Page 319 - madame-bovary

him back, he cried—
‘Sir! sir! The steeple! the steeple!’
‘No, thank you!’ said Leon.
‘You are wrong, sir! It is four hundred and forty feet high,
nine less than the great pyramid of Egypt. It is all cast; it—‘
Leon was fleeing, for it seemed to him that his love,
that for nearly two hours now had become petrified in the
church like the stones, would vanish like a vapour through
that sort of truncated funnel, of oblong cage, of open chim-
ney that rises so grotesquely from the cathedral like the
extravagant attempt of some fantastic brazier.
‘But where are we going?’ she said.
Making no answer, he walked on with a rapid step; and
Madame Bovary was already, dipping her finger in the holy
water when behind them they heard a panting breath inter-
rupted by the regular sound of a cane. Leon turned back.
‘Sir!’
‘What is it?’
And he recognised the beadle, holding under his arms
and balancing against his stomach some twenty large sewn
volumes. They were works ‘which treated of the cathedral.’
‘Idiot!’ growled Leon, rushing out of the church.
A lad was playing about the close.
‘Go and get me a cab!’
The child bounded off like a ball by the Rue Quatre-
Vents; then they were alone a few minutes, face to face, and
a little embarrassed.
‘Ah! Leon! Really—I don’t know—if I ought,’ she whis-
pered. Then with a more serious air, ‘Do you know, it is very

1 Madame Bovary