One might have thought oneself lodging against the Pere Lachaise cemetery, in the midst of the kingdom of moles.

He was frightful, the animal, continually laughing all by himself, as though his profession enlivened him.

Even when he had finished his rumpus and had laid himself on his back, he snored in a manner so extraordinary that it caused the laundress to hold her breath.

For hours she listened attentively, with an idea that funerals were passing through her neighbor's room.
The worst was that, in spite of her terrors, something incited Gervaise to put her ear to the wall, the better to find out what was taking place.

Bazouge had the same effect on her as handsome men have on good women: they would like to touch them.