ame up closer against her knees, and leaning on
them with her arms, she looked up with her large blue eyes, while a
small thread of pure saliva dribbled from her lips on to the silk apron.

"Leave me alone," repeated the young woman quite irritably.

Her face frightened the child, who began to scream.

"Will you leave me alone?" she said, pushing her with her elbow.

Berthe fell at the foot of the drawers against the brass handle, cutting
against it her cheek, which began to bleed. Madame Bovary sprang to lift
her up, broke the bell-rope, called for the servant with all her might,
and she was just going to curse herself when Charles appeared. It was
the dinner-hour; he had come home.

"Look, dear!" said Emma, in a calm voice, "the little one fell down
while she was playing, and has hurt herself."

Charles reassured her; the case was not a serious one, and he went for
some sticking plaster.

Madame Bovary did not go downstairs to the dining-room; she wished to
remain alone to look after the child. Then, watching her sleep, the
little anxiety she felt gradually wore off, and she seemed very stupid
to herself, and very good to have been so worried just now at so little.
Berthe, in fact, no longer sobbed. Her breathing now imperceptibly
raised the cotton covering. Big tears lay in the corner of the
half-closed eyelids, through whose lashes one could see two pale sunken
pupils; the plaster stuck on her cheek drew the skin obliquely.

"It is very strange," thought Emma, "how ugly this child is!"

When at eleven o'clock Charles came back from the chemist's shop,
whither he had gone after dinner to return the remainder of the
sticking-plaster, he found his wife standing by the cradle.

"I assure you it's nothing," he said, kissing her on the forehead.
"Don't worry, my poor darling; you will make yourself ill."

He had stayed a long time at the chemist's. Although he had not seemed
much moved, Homais, nevertheless, had exerted himself to buoy him up, to
"keep up his spirits." Then they had talked of the various dangers that
threaten childhood, of the carelessness of servants. Madame Homais knew
something of it, having still upon her chest the marks left by a basin
full of soup that a cook had formerly dropped on her pinafore, and her
good parents took no end of trouble for her. The knives were not
sharpened, nor the floors waxed; there were iron gratings to the windows
and strong bars across the fireplace; the little