The atmosphere of the ball was heavy; the lamps were growing dim.

Guests were flocking to the billiard room.  A servant got upon a chair and broke the window-panes.  At the crash of the glass Madame Bovary turned her head and saw in the garden the faces of peasants pressed against the window looking in at them.  Then the memory of the Bertaux came back to her.  She saw the farm again, the muddy pond, her father in a blouse under the apple trees, and she saw herself again as formerly, skimming with her finger the cream off the milk-pans in the dairy.  But in the refulgence of the present hour her past life, so distinct until then, faded away completely, and she almost doubted having lived it.  She was there; beyond the ball was only shadow overspreading all the rest.  She was just eating a maraschino ice that she held with her left hand in a silver-gilt cup, her eyes half-closed, and the spoon between her teeth.

A lady near her dropped her fan.  A gentlemen was passing.

“Would you be so good,” said the lady, “as to pick up my fan that has fallen behind the sofa?”

The gentleman bowed, and as he moved to stretch out his arm, Emma saw the hand of a young woman throw something white, folded in a triangle, into his hat.  The gentleman, picking up the fan, offered it to the lady respectfully; she thanked him with an inclination of the head, and began smelling her bouquet.

After supper, where were plenty of Spanish and Rhine wines, soups a la bisque and au lait d’amandes*, puddings a la Trafalgar, and all sorts of cold meats with jellies that trembled in the dishes, the carriages one after the other began to drive off.  Raising the corners of the muslin curtain, one could see the light of their lanterns glimmering through the darkness.  The seats began to empty, some card-players were still left; the musicians were cooling the tips of their fingers on their tongues.  Charles was half asleep, his back propped against a door.

     With almond milk

At three o’clock the cotillion began.  Emma did not know how to waltz.  Everyone was waltzing, Mademoiselle d’Andervilliers herself and the Marquis; only the guests staying at the castle were still there, about a dozen persons.

One of the waltzers, however, who was familiarly called Viscount, and whose low cut waistcoat seemed moulded to his chest, came a second time to ask Madame Bovary to dance, assuring her that he would guide her, and that she would get through it very well.

They began slowly, then went more rapidly.  They turned; all around them was turning—­the lamps, the furniture, the wainscoting, the floor, like a disc on a pivot.  On passing near the doors the bottom of Emma’s dress caught against his trousers.

Their legs commingled; he looked down at her; she raised her eyes to his.  A torpor seized her; she stopped.  They started again, and with a more rapid movement; the Viscount, dragging her along disappeared with her to the end of the gallery, where panting, she almost fell, and for a moment rested her head upon his breast.  And then, still turning, but more slowly, he guided her back to her seat.  She leaned back against the wall and covered her eyes with her hands.