How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Every night, the drowned man came to them, and turned them over and over with iron pincers. Every evening, the state of nervous agony in which they lived drove up the fever of their blood, raising frightful spectres before them. [...] [Thérèse] experienced strong waves of terror at the idea of locking herself up until morning in that great room which was filled with strange glimmerings and people by ghosts. (18.7)
The married couple is constantly visited by Camille's ghost, and the language here sounds extra creepy and supernatural. Ain't nothing scientific about it. Unless you're one of those people who really enjoys watching supernatural reality TV shows, like Ghost Hunters.
Quote #5
It was like some grotesque barrier between them. They were seized by feverish delirium and the barrier would become an actual one for them; they would touch the body, they would see it lying like a greenish, rotten lump of meat [...]. All their senses shared in this hallucination. (22.12)
The image of Camille's rotting head brings us back to the first time Laurent sees Camille's corpse at the morgue. Also, the fact that Thérèse and Laurent share the same hallucination suggests that the murder has linked them together irrevocably… or they both just feel really, really guilty about the whole thing. Duh.
Quote #6
Suddenly, Laurent thought he experienced a hallucination. As he was turning to go from the window back to the bed, he saw Camille [...]. His victim's face was greenish in colour and convulsed, as it had been on the slab in the Morgue. [...]
"There!" Laurent said in a terrified voice. "There!" [...]
"It's his portrait," [Thérèse] muttered, in a whisper, as though the painted face of the husband could hear what she was saying. (21.39)
If we go back to the first description of Camille's portrait in Chapter 6, the narrator tells us that his face looks like "the greenish mask of a drowned man" (6.20)… which is totally a great example of foreshadowing, you know? Lit nerds, get excited.