The following nights proved still more cruel. The murderers had wished
to pass this part of the twenty-four hours together, so as to be able
to defend themselves against the drowned man, and by a strange effect,
since they had been doing so, they shuddered the more. They were
exasperated, and their nerves so irritated, that they underwent
atrocious attacks of suffering and terror, at the exchange of a simple
word or look. At the slightest conversation between them, at the least
talk, they had alone, they began raving, and were ready to draw blood.
The sort of remorse Laurent experienced was purely physical. His body,
his irritated nerves and trembling frame alone were afraid of the
drowned man. His conscience was for nothing in his terror. He did not
feel the least regret at having killed Camille. When he was calm, when
the spectre did not happen to be there, he would have committed the
murder over again, had he thought his interests absolutely required it.
During the daytime he laughed at himself for his fright, making up his
mind to be stronger, and he harshly rebuked Thérèse, whom he accused of
troubling him. According to what he said, it was Thérèse who shuddered,
it was Thérèse alone who brought on the frightful scenes, at night, in
the bedroom. And, as soon as night came, as soon as he found himself
shut in with his wife, icy perspiration pearled on his skin, and his
frame shook with childish terror.
He thus underwent intermittent nervous attacks that returned nightly,
and threw his senses into confusion while showing him the hideous
green face of his victim. These attacks resembled the accesses of some
frightful illness, a sort of hysteria of murder. The name of illness,
of nervous affection, was really the only one to give to the terror that
Laurent experienced. His face became convulsed, his limbs rigid, his
nerves could be seen knotting beneath his skin. The body suffered
horribly, while the spirit remained absent. The wretch felt no
repentance. His passion for Thérèse had conveyed a frightful evil to
him, and that was all.
Thérèse also found herself a prey to these heavy shocks. But, in her
terror, she showed herself a woman: she felt vague remorse, unavowed
regret. She, at times, had an inclination to cast herself on her knees
and beseech the spectre of Camille to pardon her, while swearing
to appease it by repentance. Maybe Laurent perceived these acts of
cowardice on the part of Thérèse, for when they were agitated by the
common terror, he laid the blame on her, and treated her with brutality.
On the first nights, they were unable to go to bed. They waited for
daylight, seated before the fire, or pacing to and fro as on the evening
of the wedding-day. The thought of lying down, side by side, on the
bed, caused them a sort of terrifying repugnance. By tacit consent, they
avoided kissing one another, and they did not even look at their couch,
which Thérèse tumbled about in the morning.
When overcome with fatigue, they slept for an hour or two in the
armchairs, to awaken with a start, under the influence of the sinister
denouement of some nightmare. On awakening, with limbs stiff and tired,
shivering all over with discomfort and cold, their faces marbled with
livid blotches, they contemplated one another in bewilderment, astonished
to see themselves there. And they displayed strange bashfulness towards
each other, ashamed at showing their disgust and terror.
But they struggled against sleep as much as they could. They seated
themselves, one on each side of the chimney, and talked of a thousand
trifles, being very careful not to let the conversation drop. There was
a broad space between them in front of the fire. When they turned their
heads, they imagined that Camille had drawn a chair there, and occupied
this space, warming his feet in a lugubrious, bantering fashion. This
vision, which they had seen on the evening of the wedding-day, returned
each night.
And this corpse taking a mute, but jeering part, in their interviews,
this horribly disfigured body ever remaining there, overwhelmed them
with continued anxiety. Not daring to move, they half blinded themselves
staring at the scorching flames, and, when unable to resist any longer,
they cast a timid glance aside, their eyes irritated by the glowing
coal, created the vision, and conveyed to it a reddish glow.
Laurent, in the end, refused to remain seated any longer, without
avowing the cause of this whim to Thérèse. The latter understood that he
must see Camille as she saw him; and, in her turn, she declared that
the heat made her feel ill, and that she would be more comfortable a few
steps away from the chimney. Pushing back her armchair to the foot of
the bed, she remained there overcome, while her husband resumed his walk
in the room. From time to time, he opened the window, allowing the icy
air of the cold January night to fill the apartment, and this calmed his
fever.
For a week, the newly-married couple passed the nights in this fashion,
dozing and getting a little rest in the daytime, Thérèse behind the
counter in the shop, Laurent in his office. At night they belonged to
pain and fear. And the strangest part of the whole business was the
attitude they maintained towards each other. They did not utter one word
of love, but feigned to have forgotten the past; and seemed to accept,
to tolerate one another like sick people, feeling secret pity for their
mutual sufferings.
Both hoped to conceal their disgust and fear, and neither seemed to
think of the peculiar nights they passed, which should have enlightened
them as to the real state of their beings. When they sat up until
morning, barely exchanging a word, turning pale at the least sound, they
looked as if they thought all newly-married folk conducted themselves
in the same way, during the first days of their marriage. This was the
clumsy hypocrisy of two fools.
They were soon so overcome by weariness that they one night decided
to lie on the bed. They did not undress, but threw themselves, as they
were, on the quilt, fearing lest their bare skins should touch, for they
fancied they would receive a painful shock at the least contact. Then,
when they had slept thus, in an anxious sleep, for two nights, they
risked removing their clothes, and slipping between the sheets. But
they remained apart, and took all sorts of precautions so as not to come
together.
Thérèse got into bed first, and lay down close to the wall. Laurent
waited until she had made herself quite comfortable, and then ventured
to stretch himself out at the opposite edge of the mattress, so that
there was a broad space between them. It was there that the corpse of
Camille lay.
When the two murderers were extended under the same sheet, and had
closed their eyes, they fancied they felt the damp corpse of their
victim, lying in the middle of the bed, and turning their flesh icy
cold. It was like a vile obstacle separating them. They were seized with
fever and delirium, and this obstacle, in their minds, became material.
They touched the corpse, they saw it spread out, like a greenish and
dissolved shred of something, and they inhaled the infectious odour of
this lump of human putrefaction. All their senses were in a state of
hallucination, conveying intolerable acuteness to their sensations.
The presence of this filthy bedfellow kept them motionless, silent,
abstracted with anguish. Laurent, at times, thought of taking Thérèse
violently in his arms; but he dared not move. He said to himself that he
could not extend his hand, without getting it full of the soft flesh of
Camille. Next he fancied that the drowned man came to sleep between
them so as to prevent them clasping one another, and he ended by
understanding that Camille was jealous.
Nevertheless, ever and anon, they sought to exchange a timid kiss, to
see what would happen. The young man jeered at his wife, and ordered
her to embrace him. But their lips were so cold that it seemed as if
the dead man had got between their mouths. Both felt disgusted. Thérèse
shuddered with horror, and Laurent who heard her teeth chattering,
railed at her:
“Why are you trembling?” he exclaimed. “Are you afraid of Camille? Ah!
the poor man is as dead as a doornail at this moment.”
Both avoided saying what made them shudder. When an hallucination
brought the countenance of the drowned man before Thérèse, she closed
her eyes, keeping her terror to herself, not daring to speak to her
husband of her vision, lest she should bring on a still more terrible
crisis. And it was just the same with Laurent. When driven to
extremities, he, in a fit of despair, accused Thérèse of being afraid
of Camille. The name, uttered aloud, occasioned additional anguish. The
murderer raved.
“Yes, yes,” he stammered, addressing the young woman, “you are afraid of
Camille. I can see that plain enough! You are a silly thing, you have
no pluck at all. Look here! just go to sleep quietly. Do you think your
husband will come and pull you out of bed by the heels, because I happen
to be sleeping with you?”
This idea that the drowned man might come and pull them out of bed by
the heels, made the hair of Laurent stand on end, and he continued with
greater violence, while still in the utmost terror himself.
“I shall have to take you some night to the cemetery. We will open the
coffin Camille is in, and you will see what he looks like! Then you will
perhaps cease being afraid. Go on, he doesn’t know we threw him in the
water.”
Thérèse with her head under the bedclothes, was uttering smothered
groans.
“We threw him into the water, because he was in our way,” resumed her
husband. “And we’ll throw him in again, will we not? Don’t act like a
child. Show a little strength. It’s silly to trouble our happiness. You
see, my dear, when we are dead and underground, we shall be neither less
nor more happy, because we cast an idiot in the Seine, and we shall have
freely enjoyed our love which will have been an advantage. Come, give me
a kiss.”
The young woman kissed him, but she was icy cold, and half crazy, while
he shuddered as much as she did.
For a fortnight Laurent was asking himself how he could kill Camille
again. He had flung him in the water; and yet he was not dead enough,
because he came every night to sleep in the bed of Thérèse. While the
murderers thought that having committed the crime, they could love one
another in peace, their resuscitated victim arrived to make their touch
like ice. Thérèse was not a widow. Laurent found that he was mated to a
woman who already had a drowned man for husband.