Therese Raquin - Emile Zola [29]
Thérèse was breathing heavily and hugging her lover tightly; she was getting her revenge. Her thin, supple nostrils gave little nervous twitches.
‘You wouldn’t believe how bad they made me,’ she continued. ‘They turned me into a hypocrite and a liar. They stifled me with their bourgeois comfort and I don’t understand why there is any red blood left in my veins. I would lower my eyes and put on a sad, imbecilic face like them, leading the same dead life. When you first met me, huh, didn’t I look like a fool? I was earnest, I was crushed, I was like an idiot. I no longer hoped for anything, I used to think about throwing myself into the Seine one day ... But before I got to that point, you don’t know how many nights I spent in fury! There, in Vernon, in my cold room, I would bite my pillow to stifle my cries, I would hit myself and call myself a coward. My blood was boiling, I could have torn myself apart. Twice, I thought of running away, just walking away, anywhere, in the sunlight. But I couldn’t do it: they had turned me into a docile creature with their weak kindness and their repulsive tenderness. So I lied, I kept on lying. I stayed there, sweet and silent, dreaming about how I could hit and bite.’
The young woman stopped, wiping her damp lips on Laurent’s neck. Then, after a pause:
‘I can’t remember why I agreed to marry Camille. I didn’t refuse, out of a sort of contemptuous indifference. I felt sorry for the boy. When I played with him, I could feel my fingers sink into his arms as though into clay. I took him, because my aunt offered him to me and I thought I would never have to bother about him ... And I found a husband who was no different from the ailing little boy I used to sleep with when I was six. He was just as frail, as whining, and he still had that smell of a sick child that used to disgust me so much in the old days. I’m telling you all this so that you won’t be jealous ... A sort of nausea would rise in my throat, I thought of all the medicines I’d taken and I shrank from him; I spent dreadful nights ... But you, you ...’
Thérèse sat upright and bent over backwards, her fingers caught in Laurent’s large hands, looking at his broad shoulders and his huge neck ...
‘I love you. I’ve loved you from the moment when Camille pushed you into the shop ... Perhaps you don’t respect me, because I gave myself to you, entirely, all at once ... It’s true, I don’t know how it happened. I’m proud, I got carried away. I wanted to hit you, that first day when you kissed me and threw me on the ground in this room. I don’t know how I loved you; if anything, I hated you. The sight of you upset me, it hurt to look at you. When you were there my nerves were at breaking-point, my mind went blank and a red film floated before my eyes. Oh, how much I suffered! And I looked for that suffering, I used to wait for you to come, I would walk round your chair so that I could pick up your breath and rub my clothes against yours. It was as though your blood was sending waves of heat towards me as I went by, and this sort of burning mist that wrapped around you drew me and kept me beside you, much as I tried, inside me, to break away ... Do you remember when you were painting here? An irresistible force drew me to your side and I breathed in your atmosphere, feeling a cruel delight. I knew that I seemed to be begging for kisses and I was ashamed of my slavery, feeling that I would fall if you so much as touched me. But I gave in to my cowardice and shook with cold as I waited for you to deign to take me in your arms.’
At this, Thérèse paused, shivering, as though proud and avenged. She was intoxicated, holding Laurent against her breast; and the bare, icy room witnessed scenes of burning ardour and sinister brutality. Each new meeting between them brought still more passionate ecstasies.
The young woman seemed to enjoy her daring and impudence. She had no misgivings, no fear. She was throwing herself into adultery with a kind of urgent