Madame Bovary - Penn State University

Madame Bovarytheir long whiskers fell over their turned-down collars, they The atmosphere of the ball was heavy; the lamps were growingdim.wiped their lips upon handkerchiefs with embroidered initialsthat gave forth a subtle perfume. Those who were beginningto grow old had an air of youth, while there was some-upon a chair and broke the window-panes. At the crash of theGuests were flocking to the billiard room. A servant gotthing mature in the faces of the young. In their unconcerned glass Madame Bovary turned her head and saw in the gardenlooks was the calm of passions daily satiated, and through all the faces of peasants pressed against the window looking in attheir gentleness of manner pierced that peculiar brutality, the them. Then the memory of the Bertaux came back to her.result of a command of half-easy things, in which force is She saw the farm again, the muddy pond, her father in a blouseexercised and vanity amused—the management of thoroughbredhorses and the society of loose women.skimming with her finger the cream off the milk-pans in theunder the apple trees, and she saw herself again as formerly,A few steps from Emma a gentleman in a blue coat was talkingof Italy with a pale young woman wearing a parure of pearls. so distinct until then, faded away completely, and she almostdairy. But in the refulgence of the present hour her past life,They were praising the breadth of the columns of St. Peter’s, doubted having lived it. She was there; beyond the ball wasTivoly, Vesuvius, Castellamare, and Cassines, the roses of only shadow overspreading all the rest. She was just eating aGenoa, the Coliseum by moonlight. With her other ear Emma maraschino ice that she held with her left hand in a silver-giltwas listening to a conversation full of words she did not understand.A circle gathered round a very young man who the A lady near her dropped her fan. A gentlemen was passing.cup, her eyes half-closed, and the spoon between her teeth.week before had beaten “Miss Arabella” and “Romolus,” and “Would you be so good,” said the lady, “as to pick up mywon two thousand louis jumping a ditch in England. One fan that has fallen behind the sofa?”complained that his racehorses were growing fat; another of The gentleman bowed, and as he moved to stretch out histhe printers’ errors that had disfigured the name of his horse. arm, Emma saw the hand of a young woman throw some-46