Page 284 - madame-bovary

glory she, had dreamed of over a portrait of La Valliere, and
who, trailing with so much majesty the lace-trimmed trains
of their long gowns, retired into solitudes to shed at the feet
of Christ all the tears of hearts that life had wounded.
Then she gave herself up to excessive charity. She sewed
clothes for the poor, she sent wood to women in childbed;
and Charles one day, on coming home, found three good-
for-nothings in the kitchen seated at the table eating soup.
She had her little girl, whom during her illness her hus-
band had sent back to the nurse, brought home. She wanted
to teach her to read; even when Berthe cried, she was not
vexed. She had made up her mind to resignation, to uni-
versal indulgence. Her language about everything was full
of ideal expressions. She said to her child, ‘Is your stomach-
ache better, my angel?’
Madame Bovary senior found nothing to censure except
perhaps this mania of knitting jackets for orphans instead
of mending her own house-linen; but, harassed with do-
mestic quarrels, the good woman took pleasure in this quiet
house, and she even stayed there till after Easter, to escape
the sarcasms of old Bovary, who never failed on Good Fri-
day to order chitterlings.
Besides the companionship of her mother-in-law, who
strengthened her a little by the rectitude of her judgment
and her grave ways, Emma almost every day had other
visitors. These were Madame Langlois, Madame Caron,
Madame Dubreuil, Madame Tuvache, and regularly from
two to five o’clock the excellent Madame Homais, who, for
her part, had never believed any of the tittle-tattle about her