Justin escaped from the chemist's to see her start, and the chemist also

came out. He was giving Monsieur Boulanger a little good advice.

"An accident happens so easily. Be careful! Your horses perhaps are

mettlesome."

She heard a noise above her; it was Felicite drumming on the windowpanes

to amuse little Berthe. The child blew her a kiss; her mother answered

with a wave of her whip.

"A pleasant ride!" cried Monsieur Homais. "Prudence! above all,

prudence!" And he flourished his newspaper as he saw them disappear.

As soon as he felt the ground, Emma's horse set off at a gallop.

Rodolphe galloped by her side. Now and then they exchanged a word. Her

figure slightly bent, her hand well up, and her right arm stretched out,

she gave herself up to the cadence of the movement that rocked her in

her saddle. At the bottom of the hill Rodolphe gave his horse its head;

they started together at a bound, then at the top suddenly the horses

stopped, and her large blue veil fell about her.

It was early in October. There was fog over the land. Hazy clouds

hovered on the horizon between the outlines of the hills; others, rent

asunder, floated up and disappeared. Sometimes through a rift in the

clouds, beneath a ray of sunshine, gleamed from afar the roots of

Yonville, with the gardens at the water's edge, the yards, the walls and

the church steeple. Emma half closed her eyes to pick out her house, and

never had this poor village where she lived appeared so small. From the

height on which they were the whole valley seemed an immense pale lake

sending off its vapour into the air. Clumps of trees here and there

stood out like black rocks, and the tall lines of the poplars that rose

above the mist were like a beach stirred by the wind.

By the side, on the turf between the pines, a brown light shimmered

in the warm atmosphere. The earth, ruddy like the powder of tobacco,

deadened the noise of their steps, and with the edge of their shoes the

horses as they walked kicked the fallen fir cones in front of them.

Rodolphe and Emma thus went along the skirt of the wood. She turned

away from time to time to avoid his look, and then she saw only the pine

trunks in lines, whose monotonous succession made her a little giddy.

The horses were panting; the leather of the saddles creaked.

Just as they were entering the forest the sun shone out.

"God protects us!" said Rodolphe.




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