smells of the village, like ploughboys dressed in Sundayclothes, has
a cafe on the street, and towards the countryside a kitchen-garden.
Charles at once set out. He muddled up the stage-boxes with the gallery,
the pit with the boxes; asked for explanations, did not understand them;
was sent from the box-office to the acting-manager; came back to the
inn, returned to the theatre, and thus several times traversed the whole
length of the town from the theatre to the boulevard.

Madame Bovary bought a bonnet, gloves, and a bouquet. The doctor was
much afraid of missing the beginning, and, without having had time to
swallow a plate of soup, they presented themselves at the doors of the
theatre, which were still closed.




Chapter Fifteen

The crowd was waiting against the wall, symmetrically enclosed between
the balustrades. At the corner of the neighbouring streets huge bills
repeated in quaint letters "Lucie de Lammermoor-Lagardy-Opera-etc." The
weather was fine, the people were hot, perspiration trickled amid the
curls, and handkerchiefs taken from pockets were mopping red foreheads;
and now and then a warm wind that blew from the river gently stirred the
border of the tick awnings hanging from the doors of the public-houses.
A little lower down, however, one was refreshed by a current of icy air
that smelt of tallow, leather, and oil. This was an exhalation from
the Rue des Charrettes, full of large black warehouses where they made
casks.