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Madame Bovary

Gustave Flaubert

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Madame Bovary

by Gustave Flaubert

November, 2000 [Etext #2413]

[Most recently updated December 6, 2003]

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MADAME BOVARY

By Gustave Flaubert

Translated from the French by Eleanor Marx-Aveling

To Marie-Antoine-Jules Senard

Member of the Paris Bar, Ex-President of the National Assembly,

and Former Minister of the Interior

Dear and Illustrious Friend,

Permit me to inscribe your name at the head of this book, and

above its dedication; for it is to you, before all, that I owe

its publication. Reading over your magnificent defence, my work

has acquired for myself, as it were, an unexpected authority.

Accept, then, here, the homage of my gratitude, which, how great

soever it is, will never attain the height of your eloquence and

your devotion.

Gustave Flaubert

Paris, 12 April 1857

MADAME BOVARY

Part I

Chapter One

We were in class when the head-master came in, followed by a "new

fellow," not wearing the school uniform, and a school servant

carrying a large desk. Those who had been asleep woke up, and

every one rose as if just surprised at his work.

The head-master made a sign to us to sit down. Then, turning to

the class-master, he said to him in a low voice--

"Monsieur Roger, here is a pupil whom I recommend to your care;

he'll be in the second. If his work and conduct are satisfactory,

he will go into one of the upper classes, as becomes his age."

The "new fellow," standing in the corner behind the door so that

he could hardly be seen, was a country lad of about fifteen, and

taller than any of us. His hair was cut square on his forehead

like a village chorister's; he looked reliable, but very ill at

ease. Although he was not broad-shouldered, his short school

jacket of green cloth with black buttons must have been tight

about the arm-holes, and showed at the opening of the cuffs red

wrists accustomed to being bare. His legs, in blue stockings,

looked out from beneath yellow trousers, drawn tight by braces,

He wore stout, ill-cleaned, hob-nailed boots.

We began repeating the lesson. He listened with all his ears, as

attentive as if at a sermon, not daring even to cross his legs or

lean on his elbow; and when at two o'clock the bell rang, the

master was obliged to tell him to fall into line with the rest of

us.

When we came back to work, we were in the habit of throwing our

caps on the ground so as to have our hands more free; we used

from the door to toss them under the form, so that they hit

against the wall and made a lot of dust: it was "the thing."

But, whether he had not noticed the trick, or did not dare to

attempt it, the "new fellow," was still holding his cap on his

knees even after prayers were over. It was one of those

head-gears of composite order, in which we can find traces of the

bearskin, shako, billycock hat, sealskin cap, and cotton

night-cap; one of those poor things, in fine, whose dumb ugliness

has depths of expression, like an imbecile's face. Oval,

stiffened with whalebone, it began with three round knobs; then

came in succession lozenges of velvet and rabbit-skin separated

by a red band; after that a sort of bag that ended in a cardboard

polygon covered with complicated braiding, from which hung, at

the end of a long thin cord, small twisted gold threads in the

manner of a tassel. The cap was new; its peak shone.

"Rise," said the master.

He stood up; his cap fell. The whole class began to laugh. He

stooped to pick it up. A neighbor knocked it down again with his

elbow; he picked it up once more.

"Get rid of your helmet," said the master, who was a bit of a

wag.

There was a burst of laughter from the boys, which so thoroughly

put the poor lad out of countenance that he did not know whether

to keep his cap in his hand, leave it on the ground, or put it on

his head. He sat down again and placed it on his knee.

"Rise," repeated the master, "and tell me your name."

The new boy articulated in a stammering voice an unintelligible

name.

"Again!"

The same sputtering of syllables was heard, drowned by the

tittering of the class.

"Louder!" cried the master; "louder!"

The "new fellow" then took a supreme resolution, opened an

inordinately large mouth, and shouted at the top of his voice as

if calling someone in the word "Charbovari."

A hubbub broke out, rose in crescendo with bursts of shrill

voices (they yelled, barked, stamped, repeated "Charbovari!

Charbovari"), then died away into single notes, growing quieter

only with great difficulty, and now and again suddenly

recommencing along the line of a form whence rose here and there,

like a damp cracker going off, a stifled laugh.

However, amid a rain of impositions, order was gradually

re-established in the class; and the master having succeeded in

catching the name of "Charles Bovary," having had it dictated to

him, spelt out, and re-read, at once ordered the poor devil to go

and sit down on the punishment form at the foot of the master's

desk. He got up, but before going hesitated.

"What are you looking for?" asked the master.

"My c-a-p," timidly said the "new fellow," casting troubled looks

round him.

"Five hundred lines for all the class!" shouted in a furious

voice stopped, like the Quos ego*, a fresh outburst. "Silence!"

continued the master indignantly, wiping his brow with his

handkerchief, which he had just taken from his cap. "As to you,

'new boy,' you will conjugate 'ridiculus sum'** twenty times."

Then, in a gentler tone, "Come, you'll find your cap again; it

hasn't been stolen."

*A quotation from the Aeneid signifying a threat.

**I am ridiculous.

Quiet was restored. Heads bent over desks, and the "new fellow"

remained for two hours in an exemplary attitude, although from

time to time some paper pellet flipped from the tip of a pen came

bang in his face. But he wiped his face with one hand and

continued motionless, his eyes lowered.

In the evening, at preparation, he pulled out his pens from his

desk, arranged his small belongings, and carefully ruled his

paper. We saw him working conscientiously, looking up every word

in the dictionary, and taking the greatest pains. Thanks, no

doubt, to the willingness he showed, he had not to go down to the

class below. But though he knew his rules passably, he had little

finish in composition. It was the cure of his village who had

taught him his first Latin; his parents, from motives of economy,

having sent him to school as late as possible.

His father, Monsieur Charles Denis Bartolome Bovary, retired

assistant-surgeon-major, compromised about 1812 in certain

conscription scandals, and forced at this time to leave the

service, had taken advantage of his fine figure to get hold of a

dowry of sixty thousand francs that offered in the person of a

hosier's daughter who had fallen in love with his good looks. A

fine man, a great talker, making his spurs ring as he walked,

wearing whiskers that ran into his moustache, his fingers always

garnished with rings and dressed in loud colours, he had the dash

of a military man with the easy go of a commercial traveller.

Once married, he lived for three or four years on his wife's

fortune, dining well, rising late, smoking long porcelain pipes,

not coming in at night till after the theatre, and haunting

cafes. The father-in-law died, leaving little; he was indignant

at this, "went in for the business," lost some money in it, then

retired to the country, where he thought he would make money.

But, as he knew no more about farming than calico, as he rode his

horses instead of sending them to plough, drank his cider in

bottle instead of selling it in cask, ate the finest poultry in

his farmyard, and greased his hunting-boots with the fat of his

pigs, he was not long in finding out that he would do better to

give up all speculation.

For two hundred francs a year he managed to live on the border of

the provinces of Caux and Picardy, in a kind of place half farm,

half private house; and here, soured, eaten up with regrets,

cursing his luck, jealous of everyone, he shut himself up at the

age of forty-five, sick of men, he said, and determined to live

at peace.

His wife had adored him once on a time; she had bored him with a

thousand servilities that had only estranged him the more. Lively

once, expansive and affectionate, in growing older she had become

(after the fashion of wine that, exposed to air, turns to

vinegar) ill-tempered, grumbling, irritable. She had suffered so

much without complaint at first, until she had seem him going

after all the village drabs, and until a score of bad houses sent

him back to her at night, weary, stinking drunk. Then her pride

revolted. After that she was silent, burying her anger in a dumb

stoicism that she maintained till her death. She was constantly

going about looking after business matters. She called on the

lawyers, the president, remembered when bills fell due, got them

renewed, and at home ironed, sewed, washed, looked after the

workmen, paid the accounts, while he, troubling himself about

nothing, eternally besotted in sleepy sulkiness, whence he only

roused himself to say disagreeable things to her, sat smoking by

the fire and spitting into the cinders.

When she had a child, it had to be sent out to nurse. When he

came home, the lad was spoilt as if he were a prince. His mother

stuffed him with jam; his father let him run about barefoot, and,

playing the philosopher, even said he might as well go about

quite naked like the young of animals. As opposed to the maternal

ideas, he had a certain virile idea of childhood on which he

sought to mould his son, wishing him to be brought up hardily,

like a Spartan, to give him a strong constitution. He sent him to

bed without any fire, taught him to drink off large draughts of

rum and to jeer at religious processions. But, peaceable by

nature, the lad answered only poorly to his notions. His mother

always kept him near her; she cut out cardboard for him, told him

tales, entertained him with endless monologues full of melancholy

gaiety and charming nonsense. In her life's isolation she

centered on the child's head all her shattered, broken little

vanities. She dreamed of high station; she already saw him, tall,

handsome, clever, settled as an engineer or in the law. She

taught him to read, and even, on an old piano, she had taught him

two or three little songs. But to all this Monsieur Bovary,

caring little for letters, said, "It was not worth while. Would

they ever have the means to send him to a public school, to buy

him a practice, or start him in business? Besides, with cheek a

man always gets on in the world." Madame Bovary bit her lips, and

the child knocked about the village.

He went after the labourers, drove away with clods of earth the

ravens that were flying about. He ate blackberries along the

hedges, minded the geese with a long switch, went haymaking

during harvest, ran about in the woods, played hop-scotch under

the church porch on rainy days, and at great fetes begged the

beadle to let him toll the bells, that he might hang all his

weight on the long rope and feel himself borne upward by it in

its swing. Meanwhile he grew like an oak; he was strong on hand,

fresh of colour.

When he was twelve years old his mother had her own way; he began

lessons. The cure took him in hand; but the lessons were so short

and irregular that they could not be of much use. They were given

at spare moments in the sacristy, standing up, hurriedly, between

a baptism and a burial; or else the cure, if he had not to go

out, sent for his pupil after the Angelus*. They went up to his

room and settled down; the flies and moths fluttered round the

candle. It was close, the child fell asleep, and the good man,

beginning to doze with his hands on his stomach, was soon snoring

with his mouth wide open. On other occasions, when Monsieur le

Cure, on his way back after administering the viaticum to some

sick person in the neighbourhood, caught sight of Charles playing

about the fields, he called him, lectured him for a quarter of an

hour and took advantage of the occasion to make him conjugate his

verb at the foot of a tree. The rain interrupted them or an

acquaintance passed. All the same he was always pleased with him,

and even said the "young man" had a very good memory.

*A devotion said at morning, noon, and evening, at the sound of a

bell. Here, the evening prayer.

Charles could not go on like this. Madame Bovary took strong

steps. Ashamed, or rather tired out, Monsieur Bovary gave in

without a struggle, and they waited one year longer, so that the

lad should take his first communion.

Six months more passed, and the year after Charles was finally

sent to school at Rouen, where his father took him towards the

end of October, at the time of the St. Romain fair.

It would now be impossible for any of us to remember anything

about him. He was a youth of even temperament, who played in

playtime, worked in school-hours, was attentive in class, slept

well in the dormitory, and ate well in the refectory. He had in

loco parentis* a wholesale ironmonger in the Rue Ganterie, who

took him out once a month on Sundays after his shop was shut,

sent him for a walk on the quay to look at the boats, and then

brought him back to college at seven o'clock before supper. Every

Thursday evening he wrote a long letter to his mother with red

ink and three wafers; then he went over his history note-books,

or read an old volume of "Anarchasis" that was knocking about the

study. When he went for walks he talked to the servant, who, like

himself, came from the country.

*In place of a parent.

By dint of hard work he kept always about the middle of the

class; once even he got a certificate in natural history. But at

the end of his third year his parents withdrew him from the

school to make him study medicine, convinced that he could even

take his degree by himself.

His mother chose a room for him on the fourth floor of a dyer's

she knew, overlooking the Eau-de-Robec. She made arrangements for

his board, got him furniture, table and two chairs, sent home for

an old cherry-tree bedstead, and bought besides a small cast-iron

stove with the supply of wood that was to warm the poor child.

Then at the end of a week she departed, after a thousand

injunctions to be good now that he was going to be left to

himself.

The syllabus that he read on the notice-board stunned him;

lectures on anatomy, lectures on pathology, lectures on

physiology, lectures on pharmacy, lectures on botany and clinical

medicine, and therapeutics, without counting hygiene and materia

medica--all names of whose etymologies he was ignorant, and that

were to him as so many doors to sanctuaries filled with

magnificent darkness.

He understood nothing of it all; it was all very well to listen--

he did not follow. Still he worked; he had bound note-books, he

attended all the courses, never missed a single lecture. He did

his little daily task like a mill-horse, who goes round and round

with his eyes bandaged, not knowing what work he is doing.

To spare him expense his mother sent him every week by the

carrier a piece of veal baked in the oven, with which he lunched

when he came back from the hospital, while he sat kicking his

feet against the wall. After this he had to run off to lectures,

to the operation-room, to the hospital, and return to his home at

the other end of the town. In the evening, after the poor dinner

of his landlord, he went back to his room and set to work again

in his wet clothes, which smoked as he sat in front of the hot

stove.

On the fine summer evenings, at the time when the close streets

are empty, when the servants are playing shuttle-cock at the

doors, he opened his window and leaned out. The river, that makes

of this quarter of Rouen a wretched little Venice, flowed beneath

him, between the bridges and the railings, yellow, violet, or

blue. Working men, kneeling on the banks, washed their bare arms

in the water. On poles projecting from the attics, skeins of

cotton were drying in the air. Opposite, beyond the roots spread

the pure heaven with the red sun setting. How pleasant it must be

at home! How fresh under the beech-tree! And he expanded his

nostrils to breathe in the sweet odours of the country which did

not reach him.

He grew thin, his figure became taller, his face took a saddened

look that made it nearly interesting. Naturally, through

indifference, he abandoned all the resolutions he had made. Once

he missed a lecture; the next day all the lectures; and, enjoying

his idleness, little by little, he gave up work altogether. He

got into the habit of going to the public-house, and had a

passion for dominoes. To shut himself up every evening in the

dirty public room, to push about on marble tables the small sheep

bones with black dots, seemed to him a fine proof of his freedom,

which raised him in his own esteem. It was beginning to see life,

the sweetness of stolen pleasures; and when he entered, he put

his hand on the door-handle with a joy almost sensual. Then many

things hidden within him came out; he learnt couplets by heart

and sang them to his boon companions, became enthusiastic about

Beranger, learnt how to make punch, and, finally, how to make

love.

Thanks to these preparatory labours, he failed completely in his

examination for an ordinary degree. He was expected home the same

night to celebrate his success. He started on foot, stopped at

the beginning of the village, sent for his mother, and told her

all. She excused him, threw the blame of his failure on the

injustice of the examiners, encouraged him a little, and took

upon herself to set matters straight. It was only five years

later that Monsieur Bovary knew the truth; it was old then, and

he accepted it. Moreover, he could not believe that a man born of

him could be a fool.

So Charles set to work again and crammed for his examination,

ceaselessly learning all the old questions by heart. He passed

pretty well. What a happy day for his mother! They gave a grand

dinner.

Where should he go to practice? To Tostes, where there was only

one old doctor. For a long time Madame Bovary had been on the

look-out for his death, and the old fellow had barely been packed

off when Charles was installed, opposite his place, as his

successor.

But it was not everything to have brought up a son, to have had

him taught medicine, and discovered Tostes, where he could

practice it; he must have a wife. She found him one--the widow of

a bailiff at Dieppe--who was forty-five and had an income of

twelve hundred francs. Though she was ugly, as dry as a bone, her

face with as many pimples as the spring has buds, Madame Dubuc

had no lack of suitors. To attain her ends Madame Bovary had to

oust them all, and she even succeeded in very cleverly baffling

the intrigues of a port-butcher backed up by the priests.

Charles had seen in marriage the advent of an easier life,

thinking he would be more free to do as he liked with himself and

his money. But his wife was master; he had to say this and not

say that in company, to fast every Friday, dress as she liked,

harass at her bidding those patients who did not pay. She opened

his letter, watched his comings and goings, and listened at the

partition-wall when women came to consult him in his surgery.

She must have her chocolate every morning, attentions without

end. She constantly complained of her nerves, her chest, her

liver. The noise of footsteps made her ill; when people left her,

solitude became odious to her; if they came back, it was

doubtless to see her die. When Charles returned in the evening,

she stretched forth two long thin arms from beneath the sheets,

put them round his neck, and having made him sit down on the edge

of the bed, began to talk to him of her troubles: he was

neglecting her, he loved another. She had been warned she would

be unhappy; and she ended by asking him for a dose of medicine

and a little more love.

Chapter Two

One night towards eleven o'clock they were awakened by the noise

of a horse pulling up outside their door. The servant opened the

garret-window and parleyed for some time with a man in the street

below. He came for the doctor, had a letter for him. Natasie came

downstairs shivering and undid the bars and bolts one after the

other. The man left his horse, and, following the servant,

suddenly came in behind her. He pulled out from his wool cap with

grey top-knots a letter wrapped up in a rag and presented it

gingerly to Charles, who rested on his elbow on the pillow to

read it. Natasie, standing near the bed, held the light. Madame

in modesty had turned to the wall and showed only her back.

This letter, sealed with a small seal in blue wax, begged

Monsieur Bovary to come immediately to the farm of the Bertaux to

set a broken leg. Now from Tostes to the Bertaux was a good

eighteen miles across country by way of Longueville and

Saint-Victor. It was a dark night; Madame Bovary junior was

afraid of accidents for her husband. So it was decided the

stable-boy should go on first; Charles would start three hours

later when the moon rose. A boy was to be sent to meet him, and

show him the way to the farm, and open the gates for him.

Towards four o'clock in the morning, Charles, well wrapped up in

his cloak, set out for the Bertaux. Still sleepy from the warmth

of his bed, he let himself be lulled by the quiet trot of his

horse. When it stopped of its own accord in front of those holes

surrounded with thorns that are dug on the margin of furrows,

Charles awoke with a start, suddenly remembered the broken leg,

and tried to call to mind all the fractures he knew. The rain had

stopped, day was breaking, and on the branches of the leafless

trees birds roosted motionless, their little feathers bristling

in the cold morning wind. The flat country stretched as far as

eye could see, and the tufts of trees round the farms at long

intervals seemed like dark violet stains on the cast grey

surface, that on the horizon faded into the gloom of the sky.

Charles from time to time opened his eyes, his mind grew weary,

and, sleep coming upon him, he soon fell into a doze wherein, his

recent sensations blending with memories, he became conscious of

a double self, at once student and married man, lying in his bed

as but now, and crossing the operation theatre as of old. The

warm smell of poultices mingled in his brain with the fresh odour

of dew; he heard the iron rings rattling along the curtain-rods

of the bed and saw his wife sleeping. As he passed Vassonville he

came upon a boy sitting on the grass at the edge of a ditch.

"Are you the doctor?" asked the child.

And on Charles's answer he took his wooden shoes in his hands and

ran on in front of him.

The general practitioner, riding along, gathered from his guide's

talk that Monsieur Rouault must be one of the well-to-do farmers.

He had broken his leg the evening before on his way home from a

Twelfth-night feast at a neighbour's. His wife had been dead for

two years. There was with him only his daughter, who helped him

to keep house.

The ruts were becoming deeper; they were approaching the Bertaux.

The little lad, slipping through a hole in the hedge,

disappeared; then he came back to the end of a courtyard to open

the gate. The horse slipped on the wet grass; Charles had to

stoop to pass under the branches. The watchdogs in their kennels

barked, dragging at their chains. As he entered the Bertaux, the

horse took fright and stumbled.

It was a substantial-looking farm. In the stables, over the top

of the open doors, one could see great cart-horses quietly

feeding from new racks. Right along the outbuildings extended a

large dunghill, from which manure liquid oozed, while amidst

fowls and turkeys, five or six peacocks, a luxury in Chauchois

farmyards, were foraging on the top of it. The sheepfold was

long, the barn high, with walls smooth as your hand. Under the

cart-shed were two large carts and four ploughs, with their

whips, shafts and harnesses complete, whose fleeces of blue wool

were getting soiled by the fine dust that fell from the

granaries. The courtyard sloped upwards, planted with trees set

out symmetrically, and the chattering noise of a flock of geese

was heard near the pond.

A young woman in a blue merino dress with three flounces came to

the threshold of the door to receive Monsieur Bovary, whom she

led to the kitchen, where a large fire was blazing. The servant's

breakfast was boiling beside it in small pots of all sizes. Some

damp clothes were drying inside the chimney-corner. The shovel,

tongs, and the nozzle of the bellows, all of colossal size, shone

like polished steel, while along the walls hung many pots and

pans in which the clear flame of the hearth, mingling with the

first rays of the sun coming in through the window, was mirrored

fitfully.

Charles went up the first floor to see the patient. He found him

in his bed, sweating under his bed-clothes, having thrown his

cotton nightcap right away from him. He was a fat little man of

fifty, with white skin and blue eyes, the forepart of his head

bald, and he wore earrings. By his side on a chair stood a large

decanter of brandy, whence he poured himself a little from time

to time to keep up his spirits; but as soon as he caught sight of

the doctor his elation subsided, and instead of swearing, as he

had been doing for the last twelve hours, began to groan freely.

The fracture was a simple one, without any kind of complication.

Charles could not have hoped for an easier case. Then calling to

mind the devices of his masters at the bedsides of patients, he

comforted the sufferer with all sorts of kindly remarks, those

Caresses of the surgeon that are like the oil they put on

bistouries. In order to make some splints a bundle of laths was

brought up from the cart-house. Charles selected one, cut it into

two pieces and planed it with a fragment of windowpane, while the

servant tore up sheets to make bandages, and Mademoiselle Emma

tried to sew some pads. As she was a long time before she found

her work-case, her father grew impatient; she did not answer, but

as she sewed she pricked her fingers, which she then put to her

mouth to suck them. Charles was surprised at the whiteness of her

nails. They were shiny, delicate at the tips, more polished than

the ivory of Dieppe, and almond-shaped. Yet her hand was not

beautiful, perhaps not white enough, and a little hard at the

knuckles; besides, it was too long, with no soft inflections in

the outlines. Her real beauty was in her eyes. Although brown,

they seemed black because of the lashes, and her look came at you

frankly, with a candid boldness.

The bandaging over, the doctor was invited by Monsieur Rouault

himself to "pick a bit" before he left.

Charles went down into the room on the ground floor. Knives and

forks and silver goblets were laid for two on a little table at

the foot of a huge bed that had a canopy of printed cotton with

figures representing Turks. There was an odour of iris-root and

damp sheets that escaped from a large oak chest opposite the

window. On the floor in corners were sacks of flour stuck upright

in rows. These were the overflow from the neighbouring granary,

to which three stone steps led. By way of decoration for the

apartment, hanging to a nail in the middle of the wall, whose

green paint scaled off from the effects of the saltpetre, was a

crayon head of Minerva in gold frame, underneath which was

written in Gothic letters "To dear Papa."

First they spoke of the patient, then of the weather, of the

great cold, of the wolves that infested the fields at night.

Mademoiselle Rouault did not at all like the country, especially

now that she had to look after the farm almost alone. As the room

was chilly, she shivered as she ate. This showed something of her

full lips, that she had a habit of biting when silent.

Her neck stood out from a white turned-down collar. Her hair,

whose two black folds seemed each of a single piece, so smooth

were they, was parted in the middle by a delicate line that curved

slightly with the curve of the head; and, just showing the tip of

the ear, it was joined behind in a thick chignon, with a wavy

movement at the temples that the country doctor saw now for the

first time in his life. The upper part of her cheek was

rose-coloured. She had, like a man, thrust in between two buttons

of her bodice a tortoise-shell eyeglass.

When Charles, after bidding farewell to old Rouault, returned to

the room before leaving, he found her standing, her forehead

against the window, looking into the garden, where the bean props

had been knocked down by the wind. She turned round. "Are you

looking for anything?" she asked.

"My whip, if you please," he answered.

He began rummaging on the bed, behind the doors, under the

chairs. It had fallen to the floor, between the sacks and the

wall. Mademoiselle Emma saw it, and bent over the flour sacks.

Charles out of politeness made a dash also, and as he stretched

out his arm, at the same moment felt his breast brush against the

back of the young girl bending beneath him. She drew herself up,

scarlet, and looked at him over her shoulder as she handed him

his whip.

Instead of returning to the Bertaux in three days as he had

promised, he went back the very next day, then regularly twice a

week, without counting the visits he paid now and then as if by

accident.

Everything, moreover, went well; the patient progressed

favourably; and when, at the end of forty-six days, old Rouault

was seen trying to walk alone in his "den," Monsieur Bovary began

to be looked upon as a man of great capacity. Old Rouault said

that he could not have been cured better by the first doctor of

Yvetot, or even of Rouen.

As to Charles, he did not stop to ask himself why it was a

pleasure to him to go to the Bertaux. Had he done so, he would,

no doubt, have attributed his zeal to the importance of the case,

or perhaps to the money he hoped to make by it. Was it for this,

however, that his visits to the farm formed a delightful

exception to the meagre occupations of his life? On these days he

rose early, set off at a gallop, urging on his horse, then got

down to wipe his boots in the grass and put on black gloves

before entering. He liked going into the courtyard, and noticing

the gate turn against his shoulder, the cock crow on the wall,

the lads run to meet him. He liked the granary and the stables;

he liked old Rouault, who pressed his hand and called him his

saviour; he like the small wooden shoes of Mademoiselle Emma on

the scoured flags of the kitchen--her high heels made her a

little taller; and when she walked in front of him, the wooden

soles springing up quickly struck with a sharp sound against the

leather of her boots.

She always accompanied him to the first step of the stairs. When

his horse had not yet been brought round she stayed there. They

had said "Good-bye"; there was no more talking. The open air

wrapped her round, playing with the soft down on the back of her

neck, or blew to and fro on her hips the apron-strings, that

fluttered like streamers. Once, during a thaw the bark of the

trees in the yard was oozing, the snow on the roofs of the

outbuildings was melting; she stood on the threshold, and went to

fetch her sunshade and opened it. The sunshade of silk of the

colour of pigeons' breasts, through which the sun shone, lighted

up with shifting hues the white skin of her face. She smiled

under the tender warmth, and drops of water could be heard

falling one by one on the stretched silk.

During the first period of Charles's visits to the Bertaux,

Madame Bovary junior never failed to inquire after the invalid,

and she had even chosen in the book that she kept on a system of

double entry a clean blank page for Monsieur Rouault. But when

she heard he had a daughter, she began to make inquiries, and she

learnt the Mademoiselle Rouault, brought up at the Ursuline

Convent, had received what is called "a good education"; and so

knew dancing, geography, drawing, how to embroider and play the

piano. That was the last straw.

"So it is for this," she said to herself, "that his face beams

when he goes to see her, and that he puts on his new waistcoat at

the risk of spoiling it with the rain. Ah! that woman! That

woman!"

And she detested her instinctively. At first she solaced herself

by allusions that Charles did not understand, then by casual

observations that he let pass for fear of a storm, finally by

open apostrophes to which he knew not what to answer. "Why did he

go back to the Bertaux now that Monsieur Rouault was cured and

that these folks hadn't paid yet? Ah! it was because a young lady

was there, some one who know how to talk, to embroider, to be

witty. That was what he cared about; he wanted town misses." And

she went on--

"The daughter of old Rouault a town miss! Get out! Their

grandfather was a shepherd, and they have a cousin who was almost

had up at the assizes for a nasty blow in a quarrel. It is not

worth while making such a fuss, or showing herself at church on

Sundays in a silk gown like a countess. Besides, the poor old

chap, if it hadn't been for the colza last year, would have had

much ado to pay up his arrears."

For very weariness Charles left off going to the Bertaux. Heloise

made him swear, his hand on the prayer-book, that he would go

there no more after much sobbing and many kisses, in a great

outburst of love. He obeyed then, but the strength of his desire

protested against the servility of his conduct; and he thought,

with a kind of naive hypocrisy, that his interdict to see her

gave him a sort of right to love her. And then the widow was

thin; she had long teeth; wore in all weathers a little black

shawl, the edge of which hung down between her shoulder-blades;

her bony figure was sheathed in her clothes as if they were a

scabbard; they were too short, and displayed her ankles with the

laces of her large boots crossed over grey stockings.

Charles's mother came to see them from time to time, but after a

few days the daughter-in-law seemed to put her own edge on her,

and then, like two knives, they scarified him with their

reflections and observations. It was wrong of him to eat so much.

Why did he always offer a glass of something to everyone who

came? What obstinacy not to wear flannels! In the spring it came

about that a notary at Ingouville, the holder of the widow

Dubuc's property, one fine day went off, taking with him all the

money in his office. Heloise, it is true, still possessed,

besides a share in a boat valued at six thousand francs, her

house in the Rue St. Francois; and yet, with all this fortune

that had been so trumpeted abroad, nothing, excepting perhaps a

little furniture and a few clothes, had appeared in the

household. The matter had to be gone into. The house at Dieppe

was found to be eaten up with mortgages to its foundations; what

she had placed with the notary God only knew, and her share in

the boat did not exceed one thousand crowns. She had lied, the

good lady! In his exasperation, Monsieur Bovary the elder,

smashing a chair on the flags, accused his wife of having caused

misfortune to the son by harnessing him to such a harridan, whose

harness wasn't worth her hide. They came to Tostes. Explanations

followed. There were scenes. Heloise in tears, throwing her arms

about her husband, implored him to defend her from his parents.

Charles tried to speak up for her. They grew angry and left the

house.

But "the blow had struck home." A week after, as she was hanging

up some washing in her yard, she was seized with a spitting of

blood, and the next day, while Charles had his back turned to her

drawing the window-curtain, she said, "O God!" gave a sigh and

fainted. She was dead! What a surprise! When all was over at the

cemetery Charles went home. He found no one downstairs; he went

up to the first floor to their room; say her dress still hanging

at the foot of the alcove; then, leaning against the

writing-table, he stayed until the evening, buried in a sorrowful

reverie. She had loved him after all!

Chapter Three

One morning old Rouault brought Charles the money for setting his

leg--seventy-five francs in forty-sou pieces, and a turkey. He

had heard of his loss, and consoled him as well as he could.

"I know what it is," said he, clapping him on the shoulder; "I've

been through it. When I lost my dear departed, I went into the

fields to be quite alone. I fell at the foot of a tree; I cried;

I called on God; I talked nonsense to Him. I wanted to be like

the moles that I saw on the branches, their insides swarming with

worms, dead, and an end of it. And when I thought that there were

others at that very moment with their nice little wives holding

them in their embrace, I struck great blows on the earth with my

stick. I was pretty well mad with not eating; the very idea of

going to a cafe disgusted me--you wouldn't believe it. Well,

quite softly, one day following another, a spring on a winter,

and an autumn after a summer, this wore away, piece by piece,

crumb by crumb; it passed away, it is gone, I should say it has

sunk; for something always remains at the bottom as one would

say--a weight here, at one's heart. But since it is the lot of

all of us, one must not give way altogether, and, because others

have died, want to die too. You must pull yourself together,

Monsieur Bovary. It will pass away. Come to see us; my daughter

thinks of you now and again, d'ye know, and she says you are

forgetting her. Spring will soon be here. We'll have some

rabbit-shooting in the warrens to amuse you a bit."

Charles followed his advice. He went back to the Bertaux. He

found all as he had left it, that is to say, as it was five

months ago. The pear trees were already in blossom, and Farmer

Rouault, on his legs again, came and went, making the farm more

full of life.

Thinking it his duty to heap the greatest attention upon the

doctor because of his sad position, he begged him not to take his

hat off, spoke to him in an undertone as if he had been ill, and

even pretended to be angry because nothing rather lighter had

been prepared for him than for the others, such as a little

clotted cream or stewed pears. He told stories. Charles found

himself laughing, but the remembrance of his wife suddenly coming

back to him depressed him. Coffee was brought in; he thought no

more about her.

He thought less of her as he grew accustomed to living alone. The

new delight of independence soon made his loneliness bearable. He

could now change his meal-times, go in or out without

explanation, and when he was very tired stretch himself at full

length on his bed. So he nursed and coddled himself and accepted

the consolations that were offered him. On the other hand, the

death of his wife had not served him ill in his business, since

for a month people had been saying, "The poor young man! what a

loss!" His name had been talked about, his practice had

increased; and moreover, he could go to the Bertaux just as he

liked. He had an aimless hope, and was vaguely happy; he thought

himself better looking as he brushed his whiskers before the

looking-glass.

One day he got there about three o'clock. Everybody was in the

fields. He went into the kitchen, but did not at once catch sight

of Emma; the outside shutters were closed. Through the chinks of

the wood the sun sent across the flooring long fine rays that

were broken at the corners of the furniture and trembled along

the ceiling. Some flies on the table were crawling up the glasses

that had been used, and buzzing as they drowned themselves in the

dregs of the cider. The daylight that came in by the chimney made

velvet of the soot at the back of the fireplace, and touched with

blue the cold cinders. Between the window and the hearth Emma was

sewing; she wore no fichu; he could see small drops of

perspiration on her bare shoulders.

After the fashion of country folks she asked him to have

something to drink. He said no; she insisted, and at last

laughingly offered to have a glass of liqueur with him. So she

went to fetch a bottle of curacao from the cupboard, reached down

two small glasses, filled one to the brim, poured scarcely

anything into the other, and, after having clinked glasses,

carried hers to her mouth. As it was almost empty she bent back

to drink, her head thrown back, her lips pouting, her neck on the

strain. She laughed at getting none of it, while with the tip of

her tongue passing between her small teeth she licked drop by

drop the bottom of her glass.

She sat down again and took up her work, a white cotton stocking

she was darning. She worked with her head bent down; she did not

speak, nor did Charles. The air coming in under the door blew a

little dust over the flags; he watched it drift along, and heard

nothing but the throbbing in his head and the faint clucking of a

hen that had laid an egg in the yard. Emma from time to time

cooled her cheeks with the palms of her hands, and cooled these

again on the knobs of the huge fire-dogs.

She complained of suffering since the beginning of the season

from giddiness; she asked if sea-baths would do her any good; she

began talking of her convent, Charles of his school; words came

to them. They went up into her bedroom. She showed him her old

music-books, the little prizes she had won, and the oak-leaf

crowns, left at the bottom of a cupboard. She spoke to him, too,

of her mother, of the country, and even showed him the bed in the

garden where, on the first Friday of every month, she gathered

flowers to put on her mother's tomb. But the gardener they had

never knew anything about it; servants are so stupid! She would

have dearly liked, if only for the winter, to live in town,

although the length of the fine days made the country perhaps

even more wearisome in the summer. And, according to what she was

saying, her voice was clear, sharp, or, on a sudden all languor,

drawn out in modulations that ended almost in murmurs as she

spoke to herself, now joyous, opening big naive eyes, then with

her eyelids half closed, her look full of boredom, her thoughts

wandering.

Going home at night, Charles went over her words one by one,

trying to recall them, to fill out their sense, that he might

piece out the life she had lived before he knew her. But he never

saw her in his thoughts other than he had seen her the first

time, or as he had just left her. Then he asked himself what

would become of her--if she would be married, and to whom! Alas!

Old Rouault was rich, and she!--so beautiful! But Emma's face

always rose before his eyes, and a monotone, like the humming of

a top, sounded in his ears, "If you should marry after all! If

you should marry!" At night he could not sleep; his throat was

parched; he was athirst. He got up to drink from the water-bottle

and opened the window. The night was covered with stars, a warm

wind blowing in the distance; the dogs were barking. He turned

his head towards the Bertaux.

Thinking that, after all, he should lose nothing, Charles

promised himself to ask her in marriage as soon as occasion

offered, but each time such occasion did offer the fear of not

finding the right words sealed his lips.

Old Rouault would not have been sorry to be rid of his daughter,

who was of no use to him in the house. In his heart he excused

her, thinking her too clever for farming, a calling under the ban

of Heaven, since one never saw a millionaire in it. Far from

having made a fortune by it, the good man was losing every year;

for if he was good in bargaining, in which he enjoyed the dodges

of the trade, on the other hand, agriculture properly so called,

and the internal management of the farm, suited him less than

most people. He did not willingly take his hands out of his

pockets, and did not spare expense in all that concerned himself,

liking to eat well, to have good fires, and to sleep well. He

liked old cider, underdone legs of mutton, glorias* well beaten

up. He took his meals in the kitchen alone, opposite the fire, on

a little table brought to him all ready laid as on the stage.

*A mixture of coffee and spirits.

When, therefore, he perceived that Charles's cheeks grew red if

near his daughter, which meant that he would propose for her one

of these days, he chewed the cud of the matter beforehand. He

certainly thought him a little meagre, and not quite the

son-in-law he would have liked, but he was said to be well

brought-up, economical, very learned, and no doubt would not make

too many difficulties about the dowry. Now, as old Rouault would

soon be forced to sell twenty-two acres of "his property,"

as he owed a good deal to the mason, to the harness-maker, and as

the shaft of the cider-press wanted renewing, "If he asks for

her," he said to himself, "I'll give her to him."

At Michaelmas Charles went to spend three days at the Bertaux.

The last had passed like the others in procrastinating from hour

to hour. Old Rouault was seeing him off; they were walking along

the road full of ruts; they were about to part. This was the

time. Charles gave himself as far as to the corner of the hedge,

and at last, when past it--

"Monsieur Rouault," he murmured, "I should like to say something

to you."

They stopped. Charles was silent.

"Well, tell me your story. Don't I know all about it?" said old

Rouault, laughing softly.

"Monsieur Rouault--Monsieur Rouault," stammered Charles.

"I ask nothing better", the farmer went on. "Although, no doubt,

the little one is of my mind, still we must ask her opinion. So

you get off--I'll go back home. If it is "yes", you needn't

return because of all the people about, and besides it would

upset her too much. But so that you mayn't be eating your heart,

I'll open wide the outer shutter of the window against the wall;

you can see it from the back by leaning over the hedge."

And he went off.

Charles fastened his horse to a tree; he ran into the road and

waited. Half an hour passed, then he counted nineteen minutes by

his watch. Suddenly a noise was heard against the wall; the

shutter had been thrown back; the hook was still swinging.

The next day by nine o'clock he was at the farm. Emma blushed as

he entered, and she gave a little forced laugh to keep herself in

countenance. Old Rouault embraced his future son-in-law. The

discussion of money matters was put off; moreover, there was

plenty of time before them, as the marriage could not decently

take place till Charles was out of mourning, that is to say,

about the spring of the next year.

The winter passed waiting for this. Mademoiselle Rouault was busy

with her trousseau. Part of it was ordered at Rouen, and she made

herself chemises and nightcaps after fashion-plates that she

borrowed. When Charles visited the farmer, the preparations for

the wedding were talked over; they wondered in what room they

should have dinner; they dreamed of the number of dishes that

would be wanted, and what should be entrees.

Emma would, on the contrary, have preferred to have a midnight

wedding with torches, but old Rouault could not understand such

an idea. So there was a wedding at which forty-three persons were

present, at which they remained sixteen hours at table, began

again the next day, and to some extent on the days following.

Chapter Four

The guests arrived early in carriages, in one-horse chaises,

two-wheeled cars, old open gigs, waggonettes with leather hoods,

and the young people from the nearer villages in carts, in which

they stood up in rows, holding on to the sides so as not to fall,

going at a trot and well shaken up. Some came from a distance of

thirty miles, from Goderville, from Normanville, and from Cany.

All the relatives of both families had been invited, quarrels

between friends arranged, acquaintances long since lost sight of

written to.

From time to time one heard the crack of a whip behind the hedge;

then the gates opened, a chaise entered. Galloping up to the foot

of the steps, it stopped short and emptied its load. They got

down from all sides, rubbing knees and stretching arms. The

ladies, wearing bonnets, had on dresses in the town fashion, gold

watch chains, pelerines with the ends tucked into belts, or

little coloured fichus fastened down behind with a pin, and that

left the back of the neck bare. The lads, dressed like their

papas, seemed uncomfortable in their new clothes (many that day

hand-sewed their first pair of boots), and by their sides,

speaking never a work, wearing the white dress of their first

communion lengthened for the occasion were some big girls of

fourteen or sixteen, cousins or elder sisters no doubt, rubicund,

bewildered, their hair greasy with rose pomade, and very much

afraid of dirtying their gloves. As there were not enough

stable-boys to unharness all the carriages, the gentlemen turned

up their sleeves and set about it themselves. According to their

different social positions they wore tail-coats, overcoats,

shooting jackets, cutaway-coats; fine tail-coats, redolent of

family respectability, that only came out of the wardrobe on

state occasions; overcoats with long tails flapping in the wind

and round capes and pockets like sacks; shooting jackets of

coarse cloth, generally worn with a cap with a brass-bound peak;

very short cutaway-coats with two small buttons in the back,

close together like a pair of eyes, and the tails of which seemed

cut out of one piece by a carpenter's hatchet. Some, too (but

these, you may be sure, would sit at the bottom of the table),

wore their best blouses--that is to say, with collars turned down

to the shoulders, the back gathered into small plaits and the

waist fastened very low down with a worked belt.

And the shirts stood out from the chests like cuirasses! Everyone

had just had his hair cut; ears stood out from the heads; they

had been close-shaved; a few, even, who had had to get up before

daybreak, and not been able to see to shave, had diagonal gashes

under their noses or cuts the size of a three-franc piece along

the jaws, which the fresh air en route had enflamed, so that the

great white beaming faces were mottled here and there with red

dabs.

The mairie was a mile and a half from the farm, and they went

thither on foot, returning in the same way after the ceremony in

the church. The procession, first united like one long coloured

scarf that undulated across the fields, along the narrow path

winding amid the green corn, soon lengthened out, and broke up

into different groups that loitered to talk. The fiddler walked

in front with his violin, gay with ribbons at its pegs. Then came

the married pair, the relations, the friends, all following

pell-mell; the children stayed behind amusing themselves plucking

the bell-flowers from oat-ears, or playing amongst themselves

unseen. Emma's dress, too long, trailed a little on the ground;

from time to time she stopped to pull it up, and then delicately,

with her gloved hands, she picked off the coarse grass and the

thistledowns, while Charles, empty handed, waited till she had

finished. Old Rouault, with a new silk hat and the cuffs of his

black coat covering his hands up to the nails, gave his arm to

Madame Bovary senior. As to Monsieur Bovary senior, who, heartily

despising all these folk, had come simply in a frock-coat of

military cut with one row of buttons--he was passing compliments

of the bar to a fair young peasant. She bowed, blushed, and did

not know what to say. The other wedding guests talked of their

business or played tricks behind each other's backs, egging one

another on in advance to be jolly. Those who listened could

always catch the squeaking of the fiddler, who went on playing

across the fields. When he saw that the rest were far behind he

stopped to take breath, slowly rosined his bow, so that the

strings should sound more shrilly, then set off again, by turns

lowering and raising his neck, the better to mark time for

himself. The noise of the instrument drove away the little birds

from afar.

The table was laid under the cart-shed. On it were four sirloins,

six chicken fricassees, stewed veal, three legs of mutton, and in

the middle a fine roast suckling pig, flanked by four

chitterlings with sorrel. At the corners were decanters of

brandy. Sweet bottled-cider frothed round the corks, and all the

glasses had been filled to the brim with wine beforehand. Large

dishes of yellow cream, that trembled with the least shake of the

table, had designed on their smooth surface the initials of the

newly wedded pair in nonpareil arabesques. A confectioner of

Yvetot had been intrusted with the tarts and sweets. As he had

only just set up on the place, he had taken a lot of trouble, and

at dessert he himself brought in a set dish that evoked loud

cries of wonderment. To begin with, at its base there was a

square of blue cardboard, representing a temple with porticoes,

colonnades, and stucco statuettes all round, and in the niches

constellations of gilt paper stars; then on the second stage was

a dungeon of Savoy cake, surrounded by many fortifications in

candied angelica, almonds, raisins, and quarters of oranges; and

finally, on the upper platform a green field with rocks set in

lakes of jam, nutshell boats, and a small Cupid balancing himself

in a chocolate swing whose two uprights ended in real roses for

balls at the top.

Until night they ate. When any of them were too tired of sitting,

they went out for a stroll in the yard, or for a game with corks

in the granary, and then returned to table. Some towards the

finish went to sleep and snored. But with the coffee everyone

woke up. Then they began songs, showed off tricks, raised heavy

weights, performed feats with their fingers, then tried lifting

carts on their shoulders, made broad jokes, kissed the women. At

night when they left, the horses, stuffed up to the nostrils with

oats, could hardly be got into the shafts; they kicked, reared,

the harness broke, their masters laughed or swore; and all night

in the light of the moon along country roads there were runaway

carts at full gallop plunging into the ditches, jumping over yard

after yard of stones, clambering up the hills, with women leaning

out from the tilt to catch hold of the reins.

Those who stayed at the Bertaux spent the night drinking in the

kitchen. The children had fallen asleep under the seats.

The bride had begged her father to be spared the usual marriage

pleasantries. However, a fishmonger, one of their cousins (who

had even brought a pair of soles for his wedding present), began

to squirt water from his mouth through the keyhole, when old

Rouault came up just in time to stop him, and explain to him that

the distinguished position of his son-in-law would not allow of

such liberties. The cousin all the same did not give in to these

reasons readily. In his heart he accused old Rouault of being

proud, and he joined four or five other guests in a corner, who

having, through mere chance, been several times running served

with the worst helps of meat, also were of opinion they had been

badly used, and were whispering about their host, and with

covered hints hoping he would ruin himself.

Madame Bovary, senior, had not opened her mouth all day. She had

been consulted neither as to the dress of her daughter-in-law nor

as to the arrangement of the feast; she went to bed early. Her

husband, instead of following her, sent to Saint-Victor for some

cigars, and smoked till daybreak, drinking kirsch-punch, a

mixture unknown to the company. This added greatly to the

consideration in which he was held.

Charles, who was not of a facetious turn, did not shine at the

wedding. He answered feebly to the puns, doubles entendres*,

compliments, and chaff that it was felt a duty to let off at him

as soon as the soup appeared.

*Double meanings.

The next day, on the other hand, he seemed another man. It was he

who might rather have been taken for the virgin of the evening

before, whilst the bride gave no sign that revealed anything. The

shrewdest did not know what to make of it, and they looked at her

when she passed near them with an unbounded concentration of

mind. But Charles concealed nothing. He called her "my wife",

tutoyed* her, asked for her of everyone, looked for her

everywhere, and often he dragged her into the yards, where he

could be seen from far between the trees, putting his arm around

her waist, and walking half-bending over her, ruffling the

chemisette of her bodice with his head.

*Used the familiar form of address.

Two days after the wedding the married pair left. Charles, on

account of his patients, could not be away longer. Old Rouault

had them driven back in his cart, and himself accompanied them as

far as Vassonville. Here he embraced his daughter for the last

time, got down, and went his way. When he had gone about a

hundred paces he stopped, and as he saw the cart disappearing,

its wheels turning in the dust, he gave a deep sigh. Then he

remembered his wedding, the old times, the first pregnancy of his

wife; he, too, had been very happy the day when he had taken her

from her father to his home, and had carried her off on a

pillion, trotting through the snow, for it was near

Christmas-time, and the country was all white. She held him by

one arm, her basket hanging from the other; the wind blew the

long lace of her Cauchois headdress so that it sometimes flapped

across his mouth, and when he turned his head he saw near him, on

his shoulder, her little rosy face, smiling silently under the

gold bands of her cap. To warm her hands she put them from time

to time in his breast. How long ago it all was! Their son would

have been thirty by now. Then he looked back and saw nothing on

the road. He felt dreary as an empty house; and tender memories

mingling with the sad thoughts in his brain, addled by the fumes

of the feast, he felt inclined for a moment to take a turn

towards the church. As he was afraid, however, that this sight

would make him yet more sad, he went right away home.

Monsieur and Madame Charles arrived at Tostes about six o'clock.

The neighbors came to the windows to see their doctor's new wife.

The old servant presented herself, curtsied to her, apologised

for not having dinner ready, and suggested that madame, in the

meantime, should look over her house.

Chapter Five

The brick front was just in a line with the street, or rather the

road. Behind the door hung a cloak with a small collar, a bridle,

and a black leather cap, and on the floor, in a corner, were a

pair of leggings, still covered with dry mud. On the right was

the one apartment, that was both dining and sitting room. A

canary yellow paper, relieved at the top by a garland of pale

flowers, was puckered everywhere over the badly stretched canvas;

white calico curtains with a red border hung crossways at the

length of the window; and on the narrow mantelpiece a clock with

a head of Hippocrates shone resplendent between two plate

candlesticks under oval shades. On the other side of the passage

was Charles's consulting room, a little room about six paces

wide, with a table, three chairs, and an office chair. Volumes of

the "Dictionary of Medical Science," uncut, but the binding

rather the worse for the successive sales through which they had

gone, occupied almost along the six shelves of a deal bookcase.

The smell of melted butter penetrated through the walls when he

saw patients, just as in the kitchen one could hear the people

coughing in the consulting room and recounting their histories.

Then, opening on the yard, where the stable was, came a large

dilapidated room with a stove, now used as a wood-house, cellar,

and pantry, full of old rubbish, of empty casks, agricultural

implements past service, and a mass of dusty things whose use it

was impossible to guess.

The garden, longer than wide, ran between two mud walls with

espaliered apricots, to a hawthorn hedge that separated it from

the field. In the middle was a slate sundial on a brick pedestal;

four flower beds with eglantines surrounded symmetrically the

more useful kitchen garden bed. Right at the bottom, under the

spruce bushes, was a cure in plaster reading his breviary.

Emma went upstairs. The first room was not furnished, but in the

second, which was their bedroom, was a mahogany bedstead in an

alcove with red drapery. A shell box adorned the chest of

drawers, and on the secretary near the window a bouquet of orange

blossoms tied with white satin ribbons stood in a bottle. It was

a bride's bouquet; it was the other one's. She looked at it.

Charles noticed it; he took it and carried it up to the attic,

while Emma seated in an arm-chair (they were putting her things

down around her) thought of her bridal flowers packed up in a

bandbox, and wondered, dreaming, what would be done with them if

she were to die.

During the first days she occupied herself in thinking about

changes in the house. She took the shades off the candlesticks,

had new wallpaper put up, the staircase repainted, and seats made

in the garden round the sundial; she even inquired how she could

get a basin with a jet fountain and fishes. Finally her husband,

knowing that she liked to drive out, picked up a second-hand

dogcart, which, with new lamps and splashboard in striped

leather, looked almost like a tilbury.

He was happy then, and without a care in the world. A meal

together, a walk in the evening on the highroad, a gesture of her

hands over her hair, the sight of her straw hat hanging from the

window-fastener, and many another thing in which Charles had

never dreamed of pleasure, now made up the endless round of his

happiness. In bed, in the morning, by her side, on the pillow, he

watched the sunlight sinking into the down on her fair cheek,

half hidden by the lappets of her night-cap. Seen thus closely,

her eyes looked to him enlarged, especially when, on waking up,

she opened and shut them rapidly many times. Black in the shade,

dark blue in broad daylight, they had, as it were, depths of

different colours, that, darker in the centre, grew paler towards

the surface of the eye. His own eyes lost themselves in these

depths; he saw himself in miniature down to the shoulders, with

his handkerchief round his head and the top of his shirt open. He

rose. She came to the window to see him off, and stayed leaning

on the sill between two pots of geranium, clad in her dressing

gown hanging loosely about her. Charles, in the street buckled

his spurs, his foot on the mounting stone, while she talked to

him from above, picking with her mouth some scrap of flower or

leaf that she blew out at him. Then this, eddying, floating,

described semicircles in the air like a bird, and was caught

before it reached the ground in the ill-groomed mane of the old

white mare standing motionless at the door. Charles from

horseback threw her a kiss; she answered with a nod; she shut the

window, and he set off. And then along the highroad, spreading

out its long ribbon of dust, along the deep lanes that the trees

bent over as in arbours, along paths where the corn reached to

the knees, with the sun on his back and the morning air in his

nostrils, his heart full of the joys of the past night, his mind

at rest, his flesh at ease, he went on, re-chewing his happiness,

like those who after dinner taste again the truffles which they

are digesting.

Until now what good had he had of his life? His time at school,

when he remained shut up within the high walls, alone, in the

midst of companions richer than he or cleverer at their work, who

laughed at his accent, who jeered at his clothes, and whose

mothers came to the school with cakes in their muffs? Later on,

when he studied medicine, and never had his purse full enough to

treat some little work-girl who would have become his mistress?

Afterwards, he had lived fourteen months with the widow, whose

feet in bed were cold as icicles. But now he had for life this

beautiful woman whom he adored. For him the universe did not

extend beyond the circumference of her petticoat, and he

reproached himself with not loving her. He wanted to see her

again; he turned back quickly, ran up the stairs with a beating

heart. Emma, in her room, was dressing; he came up on tiptoe,

kissed her back; she gave a cry.

He could not keep from constantly touching her comb, her ring,

her fichu; sometimes he gave her great sounding kisses with all

his mouth on her cheeks, or else little kisses in a row all along

her bare arm from the tip of her fingers up to her shoulder, and

she put him away half-smiling, half-vexed, as you do a child who

hangs about you.

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. And Emma tried to find out what

one meant exactly in life by the words felicity, passion,

rapture, that had seemed to her so beautiful in books.

Chapter Six

She had read "Paul and Virginia," and she had dreamed of the

little bamboo-house, the nigger Domingo, the dog Fiddle, but

above all of the sweet friendship of some dear little brother,

who seeks red fruit for you on trees taller than steeples, or who

runs barefoot over the sand, bringing you a bird's nest.

When she was thirteen, her father himself took her to town to

place her in the convent. They stopped at an inn in the St.

Gervais quarter, where, at their supper, they used painted plates

that set forth the story of Mademoiselle de la Valliere. The

explanatory legends, chipped here and there by the scratching of

knives, all glorified religion, the tendernesses of the heart,

and the pomps of court.

Far from being bored at first at the convent, she took pleasure

in the society of the good sisters, who, to amuse her, took her

to the chapel, which one entered from the refectory by a long

corridor. She played very little during recreation hours, knew

her catechism well, and it was she who always answered Monsieur

le Vicaire's difficult questions. Living thus, without every

leaving the warm atmosphere of the classrooms, and amid these

pale-faced women wearing rosaries with brass crosses, she was

softly lulled by the mystic languor exhaled in the perfumes of

the altar, the freshness of the holy water, and the lights of the

tapers. Instead of attending to mass, she looked at the pious

vignettes with their azure borders in her book, and she loved the

sick lamb, the sacred heart pierced with sharp arrows, or the

poor Jesus sinking beneath the cross he carries. She tried, by

way of mortification, to eat nothing a whole day. She puzzled her

head to find some vow to fulfil.

When she went to confession, she invented little sins in order

that she might stay there longer, kneeling in the shadow, her

hands joined, her face against the grating beneath the whispering

of the priest. The comparisons of betrothed, husband, celestial

lover, and eternal marriage, that recur in sermons, stirred

within her soul depths of unexpected sweetness.

In the evening, before prayers, there was some religious reading

in the study. On week-nights it was some abstract of sacred

history or the Lectures of the Abbe Frayssinous, and on Sundays

passages from the "Genie du Christianisme," as a recreation. How

she listened at first to the sonorous lamentations of its

romantic melancholies reechoing through the world and eternity!

If her childhood had been spent in the shop-parlour of some

business quarter, she might perhaps have opened her heart to

those lyrical invasions of Nature, which usually come to us only

through translation in books. But she knew the country too well;

she knew the lowing of cattle, the milking, the ploughs.

Accustomed to calm aspects of life, she turned, on the contrary,

to those of excitement. She loved the sea only for the sake of

its storms, and the green fields only when broken up by ruins.

She wanted to get some personal profit out of things, and she

rejected as useless all that did not contribute to the immediate

desires of her heart, being of a temperament more sentimental

than artistic, looking for emotions, not landscapes.

At the convent there was an old maid who came for a week each

month to mend the linen. Patronized by the clergy, because she

belonged to an ancient family of noblemen ruined by the

Revolution, she dined in the refectory at the table of the good

sisters, and after the meal had a bit of chat with them before

going back to her work. The girls often slipped out from the

study to go and see her. She knew by heart the love songs of the

last century, and sang them in a low voice as she stitched away.

She told stories, gave them news, went errands in the town, and

on the sly lent the big girls some novel, that she always carried

in the pockets of her apron, and of which the good lady herself

swallowed long chapters in the intervals of her work. They were

all love, lovers, sweethearts, persecuted ladies fainting in

lonely pavilions, postilions killed at every stage, horses ridden

to death on every page, sombre forests, heartaches, vows, sobs,

tears and kisses, little skiffs by moonlight, nightingales in

shady groves, "gentlemen" brave as lions, gentle as lambs,

virtuous as no one ever was, always well dressed, and weeping

like fountains. For six months, then, Emma, at fifteen years of

age, made her hands dirty with books from old lending libraries.

Through Walter Scott, later on, she fell in love with historical

events, dreamed of old chests, guard-rooms and minstrels. She

would have liked to live in some old manor-house, like those

long-waisted chatelaines who, in the shade of pointed arches,

spent their days leaning on the stone, chin in hand, watching a

cavalier with white plume galloping on his black horse from the

distant fields. At this time she had a cult for Mary Stuart and

enthusiastic veneration for illustrious or unhappy women. Joan of

Arc, Heloise, Agnes Sorel, the beautiful Ferroniere, and Clemence

Isaure stood out to her like comets in the dark immensity of

heaven, where also were seen, lost in shadow, and all

unconnected, St. Louis with his oak, the dying Bayard, some

cruelties of Louis XI, a little of St. Bartholomew's Day, the

plume of the Bearnais, and always the remembrance of the plates

painted in honour of Louis XIV.

In the music class, in the ballads she sang, there was nothing

but little angels with golden wings, madonnas, lagunes,

gondoliers;-mild compositions that allowed her to catch a glimpse

athwart the obscurity of style and the weakness of the music of

the attractive phantasmagoria of sentimental realities. Some of

her companions brought "keepsakes" given them as new year's gifts

to the convent. These had to be hidden; it was quite an

undertaking; they were read in the dormitory. Delicately handling

the beautiful satin bindings, Emma looked with dazzled eyes at

the names of the unknown authors, who had signed their verses for

the most part as counts or viscounts.

She trembled as she blew back the tissue paper over the engraving

and saw it folded in two and fall gently against the page. Here

behind the balustrade of a balcony was a young man in a short

cloak, holding in his arms a young girl in a white dress wearing

an alms-bag at her belt; or there were nameless portraits of

English ladies with fair curls, who looked at you from under

their round straw hats with their large clear eyes. Some there

were lounging in their carriages, gliding through parks, a

greyhound bounding along in front of the equipage driven at a

trot by two midget postilions in white breeches. Others, dreaming

on sofas with an open letter, gazed at the moon through a

slightly open window half draped by a black curtain. The naive

ones, a tear on their cheeks, were kissing doves through the bars

of a Gothic cage, or, smiling, their heads on one side, were

plucking the leaves of a marguerite with their taper fingers,

that curved at the tips like peaked shoes. And you, too, were

there, Sultans with long pipes reclining beneath arbours in the

arms of Bayaderes; Djiaours, Turkish sabres, Greek caps; and you

especially, pale landscapes of dithyrambic lands, that often show

us at once palm trees and firs, tigers on the right, a lion to

the left, Tartar minarets on the horizon; the whole framed by a

very neat virgin forest, and with a great perpendicular sunbeam

trembling in the water, where, standing out in relief like white

excoriations on a steel-grey ground, swans are swimming about.

And the shade of the argand lamp fastened to the wall above

Emma's head lighted up all these pictures of the world, that

passed before her one by one in the silence of the dormitory, and

to the distant noise of some belated carriage rolling over the

Boulevards.

When her mother died she cried much the first few days. She had a

funeral picture made with the hair of the deceased, and, in a

letter sent to the Bertaux full of sad reflections on life, she

asked to be buried later on in the same grave. The goodman

thought she must be ill, and came to see her. Emma was secretly

pleased that she had reached at a first attempt the rare ideal of

pale lives, never attained by mediocre hearts. She let herself

glide along with Lamartine meanderings, listened to harps on

lakes, to all the songs of dying swans, to the falling of the

leaves, the pure virgins ascending to heaven, and the voice of

the Eternal discoursing down the valleys. She wearied of it,

would not confess it, continued from habit, and at last was

surprised to feel herself soothed, and with no more sadness at

heart than wrinkles on her brow.

The good nuns, who had been so sure of her vocation, perceived

with great astonishment that Mademoiselle Rouault seemed to be

slipping from them. They had indeed been so lavish to her of

prayers, retreats, novenas, and sermons, they had so often

preached the respect due to saints and martyrs, and given so much

good advice as to the modesty of the body and the salvation of

her soul, that she did as tightly reined horses; she pulled up

short and the bit slipped from her teeth. This nature, positive

in the midst of its enthusiasms, that had loved the church for

the sake of the flowers, and music for the words of the songs,

and literature for its passional stimulus, rebelled against the

mysteries of faith as it grew irritated by discipline, a thing

antipathetic to her constitution. When her father took her from

school, no one was sorry to see her go. The Lady Superior even

thought that she had latterly been somewhat irreverent to the

community.

Emma, at home once more, first took pleasure in looking after the

servants, then grew disgusted with the country and missed her

convent. When Charles came to the Bertaux for the first time, she

thought herself quite disillusioned, with nothing more to learn,

and nothing more to feel.

But the uneasiness of her new position, or perhaps the

disturbance caused by the presence of this man, had sufficed to

make her believe that she at last felt that wondrous passion

which, till then, like a great bird with rose-coloured wings,

hung in the splendour of the skies of poesy; and now she could

not think that the calm in which she lived was the happiness she

had dreamed.

Chapter Seven

She thought, sometimes, that, after all, this was the happiest

time of her life--the honeymoon, as people called it. To taste

the full sweetness of it, it would have been necessary doubtless

to fly to those lands with sonorous names where the days after

marriage are full of laziness most suave. In post chaises behind

blue silken curtains to ride slowly up steep road, listening to

the song of the postilion re-echoed by the mountains, along with

the bells of goats and the muffled sound of a waterfall; at

sunset on the shores of gulfs to breathe in the perfume of lemon

trees; then in the evening on the villa-terraces above, hand in

hand to look at the stars, making plans for the future. It seemed

to her that certain places on earth must bring happiness, as a

plant peculiar to the soil, and that cannot thrive elsewhere. Why

could not she lean over balconies in Swiss chalets, or enshrine

her melancholy in a Scotch cottage, with a husband dressed in a

black velvet coat with long tails, and thin shoes, a pointed hat

and frills? Perhaps she would have liked to confide all these

things to someone. But how tell an undefinable uneasiness,

variable as the clouds, unstable as the winds? Words failed

her--the opportunity, the courage.

If Charles had but wished it, if he had guessed it, if his look

had but once met her thought, it seemed to her that a sudden

plenty would have gone out from her heart, as the fruit falls

from a tree when shaken by a hand. But as the intimacy of their

life became deeper, the greater became the gulf that separated

her from him.

Charles's conversation was commonplace as a street pavement, and

everyone's ideas trooped through it in their everyday garb,

without exciting emotion, laughter, or thought. He had never had

the curiosity, he said, while he lived at Rouen, to go to the

theatre to see the actors from Paris. He could neither swim, nor

fence, nor shoot, and one day he could not explain some term of

horsemanship to her that she had come across in a novel.

A man, on the contrary, should he not know everything, excel in

manifold activities, initiate you into the energies of passion,

the refinements of life, all mysteries? But this one taught

nothing, knew nothing, wished nothing. He thought her happy; and

she resented this easy calm, this serene heaviness, the very

happiness she gave him.

Sometimes she would draw; and it was great amusement to Charles

to stand there bolt upright and watch her bend over her

cardboard, with eyes half-closed the better to see her work, or

rolling, between her fingers, little bread-pellets. As to the

piano, the more quickly her fingers glided over it the more he

wondered. She struck the notes with aplomb, and ran from top to

bottom of the keyboard without a break. Thus shaken up, the old

instrument, whose strings buzzed, could be heard at the other end

of the village when the window was open, and often the bailiff's

clerk, passing along the highroad bare-headed and in list

slippers, stopped to listen, his sheet of paper in his hand.

Emma, on the other hand, knew how to look after her house. She

sent the patients' accounts in well-phrased letters that had no

suggestion of a bill. When they had a neighbour to dinner on

Sundays, she managed to have some tasty dish--piled up pyramids

of greengages on vine leaves, served up preserves turned out into

plates--and even spoke of buying finger-glasses for dessert. From

all this much consideration was extended to Bovary.

Charles finished by rising in his own esteem for possessing such

a wife. He showed with pride in the sitting room two small pencil

sketched by her that he had had framed in very large frames, and

hung up against the wallpaper by long green cords. People

returning from mass saw him at his door in his wool-work

slippers.

He came home late--at ten o'clock, at midnight sometimes. Then he

asked for something to eat, and as the servant had gone to bed,

Emma waited on him. He took off his coat to dine more at his

ease. He told her, one after the other, the people he had met,

the villages where he had been, the prescriptions ha had written,

and, well pleased with himself, he finished the remainder of the

boiled beef and onions, picked pieces off the cheese, munched an

apple, emptied his water-bottle, and then went to bed, and lay on

his back and snored.

As he had been for a time accustomed to wear nightcaps, his

handkerchief would not keep down over his ears, so that his hair

in the morning was all tumbled pell-mell about his face and

whitened with the feathers of the pillow, whose strings came

untied during the night. He always wore thick boots that had two

long creases over the instep running obliquely towards the ankle,

while the rest of the upper continued in a straight line as if

stretched on a wooden foot. He said that "was quite good enough

for the country."

His mother approved of his economy, for she came to see him as

formerly when there had been some violent row at her place; and

yet Madame Bovary senior seemed prejudiced against her

daughter-in-law. She thought "her ways too fine for their

position"; the wood, the sugar, and the candles disappeared as

"at a grand establishment," and the amount of firing in the

kitchen would have been enough for twenty-five courses. She put

her linen in order for her in the presses, and taught her to keep

an eye on the butcher when he brought the meat. Emma put up with

these lessons. Madame Bovary was lavish of them; and the words

"daughter" and "mother" were exchanged all day long, accompanied

by little quiverings of the lips, each one uttering gentle words

in a voice trembling with anger.

In Madame Dubuc's time the old woman felt that she was still the

favorite; but now the love of Charles for Emma seemed to her a

desertion from her tenderness, an encroachment upon what was

hers, and she watched her son's happiness in sad silence, as a

ruined man looks through the windows at people dining in his old

house. She recalled to him as remembrances her troubles and her

sacrifices, and, comparing these with Emma's negligence, came to

the conclusion that it was not reasonable to adore her so

exclusively.

Charles knew not what to answer: he respected his mother, and he

loved his wife infinitely; he considered the judgment of the one

infallible, and yet he thought the conduct of the other

irreproachable. When Madam Bovary had gone, he tried timidly and

in the same terms to hazard one or two of the more anodyne

observations he had heard from his mamma. Emma proved to him with

a word that he was mistaken, and sent him off to his patients.

And yet, in accord with theories she believed right, she wanted

to make herself in love with him. By moonlight in the garden she

recited all the passionate rhymes she knew by heart, and,

sighing, sang to him many melancholy adagios; but she found

herself as calm after as before, and Charles seemed no more

amorous and no more moved.

When she had thus for a while struck the flint on her heart

without getting a spark, incapable, moreover, of understanding

what she did not experience as of believing anything that did not

present itself in conventional forms, she persuaded herself

without difficulty that Charles's passion was nothing very

exorbitant. His outbursts became regular; he embraced her at

certain fixed times. It was one habit among other habits, and,

like a dessert, looked forward to after the monotony of dinner.

A gamekeeper, cured by the doctor of inflammation of the lungs,

had given madame a little Italian greyhound; she took her out

walking, for she went out sometimes in order to be alone for a

moment, and not to see before her eyes the eternal garden and the

dusty road. She went as far as the beeches of Banneville, near

the deserted pavilion which forms an angle of the wall on the

side of the country. Amidst the vegetation of the ditch there are

long reeds with leaves that cut you.

She began by looking round her to see if nothing had changed

since last she had been there. She found again in the same places

the foxgloves and wallflowers, the beds of nettles growing round

the big stones, and the patches of lichen along the three

windows, whose shutters, always closed, were rotting away on

their rusty iron bars. Her thoughts, aimless at first, wandered

at random, like her greyhound, who ran round and round in the

fields, yelping after the yellow butterflies, chasing the

shrew-mice, or nibbling the poppies on the edge of a cornfield.

Then gradually her ideas took definite shape, and, sitting on the

grass that she dug up with little prods of her sunshade, Emma

repeated to herself, "Good heavens! Why did I marry?"

She asked herself if by some other chance combination it would

have not been possible to meet another man; and she tried to

imagine what would have been these unrealised events, this

different life, this unknown husband. All, surely, could not be

like this one. He might have been handsome, witty, distinguished,

attractive, such as, no doubt, her old companions of the convent

had married. What were they doing now? In town, with the noise of

the streets, the buzz of the theatres and the lights of the

ballroom, they were living lives where the heart expands, the

senses bourgeon out. But she--her life was cold as a garret whose

dormer window looks on the north, and ennui, the silent spider,

was weaving its web in the darkness in every corner of her heart.

She recalled the prize days, when she mounted the platform to

receive her little crowns, with her hair in long plaits. In her

white frock and open prunella shoes she had a pretty way, and

when she went back to her seat, the gentlemen bent over her to

congratulate her; the courtyard was full of carriages; farewells

were called to her through their windows; the music master with

his violin case bowed in passing by. How far all of this! How far

away! She called Djali, took her between her knees, and smoothed

the long delicate head, saying, "Come, kiss mistress; you have no

troubles."

Then noting the melancholy face of the graceful animal, who

yawned slowly, she softened, and comparing her to herself, spoke

to her aloud as to somebody in trouble whom one is consoling.

Occasionally there came gusts of winds, breezes from the sea

rolling in one sweep over the whole plateau of the Caux country,

which brought even to these fields a salt freshness. The rushes,

close to the ground, whistled; the branches trembled in a swift

rustling, while their summits, ceaselessly swaying, kept up a

deep murmur. Emma drew her shawl round her shoulders and rose.

In the avenue a green light dimmed by the leaves lit up the short

moss that crackled softly beneath her feet. The sun was setting;

the sky showed red between the branches, and the trunks of the

trees, uniform, and planted in a straight line, seemed a brown

colonnade standing out against a background of gold. A fear took

hold of her; she called Djali, and hurriedly returned to Tostes

by the high road, threw herself into an armchair, and for the

rest of the evening did not speak.

But towards the end of September something extraordinary fell

upon her life; she was invited by the Marquis d'Andervilliers to

Vaubyessard.

Secretary of State under the Restoration, the Marquis, anxious to

re-enter political life, set about preparing for his candidature

to the Chamber of Deputies long beforehand. In the winter he

distributed a great deal of wood, and in the Conseil General

always enthusiastically demanded new roads for his

arrondissement. During the dog-days he had suffered from an

abscess, which Charles had cured as if by miracle by giving a

timely little touch with the lancet. The steward sent to Tostes

to pay for the operation reported in the evening that he had seen

some superb cherries in the doctor's little garden. Now cherry

trees did not thrive at Vaubyessard; the Marquis asked Bovary for

some slips; made it his business to thank his personally; saw

Emma; thought she had a pretty figure, and that she did not bow

like a peasant; so that he did not think he was going beyond the

bounds of condescension, nor, on the other hand, making a

mistake, in inviting the young couple.

On Wednesday at three o'clock, Monsieur and Madame Bovary, seated

in their dog-cart, set out for Vaubyessard, with a great trunk

strapped on behind and a bonnet-box in front of the apron.

Besides these Charles held a bandbox between his knees.

They arrived at nightfall, just as the lamps in the park were

being lit to show the way for the carriages.

Chapter Eight

The chateau, a modern building in Italian style, with two

projecting wings and three flights of steps, lay at the foot of

an immense green-sward, on which some cows were grazing among

groups of large trees set out at regular intervals, while large

beds of arbutus, rhododendron, syringas, and guelder roses bulged

out their irregular clusters of green along the curve of the

gravel path. A river flowed under a bridge; through the mist one

could distinguish buildings with thatched roofs scattered over

the field bordered by two gently sloping, well timbered hillocks,

and in the background amid the trees rose in two parallel lines

the coach houses and stables, all that was left of the ruined old

chateau.

Charles's dog-cart pulled up before the middle flight of steps;

servants appeared; the Marquis came forward, and, offering his

arm to the doctor's wife, conducted her to the vestibule.

It was paved with marble slabs, was very lofty, and the sound of

footsteps and that of voices re-echoed through it as in a church.

Opposite rose a straight staircase, and on the left a gallery

overlooking the garden led to the billiard room, through whose

door one could hear the click of the ivory balls. As she crossed

it to go to the drawing room, Emma saw standing round the table

men with grave faces, their chins resting on high cravats. They

all wore orders, and smiled silently as they made their strokes.

On the dark wainscoting of the walls large gold frames bore at

the bottom names written in black letters. She read:

"Jean-Antoine d'Andervilliers d'Yvervonbille, Count de la

Vaubyessard and Baron de la Fresnay, killed at the battle of

Coutras on the 20th of October, 1857." And on another:

"Jean-Antoine-Henry-Guy d'Andervilliers de la Vaubyessard,

Admiral of France and Chevalier of the Order of St. Michael,

wounded at the battle of the Hougue-Saint-Vaast on the 29th of

May, 1692; died at Vaubyessard on the 23rd of January 1693." One

could hardly make out those that followed, for the light of the

lamps lowered over the green cloth threw a dim shadow round the

room. Burnishing the horizontal pictures, it broke up against

these in delicate lines where there were cracks in the varnish,

and from all these great black squares framed in with gold stood

out here and there some lighter portion of the painting--a pale

brow, two eyes that looked at you, perukes flowing over and

powdering red-coated shoulders, or the buckle of a garter above a

well-rounded calf.

The Marquis opened the drawing room door; one of the ladies (the

Marchioness herself) came to meet Emma. She made her sit down by

her on an ottoman, and began talking to her as amicably as if she

had known her a long time. She was a woman of about forty, with

fine shoulders, a hook nose, a drawling voice, and on this

evening she wore over her brown hair a simple guipure fichu that

fell in a point at the back. A fair young woman sat in a

high-backed chair in a corner; and gentlemen with flowers in

their buttonholes were talking to ladies round the fire.

At seven dinner was served. The men, who were in the majority,

sat down at the first table in the vestibule; the ladies at the

second in the dining room with the Marquis and Marchioness.

Emma, on entering, felt herself wrapped round by the warm air, a

blending of the perfume of flowers and of the fine linen, of the

fumes of the viands, and the odour of the truffles. The silver

dish covers reflected the lighted wax candles in the candelabra,

the cut crystal covered with light steam reflected from one to

the other pale rays; bouquets were placed in a row the whole

length of the table; and in the large-bordered plates each

napkin, arranged after the fashion of a bishop's mitre, held

between its two gaping folds a small oval shaped roll. The red

claws of lobsters hung over the dishes; rich fruit in open

baskets was piled up on moss; there were quails in their plumage;

smoke was rising; and in silk stockings, knee-breeches, white

cravat, and frilled shirt, the steward, grave as a judge,

offering ready carved dishes between the shoulders of the guests,

with a touch of the spoon gave you the piece chosen. On the large

stove of porcelain inlaid with copper baguettes the statue of a

woman, draped to the chin, gazed motionless on the room full of

life.

Madame Bovary noticed that many ladies had not put their gloves

in their glasses.

But at the upper end of the table, alone amongst all these women,

bent over his full plate, and his napkin tied round his neck like

a child, an old man sat eating, letting drops of gravy drip from

his mouth. His eyes were bloodshot, and he wore a little queue

tied with black ribbon. He was the Marquis's father-in-law, the

old Duke de Laverdiere, once on a time favourite of the Count

d'Artois, in the days of the Vaudreuil hunting-parties at the

Marquis de Conflans', and had been, it was said, the lover of

Queen Marie Antoinette, between Monsieur de Coigny and Monsieur

de Lauzun. He had lived a life of noisy debauch, full of duels,

bets, elopements; he had squandered his fortune and frightened

all his family. A servant behind his chair named aloud to him in

his ear the dishes that he pointed to stammering, and constantly

Emma's eyes turned involuntarily to this old man with hanging

lips, as to something extraordinary. He had lived at court and

slept in the bed of queens! Iced champagne was poured out. Emma

shivered all over as she felt it cold in her mouth. She had never

seen pomegranates nor tasted pineapples. The powdered sugar even

seemed to her whiter and finer than elsewhere.

The ladies afterwards went to their rooms to prepare for the

ball.

Emma made her toilet with the fastidious care of an actress on

her debut. She did her hair according to the directions of the

hairdresser, and put on the barege dress spread out upon the bed.

Charles's trousers were tight across the belly.

"My trouser-straps will be rather awkward for dancing," he said.

"Dancing?" repeated Emma.

"Yes!"

"Why, you must be mad! They would make fun of you; keep your

place. Besides, it is more becoming for a doctor," she added.

Charles was silent. He walked up and down waiting for Emma to

finish dressing.

He saw her from behind in the glass between two lights. Her black

eyes seemed blacker than ever. Her hair, undulating towards the

ears, shone with a blue lustre; a rose in her chignon trembled on

its mobile stalk, with artificial dewdrops on the tip of the

leaves. She wore a gown of pale saffron trimmed with three

bouquets of pompon roses mixed with green.

Charles came and kissed her on her shoulder.

"Let me alone!" she said; "you are tumbling me."

One could hear the flourish of the violin and the notes of a

horn. She went downstairs restraining herself from running.

Dancing had begun. Guests were arriving. There was some crushing.

She sat down on a form near the door.

The quadrille over, the floor was occupied by groups of men

standing up and talking and servants in livery bearing large

trays. Along the line of seated women painted fans were

fluttering, bouquets half hid smiling faces, and gold stoppered

scent-bottles were turned in partly-closed hands, whose white

gloves outlined the nails and tightened on the flesh at the

wrists. Lace trimmings, diamond brooches, medallion bracelets

trembled on bodices, gleamed on breasts, clinked on bare arms.

The hair, well-smoothed over the temples and knotted at the nape,

bore crowns, or bunches, or sprays of mytosotis, jasmine,

pomegranate blossoms, ears of corn, and corn-flowers. Calmly

seated in their places, mothers with forbidding countenances were

wearing red turbans.

Emma's heart beat rather faster when, her partner holding her by

the tips of the fingers, she took her place in a line with the

dancers, and waited for the first note to start. But her emotion

soon vanished, and, swaying to the rhythm of the orchestra, she

glided forward with slight movements of the neck. A smile rose to

her lips at certain delicate phrases of the violin, that

sometimes played alone while the other instruments were silent;

one could hear the clear clink of the louis d'or that were being

thrown down upon the card tables in the next room; then all

struck again, the cornet-a-piston uttered its sonorous note, feet

marked time, skirts swelled and rustled, hands touched and

parted; the same eyes falling before you met yours again.

A few men (some fifteen or so), of twenty-five to forty,

scattered here and there among the dancers or talking at the

doorways, distinguished themselves from the crowd by a certain

air of breeding, whatever their differences in age, dress, or

face.

Their clothes, better made, seemed of finer cloth, and their

hair, brought forward in curls towards the temples, glossy with

more delicate pomades. They had the complexion of wealth--that

clear complexion that is heightened by the pallor of porcelain,

the shimmer of satin, the veneer of old furniture, and that an

ordered regimen of exquisite nurture maintains at its best. Their

necks moved easily in their low cravats, their long whiskers fell

over their turned-down collars, they wiped their lips upon

handkerchiefs with embroidered initials that gave forth a subtle

perfume. Those who were beginning to grow old had an air of

youth, while there was something mature in the faces of the

young. In their unconcerned looks was the calm of passions daily

satiated, and through all their gentleness of manner pierced that

peculiar brutality, the result of a command of half-easy things,

in which force is exercised and vanity amused--the management of

thoroughbred horses and the society of loose women.

A few steps from Emma a gentleman in a blue coat was talking of

Italy with a pale young woman wearing a parure of pearls.

They were praising the breadth of the columns of St. Peter's,

Tivoly, Vesuvius, Castellamare, and Cassines, the roses of Genoa,

the Coliseum by moonlight. With her other ear Emma was listening

to a conversation full of words she did not understand. A circle

gathered round a very young man who the week before had beaten

"Miss Arabella" and "Romolus," and won two thousand louis jumping

a ditch in England. One complained that his racehorses were

growing fat; another of the printers' errors that had disfigured

the name of his horse.

The atmosphere of the ball was heavy; the lamps were growing dim.

Guests were flocking to the billiard room. 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. She was

there; beyond the ball was only shadow overspreading all the

rest. She was just eating a maraschino ice that she held with her

left hand in a silver-gilt cup, her eyes half-closed, and the

spoon between her teeth.

A lady near her dropped her fan. A gentlemen was passing.

"Would you be so good," said the lady, "as to pick up my fan that

has fallen behind the sofa?"

The gentleman bowed, and as he moved to stretch out his arm, Emma

saw the hand of a young woman throw something white, folded in a

triangle, into his hat. The gentleman, picking up the fan,

offered it to the lady respectfully; she thanked him with an

inclination of the head, and began smelling her bouquet.

After supper, where were plenty of Spanish and Rhine wines, soups

a la bisque and au lait d'amandes*, puddings a la Trafalgar, and

all sorts of cold meats with jellies that trembled in the dishes,

the carriages one after the other began to drive off. Raising the

corners of the muslin curtain, one could see the light of their

lanterns glimmering through the darkness. The seats began to

empty, some card-players were still left; the musicians were

cooling the tips of their fingers on their tongues. Charles was

half asleep, his back propped against a door.

*With almond milk

At three o'clock the cotillion began. Emma did not know how to waltz.

Everyone was waltzing, Mademoiselle d'Andervilliers herself and the

Marquis; only the guests staying at the castle were still there,

about a dozen persons.

One of the waltzers, however, who was familiarly called Viscount,

and whose low cut waistcoat seemed moulded to his chest, came a

second time to ask Madame Bovary to dance, assuring her that he

would guide her, and that she would get through it very well.

They began slowly, then went more rapidly. They turned; all

around them was turning--the lamps, the furniture, the

wainscoting, the floor, like a disc on a pivot. On passing near

the doors the bottom of Emma's dress caught against his trousers.

Their legs commingled; he looked down at her; she raised her eyes

to his. A torpor seized her; she stopped. They started again, and

with a more rapid movement; the Viscount, dragging her along

disappeared with her to the end of the gallery, where panting,

she almost fell, and for a moment rested her head upon his

breast. And then, still turning, but more slowly, he guided her

back to her seat. She leaned back against the wall and covered

her eyes with her hands.

When she opened them again, in the middle of the drawing room

three waltzers were kneeling before a lady sitting on a stool.

She chose the Viscount, and the violin struck up once more.

Everyone looked at them. They passed and re-passed, she with

rigid body, her chin bent down, and he always in the same pose,

his figure curved, his elbow rounded, his chin thrown forward.

That woman knew how to waltz! They kept up a long time, and tired

out all the others.

Then they talked a few moments longer, and after the goodnights,

or rather good mornings, the guests of the chateau retired to

bed.

Charles dragged himself up by the balusters. His "knees were

going up into his body." He had spent five consecutive hours

standing bolt upright at the card tables, watching them play

whist, without understanding anything about it, and it was with a

deep sigh of relief that he pulled off his boots.

Emma threw a shawl over her shoulders, opened the window, and

leant out.

The night was dark; some drops of rain were falling. She breathed

in the damp wind that refreshed her eyelids. The music of the

ball was still murmuring in her ears. And she tried to keep

herself awake in order to prolong the illusion of this

luxurious life that she would soon have to give up.

Day began to break. She looked long at the windows of the

chateau, trying to guess which were the rooms of all those she

had noticed the evening before. She would fain have known their

lives, have penetrated, blended with them. But she was shivering

with cold. She undressed, and cowered down between the sheets

against Charles, who was asleep.

There were a great many people to luncheon. The repast lasted ten

minutes; no liqueurs were served, which astonished the doctor.

Next, Mademoiselle d'Andervilliers collected some pieces of roll

in a small basket to take them to the swans on the ornamental

waters, and they went to walk in the hot-houses, where strange

plants, bristling with hairs, rose in pyramids under hanging

vases, whence, as from over-filled nests of serpents, fell long

green cords interlacing. The orangery, which was at the other

end, led by a covered way to the outhouses of the chateau. The

Marquis, to amuse the young woman, took her to see the stables.

Above the basket-shaped racks porcelain slabs bore the names of

the horses in black letters. Each animal in its stall whisked its

tail when anyone went near and said "Tchk! tchk!" The boards of

the harness room shone like the flooring of a drawing room. The

carriage harness was piled up in the middle against two twisted

columns, and the bits, the whips, the spurs, the curbs, were

ranged in a line all along the wall.

Charles, meanwhile, went to ask a groom to put his horse to. The

dog-cart was brought to the foot of the steps, and, all the

parcels being crammed in, the Bovarys paid their respects to the

Marquis and Marchioness and set out again for Tostes.

Emma watched the turning wheels in silence. Charles, on the

extreme edge of the seat, held the reins with his two arms wide

apart, and the little horse ambled along in the shafts that were

too big for him. The loose reins hanging over his crupper were

wet with foam, and the box fastened on behind the chaise gave

great regular bumps against it.

They were on the heights of Thibourville when suddenly some

horsemen with cigars between their lips passed laughing. Emma

thought she recognized the Viscount, turned back, and caught on

the horizon only the movement of the heads rising or falling with

the unequal cadence of the trot or gallop.

A mile farther on they had to stop to mend with some string the

traces that had broken.

But Charles, giving a last look to the harness, saw something on

the ground between his horse's legs, and he picked up a

cigar-case with a green silk border and beblazoned in the centre

like the door of a carriage.

"There are even two cigars in it," said he; "they'll do for this

evening after dinner."

"Why, do you smoke?" she asked.

"Sometimes, when I get a chance."

He put his find in his pocket and whipped up the nag.

When they reached home the dinner was not ready. Madame lost her

temper. Nastasie answered rudely.

"Leave the room!" said Emma. "You are forgetting yourself. I give

you warning."

For dinner there was onion soup and a piece of veal with sorrel.

Charles, seated opposite Emma, rubbed his hands gleefully.

"How good it is to be at home again!"

Nastasie could be heard crying. He was rather fond of the poor

girl. She had formerly, during the wearisome time of his

widowhood, kept him company many an evening. She had been his

first patient, his oldest acquaintance in the place.

"Have you given her warning for good?" he asked at last.

"Yes. Who is to prevent me?" she replied.

Then they warmed themselves in the kitchen while their room was

being made ready. Charles began to smoke. He smoked with lips

protruding, spitting every moment, recoiling at every puff.

"You'll make yourself ill," she said scornfully.

He put down his cigar and ran to swallow a glass of cold water at

the pump. Emma seizing hold of the cigar case threw it quickly to

the back of the cupboard.

The next day was a long one. She walked about her little garden,

up and down the same walks, stopping before the beds, before the

espalier, before the plaster curate, looking with amazement at

all these things of once-on-a-time that she knew so well. How far

off the ball seemed already! What was it that thus set so far

asunder the morning of the day before yesterday and the evening

of to-day? Her journey to Vaubyessard had made a hole in her

life, like one of those great crevices that a storm will

sometimes make in one night in mountains. Still she was resigned.

She devoutly put away in her drawers her beautiful dress, down to

the satin shoes whose soles were yellowed with the slippery wax

of the dancing floor. Her heart was like these. In its friction

against wealth something had come over it that could not be

effaced.

The memory of this ball, then, became an occupation for Emma.

Whenever the Wednesday came round she said to herself as she

awoke, "Ah! I was there a week--a fortnight--three weeks ago."

And little by little the faces grew confused in her remembrance.

She forgot the tune of the quadrilles; she no longer saw the

liveries and appointments so distinctly; some details escaped

her, but the regret remained with her.

Chapter Nine

Often when Charles was out she took from the cupboard, between

the folds of the linen where she had left it, the green silk

cigar case. She looked at it, opened it, and even smelt the odour

of the lining--a mixture of verbena and tobacco. Whose was it?

The Viscount's? Perhaps it was a present from his mistress. It

had been embroidered on some rosewood frame, a pretty little

thing, hidden from all eyes, that had occupied many hours, and

over which had fallen the soft curls of the pensive worker. A

breath of love had passed over the stitches on the canvas; each

prick of the needle had fixed there a hope or a memory, and all

those interwoven threads of silk were but the continuity of the

same silent passion. And then one morning the Viscount had taken

it away with him. Of what had they spoken when it lay upon the

wide-mantelled chimneys between flower-vases and Pompadour

clocks? She was at Tostes; he was at Paris now, far away! What

was this Paris like? What a vague name! She repeated it in a low

voice, for the mere pleasure of it; it rang in her ears like a

great cathedral bell; it shone before her eyes, even on the

labels of her pomade-pots.

At night, when the carriers passed under her windows in their

carts singing the "Marjolaine," she awoke, and listened to the

noise of the iron-bound wheels, which, as they gained the country

road, was soon deadened by the soil. "They will be there

to-morrow!" she said to herself.

And she followed them in thought up and down the hills,

traversing villages, gliding along the highroads by the light of

the stars. At the end of some indefinite distance there was

always a confused spot, into which her dream died.

She bought a plan of Paris, and with the tip of her finger on the

map she walked about the capital. She went up the boulevards,

stopping at every turning, between the lines of the streets, in

front of the white squares that represented the houses. At last

she would close the lids of her weary eyes, and see in the

darkness the gas jets flaring in the wind and the steps of

carriages lowered with much noise before the peristyles of

theatres.

She took in "La Corbeille," a lady's journal, and the "Sylphe des

Salons." She devoured, without skipping a word, all the accounts

of first nights, races, and soirees, took interest in the debut

of a singer, in the opening of a new shop. She knew the latest

fashions, the addresses of the best tailors, the days of the Bois

and the Opera. In Eugene Sue she studied descriptions of

furniture; she read Balzac and George Sand, seeking in them

imaginary satisfaction for her own desires. Even at table she had

her book by her, and turned over the pages while Charles ate and

talked to her. The memory of the Viscount always returned as she

read. Between him and the imaginary personages she made

comparisons. But the circle of which he was the centre gradually

widened round him, and the aureole that he bore, fading from his

form, broadened out beyond, lighting up her other dreams.

Paris, more vague than the ocean, glimmered before Emma's eyes in

an atmosphere of vermilion. The many lives that stirred amid this

tumult were, however, divided into parts, classed as distinct

pictures. Emma perceived only two or three that hid from her all

the rest, and in themselves represented all humanity. The world

of ambassadors moved over polished floors in drawing rooms lined

with mirrors, round oval tables covered with velvet and

gold-fringed cloths. There were dresses with trains, deep

mysteries, anguish hidden beneath smiles. Then came the society

of the duchesses; all were pale; all got up at four o'clock; the

women, poor angels, wore English point on their petticoats; and

the men, unappreciated geniuses under a frivolous outward

seeming, rode horses to death at pleasure parties, spent the

summer season at Baden, and towards the forties married

heiresses. In the private rooms of restaurants, where one sups

after midnight by the light of wax candles, laughed the motley

crowd of men of letters and actresses. They were prodigal as

kings, full of ideal, ambitious, fantastic frenzy. This was an

existence outside that of all others, between heaven and earth,

in the midst of storms, having something of the sublime. For the

rest of the world it was lost, with no particular place and as if

non-existent. The nearer things were, moreover, the more her

thoughts turned away from them. All her immediate surroundings,

the wearisome country, the middle-class imbeciles, the mediocrity

of existence, seemed to her exceptional, a peculiar chance that

had caught hold of her, while beyond stretched, as far as eye

could see, an immense land of joys and passions. She confused in

her desire the sensualities of luxury with the delights of the

heart, elegance of manners with delicacy of sentiment. Did not

love, like Indian plants, need a special soil, a particular

temperature? Signs by moonlight, long embraces, tears flowing

over yielded hands, all the fevers of the flesh and the languors

of tenderness could not be separated from the balconies of great

castles full of indolence, from boudoirs with silken curtains and

thick carpets, well-filled flower-stands, a bed on a raised dias,

nor from the flashing of precious stones and the shoulder-knots

of liveries.

The lad from the posting house who came to groom the mare every

morning passed through the passage with his heavy wooden shoes;

there were holes in his blouse; his feet were bare in list

slippers. And this was the groom in knee-britches with whom she

had to be content! His work done, he did not come back again all

day, for Charles on his return put up his horse himself,

unsaddled him and put on the halter, while the servant-girl

brought a bundle of straw and threw it as best she could into the

manger.

To replace Nastasie (who left Tostes shedding torrents of tears)

Emma took into her service a young girl of fourteen, an orphan

with a sweet face. She forbade her wearing cotton caps, taught

her to address her in the third person, to bring a glass of water

on a plate, to knock before coming into a room, to iron, starch,

and to dress her--wanted to make a lady's-maid of her. The new

servant obeyed without a murmur, so as not to be sent away; and

as madame usually left the key in the sideboard, Felicite every

evening took a small supply of sugar that she ate alone in her

bed after she had said her prayers.

Sometimes in the afternoon she went to chat with the postilions.

Madame was in her room upstairs. She wore an open dressing gown

that showed between the shawl facings of her bodice a pleated

chamisette with three gold buttons. Her belt was a corded girdle

with great tassels, and her small garnet coloured slippers had a

large knot of ribbon that fell over her instep. She had bought

herself a blotting book, writing case, pen-holder, and envelopes,

although she had no one to write to; she dusted her what-not,

looked at herself in the glass, picked up a book, and then,

dreaming between the lines, let it drop on her knees. She longed

to travel or to go back to her convent. She wished at the same

time to die and to live in Paris.

Charles in snow and rain trotted across country. He ate omelettes

on farmhouse tables, poked his arm into damp beds, received the

tepid spurt of blood-lettings in his face, listened to

death-rattles, examined basins, turned over a good deal of dirty

linen; but every evening he found a blazing fire, his dinner

ready, easy-chairs, and a well-dressed woman, charming with an

odour of freshness, though no one could say whence the perfume

came, or if it were not her skin that made odorous her chemise.

She charmed him by numerous attentions; now it was some new way

of arranging paper sconces for the candles, a flounce that she

altered on her gown, or an extraordinary name for some very

simple dish that the servant had spoilt, but that Charles

swallowed with pleasure to the last mouthful. At Rouen she saw

some ladies who wore a bunch of charms on the watch-chains; she

bought some charms. She wanted for her mantelpiece two large blue

glass vases, and some time after an ivory necessaire with a

silver-gilt thimble. The less Charles understood these

refinements the more they seduced him. They added something to

the pleasure of the senses and to the comfort of his fireside. It

was like a golden dust sanding all along the narrow path of his

life.

He was well, looked well; his reputation was firmly established.

The country-folk loved him because he was not proud. He petted

the children, never went to the public house, and, moreover, his

morals inspired confidence. He was specially successful with

catarrhs and chest complaints. Being much afraid of killing his

patients, Charles, in fact only prescribed sedatives, from time

to time and emetic, a footbath, or leeches. It was not that he

was afraid of surgery; he bled people copiously like horses, and

for the taking out of teeth he had the "devil's own wrist."

Finally, to keep up with the times, he took in "La Ruche

Medicale," a new journal whose prospectus had been sent him. He

read it a little after dinner, but in about five minutes the

warmth of the room added to the effect of his dinner sent him to

sleep; and he sat there, his chin on his two hands and his hair

spreading like a mane to the foot of the lamp. Emma looked at him

and shrugged her shoulders. Why, at least, was not her husband

one of those men of taciturn passions who work at their books all

night, and at last, when about sixty, the age of rheumatism sets

in, wear a string of orders on their ill-fitting black coat? She

could have wished this name of Bovary, which was hers, had been

illustrious, to see it displayed at the booksellers', repeated in

the newspapers, known to all France. But Charles had no ambition.

An Yvetot doctor whom he had lately met in consultation had

somewhat humiliated him at the very bedside of the patient,

before the assembled relatives. When, in the evening, Charles

told her this anecdote, Emma inveighed loudly against his

colleague. Charles was much touched. He kissed her forehead with

a tear in his eyes. But she was angered with shame; she felt a

wild desire to strike him; she went to open the window in the

passage and breathed in the fresh air to calm herself.

"What a man! What a man!" she said in a low voice, biting her

lips.

Besides, she was becoming more irritated with him. As he grew

older his manner grew heavier; at dessert he cut the corks of the

empty bottles; after eating he cleaned his teeth with his tongue;

in taking soup he made a gurgling noise with every spoonful; and,

as he was getting fatter, the puffed-out cheeks seemed to push

the eyes, always small, up to the temples.

Sometimes Emma tucked the red borders of his under-vest unto his

waistcoat, rearranged his cravat, and threw away the dirty gloves

he was going to put on; and this was not, as he fancied, for

himself; it was for herself, by a diffusion of egotism, of

nervous irritation. Sometimes, too, she told him of what she had

read, such as a passage in a novel, of a new play, or an anecdote

of the "upper ten" that she had seen in a feuilleton; for, after

all, Charles was something, an ever-open ear, and ever-ready

approbation. She confided many a thing to her greyhound. She

would have done so to the logs in the fireplace or to the

pendulum of the clock.

At the bottom of her heart, however, she was waiting for

something to happen. Like shipwrecked sailors, she turned

despairing eyes upon the solitude of her life, seeking afar off

some white sail in the mists of the horizon. She did not know

what this chance would be, what wind would bring it her, towards

what shore it would drive her, if it would be a shallop or a

three-decker, laden with anguish or full of bliss to the

portholes. But each morning, as she awoke, she hoped it would

come that day; she listened to every sound, sprang up with a

start, wondered that it did not come; then at sunset, always more

saddened, she longed for the morrow.

Spring came round. With the first warm weather, when the pear

trees began to blossom, she suffered from dyspnoea.

From the beginning of July she counted how many weeks there were

to October, thinking that perhaps the Marquis d'Andervilliers

would give another ball at Vaubyessard. But all September passed

without letters or visits.

After the ennui of this disappointment her heart once more

remained empty, and then the same series of days recommenced. So

now they would thus follow one another, always the same,

immovable, and bringing nothing. Other lives, however flat, had

at least the chance of some event. One adventure sometimes

brought with it infinite consequences and the scene changed. But

nothing happened to her; God had willed it so! The future was a

dark corridor, with its door at the end shut fast.

She gave up music. What was the good of playing? Who would hear

her? Since she could never, in a velvet gown with short sleeves,

striking with her light fingers the ivory keys of an Erard at a

concert, feel the murmur of ecstasy envelop her like a breeze, it

was not worth while boring herself with practicing. Her drawing

cardboard and her embroidery she left in the cupboard. What was

the good? What was the good? Sewing irritated her. "I have read

everything," she said to herself. And she sat there making the

tongs red-hot, or looked at the rain falling.

How sad she was on Sundays when vespers sounded! She listened

with dull attention to each stroke of the cracked bell. A cat

slowly walking over some roof put up his back in the pale rays of

the sum. The wind on the highroad blew up clouds of dust. Afar

off a dog sometimes howled; and the bell, keeping time, continued

its monotonous ringing that died away over the fields.

But the people came out from church. The women in waxed clogs,

the peasants in new blouses, the little bare-headed children

skipping along in front of them, all were going home. And till

nightfall, five or six men, always the same, stayed playing at

corks in front of the large door of the inn.

The winter was severe. The windows every morning were covered

with rime, and the light shining through them, dim as through

ground-glass, sometimes did not change the whole day long. At

four o'clock the lamp had to be lighted.

On fine days she went down into the garden. The dew had left on

the cabbages a silver lace with long transparent threads

spreading from one to the other. No birds were to be heard;

everything seemed asleep, the espalier covered with straw, and

the vine, like a great sick serpent under the coping of the wall,

along which, on drawing hear, one saw the many-footed woodlice

crawling. Under the spruce by the hedgerow, the curie in the

three-cornered hat reading his breviary had lost his right foot,

and the very plaster, scaling off with the frost, had left white

scabs on his face.

Then she went up again, shut her door, put on coals, and fainting

with the heat of the hearth, felt her boredom weigh more heavily

than ever. She would have liked to go down and talk to the

servant, but a sense of shame restrained her.

Every day at the same time the schoolmaster in a black skullcap

opened the shutters of his house, and the rural policeman,

wearing his sabre over his blouse, passed by. Night and morning

the post-horses, three by three, crossed the street to water at

the pond. From time to time the bell of a public house door rang,

and when it was windy one could hear the little brass basins that

served as signs for the hairdresser's shop creaking on their two

rods. This shop had as decoration an old engraving of a

fashion-plate stuck against a windowpane and the wax bust of a

woman with yellow hair. He, too, the hairdresser, lamented his

wasted calling, his hopeless future, and dreaming of some shop in

a big town--at Rouen, for example, overlooking the harbour, near

the theatre--he walked up and down all day from the mairie to the

church, sombre and waiting for customers. When Madame Bovary

looked up, she always saw him there, like a sentinel on duty,

with his skullcap over his ears and his vest of lasting.

Sometimes in the afternoon outside the window of her room, the

head of a man appeared, a swarthy head with black whiskers,

smiling slowly, with a broad, gentle smile that showed his white

teeth. A waltz immediately began and on the organ, in a little

drawing room, dancers the size of a finger, women in pink

turbans, Tyrolians in jackets, monkeys in frock coats, gentlemen

in knee-breeches, turned and turned between the sofas, the

consoles, multiplied in the bits of looking glass held together

at their corners by a piece of gold paper. The man turned his

handle, looking to the right and left, and up at the windows. Now

and again, while he shot out a long squirt of brown saliva

against the milestone, with his knee raised his instrument, whose

hard straps tired his shoulder; and now, doleful and drawling, or

gay and hurried, the music escaped from the box, droning through

a curtain of pink taffeta under a brass claw in arabesque. They

were airs played in other places at the theatres, sung in drawing

rooms, danced to at night under lighted lustres, echoes of the

world that reached even to Emma. Endless sarabands ran through

her head, and, like an Indian dancing girl on the flowers of a

carpet, her thoughts leapt with the notes, swung from dream to

dream, from sadness to sadness. When the man had caught some

coppers in his cap, he drew down an old cover of blue cloth,

hitched his organ on to his back, and went off with a heavy

tread. She watched him going.

But it was above all the meal-times that were unbearable to her,

in this small room on the ground floor, with its smoking stove,

its creaking door, the walls that sweated, the damp flags; all

the bitterness in life seemed served up on her plate, and with

smoke of the boiled beef there rose from her secret soul whiffs

of sickliness. Charles was a slow eater; she played with a few

nuts, or, leaning on her elbow, amused herself with drawing lines

along the oilcloth table cover with the point of her knife.

She now let everything in her household take care of itself, and

Madame Bovary senior, when she came to spend part of Lent at

Tostes, was much surprised at the change. She who was formerly so

careful, so dainty, now passed whole days without dressing, wore

grey cotton stockings, and burnt tallow candles. She kept saying

they must be economical since they were not rich, adding that she

was very contented, very happy, that Tostes pleased her very

much, with other speeches that closed the mouth of her

mother-in-law. Besides, Emma no longer seemed inclined to follow

her advice; once even, Madame Bovary having thought fit to

maintain that mistresses ought to keep an eye on the religion of

their servants, she had answered with so angry a look and so cold

a smile that the good woman did not interfere again.

Emma was growing difficult, capricious. She ordered dishes for

herself, then she did not touch them; one day drank only pure

milk, the next cups of tea by the dozen. Often she persisted in

not going out, then, stifling, threw open the windows and put on

light dresses. After she had well scolded her servant she gave

her presents or sent her out to see neighbours, just as she

sometimes threw beggars all the silver in her purse, although she

was by no means tender-hearted or easily accessible to the

feelings of others, like most country-bred people, who always

retain in their souls something of the horny hardness of the

paternal hands.

Towards the end of February old Rouault, in memory of his cure,

himself brought his son-in-law a superb turkey, and stayed three

days at Tostes. Charles being with his patients, Emma kept him

company. He smoked in the room, spat on the firedogs, talked

farming, calves, cows, poultry, and municipal council, so that

when he left she closed the door on him with a feeling of

satisfaction that surprised even herself. Moreover she no longer

concealed her contempt for anything or anybody, and at times she

set herself to express singular opinions, finding fault with that

which others approved, and approving things perverse and immoral,

all of which made her husband open his eyes widely.

Would this misery last for ever? Would she never issue from it?

Yet she was as good as all the women who were living happily. She

had seen duchesses at Vaubyessard with clumsier waists and

commoner ways, and she execrated the injustice of God. She leant

her head against the walls to weep; she envied lives of stir;

longed for masked balls, for violent pleasures, with all the

wildness that she did not know, but that these must surely yield.

She grew pale and suffered from palpitations of the heart.

Charles prescribed valerian and camphor baths. Everything that

was tried only seemed to irritate her the more.

On certain days she chatted with feverish rapidity, and this

over-excitement was suddenly followed by a state of torpor, in

which she remained without speaking, without moving. What then

revived her was pouring a bottle of eau-de-cologne over her arms.

As she was constantly complaining about Tostes, Charles fancied

that her illness was no doubt due to some local cause, and fixing

on this idea, began to think seriously of setting up elsewhere.

From that moment she drank vinegar, contracted a sharp little

cough, and completely lost her appetite.

It cost Charles much to give up Tostes after living there four

years and "when he was beginning to get on there." Yet if it must

be! He took her to Rouen to see his old master. It was a nervous

complaint: change of air was needed.

After looking about him on this side and on that, Charles learnt

that in the Neufchatel arrondissement there was a considerable

market town called Yonville-l'Abbaye, whose doctor, a Polish

refugee, had decamped a week before. Then he wrote to the chemist

of the place to ask the number of the population, the distance

from the nearest doctor, what his predecessor had made a year,

and so forth; and the answer being satisfactory, he made up his

mind to move towards the spring, if Emma's health did not

improve.

One day when, in view of her departure, she was tidying a drawer,

something pricked her finger. It was a wire of her wedding

bouquet. The orange blossoms were yellow with dust and the silver

bordered satin ribbons frayed at the edges. She threw it into the

fire. It flared up more quickly than dry straw. Then it was, like

a red bush in the cinders, slowly devoured. She watched it burn.

The little pasteboard berries burst, the wire twisted, the gold

lace melted; and the shriveled paper corollas, fluttering like

black butterflies at the back of the stove, at least flew up the

chimney.

When they left Tostes at the month of March, Madame Bovary was

pregnant.

Part II

Chapter One

Yonville-l'Abbaye (so called from an old Capuchin abbey of which

not even the ruins remain) is a market-town twenty-four miles

from Rouen, between the Abbeville and Beauvais roads, at the foot

of a valley watered by the Rieule, a little river that runs into

the Andelle after turning three water-mills near its mouth, where

there are a few trout that the lads amuse themselves by fishing

for on Sundays.

We leave the highroad at La Boissiere and keep straight on to the

top of the Leux hill, whence the valley is seen. The river that

runs through it makes of it, as it were, two regions with

distinct physiognomies--all on the left is pasture land, all of

the right arable. The meadow stretches under a bulge of low hills

to join at the back with the pasture land of the Bray country,

while on the eastern side, the plain, gently rising, broadens

out, showing as far as eye can follow its blond cornfields. The

water, flowing by the grass, divides with a white line the colour

of the roads and of the plains, and the country is like a great

unfolded mantle with a green velvet cape bordered with a fringe

of silver.

Before us, on the verge of the horizon, lie the oaks of the

forest of Argueil, with the steeps of the Saint-Jean hills

scarred from top to bottom with red irregular lines; they are

rain tracks, and these brick-tones standing out in narrow streaks

against the grey colour of the mountain are due to the quantity

of iron springs that flow beyond in the neighboring country.

Here we are on the confines of Normandy, Picardy, and the

Ile-de-France, a bastard land whose language is without accent

and its landscape is without character. It is there that they

make the worst Neufchatel cheeses of all the arrondissement; and,

on the other hand, farming is costly because so much manure is

needed to enrich this friable soil full of sand and flints.

Up to 1835 there was no practicable road for getting to Yonville,

but about this time a cross-road was made which joins that of

Abbeville to that of Amiens, and is occasionally used by the

Rouen wagoners on their way to Flanders. Yonville-l'Abbaye has

remained stationary in spite of its "new outlet." Instead of

improving the soil, they persist in keeping up the pasture lands,

however depreciated they may be in value, and the lazy borough,

growing away from the plain, has naturally spread riverwards. It

is seem from afar sprawling along the banks like a cowherd taking

a siesta by the water-side.

At the foot of the hill beyond the bridge begins a roadway,

planted with young aspens, that leads in a straight line to the

first houses in the place. These, fenced in by hedges, are in the

middle of courtyards full of straggling buildings, wine-presses,

cart-sheds and distilleries scattered under thick trees, with

ladders, poles, or scythes hung on to the branches. The thatched

roofs, like fur caps drawn over eyes, reach down over about a

third of the low windows, whose coarse convex glasses have knots

in the middle like the bottoms of bottles. Against the plaster

wall diagonally crossed by black joists, a meagre pear-tree

sometimes leans and the ground-floors have at their door a small

swing-gate to keep out the chicks that come pilfering crumbs of

bread steeped in cider on the threshold. But the courtyards grow

narrower, the houses closer together, and the fences disappear; a

bundle of ferns swings under a window from the end of a

broomstick; there is a blacksmith's forge and then a

wheelwright's, with two or three new carts outside that partly

block the way. Then across an open space appears a white house

beyond a grass mound ornamented by a Cupid, his finger on his

lips; two brass vases are at each end of a flight of steps;

scutcheons* blaze upon the door. It is the notary's house, and

the finest in the place.

*The panonceaux that have to be hung over the doors of notaries.

The Church is on the other side of the street, twenty paces

farther down, at the entrance of the square. The little cemetery

that surrounds it, closed in by a wall breast high, is so full of

graves that the old stones, level with the ground, form a

continuous pavement, on which the grass of itself has marked out

regular green squares. The church was rebuilt during the last

years of the reign of Charles X. The wooden roof is beginning to

rot from the top, and here and there has black hollows in its

blue colour. Over the door, where the organ should be, is a loft

for the men, with a spiral staircase that reverberates under

their wooden shoes.

The daylight coming through the plain glass windows falls

obliquely upon the pews ranged along the walls, which are adorned

here and there with a straw mat bearing beneath it the words in

large letters, "Mr. So-and-so's pew." Farther on, at a spot where

the building narrows, the confessional forms a pendant to a

statuette of the Virgin, clothed in a satin robe, coifed with a

tulle veil sprinkled with silver stars, and with red cheeks, like

an idol of the Sandwich Islands; and, finally, a copy of the

"Holy Family, presented by the Minister of the Interior,"

overlooking the high altar, between four candlesticks, closes in

the perspective. The choir stalls, of deal wood, have been left

unpainted.

The market, that is to say, a tiled roof supported by some twenty

posts, occupies of itself about half the public square of

Yonville. The town hall, constructed "from the designs of a Paris

architect," is a sort of Greek temple that forms the corner next

to the chemist's shop. On the ground-floor are three Ionic

columns and on the first floor a semicircular gallery, while the

dome that crowns it is occupied by a Gallic cock, resting one

foot upon the "Charte" and holding in the other the scales of

Justice.

But that which most attracts the eye is opposite the Lion d'Or

inn, the chemist's shop of Monsieur Homais. In the evening

especially its argand lamp is lit up and the red and green jars

that embellish his shop-front throw far across the street their

two streams of colour; then across them as if in Bengal lights is

seen the shadow of the chemist leaning over his desk. His house

from top to bottom is placarded with inscriptions written in

large hand, round hand, printed hand: "Vichy, Seltzer, Barege

waters, blood purifiers, Raspail patent medicine, Arabian

racahout, Darcet lozenges, Regnault paste, trusses, baths,

hygienic chocolate," etc. And the signboard, which takes up all

the breadth of the shop, bears in gold letters, "Homais,

Chemist." Then at the back of the shop, behind the great scales

fixed to the counter, the word "Laboratory" appears on a scroll

above a glass door, which about half-way up once more repeats

"Homais" in gold letters on a black ground.

Beyond this there is nothing to see at Yonville. The street (the

only one) a gunshot in length and flanked by a few shops on

either side stops short at the turn of the highroad. If it is

left on the right hand and the foot of the Saint-Jean hills

followed the cemetery is soon reached.

At the time of the cholera, in order to enlarge this, a piece of

wall was pulled down, and three acres of land by its side

purchased; but all the new portion is almost tenantless; the

tombs, as heretofore, continue to crowd together towards the

gate. The keeper, who is at once gravedigger and church beadle

(thus making a double profit out of the parish corpses), has

taken advantage of the unused plot of ground to plant potatoes

there. From year to year, however, his small field grows smaller,

and when there is an epidemic, he does not know whether to

rejoice at the deaths or regret the burials.

"You live on the dead, Lestiboudois!" the curie at last said to

him one day. This grim remark made him reflect; it checked him

for some time; but to this day he carries on the cultivation of

his little tubers, and even maintains stoutly that they grow

naturally.

Since the events about to be narrated, nothing in fact has

changed at Yonville. The tin tricolour flag still swings at the

top of the church-steeple; the two chintz streamers still flutter

in the wind from the linen-draper's; the chemist's fetuses, like

lumps of white amadou, rot more and more in their turbid alcohol,

and above the big door of the inn the old golden lion, faded by

rain, still shows passers-by its poodle mane.

On the evening when the Bovarys were to arrive at Yonville, Widow

Lefrancois, the landlady of this inn, was so very busy that she

sweated great drops as she moved her saucepans. To-morrow was

market-day. The meat had to be cut beforehand, the fowls drawn,

the soup and coffee made. Moreover, she had the boarders' meal to

see to, and that of the doctor, his wife, and their servant; the

billiard-room was echoing with bursts of laughter; three millers

in a small parlour were calling for brandy; the wood was blazing,

the brazen pan was hissing, and on the long kitchen table, amid

the quarters of raw mutton, rose piles of plates that rattled

with the shaking of the block on which spinach was being chopped.

From the poultry-yard was heard the screaming of the fowls whom

the servant was chasing in order to wring their necks.

A man slightly marked with small-pox, in green leather slippers,

and wearing a velvet cap with a gold tassel, was warming his back

at the chimney. His face expressed nothing but self-satisfaction,

and he appeared to take life as calmly as the goldfinch suspended

over his head in its wicker cage: this was the chemist.

"Artemise!" shouted the landlady, "chop some wood, fill the water

bottles, bring some brandy, look sharp! If only I knew what

dessert to offer the guests you are expecting! Good heavens!

Those furniture-movers are beginning their racket in the

billiard-room again; and their van has been left before the front

door! The 'Hirondelle' might run into it when it draws up. Call

Polyte and tell him to put it up. Only think, Monsieur Homais,

that since morning they have had about fifteen games, and drunk

eight jars of cider! Why, they'll tear my cloth for me," she went

on, looking at them from a distance, her strainer in her hand.

"That wouldn't be much of a loss," replied Monsieur Homais. "You

would buy another."

"Another billiard-table!" exclaimed the widow.

"Since that one is coming to pieces, Madame Lefrancois. I tell

you again you are doing yourself harm, much harm! And besides,

players now want narrow pockets and heavy cues. Hazards aren't

played now; everything is changed! One must keep pace with the

times! Just look at Tellier!"

The hostess reddened with vexation. The chemist went on--

"You may say what you like; his table is better than yours; and

if one were to think, for example, of getting up a patriotic pool

for Poland or the sufferers from the Lyons floods--"

"It isn't beggars like him that'll frighten us," interrupted the

landlady, shrugging her fat shoulders. "Come, come, Monsieur

Homais; as long as the 'Lion d'Or' exists people will come to it.

We've feathered our nest; while one of these days you'll find the

'Cafe Francais' closed with a big placard on the shutters. Change

my billiard-table!" she went on, speaking to herself, "the table

that comes in so handy for folding the washing, and on which, in

the hunting season, I have slept six visitors! But that dawdler,

Hivert, doesn't come!"

"Are you waiting for him for your gentlemen's dinner?"

"Wait for him! And what about Monsieur Binet? As the clock

strikes six you'll see him come in, for he hasn't his equal under

the sun for punctuality. He must always have his seat in the

small parlour. He'd rather die than dine anywhere else. And so

squeamish as he is, and so particular about the cider! Not like

Monsieur Leon; he sometimes comes at seven, or even half-past,

and he doesn't so much as look at what he eats. Such a nice young

man! Never speaks a rough word!"

"Well, you see, there's a great difference between an educated

man and an old carabineer who is now a tax-collector."

Six o'clock struck. Binet came in.

He wore a blue frock-coat falling in a straight line round his

thin body, and his leather cap, with its lappets knotted over the

top of his head with string, showed under the turned-up peak a

bald forehead, flattened by the constant wearing of a helmet. He

wore a black cloth waistcoat, a hair collar, grey trousers, and,

all the year round, well-blacked boots, that had two parallel

swellings due to the sticking out of his big-toes. Not a hair

stood out from the regular line of fair whiskers, which,

encircling his jaws, framed, after the fashion of a garden

border, his long, wan face, whose eyes were small and the nose

hooked. Clever at all games of cards, a good hunter, and writing

a fine hand, he had at home a lathe, and amused himself by

turning napkin rings, with which he filled up his house, with the

jealousy of an artist and the egotism of a bourgeois.

He went to the small parlour, but the three millers had to be got

out first, and during the whole time necessary for laying the

cloth, Binet remained silent in his place near the stove. Then he

shut the door and took off his cap in his usual way.

"It isn't with saying civil things that he'll wear out his

tongue," said the chemist, as soon as he was along with the

landlady.

"He never talks more," she replied. "Last week two travelers in

the cloth line were here--such clever chaps who told such jokes

in the evening, that I fairly cried with laughing; and he stood

there like a dab fish and never said a word."

"Yes," observed the chemist; "no imagination, no sallies, nothing

that makes the society-man."

"Yet they say he has parts," objected the landlady.

"Parts!" replied Monsieur Homais; "he, parts! In his own line it

is possible," he added in a calmer tone. And he went on--

"Ah! That a merchant, who has large connections, a jurisconsult,

a doctor, a chemist, should be thus absent-minded, that they

should become whimsical or even peevish, I can understand; such

cases are cited in history. But at least it is because they are

thinking of something. Myself, for example, how often has it

happened to me to look on the bureau for my pen to write a label,

and to find, after all, that I had put it behind my ear!"

Madame Lefrancois just then went to the door to see if the

"Hirondelle" were not coming. She started. A man dressed in black

suddenly came into the kitchen. By the last gleam of the twilight

one could see that his face was rubicund and his form athletic.

"What can I do for you, Monsieur le Curie?" asked the landlady,

as she reached down from the chimney one of the copper

candlesticks placed with their candles in a row. "Will you take

something? A thimbleful of Cassis*? A glass of wine?"

*Black currant liqueur.

The priest declined very politely. He had come for his umbrella,

that he had forgotten the other day at the Ernemont convent, and

after asking Madame Lefrancois to have it sent to him at the

presbytery in the evening, he left for the church, from which the

Angelus was ringing.

When the chemist no longer heard the noise of his boots along the

square, he thought the priest's behaviour just now very

unbecoming. This refusal to take any refreshment seemed to him

the most odious hypocrisy; all priests tippled on the sly, and

were trying to bring back the days of the tithe.

The landlady took up the defence of her curie.

"Besides, he could double up four men like you over his knee.

Last year he helped our people to bring in the straw; he carried

as many as six trusses at once, he is so strong."

"Bravo!" said the chemist. "Now just send your daughters to

confess to fellows which such a temperament! I, if I were the

Government, I'd have the priests bled once a month. Yes, Madame

Lefrancois, every month--a good phlebotomy, in the interests of

the police and morals."

"Be quiet, Monsieur Homais. You are an infidel; you've no

religion."

The chemist answered: "I have a religion, my religion, and I even

have more than all these others with their mummeries and their

juggling. I adore God, on the contrary. I believe in the Supreme

Being, in a Creator, whatever he may be. I care little who has

placed us here below to fulfil our duties as citizens and fathers

of families; but I don't need to go to church to kiss silver

plates, and fatten, out of my pocket, a lot of good-for-nothings

who live better than we do. For one can know Him as well in a

wood, in a field, or even contemplating the eternal vault like

the ancients. My God! Mine is the God of Socrates, of Franklin,

of Voltaire, and of Beranger! I am for the profession of faith of

the 'Savoyard Vicar,' and the immortal principles of '89! And I

can't admit of an old boy of a God who takes walks in his garden

with a cane in his hand, who lodges his friends in the belly of

whales, dies uttering a cry, and rises again at the end of three

days; things absurd in themselves, and completely opposed,

moreover, to all physical laws, which prove to us, by the way,

that priests have always wallowed in turpid ignorance, in which

they would fain engulf the people with them."

He ceased, looking round for an audience, for in his bubbling

over the chemist had for a moment fancied himself in the midst of

the town council. But the landlady no longer heeded him; she was

listening to a distant rolling. One could distinguish the noise

of a carriage mingled with the clattering of loose horseshoes

that beat against the ground, and at last the "Hirondelle"

stopped at the door.

It was a yellow box on two large wheels, that, reaching to the

tilt, prevented travelers from seeing the road and dirtied their

shoulders. The small panes of the narrow windows rattled in their

sashes when the coach was closed, and retained here and there

patches of mud amid the old layers of dust, that not even storms

of rain had altogether washed away. It was drawn by three horses,

the first a leader, and when it came down-hill its bottom jolted

against the ground.

Some of the inhabitants of Yonville came out into the square;

they all spoke at once, asking for news, for explanations, for

hampers. Hivert did not know whom to answer. It was he who did

the errands of the place in town. He went to the shops and

brought back rolls of leather for the shoemaker, old iron for the

farrier, a barrel of herrings for his mistress, caps from the

milliner's, locks from the hair-dresser's and all along the road

on his return journey he distributed his parcels, which he threw,

standing upright on his seat and shouting at the top of his

voice, over the enclosures of the yards.

An accident had delayed him. Madame Bovary's greyhound had run

across the field. They had whistled for him a quarter of an hour;

Hivert had even gone back a mile and a half expecting every

moment to catch sight of her; but it had been necessary to go on.

Emma had wept, grown angry; she had accused Charles of this

misfortune. Monsieur Lheureux, a draper, who happened to be in

the coach with her, had tried to console her by a number of

examples of lost dogs recognizing their masters at the end of

long years. One, he said had been told of, who had come back to

Paris from Constantinople. Another had gone one hundred and fifty

miles in a straight line, and swum four rivers; and his own

father had possessed a poodle, which, after twelve years of

absence, had all of a sudden jumped on his back in the street as

he was going to dine in town.

Chapter Two

Emma got out first, then Felicite, Monsieur Lheureux, and a

nurse, and they had to wake up Charles in his corner, where he

had slept soundly since night set in.

Homais introduced himself; he offered his homages to madame and

his respects to monsieur; said he was charmed to have been able

to render them some slight service, and added with a cordial air

that he had ventured to invite himself, his wife being away.

When Madame Bovary was in the kitchen she went up to the chimney.

With the tips of her fingers she caught her dress at the knee,

and having thus pulled it up to her ankle, held out her foot in

its black boot to the fire above the revolving leg of mutton. The

flame lit up the whole of her, penetrating with a crude light the

woof of her gowns, the fine pores of her fair skin, and even her

eyelids, which she blinked now and again. A great red glow passed

over her with the blowing of the wind through the half-open door.

On the other side of the chimney a young man with fair hair

watched her silently.

As he was a good deal bored at Yonville, where he was a clerk at

the notary's, Monsieur Guillaumin, Monsieur Leon Dupuis (it was

he who was the second habitue of the "Lion d'Or") frequently put

back his dinner-hour in hope that some traveler might come to the

inn, with whom he could chat in the evening. On the days when his

work was done early, he had, for want of something else to do, to

come punctually, and endure from soup to cheese a tete-a-tete

with Binet. It was therefore with delight that he accepted the

landlady's suggestion that he should dine in company with the

newcomers, and they passed into the large parlour where Madame

Lefrancois, for the purpose of showing off, had had the table

laid for four.

Homais asked to be allowed to keep on his skull-cap, for fear of

coryza; then, turning to his neighbour--

"Madame is no doubt a little fatigued; one gets jolted so

abominably in our 'Hirondelle.'"

"That is true," replied Emma; "but moving about always amuses me.

I like change of place."

"It is so tedious," sighed the clerk, "to be always riveted to

the same places."

"If you were like me," said Charles, "constantly obliged to be in

the saddle"--

"But," Leon went on, addressing himself to Madame Bovary,

"nothing, it seems to me, is more pleasant--when one can," he

added.

"Moreover," said the druggist, "the practice of medicine is not

very hard work in our part of the world, for the state of our

roads allows us the use of gigs, and generally, as the farmers

are prosperous, they pay pretty well. We have, medically

speaking, besides the ordinary cases of enteritis, bronchitis,

bilious affections, etc., now and then a few intermittent fevers

at harvest-time; but on the whole, little of a serious nature,

nothing special to note, unless it be a great deal of scrofula,

due, no doubt, to the deplorable hygienic conditions of our

peasant dwellings. Ah! you will find many prejudices to combat,

Monsieur Bovary, much obstinacy of routine, with which all the

efforts of your science will daily come into collision; for

people still have recourse to novenas, to relics, to the priest,

rather than come straight to the doctor or the chemist. The

climate, however, is not, truth to tell, bad, and we even have a

few nonagenarians in our parish. The thermometer (I have made

some observations) falls in winter to 4 degrees Centigrade at the

outside, which gives us 24 degrees Reaumur as the maximum, or

otherwise 54 degrees Fahrenheit (English scale), not more. And,

as a matter of fact, we are sheltered from the north winds by the

forest of Argueil on the one side, from the west winds by the St.

Jean range on the other; and this heat, moreover, which, on

account of the aqueous vapours given off by the river and the

considerable number of cattle in the fields, which, as you know,

exhale much ammonia, that is to say, nitrogen, hydrogen and

oxygen (no, nitrogen and hydrogen alone), and which sucking up

into itself the humus from the ground, mixing together all those

different emanations, unites them into a stack, so to say, and

combining with the electricity diffused through the atmosphere,

when there is any, might in the long run, as in tropical

countries, engender insalubrious miasmata--this heat, I say,

finds itself perfectly tempered on the side whence it comes, or

rather whence it should come--that is to say, the southern side--

by the south-eastern winds, which, having cooled themselves

passing over the Seine, reach us sometimes all at once like

breezes from Russia."

"At any rate, you have some walks in the neighbourhood?"

continued Madame Bovary, speaking to the young man.

"Oh, very few," he answered. "There is a place they call La

Pature, on the top of the hill, on the edge of the forest.

Sometimes, on Sundays, I go and stay there with a book, watching

the sunset."

"I think there is nothing so admirable as sunsets," she resumed;

"but especially by the side of the sea."

"Oh, I adore the sea!" said Monsieur Leon.

"And then, does it not seem to you," continued Madame Bovary,

"that the mind travels more freely on this limitless expanse, the

contemplation of which elevates the soul, gives ideas of the

infinite, the ideal?"

"It is the same with mountainous landscapes," continued Leon. "A

cousin of mine who travelled in Switzerland last year told me

that one could not picture to oneself the poetry of the lakes,

the charm of the waterfalls, the gigantic effect of the glaciers.

One sees pines of incredible size across torrents, cottages

suspended over precipices, and, a thousand feet below one, whole

valleys when the clouds open. Such spectacles must stir to

enthusiasm, incline to prayer, to ecstasy; and I no longer marvel

at that celebrated musician who, the better to inspire his

imagination, was in the habit of playing the piano before some

imposing site."

"You play?" she asked.

"No, but I am very fond of music," he replied.

"Ah! don't you listen to him, Madame Bovary," interrupted Homais,

bending over his plate. "That's sheer modesty. Why, my dear

fellow, the other day in your room you were singing 'L'Ange

Gardien' ravishingly. I heard you from the laboratory. You gave

it like an actor."

Leon, in fact, lodged at the chemist's where he had a small room

on the second floor, overlooking the Place. He blushed at the

compliment of his landlord, who had already turned to the doctor,

and was enumerating to him, one after the other, all the

principal inhabitants of Yonville. He was telling anecdotes,

giving information; the fortune of the notary was not known

exactly, and "there was the Tuvache household," who made a good

deal of show.

Emma continued, "And what music do you prefer?"

"Oh, German music; that which makes you dream."

"Have you been to the opera?"

"Not yet; but I shall go next year, when I am living at Paris to

finish reading for the bar."

"As I had the honour of putting it to your husband," said the

chemist, "with regard to this poor Yanoda who has run away, you

will find yourself, thanks to his extravagance, in the possession

of one of the most comfortable houses of Yonville. Its greatest

convenience for a doctor is a door giving on the Walk, where one

can go in and out unseen. Moreover, it contains everything that

is agreeable in a household--a laundry, kitchen with offices,

sitting-room, fruit-room, and so on. He was a gay dog, who didn't

care what he spent. At the end of the garden, by the side of the

water, he had an arbour built just for the purpose of drinking

beer in summer; and if madame is fond of gardening she will be

able--"

"My wife doesn't care about it," said Charles; "although she has

been advised to take exercise, she prefers always sitting in her

room reading."

"Like me," replied Leon. "And indeed, what is better than to sit

by one's fireside in the evening with a book, while the wind

beats against the window and the lamp is burning?"

"What, indeed?" she said, fixing her large black eyes wide open

upon him.

"One thinks of nothing," he continued; "the hours slip by.

Motionless we traverse countries we fancy we see, and your

thought, blending with the fiction, playing with the details,

follows the outline of the adventures. It mingles with the

characters, and it seems as if it were yourself palpitating

beneath their costumes."

"That is true! That is true?" she said.

"Has it ever happened to you," Leon went on, "to come across some

vague idea of one's own in a book, some dim image that comes back

to you from afar, and as the completest expression of your own

slightest sentiment?"

"I have experienced it," she replied.

"That is why," he said, "I especially love the poets. I think

verse more tender than prose, and that it moves far more easily

to tears."

"Still in the long run it is tiring," continued Emma. Now I, on

the contrary, adore stories that rush breathlessly along, that

frighten one. I detest commonplace heroes and moderate

sentiments, such as there are in nature."

"In fact," observed the clerk, "these works, not touching the

heart, miss, it seems to me, the true end of art. It is so sweet,

amid all the disenchantments of life, to be able to dwell in

thought upon noble characters, pure affections, and pictures of

happiness. For myself, living here far from the world, this is my

one distraction; but Yonville affords so few resources."

"Like Tostes, no doubt," replied Emma; "and so I always

subscribed to a lending library."

"If madame will do me the honour of making use of it", said the

chemist, who had just caught the last words, "I have at her

disposal a library composed of the best authors, Voltaire,

Rousseau, Delille, Walter Scott, the 'Echo des Feuilletons'; and

in addition I receive various periodicals, among them the 'Fanal

de Rouen' daily, having the advantage to be its correspondent for

the districts of Buchy, Forges, Neufchatel, Yonville, and

vicinity."

For two hours and a half they had been at table; for the servant

Artemis, carelessly dragging her old list slippers over the

flags, brought one plate after the other, forgot everything, and

constantly left the door of the billiard-room half open, so that

it beat against the wall with its hooks.

Unconsciously, Leon, while talking, had placed his foot on one of

the bars of the chair on which Madame Bovary was sitting. She

wore a small blue silk necktie, that kept up like a ruff a

gauffered cambric collar, and with the movements of her head the

lower part of her face gently sunk into the linen or came out

from it. Thus side by side, while Charles and the chemist

chatted, they entered into one of those vague conversations where

the hazard of all that is said brings you back to the fixed

centre of a common sympathy. The Paris theatres, titles of

novels, new quadrilles, and the world they did not know; Tostes,

where she had lived, and Yonville, where they were; they examined

all, talked of everything till to the end of dinner.

When coffee was served Felicite went away to get ready the room

in the new house, and the guests soon raised the siege. Madame

Lefrancois was asleep near the cinders, while the stable-boy,

lantern in hand, was waiting to show Monsieur and Madame Bovary

the way home. Bits of straw stuck in his red hair, and he limped

with his left leg. When he had taken in his other hand the cure's

umbrella, they started.

The town was asleep; the pillars of the market threw great

shadows; the earth was all grey as on a summer's night. But as

the doctor's house was only some fifty paces from the inn, they

had to say good-night almost immediately, and the company

dispersed.

As soon as she entered the passage, Emma felt the cold of the

plaster fall about her shoulders like damp linen. The walls were

new and the wooden stairs creaked. In their bedroom, on the first

floor, a whitish light passed through the curtainless windows.

She could catch glimpses of tree tops, and beyond, the fields,

half-drowned in the fog that lay reeking in the moonlight along

the course of the river. In the middle of the room, pell-mell,

were scattered drawers, bottles, curtain-rods, gilt poles, with

mattresses on the chairs and basins on the ground--the two men

who had brought the furniture had left everything about

carelessly.

This was the fourth time that she had slept in a strange place.

The first was the day of her going to the convent; the second, of

her arrival at Tostes; the third, at Vaubyessard; and this was

the fourth. And each one had marked, as it were, the inauguration

of a new phase in her life. She did not believe that things could

present themselves in the same way in different places, and since

the portion of her life lived had been bad, no doubt that which

remained to be lived would be better.

Chapter Three

The next day, as she was getting up, she saw the clerk on the

Place. She had on a dressing-gown. He looked up and bowed. She

nodded quickly and reclosed the window.

Leon waited all day for six o'clock in the evening to come, but

on going to the inn, he found no one but Monsieur Binet, already

at table. The dinner of the evening before had been a

considerable event for him; he had never till then talked for two

hours consecutively to a "lady." How then had he been able to

explain, and in such language, the number of things that he could

not have said so well before? He was usually shy, and maintained

that reserve which partakes at once of modesty and dissimulation.

At Yonville he was considered "well-bred." He listened to the

arguments of the older people, and did not seem hot about

politics--a remarkable thing for a young man. Then he had some

accomplishments; he painted in water-colours, could read the key

of G, and readily talked literature after dinner when he did not

play cards. Monsieur Homais respected him for his education;

Madame Homais liked him for his good-nature, for he often took

the little Homais into the garden--little brats who were always

dirty, very much spoilt, and somewhat lymphatic, like their

mother. Besides the servant to look after them, they had Justin,

the chemist's apprentice, a second cousin of Monsieur Homais, who

had been taken into the house from charity, and who was useful at

the same time as a servant.

The druggist proved the best of neighbours. He gave Madame Bovary

information as to the trades-people, sent expressly for his own

cider merchant, tasted the drink himself, and saw that the casks

were properly placed in the cellar; he explained how to set about

getting in a supply of butter cheap, and made an arrangement with

Lestiboudois, the sacristan, who, besides his sacerdotal and

funeral functions, looked after the principal gardens at Yonville

by the hour or the year, according to the taste of the customers.

The need of looking after others was not the only thing that

urged the chemist to such obsequious cordiality; there was a plan

underneath it all.

He had infringed the law of the 19th Ventose, year xi., article

I, which forbade all persons not having a diploma to practise

medicine; so that, after certain anonymous denunciations, Homais

had been summoned to Rouen to see the procurer of the king in his

own private room; the magistrate receiving him standing up,

ermine on shoulder and cap on head. It was in the morning, before

the court opened. In the corridors one heard the heavy boots of

the gendarmes walking past, and like a far-off noise great locks

that were shut. The druggist's ears tingled as if he were about

to have an apoplectic stroke; he saw the depths of dungeons, his

family in tears, his shop sold, all the jars dispersed; and he

was obliged to enter a cafe and take a glass of rum and seltzer

to recover his spirits.

Little by little the memory of this reprimand grew fainter, and

he continued, as heretofore, to give anodyne consultations in his

back-parlour. But the mayor resented it, his colleagues were

jealous, everything was to be feared; gaining over Monsieur

Bovary by his attentions was to earn his gratitude, and prevent

his speaking out later on, should he notice anything. So every

morning Homais brought him "the paper," and often in the

afternoon left his shop for a few moments to have a chat with the

Doctor.

Charles was dull: patients did not come. He remained seated for

hours without speaking, went into his consulting room to sleep,

or watched his wife sewing. Then for diversion he employed

himself at home as a workman; he even tried to do up the attic

with some paint which had been left behind by the painters. But

money matters worried him. He had spent so much for repairs at

Tostes, for madame's toilette, and for the moving, that the whole

dowry, over three thousand crowns, had slipped away in two years.

Then how many things had been spoilt or lost during their

carriage from Tostes to Yonville, without counting the plaster

cure, who falling out of the coach at an over-severe jolt, had

been dashed into a thousand fragments on the pavements of

Quincampoix! A pleasanter trouble came to distract him, namely,

the pregnancy of his wife. As the time of her confinement

approached he cherished her the more. It was another bond of the

flesh establishing itself, and, as it were, a continued sentiment

of a more complex union. When from afar he saw her languid walk,

and her figure without stays turning softly on her hips; when

opposite one another he looked at her at his ease, while she took

tired poses in her armchair, then his happiness knew no bounds;

he got up, embraced her, passed his hands over her face, called

her little mamma, wanted to make her dance, and half-laughing,

half-crying, uttered all kinds of caressing pleasantries that

came into his head. The idea of having begotten a child delighted

him. Now he wanted nothing. He knew human life from end to end,

and he sat down to it with serenity.

Emma at first felt a great astonishment; then was anxious to be

delivered that she might know what it was to be a mother. But not

being able to spend as much as she would have liked, to have a

swing-bassinette with rose silk curtains, and embroidered caps,

in a fit of bitterness she gave up looking after the trousseau,

and ordered the whole of it from a village needlewoman, without

choosing or discussing anything. Thus she did not amuse herself

with those preparations that stimulate the tenderness of mothers,

and so her affection was from the very outset, perhaps, to some

extent attenuated.

As Charles, however, spoke of the boy at every meal, she soon

began to think of him more consecutively.

She hoped for a son; he would be strong and dark; she would call

him George; and this idea of having a male child was like an

expected revenge for all her impotence in the past. A man, at

least, is free; he may travel over passions and over countries,

overcome obstacles, taste of the most far-away pleasures. But a

woman is always hampered. At once inert and flexible, she has

against her the weakness of the flesh and legal dependence. Her

will, like the veil of her bonnet, held by a string, flutters in

every wind; there is always some desire that draws her, some

conventionality that restrains.

She was confined on a Sunday at about six o'clock, as the sun was

rising.

"It is a girl!" said Charles.

She turned her head away and fainted.

Madame Homais, as well as Madame Lefrancois of the Lion d'Or,

almost immediately came running in to embrace her. The chemist,

as man of discretion, only offered a few provincial felicitations

through the half-opened door. He wished to see the child and

thought it well made.

Whilst she was getting well she occupied herself much in seeking

a name for her daughter. First she went over all those that have

Italian endings, such as Clara, Louisa, Amanda, Atala; she liked

Galsuinde pretty well, and Yseult or Leocadie still better.

Charles wanted the child to be called after her mother; Emma

opposed this. They ran over the calendar from end to end, and

then consulted outsiders.

"Monsieur Leon," said the chemist, "with whom I was talking about

it the other day, wonders you do not chose Madeleine. It is very

much in fashion just now."

But Madame Bovary, senior, cried out loudly against this name of

a sinner. As to Monsieur Homais, he had a preference for all

those that recalled some great man, an illustrious fact, or a

generous idea, and it was on this system that he had baptized his

four children. Thus Napoleon represented glory and Franklin

liberty; Irma was perhaps a concession to romanticism, but

Athalie was a homage to the greatest masterpiece of the French

stage. For his philosophical convictions did not interfere with

his artistic tastes; in him the thinker did not stifle the man of

sentiment; he could make distinctions, make allowances for

imagination and fanaticism. In this tragedy, for example, he

found fault with the ideas, but admired the style; he detested

the conception, but applauded all the details, and loathed the

characters while he grew enthusiastic over their dialogue. When

he read the fine passages he was transported, but when he thought

that mummers would get something out of them for their show, he

was disconsolate; and in this confusion of sentiments in which he

was involved he would have liked at once to crown Racine with both

his hands and discuss with him for a good quarter of an hour.

At last Emma remembered that at the chateau of Vaubyessard she

had heard the Marchioness call a young lady Berthe; from that

moment this name was chosen; and as old Rouault could not come,

Monsieur Homais was requested to stand godfather. His gifts were

all products from his establishment, to wit: six boxes of

jujubes, a whole jar of racahout, three cakes of marshmallow

paste, and six sticks of sugar-candy into the bargain that he had

come across in a cupboard. On the evening of the ceremony there

was a grand dinner; the cure was present; there was much

excitement. Monsieur Homais towards liqueur-time began singing

"Le Dieu des bonnes gens." Monsieur Leon sang a barcarolle, and

Madame Bovary, senior, who was godmother, a romance of the time

of the Empire; finally, M. Bovary, senior, insisted on having the

child brought down, and began baptizing it with a glass of

champagne that he poured over its head. This mockery of the first

of the sacraments made the Abbe Bournisien angry; old Bovary

replied by a quotation from "La Guerre des Dieux"; the cure

wanted to leave; the ladies implored, Homais interfered; and they

succeeded in making the priest sit down again, and he quietly

went on with the half-finished coffee in his saucer.

Monsieur Bovary, senior, stayed at Yonville a month, dazzling the

natives by a superb policeman's cap with silver tassels that he

wore in the morning when he smoked his pipe in the square. Being

also in the habit of drinking a good deal of brandy, he often

sent the servant to the Lion d'Or to buy him a bottle, which was

put down to his son's account, and to perfume his handkerchiefs

he used up his daughter-in-law's whole supply of eau-de-cologne.

The latter did not at all dislike his company. He had knocked

about the world, he talked about Berlin, Vienna, and Strasbourg,

of his soldier times, of the mistresses he had had, the grand

luncheons of which he had partaken; then he was amiable, and

sometimes even, either on the stairs, or in the garden, would

seize hold of her waist, crying, "Charles, look out for

yourself."

Then Madame Bovary, senior, became alarmed for her son's

happiness, and fearing that her husband might in the long-run

have an immoral influence upon the ideas of the young woman, took

care to hurry their departure. Perhaps she had more serious

reasons for uneasiness. Monsieur Bovary was not the man to

respect anything.

One day Emma was suddenly seized with the desire to see her

little girl, who had been put to nurse with the carpenter's wife,

and, without looking at the calendar to see whether the six weeks

of the Virgin were yet passed, she set out for the Rollets'

house, situated at the extreme end of the village, between the

highroad and the fields.

It was mid-day, the shutters of the houses were closed and the

slate roofs that glittered beneath the fierce light of the blue

sky seemed to strike sparks from the crest of the gables. A heavy

wind was blowing; Emma felt weak as she walked; the stones of the

pavement hurt her; she was doubtful whether she would not go home

again, or go in somewhere to rest.

At this moment Monsieur Leon came out from a neighbouring door

with a bundle of papers under his arm. He came to greet her, and

stood in the shade in front of the Lheureux's shop under the

projecting grey awning.

Madame Bovary said she was going to see her baby, but that she

was beginning to grow tired.

"If--" said Leon, not daring to go on.

"Have you any business to attend to?" she asked.

And on the clerk's answer, she begged him to accompany her. That

same evening this was known in Yonville, and Madame Tuvache, the

mayor's wife, declared in the presence of her servant that

"Madame Bovary was compromising herself."

To get to the nurse's it was necessary to turn to the left on

leaving the street, as if making for the cemetery, and to follow

between little houses and yards a small path bordered with privet

hedges. They were in bloom, and so were the speedwells,

eglantines, thistles, and the sweetbriar that sprang up from the

thickets. Through openings in the hedges one could see into the

huts, some pigs on a dung-heap, or tethered cows rubbing their

horns against the trunk of trees. The two, side by side walked

slowly, she leaning upon him, and he restraining his pace, which

he regulated by hers; in front of them a swarm of midges

fluttered, buzzing in the warm air.

They recognized the house by an old walnut-tree which shaded it.

Low and covered with brown tiles, there hung outside it, beneath

the dormer-window of the garret, a string of onions. Faggots

upright against a thorn fence surrounded a bed of lettuce, a few

square feet of lavender, and sweet peas strung on sticks. Dirty

water was running here and there on the grass, and all round were

several indefinite rags, knitted stockings, a red calico jacket,

and a large sheet of coarse linen spread over the hedge. At the

noise of the gate the nurse appeared with a baby she was suckling

on one arm. With her other hand she was pulling along a poor puny

little fellow, his face covered with scrofula, the son of a Rouen

hosier, whom his parents, too taken up with their business, left

in the country.

"Go in," she said; "your little one is there asleep."

The room on the ground-floor, the only one in the dwelling, had

at its farther end, against the wall, a large bed without

curtains, while a kneading-trough took up the side by the window,

one pane of which was mended with a piece of blue paper. In the

corner behind the door, shining hob-nailed shoes stood in a row

under the slab of the washstand, near a bottle of oil with a

feather stuck in its mouth; a Matthieu Laensberg lay on the dusty

mantelpiece amid gunflints, candle-ends, and bits of amadou.

Finally, the last luxury in the apartment was a "Fame" blowing

her trumpets, a picture cut out, no doubt, from some perfumer's

prospectus and nailed to the wall with six wooden shoe-pegs.

Emma's child was asleep in a wicker-cradle. She took it up in the

wrapping that enveloped it and began singing softly as she rocked

herself to and fro.

Leon walked up and down the room; it seemed strange to him to see

this beautiful woman in her nankeen dress in the midst of all

this poverty. Madam Bovary reddened; he turned away, thinking

perhaps there had been an impertinent look in his eyes. Then she

put back the little girl, who had just been sick over her collar.

The nurse at once came to dry her, protesting that it wouldn't

show.

"She gives me other doses," she said: "I am always a-washing of

her. If you would have the goodness to order Camus, the grocer,

to let me have a little soap, it would really be more convenient

for you, as I needn't trouble you then."

"Very well! very well!" said Emma. "Good morning, Madame Rollet,"

and she went out, wiping her shoes at the door.

The good woman accompanied her to the end of the garden, talking

all the time of the trouble she had getting up of nights.

"I'm that worn out sometimes as I drop asleep on my chair. I'm

sure you might at least give me just a pound of ground coffee;

that'd last me a month, and I'd take it of a morning with some

milk."

After having submitted to her thanks, Madam Bovary left. She had

gone a little way down the path when, at the sound of wooden

shoes, she turned round. It was the nurse.

"What is it?"

Then the peasant woman, taking her aside behind an elm tree,

began talking to her of her husband, who with his trade and six

francs a year that the captain--

"Oh, be quick!" said Emma.

"Well," the nurse went on, heaving sighs between each word, "I'm

afraid he'll be put out seeing me have coffee alone, you know

men--"

"But you are to have some," Emma repeated; "I will give you some.

You bother me!"

"Oh, dear! my poor, dear lady! you see in consequence of his

wounds he has terrible cramps in the chest. He even says that

cider weakens him."

"Do make haste, Mere Rollet!"

"Well," the latter continued, making a curtsey, "if it weren't

asking too much," and she curtsied once more, "if you would"--and

her eyes begged--"a jar of brandy," she said at last, "and I'd

rub your little one's feet with it; they're as tender as one's

tongue."

Once rid of the nurse, Emma again took Monsieur Leon's arm. She

walked fast for some time, then more slowly, and looking straight

in front of her, her eyes rested on the shoulder of the young

man, whose frock-coat had a black-velvety collar. His brown hair

fell over it, straight and carefully arranged. She noticed his

nails which were longer than one wore them at Yonville. It was

one of the clerk's chief occupations to trim them, and for this

purpose he kept a special knife in his writing desk.

They returned to Yonville by the water-side. In the warm season

the bank, wider than at other times, showed to their foot the

garden walls whence a few steps led to the river. It flowed

noiselessly, swift, and cold to the eye; long, thin grasses

huddled together in it as the current drove them, and spread

themselves upon the limpid water like streaming hair; sometimes

at the tip of the reeds or on the leaf of a water-lily an insect

with fine legs crawled or rested. The sun pierced with a ray the

small blue bubbles of the waves that, breaking, followed each

other; branchless old willows mirrored their grey backs in the

water; beyond, all around, the meadows seemed empty. It was the

dinner-hour at the farms, and the young woman and her companion

heard nothing as they walked but the fall of their steps on the

earth of the path, the words they spoke, and the sound of Emma's

dress rustling round her.

The walls of the gardens with pieces of bottle on their coping

were hot as the glass windows of a conservatory. Wallflowers had

sprung up between the bricks, and with the tip of her open

sunshade Madame Bovary, as she passed, made some of their faded

flowers crumble into a yellow dust, or a spray of overhanging

honeysuckle and clematis caught in its fringe and dangled for a

moment over the silk.

They were talking of a troupe of Spanish dancers who were

expected shortly at the Rouen theatre.

"Are you going?" she asked.

"If I can," he answered.

Had they nothing else to say to one another? Yet their eyes were

full of more serious speech, and while they forced themselves to

find trivial phrases, they felt the same languor stealing over

them both. It was the whisper of the soul, deep, continuous,

dominating that of their voices. Surprised with wonder at this

strange sweetness, they did not think of speaking of the

sensation or of seeking its cause. Coming joys, like tropical

shores, throw over the immensity before them their inborn

softness, an odorous wind, and we are lulled by this intoxication

without a thought of the horizon that we do not even know.

In one place the ground had been trodden down by the cattle; they

had to step on large green stones put here and there in the mud.

She often stopped a moment to look where to place her foot, and

tottering on a stone that shook, her arms outspread, her form

bent forward with a look of indecision, she would laugh, afraid

of falling into the puddles of water.

When they arrived in front of her garden, Madame Bovary opened

the little gate, ran up the steps and disappeared.

Leon returned to his office. His chief was away; he just glanced

at the briefs, then cut himself a pen, and at last took up his

hat and went out.

He went to La Pature at the top of the Argueil hills at the

beginning of the forest; he threw himself upon the ground under

the pines and watched the sky through his fingers.

"How bored I am!" he said to himself, "how bored I am!"

He thought he was to be pitied for living in this village, with

Homais for a friend and Monsieru Guillaumin for master. The

latter, entirely absorbed by his business, wearing gold-rimmed

spectacles and red whiskers over a white cravat, understood

nothing of mental refinements, although he affected a stiff

English manner, which in the beginning had impressed the clerk.

As to the chemist's spouse, she was the best wife in Normandy,

gentle as a sheep, loving her children, her father, her mother,

her cousins, weeping for other's woes, letting everything go in

her household, and detesting corsets; but so slow of movement,

such a bore to listen to, so common in appearance, and of such

restricted conversation, that although she was thirty, he only

twenty, although they slept in rooms next each other and he spoke

to her daily, he never thought that she might be a woman for

another, or that she possessed anything else of her sex than the

gown.

And what else was there? Binet, a few shopkeepers, two or three

publicans, the cure, and finally, Monsieur Tuvache, the mayor,

with his two sons, rich, crabbed, obtuse persons, who farmed

their own lands and had feasts among themselves, bigoted to boot,

and quite unbearable companions.

But from the general background of all these human faces Emma's

stood out isolated and yet farthest off; for between her and him

he seemed to see a vague abyss.

In the beginning he had called on her several times along with

the druggist. Charles had not appeared particularly anxious to

see him again, and Leon did not know what to do between his fear

of being indiscreet and the desire for an intimacy that seemed

almost impossible.

Chapter Four

When the first cold days set in Emma left her bedroom for the

sitting-room, a long apartment with a low ceiling, in which there

was on the mantelpiece a large bunch of coral spread out against

the looking-glass. Seated in her arm chair near the window, she

could see the villagers pass along the pavement.

Twice a day Leon went from his office to the Lion d'Or. Emma

could hear him coming from afar; she leant forward listening, and

the young man glided past the curtain, always dressed in the same

way, and without turning his head. But in the twilight, when, her

chin resting on her left hand, she let the embroidery she had

begun fall on her knees, she often shuddered at the apparition of

this shadow suddenly gliding past. She would get up and order the

table to be laid.

Monsieur Homais called at dinner-time. Skull-cap in hand, he came

in on tiptoe, in order to disturb no one, always repeating the

same phrase, "Good evening, everybody." Then, when he had taken

his seat at the table between the pair, he asked the doctor about

his patients, and the latter consulted his as to the probability

of their payment. Next they talked of "what was in the paper."

Homais by this hour knew it almost by heart, and he repeated it

from end to end, with the reflections of the penny-a-liners, and

all the stories of individual catastrophes that had occurred in

France or abroad. But the subject becoming exhausted, he was not

slow in throwing out some remarks on the dishes before him.

Sometimes even, half-rising, he delicately pointed out to madame

the tenderest morsel, or turning to the servant, gave her some

advice on the manipulation of stews and the hygiene of seasoning.

He talked aroma, osmazome, juices, and gelatine in a bewildering

manner. Moreover, Homais, with his head fuller of recipes than

his shop of jars, excelled in making all kinds of preserves,

vinegars, and sweet liqueurs; he knew also all the latest

inventions in economic stoves, together with the art of

preserving cheese and of curing sick wines.

At eight o'clock Justin came to fetch him to shut up the shop.

Then Monsieur Homais gave him a sly look, especially if Felicite

was there, for he half noticed that his apprentice was fond of

the doctor's house.

"The young dog," he said, "is beginning to have ideas, and the

devil take me if I don't believe he's in love with your servant!"

But a more serious fault with which he reproached Justin was his

constantly listening to conversation. On Sunday, for example, one

could not get him out of the drawing-room, whither Madame Homais

had called him to fetch the children, who were falling asleep in

the arm-chairs, and dragging down with their backs calico

chair-covers that were too large.

Not many people came to these soirees at the chemist's, his

scandal-mongering and political opinions having successfully

alienated various respectable persons from him. The clerk never

failed to be there. As soon as he heard the bell he ran to meet

Madame Bovary, took her shawl, and put away under the

shop-counter the thick list shoes that she wore over her boots

when there was snow.

First they played some hands at trente-et-un; next Monsieur

Homais played ecarte with Emma; Leon behind her gave her advice.

Standing up with his hands on the back of her chair he saw the

teeth of her comb that bit into her chignon. With every movement

that she made to throw her cards the right side of her dress was

drawn up. From her turned-up hair a dark colour fell over her

back, and growing gradually paler, lost itself little by little

in the shade. Then her dress fell on both sides of her chair,

puffing out full of folds, and reached the ground. When Leon

occasionally felt the sole of his boot resting on it, he drew

back as if he had trodden upon some one.

When the game of cards was over, the druggist and the Doctor

played dominoes, and Emma, changing her place, leant her elbow on

the table, turning over the leaves of "L'Illustration". She had

brought her ladies' journal with her. Leon sat down near her;

they looked at the engravings together, and waited for one

another at the bottom of the pages. She often begged him to read

her the verses; Leon declaimed them in a languid voice, to which

he carefully gave a dying fall in the love passages. But the

noise of the dominoes annoyed him. Monsieur Homais was strong at

the game; he could beat Charles and give him a double-six. Then

the three hundred finished, they both stretched themselves out in

front of the fire, and were soon asleep. The fire was dying out

in the cinders; the teapot was empty, Leon was still reading.

Emma listened to him, mechanically turning around the lampshade,

on the gauze of which were painted clowns in carriages, and

tight-rope dances with their balancing-poles. Leon stopped,

pointing with a gesture to his sleeping audience; then they

talked in low tones, and their conversation seemed the more sweet

to them because it was unheard.

Thus a kind of bond was established between them, a constant

commerce of books and of romances. Monsieur Bovary, little given

to jealousy, did not trouble himself about it.

On his birthday he received a beautiful phrenological head, all

marked with figures to the thorax and painted blue. This was an

attention of the clerk's. He showed him many others, even to

doing errands for him at Rouen; and the book of a novelist having

made the mania for cactuses fashionable, Leon bought some for

Madame Bovary, bringing them back on his knees in the

"Hirondelle," pricking his fingers on their hard hairs.

She had a board with a balustrade fixed against her window to

hold the pots. The clerk, too, had his small hanging garden; they

saw each other tending their flowers at their windows.

Of the windows of the village there was one yet more often

occupied; for on Sundays from morning to night, and every morning

when the weather was bright, one could see at the dormer-window

of the garret the profile of Monsieur Binet bending over his

lathe, whose monotonous humming could be heard at the Lion d'Or.

One evening on coming home Leon found in his room a rug in velvet

and wool with leaves on a pale ground. He called Madame Homais,

Monsieur Homais, Justin, the children, the cook; he spoke of it

to his chief; every one wanted to see this rug. Why did the

doctor's wife give the clerk presents? It looked queer. They

decided that she must be his lover.

He made this seem likely, so ceaselessly did he talk of her

charms and of her wit; so much so, that Binet once roughly

answered him--

"What does it matter to me since I'm not in her set?"

He tortured himself to find out how he could make his declaration

to her, and always halting between the fear of displeasing her

and the shame of being such a coward, he wept with discouragement

and desire. Then he took energetic resolutions, wrote letters

that he tore up, put it off to times that he again deferred.

Often he set out with the determination to dare all; but this

resolution soon deserted him in Emma's presence, and when

Charles, dropping in, invited him to jump into his chaise to go

with him to see some patient in the neighbourhood, he at once

accepted, bowed to madame, and went out. Her husband, was he not

something belonging to her? As to Emma, she did not ask herself

whether she loved. Love, she thought, must come suddenly, with

great outbursts and lightnings--a hurricane of the skies, which

falls upon life, revolutionises it, roots up the will like a

leaf, and sweeps the whole heart into the abyss. She did not know

that on the terrace of houses it makes lakes when the pipes are

choked, and she would thus have remained in her security when she

suddenly discovered a rent in the wall of it.

Chapter Five

It was a Sunday in February, an afternoon when the snow was

falling.

They had all, Monsieur and Madame Bovary, Homais, and Monsieur

Leon, gone to see a yarn-mill that was being built in the valley

a mile and a half from Yonville. The druggist had taken Napoleon

and Athalie to give them some exercise, and Justin accompanied

them, carrying the umbrellas on his shoulder.

Nothing, however, could be less curious than this curiosity. A

great piece of waste ground, on which pell-mell, amid a mass of

sand and stones, were a few break-wheels, already rusty,

surrounded by a quadrangular building pierced by a number of

little windows. The building was unfinished; the sky could be

seen through the joists of the roofing. Attached to the

stop-plank of the gable a bunch of straw mixed with corn-ears

fluttered its tricoloured ribbons in the wind.

Homais was talking. He explained to the company the future

importance of this establishment, computed the strength of the

floorings, the thickness of the walls, and regretted extremely

not having a yard-stick such as Monsieur Binet possessed for his

own special use.

Emma, who had taken his arm, bent lightly against his shoulder,

and she looked at the sun's disc shedding afar through the mist

his pale splendour. She turned. Charles was there. His cap was

drawn down over his eyebrows, and his two thick lips were

trembling, which added a look of stupidity to his face; his very

back, his calm back, was irritating to behold, and she saw

written upon his coat all the platitude of the bearer.

While she was considering him thus, tasting in her irritation a

sort of depraved pleasure, Leon made a step forward. The cold

that made him pale seemed to add a more gentle languor to his

face; between his cravat and his neck the somewhat loose collar

of his shirt showed the skin; the lobe of his ear looked out from

beneath a lock of hair, and his large blue eyes, raised to the

clouds, seemed to Emma more limpid and more beautiful than those

mountain-lakes where the heavens are mirrored.

"Wretched boy!" suddenly cried the chemist.

And he ran to his son, who had just precipitated himself into a

heap of lime in order to whiten his boots. At the reproaches with

which he was being overwhelmed Napoleon began to roar, while

Justin dried his shoes with a wisp of straw. But a knife was

wanted; Charles offered his.

"Ah!" she said to herself, "he carried a knife in his pocket like

a peasant."

The hoar-frost was falling, and they turned back to Yonville.

In the evening Madame Bovary did not go to her neighbour's, and

when Charles had left and she felt herself alone, the comparison

re-began with the clearness of a sensation almost actual, and

with that lengthening of perspective which memory gives to

things. Looking from her bed at the clean fire that was burning,

she still saw, as she had down there, Leon standing up with one

hand behind his cane, and with the other holding Athalie, who was

quietly sucking a piece of ice. She thought him charming; she

could not tear herself away from him; she recalled his other

attitudes on other days, the words he had spoken, the sound of

his voice, his whole person; and she repeated, pouting out her

lips as if for a kiss--

"Yes, charming! charming! Is he not in love?" she asked herself;

"but with whom? With me?"

All the proofs arose before her at once; her heart leapt. The

flame of the fire threw a joyous light upon the ceiling; she

turned on her back, stretching out her arms.

Then began the eternal lamentation: "Oh, if Heaven had out willed

it! And why not? What prevented it?"

When Charles came home at midnight, she seemed to have just

awakened, and as he made a noise undressing, she complained of a

headache, then asked carelessly what had happened that evening.

"Monsieur Leon," he said, "went to his room early."

She could not help smiling, and she fell asleep, her soul filled

with a new delight.

The next day, at dusk, she received a visit from Monsieur

Lherueux, the draper. He was a man of ability, was this

shopkeeper. Born a Gascon but bred a Norman, he grafted upon his

southern volubility the cunning of the Cauchois. His fat, flabby,

beardless face seemed dyed by a decoction of liquorice, and his

white hair made even more vivid the keen brilliance of his small

black eyes. No one knew what he had been formerly; a pedlar said

some, a banker at Routot according to others. What was certain

was that he made complex calculations in his head that would have

frightened Binet himself. Polite to obsequiousness, he always

held himself with his back bent in the position of one who bows

or who invites.

After leaving at the door his hat surrounded with crape, he put

down a green bandbox on the table, and began by complaining to

madame, with many civilities, that he should have remained till

that day without gaining her confidence. A poor shop like his was

not made to attract a "fashionable lady"; he emphasized the

words; yet she had only to command, and he would undertake to

provide her with anything she might wish, either in haberdashery

or linen, millinery or fancy goods, for he went to town regularly

four times a month. He was connected with the best houses. You

could speak of him at the "Trois Freres," at the "Barbe d'Or," or

at the "Grand Sauvage"; all these gentlemen knew him as well as

the insides of their pockets. To-day, then he had come to show

madame, in passing, various articles he happened to have, thanks

to the most rare opportunity. And he pulled out half-a-dozen

embroidered collars from the box.

Madame Bovary examined them. "I do not require anything," she

said.

Then Monsieur Lheureux delicately exhibited three Algerian

scarves, several packets of English needles, a pair of straw

slippers, and finally, four eggcups in cocoanut wood, carved in

open work by convicts. Then, with both hands on the table, his

neck stretched out, his figure bent forward, open-mouthed, he

watched Emma's look, who was walking up and down undecided amid

these goods. From time to time, as if to remove some dust, he

filliped with his nail the silk of the scarves spread out at full

length, and they rustled with a little noise, making in the green

twilight the gold spangles of their tissue scintillate like

little stars.

"How much are they?"

"A mere nothing," he replied, "a mere nothing. But there's no

hurry; whenever it's convenient. We are not Jews."

She reflected for a few moments, and ended by again declining

Monsieur Lheureux's offer. He replied quite unconcernedly--

"Very well. We shall understand one another by and by. I have

always got on with ladies--if I didn't with my own!"

Emma smiled.

"I wanted to tell you," he went on good-naturedly, after his

joke, "that it isn't the money I should trouble about. Why, I

could give you some, if need be."

She made a gesture of surprise.

"Ah!" said he quickly and in a low voice, "I shouldn't have to go

far to find you some, rely on that."

And he began asking after Pere Tellier, the proprietor of the

"Cafe Francais," whom Monsieur Bovary was then attending.

"What's the matter with Pere Tellier? He coughs so that he shakes

his whole house, and I'm afraid he'll soon want a deal covering

rather than a flannel vest. He was such a rake as a young man!

Those sort of people, madame, have not the least regularity; he's

burnt up with brandy. Still it's sad, all the same, to see an

acquaintance go off."

And while he fastened up his box he discoursed about the doctor's

patients.

"It's the weather, no doubt," he said, looking frowningly at the

floor, "that causes these illnesses. I, too, don't feel the

thing. One of these days I shall even have to consult the doctor

for a pain I have in my back. Well, good-bye, Madame Bovary. At

your service; your very humble servant." And he closed the door

gently.

Emma had her dinner served in her bedroom on a tray by the

fireside; she was a long time over it; everything was well with

her.

"How good I was!" she said to herself, thinking of the scarves.

She heard some steps on the stairs. It was Leon. She got up and

took from the chest of drawers the first pile of dusters to be

hemmed. When he came in she seemed very busy.

The conversation languished; Madame Bovary gave it up every few

minutes, whilst he himself seemed quite embarrassed. Seated on a

low chair near the fire, he turned round in his fingers the ivory

thimble-case. She stitched on, or from time to time turned down

the hem of the cloth with her nail. She did not speak; he was

silent, captivated by her silence, as he would have been by her

speech.

"Poor fellow!" she thought.

"How have I displeased her?" he asked himself.

At last, however, Leon said that he should have, one of these

days, to go to Rouen on some office business.

"Your music subscription is out; am I to renew it?"

"No," she replied.

"Why?"

"Because--"

And pursing her lips she slowly drew a long stitch of grey

thread.

This work irritated Leon. It seemed to roughen the ends of her

fingers. A gallant phrase came into his head, but he did not risk

it.

"Then you are giving it up?" he went on.

"What?" she asked hurriedly. "Music? Ah! yes! Have I not my house

to look after, my husband to attend to, a thousand things, in

fact, many duties that must be considered first?"

She looked at the clock. Charles was late. Then, she affected

anxiety. Two or three times she even repeated, "He is so good!"

The clerk was fond of Monsieur Bovary. But this tenderness on his

behalf astonished him unpleasantly; nevertheless he took up on

his praises, which he said everyone was singing, especially the

chemist.

"Ah! he is a good fellow," continued Emma.

"Certainly," replied the clerk.

And he began talking of Madame Homais, whose very untidy

appearance generally made them laugh.

"What does it matter?" interrupted Emma. "A good housewife does

not trouble about her appearance."

Then she relapsed into silence.

It was the same on the following days; her talks, her manners,

everything changed. She took interest in the housework, went to

church regularly, and looked after her servant with more

severity.

She took Berthe from nurse. When visitors called, Felicite

brought her in, and Madame Bovary undressed her to show off her

limbs. She declared she adored children; this was her

consolation, her joy, her passion, and she accompanied her

caresses with lyrical outburst which would have reminded anyone

but the Yonville people of Sachette in "Notre Dame de Paris."

When Charles came home he found his slippers put to warm near the

fire. His waistcoat now never wanted lining, nor his shirt

buttons, and it was quite a pleasure to see in the cupboard the

night-caps arranged in piles of the same height. She no longer

grumbled as formerly at taking a turn in the garden; what he

proposed was always done, although she did not understand the

wishes to which she submitted without a murmur; and when Leon saw

him by his fireside after dinner, his two hands on his stomach,

his two feet on the fender, his two cheeks red with feeding, his

eyes moist with happiness, the child crawling along the carpet,

and this woman with the slender waist who came behind his

arm-chair to kiss his forehead: "What madness!" he said to

himself. "And how to reach her!"

And thus she seemed so virtuous and inaccessible to him that he

lost all hope, even the faintest. But by this renunciation he

placed her on an extraordinary pinnacle. To him she stood outside

those fleshly attributes from which he had nothing to obtain, and

in his heart she rose ever, and became farther removed from him

after the magnificent manner of an apotheosis that is taking

wing. It was one of those pure feelings that do not interfere

with life, that are cultivated because they are rare, and whose

loss would afflict more than their passion rejoices.

Emma grew thinner, her cheeks paler, her face longer. With her

black hair, her large eyes, her aquiline nose, her birdlike walk,

and always silent now, did she not seem to be passing through

life scarcely touching it, and to bear on her brow the vague

impress of some divine destiny? She was so sad and so calm, at

once so gentle and so reserved, that near her one felt oneself

seized by an icy charm, as we shudder in churches at the perfume

of the flowers mingling with the cold of the marble. The others

even did not escape from this seduction. The chemist said--

"She is a woman of great parts, who wouldn't be misplaced in a

sub-prefecture."

The housewives admired her economy, the patients her politeness,

the poor her charity.

But she was eaten up with desires, with rage, with hate. That

dress with the narrow folds hid a distracted fear, of whose

torment those chaste lips said nothing. She was in love with

Leon, and sought solitude that she might with the more ease

delight in his image. The sight of his form troubled the

voluptuousness of this mediation. Emma thrilled at the sound of

his step; then in his presence the emotion subsided, and

afterwards there remained to her only an immense astonishment

that ended in sorrow.

Leon did not know that when he left her in despair she rose after

he had gone to see him in the street. She concerned herself about

his comings and goings; she watched his face; she invented quite

a history to find an excuse for going to his room. The chemist's

wife seemed happy to her to sleep under the same roof, and her

thoughts constantly centered upon this house, like the "Lion

d'Or" pigeons, who came there to dip their red feet and white

wings in its gutters. But the more Emma recognised her love, the

more she crushed it down, that it might not be evident, that she

might make it less. She would have liked Leon to guess it, and

she imagined chances, catastrophes that should facilitate this.

What restrained her was, no doubt, idleness and fear, and a sense

of shame also. She thought she had repulsed him too much, that

the time was past, that all was lost. Then, pride, and joy of

being able to say to herself, "I am virtuous," and to look at

herself in the glass taking resigned poses, consoled her a little

for the sacrifice she believed she was making.

Then the lusts of the flesh, the longing for money, and the

melancholy of passion all blended themselves into one suffering,

and instead of turning her thoughts from it, she clave to it the

more, urging herself to pain, and seeking everywhere occasion for

it. She was irritated by an ill-served dish or by a half-open

door; bewailed the velvets she had not, the happiness she had

missed, her too exalted dreams, her narrow home.

What exasperated her was that Charles did not seem to notice her

anguish. His conviction that he was making her happy seemed to

her an imbecile insult, and his sureness on this point

ingratitude. For whose sake, then was she virtuous? Was it not

for him, the obstacle to all felicity, the cause of all misery,

and, as it were, the sharp clasp of that complex strap that

bucked her in on all sides.

On him alone, then, she concentrated all the various hatreds that

resulted from her boredom, and every effort to diminish only

augmented it; for this useless trouble was added to the other

reasons for despair, and contributed still more to the separation

between them. Her own gentleness to herself made her rebel

against him. Domestic mediocrity drove her to lewd fancies,

marriage tenderness to adulterous desires. She would have liked

Charles to beat her, that she might have a better right to hate

him, to revenge herself upon him. She was surprised sometimes at

the atrocious conjectures that came into her thoughts, and she

had to go on smiling, to hear repeated to her at all hours that

she was happy, to pretend to be happy, to let it be believed.

Yet she had loathing of this hypocrisy. She was seized with the

temptation to flee somewhere with Leon to try a new life; but at

once a vague chasm full of darkness opened within her soul.

"Besides, he no longer loves me," she thought. "What is to become

of me? What help is to be hoped for, what consolation, what

solace?"

She was left broken, breathless, inert, sobbing in a low voice,

with flowing tears.

"Why don't you tell master?" the servant asked her when she came

in during these crises.

"It is the nerves," said Emma. "Do not speak to him of it; it

would worry him."

"Ah! yes," Felicite went on, "you are just like La Guerine, Pere

Guerin's daughter, the fisherman at Pollet, that I used to know

at Dieppe before I came to you. She was so sad, so sad, to see

her standing upright on the threshold of her house, she seemed to

you like a winding-sheet spread out before the door. Her illness,

it appears, was a kind of fog that she had in her head, and the

doctors could not do anything, nor the priest either. When she

was taken too bad she went off quite alone to the sea-shore, so

that the customs officer, going his rounds, often found her lying

flat on her face, crying on the shingle. Then, after her

marriage, it went off, they say."

"But with me," replied Emma, "it was after marriage that it

began."

Chapter Six

One evening when the window was open, and she, sitting by it, had

been watching Lestiboudois, the beadle, trimming the box, she

suddenly heard the Angelus ringing.

It was the beginning of April, when the primroses are in bloom,

and a warm wind blows over the flower-beds newly turned, and the

gardens, like women, seem to be getting ready for the summer

fetes. Through the bars of the arbour and away beyond, the river

seen in the fields, meandering through the grass in wandering

curves. The evening vapours rose between the leafless poplars,

touching their outlines with a violet tint, paler and more

transparent than a subtle gauze caught athwart their branches. In

the distance cattle moved about; neither their steps nor their

lowing could be heard; and the bell, still ringing through the

air, kept up its peaceful lamentation.

With this repeated tinkling the thoughts of the young woman lost

themselves in old memories of her youth and school-days. She

remembered the great candlesticks that rose above the vases full

of flowers on the altar, and the tabernacle with its small

columns. She would have liked to be once more lost in the long

line of white veils, marked off here and there by the stuff black

hoods of the good sisters bending over their prie-Dieu. At mass

on Sundays, when she looked up, she saw the gentle face of the

Virgin amid the blue smoke of the rising incense. Then she was

moved; she felt herself weak and quite deserted, like the down of

a bird whirled by the tempest, and it was unconsciously that she

went towards the church, included to no matter what devotions, so

that her soul was absorbed and all existence lost in it.

On the Place she met Lestivoudois on his way back, for, in order

not to shorten his day's labour, he preferred interrupting his

work, then beginning it again, so that he rang the Angelus to

suit his own convenience. Besides, the ringing over a little

earlier warned the lads of catechism hour.

Already a few who had arrived were playing marbles on the stones

of the cemetery. Others, astride the wall, swung their legs,

kicking with their clogs the large nettles growing between the

little enclosure and the newest graves. This was the only green

spot. All the rest was but stones, always covered with a fine

powder, despite the vestry-broom.

The children in list shoes ran about there as if it were an

enclosure made for them. The shouts of their voices could be

heard through the humming of the bell. This grew less and less

with the swinging of the great rope that, hanging from the top of

the belfry, dragged its end on the ground. Swallows flitted to

and fro uttering little cries, cut the air with the edge of their

wings, and swiftly returned to their yellow nests under the tiles

of the coping. At the end of the church a lamp was burning, the

wick of a night-light in a glass hung up. Its light from a

distance looked like a white stain trembling in the oil. A long

ray of the sun fell across the nave and seemed to darken the

lower sides and the corners.

"Where is the cure?" asked Madame Bovary of one of the lads, who

was amusing himself by shaking a swivel in a hole too large for

it.

"He is just coming," he answered.

And in fact the door of the presbytery grated; Abbe Bournisien

appeared; the children, pell-mell, fled into the church.

"These young scamps!" murmured the priest, "always the same!"

Then, picking up a catechism all in rags that he had struck with

is foot, "They respect nothing!" But as soon as he caught sight

of Madame Bovary, "Excuse me," he said; "I did not recognise

you."

He thrust the catechism into his pocket, and stopped short,

balancing the heavy vestry key between his two fingers.

The light of the setting sun that fell full upon his face paled

the lasting of his cassock, shiny at the elbows, unravelled at

the hem. Grease and tobacco stains followed along his broad chest

the lines of the buttons, and grew more numerous the farther they

were from his neckcloth, in which the massive folds of his red

chin rested; this was dotted with yellow spots, that disappeared

beneath the coarse hair of his greyish beard. He had just dined

and was breathing noisily.

"How are you?" he added.

"Not well," replied Emma; "I am ill."

"Well, and so am I," answered the priest. "These first warm days

weaken one most remarkably, don't they? But, after all, we are

born to suffer, as St. Paul says. But what does Monsieur Bovary

think of it?"

"He!" she said with a gesture of contempt.

"What!" replied the good fellow, quite astonished, doesn't he

prescribe something for you?"

"Ah!" said Emma, "it is no earthly remedy I need."

But the cure from time to time looked into the church, where the

kneeling boys were shouldering one another, and tumbling over

like packs of cards.

"I should like to know--" she went on.

"You look out, Riboudet," cried the priest in an angry voice;

"I'll warm your ears, you imp!" Then turning to Emma, "He's

Boudet the carpenter's son; his parents are well off, and let him

do just as he pleases. Yet he could learn quickly if he would,

for he is very sharp. And so sometimes for a joke I call him

Riboudet (like the road one takes to go to Maromme) and I even

say 'Mon Riboudet.' Ha! Ha! 'Mont Riboudet.' The other day I

repeated that just to Monsignor, and he laughed at it; he

condescended to laugh at it. And how is Monsieur Bovary?"

She seemed not to hear him. And he went on--

"Always very busy, no doubt; for he and I are certainly the

busiest people in the parish. But he is doctor of the body," he

added with a thick laugh, "and I of the soul."

She fixed her pleading eyes upon the priest. "Yes," she said,

"you solace all sorrows."

"Ah! don't talk to me of it, Madame Bovary. This morning I had to

go to Bas-Diauville for a cow that was ill; they thought it was

under a spell. All their cows, I don't know how it is--But pardon

me! Longuemarre and Boudet! Bless me! Will you leave off?"

And with a bound he ran into the church.

The boys were just then clustering round the large desk, climbing

over the precentor's footstool, opening the missal; and others on

tiptoe were just about to venture into the confessional. But the

priest suddenly distributed a shower of cuffs among them. Seizing

them by the collars of their coats, he lifted them from the

ground, and deposited them on their knees on the stones of the

choir, firmly, as if he meant planting them there.

"Yes," said he, when he returned to Emma, unfolding his large

cotton handkerchief, one corner of which he put between his

teeth, "farmers are much to be pitied."

"Others, too," she replied.

"Assuredly. Town-labourers, for example."

"It is not they--"

"Pardon! I've there known poor mothers of families, virtuous

women, I assure you, real saints, who wanted even bread."

"But those," replied Emma, and the corners of her mouth twitched

as she spoke, "those, Monsieur le Cure, who have bread and have

no--"

"Fire in the winter," said the priest.

"Oh, what does that matter?"

"What! What does it matter? It seems to me that when one has

firing and food--for, after all--"

"My God! my God!" she sighed.

"It is indigestion, no doubt? You must get home, Madame Bovary;

drink a little tea, that will strengthen you, or else a glass of

fresh water with a little moist sugar."

"Why?" And she looked like one awaking from a dream.

"Well, you see, you were putting your hand to your forehead. I

thought you felt faint." Then, bethinking himself, "But you were

asking me something? What was it? I really don't remember."

"I? Nothing! nothing!" repeated Emma.

And the glance she cast round her slowly fell upon the old man in

the cassock. They looked at one another face to face without

speaking.

"Then, Madame Bovary," he said at last, "excuse me, but duty

first, you know; I must look after my good-for-nothings. The

first communion will soon be upon us, and I fear we shall be

behind after all. So after Ascension Day I keep them recta* an

extra hour every Wednesday. Poor children! One cannot lead them

too soon into the path of the Lord, as, moreover, he has himself

recommended us to do by the mouth of his Divine Son. Good health

to you, madame; my respects to your husband."

*On the straight and narrow path.

And he went into the church making a genuflexion as soon as he

reached the door.

Emma saw him disappear between the double row of forms, walking

with a heavy tread, his head a little bent over his shoulder, and

with his two hands half-open behind him.

Then she turned on her heel all of one piece, like a statue on a

pivot, and went homewards. But the loud voice of the priest, the

clear voices of the boys still reached her ears, and went on

behind her.

"Are you a Christian?"

"Yes, I am a Christian."

"What is a Christian?"

"He who, being baptized-baptized-baptized--"

She went up the steps of the staircase holding on to the

banisters, and when she was in her room threw herself into an

arm-chair.

The whitish light of the window-panes fell with soft undulations.

The furniture in its place seemed to have become more immobile,

and to lose itself in the shadow as in an ocean of darkness. The

fire was out, the clock went on ticking, and Emma vaguely

marvelled at this calm of all things while within herself was

such tumult. But little Berthe was there, between the window and

the work-table, tottering on her knitted shoes, and trying to

come to her mother to catch hold of the ends of her

apron-strings.

"Leave me alone," said the latter, putting her from her with her

hand.

The little girl soon came up closer against her knees, and

leaning on them with her arms, she looked up with her large blue

eyes, while a small thread of pure saliva dribbled from her lips

on to the silk apron.

"Leave me alone," repeated the young woman quite irritably.

Her face frightened the child, who began to scream.

"Will you leave me alone?" she said, pushing her with her elbow.

Berthe fell at the foot of the drawers against the brass handle,

cutting her cheek, which began to bleed, against it. Madame

Bovary sprang to lift her up, broke the bell-rope, called for the

servant with all her might, and she was just going to curse

herself when Charles appeared. It was the dinner-hour; he had

come home.

"Look, dear!" said Emma, in a calm voice, "the little one fell

down while she was playing, and has hurt herself."

Charles reassured her; the case was not a serious one, and he

went for some sticking plaster.

Madame Bovary did not go downstairs to the dining-room; she

wished to remain alone to look after the child. Then watching her

sleep, the little anxiety she felt gradually wore off, and she

seemed very stupid to herself, and very good to have been so

worried just now at so little. Berthe, in fact, no longer sobbed.

Her breathing now imperceptibly raised the cotton covering. Big

tears lay in the corner of the half-closed eyelids, through whose

lashes one could see two pale sunken pupils; the plaster stuck on

her cheek drew the skin obliquely.

"It is very strange," thought Emma, "how ugly this child is!"

When at eleven o'clock Charles came back from the chemist's shop,

whither he had gone after dinner to return the remainder of the

sticking-plaster, he found his wife standing by the cradle.

"I assure you it's nothing." he said, kissing her on the

forehead. "Don't worry, my poor darling; you will make yourself

ill."

He had stayed a long time at the chemist's. Although he had not

seemed much moved, Homais, nevertheless, had exerted himself to

buoy him up, to "keep up his spirits." Then they had talked of

the various dangers that threaten childhood, of the carelessness

of servants. Madame Homais knew something of it, having still

upon her chest the marks left by a basin full of soup that a cook

had formerly dropped on her pinafore, and her good parents took

no end of trouble for her. The knives were not sharpened, nor the

floors waxed; there were iron gratings to the windows and strong

bars across the fireplace; the little Homais, in spite of their

spirit, could not stir without someone watching them; at the

slightest cold their father stuffed them with pectorals; and

until they were turned four they all, without pity, had to wear

wadded head-protectors. This, it is true, was a fancy of Madame

Homais'; her husband was inwardly afflicted at it. Fearing the

possible consequences of such compression to the intellectual

organs. He even went so far as to say to her, "Do you want to

make Caribs or Botocudos of them?"

Charles, however, had several times tried to interrupt the

conversation. "I should like to speak to you," he had whispered

in the clerk's ear, who went upstairs in front of him.

"Can he suspect anything?" Leon asked himself. His heart beat,

and he racked his brain with surmises.

At last, Charles, having shut the door, asked him to see himself

what would be the price at Rouen of a fine daguerreotypes. It was

a sentimental surprise he intended for his wife, a delicate

attention--his portrait in a frock-coat. But he wanted first to

know "how much it would be." The inquiries would not put Monsieur

Leon out, since he went to town almost every week.

Why? Monsieur Homais suspected some "young man's affair" at the

bottom of it, an intrigue. But he was mistaken. Leon was after no

love-making. He was sadder than ever, as Madame Lefrancois saw

from the amount of food he left on his plate. To find out more

about it she questioned the tax-collector. Binet answered roughly

that he "wasn't paid by the police."

All the same, his companion seemed very strange to him, for Leon

often threw himself back in his chair, and stretching out his

arms. Complained vaguely of life.

"It's because you don't take enough recreation," said the

collector.

"What recreation?"

"If I were you I'd have a lathe."

"But I don't know how to turn," answered the clerk.

"Ah! that's true," said the other, rubbing his chin with an air

of mingled contempt and satisfaction.

Leon was weary of loving without any result; moreover he was

beginning to feel that depression caused by the repetition of the

same kind of life, when no interest inspires and no hope sustains

it. He was so bored with Yonville and its inhabitants, that the

sight of certain persons, of certain houses, irritated him beyond

endurance; and the chemist, good fellow though he was, was

becoming absolutely unbearable to him. Yet the prospect of a new

condition of life frightened as much as it seduced him.

This apprehension soon changed into impatience, and then Paris

from afar sounded its fanfare of masked balls with the laugh of

grisettes. As he was to finish reading there, why not set out at

once? What prevented him? And he began making home-preparations;

he arranged his occupations beforehand. He furnished in his head

an apartment. He would lead an artist's life there! He would take

lessons on the guitar! He would have a dressing-gown, a Basque

cap, blue velvet slippers! He even already was admiring two

crossed foils over his chimney-piece, with a death's head on the

guitar above them.

The difficulty was the consent of his mother; nothing, however,

seemed more reasonable. Even his employer advised him to go to

some other chambers where he could advance more rapidly. Taking a

middle course, then, Leon looked for some place as second clerk

at Rouen; found none, and at last wrote his mother a long letter

full of details, in which he set forth the reasons for going to

live at Paris immediately. She consented.

He did not hurry. Every day for a month Hivert carried boxes,

valises, parcels for him from Yonville to Rouen and from Rouen to

Yonville; and when Leon had packed up his wardrobe, had his three

arm-chairs restuffed, bought a stock of neckties, in a word, had

made more preparations than for a voyage around the world, he put

it off from week to week, until he received a second letter from

his mother urging him to leave, since he wanted to pass his

examination before the vacation.

When the moment for the farewells had come, Madame Homais wept,

Justin sobbed; Homais, as a man of nerve, concealed his emotion;

he wished to carry his friend's overcoat himself as far as the

gate of the notary, who was taking Leon to Rouen in his carriage.

The latter had just time to bid farewell to Monsieur Bovary.

When he reached the head of the stairs, he stopped, he was so out

of breath. As he came in, Madame Bovary arose hurriedly.

"It is I again!" said Leon.

"I was sure of it!"

She bit her lips, and a rush of blood flowing under her skin made

her red from the roots of her hair to the top of her collar. She

remained standing, leaning with her shoulder against the

wainscot.

"The doctor is not here?" he went on.

"He is out." She repeated, "He is out."

Then there was silence. They looked at one another and their

thoughts, confounded in the same agony, clung close together like

two throbbing breasts.

"I should like to kiss Berthe," said Leon.

Emma went down a few steps and called Felicite.

He threw one long look around him that took in the walls, the

decorations, the fireplace, as if to penetrate everything, carry

away everything. But she returned, and the servant brought

Berthe, who was swinging a windmill roof downwards at the end of

a string. Leon kissed her several times on the neck.

"Good-bye, poor child! good-bye, dear little one! good-bye!" And

he gave her back to her mother.

"Take her away," she said.

They remained alone--Madame Bovary, her back turned, her face

pressed against a window-pane; Leon held his cap in his hand,

knocking it softly against his thigh.

"It is going to rain," said Emma.

"I have a cloak," he answered.

"Ah!"

She turned around, her chin lowered, her forehead bent forward.

The light fell on it as on a piece of marble, to the curve of the

eyebrows, without one's being able to guess what Emma was seeing

on the horizon or what she was thinking within herself.

"Well, good-bye," he sighed.

She raised her head with a quick movement.

"Yes, good-bye--go!"

They advanced towards each other; he held out his hand; she

hesitated.

"In the English fashion, then," she said, giving her own hand

wholly to him, and forcing a laugh.

Leon felt it between his fingers, and the very essence of all his

being seemed to pass down into that moist palm. Then he opened

his hand; their eyes met again, and he disappeared.

When he reached the market-place, he stopped and hid behind a

pillar to look for the last time at this white house with the

four green blinds. He thought he saw a shadow behind the window

in the room; but the curtain, sliding along the pole as though no

one were touching it, slowly opened its long oblique folds that

spread out with a single movement, and thus hung straight and

motionless as a plaster wall. Leon set off running.

From afar he saw his employer's gig in the road, and by it a man

in a coarse apron holding the horse. Homais and Monsieur

Guillaumin were talking. They were waiting for him.

"Embrace me," said the druggist with tears in his eyes. "Here is

your coat, my good friend. Mind the cold; take care of yourself;

look after yourself."

"Come, Leon, jump in," said the notary.

Homais bend over the splash-board, and in a voice broken by sobs

uttered these three sad words--

"A pleasant journey!"

"Good-night," said Monsieur Guillaumin. "Give him his head." They

set out, and Homais went back.

Madame Bovary had opened her window overlooking the garden and

watched the clouds. They gathered around the sunset on the side

of Rouen and then swiftly rolled back their black columns, behind

which the great rays of the sun looked out like the golden arrows

of a suspended trophy, while the rest of the empty heavens was

white as porcelain. But a gust of wind bowed the poplars, and

suddenly the rain fell; it pattered against the green leaves.

Then the sun reappeared, the hens clucked, sparrows shook their

wings in the damp thickets, and the pools of water on the gravel

as they flowed away carried off the pink flowers of an acacia.

"Ah! how far off he must be already!" she thought.

Monsieur Homais, as usual, came at half-past six during dinner.

"Well," said he, "so we've sent off our young friend!"

"So it seems," replied the doctor. Then turning on his chair;

"Any news at home?"

"Nothing much. Only my wife was a little moved this afternoon.

You know women--a nothing upsets them, especially my wife. And we

should be wrong to object to that, since their nervous

organization is much more malleable than ours."

"Poor Leon!" said Charles. "How will he live at Paris? Will he

get used to it?"

Madame Bovary sighed.

"Get along!" said the chemist, smacking his lips. "The outings at

restaurants, the masked balls, the champagne--all that'll be

jolly enough, I assure you."

"I don't think he'll go wrong," objected Bovary.

"Nor do I," said Monsieur Homais quickly; "although he'll have to

do like the rest for fear of passing for a Jesuit. And you don't

know what a life those dogs lead in the Latin quarter with

actresses. Besides, students are thought a great deal of in

Paris. Provided they have a few accomplishments, they are

received in the best society; there are even ladies of the

Faubourg Saint-Germain who fall in love with them, which

subsequently furnishes them opportunities for making very good

matches."

"But," said the doctor, "I fear for him that down there--"

"You are right," interrupted the chemist; "that is the reverse of

the medal. And one is constantly obliged to keep one's hand in

one's pocket there. Thus, we will suppose you are in a public

garden. An individual presents himself, well dressed, even

wearing an order, and whom one would take for a diplomatist. He

approaches you, he insinuates himself; offers you a pinch of

snuff, or picks up your hat. Then you become more intimate; he

takes you to a cafe, invites you to his country-house, introduces

you, between two drinks, to all sorts of people; and

three-fourths of the time it's only to plunder your watch or lead

you into some pernicious step.

"That is true," said Charles; "but I was thinking especially of

illnesses--of typhoid fever, for example, that attacks students

from the provinces."

Emma shuddered.

"Because of the change of regimen," continued the chemist, "and

of the perturbation that results therefrom in the whole system.

And then the water at Paris, don't you know! The dishes at

restaurants, all the spiced food, end by heating the blood, and

are not worth, whatever people may say of them, a good soup. For

my own part, I have always preferred plain living; it is more

healthy. So when I was studying pharmacy at Rouen, I boarded in a

boarding house; I dined with the professors."

And thus he went on, expounding his opinions generally and his

personal likings, until Justin came to fetch him for a mulled egg

that was wanted.

"Not a moment's peace!" he cried; "always at it! I can't go out

for a minute! Like a plough-horse, I have always to be moiling

and toiling. What drudgery!" Then, when he was at the door, "By

the way, do you know the news?"

"What news?"

"That it is very likely," Homais went on, raising his eyebrows

and assuming one of his most serious expression, "that the

agricultural meeting of the Seine-Inferieure will be held this

year at Yonville-l'Abbaye. The rumour, at all events, is going

the round. This morning the paper alluded to it. It would be of

the utmost importance for our district. But we'll talk it over

later on. I can see, thank you; Justin has the lantern."

Chapter Seven

The next day was a dreary one for Emma. Everything seemed to her

enveloped in a black atmosphere floating confusedly over the

exterior of things, and sorrow was engulfed within her soul with

soft shrieks such as the winter wind makes in ruined castles. It

was that reverie which we give to things that will not return,

the lassitude that seizes you after everything was done; that

pain, in fine, that the interruption of every wonted movement,

the sudden cessation of any prolonged vibration, brings on.

As on the return from Vaubyessard, when the quadrilles were

running in her head, she was full of a gloomy melancholy, of a

numb despair. Leon reappeared, taller, handsomer, more charming,

more vague. Though separated from her, he had not left her; he

was there, and the walls of the house seemed to hold his shadow.

She could not detach her eyes from the carpet where he had

walked, from those empty chairs where he had sat. The river still

flowed on, and slowly drove its ripples along the slippery banks.

They had often walked there to the murmur of the waves over the

moss-covered pebbles. How bright the sun had been! What happy

afternoons they had seen alone in the shade at the end of the

garden! He read aloud, bareheaded, sitting on a footstool of dry

sticks; the fresh wind of the meadow set trembling the leaves of

the book and the nasturtiums of the arbour. Ah! he was gone, the

only charm of her life, the only possible hope of joy. Why had

she not seized this happiness when it came to her? Why not have

kept hold of it with both hands, with both knees, when it was

about to flee from her? And she cursed herself for not having

loved Leon. She thirsted for his lips. The wish took possession

of her to run after and rejoin him, throw herself into his arms

and say to him, "It is I; I am yours." But Emma recoiled

beforehand at the difficulties of the enterprise, and her

desires, increased by regret, became only the more acute.

Henceforth the memory of Leon was the centre of her boredom; it

burnt there more brightly than the fire travellers have left on

the snow of a Russian steppe. She sprang towards him, she pressed

against him, she stirred carefully the dying embers, sought all

around her anything that could revive it; and the most distant

reminiscences, like the most immediate occasions, what she

experienced as well as what she imagined, her voluptuous desires

that were unsatisfied, her projects of happiness that crackled in

the wind like dead boughs, her sterile virtue, her lost hopes,

the domestic tete-a-tete--she gathered it all up, took

everything, and made it all serve as fuel for her melancholy.

The flames, however, subsided, either because the supply had

exhausted itself, or because it had been piled up too much. Love,

little by little, was quelled by absence; regret stifled beneath

habit; and this incendiary light that had empurpled her pale sky

was overspread and faded by degrees. In the supineness of her

conscience she even took her repugnance towards her husband for

aspirations towards her lover, the burning of hate for the warmth

of tenderness; but as the tempest still raged, and as passion

burnt itself down to the very cinders, and no help came, no sun

rose, there was night on all sides, and she was lost in the

terrible cold that pierced her.

Then the evil days of Tostes began again. She thought herself now

far more unhappy; for she had the experience of grief, with the

certainty that it would not end.

A woman who had laid on herself such sacrifices could well allow

herself certain whims. She bought a Gothic prie-dieu, and in a

month spent fourteen francs on lemons for polishing her nails;

she wrote to Rouen for a blue cashmere gown; she chose one of

Lheureux's finest scarves, and wore it knotted around her waist

over her dressing-gown; and, with closed blinds and a book in her

hand, she lay stretched out on a couch in this garb.

She often changed her coiffure; she did her hair a la Chinoise,

in flowing curls, in plaited coils; she parted in on one side and

rolled it under like a man's.

She wanted to learn Italian; she bought dictionaries, a grammar,

and a supply of white paper. She tried serious reading, history,

and philosophy. Sometimes in the night Charles woke up with a

start, thinking he was being called to a patient. "I'm coming,"

he stammered; and it was the noise of a match Emma had struck to

relight the lamp. But her reading fared like her piece of

embroidery, all of which, only just begun, filled her cupboard;

she took it up, left it, passed on to other books.

She had attacks in which she could easily have been driven to

commit any folly. She maintained one day, in opposition to her

husband, that she could drink off a large glass of brandy, and,

as Charles was stupid enough to dare her to, she swallowed the

brandy to the last drop.

In spite of her vapourish airs (as the housewives of Yonville

called them), Emma, all the same, never seemed gay, and usually

she had at the corners of her mouth that immobile contraction

that puckers the faces of old maids, and those of men whose

ambition has failed. She was pale all over, white as a sheet; the

skin of her nose was drawn at the nostrils, her eyes looked at

you vaguely. After discovering three grey hairs on her temples,

she talked much of her old age.

She often fainted. One day she even spat blood, and, as Charles

fussed around her showing his anxiety--

"Bah!" she answered, "what does it matter?"

Charles fled to his study and wept there, both his elbows on the

table, sitting in an arm-chair at his bureau under the

phrenological head.

Then he wrote to his mother begging her to come, and they had

many long consultations together on the subject of Emma.

What should they decide? What was to be done since she rejected

all medical treatment? "Do you know what your wife wants?"

replied Madame Bovary senior.

"She wants to be forced to occupy herself with some manual work.

If she were obliged, like so many others, to earn her living, she

wouldn't have these vapours, that come to her from a lot of ideas

she stuffs into her head, and from the idleness in which she

lives."

"Yet she is always busy," said Charles.

"Ah! always busy at what? Reading novels, bad books, works

against religion, and in which they mock at priests in speeches

taken from Voltaire. But all that leads you far astray, my poor

child. Anyone who has no religion always ends by turning out

badly."

So it was decided to stop Emma reading novels. The enterprise did

not seem easy. The good lady undertook it. She was, when she

passed through Rouen, to go herself to the lending-library and

represent that Emma had discontinued her subscription. Would they

not have a right to apply to the police if the librarian

persisted all the same in his poisonous trade? The farewells of

mother and daughter-in-law were cold. During the three weeks that

they had been together they had not exchanged half-a-dozen words

apart from the inquiries and phrases when they met at table and

in the evening before going to bed.

Madame Bovary left on a Wednesday, the market-day at Yonville.

The Place since morning had been blocked by a row of carts,

which, on end and their shafts in the air, spread all along the

line of houses from the church to the inn. On the other side

there were canvas booths, where cotton checks, blankets, and

woollen stockings were sold, together with harness for horses,

and packets of blue ribbon, whose ends fluttered in the wind. The

coarse hardware was spread out on the ground between pyramids of

eggs and hampers of cheeses, from which sticky straw stuck out.

Near the corn-machines clucking hens passed their necks through

the bars of flat cages. The people, crowding in the same place

and unwilling to move thence, sometimes threatened to smash the

shop front of the chemist. On Wednesdays his shop was never

empty, and the people pushed in less to buy drugs than for

consultations. So great was Homais' reputation in the

neighbouring villages. His robust aplomb had fascinated the

rustics. They considered him a greater doctor than all the

doctors.

Emma was leaning out at the window; she was often there. The

window in the provinces replaces the theatre and the promenade,

she was amusing herself with watching the crowd of boors when she

saw a gentleman in a green velvet coat. He had on yellow gloves,

although he wore heavy gaiters; he was coming towards the

doctor's house, followed by a peasant walking with a bent head

and quite a thoughtful air.

"Can I see the doctor?" he asked Justin, who was talking on the

doorsteps with Felicite, and, taking him for a servant of the

house--"Tell him that Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger of La Huchette

is here."

It was not from territorial vanity that the new arrival added "of

La Huchette" to his name, but to make himself the better known.

La Huchette, in fact, was an estate near Yonville, where he had

just bought the chateau and two farms that he cultivated himself,

without, however, troubling very much about them. He lived as a

bachelor, and was supposed to have "at least fifteen thousand

francs a year."

Charles came into the room. Monsieur Boulanger introduced his

man, who wanted to be bled because he felt "a tingling all over."

"That'll purge me," he urged as an objection to all reasoning.

So Bovary ordered a bandage and a basin, and asked Justin to hold

it. Then addressing the peasant, who was already pale--

"Don't be afraid, my lad."

"No, no, sir," said the other; "get on."

And with an air of bravado he held out his great arm. At the

prick of the lancet the blood spurted out, splashing against the

looking-glass.

"Hold the basin nearer," exclaimed Charles.

"Lor!" said the peasant, "one would swear it was a little

fountain flowing. How red my blood is! That's a good sign, isn't

it?"

"Sometimes," answered the doctor, "one feels nothing at first,

and then syncope sets in, and more especially with people of

strong constitution like this man."

At these words the rustic let go the lancet-case he was twisting

between his fingers. A shudder of his shoulders made the

chair-back creak. His hat fell off.

"I thought as much," said Bovary, pressing his finger on the

vein.

The basin was beginning to tremble in Justin's hands; his knees

shook, he turned pale.

"Emma! Emma!" called Charles.

With one bound she came down the staircase.

"Some vinegar," he cried. "O dear! two at once!"

And in his emotion he could hardly put on the compress.

"It is nothing," said Monsieur Boulanger quietly, taking Justin

in his arms. He seated him on the table with his back resting

against the wall.

Madame Bovary began taking off his cravat. The strings of his

shirt had got into a knot, and she was for some minutes moving

her light fingers about the young fellow's neck. Then she poured

some vinegar on her cambric handkerchief; she moistened his

temples with little dabs, and then blew upon them softly. The

ploughman revived, but Justin's syncope still lasted, and his

eyeballs disappeared in the pale sclerotics like blue flowers in

milk.

"We must hide this from him," said Charles.

Madame Bovary took the basin to put it under the table. With the

movement she made in bending down, her dress (it was a summer

dress with four flounces, yellow, long in the waist and wide in

the skirt) spread out around her on the flags of the room; and as

Emma stooping, staggered a little as she stretched out her arms.

The stuff here and there gave with the inflections of her bust.

Then she went to fetch a bottle of water, and she was melting

some pieces of sugar when the chemist arrived. The servant had

been to fetch him in the tumult. Seeing his pupil's eyes staring

he drew a long breath; then going around him he looked at him

from head to foot.

"Fool!" he said, "really a little fool! A fool in four letters! A

phlebotomy's a big affair, isn't it! And a fellow who isn't

afraid of anything; a kind of squirrel, just as he is who climbs

to vertiginous heights to shake down nuts. Oh, yes! you just talk

to me, boast about yourself! Here's a fine fitness for practising

pharmacy later on; for under serious circumstances you may be

called before the tribunals in order to enlighten the minds of

the magistrates, and you would have to keep your head then, to

reason, show yourself a man, or else pass for an imbecile."

Justin did not answer. The chemist went on--

"Who asked you to come? You are always pestering the doctor and

madame. On Wednesday, moreover, your presence is indispensable to

me. There are now twenty people in the shop. I left everything

because of the interest I take in you. Come, get along! Sharp!

Wait for me, and keep an eye on the jars."

When Justin, who was rearranging his dress, had gone, they talked

for a little while about fainting-fits. Madame Bovary had never

fainted.

"That is extraordinary for a lady," said Monsieur Boulanger; "but

some people are very susceptible. Thus in a duel, I have seen a

second lose consciousness at the mere sound of the loading of

pistols."

"For my part," said the chemist, "the sight of other people's

blood doesn't affect me at all, but the mere thought of my own

flowing would make me faint if I reflected upon it too much."

Monsieur Boulanger, however, dismissed his servant, advising him

to calm himself, since his fancy was over.

"It procured me the advantage of making your acquaintance," he

added, and he looked at Emma as he said this. Then he put three

francs on the corner of the table, bowed negligently, and went

out.

He was soon on the other side of the river (this was his way back

to La Huchette), and Emma saw him in the meadow, walking under

the poplars, slackening his pace now and then as one who

reflects.

"She is very pretty," he said to himself; "she is very pretty,

this doctor's wife. Fine teeth, black eyes, a dainty foot, a

figure like a Parisienne's. Where the devil does she come from?

Wherever did that fat fellow pick her up?"

Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger was thirty-four; he was of brutal

temperament and intelligent perspicacity, having, moreover, had

much to do with women, and knowing them well. This one had seemed

pretty to him; so he was thinking about her and her husband.

"I think he is very stupid. She is tired of him, no doubt. He has

dirty nails, and hasn't shaved for three days. While he is

trotting after his patients, she sits there botching socks. And

she gets bored! She would like to live in town and dance polkas

every evening. Poor little woman! She is gaping after love like a

carp after water on a kitchen-table. With three words of

gallantry she'd adore one, I'm sure of it. She'd be tender,

charming. Yes; but how to get rid of her afterwards?"

Then the difficulties of love-making seen in the distance made

him by contrast think of his mistress. She was an actress at

Rouen, whom he kept; and when he had pondered over this image,

with which, even in remembrance, he was satiated--

"Ah! Madame Bovary," he thought, "is much prettier, especially

fresher. Virginie is decidedly beginning to grow fat. She is so

finiky about her pleasures; and, besides, she has a mania for

prawns."

The fields were empty, and around him Rodolphe only heard the

regular beating of the grass striking against his boots, with a

cry of the grasshopper hidden at a distance among the oats. He

again saw Emma in her room, dressed as he had seen her, and he

undressed her.

"Oh, I will have her," he cried, striking a blow with his stick

at a clod in front of him. And he at once began to consider the

political part of the enterprise. He asked himself--

"Where shall we meet? By what means? We shall always be having

the brat on our hands, and the servant, the neighbours, and

husband, all sorts of worries. Pshaw! one would lose too much

time over it."

Then he resumed, "She really has eyes that pierce one's heart

like a gimlet. And that pale complexion! I adore pale women!"

When he reached the top of the Arguiel hills he had made up his

mind. "It's only finding the opportunities. Well, I will call in

now and then. I'll send them venison, poultry; I'll have myself

bled, if need be. We shall become friends; I'll invite them to my

place. By Jove!" added he, "there's the agricultural show coming

on. She'll be there. I shall see her. We'll begin boldly, for

that's the surest way."

Chapter Eight

At last it came, the famous agricultural show. On the morning of

the solemnity all the inhabitants at their doors were chatting

over the preparations. The pediment of the town hall had been

hung with garlands of ivy; a tent had been erected in a meadow

for the banquet; and in the middle of the Place, in front of the

church, a kind of bombarde was to announce the arrival of the

prefect and the names of the successful farmers who had obtained

prizes. The National Guard of Buchy (there was none at Yonville)

had come to join the corps of firemen, of whom Binet was captain.

On that day he wore a collar even higher than usual; and, tightly

buttoned in his tunic, his figure was so stiff and motionless

that the whole vital portion of his person seemed to have

descended into his legs, which rose in a cadence of set steps

with a single movement. As there was some rivalry between the

tax-collector and the colonel, both, to show off their talents,

drilled their men separately. One saw the red epaulettes and the

black breastplates pass and re-pass alternately; there was no end

to it, and it constantly began again. There had never been such a

display of pomp. Several citizens had scoured their houses the

evening before; tri-coloured flags hung from half-open windows;

all the public-houses were full; and in the lovely weather the

starched caps, the golden crosses, and the coloured neckerchiefs

seemed whiter than snow, shone in the sun, and relieved with the

motley colours the sombre monotony of the frock-coats and blue

smocks. The neighbouring farmers' wives, when they got off their

horses, pulled out the long pins that fastened around them their

dresses, turned up for fear of mud; and the husbands, for their

part, in order to save their hats, kept their handkerchiefs

around them, holding one corner between their teeth.

The crowd came into the main street from both ends of the

village. People poured in from the lanes, the alleys, the houses;

and from time to time one heard knockers banging against doors

closing behind women with their gloves, who were going out to see

the fete. What was most admired were two long lamp-stands covered

with lanterns, that flanked a platform on which the authorities

were to sit. Besides this there were against the four columns of

the town hall four kinds of poles, each bearing a small standard

of greenish cloth, embellished with inscriptions in gold letters.

On one was written, "To Commerce"; on the other, "To

Agriculture"; on the third, "To Industry"; and on the fourth, "To

the Fine Arts."

But the jubilation that brightened all faces seemed to darken

that of Madame Lefrancois, the innkeeper. Standing on her

kitchen-steps she muttered to herself, "What rubbish! what

rubbish! With their canvas booth! Do they think the prefect will

be glad to dine down there under a tent like a gipsy? They call

all this fussing doing good to the place! Then it wasn't worth

while sending to Neufchatel for the keeper of a cookshop! And for

whom? For cowherds! tatterdemalions!"

The druggist was passing. He had on a frock-coat, nankeen

trousers, beaver shoes, and, for a wonder, a hat with a low

crown.

"Your servant! Excuse me, I am in a hurry." And as the fat widow

asked where he was going--

"It seems odd to you, doesn't it, I who am always more cooped up

in my laboratory than the man's rat in his cheese."

"What cheese?" asked the landlady.

"Oh, nothing! nothing!" Homais continued. "I merely wished to

convey to you, Madame Lefrancois, that I usually live at home

like a recluse. To-day, however, considering the circumstances,

it is necessary--"

"Oh, you're going down there!" she said contemptuously.

"Yes, I am going," replied the druggist, astonished. "Am I not a

member of the consulting commission?"

Mere Lefrancois looked at him for a few moments, and ended by

saying with a smile--

"That's another pair of shoes! But what does agriculture matter

to you? Do you understand anything about it?"

"Certainly I understand it, since I am a druggist--that is to

say, a chemist. And the object of chemistry, Madame Lefrancois,

being the knowledge of the reciprocal and molecular action of all

natural bodies, it follows that agriculture is comprised within

its domain. And, in fact, the composition of the manure, the

fermentation of liquids, the analyses of gases, and the influence

of miasmata, what, I ask you, is all this, if it isn't chemistry,

pure and simple?"

The landlady did not answer. Homais went on--

"Do you think that to be an agriculturist it is necessary to have

tilled the earth or fattened fowls oneself? It is necessary

rather to know the composition of the substances in question--the

geological strata, the atmospheric actions, the quality of the

soil, the minerals, the waters, the density of the different

bodies, their capillarity, and what not. And one must be master

of all the principles of hygiene in order to direct, criticize

the construction of buildings, the feeding of animals, the diet

of domestics. And, moreover, Madame Lefrancois, one must know

botany, be able to distinguish between plants, you understand,

which are the wholesome and those that are deleterious, which are

unproductive and which nutritive, if it is well to pull them up

here and re-sow them there, to propagate some, destroy others; in

brief, one must keep pace with science by means of pamphlets and

public papers, be always on the alert to find out improvements."

The landlady never took her eyes off the "Cafe Francois" and the

chemist went on--

"Would to God our agriculturists were chemists, or that at least

they would pay more attention to the counsels of science. Thus

lately I myself wrote a considerable tract, a memoir of over

seventy-two pages, entitled, 'Cider, its Manufacture and its

Effects, together with some New Reflections on the Subject,' that

I sent to the Agricultural Society of Rouen, and which even

procured me the honour of being received among its

members--Section, Agriculture; Class, Pomological.

Well, if my work had been given to the public--" But the druggist

stopped, Madame Lefrancois seemed so preoccupied.

"Just look at them!" she said. "It's past comprehension! Such a

cookshop as that!" And with a shrug of the shoulders that

stretched out over her breast the stitches of her knitted bodice,

she pointed with both hands at her rival's inn, whence songs were

heard issuing. "Well, it won't last long," she added. "It'll be

over before a week."

Homais drew back with stupefaction. She came down three steps and

whispered in his ear--

"What! you didn't know it? There is to be an execution in next

week. It's Lheureux who is selling him out; he has killed him

with bills."

"What a terrible catastrophe!" cried the druggist, who always

found expressions in harmony with all imaginable circumstances.

Then the landlady began telling him the story that she had heard

from Theodore, Monsieur Guillaumin's servant, and although she

detested Tellier, she blamed Lheureux. He was "a wheedler, a

sneak."

"There!" she said. "Look at him! he is in the market; he is

bowing to Madame Bovary, who's got on a green bonnet. Why, she's

taking Monsieur Boulanger's arm."

"Madame Bovary!" exclaimed Homais. "I must go at once and pay her

my respects. Perhaps she'll be very glad to have a seat in the

enclosure under the peristyle." And, without heeding Madame

Lefrancois, who was calling him back to tell him more about it,

the druggist walked off rapidly with a smile on his lips, with

straight knees, bowing copiously to right and left, and taking up

much room with the large tails of his frock-coat that fluttered

behind him in the wind.

Rodolphe, having caught sight of him from afar, hurried on, but

Madame Bovary lost her breath; so he walked more slowly, and,

smiling at her, said in a rough tone--

"It's only to get away from that fat fellow, you know, the

druggist." She pressed his elbow.

"What's the meaning of that?" he asked himself. And he looked at

her out of the corner of his eyes.

Her profile was so calm that one could guess nothing from it. It

stood out in the light from the oval of her bonnet, with pale

ribbons on it like the leaves of weeds. Her eyes with their long

curved lashes looked straight before her, and though wide open,

they seemed slightly puckered by the cheek-bones, because of the

blood pulsing gently under the delicate skin. A pink line ran

along the partition between her nostrils. Her head was bent upon

her shoulder, and the pearl tips of her white teeth were seen

between her lips.

"Is she making fun of me?" thought Rodolphe.

Emma's gesture, however, had only been meant for a warning; for

Monsieur Lheureux was accompanying them, and spoke now and again

as if to enter into the conversation.

"What a superb day! Everybody is out! The wind is east!"

And neither Madame Bovary nor Rodolphe answered him, whilst at

the slightest movement made by them he drew near, saying, "I beg

your pardon!" and raised his hat.

When they reached the farrier's house, instead of following the

road up to the fence, Rodolphe suddenly turned down a path,

drawing with him Madame Bovary. He called out--

"Good evening, Monsieur Lheureux! See you again presently."

"How you got rid of him!" she said, laughing.

"Why," he went on, "allow oneself to be intruded upon by others?

And as to-day I have the happiness of being with you--"

Emma blushed. He did not finish his sentence. Then he talked of

the fine weather and of the pleasure of walking on the grass. A

few daisies had sprung up again.

"Here are some pretty Easter daisies," he said, "and enough of

them to furnish oracles to all the amorous maids in the place."

He added, "Shall I pick some? What do you think?"

"Are you in love?" she asked, coughing a little.

"H'm, h'm! who knows?" answered Rodolphe.

The meadow began to fill, and the housewives hustled you with

their great umbrellas, their baskets, and their babies. One had

often to get out of the way of a long file of country folk,

servant-maids with blue stockings, flat shoes, silver rings, and

who smelt of milk, when one passed close to them. They walked

along holding one another by the hand, and thus they spread over

the whole field from the row of open trees to the banquet tent.

But this was the examination time, and the farmers one after the

other entered a kind of enclosure formed by a long cord supported

on sticks.

The beasts were there, their noses towards the cord, and making a

confused line with their unequal rumps. Drowsy pigs were

burrowing in the earth with their snouts, calves were bleating,

lambs baaing; the cows, on knees folded in, were stretching their

bellies on the grass, slowly chewing the cud, and blinking their

heavy eyelids at the gnats that buzzed round them. Plough-men

with bare arms were holding by the halter prancing stallions that

neighed with dilated nostrils looking towards the mares. These

stood quietly, stretching out their heads and flowing manes,

while their foals rested in their shadow, or now and then came

and sucked them. And above the long undulation of these crowded

animals one saw some white mane rising in the wind like a wave,

or some sharp horns sticking out, and the heads of men running

about. Apart, outside the enclosure, a hundred paces off, was a

large black bull, muzzled, with an iron ring in its nostrils, and

who moved no more than if he had been in bronze. A child in rags

was holding him by a rope.

Between the two lines the committee-men were walking with heavy

steps, examining each animal, then consulting one another in a

low voice. One who seemed of more importance now and then took

notes in a book as he walked along. This was the president of the

jury, Monsieur Derozerays de la Panville. As soon as he

recognised Rodolphe he came forward quickly, and smiling amiably,

said--

"What! Monsieur Boulanger, you are deserting us?"

Rodolphe protested that he was just coming. But when the

president had disappeared--

"Ma foi!*" said he, "I shall not go. Your company is better than

his."

*Upon my word!

And while poking fun at the show, Rodolphe, to move about more easily,

showed the gendarme his blue card, and even stopped now and then in

front of some fine beast, which Madame Bovary did not at all admire.

He noticed this, and began jeering at the Yonville ladies and their

dresses; then he apologised for the negligence of his own. He had that

incongruity of common and elegant in which the habitually vulgar think

they see the revelation of an eccentric existence, of the

perturbations of sentiment, the tyrannies of art, and always a

certain contempt for social conventions, that seduces or

exasperates them. Thus his cambric shirt with plaited cuffs was

blown out by the wind in the opening of his waistcoat of grey

ticking, and his broad-striped trousers disclosed at the ankle

nankeen boots with patent leather gaiters.

These were so polished that they reflected the grass. He trampled

on horses's dung with them, one hand in the pocket of his jacket

and his straw hat on one side.

"Besides," added he, "when one lives in the country--"

"It's waste of time," said Emma.

"That is true," replied Rodolphe. "To think that not one of these

people is capable of understanding even the cut of a coat!"

Then they talked about provincial mediocrity, of the lives it

crushed, the illusions lost there.

"And I too," said Rodolphe, "am drifting into depression."

"You!" she said in astonishment; "I thought you very

light-hearted."

"Ah! yes. I seem so, because in the midst of the world I know how

to wear the mask of a scoffer upon my face; and yet, how many a

time at the sight of a cemetery by moonlight have I not asked

myself whether it were not better to join those sleeping there!"

"Oh! and your friends?" she said. "You do not think of them."

"My friends! What friends? Have I any? Who cares for me?" And he

accompanied the last words with a kind of whistling of the lips.

But they were obliged to separate from each other because of a

great pile of chairs that a man was carrying behind them. He was

so overladen with them that one could only see the tips of his

wooden shoes and the ends of his two outstretched arms. It was

Lestiboudois, the gravedigger, who was carrying the church chairs

about amongst the people. Alive to all that concerned his

interests, he had hit upon this means of turning the show to

account; and his idea was succeeding, for he no longer knew which

way to turn. In fact, the villagers, who were hot, quarreled for

these seats, whose straw smelt of incense, and they leant against

the thick backs, stained with the wax of candles, with a certain

veneration.

Madame Bovary again took Rodolphe's arm; he went on as if

speaking to himself--

"Yes, I have missed so many things. Always alone! Ah! if I had

some aim in life, if I had met some love, if I had found someone!

Oh, how I would have spent all the energy of which I am capable,

surmounted everything, overcome everything!"

"Yet it seems to me," said Emma, "that you are not to be pitied."

"Ah! you think so?" said Rodolphe.

"For, after all," she went on, "you are free--" she hesitated,

"rich--"

"Do not mock me," he replied.

And she protested that she was not mocking him, when the report

of a cannon resounded. Immediately all began hustling one another

pell-mell towards the village.

It was a false alarm. The prefect seemed not to be coming, and

the members of the jury felt much embarrassed, not knowing if

they ought to begin the meeting or still wait.

At last at the end of the Place a large hired landau appeared,

drawn by two thin horses, which a coachman in a white hat was

whipping lustily. Binet had only just time to shout, "Present

arms!" and the colonel to imitate him. All ran towards the

enclosure; everyone pushed forward. A few even forgot their

collars; but the equipage of the prefect seemed to anticipate the

crowd, and the two yoked jades, trapesing in their harness, came

up at a little trot in front of the peristyle of the town hall at

the very moment when the National Guard and firemen deployed,

beating drums and marking time.

"Present!" shouted Binet.

"Halt!" shouted the colonel. "Left about, march."

And after presenting arms, during which the clang of the band,

letting loose, rang out like a brass kettle rolling downstairs,

all the guns were lowered. Then was seen stepping down from the

carriage a gentleman in a short coat with silver braiding, with

bald brow, and wearing a tuft of hair at the back of his head, of

a sallow complexion and the most benign appearance. His eyes,

very large and covered by heavy lids, were half-closed to look at

the crowd, while at the same time he raised his sharp nose, and

forced a smile upon his sunken mouth. He recognised the mayor by

his scarf, and explained to him that the prefect was not able to

come. He himself was a councillor at the prefecture; then he

added a few apologies. Monsieur Tuvache answered them with

compliments; the other confessed himself nervous; and they

remained thus, face to face, their foreheads almost touching,

with the members of the jury all round, the municipal council,

the notable personages, the National Guard and the crowd. The

councillor pressing his little cocked hat to his breast repeated

his bows, while Tuvache, bent like a bow, also smiled, stammered,

tried to say something, protested his devotion to the monarchy

and the honour that was being done to Yonville.

Hippolyte, the groom from the inn, took the head of the horses

from the coachman, and, limping along with his club-foot, led

them to the door of the "Lion d'Or", where a number of peasants

collected to look at the carriage. The drum beat, the howitzer

thundered, and the gentlemen one by one mounted the platform,

where they sat down in red utrecht velvet arm-chairs that had

been lent by Madame Tuvache.

All these people looked alike. Their fair flabby faces, somewhat

tanned by the sun, were the colour of sweet cider, and their

puffy whiskers emerged from stiff collars, kept up by white

cravats with broad bows. All the waist-coats were of velvet,

double-breasted; all the watches had, at the end of a long

ribbon, an oval cornelian seal; everyone rested his two hands on

his thighs, carefully stretching the stride of their trousers,

whose unsponged glossy cloth shone more brilliantly than the

leather of their heavy boots.

The ladies of the company stood at the back under the vestibule

between the pillars while the common herd was opposite, standing

up or sitting on chairs. As a matter of fact, Lestiboudois had

brought thither all those that he had moved from the field, and

he even kept running back every minute to fetch others from the

church. He caused such confusion with this piece of business that

one had great difficulty in getting to the small steps of the

platform.

"I think," said Monsieur Lheureux to the chemist, who was passing

to his place, "that they ought to have put up two Venetian masts

with something rather severe and rich for ornaments; it would

have been a very pretty effect."

"To be sure," replied Homais; "but what can you expect? The mayor

took everything on his own shoulders. He hasn't much taste. Poor

Tuvache! and he is even completely destitute of what is called

the genius of art."

Rodolphe, meanwhile, with Madame Bovary, had gone up to the first

floor of the town hall, to the "council-room," and, as it was

empty, he declared that they could enjoy the sight there more

comfortably. He fetched three stools from the round table under

the bust of the monarch, and having carried them to one of the

windows, they sat down by each other.

There was commotion on the platform, long whisperings, much

parleying. At last the councillor got up. They knew now that his

name was Lieuvain, and in the crowd the name was passed from one

to the other. After he had collated a few pages, and bent over

them to see better, he began--

"Gentlemen! May I be permitted first of all (before addressing

you on the object of our meeting to-day, and this sentiment will,

I am sure, be shared by you all), may I be permitted, I say, to

pay a tribute to the higher administration, to the government to

the monarch, gentle men, our sovereign, to that beloved king, to

whom no branch of public or private prosperity is a matter of

indifference, and who directs with a hand at once so firm and

wise the chariot of the state amid the incessant perils of a

stormy sea, knowing, moreover, how to make peace respected as

well as war, industry, commerce, agriculture, and the fine arts?"

"I ought," said Rodolphe, "to get back a little further."

"Why?" said Emma.

But at this moment the voice of the councillor rose to an

extraordinary pitch. He declaimed--

"This is no longer the time, gentlemen, when civil discord

ensanguined our public places, when the landlord, the

business-man, the working-man himself, falling asleep at night,

lying down to peaceful sleep, trembled lest he should be awakened

suddenly by the noise of incendiary tocsins, when the most

subversive doctrines audaciously sapped foundations."

"Well, someone down there might see me," Rodolphe resumed, "then

I should have to invent excuses for a fortnight; and with my bad

reputation--"

"Oh, you are slandering yourself," said Emma.

"No! It is dreadful, I assure you."

"But, gentlemen," continued the councillor, "if, banishing from

my memory the remembrance of these sad pictures, I carry my eyes

back to the actual situation of our dear country, what do I see

there? Everywhere commerce and the arts are flourishing;

everywhere new means of communication, like so many new arteries

in the body of the state, establish within it new relations. Our

great industrial centres have recovered all their activity;

religion, more consolidated, smiles in all hearts; our ports are

full, confidence is born again, and France breathes once more!"

"Besides," added Rodolphe, "perhaps from the world's point of

view they are right."

"How so?" she asked.

"What!" said he. "Do you not know that there are souls constantly

tormented? They need by turns to dream and to act, the purest

passions and the most turbulent joys, and thus they fling

themselves into all sorts of fantasies, of follies."

Then she looked at him as one looks at a traveller who has

voyaged over strange lands, and went on--

"We have not even this distraction, we poor women!"

"A sad distraction, for happiness isn't found in it."

"But is it ever found?" she asked.

"Yes; one day it comes," he answered.

"And this is what you have understood," said the councillor.

"You, farmers, agricultural labourers! you pacific pioneers of a

work that belongs wholly to civilization! you, men of progress

and morality, you have understood, I say, that political storms

are even more redoubtable than atmospheric disturbances!"

"It comes one day," repeated Rodolphe, "one day suddenly, and

when one is despairing of it. Then the horizon expands; it is as

if a voice cried, 'It is here!' You feel the need of confiding

the whole of your life, of giving everything, sacrificing

everything to this being. There is no need for explanations; they

understand one another. They have seen each other in dreams!"

(And he looked at her.) "In fine, here it is, this treasure so

sought after, here before you. It glitters, it flashes; yet one

still doubts, one does not believe it; one remains dazzled, as if

one went out iron darkness into light."

And as he ended Rodolphe suited the action to the word. He passed

his hand over his face, like a man seized with giddiness. Then he

let it fall on Emma's. She took hers away.

"And who would be surprised at it, gentlemen? He only who is so

blind, so plunged (I do not fear to say it), so plunged in the

prejudices of another age as still to misunderstand the spirit of

agricultural populations. Where, indeed, is to be found more

patriotism than in the country, greater devotion to the public

welfare, more intelligence, in a word? And, gentlemen, I do not

mean that superficial intelligence, vain ornament of idle minds,

but rather that profound and balanced intelligence that applies

itself above all else to useful objects, thus contributing to the

good of all, to the common amelioration and to the support of the

state, born of respect for law and the practice of duty--"

"Ah! again!" said Rodolphe. "Always 'duty.' I am sick of the

word. They are a lot of old blockheads in flannel vests and of

old women with foot-warmers and rosaries who constantly drone

into our ears 'Duty, duty!' Ah! by Jove! one's duty is to feel

what is great, cherish the beautiful, and not accept all the

conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon

us."

"Yet--yet--" objected Madame Bovary.

"No, no! Why cry out against the passions? Are they not the one

beautiful thing on the earth, the source of heroism, of

enthusiasm, of poetry, music, the arts, of everything, in a

word?"

"But one must," said Emma, "to some extent bow to the opinion of

the world and accept its moral code."

"Ah! but there are two," he replied. "The small, the

conventional, that of men, that which constantly changes, that

brays out so loudly, that makes such a commotion here below, of

the earth earthly, like the mass of imbeciles you see down there.

But the other, the eternal, that is about us and above, like the

landscape that surrounds us, and the blue heavens that give us

light."

Monsieur Lieuvain had just wiped his mouth with a

pocket-handkerchief. He continued--

"And what should I do here gentlemen, pointing out to you the

uses of agriculture? Who supplies our wants? Who provides our

means of subsistence? Is it not the agriculturist? The

agriculturist, gentlemen, who, sowing with laborious hand the

fertile furrows of the country, brings forth the corn, which,

being ground, is made into a powder by means of ingenious

machinery, comes out thence under the name of flour, and from

there, transported to our cities, is soon delivered at the

baker's, who makes it into food for poor and rich alike. Again,

is it not the agriculturist who fattens, for our clothes, his

abundant flocks in the pastures? For how should we clothe

ourselves, how nourish ourselves, without the agriculturist? And,

gentlemen, is it even necessary to go so far for examples? Who

has not frequently reflected on all the momentous things that we

get out of that modest animal, the ornament of poultry-yards,

that provides us at once with a soft pillow for our bed, with

succulent flesh for our tables, and eggs? But I should never end

if I were to enumerate one after the other all the different

products which the earth, well cultivated, like a generous

mother, lavishes upon her children. Here it is the vine,

elsewhere the apple tree for cider, there colza, farther on

cheeses and flax. Gentlemen, let us not forget flax, which has

made such great strides of late years, and to which I will more

particularly call your attention."

He had no need to call it, for all the mouths of the multitude

were wide open, as if to drink in his words. Tuvache by his side

listened to him with staring eyes. Monsieur Derozerays from time

to time softly closed his eyelids, and farther on the chemist,

with his son Napoleon between his knees, put his hand behind his

ear in order not to lose a syllable. The chins of the other

members of the jury went slowly up and down in their waistcoats

in sign of approval. The firemen at the foot of the platform

rested on their bayonets; and Binet, motionless, stood with

out-turned elbows, the point of his sabre in the air. Perhaps he

could hear, but certainly he could see nothing, because of the

visor of his helmet, that fell down on his nose. His lieutenant,

the youngest son of Monsieur Tuvache, had a bigger one, for his

was enormous, and shook on his head, and from it an end of his

cotton scarf peeped out. He smiled beneath it with a perfectly

infantine sweetness, and his pale little face, whence drops were

running, wore an expression of enjoyment and sleepiness.

The square as far as the houses was crowded with people. One saw

folk leaning on their elbows at all the windows, others standing

at doors, and Justin, in front of the chemist's shop, seemed

quite transfixed by the sight of what he was looking at. In spite

of the silence Monsieur Lieuvain's voice was lost in the air. It

reached you in fragments of phrases, and interrupted here and

there by the creaking of chairs in the crowd; then you suddenly

heard the long bellowing of an ox, or else the bleating of the

lambs, who answered one another at street corners. In fact, the

cowherds and shepherds had driven their beasts thus far, and

these lowed from time to time, while with their tongues they tore

down some scrap of foliage that hung above their mouths.

Rodolphe had drawn nearer to Emma, and said to her in a low

voice, speaking rapidly--

"Does not this conspiracy of the world revolt you? Is there a

single sentiment it does not condemn? The noblest instincts, the

purest sympathies are persecuted, slandered; and if at length two

poor souls do meet, all is so organised that they cannot blend

together. Yet they will make the attempt; they will flutter their

wings; they will call upon each other. Oh! no matter. Sooner or

later, in six months, ten years, they will come together, will

love; for fate has decreed it, and they are born one for the

other."

His arms were folded across his knees, and thus lifting his face

towards Emma, close by her, he looked fixedly at her. She noticed

in his eyes small golden lines radiating from black pupils; she

even smelt the perfume of the pomade that made his hair glossy.

Then a faintness came over her; she recalled the Viscount who had

waltzed with her at Vaubyessard, and his beard exhaled like this

air an odour of vanilla and citron, and mechanically she

half-closed her eyes the better to breathe it in. But in making

this movement, as she leant back in her chair, she saw in the

distance, right on the line of the horizon, the old diligence,

the "Hirondelle," that was slowly descending the hill of Leux,

dragging after it a long trail of dust. It was in this yellow

carriage that Leon had so often come back to her, and by this

route down there that he had gone for ever. She fancied she saw

him opposite at his windows; then all grew confused; clouds

gathered; it seemed to her that she was again turning in the

waltz under the light of the lustres on the arm of the Viscount,

and that Leon was not far away, that he was coming; and yet all

the time she was conscious of the scent of Rodolphe's head by her

side. This sweetness of sensation pierced through her old

desires, and these, like grains of sand under a gust of wind,

eddied to and fro in the subtle breath of the perfume which

suffused her soul. She opened wide her nostrils several times to

drink in the freshness of the ivy round the capitals. She took

off her gloves, she wiped her hands, then fanned her face with

her handkerchief, while athwart the throbbing of her temples she

heard the murmur of the crowd and the voice of the councillor

intoning his phrases. He said--"Continue, persevere; listen

neither to the suggestions of routine, nor to the over-hasty

councils of a rash empiricism.

"Apply yourselves, above all, to the amelioration of the soil, to

good manures, to the development of the equine, bovine, ovine,

and porcine races. Let these shows be to you pacific arenas,

where the victor in leaving it will hold forth a hand to the

vanquished, and will fraternise with him in the hope of better

success. And you, aged servants, humble domestics, whose hard

labour no Government up to this day has taken into consideration,

come hither to receive the reward of your silent virtues, and be

assured that the state henceforward has its eye upon you; that it

encourages you, protects you; that it will accede to your just

demands, and alleviate as much as in it lies the burden of your

painful sacrifices."

Monsieur Lieuvain then sat down; Monsieur Derozerays got up,

beginning another speech. His was not perhaps so florid as that

of the councillor, but it recommended itself by a more direct

style, that is to say, by more special knowledge and more

elevated considerations. Thus the praise of the Government took

up less space in it; religion and agriculture more. He showed in

it the relations of these two, and how they had always

contributed to civilisation. Rodolphe with Madame Bovary was

talking dreams, presentiments, magnetism. Going back to the

cradle of society, the orator painted those fierce times when men

lived on acorns in the heart of woods. Then they had left off the

skins of beasts, had put on cloth, tilled the soil, planted the

vine. Was this a good, and in this discovery was there not more

of injury than of gain? Monsieur Derozerays set himself this

problem. From magnetism little by little Rodolphe had come to

affinities, and while the president was citing Cincinnatus and

his plough, Diocletian, planting his cabbages, and the Emperors

of China inaugurating the year by the sowing of seed, the young

man was explaining to the young woman that these irresistible

attractions find their cause in some previous state of existence.

"Thus we," he said, "why did we come to know one another? What

chance willed it? It was because across the infinite, like two

streams that flow but to unite; our special bents of mind had

driven us towards each other."

And he seized her hand; she did not withdraw it.

"For good farming generally!" cried the president.

"Just now, for example, when I went to your house."

"To Monsieur Bizat of Quincampoix."

"Did I know I should accompany you?"

"Seventy francs."

"A hundred times I wished to go; and I followed you--I remained."

"Manures!"

"And I shall remain to-night, to-morrow, all other days, all my

life!"

"To Monsieur Caron of Argueil, a gold medal!"

"For I have never in the society of any other person found so

complete a charm."

"To Monsieur Bain of Givry-Saint-Martin."

"And I shall carry away with me the remembrance of you."

"For a merino ram!"

"But you will forget me; I shall pass away like a shadow."

"To Monsieur Belot of Notre-Dame."

"Oh, no! I shall be something in your thought, in your life,

shall I not?"

"Porcine race; prizes--equal, to Messrs. Leherisse and

Cullembourg, sixty francs!"

Rodolphe was pressing her hand, and he felt it all warm and

quivering like a captive dove that wants to fly away; but,

whether she was trying to take it away or whether she was

answering his pressure; she made a movement with her fingers. He

exclaimed--

"Oh, I thank you! You do not repulse me! You are good! You

understand that I am yours! Let me look at you; let me

contemplate you!"

A gust of wind that blew in at the window ruffled the cloth on

the table, and in the square below all the great caps of the

peasant women were uplifted by it like the wings of white

butterflies fluttering.

"Use of oil-cakes," continued the president. He was hurrying on:

"Flemish manure-flax-growing-drainage-long leases-domestic

service."

Rodolphe was no longer speaking. They looked at one another. A

supreme desire made their dry lips tremble, and wearily, without

an effort, their fingers intertwined.

"Catherine Nicaise Elizabeth Leroux, of Sassetot-la-Guerriere,

for fifty-four years of service at the same farm, a silver

medal--value, twenty-five francs!"

"Where is Catherine Leroux?" repeated the councillor.

She did not present herself, and one could hear voices

whispering--

"Go up!"

"Don't be afraid!"

"Oh, how stupid she is!"

"Well, is she there?" cried Tuvache.

"Yes; here she is."

"Then let her come up!"

Then there came forward on the platform a little old woman with

timid bearing, who seemed to shrink within her poor clothes. On

her feet she wore heavy wooden clogs, and from her hips hung a

large blue apron. Her pale face framed in a borderless cap was

more wrinkled than a withered russet apple. And from the sleeves

of her red jacket looked out two large hands with knotty joints,

the dust of barns, the potash of washing the grease of wools had

so encrusted, roughened, hardened these that they seemed dirty,

although they had been rinsed in clear water; and by dint of long

service they remained half open, as if to bear humble witness for

themselves of so much suffering endured. Something of monastic

rigidity dignified her face. Nothing of sadness or of emotion

weakened that pale look. In her constant living with animals she

had caught their dumbness and their calm. It was the first time

that she found herself in the midst of so large a company, and

inwardly scared by the flags, the drums, the gentlemen in

frock-coats, and the order of the councillor, she stood

motionless, not knowing whether to advance or run away, nor why

the crowd was pushing her and the jury were smiling at her.

Thus stood before these radiant bourgeois this half-century of

servitude.

"Approach, venerable Catherine Nicaise Elizabeth Leroux!" said

the councillor, who had taken the list of prize-winners from the

president; and, looking at the piece of paper and the old woman

by turns, he repeated in a fatherly tone--"Approach! approach!"

"Are you deaf?" said Tuvache, fidgeting in his armchair; and he

began shouting in her ear, "Fifty-four years of service. A silver

medal! Twenty-five francs! For you!"

Then, when she had her medal, she looked at it, and a smile of

beatitude spread over her face; and as she walked away they could

hear her muttering "I'll give it to our cure up home, to say some

masses for me!"

"What fanaticism!" exclaimed the chemist, leaning across to the

notary.

The meeting was over, the crowd dispersed, and now that the

speeches had been read, each one fell back into his place again,

and everything into the old grooves; the masters bullied the

servants, and these struck the animals, indolent victors, going

back to the stalls, a green-crown on their horns.

The National Guards, however, had gone up to the first floor of

the town hall with buns spitted on their bayonets, and the

drummer of the battalion carried a basket with bottles. Madame

Bovary took Rodolphe's arm; he saw her home; they separated at

her door; then he walked about alone in the meadow while he

waited for the time of the banquet.

The feast was long, noisy, ill served; the guests were so crowded

that they could hardly move their elbows; and the narrow planks

used for forms almost broke down under their weight. They ate

hugely. Each one stuffed himself on his own account. Sweat stood

on every brow, and a whitish steam, like the vapour of a stream

on an autumn morning, floated above the table between the hanging

lamps. Rodolphe, leaning against the calico of the tent was

thinking so earnestly of Emma that he heard nothing. Behind him

on the grass the servants were piling up the dirty plates, his

neighbours were talking; he did not answer them; they filled his

glass, and there was silence in his thoughts in spite of the

growing noise. He was dreaming of what she had said, of the line

of her lips; her face, as in a magic mirror, shone on the plates

of the shakos, the folds of her gown fell along the walls, and

days of love unrolled to all infinity before him in the vistas of

the future.

He saw her again in the evening during the fireworks, but she was

with her husband, Madame Homais, and the druggist, who was

worrying about the danger of stray rockets, and every moment he

left the company to go and give some advice to Binet.

The pyrotechnic pieces sent to Monsieur Tuvache had, through an

excess of caution, been shut up in his cellar, and so the damp

powder would not light, and the principal set piece, that was to

represent a dragon biting his tail, failed completely. Now and

then a meagre Roman-candle went off; then the gaping crowd sent

up a shout that mingled with the cry of the women, whose waists

were being squeezed in the darkness. Emma silently nestled

against Charles's shoulder; then, raising her chin, she watched

the luminous rays of the rockets against the dark sky. Rodolphe

gazed at her in the light of the burning lanterns.

They went out one by one. The stars shone out. A few crops of

rain began to fall. She knotted her fichu round her bare head.

At this moment the councillor's carriage came out from the inn.

His coachman, who was drunk, suddenly dozed off, and one could

see from the distance, above the hood, between the two lanterns,

the mass of his body, that swayed from right to left with the

giving of the traces.

"Truly," said the druggist, "one ought to proceed most rigorously

against drunkenness! I should like to see written up weekly at

the door of the town hall on a board ad hoc* the names of all

those who during the week got intoxicated on alcohol. Besides,

with regard to statistics, one would thus have, as it were,

public records that one could refer to in case of need. But

excuse me!"

*Specifically for that.

And he once more ran off to the captain. The latter was going

back to see his lathe again.

"Perhaps you would not do ill," Homais said to him, "to send one

of your men, or to go yourself--"

"Leave me alone!" answered the tax-collector. "It's all right!"

"Do not be uneasy," said the druggist, when he returned to his

friends. "Monsieur Binet has assured me that all precautions have

been taken. No sparks have fallen; the pumps are full. Let us go

to rest."

"Ma foi! I want it," said Madame Homais, yawning at large. "But

never mind; we've had a beautiful day for our fete."

Rodolphe repeated in a low voice, and with a tender look, "Oh,

yes! very beautiful!"

And having bowed to one another, they separated.

Two days later, in the "Final de Rouen," there was a long article

on the show. Homais had composed it with verve the very next

morning.

"Why these festoons, these flowers, these garlands? Whither

hurries this crowd like the waves of a furious sea under the

torrents of a tropical sun pouring its heat upon our heads?"

Then he spoke of the condition of the peasants. Certainly the

Government was doing much, but not enough. "Courage!" he cried to

it; "a thousand reforms are indispensable; let us accomplish

them!" Then touching on the entry of the councillor, he did not

forget "the martial air of our militia;" nor "our most merry

village maidens;" nor the "bald-headed old men like patriarchs

who were there, and of whom some, the remnants of our phalanxes,

still felt their hearts beat at the manly sound of the drums." He

cited himself among the first of the members of the jury, and he

even called attention in a note to the fact that Monsieur Homais,

chemist, had sent a memoir on cider to the agricultural society.

When he came to the distribution of the prizes, he painted the

joy of the prize-winners in dithyrambic strophes. "The father

embraced the son, the brother the brother, the husband his

consort. More than one showed his humble medal with pride; and no

doubt when he got home to his good housewife, he hung it up

weeping on the modest walls of his cot.

"About six o'clock a banquet prepared in the meadow of Monsieur

Leigeard brought together the principal personages of the fete.

The greatest cordiality reigned here. Divers toasts were

proposed: Monsieur Lieuvain, the King; Monsieur Tuvache, the

Prefect; Monsieur Derozerays, Agriculture; Monsieur Homais,

Industry and the Fine Arts, those twin sisters; Monsieur

Leplichey, Progress. In the evening some brilliant fireworks on a

sudden illumined the air. One would have called it a veritable

kaleidoscope, a real operatic scene; and for a moment our little

locality might have thought itself transported into the midst of

a dream of the 'Thousand and One Nights.' Let us state that no

untoward event disturbed this family meeting." And he added "Only

the absence of the clergy was remarked. No doubt the priests

understand progress in another fashion. Just as you please,

messieurs the followers of Loyola!"

Chapter Nine

Six weeks passed. Rodolphe did not come again. At last one

evening he appeared.

The day after the show he had said to himself--"We mustn't go

back too soon; that would be a mistake."

And at the end of a week he had gone off hunting. After the

hunting he had thought it was too late, and then he reasoned

thus--

"If from the first day she loved me, she must from impatience to

see me again love me more. Let's go on with it!"

And he knew that his calculation had been right when, on entering

the room, he saw Emma turn pale.

She was alone. The day was drawing in. The small muslin curtain

along the windows deepened the twilight, and the gilding of the

barometer, on which the rays of the sun fell, shone in the

looking-glass between the meshes of the coral.

Rodolphe remained standing, and Emma hardly answered his first

conventional phrases.

"I," he said, "have been busy. I have been ill."

"Seriously?" she cried.

"Well," said Rodolphe, sitting down at her side on a footstool,

"no; it was because I did not want to come back."

"Why?"

"Can you not guess?"

He looked at her again, but so hard that she lowered her head,

blushing. He went on--

"Emma!"

"Sir," she said, drawing back a little.

"Ah! you see," replied he in a melancholy voice, "that I was

right not to come back; for this name, this name that fills my

whole soul, and that escaped me, you forbid me to use! Madame

Bovary! why all the world calls you thus! Besides, it is not your

name; it is the name of another!"

He repeated, "of another!" And he hid his face in his hands.

"Yes, I think of you constantly. The memory of you drives me to

despair. Ah! forgive me! I will leave you! Farewell! I will go

far away, so far that you will never hear of me again; and yet--

to-day--I know not what force impelled me towards you. For one

does not struggle against Heaven; one cannot resist the smile of

angels; one is carried away by that which is beautiful, charming,

adorable."

It was the first time that Emma had heard such words spoken to

herself, and her pride, like one who reposes bathed in warmth,

expanded softly and fully at this glowing language.

"But if I did not come," he continued, "if I could not see you,

at least I have gazed long on all that surrounds you. At

night-every night-I arose; I came hither; I watched your house,

its glimmering in the moon, the trees in the garden swaying

before your window, and the little lamp, a gleam shining through

the window-panes in the darkness. Ah! you never knew that there,

so near you, so far from you, was a poor wretch!"

She turned towards him with a sob.

"Oh, you are good!" she said.

"No, I love you, that is all! You do not doubt that! Tell me--one

word--only one word!"

And Rodolphe imperceptibly glided from the footstool to the

ground; but a sound of wooden shoes was heard in the kitchen, and

he noticed the door of the room was not closed.

"How kind it would be of you," he went on, rising, "if you would

humour a whim of mine." It was to go over her house; he wanted to

know it; and Madame Bovary seeing no objection to this, they both

rose, when Charles came in.

"Good morning, doctor," Rodolphe said to him.

The doctor, flattered at this unexpected title, launched out into

obsequious phrases. Of this the other took advantage to pull

himself together a little.

"Madame was speaking to me," he then said, "about her health."

Charles interrupted him; he had indeed a thousand anxieties; his

wife's palpitations of the heart were beginning again. Then

Rodolphe asked if riding would not be good.

"Certainly! excellent! just the thing! There's an idea! You ought

to follow it up."

And as she objected that she had no horse, Monsieur Rodolphe

offered one. She refused his offer; he did not insist. Then to

explain his visit he said that his ploughman, the man of the

blood-letting, still suffered from giddiness.

"I'll call around," said Bovary.

"No, no! I'll send him to you; we'll come; that will be more

convenient for you."

"Ah! very good! I thank you."

And as soon as they were alone, "Why don't you accept Monsieur

Boulanger's kind offer?"

She assumed a sulky air, invented a thousand excuses, and finally

declared that perhaps it would look odd.

"Well, what the deuce do I care for that?" said Charles, making a

pirouette. "Health before everything! You are wrong."

"And how do you think I can ride when I haven't got a habit?"

"You must order one," he answered.

The riding-habit decided her.

When the habit was ready, Charles wrote to Monsieur Boulanger

that his wife was at his command, and that they counted on his

good-nature.

The next day at noon Rodolphe appeared at Charles's door with two

saddle-horses. One had pink rosettes at his ears and a deerskin

side-saddle.

Rodolphe had put on high soft boots, saying to himself that no

doubt she had never seen anything like them. In fact, Emma was

charmed with his appearance as he stood on the landing in his

great velvet coat and white corduroy breeches. She was ready; she

was waiting for him.

Justin escaped from the chemist's to see her start, and the

chemist also came out. He was giving Monsieur Boulanger a little

good advice.

"An accident happens so easily. Be careful! Your horses perhaps

are mettlesome."

She heard a noise above her; it was Felicite drumming on the

windowpanes to amuse little Berthe. The child blew her a kiss;

her mother answered with a wave of her whip.

"A pleasant ride!" cried Monsieur Homais. "Prudence! above all,

prudence!" And he flourished his newspaper as he saw them

disappear.

As soon as he felt the ground, Emma's horse set off at a gallop.

Rodolphe galloped by her side. Now and then they exchanged a

word. Her figure slightly bent, her hand well up, and her right

arm stretched out, she gave herself up to the cadence of the

movement that rocked her in her saddle. At the bottom of the hill

Rodolphe gave his horse its head; they started together at a

bound, then at the top suddenly the horses stopped, and her large

blue veil fell about her.

It was early in October. There was fog over the land. Hazy clouds

hovered on the horizon between the outlines of the hills; others,

rent asunder, floated up and disappeared. Sometimes through a

rift in the clouds, beneath a ray of sunshine, gleamed from afar

the roots of Yonville, with the gardens at the water's edge, the

yards, the walls and the church steeple. Emma half closed her

eyes to pick out her house, and never had this poor village where

she lived appeared so small. From the height on which they were

the whole valley seemed an immense pale lake sending off its

vapour into the air. Clumps of trees here and there stood out

like black rocks, and the tall lines of the poplars that rose

above the mist were like a beach stirred by the wind.

By the side, on the turf between the pines, a brown light

shimmered in the warm atmosphere. The earth, ruddy like the

powder of tobacco, deadened the noise of their steps, and with

the edge of their shoes the horses as they walked kicked the

fallen fir cones in front of them.

Rodolphe and Emma thus went along the skirt of the wood. She

turned away from time to time to avoid his look, and then she saw

only the pine trunks in lines, whose monotonous succession made

her a little giddy. The horses were panting; the leather of the

saddles creaked.

Just as they were entering the forest the sun shone out.

"God protects us!" said Rodolphe.

"Do you think so?" she said.

"Forward! forward!" he continued.

He "tchk'd" with his tongue. The two beasts set off at a trot.

Long ferns by the roadside caught in Emma's stirrup.

Rodolphe leant forward and removed them as they rode along. At

other times, to turn aside the branches, he passed close to her,

and Emma felt his knee brushing against her leg. The sky was now

blue, the leaves no longer stirred. There were spaces full of

heather in flower, and plots of violets alternated with the

confused patches of the trees that were grey, fawn, or golden

coloured, according to the nature of their leaves. Often in the

thicket was heard the fluttering of wings, or else the hoarse,

soft cry of the ravens flying off amidst the oaks.

They dismounted. Rodolphe fastened up the horses. She walked on

in front on the moss between the paths. But her long habit got in

her way, although she held it up by the skirt; and Rodolphe,

walking behind her, saw between the black cloth and the black

shoe the fineness of her white stocking, that seemed to him as if

it were a part of her nakedness.

She stopped. "I am tired," she said.

"Come, try again," he went on. "Courage!"

Then some hundred paces farther on she again stopped, and through

her veil, that fell sideways from her man's hat over her hips,

her face appeared in a bluish transparency as if she were

floating under azure waves.

"But where are we going?"

He did not answer. She was breathing irregularly. Rodolphe looked

round him biting his moustache. They came to a larger space where

the coppice had been cut. They sat down on the trunk of a fallen

tree, and Rodolphe began speaking to her of his love. He did not

begin by frightening her with compliments. He was calm, serious,

melancholy.

Emma listened to him with bowed head, and stirred the bits of

wood on the ground with the tip of her foot. But at the words,

"Are not our destinies now one?"

"Oh, no!" she replied. "You know that well. It is impossible!"

She rose to go. He seized her by the wrist. She stopped. Then,

having gazed at him for a few moments with an amorous and humid

look, she said hurriedly--

"Ah! do not speak of it again! Where are the horses? Let us go

back."

He made a gesture of anger and annoyance. She repeated:

"Where are the horses? Where are the horses?"

Then smiling a strange smile, his pupil fixed, his teeth set, he

advanced with outstretched arms. She recoiled trembling. She

stammered:

"Oh, you frighten me! You hurt me! Let me go!"

"If it must be," he went on, his face changing; and he again

became respectful, caressing, timid. She gave him her arm. They

went back. He said--

"What was the matter with you? Why? I do not understand. You were

mistaken, no doubt. In my soul you are as a Madonna on a

pedestal, in a place lofty, secure, immaculate. But I need you to

live! I must have your eyes, your voice, your thought! Be my

friend, my sister, my angel!"

And he put out his arm round her waist. She feebly tried to

disengage herself. He supported her thus as they walked along.

But they heard the two horses browsing on the leaves.

"Oh! one moment!" said Rodolphe. "Do not let us go! Stay!"

He drew her farther on to a small pool where duckweeds made a

greenness on the water. Faded water lilies lay motionless between

the reeds. At the noise of their steps in the grass, frogs jumped

away to hide themselves.

"I am wrong! I am wrong!" she said. "I am mad to listen to you!"

"Why? Emma! Emma!"

"Oh, Rodolphe!" said the young woman slowly, leaning on his

shoulder.

The cloth of her habit caught against the velvet of his coat. She

threw back her white neck, swelling with a sigh, and faltering,

in tears, with a long shudder and hiding her face, she gave

herself up to him--

The shades of night were falling; the horizontal sun passing

between the branches dazzled the eyes. Here and there around her,

in the leaves or on the ground, trembled luminous patches, as it

hummingbirds flying about had scattered their feathers. Silence

was everywhere; something sweet seemed to come forth from the

trees; she felt her heart, whose beating had begun again, and the

blood coursing through her flesh like a stream of milk. Then far

away, beyond the wood, on the other hills, she heard a vague

prolonged cry, a voice which lingered, and in silence she heard

it mingling like music with the last pulsations of her throbbing

nerves. Rodolphe, a cigar between his lips, was mending with his

penknife one of the two broken bridles.

They returned to Yonville by the same road. On the mud they saw

again the traces of their horses side by side, the same thickets,

the same stones to the grass; nothing around them seemed changed;

and yet for her something had happened more stupendous than if

the mountains had moved in their places. Rodolphe now and again

bent forward and took her hand to kiss it.

She was charming on horseback--upright, with her slender waist,

her knee bent on the mane of her horse, her face somewhat flushed

by the fresh air in the red of the evening.

On entering Yonville she made her horse prance in the road.

People looked at her from the windows.

At dinner her husband thought she looked well, but she pretended

not to hear him when he inquired about her ride, and she remained

sitting there with her elbow at the side of her plate between the

two lighted candles.

"Emma!" he said.

"What?"

"Well, I spent the afternoon at Monsieur Alexandre's. He has an

old cob, still very fine, only a little brokenkneed, and that

could be bought; I am sure, for a hundred crowns." He added, "And

thinking it might please you, I have bespoken it--bought it. Have

I done right? Do tell me?"

She nodded her head in assent; then a quarter of an hour later--

"Are you going out to-night?" she asked.

"Yes. Why?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing, my dear!"

And as soon as she had got rid of Charles she went and shut

herself up in her room.

At first she felt stunned; she saw the trees, the paths, the

ditches, Rodolphe, and she again felt the pressure of his arm,

while the leaves rustled and the reeds whistled.

But when she saw herself in the glass she wondered at her face.

Never had her eyes been so large, so black, of so profound a

depth. Something subtle about her being transfigured her. She

repeated, "I have a lover! a lover!" delighting at the idea as if

a second puberty had come to her. So at last she was to know

those joys of love, that fever of happiness of which she had

despairedl She was entering upon marvels where all would be

passion, ecstasy, delirium. An azure infinity encompassed her,

the heights of sentiment sparkled under her thought, and ordinary

existence appeared only afar off, down below in the shade,

through the interspaces of these heights.

Then she recalled the heroines of the books that she had read,

and the lyric legion of these adulterous women began to sing in

her memory with the voice of sisters that charmed her. She became

herself, as it were, an actual part of these imaginings, and

realised the love-dream of her youth as she saw herself in this

type of amorous women whom she had so envied. Besides, Emma felt

a satisfaction of revenge. Had she not suffered enough? But now

she triumphed, and the love so long pent up burst forth in full

joyous bubblings. She tasted it without remorse, without anxiety,

without trouble.

The day following passed with a new sweetness. They made vows to

one another She told him of her sorrows. Rodolphe interrupted her

with kisses; and she looking at him through half-closed eyes,

asked him to call her again by her name--to say that he loved her

They were in the forest, as yesterday, in the shed of some

woodenshoe maker. The walls were of straw, and the roof so low

they had to stoop. They were seated side by side on a bed of dry

leaves.

From that day forth they wrote to one another regularly every

evening. Emma placed her letter at the end of the garden, by the

river, in a fissure of the wall. Rodolphe came to fetch it, and

put another there, that she always found fault with as too

short.

One morning, when Charles had gone out before day break, she was

seized with the fancy to see Rodolphe at once. She would go

quickly to La Huchette, stay there an hour, and be back again at

Yonville while everyone was still asleep. This idea made her pant

with desire, and she soon found herself in the middle of the

field, walking with rapid steps, without looking behind her.

Day was just breaking. Emma from afar recognised her lover's

house. Its two dove-tailed weathercocks stood out black against

the pale dawn.

Beyond the farmyard there was a detached building that she

thought must be the chateau She entered--it was if the doors at

her approach had opened wide of their own accord. A large

straight staircase led up to the corridor. Emma raised the latch

of a door, and suddenly at the end of the room she saw a man

sleeping. It was Rodolphe. She uttered a cry.

"You here? You here?" he repeated. "How did you manage to come?

Ah! your dress is damp."

"I love you," she answered, throwing her arms about his neck.

This first piece of daring successful, now every time Charles

went out early Emma dressed quickly and slipped on tiptoe down

the steps that led to the waterside.

But when the plank for the cows was taken up, she had to go by

the walls alongside of the river; the bank was slippery; in order

not to fall she caught hold of the tufts of faded wallflowers.

Then she went across ploughed fields, in which she sank,

stumbling; and clogging her thin shoes. Her scarf, knotted round

her head, fluttered to the wind in the meadows. She was afraid of

the oxen; she began to run; she arrived out of breath, with rosy

cheeks, and breathing out from her whole person a fresh perfume

of sap, of verdure, of the open air. At this hour Rodolphe still

slept. It was like a spring morning coming into his room.

The yellow curtains along the windows let a heavy, whitish light

enter softly. Emma felt about, opening and closing her eyes,

while the drops of dew hanging from her hair formed, as it were,

a topaz aureole around her face. Rodolphe, laughing, drew her to

him, and pressed her to his breast.

Then she examined the apartment, opened the drawers of the

tables, combed her hair with his comb, and looked at herself in

his shaving-glass. Often she even put between her teeth the big

pipe that lay on the table by the bed, amongst lemons and pieces

of sugar near a bottle of water.

It took them a good quarter of an hour to say goodbye. Then Emma

cried. She would have wished never to leave Rodolphe. Something

stronger than herself forced her to him; so much so, that one

day, seeing her come unexpectedly, he frowned as one put out.

"What is the matter with you?" she said. "Are you ill? Tell me!"

At last he declared with a serious air that her visits were

becoming imprudent--that she was compromising herself.

Chapter Ten

Gradually Rodolphe's fears took possession of her. At first, love

had intoxicated her; and she had thought of nothing beyond. But

now that he was indispensable to her life, she feared to lose

anything of this, or even that it should be disturbed. When she

came back from his house she looked all about her, anxiously

watching every form that passed in the horizon, and every village

window from which she could be seen. She listened for steps,

cries, the noise of the ploughs, and she stopped short, white,

and trembling more than the aspen leaves swaying overhead.

One morning as she was thus returning, she suddenly thought she

saw the long barrel of a carbine that seemed to be aimed at her.

It stuck out sideways from the end of a small tub half-buried in

the grass on the edge of a ditch. Emma, half-fainting with

terror, nevertheless walked on, and a man stepped out of the tub

like a Jack-in-the-box. He had gaiters buckled up to the knees,

his cap pulled down over his eyes, trembling lips, and a red

nose. It was Captain Binet lying in ambush for wild ducks.

"You ought to have called out long ago!" he exclaimed; "When one

sees a gun, one should always give warning."

The tax-collector was thus trying to hide the fright he had had,

for a prefectorial order having prohibited duckhunting except in

boats, Monsieur Binet, despite his respect for the laws, was

infringing them, and so he every moment expected to see the rural

guard turn up. But this anxiety whetted his pleasure, and, all

alone in his tub, he congratulated himself on his luck and on his

cuteness. At sight of Emma he seemed relieved from a great

weight, and at once entered upon a conversation.

"It isn't warm; it's nipping."

Emma answered nothing. He went on--

"And you're out so early?"

"Yes," she said stammering; "I am just coming from the nurse

where my child is."

"Ah! very good! very good! For myself, I am here, just as you

see me, since break of day; but the weather is so muggy, that

unless one had the bird at the mouth of the gun--"

"Good evening, Monsieur Binet," she interrupted him, turning on

her heel.

"Your servant, madame," he replied drily; and he went back into

his tub.

Emma regretted having left the tax-collector so abruptly. No

doubt he would form unfavourable conjectures. The story about the

nurse was the worst possible excuse, everyone at Yonville knowing

that the little Bovary had been at home with her parents for a

year. Besides, no one was living in this direction; this path led

only to La Huchette. Binet, then, would guess whence she came,

and he would not keep silence; he would talk, that was certain.

She remained until evening racking her brain with every

conceivable lying project, and had constantly before her eyes

that imbecile with the game-bag.

Charles after dinner, seeing her gloomy, proposed, by way of

distraction, to take her to the chemist's, and the first person

she caught sight of in the shop was the taxcollector again. He

was standing in front of the counter, lit up by the gleams of the

red bottle, and was saying--

"Please give me half an ounce of vitriol."

"Justin," cried the druggist, "bring us the sulphuric acid." Then

to Emma, who was going up to Madame Homais' room, "No, stay here;

it isn't worth while going up; she is just coming down. Warm

yourself at the stove in the meantime. Excuse me. Good-day,

doctor," (for the chemist much enjoyed pronouncing the word

"doctor," as if addressing another by it reflected on himself

some of the grandeur that he found in it). "Now, take care not to

upset the mortars! You'd better fetch some chairs from the little

room; you know very well that the arm-chairs are not to be taken

out of the drawing-room."

And to put his arm-chair back in its place he was darting away

from the counter, when Binet asked him for half an ounce of sugar

acid.

"Sugar acid!" said the chemist contemptuously, "don't know it;

I'm ignorant of it! But perhaps you want oxalic acid. It is

oxalic acid, isn't it?"

Binet explained that he wanted a corrosive to make himself some

copperwater with which to remove rust from his hunting things.

Emma shuddered. The chemist began saying--

"Indeed the weather is not propitious on account of the damp."

"Nevertheless," replied the tax-collector, with a sly look,

"there are people who like it."

She was stifling.

"And give me--"

"Will he never go?" thought she.

"Half an ounce of resin and turpentine, four ounces of yellow

wax, and three half ounces of animal charcoal, if you please, to

clean the varnished leather of my togs."

The druggist was beginning to cut the wax when Madame Homais

appeared, Irma in her arms, Napoleon by her side, and Athalie

following. She sat down on the velvet seat by the window, and the

lad squatted down on a footstool, while his eldest sister hovered

round the jujube box near her papa. The latter was filling

funnels and corking phials, sticking on labels, making up

parcels. Around him all were silent; only from time to time, were

heard the weights jingling in the balance, and a few low words

from the chemist giving directions to his pupil.

"And how's the little woman?" suddenly asked Madame Homais.

"Silence!" exclaimed her husband, who was writing down some

figures in his waste-book.

"Why didn't you bring her?" she went on in a low voice.

"Hush! hush!" said Emma, pointing with her finger to the

druggist.

But Binet, quite absorbed in looking over his bill, had probably

heard nothing. At last he went out. Then Emma, relieved, uttered

a deep sigh.

"How hard you are breathing!" said Madame Homais.

"Well, you see, it's rather warm," she replied.

So the next day they talked over how to arrange their rendezvous.

Emma wanted to bribe her servant with a present, but it would be

better to find some safe house at Yonville. Rodolphe promised to

look for one.

All through the winter, three or four times a week, in the dead

of night he came to the garden. Emma had on purpose taken away

the key of the gate, which Charles thought lost.

To call her, Rodolphe threw a sprinkle of sand at the shutters.

She jumped up with a start; but sometimes he had to wait, for

Charles had a mania for chatting by the fireside, and he would

not stop. She was wild with impatience; if her eyes could have

done it, she would have hurled him out at the window. At last she

would begin to undress, then take up a book, and go on reading

very quietly as if the book amused her. But Charles, who was in

bed, called to her to come too.

"Come, now, Emma," he said, "it is time."

"Yes, I am coming," she answered.

Then, as the candles dazzled him; he turned to the wall and fell

asleep. She escaped, smiling, palpitating, undressed. Rodolphe

had a large cloak; he wrapped her in it, and putting his arm

round her waist, he drew her without a word to the end of the

garden.

It was in the arbour, on the same seat of old sticks where

formerly Leon had looked at her so amorously on the summer

evenings. She never thought of him now.

The stars shone through the leafless jasmine branches. Behind

them they heard the river flowing, and now and again on the bank

the rustling of the dry reeds. Masses of shadow here and there

loomed out in the darkness, and sometimes, vibrating with one

movement, they rose up and swayed like immense black waves

pressing forward to engulf them. The cold of the nights made them

clasp closer; the sighs of their lips seemed to them deeper;

their eyes that they could hardly see, larger; and in the midst

of the silence low words were spoken that fell on their souls

sonorous, crystalline, and that reverberated in multiplied

vibrations.

When the night was rainy, they took refuge in the consulting-room

between the cart-shed and the stable. She lighted one of the

kitchen candles that she had hidden behind the books. Rodolphe

settled down there as if at home. The sight of the library, of

the bureau, of the whole apartment, in fine, excited his

merriment, and he could not refrain from making jokes about

Charles, which rather embarrassed Emma. She would have liked to

see him more serious, and even on occasions more dramatic; as,

for example, when she thought she heard a noise of approaching

steps in the alley.

"Someone is coming!" she said.

He blew out the light.

"Have you your pistols?"

"Why?"

"Why, to defend yourself," replied Emma.

"From your husband? Oh, poor devil!" And Rodolphe finished his

sentence with a gesture that said, "I could crush him with a

flip of my finger."

She was wonder-stricken at his bravery, although she felt in it a

sort of indecency and a naive coarseness that scandalised her.

Rodolphe reflected a good deal on the affair of the pistols. If

she had spoken seriously, it was very ridiculous, he thought,

even odious; for he had no reason to hate the good Charles, not

being what is called devoured by jealousy; and on this subject

Emma had taken a great vow that he did not think in the best of

taste.

Besides, she was growing very sentimental. She had insisted on

exchanging miniatures; they had cut off handfuls of hair, and now

she was asking for a ring--a real wedding-ring, in sign of an

eternal union. She often spoke to him of the evening chimes, of

the voices of nature. Then she talked to him of her mother--hers!

and of his mother--his! Rodolphe had lost his twenty years ago.

Emma none the less consoled him with caressing words as one would

have done a lost child, and she sometimes even said to him,

gazing at the moon--

"I am sure that above there together they approve of our love."

But she was so pretty. He had possessed so few women of such

ingenuousness. This love without debauchery was a new experience

for him, and, drawing him out of his lazy habits, caressed at

once his pride and his sensuality. Emma's enthusiasm, which his

bourgeois good sense disdained, seemed to him in his heart of

hearts charming, since it was lavished on him. Then, sure of

being loved, he no longer kept up appearances, and insensibly his

ways changed.

He had no longer, as formerly, words so gentle that they made her

cry, nor passionate caresses that made her mad, so that their

great love, which engrossed her life, seemed to lessen beneath

her like the water of a stream absorbed into its channel, and she

could see the bed of it. She would not believe it; she redoubled

in tenderness, and Rodolphe concealed his indifference less and

less.

She did not know if she regretted having yielded to him, or

whether she did not wish, on the contrary, to enjoy him the more.

The humiliation of feeling herself weak was turning to rancour,

tempered by their voluptuous pleasures. It was not affection; it

was like a continual seduction. He subjugated her; she almost

feared him.

Appearances, nevertheless, were calmer than ever, Rodolphe having

succeeded in carrying out the adultery after his own fancy; and

at the end of six months, when the spring-time came, they were to

one another like a married couple, tranquilly keeping up a

domestic flame.

It was the time of year when old Rouault sent his turkey in

remembrance of the setting of his leg. The present always arrived

with a letter. Emma cut the string that tied it to the basket,

and read the following lines:--

"My Dear Children--I hope this will find you well, and that this

one will be as good as the others. For it seems to me a little

more tender, if I may venture to say so, and heavier. But next

time, for a change, I'll give you a turkeycock, unless you have a

preference for some dabs; and send me back the hamper, if you

please, with the two old ones. I have had an accident with my

cart-sheds, whose covering flew off one windy night among the

trees. The harvest has not been overgood either. Finally, I don't

know when I shall come to see you. It is so difficult now to

leave the house since I am alone, my poor Emma."

Here there was a break in the lines, as if the old fellow had

dropped his pen to dream a little while.

"For myself, I am very well, except for a cold I caught the other

day at the fair at Yvetot, where I had gone to hire a shepherd,

having turned away mine because he was too dainty. How we are to

be pitied with such a lot of thieves! Besides, he was also rude.

I heard from a pedlar, who, travelling through your part of the

country this winter, had a tooth drawn, that Bovary was as usual

working hard. That doesn't surprise me; and he showed me his

tooth; we had some coffee together. I asked him if he had seen

you, and he said not, but that he had seen two horses in the

stables, from which I conclude that business is looking up. So

much the better, my dear children, and may God send you every

imaginable happiness! It grieves me not yet to have seen my dear

little grand-daughter, Berthe Bovary. I have planted an Orleans

plum-tree for her in the garden under your room, and I won't have

it touched unless it is to have jam made for her by and bye, that

I will keep in the cupboard for her when she comes.

"Good-bye, my dear children. I kiss you, my girl, you too, my

son-in-law, and the little one on both cheeks. I am, with best

compliments, your loving father.

"Theodore Rouault."

She held the coarse paper in her fingers for some minutes. The

spelling mistakes were interwoven one with the other, and Emma

followed the kindly thought that cackled right through it like a

hen half hidden in the hedge of thorns. The writing had been

dried with ashes from the hearth, for a little grey powder

slipped from the letter on to her dress, and she almost thought

she saw her father bending over the hearth to take up the tongs.

How long since she had been with him, sitting on the footstool in

the chimney-corner, where she used to burn the end of a bit of

wood in the great flame of the sea-sedges! She remembered the

summer evenings all full of sunshine. The colts neighed when

anyone passed by, and galloped, galloped. Under her window there

was a beehive, and sometimes the bees wheeling round in the light

struck against her window like rebounding balls of gold. What

happiness there had been at that time, what freedom, what hope!

What an abundance of illusions! Nothing was left of them now. She

had got rid of them all in her soul's life, in all her successive

conditions of lifemaidenhood, her marriage, and her love--thus

constantly losing them all her life through, like a traveller who

leaves something of his wealth at every inn along his road.

But what then, made her so unhappy? What was the extraordinary

catastrophe that had transformed her? And she raised her head,

looking round as if to seek the cause of that which made her

suffer.

An April ray was dancing on the china of the whatnot; the fire

burned; beneath her slippers she felt the softness of the carpet;

the day was bright, the air warm, and she heard her child

shouting with laughter.

In fact, the little girl was just then rolling on the lawn in the

midst of the grass that was being turned. She was lying flat on

her stomach at the top of a rick. The servant was holding her by

her skirt. Lestiboudois was raking by her side, and every time he

came near she lent forward, beating the air with both her arms.

"Bring her to me," said her mother, rushing to embrace her. "How

I love you, my poor child! How I love you!"

Then noticing that the tips of her ears were rather dirty, she

rang at once for warm water, and washed her, changed her linen,

her stockings, her shoes, asked a thousand questions about her

health, as if on the return from a long journey, and finally,

kissing her again and crying a little, she gave her back to the

servant, who stood quite thunderstricken at this excess of

tenderness.

That evening Rodolphe found her more serious than usual.

"That will pass over," he concluded; "it's a whim:"

And he missed three rendezvous running. When he did come, she

showed herself cold and almost contemptuous.

"Ah! you're losing your time, my lady!"

And he pretended not to notice her melancholy sighs, nor the

handkerchief she took out.

Then Emma repented. She even asked herself why she detested

Charles; if it had not been better to have been able to love him?

But he gave her no opportunities for such a revival of sentiment,

so that she was much embarrassed by her desire for sacrifice,

when the druggist came just in time to provide her with an

opportunity.

Chapter Eleven

He had recently read a eulogy on a new method for curing

club-foot, and as he was a partisan of progress, he conceived the

patriotic idea that Yonville, in order to keep to the fore, ought

to have some operations for strephopody or club-foot.

"For," said he to Emma, "what risk is there? See--" (and he

enumerated on his fingers the advantages of the attempt),

"success, almost certain relief and beautifying of the patient,

celebrity acquired by the operator. Why, for example, should not

your husband relieve poor Hippolyte of the 'Lion d'Or'? Note that

he would not fail to tell about his cure to all the travellers,

and then" (Homais lowered his voice and looked round him) "who is

to prevent me from sending a short paragraph on the subject to

the paper? Eh! goodness me! an article gets about; it is talked

of; it ends by making a snowball! And who knows? who knows?"

In fact, Bovary might succeed. Nothing proved to Emma that he was

not clever; and what a satisfaction for her to have urged him to

a step by which his reputation and fortune would be increased!

She only wished to lean on something more solid than love.

Charles, urged by the druggist and by her, allowed himself to be

persuaded. He sent to Rouen for Dr. Duval's volume, and every

evening, holding his head between both hands, plunged into the

reading of it.

While he was studying equinus, varus, and valgus, that is to say,

katastrephopody, endostrephopody, and exostrephopody (or better,

the various turnings of the foot downwards, inwards, and

outwards, with the hypostrephopody and anastrephopody), otherwise

torsion downwards and upwards, Monsier Homais, with all sorts of

arguments, was exhorting the lad at the inn to submit to the

operation.

"You will scarcely feel, probably, a slight pain; it is a simple

prick, like a little blood-letting, less than the extraction of

certain corns."

Hippolyte, reflecting, rolled his stupid eyes.

"However," continued the chemist, "it doesn't concern me. It's

for your sake, for pure humanity! I should like to see you, my

friend, rid of your hideous caudication, together with that

waddling of the lumbar regions which, whatever you say, must

considerably interfere with you in the exercise of your calling."

Then Homais represented to him how much jollier and brisker he

would feel afterwards, and even gave him to understand that he

would be more likely to please the women; and the stable-boy

began to smile heavily. Then he attacked him through his vanity:

"Aren't you a man? Hang it! what would you have done if you had

had to go into the army, to go and fight beneath the standard?

Ah! Hippolyte!"

And Homais retired, declaring that he could not understand this

obstinacy, this blindness in refusing the benefactions of

science.

The poor fellow gave way, for it was like a conspiracy. Binet,

who never interfered with other people's business, Madame

Lefrancois, Artemise, the neighbours, even the mayor, Monsieur

Tuvache--everyone persuaded him, lectured him, shamed him; but

what finally decided him was that it would cost him nothing.

Bovary even undertook to provide the machine for the operation.

This generosity was an idea of Emma's, and Charles consented to

it, thinking in his heart of hearts that his wife was an angel.

So by the advice of the chemist, and after three fresh starts, he

had a kind of box made by the carpenter, with the aid of the

locksmith, that weighed about eight pounds, and in which iron,

wood, sheer-iron, leather, screws, and nuts had not been spared.

But to know which of Hippolyte's tendons to cut, it was necessary

first of all to find out what kind of club-foot he had.

He had a foot forming almost a straight line with the leg, which,

however, did not prevent it from being turned in, so that it was

an equinus together with something of a varus, or else a slight

varus with a strong tendency to equinus. But with this equinus,

wide in foot like a horse's hoof, with rugose skin, dry tendons,

and large toes, on which the black nails looked as if made of

iron, the clubfoot ran about like a deer from morn till night. He

was constantly to be seen on the Place, jumping round the carts,

thrusting his limping foot forwards. He seemed even stronger on

that leg than the other. By dint of hard service it had acquired,

as it were, moral qualities of patience and energy; and when he

was given some heavy work, he stood on it in preference to its

fellow.

Now, as it was an equinus, it was necessary to cut the tendon of

Achilles, and, if need were, the anterior tibial muscle could be

seen to afterwards for getting rid of the varus; for the doctor

did not dare to risk both operations at once; he was even

trembling already for fear of injuring some important region that

he did not know.

Neither Ambrose Pare, applying for the first time since Celsus,

after an interval of fifteen centuries, a ligature to an artery,

nor Dupuytren, about to open an abscess in the brain, nor Gensoul

when he first took away the superior maxilla, had hearts that

trembled, hands that shook, minds so strained as Monsieur Bovary

when he approached Hippolyte, his tenotome between his fingers.

And as at hospitals, near by on a table lay a heap of lint, with

waxed thread, many bandages--a pyramid of bandages--every bandage

to be found at the druggist's. It was Monsieur Homais who since

morning had been organising all these preparations, as much to

dazzle the multitude as to keep up his illusions. Charles pierced

the skin; a dry crackling was heard. The tendon was cut, the

operation over. Hippolyte could not get over his surprise, but

bent over Bovary's hands to cover them with kisses.

"Come, be calm," said the druggist; "later on you will show your

gratitude to your benefactor."

And he went down to tell the result to five or six inquirers who

were waiting in the yard, and who fancied that Hippolyte would

reappear walking properly. Then Charles, having buckled his

patient into the machine, went home, where Emma, all anxiety,

awaited him at the door. She threw herself on his neck; they sat

down to table; he ate much, and at dessert he even wanted to take

a cup of coffee, a luxury he only permitted himself on Sundays

when there was company.

The evening was charming, full of prattle, of dreams together.

They talked about their future fortune, of the improvements to be

made in their house; he saw people's estimation of him growing,

his comforts increasing, his wife always loving him; and she was

happy to refresh herself with a new sentiment, healthier, better,

to feel at last some tenderness for this poor fellow who adored

her. The thought of Rodolphe for one moment passed through her

mind, but her eyes turned again to Charles; she even noticed with

surprise that he had not bad teeth.

They were in bed when Monsieur Homais, in spite of the servant,

suddenly entered the room, holding in his hand a sheet of paper

just written. It was the paragraph he intended for the "Fanal de

Rouen." He brought it for them to read.

"Read it yourself," said Bovary.

He read--

"'Despite the prejudices that still invest a part of the face of

Europe like a net, the light nevertheless begins to penetrate our

country places. Thus on Tuesday our little town of Yonville found

itself the scene of a surgical operation which is at the same

time an, act of loftiest philanthropy. Monsieur Bovary, one of

our, most distinguished practitioners--'"

"Oh, that is too much! too much!" said Charles, choking with

emotion.

"No, no! not at all! What next!"

"'--Performed an operation on a club-footed man.' I have not

used the scientific term, because you know in a newspaper

everyone would not perhaps understand. The masses must--'"

"No doubt," said Bovary; "go on!"

"I proceed," said the chemist. "'Monsieur Bovary, one of our most

distinguished practitioners, performed an operation on a

club-footed man called Hippolyte Tautain, stableman for the last

twenty-five years at the hotel of the "Lion d'Or," kept by Widow

Lefrancois, at the Place d'Armes. The novelty of the attempt, and

the interest incident to the subject, had attracted such a

concourse of persons that there was a veritable obstruction on

the threshold of the establishment. The operation, moreover, was

performed as if by magic, and barely a few drops of blood

appeared on the skin, as though to say that the rebellious tendon

had at last given way beneath the efforts of art. The patient,

strangely enough--we affirm it as an eye-witness--complained of

no pain. His condition up to the present time leaves nothing to

be desired. Everything tends to show that his convelescence will

be brief; and who knows even if at our next village festivity we

shall not see our good Hippolyte figuring in the bacchic dance in

the midst of a chorus of joyous boon-companions, and thus proving

to all eyes by his verve and his capers his complete cure?

Honour, then, to the generous savants! Honour to those

indefatigable spirits who consecrate their vigils to the

amelioration or to the alleviation of their kind! Honour, thrice

honour! Is it not time to cry that the blind shall see, the deaf

hear, the lame walk? But that which fanaticism formerly promised

to its elect, science now accomplishes for all men. We shall keep

our readers informed as to the successive phases of this

remarkable cure.'"

This did not prevent Mere Lefrancois, from coming five days

after, scared, and crying out--

"Help! he is dying! I am going crazy!"

Charles rushed to the "Lion d'Or," and the chemist, who caught

sight of him passing along the Place hatless, abandoned his shop.

He appeared himself breathless, red, anxious, and asking everyone

who was going up the stairs--

"Why, what's the matter with our interesting strephopode?"

The strephopode was writhing in hideous convulsions, so that the

machine in which his leg was enclosed was knocked against the

wall enough to break it.

With many precautions, in order not to disturb the position of

the limb, the box was removed, and an awful sight presented

itself. The outlines of the foot disappeared in such a swelling

that the entire skin seemed about to burst, and it was covered

with ecchymosis, caused by the famous machine. Hippolyte had

already complained of suffering from it. No attention had been

paid to him; they had to acknowledge that he had not been

altogether wrong, and he was freed for a few hours. But, hardly

had the oedema gone down to some extent, than the two savants

thought fit to put back the limb in the apparatus, strapping it

tighter to hasten matters. At last, three days after, Hippolyte

being unable to endure it any longer, they once more removed

the machine, and were much surprised at the result they saw. The

livid tumefaction spread over the leg, with blisters here and

there, whence there oozed a black liquid. Matters were taking a

serious turn. Hippolyte began to worry himself, and Mere

Lefrancois, had him installed in the little room near the

kitchen, so that he might at least have some distraction.

But the tax-collector, who dined there every day, complained

bitterly of such companionship. Then Hippolyte was removed to the

billiard-room. He lay there moaning under his heavy coverings,

pale with long beard, sunken eyes, and from time to time turning

his perspiring head on the dirty pillow, where the flies

alighted. Madame Bovary went to see him. She brought him linen

for his poultices; she comforted, and encouraged him. Besides, he

did not want for company, especially on market-days, when the

peasants were knocking about the billiard-balls round him, fenced

with the cues, smoked, drank, sang, and brawled.

"How are you?" they said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Ah!

you're not up to much, it seems, but it's your own fault. You

should do this! do that!" And then they told him stories of

people who had all been cured by other remedies than his. Then by

way of consolation they added--

"You give way too much! Get up! You coddle yourself like a king!

All the same, old chap, you don't smell nice!"

Gangrene, in fact, was spreading more and more. Bovary himself

turned sick at it. He came every hour, every moment. Hippolyte

looked at him with eyes full of terror, sobbing--

"When shall I get well? Oh, save me! How unfortunate I am! How

unfortunate I am!"

And the doctor left, always recommending him to diet himself.

"Don't listen to him, my lad," said Mere Lefrancois, "Haven't

they tortured you enough already? You'll grow still weaker. Here!

swallow this."

And she gave him some good beef-tea, a slice of mutton, a piece

of bacon, and sometimes small glasses of brandy, that he had not

the strength to put to his lips.

Abbe Bournisien, hearing that he was growing worse, asked to see

him. He began by pitying his sufferings, declaring at the same

time that he ought to rejoice at them since it was the will of

the Lord, and take advantage of the occasion to reconcile himself

to Heaven.

"For," said the ecclesiastic in a paternal tone, "you rather

neglected your duties; you were rarely seen at divine worship.

How many years is it since you approached the holy table? I

understand that your work, that the whirl of the world may have

kept you from care for your salvation. But now is the time to

reflect. Yet don't despair. I have known great sinners, who,

about to appear before God (you are not yet at this point I

know), had implored His mercy, and who certainly died in the best

frame of mind. Let us hope that, like them, you will set us a

good example. Thus, as a precaution, what is to prevent you from

saying morning and evening a 'Hail Mary, full of grace,' and 'Our

Father which art in heaven'? Yes, do that, for my sake, to oblige

me. That won't cost you anything. Will you promise me?"

The poor devil promised. The cure came back day after day. He

chatted with the landlady; and even told anecdotes interspersed

with jokes and puns that Hippolyte did not understand. Then, as

soon as he could, he fell back upon matters of religion, putting

on an appropriate expression of face.

His zeal seemed successful, for the club-foot soon manifested a

desire to go on a pilgrimage to Bon-Secours if he were cured; to

which Monsieur Bournisien replied that he saw no objection; two

precautions were better than one; it was no risk anyhow.

The druggist was indignant at what he called the manoeuvres of

the priest; they were prejudicial, he said, to Hippolyte's

convalescence, and he kept repeating to Madame Lefrancois, "Leave

him alone! leave him alone! You perturb his morals with your

mysticism." But the good woman would no longer listen to him; he

was the cause of it all. From a spirit of contradiction she hung

up near the bedside of the patient a basin filled with holy-water

and a branch of box.

Religion, however, seemed no more able to succour him than

surgery, and the invincible gangrene still spread from the

extremities towards the stomach. It was all very well to vary the

potions and change the poultices; the muscles each day rotted

more and more; and at last Charles replied by an affirmative nod

of the head when Mere Lefrancois, asked him if she could not, as

a forlorn hope, send for Monsieur Canivet of Neufchatel, who was

a celebrity.

A doctor of medicine, fifty years of age, enjoying a good

position and self-possessed, Charles's colleague did not refrain

from laughing disdainfully when he had uncovered the leg,

mortified to the knee. Then having flatly declared that it must

be amputated, he went off to the chemist's to rail at the asses

who could have reduced a poor man to such a state. Shaking

Monsieur Homais by the button of his coat, he shouted out in the

shop--

"These are the inventions of Paris! These are the ideas of those

gentry of the capital! It is like strabismus, chloroform,

lithotrity, a heap of monstrosities that the Government ought to

prohibit. But they want to do the clever, and they cram you with

remedies without, troubling about the consequences. We are not so

clever, not we! We are not savants, coxcombs, fops! We are

practitioners; we cure people, and we should not dream of

operating on anyone who is in perfect health. Straighten

club-feet! As if one could straighten club-feet! It is as if

one wished, for example, to make a hunchback straight!"

Homais suffered as he listened to this discourse, and he

concealed his discomfort beneath a courtier's smile; for he

needed to humour Monsier Canivet, whose prescriptions sometimes

came as far as Yonville. So he did not take up the defence of

Bovary; he did not even make a single remark, and, renouncing his

principles, he sacrificed his dignity to the more serious

interests of his business.

This amputation of the thigh by Doctor Canivet was a great event

in the village. On that day all the inhabitants got up earlier,

and the Grande Rue, although full of people, had something

lugubrious about it, as if an execution had been expected. At the

grocer's they discussed Hippolyte's illness; the shops did no

business, and Madame Tuvache, the mayor's wife, did not stir from

her window, such was her impatience to see the operator arrive.

He came in his gig, which he drove himself. But the springs of

the right side having at length given way beneath the weight of

his corpulence, it happened that the carriage as it rolled along

leaned over a little, and on the other cushion near him could be

seen a large box covered in red sheep-leather, whose three brass

clasps shone grandly.

After he had entered like a whirlwind the porch of the "Lion

d'Or," the doctor, shouting very loud, ordered them to unharness

his horse. Then he went into the stable to see that he was eating

his oats all right; for on arriving at a patient's he first of

all looked after his mare and his gig. People even said about

this--

"Ah! Monsieur Canivet's a character!"

And he was the more esteemed for this imperturbable coolness. The

universe to the last man might have died, and he would not have

missed the smallest of his habits.

Homais presented himself.

"I count on you," said the doctor. "Are we ready? Come along!"

But the druggist, turning red, confessed that he was too

sensitive to assist at such an operation.

"When one is a simple spectator," he said, "the imagination, you

know, is impressed. And then I have such a nervous system!"

"Pshaw!" interrupted Canivet; "on the contrary, you seem to me

inclined to apoplexy. Besides, that doesn't astonish me, for you

chemist fellows are always poking about your kitchens, which must

end by spoiling your constitutions. Now just look at me. I get up

every day at four o'clock; I shave with cold water (and am never

cold). I don't wear flannels, and I never catch cold; my carcass

is good enough! I live now in one way, now in another, like a

philosopher, taking pot-luck; that is why I am not squeamish like

you, and it is as indifferent to me to carve a Christian as the

first fowl that turns up. Then, perhaps, you will say, habit!

habit!"

Then, without any consideration for Hippolyte, who was sweating

with agony between his sheets, these gentlemen entered into a

conversation, in which the druggist compared the coolness of a

surgeon to that of a general; and this comparison was pleasing to

Canivet, who launched out on the exigencies of his art. He looked

upon, it as a sacred office, although the ordinary practitioners

dishonoured it. At last, coming back to the patient, he examined

the bandages brought by Homais, the same that had appeared for

the club-foot, and asked for someone to hold the limb for him.

Lestiboudois was sent for, and Monsieur Canivet having turned up

his sleeves, passed into the billiard-room, while the druggist

stayed with Artemise and the landlady, both whiter than their

aprons, and with ears strained towards the door.

Bovary during this time did not dare to stir from his house.

He kept downstairs in the sitting-room by the side of the

fireless chimney, his chin on his breast, his hands clasped, his

eyes staring. "What a mishap!" he thought, "what a mishap!"

Perhaps, after all, he had made some slip. He thought it over,

but could hit upon nothing. But the most famous surgeons also

made mistakes; and that is what no one would ever believe!

People, on the contrary, would laugh, jeer! It would spread as

far as Forges, as Neufchatel, as Rouen, everywhere! Who could say

if his colleagues would not write against him. Polemics would

ensue; he would have to answer in the papers. Hippolyte might

even prosecute him. He saw himself dishonoured, ruined, lost; and

his imagination, assailed by a world of hypotheses, tossed

amongst them like an empty cask borne by the sea and floating

upon the waves.

Emma, opposite, watched him; she did not share his humiliation;

she felt another--that of having supposed such a man was worth

anything. As if twenty times already she had not sufficiently

perceived his mediocrity.

Charles was walking up and down the room; his boots creaked on

the floor.

"Sit down," she said; "you fidget me."

He sat down again.

How was it that she--she, who was so intelligent--could have

allowed herself to be deceived again? and through what deplorable

madness had she thus ruined her life by continual sacrifices? She

recalled all her instincts of luxury, all the privations of her

soul, the sordidness of marriage, of the household, her dream

sinking into the mire like wounded swallows; all that she had

longed for, all that she had denied herself, all that she might

have had! And for what? for what?

In the midst of the silence that hung over the village a

heart-rending cry rose on the air. Bovary turned white to

fainting. She knit her brows with a nervous gesture, then went

on. And it was for him, for this creature, for this man, who

understood nothing, who felt nothing! For he was there quite

quiet, not even suspecting that the ridicule of his name would

henceforth sully hers as well as his. She had made efforts to

love him, and she had repented with tears for having yielded to

another!

"But it was perhaps a valgus!" suddenly exclaimed Bovary, who was

meditating.

At the unexpected shock of this phrase falling on her thought

like a leaden bullet on a silver plate, Emma, shuddering, raised

her head in order to find out what he meant to say; and they

looked at the other in silence, almost amazed to see each other,

so far sundered were they by their inner thoughts. Charles gazed

at her with the dull look of a drunken man, while he listened

motionless to the last cries of the sufferer, that followed each

other in long-drawn modulations, broken by sharp spasms like the

far-off howling of some beast being slaughtered. Emma bit her wan

lips, and rolling between her fingers a piece of coral that she

had broken, fixed on Charles the burning glance of her eyes like

two arrows of fire about to dart forth. Everything in him

irritated her now; his face, his dress, what he did not say, his

whole person, his existence, in fine. She repented of her past

virtue as of a crime, and what still remained of it rumbled away

beneath the furious blows of her pride. She revelled in all the

evil ironies of triumphant adultery. The memory of her lover came

back to her with dazzling attractions; she threw her whole soul

into it, borne away towards this image with a fresh enthusiasm;

and Charles seemed to her as much removed from her life, as

absent forever, as impossible and annihilated, as if he had been

about to die and were passing under her eyes.

There was a sound of steps on the pavement. Charles looked up,

and through the lowered blinds he saw at the corner of the market

in the broad sunshine Dr. Canivet, who was wiping his brow with

his handkerchief. Homais, behind him, was carrying a large red

box in his hand, and both were going towards the chemist's.

Then with a feeling of sudden tenderness and discouragement

Charles turned to his wife saying to her--

"Oh, kiss me, my own!"

"Leave me!" she said, red with anger.

"What is the matter?" he asked, stupefied. "Be calm; compose

yourself. You know well enough that I love you. Come!"

"Enough!" she cried with a terrible look.

And escaping from the room, Emma closed the door so violently

that the barometer fell from the wall and smashed on the floor.

Charles sank back into his arm-chair overwhelmed, trying to

discover what could be wrong with her, fancying some nervous

illness, weeping, and vaguely feeling something fatal and

incomprehensible whirling round him.

When Rodolphe came to the garden that evening, he found his

mistress waiting for him at the foot of the steps on the lowest

stair. They threw their arms round one another, and all their

rancour melted like snow beneath the warmth of that kiss.

Chapter Twelve

They began to love one another again. Often, even in the middle

of the day, Emma suddenly wrote to him, then from the window made

a sign to Justin, who, taking his apron off, quickly ran to La

Huchette. Rodolphe would come; she had sent for him to tell him

that she was bored, that her husband was odious, her life

frightful.

"But what can I do?" he cried one day impatiently.

"Ah! if you would--"

She was sitting on the floor between his knees, her hair loose,

her look lost.

"Why, what?" said Rodolphe.

She sighed.

"We would go and live elsewhere--somewhere!"

"You are really mad!" he said laughing. "How could that be

possible?"

She returned to the subject; he pretended not to understand, and

turned the conversation.

What he did not understand was all this worry about so simple an

affair as love. She had a motive, a reason, and, as it were, a

pendant to her affection.

Her tenderness, in fact, grew each day with her repulsion to her

husband. The more she gave up herself to the one, the more she

loathed the other. Never had Charles seemed to her so

disagreeable, to have such stodgy fingers, such vulgar ways, to

be so dull as when they found themselves together after her

meeting with Rodolphe. Then, while playing the spouse and virtue,

she was burning at the thought of that head whose black hair fell

in a curl over the sunburnt brow, of that form at once so strong

and elegant, of that man, in a word, who had such experience in

his reasoning, such passion in his desires. It was for him that

she filed her nails with the care of a chaser, and that there was

never enough cold-cream for her skin, nor of patchouli for her

handkerchiefs. She loaded herself with bracelets, rings, and

necklaces. When he was coming she filled the two large blue glass

vases with roses, and prepared her room and her person like a

courtesan expecting a prince. The servant had to be constantly

washing linen, and all day Felicite did not stir from the

kitchen, where little Justin, who often kept her company, watched

her at work.

With his elbows on the long board on which she was ironing, he

greedily watched all these women's clothes spread about him, the

dimity petticoats, the fichus, the collars, and the drawers with

running strings, wide at the hips and growing narrower below.

"What is that for?" asked the young fellow, passing his hand over

the crinoline or the hooks and eyes.

"Why, haven't you ever seen anything?" Felicite answered

laughing. "As if your mistress, Madame Homais, didn't wear the

same."

"Oh, I daresay! Madame Homais!" And he added with a meditative

air, "As if she were a lady like madame!"

But Felicite grew impatient of seeing him hanging round her. She

was six years older than he, and Theodore, Monsieur Guillaumin's

servant, was beginning to pay court to her.

"Let me alone," she said, moving her pot of starch. "You'd better

be off and pound almonds; you are always dangling about women.

Before you meddle with such things, bad boy, wait till you've got

a beard to your chin."

"Oh, don't be cross! I'll go and clean her boots."

And he at once took down from the shelf Emma's boots, all coated

with mud, the mud of the rendezvous, that crumbled into powder

beneath his fingers, and that he watched as it gently rose in a

ray of sunlight.

"How afraid you are of spoiling them!" said the servant, who

wasn't so particular when she cleaned them herself, because as

soon as the stuff of the boots was no longer fresh madame handed

them over to her.

Emma had a number in her cupboard that she squandered one after

the other, without Charles allowing himself the slightest

observation. So also he disbursed three hundred francs for a

wooden leg that she thought proper to make a present of to

Hippolyte. Its top was covered with cork, and it had spring

joints, a complicated mechanism, covered over by black trousers

ending in a patent-leather boot. But Hippolyte, not daring to use

such a handsome leg every day, begged Madame Bovary to get him

another more convenient one. The doctor, of course, had again to

defray the expense of this purchase.

So little by little the stable-man took up his work again. One

saw him running about the village as before, and when Charles

heard from afar the sharp noise of the wooden leg, he at once

went in another direction.

It was Monsieur Lheureux, the shopkeeper, who had undertaken the

order; this provided him with an excuse for visiting Emma. He

chatted with her about the new goods from Paris, about a thousand

feminine trifles, made himself very obliging, and never asked for

his money. Emma yielded to this lazy mode of satisfying all her

caprices. Thus she wanted to have a very handsome ridding-whip

that was at an umbrella-maker's at Rouen to give to Rodolphe. The

week after Monsieur Lheureux placed it on her table.

But the next day he called on her with a bill for two hundred and

seventy francs, not counting the centimes. Emma was much

embarrassed; all the drawers of the writing-table were empty;

they owed over a fortnight's wages to Lestiboudois, two quarters

to the servant, for any quantity of other things, and Bovary was

impatiently expecting Monsieur Derozeray's account, which he was

in the habit of paying every year about Midsummer.

She succeeded at first in putting off Lheureux. At last he lost

patience; he was being sued; his capital was out, and unless he

got some in he should be forced to take back all the goods she

had received.

"Oh, very well, take them!" said Emma.

"I was only joking," he replied; "the only thing I regret is the

whip. My word! I'll ask monsieur to return it to me."

"No, no!" she said.

"Ah! I've got you!" thought Lheureux.

And, certain of his discovery, he went out repeating to himself

in an undertone, and with his usual low whistle--

"Good! we shall see! we shall see!"

She was thinking how to get out of this when the servant coming

in put on the mantelpiece a small roll of blue paper "from

Monsieur Derozeray's." Emma pounced upon and opened it. It

contained fifteen napoleons; it was the account. She heard

Charles on the stairs; threw the gold to the back of her drawer,

and took out the key.

Three days after Lheureux reappeared.

"I have an arrangement to suggest to you," he said. "If, instead

of the sum agreed on, you would take--"

"Here it is," she said placing fourteen napoleons in his hand.

The tradesman was dumfounded. Then, to conceal his

disappointment, he was profuse in apologies and proffers of

service, all of which Emma declined; then she remained a few

moments fingering in the pocket of her apron the two five-franc

pieces that he had given her in change. She promised herself she

would economise in order to pay back later on. "Pshaw!" she

thought, "he won't think about it again."

Besides the riding-whip with its silver-gilt handle, Rodolphe had

received a seal with the motto Amor nel cor* furthermore, a scarf

for a muffler, and, finally, a cigar-case exactly like the

Viscount's, that Charles had formerly picked up in the road, and

that Emma had kept. These presents, however, humiliated him; he

refused several; she insisted, and he ended by obeying, thinking

her tyrannical and overexacting.

*A loving heart.

Then she had strange ideas.

"When midnight strikes," she said, "you must think of me."

And if he confessed that he had not thought of her, there were

floods of reproaches that always ended with the eternal question--

"Do you love me?"

"Why, of course I love you," he answered.

"A great deal?"

"Certainly!"

"You haven't loved any others?"

"Did you think you'd got a virgin?" he exclaimed laughing.

Emma cried, and he tried to console her, adorning his

protestations with puns.

"Oh," she went on, "I love you! I love you so that I could not

live without you, do you see? There are times when I long to see

you again, when I am torn by all the anger of love. I ask myself,

Where is he? Perhaps he is talking to other women. They smile

upon him; he approaches. Oh no; no one else pleases you. There

are some more beautiful, but I love you best. I know how to love

best. I am your servant, your concubine! You are my king, my

idol! You are good, you are beautiful, you are clever, you are

strong!"

He had so often heard these things said that they did not strike

him as original. Emma was like all his mistresses; and the charm

of novelty, gradually falling away like a garment, laid bare the

eternal monotony of passion, that has always the same forms and

the same language. He did not distinguish, this man of so much

experience, the difference of sentiment beneath the sameness of

expression. Because lips libertine and venal had murmured such

words to him, he believed but little in the candour of hers;

exaggerated speeches hiding mediocre affections must be

discounted; as if the fullness of the soul did not sometimes

overflow in the emptiest metaphors, since no one can ever give

the exact measure of his needs, nor of his conceptions, nor of

his sorrows; and since human speech is like a cracked tin kettle,

on which we hammer out tunes to make bears dance when we long to

move the stars.

But with that superior critical judgment that belongs to him who,

in no matter what circumstance, holds back, Rodolphe saw other

delights to be got out of this love. He thought all modesty in

the way. He treated her quite sans facon.* He made of her

something supple and corrupt. Hers was an idiotic sort of

attachment, full of admiration for him, of voluptuousness for

her, a beatitude that benumbed her; her soul sank into this

drunkenness, shrivelled up, drowned in it, like Clarence in his

butt of Malmsey.

*Off-handedly.

By the mere effect of her love Madame Bovary's manners changed.

Her looks grew bolder, her speech more free; she even committed

the impropriety of walking out with Monsieur Rodolphe, a

cigarette in her mouth, "as if to defy the people." At last,

those who still doubted doubted no longer when one day they saw

her getting out of the "Hirondelle," her waist squeezed into a

waistcoat like a man; and Madame Bovary senior, who, after a

fearful scene with her husband, had taken refuge at her son's,

was not the least scandalised of the women-folk. Many other

things displeased her. First, Charles had not attended to her

advice about the forbidding of novels; then the "ways of the

house" annoyed her; she allowed herself to make some remarks, and

there were quarrels, especially one on account of Felicite.

Madame Bovary senior, the evening before, passing along the

passage, had surprised her in company of a man--a man with a

brown collar, about forty years old, who, at the sound of her

step, had quickly escaped through the kitchen. Then Emma began to

laugh, but the good lady grew angry, declaring that unless morals

were to be laughed at one ought to look after those of one's

servants.

"Where were you brought up?" asked the daughter-in-law, with so

impertinent a look that Madame Bovary asked her if she were not

perhaps defending her own case.

"Leave the room!" said the young woman, springing up with a

bound.

"Emma! Mamma!" cried Charles, trying to reconcile them.

But both had fled in their exasperation. Emma was stamping her

feet as she repeated--

"Oh! what manners! What a peasant!"

He ran to his mother; she was beside herself. She stammered

"She is an insolent, giddy-headed thing, or perhaps worse!"

And she was for leaving at once if the other did not apologise.

So Charles went back again to his wife and implored her to give

way; he knelt to her; she ended by saying--

"Very well! I'll go to her."

And in fact she held out her hand to her mother-in-law with the

dignity of a marchioness as she said--

"Excuse me, madame."

Then, having gone up again to her room, she threw herself flat on

her bed and cried there like a child, her face buried in the

pillow.

She and Rodolphe had agreed that in the event of anything

extraordinary occurring, she should fasten a small piece of white

paper to the blind, so that if by chance he happened to be in

Yonville, he could hurry to the lane behind the house. Emma made

the signal; she had been waiting three-quarters of an hour when

she suddenly caught sight of Rodolphe at the corner of the

market. She felt tempted to open the window and call him, but he

had already disappeared. She fell back in despair.

Soon, however, it seemed to her that someone was walking on the

pavement. It was he, no doubt. She went downstairs, crossed the

yard. He was there outside. She threw herself into his arms.

"Do take care!" he said.

"Ah! if you knew!" she replied.

And she began telling him everything, hurriedly, disjointedly,

exaggerating the facts, inventing many, and so prodigal of

parentheses that he understood nothing of it.

"Come, my poor angel, courage! Be comforted! be patient!"

"But I have been patient; I have suffered for four years. A love

like ours ought to show itself in the face of heaven. They

torture me! I can bear it no longer! Save me!"

She clung to Rodolphe. Her eyes, full of tears, flashed like

flames beneath a wave; her breast heaved; he had never loved her

so much, so that he lost his head and said "What is, it? What do

you wish?"

"Take me away," she cried, "carry me off! Oh, I pray you!"

And she threw herself upon his mouth, as if to seize there the

unexpected consent if breathed forth in a kiss.

"But--" Rodolphe resumed.

"What?"

"Your little girl!"

She reflected a few moments, then replied--

"We will take her! It can't be helped!"

"What a woman!" he said to himself, watching her as she went. For

she had run into the garden. Someone was calling her.

On the following days Madame Bovary senior was much surprised at

the change in her daughter-in-law. Emma, in fact, was showing

herself more docile, and even carried her deference so far as to

ask for a recipe for pickling gherkins.

Was it the better to deceive them both? Or did she wish by a sort

of voluptuous stoicism to feel the more profoundly the bitterness

of the things she was about to leave?

But she paid no heed to them; on the contrary, she lived as lost

in the anticipated delight of her coming happiness.

It was an eternal subject for conversation with Rodolphe. She

leant on his shoulder murmuring--

"Ah! when we are in the mail-coach! Do you think about it? Can it

be? It seems to me that the moment I feel the carriage start, it

will be as if we were rising in a balloon, as if we were setting

out for the clouds. Do you know that I count the hours? And you?"

Never had Madame Bovary been so beautiful as at this period; she

had that indefinable beauty that results from joy, from

enthusiasm, from success, and that is only the harmony of

temperament with circumstances. Her desires, her sorrows, the

experience of pleasure, and her ever-young illusions, that had,

as soil and rain and winds and the sun make flowers grow,

gradually developed her, and she at length blossomed forth in all

the plenitude of her nature. Her eyelids seemed chiselled

expressly for her long amorous looks in which the pupil

disappeared, while a strong inspiration expanded her delicate

nostrils and raised the fleshy corner of her lips, shaded in the

light by a little black down. One would have thought that an

artist apt in conception had arranged the curls of hair upon her

neck; they fell in a thick mass, negligently, and with the

changing chances of their adultery, that unbound them every day.

Her voice now took more mellow infections, her figure also;

something subtle and penetrating escaped even from the folds of

her gown and from the line of her foot. Charles, as when they

were first married, thought her delicious and quite irresistible.

When he came home in the middle of the night, he did not dare to

wake her. The porcelain night-light threw a round trembling gleam

upon the ceiling, and the drawn curtains of the little cot formed

as it were a white hut standing out in the shade, and by the

bedside Charles looked at them. He seemed to hear the light

breathing of his child. She would grow big now; every season

would bring rapid progress. He already saw her coming from school

as the day drew in, laughing, with ink-stains on her jacket, and

carrying her basket on her arm. Then she would have to be sent to

the boarding-school; that would cost much; how was it to be done?

Then he reflected. He thought of hiring a small farm in the

neighbourhood, that he would superintend every morning on his way

to his patients. He would save up what he brought in; he would

put it in the savings-bank. Then he would buy shares somewhere,

no matter where; besides, his practice would increase; he counted

upon that, for he wanted Berthe to be well-educated, to be

accomplished, to learn to play the piano. Ah! how pretty she

would be later on when she was fifteen, when, resembling her

mother, she would, like her, wear large straw hats in the

summer-time; from a distance they would be taken for two sisters.

He pictured her to himself working in the evening by their side

beneath the light of the lamp; she would embroider him slippers;

she would look after the house; she would fill all the home with

her charm and her gaiety. At last, they would think of her

marriage; they would find her some good young fellow with a

steady business; he would make her happy; this would last for

ever.

Emma was not asleep; she pretended to be; and while he dozed off

by her side she awakened to other dreams.

To the gallop of four horses she was carried away for a week

towards a new land, whence they would return no more. They went

on and on, their arms entwined, without a word. Often from the

top of a mountain there suddenly glimpsed some splendid city with

domes, and bridges, and ships, forests of citron trees, and

cathedrals of white marble, on whose pointed steeples were

storks' nests. They went at a walking-pace because of the great

flag-stones, and on the ground there were bouquets of flowers,

offered you by women dressed in red bodices. They heard the

chiming of bells, the neighing of mules, together with the murmur

of guitars and the noise of fountains, whose rising spray

refreshed heaps of fruit arranged like a pyramid at the foot of

pale statues that smiled beneath playing waters. And then, one

night they came to a fishing village, where brown nets were

drying in the wind along the cliffs and in front of the huts. It

was there that they would stay; they would live in a low,

flat-roofed house, shaded by a palm-tree, in the heart of a gulf,

by the sea. They would row in gondolas, swing in hammocks, and

their existence would be easy and large as their silk gowns, warm

and star-spangled as the nights they would contemplate. However,

in the immensity of this future that she conjured up, nothing

special stood forth; the days, all magnificent, resembled

each other like waves; and it swayed in the horizon, infinite,

harmonised, azure, and bathed in sunshine. But the child began to

cough in her cot or Bovary snored more loudly, and Emma did not

fall asleep till morning, when the dawn whitened the windows, and

when little Justin was already in the square taking down the

shutters of the chemist's shop.

She had sent for Monsieur Lheureux, and had said to him--

"I want a cloak--a large lined cloak with a deep collar."

"You are going on a journey?" he asked.

"No; but--never mind. I may count on you, may I not, and

quickly?"

He bowed.

"Besides, I shall want," she went on, "a trunk--not too heavy--

handy."

"Yes, yes, I understand. About three feet by a foot and a half,

as they are being made just now."

"And a travelling bag."

"Decidedly," thought Lheureux. "there's a row on here."

"And," said Madame Bovary, taking her watch from her belt, "take

this; you can pay yourself out of it."

But the tradesman cried out that she was wrong; they knew one

another; did he doubt her? What childishness!

She insisted, however, on his taking at least the chain, and

Lheureux had already put it in his pocket and was going, when she

called him back.

"You will leave everything at your place. As to the cloak"--she

seemed to be reflecting--"do not bring it either; you can give me

the maker's address, and tell him to have it ready for me."

It was the next month that they were to run away. She was to

leave Yonville as if she was going on some business to Rouen.

Rodolphe would have booked the seats, procured the passports, and

even have written to Paris in order to have the whole mail-coach

reserved for them as far as Marseilles, where they would buy a

carriage, and go on thence without stopping to Genoa. She would

take care to send her luggage to Lheureux whence it would be

taken direct to the "Hirondelle," so that no one would have any

suspicion. And in all this there never was any allusion to the

child. Rodolphe avoided speaking of her; perhaps he no longer

thought about it.

He wished to have two more weeks before him to arrange some

affairs; then at the end of a week he wanted two more; then he

said he was ill; next he went on a journey. The month of August

passed, and, after all these delays, they decided that it was to

be irrevocably fixed for the 4th September--a Monday.

At length the Saturday before arrived.

Rodolphe came in the evening earlier than usual.

"Everything is ready?" she asked him.

"Yes."

Then they walked round a garden-bed, and went to sit down near

the terrace on the kerb-stone of the wall.

"You are sad," said Emma.

"No; why?"

And yet he looked at her strangely in a tender fashion.

"It is because you are going away?" she went on; "because you are

leaving what is dear to you--your life? Ah! I understand. I have

nothing in the world! you are all to me; so shall I be to you. I

will be your people, your country; I will tend, I will love you!"

"How sweet you are!" he said, seizing her in his arms.

"Really!" she said with a voluptuous laugh. "Do you love me?

Swear it then!"

"Do I love you--love you? I adore you, my love."

The moon, full and purple-coloured, was rising right out of the

earth at the end of the meadow. She rose quickly between the

branches of the poplars, that hid her here and there like a black

curtain pierced with holes. Then she appeared dazzling with

whiteness in the empty heavens that she lit up, and now sailing

more slowly along, let fall upon the river a great stain that

broke up into an infinity of stars; and the silver sheen seemed

to writhe through the very depths like a heedless serpent covered

with luminous scales; it also resembled some monster candelabra

all along which sparkled drops of diamonds running together. The

soft night was about them; masses of shadow filled the branches.

Emma, her eyes half closed, breathed in with deep sighs the fresh

wind that was blowing. They did not speak, lost as they were in

the rush of their reverie. The tenderness of the old days came

back to their hearts, full and silent as the flowing river, with

the softness of the perfume of the syringas, and threw across

their memories shadows more immense and more sombre than those of

the still willows that lengthened out over the grass. Often some

night-animal, hedgehog or weasel, setting out on the hunt,

disturbed the lovers, or sometimes they heard a ripe peach

falling all alone from the espalier.

"Ah! what a lovely night!" said Rodolphe.

"We shall have others," replied Emma; and, as if speaking to

herself: "Yet, it will be good to travel. And yet, why should my

heart be so heavy? Is it dread of the unknown? The effect of

habits left? Or rather--? No; it is the excess of happiness. How

weak I am, am I not? Forgive me!"

"There is still time!" he cried. "Reflect! perhaps you may

repent!"

"Never!" she cried impetuously. And coming closer to him: "What

ill could come to me? There is no desert, no precipice, no ocean

I would not traverse with you. The longer we live together the

more it will be like an embrace, every day closer, more heart to

heart. There will be nothing to trouble us, no cares, no

obstacle. We shall be alone, all to ourselves eternally. Oh,

speak! Answer me!"

At regular intervals he answered, "Yes--Yes--" She had passed her

hands through his hair, and she repeated in a childlike voice,

despite the big tears which were falling, "Rodolphe! Rodolphe!

Ah! Rodolphe! dear little Rodolphe!"

Midnight struck.

"Midnight!" said she. "Come, it is to-morrow. One day more!"

He rose to go; and as if the movement he made had been the signal

for their flight, Emma said, suddenly assuming a gay air--

"You have the passports?"

"Yes."

"You are forgetting nothing?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Certainly."

"It is at the Hotel de Provence, is it not, that you will wait

for me at midday?"

He nodded.

"Till to-morrow then!" said Emma in a last caress; and she

watched him go.

He did not turn round. She ran after him, and, leaning over the

water's edge between the bulrushes--

"To-morrow!" she cried.

He was already on the other side of the river and walking fast

across the meadow.

After a few moments Rodolphe stopped; and when he saw her with

her white gown gradually fade away in the shade like a ghost, he

was seized with such a beating of the heart that he leant against

a tree lest he should fall.

"What an imbecile I am!" he said with a fearful oath. "No matter!

She was a pretty mistress!"

And immediately Emma's beauty, with all the pleasures of their

love, came back to him. For a moment he softened; then he

rebelled against her.

"For, after all," he exclaimed, gesticulating, "I can't exile

myself--have a child on my hands."

He was saying these things to give himself firmness.

"And besides, the worry, the expense! Ah! no, no, no, no! a

thousand times no! That would be too stupid."

Chapter Thirteen

No sooner was Rodolphe at home than he sat down quickly at his

bureau under the stag's head that hung as a trophy on the wall.

But when he had the pen between his fingers, he could think of

nothing, so that, resting on his elbows, he began to reflect.

Emma seemed to him to have receded into a far-off past, as if the

resolution he had taken had suddenly placed a distance between

them.

To get back something of her, he fetched from the cupboard at the

bedside an old Rheims biscuit-box, in which he usually kept his

letters from women, and from it came an odour of dry dust and

withered roses. First he saw a handkerchief with pale little

spots. It was a handkerchief of hers. Once when they were walking

her nose had bled; he had forgotten it. Near it, chipped at all

the corners, was a miniature given him by Emma: her toilette

seemed to him pretentious, and her languishing look in the worst

possible taste. Then, from looking at this image and recalling

the memory of its original, Emma's features little by little grew

confused in his remembrance, as if the living and the painted

face, rubbing one against the other, had effaced each other.

Finally, he read some of her letters; they were full of

explanations relating to their journey, short, technical, and

urgent, like business notes. He wanted to see the long ones

again, those of old times. In order to find them at the bottom of

the box, Rodolphe disturbed all the others, and mechanically

began rummaging amidst this mass of papers and things, finding

pell-mell bouquets, garters, a black mask, pins, and hair--hair!

dark and fair, some even, catching in the hinges of the box,

broke when it was opened.

Thus dallying with his souvenirs, he examined the writing and the

style of the letters, as varied as their orthography. They were

tender or jovial, facetious, melancholy; there were some that

asked for love, others that asked for money. A word recalled

faces to him, certain gestures, the sound of a voice; sometimes,

however, he remembered nothing at all.

In fact, these women, rushing at once into his thoughts, cramped

each other and lessened, as reduced to a uniform level of love

that equalised them all. So taking handfuls of the mixed-up

letters, he amused himself for some moments with letting them

fall in cascades from his right into his left hand. At last,

bored and weary, Rodolphe took back the box to the cupboard,

saying to himself, "What a lot of rubbish!" Which summed up his

opinion; for pleasures, like schoolboys in a school courtyard,

had so trampled upon his heart that no green thing grew there,

and that which passed through it, more heedless than children,

did not even, like them, leave a name carved upon the wall.

"Come," said he, "let's begin."

He wrote--

"Courage, Emma! courage! I would not bring misery into your

life."

"After all, that's true," thought Rodolphe. "I am acting in her

interest; I am honest."

"Have you carefully weighed your resolution? Do you know to what

an abyss I was dragging you, poor angel? No, you do not, do you?

You were coming confident and fearless, believing in happiness in

the future. Ah! unhappy that we are--insensate!"

Rodolphe stopped here to think of some good excuse.

"If I told her all my fortune is lost? No! Besides, that would

stop nothing. It would all have to be begun over again later on.

As if one could make women like that listen to reason!" He

reflected, then went on--

"I shall not forget you, oh believe it; and I shall ever have a

profound devotion for you; but some day, sooner or later, this

ardour (such is the fate of human things) would have grown less,

no doubt. Lassitude would have come to us, and who knows if I

should not even have had the atrocious pain of witnessing your

remorse, of sharing it myself, since I should have been its

cause? The mere idea of the grief that would come to you tortures

me, Emma. Forget me! Why did I ever know you? Why were you so

beautiful? Is it my fault? O my God! No, no! Accuse only fate."

"That's a word that always tells," he said to himself.

"Ah, if you had been one of those frivolous women that one sees,

certainly I might, through egotism, have tried an experiment, in

that case without danger for you. But that delicious exaltation,

at once your charm and your torment, has prevented you from

understanding, adorable woman that you are, the falseness of our

future position. Nor had I reflected upon this at first, and I

rested in the shade of that ideal happiness as beneath that of

the manchineel tree, without foreseeing the consequences."

"Perhaps she'll think I'm giving it up from avarice. Ah, well! so

much the worse; it must be stopped!"

"The world is cruel, Emma. Wherever we might have gone, it would

have persecuted us. You would have had to put up with indiscreet

questions, calumny, contempt, insult perhaps. Insult to you! Oh!

And I, who would place you on a throne! I who bear with me your

memory as a talisman! For I am going to punish myself by exile

for all the ill I have done you. I am going away. Whither I know

not. I am mad. Adieu! Be good always. Preserve the memory of the

unfortunate who has lost you. Teach my name to your child; let

her repeat it in her prayers."

The wicks of the candles flickered. Rodolphe got up to, shut the

window, and when he had sat down again--

"I think it's all right. Ah! and this for fear she should come

and hunt me up."

"I shall be far away when you read these sad lines, for I have

wished to flee as quickly as possible to shun the temptation of

seeing you again. No weakness! I shall return, and perhaps later

on we shall talk together very coldly of our old love. Adieu!"

And there was a last "adieu" divided into two words! "A Dieu!"

which he thought in very excellent taste.

"Now how am I to sign?" he said to himself. "'Yours devotedly?'

No! 'Your friend?' Yes, that's it."

"Your friend."

He re-read his letter. He considered it very good.

"Poor little woman!" he thought with emotion. "She'll think me

harder than a rock. There ought to have been some tears on this;

but I can't cry; it isn't my fault." Then, having emptied some

water into a glass, Rodolphe dipped his finger into it, and let a

big drop fall on the paper, that made a pale stain on the ink.

Then looking for a seal, he came upon the one "Amor nel cor."

"That doesn't at all fit in with the circumstances. Pshaw! never

mind!"

After which he smoked three pipes and went to bed.

The next day when he was up (at about two o'clock--he had slept

late), Rodolphe had a basket of apricots picked. He put his

letter at the bottom under some vine leaves, and at once ordered

Girard, his ploughman, to take it with care to Madame Bovary. He

made use of this means for corresponding with her, sending

according to the season fruits or game.

"If she asks after me," he said, "you will tell her that I have

gone on a journey. You must give the basket to her herself, into

her own hands. Get along and take care!"

Girard put on his new blouse, knotted his handkerchief round the

apricots, and walking with great heavy steps in his thick

iron-bound galoshes, made his way to Yonville.

Madame Bovary, when he got to her house, was arranging a bundle

of linen on the kitchen-table with Felicite.

"Here," said the ploughboy, "is something for you--from the

master."

She was seized with apprehension, and as she sought in her pocket

for some coppers, she looked at the peasant with haggard eyes,

while he himself looked at her with amazement, not understanding

how such a present could so move anyone. At last he went out.

Felicite remained. She could bear it no longer; she ran into the

sitting room as if to take the apricots there, overturned the

basket, tore away the leaves, found the letter, opened it, and,

as if some fearful fire were behind her, Emma flew to her room

terrified.

Charles was there; she saw him; he spoke to her; she heard

nothing, and she went on quickly up the stairs, breathless,

distraught, dumb, and ever holding this horrible piece of paper,

that crackled between her fingers like a plate of sheet-iron. On

the second floor she stopped before the attic door, which was

closed.

Then she tried to calm herself; she recalled the letter; she must

finish it; she did not dare to. And where? How? She would be

seen! "Ah, no! here," she thought, "I shall be all right."

Emma pushed open the door and went in.

The slates threw straight down a heavy heat that gripped her

temples, stifled her; she dragged herself to the closed

garret-window. She drew back the bolt, and the dazzling light

burst in with a leap.

Opposite, beyond the roofs, stretched the open country till it

was lost to sight. Down below, underneath her, the village square

was empty; the stones of the pavement glittered, the weathercocks

on the houses were motionless. At the corner of the street, from

a lower storey, rose a kind of humming with strident modulations.

It was Binet turning.

She leant against the embrasure of the window, and reread the

letter with angry sneers. But the more she fixed her attention

upon it, the more confused were her ideas. She saw him again,

heard him, encircled him with her arms, and throbs of her heart,

that beat against her breast like blows of a sledge-hammer, grew

faster and faster, with uneven intervals. She looked about her

with the wish that the earth might crumble into pieces. Why not

end it all? What restrained her? She was free. She advanced,

looking at the paving-stones, saying to herself, "Come! come!"

The luminous ray that came straight up from below drew the weight

of her body towards the abyss. It seemed to her that the ground

of the oscillating square went up the walls and that the floor

dipped on end like a tossing boat. She was right at the edge,

almost hanging, surrounded by vast space. The blue of the heavens

suffused her, the air was whirling in her hollow head; she had

but to yield, to let herself be taken; and the humming of the

lathe never ceased, like an angry voice calling her.

"Emma! Emma!" cried Charles.

She stopped.

"Wherever are you? Come!"

The thought that she had just escaped from death almost made her

faint with terror. She closed her eyes; then she shivered at the

touch of a hand on her sleeve; it was Felicite.

"Master is waiting for you, madame; the soup is on the table."

And she had to go down to sit at table.

She tried to eat. The food choked her. Then she unfolded her

napkin as if to examine the darns, and she really thought of

applying herself to this work, counting the threads in the linen.

Suddenly the remembrance of the letter returned to her. How had

she lost it? Where could she find it? But she felt such weariness

of spirit that she could not even invent a pretext for leaving

the table. Then she became a coward; she was afraid of Charles;

he knew all, that was certain! Indeed he pronounced these words

in a strange manner:

"We are not likely to see Monsieur Rodolphe soon again, it

seems."

"Who told you?" she said, shuddering.

"Who told me!" he replied, rather astonished at her abrupt tone.

"Why, Girard, whom I met just now at the door of the Cafe

Francais. He has gone on a journey, or is to go."

She gave a sob.

"What surprises you in that? He absents himself like that from

time to time for a change, and, ma foi, I think he's right, when

one has a fortune and is a bachelor. Besides, he has jolly times,

has our friend. He's a bit of a rake. Monsieur Langlois told me--"

He stopped for propriety's sake because the servant came in. She

put back into the basket the apricots scattered on the sideboard.

Charles, without noticing his wife's colour, had them brought to

him, took one, and bit into it.

"Ah! perfect!" said he; "just taste!"

And he handed her the basket, which she put away from her gently.

"Do just smell! What an odour!" he remarked, passing it under her

nose several times.

"I am choking," she cried, leaping up. But by an effort of will

the spasm passed; then--

"It is nothing," she said, "it is nothing! It is nervousness. Sit

down and go on eating." For she dreaded lest he should begin

questioning her, attending to her, that she should not be left

alone.

Charles, to obey her, sat down again, and he spat the stones of

the apricots into his hands, afterwards putting them on his

plate.

Suddenly a blue tilbury passed across the square at a rapid trot.

Emma uttered a cry and fell back rigid to the ground.

In fact, Rodolphe, after many reflections, had decided to set out

for Rouen. Now, as from La Huchette to Buchy there is no other

way than by Yonville, he had to go through the village, and Emma

had recognised him by the rays of the lanterns, which like

lightning flashed through the twilight.

The chemist, at the tumult which broke out in the house ran

thither. The table with all the plates was upset; sauce, meat,

knives, the salt, and cruet-stand were strewn over the room;

Charles was calling for help; Berthe, scared, was crying; and

Felicite, whose hands trembled, was unlacing her mistress, whose

whole body shivered convulsively.

"I'll run to my laboratory for some aromatic vinegar," said the

druggist.

Then as she opened her eyes on smelling the bottle--

"I was sure of it," he remarked; "that would wake any dead person

for you!"

"Speak to us," said Charles; "collect yourself; it is your

Charles, who loves you. Do you know me? See! here is your little

girl! Oh, kiss her!"

The child stretched out her arms to her mother to cling to her

neck. But turning away her head, Emma said in a broken voice

"No, no! no one!"

She fainted again. They carried her to her bed. She lay there

stretched at full length, her lips apart, her eyelids closed, her

hands open, motionless, and white as a waxen image. Two streams

of tears flowed from her eyes and fell slowly upon the pillow.

Charles, standing up, was at the back of the alcove, and the

chemist, near him, maintained that meditative silence that is

becoming on the serious occasions of life.

"Do not be uneasy," he said, touching his elbow; "I think the

paroxysm is past."

"Yes, she is resting a little now," answered Charles, watching

her sleep. "Poor girl! poor girl! She had gone off now!"

Then Homais asked how the accident had come about. Charles

answered that she had been taken ill suddenly while she was

eating some apricots.

"Extraordinary!" continued the chemist. "But it might be that the

apricots had brought on the syncope. Some natures are so

sensitive to certain smells; and it would even be a very fine

question to study both in its pathological and physiological

relation. The priests know the importance of it, they who have

introduced aromatics into all their ceremonies. It is to stupefy

the senses and to bring on ecstasies--a thing, moreover, very

easy in persons of the weaker sex, who are more delicate than the

other. Some are cited who faint at the smell of burnt hartshorn,

of new bread--"

"Take care; you'll wake her!" said Bovary in a low voice.

"And not only," the druggist went on, "are human beings subject

to such anomalies, but animals also. Thus you are not ignorant of

the singularly aphrodisiac effect produced by the Nepeta cataria,

vulgarly called catmint, on the feline race; and, on the other

hand, to quote an example whose authenticity I can answer for.

Bridaux (one of my old comrades, at present established in the

Rue Malpalu) possesses a dog that falls into convulsions as soon

as you hold out a snuff-box to him. He often even makes the

experiment before his friends at his summer-house at Guillaume

Wood. Would anyone believe that a simple sternutation could

produce such ravages on a quadrupedal organism? It is extremely

curious, is it not?"

"Yes," said Charles, who was not listening to him.

"This shows us," went on the other, smiling with benign

self-sufficiency, "the innumerable irregularities of the nervous

system. With regard to madame, she has always seemed to me, I

confess, very susceptible. And so I should by no means recommend

to you, my dear friend, any of those so-called remedies that,

under the pretence of attacking the symptoms, attack the

constitution. No; no useless physicking! Diet, that is all;

sedatives, emollients, dulcification. Then, don't you think that

perhaps her imagination should be worked upon?"

"In what way? How?" said Bovary.

"Ah! that is it. Such is indeed the question. 'That is the

question,' as I lately read in a newspaper."

But Emma, awaking, cried out--

"The letter! the letter!"

They thought she was delirious; and she was by midnight.

Brain-fever had set in.

For forty-three days Charles did not leave her. He gave up all

his patients; he no longer went to bed; he was constantly feeling

her pulse, putting on sinapisms and cold-water compresses. He

sent Justin as far as Neufchatel for ice; the ice melted on the

way; he sent him back again. He called Monsieur Canivet into

consultation; he sent for Dr. Lariviere, his old master, from

Rouen; he was in despair. What alarmed him most was Emma's

prostration, for she did not speak, did not listen, did not even

seem to suffer, as if her body and soul were both resting

together after all their troubles.

About the middle of October she could sit up in bed supported by

pillows. Charles wept when he saw her eat her first

bread-and-jelly. Her strength returned to her; she got up for a

few hours of an afternoon, and one day, when she felt better, he

tried to take her, leaning on his arm, for a walk round the

garden. The sand of the paths was disappearing beneath the dead

leaves; she walked slowly, dragging along her slippers, and

leaning against Charles's shoulder. She smiled all the time.

They went thus to the bottom of the garden near the terrace. She

drew herself up slowly, shading her eyes with her hand to look.

She looked far off, as far as she could, but on the horizon were

only great bonfires of grass smoking on the hills.

"You will tire yourself, my darling!" said Bovary. And, pushing

her gently to make her go into the arbour, "Sit down on this

seat; you'll be comfortable."

"Oh! no; not there!" she said in a faltering voice.

She was seized with giddiness, and from that evening her illness

recommenced, with a more uncertain character, it is true, and

more complex symptoms. Now she suffered in her heart, then in the

chest, the head, the limbs; she had vomitings, in which Charles

thought he saw the first signs of cancer.

And besides this, the poor fellow was worried about money

matters.

Chapter Fourteen

To begin with, he did not know how he could pay Monsieur Homais

for all the physic supplied by him, and though, as a medical man,

he was not obliged to pay for it, he nevertheless blushed a

little at such an obligation. Then the expenses of the household,

now that the servant was mistress, became terrible. Bills rained

in upon the house; the tradesmen grumbled; Monsieur Lheureux

especially harassed him. In fact, at the height of Emma's

illness, the latter, taking advantage of the circumstances to

make his bill larger, had hurriedly brought the cloak, the

travelling-bag, two trunks instead of one, and a number of other

things. It was very well for Charles to say he did not want them.

The tradesman answered arrogantly that these articles had been

ordered, and that he would not take them back; besides, it would

vex madame in her convalescence; the doctor had better think it

over; in short, he was resolved to sue him rather than give up

his rights and take back his goods. Charles subsequently ordered

them to be sent back to the shop. Felicite forgot; he had other

things to attend to; then thought no more about them. Monsieur

Lheureux returned to the charge, and, by turns threatening and

whining, so managed that Bovary ended by signing a bill at six

months. But hardly had he signed this bill than a bold idea

occurred to him: it was to borrow a thousand francs from

Lheureux. So, with an embarrassed air, he asked if it were

possible to get them, adding that it would be for a year, at any

interest he wished. Lheureux ran off to his shop, brought back

the money, and dictated another bill, by which Bovary undertook

to pay to his order on the 1st of September next the sum of one

thousand and seventy francs, which, with the hundred and eighty

already agreed to, made just twelve hundred and fifty, thus

lending at six per cent in addition to one-fourth for commission:

and the things bringing him in a good third at the least, this

ought in twelve months to give him a profit of a hundred and

thirty francs. He hoped that the business would not stop there;

that the bills would not be paid; that they would be renewed; and

that his poor little money, having thriven at the doctor's as at

a hospital, would come back to him one day considerably more

plump, and fat enough to burst his bag.

Everything, moreover, succeeded with him. He was adjudicator for

a supply of cider to the hospital at Neufchatel; Monsieur

Guillaumin promised him some shares in the turf-pits of

Gaumesnil, and he dreamt of establishing a new diligence service

between Arcueil and Rouen, which no doubt would not be long in

ruining the ramshackle van of the "Lion d'Or," and that,

travelling faster, at a cheaper rate, and carrying more luggage,

would thus put into his hands the whole commerce of Yonville.

Charles several times asked himself by what means he should next

year be able to pay back so much money. He reflected, imagined

expedients, such as applying to his father or selling something.

But his father would be deaf, and he--he had nothing to sell.

Then he foresaw such worries that he quickly dismissed so

disagreeable a subject of meditation from his mind. He reproached

himself with forgetting Emma, as if, all his thoughts belonging

to this woman, it was robbing her of something not to be

constantly thinking of her.

The winter was severe, Madame Bovary's convalescence slow. When

it was fine they wheeled her arm-chair to the window that

overlooked the square, for she now had an antipathy to the

garden, and the blinds on that side were always down. She wished

the horse to be sold; what she formerly liked now displeased her.

All her ideas seemed to be limited to the care of herself. She

stayed in bed taking little meals, rang for the servant to

inquire about her gruel or to chat with her. The snow on the

market-roof threw a white, still light into the room; then the

rain began to fall; and Emma waited daily with a mind full of

eagerness for the inevitable return of some trifling events which

nevertheless had no relation to her. The most important was the

arrival of the "Hirondelle" in the evening. Then the landlady

shouted out, and other voices answered, while Hippolyte's

lantern, as he fetched the boxes from the boot, was like a star

in the darkness. At mid-day Charles came in; then he went out

again; next she took some beef-tea, and towards five o'clock, as

the day drew in, the children coming back from school, dragging

their wooden shoes along the pavement, knocked the clapper of the

shutters with their rulers one after the other.

It was at this hour that Monsieur Bournisien came to see her. He

inquired after her health, gave her news, exhorted her to

religion, in a coaxing little prattle that was not without its

charm. The mere thought of his cassock comforted her.

One day, when at the height of her illness, she had thought

herself dying, and had asked for the communion; and, while they

were making the preparations in her room for the sacrament, while

they were turning the night table covered with syrups into an

altar, and while Felicite was strewing dahlia flowers on the

floor, Emma felt some power passing over her that freed her from

her pains, from all perception, from all feeling. Her body,

relieved, no longer thought; another life was beginning; it

seemed to her that her being, mounting toward God, would be

annihilated in that love like a burning incense that melts into

vapour. The bed-clothes were sprinkled with holy water, the

priest drew from the holy pyx the white wafer; and it was

fainting with a celestial joy that she put out her lips to accept

the body of the Saviour presented to her. The curtains of the

alcove floated gently round her like clouds, and the rays of the

two tapers burning on the night-table seemed to shine like

dazzling halos. Then she let her head fall back, fancying she

heard in space the music of seraphic harps, and perceived in an

azure sky, on a golden throne in the midst of saints holding

green palms, God the Father, resplendent with majesty, who with a

sign sent to earth angels with wings of fire to carry her away in

their arms.

This splendid vision dwelt in her memory as the most beautiful

thing that it was possible to dream, so that now she strove to

recall her sensation. That still lasted, however, but in a less

exclusive fashion and with a deeper sweetness. Her soul, tortured

by pride, at length found rest in Christian humility, and,

tasting the joy of weakness, she saw within herself the

destruction of her will, that must have left a wide entrance for

the inroads of heavenly grace. There existed, then, in the place

of happiness, still greater joys--another love beyond all loves,

without pause and without end, one that would grow eternally! She

saw amid the illusions of her hope a state of purity floating

above the earth mingling with heaven, to which she aspired. She

wanted to become a saint. She bought chaplets and wore amulets;

she wished to have in her room, by the side of her bed, a

reliquary set in emeralds that she might kiss it every evening.

The cure marvelled at this humour, although Emma's religion, he

thought, might, from its fervour, end by touching on heresy,

extravagance. But not being much versed in these matters, as soon

as they went beyond a certain limit he wrote to Monsieur Boulard,

bookseller to Monsignor, to send him "something good for a lady

who was very clever." The bookseller, with as much indifference

as if he had been sending off hardware to niggers, packed up,

pellmell, everything that was then the fashion in the pious book

trade. There were little manuals in questions and answers,

pamphlets of aggressive tone after the manner of Monsieur de

Maistre, and certain novels in rose-coloured bindings and with a

honied style, manufactured by troubadour seminarists or penitent

blue-stockings. There were the "Think of it; the Man of the World

at Mary's Feet, by Monsieur de ***, decorated with many Orders";

"The Errors of Voltaire, for the Use of the Young," etc.

Madame Bovary's mind was not yet sufficiently clear to apply

herself seriously to anything; moreover, she began this reading

in too much hurry. She grew provoked at the doctrines of

religion; the arrogance of the polemic writings displeased her by

their inveteracy in attacking people she did not know; and the

secular stories, relieved with religion, seemed to her written in

such ignorance of the world, that they insensibly estranged her

from the truths for whose proof she was looking. Nevertheless,

she persevered; and when the volume slipped from her hands, she

fancied herself seized with the finest Catholic melancholy that

an ethereal soul could conceive.

As for the memory of Rodolphe, she had thrust it back to the

bottom of her heart, and it remained there more solemn and more

motionless than a king's mummy in a catacomb. An exhalation

escaped from this embalmed love, that, penetrating through

everything, perfumed with tenderness the immaculate atmosphere in

which she longed to live. When she knelt on her Gothic prie-Dieu,

she addressed to the Lord the same suave words that she had

murmured formerly to her lover in the outpourings of adultery. It

was to make faith come; but no delights descended from the

heavens, and she arose with tired limbs and with a vague feeling

of a gigantic dupery.

This searching after faith, she thought, was only one merit the

more, and in the pride of her devoutness Emma compared herself to

those grand ladies of long ago whose glory she, had dreamed of

over a portrait of La Valliere, and who, trailing with so much

majesty the lace-trimmed trains of their long gowns, retired into

solitudes to shed at the feet of Christ all the tears of hearts

that life had wounded.

Then she gave herself up to excessive charity. She sewed clothes

for the poor, she sent wood to women in childbed; and Charles one

day, on coming home, found three good-for-nothings in the kitchen

seated at the table eating soup. She had her little girl, whom

during her illness her husband had sent back to the nurse,

brought home. She wanted to teach her to read; even when Berthe

cried, she was not vexed. She had made up her mind to

resignation, to universal indulgence. Her language about

everything was full of ideal expressions. She said to her child,

"Is your stomach-ache better, my angel?"

Madame Bovary senior found nothing to censure except perhaps this

mania of knitting jackets for orphans instead of mending her own

house-linen; but, harassed with domestic quarrels, the good woman

took pleasure in this quiet house, and she even stayed there till

after Easter, to escape the sarcasms of old Bovary, who never

failed on Good Friday to order chitterlings.

Besides the companionship of her mother-in-law, who strengthened

her a little by the rectitude of her judgment and her grave ways,

Emma almost every day had other visitors. These were Madame

Langlois, Madame Caron, Madame Dubreuil, Madame Tuvache, and

regularly from two to five o'clock the excellent Madame Homais,

who, for her part, had never believed any of the tittle-tattle

about her neighbour. The little Homais also came to see her;

Justin accompanied them. He went up with them to her bedroom, and

remained standing near the door, motionless and mute. Often even

Madame Bovary; taking no heed of him, began her toilette. She

began by taking out her comb, shaking her head with a quick

movement, and when he for the first time saw all this mass of

hair that fell to her knees unrolling in black ringlets, it was

to him, poor child! like a sudden entrance into something new and

strange, whose splendour terrified him.

Emma, no doubt, did not notice his silent attentions or his

timidity. She had no suspicion that the love vanished from her

life was there, palpitating by her side, beneath that coarse

holland shirt, in that youthful heart open to the emanations of

her beauty. Besides, she now enveloped all things with such

indifference, she had words so affectionate with looks so

haughty, such contradictory ways, that one could no longer

distinguish egotism from charity, or corruption from virtue. One

evening, for example, she was angry with the servant, who had

asked to go out, and stammered as she tried to find some pretext.

Then suddenly--

"So you love him?" she said.

And without waiting for any answer from Felicite, who was

blushing, she added, "There! run along; enjoy yourself!"

In the beginning of spring she had the garden turned up from end

to end, despite Bovary's remonstrances. However, he was glad to

see her at last manifest a wish of any kind. As she grew stronger

she displayed more wilfulness. First, she found occasion to expel

Mere Rollet, the nurse, who during her convalescence had

contracted the habit of coming too often to the kitchen with her

two nurslings and her boarder, better off for teeth than a

cannibal. Then she got rid of the Homais family, successively

dismissed all the other visitors, and even frequented church less

assiduously, to the great approval of the druggist, who said to

her in a friendly way--

"You were going in a bit for the cassock!"

As formerly, Monsieur Bournisien dropped in every day when he

came out after catechism class. He preferred staying out of doors

to taking the air "in the grove," as he called the arbour. This

was the time when Charles came home. They were hot; some sweet

cider was brought out, and they drank together to madame's

complete restoration.

Binet was there; that is to say, a little lower down against the

terrace wall, fishing for crayfish. Bovary invited him to have a

drink, and he thoroughly understood the uncorking of the stone

bottles.

"You must," he said, throwing a satisfied glance all round him,

even to the very extremity of the landscape, "hold the bottle

perpendicularly on the table, and after the strings are cut,

press up the cork with little thrusts, gently, gently, as indeed

they do seltzer-water at restaurants."

But during his demonstration the cider often spurted right into

their faces, and then the ecclesiastic, with a thick laugh, never

missed this joke--

"Its goodness strikes the eye!"

He was, in fact, a good fellow and one day he was not even

scandalised at the chemist, who advised Charles to give madame

some distraction by taking her to the theatre at Rouen to hear

the illustrious tenor, Lagardy. Homais, surprised at this

silence, wanted to know his opinion, and the priest declared that

he considered music less dangerous for morals than literature.

But the chemist took up the defence of letters. The theatre, he

contended, served for railing at prejudices, and, beneath a mask

of pleasure, taught virtue.

"'Castigat ridendo mores,'* Monsieur Bournisien! Thus consider

the greater part of Voltaire's tragedies; they are cleverly

strewn with philosophical reflections, that made them a vast

school of morals and diplomacy for the people."

*It corrects customs through laughter.

"I," said Binet, "once saw a piece called the 'Gamin de Paris,'

in which there was the character of an old general that is really

hit off to a T. He sets down a young swell who had seduced a

working girl, who at the ending--"

"Certainly," continued Homais, "there is bad literature as there

is bad pharmacy, but to condemn in a lump the most important of

the fine arts seems to me a stupidity, a Gothic idea, worthy of

the abominable times that imprisoned Galileo."

"I know very well," objected the cure, "that there are good

works, good authors. However, if it were only those persons of

different sexes united in a bewitching apartment, decorated

rouge, those lights, those effeminate voices, all this must, in

the long-run, engender a certain mental libertinage, give rise to

immodest thoughts and impure temptations. Such, at any rate, is

the opinion of all the Fathers. Finally," he added, suddenly

assuming a mystic tone of voice while he rolled a pinch of snuff

between his fingers, "if the Church has condemned the theatre,

she must be right; we must submit to her decrees."

"Why," asked the druggist, "should she excommunicate actors? For

formerly they openly took part in religious ceremonies. Yes, in

the middle of the chancel they acted; they performed a kind of

farce called 'Mysteries,' which often offended against the laws

of decency."

The ecclesiastic contented himself with uttering a groan, and the

chemist went on--

"It's like it is in the Bible; there there are, you know, more

than one piquant detail, matters really libidinous!"

And on a gesture of irritation from Monsieur Bournisien--

"Ah! you'll admit that it is not a book to place in the hands of

a young girl, and I should be sorry if Athalie--"

"But it is the Protestants, and not we," cried the other

impatiently, "who recommend the Bible."

"No matter," said Homais. "I am surprised that in our days, in

this century of enlightenment, anyone should still persist in

proscribing an intellectual relaxation that is inoffensive,

moralising, and sometimes even hygienic; is it not, doctor?"

"No doubt," replied the doctor carelessly, either because,

sharing the same ideas, he wished to offend no one, or else

because he had not any ideas.

The conversation seemed at an end when the chemist thought fit to

shoot a Parthian arrow.

"I've known priests who put on ordinary clothes to go and see

dancers kicking about."

"Come, come!" said the cure.

"Ah! I've known some!" And separating the words of his sentence,

Homais repeated, "I--have--known--some!"

"Well, they were wrong," said Bournisien, resigned to anything.

"By Jove! they go in for more than that," exclaimed the druggist.

"Sir!" replied the ecclesiastic, with such angry eyes that the

druggist was intimidated by them.

"I only mean to say," he replied in less brutal a tone, "that

toleration is the surest way to draw people to religion."

"That is true! that is true!" agreed the good fellow, sitting

down again on his chair. But he stayed only a few moments.

Then, as soon as he had gone, Monsieur Homais said to the doctor--

"That's what I call a cock-fight. I beat him, did you see, in a

way!--Now take my advice. Take madame to the theatre, if it were

only for once in your life, to enrage one of these ravens, hang

it! If anyone could take my place, I would accompany you myself.

Be quick about it. Lagardy is only going to give one performance;

he's engaged to go to England at a high salary. From what I hear,

he's a regular dog; he's rolling in money; he's taking three

mistresses and a cook along with him. All these great artists

burn the candle at both ends; they require a dissolute life, that

suits the imagination to some extent. But they die at the

hospital, because they haven't the sense when young to lay by.

Well, a pleasant dinner! Goodbye till to-morrow."

The idea of the theatre quickly germinated in Bovary's head, for

he at once communicated it to his wife, who at first refused,

alleging the fatigue, the worry, the expense; but, for a wonder,

Charles did not give in, so sure was he that this recreation

would be good for her. He saw nothing to prevent it: his mother

had sent them three hundred francs which he had no longer

expected; the current debts were not very large, and the falling

in of Lheureux's bills was still so far off that there was no

need to think about them. Besides, imagining that she was

refusing from delicacy, he insisted the more; so that by dint of

worrying her she at last made up her mind, and the next day at

eight o'clock they set out in the "Hirondelle."

The druggist, whom nothing whatever kept at Yonville, but who

thought himself bound not to budge from it, sighed as he saw them

go.

"Well, a pleasant journey!" he said to them; "happy mortals that

you are!"

Then addressing himself to Emma, who was wearing a blue silk gown

with four flounces--

"You are as lovely as a Venus. You'll cut a figure at Rouen."

The diligence stopped at the "Croix-Rouge" in the Place

Beauvoisine. It was the inn that is in every provincial faubourg,

with large stables and small bedrooms, where one sees in the

middle of the court chickens pilfering the oats under the muddy

gigs of the commercial travellers--a good old house, with

worm-eaten balconies that creak in the wind on winter nights,

always full of people, noise, and feeding, whose black tables are

sticky with coffee and brandy, the thick windows made yellow by

the flies, the damp napkins stained with cheap wine, and that

always smells of the village, like ploughboys dressed in

Sundayclothes, has a cafe on the street, and towards the

countryside a kitchen-garden. Charles at once set out. He muddled

up the stage-boxes with the gallery, the pit with the boxes;

asked for explanations, did not understand them; was sent from

the box-office to the acting-manager; came back to the inn,

returned to the theatre, and thus several times traversed the

whole length of the town from the theatre to the boulevard.

Madame Bovary bought a bonnet, gloves, and a bouquet. The doctor

was much afraid of missing the beginning, and, without having had

time to swallow a plate of soup, they presented themselves at the

doors of the theatre, which were still closed.

Chapter Fifteen

The crowd was waiting against the wall, symmetrically enclosed

between the balustrades. At the corner of the neighbouring

streets huge bills repeated in quaint letters "Lucie de

Lammermoor-Lagardy-Opera-etc." The weather was fine, the people

were hot, perspiration trickled amid the curls, and handkerchiefs

taken from pockets were mopping red foreheads; and now and then a

warm wind that blew from the river gently stirred the border of

the tick awnings hanging from the doors of the public-houses. A

little lower down, however, one was refreshed by a current of icy

air that smelt of tallow, leather, and oil. This was an

exhalation from the Rue des Charrettes, full of large black

warehouses where they made casks.

For fear of seeming ridiculous, Emma before going in wished to

have a little stroll in the harbour, and Bovary prudently kept

his tickets in his hand, in the pocket of his trousers, which he

pressed against his stomach.

Her heart began to beat as soon as she reached the vestibule. She

involuntarily smiled with vanity on seeing the crowd rushing to

the right by the other corridor while she went up the staircase

to the reserved seats. She was as pleased as a child to push with

her finger the large tapestried door. She breathed in with all

her might the dusty smell of the lobbies, and when she was seated

in her box she bent forward with the air of a duchess.

The theatre was beginning to fill; opera-glasses were taken from

their cases, and the subscribers, catching sight of one another,

were bowing. They came to seek relaxation in the fine arts after

the anxieties of business; but "business" was not forgotten; they

still talked cottons, spirits of wine, or indigo. The heads of

old men were to be seen, inexpressive and peaceful, with their

hair and complexions looking like silver medals tarnished by

steam of lead. The young beaux were strutting about in the pit,

showing in the opening of their waistcoats their pink or

applegreen cravats, and Madame Bovary from above admired them

leaning on their canes with golden knobs in the open palm of

their yellow gloves.

Now the lights of the orchestra were lit, the lustre, let down

from the ceiling, throwing by the glimmering of its facets a

sudden gaiety over the theatre; then the musicians came in one

after the other; and first there was the protracted hubbub of the

basses grumbling, violins squeaking, cornets trumpeting, flutes

and flageolets fifing. But three knocks were heard on the stage,

a rolling of drums began, the brass instruments played some

chords, and the curtain rising, discovered a country-scene.

It was the cross-roads of a wood, with a fountain shaded by an

oak to the left. Peasants and lords with plaids on their

shoulders were singing a hunting-song together; then a captain

suddenly came on, who evoked the spirit of evil by lifting both

his arms to heaven. Another appeared; they went away, and the

hunters started afresh. She felt herself transported to the

reading of her youth, into the midst of Walter Scott. She seemed

to hear through the mist the sound of the Scotch bagpipes

re-echoing over the heather. Then her remembrance of the novel

helping her to understand the libretto, she followed the story

phrase by phrase, while vague thoughts that came back to her

dispersed at once again with the bursts of music. She gave

herself up to the lullaby of the melodies, and felt all her being

vibrate as if the violin bows were drawn over her nerves. She had

not eyes enough to look at the costumes, the scenery, the actors,

the painted trees that shook when anyone walked, and the velvet

caps, cloaks, swords--all those imaginary things that floated

amid the harmony as in the atmosphere of another world. But a

young woman stepped forward, throwing a purse to a squire in

green. She was left alone, and the flute was heard like the

murmur of a fountain or the warbling of birds. Lucie attacked her

cavatina in G major bravely. She plained of love; she longed for

wings. Emma, too, fleeing from life, would have liked to fly away

in an embrace. Suddenly Edgar-Lagardy appeared.

He had that splendid pallor that gives something of the majesty

of marble to the ardent races of the South. His vigorous form was

tightly clad in a brown-coloured doublet; a small chiselled

poniard hung against his left thigh, and he cast round laughing

looks showing his white teeth. They said that a Polish princess

having heard him sing one night on the beach at Biarritz, where

he mended boats, had fallen in love with him. She had ruined

herself for him. He had deserted her for other women, and this

sentimental celebrity did not fail to enhance his artistic

reputation. The diplomatic mummer took care always to slip into

his advertisements some poetic phrase on the fascination of his

person and the susceptibility of his soul. A fine organ,

imperturbable coolness, more temperament than intelligence, more

power of emphasis than of real singing, made up the charm of this

admirable charlatan nature, in which there was something of the

hairdresser and the toreador.

From the first scene he evoked enthusiasm. He pressed Lucy in his

arms, he left her, he came back, he seemed desperate; he had

outbursts of rage, then elegiac gurglings of infinite sweetness,

and the notes escaped from his bare neck full of sobs and kisses.

Emma leant forward to see him, clutching the velvet of the box

with her nails. She was filling her heart with these melodious

lamentations that were drawn out to the accompaniment of the

double-basses, like the cries of the drowning in the tumult of a

tempest. She recognised all the intoxication and the anguish that

had almost killed her. The voice of a prima donna seemed to her

to be but echoes of her conscience, and this illusion that

charmed her as some very thing of her own life. But no one on

earth had loved her with such love. He had not wept like Edgar

that last moonlit night when they said, "To-morrow! to-morrow!"

The theatre rang with cheers; they recommenced the entire

movement; the lovers spoke of the flowers on their tomb, of vows,

exile, fate, hopes; and when they uttered the final adieu, Emma

gave a sharp cry that mingled with the vibrations of the last

chords.

"But why," asked Bovary, "does that gentleman persecute her?"

"No, no!" she answered; "he is her lover!"

"Yet he vows vengeance on her family, while the other one who

came on before said, 'I love Lucie and she loves me!' Besides, he

went off with her father arm in arm. For he certainly is her

father, isn't he--the ugly little man with a cock's feather in

his hat?"

Despite Emma's explanations, as soon as the recitative duet began

in which Gilbert lays bare his abominable machinations to his

master Ashton, Charles, seeing the false troth-ring that is to

deceive Lucie, thought it was a love-gift sent by Edgar. He

confessed, moreover, that he did not understand the story because

of the music, which interfered very much with the words.

"What does it matter?" said Emma. "Do be quiet!"

"Yes, but you know," he went on, leaning against her shoulder, "I

like to understand things."

"Be quiet! be quiet!" she cried impatiently.

Lucie advanced, half supported by her women, a wreath of orange

blossoms in her hair, and paler than the white satin of her gown.

Emma dreamed of her marriage day; she saw herself at home again

amid the corn in the little path as they walked to the church.

Oh, why had not she, like this woman, resisted, implored? She, on

the contrary, had been joyous, without seeing the abyss into

which she was throwing herself. Ah! if in the freshness of her

beauty, before the soiling of marriage and the disillusions of

adultery, she could have anchored her life upon some great,

strong heart, then virtue, tenderness, voluptuousness, and duty

blending, she would never have fallen from so high a happiness.

But that happiness, no doubt, was a lie invented for the despair

of all desire. She now knew the smallness of the passions that

art exaggerated. So, striving to divert her thoughts, Emma

determined now to see in this reproduction of her sorrows only a

plastic fantasy, well enough to please the eye, and she even

smiled internally with disdainful pity when at the back of the

stage under the velvet hangings a man appeared in a black cloak.

His large Spanish hat fell at a gesture he made, and immediately

the instruments and the singers began the sextet. Edgar, flashing

with fury, dominated all the others with his clearer voice;

Ashton hurled homicidal provocations at him in deep notes; Lucie

uttered her shrill plaint, Arthur at one side, his modulated

tones in the middle register, and the bass of the minister pealed

forth like an organ, while the voices of the women repeating his

words took them up in chorus delightfully. They were all in a row

gesticulating, and anger, vengeance, jealousy, terror, and

stupefaction breathed forth at once from their half-opened

mouths. The outraged lover brandished his naked sword; his

guipure ruffle rose with jerks to the movements of his chest, and

he walked from right to left with long strides, clanking against

the boards the silver-gilt spurs of his soft boots, widening out

at the ankles. He, she thought must have an inexhaustible love

to lavish it upon the crowd with such effusion. All her small

fault-findings faded before the poetry of the part that absorbed

her; and, drawn towards this man by the illusion of the

character, she tried to imagine to herself his life--that life

resonant, extraordinary, splendid, and that might have been hers

if fate had willed it. They would have known one another, loved

one another. With him, through all the kingdoms of Europe she

would have travelled from capital to capital, sharing his

fatigues and his pride, picking up the flowers thrown to him,

herself embroidering his costumes. Then each evening, at the back

of a box, behind the golden trellis-work she would have drunk in

eagerly the expansions of this soul that would have sung for her

alone; from the stage, even as he acted, he would have looked at

her. But the mad idea seized her that he was looking at her; it

was certain. She longed to run to his arms, to take refuge in his

strength, as in the incarnation of love itself, and to say to

him, to cry out, "Take me away! carry me with you! let us go!

Thine, thine! all my ardour and all my dreams!"

The curtain fell.

The smell of the gas mingled with that of the breaths, the waving

of the fans, made the air more suffocating. Emma wanted to go

out; the crowd filled the corridors, and she fell back in her

arm-chair with palpitations that choked her. Charles, fearing

that she would faint, ran to the refreshment-room to get a glass

of barley-water.

He had great difficulty in getting back to his seat, for his

elbows were jerked at every step because of the glass he held in

his hands, and he even spilt three-fourths on the shoulders of a

Rouen lady in short sleeves, who feeling the cold liquid running

down to her loins, uttered cries like a peacock, as if she were

being assassinated. Her husband, who was a millowner, railed at

the clumsy fellow, and while she was with her handkerchief wiping

up the stains from her handsome cherry-coloured taffeta gown, he

angrily muttered about indemnity, costs, reimbursement. At last

Charles reached his wife, saying to her, quite out of breath--

"Ma foi! I thought I should have had to stay there. There is such

a crowd--SUCH a crowd!"

He added--

"Just guess whom I met up there! Monsieur Leon!"

"Leon?"

"Himself! He's coming along to pay his respects." And as he

finished these words the ex-clerk of Yonville entered the box.

He held out his hand with the ease of a gentleman; and Madame

Bovary extended hers, without doubt obeying the attraction of a

stronger will. She had not felt it since that spring evening when

the rain fell upon the green leaves, and they had said good-bye

standing at the window. But soon recalling herself to the

necessities of the situation, with an effort she shook off the

torpor of her memories, and began stammering a few hurried words.

"Ah, good-day! What! you here?"

"Silence!" cried a voice from the pit, for the third act was

beginning.

"So you are at Rouen?"

"Yes."

"And since when?"

"Turn them out! turn them out!" People were looking at them. They

were silent.

But from that moment she listened no more; and the chorus of the

guests, the scene between Ashton and his servant, the grand duet

in D major, all were for her as far off as if the instruments had

grown less sonorous and the characters more remote. She

remembered the games at cards at the druggist's, and the walk to

the nurse's, the reading in the arbour, the tete-a-tete by the

fireside--all that poor love, so calm and so protracted, so

discreet, so tender, and that she had nevertheless forgotten. And

why had he come back? What combination of circumstances had

brought him back into her life? He was standing behind her,

leaning with his shoulder against the wall of the box; now and

again she felt herself shuddering beneath the hot breath from his

nostrils falling upon her hair.

"Does this amuse you?" said he, bending over her so closely that

the end of his moustache brushed her cheek. She replied

carelessly--

"Oh, dear me, no, not much."

Then he proposed that they should leave the theatre and go and

take an ice somewhere.

"Oh, not yet; let us stay," said Bovary. "Her hair's undone; this

is going to be tragic."

But the mad scene did not at all interest Emma, and the acting of

the singer seemed to her exaggerated.

"She screams too loud," said she, turning to Charles, who was

listening.

"Yes--a little," he replied, undecided between the frankness of

his pleasure and his respect for his wife's opinion.

Then with a sigh Leon said--

"The heat is--"

"Unbearable! Yes!"

"Do you feel unwell?" asked Bovary.

"Yes, I am stifling; let us go."

Monsieur Leon put her long lace shawl carefully about her

shoulders, and all three went off to sit down in the harbour, in

the open air, outside the windows of a cafe.

First they spoke of her illness, although Emma interrupted

Charles from time to time, for fear, she said, of boring Monsieur

Leon; and the latter told them that he had come to spend two

years at Rouen in a large office, in order to get practice in his

profession, which was different in Normandy and Paris. Then he

inquired after Berthe, the Homais, Mere Lefrancois, and as they

had, in the husband's presence, nothing more to say to one

another, the conversation soon came to an end.

People coming out of the theatre passed along the pavement,

humming or shouting at the top of their voices, "O bel ange, ma

Lucie!*" Then Leon, playing the dilettante, began to talk music.

He had seen Tambourini, Rubini, Persiani, Grisi, and, compared

with them, Lagardy, despite his grand outbursts, was nowhere.

*Oh beautiful angel, my Lucie.

"Yet," interrupted Charles, who was slowly sipping his

rum-sherbet, "they say that he is quite admirable in the last

act. I regret leaving before the end, because it was beginning to

amuse me."

"Why," said the clerk, "he will soon give another performance."

But Charles replied that they were going back next day. "Unless,"

he added, turning to his wife, "you would like to stay alone,

kitten?"

And changing his tactics at this unexpected opportunity that

presented itself to his hopes, the young man sang the praises of

Lagardy in the last number. It was really superb, sublime. Then

Charles insisted--

"You would get back on Sunday. Come, make up your mind. You are

wrong if you feel that this is doing you the least good."

The tables round them, however, were emptying; a waiter came and

stood discreetly near them. Charles, who understood, took out his

purse; the clerk held back his arm, and did not forget to leave

two more pieces of silver that he made chink on the marble.

"I am really sorry," said Bovary, "about the money which you

are--"

The other made a careless gesture full of cordiality, and taking

his hat said--

"It is settled, isn't it? To-morrow at six o'clock?"

Charles explained once more that he could not absent himself

longer, but that nothing prevented Emma--

"But," she stammered, with a strange smile, "I am not sure--"

"Well, you must think it over. We'll see. Night brings counsel."

Then to Leon, who was walking along with them, "Now that you are

in our part of the world, I hope you'll come and ask us for some

dinner now and then."

The clerk declared he would not fail to do so, being obliged,

moreover, to go to Yonville on some business for his office. And

they parted before the Saint-Herbland Passage just as the clock

in the cathedral struck half-past eleven.

Part III

Chapter One

Monsieur Leon, while studying law, had gone pretty often to the

dancing-rooms, where he was even a great success amongst the

grisettes, who thought he had a distinguished air. He was the

best-mannered of the students; he wore his hair neither too long

nor too short, didn't spend all his quarter's money on the first

day of the month, and kept on good terms with his professors. As

for excesses, he had always abstained from them, as much from

cowardice as from refinement.

Often when he stayed in his room to read, or else when sitting of

an evening under the lime-trees of the Luxembourg, he let his

Code fall to the ground, and the memory of Emma came back to him.

But gradually this feeling grew weaker, and other desires

gathered over it, although it still persisted through them all.

For Leon did not lose all hope; there was for him, as it were, a

vague promise floating in the future, like a golden fruit

suspended from some fantastic tree.

Then, seeing her again after three years of absence his passion

reawakened. He must, he thought, at last make up his mind to

possess her. Moreover, his timidity had worn off by contact with

his gay companions, and he returned to the provinces despising

everyone who had not with varnished shoes trodden the asphalt of

the boulevards. By the side of a Parisienne in her laces, in the

drawing-room of some illustrious physician, a person driving his

carriage and wearing many orders, the poor clerk would no doubt

have trembled like a child; but here, at Rouen, on the harbour,

with the wife of this small doctor he felt at his ease, sure

beforehand he would shine. Self-possession depends on its

environment. We don't speak on the first floor as on the fourth;

and the wealthy woman seems to have, about her, to guard her

virtue, all her banknotes, like a cuirass in the lining of her

corset.

On leaving the Bovarys the night before, Leon had followed them

through the streets at a distance; then having seen them stop at

the "Croix-Rouge," he turned on his heel, and spent the night

meditating a plan.

So the next day about five o'clock he walked into the kitchen of

the inn, with a choking sensation in his throat, pale cheeks, and

that resolution of cowards that stops at nothing.

"The gentleman isn't in," answered a servant.

This seemed to him a good omen. He went upstairs.

She was not disturbed at his approach; on the contrary, she

apologised for having neglected to tell him where they were

staying.

"Oh, I divined it!" said Leon.

He pretended he had been guided towards her by chance, by,

instinct. She began to smile; and at once, to repair his folly,

Leon told her that he had spent his morning in looking for her in

all the hotels in the town one after the other.

"So you have made up your mind to stay?" he added.

"Yes," she said, "and I am wrong. One ought not to accustom

oneself to impossible pleasures when there are a thousand demands

upon one."

"Oh, I can imagine!"

"Ah! no; for you, you are a man!"

But men too had had their trials, and the conversation went off

into certain philosophical reflections. Emma expatiated much on

the misery of earthly affections, and the eternal isolation in

which the heart remains entombed.

To show off, or from a naive imitation of this melancholy which

called forth his, the young man declared that he had been awfully

bored during the whole course of his studies. The law irritated

him, other vocations attracted him, and his mother never ceased

worrying him in every one of her letters. As they talked they

explained more and more fully the motives of their sadness,

working themselves up in their progressive confidence. But they

sometimes stopped short of the complete exposition of their

thought, and then sought to invent a phrase that might express it

all the same. She did not confess her passion for another; he did

not say that he had forgotten her.

Perhaps he no longer remembered his suppers with girls after

masked balls; and no doubt she did not recollect the rendezvous

of old when she ran across the fields in the morning to her

lover's house. The noises of the town hardly reached them, and

the room seemed small, as if on purpose to hem in their solitude

more closely. Emma, in a dimity dressing-gown, leant her head

against the back of the old arm-chair; the yellow wall-paper

formed, as it were, a golden background behind her, and her bare

head was mirrored in the glass with the white parting in the

middle, and the tip of her ears peeping out from the folds of her

hair.

"But pardon me!" she said. "It is wrong of me. I weary you with

my eternal complaints."

"No, never, never!"

"If you knew," she went on, raising to the ceiling her beautiful

eyes, in which a tear was trembling, "all that I had dreamed!"

"And I! Oh, I too have suffered! Often I went out; I went away. I

dragged myself along the quays, seeking distraction amid the din

of the crowd without being able to banish the heaviness that

weighed upon me. In an engraver's shop on the boulevard there is

an Italian print of one of the Muses. She is draped in a tunic,

and she is looking at the moon, with forget-me-nots in her

flowing hair. Something drove me there continually; I stayed

there hours together." Then in a trembling voice, "She resembled

you a little."

Madame Bovary turned away her head that he might not see the

irrepressible smile she felt rising to her lips.

"Often," he went on, "I wrote you letters that I tore up."

She did not answer. He continued--

"I sometimes fancied that some chance would bring you. I thought

I recognised you at street-corners, and I ran after all the

carriages through whose windows I saw a shawl fluttering, a veil

like yours."

She seemed resolved to let him go on speaking without

interruption. Crossing her arms and bending down her face, she

looked at the rosettes on her slippers, and at intervals made

little movements inside the satin of them with her toes.

At last she sighed.

"But the most wretched thing, is it not--is to drag out, as I do,

a useless existence. If our pains were only of some use to

someone, we should find consolation in the thought of the

sacrifice."

He started off in praise of virtue, duty, and silent immolation,

having himself an incredible longing for self-sacrifice that he

could not satisfy.

"I should much like," she said, "to be a nurse at a hospital."

"Alas! men have none of these holy missions, and I see nowhere

any calling--unless perhaps that of a doctor."

With a slight shrug of her shoulders, Emma interrupted him to

speak of her illness, which had almost killed her. What a pity!

She should not be suffering now! Leon at once envied the calm of

the tomb, and one evening he had even made his will, asking to be

buried in that beautiful rug with velvet stripes he had received

from her. For this was how they would have wished to be, each

setting up an ideal to which they were now adapting their past

life. Besides, speech is a rolling-mill that always thins out the

sentiment.

But at this invention of the rug she asked, "But why?"

"Why?" He hesitated. "Because I loved you so!" And congratulating

himself at having surmounted the difficulty, Leon watched her

face out of the corner of his eyes.

It was like the sky when a gust of wind drives the clouds across.

The mass of sad thoughts that darkened them seemed to be lifted

from her blue eyes; her whole face shone. He waited. At last she

replied--

"I always suspected it."

Then they went over all the trifling events of that far-off

existence, whose joys and sorrows they had just summed up in one

word. They recalled the arbour with clematis, the dresses she had

worn, the furniture of her room, the whole of her house.

"And our poor cactuses, where are they?"

"The cold killed them this winter."

"Ah! how I have thought of them, do you know? I often saw them

again as of yore, when on the summer mornings the sun beat down

upon your blinds, and I saw your two bare arms passing out

amongst the flowers."

"Poor friend!" she said, holding out her hand to him.

Leon swiftly pressed his lips to it. Then, when he had taken a

deep breath--

"At that time you were to me I know not what incomprehensible

force that took captive my life. Once, for instance, I went to

see you; but you, no doubt, do not remember it."

"I do," she said; "go on."

"You were downstairs in the ante-room, ready to go out, standing

on the last stair; you were wearing a bonnet with small blue

flowers; and without any invitation from you, in spite of myself,

I went with you. Every moment, however, I grew more and more

conscious of my folly, and I went on walking by you, not daring

to follow you completely, and unwilling to leave you. When you

went into a shop, I waited in the street, and I watched you

through the window taking off your gloves and counting the change

on the counter. Then you rang at Madame Tuvache's; you were let

in, and I stood like an idiot in front of the great heavy door

that had closed after you."

Madame Bovary, as she listened to him, wondered that she was so

old. All these things reappearing before her seemed to widen out

her life; it was like some sentimental immensity to which she

returned; and from time to time she said in a low voice, her eyes

half closed--

"Yes, it is true--true--true!"

They heard eight strike on the different clocks of the

Beauvoisine quarter, which is full of schools, churches, and

large empty hotels. They no longer spoke, but they felt as they

looked upon each other a buzzing in their heads, as if something

sonorous had escaped from the fixed eyes of each of them. They

were hand in hand now, and the past, the future, reminiscences

and dreams, all were confounded in the sweetness of this ecstasy.

Night was darkening over the walls, on which still shone, half

hidden in the shade, the coarse colours of four bills

representing four scenes from the "Tour de Nesle," with a motto

in Spanish and French at the bottom. Through the sash-window a

patch of dark sky was seen between the pointed roofs.

She rose to light two wax-candles on the drawers, then she sat

down again.

"Well!" said Leon.

"Well!" she replied.

He was thinking how to resume the interrupted conversation, when

she said to him--

"How is it that no one until now has ever expressed such

sentiments to me?"

The clerk said that ideal natures were difficult to understand.

He from the first moment had loved her, and he despaired when he

thought of the happiness that would have been theirs, if thanks

to fortune, meeting her earlier, they had been indissolubly bound

to one another.

"I have sometimes thought of it," she went on.

"What a dream!" murmured Leon. And fingering gently the blue

binding of her long white sash, he added, "And who prevents us

from beginning now?"

"No, my friend," she replied; "I am too old; you are too young.

Forget me! Others will love you; you will love them."

"Not as you!" he cried.

"What a child you are! Come, let us be sensible. I wish it."

She showed him the impossibility of their love, and that they

must remain, as formerly, on the simple terms of a fraternal

friendship.

Was she speaking thus seriously? No doubt Emma did not herself

know, quite absorbed as she was by the charm of the seduction,

and the necessity of defending herself from it; and contemplating

the young man with a moved look, she gently repulsed the timid

caresses that his trembling hands attempted.

"Ah! forgive me!" he cried, drawing back.

Emma was seized with a vague fear at this shyness, more dangerous

to her than the boldness of Rodolphe when he advanced to her

open-armed. No man had ever seemed to her so beautiful. An

exquisite candour emanated from his being. He lowered his long

fine eyelashes, that curled upwards. His cheek, with the soft

skin reddened, she thought, with desire of her person, and Emma

felt an invincible longing to press her lips to it. Then, leaning

towards the clock as if to see the time--

"Ah! how late it is!" she said; "how we do chatter!"

He understood the hint and took up his hat.

"It has even made me forget the theatre. And poor Bovary has left

me here especially for that. Monsieur Lormeaux, of the Rue

Grand-Pont, was to take me and his wife."

And the opportunity was lost, as she was to leave the next day.

"Really!" said Leon.

"Yes."

"But I must see you again," he went on. "I wanted to tell you--"

"What?"

"Something--important--serious. Oh, no! Besides, you will not go;

it is impossible. If you should--listen to me. Then you have not

understood me; you have not guessed--"

"Yet you speak plainly," said Emma.

"Ah! you can jest. Enough! enough! Oh, for pity's sake, let me

see you once--only once!"

"Well--" She stopped; then, as if thinking better of it, "Oh, not

here!"

"Where you will."

"Will you--" She seemed to reflect; then abruptly, "To-morrow at

eleven o'clock in the cathedral."

"I shall be there," he cried, seizing her hands, which she

disengaged.

And as they were both standing up, he behind her, and Emma with

her head bent, he stooped over her and pressed long kisses on her

neck.

"You are mad! Ah! you are mad!" she said, with sounding little

laughs, while the kisses multiplied.

Then bending his head over her shoulder, he seemed to beg the

consent of her eyes. They fell upon him full of an icy dignity.

Leon stepped back to go out. He stopped on the threshold; then he

whispered with a trembling voice, "Tomorrow!"

She answered with a nod, and disappeared like a bird into the

next room.

In the evening Emma wrote the clerk an interminable letter, in

which she cancelled the rendezvous; all was over; they must not,

for the sake of their happiness, meet again. But when the letter

was finished, as she did not know Leon's address, she was

puzzled.

"I'll give it to him myself," she said; "he will come."

The next morning, at the open window, and humming on his balcony,

Leon himself varnished his pumps with several coatings. He put on

white trousers, fine socks, a green coat, emptied all the scent

he had into his handkerchief, then having had his hair curled, he

uncurled it again, in order to give it a more natural elegance.

"It is still too early," he thought, looking at the hairdresser's

cuckoo-clock, that pointed to the hour of nine. He read an old

fashion journal, went out, smoked a cigar, walked up three

streets, thought it was time, and went slowly towards the porch

of Notre Dame.

It was a beautiful summer morning. Silver plate sparkled in the

jeweller's windows, and the light falling obliquely on the

cathedral made mirrors of the corners of the grey stones; a flock

of birds fluttered in the grey sky round the trefoil

bell-turrets; the square, resounding with cries, was fragrant

with the flowers that bordered its pavement, roses, jasmines,

pinks, narcissi, and tube-roses, unevenly spaced out between

moist grasses, catmint, and chickweed for the birds; the

fountains gurgled in the centre, and under large umbrellas,

amidst melons, piled up in heaps, flower-women, bare-headed, were

twisting paper round bunches of violets.

The young man took one. It was the first time that he had bought

flowers for a woman, and his breast, as he smelt them, swelled

with pride, as if this homage that he meant for another had

recoiled upon himself.

But he was afraid of being seen; he resolutely entered the

church. The beadle, who was just then standing on the threshold

in the middle of the left doorway, under the "Dancing Marianne,"

with feather cap, and rapier dangling against his calves, came

in, more majestic than a cardinal, and as shining as a saint on a

holy pyx.

He came towards Leon, and, with that smile of wheedling benignity

assumed by ecclesiastics when they question children--

"The gentleman, no doubt, does not belong to these parts? The

gentleman would like to see the curiosities of the church?"

"No!" said the other.

And he first went round the lower aisles. Then he went out to

look at the Place. Emma was not coming yet. He went up again to

the choir.

The nave was reflected in the full fonts with the beginning of

the arches and some portions of the glass windows. But the

reflections of the paintings, broken by the marble rim, were

continued farther on upon the flag-stones, like a many-coloured

carpet. The broad daylight from without streamed into the church

in three enormous rays from the three opened portals. From time

to time at the upper end a sacristan passed, making the oblique

genuflexion of devout persons in a hurry. The crystal lustres

hung motionless. In the choir a silver lamp was burning, and from

the side chapels and dark places of the church sometimes rose

sounds like sighs, with the clang of a closing grating, its echo

reverberating under the lofty vault.

Leon with solemn steps walked along by the walls. Life had never

seemed so good to him. She would come directly, charming,

agitated, looking back at the glances that followed her, and with

her flounced dress, her gold eyeglass, her thin shoes, with all

sorts of elegant trifles that he had never enjoyed, and with the

ineffable seduction of yielding virtue. The church like a huge

boudoir spread around her; the arches bent down to gather in the

shade the confession of her love; the windows shone resplendent

to illumine her face, and the censers would burn that she might

appear like an angel amid the fumes of the sweet-smelling odours.

But she did not come. He sat down on a chair, and his eyes fell

upon a blue stained window representing boatmen carrying baskets.

He looked at it long, attentively, and he counted the scales of

the fishes and the button-holes of the doublets, while his

thoughts wandered off towards Emma.

The beadle, standing aloof, was inwardly angry at this individual

who took the liberty of admiring the cathedral by himself. He

seemed to him to be conducting himself in a monstrous fashion, to

be robbing him in a sort, and almost committing sacrilege.

But a rustle of silk on the flags, the tip of a bonnet, a lined

cloak--it was she! Leon rose and ran to meet her.

Emma was pale. She walked fast.

"Read!" she said, holding out a paper to him. "Oh, no!"

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 Leon.

The old fellow started off again; then, having got back to the

chapel of the Virgin, he stretched forth his arm with an

all-embracing gesture of demonstration, and, prouder than a

country squire showing you his espaliers, went on--

"This simple stone covers Pierre de Breze, lord of Varenne and of

Brissac, grand marshal of Poitou, and governor of Normandy, who

died at the battle of Montlhery on the 16th of July, 1465."

Leon bit his lips, fuming.

"And on the right, this gentleman all encased in iron, on the

prancing horse, is his grandson, Louis de Breze, lord of Breval

and of Montchauvet, Count de Maulevrier, Baron de Mauny,

chamberlain to the king, Knight of the Order, and also governor

of Normandy; died on the 23rd of July, 1531--a Sunday, as the

inscription specifies; and below, this figure, about to descend

into the tomb, portrays the same person. It is not possible, is

it, to see a more perfect representation of annihilation?"

Madame Bovary put up her eyeglasses. Leon, motionless, looked at

her, no longer even attempting to speak a single word, to make a

gesture, so discouraged was he at this two-fold obstinacy of

gossip and indifference.

The everlasting guide went on--

"Near him, this kneeling woman who weeps is his spouse, Diane de

Poitiers, Countess de Breze, Duchess de Valentinois, born in

1499, died in 1566, and to the left, the one with the child is

the Holy Virgin. Now turn to this side; here are the tombs of the

Ambroise. They were both cardinals and archbishops of Rouen. That

one was minister under Louis XII. He did a great deal for the

cathedral. In his will he left thirty thousand gold crowns for

the poor."

And without stopping, still talking, he pushed them into a chapel

full of balustrades, some put away, and disclosed a kind of block

that certainly might once have been an ill-made statue.

"Truly," he said with a groan, "it adorned the tomb of Richard

Coeur de Lion, King of England and Duke of Normandy. It was the

Calvinists, sir, who reduced it to this condition. They had

buried it for spite in the earth, under the episcopal seat of

Monsignor. See! this is the door by which Monsignor passes to his

house. Let us pass on quickly to see the gargoyle windows."

But Leon hastily took some silver from his pocket and seized

Emma's arm. The beadle stood dumfounded, not able to understand

this untimely munificence when there were still so many things

for the stranger to see. So calling him back, he cried--

"Sir! sir! The steeple! the steeple!"

"No, thank you!" said Leon.

"You are wrong, sir! It is four hundred and forty feet high, nine

less than the great pyramid of Egypt. It is all cast; it--"

Leon was fleeing, for it seemed to him that his love, that for

nearly two hours now had become petrified in the church like the

stones, would vanish like a vapour through that sort of truncated

funnel, of oblong cage, of open chimney that rises so grotesquely

from the cathedral like the extravagant attempt of some fantastic

brazier.

"But where are we going?" she said.

Making no answer, he walked on with a rapid step; and Madame

Bovary was already, dipping her finger in the holy water when

behind them they heard a panting breath interrupted by the

regular sound of a cane. Leon turned back.

"Sir!"

"What is it?"

And he recognised the beadle, holding under his arms and

balancing against his stomach some twenty large sewn volumes.

They were works "which treated of the cathedral."

"Idiot!" growled Leon, rushing out of the church.

A lad was playing about the close.

"Go and get me a cab!"

The child bounded off like a ball by the Rue Quatre-Vents; then

they were alone a few minutes, face to face, and a little

embarrassed.

"Ah! Leon! Really--I don't know--if I ought," she whispered. Then

with a more serious air, "Do you know, it is very improper--"

"How so?" replied the clerk. "It is done at Paris."

And that, as an irresistible argument, decided her.

Still the cab did not come. Leon was afraid she might go back

into the church. At last the cab appeared.

"At all events, go out by the north porch," cried the beadle, who

was left alone on the threshold, "so as to see the Resurrection,

the Last Judgment, Paradise, King David, and the Condemned in

Hell-flames."

"Where to, sir?" asked the coachman.

"Where you like," said Leon, forcing Emma into the cab.

And the lumbering machine set out. It went down the Rue

Grand-Pont, crossed the Place des Arts, the Quai Napoleon, the

Pont Neuf, and stopped short before the statue of Pierre

Corneille.

"Go on," cried a voice that came from within.

The cab went on again, and as soon as it reached the Carrefour

Lafayette, set off down-hill, and entered the station at a

gallop.

"No, straight on!" cried the same voice.

The cab came out by the gate, and soon having reached the Cours,

trotted quietly beneath the elm-trees. The coachman wiped his

brow, put his leather hat between his knees, and drove his

carriage beyond the side alley by the meadow to the margin of the

waters.

It went along by the river, along the towing-path paved with

sharp pebbles, and for a long while in the direction of Oyssel,

beyond the isles.

But suddenly it turned with a dash across Quatremares,

Sotteville, La Grande-Chaussee, the Rue d'Elbeuf, and made its

third halt in front of the Jardin des Plantes.

"Get on, will you?" cried the voice more furiously.

And at once resuming its course, it passed by Saint-Sever, by the

Quai'des Curandiers, the Quai aux Meules, once more over the

bridge, by the Place du Champ de Mars, and behind the hospital

gardens, where old men in black coats were walking in the sun

along the terrace all green with ivy. It went up the Boulevard

Bouvreuil, along the Boulevard Cauchoise, then the whole of

Mont-Riboudet to the Deville hills.

It came back; and then, without any fixed plan or direction,

wandered about at hazard. The cab was seen at Saint-Pol, at

Lescure, at Mont Gargan, at La Rougue-Marc and Place du

Gaillardbois; in the Rue Maladrerie, Rue Dinanderie, before

Saint-Romain, Saint-Vivien, Saint-Maclou, Saint-Nicaise--in front

of the Customs, at the "Vieille Tour," the "Trois Pipes," and the

Monumental Cemetery. From time to time the coachman, on his box

cast despairing eyes at the public-houses. He could not

understand what furious desire for locomotion urged these

individuals never to wish to stop. He tried to now and then, and

at once exclamations of anger burst forth behind him. Then he

lashed his perspiring jades afresh, but indifferent to their

jolting, running up against things here and there, not caring if

he did, demoralised, and almost weeping with thirst, fatigue, and

depression.

And on the harbour, in the midst of the drays and casks, and in

the streets, at the corners, the good folk opened large

wonder-stricken eyes at this sight, so extraordinary in the

provinces, a cab with blinds drawn, and which appeared thus

constantly shut more closely than a tomb, and tossing about like

a vessel.

Once in the middle of the day, in the open country, just as the

sun beat most fiercely against the old plated lanterns, a bared

hand passed beneath the small blinds of yellow canvas, and threw

out some scraps of paper that scattered in the wind, and farther

off lighted like white butterflies on a field of red clover all

in bloom.

At about six o'clock the carriage stopped in a back street of the

Beauvoisine Quarter, and a woman got out, who walked with her

veil down, and without turning her head.

Chapter Two

On reaching the inn, Madame Bovary was surprised not to see the

diligence. Hivert, who had waited for her fifty-three minutes,

had at last started.

Yet nothing forced her to go; but she had given her word that she

would return that same evening. Moreover, Charles expected her,

and in her heart she felt already that cowardly docility that is

for some women at once the chastisement and atonement of

adultery.

She packed her box quickly, paid her bill, took a cab in the

yard, hurrying on the driver, urging him on, every moment

inquiring about the time and the miles traversed. He succeeded in

catching up the "Hirondelle" as it neared the first houses of

Quincampoix.

Hardly was she seated in her corner than she closed her eyes, and

opened them at the foot of the hill, when from afar she

recognised Felicite, who was on the lookout in front of the

farrier's shop. Hivert pulled in his horses and, the servant,

climbing up to the window, said mysteriously--

"Madame, you must go at once to Monsieur Homais. It's for

something important."

The village was silent as usual. At the corner of the streets

were small pink heaps that smoked in the air, for this was the

time for jam-making, and everyone at Yonville prepared his supply

on the same day. But in front of the chemist's shop one might

admire a far larger heap, and that surpassed the others with the

superiority that a laboratory must have over ordinary stores, a

general need over individual fancy.

She went in. The large arm-chair was upset, and even the "Fanal

de Rouen" lay on the ground, outspread between two pestles. She

pushed open the lobby door, and in the middle of the kitchen,

amid brown jars full of picked currants, of powdered sugar and

lump sugar, of the scales on the table, and of the pans on the

fire, she saw all the Homais, small and large, with aprons

reaching to their chins, and with forks in their hands. Justin

was standing up with bowed head, and the chemist was screaming--

"Who told you to go and fetch it in the Capharnaum."

"What is it? What is the matter?"

"What is it?" replied the druggist. "We are making preserves;

they are simmering; but they were about to boil over, because

there is too much juice, and I ordered another pan. Then he, from

indolence, from laziness, went and took, hanging on its nail in

my laboratory, the key of the Capharnaum."

It was thus the druggist called a small room under the leads,

full of the utensils and the goods of his trade. He often spent

long hours there alone, labelling, decanting, and doing up again;

and he looked upon it not as a simple store, but as a veritable

sanctuary, whence there afterwards issued, elaborated by his

hands, all sorts of pills, boluses, infusions, lotions, and

potions, that would bear far and wide his celebrity. No one in

the world set foot there, and he respected it so, that he swept

it himself. Finally, if the pharmacy, open to all comers, was the

spot where he displayed his pride, the Capharnaum was the refuge

where, egoistically concentrating himself, Homais delighted in

the exercise of his predilections, so that Justin's

thoughtlessness seemed to him a monstrous piece of irreverence,

and, redder than the currants, he repeated--

"Yes, from the Capharnaum! The key that locks up the acids and

caustic alkalies! To go and get a spare pan! a pan with a lid!

and that I shall perhaps never use! Everything is of importance

in the delicate operations of our art! But, devil take it! one

must make distinctions, and not employ for almost domestic

purposes that which is meant for pharmaceutical! It is as if one

were to carve a fowl with a scalpel; as if a magistrate--"

"Now be calm," said Madame Homais.

And Athalie, pulling at his coat, cried "Papa! papa!"

"No, let me alone," went on the druggist "let me alone, hang it!

My word! One might as well set up for a grocer. That's it! go it!

respect nothing! break, smash, let loose the leeches, burn the

mallow-paste, pickle the gherkins in the window jars, tear up the

bandages!"

"I thought you had--" said Emma.

"Presently! Do you know to what you exposed yourself? Didn't you

see anything in the corner, on the left, on the third shelf?

Speak, answer, articulate something."

"I--don't--know," stammered the young fellow.

"Ah! you don't know! Well, then, I do know! You saw a bottle of

blue glass, sealed with yellow wax, that contains a white powder,

on which I have even written 'Dangerous!' And do you know what is

in it? Arsenic! And you go and touch it! You take a pan that was

next to it!"

"Next to it!" cried Madame Homais, clasping her hands. "Arsenic!

You might have poisoned us all."

And the children began howling as if they already had frightful

pains in their entrails.

"Or poison a patient!" continued the druggist. "Do you want to

see me in the prisoner's dock with criminals, in a court of

justice? To see me dragged to the scaffold? Don't you know what

care I take in managing things, although I am so thoroughly used

to it? Often I am horrified myself when I think of my

responsibility; for the Government persecutes us, and the absurd

legislation that rules us is a veritable Damocles' sword over our

heads."

Emma no longer dreamed of asking what they wanted her for, and

the druggist went on in breathless phrases--

"That is your return for all the kindness we have shown you! That

is how you recompense me for the really paternal care that I

lavish on you! For without me where would you be? What would you

be doing? Who provides you with food, education, clothes, and all

the means of figuring one day with honour in the ranks of

society? But you must pull hard at the oar if you're to do that,

and get, as, people say, callosities upon your hands. Fabricando

fit faber, age quod agis.*"

* The worker lives by working, do what he will.

He was so exasperated he quoted Latin. He would have quoted

Chinese or Greenlandish had he known those two languages, for he

was in one of those crises in which the whole soul shows

indistinctly what it contains, like the ocean, which, in the

storm, opens itself from the seaweeds on its shores down to the

sands of its abysses.

And he went on--

"I am beginning to repent terribly of having taken you up! I

should certainly have done better to have left you to rot in your

poverty and the dirt in which you were born. Oh, you'll never be

fit for anything but to herd animals with horns! You have no

aptitude for science! You hardly know how to stick on a label!

And there you are, dwelling with me snug as a parson, living in

clover, taking your ease!"

But Emma, turning to Madame Homais, "I was told to come here--"

"Oh, dear me!" interrupted the good woman, with a sad air, "how

am I to tell you? It is a misfortune!"

She could not finish, the druggist was thundering--"Empty it!

Clean it! Take it back! Be quick!"

And seizing Justin by the collar of his blouse, he shook a book

out of his pocket. The lad stooped, but Homais was the quicker,

and, having picked up the volume, contemplated it with staring

eyes and open mouth.

"CONJUGAL--LOVE!" he said, slowly separating the two words. "Ah!

very good! very good! very pretty! And illustrations! Oh, this is

too much!"

Madame Homais came forward.

"No, do not touch it!"

The children wanted to look at the pictures.

"Leave the room," he said imperiously; and they went out.

First he walked up and down with the open volume in his hand,

rolling his eyes, choking, tumid, apoplectic. Then he came

straight to his pupil, and, planting himself in front of him with

crossed arms--

"Have you every vice, then, little wretch? Take care! you are on

a downward path. Did not you reflect that this infamous book

might fall in the hands of my children, kindle a spark in their

minds, tarnish the purity of Athalie, corrupt Napoleon. He is

already formed like a man. Are you quite sure, anyhow, that they

have not read it? Can you certify to me--"

"But really, sir," said Emma, "you wished to tell me--"

"Ah, yes! madame. Your father-in-law is dead."

In fact, Monsieur Bovary senior had expired the evening before

suddenly from an attack of apoplexy as he got up from table, and

by way of greater precaution, on account of Emma's sensibility,

Charles had begged Homais to break the horrible news to her

gradually. Homais had thought over his speech; he had rounded,

polished it, made it rhythmical; it was a masterpiece of prudence

and transitions, of subtle turns and delicacy; but anger had got

the better of rhetoric.

Emma, giving up all chance of hearing any details, left the

pharmacy; for Monsieur Homais had taken up the thread of his

vituperations. However, he was growing calmer, and was now

grumbling in a paternal tone whilst he fanned himself with his

skull-cap.

"It is not that I entirely disapprove of the work. Its author was

a doctor! There are certain scientific points in it that it is

not ill a man should know, and I would even venture to say that a

man must know. But later--later! At any rate, not till you are

man yourself and your temperament is formed."

When Emma knocked at the door. Charles, who was waiting for her,

came forward with open arms and said to her with tears in his

voice--

"Ah! my dear!"

And he bent over her gently to kiss her. But at the contact of

his lips the memory of the other seized her, and she passed her

hand over her face shuddering.

But she made answer, "Yes, I know, I know!"

He showed her the letter in which his mother told the event

without any sentimental hypocrisy. She only regretted her husband

had not received the consolations of religion, as he had died at

Daudeville, in the street, at the door of a cafe after a

patriotic dinner with some ex-officers.

Emma gave him back the letter; then at dinner, for appearance's

sake, she affected a certain repugnance. But as he urged her to

try, she resolutely began eating, while Charles opposite her sat

motionless in a dejected attitude.

Now and then he raised his head and gave her a long look full of

distress. Once he sighed, "I should have liked to see him again!"

She was silent. At last, understanding that she must say

something, "How old was your father?" she asked.

"Fifty-eight."

"Ah!"

And that was all.

A quarter of an hour after he added, "My poor mother! what will

become of her now?"

She made a gesture that signified she did not know. Seeing her so

taciturn, Charles imagined her much affected, and forced himself

to say nothing, not to reawaken this sorrow which moved him. And,

shaking off his own--

"Did you enjoy yourself yesterday?" he asked.

"Yes."

When the cloth was removed, Bovary did not rise, nor did Emma;

and as she looked at him, the monotony of the spectacle drove

little by little all pity from her heart. He seemed to her

paltry, weak, a cipher--in a word, a poor thing in every way. How

to get rid of him? What an interminable evening! Something

stupefying like the fumes of opium seized her.

They heard in the passage the sharp noise of a wooden leg on the

boards. It was Hippolyte bringing back Emma's luggage. In order

to put it down he described painfully a quarter of a circle with

his stump.

"He doesn't even remember any more about it," she thought,

looking at the poor devil, whose coarse red hair was wet with

perspiration.

Bovary was searching at the bottom of his purse for a centime,

and without appearing to understand all there was of humiliation

for him in the mere presence of this man, who stood there like a

personified reproach to his incurable incapacity.

"Hallo! you've a pretty bouquet," he said, noticing Leon's

violets on the chimney.

"Yes," she replied indifferently; "it's a bouquet I bought just

now from a beggar."

Charles picked up the flowers, and freshening his eyes, red with

tears, against them, smelt them delicately.

She took them quickly from his hand and put them in a glass of

water.

The next day Madame Bovary senior arrived. She and her son wept

much. Emma, on the pretext of giving orders, disappeared. The

following day they had a talk over the mourning. They went and

sat down with their workboxes by the waterside under the arbour.

Charles was thinking of his father, and was surprised to feel so

much affection for this man, whom till then he had thought he

cared little about. Madame Bovary senior was thinking of her

husband. The worst days of the past seemed enviable to her. All

was forgotten beneath the instinctive regret of such a long

habit, and from time to time whilst she sewed, a big tear rolled

along her nose and hung suspended there a moment. Emma was

thinking that it was scarcely forty-eight hours since they had

been together, far from the world, all in a frenzy of joy, and

not having eyes enough to gaze upon each other. She tried to

recall the slightest details of that past day. But the presence

of her husband and mother-in-law worried her. She would have

liked to hear nothing, to see nothing, so as not to disturb the

meditation on her love, that, do what she would, became lost in

external sensations.

She was unpicking the lining of a dress, and the strips were

scattered around her. Madame Bovary senior was plying her scissor

without looking up, and Charles, in his list slippers and his old

brown surtout that he used as a dressing-gown, sat with both

hands in his pockets, and did not speak either; near them Berthe,

in a little white pinafore, was raking sand in the walks with her

spade. Suddenly she saw Monsieur Lheureux, the linendraper, come

in through the gate.

He came to offer his services "under the sad circumstances." Emma

answered that she thought she could do without. The shopkeeper

was not to be beaten.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "but I should like to have a

private talk with you." Then in a low voice, "It's about that

affair--you know."

Charles crimsoned to his ears. "Oh, yes! certainly." And in his

confusion, turning to his wife, "Couldn't you, my darling?"

She seemed to understand him, for she rose; and Charles said to

his mother, "It is nothing particular. No doubt, some household

trifle." He did not want her to know the story of the bill,

fearing her reproaches.

As soon as they were alone, Monsieur Lheureux in sufficiently

clear terms began to congratulate Emma on the inheritance, then

to talk of indifferent matters, of the espaliers, of the harvest,

and of his own health, which was always so-so, always having ups

and downs. In fact, he had to work devilish hard, although he

didn't make enough, in spite of all people said, to find butter

for his bread.

Emma let him talk on. She had bored herself so prodigiously the

last two days.

"And so you're quite well again?" he went on. "Ma foi! I saw your

husband in a sad state. He's a good fellow, though we did have a

little misunderstanding."

She asked what misunderstanding, for Charles had said nothing of

the dispute about the goods supplied to her.

"Why, you know well enough," cried Lheureux. "It was about your

little fancies--the travelling trunks."

He had drawn his hat over his eyes, and, with his hands behind

his back, smiling and whistling, he looked straight at her in an

unbearable manner. Did he suspect anything?

She was lost in all kinds of apprehensions. At last, however, he

went on--

"We made it up, all the same, and I've come again to propose

another arrangement."

This was to renew the bill Bovary had signed. The doctor, of

course, would do as he pleased; he was not to trouble himself,

especially just now, when he would have a lot of worry. "And he

would do better to give it over to someone else--to you, for

example. With a power of attorney it could be easily managed, and

then we (you and I) would have our little business transactions

together."

She did not understand. He was silent. Then, passing to his

trade, Lheureux declared that madame must require something. He

would send her a black barege, twelve yards, just enough to make

a gown.

"The one you've on is good enough for the house, but you want

another for calls. I saw that the very moment that I came in.

I've the eye of an American!"

He did not send the stuff; he brought it. Then he came again to

measure it; he came again on other pretexts, always trying to

make himself agreeable, useful, "enfeoffing himself," as Homais

would have said, and always dropping some hint to Emma about the

power of attorney. He never mentioned the bill; she did not think

of it. Charles, at the beginning of her convalescence, had

certainly said something about it to her, but so many emotions

had passed through her head that she no longer remembered it.

Besides, she took care not to talk of any money questions. Madame

Bovary seemed surprised at this, and attributed the change in her

ways to the religious sentiments she had contracted during her

illness.

But as soon as she was gone, Emma greatly astounded Bovary by her

practical good sense. It would be necessary to make inquiries, to

look into mortgages, and see if there were any occasion for a

sale by auction or a liquidation. She quoted technical terms

casually, pronounced the grand words of order, the future,

foresight, and constantly exaggerated the difficulties of

settling his father's affairs so much, that at last one day she

showed him the rough draft of a power of attorney to manage and

administer his business, arrange all loans, sign and endorse all

bills, pay all sums, etc. She had profited by Lheureux's lessons.

Charles naively asked her where this paper came from.

"Monsieur Guillaumin"; and with the utmost coolness she added, "I

don't trust him overmuch. Notaries have such a bad reputation.

Perhaps we ought to consult--we only know--no one."

"Unless Leon--" replied Charles, who was reflecting. But it was

difficult to explain matters by letter. Then she offered to make

the journey, but he thanked her. She insisted. It was quite a

contest of mutual consideration. At last she cried with affected

waywardness--

"No, I will go!"

"How good you are!" he said, kissing her forehead.

The next morning she set out in the "Hirondelle" to go to Rouen

to consult Monsieur Leon, and she stayed there three days.

Chapter Three

They were three full, exquisite days--a true honeymoon. They were

at the Hotel-de-Boulogne, on the harbour; and they lived there,

with drawn blinds and closed doors, with flowers on the floor,

and iced syrups were brought them early in the morning.

Towards evening they took a covered boat and went to dine on one

of the islands. It was the time when one hears by the side of the

dockyard the caulking-mallets sounding against the hull of

vessels. The smoke of the tar rose up between the trees; there

were large fatty drops on the water, undulating in the purple

colour of the sun, like floating plaques of Florentine bronze.

They rowed down in the midst of moored boats, whose long oblique

cables grazed lightly against the bottom of the boat. The din of

the town gradually grew distant; the rolling of carriages, the

tumult of voices, the yelping of dogs on the decks of vessels.

She took off her bonnet, and they landed on their island.

They sat down in the low-ceilinged room of a tavern, at whose

door hung black nets. They ate fried smelts, cream and cherries.

They lay down upon the grass; they kissed behind the poplars; and

they would fain, like two Robinsons, have lived for ever in this

little place, which seemed to them in their beatitude the most

magnificent on earth. It was not the first time that they had

seen trees, a blue sky, meadows; that they had heard the water

flowing and the wind blowing in the leaves; but, no doubt, they

had never admired all this, as if Nature had not existed before,

or had only begun to be beautiful since the gratification of

their desires.

At night they returned. The boat glided along the shores of the

islands. They sat at the bottom, both hidden by the shade, in

silence. The square oars rang in the iron thwarts, and, in the

stillness, seemed to mark time, like the beating of a metronome,

while at the stern the rudder that trailed behind never ceased

its gentle splash against the water.

Once the moon rose; they did not fail to make fine phrases,

finding the orb melancholy and full of poetry. She even began to

sing--

"One night, do you remember, we were sailing," etc.

Her musical but weak voice died away along the waves, and the

winds carried off the trills that Leon heard pass like the

flapping of wings about him.

She was opposite him, leaning against the partition of the

shallop, through one of whose raised blinds the moon streamed in.

Her black dress, whose drapery spread out like a fan, made her

seem more slender, taller. Her head was raised, her hands

clasped, her eyes turned towards heaven. At times the shadow of

the willows hid her completely; then she reappeared suddenly,

like a vision in the moonlight.

Leon, on the floor by her side, found under his hand a ribbon of

scarlet silk. The boatman looked at it, and at last said--

"Perhaps it belongs to the party I took out the other day. A lot

of jolly folk, gentlemen and ladies, with cakes, champagne,

cornets--everything in style! There was one especially, a tall

handsome man with small moustaches, who was that funny! And they

all kept saying, 'Now tell us something, Adolphe--Dolpe,' I

think."

She shivered.

"You are in pain?" asked Leon, coming closer to her.

"Oh, it's nothing! No doubt, it is only the night air."

"And who doesn't want for women, either," softly added the

sailor, thinking he was paying the stranger a compliment.

Then, spitting on his hands, he took the oars again.

Yet they had to part. The adieux were sad. He was to send his

letters to Mere Rollet, and she gave him such precise

instructions about a double envelope that he admired greatly her

amorous astuteness.

"So you can assure me it is all right?" she said with her last

kiss.

"Yes, certainly."

"But why," he thought afterwards as he came back through the

streets alone, "is she so very anxious to get this power of

attorney?"

Chapter Four

Leon soon put on an air of superiority before his comrades,

avoided their company, and completely neglected his work.

He waited for her letters; he re-read them; he wrote to her. He

called her to mind with all the strength of his desires and of

his memories. Instead of lessening with absence, this longing to

see her again grew, so that at last on Saturday morning he

escaped from his office.

When, from the summit of the hill, he saw in the valley below the

church-spire with its tin flag swinging in the wind, he felt that

delight mingled with triumphant vanity and egoistic tenderness

that millionaires must experience when they come back to their

native village.

He went rambling round her house. A light was burning in the

kitchen. He watched for her shadow behind the curtains, but

nothing appeared.

Mere Lefrancois, when she saw him, uttered many exclamations. She

thought he "had grown and was thinner," while Artemise, on the

contrary, thought him stouter and darker.

He dined in the little room as of yore, but alone, without the

tax-gatherer; for Binet, tired of waiting for the "Hirondelle,"

had definitely put forward his meal one hour, and now he dined

punctually at five, and yet he declared usually the rickety old

concern "was late."

Leon, however, made up his mind, and knocked at the doctor's

door. Madame was in her room, and did not come down for a quarter

of an hour. The doctor seemed delighted to see him, but he never

stirred out that evening, nor all the next day.

He saw her alone in the evening, very late, behind the garden in

the lane; in the lane, as she had the other one! It was a stormy

night, and they talked under an umbrella by lightning flashes.

Their separation was becoming intolerable. "I would rather die!"

said Emma. She was writhing in his arms, weeping. "Adieu! adieu!

When shall I see you again?"

They came back again to embrace once more, and it was then that

she promised him to find soon, by no matter what means, a regular

opportunity for seeing one another in freedom at least once a

week. Emma never doubted she should be able to do this. Besides,

she was full of hope. Some money was coming to her.

On the strength of it she bought a pair of yellow curtains with

large stripes for her room, whose cheapness Monsieur Lheureux had

commended; she dreamed of getting a carpet, and Lheureux,

declaring that it wasn't "drinking the sea," politely undertook

to supply her with one. She could no longer do without his

services. Twenty times a day she sent for him, and he at once put

by his business without a murmur. People could not understand

either why Mere Rollet breakfasted with her every day, and even

paid her private visits.

It was about this time, that is to say, the beginning of winter,

that she seemed seized with great musical fervour.

One evening when Charles was listening to her, she began the same

piece four times over, each time with much vexation, while he,

not noticing any difference, cried--

"Bravo! very goodl You are wrong to stop. Go on!"

"Oh, no; it is execrable! My fingers are quite rusty."

The next day he begged her to play him something again.

"Very well; to please you!"

And Charles confessed she had gone off a little. She played wrong

notes and blundered; then, stopping short--

"Ah! it is no use. I ought to take some lessons; but--" She bit

her lips and added, "Twenty francs a lesson, that's too dear!"

"Yes, so it is--rather," said Charles, giggling stupidly. "But it

seems to me that one might be able to do it for less; for there

are artists of no reputation, and who are often better than the

celebrities."

"Find them!" said Emma.

The next day when he came home he looked at her shyly, and at

last could no longer keep back the words.

"How obstinate you are sometimes! I went to Barfucheres to-day.

Well, Madame Liegard assured me that her three young ladies who

are at La Misericorde have lessons at fifty sous apiece, and that

from an excellent mistress!"

She shrugged her shoulders and did not open her piano again. But

when she passed by it (if Bovary were there), she sighed--

"Ah! my poor piano!"

And when anyone came to see her, she did not fail to inform them

she had given up music, and could not begin again now for

important reasons. Then people commiserated her--

"What a pity! she had so much talent!"

They even spoke to Bovary about it. They put him to shame, and

especially the chemist.

"You are wrong. One should never let any of the faculties of

nature lie fallow. Besides, just think, my good friend, that by

inducing madame to study; you are economising on the subsequent

musical education of your child. For my own part, I think that

mothers ought themselves to instruct their children. That is an

idea of Rousseau's, still rather new perhaps, but that will end

by triumphing, I am certain of it, like mothers nursing their own

children and vaccination."

So Charles returned once more to this question of the piano. Emma

replied bitterly that it would be better to sell it. This poor

piano, that had given her vanity so much satisfaction--to see it

go was to Bovary like the indefinable suicide of a part of

herself.

"If you liked," he said, "a lesson from time to time, that

wouldn't after all be very ruinous."

"But lessons," she replied, "are only of use when followed up."

And thus it was she set about obtaining her husband's permission

to go to town once a week to see her lover. At the end of a month

she was even considered to have made considerable progress.

Chapter Five

She went on Thursdays. She got up and dressed silently, in order

not to awaken Charles, who would have made remarks about her

getting ready too early. Next she walked up and down, went to the

windows, and looked out at the Place. The early dawn was

broadening between the pillars of the market, and the chemist's

shop, with the shutters still up, showed in the pale light of the

dawn the large letters of his signboard.

When the clock pointed to a quarter past seven, she went off to

the "Lion d'Or," whose door Artemise opened yawning. The girl

then made up the coals covered by the cinders, and Emma remained

alone in the kitchen. Now and again she went out. Hivert was

leisurely harnessing his horses, listening, moreover, to Mere

Lefrancois, who, passing her head and nightcap through a grating,

was charging him with commissions and giving him explanations

that would have confused anyone else. Emma kept beating the soles

of her boots against the pavement of the yard.

At last, when he had eaten his soup, put on his cloak, lighted

his pipe, and grasped his whip, he calmly installed himself on

his seat.

The "Hirondelle" started at a slow trot, and for about a mile

stopped here and there to pick up passengers who waited for it,

standing at the border of the road, in front of their yard gates.

Those who had secured seats the evening before kept it waiting;

some even were still in bed in their houses. Hivert called,

shouted, swore; then he got down from his seat and went and

knocked loudly at the doors. The wind blew through the cracked

windows.

The four seats, however, filled up. The carriage rolled off; rows

of apple-trees followed one upon another, and the road between

its two long ditches, full of yellow water, rose, constantly

narrowing towards the horizon.

Emma knew it from end to end; she knew that after a meadow there

was a sign-post, next an elm, a barn, or the hut of a lime-kiln

tender. Sometimes even, in the hope of getting some surprise, she

shut her eyes, but she never lost the clear perception of the

distance to be traversed.

At last the brick houses began to follow one another more

closely, the earth resounded beneath the wheels, the "Hirondelle"

glided between the gardens, where through an opening one saw

statues, a periwinkle plant, clipped yews, and a swing. Then on a

sudden the town appeared. Sloping down like an amphitheatre, and

drowned in the fog, it widened out beyond the bridges confusedly.

Then the open country spread away with a monotonous movement till

it touched in the distance the vague line of the pale sky. Seen

thus from above, the whole landscape looked immovable as a

picture; the anchored ships were massed in one corner, the river

curved round the foot of the green hills, and the isles, oblique

in shape, lay on the water, like large, motionless, black fishes.

The factory chimneys belched forth immense brown fumes that were

blown away at the top. One heard the rumbling of the foundries,

together with the clear chimes of the churches that stood out in

the mist. The leafless trees on the boulevards made violet

thickets in the midst of the houses, and the roofs, all shining

with the rain, threw back unequal reflections, according to the

height of the quarters in which they were. Sometimes a gust of

wind drove the clouds towards the Saint Catherine hills, like

aerial waves that broke silently against a cliff.

A giddiness seemed to her to detach itself from this mass of

existence, and her heart swelled as if the hundred and twenty

thousand souls that palpitated there had all at once sent into it

the vapour of the passions she fancied theirs. Her love grew in

the presence of this vastness, and expanded with tumult to the

vague murmurings that rose towards her. She poured it out upon

the square, on the walks, on the streets, and the old Norman city

outspread before her eyes as an enormous capital, as a Babylon

into which she was entering. She leant with both hands against

the window, drinking in the breeze; the three horses galloped,

the stones grated in the mud, the diligence rocked, and Hivert,

from afar, hailed the carts on the road, while the bourgeois who

had spent the night at the Guillaume woods came quietly down the

hill in their little family carriages.

They stopped at the barrier; Emma undid her overshoes, put on

other gloves, rearranged her shawl, and some twenty paces farther

she got down from the "Hirondelle."

The town was then awakening. Shop-boys in caps were cleaning up

the shop-fronts, and women with baskets against their hips, at

intervals uttered sonorous cries at the corners of streets. She

walked with downcast eyes, close to the walls, and smiling with

pleasure under her lowered black veil.

For fear of being seen, she did not usually take the most direct

road. She plunged into dark alleys, and, all perspiring, reached

the bottom of the Rue Nationale, near the fountain that stands

there. It, is the quarter for theatres, public-houses, and

whores. Often a cart would pass near her, bearing some shaking

scenery. Waiters in aprons were sprinkling sand on the flagstones

between green shrubs. It all smelt of absinthe, cigars, and

oysters.

She turned down a street; she recognised him by his curling hair

that escaped from beneath his hat.

Leon walked along the pavement. She followed him to the hotel. He

went up, opened the door, entered--What an embrace!

Then, after the kisses, the words gushed forth. They told each

other the sorrows of the week, the presentiments, the anxiety for

the letters; but now everything was forgotten; they gazed into

each other's faces with voluptuous laughs, and tender names.

The bed was large, of mahogany, in the shape of a boat. The

curtains were in red levantine, that hung from the ceiling and

bulged out too much towards the bell-shaped bedside; and nothing

in the world was so lovely as her brown head and white skin

standing out against this purple colour, when, with a movement of

shame, she crossed her bare arms, hiding her face in her hands.

The warm room, with its discreet carpet, its gay ornaments, and

its calm light, seemed made for the intimacies of passion. The

curtain-rods, ending in arrows, their brass pegs, and the great

balls of the fire-dogs shone suddenly when the sun came in. On

the chimney between the candelabra there were two of those pink

shells in which one hears the murmur of the sea if one holds them

to the ear.

How they loved that dear room, so full of gaiety, despite its

rather faded splendour! They always found the furniture in the

same place, and sometimes hairpins, that she had forgotten the

Thursday before, under the pedestal of the clock. They lunched by

the fireside on a little round table, inlaid with rosewood. Emma

carved, put bits on his plate with all sorts of coquettish ways,

and she laughed with a sonorous and libertine laugh when the

froth of the champagne ran over from the glass to the rings on

her fingers. They were so completely lost in the possession of

each other that they thought themselves in their own house, and

that they would live there till death, like two spouses eternally

young. They said "our room," "our carpet," she even said "my

slippers," a gift of Leon's, a whim she had had. They were pink

satin, bordered with swansdown. When she sat on his knees, her

leg, then too short, hung in the air, and the dainty shoe, that

had no back to it, was held only by the toes to her bare foot.

He for the first time enjoyed the inexpressible delicacy of

feminine refinements. He had never met this grace of language,

this reserve of clothing, these poses of the weary dove. He

admired the exaltation of her soul and the lace on her petticoat.

Besides, was she not "a lady" and a married woman--a real

mistress, in fine?

By the diversity of her humour, in turn mystical or mirthful,

talkative, taciturn, passionate, careless, she awakened in him a

thousand desires, called up instincts or memories. She was the

mistress of all the novels, the heroine of all the dramas, the

vague "she" of all the volumes of verse. He found again on her

shoulder the amber colouring of the "Odalisque Bathing"; she had

the long waist of feudal chatelaines, and she resembled the "Pale

Woman of Barcelona." But above all she was the Angel!

Often looking at her, it seemed to him that his soul, escaping

towards her, spread like a wave about the outline of her head,

and descended drawn down into the whiteness of her breast. He

knelt on the ground before her, and with both elbows on her knees

looked at her with a smile, his face upturned.

She bent over him, and murmured, as if choking with intoxication--

"Oh, do not move! do not speak! look at me! Something so sweet

comes from your eyes that helps me so much!"

She called him "child." "Child, do you love me?"

And she did not listen for his answer in the haste of her lips

that fastened to his mouth.

On the clock there was a bronze cupid, who smirked as he bent his

arm beneath a golden garland. They had laughed at it many a time,

but when they had to part everything seemed serious to them.

Motionless in front of each other, they kept repeating, "Till

Thursday, till Thursday."

Suddenly she seized his head between her hands, kissed him

hurriedly on the forehead, crying, "Adieu!" and rushed down the

stairs.

She went to a hairdresser's in the Rue de la Comedie to have her

hair arranged. Night fell; the gas was lighted in the shop. She

heard the bell at the theatre calling the mummers to the

performance, and she saw, passing opposite, men with white faces

and women in faded gowns going in at the stage-door.

It was hot in the room, small, and too low where the stove was

hissing in the midst of wigs and pomades. The smell of the tongs,

together with the greasy hands that handled her head, soon

stunned her, and she dozed a little in her wrapper. Often, as he

did her hair, the man offered her tickets for a masked ball.

Then she went away. She went up the streets; reached the

Croix-Rouge, put on her overshoes, that she had hidden in the

morning under the seat, and sank into her place among the

impatient passengers. Some got out at the foot of the hill. She

remained alone in the carriage. At every turning all the lights

of the town were seen more and more completely, making a great

luminous vapour about the dim houses. Emma knelt on the cushions

and her eyes wandered over the dazzling light. She sobbed; called

on Leon, sent him tender words and kisses lost in the wind.

On the hillside a poor devil wandered about with his stick in the

midst of the diligences. A mass of rags covered his shoulders,

and an old staved-in beaver, turned out like a basin, hid his

face; but when he took it off he discovered in the place of

eyelids empty and bloody orbits. The flesh hung in red shreds,

and there flowed from it liquids that congealed into green scale

down to the nose, whose black nostrils sniffed convulsively. To

speak to you he threw back his head with an idiotic laugh; then

his bluish eyeballs, rolling constantly, at the temples beat

against the edge of the open wound. He sang a little song as he

followed the carriages--

"Maids an the warmth of a summer day

Dream of love, and of love always"

And all the rest was about birds and sunshine and green leaves.

Sometimes he appeared suddenly behind Emma, bareheaded, and she

drew back with a cry. Hivert made fun of him. He would advise him

to get a booth at the Saint Romain fair, or else ask him,

laughing, how his young woman was.

Often they had started when, with a sudden movement, his hat

entered the diligence through the small window, while he clung

with his other arm to the footboard, between the wheels splashing

mud. His voice, feeble at first and quavering, grew sharp; it

resounded in the night like the indistinct moan of a vague

distress; and through the ringing of the bells, the murmur of the

trees, and the rumbling of the empty vehicle, it had a far-off

sound that disturbed Emma. It went to the bottom of her soul,

like a whirlwind in an abyss, and carried her away into the

distances of a boundless melancholy. But Hivert, noticing a

weight behind, gave the blind man sharp cuts with his whip. The

thong lashed his wounds, and he fell back into the mud with a

yell. Then the passengers in the "Hirondelle" ended by falling

asleep, some with open mouths, others with lowered chins, leaning

against their neighbour's shoulder, or with their arm passed

through the strap, oscillating regularly with the jolting of the

carriage; and the reflection of the lantern swinging without, on

the crupper of the wheeler; penetrating into the interior through

the chocolate calico curtains, threw sanguineous shadows over all

these motionless people. Emma, drunk with grief, shivered in her

clothes, feeling her feet grow colder and colder, and death in

her soul.

Charles at home was waiting for her; the "Hirondelle" was always

late on Thursdays. Madame arrived at last, and scarcely kissed

the child. The dinner was not ready. No matter! She excused the

servant. This girl now seemed allowed to do just as she liked.

Often her husband, noting her pallor, asked if she were unwell.

"No," said Emma.

"But," he replied, "you seem so strange this evening."

"Oh, it's nothing! nothing!"

There were even days when she had no sooner come in than she went

up to her room; and Justin, happening to be there, moved about

noiselessly, quicker at helping her than the best of maids. He

put the matches ready, the candlestick, a book, arranged her

nightgown, turned back the bedclothes.

"Come!" said she, "that will do. Now you can go."

For he stood there, his hands hanging down and his eyes wide

open, as if enmeshed in the innumerable threads of a sudden

reverie.

The following day was frightful, and those that came after still

more unbearable, because of her impatience to once again seize

her happiness; an ardent lust, inflamed by the images of past

experience, and that burst forth freely on the seventh day

beneath Leon's caresses. His ardours were hidden beneath

outbursts of wonder and gratitude. Emma tasted this love in a

discreet, absorbed fashion, maintained it by all the artifices of

her tenderness, and trembled a little lest it should be lost

later on.

She often said to him, with her sweet, melancholy voice--

"Ah! you too, you will leave me! You will marry! You will be like

all the others."

He asked, "What others?"

"Why, like all men," she replied. Then added, repulsing him with

a languid movement--

"You are all evil!"

One day, as they were talking philosophically of earthly

disillusions, to experiment on his jealousy, or yielding,

perhaps, to an over-strong need to pour out her heart, she told

him that formerly, before him, she had loved someone.

"Not like you," she went on quickly, protesting by the head of

her child that "nothing had passed between them."

The young man believed her, but none the less questioned her to

find out what he was.

"He was a ship's captain, my dear."

Was this not preventing any inquiry, and, at the same time,

assuming a higher ground through this pretended fascination

exercised over a man who must have been of warlike nature and

accustomed to receive homage?

The clerk then felt the lowliness of his position; he longed for

epaulettes, crosses, titles. All that would please her--he

gathered that from her spendthrift habits.

Emma nevertheless concealed many of these extravagant fancies,

such as her wish to have a blue tilbury to drive into Rouen,

drawn by an English horse and driven by a groom in top-boots. It

was Justin who had inspired her with this whim, by begging her to

take him into her service as valet-de-chambre*, and if the

privation of it did not lessen the pleasure of her arrival at

each rendezvous, it certainly augmented the bitterness of the

return.

* Manservant.

Often, when they talked together of Paris, she ended by

murmuring, "Ah! how happy we should be there!"

"Are we not happy?" gently answered the young man passing his

hands over her hair.

"Yes, that is true," she said. "I am mad. Kiss me!"

To her husband she was more charming than ever. She made him

pistachio-creams, and played him waltzes after dinner. So he

thought himself the most fortunate of men and Emma was without

uneasiness, when, one evening suddenly he said--

"It is Mademoiselle Lempereur, isn't it, who gives you lessons?"

"Yes."

"Well, I saw her just now," Charles went on, "at Madame

Liegeard's. I spoke to her about you, and she doesn't know you."

This was like a thunderclap. However, she replied quite

naturally--

"Ah! no doubt she forgot my name."

"But perhaps," said the doctor, "there are several Demoiselles

Lempereur at Rouen who are music-mistresses."

"Possibly!" Then quickly--"But I have my receipts here. See!"

And she went to the writing-table, ransacked all the drawers,

rummaged the papers, and at last lost her head so completely that

Charles earnestly begged her not to take so much trouble about

those wretched receipts.

"Oh, I will find them," she said.

And, in fact, on the following Friday, as Charles was putting on

one of his boots in the dark cabinet where his clothes were kept,

he felt a piece of paper between the leather and his sock. He

took it out and read--

"Received, for three months' lessons and several pieces of music,

the sum of sixty-three francs.--Felicie Lempereur, professor of

music."

"How the devil did it get into my boots?"

"It must," she replied, "have fallen from the old box of bills

that is on the edge of the shelf."

From that moment her existence was but one long tissue of lies,

in which she enveloped her love as in veils to hide it. It was a

want, a mania, a pleasure carried to such an extent that if she

said she had the day before walked on the right side of a road,

one might know she had taken the left.

One morning, when she had gone, as usual, rather lightly clothed,

it suddenly began to snow, and as Charles was watching the

weather from the window, he caught sight of Monsieur Bournisien

in the chaise of Monsieur Tuvache, who was driving him to Rouen.

Then he went down to give the priest a thick shawl that he was to

hand over to Emma as soon as he reached the "Croix-Rouge." When

he got to the inn, Monsieur Bournisien asked for the wife of the

Yonville doctor. The landlady replied that she very rarely came

to her establishment. So that evening, when he recognised Madame

Bovary in the "Hirondelle," the cure told her his dilemma,

without, however, appearing to attach much importance to it, for

he began praising a preacher who was doing wonders at the

Cathedral, and whom all the ladies were rushing to hear.

Still, if he did not ask for any explanation, others, later on,

might prove less discreet. So she thought well to get down each

time at the "Croix-Rouge," so that the good folk of her village

who saw her on the stairs should suspect nothing.

One day, however, Monsieur Lheureux met her coming out of the

Hotel de Boulogne on Leon's arm; and she was frightened, thinking

he would gossip. He was not such a fool. But three days after he

came to her room, shut the door, and said, "I must have some

money."

She declared she could not give him any. Lheureux burst into

lamentations and reminded her of all the kindnesses he had shown

her.

In fact, of the two bills signed by Charles, Emma up to the

present had paid only one. As to the second, the shopkeeper, at

her request, had consented to replace it by another, which again

had been renewed for a long date. Then he drew from his pocket a

list of goods not paid for; to wit, the curtains, the carpet, the

material for the armchairs, several dresses, and divers articles

of dress, the bills for which amounted to about two thousand

francs.

She bowed her head. He went on--

"But if you haven't any ready money, you have an estate." And he

reminded her of a miserable little hovel situated at Barneville,

near Aumale, that brought in almost nothing. It had formerly been

part of a small farm sold by Monsieur Bovary senior; for Lheureux

knew everything, even to the number of acres and the names of the

neighbours.

"If I were in your place," he said, "I should clear myself of my

debts, and have money left over."

She pointed out the difficulty of getting a purchaser. He held

out the hope of finding one; but she asked him how she should

manage to sell it.

"Haven't you your power of attorney?" he replied.

The phrase came to her like a breath of fresh air. "Leave me the

bill," said Emma.

"Oh, it isn't worth while," answered Lheureux.

He came back the following week and boasted of having, after much

trouble, at last discovered a certain Langlois, who, for a long

time, had had an eye on the property, but without mentioning his

price.

"Never mind the price!" she cried.

But they would, on the contrary, have to wait, to sound the

fellow. The thing was worth a journey, and, as she could not

undertake it, he offered to go to the place to have an interview

with Langlois. On his return he announced that the purchaser

proposed four thousand francs.

Emma was radiant at this news.

"Frankly," he added, "that's a good price."

She drew half the sum at once, and when she was about to pay her

account the shopkeeper said--

"It really grieves me, on my word! to see you depriving yourself

all at once of such a big sum as that."

Then she looked at the bank-notes, and dreaming of the unlimited

number of rendezvous represented by those two thousand francs,

she stammered--

"What! what!"

"Oh!" he went on, laughing good-naturedly, "one puts anything one

likes on receipts. Don't you think I know what household affairs

are?" And he looked at her fixedly, while in his hand he held two

long papers that he slid between his nails. At last, opening his

pocket-book, he spread out on the table four bills to order, each

for a thousand francs.

"Sign these," he said, "and keep it all!"

She cried out, scandalised.

"But if I give you the surplus," replied Monsieur Lheureux

impudently, "is that not helping you?"

And taking a pen he wrote at the bottom of the account, "Received

of Madame Bovary four thousand francs."

"Now who can trouble you, since in six months you'll draw the

arrears for your cottage, and I don't make the last bill due till

after you've been paid?"

Emma grew rather confused in her calculations, and her ears

tingled as if gold pieces, bursting from their bags, rang all

round her on the floor. At last Lheureux explained that he had a

very good friend, Vincart, a broker at Rouen, who would discount

these four bills. Then he himself would hand over to madame the

remainder after the actual debt was paid.

But instead of two thousand francs he brought only eighteen

hundred, for the friend Vincart (which was only fair) had

deducted two hundred francs for commission and discount. Then he

carelessly asked for a receipt.

"You understand--in business--sometimes. And with the date, if

you please, with the date."

A horizon of realisable whims opened out before Emma. She was

prudent enough to lay by a thousand crowns, with which the first

three bills were paid when they fell due; but the fourth, by

chance, came to the house on a Thursday, and Charles, quite

upset, patiently awaited his wife's return for an explanation.

If she had not told him about this bill, it was only to spare him

such domestic worries; she sat on his knees, caressed him, cooed

to him, gave him a long enumeration of all the indispensable

things that had been got on credit.

"Really, you must confess, considering the quantity, it isn't too

dear."

Charles, at his wit's end, soon had recourse to the eternal

Lheureux, who swore he would arrange matters if the doctor would

sign him two bills, one of which was for seven hundred francs,

payable in three months. In order to arrange for this he wrote

his mother a pathetic letter. Instead of sending a reply she came

herself; and when Emma wanted to know whether he had got anything

out of her, "Yes," he replied; "but she wants to see the

account." The next morning at daybreak Emma ran to Lheureux to

beg him to make out another account for not more than a thousand

francs, for to show the one for four thousand it would be

necessary to say that she had paid two-thirds, and confess,

consequently, the sale of the estate--a negotiation admirably

carried out by the shopkeeper, and which, in fact, was only

actually known later on.

Despite the low price of each article, Madame Bovary senior, of

course, thought the expenditure extravagant.

"Couldn't you do without a carpet? Why have recovered the

arm-chairs? In my time there was a single arm-chair in a house,

for elderly persons--at any rate it was so at my mother's, who

was a good woman, I can tell you. Everybody can't be rich! No

fortune can hold out against waste! I should be ashamed to coddle

myself as you do! And yet I am old. I need looking after. And

there! there! fitting up gowns! fallals! What! silk for lining at

two francs, when you can get jaconet for ten sous, or even for

eight, that would do well enough!"

Emma, lying on a lounge, replied as quietly as possible--"Ah!

Madame, enough! enough!"

The other went on lecturing her, predicting they would end in the

workhouse. But it was Bovary's fault. Luckily he had promised to

destroy that power of attorney.

"What?"

"Ah! he swore he would," went on the good woman.

Emma opened the window, called Charles, and the poor fellow was

obliged to confess the promise torn from him by his mother.

Emma disappeared, then came back quickly, and majestically handed

her a thick piece of paper.

"Thank you," said the old woman. And she threw the power of

attorney into the fire.

Emma began to laugh, a strident, piercing, continuous laugh; she

had an attack of hysterics.

"Oh, my God!" cried Charles. "Ah! you really are wrong! You come

here and make scenes with her!"

His mother, shrugging her shoulders, declared it was "all put

on."

But Charles, rebelling for the first time, took his wife's part,

so that Madame Bovary, senior, said she would leave. She went the

very next day, and on the threshold, as he was trying to detain

her, she replied--

"No, no! You love her better than me, and you are right. It is

natural. For the rest, so much the worse! You will see. Good

day--for I am not likely to come soon again, as you say, to make

scenes."

Charles nevertheless was very crestfallen before Emma, who did

not hide the resentment she still felt at his want of confidence,

and it needed many prayers before she would consent to have

another power of attorney. He even accompanied her to Monsieur

Guillaumin to have a second one, just like the other, drawn up.

"I understand," said the notary; "a man of science can't be

worried with the practical details of life."

And Charles felt relieved by this comfortable reflection, which

gave his weakness the flattering appearance of higher

pre-occupation.

And what an outburst the next Thursday at the hotel in their room

with Leon! She laughed, cried, sang, sent for sherbets, wanted to

smoke cigarettes, seemed to him wild and extravagant, but

adorable, superb.

He did not know what recreation of her whole being drove her more

and more to plunge into the pleasures of life. She was becoming

irritable, greedy, voluptuous; and she walked about the streets

with him carrying her head high, without fear, so she said, of

compromising herself. At times, however, Emma shuddered at the

sudden thought of meeting Rodolphe, for it seemed to her that,

although they were separated forever, she was not completely free

from her subjugation to him.

One night she did not return to Yonville at all. Charles lost his

head with anxiety, and little Berthe would not go to bed without

her mamma, and sobbed enough to break her heart. Justin had gone

out searching the road at random. Monsieur Homais even had left

his pharmacy.

At last, at eleven o'clock, able to bear it no longer, Charles

harnessed his chaise, jumped in, whipped up his horse, and

reached the "Croix-Rouge" about two o'clock in the morning. No

one there! He thought that the clerk had perhaps seen her; but

where did he live? Happily, Charles remembered his employer's

address, and rushed off there.

Day was breaking, and he could distinguish the escutcheons over

the door, and knocked. Someone, without opening the door, shouted

out the required information, adding a few insults to those who

disturb people in the middle of the night.

The house inhabited by the clerk had neither bell, knocker, nor

porter. Charles knocked loudly at the shutters with his hands. A

policeman happened to pass by. Then he was frightened, and went

away.

"I am mad," he said; "no doubt they kept her to dinner at

Monsieur Lormeaux'." But the Lormeaux no longer lived at Rouen.

"She probably stayed to look after Madame Dubreuil. Why, Madame

Dubreuil has been dead these ten months! Where can she be?"

An idea occurred to him. At a cafe he asked for a Directory, and

hurriedly looked for the name of Mademoiselle Lempereur, who

lived at No. 74 Rue de la Renelle-des-Maroquiniers.

As he was turning into the street, Emma herself appeared at the

other end of it. He threw himself upon her rather than embraced

her, crying--

"What kept you yesterday?"

"I was not well."

"What was it? Where? How?"

She passed her hand over her forehead and answered, "At

Mademoiselle Lempereur's."

"I was sure of it! I was going there."

"Oh, it isn't worth while," said Emma. "She went out just now;

but for the future don't worry. I do not feel free, you see, if I

know that the least delay upsets you like this."

This was a sort of permission that she gave herself, so as to get

perfect freedom in her escapades. And she profited by it freely,

fully. When she was seized with the desire to see Leon, she set

out upon any pretext; and as he was not expecting her on that

day, she went to fetch him at his office.

It was a great delight at first, but soon he no longer concealed

the truth, which was, that his master complained very much about

these interruptions.

"Pshaw! come along," she said.

And he slipped out.

She wanted him to dress all in black, and grow a pointed beard,

to look like the portraits of Louis XIII. She wanted to see his

lodgings; thought them poor. He blushed at them, but she did not

notice this, then advised him to buy some curtains like hers, and

as he objected to the expense--

"Ah! ah! you care for your money," she said laughing.

Each time Leon had to tell her everything that he had done since

their last meeting. She asked him for some verses--some verses

"for herself," a "love poem" in honour of her. But he never

succeeded in getting a rhyme for the second verse; and at last

ended by copying a sonnet in a "Keepsake." This was less from

vanity than from the one desire of pleasing her. He did not

question her ideas; he accepted all her tastes; he was rather

becoming her mistress than she his. She had tender words and

kisses that thrilled his soul. Where could she have learnt this

corruption almost incorporeal in the strength of its profanity

and dissimulation?

Chapter Six

During the journeys he made to see her, Leon had often dined at

the chemist's, and he felt obliged from politeness to invite him

in turn.

"With pleasure!" Monsieur Homais replied; "besides, I must

invigorate my mind, for I am getting rusty here. We'll go to the

theatre, to the restaurant; we'll make a night of it."

"Oh, my dear!" tenderly murmured Madame Homais, alarmed at the

vague perils he was preparing to brave.

"Well, what? Do you think I'm not sufficiently ruining my health

living here amid the continual emanations of the pharmacy? But

there! that is the way with women! They are jealous of science,

and then are opposed to our taking the most legitimate

distractions. No matter! Count upon me. One of these days I shall

turn up at Rouen, and we'll go the pace together."

The druggist would formerly have taken good care not to use such

an expression, but he was cultivating a gay Parisian style, which

he thought in the best taste; and, like his neighbour, Madame

Bovary, he questioned the clerk curiously about the customs of

the capital; he even talked slang to dazzle the bourgeois, saying

bender, crummy, dandy, macaroni, the cheese, cut my stick and

"I'll hook it," for "I am going."

So one Thursday Emma was surprised to meet Monsieur Homais in the

kitchen of the "Lion d'Or," wearing a traveller's costume, that

is to say, wrapped in an old cloak which no one knew he had,

while he carried a valise in one hand and the foot-warmer of his

establishment in the other. He had confided his intentions to no

one, for fear of causing the public anxiety by his absence.

The idea of seeing again the place where his youth had been spent

no doubt excited him, for during the whole journey he never

ceased talking, and as soon as he had arrived, he jumped quickly

out of the diligence to go in search of Leon. In vain the clerk

tried to get rid of him. Monsieur Homais dragged him off to the

large Cafe de la Normandie, which he entered majestically, not

raising his hat, thinking it very provincial to uncover in any

public place.

Emma waited for Leon three quarters of an hour. At last she ran

to his office; and, lost in all sorts of conjectures, accusing

him of indifference, and reproaching herself for her weakness,

she spent the afternoon, her face pressed against the

window-panes.

At two o'clock they were still at a table opposite each other.

The large room was emptying; the stove-pipe, in the shape of a

palm-tree, spread its gilt leaves over the white ceiling, and

near them, outside the window, in the bright sunshine, a little

fountain gurgled in a white basin, where; in the midst of

watercress and asparagus, three torpid lobsters stretched across

to some quails that lay heaped up in a pile on their sides.

Homais was enjoying himself. Although he was even more

intoxicated with the luxury than the rich fare, the Pommard wine

all the same rather excited his faculties; and when the omelette

au rhum* appeared, he began propounding immoral theories about

women. What seduced him above all else was chic. He admired an

elegant toilette in a well-furnished apartment, and as to bodily

qualities, he didn't dislike a young girl.

* In rum.

Leon watched the clock in despair. The druggist went on drinking,

eating, and talking.

"You must be very lonely," he said suddenly, "here at Rouen. To

be sure your lady-love doesn't live far away."

And the other blushed--

"Come now, be frank. Can you deny that at Yonville--"

The young man stammered something.

"At Madame Bovary's, you're not making love to--"

"To whom?"

"The servant!"

He was not joking; but vanity getting the better of all prudence,

Leon, in spite of himself protested. Besides, he only liked dark

women.

"I approve of that," said the chemist; "they have more passion."

And whispering into his friend's ear, he pointed out the symptoms

by which one could find out if a woman had passion. He even

launched into an ethnographic digression: the German was

vapourish, the French woman licentious, the Italian passionate.

"And negresses?" asked the clerk.

"They are an artistic taste!" said Homais. "Waiter! two cups of

coffee!"

"Are we going?" at last asked Leon impatiently.

"Ja!"

But before leaving he wanted to see the proprietor of the

establishment and made him a few compliments. Then the young man,

to be alone, alleged he had some business engagement.

"Ah! I will escort you," said Homais.

And all the while he was walking through the streets with him he

talked of his wife, his children; of their future, and of his

business; told him in what a decayed condition it had formerly

been, and to what a degree of perfection he had raised it.

Arrived in front of the Hotel de Boulogne, Leon left him

abruptly, ran up the stairs, and found his mistress in great

excitement. At mention of the chemist she flew into a passion.

He, however, piled up good reasons; it wasn't his fault; didn't

she know Homais--did she believe that he would prefer his

company? But she turned away; he drew her back, and, sinking on

his knees, clasped her waist with his arms in a languorous pose,

full of concupiscence and supplication.

She was standing up, her large flashing eyes looked at him

seriously, almost terribly. Then tears obscured them, her red

eyelids were lowered, she gave him her hands, and Leon was

pressing them to his lips when a servant appeared to tell the

gentleman that he was wanted.

"You will come back?" she said.

"Yes."

"But when?"

"Immediately."

"It's a trick," said the chemist, when he saw Leon. "I wanted to

interrupt this visit, that seemed to me to annoy you. Let's go

and have a glass of garus at Bridoux'."

Leon vowed that he must get back to his office. Then the druggist

joked him about quill-drivers and the law.

"Leave Cujas and Barthole alone a bit. Who the devil prevents

you? Be a man! Let's go to Bridoux'. You'll see his dog. It's

very interesting."

And as the clerk still insisted--

"I'll go with you. I'll read a paper while I wait for you, or

turn over the leaves of a 'Code.'"

Leon, bewildered by Emma's anger, Monsieur Homais' chatter, and,

perhaps, by the heaviness of the luncheon, was undecided, and, as

it were, fascinated by the chemist, who kept repeating--

"Let's go to Bridoux'. It's just by here, in the Rue Malpalu."

Then, through cowardice, through stupidity, through that

indefinable feeling that drags us into the most distasteful acts,

he allowed himself to be led off to Bridoux', whom they found in

his small yard, superintending three workmen, who panted as they

turned the large wheel of a machine for making seltzer-water.

Homais gave them some good advice. He embraced Bridoux; they took

some garus. Twenty times Leon tried to escape, but the other

seized him by the arm saying--

"Presently! I'm coming! We'll go to the 'Fanal de Rouen' to see

the fellows there. I'll introduce you to Thornassin."

At last he managed to get rid of him, and rushed straight to the

hotel. Emma was no longer there. She had just gone in a fit of

anger. She detested him now. This failing to keep their

rendezvous seemed to her an insult, and she tried to rake up

other reasons to separate herself from him. He was incapable of

heroism, weak, banal, more spiritless than a woman, avaricious

too, and cowardly.

Then, growing calmer, she at length discovered that she had, no

doubt, calumniated him. But the disparaging of those we love

always alienates us from them to some extent. We must not touch

our idols; the gilt sticks to our fingers.

They gradually came to talking more frequently of matters outside

their love, and in the letters that Emma wrote him she spoke of

flowers, verses, the moon and the stars, naive resources of a

waning passion striving to keep itself alive by all external

aids. She was constantly promising herself a profound felicity on

her next journey. Then she confessed to herself that she felt

nothing extraordinary. This disappointment quickly gave way to a

new hope, and Emma returned to him more inflamed, more eager than

ever. She undressed brutally, tearing off the thin laces of her

corset that nestled around her hips like a gliding snake. She

went on tiptoe, barefooted, to see once more that the door was

closed, then, pale, serious, and, without speaking, with one

movement, she threw herself upon his breast with a long shudder.

Yet there was upon that brow covered with cold drops, on those

quivering lips, in those wild eyes, in the strain of those arms,

something vague and dreary that seemed to Leon to glide between

them subtly as if to separate them.

He did not dare to question her; but, seeing her so skilled, she

must have passed, he thought, through every experience of

suffering and of pleasure. What had once charmed now frightened

him a little. Besides, he rebelled against his absorption, daily

more marked, by her personality. He begrudged Emma this constant

victory. He even strove not to love her; then, when he heard the

creaking of her boots, he turned coward, like drunkards at the

sight of strong drinks.

She did not fail, in truth, to lavish all sorts of attentions

upon him, from the delicacies of food to the coquettries of dress

and languishing looks. She brought roses to her breast from

Yonville, which she threw into his face; was anxious about his

health, gave him advice as to his conduct; and, in order the more

surely to keep her hold on him, hoping perhaps that heaven would

take her part, she tied a medal of the Virgin round his neck. She

inquired like a virtuous mother about his companions. She said to

him--

"Don't see them; don't go out; think only of ourselves; love me!"

She would have liked to be able to watch over his life; and the

idea occurred to her of having him followed in the streets. Near

the hotel there was always a kind of loafer who accosted

travellers, and who would not refuse. But her pride revolted at

this.

"Bah! so much the worse. Let him deceive me! What does it matter

to me? As If I cared for him!"

One day, when they had parted early and she was returning alone

along the boulevard, she saw the walls of her convent; then she

sat down on a form in the shade of the elm-trees. How calm that

time had been! How she longed for the ineffable sentiments of

love that she had tried to figure to herself out of books! The

first month of her marriage, her rides in the wood, the viscount

that waltzed, and Lagardy singing, all repassed before her eyes.

And Leon suddenly appeared to her as far off as the others.

"Yet I love him," she said to herself.

No matter! She was not happy--she never had been. Whence came

this insufficiency in life--this instantaneous turning to decay

of everything on which she leant? But if there were somewhere a

being strong and beautiful, a valiant nature, full at once of

exaltation and refinement, a poet's heart in an angel's form, a

lyre with sounding chords ringing out elegiac epithalamia to

heaven, why, perchance, should she not find him? Ah! how

impossible! Besides, nothing was worth the trouble of seeking it;

everything was a lie. Every smile hid a yawn of boredom, every

joy a curse, all pleasure satiety, and the sweetest kisses left

upon your lips only the unattainable desire for a greater

delight.

A metallic clang droned through the air, and four strokes were

heard from the convent-clock. Four o'clock! And it seemed to her

that she had been there on that form an eternity. But an infinity

of passions may be contained in a minute, like a crowd in a small

space.

Emma lived all absorbed in hers, and troubled no more about money

matters than an archduchess.

Once, however, a wretched-looking man, rubicund and bald, came to

her house, saying he had been sent by Monsieur Vincart of Rouen.

He took out the pins that held together the side-pockets of his

long green overcoat, stuck them into his sleeve, and politely

handed her a paper.

It was a bill for seven hundred francs, signed by her, and which

Lheureux, in spite of all his professions, had paid away to

Vincart. She sent her servant for him. He could not come. Then

the stranger, who had remained standing, casting right and left

curious glances, that his thick, fair eyebrows hid, asked with a

naive air--

"What answer am I to take Monsieur Vincart?"

"Oh," said Emma, "tell him that I haven't it. I will send next

week; he must wait; yes, till next week."

And the fellow went without another word.

But the next day at twelve o'clock she received a summons, and

the sight of the stamped paper, on which appeared several times

in large letters, "Maitre Hareng, bailiff at Buchy," so

frightened her that she rushed in hot haste to the linendraper's.

She found him in his shop, doing up a parcel.

"Your obedient!" he said; "I am at your service."

But Lheureux, all the same, went on with his work, helped by a

young girl of about thirteen, somewhat hunch-backed, who was at

once his clerk and his servant.

Then, his clogs clattering on the shop-boards, he went up in

front of Madame Bovary to the first door, and introduced her into

a narrow closet, where, in a large bureau in sapon-wood, lay some

ledgers, protected by a horizontal padlocked iron bar. Against

the wall, under some remnants of calico, one glimpsed a safe, but

of such dimensions that it must contain something besides bills

and money. Monsieur Lheureux, in fact, went in for pawnbroking,

and it was there that he had put Madame Bovary's gold chain,

together with the earrings of poor old Tellier, who, at last

forced to sell out, had bought a meagre store of grocery at

Quincampoix, where he was dying of catarrh amongst his candles,

that were less yellow than his face.

Lheureux sat down in a large cane arm-chair, saying: "What news?"

"See!"

And she showed him the paper.

"Well how can I help it?"

Then she grew angry, reminding him of the promise he had given

not to pay away her bills. He acknowledged it.

"But I was pressed myself; the knife was at my own throat."

"And what will happen now?" she went on.

"Oh, it's very simple; a judgment and then a distraint--that's

about it!"

Emma kept down a desire to strike him, and asked gently if there

was no way of quieting Monsieur Vincart.

"I dare say! Quiet Vincart! You don't know him; he's more

ferocious than an Arab!"

Still Monsieur Lheureux must interfere.

"Well, listen. It seems to me so far I've been very good to you."

And opening one of his ledgers, "See," he said. Then running up

the page with his finger, "Let's see! let's see! August 3d, two

hundred francs; June 17th, a hundred and fifty; March 23d,

forty-six. In April--"

He stopped, as if afraid of making some mistake.

"Not to speak of the bills signed by Monsieur Bovary, one for

seven hundred francs, and another for three hundred. As to your

little installments, with the interest, why, there's no end to

'em; one gets quite muddled over 'em. I'll have nothing more to

do with it."

She wept; she even called him "her good Monsieur Lheureux." But

he always fell back upon "that rascal Vincart." Besides, he

hadn't a brass farthing; no one was paying him now-a-days; they

were eating his coat off his back; a poor shopkeeper like him

couldn't advance money.

Emma was silent, and Monsieur Lheureux, who was biting the

feathers of a quill, no doubt became uneasy at her silence, for

he went on--

"Unless one of these days I have something coming in, I might--"

"Besides," said she, "as soon as the balance of Barneville--"

"What!"

And on hearing that Langlois had not yet paid he seemed much

surprised. Then in a honied voice--

"And we agree, you say?"

"Oh! to anything you like."

On this he closed his eyes to reflect, wrote down a few figures,

and declaring it would be very difficult for him, that the affair

was shady, and that he was being bled, he wrote out four bills

for two hundred and fifty francs each, to fall due month by

month.

"Provided that Vincart will listen to me! However, it's settled.

I don't play the fool; I'm straight enough."

Next he carelessly showed her several new goods, not one of

which, however, was in his opinion worthy of madame.

"When I think that there's a dress at threepence-halfpenny a

yard, and warranted fast colours! And yet they actually swallow

it! Of course you understand one doesn't tell them what it really

is!" He hoped by this confession of dishonesty to others to quite

convince her of his probity to her.

Then he called her back to show her three yards of guipure that

he had lately picked up "at a sale."

"Isn't it lovely?" said Lheureux. "It is very much used now for

the backs of arm-chairs. It's quite the rage."

And, more ready than a juggler, he wrapped up the guipure in some

blue paper and put it in Emma's hands.

"But at least let me know--"

"Yes, another time," he replied, turning on his heel.

That same evening she urged Bovary to write to his mother, to ask

her to send as quickly as possible the whole of the balance due

from the father's estate. The mother-in-law replied that she had

nothing more, the winding up was over, and there was due to them

besides Barneville an income of six hundred francs, that she

would pay them punctually.

Then Madame Bovary sent in accounts to two or three patients, and

she made large use of this method, which was very successful. She

was always careful to add a postscript: "Do not mention this to

my husband; you know how proud he is. Excuse me. Yours

obediently." There were some complaints; she intercepted them.

To get money she began selling her old gloves, her old hats, the

old odds and ends, and she bargained rapaciously, her peasant

blood standing her in good stead. Then on her journey to town she

picked up nick-nacks secondhand, that, in default of anyone else,

Monsieur Lheureux would certainly take off her hands. She bought

ostrich feathers, Chinese porcelain, and trunks; she borrowed

from Felicite, from Madame Lefrancois, from the landlady at the

Croix-Rouge, from everybody, no matter where.

With the money she at last received from Barneville she paid two

bills; the other fifteen hundred francs fell due. She renewed the

bills, and thus it was continually.

Sometimes, it is true, she tried to make a calculation, but she

discovered things so exorbitant that she could not believe them

possible. Then she recommenced, soon got confused, gave it all

up, and thought no more about it.

The house was very dreary now. Tradesmen were seen leaving it

with angry faces. Handkerchiefs were lying about on the stoves,

and little Berthe, to the great scandal of Madame Homais, wore

stockings with holes in them. If Charles timidly ventured a

remark, she answered roughly that it wasn't her fault.

What was the meaning of all these fits of temper? He explained

everything through her old nervous illness, and reproaching

himself with having taken her infirmities for faults, accused

himself of egotism, and longed to go and take her in his arms.

"Ah, no!" he said to himself; "I should worry her."

And he did not stir.

After dinner he walked about alone in the garden; he took little

Berthe on his knees, and unfolding his medical journal, tried to

teach her to read. But the child, who never had any lessons, soon

looked up with large, sad eyes and began to cry. Then he

comforted her; went to fetch water in her can to make rivers on

the sand path, or broke off branches from the privet hedges to

plant trees in the beds. This did not spoil the garden much, all

choked now with long weeds. They owed Lestiboudois for so many

days. Then the child grew cold and asked for her mother.

"Call the servant," said Charles. "You know, dearie, that mamma

does not like to be disturbed."

Autumn was setting in, and the leaves were already falling, as

they did two years ago when she was ill. Where would it all end?

And he walked up and down, his hands behind his back.

Madame was in her room, which no one entered. She stayed there

all day long, torpid, half dressed, and from time to time burning

Turkish pastilles which she had bought at Rouen in an Algerian's

shop. In order not to have at night this sleeping man stretched

at her side, by dint of manoeuvring, she at last succeeded in

banishing him to the second floor, while she read till morning

extravagant books, full of pictures of orgies and thrilling

situations. Often, seized with fear, she cried out, and Charles

hurried to her.

"Oh, go away!" she would say.

Or at other times, consumed more ardently than ever by that inner

flame to which adultery added fuel, panting, tremulous, all

desire, she threw open her window, breathed in the cold air,

shook loose in the wind her masses of hair, too heavy, and,

gazing upon the stars, longed for some princely love. She thought

of him, of Leon. She would then have given anything for a single

one of those meetings that surfeited her.

These were her gala days. She wanted them to be sumptuous, and

when he alone could not pay the expenses, she made up the deficit

liberally, which happened pretty well every time. He tried to

make her understand that they would be quite as comfortable

somewhere else, in a smaller hotel, but she always found some

objection.

One day she drew six small silver-gilt spoons from her bag (they

were old Roualt's wedding present), begging him to pawn them at

once for her, and Leon obeyed, though the proceeding annoyed him.

He was afraid of compromising himself.

Then, on, reflection, he began to think his mistress's ways were

growing odd, and that they were perhaps not wrong in wishing to

separate him from her.

In fact someone had sent his mother a long anonymous letter to

warn her that he was "ruining himself with a married woman," and

the good lady at once conjuring up the eternal bugbear of

families, the vague pernicious creature, the siren, the monster,

who dwells fantastically in depths of love, wrote to Lawyer

Dubocage, his employer, who behaved perfectly in the affair. He

kept him for three quarters of an hour trying to open his eyes,

to warn him of the abyss into which he was falling. Such an

intrigue would damage him later on, when he set up for himself.

He implored him to break with her, and, if he would not make this

sacrifice in his own interest, to do it at least for his,

Dubocage's sake.

At last Leon swore he would not see Emma again, and he reproached

himself with not having kept his word, considering all the worry

and lectures this woman might still draw down upon him, without

reckoning the jokes made by his companions as they sat round the

stove in the morning. Besides, he was soon to be head clerk; it

was time to settle down. So he gave up his flute, exalted

sentiments, and poetry; for every bourgeois in the flush of his

youth, were it but for a day, a moment, has believed himself

capable of immense passions, of lofty enterprises. The most

mediocre libertine has dreamed of sultanas; every notary bears

within him the debris of a poet.

He was bored now when Emma suddenly began to sob on his breast,

and his heart, like the people who can only stand a certain

amount of music, dozed to the sound of a love whose delicacies he

no longer noted.

They knew one another too well for any of those surprises of

possession that increase its joys a hundred-fold. She was as sick

of him as he was weary of her. Emma found again in adultery all

the platitudes of marriage.

But how to get rid of him? Then, though she might feel humiliated

at the baseness of such enjoyment, she clung to it from habit or

from corruption, and each day she hungered after them the more,

exhausting all felicity in wishing for too much of it. She

accused Leon of her baffled hopes, as if he had betrayed her; and

she even longed for some catastrophe that would bring about their

separation, since she had not the courage to make up her mind to

it herself.

She none the less went on writing him love letters, in virtue of

the notion that a woman must write to her lover.

But whilst she wrote it was another man she saw, a phantom

fashioned out of her most ardent memories, of her finest reading,

her strongest lusts, and at last he became so real, so tangible,

that she palpitated wondering, without, however, the power to

imagine him clearly, so lost was he, like a god, beneath the

abundance of his attributes. He dwelt in that azure land where

silk ladders hang from balconies under the breath of flowers, in

the light of the moon. She felt him near her; he was coming, and

would carry her right away in a kiss.

Then she fell back exhausted, for these transports of vague love

wearied her more than great debauchery.

She now felt constant ache all over her. Often she even received

summonses, stamped paper that she barely looked at. She would

have liked not to be alive, or to be always asleep.

On Mid-Lent she did not return to Yonville, but in the evening

went to a masked ball. She wore velvet breeches, red stockings, a

club wig, and three-cornered hat cocked on one side. She danced

all night to the wild tones of the trombones; people gathered

round her, and in the morning she found herself on the steps of

the theatre together with five or six masks, debardeuses* and

sailors, Leon's comrades, who were talking about having supper.

* People dressed as longshoremen.

The neighbouring cafes were full. They caught sight of one on the

harbour, a very indifferent restaurant, whose proprietor showed

them to a little room on the fourth floor.

The men were whispering in a corner, no doubt consorting about

expenses. There were a clerk, two medical students, and a

shopman--what company for her! As to the women, Emma soon

perceived from the tone of their voices that they must almost

belong to the lowest class. Then she was frightened, pushed back

her chair, and cast down her eyes.

The others began to eat; she ate nothing. Her head was on fire,

her eyes smarted, and her skin was ice-cold. In her head she

seemed to feel the floor of the ball-room rebounding again

beneath the rhythmical pulsation of the thousands of dancing

feet. And now the smell of the punch, the smoke of the cigars,

made her giddy. She fainted, and they carried her to the window.

Day was breaking, and a great stain of purple colour broadened

out in the pale horizon over the St. Catherine hills. The livid

river was shivering in the wind; there was no one on the bridges;

the street lamps were going out.

She revived, and began thinking of Berthe asleep yonder in the

servant's room. Then a cart filled with long strips of iron

passed by, and made a deafening metallic vibration against the

walls of the houses.

She slipped away suddenly, threw off her costume, told Leon she

must get back, and at last was alone at the Hotel de Boulogne.

Everything, even herself, was now unbearable to her. She wished

that, taking wing like a bird, she could fly somewhere, far away

to regions of purity, and there grow young again.

She went out, crossed the Boulevard, the Place Cauchoise, and the

Faubourg, as far as an open street that overlooked some gardens.

She walked rapidly; the fresh air calming her; and, little by

little, the faces of the crowd, the masks, the quadrilles, the

lights, the supper, those women, all disappeared like mists

fading away. Then, reaching the "Croix-Rouge," she threw herself

on the bed in her little room on the second floor, where there

were pictures of the "Tour de Nesle." At four o'clock Hivert

awoke her.

When she got home, Felicite showed her behind the clock a grey

paper. She read--

"In virtue of the seizure in execution of a judgment."

What judgment? As a matter of fact, the evening before another

paper had been brought that she had not yet seen, and she was

stunned by these words--

"By order of the king, law, and justice, to Madame Bovary." Then,

skipping several lines, she read, "Within twenty-four hours,

without fail--" But what? "To pay the sum of eight thousand

francs." And there was even at the bottom, "She will be

constrained thereto by every form of law, and notably by a writ

of distraint on her furniture and effects."

What was to be done? In twenty-four hours--tomorrow. Lheureux,

she thought, wanted to frighten her again; for she saw through

all his devices, the object of his kindnesses. What reassured her

was the very magnitude of the sum.

However, by dint of buying and not paying, of borrowing, signing

bills, and renewing these bills that grew at each new falling-in,

she had ended by preparing a capital for Monsieur Lheureux which

he was impatiently awaiting for his speculations.

She presented herself at his place with an offhand air.

"You know what has happened to me? No doubt it's a joke!"

"How so?"

He turned away slowly, and, folding his arms, said to her--

"My good lady, did you think I should go on to all eternity being

your purveyor and banker, for the love of God? Now be just. I

must get back what I've laid out. Now be just."

She cried out against the debt.

"Ah! so much the worse. The court has admitted it. There's a

judgment. It's been notified to you. Besides, it isn't my fault.

It's Vincart's."

"Could you not--?"

"Oh, nothing whatever."

"But still, now talk it over."

And she began beating about the bush; she had known nothing about

it; it was a surprise.

"Whose fault is that?" said Lheureux, bowing ironically. "While

I'm slaving like a nigger, you go gallivanting about."

"Ah! no lecturing."

"It never does any harm," he replied.

She turned coward; she implored him; she even pressed her pretty

white and slender hand against the shopkeeper's knee.

"There, that'll do! Anyone'd think you wanted to seduce me!"

"You are a wretch!" she cried.

"Oh, oh! go it! go it!"

"I will show you up. I shall tell my husband."

"All right! I too. I'll show your husband something."

And Lheureux drew from his strong box the receipt for eighteen

hundred francs that she had given him when Vincart had discounted

the bills.

"Do you think," he added, "that he'll not understand your little

theft, the poor dear man?"

She collapsed, more overcome than if felled by the blow of a

pole-axe. He was walking up and down from the window to the

bureau, repeating all the while--

"Ah! I'll show him! I'll show him!" Then he approached her, and

in a soft voice said--

"It isn't pleasant, I know; but, after all, no bones are broken,

and, since that is the only way that is left for you paying back

my money--"

"But where am I to get any?" said Emma, wringing her hands.

"Bah! when one has friends like you!"

And he looked at her in so keen, so terrible a fashion, that she

shuddered to her very heart.

"I promise you," she said, "to sign--"

"I've enough of your signatures."

"I will sell something."

"Get along!" he said, shrugging his shoulders; "you've not got

anything."

And he called through the peep-hole that looked down into the

shop--

"Annette, don't forget the three coupons of No. 14."

The servant appeared. Emma understood, and asked how much money

would be wanted to put a stop to the proceedings.

"It is too late."

"But if I brought you several thousand francs--a quarter of the

sum--a third--perhaps the whole?"

"No; it's no use!"

And he pushed her gently towards the staircase.

"I implore you, Monsieur Lheureux, just a few days more!" She was

sobbing.

"There! tears now!"

"You are driving me to despair!"

"What do I care?" said he, shutting the door.

Chapter Seven

She was stoical the next day when Maitre Hareng, the bailiff,

with two assistants, presented himself at her house to draw up

the inventory for the distraint.

They began with Bovary's consulting-room, and did not write down

the phrenological head, which was considered an "instrument of

his profession"; but in the kitchen they counted the plates; the

saucepans, the chairs, the candlesticks, and in the bedroom all

the nick-nacks on the whatnot. They examined her dresses, the

linen, the dressing-room; and her whole existence to its most

intimate details, was, like a corpse on whom a post-mortem is

made, outspread before the eyes of these three men.

Maitre Hareng, buttoned up in his thin black coat, wearing a

white choker and very tight foot-straps, repeated from time to

time--"Allow me, madame. You allow me?" Often he uttered

exclamations. "Charming! very pretty." Then he began writing

again, dipping his pen into the horn inkstand in his left hand.

When they had done with the rooms they went up to the attic. She

kept a desk there in which Rodolphe's letters were locked. It had

to be opened.

"Ah! a correspondence," said Maitre Hareng, with a discreet

smile. "But allow me, for I must make sure the box contains

nothing else." And he tipped up the papers lightly, as if to

shake out napoleons. Then she grew angered to see this coarse

hand, with fingers red and pulpy like slugs, touching these pages

against which her heart had beaten.

They went at last. Felicite came back. Emma had sent her out to

watch for Bovary in order to keep him off, and they hurriedly

installed the man in possession under the roof, where he swore he

would remain.

During the evening Charles seemed to her careworn. Emma watched

him with a look of anguish, fancying she saw an accusation in

every line of his face. Then, when her eyes wandered over the

chimney-piece ornamented with Chinese screens, over the large

curtains, the armchairs, all those things, in a word, that had,

softened the bitterness of her life, remorse seized her or rather

an immense regret, that, far from crushing, irritated her

passion. Charles placidly poked the fire, both his feet on the

fire-dogs.

Once the man, no doubt bored in his hiding-place, made a slight

noise.

"Is anyone walking upstairs?" said Charles.

"No," she replied; "it is a window that has been left open, and

is rattling in the wind."

The next day, Sunday, she went to Rouen to call on all the

brokers whose names she knew. They were at their country-places

or on journeys. She was not discouraged; and those whom she did

manage to see she asked for money, declaring she must have some,

and that she would pay it back. Some laughed in her face; all

refused.

At two o'clock she hurried to Leon, and knocked at the door. No

one answered. At length he appeared.

"What brings you here?"

"Do I disturb you?"

"No; but--" And he admitted that his landlord didn't like his

having "women" there.

"I must speak to you," she went on.

Then he took down the key, but she stopped him.

"No, no! Down there, in our home!"

And they went to their room at the Hotel de Boulogne.

On arriving she drank off a large glass of water. She was very

pale. She said to him--

"Leon, you will do me a service?"

And, shaking him by both hands that she grasped tightly, she

added--

"Listen, I want eight thousand francs."

"But you are mad!"

"Not yet."

And thereupon, telling him the story of the distraint, she

explained her distress to him; for Charles knew nothing of it;

her mother-in-law detested her; old Rouault could do nothing; but

he, Leon, he would set about finding this indispensable sum.

"How on earth can I?"

"What a coward you are!" she cried.

Then he said stupidly, "You are exaggerating the difficulty.

Perhaps, with a thousand crowns or so the fellow could be

stopped."

All the greater reason to try and do something; it was impossible

that they could not find three thousand francs. Besides, Leon,

could be security instead of her.

"Go, try, try! I will love you so!"

He went out, and came back at the end of an hour, saying, with

solemn face--

"I have been to three people with no success."

Then they remained sitting face to face at the two chimney

corners, motionless, in silence. Emma shrugged her shoulders as

she stamped her feet. He heard her murmuring--

"If I were in your place _I_ should soon get some."

"But where?"

"At your office." And she looked at him.

An infernal boldness looked out from her burning eyes, and their

lids drew close together with a lascivious and encouraging look,

so that the young man felt himself growing weak beneath the mute

will of this woman who was urging him to a crime. Then he was

afraid, and to avoid any explanation he smote his forehead,

crying--

"Morel is to come back to-night; he will not refuse me, I hope"

(this was one of his friends, the son of a very rich merchant);

"and I will bring it you to-morrow," he added.

Emma did not seem to welcome this hope with all the joy he had

expected. Did she suspect the lie? He went on, blushing--

"However, if you don't see me by three o'clock do not wait for

me, my darling. I must be off now; forgive me! Goodbye!"

He pressed her hand, but it felt quite lifeless. Emma had no

strength left for any sentiment.

Four o'clock struck, and she rose to return to Yonville,

mechanically obeying the force of old habits.

The weather was fine. It was one of those March days, clear and

sharp, when the sun shines in a perfectly white sky. The Rouen

folk, in Sunday-clothes, were walking about with happy looks. She

reached the Place du Parvis. People were coming out after

vespers; the crowd flowed out through the three doors like a

stream through the three arches of a bridge, and in the middle

one, more motionless than a rock, stood the beadle.

Then she remembered the day when, all anxious and full of hope,

she had entered beneath this large nave, that had opened out

before her, less profound than her love; and she walked on

weeping beneath her veil, giddy, staggering, almost fainting.

"Take care!" cried a voice issuing from the gate of a courtyard

that was thrown open.

She stopped to let pass a black horse, pawing the ground between

the shafts of a tilbury, driven by a gentleman in sable furs. Who

was it? She knew him. The carriage darted by and disappeared.

Why, it was he--the Viscount. She turned away; the street was

empty. She was so overwhelmed, so sad, that she had to lean

against a wall to keep herself from falling.

Then she thought she had been mistaken. Anyhow, she did not know.

All within her and around her was abandoning her. She felt lost,

sinking at random into indefinable abysses, and it was almost

with joy that, on reaching the "Croix-Rouge," she saw the good

Homais, who was watching a large box full of pharmaceutical

stores being hoisted on to the "Hirondelle." In his hand he held

tied in a silk handkerchief six cheminots for his wife.

Madame Homais was very fond of these small, heavy turban-shaped

loaves, that are eaten in Lent with salt butter; a last vestige

of Gothic food that goes back, perhaps, to the time of the

Crusades, and with which the robust Normans gorged themselves of

yore, fancying they saw on the table, in the light of the yellow

torches, between tankards of hippocras and huge boars' heads, the

heads of Saracens to be devoured. The druggist's wife crunched

them up as they had done--heroically, despite her wretched teeth.

And so whenever Homais journeyed to town, he never failed to

bring her home some that he bought at the great baker's in the

Rue Massacre.

"Charmed to see you," he said, offering Emma a hand to help her

into the "Hirondelle." Then he hung up his cheminots to the cords

of the netting, and remained bare-headed in an attitude pensive

and Napoleonic.

But when the blind man appeared as usual at the foot of the hill

he exclaimed--

"I can't understand why the authorities tolerate such culpable

industries. Such unfortunates should be locked up and forced to

work. Progress, my word! creeps at a snail's pace. We are

floundering about in mere barbarism."

The blind man held out his hat, that flapped about at the door,

as if it were a bag in the lining that had come unnailed.

"This," said the chemist, "is a scrofulous affection."

And though he knew the poor devil, he pretended to see him for

the first time, murmured something about "cornea," "opaque

cornea," "sclerotic," "facies," then asked him in a paternal

tone--

"My friend, have you long had this terrible infirmity? Instead of

getting drunk at the public, you'd do better to die yourself."

He advised him to take good wine, good beer, and good joints. The

blind man went on with his song; he seemed, moreover, almost

idiotic. At last Monsieur Homais opened his purse--

"Now there's a sou; give me back two lairds, and don't forget my

advice: you'll be the better for it."

Hivert openly cast some doubt on the efficacy of it. But the

druggist said that he would cure himself with an antiphlogistic

pomade of his own composition, and he gave his address--"Monsieur

Homais, near the market, pretty well known."

"Now," said Hivert, "for all this trouble you'll give us your

performance."

The blind man sank down on his haunches, with his head thrown

back, whilst he rolled his greenish eyes, lolled out his tongue,

and rubbed his stomach with both hands as he uttered a kind of

hollow yell like a famished dog. Emma, filled with disgust, threw

him over her shoulder a five-franc piece. It was all her fortune.

It seemed to her very fine thus to throw it away.

The coach had gone on again when suddenly Monsieur Homais leant

out through the window, crying--

"No farinaceous or milk food, wear wool next the skin, and expose

the diseased parts to the smoke of juniper berries."

The sight of the well-known objects that defiled before her eyes

gradually diverted Emma from her present trouble. An intolerable

fatigue overwhelmed her, and she reached her home stupefied,

discouraged, almost asleep.

"Come what may come!" she said to herself. "And then, who knows?

Why, at any moment could not some extraordinary event occur?

Lheureux even might die!"

At nine o'clock in the morning she was awakened by the sound of

voices in the Place. There was a crowd round the market reading a

large bill fixed to one of the posts, and she saw Justin, who was

climbing on to a stone and tearing down the bill. But at this

moment the rural guard seized him by the collar. Monsieur Homais

came out of his shop, and Mere Lefrangois, in the midst of the

crowd, seemed to be perorating.

"Madame! madame!" cried Felicite, running in, "it's abominable!"

And the poor girl, deeply moved, handed her a yellow paper that

she had just torn off the door. Emma read with a glance that all

her furniture was for sale.

Then they looked at one another silently. The servant and

mistress had no secret one from the other. At last Felicite

sighed--

"If I were you, madame, I should go to Monsieur Guillaumin."

"Do you think--"

And this question meant to say--

"You who know the house through the servant, has the master

spoken sometimes of me?"

"Yes, you'd do well to go there."

She dressed, put on her black gown, and her hood with jet beads,

and that she might not be seen (there was still a crowd on the

Place), she took the path by the river, outside the village.

She reached the notary's gate quite breathless. The sky was

sombre, and a little snow was falling. At the sound of the bell,

Theodore in a red waistcoat appeared on the steps; he came to

open the door almost familiarly, as to an acquaintance, and

showed her into the dining-room.

A large porcelain stove crackled beneath a cactus that filled up

the niche in the wall, and in black wood frames against the

oak-stained paper hung Steuben's "Esmeralda" and Schopin's

"Potiphar." The ready-laid table, the two silver chafing-dishes,

the crystal door-knobs, the parquet and the furniture, all shone

with a scrupulous, English cleanliness; the windows were

ornamented at each corner with stained glass.

"Now this," thought Emma, "is the dining-room I ought to have."

The notary came in pressing his palm-leaf dressing-gown to his

breast with his left arm, while with the other hand he raised and

quickly put on again his brown velvet cap, pretentiously cocked

on the right side, whence looked out the ends of three fair curls

drawn from the back of the head, following the line of his bald

skull.

After he had offered her a seat he sat down to breakfast,

apologising profusely for his rudeness.

"I have come," she said, "to beg you, sir--"

"What, madame? I am listening."

And she began explaining her position to him. Monsieur Guillaumin

knew it, being secretly associated with the linendraper, from

whom he always got capital for the loans on mortgages that he was

asked to make.

So he knew (and better than she herself) the long story of the

bills, small at first, bearing different names as endorsers, made

out at long dates, and constantly renewed up to the day, when,

gathering together all the protested bills, the shopkeeper had

bidden his friend Vincart take in his own name all the necessary

proceedings, not wishing to pass for a tiger with his

fellow-citizens.

She mingled her story with recriminations against Lheureux, to

which the notary replied from time to time with some

insignificant word. Eating his cutlet and drinking his tea, he

buried his chin in his sky-blue cravat, into which were thrust

two diamond pins, held together by a small gold chain; and he

smiled a singular smile, in a sugary, ambiguous fashion. But

noticing that her feet were damp, he said--

"Do get closer to the stove; put your feet up against the

porcelain."

She was afraid of dirtying it. The notary replied in a gallant

tone--

"Beautiful things spoil nothing."

Then she tried to move him, and, growing moved herself, she began

telling him about the poorness of her home, her worries, her

wants. He could understand that; an elegant woman! and, without

leaving off eating, he had turned completely round towards her,

so that his knee brushed against her boot, whose sole curled

round as it smoked against the stove.

But when she asked for a thousand sous, he closed his lips, and

declared he was very sorry he had not had the management of her

fortune before, for there were hundreds of ways very convenient,

even for a lady, of turning her money to account. They might,

either in the turf-peats of Grumesnil or building-ground at

Havre, almost without risk, have ventured on some excellent

speculations; and he let her consume herself with rage at the

thought of the fabulous sums that she would certainly have made.

"How was it," he went on, "that you didn't come to me?"

"I hardly know," she said.

"Why, hey? Did I frighten you so much? It is I, on the contrary,

who ought to complain. We hardly know one another; yet I am very

devoted to you. You do not doubt that, I hope?"

He held out his hand, took hers, covered it with a greedy kiss,

then held it on his knee; and he played delicately with her

fingers whilst he murmured a thousand blandishments. His insipid

voice murmured like a running brook; a light shone in his eyes

through the glimmering of his spectacles, and his hand was

advancing up Emma's sleeve to press her arm. She felt against her

cheek his panting breath. This man oppressed her horribly.

She sprang up and said to him--

"Sir, I am waiting."

"For what?" said the notary, who suddenly became very pale.

"This money."

"But--" Then, yielding to the outburst of too powerful a desire,

"Well, yes!"

He dragged himself towards her on his knees, regardless of his

dressing-gown.

"For pity's sake, stay. I love you!"

He seized her by her waist. Madame Bovary's face flushed purple.

She recoiled with a terrible look, crying--

"You are taking a shameless advantage of my distress, sir! I am

to be pitied--not to be sold."

And she went out.

The notary remained quite stupefied, his eyes fixed on his fine

embroidered slippers. They were a love gift, and the sight of

them at last consoled him. Besides, he reflected that such an

adventure might have carried him too far.

"What a wretch! what a scoundrel! what an infamy!" she said to

herself, as she fled with nervous steps beneath the aspens of the

path. The disappointment of her failure increased the indignation

of her outraged modesty; it seemed to her that Providence pursued

her implacably, and, strengthening herself in her pride, she had

never felt so much esteem for herself nor so much contempt for

others. A spirit of warfare transformed her. She would have liked

to strike all men, to spit in their faces, to crush them, and she

walked rapidly straight on, pale, quivering, maddened, searching

the empty horizon with tear-dimmed eyes, and as it were rejoicing

in the hate that was choking her.

When she saw her house a numbness came over her. She could not go

on; and yet she must. Besides, whither could she flee?

Felicite was waiting for her at the door. "Well?"

"No!" said Emma.

And for a quarter of an hour the two of them went over the

various persons in Yonville who might perhaps be inclined to help

her. But each time that Felicite named someone Emma replied--

"Impossible! they will not!"

"And the master'll soon be in."

"I know that well enough. Leave me alone."

She had tried everything; there was nothing more to be done now;

and when Charles came in she would have to say to him--

"Go away! This carpet on which you are walking is no longer ours.

In your own house you do not possess a chair, a pin, a straw, and

it is I, poor man, who have ruined you."

Then there would be a great sob; next he would weep abundantly,

and at last, the surprise past, he would forgive her.

"Yes," she murmured, grinding her teeth, "he will forgive me, he

who would give a million if I would forgive him for having known

me! Never! never!"

This thought of Bovary's superiority to her exasperated her.

Then, whether she confessed or did not confess, presently,

immediately, to-morrow, he would know the catastrophe all the

same; so she must wait for this horrible scene, and bear the

weight of his magnanimity. The desire to return to Lheureux's

seized her--what would be the use? To write to her father--it was

too late; and perhaps, she began to repent now that she had not

yielded to that other, when she heard the trot of a horse in the

alley. It was he; he was opening the gate; he was whiter than the

plaster wall. Rushing to the stairs, she ran out quickly to the

square; and the wife of the mayor, who was talking to

Lestiboudois in front of the church, saw her go in to the

tax-collector's.

She hurried off to tell Madame Caron, and the two ladies went up

to the attic, and, hidden by some linen spread across props,

stationed themselves comfortably for overlooking the whole of

Binet's room.

He was alone in his garret, busy imitating in wood one of those

indescribable bits of ivory, composed of crescents, of spheres

hollowed out one within the other, the whole as straight as an

obelisk, and of no use whatever; and he was beginning on the last

piece--he was nearing his goal. In the twilight of the workshop

the white dust was flying from his tools like a shower of sparks

under the hoofs of a galloping horse; the two wheels were

turning, droning; Binet smiled, his chin lowered, his nostrils

distended, and, in a word, seemed lost in one of those complete

happinesses that, no doubt, belong only to commonplace

occupations, which amuse the mind with facile difficulties, and

satisfy by a realisation of that beyond which such minds have not

a dream.

"Ah! there she is!" exclaimed Madame Tuvache.

But it was impossible because of the lathe to hear what she was

saying.

At last these ladies thought they made out the word "francs," and

Madame Tuvache whispered in a low voice--

"She is begging him to give her time for paying her taxes."

"Apparently!" replied the other.

They saw her walking up and down, examining the napkin-rings, the

candlesticks, the banister rails against the walls, while Binet

stroked his beard with satisfaction.

"Do you think she wants to order something of him?" said Madame

Tuvache.

"Why, he doesn't sell anything," objected her neighbour.

The tax-collector seemed to be listening with wide-open eyes, as

if he did not understand. She went on in a tender, suppliant

manner. She came nearer to him, her breast heaving; they no

longer spoke.

"Is she making him advances?" said Madame Tuvache. Binet was

scarlet to his very ears. She took hold of his hands.

"Oh, it's too much!"

And no doubt she was suggesting something abominable to him; for

the tax-collector--yet he was brave, had fought at Bautzen and at

Lutzen, had been through the French campaign, and had even been

recommended for the cross--suddenly, as at the sight of a

serpent, recoiled as far as he could from her, crying--

"Madame! what do you mean?"

"Women like that ought to be whipped," said Madame Tuvache.

"But where is she?" continued Madame Caron, for she had

disappeared whilst they spoke; then catching sight of her going

up the Grande Rue, and turning to the right as if making for the

cemetery, they were lost in conjectures.

"Nurse Rollet," she said on reaching the nurse's, "I am choking;

unlace me!" She fell on the bed sobbing. Nurse Rollet covered her

with a petticoat and remained standing by her side. Then, as she

did not answer, the good woman withdrew, took her wheel and began

spinning flax.

"Oh, leave off!" she murmured, fancying she heard Binet's lathe.

"What's bothering her?" said the nurse to herself. "Why has she

come here?"

She had rushed thither; impelled by a kind of horror that drove

her from her home.

Lying on her back, motionless, and with staring eyes, she saw

things but vaguely, although she tried to with idiotic

persistence. She looked at the scales on the walls, two brands

smoking end to end, and a long spider crawling over her head in a

rent in the beam. At last she began to collect her thoughts. She

remembered--one day--Leon--Oh! how long ago that was--the sun was

shining on the river, and the clematis were perfuming the air.

Then, carried away as by a rushing torrent, she soon began to

recall the day before.

"What time is it?" she asked.

Mere Rollet went out, raised the fingers of her right hand to

that side of the sky that was brightest, and came back slowly,

saying--

"Nearly three."

"Ahl thanks, thanks!"

For he would come; he would have found some money. But he would,

perhaps, go down yonder, not guessing she was here, and she told

the nurse to run to her house to fetch him.

"Be quick!"

"But, my dear lady, I'm going, I'm going!"

She wondered now that she had not thought of him from the first.

Yesterday he had given his word; he would not break it. And she

already saw herself at Lheureux's spreading out her three

bank-notes on his bureau. Then she would have to invent some

story to explain matters to Bovary. What should it be?

The nurse, however, was a long while gone. But, as there was no

clock in the cot, Emma feared she was perhaps exaggerating the

length of time. She began walking round the garden, step by step;

she went into the path by the hedge, and returned quickly, hoping

that the woman would have come back by another road. At last,

weary of waiting, assailed by fears that she thrust from her, no

longer conscious whether she had been here a century or a moment,

she sat down in a corner, closed her eyes, and stopped her ears.

The gate grated; she sprang up. Before she had spoken Mere Rollet

said to her--

"There is no one at your house!"

"What?"

"Oh, no one! And the doctor is crying. He is calling for you;

they're looking for you."

Emma answered nothing. She gasped as she turned her eyes about

her, while the peasant woman, frightened at her face, drew back

instinctively, thinking her mad. Suddenly she struck her brow and

uttered a cry; for the thought of Rodolphe, like a flash of

lightning in a dark night, had passed into her soul. He was so

good, so delicate, so generous! And besides, should he hesitate

to do her this service, she would know well enough how to

constrain him to it by re-waking, in a single moment, their lost

love. So she set out towards La Huchette, not seeing that she was

hastening to offer herself to that which but a while ago had so

angered her, not in the least conscious of her prostitution.

Chapter Eight

She asked herself as she walked along, "What am I going to say?

How shall I begin?" And as she went on she recognised the

thickets, the trees, the sea-rushes on the hill, the chateau

yonder. All the sensations of her first tenderness came back to

her, and her poor aching heart opened out amorously. A warm wind

blew in her face; the melting snow fell drop by drop from the

buds to the grass.

She entered, as she used to, through the small park-gate. She

reached the avenue bordered by a double row of dense lime-trees.

They were swaying their long whispering branches to and fro. The

dogs in their kennels all barked, and the noise of their voices

resounded, but brought out no one.

She went up the large straight staircase with wooden balusters

that led to the corridor paved with dusty flags, into which

several doors in a row opened, as in a monastery or an inn. His

was at the top, right at the end, on the left. When she placed

her fingers on the lock her strength suddenly deserted her. She

was afraid, almost wished he would not be there, though this was

her only hope, her last chance of salvation. She collected her

thoughts for one moment, and, strengthening herself by the

feeling of present necessity, went in.

He was in front of the fire, both his feet on the mantelpiece,

smoking a pipe.

"What! it is you!" he said, getting up hurriedly.

"Yes, it is I, Rodolphe. I should like to ask your advice."

And, despite all her efforts, it was impossible for her to

open her lips.

"You have not changed; you are charming as ever!"

"Oh," she replied bitterly, "they are poor charms since you

disdained them."

Then he began a long explanation of his conduct, excusing himself

in vague terms, in default of being able to invent better.

She yielded to his words, still more to his voice and the sight

of him, so that, she pretended to believe, or perhaps believed;

in the pretext he gave for their rupture; this was a secret on

which depended the honour, the very life of a third person.

"No matter!" she said, looking at him sadly. "I have suffered

much."

He replied philosophically--

"Such is life!"

"Has life," Emma went on, "been good to you at least, since our

separation?"

"Oh, neither good nor bad."

"Perhaps it would have been better never to have parted."

"Yes, perhaps."

"You think so?" she said, drawing nearer, and she sighed. "Oh,

Rodolphe! if you but knew! I loved you so!"

It was then that she took his hand, and they remained some time,

their fingers intertwined, like that first day at the Show. With

a gesture of pride he struggled against this emotion. But sinking

upon his breast she said to him--

"How did you think I could live without you? One cannot lose the

habit of happiness. I was desolate. I thought I should die. I

will tell you about all that and you will see. And you--you fled

from me!"

For, all the three years, he had carefully avoided her in

consequence of that natural cowardice that characterises the

stronger sex. Emma went on, with dainty little nods, more coaxing

than an amorous kitten--

"You love others, confess it! Oh, I understand them, dear! I

excuse them. You probably seduced them as you seduced me. You are

indeed a man; you have everything to make one love you. But we'll

begin again, won't we? We will love one another. See! I am

laughing; I am happy! Oh, speak!"

And she was charming to see, with her eyes, in which trembled a

tear, like the rain of a storm in a blue corolla.

He had drawn her upon his knees, and with the back of his hand

was caressing her smooth hair, where in the twilight was mirrored

like a golden arrow one last ray of the sun. She bent down her

brow; at last he kissed her on the eyelids quite gently with the

tips of his lips.

"Why, you have been crying! What for?"

She burst into tears. Rodolphe thought this was an outburst of

her love. As she did not speak, he took this silence for a last

remnant of resistance, and then he cried out--

"Oh, forgive me! You are the only one who pleases me. I was

imbecile and cruel. I love you. I will love you always. What is

it. Tell me!" He was kneeling by her.

"Well, I am ruined, Rodolphe! You must lend me three thousand

francs."

"But--but--" said he, getting up slowly, while his face assumed a

grave expression.

"You know," she went on quickly, "that my husband had placed his

whole fortune at a notary's. He ran away. So we borrowed; the

patients don't pay us. Moreover, the settling of the estate is

not yet done; we shall have the money later on. But to-day, for

want of three thousand francs, we are to be sold up. It is to be

at once, this very moment, and, counting upon your friendship, I

have come to you."

"Ah!" thought Rodolphe, turning very pale, "that was what she

came for." At last he said with a calm air--

"Dear madame, I have not got them."

He did not lie. If he had had them, he would, no doubt, have

given them, although it is generally disagreeable to do such fine

things: a demand for money being, of all the winds that blow upon

love, the coldest and most destructive.

First she looked at him for some moments.

"You have not got them!" she repeated several times. "You have

not got them! I ought to have spared myself this last shame. You

never loved me. You are no better than the others."

She was betraying, ruining herself.

Rodolphe interrupted her, declaring he was "hard up" himself.

"Ah! I pity you," said Emma. "Yes--very much."

And fixing her eyes upon an embossed carabine, that shone against

its panoply, "But when one is so poor one doesn't have silver on

the butt of one's gun. One doesn't buy a clock inlaid with

tortoise shell," she went on, pointing to a buhl timepiece, "nor

silver-gilt whistles for one's whips," and she touched them, "nor

charms for one's watch. Oh, he wants for nothing! even to a

liqueur-stand in his room! For you love yourself; you live well.

You have a chateau, farms, woods; you go hunting; you travel to

Paris. Why, if it were but that," she cried, taking up two studs

from the mantelpiece, "but the least of these trifles, one can

get money for them. Oh, I do not want them, keep them!"

And she threw the two links away from her, their gold chain

breaking as it struck against the wall.

"But I! I would have given you everything. I would have sold all,

worked for you with my hands, I would have begged on the

highroads for a smile, for a look, to hear you say 'Thanks!' And

you sit there quietly in your arm-chair, as if you had not made

me suffer enough already! But for you, and you know it, I might

have lived happily. What made you do it? Was it a bet? Yet you

loved me--you said so. And but a moment since--Ah! it would have

been better to have driven me away. My hands are hot with your

kisses, and there is the spot on the carpet where at my knees you

swore an eternity of love! You made me believe you; for two years

you held me in the most magnificent, the sweetest dream! Eh! Our

plans for the journey, do you remember? Oh, your letter! your

letter! it tore my heart! And then when I come back to him--to

him, rich, happy, free--to implore the help the first stranger

would give, a suppliant, and bringing back to him all my

tenderness, he repulses me because it would cost him three

thousand francs!"

"I haven't got them," replied Rodolphe, with that perfect calm

with which resigned rage covers itself as with a shield.

She went out. The walls trembled, the ceiling was crushing her,

and she passed back through the long alley, stumbling against the

heaps of dead leaves scattered by the wind. At last she reached

the ha-ha hedge in front of the gate; she broke her nails against

the lock in her haste to open it. Then a hundred steps farther

on, breathless, almost falling, she stopped. And now turning

round, she once more saw the impassive chateau, with the park,

the gardens, the three courts, and all the windows of the facade.

She remained lost in stupor, and having no more consciousness of

herself than through the beating of her arteries, that she seemed

to hear bursting forth like a deafening music filling all the

fields. The earth beneath her feet was more yielding than the

sea, and the furrows seemed to her immense brown waves breaking

into foam. Everything in her head, of memories, ideas, went off

at once like a thousand pieces of fireworks. She saw her father,

Lheureux's closet, their room at home, another landscape. Madness

was coming upon her; she grew afraid, and managed to recover

herself, in a confused way, it is true, for she did not in the

least remember the cause of the terrible condition she was in,

that is to say, the question of money. She suffered only in her

love, and felt her soul passing from her in this memory; as

wounded men, dying, feel their life ebb from their bleeding

wounds.

Night was falling, crows were flying about.

Suddenly it seemed to her that fiery spheres were exploding in

the air like fulminating balls when they strike, and were

whirling, whirling, to melt at last upon the snow between the

branches of the trees. In the midst of each of them appeared the

face of Rodolphe. They multiplied and drew near her, penetrating,

her. It all disappeared; she recognised the lights of the houses

that shone through the fog.

Now her situation, like an abyss, rose up before her. She was

panting as if her heart would burst. Then in an ecstasy of

heroism, that made her almost joyous, she ran down the hill,

crossed the cow-plank, the foot-path, the alley, the market, and

reached the chemist's shop. She was about to enter, but at the

sound of the bell someone might come, and slipping in by the

gate, holding her breath, feeling her way along the walls, she

went as far as the door of the kitchen, where a candle stuck on

the stove was burning. Justin in his shirt-sleeves was carrying

out a dish.

"Ah! they are dining; I will wait."

He returned; she tapped at the window. He went out.

"The key! the one for upstairs where he keeps the--"

"What?"

And he looked at her, astonished at the pallor of her face, that

stood out white against the black background of the night. She

seemed to him extraordinarily beautiful and majestic as a

phantom. Without understanding what she wanted, he had the

presentiment of something terrible.

But she went on quickly in a love voice; in a sweet, melting

voice, "I want it; give it to me."

As the partition wall was thin, they could hear the clatter of

the forks on the plates in the dining-room.

She pretended that she wanted to kill the rats that kept her from

sleeping.

"I must tell master."

"No, stay!" Then with an indifferent air, "Oh, it's not worth

while; I'll tell him presently. Come, light me upstairs."

She entered the corridor into which the laboratory door opened.

Against the wall was a key labelled Capharnaum.

"Justin!" called the druggist impatiently.

"Let us go up."

And he followed her. The key turned in the lock, and she went

straight to the third shelf, so well did her memory guide her,

seized the blue jar, tore out the cork, plunged in her hand, and

withdrawing it full of a white powder, she began eating it.

"Stop!" he cried, rushing at her.

"Hush! someone will come."

He was in despair, was calling out.

"Say nothing, or all the blame will fall on your master."

Then she went home, suddenly calmed, and with something of the

serenity of one that had performed a duty.

When Charles, distracted by the news of the distraint, returned

home, Emma had just gone out. He cried aloud, wept, fainted, but

she did not return. Where could she be? He sent Felicite to

Homais, to Monsieur Tuvache, to Lheureux, to the "Lion d'Or,"

everywhere, and in the intervals of his agony he saw his

reputation destroyed, their fortune lost, Berthe's future ruined.

By what?--Not a word! He waited till six in the evening. At last,

unable to bear it any longer, and fancying she had gone to Rouen,

he set out along the highroad, walked a mile, met no one, again

waited, and returned home. She had come back.

"What was the matter? Why? Explain to me."

She sat down at her writing-table and wrote a letter, which she

sealed slowly, adding the date and the hour. Then she said in a

solemn tone:

"You are to read it to-morrow; till then, I pray you, do not ask

me a single question. No, not one!"

"But--"

"Oh, leave me!"

She lay down full length on her bed. A bitter taste that she felt

in her mouth awakened her. She saw Charles, and again closed her

eyes.

She was studying herself curiously, to see if she were not

suffering. But no! nothing as yet. She heard the ticking of the

clock, the crackling of the fire, and Charles breathing as he

stood upright by her bed.

"Ah! it is but a little thing, death!" she thought. "I shall fall

asleep and all will be over."

She drank a mouthful of water and turned to the wall. The

frightful taste of ink continued.

"I am thirsty; oh! so thirsty," she sighed.

"What is it?" said Charles, who was handing her a glass.

"It is nothing! Open the window; I am choking."

She was seized with a sickness so sudden that she had hardly time

to draw out her handkerchief from under the pillow.

"Take it away," she said quickly; "throw it away."

He spoke to her; she did not answer. She lay motionless, afraid

that the slightest movement might make her vomit. But she felt an

icy cold creeping from her feet to her heart.

"Ah! it is beginning," she murmured.

"What did you say?"

She turned her head from side to side with a gentle movement full

of agony, while constantly opening her mouth as if something very

heavy were weighing upon her tongue. At eight o'clock the

vomiting began again.

Charles noticed that at the bottom of the basin there was a sort

of white sediment sticking to the sides of the porcelain.

"This is extraordinary--very singular," he repeated.

But she said in a firm voice, "No, you are mistaken."

Then gently, and almost as caressing her, he passed his hand over

her stomach. She uttered a sharp cry. He fell back

terror-stricken.

Then she began to groan, faintly at first. Her shoulders were

shaken by a strong shuddering, and she was growing paler than the

sheets in which her clenched fingers buried themselves. Her

unequal pulse was now almost imperceptible.

Drops of sweat oozed from her bluish face, that seemed as if

rigid in the exhalations of a metallic vapour. Her teeth

chattered, her dilated eyes looked vaguely about her, and to all

questions she replied only with a shake of the head; she even

smiled once or twice. Gradually, her moaning grew louder; a

hollow shriek burst from her; she pretended she was better and

that she would get up presently. But she was seized with

convulsions and cried out--

"Ah! my God! It is horrible!"

He threw himself on his knees by her bed.

"Tell me! what have you eaten? Answer, for heaven's sake!"

And he looked at her with a tenderness in his eyes such as she

had never seen.

"Well, there--there!" she said in a faint voice. He flew to the

writing-table, tore open the seal, and read aloud: "Accuse no

one." He stopped, passed his hands across his eyes, and read it

over again.

"What! help--help!"

He could only keep repeating the word: "Poisoned! poisoned!"

Felicite ran to Homais, who proclaimed it in the market-place;

Madame Lefrancois heard it at the "Lion d'Or"; some got up to go

and tell their neighbours, and all night the village was on the

alert.

Distraught, faltering, reeling, Charles wandered about the room.

He knocked against the furniture, tore his hair, and the chemist

had never believed that there could be so terrible a sight.

He went home to write to Monsieur Canivet and to Doctor

Lariviere. He lost his head, and made more than fifteen rough

copies. Hippolyte went to Neufchatel, and Justin so spurred

Bovary's horse that he left it foundered and three parts dead by

the hill at Bois-Guillaume.

Charles tried to look up his medical dictionary, but could not

read it; the lines were dancing.

"Be calm," said the druggist; "we have only to administer a

powerful antidote. What is the poison?"

Charles showed him the letter. It was arsenic.

"Very well," said Homais, "we must make an analysis."

For he knew that in cases of poisoning an analysis must be made;

and the other, who did not understand, answered--

"Oh, do anything! save her!"

Then going back to her, he sank upon the carpet, and lay there

with his head leaning against the edge of her bed, sobbing.

"Don't cry," she said to him. "Soon I shall not trouble you any

more."

"Why was it? Who drove you to it?"

She replied. "It had to be, my dear!"

"Weren't you happy? Is it my fault? I did all I could!"

"Yes, that is true--you are good--you."

And she passed her hand slowly over his hair. The sweetness of

this sensation deepened his sadness; he felt his whole being

dissolving in despair at the thought that he must lose her, just

when she was confessing more love for him than ever. And he could

think of nothing; he did not know, he did not dare; the urgent

need for some immediate resolution gave the finishing stroke to

the turmoil of his mind.

So she had done, she thought, with all the treachery; and

meanness, and numberless desires that had tortured her. She hated

no one now; a twilight dimness was settling upon her thoughts,

and, of all earthly noises, Emma heard none but the intermittent

lamentations of this poor heart, sweet and indistinct like the

echo of a symphony dying away.

"Bring me the child," she said, raising herself on her elbow.

"You are not worse, are you?" asked Charles.

"No, no!"

The child, serious, and still half-asleep, was carried in on the

servant's arm in her long white nightgown, from which her bare

feet peeped out. She looked wonderingly at the disordered room,

and half-closed her eyes, dazzled by the candles burning on the

table. They reminded her, no doubt, of the morning of New Year's

day and Mid-Lent, when thus awakened early by candle-light she

came to her mother's bed to fetch her presents, for she began

saying--

"But where is it, mamma?" And as everybody was silent, "But I

can't see my little stocking."

Felicite held her over the bed while she still kept looking

towards the mantelpiece.

"Has nurse taken it?" she asked.

And at this name, that carried her back to the memory of her

adulteries and her calamities, Madame Bovary turned away her

head, as at the loathing of another bitterer poison that rose to

her mouth. But Berthe remained perched on the bed.

"Oh, how big your eyes are, mamma! How pale you are! how hot you

are!"

Her mother looked at her. "I am frightened!" cried the child,

recoiling.

Emma took her hand to kiss it; the child struggled.

"That will do. Take her away," cried Charles, who was sobbing in

the alcove.

Then the symptoms ceased for a moment; she seemed less agitated;

and at every insignificant word, at every respiration a little

more easy, he regained hope. At last, when Canivet came in, he

threw himself into his arms.

"Ah! it is you. Thanks! You are good! But she is better. See!

look at her."

His colleague was by no means of this opinion, and, as he said of

himself, "never beating about the bush," he prescribed, an emetic

in order to empty the stomach completely.

She soon began vomiting blood. Her lips became drawn. Her limbs

were convulsed, her whole body covered with brown spots, and her

pulse slipped beneath the fingers like a stretched thread, like a

harp-string nearly breaking.

After this she began to scream horribly. She cursed the poison,

railed at it, and implored it to be quick, and thrust away with

her stiffened arms everything that Charles, in more agony than

herself, tried to make her drink. He stood up, his handkerchief

to his lips, with a rattling sound in his throat, weeping, and

choked by sobs that shook his whole body. Felicite was running

hither and thither in the room. Homais, motionless, uttered great

sighs; and Monsieur Canivet, always retaining his self-command,

nevertheless began to feel uneasy.

"The devil! yet she has been purged, and from the moment that the

cause ceases--"

"The effect must cease," said Homais, "that is evident."

"Oh, save her!" cried Bovary.

And, without listening to the chemist, who was still venturing

the hypothesis, "It is perhaps a salutary paroxysm," Canivet was

about to administer some theriac, when they heard the cracking of

a whip; all the windows rattled, and a post-chaise drawn by three

horses abreast, up to their ears in mud, drove at a gallop round

the corner of the market. It was Doctor Lariviere.

The apparition of a god would not have caused more commotion.

Bovary raised his hands; Canivet stopped short; and Homais pulled

off his skull-cap long before the doctor had come in.

He belonged to that great school of surgery begotten of Bichat,

to that generation, now extinct, of philosophical practitioners,

who, loving their art with a fanatical love, exercised it with

enthusiasm and wisdom. Everyone in his hospital trembled when he

was angry; and his students so revered him that they tried, as

soon as they were themselves in practice, to imitate him as much

as possible. So that in all the towns about they were found

wearing his long wadded merino overcoat and black frock-coat,

whose buttoned cuffs slightly covered his brawny hands--very

beautiful hands, and that never knew gloves, as though to be more

ready to plunge into suffering. Disdainful of honours, of titles,

and of academies, like one of the old Knight-Hospitallers,

generous, fatherly to the poor, and practising virtue without

believing in it, he would almost have passed for a saint if the

keenness of his intellect had not caused him to be feared as a

demon. His glance, more penetrating than his bistouries, looked

straight into your soul, and dissected every lie athwart all

assertions and all reticences. And thus he went along, full of

that debonair majesty that is given by the consciousness of great

talent, of fortune, and of forty years of a labourious and

irreproachable life.

He frowned as soon as he had passed the door when he saw the

cadaverous face of Emma stretched out on her back with her mouth

open. Then, while apparently listening to Canivet, he rubbed his

fingers up and down beneath his nostrils, and repeated--

"Good! good!"

But he made a slow gesture with his shoulders. Bovary watched

him; they looked at one another; and this man, accustomed as he

was to the sight of pain, could not keep back a tear that fell on

his shirt-frill.

He tried to take Canivet into the next room. Charles followed

him.

"She is very ill, isn't she? If we put on sinapisms? Anything!

Oh, think of something, you who have saved so many!"

Charles caught him in both his arms, and gazed at him wildly,

imploringly, half-fainting against his breast.

"Come, my poor fellow, courage! There is nothing more to be

done."

And Doctor Lariviere turned away.

"You are going?"

"I will come back."

He went out only to give an order to the coachman, with Monsieur

Canivet, who did not care either to have Emma die under his

hands.

The chemist rejoined them on the Place. He could not by

temperament keep away from celebrities, so he begged Monsieur

Lariviere to do him the signal honour of accepting some

breakfast.

He sent quickly to the "Lion d'Or" for some pigeons; to the

butcher's for all the cutlets that were to be had; to Tuvache for

cream; and to Lestiboudois for eggs; and the druggist himself

aided in the preparations, while Madame Homais was saying as she

pulled together the strings of her jacket--

"You must excuse us, sir, for in this poor place, when one hasn't

been told the night before--"

"Wine glasses!" whispered Homais.

"If only we were in town, we could fall back upon stuffed

trotters."

"Be quiet! Sit down, doctor!"

He thought fit, after the first few mouthfuls, to give some

details as to the catastrophe.

"We first had a feeling of siccity in the pharynx, then

intolerable pains at the epigastrium, super purgation, coma."

"But how did she poison herself?"

"I don't know, doctor, and I don't even know where she can have

procured the arsenious acid."

Justin, who was just bringing in a pile of plates, began to

tremble.

"What's the matter?" said the chemist.

At this question the young man dropped the whole lot on the

ground with a crash.

"Imbecile!" cried Homais. "awkward lout! block-head! confounded

ass!"

But suddenly controlling himself--

"I wished, doctor, to make an analysis, and primo I delicately

introduced a tube--"

"You would have done better," said the physician, "to introduce

your fingers into her throat."

His colleague was silent, having just before privately received a

severe lecture about his emetic, so that this good Canivet, so

arrogant and so verbose at the time of the clubfoot, was to-day

very modest. He smiled without ceasing in an approving manner.

Homais dilated in Amphytrionic pride, and the affecting thought

of Bovary vaguely contributed to his pleasure by a kind of

egotistic reflex upon himself. Then the presence of the doctor

transported him. He displayed his erudition, cited pell-mell

cantharides, upas, the manchineel, vipers.

"I have even read that various persons have found themselves

under toxicological symptoms, and, as it were, thunderstricken by

black-pudding that had been subjected to a too vehement

fumigation. At least, this was stated in a very fine report drawn

up by one of our pharmaceutical chiefs, one of our masters, the

illustrious Cadet de Gassicourt!"

Madame Homais reappeared, carrying one of those shaky machines

that are heated with spirits of wine; for Homais liked to make

his coffee at table, having, moreover, torrefied it, pulverised

it, and mixed it himself.

"Saccharum, doctor?" said he, offering the sugar.

Then he had all his children brought down, anxious to have the

physician's opinion on their constitutions.

At last Monsieur Lariviere was about to leave, when Madame Homais

asked for a consultation about her husband. He was making his

blood too thick by going to sleep every evening after dinner.

"Oh, it isn't his blood that's too thick," said the physician.

And, smiling a little at his unnoticed joke, the doctor opened

the door. But the chemist's shop was full of people; he had the

greatest difficulty in getting rid of Monsieur Tuvache, who

feared his spouse would get inflammation of the lungs, because

she was in the habit of spitting on the ashes; then of Monsieur

Binet, who sometimes experienced sudden attacks of great hunger;

and of Madame Caron, who suffered from tinglings; of Lheureux,

who had vertigo; of Lestiboudois, who had rheumatism; and of

Madame Lefrancois, who had heartburn. At last the three horses

started; and it was the general opinion that he had not shown

himself at all obliging.

Public attention was distracted by the appearance of Monsieur

Bournisien, who was going across the market with the holy oil.

Homais, as was due to his principles, compared priests to ravens

attracted by the odour of death. The sight of an ecclesiastic was

personally disagreeable to him, for the cassock made him think of

the shroud, and he detested the one from some fear of the other.

Nevertheless, not shrinking from what he called his mission, he

returned to Bovary's in company with Canivet whom Monsieur

Lariviere, before leaving, had strongly urged to make this visit;

and he would, but for his wife's objections, have taken his two

sons with him, in order to accustom them to great occasions; that

this might be a lesson, an example, a solemn picture, that should

remain in their heads later on.

The room when they went in was full of mournful solemnity. On the

work-table, covered over with a white cloth, there were five or

six small balls of cotton in a silver dish, near a large crucifix

between two lighted candles.

Emma, her chin sunken upon her breast, had her eyes inordinately

wide open, and her poor hands wandered over the sheets with that

hideous and soft movement of the dying, that seems as if they

wanted already to cover themselves with the shroud. Pale as a

statue and with eyes red as fire, Charles, not weeping, stood

opposite her at the foot of the bed, while the priest, bending

one knee, was muttering words in a low voice.

She turned her face slowly, and seemed filled with joy on seeing

suddenly the violet stole, no doubt finding again, in the midst

of a temporary lull in her pain, the lost voluptuousness of her

first mystical transports, with the visions of eternal beatitude

that were beginning.

The priest rose to take the crucifix; then she stretched forward

her neck as one who is athirst, and glueing her lips to the body

of the Man-God, she pressed upon it with all her expiring

strength the fullest kiss of love that she had ever given. Then

he recited the Misereatur and the Indulgentiam, dipped his right

thumb in the oil, and began to give extreme unction. First upon

the eyes, that had so coveted all worldly pomp; then upon the

nostrils, that had been greedy of the warm breeze and amorous

odours; then upon the mouth, that had uttered lies, that had

curled with pride and cried out in lewdness; then upon the hands

that had delighted in sensual touches; and finally upon the soles

of the feet, so swift of yore, when she was running to satisfy

her desires, and that would now walk no more.

The cure wiped his fingers, threw the bit of cotton dipped in oil

into the fire, and came and sat down by the dying woman, to tell

her that she must now blend her sufferings with those of Jesus

Christ and abandon herself to the divine mercy.

Finishing his exhortations, he tried to place in her hand a

blessed candle, symbol of the celestial glory with which she was

soon to be surrounded. Emma, too weak, could not close her

fingers, and the taper, but for Monsieur Bournisien would have

fallen to the ground.

However, she was not quite so pale, and her face had an

expression of serenity as if the sacrament had cured her.

The priest did not fail to point this out; he even explained to

Bovary that the Lord sometimes prolonged the life of persons when

he thought it meet for their salvation; and Charles remembered

the day when, so near death, she had received the communion.

Perhaps there was no need to despair, he thought.

In fact, she looked around her slowly, as one awakening from a

dream; then in a distinct voice she asked for her looking-glass,

and remained some time bending over it, until the big tears fell

from her eyes. Then she turned away her head with a sigh and fell

back upon the pillows.

Her chest soon began panting rapidly; the whole of her tongue

protruded from her mouth; her eyes, as they rolled, grew paler,

like the two globes of a lamp that is going out, so that one

might have thought her already dead but for the fearful labouring

of her ribs, shaken by violent breathing, as if the soul were

struggling to free itself. Felicite knelt down before the

crucifix, and the druggist himself slightly bent his knees, while

Monsieur Canivet looked out vaguely at the Place. Bournisien had

again begun to pray, his face bowed against the edge of the bed,

his long black cassock trailing behind him in the room. Charles

was on the other side, on his knees, his arms outstretched

towards Emma. He had taken her hands and pressed them, shuddering

at every beat of her heart, as at the shaking of a falling ruin.

As the death-rattle became stronger the priest prayed faster; his

prayers mingled with the stifled sobs of Bovary, and sometimes

all seemed lost in the muffled murmur of the Latin syllables that

tolled like a passing bell.

Suddenly on the pavement was heard a loud noise of clogs and the

clattering of a stick; and a voice rose--a raucous voice--that

sang--

"Maids in the warmth of a summer day

Dream of love and of love always"

Emma raised herself like a galvanised corpse, her hair undone,

her eyes fixed, staring.

"Where the sickle blades have been,

Nannette, gathering ears of corn,

Passes bending down, my queen,

To the earth where they were born."

"The blind man!" she cried. And Emma began to laugh, an

atrocious, frantic, despairing laugh, thinking she saw the

hideous face of the poor wretch that stood out against the

eternal night like a menace.

"The wind is strong this summer day,

Her petticoat has flown away."

She fell back upon the mattress in a convulsion. They all drew

near. She was dead.

Chapter Nine

There is always after the death of anyone a kind of stupefaction;

so difficult is it to grasp this advent of nothingness and to

resign ourselves to believe in it. But still, when he saw that

she did not move, Charles threw himself upon her, crying--

"Farewell! farewell!"

Homais and Canivet dragged him from the room.

"Restrain yourself!"

"Yes." said he, struggling, "I'll be quiet. I'll not do anything.

But leave me alone. I want to see her. She is my wife!"

And he wept.

"Cry," said the chemist; "let nature take her course; that will

solace you."

Weaker than a child, Charles let himself be led downstairs into

the sitting-room, and Monsieur Homais soon went home. On the

Place he was accosted by the blind man, who, having dragged

himself as far as Yonville, in the hope of getting the

antiphlogistic pomade, was asking every passer-by where the

druggist lived.

"There now! as if I hadn't got other fish to fry. Well, so much

the worse; you must come later on."

And he entered the shop hurriedly.

He had to write two letters, to prepare a soothing potion for

Bovary, to invent some lie that would conceal the poisoning, and

work it up into an article for the "Fanal," without counting the

people who were waiting to get the news from him; and when the

Yonvillers had all heard his story of the arsenic that she had

mistaken for sugar in making a vanilla cream. Homais once more

returned to Bovary's.

He found him alone (Monsieur Canivet had left), sitting in an

arm-chair near the window, staring with an idiotic look at the

flags of the floor.

"Now," said the chemist, "you ought yourself to fix the hour for

the ceremony."

"Why? What ceremony?" Then, in a stammering, frightened voice,

"Oh, no! not that. No! I want to see her here."

Homais, to keep himself in countenance, took up a water-bottle on

the whatnot to water the geraniums.

"Ah! thanks," said Charles; "you are good."

But he did not finish, choking beneath the crowd of memories that

this action of the druggist recalled to him.

Then to distract him, Homais thought fit to talk a little

horticulture: plants wanted humidity. Charles bowed his head in

sign of approbation.

"Besides, the fine days will soon be here again."

"Ah!" said Bovary.

The druggist, at his wit's end, began softly to draw aside the

small window-curtain.

"Hallo! there's Monsieur Tuvache passing."

Charles repeated like a machine---

"Monsieur Tuvache passing!"

Homais did not dare to speak to him again about the funeral

arrangements; it was the priest who succeeded in reconciling him

to them.

He shut himself up in his consulting-room, took a pen, and after

sobbing for some time, wrote--

"I wish her to be buried in her wedding-dress, with white shoes,

and a wreath. Her hair is to be spread out over her shoulders.

Three coffins, one of oak, one of mahogany, one of lead. Let no

one say anything to me. I shall have strength. Over all there is

to be placed a large piece of green velvet. This is my wish; see

that it is done."

The two men were much surprised at Bovary's romantic ideas. The

chemist at once went to him and said--

"This velvet seems to me a superfetation. Besides, the expense--"

"What's that to you?" cried Charles. "Leave me! You did not love

her. Go!"

The priest took him by the arm for a turn in the garden. He

discoursed on the vanity of earthly things. God was very great,

was very good: one must submit to his decrees without a murmur;

nay, must even thank him.

Charles burst out into blasphemies: "I hate your God!"

"The spirit of rebellion is still upon you," sighed the

ecclesiastic.

Bovary was far away. He was walking with great strides along by

the wall, near the espalier, and he ground his teeth; he raised

to heaven looks of malediction, but not so much as a leaf

stirred.

A fine rain was falling: Charles, whose chest was bare, at last

began to shiver; he went in and sat down in the kitchen.

At six o'clock a noise like a clatter of old iron was heard on

the Place; it was the "Hirondelle" coming in, and he remained

with his forehead against the windowpane, watching all the

passengers get out, one after the other. Felicite put down a

mattress for him in the drawing-room. He threw himself upon it

and fell asleep.

Although a philosopher, Monsieur Homais respected the dead. So

bearing no grudge to poor Charles, he came back again in the

evening to sit up with the body; bringing with him three volumes

and a pocket-book for taking notes.

Monsieur Bournisien was there, and two large candles were burning

at the head of the bed, that had been taken out of the alcove.

The druggist, on whom the silence weighed, was not long before he

began formulating some regrets about this "unfortunate young

woman." and the priest replied that there was nothing to do now

but pray for her.

"Yet," Homais went on, "one of two things; either she died in a

state of grace (as the Church has it), and then she has no need

of our prayers; or else she departed impertinent (that is, I

believe, the ecclesiastical expression), and then--"

Bournisien interrupted him, replying testily that it was none the

less necessary to pray.

"But," objected the chemist, "since God knows all our needs, what

can be the good of prayer?"

"What!" cried the ecclesiastic, "prayer! Why, aren't you a

Christian?"

"Excuse me," said Homais; "I admire Christianity. To begin with,

it enfranchised the slaves, introduced into the world a

morality--"

"That isn't the question. All the texts-"

"Oh! oh! As to texts, look at history; it, is known that all the

texts have been falsified by the Jesuits."

Charles came in, and advancing towards the bed, slowly drew the

curtains.

Emma's head was turned towards her right shoulder, the corner of

her mouth, which was open, seemed like a black hole at the lower

part of her face; her two thumbs were bent into the palms of her

hands; a kind of white dust besprinkled her lashes, and her eyes

were beginning to disappear in that viscous pallor that looks

like a thin web, as if spiders had spun it over. The sheet sunk

in from her breast to her knees, and then rose at the tips of her

toes, and it seemed to Charles that infinite masses, an enormous

load, were weighing upon her.

The church clock struck two. They could hear the loud murmur of

the river flowing in the darkness at the foot of the terrace.

Monsieur Bournisien from time to time blew his nose noisily, and

Homais' pen was scratching over the paper.

"Come, my good friend," he said, "withdraw; this spectacle is

tearing you to pieces."

Charles once gone, the chemist and the cure recommenced their

discussions.

"Read Voltaire," said the one, "read D'Holbach, read the

'Encyclopaedia'!"

"Read the 'Letters of some Portuguese Jews,'" said the other;

"read 'The Meaning of Christianity,' by Nicolas, formerly a

magistrate."

They grew warm, they grew red, they both talked at once without

listening to each other. Bournisien was scandalized at such

audacity; Homais marvelled at such stupidity; and they were on

the point of insulting one another when Charles suddenly

reappeared. A fascination drew him. He was continually coming

upstairs.

He stood opposite her, the better to see her, and he lost himself

in a contemplation so deep that it was no longer painful.

He recalled stories of catalepsy, the marvels of magnetism, and

he said to himself that by willing it with all his force he might

perhaps succeed in reviving her. Once he even bent towards he,

and cried in a low voice, "Emma! Emma!" His strong breathing made

the flames of the candles tremble against the wall.

At daybreak Madame Bovary senior arrived. Charles as he embraced

her burst into another flood of tears. She tried, as the chemist

had done, to make some remarks to him on the expenses of the

funeral. He became so angry that she was silent, and he even

commissioned her to go to town at once and buy what was

necessary.

Charles remained alone the whole afternoon; they had taken Berthe

to Madame Homais'; Felicite was in the room upstairs with Madame

Lefrancois.

In the evening he had some visitors. He rose, pressed their

hands, unable to speak. Then they sat down near one another, and

formed a large semicircle in front of the fire. With lowered

faces, and swinging one leg crossed over the other knee, they

uttered deep sighs at intervals; each one was inordinately bored,

and yet none would be the first to go.

Homais, when he returned at nine o'clock (for the last two days

only Homais seemed to have been on the Place), was laden with a

stock of camphor, of benzine, and aromatic herbs. He also carried

a large jar full of chlorine water, to keep off all miasmata.

Just then the servant, Madame Lefrancois, and Madame Bovary

senior were busy about Emma, finishing dressing her, and they

were drawing down the long stiff veil that covered her to her

satin shoes.

Felicite was sobbing--"Ah! my poor mistress! my poor mistress!"

"Look at her," said the landlady, sighing; "how pretty she still

is! Now, couldn't you swear she was going to get up in a minute?"

Then they bent over her to put on her wreath. They had to raise

the head a little, and a rush of black liquid issued, as if she

were vomiting, from her mouth.

"Oh, goodness! The dress; take care!" cried Madame Lefrancois.

"Now, just come and help," she said to the chemist. "Perhaps

you're afraid?"

"I afraid?" replied he, shrugging his shoulders. "I dare say!

I've seen all sorts of things at the hospital when I was studying

pharmacy. We used to make punch in the dissecting room!

Nothingness does not terrify a philosopher; and, as I often say,

I even intend to leave my body to the hospitals, in order, later

on, to serve science."

The cure on his arrival inquired how Monsieur Bovary was, and, on

the reply of the druggist, went on--"The blow, you see, is still

too recent."

Then Homais congratulated him on not being exposed, like other

people, to the loss of a beloved companion; whence there followed

a discussion on the celibacy of priests.

"For," said the chemist, "it is unnatural that a man should do

without women! There have been crimes--"

"But, good heaven!" cried the ecclesiastic, "how do you expect an

individual who is married to keep the secrets of the

confessional, for example?"

Homais fell foul of the confessional. Bournisien defended it; he

enlarged on the acts of restitution that it brought about. He

cited various anecdotes about thieves who had suddenly become

honest. Military men on approaching the tribunal of penitence had

felt the scales fall from their eyes. At Fribourg there was a

minister--

His companion was asleep. Then he felt somewhat stifled by the

over-heavy atmosphere of the room; he opened the window; this

awoke the chemist.

"Come, take a pinch of snuff," he said to him. "Take it; it'll

relieve you."

A continual barking was heard in the distance. "Do you hear that

dog howling?" said the chemist.

"They smell the dead," replied the priest. "It's like bees; they

leave their hives on the decease of any person."

Homais made no remark upon these prejudices, for he had again

dropped asleep. Monsieur Bournisien, stronger than he, went on

moving his lips gently for some time, then insensibly his chin

sank down, he let fall his big black boot, and began to snore.

They sat opposite one another, with protruding stomachs,

puffed-up faces, and frowning looks, after so much disagreement

uniting at last in the same human weakness, and they moved no

more than the corpse by their side, that seemed to be sleeping.

Charles coming in did not wake them. It was the last time; he

came to bid her farewell.

The aromatic herbs were still smoking, and spirals of bluish

vapour blended at the window-sash with the fog that was coming

in. There were few stars, and the night was warm. The wax of the

candles fell in great drops upon the sheets of the bed. Charles

watched them burn, tiring his eyes against the glare of their

yellow flame.

The watering on the satin gown shimmered white as moonlight. Emma

was lost beneath it; and it seemed to him that, spreading beyond

her own self, she blended confusedly with everything around her--

the silence, the night, the passing wind, the damp odours rising

from the ground.

Then suddenly he saw her in the garden at Tostes, on a bench

against the thorn hedge, or else at Rouen in the streets, on the

threshold of their house, in the yard at Bertaux. He again heard

the laughter of the happy boys beneath the apple-trees: the room

was filled with the perfume of her hair; and her dress rustled in

his arms with a noise like electricity. The dress was still the

same.

For a long while he thus recalled all his lost joys, her

attitudes, her movements, the sound of her voice. Upon one fit of

despair followed another, and even others, inexhaustible as the

waves of an overflowing sea.

A terrible curiosity seized him. Slowly, with the tips of his

fingers, palpitating, he lifted her veil. But he uttered a cry of

horror that awoke the other two.

They dragged him down into the sitting-room. Then Felicite came

up to say that he wanted some of her hair.

"Cut some off," replied the druggist.

And as she did not dare to, he himself stepped forward, scissors

in hand. He trembled so that he pierced the skin of the temple in

several places. At last, stiffening himself against emotion,

Homais gave two or three great cuts at random that left white

patches amongst that beautiful black hair.

The chemist and the cure plunged anew into their occupations, not

without sleeping from time to time, of which they accused each

other reciprocally at each fresh awakening. Then Monsieur

Bournisien sprinkled the room with holy water and Homais threw a

little chlorine water on the floor.

Felicite had taken care to put on the chest of drawers, for each

of them, a bottle of brandy, some cheese, and a large roll. And

the druggist, who could not hold out any longer, about four in

the morning sighed--

"My word! I should like to take some sustenance."

The priest did not need any persuading; he went out to go and say

mass, came back, and then they ate and hobnobbed, giggling a

little without knowing why, stimulated by that vague gaiety that

comes upon us after times of sadness, and at the last glass the

priest said to the druggist, as he clapped him on the shoulder--

"We shall end by understanding one another."

In the passage downstairs they met the undertaker's men, who were

coming in. Then Charles for two hours had to suffer the torture

of hearing the hammer resound against the wood. Next day they

lowered her into her oak coffin, that was fitted into the other

two; but as the bier was too large, they had to fill up the gaps

with the wool of a mattress. At last, when the three lids had

been planed down, nailed, soldered, it was placed outside in

front of the door; the house was thrown open, and the people of

Yonville began to flock round.

Old Rouault arrived, and fainted on the Place when he saw the

black cloth!

Chapter Ten

He had only received the chemist's letter thirty-six hours after

the event; and, from consideration for his feelings, Homais had

so worded it that it was impossible to make out what it was all

about.

First, the old fellow had fallen as if struck by apoplexy. Next,

he understood that she was not dead, but she might be. At last,

he had put on his blouse, taken his hat, fastened his spurs to

his boots, and set out at full speed; and the whole of the way

old Rouault, panting, was torn by anguish. Once even he was

obliged to dismount. He was dizzy; he heard voices round about

him; he felt himself going mad.

Day broke. He saw three black hens asleep in a tree. He

shuddered, horrified at this omen. Then he promised the Holy

Virgin three chasubles for the church, and that he would go

barefooted from the cemetery at Bertaux to the chapel of

Vassonville.

He entered Maromme shouting for the people of the inn, burst open

the door with a thrust of his shoulder, made for a sack of oats,

emptied a bottle of sweet cider into the manger, and again

mounted his nag, whose feet struck fire as it dashed along.

He said to himself that no doubt they would save her; the doctors

would discover some remedy surely. He remembered all the

miraculous cures he had been told about. Then she appeared to him

dead. She was there; before his eyes, lying on her back in the

middle of the road. He reined up, and the hallucination

disappeared.

At Quincampoix, to give himself heart, he drank three cups of

coffee one after the other. He fancied they had made a mistake in

the name in writing. He looked for the letter in his pocket, felt

it there, but did not dare to open it.

At last he began to think it was all a joke; someone's spite, the

jest of some wag; and besides, if she were dead, one would have

known it. But no! There was nothing extraordinary about the

country; the sky was blue, the trees swayed; a flock of sheep

passed. He saw the village; he was seen coming bending forward

upon his horse, belabouring it with great blows, the girths

dripping with blood.

When he had recovered consciousness, he fell, weeping, into

Bovary's arms: "My girl! Emma! my child! tell me--"

The other replied, sobbing, "I don't know! I don't know! It's a

curse!"

The druggist separated them. "These horrible details are useless.

I will tell this gentleman all about it. Here are the people

coming. Dignity! Come now! Philosophy!"

The poor fellow tried to show himself brave, and repeated several

times. "Yes! courage!"

"Oh," cried the old man, "so I will have, by God! I'll go along

o' her to the end!"

The bell began tolling. All was ready; they had to start. And

seated in a stall of the choir, side by side, they saw pass and

repass in front of them continually the three chanting

choristers.

The serpent-player was blowing with all his might. Monsieur

Bournisien, in full vestments, was singing in a shrill voice. He

bowed before the tabernacle, raising his hands, stretched out his

arms. Lestiboudois went about the church with his whalebone

stick. The bier stood near the lectern, between four rows of

candles. Charles felt inclined to get up and put them out.

Yet he tried to stir himself to a feeling of devotion, to throw

himself into the hope of a future life in which he should see her

again. He imagined to himself she had gone on a long journey, far

away, for a long time. But when he thought of her lying there, and

that all was over, that they would lay her in the earth, he was

seized with a fierce, gloomy, despairful rage. At times he

thought he felt nothing more, and he enjoyed this lull in his

pain, whilst at the same time he reproached himself for being a

wretch.

The sharp noise of an iron-ferruled stick was heard on the

stones, striking them at irregular intervals. It came from the

end of the church, and stopped short at the lower aisles. A man

in a coarse brown jacket knelt down painfully. It was Hippolyte,

the stable-boy at the "Lion d'Or." He had put on his new leg.

One of the choristers went round the nave making a collection,

and the coppers chinked one after the other on the silver plate.

"Oh, make haste! I am in pain!" cried Bovary, angrily throwing

him a five-franc piece. The churchman thanked him with a deep bow.

They sang, they knelt, they stood up; it was endless! He

remembered that once, in the early times, they had been to mass

together, and they had sat down on the other side, on the right,

by the wall. The bell began again. There was a great moving of

chairs; the bearers slipped their three staves under the coffin,

and everyone left the church.

Then Justin appeared at the door of the shop. He suddenly went in

again, pale, staggering.

People were at the windows to see the procession pass. Charles at

the head walked erect. He affected a brave air, and saluted with

a nod those who, coming out from the lanes or from their doors,

stood amidst the crowd.

The six men, three on either side, walked slowly, panting a

little. The priests, the choristers, and the two choirboys

recited the De profundis*, and their voices echoed over the

fields, rising and falling with their undulations. Sometimes they

disappeared in the windings of the path; but the great silver

cross rose always before the trees.

*Psalm CXXX.

The women followed in black cloaks with turned-down hoods; each

of them carried in her hands a large lighted candle, and Charles

felt himself growing weaker at this continual repetition of

prayers and torches, beneath this oppressive odour of wax and of

cassocks. A fresh breeze was blowing; the rye and colza were

sprouting, little dewdrops trembled at the roadsides and on the

hawthorn hedges. All sorts of joyous sounds filled the air; the

jolting of a cart rolling afar off in the ruts, the crowing of a

cock, repeated again and again, or the gambling of a foal running

away under the apple-trees: The pure sky was fretted with rosy

clouds; a bluish haze rested upon the cots covered with iris.

Charles as he passed recognised each courtyard. He remembered

mornings like this, when, after visiting some patient, he came

out from one and returned to her.

The black cloth bestrewn with white beads blew up from time to

time, laying bare the coffin. The tired bearers walked more

slowly, and it advanced with constant jerks, like a boat that

pitches with every wave.

They reached the cemetery. The men went right down to a place in

the grass where a grave was dug. They ranged themselves all

round; and while the priest spoke, the red soil thrown up at the

sides kept noiselessly slipping down at the corners.

Then when the four ropes were arranged the coffin was placed upon

them. He watched it descend; it seemed descending for ever. At

last a thud was heard; the ropes creaked as they were drawn up.

Then Bournisien took the spade handed to him by Lestiboudois;

with his left hand all the time sprinkling water, with the right

he vigorously threw in a large spadeful; and the wood of the

coffin, struck by the pebbles, gave forth that dread sound that

seems to us the reverberation of eternity.

The ecclesiastic passed the holy water sprinkler to his

neighbour. This was Homais. He swung it gravely, then handed it

to Charles, who sank to his knees in the earth and threw in

handfuls of it, crying, "Adieu!" He sent her kisses; he dragged

himself towards the grave, to engulf himself with her. They led

him away, and he soon grew calmer, feeling perhaps, like the

others, a vague satisfaction that it was all over.

Old Rouault on his way back began quietly smoking a pipe, which

Homais in his innermost conscience thought not quite the thing.

He also noticed that Monsieur Binet had not been present, and

that Tuvache had "made off" after mass, and that Theodore, the

notary's servant wore a blue coat, "as if one could not have got

a black coat, since that is the custom, by Jove!" And to share

his observations with others he went from group to group. They

were deploring Emma's death, especially Lheureux, who had not

failed to come to the funeral.

"Poor little woman! What a trouble for her husband!"

The druggist continued, "Do you know that but for me he would

have committed some fatal attempt upon himself?"

"Such a good woman! To think that I saw her only last Saturday in

my shop."

"I haven't had leisure," said Homais, "to prepare a few words

that I would have cast upon her tomb."

Charles on getting home undressed, and old Rouault put on his

blue blouse. It was a new one, and as he had often during the

journey wiped his eyes on the sleeves, the dye had stained his

face, and the traces of tears made lines in the layer of dust

that covered it.

Madame Bovary senior was with them. All three were silent. At

last the old fellow sighed--

"Do you remember, my friend, that I went to Tostes once when you

had just lost your first deceased? I consoled you at that time. I

thought of something to say then, but now--" Then, with a loud

groan that shook his whole chest, "Ah! this is the end for me, do

you see! I saw my wife go, then my son, and now to-day it's my

daughter."

He wanted to go back at once to Bertaux, saying that he could not

sleep in this house. He even refused to see his granddaughter.

"No, no! It would grieve me too much. Only you'll kiss her many

times for me. Good-bye! you're a good fellow! And then I shall

never forget that," he said, slapping his thigh. "Never fear, you

shall always have your turkey."

But when he reached the top of the hill he turned back, as he had

turned once before on the road of Saint-Victor when he had parted

from her. The windows of the village were all on fire beneath the

slanting rays of the sun sinking behind the field. He put his

hand over his eyes, and saw in the horizon an enclosure of walls,

where trees here and there formed black clusters between white

stones; then he went on his way at a gentle trot, for his nag had

gone lame.

Despite their fatigue, Charles and his mother stayed very long

that evening talking together. They spoke of the days of the past

and of the future. She would come to live at Yonville; she would

keep house for him; they would never part again. She was

ingenious and caressing, rejoicing in her heart at gaining once

more an affection that had wandered from her for so many years.

Midnight struck. The village as usual was silent, and Charles,

awake, thought always of her.

Rodolphe, who, to distract himself, had been rambling about the

wood all day, was sleeping quietly in his chateau, and Leon, down

yonder, always slept.

There was another who at that hour was not asleep.

On the grave between the pine-trees a child was on his knees

weeping, and his heart, rent by sobs, was beating in the shadow

beneath the load of an immense regret, sweeter than the moon and

fathomless as the night. The gate suddenly grated. It was

Lestiboudois; he came to fetch his spade, that he had forgotten.

He recognised Justin climbing over the wall, and at last knew who

was the culprit who stole his potatoes.

Chapter Eleven

The next day Charles had the child brought back. She asked for

her mamma. They told her she was away; that she would bring her

back some playthings. Berthe spoke of her again several times,

then at last thought no more of her. The child's gaiety broke

Bovary's heart, and he had to bear besides the intolerable

consolations of the chemist.

Money troubles soon began again, Monsieur Lheureux urging on anew

his friend Vincart, and Charles pledged himself for exorbitant

sums; for he would never consent to let the smallest of the

things that had belonged to HER be sold. His mother was

exasperated with him; he grew even more angry than she did. He

had altogether changed. She left the house.

Then everyone began "taking advantage" of him. Mademoiselle

Lempereur presented a bill for six months' teaching, although

Emma had never taken a lesson (despite the receipted bill she had

shown Bovary); it was an arrangement between the two women. The

man at the circulating library demanded three years'

subscriptions; Mere Rollet claimed the postage due for some

twenty letters, and when Charles asked for an explanation, she

had the delicacy to reply--

"Oh, I don't know. It was for her business affairs."

With every debt he paid Charles thought he had come to the end of

them. But others followed ceaselessly. He sent in accounts for

professional attendance. He was shown the letters his wife had

written. Then he had to apologise.

Felicite now wore Madame Bovary's gowns; not all, for he had kept

some of them, and he went to look at them in her dressing-room,

locking himself up there; she was about her height, and often

Charles, seeing her from behind, was seized with an illusion, and

cried out--

"Oh, stay, stay!"

But at Whitsuntide she ran away from Yonville, carried off by

Theodore, stealing all that was left of the wardrobe.

It was about this time that the widow Dupuis had the honour to

inform him of the "marriage of Monsieur Leon Dupuis her son,

notary at Yvetot, to Mademoiselle Leocadie Leboeuf of

Bondeville." Charles, among the other congratulations he sent

him, wrote this sentence--

"How glad my poor wife would have been!"

One day when, wandering aimlessly about the house, he had gone up

to the attic, he felt a pellet of fine paper under his slipper.

He opened it and read: "Courage, Emma, courage. I would not bring

misery into your life." It was Rodolphe's letter, fallen to the

ground between the boxes, where it had remained, and that the

wind from the dormer window had just blown towards the door. And

Charles stood, motionless and staring, in the very same place

where, long ago, Emma, in despair, and paler even than he, had

thought of dying. At last he discovered a small R at the bottom

of the second page. What did this mean? He remembered Rodolphe's

attentions, his sudden, disappearance, his constrained air when

they had met two or three times since. But the respectful tone of

the letter deceived him.

"Perhaps they loved one another platonically," he said to

himself.

Besides, Charles was not of those who go to the bottom of things;

he shrank from the proofs, and his vague jealousy was lost in the

immensity of his woe.

Everyone, he thought, must have adored her; all men assuredly

must have coveted her. She seemed but the more beautiful to him

for this; he was seized with a lasting, furious desire for her,

that inflamed his despair, and that was boundless, because it was

now unrealisable.

To please her, as if she were still living, he adopted her

predilections, her ideas; he bought patent leather boots and took

to wearing white cravats. He put cosmetics on his moustache, and,

like her, signed notes of hand. She corrupted him from beyond the

grave.

He was obliged to sell his silver piece by piece; next he sold

the drawing-room furniture. All the rooms were stripped; but the

bedroom, her own room, remained as before. After his dinner

Charles went up there. He pushed the round table in front of the

fire, and drew up her armchair. He sat down opposite it. A candle

burnt in one of the gilt candlesticks. Berthe by his side was

painting prints.

He suffered, poor man, at seeing her so badly dressed, with

laceless boots, and the arm-holes of her pinafore torn down to

the hips; for the charwoman took no care of her. But she was so

sweet, so pretty, and her little head bent forward so gracefully,

letting the dear fair hair fall over her rosy cheeks, that an

infinite joy came upon him, a happiness mingled with bitterness,

like those ill-made wines that taste of resin. He mended her

toys, made her puppets from cardboard, or sewed up half-torn

dolls. Then, if his eyes fell upon the workbox, a ribbon lying

about, or even a pin left in a crack of the table, he began to

dream, and looked so sad that she became as sad as he.

No one now came to see them, for Justin had run away to Rouen,

where he was a grocer's assistant, and the druggist's children

saw less and less of the child, Monsieur Homais not caring,

seeing the difference of their social position, to continue the

intimacy.

The blind man, whom he had not been able to cure with the pomade,

had gone back to the hill of Bois-Guillaume, where he told the

travellers of the vain attempt of the druggist, to such an

extent, that Homais when he went to town hid himself behind the

curtains of the "Hirondelle" to avoid meeting him. He detested

him, and wishing, in the interests of his own reputation, to get

rid of him at all costs, he directed against him a secret

battery, that betrayed the depth of his intellect and the

baseness of his vanity. Thus, for six consecutive months, one

could read in the "Fanal de Rouen" editorials such as these--

"All who bend their steps towards the fertile plains of Picardy

have, no doubt, remarked, by the Bois-Guillaume hill, a wretch

suffering from a horrible facial wound. He importunes, persecutes

one, and levies a regular tax on all travellers. Are we still

living in the monstrous times of the Middle Ages, when vagabonds

were permitted to display in our public places leprosy and

scrofulas they had brought back from the Crusades?"

Or--

"In spite of the laws against vagabondage, the approaches to our

great towns continue to be infected by bands of beggars. Some are

seen going about alone, and these are not, perhaps, the least

dangerous. What are our ediles about?"

Then Homais invented anecdotes--

"Yesterday, by the Bois-Guillaume hill, a skittish horse--" And

then followed the story of an accident caused by the presence of

the blind man.

He managed so well that the fellow was locked up. But he was

released. He began again, and Homais began again. It was a

struggle. Homais won it, for his foe was condemned to life-long

confinement in an asylum.

This success emboldened him, and henceforth there was no longer a

dog run over, a barn burnt down, a woman beaten in the parish, of

which he did not immediately inform the public, guided always by

the love of progress and the hate of priests. He instituted

comparisons between the elementary and clerical schools to the

detriment of the latter; called to mind the massacre of St.

Bartholomew a propos of a grant of one hundred francs to the

church, and denounced abuses, aired new views. That was his

phrase. Homais was digging and delving; he was becoming

dangerous.

However, he was stifling in the narrow limits of journalism, and

soon a book, a work was necessary to him. Then he composed

"General Statistics of the Canton of Yonville, followed by

Climatological Remarks." The statistics drove him to philosophy.

He busied himself with great questions: the social problem,

moralisation of the poorer classes, pisciculture, caoutchouc,

railways, etc. He even began to blush at being a bourgeois. He

affected the artistic style, he smoked. He bought two chic

Pompadour statuettes to adorn his drawing-room.

He by no means gave up his shop. On the contrary, he kept well

abreast of new discoveries. He followed the great movement of

chocolates; he was the first to introduce "cocoa" and "revalenta"

into the Seine-Inferieure. He was enthusiastic about the

hydro-electric Pulvermacher chains; he wore one himself, and when

at night he took off his flannel vest, Madame Homais stood quite

dazzled before the golden spiral beneath which he was hidden,

and felt her ardour redouble for this man more bandaged than a

Scythian, and splendid as one of the Magi.

He had fine ideas about Emma's tomb. First he proposed a broken

column with some drapery, next a pyramid, then a Temple of Vesta,

a sort of rotunda, or else a "mass of ruins." And in all his

plans Homais always stuck to the weeping willow, which he looked

upon as the indispensable symbol of sorrow.

Charles and he made a journey to Rouen together to look at some

tombs at a funeral furnisher's, accompanied by an artist, one

Vaufrylard, a friend of Bridoux's, who made puns all the time. At

last, after having examined some hundred designs, having ordered

an estimate and made another journey to Rouen, Charles decided in

favour of a mausoleum, which on the two principal sides was to

have a "spirit bearing an extinguished torch."

As to the inscription, Homais could think of nothing so fine as

Sta viator*, and he got no further; he racked his brain, he

constantly repeated Sta viator. At last he hit upon Amabilen

conjugem calcas**, which was adopted.

* Rest traveler.

** Tread upon a loving wife.

A strange thing was that Bovary, while continually thinking of

Emma, was forgetting her. He grew desperate as he felt this image

fading from his memory in spite of all efforts to retain it. Yet

every night he dreamt of her; it was always the same dream. He

drew near her, but when he was about to clasp her she fell into

decay in his arms.

For a week he was seen going to church in the evening. Monsieur

Bournisien even paid him two or three visits, then gave him up.

Moreover, the old fellow was growing intolerant, fanatic, said

Homais. He thundered against the spirit of the age, and never

failed, every other week, in his sermon, to recount the death

agony of Voltaire, who died devouring his excrements, as everyone

knows.

In spite of the economy with which Bovary lived, he was far from

being able to pay off his old debts. Lheureux refused to renew

any more bills. A distraint became imminent. Then he appealed to

his mother, who consented to let him take a mortgage on her

property, but with a great many recriminations against Emma; and

in return for her sacrifice she asked for a shawl that had

escaped the depredations of Felicite. Charles refused to give it

her; they quarrelled.

She made the first overtures of reconciliation by offering to

have the little girl, who could help her in the house, to live

with her. Charles consented to this, but when the time for

parting came, all his courage failed him. Then there was a final,

complete rupture.

As his affections vanished, he clung more closely to the love of

his child. She made him anxious, however, for she coughed

sometimes, and had red spots on her cheeks.

Opposite his house, flourishing and merry, was the family of the

chemist, with whom everything was prospering. Napoleon helped him

in the laboratory, Athalie embroidered him a skullcap, Irma cut

out rounds of paper to cover the preserves, and Franklin recited

Pythagoras' table in a breath. He was the happiest of fathers,

the most fortunate of men.

Not so! A secret ambition devoured him. Homais hankered after the

cross of the Legion of Honour. He had plenty of claims to it.

"First, having at the time of the cholera distinguished myself by

a boundless devotion; second, by having published, at my expense,

various works of public utility, such as" (and he recalled his

pamphlet entitled, "Cider, its manufacture and effects," besides

observation on the lanigerous plant-louse, sent to the Academy;

his volume of statistics, and down to his pharmaceutical thesis);

"without counting that I am a member of several learned

societies" (he was member of a single one).

"In short!" he cried, making a pirouette, "if it were only for

distinguishing myself at fires!"

Then Homais inclined towards the Government. He secretly did the

prefect great service during the elections. He sold himself--in a

word, prostituted himself. He even addressed a petition to the

sovereign in which he implored him to "do him justice"; he called

him "our good king," and compared him to Henri IV.

And every morning the druggist rushed for the paper to see if his

nomination were in it. It was never there. At last, unable to

bear it any longer, he had a grass plot in his garden designed to

represent the Star of the Cross of Honour with two little strips

of grass running from the top to imitate the ribband. He walked

round it with folded arms, meditating on the folly of the

Government and the ingratitude of men.

From respect, or from a sort of sensuality that made him carry on

his investigations slowly, Charles had not yet opened the secret

drawer of a rosewood desk which Emma had generally used. One day,

however, he sat down before it, turned the key, and pressed the

spring. All Leon's letters were there. There could be no doubt

this time. He devoured them to the very last, ransacked every

corner, all the furniture, all the drawers, behind the walls,

sobbing, crying aloud, distraught, mad. He found a box and broke

it open with a kick. Rodolphe's portrait flew full in his face in

the midst of the overturned love-letters.

People wondered at his despondency. He never went out, saw no

one, refused even to visit his patients. Then they said "he shut

himself up to drink."

Sometimes, however, some curious person climbed on to the garden

hedge, and saw with amazement this long-bearded, shabbily

clothed, wild man, who wept aloud as he walked up and down.

In the evening in summer he took his little girl with him and led

her to the cemetery. They came back at nightfall, when the only

light left in the Place was that in Binet's window.

The voluptuousness of his grief was, however, incomplete, for he

had no one near him to share it, and he paid visits to Madame

Lefrancois to be able to speak of her.

But the landlady only listened with half an ear, having troubles

like himself. For Lheureux had at last established the "Favorites

du Commerce," and Hivert, who enjoyed a great reputation for

doing errands, insisted on a rise of wages, and was threatening

to go over "to the opposition shop."

One day when he had gone to the market at Argueil to sell his

horse--his last resource--he met Rodolphe.

They both turned pale when they caught sight of one another.

Rodolphe, who had only sent his card, first stammered some

apologies, then grew bolder, and even pushed his assurance (it

was in the month of August and very hot) to the length of

inviting him to have a bottle of beer at the public-house.

Leaning on the table opposite him, he chewed his cigar as he

talked, and Charles was lost in reverie at this face that she had

loved. He seemed to see again something of her in it. It was a

marvel to him. He would have liked to have been this man.

The other went on talking agriculture, cattle, pasturage, filling

out with banal phrases all the gaps where an allusion might slip

in. Charles was not listening to him; Rodolphe noticed it, and he

followed the succession of memories that crossed his face. This

gradually grew redder; the nostrils throbbed fast, the lips

quivered. There was at last a moment when Charles, full of a

sombre fury, fixed his eyes on Rodolphe, who, in something of

fear, stopped talking. But soon the same look of weary lassitude

came back to his face.

"I don't blame you," he said.

Rodolphe was dumb. And Charles, his head in his hands, went on in

a broken voice, and with the resigned accent of infinite sorrow--

"No, I don't blame you now."

He even added a fine phrase, the only one he ever made--

"It is the fault of fatality!"

Rodolphe, who had managed the fatality, thought the remark very

offhand from a man in his position, comic even, and a little

mean.

The next day Charles went to sit down on the seat in the arbour.

Rays of light were straying through the trellis, the vine leaves

threw their shadows on the sand, the jasmines perfumed the air,

the heavens were blue, Spanish flies buzzed round the lilies in

bloom, and Charles was suffocating like a youth beneath the vague

love influences that filled his aching heart.

At seven o'clock little Berthe, who had not seen him all the

afternoon, went to fetch him to dinner.

His head was thrown back against the wall, his eyes closed, his

mouth open, and in his hand was a long tress of black hair.

"Come along, papa," she said.

And thinking he wanted to play; she pushed him gently. He fell to

the ground. He was dead.

Thirty-six hours after, at the druggist's request, Monsieur

Canivet came thither. He made a post-mortem and found nothing.

When everything had been sold, twelve francs seventy-five

centimes remained, that served to pay for Mademoiselle Bovary's

going to her grandmother. The good woman died the same year; old

Rouault was paralysed, and it was an aunt who took charge of her.

She is poor, and sends her to a cotton-factory to earn a living.

Since Bovary's death three doctors have followed one another at

Yonville without any success, so severely did Homais attack them.

He has an enormous practice; the authorities treat him with

consideration, and public opinion protects him.

He has just received the cross of the Legion of Honour.

End of the Project Gutenberg etext of Madame Bovary.

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