Madame Bovary - Penn State University

Flaubertsieur Homais; as long as the ‘Lion d’Or’ exists people will his thin body, and his leather cap, with its lappets knottedcome to it.over the top of his head with string, showed under the turneduppeak a bald forehead, flattened by the constant wearing ofWe’ve feathered our nest; while one of these days you’ll findthe ‘Cafe Francais’ closed with a big placard on the shutters. a helmet. He wore a black cloth waistcoat, a hair collar, greyChange my billiard-table!” she went on, speaking to herself, trousers, and, all the year round, well-blacked boots, that had“the table that comes in so handy for folding the washing, two parallel swellings due to the sticking out of his big-toes.and on which, in the hunting season, I have slept six visitors! Not a hair stood out from the regular line of fair whiskers,But that dawdler, Hivert, doesn’t come!”which, encircling his jaws, framed, after the fashion of a gardenborder, his long, wan face, whose eyes were small and the“Are you waiting for him for your gentlemen’s dinner?”“Wait for him! And what about Monsieur Binet? As the nose hooked. Clever at all games of cards, a good hunter, andclock strikes six you’ll see him come in, for he hasn’t his equal writing a fine hand, he had at home a lathe, and amused himselfby turning napkin rings, with which he filled up his house,under the sun for punctuality. He must always have his seatin the small parlour. He’d rather die than dine anywhere else. with the jealousy of an artist and the egotism of a bourgeois.And so squeamish as he is, and so particular about the cider! He went to the small parlour, but the three millers had toNot like Monsieur Leon; he sometimes comes at seven, or be got out first, and during the whole time necessary for layingthe cloth, Binet remained silent in his place near the stove.even half-past, and he doesn’t so much as look at what heeats. Such a nice young man! Never speaks a rough word!” Then he shut the door and took off his cap in his usual way.“Well, you see, there’s a great difference between an educatedman and an old carabineer who is now a tax-collector.” tongue,” said the chemist, as soon as he was along with the“It isn’t with saying civil things that he’ll wear out hisSix o’clock struck. Binet came in.landlady.He wore a blue frock-coat falling in a straight line round “He never talks more,” she replied. “Last week two travel-65