It was mid-day, the shutters of the houses were closed and the slate

roofs that glittered beneath the fierce light of the blue sky seemed to

strike sparks from the crest of the gables. A heavy wind was blowing;

Emma felt weak as she walked; the stones of the pavement hurt her; she

was doubtful whether she would not go home again, or go in somewhere to

rest.

At this moment Monsieur Leon came out from a neighbouring door with a

bundle of papers under his arm. He came to greet her, and stood in the

shade in front of the Lheureux's shop under the projecting grey awning.

Madame Bovary said she was going to see her baby, but that she was

beginning to grow tired.

"If--" said Leon, not daring to go on.

"Have you any business to attend to?" she asked.

And on the clerk's answer, she begged him to accompany her. That same

evening this was known in Yonville, and Madame Tuvache, the mayor's

wife, declared in the presence of her servant that "Madame Bovary was

compromising herself."

To get to the nurse's it was necessary to turn to the left on leaving

the street, as if making for the cemetery, and to follow between little

houses and yards a small path bordered with privet hedges. They were

in bloom, and so were the speedwells, eglantines, thistles, and the

sweetbriar that sprang up from the thickets. Through openings in

the hedges one could see into the huts, some pigs on a dung-heap, or

tethered cows rubbing their horns against the trunk of trees. The two,

side by side walked slowly, she leaning upon him, and he restraining

his pace, which he regulated by hers; in front of them a swarm of midges

fluttered, buzzing in the warm air.

They recognized the house by an old walnut-tree which shaded it.

Low and covered with brown tiles, there hung outside it, beneath the

dormer-window of the garret, a string of onions. Faggots upright

against a thorn fence surrounded a bed of lettuce, a few square feet of

lavender, and sweet peas strung on sticks. Dirty water was running here

and there on the grass, and all round were several indefinite rags,

knitted stockings, a red calico jacket, and a large sheet of coarse

linen spread over the hedge. At the noise of the gate the nurse appeared

with a baby she was suckling on one arm. With her other hand she was

pulling along a poor puny little fellow, his face covered with scrofula,

the son of a Rouen hosier, whom his parents, too taken up with their

business, left in the country.




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