Therese Raquin - Emile Zola [57]
Laurent gave a cry and woke up with a start. He was bathed in a cold sweat. He pulled the blanket over his eyes, cursing and angry with himself. He wanted to go back to sleep.
He fell asleep as before, slowly, and the same heaviness seized him, so that when his will had once again been relaxed in the languor of half-sleep, he started to walk once more, returning to the place where his obsession led him: he hurried to see Thérèse. And once more it was the drowned man who opened the door.
In terror, the wretch sat up in bed. The thing he most wanted in the world was to drive away this unrelenting dream. He longed for a leaden sleep that would crush his thoughts. Provided he was awake, he had enough energy to drive away the ghost of his victim, but as soon as he was no longer in control of his mind, even while his mind was leading him to pleasure, it led him on to horror.
He tried to sleep once again. There followed a succession of sensual drowsings and sudden, agonized awakenings. In his furious obstinacy, he kept on going towards Thérèse and kept on coming up against Camille’s corpse. More than ten times, he went along the same path, starting out with his flesh ablaze with desire, followed the same route, experienced the same feelings, performed the same actions, with minute precision; and more than ten times, it was the drowned man that he saw waiting for his embrace when he reached out to grasp and hug his mistress. His desire was not lessened by this same sinister ending that woke him up every time; a few minutes later, as soon as he went back to sleep, his desire forgot the ghastly corpse that awaited him, and hurried once more to find the lithe, warm body of a woman. For an hour, Laurent lived through this series of nightmares, this bad dream constantly repeated, continually unforeseen, which, at every shocked awakening, left him shattered by an ever sharper sense of terror.
One shock, the last, was so violent and painful that he decided to get up and stop struggling. Dawn was coming. A dismal grey light filtered through the attic window, which marked out a whitish square against the sky, the colour of ashes.
Laurent got dressed slowly, with a dull feeling of annoyance. He was irritated at not having slept and at having given way to a fear that he now considered childish. As he was putting on his trousers, he stretched, rubbed his limbs and felt his face, beaten and puffy from a feverish night. And he kept saying:
‘I wouldn’t have thought of all that. I would have slept and then I’d be fresh and ready for anything by now ... Oh, if only Thérèse had wanted to, yesterday evening, if only Thérèse had slept with me!’
This idea — that Thérèse would have prevented him from being afraid — calmed him a little. Underneath lay the fear of having to spend other nights like the one that he had just endured.
He threw some water on his face and gave his hair a comb. This simple wash cleared his head and drove away his last fears. He was reasoning clearly and now felt only a great sense of tiredness in all his limbs.
‘I’m not a coward, though,’ he thought, as he finished dressing. ‘I really don’t give a damn about Camille. It’s quite ridiculous to think that the poor devil is under my bed. Now perhaps I’m going to be thinking that every night. I really do have to get married as soon as I can. When Thérèse is holding me in her arms, I won’t think about Camille. She will kiss my neck and I won’t feel that frightful burning sensation.