“How kind it would be of you,” he went on, rising, “if you would humour a whim of mine.”  It was to go over her house; he wanted to know it; and Madame Bovary seeing no objection to this, they both rose, when Charles came in.

“Good morning, doctor,” Rodolphe said to him.

The doctor, flattered at this unexpected title, launched out into obsequious phrases.  Of this the other took advantage to pull himself together a little.

“Madame was speaking to me,” he then said, “about her health.”

Charles interrupted him; he had indeed a thousand anxieties; his wife’s palpitations of the heart were beginning again.  Then Rodolphe asked if riding would not be good.

“Certainly! excellent! just the thing!  There’s an idea!  You ought to follow it up.”

And as she objected that she had no horse, Monsieur Rodolphe offered one.  She refused his offer; he did not insist.  Then to explain his visit he said that his ploughman, the man of the blood-letting, still suffered from giddiness.

“I’ll call around,” said Bovary.

“No, no!  I’ll send him to you; we’ll come; that will be more convenient for you.”

“Ah! very good!  I thank you.”

And as soon as they were alone, “Why don’t you accept Monsieur Boulanger’s kind offer?”

She assumed a sulky air, invented a thousand excuses, and finally declared that perhaps it would look odd.

“Well, what the deuce do I care for that?” said Charles, making a pirouette.  “Health before everything!  You are wrong.”

“And how do you think I can ride when I haven’t got a habit?”

“You must order one,” he answered.

The riding-habit decided her.

When the habit was ready, Charles wrote to Monsieur Boulanger that his wife was at his command, and that they counted on his good-nature.

The next day at noon Rodolphe appeared at Charles’s door with two saddle-horses.  One had pink rosettes at his ears and a deerskin side-saddle.

Rodolphe had put on high soft boots, saying to himself that no doubt she had never seen anything like them.  In fact, Emma was charmed with his appearance as he stood on the landing in his great velvet coat and white corduroy breeches.  She was ready; she was waiting for him.

Justin escaped from the chemist’s to see her start, and the chemist also came out.  He was giving Monsieur Boulanger a little good advice.

“An accident happens so easily.  Be careful!  Your horses perhaps are mettlesome.”

She heard a noise above her; it was Felicite drumming on the windowpanes to amuse little Berthe.  The child blew her a kiss; her mother answered with a wave of her whip.

“A pleasant ride!” cried Monsieur Homais.  “Prudence! above all, prudence!” And he flourished his newspaper as he saw them disappear.

As soon as he felt the ground, Emma’s horse set off at a gallop.