The young woman could
not make a gesture, or utter a word. She was as if frozen. Her aunt and
husband having come downstairs, she seated herself on a trunk, her hands
rigid, her throat full of sobs, and yet she could not cry.
Madame Raquin, face to face with reality, felt embarrassed, and ashamed
of her dreams. She sought to defend her acquisition. She found a remedy
for every fresh inconvenience that was discovered, explaining the
obscurity by saying the weather was overcast, and concluded by affirming
that a sweep-up would suffice to set everything right.
"Bah!" answered Camille, "all this is quite suitable. Besides, we shall
only come up here at night. I shall not be home before five or six
o'clock. As to you two, you will be together, so you will not be dull."
The young man would never have consented to inhabit such a den, had
he not relied on the comfort of his office. He said to himself that
he would be warm all day at his administration, and that, at night, he
would go to bed early.
For a whole week, the shop and lodging remained in disorder. Therese had
seated herself behind the counter from the first day, and she did not
move from that place. Madame Raquin was astonished at this depressed
attitude.
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