ghts strained, reaching the Arcade of the Pont Neuf unconscious
of the road she had taken. It seemed to her that she had just come
downstairs from her visit to Laurent, so full were her ears of the words
she had recently heard. She found Madame Raquin and Camille anxious and
attentive; but she answered their questions sharply, saying she had
been on a fools' errand, and had waited an hour on the pavement for an
omnibus.

When she got into bed, she found the sheets cold and damp. Her limbs,
which were still burning, shuddered with repugnance. Camille soon
fell asleep, and for a long time Therese watched his wan face reposing
idiotically on the pillow, with his mouth wide open. Therese drew away
from her husband. She felt a desire to drive her clenched fist into that
mouth.

CHAPTER X

More than three weeks passed. Laurent came to the shop every evening,
looking weary and unwell. A light bluish circle surrounded his eyes, and
his lips were becoming pale and chapped. Otherwise, he still maintained
his obtuse tranquillity, he looked Camille in the face, and showed him
the same frank friendship. Madame Raquin pampered the friend of the
family the more, now that she saw him giving way to a sort of low fever.

Therese had resumed her mute, glum countenance and manner. She was more
motionless, more impenetrable, more peaceful than ever. She did not seem
to trouble herself in the least about Laurent. She barely looked at
him, rarely exchanged a word with him, treating him with perfect
indifference. Madame Raquin, who in her goodness of heart, felt pained
at this attitude, sometimes said to the young man:

"Do not pay attention to the manner of my niece, I know her; her face
appears cold, but her heart is warm with tenderness and devotedness."

The two sweethearts had no more meetings. Since the evening in the
Rue Saint-Victor they had not met alone. At night, when they found
themselves face to face, placid in appearance and like strangers to one
another, storms of passion and dismay passed beneath the calm flesh of
their countenance. And while with Therese, there were outbursts of fury,
base ideas, and cruel jeers, with Laurent there were sombre brutalities,
and poignant indecisions. Neither dared search to the bottom of their
beings, to the bottom of that cloudy fever that filled their brains with
a sort of thick and acrid vapour.

When they could press the hands of one another behind a door, without
speaking, they