Page 309 - madame-bovary

He waited. At last she replied—
‘I always suspected it.’
Then they went over all the trifling events of that far-off
existence, whose joys and sorrows they had just summed
up in one word. They recalled the arbour with clematis, the
dresses she had worn, the furniture of her room, the whole
of her house.
‘And our poor cactuses, where are they?’
‘The cold killed them this winter.’
‘Ah! how I have thought of them, do you know? I often
saw them again as of yore, when on the summer mornings
the sun beat down upon your blinds, and I saw your two
bare arms passing out amongst the flowers.’
‘Poor friend!’ she said, holding out her hand to him.
Leon swiftly pressed his lips to it. Then, when he had
taken a deep breath—
‘At that time you were to me I know not what incompre-
hensible force that took captive my life. Once, for instance, I
went to see you; but you, no doubt, do not remember it.’
‘I do,’ she said; ‘go on.’
‘You were downstairs in the ante-room, ready to go out,
standing on the last stair; you were wearing a bonnet with
small blue flowers; and without any invitation from you, in
spite of myself, I went with you. Every moment, however, I
grew more and more conscious of my folly, and I went on
walking by you, not daring to follow you completely, and
unwilling to leave you. When you went into a shop, I waited
in the street, and I watched you through the window tak-
ing off your gloves and counting the change on the counter.

0 Madame Bovary