"Well," the nurse went on, heaving sighs between each word, "I'm afraid
he'll be put out seeing me have coffee alone, you know men--"
"But you are to have some," Emma repeated; "I will give you some. You
bother me!"
"Oh, dear! my poor, dear lady! you see in consequence of his wounds he
has terrible cramps in the chest. He even says that cider weakens him."
"Do make haste, Mere Rollet!"
"Well," the latter continued, making a curtsey, "if it weren't asking
too much," and she curtsied once more, "if you would"--and her eyes
begged--"a jar of brandy," she said at last, "and I'd rub your little
one's feet with it; they're as tender as one's tongue."
Once rid of the nurse, Emma again took Monsieur Leon's arm. She walked
fast for some time, then more slowly, and looking straight in front of
her, her eyes rested on the shoulder of the young man, whose frock-coat
had a black-velvety collar. His brown hair fell over it, straight and
carefully arranged. She noticed his nails which were longer than one
wore them at Yonville. It was one of the clerk's chief occupations to
trim them, and for this purpose he kept a special knife in his writing
desk.
They returned to Yonville by the water-side. In the warm season the
bank, wider than at other times, showed to their foot the garden walls
whence a few steps led to the river. It flowed noiselessly, swift,
and cold to the eye; long, thin grasses huddled together in it as the
current drove them, and spread themselves upon the limpid water like
streaming hair; sometimes at the tip of the reeds or on the leaf of a
water-lily an insect with fine legs crawled or rested. The sun pierced
with a ray the small blue bubbles of the waves that, breaking, followed
each other; branchless old willows mirrored their grey backs in
the water; beyond, all around, the meadows seemed empty. It was the
dinner-hour at the farms, and the young woman and her companion heard
nothing as they walked but the fall of their steps on the earth of the
path, the words they spoke, and the sound of Emma's dress rustling round
her.
The walls of the gardens with pieces of bottle on their coping were
hot as the glass windows of a conservatory. Wallflowers had sprung up
between the bricks, and with the tip of her open sunshade Madame Bovary,
as she passed, made some of their faded flowers crumble into a yellow
dust, or a spray of overhanging honeysuckle and clematis caught in its
fringe and dangled for a moment over the silk.