Page 162 - madame-bovary

the pole as though no one were touching it, slowly opened
its long oblique folds that spread out with a single move-
ment, and thus hung straight and motionless as a plaster
wall. Leon set off running.
From afar he saw his employer’s gig in the road, and by
it a man in a coarse apron holding the horse. Homais and
Monsieur Guillaumin were talking. They were waiting for
him.
‘Embrace me,’ said the druggist with tears in his eyes.
‘Here is your coat, my good friend. Mind the cold; take care
of yourself; look after yourself.’
‘Come, Leon, jump in,’ said the notary.
Homais bend over the splash-board, and in a voice
broken by sobs uttered these three sad words—
‘A pleasant journey!’
‘Good-night,’ said Monsieur Guillaumin. ‘Give him his
head.’ They set out, and Homais went back.
Madame Bovary had opened her window overlooking
the garden and watched the clouds. They gathered around
the sunset on the side of Rouen and then swiftly rolled back
their black columns, behind which the great rays of the sun
looked out like the golden arrows of a suspended trophy,
while the rest of the empty heavens was white as porcelain.
But a gust of wind bowed the poplars, and suddenly the rain
fell; it pattered against the green leaves.
Then the sun reappeared, the hens clucked, sparrows
shook their wings in the damp thickets, and the pools of
water on the gravel as they flowed away carried off the pink
flowers of an acacia.

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