Civilization will not attain perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest. - Émile Zola

He had devoured her, the strapping creature, tall and handsome, that she once had been, eating into her much as an insect eats into an oak, till here she was for ever on her back, reduced to nothingness, whereas he was still going.

Things were definitely going badly. The night looked like ending in disaster. In one corner of the room Maria Blond had started squabbling with Léa de Horn, whom she accused of sleeping with men who weren't really rich.

He was twenty, and already there was nothing left to surprise or disgust him. He had certainly dreamt of the most extreme forms of debauchery. Vice with him was not an abyss, as with certain old men, but a natural, external growth.