Now, he turned round, and at the
sight of the gulf he had just cleared, grew faint with terror.
"Assuredly, I must have been drunk," thought he; "that woman must have
intoxicated me with caresses. Good heavens! I was a fool and mad! I
risked the guillotine in a business like that. Fortunately it passed off
all right. But if it had to be done again, I would not do it."
Laurent lost all his vigor. He became inactive, and more cowardly and
prudent than ever. He grew fat and flabby. No one who had studied this
great body, piled up in a lump, apparently without bones or muscles,
would ever have had the idea of accusing the man of violence and
cruelty.
He resumed his former habits. For several months, he proved himself a
model clerk, doing his work with exemplary brutishness. At night, he
took his meal at a cheap restaurant in the Rue Saint-Victor, cutting his
bread into thin slices, masticating his food slowly, making his repast
last as long as possible. When it was over, he threw himself back
against the wall and smoked his pipe. Anyone might have taken him for
a stout, good-natured father. In the daytime, he thought of nothing; at
night, he reposed in heavy sleep free from dreams.
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