violently away, giving a dismal groan. It seemed to him that she was
pressing a red-hot iron to his neck. Therese, half mad, came back.
She wanted to kiss the scar again. She experienced a keenly voluptuous
sensation in placing her mouth on this piece of skin wherein Camille had
buried his teeth.

At one moment she thought of biting her husband in the same place, of
tearing away a large piece of flesh, of making a fresh and deeper wound,
that would remove the trace of the old one. And she said to herself that
she would no more turn pale when she saw the marks of her own teeth.
But Laurent shielded his neck from her kisses. The smarting pain he
experienced was too acute, and each time his wife presented her lips, he
pushed her back. They struggled in this manner with a rattling in their
throats, writhing in the horror of their caresses.

They distinctly felt that they only increased their suffering. They
might well strain one another in these terrible clasps, they cried out
with pain, they burnt and bruised each other, but were unable to calm
their frightfully excited nerves. Each strain rendered their disgust
more intense. While exchanging these ghastly embraces, they were a prey
to the most terrible hallucinations, imagining that the drowned man was
dragging them by the heels, and violently jerking the bedstead.

For a moment they let one another go, feeling repugnance and invincible
nervous agitation. Then they determined not to be conquered. They
clasped each other again in a fresh embrace, and once more were obliged
to separate, for it seemed as if red-hot bradawls were entering their
limbs. At several intervals they attempted in this way to overcome their
disgust, by tiring, by wearing out their nerves. And each time their
nerves became irritated and strained, causing them such exasperation,