Page 340 - madame-bovary

the rickety old concern ‘was late.’
Leon, however, made up his mind, and knocked at the
doctor’s door. Madame was in her room, and did not come
down for a quarter of an hour. The doctor seemed delighted
to see him, but he never stirred out that evening, nor all the
next day.
He saw her alone in the evening, very late, behind the
garden in the lane; in the lane, as she had the other one! It
was a stormy night, and they talked under an umbrella by
lightning flashes.
Their separation was becoming intolerable. ‘I would rath-
er die!’ said Emma. She was writhing in his arms, weeping.
‘Adieu! adieu! When shall I see you again?’
They came back again to embrace once more, and it was
then that she promised him to find soon, by no matter what
means, a regular opportunity for seeing one another in free-
dom at least once a week. Emma never doubted she should
be able to do this. Besides, she was full of hope. Some mon-
ey was coming to her.
On the strength of it she bought a pair of yellow curtains
with large stripes for her room, whose cheapness Monsieur
Lheureux had commended; she dreamed of getting a carpet,
and Lheureux, declaring that it wasn’t ‘drinking the sea,’
politely undertook to supply her with one. She could no lon-
ger do without his services. Twenty times a day she sent for
him, and he at once put by his business without a murmur.
People could not understand either why Mere Rollet break-
fasted with her every day, and even paid her private visits.
It was about this time, that is to say, the beginning of