Page 227 - madame-bovary

see you. It is so difficult now to leave the house since I am
alone, my poor Emma.’
Here there was a break in the lines, as if the old fellow
had dropped his pen to dream a little while.
‘For myself, I am very well, except for a cold I caught the
other day at the fair at Yvetot, where I had gone to hire a
shepherd, having turned away mine because he was too
dainty. How we are to be pitied with such a lot of thieves!
Besides, he was also rude. I heard from a pedlar, who, trav-
elling through your part of the country this winter, had a
tooth drawn, that Bovary was as usual working hard. That
doesn’t surprise me; and he showed me his tooth; we had
some coffee together. I asked him if he had seen you, and
he said not, but that he had seen two horses in the stables,
from which I conclude that business is looking up. So much
the better, my dear children, and may God send you every
imaginable happiness! It grieves me not yet to have seen my
dear little grand-daughter, Berthe Bovary. I have planted an
Orleans plum-tree for her in the garden under your room,
and I won’t have it touched unless it is to have jam made
for her by and bye, that I will keep in the cupboard for her
when she comes.
‘Good-bye, my dear children. I kiss you, my girl, you too,
my son-in-law, and the little one on both cheeks. I am, with
best compliments, your loving father.
‘Theodore Rouault.’
She held the coarse paper in her fingers for some min-
utes. The spelling mistakes were interwoven one with the
other, and Emma followed the kindly thought that cack-

Madame Bovary