The result was like lightning.
The couple fell one atop of the other, struck down, finding consolation,
at last, in death. The mouth of the young woman rested on the scar that
the teeth of Camille had left on the neck of her husband.
The corpses lay all night, spread out contorted, on the dining-room
floor, lit up by the yellow gleams from the lamp, which the shade cast
upon them. And for nearly twelve hours, in fact until the following day
at about noon, Madame Raquin, rigid and mute, contemplated them at her
feet, overwhelming them with her heavy gaze, and unable to sufficiently
gorge her eyes with the hideous sight.
AFTERWORD
The idea of the plot of "Therese Raquin," according to M. Paul Alexis,
Zola's biographer, came from a novel called "La Venus de Gordes"
contributed to the "Figaro" by Adolphe Belot and Ernest Daudet--the
brother of Alphonse Daudet--in collaboration. In this story the authors
dealt with the murder of a man by his wife and her paramour, followed by
the trial of the murderers at the assizes. Zola, in noticing the book in
the "Figaro," when it arrived for review, pointed out that a much more
powerful story might be written on the same subject by invoking divine
instead of human justice.
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