s under the muddy gigs of the commercial travellers;--a
good old house with worm-eaten balconies that creak in the wind on
winter nights, always full of people, noise, and feeding, whose black
tables are sticky with coffee and brandy, the thick windows made yellow
by the flies, the damp napkins stained with cheap wine, and that always
smells of the village, like ploughboys dressed in Sunday-clothes, has a
cafe on the street, and towards the country-side a kitchen-garden.
Charles at once set out. He muddled up the stage-boxes with the gallery,
the pit with the boxes; asked for explanations, did not understand them;
was sent from the box-office to the acting-manager; came back to the
inn, returned to the theatre, and thus several times traversed the whole
length of the town from the theatre to the boulevard.

Madame Bovary bought a bonnet, gloves, and a bouquet. The doctor was
much afraid of missing the beginning, and, without having had time to
swallow a plate of soup, they presented themselves at the doors of the
theatre, which were still closed.

XV.

A NEW DELIGHT.

The crowd was waiting against the wall, symmetrically enclosed between
the balustrades. At the corner of the neighbouring streets huge bills
repeated in quaint letters "Lucia de Lammermoor--Lagardy--Opera--&c."
The weather was fine, the people were hot, perspiration trickled amid
the curls, and handkerchiefs taken from pockets were mopping red
foreheads; and now and again a warm wind that blew from the river gently
stirred the border of the tick awnings hanging from the doors of the
public-houses. A little lower down, however, one was refreshed by a
current of icy air that smelt of tallow, leather, and oil. This was an
exhalation from the Rue des Charrettes, full of large black ware-houses
where they make casks.

For fear of seeming ridiculous, Emma before going in wished to have a
little stroll in the harbour, and Bovary prudently kept his tickets in
his hand, in the pocket of his trousers, which he pressed against his
stomach.

Her heart began to beat as soon as she reached the vestibule. She
involuntarily smiled with vanity on seeing the crowd rushing to the
right by the other corridor while she went up the staircase to the
reserved seats. She was as pleased as a child to push with her finger
the large tapestried door. She breathed in with all her might the dusty
smell of the lobbies, and when she was seated in her box she bent
forward w