A week after the marriage, Camille distinctly told his mother that he
intended quitting Vernon to reside in Paris. Madame Raquin protested:
she had arranged her mode of life, and would not modify it in any way.
Thereupon her son had a nervous attack, and threatened to fall ill, if
she did not give way to his whim.
“Never have I opposed you in your plans,” said he; “I married my cousin,
I took all the drugs you gave me. It is only natural, now, when I have
a desire of my own, that you should be of the same mind. We will move at
the end of the month.”
Madame Raquin was unable to sleep all night. The decision Camille had
come to, upset her way of living, and, in despair, she sought to arrange
another existence for herself and the married couple. Little by little,
she recovered calm. She reflected that the young people might have
children, and that her small fortune would not then suffice. It was
necessary to earn money, to go into business again, to find lucrative
occupation for Thérèse. The next day she had become accustomed to the
idea of moving, and had arranged a plan for a new life.
At luncheon she was quite gay.
“This is what we will do,” said she to her children. “I will go to Paris
to-morrow. There I will look out for a small mercery business for sale,
and Thérèse and myself will resume selling needles and cotton, which
will give us something to do. You, Camille, will act as you like. You
can either stroll about in the sun, or you can find some employment.”
“I shall find employment,” answered the young man.
The truth was that an idiotic ambition had alone impelled Camille to
leave Vernon. He wished to find a post in some important administration.
He blushed with delight when he fancied he saw himself in the middle of
a large office, with lustring elbow sleeves, and a pen behind his ear.
Thérèse was not consulted: she had always displayed such passive
obedience that her aunt and husband no longer took the trouble to ask
her opinion. She went where they went, she did what they did, without a
complaint, without a reproach, without appearing even to be aware that
she changed her place of residence.
Madame Raquin came to Paris, and went straight to the Arcade of the Pont
Neuf. An old maid at Vernon had sent her to one of her relatives who
in this arcade kept a mercery shop which she desired to get rid of.
The former mercer found the shop rather small, and rather dark; but,
in passing through Paris, she had been taken aback by the noise in the
streets, by the luxuriously dressed windows, and this narrow gallery,
this modest shop front, recalled her former place of business which was
so peaceful. She could fancy herself again in the provinces, and she
drew a long breath thinking that her dear children would be happy in
this out-of-the-way corner. The low price asked for the business, caused
her to make up her mind. The owner sold it her for 2,000 francs, and the
rent of the shop and first floor was only 1,200 francs a year. Madame
Raquin, who had close upon 4,000 francs saved up, calculated that she
could pay for the business and settle the rent for the first year,
without encroaching on her fortune. The salary Camille would be
receiving, and the profit on the mercery business would suffice, she
thought, to meet the daily expenses; so that she need not touch the
income of her funded money, which would capitalise, and go towards
providing marriage portions for her grandchildren.
She returned to Vernon beaming with pleasure, relating that she had
found a gem, a delightful little place right in the centre of Paris.
Little by little, at the end of a few days, in her conversations of
an evening, the damp, obscure shop in the arcade became a palace; she
pictured it to herself, so far as her memory served her, as convenient,
spacious, tranquil, and replete with a thousand inestimable advantages.
“Ah! my dear Thérèse,” said she, “you will see how happy we shall be in
that nook! There are three beautiful rooms upstairs. The arcade is
full of people. We will make charming displays. There is no fear of our
feeling dull.”
But she did not stop there. All her instinct of a former shopkeeper
was awakened. She gave advice to Thérèse, beforehand, as to buying and
selling, and posted her up in all the tricks of small tradespeople.
At length, the family quitted the house beside the Seine, and on the
evening of the same day, were installed in the Arcade of the Pont Neuf.
When Thérèse entered the shop, where in future she was to live, it
seemed to her that she was descending into the clammy soil of a grave.
She felt quite disheartened, and shivered with fear. She looked at the
dirty, damp gallery, visited the shop, and ascending to the first floor,
walked round each room. These bare apartments, without furniture, looked
frightful in their solitude and dilapidation. The young woman could
not make a gesture, or utter a word. She was as if 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. Thérèse 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.
Thérèse 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
Guénégaud, 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 running along, and he stopped
to see the rafts of wood descending the river, pass by. He thought of
nothing. Frequently he planted himself before Notre Dame, to contemplate
the scaffolding surrounding the cathedral which was then undergoing
repair. These huge pieces of timber amused him although he failed to
understand why. Then he cast a glance into the Port aux Vins as he went
past, and after that counted the cabs coming from the station.
In the evening, quite stupefied, with his head full of some silly story
related to his office, he crossed the Jardin des Plantes, and went to
have a look at the bears, if he was not in too great a hurry. There he
remained half an hour, leaning over the rails at the top of the pit,
observing the animals clumsily swaying to and fro. The behaviour of
these huge beasts pleased him. He examined them with gaping mouth and
rounded eyes, partaking of the joy of an idiot when he perceived them
bestir themselves. At last he turned homewards, dragging his feet along,
busying himself with the passers-by, with the vehicles, and the shops.
As soon as he arrived he dined, and then began reading. He had purchased
the works of Buffon, and, every evening, he set himself to peruse twenty
to thirty pages, notwithstanding the wearisome nature of the task. He
also read in serial, at 10 centimes the number, “The History of the
Consulate and Empire” by Thiers, and “The History of the Girondins” by
Lamartine, as well as some popular scientific works. He fancied he was
labouring at his education. At times, he forced his wife to listen to
certain pages, to particular anecdotes, and felt very much astonished
that Thérèse could remain pensive and silent the whole evening, without
being tempted to take up a book. And he thought to himself that his wife
must be a woman of very poor intelligence.
Thérèse thrust books away from her with impatience. She preferred to
remain idle, with her eyes fixed, and her thoughts wandering and lost.
But she maintained an even, easy temper, exercising all her will to
render herself a passive instrument, replete with supreme complaisance
and abnegation.
The shop did not do much business. The profit was the same regularly
each month. The customers consisted of female workpeople living in the
neighbourhood. Every five minutes a young girl came in to purchase a few
sous worth of goods. Thérèse served the people with words that were ever
the same, with a smile that appeared mechanically on her lips. Madame
Raquin displayed a more unbending, a more gossipy disposition, and, to
tell the truth, it was she who attracted and retained the customers.
For three years, days followed days and resembled one another. Camille
did not once absent himself from his office. His mother and wife hardly
ever left the shop. Thérèse, residing in damp obscurity, in gloomy,
crushing silence, saw life expand before her in all its nakedness, each
night bringing the same cold couch, and each morn the same empty day.