Page 151 - madame-bovary

ners.
‘Where is the cure?’ asked Madame Bovary of one of the
lads, who was amusing himself by shaking a swivel in a hole
too large for it.
‘He is just coming,’ he answered.
And in fact the door of the presbytery grated; Abbe
Bournisien appeared; the children, pell-mell, fled into the
church.
‘These young scamps!’ murmured the priest, ‘always the
same!’
Then, picking up a catechism all in rags that he had
struck with is foot, ‘They respect nothing!’ But as soon as
he caught sight of Madame Bovary, ‘Excuse me,’ he said; ‘I
did not recognise you.’
He thrust the catechism into his pocket, and stopped
short, balancing the heavy vestry key between his two fin-
gers.
The light of the setting sun that fell full upon his face
paled the lasting of his cassock, shiny at the elbows, unrav-
elled at the hem. Grease and tobacco stains followed along
his broad chest the lines of the buttons, and grew more nu-
merous the farther they were from his neckcloth, in which
the massive folds of his red chin rested; this was dotted with
yellow spots, that disappeared beneath the coarse hair of his
greyish beard. He had just dined and was breathing noisily.
‘How are you?’ he added.
‘Not well,’ replied Emma; ‘I am ill.’
‘Well, and so am I,’ answered the priest. ‘These first warm
days weaken one most remarkably, don’t they? But, after all,

1 0 Madame Bovary