hand,
which had just betrayed her. She felt it as heavy as lead, now; never
would she be able to raise it again. Providence would not permit Camille
to be avenged. It withdrew from his mother the only means she had of
making known the crime to which he had fallen a victim. And the wretched
woman said to herself that she was now only fit to go and join her child
underground. She lowered her lids, feeling herself, henceforth, useless,
and with the desire of imagining herself already in the darkness of the
tomb.

CHAPTER XXVIII

For two months, Therese and Laurent had been struggling in the anguish
of their union. One suffered through the other. Then hatred slowly
gained them, and they ended by casting angry glances at one another,
full of secret menace.

Hatred was forced to come. They had loved like brutes, with hot passion,
entirely sanguineous. Then, amidst the enervation of their crime, their
love had turned to fright, and their kisses had produced a sort of
physical terror. At present, amid the suffering which marriage, which
life in common imposed on them, they revolted and flew into anger.

It was a bitter hatred, with terrible outbursts. They felt they were in
the way of one another, and both inwardly said that they would lead a
tranquil existence were they not always face to face. When in presence
of each other, it seemed as if an enormous weight were stifling them,
and they would have liked to remove this weight, to destroy it. Their
lips were pinched, thoughts of violence passed in their clear eyes, and
a craving beset them to devour one another.

In reality, one single thought tormented them: they were irritated at
their crime, and in despair at having for ever troubled their lives.
Hence all their anger and hatred. They felt the evil incurable, that
they would suffer for the murder of Camille until death, and this idea
of perpetual suffering exasperated them. Not knowing whom to strike,
they turned in hatred on one another.

They would not openly admit that their marriage was the final punishment
of the murder; they refused to listen to the inner voice that shouted
out the truth to them, displaying the story of their life before their
eyes. And yet, in the fits of rage that bestirred them, they both saw
clearly to the bottom of their anger, they were aware it was the furious
impulse of their egotistic nature that had urged them to murder in order
to satisfy their desire, and that they had only fou