Page 413 - madame-bovary

He spoke to her; she did not answer. She lay motionless,
afraid that the slightest movement might make her vomit.
But she felt an icy cold creeping from her feet to her heart.
‘Ah! it is beginning,’ she murmured.
‘What did you say?’
She turned her head from side to side with a gentle move-
ment full of agony, while constantly opening her mouth as
if something very heavy were weighing upon her tongue. At
eight o’clock the vomiting began again.
Charles noticed that at the bottom of the basin there was
a sort of white sediment sticking to the sides of the porce-
lain.
‘This is extraordinary—very singular,’ he repeated.
But she said in a firm voice, ‘No, you are mistaken.’
Then gently, and almost as caressing her, he passed his
hand over her stomach. She uttered a sharp cry. He fell back
terror-stricken.
Then she began to groan, faintly at first. Her shoulders
were shaken by a strong shuddering, and she was growing
paler than the sheets in which her clenched fingers buried
themselves. Her unequal pulse was now almost impercep-
tible.
Drops of sweat oozed from her bluish face, that seemed
as if rigid in the exhalations of a metallic vapour. Her teeth
chattered, her dilated eyes looked vaguely about her, and to
all questions she replied only with a shake of the head; she
even smiled once or twice. Gradually, her moaning grew
louder; a hollow shriek burst from her; she pretended she
was better and that she would get up presently. But she was

1 Madame Bovary