Page 427 - madame-bovary

CHAPTER NINE

here is always after the death of anyone a kind of stu-
Tpefaction; so difficult is it to grasp this advent of
nothingness and to resign ourselves to believe in it. But still,
when he saw that she did not move, Charles threw himself
upon her, crying—
‘Farewell! farewell!’
Homais and Canivet dragged him from the room.
‘Restrain yourself!’
‘Yes.’ said he, struggling, ‘I’ll be quiet. I’ll not do any-
thing. But leave me alone. I want to see her. She is my wife!’
And he wept.
‘Cry,’ said the chemist; ‘let nature take her course; that
will solace you.’
Weaker than a child, Charles let himself be led down-
stairs into the sitting-room, and Monsieur Homais soon
went home. On the Place he was accosted by the blind man,
who, having dragged himself as far as Yonville, in the hope
of getting the antiphlogistic pomade, was asking every
passer-by where the druggist lived.
‘There now! as if I hadn’t got other fish to fry. Well, so
much the worse; you must come later on.’
And he entered the shop hurriedly.
He had to write two letters, to prepare a soothing potion
for Bovary, to invent some lie that would conceal the poi-

Madame Bovary