Book account

A few steps from Emma a gentleman in a blue coat was talking of Italy
with a pale young woman wearing a parure of pearls.
They were praising the breadth of the columns of St. Peter's, Tivoly,
Vesuvius, Castellamare, and Cassines, the roses of Genoa, the Coliseum
by moonlight. With her other ear Emma was listening to a conversation
full of words she did not understand. A circle gathered round a very
young man who the week before had beaten "Miss Arabella" and "Romolus,"
and won two thousand louis jumping a ditch in England. One complained
that his racehorses were growing fat; another of the printers' errors
that had disfigured the name of his horse.
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.


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