On leaving the Bovarys the night before, Léon had followed them through the streets at a distance; then having seen them stop at the Croix-Rouge, he turned on his heel, and spent the night meditating a plan.
So the next day about five o’clock he walked into the kitchen of the inn, with a choking sensation in his throat, pale cheeks, and that resolution of cowards that stops at nothing.
“The gentleman isn’t in,” answered a servant.
This seemed to him a good omen. He went upstairs.
She was not disturbed at his approach; on the contrary, she apologised for having neglected to tell him where they were staying.
“Oh, I divined it!” said Léon.
He pretended he had been guided towards her by chance, by instinct. She began to smile; and at once, to repair his folly, Léon told her that he had spent his morning in looking for her in all the hotels in the town one after the other.
“So you have made up your mind to stay?” he added.
“Yes,” she said, “and I am wrong. One ought not to accustom oneself to impossible pleasures when there are a thousand demands upon one.”
“Oh, I can imagine!”
“Ah! no; for you, you are a man!”
But men too had had their trials, and the conversation went off into certain philosophical reflections. Emma expatiated much on the misery of earthly affections, and the eternal isolation in which the heart remains entombed.