“What is the matter?” he asked, stupefied.
“Be calm; compose yourself. You know well
enough that I love you. Come!”
“Enough!” she cried with a terrible look.
And escaping from the room, Emma closed the door so
violently that the barometer fell from the wall and
smashed on the floor.
Charles sank back into his arm-chair overwhelmed,
trying to discover what could be wrong with her, fancying
some nervous illness, weeping, and vaguely feeling
something fatal and incomprehensible whirling round
him.
When Rodolphe came to the garden that evening, he
found his mistress waiting for him at the foot of
the steps on the lowest stair. They threw their
arms round one another, and all their rancour melted
like snow beneath the warmth of that kiss.
They began to love one another again. Often,
even in the middle of the day, Emma suddenly wrote
to him, then from the window made a sign to Justin,
who, taking his apron off, quickly ran to La Huchette.
Rodolphe would come; she had sent for him to tell
him that she was bored, that her husband was odious,
her life frightful.
“But what can I do?” he cried one day
impatiently.
“Ah! if you would—”
She was sitting on the floor between his knees, her
hair loose, her look lost.
“Why, what?” said Rodolphe.
She sighed.
“We would go and live elsewhere—somewhere!”
“You are really mad!” he said laughing.
“How could that be possible?”
She returned to the subject; he pretended not to understand,
and turned the conversation.
What he did not understand was all this worry about
so simple an affair as love. She had a motive,
a reason, and, as it were, a pendant to her affection.
Her tenderness, in fact, grew each day with her repulsion
to her husband. The more she gave up herself
to the one, the more she loathed the other. Never
had Charles seemed to her so disagreeable, to have
such stodgy fingers, such vulgar ways, to be so dull
as when they found themselves together after her meeting
with Rodolphe. Then, while playing the spouse
and virtue, she was burning at the thought of that
head whose black hair fell in a curl over the sunburnt
brow, of that form at once so strong and elegant,
of that man, in a word, who had such experience in
his reasoning, such passion in his desires. It
was for him that she filed her nails with the care
of a chaser, and that there was never enough cold-cream
for her skin, nor of patchouli for her handkerchiefs.
She loaded herself with bracelets, rings, and necklaces.
When he was coming she filled the two large blue glass
vases with roses, and prepared her room and her person
like a courtesan expecting a prince. The servant
had to be constantly washing linen, and all day Felicite
did not stir from the kitchen, where little Justin,
who often kept her company, watched her at work.
