Madame Bovary - Penn State University

Flaubertagain, and everything into the old grooves; the masters bulliedthe servants, and these struck the animals, indolent vic-on the plates of the shakos, the folds of her gown fell along thesaid, of the line of her lips; her face, as in a magic mirror, shonetors, going back to the stalls, a green-crown on their horns. walls, and days of love unrolled to all infinity before him in theThe National Guards, however, had gone up to the first vistas of the future.floor of the town hall with buns spitted on their bayonets, He saw her again in the evening during the fireworks, butand the drummer of the battalion carried a basket with bottles. she was with her husband, Madame Homais, and the druggist,who was worrying about the danger of stray rockets, andMadame Bovary took Rodolphe’s arm; he saw her home; theyseparated at her door; then he walked about alone in the every moment he left the company to go and give some adviceto Binet.meadow while he waited for the time of the banquet.The feast was long, noisy, ill served; the guests were so crowded The pyrotechnic pieces sent to Monsieur Tuvache had,that they could hardly move their elbows; and the narrow planks through an excess of caution, been shut up in his cellar, and soused for forms almost broke down under their weight. They the damp powder would not light, and the principal set piece,ate hugely. Each one stuffed himself on his own account. Sweat that was to represent a dragon biting his tail, failed completely.stood on every brow, and a whitish steam, like the vapour of a Now and then a meagre Roman-candle went off; then thestream on an autumn morning, floated above the table between gaping crowd sent up a shout that mingled with the cry ofthe hanging lamps. Rodolphe, leaning against the calico of the the women, whose waists were being squeezed in the darkness.Emma silently nestled against Charles’s shoulder; then,tent was thinking so earnestly of Emma that he heard nothing.Behind him on the grass the servants were piling up the dirty raising her chin, she watched the luminous rays of the rocketsplates, his neighbours were talking; he did not answer them; against the dark sky. Rodolphe gazed at her in the light of thethey filled his glass, and there was silence in his thoughts in burning lanterns.spite of the growing noise. He was dreaming of what she had They went out one by one. The stars shone out. A few131