Therese Raquin - Emile Zola [40]
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 other. ‘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,