Page 133 - madame-bovary

Not many people came to these soirees at the chemist’s,
his scandal-mongering and political opinions having suc-
cessfully alienated various respectable persons from him.
The clerk never failed to be there. As soon as he heard the
bell he ran to meet Madame Bovary, took her shawl, and put
away under the shop-counter the thick list shoes that she
wore over her boots when there was snow.
First they played some hands at trente-et-un; next Mon-
sieur Homais played ecarte with Emma; Leon behind her
gave her advice.
Standing up with his hands on the back of her chair he
saw the teeth of her comb that bit into her chignon. With
every movement that she made to throw her cards the right
side of her dress was drawn up. From her turned-up hair a
dark colour fell over her back, and growing gradually paler,
lost itself little by little in the shade. Then her dress fell on
both sides of her chair, puffing out full of folds, and reached
the ground. When Leon occasionally felt the sole of his boot
resting on it, he drew back as if he had trodden upon some
one.
When the game of cards was over, the druggist and the
Doctor played dominoes, and Emma, changing her place,
leant her elbow on the table, turning over the leaves of
‘L’Illustration”. She had brought her ladies’ journal with
her. Leon sat down near her; they looked at the engravings
together, and waited for one another at the bottom of the
pages. She often begged him to read her the verses; Leon
declaimed them in a languid voice, to which he carefully
gave a dying fall in the love passages. But the noise of the

1 Madame Bovary