They felt the invincible
necessity to kill one another, and yielded to this necessity like
furious brutes. They would not have exposed themselves for their first
crime, which they had so cleverly concealed, and yet they risked the
guillotine, in committing a second, which they did not even attempt to
hide.
Here was a contradiction in their conduct that they never so much as
caught sight of. Both simply said to themselves that if they succeeded
in fleeing, they would go and live abroad, taking all the cash with
them. Therese, a fortnight or three weeks before, had drawn from the
bank the few thousand francs that remained of her marriage portion, and
kept them locked up in a drawer--a circumstance that had not escaped
Laurent. The fate of Madame Raquin did not trouble them an instant.
A few weeks previously, Laurent had met one of his old college friends,
now acting as dispenser to a famous chemist, who gave considerable
attention to toxicology. This friend had shown him over the laboratory
where he worked, pointing out to him the apparatus and the drugs.
One night, after he had made up his mind in regard to the murder, and
as Therese was drinking a glass of sugar and water before him, Laurent
remembered that he had seen in this laboratory a small stoneware flagon,
containing prussic acid, and that the young dispenser had spoken to him
of the terrible effects of this poison, which strikes the victim down
with sudden death, leaving but few traces behind.
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