They began to love one another again. Often, even in the middle of the

day, Emma suddenly wrote to him, then from the window made a sign to

Justin, who, taking his apron off, quickly ran to La Huchette. Rodolphe

would come; she had sent for him to tell him that she was bored, that

her husband was odious, her life frightful.

"But what can I do?" he cried one day impatiently.

"Ah! if you would--"

She was sitting on the floor between his knees, her hair loose, her look

lost.

"Why, what?" said Rodolphe.

She sighed.

"We would go and live elsewhere--somewhere!"

"You are really mad!" he said laughing. "How could that be possible?"

She returned to the subject; he pretended not to understand, and turned

the conversation.

What he did not understand was all this worry about so simple an affair

as love. She had a motive, a reason, and, as it were, a pendant to her

affection.

Her tenderness, in fact, grew each day with her repulsion to her

husband. The more she gave up herself to the one, the more she loathed

the other. Never had Charles seemed to her so disagreeable, to have

such stodgy fingers, such vulgar ways, to be so dull as when they found

themselves together after her meeting with Rodolphe. Then, while playing

the spouse and virtue, she was burning at the thought of that head whose

black hair fell in a curl over the sunburnt brow, of that form at once

so strong and elegant, of that man, in a word, who had such experience

in his reasoning, such passion in his desires. It was for him that she

filed her nails with the care of a chaser, and that there was never

enough cold-cream for her skin, nor of patchouli for her handkerchiefs.

She loaded herself with bracelets, rings, and necklaces. When he

was coming she filled the two large blue glass vases with roses, and

prepared her room and her person like a courtesan expecting a prince.

The servant had to be constantly washing linen, and all day Felicite

did not stir from the kitchen, where little Justin, who often kept her

company, watched her at work.

With his elbows on the long board on which she was ironing, he

greedily watched all these women's clothes spread about him, the dimity

petticoats, the fichus, the collars, and the drawers with running

strings, wide at the hips and growing narrower below.

"What is that for?" asked the young fellow, passing his hand over the

crinoline or the hooks and eyes.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024