Therese Raquin - Emile Zola [41]
‘Dammit,’ he said, ‘we’d better not move around in that. We’d get a right soaking.’
The fact is that he was terribly afraid of water. In Vernon, his sickly state had meant that as a boy he had not been able to splash around in the Seine. When his schoolmates were running down to leap in the river, he would be tucked up between warm blankets. Laurent had become a fearless swimmer and indefatigable rower, while Camille had never lost the dread of deep water felt by women and children. He tested the bottom of the skiff with his foot as though to make sure it was firm.
‘Come on, in you go,’ said Laurent, laughing. ‘You’re always such a scaredy cat.’
Camille stepped over the edge and went unsteadily to take a seat in the stern. Feeling the boards under his feet, he was reassured and made a joke, to show he was not afraid.
Thérèse had stayed on the bank, serious and not moving, beside her lover, who was holding the painter. He bent down and quickly whispered to her:
‘Look out ... I’m going to push him in ... Do as I say ... I’ll look after everything.’
The young woman went dreadfully pale and stayed as though pinned to the ground. She stiffened, her eyes staring wide.
‘Get in the boat, then,’ Laurent muttered to her again.
She did not move. A frightful struggle was going on inside her. She had to use all her strength to control herself, because she was afraid she would burst into tears and fall in the water.
‘Ah! Look!’ Camille shouted. ‘Laurent, look at Thérèse, now ... She’s the one who’s scared! Will she, won’t she, get in ...’
He was sprawled on the rear bench, with his two elbows on the sides of the skiff, lolling around and showing off. Thérèse gave him an odd look; the jeers of this poor creature were like the crack of a whip stinging her and driving her on. She suddenly jumped into the boat, staying at the bow. Laurent took the oars. The skiff left the bank and proceeded gently towards the islands.
Dusk was coming. Great shadows fell from the trees and the water was black at the edge. In the middle of the river, there were wide streaks of pale silver. Soon, the boat was in the middle of the Seine. Here, all the sounds from the banks were muted: the shouts and singing were vague and melancholy as they drifted across, with sad, languid notes. The smells of fried food and dust had gone. There was a chill in the air. It was cold.
Laurent stopped rowing and let the boat drift with the current.
Rising opposite them was the great reddish mass of the islands. The two banks, dark brown in colour, flecked with grey, were like two broad bands meeting at the horizon. The sky and the water seemed to have been cut out of the same whitish material. Nothing is more painfully calm than dusk in autumn. The daylight pales in the quivering air and the ageing leaves fall from the trees. The countryside, scorched by the burning sun of summer, feels death approaching with the first cold winds; and, in the sky, there are plaintive murmurs of despair. Night falls, bringing shrouds in its shadows.
The three trippers fell silent. Sitting in the boat as it drifted along with the current, they were watching the last glimmers of light leave the tops of the trees. They were getting closer to the islands. The great reddish masses were darkening and the whole landscape was simplified by the dusk: the Seine, the sky, the islands and the hills were now only brown and grey smudges, merging into a milky fog.
Camille, who had ended up lying flat with his head over the water, dipped his hands in the river.
‘Crikey, it’s cold!’ he exclaimed. ‘It wouldn’t be much fun to take a dive into that stuff!’
Laurent said nothing. For a while, he had been looking anxiously at both banks. He was sliding his large hands down towards his knees, clenching his teeth. Thérèse, stiff and motionless, her head tilted back a little, waited.
The boat was about to enter a little channel, dark and narrow, which ran between two islands. From behind one of these, you could hear the muffled singing of a boating party that must have been