THERESE RAQUIN
CHAPTER II
Madame Raquin had formerly been a mercer at Vernon. For close upon
five-and-twenty years, she had kept a small shop in that town. A few years after
the death of her husband, becoming subject to fits of faintness, she sold her
business. Her savings added to the price of this sale placed a capital of 40,000
francs in her hand which she invested so that it brought her in an income of
2,000 francs a year. This sum amply sufficed for her requirements. She led the
life of a recluse. Ignoring the poignant joys and cares of this world, she
arranged for herself a tranquil existence of peace and happiness.
At an annual rental of 400 francs she took a small house with a garden
descending to the edge of the Seine. This enclosed, quiet residence vaguely
recalled the cloister. It stood in the centre of large fields, and was
approached by a narrow path. The windows of the dwelling opened to the river and
to the solitary hillocks on the opposite bank. The good lady, who had passed the
half century, shut herself up in this solitary retreat, where along with her son
Camille and her niece Therese, she partook of serene joy.
Although Camille was then twenty, his mother continued to spoil him like a
little child. She adored him because she had shielded him from death, throughout
a tedious childhood of constant suffering. The boy contracted every fever, every
imaginable malady, one after the other. Madame Raquin struggled for fifteen
years against these terrible evils, which arrived in rapid succession to tear
her son away from her. She vanquished them all by patience, care, and adoration.
Camille having grown up, rescued from death, had contracted a shiver from the
torture of the repeated shocks he had undergone. Arrested in his growth, he
remained short and delicate. His long, thin limbs moved slowly and wearily. But
his mother loved him all the more on account of this weakness that arched his
back. She observed his thin, pale face with triumphant tenderness when she
thought of how she had brought him back to life more than ten times over.
During the brief spaces of repose that his sufferings allowed him, the child
attended a commercial school at Vernon. There he learned orthography and
arithmetic. His science was limited to the four rules, and a very superficial
knowledge of grammar. Later on, he took lessons in writing and bookkeeping.
Madame Raquin began to tremble when advised to send her son to college. She knew
he would die if separated from her, and she said the books would kill him. So
Camille remained ignorant, and this ignorance seemed to increase his weakness.
At eighteen, having nothing to do, bored to death at the delicate attention
of his mother, he took a situation as clerk with a linen merchant, where he
earned 60 francs a month. Being of a restless nature idleness proved unbearable.
He found greater calm and better health in this labour of a brute which kept him
bent all day long over invoices, over enormous additions, each figure of which
he patiently added up. At night, broken down with fatigue, without an idea in
his head, he enjoyed infinite delight in the doltishness that settled on him. He
had to quarrel with his mother to go with the dealer in linen. She wanted to
keep him always with her, between a couple of blankets, far from the accidents
of life.
But the young man spoke as master. He claimed work as children claim toys,
not from a feeling of duty, but by instinct, by a necessity of nature. The
tenderness, the devotedness of his mother had instilled into him an egotism that
was ferocious. He fancied he loved those who pitied and caressed him; but, in
reality, he lived apart, within himself, loving naught but his comfort, seeking
by all possible means to increase his enjoyment. When the tender affection of
Madame Raquin disgusted him, he plunged with delight into a stupid occupation
that saved him from infusions and potions.
In the evening, on his return from the office, he ran to the bank of the
Seine with his cousin Therese who was then close upon eighteen. One day, sixteen
years previously, while Madame Raquin was still a mercer, her brother Captain
Degans brought her a little girl in his arms. He had just arrived from Algeria.
"Here is a child," said he with a smile, "and you are her aunt. The mother is
dead and I don't know what to do with her. I'll give her to you."
The mercer took the child, smiled at her and kissed her rosy cheeks. Although
Degans remained a week at Vernon, his sister barely put a question to him
concerning the little girl he had brought her. She understood vaguely that the
dear little creature was born at Oran, and that her mother was a woman of the
country of great beauty. The Captain, an hour before his departure, handed his
sister a certificate of birth in which Therese, acknowledged by him to be his
child, bore his name. He rejoined his regiment, and was never seen again at
Vernon, being killed a few years later in Africa.
Therese grew up under the fostering care of her aunt, sleeping in the same
bed as Camille. She who had an iron constitution, received the treatment of a
delicate child, partaking of the same medicine as her cousin, and kept in the
warm air of the room occupied by the invalid. For hours she remained crouching
over the fire, in thought, watching the flames before her, without lowering her
eyelids.
This obligatory life of a convalescent caused her to retire within herself.
She got into the habit of talking in a low voice, of moving about noiselessly,
of remaining mute and motionless on a chair with expressionless, open eyes. But,
when she raised an arm, when she advanced a foot, it was easy to perceive that
she possessed feline suppleness, short, potent muscles, and that unmistakable
energy and passion slumbered in her soporous frame. Her cousin having fallen
down one day in a fainting fit, she abruptly picked him up and carried him—an
effort of strength that turned her cheeks scarlet. The cloistered life she led,
the debilitating regimen to which she found herself subjected, failed to weaken
her thin, robust form. Only her face took a pale, and even a slightly yellowish
tint, making her look almost ugly in the shade. Ever and anon she went to the
window, and contemplated the opposite houses on which the sun threw sheets of
gold.
When Madame Raquin sold her business, and withdrew to the little place beside
the river, Therese experienced secret thrills of joy. Her aunt had so frequently
repeated to her: "Don't make a noise; be quiet," that she kept all the
impetuosity of her nature carefully concealed within her. She possessed supreme
composure, and an apparent tranquillity that masked terrible transports. She
still fancied herself in the room of her cousin, beside a dying child, and had
the softened movements, the periods of silence, the placidity, the faltering
speech of an old woman.
When she saw the garden, the clear river, the vast green hillocks ascending
on the horizon, she felt a savage desire to run and shout. She felt her heart
thumping fit to burst in her bosom; but not a muscle of her face moved, and she
merely smiled when her aunt inquired whether she was pleased with her new home.
Life now became more pleasant for her. She maintained her supple gait, her
calm, indifferent countenance, she remained the child brought up in the bed of
an invalid; but inwardly she lived a burning, passionate existence. When alone
on the grass beside the water, she would lie down flat on her stomach like an
animal, her black eyes wide open, her body writhing, ready to spring. And she
stayed there for hours, without a thought, scorched by the sun, delighted at
being able to thrust her fingers in the earth. She had the most ridiculous
dreams; she looked at the roaring river in defiance, imagining that the water
was about to leap on her and attack her. Then she became rigid, preparing for
the defence, and angrily inquiring of herself how she could vanquish the
torrent.
At night, Therese, appeased and silent, stitched beside her aunt, with a
countenance that seemed to be dozing in the gleam that softly glided from
beneath the lamp shade. Camille buried in an armchair thought of his additions.
A word uttered in a low voice, alone disturbed, at moments, the peacefulness of
this drowsy home.
Madame Raquin observed her children with serene benevolence. She had resolved
to make them husband and wife. She continued to treat her son as if he were at
death's door; and she trembled when she happened to reflect that she would one
day die herself, and would leave him alone and suffering. In that contingency,
she relied on Therese, saying to herself that the young girl would be a vigilant
guardian beside Camille. Her niece with her tranquil manner, and mute
devotedness, inspired her with unlimited confidence. She had seen Therese at
work, and wished to give her to her son as a guardian angel. This marriage was a
solution to the matter, foreseen and settled in her mind.
The children knew for a long time that they were one day to marry. They had
grown up with this idea, which had thus become familiar and natural to them. The
union was spoken of in the family as a necessary and positive thing. Madame
Raquin had said:
"We will wait until Therese is one-and-twenty."
And they waited patiently, without excitement, and without a blush.
Camille, whose blood had become impoverished by illness, had remained a
little boy in the eyes of his cousin. He kissed her as he kissed his mother, by
habit, without losing any of his egotistic tranquillity. He looked upon her as
an obliging comrade who helped him to amuse himself, and who, if occasion
offered, prepared him an infusion. When playing with her, when he held her in
his arms, it was as if he had a boy to deal with. He experienced no thrill, and
at these moments the idea had never occurred to him of planting a warm kiss on
her lips as she struggled with a nervous laugh to free herself.
The girl also seemed to have remained cold and indifferent. At times her
great eyes rested on Camille and fixedly gazed at him with sovereign calm. On
such occasions her lips alone made almost imperceptible little motions. Nothing
could be read on her expressionless countenance, which an inexorable will always
maintained gentle and attentive. Therese became grave when the conversation
turned to her marriage, contenting herself with approving all that Madame Raquin
said by a sign of the head. Camille went to sleep.
On summer evenings, the two young people ran to the edge of the water.
Camille, irritated at the incessant attentions of his mother, at times broke out
in open revolt. He wished to run about and make himself ill, to escape the
fondling that disgusted him. He would then drag Therese along with him,
provoking her to wrestle, to roll in the grass. One day, having pushed his
cousin down, the young girl bounded to her feet with all the savageness of a
wild beast, and, with flaming face and bloodshot eyes, fell upon him with
clenched fists. Camille in fear sank to the ground.
Months and years passed by, and at length the day fixed for the marriage
arrived. Madame Raquin took Therese apart, spoke to her of her father and
mother, and related to her the story of her birth. The young girl listened to
her aunt, and when she had finished speaking, kissed her, without answering a
word.
At night, Therese, instead of going into her own room, which was on the left
of the staircase, entered that of her cousin which was on the right. This was
all the change that occurred in her mode of life. The following day, when the
young couple came downstairs, Camille had still his sickly languidness, his
righteous tranquillity of an egotist. Therese still maintained her gentle
indifference, and her restrained expression of frightful calmness.