Laurent then became seized with sullen rage. He smashed the canvas with
his fist, thinking in despair of his great picture. Now, he must put
that idea aside; he was convinced that, in future, he would draw nothing
but the head of Camille, and as his friend had told him, faces all alike
would cause hilarity. He pictured to himself what his work would have
been, and perceived upon the shoulders of his personages, men and women,
the livid and terrified face of the drowned man. The strange picture he
thus conjured up, appeared to him atrociously ridiculous and exasperated
him.
He no longer dared to paint, always dreading that he would resuscitate
his victim at the least stroke of his brush. If he desired to live
peacefully in his studio he must never paint there. This thought that
his fingers possessed the fatal and unconscious faculty of reproducing
without end the portrait of Camille, made him observe his hand in
terror. It seemed to him that his hand no longer belonged to him.
CHAPTER XXVI
The crisis threatening Madame Raquin took place. The paralysis, which
for several months had been creeping along her limbs, always ready to
strangle her, at last took her by the throat and linked her body.
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