A Novel I Can't Forget

Therese Raquin

Years ago, I sponsored a book club to meet at the coffeehouse. The first book we decided to read was Therese Raquin by Emile Zola. I’ve forgotten most of it now, except for the morgue scene. That scene has stayed with me for years.

It stands out because it was the only time a scene was so well written, and so observed that after reading it, I felt nauseous.

Below is an excerpt of that scene:

…Laurent imposed on himself to pass each morning by the Morgue on the way to his office. He had made up his mind to attend to the business himself. Notwithstanding that his heart rose with repugnance, notwithstanding the shudders that sometimes ran through his frame, for over a week, he went and examined the countenance of all the drowned persons extended on the slabs.

While some retained their natural condition in the rigidity of death, others seemed like lumps of bleeding and decaying meat. At the back, against the wall, hung some lamentable rags, petticoats, and trousers, puckered against the bare plaster. Laurent at first only caught sight of the wan ensemble of stones and walls, spotted with dabs of russet and black formed by the clothes and corpses. The pulsating sound of running water broke the silence.

Little by little, he distinguished the bodies and went from one to the other. It was only the drowned that interested him. When several human forms were there, swollen and blued by the water, he looked at them eagerly, seeking to recognize Camille.

Frequently, the flesh on the faces had gone away by strips; the bones had burst through the mellow skins, and the visages were like lumps of boned, boiled beef. Laurent hesitated; he looked at the corpses, endeavoring to discover the lean body of his victim. But all the drowns were stout. He saw enormous stomachs, puffy thighs, and round solid arms. He did not know what to do. He stood there shuddering before those greenish-looking rags, which seemed to mock him with their horrible wrinkles.

One morning, he was seized with absolute terror. For some moments, he had been looking at a corpse, taken from the water, that was small in build and atrociously disfigured. The flesh of this drowned person was so soft and broken up that the running water washing it carried it away bit by bit. The jet falling on the face bored a hole to the left of the nose. And, abruptly, the nose became flat, and the lips were detached, showing the white teeth. The head of the drowned man burst out laughing…

Emile Zola, https://victorianparis.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/paris-morgue-in-emile-zolas-words-warning-gruesome/

National library of medicine. Image © Public Domain Mark 1.0

In researching for this piece, I found the history regarding the morgues of Paris in the late nineteenth century.

As amazing as it sounds, a building was erected behind Notre-Dame de Paris, the square de Île-de-France, Haussmann, with a glass wall in view of the street so passersby could view naked corpses in varying stages of decomposition. It was a common sight to see bodies floating in the Seine. Initially, these bodies were displayed so families could identify them, but later, it became a free theater of the macabre.

Parisians, adults, tourists, and children could walk by any time of the day to view the gruesome attraction as they gazed upon bodies in different stages of decay.

The more horrendous or gruesome a death, the longer the queues grew. Decapitated or limbless bodies and tiny children only added to the morbid desire to see the bodies up close.

In 1907, the French government closed the morgue to the public, citing “Moral Hygiene.”

As always, thank you for stopping by.