“Yes, I have missed so many things. Always alone! Ah! if I had some aim in life, if I had met some love, if I had found someone! Oh, how I would have spent all the energy of which I am capable, surmounted everything, overcome everything!”

“Yet it seems to me,” said Emma, “that you are not to be pitied.”

“Ah! you think so?” said Rodolphe.

“For, after all,” she went on, “you are free⁠—” she hesitated, “rich⁠—”

“Do not mock me,” he replied.

And she protested that she was not mocking him, when the report of a cannon resounded. Immediately all began hustling one another pell-mell towards the village.

It was a false alarm. The prefect seemed not to be coming, and the members of the jury felt much embarrassed, not knowing if they ought to begin the meeting or still wait.