o break. She looked long at the windows of the chateau,
trying to guess which were the rooms of all those she had noticed the
evening before. She would fain have known their lives, have penetrated,
blended with them. But she was shivering with cold. She undressed, and
cowered down between the sheets against Charles, who was asleep.
There were a great many people to luncheon. The repast lasted ten
minutes; no liqueurs were served, which astonished the doctor.
Next, Mademoiselle d'Andervilliers collected some pieces of roll in a
small basket to take them to the swans on the ornamental waters, and
they went to walk in the hot-houses, where strange plants, bristling
with hairs, rose in pyramids under hanging vases, whence, as from
over-filled nests of serpents, fell long green cords interlacing.
The orangery, which was at the other end, led by a covered way to the
outhouses of the chateau. The Marquis, to amuse the young woman, took
her to see the stables.
Above the basket-shaped racks porcelain slabs bore the names of the
horses in black letters. Each animal in its stall whisked its tail when
anyone went near and said "Tchk! tchk!" The boards of the harness room
shone like the flooring of a drawing room. The carriage harness was
piled up in the middle against two twisted columns, and the bits, the
whips, the spurs, the curbs, were ranged in a line all along the wall.
Charles, meanwhile, went to ask a groom to put his horse to. The
dog-cart was brought to the foot of the steps, and, all the parcels
being crammed in, the Bovarys paid their respects to the Marquis and
Marchioness and set out again for Tostes.
Emma watched the turning wheels in silence. Charles, on the extreme edge
of the seat, held the reins with his two arms wide apart, and the little
horse ambled along in the shafts that were too big for him. The loose
reins hanging over his crupper were wet with foam, and the box fastened
on behind the chaise gave great regular bumps against it.
They were on the heights of Thibourville when suddenly some horsemen
with cigars between their lips passed laughing. Emma thought she
recognized the Viscount, turned back, and caught on the horizon only the
movement of the heads rising or falling with the unequal cadence of the
trot or gallop.
A mile farther on they had to stop to mend with some string the traces
that had broken.
But Charles, giving a last look to the harness, saw something on the
ground between hi
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