Page 150 - madame-bovary

the blue smoke of the rising incense. Then she was moved;
she felt herself weak and quite deserted, like the down of a
bird whirled by the tempest, and it was unconsciously that
she went towards the church, included to no matter what
devotions, so that her soul was absorbed and all existence
lost in it.
On the Place she met Lestivoudois on his way back, for,
in order not to shorten his day’s labour, he preferred inter-
rupting his work, then beginning it again, so that he rang
the Angelus to suit his own convenience. Besides, the ring-
ing over a little earlier warned the lads of catechism hour.
Already a few who had arrived were playing marbles on
the stones of the cemetery. Others, astride the wall, swung
their legs, kicking with their clogs the large nettles growing
between the little enclosure and the newest graves. This was
the only green spot. All the rest was but stones, always cov-
ered with a fine powder, despite the vestry-broom.
The children in list shoes ran about there as if it were an
enclosure made for them. The shouts of their voices could
be heard through the humming of the bell. This grew less
and less with the swinging of the great rope that, hanging
from the top of the belfry, dragged its end on the ground.
Swallows flitted to and fro uttering little cries, cut the air
with the edge of their wings, and swiftly returned to their
yellow nests under the tiles of the coping. At the end of the
church a lamp was burning, the wick of a night-light in a
glass hung up. Its light from a distance looked like a white
stain trembling in the oil. A long ray of the sun fell across
the nave and seemed to darken the lower sides and the cor-

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