the imagination, you know,
is impressed. And then I have such a nervous system!"

"Pshaw!" interrupted Canivet; "on the contrary, you seem to me inclined
to apoplexy. Besides, that doesn't astonish me, for you chemist fellows
are always poking about your kitchens, which must end by spoiling your
constitutions. Now just look at me. I get up every day at four o'clock;
I shave with cold water (and am never cold). I don't wear flannels, and
I never catch cold; my carcass is good enough! I live now in one way,
now in another, like a philosopher, taking pot-luck; that is why I am
not squeamish like you, and it is as indifferent to me to carve a
Christian as the first fowl that turns up. Then, perhaps, you will say,
habit! habit!"

Then, without any consideration for Hippolyte, who was sweating with
agony between his sheets, these gentlemen entered into a conversation,
in which the chemist compared the coolness of a surgeon to that of a
general; and this comparison was pleasing to Canivet, who launched out
on the exigencies of his art. He looked upon it as a sacred office,
although the ordinary practitioners dishonoured it. At last, coming back
to the patient, he examined the bandages brought by Homais, the same
that had appeared for the club-foot, and asked for some one to hold the
limb for him. Lestiboudois was sent for, and Monsieur Canivet having
turned up his sleeves, passed into the billiard-room, while the chemist
stayed with Artemise and the landlady, both whiter than their aprons,
and with ears strained towards the door.

Bovary during this time did not dare to stir from his house. He kept
downstairs in the sitting-room by the side of the fireless chimney, his
chin on his breast, his hands clasped, his eyes staring. "What a
mishap!" he thought, "what a mishap!" Perhaps, after all, he had made
some slip. He thought it over, but could hit upon nothing. But the most
famous surgeons also made mistakes; and that is what no one would ever
believe! People, on the contrary, would laugh, jeer! It would spread as
far as Forges, as Neufchatel, as Rouen, everywhere! Who could say if his
colleagues would not write against him. Polemics would ensue; he would
have to answer in the papers. Hippolyte might even prosecute him. He saw
himself dishonored, ruined, lost; and his imagination, assailed by a
world of hypotheses, tossed amongst them like an empty cask borne by the
sea and floating upon the waves.

Emma, opposite, watched h