They heard in the passage the sharp noise of a wooden leg on the boards. It was Hippolyte bringing back Emma’s luggage. In order to put it down he described painfully a quarter of a circle with his stump.

“He doesn’t even remember any more about it,” she thought, looking at the poor devil, whose coarse red hair was wet with perspiration.

Bovary was searching at the bottom of his purse for a centime, and without appearing to understand all there was of humiliation for him in the mere presence of this man, who stood there like a personified reproach to his incurable incapacity.

“Hallo! you’ve a pretty bouquet,” he said, noticing Léon’s violets on the chimney.

“Yes,” she replied indifferently; “it’s a bouquet I bought just now from a beggar.”

Charles picked up the flowers, and freshening his eyes, red with tears, against them, smelt them delicately.