"But where are we going?" she said.

Making no answer, he walked on with a rapid step; and Madame Bovary

was already, dipping her finger in the holy water when behind them they

heard a panting breath interrupted by the regular sound of a cane. Leon

turned back.

"Sir!"

"What is it?"

And he recognised the beadle, holding under his arms and balancing

against his stomach some twenty large sewn volumes. They were works

"which treated of the cathedral."

"Idiot!" growled Leon, rushing out of the church.

A lad was playing about the close.

"Go and get me a cab!"

The child bounded off like a ball by the Rue Quatre-Vents; then they

were alone a few minutes, face to face, and a little embarrassed.

"Ah! Leon! Really--I don't know--if I ought," she whispered. Then with a

more serious air, "Do you know, it is very improper--"

"How so?" replied the clerk. "It is done at Paris."

And that, as an irresistible argument, decided her.

Still the cab did not come. Leon was afraid she might go back into the

church. At last the cab appeared.

"At all events, go out by the north porch," cried the beadle, who was

left alone on the threshold, "so as to see the Resurrection, the Last

Judgment, Paradise, King David, and the Condemned in Hell-flames."

"Where to, sir?" asked the coachman.

"Where you like," said Leon, forcing Emma into the cab.

And the lumbering machine set out. It went down the Rue Grand-Pont,

crossed the Place des Arts, the Quai Napoleon, the Pont Neuf, and

stopped short before the statue of Pierre Corneille.

"Go on," cried a voice that came from within.

The cab went on again, and as soon as it reached the Carrefour

Lafayette, set off down-hill, and entered the station at a gallop.

"No, straight on!" cried the same voice.

The cab came out by the gate, and soon having reached the Cours, trotted

quietly beneath the elm-trees. The coachman wiped his brow, put his

leather hat between his knees, and drove his carriage beyond the side

alley by the meadow to the margin of the waters.

It went along by the river, along the towing-path paved with sharp

pebbles, and for a long while in the direction of Oyssel, beyond the

isles.

But suddenly it turned with a dash across Quatremares, Sotteville, La

Grande-Chaussee, the Rue d'Elbeuf, and made its third halt in front of

the Jardin des Plantes.




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