Page 152 - madame-bovary

we are born to suffer, as St. Paul says. But what does Mon-
sieur Bovary think of it?’
‘He!’ she said with a gesture of contempt.
‘What!’ replied the good fellow, quite astonished, doesn’t
he prescribe something for you?’
‘Ah!’ said Emma, ‘it is no earthly remedy I need.’
But the cure from time to time looked into the church,
where the kneeling boys were shouldering one another, and
tumbling over like packs of cards.
‘I should like to know—‘ she went on.
‘You look out, Riboudet,’ cried the priest in an an-
gry voice; ‘I’ll warm your ears, you imp!’ Then turning to
Emma, ‘He’s Boudet the carpenter’s son; his parents are
well off, and let him do just as he pleases. Yet he could learn
quickly if he would, for he is very sharp. And so sometimes
for a joke I call him Riboudet (like the road one takes to
go to Maromme) and I even say ‘Mon Riboudet.’ Ha! Ha!
‘Mont Riboudet.’ The other day I repeated that just to Mon-
signor, and he laughed at it; he condescended to laugh at it.
And how is Monsieur Bovary?’
She seemed not to hear him. And he went on—
‘Always very busy, no doubt; for he and I are certainly the
busiest people in the parish. But he is doctor of the body,’ he
added with a thick laugh, ‘and I of the soul.’
She fixed her pleading eyes upon the priest. ‘Yes,’ she
said, ‘you solace all sorrows.’
‘Ah! don’t talk to me of it, Madame Bovary. This morn-
ing I had to go to Bas-Diauville for a cow that was ill; they
thought it was under a spell. All their cows, I don’t know

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