How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
He enjoyed the spectacle, especially when there were women showing their naked busts. These brutal, outstretched naked bodies, spotted with blood [...] attracted him and held his gaze. Once, he saw a young woman of twenty, a working-class girl, [...] offering her bosom in a provocative manner. You would have taken her for a courtesan lying on a bed if there had not been a black strip on her neck, like a necklace of shadow: the girl had just hanged herself because of a disappointment in love. Laurent looked at her for a long time, studying her flesh, absorbed in a kind of fearful lust. (13.10)
Laurent sees the corpse of a naked woman and becomes strangely aroused. This disturbing moment at the morgue blends violence, death and lust, and that's quite the combo. We think this voyeuristic scene is in the book to further underscore the potential dangers of human sexuality… in case the fact that Laurent and Thérèse's affair leads to a murder and then a double-suicide doesn't scare you enough.
Quote #8
One day, Laurent saw one of these ladies standing a few paces back from the window, pressing a cambric handkerchief to her nostrils. [...] She had a veil over her face and her gloved hands seemed quite small and delicate. [...] She was looking at a corpse. On a slab, a short distance away, was the body of a hefty lad, a builder who had died instantly when he fell off some scaffolding. He had a barrel chest, short, thick muscles and greasy white flesh [...]. The lady was examining him, [...] engrossed by the sight of this man. She raised a corner of her veil, took another look, and left.
Aha, another moment that interweaves death and sexuality. In this passage, a woman is looking at the corpse of a naked man. But unlike Laurent, who looks freely and directly at the woman's corpse, this woman's gaze is veiled. Indirect. We think Zola is suggesting that female voyeurism is even more illicit and dangerous. Because ... sexism.
Quote #9
It was as though the murder had, for the time being, calmed the lustful fever of their flesh and, in killing Camille, they had managed to assuage the raging and insatiable desire that they had been unable to satisfy in one another's arms. They experienced in their crime a sensation of gratification so intense that it sickened them and made their embraces repulsive. (16.4)
After the murder of Camille, Thérèse and Laurent never once attempt to see each other alone. The disappearance of their lust for each other may be a manifestation of their guilt over Camille's death. But if you told our author, Mr. Scientist, that, he'd certainly deny it.