A metallic clang droned through the air, and four strokes were heard

from the convent-clock. Four o'clock! And it seemed to her that she had

been there on that form an eternity. But an infinity of passions may be

contained in a minute, like a crowd in a small space.

Emma lived all absorbed in hers, and troubled no more about money

matters than an archduchess.

Once, however, a wretched-looking man, rubicund and bald, came to her

house, saying he had been sent by Monsieur Vincart of Rouen. He took out

the pins that held together the side-pockets of his long green overcoat,

stuck them into his sleeve, and politely handed her a paper.

It was a bill for seven hundred francs, signed by her, and which

Lheureux, in spite of all his professions, had paid away to Vincart. She

sent her servant for him. He could not come. Then the stranger, who

had remained standing, casting right and left curious glances, that his

thick, fair eyebrows hid, asked with a naive air-"What answer am I to take Monsieur Vincart?"

"Oh," said Emma, "tell him that I haven't it. I will send next week; he

must wait; yes, till next week."

And the fellow went without another word.

But the next day at twelve o'clock she received a summons, and the sight

of the stamped paper, on which appeared several times in large letters,

"Maitre Hareng, bailiff at Buchy," so frightened her that she rushed in

hot haste to the linendraper's. She found him in his shop, doing up a

parcel.

"Your obedient!" he said; "I am at your service."

But Lheureux, all the same, went on with his work, helped by a young

girl of about thirteen, somewhat hunch-backed, who was at once his clerk

and his servant.

Then, his clogs clattering on the shop-boards, he went up in front

of Madame Bovary to the first door, and introduced her into a narrow

closet, where, in a large bureau in sapon-wood, lay some ledgers,

protected by a horizontal padlocked iron bar. Against the wall, under

some remnants of calico, one glimpsed a safe, but of such dimensions

that it must contain something besides bills and money. Monsieur

Lheureux, in fact, went in for pawnbroking, and it was there that he had

put Madame Bovary's gold chain, together with the earrings of poor old

Tellier, who, at last forced to sell out, had bought a meagre store

of grocery at Quincampoix, where he was dying of catarrh amongst his

candles, that were less yellow than his face.




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