Page 125 - madame-bovary

piece of blue paper. In the corner behind the door, shining
hob-nailed shoes stood in a row under the slab of the wash-
stand, near a bottle of oil with a feather stuck in its mouth;
a Matthieu Laensberg lay on the dusty mantelpiece amid
gunflints, candle-ends, and bits of amadou.
Finally, the last luxury in the apartment was a ‘Fame’
blowing her trumpets, a picture cut out, no doubt, from
some perfumer’s prospectus and nailed to the wall with six
wooden shoe-pegs.
Emma’s child was asleep in a wicker-cradle. She took
it up in the wrapping that enveloped it and began singing
softly as she rocked herself to and fro.
Leon walked up and down the room; it seemed strange
to him to see this beautiful woman in her nankeen dress in
the midst of all this poverty. Madam Bovary reddened; he
turned away, thinking perhaps there had been an imperti-
nent look in his eyes. Then she put back the little girl, who
had just been sick over her collar.
The nurse at once came to dry her, protesting that it
wouldn’t show.
‘She gives me other doses,’ she said: ‘I am always a-wash-
ing of her. If you would have the goodness to order Camus,
the grocer, to let me have a little soap, it would really be
more convenient for you, as I needn’t trouble you then.’
‘Very well! very well!’ said Emma. ‘Good morning, Ma-
dame Rollet,’ and she went out, wiping her shoes at the
door.
The good woman accompanied her to the end of the gar-
den, talking all the time of the trouble she had getting up

1 Madame Bovary