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
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.