How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Then she lighted a candle and went into the tiny room. The air was cold and damp, but she could not make a fire, there was no fireplace. She set down the candle and looked round. The candle-light glittered on the lustre-glasses, on the two vases that held some of the pink chrysanthemums, and on the dark mahogany. There was a cold, deathly smell of chrysanthemums in the room. (2.77)
Heat is used elsewhere to symbolize life, so it's fitting that here cold is associated with death. The chrysanthemums, which also symbolize death, pop up as well. (See "Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory" for more deets on these symbols and their meaning.)
Quote #2
When they arose, saw him lying in the naïve dignity of death, the women stood arrested in fear and respect. For a few moments they remained still, looking down, the old mother whimpering. Elizabeth felt countermanded. She saw him, how utterly inviolable he lay in himself. She had nothing to do with him. She could not accept it. (2.118)
Seeing Walter's dead body rocks Elizabeth's world and makes her question their entire relationship. In particular, she's really freaked out and how separate and unknowable he now appears, whereas she apparently felt before that she had a pretty good handle on who he was (i.e., a drunk) and what he was about (i.e., being drunk).
Quote #3
"Let me wipe him!"—and she kneeled on the other side drying slowly as Elizabeth washed, her big black bonnet sometimes brushing the dark head of her daughter. They worked thus in silence for a long time. They never forgot it was death, and the touch of the man's dead body gave them strange emotions, different in each of the women; a great dread possessed them both, the mother felt the lie was given to her womb, she was denied; the wife felt the utter isolation of the human soul, the child within her was a weight apart from her. (2.122)
Confronting death has made Elizabeth feel so disconnected that even the fetus growing inside her feels separate and alien, and her mother-in-law ostensibly feels that her son's death has given rise to some kind of betrayal or "lie" that affects her innards (i.e., her womb). In short, the women are feeling alienated from their own bodies as a result of dealing with Walt's death. Is it just us, or does this totally sound like the premise to a sci-fi horror story about a demon alien baby?