So she had done, she thought, with all the treachery; and meanness,

and numberless desires that had tortured her. She hated no one now; a

twilight dimness was settling upon her thoughts, and, of all earthly

noises, Emma heard none but the intermittent lamentations of this poor

heart, sweet and indistinct like the echo of a symphony dying away.

"Bring me the child," she said, raising herself on her elbow.

"You are not worse, are you?" asked Charles.

"No, no!"

The child, serious, and still half-asleep, was carried in on the

servant's arm in her long white nightgown, from which her bare

feet peeped out. She looked wonderingly at the disordered room, and

half-closed her eyes, dazzled by the candles burning on the table. They

reminded her, no doubt, of the morning of New Year's day and Mid-Lent,

when thus awakened early by candle-light she came to her mother's bed to

fetch her presents, for she began saying-"But where is it, mamma?" And as everybody was silent, "But I can't see

my little stocking."

Felicite held her over the bed while she still kept looking towards the

mantelpiece.

"Has nurse taken it?" she asked.

And at this name, that carried her back to the memory of her adulteries

and her calamities, Madame Bovary turned away her head, as at the

loathing of another bitterer poison that rose to her mouth. But Berthe

remained perched on the bed.

"Oh, how big your eyes are, mamma! How pale you are! how hot you are!"

Her mother looked at her. "I am frightened!" cried the child, recoiling.

Emma took her hand to kiss it; the child struggled.

"That will do. Take her away," cried Charles, who was sobbing in the

alcove.

Then the symptoms ceased for a moment; she seemed less agitated; and at

every insignificant word, at every respiration a little more easy, he

regained hope. At last, when Canivet came in, he threw himself into his

arms.

"Ah! it is you. Thanks! You are good! But she is better. See! look at

her."

His colleague was by no means of this opinion, and, as he said of

himself, "never beating about the bush," he prescribed, an emetic in

order to empty the stomach completely.

She soon began vomiting blood. Her lips became drawn. Her limbs were

convulsed, her whole body covered with brown spots, and her pulse

slipped beneath the fingers like a stretched thread, like a harp-string

nearly breaking.

After this she began to scream horribly. She cursed the poison, railed

at it, and implored it to be quick, and thrust away with her stiffened

arms everything that Charles, in more agony than herself, tried to make

her drink. He stood up, his handkerchief to his lips, with a rattling

sound in his throat, weeping, and choked by sobs that shook his whole

body. Felicite was running hither and thither in the room. Homais,

motionless, uttered great sighs; and Monsieur Canivet, always retaining

his self-command, nevertheless began to feel uneasy.




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