Page 161 - madame-bovary

bye!’ And he gave her back to her mother.
‘Take her away,’ she said.
They remained alone—Madame Bovary, her back turned,
her face pressed against a window-pane; Leon held his cap
in his hand, knocking it softly against his thigh.
‘It is going to rain,’ said Emma.
‘I have a cloak,’ he answered.
‘Ah!’
She turned around, her chin lowered, her forehead bent
forward.
The light fell on it as on a piece of marble, to the curve of
the eyebrows, without one’s being able to guess what Emma
was seeing on the horizon or what she was thinking within
herself.
‘Well, good-bye,’ he sighed.
She raised her head with a quick movement.
‘Yes, good-bye—go!’
They advanced towards each other; he held out his hand;
she hesitated.
‘In the English fashion, then,’ she said, giving her own
hand wholly to him, and forcing a laugh.
Leon felt it between his fingers, and the very essence
of all his being seemed to pass down into that moist palm.
Then he opened his hand; their eyes met again, and he dis-
appeared.
When he reached the market-place, he stopped and hid
behind a pillar to look for the last time at this white house
with the four green blinds. He thought he saw a shadow be-
hind the window in the room; but the curtain, sliding along

1 0 Madame Bovary