disappeared-- "Ma foi!*" said he, "I shall not go. Your company is better than his." *Upon my word! And while poking fun at the show, Rodolphe, to move about more easily, showed the gendarme his blue card, and even stopped now and then in front of some fine beast, which Madame Bovary did not at all admire. He noticed this, and began jeering at the Yonville ladies and their dresses; then he apologised for the negligence of his own. He had that incongruity of common and elegant in which the habitually vulgar think they see the revelation of an eccentric existence, of the perturbations of sentiment, the tyrannies of art, and always a certain contempt for social conventions, that seduces or exasperates them. Thus his cambric shirt with plaited cuffs was blown out by the wind in the opening of his waistcoat of grey ticking, and his broad-striped trousers disclosed at the ankle nankeen boots with patent leather gaiters. These were so polished that they reflected the grass. He trampled on horses’s dung with them, one hand in the pocket of his jacket and his straw hat on one side. "Besides," added he, "when one lives in the country--" "It’s waste of time," said Emma. "That is true," replied Rodolphe. "To think that not one of these people is capable of understanding even the cut of a coat!" Then they talked about provincial mediocrity, of the lives it crushed, the illusions lost there. "And I too," said Rodolphe, "am drifting into depression." "You!" she said in astonishment; "I thought you very light-hearted." "Ah! yes. I seem so, because in the midst of the world I know how to wear the mask of a scoffer upon my face; and yet, how many a time at the sight of a cemetery by moonlight have I not asked myself whether it were not better to join those sleeping there!" "Oh! and your friends?" she said. "You do not think of them." "My friends! What friends? Have I any? Who cares for me?" And he accompanied the last words with a kind of whistling of the lips. But they were obliged to separate from each other because of a great pile of chairs that a man was carrying behind them. He was so overladen with them that one could only see the tips of his wooden shoes and the ends of his two outstretched arms. It was Lestiboudois, the gravedigger, who was carrying the church chairs about amongst the people. Alive to all that concerned his interests, he had hit upon this means of turning the show to account; and his idea was succeeding, for he no longer knew which way to turn. In fact, the villagers, who were hot, quarreled for these seats, whose straw smelt of incense, and they leant against the thick backs, stained with the wax of candles, with a certain veneration. Madame Bovary again took Rodolphe’s arm; he went on as if speaking to himself-- "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. At last at the end of the Place a large hired landau appeared, drawn by two thin horses, which a coachman in a white hat was whipping lustily. Binet had only just time to shout, "Present arms!" and the colonel to imitate him. All ran towards the enclosure; everyone pushed forward. A few even forgot their collars; but the equipage of the prefect seemed to anticipate the crowd, and the two yoked jades, trapesing in their harness, came up at a little trot in front of the peristyle of the town hall at the very moment when the National Guard and firemen deployed, beating drums and marking time. "Present!" shouted Binet. "Halt!" shouted the colonel. "Left about, march." And after presenting arms, during which the clang of the band, letting loose, rang out like a brass kettle rolling downstairs, all the guns were lowered. Then was seen stepping down from the carriage a gentleman in a short coat with silver braiding, with bald brow, and wearing a tuft of hair at the back of his head, of a sallow complexion and the most benign appearance. His eyes, very large and covered by heavy lids, were half-closed to look at the crowd, while at the same time he raised his sharp nose, and forced a smile upon his sunken mouth. He recognised the mayor by his scarf, and explained to him that the prefect was not able to come. He himself was a councillor at the prefecture; then he added a few apologies. Monsieur Tuvache answered them with compliments; the other confessed himself nervous; and they remained thus, face to face, their foreheads almost touching, with the members of the jury all round, the municipal council, the notable personages, the National Guard and the crowd. The councillor pressing his little cocked hat to his breast repeated his bows, while Tuvache, bent like a bow, also smiled, stammered, tried to say something, protested his devotion to the monarchy and the honour that was being done to Yonville. Hippolyte, the groom from the inn, took the head of the horses from the coachman, and, limping along with his club-foot, led them to the door of the "Lion d’Or", where a number of peasants collected to look at the carriage. The drum beat, the howitzer thundered, and the gentlemen one by one mounted the platform, where they sat down in red utrecht velvet arm-chairs that had been lent by Madame Tuvache. All these people looked alike. Their fair flabby faces, somewhat tanned by the sun, were the colour of sweet cider, and their puffy whiskers emerged from stiff collars, kept up by white cravats with broad bows. All the waist-coats were of velvet, double-breasted; all the watches had, at the end of a long ribbon, an oval cornelian seal; everyone rested his two hands on his thighs, carefully stretching the stride of their trousers, whose unsponged glossy cloth shone more brilliantly than the leather of their heavy boots. The ladies of the company stood at the back under the vestibule between the pillars while the common herd was opposite, standing up or sitting on chairs. As a matter of fact, Lestiboudois had brought thither all those that he had moved from the field, and he even kept running back every minute to fetch others from the church. He caused such confusion with this piece of business that one had great difficulty in getting to the small steps of the platform. "I think," said Monsieur Lheureux to the chemist, who was passing to his place, "that they ought to have put up two Venetian masts with something rather severe and rich for ornaments; it would have been a very pretty effect." "To be sure," replied Homais; "but what can you expect? The mayor took everything on his own shoulders. He hasn’t much taste. Poor Tuvache! and he is even completely destitute of what is called the genius of art." Rodolphe, meanwhile, with Madame Bovary, had gone up to the first floor of the town hall, to the "council-room," and, as it was empty, he declared that they could enjoy the sight there more comfortably. He fetched three stools from the round table under the bust of the monarch, and having carried them to one of the windows, they sat down by each other. There was commotion on the platform, long whisperings, much parleying. At last the councillor got up. They knew now that his name was Lieuvain, and in the crowd the name was passed from one to the other. After he had collated a few pages, and bent over them to see better, he began-- "Gentlemen! May I be permitted first of all (before addressing you on the object of our meeting to-day, and this sentiment will, I am sure, be shared by you all), may I be permitted, I say, to pay a tribute to the higher administration, to the government to the monarch, gentle men, our sovereign, to that beloved king, to whom no branch of public or private prosperity is a matter of indifference, and who directs with a hand at once so firm and wise the chariot of the state amid the incessant perils of a stormy sea, knowing, moreover, how to make peace respected as well as war, industry, commerce, agriculture, and the fine arts?" "I ought," said Rodolphe, "to get back a little further." "Why?" said Emma. But at this moment the voice of the councillor rose to an extraordinary pitch. He declaimed-- "This is no longer the time, gentlemen, when civil discord ensanguined our public places, when the landlord, the business-man, the working-man himself, falling asleep at night, lying down to peaceful sleep, trembled lest he should be awakened suddenly by the noise of incendiary tocsins, when the most subversive doctrines audaciously sapped foundations." "Well, someone down there might see me," Rodolphe resumed, "then I should have to invent excuses for a fortnight; and with my bad reputation--" "Oh, you are slandering yourself," said Emma. "No! It is dreadful, I assure you." "But, gentlemen," continued the councillor, "if, banishing from my memory the remembrance of these sad pictures, I carry my eyes back to the actual situation of our dear country, what do I see there? Everywhere commerce and the arts are flourishing; everywhere new means of communication, like so many new arteries in the body of the state, establish within it new relations. Our great industrial centres have recovered all their activity; religion, more consolidated, smiles in all hearts; our ports are full, confidence is born again, and France breathes once more!" "Besides," added Rodolphe, "perhaps from the world’s point of view they are right." "How so?" she asked. "What!" said he. "Do you not know that there are souls constantly tormented? They need by turns to dream and to act, the purest passions and the most turbulent joys, and thus they fling themselves into all sorts of fantasies, of follies." Then she looked at him as one looks at a traveller who has voyaged over strange lands, and went on-- "We have not even this distraction, we poor women!" "A sad distraction, for happiness isn’t found in it." "But is it ever found?" she asked. "Yes; one day it comes," he answered. "And this is what you have understood," said the councillor. "You, farmers, agricultural labourers! you pacific pioneers of a work that belongs wholly to civilization! you, men of progress and morality, you have understood, I say, that political storms are even more redoubtable than atmospheric disturbances!" "It comes one day," repeated Rodolphe, "one day suddenly, and when one is despairing of it. Then the horizon expands; it is as if a voice cried, ‘It is here!’ You feel the need of confiding the whole of your life, of giving everything, sacrificing everything to this being. There is no need for explanations; they understand one another. They have seen each other in dreams!" (And he looked at her.) "In fine, here it is, this treasure so sought after, here before you. It glitters, it flashes; yet one still doubts, one does not believe it; one remains dazzled, as if one went out from darkness into light." And as he ended Rodolphe suited the action to the word. He passed his hand over his face, like a man seized with giddiness. Then he let it fall on Emma’s. She took hers away. "And who would be surprised at it, gentlemen? He only who is so blind, so plunged (I do not fear to say it), so plunged in the prejudices of another age as still to misunderstand the spirit of agricultural populations. Where, indeed, is to be found more patriotism than in the country, greater devotion to the public welfare, more intelligence, in a word? And, gentlemen, I do not mean that superficial intelligence, vain ornament of idle minds, but rather that profound and balanced intelligence that applies itself above all else to useful objects, thus contributing to the good of all, to the common amelioration and to the support of the state, born of respect for law and the practice of duty--" "Ah! again!" said Rodolphe. "Always ‘duty.’ I am sick of the word. They are a lot of old blockheads in flannel vests and of old women with foot-warmers and rosaries who constantly drone into our ears ‘Duty, duty!’ Ah! by Jove! one’s duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and not accept all the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us." "Yet--yet--" objected Madame Bovary. "No, no! Why cry out against the passions? Are they not the one beautiful thing on the earth, the source of heroism, of enthusiasm, of poetry, music, the arts, of everything, in a word?" "But one must," said Emma, "to some extent bow to the opinion of the world and accept its moral code." "Ah! but there are two," he replied. "The small, the conventional, that of men, that which constantly changes, that brays out so loudly, that makes such a commotion here below, of the earth earthly, like the mass of imbeciles you see down there. But the other, the eternal, that is about us and above, like the landscape that surrounds us, and the blue heavens that give us light." Monsieur Lieuvain had just wiped his mouth with a pocket-handkerchief. He continued-- "And what should I do here gentlemen, pointing out to you the uses of agriculture? Who supplies our wants? Who provides our means of subsistence? Is it not the agriculturist? The agriculturist, gentlemen, who, sowing with laborious hand the fertile furrows of the country, brings forth the corn, which, being ground, is made into a powder by means of ingenious machinery, comes out thence under the name of flour, and from there, transported to our cities, is soon delivered at the baker’s, who makes it into food for poor and rich alike. Again, is it not the agriculturist who fattens, for our clothes, his abundant flocks in the pastures? For how should we clothe ourselves, how nourish ourselves, without the agriculturist? And, gentlemen, is it even necessary to go so far for examples? Who has not frequently reflected on all the momentous things that we get out of that modest animal, the ornament of poultry-yards, that provides us at once with a soft pillow for our bed, with succulent flesh for our tables, and eggs? But I should never end if I were to enumerate one after the other all the different products which the earth, well cultivated, like a generous mother, lavishes upon her children. Here it is the vine, elsewhere the apple tree for cider, there colza, farther on cheeses and flax. Gentlemen, let us not forget flax, which has made such great strides of late years, and to which I will more particularly call your attention." He had no need to call it, for all the mouths of the multitude were wide open, as if to drink in his words. Tuvache by his side listened to him with staring eyes. Monsieur Derozerays from time to time softly closed his eyelids, and farther on the chemist, with his son Napoleon between his knees, put his hand behind his ear in order not to lose a syllable. The chins of the other members of the jury went slowly up and down in their waistcoats in sign of approval. The firemen at the foot of the platform rested on their bayonets; and Binet, motionless, stood with out-turned elbows, the point of his sabre in the air. Perhaps he could hear, but certainly he could see nothing, because of the visor of his helmet, that fell down on his nose. His lieutenant, the youngest son of Monsieur Tuvache, had a bigger one, for his was enormous, and shook on his head, and from it an end of his cotton scarf peeped out. He smiled beneath it with a perfectly infantine sweetness, and his pale little face, whence drops were running, wore an expression of enjoyment and sleepiness. The square as far as the houses was crowded with people. One saw folk leaning on their elbows at all the windows, others standing at doors, and Justin, in front of the chemist’s shop, seemed quite transfixed by the sight of what he was looking at. In spite of the silence Monsieur Lieuvain’s voice was lost in the air. It reached you in fragments of phrases, and interrupted here and there by the creaking of chairs in the crowd; then you suddenly heard the long bellowing of an ox, or else the bleating of the lambs, who answered one another at street corners. In fact, the cowherds and shepherds had driven their beasts thus far, and these lowed from time to time, while with their tongues they tore down some scrap of foliage that hung above their mouths. Rodolphe had drawn nearer to Emma, and said to her in a low voice, speaking rapidly-- "Does not this conspiracy of the world revolt you? Is there a single sentiment it does not condemn? The noblest instincts, the purest sympathies are persecuted, slandered; and if at length two poor souls do meet, all is so organised that they cannot blend together. Yet they will make the attempt; they will flutter their wings; they will call upon each other. Oh! no matter. Sooner or later, in six months, ten years, they will come together, will love; for fate has decreed it, and they are born one for the other." His arms were folded across his knees, and thus lifting his face towards Emma, close by her, he looked fixedly at her. She noticed in his eyes small golden lines radiating from black pupils; she even smelt the perfume of the pomade that made his hair glossy. Then a faintness came over her; she recalled the Viscount who had waltzed with her at Vaubyessard, and his beard exhaled like this air an odour of vanilla and citron, and mechanically she half-closed her eyes the better to breathe it in. But in making this movement, as she leant back in her chair, she saw in the distance, right on the line of the horizon, the old diligence, the "Hirondelle," that was slowly descending the hill of Leux, dragging after it a long trail of dust. It was in this yellow carriage that Leon had so often come back to her, and by this route down there that he had gone for ever. She fancied she saw him opposite at his windows; then all grew confused; clouds gathered; it seemed to her that she was again turning in the waltz under the light of the lustres on the arm of the Viscount, and that Leon was not far away, that he was coming; and yet all the time she was conscious of the scent of Rodolphe’s head by her side. This sweetness of sensation pierced through her old desires, and these, like grains of sand under a gust of wind, eddied to and fro in the subtle breath of the perfume which suffused her soul. She opened wide her nostrils several times to drink in the freshness of the ivy round the capitals. She took off her gloves, she wiped her hands, then fanned her face with her handkerchief, while athwart the throbbing of her temples she heard the murmur of the crowd and the voice of the councillor intoning his phrases. He said--"Continue, persevere; listen neither to the suggestions of routine, nor to the over-hasty councils of a rash empiricism. "Apply yourselves, above all, to the amelioration of the soil, to good manures, to the development of the equine, bovine, ovine, and porcine races. Let these shows be to you pacific arenas, where the victor in leaving it will hold forth a hand to the vanquished, and will fraternise with him in the hope of better success. And you, aged servants, humble domestics, whose hard labour no Government up to this day has taken into consideration, come hither to receive the reward of your silent virtues, and be assured that the state henceforward has its eye upon you; that it encourages you, protects you; that it will accede to your just demands, and alleviate as much as in it lies the burden of your painful sacrifices." Monsieur Lieuvain then sat down; Monsieur Derozerays got up, beginning another speech. His was not perhaps so florid as that of the councillor, but it recommended itself by a more direct style, that is to say, by more special knowledge and more elevated considerations. Thus the praise of the Government took up less space in it; religion and agriculture more. He showed in it the relations of these two, and how they had always contributed to civilisation. Rodolphe with Madame Bovary was talking dreams, presentiments, magnetism. Going back to the cradle of society, the orator painted those fierce times when men lived on acorns in the heart of woods. Then they had left off the skins of beasts, had put on cloth, tilled the soil, planted the vine. Was this a good, and in this discovery was there not more of injury than of gain? Monsieur Derozerays set himself this problem. From magnetism little by little Rodolphe had come to affinities, and while the president was citing Cincinnatus and his plough, Diocletian, planting his cabbages, and the Emperors of China inaugurating the year by the sowing of seed, the young man was explaining to the young woman that these irresistible attractions find their cause in some previous state of existence. "Thus we," he said, "why did we come to know one another? What chance willed it? It was because across the infinite, like two streams that flow but to unite; our special bents of mind had driven us towards each other." And he seized her hand; she did not withdraw it. "For good farming generally!" cried the president. "Just now, for example, when I went to your house." "To Monsieur Bizat of Quincampoix." "Did I know I should accompany you?" "Seventy francs." "A hundred times I wished to go; and I followed you--I remained." "Manures!" "And I shall remain to-night, to-morrow, all other days, all my life!" "To Monsieur Caron of Argueil, a gold medal!" "For I have never in the society of any other person found so complete a charm." "To Monsieur Bain of Givry-Saint-Martin." "And I shall carry away with me the remembrance of you." "For a merino ram!" "But you will forget me; I shall pass away like a shadow." "To Monsieur Belot of Notre-Dame." "Oh, no! I shall be something in your thought, in your life, shall I not?" "Porcine race; prizes--equal, to Messrs. Leherisse and Cullembourg, sixty francs!" Rodolphe was pressing her hand, and he felt it all warm and quivering like a captive dove that wants to fly away; but, whether she was trying to take it away or whether she was answering his pressure; she made a movement with her fingers. He exclaimed-- "Oh, I thank you! You do not repulse me! You are good! You understand that I am yours! Let me look at you; let me contemplate you!" A gust of wind that blew in at the window ruffled the cloth on the table, and in the square below all the great caps of the peasant women were uplifted by it like the wings of white butterflies fluttering. "Use of oil-cakes," continued the president. He was hurrying on: "Flemish manure-flax-growing-drainage-long leases-domestic service." Rodolphe was no longer speaking. They looked at one another. A supreme desire made their dry lips tremble, and wearily, without an effort, their fingers intertwined. "Catherine Nicaise Elizabeth Leroux, of Sassetot-la-Guerriere, for fifty-four years of service at the same farm, a silver medal--value, twenty-five francs!" "Where is Catherine Leroux?" repeated the councillor. She did not present herself, and one could hear voices whispering-- "Go up!" "Don’t be afraid!" "Oh, how stupid she is!" "Well, is she there?" cried Tuvache. "Yes; here she is." "Then let her come up!" Then there came forward on the platform a little old woman with timid bearing, who seemed to shrink within her poor clothes. On her feet she wore heavy wooden clogs, and from her hips hung a large blue apron. Her pale face framed in a borderless cap was more wrinkled than a withered russet apple. And from the sleeves of her red jacket looked out two large hands with knotty joints, the dust of barns, the potash of washing the grease of wools had so encrusted, roughened, hardened these that they seemed dirty, although they had been rinsed in clear water; and by dint of long service they remained half open, as if to bear humble witness for themselves of so much suffering endured. Something of monastic rigidity dignified her face. Nothing of sadness or of emotion weakened that pale look. In her constant living with animals she had caught their dumbness and their calm. It was the first time that she found herself in the midst of so large a company, and inwardly scared by the flags, the drums, the gentlemen in frock-coats, and the order of the councillor, she stood motionless, not knowing whether to advance or run away, nor why the crowd was pushing her and the jury were smiling at her. Thus stood before these radiant bourgeois this half-century of servitude. "Approach, venerable Catherine Nicaise Elizabeth Leroux!" said the councillor, who had taken the list of prize-winners from the president; and, looking at the piece of paper and the old woman by turns, he repeated in a fatherly tone--"Approach! approach!" "Are you deaf?" said Tuvache, fidgeting in his armchair; and he began shouting in her ear, "Fifty-four years of service. A silver medal! Twenty-five francs! For you!" Then, when she had her medal, she looked at it, and a smile of beatitude spread over her face; and as she walked away they could hear her muttering "I’ll give it to our cure up home, to say some masses for me!" "What fanaticism!" exclaimed the chemist, leaning across to the notary. The meeting was over, the crowd dispersed, and now that the speeches had been read, each one fell back into his place again, and everything into the old grooves; the masters bullied the servants, and these struck the animals, indolent victors, going back to the stalls, a green-crown on their horns. The National Guards, however, had gone up to the first floor of the town hall with buns spitted on their bayonets, and the drummer of the battalion carried a basket with bottles. Madame Bovary took Rodolphe’s arm; he saw her home; they separated at her door; then he walked about alone in the meadow while he waited for the time of the banquet. The feast was long, noisy, ill served; the guests were so crowded that they could hardly move their elbows; and the narrow planks used for forms almost broke down under their weight. They ate hugely. Each one stuffed himself on his own account. Sweat stood on every brow, and a whitish steam, like the vapour of a stream on an autumn morning, floated above the table between the hanging lamps. Rodolphe, leaning against the calico of the tent was thinking so earnestly of Emma that he heard nothing. Behind him on the grass the servants were piling up the dirty plates, his neighbours were talking; he did not answer them; they filled his glass, and there was silence in his thoughts in spite of the growing noise. He was dreaming of what she had said, of the line of her lips; her face, as in a magic mirror, shone on the plates of the shakos, the folds of her gown fell along the walls, and days of love unrolled to all infinity before him in the vistas of the future. He saw her again in the evening during the fireworks, but she was with her husband, Madame Homais, and the druggist, who was worrying about the danger of stray rockets, and every moment he left the company to go and give some advice to Binet. The pyrotechnic pieces sent to Monsieur Tuvache had, through an excess of caution, been shut up in his cellar, and so the damp powder would not light, and the principal set piece, that was to represent a dragon biting his tail, failed completely. Now and then a meagre Roman-candle went off; then the gaping crowd sent up a shout that mingled with the cry of the women, whose waists were being squeezed in the darkness. Emma silently nestled against Charles’s shoulder; then, raising her chin, she watched the luminous rays of the rockets against the dark sky. Rodolphe gazed at her in the light of the burning lanterns. They went out one by one. The stars shone out. A few crops of rain began to fall. She knotted her fichu round her bare head. At this moment the councillor’s carriage came out from the inn. His coachman, who was drunk, suddenly dozed off, and one could see from the distance, above the hood, between the two lanterns, the mass of his body, that swayed from right to left with the giving of the traces. "Truly," said the druggist, "one ought to proceed most rigorously against drunkenness! I should like to see written up weekly at the door of the town hall on a board ad hoc* the names of all those who during the week got intoxicated on alcohol. Besides, with regard to statistics, one would thus have, as it were, public records that one could refer to in case of need. But excuse me!" *Specifically for that. And he once more ran off to the captain. The latter was going back to see his lathe again. "Perhaps you would not do ill," Homais said to him, "to send one of your men, or to go yourself--" "Leave me alone!" answered the tax-collector. "It’s all right!" "Do not be uneasy," said the druggist, when he returned to his friends. "Monsieur Binet has assured me that all precautions have been taken. No sparks have fallen; the pumps are full. Let us go to rest." "Ma foi! I want it," said Madame Homais, yawning at large. "But never mind; we’ve had a beautiful day for our fete." Rodolphe repeated in a low voice, and with a tender look, "Oh, yes! very beautiful!" And having bowed to one another, they separated. Two days later, in the "Final de Rouen," there was a long article on the show. Homais had composed it with verve the very next morning. "Why these festoons, these flowers, these garlands? Whither hurries this crowd like the waves of a furious sea under the torrents of a tropical sun pouring its heat upon our heads?" Then he spoke of the condition of the peasants. Certainly the Government was doing much, but not enough. "Courage!" he cried to it; "a thousand reforms are indispensable; let us accomplish them!" Then touching on the entry of the councillor, he did not forget "the martial air of our militia;" nor "our most merry village maidens;" nor the "bald-headed old men like patriarchs who were there, and of whom some, the remnants of our phalanxes, still felt their hearts beat at the manly sound of the drums." He cited himself among the first of the members of the jury, and he even called attention in a note to the fact that Monsieur Homais, chemist, had sent a memoir on cider to the agricultural society. When he came to the distribution of the prizes, he painted the joy of the prize-winners in dithyrambic strophes. "The father embraced the son, the brother the brother, the husband his consort. More than one showed his humble medal with pride; and no doubt when he got home to his good housewife, he hung it up weeping on the modest walls of his cot. "About six o’clock a banquet prepared in the meadow of Monsieur Leigeard brought together the principal personages of the fete. The greatest cordiality reigned here. Divers toasts were proposed: Monsieur Lieuvain, the King; Monsieur Tuvache, the Prefect; Monsieur Derozerays, Agriculture; Monsieur Homais, Industry and the Fine Arts, those twin sisters; Monsieur Leplichey, Progress. In the evening some brilliant fireworks on a sudden illumined the air. One would have called it a veritable kaleidoscope, a real operatic scene; and for a moment our little locality might have thought itself transported into the midst of a dream of the ‘Thousand and One Nights.’ Let us state that no untoward event disturbed this family meeting." And he added "Only the absence of the clergy was remarked. No doubt the priests understand progress in another fashion. Just as you please, messieurs the followers of Loyola!" Chapter Nine Six weeks passed. Rodolphe did not come again. At last one evening he appeared. The day after the show he had said to himself--"We mustn’t go back too soon; that would be a mistake." And at the end of a week he had gone off hunting. After the hunting he had thought it was too late, and then he reasoned thus-- "If from the first day she loved me, she must from impatience to see me again love me more. Let’s go on with it!" And he knew that his calculation had been right when, on entering the room, he saw Emma turn pale. She was alone. The day was drawing in. The small muslin curtain along the windows deepened the twilight, and the gilding of the barometer, on which the rays of the sun fell, shone in the looking-glass between the meshes of the coral. Rodolphe remained standing, and Emma hardly answered his first conventional phrases. "I," he said, "have been busy. I have been ill." "Seriously?" she cried. "Well," said Rodolphe, sitting down at her side on a footstool, "no; it was because I did not want to come back." "Why?" "Can you not guess?" He looked at her again, but so hard that she lowered her head, blushing. He went on-- "Emma!" "Sir," she said, drawing back a little. "Ah! you see," replied he in a melancholy voice, "that I was right not to come back; for this name, this name that fills my whole soul, and that escaped me, you forbid me to use! Madame Bovary! why all the world calls you thus! Besides, it is not your name; it is the name of another!" He repeated, "of another!" And he hid his face in his hands. "Yes, I think of you constantly. The memory of you drives me to despair. Ah! forgive me! I will leave you! Farewell! I will go far away, so far that you will never hear of me again; and yet--to-day--I know not what force impelled me towards you. For one does not struggle against Heaven; one cannot resist the smile of angels; one is carried away by that which is beautiful, charming, adorable." It was the first time that Emma had heard such words spoken to herself, and her pride, like one who reposes bathed in warmth, expanded softly and fully at this glowing language. "But if I did not come," he continued, "if I could not see you, at least I have gazed long on all that surrounds you. At night-every night-I arose; I came hither; I watched your house, its glimmering in the moon, the trees in the garden swaying before your window, and the little lamp, a gleam shining through the window-panes in the darkness. Ah! you never knew that there, so near you, so far from you, was a poor wretch!" She turned towards him with a sob. "Oh, you are good!" she said. "No, I love you, that is all! You do not doubt that! Tell me--one word--only one word!" And Rodolphe imperceptibly glided from the footstool to the ground; but a sound of wooden shoes was heard in the kitchen, and he noticed the door of the room was not closed. "How kind it would be of you," he went on, rising, "if you would humour a whim of mine." It was to go over her house; he wanted to know it; and Madame Bovary seeing no objection to this, they both rose, when Charles came in. "Good morning, doctor," Rodolphe said to him. The doctor, flattered at this unexpected title, launched out into obsequious phrases. Of this the other took advantage to pull himself together a little. "Madame was speaking to me," he then said, "about her health." Charles interrupted him; he had indeed a thousand anxieties; his wife’s palpitations of the heart were beginning again. Then Rodolphe asked if riding would not be good. "Certainly! excellent! just the thing! There’s an idea! You ought to follow it up." And as she objected that she had no horse, Monsieur Rodolphe offered one. She refused his offer; he did not insist. Then to explain his visit he said that his ploughman, the man of the blood-letting, still suffered from giddiness. "I’ll call around," said Bovary. "No, no! I’ll send him to you; we’ll come; that will be more convenient for you." "Ah! very good! I thank you." And as soon as they were alone, "Why don’t you accept Monsieur Boulanger’s kind offer?" She assumed a sulky air, invented a thousand excuses, and finally declared that perhaps it would look odd. "Well, what the deuce do I care for that?" said Charles, making a pirouette. "Health before everything! You are wrong." "And how do you think I can ride when I haven’t got a habit?" "You must order one," he answered. The riding-habit decided her. When the habit was ready, Charles wrote to Monsieur Boulanger that his wife was at his command, and that they counted on his good-nature. The next day at noon Rodolphe appeared at Charles’s door with two saddle-horses. One had pink rosettes at his ears and a deerskin side-saddle. Rodolphe had put on high soft boots, saying to himself that no doubt she had never seen anything like them. In fact, Emma was charmed with his appearance as he stood on the landing in his great velvet coat and white corduroy breeches. She was ready; she was waiting for him. Justin escaped from the chemist’s to see her start, and the chemist also came out. He was giving Monsieur Boulanger a little good advice. "An accident happens so easily. Be careful! Your horses perhaps are mettlesome." She heard a noise above her; it was Felicite drumming on the windowpanes to amuse little Berthe. The child blew her a kiss; her mother answered with a wave of her whip. "A pleasant ride!" cried Monsieur Homais. "Prudence! above all, prudence!" And he flourished his newspaper as he saw them disappear. As soon as he felt the ground, Emma’s horse set off at a gallop. Rodolphe galloped by her side. Now and then they exchanged a word. Her figure slightly bent, her hand well up, and her right arm stretched out, she gave herself up to the cadence of the movement that rocked her in her saddle. At the bottom of the hill Rodolphe gave his horse its head; they started together at a bound, then at the top suddenly the horses stopped, and her large blue veil fell about her. It was early in October. There was fog over the land. Hazy clouds hovered on the horizon between the outlines of the hills; others, rent asunder, floated up and disappeared. Sometimes through a rift in the clouds, beneath a ray of sunshine, gleamed from afar the roots of Yonville, with the gardens at the water’s edge, the yards, the walls and the church steeple. Emma half closed her eyes to pick out her house, and never had this poor village where she lived appeared so small. From the height on which they were the whole valley seemed an immense pale lake sending off its vapour into the air. Clumps of trees here and there stood out like black rocks, and the tall lines of the poplars that rose above the mist were like a beach stirred by the wind. By the side, on the turf between the pines, a brown light shimmered in the warm atmosphere. The earth, ruddy like the powder of tobacco, deadened the noise of their steps, and with the edge of their shoes the horses as they walked kicked the fallen fir cones in front of them. Rodolphe and Emma thus went along the skirt of the wood. She turned away from time to time to avoid his look, and then she saw only the pine trunks in lines, whose monotonous succession made her a little giddy. The horses were panting; the leather of the saddles creaked. Just as they were entering the forest the sun shone out. "God protects us!" said Rodolphe. "Do you think so?" she said. "Forward! forward!" he continued. He "tchk’d" with his tongue. The two beasts set off at a trot. Long ferns by the roadside caught in Emma’s stirrup. Rodolphe leant forward and removed them as they rode along. At other times, to turn aside the branches, he passed close to her, and Emma felt his knee brushing against her leg. The sky was now blue, the leaves no longer stirred. There were spaces full of heather in flower, and plots of violets alternated with the confused patches of the trees that were grey, fawn, or golden coloured, according to the nature of their leaves. Often in the thicket was heard the fluttering of wings, or else the hoarse, soft cry of the ravens flying off amidst the oaks. They dismounted. Rodolphe fastened up the horses. She walked on in front on the moss between the paths. But her long habit got in her way, although she held it up by the skirt; and Rodolphe, walking behind her, saw between the black cloth and the black shoe the fineness of her white stocking, that seemed to him as if it were a part of her nakedness. She stopped. "I am tired," she said. "Come, try again," he went on. "Courage!" Then some hundred paces farther on she again stopped, and through her veil, that fell sideways from her man’s hat over her hips, her face appeared in a bluish transparency as if she were floating under azure waves. "But where are we going?" He did not answer. She was breathing irregularly. Rodolphe looked round him biting his moustache. They came to a larger space where the coppice had been cut. They sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, and Rodolphe began speaking to her of his love. He did not begin by frightening her with compliments. He was calm, serious, melancholy. Emma listened to him with bowed head, and stirred the bits of wood on the ground with the tip of her foot. But at the words, "Are not our destinies now one?" "Oh, no!" she replied. "You know that well. It is impossible!" She rose to go. He seized her by the wrist. She stopped. Then, having gazed at him for a few moments with an amorous and humid look, she said hurriedly-- "Ah! do not speak of it again! Where are the horses? Let us go back." He made a gesture of anger and annoyance. She repeated: "Where are the horses? Where are the horses?" Then smiling a strange smile, his pupil fixed, his teeth set, he advanced with outstretched arms. She recoiled trembling. She stammered: "Oh, you frighten me! You hurt me! Let me go!" "If it must be," he went on, his face changing; and he again became respectful, caressing, timid. She gave him her arm. They went back. He said-- "What was the matter with you? Why? I do not understand. You were mistaken, no doubt. In my soul you are as a Madonna on a pedestal, in a place lofty, secure, immaculate. But I need you to live! I must have your eyes, your voice, your thought! Be my friend, my sister, my angel!" And he put out his arm round her waist. She feebly tried to disengage herself. He supported her thus as they walked along. But they heard the two horses browsing on the leaves. "Oh! one moment!" said Rodolphe. "Do not let us go! Stay!" He drew her farther on to a small pool where duckweeds made a greenness on the water. Faded water lilies lay motionless between the reeds. At the noise of their steps in the grass, frogs jumped away to hide themselves. "I am wrong! I am wrong!" she said. "I am mad to listen to you!" "Why? Emma! Emma!" "Oh, Rodolphe!" said the young woman slowly, leaning on his shoulder. The cloth of her habit caught against the velvet of his coat. She threw back her white neck, swelling with a sigh, and faltering, in tears, with a long shudder and hiding her face, she gave herself up to him-- The shades of night were falling; the horizontal sun passing between the branches dazzled the eyes. Here and there around her, in the leaves or on the ground, trembled luminous patches, as it hummingbirds flying about had scattered their feathers. Silence was everywhere; something sweet seemed to come forth from the trees; she felt her heart, whose beating had begun again, and the blood coursing through her flesh like a stream of milk. Then far away, beyond the wood, on the other hills, she heard a vague prolonged cry, a voice which lingered, and in silence she heard it mingling like music with the last pulsations of her throbbing nerves. Rodolphe, a cigar between his lips, was mending with his penknife one of the two broken bridles. They returned to Yonville by the same road. On the mud they saw again the traces of their horses side by side, the same thickets, the same stones to the grass; nothing around them seemed changed; and yet for her something had happened more stupendous than if the mountains had moved in their places. Rodolphe now and again bent forward and took her hand to kiss it. She was charming on horseback--upright, with her slender waist, her knee bent on the mane of her horse, her face somewhat flushed by the fresh air in the red of the evening. On entering Yonville she made her horse prance in the road. People looked at her from the windows. At dinner her husband thought she looked well, but she pretended not to hear him when he inquired about her ride, and she remained sitting there with her elbow at the side of her plate between the two lighted candles. "Emma!" he said. "What?" "Well, I spent the afternoon at Monsieur Alexandre’s. He has an old cob, still very fine, only a little broken-kneed, and that could be bought; I am sure, for a hundred crowns." He added, "And thinking it might please you, I have bespoken it--bought it. Have I done right? Do tell me?" She nodded her head in assent; then a quarter of an hour later-- "Are you going out to-night?" she asked. "Yes. Why?" "Oh, nothing, nothing, my dear!" And as soon as she had got rid of Charles she went and shut herself up in her room. At first she felt stunned; she saw the trees, the paths, the ditches, Rodolphe, and she again felt the pressure of his arm, while the leaves rustled and the reeds whistled. But when she saw herself in the glass she wondered at her face. Never had her eyes been so large, so black, of so profound a depth. Something subtle about her being transfigured her. She repeated, "I have a lover! a lover!" delighting at the idea as if a second puberty had come to her. So at last she was to know those joys of love, that fever of happiness of which she had despaired! She was entering upon marvels where all would be passion, ecstasy, delirium. An azure infinity encompassed her, the heights of sentiment sparkled under her thought, and ordinary existence appeared only afar off, down below in the shade, through the interspaces of these heights. Then she recalled the heroines of the books that she had read, and the lyric legion of these adulterous women began to sing in her memory with the voice of sisters that charmed her. She became herself, as it were, an actual part of these imaginings, and realised the love-dream of her youth as she saw herself in this type of amorous women whom she had so envied. Besides, Emma felt a satisfaction of revenge. Had she not suffered enough? But now she triumphed, and the love so long pent up burst forth in full joyous bubblings. She tasted it without remorse, without anxiety, without trouble. The day following passed with a new sweetness. They made vows to one - - 1 2 " ! * " , " . . " 3 4 * ! 5 6 , , , 7 , 8 , . 9 , 10 ; . 11 12 , 13 , , 14 , . 15 16 , - 17 . 18 19 . 20 , 21 . 22 23 " , " , " - - " 24 25 " , " . 26 27 " , " . " 28 ! " 29 30 , , 31 . 32 33 " , " , " . " 34 35 " ! " ; " - . " 36 37 " ! . , 38 ; , 39 40 ! " 41 42 " ! ? " . " . " 43 44 " ! ? ? ? " 45 . 46 47 48 . 49 50 . , , 51 . 52 , 53 ; , 54 . , , , 55 , , 56 , , . 57 58 ; 59 - - 60 61 " , . ! ! 62 , , ! , 63 , , 64 ! " 65 66 " , " , " . " 67 68 " ! ? " . 69 70 " , , " , " - - " , " - - " 71 72 " , " . 73 74 , 75 . - 76 . 77 78 . , 79 , 80 . 81 82 , 83 , . 84 , " ! " 85 . ; . 86 ; 87 , , 88 , 89 , 90 . 91 92 " ! " . 93 94 " ! " . " , . " 95 96 , , 97 , , 98 . 99 , , 100 , 101 . , , 102 - , 103 , . 104 , 105 . ; 106 . ; 107 ; , , 108 , , 109 , , 110 . 111 , , , , 112 , , 113 . 114 115 , , 116 , , - , 117 " " , 118 . , , 119 , 120 - . 121 122 . , 123 , , 124 , . 125 - , - ; 126 , , ; 127 , 128 , 129 . 130 131 132 , 133 . , 134 , 135 . 136 137 . 138 139 " , " , 140 , " 141 ; 142 . " 143 144 " , " ; " ? 145 . . ! 146 . " 147 148 , , , 149 , " - , " , , 150 . 151 , 152 , 153 . 154 155 , , . 156 . , 157 . 158 , , - - 159 160 " ! ( 161 - , , , 162 ) , , , 163 , , , 164 , , 165 , 166 167 , , , 168 , , , , ? " 169 170 " , " , " . " 171 172 " ? " . 173 174 175 . - - 176 177 " , , 178 , , - , - 179 , , , 180 , 181 . " 182 183 " , , " , " 184 ; 185 - - " 186 187 " , , " . 188 189 " ! , . " 190 191 " , , " , " , 192 , 193 , ? 194 ; 195 , , 196 . 197 ; , , 198 ; , , 199 ! " 200 201 " , " , " 202 . " 203 204 " ? " . 205 206 " ! " . " 207 ? , 208 , 209 , . " 210 211 212 , - - 213 214 " , ! " 215 216 " , . " 217 218 " ? " . 219 220 " ; , " . 221 222 " , " . 223 224 " , , ! 225 ! , , 226 , , 227 ! " 228 229 " , " , " , 230 . ; 231 , ! 232 , , . 233 ; . 234 ! " 235 236 ( . ) " , , 237 , . , ; , 238 ; , 239 . " 240 241 . 242 , . 243 . . 244 245 " , ? , 246 ( ) , 247 248 . , , 249 , , , 250 ? , , , 251 , 252 , 253 , 254 , 255 - - " 256 257 " ! ! " . " . . 258 259 - , 260 ! ! ! , 261 , 262 . " 263 264 " - - - - " . 265 266 " , ! ? 267 , , , 268 , , , , ? " 269 270 " , " , " 271 . " 272 273 " ! , " . " , , 274 , , , 275 , , 276 . , , 277 , , 278 . " 279 280 - . 281 - - 282 283 " , 284 ? ? 285 ? ? , , 286 , , 287 , , , 288 , , 289 , , 290 , . , 291 , , 292 ? , 293 , ? , , 294 ? 295 , 296 - , 297 , , ? 298 299 , , , 300 . , 301 , , . , 302 , , 303 . " 304 305 , 306 , . 307 . 308 , , 309 , . 310 311 . 312 ; , , 313 - , . 314 , , 315 , . , 316 , , , 317 , . 318 , 319 , , 320 . 321 322 . 323 , , 324 , , 325 . 326 . 327 , 328 ; , 329 , . 330 , , 331 , 332 . 333 334 , , 335 - - 336 337 " ? 338 ? , 339 , ; 340 , . 341 ; ; 342 . ! . , , , 343 , ; , 344 . " 345 346 , 347 , , . 348 ; 349 . 350 351 ; 352 , 353 , - 354 . , 355 , , 356 , , " , " 357 , . 358 , 359 . 360 ; ; ; 361 362 , , 363 ; 364 . 365 , , 366 , 367 . 368 . , 369 , , 370 371 . 372 - - " , ; 373 , - . 374 375 " , , , 376 , , , , 377 . , 378 , 379 . , , 380 , 381 , , 382 ; 383 , ; 384 , 385 . " 386 387 ; , 388 . , 389 , , 390 . 391 ; 392 . , 393 . 394 , , . 395 , 396 . , 397 , , . , 398 ? 399 . 400 , 401 , , , 402 , 403 404 . 405 406 " , " , " ? 407 ? , 408 ; 409 . " 410 411 ; . 412 413 " ! " . 414 415 " , , . " 416 417 " . " 418 419 " ? " 420 421 " . " 422 423 " ; - - . " 424 425 " ! " 426 427 " - , - , , ! " 428 429 " , ! " 430 431 " 432 . " 433 434 " - - . " 435 436 " . " 437 438 " ! " 439 440 " ; . " 441 442 " - . " 443 444 " , ! , , 445 ? " 446 447 " ; - - , . , 448 ! " 449 450 , 451 ; , 452 ; 453 . - - 454 455 " , ! ! ! 456 ! ; ! " 457 458 459 , 460 . 461 462 " - , " . : 463 " - - - - - . " 464 465 . . 466 , , , 467 . 468 469 " , - - , 470 - , - - , 471 - ! " 472 473 " ? " . 474 475 , - - 476 477 " ! " 478 479 " ! " 480 481 " , ! " 482 483 " , ? " . 484 485 " ; . " 486 487 " ! " 488 489 490 , . 491 , . 492 493 . 494 , , 495 , , 496 , ; 497 , 498 . 499 . 500 . 501 . 502 , 503 , , - , 504 , , 505 , 506 . 507 508 - 509 . 510 511 " , ! " 512 , - ; 513 , , 514 - - " ! ! " 515 516 " ? " , ; 517 , " - . ! 518 - ! ! " 519 520 , , , 521 ; 522 " , ! " 523 524 " ! " , . 525 526 , , 527 , , 528 ; , 529 , , , - 530 . 531 532 , , 533 , 534 . 535 ; ; ; 536 . 537 538 , , ; 539 ; 540 . . 541 . , 542 , , 543 . , 544 545 . 546 , ; ; 547 , 548 . , ; 549 , , , 550 , 551 . 552 553 , 554 , , , 555 , 556 . 557 558 , 559 , , 560 , , 561 , . - 562 ; 563 , . 564 ; , , 565 . 566 . 567 568 . . 569 . . 570 571 . 572 573 , , , 574 , , , 575 , . 576 577 " , " , " 578 ! 579 * 580 . , , 581 , , 582 . ! " 583 584 * . 585 586 . 587 . 588 589 " , " , " 590 , - - " 591 592 " ! " - . " ! " 593 594 " , " , . 595 " . 596 ; . . " 597 598 " ! , " , . " 599 ; . " 600 601 , , " , ! 602 ! " 603 604 , . 605 606 , " , " 607 . . 608 609 " , , ? 610 611 ? " 612 613 . 614 , . " ! " ; " 615 ; ! " 616 , " 617 ; " " ; " " - 618 , , 619 , 620 . " , 621 , 622 , . 623 624 , 625 - . " , 626 , . 627 ; 628 , . 629 630 " 631 . 632 . : 633 , ; , ; , 634 ; , , 635 ; , . 636 . 637 , ; 638 639 . 640 . " " 641 . 642 . , ! " 643 644 645 646 647 648 . . 649 . 650 651 - - " 652 ; . " 653 654 . 655 , - - 656 657 " , 658 . ! " 659 660 , 661 , . 662 663 . . 664 , , 665 , - 666 . 667 668 , 669 . 670 671 " , " , " . . " 672 673 " ? " . 674 675 " , " , , " ; 676 . " 677 678 " ? " 679 680 " ? " 681 682 , , . 683 - - 684 685 " ! " 686 687 " , " , . 688 689 " ! , " , " 690 ; , , 691 , ! ! 692 ! , ; 693 ! " 694 695 , " ! " . 696 697 " , . . 698 ! ! ! ! , 699 ; - - - - - 700 . ; 701 ; 702 , , . " 703 704 , 705 , , 706 . 707 708 " , " , " , 709 . - - 710 ; ; , , 711 , , 712 - . ! 713 , , , ! " 714 715 . 716 717 " , ! " . 718 719 " , , ! ! - - 720 - - ! " 721 722 ; 723 , 724 . 725 726 " , " , , " 727 . " ; ; 728 , , 729 . 730 731 " , , " . 732 733 , , 734 . 735 . 736 737 " , " , " . " 738 739 ; ; 740 . 741 . 742 743 " ! ! ! ! 744 . " 745 746 , 747 . ; . 748 , - , 749 . 750 751 " , " . 752 753 " , ! ; ; 754 . " 755 756 " ! ! . " 757 758 , " 759 ? " 760 761 , , 762 . 763 764 " , ? " , 765 . " ! . " 766 767 " ? " 768 769 " , " . 770 771 - . 772 773 , 774 , - . 775 776 777 - . 778 - . 779 780 , 781 . , 782 783 . ; . 784 785 , 786 . . 787 788 " . ! 789 . " 790 791 ; 792 . ; 793 . 794 795 " ! " . " ! , 796 ! " . 797 798 , . 799 800 . . 801 , , , 802 803 . ; 804 , 805 , . 806 807 . . 808 ; , 809 , . 810 , , 811 , , , 812 . , 813 . 814 815 . 816 , 817 . 818 819 , , 820 . , , 821 , 822 . 823 824 . 825 , 826 , . 827 ; . 828 829 . 830 831 " ! " . 832 833 " ? " . 834 835 " ! ! " . 836 837 " " . . 838 839 . 840 841 . 842 , , , 843 . , 844 . , 845 846 , , , . 847 , 848 , . 849 850 . . 851 . , 852 ; , , 853 854 , . 855 856 . " , " . 857 858 " , , " . " ! " 859 860 , 861 , , 862 863 . 864 865 " ? " 866 867 . . 868 . 869 . , 870 . 871 . , , . 872 873 , 874 . , " 875 ? " 876 877 " , ! " . " . ! " 878 . . . , 879 , 880 - - 881 882 " ! ! ? . " 883 884 . : 885 886 " ? ? " 887 888 , , , 889 . . : 890 891 " , ! ! ! " 892 893 " , " , ; 894 , , . . . 895 - - 896 897 " ? ? . 898 , . , 899 , , . ! 900 , , ! , , ! " 901 902 . 903 . . 904 905 . 906 907 " ! ! " . " ! ! " 908 909 910 . . 911 , 912 . 913 914 " ! ! " . " ! " 915 916 " ? ! ! " 917 918 " , ! " , . 919 920 . 921 , , , , 922 , - - 923 924 ; 925 . , 926 , , 927 . ; 928 ; , 929 , 930 . , , , 931 , , 932 933 . , , 934 . 935 936 . 937 , , 938 ; ; 939 940 . 941 . 942 943 - - , , 944 , 945 . 946 947 . 948 . 949 950 , 951 , 952 . 953 954 " ! " . 955 956 " ? " 957 958 " , . , 959 , - , ; 960 , . " , " 961 , - - . ? ? " 962 963 ; - - 964 965 " - ? " . 966 967 " . ? " 968 969 " , , , ! " 970 971 972 . 973 974 ; , , , 975 , , 976 . 977 978 . 979 , , . 980 . , " ! 981 ! " . 982 , 983 ! 984 , , . 985 , , 986 , , 987 . 988 989 , 990 991 . , , 992 , - 993 994 . , . 995 ? , 996 . , 997 , . 998 999 . 1000