him back to life more than ten times
over.

During the brief spaces of repose that his sufferings allowed him,
the child attended a commercial school at Vernon. There he learned
orthography and arithmetic. His science was limited to the four rules,
and a very superficial knowledge of grammar. Later on, he took lessons
in writing and bookkeeping. Madame Raquin began to tremble when advised
to send her son to college. She knew he would die if separated from her,
and she said the books would kill him. So Camille remained ignorant, and
this ignorance seemed to increase his weakness.

At eighteen, having nothing to do, bored to death at the delicate
attention of his mother, he took a situation as clerk with a linen
merchant, where he earned 60 francs a month. Being of a restless nature
idleness proved unbearable. He found greater calm and better health in
this labour of a brute which kept him bent all day long over invoices,
over enormous additions, each figure of which he patiently added up. At
night, broken down with fatigue, without an idea in his head, he enjoyed
infinite delight in the doltishness that settled on him. He had to
quarrel with his mother to go with the dealer in linen. She wanted to
keep him always with her, between a couple of blankets, far from the
accidents of life.

But the young man spoke as master. He claimed work as children claim
toys, not from a feeling of duty, but by instinct, by a necessity of
nature. The tenderness, the devotedness of his mother had instilled into
him an egotism that was ferocious. He fancied he loved those who pitied
and caressed him; but, in reality, he lived apart, within himself,
loving naught but his comfort, seeking by all possible means to increase
his enjoyment. When the tender affection of Madame Raquin disgusted him,
he plunged with delight into a stupid occupation that saved him from
infusions and potions.

In the evening, on his return from the office, he ran to the bank of the
Seine with his cousin Therese who was then close upon eighteen. One day,
sixteen years previously, while Madame Raquin was still a mercer, her
brother Captain Degans brought her a little girl in his arms. He had
just arrived from Algeria.

"Here is a child," said he with a smile, "and you are her aunt. The
mother is dead and I don't know what to do with her. I'll give her to
you."

The mercer took the child, smiled at her and kissed her rosy cheeks.
Although Degans remained a week at