An unusual chemistry experiment at the bottom of a sordid neighborhood: take a nervous young woman, brought to carnal passion, and marry her to an uninviting and sickly man. See that nothing is happening. Introduce a third element, in the form of a bloody and unscrupulous fellow, and shake. All that remains is to record the chain reaction: adultery, murder and suicide. This is more or less the “physiological study” carried out here by Zola at the dawn of French naturalism.
