Sentence No. 151 · 25 August 2026
The tired bearers walked more slowly, and it advanced with constant jerks, like a boat that pitches with every wave.
Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert — Madame Bovary (1857) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
Two comma-marked joints organise this sentence: the comma before "and" links two full clauses, and the second comma opens the closing simile. Since "like" begins a comparison and "that" must follow the noun it describes, "like a boat" has to precede "that pitches with every wave".
How it appears in Sentle
On Sentle this sentence arrives in 7 pieces, shuffled, with the lines that lead up to it for context. A slow procession carries a coffin along a country road. Putting it back in the author’s order is the puzzle — and the order is rarely arbitrary, which is what the note above is about.
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