Page 331 - madame-bovary

red with tears, against them, smelt them delicately.
She took them quickly from his hand and put them in a
glass of water.
The next day Madame Bovary senior arrived. She and
her son wept much. Emma, on the pretext of giving orders,
disappeared. The following day they had a talk over the
mourning. They went and sat down with their workboxes
by the waterside under the arbour.
Charles was thinking of his father, and was surprised to
feel so much affection for this man, whom till then he had
thought he cared little about. Madame Bovary senior was
thinking of her husband. The worst days of the past seemed
enviable to her. All was forgotten beneath the instinctive
regret of such a long habit, and from time to time whilst she
sewed, a big tear rolled along her nose and hung suspended
there a moment. Emma was thinking that it was scarcely
forty-eight hours since they had been together, far from the
world, all in a frenzy of joy, and not having eyes enough to
gaze upon each other. She tried to recall the slightest de-
tails of that past day. But the presence of her husband and
mother-in-law worried her. She would have liked to hear
nothing, to see nothing, so as not to disturb the meditation
on her love, that, do what she would, became lost in exter-
nal sensations.
She was unpicking the lining of a dress, and the strips
were scattered around her. Madame Bovary senior was ply-
ing her scissor without looking up, and Charles, in his list
slippers and his old brown surtout that he used as a dress-
ing-gown, sat with both hands in his pockets, and did not

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