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decanter.
“Let it be,” exclaimed her husband, in a voice that he endeavoured to render natural, “I will prepare the sugar and water. You attend to your aunt.”
He took the decanter of water from the hands of his wife and poured out a glassful. Then, turning half round, he emptied the contents of the small stoneware flagon into the glass at the same time as he dropped a lump of sugar into it. In the meanwhile, Therese had bent down before the sideboard, and grasping the kitchen knife sought to slip it into one of the large pockets hanging from her waist.
At the same moment, a strange sensation which comes as a warning note of danger, made the married couple instinctively turn their heads. They looked at one another. Therese perceived the flagon in the hands of Laurent, and the latter caught sight of the flash of the blade in the folds of the skirt of his wife.
For a few seconds they examined each other, mute and frigid, the husband near the table, the wife stooping down before the sideboard. And they understood. Each of them turned icy cold, on perceiving that both had the same thought. And they were overcome with pity and horror at mutually reading the secret design of the other on their agitated countenances.
Madame Raquin, feeling the catastrophe near at hand, watched them with piercing, fixed eyes.
Therese and Laurent, all at once, burst into sobs. A supreme crisis undid them, cast them into the arms of one another, as weak as children. It seemed to them as if something tender and sweet had awakened in their breasts. They wept, without uttering a word, thinking of the vile life they had led, and would still lead, if they were cowardly enough to live.
Then, at the recollection of the past, they felt so fatigued and disgusted with themselves, that they experienced a huge desire for repose, for nothingness. They exchanged a final look, a look of thankfulness, in presence of the knife and glass of poison. Therese took the glass, half emptied it, and handed it to Laurent who drank off the remainder of the contents at one draught. The result was like lightning. The couple fell one atop of the other, struck down, finding consolation, at last, in death. The mouth of the young woman rested on the scar that the teeth of Camille had left on the neck of her husband.
The corpses lay all night, spread out contorted, on the dining-room floor, lit up by the yellow gleams from the lamp, which the shade cast upon them. And for nearly twelve hours, in fact until the following day at about noon, Madame Raquin, rigid and mute, contemplated them at her feet, overwhelming them with her heavy gaze, and unable to sufficiently gorge her eyes with the hideous sight.
AFTERWORD
The idea of the plot of “Therese Raquin,” according to M. Paul Alexis, Zola’s biographer, came from a novel called “La Venus de Gordes” contributed to the “Figaro” by Adolphe Belot and Ernest Daudet — the brother of Alphonse Daudet — in collaboration. In this story the authors dealt with the murder of a man by his wife and her paramour, followed by the trial of the murderers at the assizes. Zola, in noticing the book in the “Figaro,” when it arrived for review, pointed out that a much more powerful story might be written on the same subject by invoking divine instead of human justice. For instance, showing the two murderers safe from earthly consequences, yet separated by the pool of blood between them, haunted by their crime, and detesting one another for the deed done together.
It then occurred to Zola to write the tale on these lines himself. Convinced that the idea was good, he elaborated it with the greatest care and all the skill at his command, the result being that he produced a volume which proved his first genuine success, and which is still considered by many to be his very best book.
EDWARD VIZETELLY
SURBITON, 1 December, 1901.
MADELEINE FERAT
Translated by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
TO EDOUARD MANET.
The day when, with an indignant voice, I undertook the defence of your talent, I did not know you. There were fools who then dared to say that we were two friends in search of scandal. Since these fools placed our hands one in the other, may our hands remain for ever united. The crowd willed that you should have my friendship; this friendship is now complete and durable, and as a public proof of it, I dedicate to you this book.
ÉMILE ZOLA.
CHAPTER I.
William and Madeleine got off at Fontenay station. It was a Monday, and the train was almost empty. Five or six fellow-passengers, inhabitants of the district, who were returning home, presented themselves at the platform-exit with the two young people, and dispersed each in his own direction, without bestowing a glance on the surroundings, like folks in a hurry to get home.
When they were outside the station, the young man offered his arm to the young woman, as though they had not left the streets of Paris. They turned to the left, and went at a leisurely pace up the magnificent avenue of trees which extends from Sceaux to Fontenay. As they ascended, they watched the train at the bottom of the slope start again on its journey with laboured and deep-drawn puffs.
When it was lost to sight among the trees, William turned towards his companion and said to her with a smile:
“I told you I am not acquainted with the neighbourhood, and I hardly know for certain where we are going to.”
“Let us take this path,’’ answered Madeleine, simply, “and then we shall not have to go through the streets of Sceaux.” They took the lane to Champs-Girard. Here, there is a sudden gap in the line of trees bordering the wide avenue which enables one to get a view of the rising ground of Fontenay; down in the bottom, there are gardens and square meadows where huge clumps of poplars rise up straight and full of vigour; then, up the slope, there are cultivated fields, dividing the surface of the country into brown and green tracts, and, right at the top, on the very edge of the horizon, you can catch a glimpse through the trees of the low white houses of the village. Towards the end of September, the sun, as it dips down between four and five o’clock, makes this bit of nature lovely. The young couple, who were alone in the path, stopped instinctively before this nook of landscape,