On Hannah Arendt and antisemitism

I always wanted to read Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism—now seemed like the perfect time. Very interesting book, at least so far. 

I’m just going to jot down some thoughts. 

1/ “This situation was an important factor in the early rise and continuous growth of antisemitism in the nineteenth century. Which group of people would turn antisemitic in a given country at a given historical moment depended exclusively upon general circumstances which made them ready for a violent antagonism to their government. But the remarkable similarity of arguments and images which time and again were spontaneously reproduced have an intimate relationship with the truth they distort. We find the Jews always represented as an international trade organization, a world-wide family concern with identical interests everywhere, a secret force behind the throne which degrades all visible governments into mere facade, or into marionettes whose strings are manipulated from behind the scenes. Because of their close relationship to state sources of power, the Jews were invariably identified with power, and because of their aloofness from society and concentration upon the closed circle of the family, they were invariably suspected of working for the destruction of all social structures.” (P.1, ch.2)

Still true today, this is something I see on both the left and the right. 

2/ “It is an obvious, if frequently forgotten, rule that anti-Jewish feeling acquires political relevance only when it can combine with a major political issue, or when Jewish group interests come into open conflict with those of a major class in society.” (ibid.)

Over the past few years, I have seen anti-Jewish sentiments expressed among the anti-immigrant crowd, the anti-woke crowd, the “Covid is a hoax” crowd, and other groups, but the biggest political issue adopted by antisemites at the moment is the Palestinian cause. To clarify, I don’t mean that every single pro-Palestinian person hates Jews, or wants to destroy the state of Israel, but I would argue that lots of antisemites hide behind the Palestinian cause and mask their Jew hatred by replacing the word “Jews” with “Zionists” when saying something antisemitic. 

Regarding the pro-Palestinian (or more accurately, anti-Israeli) protests in the West and especially in London, I have no doubt that many people genuinely care about the Palestinians and want the suffering in Gaza to end, but it’s a fact that many others in the marches hate Jews, support Hamas, and want Israel to be destroyed “from the river to the sea”. You can’t deny it. You too have seen the signs. You too have heard the chants. You too have seen people openly supporting Hamas. 

3/ “Many of these bankers were Jews and, even more important, the general figure of the banker bore definite Jewish traits for historical reasons. Thus the leftist movement of the lower middle class and the entire propaganda against banking capital turned more or less antisemitic, a development of little importance in industrial Germany but of great significance in France and, to a lesser extent, in Austria.” (ibid.) 

Interestingly, Hannah Arendt points out that Karl Marx, himself a Jew, was anti-Jewish. 

4/ “Friedrich Engels once remarked that the protagonists of the antisemitic movement of his time were noblemen, and its chorus the howling mob of the petty bourgeoisie. This is true not only for Germany, but also for Austria's Christian Socialism and France's Anti-Dreyfusards. In all these cases, the aristocracy, in a desperate last struggle, tried to ally itself with the conservative forces of the churches—the Catholic Church in Austria and France, the Protestant Church in Germany—under the pretext of fighting liberalism with the weapons of Christianity.” (ibid.) 

As I have said earlier, there are antisemites across the political spectrum.

The thing I find fascinating is that there are elements of antisemitism in both of the two worst ideologies of the 20th century: Nazism and communism. There are also such elements in some of the worst ideologies at the moment. 

5/ “… the German Liberal Party, under the leadership of Schoenerer, was from the beginning a lower middle-class party without connections or restraints from the side of the nobility, and with a decidedly left-wing outlook.

It never achieved a real mass basis, but it was remarkably successful in the universities during the eighties where it organized the first closely knit students' organization on the basis of open antisemitism. Schoenerer's antisemitism, at first almost exclusively directed against the Rothschilds, won him the sympathies of the labor movement, which regarded him as a true radical gone astray. His main advantage was that he could base his antisemitic propaganda on demonstrable facts: as a member of the Austrian Reichsrat he had fought for nationalization of the Austrian railroads, the major part of which had been in the hands of the Rothschilds since 1836 due to a state license which expired in 1886. Schoenerer succeeded in gathering 40,000 signatures against its renewal, and in placing the Jewish question in the limelight of public interest. The close connection between the Rothschilds and the financial interests of the monarchy became very obvious when the government tried to extend the license under conditions which were patently to the disadvantage of the state as well as the public.” (ibid.) 

That reminds me, I should pick up a book about the Rothschilds and the conspiracy theory. 

6/ “It is well known that the belief in a Jewish conspiracy that was kept together by a secret society had the greatest propaganda value for antisemitic publicity, and by far outran all traditional European superstitions about ritual murder and well-poisoning.” (P.1, ch.3)

“Jews run Hollywood”, “Jews own the media”, “Jews control the world”, etc.—it is depressing to read Hannah Arendt’s book from 1951 and recognise many things discussed. Are Jews over-represented in certain fields? Yes, it’s undeniable. But if Jews were controlling the media and controlling the world, they’re doing a pretty bad job—the media, the UN, the WHO… have for a long time been strongly biased against Israel. 

7/ “Not the Dreyfus case with its trials but the Dreyfus Affair in its entirety offers a foregleam of the twentieth century. As Bernanos pointed out in 1931 "The Dreyfus affair already belongs to that tragic era which certainly was not ended by the last war. The affair reveals the same inhuman character, preserving amid the welter of unbridled passions and the flames of hate an inconceivably cold and callous heart." Certainly it was not in France that the true sequel to the affair was to be found, but the reason why France fell an easy prey to Nazi aggression is not far to seek.” (P.1, ch.4) 

Is this the case? I have no idea. But the chapter about the Dreyfus affair is interesting.

Emile Zola was indeed a true intellectual, who stood up for the truth and for justice, putting himself at risk. In contrast, many members of the intelligentsia now pretend to stand up for justice and to side with the oppressed, but they sympathise with terrorists, condone atrocities, and unthinkingly repeat slogans and received opinions.

But then that’s nothing new, I guess. It’s only a few months ago when I read Wonder Confronts Certainty, in which Gary Saul Morson wrote about the educated class’s bloodlust and love of violence, and their embracing of revolution for the sake of revolution. 

8/ “It was against the rich and the clergy, not for the republic, not for justice and freedom that the workers finally took to the streets.” (ibid.) 

That’s a good observation, speaking as someone from a communist country. 

9/ “While the mob actually stormed Jewish shops and assailed Jews in the streets, the language of high society made real, passionate violence look like harmless child's play.” (ibid.) 

And that is happening again now. On the streets of London and other Western cities, there have been people chanting genocidal phrases and calling for jihad and calling for intifada; in the West, there have been intimidations of and attacks on Jews, or Jewish businesses; but some people still pretend or perhaps convince themselves that antisemitism is overblown, that there’s no cause for concern, that the chants are all harmless.

I can’t help fearing that we’re reliving the 20th century. 

10/ “The case of the unfortunate Captain Dreyfus had shown the world that in every Jewish nobleman and multimillionaire there still remained something of the old-time pariah, who has no country, for whom human rights do not exist, and whom society would gladly exclude from its privileges. No one, however, found it more difficult to grasp this fact than the emancipated Jews themselves.” (ibid.) 

The shocking responses to the October 7 massacre, which I never would have expected—remember that the first protests were immediately after the massacre and before Israel’s retaliation—truly opened my eyes. 

Thérèse Raquin: fire, the ghost, art, Madame Raquin

1/ This is the wedding night of Laurent and Thérèse. There is a fire: 

“A bright fire was blazing in the grate, casting large patches of yellow light that danced on the ceiling and the walls, so that the room was lit by a bright, flickering light in which the lamp, standing on a table, paled by comparison.” (Ch.21) 

Poor Madame Raquin has decorated and perfumed the room for the young couple—everything looks warm and smells nice. 

Here is Zola being a painter: 

“In her lace-trimmed petticoat and bodice, she was a harsh white against the burning light of the fire.” (ibid.) 

They have waited for this moment for so long—they have killed a man to be together, and have waited for nearly 2 years to get married without suspicion. But now that they’re together, something doesn’t work. Other readers would talk about their psychology, guilt, etc., I’m interested in the fire. 

“She looked up at Laurent, whose face at that moment was lit up by a broad, reddish glow from the fire. She looked at this blood-stained face and shuddered.” (ibid.) 

And: 

“They stayed there in silence, not moving, for five long minutes. From time to time, a reddish flame would spurt out of the wood and reflections, the colour of blood, played over the murderers’ faces.” (ibid.) 

Laurent, in an attempt to soothe Thérèse, mentions that Camille is now gone, which feels like a blow in the stomach for her. With the name uttered, the murderers look at each other, shaking. 

“The yellow light from the fire was still flickering on the walls and ceiling…” (ibid.) 

Yellow, red, red, yellow. That’s an interesting play with colours. 

But the ghost has been raised, and appeared between the couple. 

“Thérèse and Laurent could sense the cold, damp smell of the drowned man in the hot air that they breathed.” (ibid.) 

Such a lifelike ghost—(most) people in Hollywood films can’t see ghosts, here you can even smell it. Zola goes even further later on: 

“…they would see it lying like a greenish, rotten lump of meat and they would breathe in the repulsive odour of this heap of human decay.” (Ch.22)

Ugh that’s gross. 

They can see and smell and feel the ghost.

“They locked into a frightful embrace. […] Yet they could still feel Camille’s shredded flesh, foully squeezed between them, freezing their skin in places, even while the rest of their bodies was burning.” (Ch.23) 

How on earth is this meant to be scientific? How is this Naturalism? 

But then Zola seems to suggest that the ghost isn’t there—the murderers just have the same image, the same thoughts, the same hallucinations. 

“She looked at Laurent’s neck. She had just noticed a pink patch on the white skin. A rush of blood to his head made the patch larger and coloured it a fiery red.” (Ch.21)  

That, Laurent has to admit, is where Camille bit him nearly 2 years ago in the boat. I won’t write about what happens next, but clearly the key to enjoy Thérèse Raquin is to ignore everything Zola says, to read it not as a realistic novel but as something else. 

2/ The scene of the painting in chapter 21 made me laugh, though I assume it’s meant to be dark and sinister, at least not comic. Imagine being an aspiring painter and feeling terror upon seeing your own work. I wouldn’t pick up the brush again. 

3/ I like that Laurent and Thérèse are first attracted by their different temperaments (opposites attract, as people say). I also like that Laurent and Thérèse are tormented by guilt, loathing, and self-loathing, and cannot be happy together. But Zola isn’t content with describing it, he has to appear and turn it into something higher and explain it by “science”: 

“Thérèse’s dry, nervous character had reacted in an odd way with the stolid, sanguine character of Laurent. Previously, in the days of their passion, this contrast in temperament had made this man and woman into a powerfully linked couple by establishing a sort of balance between them and, so to speak, complementing their organisms. […] But the equilibrium had been disturbed and Thérèse’s over-excited nerves had taken control. Suddenly, Laurent found himself plunged into a state of nervous erethism; under the influence of her fervent nature, his own temperament had gradually become that of a girl suffering from an acute neurosis. It would be interesting to study the changes that are sometimes produced in certain organisms as a result of particular circumstances…” (Ch.22)

Look, Monsieur Zola, here is someone who has killed a man and is now beginning to realise the enormity of what he’s done, especially now that he’s in the room of the man he has murdered, with the wife of the dead man, watched by their cat and by the dead man’s painting. Psychologically their behaviours make sense, but for Zola that isn’t enough.  

“Then, he underwent a strange internal process: his nerves developed and came to dominate the sanguine element in him, this fact by itself changing his character.” (ibid.) 

The author insists that it isn’t guilt, even though it looks like guilt to me: 

“His remorse was purely physical. Only his body, his tense nerves and his trembling flesh were afraid of the drowned man. His conscience played no part in his terror: he did not in the slightest regret having killed Camille.” (ibid.) 

4/ Thérèse Raquin can be divided into 2 parts: the first part (up till the murder) mostly focuses on Thérèse, the eponymous character; whilst the second part is about both Thérèse and Laurent, but Zola seems to write more about him.  

Personally I think Thérèse is more interesting. First of all, she’s not wholly bad or purely motivated by self-interest like Laurent, and in her mind, she’s been wronged by the Raquins—for years she had to suppress her passionate nature, had to take medication she didn’t need, and felt pressured to marry the cousin she didn’t care for. 

Then after the murder, the two of them feel bound to each other, bound by the crime, but gradually she’s both afraid of and disgusted by Laurent, which makes perfect sense psychologically because she has seen him murder a man—her husband, his close friend—before her eyes and she has seen him lie unembarrassedly to others in front of her. Such a man is capable of anything. 

In her, there’s a combination of guilt, loathing, fear, disgust, self-hatred. Zola doesn’t need ideas about temperaments to explain her feelings and behaviours. 

Thérèse becomes even more fascinating as a character when there’s a new turn later on. 

5/ The untalented painter in Thérèse Raquin all of a sudden becomes a true artist, thanks to killing a man. No, really.

“Since he’d killed a man, it was as though his flesh had become lighter, his brain, distraught, seemed immense to him, and in this sudden expansion of his ideas he saw exquisite creations and poetic reveries. This is why his hand had suddenly acquired its distinction and his works their beauty, in a moment becoming personal and alive.” (Ch.25) 

And: 

“Perhaps Laurent had become an artist as he had become lazy, after the great disruption that had unbalanced his mind and his body. Previously, he had been stifled by the heavy weight of his blood and blinded by the thick vapour of health surrounding him.” (ibid.) 

This is absolutely nuts. But it leads to a powerful and haunting scene of Lauren and the sketches. I can imagine it working very well on screen. 

6/ The power of Thérèse Raquin is, I think, in the character of Madame Raquin. Whilst other characters are all brutes, selfish and hypocritical, she alone feels the depth of grief, she alone feels the depth of despair. 

For a large part of the novel, Zola does seem to put in all kinds of shocking and extreme things for the sake of being shocking and extreme, especially in the depiction of Laurent, who becomes increasingly more brutal and animalistic throughout the course of the story, and the portrayal of the other characters isn’t much better—they are all animals, motivated by self-interest. Madame Raquin, despite her egotism, is different because of her love for her son.   

It’s in similar to the way Flaubert gives Charles Bovary depth of feeling—if every single character in a novel were shallow, egoistic, and devoid of deep feeling, the book as a whole would be a minor work, however well-written. 

Thérèse Raquin: “a psychological and physiological fact that often occurs between those who are thrown violently together by great nervous shocks”

1/ In the previous blog post, I wrote about smells in the novel and the way Thérèse and Laurent are driven by the physical, by scents. 

In the second half of the novel, there are different kinds of smells. 

This is the scene at the morgue. After the murder of Camille, Laurent forces himself to go to the morgue every day, before work, to look at the bodies and look for Camille’s. 

“When he went in, he was sickened by a stale smell, a smell of washed flesh, and cold draughts blew across his skin. His clothes hung against his shoulders, as though weighed down by the humidity of the walls.” (Ch.13) 

The translation is by Robin Buss. 

I can see why people found, and still find, Zola shocking—he doesn’t hold back—just look at his description of the corpses. 

Later: 

“He shook off his fears, called himself a child and tried to be strong, but in spite of that his flesh rebelled, and feelings of disgust and horror seized him as soon as he came into the humidity and the stale smell of the hall.

When there were no drowned men on the last row of slabs, he breathed more easily and felt less disgust.” (ibid.) 

What a scene. It is terrifying. This is one of the most striking, unforgettable chapters in the novel, especially when Zola goes from describing the corpses in graphic detail to writing coldly about the people who come in like they come to a show, commenting on or sniggering at the dead bodies. 

This is the moment after Laurent sees Camille’s body. 

“He felt as though a pungent odour were following him around, the odour that this putrefying corpse must be giving off.” (ibid.) 

2/ The characters in Thérèse Raquin are utterly compelling and feel real—not in the sense of being lifelike and multifaceted like Tolstoy’s or Cao Xueqin’s characters, but in the sense that they feel perfectly real within their world, like the characters in Wuthering Heights. 

Up till some time after the murder. 

After the murder, of course Thérèse would change and I can see her open up and no longer feel wrapped up in bad thoughts, but I’m not quite sure about these lines from Zola: 

“She subscribed to a lending library and became passionately fond of all the heroes of the stories that she read. This sudden love of reading had a considerable influence on her temperament. She acquired a nervous sensibility which made her laugh or cry for no reason. The equilibrium that had started to be achieved inside her was shattered. She fell into a sort of vague reverie.” (Ch.16) 

How do I put it, I think I take his characters more seriously than I take his “science”, his theory of the different temperaments being thrown together. 

3/ 15 months after the murder, Laurent also changes, or rather, he has a rush of fear and series of nightmares the night after Thérèse asks him to marry her. I try to tell myself that it’s some kind of delayed reaction, that the awareness of what he’s done only sinks into him now, but somehow to me it doesn’t quite work—his sudden terror in the dark alleyway after the meeting, his obsessive fear and paranoia when he gets home and checks everything, his repeated nightmares that night… all seem a bit… odd? A bit unnatural? 

“He tried to sleep once again. There followed a succession of sensual drowsings and sudden, agonized awakenings. In his furious obstinacy, he kept on going towards Thérèse and kept on coming up against Camille’s corpse. More than ten times […]. His desire was not lessened by this same sinister ending that woke him up every time; a few minutes later, as soon as he went back to sleep, his desire forgot the ghastly corpse that awaited him, and hurried once more to find the lithe, warm body of a woman. For an hour, Laurent lived through this series of nightmares, this bad dream constantly repeated, continually unforeseen, which, at every shocked awakening, left him shattered by an ever sharper sense of terror.” (Ch.17) 

I understand, in theory, that Thérèse’s talk of marriage forces him to confront the fact that he has killed a man, but the sudden excessiveness of it all seems a bit strange. 

See the moment when Laurent looks at his neck where he was bitten by Camille right before death: 

“The scar was light pink. As Laurent was making out his victim’s tooth marks, he felt quite moved by it and the blood rushed to his head. It was then that he noticed something odd. The scar was turned purple by the rising flow; it became bright and blood-filled, standing out red against the plump white neck. At the same time, Laurent felt sharp pricks, as though someone were sticking pins into the wound.” (ibid.) 

I thought this was meant to be scientific? That’s what Zola wrote in the Preface. See Tom’s blog post about the “science” of the book. 

The next day Laurent goes to work, fighting his sleepiness after a night of nightmares and insomnia. After work he comes to see Thérèse—she too has had nightmares and insomnia, she too has been haunted by the image of Camille.    

Zola writes more about it: 

“… Like Laurent, she had twisted around in a frenzy of desire and horror and, like him, told herself that she would no longer be afraid, no longer experience such suffering, when she held her lover between her arms.

At the same moment, this man and this woman had felt a kind of failing of the nerves, which brought them back, gasping and terrified, to their terrible love. An affinity of blood and lust had been established between them. They shuddered the same shudders, and their hearts, in a sort of agonizing fellowship, ached with the same terror. From then on, they had only one body and one soul to feel pleasure and pain. This community, this mutual interpenetration, is a psychological and physiological fact that often occurs between those who are thrown violently together by great nervous shocks.” (Ch.18) 

That looks like mumbo-jumbo to me. It works better if I just read it as a supernatural element—both characters get a visit from the ghost of the dead man. 

Zola explains further: 

“In the mental collapse that followed the acute crisis of the murder, in the feelings of disgust and the need for calm and forgetting that came after that, the two prisoners could imagine that they were free and that no iron link bound them together. The chain lay slack on the ground, while they rested, stricken with a kind of happy stupor, and tried to find love elsewhere, to lead sensibly balanced lives. But on the day when circumstances drove them once more to exchange words of desire, the chain suddenly tightened and they experienced such a shock that they felt attached to one another for ever.” (ibid.) 

This seems not to be guilt, but something else. But what is it? I have no idea. As Thérèse and Laurent wait and try to plant the idea of their marriage in the acquaintances’ heads so they don’t have to say it themselves, the nightmares return every night.  

Let’s go back to Zola’s statement at the beginning, where he defends his book against the critics who fail to understand what he’s doing: 

“The reader will have started, I hope, to understand that my aim has been above all scientific. When I created my two protagonists, Thérèse and Laurent, I chose to set myself certain problems and to solve them […] showing the profound disturbance of a sanguine nature when it comes into contact with a nervous one. […] In a word, I wanted only one thing: given a powerful man and a dissatisfied woman, to search out the beast in them, and nothing but the beast, plunge them into a violent drama and meticulously note the feelings and actions of these two beings. I have merely performed on two living bodies the analytical work that surgeons carry out on dead ones.” (Preface) 

Clearly I’m missing something, because I can’t take that seriously at all. If we go back to chapter 13 for example, which is disgusting and very disturbing, I think it’s a great chapter and Laurent’s reaction upon seeing Camille’s corpse makes perfect sense. I mean it seems natural. I don’t quite understand the logic, the psychology of chapters 17 and 18.  

4/ The passages about the mother’s grief are poignant: 

“The poor mother realized that she alone kept the memory of her dear child alive in the depths of her being. She wept and felt as though Camille had just died a second time.” (Ch.19) 

After 2 chapters of horror and melodrama, chapter 19 is an excellent one, coolly describing the play-acting of the murderers and their manipulation of Madame Raquin and their acquaintance Michaud. Especially good, I think, is Thérèse’s reaction to the effrontery, the bare-faced lie of her lover.  

Perhaps some readers will tell me what I’m missing and how I’m reading it wrong. 

Thérèse Raquin: smell motif, Madame Bovary, the cat

1/ This is my first Zola. 

Thérèse Raquin, like Balzac’s Eugénie Grandet, begins with a detailed description of the surroundings. Place them side by side with the 20th century Japanese books I read last year (Soseki, Kawabata, Tanizaki, etc.)—it’s funny to see how detailed and specific the French are, and how vague and hazy the Japanese tend to be. 

2/ I picked up the novel knowing that it’s about a woman having an affair and plotting with the lover to kill the husband, but didn’t know about the marriage. I can’t be the only one grossed out by it: they are first cousins! They’ve grown up together since she’s 2! Ew. 

That’s my first wtf moment in the book.  

3/ The writing is good. 

“All these faces drove her crazy. […] And Thérèse could not see a single human, not a living creature, among these grotesque and sinister beings with whom she was shut up. At times she would suffer hallucinations, thinking that she was buried in a vault together with mechanical bodies whose heads moved and whose arms and legs waved when their strings were pulled. The heavy atmosphere of the dining room stifled her, and the eerie silence and yellowish glow of the lamp filled her with a vague sense of terror, an inexpressible feeling of anxiety.” (Ch.4)  

I like that. 

Thérèse is not Emma Bovary, but these lines make me think of Emma’s ennui. I’m reading the Penguin edition, translated by Robin Buss, which includes Zola’s preface for the 2nd edition. His goal is to study temperament, not character, and he says: 

“Thérèse and Laurent are human animals, nothing more.” (Preface)

What animal is Thérèse? A cat, I assume.

“This convalescent life that was imposed on her drove her back into herself. She became accustomed to speaking in a low voice, walking along quietly, and staying silent and motionless on a chair, looking blankly with wide-open eyes. Yet, when she did raise an arm or take a step, there was a feline suppleness in her, a mass of energy and passion dormant within her torpid frame.” (Ch.2) 

The comparison is repeated later: 

“He was no longer his own master; his mistress, with her feline sinuosity and nervous flexibility, had gradually insinuated herself into every fibre of his body. He needed that woman to live as one needs to eat and drink.” (Ch.9) 

There is a tabby cat in the novel that she often plays with, called Francois.

4/ Here is Laurent, the lover: 

“Laurent amazed her: he was tall, strong and fresh-faced. She looked with a kind of awe at his low forehead with its rough black hair, at his plump cheeks, his red lips and his regular features with their sanguine beauty. Her gaze paused for a moment on his neck, a broad, short neck, thick and powerful. […] Laurent came of true peasant stock, with a somewhat heavy manner, rounded back, slow, studied movements and a calm, stubborn look about him.” (Ch.5) 

Excuse me for being shallow but that doesn’t sound hot, though I can see that his qualities contrast with the illness and languor of the husband (Camille). 

The stories of Laurent’s studies makes me think of K in Kokoro—did Soseki ever read Zola? I wonder.  

5/ The characters, Zola says, are no more than human animals. Here’s something I’ve noticed: smells.  

This is Thérèse as perceived by Laurent, when he goes into the bedroom for their rendezvous: 

“She exuded a warm smell, a smell of white linen and freshly washed flesh.” (Ch.7) 

The first time Thérèse meets Laurent:

“The young man’s sanguine nature, his resonant 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.” (Ch.5)  

Contrast that with the smell from Camille when he was a kid, according to Thérèse: 

“‘…I was brought up in the damp warmth of a sickroom. I used to sleep beside Camille; in the night, I would move away from him, disgusted by the musty smell of his body.’” (Ch.7)  

He’s still the same now. 

“‘… And I found a husband who was no different from the ailing little boy I used to sleep with when I was six. He was just as frail, as whining, and he still had that smell of a sick child that used to disgust me so much in the old days.’” (ibid.) 

Now look again at the passage about Laurent. Their affair is purely physical. 

See this passage in Madame Bovary, about Emma and Rodolphe at the agricultural show: 

“His arms were folded across his knees, and thus lifting his face towards Emma, close by her, he looked fixedly at her. She noticed in his eyes small golden lines radiating from black pupils; she even smelt the perfume of the pomade that made his hair glossy.

Then a faintness came over her; she recalled the Viscount who had waltzed with her at Vaubyessard, and his beard exhaled like this air an odour of vanilla and citron, and mechanically she half-closed her eyes the better to breathe it in. […] yet all the time she was conscious of the scent of Rodolphe’s head by her side. This sweetness of sensation pierced through her old desires, and these, like grains of sand under a gust of wind, eddied to and fro in the subtle breath of the perfume which suffused her soul. She opened wide her nostrils several times to drink in the freshness of the ivy round the capitals...” (Ch.8) 

The translation is by Eleanor Marx-Aveling. 

This is also about smells and their affair is also physical (though Emma likes to think herself a romantic), but the smell Flaubert writes about is the perfume of the pomade, whereas Zola seems to be writing about Laurent’s natural odour. 

Compared to Emma Bovary, Thérèse seems to be, how do I say it, less cultured and more animalistic. If Emma is morally corrupted by reading, Thérèse never reads. Zola’s book seems to be in conversation with Flaubert’s. Thérèse and Emma have a few similarities. Both of them hate their husbands. Both of them hate their lives, their surroundings. Both of them haven’t had good sex till the affairs. Laurent’s thoughts, as he wonders whether to pursue Thérèse, remind me of Rodolphe’s. 

However Thérèse makes Emma Bovary appear so much better: Emma at least has the decency to go out of the house to cheat on her husband, among other things. 

6/ While the humans are like brutes, the cat is like a human. In this scene, Thérèse is with her lover in the bedroom of her and her husband, and the cat is watching. 

“The tabby cat, François, was sitting on his bottom right in the middle of the room. Solemn and motionless, he was looking at the two lovers with wide-open eyes. He seemed to be examining them carefully, without blinking, lost in a sort of diabolical trance.” (Ch.7) 

Does Tolstoy ever write about cats? I remember him writing about dogs and horses but can’t remember any cats.  

Thérèse jokes about the cat watching everything and talking to Camille.

“Laurent looked at the cat’s large green eyes and felt a shudder run through him.” (ibid.) 

Then he picks him up and puts him outside the room. What a great scene. 

7/ Zola writes about smells again, when Laurent’s contemplating murder. 

“He felt suffocated in this narrow cage, which Thérèse had left full of the heat of her passion. He seemed to be still breathing something of her, she had been there, leaving behind a pervasive scent of herself, a smell of violets; but now all he had to press in his arms was his mistress’s intangible ghost, present all around him; he was in a fever of reviving, unsatisfied desire.” (Ch.9) 

The animal in him now takes over. In him now there’s no conscience, no morality, no sense. 

“Driven by insomnia, aroused by the pungent scents that Thérèse had left behind, he devised traps, working out what could go wrong and enumerating all the benefits to be derived from becoming a murderer.” (ibid.) 

He’s driven by the physical, by the smell.

“He grasped the material between his dry lips and drank in the faint scents still clinging to it; and he stayed there, breathless, panting, watching strips of fire cross his closed eyelids.” (ibid.) 

Later, in Saint-Ouen: 

“The bitter scent of the earth mingled with the light perfume of Thérèse and seeped into him, heating his blood and arousing his lust.” (Ch.11) 

I expect that smells will still be significant in the later part of the novel.