Therese Raquin - Emile Zola [27]
Laurent looked alternately from Thérèse to Camille. The former painter suppressed a smile. He concluded his sentence with a gesture, a wide, voluptuous gesture that the young woman followed with her eyes. They were at the dessert and Mme Raquin had gone downstairs to attend to a customer.
When the table had been cleared, Laurent, who had been thoughtful for a moment or two, suddenly turned to Camille.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said. ‘I must paint your portrait.’
Mme Raquin and her son were delighted by this idea. Thérèse remained silent.
‘It’s summer,’ Laurent went on. ‘So, as we get out of the office at four, I’ll come here and you can pose for me for two hours, in the evening. It will take a week.’
‘That’s it!’ said Camille, blushing with pleasure. ‘You can have dinner with us. I’ll have my hair curled and put on a black topcoat.’
The clock struck eight. Grivet and Michaud arrived. Olivier and Suzanne came behind them.
Camille introduced his friend to the company. Grivet pursed his lips. He disliked Laurent, because in his view he had been promoted too fast. In any case, it was no trivial matter bringing in a new guest. The Raquins’ circle could not make way for a newcomer without a little show of disapproval.
Laurent behaved himself. He understood the situation and wanted to be liked, to be accepted at once. He told stories, cheered them all up with his loud laugh and even won over Grivet himself.
That evening, Thérèse made no attempt to go down to the shop. She stayed on her chair until eleven, playing and chatting, avoiding Laurent’s eye; anyway, he took no notice of her. The young man’s sanguine nature, his resonant voice, his hearty laughter and the sharp, strong smells that he emitted disturbed the young woman and plunged her into a kind of nervous anxiety.
VII
From the start, the lovers considered their relationship to be necessary, inevitable and entirely natural. At their first meeting, they called each other ‘tu’1 and kissed without awkwardness or blushing, as though they had been intimate for several years. They settled easily into their new situation, quite calmly and shamelessly.
They arranged meetings. Since Thérèse could not go out, it was decided that Laurent would go to her. In a precise, self-assured voice, the young woman explained what she had worked out. They would meet in the couple’s bedroom. The lover would arrive through the alleyway that led into the arcade and Thérèse would open the staircase door to him. In the meantime, Camille would be in his office and Mme Raquin down below in the shop. It was a bold plan and bound to succeed.
Laurent agreed. In his prudence, there was a kind of brutal temerity, the temerity of a man with large fists. His mistress’s calm and solemn manner induced him to come and taste the passion so boldly offered. He found an excuse, obtained two hours’ leave from his boss and hurried round to the Passage du Pont-Neuf.
As soon as he got into the arcade, he felt the pangs of desire. The woman who sold costume jewellery was sitting right opposite the entrance; he had to wait for her to be busy, for a young shop girl to come and buy a ring or some copper earrings from her. Then, quickly, he slipped into the alleyway and climbed the dark, narrow staircase, steadying himself against walls that were oozing damp. His feet knocked on the stone stairs; at the sound of each step, he felt a burning pain across his chest. A door opened. On the threshold, in a patch of white light, he saw Thérèse in her camisole and petticoat, shining, with her hair tied tightly behind her head. She shut the door and put her arms around him. She exuded a warm smell, a smell of white linen and freshly washed flesh.
Laurent was amazed at finding his mistress beautiful. He had never seen this woman. Thérèse was lithe and strong; she grasped him, throwing her head back, while burning lights and passionate smiles flickered across her face. This lover’s face seemed transfigured; she had a look at once mad and tender; she was radiant, with moist lips and gleaming eyes. The