Thérèse Raquin (13 page)

He began to hesitate, having an atrocious dread of risking his
tranquillity. He was now living peacefully, in wise contentment, and he
feared to endanger the equilibrium of his life, by binding himself to
a nervous woman, whose passion had already driven him crazy. But he did
not reason these matters out, he felt by instinct all the anguish he
would be subjected to, if he made Therese his wife.

The first shock he received, and one that roused him in his
sluggishness, was the thought that he must at length begin to think of
his marriage. It was almost fifteen months since the death of Camille.
For an instant, Laurent had the idea of not marrying at all, of jilting
Therese. Then he said to himself that it was no good killing a man for
nothing. In recalling the crime, and the terrible efforts he had made to
be the sole possessor of this woman who was now troubling him, he felt
that the murder would become useless and atrocious should he not marry
her. Besides, was he not bound to Therese by a bond of blood and horror?
Moreover, he feared his accomplice; perhaps, if he failed to marry her,
she would go and relate everything to the judicial authorities out of
vengeance and jealousy. With these ideas beating in his head the fever
settled on him again.

Now, one Sunday the model did not return; no doubt she had found a
warmer and more comfortable place to lodge. Laurent was only moderately
upset, but he felt a sudden gap in his life without a woman lying beside
him at night. In a week his passions rebelled and he began spending
entire evenings at the shop again. He watched Therese who was still
palpitating from the novels which she read.

After a year of indifferent waiting they both were again tormented by
desire. One evening while shutting up the shop, Laurent spoke to Therese
in the passage.

"Do you want me to come to your room to-night," he asked passionately.

She started with fear. "No, let's wait. Let's be prudent."

"It seems to me that I've already waited a long time," he went on. "I'm
sick of waiting."

Therese, her hands and face burning hot, looked at him wildly. She
seemed to hesitate, and then said quickly:

"Let's get married."

Laurent left the arcade with a strained mind. Therese had filled him
with the old longing lusts again. He walked along with his hat in his
hand, so as to get the fresh air full in his face.

On reaching the door of his hotel in the Rue Saint-Victor, he was afraid
to go upstairs, and remain alone. A childish, inexplicable, unforeseen
terror made him fear he would find a man hidden in his garret. Never had
he experienced such poltroonery. He did not even seek to account for
the strange shudder that ran through him. He entered a wine-shop and
remained an hour there, until midnight, motionless and silent at
a table, mechanically absorbing great glasses of wine. Thinking of
Therese, his anger raged at her refusal to have him in her room that
very night. He felt that with her he would not have been afraid.

When the time came for closing the shop, he was obliged to leave. But he
went back again to ask for matches. The office of the hotel was on
the first floor. Laurent had a long alley to follow and a few steps
to ascend, before he could take his candle. This alley, this bit of
staircase which was frightfully dark, terrified him. Habitually, he
passed boldly through the darkness. But on this particular night he
had not even the courage to ring. He said to himself that in a certain
recess, formed by the entrance to the cellar, assassins were perhaps
concealed, who would suddenly spring at his throat as he passed along.

At last he pulled the bell, and lighting a match, made up his mind to
enter the alley. The match went out. He stood motionless, breathless,
without the courage to run away, rubbing lucifers against the damp wall
in such anxiety that his hand trembled. He fancied he heard voices,
and the sound of footsteps before him. The matches broke between his
fingers; but he succeeded in striking one. The sulphur began to boil, to
set fire to the wood, with a tardiness that increased his distress. In
the pale bluish light of the sulphur, in the vacillating glimmer, he
fancied he could distinguish monstrous forms. Then the match crackled,
and the light became white and clear.

Laurent, relieved, advanced with caution, careful not to be without a
match. When he had passed the entrance to the cellar, he clung to the
opposite wall where a mass of darkness terrified him. He next briskly
scaled the few steps separating him from the office of the hotel, and
thought himself safe when he held his candlestick. He ascended to the
other floors more gently, holding aloft his candle, lighting all the
corners before which he had to pass. The great fantastic shadows that
come and go, in ascending a staircase with a light, caused him vague
discomfort, as they suddenly rose and disappeared before him.

As soon as he was upstairs, and had rapidly opened his door and shut
himself in, his first care was to look under his bed, and make a minute
inspection of the room to see that nobody was concealed there. He closed
the window in the roof thinking someone might perhaps get in that
way, and feeling more calm after taking these measures, he undressed,
astonished at his cowardice. He ended by laughing and calling himself a
child. Never had he been afraid, and he could not understand this sudden
fit of terror.

He went to bed. When he was in the warmth beneath the bedclothes, he
again thought of Therese, whom fright had driven from his mind. Do what
he would, obstinately close his eyes, endeavour to sleep, he felt his
thoughts at work commanding his attention, connecting one with the
other, to ever point out to him the advantage he would reap by marrying
as soon as possible. Ever and anon he would turn round, saying to
himself:

"I must not think any more; I shall have to get up at eight o'clock
to-morrow morning to go to my office."

And he made an effort to slip off to sleep. But the ideas returned one
by one. The dull labour of his reasoning began again; and he soon found
himself in a sort of acute reverie that displayed to him in the depths
of his brain, the necessity for his marriage, along with the arguments
his desire and prudence advanced in turn, for and against the possession
of Therese.

Then, seeing he was unable to sleep, that insomnia kept his body in a
state of irritation, he turned on his back, and with his eyes wide open,
gave up his mind to the young woman. His equilibrium was upset, he again
trembled with violent fever, as formerly. He had an idea of getting up,
and returning to the Arcade of the Pont Neuf. He would have the iron
gate opened, and Therese would receive him. The thought sent his blood
racing.

The lucidity of his reverie was astonishing. He saw himself in the
streets walking rapidly beside the houses, and he said to himself:

"I will take this Boulevard, I will cross this Square, so as to arrive
there quicker."

Then the iron gate of the arcade grated, he followed the narrow, dark,
deserted corridor, congratulating himself at being able to go up to
Therese without being seen by the dealer in imitation jewelry. Next
he imagined he was in the alley, in the little staircase he had so
frequently ascended. He inhaled the sickly odour of the passage, he
touched the sticky walls, he saw the dirty shadow that hung about there.
And he ascended each step, breathless, and with his ear on the alert. At
last he scratched against the door, the door opened, and Therese stood
there awaiting him.

His thoughts unfolded before him like real scenes. With his eyes fixed
on darkness, he saw. When at the end of his journey through the streets,
after entering the arcade, and climbing the little staircase, he thought
he perceived Therese, ardent and pale, he briskly sprang from his bed,
murmuring:

"I must go there. She's waiting for me."

This abrupt movement drove away the hallucination. He felt the chill of
the tile flooring, and was afraid. For a moment he stood motionless on
his bare feet, listening. He fancied he heard a sound on the landing.
And he reflected that if he went to Therese, he would again have to pass
before the door of the cellar below. This thought sent a cold shiver
down his back. Again he was seized with fright, a sort of stupid
crushing terror. He looked distrustfully round the room, where he
distinguished shreds of whitish light. Then gently, with anxious, hasty
precautions, he went to bed again, and there huddling himself together,
hid himself, as if to escape a weapon, a knife that threatened him.

The blood had flown violently to his neck, which was burning him. He put
his hand there, and beneath his fingers felt the scar of the bite he
had received from Camille. He had almost forgotten this wound and was
terrified when he found it on his skin, where it seemed to be gnawing
into his flesh. He rapidly withdrew his hand so as not to feel the scar,
but he was still conscious of its being there boring into and devouring
his neck. Then, when he delicately scratched it with his nail, the
terrible burning sensation increased twofold. So as not to tear the
skin, he pressed his two hands between his doubled-up knees, and he
remained thus, rigid and irritated, with the gnawing pain in his neck,
and his teeth chattering with fright.

His mind now settled on Camille with frightful tenacity. Hitherto the
drowned man had not troubled him at night. And behold the thought of
Therese brought up the spectre of her husband. The murderer dared not
open his eyes, afraid of perceiving his victim in a corner of the room.
At one moment, he fancied his bedstead was being shaken in a peculiar
manner. He imagined Camille was beneath it, and that it was he who was
tossing him about in this way so as to make him fall and bite him. With
haggard look and hair on end, he clung to his mattress, imagining the
jerks were becoming more and more violent.

Then, he perceived the bed was not moving, and he felt a reaction. He
sat up, lit his candle, and taxed himself with being an idiot. He next
swallowed a large glassful of water to appease his fever.

"I was wrong to drink at that wine-shop," thought he. "I don't know
what is the matter with me to-night. It's silly. I shall be worn out
to-morrow at my office. I ought to have gone to sleep at once, when I
got into bed, instead of thinking of a lot of things. That is what gave
me insomnia. I must get to sleep at once."

Again he blew out the light. He buried his head in the pillow, feeling
slightly refreshed, and thoroughly determined not to think any more, and
to be no more afraid. Fatigue began to relax his nerves.

He did not fall into his usual heavy, crushing sleep, but glided lightly
into unsettled slumber. He simply felt as if benumbed, as if plunged
into gentle and delightful stupor. As he dozed, he could feel his limbs.
His intelligence remained awake in his deadened frame. He had driven
away his thoughts, he had resisted the vigil. Then, when he became
appeased, when his strength failed and his will escaped him, his
thoughts returned quietly, one by one, regaining possession of his
faltering being.

His reverie began once more. Again he went over the distance separating
him from Therese: he went downstairs, he passed before the cellar at a
run, and found himself outside the house; he took all the streets he had
followed before, when he was dreaming with his eyes open; he entered the
Arcade of the Pont Neuf, ascended the little staircase and scratched at
the door. But instead of Therese, it was Camille who opened the door,
Camille, just as he had seen him at the Morgue, looking greenish, and
atrociously disfigured. The corpse extended his arms to him, with a vile
laugh, displaying the tip of a blackish tongue between its white teeth.

Laurent shrieked, and awoke with a start. He was bathed in perspiration.
He pulled the bedclothes over his eyes, swearing and getting into a rage
with himself. He wanted to go to sleep again. And he did so as before,
slowly.

The same feeling of heaviness overcame him, and as soon as his will had
again escaped in the languidness of semi-slumber, he set out again. He
returned where his fixed idea conducted him; he ran to see Therese, and
once more it was the drowned man who opened the door.

The wretch sat up terrified. He would have given anything in the world
to be able to drive away this implacable dream. He longed for heavy
sleep to crush his thoughts. So long as he remained awake, he had
sufficient energy to expel the phantom of his victim; but as soon as he
lost command of his mind it led him to the acme of terror.

He again attempted to sleep. Then came a succession of delicious
spells of drowsiness, and abrupt, harrowing awakenings. In his furious
obstinacy, he still went to Therese, but only to always run against the
body of Camille. He performed the same journey more than ten times over.
He started all afire, followed the same itinerary, experienced the same
sensations, accomplished the same acts, with minute exactitude; and
more than ten times over, he saw the drowned man present himself to be
embraced, when he extended his arms to seize and clasp his love.

This same sinister catastrophe which awoke him on each occasion, gasping
and distracted, did not discourage him. After an interval of a few
minutes, as soon as he had fallen asleep again, forgetful of the hideous
corpse awaiting him, he once more hurried away to seek the young woman.

Laurent passed an hour a prey to these successive nightmares, to these
bad dreams that followed one another ceaselessly, without any warning,
and he was struck with more acute terror at each start they gave him.

The last of these shocks proved so violent, so painful that he
determined to get up, and struggle no longer. Day was breaking. A gleam
of dull, grey light was entering at the window in the roof which cut out
a pale grey square in the sky.