"That is extraordinary for a lady," said Monsieur Boulanger; "but some
people are very susceptible. Thus in a duel, I have seen a second lose
consciousness at the mere sound of the loading of pistols."
"For my part," said the chemist, "the sight of other people's blood
doesn't affect me at all, but the mere thought of my own flowing would
make me faint if I reflected upon it too much."
Monsieur Boulanger, however, dismissed his servant, advising him to calm
himself, since his fancy was over.
"It procured me the advantage of making your acquaintance," he added,
and he looked at Emma as he said this. Then he put three francs on the
corner of the table, bowed negligently, and went out.
He was soon on the other side of the river (this was his way back to La
Huchette), and Emma saw him in the meadow, walking under the poplars,
slackening his pace now and then as one who reflects.
"She is very pretty," he said to himself; "she is very pretty, this
doctor's wife. Fine teeth, black eyes, a dainty foot, a figure like a
Parisienne's. Where the devil does she come from? Wherever did that fat
fellow pick her up?"
Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger was thirty-four; he was of brutal
temperament and intelligent perspicacity, having, moreover, had much to
do with women, and knowing them well. This one had seemed pretty to him;
so he was thinking about her and her husband.
"I think he is very stupid. She is tired of him, no doubt. He has dirty
nails, and hasn't shaved for three days. While he is trotting after his
patients, she sits there botching socks. And she gets bored! She would
like to live in town and dance polkas every evening. Poor little woman!
She is gaping after love like a carp after water on a kitchen-table.
With three words of gallantry she'd adore one, I'm sure of it. She'd be
tender, charming. Yes; but how to get rid of her afterwards?"
Then the difficulties of love-making seen in the distance made him by
contrast think of his mistress. She was an actress at Rouen, whom he
kept; and when he had pondered over this image, with which, even in
remembrance, he was satiated-"Ah! Madame Bovary," he thought, "is much prettier, especially fresher.
Virginie is decidedly beginning to grow fat. She is so finiky about her
pleasures; and, besides, she has a mania for prawns."
The fields were empty, and around him Rodolphe only heard the regular
beating of the grass striking against his boots, with a cry of the
grasshopper hidden at a distance among the oats. He again saw Emma in
her room, dressed as he had seen her, and he undressed her.