Page 153 - madame-bovary

how it is—But pardon me! Longuemarre and Boudet! Bless
me! Will you leave off?’
And with a bound he ran into the church.
The boys were just then clustering round the large desk,
climbing over the precentor’s footstool, opening the mis-
sal; and others on tiptoe were just about to venture into the
confessional. But the priest suddenly distributed a shower
of cuffs among them. Seizing them by the collars of their
coats, he lifted them from the ground, and deposited them
on their knees on the stones of the choir, firmly, as if he
meant planting them there.
‘Yes,’ said he, when he returned to Emma, unfolding his
large cotton handkerchief, one corner of which he put be-
tween his teeth, ‘farmers are much to be pitied.’
‘Others, too,’ she replied.
‘Assuredly. Town-labourers, for example.’
‘It is not they—‘
‘Pardon! I’ve there known poor mothers of families, vir-
tuous women, I assure you, real saints, who wanted even
bread.’
‘But those,’ replied Emma, and the corners of her mouth
twitched as she spoke, ‘those, Monsieur le Cure, who have
bread and have no—‘
‘Fire in the winter,’ said the priest.
‘Oh, what does that matter?’
‘What! What does it matter? It seems to me that when
one has firing and food—for, after all—‘
‘My God! my God!’ she sighed.
‘It is indigestion, no doubt? You must get home, Madame

1 Madame Bovary