Page 286 - madame-bovary

who during her convalescence had contracted the habit of
coming too often to the kitchen with her two nurslings and
her boarder, better off for teeth than a cannibal. Then she
got rid of the Homais family, successively dismissed all the
other visitors, and even frequented church less assiduously,
to the great approval of the druggist, who said to her in a
friendly way—
‘You were going in a bit for the cassock!’
As formerly, Monsieur Bournisien dropped in every day
when he came out after catechism class. He preferred stay-
ing out of doors to taking the air ‘in the grove,’ as he called
the arbour. This was the time when Charles came home.
They were hot; some sweet cider was brought out, and they
drank together to madame’s complete restoration.
Binet was there; that is to say, a little lower down against
the terrace wall, fishing for crayfish. Bovary invited him to
have a drink, and he thoroughly understood the uncorking
of the stone bottles.
‘You must,’ he said, throwing a satisfied glance all round
him, even to the very extremity of the landscape, ‘hold the
bottle perpendicularly on the table, and after the strings are
cut, press up the cork with little thrusts, gently, gently, as
indeed they do seltzer-water at restaurants.’
But during his demonstration the cider often spurted
right into their faces, and then the ecclesiastic, with a thick
laugh, never missed this joke—
‘Its goodness strikes the eye!’
He was, in fact, a good fellow and one day he was not
even scandalised at the chemist, who advised Charles to