The clerk was fond of Monsieur Bovary.  But this tenderness on his behalf astonished him unpleasantly; nevertheless he took up on his praises, which he said everyone was singing, especially the chemist.

“Ah! he is a good fellow,” continued Emma.

“Certainly,” replied the clerk.

And he began talking of Madame Homais, whose very untidy appearance generally made them laugh.

“What does it matter?” interrupted Emma.  “A good housewife does not trouble about her appearance.”

Then she relapsed into silence.

It was the same on the following days; her talks, her manners, everything changed.  She took interest in the housework, went to church regularly, and looked after her servant with more severity.

She took Berthe from nurse.  When visitors called, Felicite brought her in, and Madame Bovary undressed her to show off her limbs.  She declared she adored children; this was her consolation, her joy, her passion, and she accompanied her caresses with lyrical outburst which would have reminded anyone but the Yonville people of Sachette in “Notre Dame de Paris.”

When Charles came home he found his slippers put to warm near the fire.  His waistcoat now never wanted lining, nor his shirt buttons, and it was quite a pleasure to see in the cupboard the night-caps arranged in piles of the same height.  She no longer grumbled as formerly at taking a turn in the garden; what he proposed was always done, although she did not understand the wishes to which she submitted without a murmur; and when Leon saw him by his fireside after dinner, his two hands on his stomach, his two feet on the fender, his two cheeks red with feeding, his eyes moist with happiness, the child crawling along the carpet, and this woman with the slender waist who came behind his arm-chair to kiss his forehead:  “What madness!” he said to himself.  “And how to reach her!”

And thus she seemed so virtuous and inaccessible to him that he lost all hope, even the faintest.  But by this renunciation he placed her on an extraordinary pinnacle.  To him she stood outside those fleshly attributes from which he had nothing to obtain, and in his heart she rose ever, and became farther removed from him after the magnificent manner of an apotheosis that is taking wing.  It was one of those pure feelings that do not interfere with life, that are cultivated because they are rare, and whose loss would afflict more than their passion rejoices.

Emma grew thinner, her cheeks paler, her face longer.  With her black hair, her large eyes, her aquiline nose, her birdlike walk, and always silent now, did she not seem to be passing through life scarcely touching it, and to bear on her brow the vague impress of some divine destiny?  She was so sad and so calm, at once so gentle and so reserved, that near her one felt oneself seized by an icy charm, as we shudder in churches at the perfume of the flowers mingling with the cold of the marble.  The others even did not escape from this seduction.  The chemist said—­