Page 311 - madame-bovary

sentiments to me?’
The clerk said that ideal natures were difficult to un-
derstand. He from the first moment had loved her, and he
despaired when he thought of the happiness that would
have been theirs, if thanks to fortune, meeting her earlier,
they had been indissolubly bound to one another.
‘I have sometimes thought of it,’ she went on.
‘What a dream!’ murmured Leon. And fingering gently
the blue binding of her long white sash, he added, ‘And who
prevents us from beginning now?’
‘No, my friend,’ she replied; ‘I am too old; you are too
young. Forget me! Others will love you; you will love them.’
‘Not as you!’ he cried.
‘What a child you are! Come, let us be sensible. I wish it.’
She showed him the impossibility of their love, and that
they must remain, as formerly, on the simple terms of a fra-
ternal friendship.
Was she speaking thus seriously? No doubt Emma did
not herself know, quite absorbed as she was by the charm of
the seduction, and the necessity of defending herself from
it; and contemplating the young man with a moved look,
she gently repulsed the timid caresses that his trembling
hands attempted.
‘Ah! forgive me!’ he cried, drawing back.
Emma was seized with a vague fear at this shyness, more
dangerous to her than the boldness of Rodolphe when he
advanced to her open-armed. No man had ever seemed to
her so beautiful. An exquisite candour emanated from his
being. He lowered his long fine eyelashes, that curled up-

10 Madame Bovary