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"What is the matter with you?" she said. "Are you ill? Tell me!" At last he declared with a serious air that her visits were becoming imprudent that she was compromising herself. Gradually Rodolphe's fears took possession of her. At first, love had intoxicated her, and she had thought of nothing beyond.
The carriage, which the lover followed with his eyes as he climbed the hill, turned in at the gate of a country house, towards which he ran. "Who lives here?" he asked the gardener. "Prince and Princess Colonna, and Prince and Princess Gandolphini." "Have they not just driven in?" "Yes, sir." In that instant a veil fell from Rodolphe's eyes; he saw clearly the meaning of the past.
Therefore, the judicious mother had encouraged the friendship which bound Leopold to Rodolphe and Rodolphe to Leopold, since she saw in the cold and faithful young notary, a guardian, a comrade, who might to a certain extent take her place if by some misfortune she should be lost to her son. Rodolphe's mother, still handsome at three-and-forty, had inspired Leopold with an ardent passion.
Gradually Rodolphe's fears took possession of her. At first, love had intoxicated her; and she had thought of nothing beyond. But now that he was indispensable to her life, she feared to lose anything of this, or even that it should be disturbed.
"She loves flowers and music, and she is unmarried!" thought Rodolphe; "what good luck!" The next day Rodolphe went to ask leave to visit the hothouses and gardens, which were beginning to be somewhat famous. The permission was not immediately granted. The retired gardeners asked, strangely enough, to see Rodolphe's passport; it was sent to them at once.
Thus cheated by a stroke of fate, Rodolphe's mother had recourse to a heroic measure.
Love is a treasury of memories, and though Rodolphe's was already full, he added to it pearls of great price; smiles shed aside for him alone, stolen glances, tones in her singing which Francesca addressed to him alone, but which made Tinti pale with jealousy, they were so much applauded.
Rodolphe took his servant to Bovary's house, to bleed him. The servant was very ill, and Madame Bovary held the basin. "Madame Bovary took the basin to put it under the table. Here is Rodolphe's reflection: "He again saw Emma in her room, dressed as he had seen her, and he undressed her." It is the first day they had spoken to each other. "They looked at one another.
"Zitto!" said Francesca, laying a finger of her right hand on her lips. "Say no more; I am not free. I have been married these three years." For a few minutes utter silence reigned. When the Italian girl, alarmed at Rodolphe's stillness, went close to him, she found that he had fainted. "Povero!" she said to herself. "And I thought him cold."
He remembered Rodolphe's attentions, his sudden, disappearance, his constrained air when they had met two or three times since. But the respectful tone of the letter deceived him. "Perhaps they loved one another platonically," he said to himself.
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