Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola Page B

head, which looked tanned and drawn out
lengthwise, while preserving a human appearance, had remained all the
more frightful with pain and terror.
    The body seemed a mass of ruptured flesh; it had suffered horribly.
You could feel that the arms no longer held to their sockets; and the
clavicles were piercing the skin of the shoulders. The ribs formed black
bands on the greenish chest; the left side, ripped open, was gaping
amidst dark red shreds. All the torso was in a state of putrefaction.
The extended legs, although firmer, were daubed with dirty patches. The
feet dangled down.
    Laurent gazed at Camille. He had never yet seen the body of a drowned
person presenting such a dreadful aspect. The corpse, moreover, looked
pinched. It had a thin, poor appearance. It had shrunk up in its decay,
and the heap it formed was quite small. Anyone might have guessed
that it belonged to a clerk at 1,200 francs a year, who was stupid and
sickly, and who had been brought up by his mother on infusions. This
miserable frame, which had grown to maturity between warm blankets, was
now shivering on a cold slab.
    When Laurent could at last tear himself from the poignant curiosity that
kept him motionless and gaping before his victim, he went out and begun
walking rapidly along the quay. And as he stepped out, he repeated:
    "That is what I have done. He is hideous."
    A smell seemed to be following him, the smell that the putrefying body
must be giving off.
    He went to find old Michaud, and told him he had just recognized Camille
lying on one of the slabs in the Morgue. The formalities were performed,
the drowned man was buried, and a certificate of death delivered.
Laurent, henceforth at ease, felt delighted to be able to bury his
crime in oblivion, along with the vexatious and painful scenes that had
followed it.

Chapter XIV
*
    The shop in the Arcade of the Pont Neuf remained closed for three days.
When it opened again, it appeared darker and damper. The shop-front
display, which the dust had turned yellow, seemed to be wearing the
mourning of the house; the various articles were scattered at sixes
and sevens in the dirty windows. Behind the linen caps hanging from
the rusty iron rods, the face of Therese presented a more olive, a more
sallow pallidness, and the immobility of sinister calm.
    All the gossips in the arcade were moved to pity. The dealer in
imitation jewelry pointed out the emaciated profile of the young widow
to each of her customers, as an interesting and lamentable curiosity.
    For three days, Madame Raquin and Therese had remained in bed without
speaking, and without even seeing one another. The old mercer, propped
up by pillows in a sitting posture, gazed vaguely before her with the
eyes of an idiot. The death of her son had been like a blow on the head
that had felled her senseless to the ground. For hours she remained
tranquil and inert, absorbed in her despair; then she was at times
seized with attacks of weeping, shrieking and delirium.
    Therese in the adjoining room, seemed to sleep. She had turned her face
to the wall, and drawn the sheet over her eyes. There she lay
stretched out at full length, rigid and mute, without a sob raising the
bed-clothes. It looked as if she was concealing the thoughts that made
her rigid in the darkness of the alcove.
    Suzanne, who attended to the two women, went feebly from one to the
other, gently dragging her feet along the floor, bending her wax-like
countenance over the two couches, without succeeding in persuading
Therese, who had sudden fits of impatience, to turn round, or in
consoling Madame Raquin, whose tears began to flow as soon as a voice
drew her from her prostration.
    On the third day, Therese, rapidly and with a sort of feverish decision,
threw the sheet from her, and seated herself up in bed. She thrust back
her hair from her temples, and for a moment remained with her hands to
her forehead and her eyes fixed, seeming still to reflect. Then, she
sprang to the carpet. Her