frozen. Her aunt and
husband having come downstairs, she seated herself on a trunk, her hands
rigid, her throat full of sobs, and yet she could not cry.

Madame Raquin, face to face with reality, felt embarrassed, and ashamed
of her dreams. She sought to defend her acquisition. She found a remedy
for every fresh inconvenience that was discovered, explaining the
obscurity by saying the weather was overcast, and concluded by affirming
that a sweep-up would suffice to set everything right.

"Bah!" answered Camille, "all this is quite suitable. Besides, we shall
only come up here at night. I shall not be home before five or six
o'clock. As to you two, you will be together, so you will not be dull."

The young man would never have consented to inhabit such a den, had
he not relied on the comfort of his office. He said to himself that
he would be warm all day at his administration, and that, at night, he
would go to bed early.

For a whole week, the shop and lodging remained in disorder. Therese had
seated herself behind the counter from the first day, and she did not
move from that place. Madame Raquin was astonished at this depressed
attitude. She had thought that the young woman would try to adorn her
habitation. That she would place flowers at the windows, and ask for new
papers, curtains and carpets. When she suggested some repairs, some kind
of embellishment, her niece quietly replied:

"What need is there for it? We are very well as we are. There is no
necessity for luxury."

It was Madame Raquin who had to arrange the rooms and tidy up the shop.
Therese at last lost patience at seeing the good old lady incessantly
turning round and round before her eyes; she engaged a charwoman, and
forced her aunt to be seated beside her.

Camille remained a month without finding employment. He lived as little
as possible in the shop, preferring to stroll about all day; and he
found life so dreadfully dull with nothing to do, that he spoke
of returning to Vernon. But he at length obtained a post in the
administration of the Orleans Railway, where he earned 100 francs a
month. His dream had become realised.

He set out in the morning at eight o'clock. Walking down the Rue
Guenegaud, he found himself on the quays. Then, taking short steps with
his hands in his pockets, he followed the Seine from the Institut to the
Jardin des Plantes. This long journey which he performed twice daily,
never wearied him. He watched the water run