How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Look at François," Thérèse said to Laurent, "You'd think he understood and that he was going to tell Camille everything this evening. Why, wouldn't it be odd if he were to start speaking in the shop one of these days? He could tell some fine stories about us." (40)
At the beginning of their adulterous affair, Thérèse jokes about how François knows all of her and Laurent's secrets. But this moment foreshadows the sinister scenes after Camille's death, when Laurent begins to suspect that the cat will reveal their crime.
Quote #2
Until then, the drowned man had not troubled Laurent's sleep. But now the thought of Thérèse brought with it the spectre of her husband. The murderer did not dare reopen his eyes: he was afraid of seeing his victim in the corner of the room. At one point, he thought his bed was shaking in some odd way; he imagined Camille hiding under it and shaking it like that, so that Laurent would fall out and he could bite him. (90)
Even though Zola insists that Laurent doesn't feel remorse, Laurent begins to have hallucinations about Camille's ghost after he murders the guy. What else could possibly cause these hallucinations, if not guilt?
Quote #3
Thérèse, too had been visited by the ghost of Camille in that night of fever. [...] Struggling in the throes of insomnia, she saw the drowned man rise up in front of her. Like Laurent, she had twisted around in a frenzy of desire and horror. (18.1)
When Thérèse also begins to have nightly visions of Camille's ghost, Zola's "scientific novel" starts sounding more and more like a horror story.