[Therese Raquin by Emile Zola]@TWC D-Link book
Therese Raquin

CHAPTER XXXII
7/8

Therese took the glass, half emptied it, and handed it to Laurent who drank off the remainder of the contents at one draught.

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.


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