ed atrocious
scenes of choking, blows, abominable cries, shameless brutalities. As a
rule, Therese and Laurent became exasperated, in this manner, after the
evening meal. They shut themselves up in the dining-room, so that the
sound of their despair should not be heard. There, they could devour
one another at ease. At the end of this damp apartment, of this sort of
vault, lighted by the yellow beams of the lamp, the tone of their voices
took harrowing sharpness, amidst the silence and tranquillity of the
atmosphere. And they did not cease until exhausted with fatigue; then
only could they go and enjoy a few hours' rest. Their quarrels became,
in a measure, necessary to them--a means of procuring a few hours' rest
by stupefying their nerves.

Madame Raquin listened. She never ceased to be there, in her armchair,
her hands dangling on her knees, her head straight, her face mute. She
heard everything, and not a shudder ran through her lifeless frame.
Her eyes rested on the murderers with the most acute fixedness. Her
martyrdom must have been atrocious. She thus learned, detail by detail,
all the events that had preceded and followed the murder of Camille.
Little by little her ears became polluted with an account of the filth
and crimes of those whom she had called her children.

These quarrels of the married couple placed her in possession of the
most minute circumstances connected with the murder, and spread out,
one by one, before her terrified mind, all the episodes of the horrible
adventure. As she went deeper into this sanguinary filth, she pleaded in
her mind for mercy, at times, she fancied she was touching the bottom of
the infamy, and still she had to descend lower. Each night, she learnt
some new detail. The frightful story continued to expand before her.
It seemed like being lost in an interminable dream of horror. The first
avowal had been brutal and crushing, but she suffered more from these
repeated blows, from these small facts which the husband and wife
allowed to escape them in their fits of anger, and which lit up the
crime with sinister rays. Once a day, this mother heard the account
of the murder of her son; and, each day this account became more
horrifying, more replete with detail, and was shouted into her ears with
greater cruelty and uproar.

On one occasion, Therese, taken aback with remorse, at the sight of
this wan countenance, with great tears slowly coursing down its cheeks,
pointed out her