Page 372 - madame-bovary

bald, came to her house, saying he had been sent by Mon-
sieur Vincart of Rouen. He took out the pins that held
together the side-pockets of his long green overcoat, stuck
them into his sleeve, and politely handed her a paper.
It was a bill for seven hundred francs, signed by her, and
which Lheureux, in spite of all his professions, had paid
away to Vincart. She sent her servant for him. He could
not come. Then the stranger, who had remained standing,
casting right and left curious glances, that his thick, fair
eyebrows hid, asked with a naive air—
‘What answer am I to take Monsieur Vincart?’
‘Oh,’ said Emma, ‘tell him that I haven’t it. I will send
next week; he must wait; yes, till next week.’
And the fellow went without another word.
But the next day at twelve o’clock she received a summons,
and the sight of the stamped paper, on which appeared sev-
eral times in large letters, ‘Maitre Hareng, bailiff at Buchy,’
so frightened her that she rushed in hot haste to the linen-
draper’s. She found him in his shop, doing up a parcel.
‘Your obedient!’ he said; ‘I am at your service.’
But Lheureux, all the same, went on with his work,
helped by a young girl of about thirteen, somewhat hunch-
backed, who was at once his clerk and his servant.
Then, his clogs clattering on the shop-boards, he went
up in front of Madame Bovary to the first door, and intro-
duced her into a narrow closet, where, in a large bureau in
sapon-wood, lay some ledgers, protected by a horizontal
padlocked iron bar. Against the wall, under some remnants
of calico, one glimpsed a safe, but of such dimensions that

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