For a time, she seemed quite
absorbed in the contemplation of this man. She raised a corner of her
veil for one last look. Then she withdrew.
At moments, bands of lads arrived--young people between twelve and
fifteen, who leant with their hands against the glass, nudging one
another with their elbows, and making brutal observations.
At the end of a week, Laurent became disheartened. At night he dreamt
of the corpses he had seen in the morning. This suffering, this daily
disgust which he imposed on himself, ended by troubling him to such a
point, that he resolved to pay only two more visits to the place. The
next day, on entering the Morgue, he received a violent shock in the
chest. Opposite him, on a slab, Camille lay looking at him, extended on
his back, his head raised, his eyes half open.
The murderer slowly approached the glass, as if attracted there,
unable to detach his eyes from his victim. He did not suffer; he merely
experienced a great inner chill, accompanied by slight pricks on his
skin. He would have thought that he would have trembled more violently.
For fully five minutes, he stood motionless, lost in unconscious
contemplation, engraving, in spite of himself, in his memory, all the
horrible lines, all the dirty colours of the picture he had before his
eyes.
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