Therese Raquin / Emil Zola

 

 

 

돈을 아끼기 위해 킨들에 있는 무료 영문번역본을 읽었다. 

박찬욱의 <박쥐>도 처음 봤을 때는 무척 기빨리는 영화라고 생각했는데 원작에 비하면 한참 순한 맛이다. 태주랑 상현이는 애증에서 '애'가 좀 더 강한 관계라면 이쪽은 '증'이 더 강해서 읽는동안 정말 무기력해짐.... 끔찍하기 짝이 없는 상황도 무미건조하게 서술되니 웬만한 공포소설보다도 무서웠다. 나는 남의 망한 사랑 이야기를 참으로 좋아하는데 (그래서 <박쥐>나 <폭풍의 언덕>은 좋아하지만 제인 오스틴 소설이라던가 로맨스 영화 따위는 못 봄..) 이 소설은 망하다 못해 아주 주옥된 사랑 이야기라서 감당하기 어려웠다. 그래도 망사랑 좋아요♥

* 등장인물들을 <박쥐>와 비교해 보자면 태주는 테레즈보다 훨씬 거침없는 성격이 되었고, 강우는 카밀보다 멍청해졌으며 (책에선 병약해서 그렇지 나름 강우보다 빠릿빠릿해서 의외였음) 상현은 로랑보다 선량해지고...... 못...생겨졌다.. ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ 원작의 로랑은 욜로 라이프를 추구하는 마초남이라 왠지 6, 70년대 프랑스에서 영화화되었으면 알랭 들롱이 적격일 인물처럼 느껴졌는데 이런 캐릭터에서 고뇌하는 드라큘라 신부님을 끄집어낸 박찬욱의 머릿속이 너무 궁금하다. 

그리고 영화에 나오는 오아시스 멤버들은 원작에선 마작이 아니라 도미노를 하는데 사람 지긋지긋하게 만드는 변태 아저씨들 느낌보다는 착하지만 별 도움 안되는 이웃들 느낌이 더 강하다. 

 

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In reality he was an idle fellow, with the appetite of a full-blooded man for everything, and very pronounced ideas as to easy and lasting employment. The only ambition of this great powerful frame was to do nothing, to grovel in idleness and satiation from hour to hour. He wanted to eat well, sleep well, to abundantly satisfy his passions, without moving from his place, without running the risk of the slightest fatigue.

 

 

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The dream lasted so long as daddy Laurent sent the crown pieces. But when the young man, who was already thirty, perceived the wolf at the door, he began to reflect. Face to face with privations, he felt himself a coward. He would not have accepted a day without bread, for the utmost glory art could bestow. As he had said himself, he sent art to the deuce, as soon as he recognised that it would never suffice to satisfy his numerous requirements. His first efforts had been below mediocrity; his peasant eyes caught a clumsy, slovenly view of nature; his muddy, badly drawn, grimacing pictures, defied all criticism.

 

 

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“I do not wish them any harm. They brought me up, they received me, and shielded me from misery. But I should have preferred abandonment to their hospitality. I had a burning desire for the open air. When quite young, my dream was to rove barefooted along the dusty roads, holding out my hand for charity, living like a gipsy.

 

 

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On two occasions, I wanted to run away, to go straight before me, towards the sun; but my courage failed. They had turned me into a docile brute with their tame benevolence and sickly tenderness. Then I lied, I always lied. I remained there quite gentle, quite silent, dreaming of striking and biting.”

 

 

 

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She experienced extraordinary pleasure in deceiving Camille and Madame Raquin. She was aware she was doing wrong, and at times she felt a ferocious desire to rise from table and smother Laurent with kisses, just to show her husband and aunt that she was not a fool, and that she had a sweetheart.

 

 

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Then Grivet and Camille listened to the stories of the commissary with the affrighted and gaping countenances of small children listening to “Blue Beard” or “Tom Thumb.” These tales terrified and amused them.

 

 

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Camille was hideous. He had been a fortnight in the water. His face still appeared firm and rigid; the features were preserved, but the skin had taken a yellowish, muddy tint. The thin, bony, and slightly tumefied head, wore a grimace. It was a trifle inclined on one side, with the hair sticking to the temples, and the lids raised, displaying the dull globes of the eyes. The twisted lips were drawn to a corner of the mouth in an atrocious grin; and a piece of blackish tongue appeared between the white teeth. This head, which looked tanned and drawn out lengthwise, while preserving a human appearance, had remained all the more frightful with pain and terror. The body seemed a mass of ruptured flesh; it had suffered horribly. You could feel that the arms no longer held to their sockets; and the clavicles were piercing the skin of the shoulders. The ribs formed black bands on the greenish chest; the left side, ripped open, was gaping amidst dark red shreds. All the torso was in a state of putrefaction. The extended legs, although firmer, were daubed with dirty patches. The feet dangled down.

 

 

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They had a thousand facilities for enjoying the freedom that had been their dream, and the attainment of which had urged them on to murder. Madame Raquin, impotent and childish, ceased to be an obstacle. The house belonged to them. They could go abroad where they pleased. But love did not trouble them, its fire had died out. They remained there, calmly talking, looking at one another without reddening and without a thrill. They even avoided being alone. In their intimacy, they found nothing to say, and both were afraid that they appeared too cold. When they exchanged a pressure of the hand, they experienced a sort of discomfort at the touch of their skins.

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At moments, she became disturbed by thoughts of Camille, and she dreamt of Laurent and fresh love, full ofterror and distrust. She again became a prey to anguish. At one moment she sought for the means of marrying her sweetheart at that very instant, at another she had an idea of running away never to see him again.

 

 

 

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He ascended to the other floors more gently, holding aloft his candle, lighting all the corners before which he had to pass. The great fantastic shadows that come and go, in ascending a staircase with a light, caused him vague discomfort, as they suddenly rose and disappeared before him.

 

 

 

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Hitherto the drowned man had not troubled him at night. And behold the thought of Therese brought up the spectre of her husband. The murderer dared not open his eyes, afraid of perceiving his victim in a corner of the room.

 

 

 

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Then, the long drive on the boulevards had soothed them and made them drowsy. It appeared to them that this drive lasted months. Nevertheless, they allowed themselves to be taken through the monotonous streets without displaying impatience, looking at the shops and people with sparkless eyes, overcome by a numbness that made them feel stupid, and which they endeavoured to shake off by bursting into fits of laughter. When they entered the restaurant, they were weighed down by oppressive fatigue, while increasing stupor continued to settle on them.

 

 

 

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Waiting had extinguished the flame that had formerly fired them. All the past had disappeared. They had forgotten their violent passion, they forgot even their joy of the morning, that profound joy they had experienced at the thought that they would no more be afraid. They were simply wearied and bewildered at all that was taking place. The events of the day turned round and round in their heads, appearing incomprehensible and monstrous. They sat there mute and smiling, expecting nothing, hoping for nothing. Mingled with their dejection of spirits, was a restless anxiety that proved vaguely painful.

 

 

 

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Remembrances were abandoned. The spectre of Camille which had been evoked, came and seated itself between the newly married pair, in front of the flaming fire. Therese and Laurent recognised the cold, damp smell of the drowned man in the warm air they were breathing.

 

 

 

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His own work astonished and crushed him by its atrocious ugliness; particularly the two eyes which seemed floating in soft, yellowish orbits, reminding him exactly of the decomposed eyes of the drowned man at the Morgue.

 

 

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During the daytime he laughed at himself for his fright, making up his mind to be stronger, and he harshly rebuked Therese, whom he accused of troubling him. According to what he said, it was Therese who shuddered, it was Therese alone who brought on the frightful scenes, at night, in the bedroom.

 

 

 

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Therese got into bed first, and lay down close to the wall. Laurent waited until she had made herself quite comfortable, and then ventured to stretch himself out at the opposite edge of the mattress, so that there was a broad space between them. It was there that the corpse of Camille lay. When the two murderers were extended under the same sheet, and had closed their eyes, they fancied they felt the damp corpse of their victim, lying in the middle of the bed, and turning their flesh icy cold. It was like a vile obstacle separating them. They were seized with fever and delirium, and this obstacle, in their minds, became material.

 

 

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Laurent had, perhaps, become an artist as he had become afraid, after the great disorder that had upset his frame and mind.

 

 

 

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The sort of moral malady, the neurosis wherewith all his being was agitated, had developed an artistic feeling of peculiar lucidity.

 

 

 

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At eight o’clock, Laurent went to his studio, Therese descended to the shop, while the paralyzed woman remained alone in the dining-room until noon; then, after lunch, she found herself without company again until six o’clock.

 

 

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Her mind resembled those of the living buried by mistake, who awaken in the middle of the night in the earth, three or four yards below the surface of the ground. They shout, they struggle, and people pass over them without hearing their atrocious lamentations.

 

 

 

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Since her twisted and inert lips could no longer smile, she smiled with adorable tenderness, by her looks; moist beams and rays of dawn issued from her orbits. Nothing was more peculiar than those eyes which laughed like lips in this lifeless countenance. The lower part of the face remained gloomy and wan, while the upper part was divinely lit up.

 

 

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Therese had a bad fright about five months after her marriage to Laurent. She found out she was pregnant and detested the thought of having a child of Laurent’s. She had the fear that she would give birth to a drowned body. She thought that she could feel inside herself a soft, decomposing corpse. No matter what, she had to rid herself of this child. She did not tell Laurent. One day she cruelly provoked him and turned her stomach towards him, hoping to receive a kick. He kicked her and she let him go on kicking her in the stomach until she thought she would die. The next day her wish was fulfilled and she had a miscarriage.

 

 

(책의 90%까지 읽었을 때 나온 대목이었는데 너무 멘탈 갈려서 비명 지르고 싶었음)

 

 

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When there is no hope in the future, the present appears atrociously bitter.