Thérèse Raquin (21 page)

At the expiration of four months, Laurent thought of taking advantage
of the profit he had calculated on deriving from his marriage. He would
have abandoned his wife, and fled from the spectre of Camille, three
days after the wedding, had not his interest detained him at the shop in
the arcade. He accepted his nights of terror, he remained in the anguish
that was choking him, so as not to be deprived of the benefit of his
crime.

If he parted from Therese, he would again be plunged in poverty, and
be forced to retain his post; by remaining with her, he would, on the
contrary, be able to satisfy his inclination for idleness, and to live
liberally, doing nothing, on the revenue Madame Raquin had placed in the
name of his wife. Very likely he would have fled with the 40,000 francs,
had he been able to realise them; but the old mercer, on the advice of
Michaud, had shown the prudence to protect the interests of her niece in
the marriage contract.

Laurent, in this manner, found himself attached to Therese by a powerful
bond. As a set-off against his atrocious nights, he determined at least
to be kept in blissful laziness, well fed, warmly clothed, and provided
with the necessary cash in his pocket to satisfy his whims. At this
price alone, would he consent to sleep with the corpse of the drowned
man.

One evening, he announced to Madame Raquin and his wife that he had sent
in his resignation, and would quit his office at the end of a fortnight.
Therese gave a gesture of anxiety. He hastened to add that he intended
taking a small studio where he would go on with his painting. He spoke
at length about the annoyance of his employment, and the broad horizons
that Art opened to him. Now that he had a few sous and could make a
bid for success, he wished to see whether he was not capable of great
achievements.

The speech he made on this subject simply concealed a ferocious desire
to resume his former studio life. Therese sat with pinched lips without
replying; she had no idea of allowing Laurent to squander the small
fortune that assured her liberty. When her husband pressed her with
questions in view of obtaining her consent, she answered curtly, giving
him to understand that if he left his office, he would no longer be
earning any money, and would be living entirely at her expense.

But, as she spoke, Laurent observed her so keenly, that he troubled her,
and arrested on her lips the refusal she was about to utter. She fancied
she read in the eyes of her accomplice, this menacing threat:

"If you do not consent, I shall reveal everything."

She began to stammer, and Madame Raquin exclaimed that the desire of her
dear son was no more than what was just, and that they must give him the
means to become a man of talent. The good lady spoilt Laurent as she had
spoilt Camille. Quite mollified by the caresses the young man lavished
on her, she belonged to him, and never failed to take his part.

It was therefore decided that Laurent should have a studio, and receive
one hundred francs a month pocket-money. The budget of the family was
arranged in this way: the profits realised in the mercery business would
pay the rent of the shop and apartment, and the balance would almost
suffice for the daily expenses of the family; Laurent would receive the
rent of his studio and his one hundred francs a month, out of the two
thousand and a few hundred francs income from the funded money, the
remainder going into the general purse. In that way the capital would
remain intact. This arrangement somewhat tranquillised Therese, who
nevertheless made her husband swear that he would never go beyond the
sum allowed him. But as to that matter, she said to herself that Laurent
could not get possession of the 40,000 francs without her signature, and
she was thoroughly determined that she would never place her name to any
document.

On the morrow, Laurent took a small studio in the lower part of the Rue
Mazarine, which his eye had been fixed on for a month. He did not mean
to leave his office without having a refuge where he could quietly pass
his days far away from Therese. At the end of the fortnight, he bade
adieu to his colleagues. Grivet was stupefied at his departure. A young
man, said he, who had such a brilliant future before him, a young man
who in the space of four years, had reached a salary that he, Grivet,
had taken twenty years to attain! Laurent stupefied him still more, when
he told him he was going to give his whole time to painting.

At last the artist installed himself in his studio, which was a sort
of square loft about seven or eight yards long by the same breadth. The
ceiling which inclined abruptly in a rapid slope, was pierced by a large
window conveying a white raw light to the floor and blackish walls.
The sounds in the street did not ascend so high. This silent, wan room,
opening above on the sky, resembled a hole, or a vault dug out of grey
clay. Laurent furnished the place anywise; he brought a couple of chairs
with holes in the rush seats, a table that he set against the wall so
that it might not slip down, an old kitchen dresser, his colour-box and
easel; all the luxury in the place consisted of a spacious divan which
he purchased for thirty francs from a second-hand dealer.

He remained a fortnight without even thinking of touching his brushes.
He arrived between eight and nine o'clock in the morning, smoked,
stretched himself on the divan, and awaited noon, delighted that it was
morning, and that he had many hours of daylight before him. At twelve
he went to lunch. As soon as the meal was over, he hastened back, to be
alone, and get away from the pale face of Therese. He next went through
the process of digestion, sleeping spread out on the divan until
evening. His studio was an abode of peace where he did not tremble. One
day his wife asked him if she might visit this dear refuge. He refused,
and as, notwithstanding his refusal, she came and knocked at the door,
he refrained from opening to her, telling her in the evening that he
had spent the day at the Louvre Museum. He was afraid that Therese might
bring the spectre of Camille with her.

Idleness ended by weighing heavily on his shoulders, so he purchased a
canvas and colours, and set to work. As he had not sufficient money to
pay models, he resolved to paint according to fancy, without troubling
about nature, and he began the head of a man.

But at this time, he did not shut himself up so much as he had done;
he worked for two or three hours every morning and passed the afternoon
strolling hither and thither in Paris and its vicinity. It was opposite
the Institut, on his return from one of these long walks, that he
knocked up against his old college friend, who had met with a nice
little success, thanks to the good fellowship of his comrades, at the
last Salon.

"What, is it you?" exclaimed the painter. "Ah! my poor Laurent, I hardly
recognise you. You have lost flesh."

"I am married," answered Laurent in an embarrassed tone.

"Married, you!" said the other. "Then I am not surprised to see you look
so funny: and what are you doing now?"

"I have taken a small studio," replied Laurent; "and I paint a little,
in the morning."

Then, in a feverish voice, he briefly related the story of his marriage,
and explained his future plans. His friend observed him with an air
of astonishment that troubled and alarmed him. The truth was that the
painter no longer found in the husband of Therese, the coarse, common
fellow he had known formerly. It seemed to him that Laurent was
acquiring a gentlemanly bearing; his face had grown thinner, and had
taken the pale tint of good taste, while his whole frame looked more
upright and supple.

"But you are becoming a handsome chap," the artist could not refrain
from exclaiming. "You are dressed like an ambassador, in the latest
style. Who's your model?"

Laurent, who felt the weight of the examination he was undergoing, did
not dare to abruptly take himself off.

"Will you come up to my studio for a moment?" he at last asked his
friend, who showed no signs of leaving him.

"Willingly," answered the latter.

The painter, who could not understand the change he noticed in his old
comrade, was anxious to visit his studio. He had no idea of climbing
five floors to gaze on the new pictures of Laurent, which assuredly
would disgust him; he merely wished to satisfy his curiosity.

When he had reached the studio, and had glanced at the canvases hanging
against the walls, his astonishment redoubled. They comprised five
studies, two heads of women, and three of men painted with real vigour.
They looked thick and substantial, each part being dashed off with
magnificent dabs of colour on a clear grey background. The artist
quickly approached, and was so astounded that he did not even seek to
conceal his amazement.

"Did you do those?" he inquired of Laurent.

"Yes," replied the latter. "They are studies that I intend to utilise in
a large picture I am preparing."

"Come, no humbug, are you really the author of those things?"

"Eh! Yes. Why should I not be the author of them?"

The painter did not like to answer what he thought, which was as
follows:

"Because those canvases are the work of an artist, and you have never
been anything but a vile bungler."

For a long time, he remained before the studies in silence. Certainly
they were clumsy, but they were original, and so powerfully executed
that they indicated a highly developed idea of art. They were life-like.
Never had this friend of Laurent seen rough painting so full of high
promise. When he had examined all the canvases, he turned to the author
of them and said:

"Well, frankly, I should never have thought you capable of painting like
that. Where the deuce did you learn to have talent? It is not usually a
thing that one acquires."

And he considered Laurent, whose voice appeared to him more gentle,
while every gesture he made had a sort of elegance. The artist had
no idea of the frightful shock this man had received, and which had
transformed him, developing in him the nerves of a woman, along with
keen, delicate sensations. No doubt a strange phenomenon had been
accomplished in the organism of the murderer of Camille. It is difficult
for analysis to penetrate to such depths. Laurent had, perhaps, become
an artist as he had become afraid, after the great disorder that had
upset his frame and mind.

Previously, he had been half choked by the fulness of his blood, blinded
by the thick vapour of breath surrounding him. At present, grown
thin, and always shuddering, his manner had become anxious, while he
experienced the lively and poignant sensations of a man of nervous
temperament. In the life of terror that he led, his mind had grown
delirious, ascending to the ecstasy of genius. The sort of moral malady,
the neurosis wherewith all his being was agitated, had developed an
artistic feeling of peculiar lucidity. Since he had killed, his frame
seemed lightened, his distracted mind appeared to him immense; and, in
this abrupt expansion of his thoughts, he perceived exquisite creations,
the reveries of a poet passing before his eyes. It was thus that his
gestures had suddenly become elegant, that his works were beautiful, and
were all at once rendered true to nature, and life-like.

The friend did not seek further to fathom the mystery attending this
birth of the artist. He went off carrying his astonishment along with
him. But before he left, he again gazed at the canvases and said to
Laurent:

"I have only one thing to reproach you with: all these studies have
a family likeness. The five heads resemble each other. The women,
themselves, have a peculiarly violent bearing that gives them the
appearance of men in disguise. You will understand that if you desire
to make a picture out of these studies, you must change some of the
physiognomies; your personages cannot all be brothers, or brothers and
sisters, it would excite hilarity."

He left the studio, and on the landing merrily added:

"Really, my dear boy, I am very pleased to have seen you. Henceforth, I
shall believe in miracles. Good heavens! How highly respectable you do
look!"

As he went downstairs, Laurent returned to the studio, feeling very much
upset. When his friend had remarked that all his studies of heads bore
a family likeness, he had abruptly turned round to conceal his paleness.
The fact was that he had already been struck by this fatal resemblance.
Slowly entering the room, he placed himself before the pictures, and
as he contemplated them, as he passed from one to the other, ice-like
perspiration moistened his back.

"He is quite right," he murmured, "they all resemble one another. They
resemble Camille."

He retired a step or two, and seated himself on the divan, unable to
remove his eyes from the studies of heads. The first was an old man with
a long white beard; and under this white beard, the artist traced the
lean chin of Camille. The second represented a fair young girl, who
gazed at him with the blue eyes of his victim. Each of the other three
faces presented a feature of the drowned man. It looked like Camille
with the theatrical make-up of an old man, of a young girl, assuming
whatever disguise it pleased the painter to give him, but still
maintaining the general expression of his own countenance.

There existed another terrible resemblance among these heads: they all
appeared suffering and terrified, and seemed as though overburdened with
the same feeling of horror. Each of them had a slight wrinkle to the
left of the mouth, which drawing down the lips, produced a grimace. This
wrinkle, which Laurent remembered having noticed on the convulsed face
of the drowned man, marked them all with a sign of vile relationship.

Laurent understood that he had taken too long a look at Camille at the
Morgue. The image of the drowned man had become deeply impressed on his
mind; and now, his hand, without his being conscious of it, never failed
to draw the lines of this atrocious face which followed him everywhere.