Page 126 - madame-bovary

of nights.
‘I’m that worn out sometimes as I drop asleep on my
chair. I’m sure you might at least give me just a pound of
ground coffee; that’d last me a month, and I’d take it of a
morning with some milk.’
After having submitted to her thanks, Madam Bovary
left. She had gone a little way down the path when, at the
sound of wooden shoes, she turned round. It was the nurse.
‘What is it?’
Then the peasant woman, taking her aside behind an
elm tree, began talking to her of her husband, who with his
trade and six francs a year that the captain—
‘Oh, be quick!’ said Emma.
‘Well,’ the nurse went on, heaving sighs between each
word, ‘I’m afraid he’ll be put out seeing me have coffee
along, 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

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