"Well," the nurse went on, heaving sighs between each word, "I'm afraid

he'll be put out seeing me have coffee alone, you know men--"

"But you are to have some," Emma repeated; "I will give you some. You

bother me!"

"Oh, dear! my poor, dear lady! you see in consequence of his wounds he

has terrible cramps in the chest. He even says that cider weakens him."

"Do make haste, Mere Rollet!"

"Well," the latter continued, making a curtsey, "if it weren't asking

too much," and she curtsied once more, "if you would"--and her eyes

begged--"a jar of brandy," she said at last, "and I'd rub your little

one's feet with it; they're as tender as one's tongue."

Once rid of the nurse, Emma again took Monsieur Leon's arm. She walked

fast for some time, then more slowly, and looking straight in front of

her, her eyes rested on the shoulder of the young man, whose frock-coat

had a black-velvety collar. His brown hair fell over it, straight and

carefully arranged. She noticed his nails which were longer than one

wore them at Yonville. It was one of the clerk's chief occupations to

trim them, and for this purpose he kept a special knife in his writing

desk.

They returned to Yonville by the water-side. In the warm season the

bank, wider than at other times, showed to their foot the garden walls

whence a few steps led to the river. It flowed noiselessly, swift,

and cold to the eye; long, thin grasses huddled together in it as the

current drove them, and spread themselves upon the limpid water like

streaming hair; sometimes at the tip of the reeds or on the leaf of a

water-lily an insect with fine legs crawled or rested. The sun pierced

with a ray the small blue bubbles of the waves that, breaking, followed

each other; branchless old willows mirrored their grey backs in

the water; beyond, all around, the meadows seemed empty. It was the

dinner-hour at the farms, and the young woman and her companion heard

nothing as they walked but the fall of their steps on the earth of the

path, the words they spoke, and the sound of Emma's dress rustling round

her.

The walls of the gardens with pieces of bottle on their coping were

hot as the glass windows of a conservatory. Wallflowers had sprung up

between the bricks, and with the tip of her open sunshade Madame Bovary,

as she passed, made some of their faded flowers crumble into a yellow

dust, or a spray of overhanging honeysuckle and clematis caught in its

fringe and dangled for a moment over the silk.




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