Page 217 - madame-bovary

found herself in the middle of the field, walking with rapid
steps, without looking behind her.
Day was just breaking. Emma from afar recognised her
lover’s house. Its two dove-tailed weathercocks stood out
black against the pale dawn.
Beyond the farmyard there was a detached building that
she thought must be the chateau She entered—it was if the
doors at her approach had opened wide of their own ac-
cord. A large straight staircase led up to the corridor. Emma
raised the latch of a door, and suddenly at the end of the
room she saw a man sleeping. It was Rodolphe. She uttered
a cry.
‘You here? You here?’ he repeated. ‘How did you manage
to come? Ah! your dress is damp.’
‘I love you,’ she answered, throwing her arms about his
neck.
This first piece of daring successful, now every time
Charles went out early Emma dressed quickly and slipped
on tiptoe down the steps that led to the waterside.
But when the plank for the cows was taken up, she had
to go by the walls alongside of the river; the bank was slip-
pery; in order not to fall she caught hold of the tufts of faded
wallflowers. Then she went across ploughed fields, in which
she sank, stumbling; and clogging her thin shoes. Her
scarf, knotted round her head, fluttered to the wind in the
meadows. She was afraid of the oxen; she began to run; she
arrived out of breath, with rosy cheeks, and breathing out
from her whole person a fresh perfume of sap, of verdure, of
the open air. At this hour Rodolphe still slept. It was like a

1 Madame Bovary