A servant got upon a chair and broke the window-panes.

At the crash of the glass Madame Bovary turned her head and saw in the garden the faces of peasants pressed against the window looking in at them.

Then the memory of the Bertaux came back to her.

She saw the farm again, the muddy pond, her father in a blouse under the apple trees, and she saw herself again as formerly, skimming with her finger the cream off the milk-pans in the dairy.

But in the refulgence of the present hour her past life, so distinct until then, faded away completely, and she almost doubted having lived it.