“At Madame Bovary’s, you’re not making love to⁠—”

“To whom?”

“The servant!”

He was not joking; but vanity getting the better of all prudence, Léon, in spite of himself protested. Besides, he only liked dark women.

“I approve of that,” said the chemist; “they have more passion.”

And whispering into his friend’s ear, he pointed out the symptoms by which one could find out if a woman had passion. He even launched into an ethnographic digression: the German was vapourish, the French woman licentious, the Italian passionate.

“And negresses?” asked the clerk.

“They are an artistic taste!” said Homais. “Waiter! two cups of coffee!”