How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
He felt as if a clear light broke upon his mind, and with it a conviction that good was, after all, stronger than evil, and that good was possible to men. He seemed to discover that there was a kind of rapture in which he could love forever without faltering and without sin […] And it did not occur to Emil that any one had ever reasoned thus before, that music had ever before given a man this equivocal revelation. (4.6.6-7)
Well, it's not like we didn't see this one coming. Though he earlier seems totally aware that his desires are sinful (see Part 2, Chapter 8), Emil goes and has this "revelation" in church during Amédée's funeral service. He envisions himself in a state of "rapture" in which there's no sin. Well, the narrator isn't exactly buying Emil's spiritual experience—his revelation is chalked up to an overdose on church music.
Quote #8
The old man fell in the road at her feet and caught her hand, over which he bowed his shaggy head. "Mistress, mistress," he sobbed, "it has fallen! Sin and death for the young ones! God have mercy upon us!" (4.8.6)
Ivar brings Alexandra the bad news: Emil and Marie have been murdered. Not surprisingly, Ivar thinks about their murder in religious terms, as an act of divine judgment that has "fallen" from on high. Even though Alexandra is fond of Ivar, his religious rhetoric seems to have no impact on her. She just ain't buyin' it.
Quote #9
"From my youth up I have had a strong, rebellious body, and have been subject to every kind of temptation. Even in age my temptations are prolonged. It was necessary to make some allowances; and the feet, as I understand it, are free members. There is no divine prohibition for them in the Ten Commandments. The hands, the tongue, the eyes, the heart, all the bodily desires we are commanded to subdue; but the feet are free members. I indulge them without harm to any one, even to trampling in filth when my desires are low. They are quickly cleaned again." (5.1.13)
If we take a closer look at this passage, we start to get the sense that Ivar isn't so different from someone like Emil. Except that, while Emil looked for loopholes to justify his sinful desires, Ivar has formed his whole life around suppressing those desires in himself.