1856
                                 MADAME BOVARY

                              by Gustave Flaubert

                           translated by J. Lewis May







şiElectronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
DAK Upgraded Edition, Copyright 2000, DAK Industries 2000, Inc(R)şI

{DEDICATION
                             DEDICATED TO
                      MARIE-ANTOINE-JULES SENARD
                       MEMBER OF THE PARIS BAR
                EX-PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
                  FORMERLY MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR
-
  Dear and Illustrious Friend,
                                                   {DEDICATION ^paragraph 5}
  PERMIT me to inscribe your name at the head of this book, and
above its dedication; for it is mainly to you that I owe its
publication. Handled by your magnificent pleading, my work seems in my
own eyes to have acquired, as it were, an unlooked-for authority. So
accept here the tribute of my gratitude, which, however great it may
be, will never reach the heights of your own eloquence and devotion.
-
  Paris, April 12th, 1857                       GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

{1
                                  1
-
             The uncouth schoolboy: The Bovary household
        A mother's ambitions: Studies with the cure: Training
             for medicine: Student life in Rouen: Failure
                 and success: A Practice in Normandy:
                    The bailiff's widow: The first
                                                            {1 ^paragraph 5}
                            Madame Bovary.
-
  WE were in the prep.-room when the Head came in, followed by a new
boy in 'mufti' and a beadle carrying a big desk. The sleepers
aroused themselves, and we all stood up, putting on a startled look,
as if we had been buried in our work.
  The Head motioned to us to sit down.
  'Monsieur Roger,' said he in a quiet tone to the prep. master, 'I've
brought you a new boy. He's going into the second. If his conduct
and progress are satisfactory, he will be put up with the boys of
his own age.'
                                                           {1 ^paragraph 10}
  The new boy had kept in the background, in the corner behind the
door, almost out of sight. He was a country lad of about fifteen,
and taller than any of us. His hair was clipped straight across the
forehead, like a village choir-boy's. He seemed a decent fellow
enough, but horribly nervous. Although he was not broad across the
shoulders, his green cloth jacket, with its black buttons, looked as
if it pinched him under the arms. Protruding well beyond the cuffs, he
displayed a pair of raw, bony wrists, obviously not unaccustomed to
exposure. His legs, encased in blue stockings, issued from a pair of
drab-coloured breeches, very tightly braced. He had on a pair of thick
clumsy shoes, not particularly well cleaned and plentifully
fortified with nails.
  The master began to hear the boys their work. The newcomer
listened with all his ears, drinking it in as attentively as if he had
been in church, not daring to cross his legs or to lean his elbows
on the desk, and when two o'clock came and the bell rang for
dismissal, the master had to call him back to earth and tell him to
line up with the rest of us.
  It was our custom, when we came in to class, to throw our caps on
the floor, in order to have our hands free. As soon as ever we got
inside the door, we 'buzzed' them under the form, against the wall, so
as to kick up plenty of dust. That was supposed to be 'the thing'.
Whether he failed to notice this manoeuvre or whether he was too shy
to join in it, it is impossible to say, but when prayers were over
he was still nursing his cap. That cap belonged to the composite order
of head-gear, and in it the heterogeneous characteristics of the
busby, the Polish shapska, the bowler, the otterskin toque and the
cotton nightcap were simultaneously represented. It was, in short, one
of those pathetic objects whose mute unloveliness conveys the
infinitely wistful expression we may sometimes note on the face of
an idiot. Ovoid in form and stiffened with whalebone, it began with
a sort of triple line of sausage-shaped rolls running all round its
circumference; next, separated by a red band, came alternate patches
of velvet and rabbit-skin; then a kind of bag or sack which culminated
in a stiffened polygon elaborately embroidered, whence, at the end
of a long, thin cord, hung a ball made out of gold wire, by way of a
tassel. The cap was brand new, and the peak of it all shiny.
  'Stand up,' said the master.
  He stood up; and down went his cap. The whole class began to laugh.
                                                           {1 ^paragraph 15}
  He bent down to recover it. One of the boys next him jogged him with
his elbow and knocked it down again. Again he stooped to pick it up.
  'You may discard your helmet,' said the master, who had a pretty
wit.
  A shout of laughter from the rest of the class quite put the poor
fellow out of countenance, and so flustered was he that he didn't know
whether to keep it in his hand, put it on the floor or stick it on his
head. He sat down, and deposited it on his knees.
  'Stand up,' said the master again, 'and tell me your name.'
  In mumbling tones the new boy stammered out something quite
unintelligible.
                                                           {1 ^paragraph 20}
  'Again!'
  Again came the inarticulate mumble, drowned by the shouts of the
class.
  'Louder!' rapped out the master sharply; 'speak up!'
  Whereupon the boy, in desperation, opened his jaws as wide as they
would go and, with the full force of his lungs, as though he were
hailing somebody at a distance, fired off the word: Charbovari.
                                                           {1 ^paragraph 25}
  In an instant the class was in an uproar. The din grew louder and
louder, a ceaseless crescendo crested with piercing yells- they
shrieked, they howled, they stamped their feet, bellowing at the top
of their voices: Charbovari! Charbovari! Then, after a while, the
storm began to subside. There would be sporadic outbreaks from time to
time, smothered by a terrific effort, or perhaps a titter would fizz
along a whole row, or a stifled explosion sputter out here and
there, like a half-extinguished fuse.
  However, beneath a hail of 'impots', order was gradually restored.
The master- who had had it dictated, spelled out and read over to him-
had at length succeeded in getting hold of the name of Charles Bovary,
and forthwith he ordered the hapless wretch to go and sit on the
dunce's stool, immediately below the seat of authority. He started
to obey, stopped short and stood hesitating.
  'What are you looking for?' said the master.
                                                           {1 ^paragraph 30}
  'My ca-' began the new boy timidly, casting an anxious glance around
him.
  An angry shout of 'Five hundred lines for the whole class,' checked,
like the Quos ego, a fresh outburst. 'Stop your noise, then, will
you?' continued the master indignantly, mopping his brow with a
handkerchief which he had produced from the interior of his cap.
'And you, new boy there, just copy out twenty times the words
ridiculus sum!'
  'There,' he went on in a milder tone, 'you'll get your cap back
all right; no one has stolen it.'
  Calm reigned once more, and again the heads were bent over their
books. For two hours the new boy maintained an exemplary attitude,
despite that, every now and again, a paper pellet flicked from the
point of a pen would flatten itself against his cheek. He just wiped
the place with his hand, sitting stock-still, his eyes riveted to
the ground.
  At night, in the schoolroom, he took his cuff-protectors out of
his desk, put his belongings in order, and ruled up his paper with
meticulous exactitude. We watched him pursuing his conscientious task,
looking up every word in the dictionary and taking tremendous pains.
He doubtless owed it to this anxiety to get on that he was not put
down into a lower class; for, although he knew his grammar fairly
well, his composition was not exactly a model of elegance. It was
the village cure who had started him in Latin, his parents, to
save expense, having put off sending him to school till the last
possible moment.
                                                           {1 ^paragraph 35}
  His father, Monsieur Charles Denis Bartholome Bovary,
ex-deputy-surgeon-major, who, somewhere about the year 1812, had
been mixed up in some more or less shady conscription affair which had
involved his resignation from the service, did, at this crisis in
his fate, make such good use of his personal attractions as to net a
dowry of sixty thousand francs, and with it a haberdasher's
daughter, who had fallen in love with his manly bearing. A fine figure
of a man, a braggart and a bully, with mustachios that made common
cause with his side-whiskers, fingers laden with rings, and clothes
you could see a mile off, he combined the dash of the military man
with the insinuating aplomb of the commercial traveller. Once safely
married, he lived for two or three years on his wife's money,
feeding like a fighting-cock, lying in bed till noon, smoking great
porcelain pipes, never coming home till the theatres closed, a great
frequenter of cafes. His father-in-law died, leaving but little behind
him, whereat he waxed indignant, started a cloth workers' business,
dropped a good deal of money and finally retired into the country
resolved to show them a thing or two in farming. But as he knew as
much about agriculture as he did about textiles, rode his horses
instead of working them, drank his cider instead of selling it, ate
the fattest chicken in his yard and greased his shooting-boots with
his own prime bacon-fat, it was soon borne in upon him that he might
as well dismiss the idea of making a fortune. At this juncture he came
across a place on the borders of Caux and Picardy, a sort of
half-farm, half-villa, which was to be had for two hundred francs a
year. He took it, and there, a disgruntled, disappointed man,
cursing his luck, at daggers drawn with the world, he shut himself
up at the age of forty-five, disgusted, as he said, with his fellow
men and determined to live to himself.
  Time was when his wife had doted on him. The slavishness of her
adoration had but served to complete his estrangement from her. Once
cheerful kind-hearted and wholly affectionate, she became, as she grew
older (as wine left uncorked will turn into vinegar), morose,
shrewish, and irritable. It had given her a lot of pain, though, for a
time, she bore it uncomplainingly, when she saw him running after
all the drabs of the village and coming home night after night,
blear-eyed and smelling of drink. Finally her pride revolted. She
ceased to upbraid, smothering her rage in a stoical silence which
she maintained to the end of her days. She was always on her feet,
always busy, hurrying off to see the lawyers or to interview the
chairman of the bench, knew exactly when the bills fell due and got
them renewed. Indoors she was for ever at work, ironing, sewing,
washing, keeping an eye on the men, paying them their wages, while her
lord and master, blissfully regardless of everything and perpetually
plunged in a sort of ill-humoured torpor from which he only roused
himself to give her the rough side of his tongue, sat smoking by the
fire and spitting into the grate.
  When she had a child, it must needs be put out to nurse, and when
the time came for it to be restored to the parental roof, the brat was
doted upon as if he had been a prince. His mother fed him on sweets;
his father let him run about without shoes or stockings, saying, to
show what a philosopher he was, that it would be a good thing to let
him go naked, as the animals did their offspring. In contrast to the
mother's ideas, he entertained certain manly notions regarding the
upbringing of children. He believed in hardening them off, like the
Spartans, so as to make them tough and wiry. He made his son undress
in the cold, taught him to drink neat rum and to jeer at church
processions. But the child, being a harmless little urchin, made no
great progress in these truculent accomplishments. His mother always
kept him tied up to her apron-strings; she cut out scraps for him,
told him stories, and made up countless tales full of wistful gaiety
and playful prattle. She sought solace for the loneliness of her
life by lavishing on her child all her own shattered and forsaken
ambitions. She dreamed of making a celebrity of him. She pictured
him a tall, handsome, clever man, high up in the Civil Service or
holding an important magisterial position. She taught him to read, and
even made him sing- while she accompanied him on her own old, worn-out
piano- one or two little drawing-room ballads. But this sort of
thing Monsieur Bovary, who held culture in small esteem, pronounced so
much waste of time. How were they ever going to afford to educate
him for a Government job, buy him a practice or set him up in
business? But there! a man could always make his way in the world,
if he had cheek enough. Madame Bovary bit her lip, and the child was
allowed to run wild about the village.
  He went about with the farm labourers, scared the rooks by heaving
clods at them, searched the hedges for blackberries, kept the
turkeys in order with a switch, helped in the hay-field, roamed
about the woods, played hop-scotch in the church porch on rainy
days, and on Saints' days coaxed the beadle into letting him ring
the bells so that he might hang on bodily to the big rope and feel
himself borne up with it as it rose aloft. And he grew up as sturdy as
a young oak tree, developing big hands and ruddy cheeks.
  When he reached the age of twelve his mother managed to arrange
for him to begin his studies. The cure was pressed into the service.
But the lessons were so short and so disconnected that they could
not be productive of much good. They were given at odd moments, in the
sacristy, standing up, hugger-mugger, between a christening and a
funeral, or the cure would send for his pupil to come to him after
the Angelus, whenever he was not obliged to go out. He would go up
into the priest's room, and they would settle themselves down to work.
The gnats and the moths would go flitting in and out of the candle
flame. Perhaps it would be hot and the child would grow sleepy, and
before long the old man, dropping off into a doze with his hands
folded over his stomach, would be snoring steadily, with his mouth
wide open. At other times, when his reverence, returning home after
giving the sacraments to some sick parishioner, saw Charles
helter-skeltering about the woods and fields, he would call him,
lecture him for a quarter of an hour, and seize the opportunity of
making him conjugate 'his verb' at the foot of a tree. Then,
perhaps, it would begin to rain, or someone they knew would come
along, and lessons would be over for that day. Howbeit, the cure
always had a good word for his pupil, and even went the length of
saying that the young man had a remarkable memory.
                                                           {1 ^paragraph 40}
  But things couldn't go on like that. Madame bestirred herself, and
Monsieur was shamed, or more probably wearied, into capitulating.
All the same they decided to wait another year, till the youngster had
made his first communion.
  After that, yet another six months went by; but the following year
Charles was definitely entered at the College at Rouen, whither his
father took him in person towards the end of October, about the time
when Saint Romain's Fair was on.
  It would be impossible for any of us to recall exactly what he was
like in those days. He was of the 'middling' kind; he played during
recreation, stuck at his homework, paid attention in class, slept
soundly in the dormitory, and ate well in the refectory. He was
under the tutelage of a wholesale ironmonger in the Rue de la
Ganterie, who had him out once a month, of a Sunday, after he had shut
up shop. He would send him down to the harbour to look at the shipping
and get him back to the College again by seven, in good time for
supper. Every Thursday evening he wrote a long letter to his mother in
red ink, and stuck it down with three seals. Then he rubbed up his
history notes, or read some Anacharsis, a volume of which was
kicking about in the schoolroom. When we went out walking he used to
talk to the servant, who, like him, came from the country.
  By dint of diligent plodding, he always managed to keep about the
middle of the class. Once, indeed, he scored a proxime accessit in
Natural History. But when he had done his third year his people took
him away from the College, so that he might devote himself to his
medical studies, for they were convinced he could get his 'prelim.'
without any special coaching.
  His mother got him a room on the fourth floor of a house overlooking
the Eau de Robec, the owner of which, a dyer by trade, she happened to
know. She made arrangements for his board, got together some odds
and ends of furniture, a table and a couple of chairs or so, sent
him an old cherry-wood bedstead from home, and bought a little
cast-iron stove and plenty of wood, to keep her poor boy warm. Then,
when the week was up, she took her departure, having begged and prayed
him over and over again to behave himself and go straight, now that
she would no longer be there to look after him.
                                                           {1 ^paragraph 45}
  The Syllabus of Lectures which he read on the notice-board put his
head in a whirl. There were lectures on Anatomy, lectures on
Pathology, lectures on Physiology, lectures on Dispensing, on
Chemistry, Botany, Clinics and Therapeutics, to say nothing of Hygiene
and Materia Medica, names of whose etymology he was completely
ignorant and which seemed to him like so many mysterious portals
leading to sanctuaries peopled with august shadows.
  He could make nothing of it. He listened as hard as he could, but he
couldn't get hold of it at all. However, he persevered, had
notebooks specially bound, attended every lecture, never missed a
demonstration. He got through his little daily task like a mill
horse that plods round and round in the same place with his eyes
blindfolded, never knowing in the least what it is he is grinding at.
  To save expense, his mother sent him every week, by the carrier, a
piece of baked veal, off which he would make his lunch of a morning
when he got back from the hospital. Then away he would rush to work,
to the operating theatre or the infirmary, and then back home again
through all the maze of streets. Of an evening, after a modest
dinner with his landlord, he would go up to his room and set to work
again in his damp clothes, which would steam on his body as he sat
close up to the little glowing stove.
  Of a fine summer evening, when the warm streets are deserted and the
servant-girls play battledore and shuttlecock outside the houses, he
would open his window and sit gazing out with his head on his hand.
The river, which makes this part of Rouen look like a little
workaday Venice, flowed on beneath him, yellow, violet or blue,
between its bridges and its barriers. He would watch the workmen
stooping down at the water's edge and letting the current flow over
their arms. On poles on the warehouse roofs, skeins of cotton hung
drying in the air. In front of him, beyond the housetops, was a
great expanse of clear sky, with the red sun sinking slowly to its
rest. How good it must be out yonder! How cool in the shadows of the
beechwoods. And then he dilated his nostrils to breathe in the
fragrant scents of the country which died away before they reached
him.
  He lost flesh, grew tall and lanky, and his face took on a sort of
wistful look that made it almost interesting.
                                                           {1 ^paragraph 50}
  It was natural that from mere heedlessness he should sooner or later
discard all the good resolutions he had taken upon himself. One day he
missed going round the ward, the day after, his lecture, and,
gradually acquiring a taste for doing nothing, he ended by not turning
up at all.
  He became a habitue of the cabaret, and a domino enthusiast. To go
and shut himself up, night after night, in a dingy public room and
rattle about little black-spotted bone cubes on a marble-topped table,
seemed to him a precious symbol of freedom and raised him in his own
esteem.
  It was something like an initiation into the social world, a taste
of forbidden fruit. And as he put his hand on the door-knob to go
in, he experienced an almost voluptuous pleasure. And thus many things
which had been repressed within him began to expand and blossom forth.
He learnt by heart some popular songs, with which he would greet his
boon companions, went mad over Beranger, acquired the secret of making
punch, and at length became acquainted with the mysteries of Love.
  As a result of these preparatory activities, he failed completely in
his examination. His parents were expecting him home that same night
to celebrate his success.
  He set off on foot and halted at the entrance to the village,
where he sent for his mother and made a clean breast of it. She made
excuses for him; said it wasn't his fault, the examiners had treated
him unfairly. She managed to put a little heart into him and said
she would make matters all right at home. Not until five years later
did Monsieur Bovary learn the truth. It was ancient history by that
time, and he took it calmly. Besides he could not bring himself to
believe that any child of his could be lacking in brains.
                                                           {1 ^paragraph 55}
  Charles got down to work again. This time he permitted himself no
interruptions and, having ground up all his answers by heart, he got
through- and pretty creditably. What a red-letter day for his
mother! They gave a big dinner.
  And now where was he to practise? At Tostes, because at Tostes there
was only one doctor, and he a very old man. For a long time past
Madame Bovary had been waiting for him to die, and now, before the old
fellow had packed up his traps for the next world, Charles came and
set up opposite, as his accredited successor.
  But rearing her son, making a doctor of him and setting him up in
practice at Tostes was not the whole of the business. He must have a
wife. She found him one, the forty-five-year-old widow of a Dieppe
bailiff, with an income of twelve hundred a year.
  Though she was plain, as dry as a chip and as spotty as a
fig-pudding, Madame Dubuc was decidedly not lacking in suitors. In
order to gain her end, Madame Bovary was obliged to oust them all, and
she displayed especial skill in checkmating the manoeuvres of a
pork-butcher rival who was strongly backed by the clergy.
  Charles looked on matrimony as a means of bettering his lot; he
thought it would give him a free hand to do as he liked, and spend his
money as he thought fit. He was wrong. His wife wore the breeches. She
told him what to say, and what not to say, in company. She made him
keep the Friday abstinence, wear the clothes she approved of, and
worry the patients when they did not pay up. She opened his letters,
watched his movements and, when he had any women patients in the
surgery, she would listen, through the partition, to all that went on.
Every morning she must have her cup of chocolate, and be waited on
hand and foot. She was always complaining about her nerves, her
chest and her spirits. The sound of footsteps made her feel ill. If
they left her alone, the solitude was hateful; if they came back, it
was doubtless to see the last of her. At night, when Charles came
in, she drew her long bony arms from under the bedclothes, put them
round his neck and, making him sit down on the edge of the bed,
began to tell him all her troubles;- he was beginning to forget
about her, he loved someone else. Yes, they had told her she was fated
to be unhappy; and she ended by asking him for something to make her
better, and for a little more love.

{2
                                  2
-
              Night call: Monsieur Rouault's broken leg:
             A Norman farm: Mademoiselle Emma: Visits to
                   les Bertaux: Heloise is jealous:
               Love in absence: The defaulting lawyer:
                        The doctor is widowed.
                                                            {2 ^paragraph 5}
-
  ONE night about eleven they were aroused by the clatter of hoofs
that came to a standstill outside their house. The servant pushed open
the attic window and parleyed for some time with a man in the street
below. He had come for the doctor and had a letter with him.
Nastasie went down shivering with cold, proceeded to unlock the door
and drew back the bolts one by one. The man left his horse standing,
and, following close on the servant's heels, came right into the
bedroom. From his grey woollen cap he extracted a letter wrapped up in
a piece of cloth and delivered it carefully into the doctor's hands.
Charles raised himself on his elbow to read it. Nastasie stood close
up to the bed holding the light. Madame, being bashful, kept her
face to the wall.
  The letter, sealed with a little blue seal, begged Monsieur Bovary
to come at once to a farm at les Bertaux to set a broken leg. Now from
Tostes to les Bertaux is a good eighteen miles across country, by
way of Longueville and Saint Victor. The night was dark. Madame Bovary
was afraid some accident would befall her husband, so it was decided
that the farmer's man should go on ahead and that the Doctor should
follow on, three hours later, when the moon got up. They were to
send a boy to meet him to show him the way to the farm and open the
gates.
  About four o'clock in the morning, Charles, well wrapped up in his
cloak, set out for les Bertaux. He was still drowsy with the warmth of
the slumbers from which he had been aroused, and the steady jog-trot
of his nag lulled him off into a doze. Once, when the animal pulled up
of its own accord in front of one of those holes surrounded with furze
which are dug alongside the furrows, Charles woke with a start,
remembered about the broken leg and tried to call to mind everything
he knew about fractures. The rain had ceased; day was beginning to
break and, on the boughs of the leafless apple-trees, the birds sat
quite still, puffing out their little feathers against the chill
morning air. The level country stretched away into the distance, far
as the eye could see, and the clumps of trees round the farm-houses
made, here and there, at distant intervals, a splash of dark violet on
the wide grey surface, which melted away on the horizon into the wan
spaces of the sky. Charles, from time to time, would open his eyes,
then, his senses growing weary and sleepiness coming over him again,
he would soon relapse into a kind of torpor, in which his recent
sensations mingled with memories of the past, and he saw himself in
a sort of double vision, at once a student and a married man, lying in
his bed, as he was an hour or so ago, and somehow, at the same time,
walking through the ward of a hospital as in days gone by. The warm
smell of surgical dressings blended with the fragrance of the
morning dew; he heard the iron rings running along the curtain rods of
the beds and the breathing of his wife as she lay asleep.... As he was
riding through Vassonville he noticed a boy sitting on the turf at the
edge of a ditch.
  'Are you the doctor?' asked the child.
                                                           {2 ^paragraph 10}
  And when Charles said yes, he picked up his sabots and ran
barefoot on in front.
  The doctor, as he rode along, gathered from his guide's discourse
that Monsieur Rouault was a very well-to-do farmer. He had broken
his leg the night before, coming back from a neighbour's where he
had been celebrating Twelfth Night. He had lost his wife two years
ago, and had no one with him now but his daughter, who helped keep
house for him.
  The ruts in the road grew deeper. Les Bertaux was close at hand. The
small boy, slipping through a gap in the hedge, vanished from sight,
reappearing at the entrance to a paddock in time to open the gate. The
horse slithered on the wet grass. Charles bent his head to clear the
branches. The dogs in their kennels barked as they tugged at their
chains. As he rode into the yard his horse took fright and shied.
  It was a prosperous-looking farm. In the stables, over the lower
half of the doors, you could see great cart-horses pulling quietly
at their hay. A big, steaming manure-heap was piled up along by the
wall of the buildings, and among the fowls and the turkeys strutted
five or six peacocks, the pride and glory of every Caux farmyard.
The sheep-fold was long and the barn was lofty, and the walls of it
were as smooth as the palm of your hand. In the shed were two big
carts and four ploughs, complete with whips, collars and harness,
the blue cloth coverings of which were getting coated with the fine
dust that fell from the granaries. The yard sloped upwards, and was
planted with trees spaced at regular intervals, and the cheery clamour
of a flock of geese came clanging back from the neighbourhood of the
pond.
  A young woman wearing a dress of blue merino adorned with a triple
row of flounces came to the threshold to receive Monsieur Bovary.
She showed him into the kitchen, where a big fire was blazing, round
which the men's dinner was cooking in pots and pans of various
dimensions. Some damp clothes were drying in the great open chimney.
The shovel, the tongs and the nose of the bellows, all of colossal
size, shone like burnished steel, and all along the walls hung an
array of kitchen utensils in whose polished surface was reflected
the flickering light of the fire and the first gleams of the sun
that now came stealing through the windows.
                                                           {2 ^paragraph 15}
  Charles went upstairs to see the patient. He found him in bed
sweating under the blankets. He had flung his cotton night-cap to
the other end of the room. He was a fat little man of somewhere
about fifty, fair-complexioned, blue-eyed, and bald in front. And he
was wearing ear-rings. Beside him, on a chair, was a big decanter of
spirits, from which he would pour himself out a tot every now and
again to warm up his stomach a little. But as soon as he set eyes on
the doctor, he drew a dismal face, and instead of cursing, as he had
been doing for twelve hours past, fell to moaning feebly.
  The fracture was a simple one, without any sort of complication.
Charles could not have wished for a more straightforward job. He
remembered the bedside manner of the hospital doctors, and fell to
comforting his patient with all manner of facetious remarks,
chirurgeonly caresses, which are like oil on a bistoury. In order to
improvise some splints, someone was sent to fetch a bundle of laths
from the cartshed. Charles selected one, cut it into sections and
rubbed it smooth with a piece of broken glass, while the servant
girl tore some linen into strips for bandages, and Mademoiselle Emma
did her best to sew some wads. As she was a long time finding her
needle-case, her father lost patience. She said nothing, but all the
time she was sewing she kept pricking her fingers, which she forthwith
put in her mouth to suck.
  Charles was surprised to see how white her nails were. They were
brilliant and tapering, polished like bits of Dieppe ivory and trimmed
like almonds. Her hands, however, were not beautiful- perhaps a
shade too red and a little hard in the fingers. She herself was too
tall, and her figure lacked the soft, caressing outline. Her good
point was her eyes. They were dark, but her long lashes made them seem
black, and she looked at you frankly, with a sort of fearless candour.
  As soon as the leg was set, the doctor was invited by Monsieur
Rouault himself to 'have a bite' before he left.
  Charles went down into the room below. Two places, gleaming with
silver plate, had been laid on a small table at the foot of a great
four-poster hung with chintz with pictures of Turks on it. From an
oaken press, opposite the window, came a smell of iris and damp
sheets. On the floor, in the corner, stood a few sacks of corn. They
represented the overflow from the barn hard by, which was reached up
three stone steps. By way of ornament there hung from a nail in the
middle of the wall, the green paint of which was coming off in scales,
a head of Minerva in black crayon. It was in a gilt frame, and
inscribed at the bottom, in Gothic characters, 'To my dear Papa'.
                                                           {2 ^paragraph 20}
  They began by talking about the patient, and, from that, went on
to the weather and the severe cold, and the wolves that roamed the
country by night. Mademoiselle Rouault did not care much for the
country, especially now she had almost all the responsibility of the
farm on her shoulders. The room was chilly, and she shivered all the
time she was eating. This helped to display her full lips, which she
had a trick of biting whenever there was a lull in the conversation.
  Her neck was encircled by a white, turned-down collar. Her hair,
which was so smooth that the two dark strands seemed to be all of a
piece, was parted in the middle by a thin line that dipped slightly
with the curve of her skull and, almost hiding her ears, was
gathered together behind in a copious chignon. Her hair was waved
about the temples, a thing which our country doctor had never seen
in his life before. She had plenty of colour in her cheeks, and wore a
pair of tortoiseshell eye-glasses, man-fashion, on a cord attached
to a button of her bodice.
  When Charles, who had been upstairs to say good-bye to the farmer,
came back into the parlour before leaving he found her standing by the
window looking out into the garden at the bean-sticks that had been
blown down by the wind. She turned round.
  'Are you looking for anything?' she asked.
  'Thanks, I'm trying to find my riding-whip,' he replied. And he
began to grope about on the bed, behind the doors, under the chairs.
It had slipped down between the sacks and the wall. Mademoiselle
Emma caught sight of it, and began to reach down over the sacks.
Charles gallantly hastened to her assistance, and as he too extended
his arm in the same direction, he felt the young woman's back, as
she bent down, rubbing against his chest. She got up, red all over,
and, looking at him over her shoulder, handed him his whip.
                                                           {2 ^paragraph 25}
  Instead of returning to les Bertaux three days later, as he said
he would, he came back the very next day, and thereafter he put in
an appearance regularly twice a week, over and above the extra
visits he made every now and again as if by accident.
  Meanwhile the case went on satisfactorily; the patient's progress
was quite normal, and when, after forty-six days, Monsieur Rouault
started to try and get about without assistance, Monsieur Bovary began
to be regarded as a highly capable practitioner. Pere Rouault said the
very best doctors in Yvetot or Rouen itself could not have treated him
better.
  As for Charles, he did not ask himself how it was he liked going
to les Bertaux. If he had thought about it he would have, no doubt,
put it down to its being a serious case, or to the fees he expected to
get. But was that really the reason that made these visits to the farm
so pleasant an interlude in the dull monotony of his daily life? On
those days he would get up betimes, start off at the gallop and ride
hard all the way, dismounting to wipe his boots on the grass and to
put on his black gloves before going into the house. He liked to
find himself riding into the yard, he liked the pressure of the gate
against his shoulder as he pushed it open, the cock crowing on the
wall, the farm lads as they came forward to meet him. He liked the
barn, and the stables, and Pere Rouault, who patted the palm of his
hand and said he had saved his life; he liked the sound of
Mademoiselle Emma's little clogs on the clean stone floor of the
kitchen. Her high heels made her seem a little taller as she walked in
front of him, and the wooden soles made a little sharp tapping sound
as they clicked against the leather of her boots.
  When he took his departure, she always came with him to the top of
the steps, and if his horse had not been brought round, she would wait
there with him. There was no talking to be done, however, because they
had already said good-bye. And as she stood there, out in the open,
the wind would flurry the little ringlets at the back of her neck,
or set the strings of her apron dancing and twisting like streamers
about her hips. Once it happened to be thawing- the trees were all
running with water and the melting snow was dripping from the roofs.
She was on the doorstep, and she ran back for a parasol and put it up.
The parasol was a silk one, iridescent as a pigeon's breast, and the
sun shining through it cast little coloured flecks of dancing light on
the whiteness of her skin. She smiled beneath it at the gentle warmth,
and you could hear the sound of the drops as they fell, one by one, on
the taut surface of the silk.
  When Charles first began his visits to les Bertaux, Madame Bovary
junior never omitted to inquire for the patient, and she even went the
length of opening Monsieur Rouault's account on a nice clean page in
her double-entry ledger. But when she discovered that he had a
daughter, she made further investigations, and learned that
Mademoiselle Rouault had been to school at an Ursuline convent, that
she had been well 'finished' as the saying goes, and that in
consequence she had learnt dancing, geography, drawing, embroidery and
the piano. This was unendurable.
                                                           {2 ^paragraph 30}
  'So that is why he always looks so pleased when he is going to see
her. That is why he puts on his best waistcoat and risks spoiling it
in the rain. Horrid woman!'
  And she took an instinctive dislike to her. At first she relieved
her feelings by delivering herself of little veiled allusions. Charles
did not take them in. Then she indulged in more pointed remarks, which
he ignored for fear of a scene. At last she told him to his face
what she thought of him, and he didn't know what to reply. What did he
want to keep on going to les Bertaux for? Monsieur Rouault was all
right again now, and besides that, he hadn't paid his bill. Ah, she
knew all about it! There was someone else there, someone who was a
good talker, someone who was accomplished and clever. That's what he
was so fond of. He liked young, town-bred ladies! And then she would
start off again:
  'Old Rouault's daughter town-bred! Go along with you! Why, the
grandfather was a shepherd, and a cousin of theirs nearly found
himself in court for a piece of sharp practice in some dispute or
other. She's a nice one to put on airs and to go flaunting it in a
silk dress at church on Sunday, as though she fancied herself a
countess. Why, if it hadn't been that he did pretty well on his
colza crop last year, the poor man would have been hard put to it to
keep his head above water.'
  Charles yielded from very weariness, and gave up his visits to les
Bertaux. Heloise, after much weeping and a great outburst of
affection, had made him take his Bible oath not to go there any
more. And so he knuckled under. Nevertheless, his eagerness to go made
him ashamed of the servility of his conduct, and, with a sort of
childish hypocrisy, he persuaded himself that because he was forbidden
to see her, it was lawful for him to love her. And then, the widow was
lean and long in the tooth. All the year round she wore a little black
shawl with the point between her shoulder-blades. Her lank, hard
figure was encased in sheath-like dresses that, being always too short
for her, showed off her feet and the ribands of her broad shoes
criss-crossed over her grey worsted stockings.
  Every now and again Charles's mother would come to stay, but after a
few days the daughter-in-law seemed to sharpen her on her own file,
and then they would be at him like a couple of razors, scarifying
him with all manner of criticism and fault-finding. He oughtn't to eat
so much. What did he want to go and offer wine for to every chance
comer? What stupid obstinacy not to wear woollen underclothes!
                                                           {2 ^paragraph 35}
  It came to pass that one fine day in the early spring a notary of
Ingouville who had charge of the widow Dubuc's investments sailed away
and took with him all his clients' money. Heloise, it is true, still
had a share in a ship valued at six thousand francs and her house in
the Rue Saint-Francois; nevertheless, of all that fortune of hers
she had made such a song about, nothing save a few bits of furniture
and some odds and ends of wearing apparel had made its appearance in
the household. The thing had to be looked into thoroughly. The house
in Dieppe was mortgaged up to the hilt; what she had had with the
notary God only knew, and her share in the vessel was not more than
two hundred pounds. So she had lied, the good lady! Monsieur Bovary,
senior, flew into such a rage that he took up a chair and smashed it
on the stone floor, and told his wife she had been the ruin of her
son, yoking him to a jade like that, whose harness wasn't worth as
much as her skin. They came to Tostes and insisted on having things
out. There was a scene. Heloise in tears threw herself into her
husband's arms and implored him to defend her against his parents.
Charles tried to stand up for her. The old people were indignant and
left the house.
  But the blow had struck home. A week later, as she was hanging out
the washing in the yard, she was seized with an attack of
bloodspitting, and the next day, while Charles had his back to her,
drawing the window curtain, she exclaimed, 'Ah! mon Dieu!' heaved a
sigh and went off unconscious.
  She was dead! What an astounding thing!
  When all was over at the cemetery Charles returned to the house.
There was no one downstairs. He went up into the bedroom and saw her
dress hanging up at the foot of the bed. Then, leaning against the
secretaire, he remained there till it was dark, lost in sorrowful
meditation. After all, she had loved him.

{3
                                  3
-
              The bill is paid: Pull yourself together:
             Advantages of independence: A visit to Emma:
                 What will become of her?: Father and
                    daughter: The opened shutter:
                      Preparations for marriage.
                                                            {3 ^paragraph 5}
-
  ONE morning Pere Rouault came to pay Charles for setting his
broken leg: seventy-five francs in forty-sou pieces, and a turkey.
He had heard of his loss and consoled him as best he could.
  'I know what it is,' said he, clapping him on the shoulder. 'I've
been through the same thing myself. When I lost my poor wife I went
wandering about the fields in order to be alone. I chucked myself down
under a tree, called on God to hear me and told Him all kinds of silly
things. I wished I had been like the moles that I saw on the
branches with maggots swarming in their bellies- I wished myself dead,
in a word. And when I thought that other men, at that very moment, had
nice little wives to cuddle, I began to bang at the ground with my
stick. I was nearly mad, and went right off my food. The very
thought of going into a cafe turned me sick. You wouldn't believe.
Well, slowly and surely, as one day sent another day packing, spring
following on winter and autumn on summer, it began to ebb away bit
by bit, crumb by crumb. It went, it departed- it went under, I
should say, for you've always got something of it deep down inside,
a weight on your chest, as you might say. But because we've all got to
face it, there's no call for a man to fret himself into the grave
before his time or to want to die himself, because other folks be
dead. Pull yourself together, Monsieur Bovary; you'll get over it.
Come and see us; my daughter thinks a deal about you, you know, and
she says you would forget things that way. Spring will soon be here.
Come and knock over a rabbit or two in our warrens; it will be a
change for you.'
  Charles took his advice. He revisited les Bertaux, and found
everything there just the same as last time, that is to say just as it
was five months previously. The pear trees were already in bloom,
and Farmer Rouault, now firmly established on his legs again, was
always in and out, and that made things more lively.
  Deeming that it behoved him to lavish every possible attention on
the doctor, in view of the bereavement he had sustained, he begged him
not to remove his hat, spoke to him in a subdued voice as though he
were talking to an invalid, and went the length of pretending to be
annoyed that they had not got some special delicacy for him such as
a little jug or two of cream, or some stewed pears. He told him a
few stories; Charles was surprised to find himself laughing; but
suddenly he would remember his wife and grow grave again. Then the
coffee came in, and he thought about her no more.
                                                           {3 ^paragraph 10}
  He thought of her less and less as he got used to living alone.
The unaccustomed sweets of independence soon made his solitude more
bearable. He was free now to have his meals when he liked, he could go
out and come in without having to give explanations, and when he was
very tired he could stretch out his arms and legs in bed as far as
he liked. And then he pampered himself, indulged in self-pity, and let
people console him to the top of their bent. Moreover his wife's death
had been rather an advantage to him professionally, because, for a
whole month, people had said nothing else but 'Poor young fellow! What
a dreadful blow for him!' So his name had got about and his practice
had increased; and then again, he could go to les Bertaux just when he
thought he would. He was vaguely optimistic and indefinably happy; and
surveying himself in the glass as he brushed his whiskers, he
thought he had got better looking.
  He arrived at the farm one day about three o'clock; everyone was out
in the fields. He went into the kitchen, but did not see Emma at
first; the jalousies were closed. Through the slits in the wood, the
sunlight fell on the flagstones in long, slender rays, which were
broken into various angles by the furniture, and shone tremulously
on the ceiling. Flies on the table crawled up the glasses that had not
been cleared away and buzzed as they fell drowning in the dregs of the
cider. The daylight which shone down the chimney imparted a velvety
look to the soot in the fireplace and gave a bluish tinge to the
cold ashes. Between the window and the hearth sat Emma at her
needlework. She had no scarf about her neck, and tiny drops of
perspiration were visible on her shoulders.
  Like all country people, she asked him to have something to drink.
He said no, but she pressed him, and at last, with a laugh, invited
him to take a glass of liqueur with her. She went to the cupboard
and brought out a bottle of curacoa, reached down two small glasses,
filled one up to the brim, poured two or three drops into the other
and, clinking it with the doctor's, put it to her lips. As it was
nearly empty, she leaned back to drink, and with her head flung
back, her lips pouted and her neck thrust forward she began to laugh
because she could not taste anything, and at the same time, the tip of
her tongue, peeping out between her dainty teeth, made little darts at
the bottom of the glass.
  Then she sat down and took up her work again- a white cotton
stocking which she was darning. She worked with her head bent forward.
She did not talk, nor did Charles. The breeze stealing in under the
door blew a little dust along the stone floor. He watched it as it
eddied about, and the only sound he could hear was a buzzing in his
head and the cackling of a hen that had laid an egg in the yard
outside. From time to time Emma would freshen her cheeks with the
palms of her hands, which she cooled again by laying them on the
knob of the great andirons.
  She had been complaining ever since the spring began of fits of
deafness; she wondered whether sea-bathing would do her any good.
She began to talk about her convent, and Charles about his college
days; the words began to flow. They went upstairs to her room. She
showed him her old music-books, the little volumes she had had given
her as prizes, and the oak-leaf crowns lying neglected on the floor of
a cupboard. And she went on to speak of her mother, of the cemetery,
and even pointed out the bed in the garden where she gathered
flowers the first Friday in every month, to lay on her mother's grave.
But the gardener they had now didn't know his work; servants were so
unsatisfactory. She would have liked to live in town, at all events
during the winter months, although perhaps the long days made the
country still more boring in the summer; and according to the kind
of thing she was saying, her voice would be clear, shrill, or,
suddenly sinking into languor, linger in modulations which ended
almost in a whisper, as if she were speaking to herself- now joyfully,
with wide-open, innocent eyes, now with lids half-closed, and a look
of boredom, as her thoughts wandered aimlessly.
                                                           {3 ^paragraph 15}
  That night, as he was riding home, Charles recalled, one by one, the
various things she had said, trying to remember them exactly, to
discover their implications, so as to give himself an idea of the sort
of existence that had been hers in the times before he knew her. But
he was never able to visualize her in his thoughts as any different
from what she was when he saw her for the first time, or, just now,
when he had left her. Then he began to wonder what she would grow like
if she married- and whom she would marry. Alas! old Rouault was very
well off, and she herself... so beautiful! But Emma's countenance
would persist in coming back before his eyes, and a monotonous
something, like the buzzing of a gnat, kept sounding in his ears:
'Suppose you got married; suppose you got married'. That night he
could not sleep: something seemed to grip his throat, he felt thirsty.
He got up, took a drink from the water-jug and opened his window.
The sky was filled with stars, a warm breeze was blowing, and a long
way off, some dogs were barking. He turned his head towards les
Bertaux.
  Thinking that, after all, he had nothing to lose by it, Charles made
up his mind to take the fatal step when occasion offered. But every
time occasion did offer, the fear of being unable to express himself
suitably, sealed his lips.
  Farmer Rouault would not in the least have minded getting his
daughter off his hands, for she was very little use in the house.
Inwardly he made excuses for her, telling himself that she had too
much brains for farming, a calling on which a curse must rest, since
no one ever met a farmer who was really rich. So far from making a
fortune, the worthy man made a loss every year, for, if he excelled in
doing a deal, where he was up in all the tricks of the trade, for
farming in the strict sense of the word, and the internal management
of the place, you couldn't have found a man more thoroughly
unsuited. He always had his hand in his pocket, and spared no
expense in the matter of living, for he liked good food, a good fire
and a good bed. His tastes ran to rich cider, underdone legs of
mutton, coffee with a generous 'dash'. He always took his meals alone,
in the kitchen, by the fire, on a little table that was brought to him
already laid, as they do on the stage.
  When, therefore, he noticed that Charles's cheeks flushed when he
was near his daughter, an indication that one of these days he would
be asking to marry her, he pondered the whole matter over in his mind.
He certainly thought him a little bit of a muff and not exactly the
sort of fellow he would have chosen for a son-in-law; but he was
said to be steady, thrifty and well educated, and doubtless he would
not be too exacting about the dowry. And seeing that Farmer Rouault
had been obliged to sell twenty-two acres of land, that he owed
substantial sums to the mason and the harness-maker, and that the
shaft of the cider-press was in need of repair, he concluded by saying
to himself:
  'If he asks me, I shall let him have her.'
                                                           {3 ^paragraph 20}
  At Michaelmas Charles came to spend three days at les Bertaux. The
last of them had gone by like the other two, and he had put off
speaking from one quarter of an hour to another. Farmer Rouault had
come out to set him on his homeward way. They had reached a dip in the
road and were about to say good-bye. It was now or never. Charles gave
himself to the turn of the hedge, and at last, when they had passed
it, he said, almost inaudibly:
  'Maitre Rouault, I've something I want to say to you.'
  They stopped short. Charles held his peace.
  'Come now, out with it! What, d'you think I don't know what it's all
about?' said the farmer, laughing quietly.
  'Pere Rouault... pere Rouault...' stammered Charles.
                                                           {3 ^paragraph 25}
  'Why, for my part,' the farmer went on, 'there's nothing I should
like better. But, though the little maid is no doubt of the same
mind as I be, we must put the question to her, all the same. You go
on, then; I'll go back to the farm. If it's "yes", you understand
there'll be no need for you to come back, because of the people about.
Besides, it would be too much of a shock for her. But to put your mind
at rest, I'll push the shutter right back against the wall. You'll
be able to see it from the back there, by leaning over the hedge.'
  So saying, he took his departure.
  Charles tied his horse to a tree. He hurried back to take up his
position, and waited. Half an hour went by, then nineteen more
minutes, which he timed by his watch. Suddenly something clattered
against the wall. The shutter was right back and the catch still
rattling.
  Next day, by nine o'clock, he was at the farm. Emma blushed when
he came in, trying to laugh a little, too, to carry it off. Farmer
Rouault embraced his son-in-law elect. Then they began to talk about
the arrangements. They had plenty of time before them, since the
wedding could not take place with any decency till Charles was out
of mourning, and that meant about the spring of the following year.
  They went through the winter with this plan in view. Mademoiselle
Rouault was busy with her trousseau. Part of it was ordered from
Rouen; her night-dresses and night-caps she made herself, from
patterns lent her by friends. Whenever Charles visited the farm, the
wedding was the one topic of conversation. They discussed in what room
they should have the wedding breakfast; they wondered how many
plates would be wanted and what eatables they should have.
                                                           {3 ^paragraph 30}
  Emma, for her part, would have liked a torchlight wedding; but
Farmer Rouault couldn't understand that at all. So they had a great
party where they sat down forty-three to table and remained there
sixteen hours, a party which started again next day, and went on, more
or less, for several days following.

{4
                                  4
-
                   Wedding guests: Country finery:
           The procession from the church: A rural banquet:
                Confectioner's masterpiece: After the
                     feast: The bride's parents:
                        An old man's memories.
                                                            {4 ^paragraph 5}
-
  THE guests arrived betimes, in all sorts of conveyances- one-horse
tilt-carts, waggonettes, old cabriolets minus their hoods, carriers'
vans with leather curtains. The young folk from the villages close
by drove up in farm carts, standing up in rows, holding on to the side
rails to prevent themselves from falling, jolting along at a short,
sharp trot. Some of the people came from thirty miles away, from
such places as Goderville, Normanville and Cany. All the relations
on both sides had been invited. Old quarrels had been patched up,
and letters sent to friends they had not heard of for ages.
  From time to time the crack of a whip was heard the other side of
the hedge. Then the gate would swing open, and a cart would enter.
It would drive at a canter right up to the doorstep, pull up with a
jerk and discharge its occupants, who would clamber down on either
side, rubbing the stiffness out of their knees and stretching their
arms. The ladies, in their best bonnets, wore town-made costumes, gold
watch-chains, tippets with ends crossing over at the waist, or
little coloured kerchiefs fastened behind with a pin and showing a
little bit of neck at the back. The little boys, dressed like their
papas, seemed rather ill at ease in their new clothes (a good few of
them were sporting the first pair of boots they had ever had in
their lives), and alongside of them, not daring to utter a word, and
wearing her white first communion dress lengthened for the occasion,
you might see a gawky girl of anything from fourteen to sixteen- a
sister or a cousin, no doubt- all red and flustered, her hair
plastered down with strong-smelling pomade and terribly afraid of
soiling her gloves. As there were not enough stable-boys to
unharness all the horses, the gentlemen rolled up their sleeves and
turned-to themselves. According to their different social grades
they wore dress-coats, frock-coats, jackets, and cardigans- fine black
suits, venerable symbols of family respectability which only issued
from the press on occasions of special solemnity; frock-coats with
voluminous skirts floating in the wind, collars like cylinders and
pockets as big as sacks; coats of coarse homespun, of the sort usually
worn with a cap with a band of copper round the peak; very short
jackets with two buttons in the small of the back, close together like
a pair of eyes, the abbreviated tails of which looked as if they had
been cut out of a single block with a carpenter's chisel. Yet others
(but they, for sure, would have to sit below the salt) were wearing
their party smocks, that is to say, smocks with the collar turned down
over the shoulder, the back gathered in with little puckers, and
encircled, very low down, by an embroidered belt.
  And the shirts bulged out on the chests like breastplates. All the
gentlemen had had their hair cut, their ears were sticking out from
their heads, and they had all shaved especially close for the
occasion. Some of them who had got up before it was light, when it was
really too dark to shave, had gashes running crosswise under the nose,
or pieces as big as shillings taken out of their cheeks. The cold
air blowing against them on the journey had inflamed them so that
their broad, highly polished countenances were diversified like marble
with pink patches.
  The Mairie being but a mile or so from the farm they went on foot,
and as soon as the ceremony at the church was over they trudged back
again. The procession, at first keeping well together, resembled a
coloured scarf as it undulated through the countryside, winding slowly
along the narrow footpath through the green cornfields. But before
long it began to straggle, and broke up into separate groups that
loitered on the way to gossip. The fiddler went on ahead, the top of
his fiddle all bedecked with streamers; after him walked the
bridegroom and his bride, the relations and friends following in
what order they pleased. Last of all came the children, who amused
themselves by plucking little sprays of oats, or had a little game all
to themselves, when no one was looking. Emma's dress, which was too
long for her, dragged a little behind. Every now and again she would
stop to gather it up and, delicately, with her gloved hand, pick off
the blades of rough grass and bits of briar, while Charles stood
sheepishly by, waiting till she had finished. Farmer Rouault,
resplendent in a new silk hat, the cuffs of his best coat covering his
hands as far as his fingertips, had given his arm to the dowager
Madame Bovary. Monsieur Bovary senior, who in his heart thought all
these people very small beer indeed, had come in an austere frock-coat
of military cut with a single row of buttons. He was delivering
himself of some rather dubious jocularities to a fair-haired country
wench, who curtseyed, and blushed, and didn't know what to say. The
rest of the party talked business or indulged in a little skylarking
by way of warming themselves up for the gaiety to come; and whenever
you cared to listen, you could hear the scrape-scrape of the fiddler
who pranced on ahead, fiddling over hill and dale. When he noticed
that the party had fallen a good way behind, he stopped to take breath
and applied the rosin with vigour to his bow, so that the strings
should squeak the louder. Then he marched on again, swaying the top of
his instrument alternately up and down, the better to mark the time.
The sound of the fiddle startled the birds far and wide.
                                                           {4 ^paragraph 10}
  The table had been laid under the roof of the cartshed. Upon it
there stood four sirloins, six dishes of hashed chicken, stewed
veal, three legs of mutton and, in the centre, a comely roast
sucking-pig flanked with four hogs-puddings garnished with sorrel.
At each corner was a decanter filled with spirits. Sweet cider in
bottles was fizzling out round the corks, and every glass had
already been charged with wine to the brim. Yellow custard in great
dishes, which would undulate at the slightest jog of the table,
displayed on its smooth surface the initials of the wedded pair in
arabesques of candied peel. They had had recourse to a confectioner at
Yvetot for the tarts and the iced cakes. As he was just starting
business in the district, he had given a special eye to things; and
when the dessert was brought on, he himself, personally, carried in
a set piece which drew cries of admiration from the assembled company.
At the base of this erection was a rectangular piece of blue
cardboard, representing a temple with porticoes, colonnades, and
stucco statuettes all around in little niches embellished with
gilt-paper stars. Above it, on the second storey, stood a
castle-keep or donjon wrought in Savoy cake, surrounded with
diminutive fortifications in angelica, almonds, raisins, and bits of
orange; and finally, on the topmost level of all, which was nothing
less than a verdant meadow where there were rocks with pools of jam
and boats made out of nut-shells, was seen a little Cupid balancing
himself on a chocolate swing, the posts of which were tipped with
two real rosebuds.
  The feasting went on till evening. When they grew tired of
sitting, the gentlemen got up and strolled about the yard or played
a game of pitch-and-toss in the barn, after which they came back again
to the table. A few of them at the finish fell asleep and snored.
But when the coffee arrived, everything brightened up again. Songs
were struck up, feats of strength performed. They did some
weight-lifting, tried to raise the carts with their shoulders, made
risky jokes, embraced the ladies. At night, when it was time to go,
the horses, stuffed to the teeth with oats, could hardly be got into
the shafts. They plunged, they reared, they snapped their harness,
their masters cursed or laughed, and all night long, far and wide,
by the light of the moon, there were runaway vehicles going
hard-a-gallop, careering into ditches, bounding over stone-heaps,
dashing up embankments, with women-folk leaning out of the carriage
windows frantically trying to clutch the reins. Those who stayed on at
les Bertaux spent the night drinking in the kitchen. The children
dropped off to sleep on the floor under the benches.
  The bride had implored her father that the customary practical jokes
might be dispensed with. However, one of their cousins, a fish tranter
(who by the same token had brought a couple of soles as a wedding
present), was preparing to squirt water out of his mouth through the
keyhole, when Farmer Rouault came up just in time to stop him, and
explained that, his son-in-law being a professional man, such
buffoonery was out of place.
  However, it was difficult to make the cousin see things in this
light. In his own mind he accused Farmer Rouault of being stuck-up,
and went and made an alliance with four or five other guests sitting
apart in a corner who had happened to get inferior cuts of meat
several times running at dinner, and who, consequently, said they
had been shabbily treated, muttered unflattering things about their
host and secretly wished him no good.
  Madame Bovary senior had sat glum the whole day. No one had ever
consulted her about the bride's dress, or the arrangements for the
party. She went to bed early. Her husband did not follow her, but sent
into Saint Victor for some cigars and smoked away till daybreak,
wetting his gullet with kirschwasser toddy, which, being a mixture
hitherto unknown to the company, augmented still further the
consideration with which they regarded him.
                                                           {4 ^paragraph 15}
  Charles was by no means of a facetious disposition, and he made
rather a poor show during the festivity. He retorted with only
qualified success to the quips, puns, innuendoes, compliments and
ribald jests with which they made it their business to assail him as
soon as the soup was on the table.
  Next day, however, he seemed a different man. He was the one you
would have taken for the virgin of the pair, whereas the bride never
let fall anything that would give you the faintest hint of what she
thought about it all. Even the most knowing ones could make nothing of
her, though whenever she passed by they scrutinized her with the
most searching curiosity. But there was no reserve about Charles. He
called her his wife, his dear, kept asking where she was, looked about
for her everywhere and frequently took her out into the yard, where he
was seen away up among the trees with his arm round her waist, walking
along bending over her, and rumpling the front of her bodice with
his head.
  Two days after the wedding, the newly married couple departed.
Charles could not be away from his practice any longer. Farmer Rouault
sent them home in his carriage, and went with them himself as far as
Vassonville. There he kissed his daughter 'good-bye', stepped down
from the carriage and started for home again. When he had gone about a
hundred paces he halted, and gazing at the carriage vanishing into the
distance, its wheels turning in the dust, he heaved a profound sigh.
Then he thought of his own wedding, of the days gone by, of his wife's
first pregnancy. He, too, was very happy when he took her from her
father's, back to his own house; when she rode behind him on the
crupper, trotting through the snow; for the season was near
Christmas and the country all white. One of her arms was holding on to
him, and on the other she carried her basket. The wind fluttered the
long lace strings of her Caux head-dress and sometimes blew them
across her mouth, and when he turned his head he saw close by him,
just above his shoulder, her little rosy mouth smiling silently
beneath the gold rim of her bonnet. To warm her fingers she would
thrust them, every now and again, into his bosom. How far away it
seemed now, all that! Their son would have been thirty by this time if
he had lived. He looked back again, and there was nothing to be seen
along the road. He felt as gloomy as an empty house. And as these
tender memories and sombre reflections blended together in his
brain, a little clouded with the vapours of the merrymaking, he felt a
momentary desire to take a walk round by the churchyard. As,
however, he was afraid that the sight of it would only depress him
still more, he went straight home.
  Monsieur and Madame Charles arrived at Tostes about six o'clock. The
neighbours hastened to their windows to take a look at the doctor's
new wife.
  The old servant came to pay her respects and made excuses for the
dinner not being ready, and suggested that, in the meantime, Madame
should come and see over her house.

{5
                                  5
-
              Madame Bovary's new home: Bridal bouquets:
      Changes in the house: A new trap: Charles finds happiness:
                 Blowing kisses: The devoted husband:
                         Life and the books.
-
                                                            {5 ^paragraph 5}
  THE brick front looked straight on to the street, or rather road.
Hanging up behind the front door were a cloak with a narrow collar,
a bridle, a black leather cap, and, in the corner, on the floor, a
pair of leggings covered with stale mud. To the right was the parlour,
that is to say, the room where they lived and had their meals. The
canary-yellow wallpaper, relieved by a frieze of pallid flowers, shook
all over the badly hung canvas. White calico curtains with a red
border were hung crosswise along the windows and on the narrow
chimneypiece there stood, in all its glory, a clock adorned with a
bust of Hippocrates, between two plated candlesticks under a pair of
oval shades. On the other side of the passage was Charles's
consulting-room, a little box of a place about six feet wide,
furnished with a table, three upright chairs and one arm-chair. A
set of the Dictionary of Medical Science, the leaves of which were
uncut, but which bore evidence of the number of times it had changed
hands, took up almost all the six rows of the deal bookcase. The smell
of cooking would come in through the partition during consultations,
and if you were in the kitchen you could hear the patients coughing
and telling the doctor all about their ailments as plainly as if you
were in the room. Next, opening straight on to the yard, was a great
ramshackle room, fitted with a cooking range, which was used as a
place for storing wood and general lumber. It was full of old iron,
empty casks, worn-out gardening tools and all manner of other dusty
objects the use of which it was impossible to determine. The garden,
which was a good deal longer than it was broad, was flanked by two cob
walls covered with espaliered apricot trees, and extended as far as
the thorn hedge at the bottom, which divided it from the open
fields. In the middle there was a sundial made of slate standing on
a plaster pedestal. Four beds, planted with feeble-looking rose-trees,
were ranged symmetrically around a square plot that was devoted to the
rearing of more serviceable vegetation. At the far end, under some
spruce trees, a plaster cure was poring over his breviary.
  Emma went up to see the bedrooms. The first one was not furnished at
all, but the second, the nuptial chamber, had a mahogany bed in an
alcove with red hangings. A box made of cockle-shells adorned the
chest of drawers, and on the secretaire, by the window, stood a
glass bottle with a bunch of orange-blossom in it, tied with white
satin ribbon. It was a bridal bouquet, his first wife's bouquet. Her
eyes fell on it. Charles saw her looking at it, and took it up into
the attic. Sitting back in an arm-chair, while her things were being
unpacked, Emma's thoughts strayed to her own wedding bouquet, which
was stowed away in a bandbox, and she wondered, in a vague sort of
way, what would happen to it, if by chance she came to die.
  She at once set about making plans for alterations in her house. She
took the globes off the candlesticks, had the walls repapered, the
staircase painted and seats put in the garden, round the sundial.
She even wondered if it would be possible to have a little pond for
goldfish, with a fountain playing in the centre. And then her husband,
knowing how fond she was of driving, picked up a trap that was going
cheap. With a couple of new lamps and a pair of shiny leather
splashboards, it looked almost as smart as a tilbury.
  He was a happy man now, with never a care in the world. A meal, with
her sitting opposite him, a stroll along the highway of an evening,
the gleam of her hand as she set a ringlet straight, the sight of
her straw hat hung up on a window catch, and a host of other things
which Charles had never deemed capable of affording pleasure,
brought him a continuous succession of delights. In bed, of a morning,
with her head on the pillow beside him, he would gaze at the
sunbeams playing on the soft bloom of her cheek, half-hidden by the
scalloped strings of her night-cap. Looked at from so near, he thought
her eyes bigger than ever, especially when she first woke and
blinked them many times in succession. Black in the shade, deep blue
in the daylight, they seemed to be made of flakes of different
colours, dark and shadowy far down, brighter and brighter as they
neared the surface. His gaze would lose itself in their deeps, and
he could see within them a tiny picture of himself, down to the
shoulders, with his silk foulard about his head and the collar of
his night-shirt agape. Then he would get up and dress. She would
post herself at the window to see him start, and sit there leaning her
elbows on the sill between a pair of geraniums, wrapped in a
dressing-gown that hung in soft folds about her. Down in the street
below, Charles would be fixing on his spurs with his foot up on the
kerb, while she went on talking to him from above, pulling off with
her lips a bud or a blade of grass which she blew down to him and
which, eddying, floating, wheeling in the air like a bird, caught, ere
it fell to earth, in the tangled mane of the old white mare,
standing stock-still at the door. Mounted in the saddle, Charles would
blow her a kiss, and she would wave back to him. Then she would shut
the window, and off he would go. And up on the main road which
stretched, an endless riband of white dust, before him; down steep
lanes where the trees hung over like the hood of a cradle; through
bridle-paths where the corn stood as high as his knees, with the sun
on his back, the morning air in his nostrils, and sweet memories of
the night in his heart, he went his way, calm in mind and contented in
body, ruminating on his good fortune, even as men who have well
dined recall the savour of the delicacies they have eaten.
  When, until now, had he had a taste of life's good things? Was it in
his schooldays, shut up behind high walls, lonely and friendless,
among boys who were richer or cleverer than he, who mocked his country
speech, who jeered at his clothes and whose mothers came with their
muffs crammed full of pastries and good things? Or later when he was
studying medicine and never had the wherewithal to stand treat to some
little work-girl or other who might have become his mistress. After
that he had had fourteen months of married life with the widow,
whose feet, in bed, were like lumps of ice. But now this pretty little
woman whom he worshipped, was his for life. For him the whole universe
was contained within the silken circumference of her skirt. He
reproached himself for not making enough fuss of her; he was always
longing for the sight of her; he hurried back home, and mounted the
stairs with a beating heart. Emma, in the bedroom, would, perhaps,
be seated at her mirror. He would steal up noiselessly behind her, and
kiss her on the back, and she would give a little scream. He
couldn't help fiddling with her comb, her rings, her pieces of lace.
Sometimes he would give her great big kisses on the cheek, or else a
series of little ones all along her bare arm, from the tips of her
fingers right up to her shoulder. And she would push him away,
half-playful, half-impatient, as you do with a child that will cling
on behind you.
                                                           {5 ^paragraph 10}
  Before she married, she thought she was in love; but the happiness
that should have resulted from that love, somehow had not come. It
seemed to her that she must have made a mistake, have misunderstood in
some way or another. And Emma tried hard to discover what,
precisely, it was in life that was denoted by the words joy, passion,
intoxication, which had always looked so fine to her in books.

{6
                                  6
-
                Child's imaginings: Convent girlhood:
           The sewing woman's lessons: Glimpses of romance:
               Ballads and keepsakes: A lost vocation:
                        The coming of passion.
-
                                                            {6 ^paragraph 5}
  SHE had read Paul and Virginia, she had dreamed and dreamed of the
little bamboo house, of Domingo the nigger, Fidelio the dog, and
especially of some devoted little brother who runs off to find you
nice red fruit in trees as high as church steeples, or races bare-foot
along the sand with a bird's nest for you in his hand.
  When she was thirteen, her father came up himself with her to
Rouen to settle her in at the convent. They put up at an inn in the
Saint-Gervais quarter. Their supper was served on coloured plates
depicting the story of Mademoiselle de la Valliere. The wording
underneath, which had been worn away in places by the knives and
forks, spoke of the glories of religion, the delights of true love and
the splendours of Court life.
  So far from finding the convent dull in the early days, she loved
being with the kind sisters, who, to keep her amused, took her into
the chapel, reached through a long passage leading from the refectory.
She went in but little for games, acquired a good knowledge of the
catechism, and she it was who always answered the curate when any
knotty question was propounded to the class. Living perpetually in the
warm atmosphere of the classrooms, among these pale-faced women with
their beads and crosses, she insensibly yielded to the mystic
languor that exhales from the perfumes of the altar, the shadowy
coolness of the holy-water stoups, and the soft radiance of the
tapers. Instead of following the Mass, she pored upon the religious
pictures in azure borders that adorned her prayer-book and she loved
the sick lamb, the Sacred Heart pierced with spears, or poor Jesus
falling by the wayside upon His cross. By way of mortifying the
flesh she would try to go all day without food. And she ransacked
her brains to think of some disciplinary obligation she could lay upon
herself.
  When she went to confession, she invented little sins in order to
linger in the dim light, kneeling down with her hands clasped before
her face, listening to the murmuring tones of the priest above her.
Similes bringing in such words as 'betrothed', 'spouse', 'heavenly
bridegroom', and 'eternal marriage', which occur again and again in
sermons, awoke unsuspected sensations of pleasure in the hidden depths
of her soul.
  At night, before prayers, passages from a religious book would be
read aloud in the schoolroom. On weekdays it would generally be some
manual of Sacred History, or the Lectures of the Abbe Frayssinous; and
on Sundays, as a treat, extracts from the Genie du Christianisme.
With what enchantment she listened, at first, to the sonorous
lamentations of romantic melancholy borne on all the echoes of earth
and eternity! If her childhood had been spent in a shop parlour in
some busy street, she might have been susceptible to the poetic charms
of nature, which, generally speaking, only reach us through the medium
of books. But she knew only too much about the country; she was
familiar with the lowing of cattle, she knew all about milking and
ploughing. With eyes accustomed to look on the tranquil aspects of
nature, she turned for contrast to the wild and precipitous. She
only cared for the sea when it was lashed to fury by the storm, and
for verdure when it served as a background to a ruin. Everything
must needs minister to her personal longings, as it were, and she
thrust aside as of no account whatever everything that did not
immediately contribute to stir the emotions of her heart, for her
temperament was sentimental rather than artistic, seeking, not
pictures, but emotions.
                                                           {6 ^paragraph 10}
  There was a queer old maid at the convent who used to come for a
week every month to see to the linen. Under archiepiscopal protection,
as belonging to a family of gentlefolks that had been brought to
ruin during the Revolution, she took her meals in the refectory with
the sisters, and afterwards had a nice little gossip with them
before going upstairs again to her work. Often the boarders would slip
out of the schoolroom to go and see her. She knew by heart all the
romantic ballads of the last generation, and sang them in a low
voice while she was sewing. She would tell stories, retail the news,
and do little odd jobs for you in the town. She always carried a novel
of some sort or another in her pocket, which she would secretly lend
to some of the big girls, and of which the worthy spinster herself
would devour long passages in the intervals of her labours. It would
be all about love, lovers, fair maidens, persecuted ladies swooning in
lonely bowers, postilions murdered at every stage, horses ridden
till they dropped dead, gloomy forests, sombre forebodings, vows,
sobs, tears and kisses, skiffs gliding on moonlit waters, nightingales
in bosky dells, noble gentlemen as brave as lions and as gentle as
lambs, incredibly virtuous, always dressed in fine raiment and ready
to weep like urns. For six months, Emma, when she was fifteen,
battened on the garbage of these out-of-date 'Libraries of Choice
Fiction'. Later on she came to read Walter Scott and got
enthusiastic about historical things, forever dreaming of coffers,
guardrooms and minstrels. She would have loved to dwell in some old
manor, like those chatelaines with the long bodices who, beneath the
trefoil window with its Gothic arch, spent their days with their elbow
on the parapet and their chin in their hand, gazing far away into
the distance for the coming of a cavalier with a white plume in his
hat, galloping on a black charger. At that time she adored Mary
Queen of Scots and evinced an enthusiastic veneration for
illustrious or ill-fated women. Joan of Arc, Eloise, Agnes Sorel, la
belle Ferronniere and Clemence Isaure shone out, in her eyes, like
comets on the dark immensity of history, where there were still
discernible here and there, but more deeply involved in shadow and
quite disconnected one from another, Saint Louis and his oak, the
dying Bayard, certain cruelties perpetrated by Louis XI, some
fragmentary notions about Saint Bartholomew, the plumed hat of Henri
IV, and, still as distinct as ever, the recollection of that pictorial
dinner service on which the glorious days of King Louis XIV were
held up to admiration.
  In the music class, the songs she had to learn were all about little
angels with golden pinions, madonnas, lagoons, gondoliers,
compositions in which silly words and shoddy music did not avail to
conceal the attractive phantasmagoria of their sentimental substratum.
Some of her fellow pupils brought with them to the convent autograph
albums they had had given them as New Year's presents. They had to
be kept secret, and it was a terrible business to conceal them. The
girls read them in the dormitory. Delicately handling their
beautiful satin bindings, Emma gazed with wondering admiration on
the names of the authors unknown to literary fame, mostly counts or
viscounts, who had put their signatures to their contributions.
  She felt a thrill as she tried to blow back the tissue paper which
protected the pictures, and which rose in a curling fold at her breath
and then fell back softly on the page. She saw behind the rail of a
balcony a young man in a short cloak clasping in his arms a maiden
in a white dress wearing an alms-bag in her girdle; or else
portraits of anonymous English ladies with golden curls, who gazed
at you with big bright eyes beneath their round straw hats. They
were to be seen lolling in carriages, gliding through stately parks,
with a greyhound bounding on before a team of trotting horses guided
by a pair of diminutive postilions in white breeches. Others lay
dreamily reclining on sofas, an open letter beside them, gazing at the
moon through a half-open window partly veiled by a dark curtain. An
innocent damsel, with a tear on her cheek, was seen giving food to a
dove between the bars of a Gothic cage, or smiling, head on one
side, as, with tapering fingers, she pulled off, one by one, the
petals of a marguerite. And ye too were there, ye sultans with your
long pipes, stretched drowsily in the shade of an arbour in the arms
of Bayaderes, and Giaours, Turkish scimitars, Greek caps, and you,
above all, pale landscapes of dithyrambic regions, which so often
indulge us with a simultaneous display of palms and fir-trees,
tigers on this side and lions on that, Tartar minarets on the horizon,
Roman ruins in the foreground and kneeling camels in the middle
distance- the whole within a framework of virgin forest very neatly
trimmed, with a great perpendicular ray of sunlight trembling on the
water, whereon, in patches of white on a steel-grey surface, swans are
depicted proudly oaring their way far and near.
  The shade of the argand lamp fixed in the wall above Emma's head
illumined with its rays all these pictures of a romantic world which
passed one by one before her eyes in the silence of the dormitory, a
silence broken only by the distant sound of some belated fiacre
rolling home along the boulevards.
  At first, when her mother died, she wept bitterly. She had a
memorial card made containing the hair of the deceased, and, in a
letter which she wrote home to les Bertaux full of melancholy
reflections on life, she begged that when her time came she herself
might be laid in the same grave. The honest farmer thought she must be
ill, and came post-haste to see her. Emma was inwardly gratified at
the thought that she had risen at a bound to those ethereal heights
which the more commonplace beings of the earth are never permitted
to attain.
                                                           {6 ^paragraph 15}
  And so she suffered herself to glide along in these Lamartinian
meanderings. She listened to the sound of harps upon the waters, the
songs of dying swans, the sigh of falling leaves; she beheld
spotless virgins mounting heavenwards, and heard the voice of the
Eternal speaking in the valleys. And then it began to cloy: she wanted
no more of it; but nevertheless went on from force of habit and
afterwards from vanity, and was surprised in the end to find herself
quite calm, with no more trace of sadness in her heart than of
wrinkles on her brow.
  The good nuns, who had felt so sure of her vocation, perceived
with astonishment that Mademoiselle Rouault seemed to be slipping
through their fingers. They had, in fact, lavished upon her so many
offices, retreats, novenas and sermons, so thoroughly inculcated the
respect due to the saints and martyrs, and given her so many good
counsels regarding the modesty of her person and the welfare of her
soul, that she did what horses do when you hold them in too tight. She
pulled up short and jerked the bit from her mouth. Her mind, so
material amidst its enthusiasm- she who had loved the church for its
flowers, music for the words of its songs, and literature for its
passionate excitements- rebelled against the mysteries of faith,
even as she chafed against the restraint of discipline, a thing wholly
repugnant to her disposition. When her father took her away from the
school, the nuns saw her depart without regret. The Mother Superior
was of opinion that of late her conduct had been lacking in
reverence towards the Community.
  On her return home, Emma found some distraction in managing the
household, but she soon grew tired of the country and wished herself
back in her convent. When Charles came to les Bertaux for the first
time, she regarded herself as vastly disillusioned, one for whom
life had nothing new to offer, either in knowledge or experience.
  But her longing for a change; possibly, too, the unrest caused by
a masculine presence, had sufficed to make her believe that she was at
last possessed of that wonderful passion which, till then, had hovered
like a great bird with roseate wings, floating in the splendour of
poetic skies; and now she could not believe that her present
unemotional state was the bliss whereof she had dreamed.

{7
                                  7
-
                        A commonplace husband:
               Emma's accomplishments: Dainty meals and
          heavy boots: Mother-in-law: Monotonous affection:
          Why did I get married?: The beeches of Banneville:
                      The Marquis's invitation.
                                                            {7 ^paragraph 5}
-
  NEVERTHELESS she sometimes thought that they were the finest days of
her life, those 'honeymoon days' as people call them. To enjoy their
sweetness to the full it would doubtless have been necessary to go far
away to lands whose names fall like music upon the ear, where the
nuptials of lovers are followed by morrows of soft languor, lands
where, in post-chaises shaded with blue silk hoods, you slowly
mount, by precipitous roads, upward, ever upward, giving ear to the
postilion's song, echoed back from the mountain and blending with
the sound of goat bells and the soft murmur of the waterfall. When the
sun sinks down to rest, you breathe, beside the margin of a bay, the
fragrant odours of the lemon-trees; and then, by night, on the
terrace, alone with each other, with fingers intertwined, you gaze
at the stars and make plans for the future. It seemed to her that
there were certain places on the earth which naturally brought forth
happiness, as though it were a plant native to the soil, which could
not thrive elsewhere. Why could she not lean upon the balcony of
some Alpine chalet, or immure her sadness in a Scottish cottage,
with a husband in a black velvet coat with great flaps to the pockets,
brown boots, a peaked cap and ruffles on his sleeves?
  Possibly she would have liked to unburden herself to someone of
all these things; but how was she to describe this vague, elusive
unrest, that changed like the clouds and eddied like the winds? She
could not find the words, nor the occasion, nor the courage.
  If Charles had willed it, however; if it had occurred to him; if,
just once, his eyes had read her thoughts, it seemed to her that
abundant riches would have fallen from her heart, even as falls, at
the lightest touch, the ripe fruitage of a wall-tree. But as the
intimacy of their lives increased, so there grew within her a secret
feeling of estrangement from her husband.
  Charles's conversation was as flat as a street pavement, and
everyone's ideas but his own promenaded there all in their humdrum
dress, bringing no emotion to his face, no smile, no look of
contemplation. He confessed that when he lived in Rouen he never had
the slightest desire to go to the theatre to see a Paris company. He
couldn't swim, he couldn't fence, he couldn't fire a pistol, and one
day when she came across some term connected with horsemanship in a
novel she was reading, he couldn't tell her what it meant.
                                                           {7 ^paragraph 10}
  But wasn't it a man's business to know about things, to shine in all
sorts of activities, to display the energy of the passionate lover, to
acquaint you with the amenities of life, and to initiate you into
all its mysteries? But he couldn't teach anybody anything, that man.
He knew nothing, and he wanted nothing. He thought she was happy;
and his immovable placidity, his ponderous serenity, the very
contentment of which she herself was the cause, got on her nerves.
  Sometimes she would take up drawing. And it was a great thing for
Charles to be there, standing bolt upright, watching her leaning
over her drawing-block, screwing up her eyes to get a better view of
her work, or rolling up little balls of bread between her finger and
thumb. When she played the piano, the faster flashed her fingers the
more he stared in wonderment. She struck the notes with a dashing
air and ran down the whole length of the keyboard without a stop.
Under her rousing touch, the ancient instrument could be heard at
the other end of the village, if she had the window open, and
frequently the bailiffs clerk, walking along the road bare-headed
and in his slippers, would stop and listen, with his papers in his
hand.
  Nevertheless, Emma was a first-rate manager. She sent the patients
their accounts in neatly worded letters that had nothing of the
tradesman's invoice about them. When of a Sunday they had a
neighbour in to dinner, she always contrived to put some dainty little
dish on the table. She was an adept at arranging greengages in
pyramids on vine leaves, served her jams and jellies not in their pots
but in little dishes, and even talked about buying some finger-bowls
for dessert. All this had a favourable reaction on Bovary's position
in the place.
  Charles came to think himself luckier than ever, to have such a
woman for his wife. He would point with pride to two little pencil
sketches of hers in the dining-room. He had had them put into very
broad frames and hung up on the wall with long green cords. After
church, he was to be seen standing on his doorstep in a pair of
handsome embroidered slippers. It would sometimes be late before he
got in from his rounds- perhaps ten o'clock, occasionally even
midnight. He would want something to eat, and as the maid would have
gone to bed, Emma herself would put the things on the table. He
would take off his frock coat so as to eat in greater comfort. One
after another he would recite to her the names of all the people he
had met, the villages he had been to and the medicines he had
prescribed; and, feeling thoroughly pleased with himself, would polish
off the remains of the hash, pare the rind from his cheese, munch an
apple, empty the decanter and so to bed, where he would turn over on
his back and snore.
  As he had always been used to wearing a nightcap, his silk wrap kept
slipping away from his ears, with the result that, in the morning, his
hair was hanging in disorder all over his face, covered with down from
the pillow that had worked out of its pillow-slip during the night. He
always wore heavy boots, which had two deep creases running diagonally
from the top of the upper to the ankle, the rest of the boot being
stretched out in a straight line as though the foot inside it were
made of wood. He said they were quite good enough for the country.
                                                           {7 ^paragraph 15}
  His mother approved of his economy. She came to see him sometimes,
as she used to do during his first marriage when there had been a more
or less serious squabble at home. But Madame Bovary senior seemed
prejudiced against her daughter-in-law. She regarded her as too big in
her ideas for their rank in life. They used enough wood, sugar and
candles for a mansion, and the amount of fuel they burnt in the
kitchen would have cooked a dinner for twenty-five people. She
stored away the linen in the cupboards and taught her to see that
she got the right weight when the butcher came with the meat. Emma
interpreted these lessons as Madame Bovary bestowed them- liberally.
All day long it was nothing but 'my dear' here and 'yes mother' there,
accompanied by a little quiver of the lips, each saying nice things to
the other in a voice trembling with anger.
  In Madame Dubuc's day, the old lady still regarded herself as the
favourite, but now Charles was so wrapt up in Emma that she felt as if
she had been thrown over, as if she had been robbed of something
that belonged to her. And she contemplated her son's happiness in
gloomy silence, as a ruined man might look through the window and
see strangers sitting at table in his old home. She would tell him, by
way of recalling old times, about the trouble she had taken and the
sacrifices she had made for him, and, comparing all this with the
casual way Emma treated him, wound up by saying it was silly to
worship her as if there were no one else in the world.
  Charles did not know what to say; he respected his mother, he
loved his wife, immeasurably. The judgement of the one he deemed
infallible, the conduct of the other irreproachable. When Madame
Bovary had gone, he would hazard, very tentatively and in the same
terms, one or two of the more harmless criticisms he had heard his
mother advance. Emma soon showed him his mistake, and packed him off
to his patients.
  Nevertheless, in accordance with theories she considered sound,
she tried to physic herself with love. By moonlight, in the garden,
she recited all the love poetry she knew and sighed and sang of love's
sweet melancholy. But afterwards she found herself not a whit less
calm, and Charles not a whit more amorous or emotional.
  When she had thus struck the flint upon her heart without
producing a single spark, unable either to understand what she did not
experience or to believe in anything that did not show itself in the
customary forms, it dawned on her that Charles's love had passed
through the passionate stage. His emotional expansions had become
regular; he embraced her at certain fixed periods. It was just another
habit added to the rest, like a humdrum dessert rounding off a humdrum
dinner.
                                                           {7 ^paragraph 20}
  A gamekeeper whom the doctor had pulled through an attack of
congestion of the lungs had presented Madame with a little Italian
greyhound. She took it with her for walks, for she used to go out
sometimes just to get a few moments to herself and to enjoy a change
from the everlasting garden and the dusty highroad.
  She would go as far as the beechwoods of Banneville, along by the
deserted summer-house at the turn of the wall, towards the open
country. There, in the ditch, amid the grass, are towering rushes with
leaves as sharp as knives.
  First of all she would take a look round, to see if anything had
changed since last she was there. She found the foxgloves and the
wallflowers in their old places, and the clumps of nettles round about
the big stones, and the patches of lichen along the three windows with
their never-opened shutters shedding their dust of dry-rot on the
rusty iron bars. Her thoughts, vagrant at first, strayed hither and
thither, wandering as they listed, like her dog, that careered round
and round about the fields, yapping after yellow butterflies, giving
chase to the field-mice or nibbling at the poppies on the fringe of
a wheat patch. Then, gradually, her thoughts would begin to focus
themselves, and sitting on the grass, giving it little pokes with
the point of her parasol, she would keep saying to herself,
  'Mon Dieu, why did I get married!'
  She wondered whether, if things had taken a different turn, she
might not have encountered a different sort of man; and she tried to
think what her life might have been if things that hadn't happened had
come to pass, and what manner of man was this husband whom she had
never met. Husbands were not all like him, that was quite certain.
Hers might have been handsome, clever, distinguished, fascinating,
as doubtless were the men who had married the other girls she had
known at the convent. What were they doing now? Enjoying town life,
the stir and bustle of the streets, going to theatres and dances,
the sort of life that enlivens the heart and quickens the senses.
But for her, life was as cold as an attic with a window looking to the
north, and ennui, like a spider, was silently spinning its shadowy web
in every cranny of her heart.
                                                           {7 ^paragraph 25}
  She thought of the prize days, when she mounted the platform to
receive her little crowns. With her hair in plaits, her white frock
and her kid shoes, she looked such a nice little girl, and as she made
her way back to her seat, the gentlemen would lean over and pay her
pretty compliments. The courtyard would be thronged with carriages,
and people would smilingly wave her good-bye from the carriage
windows. The music-master, carrying his violin case, would give her
a nod as he passed. How far away it all seemed! How far away! She
called Djali to come to her, took her between her knees, stroked her
long, graceful head and said,
  'Come, kiss your mistress; you have no worries, have you?'
  Then she would look musingly into the creature's beautiful, sad
eyes. The dog would open her jaws in a leisurely yawn. A feeling of
tenderness would come over her, and, pretending the animal was
herself, she would talk to her aloud as though she were comforting
someone in distress.
  Sometimes the wind came in gusts, and, sweeping in from the Channel,
leapt at a bound over all the uplands of Caux, bearing with it, far
inland, the salt, sharp savour of the sea. The bowed reeds whistled
along the ground, and the leaves of the beech-trees sang as they
fluttered wildly in the wind, while their crests, swaying
ceaselessly to and fro, sounded their unending murmur. Emma drew her
shawl closely about her shoulders and rose to go.
  In the avenue, a green light, reflected by the foliage, lit up the
mossy carpet which crackled softly beneath her feet. The sun was
setting; the sky glowed red between the branches, and the serried
trunks of the trees, planted in regular lines, gloomed like a dark
colonnade against a background of gold. A sense of fear crept over
her, she called Djali and walked quickly back to Tostes, along the
road. Arriving home, she sank exhausted into an easy-chair, and
never uttered a word the evening through.
                                                           {7 ^paragraph 30}
  But towards the end of September, there befell an extraordinary
event in her life: she was invited to the Marquis d'Andervilliers'
at la Vaubyessard. The Marquis, who had held office as Secretary of
State under the Restoration, was anxious to get back into politics,
and was sedulously nursing the constituency with a view to putting
up as a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies. During the winter
months he made liberal distributions of fuel, and was always to the
fore in demanding new roads for his district. When the last heat
wave was at its height, he had developed an abscess in the mouth,
which Charles had managed to cure as if by a miracle, lancing it in
the nick of time. The steward who was sent to Tostes to pay for the
operation announced, when he got back, that he had seen some
magnificent cherries in the doctor's little garden. Now cherries did
not thrive at la Vaubyessard, and my lord Marquis asked Bovary to
let him have a few slips. He made a point of tendering his thanks in
person, saw Emma, and noted that she had a pretty figure and good
manners. It was therefore held at the chateau that they would not be
overpassing the limits of condescension, or doing themselves any harm,
if they sent the young people an invitation.
  And so it came to pass that one Wednesday, at three o'clock,
Monsieur and Madame Bovary, perched up in their two-wheel trap, set
out for la Vaubyessard, with a big travelling bag tied on behind,
and a hat-box fixed in front of the apron. Charles also had a
bandbox between his legs.
  They arrived when it was getting dusk, just as the lamps were
being lit in the park, to show the carriages their way.

{8
                                  8
-
                 The Chateau de Vaubyessard: Dinner:
            A retired courtier: The dance and the guests:
                  A noble partner: Return to Tostes:
                     Charles finds a cigar-case:
                        Nastasie gets notice.
                                                            {8 ^paragraph 5}
-
  THE chateau, an extensive modern building in the Renaissance
style, with two projecting wings and three flights of stone steps, was
situated at the foot of a wide stretch of parkland, on which some
cattle were grazing between groups of tall, umbrageous trees, while
little clumps of flowering shrubs- rhododendrons, syringas and
guelder-roses- clustered, in their varying shades of green, along
the curving line of the gravel drive. A stream flowed on beneath a
bridge, and through the gathering mist were to be seen some thatched
buildings, dotted about in the meadowland, which was bounded on either
side by two gently sloping, wooded hills; and in the rear, in two
parallel lines, were the stables and coach-house, all that was left
standing of the original chateau when it was pulled down.
  Charles drew up at the middle flight of steps. The servants appeared
on the scene. The Marquis came forward, and, offering his arm to the
doctor's lady, escorted her into the hall.
  It was floored with marble, and very lofty, and the mingled sound of
footsteps and voices awoke the echoes as in a church. Facing the
entrance was a straight staircase, and, to the left, a gallery,
looking on to the garden, led to the billiard-room, in which the click
of the ivory balls was audible as soon as one entered the front
door. As she passed through it on her way to the drawing-room Emma
perceived some dignified-looking men grouped round the table. They
were all wearing high cravats and decorations, and smiled to
themselves as they got their cues into position for a stroke. On the
sombre woodwork of the panelled walls hung great gilt frames with
names lettered in black along the lower border. She read: 'Jean
Antoine d'Andervilliers d'Yverbonvine, Comte de la Vaubyessard and
Baron de la Fresnaye, killed at the battle of Coutras, 20th October
1587', and on another 'Jean Antoine Henry Guy d'Andervilliers de la
Vaubyessard, Admiral of France and Knight of the Order of Saint
Michael, wounded at la Hougue Saint Vaast, the 29th May, 1692, died at
la Vaubyessard the 23rd January, 1693'. The other inscriptions were
hardly discernible, for the lampshades which concentrated the light on
the green surface of the billiard-table left the rest of the room in
semi-darkness. Burnishing the dark canvases, the light splintered
itself in little delicate veins as it fell on the cracks in the
varnish, and from all these various dark squares bordered with gold
there stood out, here and there, some brighter portion of the picture-
a pale brow, a pair of eyes that seemed to be gazing at you, wigs that
uncoiled themselves on the powdery shoulders of the scarlet coats, or,
maybe, the buckle of a garter above a well-turned calf.
  The Marquis opened the door of the drawing-room. One of the ladies
rose (it was the Marquise herself) and came forward to greet Emma. She
made her sit down beside her on a little sofa, and began to chat
with easy unconstraint, as if she had known her for a long time. She
was a woman of about forty, with fine shoulders, an aquiline nose, and
a languid voice, and that night she was wearing, upon her auburn hair,
a plain lace fichu which fell in a point behind her shoulders. A
fair-complexioned young person sat close by in a high-backed chair,
and some gentlemen, wearing flowers in their button-holes, lounged
about the fireplace talking to the ladies.
                                                           {8 ^paragraph 10}
  At seven o'clock dinner was served. The men, who were in the
majority, were seated at the first table, in the vestibule; the ladies
at the second, in the dining-room, with the Marquis and the Marquise.
  Emma felt on entering as though she were swathed about with warm
air, blended of the perfume of flowers and fine linen, the savour of
viands and the delicate odour of truffles. The flambeaux in the
candelabra were mirrored in long tongues of light in the silver
dish-covers. The facets of the cut glass, veiled by a softening
mist, radiated a delicate glimmer; down the whole table's length
were floral bouquets ranged in line, and on the wide-rimmed plates
stood napkins folded like bishops' mitres, each holding in its opening
a little oval roll. Lobsters protruded their red claws over the dish's
edge. There were masses of splendid fruit piled on moss in filigree
baskets; quails decked in their plumage. It was a medley of fragrant
odours. In silk stockings, knee breeches, white stock and frilled
shirt, the major-domo, solemn as a judge, handed the dishes between
the shoulders of the guests, and with a magic twist of his spoon
caused the morsel of your choice to leap on to your plate. On the high
porcelain stove, with its copper rods, stood the statue of a woman
draped to the chin, looking calmly down on the thronged apartment.
  Madame Bovary noticed that a number of ladies had not put their
gloves in their glasses.
  At the top end of the table, alone among the crowd of women, bending
down over a well-filled plate, with his napkin tied round his neck
like a child's bib, sat an old man, who, as he ate, let little drops
of gravy trickle from his mouth. His eyes were weak and watery, and he
wore a little pigtail tied with a bow of black ribbon. He was the
Marquis's father-in-law, the old Duc de Laverdiere, the quondam
favourite of the Comte d'Artois, in the old hunting days at
Vaudreuil at the Marquis de Conflans's. The gossips said he had been
one of Marie Antoinette's lovers, coming between Messieurs de Coigny
and de Lauzun. He had led a tumultuous and dissolute life, crammed
full of duels and gambling and abductions. He had got through all
his money, and had been the terror of his family. A footman, stationed
behind his chair, would lean down and bawl into his ear the names of
the several dishes, and with stammering tongue and trembling fingers
he would indicate the one he desired.
  Try as she would, Emma simply could not keep her eyes off the old
man and his drooping lips. She gazed at him as though he were some
extraordinary phenomenon, something august. He had lived at Court
and shared the couch of Queens!
                                                           {8 ^paragraph 15}
  The glasses were filled with iced champagne. Emma felt a thrill go
through her as she tasted the coldness of it in her mouth. She had
never seen a pomegranate or eaten a pineapple. The very caster sugar
seemed whiter here, and more finely powdered, than elsewhere.
  At length the ladies went upstairs to make ready for the ball.
Emma dressed with all the scrupulous care of an actress about to
make her debut. She did her hair as the man at the shop had directed
her, and then she proceeded to array herself in the delicate muslin
frock that had been carefully laid out upon the bed.
  Charles's trousers pinched him round the middle. 'And what a
nuisance these foot-straps will be when I'm dancing,' he remarked.
  'Dancing?' said Emma.
  'Yes!'
                                                           {8 ^paragraph 20}
  'Why, you must be off your head! People would laugh at you. Sit
still and watch the others; it looks better for a doctor.'
  Charles held his peace. He kept pacing up and down the room, waiting
for Emma to finish.
  He saw her from behind, in the glass, between two candles. Her
eyes seemed darker than ever. Her frontlets, curving softly outwards
near the ears, shone with an azure radiance. In her chignon, a rose
trembled on its fragile stem with artificial dewdrops on the tips of
its petals. Her dress was pale saffron, trimmed with three bunches
of pompon roses mixed with green.
  Charles stole up and kissed her on the shoulder.
  'Leave me alone,' she said, 'you'll ruin my dress.'
                                                           {8 ^paragraph 25}
  They heard the preluding flourish of the violins and the notes of
a horn. Down the stairs she went, hardly able to keep herself from
running.
  The quadrilles had begun, and fresh guests were arriving. People
were thronging into the room. She sat down on a settle, near the door.
The quadrille being over, the floor was free for the groups of men who
were lounging about talking, and for servants in livery who were going
round with large trays. All along the rows of seated women there was a
flutter of painted fans, a galaxy of smiles half-hidden,
half-revealed, by bouquets; gold-mounted scent-bottles were toyed with
by dainty hands encased in gloves that showed the moulding of the
nails and fastened tight about the wrist. Lace frills, diamond
brooches, medallion bracelets, fluttered on bodices, glittered on
bosoms and jingled on naked arms. Tresses, patted well down on the
forehead and twisted in a coil at the back of the neck, were adorned
with forget-me-nots, jasmine, pomegranate flowers, wheatears or
cornflowers, in wreaths, or bunches, or sprays. Stolid in their
places, solemn-visaged dowagers glowered beneath their red silk
turbans.
  Emma's heart beat high when, her partner holding her by the tips
of her fingers, she took her place in line and stood waiting for the
signal to begin. But her nervousness soon disappeared, and, swaying in
rhythm to the music, she glided on, with little graceful movements
of her neck. A smile came to her lips at certain subtleties of the
violin, which sometimes went on playing when the other instruments
were mute; and you could hear the jingle of the louis d'or as they
were poured out on to the card-tables. Then the whole band would
strike up anew, the cornet would sound a rousing note, once more the
dancers' feet would move in time to the music, skirts would puff out
and lightly touch one another as they passed, hands met and parted,
and the same pair of eyes, drooping low before you, would return again
and fix themselves on yours.
  A few men (some fifteen or so), of ages varying from twenty-five
to forty, who were scattered about among the dancers or standing
chatting in the doorways, were distinguished from the general run by a
sort of family likeness which one could not help observing despite the
disparities of age, dress and feature.
  Their clothes seemed better cut and made of better stuff, and
their hair, brought forward in waves towards the temples, seemed
lustrous with more delicate pomade. They had the sort of complexion
rich people nearly always have- the clear, pale tint that dainty white
china, shimmering satin, and beautiful polished furniture, bring out
into stronger relief, a tint kept fresh by a well-chosen diet of
dainty foods. Their cravats were low enough to give free play to their
necks; their flowing whiskers fell on the broad lapels of their coats;
they wiped their lips on perfumed handkerchiefs adorned with large
monograms. Those who were getting on in years looked like young men,
while the young men had a certain suggestion of maturity about them.
Their air of calm indifference betokened the serenity of passions that
daily found appeasement; yet all their fine and gentle ways did not
hide that sort of autocratic manner that comes of dealing with
things spirited but not too intractable, things that provoke one's
prowess or titillate one's vanity- the handling of a thoroughbred,
or the conquest of a beautiful wanton.
                                                           {8 ^paragraph 30}
  Three paces away from Emma, a fine gentleman in a blue coat was
comparing notes about Italy with a pale young woman who was wearing
some magnificent pearls. They discussed the size of the pillars in St.
Peter's, they talked of Tivoli, Vesuvius, Castellamare, the Cassini,
the roses at Genoa, the Coliseum by moonlight. With her other ear,
Emma was listening to a conversation full of words that were quite
unintelligible to her. A group of people were standing round a very
young man who, the week before, had beaten 'Miss Arabella' and
'Romulus', and won a cool two thousand by jumping a ditch in
England. One complained that his racers were out of condition, another
of a printer's error that had made nonsense of his horse's name.
  The air in the ballroom felt close; the lamps were growing dim.
The guests began to flock into the billiard-room. A footman got up
on a chair and broke a couple of window-panes. Hearing the crash of
glass, Madame Bovary looked round and saw the faces of a number of
peasants who were outside in the garden peering in through the
windows. Then she thought of les Bertaux. She saw the farm, and the
muddy pond, her father in his blouse out in the orchard, and again she
saw herself in the dairy, skimming the cream off the milk-pans with
her finger.
  But the memories of her past life, which till then had always been
so clear and definite, vanished so completely in the splendours of the
moment that she could hardly persuade herself they were not a dream.
There she was. No doubt about that! But everything save the ball,
the future no less than the past, was enveloped in a shadow. She was
just then eating a maraschino ice from a silver-gilt cup which she was
holding in her left hand, and she half closed her eyes as she put
the spoon between her lips.
  Hard by, a lady dropped her fan. A gentleman was passing.
  'Would you be kind enough,' said she, 'to pick up my fan? It has
fallen behind the sofa here.'
                                                           {8 ^paragraph 35}
  The gentleman bowed, and as he made as though to reach down for
the fan, Emma noticed the young woman's hand toss something white
and triangular into his hat. The gentleman, having recovered the
fan, presented it to the lady, with much deference. She nodded her
thanks and began smelling at her bouquet.
  After supper, at which the wines of Spain and the Rhineland flowed
freely, with abundance of potage a la bisque, and potage au lait
d'amandes, puddings a la Trafalgar and all manner of cold meats
in aspic that trembled in their dishes, the carriages began to drive
off one after another. By drawing aside a corner of the lace curtain
you could see the light of their lamps gliding away into the darkness.
The seats began to empty; there were still a few people playing cards,
the musicians were cooling the tips of their fingers on their tongues.
Charles was half-asleep with his back against a door.
  It was three in the morning when the cotillon began. Emma had
never learnt to waltz. But everybody was waltzing, Mademoiselle
d'Andervilliers herself and the Marquise. Only the guests who were
staying the night at the chateau were still there, about a dozen in
all.
  However, one of the waltzers, familiarly known as the Vicomte, whose
low-cut waistcoat fitted him like a glove, came a second time to
invite Madame Bovary to join in the dance, vowing that he would
guide her and that she would acquit herself admirably.
  They began slowly, and then increased their speed. They turned,
and everything about them turned- lamps, furniture, wainscoting, and
the floor like a disc on a pivot. As they swung past the doors, Emma's
dress blew up to her drawers. Their legs intertwined. He looked down
at her, she raised her eyes to his; a feeling of dizziness began to
come over her and she stopped. Then off they went again, more
swiftly than ever; the Vicomte, waltzing her along, raced with her out
of sight to the far end of the gallery, where, gasping for breath, she
nearly fell and, for a moment, dropped her head upon his breast. And
then, still turning, but more gently now, he conducted her to her
seat. She leaned back against the wall and covered her eyes with her
hands.
                                                           {8 ^paragraph 40}
  When she opened them again, she saw in the middle of the room a lady
seated on a stool with three gentlemen kneeling at her feet. She chose
the Vicomte, and the violins began again. Everyone's eyes were upon
them. They passed and repassed, she gliding motionless as a statue,
her chin bowed down, he always in the same pose, his figure arched,
his elbow rounded, his chin well forward. Ah, she could waltz, she
could! They went on and on and wore down all their rivals.
  Then there was a little more conversation, and after saying
goodnight or rather good-morning, the guests of the chateau went off
to bed.
  Charles dragged himself upstairs, clinging to the banisters. His
legs felt like dropping off. For five mortal hours he had been
standing by the card-tables, watching people play whist, and unable to
make head or tail of it. It is not to be wondered at, therefore,
that he heaved a sigh of satisfaction as he pulled off his boots.
  Emma wrapped a shawl round her shoulders, opened the window and
sat with her head in her hand.
  The night was dark. A few drops of rain were falling. She breathed
in the damp wind that blew cool against her eyelids. The dance music
was still thrumming in her ears, and she tried to keep awake in
order to prolong the illusion of a luxurious existence to which she
would soon have to say farewell.
                                                           {8 ^paragraph 45}
  Dawn began to break. Long she gazed at the windows of the chateau,
trying to guess which were the rooms of the people who had impressed
her the night before. She would have liked to know all about their
lives, to have entered into them and mingled with them. But she was
shivering with cold. She undressed and snuggled down between the
sheets, close up to Charles, who was sound asleep.
  There was a numerous company at dejeuner, which was all over in
ten minutes. To the doctor's surprise, no liqueurs were served.
After that, Mademoiselle d'Andervilliers collected some pieces of
bread and put them into a basket to give to the swans on the lake, and
they took a stroll through the greenhouse, where queer-looking plants,
bristling with hairs, reared themselves in pyramids under hanging
vases whence, as from swarming serpents' nests, long green trailers,
intertwisted one with another, hung down over the sides. The orangery,
which was at the far end, led by a covered way to the outbuildings
of the chateau. The Marquis, to amuse the young woman, took her to see
the stables. Above the basket-shaped racks there were china tablets
giving the names of the respective horses in black letters. The
animals got quite excited when anyone passed by and gave them the
familiar greeting. The floor of the harness-room was polished like the
parquet of a salon. The carriage harness was hung up in the centre
on two revolving pillars, and the bits, whips, spurs and curbs were
suspended in rows all along the walls.
  Meanwhile Charles went to ask one of the men to put his horse to.
The trap was brought round, their various belongings were stowed away.
Then, having taken a courteous leave of the Marquis and Marquise,
the Bovarys turned their horse's head towards Tostes and home. Emma
sat in silence, staring absently at the revolving wheels. Charles,
perched on the extreme edge of the seat, was driving with his arms
wide apart, and between the shafts, that were much too wide for her,
the little mare went jogging patiently along. The reins hung loose
on her crupper and were bathed in foamy sweat. The trunk, tied on
behind, bumped rhythmically against the back of the trap.
  They had reached the high ground about Thibourville when, all of a
sudden, a party of gentlemen, laughing and smoking cigars, cantered
merrily past them. Emma thought she recognized the Vicomte. She turned
round to have another look, but they had already reached the
horizon, and all she could see were a few heads bobbing up and down to
the varying cadence of trot and gallop.
  About three-quarters of a mile farther on they had to stop to mend a
broken trace with string.
                                                           {8 ^paragraph 50}
  But Charles, giving a final glance at the harness, noticed something
lying on the ground between his horse's legs. He stooped down and
picked up a cigar-case lined with green silk, with a coat of arms in
the centre, like the blazon on a carriage door, and a couple of cigars
inside it.
  'They'll come in for this evening after dinner.'
  'You smoke, then?' she asked.
  'Sometimes, when there's anything to smoke.'
  He pocketed his find and whipped up his nag.
                                                           {8 ^paragraph 55}
  When they got home, the dinner wasn't ready. Madame flew into a
rage. Nastasie answered back.
  'You shall go,' said Emma. 'Such rudeness! I won't have you here!'
Dinner consisted of some onion soup with a little bit of veal and
sorrel.
  'Ah, it's nice to be home again!' exclaimed Charles, cheerfully
rubbing his hands, as he sat down opposite Emma.
  They could hear Nastasie sobbing her heart out. He was rather fond
of the poor girl. She had kept him company many an evening after his
first wife died, when he had nothing to do. She was his first patient,
the first person he ever got to know in the place.
  'Have you really given her the sack?' he said at last.
                                                           {8 ^paragraph 60}
  'Yes. Who's going to stop me?' she replied.
  Then they went into the kitchen to warm themselves while the bedroom
was being got ready. Charles began to smoke. He pouted out his lips,
kept on spitting and drew his head back every time he puffed.
  'Here, you'll be sick in a minute!' she said scornfully.
  He put the cigar down, and made for the pump, to get himself a drink
of water. Quick as lightning, Emma caught up the cigar-case and
threw it into the back of the cupboard.
  What a day, next day! It seemed endless. She walked about her little
garden, up and down, up and down, stopping to gaze at the flower-beds,
at the espalier, at the plaster cure; looking with bewilderment at
all these things of days gone by, things that she knew so well. How
far away the ball seemed already! What power was it that was sundering
so widely the morning of two days ago and the evening of this very
day? Her journey to la Vaubyessard had made a gap in her life, like
those great chasms that a storm will sometimes cleave in the mountains
in a single night. However, she accepted her fate. She folded up her
beautiful dress and laid it reverently away in the chest of drawers,
not forgetting her satin shoes, whereof the soles were yellowed with
the wax of the polished floor. Her heart was like the soles of those
shoes. Wealth and luxury had rubbed against it and left upon it
something that would never wear away.
                                                           {8 ^paragraph 65}
  And so the memory of this ball grew to be something like an
occupation for Emma. Every time Wednesday came round she would sigh as
she awoke and say to herself, 'A week ago today... a fortnight
ago... three weeks ago, I was there!' Little by little the faces
of the people grew blurred in her memory, she forgot the tune of the
quadrilles; the servants' liveries, the look of the rooms came back
less plainly to her vision; some of the details faded away, but the
void in her heart remained.

{9
                                  9
-
                 Dreams of Paris: The groom in clogs:
        Training a maid: Medical practice: The homely husband:
                What's the good?: The hurdy-gurdy man:
                      Visitors from les Bertaux:
                       The fate of the bouquet.
                                                            {9 ^paragraph 5}
-
  OFTEN, when Charles was out of the house, she would go to the
cupboard and take the green silk cigar-case from under the linen where
she had hidden it. She would look at it, open it and even smell the
scent of its lining- a blend of tobacco and verbena. Whose could it
have been? It must have belonged to the Vicomte. Perhaps it was a
present from his mistress. It must have been worked on some rosewood
frame, a little gem of a thing hidden away from all eyes, a little
thing whereon she had lavished hour upon hour, her soft tresses
overshadowing it as she sat pensively at her task. Love had breathed
its sighs amid the stitches on the canvas, every stitch had
enwrought thereon a memory or a hope, and all those lines of
interwoven threads did but symbolize the continuity of the same
unuttered passion. And then, one morning, the Vicomte had taken it
away with him. What had they talked about as it lay on the wide
mantelpiece between the vases filled with flowers and the Pompadour
clocks? She was at Tostes. And he, he was far away in Paris now.
What sort of a place was Paris? What a sense of grandeur and immensity
clung about the very name. Paris!- she murmured it under her breath,
because she loved the sound of it. It boomed in her ears like the
great bell of a cathedral; it seemed to glow with golden fire even
on the labels of her pomade pots.
  At night, when the fishermen went by in their carts, beneath her
window, singing the Marjolaine, she would wake from her slumbers.
And as she lay and listened to the sound of the iron-tyred wheels
dying slowly away into silence along the country road, she said to
herself, 'They will be there tomorrow'.
  And she followed them in thought, up hill and down dale, passing
through village after village, rolling along the highway by the
light of the stars. And then, somewhere along the route, there
always came a blurring mist, in which her dream would melt away.
  She bought a guide to Paris, and with her finger-tip on the map, she
would make little imaginary journeys about the capital. She walked
along the boulevards, staying her steps at every corner, between the
lines of streets, in front of the houses. At last, her sight growing
weary, she would let her eyelids fall, and then in the darkness she
dreamt she saw the flame of the street lamps flickering in the wind,
and the steps of the carriages let down with a clatter at the entrance
to the theatre.
                                                           {9 ^paragraph 10}
  She buried herself in the Corbeille, a woman's paper, and the
Sylphe des Salons. She devoured, without skipping a word, all the
accounts of first nights, race meetings and fashionable 'at homes'.
She got excited about the debut of a new operatic star or the
opening of a new shop. She was up in all the latest fashions, knew
where the best tailors were, the days for the Bois and the days for
the Opera. She gloated over the descriptions of furniture in the
novels of Eugene Sue; she read Balzac and George Sand, seeking some
imaginary balm for the longings of her heart. She would even bring her
book with her to table and go on turning the pages while Charles ate
and talked. And as she read, the memory of the Vicomte continually
came back to her. She compared and likened him to the characters in
the books. But the circle of which he was the centre, gradually
enlarged around him, and the aureole which encompassed him withdrew
farther and farther from him, to shed its light on other dreams.
  And so Paris, in Emma's eyes, gleamed vaster than the ocean, and was
bathed in an atmosphere of rose and gold. The multifarious life that
tossed in its restless tumult was divided into parts, classified in
distinct categories. Of these Emma only perceived two or three,
which shut out all the rest from her vision and which she looked on as
representing the human race as a whole. People of ambassadorial rank
walked on polished floors, in stately chambers hung with mirrors
surrounding oval tables covered with velvet fringed with gold. There
you might see dresses with long trains, and be a witness to profound
mysteries, and look on at anguish dissembled by a smile. Then came the
world of duchesses. How pale they all were! They got up at four
o'clock. The women, poor dear angels, wore English point lace on their
petticoats, and the men- you would never guess what brains lay hid
beneath their careless bearing- rode their horses to death, for the
mere fun of the thing, went to Baden for the hot season, and
finally, when they were nearing forty, settled down with a wealthy
heiress. In private rooms, in restaurants, all ablaze with candles,
where suppers are served after midnight, the motley throng of
writing men and actresses sped the hours in merry laughter. They
were prodigal as kings, full of soaring ideals and fantastic conceits.
They lived a life above the common herd, betwixt heaven and earth,
where the storm-winds whirled, in the realms of the sublime. As for
the rest of the world, it was difficult to say where it was; it seemed
to have no definite existence. The nearer things were to her, the more
she shunned their contact. All her immediate surroundings- the
dreary country, the stupid little bourgeois folk, the mediocrity of
daily life- struck her as something exceptional in the world, an
accident peculiar to the time and place in which her lot was cast;
while away beyond it all, as far as the eye could see, spread the
limitless land of passion and felicity.
  She mingled, in her longings, the material pleasures of the senses
with the joys of the heart, the refinements of elegant society with
the subtle delicacies of feeling. Did not love require, even as
tropical plants, a duly prepared soil, a particular temperature? Sighs
breathed beneath the moonlight, prolonged embraces, tears falling upon
hands kissed in a last farewell, all the fevers of the flesh, all
the languors of tender love, could not then be found apart from the
balconies of noble chateaux, where time fleets by unheeded, or from
boudoirs with silken hangings and luxurious carpets, from
flower-stands filled with richest blooms, a bed raised upon a dais,
the glitter of precious stones and the shoulder-knots of liveried
flunkeys.
  The lad from the posting-house came every morning to groom the
mare and stumped through the passage in his heavy clogs. His blouse
had holes in it and his feet were innocent of socks. And this was
the groom in knee-breeches she had to put up with! When his job was
done, he left for the day, and Charles, when he got home, saw to the
mare himself, led her into the stable, took off the saddle and put
on the halter, while the maid struggled along with an armful of
straw and heaved it as best she could into the manger.
  In place of Nastasie (who left Tostes weeping in torrents) Emma
engaged a young girl of fourteen; a wistful-faced orphan. She
forbade her to wear cotton caps, taught her to address her betters
in the third person, to hand a glass of water on a tray, to knock
before entering a room, to iron, to starch, and to dress her mistress,
for she wanted to make a lady's-maid of her. The new girl obeyed
without a murmur, so as not to lose her place, and as Madame usually
left the key in the sideboard, Felicite took a little stock of sugar
up to bed with her every night and had it all to herself, in bed,
after she had said her prayers. Sometimes, of an afternoon, she
would go across and have a gossip with the post-boys, while Madame was
upstairs in her room.
                                                           {9 ^paragraph 15}
  Emma wore an open dressing-gown, which showed between the shawl
lining of her corsage, a pleated chemisette with three gilt buttons.
Her belt was a corded girdle with big tassels and her little crimson
slippers had bows of broad ribbon puffed out above the instep. She had
bought herself a blotting-pad, a writing-case, a penholder and some
envelopes, although she had no one to write to. She dusted her
whatnot, looked at herself in the glass, picked up a book, and then,
sinking into a dream as she read, let it fall on her knees. She
thought she would like to travel, or to go back to the convent. She
longed at one and the same time to die and to go and live in Paris.
  Come rain, come snow, Charles jogged on by lane and by road,
across the country. He ate omelettes in farmhouse kitchens, put his
arm into steamy beds, let blood and caught the spirt of it full in the
face, listened to the death rattle of the dying, examined chambers,
and mauled about a good deal of dirty linen. But every night he came
home to a blazing fire, a good dinner, a comfortable chair and a
dainty wife, as charming as she was fragrant, so mysteriously
fragrant, that you wondered whether it was not her skin that lent
its perfume to her clothes.
  She had countless little ways of giving pleasure. Now, it would be a
new mode of making paper shades for the candles, or a new sort of
flounce to her gown, or an extraordinary name for a very ordinary
dish, which the maid perchance had ruined, but of which Charles made a
clean sweep, enjoying every bit of it. At Rouen she happened to see
some ladies wearing a bunch of seals attached to their watches. So she
bought some seals. She must needs have a pair of big blue glass
vases on her chimneypiece, and, very soon after that, an ivory
necessaire with a silver-gilt thimble. The less Charles understood
these refinements, the more he was impressed by them. They added
something to the pleasure of his senses and to the amenities of his
home. It was like gold-dust sprinkled along the narrow pathway of
his life.
  He felt well, and looked well. His reputation was firmly
established. The country folk liked him because there was no side
about him. He made a fuss with the children, did not drink, and,
from the moral standpoint, was looked upon as thoroughly
trustworthy. He was especially good in catarrhal and bronchial
cases. In point of fact, Charles was so afraid of killing his patients
that he never prescribed anything but soothing draughts, with now
and again an emetic, a hot foot-bath or a leech or two. Not that he
was afraid of surgery. He bled his people profusely, like a 'vet.',
and he had the devil of a wrist for pulling out a tooth!
  And then, to keep up with the times, he took out a subscription to
the Ruche medicale, a new publication of which a prospectus had been
sent him. He used to read it after dinner, but the warmth of the
room and the process of digestion would send him to sleep after five
minutes of it. And there he sat, his head resting on his two hands and
his hair hanging over like a mane right down to the bottom of the
lamp. Emma looked at him and shrugged her shoulders. Why had she not
got one of those strong, silent men for a husband, men who sit up at
night over their books, and when they are sixty and rheumatic wear a
decoration on their ill-fitting dress clothes? She would have liked
the name of Bovary, which was hers now, to be famous, posted up in the
bookshops, talked about in the papers, known all over France. But
Charles had no ambition. An Yvetot doctor, whom he had recently met in
consultation, had made him look a fool in the patient's own bedroom
and before all the relations. When Charles told her about it that
night, Emma spoke her mind pretty freely about the other man.
Charles thought this tremendously nice of her. He was touched, and
when he kissed her forehead, he had tears in his eyes. But she was
exasperated with shame, felt like hitting him, and went and flung open
the window in the passage, to get a little air to calm herself.
'What a poor specimen! What a poor specimen!' she said to herself,
biting her lips.
                                                           {9 ^paragraph 20}
  Moreover, she felt herself getting less and less able to put up with
him. He was growing more boorish as he got older. He had a trick of
whittling the corks of the empty bottles during dessert. He sucked his
teeth after eating, and made a horrid gulping noise at every
mouthful of soup he swallowed, and as he was beginning to put on
flesh, his eyes, which were beady enough to begin with, looked as if
they would be squeezed up into his forehead by his podgy cheeks.
  Sometimes Emma would have to push back the red border of his vest to
keep it from showing, or put his tie straight, or throw aside a pair
of soiled gloves he was just going to put on. And all this wasn't,
as he thought it was, for him; it was for herself, the effect of
ultra-selfishness and nervous irritation. Sometimes she would talk
to him about things she had read in a book, a passage in a novel, a
new play or some bit of news about the fashionable world which she had
picked up from the newspaper. For, at all events, Charles was
somebody, somebody willing to listen and to approve what he heard. She
told a lot of things to her greyhound. She would have done as much
to the logs in the fireplace, or the pendulum of the clock.
  Deep down in her heart, she was waiting and waiting for something to
happen. Like a shipwrecked mariner, she gazed out wistfully over the
wide solitude of her life, if so be she might catch the white gleam of
a sail away on the dim horizon. She knew not what it would be, this
longed-for barque; what wind would waft it to her, or to what shores
it would bear her away. She knew not if it would be a shallop or a
three-decker, burdened with anguish or freighted with joy. But every
morning when she awoke she hoped it would come that day. She
listened to every sound, started swiftly from her bed, and could not
understand why nothing happened. And then at sunset, more sad at heart
than ever, she would long for the morrow to come.
  The springtime came again. With the first touch of heat, when the
pear-trees were in blossom, she began to have attacks of
breathlessness. And when July came, she counted on her fingers how
many weeks it would be to October, thinking that perhaps the Marquis
d'Andervilliers would be giving another dance at la Vaubyessard. But
September came and went, and no one called or wrote.
  After this disappointment there was the same void in her heart,
and the endless succession of empty days began again as before.
                                                           {9 ^paragraph 25}
  Thus then they were fated to follow, 'one after one, tomorrow like
today', bringing her no new thing. Other people, however drab their
lives, could at least tell themselves that something might happen.
Some chance event might bring with it endless changes of place and
scene. But for her there came no change. God willed it so. The
future was like a corridor in which there was no light, and at the end
of it, only a door fast closed. She gave up her music. What was the
use of playing? Who was there to hear? Since it would never be hers to
play at a concert, attired in a velvet gown with short sleeves,
touching with lightsome fingers the ivory keys of an Erard, and to
feel, like a breeze about her, the delighted murmurs of the
audience, it was waste of time to practise. She let her drawing-blocks
and tapestry lie neglected in the cupboard. What was the good, what
was the good of it all? Sewing got on her nerves.
  'There's nothing left to read,' she said to herself. And there she
sat, making the tongs red hot or staring at the falling rain.
  How sad she was on Sundays, when the bell rang for vespers! She
sat and listened, with a kind of dazed attention, to each stroke of
the cracked bell. Sometimes a cat, walking leisurely along the roof
opposite, would arch its back against the pale rays of the sun. On the
highroad the wind would stir up little eddying trails of dust.
Sometimes, far away, a dog would howl; and all the while the bell,
with rhythmic beat, went on sounding its monotonous summons that
died away over the open fields.
  And now the people would be coming out of church. The women in waxed
sabots, the men in their best blouses, the little bareheaded
children jumping about in front of them. Everybody went back home save
only five or six men, always the same, who would hang about playing
shove-halfpenny outside the door of the inn.
  The winter was a hard one: windows covered with hoar-frost every
morning, and the wan light that filtered through them as through
ground-glass never varied the whole day long. The lamps had to be
lit by four o'clock.
                                                           {9 ^paragraph 30}
  When the weather was fine she would go into the garden. On the
cabbages the dew had left arabesques of silver with long bright
threads stretching from one to another. The birds were hushed, the
whole world seemed asleep; the espalier was covered with straw. The
trailing vine looked like a great moping serpent under the coping of
the wall, and if you went close up to it you could see the wood-lice
crawling about with their countless legs. Under the firs, near the
hedge, the cure in his three-cornered hat, buried in his breviary,
had lost his right foot, and the plaster, scaling off with the
frost, had left white patches on his face.
  After a while she would go up again and shut the door, stir the fire
and, sinking down limply in the warmth of the hearth, feel the
burden of ennui more heavy than ever upon her. She would willingly
have gone down and talked to the servant girl, but a sense of
propriety restrained her.
  Every day, at the same time, the schoolmaster in his black silk
skull-cap opened the shutters of his house, and the rural policeman
went by on his rounds, with his sword buckled on over his blouse.
Morning and evening the post-horses, three by three, would troop
across the street to water at the pond. From time to time the door
of a cabaret would tinkle as it opened, and when there was a wind
you could hear the hairdresser's little copper basins- his shop
sign- squeaking on their hooks. His shop was adorned with an old
fashion-plate gummed on to a window-pane and a waxen bust of a woman
with yellow hair. The hairdresser, too, was dissatisfied with his lot;
he, too, bewailed his frustrate ambitions, his ruined prospects and,
dreaming of a shop in some big town- like Rouen, for example- down
near the shipping and close to the theatre, paced to and fro the whole
day long between the mairie and the church, gloomy of mien and
waiting for custom. Whenever Madame Bovary raised her eyes, there he
was like a soldier on sentry-go, in his lasting waistcoat, his cap
perched over one ear.
  Sometimes of an afternoon, a man's face would appear at the
dining-room window, a weather-beaten face fringed with black whiskers,
a face that grinned at you softly- a broad, easy grin that displayed
two rows of white teeth. The strains of a dance-tune would then be
heard, and in a tiny drawing-room, on the top of his hurdy-gurdy,
people as tall as your finger- women in pink turbans, Tyrolese
peasants in short coats, monkeys in dress-coats, gentlemen in
knee-breeches- would turn round and round, threading their way among
arm-chairs, sofas and whatnots, mirrored in little bits of
looking-glass stuck up with strips of gilt paper pasted at the
corners. The man kept grinding away looking now to the right, now to
the left, now glancing up at the windows of the houses. Every now
and then, as he shot out a long squirt of brown spittle against the
kerb, he would hoist up his instrument with his knee, for the hard
strap of it galled his shoulder. And now plaintive and slow, now gay
and impetuous, the music of his box would come droning through pink
silk curtains suspended from a clasp in copper filigree. The tunes
he played were all the rage at the theatres, in drawing-rooms and
garish dance halls, echoes of a far-off world that thus found their
way even to Emma's ears. Sarabandes wove their endless mazes in her
brain, and like a Nautch girl on her flower carpet, her thoughts
went leaping with the music, swung from dream to dream, from
wistfulness to wistfulness. When the man had gathered a few coppers in
his cap, he pulled down an old blue cloth cover, hoisted up his
instrument on to his back and stumped heavily off. She watched him
as he went his way.
  But it was at meal-times that life seemed especially unbearable,
down there in that little ground-floor dining-room with its smoking
stove, its creaking door, its sweating walls, and its damp floors.
It seemed as though all the bitterness of life was served up to her on
her plate and that with the fumes of the stew there rose up from her
inmost being all manner of other sickly exhalations. Charles was a
slow eater; she would nibble a few nuts or, leaning on her elbow,
beguile the time by making little lines on the shiny table-cover
with the point of her knife.
                                                           {9 ^paragraph 35}
  She now let the house take care of itself, and when, during Lent,
Madame Bovary senior came to spend a few days at Tostes, she was
astonished at the change. Emma, once so dainty and particular, now
went for days together without dressing herself properly, trailed
about in cotton stockings, and lit the place with tallow dips. She
kept saying that they must save, since they had no money to fall
back upon, averring that she was quite contented, quite happy, that
she liked Tostes very much, and other novel things that quite took the
wind out of the old woman's sails. Moreover, Emma exhibited no
inclination now to listen to her advice. Once when Madame offered
the opinion that a mistress ought to look after her servant's
religious ideas, Emma answered her with such an angry glint in her eye
and such a chilling smile on her lips, that the worthy dame took
care not to refer to the subject again.
  Emma grew hard to please, full of whims and caprices. She ordered
special dishes for herself and then left them untouched. One day she
must drink fresh milk by the quart; next day, cups of tea by the
dozen. Often enough she wouldn't stir outside the house, and then
she would make out she was stifled, fling open all the windows and put
on the thinnest of dresses. She would bully the servant and
immediately afterwards give her a present or let her go out to see her
friends, just as she would sometimes give the poor all the silver in
her purse, although she was by no means soft-hearted or easily moved
to compassion, any more than the majority of country folk, whose
hearts usually retain something of the hardness of their ancestors'
toilworn hands.
  Towards the end of February, Farmer Rouault, in memory of his mended
leg, brought his son-in-law a magnificent turkey and stayed three days
at Tostes. Charles being busy with his patients, it fell to Emma to
entertain him. He smoked in the bedroom, spat into the grate, talked
of nothing but farming, calves, cows, poultry and the local council;
so that when he took his departure, she closed the door on him with
such a feeling of relief, that she herself was at a loss to explain
it.
  She said openly what she thought about everything and everybody, and
it was anything but flattering. She would take a sort of perverse
delight in praising what others blamed and expressed views about
wrong-doing and immorality that made her husband open his eyes.
  Was this hopeless existence going to last for ever? Was there to
be no escape? Yet she was every bit as good as the luckier ones.
Why, at la Vaubyessard she had seen titled women whose figures and
manners were a good deal clumsier than hers; and she railed at the
cruelty of Providence. She would lean her head against the wall and
weep, longing for a life of excitement, masked balls and tumultuous
pleasures, with all the frenzied delights which they must yield but
which she knew not of. She sometimes looked as if she were going to
faint, and had attacks of palpitation. Charles dosed her with valerian
and prescribed camphor baths. But everything they tried only worried
and upset her the more.
                                                           {9 ^paragraph 40}
  There were days when she would talk, and talk, with feverish
volubility; then the excitement would die away, and she would
relapse into a kind of torpor, and sit without moving or uttering a
word. The best thing to bring her round when she was like that, was to
empty a bottle of eau-de-Cologne over her arms.
  As she was always saying how she hated Tostes, Charles put her
illness down to something in the place. The idea grew on him, and he
began seriously to think of going elsewhere. Then she started drinking
vinegar to reduce her figure, coughed a little dry hacking cough,
and could not touch her food.
  It was something of a wrench for Charles to leave Tostes. He had
been there four years and was getting pretty well settled. However,
what must be, must be. He took her to Rouen to see his old
professor. It was a case of nerves. What she wanted was a change.
  Charles looked about all over the place, and at last heard of a
rather thriving little market-town called Yonville l'Abbaye, somewhere
in Neufchatel, where the doctor, who was a Polish refugee, had
packed up his traps and cleared out only about a week before. He wrote
off to the local chemist asking him to let him know how many people
there were in the place, what sort of competition there was, and how
much a year the other man used to make. The answers being satisfactory
he decided he would make a move in the spring, if Emma's health showed
no improvement.
  One day, when she was turning out a drawer in preparation for the
move, she ran something sharp into her finger. It was a bit of the
wire in her wedding bouquet. The buds of orange blossom were faded and
dusty and the satin ribbon bordered with silver was all fraying away
at the edges. She tossed it on the fire. It blazed up like a handful
of dry straw, and then lay glowing like a red bush on the ashes,
slowly crumbling to pieces. She watched it burn. The cardboard berries
popped, the wire writhed and twisted, the gold braid melted, and the
paper blossoms, shrivelling up, hovered a moment like black
butterflies and at last flew up the chimney.
                                                           {9 ^paragraph 45}
  In March, when they went away from Tostes, Madame Bovary was
pregnant.

{10
                                  10
-
                 Yonville: The chemist's shop: At the
      Lion d'Or: The taciturn guest: Phlebotomy for the clergy:
                 Monsieur Binet's views on theology:
                      The 'Hirondelle' arrives.
-
                                                           {10 ^paragraph 5}
  YONVILLE L'ABBAYE (so called after an old Franciscan abbey of
which no traces now remain) is a market town about twenty miles from
Rouen between the Abbeville and Beauvais roads. It lies at the far end
of a valley watered by the Rieule, a little tributary of the
Andelle. Its waters turn the wheels of three mills, close to where
they join the larger river, and harbour a few trout which the lads
amuse themselves by trying to catch with rod and line on Sundays.
  Leaving the main highway at la Boissiere, you keep along on the
level till you come to where the road dips down to Les Leux, at
which point the valley comes fully into view. The river which flows
through it divides it into two strongly contrasted regions. On the
left all is grassland and meadow, but on the right the whole of the
land is under the plough. The meadows stretch along beneath some
low-lying hills and link up behind with the pasture lands of Bray.
Eastwards, the land, rising gently, broadens out into a wide stretch
of country with patches of yellowing wheat as far as the eye can
see. The stream, as it flows on between its grassy banks, runs like
a white riband betwixt tilth and meadow, making the country look
like a wide mantle with a green velvet cape edged with a band of
silver braid.
  Far away, over the distant ridge, are the oak woods of Argueil,
and the steep declivities of the Cote Saint Jean, striated from top to
bottom with reddish lines of varying width; and these brick-red tones,
forming narrow stripes on the prevailing grey of the mountain, are due
to the chalybeate springs that abound in the country round about.
  Here, you are on the borders of Normandy, Picardy and the Ile de
France, a sort of hybrid region where the language is devoid of accent
and the landscape of character. It is here that they make the worst
Neufchatel cheeses in the whole district. And farming is costly
because it takes such a lot of manure to fertilize the sandy, stony
soil.
  Until 1835 there was, properly speaking, no road to Yonville; but
about that date a connecting highway was constructed that linked up
with the roads to Abbeville and Amiens, and was sometimes used by
wagons going from Rouen to Flanders. Yonville l'Abbaye has stood
still, despite its new outlet. Instead of improving the crops, the
people have stuck to grass and hay, notwithstanding the falling
market, and following the line of least resistance, the town has
extended only in the direction of the river. You can see it a long way
off, sprawling along by the river-bank like a neatherd who has flung
himself down by the stream for a noonday nap.
                                                          {10 ^paragraph 10}
  At the foot of the hill, beyond the bridge, you come to a straight
piece of road, bordered with young aspens, that leads to the beginning
of the houses. They stand surrounded by hedges on plots of ground
occupied by various outbuildings, wine-presses, cart-sheds, houses
scattered about under tufted trees with ladders, poles or scythes hung
on to the branches. The thatched roofs, like fur caps pulled down over
the eyes, cover up about a third of the low windows, glazed with
thick, bulging panes, each with a knot in the middle like the bottom
of a bottle. Here and there the houses have a seedy-looking
pear-tree planted against their plaster walls, crossed diagonally by
two black beams, and in the doorways little swing-gates keep out the
chickens that congregate on the step to peck at the brown bread-crumbs
soaked in cider. Farther on the gardens grow smaller, the houses
huddle closer together, the hedges disappear; here a bundle of furze
swings under a window at the end of a broom-handle; it is the
blacksmith's forge; after which we come to the wheelwright's, with two
or three carts outside encroaching on the roadway. Then across an open
space appears a white house fronted by a circular lawn adorned with
a Cupid standing with his finger pressed to his lips. A pair of
cast-iron vases flank the bottom of the front steps; a brass plate
gleams on the front door. It is the residence of the notary, and the
finest house in the district.
  The church is on the other side of the way, about twenty paces
further on, before you come to the market-place. The little churchyard
that surrounds it, enclosed by a low wall, is so full of graves that
the aged stones, sunk into the ground, make a continuous pavement with
little, rectangular borders of grass between them. The church was
rebuilt in the latter part of Charles the Tenth's reign. The wooden
roof is beginning to perish at the top, and, here and there, shows
hollow black patches on the blue surface. Over the door, where the
organ ought to be, is a gallery for the men, with a winding stairway
that resounds beneath their wooden clogs.
  The daylight, filtering through the plain-glass windows, falls
obliquely on the seats set in rows, at right angles to the walls,
with, here and there, a straw mat on a nail with the words 'M. So
and so's sitting' in bold letters beneath it. Farther on, where the
nave begins to narrow, stands the confessional box, facing a statue of
the Virgin clothed in satin with a veil adorned with silver stars on
her head, her cheeks becrimsoned like an idol from the Sandwich
Islands. Finally, hung above the High Altar, between four
candlesticks, a copy of the Holy Family, presented by the Minister
of the Interior, completes the vista. The choir-stalls are of plain
deal.
  The market, which consists of a tiled roof supported by some score
or so of posts, alone occupies a good half of the square at
Yonville. The Town Hall, built 'after the design of a Paris
architect', is a species of Greek temple and makes an angle with the
chemist's shop alongside. On the ground level are three Ionic columns,
and, above them, a vaulted gallery surmounted by a tympanum showing
a Gallic cock resting one claw on the Charter and grasping the
scales of Justice in the other.
  But what chiefly strikes the eye is the pharmacy of Monsieur
Homais just opposite the Lion d'Or. It is chiefly at night when
his lamp is lit up and when the red and green carboys that lend
splendour to his window project their long strips of coloured light
far out along the ground, that, viewed athwart this radiance as though
in an effulgence of Bengal lights, the shadow of the chemist himself
may be discerned bending over his desk. From top to bottom, his
house is plastered with placards in capitals, copper plate and block
letters, advertising such things as Vichy, Seltzer, Bareges Waters,
Laxatives, Raspail's Safe Cure, Gum Arabic, Darcet's Pastilles,
Regnault's Ointment, Bandages, Fomentations, Medicated Chocolate,
etc., etc., and the shop-sign which extends right across the front
bears in gilt letters the words 'Homais, Chemist'. And at the far
end of the shop, behind the big pair of scales that are screwed to the
counter, the word 'Laboratory' appears over a glass door on which,
half-way up, the name 'Homais' is repeated in gilt lettering on a
black ground.
                                                          {10 ^paragraph 15}
  That's all there is worth seeing in Yonville. The one and only
street, about a gunshot in length, with a shop or two on either side
of it, stops short at the bend in the road. If you leave the road on
your right and keep along by the Cote Saint Jean, you soon come to the
cemetery.
  During the cholera epidemic, a piece of the wall was demolished so
as to take in three acres of the adjoining field. But all this new
part is practically untenanted, the graves continuing to cluster round
about the entrance in the old way. The keeper, who unites the
offices of sexton and verger, thus deriving a double revenue from
the deceased parishioners, takes advantage of the vacant ground to
plant potatoes in it. Year by year, however, his little plot grows
narrower, and when an epidemic comes along he knows not whether to
rejoice at the corpses or lament the need for burying them.
  'Why, you feed on the dead, Lestiboudois!' said the cure one
day. This gloomy remark made him ponder. For a time it gave him pause,
but today, as heretofore, he goes on cultivating his potatoes there
and boldly affirms that they come up of their own accord.
  Since the events we are about to record, no material changes have
taken place at Yonville. The tin tricolour continues to revolve on the
top of the church tower; from the draper's shop the two streamers of
coloured chintz flutter in the breeze; the chemist's foetuses, that
look like bits of white tinder, are slowly crumbling away in their
dingy spirit, and, over the front door of the inn, the ancient
Golden Lion, tarnished by the rain, displays his poodle's mane to
all who come and go thereby.
  The night the Bovarys were due to arrive at Yonville, Widow
Lefrancois, who kept the inn, was in such a fluster that the sweat
fell from her in huge drops as she bustled about among her pots and
pans. Tomorrow was market day; she had the joints to prepare, the
fowls to draw, the soup to make and the coffee to brew. Then there
were meals for the 'regulars' to be got ready, as well as for the
doctor and his wife and maid. Shouts of laughter kept coming from
the billiard-room; three millers in the bar parlour were clamouring
for brandy; the wood was blazing, the furze crackling and, on the long
table, among joints of raw mutton, stood piles of plates that
rattled and shook at every stroke of the spinach chopper. From the
yard came the panic-stricken clacking of the fowls as the servant girl
tried to catch them to chop off their heads. A man in green leather
slippers, his face slightly pitted with smallpox, a velvet cap with
a gold tassel on his head, was standing warming his back by the
fire. The only expression on his countenance was one of complete
self-satisfaction, and he appeared to take life as easily as the
goldfinch suspended above his head in its wicker cage. It was the
chemist.
                                                          {10 ^paragraph 20}
  'Artemise!' cried the hostess, 'chop up some wood, fill the water
bottles and put some brandy ready. Look alive! I wish to heaven I knew
what sort of a pudding to give these people you've got coming! Oh,
good gracious! there are those moving-men kicking up another
hullabaloo in the billiard-room; and their cart just outside the front
door! Why, the Hirondelle might come along and smash right into it
from behind. Call Polyte and tell him to put it into the
coach-house. Would you believe it, Monsieur Homais, they've played
fifteen games since morning, that they have, and got through eight
jars of cider! Yes, and they'll go and cut my cloth, drat 'em!' she
added, as she stood looking at them, skimmer in hand.
  'No great harm if they did,' replied Monsieur Homais. 'You'd
have to buy a new one then.'
  'A new table!' cried the widow.
  'Yes, since the old one is done for, Madame Lefrancois. I've said so
before and I say it again, you're penny wise and pound foolish.
People, nowadays, like small pockets and heavy cues. The cannon game's
clean out of fashion. Things have altered. You must move with the
times. Look at Tellier, now!'
  The landlady went crimson with anger.
                                                          {10 ^paragraph 25}
  'You can say what you like,' the chemist went on, 'his billiard-room
beats yours any day, and suppose they wanted to get up a fund for
the Poles or the flood victims at Lyons....'
  'Anyhow, he's not the sort of tyke to worry me. I'm not afraid of
him,' interrupted the hostess, shrugging her fat shoulders. 'No,
Monsieur Homais, you can take it from me that as long as there's the
Lion d'Or to come to, people will come to it. It's not "here today
and gone tomorrow" with us. One of these days you'll find the Cafe
Francais closed down, and a nice old poster stuck up on the
shutters. Get a new billiard-table,' she cried, 'when that one's so
handy for folding the washing on! Why, in the shooting season I've
slept as many as six on it. But that dawdler Hivert, won't he ever get
here?'
  'Are you waiting for him, to begin dinner, then?'
  'Waiting for him? And what about Monsieur Binet, I should like to
know? In he comes, on the very stroke of six; there isn't the likes of
him for punctuality in the whole world. He must always have his own
pet seat in the little room. He'd rather die than sit down to his
dinner anywhere else. And he's that fussy! And the cider must always
be just so! Not a bit like Monsieur Leon, now. Him! Why, it's gone
seven, or half-past sometimes, before he gets here. He doesn't so much
as look at what he eats. He's a nice young man, he is! You never get
an angry word from him, you don't.'
  'Well, you see, that's where the difference comes in between an
educated man and a common soldier turned tax-collector.' The clock
struck six. In marched Binet.
                                                          {10 ^paragraph 30}
  He had on a blue frock-coat which hung, without the suspicion of a
crease, round about his meagre frame, and his leather cap, with its
two ear-flaps tied up together on the top of his head, revealed, under
its raised peak, a bald forehead compressed by long years of
helmet-wearing. He wore a black cloth waistcoat, a horse-hair
collar, grey trousers and, all the year round, well-polished top boots
which had two parallel strips let in to make room for his enlarged
toe-joints. There was not a hair out of place in the line of fair
whiskers which, after the fashion of an herbaceous border, encircled
his long, pale face with its beady eyes and hooked nose. Excelling
in all card games, a good shot, and a neat writer, he had a lathe of
his own. He had a hobby for turning out napkin rings, filling the
house with them, thus ministering alike to his artistic
susceptibilities and his bourgeois self-importance.
  He made his way towards the little parlour. But first of all the
three millers had to be got out, and all the time his place was
being laid, Binet sat silent in his seat near the fire. After which he
shut the door and took off his cap, as usual.
  'It won't be civil speeches that will wear out his tongue,' said
the chemist as soon as he was alone with the landlady.
  'He is never more talkative than that,' she answered. 'Last week
we had a couple of "commercials" travelling in textiles; a comical
pair, they were, if you like; spent the whole evening telling
stories that made me cry with laughing, and there he sat like a flat
fish and never spoke a word.'
  'Ay,' said the chemist, 'no imagination, no sparkle, no social
gifts.'
                                                          {10 ^paragraph 35}
  'And yet they say he has brains.'
  'Brains!' answered Monsieur Homais. 'Him? Brains? Perhaps he has, of
a sort,' he went on more calmly.
  'Ah!' he continued, 'that a merchant in a big way of business, a
legal luminary, a doctor or a chemist, should be so absorbed as to
be eccentric or even gruff- that I can understand. You read of such
cases in history. They, at any rate, are thinking of something. Take
me, for instance; how often have I not looked about all over my desk
for my pen when I wanted to write a label, and found it at last behind
my ear?'
  Meanwhile Madame Lefrancois betook herself to the front door to
see if the Hirondelle was at last in sight. She gave a sudden start.
A man dressed in black suddenly walked into the kitchen. In the last
gleams of the fading daylight you could see that he was a ruddy-faced,
athletic-looking man.
  'What can I get for you, Monsieur le Cure?' asked the landlady,
reaching up to the chimney-piece and taking down one of the brass
candlesticks that stood rowed along it with their tallow dips. 'Will
you take anything? A drop of Cassis? A glass of wine?'
                                                          {10 ^paragraph 40}
  The priest declined very civilly. He had come for his umbrella,
which he had left behind the other day at the convent at Ernemont.
He begged Madame Lefrancois to have it sent along to the presbytery in
the course of the evening, and then left for the church, where the
Angelus bell was ringing.
  When the chemist had heard the last echo of his footsteps die
away, he found great fault with the cure's conduct a moment ago. His
refusal to take a little drop of something seemed to him a
detestable piece of hypocrisy. Priests all had their little drop on
the quiet, when no one was looking, and they all wanted to get their
tithes back again.
  The landlady stuck up for her cure.
  'Why, he'd break four men like you across his knee. Last year he
helped our people cart in the straw. He carried as many as six bundles
at one go, he's that strong.'
  'Splendid!' said the chemist. 'Go and send your daughter to
confess to a stalwart customer like that. If I were the Government I'd
have priests bled once a month. Yes, Madame Lefrancois, a jolly good
bloodletting once a month in the interests of order and morality.'
                                                          {10 ^paragraph 45}
  'Oh, give over, Monsieur Homais! You are a wicked man to say such
things! You've no religion.'
  'Oh yes, I have,' answered the chemist, 'my religion; and a better
one than theirs, with all their mumbo-jumbo. I worship God! I
believe in a Supreme Being, in a Creator, or whatever you like to call
him, who has put us here to be good citizens and good fathers. But
that's no reason why I should go into a church and kiss silver plates,
and pay out money to help fatten a pack of humbugs who live better
than we do as it is. You can worship God just as well in a wood, or
a field, or gazing up at the everlasting firmament like the
ancients. My God is the god of Socrates, of Franklin, of Voltaire,
of Beranger. I'm for the creed of Rousseau's Vicaire Savoyard, and
long life to the principles of eighty-nine, say I! I've no use for a
god that goes stalking about his garden with a switch in his hand,
shuts up his friends in a whale's belly, makes a song about dying, and
comes to life again three days after, which is not only
intrinsically absurd, but completely opposed to scientific teaching,
while, incidentally, it just shows that your priests have always
wallowed in bestial ignorance and tried to bring the masses down to
their level.'
  He stopped and glanced about him as one surveying an audience, for
in the ebullience of his discourse the chemist had fancied for a
moment that he was haranguing the local council. But the landlady
wasn't listening. She was straining her ears to catch a distant
sound of wheels. The rumble of a vehicle, mingled with the tired
'clop-clop' of horses' hoofs, was now plainly audible, and at last the
Hirondelle pulled up at the door.
  It had a yellow body mounted on two big wheels that came right up to
the tilt, blocking the view of the passengers and spattering their
shoulders. The little panes of the narrow window slits shook in
their frames when the conveyance was closed in, and showed splashes of
mud here and there on the ancient coating of dust which even a
thunderstorm could not avail to wash away. It was drawn by three
horses, two between the shafts, and a leader, and, going downhill,
it bumped on the ground behind as it see-sawed to and fro.
  Some of the inhabitants now put in an appearance. They all began
to speak at once, clamouring for news, explanations and hampers.
Hivert didn't know whom to attend to first. He was general factotum
for the whole district. He did their shopping: brought back rolls of
leather for the shoemaker, old iron for the blacksmith, a cask of
herrings for his mistress, bonnets from the milliner's, false hair
from the hairdresser's, and, all the way home, he distributed his
parcels, heaving them over courtyard walls, standing up on his seat
and shouting with all his might while the horses looked after
themselves.
                                                          {10 ^paragraph 50}
  They had met with a mischance and had been delayed. Madame
Bovary's greyhound had bolted across country. They had stood there
whistling it a good quarter of an hour. Hivert, indeed, had gone
back a mile and a half, and kept thinking he saw it; but at last
they had been compelled to go on. Emma had burst into tears and
taken on about it. She said it was Charles's fault. Monsieur Lheureux,
a cloth merchant, who was with her in the conveyance, had done his
best to console her by telling her of several cases in which dogs
had recognized their masters after years of separation. There was a
story extant, he said, of a dog that found its way back to Paris all
the way from Constantinople. Another had done a hundred and fifty
miles in a bee-line, and swum four rivers; and his own father once had
a poodle he hadn't seen for twelve years that suddenly jumped up on
his back one night, in the street, as he was going to dine in town.

{11
                                  11
-
                The Bovarys arrive: Dinner at the inn:
     Monsieur Homais describes the climate: The chemist's lodger:
         Emma finds a kindred spirit: The chemist's library:
                        The Bovarys' new home.
-
                                                           {11 ^paragraph 5}
  EMMA got out first, then Felicite, Monsieur Lheureux and a
nursemaid. They had to wake Charles up. He had fallen sound asleep
in his corner, as soon as it grew dark.
  Homais introduced himself, offered his homage to Madame and his
respects to Monsieur, told them he was charmed to have been able to do
them a service, adding genially that he had ventured to invite
himself, his wife being away from home.
  As soon as she was in the kitchen, Madame Bovary went over to the
fire. With the tips of two fingers she took hold of her dress at the
knee and raising it thus above her ankles, stretched out a foot to the
blaze, above the leg of mutton that was turning on the spit- a
little foot encased in a black boot. The fire illumined her from top
to toe, its ruddy glare penetrating the warp of her dress, the regular
pores of her white skin and even the lids of her eyes, which she
blinked every now and then. A great red glow would sweep over her as
the wind blew in through the half-open door. On the other side of
the fireplace, a fair-haired young man watched her in silence.
  Seeing that he had rather a boring time of it at Yonville, where
he was clerk to Maitre Guillaumin the notary, Monsieur Leon Dupuis
(for it was he, the other 'regular' at the Lion d'Or) would often
postpone the hour of his meal hoping that some traveller would turn up
at the inn with whom he might enjoy a chat in the evening. On the days
when he did not have to work late he must needs (having nothing else
to do) put in a punctual appearance at table and endure, from the soup
to the savoury, the sole society of Binet. It was therefore with no
small pleasure that he accepted the landlady's suggestion that he
should sit down with the newcomers, and so they made their way into
the large dining-room, where, by way of creating an impression, the
four places had been laid.
  Homais asked leave to keep on his Turkish cap, for fear of
catching cold.
                                                          {11 ^paragraph 10}
  'Madame is doubtless a little tired,' he said, turning to Emma. 'One
gets so terribly shaken up in that Hirondelle of ours.'
  'You do indeed,' she answered, 'but I adore moving about. I can't
bear staying in one place.'
  'Oh, it's horrible!' said the clerk- 'to be always cooped up in
the same spot.'
  'If you were like me,' said Charles, 'always obliged to be in the
saddle....'
  'Why,' answered Leon, addressing himself to Madame, 'could
anything be jollier?- when you know how to ride, that is.'
                                                          {11 ^paragraph 15}
  'Well,' said the apothecary, 'medicine is not a very arduous
profession in this part of the country. Roads are good, and you can
drive your rounds; the farmers, as a rule, are well off and pay good
fees. Speaking professionally, we have, over and above the usual
stomachic, bronchial and liver troubles, a few cases of intermittent
fever round about harvest-time, but on the whole, very few really
serious complaints, nothing special to note, except a plentiful crop
of colds, due, no doubt, to the deplorable housing conditions of the
peasant classes. Ah! Monsieur Bovary, you'll have to fight against
no end of prejudices: every day you'll be up against stubborn,
deep-rooted ignorance, and, wherever you try to advance the light of
science, you'll find some old superstition obstinately blocking the
way. For the people about here still have recourse to novenas,
relics and the parson, instead of going straight to the doctor or
the chemist like sensible people. However, one cannot say the
climate is bad; indeed, we can boast a few nonagenarians in the
district. The thermometer (these are my own personal records) drops to
four degrees Centigrade in winter and reaches twenty-five or thirty,
at most, in the summer; that is to say, twenty-four degrees Reaumur or
fifty-four Fahrenheit (the English scale)- no more! To the north we
are sheltered by the Forest of Argueil, to the west by the hills of
Saint Jean; and the heat, which, on account of the aqueous vapour
set free by the river, and the considerable number of cattle in the
fields, which, as you are aware, give off a large quantity of ammonia-
that is, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen- no, merely nitrogen and
hydrogen- that sucks up the moisture of the ground, mingling all these
divers emanations, gathering them into a single bundle, so to speak,
and spontaneously combining with the electricity, if any, present in
the atmosphere, may after a time, as in tropical countries, produce
injurious exhalations; this heat, then, is tempered in the direction
whence it comes, let me rather say whence it would come if it could-
namely, the south- by the south-easterly breezes, which, being
cooled in their passage over the Seine, sometimes swoop down upon us
with a rush like air currents straight from Russia.'
  'Are there any nice walks in the neighbourhood?' continued Madame
Bovary, talking to the young man.
  'Hardly any,' he answered. 'There's a spot they call "The Pasturage"
up on the hill near the woods. I sometimes go there of a Sunday with a
book, and stay to watch the sunset.'
  'I think there's nothing so beautiful as a sunset, especially by the
sea!'
  'Oh, I simply love the sea!' said Monsieur Leon.
                                                          {11 ^paragraph 20}
  'And doesn't it seem to you, somehow, that one's thoughts range more
freely over the limitless expanse, and that the sight of it uplifts
your soul and sort of makes you think of the infinite, the ideal?'
  'It's just the same where there are mountains,' Leon went on.
'I've a cousin who went for a tour in Switzerland last year. He said
you couldn't possibly imagine the poetry of the lakes, the charm of
the waterfalls, the tremendous effect of the glaciers. You see pine
trees of incredible height, across rushing torrents, huts clinging
to precipices, and, when there's a cleft in the clouds, whole valleys,
a thousand feet below. Sights like that are bound to make you feel
enthusiastic, to send you into raptures, to fill you with religious
emotion. And I can quite understand that composer who used to
stimulate his imagination by going and playing the piano where he
could look at some splendid view.'
  'Do you do anything in the musical line?' she inquired.
  'No, but I'm frightfully fond of it,' he answered.
  'Ah! don't you believe him, Madame Bovary,' interrupted Homais,
leaning over his plate. 'That's only his modesty. Why, look here, dear
boy, it was only the other day you were up in your room singing
l'Ange gardien, and singing it perfectly. I was in the laboratory
and heard you. You let it go like a professional.'
                                                          {11 ^paragraph 25}
  Leon, it should be explained, lodged at the chemist's, where he
had a little room on the second floor, overlooking the Square. He
blushed at the compliment thus paid him by his landlord, who had now
turned to the doctor and was giving him a list of the principal people
in Yonville. He was full of stories and odds and ends of
information. No one knew exactly what the notary was worth, and the
Maison Tuvache rather gave itself airs.
  'What sort of music do you like best?' said Emma.
  'Oh, German; it's the music that sets you dreaming.'
  'Have you been to the Opera?'
  'Not yet; but I shall go next year when I'm in Paris for my law
Finals.'
                                                          {11 ^paragraph 30}
  'As I had the honour,' said the chemist, 'of telling the doctor
here, in connection with this unfortunate Yanoda, who has vanished
into thin air, thanks to his mania for spending money, you have come
in for one of the most comfortable houses in Yonville. What makes it
especially suitable for a doctor is that it has a side entrance in the
lane, so that one can go in and out without being seen. And then it
has every imaginable convenience- a laundry, kitchen and scullery,
extra sitting-room, apple-room, etc. He never looked twice at his
money. He had a sort of arbour or summer-house put up at the bottom of
the garden because he thought it would be nice to sit there and
drink beer in the hot weather, and if Madame is fond of gardening,
she'll be able...'
  'My wife does precious little gardening,' said Charles. 'She's
been told exercise is good for her, but she'd rather stop up in her
bedroom reading, any day.'
  'The same here,' answered Leon. 'And what is there to beat sitting
by the fire of an evening with a book, when the lamp is lit and the
wind beating against the window?'
  'That's just what I think,' she replied, gazing at him fixedly
with her big dark eyes.
  'You forget everything,' he went on: 'the hours slip by. Sitting
still in your arm-chair, you can wander in strange places and make
believe they are there before your eyes. Your thoughts become entwined
in the story, dwelling on the details, or eagerly following the course
of the adventure. You imagine you are the characters, and it seems
to be your heart that is throbbing beneath their raiment.'
                                                          {11 ^paragraph 35}
  'Yes,' she said, 'how true that is!'
  'Have you ever had the experience of coming across something in a
book that you had thought of yourself ever so long before- a sort of
dim, far-off memory, which is a complete interpretation of your own
feelings?'
  'Oh, haven't I!' she answered.
  'That's why I like the poets most of all. I find poetry more
touching than prose; it makes you feel more like weeping.'
  'Yes, but it gets rather tiresome if you read much of it,' replied
Emma. 'I like stories- the sort of stories that carry you along with
them, stories that give you an eerie feeling. I hate commonplace
heroes and humdrum emotions such as you get in real life.'
                                                          {11 ^paragraph 40}
  'Precisely,' said the clerk. 'And as such books fail to appeal to
the heart, they fail, in my opinion, to fulfil the true mission of
art. Among the disillusionments of life, it is a good thing to be able
to dwell in thought on lofty characters, pure affections and scenes of
happiness. For myself, living so far away from everybody, it's about
the only amusement I have; Yonville's resources are so limited.'
  'Very much like Tostes, I have no doubt,' rejoined Emma. 'That was
why I always subscribed to a library.'
  'If Madame will do me the honour to make use of it,' said the
chemist, who had just caught these last words, 'my own library,
comprising the works of the best authors, is at her disposal. It
includes the works of Voltaire, Rousseau, Delille, Walter Scott,
The Complete Story-teller, etc.; moreover, I get various periodicals
sent to me, including the Rouen Beacon, which reaches me daily, I
being its correspondent for Buchy, Forges, Neufchatel, Yonville and
the surrounding districts.'
  For two hours and a half they had been at table, for Artemise, the
servant, didn't hurry herself as she traipsed in her carpet slippers
along the stone floor. She brought in the plates one after another,
persisted in forgetting things, misunderstood her orders, and
omitted to shut the billiard-room door, the handle of which kept
banging against the wall.
  Quite unconsciously, in the course of the conversation, Leon had put
his foot up on one of the bars of the chair on which Madame Bovary was
sitting. She was wearing a little blue silk scarf that held up, as
stiffly as if it had been a ruff, a goffered cambric collar. And as
she moved her head, the lower part of her face would be concealed in
the neckerchief or deliciously emerge from it. And so, while Charles
and the chemist went on with their discussion, she and Leon sat
close up to one another, and entered upon one of those vague
conversations in which chance words and phrases continually bring
one back to a fixed centre of mutual predilections. They talked
about the Paris theatres, names of novels, the latest dances, the
world of fashion, which they neither of them knew anything about, of
Tostes, where she had lived, and Yonville, where they were now. They
discussed anything and everything, and chattered away all through
dinner.
                                                          {11 ^paragraph 45}
  When the coffee was brought in, Felicite went to put the bedroom
straight in the new house, and the guests soon afterwards rose to
go. Madame Lefrancois had dropped off into a doze by the dying fire,
while the ostler, lantern in hand, was waiting to light Monsieur and
Madame Bovary to their house. Bits of straw were tangled in his red
hair and he was lame in the left leg. When he had taken hold of the
cure's umbrella in his other hand they set out on their way.
  The little town was asleep. The pillars of the market place cast
long shadows on the ground, and the whole scene was bathed in a
light of silver grey, as on a summer's night.
  As the doctor's house was only about fifty paces from the inn, the
good-nights had to be exchanged almost immediately, and the company
dispersed.
  No sooner was she in the hall than Emma felt the chill of the
plaster descending on her shoulders like a shroud of clammy linen. The
walls were new and the wooden stairs creaked. Upstairs in the
bedroom a wannish light came in through the curtainless windows. The
tops of some trees were vaguely discernible, and, beyond them, the
meadow half-submerged in the mist which steamed up in the moonlight,
along the course of the river. In the middle of the room, dumped
down anyhow, were drawers full of things, bottles, curtain-poles, gilt
rods, mattresses piled up on chairs, and washbasins on the floor-
the two men who had brought the furniture having set the things down
just as they came, anywhere, without attempting to put them in their
places.
  This would be the fourth time she had slept in new surroundings. The
first was when she went to the convent, the second when she came to
Tostes, the third at la Vaubyessard, and now this was the fourth.
And every time, it had seemed as though she were entering on a new
phase of existence. She could not believe that things would look and
be the same at different places, and since the part she had gone
through had been bad, the part to come would no doubt be better.

{12
                                  12
-
           Monsieur Homais in trouble: Bothers over money:
         Emma's baby: Choosing a name: The christening party:
              Madame Bovary visits her daughter: A walk
                   with Leon: How to make friends.
-
                                                           {12 ^paragraph 5}
  NEXT morning, when she awoke, she saw the clerk walking across the
square. She was in her dressing-gown. He looked up and took off his
hat. She gave a little nod and quickly shut the window.
  All day long Leon waited for six o'clock to arrive. But when he went
round to the inn the only person there was Monsieur Binet, already
seated at table.
  That dinner of the night before had been something of an event for
Leon. It was the first time in his life he had talked with a woman for
a couple of hours on end. How did he manage to tell her, and in such
brilliant language, a whole host of things he certainly could not have
expressed so well before? He was naturally shy and accustomed to
maintain that reserve which is half bashfulness and half protective
armour. The Yonville people thought him a very gentlemanly young
man. He listened to what his elders had to say, and didn't let
politics turn his head, which was exceptional in so young a man. Then,
again, he had a certain amount of talent. He could do water-colours,
read music and was fond of reading and talking books after dinner when
there was no card-playing going on. Monsieur Homais thought a good
deal of him, because he was well educated; Madame Homais liked him
because he was so obliging, for he often took the little Homais
children into the garden- dirty little brats, horribly spoilt and,
like their mother, rather excitable. Besides the domestic, they had
Justin to look after them. Justin was the apprentice and a second
cousin of Monsieur Homais. They had taken him in out of charity, and
he acted as a sort of servant.
  The apothecary displayed the most neighbourly qualities. He told
Madame Bovary all about the tradespeople, got his own cider merchant
to call, sampled the liquor himself and went down into the cellar to
make sure the cask was put in the best place. He put her up to a
wrinkle for getting her butter on the cheap, and fixed up an
arrangement with Lestiboudois, the sacristan, who, in addition to
his sacerdotal and funereal functions, looked after the principal
gardens at Yonville, working by the hour, or the year, as his
customers might prefer.
  But it was not unadulterated altruism that prompted the pharmacist
to display such obsequious cordiality. There was something behind it.
                                                          {12 ^paragraph 10}
  He had infringed Article I of the Act of the 19th Ventose, Year
XI, which forbids the practice of medicine by all unqualified persons.
Some person or persons having secretly informed the authorities, he
was summoned to Rouen to appear before the King's proctor in Chambers.
The magistrate received him standing, arrayed in his official robes.
It was in the morning, before the court opened. Homais heard the
gendarmes in the corridor stumping by in their heavy boots, and
something that sounded like keys turning in big locks a long way
off. There was such a buzzing in the chemist's ears, that he thought
he was going to have a stroke. He saw himself in the deepest of
dungeons, his wife and children bathed in tears, the shop put up for
sale, all his jars dispersed; and he was obliged to go into a cafe and
have a nip of rum and seltzer to steady his nerves.
  Little by little the effect of the admonition wore off; and, as
before, he went on giving little harmless consultations in his
shop-parlour. But the Mayor didn't like him, some of his confreres
were jealous, he was playing a dangerous game. If he did things for
Monsieur Bovary, Monsieur Bovary could not help being grateful, and
that would prevent him from talking, if he got wind of anything
later on. So every morning Homais would come across with 'the
paper', and often, of an afternoon, he would leave his shop for a
minute or two to go and have a chat with the medical officer of
health.
  Charles was low-spirited. Patients did not come. He would sit for
hours on end and never utter a word, or go and sleep in his surgery,
or watch his wife sew. To break the monotony he turned odd-job man
at home, and made an attempt to paint the attic with some paint the
men had left behind. But money matters were his great worry. He had
spent such a lot on repairs at Tostes, on his wife's clothes and on
moving, that the whole of the dowry had gone in two years. And then,
look at the things that had been broken or lost in shifting them
from Tostes to Yonville, not to mention the plaster cure, which an
extra big jolt had knocked out of the wagon and smashed into atoms
on the cobbles at Quincampoix!
  But a pleasanter care came to occupy his mind. His wife was to
have a child. The closer her time drew near, the greater the fuss he
made of her. It was another fleshly link between them, a sort of
perpetual reminder of a more complex union. When, from a distance,
he surveyed her languid walk and her figure without stays turning
limply on her hips, when he had her opposite to him, he could look
at her at his ease, while she assumed all kinds of tired poses in
her easy-chair. He could contain himself no longer. He would get up,
kiss her, stroke her face, call her 'little mamma', try to make her
dance and, half laughing, half in tears, deliver himself of all the
tender, loving baby-talk that came into his mind. The idea of being
a father pleased him immensely. There was nothing lacking now. He knew
human existence all along the line, and he settled down to it with a
contented mind.
  At first Emma felt a great astonishment; then she was anxious to get
the confinement over, so that she might know how it felt to be a
mother. But not being able to spend as much as she wanted to and to
have a swing cradle with pink silk curtains, and baby-caps with
embroidery on them, she gave it up in a fit of temper and ordered
the whole thing from a local sewing-woman without choosing or
discussing anything. Thus she took no interest in all those
preparations which stimulate a mother's tenderness, and so perhaps
from the very beginning there was something lacking in her affection.
                                                          {12 ^paragraph 15}
  However, as Charles kept harping on the brat at every meal, she soon
began to dwell on the matter more continuously.
  She hoped it would be a boy. He should be strong and dark, and
they would call him George. And the thought of having a boy seemed
somehow to compensate her for all her unrequited longings in the past.
A man, at all events, is free. The realms of passion and the realms of
travel are his to range at will. He can override obstacles, and no
sort of happiness is necessarily beyond his reach. But a woman is
checkmated at every turn. Flexible yet powerless to move, she has at
once her physical disabilities and her economic dependence in the
scales against her. Her will, like the veil of her bonnet, is tied
to a string and flutters in every wind. Whenever a desire impels,
there is always a convention that restrains.
  She was confined one Sunday morning about six, just as the sun was
getting up.
  'It's a girl,' said Charles.
  She turned away her head and fainted.
                                                          {12 ^paragraph 20}
  Madame Homais hurried over almost at once to embrace her, and so did
Mere Lefrancois of the Lion d'Or. The chemist, a most discreet
man, offered her a few preliminary congratulations through the
half-open door. He desired to inspect the infant, and pronounced
himself satisfied.
  During her convalescence she busied herself trying to find a name
for her daughter. She started by going through all the names with
Italian endings, like Clara, Louisa, Amanda, Atala. She rather liked
Galsuinde, and still more Yseult or Leocadie. Charles wanted the child
to be called after her mother. Emma said no. They went through the
calendar from end to end, they asked outsiders.
  'I was talking to Monsieur Leon the other day,' said the chemist,
and he was surprised you did not choose Madeleine, which is very
popular just now.'
  But the dowager Madame Bovary protested loudly against giving the
child the name of an erring woman. Monsieur Homais always had a
predilection for names associated with a great man, a glorious deed or
a noble idea, and it was on this system that he had christened his
four children. Thus Napoleon represented glory, and Franklin, liberty.
Irma was possibly a concession to romanticism, but Athalie was a
tribute to the most deathless masterpiece of the French stage.
  For his philosophical convictions did not interfere with his
artistic susceptibilities. In him the thinker did not stifle the man
of feeling. He knew where to draw the line, how to differentiate
between imagination and fanaticism. In Athalie, for instance, he
condemned the ideas but admired the style, he denounced the conception
but applauded the workmanship, fell foul of the characters but
belauded their speeches. When he read out the purple passages, he
was carried away, but when he reflected that the shavelings made use
of it to reinforce their stock-in-trade, he was terribly cast down. He
would have liked to crown Racine with both hands, and at the same time
give him a good piece of his mind.
                                                          {12 ^paragraph 25}
  At last Emma remembered that when she was at the Chateau de la
Vaubyessard she had heard the Marquise call a young woman by the
name of Berthe. That settled it, and Berthe was the name chosen. As
Farmer Rouault could not come to the christening, Monsieur Homais
was asked to be godfather. All the things he gave by way of presents
were taken from stock- namely, six boxes of jujubes, one whole flask
of racahout, three tubes of marshmallow paste, together with six
sticks of sugar candy which he had accidentally come across in a
cupboard. On the night of the ceremony there was a big dinner, at
which the cure was present. They all got pretty well warmed up. Just
before the liqueurs came on Monsieur Homais struck up Le Dieu des
bonnes gens, Monsieur Leon sang a barcarolle and Madame Bovary,
senior, who was the godmother, a ballad of the days of the Empire.
Finally, Monsieur Bovary, senior, insisted on the baby being brought
down, and proceeded to baptize it by pouring a glass of champagne on
its head. This mockery of the first of the sacraments roused the
Abbe Bournisien's indignation. Bovary pere responded with a
quotation from La Guerre des Dieux. The cure got up to go. The
ladies implored him to remain. Homais interposed. At last he was
induced to resume his seat and continued to finish off the half-cup of
coffee he had poured out into his saucer.
  Monsieur Bovary, senior, stopped on a whole month at Yonville,
making a great impression on the natives with a splendid forage cap
trimmed with silver braid which he wore of a morning when smoking
his pipe in the market-place. And being in the habit of drinking a lot
of brandy, he often despatched the servant-girl to the Lion d'Or
to buy him a bottle, which he put down to his son's account; and to
scent his handkerchiefs he used up all his daughter-in-law's
eau-de-Cologne.
  Emma by no means disliked his company. He had seen a lot of the
world, talked to her about Berlin, Vienna, Strasbourg, of his
soldiering days, the mistresses he had had, the flash luncheon-parties
he had attended, and then he displayed great friendliness, and
sometimes, on the stairs, or out in the garden, he would put his arm
round her waist, with a 'Charles, my boy, you had better keep an eye
on her!' Whereat Madame Bovary, senior, began to feel anxious for
her son's happiness, and fearing that sooner or later her husband
would have a bad influence on the young woman's moral ideas, she did
her best to hurry on their departure. Possibly she had even graver
grounds for apprehension, for Monsieur Bovary was a man to stick at
nothing.
  One day Emma was seized with a sudden longing to see her little
girl, who had been put out to nurse with the carpenter's wife, and,
without looking at the almanac to see whether the six weeks of the
Virgin were over or not, she set out in the direction of Rollet's
house, which was at the far end of the village, at the foot of the
hill, between the high-road and the meadows. It was midday. The houses
had their shutters pulled to, and the slate roofs, which shone
brightly in the fierce light that beat down on them from the cloudless
sky, seemed to be flashing out sparks from the peaks of their
gables. A hot wind was blowing. When she had gone some way, Emma began
to feel her strength failing her. She hesitated whether to return home
or go in somewhere and sit down.
  Just then, Monsieur Leon came out from a house close by, with a
bundle of papers under his arm. He came up and spoke, and took up
his stand in the shade of the grey sun-blind outside Lheureux's shop.
                                                          {12 ^paragraph 30}
  Madame Bovary said she was on her way to see her baby, but that
she was beginning to feel tired.
  'If...' began Leon, but he stopped short, not daring to continue.
  'Have you any business to do anywhere?' she inquired.
  And when the clerk said that he hadn't, she begged him to
accompany her. That very night the news had got abroad in Yonville,
and Madame Tuvache, the mayor's wife, declared, in her servant's
hearing, that Madame Bovary was compromising herself.
  To get to the nurse's you had to go along to the end of the street
and then turn to the left, as if you were going to the cemetery, along
a narrow pathway fringed with privet between some cottages and
gardens. The privet was in blossom and so were the speedwells, the
honeysuckle, the thistles, and the briars, which pierced their way
through the bushes. Through the gaps in the hedge you might catch
sight of a pig reclining on a dung-heap or a tethered cow rubbing
her horns against a tree-trunk. And so, both together, and side by
side, they strolled gently on, she leaning on his arm and he walking
in step with her. In front of them hovered a swarm of midges,
buzzing in the warm air.
                                                          {12 ^paragraph 35}
  They recognized the house by an aged walnut-tree that shaded it.
It was a low house, roofed with brown tiles, and outside it,
underneath the attic window, hung a string of onions. Faggots,
standing upright against a blackthorn hedge, surrounded a bed of
lettuces, a few patches of lavender and some sweet peas trained on
sticks. A trickle of dirty water went oozing in amongst the grass
and all about were a number of nondescript odds and ends of clothes-
knitted stockings, a red calico bodice and a large sheet of coarse
linen stretched along on the hedge. Hearing the gate open, the woman
came out, carrying a baby at the breast. With her other hand she was
dragging along a poor, miserable-looking little urchin with scabs
all over his face. He belonged to some drapers in Rouen, and his
parents being too much taken up with their business to have him at
home, had put him out to board in the country.
  'Come along in,' said she, 'your little mite is in there asleep.'
The bedroom, on the ground floor- the only one in the house- had a
large bed at the far end stuck against the wall, while a
kneading-trough stood beside the window, one pane of which had been
repaired with a star of blue paper. In the corner behind the bed,
shoes with gleaming hob-nails were ranged along underneath the
washstand next to a bottle of oil with a feather stuck into its
neck. A Mathieu Laensherg lay on the dusty mantelpiece among a
medley of gunflints, candle ends and bits of tinder. The room's
crowning superfluity was a picture representing 'Fame' blowing her
trumpet. This had evidently been cut out from some perfumer's
advertisement, and six shoe brads fixed it to the wall.
  Emma's baby was asleep in a wicker cradle on the floor. She took
it in her arms, wrapped up in its coverlet, and began to croon
gently as she rocked it to and fro.
  Meanwhile Leon walked up and down the room. It seemed strange to him
to see this beautiful, elegantly attired woman in the midst of such
squalid surroundings. Madame Bovary turned crimson. He looked away,
thinking he had perhaps seemed too inquisitive. She put the little one
back in the bassinet. It had just been sick all over her collar. The
nurse came to wipe it, assuring her that it wouldn't show.
  'She does that and plenty more besides on me,' she said, 'and I am
for ever washing her. It would be kind of you if you would just
leave word at Camus the grocer's to let me have a bit of soap when I
wanted it. This would save you trouble, as I shouldn't have to come
bothering you for it then.'
                                                          {12 ^paragraph 40}
  'Quite so, quite so,' said Emma. 'Good-bye, Mere Rollet.'
  And she wiped her shoes on the mat as she went out.
  The worthy woman went with her to the garden gate, telling her
what a job it was for her to get up at night.
  'I'm that done up sometimes,' she said, 'that I drop off to sleep
a-sittin' in my chair. Now if you could let me have just a pound of
ground coffee. It would last me a month, and I'd have some in the
morning with a drop of milk.'
  The woman was profuse in her thanks, and Madame Bovary again
turned to depart. She had not gone many steps along the footpath
when she heard the sound of clogs behind her, and turned to see who
was coming. It was the nurse.
                                                          {12 ^paragraph 45}
  'Well,' she said, 'what is it?'
  The woman drew her aside, behind an elm-tree, and began telling
her all about her husband. 'What with his job, you see, and six francs
a year what Captain...'
  'Quick, come to the point,' said Emma. 'What do you want?'
  'Well, you see,' said the nurse, heaving a sigh after every word.
'I'm afraid he might feel hurt like if he was to see me a-drinking
coffee all to myself. You know what men...'
  'But you'll have some. I'm going to give you some. You pester me.'
                                                          {12 ^paragraph 50}
  'Ah, but, you see, it's like this, mum. Ever since he got his wounds
he gets cramp on the chest something horrible. He says cider only
makes him feel weaker.'
  'Oh, do come to the point, Mere Rollet!'
  'Well, then,' she said, with a curtsey, 'if it's not asking too
much'- here she bobbed again- 'if you could manage'- and she looked at
her imploringly- 'just a little jar of brandy, and I'd rub your little
one's feet with it; they're as tender as your tongue, they are!'
  Ridding herself of the nurse, Emma again took Monsieur Leon's arm.
She walked quickly for some distance, then slackened her pace, and
as she looked about her her gaze rested on the young man's shoulder
and on his frock-coat, with its smart black velvet collar. His
auburn hair descended upon it, and it was smooth and carefully
brushed. She noticed his nails, which were longer than nails were
usually worn at Yonville. Attending to his nails was one of the
clerk's chief occupations; and he had a special pocket-knife for the
purpose which he kept in his writing-desk.
  They went back to Yonville along the bank. In summer the stream is
wider than usual, and now showed the whole extent of the garden walls,
which had a few steps leading down to the water. The stream flowed
on noiselessly, swift and cool to the eye; tall, slender weeds clung
and bowed together, swaying in the stream and, like green tresses,
rose and fell and outspread themselves in its translucent depths.
Sometimes on the tips of the rushes, or on the leaves of the
water-lilies, an insect with its dainty feet would walk or stand
airily poised. The sunlight darted its rays through the little blue
bubbles on the water, that formed and broke in endless succession on
the surface. Aged willows, with their spreading branches and hoary
trunks, were mirrored in the stream; and all around, as far as eye
could see, the meadows seemed deserted. It was dinner-time in the
farms, and the only sounds that fell upon the ears of the young
woman and her companion as they went their way were their footfalls on
the path, the words they spoke to one another, and the frou-frou of
Emma's dress rustling round her.
                                                          {12 ^paragraph 55}
  The garden walls, with pieces of broken bottles on their coping,
were as hot as the panes of a forcing-frame. Wallflowers had rooted
themselves in the crannies, and Madame Bovary, as she passed,
touched some of their withered blossoms with the edge of her open
parasol and made them crumble into yellow dust, or, maybe, a tendril
of honeysuckle or clematis overhanging the wall would catch in the
fringe and drag for a moment over the silk.
  They were talking about a troop of Spanish dancers who were
shortly to appear at the theatre in Rouen.
  'Shall you go?' she asked.
  'If I can.' he replied.
  Was this all they had to say to one another? Matters of deeper
import seemed to seek utterance in the expression of their eyes.
They tried to speak of ordinary, everyday things, but all the while
they felt a mutual languor stealing into their inmost being. It was
like a murmur of the soul, deep down, persistent, dominating the
spoken word. Lost in wonder at the strange sweetness that stole upon
their senses, they never spoke of it to one another or sought to probe
its cause. Coming delights, like the shores of tropic isles, exhale
across the spreading seas their perfume-laden airs, the native
softness of the clime; and they who breathe them, their spirits lulled
as if by wine, scan not, nor try to scan, the faint, far-off horizon.
                                                          {12 ^paragraph 60}
  They came to a place where the ground had been trodden into a mire
by the cattle. They had to step across it on big green stones set at
intervals in the mud. From time to time she would pause and look where
to put her foot. The stone would move, and she would sway about,
elbows in air, bending forward and darting eager glances here and
there, trying to keep her balance. And she would laugh as she nearly
tumbled into a puddle.
  When they came to her garden, Madame Bovary pushed open the little
gate and, running up the steps, disappeared from view.
  Leon went back to his office. His chief was out. He gave a glance at
some papers, trimmed a quill pen and, finally, put on his hat and went
out.
  He went up to La Pature at the top of the Cote d'Argueil, where
the woods begin. He threw himself down on the ground under the pines
and looked at the sky through his fingers.
  'Ah me!' he sighed, 'how slow things are!'
                                                          {12 ^paragraph 65}
  He cursed his luck, having to live in this village with Homais for
friend and Monsieur Guillaumin for master. The latter, with his
gold-rimmed spectacles and his red whiskers resplendent against his
white cravat, was wholly wrapped up in his profession, and had no
culture or intellectual refinement about him, though he affected a
sort of English downrightness of manner which had very much
impressed the clerk to begin with. As for the chemist's wife, there
wasn't another such woman in the whole of Normandy. She was as
placid as a sheep, looked after her children, her father, her mother
and her cousins, wept at the misfortunes of others, let the house take
care of itself, and cordially hated stays. But she was so slow in
her movements, so wearisome to listen to, so under-bred in
appearance and so limited in ideas that, although she was thirty and
he twenty, and they slept in adjoining rooms and spoke to each other
every day, it never occurred to him that she was the kind of woman
anyone would give a thought to, or that she had anything of her sex
about her but the dress.
  And who else was there? Binet, a few tradesmen, two or three
innkeepers, the cure, and finally Monsieur Tuvache, the mayor, and
his two sons: people with money: stodgy, dull-witted folk who worked
their own land, gave family parties among themselves, a goody-goody,
wholly insufferable crowd.
  But against all this background of shoddy humanity, Emma's face
stood out, lonely yet far-off, for somehow it seemed to him that there
was a gulf between them.
  At first he had been a pretty frequent visitor to the house, going
there with the chemist. Charles had not appeared overjoyed to see him,
and Leon did not quite know what line to take, what with his anxiety
not to appear too pushing and his desire to be on such terms as he
never really expected to attain.

{13
                                  13
-
              The chemist's visits: Evenings with Leon:
            Dominoes: The birth of romance: Phrenology and
                   cactuses: Emma makes a present.
-
  AS soon as the weather began to turn cold, Emma exchanged her
bedroom for the sitting-room. It was a long room with a low ceiling,
and on the chimney-piece there was a large piece of branching coral
resting against the mirror. She used to pull her easy-chair close up
to the window so that she could watch the villagers as they went by on
the pavement.
                                                           {13 ^paragraph 5}
  Twice a day Leon passed along from his work to the Lion d'Or. Emma
could tell his step a long way off. She leaned forward and listened,
and the young man glided past the window-curtain, always dressed the
same and always looking straight in front of him. But at dusk, when
she had dropped her piece of unfinished embroidery on her lap and
was sitting with her chin resting on her left hand, she would often
start at the sudden apparition of this gliding shadow, and then she
would get up and tell the girl to lay the dinner.
  Monsieur Homais would often come in while they were eating.
Turkish cap in hand, he would enter on tip-toe, so as not to disturb
anyone, and always saying the same thing, 'Good-evening, everybody.'
Having taken his customary place at the table, between husband and
wife, he asked the doctor about his patients, and the doctor consulted
him about the sort of fees he ought to charge. Then they began to
discuss the news in the paper. Homais, at this hour, would know it
almost by heart and retail it in full, together with the editorial
comments, recounting every single accident that had occurred in France
or out of it. And when that subject was exhausted, he would
immediately proceed to comment on the dishes he saw. Sometimes he
would half rise from his chair and delicately point out a titbit to
Madame, or, turning to the servant, give her some really sound
advice about the making of stews and the hygienic values of the
various kinds of seasoning. He expatiated on the subject of aromas,
osmazomes, juices and gelatines with an eloquence that was
positively dazzling. His head being more plentifully stocked with
recipes than his shop was with jars, he was an authority on the making
of jams, vinegars and cordials, and he was also thoroughly up to
date in the various kinds of heating apparatus, knew how to keep
cheese in good condition, and all about wine and its ailments.
  At eight o'clock Justin would come for him to go over and shut up
the shop. And Monsieur Homais would give him a knowing look,
especially if Felicite were there, for he had noticed that his pupil
was very fond of calling at the doctor's.
  'The young dog,' said he, 'is beginning to feel his feet, and hang
me if I don't think he's gone on your servant!'
  But the young man had a graver fault, and one he had been told
about, too. And that was, he was for ever listening. Sundays, for
instance, there was no getting him out of the drawing-room. The
children would fall asleep, sprawling about in the arm-chairs, and
pulling the covers, which were a good deal too big, all out of
shape, whereupon Madame would send for Justin to come and take them,
and there he would stick.
                                                          {13 ^paragraph 10}
  There was not much of a crowd at the chemist's parties as a rule.
His busy tongue and revolutionary ideas had choked off the decent
people one after another. But the clerk never failed to put in an
appearance. As soon as he heard the door-bell, off he would rush to
greet Madame Bovary, take her shawl and stow her overshoes- which
she always wore when it was snowing- underneath the counter.
  They would open the proceedings with a round or two of
trente-et-un. Then Monsieur Homais would have a game of ecarte
with Emma. Leon would stand behind her and tell her what to play,
noting how the teeth of her comb bit into her chignon. Every time
she threw a card on the table, the movement would pull up her dress on
the right side. Beneath her upgathered hair a brownish hue descended
her back and, growing gradually paler, was finally lost in the
shadows.
  Her gown would then fall on both sides of the chair, puffing out,
full of folds and spreading out on the carpet. When Leon felt the sole
of his boot on it, he stepped aside as though he had trodden on a
living thing.
  When they were through with the card-playing, the apothecary and the
doctor would settle down to a game of dominoes and Emma, changing
her place, would sit with her elbow on the table, turning over the
pages of an illustrated paper. She had brought her fashion paper
with her. Leon sat down beside her, and they looked at the pictures
together, waiting for each other at the bottom of the page.
Sometimes she would ask him to say some poetry. Leon would recite in
lingering tones, letting his voice die softly away when he came to the
love passages. But the rattle of the dominoes put him out. Monsieur
Homais was a first-rate player. He could give Charles a double-six and
beat him. Then, when they had finished their three hundred, they would
stretch themselves out in front of the fire and soon drop off to
sleep. The fire was burning low, the tea-urn empty, and Leon still
read on. Emma listened, mechanically twisting round the lampshade,
with its pictures of pierrots in carriages and tight-rope dancers
holding their balancing poles. And then Leon would come to a stop, and
with a sweep of his hand draw attention to his sleeping audience.
And they would lower their voices, and the conversation which followed
seemed the sweeter because no one overheard it.
  And so a kind of association was established between them, a
continual interchange of books and romances. Monsieur Bovary was not a
jealous man. It didn't strike him as in any way peculiar.
                                                          {13 ^paragraph 15}
  On his birthday, he had a fine phrenological bust given to him. It
was marked all over with figures right down to the thorax, and painted
blue. It was a little attention from the clerk. He paid him plenty
more besides, and even did his shopping for him in Rouen. And some new
novel or other having made cactuses all the rage, Leon bought one
for Madame, and brought it home on his knees in the Hirondelle,
pricking his fingers on the hard, sharp spikes.
  She had a board with a rail in front of it fixed up outside her
window to hold her flower-pots. The clerk, too, had his little hanging
garden. They could look across and see each other at their
respective windows attending to their flowers.
  Among the windows in the village there was one that was still more
persistently occupied. Of a Sunday, from morning till night, and every
afternoon, if the light was good, you could see the profile of
Monsieur Binet as he sat at his attic window, bending over his
lathe, whose monotonous hum was audible as far as the Lion d'Or.
  One night Leon went home and found a mat in his room, a mat worked
in wool and velvet with sprays of leaves on a pale ground. He called
for Madame Homais to come and see it, and Monsieur Homais, Justin, the
children and the cook. He told his employer about it. Everyone
wanted to know about this mat. Why should the doctor's wife make
presents to the clerk? Queer! She must be his mistress!
  He certainly gave that impression, he was so full of her charms
and her wit. One day Binet, who had had more than enough of it,
broke out with a brutal,
                                                          {13 ^paragraph 20}
  'What's all that matter to me? I've got nothing to do with her.'
  He cudgelled his brains to think of the best way of declaring
himself. He was for ever torn between fear of offending her and
shame at his own irresolution, and he wept with desire and
despondency. Then suddenly he would make up his mind to act and to act
quickly. He wrote letters- and tore them up; fixed a day for the deed-
and put it off. Sometimes he started out determined to dare all. But
all his courage melted when he found himself face to face with Emma;
and when Charles, appearing on the scene, invited him to get up into
the trap and drive with him to see some patient or other in the
district, he at once accepted and, with a bow to Madame, took his
departure. Was not her husband a kind of reflection of herself?
  So far as Emma was concerned she did not ask herself whether she was
in love. Love, she thought, was something that must come suddenly,
with a great display of thunder and lightning, descending on one's
life like a tempest from above, turning it topsy-turvy, whirling
away one's resolutions like leaves and bearing one onward, heart and
soul, towards the abyss. She never bethought herself how on the
terrace of a house the rain forms itself into little lakes when the
gutters are choked, and she was going on quite unaware of her peril,
when all of a sudden she discovered- a crack in the wall!

{14
                                  14
-
                 Visit to the mill: Charles and Leon:
              The draper's treasures: A good housewife:
                 Berthe comes home: The inaccessible
                      beloved: Learning to hate.
-
                                                           {14 ^paragraph 5}
  IT was one snowy Sunday afternoon in February. The whole party-
Monsieur and Madame Bovary, Homais and Monsieur Leon- had gone off
to inspect a mill that was being put up in the valley about a mile and
a half from Yonville. The apothecary had taken Napoleon and Athalie
along with him to give them a little exercise, and Justin was there,
too, carrying some umbrellas on his shoulder.
  Never was there a less interesting object of interest. There was a
large piece of waste ground, on which, lying scattered about among
heaps of stones and gravel, were a few wheels belonging to the
plant, already red with rust, and in the middle of it a long,
quadrangular building pierced with a quantity of little windows. The
building wasn't finished, and you could see the sky through the
rafters of the roof. Hanging from the gable-end was a bouquet of
corn and wheatears, with its tricolour streamers flapping in the wind.
  Homais was holding forth. He was explaining to the company the
future importance of these works, calculating the strength of the
beams, the thickness of the walls, and expressing his profound
regret that he had not got a yard-stick, such as Monsieur Binet
possessed, for his own private use.
  Emma, who had taken his arm, was leaning lightly against his
shoulder and looking at the sun's disc diffusing its pale glare
through the mist. Then she turned her head. Charles was there. His cap
was rammed down over his eyes, and his two thick lips were
trembling, which made his face look stupider than ever. The sight of
his back even, his unemotional back, had something irritating about
it, and all the dull mediocrity of the wearer seemed to be blazoned on
that coat.
  While she surveyed him, finding in her very irritation a kind of
perverted sexual emotionalism, Leon advanced a step. The cold air
had made him pale and seemed to have lent an added touch of languor to
his features. Between his cravat and his neck the collar of his
shirt was gaping a little, showing his skin; beneath a lock of hair
the tip of his ear was visible, and his big blue eyes, raised
upwards to the clouds, seemed to Emma more limpid and more beautiful
than those mountain tarns in which the skies are mirrored.
                                                          {14 ^paragraph 10}
  'Ah, you little wretch!' shouted the chemist all at once, running to
his son, who had jumped into a heap of lime so that he might make
his boots white. Overwhelmed by this torrent of reproaches Napoleon
set up a howl, while Justin wiped his shoes with a handful of straw.
But a knife was the thing. Charles offered his.
  'Ah!' she said to herself, 'he carries a knife in his pocket, like a
yokel.'
  The twilight began to fall, frosty and chill, and they made their
way back to Yonville.
  Madame Bovary did not go over to her neighbours' that evening, and
when Charles had departed and she felt she was all alone, the
comparison again came before her with all the clearness of a sensation
just experienced and with that enlargement of perspective which memory
gives to the things we have seen. As she lay in bed gazing at the fire
that was blazing away cheerfully, she saw, once more, Leon standing
there with one hand on his bending cane and with the other holding
Athalie, who was calmly sucking a piece of ice. She thought him
charming. She could not banish him from her thoughts. She remembered
other attitudes of his on other days, things he had said, the sound of
his voice, all about him. And she said over and over again, pouting
out her lips as if for a kiss:
  'Oh, charming! charming! Surely he is in love?' she asked herself.
'But with whom?... Why, with me!'
                                                          {14 ^paragraph 15}
  And then all the proofs came before her at once. Her heart gave a
great leap. The firelight flickered joyously on the ceiling. She
turned on her back and stretched out her arms.
  Then began the eternal lament. 'Ah, if heaven had only willed it so!
And why not? What is there to prevent it?'
  It was midnight when Charles got back. She pretended she had just
woke up, and, as he made a noise undressing, she complained of
having a headache. Then she asked in an off-hand way what sort of an
evening it had been.
  'Monsieur Leon,' he said, 'went to bed early.'
  She could not help smiling, and as she turned over to go to sleep,
her heart was filled with a new enchantment.
                                                          {14 ^paragraph 20}
  Next day, when it was getting dark, she received a visit from
Monsieur Lheureux, the draper. A very clever man was Monsieur
Lheureux. A Gascon born, he had turned himself into a Norman, and thus
combined the southerner's gift of speech with the canniness of the
Cauchois. His fat, flabby, beardless face looked as if it had been
stained with a weak solution of liquorice, and his white hair
emphasized the keenness of his little dark eyes. Nobody knew what he
had sprung from. A pedlar, some said; a banker at Routot, said others.
Anyhow, this much was certain, he could work out sums in his head that
would have made Binet himself sit up. He was deferential to the
point of obsequiousness, and always held himself slightly inclined
from the perpendicular, as one making a bow or gracefully extending an
invitation.
  He left his hat with its crepe band in the hall, and then
deposited on the table a green cardboard box. He began by telling
Madame, with numerous complimentary remarks, how deeply he regretted
that he had hitherto failed to secure her patronage. A little shop
such as his naturally offered few inducements to a lady of
fashion. He dwelt with emphasis on that phrase. Nevertheless, she had
but to state her requirements, and he would undertake to supply
whatever she needed, whether in haberdashery, underclothing, millinery
or general drapery, for he went to town regularly four times a
month, and was in touch with all the leading business houses. You
could mention his name at the 'Trois Freres', the 'Barbe d'Or' or
the 'Grand Sauvage', the gentlemen there all knew him like the insides
of their pockets.
  Today he had ventured to call on Madame, as he was passing, in order
to show her some goods which a most unusual opportunity had enabled
him to acquire. So saying he produced half a dozen embroidered collars
from his box.
  Madame Bovary looked at them.
  'I am not in need of anything just now,' she said.
                                                          {14 ^paragraph 25}
  Thereupon Monsieur Lheureux delicately displayed three Algerian
scarves, several packets of English needles, a pair of raffia slippers
and finally four coconut egg-cups with fretwork carving done by
convicts. Then, leaning forward with both hands on the table, and
craning out his neck, he watched Emma open-mouthed as she stood
irresolute, surveying the varied assortment.
  He had unfolded the scarves to their full extent, and as though to
chase away a speck of dust, he flicked them from time to time with his
finger-nail, whereon they rustled softly and their golden spangles
sparkled like little stars in the twilight.
  'How much are you asking for them?'
  'A mere song,' he answered, 'a mere song. And there's no hurry.
Whenever it suits you. There's nothing of the Jew about us.' She
pondered a few moments and then again declined.
  'Well, well,' said Monsieur Lheureux, without turning a hair, 'we'll
do some business one of these days. I've always managed to hit it with
the ladies, except the one I've got at home.'
                                                          {14 ^paragraph 30}
  Emma smiled.
  'What I mean to say is,' he continued genially, after his little
joke, 'I don't bother my head about the money. I would lend you a bit,
if you wanted it any time.'
  'Oh' he went on in a low, rapid voice, as he noticed her gesture
of surprise, 'I shouldn't have far to go to find you some, you bet.'
  And then he began asking about Old Man Tellier, the landlord of
the Cafe Francais, whom Monsieur Bovary was attending.
  'What is it he's got, the old fellow? He coughs enough to bring
the house down, and I'm very much afraid he'll soon be needing a
wooden suit more than a flannel waistcoat. He didn't half go the
pace in his young days! Never know how to keep themselves in, people
like that. He's drunk so much brandy he's all turned to stone. All the
same, no one likes parting with an old acquaintance.'
                                                          {14 ^paragraph 35}
  And all the time he was buckling up his cardboard box he talked
about the doctor's patients.
  'It's the weather; must be,' said he, screwing up his face and
looking at the window, 'that causes all this illness. I'm feeling a
bit off colour myself. One of these days I'll have to come and see the
doctor about a pain I keep getting in the back. Well, good evening,
Madame Bovary. Always pleased to wait on you.' And he went out,
closing the door quietly behind him.
  Emma had her dinner brought up to her in her bedroom on a tray and
ate it by the fireside. She took a long time over it. It seemed good
to be alive.
  'That was self-denying of me,' she said, thinking of the scarves.
  She heard someone coming up the stairs. It was Leon. On the chest of
drawers was a pile of dusters waiting to be hemmed. She rose and,
picking up the top one, pretended to be very busy.
                                                          {14 ^paragraph 40}
  The conversation flagged. Madame Bovary frequently relapsed into
silence, while Leon himself seemed ill at ease. He was seated on a low
chair near the fire, and kept turning over the ivory needle-case in
his fingers. She plied her needle, pressing down the hem of the
cloth from time to time with her nail. She did not speak, and he too
held his peace, just as entranced by her silence as he would have been
by her words.
  'Poor boy!' she sighed to herself.
  'What have I done to offend her?' he wondered.
  At last, however, Leon remarked that he would have to go to Rouen
one of these days, on business.
  'Your music subscription has run out,' he added. 'Shall I renew it?'
                                                          {14 ^paragraph 45}
  'No,' she answered.
  'Why not?'
  'Because...'
  And, pursing her lips, she slowly drew a long stitch of grey thread.
This needlework put Leon on edge. It seemed to be taking the skin
off the tips of Emma's fingers. A little love-making phrase came to
his lips, but he did not risk it.
  'Are you giving it up, then?' he asked.
                                                          {14 ^paragraph 50}
  'What?' she asked quickly: 'music? Heavens, yes! Haven't I got the
house to manage, my husband to look after and a hundred and one things
to see to before thinking of things like music?'
  She glanced at the clock. Charles was late. She pretended to be
concerned about him. 'He's so kind!' she repeated two or three times.
  The clerk liked Monsieur Bovary. But this display of affection
rather piqued him. However, he went on sounding his praises, which, he
said, were in everybody's mouth, particularly the chemist's.
  'What a good fellow he is!' said Emma.
  'Rather!' said the clerk.
                                                          {14 ^paragraph 55}
  And he began to talk about Madame Homais, whose 'slummucky'
appearance usually furnished them with a subject for laughter.
  'Well, what's it matter?' interrupted Emma. 'A woman who looks after
her children properly never worries about dress.' After which she
was silent again.
  The same sort of thing went on for days. Her manner and conversation
underwent a complete change. She took a visible interest in the house,
started going to church again regularly and kept a tighter hand on her
servant.
  She took Berthe away from the wet-nurse. Felicite brought her down
when anyone came to call, and Madame Bovary undressed her to show what
a fine child she was. She declared she adored children. They were such
a joy and comfort, and she went mad over them. And as she kissed and
hugged the child she launched out into flights of poetry that would
have reminded any but Yonville folk of Sachette in Notre-Dame.
  When Charles got home he would find his slippers warming by the
fire. His waistcoats now were properly lined, the buttons were
always on his shirts, and it was really rather a pleasant sight to see
all the night-caps in the press arrayed in little separate piles.
She never kicked now when he asked her to take a little turn in the
garden. Whatever he proposed she agreed to, though she did not
anticipate the wishes to which she so dutifully submitted. And when
Leon saw him at the fireside after dinner, with his hands folded
over his belly, his feet up on the fender, his cheeks flushed with the
process of digestion, his eyes moist with satisfaction, the child
crawling about on the carpet, and this elegant woman who would steal
up and kiss him over the back of the chair, he would say to himself,
'What a fool I am to imagine I should ever get her to care for me!'
                                                          {14 ^paragraph 60}
  At such times she seemed so virtuous and inaccessible, that every
hope, even the faintest, forsook him. And this renunciation gave her a
strange status in his eyes. She became dissociated in his eyes from
those fleshly attributes which he could not hope to enjoy, and, in his
heart, he saw her rising ever higher and higher, freeing herself
from earthly trammels, like a soul floating heavenwards in some
glorious apotheosis.
  It was one of those ethereal desires which do not interfere with our
lives, which we cultivate because they are rare, and which if we
lost them would give us more pain than the fulfilment of them would
give us pleasure.
  Emma lost flesh, grew pale and haggard. With her dark, plaited hair,
her large eyes, her straight nose, her bird-like and ever-silent
tread, she seemed like one passing through the world without so much
as touching it, bearing on her brow the shadowy promise of some
glorious and heavenly destiny. She was so sad and so calm, so gentle
and, at the same time, so reserved, that you felt a sort of icy
charm when you were with her, the kind of shiver that comes over you
in a church from the perfume of flowers and the cold of the marble.
The others too came under her spell.
  'She's a woman of high endowments,' the chemist would remark. 'She
could hold her own in a sous-prefecture.'
  The married women admired her for her good management, the
patients for her pleasant manners, the poor for her charity.
                                                          {14 ^paragraph 65}
  But her bosom was a seething cauldron of desire and rage and hatred.
That dress of hers, with its plain, straight pleats, concealed a heart
that was being riven asunder, and those demure lips never confessed
the agony of it. She was in love with Leon, and she loved to get
away from people, to be all alone and to dwell upon his image. The
sight of him in the flesh marred the delicious sweetness of these
meditations. Emma's heart beat high when she heard him coming, and
then, when he was there, the excitement subsided, leaving behind it
a feeling of immense astonishment which finally fell away into
sadness.
  Little did Leon know that, when he came away from her, at his
wits' end to know what to do, she got up in order to gaze after him in
the street. She worried about what he was doing, she tried to get a
glimpse of his face, she invented a most elaborate story so as to find
a pretext for going up to see his bedroom. She thought the chemist's
wife a very lucky woman for being able to sleep under the same roof
with him, and her thoughts were for ever settling on that particular
house, like the Lion d'Or pigeons that came to wet their pink toes
and white wings in the gutters there. But the more Emma realized her
love, the more she thrust it from her, so that it should not be
seen, so that it should fade away. She would have liked Leon to have
an idea of it, and she thought of a variety of things, of catastrophic
events that might bring this about. What kept her back was doubtless
indolence or fear, and, to some extent, a sense of modesty. Next she
imagined she had overdone her coolness, that the psychological
moment had gone by, and that the whole thing was over. Then the pride,
the joy of saying, 'I am a virtuous woman,' of looking at herself in
the glass in an attitude of resignation, consoled her a little for the
sacrifice she supposed she was making.
  So, then, the desires of the flesh, the longing for wealth and the
melancholy dreams of passion, were all mingled in one agony of unrest,
and instead of directing her thoughts away from these things, she
clung to them more and more, fomenting her grief and always seeking
occasion to excite it. She would rap out angrily if there was anything
amiss with the food, or if someone went out of the room and didn't
shut the door properly. She thought bitterly of the fine velvet she
had not got, of the happiness that was not hers, of her lofty ideas,
of her exiguous home.
  What made it all the harder to bear was that Charles did not seem to
have a notion of what she was going through. His taking it for granted
that he was making her quite happy seemed to her like a fatuous
insult, and his certitude on the point nothing more nor less than a
piece of ingratitude. Who was she saving and scraping for, she
wanted to know? Wasn't he the greatest stumbling-block, the cause of
every ill and, as it were, the galling buckle of that manifold bond
that hemmed her in on every side?
  Therefore she unloaded upon him all the complex hatred that arose
from her various troubles and tribulations, and every effort she
made to diminish it, served only to give it greater force, for this
unavailing effort was added to other causes of despair and only
increased the completeness of the estrangement. Her very
submissiveness fired her with thoughts of rebellion. Her humdrum
life at home awoke in her all manner of luxurious dreams, and displays
of conjugal affection prompted her to adulterous desires. She would
have liked Charles to beat her so that she might have a just reason
for hating him and seeking vengeance. She was amazed at the hideous
ideas that came into her mind; and, through it all, she had to go on
smiling, to listen to herself saying she was happy, pretending to be
happy and letting others think so.
                                                          {14 ^paragraph 70}
  However, there were times when this hypocrisy made her sick.
Sometimes she felt as if she must run away with Leon, no matter
whither, but far away, and there begin life over again; but
forthwith a kind of yawning chasm would open within her, filled with
foreboding shadows.
  'Besides, he does not love me any more,' thought she. 'What will
become of me? What help is there, what consolation, what relief?'
And there she sat, broken, panting, motionless, sobbing under her
breath, her face all bathed in tears.
  'Why not say something to the doctor about it?' said the servant
when she came in and found her like that.
  'It's only nerves,' answered Emma. 'Don't say anything about it to
him. You would only upset him.'
  'Ah, yes,' Felicite went on, 'you're just like old Guerin's
daughter, the fisherman at Pollet. I used to know her at Dieppe before
I came to you. She was that sad, she was, that when you saw her
standing in the door of her house, she somehow looked like a funeral
pall hung up at the threshold. She'd got a sort of fog that settled in
her head, so the folks said, and the doctors couldn't do nothing
with her, nor the cure neither. When she got it bad, she went out
all by herself along by the side of the sea, and often enough the
coastguard officer, going his rounds, would come across her lying flat
on the pebbles crying her eyes out. Then she got married, and after
that it all went off, so they say.'
                                                          {14 ^paragraph 75}
  'But in my case,' said Emma, 'it didn't come on till I was married.'

{15
                                  15
-
                A Spring evening: Emma meets the cure:
          Berthe's fall: Charles's portrait: Leon is bored:
            Off to Paris: Monsieur Homais's evening call:
                        An event for Yonville.
-
                                                           {15 ^paragraph 5}
  ONE evening as she was sitting at the open window looking at
Lestiboudois, the beadle, who was cutting the hedge, she heard the
Angelus ringing.
  It was at the beginning of April, and the primroses were in bloom, a
warm wind was blowing over the freshly turned beds, and the gardens,
like the women, seemed to be adorning themselves for the high days
of summer. Through the lattice-work of the summer-house and out and
away beyond, you could see the little river threading its way
through the green meadows in little wandering curves. The evening mist
loitered, slowly drawn, among the leafless poplars, shading their
outlines with a violet paler and more transparent than the frailest
gauze entangled in their branches. In the far distance cattle were
moving leisurely homeward, but they were too far off for their
lowing to be heard, and, all the while, the bell went on ringing,
ringing, burdening the wandering airs with its unvarying lament. The
reiterated, rhythmic sound sent Emma's thoughts wandering among the
memories of her young days, memories of her convent school. She
remembered the tall candlesticks on the altar towering above the vases
filled with flowers, and the tabernacle with its little columns. And a
longing came over her to be back again, to make one in the long line
of white veils, broken here and there by the stiff black hoods of
the nuns, kneeling with bowed heads at their prie-Dieu. At Mass on
Sundays, when she raised her head, she could see, amid the blue-grey
clouds of incense, the meek and lovely countenance of the Virgin. Then
something knocked at her heart, she felt all yielding and helpless
like a downy feather from a bird's breast, eddying in the storm,
and, half unconscious of her action, she began to make her way to
the church, bent on some act of devotion, no matter what, if only
she might drown her spirit therein and so become oblivious of the
world about her.
  She met Lestiboudois coming back across the Square, for, so as not
to finish up his day's work before the time was up, he chose to
leave off in the middle and then go on again, so that he rang the
Angelus when it suited him. And even if he did ring too soon, what
of that? It let the youngsters know when it was time to go in for
catechism. Some were there already, playing marbles on the
flagstones in the churchyard. Others were sitting straddle-legged on
the wall, swinging their legs and scraping away with their clogs at
the tall nettles that had sprung up between the little enclosure and
the newest graves. It was the only green spot there; all the rest
was stones, and perpetually covered with a fine dust, despite the
sexton's broom. The children scampered about there as on a floor
specially made for them, and their shrill laughter pierced through the
sound of the bell, which grew softer and softer, as the rope came to a
standstill- the big rope that hung down from the tower and trailed its
end upon the ground.
  Swallows darted to and fro uttering little cries, cleaving the air
in their flight, and returning swiftly to their yellow nests beneath
the sheltering eaves. At the far end of the church, a lamp was
burning, or, more precisely, the wick of a night-light in a hanging
glass. Seen from afar, it looked like a whitish stain quivering on the
oil. A long beam of sunlight shone right across the nave and
deepened the shadows in the aisles and recesses.
  'Where is the cure?' asked Madame Bovary of a small boy who was
absorbed in waggling about the turnstile in its worn-out socket.
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 10}
  'He'll be here in a minute,' said the urchin.
  And sure enough the presbytery door creaked on its hinges, and the
Abbe Bournisien appeared. The children turned and rushed helterskelter
into the church.
  'Little ragamuffins!' muttered the cure: 'always the same!' And,
picking up a torn and battered catechism which he had knocked
against with his foot, he exclaimed: 'Irreverent little brats!'
  And then, noticing Emma there, he said:
  'Excuse me, I didn't see who it was.' He stuffed the catechism in
his pocket and stood there, swinging the heavy sacristy key between
his fingers.
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 15}
  The light of the setting sun shone full in his face, blanching the
lasting of his cassock, all shiny at the elbows and frayed at the
bottom. Grease spots and tobacco stains followed the line of the
little buttons all down his broad chest, increasing in number as
they receded from his neckbands, on which reposed the copious folds of
a ruddy chin flecked with little stains half hidden in the stubbly
hair of his grizzled beard. He had just had dinner, and his
breathing was laboured.
  'How are you?' he went on.
  'Oh, I feel dreadful!' she replied.
  'So do I,' said the cure. 'This sudden heat takes it out of one
terribly, doesn't it? Ah, well, there you are! We are born to
suffer, as Saint Paul says. But what does Monsieur Bovary think of
it?'
  'He!' she exclaimed, with a toss of her head.
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 20}
  'What!' said the good man, thoroughly astonished, 'doesn't he give
you something for it?'
  'Ah!' said Emma, 'it's no earthly remedy I need.'
  But the cure kept peering into the church, where all the children
were on their knees, pushing each other about with their shoulders and
falling over like a house of cards.
  'I should like to know-' she began.
  'Now then, Riboudet, just you wait a minute!' shouted the cure
angrily. 'I'll give you one over the ears, you limb of Satan, you!'
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 25}
  'He's Boudet the carpenter's boy,' he went on, turning back to Emma;
'his parents are well off and let him do just as he likes. He could
learn fast enough, if he would; he's got plenty of brains. And
sometimes, for a joke, I call him Riboudet (like the hill you go up
when you go to Maromme); and I say, "Mon Riboudet". D'you get me-
"Mont Riboudet"? Ha! ha! I told that little joke to the Bishop the
other day. And he laughed. He was so nice! Yes, he laughed outright!
And how's Monsieur Bovary these days?' She seemed not to hear.
  'Always at work, I'm sure. We're the hardest-driven people in the
parish, he and I. But he patches bodies and I patch souls. That's
the difference!'
  'Yes,' she said, 'you bring balm for every ill!'
  'Oh, well you may say so, Madame Bovary. This very morning they
had me out to go over to Bas-Diauville to see a sick cow- all blown
out with wind she was. They thought someone had put the Evil Eye on
her. I can't make it out; all their cows are like that. But, just a
moment! Longuemarre and Boudet, there! My word, I'll give you what
for!' At a single bound he was in the church.
  The urchins were all crowding round the pulpit, climbing on the
cantor's stool, turning over the leaves of the missal. Others,
stealing along with noiseless, wary tread, were just about to
venture into the confessional box. But before you could say 'knife',
the cure was upon them, distributing cuffs right and left. Taking hold
of them by the coat collar, he held them aloft, and then deposited
them on their two knees on the stone floor of the choir, ramming
them well down as if he wanted to plant them there.
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 30}
  'Ah, yes,' he said, when he had come back to Emma, unfolding his
large cotton handkerchief, putting one corner of it between his teeth,
'the farmers are having a bad time of it.'
  'Not only the farmers,' answered Emma.
  'Ah, no, you're right! The workers in the towns, for example.'
  'It's not them I-'
  'Pardon me. I've known mothers with a family of little children-
good women, I assure you, real saints- who hadn't even got bread to
put in their mouths.'
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 35}
  'But what about those,' answered Emma, and the corners of her
mouth quivered- 'those, Monsieur le Cure, who have got bread, but
not-'
  'Any fire to warm them in winter,' said the cure.
  'Well, what matter?'
  'How do you mean, what matter? It seems to me that when you've got
food to eat and a fire to sit by... for after all-'
  'Oh dear! oh dear!' she sighed.
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 40}
  'Are you feeling queer?' he asked, in an anxious tone. 'Something
must have disagreed. You must get back home, Madame Bovary, and
drink some hot tea. That'll put you right. Or else a glass of cold
water with a little moist sugar in it.'
  'Why?'
  And she looked like one awakening from a dream.
  'You put your hand up to your forehead. I thought you had an
attack of giddiness.'
  Then he remembered and said,
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 45}
  'But there was something you were asking me. What was it now? I
can't remember.'
  'I? Oh, no, nothing- nothing,' repeated Emma.
  And as she looked around her, her gaze slowly fell on the old man in
the cassock. They stood and looked at each other face to face, without
speaking.
  'Well, then, Madame Bovary,' he said at last, 'you must please
excuse me. Duty first, you know. I must look after these brats of
mine. We shall have our first communions here before we know where
we are. I'm half afraid we shall be caught napping again. So from
Ascension-tide onwards I've been keeping them at it an hour longer
every Wednesday. Poor children! it is never too soon to set them in
the way of the Lord, as indeed He bade us do by the mouth of His
Divine Son.... Wish you well, Madame. My respects to the doctor.'
  So saying, he turned to enter the church, genuflecting as soon as he
reached the door.
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 50}
  Emma watched him disappear between the two rows of seats, stumping
along, with his head a little bent over his shoulder, holding his
two hands half-open, palms outwards.
  Then she turned on her heel, all of a piece, as if she had been a
statue on a pivot, and bent her steps homewards. But the loud voice of
the cure, the shrill treble of the urchins, still reached her ears and
followed her as she went:
  'Are you a Christian?'
  'Yes, I am a Christian.'
  'What is a Christian?'
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 55}
  'A Christian is one who, having been baptized... baptized...
baptized-'
  She went upstairs clinging on to the banisters, and as soon as she
was in her room she sank into a chair.
  The pallid light that filtered through the window faded softly
away with little shadowy undulations. The various pieces of
furniture in their places seemed to become more motionless and to be
lost in the gloom as though on a darkling ocean. The fire had gone
out, but the clock went on ticking, and Emma vaguely wondered how
all these things could be so still when her own heart was so full of
turmoil. Between the windows and the work-table little Berthe was
toddling about in her knitted shoes and trying to get to her mother,
in order that she might catch hold of the ends of her apron-strings.
  'Leave me alone,' said Emma, pushing her away.
  The little one was soon back again, close up to her knees, and,
leaning her arms on them, she lifted up her big blue eyes, while a
trickle of saliva dropped from her mouth on the silken apron.
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 60}
  'Leave me alone,' said her mother, who had quite lost her temper.
Her look made the child frightened, and it began to cry. 'Leave me
alone, will you?' she repeated, and she gave her a push with her
elbow.
  Berthe fell down by the chest of drawers, striking her head
against one of the brass handles. She cut her cheek, and blood began
to flow. Madame Bovary rushed over to pick her up, broke the
bell-pull, shouted with all her might for the servant to come, and was
beginning to curse herself for a wicked woman, when Charles appeared
on the scene. It was dinner-time and he had done for the day.
  'Oh, look, dear,' said Emma, quite calmly. 'The little one was
playing about and has just fallen down and hurt herself!'
  Charles set her mind at rest: it was nothing serious, and he went to
fetch some sticking plaster.
  Madame Bovary did not go downstairs to the dining-room; she wanted
to be alone, taking care of the child. And then, as she watched her
sleeping, whatever remnants of anxiety she had gradually
disappeared, and she thought it had been very foolish and very
tender-hearted of her to have been in such a state just now for so
trifling a matter. Berthe's sobs had ceased, and she was breathing
so quietly that the cotton bed-cover scarcely moved. Big tears
glistened at the corners of her half-closed eyes, and through her
lashes were visible two pale, sunken pupils. The plaster on her
cheek drew the skin awry.
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 65}
  'Strange,' thought Emma, 'how ugly the child is!' It was eleven when
Charles came back from the chemist's (he had gone over after dinner to
put back what was left of the sticking plaster). He found his wife
standing by the cot.
  'Come, now! I assure you it's nothing,' he said, kissing her on
the forehead. 'Don't worry so, my poor darling, you'll make yourself
ill.'
  He had stayed a long time at the apothecary's. Although he had not
appeared very greatly upset, Monsieur Homais had done his utmost to
reassure him, 'to cheer him up'. They discussed the various dangers
that children run, and the carelessness of servants. Madame Homais
knew something about that, for the cook upset a bowl of soup all
down her pinafore once when she was a little girl, and she bore the
marks of it on her chest to this day. And so her good parents were
tremendously careful of her. Never any edge on the knives, or wax on
the floors. There were gratings to all the windows and stout bars
across the fireplaces. The little Homais children, though they had
plenty of spirit, could not budge without someone behind them to
look after them. At the slightest signs of a cold their father would
stuff them with cough lozenges, and, till they were turned four,
they all had to wear wadding inside their caps. True, that was a
special fad of Madame Homais. In his own mind, her husband was
rather worried about it, for fear the intellectual organs should
suffer from such rigid compression. And once he let himself go so
far as to say,
  'Do you want to make Caribs or Botocudos of them?'
  Charles had made several attempts to interrupt his discourse.
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 70}
  'I want to have a word with you,' he whispered in the clerk's ear.
  And Leon rose to lead the way upstairs.
  'I wonder if he suspects anything?' he said to himself. His heart
began to thump and he couldn't make out what to think.
  At length, Charles, having shut the door behind him, asked him to
make inquiries in Rouen concerning the price one would have to pay for
a really first-rate daguerreotype. It was a surprise he had in store
for his wife. A little bit of sentimentalism, a portrait of himself in
dress clothes. But first of all he wanted to know how he stood as
regards expense. All this wouldn't be much trouble, he hoped, for
Monsieur Leon, seeing that he had to go into Rouen almost every week.
  And what did he go for? Ah! Homais had a strong notion that he had
an affair, that there was a woman in the case. But he was wrong.
Leon had nothing like that on his hands. He seemed more melancholy
than ever. Madame Lefrancois could see that well enough from the
quantity of food he left on his plate. She wanted to get at the root
of the matter, and spoke to the tax-collector about it. Binet glared
at her and grunted out that he 'wasn't a paid detective'.
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 75}
  All the same he couldn't quite make his companion out, for Leon
would often fling himself back in his chair, stretch out his arms
and complain vaguely about life and the world in general.
  'You don't get enough amusement, that's what's the matter with you,'
affirmed the tax-collector.
  'How do you mean?'
  'If I were you I should get a lathe.'
  'What's the good? I couldn't use it.'
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 80}
  'Hum! Yes, that's true,' said the other, stroking his chin with a
gratified air of superiority.
  Leon was tired of playing 'Love's Labour's Lost'. He was beginning
to feel the sort of depression that comes over you when you go on
doing the same things day after day, when you have no interest to
carry you along and no sort of change to look forward to. He was so
sick of Yonville and its inhabitants that the mere sight of certain
people and certain houses irritated him beyond endurance. The chemist,
too, meant well, no doubt, but he simply couldn't stand him.
Nevertheless, the prospect of a new order of things scared him as much
as it charmed him.
  The more he thought about it all, the more impatient he became.
Paris, in his inward ear, sounded a sort of trumpet call, with her
masked balls and laughing grisettes. Since he had to go there for
his final, why not go now? What was to prevent him? And he began to
cogitate on the preparations he would have to make. He thought out all
his occupations in advance. He furnished his rooms in imagination.
He would live the life of an artist. He would take lessons on the
guitar. He would have a dressing-gown, a beret, blue velvet
slippers. And he was already gazing in admiration at an imaginary pair
of foils hung up over his chimney-piece, with a skull and the guitar
above them.
  The great difficulty would be to get his mother to agree. And yet
the idea seemed perfectly sound. His own employer had been urging
him to take up work in another office and so enlarge his experience.
So Leon compromised, and looked out for an assistant's post in
Rouen. Meeting with no success, he ended by writing a long and
detailed letter to his mother in which he explained why he thought
it would be a good thing for him to go and live in Paris right away.
She gave her consent.
  He did not hurry himself. Every day, for a whole month, Hivert
carted boxes, trunks and parcels for him from Yonville to Rouen and
from Rouen back to Yonville; and when Leon had replenished his
wardrobe, had his three easy-chairs restuffed, purchased a stock of
foulards- in short, made enough preparations and more than enough
for a voyage round the world, he kept putting things off from week
to week, until he got another letter from his mother urging him to
make a start, seeing that he wanted to get through his examination
before the recess.
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 85}
  When the time came to say good-bye, Madame Homais burst out
crying; Justin sobbed; Homais, the strong man, dissembled his emotion.
He insisted on carrying his friend's overcoat right into the
notary's office, for the notary was driving Leon to Rouen in his own
carriage. There was barely time for Leon to say good-bye to Monsieur
Bovary. When he got to the top of the stairs, he stopped short, he
felt so out of breath. As he went in Madame Bovary rose quickly.
  'Here I am again!' said Leon.
  'I knew you would come!'
  She bit her lip hard, and a rush of blood beneath her skin made
her flush from the roots of her hair to the edge of her collar. She
remained standing, leaning her shoulder against the panelling.
  'The doctor not in?' he said.
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 90}
  'No, he's gone out.'
  And she repeated,
  'He's gone out.'
  Then there was silence. They looked at each other, and their
thoughts, mingling in the same anguish of mind, clung closely to one
another like two throbbing bosoms.
  'I should so like to kiss Berthe,' he said.
                                                          {15 ^paragraph 95}
  Emma went down a few stairs and called out to Felicite.
  He gave a long look round- at the walls, the shelves, the
chimney-piece- as though to take it all in, to carry the memory of
it away with him.
  Emma returned, and the servant came in with Berthe, who was carrying
a toy windmill upside down, pulling a string to make the sails go
round.
  Leon kissed her several times on the neck.
  'Good-bye, my poor darling; good-bye, my pet; good-bye.' And he gave
her back to her mother.
                                                         {15 ^paragraph 100}
  'Take her away,' said she.
  And now they were alone.
  Madame Bovary had her back to him, her face resting against a
window-pane. Leon was holding his cap in his hand and beating it
gently against his thigh.
  'It's going to rain,' said Emma.
  'I've got a cape,' he answered.
                                                         {15 ^paragraph 105}
  'Ah!'
  She turned away, her chin down and her brow well forward. The
light shone on it as on a piece of marble, down to the curve of the
eyebrows. But none could have told what Emma was looking at on the
horizon, or what thoughts she was harbouring deep down within her.
  'Ah, well! good-bye, then,' he sighed.
  She raised her head with a swift, sudden movement.
  'Yes, good-bye.... Oh, go!'
                                                         {15 ^paragraph 110}
  They advanced towards each other. He held out his hand. She
hesitated. 'A l'anglaise, then!' she said, flinging her hand in
his and laughing a forced laugh.
  Leon felt it between his fingers, and the very substance of his
being seemed to him to descend into that little moist palm.
  Then he released her hand. Their eyes met again, and he was gone.
  When he came to the market-house he stopped and hid behind one of
the pillars in order to give a last look at that white house with
its four green shutters. He thought he saw a shadow in the room behind
the window, but the curtain coming unhitched as though no one were
looking after it, slowly shook its long, oblique folds, blew out
wide and then fell back again, remaining as straight and motionless as
a plaster wall. Leon set off at full speed.
  He saw his employer's gig some way up the road, and alongside it a
man in a workman's apron, who was holding the horse. Homais and
Monsieur Guillaumin were chatting together, waiting for him.
                                                         {15 ^paragraph 115}
  'One more shake of the hand,' said the apothecary, with tears in his
eyes. 'Here's your coat, old man. Mind you don't catch cold. Take care
of yourself. Don't overdo it.'
  'Come on, Leon, up you get!' said the notary.
  Homais put his hand on the splashboard, and in a voice choked with
sobs uttered these two sad words:
  'Good-bye.'
  'Good-night,' answered Monsieur Guillaumin. 'All right, let go!'
They were off, and Homais went back home.
                                                         {15 ^paragraph 120}
-
  Madame Bovary had opened her window, which looked on to the
garden, and was gazing at the clouds. They were piling up in the west,
away towards Rouen, and quickly rolling up their dark folds, in the
rear of which projected long rays of sunlight like the golden arrows
of a suspended trophy, while all the rest of the vacant heavens were
as white as a piece of china. But a gust of wind swept by and bowed
the poplars, and all of a sudden the rain came down, pattering on
the green leaves. Then the sun came out again, the hens clucked, the
sparrows fluttered their wings in the wet shrubs, and the pools of
water on the gravel bore on their surface as they streamed away the
pink blossoms of an acacia.
  'He must be a long way off by this time!' thought she.
  Monsieur Homais dropped in as usual at half-past six, while they
were having dinner.
  'Ah well!' said he as he sat himself down, 'so we've seen the last
of our young friend?'
                                                         {15 ^paragraph 125}
  'Seems like it,' answered the doctor, and then, turning round in his
chair, he added,
  'And what's the news with you?'
  'Oh, nothing much. Only my wife was a little upset this afternoon.
You know what women are: it doesn't take much to put them out- my wife
especially. And it would be a mistake to go on at them about it; their
nervous system is much more easily disturbed than ours.'
  'Poor Leon!' said Charles. 'I wonder how he'll get on in Paris. Will
he get used to the life?'
  Madame Bovary sighed.
                                                         {15 ^paragraph 130}
  'What do you think!' rejoined the chemist. 'Nice little dinners in
town, masked balls, champagne! He'll have the time of his life, I'll
warrant.'
  'I don't believe he'll go off the lines,' protested Monsieur Bovary.
  'No more do I,' answered Homais quickly, 'although he'll have to
do like the others for fear of being taken for a Jesuit. And you
haven't an idea how those bright lads of the Quartier Latin carry on
with their actress friends. But I can tell you, the students are
thought a lot of in Paris. Provided they've got the least bit of
social attractiveness about them, they can go anywhere, and even the
ladies of the Faubourg Saint Germain sometimes lose their hearts to
them, and that often means that, later on, they have a chance of
making an extraordinarily good match.'
  'Yes,' said the doctor; 'but in his case, up there, I'm half
afraid-'
  'You're right,' interrupted the apothecary. 'There's the reverse
of the medal. And then you're always obliged to be clapping your
hand on your pocket. For instance, suppose you're in the park. Up
comes someone, quite well dressed, wearing a decoration, perhaps-
someone you might take for a diplomat. You start talking. He makes
himself agreeable, offers you a pinch of snuff, or picks up your hat
for you. And so you get quite friendly. He lugs you off to a cafe,
invites you down to his place in the country, and, when you've had a
drop too much, introduces you to all kinds of people, and as often
as not he's got his eye on your purse or is trying to put you on the
downward track.'
                                                         {15 ^paragraph 135}
  'That's right enough,' assented Charles; 'but I was thinking more
especially of the diseases you might get- typhoid, for example, to
which students from the country are particularly liable.' Emma gave
a shudder.
  'That's owing to the change of diet,' continued the chemist, 'and
the disturbance to the system which results therefrom. And then, the
Paris water, don't forget that! And the rich, spiced food you get in
the restaurants overheats the blood and doesn't, after all, come up to
a good pot-au-feu. Personally, myself I've always liked home cooking
best. It's more wholesome. And so when I was reading up chemistry at
Rouen, I lived in a boarding-house and had all my meals there. I
used to feed with the professors.'
  And so he went on, expounding his views on things in general and
telling them all about his personal likes and dislikes, until Justin
came to fetch him home to make up a mulled egg that someone wanted
in a hurry.
  'Never a moment to myself!' he exclaimed, 'always at the grindstone.
I can't go out for a single minute. Always at it from morning till
night. Might as well be a cart-horse. What a life!'
  When he reached the door he added,
                                                         {15 ^paragraph 140}
  'By the way, heard the news?'
  'What news?'
  'Why, it's very probable,' said Homais, raising his eyebrows and
putting on an air of tremendous importance, 'that the Seine-Inferieure
Agricultural Society will hold their show at Yonville l'Abbaye this
year. Anyhow, that's the rumour. There was some hint of it in this
morning's paper. It would be no end of a good thing for the
district. However, we'll discuss it further later on. No, I can see
all right, thanks; Justin's got the lantern.'

{16
                                  16
-
           Memories of Leon: Strange whims: No more novels:
         Market day: Enter M. Boulanger: Bleeding a Peasant:
                Justin faints: Rodolphe contemplates a
                   change: Plans for acquaintance.
-
                                                           {16 ^paragraph 5}
  THE next day, for Emma, was like a funeral. Everything seemed to
be wrapped in a sort of black atmosphere which floated confusedly
about the exterior of things, and grief plunged into the deep places
of her soul, making soft moan, like the wintry wind in some deserted
chateau. She was dreaming the dreams that come to one when one has
bade farewell to something that will never return, the lassitude
that comes over one when something is finally over and done with-
the pain, in a word, which accompanies the interruption of a habit,
the sudden cessation of a prolonged vibration.
  Just as when she came back from la Vaubyessard and the dance-tunes
were thrumming in her head, so now she felt the same sort of dismal
melancholy, of dull despair. Leon came back to her, taller, handsomer,
more persuasive and more vague; though he was separated from her, he
had not left her. He was there, and the walls of the house seemed to
retain his shadow. She could not keep her eyes from the carpet on
which he had walked, from the chairs on which he had sat. The river
still flowed on, and its little wavelets softly lapped at the slippery
edge. Many and many a time had they walked together there and listened
to the murmur of the water foaming over the pebbles. Ah, what
beautiful sunny days had been theirs, what good afternoons, all by
themselves, in the shade, at the bottom of the garden! He would read
aloud, sitting there, without a hat, on a bundle of faggots. The wind,
blowing in cool from the meadows, fluttered the leaves of the book and
the nasturtiums of the arbour. And now he was gone; the sole charm
of her life, the only source from which she might have hoped to win
a little happiness. Why had she not taken the chance when it was
offered her? Why hadn't she held him back with both hands, begged
and prayed to him on her knees, when he tried to fly away? She
cursed herself for not giving her love to Leon; she was thirsty for
his lips. A longing came over her to fly after him and join him, to
fling herself into his arms and say, 'I have come, I am yours!' But
Emma was afraid of all the difficulties in the way, she longed and
dared not, and so her longing did but grow the more intense.
  Henceforth the memory of Leon became, as it were, the centre, the
focus of her sorrow. It glowed and sparkled amid the surrounding gloom
more brightly than a derelict fire, left by travellers journeying
across some Russian steppe to burn itself out in the snow. She hurried
towards it, she crouched down beside it, she stirred most carefully
its fading embers, she cast about her for anything and everything that
might make them burn the brighter, and her most faint and far-off
memories, as well as the things that happened today or yesterday,
things imagined and things felt, her dreams of love that melted into
air, her hopes of happiness that snapped like dead branches in the
wind, her barren virtue, her fallen hopes, the daily domestic round-
she gathered them all together and made of them the wherewithal to
feed the embers of her melancholy.
  However, the fires died down, perhaps because the fuel was exhausted
or because too much was piled upon them. Little by little, absence
chilled the flame of love, the pangs of regret were dulled by habit.
The glare of the conflagration that had incarnadined her pallid sky
was obscured by shadows, and gradually disappeared. So vague and
dreamy were her impressions that she mistook her detestation of her
husband for longing for her lover, the fires of hate for the warmth of
love; but since the storm ceased not to rage and passion burnt to
the socket, since no succour came nor any ray of light appeared, she
was left groping her way helplessly in the chill of unbroken night.
  And then the unhappy days of Tostes began all over again. She deemed
herself far more unfortunate now, for she had had experience of grief,
and she knew that it was endless.
                                                          {16 ^paragraph 10}
  A woman who had made such a sacrifice as she had was justly entitled
to indulge her whims and caprices. She bought herself a Gothic
prie-Dieu, and, in a single month, she purchased fourteen francs'
worth of lemons to clean her nails. She wrote to Rouen and ordered a
blue cashmere dress, and she bought from Lheureux the finest scarf
he had in his shop. She tied it round her waist, outside her
dressing-gown, and thus attired she would lie by the hour stretched
out on the sofa with the blinds closed and a book in her hand. She was
for ever dressing her hair differently; she did it a la Chinoise,
she waved it, she plaited it, she parted it at the side and wore it
like a man.
  She decided she would learn Italian, and bought dictionaries, a
grammar and a stock of paper. She took up really serious reading-
history and philosophy. Sometimes, of a night, Charles would wake up
with a start, fancying someone had come for him.
  'All right, I'm coming,' he would mumble.
  It was only Emma striking a match to relight the lamp. But reading
or needlework- it was all the same. The needlework was tossed half
finished into the cupboard, and she would take up one book after
another only to cast it aside.
  Sometimes she got into states of mind when you could have made her
do anything. One day she would have it that she could drink off half a
tumbler of neat brandy, and as Charles was stupid enough to say she
couldn't, she drained it to the last drop.
                                                          {16 ^paragraph 15}
  For all her flighty ways (that was what the respectable married
women of Yonville called them) Emma did not seem very happy. She
always had that little drawn look at the corners of the mouth which
you see in old maids and people who have failed in their ambitions.
She was pale all over, white as a sheet. The skin was drawn tight over
her nose. She had a vague look in the eyes. And because she discovered
three grey hairs on her temples, she talked about being an old woman.
  She had frequent attacks of faintness. One day she spat a little
blood. Charles rushed over to her, looking terribly concerned.
  'Bah!' she said, 'what does it matter?' Charles went and shut
himself in the surgery and wept with his two elbows on the table,
seated in his desk-chair beneath the phrenological bust.
  Then he wrote off to his mother asking her to come, and the pair
of them had long talks together about Emma.
  What was to be done? What could they do, since she refused to
submit to treatment?
                                                          {16 ^paragraph 20}
  'Do you know what your wife really wants?' said Madame Bovary.
'She wants work, something to keep her employed, whether she likes
it or not; plenty of household work. If she had to earn her bread as
so many others have to do, she'd never suffer from all these
vapours. It all comes from these ideas she's stuffed her head with, it
all comes of not having work to do.'
  'Yet she's always doing something,' said Charles.
  'Doing something! Doing what, I should like to know? Reading
rubbishy novels, good-for-nothing books, books that make light of
religion and mock at the priests, with pieces quoted from Voltaire.
But that kind of thing tells in the long run, my poor dear, and anyone
without religion is bound to come to grief sooner or later.' So they
decided not to let Emma read any more novels. It wasn't so easy as
it looked. The old lady said she would see to it. The next time she
went to Rouen she would go to the Library and tell the man there
that Emma was giving up her subscription. Would she not have the right
to put the police on him, if he still persisted in carrying on his
poisonous work?
  The good-byes of Emma and her mother-in-law were anything but
cordial. During the whole of the three weeks they had been together
they hadn't spoken to each other four times, except to utter the usual
formulas when they met at table and said good-night at bedtime.
  Madame Bovary, senior, left on a Wednesday, which was market day
at Yonville.
                                                          {16 ^paragraph 25}
  From early morning the square had been lumbered up with carts turned
up on end with their shafts in the air, stood along in front of the
houses from the church all the way to the inn. Over on the other side,
there were canvas booths where all sorts of cotton goods,
counterpanes, woollen stockings, halters for horses and rolls of
blue ribbon with the ends fluttering in the wind were exposed for
sale. The heavy ironmongery was spread out on the ground, between
pyramids of eggs and bannets of cheese with bits of greasy straw
sticking out from them. Near the reaping-machines there were a
number of hens imprisoned in flat cages, making a great noise and
thrusting their heads through the bars. The people, all bunched up
at one spot, did not seem inclined to move, and it sometimes looked as
if they would go through the chemist's shop-front. Wednesdays the shop
never emptied. Folk crowded into it, not so much to buy medicine, as
to get advice, for Monsieur Homais was a well-known man in all the
villages for miles around. His geniality and bounce made a great
impression on the country folk. They thought he knew more about
doctoring than all the doctors put together. Emma was seated at her
window (she often sat there, because in the country the window takes
the place of the theatre and the promenade), and she was amusing
herself by looking at the crowd of rustics, when her eye lighted
upon a gentleman in a green velvet coat. He was wearing yellow gloves,
which contrasted rather incongruously with a pair of stout leather
gaiters. He was making his way towards the doctor's house, followed by
a rustic walking along with bowed head and looking very thoughtful.
  'Can I see the doctor?' he inquired of Justin, who was on the
doorstep gossiping with Felicite. He took him for one of the
servants and added,
  'Tell him Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger of la Huchette is here.' It
was from no desire to impress, that the visitor added the
territorial description to his name. He did so merely to make it quite
clear who he was. La Huchette was an estate near Yonville, and he
had just bought the mansion, together with a couple of farms, which he
was farming himself, taking things pretty easily, it should be
added. He lived a bachelor's life, and was said to have a good
twelve hundred a year.
  Charles came into the room, and Monsieur Boulanger presented his
man, who said he wanted to be bled because he felt as if he had a
lot of ants running all over him.
  'That'll give me a good clear out!' he said when they tried to
dissuade him.
                                                          {16 ^paragraph 30}
  So Bovary told them to bring him a bandage and a basin and asked
Justin to hold it. 'Don't be afraid,' said he, turning to the yokel,
who had gone as white as a sheet.
  'Not me, sir!' he replied. 'Carry on.'
  And he stuck out a great arm, with a 'do-your-damnedest' sort of
air. Charles pricked him with a lancet, and out shot the blood right
over on to the mirror.
  'Hold the basin nearer,' cried Charles.
  'Gosh!' said the man, 'you'd think it was a little fountain. My
blood's red enough, conscience! You'd say that were a good sign now,
wouldn't ye?'
                                                          {16 ^paragraph 35}
  'Sometimes they feel nothing to start with. Then faintness sets
in, especially with big strong people like this man here,' said
Charles.
  Hearing this the man let go the lancet case that he was twiddling in
his fingers. He gave a sudden jerk with his shoulders and snapped
the back of the chair. Down fell his hat.
  'I thought as much,' said Bovary, putting his finger on the vein.
The basin was beginning to wobble in Justin's hands. His knees were
quaking, and he was looking like a ghost.
  'Emma! quick! I want you!' shouted Charles.
  She was down the stairs in a flash.
                                                          {16 ^paragraph 40}
  'Get me some vinegar,' he said. 'Good Lord, two of them at once!' He
was so excited he could hardly put on the compress.
  'It's nothing at all,' said Monsieur Boulanger calmly, as he took
Justin in his arms. And he rigged him up on the table with his back
against the wall.
  Madame Bovary began loosening his collar and tie. His shirt
strings had got into a knot, and for some minutes her fingers were
busy about the young man's neck. Then she poured out some vinegar on
her handkerchief, and dabbed it on his forehead, blowing upon it
delicately.
  The man came round, but Justin was still unconscious, and his pupils
looked as if they were sinking down into the whites, like blue flowers
drowning in milk.
  'We mustn't let him see that,' said Charles.
                                                          {16 ^paragraph 45}
  Madame Bovary took hold of the basin. She stooped down to put it
under the table, and as she did so her dress (it had four flounces
to it and was made of some yellow stuff, long in the waist and full in
the skirt) spread out on the floor. And as Emma, bending down,
swayed a little as she stretched out her arm, the stuff clung to her
here and there, following the undulations of her bosom. Then she
went to fetch a jug of water, and was dissolving some pieces of sugar,
when the chemist arrived on the scene. The servant had run over to
fetch him when the excitement was on. Seeing his pupil with his eyes
open, he breathed again. Then he walked round him, surveying him
from top to toe.
  'Duffer,' he said- 'silly little duffer, complete and utter
duffer, if ever there was one! What is there to be scared at in a
little drop of blood? And a fellow that's not afraid of anything, too!
Why, he'll swarm up a tree like a squirrel, terrific heights that make
you feel sick to think of them, just to shake down a few nuts. Ah,
yes, speak up, brag away! Nice sort of chemist you'll make one of
these days! Why, you might be called up as a witness, and have to give
evidence in some matter of life and death. And it would never do to
lose your head then; you've got to keep cool, bring out your arguments
clearly and sharply, show them that you're a man, or else let them
write you down a fool.' Justin made no answer, and the apothecary went
on.
  'Who asked you to come? You're always pestering Monsieur and Madame.
And Wednesdays of all days you ought to know I want you in the shop.
There's a score of people over there now, and I've left them all
because of you. Come on, over you go! Hurry up, and keep an eye on the
drugs; I'll be there in a minute.'
  When Justin, who was putting himself ship-shape, had taken his
departure, they began to talk about fainting attacks. Madame Bovary
said she had never gone right off.
  'That's exceptional for a woman,' observed Monsieur Boulanger.
'But there are some sensitive people about. I saw one of the witnesses
at a duel faint dead away at the mere sound of the pistols being
loaded.'
                                                          {16 ^paragraph 50}
  'I don't mind in the least seeing other people's blood, but the
thought of losing any of my own would make me feel quite queer, if I
thought about it too much,' said the apothecary.
  At this point Monsieur Boulanger sent off his man, telling him he
ought to be all right now that his whim had been satisfied.
  'Anyhow, it's given me the pleasure of your acquaintance,' he added,
looking at Emma as he spoke.
  He put down three francs on the corner of the table, bowed in rather
an off-hand manner, and departed.
  He was soon on the other side of the river (his road back to La
Huchette lay that way). Emma saw him in the meadows, walking along
under the poplars, slowing up every now and again, like a man thinking
hard about something.
                                                          {16 ^paragraph 55}
  'Pretty little woman, this doctor's wife- very pretty indeed! Lovely
teeth, dark eyes, neat foot. Why, she might be a Parisian. Where the
deuce does she hail from, and where did our heavy friend pick her up?'
  Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger was a man of thirty-four, hard-hearted
but shrewd. He had had plenty of experience with women, and knew how
to tackle them. This latest one had rather taken his fancy, and his
thoughts were running on her and her husband.
  'He looks a dull dog to me. She's no doubt sick of him. He's got
dirty nails and three days' beard. While he's out on his rounds, she
sits at home darning socks. And she's sick to death of it, wants to
live in town and go to a dance every night. Poor little woman! She's
simply gasping for love, like a carp on a kitchen table gasping for
water. A word or two about love and she'd be at your feet, that's a
certainty. She'd be a delicious little piece of goods- absolutely
charming! But shunting her afterwards, that's where the trouble
would come in.'
  And as he began to think about the scheming and all the bothers that
love-making involves, his thoughts reverted by contrast to his
mistress, an actress at Rouen. The mere recollection, the mental image
of her, gave him a feeling of satiety.
  'Ah, Madame Bovary,' thought he, 'is ever so much prettier than
she is. So much fresher! There's no doubt about it, Virginia is
putting on flesh. And she's such a nuisance with her likes and
dislikes. What a mania the woman's got for shrimps!'
                                                          {16 ^paragraph 60}
  The countryside was deserted, there was no one about, and the only
sound Rodolphe heard was the rhythmical swish of the grass brushing
against his boots and the cry of the grasshoppers in the distance
among the oats. Once more he saw Emma in the room dressed as he had
seen her, and he proceeded to undress her.
  'Oh, I'll have her!' he cried, lashing out at a clod of earth with
his stick.
  And forthwith he began to examine the possibilities of the
situation.
  Where was he going to meet her, and how? She would always be carting
the child about, and there would be the servant, the neighbours, the
husband and all kinds of nuisances. Bah! it would be too much waste of
time.
  Then he began all over again.
                                                          {16 ^paragraph 65}
  'But, by Jove, she's got eyes that go right through you! And that
pallor of hers! I simply adore pale women.'
  By the time he had reached the top of the hill his mind was made up.
  'It's only a matter of making an opportunity. I'll call there some
time, send them along some game or poultry. I'll have myself bled if
necessary. We'll become friends. I'll ask them to my place. Why, by
Jove! of course, there's the Agricultural Show before very long. She's
bound to be there. I shall see her. We'll start then, and no beating
about the bush. It's the best way.'

{17
                                  17
-
        The Agricultural Show: Monsieur Homais expounds: Emma
        and Rodolphe again: Duty and passion: The Counsellor's
              speech: Emma's memories: The prizegiving:
            The feast and the fireworks: Homais, reporter.
-
                                                           {17 ^paragraph 5}
  WELL, it came at last, the famous Agricultural Show. On the
morning of the great day the inhabitants were all out on their
doorsteps discussing the arrangements.
  The front of the Town Hall had been festooned with ivy. In a
field, a marquee had been put up for the luncheon, and in the middle
of the Square, opposite the church, a maroon was to signal the arrival
of the Prefect and salute the names of the successful competitors. The
Buchy contingent of the National Guard (there was none at Yonville)
had come over to join forces with the Fire Brigade, of which Binet was
captain. On this occasion he was wearing an even higher collar than
usual, and, imprisoned in his tunic as in a strait-jacket, his upper
part was so rigid and motionless that the whole of his vital energy
seemed to have descended into his two legs, which rose and fell in
rhythmic cadence, with the precision of clockwork. There was much
rivalry between the tax-collector and the Colonel, and to bring out
the respective merits of their men, each of them manoeuvred his
troop separately. Red epaulettes and black shoulder-straps passed
and repassed alternately. It was never ending. You thought they had
done at last when, lo and behold, they began all over again. Never
before had there been such a display of pomp. Many of the
townspeople had washed the outside of their houses overnight.
Tricolour flags hung out through the half-open windows, and all the
inns were packed to overflowing. In the glare of the dazzling
sunlight, the starched caps, the gold crosses and coloured kerchiefs
gleamed brighter than snow, and relieved, with their ever-shifting
splashes of motley colour, the darker monotony of coats and smocks. As
they dismounted from their horses, the farmers' wives took out the big
pins with which they had gathered up the skirts of their dresses to
keep them from getting dirty. Their husbands, however, to save their
hats, kept their pocket-handkerchiefs around them, holding one
corner between their teeth.
  The crowd poured into the High Street from both ends of the village.
They came surging in out of lanes and byways and houses, and every now
and again a door-knocker would bang as a woman in cotton gloves
hurried out to see the sights, and slammed the door behind her.
  But what excited the greatest admiration were two tall poles covered
with tiny lanterns, flanking a dais on which the big-wigs were to sit.
But besides this, against each of the four columns of the Town Hall,
were four masts, as they might be called, each bearing a little shield
of green canvas embellished with legends in gold lettering. One was
inscribed 'To Commerce', another 'To Agriculture', a third 'To
Industry', and the fourth 'To the Fine Arts'.
  But the jubilation that brightened all countenances seemed to cast a
shadow of gloom over the visage of Madame Lefrancois, the landlady
of the Lion d'Or.
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 10}
  She stood glowering on her doorstep and muttering under her breath.
  'What dunderheads!' she growled. 'What a parcel of dolts, with their
dreary old canvas shed! Do they think the Prefect'll want to go and
have his dinner in there, under a tent, like any mountebank? That's
the sort of bunkum they call "pushing local interests". What did
they want to go and get a man from Neufchatel to do the catering for
then, if they think so much about local interests? And who's going
to feed off the stuff, I should like to know? A parcel of farm louts
and ragamuffins without any shoes to their feet
  The apothecary passed by. He was wearing a black coat, nankeen
trousers, beaver shoes and, as if wonders would never cease, a hat-
a low-crowned hat!
  'Your servant,' said he. 'Excuse me if I hurry along.'
  And as the fat widow betrayed a desire to know where he was bound
for, he added,
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 15}
  'It seems funny to you to see me out and about, doesn't it, seeing
I'm always shut up in my laboratory like the old fellow's rat in his
bit of cheese?'
  'What cheese?' asked the landlady.
  'Oh, nothing, nothing at all! I merely wanted to convey in a
manner of speaking that I am more or less always boxed up at home. But
today- well, today's an exception. One's bound-'
  'Oh, you're going along there?' she said, in a contemptuous tone.
  'Yes, of course I'm going. Don't you know I'm on the advisory
committee?'
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 20}
  Mere Lefrancois surveyed him in silence for a few moments, and
then said, with a smile,
  'Oh, I see! But what's agriculture got to do with you? Do you know
anything about it?'
  'Certainly I do, because I am a pharmacist- that is to say, a
chemist- and chemistry, Madame Lefrancois, being concerned with the
reciprocal and molecular action of every natural body, it follows that
agriculture is included in its domain, and, indeed, the composition of
manures, the fermentation of liquids, the analysis of gases and the
influence of miasmata- what, I put it to you, is all this, but
chemistry pure and simple?'
  The landlady made no answer, and Homais went on,
  'Do you imagine that in order to know anything about agriculture a
man must have tilled the soil and fattened poultry himself? Much
more important is it to know about the composition of the substances
involved, the various geological strata, atmospheric action,
properties of soils, mineral waters, density and capillarity of the
various bodies, and so on and so forth. And one should possess a
thorough knowledge of the principles of hygiene, so as to direct and
criticize the erection of buildings, the proper food for live stock
and domestic servants. Furthermore, Madame Lefrancois, one must be
acquainted with botany- one must be able to distinguish the various
plants and to differentiate those which are wholesome from those which
are harmful, the innutritious from the nutritive; to be able to say
whether they should be taken up here and replanted there; to propagate
some, to destroy others. In short, you've got to keep yourself up to
date by reading pamphlets and public newspapers, and being always on
the look-out for improvements.'
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 25}
  During the whole of this harangue, the landlady had been keeping her
eyes fixed on the Cafe Francais.
  'Would to heaven,' the chemist went on, 'that our farmers knew
something about chemistry, or at all events that they would pay more
attention to the teachings of Science. Now I myself recently wrote a
pamphlet, a monograph more than seventy-two pages in length,
entitled "Cider, its Manufacture and Effects; to which are added
some entirely new observations on the subject". I sent it to the
Agricultural Society at Rouen, and as a result I was elected a
member of that body, section Agriculture, sub-section Pomology.
Well, now, if my work had been given to the public-'
  But the apothecary stopped, so thoroughly preoccupied did Madame
Lefrancois seem with other matters.
  'Just look at 'em over there. I can't understand it for the life
of me. Did you see ever such a shanty?'
  And with many shruggings of her shoulders, that stretched the
stitches of her knitted blouse all awry, she pointed with both hands
to her rival's tavern, whence there issued a great hubbub of people
shouting and singing.
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 30}
  'Anyhow, it won't be for much longer,' she added. 'One more
week'll see the end of it.'
  Homais recoiled in amazement. She came down her three steps.
  'What!' she said, speaking into his ear, 'didn't you know? They're
going to take the lot this week. It's Lheureux that's having 'em
sold up, lock, stock and barrel. He's sunk 'em with bills.'
  'What an appalling catastrophe!' exclaimed the apothecary, who
always had a supply of expressions appropriate to every imaginable
situation.
  The landlady began to tell him the whole story, which she herself
had got from Theodore, Monsieur Guillaumin's servant, and, though
she loathed Tellier, she blamed Lheureux, saying he was a sharper
and a dirty dog.
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 35}
  'Look!' she exclaimed, there he is- over there, in the market. Look!
he's bowing to Madame Bovary. Do look! She's got a green hat on.
D'ye see her? She's leaning on Monsieur Boulanger's arm.'
  'Madame Bovary!' exclaimed Homais. 'Oh, I must go over and say how
d'ye do to her! She might like to have a seat in the enclosure,
under the peristyle.'
  And paying no further heed to Madame Lefrancois, who was trying to
finish her story, the chemist made off with a smile on his lips, at
a dashing stride, bowing right and left as he passed, taking up a
great deal of space with the long tails of his black coat that floated
out behind him in the wind.
  Rodolphe saw him coming a long way off, and quickened his pace; but,
Madame Bovary getting out of breath, he slowed up.
  'I wanted to give the great man the slip; you know, the chemist
fellow' he said to her with a laugh.
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 40}
  Emma gave him a nudge.
  'What's she mean by that?' he wondered. And he looked at her out
of the corner of his eye, as he continued to walk beside her.
  Her features were calm, they betrayed nothing. The light was full on
them, framed in the oval of her little bonnet with its pale green
strings, like the leaves of rushes. Her eyes, with their long,
curved lashes, were looking straight in front of her, and although
they were wide open they seemed slightly obscured by her cheeks,
rosy with the blood that was pulsating gently beneath her delicate
skin, while the faintest pink suffused the division of her nostrils.
Her head was a little on one side, and her slightly parted lips
disclosed the pearly tips of her white teeth.
  'She can't be fooling me!' thought Rodolphe.
  As a matter of fact, Emma had only meant to tell him to mind what he
was saying. Monsieur Lheureux was walking alongside them, and every
now and again he would interject a remark as if he wanted to join in
the conversation, such as,
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 45}
  'What a magnificent day it is!' 'Everybody's out of doors.' 'It's an
east wind.'
  Neither Madame Bovary nor Rodolphe gave him any encouragement, yet
whenever he thought he saw the slightest opening he would sidle up
with a 'Beg pardon?' and put his hand to his hat.
  When they reached the blacksmith's house, Rodolphe, instead of going
right on to the enclosure, suddenly turned down a side-path,
dragging Emma with him.
  'Good evening, Monsieur Lheureux,' he called out. 'See you later.'
  'You did that very neatly!' said Emma, laughing.
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 50}
  'Why get mixed up with that crowd? And today of all days, when I
have the luck to be with you-'
  Emma blushed. He did not finish his sentence. Then he remarked on
the fine weather, and said how nice it was to walk on the grass. A few
moon daisies had sprung up.
  'Here,' he said, 'are oracles enough for all the lovesick damsels in
the place. Suppose I picked one of these. What do you think?'
  'Are you in love?' she said, with a little cough.
  'Ah! That's the question,' answered Rodolphe.
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 55}
  The ground began to fill up, and the goodwives kept jostling you
with their big umbrellas, their baskets and their babies. You
constantly had to be getting out of the way of strings of country
wenches- servant-girls, who were wearing blue stockings, flat shoes
and silver rings, and smelt of milk when you got close up to them.
They came along hand in hand, spreading out over the whole length of
the field, from the row of aspens right up to the marquee. But the
judging was now going on, and the farmers, lined up one after another,
were all crowding into a kind of arena fenced off by a long rope
hung up on stakes.
  There were the beasts, their noses towards the rope, their rumps all
shapes and sizes, in a long, irregular line. Somnolent pigs were
nuzzling their snouts into the soil; calves were bellowing; sheep
bleating. The cows reclined with their udders flopping on the grass,
meditatively chewing the cud, blinking their heavy eyelids as the
midges buzzed about them. Brawny, bare-armed carters were holding on
to restive stallions that neighed and snorted with all their might
in the direction of the mares. The latter stood quite still,
stretching forth their necks and drooping manes, while their foals
rested in their shadow or came up now and again to suck. And over
the long, undulating surface of all this mass of bodies, a white
mane blown by the wind would catch the eye, flashing like the crest of
a wave, or a pair of horns, or the heads of men hurrying to and fro.
Remote from the rest, outside the judging ground, about fifty yards
off, was a big black bull, muzzled, with an iron ring through his
nose. He stood as motionless as if he had been carved in bronze. A
ragged little urchin was holding him by a rope.
  Meanwhile the judges were advancing down the centre with ponderous
steps, examining each animal, then holding a muttered conversation
among themselves. One, who appeared to be of greater consideration
than the others, kept jotting things down in a note-book. He was the
chairman of the judging committee, Monsieur Derozerays de la Panville.
As soon as he recognized Rodolphe he stepped briskly forward and said,
with a pleasant smile,
  'What, Monsieur Boulanger, leaving us in the lurch?'
  Rodolphe protested that he was just coming.
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 60}
  'By Jove, not me!' he exclaimed when the chairman had gone on. 'Your
company's better than his by a long chalk!'
  Though he hadn't a good word for shows, Rodolphe, the better to
see round this one, produced his blue card, and now and again pulled
up in front of some fine specimen or other which, for all its
'points', left Madame Bovary cold. He noticed that, so he began
laughing at the Yonville ladies and their dresses and made excuses for
his own unconventional attire. It was composed of that mixture of
the workaday and the elegant which the vulgar interpret as
indicating that the wearer is a man apart, that he has been crossed in
love or possesses the artistic temperament and therefore exhibits that
contempt for convention which is as repellent to some as it is
attractive to others. Thus his cambric shirt with elaborately
pleated cuffs was all blown about by the wind in the opening of his
grey ticking waistcoat, and his broad striped trousers, pulled up
above the ankles, displayed a pair of nankeen boots with
patent-leather welts, and the patent leather was so shiny you could
see the grass in it; but he didn't mind kicking about horse dung
with these fine boots of his, as he strolled along with one hand in
his jacket pocket and his straw hat stuck on the side of his head.
  'Besides,' he said, 'when you live in the country-'
  'What's the good of anything?'
  'Quite so,' answered Rodolphe. 'Not one of these worthies here knows
when a coat is well cut and when it isn't.'
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 65}
  Then they remarked how humdrum things were in the country; how
many lives were stunted there; how many dreams came to naught.
  'And that,' said Rodolphe, 'is how it is I get the blues so.'
  'You!' she broke in with amazement. 'Why, I thought you were ever so
light-hearted!'
  'Ah, yes, to all appearances I am. One has to wear a mask before the
world. And yet how often, when I have looked on a cemetery by
moonlight, have I not asked myself whether I shouldn't be better off
lying there asleep with the rest of them.'
  'But what about your friends? You don't think of them.'
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 70}
  'My friends? What friends? What friends have I got? Who cares
twopence about me?'
  And he almost seemed to hiss these last words through his teeth,
viciously.
  But now they had to let go of each other because of an enormous
erection of chairs that a man was bringing along behind them. It was
such a tremendous pile he was carrying that you could only see the
points of his sabots and the extremities of his two arms stretched out
as wide apart as they would go. The man was Lestiboudois, the
sexton, who was carting round the church chairs among the crowd.
With an unerring eye to the main chance, he had hit on this means of
making a bit for himself out of the show; and the idea was a
success, for he didn't know which customer to serve first. The
villagers were hot and tired, and there was a run on these chairs,
with their rush bottoms all smelling of incense and their backs
grimy with candle grease. They rested upon them with something like
religious veneration.
  Madame Bovary again took Rodolphe's arm. He went on, as if talking
to himself.
  'Yes, I've missed such a lot of things! Always alone. If only I'd
had an aim in life! If only I'd come across someone to love! Good
heavens, how I would have put in every ounce of energy I'd got in
me! There's nothing I wouldn't have overcome, nothing I wouldn't
have smashed my way through.'
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 75}
  'And yet,' said Emma, 'it doesn't seem to me that you've got much to
grumble at.'
  'Ah! you think so?' said Rodolphe.
  'Well, anyhow... you're free.'
  She hesitated.
  'And rich.'
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 80}
  'Don't laugh at me,' he answered.
  She was just protesting that she was not laughing at him when the
report of a gun was heard. Forthwith everyone started to rush off
towards the village.
  It was a false alarm. The Prefect was not in sight. The members of
the judging committee were in a considerable quandary, not knowing
whether to open the proceedings or to wait a little longer.
  At last, at the far end of the Square, a big hired landau hove in
sight, drawn by a pair of skinny horses. The coachman, in a white hat,
was lashing them, first one and then the other. Binet only just had
time to shout 'To arms!' and the Colonel to follow suit. There was a
rush for the pile of muskets. They made a wild dash for it. One or two
forgot their collars. But the official equipage seemed to divine
this little hitch, and the two hacks, with their cruppers against
the backing chain, trotted slowly up to the front of the Town Hall
just as the National Guard and the Fire Brigade came along with
drums beating, marching in step.
  'Mark time!' roared Binet.
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 85}
  'Halt!' thundered the Colonel. 'Left turn!'
  After presenting arms, when the clicking of the musket slides made a
noise like a copper kettle tumbling downstairs, arms were grounded
again!
  At this point a gentleman attired in a short coat with silver
braid was observed to step out of the carriage. Bald in front, he
had a tuft of hair at the back of his head. His complexion was
sallow and his expression exceedingly benign. His eyes were very
big, with heavy lids. He had got them half closed, taking stock of the
crowd. At the same time he raised his sharp-pointed nose and made a
smile play on his sunken mouth. He recognized the Mayor by his
scarf, and explained to him that Monsieur le Prefet had been
unavoidably prevented from coming. He himself was one of the
official staff, and he added a few apologies. Tuvache gushed as much
as he could, the official said he was quite overcome. And there they
stood, face to face, their foreheads nearly touching, with the members
of the Committee all gathered round, the Town Council, the big-wigs,
the National Guard and then the general public. The Government
representative, holding his cocked hat to his breast, reiterated his
greetings, while Tuvache, bent like a bow, smiled, stammered,
fumbled about for the right word, Madame Bovary protested his
loyalty to the monarchy and expatiated on the honour conferred upon
Yonville.
  Hippolyte, the lad from the inn, came to take the horses and,
limping away with them with his club foot, led them into the courtyard
of the Lion d'Or, where a crowd of folk had collected to view the
carriage. The drums beat, the gunner thundered his salute and the
'authorities' one after another climbed up on to the dais and took
their seats on the red Utrecht-velvet chairs lent for the occasion
by Madame Tuvache.
  All these people looked alike. Their fair, podgy faces, slightly
tanned by the sun, were of the colour of cider, and their bushy
whiskers fluffed out from tall, stiff collars supported by white
cravats with broad bows. All the waistcoats were of velvet and
double-breasted. Every watch bore at the end of a long riband some
sort of oval carnelian seal, and every one rested his two hands on his
two thighs, carefully stretching the fork of his trousers, the
unsponged cloth of which shone more brightly than the leather of his
heavy boots.
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 90}
  The ladies of the association were stationed at the back, among
the pillars, while the general public faced them, standing up or
seated on chairs. Lestiboudois, in fact, had brought there all the
chairs he had shifted out of the field, and he kept running back to
the church to fetch more, causing such confusion by his activities
that the way to the steps leading up to the dais was exceedingly
difficult to negotiate.
  'In my opinion,' said Monsieur Lheureux (addressing the
apothecary, who was passing along to get to his seat), 'they ought
to have put up a couple of Venetian masts with some austere but rich
material for a decoration. It would have had a charming effect.'
  'Of course it would,' said Homais. 'But there you are, you see!
The Mayor would do the whole thing off his own bat. He hasn't got much
taste, poor old Tuvache. In fact, he's utterly devoid of what is
called the artistic sense.'
  Meantime Rodolphe, accompanied by Madame Bovary, had gone up on to
the first floor of the Town Hall into the Council Chamber, and, as
it was empty, he said it would be the very place from which to get a
comfortable view of the proceedings. He fetched three of the stools
that stood round the oval table underneath the royal bust, and
bringing them close up to the window, they sat down side by side.
  There was a certain amount of fussing about on the platform, a lot
of whispering and preliminary discussion. At last the Counsellor rose.
It had got round by this time that he was called Lieuvain, and his
name was passed along the crowd, from one end to the other. When he
had arranged a few papers and run his eye over them to adjust his
vision he began,
                                                          {17 ^paragraph 95}
  'Gentlemen,
  'May I first of all be permitted (before proceeding to deal with the
matter that brings us together today, and I am sure my views will be
shared by all of you)- may I be permitted, I say, to pay a tribute
to the higher authorities, to the Government, to the monarch, to our
well-beloved and sovereign lord the King, to whom no branch of
public or private welfare is indifferent, and who directs with a
sure and steady hand the chariot of State amid the ceaseless perils of
a stormy sea, and who can make men respect Peace no less than War,
Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and the Fine Arts?'
-
  'I'd better get a bit farther back,' said Rodolphe.
  'Why?' asked Emma.
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 100}
  At that moment the voice of the speaker rose to an extraordinary
pitch of eloquence.
-
  'Those times have passed, Gentlemen, when our public places were red
with the blood of strife, when the landowner, the trader, aye, even
the working man, composing himself for a night of peaceful slumber,
trembled lest he should suddenly be awakened by the clanging of the
tocsin, times when the most subversive of doctrines were openly
directed at destroying the foundations-'
-
  'You see, they might spot me from down below,' continued Rodolphe.
'I should be explaining matters for a good fortnight, and with the
sort of reputation I've got-'
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 105}
  'Oh, you're making yourself out worse than you are,' said Emma.
  'No, no; it's horrible, I tell you!'
-
  'But, Gentlemen,' continued the orator, 'what if I banish these
horrible pictures from my recollection and bring my gaze to bear on
the present state of our beautiful country? What do I see? The Arts
and Commerce flourish triumphantly on every side. Everywhere new lines
of communication, like new arteries in the body politic, facilitate
new connexions. In our great manufacturing centres work is once more
in full swing; religion, now placed on a firmer basis, gladdens all
our hearts; our harbours are thronged with shipping; confidence is
being restored, and, behold, France breathes again.'
-
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 110}
  'And yet,' added Rodolphe, 'from the world's point of view, they may
be right.'
  'How do you mean?' she asked.
  'Why!' said he, 'don't you know that there are some people who are
always in a turmoil; people who must be dreaming or doing, turn and
turn about, people in whom the loftiest of passions are followed by
frenzied self-indulgence, who fling themselves into the wildest
extravagances.'
  Whereupon she gazed at him as one gazes on a traveller who has
journeyed through strange and far-off lands.
  'We women, poor souls! haven't even that distraction,' she said.
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 115}
  'A melancholy distraction, for you don't get any happiness out of
it.'
  'But does one ever find happiness?'
  'Yes, some day or other,' he replied.
-
  'And that is what you have realized,' said the speaker. 'You
agriculturists, you who labour on the soil, you peaceful pioneers in a
great enterprise of civilization, you men of progress and steadfast
probity- you have come to know that political upheavals are even
more redoubtable than atmospheric disturbances-'
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 120}
-
  'Yes,' said Rodolphe, 'you fall in with it some day. It comes all of
a sudden, when you have given up hope. Then the heavens seem to open
and it is as though you heard a voice crying, "Behold it has come!"
You feel somehow that you must give up your whole life to that one
person, give up everything, sacrifice everything. You don't try to
reason; you just go to each other, instinctively. You've seen one
another in your dreams' (here he looked at Emma). 'And there in
front of you is the long-sought treasure; it shines, it sparkles
before your eyes. Nevertheless, you are still in doubt, you dare not
believe it; you are dazzled, as if you had just stepped out of the
darkness into the light.'
  And as he said this, Rodolphe had recourse to gesture. He passed his
hand over his face like a man seized with dizziness, then he let it
fall on Emma's, who took hers away. But still the orator read on,
-
  'And who, Gentlemen, would be astonished thereat? Only he who was so
blind, so steeped in the prejudices of another age, as to misinterpret
the spirit of our agricultural classes. Where, indeed, shall we seek
for a livelier spirit of patriotism than in our country districts,
where shall we hope to find a completer devotion to the common weal,
where, in a word, shall we seek for a more enlightened intelligence
than in the country? And when I speak of intelligence, Gentlemen, I am
not alluding to that superficial veneer, the empty adornment of an
indolent dilettantism, but of that intelligence, at once balanced
and profound, whose paramount aim it is to apply its energies to
useful ends, thus contributing to the welfare of each, to the
general amelioration of the people as a whole, and to the
maintenance of the State, the fruit of respect for the law and of
the punctual performance of our duty.'
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 125}
-
  'Ah, there he goes again!' said Rodolphe. '"Duty, duty"- always
gassing about duty! I'm sick to death of the word! A parcel of old
women, a lot of psalm-droning old duffers- that's what they are; for
ever going about prating of "Duty, duty!" And what is duty, when all's
said and done, but to appreciate what is great, to cherish what is
beautiful and not to bow down to every little social convention,
with all the humiliations they involve?'
  'Yes, but- but-' said Madame Bovary hesitatingly. 'Don't you
think-?'
  'No! Why inveigh against the passions? Are they not the one
beautiful thing there is on earth, the source of all heroism,
enthusiasm, poetry, music, art, everything?'
  'Yes, but one must observe the laws of society more or less, and
obey its moral code.'
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 130}
  'Ah! but there are two codes,' he replied. 'The lesser one, the
conventional, the man-made code, which is always chopping and
changing, making a great noise and fuss just like that band of
nincompoops you see over there. But the other, the eternal, is all
around us and above, like the countryside that encompasses us and
the blue heavens that give us light.'
  Monsieur Lieuvain, having wiped his mouth with his
pocket-handkerchief, began anew.
  'And what need have I, Gentlemen, to demonstrate to you, of all
people, the beneficent uses of agriculture? Who is it that supplies
our needs; who provides us with sustenance? Who but the farmer? The
farmer, Gentlemen, who, sowing with laborious hand the fertile furrows
of the country, brings forth the corn, which, being ground, is made
into powder by means of ingenious machinery, issues therefrom under
the name of flour, and from there transported to our cities is
promptly delivered at the baker's, who makes it into food for rich and
poor. Again, is it not the farmer who fattens for our raiment his
numerous flocks in the pasturelands? For how should we provide
ourselves with clothes and sustenance without the farmer? And,
Gentlemen, need we go so far afield for our examples? Who has not
oftentimes reflected on all the momentous things that come to us
from that homely creature, the ornament of our poultry yards, that
provides us at once with soft pillows for our beds, with succulent
flesh for the table, as well as with eggs? But I should never end were
I to enumerate one after another all the different products which
the earth, duly cultivated, lavishes like a generous mother upon her
children. Here it is the vine, here the apple-tree for cider, there
colza, yonder cheeses and flax. Gentlemen, let us not forget flax,
which has made such great strides of late years and to which I would
especially invite your attention.'
  He had no need to invite it, for all the mouths of the multitude
were gaping wide, 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 a little 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 moved slowly up and down over their waistcoats
in sign of approbation. 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 not see, because of the peak of his helmet that
came right down on to his nose. His lieutenant, the younger son of
Monsieur Tuvache, had an even bigger one, for his was enormous and
wobbled on his head, and from it peeped out a corner of his cotton
handkerchief. He smiled beneath it with perfectly cherubic
sweetness, and his little pale face, all running with sweat, wore a
beatified expression of blissful sleepiness.
  The Square, right back to the houses, was crowded with people. You
could see people leaning on their elbows at every window, others
standing at their doors, and Justin, outside the chemist's shop-front,
seemed quite plunged in amazement at the spectacle. In spite of the
silence, Monsieur Lieuvain's voice was lost in the air. It reached you
in fragmentary phrases, interrupted here and there by the scraping
of chairs in the crowd; then you suddenly heard the long bellowing
of an ox just behind you, or the bleating of the lambs, answering
one another at the street corners. In fact the cowherds and
shepherds had driven their beasts thus far, and from time to time they
began lowing and bleating, while with their tongues they tore down
some scrap of foliage that hung about their mouths.
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 135}
-
  Rodolphe had drawn nearer to Emma, and said to her in a low voice,
speaking rapidly,
  'Does not this conspiracy of Society 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 ill-starred
souls do meet, all is so organized that they cannot unite. 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, they 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 gazed fixedly at her. She noticed in
his eyes small golden lines radiating from his black pupils, she
even smelt the perfume of the pomade that made his hair glossy. Then a
feeling of languor came over her; she recalled the Vicomte who had
waltzed with her at la Vaubyessard, and his beard exhaled, like this
hair, an odour of lemon and vanilla, 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 plume of dust. It was in this yellow carriage that
Leon had so often come back to her, and by that road yonder that he
had gone for ever. She fancied she saw him opposite at his window;
then all grew confused: clouds passed before her, it seemed to her
that she was again turning in the waltz beneath the light of the
lustres on the arm of the Vicomte, and that Leon was not far away,
that he was coming; and yet all this 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 caught
in a gust of wind, eddied to and fro in the subtle breath of the
perfume which invaded her soul. She opened wide her nostrils several
times to drink in the freshness of the ivy that entwined the
pillars. 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 Counsellor
intoning his phrases.
  'Continue, persevere,' he said; 'listen neither to the suggestion of
routine nor to the over-hasty counsels 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
departing, will hold forth a hand to the vanquished and will
fraternize with him in the hope of better success. And you,
venerable servitors, lowly domestics, to whose patient toil no
Government has hitherto afforded recognition, come and receive the
guerdon of your silent merit, and be convinced that from this time
forth your country will not lose sight of you, that she will encourage
and protect you, that she will satisfy your just demands and
alleviate, so far as in her lies, the burden of your painful
sacrifices.'
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 140}
  At this point Monsieur Lieuvain sat down. Monsieur Derozerays
rose, and began another harangue. His was perhaps somewhat less ornate
than the Counsellor's, but it had the advantage of being more to the
point, more specialized, and it struck a loftier note. For example,
there were fewer eulogistic references to the Government; but more
attention was bestowed on religion and agriculture. The bond between
them was made clear, and the manner in which they had always
contributed to the progress of civilization. Rodolphe and Madame
Bovary were discussing dreams, presentiments, magnetism. Going back to
the very beginning when society was in its infancy, the speaker
described those rude ages when mankind subsisted on acorns in the
depths of the forest. He passed on to the time when, ceasing to
cover their nakedness with the skins of wild animals, they attired
themselves in cloth, ploughed the furrow and planted the vine. Was
this a benefit to the race, or did not the drawbacks of the
discovery outweigh its advantages? From magnetism Rodolphe had
gradually passed on to the subject of affinities, and while the
chairman was touching upon Cincinnatus and his plough, Diocletian
planting his cabbages, and the Emperors of China hallowing the
coming year by the sowing of seed, the young man was telling the young
woman that these irresistible attractions derived their cause from
some previous state of existence.
  'Take ourselves, for example,' he went on, 'how did we get to know
each other? What chance brought it about? Doubtless across the
sundering tract between us, like two rivers whose waters are fated
to meet ere they reach the sea, our destiny impelled us one towards
the other.'
  He seized her hand. She did not withdraw it.
  'For the best all-round crops in the show!' shouted the Chairman.
  'For example, just now, when I came to your house-'
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 145}
  'Monsieur Bizet of Quincampoix.'
  'Did I know that I should be with you here?'
  'Seventy francs!'
  'Scores of times I made up my mind to go away, and I sought you- I
stayed.'
  'Manure!'
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 150}
  'Even as I shall remain tonight, tomorrow, day after day, all my
life long.'
  'To Monsieur Caron, of Argueil, a gold medal.'
  'For I have never fallen in with anyone so completely charming.'
  'To Monsieur Bain, of Givry-Saint-Martin!'
  'So I shall ever bear with me the memory of you.'
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 155}
  'For a merino ram.'
  'But you will forget all about me; I shall just have passed like a
shadow.'
  'To Monsieur Belot, of Notre-Dame-'
  'But no, it's not so, is it? I shall be a little in your thoughts,
in your life sometimes, shan't I?'
  'Best pig in the show! Prize divided between Messieurs Leherisse and
Cullembourg, sixty francs each!'
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 160}
  Rodolphe pressed her hand, and felt it all warm and fluttering, like
a captive dove eager to resume its flight; but whether it was that she
tried to release it or whether she was responding to the pressure, she
made a movement with her fingers.
  'Oh, thanks, thanks!' he cried. 'You do not repel me. How sweet
you are! You know that I am yours. Ah, suffer me but to see you, to
gaze upon you!'
  A gust of wind came in through the windows and rumpled the
table-cloth, and down below in the Square the wings of the peasant
women's bonnets flapped up and down, fluttering like white butterflies
on the wing.
  'Oil cake!' continued the President. He began to quicken the pace.
  'Flemish manure- cultivation of hemp- drainage, long tenancies-
domestic service.'
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 165}
  Rodolphe was not talking now. They sat and looked at each other.
Their lips were dry and tremulous with desire. Softly yielding, making
no further effort to resist, their fingers intertwined.
  'Catherine Nicaise Elisabeth Leroux of Sassetot-la-Guerriere, for
fifty-four years' service on the same farm, a silver medal, value
twenty-five francs.'
  'Catherine Leroux, where is Catherine Leroux?' called out the
official again. She did not appear; and a great deal of whispering
went on.
  'Up you go!'
  'No.'
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 170}
  'To the left!'
  'Don't be afraid.'
  'How stupid she is!'
  'Come, now, is she here or is she not?' cried Tuvache.
  'Yes- there she is, over there!'
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 175}
  'Well, then, tell her to come up.'
  All eyes were bent on the platform and a little old woman who seemed
to be shrivelling up in her poverty-stricken clothes was seen making
her way towards it. On her feet she wore a pair of big wooden clogs,
and a blue apron tied about her waist. Her wizened face, encased in
a rimless bonnet, had more wrinkles on it than a withered apple, and
from the sleeves of her red bodice extended a pair of long, knotted
hands. The dust of the barns, the soda of the wash-tub, and the grease
of the fleeces had so encrusted, chapped and hardened them that though
they had been well rinsed in clean water, they still looked dirty.
Because she had worked so long and so hard, they remained half-open,
as though of themselves to bear humble witness to all the hardships
they had undergone. A touch of hieratic rigidity in her features
lent a sort of grandeur to her expression. The look of that pale
countenance was softened by no shade of melancholy or emotion. All her
life she had been used to animals, and she had grown as placid and
as mute as they. It was the first time in her life she had found
herself in the midst of such a crowd, and inwardly scared at the
flags, the drums, the black-coated gentlemen and the official's
cross of honour, she stood stock still, not knowing whether to advance
or run away, or why the people kept shoving her forward, and why the
judges were beaming at her. So there she stood, facing these
complacent gentry, this demi-century of servitude.
  'Approach, venerable Catherine Nicaise Elisabeth Leroux,' said the
official, who had taken the list of prize-winners from the chairman.
  And looking alternately at the paper and at the aged grandam, he
said, in a fatherly sort of way,
  'Come along, then, come along!'
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 180}
  'Are you deaf?' said Tuvache, nearly leaping out of his chair; and
he started shouting in her ear,
  'Fifty-four years in the same service. A silver medal! Twenty-five
francs! It's for you!'
  When she had got her medal, she looked at it long and carefully, and
then a smile of beatitude overspread her features, and as she turned
to depart, she was heard to mutter,
  'I shall give it to our cure down home, so as he can say some
masses for me.'
  'What fanaticism!' exclaimed the chemist, leaning across to the
notary.
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 185}
  The proceedings were over, the crowd broke up, and now that the
speechmaking was done, everyone resumed his station in life and things
once more became normal: masters bullied their servants, and the
servants belaboured the animals, indolent conquerors that lounged
unhurriedly back to their stalls with a green crown between their
horns.
  Meanwhile the National Guards had gone upstairs to the first floor
of the Town Hall with buns impaled on their bayonets, and the
battalion drummer, who was carrying a basketful of bottles.
  Madame Bovary took Rodolphe's arm, and he saw her back to her house.
They said good-bye at her front door, after which he went and strolled
about in the meadow, waiting till it was time for the banquet.
  The feast was long, noisy and badly served. It was such a squash
that you could hardly move your elbows, and the narrow planks that
served as seats nearly gave way under the weight of the guests. They
ate abundantly. Everyone took good care to have his share. Sweat was
running down their faces, and a sort of whitish steam, like the mist
that rises from a river of an autumn morning, floated between the
hanging lamps. Rodolphe, leaning back against the canvas of the
tent, was thinking so deeply of Emma that he heard nothing. Behind him
on the grass the servants were piling up the dirty plates; his
neighbours spoke, but he did not answer them; they filled up his
glass, but silence reigned in his mind, despite the ever-growing
clamour. He pondered on what she had said and on the shape of her
lips. Her face shone as in a magic mirror in the badges of the shakos;
the folds of her gown hung droopingly on the walls, and days of love
stretched out in an endless line down the long vistas of the future.
  He saw her again in the evening during the firework display; but she
was with her husband, Madame Homais and the chemist, who was in
great trouble about the danger of fire from rocket stumps, and he kept
on leaving the party to go and tell Binet what ought to be done
about it.
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 190}
  The stock of fireworks, which had been consigned to Monsieur
Tuvache, had, by excess of caution, been put down in his cellar, and
so the powder had got damp and would not light, and the principal
set-piece, which was to depict a dragon biting off his tail, was a
complete fiasco. Every now and again they would let off a paltry Roman
candle, and a great murmur of applause would rise up from the gaping
crowd, mingled with the screams of women who were being mauled about
in the intervals of darkness. Emma silently nestled against
Charles's shoulder; then, raising her chin, she followed the glowing
streak of the rockets in the darkness of the sky. Rodolphe stood and
gazed at her by the light of the glowing fairy-lamps. One by one
they burnt to the socket. The stars came out. Then, a little later,
a few drops of rain began to fall. She tied her lace scarf over her
head.
  At this juncture the great man's carriage drove out from the inn.
The coachman was tipsy, and all of a sudden he dropped off into a
doze, and above the hood, between the two lamps, as the carriage
receded into the distance, you could see his body swaying from side to
side with the motion of the springs.
  'There's no doubt,' said the apothecary, 'that drunkenness ought
to be severely dealt with. I should like to see a special weekly
list hung up outside the Town Hall, giving the names of everyone who
had been found the worse for liquor during that period. Looked at from
the statistical point of view, such a list would afford a reliable
record which, in case of need... But excuse me.' And away he rushed
again to speak to the Captain. The Captain was just going indoors to
have another look at his lathe.
  'Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea,' said Homais, 'if you sent one
of your men, or if you went yourself-'
  'Oh, shut up!' said the tax-collector. 'Everything's all right.'
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 195}
  'Nothing to worry about,' said the apothecary, as he rejoined his
friends. 'Monsieur Binet has assured me he has seen to everything.
There's no danger from the sparks, and the pumps are full. Let's go
home and sleep.'
  'My word, I could do with it!' exclaimed Madame Homais, who was
yawning pretty conspicuously. 'Well, anyhow, we had lovely weather for
our show.'
  'Yes,' echoed Rodolphe in a low voice, looking tenderly at Emma,
'lovely indeed!'
  They bowed to one another and went their ways.
  Two days afterwards there was a grand article about the show in
the Fanal de Rouen. Homais had dashed it off, in great style, the
very next day.
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 200}
  'What was the reason of all these decorations,' he asked, 'these
flowers, the garlands? Whither were all these people thronging, like
the billows of a raging sea, beneath a tropical sun pouring down its
rays in torrents upon our heads?'
  Then he went on to speak of the condition of the peasantry.
Doubtless the Government was doing a great deal, but it was not
enough. 'Take heart,' he cried to it encouragingly, 'endless reforms
are called for; let us bring them to pass!' Then, touching on the
Government official's arrival, he did not omit to bring in the
'soldier-like bearing of our volunteers,' 'our winsome village
beauties,' nor 'the bald-headed old men who were there, venerable
patriarchs, some of them remnants of our deathless legions, whose
hearts still beat high at the rolling of the drums.' He mentioned
himself first among the members of the committee, and reminded his
readers in a note that Monsieur Homais, pharmacist, had contributed
a monograph on Cider to the archives of the Agricultural Society. When
he came to the Prize Distribution he depicted the delight of the
successful competitors in language that was positively dithyrambic.
'Fathers embraced their sons, brothers their brothers, husbands
their wives. Many a one displayed with pride the medal he had won and,
doubtless, when he got home to his worthy helpmeet, he hung it up,
with tears in his eyes, on the wall of his humble abode.
  'About six o'clock a banquet was held in one of Monsieur
Liegeard's fields, at which all the chief people who had taken part in
the fete were present. The completest harmony reigned throughout the
proceedings. Several toasts were drunk. Monsieur Lieuvain proposed
'The King'; Monsieur Tuvache, 'The Prefect'; Monsieur Derozerays,
'Agriculture'; Monsieur Homais, 'Industry and the Fine Arts, those
glorious twin sisters'; Monsieur Leplichey, 'Coming Improvements'.
  'At night a brilliant display of fireworks suddenly lit up the
empyrean. It might have been a veritable kaleidoscope, or a scene
out of an opera, and in a moment our quiet little district might
have believed itself spirited away to the magic region of some Arabian
Night.
  'It is worthy of record that no sort of hitch marred the complete
harmony of this family gathering.'
                                                         {17 ^paragraph 205}
  And he added:
  'The only thing to be noted was the absence of the clergy. But
doubtless the Church has its own views about progress. Well,
Messieurs les Jesuites, you must go your own way!'

{18
                                  18
-
            Rodolphe calls on Emma: The coming of romance:
      Riding companions: Lovers by the pool: Charles's purchase:
                'I have a lover': Emma at the chateau.
-
  SIX weeks went by, and Rodolphe did not come again.
                                                           {18 ^paragraph 5}
  At last, one evening, he reappeared.
  'Don't let us rush matters,' he had said to himself, 'it would be
mistake.'
  By the end of the week he had gone off shooting. And after that
was over he thought he had left it too long, but then he argued it out
thus:
  'If she loved me from the first day, impatience to see me must
have made her love me all the more. Therefore let us go ahead.' And
when he saw her turn pale as he entered, he knew he had not
miscalculated.
  She was alone and it was getting dark. The little muslin curtains on
the windows deepened the gathering twilight, and the gilt case of
the barometer, smitten by a ray of the setting sun, lit up a blaze
of fire in the mirror, between the pieces of coral.
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 10}
  Rodolphe remained standing, and Emma barely so much as answered
his first conventional greeting.
  'I've been busy,' he said, 'I haven't been well.'
  'Nothing serious?' she asked quickly.
  'Oh, well, no,' said Rodolphe, seating himself on a stool beside
her. 'I didn't think I ought to come.'
  'Why?'
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 15}
  'Can't you guess?'
  He looked at her again, but with such a passionate expression in his
eyes that she dropped her gaze with a blush.
  'Emma!' he began again.
  'Sir!' she exclaimed, drawing back a little.
  'Ah! you see perfectly well now that I was right not to come
back,' he said dolefully, 'since that name, the name which I'm
always thinking about and which slipped out unawares, you forbid me to
use! Madame Bovary! Well, everybody calls you that. Yet it is not your
name, but another's!'
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 20}
  Again he repeated, 'Another's'.
  He buried his face in his hands.
  'Yes, I am for ever thinking of you; thinking and thinking till
I'm nearly mad. Ah, there, forgive me! I'll go away- far away- so that
you will never hear of me again. And yet today, somehow, it seemed
that something, I don't know what, was compelling me to come to you.
It's no good fighting against Fate or trying to resist the smile of
the angels. Who can help being swept off his feet by all that is
beautiful, charming, adorable?'
  It was the first time in her life Emma had heard such words, and her
pride, like tired limbs resting in a warm bath, glowed and expanded at
such rapturous language.
  'But,' he continued, 'though I did not come, though I could not
see you, I at least came and gazed upon all the things about you. At
night, every night, I got up and came right up to your house here. I
looked at the roof of it, all silver in the moonlight; I saw the trees
in the garden swaying to and fro before your bedroom window, and a
little lamp whose beams came stealing through the window-pane, glowing
in the shadows. Ah! little did you dream that a poor wretch was
standing there, so near and yet so far-'
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 25}
  She turned towards him with a sob.
  'Oh, how kind you are!' she said.
  'No,' he said, 'I love you, that's all. You know I do, don't you?
Tell me you know it- just one word, one little word!' And insensibly
Rodolphe let himself slip from the stool on to the floor. But there
was a noise of someone stumping about in the kitchen, and he noticed
that the door was not closed.
  'It would be so kind of you,' he said, getting up, 'if you would
pander to a whim of mine. I should so much like to see over your
house. To know all about it, all its ins and outs.'
  Madame Bovary seeing no objection, they were just getting up to go
when Charles came in.
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 30}
  'Good morning, Doctor,' said Rodolphe.
  Charles, flattered at this unexpected greeting, became
particularly gushing, and Rodolphe took advantage of the flow of
eloquence to recover himself a little.
  'Madame,' he said, 'was talking to me about her health.'
  'Oh,' interrupted Charles, 'it's no end of an anxiety to me. She's
been getting these attacks of breathlessness again.'
  Rodolphe asked whether a little horse-exercise wouldn't be a good
thing.
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 35}
  'Why, capital, of course, the very thing.... There now, that's an
idea; you should act on it, darling.'
  When she replied that she hadn't got a horse, Monsieur Rodolphe
offered her a mount. She refused, and he did not insist. Then, in
order to account for his visit, he gave out that his carter, the
hero of the blood-letting incident, still complained of giddiness.
  'I'll call round,' said Bovary.
  'Oh, no, no; I'll send him here. We'll come along together; it would
be less trouble for you.'
  'Excellent! Thanks very much.'
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 40}
  'Why didn't you accept Monsieur Boulanger's offer? It was
exceedingly good of him,' said Charles when they were alone.
  She pretended to be a little vexed, invented all kinds of excuses,
and wound up by saying that it would perhaps look rather odd.
  'Well, who cares a damn about that?' said Charles, performing a
little pirouette on his toes. 'Health, that's the main thing. It was
silly of you.'
  'And how do you expect me to go riding when I haven't got a habit?'
  'Must get you one,' he replied.
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 45}
  The habit decided her.
  When the costume was ready, Charles wrote Monsieur Boulanger
saying his wife could go any time, and that it was exceedingly kind of
him, and so on and so forth.
  Next day Rodolphe appeared at Charles's door with a couple of
riding-horses. One had pink rosettes on its ears and a doeskin
side-saddle. Rodolphe had put on a pair of buckskin riding-boots,
telling himself that she had certainly never seen anything like them
before. As a matter of fact Emma was charmed with the way he was
turned out when she saw him on the landing in his velvet shooting-coat
and white corduroy breeches. She was ready and waiting.
  Justin slipped out of the chemist's to steal a look at her, and
the apothecary himself sallied forth in his wake. He proceeded to give
Monsieur Boulanger a little sound advice. 'Accidents so soon happen.
Be careful now. I expect your horses are pretty fresh, aren't they?'
She heard a noise overhead; it was Felicite drumming on the window
to keep little Berthe amused. The child blew her a kiss, and her
mother gave an answering wave with her riding-whip.
  'Off you go! Have a good time!' cried Monsieur Homais. 'But do
take care, whatever you do. Go steady!' And he waved his newspaper
as he watched them depart.
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 50}
  As soon as he felt the turf beneath him, Emma's horse broke into a
hand-gallop, and Rodolphe cantered along beside her. Every now and
then they exchanged a word or two. She rode with her head a little
forward, her hand well up and her right arm stretched out, and she
abandoned herself to the rhythm of the movement which rocked her in
the saddle.
  At the foot of the hill, Rodolphe loosened the rein; they started
off together with a single bound; then, suddenly, at the top, the
horses stopped and her great blue veil fell about her.
  It was early in October, and a mist hung over the land. Far off,
on the horizon, shreds of vapour lingered among the folds of the
hills, or, breaking asunder, floated upwards and onwards and finally
melted into air. Sometimes a beam of sunlight would shine through a
rift in the clouds and light up the distant roofs of Yonville, with
the gardens beside the water, the courtyards, the walls and the
steeple. Emma screwed up her eyes to see her house, and never had this
poor village in which she dwelt seemed so diminutive. From the high
ground on which they had now arrived the whole valley seemed one
vast pale lake mistily melting into the air. Here and there clumps
of trees jutted up like dark rocks and the tall lines of poplars,
uprising above the mist, swayed like wind-swept reeds on a sandy
shore.
  Beside them, on the turf, between the pines, a mellow light suffused
the humid air. On the earth, all ruddy-brown like snuff, the footfalls
made no sound, and the horses as they walked sent the fallen fir-cones
rolling along with their hoofs.
  Thus Rodolphe and Emma rode along the fringe of the wood. She turned
away her head every now and again to avoid his eyes, and then she
saw nothing but the serried trunks of the pine-trees, whose endless
succession gave her a feeling of dizziness in the head. The horses
were panting, the leather of the saddles creaked.
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 55}
  Just as they turned into the wood, the sun came out.
  'The gods are with us!' said Rodolphe.
  'You think so?' she answered.
  'Come! Put on the pace a little,' was his reply.
  He clacked his tongue, and the horses began to trot. Tall ferns that
fringed the way caught in Emma's stirrup, and Rodolphe, leaning down
from his saddle, pulled them out as he rode along.
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 60}
  And sometimes, to keep away the branches, he rode close up to her,
and Emma felt his knee rubbing against her leg. The sky was blue
now, and not a leaf stirred. There were great stretches of purple
heather in full bloom, and patches of violets here and there amid
the masses of leaves, which were dun-coloured, russet or golden
according to the various kinds of trees. Often some live thing would
stir softly, and you would hear a fluttering of wings in the
undergrowth, or the soft croaking of the rooks flying about among
the oak-trees.
  They dismounted, and Rodolphe tied the horses to a tree. She
walked on ahead on the moss between the cart-tracks, but the skirts of
her habit kept getting in her way although she was holding it up by
the hem. Rodolphe walked behind, and as his gaze rested on the
little bit of white stocking that showed between her black habit and
her black boot, he felt as if he were looking at a little piece of her
naked self.
  She stopped.
  'I'm tired,' she said.
  'Come along,' he answered; 'only a little farther, don't give in
yet.'
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 65}
  She went on another hundred yards and then stopped again. Through
her veil, which fell obliquely from her hard felt hat on to her
hips, her face seemed bathed in a shadowy bluish light, as though
she were floating under azure waves.
  'Where are we going, then?'
  He made no answer. Her breath was coming in little short gasps.
  Rodolphe was casting his eyes about him and biting his moustache.
  They came to a more open place, where a clearing had been made. They
sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, and Rodolphe fell to talking
to her about his love. He did not begin by scaring her with
compliments. He was calm, serious, melancholy.
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 70}
  Emma listened with bowed head, stirring the little chips of wood
on the ground with the toe of her boot.
  But when he said, 'Are not our destinies now one?' she said, 'Oh no!
You know perfectly well that cannot be.'
  And she rose to depart. He seized her by the wrist. She stopped.
Then, gazing at him with loving, misty eyes, she said quickly,
  'No more of this.... Where are the horses? Come, let us go!
  He made a gesture of anger and mortification.
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 75}
  'Where are the horses?' she repeated. 'Where are the horses?'
  Then, smiling a strange smile, with a fixed stare and clenched
teeth, he opened his arms and came towards her. She shrank back,
trembling all over.
  'Oh, you frighten me! You hurt me! Let us go.'
  'Well, then, if it must be,' he said, with a changed expression. And
immediately his manner became respectful, caressing, timid. She gave
him her arm and they turned to go back.
  'What was it, then?' he said. 'Why were you like that? I could not
understand. You misjudged me, no doubt. Why, in my thoughts, you are
like a Madonna on a pedestal; lofty, immovable, unstained. But I
must have you, to live. I need your eyes, your voice, your very
thoughts. Be my friend, my sister, my angel!'
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 80}
  And he stretched out his arm and put it round her waist. She made
a feeble effort to disengage herself. He continued to hold her thus as
they walked along.
  They heard the two horses cropping the leaves.
  'Oh, stay!' said Rodolphe. 'Do not let us go! Stay!'
  And he drew her away, beside a little pool, whose surface was all
green with duckweed. Faded water-lilies floated motionless among the
reeds. At the sound of their steps in the grass, frogs leapt away to
hide themselves.
  'It is wrong of me! Wrong, wrong!' she cried. 'It is madness of me
to listen to you.'
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 85}
  'Why? Emma! Emma!'
  'Oh, Rodolphe!' she moaned, drooping her head upon his shoulder.
  Her cloth habit clung to the velvet of his coat. With a deep sigh
she flung back her white, quivering neck, and swooningly, in tears,
with a shudder that shook her whole frame, hiding her face in her
hands, she surrendered.
  The shades of evening had begun to fall; the level beams of the sun,
shining through the branches, dazzled her eyes. Here and there about
her, amid the leaves or on the ground, shone little patches of
tremulous light, as if birds of paradise had passed overhead and
dropped some feathers in their flight. Everywhere was silence; a
sweetness seemed to exhale from the trees. She could feel her heart as
it began to beat anew, she could feel the blood suffusing her whole
body like a stream of milk. And then, far, far away, beyond the wood
on the hills across the valley, she heard a cry, vague and
prolonged, a voice that lingered on the air, and she listened to it in
silence, mingling like music with the last vibrations of her throbbing
nerves. Rodolphe was standing with a cigar between his teeth. One of
the bridles had broken, and he was repairing it with his penknife.
  They returned to Yonville by the way they had come. They saw the
tracks of their horses in the soil, side by side, and there were the
same bushes and the same stones in the grass. Nothing about them had
changed, and yet for her something had happened, something more
tremendous than if the mountains had been shifted from their base.
Rodolphe leant down, every now and then, and took her hand and
kissed it. She was charming, on horseback! Straight as a die, with her
slim, graceful figure, her knee up on her horse's mane, the colour
of her cheeks a little heightened by the fresh air and the red gold of
the evening sky.
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 90}
  As she rode into Yonville her horse began to curvet a little on
the cobbles. People came to the window to look at her.
  At dinner that evening, her husband thought she looked well. But she
seemed as if she didn't hear what he said, when he asked her about her
ride; and she leant with her elbow beside her plate, between the two
lighted candles.
  'Emma!' said he.
  'What?'
  'Well, I spent the afternoon at Monsieur Alexandre's. He's got a
mare that's seen a bit of service, but still has plenty of go in
her; a little broken at the knees, that's all. He'd let her go for
twenty-five or thirty pounds, I'm sure.'
                                                          {18 ^paragraph 95}
  Then he added,
  'Thinking you'd like it, I made a bid for her, I bought her. Did I
do right? Tell me, then.'
  She nodded her head in sign.
  'Are you going out tonight?' she asked, a quarter of an hour later.
  'Yes. Why?'
                                                         {18 ^paragraph 100}
  'Oh, nothing, dear, nothing.'
  And as soon as she had got rid of Charles she went and shut
herself up in her room.
  At first she felt dazed. She saw the trees, the roads, the
ditches, Rodolphe; and she felt his arms round her still, while the
leaves rustled and the wind whistled in the reeds.
  But when she looked at herself in the glass she was amazed at her
own countenance. Never had her eyes looked so big, so dark, so
unfathomably deep. Some subtle transfiguring influence had come over
her and made her another woman.
  She kept saying to herself over and over again, 'I have a lover, a
lover,' revelling in the thought of it as if a second puberty had come
to her. At last she was going to taste those joys of love, that
transport of bliss, which she had thought for ever denied her. She was
entering into some enchanted region where all would be passion,
ecstasy and feverish delight; an azure immensity of boundless space
lay round about her, and the glittering peaks of enchanted love rose
up before her inward vision. Her ordinary, everyday life seemed to
have receded afar, to be somewhere in the shadows between these
radiant heights.
                                                         {18 ^paragraph 105}
  Then she bethought her of the heroines of the books that she had
read, all those lovely erring women who sang in her heart with voices,
as of sisters, that laid a spell upon her. She looked, and lo, she saw
herself amid this visionary throng, and deemed that at last the dreams
of her girlhood days had come to pass, as she beheld herself in that
passionate guise she had so longingly prefigured. But more than
this, she was conscious of a feeling of satisfaction, as one tasting
the sweets of revenge. Had she not suffered enough? But now the hour
of triumph had sounded, and love, so long repressed, leapt forth at
last like a bubbling fount of bliss. She drank deep of its
sweetness, and no remorse, no misgiving, no foreboding ever clouded
the radiance of her joy.
  The next day went by in an atmosphere new and sweet. They made
vows one to the other. She told Rodolphe all her troubles, and he
cut her short with kisses. And gazing at him through half-shut
eyelids, she besought him to call her again by her name, and to tell
her again and again that he loved her. They were in the wood as on the
previous day, in a clog-maker's hut. The walls were of thatch and
the roof came down so low they were obliged to stoop. They were
sitting, leaning against one another on a heap of dry leaves.
  From that day onward they wrote to each other regularly every night.
Emma took her letter to the end of the garden near the river and put
it in a cleft in the wall. Rodolphe would come and take it and put
another in its place, and always she complained that his letters
were too short.
  One morning Charles was called out to a case before it was light,
and she was seized with a sudden longing to see Rodolphe there and
then. She could hurry away to la Huchette, have an hour there, and
be back again in Yonville before anyone was awake. The very idea
made her pant with desire, and soon she was half-way across the field,
tripping swiftly along, never casting a look behind her.
  Day was beginning to break. A long way off Emma could see her
lover's house, with its two weather-vanes standing out black against
the pale sky of dawn.
                                                         {18 ^paragraph 110}
  On the other side of the farm-yard was a big building that must be
the chateau. She went in as if the walls at her approach had swung
aside of their own accord to admit her. A large staircase led up to
a corridor. Emma turned the handle of the door, and there, at the
far end of the room, lay a man, sleeping. It was Rodolphe. She gave
a cry.
  'What, you here! you here!' he kept saying. 'How did you manage
it? Ah, your dress is all damp!'
  'I love you!' she answered, flinging her arms round his neck.
  This first adventure went off without mishap, and now, every time
Charles was called out early, Emma got up, threw on some clothes,
and stole furtively down the stone steps that led to the water's edge.
But when the wooden gangway for the cattle was not there, she had to
make her way along by the walls that fringed the river. The edge was
slippery, and sometimes she had to put out her hand and clutch the
tufts of faded gilliflowers to prevent herself from falling. Then
she would strike across fresh-ploughed fields, sinking in,
floundering, and getting her thin boots plastered with mud. The
scarf tied over her hair fluttered in the wind that swept across the
fields; she was scared of bullocks, and started to run. She arrived
all out of breath, with roses in her cheeks, her whole body fragrant
with the fresh odour of sap, of verdure and the open air. Rodolphe
at this early hour would be still asleep. It was like a spring morning
coming into his room.
  Through the yellow curtains that draped the windows a soft
old-gold light came stealing. Emma blinked her eyes as she felt her
way across the room, while little drops of dew that besprent her
hair seemed like an aureole of topaz around her countenance. Rodolphe,
laughing, would draw her towards him and pull her down on to his
breast.
                                                         {18 ^paragraph 115}
  And afterwards she would go and look about the room, opening this
drawer and that. She would use his comb and look at herself in his
shaving-glass. Sometimes there would be a pipe lying on the table by
the bed among some lemons and pieces of sugar close to a water-bottle.
And, picking up the pipe, she would put the mouthpiece between her
lips and pretend to be smoking.
  It took them a good quarter of an hour to say good-bye. Emma would
burst out crying; she would have liked to stay with Rodolphe always
and never leave him any more. Something stronger than she impelled her
towards him; but one day, when she came in unexpectedly, a look of
annoyance passed over his face.
  'What is the matter?' she said. 'Don't you feel well? Tell me!'
  At last he declared, looking very serious about it, that these
repeated visits of hers were becoming rather too much of a good thing,
and that she would be getting herself talked about.

{19
                                  19
-
                   Captain Binet goes duck-hunting:
       A large order for Monsieur Homais: Nights with Rodolphe:
               The pistols: A letter from les Bertaux:
                       Lost illusions: Berthe.
-
                                                           {19 ^paragraph 5}
  LITTLE by little Rodolphe's apprehensions began to take hold of her.
Her passion had intoxicated her at first, and she had no thoughts
beyond it. But now, when love had become indispensable to her life,
she was afraid of losing even a piece of it, or of having it
interfered with in any way. When she was going back from his house she
would cast anxious looks about her, looking hard at anybody she saw in
the distance and glancing cautiously up at every window from which her
goings and comings might be observed. She stopped and listened
whenever she heard a step, or someone calling, or the sound of the
plough at work; she would halt, paler and more tremulous than the
poplar leaves that fluttered above her head.
  One morning, as she was on her way back from one of these
rendezvous, she thought she saw the muzzle of a sporting rifle
apparently pointing straight at her. It was projecting obliquely
from a little cask, half hidden amid the grass on the edge of a ditch.
Emma, though nearly ready to drop with terror, kept straight on,
when a man bobbed up from the cask, like a jack-in-the-box, and got
out of it. He was wearing gaiters up to the knees and a cap rammed
down over his eyes. His lips were trembling and his nose was red
with the cold. It was Captain Binet, on the look-out for wild duck.
  'Why didn't you shout when you were away over there? Whenever you
see a rifle, you should always sing out.'
  The tax-collector thus tried to dissemble the shock he had just
had to his nerves. For an official notice had gone forth prohibiting
wild-duck shooting except from a boat, and Monsieur Binet, despite his
respect for the law, was doing something he ought not to do. This
was how it was that every minute he thought he heard the policeman
coming. But this anxiety lent an added zest to his pleasure, and
there, all alone in his cask, he kept patting himself on the back
for being such a cunning dog and having such good luck.
  When he saw it was Emma, he looked mightily relieved, and
immediately opened the conversation.
                                                          {19 ^paragraph 10}
  'Nippy, isn't it?' he said.
  Emma made no reply, and he went on,
  'You're out early, aren't you?'
  'Yes,' she stammered, 'I've just been over to the woman's where my
little girl is out to nurse.'
  'Oh, I see, I see! Well, as for me, I'm here as soon as it's
light. But the weather's so thick that unless you've got your bird
slap at the end of your gun you-'
                                                          {19 ^paragraph 15}
  'Good day, Monsieur Binet,' she broke in, turning on her heel.
  'Your servant, Madame,' he answered, rather put out. And he
retreated into his cask.
  Emma regretted she had left the tax-collector so abruptly. No
doubt he'd go and imagine all sorts of unpleasant things. The story
about the nurse was the worst lie she could have told, for everyone in
Yonville knew that the little Bovary child had been back with her
parents for more than a year. Besides, no one lived out that way;
the path didn't lead anywhere but to la Huchette. Binet must have
guessed where she was coming from, right enough. He would not keep
it dark- he'd put it about, that was a certainty. All day long she sat
cudgelling her brains, thinking out what lie she could possibly
tell, with the figure of the egregious sportsman ever before her eyes.
  After dinner, Charles, noticing that she seemed rather down,
insisted on taking her over to the Homaises to liven her up a
little. The very first person she clapped eyes on in the chemist's was
Binet. There he was, planted alongside the counter, all lit up with
red light from one of the big carboys.
  'Half an ounce of vitriol, please,' he said.
                                                          {19 ^paragraph 20}
  'Justin!' shouted the apothecary, 'bring along the sulphuric acid,
will you?'
  'No, don't trouble to go up,' he said, turning to Emma, who was
making for Madame Homais's room upstairs. 'She'll be down in a minute.
Warm yourself at the stove till she comes. How d'ye do, doctor?'
(the chemist was very fond of bringing in the word doctor as often
as he could, as though some of the glory which he conceived to
attach to the word were mysteriously reflected upon himself)....
'Now then, don't go and upset those mortars. Get the chairs out of the
little room; you know perfectly well that the easy-chairs are not to
be taken out of the drawing-room.'
  And Homais was about to rush away from the counter to put his
chair back in its place when Binet said he wanted half an ounce of
sugar acid.
  'Sugar acid?' said the chemist scornfully. 'What's that? I don't
know it. Perhaps you mean oxalic acid.'
  Binet explained that what he wanted was a corrosive to put in a
metal polish he was making to get the rust off his shooting gear.
                                                          {19 ^paragraph 25}
  Emma trembled.
  'You're right,' said the apothecary- 'rust is right! But, then, look
how damp it's been.'
  'All the same,' said Binet significantly, 'some people don't seem to
mind it!'
  She felt like choking.
  'Oh, and then I want-'
                                                          {19 ^paragraph 30}
  ('He'll be here all night!' she said to herself.)
  '-half an ounce of resin and turps mixed, four ounces of beeswax and
an ounce and a half of lamp-black. It's to clean the shiny leather
parts of my tackle.'
  The chemist was starting to cut the wax, when Madame Homais
appeared, with Irma in her arms, Napoleon at her side and Athalie
dragging along behind. She went and sat down on the velvet seat facing
the window. The small boy clambered up on to a stool, while his
elder sister prowled about with her eye on the jujube box near to
'little daddy'. 'Little daddy' was pouring stuff into funnels, putting
corks into bottles, gumming on labels, wrapping up packets. Silence
was observed in his vicinity, the only sounds being the occasional
tinkle of the weights in the scales and some whispered words of advice
given by the chemist to his apprentice.
  'How's that young lady of yours?' asked Madame Homais all of a
sudden.
  'Silence!' exclaimed her husband, who was doing some figuring in a
scribbling book.
                                                          {19 ^paragraph 35}
  'Why didn't you bring her along?' she said, dropping her voice.
  'Sh!' whispered Emma, pointing to the chemist.
  But Binet was probably too busy adding up his bill to have heard
anything. At last he departed, and Emma heaved a prodigious sigh of
relief.
  'Why, how hard you're breathing!' said Madame Homais.
  'Yes, it is a little bit warm, isn't it?'
                                                          {19 ^paragraph 40}
  Next day they discussed where they had better meet. Emma thought
of bribing the maid, giving her a present to keep her mouth shut;
but they came to the conclusion that the best thing would be to get
hold of some house to which they could go in Yonville. Rodolphe said
he would look out for one.
  All through the winter, three or four times a week, when it was
quite dark, he made his way into the garden. Emma had taken care to
remove the key of the garden gate, and Charles concluded it was lost.
  In order to tell her he was there Rodolphe would throw a handful
of gravel against the shutters. Then she would jump up with a start.
But sometimes she had to wait, because Charles had a mania for sitting
up gossiping by the fire, and sometimes it seemed as if he would go on
babbling for ever. She didn't know how to contain herself. If looks
could have done it, she would have pitched him out of the window.
After a time she began to undress, then she took up a book and began
to read it with apparent calmness, as if she found it interesting. But
Charles, who was now between the sheets, told her to come to bed.
  'Come along, Emma,' he would say, 'it's really time you were in.'
  'All right, I'm coming,' she would answer.
                                                          {19 ^paragraph 45}
  However, as the candlelight was in his eyes, he turned his face to
the wall and dropped off to sleep. Then she slipped out, holding her
breath, radiant, palpitating and all undressed.
  Rodolphe used to wear a big cloak. He covered her up in it and,
putting his arm round her waist, silently led her to the far end of
the garden. It was in the arbour on the same rustic seat where Leon
used to look at her so tenderly on those summer nights in days gone
by. She thought very little about him now.
  The stars were twinkling through the leafless branches of the
jasmine. They could hear the murmur of the river behind them, and
now and then the rustle of the dry reeds on the bank. Great shadowy
masses bellied out here and there in the darkness, and sometimes,
all quivering together, they rose up and bowed forward like huge black
waves advancing to overwhelm them. The cold made them clasp each other
the tighter; their sighs seemed more profound; their eyes, though they
could scarcely discern them in the gloom, seemed bigger, and in the
stillness that enfolded them a word, softly murmured, would fall
upon their hearts like the note of a crystal bell and pass,
trembling with infinite vibrations, into silence.
  On wet nights they would go and take refuge in the surgery between
the shed and the stable. She would light one of the kitchen candles
that she had hidden behind the books. Rodolphe made himself quite at
home. The sight of the bookcase and the writing-desk- everything in
the room, in fact- excited his merriment, and he couldn't restrain
himself from indulging in all sorts of little jokes at Charles's
expense that put Emma a little bit out of countenance. She would
have liked him to be a little more serious, and a little more dramatic
if occasion demanded, as he had been once when she thought she heard
the sound of footsteps coming towards them along the path.
  'There's someone coming!' said she.
                                                          {19 ^paragraph 50}
  He blew out the candle.
  'Have you got your pistols on you?'
  'What for?'
  'Why- to defend yourself!' answered Emma.
  'From your husband, do you mean? Good Lord!'
                                                          {19 ^paragraph 55}
  And Rodolphe made a gesture that signified 'I'd crush him like a
fly!' She was greatly impressed at his cool courage, though it had a
touch of coarseness, of indelicacy, about it that she did not like
at all.
  Rodolphe pondered a good deal over this business of the pistols.
If she had meant it, it was, he thought, ridiculous, rather horrible
indeed, for Charles was a decent fellow enough, and he personally
had no reason to hate him, not being 'consumed with jealousy', as
the phrase goes; and, on this point, Emma had sworn him a solemn
oath which he didn't think in the best of taste either.
  Besides, she was getting fearfully sentimental. There had had to
be an exchange of miniatures, of locks of hair, and now the latest
thing was that she wanted a ring- a proper wedding-ring- as a symbol
of their everlasting union. She often talked to him about the bells of
eventide, of the voices of nature; and sometimes she would tell him
about her mother and ask him about his. Rodolphe's mother had been
dead twenty years. Nevertheless, Emma consoled him for his loss with
the sort of little baby talk you would use to a lost child, and
sometimes, looking up at the moon, she would say, 'I am sure that when
they both look down on us from above, they approve of our love.'
  But, then, she was so pretty! None of the women he had ever
possessed had had such an innocent bloom on them. A really sentimental
love affair like this was something quite new for him. It put him on
his mettle, took him out of the rut, and gave a fillip to his pride
and his appetites. Emma's intense style, which his middle-class common
sense rather pooh-poohed, struck him, in his heart of hearts, as being
rather fine after all, because he himself was the object of it.
Then, being certain of her love for him, he ceased to put himself
about, and insensibly his manner underwent a change.
  He never spoke to her now as he used to, saying little things so
sweet and tender they made her cry. He never kissed her and hugged her
in the old tempestuous fashion that sent her into the seventh
heaven. No! that great love of theirs, in whose waves she was borne
along, seemed as if it were growing shallower beneath her, like the
waters of a river that was fated to be absorbed in its bed, and lo,
she could see the mud! She tried not to believe it, became more
demonstrative than ever, while Rodolphe troubled less and less to mask
his indifference. She could not make up her mind whether she regretted
having yielded to him, or whether she wanted to go on loving him
more and more. Humiliation at the consciousness of her own weakness
grew into a feeling of mortification which, however, was softened by
their periodic caresses. It was not so much an affectionate attachment
as a permanent infatuation. He had a sort of power over her. She was
almost afraid of him.
                                                          {19 ^paragraph 60}
  Nevertheless, to all outward appearances, things were going on
more smoothly than ever, Rodolphe having succeeded in running the
affair according to his own ideas; and after six months, when the
spring came round, they were for all the world like a couple of
married folk quietly nourishing the domestic flame.
  It was just about this time that Farmer Rouault was in the habit
of sending along his goose to commemorate the setting of his broken
leg. The present was always accompanied by a letter. Emma cut the
string that tied it to the hamper and read as follows:
-
  'MY DEAR CHILDREN,
    'I hope this will find you in good health and that this one will
be as good as the others, for it seems to me to have a bit more on it,
to be a bit more meaty as you might say. Next time, for a change, I'll
send you a cock bird, unless you'd rather keep to these, and send me
back the hamper, please, and the two other ones. I have had a bit of
bad luck with my cartshed- the wind took the roof of it off one
night when it was blowing hard and carried it up among the trees,
and the harvest hasn't been what you might call first rate. And when I
shall ever get away to see you I don't know. It's been such a job
leaving the house since I've been alone, my poor Emma.'
                                                          {19 ^paragraph 65}
-
  Here there was some space between the lines, as if the worthy man
had laid aside his pen in order to dream a little.
-
  'As for me, I'm all right except for a cold I picked up at Yvetot
Fair the other day, where I'd gone off to engage a shepherd, as I
had given ours the sack, him being that finicking about his
victuals. What a dance them rogues do lead us! And he wasn't no better
than he ought to be in other ways.
  'I ran across a pedlar who'd been travelling about down your way
this winter. He'd been to Bovary to have a tooth out, and he said he
was always hard at work. I don't wonder, and he showed me his tooth.
We had a cup of coffee together. I asked him if he'd seen you. He said
no, but he had seen two animals in the stable, so I suppose trade's
good. And a good job too, my dears, and God send you every happiness.
                                                          {19 ^paragraph 70}
  'It do seem hard that I haven't got to know my little grandchild
Berthe Bovary yet. I've planted a plum-tree out in the garden under
your bedroom window, and I won't have anybody meddle with it except,
later on, to make some jam. I shall keep it in a cupboard for her
against her first visit.
  'Good-bye, my dear children. Fondest love to you, my girl, and to
you, my son-in-law, and a kiss on both cheeks for the little one.
                               'I am, with many compliments,
                                        'Your loving Father,
                                                 THEODORE ROUAULT.'
                                                          {19 ^paragraph 75}
-
  She lingered a few minutes, holding the rough piece of paper between
her fingers. The spelling mistakes ran like a warp through the whole
production, and Emma followed the thoughts that struggled through
somehow, like the cackling of a hen half-hidden in a thorn hedge.
The ink had been dried with cinders, for a sprinkling of grey dust
slipped from the letter on to her dress, and it seemed to her as
though she could almost see her father bending forward over the hearth
to pick up the tongs. What a long time since she had been there,
with him seated on the settle in the fire-place, when she would
light the end of a stick in the game of the sea-rushes that flared and
crackled up the chimney! She thought of those summer evenings all
flooded with sunshine. The colts used to whinny when you went near
them, and gallop- heavens, how they galloped! There was a beehive
underneath her window, and sometimes the bees, wheeling round about in
the light, would bump against her window-panes like bouncing golden
balls. How happy it all seemed in those days! What freedom, what
hopefulness, what a wealth of illusions! There were none left now. One
after another, in the successive stages of her soul's adventure-
girlhood, marriage, love- she had parted with them all, shedding
them along the path of life like a traveller who leaves behind him
some portion of his belongings at every wayside inn.
  But who or what was making her unhappy? What was the extraordinary
catastrophe that had overwhelmed her? And she lifted her head and
looked about her as though she were trying to discover what it was
that was making her suffer so.
  A ray of April sunlight was playing softly on the china along the
dresser; the fire was burning cheerfully; she could feel the
yielding softness of the carpet beneath her slippers; the sky was
bright, the air was warm and she could hear her little one laughing
for joy. There she was rolling about on the lawn among the grass
that was being cut for hay. She was lying flat on her stomach on the
top of a haycock, her nurse holding on to her frock. Lestiboudois
was raking close by, and every time he came near her she leant over,
beating the air with both arms.
  'Oh, bring her to me!' said her mother, rushing forward and
gathering her to her bosom. 'How I love you, Mummy's poor little
pet, how I love you!'
                                                          {19 ^paragraph 80}
  Then, noticing that her ears were not quite clean, she rang in a
great hurry for some warm water and gave her a good wash, put her on
clean underclothes, changed her shoes and stockings, and asked all
sorts of things about her health, as if she had just come back from
a journey. Finally, still smothering her with kisses and crying a
little, she handed her back to the maid, who couldn't account at all
for this sudden outburst of affection.
  Rodolphe, that night, found her much graver than usual.
  'She'll get over it,' he thought to himself. 'It's just one of her
little ways.'
  And three times in succession he failed to keep the tryst. When,
finally, he did come, her manner was cold, almost off-hand.
  'Ah, it won't pay you to try that on, my beauty!'
                                                          {19 ^paragraph 85}
  And he pretended not to notice her doleful plight or the
handkerchief she kept producing.
  It was then that Emma repented. She asked herself how it was she
detested Charles and whether she would not have been far better off if
she had been able to love him. But he did not give her any great
opening for these revulsions of sentiment, and she was at a great loss
to know how to give effect to the laudable promptings by which she was
animated, when the apothecary furnished her with a most timely
occasion.

{20
                                  20
-
              The stableman's club-foot: Surgical lore:
        Charles operates: Yonville in the press: Unfavourable
    prognosis: The visit of the cure: Monsieur Canivet's opinion:
                   The second operation: Repenting
                            of repentance.
                                                           {20 ^paragraph 5}
-
  HE had been recently reading a very favourable account of a new mode
of treatment for club-foot, and being a great man for progress, he
thought it would be a fine thing for Yonville to show how up to date
it was by going in for the operative treatment of strephopody.
  'Where's the risk?' he said to Emma. 'Just consider,' and he ran off
on his fingers the advantages of such an experiment: 'success,
practically certain; improvement of the patient's health and
appearance; immense increase of prestige for the operator. Now why
shouldn't your husband do a turn for poor old Hippolyte at the Lion
d'Or? For one thing, he's bound to give an account of his cure to
every traveller that goes to the place, and then (here Homais
lowered his voice and looked about him) what's to prevent me from
sending a little notice to the paper about it? Why, an article like
that gets read all over the place... people get talking about it...
it's like a snowball! You never know! You never know!'
  As a matter of fact, Bovary might quite well succeed. Emma had no
proof that he wasn't a skilful man, and then, how nice it would be for
her to reflect that she had prevailed on him to undertake a thing that
had been so advantageous from the professional and pecuniary point
of view! Her great desire, in fact, was to have something more
solid, more tangible than love to rely upon.
  Charles, besieged by the importunities of the apothecary and Emma,
suffered himself to be persuaded. He sent to Rouen for Dr. Duval's
treatise, and every night he sat with his head between his hands,
studying it diligently.
                                                          {20 ^paragraph 10}
  Whilst he was reading up all about talipes equinus, varus and
valgus- that is to say, catastrephopody, endostrephopody and
exostrephopody (or, to put it more clearly, the various deviations
of the foot downwards, inwards and outwards)- with hypostrephopody and
anastrephopody (otherwise torsion downwards and upwards), Monsieur
Homais was adducing every argument he could think of to persuade the
lad at the inn to submit to the operation.
  'You'll hardly feel any pain at all. Just a slight pricking. No more
than being bled a little. Not half as bad as having a corn removed.'
  Hippolyte stood thinking hard, rolling his eyes about like a
ninny. 'Anyhow,' the chemist went on, 'it doesn't affect me, it's
for your sake- just a bit of simple ordinary humanity. What I want, my
lad, is to see you cured of this unsightly claudication and that
continual oscillation of the lumbar region, which, say what you
will, must be no small handicap to you in the exercise of your work.'
  Homais then went on to tell him how much better and sprightlier he
would feel, and even hinted that he would be much more likely to do
execution among the women, whereat the stable-lad hung his head and
smiled a sheepish smile. Then he appealed to his vanity.
  'Aren't you a man, hang it all? Why, suppose you had had to join the
army: to go and serve with the colours! Ah, Hippolyte!'
                                                          {20 ^paragraph 15}
  And Homais went off, vowing that he couldn't understand anyone being
so obstinate, so blind, as to refuse the benefits of science.
  The poor wretch gave in, for everybody made a dead set at him.
Binet, who never meddled with other people's business, Madame
Lefrancois, Artemise, the neighbours and even Monsieur Tuvache, the
mayor, kept pegging away and crying shame upon him; but what finally
decided him was that he would not have to pay anything. Bovary even
promised that he would furnish the necessary appliance for the
operation. Emma it was who made the suggestion, and Charles agreed,
thinking deep down in his heart what an angel she was.
  And so, with the chemist to advise him, and after three separate
starts, he got a sort of box constructed by the joint efforts of the
carpenter and the locksmith. It weighed about eight pounds, and
iron, wood, sheet-iron, leather, screws and nails were plentifully
represented in its composition.
  However, in order to decide which tendon to cut, it was necessary to
discover the particular form of club-foot with which the patient was
afflicted.
  He had a foot that was bent downwards almost in a straight line with
the leg, together with some degree of introversion. Hence it was a
case of talipes equinus with some of the characteristics of talipes
varus or, alternatively, it might be regarded as a slight varus with
some conspicuous manifestations of equinus. But with this talipes
equinus, which was as broad as a horse's hoof, all horny and
knotted, with great black toe-nails, that looked like iron, the ostler
galloped about like a stag from morning till night. Any time you
liked, you could see him out in the Square clumping round the
market-carts and flinging his deformed foot in front of him. He seemed
to be stronger on that leg than on the other. As the result of long
service, it had acquired what almost seemed like the moral qualities
of energy and endurance, and when he had a heavy job to perform,
that was the leg he would rely on.
                                                          {20 ^paragraph 20}
  Well, then, seeing it was a case of talipes equinus, it was the
tendon of Achilles that would need to be severed, while, later on, the
anterior tibial muscle would have to be dealt with, in order to
relieve the varus; for the doctor dared not risk two operations at
once, and, as it was, he was quaking a little, for fear of cutting
into some important region he was not thoroughly acquainted with.
  Neither Ambroise Pare applying, for the first time since Celsus
and after an interval of fifteen hundred years, an emergency
ligature to an artery; nor Dupuytren about to open an abscess deeply
embedded in the grey matter of the brain; nor Gensoul, the first
time he removed the upper maxillary, had such a beating heart, such
a trembling hand and such an anxious mind as Monsieur Bovary, when
he approached Hippolyte, his instrument between his fingers. And, just
as you see in hospitals, the side-table was covered with piles of
lint, waxed thread, a heap of bandages- a very pyramid of bandages,
all the bandages that were to be found in the chemist's shop. Monsieur
Homais had been there all the morning making these preparations, which
were equally intended to bedazzle the multitude and flatter his
self-conceit. Charles made an incision. There was a sharp crackling
noise. The, tendon was cut, the operation was finished. Hippolyte
couldn't get over his surprise. He bent his head down over Bovary's
hands to cover them with kisses.
  'There, there; that'll do. You can express your gratitude to your
benefactor later on,' said the chemist.
  And he went down to report the result to the five or six people
who were waiting below in the courtyard, eager to hear the news and
expecting to see Hippolyte come out again walking quite normally. Then
Charles, having buckled his patient into the patent contrivance,
went back to his house, where Emma, in a state of great excitement,
was waiting for him on the doorstep. She flung her arms about his
neck. They sat down to dinner. He ate heartily and said he would
finish up with coffee, an indulgence he only permitted himself on
Sundays, when they had company.
  The evening went off delightfully. They talked and talked and
dreamed all kinds of dreams together. They dwelt on the future and the
prospects it offered, they discussed what improvements they would make
in the house. He saw himself getting more widely known, living on a
better scale, and for ever adored by his wife. And she was joyful at
finding something new wherein to refresh her spirit, some healthier,
better experience; joyful that, at last, she was able to feel some
sort of affection for the poor fellow who cherished her so dearly. The
thought of Rodolphe passed momentarily through her mind; but then
she looked at Charles again, and noted with surprise that his teeth
were really quite passable.
                                                          {20 ^paragraph 25}
  They had been in bed some little time when, despite the servant's
expostulations, Monsieur Homais came bursting into the room with a
sheet of something he had just written in his hand. It was the
report he intended sending to the Rouen paper. He had brought it
across for them to read.
  'You read it,' said Bovary, and Homais began as follows:
  'Despite the prejudices which still hang like a network over a great
part of the face of Europe, the light is beginning to permeate our
country districts. For example, on Tuesday last, the little town of
Yonville was the scene of what was not merely an experiment in
surgery, but an act of generous philanthropy. Monsieur Bovary, one
of our most distinguished practitioners...'
  'No, look here, that's too much, really!' said Charles, so
overcome he could hardly speak.
  'Good Lord no! Not a bit of it!... performed an operation for
club-foot.... I didn't use the scientific term because, you know, in a
paper... well, a good many people wouldn't understand, and, you see,
the general public...'
                                                          {20 ^paragraph 30}
  'Quite so,' said Bovary. 'Go ahead!'
  'Well, then,' said the chemist, 'Monsieur Bovary, one of our most
distinguished practitioners, performed an operation for club-foot on
one Hippolyte Tautain, for twenty-five years ostler at the Hotel du
Lion d'Or, kept by Madame Veuve Lefrancois, in the Place d'Armes.
This new departure in operative surgery and the widespread esteem in
which the patient is held, combined to draw such large numbers to
the spot that the front of the establishment in question was veritably
besieged by the crowd. The operation was carried out with almost
miraculous success, scarcely more than a few drops of blood
appearing on the surface of the skin, as though to proclaim the fact
that the recalcitrant tendon had just yielded to the surgeon's
skill. A remarkable point about the case is (we affirm this de visu)
that the patient gave no indication of suffering any pain.
Everything points to a rapid convalescence, and it may well be that,
at our next village fete, we shall see our doughty Hippolyte joining
in the merry dance, footing it blithely amid a choir of Corydons,
and giving, by his sprightly pirouettes and gambols, manifest proof of
his complete recovery. Honour, then, to these great-hearted men of
science! Honour to those unwearying investigators who burn the
midnight oil, seeking to remove, or to mitigate, the sufferings of
their fellow-men. Honoured, thrice honoured, be they! Is it not time
for us to cry aloud, saying, "Lo! the blind shall see, the deaf
shall hear, and the lame shall walk?" That which, in days of old,
superstition promised its votaries, science now accomplishes for all
mankind. We shall keep our readers informed of the successive stages
in the progress of this remarkable cure.'
  All this did not prevent the Widow Lefrancois from hurrying over
five days later, scared out of her wits and shouting,
  'Come, quick! He's dying!... Oh, I shall go crazy!'
  Charles tore across to the Lion d'Or, and the chemist, who saw him
rushing bare-headed across the Square, was out of his shop in an
instant. He was breathing quickly, looking flushed and uneasy, and
asked the various people who were going up the stairs,
                                                          {20 ^paragraph 35}
  'Why, what is amiss with our interesting strephopode?'
  The strephopode was writhing in frightful convulsions and banging
the mechanism, in which his foot was clamped, so violently against the
wall, they thought he would knock a hole in it.
  And so, taking great precautions not to disturb the position of
the limb, they removed the box, and a ghastly sight met their eyes.
The foot was so hideously swollen that it was nothing but a
shapeless mass of pulp covered with patches of ecchymosis caused by
the famous machine. Hippolyte had said some time back that it was
hurting him, but they hadn't taken any notice. It was now evident,
however, that he had had some cause for complaint, and they let him be
free for a few hours. But no sooner had the oedema subsided a
little, than the two professional gentlemen thought it well to replace
the apparatus, strapping it tighter than ever to accelerate the
cure. Finally, three days later, Hippolyte being unable to bear it any
longer, they unscrewed it again, and were much amazed at what they
saw. A livid swelling had spread all up the leg, on which, here and
there, were pustules oozing with dark-coloured matter. Things were
looking serious; Hippolyte was beginning to get rather low, and the
Widow Lefrancois shifted him into the little parlour near the kitchen,
so that he might at least have something to take his mind off it a
little.
  But the tax-collector, who had his dinner there every day,
strongly objected to his being in the room, so at last they moved
him into the billiard-saloon. And there he lay, moaning under the
bedclothes, pale, unshaven and hollow-eyed. Every now and again, the
sweat standing out on his forehead, he would turn on his dirty pillow,
that was all infested with fleas. Madame Bovary came to see him. She
brought him linen for his poultices; she strove to comfort and
encourage him. Not that he lacked for company, especially on
market-days, with the room full of yokels, knocking the billiard balls
about, fencing and skylarking with the cues, smoking, drinking,
singing and swearing.
  'How goes it?' they would say, clapping him on the shoulder. 'Not
doing yourself proud, by the look of it. But it's your own fault.
You should do this and that and the other thing.'
                                                          {20 ^paragraph 40}
  And they told him about other people who had all been cured by
different remedies from his, adding, by way of consolation,
  'You think about it too much! You should get up. There you lie,
coddling yourself like a king! But I tell you what, old cockalorum,
you don't smell any too sweet!'
  The gangrene was, in fact, creeping up farther and farther. It
turned even Bovary sick. He kept coming, at all hours of the day.
Hippolyte looked up at him with terror-stricken eyes, sobbing and
stammering.
  'When shall I be well again?... Oh, save me! How bad I feel! How
dreadful bad I feel!'
  And the doctor would depart, advising him to eat as little as
possible.
                                                          {20 ^paragraph 45}
  'Don't listen to him, my lad,' said the Widow Lefrancois. 'Haven't
they made a martyr of you enough as it is? You'll make yourself weaker
than ever. Here, take and drink this!'
  And she would give him some good, strong broth, a slice of mutton or
a rasher of bacon, and, now and again, a little nip of brandy that
he hadn't the courage to put to his lips.
  The Abbe Bournisien, hearing he was getting worse, sent in word that
he would like to see him. He began by sympathizing with him, and
then said that really he ought to rejoice, seeing that it was God's
will, and seize the opportunity of putting himself right with
Heaven. 'For,' said the ecclesiastic, talking to him like a father,
'you have been rather careless about your religious duties; I
haven't seen much of you in church. And how many years is it since you
approached the Holy Table? I can understand that your occupations, the
whirl and bustle of the world, may have caused you to neglect the
salvation of your soul. But now is the time to bring your thoughts
to bear upon it. Do not despair, however. I have known great sinners
who, being about to appear before the throne of God (you've not come
to that yet, I know), had implored His mercy, and certainly died in an
edifying frame of mind. Let us hope that, even as they, you will set
us a becoming example. Thus, by way of precaution, why not recite,
morning and evening, a "Hail Mary" and an "Our Father"? Yes, do
that, do it for me, to oblige me. What does it cost? Will you
promise me?'
  The poor soul promised. The cure came again and again. He gossiped
with the landlady, told little stories, diversified with jokes and
puns that Hippolyte never took in. Then, as soon as opportunity
offered, he reverted to religious matters, assuming an appropriately
solemn expression of countenance.
  His zeal seemed to meet with success, for the patient soon expressed
a desire to go on a pilgrimage to Bon Secours, if he got well again;
whereto Monsieur Bournisien replied that he saw nothing against it;
just as well to have two strings to your bow. Anyhow, he didn't
stand to lose anything.
                                                          {20 ^paragraph 50}
  The apothecary was very angry at what he called the priest's
manoeuvres. He would have it that they retarded Hippolyte's
recovery. 'Let him alone,' he kept saying to Madame Lefrancois, 'let
him alone. You take all the nerve out of him with this mysticism of
yours.'
  But the good woman wouldn't hear another word from him. He was the
cause of all this upset. She wasn't going to be told by him, indeed;
and to show her independence she went and fixed a stoup of holy water,
full to the brim, with a sprig of box in it, at the head of the sick
man's bed.
  But neither religion nor surgery seemed to do him any good, and
the inexorable mortification went on mounting steadily upwards from
the extremities to the abdomen. They tried every imaginable kind of
draught; they kept putting on fresh poultices. But it was no good.
Every day the muscles kept loosening and falling away. Finally, when
Madame Lefrancois asked him whether, as a last resort, he couldn't get
Dr. Canivet of Neufchatel to come over and look at him. Charles nodded
his assent.
  Monsieur Canivet, a man of about fifty, was a Doctor of Medicine and
something of a celebrity. He had a great deal of self-confidence,
and made no effort to restrain a scornful laugh when he laid bare
the leg, a mass of gangrene right up to the knee. He declared straight
away that it would have to come off, and then went round to the
chemist's to say what he thought of the sort of asses who could have
brought a man to such a pass. Shaking Monsieur Homais by the button of
his frock coat, he began to browbeat him in his pharmacy.
  'All a lot of Paris bunkum. That's the sort of thing you get from
these gentry in the metropolis. It's on a par with strabotomy,
chloroform and lithotomy, a lot of monstrous rubbish that ought to
be forbidden by law. But they want to show how smart they are, and
chuck their remedies about all over the shop, never caring a damn
about the harm they do. We are not like these clever men. There's none
of your highfalutin learning, and ornamental theorizing about us. We
are practical men, we make folks better when they're ill, and aren't
such idiots as to go operating on people who are perfectly well in
health. Straighten a club-foot! Why, you might as well try to iron the
hump out of a hunchback!'
                                                          {20 ^paragraph 55}
  This was hard doctrine for Homais to swallow; but he concealed his
feelings beneath a courtier's smile, for he had to keep in with
Monsieur Canivet, whose prescriptions sometimes came all the way to
Yonville. And so he never said a word in Bovary's defence- in fact, he
never said anything at all. He let his principles go by the board, and
sacrificed dignity to the more important interests of his business.
  The amputation of a thigh by Doctor Canivet was an event of no small
importance in the village. Everyone was up betimes that morning, and
the High Street, though thronged with people, wore an air of
mourning as if an execution were going to take place. At the
grocer's nothing else was talked of but Hippolyte and his illness;
no business was done in the shops, and Madame Tuvache, the maire's
lady, never left her window in her anxiety not to miss the surgeon's
arrival.
  He came in his gig, which he drove himself. The right spring had
been so weakened by his weight, for he was a stout man, that the
vehicle had a permanent list. On the cushion alongside him was a
huge box covered with red sheepskin, with three brass fastenings
that shone with impressive effect.
  The doctor drove smartly into the yard of the Lion d'Or, and in
a loud voice called for someone to come and take his horse out. Then
he went into the stable himself to see that the animal had a proper
feed of oats. For whenever he drove any distance to a patient, his
first care was for his horse and trap; a trait that made people
exclaim, 'Ah! Monsieur Canivet's a character, he is'. And they thought
all the more of him for this be-damned-to-you sort of attitude. The
whole world might have gone to ruin to the very last man, he would
still have carried on as he had always done.
  Homais presented himself. 'On you go! I want you,' said the
Doctor. 'Everything ready?'
                                                          {20 ^paragraph 60}
  The apothecary turned red and confessed he hadn't got the nerve to
be present at such an operation.
  'When you've got to look on,' he said, 'you're apt to give your
imagination too much rope. And then my nervous system is so...'
  'Bosh!' interrupted Canivet. 'You look more like an apoplectic to
me. And, good Lord! that's not to be wondered at. You chemist
gentlemen are so continually cooped up in your cook-shops that it's
bound to tell on you in the end. Now look at me. Up at four every
morning, shave myself in cold water (I never feel the cold), never
wear flannel, never catch a chill, sound as a bell in wind and limb. I
never bother my head about diet- just eat what comes, as a wise man
should. That's why I'm not easily upset like you. It's all one to me
whether I carve up a fellow Christian or the first chicken that
comes along. And now I suppose you'll go away and say, "Habit, just
habit"!'
  And then, without any regard for poor Hippolyte, who was sweating
with agony between his sheets, these gentlemen engaged in a
conversation in which the apothecary compared the coolness of a
surgeon to that of a general commanding an army, a comparison highly
gratifying to Canivet, who expatiated at great length on the
requirements of his art. He regarded it as a sacred calling, though so
many general practitioners brought it into disrepute. At last,
coming back to the case, he examined the bandages Homais had
brought, the same that had been put into commission for the club-foot,
and called for someone to hold the patient's leg. They sent out to
find Lestiboudois, and Monsieur Canivet, having rolled up his sleeves,
proceeded into the billiard-saloon, while the chemist stayed behind
with Artemise and the landlady, both whiter than their aprons, with
their ears glued to the door.
  All this time Bovary kept indoors, not daring to stir from the
house. He was sitting in the dining-room by the empty grate, his
chin sunk on his breast, his hands clasped, staring fixedly before
him. 'What a ghastly mess!' he thought. And yet he had taken every
imaginable precaution. There was some sort of fate about it. But
what of that? If Hippolyte were to die, everyone would say he had
killed him. And then what was he to answer when he went his rounds and
people asked him about it? Perhaps he had made a mistake somewhere. He
thought and thought, but all in vain. Of course the best surgeons make
mistakes. But that's just what people never will understand. They
would laugh at him. Everyone would be talking. It would get to Forges,
Neufchatel, Rouen- everywhere. Quite likely some of the other
medical men round about would attack him. There would be a controversy
in the papers, and he would have to reply. Hippolyte might bring an
action against him. He saw dishonour, ruin, irretrievable disaster
staring him in the face, and his imagination, beset with a multitude
of conflicting ideas, tossed and tumbled amongst them like an empty
cask rolling and wallowing in a heavy sea.
                                                          {20 ^paragraph 65}
  Emma sat opposite, looking at him. She too was feeling humiliated,
but from a different cause. She was disgusted with herself for
imagining for a single moment that such a man could ever do anything
well, she, who scores and scores of times had been mortified by his
dull stupidity. Charles started pacing up and down the room. His boots
creaked at every step.
  'Sit down,' she said, 'you put me on edge!'
  And so he sat down.
  How had she (and she was no fool), how on earth had she made such
a mistake again? And, to go further back, what unutterable madness had
possessed her to endure this daily renunciation? She recalled how
she loved the good things of life, she thought of how her soul had
been starved, of all the pettifogging, debasing round of married
life and housekeeping, of her dreams, falling like stricken swallows
in the mire, of all the things she had longed for, and all that she
had gone without and might have had. 'Why?' she cried. 'Oh, why? Why?'
  Amid the silence that weighed upon the town, a piercing shriek
rent the air. Bovary went as pale as death. She knit her brows
irritably and resumed her thoughts. It was for that, for a man like
that, who had no brains and no feeling, who can go on sitting there as
if nothing had happened, never so much as dreaming that the whole
thing will make me look as big a fool in the eyes of the world as he
himself does. She had tried, tried hard, to love him, and the
thought that she had yielded to another man had brought tears of
repentance to her eyes.
                                                          {20 ^paragraph 70}
  'Suppose after all, it was a valgus!' exclaimed Charles, who was
thinking hard.
  This extraordinary and wholly unexpected exclamation fell upon her
like the thud of a leaden bullet on a silver plate. She started and
looked up inquiringly, as if trying to guess what on earth he could
mean. They sat and looked at one another in silence, as if they were
scared at each other's presence, so wide and deep was the gulf between
their trains of thought. Charles looked at her with the sort of
dazed expression of a drunken man, listening motionless the while to
the final shrieks of the sufferer, that waxed and waned in a series of
long-drawn moans, broken every now and again by sharp, short
screams, like the far-off howling of some animal that was being done
to death.
  Emma bit her pale lips and, rolling a piece of the coral she had
broken off between her fingers, she fixed her two glowing pupils on
Charles, like a pair of darts ready to take flight. Everything about
him grated on her now- his face, his clothes, the things he didn't
say, his whole person, his very existence, in short. She repented of
her past virtue as if it had been a crime, and what remained of it
crumbled to pieces beneath the furious onslaught of her pride. She
gloried in her role of triumphant adulteress. The thoughts of her
lover came flooding in upon her like a whirling tide. She
surrendered her whole soul, borne irresistibly away by this fresh
torrent of passion; and Charles seemed as completely severed from
her life, as wholly and irrevocably removed, as impossible and
non-existent, as if he were on the point of death and had passed
through the fatal crisis beneath her eyes.
  There was a sound of footsteps on the pavement. Charles looked
out, and through the darkened shutter he saw Doctor Canivet, outside
the market-hall, in the blazing sunlight, mopping his brow with his
bandanna. Homais was coming along behind, carrying a big red box,
and they were both going in the direction of the pharmacy.
  Then, in an access of tenderness, feeling utterly lonely and
dejected, he turned to Emma and said,
                                                          {20 ^paragraph 75}
  'Kiss me, then, my pet.'
  'Leave me alone,' she cried, crimson with rage.
  'But what is the matter? What is it?' he repeated in amazement.
'Come, be calm. Be yourself! You know perfectly well that I love
you! There now, come!'
  'No more of it!' she cried in a terrible voice.
  And, rushing out of the room, she banged the door so fiercely that
the weather-glass fell with a crash upon the floor.
                                                          {20 ^paragraph 80}
  Charles sank back in his chair, utterly overcome, trying to think
what could be the matter with her. It must, he thought, be some
nervous trouble, and he burst into tears, feeling that some fatal
and incomprehensible influence, he knew not what, was at work around
him.
  That night, when Rodolphe came to the garden, he found his
mistress waiting for him at the foot of the steps. They flung their
arms about each other, and all their rancour melted away like snow,
beneath the warmth of their embrace.

{21
                                  21
-
                    Comparisons: Two wooden legs:
        How Emma paid Lheureux's bill: Presents for Rodolphe:
                 The Mother-in-law: 'Take me away!':
                   The Husband's dreams: The Wife's
                       dreams: Until tomorrow.
                                                           {21 ^paragraph 5}
-
  AND so love began for them anew. Often, in the middle of the day,
Emma would take up a pen and write to him. Then she would beckon
across to Justin, who would off with his apron in an instant and fly
away with the letter to la Huchette. And Rodolphe would come. She
wanted to tell him that life was a burden to her, that she couldn't
endure her husband and that things were unbearable.
  'But what can I do?' he exclaimed one day, losing patience.
  'Ah! if you only would...'
  She was sitting on the floor between his knees, her hair down,
staring into vacancy.
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 10}
  'Would what?' said Rodolphe.
  'We might go away and live somewhere else... anywhere...'
  'Really, you must be crazy,' he said, with a laugh. 'How could we?'
  She harked back to the subject. He pretended not to understand,
and talked of something else.
  What he couldn't grasp was why there should be all this worry and
trouble about anything so simple as a love affair. She had a motive, a
reason, and, so to speak, a contributory incentive in her attachment
to him.
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 15}
  Her passion, in fact, was daily augmented by her repulsion for her
husband. The more she abandoned herself to the one, the more she
detested the other. Never did Charles seem so unattractive, his
fingernails so stubby, his mind so dull, his manners so boorish as
when she found herself with him, after her passages with Rodolphe.
Then, while she played the virtuous and dutiful wife, she grew warm
with longing as she thought of that handsome bronzed face with its
dark wavy hair, of that figure, at once so strong and so elegant, of
his power and decision of mind, his unconquerable ardour. For him it
was that she pared and trimmed her nails with such scrupulous care,
for him that she was for ever larding her face with cold cream and
drenching her handkerchiefs with patchouli. She loaded herself with
bracelets, rings and necklaces. When she expected him to come, she
filled her two big blue-glass vases with roses, and arranged her
room and adorned her person like a courtesan awaiting a prince. The
maid was for ever washing and ironing her things, and the whole day
long Felicite would never stir out of the kitchen, where little
Justin, who often kept her company, would watch her at her work.
  Leaning with his elbow resting on her long ironing-board, he gazed
eagerly on all the articles of feminine attire spread out around
him- dimity petticoats, pieces of lace, collarettes, drawers with
running strings, wide about the hips and gathered in at the knee.
  'What's that for?' said the youth, running his hand over the
crinoline or the fastenings.
  'What! haven't you seen those before?' said Felicite, with a
laugh. 'As if your missus, Madame Homais, didn't wear the like!'
  'O Lord, Madame Homais! As if she were a lady like Madame Bovary!'
he added meditatively.
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 20}
  But Felicite was getting sick of seeing him hanging about her
apron strings. She was six years older than he was, and Theodore,
Monsieur Guillaumin's man, was beginning to run after her.
  'Oh, leave me be!' she said, moving her starch pot. 'Why don't you
go and get on with your almond-pounding? You're for ever dangling
about after the women. Wait till your beard begins to grow, you
saucy little imp, before thinking of things like that?'
  'All right, keep your wool on! I'll do her boots for you.'
  So saying, he reached up on to the shelf and took down Emma's
boots', all caked with mud- the mud of the trysting place- which
came away in powder as he picked it off. He looked at the dust as it
slowly rose up in a beam of the sun.
  'How careful you are with 'em!' said the cook. She wasn't so
particular when she cleaned them herself, because as soon as the bloom
was off her mistress passed them on to her. Emma had lots of pairs
in the cupboard. She wore out pair after pair in no time, and
Charles never grumbled at all.
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 25}
  Similarly she spent three hundred francs on a wooden leg which she
thought it the right thing to give to Hippolyte. The upper part was
covered with cork and it had spring joints; altogether an elaborate
piece of mechanism encased in one leg of a pair of black trousers
and terminating in a patent-leather boot. But Hippolyte, not liking to
sport so spanking a leg for every day, begged Madame Bovary to buy him
a more serviceable one. The doctor, naturally, had to pay for this
as well.
  So little by little the stable-man got back to work. He was to be
seen going about the village as heretofore, and whenever Charles heard
his wooden leg stumping along in the distance he quickly made off in
another direction. It was Monsieur Lheureux the draper who had had the
order put through. This had given him an excuse for seeing a good deal
of Emma. He told her all about the latest consignments from Paris, all
sorts of ladies' goods, was most obliging and never asked for his
money. Emma found this a most seductively facile way of satisfying her
caprices. For example, she was anxious to make Rodolphe a present of a
very handsome riding-whip that was on show at an umbrella shop in
Rouen. The very next week Monsieur Lheureux deposited it on her table.
  But the day after he came along with a bill amounting to two hundred
and seventy francs, not counting the centimes. Emma was in a quandary.
All the drawers in the writing-desk had been cleared out. More than
two weeks' wages were owing to Lestiboudois, two quarters to the
servant, and a host of other things besides. Bovary was anxiously
waiting for a remittance from Monsieur Derozerays, who, in previous
years, had always paid up some time in July.
  She managed to get rid of Lheureux for the time being; but at last
he lost patience. He had numerous liabilities to meet, his money was
all locked up, and if he did not get in some accounts that were owing,
he would be compelled to ask her to return the goods.
  'Very well, take them,' said Emma.
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 30}
  'Oh, I was only joking!' he replied. 'The one thing I'm sorry
about is the riding-whip. I know! I'll ask the doctor to let me have
it back.'
  'No, don't!' she exclaimed.
  'Aha, I've got you!' thought Lheureux to himself. And, sure of being
on the right track, he went out, saying under his breath, 'Right! We
shall see, we shall see!'
  She was thinking how she was going to get out of this difficulty
when the maid came in and put a little blue-paper packet on the table,
'With Monsieur Derozerays's compliments'. Emma pounced on it and
tore it open. Fifteen napoleons. Just the amount of the bill. She
heard Charles coming up the stairs. Like a flash she flung the money
to the back of the drawer and took out the key.
  Three days later Lheureux appeared again.
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 35}
  'I want to suggest an arrangement,' he said. 'If, instead of the sum
agreed, you would...'
  'There you are,' said she, putting fourteen napoleons in his hand.
  This quite took the wind out of his sails. He didn't know which
way to look, he was so taken aback. He was profuse in apologies and
offers of service, all of which Emma declined. She stood awhile
meditatively fingering in her apron pocket the ten francs change he
had given her. She made up her mind to save, so that later on she
could pay back....
  'Bah!' she thought to herself, 'he won't think any more about it.'
-
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 40}
  Over and above the silver-mounted riding-whip, Rodolphe had been
presented with a seal with the motto Amor nel Cor; also a scarf
for a muffler, and finally a cigarette-case exactly like the one
belonging to the Vicomte, which Charles had found in the road and
which Emma had kept. However, these presents made him feel small. He
had refused several, but she would insist, and Rodolphe had given
in, thinking her rather too tyrannical and interfering.
  Then she had queer ideas.
  'When the clock strikes midnight,' she would say, 'think of me!'
  And if he confessed that he had forgotten all about it, she would
break out into a torrent of reproaches, always ending up on the same
eternal note,
  'Do you love me?'
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 45}
  'Yes, I love you,' he would answer.
  'A lot?'
  'Yes, of course!'
  'And you haven't loved any other women?'
  'What! you don't imagine I was an innocent cherub when I met you, do
you?' he would rejoin, with a laugh.
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 50}
  Whereat Emma would burst into tears, and he would have to do his
best to comfort her, seasoning his protestations with verbal quips and
witticisms.
  'Oh, but you see. I love you so!' she would begin again: 'love you
so much that I cannot live without you, do you know? There are times
when I long to see you, times when all the furious torments of love
tear my heart asunder. "Where is he now?" I say to myself. "Perhaps
he's talking to other women, and they are smiling at him, and he is
fascinated by them...." But no, it isn't so. You don't love them, do
you? You may find more beautiful women than I, but none that know
how to love as I do. I am your servant, your concubine. You are my
king, my idol! You are kind! You are handsome! You are clever! You are
strong!'
  He had heard this sort of thing so often that he had got quite
used to it. Emma was just like the rest of them. And the charm of
novelty, slipping off little by little like a garment, displayed in
all its nakedness the eternal monotony of passion, with its unchanging
formulas, its stereotyped expressions. Deeply versed though he was
in the technique of love-making, he failed to realize that the same
words do not always imply the same feelings. Because he had heard
these words murmured by the bought lips of some Venus of the
market-place, he put no great faith in their sincerity. Mere
exaggerated protestations, not to be taken at their face value! Thus
he said to himself, never dreaming that sometimes a full heart may
find expression in the most hackneyed of metaphors, since to no one is
it ever given to convey the exact measure of one's cravings, one's
ideas or one's pain; never dreaming that human speech is like a
crazy kettle on which we can only beat out tunes fit to charm a
dancing bear, when all the while we would fain conjure the wandering
stars and make them weep for us.
  But with the critical aloofness of a man who, in no matter what
crisis, holds himself in the rear of his affections, Rodolphe
discerned in this liaison some new sensations to exploit. Modesty he
considered should be wholly aside. There was no ceremony about his
treatment of her. He made of her something cunning and corrupt. It was
a sort of fatuous attachment, full of admiration for him, of
voluptuousness for her, a state of beatitude which drugged her senses;
and her soul sank deep in this sensual flood and lay drowned and
shrunken in its depths like the Duke of Clarence in his butt of
Malmsey.
  By its very continuance, her illicit love wrought a change in Madame
Bovary's demeanour. There was a boldness in the way she looked and
in the things she said. She even went the length of parading about
with Monsieur Rodolphe, ostentatiously puffing a cigarette, just to
show her contempt for public opinion. At last, those who doubted,
doubted no more when they saw her get out of the Hirondelle one day,
her waist squeezed into a waistcoat like a man; and Madame Bovary
senior, who, after an appalling scene with her husband, had come to
take refuge at her son's, was not the least scandalized among the
respectable women of the place. There were many other things she
didn't approve of. To begin with, Charles had not taken her advice
about putting a stop to the novel-reading. Then she didn't like the
way the house was run. She took it upon herself to mention a few
things, and they had words, once in particular. It was about Felicite.
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 55}
  Madame Bovary, going along the passage the previous night, had
caught her with a man- a man in a brown collar, somewhere about forty.
As soon as he heard her coming, this individual slipped out through
the kitchen. Emma began to laugh; but the good lady was highly
indignant, and said that if people thought anything about morals at
all, they ought to keep an eye on their servants.
  'Where were you brought up, I should like to know?' said her
daughter-in-law, with such an insolent look that Madame Bovary asked
her if she was championing her own cause.
  'Get out of my sight!' cried the young woman, springing to her feet.
  'Emma!... Mamma!...' exclaimed Charles, trying to allay the storm.
But they had both rushed away in their exasperation.
  'Oh, what manners! What a peasant!' cried Emma, stamping with fury.
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 60}
  Charles rushed away to his mother. She was beside herself.
  'She's an impudent hussy,' she gasped, 'a featherbrain, and worse
than that, I shouldn't wonder!'
  She said she wouldn't stay in the house another instant unless
Emma came and apologized. So away Charles went to his wife and
implored her to yield; he went down on his knees to her.
  'Very well, I'll go,' she said at last.
  She went, and holding out her hand to her mother-in-law with all the
dignity of a marquise, she said,
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 65}
  'I ask your pardon, Madame.'
  Then, back in her room again, she flung herself on the bed and
sobbed like a child, burying her face in the pillow.
  They had arranged, she and Rodolphe, that if anything out of the way
should happen she was to fasten a piece of white paper to the blind,
and that, if he chanced to be in Yonville and saw it, he was to
hurry round to the alley at the back of the house. Emma put up the
signal. She had been waiting about three-quarters of an hour when
all of a sudden she saw Rodolphe coming round by the market. She
felt she must open the window and call him; but he was already out
of sight. She fell back, feeling desperate.
  Soon, however, she thought she heard footsteps on the pavement.
'It must be he,' she thought. She went downstairs and across the yard.
  And there, sure enough, he was, just outside. She flung herself into
his arms.
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 70}
  'I say! Look out!' he exclaimed.
  'Oh, if you only knew,' she began. And then she went on to tell
him the whole thing, speaking hurriedly, incoherently; exaggerating,
inventing, and interjecting such an abundance of parentheses, that
he could make nothing of it.
  'There then, my poor angel, don't give way; be comforted, have
patience.'
  'Yes, I have been patient for four years; for four years I've been
suffering. Love like ours should be blazoned in the face of heaven!
They do all they can to torment me. I can't bear it any longer. Save
me!'
  She huddled up close to Rodolphe. Her eyes were filled with tears
and sparkled like flames beneath the waters. Her breast was heaving
with little short, sharp gasps. Never had he felt such love for her.
Swept off his feet, he said,
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 75}
  'What must we do? What do you wish to do?'
  'Take me away!' she cried, 'take me from here.... Oh, I beseech
you!'
  And she flung herself on his mouth as though to seize the
unlooked- for 'yes' that stole from it in a kiss.
  'But...' Rodolphe began.
  'Yes?'
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 80}
  'What about the child?'
  She thought a minute or two and then answered,
  'We will take her too. It's the only thing to do.'
  'What a woman!' he said to himself, as he saw her disappear, for she
had slipped back into the garden. Someone was calling.
  Madame Bovary senior was much astonished at the change that had come
over her daughter-in-law the last day or two. Emma, in fact, was quite
submissive, and pushed her deference so far as to ask her for a recipe
for pickling gherkins.
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 85}
  Was she trying to throw dust in their eyes, or was it the very
voluptuousness of stoicism that led her thus to drink so deeply of the
bitterness of all that she was soon to leave for ever? In reality
she didn't care a straw about them. On the contrary, she lived as
though lost in the foretaste of the happiness to come.
  It was the one everlasting topic of conversation with Rodolphe.
She would lean her head on his shoulder and murmur:
  'Ah, when once we are in the coach! Can you imagine it? Is it
possible? It seems to me that the moment I feel it start, it will be
as if we were going up in a balloon, as if we were bound for the
clouds. Do you know, I count the days! Do you?'
  Never had Madame Bovary looked so beautiful as now. She went clothed
in that indefinable loveliness which comes of joy, enthusiasm,
success, and is but the perfect harmony of temperament and outward
circumstance. Her yearnings, her sorrows, her joys, her still youthful
illusions, had gradually developed her, even as flowers are
developed by soil and rain, by sun and wind, and now, at length, she
blossomed forth in all the fullness of her nature. Her eyelids
seemed carved expressly for her lingering looks of love, when the
pupils seemed to melt away in mist. Her deep, rich breathing dilated
her delicate nostrils and raised the full corners of her lips, on
which, in a strong light, you could detect a shading of softest
down. You would have said that some past-master in the art of
seduction had ordained the subtle way her hair should fall upon her
neck. It was twisted in a heavy coil, carelessly, with whatever
variations the adulterous encounters that daily unloosed it might
chance to lend it. The modulations of her voice, like the curves of
her figure, grew softer. As you looked on her, some subtle emanation
pervaded your being, an influence that seemed to steal from the
folds of her gown or the arch of her foot. Charles thought her as
delicious, and as wholly irresistible, as on the day she became his
bride.
  When he came home late at night he did not dare to wake her. The
porcelain night-lamp cast a ring of tremulous light on the ceiling,
and the curtains of the cot glimmered like a little white hut in the
shadows beside their bed. Charles would stand and look at them. He
thought he could hear the soft breathing of his little one. She
would be getting a big girl soon now; every month or two would see a
difference in her. Already he pictured her, in imagination, coming
home from school at the end of the day, with a smile on her face and
ink on her pinafore, her basket slung over her arm. Then she'd have to
go to boarding-school. That would cost money; and where was it
coming from? And so he fell to thinking. What about renting a little
farm somewhere near by, a little place to which he could give an eye
every morning as he started out on his rounds? He would save the
income, put it in the savings bank; then, later on, he'd buy some
shares in some concern or other; it didn't much matter what.
Besides, the practice would grow; he hoped so, anyhow, because he
wanted Berthe to have a good education, he wanted her to be a clever
girl, to learn the piano. What a pretty child she would be one of
these days- when she was about fifteen, say! She would be so like
her mother. And when, in the summer, they both wore the same sort of
broad-brimmed straw hat, people would take them for sisters. He
pictured her sitting with them of an evening, sewing in the lamplight.
She would work him some slippers. She would busy herself in the
house and fill the place with charm and gaiety. Then they would have
to look about for a husband for her; some decent fellow who could
afford to keep her in comfort. He would make her happy, and so
things would go on for ever and ever.
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 90}
  Emma was not asleep, though she feigned to be, and while he was
dozing off beside her she awakened in a land of very different dreams-
  Behind four galloping horses, she and her lover had been faring
for a whole week towards a new land, never more to return. On and on
they went, arm linked in arm and uttering never a word. Ever and anon,
gazing down from a mountain top, they would descry a splendid city
with domes and bridges, and shipping and orange groves, and cathedrals
of white marble with storks' nests in their airy towers. And the
pavement would be bright with bouquets of flowers which women in red
bodices would proffer as you passed. Bells would be ringing, mules
whinnying, and the soft strains of guitars would mingle with the plash
of fountains whose soft mist, lightly wafted, brought coolness to
the piles of fruit heaped up in pyramids at the foot of gleaming
statues that smiled beneath their canopy of spray.
  One evening they came to a village of fisherfolk where brown nets
were drying in the wind along the cliff and by the huts. It was
there they would stay and live. They would have a low house with a
flat roof, shadowed by a palm-tree in the shelter of a bay beside
the sea. They would glide in gondolas, they would swing in hammocks,
and existence would be for them as smooth and easy as their silken
raiment, as warm and starry as the night skies whereon they would
feast their gaze. Howbeit, in all this illimitable vision of the
future that she summoned up, nothing stood out in definite relief. The
days, all bathed in equal splendour, resembled each other as wave
resembles wave, and the vision swayed softly on the far horizon,
infinite, harmonious, bathed in azure haze, and gilded over with
sunlight. And then the child would cough in her cot, or Bovary begin
to snore more loudly, and morning would come gleaming white at the
windows, and little Justin would be out taking down the shutters of
the chemist's shop, before ever Emma had closed her eyes in sleep.
  She sent for Monsieur Lheureux and said to him, 'I shall be
wanting a cloak- a big cloak, lined, with a deep collar.'
  'Are you going away?' he asked.
                                                          {21 ^paragraph 95}
  'No, but.... Oh, well, never mind. But you'll manage it, won't you
and soon?'
  He bowed assent.
  'And then I shall want a trunk.... Something easy to handle.'
  'Quite so, I understand; three feet by one and a half- that's the
usual thing nowadays.'
  'And a travelling bag.'
                                                         {21 ^paragraph 100}
  'H'm!' thought Lheureux, 'there's evidently something up here.'
  'And, look here,' said Madame Bovary, taking her watch from her
belt. 'Take this, and pay yourself out of the proceeds.'
  But Lheureux deprecated this with vehemence. They knew one
another. Did she think he couldn't trust her? What an idea!
  However, she insisted on his having the chain, at any rate, and
Lheureux had put it in his pocket and was taking his departure, when
she called him back.
  'Keep everything at your shop. Oh! and about the cloak'- here she
seemed to hesitate- 'don't bring that either. Just let me know the
name of the makers and tell them to keep it till I call.'
                                                         {21 ^paragraph 105}
  It was the following month that they were to run away. She was going
to get away from Yonville on the pretext of having some purchases to
make in Rouen. Rodolphe would have booked the seats, seen to the
passports and written to Paris in order to have the mail coach all
to themselves as far as Marseilles, where they were to buy a
carriage and go right through to Genoa. She was going to get her
luggage over to Lheureux's, so that it could be put straight on to the
Hirondelle without anybody's smelling a rat. But in all this the
child was never so much as mentioned, and Rodolphe avoided any
reference to her; perhaps she had given up the idea of taking her.
  He wanted to have a clear fortnight in front of him to put through
certain business matters; then, a week having gone by, he must needs
have another fortnight; then, he wasn't feeling up to the mark, and
then he went away on a journey. The whole of August went by, and
finally, after all these delays, the date of their departure was
irrevocably fixed for the 4th September, a Monday.
  At length the Saturday arrived, two days before the fateful day.
  In the evening Rodolphe came, earlier than usual.
  'Is everything ready?' she asked.
                                                         {21 ^paragraph 110}
  'Yes.'
  Then they strolled round the flower-beds and went and sat by the
terrace, on the edge of the wall.
  'You're sad,' said Emma.
  'No. Why?'
  And yet he was looking at her strangely, wistfully.
                                                         {21 ^paragraph 115}
  'Is it because you are going away?' she went on, 'leaving the things
you love, the things that have been your life? Ah, I understand!...
But I, I have nothing in the world! You are all in all to me. And so I
shall be everything to you. I will be country and home to you. I
will cherish you, I will love you.'
  'How charming you are!' said he, taking her in his arms.
  'You mean that?' she said, with a voluptuous laugh. 'Do you love me?
Swear it, then!'
  'Love you? Love you? Why, I adore you, my own!'
  The moon- a big, round, crimson moon- was just peering over the edge
of the world, away at the far end of the meadow. She mounted quickly
among the branches of the poplars, which hid her here and there,
like a dark curtain fretted with holes. Then she appeared white and
dazzling in the empty heavens, flooding all their spaces with her
light. And now, hasting no more, she let fall, on the river, a great
splash of white, which shivered into myriads of stars; and this silver
gleam seemed to undulate upon the water, far as eye could see, like
a headless serpent, all covered with luminous scales. Or it might have
been a huge candelabrum, whence, all along, from end to end, there
swiftly trickled drops of molten diamond. The warm, soft night
enfolded them about. Shadowy masses gloomed amid the foliage. Emma,
sighing deeply, with eyes half-closed, was breathing-in the cool night
wind. They spoke no word, whelmed in the sweeping tide of reverie. The
sweetness of old, forgotten days flooded their hearts again, full
and silent as the river that flowed beside them, suave as the
perfume of the syringas, and flung athwart their memories shadows
vaster and more dolorous than the shade of the willows that lay
motionless along the sward. Often some creature of the night, hedgehog
or weasel, seeking its prey, would rustle the leaves, or maybe, at
intervals, a peach would drop, from very ripeness, from its bough.
                                                         {21 ^paragraph 120}
  'Ah, what a lovely night!' said Rodolphe.
  'We shall have others,' she answered.
  And then, as though speaking to herself, she went on, 'Yes, it
will be good to travel. Yet, why should my heart be sad? Is it dread
of the unknown... or the break with all I have been used to?... Or
is it not rather...? No, it is because I am too happy in my happiness!
How weak I am, am I not? Forgive me!'
  'There is yet time,' he exclaimed. 'Reflect! You may be sorry
later on.'
  'Never!' she cried impetuously.
                                                         {21 ^paragraph 125}
  'What ill could befall me?' she said, drawing closer to him.
'There is no desert, no place so perilous, no ocean so wide, I would
not cross it with you. As long as we live together, the bond that
joins us will grow daily stronger and more perfect. Nothing will cloud
our happiness- no cares, no obstacles. We shall be alone, all in all
to each other, eternally....'
  And he answered at regular intervals, saying, 'Yes... Yes!...'
  She passed her hands through his hair and kept saying in a baby
voice, despite the big tears that were falling,
  'Rodolphe! Rodolphe!... Ah, Rodolphe, dear little Rodolphe!'
  It struck midnight.
                                                         {21 ^paragraph 130}
  'Midnight!' she said. 'Come, it's tomorrow! just one day more!'
  He rose to go. And as if the movement he made had been the signal
for their flight, she cried in a sudden access of gaiety.
  'You've got the passports?'
  'Yes.'
  'You haven't forgotten anything?'
                                                         {21 ^paragraph 135}
  'No.'
  'You're sure?'
  'Quite sure.'
  'It's at the Hotel de Provence, isn't it, that we're to meet, at
twelve o'clock?'
  He nodded.
                                                         {21 ^paragraph 140}
  'Tomorrow, then!' said Emma, with a last caress.
  And she watched him go.
  He did not look behind. She ran after him and, leaning over the
water's edge among the bulrushes, cried,
  'Tomorrow!'
  He was already over the river and striding rapidly across the
meadow.
                                                         {21 ^paragraph 145}
  After a few minutes Rodolphe came to a halt; and when he saw her
white figure fade gradually away into the shadows, like a phantom, his
heart began to thump so wildly that he had to lean against a tree to
keep himself from falling.
  'What an imbecile I am!' he exclaimed, with a crude oath. 'Never
mind, she was a rattling fine little woman!'
  And as he said it, Emma's beauty, the thought of all the times
they had had together, came back into his mind. For a moment he felt
like weeping; and then he poured out his wrath against her.
  'For, after all,' he exclaimed, waving his arms about, 'I couldn't
go and bury myself alive like that, and saddle myself with a child
into the bargain.'
  He said all this to bolster up his resolution.
                                                         {21 ^paragraph 150}
  'And besides, look at the worry, the expense! Ah, no, no! Never in
your life! The thing would have been too damned silly!'

{22
                                  22
-
               A pile of tosh: Rodolphe says good-bye:
             A basket of apricots: Emma reads her letter:
                   The carriage crosses the square:
                     Monsieur Homais on perfumes:
                           Emma's illness.
                                                           {22 ^paragraph 5}
-
  HE was no sooner back, than down he sat at his bureau, under the
stag's head that hung as a trophy on the wall. But when he got the pen
between his fingers he couldn't for the life of him think what he
was going to say, and there he sat lost in meditation, resting on
his elbows. Emma seemed to have receded into the dim and distant past,
as if his late resolve had suddenly put a yawning gulf between them.
  In order to get hold of some tangible memento of her, he went to the
cupboard at the head of his bed and brought out an old biscuit box
that had come from Rheims, in which he used to keep the letters he
received from women. It emitted a smell of mustiness and withered
roses. The first thing he noticed was a handkerchief covered with
little faded stains. It belonged to her. Her nose had started bleeding
when they were out walking once; he had forgotten all about it.
Close to it was a miniature of herself that she had given him. It
was all broken at the corners. He thought her dress looked showy and
her seductive glance in the most deplorable taste. Then, as he gazed
at this picture and tried to recall the original, Emma's features
began to grow vague and blurred in his mind, as if the living face and
the painted face, rubbing one against the other, had become mutually
obliterated. And then he went on to the letters. They were full of
arrangements for going away, short, practical and to the point, like
business communications. He looked for the long ones, the letters
she used to write him.
  They were at the bottom of the box, and Rodolphe had to upset all
the others. Mechanically he began to rummage about among the
miscellaneous jumble, coming across all manner of things- a pair of
garters, a black mask, pins, and locks of hair, some dark and some
fair; some of it was entangled in the hinges of the box and broke as
it opened.
  And so, toying idly with his souvenirs, he fell to examining the
different sorts of handwriting, the different styles of composition,
as varied as the spelling. Some were affectionate, some were breezy,
some were jocular, and some were sad. Some asked for love, and
others for money. A word, perhaps, would bring back a face or a
gesture, the sound of a voice. Sometimes, however, nothing came at
all. In fact, these women, thus crowding pell-mell into his
thoughts, mutually obscured one another, and dwindled away to one
uniform level. Taking up a handful of letters, he amused himself for
some moments by letting them fall in a cascade from his right hand
into his left. Then, growing bored and sleepy, he went and put the box
back in the cupboard, saying,
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 10}
  'What a pile of tosh!'
  That summed up what he really thought, for his pleasures, like
schoolboys in a playground, had trodden down his heart so hard that
nothing ever grew there, and whatsoever passed through it, more
heedless than children, did not, like them, so much as leave a name
scored upon the wall.
  'Come on,' he said, 'let's make a start.'
  He wrote,
-
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 15}
  'Emma, you must be brave. I do not want to bring misery into your
life....'
-
  'And that's true enough' thought Rodolphe. 'I'm acting in her
interests; I'm doing the decent thing.'
-
  'Have you carefully weighed the consequences of your intended
action? Have you realized the awful abyss to which I was dragging you,
my poor angel? No, you haven't, have you? You were going on, confident
and heedless, believing all would be well, trusting in the
future.... Ah, what ill-fated, insensate things we are!'
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 20}
-
  Here Rodolphe paused, trying to hit on some good excuse.
  'Suppose I say I've lost all my money! No, that's no good. It
wouldn't really do the trick. I should only have the whole thing
over again later on. You can never get women like that to listen to
reason.' He thought a little; then he went on,
-
  'I shall never forget you, you may rely on that, and I shall never
cease to entertain a profound regard for you; but the day was bound to
come, sooner or later (such is the fate of all things human), when our
ardour would have cooled. Weariness would have come upon us, and who
knows whether I might have been called upon to suffer the horrible
anguish of witnessing your remorse and of sharing it myself, since I
should have been its cause? The mere thought of the pain that will
be yours is a torture to me, Emma. Forget all about me. Why was it
fated that I should know you? Why were you so beautiful? Was I at
fault? Oh, God, surely not! Fate, and fate alone, is to blame.'
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 25}
-
  'That's a phrase that always gets home,' said he.
-
  'Ah, if you had just been an ordinary, don't-care sort of woman,
of whom there are plenty in this world, I might, purely for my own
amusement, have tried the experiment, since it wouldn't have had any
danger for you. But that delicious exaltation, which is at once your
charm and your undoing, has prevented you from understanding, adorable
woman that you are, the falseness of our future position. I myself did
not realize it to begin with, but lay stretched at my case, as
though beneath the shade of the manchineel tree, in the shelter of
that ideal of bliss, regardless of the consequences.'
-
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 30}
  'Perhaps she'll think I'm giving it up because of the money
business. Ah, well, let her think it. The thing's got to be ended.'
-
  'Society is cruel, Emma,' he went on. 'Wherever we went it would
track us down. You would have had to put up with innuendoes, and all
sorts of malicious gossip. People would cut you and perhaps insult
you. You, insulted! Oh, God! And I, who would fain seat you on a
throne; I, who am carrying away the memory of you like a talisman- for
I am going to punish myself with exile for all the ill I have
wrought you. I am going away. Whither? I know not. I am distraught.
Adieu! Be good and kind, always. Keep in memory the unhappy man who
has lost you. Teach my name to your child and bid her remember it in
her prayers.'
-
  The candles began to gutter. Rodolphe got up and shut the windows.
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 35}
  'I think that's about all,' he said to himself when he had sat
down again. 'But no- just in case she tries again.'
-
  'I shall be far away when you read these sad lines. I have made up
my mind to go at once, so as to avoid the temptation of seeing you
again. No wavering! I shall come back, and perhaps some day, later on,
we shall talk together, quite dispassionately, of the days when we
were lovers. Adieu.'
-
  And there was yet another, a last, adieu, divided into two words, A
Dieu! He thought that in excellent taste.
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 40}
  'Now, how am I going to sign it?' he said to himself. '"Yours most
sincerely"? No, I know. "Your Friend." That'll do.'
  He read his letter over. He thought it quite good.
  'Poor little woman!' he mused, feeling quite sentimental about
her. 'She'll think me as hard as a rock. There ought to have been some
tears on this; but I can't cry. I can't help it.' And so, pouring some
water into a tumbler, Rodolphe wetted his finger and let fall a big
drop that made a pale smear on the ink. Then he looked about for a
seal, and came across the one with the words Amor nel Cor upon it.
  'That hardly fits the occasion.... Oh, well, never mind!'
  That done, he smoked three pipes and went to bed.
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 45}
  Next day when he got up (which was two o'clock, for he had slept
late) Rodolphe told one of his men to pick a basket of apricots. He
placed his letter at the bottom, underneath the vine leaves, and
dispatched Girard, his head ploughman, with orders to convey it
carefully to Madame Bovary. This was the way he got letters to her,
sending her fruit or game, according to the time of year.
  'If she inquires for me,' he said, 'tell her I've gone away. Be sure
and give the basket into her own hands. Off you go, and mind what
you're about!'
  Girard slipped on his new blouse, tied his handkerchief round the
apricots, and clumping along in his great iron-bound clogs, pursued
his tranquil way to Yonville. When he arrived, Madame Bovary and
Felicite were unfolding a bundle of washing on the kitchen-table.
  'Yur,' said the man, 'yur's somethin' for 'ee from maister.'
  She felt instinctively that there was something wrong. All the
time she was fumbling in her pocket for a tip for the man, she was
shaking all over and looking at him anxiously. He couldn't for the
life of him make out why anyone should be so disturbed at receiving
such a simple present. At last he went. But Felicite was still in
the room. Unable to stand it any longer, she rushed off to the
dining-room, ostensibly to dispose of the apricots. She emptied the
basket, tore away the leaves, saw the letter, opened it, and then,
as if a fire were raging at her heels, made, in an agony of terror,
for her room.
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 50}
  Charles was there. She just caught a glimpse of him. He said
something, but she didn't hear, and went on running upstairs to the
top of the house, panting, distraught, beside herself, still clutching
that horrible piece of paper that rattled like a piece of sheet-iron
in her hand. She got to the top and stopped outside the attic door,
which was shut. Then she tried to collect herself. The letter! She
must read it through, but she dare not. Where? How? They would see
her.
  'Ah, no,' she thought, 'I shall be all right here,' and she pushed
open the door and went in. The heat from the slate roof came down on
her like a ton of bricks. It gripped her temples, it nearly stifled
her. She dragged herself to the shutter, pulled back the bolt and
let in a flood of blinding sunlight.
  Opposite, away beyond the housetops, stretched the open country, far
as the eye could see. Immediately beneath her was the marketplace. Not
a soul was there. The stones on the pavement were sparkling in the
sun, the weather-vanes on the housetops never stirred. Across the way,
from a room on a lower floor, came a sort of snoring sound with
shriller variations. It was Binet, busy at his lathe.
  She was leaning against the window recess, reading the letter
through again, with, now and then, a little bitter laugh. She
endeavoured to concentrate on it, to see what it really meant, but the
more she tried, the more confused and dazed she felt. She saw him. She
heard him. She flung her arms about his neck. Her heart knocked
against her breast like great blows from a sledge-hammer. The beats
came faster and faster with irregular intervals between. She cast
her eyes all round about her, longing for the world to crumble into
dust. Why not have done with it? Who was holding her back? She was
free, wasn't she? She took a step forward. She leaned out and looked
down at the pavement below.
  'Come then,' she said, 'come!'
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 55}
  The beam of light that shone up directly from below was pulling
the weight of her body towards the abyss. The surface of the
market-place seemed to be oscillating and moving upwards all along
by the walls, and the floor seemed to be slanting downwards like a
vessel heeling over to the wind. She was right at the edge, almost
suspended, with a vast space all around her. The blue sky came
flooding towards her, the air was eddying in her hollow head. She
had but to let herself go, to obey the summons. And still the whirring
of the lathe went on, like someone calling her in a furious rage.
  'Emma! Emma!' cried Charles.
  It stopped her.
  'Where are you, then? Come along!'
  The thought that she had just escaped from death nearly made her
swoon with terror. She shut her eyes. A touch on the sleeve made her
shudder. It was Felicite.
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 60}
  'The Doctor's waiting for you, Madame. The soup is on the table.'
  She had to go down! And sit through a meal!
  She tried to eat. The food choked her.
  Then she unfolded her napkin, as if to count the darns. She tried to
concentrate on the task, counting the number of threads. Suddenly
she thought of the letter. Had she lost it? Where had she put it?
But her brain felt so tired that she couldn't even invent an excuse
for getting up from the table. Then her courage gave way. She was
afraid of Charles. He knew everything; for certain he did! And,
curiously enough, he said just at that moment,
  'It looks as if we shan't be seeing Monsieur Rodolphe again for some
considerable time.'
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 65}
  'Who told you that?' she asked with a start.
  'Who told me?' he repeated, rather taken aback at the sharpness of
her tone. 'Why, Girard. I met him just now outside the Cafe
Francais. He's gone on a journey, or he's on the point of going.'
She choked down a sob.
  'Why, what is there to be astonished at? He goes away every now
and then, to break the monotony a bit. And, by Jove, I don't blame
him! When a man's got plenty of money and no encumbrances! Anyhow,
he has a jolly good time of it, our friend. He's a bit of a goer, they
say. Monsieur Langlois has told me some...'
  He broke off, because the servant was coming in.
  The girl put the apricots, which were scattered all over the
sideboard, back into the basket. Charles, not noticing how red his
wife had gone, told the girl to bring them over, and stuck his teeth
into one.
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 70}
  'Oh, perfect!' he said. 'Here, try one.'
  He held out the basket. She put it away gently.
  'Just smell! What a lovely scent!' said he, and he kept on putting
the basket under her nose.
  'Oh, I can't breathe!' she cried, starting to her feet. She
controlled herself by an effort of will. The spasm passed. 'It's
nothing!' she said. 'Nothing, nothing! Only nerves! Sit down and get
on with your dinner.' She dreaded lest he should question her, make
a fuss over her; dreaded that she wouldn't be left alone.
  Charles did as she bade him and sat down. He spat out the stones
into his hand and put them on the edge of his plate.
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 75}
  Suddenly a blue tilbury drove across the market-place at a brisk
trot. Emma gave a shriek and fell rigid to the floor.
  The fact was that Rodolphe, after thinking the whole thing over, had
decided to go to Rouen, and as the only way from la Huchette to
Buchy lay through Yonville, there was nothing for it but to go through
the village, and Emma recognized him by the light of the carriage
lamps which flashed through the twilight like a gleam of lightning.
  Hearing a terrific commotion in the house, the chemist rushed over
as hard as he could pelt. The table, with all the dinner-things, was
upset. The meat, the gravy, the knives, the cruet were scattered
over the floor. Charles was shouting for help; Berthe, frightened
out of her wits, was screaming, and Felicite, with trembling hands,
was unfastening her mistress's stays, and Emma herself lay stretched
out on the floor, shaken from head to foot by convulsive tremors.
  'I'll run over and get some aromatic vinegar from my laboratory,'
said the apothecary.
  They held the flask to her nose, and she opened her eyes.
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 80}
  'There you are!' said Homais. 'It would bring a corpse to life
again.'
  'Speak! speak!' Charles kept on saying. 'Come, be yourself! It's me,
your own Charles, who loves you. Don't you know me? There! there's
your little one. Kiss her, then.'
  The child stretched out her arms to her mother, to put them round
her neck. But Emma turned away her head and gasped,
  'No, no.... No one!'
  She fainted away again. They carried her up to bed. She lay at
full length, her mouth gaping, her eyes shut, her hands open, quite
still, and as white as a waxen image. Two wet trails of tears slowly
trickled from her eyes on to the pillow.
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 85}
  Charles was standing bolt upright in the recess. The chemist was
at his side, maintaining that thoughtful silence which is the
correct attitude to observe in the graver crises of life.
  'You needn't worry now,' he said, taking him by the elbow. 'I
think the attack is over.'
  'Yes, she's a bit quieter now,' answered Charles, who was watching
her sleeping. 'Poor little woman! She's gone right back again.' Homais
wanted to know how it had all happened. Charles said it had come on
her all of a sudden, while she was eating some apricots.
  'Extraordinary!' remarked the chemist. 'But it's quite possible
the apricots may have induced syncope. Some people are so terribly
sensitive to certain odours. The subject would well repay study, in
its pathological no less than its physiological aspect. It's a fact
well known to the priests, who have always introduced aromatic
scents into the ceremonies of the Church. The obvious intention is
to numb the intellectual faculties while creating a condition of
ecstasy, no difficult matter in the case of women, who are more
sensitive in this respect than men. Cases have been cited where they
have fainted at the smell of burnt hartshorn, of newly baked
bread....'
  'Mind you don't wake her,' whispered Bovary, under his breath.
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 90}
  'Nor is it only human beings who are prone to these attacks, animals
also are liable thereto. For example, you are doubtless not unaware of
the powerfully aphrodisiac effect produced by the nepeta cataria,
commonly called valerian, on animals of the feline tribe. Moreover, to
give an example, the authenticity of which I can guarantee, Bridoux,
an old friend of mine, now in business in the Rue Malpalu, has a dog
which goes off into a fit if anyone holds out a snuff-box to him. He
has often demonstrated this experimentally in the presence of
friends at his cottage in the Bois Guillaume. Would anyone have
believed that a common sternutatory could produce such an overwhelming
effect on a quadrupedal organism? It is a remarkable phenomenon, is it
not?'
  'Yes,' said Charles, who wasn't listening to a word.
  'That throws a valuable light,' said the other, with a smile of
benign complacency, 'on the innumerable vagaries of the nervous
system. As for your wife, I confess to you that I have always
considered her a typically neurotic subject. For that reason, my
worthy friend, I am not going to recommend the administration of any
of those so-called remedies which, while professing to act on the
symptoms, really affect the constitution. No, my friend, no
tinkering about with drugs. Diet, that's the thing! Sedatives,
emollients, carminatives. Then, don't you think we might work on the
imagination a little?'
  'In what way? How?' said Bovary.
  'Ah, there you are! That's the question. There's the rub, as
someone said in the newspaper the other day.'
                                                          {22 ^paragraph 95}
  But at this point Emma woke up, shouting, 'The letter! The
letter!' They thought she was delirious. And at midnight delirious she
was. She had got brain fever.
  For forty-three days Charles never quitted her side. He left his
patients to take care of themselves. He didn't go to bed, he was for
ever feeling her pulse, applying mustard plasters and cold-water
compresses. He sent Justin all the way to Neufchatel for ice. The
ice melted before he got home. He sent him back for more. He called in
Monsieur Canivet, in consultation. He sent to Rouen for Dr. Lariviere,
his old master; he was like one desperate. What scared him most was
Emma's depressed condition. She didn't speak, took no notice of
anything, and didn't even seem to suffer- as if her soul and body were
together at rest after the tumult through which they had passed.
  About half-way through October she was able to sit up in bed,
propped up with pillows. Charles started crying when he saw her eating
her first bit of bread and jam. She began to recover her strength, and
got up for an hour or two in the afternoons, and one day, when she was
feeling ever so much better, he tried to get her to walk a little in
the garden, leaning on his arm. The gravel of the paths was almost
hidden by dead leaves. She walked very slowly, dragging her feet along
in her slippers, leaning her shoulder against Charles. And always a
smile was on her face.
  And thus they went, arm in arm, to the bottom of the garden, down by
the terrace. Slowly she drew herself up and shaded her eyes with her
hand, to see what she could see. She gazed away, far, far away, into
the distance, but there was nothing on the skyline but heaps of
burning grass that were smouldering on the hills.
  'You'll make yourself tired, my darling,' said Bovary.
                                                         {22 ^paragraph 100}
  And pushing her gently to get her to go into the arbour, he said,
  'There, then, sit down on this seat. You'll be all right here.'
  'Oh, no! Not there, not there!' she said.
  She had an attack of dizziness, and that same night she was as bad
as ever again, though this time the course of her illness was more
uncertain and its symptoms were more complex. Now it was her heart
that troubled her. Now her chest, or her head, or her limbs. Then, she
had attacks of vomiting, which Charles thought might be the early
symptoms of cancer. And on the top of all this trouble, the poor
fellow was worried about money.

{23
                                  23
-
                Money troubles: Winter convalescence:
          Consolations of religion: Reading and good works:
              Visitors at the bedside: Monsieur Homais:
                  disputes with the cure: Preparing
                           for the theatre.
                                                           {23 ^paragraph 5}
-
  TO begin with he didn't know how in the world he was going to settle
with Monsieur Homais for all the medicines he had had from him, and
although his official position theoretically absolved him from the
legal necessity of paying, he felt a little uncomfortable at being
under such an obligation. And then the household expenses, now that
the cook was running the place, were getting ruinous. Bills kept
pouring in; the tradesmen were grumbling. Monsieur Lheureux was
especially troublesome. In fact, when Emma's illness was at its
height, Lheureux, taking advantage of the circumstances to pile on his
charges, had rushed over with the cloak, the travelling bag, two
trunks instead of one, and a whole heap of things besides. Charles, of
course, said he had no use for them, but it was no good. The man
gave himself airs, said the goods had been ordered, and he wasn't
going to take them back. Besides, it would upset Madame and put her
back, just when she was getting on so nicely. Monsieur had better
think it over. Anyhow, he was determined to bring the matter into
court sooner than abandon his rights and cart back his goods.
Whereupon Charles gave orders that they should be sent over to the
shop. Felicite forgot; he himself had other things to think of; the
matter got overlooked. Monsieur Lheureux returned to the charge, and
now blustering and now whining, he so manoeuvred things that Bovary
was at length induced to put his hand to a bill at six months. But
no sooner had he signed this note than a bold idea came into his mind;
and that was to borrow a thousand francs of Monsieur Lheureux. And so,
looking rather sheepish about it, he inquired whether it would be in
any way possible for him to have that amount, adding that he wanted it
for twelve months at whatever interest he liked to ask. Lheureux
hurried over to his shop, brought back the money and dictated
another bill, whereby Bovary promised to pay to his order, on the
first day of September next ensuing, the sum of one thousand and
seventy francs, which, with the hundred and eighty francs stipulated
for in the preceding agreement, would make up exactly twelve hundred
and fifty. Thus, getting six per cent interest on his money plus a
quarter for commission, and a good thirty-three and a third on the
goods supplied, he saw himself in twelve months making a hundred and
thirty francs profit. And he hoped that things wouldn't stop there; he
hoped Bovary would be unable to pay the bills, that they would have to
be renewed and that his poor little bit of money, after being fattened
up at the doctor's like a patient in a convalescent home, would one
day come back to him a great deal plumper than it had gone forth and
fat enough to burst the sack.
  Everything he touched turned to money. He was given the contract for
the supply of cider to the hospital at Neufchatel. Monsieur Guillaumin
promised to allot him some shares in the peat-bogs at Grumesnil, and
it was his ambition to start a new service of omnibuses between
Arcueil and Rouen, which would not only soon do for the old
rattle-trap of the Lion d'Or, but, being quicker and cheaper and
carrying more luggage, would bring him the whole of the Yonville
trade.
  Charles often wondered how he was going to pay all this money back
next year. He thought and thought; he conceived various ideas, such as
applying to his father, or selling something or other. But his
father wouldn't listen, and he- well, he had got nothing to sell.
And then the whole situation began to look so black that he
hurriedly dismissed from his mind so disagreeable a subject of
contemplation. He reproached himself for allowing it to make him
forget Emma, as if all his thoughts belonged to her and he was robbing
her of something if he did not have her continually in mind.
  The winter was a hard one, and Madame's convalescence was slow. When
the weather was fine, they pushed her chair up to the window, so
that she could look out on the Square. She had now taken a violent
dislike to the garden, and the blind on that side was always left
drawn.
                                                          {23 ^paragraph 10}
  She wanted them to get rid of the horse, and the things she used
to be so fond of now pleased her no more. All her thoughts seemed to
be concentrated on the care of her own health. She had little plates
of food brought up to her in bed, she rang for the servant to ask
about her beef-tea or to have a little gossip with her. The reflection
of the snow on the roof of the market-hall filled the room with a
still, white light. And then the rain would fall. And day by day
Emma would wait, with an almost anxious eagerness, for the coming
round of little trivial events which could not have meant anything
to her. Chief among them was the arrival of the Hirondelle of an
evening. The landlady would begin shouting and other people would
shout back, and Hippolyte's lantern as he got down the boxes from
the boot was like a star shining in the darkness. Every day, at
noon, Charles came in from his rounds; then out he went again. And she
would have her broth, and about five o'clock, when it was getting
dusk, the children would come home from school, scraping along with
their sabots on the pavement and tapping their rulers against the hasp
of the shutters, one after another.
  It was at this hour that Monsieur Bournisien used to come to see
her. He inquired after her health, brought her the news and exhorted
her to religion in a little, wheedling, gossipy way that was not
without its charm. The mere sight of his soutane was a comfort to
her.
  On one of her worst days, when she thought she was dying, she
asked for the Sacrament; and as the preparations went on, and they
cleared all the medicine bottles and syrups off the chest of drawers
to turn it into an altar, and Felicite scattered dahlias about on
the carpet, Emma felt as if something endowed with great strength were
passing over her, taking away all her sorrows, all perception, all
feeling. Her flesh was no longer weighed down with the burden of
anxiety, a new life was beginning for her. It seemed to her that her
being, mounting upwards towards God, was about to be swallowed up in
the divine love, like burning incense that melts away into vapour.
They sprinkled the bedclothes with holy water; the priest drew forth
the white wafer from the pyx, and she was almost swooning with
celestial joy when she put forth her lips to receive the Body of the
Saviour there present. The curtains of her bed hung full about her
like clouds, and the rays from the two lighted tapers on the drawers
dazzled her with a radiance as from heaven. Then she let her head fall
back on the pillow, seeming to hear the sound of angels' harps filling
the heavenly spaces, and to see, beneath a sky of azure, on a golden
throne, surrounded by the saints bearing branches of great palm, God
the Father, effulgent with ineffable majesty, who, with a sign, was
causing angels with wings of fire to come down to earth and bear her
away in their embrace.
  This splendid vision had dwelt in her memory as the loveliest
dream that anyone could be visited by, and now she essayed to
recapture the sensation, which continued, indeed, but in a manner less
exclusive, yet with a sweetness no less deep. Her soul, warped and
twisted by the fires of pride, had at last found rest in Christian
humility; and tasting the joys of weakness, Emma contemplated in
herself the destruction of her will, a process bound to afford an easy
access to the flowing tide of grace. So mere mundane happiness had
given place to more transcendent bliss, a love high above all human
passion, that knew neither end nor intermission, a love that would
grow and grow eternally. And among the illusory visions conjured up by
hope, she thought she saw a realm of purity floating above the
earth, melting into the sky, and it was there, in that region, that
she longed to dwell. She longed to become a saint. She bought
rosaries, she wore amulets; she must needs have a reliquary set with
emeralds to keep in her room, so that she could have it by her
pillow and kiss it every night.
  The cure was wonderfully struck by this attitude of mind, although
he thought that by reason of its very fervour Emma's religion might
topple over into heresy, into extravagance. But not being very well up
in such matters after they got beyond a certain limit, he wrote off to
Monsieur Boulard, the Bishop's bookseller, asking him to send along
something really sound, for a female parishioner with plenty of
brains. The bookseller, with as much indifference as if he had been
sending a consignment of hardware to a parcel of niggers, packed off a
bundle containing all the best sellers in the way of books of
devotion. There were little manuals of instruction by way of
question and answer, pamphlets in rather a grim style, in the manner
of Monsieur de Maistre, and things that passed for novels- namby-pamby
things bound in pink boards, put together by scribbling clerics or
repentant blue stockings. There was Ponder it Well; The Man of the
World at Mary's Feet, by M. de..., whose work had received official
recognition; The Errors of Voltaire, for Young Readers, etc.
                                                          {23 ^paragraph 15}
  Madame Bovary's intellectual faculties had not yet recovered grip
enough to enable her to apply herself seriously to anything. Moreover,
there was too much haste, too much eagerness in the way she attacked
her reading. She was impatient of the rules and regulations of the
religious life; she disliked the pontifical tone of the
controversial writings and the implacable fury with which they pursued
people she had never heard of. And the works of fiction, flavoured
with religion, seemed to her to display such ignorance of the world
that they insensibly alienated her from the doctrines of which she was
seeking the proof. Nevertheless, she persevered, and when her book
fell from her hands, she imagined herself uplifted by the most
delicate spirit of Catholic melancholy that an ethereal soul could
conceive.
  As for Rodolphe, she had relegated his memory to the nethermost
chamber of her heart; and there he lay, more solemn and more still
than a King's mummy in a subterranean tomb. There stole upwards to the
outer air an exhalation from this great embalmed passion, and, as it
ascended, it perfumed with tenderness the atmosphere of immaculate
purity in which she aspired to dwell. When she fell on her knees at
her Gothic prie-Dieu, she addressed to the Lord the same sweet words
she had of old been wont, in the full tide of adulterous passion, to
whisper in her lover's ear. It was thus she essayed to awaken faith.
But no responsive delight came down from the skies, and she rose
from her knees with aching limbs and the vague sentiment of an immense
deception. This seeking for the light she held to be another merit
in her favour, and in the pride of her devotion, Emma likened
herself to those great ladies of olden times, of whose glory she had
got an idea by contemplating a portrait of La Valliere, and who,
trailing with lofty majesty the gorgeous train of their stately robes,
sought silence and solitude to water the Saviour's feet with the tears
that welled up from their wounded hearts.
  Then she flung herself, with immoderate zeal, into works of charity.
She did sewing for the poor; she sent wood for women who were
lying-in; and one day Charles came in and found three ne'er-do-wells
in the kitchen guzzling soup. She had her little girl back home with
her again. Her husband had put her to board with Mere Rollet during
her mother's illness. She tried to teach her to read, and Berthe might
whimper as much as she liked, she never got out of temper with her.
Resignation, universal indulgence, was the order of the day. Even
her ordinary language about the most mundane things was tinged with
idealism. 'Is your stomach-ache better, my angel?' she would say to
the child.
  Madame Bovary, senior, had nothing to find fault with, unless it was
this mania for knitting vests for orphans, when she might have been
darning her own dusters. But the atmosphere of her own home was too
uncomfortable for the good woman to be anything but happy in this
quiet household, and she stayed on till after Easter, in order to
escape the sarcasms of Bovary pere, who, whenever Good Friday came
round, would always go and order a hog's pudding for his dinner.
  Over and above the society of her mother-in-law, who gave her a
feeling of confidence by her sound common sense and steady-going ways,
Emma had callers almost every day. There was Madame Langlois, Madame
Caron, Madame Dubreuil, Madame Tuvache and, as regular as clockwork,
from two till five, the excellent Madame Homais, who for her part
had never attached the slightest importance to the tittle-tattle
that was going the rounds about her neighbour. The Homais children
also came to see her; Justin accompanied them. He came upstairs with
them into the bedroom and stood at the door stock still, without
uttering a word. Often enough, Madame Bovary, ignoring his presence,
would busy herself with her toilet. She would begin by taking out
her comb and giving her head a sudden shake; and the first time he
beheld all this torrent of hair rippling in a mass of dark ringlets to
her knees the poor child felt as if he were suddenly entering upon
some new and extraordinary experience, of which the splendour took his
breath away.
                                                          {23 ^paragraph 20}
  Doubtless Emma failed to notice his shyness and the silent fervour
of his adoration. It never entered her head that love, which had
vanished from her life, was throbbing there, close at hand, under that
coarse linen shirt in a young man's heart that lay all open to the
emanations of her beauty. For the rest, she viewed everything with
such unvarying indifference, her words were so affectionate, her looks
so cold and her ways so bewildering, that it was impossible to say how
much was the pharisaism of conscious benevolence, how much the
corruption of her moral being. One evening, for example, she flew into
a rage with her servant, who had asked if she might go out, and had
been trying, with a great deal of hesitation, to explain why.
  'So you love him, then?' she said all of a sudden. And without
waiting for Felicite to answer- the girl had gone red all over- she
added mournfully,
  'Well, off you go! Make the most of your time!'
  When the spring came she had the whole garden torn up from end to
end, despite Bovary's expostulations. And even he was glad to see
her exercising her will about something or other. Her will began to
return, as her health improved. To start with, she found an excuse for
getting rid of Mere Rollet, the nurse, who had got too fond of
coming into the kitchen with her two nurslings and her boy-boarder,
who had an appetite like a cannibal. Then she cold-shouldered the
Homais family, discouraged all her other callers, and even cooled
off somewhat in her church-going, to the marked approval of the
apothecary, who observed, with an air of friendly familiarity,
  'You really were getting a bit too churchy, weren't you?'
                                                          {23 ^paragraph 25}
  Monsieur Bournisien still continued to visit her every day, after
his catechism class. He liked to be out of doors breathing the fresh
air in 'the spinney,' as he called the arbour. This was the time
that Charles came in from his rounds. They felt the heat very much,
and had some cider brought out, and they drank together, to Madame's
complete recovery.
  And Binet too was there, a little farther down, against the garden
wall, catching crayfish. Bovary asked him to come and have a drink,
and Binet showed himself an expert at uncorking stone bottles.
  'What you've got to do,' he said, casting his eyes around him so
as to embrace the distant horizon, 'is to hold the bottle plumb on the
table and, after cutting the wire, work the cork up ve-ry gently,
so, just as they do seltzer-water in a restaurant.'
  But, as often as not, the cider would spurt up into their faces in
the very middle of his demonstration, whereupon the cure would
give a guttural laugh and produce his inevitable joke:
  'Its goodness hits you in the eye!'
                                                          {23 ^paragraph 30}
  As a matter of fact, he was a thoroughly decent fellow, the
cure- so much so that, one day, when Homais was advising Charles
to give Madame a little change and take her to the theatre at Rouen to
hear Lagardy, the famous tenor, he didn't seem the least bit
scandalized. Homais, astonished that he should take it so quietly,
asked him what he thought about such matters, and the priest
declared that he looked on music as much less dangerous to morals than
literature.
  On which the chemist launched forth upon a defence of letters. The
stage, he argued, pricked the bubble of prejudice and improved while
it amused.
  'Castigat ridendo mores, Monsieur Bournisien! Take the majority of
Voltaire's tragedies, for example. Why, you could compile a popular
system of instruction in morals and diplomacy from the reflections
with which they are so cunningly interspersed.'
  'There's a play I once saw, called The Paris Guttersnipe,'
remarked Binet, 'with an old general who was absolutely "it".
There's a work-girl in it who gets put in the family way by some
aristocratic young cock-o'-my-hoop. My word, how the old general
dresses him down! Well, in the end...'
  'Of course,' Homais went on, 'there's bad literature, just as
there's bad dispensing and bad everything else. But to pass a
wholesale condemnation on one of the most important of the fine
arts, strikes me as stupid, barbarous, worthy of those abominable
times when they cast Galileo into prison.'
                                                          {23 ^paragraph 35}
  'I am well aware,' protested the cure, 'that there are good
books in the world, and good writers. But go and put a lot of people
of different sexes into some delightful chamber, furnished and
decorated in the most costly manner- and then look at all those
pagan costumes, the rouge, the lights, the seductive voices- it's
all bound, I tell you, to induce an atmosphere of moral laxity, to
give rise to immodest thoughts and impure temptations. The Fathers, at
any rate, are all agreed on that point. Finally,' he said, suddenly
adopting a mystical tone, as he rolled a pinch of snuff between his
thumb and forefinger, 'if the Church has condemned the stage,
there's an end of it. We must bow to her ruling.'
  'Why,' asked the apothecary, 'should the Church excommunicate
actors? In the old days they actually used to take part in religious
ceremonies. Yes, they used to perform, to enact a kind of farce-
mysteries, they called them- in the middle of the choir, and in
those mysteries the laws of decency were often set at naught.'
  The cure only sighed, and the chemist continued,
  'It's just the same in the Bible. There you have- don't you know-
well, some rather spicy details, about things that are decidedly
over the fence.'
  Monsieur Bournisien made a gesture of angry impatience.
                                                          {23 ^paragraph 40}
  'Ah, well,' said Homais, 'you will agree, anyhow, that it's not
the sort of book to put into the hands of the young, and I should be
sorry if Athalie...'
  'But it's the Protestants who want everyone to read the Bible,'
exclaimed Monsieur Bournisien impatiently- 'we don't.'
  'Ah, well,' said Homais, 'I can't make out how it is that in these
days there should still be people who would rule out a form of
intellectual amusement which is harmless, moral and sometimes actively
conducive to health. Isn't that so, Doctor?'
  'Absolutely!' assented Charles absently, either because he had the
same ideas and didn't want to upset anyone, or else because he
hadn't any ideas at all.
  The discussion seemed to have come to an end when the chemist
thought he would fire off a parting shot,
                                                          {23 ^paragraph 45}
  'I've known priests who have got themselves up in ordinary clothes
to go and look at the women kicking up their legs on the stage.'
  'Oh, come now!' said the cure.
  'Yes, I've known them,' and, hammering out the syllables with
obstinate emphasis, he repeated, 'I- have- known- them.'
  'Well then, it was very wrong of them,' said Bournisien in a tone of
complete resignation.
  'Yes, and they go a good deal farther than that!' exclaimed the
chemist.
                                                          {23 ^paragraph 50}
  'Sir!' cried the churchman, with such a glare in his eye that the
chemist was quite taken aback.
  'What I mean to say'- he went on, in a milder tone- 'is that
toleration is the surest way to bring people to religion.'
  'True, true!' agreed the worthy man, re-seating himself on his
chair.
  But he only stayed a couple of minutes longer. As soon as he was
gone Monsieur Homais looked round at the doctor.
  'That's what I call "one in the eye". You saw? I didn't half wipe
the floor with him! Well, anyhow, take my advice and go with Madame to
the theatre, if it is only to upset one of those croakers for once
in your life. If only I could get hold of a locum, I would come
along with you myself. There's no time to lose, hurry up! Lagardy's
only on for one night. He's got an engagement in London at a big
salary. He's' a nice lad, according to all reports. Simply rolling
in money. Goes about with three mistresses and his own chef. All these
big artists burn the candle at both ends. They've got to go the
pace; it keeps their imagination keyed up. But they die in the
workhouse, because they haven't sense enough to put by when they're
young. Well, I'm off. Play a good knife and fork. See you tomorrow!'
                                                          {23 ^paragraph 55}
  This theatre idea quickly took root in Bovary's head; for he
immediately broached it to his wife. At first she said she couldn't
go. It would be so tiring, such an upset and such an expense.
Strange to say, Charles stuck to his guns- so strong was his
conviction that the change would do her good. So far as he could
see, nothing stood in the way. His mother had sent them three
hundred francs he never expected to get; their current liabilities
were nothing very tremendous, and Lheureux's bills did not fall due
till such a long time ahead there was no need to worry about them.
Besides, the idea that she didn't want to put him to the expense, only
made him the more insistent. At last she was virtually hypnotized into
acquiescence; and so, at eight o'clock next morning, they bundled into
the Hirondelle.
  The apothecary, who could have got away quite easily if he had
liked, but who made out he couldn't possibly leave his business,
heaved a sigh as he saw them depart.
  'Well, good-bye and bon voyage,' he said. 'Some people have all
the luck!'
  Then he turned to Emma, who was wearing a blue silk dress with
four flounces.
  'You look like the goddess of Love! Rouen'll go mad about you!'
                                                          {23 ^paragraph 60}
  The diligence put up at the Croix Rouge, in the Place Beauvoisine.
It was one of those inns you so often come across in provincial towns,
with roomy stables and poky bedrooms, the sort of inn where the
fowls wander about the courtyard looking for oats under the mudstained
gigs of the commercial travellers- good old-fashioned hostelries, with
balconies of worm-eaten wood that creak in the wind of a winter's
night; always full of people, noise and victuals. Their blackened
tables are stained with coffee, their windows of coarse glass are
yellowed by flies, their damp napkins stained with new wine, and, with
their cafe in front and their vegetable patch behind, they present
an inalienably bucolic appearance, like farm hands in their Sunday
best. Charles at once went out to see about the seats. He muddled up
the stalls with the gallery, the pit with the boxes; asked for
explanations which he failed to understand, went to the booking clerk,
who sent him to the manager, returned to the inn, went back again to
the theatre, and thus covered the whole length of the town, from the
theatre to the boulevard, several times over.
  Madame bought herself a hat, a pair of gloves, a bouquet. Monsieur
was in a great state lest they should miss the beginning, and
without even giving themselves time to bolt their soup, they arrived
at the doors of the theatre only to find they were not yet open.

{24
                                  24
-
                      The Bovarys at the opera:
            Monsieur Lagardy: Charles wants to understand:
                The spilt barley-water: Re-enter Leon:
                       'Night brings counsel'.
-
                                                           {24 ^paragraph 5}
  THE crowd were drawn up along by the wall, ranged symmetrically
between the balustrades. At the corners of all the streets round
about, gigantic posters had been stuck up with 'Lucia di Lammermoor...
Lagardy... Opera...' and so on, in big, flamboyant letters. It was a
fine evening, and hot. The ladies' fringes all looked clammy with
perspiration; all the handkerchiefs were out, mopping away at rubicund
foreheads. Every now and then a warm breeze, blowing up from the
river, would gently flap the borders of the canvas awnings that hung
over the tavern doors. A little farther on, however, a current of
icy air, that smelt of tallow, leather and oil, brought with it a
refreshing coolness. It was a whiff from the Rue des Charrettes, a
street of vast, dark warehouses where men were for ever trundling
about great casks in a perpetual twilight.
  Emma thought it would look well to go and take a turn down by the
harbour before going in, and Bovary, who was running no risks, kept
the tickets in his hand, in his trousers pocket, which he held tight
against his stomach.
  Her heart began to flutter as soon as she got into the vestibule.
She couldn't resist smiling a little smile of vanity when she saw
the crowd all herding into the passage on the right, while she went
straight up the staircase to the grand seats. She was as pleased as
any child at opening the big tapestry-covered doors with a little push
of her finger. She eagerly sniffed in the dusty smell of the
corridors, and, seated in her box, she bore herself as haughtily as
any duchess.
  The theatre was beginning to fill up. Opera-glasses were extracted
from their cases, and the seat-holders, recognizing each other from
afar, nodded and waved their greetings. They had come to seek relief
from their commercial occupations, in a little enjoyment of the fine
arts. But they could not dismiss 'business' from their minds, and
cottons, raw spirits and indigoes were still the burden of their
conversation. Then there were the faces of elderly gentlemen, placid
and expressionless, looking like discs of oxidized silver. The young
bloods were preening themselves in front of the stalls, showing off
the pink or apple-green cravats that beautified the opening of their
waistcoats. Madame Bovary looked down on them admiringly, as they
stood leaning on their gold-knobbed canes, stretching the palms of
their yellow kid gloves.
  Meanwhile the orchestra candles were being lighted, the great lustre
was lowered from the ceiling, shedding, with the glittering rays of
its facets, a sudden air of gaiety upon the scene. The musicians filed
in one after another, and then followed a prolonged medley of growling
double-basses, squeaking violins, snorting cornets, wailing flutes and
flageolets. And now came three taps on the stage, the drums began to
roll, the brass instruments played a preluding chord or two and the
curtains rose upon a rural scene.
                                                          {24 ^paragraph 10}
  It was a forest glade with a fountain to the left, shaded by an oak.
A chorus of rustics and lords, with plaids hanging from their
shoulders, were singing a hunting chorus; then a captain arrived on
the scene, who evoked the spirit of evil, raising both arms to heaven;
he was joined by another; they both departed and the huntsmen
resumed their song.
  Why, it was the romances she had read in her youth! It was Walter
Scott back again! She seemed to catch, through the mist, the sound
of the Scottish bagpipes skirling among the heather. And the memory of
the book helping her to understand the libretto, she followed each
successive stage in the plot, while all the time a host of vague,
indefinable thoughts came thronging in upon her, only to take flight
at every crescendo of the music.
  She abandoned herself to the soothing influence of the melodies, and
felt a thrill passing through the whole of her being, as though the
bows of the violinists were being drawn across her very nerves. She
had not eyes enough to drink in the costumes, the scenery, the
characters, the painted trees that trembled when anyone walked by, the
velvet caps, the cloaks, the swords and all those strange and wondrous
things that shimmered in the waves of harmony as in the atmosphere
of another world. But now behold! a young woman advanced and threw a
purse to a groom attired in green. She remained alone, and then was
heard the music of flute, which sounded like a murmuring fountain or
the gentle warbling of birds. Lucia began her cavatina in E major in
great style; she sang her plaint of love; she cried aloud for wings.
Emma too would have liked to flee from life, to be borne away in the
ecstasy of love's embrace. Suddenly Edgar Lagardy appeared on the
scene.
  His complexion exhibited the magnificent pallor that lends the
majesty of marble statuary to the ardent races of the South. His
athletic figure was encased in a doublet of brown hue; a small,
elaborately chased dagger hung at his left hip, and he gazed about him
languorously, displaying his white teeth. The story went that a Polish
princess, hearing him sing one night on the seashore at Biarritz, as
he was at work caulking boats, fell desperately in love with him.
She ruined herself on his account. Then he left her for other women.
His artistic reputation was not the only thing that benefited by his
fame as a gay Lothario. The cunning mummer always took care to slip
into the advertisements some poetical reference to the fascination
of his person and the sensitiveness of his soul. A fine voice,
unbounded aplomb, temperament rather than brains, gusto rather than
real ability as a singer, combined to bring this super-charlatan,
who was a sort of mixture of toreador and hairdresser, into the
limelight of popularity.
  As soon as he appeared on the stage, the people went mad about
him. He pressed Lucia to his bosom. He flung away from her and came
back again; he seemed in despair. Now he would burst out in fury,
now he would sing wooingly- tender, elegiac strains of infinite
sweetness, and the notes took flight from his uncovered neck, laden
with sobs and kisses. Emma leaned forward to see him the clearer,
and clenched the velvet padding of her box. She filled her heart
with these melodious lamentations that lingered long upon the air to
the accompaniment of the double-basses, like the cries of the
shipwrecked heard amid the tumult of the tempest. She recognized the
passion and the pain whereof she had all but died. The voice of the
heroine seemed but the echo of her own heart, and the lovely
illusion before her, part and parcel of her life. But no one on
earth had ever loved her with such a love as that. He did not weep
like Edgar, that final evening in the moonlight when they had
parted, saying, 'Tomorrow; tomorrow!' The applause nearly brought
the house down. The lovers spoke of the flowers on their grave, of
vows, exile, fate, hope, and when they uttered their supreme
farewell Emma gave a shriek that blended with the lingering vibrations
of the final harmonies.
                                                          {24 ^paragraph 15}
  'But,' said Bovary, 'why is that lord there so unkind to her?'
  'But he isn't,' she answered 'he's her lover.'
  'And yet he swore just now he would be revenged on her family, while
the other man, the one that came on a moment ago, said, "Lucia I love,
and deem that she loves me". And then he went off with her father, arm
in arm. That is her father, isn't it- the ugly little man with a
cock's feather in his hat?'
  Emma tried to explain as best she could, and yet when the duet
began, in which Gilbert lays bare to Ashton his nefarious
machinations, Charles, as soon as he saw the false betrothal ring that
was to lead Lucia astray, thought it was a love-token sent to her by
Edgar. He confessed, however, that he couldn't make head or tail of
the story because of the music, which interfered so much with the
words.
  'What does it matter?' said Emma. 'Be quiet!'
                                                          {24 ^paragraph 20}
  'Well, you see,' he answered, leaning over on her shoulder, 'I
like to know the rights of things; you know I always do.'
  'Oh, for goodness' sake be quiet!' she cried impatiently.
  Lucia came forward, droopingly supported by her women, a wreath of
orange blossom in her hair, and paler than the satin of her gown. Emma
began dreaming of her marriage; and she saw herself back again amid
the cornfields on the little footpath, when the company were making
their way to the church. Why had she not struggled and resisted
then, like Lucia? Instead of that, she had been merry and
light-hearted, never realizing the precipice over which she was
flinging herself. Ah! if only in the freshness of her beauty, before
the soilure of marriage and the disillusions of adultery, she could
have based her life on some great-hearted, steadfast man, then, virtue
and affection, voluptuousness and duty, going hand in hand, she
would never have fallen from a happiness so perfect. But such
happiness as that was merely a piece of make-believe, invented to show
the vanity of all desire. She knew well enough, now, how paltry were
the passions of which art made so much. So, trying to divert her
thoughts, Emma made up her mind to see nothing more in this
presentment of grief and pain than a mere pictorial fantasy,
well-suited to beguile the eye, and she was even indulging herself
in a little disdainful smile when, at the far end of the stage,
beneath the velvet hangings, appeared a man attired in a sable cloak.
  His broad-brimmed Spanish hat fell to the ground at a gesture that
he made, and forthwith the instrumentalists and the singers began to
strike up the sextet. Edgar, glowing with fury, dominated all the rest
with his triumphant tenor. Ashton threatened him with death in lower
tones; Lucia gave vent to piercing lamentations; Arthur stood apart
modulating notes in the middle register; the squat figure of the
minister rumbled like an organ, while the women, taking up his
words, repeated them in chorus, with delicious effect. They had all
come forward in a row to gesticulate; and wrath and vengeance,
jealousy and terror, compassion and dismay were all being breathed
forth simultaneously from their parted lips. The outraged lover
brandished his naked sword; his lace collar worked up with little
jerks as his bosom heaved; he went now to the right and now to the
left with great strides, making the gilt spurs on his soft leather
boots that widened out at the ankles clank upon the boards. 'Ah,
he,' she thought, 'must have an inexhaustible fund of love, to pour
such floods of it upon this throng of people here.' All her little
depreciatory ideas vanished away before the onward sweep of his
magnificent role, and, drawn to the man by virtue of the part he was
enacting, she tried to picture to herself the sort of life he must
lead- a life full of thrills, extraordinary, splendid and, withal,
such a life as she herself might have led if the fates had willed it
so. They would have known each other, they would have been lovers.
At his side, through all the countries of Europe, she would have
journeyed, faring from capital to capital, sharing his weariness and
sharing his fame, gathering up the flowers flung at his feet,
embroidering his costumes with her own hand; and then, night by night,
within her box, behind the grille with its gilt trellis, she would
have inhaled, with panting breast and parted lips, the outpourings
of a soul who would have sung for her and her alone; and from the
stage, even as he played his part, his eyes would have sought for
hers. Oh! was she mad? He was looking at her. Yes, for sure! And she
felt she must rush and cast herself into his arms to seek shelter in
his strength, as though in the very incarnation of love, to tell him
all that was in her heart, to cry, 'Take me, bear me away, let us
begone! I am yours, yours with all my ardour, all my dreams!'
  The curtain fell.
                                                          {24 ^paragraph 25}
  The air was heavy with a mixture of spent gas and people's breath;
the breeze from the fans made the atmosphere stuffier than ever.
Emma wanted to go out; the corridors were packed with people, and
she sank back in her seat with palpitations that made her feel as if
she were choking. Charles thought she was going to faint, and rushed
off to the bar to get her a glass of barley water.
  He had a fearful struggle to get back to his seat. People kept on
jogging his elbow, just because he had a glass in his hand, and he
upset three parts of it all over the shoulders of one of Rouen's
fair ones, in short sleeves. When she felt the cold liquid running
down her back she yelled like a peacock, as if she was being murdered.
Her husband, a cotton spinner, gave 'the clumsy lout a bit of his
mind'; and while the lady was swabbing away with her handkerchief at
the stains on her beautiful cerise taffeta, he was grunting and
growling something about 'making good the damage', 'cost of the
thing', 'paying up', and so on. At last Charles got back to his wife.
  'Good Lord!' he exclaimed, puffing and blowing, 'thought I was there
for the night! The people! You never saw such a crowd! And who d'you
think I ran into up there? Monsieur Leon!'
  'Leon?'
  'The man himself! He's coming round in a minute to pay his
respects to you.'
                                                          {24 ^paragraph 30}
  And before these words were out of his mouth, the ex-clerk of
Yonville came into the box.
  He put out his hand with well-bred nonchalance, and Madame Bovary
extended hers, mechanically, as though obeying some force of
attraction independent of her will. She had not felt it since that
evening in springtime when the rain was falling on the green leaves
and they said good-bye standing beside the window. But remembering the
exigencies of the situation, she shook off these brooding memories and
quickly stammered forth a number of polite phrases.
  'Oh, how do you do? Imagine it! You here?'
  'Silence!' cried a voice in the pit, for the third act was starting.
  'So you're at Rouen, then?'
                                                          {24 ^paragraph 35}
  'Yes.'
  'How long have you been here?'
  'Be quiet there! Get out! Get out!'
  The people were all turning round and looking at them. They
stopped talking. But from that moment onwards she listened no more;
and the chorus of guests, the scene between Ashton and his
serving-man, the great duet in B major, all seemed to her like
something taking place far away, as though the instruments had grown
less resonant and the actors more remote. She thought of those card
parties at the chemist's, their walk to the nurse's house, the hours
they spent reading in the arbour, the talks by the fireside, of all
their sorry little love-affair which lasted so long and was so calm,
so timid and so tender; and which had quite faded from her mind. What,
then, was the reason of his coming back? What manner of web were the
fates about to weave that they should bring him thus into her life
again? He was sitting behind her, leaning back against the wall,
and, from time to time, she was conscious of a little thrill as she
felt the breath of his nostrils all warm amid her hair.
  'Are you enjoying this much?' he said, leaning over her so close
that the point of his moustache touched her cheek.
                                                          {24 ^paragraph 40}
  'Oh, I don't know- not too much,' she answered carelessly.
  Thereupon he suggested that they should go out and have some ices
somewhere.
  'Oh, no! Stay on a bit. Don't let's go yet,' said Bovary. 'Her
hair's down. Looks as if we were in for something tragic.'
  But the mad scene didn't interest Emma at all, and the acting of the
prima donna struck her as being overdone.
  'She shouts too much,' she said, turning round to Charles, who was
eagerly drinking it in.
                                                          {24 ^paragraph 45}
  'Yes... perhaps... a little,' he answered, torn between the real
pleasure it was giving him and the respect he entertained for his
wife's opinion.
  'The heat's something awful,' said Leon, heaving a sigh.
  'You're right; it's unbearable.'
  'Are you feeling it too much?' asked Bovary.
  'Yes, I'm suffocating; let's go.'
                                                          {24 ^paragraph 50}
  Monsieur Leon delicately placed her long shawl over her shoulders,
and they all three of them went and sat down on the quay, in the
open air, outside a cafe.
  They began by talking about her illness, Emma interrupting Charles
every now and then, for fear, she said, of boring Monsieur Leon. And
then Monsieur Leon told them how he had come to Rouen to put in two
years in an office there, in order to get used to the sort of work,
which was very different in Normandy from the kind of thing you got in
Paris. Then he inquired about Berthe, and the Homais family, and
Madame Lefrancois; and as they had nothing much more to say to each
other with the husband there, the conversation soon came to a full
stop.
  People coming away from the theatre passed along in front of them on
the pavement, some humming, some braying out O bel ange, ma Lucie!
with the full force of their lungs. Whereupon Leon, to impress them
with his culture, began to talk music. He had seen Tamburini,
Rubini, Persiani, Grisi; and, compared with them, Lagardy, for all his
dramatic outbursts, was nothing at all.
  'All the same,' interrupted Charles, who kept sipping at his sorbet
au rhum, 'some people will have it that in the last act he's
absolutely perfect. I'm sorry we left before it was over; it was
beginning to get hold of me.'
  'Oh, well,' said Leon, 'he'll be giving another performance soon.'
                                                          {24 ^paragraph 55}
  But Charles replied that they were off home in the morning. 'That
is, unless you'd care to stop on by yourself,' he added, turning to
his wife.
  Changing his tactics in view of this unlooked-for encouragement to
his hopes, Leon said it was a fact, Lagardy in the last act was
absolutely magnificent. It was something superb, sublime.
  Thereupon Charles said she must stay on.
  'You can come back Sunday. Come, make up your mind. It's silly of
you not to stay, if you feel it's doing you the slightest bit of
good.'
  Meanwhile the tables round about them were being cleared. A waiter
came and planted himself a little distance away. Charles took the
hint, and pulled out his purse. The clerk caught him by the arm,
insisted on paying and even left a couple of silver coins, for a
tip, which he clinked on the marble-topped table.
                                                          {24 ^paragraph 60}
  'Look here!' said Bovary, 'I really don't like your spending all
this money.'
  Leon received this remark with an air of lofty cordiality. 'All
right, then,' he said; 'that's fixed. Tomorrow evening at six.'
  Charles again protested that he couldn't possibly stop away any
longer, but that there was no earthly reason why Emma...
  'Well, you see,' she stammered, with a curious smile, 'I don't quite
know whether...'
  'Oh, well, think it over; we shall see. Let's go in and sleep on
it.'
                                                          {24 ^paragraph 65}
  'Now you're back in our neighbourhood again, you'll come and have
a bit of dinner with us, I hope, sometimes.'
  The clerk said he most certainly would, especially as he would
have to be going to Yonville for the firm. They said good-night by the
Passage Saint Herbland, just as the Cathedral clock was striking
half-past eleven.

{25
                                  25
-
                  Leon's life in Rouen: He calls at
          the inn: An exchange of memories: Impossible love:
              An uncancelled meeting: In the cathedral:
                           A long cab-ride.
-
                                                           {25 ^paragraph 5}
  MONSIEUR LEON, while duly prosecuting his legal studies, was a
pretty frequent visitor to la Chaumiere, where he scored some
quite enviable successes among the grisettes. They considered he had
a distinguished way with him. He was a pattern student. He wore his
hair neither too long nor too short, he didn't get through the whole
of his salary on the first day of the month, and he kept well in
with the professors. His good taste and his timidity had preserved him
from excess.
  Often, when he stayed indoors to read, or sat of an evening under
the lime-trees in the Luxembourg Gardens, he would let his text-book
fall on the ground beside him, and the memory of Emma would steal into
his mind. But little by little these feelings grew fainter, and
other attractions supervened, though his old love still endured in
spite of them. For Leon had not wholly given up heart, and there
floated before him a vague, uncertain hope which swung to and fro in
the distance, like a golden fruit hung from some fantastic arabesque
of branches.
  And now, seeing her again, after three long years of absence, all
his passion awoke once more. This time he thought he really would have
to bring matters to a head. Moreover, the society of his gay
companions had rubbed off his shyness, and he came back to the
provinces with a lofty disdain for everybody and everything that
knew not the elegance of the Capital. In the presence of a daintily
dressed Parisienne, or in the salon of some famous doctor, decorated
with orders and driving a grand carriage and pair, the poor clerk
would doubtless have trembled like a child; but here at Rouen, on
the quay, alongside this little country practitioner's wife, he felt
quite at his ease, and convinced that he would turn her head.
Confidence in oneself depends on one's surroundings. Ground-floor
manners are not the ways of the top-floor back, and the woman of
wealth seems to have a sort of shield for her virtue in the bank notes
she keeps inside the lining of her corsage.
  When he took his leave of the Bovarys the night before, Leon had
followed them at a distance down the street. Then, having seen them
come to a halt at the Croix Rouge, he had turned on his heels and
spent the night in thinking out a plan.
  The result was that, the next day, about five o'clock, he walked
into the kitchen of the inn, with an uncomfortable tightness about the
throat, pale cheeks and the sort of headlong determination that is
typical of the coward.
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 10}
  'Monsieur is not in,' said one of the maids.
  That augured well. He went up.
  She was not at all taken aback at his visit. On the contrary, she
apologized for having forgotten to tell him where they were putting
up.
  'Oh, I guessed it,' said Leon.
  He made out he had been guided to her instinctively. She began to
smile, and Leon, recognizing the absurdity of his remark, told her how
he had spent the morning going round to all the hotels in the place,
trying to find her.
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 15}
  'So you have made up your mind to stay on?' he added.
  'Yes,' she said, 'and I have done wrong. One has no business to go
getting a taste for impracticable pleasures when there are a hundred
and one things that ought to be seen to.'
  'Oh, I can quite imagine...'
  'Ah, I don't suppose you can, because you're not a woman, you see.'
  But men, too, have their little worries, and the conversation took a
philosophical turn. Emma dilated on the poverty of terrestrial
affections and the eternal loneliness in which the human heart was
fated to abide.
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 20}
  Whether it was from a desire to talk of himself, or because he was
naively prompted by the melancholy of her discourse to adopt the
same tone himself, Leon declared that he had been terribly depressed
all through his student days. The routine got on his nerves, other
professions attracted him more, and his mother, in every letter she
wrote, worried and tormented him. Each became more and more explicit
as to the causes of their discontent, finding a sort of pleasurable
excitement in this progressive frankness. But they stopped short at
a complete avowal of what was in their mind, trying, withal, to hit on
a phrase that might reveal it. She did not confess that she had
loved another man; he did not say he had forgotten her.
  Perhaps he no longer recalled the suppers after the dance with the
women in fancy dress, and of course she had forgotten all about
those morning assignations when she raced through the meadow-grass
to her lover's chateau. The noise of the town stole but faintly on
their ears. The room seemed small, as though expressly designed to
encompass them the more closely in their solitude. Emma, who was
wearing a dimity dressing-gown, was leaning her mass of hair against
the back of the old arm-chair. The yellow wall-paper served her as a
sort of background of gold, and her bare head was mirrored in the
glass, with the white line of its central parting, and the tips of her
ears peeping out from underneath the strands of her hair.
  'But there!' she said, 'I'm sorry. I must be boring you with my
everlasting complaints.'
  'Oh, no, no! You could never do that.'
  'If you only knew,' she said, 'the dreams that I have dreamed.'
And tears glistened in her beautiful eyes as she raised them to the
ceiling.
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 25}
  'And I, too! Oh, I have had my trials too! Often and often I went
out, I wandered along the quays, trying to deaden my senses in the
noise of the crowd, yet I was never able to banish the obsession
that pursued me. At a print shop down on the boulevard there's an
Italian engraving that represents one of the Muses. She is draped in a
tunic, and is gazing at the moon, with a wreath of forget-me-nots on
her unbraided hair. Something kept impelling me to that shop. I have
lingered there for hours.'
  Then, with a tremor in his voice, he said,
  'She was rather like you.'
  Madame Bovary turned away her head so that he should not see the
irresistible smile she felt stealing upon her lips.
  'And many a time,' he went on, 'I wrote you letters, that I
afterwards tore up.'
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 30}
  She did not answer.
  'I used to imagine that some chance would bring you to me. I have
thought I recognized you at a turn in the street. I would race after a
fiacre if I saw someone at the window wearing a shawl or a veil like
yours.'
  She seemed resolved to let him go on speaking without
interruption. Folding her arms and bending her head, she
contemplated the rosettes on her slippers, and every now and then made
little movements in the soft satin with her toes.
  'But the most distressing thing,' she sighed at last- 'is it not?-
is to live an aimless life, as I do. If our sufferings benefited
anyone, there would be some consolation in the sacrifice.'
  He began to sing the praises of virtue, duty, silent renunciation,
for he himself had an incredible longing which he could not satisfy to
bestow on someone his heart's devotion.
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 35}
  'I should like to be a nun in a hospital,' she said.
  'Alas! sacred missions of that kind are denied to men; and I see
no calling of the kind I mean, except perhaps a doctor's.'
  With a slight shrug of her shoulders, Emma interrupted him to tell
him the sad story of the illness that had nearly carried her off.
Ah, if only it had! Her sufferings would be over now. Leon immediately
belauded the peace of the grave. One night he had made his will,
asking that he might be buried in that beautiful rug with the velvet
stripes that she had given him. For this is how they would like it
to have been, each of them constructing an ideal into which they
fitted their past life. Besides speech is like a roller that always
distorts people's sentiments.
  'But why?' she queried, at this mention of the rug.
  'Why?' And he hesitated a moment. 'Why, because I loved you!'
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 40}
  And patting himself on the back for having taken the fence, Leon
watched her expression out of the corner of his eye.
  It was like the sky when a wind chases away the clouds. The burden
of heavy thoughts that had been casting a shadow on them seemed to
withdraw from her blue eyes. Her whole face was radiant.
  He waited, and at last she said,
  'I had always thought as much.'
  Then they talked about all the little things that took place in
those far-off days whereof, in a single word, they had just summed
up all that was sweet and all that was sad. They spoke of the clematis
cradle, of the dresses she used to wear, the furniture in her
bedroom and of all the things in and about the house.
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 45}
  'And our poor cactuses, what has become of them?'
  'The frost killed them this last winter.'
  'Ah! I used to think of them, do you know? Many and many a time I
have seen them in my mind's eye, as I used to see them in the old days
when the sun was shining on the jalousies, of a summer morning- and
I used to catch the flash of your bare arms as they moved among the
flowers.'
  'Pauvre ami!' she said, stretching out her hand to him.
  Swiftly Leon pressed it to his lips.
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 50}
  'Ah, what a power, what a mysterious power you wielded over me in
those days, holding my very life in thrall! One day, for example, I
came to your house.... But there, you have forgotten about it all,
of course.'
  'No,' she said; 'but go on, tell me!'
  'You were downstairs in the hall, just ready to go out, on the
last stair. You were wearing a hat with little blue flowers, and,
without any invitation from you, despite myself, for I could not
help it, I went with you. Every moment I became more and more
conscious of my stupidity, but I walked along, not exactly beside you,
but yet loth to leave you altogether. When you went into a shop I hung
about outside, I saw you through the window taking off your gloves and
putting down your money on the counter. Then you went and rang at
Madame Tuvache's. The servant came and let you in, the great heavy
door closed upon you, and there I stood like a dolt.'
  Madame Bovary, as she listened to all this, was amazed to find
herself so old. These things, rising above the horizon of the past,
seemed to widen the sphere of her existence; she was carried back as
if to some illimitable region of sentimental experience, and, from
time to time, with half-shut eyes, she murmured,
  'Yes, it is true. Ah yes! yes!'
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 55}
  They heard the various clocks in the Beauvoisine quarter, which is
full of boarding schools and churches and great deserted houses,
strike the hour of eight. They had ceased to talk, but as they sat and
gazed at each other they felt a sort of murmur in their heads, as if
some vibrant message had passed to and fro along the line of their
fixed regard. They had taken each other's hands, and the past and
the future, memories and dreams, were blended and commingled in the
sweetness of their ecstasy. The shades of night deepened upon the
walls, but the bright splashes of colour of four prints depicting four
scenes from La Tour de Nesle, with lettering in French and
Spanish, glimmered obscurely in the gathering gloom. Through the
sash window a wedge of dark sky was visible between two gabled roofs.
  She rose to light a pair of candles on the chest of drawers; then
she came and sat down again.
  'Well?' said Leon.
  'Well?' she replied.
  He was thinking how to renew the interrupted conversation, when
she said,
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 60}
  'How is it that no one, until now, has ever spoken to me as you have
done?'
  The clerk expostulated that ideal natures were difficult to
understand. As for himself, he had fallen in love the first time he
set eyes upon her. He had scarcely known what to do when he thought of
the happiness that might have been theirs if fortune had been kind
to them, if they had met each other earlier and had been joined
together in an indissoluble bond.
  'I have thought of that too, sometimes,' she answered.
  'What a dream!' murmured Leon. And delicately fingering the blue
border of her long white girdle, he added,
  'What is to hinder us from beginning all over again now?'
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 65}
  'No, dear,' she replied. 'I am too old... you are too young...
Forget all about me. Others will love you... and you them.'
  'Not as I love you,' he cried.
  'What a child you are, to be sure! Come, let us be sensible!
There, I mean it!'
  She explained how impossible it was that there could be any such
thing as love between them, and that they must remain, as they had
been before, just a pair of excellent friends.
  Was she serious when she spoke thus? Doubtless Emma herself could
not have told, deeply conscious as she was of the alluring danger
and of the need to repel it, and, gazing at him with compassion in her
eyes, she gently repelled the shy caresses which his tremulous hands
essayed.
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 70}
  'Forgive me,' he faltered, drawing back.
  Emma was conscious of a vague alarm at this timidity. There was more
of peril in it than in Rodolphe's boldness when he came towards her
with his arms outspread. Never had any man seemed so handsome in her
eyes. There was something exquisitely disarming in his adoring
candour. He lowered the long, curving lashes of his eyes. The smooth
surface of his skin was flushed- she thought- with desire for her, and
Emma was seized with an irresistible longing to press her lips upon
it. Then, leaning over in the direction of the clock, as though to see
what time it was, she exclaimed,
  'Gracious, look at the time! How we have been rambling on!'
  He understood, and rose to look for his hat.
  'Why, I forgot all about the theatre, and my poor husband left me
behind on purpose. Monsieur Lormaux, who lives in the Rue Grand
Pont, was to have taken me, with his wife.' And now she wouldn't
have another chance, for she was going back tomorrow.
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 75}
  'Are you really?' said Leon.
  'I am.'
  'But I must see you again,' he said. 'I had something I wanted to
tell you...'
  'What is it?'
  'Something.... Oh, something very serious, very important! Ah, but
no! You won't go back. You can't. If you only knew.... Listen... You
have not realized... you have not guessed!'
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 80}
  'And yet you're a good talker.'
  'Ah, you laugh! But no! There, you mustn't go like this! Let me
see you again, I implore you... Once... just once!'
  'Well....'
  And she stopped. And then, as if on second thoughts, she said,
  'Oh, no. Not here!'
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 85}
  'Wherever you like.'
  'Will you....?'
  She seemed to be thinking. Then suddenly she flashed,
  'Tomorrow, at eleven, in the Cathedral.'
  'I shall be there,' he cried, seizing both her hands, which she
dragged from his grasp.
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 90}
  They were both standing up, he slightly behind her, Emma lowering
her head. He bent over and imprinted a long and passionate kiss on the
nape of her neck.
  'You are mad! Ah, you are mad!' she went on, with little deep
laughs, as kiss after kiss rained down upon her.
  Then, thrusting his head over her shoulder, he seemed to be
seeking her eyes' consent. And they fell upon him, full of chilling
majesty.
  Leon went three steps back, towards the door. He stood still on
the threshold and whispered tremblingly,
  'Tomorrow!'
                                                          {25 ^paragraph 95}
  She made answer with a nod, and vanished like a bird into the
adjoining room.
  That night Emma wrote an interminable letter, excusing herself
from keeping the appointment. It was all over now, and, for their
own sakes, it were better for them not to meet. But when the letter
was sealed up she was in a quandary, as she did not know Leon's
address.
  'I will give it to him myself,' she said; 'he is sure to come.' Next
day, with his window wide open, Leon was singing on his balcony and
polishing his patent shoes himself. He put on a pair of white
breeches, some very smart socks and a green coat, and he emptied all
the scent he had upon his handkerchief. Then, having had his hair
frizzed, he unfrizzed it, in order to give it an appearance of greater
natural elegance.
  'It's too early yet,' thought he, glancing at the hairdresser's
cuckoo-clock, and seeing it was only nine.
  He turned over the leaves of an old fashion-paper, went out,
smoked a cigar, strolled along past three turnings, decided it was
time he started, and began leisurely to make his way in the
direction of Notre-Dame.
                                                         {25 ^paragraph 100}
  It was a beautiful summer morning. The sun was sparkling on the
plate in the silversmiths' shops, and the light, as it fell
slantwise on the Cathedral, lit up little shimmering sprays of light
along the edges of the grey stones. A flock of birds was wheeling in
the cloudless sky, round about the fretted turrets. There was a
great hubbub in the market-place, that was fragrant with the flowers
that were ranged along the pavement- roses, jasmine, carnations,
narcissi and jonquils irregularly interspaced with fresh greenery,
valerian and groundsel. The fountain in the centre was gurgling
pleasantly, and seated under their spreading umbrellas, amid
cantelupes piled up in pyramids, bare-headed market-women were
busily wrapping paper round bunches of violets.
  The young man bought a bunch. It was the first time he had ever
bought flowers for a woman, and, as he inhaled their perfume, his
bosom swelled with pride, as though the homage which he destined for
another were reflected on himself.
  However, he was afraid of being observed, so he made his way
resolutely into the church.
  The beadle was stationed on the threshold, in the centre of the left
porch, underneath the Marianne dansante, his plumed hat on his head,
his rapier at his thigh, his cane in his hand, more stately than a
cardinal and glittering like a piece of altar-plate.
  He stepped forward to meet Leon, and smiling the sort of benign
and wheedling smile which ecclesiastics put on when asking questions
of little children, he said,
                                                         {25 ^paragraph 105}
  'Monsieur is doubtless a stranger. Would Monsieur care to see over
the church?'
  'No,' said Leon.
  He began by strolling about just inside the entrance. Then he went
out and looked across the market-place. There was no Emma in sight.
Re-entering the Cathedral, he went up into the choir. The nave was
mirrored in the surface of the brimming holy-water stoups, with the
beginnings of the arches and some portions of the windows. But the
reflection of the stained glass, though broken at the marble's rim,
was continued farther on, upon the flagstones, like a many-coloured
carpet. The brilliant daylight from without was projected throughout
the whole length of the Cathedral in three enormous rays, through
the three open doors. From time to time a sacristan would glide across
the transepts, making the sideways genuflexion of a devotee in a
hurry. The crystal lustres hung motionless from the ceiling. Within
the choir a silver lamp was burning, and from the side chapels and the
darker portions of the church there stole from time to time a sound
like the exhalation of a sigh, accompanied by the noise of a grille
shut to, that echoed on and on beneath the vaulted roof.
  Leon, with measured tread, paced gravely up and down the aisles.
Never had life seemed so good. A little while and she would come,
delicious, trembling, glancing behind her to see who might be looking,
with her flowered dress, her gold lorgnon, her dainty shoes, and all
the manifold refinements so new to his experience, the ineffable charm
of virtue on the brink of surrender. The fane encompassed her about
like some stately bower, the vaulted roof leaned down to catch, amid
the shadows, the whispered avowal of her love, the painted windows
shone with glory to shed a light upon her countenance, and the censers
would burn that she might float like an angel amid the perfumed cloud.
  Meantime she did not come. He planted himself on a chair, and his
eyes lighted on a window of blue-stained glass portraying fishermen
carrying baskets. He looked at it long and attentively. He counted the
fishes' scales, the button-holes in the doublets, while, all the time,
his thoughts were wandering in quest of Emma.
                                                         {25 ^paragraph 110}
  The beadle stood some distance off, inwardly furious with this
person, who had the impertinence to admire the Cathedral all by
himself. There seemed to be something unnatural, something monstrous
about such conduct: it seemed as if the man were robbing him; it
almost amounted to sacrilege.
  Suddenly there was a flurry of silk upon the stones, the brim of a
hat, a black veil.... It was she! Leon rose and hastened to meet her.
  Emma was pale, and she was walking quickly.
  'Read this!' she said, holding out a paper. 'Oh no! never mind!'
  And she quickly tore away her hand, and entered the Lady Chapel,
where she knelt down beside a chair and began to pray.
                                                         {25 ^paragraph 115}
  Leon felt annoyed at this capricious display of piety; then he
experienced a certain charm at beholding her, in the very moment of
love's tryst, lost in her devotions like some Andalusian marquise. And
finally he grew rapidly impatient, for she seemed as though she
would never finish.
  Emma prayed, or rather forced herself to pray, hoping that some
unlooked-for power of resolution would descend on her from above;
and in order to enlist heaven's aid she feasted her eyes on the
splendours of the tabernacle, breathed in the perfume of the white
violets that filled the great vases, and inclined her ear to the
silence of the church, which did but accentuate the tumult of her
breast.
  She rose, and they were about to depart when the beadle came rapidly
towards them, saying,
  'Madame is doubtless a stranger here. Would Madame care to see
over the church?'
  'No, no,' cried the clerk.
                                                         {25 ^paragraph 120}
  'Why not?' said she.
  For she was fain to seek support for her tottering virtue from the
Virgin, the statues, the tombs and anything that might present itself.
And so, to begin at the beginning, the beadle took them back to the
entrance, overlooking the market, and there, pointing with his staff
to a large circular space paved with black stones, without carving
or inscription, he said majestically,
  'That is the circumference of the lovely bell of Amboise. It weighed
fifteen tons. It hasn't its fellow in the whole of Europe. The
craftsman who cast it died of joy....'
  'Let's go now,' said Leon.
  The worthy man put himself again in motion. Back in the Lady
Chapel once more, he extended his arms with a sort of comprehensive
gesture of demonstration, and, prouder than a country landowner
showing off his wall fruit, he proceeded,
                                                         {25 ^paragraph 125}
  'This simple stone marks the resting-place of Pierre de Breze,
Lord of la Varenne and Brissac, Grand Marshal of Poitou, and
Governor of Normandy, who was killed in the Battle of Montlhery on the
16th July, 1465.'
  Leon bit his lips, in a fury of impatience.
  'And on the right, this figure, encased in steel and mounted on a
prancing steed, is his grandson, Louis de Breze, Lord of Breval and
Montchauvet, Count of Maulevrier, Baron of Mauny, Chamberlain to the
King, Knight of the Order, and likewise, Governor of Normandy, who
died on the 23rd July, 1531, that day being a Sunday, as recorded on
the inscription; and underneath, this man, about to descend into the
grave, is an exact portrait of the same person. You will agree that it
would be impossible to find a more perfect representation of the final
end.'
  Madame Bovary put up her lorgnon. Leon stood and looked at her,
not attempting to utter a word, all the courage taken out of him by
this double obstacle of volubility and indifference.
  The everlasting guide went on,
                                                         {25 ^paragraph 130}
  'Next to him here- this kneeling figure of a woman weeping- is his
wife, Diane de Poitiers, Countess of Breze, Duchess of Valentinois,
born 1499, died 1566; and on the left the figure holding the child
is the Blessed Virgin. Now just turn round this way. These are the
Amboise tombs. They were both Cardinal-Archbishops of Rouen. That one,
who held office under King Louis XII, did a great deal for the
Cathedral. In his will he left thirty thousand gold crowns to the
poor.'
  And still on the move, talking all the time, he pushed them into a
chapel all lumbered up with railings. He shifted one or two of them
and brought to light a sort of block which might undoubtedly have been
a rudely carved statue.
  'This statue,' he said, with a prolonged groan, 'once adorned the
tomb of Richard Coeur de Lion, King of England and Duke of Normandy.
It was the Calvinists, sir, that made it like this. Out of pure
vandalism they took and buried it in the ground under the Bishop's
episcopal throne. Look, here is the private doorway to the Bishop's
house. Now let us pass on to the windows of La Gargouille.'
  But Leon quickly produced a piece of silver and grasped Emma by
the arm. The beadle looked completely dumbfounded, quite unable to
understand this premature munificence when there were still so many
things to show the stranger. So he started shouting after him.
  'Hi! Monsieur. The steeple! the steeple!'
                                                         {25 ^paragraph 135}
  'No, thanks!' said Leon.
  'Oh, but Monsieur, what a pity! It's four hundred and forty feet
high- only nine feet less than the Great Egyptian Pyramid. It's all
made of cast iron, it...'
  Leon was for making off with all speed. It seemed to him that his
love, which, for two hours had been immobilized in the church like the
stones of which it was built, was now in danger of going up like smoke
through this sort of truncated pipe, oblong cage, or fretted chimney
that sticks up like a comic nose on the Cathedral as though an
ingenious tinker had been indulging in some extravagant fancy.
  'Where are we going now?' said she.
  He did not answer, but continued to walk at a rapid pace, and Madame
Bovary was already dipping her finger in the holy-water stoup when
they heard someone panting along behind them, his gasps punctuated
at regular intervals by the tap-tap of a stick. Leon turned round.
                                                         {25 ^paragraph 140}
  'Monsieur!'
  'What?'
  There was the beadle, lugging along a score of big paper-bound
volumes piled up against his belly. They were works dealing with the
Cathedral.
  'Imbecile!' growled Leon, as he flung out of the building.
  A street arab was playing about on the pavement.
                                                         {25 ^paragraph 145}
  'Go and get me a fiacre!'
  The youngster sped away like a ball down the Rue des Quatre Vents,
and they stood looking at one another for a minute or so, rather out
of countenance.
  'Leon, really... I don't know whether I ought.' She was coquetting a
little. 'It's not the proper thing to do. You know it isn't!'
  'Why not?' answered the clerk. 'It's done in Paris, right enough.'
  That was an irresistible argument, it convinced her.
                                                         {25 ^paragraph 150}
  However, no fiacre hove in sight. Leon was terribly afraid she would
go back to the church. At last the vehicle appeared.
  'At any rate go out through the North Door,' shouted the beadle, who
was standing at the top of the steps. 'You'll see The Resurrection,
The Last Judgement, Paradise, King David and The Reprobates in
Hell-fire.'
  'Where to, sir?' said the cabby.
  'Where you like,' said Leon, pushing Emma inside. And the
lumbering machine set off.
  It descended the Rue Grand Pont, crossed the Place des Arts, the
Quai Napoleon, the Pont Neuf and pulled up sharp alongside the
statue of Pierre Corneille.
                                                         {25 ^paragraph 155}
  'Go on,' said a voice from inside.
  The conveyance again got in motion, and following the down-hill road
after leaving the Carrefour la Fayette, it drove at full gallop into
the station yard.
  'No, no, straight on!' shouted the voice again.
  The fiacre came out through the big gates and, having got on to
the Broadway, was jogging along soberly amid the big elm-trees. The
coachy mopped his forehead, stuck his leather hat between his legs
and, steering his vehicle clear of the network of alleys, kept down
near the green by the waterside.
  Along by the river the vehicle went, along the towing-path, with its
pavement of hard cobbles, down towards Oyssel, past the islands.
                                                         {25 ^paragraph 160}
  All of a sudden it turned aside through Quatremares, Sotteville, the
Grande Chaussee, the Rue d'Elbeuf and halted for the third time
outside the Jardin des Plantes.
  'Go on, will you?' shouted the voice more furiously.
  Forthwith getting under way again, it went along by Saint Sever, the
Quai des Curandiers, the Quai aux Mentes, back again over the
bridge, across the Place du Champ de Mars, behind the workhouse
grounds, where aged men in black coats were walking in the sun along a
terrace green with ivy. It climbed the Boulevard Bouvreuil,
proceeded along the Boulevard Cauchoise and all up Mont Riboudet as
far as the Cote de Deville.
  Then it turned round and came back again, driving aimlessly anywhere
and everywhere. It was seen at Saint Pol, at Lescure, at Mont
Gargan, at la Rouge-Marc, at the Place du Gaillardbois; in the Rue
Maladrerie, the Rue Dinanderie, outside Saint Romain's, Saint
Vivien's, Saint Maclou's, Saint Nicaise's, in front of the Customs
House, at the Vieille Tour, the Trois Pipes and the Monumental
Cemetery. From time to time the driver would cast despairing glances
at the taverns as he drove past. He could not for the life of him
understand what mania for locomotion possessed these individuals
that they inexorably refused to stop. He made as if to pull up once or
twice, and, immediately, exclamations of wrath broke out behind him.
Whereupon he slashed his sweating jades harder than ever, heedless how
his old caravan lurched and swayed, running into this, just shaving
that, not caring what happened, demoralized, and nearly crying with
thirst, fatigue and utter weariness of spirit.
  And on the quays, amid the lorries and the barrels, along the
streets, at every corner, the citizens stared in amazement at what
amounted to a portent in a country town, to wit, a vehicle with
drawn blinds, which kept continually coming into view, sealed up
like a tomb and rocking like a ship at sea.
                                                         {25 ^paragraph 165}
  Once, in the middle of the day, in the open country, when the sun
was beating its fiercest against the old plated carriage-lamps, a
little white hand peeped out beneath the blinds of yellow canvas and
flung away a lot of scraps of paper, which floated in the wind and
settled farther on, like white butterflies, on a field of red clover
in full bloom.
  Finally, about six, the carriage pulled up in a side street in the
Beauvoisine quarter and a woman got out. She walked with her veil
down, glancing neither to the right nor to the left.

{26
                                  26
-
          Return to Yonville: Monsieur Homais's lumber-room:
         Justin's book: Charles becomes an orphan: Hippolyte
             brings the luggage: Leon's violets: A Power
                    of Attorney: Emma's new gown.
-
                                                           {26 ^paragraph 5}
  ON reaching the inn, Madame Bovary was astonished not to see the
diligence. Hivert had waited fifty-three minutes, and had at last gone
on without her.
  There was no really compelling reason why she should go home; but
she had given her word she would be back that evening. Moreover,
Charles would be expecting her, and she was already conscious, in
her heart, of the sort of whipped-dog feeling which, in the eyes of
many women, atones for the sin and washes away the stain of it.
  She threw her things into her bag, paid her bill, hired a trap
from the yard, and, telling the driver to drive like the wind,
urging him on, continually pestering him to know what time it was, and
how many miles they had come, she managed to catch up the Hirondelle
just as it was driving into Quincampoix.
  She had hardly sunk into her corner, when she closed her eyes, and
did not open them again till they were at the bottom of the hill. Some
way off, she recognized Felicite, who was mounting guard outside the
blacksmith's shop. Hivert pulled in to the side, and the cook,
hoisting herself up on a level with the window, said, with an air of
mystery,
  'Madame, you must go at once to Monsieur Homais's. Something very
urgent!'
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 10}
  The usual air of quiet hung over the village. At all the street
corners there were little pink heaps that steamed in the air. This was
preserving time, and every household in Yonville manufactured its
jam supply on the same day. Outside the chemist's, however, a mound of
unusual dimensions excited the public admiration, as it was meet it
should, seeing that it exceeded the ordinary heaps as the product of a
laboratory should exceed the product of a kitchen, as a department
of the public service should surpass mere individual enterprise.
  She went in. The big arm-chair was overturned, and even the Rouen
Beacon was lying on the floor, spread out between a couple of
pestles. She pushed open the door of the passage and there, in the
middle of the kitchen, among brown jars filled with stoned currants,
powdered sugar, lump sugar, scales on the table, pans on the fire, she
saw all the Homais family, great and small, with aprons up to their
chins and forks in their hands. Justin was standing with diminished
head, and the chemist was shouting at him.
  'Who told you to go to the lumber-room for it?'
  'What is it? What is the matter?' asked Emma.
  'What is it?' said the druggist. 'We are making jam; it's on the
fire, and it's just going to boil over because there is too much
liquid, and I call out for another basin; and he, because he's a
fool or because he's lazy, goes into my laboratory and takes the key
of the lumber-room off the nail there!'
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 15}
  This was the name the apothecary gave to a little room at the top of
the house, full of the utensils and goods appertaining to his calling.
He often spent hours together there labelling things, transferring
them from one jar to another, tying them up with fresh string; and
he looked upon it, not as a mere store-room, but as a veritable
sanctuary, whence there afterwards proceeded all manner of pills,
boluses, cough mixtures, lotions and potions, the work of his hands,
which were destined to spread his renown through all the
countryside. Nobody was allowed to enter there; and so profound was
his respect for it, that he swept and dusted it himself. In fine, if
the pharmacy, open to all comers, was the place where he displayed his
proud eminence to the world, the lumber-room was the retreat in which,
retiring within the sanctuary of his own egoism, Homais indulged
himself in the unrestricted exercise of his predilections. This is how
it was that Justin's heedless invasion of his sanctum struck him as
a piece of monstrous irreverence. And, outvying the currants in
rubicundity, he repeated,
  'Yes, the lumber-room! The key of the place that contains the
acids and the caustic alkalis! To go there for a spare pan! A pan with
a lid to it; a pan which I may not want at all! Everything has its
importance in the delicate operations of our art. But the devil take
it! We must draw the line somewhere, and not employ, for domestic
uses, things intended to be used in pharmacy! It's like carving a
chicken with a scalpel; it's just as if a magistrate...'
  'There, now, calm yourself!' Madame Homais kept saying, and Athalie,
tugging at his coat, was crying 'Papa! papa!'
  'No, no! Let me alone!' the apothecary raved on. 'Let me alone! Damn
it! Just as well set up as a grocer right away! Get along, go on
with you! Do what you like with the lot! Break! Smash! Let go the
leeches! Burn the mallow pastes! Pickle your gherkins in my beakers!
Slash up the bandages!'
  'But,' began Emma, 'there was something you...'
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 20}
  'One moment!... Do you know the risks you run? Didn't you see
anything in the corner, to the left, on the third shelf? Speak!
Answer! Say something coherent!'
  'I d-d-don't know...' stammered the lad.
  'Ah! You don't know, don't you? Well, then, I'll tell you! You saw a
bottle- a blue-glass bottle, sealed with yellow wax- which contains
a white powder, and on that bottle I myself have written the word
Dangerous. And do you know what's in it? Arsenic! And you go and
touch that, and take a jar that's alongside it!'
  'Alongside it!' cried Madame Homais, wringing her hands. 'Arsenic?
Why, you might poison the lot of us!'
  And with one accord the children began to yell as if they were
already suffering agony in their intestines.
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 25}
  'Yes, or poison a patient,' went on the apothecary. 'Do you want
to see me standing in the dock at the next assizes? Do you want to see
me executed? Don't you know how careful I am in handling everything
I touch, although I know the whole place like the inside of my pocket?
I get the shudders sometimes, when I think of my responsibility; for
the Government is down on us, and the absurd legislation to which we
are subjected is a regular sword of Damocles above our heads.'
  Emma had given up all idea of asking what it was he wanted with her,
and the apothecary went on, nearly choking with rage,
  'That's how you show your gratitude for all that has been done for
you! That's what I get for being a father to you! Where would you be
if it wasn't for me? What would you be doing? Who is it feeds you,
educates you, clothes you, and gives you every opportunity of
cutting a decent figure in society, one of these days? But if you want
to make good, you've got to pull your weight in the boat and get a few
blisters on your hands. Fabricando fit faber, age quod agis.'
  He quoted Latin in the extremity of his exasperation. He would
have quoted Chinese or Greenlandese if he had been acquainted with
those languages, for he was in one of those crises in which the soul
is laid bare to its very depths, just as the ocean, when a storm is
raging, not only strews the shore with jetsam, but churns up the
sand from its lowest depths.
  'I am beginning to be mighty sorry I ever undertook to have you. I
should have done better to let you fester in the filth and squalor you
were born in. You'll never be fit for anything but minding cattle.
You've no gift for science; you hardly know how to gum on a label. And
here you are in my house, living like a fighting-cock, on the fat of
the land.'
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 30}
  'They told me to...' began Emma, turning to Madame Homais.
  'Ah, mon Dieu!' interrupted the good lady with a lugubrious air,
'I don't know how to tell you.... It's a dreadful business....'
  She did not finish, for the apothecary was still thundering,
'Empty it out! Scour it! Take it back! Look alive!'
  And shaking Justin by the collar of his blouse, he jerked a book out
of his pocket.
  The boy stooped down. Homais was before him and, snatching up the
volume, he contemplated it with staring eyes and drooping jaw.
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 35}
  'Married... Love!' he said, separating the two words with great
distinctness. 'Ah, very good! Very nice! Very pretty! Illustrated, eh!
Oh, look here, this is too much of a good thing!'
  Madame Homais came forward.
  'No, no, don't touch it!'
  The children wanted to see the pictures.
  'Get out of the room!' he shouted, imperiously.
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 40}
  And they went.
  He paced up and down, with big strides, holding the volume open
between his fingers. His eyes were rolling, he couldn't breathe, his
face looked puffy and apoplectic. At last he strode straight up to his
pupil and, standing in front of him with folded arms, he said,
  'So you've got beastly ways about you, have you, you little
wretch! Be careful, you're on a slippery slope. It never occurred to
you, I suppose, that this book, this filthy book, might fall into my
children's hands, set their brains afire, that it might tarnish
Athalie's purity and corrupt Napoleon. He's already a man in some
ways. Are you sure they haven't read it? Can you guarantee me that?'
  'But, Monsieur,' said Emma, 'there was something you had to say to
me, wasn't there?'
  'True, Madame.... Your father-in-law is dead!'
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 45}
  It was a fact that Monsieur Bovary, senior, had died the previous
evening quite suddenly. He had had a stroke just after getting up from
dinner. As Charles was extremely anxious that Emma should not be
upset, he had asked Monsieur Homais to break this terrible piece of
news to her.
  He, Homais, had meditated his phrase, rounded it off, polished it,
put music into it. It was a masterpiece of tact and allusive grace, of
precision and delicacy. But his wrath had been too much for his
rhetoric.
  Emma, giving up all hope of learning any details, left the shop, for
Monsieur Homais had launched out afresh on the tide of his
vituperations. However, he grew calmer, and, at present, he was
grumbling and growling in a paternal sort of way, fanning himself with
his smoking-cap.
  'Not that I wholly disapprove of the work. The author was a
medical man, and there are certain scientific sides to the matter that
a man is none the worse for knowing; I would even go so far as to
say that he ought to know them. But later on, later on. Wait at
least till you are a man yourself, until your ideas are properly
matured.'
  When he heard Emma knock, Charles, who was expecting her, advanced
to greet her with open arms and said, with tears in his voice,
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 50}
  'Ah! dear heart!'
  He bent down to kiss her, but at the touch of his lips, the memory
of her lover took hold of her, and she passed her hand over her face
with a shudder. Nevertheless, she managed to say,
  'Yes, I know.... I know....'
  He showed her the letter in which his mother told him the news
without any sort of sentimental hypocrisy. Her chief regret was that
her husband had not received the consolations of religion. He had died
at Doudeville, in the street, on the doorstep of a cafe, after an
ex-officers' regimental dinner.
  Emma handed him back the letter. At dinner, for the sake of
appearances, she pretended to have no appetite, but as he pressed her,
she forced herself to eat, while Charles sat facing her in a posture
of motionless depression. Every now and then he would raise his head
and look at her with an expression of abject distress. Once he
sighed 'I wish I could have seen him again!' She made no answer. Then,
realizing that some sort of observation was required of her, she said,
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 55}
  'What age was your father?'
  'Fifty-eight.'
  'Ah!'
  And that was all.
  A quarter of an hour afterwards he added,
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 60}
  'Poor mother!... What will become of her now?'
  She made a gesture of ignorance.
  Charles ascribed her taciturnity to grief, and constrained himself
to silence for fear of adding to her sorrow. However, making a
determined effort to throw off his own, he said,
  'Did you have a good time yesterday?'
  'Yes.'
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 65}
  When the table was cleared Bovary still sat on. So did Emma. And
as she continued to look at him, the monotony of the sight gradually
banished every sensation of pity from her heart. He seemed a weak,
feeble thing, a poor specimen of a man in every way. How was she to
get rid of him? The evening would be endless! Something stupefying,
like the fumes of opium, seemed to be deadening her senses.
  Out in the hall they heard the noise of someone stumping along on
the floor. It was Hippolyte bringing in Madame's luggage. To put
down his load he was obliged to describe a wide curve with his
wooden leg.
  'He doesn't think any more about it now,' she thought, as she looked
at the poor devil, with his red hair dripping with sweat.
  Bovary fished a florin out of his purse, and without appearing in
the least conscious of the humiliation implied by the mere presence of
the man, who was a sort of personified condemnation of his incurable
ineptitude, he remarked on Leon's violets, which were on the
chimney-piece.
  'I say, that's a nice bunch of flowers you've got there!'
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 70}
  'Yes,' she answered carelessly, 'I bought them from a woman in the
street.'
  Charles took the violets and, feasting his eyes upon them- eyes
all red with tears- he sniffed them delicately. She snatched them
quickly away and went to put them in water.
  Next day Madame Bovary, senior, arrived. She and her son did a great
deal of weeping. Emma said she had a lot of things to order and went
out.
  The day after there was the mourning to be seen to. They took
their work-boxes and went and settled themselves in the arbour by
the water.
  Charles thought of his father, and he was astonished at feeling so
much affection for him. He never imagined he had any great love for
him. Madame Bovary, senior, thought of her husband. It was all over
now. And even the worst of those days which she could never now recall
seemed enviable. Everything else was swallowed up in regret at
breaking with such a long-lived habit; and from time to time, as she
plied her needle, a big tear would trickle down her nose and hang
suspended at the tip. Emma reflected that hardly forty-eight hours
since, they were together, with the world shut out, drowned in the
very ecstasy of love, not having eyes enough to gaze at each other
withal. She tried to recapture the tiniest details of that vanished
day of bliss. But the presence of her husband and her mother-in-law
fidgeted her. She would have liked to hear and see nothing, so as
not to lose a grain of that remembered delight which, do what she
would, was being worn away by the attrition of external sensations.
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 75}
  She was unstitching the lining of a dress, and the pieces were lying
scattered all around her. Madame Bovary, senior, plied her scissors
without lifting her eyes from her work, and Charles, with his raffia
slippers and his old brown overcoat, which he wore as a dressing-gown,
was sitting with his hands in his pockets, silent like the others.
Hard by, little Berthe, in her white pinafore, was scraping away
with her spade at the gravel on the paths.
  All at once they saw Monsieur Lheureux, the haberdasher, coming
through the garden gate.
  He had heard of the sad event, and had come to offer his services.
Emma replied that she believed that they would be able to dispense
with them. But the merchant would not be beaten.
  'A thousand pardons!' he said. 'But might I have a word in private?'
adding, in a low voice, 'it's about that matter, er... you know!'
  Charles blushed to the roots of his hair as he answered,
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 80}
  'Ah, yes... quite so! Darling... do you think...?' he stammered,
turning to his wife in his perturbation.
  She seemed to understand, for she got up.
  'It's nothing!' said Charles to his mother. 'Merely some little
household matter.'
  He was particularly anxious to avoid telling her about the bill of
sale, being terrified at what she would say.
  As soon as they were alone Monsieur Lheureux began in pretty plain
terms to congratulate Emma on the money they were coming into. He then
went on to talk about ordinary things, such as the fruit-trees, the
harvest, his own health, which was never anything but middling. The
fact was he worked like an army of niggers, and even then, no matter
what people said to the contrary, he didn't make enough to keep
himself in bread and butter.
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 85}
  Emma let him ramble on. She had been so hideously bored these last
two days.
  'So now you're quite yourself again,' he continued. 'My word, I've
seen your poor husband in a nice state of mind about you! He's a
downright good 'un, he is; although we've had some little
misunderstandings.'
  She asked what they were, for Charles had never told her of the
dispute about the accounts.
  'But you know!' said Lheureux. 'Those things you wanted so
specially- the travelling trunks.'
  He had pulled his hat down over his eyes, and with his hands clasped
behind his back he stood there, smiling and whistling softly,
staring her full in the face in an insufferable manner. Did he suspect
anything? She stood lost in all kinds of terrifying conjectures. At
last he continued.
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 90}
  'However, we patched it up, and I was coming to make proposals for a
further arrangement.' That was a renewal of the bill signed by Bovary.
'Monsieur wouldn't have his hands tied; it wouldn't do for him to
worry himself too much, especially now that he had so many bothers
in front of him. And wouldn't it be better,' he went on, 'to shift the
whole thing on to someone else's shoulders- yours, for example? A
Power of Attorney- the thing would be quite simple. Then you and I
could settle all these little things between us.'
  She didn't understand. She said nothing.
  Then, touching on his shop, he said there were some things there
Madame couldn't possibly do without. He would send her across a
dozen yards of black barege for a dress.
  'The one you have on is good enough for the house; but you want
another for visiting. I saw that at a glance, when I came in. Oh, I
have got an eye like a hawk, I have!'
  He did not send the stuff; he brought it. Then he came back for
the measurements. He came on other pretexts as well, doing his
utmost to oblige, to be of use, to ingratiate himself, and never
failing to let fall a hint or two about the Power of Attorney. He
never mentioned the bill; and she never let it enter her head. Charles
certainly did say something about it when she was beginning to get
better, but she had so many things to worry her at the time that she
thought no more about it. Moreover, she purposely avoided opening up
any sort of discussion. This rather surprised Madame Bovary, who
ascribed her altered attitude to the religious notions she had
acquired during her illness.
                                                          {26 ^paragraph 95}
  But no sooner had she taken her departure than Emma began to exhibit
a practical aptitude for business that made Bovary rub his eyes in
amazement. Things would have to be gone into. The mortgages should
be verified in order to find out exactly how matters stood. She used a
number of technical terms, spoke imposingly about order, the future,
foresight, and never missed a chance of exaggerating the intricacies
of the probate, till at last she put before him one day a form for a
general Power of Attorney, empowering the grantee 'to carry on and
administer his affairs, effect loans, sign and endorse all bills and
make all payments,' etc., etc. She had profited well by Lheureux's
lessons.
  Charles- good, simple man- asked her where the form came from.
  'From Monsieur Guillaumin.'
  Then, with the greatest assurance in the world, she added,
  'But I wouldn't trust him farther than I could see him. These
notaries are usually such a lot of sharks. Perhaps we ought to
consult... Let me see... no, there's no one!'
                                                         {26 ^paragraph 100}
  'What about Leon?' said Charles, thinking hard.
  But it was difficult to explain matters by letter. She offered to go
over to Rouen and put it before him. He wouldn't hear of troubling
her. She insisted. It was a duel of kindness. Finally, putting on a
little mock rebellious air, she cried,
  'Now, not another word, please! I am going!'
  'How kind you are!' said he, kissing her on the forehead.
  The very next morning she was off to Rouen in the Hirondelle, to
consult Monsieur Leon. She stopped three days.

{27
                                  27
-
               Three days in Rouen: Boating with Leon:
          Lovers' delights: A scarlet ribbon: The boatman's
                   compliment: Emma's instructions:
                        Why is she so anxious?
-
                                                           {27 ^paragraph 5}
  THEY were three full, exquisite, gorgeous days; a real honeymoon.
They stayed down on the harbour at the Hotel de Boulogne, and there
they lived, with blinds drawn, doors locked, the floor strewn with
flowers, and iced drinks brought up the first thing in the morning.
  Towards evening they would take a boat with a covered stern and go
and dine on one of the islands.
  It was about the time when you hear the strokes of mallets against
the hulls of the vessels. Smoke from burning tar was rising up among
the trees, and in the surface of the water, floated great oily patches
undulating in the crimson of the setting sun like medallions of
Florentine bronze.
  They paddled along down between the rows of vessels made fast to
their moorings, the slanting cables of which lightly grazed the keel
of their boat.
  The noises of the town grew fainter and fainter- the rattling of
carts, the babel of voices, the yapping of dogs on the decks of the
vessels. She untied her hat, and they stepped ashore on their island.
                                                          {27 ^paragraph 10}
  They went into a cabaret with great dark fishing-nets hung up at the
door, and sat themselves down in the low-ceilinged room. They ate
fried smelts and cherries and cream; and then went and sat on the
grass. They kissed and caressed each other beneath the poplars, out of
view; and, like two shipwrecked travellers, they would have liked to
dwell for ever in that little spot which, in their present bliss, they
considered the most magnificent place on earth. They had both seen
trees before, and blue sky, and grass. It wasn't the first time they
had heard the sound of flowing water and the music of the wind in
the trees; but never had they really admired these things till now. It
was as if Nature had not really existed before, or had only begun to
robe herself in beauty since the appeasement of their desires.
  When it was dark they started for home again. The boat kept close to
the shores of the islets. They lay in the stern, hidden by the
shade, and did not speak. The paddles clicked in the iron rowlocks and
seemed to mark time in the silence like the beating of a metronome,
whilst in their wake the water rippled ceaselessly against the stern.
  And then the moon shone out, and forthwith they began to indulge
in fine phrases, saying how melancholy yet how full of poetry and
loveliness she was. Emma, indeed, broke out into song,
-
          Dost thou remember, love, that night we sailed...
                                                          {27 ^paragraph 15}
-
  Her voice, musical but weak, died away upon the waters, and the
breeze wafted away the trills, that Leon heard fleeting past him
like the fluttering of little wings. She had her face towards him,
leaning against the awning of the boat, into which, through an opening
in the blind a flood of moonlight streamed. Her black dress, the skirt
spread out like a fan, made her look slimmer and added to her
height. Her head was raised, her hands were clasped, her eyes were
gazing heavenward. Sometimes the shadow of the willows would hide
her completely from view, then, suddenly, she would reappear like a
vision, in the light of the moon.
  Leon put his hand on a piece of scarlet ribbon lying in the bottom
of the boat. The boatman took it and examined it.
  'Ah,' he said at last, maybe it belongs to a party I took out a
few days ago. They were a nice old rowdy lot- ladies and gents, with
cakes, and bottles of champagne, and cornets, and I don't know what
all. One of 'em I mind in particular. A fine, upstanding fellow he
was, with a little moustache. And that amusing! They kept on saying,
"Come on, tell us another... Adolphe... Dodolphe"... or whatever he
was called.'
  She shook from head to foot.
                                                          {27 ^paragraph 20}
  'What's the matter? Aren't you feeling well?' said Leon, drawing
close.
  'Oh, it's nothing! Only, the night air is a little chilly.'
  'Sort of gent with plenty of lady friends, you bet,' added the old
sailorman, by way of being agreeable to his fare.
  Then he spat into his hands and resumed his oars.
  However, everything comes to an end. It was a melancholy business
saying good-bye. She told him to send his letters to Mere Rollet,
and gave him such clear and practical instructions about the double
envelope that he marvelled greatly at her knowledge of the tricks of
the trade.
                                                          {27 ^paragraph 25}
  'So you are quite sure everything is all right?' she said, as she
kissed him good-bye.
  'Absolutely.... But,' he mused, as he walked back home alone,
'what on earth makes her so keen on this Power of Attorney, I wonder?'

{28
                                  28
-
                Leon's longing: Back to the Lion d'Or:
           Meeting in a storm: More business with Lheureux:
                     A forgotten accomplishment:
                            Music lessons.
-
                                                           {28 ^paragraph 5}
  LEON soon began to give himself airs. He ignored his friends and
neglected his business.
  He waited eagerly for her letters; he read them again and again, and
he wrote to her in return. He summoned her up before him with all
the ardour of passionate remembrance. Instead of fading with
absence, the longing to see her again grew stronger and stronger, till
at last, one Saturday morning, he made a bolt from his office.
  When he came to the top of the hill above Yonville and, looking down
over the valley, saw the church tower with its tin tricolour turning
in the wind, he was conscious of that mingled sensation of
triumphant vanity and egoistical emotion that a man who has gone
abroad and made his fortune must experience when he returns to visit
his native village.
  He went and roamed about outside her house. There was a light in the
kitchen. He watched to see if he could catch her shadow behind the
curtain. But nothing was visible.
  Mere Lefrancois met him, and couldn't believe her eyes. She
thought he was 'taller and thinner', whereas Artemise considered he
was 'stouter and browner'.
                                                          {28 ^paragraph 10}
  He dined in the little parlour, as in the old days, but alone,
without the tax-collector; for Binet, weary of waiting for the
Hirondelle, had fixed his dinner-time one hour earlier, and now he
dined sharp at five. However, as often as not, he would still have
it that the tumbledown old rattle-trap was late.
  Leon summoned up his courage and went and knocked at the doctor's
door. Madame was upstairs in her bedroom, and didn't come down for a
quarter of an hour. The doctor appeared delighted to see him; but he
stuck at home the whole evening and all next day as well.
  He saw her alone, very late in the evening, in the lane at the end
of the garden- in the lane where she used to meet 'the other one'.
There was a thunderstorm raging, and they talked under an umbrella
with lightning flashing all around them.
  Their severance was becoming intolerable. 'I would rather be
dead,' she said. And she clung, writhing, to his arm, weeping,
  'Good-bye! Good-bye! When shall I see you again?'
                                                          {28 ^paragraph 15}
  They turned back for one last embrace, and it was then that she
promised by some means or another, no matter what, to find a pretext
for seeing him regularly, at least once a week. Emma never doubted she
would find a way. She was full of hope. She would soon have some money
to play with.
  This being so, she bought a pair of yellow curtains with broad
stripes for her bedroom, which Monsieur Lheureux had told her were a
bargain. She had dreams of a carpet, and Lheureux, declaring that it
wasn't like craving for the moon, very civilly undertook to get her
one. Lheureux had become simply indispensable. She sent for him twenty
times a day, and he straightway put aside whatever he was doing and
obeyed the summons without a murmur. And it was no less a mystery
why Mere Rollet should go there every day for her lunch, and why she
should want, as she often did, to see her in private.
  It was about this time- that is to say, the beginning of winter-
that she suddenly appeared to evince a tremendous enthusiasm for
music.
  One night, while Charles was listening to her, she began the same
piece over again, four times running, finding fault with herself
each time. He, never seeing any difference, cried, 'Bravo! Splendid!
What did you stop for? Go on!'
  'Oh, no! It's too dreadful! My fingers feel as if they were stiff
with rust!'
                                                          {28 ^paragraph 20}
  Next day he begged her to play him something more.
  'Oh, well; if you want me to.'
  Charles confessed he had heard her play better. She struck the wrong
notes, kept fumbling about, and finally came to a sudden stop.
  'Ah, it's no good! I ought to have some lessons, but...'
  She bit her lip and added,
                                                          {28 ^paragraph 25}
  'Twenty francs a time. It's too expensive, that!'
  'Well, yes... it is... rather,' said Charles, sniggering like a
nincompoop. 'But perhaps it could be managed a bit cheaper.
Sometimes a more or less unknown artist is really better than a man
with a big reputation.'
  'They take some finding,' said Emma.
  Next day, when he came in, he contemplated her with a knowing
look, as if he had something up his sleeve, and at last, unable to
keep it back any longer, blurted out,
  'I say, how you do let your ideas run away with you, sometimes! Now,
I've been to Barfeucheres today. Well, Madame Liegeard assures me that
her three girls, who are at the Misericorde convent school, pay only
fifty sous a lesson for their music, and a first-rate mistress too.'
                                                          {28 ^paragraph 30}
  She shrugged her shoulders, and did not open the piano again.
  But whenever she went near it (if Bovary were in the room) she would
sigh,
  'Ah, my poor piano!'
  And when she had visitors she never omitted to tell them she had
given up her music, and could not now take it up again, because of
circumstances. And they would sympathize with her, and say what a pity
it was, seeing she had such a gift. They even spoke to Bovary about
it, saying it was really too bad of him, especially the chemist.
  'You're making a mistake. You should never let a natural gift lie
fallow. Besides, my friend, you should bear in mind that by
encouraging your wife to study now, you will be saving on your child's
musical education later on. In my opinion, children ought always to be
taught by their own mother. It's a theory of Rousseau's; perhaps
somewhat advanced, but it will come- I'm sure of that- like maternal
feeding and vaccination.'
                                                          {28 ^paragraph 35}
  So Charles again reverted to this piano question. Emma retorted
bitterly that they might as well sell it, for all the good it was. But
that this unfortunate piano, the possession of which had been for
her such a source of pride, should now take its departure- well, it
seemed to Bovary, somehow, as if she were loppin, off a part of
herself.
  'Well' he said, 'if you want a lesson now and again, it won't, after
all, be so very ruinous.'
  'Yes,' she replied, 'but it's no good having lessons unless you take
them regularly.'
  That was how she managed to get leave from her husband to go to
Rouen once a week to see her lover.
  At the end of a month she was considered to have made substantial
progress.

{29
                                  29
-
                  On the 'Hirondelle': Leon's room:
            The blind singer: Received, sixty-five francs:
                Pressing for money: Lheureux's bills:
                  Another Power of Attorney: Charles
                 seeks for Emma: Leon the bewitched.
                                                           {29 ^paragraph 5}
-
  THURSDAY was her day. She got up and dressed very quietly, so as not
to disturb Charles, who would no doubt have scolded her for getting
ready before the proper time. Then she walked up and down, up and
down, or took her stand at the window and looked out on to the Square.
The morning light came flooding in between the pillars of the
market-hall, and on the chemist's house, whose shutters were still
fast closed, the gilt letters of his sign glimmered softly in the glow
of dawn.
  As soon as the clock said a quarter past seven, she went across to
the Lion d'Or. Artemise came yawning to let her in. She unearthed
a few embers that lay buried under the ashes, and then Emma was left
alone in the kitchen. From time to time she would step out into the
yard. Hivert was putting to without any symptoms of undue haste,
lending an ear all the time to Mere Lefrancois, who, with her nightcap
on her head, was leaning out of the window bawling out orders and
directions so numerous and complicated that any other man would have
been completely dazed by them. Emma stood by, tapping the sole of
her boot impatiently on the cobbles.
  At last, when he had swallowed his soup, struggled into his heavy
coat, lit up his pipe and grasped his whip, he hoisted himself
slowly on to the box.
  The Hirondelle started off at an easy trot, and for the first
three miles or so kept stopping to pick up the travellers who were
standing waiting for its appearance by the roadside, just outside
their gates. Those who had booked seats over-night kept the
diligence waiting- some, indeed, were still indoors and in bed.
Hivert, having called and shouted, cursed and sworn, clambered down
from his seat to go and hammer vigorously at the door. A chilling
draught blew in through the ill-fitting windows of the diligence.
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 10}
  The four rows of seats filled up, the diligence rolled on, orchard
followed orchard in endless succession, and the road, between its
two long ditches full of yellow water, stretched away before them,
seeming to narrow in as it approached the skyline.
  Emma knew every inch of the way- knew that after a stretch of
grassland there came a mile-post, then an elm-tree, a barn or a
road-mender's hut. Sometimes, in order to give herself a surprise, she
would keep her eyes shut for a while; but she never lost the clear
idea of the exact distance she had to cover.
  At last the brick-built houses came in close succession, the road
rang hollow beneath the wheels, the Hirondelle glided along
between gardens in which, through an open gate, you could catch a
fleeting glimpse of a statue or a clipped yew or a swing. Then, of a
sudden, outspread before you, lay the city. Sloping down on every
side, all bathed in the mist, it stretched out far and wide beyond the
bridges, a confused medley of buildings, and yet farther still, the
open country beyond rose up, even and monotonous, till, in the far
distance, it touched the shadowy underline of the pale grey sky.
Looked at thus from a height, the whole scene appeared as motionless
as a picture. The ships at anchor thronged together in a corner; the
river coiled round about the green hills in a sweeping curve, and
the oval-shaped islands looked like great dark fish floating
motionless on the surface of the water. The chimney stacks of the
factories sent forth long plumes of dun-coloured smoke, that frayed
away into the wind at their extremities. The roaring of the
foundries mingled with airy chimes from the towers and steeples that
rose above the sea of mist. The leafless trees of the boulevards
looked like tufts of purple brushwood among the houses, and the roofs,
all glistening in the rain, flashed out a medley of sparkling lights
that varied with the height of the ground. Occasionally a gust of wind
would come and sweep the clouds towards the heights of Sainte
Catherine, like airy billows breaking soundlessly against a cliff.
  The thought of all these living beings crowded so densely
together, gave her a feeling of dizziness, and her bosom swelled
when she thought of them, as if the hundred and twenty thousand hearts
that throbbed there had assailed her all at once with the afflatus
of the passions which she dreamed must animate their hearts. Her
love seemed to wax greater as she drank in the spacious scene before
her, and her bosom surged with tumult as the vague murmur of the
city smote upon her ears. She poured it out again- this love, this
tumult- on the squares and the promenades and the streets, and the old
Norman city lay outspread beneath her gaze like some mighty
metropolis, some vast Babylon, within whose shadowy immensity she
was about to pass. She leaned upon her two hands and gazed out of
the window, sniffing in the breeze. The three horses were going
along at a canter, stones were scrunching in the mud, the diligence
rocked from side to side, and Hivert, from afar, shouted at the
traffic in front of him, what time the worthy citizens who had been
spending the night at Bois Guillaume were quietly descending the
hill in their little family conveyances.
  They pulled up at the city gates. Emma took off her goloshes, put on
another pair of gloves, adjusted her shawl and, twenty yards or so
further on, alighted from the Hirondelle.
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 15}
  The city was beginning to bestir itself. Shopmen were busy polishing
the fronts of their shops, and women, with paniers at their hips, were
crying their wares at every corner. She hastened along with downcast
eyes, hugging the wall, concealing a smile of joy beneath the long
dark veil that hid her features.
  For fear of being seen, she usually avoided the direct route,
plunging into the network of dim alley-ways, and when she reached
the bottom of the Rue Nationale, close by the fountain there, she
was in a bath of perspiration. It was the theatre quarter, the place
for drink-shops and the haunt of women of the town. Often a cart would
pass along, loaded up with a trembling pile of stage scenery.
Waiters in white aprons would be scattering sand on the pavement
between the tubs of evergreens, and the whole place would be reeking
of absinthe, cigars and oysters. She turned down a side street, and
yes, it was he! She knew him by his frizzy hair that came out under
his hat.
  Leon made no sign, but continued on his way. She kept behind him
until they came to the hotel. In and up the stairs he went, opened the
door of their room and entered; and then- what an embrace! And, when
the kisses were over, what a torrent of words! They spoke of all the
worries they had had during the week, their misgivings, their
anxiety about the letters. But there! it was all over now; and they
gazed at each other with little voluptuous gurglings of delight, and
words of tenderness and love.
  The bed was a big mahogany one in the form of a cradle. The curtains
were of red damask, and there was nothing so beautiful in the world as
her dark head and white skin against this crimson background when,
with a little bashful gesture, she put her naked arms together and hid
her face in her hands.
  The cosy room, with its noiseless carpet, its cheerful ornaments,
its tranquil light, seemed specially to lend itself to the
intimacies of passion. The curtain rods which terminated in
arrow-heads, the copper ewers and the big knobs of the andirons
gleamed brightly when the sun shone on them. On the chimney-piece,
between the candelabra, were two of those big pink shells which
sound like the sea when you hold them to your ear.
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 20}
  How they loved this dear old room, so full of gaiety, despite its
rather faded splendours! They always found everything in its
familiar place, and sometimes they would come across hairpins, which
she had left behind the Thursday before, hidden away beneath the
clock. They had their lunch by the fire on a little side-table. Emma
carved, putting the tit-bits on his plate with little arch,
kittenish gestures; and she laughed a loud rollicking laugh when the
champagne, frothing over the delicate glass rim, ran down about the
rings on her fingers. They were so completely wrapt up in each
other, so oblivious of the outer world, that it seemed like being in
their own house, and they dreamed they would continue to live there
always, eternal bridegroom and eternal bride, world without end.
They talked about 'our room', 'our carpet', 'our easy-chairs', she
even spoke of 'our slippers'. Leon had given them to her because she
had seen them and set her heart on them. They were pink satin
slippers, edged with swansdown. When she sat on his knee, her legs
were not long enough to touch the ground, and dangled in the air,
and the dainty slipper which had no heel to it only hung on by the big
toe to her naked foot.
  For the first time in his life he savoured the ineffable sweetness
of exquisite femininity. Never had he met with such charm of
utterance, such taste in dress, or beheld these postures of the sleepy
dove. He marvelled at the exaltation of her soul and at the lace on
her petticoat. And then, wasn't she a 'lady' and married? A real
mistress, in fact.
  By the diversity of her ways, wistful or gay, prattling or silent,
eager or careless, she never failed to exert her fascination,
awakening interests or stirring old memories. She was the heroine of
every novel, of every play, the vague ineffable she of every book of
poetry. He beheld about her shoulders the amber tresses of the
Odalisque bathing; she had the long waist of the medieval
chatelaines; she resembled, too, the Pale Woman of Barcelona; but
above all she was the Angel!
  Often as he gazed at her, it seemed to him as if his soul, taking
flight towards her, was diffused like a wave over the contour of her
head and descended willy-nilly into the whiteness of her bosom.
  He knelt on the ground before her; and with his two elbows on her
knees gazed at her with a smile, leaning his face towards her.
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 25}
  And she leaned down to him, and murmured, as though suffocated
with delight,
  'Oh, don't move! don't speak! Look at me! There is something in your
eyes so sweet that does me so much good.'
  And she called him 'child'.
  'Do you love me, child?'
  And she scarcely heard his reply, so wildly did he press his lips to
her mouth.
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 30}
  On the clock there was a little bronze Cupid, who was footing it and
smiling archly beneath a golden garland. They laughed at it several
times. But when it came to saying good-bye, the world and everything
grew serious.
  Motionless, standing face to face, they would say, over and over
again,
  'Good-bye till Thursday! Thursday!'
  Then suddenly she would seize his head in both her hands, kiss him
quickly on the forehead and, crying 'Adieu', dart down the staircase.
  She would go to a hairdresser's in the Rue de la Comedie to get
her hair put straight. It was getting dark, and they were lighting
up the gas in the shop. She heard the theatre bell summoning the
actors to their task, and across the street she saw pale-faced men
going by, and women in dowdy dresses, all making for the stage door.
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 35}
  It was hot in this little low-ceilinged room, where the stove was
hissing amid an array of wigs and pots of pomade. The smell of the
curling-tongs and the oily hands that manipulated her hair soon made
her feel sleepy, and she dozed off a little in her peignoir. Often the
assistant who was doing her hair would suggest she should take a
ticket for the dance.
  Then she would depart, make her way back along the streets and
arrive at the Croix Rouge. She would get out the pattens, which
she had hidden in the morning under one of the seats, and huddle up in
her place among the impatient travellers. Some of them got out at
the foot of the hill to walk. She sat on in the diligence alone.
  At every turn she saw more and more of the town with its lights,
which spread a wide sheet of luminous vapour above the medley of
houses. Emma knelt up on the cushions and let her eyes wander over the
dazzling scene. She sobbed, she called 'Leon' and sent him tender
speeches and kisses blown into space by the wind.
  There used to be a poor wretched beggar fellow, who went plodding
about with his stick right in the very thick of the traffic. A mass of
rags covered his shoulders and a battered old beaver, rounded like a
basin, hid his face from view. But when he withdrew it, he discovered,
in the place where his eyelids should have been, two gaping cavities
all filled with blood. The flesh hung down in red tatters, and liquids
oozing from it coagulated in green scabs as far as the nose, the black
nostrils of which snorted convulsively.
  To address you he flung back his head with a sort of idiot laugh,
and then his bluish pupils, rolling in a continuous movement,
settled themselves towards the temples, on the edge of the live wound.
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 40}
  He ran after you, singing a little ditty,
-
               Now skies are bright, the summer's here,
               A maiden thinks upon her dear.
-
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 45}
  And the rest of it was all about birds and sunshine and green
leaves.
  Sometimes he would start up behind Emma with his head uncovered. She
would shrink back with a cry. Hivert would ply him with chaff. He
would tell him to hire a booth at Saint Romain's fair, or ask him,
with a laugh, how his sweetheart was.
  Often, when the diligence had started off again, his hat would
suddenly be thrust in at the window. With his free arm he would hold
on to the step, getting splashed all over with mud from the wheels.
His voice, at first weak and quavery, would grow shrill and plaintive.
It trailed out in the darkness of the night like a wind-dispersed
lament, voicing a nameless sorrow; and as it rose above the tinkling
of the bells, the sound of the wind in the trees and the rumble of the
empty old caravan, there was a far-off sound about it that knocked
at Emma's heart. It went sheer down into the depths of her soul like a
whirlwind in a chasm, and bore her away among the spaces of an
illimitable melancholy. But Hivert, who noticed the vehicle was out of
trim, hit out at the blind man with his whip. The lash of it whipped
his sores, and he fell off howling into the mud.
  At last the passengers in the Hirondelle dropped off to sleep,
some with their mouths wide open, others with their chins on their
breasts, leaning against their neighbours' shoulders or lolling with
their arms through the strap, lurching from side to side with the
swaying of the vehicle; and the reflection of the lantern, which swung
to and fro outside, on the crupper of the shaft horses, penetrating
into the interior through the curtains of chocolate-coloured calico,
cast blood-red shadows on all these tranquil sleepers. Emma, drunk
with sadness, shivered in her wraps and felt her feet growing colder
and colder, and the chill of death in her soul.
  Charles was at home and waiting for her. The Hirondelle was always
late on Thursdays.
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 50}
  But at last Madame arrived. She hardly so much as kissed the
child. Dinner wasn't ready, but no matter. She made excuses for the
cook. It seemed, now, as if the girl could do no wrong.
  Often her husband, remarking how pale she was, asked her if she were
feeling ill.
  'No,' said Emma.
  'But,' he answered, 'you seem so strange tonight.'
  'Oh, no! It's nothing. I'm all right.'
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 55}
  On some days she had hardly got inside the house, when she went
straight up to her room, and Justin, who was there, would steal
silently about, more sedulous in her service than a well-drilled
chambermaid. He put the matches and the candlestick handy, and a
book for her to read; unfolded her nightdress, turned down the
bedclothes.
  'There,' she said, 'that will do; now run along!'
  For he kept standing there, his hands drooping and his eyes staring,
as though enmeshed in the mazy threads of a sudden day-dream.
  The next day was a terrible one for her, and the following one still
more insufferable, so great was her impatience to taste her bliss
again; an eager lust, inflamed with familiar images, which, on the
seventh day, burst forth without restraint in Leon's caresses. His own
ardours hid themselves under expressions of wonderment and
gratitude. Emma enjoyed this love in a discreet and absorbed, fashion,
nourished it by all the artifices of her tenderness, trembling a
little lest it should some day die away.
  Often she would say to him, with little, gentle modulations of sweet
melancholy in her voice,
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 60}
  'Ah, you will leave me, you will! You will go and get married; you
will be like the other men.'
  'What other men?' he asked.
  'Why, men in general,' she replied; then she added, pushing him away
with a gesture of weariness, 'You are wicked wretches, all of you.'
  One day when they were having a philosophical discussion about
life and its disillusions, she happened to say (either to see if he
would be jealous or because the desire to unburden herself was too
strong to resist) that in days gone by, before she knew him, she had
loved a man. 'Oh, not like you,' she interjected quickly, swearing
by the head of her child that 'nothing had ever happened'.
  Leon believed her. All the same, he wanted to know what sort of a
man it was.
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 65}
  'He was a captain in the Navy, dear.'
  Wasn't that a good way to stave off all inquiries, and at the same
time to put herself up on a higher pedestal as being a woman to
exert a fascination on one who, from the nature of the case, was bound
to be a man of intrepid spirit and the cynosure of women's eyes?
  Thereupon the clerk felt very small indeed. He entertained a huge
envy of men who could sport epaulettes and decorations, men with a
handle to their names. Things of that kind were bound to impress
her; that much he deduced from her extravagant habits.
  However, a great many of her expensive ideas she kept to herself.
For example, she never said anything about her longing to have a smart
blue tilbury to take her to Rouen, with an English horse and a groom
in top-boots. It was Justin who had put the idea into her head,
imploring her to take him into her service as footman. And if doing
without the tilbury did not diminish the joys of the arrival, it
unquestionably augmented the sorrows of the departure.
  Often, when they were talking about Paris, she would end up by
saying,
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 70}
  'Ah, how splendid it would be if only we could live there!'
  'But aren't we happy where we are?' Leon would answer, softly
stroking her head.
  'Oh, yes, of course,' she said; 'it's only my fun; kiss me!'
  She was more attentive to her husband than ever. She made him little
dainties and played him waltz-tunes after dinner. He came to look upon
himself as the happiest of mortals, and Emma's mind was completely
at rest when, all of a sudden, one evening, he said,
  'It's Mademoiselle Lempereur, isn't it, who's giving you lessons?'
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 75}
  'Yes.'
  'Well, I met her a little while ago at Madame Liegeard's. I
mentioned your name to her, but she doesn't know you.'
  This was a regular thunderbolt! However, she answered in quite a
natural tone,
  'Oh, well, she's no doubt forgotten my name.'
  'Besides,' said the doctor, 'there are, quite possibly, several
ladies of that name at Rouen who teach music.'
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 80}
  'Yes, quite likely. But wait!' she added, as if she had suddenly
thought of something. 'I've got her receipts. Look, here they are.'
She got up and went over to the secretaire, rummaged about in the
drawers, tumbled the papers over and over, and finally got in such a
muddle that Charles implored her not to bother any more about the
wretched things.
  'Oh, but I will find them!' she said.
  And sure enough, the following Friday, when Charles was pulling on
one of his boots in the closet where his clothes were stowed, he
felt a piece of paper between the leather and his sock. He pulled it
out and read,
  'Received for three months' tuition, and sundries supplied, the
sum of sixty-five francs. Felicie Lempereur, teacher of music.'
  'How the devil could it have got into my boot?'
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 85}
  'It must have fallen out of the old filing-box on the edge of the
shelf.'
  From that moment her whole existence was nothing but a maze of lies,
in which she enveloped her liaison as in a veil, in order to hide it
from the world.
  Lying became a necessity with her, a mania, a pastime; so much so
that if she said she had walked down a street on the right, it was
necessary to understand that she had actually walked down it on the
left.
  One morning, just after she had started, rather lightly clad as
usual, it suddenly came on to snow. Charles, standing at the window
looking out at the weather, saw the Abbe Bournisien in Monsieur
Tuvache's trap, in which he was getting a lift to Rouen.
  Whereupon he ran down with a thick shawl, and gave it to the priest,
asking him to hand it to Madame when he got to the Croix Rouge. No
sooner had he arrived at the inn than he asked for the doctor's wife
at Yonville. The landlady replied that she very seldom came to her
establishment. And so, that night, recognizing Madame Bovary in the
Hirondelle, the cure told her of the fix he had been in,
without, however, attaching much importance to it, for he at once
began to sing the praises of some preacher who was doing wonders at
the Cathedral and whom all the ladies were flocking to hear.
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 90}
  But that wasn't the point. If he didn't ask awkward questions, other
people, later on, might be more inquisitive. So she thought it as well
to put up regularly at the Croix Rouge in order that any worthies
from her village who might see her on the stairs wouldn't think
anything more about it.
  One day, however, Monsieur Lheureux ran into her as she was coming
out of the Hotel de Boulogne on Leon's arm; it gave her a shock, for
she thought he was bound to spread it abroad. He wasn't such a fool.
But three days later he came into her room, shut the door behind him
and said,
  'I could do with a bit of money.'
  She declared she couldn't let him have any. Lheureux made a great
song about it, and reminded her how accommodating he had always been.
  As a matter of fact, of the two bills to which Charles had put his
signature, Emma had up to now only cleared off one. As for the second,
Lheureux, at her urgent request, had replaced it by two others which
themselves had been dated a long way ahead. Then he pulled out of
his pocket a formidable statement of goods not paid for- namely, the
curtains, the carpet, material for covering the chairs, several
dresses and sundry toilet requisites, amounting in all to a total of a
couple of thousand francs.
                                                          {29 ^paragraph 95}
  She drooped her head.
  'But if you haven't got cash, you've got property,' and he mentioned
a tumble-down place at Barneville near Aumale which didn't bring in
much rent. It had formerly belonged to a little farm sold by
Monsieur Bovary, senior, for Lheureux was up in the whole thing,
knew the exact acreage and the names of all the adjoining tenants.
  'If I were you,' he said, 'I should pay off my debts, and there
would still be some money over.'
  She said the difficulty would be to find a buyer. He held out
hopes of finding one; but suppose he did, how, she asked, was she
going to sell?
  'What about the Power of Attorney?' he replied.
                                                         {29 ^paragraph 100}
  It was like a breath of fresh air. 'Leave me the bill,' said Emma.
  'Oh, no. Never mind about that!' answered Lheureux.
  He came back the following week, and patted himself on the back
for having managed, after a lot of trouble, to put his hand on a
buyer, a man called Langlois, who had long had an eye on the property,
though he never mentioned a price.
  'Oh, bother the price!' she exclaimed.
  Ah, no! They would have to go easy, and sound the fellow a bit.
The thing was worth a journey, and as she couldn't manage it
herself, he offered to go and talk it over with Langlois. As soon as
he got back, he said that the purchaser suggested four thousand
francs.
                                                         {29 ^paragraph 105}
  Emma was radiant.
  'I don't mind telling you,' he added, 'it's not a bad price.'
  She drew half the sum straight away.
  'Upon my word of honour,' said Lheureux, as she was proceeding to
pay up his bill, 'I'm really sorry to see you parting with such a
lot of money.'
  She gave another glance at the notes, and thought of all the
meetings those two thousand francs would pay for.
                                                         {29 ^paragraph 110}
  'But what do you... w-what...?' she stammered
  'Oh,' he broke in with a genial laugh, 'you can stick down
anything you like on an invoice. D'you think I don't know how these
things are wangled?'
  And he looked at her steadily holding two long papers in his hand
and drawing them slowly through his fingers. Finally, opening his
pocket-case, he put down four promissory notes, each for a thousand
francs.
  'Sign these,' he said, 'and keep the lot.'
  She uttered a little horrified cry.
                                                         {29 ^paragraph 115}
  'But if I give you what's over,' said Lheureux impudently, 'aren't I
doing you a good turn?'
  And taking up a pen he wrote at the bottom of the account, 'Received
of Madame Bovary, four thousand francs'.
  'But what are you worrying about? In six months' time you'll get the
balance on your old shanty, and I am not making the last bill due till
after you will have had the money!'
  Emma was getting a little muddled in her calculations, and there was
a sound in her ears as if a host of golden coins, bursting their bags,
were jingling round her on the floor. Then Lheureux explained that
he had a banker friend at Rouen called Vincart, who would discount the
bills, and he himself would hand Madame the net amount left over,
after everything had been paid up.
  But instead of two thousand francs, he only brought her eighteen
hundred, for his friend Vincart (as was right and proper) had deducted
two hundred for commission and discount charges.
                                                         {29 ^paragraph 120}
  Then, quite casually, he asked for a receipt.
  'You know what things are... in business... sometimes.... And now
the date, if you please; just add the date.'
  A vista of all kinds of tangible delights presented itself to Emma's
gaze. She was prudent enough to put aside a thousand crowns to pay off
the first three bills when they fell due. But the fourth, as luck
would have it, landed in the house on a Thursday. Charles, quite
flabbergasted, decided he must wait patiently for his wife to come
back and explain matters.
  Oh, the reason she hadn't said anything about this bill was that she
didn't want to worry him with household affairs. She sat on his
knee, put her arms round his neck and cooed, and enumerated, at
great length, all the absolutely indispensable things she had been
obliged to get on credit.
  'Anyhow, you must agree that, considering the quantity of things,
it's not such a vast amount of money.'
                                                         {29 ^paragraph 125}
  Charles, who didn't know what to do, soon betook himself to the
one and only Lheureux, who guaranteed to keep things quiet if
Charles would just sign a couple of bills, one of which was for
seven hundred francs payable at three months. To make provision for
this he wrote a pathetic letter to his mother. Instead of answering by
post she came herself; and when Emma asked if he had got anything
out of her, he said, 'Yes, but she insists on seeing the account'.
  Next morning, the very first thing, Emma rushed across to Monsieur
Lheureux to ask him to make out another account for an amount not
exceeding a thousand francs; for if she were to produce the one for
four thousand, she would have to say that she had paid the first
three, and therefore let out that she had sold the property. That
bit of business had been skilfully put through by Lheureux, and did
not come out until later.
  In spite of the low prices of the various items, Madame Bovary
senior considered that the expenditure was a great deal too lavish.
  'Couldn't you have done without a carpet? What did you want with new
chair-covers? In my day there was just one easy-chair in a house,
for the old people- at any rate, that's how it was at my mother's, and
she was a woman that was looked up to, let me tell you. Everybody
can't be rich. However much you've got, it all goes sooner or later,
if there's a leakage. I should be ashamed to pamper myself as you
do, and I'm an old woman and need taking care of. And look here,
'altering this, and adjusting that'. All sorts of fallals and
falbalas! What! silk for lining at two francs a yard, when you can get
stuff that does equally well for eight or ten sous?'
  Emma, reclining on the sofa, replied, as calmly as possible, 'There,
Madame, that'll do, that'll do!'
                                                         {29 ^paragraph 130}
  But the old lady went on lecturing her, saying they would finish
up in the workhouse. But it was really Bovary's fault. It was a good
thing he had promised to cancel that Power of Attorney.
  'What?'
  'Yes, he gave me his word he would,' said the old lady.
  Emma opened the window, shouted to Charles to come in, and the
poor man had to confess that such a promise had, in fact, been wrung
from him by his mother.
  Emma disappeared. She soon returned with a document, which she
held out to her with great dignity.
                                                         {29 ^paragraph 135}
  'Thank you,' said the old woman, and threw it on the fire.
  Emma burst out laughing, a loud, strident laugh that she could not
stop. She went off into hysterics.
  'Oh, my God!' cried Charles. 'And you're in the wrong just as much
as she is- going for her and making a scene like that!' His mother
shrugged her shoulders and said it was all play-acting. For the
first time in his life Charles rebelled and stuck up for his wife.
Madame Bovary, senior, said she wouldn't stay in the house another
day, and took her departure the very next morning. When she was on the
doorstep and he was trying to keep her back, she answered him, saying,
  'No! no! You love her more than you do me. You're right. It's only
right and proper you should. However, it'll be a bad job of it, as
you'll see one of these days. Wish you well- for you won't find me
coming back here in a hurry "making scenes", as you call it.'
  None the less Charles felt very guilty and abashed before Emma,
who did not conceal her annoyance at his lack of trust in her. He
had to do a deal of begging and praying before he could prevail on her
to resume her office of attorney. He even went with her himself to
Monsieur Guillaumin's in order to have another deed drawn up on
precisely similar lines to the old one.
                                                         {29 ^paragraph 140}
  'I can quite understand,' said the notary, 'a man of science
cannot be bothered with the practical details of everyday life.'
  Charles felt soothed at this comforting reflection. It gave his
weakness the flattering appearance of absorption in things
intellectual.
  What a scene of excitement the Thursday afterwards, when she was
alone again with Leon in their room at the hotel! She laughed, she
cried, she sang, she danced, she sent down for cocktails, she insisted
on smoking cigarettes, and generally behaved like a wild thing. Yet he
could not help thinking how splendid, how adorable she was. He did not
understand the complete reaction which made her more than ever
determined to drink life to the lees. She became irritable, fond of
rich food and every sort of sensual gratification. She walked about
with him brazenly in the street, head up, without a tremor. Sometimes,
however, she felt a qualm at the possibility of meeting Rodolphe;
for although they had parted for ever it seemed to her that she still,
somehow or other, belonged to him. One night she didn't come home at
all. Charles went nearly off his head, and little Berthe, who wouldn't
go to bed without her mummy, was sobbing her heart out. Justin had
gone out to see if there was any sign of her along the road. The
crisis had even brought out Monsieur Homais from his pharmacy.
  At last, at eleven o'clock, Charles, unable to bear the suspense any
longer, put the horse in the trap, jumped in, and driving as hard as
he could, arrived at the Croix Rouge about two in the morning. She
wasn't there! He thought perhaps Leon might have seen her; but,
then, where did Leon live? Fortunately Charles remembered the
address of his employer. He rushed off there.
  It was beginning to get light. He could make out a name-plate over a
door. He knocked. Someone shouted the information he wanted from
inside, not without some strong remarks about the iniquity of
disturbing people at that time of night.
                                                         {29 ^paragraph 145}
  The house where the clerk lived had no bell, door-knocker or porter.
Charles banged hard with his fist against the shutters, but a
policeman heaving in sight, he got nervous and made off.
  'I'm mad,' he said to himself. 'No doubt the Lormaux kept her to
dinner.' But then the Lormaux family were no longer in Rouen.
  'She stopped to look after Madame Dubreuil.' But no, Madame Dubreuil
died ten months ago. Where could she be, then?
  He had an inspiration. He went to a cafe and asked for a
directory. He quickly turned up the name of Mademoiselle Lempereur,
and found that she lived at No. 74 Rue de la Renelle des Maroquiniers.
  Just as he was turning into this street, Emma herself appeared
from the other end of it. He didn't embrace her; he flung himself upon
her.
                                                         {29 ^paragraph 150}
  'Where on earth have you been?' he cried.
  'I wasn't well.'
  'What was the matter?... Where?... How?...'
  She drew her hand across her forehead and said,
  'At Mademoiselle Lempereur's.'
                                                         {29 ^paragraph 155}
  'I thought as much. I was just on my way there.'
  'Oh, well, never mind now,' said Emma. 'She hasn't been gone out
many minutes. But in future don't get so nervy. I shall feel so
dreadfully tied down if little delays like this are going to worry you
so.'
  It was a way of getting a free hand to do as she liked on her little
escapades. And she made the very most of it. Whenever she took it into
her head she wanted to see Leon, she trumped up some pretext, and away
she went; and as he wasn't expecting her, she would go to his office
to rout him out.
  The first time or two it was splendid; but before long he had to
tell the truth, which was that his chief didn't at all approve of
these interferences with business.
  'Oh, rubbish! Come along!' she replied.
                                                         {29 ^paragraph 160}
  And out he slipped.
  She wanted him to dress entirely in black and to grow a little
pointed beard so as to look like the portraits of Louis XIII. She
asked to see his lodgings, and thought them rather mean. He went
very red, but she did not notice him, and said he ought to get some
curtains like hers. When he spoke of the expense she said,
  'Ah, ha! you're the boy for the money, aren't you now?'
  She would insist on making Leon tell her everything he had done
since their last meeting. She wanted him to write some poetry in her
honour, a love piece. Alas! he could never find a rhyme for the second
line and ended by copying out a sonnet in an autograph album.
  This was done not out of vanity, but merely to please her. He
never argued with her about her ideas; he never disagreed with her
tastes. He was much more of a mistress to her than she to him. She
said wonderful, loving things to him and gave him kisses that nearly
drew the soul from his body. Where had she been schooled in such
corruption, that seemed almost sanctified by its profundity, and the
perfection of her dissimulation?

{30
                                  30
-
         Monsieur Homais at Rouen: The connoisseur in women:
       An unfulfilled engagement: The summons: Ways and means:
                  Leon's resolution: After the ball:
                       Lheureux shows his hand.
-
                                                           {30 ^paragraph 5}
  IN the journeys he had made to see Emma, Leon had so often dined
at the chemist's that he thought it was only decent to invite him
back.
  'I should enjoy it immensely,' Monsieur Homais replied. 'Besides,
it's about time I had a bit of a fling; I'm getting a regular fossil
in this place. We'll go to the theatre and the restaurants, and have a
rare old time.'
  'But, my dear,' murmured Madame Homais, in a tone of fond
expostulation, terrified at the vague perils he was proposing to
incur.
  'Well, what about it? You seem to imagine that I don't do enough
damage to my health by living among the continual emanations of my
pharmacy. Well, that's women all over. They are jealous of Science,
and then set themselves against the most legitimate recreations. Never
mind! Trust me! I shall turn up one of these days at Rouen and we'll
make the dibs fly, you and I.'
  There was a time when the apothecary would never have thought of
using such an expression; but just now he was doing 'the dashing
Parisian' sort of thing. He thought it the best of form; and like
his neighbour, Madame Bovary, he was very anxious for the clerk to
tell him how people went on in the capital and was falling into the
habit of using all sorts of slang expressions.
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 10}
  So one Thursday Emma was surprised to encounter Monsieur Homais
dressed all ready for a journey, in the kitchen of the Lion d'Or-
that is to say, muffled up in an old ulster that no one knew he
possessed, with a portmanteau in one hand and the domestic foot-muff
in the other. He hadn't told anybody of his intentions, lest his
absence should create a feeling of uneasiness in the public mind.
  The idea of revisiting the scenes where he had spent his young
days doubtless rather excited him, for he didn't stop talking the
whole way. And no sooner had they arrived, than he jumped out of the
vehicle and set off in search of Leon. It was useless for the latter
to try to get out of it. Monsieur Homais dragged him off to the big
Cafe de la Normandie, which he entered with pride in his port and
his hat on his head, for he held it very 'provincial' to uncover in
a public place.
  Emma waited for Leon a good three-quarters of an hour. At last she
rushed off to his office and, lost in all sorts of conjectures,
reproaching him with indifference and herself with weakness, she spent
the afternoon with her face glued to the window.
  It was two o'clock, and there they were, Leon and Homais, still
seated at table facing one another. The big dining-room was getting
empty. The pipe of the heating stove, shaped like a palm tree,
spread its gilded crest against the white ceiling, and near them,
outside the glazed partition, in the full light of the sun a little
fountain was playing in a marble basin, where, amid cress and
asparagus, three lethargic lobsters stretched their claws across
towards some quails that lay piled up in a heap at the side.
  Homais was having a rare time. Although luxury inebriated him more
than high living, the Pommard imparted a certain stimulus to his
faculties, and when the rum omelette made its appearance, he
propounded immoral views about women. What appealed to him more than
anything was smartness. He simply adored a daintily dressed woman in
tasteful surroundings, and as for the physical part of it, well,
that was not without its charm.
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 15}
  Leon glanced desperately at the clock. The apothecary went on
eating, drinking and talking.
  'You ought to be pretty snug here in Rouen. And then your little
woman isn't a great way off.'
  Seeing the young man turn red, he added,
  'Come on, now! Own up! You're not going to tell me that at
Yonville...'
  Leon stammered something or other.
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 20}
  'At Madame Bovary's, you weren't after...'
  'Who?'
  'Why, the servant!'
  He wasn't joking. But, vanity ousting caution, Leon involuntarily
protested. Besides, he said, he only liked dark women.
  'I'm with you,' said the chemist: 'they've got more temperament.'
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 25}
  And, leaning over the table, he whispered into Leon's ear the
signs by which you could tell where a woman had temperament or not,
and forthwith he launched out into an elaborate ethnological
disquisition. German women were sentimental, French women
licentious, Italian women passionate.
  'What about black women?' asked the clerk.
  'Ah, they're an acquired taste!' said Homais. 'Waiter- two small
blacks!'
  'Shall we be off now?' said Leon at last, impatiently.
  'Si, signor.'
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 30}
  But before going, he would insist on seeing the proprietor of the
establishment and offering him his congratulations.
  Then the clerk, in order to shake him off, said that he had a
business appointment.
  'Right!' said Homais. 'I'll come with you.'
  And all the time they were going along the streets he babbled on
about his wife, his children, what he was going to do with them and
his business later on; told him how it had been let down when he
acquired it, and how wonderfully he had worked it up since.
  When they reached the Boulogne, Leon said a hurried good-bye, shot
upstairs, and found his mistress in a state of great perturbation.
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 35}
  When he mentioned the chemist, she flew into a rage. Leon put the
whole case before her; said it wasn't his fault. She knew what
Homais was like! Surely she knew he would rather have been with her
than with him.
  But she turned away. He pulled her back, and, sinking down on his
knees, flung both his arms about her, gazing up at her, longingly,
beseechingly.
  She was standing bolt upright. With big flaming eyes she looked down
on him with a severe, almost terrible expression. Then tears came
and made a mist in them, her shell-like eyelids drooped, she
surrendered her hands, and Leon was just putting them to his lips,
when a waiter came up to tell Monsieur he was wanted.
  'You'll come back?' she said.
  'Yes.'
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 40}
  'When?'
  'In a minute or two.'
  'Just a bit of bunk,' said the chemist, as soon as he saw Leon. 'I
thought I would interrupt this visit, as you seemed so sick about
it. Come round to Bridoux's now and have a glass of zoedone.'
  Leon swore he was due back at his office, whereupon the apothecary
began twitting him about routine and red-tape.
  'Let Cujas and Barthole go hang for an hour or two. What the devil
does it matter? Who's to prevent you? Be a pal! Come along to
Bridoux's. You'll see his dog. It's worth seeing.'
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 45}
  But as the clerk still held out, he said,
  'All right, then, I'll come too. I can read the paper while I'm
waiting for you, or have a look at one of your law-books.'
  Leon, dazed by Emma's outburst and Homais's volubility, and possibly
a little incommoded by his generous lunch, stood hesitating and
helpless, as though the chemist had mesmerized him.
  'Come on! Come round to Bridoux's. It's only a step or two down
the Rue Malpalu.'
  And so, from sheer weakness, crass stupidity, and that mysterious
influence which compels us, willy-nilly, to do the very things we
are least inclined to do, he allowed himself to be dragged off to
Bridoux's. They found him out in his little yard keeping a watchful
eye on three assistants who were turning with all their might at a
great wheel belonging to a seltzer-water machine. Homais put them up
to a wheeze or two. He embraced Bridoux; they had some zoedone. Leon
was all the time itching to be off; but his companion caught hold of
his arm, saying,
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 50}
  'Half a minute! I'm coming. We'll go round to the Fanal de Rouen
and have a look at those worthies. I'll introduce you to Thomassin.'
  However, he shook him off and tore back to the hotel. Emma had gone!
  She had just left, in a terrible rage. She hated him now. His
failure to keep his appointment seemed to her insulting, and she
thought, or tried to think, of other reasons for leaving him. There
was not an atom of manliness about him. He was weak, commonplace,
softer than a woman. More than that, he was miserly and mean-spirited.
  After a while she cooled down, and finally came to the conclusion
that she had done him an injustice. But vilifying the people we love
tends inevitably to estrange us from them. We should never touch our
idols. Some of the gilt always comes off on our fingers.
  They reached the stage of talking with growing frequency about
things extraneous to their love. In her letters to him, Emma would
bring in remarks about flowers, poetry, the moon and the stars,
artless shifts of an expiring passion pathetically seeking some
external aid to renew its fading vigour. She was always telling
herself that, next time, it would all be beautiful again; and when
that next time came, she had to confess that she felt nothing very
much out of the ordinary. Yet that disappointment, in turn, swiftly
disappeared under the influence of new hope, and Emma came to him
again more ardent and more famishing than ever. She ripped off her
clothes without any beating about the bush, tearing asunder her
stay-laces, that hissed like vipers about her hips. She tiptoed
bare-footed to the door, to make sure that it was locked; then, with a
single movement, she let all her clothes fall to her feet at once; and
pale, speechless, with drawn features, she flung herself upon his
bosom, shuddering from head to foot.
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 55}
  Nevertheless, on this cold brow, on these stammering lips, in
those distracted eyes, in those arms' embrace, there was something
desperate, something vaguely mournful, which seemed to Leon subtly
to insinuate itself between them, as though to rive them asunder.
  He did not dare to question her, but, seeing how deeply versed she
was in the things of love, he told himself she must have passed
through every phase of suffering and pleasure. Things that used to
charm him, scared him a little, now. And then, again, he rebelled
against this daily increasing absorption of his personality. He
begrudged Emma this unvarying victory. He went the length of trying to
cast out his affection for her, and then, at the sound of her step, he
would feel himself wilting, like a drunkard at the sight of the
bottle.
  True, she did not fail to lavish all manner of attentions upon
him, from dainty food to alluring dress and seductive glances. She
brought roses for him in her bosom from Yonville and tossed them in
his face.
  She expressed solicitude for his health, admonished him regarding
his behaviour and, in order to keep him closer to her, hoping to
enlist heaven's aid in her behalf, she hung a medal of the Virgin
about his neck. She asked him about his friends, like a virtuous
mother, saying,
  'Don't see them, don't go out- think only of ourselves, of you and
me; oh, love me!'
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 60}
  She would have liked to keep watch over all his doings, and the idea
did occur to her to have him followed. There was a man who was for
ever hanging about the hotel, a sort of loafer who was always offering
to do odd jobs for the travellers, and he would certainly be
willing... but her pride revolted at the thought.
  'Oh, well, if he deceives me, he does, that's all; what does it
matter? What do I care?'
  One day when they had said good-bye at an early hour, and she was
going back alone along the boulevard, her eye lighted on the walls
of her convent, and she sat down on a seat beneath the shade of the
elms. How quiet and peaceful those days had been! How she wished she
could recapture those visions of ideal love with which the books she
read had inspired her! Her early married days, her rides in the
forest, the Vicomte at the ball, Lagardy singing- it all came back
to her again. And now Leon seemed just as remote as the rest of them.
  'And yet,' she told herself, 'I love him.'
  Nevertheless, she was not happy, and never had been. How was it,
then, that there was this emptiness in life? How was it that
whatever she leaned against straightway began to crumble into dust?
Oh, but if somewhere there breathed a being brave and handsome, a
man of power and resolution, one whose nature was wrought of sweetness
and strength, a man with the heart of a poet and the form of an angel,
a lyre with brazen strings, sounding his bridal songs of triumph and
of pain beneath the echoing vault of heaven, why, peradventure, should
she not meet him? What a hopeless dream! Wherefore should she seek the
undiscoverable? Everything rang false, everything was a lie, every
smile concealed a yawn of boredom; every joy, a curse. Nor was there
any pleasure but brought satiety in its train, and every kiss, were it
never so sweet, never so passionate, would but leave upon the lips a
longing for some bliss that should be greater still.
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 65}
  A metallic rattling sound was borne upon the air, and the convent
clock struck four. Four o'clock! It seemed an eternity that she had
been there, sitting on that seat. But a universe of passion may be
crammed into a moment, even as a crowd may be hemmed into a little
space.
  Emma lived in the contemplation of her passions, and recked no
more of money matters than an archduchess.
  One day, however, an obsequious-looking person, red-faced and
bald, introduced himself at her house and explained that he had called
on behalf of Monsieur Vincart of Rouen. He pulled out the pins that
fastened the side pocket of his long green overcoat, stuck them into
his sleeve, and politely handed her a paper.
  It was a bill for seven hundred francs, bearing her signature, which
Lheureux, despite his undertakings to the contrary, had passed on to
Vincart.
  She sent the servant to fetch him. He was busy and could not come.
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 70}
  Thereupon the stranger, who had remained standing, casting about him
right and left inquisitive glances which his light bushy eyebrows
hid from view, inquired, with an innocent air, what reply he should
convey to Monsieur Vincart.
  'Well,' said Emma, 'tell him I haven't got it.... It'll have to be
next week.... Ask him to wait.... Yes, next week, tell him.'
  The worthy departed without another word.
  But next day, at noon, a process was served on her, and the sight of
the paper with the Government stamp on it, with the name 'Maitre
Hareng, Bailiff at Buchy,' sprawled all over it in big letters, gave
her such a fright that she tore off without a moment's delay to the
draper's.
  She found him in his shop, tying up a big parcel.
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 75}
  'What can Madame's humble servant do for her today?' he blandly
inquired. Nevertheless, he went on with what he was doing. He was
assisted by a girl of thirteen or thereabouts, rather hump-backed, who
united the dual functions of shop-girl and cook.
  At length, stumping along the floor of the shop in his wooden
sabots, he showed Madame upstairs, and conducted her into a poky
little office, where, on a big deal desk behind a padlocked grating,
stood some books that looked like registers. Against the wall,
underneath some muslin hangings, was discernible an iron safe,
which, from its dimensions, was clearly intended to hold other
things besides money and bank-notes. Monsieur Lheureux was, if the
truth must be told, a pawnbroker, and it was in this same safe that he
had placed Madame Bovary's gold chain along with Tellier's earrings.
That poor old fellow, having at last been compelled to sell up, had
bought a poverty-stricken little grocer's store at Quincampoix,
where he was slowly dying of asthma, surrounded by tallow candles that
were not so yellow as his face.
  'What's up now?' said Lheureux, seating himself in his big wicker
arm-chair.
  'Look at that.'
  And she showed him the paper.
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 80}
  'Well, what can I do?'
  This put her in a towering rage. Hadn't he promised on his word of
honour not to negotiate her bills? He agreed that he had, but added,
  'You see, I had no option. I'd the knife at my throat.'
  'What's going to happen now?'
  'Oh, I'll tell you what'll happen, right enough. Judgement
summons, broker's man! It's all up.'
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 85}
  Though Emma had all she could do to keep from hitting him, she asked
him sweetly whether there was anything she could do to keep Vincart
quiet.
  'Oh, my eye! Keep Vincart quiet! You don't know much about him,
that's plain. Why, he's blood-thirstier than an Arab!'
  Nevertheless, Monsieur Lheureux really would have to do something in
the matter.
  'Now, look here, I think I've been pretty decent to you up to now!
Look at this,' he went on, opening one of his registers. 'Look,'
running his finger up the page. 'Here... and again, here... 3rd
August, two hundred francs... 17th June, a hundred and fifty... 23rd
March, forty-six. In April...' He stopped, as though he were afraid of
what he might be tempted to say.
  'I'm not including the bills signed by the Doctor, one for seven
hundred and another for three. As for your little payments on account,
for interest, it's all such a hopeless tangle, I don't know where we
are. Anyhow, I'll have no more of it, and that's flat!'
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 90}
  She wept, she even called him 'kind Monsieur Lheureux,' but he
always harked back on 'that hound of a Vincart'. Besides, he hadn't
a farthing. No one was paying him now; they were taking the very shirt
off his back; a poor shopkeeper like him couldn't go advancing money.
  Emma said no more; and Monsieur Lheureux, chewing the feather of his
quill, was evidently disconcerted at her silence, for he went on,
  'Of course if I did manage to get some money in, one of these
days... I could...'
  'Besides,' she said, 'as soon as the Barneville money comes...'
  'Eh! What's that?'
                                                          {30 ^paragraph 95}
  And hearing that Langlois had not paid up, he betrayed great
surprise. Then he went on, silkily,
  'And as to terms, we agree...?'
  'Oh, any terms you like!'
  He shut his eyes to collect his ideas, jotted down a few figures,
and, declaring that it would put him in the most terrible straits,
that it was the very devil of a business, and that he was being bled
white, he said he would give her four notes for two hundred and
fifty francs each, falling due at intervals of one month.
  'I only hope Vincart won't cut up rough. Anyhow, there you are. No
beating about the bush with me. I'm fair, square and aboveboard with
everyone!'
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 100}
  After that he casually showed her some new goods he had got in,
but none of the stuff, in his opinion, was good enough for Madame.
  'Here, now, is some dress material at seven sous a yard,
guaranteed fast colours. There's a pretty fairy-tale for you! And
yet they lap it up like milk. Of course it's all my eye!'
  He thought, by thus avowing his dishonesty towards others, to
reinforce her confidence in himself.
  Then he called her back to look at three ells of lace he had just
picked up at a sale.
  'Isn't it lovely?' said Lheureux. 'People are using it a lot just
now for antimacassars. It's all the go.'
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 105}
  And with the deftness of a juggler, he rolled up the lace in a bit
of blue paper and whipped it into Emma's hands.
  'But, really, you must let me know how...'
  'Oh, that's all right; any time!' he answered, turning on his heel.
  That same evening she urged Bovary to write to his mother, telling
her to send on the outstanding balance at the earliest possible
moment. She replied that there was nothing more to come at present.
Everything had been settled up, and, over and above Barneville,
there were six hundred francs interest due to them, which she would
punctually hand over as and when she received it.
  Then Madame sent out two or three bills; and, this plan proving
productive, she employed it on a large scale. She never omitted to add
a postscript saying, 'Do not mention this to my husband; you know
how tenacious he is.... I'm sure you will forgive me.' Sometimes the
bills were disputed. She intercepted the letters.
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 110}
  As a means of getting a little ready cash, she started selling her
old gloves, old hats, and any old iron and lumber she could lay
hands on. And they didn't get any change out of her. The peasant
strain in her taught her how to strike a bargain. And whenever she
went into Rouen, she did a deal or two in knick-knacks, things that
Monsieur Lheureux would be sure to take off her hands, if no one
else did. She bought ostrich feathers, Chinese pottery and wooden
chests. She borrowed money of Felicite, Madame Lefrancois, the
landlady of the Croix Rouge- of anyone and everyone.
  With the money she finally received from Barneville she paid off two
of the bills, and the other fifteen hundred francs melted away
somehow. Then she involved herself anew; and so it went on.
  Sometimes, it is true, she sat down and tried to find out how she
stood; but the figures were so colossal, she couldn't believe them.
Then she would try again, get in a hopeless muddle, thrust it all
aside and dismiss the matter from her mind.
  The house was anything but a happy one now. Tradesmen came away from
it with indignant looks. Dirty handkerchiefs were left lying about
here, there and everywhere, and little Berthe, to Madame Homais's
great disgust, went about with great holes in her stockings. If
Charles ventured on a timid remonstrance she would blurt out that it
wasn't her fault, she couldn't help it.
  Why did she have these outbreaks? He put it down to the old nerve
trouble, and, reproaching himself for blaming her for things that were
really due to her ill-health, he told himself he was a selfish
brute, and felt that he must run and kiss her. And then he reflected,
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 115}
  'Oh, no! I should only vex her!'
  So he stopped where he was.
  After dinner he would go out and stroll about the garden. He would
take little Berthe on his knee and, unfolding his medical paper, try
to teach her to read. In a very short time the child, who never did
any lessons, opened big, tearful eyes, and burst out crying.
  Then he would comfort her. He went and filled the watering-pot to
make little rivers on the gravel, or broke off branches of privet
and pretended to plant trees in the flower-beds. It didn't do the
garden any harm, because it was already full of weeds. They owed
such a lot to Lestiboudois! After a while the child would feel cold
and ask for her mother.
  'Ask Nanny to come,' said Charles. 'You know, my sweet, that mummy
doesn't like anyone to disturb her.'
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 120}
  Autumn was setting in, and the leaves were beginning to fall
already; just like two years ago, when she was taken ill. When would
she be herself again? And he went on pacing up and down, his hands
clasped behind him.
  Madame was upstairs in her bedroom. No one went up to her. All day
long she would stay there in a kind of torpor, with hardly any clothes
on, burning Oriental scent pastilles that she had bought in Rouen at a
shop kept by an Algerian native. So as not to have this husband of
hers stretched out beside her sleeping like a log all night long,
she had managed, by making all manner of fuss, to persuade him to
shift to a room on the floor above; and she lay awake all night
reading far-fetched romances full of orgies and bloodshed. Sometimes
she would get the horrors and call out in her fright, and Charles
would come running.
  'Oh,' she would say, 'go away!'
  At other times, burning with those secret fires that her adultery
fanned into flame, panting, trembling, wild with desire, she would
fling wide the window, drink in the cool air, shake out her burden
of hair to the winds and, gazing upwards at the stars, long for some
princely suitor to come and take her. She thought of him, of Leon; and
at these times she would have given everything for one of those
encounters of which she was gradually growing so weary. Those were her
happy, festive days. And she wanted them to be splendid. And when he
hadn't got enough to pay all the expenses himself, as happened always,
she made up the deficiency with a free hand. He tried to make her
understand that they would be quite as well off somewhere else, in a
cheaper hotel; but she always found some objection. One day she
produced six little silver-gilt spoons from her bag. They were a
wedding present from Farmer Rouault. She wanted him to go and pawn
them. Leon obeyed, though it went against the grain. He was afraid
he might be seen.
  On reflection it did seem as if his mistress were beginning to
behave rather strangely, and that, perhaps, people were right in
advising him to cut the connexion. As a matter of fact, someone had
sent his mother a long anonymous letter informing her that he was
carrying on at a ruinous rate with a married woman. And straightway,
the good lady, who beheld in her mind's eye the eternal bugbear of
every mother with a son of her own- the vague pernicious creature, the
siren, the monstrous, fantastic being that dwells in the vague
underworld of love- wrote off to Maitre Dubocage, his employer, who
behaved wonderfully well in the matter. He kept him talking for
three-quarters of an hour, trying to open his eyes to the abyss
towards which he was hurrying. An intrigue like that was bound to
react unfavourably on his business prospects. He implored him to cut
out the whole thing, if not for his own sake, at least for his,
Dubocage's.
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 125}
  Finally Leon had promised he would never see Emma again; and it
weighed on his conscience that he had not kept his word, especially
when he thought of the trouble and bother the woman might bring him,
not to mention the chaff of his fellow-clerks, who bandied jests about
him as they lounged round the office fire of a morning. Moreover, he
was going to be promoted chief clerk. It was time he turned over a new
leaf. No more love-making! Farewell to the flutes and roses! He had
got to come down to earth. Every bourgeois in the heyday of his youth,
if only for a moment, an instant, has deemed himself capable of the
grande passion, of some high emprise. The most humdrum of
week-enders has dreamed of toying with seductive sultanas in luxurious
seraglios. There was never a lawyer, however pettifogging, but had
within him the debris of a poet.
  It rather bored him now when Emma began weeping on his breast, and
his heart, like people who can only endure a certain dose of music,
grew weary and indifferent at the tumult of a passion to the finer
shades of which his senses were no longer able to respond. They knew
each other too well to experience that sense of wonderment in mutual
possession that increases the joys of it a hundredfold. She was as
satiated with him as he was weary of her. In adultery Emma
rediscovered all the platitudes of marriage.
  But how was she to get rid of him? It little mattered that she
felt herself humiliated by such degrading pleasures. Habit, or vice,
demoralization, compelled her to cling to them; and every day saw
her calling 'for madder music and for stronger wine', drying up
pleasure at the source by asking too much of it. She blamed Leon for
her baffled hopes, as if he had played her false. She even began to
wish that some catastrophe would render their separation inevitable,
since she herself had not the courage to invite it.
  Nevertheless, she continued to write him love-letters, it being
her notion of the fitness of things that a woman must always write
to her lover.
  But all the time she was writing, it was another man she saw in
her mind's eye, a phantom composed of her most ardent memories, of the
loveliest passages she had read in books, of all she had most
passionately coveted, and so real and accessible did he at last
become, that her heart beat with amazement. Yet she could not get a
clear and definite picture of him, for, like a god, he became lost
to view beneath the multiplicity of his attributes. He dwelt in that
vague and far-off land where silken ladders sway in the breeze beneath
balconies heaped with flowers, in the light of the moon. She felt
him near her; he was coming to bear her bodily away in a passionate
embrace. And then she would crash down to earth again, broken and
weary, for these vague, passionate yearnings were more exhausting to
her nature than an actual debauch.
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 130}
  She was now always depressed, everywhere and about everything. It
often happened that she received writs and summonses which she
hardly took the trouble to look at. She would have liked to stop
living or else to go on sleeping for ever.
  On the day of the mid-Lent carnival, she did not go back to Yonville
all night. In the evening she went to the fancy-dress ball. She wore
velvet breeches and red stockings, a club wig and a cocked hat over
her ear. She footed it all night long to the blare of the trombones.
They made a ring round her. In the morning she found herself on the
steps of the theatre in company with five or six revellers, friends of
Leon, disguised as dock hands and sailors, who proposed they should
all go and have some supper.
  The cafes round about were crammed. They trooped off to a dreadful
little eating-house down on the quay, the landlord of which opened
up a room for them on the fourth floor. The men stood whispering in
a corner, no doubt debating about the expense. There were a clerk, two
medical students and a shop-assistant- what a choice company for
her! As for the women, Emma soon perceived from their twang that
they were of the 'unfortunate' class. A sort of fear came over her.
She pushed back her chair and lowered her eyes.
  The others began to eat, but she could not touch a thing. Her
forehead was on fire, her eyelids were twitching. She could feel in
her head the floor of the ballroom pulsating beneath innumerable
feet dancing in tune. And the smell of the punch and the cigar smoke
made her feel as if her head were going round and round. She fainted
away, and they carried her over to the window.
  Day was beginning to break, and a great splash of crimson was
flooding the pale sky away towards Sainte Catherine. The livid
waters of the river were crisping in the wind. The bridges were all
deserted and the lights were going out one by one.
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 135}
  She roused herself, however, and fell to thinking of little
Berthe, who was sleeping away yonder in her nurse's room. But a cart
laden with long iron bars went rattling by, and the noise, as it
reverberated against the walls of the houses, was deafening.
  She slipped out quickly, hurriedly divested herself of her
costume, told Leon she must be off home, and finally found herself
alone at the Hotel de Boulogne. Everything and everybody, herself
included, were intolerable to her. She would have liked, if she had
been a bird, to fly away and renew herself in far-off, stainless,
skyey spaces.
  She went out, crossed the boulevard, the Place Cauchoise and the
faubourg, till she came to a sort of causeway looking down on to
some gardens. She walked quickly, and found the fresh air soothing;
and little by little, the faces in the crowd, the people in fancy
dress, the quadrilles, the lustres, the supper and those women all
seemed to melt away and disappear as a mist dissolves in the air.
Then, going back to the Croix Rouge, she flung herself on the bed in
the little second-floor bedroom with its pictures of the Tour de
Nesle. At four o'clock in the afternoon, Hivert came and woke her.
  When she got home Felicite pointed out to her a piece of
grey-coloured paper at the back of the clock. She took it and read:
  'In accordance with a judgement whereof the present is a true
copy...'
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 140}
  Judgement? What judgement? The day before, it is true, they had
brought her another paper which she knew nothing about. So she was
dumbfounded when she read the words:
  'In pursuance of a decision given at the Royal Courts of Justice,
Madame Bovary is hereby ordered...'
  She skipped a few lines and then read,
  'within twenty-four hours...' What is this? 'pay the total amount of
eight thousand francs'. Then, lower down, 'In default whereof she will
be proceeded against with the utmost rigour of the law and in
particular by distraint to be levied on all her household furniture
and effects'.
  What was to be done? Twenty-four hours! That meant to-morrow. Oh',
Lheureux was just trying to frighten her, that's what it was! For
she saw now through his little game, and realized why he had been
leading her on. What reassured her, however, was the very magnitude of
the sum demanded.
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 145}
  Nevertheless, as a result of buying things on credit, borrowing,
signing bills, renewing them for ever-increasing amounts, she had at
last become indebted to Lheureux for a sum that would supply him
with the capital he needed for his speculations.
  'Do you know what's happened?' she said in an off-hand tone. 'I
suppose it's a joke.'
  'It isn't.'
  'How do you mean?'
  He slowly turned away, and then, folding his arms, said,
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 150}
  'Did you suppose, my dear little lady, that I was going on supplying
you with goods and money until the crack of doom, simply for the
love of God? Come now, be fair! I must recover my due.'
  She protested against the amount.
  'Oh, well, the court has ratified it. It's passed them, and you were
advised of it. Besides it's not me, it's Vincart.'
  'Couldn't you possibly...?'
  'I can't do anything.'
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 155}
  'But... all the same... just look at it like this...' And she
began beating about the bush; she hadn't known... it had taken her
by surprise...
  'Whose fault's that?' said Lheureux, with an ironic bow. 'While
I'm here working like a black, you're always out gallivanting about.'
  'Now, then, no sermons!'
  'A sermon never does any harm,' he answered.
  She caved in, she begged and prayed, she even put her slender
white hand on the tradesman's knee.
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 160}
  'That's enough of that! Anyone 'ud think you were trying to seduce
me.'
  'You're a brute!'
  'Hoity-toity, there's a temper for you!' he said, with a laugh.
  'I'll show you up. I'll tell my husband....'
  'All right, and I've got something to show your husband too!'
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 165}
  With that, Lheureux extracted from his safe the receipt for eighteen
hundred francs she had given him when he discounted Vincart's bill.
  'Do you imagine,' he said, 'that he won't tumble to your little
theft, poor dear man?'
  She went all to pieces, as if someone had felled her with a
bludgeon.
  'Yes, I'll show him... I'll show him, I will,' he repeated, as he
paced up and down, between the desk and the window.
  And then he went close up to her, saying in honeyed tones,
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 170}
  'It's no joke, I know; but, after all, it never killed anybody,
and seeing that it's the only way left you of paying me back my
money...'
  'But where am I to get it?' said Emma, wringing her hands.
  'Bah! Look at all the friends you've got!'
  And he gave her a look so searching and so terrible that her very
entrails shuddered at it.
  'I promise you,' she said. 'I'll sign...'
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 175}
  'I've had enough of you and your signatures!'
  'And I'll sell...'
  'Get along with you!' he said, shrugging his shoulders; 'you've
nothing left to sell.'
  'Annette,' he called down through the trap-door that communicated
with the shop, 'don't forget the three coupons No. 14.'
  The servant appeared. Emma understood, and asked how much money
would be required to stop the proceedings.
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 180}
  'It's too late!'
  'But if I brought you several thousand francs, a quarter, a third,
nearly all of it?'
  'No, it's no good.'
  He pushed her gently towards the staircase.
  'I implore you, Monsieur Lheureux, give me a few days longer!' and
she burst into tears.
                                                         {30 ^paragraph 185}
  'Oh yes, more tears!'
  'You are driving me to desperation.'
  'I don't care a damn!' and he shut the door.

{31
                                  31
-
            The bailiff arrives: The secret in the attic:
      Appeal to Leon: The Viscount passes: Advice for the blind:
                 man: At the Notary's: Binet at work:
                 Waiting for Leon: 'No one at home':
                              Rodolphe.
                                                           {31 ^paragraph 5}
-
  SHE behaved with great fortitude the next day, when Maitre Hareng,
the bailiff, accompanied by two witnesses, came to draw up a list of
the goods to be distrained.
  They began with Bovary's consulting-room, and made a point of
excluding the phrenological bust as being a part of his professional
apparatus; but in the kitchen, they put down the crockery, the
saucepans, the chairs, the candlesticks, and, in her bedroom, all
the knickknacks in the cabinet. They examined her dresses, they turned
out the linen, they rummaged about in the dressing-room. And her whole
mode of life, with all its intimacies and secrets, was laid bare, like
a corpse undergoing a post-mortem examination, to the gaze of these
three men.
  Maitre Hareng, with his black coat buttoned close about his spare
figure, his white cravat, and tightly buckled boot straps, would say
from time to time,
  'Pardon me, Madame; will you allow me?'
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 10}
  And he frequently interjected exclamations, such as,
  'Charming!'... 'Very pretty!'
  Then he would resume his notes, dipping his pen into an inkhorn
which he carried in his left hand.
  When they had got through the rooms, they went up into the attic.
  She had a desk up there in which she kept Rodolphe's letters. That
had to be opened.
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 15}
  'Ah, letters!' said Maitre Hareng, smiling discreetly. 'But allow
me. I must make sure the box contains nothing else.'
  He held up the papers a little bit on one side, as though to let the
louis d'or slip out of them. Then her indignation did rise- to see
this big hand, with the red fingers soft as slugs, defiling those
pages which had felt the beating of her heart.
  At last they went! Felicite returned. She had sent her to look out
for Bovary and keep him away. Quick as lightning they rushed the bum
up to the attic, and he swore he would stay there.
  Charles that evening seemed rather worried. She eyed him in an agony
of suspense, thinking she read an accusation in every line of his
face. And when her eyes rested on the chimney-piece with its Chinese
screens, on the ample curtains, on the easy-chairs, on all the various
things which had contributed to soften the bitterness of her life, a
feeling of remorse took hold of her, or rather an immense regret
which, far from annulling her passion, only teased it into greater
activity. Charles sat placidly stirring the fire, his feet on the
fire-dogs.
  There was a moment when the bailiff's man, growing sick of his
confinement, made a little noise.
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 20}
  'Is that someone moving about upstairs?' asked Charles.
  'No,' said Emma, 'it's only a window that's been left open, rattling
in the wind.'
  The next day, a Sunday, she started for Rouen, to go and call on
every banker she knew the name of. They were away in the country or
travelling. She did not give in. Some whom she did manage to see she
asked for the money, protesting that have it she must, and that she
would pay it back. Some of them laughed in her face. All of them
refused.
  At two o'clock she tore away to Leon's. She knocked at the door, but
no one came. At last Leon himself appeared.
  'Who is with you?'
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 25}
  'What, isn't it all right?'
  'Yes... but...'
  And he confessed that the landlord didn't like 'women visitors'.
  'I've something I must say to you,' she answered.
  Then he took out his key, but she caught his arm.
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 30}
  'No, no. Let's go along to our own place.'
  So they went to their room, in the Hotel de Boulogne.
  The first thing she did was to drain a big glass of water. She was
very pale.
  'Leon,' she said, 'I want you to do something for me.'
  Then, gripping him with her two hands and giving him a shake, she
said,
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 35}
  'Listen, I want eight thousand francs!'
  'Why, you're mad!'
  'Not yet!'
  And, without any further preliminaries, she plunged into the story
of the distraint. She told him what an agony she was in: Charles
knew nothing; her mother-in-law hated her; her own father was
powerless, but he, Leon, he would hunt round and get her the money
somewhere. She must have it.
  'How do you expect me...?'
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 40}
  'Oh, don't be such a coward!' she cried.
  Then he said, like a ninny.
  'You're making the thing worse than it is! Probably a thousand
crowns or so would keep the fellow quiet.'
  Well, then, all the more reason to be up and doing. Surely it was
possible to find three thousand francs somewhere. Besides, Leon
could go bail for her himself.
  'Off you go! Do your utmost! It must be got! Rush! Oh, try! try! and
I'll love you such a lot.'
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 45}
  He went out. At the end of an hour he was back again.
  'I've tried three people,' he said, with a solemn face, 'and it's no
good.'
  They sat down and stared at each other from opposite sides of the
chimney-piece, motionless and silent. Then Emma shrugged her shoulders
and tapped impatiently on the floor. He heard her whispering under her
breath,
  'If I were in your place, I'd get it right enough, I know.'
  'Where?'
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 50}
  'At your office!'
  And she looked him straight in the face.
  A wicked, reckless look shone in her blazing eyes, and,
half-shutting her eyelids, she gave him a lascivious glance and
tried to egg him on. And the young man felt himself weakening
beneath the silent will-power of this woman who was prompting him to
crime. A fear came over him, and to forestall any further expression
of what she had in mind, he clapped his hand on his forehead and
exclaimed,
  'I know! Marel's coming back tonight. He won't refuse me, I hope'
(Marel was a friend of his, whose father was in a big way of
business), 'and I'll bring it along to you tomorrow.'
  Emma did not display the enthusiasm he anticipated at the hope
thus held out to her. Did she suspect the subterfuge?
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 55}
  'However,' he continued, turning very red, 'if I'm not there by
three o'clock, don't expect me, my dearest. Well, I must be off.
Forgive me, darling. Good-bye!'
  He took her hand and pressed it. But he noticed that it was quite
listless. Emma had not the strength to feel any more.
  It struck four. She got up to go back to Yonville, obeying the
urge of habit like an automaton.
  It was one of those clear, keen March days, when the sun shines
bright in a perfectly clear sky. Some townsfolk in their Sunday best
were strolling about, looking highly pleased with themselves. She came
to the Cathedral Close. Vespers were just over, and crowds of people
were pouring out through the three great doorways, like a river
flowing through the triple arches of a bridge, and in the centre, more
stolid than a rock, stood the beadle.
  The sight reminded her of that day when, tremulous with anxiety
and full of hope, she entered the great building whose depths were not
so deep as the love she bore in her heart; and she went on walking,
weeping beneath her veil, dazed, faltering, ready to collapse.
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 60}
  'Look out there!' shouted a voice from a porte cochere that was
swinging open.
  She stopped, and a black horse harnessed to a tilbury, driven by a
gentleman in a coat of sable fur, pranced out into the street. Who was
it? She knew him.... The carriage sped forward and disappeared.
  But it was he right enough, the Vicomte! She turned away. The street
was deserted. She was so depressed, so sick at heart, that she
leaned against a wall to keep herself from falling.
  Then she thought she must have made a mistake. Anyhow, she
couldn't tell. Everything, within her and without, was abandoning her.
She felt herself lost, rolling blindly through limitless abysses;
and it was with something like joy that she perceived, on reaching the
Croix Rouge, the worthy Homais, who was giving an eye to a big
case of pharmaceutical stores that was being hoisted up on the
Hirondelle. He had got in his hand six cheminots wrapped up in a
silk handkerchief, for his wife.
  Madame Homais had a great liking for these little, heavy,
turban-shaped loaves, which people eat in Lent with salt butter.
They are, maybe, a last surviving remnant of Gothic times, going back,
perhaps, to the Crusades, when the sturdy Normans, seeing them on
the table beneath the yellow gleam of the flickering torches, amid
tankards of mead and towering joints of hog's-meat, gorged them with
gusto, fancying, peradventure, they were devouring the heads of
their Saracen foes. The apothecary's wife crunched them as they did,
heroically, despite her dreadful teeth. And so it came about that,
every time Monsieur Homais made a journey to Rouen, he never failed to
bring her some back with him, always getting them at the noted shop in
the rue Massacre.
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 65}
  'Charmed to see you!' he said, offering his hand to Emma to help her
into the Hirondelle.
  This done, he put his cheminots up on the netting rack, and sat
with bare head and folded arms, in a pensive and Napoleonic attitude.
  But when the blind man put in his customary appearance at the foot
of the hill, he exclaimed,
  'I cannot understand how it is the authorities permit people to
get their living in this disgraceful manner. These unhappy creatures
ought to be put away and set to do some kind of work. Upon my word,
progress moves no faster than a tortoise, and we are still no better
than a horde of savages.'
  The blind man held out his hat, which flopped about just inside
the window like a piece of the cloth covering that had come unnailed.
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 70}
  'That,' said the chemist, 'is a scrofulous disorder.'
  And although he knew the poor devil quite well, he pretended he
had never seen him before, muttered the words cornea, corneal
opacity, sclerotic, facies, and then asked him, in a fatherly sort of
way,
  'Have you suffered long from this terrible affliction of yours, my
good man? Instead of fuddling yourself with drink in the tavern, you
would be far better advised to go in for a diet.'
  He advised him to stick to good wine, good beer and good
nourishing joints. The blind man went on with his song. Moreover, he
seemed almost an idiot. At last Monsieur Homais opened his purse.
  'Here, here's a sou; give me back a couple of liards. Don't forget
what I've told you, it'll do you a power of good.'
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 75}
  Hivert made so bold as to give audible expression to his doubts on
that matter. But the apothecary guaranteed he would cure him
himself, with an antiphlogistic unguentum, prepared from a formula
of his own, and he gave his address,
  'Monsieur Homais, near the market, that'll be enough.'
  'And now,' said Hivert, 'after all that, you might give us your
"turn".'
  The blind man crouched down on his hams, and with his head flung
back, rolling his greenish orbs and putting out his tongue, he
rubbed his stomach with both hands, while he gave forth a low
wailing sound like the howl of a starving dog. Emma, sickening at
the sight, threw him a five-franc piece over her shoulder. It was
all she had in the world, and she thought there was something fine
in thus flinging it away.
  The diligence was moving on again, when suddenly Monsieur Homais
thrust his head out of the window and shouted,
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 80}
  'Nothing farinaceous, no milk foods! Wear flannel next the skin, and
expose the affected parts to the smoke of juniper berries.'
  The sight of the familiar landmarks that passed one after another
before her eyes gradually took Emma's mind off her present troubles.
An intolerable weariness oppressed her, and she reached home dazed,
discouraged and almost asleep.
  'What must be, must be!' she said to herself.
  And then, who knows? Something quite unexpected might happen any
moment. Lheureux himself might die.
  She was awakened at nine in the morning by a hubbub of voices in the
Square. There was a crowd of people round by the market, all trying to
read a big placard posted on one of the pillars, and she saw Justin
climb up and tear it down. But just then a constable clapped him on
the shoulder. Monsieur Homais came forth from the pharmacy, and Mere
Lefrancois, in the midst of the crowd, looked as if she were just
concluding a harangue.
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 85}
  'Madame! Madame!' cried Felicite rushing in, 'it's a vile shame!'
  And the poor girl, completely upset, held out a yellow paper which
she had just torn off the front door. Emma read at a glance that all
her furniture was to be sold up.
  Then they gazed at each other in silence. Servant and mistress had
no secrets from one another.
  'If I were you, Madame,' sighed Felicite at last, 'I should go and
see Monsieur Guillaumin.'
  'You would?'
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 90}
  That question meant, 'You know about the house from the servant.
Does the master talk about me sometimes?'
  'Yes, you go; you'll be doing a good thing.'
  She dressed; put on her black frock and her little, close-fitting
bonnet, with the jet beads, and, so as not to be seen (there were
always a lot of people in the Square), she avoided going through the
village, taking the path by the river.
  She was quite out of breath when she reached the notary's gate.
The sky was overcast and a little snow was falling.
  At the sound of the bell Theodore appeared at the top of the steps
in a red waistcoat. He came and let her in almost familiarly, like
an old acquaintance, and showed her into the dining-room.
                                                          {31 ^paragraph 95}
  A big earthenware stove was blazing away beneath a cactus that
filled up the rest of the recess, and in black wooden frames against
paper stained to look like oak, hung Steuben's Esmeralda and
Schopin's Potiphar. The table ready laid, a pair of silver dish
warmers, the crystal door-knobs, the parquet floor and the
furniture- everything shone as if it had been polished and burnished
with most meticulous and English thoroughness. The windows were
decorated at each corner with panes of coloured glass.
  'This is the sort of dining-room,' thought Emma, 'that I ought to
have.'
  The notary came in, holding his dressing-gown, with its palm-leaf
pattern, against his body with his left hand, while, with his right,
he raised and quickly put on again his brown velvet cap, jauntily
cocked over his left ear, and beyond it descended the ends of three
strands of fair hair, which, starting from the back of the head,
were combed carefully forward over his bald cranium.
  Offering her a chair, he sat down to his breakfast, apologizing
profusely for his rudeness.
  'Monsieur,' I she said, 'I want to ask you...'
                                                         {31 ^paragraph 100}
  'Madame, I am all attention.'
  She proceeded to explain her position.
  Maitre Guillaumin knew all about it, for he was in secret alliance
with the soft-goods merchant, to whom he always applied for money
whenever he had a mortgage to arrange.
  For this reason he knew, better than she did, the long story of
those bills of hers. How they began with trifling sums, backed by
all and sundry, renewed over and over again for longer and longer
periods till at last the day came when, collecting together all the
protested bills, the merchant had instructed his friend Vincart to
take, in his own name, the necessary proceedings, as he had no wish to
be taken for a shark by his fellow-townsmen.
  She interspersed her narrative with recriminations against Lheureux,
to which the notary would reply every now and then with some
noncommittal observation. Eating his cutlet and drinking his tea, he
lowered his chin into his pale blue cravat, pierced by two diamond
pins linked together by a slender gold chain, and he smiled a
strange smile, a bland and oracular smile. But noticing that her
feet were wet, he said,
                                                         {31 ^paragraph 105}
  'Come nearer the fire. There, put them up... higher, against the
porcelain.'
  She said she was afraid of making it dirty.
  'Oh,' said the notary, with a gallant air, 'beautiful things never
spoil anything.'
  Then she appealed to his sense of compassion, and, growing emotional
herself, gave him a picture of her straitened home life, her
struggles, her wants. Ah, he could understand that- a woman of taste
like her! And without interrupting his eating, he had turned round
towards her so completely that his knee rubbed against her boot, which
was steaming and curling up from the heat of the stove.
  But when she asked him for a thousand crowns, he pursed up his lips,
and then proceeded to remark that he was sorely grieved that he had
never had the management of her property, for there were scores of
ways which were open to a woman to invest her money to advantage.
She might, with the very minimum of risk, have put something in the
peat bogs at Grumesnil or the building sites at Le Havre, with the
practical certainty of making a handsome profit; and he suffered her
to eat her heart out with rage at the wonderful sums she might have
made.
                                                         {31 ^paragraph 110}
  'How was it,' he said, 'you never came to me?'
  'I really don't know,' she said.
  'Why on earth didn't you? You weren't afraid of me, were you? It's
really I who ought to be sorry, for myself. Why, we hardly know each
other. And yet I have your interests truly at heart; you don't doubt
that, I hope?'
  He put out his hand and took hold of hers, covered it with a
voracious kiss, and then held it on his knee; and he toyed
delicately with her fingers, saying all manner of nice things to her.
  His colourless voice murmured on like a running stream, a sparkle
shone in his eyes through the glint of his spectacles, and he put
his hand up Emma's sleeve to pat her arm. She felt his panting
breath upon her cheek. The man was making himself unbearable.
                                                         {31 ^paragraph 115}
  All of a sudden she sprang to her feet.
  'Monsieur,' said she, 'I am waiting!'
  'What for?' said the notary, suddenly going as white as a sheet.
  'This money.'
  'But...'
                                                         {31 ^paragraph 120}
  Then, yielding to the onrush of a desire he could not withstand,
  'Very well, yes!'
  He dragged himself along on his knees before her, careless of his
dressing-gown.
  'For God's sake, stay! I love you!'
  He seized her by the waist. A flood of crimson mantled in Madame
Bovary's countenance. She recoiled with a terrible expression on her
face, crying,
                                                         {31 ^paragraph 125}
  'You are taking a despicable advantage of my distress, Monsieur. I
am to be pitied, not to be sold.'
  And she turned and went.
  The notary stood there like a man turned to stone, his eyes fixed on
his fine embroidered slippers. They were a love gift, and the sight of
them at length consoled him. And he went on to reflect that a thing
like that might have carried him a lot too far.
  'What a wretch! What a filthy cur! What a piece of infamy!' she
exclaimed to herself as she hurried, with nervous steps, beneath the
aspens that fringed the roadside.
  Disappointment at her failure made her the more indignant at the
insult offered to her modesty. It seemed as if the fates were eager
for her undoing. Taking pride at the thought, she never rated
herself so high, or the world so low. She felt as if she could defy
them all. She would have liked to fight men, to spit in their faces,
to grind them underfoot. She continued to walk quickly, straight in
front of her, pale, trembling, full of rage, scanning with weeping
eyes the empty horizon and as though revelling in the hate that was
choking her. When she came in sight of her house a feeling of numbness
came over her. She felt as if she could not go on. Nevertheless, there
was no help for it. Besides, where else could she go?
                                                         {31 ^paragraph 130}
  Felicite was waiting for her on the doorstep.
  'Well?' she asked.
  'No!' said Emma.
  And for the next quarter of an hour they went together through the
names of all the people in Yonville who might perhaps come to the
rescue. But every time Felicite mentioned a name Emma answered,
  'Do you really think so? Oh, no, I'm sure they wouldn't.'
                                                         {31 ^paragraph 135}
  'And the Doctor'll be in in a minute or two.'
  'Yes, I know that.... Leave me alone.'
  She had tried everything. There was nothing more to be done. And
when Charles appeared she would go to him and say,
  'Go back. The carpet on which you tread is ours no more. In the
house that was yours there is not a chair, not a pin, not a straw
you may call your own. And it is I who have ruined you, poor soul!'
  Then there would come a great sob-scene. He would weep copiously,
and then, the shock once over, he would grant her his pardon.
                                                         {31 ^paragraph 140}
  'Yes,' she answered, grinding her teeth, 'he will forgive me- he,
who, if he had as much as a million to offer me, I could never forgive
for having known me.... No, never, never!'
  The notion of Bovary's moral superiority exasperated her beyond
endurance. Then, whether she confessed or whether she did not, he
would know all about it soon- by and by, tomorrow. So she would have
to wait for this horrible scene and to endure the crushing burden of
his magnanimity. Something prompted her to go back to Lheureux's.
But what would be the good? Should she write to her father? It was too
late. And perhaps she was feeling a pang of regret that she had not
yielded to Guillaumin, when suddenly she heard the sound of hoofs in
the side road. Yes, it was he. He opened the gate. He was whiter
than the plaster wall. Rushing out into the hall, she slipped out
across the Square, and the maire's wife, who was chatting with
Lestiboudois outside the church, saw her go into the tax-collector's.
  She ran to tell Madame Caron, and the two ladies climbed up into the
attic, where, concealed by some linen that was hung up to air, they so
placed themselves that they could see right into Binet's rooms.
  He was up there in his garret, trying to make a copy in wood of
one of those amazing pieces of carved ivory composed of crescents,
spheres hollowed out, one inside the other, the whole thing as
perpendicular as an obelisk, and utterly useless. He was just starting
on the last bit, he was nearly at the end of his task. In the
contrasted light and shadow of his workshop the pale sawdust was
flying from his lathe like a plume of sparks beneath the iron-shod
hoofs of a horse at the gallop. The two wheels went on spinning and
humming. Binet had a smile on his face, his chin was lowered, his
nostrils were dilated. He seemed, in a word, to be lost in the
enjoyment of one of those utterly blissful moods that arise from the
conquest of difficulties well within one's powers, and that soothe the
mind with the successful accomplishment of a task uncalculated to
awaken thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls.
  'Look! There she is!' said Madame Tuvache.
                                                         {31 ^paragraph 145}
  But, owing to the noise of the lathe, it was hardly possible to hear
a word she said.
  At last these ladies thought they caught the word francs, and Mere
Tuvache said in a whisper,
  'She's asking him to give her more time for her taxes.'
  'Looks like it, said the other.
  They saw her gazing all round the room, examining the napkin rings
rowed along on the walls, the candlesticks, banister knobs, and so
forth, while Binet stroked his beard complacently.
                                                         {31 ^paragraph 150}
  'She couldn't have gone to order anything from him, could she?' said
Madame Tuvache.
  'But he doesn't sell anything,' objected her neighbour.
  The tax-collector was listening, with staring eyes, as if he
couldn't understand what she meant. She went on with a tender,
beseeching air. She drew nearer to him. Her bosom rose and fell.
They had ceased to talk.
  'Is she making up to him?' said Madame Tuvache.
  Binet had gone red to the ears. She took his hands.
                                                         {31 ^paragraph 155}
  'Oh, that's really too bad!'
  No doubt she was trying to seduce him, for the tax-collector- he was
no coward either, he had fought at Bautzen and Lutzen, and been
through the campaign in France, and even had his name put down for a
cross of honour- suddenly recoiled as if he had seen a serpent.
  'Madame!' he exclaimed, 'how could you think of such a thing?'
  'Women like that ought to be thrashed,' said Madame Tuvache.
  'But what's become of her?' exclaimed Madame Caron.
                                                         {31 ^paragraph 160}
  For she had disappeared while they were speaking. Then they saw
her hurrying along the High Street. She turned to the right as if
she were going to the cemetery, and they couldn't tell what to make of
it.
  'Madame Rollet!' she exclaimed when she got to the nurse's, undo
my stays, I can't breathe.'
  She dropped on to the bed and lay there sobbing. Mere Rollet put a
skirt over her and stood close beside her. Then, since she made no
answer, the good woman left her, took up her spinning-wheel and
began to spin some hemp.
  'Oh, do please stop!' said she, thinking it was Binet's lathe she
heard humming.
  'What's the matter with her?' the nurse wondered. 'What has she come
here for?'
                                                         {31 ^paragraph 165}
  She had rushed off there, impelled by a sort of terror, that drove
her out of her house.
  Lying on her back, motionless, with fixed eyes, she only half took
in the objects around her, although she stared at them with a sort
of imbecile persistence. She contemplated the paper peeling off the
wall, she looked fixedly at the two embers, smouldering end to end,
and at a big spider that was crawling above her head along a crack
in the beam. At last she collected her ideas. She began thinking of
old times. One day, with Leon.... Oh, what ages ago it seemed! The sun
was shining on the river and the clematis filled the air with
fragrance. Then, borne along by her memories as by a seething torrent,
she was soon brought to remember the day before.
  'What time is it?' she inquired.
  Mere Rollet got up, raised the fingers of her right hand in the
direction where the sky was brightest, and came in again slowly,
saying,
  'Just on three o'clock.'
                                                         {31 ^paragraph 170}
  'Oh, thank you, thank you very much!'
  For he would come. That was certain. He would have found the
money. But perhaps he would go straight to the house, never thinking
she might be here. So she asked the nurse to go and bring him to her.
  'Make haste, make haste, do!'
  'Yes, dear lady, I'm making all the haste I can.'
  And now she could not understand for the life of her how it was
she hadn't thought of him to begin with. Yesterday he had promised
faithfully, and he wouldn't break his promise. She saw herself already
at Lheureux's, unfolding the three bank-notes on his desk. But she
would have to invent some tale to explain matters to Bovary. What
was she going to say?
                                                         {31 ^paragraph 175}
  Meanwhile the nurse was a long time coming back. But as there was no
clock in the cottage, Emma thought that perhaps the time seemed longer
than it really was. She strolled about the garden a little, walking
very slowly; she went out along the footpath, by the hedge, and came
back quickly, hoping that Mere Rollet had come in another way. At
last, tired of waiting, assailed by suspicions which she dismissed
as soon as formed, hardly knowing whether she had been there for
minutes or for years, she sat down in a corner, shut her eyes and
stopped up her ears. The gate squeaked. She started to her feet.
Before she could utter a word Mere Rollet said,
  'There's no one at your house!'
  'What?'
  'No one at all! And the Doctor's weeping. He keeps calling for
you. They're looking for you everywhere.'
  Emma made no answer. She kept gasping for breath, staring helplessly
about her, and the woman, scared at the look on her face, drew back
instinctively, thinking she was mad. All at once she clapped her
hand to her brow and uttered a little cry, for the thought of
Rodolphe, like a vivid flash of lightning on a dark night, had
passed through her mind. He was so good, so sympathetic, so
generous! Moreover, if he hesitated, she knew very well she could make
him do her this service merely by reminding him, with a look of her
eyes, of their old love. So she betook herself to la Huchette, and
it never occurred to her that she was hastening to do the very thing
which an hour or so ago had driven her into a fury; she never for a
moment dreamt that she was playing the prostitute.

{32
                                  32
-
             Back to the chateau: Three thousand francs:
     Rodolphe's refusal: M. Homais's white powder: Emma's letter:
              Berthe at the bedside: The three doctors:
                       Lunch at the druggist's:
                              Emma dies.
                                                           {32 ^paragraph 5}
-
  SHE asked herself, as she walked along, 'What am I going to say? How
shall I begin?' And as she got nearer and nearer she recognized the
bushes, the trees, the reeds on the hillside, and the chateau down
in the hollow. All the sensations of the old affection had come back
to her again, and her poor, overladen heart began lovingly to unfold
itself. A warm breeze fanned her face; the snow was melting, and
fell drop by drop from the budding shoots on to the grass.
  Emma entered the park, as she was wont to do, by the wicket gate;
then she reached the quadrangle which was bordered by a double row
of bushy lime-trees. Their long, swaying branches were murmuring in
the wind. The dogs in the kennels set up a great barking, and though
the din was deafening, no one appeared.
  She mounted the broad, straight staircase with the wooden banisters,
and found herself at the end of a corridor paved with dusty tiles,
with several rooms opening out of it like a monastery or an inn. His
was away down at the far end, on the left. When she came to put her
hand on the door-knob, her strength suddenly left her. She had a
sort of fear that he might not be there, she almost wished he might
not be; and yet it was her only hope, her last chance of salvation.
She stood for a moment collecting her ideas, and then, reinforcing her
courage from the armoury of present necessity, she went in.
  He was sitting in front of the fire, with his feet up on the
chimney-piece, just starting a pipe.
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 10}
  'Hullo! Is that you?' he exclaimed, getting up quickly.
  'Yes, it's me. Rodolphe, I want to ask your advice.'
  But, for all his efforts, he could not open his mouth.
  'You haven't changed, you are as charming as ever.'
  'Ah!' she answered bitterly, 'those charms are sad charms, seeing
that you have disdained them.'
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 15}
  Then he launched forth on an explanation of his conduct, making
all kinds of vague excuses, since he couldn't invent any definite
story.
  She suffered herself to fall under the spell of his words, or rather
of his voice and presence; so that, at last, she pretended to believe-
perhaps she really did believe- in his alleged reason for their
severance; it was a secret involving the honour, and it may have
been the life, of a third party.
  'Ah, well!' she said, gazing at him sadly, 'I have suffered a
great deal.'
  'Such is life!' he answered philosophically.
  'And has life been kind to you, since our separation?' inquired
Emma.
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 20}
  'Oh, neither kind... nor unkind.'
  'Perhaps it would have been better never to have left each other.'
  'Yes... perhaps!'
  'You think that?' she said, drawing nearer to him.
  'Oh, Rodolphe!' she sighed, 'if you only knew... I loved you so!'
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 25}
  It was then she took his hand, and for some moments they sat with
their fingers intertwined as on that first day at the Agricultural
Show. A sort of pride compelled him to struggle not to give way to his
emotion. But, burying her head in his breast, she murmured,
  'How could you think I could live without you? You cannot break with
happiness like that. I was desperate. I thought I should die. I will
tell you all about it, you will see. And you... you have shunned
me!...'
  For, for three years now, he had studiously avoided her, as a result
of the native cowardice distinctive of the stronger sex.
  'There are other women you love,' she went on, with little
witching movements of her head, more wheedling than an amorous kitten.
'Come, confess it. Oh, I understand them! I can make allowances for
them. You fascinated them, as you fascinated me. You are a man, if
ever there was one. You have everything to make a woman love you.
But we will begin all over again, won't we? We will be lovers once
more! Why, I'm laughing, I'm happy!... But speak to me!...'
  She was a lovely sight to behold, with a tear glistening tremblingly
in her eye, like a storm-drop in a harebell's cup.
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 30}
  He drew her on to his knee and stroked her soft hair with the back
of his hand, and in the glowing twilight a lingering ray of the sun
sparkled in it like a golden arrow. She bent her head down, and at
last he kissed her on the eyelids, very gently, hardly touching them
with his lips.
  'Why, you've been crying!' he said. 'How's that?'
  She began to sob convulsively. Rodolphe thought it was her pent-up
passion, bursting its bonds; and, since she uttered no word, he,
interpreting her silence as a final index of womanly modesty,
exclaimed,
  'Ah, forgive me! You are the only woman that has any charm for me.
I've been a fool and a brute. I love you, and I shall love you always.
What is it, then? Tell me!' And he sank down on his knees.
  'Well, then... I am ruined, Rodolphe! I want you to lend me three
thousand francs!'
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 35}
  'But... but...' he stammered, gradually rising to his feet, his
features taking on an expression of extreme gravity.
  'You know,' she went on hurriedly, 'my husband had entrusted all our
money to a notary. He disappeared. We had to borrow; the patients
did not pay their bills. Besides, his father's estate has not yet been
settled up. We shall have money coming in later on, but now, unless we
can put our hands on three thousand francs, we shall be sold up.
It's now, this very moment, that we want it, and, counting on your
friendship, I have come to you.'
  'Ah!' thought Rodolphe, who had suddenly gone very pale, 'so
that's her little game, is it?'
  After a moment or two he replied, very calmly,
  'I haven't got it, dear lady.'
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 40}
  That was no lie. If he had had it he would have given it to her; and
that, despite the fact that it is no joke to perform such noble deeds,
since of all the blasts that ever fall on the plant of love, a
pecuniary request is the most freezing and most devastating.
  She stood a few minutes looking at him.
  'You haven't got it?
  She said it several times over.
  'You haven't got it! I might have spared myself this crowning
humiliation. You never loved me. You are no better than the rest of
them.'
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 45}
  She was betraying herself now, cutting the ground from under her
feet.
  Rodolphe interrupted her, saying that he was short of money himself.
  'Ah, I'm sorry for you!' said Emma. 'Yes, I am really pained.'
  And then, letting her gaze linger on a sporting gun inlaid with
damascene work that was gleaming on the rack, she said,
  'Yes, but when people are as poor as you are, they don't have silver
on the butt-ends of their guns. They don't buy clocks inlaid with
tortoiseshell,' she continued, pointing to his Boulle timepiece;
'nor silver-gilt whistles for their whips'- she touched them- 'nor
seals for their watch-chains. Oh, no, there's nothing you haven't got,
including even a liqueur-stand in your bedroom. For you like
yourself a lot; you live well; you've got a fine house and farms and
woods. You ride to hounds, you run up to Paris.... Why, if it were
only a thing like that,' she said, picking up his cuff-links from
the chimney-piece- the very smallest of these stupid gew-gaws you
could get money on!... Oh, I don't want them! Keep them!'
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 50}
  She flung the links across the room, and the gold chain snapped as
they struck the wall.
  'I would have given you everything, sold all I had; I would have
slaved for you with my hands; I would have begged in the streets, just
for a smile, for a glance; just to hear you say "Thank you". And you
sit there calmly, in your arm-chair, as if you had not made me
suffer enough already. Had it not been for you, I tell you, my life
might have been a happy one. What compelled you to do it? Was it a
wager? And yet you loved me, you used to tell me. And just now even...
Oh, why didn't you tell me to go? It would have been better. My
hands are warm with your kisses, and here just now, on this carpet,
you fell on your knees and swore you would love me for ever. You
made me believe it was true. For two whole years you led me on through
the loveliest and sweetest of dreamlands. Ha! Do you remember? When we
were planning to go away together? All the places we were going to? Do
you remember? Oh, your letter, that letter of yours- it tore my
heart to shreds!... And now, when I come back to him, to him who is
rich, happy, free; come back to implore a boon that almost anyone
would grant, come to him on my knees, bringing him all my love, he
thrusts me aside because it would cost him- three thousand francs!'
  'I haven't got it, I tell you,' answered Rodolphe, with that utter
calmness which is the protective resource of passive indignation.
  She went out. The walls were quaking, and the ceiling seemed as if
it would fall on her and crush her. She went back again, down the long
drive, stumbling over the heaps of dead leaves that were being blown
about by the wind. At last she reached the gate. She tore her nails on
the catch in her frenzy to get it open. Then, a hundred paces
farther on, all out of breath and nearly falling, she came to a
halt. And, turning round, she looked once more on the chateau, cold
and silent, with the park, the gardens, the three courts, and all
the windows of the facade.
  She stood in a sort of stupor, like one lost, with nothing to recall
her to herself, or to the world, save the throbbing of her arteries,
which seemed to besiege her ears like a deafening music and to fill
the region round about. The ground beneath her feet was softer than
a wave, and the furrows looked to her like vast brown billows, rolling
on and on into the distance. All the stored-up contents of her
brain, all her memories, all her ideas burst forth in a single
flash, like the myriad stars in a blaze of fireworks. Her father,
Lheureux's office, their room, another region altogether, passed
before her eyes. She felt as if she were going mad, a panic seized
her, and then, somehow, she retained control of herself- confusedly,
it is true, for she never so much as thought of the cause of her
horrible distress of mind, that is to say, of the money. It was her
love that pierced her heart, and she felt as if her soul were ebbing
from her through the memory of it, even as the wounded in their
death agony feel their life's blood ebbing from them through their
unstanched wounds.
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 55}
  Night was falling, the homing rooks were on the wing.
  Of a sudden it seemed to her as if the sky were hung with globes
of fire that burst like angry bullets and flattened themselves and
fell slowly earthward, turning and turning, amid the branches of the
trees, to bury themselves in the snow. And in the centre of each of
them she saw the countenance of Rodolphe. Their numbers multiplied,
they were drawing closer together, they were piercing her. Then it all
vanished. She saw the lights in the houses, glimmering in the
distance, through the mist.
  And now all the horror flooded in on her again, she saw it all
like an abyss. She was panting frantically. Then, in a transport of
heroism that made her almost glad at heart, she went running down
the hill, sped across the cattle plank, hastened along the footpath,
through the market place and arrived outside the chemist's shop.
  There was no one there. She was just going in, but someone might
come at the sound of the shop bell; so, slipping through the gate,
holding her breath, feeling her way along the walls, she reached the
door of the kitchen. There was a candle burning inside, standing on
the top of the stove. Justin in his shirt-sleeves was carrying out a
dish.
  'Ah, they're at dinner! Now wait!'
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 60}
  He came back. She tapped on the window. He came out.
  'The key! The key of upstairs! Where the...'
  'What?'
  And he stood looking at her, amazed at the paleness of her face,
which stood out deathly white against the murky background of the
night. She seemed to him extraordinarily beautiful and majestic.
Without realizing what it was she wanted, he had a presentiment that
it was something terrible.
  But then she went on again, in a low voice, a voice that was sweet
and melting,
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 65}
  'I want it. Give it to me.'
  The walls were thin, and you could hear the clatter of the knives
and forks in the dining-room.
  She pretended that she wanted some stuff to kill the rats that
kept her awake at night.
  'I should have to tell Master.'
  'No! Stop where you are!'
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 70}
  Then, as if it were a matter of no importance, she said carelessly,
  'Don't bother, I'll tell him in a minute. Go on, show me a light.'
  She entered the passage, where the laboratory door was. On the
wall there hung a key labelled 'lumber-room'.
  'Justin!' shouted the apothecary, who was getting impatient.
  'Come along up,' she whispered.
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 75}
  And he followed her.
  The key turned in the lock, and she went straight over and reached
up to the third shelf, so accurately did her memory guide her. She
seized the blue jar, pulled out the bung, plunged in her hand and,
drawing it out full of a white powder, began to eat it then and there.
  'Stop!' cried the lad, flinging himself upon her.
  'Be quiet, they'll come!'
  He was frantic, he wanted to shout for someone.
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 80}
  'Say nothing. The blame would all fall on your master.'
  Then she came away with a sudden peace in her heart, almost as
serene as though she had had a duty to do- and had done it.
-
  When Charles, overwhelmed at the news of the distraint, came back to
the house, Emma had just left it. He cried, he wept, he went off
into a faint, but she did not return. Where could she be? He sent
Felicite to the Homais', the Tuvaches', Lheureux's, the Lion d'Or,
everywhere- and, whenever his anguish lifted for a moment, he saw
his reputation ruined, his money gone, Berthe's future shattered. How?
Why? Not a word. He waited till six o'clock in the evening. Then,
unable to stand it any longer, and concluding she must have set out
for Rouen, he went out along the road, covered about a mile and a
half, saw no one, waited about, and then came back again.
  She had come home.
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 85}
  'What was the matter?... Why?... Tell me all about it.'
  She sat down at her writing-desk and wrote a letter, which she
slowly sealed, adding the date and the hour. Then she said, in a
solemn tone:
  'You will read that to-morrow. Until then, I beg you, do not ask
me a single question!... No, not one!'
  'But...'
  'Oh, leave me!'
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 90}
  And she lay down at full length on her bed. She felt a bitter
taste in her mouth, and it woke her up. She caught sight of Charles,
and shut her eyes again.
  She kept her senses alert, wondering whether she had any pain. But
no! Nothing yet. She could hear the clock ticking, the fire
flickering. Charles was standing by the bed, and she heard the sound
of his breathing.
  'Ah, it's nothing very much- dying!' she thought. 'I shall just drop
off to sleep, and it will all be over.'
  She gulped down a draught of water and turned her face to the wall.
  But there was still that horrible taste of ink.
                                                          {32 ^paragraph 95}
  'I'm thirsty... oh, I'm so dreadfully thirsty!' she sighed.
  'What can it be?' said Charles, bringing her a glass of water.
  'It's nothing.... Open the window.... I can't breathe.'
  And she began to vomit so suddenly that she hardly had time to
snatch her handkerchief from under her pillow.
  'Take it away!' she said quickly. 'Throw it somewhere.'
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 100}
  He questioned her. She made no answer. She kept perfectly still, for
fear the slightest movement should cause her to be sick. And she was
beginning to feel an icy coldness, creeping up from her feet to her
heart.
  'Ah, it's beginning now!' she whispered.
  'What's that you say?'
  She kept swaying her head, gently, from side to side, in a state
of anguish, continually opening and shutting her jaws, as if she had
something very heavy on her tongue. At eight o'clock the vomiting
began again.
  Charles, examining the basin, noticed a sort of whitish slime that
clung to the bottom.
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 105}
  'That's extraordinary, that's very odd!' he observed.
  'No, no, you're wrong,' she said in a strong voice.
  Then very lightly, almost as if he were caressing her, he passed his
hand over her stomach. She gave a piercing shriek. He started back,
scared out of his wits.
  Then she began to moan, weakly at first. Her shoulders were
shuddering convulsively, and she was growing paler than the sheet
she was grasping with her clenched hands. Her pulse was irregular and,
by this time, almost imperceptible.
  There were drops of sweat on her livid face, that seemed as though
it were petrified in the exhalation of some metallic vapour. Her teeth
were chattering, her eyes were dilated and staring vaguely about
her, and every question she answered with a shake of the head. She
even smiled two or three times. Gradually her groans grew louder. Once
she tried to stifle a shriek; she pretended she was getting better and
would be getting up. But she was taken with convulsions again.
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 110}
  'Oh, God, it's frightful!'
  He flung himself on his knees at her bedside.
  'Tell me, what have you been eating? For God's sake, speak!' and
as he looked at her there was a tenderness in his eyes she had never
seen in them before.
  'Oh, well, look over there... there!' she said in failing tones.
  He sprang to the writing-table, broke the seal of the letter, and
read aloud. 'Let no one be accused...' He stopped, passed his hand
across his eyes and then read on.
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 115}
  'What!... Help! Oh, God, help!'
  And all he could say was the word 'Poisoned, poisoned!'
  Felicite rushed off to Homais, who shouted it aloud in the Square;
Madame Lefrancois heard him at the Lion d'Or; some of the folks
got up to tell their neighbours, and all night long the village was in
a ferment.
  Bewildered, stammering, his legs almost giving way under him,
Charles kept wandering about the room, floundering against the
furniture, tearing his hair, and never had the chemist believed it
possible to see so appalling a scene.
  He went back home to write to Monsieur Canivet and Dr. Lariviere.
His head was in a whirl, and he made more than fifteen abortive
attempts. Hippolyte went off to Neufchatel, and Justin spurred on
Bovary's horse so vigorously that he left it foundered and half dead
on the hill of Bois-Guillaume.
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 120}
  Charles tried to turn up his Dictionary of Medicine; but he
couldn't see- the letters kept dancing about.
  'Be calm!' said the apothecary. 'The thing is to administer some
powerful antidote. What is the poison?'
  Charles showed him the letter. It was arsenic.
  'Very well, then,' said Homais, 'what we've got to do is to make
an analysis.'
  For he knew that in every poisoning case an analysis had to be made.
Charles, who did not know what he meant, said,
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 125}
  'Ah, yes! Go on! Go on! Save her.'
  Then he went back to her, and, sinking down on the carpet, knelt
there with his head against the edge of the bed, sobbing.
  'Don't cry,' she said, 'I shan't be here to worry you much longer.'
  'Why did you do it? Who made you do it?'
  And she replied,
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 130}
  'It had to be, dear.'
  'Weren't you happy? Was it my fault? I did everything I could.'
  'Yes... that is true.... You are kind, so kind.'
  And she passed her fingers through his hair, slowly. The sweetness
of this sensation made his cup of sadness overflow. He felt as if
his whole being were falling in ruin at the idea of losing her just
when she was confessing more love for him than she had ever shown
before. And there wasn't a clue. He knew nothing, he dared do nothing,
the need for doing something, and doing it at once, having utterly
paralysed him.
  She had finished at last, she thought, with all things treacherous
and base, with all the lusts of the flesh that had tortured her. She
hated no one, now. A vague twilight was lowering upon her spirit, and,
of all earthly sounds, Emma heard only the intermittent lamentation of
that poor heart of hers, a lamentation soft and indistinct, like the
last echo of a symphony dying away in the distance.
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 135}
  'Bring the little one to me,' she said, raising herself on her
elbow.
  'You're not feeling worse, are you?' asked Charles.
  'No! no!'
  The child came in on her nurse's arm, in her long nightdress, her
little naked feet peeping out at the bottom. She looked thoughtful and
not yet out of dreamland. She opened big, wondering eyes when she
saw the disordered room, and the light of the candles stuck about on
the furniture dazzled her and made her blink. They must have made
her think of those New Year's mornings when, roused from her sleep
like this, by candlelight, she used to come into her mother's bed to
get her presents, for she said,
  'But, Mummy, where is it?'
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 140}
  And, as no one spoke, she said again,
  'But I can't see my little shoe anywhere!'
  And while Felicite was holding her over the bed, the child was still
looking at the fireplace.
  'Has Mere Rollet taken it away?'
  At the sound of this name, which brought back the memory of her sins
and her calamities, Madame Bovary turned away her head, as though
her gorge had risen at the taste of a poison more virulent and more
bitter than that other. All this while, Berthe was sitting on the edge
of the bed.
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 145}
  'Oh, Mummy, how big your eyes are! How white you are! And your
face is all wet!'
  Her mother was gazing at her.
  'I'm frightened!' cried the little one, shrinking away.
  Emma took her hand and tried to kiss it; she struggled to free
herself.
  'Enough! Take her away!' cried Charles, who was sobbing in a
corner of the room.
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 150}
  After that the symptoms ceased a little. She seemed easier; and
every little, insignificant word she uttered, every breath that seemed
a little calmer, gave him fresh hope. At last, when Canivet came
into the room, he flung himself, weeping, into his arms.
  'Ah, you've come! How good of you to come! But see! She's going on
better now. Look at her! Do you see?'
  His confrere did not share this view at all, and, not being given to
dilly-dallying- he said so himself- he at once prescribed an emetic,
in order to give the stomach a thorough clean out.
  A minute or two later she was bringing up blood. Her lips were
drawn, her limbs contracted, her body covered all over with brown
patches, and her pulse flickered away beneath the fingers like a
taut wire, or like a harp-string, stretched to breaking point.
  Then she began to scream. Her shrieks were dreadful to hear. She
cried out upon the poison, she cursed it, she implored it to make
haste and, with her rigid arms, thrust away everything that Charles,
whose agony exceeded hers, endeavoured to make her drink. He was
standing bolt upright, his handkerchief to his lips, making a rattling
noise in his throat, crying, choking with sobs that shook him from
head to foot. Felicite was rushing distractedly about the room.
Homais, motionless, was heaving deep sighs, and Monsieur Canivet,
though he did not lose his nerve through it all, was nevertheless
beginning to feel uneasy.
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 155}
  'The devil... but... we've purged her, and when the cause ceases...'
  'The effect must also cease,' interposed Homais. 'That's as plain as
a pikestaff!'
  'But save her life!' cried Bovary.
  And so, paying no attention to the apothecary, who was hazarding the
hypothesis that it was perhaps 'a salutary paroxysm', Canivet was
preparing to give her a dose of morphia, when the crack of a whip
was heard. The windows shook, and a post-chaise, nearly lifted off its
wheels by three horses plastered with mud to the ears, swung
suddenly round the corner by the market-house. It was Dr. Lariviere.
If a god had appeared on the scene, it could not have caused greater
commotion. Bovary lifted up his hands, Canivet stopped short, and
Homais had removed his Turkish cap well before the doctor came in.
  Dr. Lariviere came of that great school of surgeons of which
Bichat was the founder; he belonged to a generation, now no more, of
enlightened medical men, who, cherishing their art with a fanatical
devotion, practised it with lofty zeal and unfailing sagacity. The
whole hospital quaked when he thundered in his wrath, and his pupils
carried their veneration to the point of imitating his sartorial
peculiarities, so that you would find young fellows who had only
just set up in practice in the towns and villages round about,
affecting the long merino cardigan and loose black coat distinctive of
the master they revered. He himself used to wear his wristbands
unbuttoned so that they came down a little over his muscular hands-
very beautiful hands they were- hands that were never cased in gloves,
so they might ever be the readier to immerse themselves in
suffering. Disdaining all academic distinctions, orders and
decorations, friendly and hospitable, open-handed, a father to the
poor, a virtuous man unconscious of his virtue, he might almost have
passed for a saint if his intellectual penetration had not made him
feared like a demon. His glance, that was keener than his scalpel,
pierced down into the depths of your soul, and made short work of
any lie that might be lurking there embedded in make-believe and false
timidity. And so he went among his people, invested with that sweet,
austere stateliness of mien which the consciousness of a great talent,
the possession of ample means and forty years of a laborious and
stainless life, all combined to bestow.
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 160}
  As soon as he was inside the door he lowered his eyebrows, seeing
Emma's cadaverous face, as she lay stretched on her back, gaping.
Then, while appearing to be listening to what Dr. Canivet was
telling him, he rubbed the tip of his nose with his forefinger and
said, 'Quite so, quite so,' but raised his shoulders with a slow,
significant gesture. Bovary saw him, and they looked one another in
the face, and though the doctor was accustomed to every aspect of
human suffering, he could not restrain a tear.
  He wanted to manoeuvre Canivet into the next room, but Charles
followed.
  'She's very bad, isn't she? Do you think if we tried poulticing
her...? Oh, what can we do? Think of something; you have saved so
many!'
  Charles had both his arms about him, looking at him with a
terrified, supplicating gaze, nearly fainting on his breast.
  'Come, old man, you must try to bear it! There's nothing more to
be done.'
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 165}
  And Dr. Lariviere turned away.
  'You're going?'
  'I'm coming back.'
  He went out as though to give orders to the coachman, and Monsieur
Canivet followed at his heels, for he too was in no wise eager to have
Emma dying in his arms.
  The chemist joined them in the market place. He had an innate and
invincible attachment for celebrities. Therefore he implored Dr.
Lariviere to do him the signal honour of taking luncheon at his house.
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 170}
  They sent off post-haste to the Lion d'Or for pigeons, to the
butcher's for every cutlet he had in his shop, to the Tuvaches' for
cream, to Lestiboudois for eggs, and the apothecary himself personally
assisted in the preparations, while Madame Homais, lacing up the
strings of her blouse, remarked,
  'You must please excuse us, Monsieur, for out in these benighted
parts, unless we know the day before...'
  'The best wine-glasses!' hissed Homais in her ear.
  'If we lived in the Town we could at least always rely on getting
some stuffed trotters...'
  'Be quiet!... Come along, Doctor, sit you down!'
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 175}
  He considered it fitting, after the first few mouthfuls, to give a
few details of the catastrophe.
  'To begin with, we had a sensation of dryness in the pharynx, then
excruciating pains in the epigastrium, superpurgation, coma.'
  'But how did she come to poison herself?'
  'That I cannot say, Doctor. Nor am I at all clear how she
contrived to possess herself of this arsenious acid.'
  At that moment Justin, bringing in a pile of plates, began to
shake all over.
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 180}
  'What's the matter with you?' said the chemist.
  At this question the young man let the whole lot fall with a
terrific crash.
  'Fool!' cried Homais. 'Clumsy lout! Idiotic ass!'
  But, suddenly regaining his self-control, he proceeded,
  'I considered it advisable to make an analysis and primo, I
carefully introduced, by means of a tube...'
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 185}
  'You would have done better,' answered the surgeon, 'to introduce
your fingers down her throat.'
  Confrere Canivet lay low, for he had just been privately but
severely taken to task about his emetic, so that our celebrated
friend, who had strutted about and talked so glibly at the time of the
club-foot operation, was singularly subdued today. He smiled a
never-ending smile, an approving, assenting, obsequious smile.
  Homais played the Amphitryon in immense style, and the idea of
Bovary's bereavement gave him a vague sense of satisfaction, since
it led him to contrast it with the superior happiness of his own
lot. Then, too, the doctor's being there delighted him beyond measure.
He showed off his learning, he discoursed with torrential volubility
about cantharides, the upas, the manchineel and vipers.
  'Why, do you know, I've even heard of people becoming intoxicated
and rendered completely incapable by smoked sausages that had been
submitted to excessive fumigation. Anyhow, the statement was made in a
very able report, drawn up by one of our most eminent chemists, one of
our leading men, the famous Cadet de Gassicourt!'
  Madame Homais reappeared, carrying one of those top-heavy coffee
contrivances that you heat with spirits of wine; for Homais insisted
on having the coffee made in the dining-room. More than that, he had
roasted, ground and blended it with his own hands.
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 190}
  'Saccharum, Doctor,' said he, passing the sugar.
  Then he had all his children brought down, for he wanted to have the
surgeon's opinion on their constitutions.
  At last Monsieur Lariviere was on the point of starting, when Madame
Homais said she would like to consult him about her husband. He
dropped off to sleep every night after dinner, and this made his blood
so thick.
  'Oh, no, it's not his blood that's thick!'
  And, smiling at this little quip that passed unnoticed, the doctor
opened the door. But the shop was crammed full of people, and he had
much ado to extricate himself from Monsieur Tuvache, who was afraid
his wife was in for some sort of lung trouble because she spat in
the fire so much. Next came Monsieur Binet, who was sometimes troubled
with fits of ravenous hunger; and Madame Caron, who was a martyr to
pins and needles; Lheureux, who had attacks of giddiness;
Lestiboudois, with his rheumatism; Madame Lefrancois, with her
heartburn. At last the three horses dashed off, and the general
opinion was that he hadn't been at all obliging.
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 195}
  Public attention was now diverted by the appearance of Monsieur
Bournisien, who was proceeding through the market with the Holy Oils.
  Homais, as his principles demanded, likened priests to carrion-crows
which are attracted by the smell of dead bodies. The sight of an
ecclesiastic was personally distasteful to him, for the cassock made
him think of the winding-sheet, so that his loathing of the one was
somewhat inspired by his terror of the other.
  Nevertheless, he did not recoil from what he called his mission, and
went back to Bovary's along with Canivet, who had been strongly
urged by Monsieur Lariviere, before he started, to take this step.
Indeed, had it not been for the protests of his wife, Homais would
have brought his two sons with him in order to accustom them to scenes
of suffering, so that it might be a lesson to them, an example, a
solemn picture for them to bear in memory in after years.
  They found the room, as they entered, full of an atmosphere of
mournful solemnity. Upon the work-table, covered with a white
napkin, were five or six little balls of cotton wool in a silver dish,
and near them stood a large crucifix between a pair of tall, lighted
candles.
  Emma was lying with her chin sunk on her breast; her eyes were
staring and her poor hands twitching at the sheets, in the ghastly,
submissive way that dying people have, as though they were trying,
prematurely, to draw the winding-sheet about them. Pale as a statue,
with eyes like burning coals, Charles, not weeping now, was standing
facing her at the foot of the bed, while the priest, resting on one
knee, was murmuring his prayers.
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 200}
  Slowly she turned her head, and, of a sudden, as her eyes lighted on
the violet stole, an expression of joy irradiated her countenance. A
strange peace descended upon her, and she doubtless experienced, yet
again, those mystical exaltations she had known as a child, and
glimpsed the glories of the world to come.
  The priest rose from his knees to take the crucifix; and then she
stretched forth her neck like one athirst and, gluing her lips to
the body of the God-Man, she fastened thereon, with all her failing
strength, the most passionate kiss of love she had ever in her life
bestowed. Then he recited the Misereatur and the Indulgentiam,
dipped his right thumb in the oil, and began the unctions, anointing
her, first on the eyes which had gazed so covetously on the luxuries
of the world; then, on the nostrils that had delighted in the breeze's
soft caress and in all love-laden perfumes; then, on the mouth, the
gateway of her lies, that had moaned in the moments of triumphant
passion and cried aloud in the delirium of the senses; then, on the
hands which had loved all things gentle to the touch; and, lastly,
on the soles of the feet that, aforetime, had sped so swiftly to the
appeasement of her desires, and now would stir no more.
  The cure wiped his fingers, and threw the wads of cotton wool into
the fire. Then he came back and sat by the bedside of the dying woman,
warning her that it now behoved her to unite her sufferings with
Christ's and surrender herself to the divine mercy.
  At the conclusion of his exhortations, he tried to put a consecrated
taper in her hands as a symbol of the heavenly glories which would
soon encompass her. Emma had not strength enough in her fingers to
hold it, and had not Monsieur Bournisien been at hand to catch it, the
taper would have fallen to the floor.
  However, she was not so pale now, and her countenance had assumed an
expression of serenity, as though the Sacrament had made her whole
again.
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 205}
  The priest by no means omitted to draw attention to this phenomenon.
He even went so far as to explain to Bovary that the Lord occasionally
prolonged people's lives when He deemed it would conduce to their
salvation; and Charles recalled a day when she was at death's door
like this, and had had the Sacrament administered to her.
  'Perhaps, after all, we ought not to despair,' thought he.
  And indeed she looked all round about her, slowly, like one waking
from a dream; then, in quite a strong voice, she asked for her mirror,
and remained looking into it for some time, until great tears began to
trickle from her eyes. Then she sighed, turned away her head, and sank
down again on the pillow.
  And immediately her breathing became very rapid. The full length
of her tongue protruded from her mouth. Her wandering eyes began to
grow pale, like a pair of lamp globes in which the light was waning,
so that you would have thought her already dead, but for the
terrible heaving of her sides, shaken by some raging tempest, as
though the soul were leaping and straining to be free. Felicite
knelt down before the crucifix, and even the apothecary bent his
hams a little, while Monsieur Canivet stood gazing out vaguely on to
the Square. Bournisien had begun to pray again, his face bowed down
upon the edge of the bed, his long black soutane trailing out behind
him across the floor. Charles was on the other side, on his knees, his
arms outstretched towards Emma. He had taken her hands, and was
pressing them in his, trembling at her every heart-beat, as a man
might start at the sound of a collapsing ruin. As the death-rattle
grew more insistent, the priest redoubled the speed of his orisons;
they mingled with Bovary's choking sobs, and sometimes all seemed
drowned in the low murmur of the Latin syllables, which sounded like
the tinkling of a passing bell.
  Suddenly there was a noise of heavy clogs on the pavement outside
and the scraping of a stick, and a voice, a raucous voice, began to
sing,
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 210}
-
               Now skies are bright, the summer's here,
               A maiden thinks upon her dear.
-
  Emma sat bolt upright like a corpse suddenly galvanized into life,
her hair dishevelled, her eyes fixed in a glassy stare, gaping with
horror.
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 215}
-
                   And to gather up with care
                   What the weary reaper leaves,
                   My Nanette goes gleaning there,
                   Down among the golden sheaves.
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 220}
-
  'The blind man!' she cried, and broke out into a laugh- a ghastly,
frantic, despairing laugh- thinking she saw the hideous features of
the wretched being, rising up to strike terror to her soul, on the
very threshold of eternal night.
-
                 She stooped low, the wind blew high,
                 What a sight for mortal eye!
                                                         {32 ^paragraph 225}
-
  She fell back in a paroxysm on to the mattress. They hurried to
her side. Emma was no more.

{33
                                  33
-
                  The widower: Funeral instructions:
             Philosophy and belief: Watching by the body:
                A lock of hair: The coffin is closed.
-
  DEATH always brings with it a kind of stupefaction, so difficult
is it for the human mind to realize and resign itself to the blank and
utter nothingness. Yet when, at length, he saw her lying there so
still, Charles flung himself upon her, crying piteously,
                                                           {33 ^paragraph 5}
  'Good-bye! Good-bye!'
  Homais and Canivet led him from the room.
  'There, try and be calm!'
  'Yes,' he said, endeavouring to disengage himself, 'I'll be
sensible, I won't do any harm. But leave me! I must see her! She is my
wife!'
  And he began to cry.
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 10}
  'That's right, weep on,' said the chemist. 'Let Nature have her way.
You'll feel easier!'
  Weaker, now, than a little child, Charles suffered himself to be led
downstairs into the dining-room, and, soon after, Monsieur Homais took
his departure.
  As he was crossing the market-place he was accosted by the blind
beggar, who had dragged himself all the way to Yonville in the hope of
getting the antiphlogistic ointment, asking everyone he met where
the chemist lived.
  'Oh, good Lord! as if I had nothing else to see to! Well, well, it's
hard luck; but come again later on.'
  With these words he dashed into his shop.
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 15}
  He had two letters to write, a sleeping draught to make up for
Bovary, some sort of tale to invent to hide the truth about the
poisoning, and then to serve it up in an article for the Rouen
Beacon, to say nothing of all the people who were hanging about to
see what news they could extract from him. When all the town had heard
him tell how she had mistaken arsenic for sugar when making a
vanilla blanc-mange, Homais again went back to the doctor's.
  He found him all by himself (Monsieur Canivet had just gone),
sitting in an arm-chair near the window, and staring blankly at the
stone floor.
  'Now,' said the chemist, 'you'll have to settle about the ceremony.'
  'How do you mean? What ceremony?'
  Then, in a frightened voice, he stammered out,
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 20}
  'Oh, no, I tell you! No! I want to keep her!'
  Homais, by way of a diversion, picked up a jug that was on the
dinner-wagon and began watering the geraniums.
  'Oh, thanks!' said Charles. 'That is good of you...'
  And he could go no further- all the memories this action of the
chemist's conjured up before him, choked his utterance.
  Then, to take his mind off things, Homais deemed it becoming to talk
about gardening a little. Plants, he observed, wanted a lot of
water. Charles bowed his head in sign of assent.
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 25}
  'Summer'll soon be here again now.'
  'Ah!' said Bovary.
  The apothecary, having exhausted his stock of ideas, made a little
opening in the small curtains of the window.
  'Why,' he said, 'there's Monsieur Tuvache going along!'
  And Charles said after him, like a machine,
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 30}
  'Monsieur Tuvache going along.'
  Homais dared not ask him any more about the funeral arrangements. It
was the priest that got him to make up his mind.
  He shut himself up in his little room, took a pen, and after sobbing
for some time, wrote:
-
  'I wish her to he buried in her wedding dress, with white shoes
and a wreath. I want her hair to be spread out over her shoulders.
There are to be three coffins, one oak, one mahogany and one lead. I
don't want people to speak to me. I shall bear up. A large piece of
green velvet is to be laid over all. These are my wishes. See that
they are carried out.'
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 35}
-
  The gentlemen were surprised at Bovary's romantic ideas, and the
chemist promptly went off and spoke to him on the matter.
  'It seems to me,' he said, 'that that velvet is somewhat
supererogatory; besides...'
  'What's it to do with you?' shouted Charles. 'Leave me alone! You
did not love her! Out of my sight!'
  The priest took him by the arm and made him come for a turn in the
garden. He held forth on the vanity of earthly things. God was very
great and very good. We must submit to His decrees without repining-
nay, we should be thankful to Him!
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 40}
  Charles broke forth into blasphemy,
  'I loathe and detest your God!' he shouted.
  'The spirit of rebelliousness is still in you,' said the
ecclesiastic, with a sigh.
  But Bovary was out of hearing. He was pacing with long strides
beside the wall, near the espalier, grinding his teeth and breathing
curses at heaven. Yet not so much as a leaf stirred in answer to his
imprecations.
  A misty rain was falling. Charles, whose chest was all uncovered, at
length began to shiver. He went indoors and sat down in the kitchen.
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 45}
  At six o'clock there was a rattle of old iron in the
market-square. It was the Hirondelle arriving; and he sat with his
forehead against the window-pane watching the passengers alight one
after another. Felicite put down a mattress for him in the
drawing-room. He threw himself on it and slept.
-
  Monsieur Homais was a philosopher, but he respected the dead, so,
without harbouring any resentment towards poor Charles, he came back
again at night to sit up with the body, bringing with him three
volumes and a writing-case, in order to take some notes.
  Monsieur Bournisien was already there, and two tall tapers were
burning at the head of the bed, which had been pulled out from the
recess.
  The apothecary, finding the silence a little irksome, soon began
to utter some laments concerning the fate of 'this unhappy young
woman', whereon the priest replied that there was nothing to do now
but to pray for her.
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 50}
  'Look here!' answered Homais, 'you can't have it both ways. Either
she died in a state of grace (as the Church puts it), in which case
she doesn't need our prayers; or else she died impenitent (I think
that is the ecclesiastical expression), in which...'
  Bournisien interrupted him, saying sharply that they had got to pray
for her just the same.
  'But,' argued Homais, 'since God knows all our needs, what's the use
of prayer?'
  'What!' exclaimed the ecclesiastic. 'Prayer? Aren't you a Christian,
then?'
  'Pardon me!' said Homais. 'I admire Christianity. To begin with,
it did away with slavery, and set up a system of morality in the
world...'
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 55}
  'That's not the point. All the texts...'
  'Oh, good Lord; the texts! You look up your history; everyone
knows they were faked by the Jesuits.'
  Charles came in, and going up to the bed gently drew aside the
curtains.
  Emma was lying with her head leaning over her right shoulder. The
corner of her mouth, which was open, gave the impression of a black
hole at the bottom of her face; her two thumbs were still clenched
in the palms of her hands; a sort of white dust had settled on her
eyelids, and the eyes themselves seemed to be disappearing in a
viscous pallor like a thin gauze, as if spiders had spun a web over
them. The sheet that covered her lay quite flat from her breasts
down to her knees, rising up again at the tips of her toes; and it
seemed to Charles as though infinite masses, an enormous weight,
were pressing her down.
  The church clock struck two. You could hear the murmur of the
river quite plainly as it rippled along in the darkness at the
bottom of the garden wall. From time to time Monsieur Bournisien would
blow his nose loudly, and Homais's quill pen kept squeaking along on
the paper.
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 60}
  'Come, my dear friend, go and get some rest. This is a heart-rending
sight for you to see.'
  As soon as Charles was out of the room, the chemist and the cure
resumed their argument.
  'Read Voltaire,' said the one; 'read Holbach; read the
Encyclopaedia!'
  'Read the Letters of some Portuguese Jews,' said the other;
'read Reasons for being a Christian by Nicolas, a retired
magistrate.'
  They were getting heated, their faces were flushed, they were both
speaking at once, neither listening to the other. Bournisien was
scandalized at such audacity; Homais was amazed at such stupidity.
They were on the verge of hurling insults at each other, when suddenly
Charles reappeared on the scene. A fascination seemed to draw him
thither. He could not stay downstairs.
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 65}
  He placed himself in front of her, so as to see her the better,
and there he remained, lost in a contemplation that was now too deep
for pain. He thought of all the stories he had heard about catalepsy
and the wonders of magnetism; he told himself that, by an
extraordinary effort of will, he might perhaps succeed in bringing her
back to life again. Once he actually bent over her and called to her
softly, 'Emma! Emma!' And he breathed so hard that the flame of the
tapers flickered against the wall.
  The first thing in the morning, Madame Bovary, senior, arrived.
Charles, as he kissed her, again broke down and wept. She endeavoured,
like the chemist, to expostulate with him about the funeral
expenses. He flew into such a rage that she held her peace. Nay, more,
he commissioned her to go off to Rouen there and then to purchase what
was necessary.
  Charles stayed by himself all the afternoon. Berthe had been taken
over to Madame Homais's. Felicite kept upstairs in the bedroom, with
Mere Lefrancois.
  In the evening various people came in to condole with him. He
would stand up and shake hands, but he could not say anything, and
each newcomer would sit with the rest of the party, who were grouped
in a big circle round the fireplace. With downcast eyes, one leg
over the other, they swung their feet to and fro, sighing deeply at
intervals. Though everyone was intolerably bored, no one got up to go,
there being a sort of contest as to who should stay the longest.
  Homais, when he came back at nine (for two days past you had seen no
one but Homais, going or coming, every time you looked out of the
window), was loaded up with a stock of camphor, benzoin and aromatic
herbs. He also brought along a jar of disinfectant to keep the air
sweet. Just at this juncture, the servant, Madame Lefrancois and
Madame Bovary, senior, were hovering round Emma, busily putting the
finishing touches to their task of dressing her, and they drew down
the long, stiff veil that covered her to her satin shoes.
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 70}
  'Oh, my poor mistress!' sobbed Felicite, 'my poor, poor mistress!'
  'Just look at her!' said the landlady with a sigh. 'What a darling
she looks even now! Why, you'd swear she'd be getting up and coming
downstairs again by and by.'
  Then they all bent over to put on her wreath.
  They were obliged to lift her head a little, and as they did so a
stream of black liquid poured from her mouth, as though she were being
sick.
  'Oh, my God! the dress! take care!' cried Madame Lefrancois. 'Lend a
hand, can't you?' she said to the chemist. 'You're not afraid, are
you, man?'
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 75}
  'Me, afraid?' he answered, shrugging his shoulders. 'You bet I am!
Why, I saw any number of them at the Hospital when I was studying
pharmacy. We students used to brew punch in the dissecting-room. Death
has no terrors for a philosopher, and, as I've said many and many a
time, I intend to leave my body to the hospitals, to be used in the
cause of Science.'
  The cure, when he came back, inquired how the doctor was bearing
up. And when he heard the apothecary's answer he said,
  'Well, you see, the shock is still too recent.'
  Whereupon Homais congratulated him on not being exposed, like the
ordinary run of men, to the sorrow of losing a beloved companion;
and that gave rise to an argument about the celibacy of the clergy.
  'You see,' said the chemist, 'it's against Nature for a man to do
without women. Why, there have been crimes...'
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 80}
  'But, sakes alive, man!' exclaimed the ecclesiastic, 'how do you
expect a man involved in matrimony to keep the secret of the
confessional?'
  Homais attacked confession; Bournisien defended it. He enlarged on
the restitutions that were brought about by its means. He narrated
several stories of thieves who had suddenly turned honest men.
Military men, approaching the tribunal of penitence, had felt the
scales fall from their eyes. Why, there was a minister at Fribourg...
  His companion had dropped off to sleep. Then, finding the atmosphere
of the room rather too stuffy to be comfortable, the Abbe opened the
window. The sound awakened the chemist.
  'Here!' said the cure, 'have a pinch of snuff! Go on, man! It's
good for you! It clears the head.'
  Somewhere, in the distance, a dog was barking incessantly.
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 85}
  'Do you hear that dog howling?' said the chemist.
  'People say they scent the dead,' replied the ecclesiastic. 'It's
the same with bees. They all fly out of the hive when there's a
death.'
  Homais did not criticize these superstitions, because he had again
dropped off into a doze.
  Monsieur Bournisien, having more stamina, continued for some time
moving his lips in a scarcely audible murmur; then, insensibly, he too
let his chin drop, his big black book fell to the ground, and he began
to snore.
  There they were, face to face, their stomachs well out, looking
puffy and morose, finding themselves, after all their disagreements,
both conquered by the same weakness of the flesh. They were not less
motionless than the corpse beside them, that looked as if it, too,
were sleeping. When Charles came in they did not wake. It was the last
time. He had come to say good-bye.
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 90}
  The aromatic herbs were still smouldering, and eddies of bluish
vapour were mingling, near the window, with the mist that came
stealing in. A few stars were shining overhead, and the night air
was soft.
  Drops of candle grease were falling like big tears on the
bed-clothes. Charles looked at the burning tapers till his eyes grew
tired in the brightness of their yellow flame.
  Little shifting gleams of iridescent light played on Emma's satin
robe, that shone white as moonlight. She seemed all but hidden beneath
it, but it somehow seemed to him as if she were rising up and floating
far and wide, merging confusedly in everything round about- in the
silence, in the night, in the winds that went wandering by, in the
moist odours that were rising from the earth.
  Then, all of a sudden, he saw her in the garden at Tostes, on the
seat, against the hedge of thorn, or at Rouen, or in the street, on
the threshold of their house, in the yard at les Bertaux. He could
still hear the merry laughter of the lads as they footed it beneath
the apple-trees. The room was full of the scent of her hair, and her
dress shivered with a sound like sparks crackling, when he put his arm
round her. It was the same dress, that one, there!
  He stood like this for a long time, trying to recall those
vanished delights- the way she stood, the way she moved her hands, the
tone of her voice. After one heart-breaking memory came another, and
another, in an inexhaustible flood, like an onflowing tide.
                                                          {33 ^paragraph 95}
  Then a terrible curiosity came upon him. Slowly, with the tips of
his fingers, and with beating heart, he lifted the veil. He shrieked
with horror. The sleepers awoke. They led him downstairs into the
dining-room.
  Then Felicite came in to say that he wanted a piece of her hair.
  'Cut some off,' answered the apothecary.
  And as she had not the courage, he went over himself, scissors in
hand. But he was so shaky that he pricked her forehead in several
places. At length, pulling himself together, Homais lopped off two
or three big pieces at random, making bald patches in her beautiful
dark hair.
  The chemist and the cure plunged once more into their respective
occupations, dropping off to sleep every now and then, a dereliction
of which they mutually accused themselves at each successive
awakening. Then Monsieur Bournisien sprinkled the room with holy-water
and Homais threw a little disinfectant on the floor.
                                                         {33 ^paragraph 100}
  Felicite had been careful to put a bottle of brandy, some cheese and
a large milk-roll for them on the chest of drawers. And about four
o'clock in the morning the apothecary, unable to hold out any
longer, exclaimed, 'Ma foi, I would gladly ingest a little
nourishment'.
  The ecclesiastic wasn't the man to say no. He went out to say his
Mass and came back. After which they fell to with a will, guzzling and
drinking, and giggling a little- they didn't know why- excited by that
vague sensation of cheerfulness that comes upon one after prolonged
periods of strain.
  As he was about to drink off the last tot, the priest said to the
chemist, as he clapped him on the shoulder,
  'We shall come to understand each other, one of these days.'
  Downstairs in the hall they met the undertaker's men coming in.
And then for two hours Charles had to endure the torture of hearing
the sound of the hammer on the wood. At length they brought her
downstairs in her oaken coffin, which they enclosed in the other
two. But as the bier was too wide they had to fill up the interspace
with wool from a mattress. Finally, when the three lids were planed
smooth, nailed down and soldered, they carried her to the door; the
house was thrown open, and all the inhabitants of Yonville crowded
to the spot. Farmer Rouault arrived, and fell unconscious in the
market-place when he saw the funeral hangings.

{34
                                  34
-
       Monsieur Rouault receives the news: Husband and father:
         The funeral service: At the graveside: Back at home:
                 Charles's mother: A lonely mourner.
-
  HE did not receive the chemist's letter until thirty-six hours after
the event. And in order to soften the blow, Monsieur Homais had
written in such vague terms that it was impossible to get any clear
idea as to how the matter really stood.
                                                           {34 ^paragraph 5}
  When he read the letter for the first time, the poor old man fell
down as though he were in an apoplectic fit. Then he read it that
she wasn't dead. And yet she might be. At last he slipped on his
blouse, picked up his hat, buckled a spur on one of his shoes, and
started off as hard as he could go. All the way along, gasping and
panting, the old man's heart was torn with anguish. Once, indeed, he
had to get down; there was no help for it. He couldn't see where he
was going; he heard voices round him. He felt as if he were going mad.
  Day broke. He saw three black hens roosting in a tree. He
shuddered with terror at this evil omen. It was then that he
promised the Blessed Virgin three chasubles for the Church, and
vowed he would walk barefoot from the churchyard at les Bertaux to the
chapel at Vassonville.
  He rode into Maromme shouting to the people at the inn, burst the
stable door open with his shoulder, made a rush for the corn bin,
emptied a bottle of cider into the manger, remounted his hack and tore
on, the sparks flying from its four feet.
  He told himself they would pull her through right enough. The
doctors would find a way; no doubt about that. He called to mind all
the accounts he had heard of miraculous cures.
  Then he seemed to see her dead. There she was, stretched out
before him, on her back, in the middle of the road. He would give a
tug at the bridle, and the hallucination would disappear.
                                                          {34 ^paragraph 10}
  When he got to Quincampoix, he drank off three coffees one after
another, to keep his heart up.
  He remembered that the name had been written down wrong, and felt
for the letter in his pocket. It was there all right, but he could not
bring himself to look at it.
  It even came into his mind that someone was fooling him, taking a
rise out of him for some reason or other. Besides, if she were dead,
it would somehow be brought home to him. But no, the country presented
its wonted appearance: the sky was blue, the trees were waving, a
flock of sheep passed by. He came in sight of the village. They saw
him coming along at full speed, his head well down, lashing
furiously at his beast, whose flanks were dripping with blood.
  When he came to, he fell weeping into Bovary's arms.
  'My little girl! Emma! My child! How, tell me how it...'
                                                          {34 ^paragraph 15}
  And Charles, choking with sobs, answered,
  'I don't know! I don't know! It's some curse that's on us!'
  The apothecary intervened.
  'It's no use going into these horrible details. I'll tell your
father-in-law about it. Here are some people coming. Pull yourselves
together! Come, where's your philosophy?'
  Charles, poor fellow, tried to show a brave front, and kept saying
to himself,
                                                          {34 ^paragraph 20}
  'Yes, yes; must bear up! must bear up!'
  'Ay, and by God, I will bear up- that I will, and go along with
her to the very end,' cried the old man.
  The bell began to toll. Everything was ready. It was time to be
making a start.
  In one of the choir stalls, sitting side by side, they watched the
three cantors passing and repassing in front of them, intoning the
chants. The organ was playing full blast. Monsieur Bournisien,
elaborately vested, was chanting in a shrill voice. He bowed to the
tabernacle, raised his hands and spread out his arms. Lestiboudois was
moving about the church with his verger's wand.
  Near the reading-desk rested the bier, between four rows of
tapers. Charles felt as if he would like to get up and put them out.
                                                          {34 ^paragraph 25}
  He endeavoured, however, to bring himself into a devotional frame of
mind, to buoy himself up with the hope of a future life, in which he
would see her again. He tried to imagine that she had set forth on a
journey, a journey to a distant land, and that she had been gone a
long time. But when he remembered that she was there, underneath
that pall, his heart was filled with black, despairing rage. Sometimes
it seemed to him as if he had lost the faculty of feeling, and he
derived comfort from this mitigation of his grief, even though it made
him feel ashamed of himself.
  The church now resounded with a noise like a stick with an iron
ferrule tap-tapping on the stone flags. The sound came from the back
of the church and stopped short in one of the aisles. A man in a big
brown jacket got down painfully on to his knees. It was Hippolyte, the
ostler at the Lion d'Or. He was wearing his new leg.
  One of the choirmen came down from the chancel to take the
collection, and one by one the coppers clattered into the silver
plate.
  'Make haste, can't you? This is agony for me!' exclaimed Bovary
angrily, throwing him a five-franc piece.
  The choirman thanked him with a low bow.
                                                          {34 ^paragraph 30}
  They sang, they went down on their knees, they got up again there
seemed to be no end to it all. He remembered how once, in the early
days, they had attended Mass together. They had sat on the other side,
on the right, against the wall. The bell began again. There was a
great scraping of chairs. The bearers slipped their three staves under
the bier and the congregation filed out of the church.
  Just then Justin appeared in the doorway of the chemist's shop. He
turned and went in again at once, with white face and faltering steps.
  People were standing at the windows to see the funeral go by.
Charles walked in front, holding himself very erect. He was trying
to look brave, and as the people came forth from the doors and
alleyways to take their stand with the crowd, he gave them a nod of
recognition. The six bearers, three a side, went stumping along with
little, short steps, puffing and panting a little. The priests, the
cantors and the two choir-boys recited the De Profundis, and their
voices were borne away over the fields, rising and falling in
murmuring undulations of sound. Sometimes a sudden turn in the pathway
hid them from sight, but always the great silver cross rose high
amid the trees. The women followed, clad in black capes with drawn
hoods, and each in her hand carried a tall lighted taper. Charles
began to feel that all these everlasting prayers and tapers, tapers
and prayers were going to be too much for him, that he could not
bear much longer the sickly odour of cassocks and burning candles.
There was a fresh breeze blowing, the fields of rye and colza were
green and flourishing, drops of diamond dew hung glistening on the
thorn hedge that fringed the path. Far and wide the air was filled
with gladness: the far-off click-clack of a wagon trundling along in
the ruts, the sound of a cock crowing, or the scamper of a colt
galloping off in great alarm beneath the apple-trees. The limpid sky
was flecked with clouds of rose, and a bluish light lingered on the
thatched roofs covered with iris. Charles recognized every garden as
he passed, and remembered how often, on just such a morning as this,
he had come away from one or other of them, and set out for home and
Emma.
  The black pall with its silver tears blew up from time to time and
showed the bier; the bearers were tired and walked more slowly; but
still, on and on it went, with little jerky movements like a boat in a
choppy sea pitching at every wave.
  They reached their journey's end.
                                                          {34 ^paragraph 35}
  The bearers held on their way till they came to where a pit had been
dug in the grass.
  The people stood around, and all the time the priest was speaking,
the red earth that had been cast up round the sides trickled down at
the corners, noiselessly, unceasingly.
  Then, when the four ropes were in position, they pushed the coffin
across them and lowered it into the grave. He watched it descend, down
and down and down. At last there was a dull thud, then a grating
noise, and the ropes were hauled up again. The Abbe Bournisien took
the spade held out to him by Lestiboudois. With his left hand- still
sprinkling holy-water with his right- he vigorously thrust over a
big shovelful of earth. And the crash of the stones on the wood of the
coffin gave forth that dreadful sound that seems to fall upon the
ear like an echo of eternity.
  The priest handed the holy-water sprinkler to his neighbour. It
was Monsieur Homais. He shook it gravely and then passed it on to
Charles who sank down on his knees on the soil, throwing it down in
handfuls and crying, 'Adieu!' He kept sending her kisses, and
dragged himself towards the grave to cast himself in and abide with
her.
  They led him away; and he soon grew calm again, conscious,
perhaps, like all the others, of a vague sense of relief that it was
all over now, and done with.
                                                          {34 ^paragraph 40}
  Farmer Rouault, on the way back, puffed calmly at his pipe; a
proceeding which, in his own mind, Homais condemned as highly
indecorous. He further remarked that Monsieur Binet had abstained from
appearing, that Tuvache had bolted after the Mass, and that
Theodore, the notary's manservant, was wearing a blue coat, 'just as
if a man couldn't get hold of a black one, seeing, damme, that it's
the custom!' And to communicate these views of his he passed along
from group to group. They spoke of Emma's death, and said what a
dreadful thing it was, especially Lheureux, who had not omitted to
come to the funeral.
  'Poor little lady! What a terrible grief for her husband!'
  'I can tell you what; if it hadn't been for me he would have done
something dreadful to himself!'
  'Such a nice, friendly little body she was, too. Why, it was only
last Saturday I saw her in my shop!'
  'I should have liked to say a few words over the grave, but I've had
no time to prepare anything.'
                                                          {34 ^paragraph 45}
  When he got home Charles changed his things and Farmer Rouault
slipped on his blue blouse. It was a new one, and as he had frequently
wiped his eyes with the sleeve of it, riding along, the dye had come
off on his face. You could see where the tears had been, by the
streaks in the dust with which his face was covered.
  Madame Bovary, senior, was with them. They all three sat without a
word. At last the old farmer broke silence.
  'You remember, once when I came to Tostes, you had just lost your
first wife. I comforted you, back along in those days. The words
came then, right enough, but now... Ah, well,' he groaned, with a deep
sigh that shook his whole frame, ''tis the wind-up for me, I tell
'e. I've seen my wife go, and, after her, my boy... and now, today,
'tis the girl!'
  He insisted on going straight back to les Bertaux, saying that he
couldn't sleep in that house, there. He wouldn't even see his little
grandchild.
  'No, no! I couldn't bear the pain of it. But, there, you'll give her
a good kiss for me. Good-bye to 'e, then. You'm a good lad,' and,
slapping his thigh, 'I shan't forget that leg, not as long as I
live; you'll always get your turkey, never you fear.'
                                                          {34 ^paragraph 50}
  But when he reached the top of the hill he turned again, just as,
years ago, he had turned and looked back along the Saint Victor
road, when she left him to go with her husband. The windows in the
village were all on fire in the slanting rays of the sun that was
sinking down behind the meadow. He put up his hand to shade his
eyes, and far away, on the horizon, he descried a space enclosed
with walls, with trees making dark clusters here and there amid the
white stones. Then he went on his way, riding gently, because his
horse was lame.
  Charles and his mother, despite their weariness, sat up talking very
late. They spoke of days gone by, of the future. She would come and
live at Yonville and keep house for him; they would be together
always. She was tactful and soothing, inwardly rejoicing at recovering
an affection which, for many a year past, had been slowly slipping
from her. The clock struck midnight. The village was wrapped in its
wonted silence. Charles was still awake, thinking of her.
  Rodolphe, who, to pass the time away, had been out beating the
coverts all day long, was sleeping soundly in his great house, and
Leon, far away, was sleeping too.
  But there was one other, at this time, who was not asleep.
  On the grave, between the pine-trees, a boy was on his knees
weeping; his breast, shaken with sobs, panted convulsively in the
gloom, beneath the burden of a boundless grief, more tender than the
moon and deeper than the night. Suddenly the gate creaked on its
hinges. It was Lestiboudois come back to look for the spade he had
left there a while ago. He recognized Justin clambering over the wall,
and so learnt at last who the rascal was that pilfered his potatoes.

{35
                                  35
-
                  The bills arrive: Leon is married:
      Platonic love: Monsieur Homais's articles: The druggist's
                  ambition: Charles meets Rodolphe:
                         Berthe's discovery.
-
                                                           {35 ^paragraph 5}
  NEXT day Charles had the little one brought home. She asked for
her mummy. They told her that she had gone away, that she would
bring her back some toys. Berthe spoke of her again many times; but as
the days went by she ceased to think of her. The child's merry prattle
went to Bovary's heart, and he had to endure the chemist's
insufferable consolations.
  Before long the money troubles began again, Monsieur Lheureux
putting his friend Vincart once more on the war-path, and Charles
involved himself in exorbitant liabilities; for he would never agree
to part with anything, however trifling, that had belonged to her.
This enraged his mother. His wrath exceeded hers. He had changed
completely. She shook the dust of the place off her feet.
  Then they all tried to get their pickings. Mademoiselle Lempereur
sent in an account for six months' tuition, though Emma had never
had a single lesson (despite the receipted bill she had shown to
Bovary)- it was an agreement they had made between them; the
proprietor of the lending library claimed three years' subscription;
Mere Rollet demanded payment for delivering a score of letters, and
when Charles asked for an explanation she had the delicacy to reply,
  'Oh, I don't know anything about it; it had to do with her
business affairs.'
  Every time he paid a bill, Charles thought it was the last, but
fresh ones kept cropping up.
                                                          {35 ^paragraph 10}
  He sent out requests for the payment of outstanding bills. They
showed him letters received from his wife. And then he had to make his
apologies.
  Felicite was now wearing Madame's dresses. Not all of them, for
Charles had kept some, and he would go and shut himself up in her
dressing-room and look at them. Felicite was about the same figure,
and often when Charles saw her from behind, a sort of illusion would
take hold of him and he would cry,
  'Stay there, for God's sake! Stay where you are!'
  But when Whitsuntide came she left Yonville. She decamped with
Theodore and the remainder of the wardrobe.
  It was about this time that Madame Veuve Dupuis 'had the honour to
acquaint him with the marriage of her son, Monsieur Leon Dupuis,
notary at Yvetot, to Mademoiselle Leocadie Leboeuf, of Bondeville'.
Charles in the course of his congratulations wrote: 'How delighted
my poor wife would have been!'
                                                          {35 ^paragraph 15}
  One day, when he was wandering aimlessly about the house, he
happened to go upstairs into the attic, and as he was walking about,
felt a little pellet of thin paper underneath his slipper. He
uncrumpled it and read, 'Be brave, Emma, you must be brave! I am not
going to bring disaster on your life.' It was Rodolphe's letter, which
had fallen down between the boxes. There it had remained all this
time, and the draught from the window had just blown it out towards
the door. And now Charles was standing transfixed and staring where,
long ago, more pale than he, Emma, with despair in her heart, had
thought to hurl herself to death. He looked, and after a time he
made out a little R at the bottom of the second page. What was the
meaning of it? He remembered how attentive Rodolphe had been, his
sudden disappearance, and his air of constraint on the two or three
occasions he had run across him since. But the respectful tone of
the letter put him off the scent.
  'Perhaps there was some sort of platonic affection between them,' he
thought.
  Besides, Charles was not the sort of man to probe things to the
bottom: he hadn't the courage to face the proofs; and his vague qualms
of jealousy were swallowed up in the immensity of his sorrow.
  Who, he thought to himself, could have helped adoring her? Not a man
but must have longed to possess her- that was a sure thing. And all
these thoughts brought her before him, more beautiful than ever. A
furious, incessant desire took hold of him, adding fuel to his
despair; it knew no sort of bounds, since now it was beyond requital.
  To please her, as though she were still alive, he adopted her
predilections, her ideas. He bought himself patent leather boots; he
took to wearing white ties; he waxed the ends of his moustache, and,
like her, he set his hand to promissory notes. She was corrupting
him from beyond the tomb.
                                                          {35 ^paragraph 20}
  He was obliged to sell the silver, piece by piece; then he got rid
of the drawing-room furniture. All the rooms were robbed of their
contents- all save one. Her room, her bedroom, was left as it had
always been. When he had had his dinner, Charles went up there. He
pulled the round table in front of the fire and brought up her
easy-chair. And then he would sit down facing it. A candle would be
burning in one of the gilt candlesticks, and Berthe would be sitting
near him, busy with her painting-book.
  It pained the poor fellow to see her going about so ill clad,
without any laces in her shoes, and her blouses with great slits in
them from armhole to hip, for the charwoman scarcely worried about her
at all. But she was so sweet and gentle, and she would put her
little head on one side so winningly, so that her pretty fair hair
hung down and hid her rosy cheeks, that the sight of her filled him
with delight, yet that delight had its alloy of bitterness, like an
ill-made wine that smells of resin. He mended her toys, cut out
marionettes for her in cardboard, or stitched up the rents in the
stomachs of her dolls. Then, if his eyes fell on the work-box, on a
piece of ribbon lying about, or even a pin that had got into a crevice
in the table, he would sit like a man in a dream, and looked so
woebegone, so sad, that she grew sad like him.
  No one came to see them now; for Justin had run away to Rouen, where
he had found employment in a grocer's shop, and the apothecary's
children gradually dropped the little Bovary girl. In view of the
difference in their social status, Monsieur Homais was not anxious for
the connexion to continue.
  The blind man, who had derived no benefit from his ointment, had
gone back to Bois-Guillaume hill, where he was in the habit of telling
the travellers all about the chemist's unsuccessful experiment. It
became so trying that whenever Homais had occasion to go to town he
hid behind the curtains of the Hirondelle to avoid encountering him.
He loathed and detested him, and, in order to get rid of him at any
price, in the interests of his own reputation, he attacked him with
a masked battery which displayed at once the resources of his
intelligence and the baseness of his vanity. For six consecutive
months there appeared little paragraphs in the Rouen Beacon
running something like this:
  'Travellers bound for the fertile regions of Picardy cannot fail
to have noticed on the hillside of Bois-Guillaume a wretched
specimen of humanity afflicted with a horrible facial eruption. The
miserable creature plies his beggar's trade with such persistence that
his importunities constitute a sort of toll or tax on all who
journey that way. Are we still living in those intolerable Dark Ages
when vagabonds were free to expose, without let or hindrance, to the
public gaze, the leprous and scrofulous diseases brought back by
them from the Crusades?'
                                                          {35 ^paragraph 25}
  Or, again,
  'Notwithstanding the laws against vagrancy, the outskirts of our big
towns continue to be infested by troops of beggars. Sometimes they
wander singly, and these solitary specimens are perhaps not the
least dangerous. What are our local authorities dreaming about?'
  Then Homais would invent stories, such as,
  'Yesterday on the hill of Bois-Guillaume, a vicious horse...' and
there followed an account of an accident ascribed to the blind man's
presence.
  He succeeded so well that the man was shut up. However, he was let
go again. He started the ball once more, and so did Homais. It was a
trial of strength. Homais won, for his enemy was condemned to
perpetual confinement in a pauper infirmary.
                                                          {35 ^paragraph 30}
  This success emboldened him, and henceforth there wasn't a dog run
over, a barn fired, or a woman assaulted, but he must publish an
account of it, always guided by his passion for progress and his
detestation of the clergy. He drew comparisons between the lay and
clerical schools, to the detriment of the latter, made references to
Saint Bartholomew's Eve in connexion with a grant of one hundred
francs to the Church, denounced abuses, fired off epigrams. That was
his cue. Homais was laying his mines. He was becoming a power to be
reckoned with.
  However, he was stifled within the narrow limits of journalism. A
book, a work, that was the thing for him! Therefore he compiled a
volume entitled Statistical Records of the Yonville District,
together with some Climatological Observations, and his Statistics
were not unseasoned with philosophy. He concerned himself with
questions of public importance: the social problem, the moral
uplifting of the poorer classes, pisciculture, the cultivation of
rubber, railways, etc. He became rather ashamed of his bourgeois
status; he affected the artistic temperament, he took to smoking! He
bought a couple of Pompadour statuettes to adorn his drawing-room
withal.
  He did not forsake pharmacy- not by a long way. On the contrary,
he kept abreast of all the new discoveries. The great chocolate
movement received his careful attention. He was the first to introduce
cho-ca and revalentia into the district. He became an enthusiastic
advocate of the Pulvermacher hydro-electric appliances. He wore one
himself, and at night, when he took off his flannel waistcoat,
Madame Homais was lost in admiration of the golden spiral which
concealed his trunk, and conceived a yet greater ardour of devotion
for this husband of hers, who stood before her swathed like a Scythian
and resplendent as an Eastern Mage.
  He had some fine ideas concerning Emma's tombstone. First of all
he suggested a broken column with some drapery, then a pyramid, then a
Temple of Vesta, a sort of rotunda... or else 'a mass of ruins'. And
in all his plans Homais would cling to a weeping willow, which he
looked upon as the indispensable symbol of grief.
  Charles and he went off to Rouen together to look at some tombstones
at a monumental mason's. An artist friend of Bridoux's went with them,
an individual called Vaufrylard, who rattled off puns all the way.
At length, having inspected about a hundred designs, he had
estimates sent, and made a second journey to Rouen, and finally
decided on a mausoleum, which was to have on its two main sides 'a
genius carrying an extinguished torch'.
                                                          {35 ^paragraph 35}
  With regard to the inscription, Homais could think of nothing to
come up to Sta viator, and there he stuck. He racked his brains:
he went about saying Sta viator over and over again. At last he
thought of amabilem conjugem calcas! and upon that they decided.
  There was one strange thing, and that was that, though Bovary was
always thinking about Emma, he began to forget her. And he was
filled with despair as he felt her image fading from his memory,
despite all the efforts he made to retain it. Yet every night he
dreamt of her; it was always the same dream. He drew near to touch
her, but just as he was clasping her to his bosom she crumbled to dust
within his arms.
  For a whole week he went to church of an evening. Monsieur
Bournisien paid him two or three visits, and then gave him up.
According to Homais that worthy person was rapidly veering towards
intolerance and fanaticism. He thundered against the spirit of the
age, and every fortnight, in his sermon, he never omitted to tell
the well-known story of how Voltaire died devouring his own excrement.
  Despite Bovary's stringent economy, he couldn't get near to wiping
off his old liabilities. Lheureux refused to do any more
bill-renewing. The brokers were virtually at the door. It was then
that he had recourse to his mother, who agreed to let him take out a
mortgage on her property, but she accompanied this favour with some
very acid criticisms of Emma. And, as some return for the sacrifice
she was making, she asked him for a shawl that had escaped the
predatory clutches of Felicite. Charles wouldn't part with it. So
there was a quarrel.
  She was the first to make pacific overtures, by suggesting that
she should have the child to live with her. She would be company.
Charles agreed. But when the time for parting came, his courage failed
him. That meant another break. This time it was final.
                                                          {35 ^paragraph 40}
  In proportion as his ties decreased, he centred all his love upon
his child. Yet she was an anxiety to him. She coughed occasionally,
and had red patches on her cheeks.
  Just across the way, the chemist's family exhibited all the
glories of health and high spirits, for the chemist was Fortune's
darling. Napoleon assisted him in the laboratory, Athalie worked him a
Turkish cap, Irma cut out discs of paper to put over the jam, and
Franklin, in one breath, recited the multiplication table. He was
the happiest of fathers, the luckiest of men.
  Wrong! A secret ambition gnawed at his vitals. Homais coveted the
Legion of Honour. He was richly entitled to it-
  (1) 'For displaying, during the cholera epidemic, unlimited devotion
in the alleviation of suffering.'
  (2) 'Publishing, at my own expense, sundry works of public
utility, such as...' (and he included his monograph entitled Cider,
its Manufacture and Effects; together with some Observations on
Tick among Sheep, sent to the Academy; his volume of statistics, not
even omitting the thesis he wrote for his pharmaceutical diploma); 'in
addition to which, I am a member of several learned societies' (he
belonged to one).
                                                          {35 ^paragraph 45}
  'Why,' he exclaimed, with a little pirouette of triumph, 'the
services I've rendered at fires ought to do the trick!'
  Thus Homais began to truckle to Authority. He secretly rendered
the Prefect some valuable services during the elections. He sold, he
prostituted, himself. He even addressed a petition to the sovereign,
begging him to see justice done by him. He called him 'Our good King',
and compared him to Henry IV.
  And every morning the apothecary pounced on the newspaper to see
if his appointment was in. But it wasn't. At last he could hold
himself in no longer. He had a lawn made in his garden shaped like a
cross of honour, with two little wavy ends to imitate the riband. He
paced round it with folded arms, musing on the ineptitude of
governments and the ingratitude of men.
  Out of respect, or from a kind of sensual gratification he derived
from lingering over his investigations, Charles had not yet opened the
secret drawer of an ebony writing-desk which Emma had always been in
the habit of using. At length, one day, he sat down in front of it,
turned the key and pressed the spring. All Leon's letters were
there. No room for doubt this time! He devoured them all, to the
very last one, ransacked every corner, every piece of furniture, every
drawer, looked behind the pictures- sobbing, howling, frenzied, mad.
He discovered a box and kicked it open. Rodolphe's portrait stared him
full in the face, in the midst of a wilderness of love-letters.
  People were astonished to see him so low-spirited. He never went out
or had anyone to see him. He even refused to go and see his
patients. Then folks said he shut himself up to indulge in secret
drinking.
                                                          {35 ^paragraph 50}
  Now and again, however, some inquisitive person would hoist
himself up and look in over the garden hedge, and be struck with
amazement to see a man there, a man with a neglected beard, clad in
sordid clothes, with a wild look in his eye, marching up and down
the garden, weeping aloud.
  Of a summer evening he would take his little girl by the hand, and
they would go together to the cemetery. They came back when it was
quite dark, and when the only light in the Square shone from Binet's
attic window.
  However, he could not enjoy the voluptuousness of his sorrow to
the full, because he had no one about him with whom to share it; and
he used to go over and see Mere Lefrancois, so as to be able to talk
of her. But the landlady only listened with half an ear, for she had
troubles enough of her own. Monsieur Lheureux had at last put the
Favorites du Commerce on the road, and Hivert, who enjoyed a great
reputation as a shopping agent and general messenger, was asking for a
rise and threatening to go over to 'the rival show'.
  One day, when he had gone to attend the market at Argueil to sell
his horse- his last remaining asset- he encountered Rodolphe.
  They both turned pale. Rodolphe, who, when Emma died, had merely
sent his card, stammered out a few apologies. Then he grew bolder-
so bold, indeed, as to invite Charles (it was August and very hot)
to have a bottle of beer with him at the inn.
                                                          {35 ^paragraph 55}
  Facing him, leaning on his elbow, he chewed the end of his cigar
as he went on with the conversation. Charles fell into a sort of dream
as he gazed at the features of the man she had loved so deeply. He
seemed somehow to find a vestige of her there. It was a wonderful
thing. He would have liked to be that man.
  Rodolphe went on talking about farming, cattle, fertilisers and so
forth, warding off the risk of any uncomfortable allusion by
interpolating, where necessary, some commonplace observation.
Charles was not listening, Rodolphe saw he wasn't, and watched the
changes of his expression as memory after memory passed through his
mind. His face grew flushed, his nostrils quivered, his lips trembled.
There was, indeed, a moment when Charles, filled with sombre rage,
fixed his eyes on Rodolphe, who, in a kind of panic, stopped what he
was saying. But soon the old funereal weariness overspread his
countenance again.
  'I'm not angry with you,' he said.
  Rodolphe held his peace. And Charles, with his head in his hands,
repeated in a flat voice, with the resigned accent of an infinite
sorrow,
  'No, I'm not angry with you, now!'
                                                          {35 ^paragraph 60}
  Then he said a great thing, the only great thing he ever said in his
life,
  'It's Fate must bear the blame!'
  Rodolphe, who had directed the course of this same Fate, thought him
very civil for a man in his position; rather comic, indeed, and a
trifle cheap.
  Next day Charles went out and sat down on the seat in the garden.
Gleams of sunlight came in through the trellis, the vine leaves cast
the tracery of their shadows on the gravel path, the jasmine shed
abroad its fragrance, the sky was blue, and bumble bees were buzzing
round the lilies in full flower. Charles felt oppressed, as a young
man might have felt, with the vague unrest of love that filled his
stricken heart.
  At seven o'clock, little Berthe, who had not seen him all the
afternoon, came to fetch him in to dinner.
                                                          {35 ^paragraph 65}
  His head was leaning back against the wall, his eyes were shut,
his mouth was open, and in his hand he held a long tress of dark hair.
  'Papa, come along!' she said.
  And thinking he was having a game with her, she gave him a little
push. He fell to the ground. He was dead.
  Thirty-six hours later, at the apothecary's request, Monsieur
Canivet dashed over. He opened up the body and found nothing.
  When everything had been sold, there remained twelve francs
seventy-five centimes, which served to defray the cost of Mademoiselle
Bovary's journey to her grandmother's. The worthy woman died the
same year. Farmer Rouault being paralysed, she was taken charge of
by an aunt. The aunt is poor, and sends her to earn her living in a
cotton mill.
                                                          {35 ^paragraph 70}
  After Bovary died three doctors in succession set up at Yonville,
but none of them prospered, so vigorous was the onslaught that
Homais made upon them all. His practice grows like wildfire. The
authorities wink at his activities, and public opinion is his shield.
  He has just been awarded the Legion of Honour.
-
-
                               THE END