Page 391 - madame-bovary

the ‘Hirondelle.’ In his hand he held tied in a silk handker-
chief six cheminots for his wife.
Madame Homais was very fond of these small, heavy
turban-shaped loaves, that are eaten in Lent with salt but-
ter; a last vestige of Gothic food that goes back, perhaps, to
the time of the Crusades, and with which the robust Nor-
mans gorged themselves of yore, fancying they saw on the
table, in the light of the yellow torches, between tankards
of hippocras and huge boars’ heads, the heads of Saracens
to be devoured. The druggist’s wife crunched them up as
they had done—heroically, despite her wretched teeth. And
so whenever Homais journeyed to town, he never failed to
bring her home some that he bought at the great baker’s in
the Rue Massacre.
‘Charmed to see you,’ he said, offering Emma a hand to
help her into the ‘Hirondelle.’ Then he hung up his chemi-
nots to the cords of the netting, and remained bare-headed
in an attitude pensive and Napoleonic.
But when the blind man appeared as usual at the foot of
the hill he exclaimed—
‘I can’t understand why the authorities tolerate such cul-
pable industries. Such unfortunates should be locked up
and forced to work. Progress, my word! creeps at a snail’s
pace. We are floundering about in mere barbarism.’
The blind man held out his hat, that flapped about at the
door, as if it were a bag in the lining that had come un-
nailed.
‘This,’ said the chemist, ‘is a scrofulous affection.’
And though he knew the poor devil, he pretended to see

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