Madame Bovary - Penn State University

Madame Bovary“Ah!” said Emma, “it is no earthly remedy I need.”“Ah! don’t talk to me of it, Madame Bovary. This morningBut the cure from time to time looked into the church, I had to go to Bas-Diauville for a cow that was ill; they thoughtwhere the kneeling boys were shouldering one another, and it was under a spell. All their cows, I don’t know how it is—tumbling over like packs of cards.But pardon me! Longuemarre and Boudet! Bless me! Will“I should like to know—” she went on.you leave off?”“You look out, Riboudet,” cried the priest in an angry voice; And with a bound he ran into the church.“I’ll warm your ears, you imp!” Then turning to Emma, “He’s The boys were just then clustering round the large desk,Boudet the carpenter’s son; his parents are well off, and let climbing over the precentor’s footstool, opening the missal;him do just as he pleases. Yet he could learn quickly if he and others on tiptoe were just about to venture into the confessional.But the priest suddenly distributed a shower of cuffswould, for he is very sharp. And so sometimes for a joke I callhim Riboudet (like the road one takes to go to Maromme) among them. Seizing them by the collars of their coats, heand I even say ‘Mon Riboudet.’ Ha! Ha! ‘Mont Riboudet.’ lifted them from the ground, and deposited them on theirThe other day I repeated that just to Monsignor, and he knees on the stones of the choir, firmly, as if he meant plantingthem there.laughed at it; he condescended to laugh at it. And how isMonsieur Bovary?”“Yes,” said he, when he returned to Emma, unfolding hisShe seemed not to hear him. And he went on—large cotton handkerchief, one corner of which he put betweenhis teeth, “farmers are much to be pitied.”“Always very busy, no doubt; for he and I are certainly thebusiest people in the parish. But he is doctor of the body,” he “Others, too,” she replied.added with a thick laugh, “and I of the soul.”“Assuredly. Town-labourers, for example.”She fixed her pleading eyes upon the priest. “Yes,” she said, “It is not they—”“you solace all sorrows.”“Pardon! I’ve there known poor mothers of families, virtu-98