Page 173 - madame-bovary

With one bound she came down the staircase.
‘Some vinegar,’ he cried. ‘O dear! two at once!’
And in his emotion he could hardly put on the com-
press.
‘It is nothing,’ said Monsieur Boulanger quietly, taking
Justin in his arms. He seated him on the table with his back
resting against the wall.
Madame Bovary began taking off his cravat. The strings
of his shirt had got into a knot, and she was for some min-
utes moving her light fingers about the young fellow’s neck.
Then she poured some vinegar on her cambric handker-
chief; she moistened his temples with little dabs, and then
blew upon them softly. The ploughman revived, but Justin’s
syncope still lasted, and his eyeballs disappeared in the pale
sclerotics like blue flowers in milk.
‘We must hide this from him,’ said Charles.
Madame Bovary took the basin to put it under the table.
With the movement she made in bending down, her dress
(it was a summer dress with four flounces, yellow, long in
the waist and wide in the skirt) spread out around her on
the flags of the room; and as Emma stooping, staggered a
little as she stretched out her arms.
The stuff here and there gave with the inflections of her
bust.
Then she went to fetch a bottle of water, and she was
melting some pieces of sugar when the chemist arrived. The
servant had been to fetch him in the tumult. Seeing his pu-
pil’s eyes staring he drew a long breath; then going around
him he looked at him from head to foot.

1 Madame Bovary