At the unexpected shock of this phrase falling on her thought like a
leaden bullet on a silver plate, Emma, shuddering, raised her head in
order to find out what he meant to say; and they looked at the other in
silence, almost amazed to see each other, so far sundered were they
by their inner thoughts. Charles gazed at her with the dull look of
a drunken man, while he listened motionless to the last cries of the
sufferer, that followed each other in long-drawn modulations, broken by
sharp spasms like the far-off howling of some beast being slaughtered.
Emma bit her wan lips, and rolling between her fingers a piece of coral
that she had broken, fixed on Charles the burning glance of her eyes
like two arrows of fire about to dart forth. Everything in him irritated
her now; his face, his dress, what he did not say, his whole person, his
existence, in fine. She repented of her past virtue as of a crime, and
what still remained of it rumbled away beneath the furious blows of her
pride. She revelled in all the evil ironies of triumphant adultery.
The memory of her lover came back to her with dazzling attractions; she
threw her whole soul into it, borne away towards this image with a fresh
enthusiasm; and Charles seemed to her as much removed from her life, as
absent forever, as impossible and annihilated, as if he had been about
to die and were passing under her eyes.

There was a sound of steps on the pavement. Charles looked up, and
through the lowered blinds he saw at the corner of the market in
the broad sunshine Dr. Canivet, who was wiping his brow with his
handkerchief. Homais, behind him, was carrying a large red box in his
hand, and both were going towards the chemist's.

Then with a feeling of sudden tenderness and discouragement Charles
turned to his wife saying to her--