And she abruptly withdrew her hand to enter the chapel of the Virgin, where, kneeling on a chair, she began to pray.
The young man was irritated at this bigot fancy; then he nevertheless experienced a certain charm in seeing her, in the middle of a rendezvous, thus lost in her devotions, like an Andalusian marchioness; then he grew bored, for she seemed never coming to an end.
Emma prayed, or rather strove to pray, hoping that some sudden resolution might descend to her from heaven; and to draw down divine aid she filled full her eyes with the splendours of the tabernacle. She breathed in the perfumes of the full-blown flowers in the large vases, and listened to the stillness of the church, that only heightened the tumult of her heart.
She rose, and they were about to leave, when the beadle came forward, hurriedly saying—
“Madame, no doubt, does not belong to these parts? Madame would like to see the curiosities of the church?”
“Oh, no!” cried the clerk.
“Why not?” said she. For she clung with her expiring virtue to the Virgin, the sculptures, the tombs—anything.
Then, in order to proceed “by rule,” the beadle conducted them right to the entrance near the square, where, pointing out with his cane a large circle of block-stones without inscription or carving—
“This,” he said majestically, “is the circumference of the beautiful bell of Ambroise. It weighed forty thousand pounds. There was not its equal in all Europe. The workman who cast it died of the joy—”
“Let us go on,” said Léon.