Madame Bovary - Penn State University

Madame Bovarythat the end of his moustache brushed her cheek. She replied First they spoke of her illness, although Emma interruptedcarelessly—Charles from time to time, for fear, she said, of boring MonsieurLeon; and the latter told them that he had come to“Oh, dear me, no, not much.”Then he proposed that they should leave the theatre and go spend two years at Rouen in a large office, in order to getand take an ice somewhere.practice in his profession, which was different in Normandy“Oh, not yet; let us stay,” said Bovary. “Her hair’s undone; and Paris. Then he inquired after Berthe, the Homais, Merethis is going to be tragic.”Lefrancois, and as they had, in the husband’s presence, nothingmore to say to one another, the conversation soon cameBut the mad scene did not at all interest Emma, and theacting of the singer seemed to her exaggerated.to an end.“She screams too loud,” said she, turning to Charles, who People coming out of the theatre passed along the pavement,humming or shouting at the top of their voices, “O belwas listening.“Yes—a little,” he replied, undecided between the frankness ange, ma Lucie!*” Then Leon, playing the dilettante, began toof his pleasure and his respect for his wife’s opinion. talk music. He had seen Tambourini, Rubini, Persiani, Grisi,Then with a sigh Leon said—and, compared with them, Lagardy, despite his grand outbursts,was nowhere.“The heat is—”“Unbearable! Yes!”“Yet,” interrupted Charles, who was slowly sipping his rumsherbet,“they say that he is quite admirable in the last act. I regret“Do you feel unwell?” asked Bovary.“Yes, I am stifling; let us go.”leaving before the end, because it was beginning to amuse me.”Monsieur Leon put her long lace shawl carefully about her “Why,” said the clerk, “he will soon give another performance.”shoulders, and all three went off to sit down in the harbour,in the open air, outside the windows of a cafe.*Oh beautiful angel, my Lucie.196