next day, on entering the Morgue, he received a violent shock in the
chest. Opposite him, on a slab, Camille lay looking at him, extended on
his back, his head raised, his eyes half open.

The murderer slowly approached the glass, as if attracted there,
unable to detach his eyes from his victim. He did not suffer; he merely
experienced a great inner chill, accompanied by slight pricks on his
skin. He would have thought that he would have trembled more violently.
For fully five minutes, he stood motionless, lost in unconscious
contemplation, engraving, in spite of himself, in his memory, all the
horrible lines, all the dirty colours of the picture he had before his
eyes.

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