Page 145 - madame-bovary

those pure feelings that do not interfere with life, that are
cultivated because they are rare, and whose loss would af-
flict more than their passion rejoices.
Emma grew thinner, her cheeks paler, her face longer.
With her black hair, her large eyes, her aquiline nose, her
birdlike walk, and always silent now, did she not seem to be
passing through life scarcely touching it, and to bear on her
brow the vague impress of some divine destiny? She was so
sad and so calm, at once so gentle and so reserved, that near
her one felt oneself seized by an icy charm, as we shudder
in churches at the perfume of the flowers mingling with the
cold of the marble. The others even did not escape from this
seduction. The chemist said—
‘She is a woman of great parts, who wouldn’t be mis-
placed in a sub-prefecture.’
The housewives admired her economy, the patients her
politeness, the poor her charity.
But she was eaten up with desires, with rage, with hate.
That dress with the narrow folds hid a distracted fear, of
whose torment those chaste lips said nothing. She was in
love with Leon, and sought solitude that she might with the
more ease delight in his image. The sight of his form trou-
bled the voluptuousness of this mediation. Emma thrilled
at the sound of his step; then in his presence the emotion
subsided, and afterwards there remained to her only an im-
mense astonishment that ended in sorrow.
Leon did not know that when he left her in despair she
rose after he had gone to see him in the street. She con-
cerned herself about his comings and goings; she watched

1 Madame Bovary