dious sound of running water broke the
silence.

Little by little he distinguished the bodies, and went from one to the
other. It was only the drowned that interested him. When several human
forms were there, swollen and blued by the water, he looked at them
eagerly, seeking to recognise Camille. Frequently, the flesh on the
faces had gone away by strips, the bones had burst through the mellow
skins, the visages were like lumps of boned, boiled beef. Laurent
hesitated; he looked at the corpses, endeavouring to discover the lean
body of his victim. But all the drowned were stout. He saw enormous
stomachs, puffy thighs, and strong round arms. He did not know what to
do. He stood there shuddering before those greenish-looking rags, which
seemed like mocking him, with their horrible wrinkles.

One morning, he was seized with real terror. For some moments, he had
been looking at a corpse, taken from the water, that was small in build
and atrociously disfigured. The flesh of this drowned person was so soft
and broken-up that the running water washing it, carried it away bit by
bit. The jet falling on the face, bored a hole to the left of the nose.
And, abruptly, the nose became flat, the lips were detached, showing the
white teeth. The head of the drowned man burst out laughing.

Each time Laurent fancied he recognised Camille, he felt a burning
sensation in the heart. He ardently desired to find the body of his
victim, and he was seized with cowardice when he imagined it before him.
His visits to the Morgue filled him with nightmare, with shudders that
set him panting for breath. But he shook off his fear, taxing himself
with being childish, when he wished to be strong. Still, in spite of
himself, his frame revolted, disgust and terror gained possession of his
being, as soon as ever he found himself in the dampness, and unsavoury
odour of the hall.

When there were no drowned persons on the back row of slabs, he breathed
at ease; his repugnance was not so great. He then became a simple
spectator, who took strange pleasure in looking death by violence in the
face, in its lugubriously fantastic and grotesque attitudes. This sight
amused him, particularly when there were women there displaying their
bare bosoms. These nudities, brutally exposed, bloodstained, and in
places bored with holes, attracted and detained him.

Once he saw a young woman of twenty there, a child of the people, broad
and strong, who seemed asleep on