Page 326 - madame-bovary

And do you know what is in it? Arsenic! And you go and
touch it! You take a pan that was next to it!’
‘Next to it!’ cried Madame Hoinais, clasping her hands.
‘Arsenic! You might have poisoned us all.’
And the children began howling as if they already had
frightful pains in their entrails.
‘Or poison a patient!’ continued the druggist. ‘Do you
want to see me in the prisoner’s dock with criminals, in a
court of justice? To see me dragged to the scaffold? Don’t
you know what care I take in managing things, although
I am so thoroughly used to it? Often I am horrified my-
self when I think of my responsibility; for the Government
persecutes us, and the absurd legislation that rules us is a
veritable Damocles’ sword over our heads.’
Emma no longer dreamed of asking what they wanted
her for, and the druggist went on in breathless phrases—
‘That is your return for all the kindness we have shown
you! That is how you recompense me for the really paternal
care that I lavish on you! For without me where would you
be? What would you be doing? Who provides you with food,
education, clothes, and all the means of figuring one day
with honour in the ranks of society? But you must pull hard
at the oar if you’re to do that, and get, as, people say, callosi-
ties upon your hands. Fabricando fit faber, age quod agis.*.’
* The worker lives by working, do what he will.
He was so exasperated he quoted Latin. He would have
quoted Chinese or Greenlandish had he known those two
languages, for he was in one of those crises in which the
whole soul shows indistinctly what it contains, like the