s 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 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, 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 wa