my part,” said the chemist, “the sight of other people’s blood doesn’t affect me at all, but the mere thought of my own flowing would make me faint if I reflected upon it too much.”

Monsieur Boulanger, however, dismissed his servant, advising him to calm himself, since his fancy was over.

“It procured me the advantage of making your acquaintance,” he added, and he looked at Emma as he said this. Then he put three francs on the table, bowed negligently, and went out.

He was soon on the other side of the river (this was his way back to La Huchette), and Emma saw him in the meadow, walking under the poplars, slackening his pace now and then as one who reflects.

“She is very pretty,” he said to himself; “she is very pretty, this doctor’s wife. Fine teeth, black eyes, a dainty foot, a figure like a Parisienne’s. Where the devil does she come from? Wherever did this fat fellow pick her up?”

Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger was thirty-four; he was of brutal temperament and intelligent perspicacity, having, moreover, had much to do with women, and knowing them well. This one had seemed pretty to him; so he was thinking about her and her husband.

“I think he is very stupid. She is tired of him, no doubt. He has dirty nails, and hasn’t shaved for three days. While he is trotting after his patients, she sits there botching socks. And she gets bored! She would like to live in town and dance polkas every evening. Poor little woman! She is gaping after love like a carp after water on a kitchen-table. With three words of gallantry she’d adore one, I’m sure of it. She’d be tender, charming. Yes; but how get rid of her afterwards?”

Then the difficulties of love-making seen in the distance made him by contrast think of his mistress. She was an actress at Rouen, whom he kept; and when he had pondered over this image, with which, even in remembrance, he was satiated—

“Ah! Madame Bovary,” he thought, “is much prettier, especially fresher. Virginie is decidedly beginning to grow fat. She is so finikin with her pleasures; and, besides, she has a mania for prawns.”

The fields were empty, and around him Rodolphe only heard the regular beating of the grass striking against his boots, with the cry of the grasshopper hidden at a distance among the oats. He again saw Emma in her room, dressed as he had seen her, and he undressed her.

“Oh, I will have her,” he cried, striking a blow with his stick at a clod in front of him. And he at once began to consider the political part of the enterprise. He asked himself—

“Where shall we meet? By what means? We shall always be having the brat on our hands, and the servant, the neighbours, the husband, all sorts of worries. Pshaw! one would lose too much time over it.”

Then he resumed, “She really has eyes that pierce one’s heart like a gimlet. And that pale complexion! I adore pale women!”

When he reached the top of the Argueil hills he had made up his mind. “It’s only finding the opportunities. Well, I will call in now and then. I’ll send them venison, poultry; I’ll have myself bled, if need be. We shall become friends; I’ll invite them to my place. By Jove!” added he, “there’s the agricultural show coming on. She’ll be there. I shall see her. We’ll begin boldly, for that’s the surest way.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

At last it came, the famous agricultural show. On the morning of the solemnity all the inhabitants at their doors were chatting over the preparations. The pediment of the townhall had been hung with garlands of ivy: a tent had been erected in a meadow for the banquet; and in the middle of the Place, in front of the church, a kind of bombarde was to announce the arrival of the prefect and the names of the successful farmers who had obtained prizes. The National Guard of Buchy (there was none at Yonville) had come to join the corps of firemen, of whom Binet was captain. On that day he wore a collar even higher than usual; and, tightly buttoned in his tunic, his figure was so stiff and motionless that the whole vital portion of his person seemed to have descended into his legs, which rose in a cadence of set steps with a single movement. As there was some rivalry between the tax-collector and the colonel, both, to show off