Page 314 - madame-bovary

It was a beautiful summer morning. Silver plate sparkled
in the jeweller’s windows, and the light falling obliquely
on the cathedral made mirrors of the corners of the grey
stones; a flock of birds fluttered in the grey sky round the
trefoil bell-turrets; the square, resounding with cries, was
fragrant with the flowers that bordered its pavement, roses,
jasmines, pinks, narcissi, and tube-roses, unevenly spaced
out between moist grasses, catmint, and chickweed for the
birds; the fountains gurgled in the centre, and under large
umbrellas, amidst melons, piled up in heaps, flower-women,
bare-headed, were twisting paper round bunches of violets.
The young man took one. It was the first time that he
had bought flowers for a woman, and his breast, as he smelt
them, swelled with pride, as if this homage that he meant
for another had recoiled upon himself.
But he was afraid of being seen; he resolutely entered
the church. The beadle, who was just then standing on
the threshold in the middle of the left doorway, under the
‘Dancing Marianne,’ with feather cap, and rapier dangling
against his calves, came in, more majestic than a cardinal,
and as shining as a saint on a holy pyx.
He came towards Leon, and, with that smile of whee-
dling benignity assumed by ecclesiastics when they question
children—
‘The gentleman, no doubt, does not belong to these
parts? The gentleman would like to see the curiosities of the
church?’
‘No!’ said the other.
And he first went round the lower aisles. Then he went

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