e dead, Lestiboudois!" the cure at last said to him one
day. This grim remark made him reflect; it checked him for some time;
but to this day he carries on the cultivation of his little tubers,
and even maintains stoutly that they grow naturally.

Since the events about to be narrated, nothing in fact has changed at
Yonville. The tin tricolor flag swings at the top of the
church-steeple; the two chintz streamers still flutter in the wind
from the linen-draper's; the chemist's fetuses, like lumps of white
amadou, rot more and more in their turbid alcohol, and above the big
door of the inn the old golden lion, faded by rain, still shows
passers-by its poodle mane.

On the evening when the Bovarys were to arrive at Yonville, Widow
Lefrancois, the landlady of this inn, was so very busy that she
sweated great drops as she moved her saucepans. Tomorrow was
market-day. The meat had to be cut beforehand, the fowls drawn, the
soup and coffee made. Moreover, she had the boarders' meal to see to,
and that of the doctor, his wife, and their servant; the billiard-room
was echoing with bursts of laughter; three millers in the small parlor
were calling for brandy; the wood was blazing, the brazen pan was
hissing, and on the long kitchen-table, amid the quarters of raw
mutton, rose piles of plates that rattled with the shaking of the
block on which spinach was being chopped. From the poultry-yard was
heard the screaming of the fowls whom the servant was chasing in order
to wring their necks.

A man slightly marked with smallpox, in green leather slippers, and
wearing a velvet cap with a gold tassel was warming his back at the
chimney. His face exprest nothing but self-satisfaction, and he
appeared to take life as calmly as the goldfinch suspended over his
head in its wicker cage--this was the chemist.

"Artemise!" shouted the landlady, "chop some wood, fill the
water-bottles, bring some brandy, look sharp! If only I knew what
dessert to offer the guests you are expecting! Good heavens! Those
furniture-movers are beginning their racket in the billiard-room
again; and their van has been left before the front door! The
Hirondelle might run into it when it draws up. Call Polyte and tell
him to put it up. Only to think, Monsieur Homais, that since morning
they have had about fifteen games and drunk eight jars of cider! Why,
they'll tear my cloth for me," she went on, looking at them from a
distance, her strainer in her hand.

"That w