Page 149 - madame-bovary

CHAPTER SIX

ne evening when the window was open, and she, sit-
Oting by it, had been watching Lestiboudois, the beadle,
trimming the box, she suddenly heard the Angelus ringing.
It was the beginning of April, when the primroses are in
bloom, and a warm wind blows over the flower-beds newly
turned, and the gardens, like women, seem to be getting
ready for the summer fetes. Through the bars of the arbour
and away beyond, the river seen in the fields, meandering
through the grass in wandering curves. The evening vapours
rose between the leafless poplars, touching their outlines
with a violet tint, paler and more transparent than a subtle
gauze caught athwart their branches. In the distance cattle
moved about; neither their steps nor their lowing could be
heard; and the bell, still ringing through the air, kept up its
peaceful lamentation.
With this repeated tinkling the thoughts of the young
woman lost themselves in old memories of her youth and
school-days. She remembered the great candlesticks that
rose above the vases full of flowers on the altar, and the tab-
ernacle with its small columns. She would have liked to be
once more lost in the long line of white veils, marked off
here and there by the stuff black hoods of the good sisters
bending over their prie-Dieu. At mass on Sundays, when
she looked up, she saw the gentle face of the Virgin amid

1 Madame Bovary