And she looked like one awaking from a dream.
“Well, you see, you were putting your hand to your forehead. I thought you felt faint.” Then, bethinking himself, “But you were asking me something? What was it? I really don’t remember.”
“I? Nothing! nothing!” repeated Emma.
And the glance she cast round her slowly fell upon the old man in the cassock. They looked at one another face to face without speaking.
“Then, Madame Bovary,” he said at last, “excuse me, but duty first, you know; I must look after my good-for-nothings. The first communion will soon be upon us, and I fear we shall be behind after all. So after Ascension Day I keep them recta* an extra hour every Wednesday. Poor children! One cannot lead them too soon into the path of the Lord, as, moreover, he has himself recommended us to do by the mouth of his Divine Son. Good health to you, madame; my respects to your husband.”
*On the straight and narrow path.
And he went into the church making a genuflexion as soon as he reached the door.
Emma saw him disappear between the double row of forms, walking with a heavy tread, his head a little bent over his shoulder, and with his two hands half-open behind him.
Then she turned on her heel all of one piece, like a statue on a pivot, and went homewards. But the loud voice of the priest, the clear voices of the boys still reached her ears, and went on behind her.
“Are you a Christian?”
“Yes, I am a Christian.”
“What is a Christian?”
“He who, being baptized-baptized-baptized — ”
She went up the steps of the staircase holding on to the banisters, and when she was in her room threw herself into an armchair.
The whitish light of the windowpanes fell with soft undulations.
The furniture in its place seemed to have become more immobile, and to lose itself in the shadow as in an ocean of darkness. The fire was out, the clock went on ticking, and Emma vaguely marvelled at this calm of all things while within herself was such tumult. But little Berthe was there, between the window and the work-table, tottering on her knitted shoes, and trying to come to her mother to catch hold of the ends of her apron-strings.
“Leave me alone,” said the latter, putting her from her with her hand.
The little girl soon came up closer against her knees, and leaning on them with her arms, she looked up with her large blue eyes, while a small thread of pure saliva dribbled from her lips on to the silk apron.
“Leave me alone,” repeated the young woman quite irritably.
Her face frightened the child, who began to scream.
“Will you leave me alone?” she said, pushing her with her elbow.
Berthe fell at the foot of the drawers against the brass handle, cutting her cheek, which began to bleed, against it. Madame Bovary sprang to lift her up, broke the bell-rope, called for the servant with all her might, and she was just going to curse herself when Charles appeared. It was the dinner-hour; he had come home.
“Look, dear!” said Emma, in a calm voice, “the little one fell down while she was playing, and has hurt herself.”
Charles reassured her; the case was not a serious one, and he went for some sticking plaster.
Madame Bovary did not go downstairs to the dining-room; she wished to remain alone to look after the child. Then watching her sleep, the little anxiety she felt gradually wore off, and she seemed very stupid to herself, and very good to have been so worried just now at so little. Berthe, in fact, no longer sobbed.
Her breathing now imperceptibly raised the cotton covering. Big tears lay in the corner of the half-closed eyelids, through whose lashes one could see two pale sunken pupils; the plaster stuck on her cheek drew the skin obliquely.
“It is very strange,” thought Emma, “how ugly this child is!”
When at eleven o’clock Charles came back from the chemist’s shop, whither he had gone after dinner to return the remainder of the sticking-plaster, he found his wife standing by the cradle.
“I assure you it’s nothing.” he said, kissing her on the forehead. “Don’t worry, my poor darling; you will make yourself ill.”
He had stayed a long time at the chemist’s. Although he had not seemed much moved, Homais, nevertheless, had exerted himself to buoy him up, to “keep up his spirits.” Then they had talked of the various dangers that threaten childhood, of the carelessness of servants. Madame Homais knew something of it, having still upon her chest the marks left by a basin full of soup that a cook had formerly dropped on her pinafore, and her good parents took no end of trouble for her. The knives were not sharpened, nor the floors waxed; there were iron gratings to the windows and strong bars across the fireplace; the little Homais, in spite of their spirit, could not stir without someone watching them; at the slightest cold their father stuffed them with pectorals; and until they were turned four they all, without pity, had to wear wadded head-protectors. This, it is true, was a fancy of Madame Homais’; her husband was inwardly afflicted at it. Fearing the possible consequences of such compression to the intellectual organs. He even went so far as to say to her, “Do you want to make Caribs or Botocudos of them?”
Charles, however, had several times tried to interrupt the conversation. “I should like to speak to you,” he had whispered in the clerk’s ear, who went upstairs in front of him.
“Can he suspect anything?” Leon asked himself. His heart beat, and he racked his brain with surmises.
At last, Charles, having shut the door, asked him to see himself what would be the price at Rouen of a fine daguerreotypes. It was a sentimental surprise he intended for his wife, a delicate attention — his portrait in a frock-coat. But he wanted first to know “how much it would be.” The inquiries would not put Monsieur Leon out, since he went to town almost every week.
Why? Monsieur Homais suspected some “young man’s affair” at the bottom of it, an intrigue. But he was mistaken. Leon was after no love-making. He was sadder than ever, as Madame Lefrancois saw from the amount of food he left on his plate. To find out more about it she questioned the taxcollector. Binet answered roughly that he “wasn’t paid by the police.”
All the same, his companion seemed very strange to him, for Leon often threw himself back in his chair, and stretching out his arms. Complained vaguely of life.
“It’s because you don’t take enough recreation,” said the collector.
“What recreation?”
“If I were you I’d have a lathe.”
“But I don’t know how to turn,” answered the clerk.
“Ah! that’s true,” said the other, rubbing his chin with an air of mingled contempt and satisfaction.
Leon was weary of loving without any result; moreover he was beginning to feel that depression caused by the repetition of the same kind of life, when no interest inspires and no hope sustains it. He was so
