Page 85 - madame-bovary

of a new play, or an anecdote of the ‘upper ten’ that she had
seen in a feuilleton; for, after all, Charles was something,
an ever-open ear, and ever-ready approbation. She confided
many a thing to her greyhound. She would have done so to
the logs in the fireplace or to the pendulum of the clock.
At the bottom of her heart, however, she was waiting for
something to happen. Like shipwrecked sailors, she turned
despairing eyes upon the solitude of her life, seeking afar
off some white sail in the mists of the horizon. She did not
know what this chance would be, what wind would bring it
her, towards what shore it would drive her, if it would be a
shallop or a three-decker, laden with anguish or full of bliss
to the portholes. But each morning, as she awoke, she hoped
it would come that day; she listened to every sound, sprang
up with a start, wondered that it did not come; then at sun-
set, always more saddened, she longed for the morrow.
Spring came round. With the first warm weather, when
the pear trees began to blossom, she suffered from dys-
pnoea.
From the beginning of July she counted how many weeks
there were to October, thinking that perhaps the Marquis
d’Andervilliers would give another ball at Vaubyessard. But
all September passed without letters or visits.
After the ennui of this disappointment her heart once
more remained empty, and then the same series of days re-
commenced. So now they would thus follow one another,
always the same, immovable, and bringing nothing. Other
lives, however flat, had at least the chance of some event.
One adventure sometimes brought with it infinite conse-

Madame Bovary