His arms were folded across his knees, and thus lifting his face towards

Emma, close by her, he looked fixedly at her. She noticed in his eyes

small golden lines radiating from black pupils; she even smelt the

perfume of the pomade that made his hair glossy.

Then a faintness came over her; she recalled the Viscount who had

waltzed with her at Vaubyessard, and his beard exhaled like this air an

odour of vanilla and citron, and mechanically she half-closed her eyes

the better to breathe it in. But in making this movement, as she leant

back in her chair, she saw in the distance, right on the line of the

horizon, the old diligence, the "Hirondelle," that was slowly descending

the hill of Leux, dragging after it a long trail of dust. It was in this

yellow carriage that Leon had so often come back to her, and by this

route down there that he had gone for ever. She fancied she saw him

opposite at his windows; then all grew confused; clouds gathered; it

seemed to her that she was again turning in the waltz under the light of

the lustres on the arm of the Viscount, and that Leon was not far away,

that he was coming; and yet all the time she was conscious of the scent

of Rodolphe's head by her side. This sweetness of sensation pierced

through her old desires, and these, like grains of sand under a gust

of wind, eddied to and fro in the subtle breath of the perfume which

suffused her soul. She opened wide her nostrils several times to drink

in the freshness of the ivy round the capitals. She took off her gloves,

she wiped her hands, then fanned her face with her handkerchief, while

athwart the throbbing of her temples she heard the murmur of the

crowd and the voice of the councillor intoning his phrases. He

said--"Continue, persevere; listen neither to the suggestions of

routine, nor to the over-hasty councils of a rash empiricism.

"Apply yourselves, above all, to the amelioration of the soil, to good

manures, to the development of the equine, bovine, ovine, and porcine

races. Let these shows be to you pacific arenas, where the victor in

leaving it will hold forth a hand to the vanquished, and will fraternise

with him in the hope of better success. And you, aged servants, humble

domestics, whose hard labour no Government up to this day has taken into

consideration, come hither to receive the reward of your silent virtues,

and be assured that the state henceforward has its eye upon you; that it

encourages you, protects you; that it will accede to your just

demands, and alleviate as much as in it lies the burden of your painful

sacrifices."




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