Thérèse Raquin Read online

  The two lovers no longer made any assignations. Since the day at the Rue Saint-Victor, they had not once met alone. In the evening, when they were face to face, apparently calm and indifferent to one another, waves of passion, terror and desire seethed beneath the unruffled surfaces of their faces. And inside Thérèse there were moments of fury, baseness and cruel sneering, while in Laurent there was dark brutality and anguished indecision. They themselves did not dare to look into the depths of their beings, to plumb this feverish unrest that filled their brains with a kind of thick, acrid vapour.

  When they could, behind a door, without saying a word, they would exchange a brief, rough grasp of hands. They would have liked to carry off shreds of the other’s flesh clinging to their fingers. There was only this hand squeeze to quench their desire; they put their whole bodies into it. They asked for nothing else from one another. They were waiting.

  One Thursday evening, before they started their game, Mme Raquin’s guests, as usual, had a bit of a chat. One of the main subjects of conversation was talking to Old Michaud about his former job and asking him about the strange and sinister happenings in which he had supposedly been involved. Grivet and Camille would listen to the police commissioner’s tales with the scared, open-mouthed expressions of little children hearing Bluebeard or Tom Thumb. They were terrified and entertained at the same time.

  That particular day, Michaud, who had just told them about a frightful murder, the details of which had sent shivers up their spines, added with a shake of the head: ‘And we don’t know everything ... How many crimes remain undetected! How many murderers escape justice!’

  ‘What!’ exclaimed Grivet, in astonishment. ‘Do you think that there are villains, like that, in the streets, who have killed people and not been arrested?’

  Olivier gave a pitying look and smiled.

  ‘My dear sir,’ he replied, curtly, ‘if they have not been arrested, that is because no one knows that they have killed someone.’

  This argument did not seem to convince Grivet. Camille came to his assistance.

  ‘I’m of one and the same opinion as Monsieur Grivet,’ he said, with ridiculous pomposity. ‘I need to believe that the police is doing its job and that I shall never rub shoulders with a murderer in the street.’

  Olivier took these words as a personal affront.

  ‘Of course the police does its job!’ he exclaimed, in an irritated voice. ‘But we can’t achieve the impossible. There are scoundrels who got their education in crime at the Devil’s own school; they would elude God Himself ... Isn’t that right, Father?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Old Michaud agreed. ‘Now, when I was in Vernon — you may remember this, Madame Raquin — a carter was murdered on the highway. The body was found cut in pieces at the bottom of a ditch. We never did manage to get our hands on the guilty party. He may still be alive today, he could be our next-door neighbour ... and Monsieur Grivet might even meet him on his way home.’

  Grivet went as white as a sheet. He did not dare turn round: he thought that the carter’s murderer was right behind him. Despite that, he was delighted at feeling this fear.

  ‘No, no,’ he stammered, without knowing quite what he was saying. ‘Well, no, I really can’t bring myself to believe that ... I have a story of my own. Once upon a time there was a servant girl who was thrown into prison for stealing a silver knife and fork from her masters. Two months later, when they were cutting down a tree, they found the silver in a magpie’s nest. The bird was the thief. The servant was released ... so you see, the guilty party is always punished.’

  Grivet was triumphant. Olivier tittered.

  ‘So, you’re saying they put the magpie in prison?’

  ‘That’s not what Monsieur Grivet meant,’ Camille said, not wanting to see his boss made to look a fool. ‘Mother, give us the dominoes.’

  While Mme Raquin went to get the box, the young man continued, talking to Michaud:

  ‘So you admit that the police is powerless? There are murderers walking around in the full light of day?’

  ‘I’m sorry to say there are,’ the commissioner replied.

  ‘It’s immoral,’ Grivet concluded.

  Thérèse and Laurent had said nothing during this conversation. They did not even smile at Grivet’s stupidity. Both leaning on their elbows on the table, they listened, with a distant look on their rather pale faces. For a moment, their eyes met, dark and burning. Little beads of sweat shone at the roots of Thérèse’s hair and a chill draught made Laurent’s skin shiver imperceptibly.

  XI

  Sometimes, on Sundays, when it was fine, Camille obliged Thérèse to go out with him and take a short walk down the Champs-Elysées. The young woman would have preferred to stay in the damp shadows of the shop; it tired her and bored her being on her husband’s arm as he strolled along the pavement, stopping in front of the shop windows, with the astonishment, the remarks and the silences of an imbecile. But Camille insisted. He liked to show off his wife, and when he met one of his colleagues, especially one of his superiors, he would be so proud to exchange greetings in the company of Madame. In any case, he would walk for the sake of walking, almost without saying a word, stiff and misshapen in his Sunday best, dragging his feet, dim-witted and vain. It pained Thérèse to have a man like that on her arm.

  On days when they went out for a walk, Mme Raquin would accompany the children to the end of the arcade. She kissed them as though they were leaving on a journey, giving endless instructions and expressing earnest wishes.

  ‘Above all,’ she would tell them, ‘beware of accidents. There is so much traffic in Paris! Promise me you won’t go among crowds.’

  Eventually, she would let them go, looking after them until they disappeared. Then she went back into the shop. Her legs were getting heavy and she could not walk any great distance.

  At other times, though less often, the couple would escape from Paris; they would go to Saint-Ouen or Asnières,1 and eat a fried meal in one of the restaurants by the Seine. These were real occasions, talked about for a month in advance. Thérèse agreed more readily — almost with joy — to such outings, which would keep her out in the open air until ten or eleven at night. Saint-Ouen, with its green islands, reminded her of Vernon; there, all the wild affection that she had felt for the river when she was a girl revived in her. She would sit down on the bank, dipping her hands in the water and feeling truly alive in the heat of the sun, moderated by the cool breeze in the shade of the trees. While she was tearing and dirtying her dress on the pebbles and the muddy ground, Camille would carefully spread out his handkerchief and crouch down beside her, taking a dozen different precautionary measures. Recently, the young couple had almost always taken Laurent with them; he would brighten up the walk with his jokes and his peasant vigour.

  One Sunday, Camille, Thérèse and Laurent set out for Saint-Ouen at about eleven o’clock, after lunch. They had planned the trip for a long time and it was to be their last that season. Autumn was coming and cold gusts were starting to freeze the evening air.

  That morning, however, the sky was still blue and serene. It was hot in the sun and warm under the shade. They decided that they should take advantage of the last fine day.

  The three trippers took a cab, pursued by the old haberdasher’s anxious outpourings and lamentations. They crossed Paris and left the cab at the fortifications,2 carrying on to Saint-Ouen on foot. It was midday. The road, brightly lit by the sun and covered in dust, had the dazzling brightness of snow. The air was thick, acrid and scorching. Thérèse walked along on Camille’s arm, with little steps, protected by his sunshade, while he mopped his brow with a huge handkerchief. Behind them came Laurent, with the sun beating down on the back of his neck, though he showed no sign of feeling it. He was whistling, knocking aside the pebbles with his foot and, from time to time, glancing at the swaying of his mistress’s hips with a fierce glint in his eye.

  As soon as they got to Saint-Ouen, they set about finding a clu
mp of trees with a carpet of green grass in the shade. They crossed over to an island and pushed their way into the undergrowth. The fallen leaves lay on the ground in a reddish layer, which snapped under their feet with a dry crackling sound. The tree trunks were standing upright, numberless, like clusters of Gothic columns, and the branches dipped right down to their foreheads, so that their only horizon was the bronze vault of dying leaves and the black-and-white shafts of the aspens and oaks.3 The walkers were in a wilderness, a melancholy pit in the silence and cool of a narrow clearing. All around, they could hear the Seine rumbling by.

  Camille had chosen a dry spot and sat down, lifting up the skirts of his coat. Thérèse had just dropped on to the leaves with a lot of noise from her rustling skirts; she was half smothered by the folds of her dress billowing out around her and uncovering one of her legs up to the knee. Laurent, lying face down with his chin on the ground, was looking at this leg and listening to his friend railing against the government, saying that all the islands in the Seine should be changed into English gardens, with benches, sanded paths and pruned trees, as in the Tuileries.4

  They spent nearly three hours in the clearing, waiting for the sun to cool before going for a walk in the country, then dinner. Camille talked about his office and told them silly stories; then he got tired, flopped down and went off to sleep. He had placed his hat over his eyes. Thérèse, with her eyes closed, had been pretending to snooze for a long time.

  At this, Laurent slipped quietly over to the young woman; he kissed her shoe, then her ankle. The leather and the white stocking burned his mouth as he kissed them. The bitter scent of the earth mingled with the light perfume of Thérèse and seeped into him, heating his blood and arousing his lust. For the past month, he had been living in a state of resentful celibacy. Now, the walk in the sun on the road to Saint-Ouen had aroused him. He was there, in this isolated pit, surrounded by the great voluptuous stillness and shade, and he could not clasp his arms around this woman who belonged to him. The husband might wake up and see him, which would mean that all his caution had been wasted. That man was a constant obstacle. The lover, lying flat on the ground, hidden by her skirts, trembling and eager, placed his silent kisses on the shoe and the white stocking. Thérèse lay absolutely still. Laurent thought that she was asleep.

  He got up, his back aching and leaned against a tree. Then he saw that the young woman was staring upwards with her eyes shining and wide open. Her face, between her raised arms, was dull and pale, cold and stiff. Thérèse was thinking. Her staring eyes were like a deep abyss which held only darkness. She did not move or look towards Laurent, who was standing behind her.

  Her lover stared at her, almost fearful at seeing her so still and so unresponsive to his caresses. This head, white and lifeless, sunk in the folds of her skirts, aroused in him a sort of terror, shot through with chafing lusts. He would have liked to bend down and close those great open eyes with a kiss. But, almost in the same skirts, Camille, too, was sleeping. This poor creature, with his thin, twisted body, was snoring lightly and under the hat half covering his face you could see his mouth open, deformed by sleep, gaping in a foolish grimace. Little reddish hairs were scattered around his skinny chin, staining the pallid flesh and, now that his head was thrown back, you could see his thin, wrinkled neck, in the middle of which the Adam’s apple stood out, brick red, rising with each snore. Sprawled out like this, Camille was an undignified and irksome sight.

  Looking at him, Laurent swiftly lifted up his foot. He was about to crush the face with a single blow.

  Thérèse stifled a cry. She paled and closed her eyes, turning her head away, as though to avoid the splash of blood.

  And Laurent, for a few seconds, stayed there, his foot raised, poised above the sleeping Camille’s face. Then he slowly withdrew his leg and walked a few steps away. It occurred to him that this would be a stupid murder: the crushed head would bring the whole police force down on him. The only reason he wanted to do away with Camille was to live with Thérèse. After committing the crime, he wanted a life of pleasure, like the person who killed the carter in the story that Old Michaud had told them.

  He went over to the river bank and watched the water flowing past, with a mindless look. Then, suddenly, he went back into the undergrowth. He had finally devised a plan, worked out a murder that would be convenient and without risk to himself.

  So he woke the sleeping man by tickling his nose with a straw. Camille sneezed and got up, thinking it a very good trick. He liked Laurent because of such jokes, which made him laugh. Then he shook his wife, who had her eyes closed. When Thérèse had got up and shaken her skirts, which were crumpled and covered in dry leaves, the three of them left the clearing, breaking the small branches in their path.

  They left the island and walked along the roads, down paths full of groups of people in their Sunday best. Between the hedges, girls were running along in brightly coloured dresses; a team of oarsmen went by, singing; lines of bourgeois couples, old folk and employees with their wives, were strolling, beside the ditches. Every path seemed like a populous, noisy street. Only the sun remained aloof and calm. It was declining towards the horizon, casting vast expanses of pale light over the reddening trees and white roads. A sharp chill was starting to descend from the shimmering sky.

  Camille was no longer giving Thérèse his arm. He was talking to Laurent, laughing at his friend’s jokes and tricks as he jumped over the ditches and lifted up heavy stones. The young woman, on the other side of the road, was walking on, her head lowered, bending down from time to time to pick a blade of grass. When she had fallen behind, she stopped and looked at her lover and her husband in the distance.

  ‘Hey! Aren’t you hungry?’ Camille shouted, eventually.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied.

  ‘Well, come on then!’

  Thérèse was not hungry, but she was weary and uneasy. She was not sure what Laurent had in mind and her legs were trembling beneath her with anxiety.

  The three of them came back to the river’s edge and looked around for a restaurant. They sat down on a sort of wooden terrace at a cheap eating-house that stank of grease and wine. The place was full of shouting, songs and the clink of dishes. In every alcove, in every private room, there were groups talking in loud voices and the thin walls vibrated, magnifying the din. The staircase shook as the waiters went up and down.

  Up on the terrace, the smell of grease was dispelled by the river breeze. Thérèse, leaning against the balustrade, looked out over the landing stage. A double row of cafés and fairground stalls stretched off to right and left. Under the arbours, between a few yellow vine leaves, there were glimpses of white table-cloths, the black patches of men’s jackets and women’s bright skirts. People were coming and going, bareheaded, running and laughing; and the dreary tunes of barrel organs mingled with the loud voices of the crowd. A smell of frying oil and dust hung on the still air.

  Below Thérèse, some whores from the Latin Quarter were dancing round on a worn piece of lawn, singing a childish ditty. Their hats had fallen on to their shoulders and their hair was loose; they were holding hands and playing like little girls. Their voices had recaptured a hint of childish freshness and their pale faces, stamped with brutal kisses, were blushing tenderly with a virginal pinkness. Their wide, unchaste eyes were clouded with sentimental tears. Some students, smoking clay pipes, were watching them as they danced and shouting crude jokes at them.

  Meanwhile, beyond, on the Seine, on the hillsides, the quiet of evening was falling, a vague, blue atmosphere wrapping the trees in a transparent mist.

  ‘Hey, there, waiter!’ said Laurent, leaning over the banisters. ‘What about our dinner?’

  Then, as if changing his mind, he went on:

  ‘I say, Camille, how about going for a boat trip before we eat? That would give them time to roast our chicken. We’ll get bored if we have to wait for an hour.’

  ‘As you like,’ said Camille, not caring one way or the othe
r. ‘But Thérèse is hungry.’

  ‘No, no, I can wait,’ said the young woman quickly, seeing that Laurent was staring at her.

  All three of them went down. As they passed the counter, they booked a table, ordered their meal and said that they would be back in an hour. Since the owner hired out boats, they asked him to come and untie one for them. Laurent chose a narrow skiff, so light that it scared Camille.

  ‘Dammit,’ he said, ‘we’d better not move around in that. We’d get a right soaking.’

  The fact is that he was terribly afraid of water. In Vernon, his sickly state had meant that as a boy he had not been able to splash around in the Seine. When his schoolmates were running down to leap in the river, he would be tucked up between warm blankets. Laurent had become a fearless swimmer and indefatigable rower, while Camille had never lost the dread of deep water felt by women and children. He tested the bottom of the skiff with his foot as though to make sure it was firm.

  ‘Come on, in you go,’ said Laurent, laughing. ‘You’re always such a scaredy cat.’

  Camille stepped over the edge and went unsteadily to take a seat in the stern. Feeling the boards under his feet, he was reassured and made a joke, to show he was not afraid.

  Thérèse had stayed on the bank, serious and not moving, beside her lover, who was holding the painter. He bent down and quickly whispered to her:

  ‘Look out ... I’m going to push him in ... Do as I say ... I’ll look after everything.’

  The young woman went dreadfully pale and stayed as though pinned to the ground. She stiffened, her eyes staring wide.

  ‘Get in the boat, then,’ Laurent muttered to her again.

  She did not move. A frightful struggle was going on inside her. She had to use all her strength to control herself, because she was afraid she would burst into tears and fall in the water.

  ‘Ah! Look!’ Camille shouted. ‘Laurent, look at Thérèse, now ... She’s the one who’s scared! Will she, won’t she, get in ...’