Therese Raquin - Emile Zola [79]
Every week brought its Thursday evening and every week once again reunited around the table these dead, grotesque heads that had once exasperated Thérèse. The young woman talked about showing them the door; they irritated her with their bursts of silly laughter and their idiotic remarks. But Laurent told her that it would be a mistake to do this. As far as possible, the present must seem like the past; and, most of all, they had to keep friends with the police, those imbeciles who were guarding them against suspicion. Thérèse capitulated, and the guests, welcomed in, were delighted to contemplate a long series of warm evenings ahead of them.
It was around this time that the young couple started to lead a kind of double life.
In the morning, when the daylight drove away the terrors of the night, Laurent hastened to get dressed. He did not feel at ease or recover his egotistical composure until he was sitting at the dining-room table in front of a huge bowl of milky coffee, which Thérèse made for him. Mme Raquin was now such an invalid that she could hardly get down into the shop, but she would watch him eat with a maternal smile on her face. He would gorge on toast, filling his stomach, and gradually regain his self-assurance. After his coffee, he would drink a little glass of cognac. This finally completed the process of restoration. He would say: ‘See you this evening,’ to Mme Raquin and Thérèse, without ever kissing them, then stroll off to his office. Spring came and the trees beside the Seine were covered with leaves — a light, pale-green lace. Down below the river ran with a caressing sound, and up above the first rays of the sun were gentle and warm. Laurent felt revived by the cool air. He took deep breaths of this young life in the skies of April and May. He looked up at the sun, stopped to watch the silver reflections shimmering on the surface of the water, listened to the noises of the quayside, let the sharp scents of morning sink into him and appreciated this clear, happy morning with all his senses. He definitely did not think much about Camille, though sometimes he did happen to glance mechanically across to the Morgue on the other side of the river, and would then remember the drowned man in the way that a courageous one considers some foolish fright that he has had. With a full stomach and a fresh, cool head, he lapsed back into his calmly stolid nature, reached his office and spent the whole day there yawning, waiting for the time to leave. He became just a clerk like the rest of them, dull and bored, with his head empty. The only idea he had at such moments was to hand in his resignation and rent a studio; he would have vague dreams of a new life of idleness, which were enough to keep his mind occupied until evening. Never was he troubled by any thought of the shop in the arcade. In the evening, having waited since morning for it to be time to leave, he would be reluctant to go out, full of his private worries and anxieties on his way along the embankment. However slowly he walked, he would eventually have to return to the shop. And there terror awaited.
Thérèse had the same feelings. As long as Laurent was not with her, she felt all right. She had dismissed the cleaning woman, saying that everything was dirty and left lying around in the