What was passing within this wretched creature, just sufficiently alive to be present at the events of life, without taking part in them?
She saw and heard, she no doubt reasoned in a distinct and clear manner.

But she was without gesture and voice to express the thoughts originating in her mind.

Her ideas were perhaps choking her, and yet she could not raise a hand, nor open her mouth, even though one of her movements or words should decide the destiny of the world.
Her mind resembled those of the living buried by mistake, who awaken in the middle of the night in the earth, three or four yards below the surface of the ground.

They shout, they struggle, and people pass over them without hearing their atrocious lamentations.
Laurent frequently gazed at Madame Raquin, his lips pressed together, his hands stretched out on his knees, putting all his life into his sparkling and swiftly moving eyes.

And he said to himself: "Who knows what she may be thinking of all alone?
Some cruel drama must be passing within this inanimate frame." Laurent made a mistake.