During the journeys he made to see her, Leon had often dined at the

chemist's, and he felt obliged from politeness to invite him in turn.

"With pleasure!" Monsieur Homais replied; "besides, I must invigorate

my mind, for I am getting rusty here. We'll go to the theatre, to the

restaurant; we'll make a night of it."

"Oh, my dear!" tenderly murmured Madame Homais, alarmed at the vague

perils he was preparing to brave.

"Well, what? Do you think I'm not sufficiently ruining my health living

here amid the continual emanations of the pharmacy? But there! that is

the way with women! They are jealous of science, and then are opposed to

our taking the most legitimate distractions. No matter! Count upon

me. One of these days I shall turn up at Rouen, and we'll go the pace

together."

The druggist would formerly have taken good care not to use such an

expression, but he was cultivating a gay Parisian style, which he

thought in the best taste; and, like his neighbour, Madame Bovary, he

questioned the clerk curiously about the customs of the capital; he

even talked slang to dazzle the bourgeois, saying bender, crummy, dandy,

macaroni, the cheese, cut my stick and "I'll hook it," for "I am going."

So one Thursday Emma was surprised to meet Monsieur Homais in the

kitchen of the "Lion d'Or," wearing a traveller's costume, that is to

say, wrapped in an old cloak which no one knew he had, while he carried

a valise in one hand and the foot-warmer of his establishment in the

other. He had confided his intentions to no one, for fear of causing the

public anxiety by his absence.

The idea of seeing again the place where his youth had been spent no

doubt excited him, for during the whole journey he never ceased talking,

and as soon as he had arrived, he jumped quickly out of the diligence

to go in search of Leon. In vain the clerk tried to get rid of him.

Monsieur Homais dragged him off to the large Cafe de la Normandie,

which he entered majestically, not raising his hat, thinking it very

provincial to uncover in any public place.

Emma waited for Leon three quarters of an hour. At last she ran to

his office; and, lost in all sorts of conjectures, accusing him of

indifference, and reproaching herself for her weakness, she spent the

afternoon, her face pressed against the window-panes.

At two o'clock they were still at a table opposite each other. The large

room was emptying; the stove-pipe, in the shape of a palm-tree, spread

its gilt leaves over the white ceiling, and near them, outside the

window, in the bright sunshine, a little fountain gurgled in a white

basin, where; in the midst of watercress and asparagus, three torpid

lobsters stretched across to some quails that lay heaped up in a pile on

their sides.




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