Madame Bovary - Penn State University

FlaubertHer breathing now imperceptibly raised the cotton covering.Big tears lay in the corner of the half-closed eyelids, there were iron gratings to the windows and strong bars acrossher. The knives were not sharpened, nor the floors waxed;through whose lashes one could see two pale sunken pupils; the fireplace; the little Homais, in spite of their spirit, couldthe plaster stuck on her cheek drew the skin obliquely. not stir without someone watching them; at the slightest cold“It is very strange,” thought Emma, “how ugly this child their father stuffed them with pectorals; and until they wereis!”turned four they all, without pity, had to wear wadded headprotectors.This, it is true, was a fancy of Madame Homais’;When at eleven o’clock Charles came back from the chemist’sshop, whither he had gone after dinner to return the remainderof the sticking-plaster, he found his wife standing by the consequences of such compression to the intellectual organs.her husband was inwardly afflicted at it. Fearing the possiblecradle.He even went so far as to say to her, “Do you want to make“I assure you it’s nothing.” he said, kissing her on the forehead.“Don’t worry, my poor darling; you will make yourself Charles, however, had several times tried to interrupt theCaribs or Botocudos of them?”ill.”conversation. “I should like to speak to you,” he had whisperedin the clerk’s ear, who went upstairs in front of him.He had stayed a long time at the chemist’s. Although hehad not seemed much moved, Homais, nevertheless, had exertedhimself to buoy him up, to “keep up his spirits.” Then beat, and he racked his brain with surmises.“Can he suspect anything?” Leon asked himself. His heartthey had talked of the various dangers that threaten childhood,of the carelessness of servants. Madame Homais knew himself what would be the price at Rouen of a fine daguerreo-At last, Charles, having shut the door, asked him to seesomething of it, having still upon her chest the marks left by types. It was a sentimental surprise he intended for his wife, aa basin full of soup that a cook had formerly dropped on her delicate attention—his portrait in a frock-coat. But he wantedpinafore, and her good parents took no end of trouble for first to know “how much it would be.” The inquiries would101