Page 349 - madame-bovary

Suddenly she seized his head between her hands, kissed
him hurriedly on the forehead, crying, ‘Adieu!’ and rushed
down the stairs.
She went to a hairdresser’s in the Rue de la Comedie to
have her hair arranged. Night fell; the gas was lighted in the
shop. She heard the bell at the theatre calling the mummers
to the performance, and she saw, passing opposite, men
with white faces and women in faded gowns going in at the
stage-door.
It was hot in the room, small, and too low where the stove
was hissing in the midst of wigs and pomades. The smell of
the tongs, together with the greasy hands that handled her
head, soon stunned her, and she dozed a little in her wrap-
per. Often, as he did her hair, the man offered her tickets for
a masked ball.
Then she went away. She went up the streets; reached the
Croix-Rouge, put on her overshoes, that she had hidden in
the morning under the seat, and sank into her place among
the impatient passengers. Some got out at the foot of the hill.
She remained alone in the carriage. At every turning all
the lights of the town were seen more and more complete-
ly, making a great luminous vapour about the dim houses.
Emma knelt on the cushions and her eyes wandered over
the dazzling light. She sobbed; called on Leon, sent him ten-
der words and kisses lost in the wind.
On the hillside a poor devil wandered about with his
stick in the midst of the diligences. A mass of rags covered
his shoulders, and an old staved-in beaver, turned out like
a basin, hid his face; but when he took it off he discovered

Madame Bovary