THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя
that terror for deep water which is inherent in women and children. He tapped the end of the boat with his foot to make sure of its solidity.
“Come, get in,” cried Laurent with a laugh, “you’re always trembling.”
Camille stepped over the side, and went staggering to seat himself at the stern. When he felt the planks under him, he was at ease, and joked to show his courage.
Therese had remained on the bank, standing grave and motionless beside her sweetheart, who held the rope. He bent down, and rapidly murmured in an undertone:
“Be careful. I am going to pitch him in the river. Obey me. I answer for everything.”
The young woman turned horribly pale. She remained as if riveted to the ground. She was rigid, and her eyes had opened wider.
“Get into the boat,” Laurent murmured again.
She did not move. A terrible struggle was passing within her. She strained her will with all her might, to avoid bursting into sobs, and falling to the ground.
“Ah! ah!” cried Camille. “Laurent, just look at Therese. It’s she who is afraid. She’ll get in; no, she won’t get in.”
He had now spread himself out on the back seat, his two arms on the sides of the boat, and was showing off with fanfaronade. The chuckles of this poor man were like cuts from a whip to Therese, lashing and urging her on. She abruptly sprang into the boat, remaining in the bows. Laurent grasped the skulls. The skiff left the bank, advancing slowly towards the isles.
Twilight came. Huge shadows fell from the trees, and the water ran black at the edges. In the middle of the river were great, pale, silver trails. The boat was soon in full steam. There, all the sounds of the quays softened; the singing, and the cries came vague and melancholy, with sad languidness. The odour of frying and dust had passed away. The air freshened. It turned cold.
Laurent, resting on his skulls, allowed the boat to drift along in the current.
Opposite, rose the great reddish mass of trees on the islands. The two sombre brown banks, patched with grey, were like a couple of broad bands stretching towards the horizon. The water and sky seemed as if cut from the same whitish piece of material. Nothing looks more painfully calm than an autumn twilight. The sun rays pale in the quivering air, the old trees cast their leaves. The country, scorched by the ardent beams of summer, feels death coming with the first cold winds. And, in the sky, there are plaintive sighs of despair. Night falls from above, bringing winding sheets in its shade.
The party were silent. Seated at the bottom of the boat drifting with the stream, they watched the final gleams of light quitting the tall branches. They approached the islands. The great russety masses grew sombre; all the landscape became simplified in the twilight; the Seine, the sky, the islands, the slopes were naught but brown and grey patches which faded away amidst milky fog.
Camille, who had ended by lying down on his stomach, with his head over the water, dipped his hands in the river.
“The deuce! How cold it is!” he exclaimed. “It would not be pleasant to go in there head foremost.”
Laurent did not answer. For an instant he had been observing the two banks of the river with uneasiness. He advanced his huge hands to his knees, tightly compressing his lips. Therese, rigid and motionless, with her head thrown slightly backward, waited.
The skiff was about to enter a small arm of the river, that was sombre and narrow, penetrating between two islands. Behind one of these islands could be distinguished the softened melody of a boating party who seemed to be ascending the Seine. Up the river in the distance, the water was free.
Then Laurent rose and grasped Camille round the body. The clerk burst into laughter.
“Ah, no, you tickle me,” said he, “none of those jokes. Look here, stop; you’ll make me fall over.”
Laurent grasped him tighter, and gave a jerk. Camille turning round, perceived the terrifying face of his friend, violently agitated. He failed to understand. He was seized with vague terror. He wanted to shout, and felt a rough hand seize him by the throat. With the instinct of an animal on the defensive, he rose to his knees, clutching the side of the boat, and struggled for a few seconds.
“Therese! Therese!” he called in a stifling, sibilant voice.
The young woman looked at him, clinging with both hands to the seat. The skiff creaked and danced upon the river. She could not close her eyes, a frightful contraction kept them wide open riveted on the hideous struggle. She remained rigid and mute.
“Therese! Therese!” again cried the unfortunate man who was in the throes of death.
At this final appeal, Therese burst into sobs. Her nerves had given way. The attack she had been dreading, cast her to the bottom of the boat, where she remained doubled up in a swoon, and as if dead.
Laurent continued tugging at Camille, pressing with one hand on his throat. With the other hand he ended by tearing his victim away from the side of the skiff, and held him up in the air, in his powerful arms, like a child. As he bent down his head, his victim, mad with rage and terror, twisted himself round, and reaching forward with his teeth, buried them in the neck of his aggressor. And when the murderer, restraining a yell of pain, abruptly flung the clerk into the river, the latter carried a piece of his flesh away with him.
Camille fall into the water with a shriek. He returned to the surface two or three times, uttering cries that were more and more hollow.
Laurent, without losing a second, raised the collar of his coat to hide his wound. Then seizing the unconscious Therese in his arms, he capsized the skiff with his foot, as he fell into the Seine with the young woman, whom he supported on the surface, whilst calling in a lamentable voice for help.
The boating party he had heard singing behind the point of the island, understanding that an accident had happened, advanced with long, rapid strokes of the oars, and rescued the immerged couple. While Therese was laid on a bench, Laurent gave vent to his despair at the death of his friend. Plunging into the water again, he searched for Camille in places where he knew he was not to be found, and returned in tears, wringing his hands, and tearing his hair, while the boating party did their best to calm and console him.
“It is all my fault,” he exclaimed. “I ought never to have allowed that poor fellow to dance and move about as he did. At a certain moment we all three found ourselves on one side of the boat, and we capsized. As we fell into the water, he shouted out to me to save his wife.”
In accordance with what usually happens under similar circumstances, three or four young fellows among the boating party, maintained that they had witnessed the accident.
“We saw you well enough,” said they. “And, then, hang it all, a boat is not so firm as a dancing floor. Ah! the poor little woman, it’ll be a nice awakening for her.”
They took their oars, and towing the capsized skiff behind them, conducted Therese and Laurent to the restaurant, where the dinner was ready to be served.
The restaurant keeper and his wife were worthy people who placed their wardrobe at the service of the drenched pair. When Therese recovered consciousness, she had a nervous attack, and burst into heartrending sobs. It became necessary to put her to bed. Nature assisted the sinister comedy that had just been performed.
As soon as the young woman became calmer, Laurent entrusting her to the care of the host and his wife, set out to return to Paris, where he wished to arrive alone to break the frightful intelligence to Madame Raquin, with all possible precautions. The truth was that he feared the nervous feverish excitement of Therese, and preferred to give her time to reflect, and learn her part.
It was the boating men who sat down to the dinner prepared for Camille.
CHAPTER XII
Laurent, in the dark corner of the omnibus that took him back to Paris, continued perfecting his plan. He was almost certain