Page 399 - madame-bovary

scene, and bear the weight of his magnanimity. The desire
to return to Lheureux’s seized her—what would be the use?
To write to her father—it was too late; and perhaps, she be-
gan to repent now that she had not yielded to that other,
when she heard the trot of a horse in the alley. It was he; he
was opening the gate; he was whiter than the plaster wall.
Rushing to the stairs, she ran out quickly to the square; and
the wife of the mayor, who was talking to Lestiboudois in
front of the church, saw her go in to the tax-collector’s.
She hurried off to tell Madame Caron, and the two la-
dies went up to the attic, and, hidden by some linen spread
across props, stationed themselves comfortably for over-
looking the whole of Binet’s room.
He was alone in his garret, busy imitating in wood one
of those indescribable bits of ivory, composed of crescents,
of spheres hollowed out one within the other, the whole
as straight as an obelisk, and of no use whatever; and he
was beginning on the last piece—he was nearing his goal.
In the twilight of the workshop the white dust was flying
from his tools like a shower of sparks under the hoofs of a
galloping horse; the two wheels were turning, droning; Bi-
net smiled, his chin lowered, his nostrils distended, and, in
a word, seemed lost in one of those complete happinesses
that, no doubt, belong only to commonplace occupations,
which amuse the mind with facile difficulties, and satisfy
by a realisation of that beyond which such minds have not
a dream.
‘Ah! there she is!’ exclaimed Madame Tuvache.
But it was impossible because of the lathe to hear what

Madame Bovary