'Heh! Aren't you hungry?' shouted Camille at her.
'Yes,' she replied.
'Then, come on!' said he.
Therese was not hungry; but felt tired and uneasy. She was in ignorance as to the designs of Laurent, and her lower limbs were trembling with anxiety.
The three, returning to the riverside, found a restaurant, where they seated themselves at table on a sort of terrace formed of planks in an indifferent eating-house reeking with the odour of grease and wine. This place resounded with cries, songs, and the clatter of plates and dishes. In each private room and public saloon, were parties talking in loud voices, and the thin partitions gave vibrating sonority to all this riot. The waiters, ascending to the upper rooms, caused the staircase to shake.
Above, on the terrace, the puffs of air from the river drove away the smell of fat. Therese, leaning over the balustrade, observed the quay. To right and left, extended two lines of wine-shops and shanties of showmen. Beneath the arbours in the gardens of the former, amid the few remaining yellow leaves, one perceived the white tablecloths, the dabs of black formed by men's coats, and the brilliant skirts of women. People passed to and fro, bareheaded, running, and laughing; and with the bawling noise of the crowd, was mingled the lamentable strains of the barrel organs. An odour of dust and frying food hung in the calm air.
Below Therese, some tarts from the Latin Quarter were dancing in a ring on a patch of worn turf singing an infantine roundelay. With hats fallen on their shoulders, and hair unbound, they held one another by the hands, playing like little children. They still managed to find a small thread of fresh voice, and their pale countenances, ruffled by brutal caresses, became tenderly coloured with virgin-like blushes, while their great impure eyes filled with moisture. A few students, smoking clean clay pipes, who were watching them as they turned round, greeted them with ribald jests.
And beyond, on the Seine, on the hillocks, descended the serenity of night, a sort of vague bluish mist, which bathed the trees in transparent vapour.
'Heh! Waiter!' shouted Laurent, leaning over the banister, 'what about this dinner?'
Then, changing his mind, he turned to Camille and said:
'I say, Camille, let us go for a pull on the river before sitting down to table. It will give them time to roast the fowl. We shall be bored to death waiting an hour here.'
'As you like,' answered Camille carelessly. 'But Therese is hungry.'
'No, no, I can wait,' hastened to say the young woman, at whom Laurent was fixedly looking.
All three went downstairs again. Passing before the rostrum where the lady cashier was seated, they retained a table, and decided on a menu, saying they would return in an hour. As the host let out pleasure boats, they asked him to come and detach one. Laurent selected a skiff, which appeared so light that Camille was terrified by its fragility.
'The deuce,' said he, 'we shall have to be careful not to move about in this, otherwise we shall get a famous ducking.'
The truth was that the clerk had a horrible dread of the water. At Vernon, his sickly condition did not permit him, when a child, to go and dabble in the Seine. Whilst his schoolfellows ran and threw themselves into the river, he lay abed between a couple of warm blankets. Laurent had become an intrepid swimmer, and an indefatigable oarsman. Camille had preserved that terror for deep water which is inherent in women and children. He tapped the end of the boat with his foot to make sure of its solidity.
'Come, get in,' cried Laurent with a laugh, 'you're always trembling.'
Camille stepped over the side, and went staggering to seat himself at the stern. When he felt the planks under him, he was at ease, and joked to show his courage.
Therese had remained on the bank, standing grave and motionless beside her sweetheart, who held the rope. He bent down, and rapidly murmured in an undertone:
'Be careful. I am going to pitch him in the river. Obey me. I answer for everything.'
The young woman turned horribly pale. She remained as if riveted to the ground. She was rigid, and her eyes had opened wider.
'Get into the boat,' Laurent murmured again.
She did not move. A terrible struggle was passing within her. She strained her will with all her might, to avoid bursting into sobs, and falling to the ground.
'Ah! ah!' cried Camille. 'Laurent, just look at Therese. It's she who is afraid. She'll get in; no, she won't get in.'
He had now spread himself out on the back seat, his two arms on the sides of the boat, and was showing off with fanfaronade. The chuckles of this poor man were like cuts from a whip to Therese, lashing and urging her on. She abruptly sprang into the boat, remaining in the bows. Laurent grasped the skulls. The skiff left the bank, advancing slowly towards the isles.
Twilight came. Huge shadows fell from the trees, and the water ran black at the edges. In the middle of the river were great, pale, silver trails. The boat was soon in full steam. There, all the sounds of the quays softened; the singing, and the cries came vague and melancholy, with sad languidness. The odour of frying and dust had passed away. The air freshened. It turned cold.
Laurent, resting on his skulls, allowed the boat to drift along in the current.
Opposite, rose the great reddish mass of trees on the islands. The two sombre brown banks, patched with grey, were like a couple of broad bands stretching towards the horizon. The water and sky seemed as if cut from the same whitish piece of material. Nothing looks more painfully calm than an autumn twilight. The sun rays pale in the quivering air, the old trees cast their leaves. The country, scorched by the ardent beams of summer, feels death coming with the first cold winds. And, in the sky, there are plaintive sighs of despair. Night falls from above, bringing winding sheets in its shade.
The party were silent. Seated at the bottom of the boat drifting with the stream, they watched the final gleams of light quitting the tall branches. They approached the islands. The great russety masses grew sombre; all the landscape became simplified in the twilight; the Seine, the sky, the islands, the slopes were naught but brown and grey patches which faded away amidst milky fog.
Camille, who had ended by lying down on his stomach, with his head over the water, dipped his hands in the river.
'The deuce! How cold it is!' he exclaimed. 'It would not be pleasant to go in there head foremost.'
Laurent did not answer. For an instant he had been observing the two banks of the river with uneasiness. He advanced his huge hands to his knees, tightly compressing his lips. Therese, rigid and motionless, with her head thrown slightly backward, waited.
The skiff was about to enter a small arm of the river, that was sombre and narrow, penetrating between two islands. Behind one of these islands could be distinguished the softened melody of a boating party who seemed to be ascending the Seine. Up the river in the distance, the water was free.
Then Laurent rose and grasped Camille round the body. The clerk burst into laughter.
'Ah, no, you tickle me,' said he, 'none of those jokes. Look here, stop; you'll make me fall over.'
Laurent grasped him tighter, and gave a jerk. Camille turning round, perceived the terrifying face of his friend, violently agitated. He failed to understand. He was seized with vague terror. He wanted to shout, and felt a rough hand seize him by the throat. With the instinct of an animal on the defensive, he rose to his knees, clutching the side of the boat, and struggled for a few seconds.
'Therese! Therese!' he called in a stifling, sibilant voice.
The young woman looked at him, clinging with both hands to the seat. The skiff creaked and danced upon the river. She could not close her eyes, a frightful contraction kept them wide open riveted on the hideous struggle. She remained rigid and mute.
'Therese! Therese!' again cried the unfortunate man who was in the throes of death.
At this final appeal, Therese burst into sobs. Her nerves had given way. The attack she had been dreading, cast her to the bottom of the boat, where she remained doubled up in a swoon, and as if dead.
Laurent continued tugging at Camille, pressing with one hand on his throat. With the other hand he ended by tearing his victim away from the side of the skiff, and held him up in the air, in his powerful arms, like a child. As he bent down his head, his victim, mad with rage and terror, twisted himself round, and reaching forward with his teeth, buried them in the neck of his aggressor. And when the murderer, restraining a yell of pain, abruptly flung the
