Page 431 - madame-bovary

‘That isn’t the question. All the texts-.’
‘Oh! oh! As to texts, look at history; it, is known that all
the texts have been falsified by the Jesuits.’
Charles came in, and advancing towards the bed, slowly
drew the curtains.
Emma’s head was turned towards her right shoulder, the
corner of her mouth, which was open, seemed like a black
hole at the lower part of her face; her two thumbs were bent
into the palms of her hands; a kind of white dust besprin-
kled her lashes, and her eyes were beginning to disappear
in that viscous pallor that looks like a thin web, as if spiders
had spun it over. The sheet sunk in from her breast to her
knees, and then rose at the tips of her toes, and it seemed
to Charles that infinite masses, an enormous load, were
weighing upon her.
The church clock struck two. They could hear the loud
murmur of the river flowing in the darkness at the foot of
the terrace. Monsieur Bournisien from time to time blew
his nose noisily, and Homais’ pen was scratching over the
paper.
‘Come, my good friend,’ he said, ‘withdraw; this specta-
cle is tearing you to pieces.’
Charles once gone, the chemist and the cure recom-
menced their discussions.
‘Read Voltaire,’ said the one, ‘read D’Holbach, read the
‘Encyclopaedia’!’
‘Read the ‘Letters of some Portuguese Jews,’’ said the oth-
er; ‘read ‘The Meaning of Christianity,’ by Nicolas, formerly
a magistrate.’

0 Madame Bovary