The shop in the Arcade of the Pont Neuf remained closed for three days.
When it opened again, it appeared darker and damper. The shop-front
display, which the dust had turned yellow, seemed to be wearing the
mourning of the house; the various articles were scattered at sixes
and sevens in the dirty windows. Behind the linen caps hanging from
the rusty iron rods, the face of Therese presented a more olive, a more
sallow pallidness, and the immobility of sinister calm.

All the gossips in the arcade were moved to pity. The dealer in
imitation jewelry pointed out the emaciated profile of the young widow
to each of her customers, as an interesting and lamentable curiosity.

For three days, Madame Raquin and Therese had remained in bed without
speaking, and without even seeing one another. The old mercer, propped
up by pillows in a sitting posture, gazed vaguely before her with the
eyes of an idiot. The death of her son had been like a blow on the head
that had felled her senseless to the ground. For hours she remained
tranquil and inert, absorbed in her despair; then she was at times
seized with attacks of weeping, shrieking and delirium.

Therese in the adjoining room, seemed to sleep. She had turned her face
to the wall, and drawn the sheet over her eyes. There she lay
stretched out at full length, rigid and mute, without a sob raising the
bed-clothes. It looked as if she was concealing the thoughts that made
her rigid in the darkness of the alcove.

Suzanne, who attended to the two women, went feebly from one to the
other, gently dragging her feet along the floor, bending her wax-like
countenance over the two couches, without succeeding in persuading