Page 131 - madame-bovary

CHAPTER FOUR

hen the first cold days set in Emma left her bedroom
Wfor the sitting-room, a long apartment with a low ceil-
ing, in which there was on the mantelpiece a large bunch
of coral spread out against the looking-glass. Seated in her
arm chair near the window, she could see the villagers pass
along the pavement.
Twice a day Leon went from his office to the Lion d’Or.
Emma could hear him coming from afar; she leant forward
listening, and the young man glided past the curtain, al-
ways dressed in the same way, and without turning his
head. But in the twilight, when, her chin resting on her
left hand, she let the embroidery she had begun fall on her
knees, she often shuddered at the apparition of this shadow
suddenly gliding past. She would get up and order the table
to be laid.
Monsieur Homais called at dinner-time. Skull-cap in
hand, he came in on tiptoe, in order to disturb no one, al-
ways repeating the same phrase, ‘Good evening, everybody.’
Then, when he had taken his seat at the table between the
pair, he asked the doctor about his patients, and the latter
consulted his as to the probability of their payment. Next
they talked of ‘what was in the paper.’
Homais by this hour knew it almost by heart, and he
repeated it from end to end, with the reflections of the pen-

1 0 Madame Bovary