Therese also had been visited by the spectre of Camille, during this feverish1 night.
After over a year of indifference2, Laurent's sudden attentions had aroused her senses. As she tossed herself about in insomnia3, she had seen the drowned man rise up before her; like Laurent she had writhed4 in terror, and she had said as he had done, that she would no longer be afraid, that she would no more experience such sufferings, when she had her sweetheart in her arms.
This man and woman had experienced at the same hour, a sort of nervous disorder5 which set them panting with terror. A consanguinity6 had become established between them. They shuddered8 with the same shudder7; their hearts in a kind of poignant9 friendship, were wrung10 with the same anguish11. From that moment they had one body and one soul for enjoyment12 and suffering.
This communion, this mutual13 penetration14 is a psychological and physiological15 phenomenon which is often found to exist in beings who have been brought into violent contact by great nervous shocks.
For over a year, Therese and Laurent lightly bore the chain riveted16 to their limbs that united them. In the depression succeeding the acute crisis of the murder, amidst the feelings of disgust, and the need for calm and oblivion that had followed, these two convicts might fancy they were free, that they were no longer shackled17 together by iron fetters18. The slackened chain dragged on the ground. They reposed19, they found themselves struck with a sort of delightful20 insensibility, they sought to love elsewhere, to live in a state of wise equilibrium21. But from the day when urged forward by events, they came to the point of again exchanging burning sentences, the chain became violently strained, and they received such a shock, that they felt themselves for ever linked to one another.
The day following this first attack of nightmare, Therese secretly set to work to bring about her marriage with Laurent. It was a difficult task, full of peril22. The sweethearts trembled lest they should commit an imprudence, arouse suspicions, and too abruptly25 reveal the interest they had in the death of Camille.
Convinced that they could not mention marriage themselves, they arranged a very clever plan which consisted in getting Madame Raquin herself, and the Thursday evening guests, to offer them what they dared not ask for. It then only became necessary to convey to these worthy26 people the idea of remarrying Therese, and particularly to make them believe that this idea originated with themselves, and was their own.
The comedy was long and delicate to perform. Therese and Laurent took the parts adapted to them, and proceeded with extreme prudence23, calculating the slightest gesture, and the least word. At the bottom of their hearts, they were devoured27 by a feeling of impatience28 that stiffened29 and strained their nerves. They lived in a state of constant irritation30, and it required all their natural cowardice31 to compel them to show a smiling and peaceful exterior32.
If they yearned33 to bring the business to an end, it was because they could no longer remain separate and solitary34. Each night, the drowned man visited them, insomnia stretched them on beds of live coal and turned them over with fiery35 tongs36. The state of enervation37 in which they lived, nightly increased the fever of their blood, which resulted in atrocious hallucinations rising up before them.
Therese no longer dared enter her room after dusk. She experienced the keenest anguish, when she had to shut herself until morning in this large apartment, which became lit-up with strange glimmers38, and peopled with phantoms39 as soon as the light was out. She ended by leaving her candle burning, and by preventing herself falling asleep, so as to always have her eyes wide open. But when fatigue40 lowered her lids, she saw Camille in the dark, and reopened her eyes with a start. In the morning she dragged herself about, broken down, having only slumbered41 for a few hours at dawn.
As to Laurent, he had decidedly become a poltroon44 since the night he had taken fright when passing before the cellar door. Previous to that incident he had lived with the confidence of a brute45; now, at the least sound, he trembled and turned pale like a little boy. A shudder of terror had suddenly shaken his limbs, and had clung to him. At night, he suffered even more than Therese; and fright, in this great, soft, cowardly frame, produced profound laceration to the feelings. He watched the fall of day with cruel apprehension46. On several occasions, he failed to return home, and passed whole nights walking in the middle of the deserted47 streets.
Once he remained beneath a bridge, until morning, while the rain poured down in torrents48; and there, huddled49 up, half frozen, not daring to rise and ascend50 to the quay51, he for nearly six hours watched the dirty water running in the whitish shadow. At times a fit of terror brought him flat down on the damp ground: under one of the arches of the bridge he seemed to see long lines of drowned bodies drifting along in the current. When weariness drove him home, he shut himself in, and double-locked the door. There he struggled until daybreak amidst frightful52 attacks of fever.
The same nightmare returned persistently53: he fancied he fell from the ardent54 clasp of Therese into the cold, sticky arms of Camille. He dreamt, first of all, that his sweetheart was stifling55 him in a warm embrace, and then that the corpse56 of the drowned man pressed him to his chest in an ice-like strain. These abrupt24 and alternate sensations of voluptuousness57 and disgust, these successive contacts of burning love and frigid58 death, set him panting for breath, and caused him to shudder and gasp59 in anguish.
Each day, the terror of the lovers increased, each day their attacks of nightmare crushed and maddened them the more. They no longer relied on their kisses to drive away insomnia. By prudence, they did not dare make appointments, but looked forward to their wedding-day as a day of salvation60, to be followed by an untroubled night.
It was their desire for calm slumber42 that made them wish for their union. They had hesitated during the hours of indifference, both being oblivious61 of the egotistic and impassioned reasons that had urged them to the crime, and which were now dispelled62. It was in vague despair that they took the supreme63 resolution to unite openly. At the bottom of their hearts they were afraid. They had leant, so to say, one on the other above an unfathomable depth, attracted to it by its horror. They bent64 over the abyss together, clinging silently to one another, while feelings of intense giddiness enfeebled their limbs and gave them falling madness.
But at the present moment, face to face with their anxious expectation and timorous65 desires, they felt the imperative66 necessity of closing their eyes, and of dreaming of a future full of amorous67 felicity and peaceful enjoyment. The more they trembled one before the other, the better they foresaw the horror of the abyss to the bottom of which they were about to plunge68, and the more they sought to make promises of happiness to themselves, and to spread out before their eyes the invincible69 facts that fatally led them to marriage.
Therese desired her union with Laurent solely70 because she was afraid and wanted a companion. She was a prey71 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 stouter72 constitution, while giving way to his terror and his desire, had made up his mind to reason out his decision. To thoroughly73 prove to himself that his marriage was necessary, that he was at last going to be perfectly74 happy, and to drive away the vague fears that beset75 him, he resumed all his former calculations.
His father, the peasant of Jeufosse, seemed determined76 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 contemplate77 working all his life; already he began to find his office singularly tedious. The light labour entrusted78 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 Therese, 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, avowedly79 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 blessings80 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 Therese had been decided43 on. He also sought other advantages that would result therefrom, and felt delighted when he found a new argument, drawn81 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 shudders82 that gave his skin an icy chill, while at moments he continued to experience an anxiety that stifled83 his joy in his throat.
点击收听单词发音
1 feverish | |
adj.发烧的,狂热的,兴奋的 | |
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2 indifference | |
n.不感兴趣,不关心,冷淡,不在乎 | |
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3 insomnia | |
n.失眠,失眠症 | |
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4 writhed | |
(因极度痛苦而)扭动或翻滚( writhe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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5 disorder | |
n.紊乱,混乱;骚动,骚乱;疾病,失调 | |
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6 consanguinity | |
n.血缘;亲族 | |
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7 shudder | |
v.战粟,震动,剧烈地摇晃;n.战粟,抖动 | |
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8 shuddered | |
v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 );发抖;(机器、车辆等)突然震动;颤动 | |
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9 poignant | |
adj.令人痛苦的,辛酸的,惨痛的 | |
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10 wrung | |
绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 ); 握紧(尤指别人的手); 把(湿衣服)拧干; 绞掉(水) | |
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11 anguish | |
n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦,烦恼 | |
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12 enjoyment | |
n.乐趣;享有;享用 | |
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13 mutual | |
adj.相互的,彼此的;共同的,共有的 | |
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14 penetration | |
n.穿透,穿人,渗透 | |
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15 physiological | |
adj.生理学的,生理学上的 | |
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16 riveted | |
铆接( rivet的过去式和过去分词 ); 把…固定住; 吸引; 引起某人的注意 | |
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17 shackled | |
给(某人)带上手铐或脚镣( shackle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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18 fetters | |
n.脚镣( fetter的名词复数 );束缚v.给…上脚镣,束缚( fetter的第三人称单数 ) | |
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19 reposed | |
v.将(手臂等)靠在某人(某物)上( repose的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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20 delightful | |
adj.令人高兴的,使人快乐的 | |
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21 equilibrium | |
n.平衡,均衡,相称,均势,平静 | |
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22 peril | |
n.(严重的)危险;危险的事物 | |
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23 prudence | |
n.谨慎,精明,节俭 | |
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24 abrupt | |
adj.突然的,意外的;唐突的,鲁莽的 | |
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25 abruptly | |
adv.突然地,出其不意地 | |
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26 worthy | |
adj.(of)值得的,配得上的;有价值的 | |
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27 devoured | |
吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 ); 耗尽; 津津有味地看; 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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28 impatience | |
n.不耐烦,急躁 | |
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29 stiffened | |
加强的 | |
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30 irritation | |
n.激怒,恼怒,生气 | |
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31 cowardice | |
n.胆小,怯懦 | |
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32 exterior | |
adj.外部的,外在的;表面的 | |
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33 yearned | |
渴望,切盼,向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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34 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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35 fiery | |
adj.燃烧着的,火红的;暴躁的;激烈的 | |
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36 tongs | |
n.钳;夹子 | |
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37 enervation | |
n.无活力,衰弱 | |
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38 glimmers | |
n.微光,闪光( glimmer的名词复数 )v.发闪光,发微光( glimmer的第三人称单数 ) | |
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39 phantoms | |
n.鬼怪,幽灵( phantom的名词复数 ) | |
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40 fatigue | |
n.疲劳,劳累 | |
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41 slumbered | |
微睡,睡眠(slumber的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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42 slumber | |
n.睡眠,沉睡状态 | |
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43 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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44 poltroon | |
n.胆怯者;懦夫 | |
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45 brute | |
n.野兽,兽性 | |
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46 apprehension | |
n.理解,领悟;逮捕,拘捕;忧虑 | |
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47 deserted | |
adj.荒芜的,荒废的,无人的,被遗弃的 | |
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48 torrents | |
n.倾注;奔流( torrent的名词复数 );急流;爆发;连续不断 | |
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49 huddled | |
挤在一起(huddle的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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50 ascend | |
vi.渐渐上升,升高;vt.攀登,登上 | |
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51 quay | |
n.码头,靠岸处 | |
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52 frightful | |
adj.可怕的;讨厌的 | |
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53 persistently | |
ad.坚持地;固执地 | |
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54 ardent | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,强烈的,烈性的 | |
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55 stifling | |
a.令人窒息的 | |
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56 corpse | |
n.尸体,死尸 | |
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57 voluptuousness | |
n.风骚,体态丰满 | |
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58 frigid | |
adj.寒冷的,凛冽的;冷淡的;拘禁的 | |
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59 gasp | |
n.喘息,气喘;v.喘息;气吁吁他说 | |
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60 salvation | |
n.(尤指基督)救世,超度,拯救,解困 | |
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61 oblivious | |
adj.易忘的,遗忘的,忘却的,健忘的 | |
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62 dispelled | |
v.驱散,赶跑( dispel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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63 supreme | |
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的 | |
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64 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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65 timorous | |
adj.胆怯的,胆小的 | |
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66 imperative | |
n.命令,需要;规则;祈使语气;adj.强制的;紧急的 | |
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67 amorous | |
adj.多情的;有关爱情的 | |
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68 plunge | |
v.跳入,(使)投入,(使)陷入;猛冲 | |
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69 invincible | |
adj.不可征服的,难以制服的 | |
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70 solely | |
adv.仅仅,唯一地 | |
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71 prey | |
n.被掠食者,牺牲者,掠食;v.捕食,掠夺,折磨 | |
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72 stouter | |
粗壮的( stout的比较级 ); 结实的; 坚固的; 坚定的 | |
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73 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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74 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
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75 beset | |
v.镶嵌;困扰,包围 | |
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76 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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77 contemplate | |
vt.盘算,计议;周密考虑;注视,凝视 | |
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78 entrusted | |
v.委托,托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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79 avowedly | |
adv.公然地 | |
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80 blessings | |
n.(上帝的)祝福( blessing的名词复数 );好事;福分;因祸得福 | |
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81 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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82 shudders | |
n.颤动,打颤,战栗( shudder的名词复数 )v.战栗( shudder的第三人称单数 );发抖;(机器、车辆等)突然震动;颤动 | |
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83 stifled | |
(使)窒息, (使)窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 ); 镇压,遏制; 堵 | |
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