She had brought her ladies'
journal with her. Leon sat down near her; they looked at the engravings
together, and waited for one another at the bottom of the pages. She
often begged him to read her the verses; Leon declaimed them in a
languid voice, to which he carefully gave a dying fall in the love
passages. But the noise of the dominoes annoyed him. Monsieur Homais
was strong at the game; he could beat Charles and give him a double-six.
Then the three hundred finished, they both stretched themselves out in
front of the fire, and were soon asleep. The fire was dying out in the
cinders; the teapot was empty, Leon was still reading.
Emma listened to him, mechanically turning around the lampshade, on the
gauze of which were painted clowns in carriages, and tight-rope dances
with their balancing-poles. Leon stopped, pointing with a gesture to his
sleeping audience; then they talked in low tones, and their conversation
seemed the more sweet to them because it was unheard.
Thus a kind of bond was established between them, a constant commerce
of books and of romances.
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