Page 105 - madame-bovary

in the midst of the town council. But the landlady no lon-
ger heeded him; she was listening to a distant rolling. One
could distinguish the noise of a carriage mingled with the
clattering of loose horseshoes that beat against the ground,
and at last the ‘Hirondelle’ stopped at the door.
It was a yellow box on two large wheels, that, reaching to
the tilt, prevented travelers from seeing the road and dirtied
their shoulders. The small panes of the narrow windows rat-
tled in their sashes when the coach was closed, and retained
here and there patches of mud amid the old layers of dust,
that not even storms of rain had altogether washed away. It
was drawn by three horses, the first a leader, and when it
came down-hill its bottom jolted against the ground.
Some of the inhabitants of Yonville came out into the
square; they all spoke at once, asking for news, for explana-
tions, for hampers. Hivert did not know whom to answer.
It was he who did the errands of the place in town. He
went to the shops and brought back rolls of leather for the
shoemaker, old iron for the farrier, a barrel of herrings for
his mistress, caps from the milliner’s, locks from the hair-
dresser’s and all along the road on his return journey he
distributed his parcels, which he threw, standing upright
on his seat and shouting at the top of his voice, over the en-
closures of the yards.
An accident had delayed him. Madame Bovary’s grey-
hound had run across the field. They had whistled for him a
quarter of an hour; Hivert had even gone back a mile and a
half expecting every moment to catch sight of her; but it had
been necessary to go on.

10 Madame Bovary