It was a Sunday in February, an afternoon when the snow was falling.

They had all, Monsieur and Madame Bovary, Homais, and Monsieur Leon,

gone to see a yarn-mill that was being built in the valley a mile and a

half from Yonville. The druggist had taken Napoleon and Athalie to give

them some exercise, and Justin accompanied them, carrying the umbrellas

on his shoulder.

Nothing, however, could be less curious than this curiosity. A great

piece of waste ground, on which pell-mell, amid a mass of sand and

stones, were a few break-wheels, already rusty, surrounded by a

quadrangular building pierced by a number of little windows. The

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building was unfinished; the sky could be seen through the joists of the

roofing. Attached to the stop-plank of the gable a bunch of straw mixed

with corn-ears fluttered its tricoloured ribbons in the wind.

Homais was talking. He explained to the company the future importance

of this establishment, computed the strength of the floorings, the

thickness of the walls, and regretted extremely not having a yard-stick

such as Monsieur Binet possessed for his own special use.

Emma, who had taken his arm, bent lightly against his shoulder, and

she looked at the sun's disc shedding afar through the mist his pale

splendour. She turned. Charles was there. His cap was drawn down over

his eyebrows, and his two thick lips were trembling, which added a look

of stupidity to his face; his very back, his calm back, was irritating

to behold, and she saw written upon his coat all the platitude of the

bearer.

While she was considering him thus, tasting in her irritation a sort of

depraved pleasure, Leon made a step forward. The cold that made him pale

seemed to add a more gentle languor to his face; between his cravat and

his neck the somewhat loose collar of his shirt showed the skin; the

lobe of his ear looked out from beneath a lock of hair, and his large

blue eyes, raised to the clouds, seemed to Emma more limpid and more

beautiful than those mountain-lakes where the heavens are mirrored.

"Wretched boy!" suddenly cried the chemist.

And he ran to his son, who had just precipitated himself into a heap of

lime in order to whiten his boots. At the reproaches with which he was

being overwhelmed Napoleon began to roar, while Justin dried his shoes

with a wisp of straw. But a knife was wanted; Charles offered his.

"Ah!" she said to herself, "he carried a knife in his pocket like a

peasant."

The hoar-frost was falling, and they turned back to Yonville.




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