Thérèse Raquin Violence Quotes

Laurent was still shaking Camille, with one hand gripped around his throat. [...] As he bent forward, leaving his neck uncovered, his victim, mad with fear and fury, twisted round, bared his teeth and dug them into the neck. And when the murderer, choking back a cry of pain, briskly threw Camille into the river, his teeth took away a piece of flesh. (11.62)

Camille's bite was like a hot iron on his skin [...]. It was as though a dozen pins were gradually piercing his flesh. [...] The wound was a red hole, as wide as a small coin. The skin had been torn off and the flesh was visible, pinkish, with black patches. (13.1)

He would go directly to the window that separates the spectators from the bodies, and press his pale face against the glass, looking. In front of him were ranks of grey slabs on which, here and there, naked bodies stood out [...]. Some bodies kept their virginal flesh in the rigidity of death, while others seemed like heaps of bloody, rotten meat. (13.6)

The Morgue is a show that anyone can afford, which poor and rich passers-by get for free. The door is open, anyone can come in. There are connoisseurs who go out of their way not to miss one of these spectacles of death. When the slabs are empty, people go out disappointed [...]. When the slabs are well-filled, and when there is a fine display of human flesh, the visitors crowd in, getting a cheap thrill, horrified, joking, applauding or whistling, as in the theatre. (13.12)

The murderer slowly went over to the window as though drawn by a magnet, unable to take his eyes off his victim. [...] He stayed motionless for five whole minutes, lost in unconscious contemplation, involuntarily marking in the depths of his memory all the frightful lines and foul colours of the scene before his eyes. (13.17)

Only the pain, the horrible smarting pain, had made him demand a kiss from Thérèse, and when Thérèse's lips had proved to be cold against his burning scar, he suffered even more. This kiss, obtained by violence, had broken him. (21.38)

Their whole beings were ready for violence; the slightest impatience and the most ordinary annoyance were enlarged in their unhinged organisms in some strange way, suddenly becoming heavily charged with brutality. [...] There were frightful scenes, breathtaking furies, blows, foul cries, and shameful acts of brutality. (28.6)

Thérèse used all her venom to intensify the cruelty of this torture that she was inflicting on Laurent in order to protect herself. [...] Constantly running up against the man he had killed, the murderer came to feel an odd sensation that almost drove him mad: through being so often compared to Camille [...], he came to think that he was Camille; he identified with his victim. His brain was bursting, so he would rush at his wife to make her quiet [...]. All their rows would end in blows. (29.37)

Laurent decided that he would kill Thérèse, because Thérèse was getting in his way, because she could destroy him with a word and because she caused him unbearable misery. Thérèse made up her mind to kill Laurent for the same reasons. [...] They felt an imperious need to kill one another and obeyed this need like wild animals. (31.45)

They looked at each other one last time [...]. Thérèse took the glass, half-emptied it and handed it to Laurent, who finished it in a gulp. It was like a shaft of lightening. They fell, one on top of the other, struck down, finding consolation at last in death. The young woman's mouth fell against the scar on her husband's neck left by Camille's teeth.

[...] And for nearly twelve hours, [...] Mme Raquin, silent and unmoving, stared at them where they lay at her feet, unable to have enough of the spectacle, crushing them with her merciless gaze. (32.21)