Page 441 - madame-bovary

remembered that once, in the early times, they had been
to mass together, and they had sat down on the other side,
on the right, by the wall. The bell began again. There was
a great moving of chairs; the bearers slipped their three
staves under the coffin, and everyone left the church.
Then Justin appeared at the door of the shop. He sud-
denly went in again, pale, staggering.
People were at the windows to see the procession pass.
Charles at the head walked erect. He affected a brave air,
and saluted with a nod those who, coming out from the
lanes or from their doors, stood amidst the crowd.
The six men, three on either side, walked slowly, panting
a little. The priests, the choristers, and the two choirboys
recited the De profundis*, and their voices echoed over the
fields, rising and falling with their undulations. Sometimes
they disappeared in the windings of the path; but the great
silver cross rose always before the trees.
*Psalm CXXX.
The women followed in black cloaks with turned-down
hoods; each of them carried in her hands a large lighted
candle, and Charles felt himself growing weaker at this
continual repetition of prayers and torches, beneath this op-
pressive odour of wax and of cassocks. A fresh breeze was
blowing; the rye and colza were sprouting, little dewdrops
trembled at the roadsides and on the hawthorn hedges. All
sorts of joyous sounds filled the air; the jolting of a cart roll-
ing afar off in the ruts, the crowing of a cock, repeated again
and again, or the gambling of a foal running away under
the apple-trees: The pure sky was fretted with rosy clouds; a

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