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on winter nights, always full of people, noise, and feeding,
whose black tables are sticky with coffee and brandy, the
thick windows made yellow by the flies, the damp napkins
stained with cheap wine, and that always smells of the vil-
lage, like ploughboys dressed in Sundayclothes, has a cafe
on the street, and towards the countryside a kitchen-garden.
Charles at once set out. He muddled up the stage-boxes with
the gallery, the pit with the boxes; asked for explanations,
did not understand them; was sent from the box-office to
the acting-manager; came back to the inn, returned to the
theatre, and thus several times traversed the whole length
of the town from the theatre to the boulevard.
Madame Bovary bought a bonnet, gloves, and a bou-
quet. The doctor was much afraid of missing the beginning,
and, without having had time to swallow a plate of soup,
they presented themselves at the doors of the theatre, which
were still closed. Chapter Fifteen
The crowd was waiting against the wall, symmetrical-
ly enclosed between the balustrades. At the corner of the
neighbouring streets huge bills repeated in quaint letters
‘Lucie de Lammermoor-Lagardy-Opera-etc.’ The weather
was fine, the people were hot, perspiration trickled amid the
curls, and handkerchiefs taken from pockets were mopping
red foreheads; and now and then a warm wind that blew
from the river gently stirred the border of the tick awnings
hanging from the doors of the public-houses. A little lower
down, however, one was refreshed by a current of icy air
that smelt of tallow, leather, and oil. This was an exhalation
from the Rue des Charrettes, full of large black warehouses

0 Madame Bovary