“It is settled, isn’t it? To-morrow
at six o’clock?”
Charles explained once more that he could not absent
himself longer, but that nothing prevented Emma—
“But,” she stammered, with a strange smile,
“I am not sure—”
“Well, you must think it over. We’ll
see. Night brings counsel.” Then to
Leon, who was walking along with them, “Now that
you are in our part of the world, I hope you’ll
come and ask us for some dinner now and then.”
The clerk declared he would not fail to do so, being
obliged, moreover, to go to Yonville on some business
for his office. And they parted before the Saint-Herbland
Passage just as the clock in the cathedral struck
half-past eleven.
Monsieur Leon, while studying law, had gone pretty
often to the dancing-rooms, where he was even a great
success amongst the grisettes, who thought he had
a distinguished air. He was the best-mannered
of the students; he wore his hair neither too long
nor too short, didn’t spend all his quarter’s
money on the first day of the month, and kept on good
terms with his professors. As for excesses, he
had always abstained from them, as much from cowardice
as from refinement.
Often when he stayed in his room to read, or else
when sitting of an evening under the lime-trees of
the Luxembourg, he let his Code fall to the ground,
and the memory of Emma came back to him. But gradually
this feeling grew weaker, and other desires gathered
over it, although it still persisted through them
all. For Leon did not lose all hope; there was
for him, as it were, a vague promise floating in the
future, like a golden fruit suspended from some fantastic
tree.
Then, seeing her again after three years of absence
his passion reawakened. He must, he thought,
at last make up his mind to possess her. Moreover,
his timidity had worn off by contact with his gay
companions, and he returned to the provinces despising
everyone who had not with varnished shoes trodden
the asphalt of the boulevards. By the side of
a Parisienne in her laces, in the drawing-room of some
illustrious physician, a person driving his carriage
and wearing many orders, the poor clerk would no doubt
have trembled like a child; but here, at Rouen, on
the harbour, with the wife of this small doctor he
felt at his ease, sure beforehand he would shine.
Self-possession depends on its environment. We
don’t speak on the first floor as on the fourth;
and the wealthy woman seems to have, about her, to
guard her virtue, all her banknotes, like a cuirass
in the lining of her corset.
On leaving the Bovarys the night before, Leon had
followed them through the streets at a distance; then
having seen them stop at the “Croix-Rouge,”
he turned on his heel, and spent the night meditating
a plan.
So the next day about five o’clock he walked
into the kitchen of the inn, with a choking sensation
in his throat, pale cheeks, and that resolution of
cowards that stops at nothing.
