- The book opens with a very detailed description of a place in Paris called the Passage du Pont Neuf. Oh, you want to know what it is too?
- We'll spare you the gruesome details, but the Passage du Pont Neuf is basically a dark alleyway lined with different retailers. The goods they're selling range from books to jewelry to toys.
- After we get the blow-by-blow of several shop windows, we finally end at a haberdashery shop (that's a fancy word for a place that sells items of clothing) called Thérèse Raquin.
- In it, there's an unnamed young woman sitting motionlessly, hidden in the shadows.
- We also see a sixty year-old woman dozing in a chair next to a tabby cat. (Ooh, a cat.) Oh, and a young man of thirty sitting in another chair nearby.
- Around 10 o'clock at night, the old woman closes the shop.
- The young couple retires to bed.