Thérèse desired her union with Laurent solely because she was afraid and wanted a companion. She was a prey to nervous attacks that drove her half crazy. In reality she reasoned but little, she flung herself into love with a mind upset by the novels she had recently been reading, and a frame irritated by the cruel insomnia that had kept her awake for several weeks.
Laurent, who was of a stouter constitution, while giving way to his terror and his desire, had made up his mind to reason out his decision. To thoroughly prove to himself that his marriage was necessary, that he was at last going to be perfectly happy, and to drive away the vague fears that beset him, he resumed all his former calculations.
His father, the peasant of Jeufosse, seemed determined not to die, and Laurent said to himself that he might have to wait a long time for the inheritance. He even feared that this inheritance might escape him, and go into the pockets of one of his cousins, a great big fellow who turned the soil over to the keen satisfaction of the old boy. And he would remain poor; he would live the life of a bachelor in a garret, with a bad bed and a worse table. Besides, he did not contemplate working all his life; already he began to find his office singularly tedious. The light labour entrusted to him became irksome owing to his laziness.
The invariable result of these reflections was that supreme happiness consisted in doing nothing. Then he remembered that if he had drowned Camille, it was to marry Thérèse, and work no more. Certainly, the thought of having his sweetheart all to himself had greatly influenced him in committing the crime, but he had perhaps been led to it still more, by the hope of taking the place of Camille, of being looked after in the same way, and of enjoying constant beatitude. Had passion alone urged him to the deed, he would not have shown such cowardice and prudence. The truth was that he had sought by murder to assure himself a calm, indolent life, and the satisfaction of his cravings.
All these thoughts, avowedly or unconsciously, returned to him. To find encouragement, he repeated that it was time to gather in the harvest anticipated by the death of Camille, and he spread out before him the advantages and blessings of his future existence: he would leave his office, and live in delicious idleness; he would eat, drink and sleep to his heart’s content; he would have an affectionate wife beside him; and, he would shortly inherit the 40,000 francs and more of Madame Raquin, for the poor old woman was dying, little by little, every day; in a word, he would carve out for himself the existence of a happy brute, and would forget everything.
Laurent mentally repeated these ideas at every moment, since his marriage with Thérèse had been decided on. He also sought other advantages that would result therefrom, and felt delighted when he found a new argument, drawn from his egotism, in favour of his union with the widow of the drowned man. But however much he forced himself to hope, however much he dreamed of a future full of idleness and pleasure, he never ceased to feel abrupt shudders that gave his skin an icy chill, while at moments he continued to experience an anxiety that stifled his joy in his throat.
CHAPTER XIX
In the meanwhile, the secret work of Thérèse and Laurent was productive of results. The former had assumed a woeful and despairing demeanour which at the end of a few days alarmed Madame Raquin. When the old mercer inquired what made her niece so sad, the young woman played the part of an inconsolable widow with consummate skill. She spoke in a vague manner of feeling weary, depressed, of suffering from her nerves, without making any precise complaint. When pressed by her aunt with questions, she replied that she was well, that she could not imagine what it was that made her so low-spirited, and that she shed tears without knowing why.
Then, the constant choking fits of sobbing, the wan, heartrending smiles, the spells of crushing silence full of emptiness and despair, continued.
The sight of this young woman who was always giving way to her grief, who seemed to be slowly dying of some unknown complaint, ended by seriously alarming Madame Raquin. She had, now, no one in the whole world but her niece, and she prayed the Almighty every night to preserve her this relative to close her eyes. A little egotism was mingled with this final love of her old age. She felt herself affected in the slight consolations that still assisted her to live, when it crossed her mind that she might die alone in the damp shop in the arcade. From that time, she never took her eyes off her niece, and it was with terror that she watched her sadness, wondering what she could do to cure her of her silent despair.