The death of her son had been like a blow on the head that had felled her senseless to the ground.

For hours she remained tranquil and inert, absorbed in her despair; then she was at times seized with attacks of weeping, shrieking and delirium.
Therese in the adjoining room, seemed to sleep.

She had turned her face to the wall, and drawn the sheet over her eyes.

There she lay stretched out at full length, rigid and mute, without a sob raising the bed-clothes.

It looked as if she was concealing the thoughts that made her rigid in the darkness of the alcove.
Suzanne, who attended to the two women, went feebly from one to the other, gently dragging her feet along the floor, bending her wax-like countenance over the two couches, without succeeding in persuading Therese, who had sudden fits of impatience, to turn round, or in consoling Madame Raquin, whose tears began to flow as soon as a voice drew her from her prostration.
On the third day, Therese, rapidly and with a sort of feverish decision, threw the sheet from her, and seated herself up in bed.