Monsieur Boulanger, however, dismissed his servant, advising him to calm himself, since his fancy was over.
“ It procured me the advantage of making your acquaintance,” he added, and he looked at Emma as he said this. Then he put three francs on the corner of the table, bowed negligently, and went out.
He was soon on the other side of the river (this was his way back to La Huchette), and Emma saw him in the meadow, walking under the poplars, slackening his pace now and then as one who reflects.
“ She is very pretty,” he said to himself; “she is very pretty, this doctor’s wife. Fine teeth, black eyes, a dainty foot, a figure like a Parisienne’s. Where the devil does she come from? Wherever did that fat fellow pick her up?”
Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger was thirty-four; he was of brutal
