Therese Raquin - Emile Zola [92]
Thérèse was unable to reply. With Laurent, she had followed the paralysed woman’s efforts and was considering her aunt’s hand, pale beneath the harsh light of the lamp, as a vengeful hand, about to speak. The two murderers waited with bated breath.
‘By golly, yes!’ said Grivet. ‘She wants something. Oh, we understand one another, she and I. She wants to play dominoes. Huh? That’s right, isn’t it, dear lady?’
Mme Raquin made a violent attempt to deny it. She extended one finger and bent the others back, with infinite pains, and started with agonizing slowness to trace out letters on the table. She had only made a few lines when Grivet once more exclaimed triumphantly:
‘I see it! She’s saying that I’m right to play the double six.’
The cripple gave him a furious look and again started the word that she wanted to write. But Grivet kept on interrupting her, saying that it was not necessary, that he had understood; and he would then suggest some idiocy. Eventually, Michaud told him to be quiet.
‘For heaven’s sake!’ he said. ‘Let Mme Raquin talk. Tell us, my old friend.’
And he looked at the oilcloth as though listening to something. But the cripple’s fingers were tiring: they had started one word more than ten times, and now they could not form it without wandering to the left and to the right. Michaud and Olivier leaned over, but could not read it, so they obliged the victim to keep on repeating the first letters.
‘Ah! That’s it!’ Olivier suddenly exclaimed. ‘I’ve read it this time. She has just written your name, Thérèse. Look: Thérèse and ... Carry on, dear lady.’
Thérèse almost cried out in agony. She watched her aunt’s fingers slide along the oilcloth and it seemed to her that those fingers were writing her name and the admission of her crime in letters of fire. Laurent had leaped to his feet, wondering if he ought to throw himself at the old woman and break her arm. He thought that all was lost and could feel the cold weight of retribution on him as he watched that hand come back to life to reveal Camille’s murder.
Mme Raquin was still writing, in an increasingly unsteady way.
‘That’s perfect, I can read it very clearly,’ said Olivier after a short while, looking at the young couple. ‘Your aunt is writing your two names: Thérèse and Laurent.’
At once, the old lady made affirmative signs, casting devastating looks towards the murderers. Then she tried to complete the sentence. But her fingers had stiffened and she was losing the supreme effort of will that had galvanized them; she could feel the paralysis moving slowly along her arm and once more grasping her wrist. She hastened to write another word.
Old Michaud read aloud:
‘Thérèse and Laurent are...’
And Olivier asked:
‘What are they, your dear children?’
The murderers, wild with fear, were on the point of finishing the sentence aloud. They were staring at the vengeful hand with anxious eyes when, suddenly, the hand was seized with a convulsion and dropped flat on the table. It slipped and fell on the old woman’s knee like a mass of inanimate flesh. The paralysis had returned and halted the punishment. Michaud and Olivier sat down, disappointed, while Thérèse and Laurent felt such a sharp flood of joy that they thought they were about to faint with the sudden rush of blood thumping in their chests.
Grivet was annoyed at not having been believed. He thought that the moment had come to retrieve his reputation for infallibility by completing Mme Raquin’s unfinished sentence. While they were searching for the meaning of the words, he said:
‘It’s quite clear. I can guess the whole sentence in Madame’s eyes. She doesn’t have to write it on the table for me; just one look will suffice. What she wanted to say was: “Thérèse and Laurent are taking good care of me.”’
Grivet could congratulate himself on his imagination, because everyone agreed. The guests started to praise the young couple who were being so kind to the old lady.
‘It is certain,’ said Old Michaud gravely, ‘that Mme Raquin wanted to acknowledge the tender