Emma, on the other hand, knew how to look after her house. She sent the

patients' accounts in well-phrased letters that had no suggestion of

a bill. When they had a neighbour to dinner on Sundays, she managed to

have some tasty dish--piled up pyramids of greengages on vine leaves,

served up preserves turned out into plates--and even spoke of buying

finger-glasses for dessert. From all this much consideration was

extended to Bovary.

Charles finished by rising in his own esteem for possessing such a wife.

He showed with pride in the sitting room two small pencil sketched by

her that he had had framed in very large frames, and hung up against the

wallpaper by long green cords. People returning from mass saw him at his

door in his wool-work slippers.

He came home late--at ten o'clock, at midnight sometimes. Then he asked

for something to eat, and as the servant had gone to bed, Emma waited

on him. He took off his coat to dine more at his ease. He told her, one

after the other, the people he had met, the villages where he had been,

the prescriptions ha had written, and, well pleased with himself, he

finished the remainder of the boiled beef and onions, picked pieces off

the cheese, munched an apple, emptied his water-bottle, and then went to

bed, and lay on his back and snored.

As he had been for a time accustomed to wear nightcaps, his handkerchief

would not keep down over his ears, so that his hair in the morning was

all tumbled pell-mell about his face and whitened with the feathers of

the pillow, whose strings came untied during the night. He always wore

thick boots that had two long creases over the instep running obliquely

towards the ankle, while the rest of the upper continued in a straight

line as if stretched on a wooden foot. He said that "was quite good

enough for the country."

His mother approved of his economy, for she came to see him as formerly

when there had been some violent row at her place; and yet Madame Bovary

senior seemed prejudiced against her daughter-in-law. She thought "her

ways too fine for their position"; the wood, the sugar, and the candles

disappeared as "at a grand establishment," and the amount of firing in

the kitchen would have been enough for twenty-five courses. She put her

linen in order for her in the presses, and taught her to keep an eye on

the butcher when he brought the meat. Emma put up with these lessons.

Madame Bovary was lavish of them; and the words "daughter" and "mother"

were exchanged all day long, accompanied by little quiverings of the

lips, each one uttering gentle words in a voice trembling with anger.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024