Page 239 - madame-bovary

The poor devil promised. The cure came back day after
day. He chatted with the landlady; and even told anecdotes
interspersed with jokes and puns that Hippolyte did not
understand. Then, as soon as he could, he fell back upon
matters of religion, putting on an appropriate expression of
face.
His zeal seemed successful, for the club-foot soon mani-
fested a desire to go on a pilgrimage to Bon-Secours if he
were cured; to which Monsieur Bournisien replied that he
saw no objection; two precautions were better than one; it
was no risk anyhow.
The druggist was indignant at what he called the ma-
noeuvres of the priest; they were prejudicial, he said, to
Hippolyte’s convalescence, and he kept repeating to Ma-
dame Lefrancois, ‘Leave him alone! leave him alone! You
perturb his morals with your mysticism.’ But the good
woman would no longer listen to him; he was the cause of
it all. From a spirit of contradiction she hung up near the
bedside of the patient a basin filled with holy-water and a
branch of box.
Religion, however, seemed no more able to succour him
than surgery, and the invincible gangrene still spread from
the extremities towards the stomach. It was all very well to
vary the potions and change the poultices; the muscles each
day rotted more and more; and at last Charles replied by an
affirmative nod of the head when Mere Lefrancois, asked
him if she could not, as a forlorn hope, send for Monsieur
Canivet of Neufchatel, who was a celebrity.
A doctor of medicine, fifty years of age, enjoying a good

Madame Bovary