Therese Raquin - Emile Zola [69]
They began to search desperately in themselves for a little of the passion that had consumed them before. They felt as though their skin was empty of muscles and empty of nerves. Their anxiety and embarrassment grew; they felt ashamed of remaining silent and sad in each other’s presence. They longed to find the strength to grasp one another in a crushing embrace, so that they would not have to consider themselves idiots. What! They belonged together! They had killed a man and acted out a frightful piece of play-acting so that they could wallow with impunity in constant gratification of their senses; yet here they were, on either side of the fireplace, rigid, exhausted, their minds troubled and their bodies dead. This outcome struck them as a horrid, cruel farce. So Laurent tried to speak about love, to evoke memories of former times, calling on his imagination to revive his feelings of desire.
‘Therese,’ he said, leaning towards her, ‘do you remember our afternoons in this room? I would come through that door ... Today, I came through the other one. We are free, we can love one another in peace.’
His voice was weak and hesitant. The young woman, crouching on the low chair, kept looking at the flames, thoughtfully, without listening. Laurent went on:
‘Do you remember? I had this dream: I wanted to spend a whole night with you, to fall asleep in your arms and to wake up the next morning to your kisses. I am going to accomplish that dream.’
Thérèse started, as though surprised to hear a voice muttering in her ear. She looked up at Laurent, whose face at that moment was lit up by a broad, reddish glow from the fire. She looked at this blood-stained face and shuddered.
The young man went on, more uneasy and more anxious:
‘We’ve managed it, Thérèse, we’ve overcome all the obstacles and we belong to one another ... The future is ours, isn’t it? A future of quiet happiness and satisfied love ... Camille is gone ...’
Laurent paused, his throat dry, choking, unable to continue. Camille’s name had been like a blow in the stomach for Thérèse. The two murderers looked at each other, pale, haggard and shaking. The yellow light from the fire was still flickering on the walls and ceiling, the warm scent of roses hung in the air and the crackling of the firewood broke the silence with its dry little sounds.
Their memories were unleashed. Once Camille’s ghost had been raised, he came to sit between the two newlyweds, opposite the blazing fire. Thérèse and Laurent could sense the cold, damp smell of the drowned man in the hot air that they breathed. They felt that there was a corpse beside them and they looked carefully at each other without daring to move. And now the whole dreadful story of their crime unfolded in their minds. The victim’s name was enough to fill them with the past and force them to relive the horror of the killing. They looked at one another without opening their mouths, both having the same nightmare, at the same time, and both reading the same cruel story in each other’s eyes. This terrified exchange of looks, and the silent account of the murder that they were about to give each other, caused them a feeling of acute, intolerable apprehension. Their fraught nerves threatened to break: they might easily cry out or even come to blows. To drive the memories away, Laurent violently subdued the horrified fascination that held him in the grasp of Thérèse’s eyes and walked a few steps around the room. He took off his boots and put on some slippers. Then he came back and sat beside the fire, trying to talk about things of no importance.
Thérèse understood what he wanted. She made an effort to answer his questions. They chatted about this and that. They forced themselves to make idle conversation. Laurent said it was hot in the room; Thérèse replied that