed to drive away the few
remaining purchasers who visited the shop. Henceforth, the mercery
business ceased to bring in a sou towards the household expenses, and it
became necessary to encroach on the capital of forty thousand francs and
more.

Sometimes, Therese absented herself the entire afternoon. No one knew
where she went. Her reason for having Suzanne with her was no doubt
partly for the purpose of securing company but also to mind the shop,
while she was away. When she returned in the evening, worn out, her
eyelids heavy with exhaustion, it was to find the little wife of Olivier
still behind the counter, bowed down, with a vague smile on her lips, in
the same attitude as she had left her five hours previously.

Therese had a bad fright about five months after her marriage to
Laurent. She found out she was pregnant and detested the thought of
having a child of Laurent's. She had the fear that she would give birth
to a drowned body. She thought that she could feel inside herself a
soft, decomposing corpse. No matter what, she had to rid herself of this
child. She did not tell Laurent. One day she cruelly provoked him and
turned her stomach towards him, hoping to receive a kick. He kicked her
and she let him go on kicking her in the stomach until she thought
she would die. The next day her wish was fulfilled and she had a
miscarriage.

Laurent also led a frightful existence. The days seemed insupportably
long; each brought the same anguish, the same heavy weariness which
overwhelmed him at certain hours with crushing monotony and regularity.
He dragged on his life, terrified every night by the recollections of
the day, and the expectation of the morrow. He knew that henceforth, all
his days would resemble one another, and bring him equal suffering. And
he saw the weeks, months and years gloomily and implacably awaiting him,
coming one after the other to fall upon him and gradually smother him.

When there is no hope in the future, the present appears atrociously
bitter. Laurent no longer resisted, he became lumpish, abandoning
himself to the nothingness that was already gaining possession of his
being. Idleness was killing him. In the morning he went out, without
knowing where to go, disgusted at the thought of doing what he had done
on the previous day, and compelled, in spite of himself, to do it again.
He went to his studio by habit, by mania.

This room, with its grey walls, whence he could see naught but a bare
square of sky, filled him with mournful sadness. He grovelled on the
divan heavy in thought and with pendent arms. He dared not touch a
brush. He had made fresh attempts at painting, but only to find on each
occasion, the head of Camille appear jeering on the canvas. So as not to
go out of his mind, he ended by throwing his colour-box into a corner,
and imposing the most absolute idleness on himself. This obligatory
laziness weighed upon him terribly.

In the afternoon, he questioned himself in distress to find out what
he should do. For half an hour, he remained on the pavement in the Rue
Mazarine, thinking and hesitating as to how he could divert himself. He
rejected the idea of returning to the studio, and invariably decided
on going down the Rue Guenegaud, to walk along the quays. And, until
evening, he went along, dazed and seized with sudden shudders whenever
he looked at the Seine. Whether in his studio or in the streets, his
dejection was the same. The following day he began again. He passed
the morning on his divan, and dragged himself along the quays in the
afternoon. This lasted for months, and might last for years.

Occasionally Laurent reflected that he had killed Camille so as to
do nothing ever afterwards, and now that he did nothing, he was quite
astonished to suffer so much. He would have liked to force himself to be
happy. He proved to his own satisfaction, that he did wrong to suffer,
that he had just attained supreme felicity, consisting in crossing his
arms, and that he was an idiot not to enjoy this bliss in peace. But his
reasoning exploded in the face of facts. He was constrained to confess,
at the bottom of his heart, that this idleness rendered his anguish
the more cruel, by leaving him every hour of his life to ponder on the
despair and deepen its incurable bitterness. Laziness, that brutish
existence which had been his dream, proved his punishment. At moments,
he ardently hoped for some occupation to draw him from his thoughts.
Then he lost all energy, relapsing beneath the weight of implacable
fatality that bound his limbs so as to more surely crush him.

In truth, he only found some relief when beating Therese, at night. This
brutality alone relieved him of his enervated anguish.

But his keenest suffering, both physical and moral, came from the bite
Camille had given him in the neck. At certain moments, he imagined that
this scar covered the whole of his body. If he came to forget the past,
he all at once fancied he felt a burning puncture, that recalled the
murder both to his frame and mind.

When under the influence of emotion, he could not stand before
a looking-glass without noticing this phenomenon which he had so
frequently remarked and which always terrified him; the blood flew to
his neck, purpling the scar, which then began to gnaw the skin.

This sort of wound that lived upon him, which became active, flushed,
and biting at the slightest trouble, frightened and tortured him. He
ended by believing that the teeth of the drowned man had planted an
insect there which was devouring him. The part of his neck where the
scar appeared, seemed to him to no longer belong to his body; it
was like foreign flesh that had been stuck in this place, a piece of
poisoned meat that was rotting his own muscles.

In this manner, he carried the living and devouring recollection of his
crime about with him everywhere. When he beat Therese, she endeavoured
to scratch the spot, and sometimes dug her nails into it making him howl
with pain. She generally pretended to sob, as soon as she caught sight
of the bite, so as to make it more insufferable to Laurent. All her
revenge for his brutality, consisted in martyrising him in connection
with this bite.

While shaving, he had frequently been tempted to give himself a gash
in the neck, so as to make the marks of the teeth of the drowned man
disappear. When, standing before the mirror, he raised his chin and
perceived the red spot beneath the white lather, he at once flew into a
rage, and rapidly brought the razor to his neck, to cut right into the
flesh. But the sensations of the cold steel against his skin always
brought him to his senses, and caused him to feel so faint that he was
obliged to seat himself, and wait until he had recovered sufficient
courage to continue shaving.

He only issued from his torpor at night to fall into blind and puerile
fits of anger. When tired of quarreling with Therese and beating her,
he would kick the walls like a child, and look for something he could
break. This relieved him.

He had a particular dislike for the tabby cat Francois who, as soon as
he appeared, sought refuge on the knees of Madame Raquin. If Laurent had
not yet killed the animal, it was because he dared not take hold of
him. The cat looked at him with great round eyes that were diabolical
in their fixedness. He wondered what these eyes which never left him,
wanted; and he ended by having regular fits of terror, and imagining all
sorts of ridiculous things.

When at table--at no matter what moment, in the middle of a quarrel or
of a long silence--he happened, all at once, to look round, and perceive
Francois examining him with a harsh, implacable stare, he turned pale
and lost his head. He was on the point of saying to the cat:

"Heh! Why don't you speak? Tell me what it is you want with me."

When he could crush his paw or tail, he did so in affrighted joy, the
mewing of the poor creature giving him vague terror, as though he
heard a human cry of pain. Laurent, in fact, was afraid of Francois,
particularly since the latter passed his time on the knees of the
impotent old lady, as if in the centre of an impregnable fortress,
whence he could with impunity set his eyes on his enemy. The murderer
of Camille established a vague resemblance between this irritated animal
and the paralysed woman, saying to himself that the cat, like Madame
Raquin, must know about the crime and would denounce him, if he ever
found a tongue.

At last, one night, Francois looked at Laurent so fixedly, that the
latter, irritated to the last pitch, made up his mind to put an end to
the annoyance. He threw the window of the dining-room wide open, and
advancing to where the cat was seated, grasped him by the skin at the
back of the neck. Madame Raquin understood, and two big tears
rolled down her cheeks. The cat began to swear, and stiffen himself,
endeavouring to turn round and bite the hand that grasped him. But
Laurent held fast. He whirled the cat round two or three times in the
air, and then sent him flying with all the strength of his arm, against
the great dark wall opposite. Francois went flat against it, and
breaking his spine, fell upon the glass roof of the arcade. All night
the wretched beast dragged himself along the gutter mewing hoarsely,
while Madame Raquin wept over him almost as much as she had done over
Camille. Therese had an atrocious attack of hysterics, while the wailing
of the cat sounded sinisterly, in the gloom below the windows.

Laurent soon had further cause for anxiety. He became alarmed at a
certain change he observed in the attitude of his wife.

Therese became sombre and taciturn. She no longer lavished effusions
of repentance and grateful kisses on Madame Raquin. In presence of the
paralysed woman, she resumed her manner of frigid cruelty and egotistic
indifference. It seemed as though she had tried remorse, and finding no
relief had turned her attention to another remedy. Her sadness was no
doubt due to her inability to calm her life.

She observed the impotent old woman with a kind of disdain, as a useless
thing that could no longer even serve her for consolation. She now only
bestowed on her the necessary attention to prevent her dying of hunger.
From this moment she dragged herself about the house in silence and
dejection. She multiplied her absences from the shop, going out as
frequently as three and four times a week.

It was this change in her mode of life, that surprised and alarmed
Laurent. He fancied that her remorse had taken another form, and was now
displayed by this mournful weariness he noticed in her. This weariness
seemed to him more alarming than the chattering despair she had
overwhelmed him with previously. She no longer spoke, she no longer
quarrelled with him, she seemed to consign everything to the depths of
her being. He would rather have heard her exhausting her endurance than
see her keep in this manner to herself. He feared that one day she
would be choking with anguish, and to obtain relief, would go and relate
everything to a priest or an examining magistrate.

Then these numerous absences of Therese had frightful significance in
his eyes. He thought she went to find a confidant outside, that she was
preparing her treason. On two occasions he tried to follow her, and lost
her in the streets. He then prepared to watch her again. A fixed idea
got into his head: Therese, driven to extremities by suffering, was
about to make disclosures, and he must gag her, he must arrest her
confession in her throat.



One morning, Laurent, instead of going to his studio, took up a position
at a wine-shop situated at one of the corners of the Rue Guenegaud,
opposite the studio. From there, he began to examine the persons who
issued from the passage on to the pavement of the Rue Mazarine. He
was watching for Therese. The previous evening, the young woman had
mentioned that she intended going out next day and probably would not be
home until evening.

Laurent waited fully half an hour. He knew that his wife always went by
the Rue Mazarine; nevertheless, at one moment, he remembered that she
might escape him by taking the Rue de Seine, and he thought of returning
to the arcade, and concealing himself in the corridor of the house. But
he determined to retain his seat a little longer, and just as he was
growing impatient he suddenly saw Therese come rapidly from the passage.

She wore a light gown, and, for the first time, he noticed that her
attire appeared remarkably showy, like a street-walker. She twisted
her body about on the pavement, staring provokingly at the men who came
along, and raising her skirt, which she clutched in a bunch in her hand,
much higher than any respectable woman would have done, in order
to display her lace-up boots and stockings. As she went up the Rue
Mazarine, Laurent followed her.

It was mild weather, and the young woman walked slowly, with her head
thrown slightly backward and her hair streaming down her back. The men
who had first of all stared her in the face, turned round to take a
back view. She passed into the Rue de l'Ecole de Medecine. Laurent
was terrified. He knew that somewhere in this neighbourhood, was a
Commissariat of Police, and he said to himself that there could no
longer be any doubt as to the intentions of his wife, she was certainly
about to denounce him. Then he made up his mind to rush after her, if
she crossed the threshold of the commissariat, to implore her, to beat
her if necessary, so as to compel her to hold her tongue. At a street
corner she looked at a policeman who came along, and Laurent trembled
with fright, lest she should stop and speak to him. In terror of being
arrested on the spot if he showed himself, he hid in a doorway.

This excursion proved perfect agony. While his wife basked in the sun
on the pavement, trailing her skirt with nonchalance and impudence,
shameless and unconcerned, he followed behind her, pale and shuddering,
repeating that it was all over, that he would be unable to save himself
and would be guillotined. Each step he saw her take, seemed to him a
step nearer punishment. Fright gave him a sort of blind conviction, and
the slightest movement of the young woman added to his certainty. He
followed her, he went where she went, as a man goes to the scaffold.

Suddenly on reaching the former Place Saint-Michel, Therese
advanced towards a cafe that then formed the corner of the Rue
Monsieur-le-Prince. There she seated herself in the centre of a group of
women and students, at one of the tables on the pavement, and familiarly
shook hands with all this little crowd. Then she called for absinthe.

She seemed quite at ease, chatting with a fair young man who no doubt
had been waiting for her some time. Two girls came and leant over
the table where she sat, addressing her affectionately in their husky
voices. Around her, women were smoking cigarettes, men were embracing
women in the open street, before the passers-by, who never even turned
their heads. Low words and hoarse laughter reached Laurent, who remained
motionless in a doorway on the opposite side of the street.

When Therese had finished her absinthe, she rose, and leaning on the arm
of the fair young man, went down the Rue de la Harpe. Laurent followed
them as far as the Rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts, where he noticed them enter
a lodging-house. He remained in the middle of the street with his eyes
on the front of the building. Presently his wife showed herself for
an instant at an open window on the second floor, and he fancied he
perceived the hands of the pale young man encircling her waist. Then,
the window closed with a sharp clang.

Laurent understood. Without waiting a moment longer, he tranquilly took
himself off reassured and happy.

"Bah!" said he to himself, as he went towards the quays. "It's better,
after all, that she should have a sweetheart. That will occupy her mind,
and prevent her thinking of injuring me. She's deucedly more clever than
I am."

What astonished him, was that he had not been the first to think of
plunging into vice, which might have driven away his terror. But his
thoughts had never turned in that direction, and, moreover, he had not
the least inclination for riotous living. The infidelity of his wife did
not trouble him in the least. He felt no anger at the knowledge that she
was in the arms of another man. On the contrary, he seemed to enjoy
the idea. He began to think that he had been following the wife of a
comrade, and laughed at the cunning trick the woman was playing her
husband. Therese had become such a stranger to him, that he no longer
felt her alive in his heart. He would have sold her, bound hand and
foot, a hundred times over, to purchase calm for one hour.

As he sauntered along, he enjoyed the sudden, delightful reaction that
had just brought him from terror to peace. He almost thanked his wife
for having gone to a sweetheart, when he thought her on her way to a
commissary of police. This adventure had come to an unforeseen end that
agreeably surprised him. It distinctly showed him that he had done wrong
to tremble, and that he, in his turn, should try vice, in order to see
whether such a course would not relieve him by diverting his thoughts.

On returning to the shop in the evening, Laurent decided that he would
ask his wife for a few thousand francs, and that he would resort to
high-handed measures to obtain them. Reflection told him that vice would
be an expensive thing, for a man. He patiently awaited Therese, who had
not yet come in. When she arrived, he affected gentleness, and refrained
from breathing a word about having followed her in the morning. She was
slightly tipsy, and from her ill-adjusted garments, came that unpleasant
odour of tobacco and spirits that is met with in public drinking places.
Completely exhausted, and with cheeks as pale as death, she advanced at
an unsteady gait and with a head quite heavy from the shameless fatigue
of the day.

The dinner passed in silence. Therese ate nothing. At dessert Laurent
placed his elbows on the table, and flatly asked her for 5,000 francs.

"No," she answered dryly. "If I were to give you a free hand, you'd
bring us to beggary. Aren't you aware of our position? We are going as
fast as ever we can to the dogs."

"That may be," he quietly resumed. "I don't care a fig, I intend to have
money."

"No, a thousand times no!" she retorted. "You left your place, the
mercery business is in a very bad way, and the revenue from my marriage
portion is not sufficient to maintain us. Every day I encroach on the
principal to feed you and give you the one hundred francs a month you
wrung from me. You will not get anything beyond that, do you understand?
So it's no use asking."

"Just reflect," he replied, "and don't be so silly as to refuse. I tell
you I mean to have 5,000 francs, and I shall have them. You'll give them
me, in spite of all."

This quiet determination irritated Therese and put the finishing touch
to her intoxication.

"Ah! I know what it is," she cried, "you want to finish as you began.
We have been keeping you for four years. You only came to us to eat and
drink, and since then you've been at our charge. Monsieur does nothing,
Monsieur has arranged so as to live at my expense with his arms folded
one over the other. No, you shall have nothing, not a sou. Do you want
me to tell you what you are? Well then, you are a------"

And she pronounced the word. Laurent began to laugh, shrugging his
shoulders. He merely replied:

"You learn some pretty expressions in the company you keep now."

This was the only allusion he ventured to make to the love affairs of
Therese. She quickly raised her head, and bitterly replied:

"Anyhow, I don't keep the company of murderers."

Laurent became very pale, and for a moment remained silent, with his
eyes fixed on his wife; then, in a trembling voice, he resumed:

"Listen, my girl, don't let us get angry; there is no good in that
neither for you nor me. I've lost all courage. We had better come to an
understanding if we wish to avoid a misfortune. If I ask you for 5,000
francs it is because I want them; and I will even tell you what I intend
to do with them, so as to ensure our tranquillity."

He gave her a peculiar smile, and continued:

"Come, reflect, let me have your last word."

"I have thoroughly made up my mind," answered the young woman, "and it
is as I have told you. You shall not have a sou."

Her husband rose violently. She was afraid of being beaten; she crouched
down, determined not to give way to blows. But Laurent did not even
approach her, he confined himself to telling her in a frigid tone that
he was tired of life, and was about to relate the story of the murder to
the commissary of police of the quarter.

"You drive me to extremes," said he, "you make my life unbearable. I
prefer to have done with it. We shall both be tried and condemned. And
there will be an end to it all."

"Do you think you'll frighten me?" shouted his wife. "I am as weary as
you are. I'll go to the commissary of police myself, if you don't. Ah!
Indeed, I am quite ready to follow you to the scaffold, I'm not a coward
like you. Come along, come along with me to the commissary."

She had risen, and was making her way to the staircase.

"That's it," stammered Laurent, "let's go together."

When they were down in the shop they looked at one another, anxious and
alarmed. It seemed as though they were riveted to the ground. The few
seconds they had taken to run downstairs had suffered to show them, as
in a flash, all the consequences of a confession. They saw at the same
moment, suddenly and distinctly: gendarmes, prison, assize-court and
guillotine. This made them feel faint, and they were tempted to throw
themselves on their knees, one before the other, to implore one another
to remain, and reveal nothing. Fright and embarrassment kept them
motionless and mute for two or three minutes. Therese was the first to
make up her mind to speak and give way.

"After all," said she, "I am a great fool to quarrel with you about this
money. You will succeed in getting hold of it and squandering it, one
day or another. I may just as well give it you at once."

She did not seek to conceal her defeat any further. She seated herself
at the counter, and signed a cheque for 5,000 francs, which Laurent was
to present to her banker. There was no more question of the commissary
of police that evening.

As soon as Laurent had the gold in his pocket, he began to lead a
riotous life, drinking to excess, and frequenting women of ill-repute.
He slept all day and stayed out all night, in search of violent emotions
that would relieve him of reality. But he only succeeded in becoming
more oppressed than before. When the company were shouting around
him, he heard the great, terrible silence within him; when one of his
ladyloves kissed him, when he drained his glass, he found naught at the
bottom of his satiety, but heavy sadness.

He was no longer a man for lust and gluttony. His chilled being, as
if inwardly rigid, became enervated at the kisses and feasts. Feeling
disgusted beforehand, they failed to arouse his imagination or to excite
his senses and stomach. He suffered a little more by forcing himself
into a dissolute mode of life, and that was all. Then, when he returned
home, when he saw Madame Raquin and Therese again, his weariness brought
on frightful fits of terror. And he vowed he would leave the house
no more, that he would put up with his suffering, so as to become
accustomed to it, and be able to conquer it.

For a month Therese lived, like Laurent, on the pavement and in the
cafes. She returned daily for a moment, in the evening to feed Madame
Raquin and put her to bed, and then disappeared again until the morrow.
She and her husband on one occasion were four days without setting eyes
on each other. At last, she experienced profound disgust at the life
she was leading, feeling that vice succeeded no better with her than the
comedy of remorse.

In vain had she dragged through all the lodging-houses in the Latin
Quarter, in vain had she led a low, riotous life. Her nerves were
ruined. Debauchery ceased to give her a sufficiently violent shock to
render her oblivious of the past. She resembled one of those drunkards
whose scorched palates remain insensible to the most violent spirits.
She had done with lust, and the society of her paramours only worried
and wearied her. Then, she quitted them as useless.

She now fell a prey to despondent idleness which kept her at home, in
a dirty petticoat, with hair uncombed, and face and hands unwashed. She
neglected everything and lived in filth.

When the two murderers came together again face to face, in this
manner, after having done their best to get away from each other,
they understood that they would no longer have strength to struggle.
Debauchery had rejected them, it had just cast them back to their
anguish. Once more they were in the dark, damp lodging in the arcade;
and, henceforth, were as if imprisoned there, for although they had
often attempted to save themselves, never had they been able to
sever the sanguinary bond attaching them. They did not even think of
attempting a task they regarded as impossible. They found themselves so
urged on, so overwhelmed, so securely fastened together by events, that
they were conscious all resistance would be ridiculous. They resumed
their life in common, but their hatred became furious rage.

The quarrels at night began again. But for that matter, the blows
and cries lasted all day long. To hatred distrust was now added, and
distrust put the finishing touch to their folly.

They were afraid of each other. The scene that had followed the demand
for 5,000 francs, was repeated morning and night. They had the fixed
idea that they wanted to give one another up. From that standpoint they
did not depart. When either of them said a word, or made a gesture, the
other imagined that he or she, as the case might be, intended to go
to the commissary of police. Then, they either fought or implored one
another to do nothing.

In their anger, they shouted out that they would run and reveal
everything, and terrified each other to death. After this they
shuddered, they humbled themselves, and promised with bitter tears to
maintain silence. They suffered most horribly, but had not the courage
to cure themselves by placing a red-hot iron on the wound. If they
threatened one another to confess the crime, it was merely to strike
terror into each other and drive away the thought, for they would never
have had strength to speak and seek peace in punishment.

On more than twenty occasions, they went as far as the door of the
commissariat of police, one following the other. Now it was Laurent who
wanted to confess the murder, now Therese who ran to give herself
up. But they met in the street, and always decided to wait, after an
interchange of insults and ardent prayers.

Every fresh attack made them more suspicious and ferocious than before.
From morning till night they were spying upon one another. Laurent
barely set his foot outside the lodging in the arcade, and if,
perchance, he did absent himself, Therese never failed to accompany him.
Their suspicions, their fright lest either should confess, brought
them together, united them in atrocious intimacy. Never, since their
marriage, had they lived so tightly tied together, and never had they
experienced such suffering. But, notwithstanding the anguish they
imposed on themselves, they never took their eyes off one another. They
preferred to endure the most excruciating pain, rather than separate for
an hour.

If Therese went down to the shop, Laurent followed, afraid that she
might talk to a customer; if Laurent stood in the doorway, observing the
people passing through the arcade, Therese placed herself beside him to
see that he did not speak to anyone. When the guests were assembled on
Thursday evenings, the murderers addressed supplicating glances to each
other, listening to one another in terror, one accomplice expecting the
other to make some confession, and giving an involving interpretation to
sentences only just commenced.

Such a state of warfare could not continue any longer.

Therese and Laurent had both reached the point of pondering on the
advisability of extricating themselves from the consequences of their
first crime, by committing a second. It became absolutely necessary that
one of them should disappear so that the other might enjoy some repose.
This reflection came to them both at the same time; both felt the urgent
necessity for a separation, and both desired that it should be eternal.
The murder that now occurred to their minds, seemed to them natural,
fatal and forcibly brought about by the murder of Camille. They did not
even turn the matter over in their heads but welcomed the idea as the
only means of safety. Laurent determined he would kill Therese because
she stood in his way, because she might ruin him by a word, and because
she caused him unbearable suffering. Therese made up her mind that she
would kill Laurent, for the same reasons.

The firm resolution to commit another murder somewhat calmed them.
They formed their plans. But in that respect they acted with feverish
excitement, and without any display of excessive prudence. They only
thought vaguely of the probable consequences of a murder committed
without flight and immunity being ensured. They felt the invincible
necessity to kill one another, and yielded to this necessity like
furious brutes. They would not have exposed themselves for their first
crime, which they had so cleverly concealed, and yet they risked the
guillotine, in committing a second, which they did not even attempt to
hide.

Here was a contradiction in their conduct that they never so much as
caught sight of. Both simply said to themselves that if they succeeded
in fleeing, they would go and live abroad, taking all the cash with
them. Therese, a fortnight or three weeks before, had drawn from the
bank the few thousand francs that remained of her marriage portion, and
kept them locked up in a drawer--a circumstance that had not escaped
Laurent. The fate of Madame Raquin did not trouble them an instant.

A few weeks previously, Laurent had met one of his old college friends,
now acting as dispenser to a famous chemist, who gave considerable
attention to toxicology. This friend had shown him over the laboratory
where he worked, pointing out to him the apparatus and the drugs.

One night, after he had made up his mind in regard to the murder, and
as Therese was drinking a glass of sugar and water before him, Laurent
remembered that he had seen in this laboratory a small stoneware flagon,
containing prussic acid, and that the young dispenser had spoken to him
of the terrible effects of this poison, which strikes the victim down
with sudden death, leaving but few traces behind. And Laurent said to
himself, that this was the poison he required. On the morrow, succeeding
in escaping the vigilance of Therese, he paid his friend a visit, and
while he had his back turned, stole the small stoneware flagon.

The same day, Therese took advantage of the absence of Laurent, to send
the large kitchen knife, with which they were in the habit of breaking
the loaf sugar, and which was very much notched, to be sharpened. When
it came back, she hid it in a corner of the sideboard.



The following Thursday, the evening party at the Raquins, as the guests
continued to term the household of their hosts, was particularly merry.
It was prolonged until half-past eleven, and as Grivet withdrew, he
declared that he had never passed such a pleasant time.

Suzanne, who was not very well, never ceased talking to Therese of her
pain and joy. Therese appeared to listen to her with great interest,
her eyes fixed, her lips pinched, her head, at moments, bending forward;
while her lowering eyelids cast a cloud over the whole of her face.

Laurent, for his part, gave uninterrupted attention to the tales of old
Michaud and Olivier. These gentlemen never paused, and it was only with
difficulty that Grivet succeeded in getting in a word edgeways between
a couple of sentences of father and son. He had a certain respect
for these two men whom he considered good talkers. On that particular
evening, a gossip having taken the place of the usual game, he naively
blurted out that the conversation of the former commissary of police
amused him almost as much as dominoes.

During the four years, or thereabouts, that the Michauds and Grivet had
been in the habit of passing the Thursday evenings at the Raquins', they
had not once felt fatigued at these monotonous evenings that returned
with enervating regularity. Never had they for an instant suspected the
drama that was being performed in this house, so peaceful and harmonious
when they entered it. Olivier, with the jest of a person connected with
the police, was in the habit of remarking that the dining-room savoured
of the honest man. Grivet, so as to have his say, had called the place
the Temple of Peace.

Latterly, on two or three different occasions, Therese explained the
bruises disfiguring her face, by telling the guests she had fallen down.
But none of them, for that matter, would have recognised the marks of
the fist of Laurent; they were convinced as to their hosts being a model
pair, replete with sweetness and love.

The paralysed woman had not made any fresh attempt to reveal to them
the infamy concealed behind the dreary tranquillity of the Thursday
evenings. An eye-witness of the tortures of the murderers, and
foreseeing the crisis which would burst out, one day or another, brought
on by the fatal succession of events, she at length understood that
there was no necessity for her intervention. And from that moment, she
remained in the background allowing the consequences of the murder of
Camille, which were to kill the assassins in their turn, to take their
course. She only prayed heaven, to grant her sufficient life to enable
her to be present at the violent catastrophe she foresaw; her only
remaining desire was to feast her eyes on the supreme suffering that
would undo Therese and Laurent.

On this particular evening, Grivet went and seated himself beside her,
and talked for a long time, he, as usual, asking the questions and
supplying the answers himself. But he failed to get even a glance from
her. When half-past eleven struck, the guests quickly rose to their
feet.

"We are so comfortable with you," said Grivet, "that no one ever thinks
of leaving."

"The fact is," remarked Michaud by way of supporting the old clerk, "I
never feel drowsy here, although I generally go to bed at nine o'clock."

Olivier thought this a capital opportunity for introducing his little
joke.

"You see," said he, displaying his yellow teeth, "this apartment savours
of honest people: that is why we are so comfortable here."

Grivet, annoyed at being forestalled, began to declaim with an emphatic
gesture:

"This room is the Temple of Peace!"

In the meanwhile, Suzanne, who was putting on her hat, remarked to
Therese:

"I will come to-morrow morning at nine o'clock."

"No," hastened to answer the young woman in a strange, troubled tone,
"don't come until the afternoon I have an engagement in the morning."

She accompanied the guests into the arcade, and Laurent also went down
with a lamp in his hand. As soon as the married couple were alone,
both heaved a sigh of relief. They must have been devoured by secret
impatience all the evening. Since the previous day they had become more
sombre, more anxious in presence of one another. They avoided looking at
each other, and returned in silence to the dining-room. Their hands gave
slight convulsive twitches, and Laurent was obliged to place the lamp on
the table, to avoid letting it fall.

Before putting Madame Raquin to bed they were in the habit of setting
the dining-room in order, of preparing a glass of sugar and water
for the night, of moving hither and thither about the invalid, until
everything was ready.

When they got upstairs on this particular occasion, they sat down an
instant with pale lips, and eyes gazing vaguely before them. Laurent was
the first to break silence:

"Well! Aren't we going to bed?" he inquired, as if he had just started
from a dream.

"Yes, yes, we are going to bed," answered Therese, shivering as though
she felt a violent chill.

She rose and grasped the water decanter.

"Let it be," exclaimed her husband, in a voice that he endeavoured to
render natural, "I will prepare the sugar and water. You attend to your
aunt."

He took the decanter of water from the hands of his wife and poured out
a glassful. Then, turning half round, he emptied the contents of the
small stoneware flagon into the glass at the same time as he dropped a
lump of sugar into it. In the meanwhile, Therese had bent down before
the sideboard, and grasping the kitchen knife sought to slip it into one
of the large pockets hanging from her waist.

At the same moment, a strange sensation which comes as a warning note
of danger, made the married couple instinctively turn their heads. They
looked at one another. Therese perceived the flagon in the hands of
Laurent, and the latter caught sight of the flash of the blade in the
folds of the skirt of his wife.

For a few seconds they examined each other, mute and frigid, the husband
near the table, the wife stooping down before the sideboard. And they
understood. Each of them turned icy cold, on perceiving that both
had the same thought. And they were overcome with pity and horror
at mutually reading the secret design of the other on their agitated
countenances.

Madame Raquin, feeling the catastrophe near at hand, watched them with
piercing, fixed eyes.

Therese and Laurent, all at once, burst into sobs. A supreme crisis
undid them, cast them into the arms of one another, as weak as children.
It seemed to them as if something tender and sweet had awakened in their
breasts. They wept, without uttering a word, thinking of the vile life
they had led, and would still lead, if they were cowardly enough to
live.

Then, at the recollection of the past, they felt so fatigued and
disgusted with themselves, that they experienced a huge desire for
repose, for nothingness. They exchanged a final look, a look of
thankfulness, in presence of the knife and glass of poison. Therese took
the glass, half emptied it, and handed it to Laurent who drank off the
remainder of the contents at one draught. The result was like lightning.
The couple fell one atop of the other, struck down, finding consolation,
at last, in death. The mouth of the young woman rested on the scar that
the teeth of Camille had left on the neck of her husband.

The corpses lay all night, spread out contorted, on the dining-room
floor, lit up by the yellow gleams from the lamp, which the shade cast
upon them. And for nearly twelve hours, in fact until the following day
at about noon, Madame Raquin, rigid and mute, contemplated them at her
feet, overwhelming them with her heavy gaze, and unable to sufficiently
gorge her eyes with the hideous sight.



AFTERWORD

The idea of the plot of "Therese Raquin," according to M. Paul Alexis,
Zola's biographer, came from a novel called "La Venus de Gordes"
contributed to the "Figaro" by Adolphe Belot and Ernest Daudet--the
brother of Alphonse Daudet--in collaboration. In this story the authors
dealt with the murder of a man by his wife and her paramour, followed by
the trial of the murderers at the assizes. Zola, in noticing the book in
the "Figaro," when it arrived for review, pointed out that a much more
powerful story might be written on the same subject by invoking divine
instead of human justice. For instance, showing the two murderers safe
from earthly consequences, yet separated by the pool of blood between
them, haunted by their crime, and detesting one another for the deed
done together.

It then occurred to Zola to write the tale on these lines himself.
Convinced that the idea was good, he elaborated it with the greatest
care and all the skill at his command, the result being that he produced
a volume which proved his first genuine success, and which is still
considered by many to be his very best book.

EDWARD VIZETELLY

SURBITON, 1 December, 1901.

 Convinced that it is no longer in her power to avenge Camille's death, Mme Raquin decides to commit suicide by starving herself. Therese attempts to prevent Mme Raquin's self-destructive maneuver, yet Laurent is indifferent. In fact, he believes that Mme Raquin's death could bring a measure of relief. Mme Raquin learns of these sentiments and decides to live after all, because she wishes to witness the fate of her son's murderers. Both Therese and Laurent consider separating and fleeing. Yet both realize that such a step would arouse suspicions and could bring the law down on them. They stay put in the Passage du Pont-Neuf, along with a new companion: Suzanne. Olivier's timid young wife begins keeping Therese company in the shop, and Therese is delighted to have Suzanne's chatter as a distraction. In fact, because the two women do almost nothing but chatter, their negligence drives away the shop's last few customers. But Suzanne serves another purpose; because she tends the shop, she allows Therese to wander around Paris during the afternoons. Laurent's own situation is becoming unbearable. He wanders Paris, crushed with boredom, and returns to the apartment only to beat and harangue Therese. His condition is aggravated by vestiges and memories of Camille, including the scar on his neck and the watchful cat Francois. Driven to the point of murderous annoyance one evening, he grabs Mme Raquin's tabby cat, swings the creature around and hurls it out the window and against a nearby wall. Laurent notices that his wife has begun to make frequent disappearances and decides to follow her. Watching from a wine shop, he spots Therese, who is dressed provocatively and is casting flirty glances at the men in the street. He follows his wife, sees her fall in with a group of girls and young men who are drinking and smoking, and stalks Therese until, in the company of a young man, she disappears into an apartment. Therese's new activities seem like a good idea to Laurent; by indulging in sensual pleasures, perhaps he too can disregard everything that disturbs him. Later that day, he approaches Therese and asks her for 5000 francs. The young woman at first opposes his plan, and even announces her determination to admit her crime to the police rather than give Laurent what he wants. Ultimately, she gives in. And Laurent squanders the 5000 francs on alcohol and women, only to find that these indulgences bring him no comfort. The violent quarrels begin again. But now, a new state of extreme suspicion sets in. Laurent is convinced that his wife will eventually break down and confess, and Therese is convinced that her husband will do exactly the same. They regularly spy on one another. Exhausted and frightened, they resolve to end this state of suffering by committing murder once again. Therese sharpens a large kitchen knife, which she plans to use to kill Laurent. Laurent obtains a vial of prussic acid from a friend of his, and he intends to use this poison to kill Therese. Once again the Thursday guests have gathered at Mme Raquin's, and they are enjoying their best evening yet. Old Michaud and Grivet announce that they never tire of showing up to Mme Raquin's "Temple of Peace," to use Grivet's pet name for the Raquin household. As the guests are leaving, Suzanne notes to Therese that she will be at the shop early in the morning. Therese - who needs time to complete her murder and flee the premises - tells Suzanne to wait until noon. The guests leave. Laurent, Therese, and Mme Raquin are alone before bed, and Laurent makes Therese a glass of sugar water, lacing the drink with prussic acid. Therese retrieves her knife from its hiding place. But sensing danger, Therese and Laurent turn to face one another at precisely the same time, and discover one another's murderous plans. Mme Raquin watches in suspense. The two former lovers burst into tears, feeling pity for one another. Weary and disgusted with their lives, Therese drinks half of the poisoned water and Laurent finishes it off. They collapse and Therese's lips come to rest against the scar on Laurent's neck. Mme Raquin sits over the spectacle, gloating over the murders' fate for the next twelve hours.

