by Emile Zola
When Thérèse came home, she was very well behaved and very tall. Her parents were happy to see that she had developed a profound sense of piety. In church, she would remain deep in prayer, her forehead in her hands. At home, she spread about her an odour of innocence and peace. Only one small failing could be held against her: she was greedy; she ate sweets from morning to evening, sucking them with half-closed eyes, her red lips quivering slightly. No one would have recognised the mute and obstinate child who often returned from the garden with her clothes in shreds, refusing to say what games she had been playing to get all torn like that. The Marquis and Marquise, who had lived secluded for fifteen years in the depths of their empty residence, thought it was time to reopen their salon. They laid on a few dinner parties for the local nobility. They even held dances. Their plan was to marry Thérèse off. And, for all her coldness, she went along, dressing up and waltzing, but with such a white face that she unsettled the young men who ventured to fall in love with her.
Never had Thérèse said anything further about young Colombel. The Marquis had made arrangements for him and had just found him a position with M. Savournin the lawyer, after ensuring he had received a basic education. One day, Françoise, having brought her son along, thrust him forward in front of Thérèse, reminding the girl that he had once been her playmate. Colombel was smiling, spotlessly clean, quite unaffected. Thérèse looked at him calmly, said that, yes indeed, she did remember, then turned away. But a week later, Colombel returned, and soon he had resumed his former habits. He came to the house every evening, after work at the lawyer’s, bringing pieces of music, books, and albums. He was treated as if of no importance, and given errands to do, like a servant or a poor relative. He was a dependent of the family. So no one thought it amiss to leave him alone with the girl. Just as they had done long ago, they closeted themselves together in the big rooms, they spent hours under the leaves of the garden trees. Truth to tell, they no longer played the same games there. Thérèse walked slowly along, her dress swooshing gently through the grass. Colombel, dressed like the rich young men of the town, accompanied her, prodding the earth with a supple cane he always carried with him.
However, she slowly turned back into the queen and he into her slave. To be sure, she no longer bit him, but she had a way of walking next to him which, little by little, made him feel even smaller, changed him into a court lackey, holding up his sovereign lady’s robe. She tormented him with her whimsical moods, pouring out words of affection, and then becoming harsh, simply to entertain herself. He, on the other hand, would wait for her to look away and then dart a bright-eyed glance at her, as piercing as a sword thrust, and his whole body would stretch out its depraved young limbs as he watched and waited for the moment to enact the dreamt-of betrayal.
One summer evening, under the heavy foliage of the chestnut trees, they had been walking for quite a while when Thérèse, after a period of silence, asked him gravely, ‘I say, Colombel, I’m really tired. What if you carried me, remember, like you used to?’
He laughed a little. Then, perfectly seriously, he answered, ‘My pleasure, Thérèse.’
But she resumed her walk, saying simply, ‘It’s all right, I just wanted to know.’
They carried on walking. Night was falling, there was deep shadow beneath the trees. They talked about a lady in town who had just married an officer. As they were entering a narrower path, the young man moved to step aside and let her pass first; but she pushed against him violently, forcing him to walk ahead. Now they were both silent.
And, all at once, Thérèse leapt onto Colombel’s spine, with all the suppleness she had once had as a fierce little girl.
‘Right, off you go!’ she said, her voice changed, choked with the passion of former times.
She had torn the cane from his hands, and was beating his thighs with it. Clasping his shoulders, squeezing him tight enough to suffocate him between her vigorous horsewoman’s legs, she rode him wildly on through the dark shadowy undergrowth. She whipped him long and hard, spurring him on faster and faster. Colombel’s headlong gallop had him panting for breath over the grass. He hadn’t uttered a single word, he was breathing hard, stiffening on his stocky little legs, feeling this big girl’s warm weight crushing his neck.
But, when she shouted, ‘Enough!’, he didn’t stop. He galloped even faster, as if carried away by his own momentum. His hands, clasped behind him, were holding her so tightly round the knees that she couldn’t jump off. Now it was the horse that was filled with fury and carrying off its mistress. All at once, in spite of the stinging lashes of the cane and the scratches, he sped towards a shed that the gardener kept his tools in. There, he threw her to the ground, and he raped her on the straw. Finally, his turn had come to be the master.
Thérèse grew even paler, her lips redder and her eyes darker. She carried on with her life of piety. Some days later, the same scene happened all over again: she leapt onto Colombel’s back, tried to tame him, and again ended by being flung onto the straw of the shed. When they were in company, she treated him gently, continuing to show him the condescending attitude of a big sister. He too put on a demeanour of smiling serenity. They remained, as at the age of six, wild beasts, let loose and secretly amusing themselves with their bites. Now, however, the male was victorious when the hour struck for the disorders of desire.
Their love-life was tempestuous. Thérèse received Colombel in her bedroom. She had let him have a key to the little garden door, which opened onto the narrow street on the ramparts. At night, he was obliged to cross a first room in which slept his mother, of all people. But the lovers deployed such tranquil self-assurance that they were never surprised together. They went so far as to arrange to meet in broad daylight. Colombel arrived before dinner, Thérèse would be waiting for him, and the window closed so the neighbours wouldn’t see. At every hour of the day they felt the need to see each other, not to exchange the endearments of twenty-year-old lovers, but to resume the battle of their pride. Often, a quarrel would shake them, they traded insults in low tones, trembling with an anger all the more intense as they could not yield to their longing to shout out and fight.
So it was that one evening, before dinner, Colombel had come. Then, as he was pacing up and down in the bedroom, still barefoot and in shirtsleeves, he had had the idea of grabbing Thérèse and lifting her in the way a fairground strong man might when limbering up for a bout of wrestling. Thérèse tried to struggle free, saying, ‘Leave me alone, you know I’m stronger than you. I’d hurt you.’
Colombel laughed softly.
‘All right! Go on, hurt me,’ he murmured.
He was still shaking her, trying to bring her down. Then she folded her arms. They often played this game, yearning to do battle. As often as not, it was Colombel who fell flat on his back on the carpet, suffocating, his limbs floppy and slack. He was too small, she would pull him up and squeeze him against her with the grip of a giantess.
But, on this particular day, Thérèse slipped to her knees, and Colombel, suddenly lashing out, knocked her over. He stood there, exulting.
‘See, you’re not the strongest,’ he said with a derisory laugh.
She had turned pale with fury. She slowly got up, and, speechless, flew at him again, shaking with such anger that he in turn shuddered. Oh! if only she could strangle him, be rid of him, have him there inert, vanquished once and for all! For a minute they wrestled without a word, panting for breath, their bones cracking in their grip. And now it was no longer a game. The cold wind of murder was beating about their heads. He started to choke. She, afraid that they might be heard, pushed him over with one last terrible effort. His temple struck the corner of the chest of drawers, he fell heavily and lay full length on the ground.
Thérèse spent a minute getting her breath back. She tidied her hair in the mirror, smoothed out her skirt, affecting not to pay any attention to the defeated man. He could pick himself up. Then, she poked him with her foot. And, as he remained m
otionless, she finally bent over him, a chill running through the stray locks of hair at the back of her neck. Then, she saw Colombel’s face, white and waxen, his eyes glazed, his mouth twisted. On his right temple, there was a hole; the temple had been smashed in as he fell against the corner of the chest of drawers. Colombel was dead.
She straightened up, numb. She spoke out loud, into the silence.
‘Dead! Just look at him now, dead!’
And, all at once, the reality of the situation filled her with a dreadful anguish. Doubtless she had indeed, for a second, wanted to kill him. But this thought, inspired by anger, was silly. You always want to kill people when you’re fighting; but you never do kill them, because dead people are too much of a nuisance. No, no, she wasn’t guilty, she’d never wanted that. In her own bedroom, just imagine!
She continued to talk to herself, the broken words tumbling from her lips: ‘Well it’s all over… He’s dead, he won’t get out of here by himself.’
The cold stupor of the first moments was succeeded in her by a fever rising from her belly to her throat, like a wave of fire. She had a dead man in her bedroom. She would never be able to explain what he was doing there, barefoot, in shirtsleeves, with a hole in his temple. Her situation was hopeless.
Thérèse leant down to examine the wound. But terror froze her as she stood over the corpse. She heard Françoise, Colombel’s mother, going along the corridor. Other noises were audible, footsteps, voices, preparations for a party which was due to happen that same day. They might call her, come looking for her from one moment to the next. And that dead man lying there, the lover she had killed who was now a weight on her shoulders, crushing her with the burden of their illicit relationship!
Then, deafened by the clamour growing ever louder in her skull, she straightened up and began to pace round and round in her room. She was looking for a hole in which to throw this body that now obstructed her future, she looked under all the furniture, in every corner, shaking from head to foot, trembling with rage at her powerlessness. No, there wasn’t a hole, the alcove was not deep enough, the wardrobes were not wide enough, the whole bedroom refused to offer her any help. And yet it was there that they had exchanged their kisses in secret! He had come softly padding in like a sly tom-cat and had then padded off again. Never could she have believed he would be such a burden.
Thérèse was still capering with impatience, loping round the room with the crazy dance of a hunted beast, when she suddenly seemed to have an inspired idea. What if she threw Colombel out of the window? But he would be found, it would be easy to guess where he had fallen from. However, she had already lifted the curtain to look out onto the street; and, all at once, she noticed the young man in the house opposite, that flute-playing fool leaning out of his window with his usual hangdog appearance. She knew all too well his pale face, always turned to gaze at her, and which she had wearied of, as she could read such despicable tenderness in it. The sight of Julien, so humble and so loving, brought her up short. A smile lit up her pale face. That was where her safety lay. The fool opposite loved her with the devotion of a chained mastiff, which would obediently follow her into crime. Furthermore, she would compensate him with all her heart, with all her flesh. She had not loved him, as he was too gentle; but love him she would, she would buy him forever with the faithful gift of her body, if he dipped his hands in blood for her. Her red lips quivered momentarily, as at the taste of a terror-stricken love whose novelty allured her.
Then, with sudden energy, as if she had been picking up a bundle of linen, she lifted Colombel’s body and dragged it onto the bed. And, opening the window, she blew kisses to Julien.
4
Julien was pacing around in a nightmare. When he recognised Colombel on the bed, he was not surprised, he found it natural and simple. Yes, it could only be Colombel in the recesses of that alcove, his temple smashed in, his limbs sprawled out, in a pose of dreadful lust.
But meanwhile, Thérèse was talking to him at length. At first he did not hear, the words poured into his stupefied mind with a noise of confusion. Then, he realised that she was giving him orders, and he listened. He must not leave the bedroom now, but stay there until midnight, waiting for the house to be dark and empty. This party that the Marquis was giving would prevent them from acting any earlier; but in the final analysis it presented them with favourable circumstances, preoccupying everyone too much for them to think of coming upstairs to look for the girl. When the time came, Julien would lift the corpse onto his back, go down and throw it into the Chanteclair, at the bottom of the rue Beau-Soleil. Nothing could be easier, to judge from the tranquillity with which Thérèse explained the whole plan.
She stopped, and then, laying her hands on the young man’s shoulders, she asked, ‘You’ve understood then, it’s all agreed?’
He gave a start.
‘Yes, yes, anything you want. I am all yours.’
Then, gravely, she leant forward. As he didn’t understand what she wanted, she continued, ‘Kiss me.’
He planted a kiss on her icy forehead, shuddering. And both remained silent.
Thérèse had drawn shut the curtains round the bed. She sank into an armchair, where at last she rested, engulfed in the shadows. Julien, after remaining on his feet for a few minutes, also sat down on a chair. Françoise had left the room next door, only muffled noises came from the house, the room seemed to be sleeping as it slowly filled with darkness.
For almost an hour, nothing moved. Julien could hear, beating against his skull, heavy throbs that stopped him following any rational train of thought. He was in Thérèse’s room, and this filled him with happiness. Then, all at once, when he came to reflect that a man’s corpse was also there, in the recesses of that alcove whose curtains, as they grazed his skin, made him shudder, he felt faint. She had loved that little pipsqueak, good God! was it possible? He could forgive her for having killed him; what fired his blood was the sight of Colombel’s bare feet lying amidst the lacy bedclothes. How glad he would be to throw him into the Chanteclair, off the end of the bridge, into a deep dark spot that he knew well! They would both be rid of him, they would be able to have each other afterwards. Then, at the thought of that bliss he had not dared to dream of only that morning, he abruptly saw himself on the bed, on the very place where the corpse now lay, and the place was cold, and he felt a terrified revulsion.
Leaning far back into the depths of the armchair, Thérèse was motionless. Against the indistinct light of the window, he could just make out the high outline of her chignon. She sat with her face in her hands, and it was not possible to know the feelings that were thus overwhelming her. Was it a mere physical reaction to the terrible crisis she had just been through? Was it stifled remorse, was she sorry for that lover now sleeping his last sleep? Was she calmly hatching her escape plan, or was she concealing the ravages of fear on her face immersed in shadow? He could not guess.
The clock chimed, breaking the deep silence. Then, Thérèse rose slowly to her feet, lit the candles on her dressing-table; and she appeared in all her customary calm composure, rested and strong. She seemed to have forgotten the body lolling behind the pink silk curtains as she walked up and down in her room at the unhurried pace of a person with things to do in the sequestered tranquillity of her own room. Then, as she was letting down her hair, she said without even turning round, ‘I’m going to get dressed for this party… If anyone were to come, you could hide at the back of the alcove, all right?’
He continued to sit in his chair, looking at her. She was already treating him as a lover, as if the bloody complicity she had created between them had had the effect of a long liaison, allowing them to know each other intimately.
Her arms lifted, she dressed her hair. He was still gazing at her with a tremor, so desirable was she, with her bare back, delicate elbows casually flexing, and slender hands busy curling her hair. So was she trying to seduce him, to show him the mistress he was going to win, and thereby inspire him with
courage?
She had just put on her shoes, when they heard footsteps.
‘Hide in the alcove,’ she said in a low voice.
And, with a deft movement, she threw over Colombel’s stiff body all the underclothes she had just taken off, clothes still warm and imbued with her perfume.
It was Françoise who came in, saying, ‘They are waiting for you, mademoiselle.’
‘I’m coming, my dear,’ Thérèse tranquilly replied. ‘Just a minute! You can help me put on my dress.’
Julien, through a narrow gap in the curtains, could see the two women, and he shuddered at the girl’s boldness, his teeth chattering so loudly that he had gripped his jaw hard to stop anyone hearing. Right next to him, beneath the woman’s undershirt, he could see one of Colombel’s icy feet dangling. Imagine if Françoise, Colombel’s mother, had drawn the curtain aside and happened across her son’s foot, that bare foot sticking out!
‘Be careful,’ Thérèse was repeating, ‘slow down: you’re pulling the flowers off.’
Her voice was expressionless. She was smiling now, like any girl glad to be going to the ball. The dress was a white silk dress, covered all over with wild roses, their flowers white with a red-hued tip at their heart. And, when she stood in the middle of the room, she was like a great bouquet, virginal in her whiteness. Her bare arms, her bare neck blended into the whiteness of the silk.
