The next day, as she was getting up, she saw the clerk on the Place. She

had on a dressing-gown. He looked up and bowed. She nodded quickly and

reclosed the window.

Leon waited all day for six o'clock in the evening to come, but on going

to the inn, he found no one but Monsieur Binet, already at table. The

dinner of the evening before had been a considerable event for him; he

had never till then talked for two hours consecutively to a "lady." How

then had he been able to explain, and in such language, the number of

things that he could not have said so well before? He was usually

shy, and maintained that reserve which partakes at once of modesty and

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dissimulation.

At Yonville he was considered "well-bred." He listened to the arguments

of the older people, and did not seem hot about politics--a remarkable

thing for a young man. Then he had some accomplishments; he painted in

water-colours, could read the key of G, and readily talked literature

after dinner when he did not play cards. Monsieur Homais respected him

for his education; Madame Homais liked him for his good-nature, for

he often took the little Homais into the garden--little brats who were

always dirty, very much spoilt, and somewhat lymphatic, like their

mother. Besides the servant to look after them, they had Justin, the

chemist's apprentice, a second cousin of Monsieur Homais, who had been

taken into the house from charity, and who was useful at the same time

as a servant.

The druggist proved the best of neighbours. He gave Madame Bovary

information as to the trades-people, sent expressly for his own cider

merchant, tasted the drink himself, and saw that the casks were properly

placed in the cellar; he explained how to set about getting in a

supply of butter cheap, and made an arrangement with Lestiboudois, the

sacristan, who, besides his sacerdotal and funeral functions, looked

after the principal gardens at Yonville by the hour or the year,

according to the taste of the customers.

The need of looking after others was not the only thing that urged the

chemist to such obsequious cordiality; there was a plan underneath it

all.

He had infringed the law of the 19th Ventose, year xi., article I, which

forbade all persons not having a diploma to practise medicine; so that,

after certain anonymous denunciations, Homais had been summoned to Rouen

to see the procurer of the king in his own private room; the magistrate

receiving him standing up, ermine on shoulder and cap on head. It was

in the morning, before the court opened. In the corridors one heard

the heavy boots of the gendarmes walking past, and like a far-off noise

great locks that were shut. The druggist's ears tingled as if he were

about to have an apoplectic stroke; he saw the depths of dungeons,

his family in tears, his shop sold, all the jars dispersed; and he was

obliged to enter a cafe and take a glass of rum and seltzer to recover

his spirits.




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