How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Camille's blood had been impoverished by illness and he felt none of the urgent desires of adolescence. With his cousin, he remained a little boy, kissing her as he would kiss his mother [...]. When he played with her or held her in his arms, he felt as though he were holding a boy; not a shudder passed through him. And it never occurred to him on such occasions to kiss Thérèse's hot lips as she struggled free. (2.16)
Who wouldn't want to be married to a guy who kisses you like he kisses his mother? Yuck. In Zola's study of temperaments, Camille's weak ("lymphatic") temperament impairs his sexual virility. He feels no lust at all for Thérèse. Which makes him a really poor match for his insatiable wife.
Quote #2
She had never before seen a real man. Laurent amazed her: he was tall, strong and fresh-faced. [...] Laurent came from true peasant stock, with a somewhat heavy manner, rounded back, slow, studied movements and a calm, stubborn look about him. You could sense the swelling, well-developed muscles beneath his clothes, and the whole body, with its thick, firm flesh. Thérèse examined him curiously from his hands to his face, feeling a little shudder pass through her when she reached his bull's neck. (5.10)
When Thérèse first lays eyes on Laurent, she is immediately overcome by lust. His manly-man self is a perfect match for her passionate yearnings.
Quote #3
This world of animal pleasures had left him with urgent lusts. (5.24)
After indulging his sexual appetite with Thérèse, Laurent finds that he cannot stop thinking about her. He becomes consumed by the need to be with her. Constantly. This is the same need that later drives him to murder Camille.
Quote #4
The young man's sanguine nature, his resonate voice, his hearty laughter and the sharp, strong smells that he emitted disturbed the young woman and plunged her into a kind of nervous anxiety. (5.41)
Laurent's temperament exerts a powerful force over Thérèse, who feels incomplete when she isn't with him. These two are truly crazy about each other. And by the end of the novel, they drive each other crazy too.
Quote #5
Laurent was amazed at finding his mistress beautiful. [...] The young woman, sinuous and twisting, possessed a strange beauty, an utter abandon. It was as though her face had been lit from inside and flames were leaping from her flesh. And around her, her burning blood and taut nerves released hot waves of passion, a penetrating, acrid fever in the air. (7.5)
Laurent's desire for Thérèse is unleashed when he sees her naked for the first time. Zola emphasizes here how heredity affects Thérèse's behavior: her "burning blood" (inherited from her mother) and her "taut nerves" are the two factors that determine her need to be with Laurent. This affair is destined to be, we guess.
Quote #6
For a fortnight, Laurent had not been able to go near Thérèse, and he realized how essential the woman had become to him. Indulging in his lusts had created new appetites for him, which urgently demanded satisfaction. [...] A raging of the blood had infected his flesh and now that his mistress was being taken away from him, his passion burst out with bind fury. [...] Everything in the blossoming of this animal being seemed unconscious: he was obeying his instincts, letting himself be driven by the will of his body. (9.5)
Zola presents Laurent's desire for Thérèse as an animalistic need—an uncontrollable "instinct." There is no mention here of love because Laurent supposedly has no soul. It'd be pretty hard to love anything or anyone if you didn't have a soul.
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.
Quote #10
They looked at one another without desire, with timid embarrassment, pained at their own silence and frigidity. Their ardent dreams were ending in a strange reality: it was enough for them to have succeeded in killing Camille and marrying one another, it was enough for Laurent's mouth to have brushed against Thérèse's shoulder, for their lust to be sated to the point of disgust and horror. (21.6)
On their wedding night, Thérèse and Laurent's previously insatiable lust is now satisfied by the mere touch of Laurent's lips on Thérèse's shoulder. The couple's desire is gone. Now there's only horror. And yet Zola still insists on telling us that they're not suffering from guilty consciences. Mhm, whatever, Zola.