She had tried everything; there was nothing more to be done now; and
when Charles came in she would have to say to him-"Go away! This carpet on which you are walking is no longer ours. In
your own house you do not possess a chair, a pin, a straw, and it is I,
poor man, who have ruined you."
Then there would be a great sob; next he would weep abundantly, and at
last, the surprise past, he would forgive her.
"Yes," she murmured, grinding her teeth, "he will forgive me, he who
would give a million if I would forgive him for having known me! Never!
never!"
This thought of Bovary's superiority to her exasperated her. Then,
whether she confessed or did not confess, presently, immediately,
to-morrow, he would know the catastrophe all the same; so she must wait
for this horrible scene, and bear the weight of his magnanimity. The
desire to return to Lheureux's seized her--what would be the use? To
write to her father--it was too late; and perhaps, she began to repent
now that she had not yielded to that other, when she heard the trot of
a horse in the alley. It was he; he was opening the gate; he was whiter
than the plaster wall. Rushing to the stairs, she ran out quickly to the
square; and the wife of the mayor, who was talking to Lestiboudois in
front of the church, saw her go in to the tax-collector's.
She hurried off to tell Madame Caron, and the two ladies went up to
the attic, and, hidden by some linen spread across props, stationed
themselves comfortably for overlooking the whole of Binet's room.
He was alone in his garret, busy imitating in wood one of those
indescribable bits of ivory, composed of crescents, of spheres hollowed
out one within the other, the whole as straight as an obelisk, and of no
use whatever; and he was beginning on the last piece--he was nearing his
goal. In the twilight of the workshop the white dust was flying from his
tools like a shower of sparks under the hoofs of a galloping horse; the
two wheels were turning, droning; Binet smiled, his chin lowered, his
nostrils distended, and, in a word, seemed lost in one of those complete
happinesses that, no doubt, belong only to commonplace occupations,
which amuse the mind with facile difficulties, and satisfy by a
realisation of that beyond which such minds have not a dream.
"Ah! there she is!" exclaimed Madame Tuvache.
But it was impossible because of the lathe to hear what she was saying.