#1: They returned to Yonville along the river. The summer weather had reduced its flow and left uncovered the river walls and water steps of the gardens along its bank. It ran silently, swift and cold-looking; long fine grasses bent with the current, like masses of loose green hair streaming in its limpid depths. Here and there, on the tip of a reed or on a water-lily pad, a spidery-legged insect was poised or crawling. Sunbeams pierced the little blue air bubbles that kept forming and breaking on the ripples; branchless old willows mirrored their gray bark in the water in the distance. The meadows seemed empty all around them.
#2: At the sudden impact of those words, crashing into her mind like a leaden bullet into a silver dish, Emma felt herself shudder, and she raised her head, straining to understand what he had meant by them. They looked at each other in silence, almost wonderstruck to see that the other was there, so far apart had their thoughts carried them. Charles stared at her with the clouded gaze of a drunken man; motionless in his chair, he was listening to the screams that continued to come from the hotel.
