Page 387 - madame-bovary

ly, as if to shake out napoleons. Then she grew angered to
see this coarse hand, with fingers red and pulpy like slugs,
touching these pages against which her heart had beaten.
They went at last. Felicite came back. Emma had sent her
out to watch for Bovary in order to keep him off, and they
hurriedly installed the man in possession under the roof,
where he swore he would remain.
During the evening Charles seemed to her careworn.
Emma watched him with a look of anguish, fancying she
saw an accusation in every line of his face. Then, when her
eyes wandered over the chimney-piece ornamented with
Chinese screens, over the large curtains, the armchairs, all
those things, in a word, that had, softened the bitterness
of her life, remorse seized her or rather an immense regret,
that, far from crushing, irritated her passion. Charles plac-
idly poked the fire, both his feet on the fire-dogs.
Once the man, no doubt bored in his hiding-place, made
a slight noise.
‘Is anyone walking upstairs?’ said Charles.
‘No,’ she replied; ‘it is a window that has been left open,
and is rattling in the wind.’
The next day, Sunday, she went to Rouen to call on all the
brokers whose names she knew. They were at their country-
places or on journeys. She was not discouraged; and those
whom she did manage to see she asked for money, declaring
she must have some, and that she would pay it back. Some
laughed in her face; all refused.
At two o’clock she hurried to Leon, and knocked at the
door. No one answered. At length he appeared.

Madame Bovary