u a pinch of snuff, or picks up your hat. Then you become more
intimate; he takes you to a cafe, invites you to his country-house,
introduces you, between two drinks, to all sorts of people; and three
fourths of the time it's only to plunder your watch or lead you into
some pernicious step."

"That is true," said Charles; "but I was thinking especially of
illnesses--of typhoid fever, for example, that attacks students from the
provinces."

Emma shuddered.

"Because of the change of regimen," continued the chemist, "and of the
perturbation that results therefrom in the whole system. And then the
water at Paris, don't you know! The dishes at restaurants, all the
spiced food, end by heating the blood, and are not worth, whatever
people may say of them, a good soup. For my own part, I have always
preferred plain living; it is more healthful. So when I was studying
pharmacy at Rouen, I boarded in a boardinghouse; I dined with the
professors."

And thus he went on, expounding his opinions generally and his personal
likings, until Justin came to fetch him for a mulled egg that was
wanted.

"Not a moment's peace!" he cried; "always at it! I can't go out for a
minute! Like a plough-horse, I have always to be moiling and toiling.
What drudgery!" Then, when he was at the door, "By the way, do you know
the news?"

"What news?"

"That it is very likely," Homais went on, raising his eyebrows and
assuming one of his most serious expressions, "that the agricultural
meeting of the Seine-Inferieure will be held this year at
Yonville-l'Abbaye. The rumor, at all events, is going the round. This
morning the paper alluded to it. It would be of the utmost importance
for our district. But we'll talk it over later on. I can see, thank you;
Justin has the lantern."

VII.

A WOMAN'S WHIMS.

The next day was a dreary one for Emma. Every thing seemed to her
enveloped in a black atmosphere floating confusedly over the exterior of
things, and sorrow was engulphed within her soul with soft shrieks such
as the winter wind makes in ruined castles. It was that reverie which we
give to things that will not return, the lassitude that seizes you after
everything done; that pain, in fine, that the interruption of every
wonted movement, the sudden cessation of any prolonged vibration, brings
on.

As on the return from Vaubyessard, when the quadrilles were running in
her head, she was full of a gloomy melancholy, of a numb despair. Leo