The sole advantage they derived from
their disputes, consisted in producing a tempest of words and cries, and
the riot occasioned in this manner momentarily deafened them.
And all the time their anger lasted, all the time they were accusing one
another, the paralysed woman never ceased to gaze at them. Ardent joy
sparkled in her eyes, when Laurent raised his broad hand above the head
of Therese.
CHAPTER XXIX
Matters now took a different aspect. Therese, driven into a corner by
fright, not knowing which way to turn for a consoling thought, began to
weep aloud over the drowned man, in the presence of Laurent.
She abruptly became depressed, her overstrained nerves relaxed,
her unfeeling and violent nature softened. She had already felt
compassionate in the early days of her second marriage, and this feeling
now returned, as a necessary and fatal reaction.
When the young woman had struggled with all her nervous energy against
the spectre of Camille, when she had lived in sullen irritation for
several months up in arms against her sufferings, seeking to get the
better of them by efforts of will, she all at once experienced such
extraordinary lassitude that she yielded vanquished.
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