THERESE RAQUIN
CHAPTER XXII
The following nights proved still more cruel. The murderers had wished to
pass this part of the twenty-four hours together, so as to be able to defend
themselves against the drowned man, and by a strange effect, since they had been
doing so, they shuddered the more. They were exasperated, and their nerves so
irritated, that they underwent atrocious attacks of suffering and terror, at the
exchange of a simple word or look. At the slightest conversation between them,
at the least talk, they had alone, they began raving, and were ready to draw
blood.
The sort of remorse Laurent experienced was purely physical. His body, his
irritated nerves and trembling frame alone were afraid of the drowned man. His
conscience was for nothing in his terror. He did not feel the least regret at
having killed Camille. When he was calm, when the spectre did not happen to be
there, he would have committed the murder over again, had he thought his
interests absolutely required it.
During the daytime he laughed at himself for his fright, making up his mind
to be stronger, and he harshly rebuked Therese, whom he accused of troubling
him. According to what he said, it was Therese who shuddered, it was Therese
alone who brought on the frightful scenes, at night, in the bedroom. And, as
soon as night came, as soon as he found himself shut in with his wife, icy
perspiration pearled on his skin, and his frame shook with childish terror.
He thus underwent intermittent nervous attacks that returned nightly, and
threw his senses into confusion while showing him the hideous green face of his
victim. These attacks resembled the accesses of some frightful illness, a sort
of hysteria of murder. The name of illness, of nervous affection, was really the
only one to give to the terror that Laurent experienced. His face became
convulsed, his limbs rigid, his nerves could be seen knotting beneath his skin.
The body suffered horribly, while the spirit remained absent. The wretch felt no
repentance. His passion for Therese had conveyed a frightful evil to him, and
that was all.
Therese also found herself a prey to these heavy shocks. But, in her terror,
she showed herself a woman: she felt vague remorse, unavowed regret. She, at
times, had an inclination to cast herself on her knees and beseech the spectre
of Camille to pardon her, while swearing to appease it by repentance. Maybe
Laurent perceived these acts of cowardice on the part of Therese, for when they
were agitated by the common terror, he laid the blame on her, and treated her
with brutality.
On the first nights, they were unable to go to bed. They waited for daylight,
seated before the fire, or pacing to and fro as on the evening of the
wedding-day. The thought of lying down, side by side, on the bed, caused them a
sort of terrifying repugnance. By tacit consent, they avoided kissing one
another, and they did not even look at their couch, which Therese tumbled about
in the morning.
When overcome with fatigue, they slept for an hour or two in the armchairs,
to awaken with a start, under the influence of the sinister denouement of some
nightmare. On awakening, with limbs stiff and tired, shivering all over with
discomfort and cold, their faces marbled with livid blotches, they contemplated
one another in bewilderment astonished to see themselves there. And they
displayed strange bashfulness towards each other, ashamed at showing their
disgust and terror.
But they struggled against sleep as much as they could. They seated
themselves, one on each side of the chimney, and talked of a thousand trifles,
being very careful not to let the conversation drop. There was a broad space
between them in front of the fire. When they turned their heads, they imagined
that Camille had drawn a chair there, and occupied this space, warming his feet
in a lugubrious, bantering fashion. This vision, which they had seen on the
evening of the wedding-day, returned each night.
And this corpse taking a mute, but jeering part, in their interviews, this
horribly disfigured body ever remaining there, overwhelmed them with continued
anxiety. Not daring to move, they half blinded themselves staring at the
scorching flames, and, when unable to resist any longer, they cast a timid
glance aside, their eyes irritated by the glowing coal, created the vision, and
conveyed to it a reddish glow.
Laurent, in the end, refused to remain seated any longer, without avowing the
cause of this whim to Therese. The latter understood that he must see Camille as
she saw him; and, in her turn, she declared that the heat made her feel ill, and
that she would be more comfortable a few steps away from the chimney. Pushing
back her armchair to the foot of the bed, she remained there overcome, while her
husband resumed his walk in the room. From time to time, he opened the window,
allowing the icy air of the cold January night to fill the apartment, and this
calmed his fever.
For a week, the newly-married couple passed the nights in this fashion,
dozing and getting a little rest in the daytime, Therese behind the counter in
the shop, Laurent in his office. At night they belonged to pain and fear. And
the strangest part of the whole business was the attitude they maintained
towards each other. They did not utter one word of love, but feigned to have
forgotten the past; and seemed to accept, to tolerate one another like sick
people, feeling secret pity for their mutual sufferings.
Both hoped to conceal their disgust and fear, and neither seemed to think of
the peculiar nights they passed, which should have enlightened them as to the
real state of their beings. When they sat up until morning, barely exchanging a
word, turning pale at the least sound, they looked as if they thought all
newly-married folk conducted themselves in the same way, during the first days
of their marriage. This was the clumsy hypocrisy of two fools.
They were soon so overcome by weariness that they one night decided to lie on
the bed. They did not undress, but threw themselves, as they were, on the quilt,
fearing lest their bare skins should touch, for they fancied they would receive
a painful shock at the least contact. Then, when they had slept thus, in an
anxious sleep, for two nights, they risked removing their clothes, and slipping
between the sheets. But they remained apart, and took all sorts of precautions
so as not to come together.
Therese got into bed first, and lay down close to the wall. Laurent waited
until she had made herself quite comfortable, and then ventured to stretch
himself out at the opposite edge of the mattress, so that there was a broad
space between them. It was there that the corpse of Camille lay.
When the two murderers were extended under the same sheet, and had closed
their eyes, they fancied they felt the damp corpse of their victim, lying in the
middle of the bed, and turning their flesh icy cold. It was like a vile obstacle
separating them. They were seized with fever and delirium, and this obstacle, in
their minds, became material. They touched the corpse, they saw it spread out,
like a greenish and dissolved shred of something, and they inhaled the
infectious odour of this lump of human putrefaction. All their senses were in a
state of hallucination, conveying intolerable acuteness to their sensations.
The presence of this filthy bedfellow kept them motionless, silent,
abstracted with anguish. Laurent, at times, thought of taking Therese violently
in his arms; but he dared not move. He said to himself that he could not extend
his hand, without getting it full of the soft flesh of Camille. Next he fancied
that the drowned man came to sleep between them so as to prevent them clasping
one another, and he ended by understanding that Camille was jealous.
Nevertheless, ever and anon, they sought to exchange a timid kiss, to see
what would happen. The young man jeered at his wife, and ordered her to embrace
him. But their lips were so cold that it seemed as if the dead man had got
between their mouths. Both felt disgusted. Therese shuddered with horror, and
Laurent who heard her teeth chattering, railed at her:
"Why are you trembling?" he exclaimed. "Are you afraid of Camille? Ah! the
poor man is as dead as a doornail at this moment."
Both avoided saying what made them shudder. When an hallucination brought the
countenance of the drowned man before Therese, she closed her eyes, keeping her
terror to herself, not daring to speak to her husband of her vision, lest she
should bring on a still more terrible crisis. And it was just the same with
Laurent. When driven to extremities, he, in a fit of despair, accused Therese of
being afraid of Camille. The name, uttered aloud, occasioned additional anguish.
The murderer raved.
"Yes, yes," he stammered, addressing the young woman, "you are afraid of
Camille. I can see that plain enough! You are a silly thing, you have no pluck
at all. Look here! just go to sleep quietly. Do you think your husband will come
and pull you out of bed by the heels, because I happen to be sleeping with you?"
This idea that the drowned man might come and pull them out of bed by the
heels, made the hair of Laurent stand on end, and he continued with greater
violence, while still in the utmost terror himself.
"I shall have to take you some night to the cemetery. We will open the coffin
Camille is in, and you will see what he looks like! Then you will perhaps cease
being afraid. Go on, he doesn't know we threw him in the water."
Therese with her head under the bedclothes, was uttering smothered groans.
"We threw him into the water, because he was in our way," resumed her
husband. "And we'll throw him in again, will we not? Don't act like a child.
Show a little strength. It's silly to trouble our happiness. You see, my dear,
when we are dead and underground, we shall be neither less nor more happy,
because we cast an idiot in the Seine, and we shall have freely enjoyed our love
which will have been an advantage. Come, give me a kiss."
The young woman kissed him, but she was icy cold, and half crazy, while he
shuddered as much as she did.
For a fortnight Laurent was asking himself how he could kill Camille again.
He had flung him in the water; and yet he was not dead enough, because he came
every night to sleep in the bed of Therese. While the murderers thought that
having committed the crime, they could love one another in peace, their
resuscitated victim arrived to make their touch like ice. Therese was not a
widow. Laurent found that he was mated to a woman who already had a drowned man
for husband.