...of bated breath

Now they're all agog. He's not the only one. There are others who are hiding, sly recalcitrants, nostalgics... They're inspected, searched... that one over there, in that one, for some time now they had been sensing it, from that one who said nothing something emanated, they, those who happened to be near him, were more and more discommoded by it, their movements, as though the air about them had become thicker, had grown embarrassed, slower... that's where it came from, now they are sure: from those invisible emanations that, like a heavy gas, filtered from his silence.

[The Golden Fruits, Sarraute, N.]