"You will come back?" she said.
"Yes."
"But when?"
"Immediately."
"It's a trick," said the chemist, when he saw Leon. "I wanted to
interrupt this visit, that seemed to me to annoy you. Let's go and have
a glass of garus at Bridoux'."
Leon vowed that he must get back to his office. Then the druggist joked
him about quill-drivers and the law.
"Leave Cujas and Barthole alone a bit. Who the devil prevents you? Be a
man! Let's go to Bridoux'. You'll see his dog. It's very interesting."
And as the clerk still insisted-"I'll go with you. I'll read a paper while I wait for you, or turn over
the leaves of a 'Code.'"
Leon, bewildered by Emma's anger, Monsieur Homais' chatter, and,
perhaps, by the heaviness of the luncheon, was undecided, and, as it
were, fascinated by the chemist, who kept repeating-"Let's go to Bridoux'. It's just by here, in the Rue Malpalu."
Then, through cowardice, through stupidity, through that indefinable
feeling that drags us into the most distasteful acts, he allowed
himself to be led off to Bridoux', whom they found in his small yard,
superintending three workmen, who panted as they turned the large
wheel of a machine for making seltzer-water. Homais gave them some good
advice. He embraced Bridoux; they took some garus. Twenty times Leon
tried to escape, but the other seized him by the arm saying-"Presently! I'm coming! We'll go to the 'Fanal de Rouen' to see the
fellows there. I'll introduce you to Thornassin."
At last he managed to get rid of him, and rushed straight to the hotel.
Emma was no longer there. She had just gone in a fit of anger. She
detested him now. This failing to keep their rendezvous seemed to her an
insult, and she tried to rake up other reasons to separate herself from
him. He was incapable of heroism, weak, banal, more spiritless than a
woman, avaricious too, and cowardly.
Then, growing calmer, she at length discovered that she had, no doubt,
calumniated him. But the disparaging of those we love always alienates
us from them to some extent. We must not touch our idols; the gilt
sticks to our fingers.
They gradually came to talking more frequently of matters outside their
love, and in the letters that Emma wrote him she spoke of flowers,
verses, the moon and the stars, naive resources of a waning passion
striving to keep itself alive by all external aids. She was constantly
promising herself a profound felicity on her next journey. Then
she confessed to herself that she felt nothing extraordinary. This
disappointment quickly gave way to a new hope, and Emma returned to him
more inflamed, more eager than ever. She undressed brutally, tearing off
the thin laces of her corset that nestled around her hips like a gliding
snake. She went on tiptoe, barefooted, to see once more that the
door was closed, then, pale, serious, and, without speaking, with one
movement, she threw herself upon his breast with a long shudder.