all. Mademoiselle
Emma saw it, and bent over the flour sacks.

Charles out of politeness made a dash also, and as he stretched out his
arm, at the same moment felt his breast brush against the back of the
young girl bending beneath him. She drew herself up, scarlet, and looked
at him over her shoulder as she handed him his whip.

Instead of returning to the Bertaux in three days as he had promised,
he went back the very next day, then regularly twice a week, without
counting the visits he paid now and then as if by accident.

Everything, moreover, went well; the patient progressed favourably; and
when, at the end of forty-six days, old Rouault was seen trying to walk
alone in his "den," Monsieur Bovary began to be looked upon as a man
of great capacity. Old Rouault said that he could not have been cured
better by the first doctor of Yvetot, or even of Rouen.

As to Charles, he did not stop to ask himself why it was a pleasure
to him to go to the Bertaux. Had he done so, he would, no doubt, have
attributed his zeal to the importance of the case, or perhaps to the
money he hoped to make by it. Was it for this, however, that his visits
to the farm formed a delightful exception to the meagre occupations of
his life? On these days he rose early, set off at a gallop, urging on
his horse, then got down to wipe his boots in the grass and put on black
gloves before entering. He liked going into the courtyard, and noticing
the gate turn against his shoulder, the cock crow on the wall, the lads
run to meet him. He liked the granary and the stables; he liked old
Rouault, who pressed his hand and called him his saviour; he like the
small wooden shoes of Mademoiselle Emma on the scoured flags of the
kitchen--her high heels made her a little taller; and when she walked in
front of him, the wooden soles springing up quickly struck with a sharp
sound against the leather of her boots.

She always accompanied him to the first step of the stairs. When his
horse had not yet been brought round she stayed there. They had said
"Good-bye"; there was no more talking. The open air wrapped her round,
playing with the soft down on the back of her neck, or blew to and fro
on her hips the apron-strings, that fluttered like streamers. Once,
during a thaw the bark of the trees in the yard was oozing, the snow on
the roofs of the outbuildings was melting; she stood on the threshold,
and went to fetch her sunshade and opened it. The sunshade of silk