Sentence No. 21 · 17 April 2026
Before marriage she thought herself in love; but the happiness that should have followed this love not having come, she must, she thought, have been mistaken.
Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert — Madame Bovary (1856), tr. Eleanor Marx-Aveling · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
The tucked-in "she thought" signals that the main verb has already arrived: the core is "she must, she thought, have been mistaken." When you spot an attribution wedged into a clause like this, place it inside the clause it interrupts, never at the start.
How it appears in Sentle
On Sentle this sentence arrives in 7 pieces, shuffled, with the lines that lead up to it for context. Emma Bovary, newly married, discovers that real life falls far short of the romantic novels she was raised on. 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.
A new sentence from a great book, every day.
Play today’s sentenceFree, no account. Or play this one — it will give the answer away.