Page 381 - madame-bovary

The men were whispering in a corner, no doubt con-
sorting about expenses. There were a clerk, two medical
students, and a shopman—what company for her! As to the
women, Emma soon perceived from the tone of their voices
that they must almost belong to the lowest class. Then she
was frightened, pushed back her chair, and cast down her
eyes.
The others began to eat; she ate nothing. Her head was on
fire, her eyes smarted, and her skin was ice-cold. In her head
she seemed to feel the floor of the ball-room rebounding
again beneath the rhythmical pulsation of the thousands
of dancing feet. And now the smell of the punch, the smoke
of the cigars, made her giddy. She fainted, and they carried
her to the window.
Day was breaking, and a great stain of purple colour
broadened out in the pale horizon over the St. Catherine
hills. The livid river was shivering in the wind; there was no
one on the bridges; the street lamps were going out.
She revived, and began thinking of Berthe asleep yon-
der in the servant’s room. Then a cart filled with long strips
of iron passed by, and made a deafening metallic vibration
against the walls of the houses.
She slipped away suddenly, threw off her costume, told
Leon she must get back, and at last was alone at the Hotel
de Boulogne. Everything, even herself, was now unbearable
to her. She wished that, taking wing like a bird, she could
fly somewhere, far away to regions of purity, and there grow
young again.
She went out, crossed the Boulevard, the Place Cau-

0 Madame Bovary