When he entered the place an unsavoury odour, an odour of freshly washed
flesh, disgusted him and a chill ran over his skin: the dampness of the
walls seemed to add weight to his clothing, which hung more heavily on
his shoulders. He went straight to the glass separating the spectators
from the corpses, and with his pale face against it, looked. Facing him
appeared rows of grey slabs, and upon them, here and there, the naked
bodies formed green and yellow, white and red patches. 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. A melodious 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 recognise Camille. Frequently, the flesh on the
faces had gone away by strips, the bones had burst through the mellow
skins, the visages were like lumps of boned, boiled beef. Laurent
hesitated; he looked at the corpses, endeavouring to discover the lean
body of his victim. But all the drowned were stout. He saw enormous
stomachs, puffy thighs, and strong round arms. He did not know what to
do. He stood there shuddering before those greenish-looking rags, which
seemed like mocking him, with their horrible wrinkles.

One morning, he was seized with real 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