rding to the season
fruits or game.

"If she asks after me," he said, "you will tell her that I have gone on
a journey. You must give the basket to her herself, into her own hands.
Get along and take care!"

Girard put on his new blouse, knotted his handkerchief round the
apricots, and, walking with great heavy steps in his thick iron-bound
galoshes, made his way to Yonville.

Madame Bovary, when he got to her house was arranging a bundle of linen
on the kitchen-table with Felicite.

"Here," said the ploughboy, "is something for you from master."

She was seized with apprehension, and as she sought in her pocket for
some coppers, she looked at the peasant with haggard eyes, while he
himself looked at her with amazement, not understanding how such a
present could so move any one. At last he went out. Felicite remained.
Emma could bear it no longer; she ran into the sitting-room as if to
take the apricots there, overturned the basket, tore away the leaves,
found the letter, opened it, and, as if some fearful fire were behind
her, she flew to her room terrified.

Charles was there; she saw him; he spoke to her; she heard nothing, and
she went on quickly up the stairs, breathless, distraught, dumb, and
ever holding this horrible piece of paper, that crackled between her
fingers like a plate of sheet-iron. On the second floor she stopped
before the attic-door, that was closed.

Then she tried to calm herself; she recalled the letter; she must finish
it; she did not dare to. And where? How? She would be seen! "Ah, no!
here," she thought, "I shall be all right."

Emma pushed open the door and went in.

The slates threw straight down a heavy heat that gripped her temples,
stifled her; she dragged herself to the closed garret-window. She drew
back the bolt, and the dazzling light burst in with a leap.

Opposite, beyond the roofs, stretched the open country until it was lost
to the sight. Underneath her, the village square was empty; the stones
of the pavement glittered, the weathercocks on the houses were
motionless. At the corner of the street, from a lower story, rose a kind
of humming with strident modulations. It was Binet turning.

She leant against the embrasure of the window, and re-read the letter
with angry sneers. But the more she fixed her attention upon it, the
more confused were her ideas. She saw him again, heard him, encircled
him with her arms, and the throbs of her heart, that beat against her
brea