Page 338 - madame-bovary

day. A lot of jolly folk, gentlemen and ladies, with cakes,
champagne, cornets—everything in style! There was one
especially, a tall handsome man with small moustaches,
who was that funny! And they all kept saying, ‘Now tell us
something, Adolphe—Dolpe,’ I think.’
She shivered.
‘You are in pain?’ asked Leon, coming closer to her.
‘Oh, it’s nothing! No doubt, it is only the night air.’
‘And who doesn’t want for women, either,’ softly added
the sailor, thinking he was paying the stranger a compli-
ment.
Then, spitting on his hands, he took the oars again.
Yet they had to part. The adieux were sad. He was to send
his letters to Mere Rollet, and she gave him such precise in-
structions about a double envelope that he admired greatly
her amorous astuteness.
‘So you can assure me it is all right?’ she said with her
last kiss.
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘But why,’ he thought afterwards as he came back through
the streets alone, ‘is she so very anxious to get this power of
attorney?’