Electronic Bookshelf/Electronic Bookshelf.iso/books/madambov/madambov.txt

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                              MADAME BOVARY

                                  C 1857

                           BY GUSTAVE FLAUBERT




    PART 1

    CHAPTER ONE

         We were in the study-hall when the headmaster entered,
    followed by a new boy not yet in school uniform and by the
    handy man carrying a large desk.  Their arrival disturbed the
    slumbers of some of us, but we all stood up in our places as
    though rising from our work.

         The headmaster motioned us to be seated, then, turning
    to the teacher:

         "Monsieur Roger," he said in an undertone, "here's a
    pupil I'd like you to keep your eye on.  I'm putting him in
    the last year of the lower school.  If he does good work and
    behaves himself we'll move him up to where he ought to be at
    his age."

         The newcomer, who was hanging back in the corner so
    that the door half hid him from view, was a country lad of
    about fifteen, taller than any of us.  He had his hair cut
    in bangs like a cantor in a village church, and he had a
    gentle, timid look.  He wasn't broad in the shoulders, but
    his green jacket with its black buttons seemed tight under
    the arms; and through the vents of his cuffs we could see red
    wrists that were clearly unaccustomed to being covered.  His
    yellowish breeches were hiked up by his suspenders, and from
    them emerged a pair of blue-stockinged legs.  He wore heavy
    shoes, hobnailed and badly shined.

         We began to recite our lessons.  He listened avidly, as
    though to a sermon, he didn't dare even cross his legs or
    lean on his elbows, and at two o'clock, when the bell rang
    for the next class, the teacher had to tell him to line up
    with the rest of us.

         We always flung our caps on the floor when entering a
    classroom, to free our hands.  We hurled them under the seats
    from the doorway itself, in such a way that they struck the
    wall and raised a cloud of dust.  That was "how it was done."

         But whether he had failed to notice this ritual or had
    not dared join in observance of it, his cap was still in his
    lap when we'd finished reciting our prayer.  It was a head-
    gear of composite order, containing elements of an ordinary
    hat, a hussar's busby, a lancer's cap, a sealskin cap, and a
    nightcap; one of those wretched things whose mute hideousness
    suggests unplumbed depths, like an idiot's face.  Ovoid and
    stiffened with whalebone, it began with three convex strips,
    then followed alternating lozenges of velvet and rabbit's fur,
    separated by a red band.  Then came a kind of bag, terminating
    in a cardboard-lined polygon intricately decorated with braid.
    From this hung a long, excessively thin cord ending in a kind
    of tassel of gold netting.  The cap was new, its peak was
    shiny.

         "Stand up," said the teacher.

         He rose.  His cap dropped to the floor.  Everyone began
    to laugh.

         He bent over for it.  A boy beside him sent it down again
    with his elbow.  Once again he picked it up.

         "How about getting rid of your helmet?" suggested the
    teacher, who was something of a wit.

         Another loud laugh from the students confused the poor
    fellow.  He didn't know whether to keep the cap in his hand,
    drop it on the floor, or put it on his head.  He sat down
    again and placed it in his lap.

         "Stand up," repeated the professor, "and tell me your
    name."

         The new boy mumbled a name that was unintelligible.

         "Say it again!"

         The same jumble of syllables came out, drowned in the
    jeers of the class.

         "Louder!" cried the teacher.  "Louder!"

         With desperate resolve the new boy opened a mouth that
    seemed enormous, and as though calling someone he cried at
    the top of his lungs the word "Charbovari!"

         This touched off a roar that rose crescendo, punctuated
    with shrill screams.  There was a shrieking, a banging of
    desks as everyone yelled, "Charbovari!  Charbovari!"  Then
    the din broke up into isolated cries that slowly diminished,
    occasionally starting up again along a line of desks where a
    stifled laugh would burst out here and there like a half-
    spent firecracker.

         But a shower of penalties gradually restored order, and
    the teacher, finally grasping the name Charles Bovary after
    it had been several times spelled out and repeated and he
    had read it aloud himself, at once commanded the poor devil
    to sit in the dunce's seat, at the foot of the platform.  He
    began to move toward it, then hesitated.

         "What are you looking for?" the teacher demanded.

         "My c--" the new boy said timidly, casting an uneasy
    glance around him.

         "Everybody will stay and write five hundred lines!"

         Like Neptune's "Quos ego," those words, furiously
    uttered, cut short the threat of a new storm.  "Quiet!" the
    indignant teacher continued, mopping his forehead with a
    handkerchief he took from his toque.  "As for you," he said
    to the new boy, "you'll copy out for me twenty times all the
    tenses of ridiculus sum."

         Then, more gently,  "You'll find your cap.  No one has
    stolen it."

         All was calm again.  Heads bent over copybooks, and for
    the next two hours the new boy's conduct was exemplary, even
    though an occasional spitball, sent from the nib of a pen,
    struck him wetly in the face.  He wiped himself each time
    with his hand, and otherwise sat there motionless, his eyes
    lowered.

         That evening, in study period, he took his sleeveguards
    from his desk, arranged his meager equipment, and carefully
    ruled his paper.  We saw him working conscientiously, looking
    up every word in the dictionary, taking great pains.  It was
    doubtless thanks to this display of effort that he was not
    demoted to a lower form.  For while he had a fair knowledge
    of grammatical rules, his translations lacked elegance.  He
    had begun his Latin with this village priest.  His thrifty
    parents had sent him away to school as late as possible.

         His father, Monsieur Charles-Denis-Bartholome Bovary,
    had been an army surgeon's aide, forced to leave the service
    about 1812 as a result of involvement in a conscription
    scandal.  He had then turned his personal charms to advantage,
    picking up a dowry of 60,000 francs brought to him by a knit-
    goods dealer's daughter who had fallen in love with his
    appearance.  He was a handsome man, much given to bragging and
    clanking his spurs.  His side whiskers merged with his
    mustache, his fingers were always loaded with rings, his
    clothes were flashy.  He had the look of a bully and the easy
    cajoling ways of a traveling salesman.  Once married, he
    lived off his wife's money for two or three years.  He ate
    well, rose late, smoked big porcelain pipes, stayed out every
    night to see a show, spent much of his time in cafes.  His
    father-in-law died and left very little.   This made him
    indignant, and he "went into textiles" and lost some money.
    Then he retired to the country, with the intention of "making
    things pay."  But he knew as little about crops as he did
    about calico, and since he rode his horses instead of working
    them in the fields, drank his cider bottled instead of
    selling it by the barrel, ate his best poultry, and greased
    his hunting boots with the fat from his pigs, he soon realized
    that the had better give up all idea of profit-making.

         So for two hundred francs a year he rented, in a village
    on the border of Normandy and Picardy, a dwelling that was
    half farm, half gentleman's residence, and there, surly,
    eaten by discontent, cursing heaven, envying everyone, he
    shut himself up at the age of forty-five, disgusted with
    mankind, he said, and resolved to live in peace.

         His wife had been mad about him at the beginning.  In
    her love she had tendered him a thousand servilities that
    had alienated him all the more.  Once sprightly, all outgoing
    and affectionate, with age she had grown touchy, nagging and
    nervous, like stale wine turning to vinegar.  At first she
    had suffered uncomplainingly, watching him chase after every
    trollop in the village and having him come back to her at
    night from any one of twenty disgusting places surfeited and
    stinking of drink.  Then her pride rebelled.  She withdrew
    into her shell, and swallowing her rage she bore up stoically
    until her death.  She was always busy, always doing things.
    She was constantly running to lawyers, to the judge, remember-
    ing when notes fell due and obtaining renewals.  And at home
    she was forever ironing, sewing, washing, keeping an eye on
    the hired men, figuring their wages.  Monsieur, meanwhile,
    never lifted a finger.  He sat smoking in the chimney corner
    and spitting into the ashes, continually falling into a grumpy
    doze and waking to utter uncomplimentary remarks.

         When she had a child it had to be placed out with a wet
    nurse.  And then later, when the little boy was back with
    its parents, he was pampered like a prince.  His mother
    stuffed him with jams and jellies.  His father let him run
    barefoot, and fancied himself a disciple of Rousseau to the
    point of saying he'd be quite willing to have the boy go
    naked like a young animal.  To counter his wife's maternal
    tendencies he tried to form his son according to a certain
    virile ideal of childhood and to harden his constitution by
    subjecting him to strict discipline, Spartan-style.  He sent
    him to bed without a fire, taught him to take great swigs of
    rum and to ridicule religious processions.  But the child
    was pacific by nature, and such training had little effect.
    His mother kept him tied to her apron-strings.  She made him
    paper cutouts, told him stories, and conversed with him in
    endless bitter-sweet monologues full of coaxing chatter.  In
    the isolation of her life she transferred to her baby all
    her own poor frustrated ambitions.  She dreamed of glamorous
    careers,  She saw him tall, handsome, witty, successful, a
    bridge builder or a judge.  She taught him to read, and even,
    on an old piano she had, to sing two or three sentimental
    little songs.  But from Monsieur Bovary, who cared little
    for culture, all this brought merely the comment that it was
    "useless."  Could they ever afford to give him an education,
    to buy him a practice or a business?  Besides, "with enough
    nerve a man could always get ahead in the world."  Madame
    Bovary pursed her lips, and the boy ran wild in the village.

         He followed the hired men and chased crows, pelting
    them with clods of earth until they flew off.  He ate the
    wild blackberries that grew along the ditches, looked after
    the turkeys with a long stick, pitched hay, roamed the woods,
    played hopscotch in the shelter of the church porch when it
    rained, and on important feast-days begged the sexton to let
    him toll the bells so that he could hang with his full weight
    from the heavy rope and feel it sweep him off his feet as it
    swung in its arc.

         He throve like an oak.  His hands grew strong and his
    complexion ruddy.

         When he was twelve, his mother had her way.   He began
    his studies.  The priest was asked to tutor him.  But the
    lessons were so short and irregular that they served little
    purpose.  They took place at odd hurried moments.  In the
    sacristy between a baptism and a funeral.  Or else the
    priest would send for him after the Angelus, when his parish
    business was over for the day.  They would go up to his
    bedroom and begin, midges and moths fluttering around the
    candle.  There in the warmth the child would fall asleep,
    and the old man, too, would soon be dozing and snoring, his
    hands folded over his stomach and his mouth open.  Other
    times, as Monsieur le cure was returning from a sick-bed
    with the holy oils, he would catch sight of Charles
    scampering in the fields, and would call him over and
    lecture him for a few minutes, taking advantage of the
    occasion to make him conjugate a verb right there, under a
    tree.  Rain would interrupt them, or some passer-by whom
    they knew.  However, he was always satisfied with him, and
    even said that "the young fellow had a good memory."

         Things weren't allowed to stop there.  Madame was
    persistent.  Shamed into consent; or, rather, his resistance
    worn down, Monsieur gave in without further struggle.  They
    waited a year, until the boy had made his First Communion,
    then six months more, and finally Charles was sent to the
    lycee in Rouen.  His father delivered him himself, toward
    the end of October, during the fortnight of the Saint-Romain
    fair.

         It would be very difficult today for any of us to say
    what he was like.  There was nothing striking about him.  He
    played during recess, worked in study-hall, paid attention
    in class, slept soundly in the dormitory, ate heartily in
    the refectory.  His local guardian was a wholesale hardware
    dealer in the rue Ganterie, who called for him one Sunday a
    month after early closing, sent him for a walk along the
    riverfront to look at the boats, then brought him back to
    school by seven, in time for supper.  Every Thursday night
    Charles wrote a long letter to his mother, using red ink and
    three seals.  Then he looked over his history notes, or
    leafed through an old volume of Anacharsis that lay around
    the study-hall.  When his class went for outings he talked
    with the school servant who accompanied them, a countryman
    like himself.

         By working hard he managed to stay about in the middle
    of the class.  Once he even got an honorable mention in
    natural history.  But before he finished upper school his
    parents took him out of the lycee entirely and sent him to
    study medicine, confident that he could get his baccalaureate
    degree anyway by making up the intervening years on his own.

         His mother chose a room for him, four flights up over-
    looking the stream called the Eau-de-Robec, in the house of
    a dyer she knew.  She arranged for his board, got him a table
    and two chairs, and sent home for an old cherry bed.  And to
    keep her darling warm she bought him a small cast-iron stove
    and a load of wood.  Then after a week she went back to her
    village, urging him a thousand times over to behave himself
    now that he was on his own.

         The curriculum that he read on the bulletin board
    staggered him.  Courses in anatomy, pathology, pharmacy,
    chemistry, botany, clinical practice, therapeutics, to say
    nothing of hygiene and materia medica.   Names of unfamiliar
    etymology that were like so many doors leading to solemn
    shadowy sanctuaries.

         He understood absolutely nothing of any of it.  He
    listened in vain.   He could not grasp it.  Even so, he
    worked.  He filled his notebooks, attended every lecture,
    never missed hospital rounds.  In the performance of his daily
    task he was like a mill-horse that treads blindfolded in a
    circle, utterly ignorant of what he is grinding.

         To save him money, his mother sent him a roast of veal
    each week by the stagecoach, and off this he lunched when he
    came in from the hospital, warming his feet by beating them
    against the wall.  Then he had to hurry off to lectures, to
    the amphitheatre, to another hospital, crossing the entire
    city again when he returned.  At night, after eating the
    meager dinner his landlord provided, he climbed back up to
    his room, back to work.  Steam rose from his damp clothes as
    he sat beside the red-hot stove.

         On fine summer evenings, at the hour when the warm
    streets are empty and servant girls play at shuttlecock in
    front of the houses, he would open his window and lean out.
    The stream, which makes this part of Rouen a kind of squalid
    little Venice, flowed just below, stained yellow, purple or
    blue between its bridges and railings.  Workmen from the dye
    plants, crouching on the bank, washed their arms in the
    water.  Above him, on poles projecting from attics, skeins
    of cotton were drying in the open.  And beyond the roof-tops
    stretched the sky, vast and pure, with the red sun setting.
    How good it must be in the country!  How cool in the beech
    grove!  And he opened his nostrils wide, longing for a whiff
    of the fresh and fragrant air, but none was ever wafted to
    where he was.

         He grew thinner and taller, and his face took on a kind
    of plaintive expression that almost made it interesting.

         The fecklessness that was part of his nature soon led
    him to break all his good resolutions.  One day he skipped
    rounds, the next, a lecture.  Idleness, he found, was to his
    taste, and gradually he stayed away entirely.

         He began to go to cafes.  Soon he was crazy about
    dominoes.  To spend his evenings shut up in a dirty public
    room, clinking black-dotted pieces of sheep's bone on a
    marble table, seemed to him a marvelous assertion of his
    freedom that raised him in his own esteem.  It was like an
    initiation into the world, admission to a realm of forbidden
    delights, and every time he entered the cafe the feel of the
    doorknob in his hand gave him a pleasure that was almost
    sensual.  Now many things pent up within him burst their
    bonds.  He learned verses by heart and sang them at student
    gatherings, developed an enthusiasm for Beranger, learned to
    make punch, and knew, at long last, the joys of love.

         Thanks to that kind of preparation he failed completely
    the examination that would have entitled him to practice
    medicine as an offcier de sante.  And his parents were waiting
    for him at home that very night at celebrate his success!

         He set out on foot.  At the outskirts of the village he
    stopped, sent someone for his mother, and told her all.
    She forgave him, laying his downfall to the unfairness of
    the examiners, and steadied him by promising to make all
    explanations.  (It was five years before Monsieur Bovary
    learned the truth.  By that time it was an old story and he
    could accept it, especially since he couldn't conceive of
    his own offspring as being stupid.)

         Charles set to work again and crammed ceaselessly,
    memorizing everything on which he could possibly be
    questioned.  He passed with a fairly good grade.  What a
    wonderful day for his mother!  Everyone was asked to dinner.

         Where should he practice?  At Tostes.  In that town
    there was only one elderly doctor, whose death Madame
    Bovary had long been waiting for, and the old man hadn't yet
    breathed his last when Charles moved in across the road as
    his successor.

         But it wasn't enough to have raised her son, sent him
    into medicine, and discovered Tostes for him to practice in.
    He had to have a wife.  She found him one, a huissier's
    widow in Dieppe, forty-five years old, with twelve hundred
    francs a year.

         Ugly though she was, and thin as a lath, with a face as
    spotted as a meadow in springtime, Madame Dubuc unquestionably
    had plenty of suitors to choose from.  To gain her ends Madame
    Bovary had to get rid of all the rivals, and her outwitting of
    one of them, a butcher whose candidacy was favored by the
    local clergy, was nothing short of masterly.

         Charles had envisaged marriage as the beginning of a
    better time, thinking that he would have greater freedom and
    be able to do as he liked with himself and his money.  But
    it was his wife who ruled.  In front of company he had to say
    certain things and not others, he had to eat fish on Friday,
    dress the way she wanted, obey her when she ordered him to
    dun nonpaying patients.  She opened his mail, watched his
    every move, and listened through the thinness of the wall
    when there were women in his office.

         She had to have her cup of chocolate every morning.
    There was no end to the attentions she required.  She
    complained incessantly of her nerves, of pains in her chest,
    of depressions and faintnesses.  The sound of anyone moving
    about near her made her ill.  When people left her she couldn't
    bear her loneliness.  When they came to see her it was, of
    course, "to watch her die."  When Charles came home in the
    evening she would bring her long thin arms out from under
    her bedclothes, twine them around his neck, draw him down
    beside her on the edge of the bed, and launch into the tale
    of her woes.  He was forgetting her, he was in love with
    someone else!  How right people had been, to warn her that
    he'd make her unhappy!  And she always ended by asking him
    to give her a new tonic and a little more love.

    PART 1

    CHAPTER TWO

         One night about eleven o'clock they were awakened by a
    noise; a horse had stopped just at their door.  The maid
    opened the attic window and parleyed for some time with a man
    who stood in the street below.  He had been sent to fetch the
    doctor, he had a letter.  Nastasie came downstairs, shivering,
    turned the key in the lock and pushed back the bolts one by
    one.  The man left his horse, followed the maid, and entered
    the bedroom at her heels.  Out of his gray-tasseled woolen
    cap he drew a letter wrapped in a piece of cloth, and with a
    careful gesture handed it to Charles, who raised himself on
    his pillow to read it.  Nastasie stood close to the bed,
    holding the light.  Madame had modestly turned her back and
    lay facing the wall.

         This letter, sealed with a small blue wax seal, begged
    Monsieur Bovary to come immediately to a farm called Les
    Bertaux, to set a broken leg.  Now, from Tostes to Les Bertaux
    is at least fifteen miles, going by way of Longueville And

    Saint-Victor.  It was a pitch-black night.  Madame Bovary was
    fearful lest her husband meet with an accident.  So it was
    decided that the stable hand who had brought the letter should
    start out ahead, and that Charles should follow three hours
    later, by that time there would be a moon.  A boy would be
    sent out to meet him, to show him the way to the farm and open
    the field gates.

         About four o'clock in the morning Charles set out for Les
    Bertaux, wrapped in a heavy coat.  He was still drowsy from
    his warm sleep, and the peaceful trot of his mare lulled him
    like the rocking of a cradle.  Whenever she stopped of her own
    accord in front of one of those spike-edged holes that farmers
    dig along the roadside to protect their crops, he would wake
    up with a start, quickly remember the broken leg, and try to
    recall all the fractures he had ever seen.  The rain had
    stopped, day was breaking, and on the leafless branches of the
    apple trees birds were perched motionless, ruffling up their
    little feathers in the cold morning wind.  The countryside
    stretched flat as far as eye could see, and the tufts of trees
    clustered around the farmhouses were widely spaced dark purple
    stains on the vast gray surface that merged at the horizon
    into the dull tone of the sky.  From time to time Charles
    would open his eyes, and then, his senses dimmed by a return
    of sleep, he would fall again into a drowsiness in which
    recent sensations became confused with older memories to give
    him double visions of himself, as husband and as student,
    lying in bed as he had been only an hour or so before, and
    walking through a surgical ward as in the past.  In his mind
    the hot smell of poultices mingled with the fresh smell of
    the dew, he heard at once the rattle of the curtain rings on
    hospital beds, and the sound of his wife's breathing as she
    lay asleep.  At Vassonville he saw a little boy sitting in
    the grass beside a ditch.

         "Are you the doctor?" the child asked.

         And when Charles answered, he took his wooden shoes in
    his hands and began to run in front of him.

         As they continued on their way, the officier de sante
    gathered from what his guide told him that Monsieur Rouault
    must be a very well-to-do farmer indeed.  He had broken his
    leg the previous evening, on his way back from celebrating
    Twelfth Night at the home of a neighbor.  His wife had been
    dead for two years.  He had with him only his "demoiselle,"
    his daughter, who kept house for him.

         Now the road was more deeply rutted, they were approaching
    Les Bertaux.  The boy slipped through an opening in a hedge,
    disappeared, then reappeared ahead, opening a farmyard gate
    from within.  The horse was slipping on the wet grass, Charles
    had to bend low to escape over-hanging branches.  Kenneled
    watchdogs were barking, pulling at their chains.  As he passed
    through the gate of Les Bertaux, his horse took fright and
    shied wildly.

         It was a porsperous-looking farm.  Through the open upper-
    halves of the stable doors great plough-horses could be seen
    placidly feeding from new racks.  Next to the out-buildings
    stood a big manure pile, and in among the chickens and turkeys
    pecking at its steaming surface were five or six peacocks,
    favorite show pieces of cauchois farmyards.  The sheepfold was
    long, the barn lofty, its walls as smooth as your hand.  In
    the shed were two large carts and four ploughs complete with
    whips, horse collars and full trappings, the blue wool pads
    gray under the fine dust that sifted down from the lofts.  The
    farmyard sloped upwards, planted with symmetrically spaced
    trees, and from near the pond came the merry sound of a flock
    of geese.

         A young woman wearing a blue merino dress with three
    flounces came to the door of the house to greet Monsieur
    Bovary, and she ushered him into the kitchen, where a big open
    fire was blazing.  Around its edges the farm hands' breakfast
    was bubbling in small pots of assorted sizes.  Damp clothes
    were drying inside the vast chimney-opening.  The fire shovel,
    the tongs, and the nose of the bellows, all of colossal
    proportions, shone like polished steel, and along the walls
    hung a lavish array of kitchen utensils, glimmering in the
    bright light of the fire and in the first rays of the sun that
    were now beginning to come in through the windowpanes.

         Charles went upstairs to see the patient.  He found him
    in bed, sweating under blankets, his nightcap lying where he
    had flung it.  He was a stocky little man of fifty, fair-
    skinned, blue-eyed, bald in front and wearing earrings.  On a
    chair beside him was a big decanter of brandy, he had been
    pouring himself drinks to keep up his courage.  But as soon
    as he saw the doctor he dropped his bluster, and instead of
    cursing as he had been doing for the past twelve hours he
    began to groan weakly.

         The fracture was a simple one, without complications of
    any kind.  Charles couldn't have wished for anything easier.
    Then he recalled his teachers' bedside manner in accident
    cases, and proceeded to cheer up his patient with all kinds
    of facetious remarks, a truly surgical attention, like the
    oiling of a scalpel.  For splints, they sent someone to bring
    a bundle of laths from the carriage shed.  Charles selected
    one, cut it into lengths and smoothed it down with a piece of
    broken window glass, while the maidservant tore sheets for
    bandages and Mademoiselle Emma tried to sew some pads.  She
    was a long time finding her workbox, and her father showed
    his impatience.  She made no reply, but as she sewed she kept
    pricking her fingers and raising them to her mouth to suck.

         Charles was surprised by the whiteness of her fingernails.
    They were almond-shaped, tapering, as polished and shining as
    Dieppe ivories.  Her hands, however, were not pretty, not pale
    enough, perhaps, a little rough at the knuckles, and they were
    too long, without softness of line.  The finest thing about
    her was her eyes.  They were brown, but seemed black under the
    long eyelashes, and she had an open gaze that met yours with
    fearless candor.

         When the binding was done, the doctor was invited by
    Monsieur Rouault himself to "have something" before he left.

         Charles went down to the parlor on the ground floor.  At
    the foot of a great canopied bed, it calico hangings printed
    with a design of people in Turkish dress, there stood a little
    table on which places had been laid for two, a silver mug
    beside each plate.  From a tall oaken cupboard facing the
    window came an odor of orris root and damp sheets.  In corners
    stood rows of grain sacks, the overflow from the granary,
    which was just adjoining, approached by three stone steps.
    The room's only decoration, hanging from a nail in the center
    of the flaking green-painted wall, was a black pencil drawing
    of a head of Minerva framed in gold and inscribed at the
    bottom in Gothic letters "To my dear Papa."

         They spoke about the patient first, and then about the
    weather, about the bitter cold, about the wolves that roamed
    the fields at night, Mademoiselle Rouault didn't enjoy country
    life, especially now, with almost the full responsibility of
    the farm on her shoulders.  The room was chilly, and she
    shivered as she ate.  Charles noticed that her lips were full,
    and that she had the habit of biting them in moments of
    silence.

         Her neck rose out of the low fold of a white collar.  The
    two black sweeps of her hair, pulled down from a fine center
    part that followed the curve of her skull, were so sleek that
    each seemed to be one piece.  Covering all but the very tips
    of her ears, it was gathered at the back into a large chignon,
    and toward the temples it waved a bit, a detail that the
    country doctor now observed for the first time in his life.
    Her skin was rosy over her cheekbones.  A pair of shell-rimmed
    eyeglasses, like a man's, was tucked between two buttons of
    her bodice.

         When Charles came back downstairs after going up to take
    leave of Monsieur Rouault, he found her standing with her
    forehead pressed against the windowpane, looking out at the
    garden, where the beanpoles had been thrown down by the wind.
    She turned around.

         "Are you looking for something?' she asked.

         "For my riding crop," he said.

         And he began to rummage on the bed, behind doors, under
    chairs.  It had fallen on the floor between the grainbags and
    the wall.  Mademoiselle Emma caught sight of it and reached
    for it, bending down across the sacks.  Charles hurried over
    politely, and as he, too, stretched out his arm he felt his
    body in slight contact with the girl's back, bent there
    beneath him.  She stood up, blushing crimson, and glanced at
    him over her shoulder as she handed him his crop.

         Instead of returning to Les Bertaux three days later, as
    he had promised, he went back the very next day, then twice a
    week regularly, not to mention unscheduled calls he made from
    time to time, as though by chance.

         Everything went well; the bone knit according to the
    rules, and after forty-six days, when Monsieur Rouault was seen
    trying to get around his farmyard by himself, everyone began to
    think of Monsieur Bovary as a man of great competence.  Monsieur
    Rouault said he wouldn't have been better mended by the biggest
    doctors of Yvetot or even Rouen.

         As for Charles, he didn't ask himself why he enjoyed going
    to Les Bertaux.  Had he thought of it, he would doubtless have
    attributed his zeal to the seriousness of the case, or perhaps
    to the fee he hoped to earn.  Still, was that really why his
    visits to the farm formed so charming a contrast to the drabness
    of the rest of his life?  On such days he would rise early, set
    off at a gallop, urge his horse, and when he was almost there he
    would dismount to dust his shoes on the grass, and put on his
    black gloves.  He enjoyed the moment of arrival, the feel of the
    gate as it yielded against his shoulder.   He enjoyed the rooster
    crowing on the wall, the farm boys coming to greet him.  He
    enjoyed the barn and the stables.  He enjoyed Monsieur Rouault,
    who would clap him in the palm of the hand and call him his
    "savior."   He enjoyed hearing Mademoiselle Emma's little sabots
    on the newly washed flagstones of the kitchen floor.  With their
    high heels they made her a little taller, and when she walked in
    them ahead of him their wooden soles kept coming up with a quick,
    sharp, tapping sound against the leather of her shoes.

         She always accompanied him to the foot of the steps outside
    the door.  If his horse hadn't been brought around she would wait
    there with him.  At such moments they had already said good-bye,
    and stood there silent.  The breeze eddied around her, swirling
    the stray wisps of hair at her neck, or sending her apron strings
    flying like streamers around her waist.  Once she was standing
    there on a day of thaw, when the bark of the trees in the farm-
    yard was oozing sap and the snow was melting on the roofs.  She
    went inside for her parasol, and opened it.  The parasol was a
    rosy iridescent silk, and the sun pouring through it painted the
    white skin of her face with flickering patches of light.  Beneath
    it she smiled at the springlike warmth, and drops of water could
    be heard falling one by one on the taut moire.

         During the first period of Charles' visits to Les Bertaux,
    Madame Bovary never failed to ask about the patient's progress,
    and in her double-entry ledger she had given Monsieur Rouault
    a fine new page to himself.  But when she heard that he had a
    daughter she began to make inquiries, and she learned that
    Mademoiselle Rouault had had her schooling in a convent, with
    the Ursuline nuns, had received, as the saying went, a "fine
    education," in the course of which she had been taught dancing,
    geography, drawing, needlework and a little piano.  Think of
    that!

         "So that's why he brightens up when he goes there!  That's
    why he wears his new waistcoat, even in the rain!  Ah!  So she's
    at the bottom of it!"

         Instinctively she hated her.  At first she relieved her
    feelings by making insinuations.  Charles didn't get them.  Then
    she let fall parenthetical remarks which he left unanswered out
    of fear of a storm, and finally she was driven to point-blank
    reproaches which he didn't know how to answer.  Why was it that
    he kept going back to Les Bertaux, now that Monsieur Rouault was
    completely mended and hadn't even paid his bill?  Ah!  Because
    there was a certain person there.  Somebody who knew how to talk.
    Somebody who did embroidery.  Somebody clever.  That's what he
    enjoyed, he had to have city girls!  And she went on:

         "Rouault's daughter, a city girl!  Don't make me laugh!
    The grandfather was a shepherd, and there's a cousin who
    barely escaped sentence for assault and battery.  Scarcely
    good reasons for giving herself airs, for wearing silk dresses
    to church like a countess!  Besides, her father, poor fellow,
    if it hadn't been for last year's colza crop he'd have been
    hard put to it to pay his debts."

         For the sake of peace, Charles stopped going to Les
    Bertaux.  Heloise had made him swear, his hand on his prayer
    book, that he would never go back there again.  She had
    accomplished it after much sobbing and kissing, in the midst
    of a great amorous explosion.  He yielded, but the strength
    of his desire kept protesting against the servility of his
    behavior, and with a naive sort of hypocrisy he told himself
    that this very prohibition against seeing her implicitly
    allowed him to love her.  And then the widow he was married to
    was skinny, she was long in the tooth, all year round she wore
    a little black shawl with a corner hanging down between her
    shoulder blades, her rigid form was always sheathed in dresses
    that were like scabbards.  They were always too short, they
    showed her ankles, her big shoes, and her shoelaces criss-
    crossing their way up her gray stockings.

         Charles' mother came to see them from time to time, but
    after a few days she invariably took on her daughter-in-law's
    sharpness against her son, and like a pair of knives they kept
    scarifying him with their comments and criticisms.  He oughtn't
    to eat so much!  Why always offer a drink to everyone who
    called?  So pigheaded not to wear flannel underwear!

         Early in the spring it happened that a notary in Ingou-
    ville, custodian of the Widow Dubuc's capital, sailed away one
    fine day, taking with him all his clients' money.  To be sure,
    Heloise still owned her house in the rue Saint-Francois in
    Dieppe, as well as a six thousand franc interest in a certain
    ship, nevertheless, of the great fortune she'd always talked
    so much about, nothing except a few bits of furniture and some
    clothes had ever been seen in the household.  Now, inevitably,
    everything came under investigation.  The house in Dieppe, it
    turned out, was mortgaged up to it eaves, what she had placed
    with the notary, God only knew, and her share in the boat
    didn't amount to more than three thousand.  So she'd been
    lying, lying all along, the dear, good lady!  In his rage the
    older Monsieur Bovary dashed a chair to pieces on the floor
    and accused his wife of ruining their son's life by yoking
    him to such an ancient nag, whose harness was worth even less
    than her carcass.  They came to Tostes.  The four of them had
    it out.  There were scenes.  The weeping Heloise threw herself
    into her husband's arms and appealed to him to defend her
    against his parents.  Charles began to take her part.  The
    others flew into a rage and left.

         But, "the fatal blow had been struck."  A week later she
    was hanging out washing in her yard when suddenly she began to
    spit blood, and the next day, while Charles was looking the
    other way, drawing the window curtain, she gave a cry, then a
    sigh, and fainted.  She was dead!  Who would have believed it?

         When everything was over at the cemetery, Charles returned
    to the house.  There was no one downstairs, and he went up to
    the bedroom.  One of her dresses was still hanging in the alcove.
    He stayed there until dark, leaning against the writing desk,
    his mind full of sad thoughts.  Poor thing!  She had loved him,
    after all.

    PART 1

    CHAPTER THREE

         One morning Monsieur Rouault came to pay Charles for
    setting his leg, seventy-five francs in two-francs pieces,
    with a turkey thrown in for good measure.  He had heard of
    his bereavement, and offered him what consolation he could.

         "I know what it is," he said, patting him on the shoulder.
    "I've been through just what you're going through.  When I
    lost my wife I went out into the fields to be by myself.  I
    lay down under a tree and cried.  I talked to God, told him
    all kinds of crazy things.  I wished I were dead, like the
    maggoty moles I saw hanging on the branches.  And when I
    thought of how other men were holding their wives in their
    arms at that very moment, I began to pound my stick on the
    ground.  I was almost out of my mind.  I couldn't eat.  The
    very thought of going to a cafe made me sick, you'd never
    believe it.  Well, you know, what with one day gradually
    nosing out another, and spring coming on top of winter and
    then fall after the summer, it passed bit by bit, drop by
    drop.  It just went away, it disappeared.  I mean it grew
    less and less.  There's always part of it you never get rid
    of entirely.  You always feel something here."  And he put
    his hand on his chest.  "But it happens to us all, and you
    mustn't let yourself go, you mustn't want to die just because
    other people are dead.  You must brace up, Monsieur Bovary.
    Things will get better.  Come and see us.  My daughter talks
    about you every once in a while.  She says you've probably

    forgotten her.  Spring will soon be here.  You and I'll go
    out after a rabbit, it will take your mind off things."

         Charles took his advice.  He went back to Les Bertaux.
    He found it unchanged since yesterday, since five months
    before, that is.  The pear trees were already in flower, and
    the sight of Monsieur Rouault coming and going normally
    around the place made everything livelier.

         The farmer seemed to think that the doctor's grief-
    stricken condition called for a special show of consideration,
    and he urged him to keep his hat on, addressed him in a low
    voice as though he were ill, and even pretended to be angry
    that no one had thought to cook him something special and
    light, like custard or stewed pears.  He told him funny
    stories.  Charles found himself laughing, but then the thought
    of his wife returned to sober him.  By the end of the meal he
    had forgotten her again.

         He thought of her less and less as he grew used to living
    alone.  The novelty and pleasure of being independent soon
    made solitude more bearable.  Now he could change his meal
    hours at will, come and go without explanation, stretch out
    across the bed if he was particularly tired.  So he pampered
    and coddled himself and accepted all the comforting everyone
    offered.  Besides, his wife's death had helped him quite a bit
    professionally.  For a month or so everyone had kept saying,
    "Poor young man!  What a tragedy!"  His reputation grew, more
    and more patients came.  Now he went to Les Bertaux whenever
    he pleased.  He was aware of a feeling of hope, nothing very
    specific, a vague happiness.  He thought himself better-
    looking when he stood at the mirror to brush his whiskers.

         One day he arrived about three o'clock.  Everyone was
    in the fields.  He went into the kitchen, and at first didn't
    see Emma.  The shutters were closed.  The sun, streaming in
    between the slats, patterned the floor with long thin stripes
    that broke off at the corners of the furniture and quivered
    on the ceiling.  On the table, flies were climbing up the
    sides of glasses that had recently been used, and buzzing as
    they struggled to keep from drowning in the cider at the
    bottom.  The light coming down the chimney turned the soot
    on the fireback to velvet and gave a bluish cast to the cold
    ashes.  Between the window and the hearth Emma sat sewing.
    Her shoulders were bare, beaded with little drops of sweat.

         Country-style, she offered him something to drink.  He
    refused, she insisted, and finally suggested with a laugh
    that he take a liqueur with her.  She brought a bottle of
    curacao from the cupboard, reached to a high shelf for two
    liqueur glasses, filled one to the brim and poured a few
    drops in the other.  She touched her glass to his and raised
    it to her mouth.  Because it was almost empty she had to
    bend backwards to be able to drink, and with her head tilted
    back, her neck and lips outstretched, she began to laugh at
    tasting nothing.  And then the tip of her tongue came out
    from between her small teeth and began daintily to lick the
    bottom of the glass.

         She sat down again and resumed her work.  She was darn-
    ing a white cotton stocking.  She sewed with her head bowed,
    and she did not speak, nor did Charles.  A draft was coming
    in under the door and blowing a little dust across the stone
    floor.  He watched it drift, and was aware of a pulsating
    sound inside his head.  That, and the clucking of a laying
    hen outside in the yard.  From time to time Emma cooled her
    cheeks with the palms of her hands, and then cooled her hands
    against the iron knobs of the tall andirons.

         She complained that the heat had been giving her dizzy
    spells, and asked whether sea bathing would help.  Then she
    began to talk about her convent school and Charles about his
    lycee.  Words came to them both.  They went upstairs to her
    room.  She showed him her old music exercise books, and the
    little volumes and the oak-leaf wreaths, the latter now lying
    abandoned in the bottom of a cupboard, that she had won as
    prizes.  Then she spoke of her mother, and the cemetery, and
    took him out to the garden to see the bed where she picked
    flowers the first Friday of every month to put on her grave.
    But their gardener had no understanding of such things, farm
    help was so trying!  She would love, if only for the winter,
    to live in the city, though she had to say that it was really
    in summer, with the days so long, that the country was most
    boring of all.  Depending on what she talked about, her voice
    was clear, or shrill, or would grow suddenly languorous and
    trail off almost into a murmur, as though she were speaking
    to herself.  One moment she would be gay and wide-eyed.  The
    next, she would half shut her eyelids and seem to be drowned
    in boredom, her thoughts miles away.

         That evening, on his homeward ride, Charles went over
    one by one the things she had said, trying to remember her
    exact words and sense their implications, in an effort to
    picture what her life had been like before their meeting.
    But in his thoughts he could never see her any differently
    from the way she had been when he had seen her the first time,
    or as she had been just now when he left her.  Then he won-
    dered what could become of her, whether she would marry, and
    whom.  Alas!  Monsieur Rouault was very rich, and she . . . so
    beautiful!  But Emma's face appeared constantly before his
    eyes, and in his ears there was a monotonous throbbing, like
    the humming of a top.  "But why don't you get married!  Why
    don't you get married!"  That night he didn't sleep, his throat
    was tight, he was thirsty.  He got up to drink from his water
    jug and opened the window.  The sky was covered with stars, a
    hot wind was blowing, dogs were barking in the distance.  He
    stared out in the direction of Les Bertaux.

         After all, he thought, nothing would be lost by trying,
    and he resolved to ask his question when the occasion presented
    itself.  But each time it did, the fear of not finding the
    proper words paralyzed his lips.

         Actually, Rouault wouldn't have been a bit displeased to
    have someone take his daughter off his hands.  She was of no
    use to him on the farm.  He didn't really hold it against her,
    being of the opinion that she was too clever to have anything
    to do with farming, that accursed occupation that had never
    made a man a millionaire.  Far from having grown rich at it,
    the poor fellow was losing money every year.  He more than
    held his own in the market place, where he relished all the
    tricks of the trade, but no one was less suited than he to
    the actual growing of crops and the managing of a farm.  He
    never lifted a finger if he could help it, and never spared
    any expense in matters of daily living.  He insisted on good
    food, a good fire, and a good bed.  He liked his cider hard,
    his leg of mutton rare, his coffee well laced with brandy.  He
    took his meals in the kitchen, alone, facing the fire, at a
    little table that was brought in to him already set, like on
    the stage.

         So when he noticed that Charles tended to be flushed in
    his daughter's presence, meaning that one of these days he
    would ask for her hand, he pondered every aspect of the
    question well in advance.  Charles was a bit namby-pamby, not
    his dream of a son-in-law.  But he was said to be reliable,
    thrifty, very well educated, and he probably wouldn't haggle
    too much over the dowry.  Moreover, Rouault was soon going to
    have to sell twenty-two of his acres.  He owed considerable
    to the mason and considerable to the harness-maker and the
    cider press needed a new shaft.  "If he asks me for her," he
    said to himself, "I won't refuse."

         Toward the beginning of October, Charles spent three days
    at Les Bertaux.  The last day had slipped by like the others,
    with the big step put off from one minute to the next.  Rouault
    was escorting him on the first lap of his homeward journey.
    They were walking along a sunken road.  They were just about to
    part, the moment had come.  Charles gave himself to the corner
    of the hedge, and finally, when they had passed it.  "Monsieur
    Rouault," he murmured, "there's something I'd like to say to
    you."

         They stopped.  Charles fell silent.

         "Well, tell me what's on your mind!  I know it already
    anyway!" Rouault said with a gentle laugh.

         "Monsieur Rouault . . . Monsieur Rouault . . ."  Charles
    stammered.

         "Personally, I wouldn't like anything better,: continued
    the farmer.  "I imagine the child agrees with me, but we'd
    better ask her.  I'll leave you here now, and go back to the
    house.  If it's `Yes', now listen to what I'm saying, you
    won't have to come in, there are too many people around, and
    besides she'd be too upset.  But to take you off the anxious
    seat I'll slam a shutter against the wall.  You can look back
    and see, if you lean over the hedge."

         And he went off.

         Charles tied his horse to a tree.  He hastily stationed
    himself on the path and waited.  Half an hour went by.  Then
    he counted nineteen minutes by his watch.  Suddenly there was
    a noise against the wall.  The shutter had swung back, the
    catch was still quivering.

         The next morning he was at the farm by nine.  Emma
    blushed when he entered, laughing a little in an attempt to
    be casual.  Rouault embraced his future son-in-law.  They
    postponed all talk of financial arrangements.  There was
    plenty of time, since the wedding couldn't decently take
    place before the end of Charles' mourning, that is, toward
    the spring of the next year.

         It was a winter of waiting.  Mademoiselle Rouault busied
    herself with her trousseau.  Part of it was ordered in Rouen,
    and she made her slips and nightcaps herself, copying fashion
    drawings that she borrowed.  Whenever Charles visited the farm
    they spoke about preparations for the wedding, discussing
    which room the dinner should be served in, wondering how many
    courses to have and what the entrees should be.

         Emma herself would have liked to be married at midnight,
    by torchlight.  But Rouault wouldn't listen to the idea.  So
    there was the usual kind of wedding, with forty-three guests,
    and everybody was sixteen hours at table, and the festivities
    began all over again the next day and even carried over a
    little into the days following.

    PART 1

    CHAPTER FOUR

         The invited guests arrived early in a variety of
    vehicles.  One-horse shays, two-wheeled charabancs, old gigs
    without tops, vans with leather curtains.  And the young men
    from the nearest villages came in farm-carts, standing one
    behind the other along the sides and grasping the rails to
    keep from being thrown, for the horses trotted briskly and
    the roads were rough.  They came from as far as twenty-five
    miles away, from Goderville, from Normanville, from Cany.
    All the relations of both families had been asked, old
    quarrels had been patched up, letters sent to acquaintances
    long lost sight of.

         From time to time the crack of a whip would be heard
    behind the hedge, then after a moment the gate would open and
    a cart would roll in.  It would come at a gallop as far as
    the doorstep, then stop with a lurch, and out would pour its
    passengers, rubbing their knees and stretching their arms.
    The ladies wore country-style headdresses and city-style
    gowns, with gold watch chains, tippets (the ends crossed and
    tucked into their belts), or small colored fichus attached
    at the back with pins and leaving the neck bare.  The boys,
    attired exactly like their papas, looked ill at ease in their
    new clothes (and indeed many of them were wearing leather
    shoes that day for the first time in their lives).  And next
    to them would be some speechless, gangling girl of fourteen
    or sixteen, probably their cousin or their older sister,
    flushed and awkward in her white First Communion dress let
    down for the occasion, her hair sticky with scented pomade,
    terribly worried lest she dirty her gloves.  Since there
    weren't enough stable hands to unharness all the carriages,
    the men rolled up their sleeves and went to it themselves.
    According to their social status, they wore tail coats, frock
    coats, long jackets or short jackets.  The tail coats were
    worthy garments, each of them a prized family possession
    taken out of the closet only on great occasions.  The frock
    coats had great flaring skirts that billowed in the wind,
    cylindrical collars, and pockets as capacious as bags.  The
    long jackets were double-breasted, of coarse wool, and
    usually worn with a cap of some kind, its peak trimmed with
    brass.  And the short jackets were very short indeed, with
    two back buttons set close together like a pair of eyes, and
    stiff tails that looked as though a carpenter had hacked them
    with his axe out of a single block of wood.  A few guests
    (these, of course, would sit at the foot of the table) wore
    dress smocks, that is, smocks with turned-down collars, fine
    pleating at the back, and stitched belts low on the hips.

         And the shirts!  They bulged like breastplates.  Every
    man was freshly shorn.  Ears stood out from heads, faces were
    of a holiday smoothness.  Some of the guests from farthest
    away, who had got up before dawn and had to shave in the
    dark, had slanting gashes under their noses, or patches of
    skin the size of a three-franc piece peeled from their jaws.
    During the journey their wounds had been inflamed by the
    wind, and as a result red blotches adorned many a big beaming
    white face.

         Since the mayor's office was scarcely more than a mile
    from the farm, the wedding party went there on foot and came
    back the same way after the church ceremony.  The procession
    was compact at first, like a bright sash festooning the
    countryside as it followed the narrow path winding between
    the green grain fields.  But soon it lengthened out and broke
    up into different groups, which lingered to gossip along the
    way.  The fiddler went first, the scroll of his violin gay
    with ribbons.  Then came the bridal pair, then their families,
    then their friends in no particular order.  And last of all
    the children, having a good time pulling the bell-shaped
    flowers from the oat stalks or playing among themselves out
    of sight of their elders.  Emma's gown was too long, and
    trailed a little.  From time to time she stopped to pull it
    up, and at such moments she would carefully pick off the
    coarse grasses and thistle spikes with her gloved fingers,
    as Charles waited empty-handed beside her.  Rouault, in a
    new silk hat, the cuffs of his black tail coat coming down
    over his hands as far as his fingertips, had given his arm
    to the older Madame Bovary.  The older Monsieur Bovary, who
    looked on all these people with contempt, and had come
    wearing simply a single-breasted overcoat of military cut,
    was acting the barroom gallant with a young peasant girl.
    She bobbed and blushed, tongue-tied and confused.  The other
    members of the wedding party discussed matter of business,
    or played tricks behind each other's backs, their spirits
    already soaring in anticipation of the fun.  If they
    listened, they could hear the steady scraping of the fiddle
    in the fields.  When the fiddler realized that he had left
    everyone far behind, he stopped for breath, carefully rubbed
    his bow with rosin to make his strings squeak all the better,
    and then set off again on his course, raising and lowering
    the neck of his violin to keep time.  The sound of the
    instrument frightened away all the birds for a long distance
    ahead.

         The table was set up in the carriage shed.  On it were
    four roasts of beef, six fricassees of chicken, a veal
    casserole, three legs of mutton, and in the center a charming
    little suckling pig flanked by four andouilles a l'oseille,
    pork sausages flavored with sorrel.  At the corners stood
    decanters of brandy.  The sweet cider foamed up around its
    corks, and before anyone was seated, every glass had been
    filled to the brim with wine.  Great dishes of yellow
    custard, their smooth surfaces decorated with the newlyweds'
    initials in candy-dot arabesques, were set trembling whenever
    the table was given the slightest knock.  The pies and cakes
    had been ordered from a caterer in Yvetot.  Since he was just
    starting up in the district, he had gone to considerable
    pains, and when dessert time came he himself brought to the
    table a wedding cake that drew exclamations from all.  Its
    base was a square of blue cardboard representing a temple
    with porticos and colonnades and adorned on all sides with
    stucco statuettes standing in niches spangled with gold-paper
    stars.  The second tier was a mediaeval castle in gateau de
    Savoie, surrounded by miniature fortifications of angelica,
    almonds, raisins, and orange sections.  And finally, on the
    topmost layer, which was a green meadow, with rocks, jelly
    lakes, and boats of hazelnut shells.  A little Cupid was
    swinging in a chocolate swing.  The tips of the two uprights,
    the highest points of the whole, were two real rosebuds.

         The banquet went on till nightfall.  Those who grew
    tired of sitting took a stroll in the yard or played a kind
    of shuffleboard in the barn, then they returned to table.  A
    few, toward the end, fell asleep and snored.  But everything
    came to life again with the coffee.  There were songs,
    displays of strength.  The men lifted weights, played the
    game of passing their heads under their arms while holding
    one thumb on the table, tried to raise carts to their
    shoulders.  Dirty jokes were in order, the ladies were kissed.
    In the evening, when it came time to go, the horses, stuffed
    with oats to the bursting point, could scarcely be forced
    between the shafts.  They kicked and reared, broke their
    harness, brought curses or laughs from their masters.  And
    all night long, under the light of the moon on the country
    roads, runaway carts were bouncing along ditches at a gallop,
    leaping over gravel piles and crashing into banks, with women
    leaning out trying desperately to seize the reins.

         Those who stayed at Les Bertaux spent the night drinking
    in the kitchen.  The children fell asleep on the floor.

         The bride had begged her father that she be spared the
    usual pranks.  However, a fishmonger cousin (who had actually
    brought a pair of soles as a wedding present) was just
    beginning to spurt water from his mouth through the keyhole
    when Rouault came along and stopped him, explaining that the
    importance of his son-in-law's position didn't permit such
    unseemliness.  The cousin complied very grudgingly.  In his
    heart he accused Rouault of being a snob, and he joined a
    group of four or five other guests, who had happened several
    times in succession to be given inferior cuts of meat at
    table and so considered that they, too, had been badly
    treated.  The whole group sat there whispering derogatory
    things about their host, and in veiled language expressed
    hopes for his downfall.

         The older Madame Bovary hadn't opened her mouth all day.
    No one had consulted her about her daughter-in-law's bridal
    dress, or the arrangements for the party.  She went up to bed
    early.  Her husband didn't accompany her.  Instead, he sent
    to Saint-Victor for cigars and sat up till dawn smoking and
    drinking kirsch and hot water.  This variety of grog was new
    to his fellow guests, and made him feel that their respect
    for him rose all the higher.

         Charles was far from being a wag.  He had been dull
    throughout the festivities, responding but feebly to the
    witticisms, puns, doubles-entendres, teasings and dubious
    jokes that everyone had felt obliged to toss at him from the
    moment they had sat down to the soup.

         The next day, however, he seemed a different man.  It
    was he who gave the impression of having lost his virginity
    overnight.  The bride made not the slightest sign that could
    be taken to betray anything at all.  Even the shrewdest were
    nonplused, and stared at her with the most intense curiosity
    whenever she came near.  But Charles hid nothing.  He
    addressed her as "ma femme," using the intimate "tu," kept
    asking everyone where she was and looking for her everywhere,
    and often took her out into the yard, where he could be
    glimpsed through the trees with his arm around her waist,
    leaning over her as they walked, his head rumpling the yoke
    of her bodice.

         Two days after the wedding the bridal pair left, because
    of his patients Charles could stay away no longer.  Rouault
    had them driven to Tostes in his cart, going with them him-
    self as far as Vassonville.  There he kissed his daughter a
    last time, got out, and retraced his way.  When he had walked
    about a hundred yards he stopped.  The sight of the cart
    disappearing in the distance, its wheels spinning in the dust,
    made him utter a deep sigh.  He remembered his own wedding,
    his own earlier days, his wife's first pregnancy.  He, too,
    had been very happy, the day he had taken her from her
    father's house to his own.  She had ridden pillion behind him
    as their horse trotted over the snow, for it had been close
    to Christmas and the fields were white.  She had clutched him
    with one arm, her basket hooked over the other.  The wind was
    whipping the long lace streamers of her coiffure cauchoise so
    that at times they blew across his mouth, and by turning his
    head he could see her rosy little face close behind his
    shoulder, smiling silently at him under the gold buckle of
    her bonnet.  From time to time she would warm her fingers by
    sliding them inside his coat.  How long ago it all was!  Their
    boy would be thirty if he were alive today!  Then he looked
    back again, and there was nothing to be seen on the road.  He
    felt dismal, like a stripped and empty house, and as tender
    memories and black thoughts mingled in his brain, dulled by
    the vapors of the feast, he considered for a moment turning
    his steps toward the church.  But he was afraid that the sight
    of it might make him even sadder, so he went straight home.

         Monsieur and Madame Charles reached Tostes about six
    o'clock.  The neighbors came to their windows to see their
    doctor's new wife.

         The elderly maidservant appeared, greeted them, apolo-
    gized for not having dinner ready, and suggested that Madame,
    in the meantime, might like to make a tour of inspection of
    her house.










    PART 1

    CHAPTER FIVE

         The brick house-front was exactly flush with the street,
    or rather the road.  Behind the door hung a coat with a short
    cape, a bridle, and a black leather cap.  And on the floor in
    a corner lay a pair of gaiters still caked with mud.  To the
    right was the parlor, which served as both dining and sitting
    room.  A canary-yellow wallpaper, set off at the top by a
    border of pale flowers, rippled everywhere on its loose
    canvas lining.  White calico curtains edged with red braid
    hung crosswise down the length of the windows.  And on the
    narrow mantelpiece a clock ornamented with a head of Hippo-
    crates stood proudly between two silver-plated candlesticks
    under oval glass domes.  Across the hall was Charles' small
    consulting room, about eighteen feet wide, with a table,
    three straight chairs and an office armchair.  There was a
    fir bookcase with six shelves, occupied almost exclusively
    by a set of the Dictionary of the Medical Sciences, its pages
    uncut but its binding battered by a long succession of
    owners.  Cooking smells seeped through the wall during office
    hours, and the patient's coughs and confidences were quite
    audible in the kitchen.  In the rear, opening directly into
    the yard, which contained the stables, was a big ramshackle
    room with an oven, now serving as woodshed, wine bin and
    store room.  It was filled with old junk, empty barrels,
    broken tools, and a quantity of other objects, all dusty and
    nondescript.

         The long narrow garden ran back between two clay walls
    covered with espaliered apricot trees to the thorn hedge
    that marked it off from the fields.  In the middle was a
    slate sundial on a stone pedestal.  Four beds of scrawny
    rose bushes were arranged symmetrically around a square
    plot given over to vegetables.  At the far end, under some
    spruces, a plaster priest stood reading his breviary.

         Emma went up to the bedrooms.  The first was empty.  In
    the second, the conjugal chamber, a mahogany bed stood in an
    alcove hung with red draperies.  A box made of seashells
    adorned the chest of drawers, and on the desk near the window,
    standing in a decanter and tied with white satin ribbon, was
    a bouquet of orange blossoms.  A bride's bouquet.  The other
    bride's bouquet!  She stared at it.  Charles noticed, picked
    it up, and took it to the attic.  And as her boxes and bags
    were brought up and placed around her, she sat in an armchair
    and thought of her own bridal bouquet, which was packed in
    one of those very boxes, wondering what would be done with it
    if she were to die.

         She spent the first few days planning changes in the
    house.  She took the domes off the candlesticks, had the
    parlor repapered, the stairs painted, and seats made to go
    around the sundial in the garden.  She even made inquiries
    as to the best way of installing a fountain and a fish pond.
    And her husband, knowing that she liked to go for drives,
    bought a secondhand two-wheeled buggy.  With new lamps and
    quilted leather mudguards it looked almost like a tilbury.

         He was happy now, without a care in the world.  A meal
    alone with her, a stroll along the highway in the evening,
    the way she touched her hand to her hair, the sight of her
    straw hat hanging from a window hasp, and many other things
    in which it had never occurred to him to look for pleasure.
    Such now formed the steady current of his happiness.  In bed
    in the morning, his head beside hers on the pillow, he would
    watch the sunlight on the downy gold of her cheeks, half
    covered by the scalloped tabs of her nightcap.  Seen from so
    close, her eyes appeared larger than life, especially when
    she opened and shut her eyelids several times on awakening.
    Black when looked at in shadow, dark blue in bright light,
    they seemed to contain layer upon layer of color, thicker
    and cloudier beneath, lighter and more transparent toward
    the lustrous surface.  As his own eyes plunged into those
    depths, he saw himself reflected there in miniature down to
    his shoulders, his foulard on his head, his nightshirt open.
    After he had dressed she would go to the window and watch
    him leave for his rounds.  She would lean out between two
    pots of geraniums, her elbows on the sill, her dressing gown
    loose around her.  In the street, Charles would strap on his
    spurs at the mounting-block, and she would continue to talk
    to him from above, blowing down to him some bit of flower or
    leaf she bitten off in her teeth.  It would flutter down
    hesitantly, weaving semicircles in the air like a bird, and
    before reaching the ground it would catch in the tangled
    mane of the old white mare standing motionless at the door.
    From the saddle Charles would send her a kiss.  She would
    respond with a wave, then she would close the window, and
    he was off.  And on the endless dusty ribbon of the highway,
    on sunken roads vaulted over by branches, on paths between
    stands of grain that rose to his knees, the sun on his
    shoulders and the morning air in his nostrils, his heart
    full of the night's bliss, his spirit at peace and his flesh
    content, he would ride on his way ruminating his happiness,
    like someone who keeps savoring, hours later, the fragrance
    of the truffles he has eaten for dinner.

         Up until now, had there ever been a happy time in his
    life?  His years at the lycee, where he had lived shut in
    behind high walls, lonely among richer, cleverer schoolmates
    who laughed at his country accent and made fun of his clothes
    and whose mothers brought them cookies in their muffs on
    visiting days?  Or later, when he was studying medicine and
    hadn't enough in his purse to go dancing with some little
    working girl who might have become his mistress?  After that
    he had lived fourteen months with the widow, whose feet in
    bed had been like icicles.  But now he possessed, and for
    always, this pretty wife whom he so loved.  The universe, for
    him, went not beyond the silken circuit of her petticoat.
    And he would reproach himself for not showing her his love,
    and yearn to be back with her.  He would gallop home, rush
    upstairs, his heart pounding.  Emma would be at her dressing
    table.  He would creep up silently behind her and kiss her.
    She would cry out in surprise.

         He couldn't keep from constantly touching her comb, her
    rings, everything she wore.  Sometimes he gave her great
    full-lipped kisses on the cheek, or a whole series of tiny
    kisses up her bare arm, from her fingertips to her shoulder.
    And half amused, half annoyed, she would push him away as one
    does an importunate child.

         Before her marriage she had thought that she had love
    within her grasp.  But since the happiness which she had
    expected this love to bring her hadn't come, she supposed
    she must have been mistaken.  And Emma tried to imagine just
    what was meant, in life, by the words "bliss," "passion,"
    and "rapture."  Words that had seemed so beautiful to her in
    books.


















    PART 1

    CHAPTER SIX

         She had read Paul and Virginia, and had dreamed of the
    bamboo cabin, of the Negro Domingo and the dog Fidele.  And
    especially she dreamed that she, too, had a sweet little
    brother for a devoted friend, and that he climbed trees as
    tall as church steeples to pluck her their crimson fruit,
    and came running barefoot over the sand to bring her a bird's
    nest.

         When she was thirteen, her father took her to the city
    to enter her as a boarder in the convent.  They stayed at a
    hotel near Saint-Gervais, where their supper plates were
    decorated with scenes from the life of Mademoiselle de La
    Valliere.  The explanatory captions, slashed her and there
    by knife scratches, were all in praise of piety, the sensi-
    bilities of the heart, and the splendors of the court.

         Far from being unhappy in the convent, at first, she
    enjoyed the company of the nuns.  It was fun when they took
    her to the chapel, down a long corridor from the refectory.
    She rarely played during recess, and she was very quick at
    catechism.  It was always Mademoiselle Rouault who answered
    Monsieur le vicaire's hardest questions.  As she continued
    to live uninterruptedly in the insipid atmosphere of the
    classrooms, among the white-faced women with their brass
    crucifixes dangling from their rosaries, she gently succumbed
    to the mystical languor induced by the perfumes of the altar,
    the coolness of the holy-water fonts, the gleaming of the
    candles.  Instead of following the Mass she kept her prayer
    book open at the holy pictures with their sky-blue borders.
    And she loved the Good Shepherd, the Scared Heart pierced
    by sharp arrows, and poor Jesus stumbling and falling under
    his cross.  To mortify herself she tried to go a whole day
    without eating.  She looked for some vow that she might
    accomplish.

         When she went to confession she invented small sins in
    order to linger on her knees there in the darkness, her hands
    joined, her face at the grille, the priest whispering just
    above her.  The metaphors constantly used in sermons,
    "betrothed," "spouse," "heavenly lover," "mystical marriage,"
    excited her in a thrilling new way.

         Every evening before prayers a piece of religious writing
    was read aloud in study hall.  During the week it would be
    some digest of Biblical history or the Abbe Frayssinous'
    lectures.  On Sunday it was always a passage from the Genie
    du Christianisme, offered as entertainment.  How intently she
    listened, the first times, to the ringing lamentations of

    that romantic melancholy, echoed and re-echoed by all the
    voices of earth and heaven!  Had her childhood been spent in
    cramped quarters behind some city shop, she might have been
    open to the lyric appeal of nature, which usually reaches us
    only by way of literary interpretations.  But she knew too
    much about country life.  She was well acquainted with lowing
    herds, with dairy maids and ploughs.  From such familiar,
    peaceful aspects, she turned to the picturesque.  She loved
    the sea for its storms alone, cared for vegetation only when
    it grew here and there among ruins.  She had to extract a
    kind of personal advantage from things, and she rejected as
    useless everything that promised no immediate gratification,
    for her temperament was more sentimental than artistic, and
    what she was looking for was emotions, not scenery.

         At the convent there was an old spinster who came for
    a week every month to look after the linen.  As a member of
    an ancient noble family ruined by the Revolution she was a
    protegee of the archdiocese, and she ate at the nuns table
    in the refectory and always stayed for a chat with them
    before returning upstairs to her work.  The girls often
    slipped out of study-hall to pay her a visit.  She had a
    repertoire of eighteenth-century love songs, and sang them in
    a low voice as she sewed.  She told stories, kept the girls
    abreast of the news, did errands for them in the city, and to
    the older ones would surreptitiously lend one of the novels
    she always carried in her apron pocket.  Novels of which the
    good spinster herself was accustomed to devour long chapters
    in the intervals of her task.  They were invariably about
    love affairs, lovers, mistresses, harassed ladies swooning in
    remote pavilions.  Couriers were killed at every relay, horses
    ridden to death on every page.  There were gloomy forests,
    broken hearts, vows, sobs, tears and kisses, skiffs in the
    moonlight, nightingales in thickets.  The noblemen were all
    brave as lions, gentle as lambs, incredibly virtuous, always
    beautifully dressed, and wept copiously on every occasion.
    For six months, when she was fifteen, Emma begrimed her hands
    with this dust from old lending libraries.  Later, reading
    Walter Scott, she became infatuated with everything historical
    and dreamed about oaken chests and guardrooms and troubadours.
    She would have liked to live in some old manor, like those
    long-waisted chatelaines who spent their days leaning out of
    fretted Gothic casements, elbow on parapet and chin in hand,
    watching a white-plumed knight come galloping out of the
    distance on a black horse.  At that time she worshipped Mary
    Queen of Scots, and venerated women illustrious or ill-
    starred.  In her mind Joan of Arc, Heloise, Agnes Sorel, La
    Belle Ferroniere and Clemence Isaure stood out like comets on
    the shadowy immensity of history.  And here and there (though
    less clearly outlined than the others against the dim back-
    ground, and quite unrelated among themselves) were visible
    also St. Louis and his oak, the dying Bayard, certain atro-
    cities of Louis XI, bits of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew,
    the plumed crest of Henri IV, and, always, the memory of the
    hotel plates glorifying Louis XIV.

         The sentimental songs she sang in music class were all
    about little angels with golden wings, madonnas, lagoons,
    gondoliers, mawkish compositions that allowed her to glimpse,
    through the silliness of the words and the indiscretions of
    the music, the alluring, phantasmagoric realm of genuine
    feeling.  Some of her schoolmates brought to the convent the
    keepsake albums they had received as New Year's gifts.  They
    had to hide them, it was very exciting, they could be read
    only at night, in the dormitory.  Careful not to harm the
    lovely satin bindings, Emma stared bedazzled at the names of
    the unknown authors, counts or viscounts, most of them, who
    had written their signatures under their contributions.

         She quivered as she blew back the tissue paper from each
    engraving.  It would curl up into the air, then sink gently
    down against the page.  Behind a balcony railing a young man
    in a short cloak clasped in his arms a girl in a white dress,
    a chatelaine bag fastened to her belt.  Or there were portraits
    of unidentified aristocratic English beauties with blond curls,
    staring out at you with their wide light-colored eyes from
    under great straw hats.  Some were shown lolling in carriages,
    gliding through parks.  Their greyhound ran ahead, and two
    little grooms in white knee breeches drove the trotting horses.
    Others, dreaming on sofas, an opened letter lying beside them,
    gazed at the moon through a window that was half open, half
    draped with a black curtain.  Coy maidens with tears on their
    cheeks kissed turtledoves through the bars of Gothic bird
    cages.  Or, smiling, their cheeks practically touching their
    own shoulders, they pulled the petals from daisies with
    pointed fingers that curved up at the ends like Eastern
    slippers.  Then there were sultans with long pipes swooning
    under arbors in the arms of dancing girls.  There were
    Giaours, Turkish sabres, fezzes.  And invariably there were
    blotchy, pale landscapes of fantastic countries.  Pines and
    palms growing together, tigers on the right, a lion on the
    left, tartar minarets on the horizon, Roman ruins in the
    foreground, a few kneeling camels.  All of it set in a very
    neat and orderly virgin forest, with a great perpendicular
    sunbeam quivering in the water.  And standing out on the
    water's surface, scratched in white on the steel-gray back-
    ground, a few widely spaced floating swans.

         The bracket lamp above Emma's head shone down on those
    pictures of every corner of the world as she turned them over
    one by one in the silence of the dormitory, the only sound,
    coming from the distance, that of some belated cab on the
    boulevards.

         When her mother died, she wept profusely for several
    days.  She had a memorial picture made for herself from the
    dead woman's hair.  And in a letter filled with sorrowful
    reflections on life that she sent to Les Bertaux, she begged
    to be buried, when her time came, in the same grave.  Her
    father thought she must be ill, and went to see her.  Emma
    was privately pleased to feel that she had so very quickly
    attained this ideal of ethereal languor, inaccessible to
    mediocre spirits.  So she let herself meander along Lamar-
    tinian paths, listening to the throbbing of harps on lakes,
    to all the songs of dying swans, to the falling of every
    leaf, to the flight of pure virgins ascending to heaven,
    and to the voice of the Eternal speaking in the valleys.
    Gradually these things began to bore her, but she refused to
    admit it and continued as before, first out of habit, then
    out of vanity.  Until one day she discovered with surprise
    that the whole mood had evaporated, leaving her heart as free
    of melancholy as her brow was free of wrinkles.

         The good nuns, who had been taking her vocation quite
    for granted, were greatly surprised to find that Mademoiselle
    Rouault was apparently slipping out of their control.  And
    indeed they had so deluged her with prayers, retreats, novenas
    and sermons, preached so constantly the respect due the saints
    and the martyrs, and given her so much good advice about
    modest behavior and the saving of her soul, that she reacted
    like a horse too tightly reined.  She balked, and the bit fell
    from her teeth.  In her enthusiasms she had always looked for
    something tangible.  She had loved the church for its flowers,
    music for its romantic words, literature for its power to stir
    the passions.  And she rebelled before the mysteries of faith
    just as she grew ever more restive under discipline, which was
    antipathetic to her nature.  When her father took her out of
    school no one was sorry to see her go.  The Mother Superior,
    indeed, remarked that she had lately been displaying a certain
    lack of reverence toward the community.

         Back at home, Emma at first enjoyed giving orders to the
    servants, then grew sick of country life and longed to be
    back in the convent.  By the time Charles first appeared at
    Les Bertaux she thought that she was cured of illusions, that
    she had nothing more to learn, and no great emotions to look
    forward to.

         But in her eagerness for a change, or perhaps overstimu-
    lated by this man's presence, she easily persuaded herself
    that love, that marvelous thing which had hitherto been like
    a great rosy-plumaged bird soaring in the splendors of poetic
    skies, was at last within her grasp.  And now she could not
    bring herself to believe that the uneventful life she was
    leading was the happiness of which she had dreamed.

    PART 1

    CHAPTER SEVEN

         She reflected occasionally that these were, nevertheless,
    the most beautiful days of her life, the honeymoon days, as
    people called them.  To be sure, their sweetness would be best
    enjoyed far off, in one of those lands with exciting names
    where the first weeks of marriage can be savored so much more
    deliciously and languidly!  The postchaise with its blue silk
    curtains would have climbed slowly up the mountain roads, and
    the postilion's song would have re-echoed among the cliffs,
    mingling with the tinkling of goat bells and the dull roar of
    waterfalls.  They would have breathed the fragrance of lemon
    trees at sunset by the shore of some bay.  And at night, alone
    on the terrace of a villa, their fingers intertwined, they
    would have gazed at the stars and planned their lives.  It
    seemed to her that certain portions of the earth must produce
    happiness, as though it were a plant native only to those
    soils and doomed to languish elsewhere.  Why couldn't she be
    leaning over the balcony of some Swiss chalet?  Or nursing
    her melancholy in a cottage in Scotland, with a husband clad
    in a long black velvet coat and wearing soft leather shoes, a
    high-crowned hat and fancy cuffs!

         She might have been glad to confide all these things to
    someone.  But how speak about so elusive a malaise, one that
    keeps changing its shape like the clouds and its direction
    like the winds?  She could find no words, and hence neither
    occasion nor courage came to hand.

         Still, if Charles had made the slightest effort, if he
    had had the slightest inkling, if his glance had a single
    time divined her thought, it seemed to her that her heart
    would have been relieved of its fullness as quickly and
    easily as a tree drops its ripe fruit at the touch of a
    hand.  But even as they were brought closer together by the
    details of daily life, she was separated from him by a
    growing sense of inward detachment.

         Charles' conversation was flat as a sidewalk, a place
    of passage for the ideas of every man.  They wore drab every
    day clothes, and they inspired neither laughter nor dreams.
    When he had lived in Rouen, he said, he had never had any
    interest in going to the theatre to see the Parisian company
    that was acting there.  He couldn't tell her the meaning of
    a riding term she had come upon in a novel.

         Wasn't it a man's role, though, to know everything?
    Shouldn't he be expert at all kinds of things, able to initi-
    ate you into the intensities of passion, the refinements of
    life, all the mysteries?  This man could teach you nothing.
    He knew nothing, he wished for nothing.  He took it for
    granted that she was content, and she resented his settled
    calm, his serene dullness, the very happiness she herself
    brought him.

         She drew occasionally, and Charles enjoyed nothing more
    than standing beside her watching her bent over her sketch-
    book, half shutting his eyes the better to see her work, or
    rolling her bread-crumb erasers between his thumb and finger.
    As for the piano, the faster her fingers flew the more he
    marveled.  She played with dash, swooping up and down the
    keyboard without a break.  The strings of the old instrument
    jangled as she pounded, and when the window was open it
    could be heard to the end of the village.  The huissier's
    clerk often stopped to listen as he passed on the road,
    bareheaded, shuffling along in slippers, holding in his hand
    the notice he was about to post.

         Moreover, Emma knew how to run her house.  She let
    Charles' patients know how much they owed him, writing them
    nicely phrased letters that didn't sound like bills.  When
    a neighbor came to Sunday dinner she always managed to think
    up some attractive dish.  She would arrange greengages in a
    pyramid on a bed of vine leaves.  She served her jellies not
    in their jars but neatly turned out on a plate, she spoke of
    buying finger bowls for dessert.  All this redounded greatly
    to Bovary's credit.

         He came to esteem himself the higher for having such a
    wife.  He had two of her pencil sketches framed in wide
    frames, and hung them proudly in the parlor, at the end of
    long green cords.  Citizens returning from Mass saw him
    standing on his doorsteps, wearing a splendid pair of carpet
    slippers.

         He came home from his rounds late, ten o'clock, some-
    times midnight.  He was hungry at that hour, and since the
    servant had gone to bed it was Emma who served him.  He would
    take off his coat to be more comfortable at table, tell her
    every person he had seen, every village he had been to, every
    prescription he had written.  And he would complacently eat
    what was left of the stew, pare his cheese, munch an apple,
    pour himself the last drop of wine.  Then he would go up to
    bed, fall asleep the minute he was stretched on his back, and
    begin to snore.

         He had so long been used to wearing cotton nightcaps
    that he couldn't get his foulard to stay on his head, and in
    the morning his hair was all over his face and white with
    down.  The strings of his pillowcase often came undone
    during the night.  He always wore heavy boots, with deep
    creases slanting from instep to ankle and the rest of the
    uppers so stiff that they seemed to be made of wood.  He
    said that they were "plenty good enough for the country."

         His mother approved his thriftiness.  As in the past,
    she came to visit him whenever there was a particularly
    violent crisis in her own home.  And yet she seemed to be
    prejudiced against her new daughter-in-law.  She considered
    her "too grand in her tastes for the kind of people they
    were."  The younger Bovarys ran through wood, sugar and
    candles at the rate of some great establishment.  And the
    amount of charcoal they used would have done the cooking for
    twenty-five.  She rearranged Emma's linen in the closets and
    taught her to check on the butcher when he delivered the
    meat.  Emma listened to these lectures.  Madame Bovary did
    not stint herself.  And all day there would be a tremulous-
    lipped exchange of "ma fille" and "ma mere," each of the
    ladies uttering the sugary words in a voice that quivered
    with rage.

         In Madame Dubuc's day the older woman had known herself
    to be the favorite.  But now Charles' love for Emma seemed
    to her a desertion, an invasion of her own right.  And she
    looked on sadly at Charles' happiness, like a ruined man
    staring through a window at revelers in a house that was
    once his own.  Using the device of "Do you remember?" she
    reminded him of everything she had suffered and sacrificed

    for his sake, and contrasting all this with Emma's careless
    ways she pointed out how wrong he was to adore his wife to
    the exclusion of herself.

         Charles didn't know what to answer.  He respected his
    mother, and his love for his wife was boundless.  He con-
    sidered the former's opinions infallible, and yet Emma seemed
    to him perfect.  After the older Madame Bovary's departure
    he made a fainthearted attempt to repeat one of two of the
    milder things he had heard her say, using her own phraseology.
    But with a word or two Emma convinced him he was wrong, and
    sent him back to his patients.

         Throughout all this, following formulas she believed
    efficacious, she kept trying to experience love.  Under the
    moonlight in the garden she would recite to Charles all the
    amorous verses she knew by heart, and sing him soulful
    sighing songs.  But it all left her as unruffled as before,
    and Charles, too, seemed as little lovesick, as little
    stirred, as ever.

         Having thus failed to produce the slightest spark of
    love in herself, and since she was incapable of understanding
    what she didn't experience, or of recognizing anything that
    wasn't expressed in conventional terms, she reached the
    conclusion that Charles' desire for her was nothing very
    extraordinary.  His transports had become regularized.  He
    embraced her only at certain times.  This had now become a
    habit like any other.  Like a dessert that could be counted
    on to end a monotonous meal.

         A gamekeeper whom Monsieur had cured of pneumonia made
    Madame a present of a little Italian greyhound bitch, and
    she took her with her whenever she went for a stroll.  She
    did this every now and then, for the sake of a moment's
    solitude, a momentary relief from the everlasting sight of
    the back garden and the dusty road.

         She would walk to the avenue of beeches at Banneville,
    near the abandoned pavilion at the corner of the wall along
    the fields.  Rushes grow in the ditch there, tall and sharp-
    edged among the grass.

         Once arrived she would look around her, to see whether
    anything had changed since the last time she had come.  The
    foxgloves and the wallflowers were where they had been.
    Clumps of nettles were still growing around the stones.
    Patches of lichen still clung along the three windows, whose
    perennially closed shutters were rotting away from their
    rusty iron bars.  Her thoughts would be vague at first,
    straying like her dog, who would be running in circles,
    barking at yellow butterflies, chasing field mice, nibbling
    poppies at the edge of a wheat field.  Then her ideas would
    gradually focus, and sitting on the grass, jabbing it with
    little pokes of her parasol, Emma would ask herself again
    and again, "Why . . . why . . . did I ever marry?"

         She wondered whether some different set of circumstances
    might not have resulted in her meeting some different man,
    and she tried to picture those imaginary circumstances.  The
    life they would have brought her, the unknown other husband.
    However she imagined him, he wasn't a bit like Charles.  He
    might have been handsome, witty, distinguished, magnetic, the
    kind of man her convent schoolmates had doubtless married.
    What kind of lives were they leading now?  Cities and the
    busy streets, buzzing theatres, brilliant balls.  Such
    surroundings afforded them unlimited opportunities for deep
    emotions and exciting sensations.  But her life was as cold
    as an attic facing north.  And boredom, like a silent spider,
    was weaving its web in the shadows, in every corner of her
    heart.  She remembered Prize Days, when she had gone up onto
    the stage to receive her little wreaths.  She had been so
    charming, with her braids, her white dress, her prunella-
    cloth slippers.  Gentlemen had leaned over, when she was back
    in her seat, and paid her compliments.  The courtyard had
    been full of carriages.  Guests called good-bye to her as
    they rolled away.  The music teacher with his violin case
    bowed to her as he passed.  How far away it all was! How far!

         She would call Djali, take her between her knees, stroke
    her long delicate head.  "Kiss your mistress," she would say,
    "you happy, carefree thing."  The slender Djali would yawn
    slowly, as a dog does, and the melancholy look in her eyes
    would touch Emma, and she would liken her to herself, talking
    to her aloud as though comforting someone in distress.

         Sometimes squalls blew up, winds that suddenly swept in
    from the sea over the plateau of the pays de Caux and filled
    the countryside with fresh, salt-smelling air.  The whistling
    wind would flatten the reeds and rustle the trembling beech
    leaves, while the tops of the trees swayed and murmured. Emma
    would pull her shawl close about her shoulders and get up.

         Under the double row of trees a green light filtered
    down through the leaves onto the velvety moss that crunched
    softly beneath her feet.  The sun was setting.  The sky
    showed red between the branches, and the identical trunks of
    the straight line of trees were like a row of brown columns
    against a golden backdrop.  A terror would seize her, she
    would call Djali and walk quickly back to Tostes along the
    highway.  There she would sink into a armchair, and sit
    silent all evening.

         Then, late in September, something exceptional happened.
    She was invited to La Vaubyessard, home of the marquis
    d`Andervilliers.

         The marquis had been a member of the cabinet under the
    Restoration, and now, hoping to re-enter political life, he
    was paving the way for his candidature to the Chamber of
    Deputies.  He made generous distributions of firewood among
    the poor in the winter, and in sessions of the departmental
    council he was always eloquent in demanding better roads for
    his district.  During the hot weather he had had a mouth
    abscess, which Charles had relieved, miraculously it seemed,
    by a timely nick of the scalpel.  His steward, sent to
    Tostes to pay the bill for the operation, reported that
    evening that he had seen some superb cherries in the
    doctor's little garden.  The cherry trees at La Vaubyessard
    weren't doing well.  Monsieur le marquis asked Charles for
    a few grafts, made a point of going to thank him personally,
    saw Emma, and noticed that she had a pretty figure and
    didn't curtsy like a peasant.  So at the chateau it was
    decided that the doctor and his young wife could be invited
    without any transgression of the limits of condescension,
    and at the same time could be counted on to behave with
    decorum among their betters.

         One Wednesday at three in the afternoon, therefore,
    Monsieur and Madame Bovary set out in their buggy for La
    Vaubyessard, a large trunk tied on behind and a hatbox in
    front.  Charles had another box between his legs.

         They arrived at nightfall, just as lanterns were being
    lit in the grounds to illuminate the driveway.




























    PART 1

    CHAPTER EIGHT

         The chateau, a modern building in the Italian style,
    with two projecting wings and three entrances along the
    front, stretched across the far end of a vast expanse of turf
    where cows grazed in the open spaces between groups of tall
    trees.  Tufts of shrubbery, rhododendrons, syringas and
    snowballs, made a variegated border along the curving line of
    the graveled drive.  A stream flowed under a bridge.  Through
    the evening haze the thatched farm buildings could be seen
    scattered over a meadow shut in by two gently rising wooded
    ridges.  And at the rear, in among thick plantings of trees,
    were the two parallel lines of the coach houses and the
    stables, remains of the original, ancient chateau that had
    been torn down.

         Charles' buggy drew up before the middle door.
    Servants appeared, then the marquis, who gave the doctor's
    wife his arm and led her into the entrance hall.

         This had a marble floor and a high ceiling, footsteps
    and voices echoed as in a church.  From the far side rose a
    straight staircase, and to the left a gallery giving on the
    garden led to the billiard room, the sound of clicking ivory
    balls could be heard ahead.  As she passed through on her way
    to the drawing room Emma noticed the men around the table.
    Dignified looking, with cravats reaching up to their chins
    and decorations on their chests, they smiled silently as they
    made their shots.  On the dark wall paneling hung great
    gilded frames, inscribed at the base with names in black
    letters.  "Jean-Antoine d`Andervilliers d`Yverbonville, comte
    de la Vaubyessard and baron de la Fresnaye, killed at the
    battle of Coutras, October 20, 1587."  Or, "Jean-Antoine-
    Henry-Guy d`Andervilliers de la Vaubyessard, admiral of the
    fleet and knight of the order of St. Michael, wounded in the
    battle of La Hogue, May 29, 1692, died at La Vaubyessard
    January 23, 1693."  The rest were barely visible, for the
    lamplight was directed down on the green felt of the tables,
    and much of the room was in shadow.  This darkened the row of
    pictures.  Only the crackle of their varnish caught an
    occasional broken gleam, and here and there some detail of
    painting lighter than the rest stood out from one of the dim,
    gold-framed rectangles.  A pale forehead, two staring eyes,
    powdered wigs cascading onto red-coated shoulders, a garter
    buckle high up on a fleshy calf.

         The marquis opened the drawing room door, and one of the
    ladies rose.  It was the marquise, and she came over to Emma,
    greeted her, drew her down beside her on a settee and talked
    to her as easily as though they were old acquaintances.  She
    was a woman of forty or so, with fine shoulders, a hooked nose
    and a drawling voice.  On her auburn hair she was wearing a
    simple bit of lace, the points falling down behind.  Close
    beside her sat a blonde young woman in a high-backed chair,
    and around the fireplace gentlemen with flowers in their
    buttonholes were chatting with the ladies.

         Dinner was served at seven.  The men, more numerous than
    the ladies, were put at a table in the entrance hall.  The
    ladies sat down in the dining room, with the marquis and the
    marquise.

         Here the air was warm and fragrant.  The scent of
    flowers and fine linen mingled with the odor of cooked meats
    and truffles.  Candle flames cast long gleams on rounded
    silver dish-covers, the clouded facets of the cut glass shone
    palely.  There was a row of bouquets all down the table, and
    on the wide-bordered plates the napkins stood like bishops'
    mitres, each with an oval-shaped roll between its folds.  Red
    lobster claws protruded from platters, oversized fruit was
    piled up on moss in openwork baskets.  Quail were served in
    their plumage.  Steam rose from open dishes.  And the
    platters of carved meat were brought round by the maitre
    d'hotel himself, grave as a judge in silk stockings, knee
    breeches, white neckcloth and jabot.  He reached them down
    between the guests, and with a flick of his spoon transferred
    to each plate the piece desired.  Atop the high copper-banded
    porcelain stove the statue of a woman swathed to the chin in
    drapery stared down motionless at the company.

         Madame Bovary was surprised to notice that several of
    the ladies had failed to put their gloves in their wine
    glasses.

         At the head of the table, alone among ladies, was an
    old man.  His napkin was tied around his neck like a child's,
    and he sat hunched over his heaped plate, gravy dribbling
    from his mouth.  The underlids of his eyes hung down and

    showed red inside, and he wore his hair in a little pigtail
    wound with black ribbon.  This was the marquis' father-in-
    law, the old duc de Laverdiere, favorite of the duc d`Artois
    in the days of the marquis de Conflans' hunting parties at Le
    Vaudreuil.  He was said to have been Marie-Antoinette's lover
    between Monsieur de Coigny and Monsieur de Lauzun.  He had
    led a wild, dissipated life, filled with duels, wagers and
    abductions.  He had gone through his money and been the
    terror of his family.  Now, muttering unintelligibly, he
    pointed his finger at one dish after another, and a servant
    standing behind his chair shouted their names in his ear.
    Emma's eyes kept coming back to this pendulous-lipped old
    man as though he were someone extraordinary, someone august.
    He had lived at court!  He had slept with a queen!

         Iced champagne was served, and the feel of the cold
    wine in her mouth gave Emma a shiver that ran over her from
    head to toe.  She had never see pomegranates or eaten pine-
    apple.  Even the powdered sugar seemed to her whiter and
    finer than elsewhere.

         Then the ladies went up to their rooms to dress for the
    ball.

         Emma devoted herself to her toilette with the meticu-
    lous care of an actress the night of her debut.  She did her
    hair as the hairdresser advised, and slipped into her gauzy
    barege gown, which had been laid out for her on the bed.

         Charles trousers were too tight at the waist.  And then,
    "The shoe straps will interfere with my dancing," he said.

         "You?  Dance?" Emma cried.

         "Of course!"

         "But you're crazy!  Everybody would laugh.  You mustn't.
    It's not suitable for a doctor, anyway," she added.

         Charles said no more.  He walked up and down waiting for
    Emma to be ready.

         He saw her from behind in a mirror, between two sconces.
    Her dark eyes seemed darker than ever.  Her hair, drawn down
    smoothly on both sides and slightly fluffed out over the ears,
    shone with a blue luster.  In her chignon a rose quivered on
    its flexible stem, with artificial dewdrops at the leaf-tips.
    Her gown was pale saffron, trimmed with three bunches of
    pompon roses and green sprays.

         Charles came up to kiss her on the shoulder.  "Don't!"
    she cried.  "You're rumpling me."

         The strains of a violin floated up the stairs, a horn
    joined in.  As Emma went down she had to restrain herself
    from running.

         The quadrilles had begun.  More and more guests were
    arriving.  There was something of a crush.  Emma stayed near
    the door on a settee.

         When the music stopped, the dance floor was left to the
    men, who stood there talking in groups, and to the liveried
    servants, who crossed it with their heavy trays.  Along the
    line of seated women there was a flutter of painted fans.
    Smiles were half hidden behind bouquets.  Gold-stoppered
    scent bottles twisted and turned in white-gloved hands, the
    tight silk binding the wrists and showing the form of the
    nails.  There was a froth of lace around decolletages, a
    flashing of diamonds at throats, bracelets dangling medals
    and coins tinkled on bare arms.  Hair was sleek and shining
    in front, twisted and knotted behind, and every coiffure had
    its wreath or bunch or sprig, of forget-me-nots, jasmine,
    pomegranate blossoms, wheat-sprays, cornflowers.  The dow-
    agers, sitting calm and formidable, wore red head dresses like
    turbans.

         Emma's heart pounded a bit as her partner led her out by
    the fingertips and she waited in line for the starting signal
    on the violin.  But her nervousness soon wore off, and swaying
    and nodding in time with the orchestra, she glided forward.
    She responded with a smile to the violinist's flourishes as
    he continued to play solo when the other instruments stopped.
    At such moments the chink of gold pieces came clearly from
    the gaming tables in the next room.  Then everything was in
    full swing again, the cornet blared, once again feet tramped
    in rhythm, skirts ballooned and brushed together, hands joined
    and separated, eyes lowered one moment looked intently into
    yours the next.

         Scattered among the dancers or talking in doorways were
    a number of men, a dozen or so, aged from twenty-five to
    forty, who were clearly distinguishable from the rest by a
    certain look of overbreeding common to them all despite
    differences of age, dress, or feature.

         Their coats were better cut, and seemed to be of finer
    cloth.  Their hair, brought forward in ringlets over the
    temples, seemed to glisten with more expensive pomades.
    Their complexion bespoke wealth.  They had the pale, very
    white skin that goes so well with the diaphanous tints of
    porcelain, the luster of satin, the patina of old wood, and
    is kept flawless by simple, exquisite fare.  These men moved
    their heads unconstrainedly above low cravats.  Their long
    side whiskers drooped onto turned-down collars.  They wiped
    their lips with handkerchiefs that were deliciously scented
    and monogrammed with huge initials.  Those who were beginning
    to age preserved a youthful look, while the faces of the young
    had a touch of ripeness.  There was an air of indifference
    about them, a calm produced by the gratification of every
    passion.  And though their manners were suave, one could sense
    beneath them that special brutality which comes from the habit
    of breaking down half-hearted resistances that keep one fit
    and tickle one's vanity, the handling of blooded horses, the
    pursuit of loose women.

         A few steps from Emma a blue-coated gentleman was deep
    in Italy with a pale young woman in pearls.  They were
    gushing about the massiveness of the piers in St. Peter's,
    about Tivoli, Vesuvius, Castellamare and the Cascine, the
    roses in Genoa, the Colosseum by moonlight.  And the conver-
    sation heard with her other ear was full of words she didn't
    understand.  It was coming from a circle that had formed
    around a very young man who only the week before had "beaten
    Miss Arabella and Romulus" and seemed to have won two thou-
    sand louis d'or by jumping a certain ditch in England.  One
    of the speakers was complaining that his racers were putting
    on weight, another that misprints had made the name of his
    horse unrecognizable in the newspapers.

         The air in the ballroom had grown heavy.  The lamps were
    beginning to dim.  A number of men had disappeared in the
    direction of the billiard room.  A servant climbed on a chair
    and broke two panes in a window.  At the sound of the smash
    Madame Bovary turned her head and saw peasants peering in
    from the garden, their faces pressed against the glass.  She
    thought of Les Bertaux.  She saw the farm, the muddy pond,
    her father in a smock under the apple trees, and she saw
    herself as she had been there, skimming cream with her finger
    from the milk jars in the dairy.  But amid the splendors of
    this night her past life, hitherto so vividly present, was
    vanishing utterly.  Indeed she was beginning almost to doubt
    that she had lived it.  She was here, and around the brilliant
    ball was a shadow that veiled all else.  She was eating a
    maraschino ice, at that precise moment, from a gilded silver
    scallop-shell that she was holding in her left hand.  The
    spoon was between her teeth, her eyes were half shut.

         A lady near her dropped her fan just as a gentleman was
    passing.  "Would you be good enough to pick up my fan,
    Monsieur?" she asked him.  "It's there behind the sofa."

         The gentleman bowed, and as he stretched out his arm
    Emma saw the lady toss something into his hat, something
    white, folded in the shape of a triangle.  The gentleman
    recovered the fan and handed it to the lady respectfully.
    She thanked him with a nod and began to sniff at her bouquet.

         For supper there was an array of Spanish wines and Rhine
    wines, bisque soup and cream of almond soup, Trafalgar
    pudding, and platters of all kinds of cold meat in trembling
    aspic.  And after it the carriages began gradually to leave.
    Drawing back a corner of a muslin curtain, Emma could see
    their lamps slipping away into the darkness.  The settees
    emptied.  Some of the card players stayed on.  The musicians
    cooled the tips of their fingers on their tongues.  Charles
    was half asleep, propped up against a door.

         At three in the morning the closing cotillion began.
    Emma had never waltzed.  Everyone else was waltzing, including
    Mademoiselle d`Andervilliers and the marquis.  By this time
    only the hosts and the house guests remained, about a dozen
    in all.  One of the waltzers, whom everyone called simply
    "Vicomte," and whose very low-cut waist-coat seemed to be
    molded on his torso, came up to Madame Bovary and for the
    second time asked her to be his partner.  He would lead her,
    he urged, she'd do very well.

         They started out slowly, then quickened their step.
    They whirled, or, rather everything, lamps, furniture, walls,
    floor, whirled around them, like a disc on a spindle. As they
    passed close to a door the hem of Emma's gown caught on her
    partner's trousers, and for a moment their legs were all but
    intertwined.  He looked down at her, she up at him.  A para-
    lyzing numbness came over her, and she stopped.  Then they
    resumed, and spinning more quickly the vicomte swept her off
    until they were alone at the very end of the gallery.  There,
    out of breath, she almost fell, and for an instant leaned her
    head against a wall, and put her hand over her eyes.

         When she opened them, a lady was sitting on a low stool
    in the middle of the salon, three waltzers on their knees
    before her.  The lady chose the vicomte, and the violin
    struck up again.

         Everyone watched them as they went round and round.  She
    held her body rigid, her head inclined.  He maintained the
    same posture as before, very erect, elbow curved, chin forward.
    This time he had a partner worthy of him!  They danced on and
    on, long after all the others had dropped out exhausted.

         Hosts and guests chatted a few minutes longer, and then,
    bidding each other good night, or rather good morning, they
    all went up to bed.

         Charles dragged himself up the stairs by the handrail.
    His legs, he said, were "ready to drop off."  He had spent
    five solid hours on his feet by the card tables watching
    people play whist, unable to make head or tail of it.  So he
    gave a great sigh of relief when he pulled his shoes off at
    last.

         Emma slipped a shawl over her shoulders, opened the
    window and leaned out.

         The night was very dark.  A few drops of rain were
    falling.  She breathed the moist wind, so cooling to her
    eyelids.  The music was still throbbing in her ears, and she
    forced herself to stay awake in order to prolong the illusion
    of this luxurious life she would so soon have to be leaving.

         The sky began to lighten.  Her glance lingered on the
    windows of the various rooms as she tried to imagine which
    of them were occupied by the people she had seen the night
    before.  She longed to know all about their lives, to pene-
    trate into them, to be part of them.

         But she was shivering with cold.  She undressed and
    crept into bed beside the sleeping Charles.

         Everyone came downstairs for breakfast.  The meal
    lasted ten minutes.  To the doctor's surprise no liqueurs
    were served.  Mademoiselle d'Andervilliers gathered up the
    remains of the brioches in a basket to feed the swans in the
    lake, and everyone went for a stroll in the greenhouse, where
    strange hairy plants were displayed on pyramidal stands, and
    hanging jars that looked like nests crawling with snakes
    dripped long, dangling, intertwined green tendrils.  From the
    orangery at the end of the greenhouse a roofed passage led to
    the outbuildings.  To please the young woman the marquis took
    her to see the stables.  Above the basket-shaped racks were
    porcelain name plates with the horses' names in black letters.
    Each horse moved restlessly in his stall at the approach of
    the visitors and the coaxing, clicking sounds they made with
    their tongues.  The boards of the harness-room floor shone
    like the parquet floor of a drawing room.  The carriage
    harness hung in the middle, on two revolving posts, and the
    bits, whips, stirrups and curbs were on a line of hooks along
    the wall.

         Charles, meanwhile, had gone to ask a groom to harness
    his buggy.  It was brought round to the front door, and when
    all the bundles were stowed away, the Bovarys said their
    thank-yous to the marquis and the marquise and set out for
    home.

         Emma sat silent, watching the turning wheels.  Charles
    drove perched on the edge of the seat, arms wide apart, and
    the little horse went along at an ambling trot between the
    overwide shafts.  The slack reins slapped against his rump
    and grew wet with lather, and the case tied on behind thumped
    heavily and regularly against the body of the buggy.

         They were climbing one of the rises near Thibourville
    when just ahead of them, coming from the opposite direction,
    there appeared a group of riders, who passed by laughing and
    smoking cigars.  Emma thought she recognized the vicomte.
    She turned and stared, but all she saw was the bobbing heads
    of trotting or galloping riders silhouetted against the sky.

         Half a mile farther along they had to stop.  The
    breeching broke, and Charles mended it with a rope.  As he
    was checking his harness he saw something on the ground
    between the horse's feet, and he picked up a cigar case
    trimmed with green silk and bearing a crest in the center
    lake a carriage door.

         "A couple of cigars in it, too," he said.  "I'll smoke
    them after dinner."

         "You've taken up smoking?" Emma demanded.

         "Once in a while, when I get the chance."

         He put his find in his pocket and gave the pony a flick
    of the whip.

         When they reached home dinner was far from ready.  Madame
    lost her temper.  Nastasie talked back.

         "It's too much!" Emma cried.  "I've had enough of your
    insolence!"  And she gave her notice on the spot.

         For dinner there was onion soup and veal with sorrel.
    Charles, sitting opposite Emma, rubbed his hands with satis-
    faction.  "How good to be home!"

         They could hear Nastasie weeping.  Charles had an affec-
    tion for the poor thing.  She had kept him company on many an
    idle evening during his widowerhood.  She had been his first
    patient, his first acquaintance in the village.

         "Are you really letting her go?" he finally asked.

         "Yes, what's to stop me?"

         Then they warmed themselves in the kitchen while their
    room was made ready.  Charles proceeded to smoke.  He curled
    and pursed his lips around the cigar, spat every other
    minute, shrank back from every puff.

         "You're going to make yourself sick," she said scorn-
    fully.

         He put down his cigar and rushed to the pump for a drink
    of cold water.  Emma snatched the cigar case and quickly
    flung it to the back of the closet.

         The next day was endless.  She walked in her garden, up
    and down the same paths over and over again, stopping to look
    at the flower beds, the fruit trees, the plaster priest,
    staring with a kind of amazement at all these things from her
    past life, things once so familiar.  How remote the ball
    already was!  What was it that made tonight see so very far
    removed from the day before yesterday?  Her visit to La
    Vaubyessard had opened a breach in her life, like one of those
    great crevasses that a storm can tear across the face of a
    mountain in the course of a single night.  But there was
    nothing to do about it.  She put her beautiful ball costume
    reverently away in a drawer, even to her satin slippers, whose
    soles were yellow from the slippery wax of the dance floor.
    Her heart was like them.  Contact with luxury had left an
    indelible mark on it.

         The memory of the ball would not leave her.  Every
    Wednesday she told herself as she woke.  "Ah!  One week ago
    . . . two weeks ago . . . three weeks age, I was there!"
    Little by little the faces grew confused in her mind.  She
    forgot the tune of the quadrille.  The liveries and the
    splendid rooms became blurred.  Some of the details departed,
    but the yearning remained.











    PART 2

    CHAPTER ONE

         Yonville-l'Abbaye (even the ruins of the ancient capuchin
    abbey from which it derives its name are no longer there) is a
    market town twenty miles from Rouen, between the highways to
    Abbeville and Beauvais in the valley of the Rieule.  This is a
    small tributary of the Andelle.  It turns the wheels of three
    mills before joining the larger stream, and contains some
    trout that boys like to fish on Sundays.

         Branching off from the highway at La Boissiere, the road
    to Yonville continues level until it climbs the hill at Les
    Leux.  And from there it commands a view of the valley.  This
    is divided by the Rieule into two contrasting bits of country-
    side.  Everything to the left is grazing land, everything to
    the right is ploughed field.  The pastures extend along the
    base of a chain of low hills and merge at the far end with the
    meadows of Bray, while eastward the plain rises gently and
    grows steadily wider, flaunting its golden grainfields as far
    as the eye can see.  The stream, flowing along the edge of the
    grass, is a white line dividing the color of the meadows from
    that of the ploughed earth.  The country thus resembles a
    great spread-out cloak, its green velvet collar edged with
    silver braid.

         On the horizon beyond Yonville loom the oaks of the
    Argueil forest and the escarpments of the bluffs of Saint-
    Jean, the latter streaked from top to bottom with long,
    irregular lines of red.  These are marks left by rain, and
    their brickish color, standing out so sharply against the
    gray rock of the hill, comes from the iron content of the
    many springs in the country just beyond.

         This is where Normandy, Picardy and the Ile-de-France
    come together, a mongrel region where the speech of the
    natives is as colorless as the landscape is lacking in char-
    acter.  Here they make the worst Neufchatel cheeses in the
    entire district.  And here farming calls for considerable
    investment.  Great quantities of manure are needed to fer-
    tilize the friable, sandy, stony soil.

         Up until 1835 no road was kept open to Yonville, but
    about that time the cross-cut was made that links the Amiens
    and Abbeville highways and is sometimes used by carters tra-
    veling from Rouen to Flanders.  Nevertheless, despite its
    "new avenues for trade," Yonville-l'Abbaye has stood still.
    Instead of adopting improved methods of farming, the natives
    stick to their pastures, worn-out though they are.  And the
    lazy town, spurning the farmland, has continued its spontan-
    eous growth in the direction of the river.  The sight of it
    from a distance, stretched out along the bank, brings to mind
    a cowherd taking a noonday nap beside the stream.

         At the foot of the hill the road crosses the Rieule on a
    bridge, and then, becoming an avenue planted with young
    aspens, leads in a straight line to the first outlying houses.
    These are surrounded by hedges, and their yards are full of
    scattered outbuildings, cider presses, carriage houses and
    distilling sheds standing here and there under thick trees
    with ladders and poles leaning against their trunks and
    scythes hooked over their branches.  The thatched roofs hide
    the top third or so of the low windows like fur caps pulled
    down over eyes, and each windowpane, thick and convex, has a
    bull's-eye in its center like the bottom of a bottle.  Some
    of the plastered house walls with their diagonal black
    timbers are the background for scraggly espaliered pear trees.
    And the house doors have little swinging gates to keep out the
    baby chicks, who come to the sill to peck at brown-bread
    crumbs soaked in cider.  Gradually the yards become narrower,
    houses are closer together, the hedges disappear, occasionally
    a fern broom put out to dry is seen hanging from a window.
    There is a blacksmith shop, a cart-maker's with two or three
    new carts outside half blocking the roadway.  Then comes a
    white house behind an iron fence, its circular lawn adorned
    by a cupid holding finger to lips.  Two cast-iron urns stand
    at either end of the entrance terrace.  Brass plates gleam
    brightly at the door.  This is the notary's house, the finest
    in town.

         The church is across the street, twenty yards further on,
    at the corner of the main square.  The little graveyard sur-
    rounding it, enclosed by an elbow-high wall, is so full of
    graves that the old tombstones, lying flat on the ground, form
    a continuous pavement divided into rectangular blocks by the
    grass that pushes up between.  The church was remodeled during
    the last years of the reign of Charles X.  The wooden vaulting
    is beginning to rot at the top.  Black cavities are appearing
    here and there in the blue paint.  Above the door, in the
    place usually occupied by an organ, is a gallery for the men,
    reached by a spiral staircase that echoes loudly under the
    tread of wooden shoes.

         Daylight, coming through the windows of plain glass,
    falls obliquely on the pews.  And here and there on the wall
    from which they jut out at right angles is tacked a bit of
    straw matting, with the name of the pew-holder in large
    letters below.  Beyond, where the nave narrows, stands the
    confessional, and opposite it a statuette of the Virgin.  She
    is dressed in a satin gown and a tulle veil spangled with
    silver stars, and her cheeks are daubed red like some idol
    from the Sandwich Islands.  A painting by a copyist, inscribed
    "Holy Family:  Presented by the Minister of the Interior,"
    hangs over the main altar, and there, flanked by four candle-
    sticks, it closes the vista.  The cheap fir choir stalls have
    never been painted.

         The market, that is, a tile roof supported by about
    twenty pillars, takes up approximately half the main square
    of Yonville.  The town hall, designed, as everyone will tell
    you, "by a Paris architect," is a kind of Greek temple forming
    one corner of the square, next door to the pharmacy.  Its
    lower story has three Ionic columns.  Above is a row of arched
    windows, and the culminating pediment is filled with a figure
    of the Gallic cock, one of its claws resting on the Constitu-
    tion and the other holding the scales of justice.

         But what catches the eye the most is across the square
    from the Lion d'Or hotel.  Monsieur Homais' pharmacy!  Especi-
    ally at night, when his lamp is lit, and the red and green
    glass jars decorating his window cast the glow of their two
    colors far out across the roadway!  Peering through it, as
    through the glare of Bengal lights, one can catch a glimpse,
    at that hour, of the dim figure of the pharmacist himself,
    bent over his desk.  The entire facade of his establishment
    is plastered from top to bottom with inscriptions, in running
    script, in round hand, in block capitals, "Vichy, Seltzer and
    Bareges Waters.  Depurative Fruit Essences.  Raspail's Remedy.
    Arabian Racahout.  Darcet's Pastilles.  Regnault's Ointment.
    Bandages, Baths, Laxative Chocolates, etc."  And the shop-sign
    as wide as the shop itself, proclaims in gold letters, "Homais
    Pharmacy."  At the rear of the shop, behind the great scales
    fastened to the counter, the word "Laboratory" is inscribed
    above a glass door.  And this door itself, halfway up, bears
    once again the name "Homais," in gold letters on a black
    ground.

         That is as much as there is to see in Yonville.  The
    street (the only street), long as a rifle-shot and lined with
    a few shops, abruptly ceases to be a street at a turn of the
    road.  If you leave it on the right and follow the base of the
    bluffs of Saint-Jean, you soon reach the cemetery.

         This was enlarged the year of the cholera.  One wall was
    torn down and three adjoining acres were added.  But all this
    new portion is almost uninhabited, and new graves continue as
    in the past to be dug in the crowded area near the gate.  The
    caretaker, who is also gravedigger and sexton at the church
    (thus profiting doubly from the parish corpses), has taken
    advantage of the empty land to plant potatoes.  Nevertheless,
    his little field grows smaller every year, and when there is
    an epidemic he doesn't know whether to rejoice in the deaths
    or lament the space taken by the new graves.

         "You are feeding on the dead, Lestiboudois!"  Monsieur
    le cure told him, one day.

         The somber words gave him pause, and for a time he
    desisted.  But today he continues to plant his tubers, coolly
    telling everyone that they come up by themselves.

         Since the events which we are about to relate, absolutely
    nothing has changed in Yonville.  To this day the tin tricolor
    still turns atop the church tower.  The two calico streamers
    outside the dry-goods shop still blow in the wind.  The spongy
    foetuses in the pharmacy window continue to disintegrate in
    their cloudy alcohol.  And over the main entrance of the hotel
    the old golden lion, much discolored by the rains, stares down
    like a curly-headed poodle on passers-by.

         The evening the Bovarys were expected at Yonville, Madame
    Lefrancois, the widow who owned this hotel, was so frantically
    busy with her saucepans that large beads of sweat stood out on
    her face.  Tomorrow was market day, and she had to get every-
    thing ready in advance.  Cut the meat, clean the chickens,
    make soup, roast and grind the coffee.  In addition, she had
    tonight's dinner to get for her regular boarders and for the
    new doctor and his wife and their maid.  Bursts of laughter
    came from the billiard room.  In the small dining room three
    millers were calling for brandy.  Logs were blazing, charcoal
    was crackling, and on the long table in the kitchen, in among
    the quarters of raw mutton, stood high piles of plates that
    shook with the chopping of the spinach on the chopping-block.
    From the yard came the squawking of the chickens that the
    kitchen maid was chasing with murderous intent.

         Warming his back at the fire was a man in green leather
    slippers, wearing a velvet skullcap with a gold tassel.  His
    face, slightly pitted by smallpox, expressed nothing but self-
    satisfaction, and he seemed as contented with life as the
    goldfinch in a wicker cage hanging above his head.  This was
    the pharmacist.

         "Artemise!" cried the mistress of the inn.  "Chop some
    kindling, fill the decanters, bring some brandy, hurry up!
    Lord!  If I only knew what dessert to offer these people you're
    waiting for!  Listen to their moving-men starting up that
    racket in the billiard room again!  They've left their van in
    the driveway, too.  The Hirondelle will probably crash into
    it.  Call 'Polyte and tell him to put it in the shed!  Would
    you believe it, Monsieur Homais, since this morning they've
    played at least fifteen games and drunk eight pots of cider!
    But they're going to ruin my table," she said, staring over
    at them across the room, her skimming spoon in her hand.

         "That wouldn't be much of a loss," replied Monsieur
    Homais.  "You'd buy another one."

         "Another billiard table!" cried the widow.

         "But this one's falling apart, Madame Lefrancois!  I
    tell you again, it's shortsighted of you not to invest in a
    new one!  Very shortsighted!  Players today want narrow poc-
    kets and heavy cues, you know.  They don't play billiards
    the way they used to.  Everything's changed.  We must keep
    up with the times!  Just look at Tellier . . ."

         The hostess flushed with anger.

         "Say what you like," the pharmacist went on, "his bil-
    liard table is nicer than yours.  And if a patriotic tourna-
    ment were to be got up, for Polish independence or Lyons
    flood relief . . ."

         "We're not afraid of fly-by-nights like Tellier," the
    hostess interrupted, shrugging her heavy shoulders.  "Don't
    worry, Monsieur Homais.  As long as the Lion d'Or exists
    we'll keep out customers.  We're a well-established house.
    But the Cafe Francais . . .  One of these mornings you'll
    find it sealed up, with a nice big notice on the window
    blinds.  A new billiard table!" she went on, talking as
    though to herself.  "But this one's so handy to stack the
    washing on!  And in the hunting season it's slept as many
    as six! . . .  But what's keeping that slowpoke Hivert?"

         "You'll wait till he arrives, to give your gentlemen
    their dinner?" the pharmacist asked.

         "Wait?  And what about Monsieur Binet?  You'll see
    him come in on the stroke of six.  He's the most punctual
    man in the world.  He always has to sit at the same place
    in the little room.  He'd die rather than eat his dinner
    anywhere else.  And finicky!  So particular about his cider!
    Not like Monsieur Leon!  Monsieur Leon sometimes doesn't
    come in till seven, or even half-past, and half the time he
    doesn't even know what he's eating.  What a nice young man!
    So polite!  So soft-spoken!"

         "Ah, Madame!  There's a great difference, you know,
    between someone who's been properly brought up and a tax
    collector who got his only schooling in the army."

         The clock struck six.  Binet entered.

         He was clad in a blue frock coat that hung straight down
    all around his skinny body.  And the raised peak of his
    leather cap, its earflaps pulled up and fastened at the top,
    displayed a bald, squashed-looking forehead, deformed by long
    pressure of a helmet.  He was wearing a coarse wool vest, a
    crinoline collar, gray trousers, and, as he did in every
    season, well-shined shoes that bulged in two parallel lines
    over the rising of his two big toes.  Not a hair was out of
    place in the blond chin whisker outlining his jaw.  It was
    like the edging of a flower bed around his long, dreary face
    with its small eyes and hooked nose.  He was a clever card
    player, a good hunter, and wrote a fine hand.  His hobby was
    making napkin rings on his own lathe.  Jealous as an artist
    and stingy as a bourgeois, he cluttered up his house with his
    handiwork.

         He headed for the small room, but the three millers had
    to be got out before he would go in.  While his table was
    being set he stood next to the stove without saying a word,
    then he closed the door and took off his cap as usual.

         "He won't wear out his tongue with civilities," the
    pharmacist remarked, as soon as he was alone with the hostess.

         "He never talks a bit more than that," she answered.
    "Last week I had two cloth salesmen here, two of the funniest
    fellows you ever listened to.  They told me stories that made
    me laugh till I cried.  Would you believe it?  He sat there
    like a clam, didn't open his mouth."

         "No imagination," pronounced the pharmacist.  "Not a
    hint of a spark!  No manners whatever!"

         "And yet they say he has something to him," objected the
    hostess.

         "Something to him?" cried Monsieur Homais.  "That man?
    Something to him?  Still, in his own line I suppose he may
    have," he conceded.

         And he went on.  "Ah!  A business man with vast connec-
    tions, a lawyer, a doctor, a pharmacist, I can understand it
    if they get so engrossed in their affairs that they become
    eccentric, even surly.  History is full of such examples.
    But at least they have important affairs to be engrossed in!
    Take me, for instance.  How often I've turned my desk upside
    down looking for my pen to write some labels, only to find
    I'd stuck it behind my ear!"

         Meanwhile Madame Lefrancois had approached the door to
    see whether the Hirondelle wasn't in sight, and she started
    as a black-clad man that moment entered the kitchen.  In the
    last faint light of dusk it was just possible to make out his
    florid face and athletic figure.

         "What can I offer you, Monsieur le cure?" she asked,
    reaching down a brass candlestick from a row that stood all
    ready and complete with candles on the mantelpiece.  "A drop
    of cassis?  A glass of wine?"

         The priest very politely declined.  He had come to fetch
    his umbrella, he said.  He had left it at the convent in
    Ernemont the other day, and had supposed the Hirondelle would
    have delivered it by now.  He asked Madame Lefrancois to have
    it brought to him at the rectory during the evening, and then
    left for the church, where the bell was tolling the Angelus.

         When the sound of his footsteps in the square had died
    away, the pharmacist declared that in his opinion the priest's
    behavior had been most improper.  His refusal to take a glass
    of something was the most revolting kind of hypocrisy.  All
    priests were secret tipplers, he said, and they were all doing
    their best to bring back the days of the tithe.

         The hostess said some words in the cure's defense.  "Be-
    sides," she went on, "he could take on four like you.  Last
    year he helped our men get in the straw.  He carried as many
    as six bundles at a time, that shows you how strong he is."

         "Bravo!" cried the pharmacist.  "Go ahead!  Keep sending
    your daughters to confession to strapping fellows like that!
    But if I were the government I'd have every priest bled once a
    month.  Yes, a fine generous phlebotomy every month, Madame,
    in the interests of morals and decency."

         "That's enough, Monsieur Homais!  You've no respect for
    religion!"

         "On the contrary.  I'm a very religious man, in my own
    way, far more so than all these people with their mummeries
    and their tricks.  I worship God, I assure you!  I believe in
    a Supreme Being, a Creator.  Whoever he is.  And what differ-
    ence does it make?  He put us here on earth to fulfill our
    duties as citizens and parents.  But I don't have to go into
    church and kiss silver platters and hand over my money to
    fatten up a lot of rascals that eat better than you and I!
    To him, one can do full honor in a forest, a field, or merely
    by gazing up at the ethereal vault, like the ancients.  My
    God is the God of Socrates, of Franklin, of Voltaire, of
    Beranger!  My credo is the credo of Rousseau!  I adhere to
    the immortal principles of '89!  I have no use for the kind
    of God who goes walking in his garden with a stick, sends his
    friends to live in the bellies of whales, gives up the ghost
    with a groan and then comes back to life three days later!
    Those things aren't only absurd in themselves, Madame, they're
    completely opposed to all physical laws.  It goes to prove, by
    the way, that priests have always wallowed in squalid ignor-
    ance and have wanted nothing better than to drag the entire
    world down to their own level."

         As he ended, he glanced about in search of an audience.
    For a moment, during his outburst, he had had the illusion
    that he was addressing the village council.  But the mistress
    of the inn was no longer listening to him.  Her ears had
    caught a distant sound of wheels.  There was the rattle of a
    coach, the pounding of loose horseshoes on the road, and the
    Hirondelle drew up before the door at last.

         It was a yellow box-shaped affair mounted on two large
    wheels that came up as high as the top, blocking the passen-
    gers' view and spattering their shoulders.  When the carriage
    was closed the tiny panes of its narrow windows rattled in
    their frames, and there were mud stains here and there on the
    ancient coating of dust that even heavy rainstorms never
    washed off completely.  It was drawn by three horses, one
    ahead and two abreast.  Its under side bumped against the
    ground on down grades.

         A number of the local inhabitants made their appearance
    in the square, and all speaking at once they asked for news,
    for explanations of the delay, for their packages.  Hivert
    didn't know whom to answer first.  It was he who attended to
    things in the city for the Yonvillians.  He shopped for them,
    brought back rolls of leather for the shoemaker, scrap iron
    for the blacksmith, a keg of herrings for Madame Lefrancois
    his employer, ladies bonnets from the milliner, wigs from
    the hairdresser.  And all along the road on the way back he
    distributed his packages, standing up on his seat and hurling
    them over the farmyard fences with a shout as his horses kept
    galloping ahead.

         An accident had delayed him.  Madame Bovary's greyhound
    had run away, disappeared across the fields.  They had
    whistled for her a good fifteen minutes.  Hivert had even
    turned his coach around and gone back over the road for more
    than a mile, expecting to come upon her any minute, but they'd
    had to go on without her.  Emma had wept and made a scene,
    blaming it all on Charles.  Monsieur Lheureux, the Yonville
    dry-goods dealer, who was also in the carriage, had tried to
    comfort her by citing numerous examples of lost dogs' recog-
    nizing their masters many years later.  There was a famous
    one, he said, that had returned to Paris all the way from
    Constantinople.  Another had traveled one hundred twenty-five
    miles in a straight line, swimming four rivers.  And his own
    father had had a poodle who after being gone for twelve years
    had suddenly jumped up on his back one night in the street,
    as he was on his way to a friend's house for dinner.











    PART 2

    CHAPTER TWO

         Emma stepped out first, followed by Felicite, Monsieur
    Lheureux, and a wet nurse, and Charles had to be shaken awake
    in his corner, where he had dozed off as soon as darkness had
    fallen.

         Homais introduced himself.  He paid his compliments to
    Madame and spoke politely to Monsieur, said he was delighted
    to have been of service to them, and cordially added that he
    had taken the liberty of inviting himself to share their
    dinner, his wife being for the moment out of town.

         In the kitchen, Madame Bovary crossed to the fireplace.
    Reaching halfway down her skirt, she grasped it with the tips
    of two of her fingers, raised it to her ankles, and stretched
    out a black-shod foot toward the flame, over the leg of mutton
    that was turning on the spit.  She was standing in the full
    light of the fire, and by its harsh glare one could see the
    weave of her dress, the pores of her white skin, even her eye-
    lids when she briefly shut her eyes.  Now and again she was
    flooded by a great glow of red, as a gust of wind blew into
    the fire from the half-open kitchen door.

         From the other side of the fireplace a fair-haired young
    man was silently watching her.

         This was Monsieur Leon Dupuis, the second of the Lion
    d'Or's regular diners, clerk to Maitre Guillaumin the notary.
    Finding Yonville very dull, he dined as late as possible, in
    the hope that some traveler might turn up at the inn with
    whom he could have an evening's conversation.  On days when
    there was no work to detain him at the office, he had no way
    of filling the interval, and ended up arriving on time and
    enduring a tete-a-tete with Binet straight through from soup
    to cheese.  So it was with pleasure that he accepted the
    hostess' suggestion that he dine with the new arrivals, and
    they all went into the large dining room, where their four
    places had been set.  Madame Lefrancois was making an occasion
    of it.

         Homais asked permission to keep his cap on, he had a
    dread of head colds.  Then, turning to his neighbor.  "Madame
    is a bit tired, I presume?  Our old Hirondelle does such a
    frightful lot of bumping and shaking!"

         "It does," Emma answered.  "But I always love traveling
    anyway.  I enjoy a change of scene!"

         The clerk sighed.  "It's so boring to be always stuck in
    the same place!"

         "If you were like me," said Charles, "always having to
    be on horseback . . ."

         "But there's nothing more charming than riding, I think,"
    said the clerk, addressing Madame Bovary.  "If you have the
    opportunity, of course."

         "As a matter of fact," said the apothecary, "the prac-
    tice of medicine isn't particularly arduous in this part of
    the world.  The condition of our roads makes it possible to
    use a gig, and, generally speaking, payment is good, the
    farmers are well off.  Aside from the usual cases of enteritis,
    bronchitis, liver complaint, etc., our roster of illnesses
    includes an occasional intermittent fever at harvest time, but
    on the whole very little that's serious except for a good deal
    of scrofula, probably the result of the deplorable hygienic
    conditions in our countryside.  Ah!  You'll have to fight many
    a prejudice, Monsieur Bovary.  Every day your scientific
    efforts will be thwarted by the peasant's stubborn adherence
    to his old ways.  Plenty of our people still have recourse to
    novenas and relics and the priest, instead of doing the natural
    thing and coming to the doctor or the pharmacist.  To tell the
    truth, however, the climate isn't at all bad.  We even have a
    few nonagenarians.  The thermometer, this I can tell you from
    personal observation, goes down in the winter to four degrees,
    and in the hottest season touches twenty-five or thirty degrees
    Reaumur at a maximum, or, in other words, fifty-four degrees
    Fahrenheit, to use the English scale, not more!  You see, we're
    sheltered from the north winds by the Argueil forest on the one
    side and from the west winds by the bluffs of Saint-Jean on the
    other.  However, this warmth, which because of the dampness
    given off by the river and the number of cattle in the pastures,
    which themselves exhale, as you know, a great deal of ammonia,
    that is nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen (no, just nitrogen and
    hydrogen), and which, sucking up the humus from the soil, mixing
    all these different emanations together, making a package of
    them, so to speak, and combining also with the electricity in
    the atmosphere when there is any, could in the long run result
    in noxious miasmas, as in tropical countries.  This warmth, I
    was saying, is actually moderated from the direction from which
    it comes, or rather the direction from which it could come,
    namely from the south, by southeast winds, which being of course
    cool themselves as a result of crossing the Seine sometimes
    burst on us all of a sudden like arctic air for Russia!"

         "Are there some nice walks in the neighborhood, at least?"
    Madame Bovary asked, speaking to the young man.

         "Oh, hardly any," he answered.  "There's one place, called
    the Pasture, on top of the bluffs at the edge of the woods.  I
    go there Sundays sometimes with a book and watch the sunset."

         "There's nothing I love as much as sunsets," she said.
    "But my favorite place for them is the seashore."

         "Oh, I adore the sea," said Monsieur Leon.

         "Don't you have the feeling," asked Madame Bovary, "that
    something happens to free your spirit in the presence of all
    that vastness?  It raises up my soul to look at it, somehow.
    It makes me think of the infinite, and all kinds of wonderful
    things."

         "Mountain scenery does the same," said Leon.  "A cousin
    of mine traveled in Switzerland last year, and he told me
    that no one who hasn't been there can imagine the poetry and
    charm of the lakes and waterfalls and the majesty of the
    glaciers.  You can see pine trees so enormous you can't
    believe your eyes, slanting across the rivers.  They build
    their chalets right on the edge of precipices.  If you look
    down you can see whole valleys a thousand feet below you
    through openings in the clouds.  Think what it must do to you
    to see things like that!  I'd fall on my knees, I think.  I'd
    want to pray.  I can well understand the famous composer who
    used to play the piano in such places, to get inspiration."

         "Are you a musician?" she asked.

         "No, but I love music," he answered.

         "Ah, don't listen to him, Madame Bovary," interrupted
    Homais, leaning across his plate.  "He's just being modest.
    What about the other day, my friend?  You were singing
    L'Ange gardien in your room, it was delightful.  I heard
    you from the laboratory.  You rendered it like a real actor."

         Leon lived at the pharmacist's, in a small third-floor
    room looking out on the square.  He blushed at his landlord's
    compliment.  But the latter had already turned back to the
    doctor and was briefing him on the leading citizens of Yonville.
    He told stories about them and gave vital statistics.  No one
    knew for sure how well off the notary was, and then there was
    the Tuvache family, all of them hard to get on with.

         Emma went on.  "What is your favorite kind of music?"

         "Oh, German music.  It's the most inspiring."

         "Do you know Italian opera?"

         "Not yet, but I'll hear some next year when I go to
    Paris to finish law school."

         "As I was just telling your husband," the pharmacist
    said, "speaking of our poor runaway friend Yanoda, thanks
    to his extravagance you're going to enjoy one of the most
    comfortable houses in Yonville.  What's especially convenient
    about it for a doctor is that it has a door opening on the
    lane, so that people can come and go without being seen.
    Besides, it has everything a housekeeper needs.  Laundry,
    kitchen and pantry, sitting room, fruit closet, etc.  Yanoda
    didn't care how he spent his money!  He built an arbor
    alongside the river at the foot of the garden, just to drink
    beer in during the summer!  If Madame likes gardening,
    she'll be able to . . ."

         "My wife never gardens," said Charles.  "She's been
    advised to take exercise, but even so she'd much rather stay
    in her room and read."

         "So would I," said Leon.  "What's more delightful than
    an evening beside the fire with a nice bright lamp and a book,
    listening to the wind beating against the windows . . .?"

         "How true!" she said, her great dark eyes fixed widely on
    him.

         "I'm absolutely removed from the world at such times," he
    said.  "The hours go by without my knowing it.  Sitting there
    I'm wandering in countries I can see every detail of.  I'm
    playing a role in the story I'm reading.  I actually feel I'm
    the characters.  I live and breathe with them."

         "I know!" she said.  "I feel the same!"

         "Have you ever had the experience," Leon went on, "of
    running across in a book some vague idea you've had, some image
    that you realize has been lurking all the time in the back of
    your mind and now seems to express absolutely your most subtle
    feelings?"

         "Indeed I have," she answered.

         "That's why I'm especially fond of poetry," he said.  "I
    find it much more affecting than prose.  It's much more apt to
    make me cry."

         "Still, it's tiresome in the long run," Emma replied.
    "Nowadays I'm crazy about a different kind of thing, stories
    full of suspense, stories that frighten you.  I hate to read
    about low-class heroes and their down-to-earth concerns, the
    sort of thing the real world's full of."

         "You're quite right," the clerk approved.  "Writing like
    that doesn't move you.  It seems to me to miss the whole true
    aim of art.  Noble characters and pure affections and happy
    scenes are very comforting things.  They're a refuge from
    life's disillusionments.  As for me, they're my only means of
    relief, living here as I do, cut off from the world.  Yonville
    has so little to offer!"

         "It's like Tostes, I suppose," Emma said.  "That's why I
    always subscribed to a lending library."

         "If Madame would do me the honor of using it," said the
    pharmacist, who had heard her last words, "I can offer her a
    library composed of the best authors, Voltaire, Rousseau,
    Delille, Walter Scott, the Echo des Feuilletons.  I subscribe
    to a number of periodicals, too.  The Fanal de Rouen comes
    every day.  As a matter of fact I happen to be its local
    correspondent for Buchy, Forges, Neufchatel, Yonville and all
    this vicinity."

         They had been at table two hours and a half.  Artemise
    was a wretched waitress.  She dragged her cloth slippers over
    the tile floor, brought plates one by one, forgot everything,
    paid no attention to what was told her, and constantly left
    the door of the billiard room ajar so that the latch kept
    banging against the wall.

         As he talked, Leon had unconsciously rested his foot on
    one of the rungs of Madame Bovary's chair.  She was wearing
    a little blue silk scarf that held her pleated batiste collar
    stiff as a ruff, and as she moved her head the lower part of
    her face buried itself in the folds or gently rose out of
    them.  Sitting thus side by side while Charles and the
    pharmacist chatted, they entered into one of those vague
    conversations in which every new subject that comes up proves
    to be one more aspect of a core of shared feelings.  The
    names of plays running in Paris, the titles of novels, new
    dance tunes, the inaccessible great world.  Tostes where she
    had just come from, Yonville where they both were now.  All
    this they went into and talked about until dinner was over.

         When coffee was brought in, Felicite went off to prepare
    the bedroom in the new house, and soon they all got up from
    the table.  Madame Lefrancois was asleep beside her smoldering
    fire, and the stable-boy, lantern in hand, was waiting to
    light Monsieur and Madame Bovary home.  There were wisps of
    straw in his red hair, and his left leg was lame.  He took
    Monsieur le cure's umbrella in his other hand, and the company
    set out.

         The town was asleep.  The pillars of the market cast long
    shadows, and the pallor of the road in the moonlight gave the
    effect of a summer night.

         But the doctor's house was only fifty yards from the inn,
    and almost at once it was time to say good night and they went
    their separate ways.

         The moment she stepped inside the entrance hall Emma felt
    the chill from the plaster walls fall on her shoulders, like
    the touch of a damp cloth.  The walls were new and the wooden
    stairs creaked.  Upstairs in the bedroom a whitish light came
    through the uncurtained windows.  She could glimpse the tops
    of trees, and, beyond them, meadows half drowned in the mist
    that rose up in the moonlight along the river.  In the middle
    of the room was a heap of bureau drawers, bottles, metal and
    wooden curtain rods, mattresses lying on chairs, basins strewn
    over the floor.  Everything had been left there in disorder by
    the two moving-men.

         It was the fourth time that she had gone to bed in a
    strange place.  The first was the day she entered the convent,
    the second the day she arrived in Tostes, the third at La
    Vaubyessard, and now the fourth.  Each time it had been like
    the opening of a new phase of her life.  She refused to
    believe that things could be the same in different places,
    and since what had gone before was so bad, what was to come
    must certainly be better.









    PART 2

    CHAPTER THREE

         The next morning she was barely up when she saw the clerk
    in the square.  She was in her dressing gown.  He caught sight
    of her and bowed.  She responded with a brief nod and closed
    the window.

         Leon waited all day for six o'clock to come, but when he
    entered the inn he found only Monsieur Binet, already at table.

         The dinner of the previous evening had been a notable
    event for him.  Never before had he spoken for two consecutive
    hours with a "lady."  How did it happen that he had been able
    to tell her so many things, in words that previously he
    wouldn't have thought of?  He was ordinarily timid, with a
    reticence that was part modesty, part dissimulation.  In
    Yonville he was thought to have very gentlemanly manners.  He
    listened respectfully to his elders, and seemed not to get
    excited about politics, a remarkable trait in a young man.
    Besides, he was talented.  He painted in water colors, could
    read the key of G, and when he didn't play cards after dinner
    he often took up a book.  Monsieur Homais esteemed him because
    he was educated.  Madame Homais liked him because he was
    helpful.  He often spent some time with her children in the
    garden.  They were brats, the Homais children, always dirty,
    wretchedly brought up, sluggish like their mother.  Besides
    the maid, they were looked after by the pharmacist's appren-
    tice, Justin, a distant cousin of Monsieur Homais, who had
    been taken in out of charity and was exploited as a servant.

         The apothecary proved the best of neighbors.  He advised
    Madame Bovary about tradesmen, had his cider dealer make a
    special delivery, tasted the brew himself, and saw to it that
    the barrel was properly installed in the cellar.  He told her
    how to buy butter most advantageously, and made an arrangement
    for her with Lestiboudois the sacristan, who in addition to
    his ecclesiastical and funerary functions tended the principal
    gardens in Yonville by the hour or by the year, depending on
    the owners' preference.

         It wasn't mere kindness that prompted the pharmacist to
    such obsequious cordiality, there was a scheme behind it.

         He had violated the law of 19th Ventose, Year XI, Article
    I, which forbids anyone not holding a diploma to practice
    medicine, and in consequence had been denounced by anonymous
    informants and summoned to Rouen to the private chambers of
    the royal prosecutor.  The magistrate had received him stand-
    ing, clad in his robe of office banded at the shoulders with
    ermine and wearing his high official toque.  It was in the
    morning, before the opening of court.  Homais could hear the
    heavy tread of policemen in the corridor, and in the distance
    what sounded like heavy locks snapping shut.  His ears rang
    so that he thought he was going to have a stroke.  He had a
    vision of underground dungeons, his family in tears, his
    pharmacy sold, all his glass jars scattered among strangers.
    And when the interview was over he had to go to a cafe and
    drink a rum and soda to steady his nerves.

         Gradually the memory of this warning faded, and he con-
    tinued as before to give innocuous consultations in his back
    room.  But his relations with the mayor were not good.  He
    had competitors who would rejoice in his ruin.  He had to
    watch his step.  By being polite to Monsieur Bovary he could
    win his gratitude and insure his looking the other way should
    he notice anything.  So every morning Homais brought him "the
    paper," and often left the pharmacy in the afternoon to call
    on him for a moment's conversation.

         Charles was in a gloomy state.  He had no patients.  He
    sat silent for hours on end, took naps in his consulting
    room, or watched his wife as she sewed.  To keep occupied he
    acted as handyman around the house, even attempting to paint
    the attic with what the painters had left behind.  But he was
    worried about money.  He had spent so much for repairs at
    Tostes, for dresses for Madame, for the move, that the entire
    dowry and three thousand ecus besides had been swallowed up
    in two years.  Besides, so many things had been broken or lost
    between Tostes and Yonville!  The plaster priest was one of
    them.  A particularly violent bump had thrown it out of the
    van, and it had been smashed into a thousand pieces on the
    cobblestones of Quincampoix.

         He had another, happier concern, his wife's pregnancy.
    As her term drew near she became ever dearer to him.  Another
    bond of the flesh was being forged between them, one which
    gave him an all-pervasive feeling that their union was now
    closer.  The indolence of her gait, the gentle sway of her
    uncorseted body, her tired way of sitting in a chair, all
    filled him with uncontrollable happiness.  He would go up to
    her and kiss her, stroke her face, call her "little mother."
    try to dance with her, and half laughing, half weeping, he
    would think of a thousand playful endearments to shower her
    with.  The idea of having begotten a child enchanted him.
    Now he had everything he could ever hope for.  He had been
    granted all that human life had to offer, and he was serenely
    ready to enjoy it.

         Emma's first reaction to her condition was one of great
    surprise, and then she was eager to be delivered and know
    what it was like to be a mother.  But since she couldn't
    spend the money she would have liked and buy embroidered baby
    bonnets and a boat-shaped cradle with pink silk curtains, she
    resentfully gave up her own ideas about the layette and
    ordered the whole thing from a seamstress in the village
    without indicating any preferences or discussing any details.
    Thus she had none of the pleasure she might have had in the
    preparations that whet the appetite of mother love, and this
    perhaps did something to blunt her affection from the begin-
    ning.  But Charles spoke of the baby every time they sat down
    to a meal, and gradually she became accustomed to the idea.

         She wanted a son.  He would be strong and dark.  She
    would call him Georges, and this idea of having a male child
    was like a promise of compensation for all her past frustra-
    tions.  A man is free, at least, free to range the passions
    and the world, to surmount obstacles, to taste the rarest
    pleasures.  Whereas a woman is continually thwarted.  Inert,
    compliant, she has to struggle against her physical weakness
    and legal subjection.  Her will, like the veil tied to her
    hat, quivers with every breeze.  There is always a desire
    that entices, always a convention that restrains.

         The baby was born one Sunday morning, about six o'clock,

    as the sun was rising.

         "It's a girl!" cried Charles.

         She turned her head away and fainted.

         Almost immediately Madame Homais rushed in and kissed
    her, followed by Madame Lefrancois of the Lion d'Or.  The
    pharmacist, a man of discretion, confined himself to a few
    provisional words of congratulation, spoken through the half-
    open door.  He asked to see the child and pronounced it well
    formed.

         During her convalescence she gave a great deal of thought
    to a name for her daughter.  First she went over all she could
    think of that had Italian endings, Clara, Louisa, Amanda,
    Atala.  She was tempted by Galsuinde, too, and even more by
    Isolde and Leocadie.  Charles wanted the child named for its
    mother, Emma was opposed.  They went through the almanac from
    end to end and asked everyone for suggestions.

         "Monsieur Leon," said the pharmacist, "told me the other
    day he's surprised you haven't decided on Madeleine, it's so
    very fashionable just now."

         But the older Madame Bovary protested loudly against a
    name so associated with sin.  Monsieur Homais' predilection
    was for names that recalled great men, illustrious deeds or
    noble thoughts.  Such had been his guiding principle in
    baptising his own four children.  Napoleon stood for fame,
    Franklin for liberty.  Irma was perhaps a concession to
    romanticism, but Athalie was a tribute to the most immortal
    masterpiece of the French stage.  For, mind you, his philo-
    sophical convictions didn't interfere with his artistic
    appreciation.  In him, the thinker didn't stifle the man of
    feeling.  He was a man of discrimination, quite capable of
    differentiating between imagination and fanaticism.  In the
    tragedy in question, for example, he condemned the ideas but
    admired the style, abhorred the conception but praised all
    the details, found the characters impossible but their
    speeches marvelous.  When he read the famous passages he was
    carried away, but the thought that the clergy made use of it
    all for their own purposes distressed him immensely.  And so
    troubling was his confusion of feelings that he would have
    liked to place a wreath on Racine's brow with his own hands
    and then have a good long argument with him.

         In the end, Emma remembered hearing the marquise at
    Vaubyessard address a young woman as Berthe, and that promptly
    became the chosen name.  Since Monsieur Rouault was unable to
    come, Monsieur Homais was asked to be godfather.  As presents
    he brought several items from his pharmaceutical stock,
    namely, six boxes of jujubes, a full jar of racahout, three
    packages of marshmallow paste, and six sticks of sugar candy
    that he found in a cupboard and threw in for good measure.
    The evening of the ceremony there was a large party.  The
    priest was present.  Words became rather heated, and with
    the liqueurs Monsieur Homais broke into Beranger's Le Dieu
    des bonnes gens.  Monsieur Leon sang a barcarolle, and the
    older Madame Bovary (who was godmother) a Napoleonic ballad.
    Finally the older Monsieur Bovary insisted that the baby be
    brought down, and proceeded to baptise it with a glass of
    champagne, pouring the wine over its head.  This mockery of
    the first sacrament brought indignant words from the Abbe
    Bournisien.  The older Monsieur Bovary replied with a quota-
    tion from La Guerre des dieux, and the priest started to
    leave.  The ladies implored him to stay.  Homais intervened,
    and after considerable persuasion the abbe sat down again in
    his chair and calmly took up his saucer and his half-finished
    demitasse.

         The older Monsieur Bovary stayed on for a month at
    Yonville, dazzling the inhabitants with a magnificent silver-
    braided policeman's cap that he wore mornings when he smoked
    his pipe in the square.  He was used to drinking large quan-
    tities of brandy, and often sent the maid to the Lion d'Or to
    buy a bottle, which was charged to his son's account.  And to
    perfume his foulards he used up his daughter-in-law's entire
    supply of eau de Cologne.

         Emma didn't in the least dislike his company.  He had
    seen the world.  He spoke of Berlin, of Vienna, of Strasbourg,
    of his years as an army officer, or the mistresses he had had,
    of the official banquets he had attended.  Then he would
    become gallant, and sometimes, on the stairs or in the garden,
    he would even seize hold of her waist and cry, "Better watch
    out, Charles!"  The older Madame Bovary was alarmed for her
    son's happiness, and began to urge her husband to take her
    home, lest in the long run he corrupt the young woman's mind.
    Possibly her fears went further.  Monsieur Bovary was a man
    to whom nothing was sacred.

         One day Emma suddenly felt that she had to see her
    little daughter, who had been put out to nurse with the
    cabinetmaker's wife, and without looking at the almanac to
    see whether the six weeks of the Virgin had elapsed, she made
    her way toward the house occupied by Rollet, at the end of
    the village at the foot of the hills, between the main road
    and the meadows.

         It was noon.  The houses had their shutters closed, and
    under the harsh light of the blue sky the ridges of the glit-
    tering slate roofs seemed to be shooting sparks.  A sultry
    wind was blowing.  Emma felt weak as she walked.  The stones
    of the footpath hurt her feet, and she wondered whether she
    shouldn't return home or stop in somewhere to rest.

         At that moment Monsieur Leon emerged from a nearby door,
    a sheaf of papers under his arm.  He advanced to greet her
    and stood in the shade in front of Lheureux's store, under
    the gray awning.

         Madame Bovary said that she was on her way to see her
    child but was beginning to feel tired.

         "If . . ." Leon began, and then dared go no further.

         "Have you an appointment somewhere?" she asked him.

         And when he replied that he hadn't she asked him to
    accompany her.  By evening the news of this had spread
    throughout Yonville, and Madame Tuvache, the wife of the
    mayor, said in her maid's presence that Madame Bovary was
    risking her reputation.

         To reach the wet nurse's house they had to turn left at
    the end of the village street, as though going to the ceme-
    tery, and follow a narrow path that led them past cottages
    and yards between privet hedges.  These were in bloom, and
    blooming, too, were veronicas and wild roses and nettles and
    the wild blackberries that thrust out their slender sprays
    from the thickets.  Through holes in the hedges they could
    see, in the farmyards, a pig on a manure pile or cows in
    wooden collars rubbing their horns against tree trunks.  The
    two of them walked on slowly side by side, she leaning on
    his arm and he shortening his step to match hers.  In front
    of them hovered a swarm of flies, buzzing in the warm air.

         They recognized the house by an old walnut tree that
    shaded it.  It was low, roofed with brown tiles, and from the
    attic window hung a string of onions.  Brushwood propped up
    against a thorn hedge formed a fence around a bit of garden
    given over to lettuce, a few plants of lavender, and sweet
    peas trained on poles.  A trickle of dirty water ran off into
    the grass, and all around were odds and ends of rags, knitted
    stockings, a red calico wrapper, a large coarsely woven sheet
    spread out on the hedge.  At the sound of the gate the wet
    nurse appeared, carrying an infant at her breast.  With her
    other hand she was pulling along a frail, unhappy-looking
    little boy, his face covered with scrofulous sores, the son
    of a Rouen knit-goods dealer whom his parents were too busy
    in their shop to bother with.

         "Come in," she said.  "Your little girl's asleep inside."

         The ground-floor bedroom, the only bedroom in the house,
    had a wide uncurtained bed standing against its rear wall.
    The window wall (one pane was mended with a bit of wrapping
    paper) was taken up by the kneading-trough.  In the corner
    behind the door was a raised slab for washing, and under it
    stood a row of heavy boots with shiny hobnails and a bottle of
    oil with a feather in its mouth.  A Mathieu Laensberg almanac
    lay on the dusty mantelpiece among gun flints, candle ends and
    bits of tinder.  And as a final bit of clutter there was a
    figure of Fame blowing her trumpets.  A picture probably cut
    out of a perfume advertisement and now fastened to the wall
    with six shoe tacks.

         Emma's baby was asleep in a wicker cradle on the floor,
    and she took it up in its little blanket and began to sing
    softly to it and rock it in her arms.

         Leon walked around the room.  It seemed to him a strange
    sight, this elegant lady in her nankeen gown here among all
    this squalor.  Madame Bovary blushed.  He turned away, fear-
    ing that his glance might have been indiscreet, and she put
    the baby back in its cradle, it had just thrown up over the
    collar of her dress.  The wet nurse quickly wiped off the
    mess, assuring her it wouldn't show.

         "It isn't the first time, you know," she said.  "I do
    nothing but wipe up after her all day long.  Would you mind
    leaving word with Camus the grocer to let me pick up a little
    soap when I need it?  That would be the easiest for you, I
    wouldn't have to trouble you."

         "I will, I will," said Emma.  "Good-bye, Madame Rollet."

         And she left the house, wiping her feet on the doorsill.

         The wet nurse walked with her as far as the gate, talking
    about how hard it was to have to get up during the night.

         "I'm so worn out sometimes I fall asleep in my chair.
    So couldn't you at least let me have just a pound of ground
    coffee?  It would last me a month.  I'd drink it with milk in
    the morning."

         After undergoing a deluge of thanks, Madame Bovary moved
    on, and then when she had gone a little way down the path
    there was the sound of sabots and she turned around.  It was
    the wet nurse again.

         "What is it now?"

         And the peasant woman drew her aside behind an elm and
    began to talk to her about her husband.  He "had only his
    trade and the six francs a year the captain gave him, so . ."

         "Come to the point!" said Emma brusquely.

         "Well, what I mean is," the wet nurse said, sighing
    after every word, "I'm afraid he wouldn't like it, seeing me
    sitting there drinking coffee by myself, you know how men are,
    they . . ."

         "But you'll both have coffee!" Emma cried.  "I just told
    you I'd give you some!  Leave me alone!"

         "Ah, Madame, you see he's had terrible cramps in his
    chest ever since he was wounded, and he says cider makes him
    feel worse, and . . ."

         "Won't  you please let me go?"

         "So," she went on, making a curtsy, "if it isn't too much
    to ask," she curtsied again, "just a little jug of brandy,"
    she finally got out, "and I'll rub your little girl's feet
    with it, they're as tender as your tongue."

         When she was finally rid of the wet nurse, Emma once
    again took Monsieur Leon's arm.  She walked rapidly for a
    little while, then she slowed, and her glance fell on the
    shoulder of the young man she was with.  His brown hair,
    smooth and neatly combed, touched the black velvet collar of
    his frock coat.  She noticed that his fingernails were longer
    than those of most other inhabitants of Yonville.  The clerk
    spent a great deal of time caring for them.  He kept a special
    penknife in his desk for the purpose.

         They returned to Yonville along the river.  The summer
    weather had reduced its flow and left uncovered the river
    walls and water steps of the gardens along its bank.  It ran
    silently, swift and cold-looking.  Long fine grasses bent with
    the current, like masses of loose green hair streaming in its
    limpid depths.  Here and there on the tip of a reed or on a
    water-lily pad a spidery-legged insect was poised or crawling.
    Sunbeams pierced the little blue air bubbles that kept forming
    and breaking on the ripples.  Branchless old willows mirrored
    their gray bark in the water.  In the distance the meadows
    seemed empty all around them.  It was dinner time on the
    farms, and as they walked the young woman and her companion
    heard only the rhythm of their own steps on the earth of the
    path, the words they themselves were uttering, and the whisper
    of Emma's dress as it rustled around her.

         The garden walls, their copings bristling with broken
    bits of bottles, were as warm as the glass of a greenhouse.
    Wallflowers had taken root between the bricks, and as she
    passed, the edge of Madame Bovary's open parasol crumbled some
    of their faded flowers into yellow dust.  Or an overhanging
    branch of honeysuckle or clematis would catch in the fringe
    and cling for a moment to the silk.

         They talked about a company of Spanish dancers scheduled
    soon to appear at the theater in Rouen.

         "Are you going?" she asked.

         "If I can," he answered.

         Had they nothing more to say to each other?  Their eyes,
    certainly, were full of more meaningful talk, and as they
    made themselves utter banalities they sensed the same languor
    invading them both.  It was like a murmur of the soul, deep
    and continuous, more clearly audible than the sound of their
    words.  Surprised by a sweetness that was new to them, it
    didn't occur to them to tell each other how they felt or to
    wonder why.  Future joys are like tropic shores, out into
    the immensity that lies before them they waft their native
    softness, a fragrant breeze that drugs the traveler into
    drowsiness and makes him careless of what awaits him on the
    horizon beyond his view.

         In one spot the ground was boggy from the trampling of
    cattle, and they had to walk on large green stones that had
    been laid in the mud.  She kept stopping to see where to
    place her foot, and teetering on an unsteady stone, her arms
    lifted, her body bent, a hesitant look in her eye, she
    laughed, fearing lest she fall into the puddles.

         When they reached her garden, Madame Bovary pushed open
    the little gate, ran up the steps and disappeared.

         Leon returned to his office.  His employer was out.  He
    glanced at the piles of papers, sharpened a quill pen, and
    then, took up his hat and went out again.

         He climbed to the Pasture, on the hilltop at the edge of
    the Argueil forest, and there he stretched out on the ground
    under the firs and looked up at the sky through his fingers.

         "God!" he said to himself.  "What a boring existence!"

         He felt that he was much to be pitied for having to live
    in this village, with Homais for a friend and Maitre Guillaumin
    for a master.  The latter, completely taken up with business,
    wore gold-framed spectacles, red side whiskers and a white tie.
    Fine feelings were a closed book to him, though the stiff Bri-
    tish manner he affected had impressed the clerk at first.  As
    for Madame Homais, she was the best wife in Normandy, placid
    as a sheep and devoted to the children, her father, her mother
    and her cousins.  She wept at others' misfortunes, let every-
    thing in the house go, and hated corsets.  But she was so
    slow-moving, so boring to listen to, so common-looking and
    limited in conversation, that it never occurred to him, though
    she was thirty and he twenty, and they slept in adjoining
    rooms and he spoke to her every day, that anyone could look on
    her as a woman, that she had any attributes of her sex except
    the dress she wore.

         Who was there besides?  Binet, a few shopkeepers, two or
    three tavern-keepers, the priest, and lastly, Monsieur Tuvache,
    the mayor, and his two sons.  A comfortably-off, surly, dull-
    witted trio who farmed their own land, ate huge meals with
    never a guest, faithful churchgoers for all that, and utterly
    insufferable in company.

         But against the background of all these human faces,
    Emma's stood out.  Isolated from them and yet further removed
    than they, for he sensed that some abyss separated him from
    her.

         At first he had gone to her house several times with the
    pharmacist.  Charles had not seemed too eager to have him,
    and Leon felt helpless, torn as he was between fear of being
    indiscreet and desire for an intimacy that he considered all
    but impossible.

















    PART 2

    CHAPTER FOUR

         With the coming of cold weather Emma moved out of her
    bedroom into the parlor, a long low-ceilinged room where a
    chunky branch of coral stood on the mantelpiece in front of
    the mirror.  Sitting in her armchair beside the window, she
    could watch the villagers go by on the sidewalk.

         Twice a day Leon went from his office to the Lion d'Or.
    Emma could hear him coming in the distance.  She would lean
    forward as she listened, and the young man would slip past on
    the other side of the window curtain, always dressed the same,
    never turning his head.  At twilight, when she had put down
    her embroidery and was sitting there with her chin in her left
    hand, she often started at the sudden appearance of this
    gliding shadow.  She would jump up, order the maid to set the
    table.

         Monsieur Homais often called during dinner.  Tasseled cap
    in hand, he would tiptoe in so as to disturb no one, and he
    always gave the same greeting.  "Good evening, everybody!"
    Then, sitting down at the table between them, he would ask
    the doctor for news of his patients, and Charles would ask
    him what the chances were of being paid.  Then they would
    talk about what was "in the paper."  By this time of day
    Homais knew it almost by heart, and he would repeat it in
    toto, complete with editorials and the news of each and every
    disaster that had occurred in France and abroad.  When these
    topics ran dry he never failed to comment on the dishes he
    saw being served.  Sometimes, half rising, he would even
    considerately point out to Madame the tenderest piece of meat.
    Or, turning to the maid, he would advise her on the prepara-
    tion of her stews and the use of seasoning from a health point
    of view.  He was quite dazzling on the subject of aromas,
    osmazomes, juices and gelatines.  Indeed, Homais had more
    recipes in his head than there were bottles in his pharmacy,
    and he excelled at making all kinds of jellies, vinegars and
    cordials.  He was acquainted with all the latest fuel-saving
    stoves, and with the arts of preserving cheeses and treating
    spoiled wine.

         At eight o'clock Justin always called for him, it was
    time to shut the pharmacy.  Monsieur Homais would give him a
    quizzical glance, especially if Felicite were in the room,
    for he had noticed that his pupil was partial to the doctor's
    house.  "My young man's beginning to get ideas," he would
    say.  "Something tells me he's after your maid!"

         And there was worse.  Despite all rebukes, the boy per-
    sisted in his habit of listening to conversations.  On Sundays,
    for instance, Madame Homais would summon him to the parlor to
    take away the children, who had fallen asleep in armchairs,
    dragging down the loose calico slip covers, and there was no
    way of getting him to leave the room.

         These soirees at the pharmacist's were not very well
    attended, for his slanderous tongue and his political opinions
    had alienated one respectable person after another.  The clerk
    was invariably present.  At the sound of the doorbell he would
    run down to greet Madame Bovary, take her shawl, and stow away
    under the desk in the pharmacy the overshoes she wore when it
    snowed.

         First they would play a few rounds of trente-et-un, then
    Monsieur Homais would play ecarte with Emma, Leon standing
    behind her and giving advice.  With his hands on the back of
    her chair, he would look down and see the teeth of comb pierc-
    ing her chignon.  Each time she threw down a card the right
    side of her dress gave an upward twist, and he could follow
    the gradually paling shadow cast down her neck by the knot of
    her hair, until it was lost in a darker shadow.  Then her
    dress would drop down on both sides of her chair, swelling out
    in full folds and spreading to the floor.  Sometimes Leon
    would feel himself touching it with the sole of his shoe, and
    he would quickly move away, as though he had been treading on
    someone.

         When they finished their cards, the apothecary and the
    doctor played dominoes, and Emma would move to another chair,
    lean her elbows on the table and leaf through L'Illustration,
    or take up the fashion magazine she usually brought with her.
    Leon would sit beside her, and together they would look at the
    pictures and wait for each other before turning a page.  Often
    she would ask him to read a poem aloud, and Leon would recite
    it in a languid voice that he carefully let die away at the
    love passages.  But the noise of the dominoes annoyed him.
    Monsieur Homais was an expert, easily outplaying Charles. When
    the score reached three hundred the two of them would stretch
    out before the fireplace and quickly fall asleep.  The fire
    smoldered, the teapot was empty.  Leon continued to read, and
    Emma listened, absent-mindedly turning the lampshade, its
    gauzy surface painted with pierrots in carriages and tightrope
    dancers balancing with their poles.  Leon would stop, indicat-
    ing with a gesture his sleeping audience, and then they would
    talk in low voices, their conversation seeming the sweeter for
    not being overheard.

         Thus a kind of intimacy grew up between them, a continual
    exchange of books and ballads.  Monsieur Bovary was not jealous
    as he found it all quite natural.

         For his birthday he recieved a splendid phrenological
    head, all marked over with numerals down to the thorax and
    painted blue.  This was an offering from the clerk.  He was
    attentive in many ways, too, even doing errands for Charles
    in Rouen.  When a new novel launched a craze for exotic plants,
    Leon bought some for Madame, holding them on his knees in the
    Hirondelle and pricking his fingers on their spikes.

         Emma had a railed shelf installed in her window to hold
    her flowerpots.  The clerk, too, had his hanging garden, and
    they could look out and see each other tending their blossoms.

         There was one person in the village who spent even more
    time at his window than they.  From morning till night on
    Sunday, and every afternoon in good weather, the lean profile
    of Monsieur Binet could be seen in a dormer bent over his
    lathe, its monotonous drone audible as far as the Lion d'Or.

         One evening when he returned home Leon found in his
    room a velvet and wool coverlet, with foliage designs on a
    pale ground.  He showed it to Madame Homais, Monsieur Homais,
    Justin, the children, and the cook, and spoke about it to his
    employer.  Everybody wanted to see it, why should the doctor's
    wife give presents to the clerk?  The whole thing seemed
    suspicious, and everyone was sure that they must be having an
    affair.

         By speaking incessantly about Emma's charms and intelli-
    gence, Leon gave plenty of grounds for the belief.  Binet
    turned on him one day with a snarl.  "What's it to me?  She
    doesn't let me hang around her!"

         He was in agony trying to think of a way of "declaring
    himself" to her.  He was constantly torn between the fear of
    offending her and shame at his own cowardice.  He shed tears
    of despair and frustrated desire.  Every so often he resolved
    to take energetic action.  He wrote letters, only to tear
    them up.  He gave himself time limits, only to extend them.
    More than once he started out intending to dare all.  But in
    Emma's presence he quickly lost his courage, and if Charles
    happened to appear at such a moment and invited him to get
    into the buggy and go with him to see a patient living some-
    where nearby, he would accept at once, bow to Madame and drive
    off.  Her husband, after all, was part of herself, was he not?

         As for Emma, she never tried to find out whether she was
    in love with him.  Love, to her, was something that comes
    suddenly, like a blinding flash of lightning.  A heaven-sent
    storm hurled into life, uprooting it, sweeping every will
    before it like a leaf, engulfing all feelings.  It never
    occurred to her that if the drainpipes of a house are clogged,
    the rain may collect in pools on the roof.  And she suspected
    no danger until suddenly she discovered a crack in the wall.















    PART 2

    CHAPTER FIVE

         It was a snowy Sunday afternoon in February.

         All of them, Monsieur and Madame Bovary, Homais and
    Monsieur Leon, had gone to see a new flaz mill that was
    being built in the valley, a mile or so from Yonville.  The
    apothecary had taken Napoleon and Athalie along to give them
    some exercise, and Justin accompanied them, carrying a supply
    of umbrellas over his shoulder.

         Nothing, however, could have been less interesting than
    this point of interest.  A long rectangular building pierced
    with innumerable little windows stood in the midst of a large
    tract of bare land, with a few already rusty gearwheels lying
    here and there among piles of sand and gravel.  It was still
    unfinished, and the sky could be seen between the rafters.
    Attached to the ridgepole at the peak of one of the gables
    was a bouquet of straw and wheat, tied with red, white and
    blue ribbons that flapped in the wind.

         Homais was holding forth.  He expatiated to them all on
    how important the mill was going to be, estimated the strength
    of the floors and the thickness of the walls, and keenly re-
    gretted not owning a carpenter's rule, such as Monsieur Binet
    possessed for his personal use.

         Emma, who had taken his arm, was leaning slightly against
    his shoulder and looking up at the far-off disc of the sun
    that was suffusing the mist with its pale brilliance, then she
    turned her head, and saw, Charles.  His cap was pulled down
    over his eyes, and the quivering of his thick lips in the cold
    gave him a stupid look.  Even his back, his placid back, was
    irritating to look at.  All his dullness was written right
    there, on his coat.

         As she was looking at him, deriving a kind of perverse
    enjoyment from her very irritation, Leon moved a step closer.
    White in the cold, his face was more languorous and appealing
    than ever.  A bit of his bare skin showed through a gap in
    his collar.  She could see the tip of one of his ears below a
    lock of his hair, and his large blue eyes, lifted toward the
    clouds, seemed to Emma more limpid and lovely than mountain
    lakes mirroring the sky.

         "Stop that!" the apothecary suddenly cried.

         And he rushed over to his son, who had just jumped into
    a heap of lime to whiten his shoes.  To his father's scolding
    Napoleon replied with howls.  Justin scraped off the shoes
    with a bit of plaster, but a knife was needed, and Charles
    offered his.

         "Ah!" she cried to herself.  "He carries a knife around
    with him, like a peasant!'

         The cold was beginning to pinch, and they turned back
    toward Yonville.

         That evening Madame Bovary did not attend her neighbor's
    soiree.  And when Charles had gone and she felt herself alone,
    the comparison returned to her mind almost with the sharpness
    of an actual sensation, and with the increased perspective
    conferred on things by memory.  Watching the brightly burning
    fire from her bed, she saw once again, as at the scene itself,
    Leon standing there, leaning with one hand on his slender,
    flexing cane and with the other holding Athalie, who was
    placidly sucking a piece of ice.  She found him charming.
    She could not take her mind off him, and she kept saying to
    herself, protruding her lips as though for a kiss.  "Charming,
    charming! . . .  Isn't he in love?  Who could it be?" she
    asked herself.  "Why, he's in love with me!"

         All the evidence burst on her at once.  Her heart leapt
    up.  The flames in the fireplace cast a merry, flickering
    light on the ceilings.  She lay on her back and stretched out
    her arms.

         Then began the eternal lament.  "Oh if only fate had
    willed it so!  Why didn't it?  What stood in the way?"

         When Charles came in at midnight she pretended to wake
    up.  He made some noise as he undressed, and she complained
    of migraine, then she casually asked what had happened during
    the evening.

         "Monsieur Leon went up to his room early," said Charles.

         She couldn't help smiling, and she fell asleep filled
    with new happiness.

         At nightfall the next day she had a visit from Monsieur
    Lheureux, the proprietor of the local dry-goods store.  He
    was a clever man, this tradesman.

         Born a Gascon, but long settled in Normandy, he combined
    his southern volubility with the cunning of his adopted region.
    His fat, flabby, clean-shaven face looked as though it had
    been dyed with a faint tincture of licorice, and his white
    hair emphasized the piercing boldness of his small black eyes.
    What he had been in earlier life was a mystery to all.
    Peddler, some said, and others, banker in Routot.  What was
    certain was that he could do in his head intricate feats of
    calculation that startled Binet himself.  Polite to the point
    of obsequiousness, he was continually in a semi-bent position,
    like someone making a bow or extending an invitation.

         He left his hat with its black mourning band at the door,
    placed a green case on the table, and began by complaining,
    with many civilities, at not having been honored up till now
    with Madame's patronage.  A poor shop like his could scarcely
    be expected to attract so elegant a lady, he emphasized the
    adjective.  But she had only to give him an order and he would
    undertake to supply anything she wanted, whether accessories,
    lingerie, hosiery and other knit goods, or notions, for he
    went to the city four times a month regularly.  He was in
    constant touch with the biggest firms.  She could mention his
    name at the Trois Freres, at the Barbe d'Or or at the Grand
    Sauvage.  Everyone in those places knew all about him.  Today
    he would just like to show Madame a few articles he happened
    to have with him, thanks to a lucky buy.  Out of his box he
    took half a dozen embroidered collars.

         Madame Bovary looked them over.

         "I don't need anything," she said.

         Then Monsieur Lheureux daintily held out for her inspec-
    tion three Algerian scarves, some packages of English needles,
    a pair of straw slippers, and finally four cocoanut-shell egg
    cups, carved in an openwork design by convicts.  Then, both
    hands on the table, leaning forward, his neck outstretched, he
    watched Emma open-mouthed, following her gaze as it wandered
    uncertainly over the merchandise.  From time to time, as though
    to brush off a bit of dust, he gave a flick of a fingernail to
    the silk of the scarves, lying there unfolded to their full
    length.  And they quivered and rustled under his touch, their
    gold sequins gleaming like little stars in the greenish light
    of the dusk.

         "How much are they?"

         "They're absurdly cheap," he said.  "Besides, there's no
    hurry.  Pay whenever you like, we're not Jews!"

         She meditated a few moments, then finally told Monsieur
    Lheureux once more that she didn't want to buy.

         "That's quite all right," he answered impassively.  "You
    and I will do business some other time.  I've always known how
    to get along with the ladies, except my wife."

         Emma smiled.

         "I just want you to know," he said, dropping his face-
    tious tone and assuming an air of candor, "that I'm not
    worried about the money.  In fact, I could let you have some
    if you needed it."

         Emma made a gesture of surprise.

         "Ah," he said quickly, in a low voice.  "I wouldn't have
    to go far to find it, believe me!"

         Then he turned the conversation to the subject of Monsieur
    Tellier, proprietor of the Cafe Francais, whom Monsieur Bovary
    was treating.

         "What's his trouble, anyway?  He's got a cough that
    shakes the house.  I'm afraid he may soon need a wooden
    overcoat more than a flannel undershirt!  He was a wild one
    in his younger days!  The kind that doesn't know even the
    meaning of self-control, Madame!  He literally burned his
    insides out with brandy!  Still, it's hard to see an old
    friend go."

         And as he tied up his box he talked on about the doctor's
    patients.

         "It must be the weather," he said, scowling at the window
    panes, "that's causing all this illness.  I don't feel right
    myself.  One of these days I'll have to come and talk to Mon-
    sieur about a pain I have in my back.  Well, au revoir, Madame
    Bovary, at your service, any time."

         And he shut the door softly behind him.

         Emma had her dinner brought to her in her bedroom on a
    tray, and ate it beside the fire.  She lingered over her food,
    everything tasted good.

         "How sensible I was!" she told herself, as she thought of
    the scarves.

         She heard footsteps on the stairs, it was Leon.  She
    jumped up and snatched the topmost dish towel from a pile she
    had left for hemming on the chest of drawers.  She looked very
    busy when he came in.

         Conversation languished.  Madame Bovary kept letting his
    remarks drop unanswered, and he seemed very ill at ease.  He
    sat in a low chair beside the fire, toying with her ivory
    needlecase.  She continued to sew, occasionally creasing the
    cloth together with her fingernail.  She said nothing, and he,
    too, was quiet, captivated by her silence as he would have
    been by her words.

         "Poor fellow!" she was thinking.

         "What does she dislike about me?" he was wondering.

         Finally Leon said that he would be going to Rouen some
    day soon on office business.

         "Your subscription at the music library has run out," he
    said.  "Shall I renew it?"

         "No," she answered.

         "Why not?'

         "Because . . ."

         And pursing her lips she slowly drew out a new length of
    gray thread.

         Her sewing irritated Leon.  The cloth seemed to be rough-
    ening the tips of her fingers.  A compliment occurred to him,
    but he hadn't the courage to utter it.

         "You're giving it up?"

         "What?" she asked quickly.  "Oh, my music?  Heavens, yes!
    Haven't I got my house and my husband to look after, a thousand
    things, all kinds of duties that come first?"

         She looked at the clock.  Charles was late.  She pretended
    to be worried.  "He's such a good man," she said, two or three
    times.

         The clerk was fond of Monsieur Bovary, but he was unplea-
    santly surprised to hear her speak so affectionately of him.
    Nevertheless he continued the praises she had begun, and
    assured her that he heard them from everyone, especially the
    pharmacist.

         "Ah, Monsieur Homais is a fine man," said Emma.

         "He certainly is," said the clerk.

         He began to speak of Madame Homais, whose sloppy appear-
    ance usually made them laugh.

         "What of it?' Emma interrupted.  "A good wife and mother
    doesn't worry about her clothes."

         And once again she fell silent.

         It was the same the following days.  Her talk, her manner,
    everything changed.  She immersed herself in household tasks,
    went regularly to church, and was stricter with the maid.

         She took Berthe away from the wet nurse.  Felicite brought
    her in when there was company, and Madame Bovary undressed her
    to show off her little legs and arms.  She adored children, she
    said.  They were her consolation, her joy, her delight, and she
    accompanied her caresses with gushings that would have reminded
    anyone except the Yonvillians of Esmeralda's mother in Notre-
    Dame de Paris.

         Nowadays when Charles came in, he found his slippers set
    out to warm by the fire.  Now his vests were never without
    linings, his shirts never without buttons.  It was a pleasure
    to see the piles of cotton nightcaps stacked so neatly in the
    closet.  She no longer frowned at the idea of taking a walk in
    the garden.  She agreed to all his suggestions without trying
    to understand his reasons.  And when Leon saw him beside the
    fire in the evening, his face flushed from dinner, his hands
    folded over his stomach, his feet on the andirons, his eyes
    moist with happiness, the baby crawling on the carpet, and this
    slender woman leaning over the back of his armchair to kiss
    him on the forehead.  "I must be mad," he told himself.  "How
    can I ever hope to come near her?"

         She seemed so virtuous and inaccessible that he lost all
    hope, even the faintest.

         But by thus renouncing her, he transformed her into an
    extraordinary being.  She was divested in his eyes of the
    earthly attributes that held no promise for him, and in his
    heart she rose higher and higher, withdrawing further from him
    in a magnificent, soaring apotheosis.  His feeling for her was
    so pure that it did not interfere with his daily life.  It was
    one of those feelings that are cherished because of their very
    rarity.  The distress caused by their loss would be greater
    than the happiness given by their possession.

         Emma grew thinner.  Her face became paler, more emaciated.
    With her smooth black hair, her large eyes, her straight nose,
    her birdlike movements, her new habit of silence, she seemed
    all but out of contact with life, bearing on her brow the vague
    mark of a sublime fate.  She was so melancholy and so subdued,
    so sweet and yet so withdrawn, that in her presence he felt
    transfixed by a glacial spell, just as in a church the fragrance
    of flowers and the cold given off by marble will sometimes set
    us shivering.  Even other men were not immune to this seduction.
    The pharmacist put it this way:

         "She's got class!  She'd hold her own in Le Havre or
    Dieppe!"

         The village housewives admired her for her thrift.  Charles'
    patients for her politeness.  The poor for her charity.

         And all this time she was torn by wild desires, by rage,
    by hatred.  The trim folds of her dress hid a heart in turmoil,
    and her reticent lips told nothing of the storm.  She was in
    love with Leon, and she sought the solitude that allowed her to

    revel undisturbed in his image.  The sight of his person spoiled
    the voluptuousness of her musings.  She trembled at the sound
    of his footsteps.  Then, with him before her, the agitation
    subsided, and she was left with nothing but a vast bewilderment
    that turned gradually into sadness.

         Leon did not know, when he left her house in despair, that
    she went immediately to the window and watched him disappear
    down the street.  She worried over his every move, watched every
    expression that crossed his face.  She concocted an elaborate
    story to have a pretext for visiting his room.  The pharmacist's
    wife seemed to her blessed to sleep under the same roof, and her
    thoughts came continually to rest on that house, like the pigeons
    from the Lion d'Or that alighted there to soak their pink feet
    and white wings in the eaves-trough.  But the more aware Emma
    became of her love the more she repressed it in an effort to
    conceal it and weaken it.  She would have been glad had Leon
    guessed, and she kept imagining accidents and disasters that
    would open his eyes.  It was indolence, probably, or fear, that
    held her back, and a feeling of shame.  She had kept him at too
    great a distance, she decided, now it was too late, the occasion
    was lost.  Besides, the pride and pleasure she derived from
    thinking of herself as "virtuous" and from wearing an air of
    resignation as she looked at herself in the mirror consoled her
    a little for the sacrifice she thought she was making.

         Her carnal desires, her cravings for money, and the fits of
    depression engendered by her love gradually merged into a single
    torment.  And instead of trying to put it out of her mind she
    cherished it, spurring herself on to suffer, never missing an
    opportunity to do so.  A dish poorly served or a door left ajar
    grated on her nerves.  She sighed thinking of the velvet gowns
    she didn't own, the happiness that eluded her, her unattainable
    dreams, her entire cramped existence.

         What exasperated her was Charles' total unawareness of her
    ordeal.  His conviction that he was making her happy she took as
    a stupid insult.  Such self-righteousness could only mean that
    he didn't appreciate her.  For whose sake, after all, was she
    being virtuous?  Wasn't he the obstacle to every kind of happi-
    ness, the cause of all her wretchedness, the sharp-pointed prong
    of this many-stranded belt that bound her on all sides?

         So he became the sole object of her resentment.  Her
    attempts to conquer this feeling served only to strengthen it,
    for their failure gave her additional cause for despair and
    deepened her estrangement from her husband.  She had moments of
    revulsion against her own meekness.  She reacted to the drabness
    of her home by indulging in daydreams of luxury, and to matri-
    monial caresses by adulterous desires.  She wished that Charles
    would beat her, then she would feel more justified in hating him
    and betraying him out of revenge.  Sometimes she was surprised
    by the horrible possibilities that she imagined, and yet she had
    to keep smiling, hear herself say time and again that she was
    happy, pretend to be so, let everyone believe it!

         Still, there were times when she could scarcely stomach the
    hypocrisy.  She would be seized with a longing to run off with
    Leon, escape to some far-off place where they could begin life
    anew.  But at such moments she would shudder, feeling herself at
    the brink of a terrifying precipice.

         "What's the use, he doesn't love me any more," she would
    decide.  What was to become of her life?  What help could she
    hope for?  What comfort?  What relief?

         Such a crisis always left her shattered, gasping, pros-
    strate, sobbing to herself, tears streaming down her face.

         "Why in the world don't you tell Monsieur?" the maid would
    ask her, finding her thus distraught.

         "It's nerves," Emma would answer.  "Don't mention it to
    him.  It would only upset him."

         "Ah, yes," Felicite said, one day.  "You're just like the
    daughter of old Guerin, the fisherman at Le Pollet.  I knew her
    at Dieppe before I came to you.  She used to be so sad, so
    terribly sad, that when she stood in her door she made you think
    of a funeral pall hanging there.  It seems it was some kind of a
    fog in her head that ailed her.  The doctors couldn't do any-
    thing for her, or the priest either.  When it came over her
    worst, she'd go off by herself along the beach, and sometimes
    the customs officer would find her stretched out flat on her
    face on the pebbles and crying, when he made his rounds.  It
    passed off after she was married, they say."

         "With me," said Emma, "it was after I was married that it
    began."






















    PART 2

    CHAPTER SIX

         One evening when the window was open and she had been
    sitting beside it watching Lestiboudois the sacristan trim
    the boxwood, she suddenly heard the tolling of the Angelus.

         It was the beginning of April, primrose time, when soft
    breezes blow over newly spaded flower beds, and gardens, like
    women, seem to be primping themselves for the gaieties of
    summer.  Through the slats of the arbor, and all around be-
    yond, she could see the stream flowing through the meadows,

    winding its vagabond course amid the grass.  The evening mist
    was rising among the bare poplars, blurring their outlines
    with a tinge of purple that was paler and more transparent
    than the sheerest gauze caught on their branches.  In the
    distance cattle were moving.  Neither their steps nor their
    lowing could be heard, and the steadily sounding churchbell
    sent its peaceful lament into the evening air.

         As the ringing continued, the young woman's thoughts
    began to stray among old memories of girlhood and the convent.
    She remembered the tall altar candlesticks that soared above
    the vases full of flowers and the columned tabernacle.  She
    wished she could be again what she once had been, one in the
    long line of white-veiled girls, black-specked here and there
    by the stiff cowls of the nuns bowed over their prie-dieus.
    Sundays at Mass when she raised her head she used to see the
    gentle features of the Virgin among the bluish clouds of
    rising incense.  The memory filled her with emotion.  She
    felt limp and passive, like a bit of bird's-down whirling in
    a storm, and automatically she turned her steps toward the
    church, ready for any devotion that would enable her to humble
    her heart and lose herself entirely.

         In the square she met Lestiboudois on his way back,  In
    order not to lose pay by cutting his work-day short, he pre-
    ferred to interrupt his gardening and then go back to it,
    with the result that he rang the Angelus when it suited him.
    Besides, early ringing served to remind the village boys that
    it was time for catechism.

         Some of them were already there, playing marbles on the
    slabs in the cemetery.  Others, astride the wall, were
    swinging their legs, their wooden shoes breaking off the tall
    nettles that grew between the wall itself and the nearest
    graves.  This was the only spot that was green.  All the rest
    was stones, always covered with a fine dust despite the
    sacristan's sweeping.

         Other boys had taken off their sabots and were running
    about on the stones as though the cemetery were a smooth
    floor made specially for them.  Their shouts could be heard
    above the dying sounds of the bell.  The heavy rope that hung
    down from the top of the bell tower and trailed on the ground
    was swaying ever more slowly.  Swallows flew past, twittering
    as they sliced the air with their swift flight, and disap-
    peared into their yellow nests under the eave-tiles.  At the
    far end of the church a lamp was burning, a wick in a hanging
    glass, whose light seemed from a distance like a whitish spot
    dancing on the oil.  A long shaft of sunlight cutting across
    the nave deepened the darkness in the side aisles and corners.

         "Where is the priest?" Madame Bovary asked a boy who was
    happily trying to wrench the turnstile loose from its socket.

         "He'll be here," he answered.

         Just then the door of the rectory creaked open and the
    abbe Bournisien appeared.  The boys fled helter-skelter into
    the church.

         "Won't they ever behave?' he muttered to himself.  "No
    respect for anything."  He picked up a tattered catechism
    that he had almost stepped on.  Then he saw Madame Bovary.
    "Excuse me," he said.  "I didn't place you for a minute."

         He stuffed the catechism into his pocket and stood
    swinging the heavy sacristy key between two fingers.

         The setting sun was full in his face, and the black
    cloth of his cassock, shiny at the elbows and frayed at the
    hem, seemed paler in its glow.  Grease spots and snuff stains
    ran parallel to the row of little buttons on his broad chest.
    They were thickest below his neckband, which held back the
    heavy folds of his red skin.  This was sprinkled with yellow
    splotches, half hidden by the bristle of his graying beard.
    He had just had his dinner, and was breathing heavily.

         "How are you?" he went on.

         "Poorly," said Emma.  "Not well at all."

         "Neither am I," the priest answered.  "These first hot
    days take it out of you terribly, don't they?  But what can
    we do?  We're born to suffer, as St. Paul says.  What does
    your husband think is the trouble?"

         "My husband!" she said, with a scornful gesture.

         The country priest looked surprised.  "He must have
    prescribed something for you, hasn't he?"

         "Ah!" said Emma.  "It isn't earthly remedies that I need."

         But the priest kept looking away, into the church, where
    the boys were kneeling side by side, each shoving his neighbor
    with his shoulder and all of them falling down like ninepins.

         "Could you tell me . . ." she began.

         "Just wait, Riboudet!" he shouted furiously.  "I'll box
    your ears when I get hold of you!"

         Then, turning to Emma.  "That's the son of Boudet the
    carpenter.  His parents don't bother with him, they let him
    do as he likes.  He'd learn fast if he wanted to.  He's very
    bright.  Sometimes as a joke I call him Riboudet.  You know,
    from the name of the hill near Maromme.  Sometimes I say `mon
    Riboudet' . . . Mont Riboudet!  Ha!  Ha!  The other day I
    told my little joke to the bishop.  He laughed.  He was good
    enough to laugh.  And Monsieur Bovary . . . how is he?"

         She seemed not to hear him, and he went on.  "Always on
    the move, probably?  He and I are certainly the two busiest
    people in the parish.  He takes care of the bodies," he added,
    with a heavy laugh, "and I look after the souls."

         She fastened her imploring eyes upon him.  "Yes," she
    said.  "You must be called on to relieve all kinds of suffer-
    ing."

         "Believe me, I am, Madame Bovary!  This very morning I
    had to go to Bas-Diauville for a cow that had the colic, the
    peasants thought it was a spell.  All their cows, for some
    reason . . . Excuse me, Madame!  Longuemarre!  Boudet!  Drat
    you both!  Will you cut it out?'

         And he rushed into the church.

         By now the boys were crowding around the high lectern,
    climbing up on the cantor's bench and opening the missal.
    Others, moving stealthily, were about to invade the confes-
    sional.  But the priest was suddenly upon them, slapping them
    right and left.  Seizing them by the coat collar, he lifted
    them off the ground and then set them on their knees on the
    stone floor of the choir, pushing them down hard as though he
    were trying to plant them there.

         "Well!" he said, returning to Emma.  And then, as he
    opened his large calico handkerchief, holding a corner of it
    between his teeth.  "As we were saying, farmers have plenty
    of troubles."

         "Other people, too," she answered.

         "Of course!  Workingmen in the cities, for instance."

         "I wasn't thinking of them . . ."

         "Ah, but I assure you I've known mothers of families,
    good women, true saints, who didn't even have a crust of
    bread."

         "I was thinking of women who have bread, Monsieur le
    cure," Emma said, the corners of her mouth twisting as she
    spoke, "but who lack . . ."

         "Firewood for the winter," the priest anticipated.

         "Ah, never mind . . ."

         "What do you mean, never mind?  It seems to me that to
    be warm and well fed . . ."

         "Oh, my God!" Emma whispered to herself.  "My God!"

         "Are you feeling ill?" he asked.  He looked concerned,
    and advanced a step.  "Something must have disagreed with you.
    You'd better go home, Madame Bovary, and drink a cup of tea,
    that will pick you up.  Or a glass of water with a little brown
    sugar."

         "What for?"

         She looked as though she were emerging from a dream.

         "You were holding your hand to your forehead.  I thought
    you must be feeling faint."  Then, "but weren't you asking me
    a question?  What was it?  I can't recall . . ."

         "I?  Oh, no nothing . . . nothing," Emma said.

         And her wandering glance came slowly to rest on the old
    man in his cassock.  For a few moments they looked at each
    other without speaking.

         "Well, Madame Bovary," he said, finally, "you'll excuse
    me, but duty calls.  I have to look after my youngsters.
    First Communion will be here soon.  It will be on us before
    we know it.  Time's so short I always keep them an extra hour
    on Wednesdays after Ascension.  Poor things!  We can't begin
    too soon to steer their young souls in the Lord's path.
    Indeed it's what he Himself tells us to do, through the mouth
    of HIs divine Son.  Keep well, Madame, remember me kindly to
    your husband!"

         And he entered the church, genuflecting just inside the
    door.

         Emma watched him as he disappeared between the double
    line of pews, treading heavily, his head slightly bent to
    one side, his half-open hands held with palms outward.

         Then she turned stiffly, like a statue on a pivot, and
    set out for home.  Behind her she heard the booming voice of
    the priest and the lighter voices of the boys.

         "Are you a Christian?"

         "Yes, I am a Christian."

         "What is a Christian?'

         "A Christian is one who, after being baptised . . .
    baptised . . . baptised . . ."

         She climbed her stairs holding tight to the rail, and
    once in her room she sank heavily into a chair.

         The whitish light coming through the windowpanes was
    slowly fading and ebbing away.  The various pieces of furni-
    ture seemed to be fixed more firmly in their places, lost in
    shadow as in an ocean of darkness.  The fire was out, the
    clock kept up its tick-tock, and Emma vaguely marveled that
    all these things should be so quiet while she herself was in
    such turmoil.  Then little Berthe was in front of her, tot-
    tering in her knitted shoes between the window and the sewing
    table, trying to reach her mother and catch hold of the ends
    of her apron strings.

         "Let me alone!" Emma cried, pushing her away.

         But a few moments later the little girl was back, this
    time coming closer.  Leaning her arms on her mother's knees
    she looked up at her with her big blue eyes, and a thread of
    clear saliva dripped from her lip onto the silk of the apron.

         "Let me alone!" Emma cried again, very much annoyed.

         The expression on her face frightened the child, who
    began to scream.

         "Won't you let me alone!" she cried, thrusting her off
    with her elbow.

         Berthe fell just at the foot of the chest of drawers,
    cutting her cheek on one of its brasses.  She began to bleed.
    Madame Bovary rushed to pick her up, broke the bell-rope,
    called loudly for the maid, and words of self-reproach were
    on her lips when Charles appeared.  It was dinner time, he
    had just come in.

         "Look what's happened, darling," she said, in an even
    voice.  "The baby fell down and hurt herself playing."

         Charles reassured her.  It was nothing serious, he said,
    and he went for some adhesive plaster.

         Madame Bovary didn't go downstairs for dinner that even-
    ing.  She insisted on staying alone with her child.  As she
    watched her lying there asleep, her anxiety, such as it was,
    gradually wore off, and she thought of herself as having been
    silly and good-hearted indeed to let herself be upset over so
    small a matter.  Berthe had stopped sobbing, and now the
    cotton coverlet rose and fell imperceptibly with her regular
    breathing.  A few large tears had gathered in the corners of
    her half-closed eyelids.  Through the lashes could be seen
    the pupils, pale and sunken-looking.  The adhesive stuck on
    her cheek pulled the skin to one side.

         "It's a strange thing," Emma thought, "what an ugly
    child she is."

         At eleven o'clock, when Charles came back from the phar-
    macy, where he had gone after dinner to take back the plaster
    that was left, he found his wife on her feet beside the cradle.

         "Really, believe me, it will be all right," he said,
    kissing her on the forehead.  "Don't worry about it, darling.
    You'll make yourself ill."

         He had stayed out a long time.  He had not seemed unduly
    upset, but even so Monsieur Homais had done his best to cheer
    him up, "raise his morale."  The conversation had then turned
    on the various dangers that beset children because of the
    absent-mindedness of servants.  Madame Homais could speak
    from experience, bearing as she did to this day on her chest
    the marks of a pan full of burning coals that a cook had
    dropped inside her pinafore when she was small.  No wonder
    the Homais' went out of their way to be careful with their
    children!  In their house knives were never sharpened, floors
    never waxed.  There were iron grills at the windows and heavy
    bars across the fireplaces.  Though taught to be self-reliant,
    the Homais children couldn't move a step without someone in
    attendance.  At the slightest sign of a cold their father
    stuffed them with cough syrups, and well past their fourth
    birthdays they were all mercilessly made to wear padded caps.
    This, it must be said, was a pet idea of Madame Homais'.  Her
    husband was secretly worried about it, fearing lest the in-
    tellectual organs suffer as a result of such pressure, and he
    sometimes went so far as to say, "Do you want to turn them
    into Caribs or Botocudos?"

         Charles, meanwhile, had tried several times to end the
    conversation.  "I'd like to have a word with you," he whis-
    pered in the clerk's ear, and Leon walked downstairs ahead of
    him.

         "Can he be suspecting something?" he wondered.  His heart
    pounded, and he imagined a thousand contingencies.

         Charles, after closing the door behind them, asked him to
    inquire in Rouen as to the price of a good daguerreotype.  He
    was thinking of paying a delicate tribute to his wife by giving
    her a sentimental surprise, a portrait of himself in his black
    tail coat.  But he wanted to know, first, "what he was letting
    himself in for."  Such inquiries would be no trouble for Mon-
    sieur Leon, since he went to the city almost every week.

         What was the purpose of these visits?  Homais suspected
    that there was a story there, an intrigue of some kind.  But he
    was mistaken.  Leon was not carrying on any amourette.  These
    days his spirits were lower than ever.  Madame Lefrancois could
    tell it from the amount of food he left on his plate.  To find
    out more about it she questioned the tax collector.  But Binet
    rebuffed her, saying that he "wasn't in the pay of the police."

         Nevertheless his table companion struck him as exceedingly
    odd.  Leon often lay back in his chair, stretched out his arms
    and complained vaguely about life.

         "That's because you have no hobbies," said the tax col-
    lector.

         "What would you advise?"

         "If I were you I'd buy myself a lathe!"

         "But I wouldn't know how to use it," the clerk answered.

         "That's so, you wouldn't," said Binet.  And he stroked
    his chin with an air of mingled scorn and satisfaction.

         Leon was tired of loving without having anything to show
    for it, and he was beginning to feel the depression that comes
    from leading a monotonous life without any guiding interest or
    buoyant hope.  He was so sick of Yonville and the Yonvillians
    that the sight of certain people and certain buildings irri-
    tated him beyond endurance.  The pharmacist, worthy soul that
    he was, he found utterly unbearable.  Still, though he longed
    for a new position, the prospect of change frightened him.

         But now timidity gave way to impatience, and Paris beck-
    oned from afar, with the fanfare of its masked balls, the
    laughter of its grisettes.  Since he would have to finish his
    law studies there sooner or later, why shouldn't he go now?
    What was preventing him?  And he began to make imaginary plans,
    sketch out his new existence.  He furnished a dream apartment.
    He would lead an artist's life, take guitar lessons, wear a
    dressing gown, a Basque beret, blue velvet slippers!  And in
    his minds eye he particularly admired his overmantel arrange-
    ment, a pair of crossed fencing foils, with a skull and the
    guitar hanging above.

         The difficulty lay in obtaining his mother's consent,
    still, there could scarcely be a more reasonable request.
    Even his employer was urging him to think of another office,
    where he could widen his experience.  Taking a middle course,
    therefore, Leon looked for a place as second clerk in Rouen,
    found nothing, and finally wrote his mother a long detailed
    letter in which he set forth his reasons for moving to Paris
    at once.  She consented.

         He didn't hurry.  Every day for a month Hivert transported
    for him, from Yonville to Rouen and from Rouen to Yonville,
    trunks, valises and bundles.  And after Leon had had his ward-
    robe restocked and his three armchairs reupholstered and had
    bought a whole new supply of foulard handkerchiefs, after he
    had made more preparations than for a trip around the world,
    he kept putting off his departure from week to week, until he
    received a second letter from his mother urging him to be on
    his way, since he wanted to pass his examination before the
    summer vacation.

         When the moment came for farewells, Madame Homais wept
    and Justin sobbed.  Homais hid his emotion as a strong man
    should, and insisted on carrying his friend's overcoat as far
    as the notary's.  Maitre Guillaumin was to drive Leon to
    Rouen in his carriage.

         There was just time to say good-bye to Monsieur Bovary.
    When Leon reached the top of the stairs he was so breathless
    that he stood still for a moment.  As he entered the room
    Madame Bovary rose quickly to her feet.

         "Here I am again," said Leon.

         "I knew you'd come!"

         She bit her lip, and the blood rushed under her skin,
    reddening it from the roots of her hair to the edge of her
    collar.  She remained standing, leaning against the wall
    paneling.

         "Monsieur isn't here?" he said.

         "He's out."

         He repeated, "He's out."

         There was a silence.  They looked at each other, and
    their thoughts clung together in their common anguish like
    two throbbing hearts.

         "I'd love to kiss Berthe," said Leon.

         Emma went down a few steps and called Felicite.

         He glanced quickly around him, taking in the walls, the
    tables, the fireplace, as though to record them forever down
    to their last detail and carry them away in his memory.

         Then she was back, and the maid brought in Berthe, who
    was swinging a pinwheel upside down on a string.

         Leon kissed her several times on the neck.  "Good-bye,
    sweetheart!  Good-bye!"  And he handed her back to her mother.

         "You may take her," Emma said to the maid.

         They were left alone.

         Madame Bovary had turned her back, her face pressed to
    a windowpane.  Leon was holding his cap in his hand and kept
    brushing it against his thigh.

         "It's going to rain," said Emma.

         "I have a coat," he answered.

         "Ah!"

         She half turned to him, her face lowered.  The light
    seemed to glide down her forehead to her arching brows as on
    a marble statue.  And there was no way of knowing what she
    was gazing at on the horizon or what her deepest thoughts
    might be.

         "Good-bye, then," he said, sighing deeply.

         She raised her head with an abrupt movement.

         "Yes, good-bye, you must be on your way."

         They both stepped forward.  He held out his hand.  She
    hesitated.

         "A handshake, then, English style," she said, with a
    forced laugh, putting her hand in his.

         Leon felt her moist palm in his grasp, and into it
    seemed to flow the very essence of his being.

         Then he released it.  Their eyes met again, and he was
    off.

         As he crossed the roofed market he stopped behind a
    pillar to stare for a last time at the white house with its
    four green shutters.  He thought he saw a shadowy form at
    the bedroom window, then the curtain, released from its hook
    as though of its own accord, swung slowly for a moment in
    long slanting folds and sprang fully out to hang straight and
    motionless as a plaster wall.  Leon set off at a run.

         Ahead he saw his employer's gig in the road, and beside
    it a man in an apron holding the horse.  Homais and Maitre
    Guillaumin were talking together, waiting for him.

         The apothecary embraced him, tears in his eyes.  "Here's
    your overcoat, my boy.  Wrap up warm!  Look after yourself!
    Take it easy!"

         "Come, Leon, jump in!" said the notary.

         Homais leaned over the mudguard, and in a voice broken
    by sobs gulped the sad, familiar words of parting, "Bon
    voyage!"

         "Bon soir!" replied Maitre Guillaumin.  "Anchors aweigh!"

         They rolled off, and Homais went home.

         Madame Bovary had opened her window that gave on to the
    garden, and was watching the clouds.

         They were gathering in the west, in the direction of
    Rouen, twisting rapidly in black swirls.  Out from behind
    them shot great sun rays, like the golden arrows of a hanging
    trophy, and the rest of the sky was empty, white as porcelain.
    Then came a gust of wind, the poplars swayed, and suddenly the
    rain was pattering on the green leaves.  But soon the sun came
    out again, chickens cackled, sparrows fluttered their wings in
    the wet bushes, and rivulets flowing along the gravel carried
    away the pink flowers of an acacia.

         "Ah, by now he must be far away!" she thought.

         Monsieur Homais dropped in as usual at half-past six,
    during dinner.

         "Well," he said, sitting down, "so we've sent our young
    man on his way, have we?'

         "I guess so," said the doctor.  And then, turning in his
    chair, "What's new at your house?'

         "Nothing much.  Just that my wife wasn't quite herself
    this afternoon.  You know how women are, anything upsets them,
    mine especially.  We've no right to complain, their nervous
    system is much more impressionable than ours."

         "Poor Leon!" said Charles.  "How will he get along in
    Paris, do you think?  Will he get used to it?"

         Madame Bovary sighed.

         "Never fear!" said the pharmacist, making a clicking noise
    with his tongue.  "Think of the gay parties in restaurants, the
    masked balls!  The champagne!  Everything will go at a merry
    pace, I assure you!"

         "I don't think he'll do anything wrong," Bovary objected.

         "Nor do I," Monsieur Homais said quickly, "but he'll have
    to go along with the others if he doesn't want to be taken for
    a Jesuit.  You have no idea of the life those bohemians lead
    in the Latin Quarter with their actresses!  You know, students
    are very highly thought of in Paris.  If they have even the
    slightest social grace they're admitted to the very best
    circles.  They're even fallen in love with sometimes by ladies
    of the Faubourg Saint-Germain.  Some of them make very good
    marriages."

         "But," said the doctor, "I'm afraid that in the city he
    may . . ."

         "You're right,' interrupted the apothecary.  "It's the
    reverse of the medal.  In the city you've got to keep your
    hand in your watchpocket every minute.  Suppose you're sit-
    ting in a park.  Some fellow comes up to you, well dressed,
    perhaps even wearing a decoration, somebody you could take
    for a diplomat.  He addresses you, you talk, he ingratiates
    himself, offers you a pinch of snuff or picks up your hat
    for you.  Then you get friendlier.  He takes you to a cafe.
    Invites you to visit him in the country, introduces you to
    all kinds of people over your drinks, and three-quarters of
    the time it's only to get his hands on your purse or lead
    you into evil ways."

         "That's true," said Charles, "but I was thinking chiefly
    of diseases, typhoid fever, for example.  Students from the
    country are susceptible to it."

         Emma shuddered.

         "Because of the change of diet," agreed the pharmacist,
    "and the way it upsets the entire system.  And don't forget
    the Paris water!  The dishes they serve in restaurants, all
    those spicy foods, they over heat the blood.  Don't let any-
    body tell you they're worth a good stew.  I've always said
    there's nothing like home cooking, its better for the health.
    That was why when I was studying pharmacy in Rouen I went to
    a boarding house.  I ate where my teachers ate."

         And he continued to expound his general opinions and
    personal preferences until Justin came to fetch him to make
    an eggnog for a customer.

         "Not a moment's peace!" he cried.  "It's grind, grind,
    grind!  I can't leave the shop for a minute.  I'm like a
    plough-horse, sweating blood every second.  It's a heavy
    yoke, my friends!"

         And when he was at the door, "By the way," he said.
    "Have you heard the news?'

         "What news?'

         "It is very likely," Homais announced, raising his eye-
    brows and looking excessively solemn, "that the annual
    Agricultural Show of the department of the Seine-In-ferieure
    will be held this year at . . . Yonville-l'Abbaye.  There is,
    at least, a rumor to that effect.  The paper referred to it
    this morning.  An event of the very greatest importance for
    our district!  But we'll talk about it later.  I can see,
    thank you.  Justin has the lantern."













    PART 2

    CHAPTER SEVEN

         The next day was a funeral one for Emma.  Everything
    appeared to her as though shrouded in vague, hovering black-
    ness.  And grief swirled into her soul, moaning softly like
    the winter wind in a deserted castle.  She was prey to the
    brooding brought on by irrevocable partings, to the weariness
    that follows every consummation, to the pain caused by the
    breaking off of a confirmed habit or the brusque stopping of
    a prolonged vibration.

         It was like the days following her return from La
    Vaubyessard, when the dance tunes had kept whirling in her
    head.  She was sunk in the same mournful melancholy, the same
    torpid despair.  Leon seemed taller, handsomer, more charming
    and less distinct.  Though he had gone, he had not left her.
    He was there, and the walls of her house seemed to retain his
    shadow.  She kept staring at the rug he had walked on, the
    empty chairs he had sat in.  The stream at the foot of the
    garden flowed on as usual, rippling past the slippery bank.
    They had often strolled there, listening to this same murmur
    of the water over the moss-covered stones.  How they had
    enjoyed the sun!  And the shade, too, afternoons by themselves
    in the garden!  He had read aloud to her, bareheaded on a
    rustic bench, the cool wind from the meadows ruffling the
    pages of his book and the nasturtiums on the arbor . . .  And
    now he was gone, the one bright spot in her life, her one
    possible hope of happiness!  Why hadn't she grasped that good
    fortune when it had offered itself?  And when it had first
    threatened to slip away, why hadn't she seized it with both
    hands, implored it on her knees?  She cursed herself for not
    having surrendered to her love for Leon.  She thirsted for
    his lips.  She was seized with a longing to run after him, to
    fling herself into his arms, to cry, "Take me!  I'm yours!"
    But the difficulties of such an enterprise discouraged her in
    advance.  And her longings, increased by regret, became all
    the more violent.

         Thereafter, the image she had of Leon became the center
    of her distress.  It glowed more brightly than a travelers'
    fire left burning on the snow of a Russian steppe.  She ran
    up to it, crouched beside it, stirred it carefully when it
    was on the verge of extinction, grasped at everything within
    reach that might bring it back to life.  Distant memories and
    present-day events, experiences actual and imagined, her
    starved sensuality, her plans for happiness, blown down like
    dead branches in the wind, her barren "virtue," the collapse
    of her hopes, the litter of her domestic life.  All these she
    gathered up and used as fuel for her misery.

         Nevertheless the flames did die down, whether exhausted
    from lack of supplies or choked by excessive feeding.  Little
    by little, love was quenched by absence, regret was smothered
    by routine, and the fiery glow that had reddened her pale sky
    grew gray and gradually vanished.  In this growing inner twi-
    light she even mistook her recoil from her husband for an
    aspiration toward her lover, the searing waves of hatred for
    a rekindling of love.  But the storm kept raging, her passion
    burned itself to ashes, no help was forthcoming, no new sun
    rose on the horizon.  Night closed in completely around her,
    and she was left alone in a horrible void of piercing cold.

         Then the bad days of Tostes began all over again.  She
    considered herself far more unhappy now than she had been
    then, for now she had experienced grief, and she knew that it
    would never end.

         A woman who had assumed such a burden of sacrifice was
    certainly entitled to indulge herself a little.  She bought
    herself a Gothic prie-dieu, and in a month spent fourteen
    francs on lemons to blanch her fingernails.  She wrote to
    Rouen for a blue cashmere dress, and at Lheureux's she chose
    the finest of his scarves.  She wound it around her waist
    over her dressing gown, and thus arrayed she closed the
    shutters and stretched out on her sofa with a book.

         She kept changing her way of wearing her hair.  She
    tried it a al chinoise, in soft curls, in braids.  She tried
    parting it on one side and turning it under, like a man's.

         She decided to learn Italian.  She bought dictionaries,
    a grammar, a supply of paper.  She went in for serious read-
    ing, history and philosophy.  Sometimes at night Charles would
    wake up with a start, thinking that someone had come to fetch
    him to a sickbed.  "I'm coming," he would mutter, and it would
    be the sound of the match that Emma was striking to light her
    lamp.  But her books were like her many pieces of needlepoint,
    barely begun, they were tossed into the cupboard.  She
    started them, abandoned them, discarded them in favor of new
    ones.

         She had spells in which she would have gone to extremes
    with very little urging.  One day she insisted, Charles to the
    contrary, that she could drink half a water glass of brandy,
    and when Charles was foolish enough to dare her, she downed
    every drop of it.

         For all her "flightiness," that was the Yonville ladies'
    word for it, Emma did not have a happy look.  The corners of
    her mouth were usually marked with those stiff, pinched lines
    so often found on the faces of old maids and failures.  She
    was pale, white as a sheet all over.  The skin of her nose
    was drawn down toward the nostrils, and she had a way of
    staring vacantly at whoever she was talking with.  When she
    discovered two or three gray hairs at her temples she began
    to talk about growing old.

         She often had dizzy spells.  One day she even spit blood,
    and when Charles hovered over her and showed his concern she
    shrugged.  "What of it?" she said.

         Charles shut himself in his consulting room, and sitting
    in his office armchair under the phrenological head he put his
    elbows on the table and wept.

         He wrote his mother asking her to come, and they had long
    conversations on the subject of Emma.

         What course to follow?  What could be done, since she
    refused all treatment?

         "Do you know what your wife needs?" said the older Madame
    Bovary.  "She needs to be put to work . . . hard manual work.
    If she had to earn her living like so many other people, she
    wouldn't have those vapors . . . they come from all those
    ideas she stuffs her head with, and the idle life she leads."

         "She keeps busy, though," Charles said.

         "Busy at what?  Reading novels and all kinds of bad books.
    Anti-religious books that quote Voltaire and ridicule the
    priests.  It's a dangerous business, son.  Anyone who lacks

    respect for religion comes to a bad end."

         So it was decided to prevent Emma from reading novels.
    The project presented certain difficulties, but the old lady
    undertook to carry it out.  On her way through Rouen she would
    personally call on the proprietor of the lending library and
    tell him that Emma was canceling her subscription.  If he
    nevertheless persisted in spreading his poison, they would
    certainly have the right to report him to the police.

         Farewells between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were
    curt.  During the three weeks they had been together they
    hadn't exchanged four words apart from the formal greetings
    and absolute essentials called for at mealtime and bedtime.

         The older Madame Bovary left on a Wednesday, market day
    at Yonville.

         From early morning, one side of the square was taken up
    with a row of carts, all tipped up on end, with their shafts
    in the air, stretching along the house fronts from the church
    to the hotel.  On the other side were canvas booths for the
    sale of cotton goods, woolen blankets and stockings, horse
    halters, and rolls of blue ribbon whose ends fluttered in the
    wind.  Heavy hardware was spread out on the ground between
    pyramids of eggs and cheese baskets bristling with sticky
    straw.  And close by the harvesting machines were the flat
    poultry boxes, with clucking hens sticking their necks out
    between the slats.  The crowd always filled the same corner,
    unwilling to move on.  Sometimes it seemed on the point of
    pushing through the glass of the pharmacy window.  On Wednes-
    days the shop was never empty, and everyone elbowed his way
    in, less to buy pharmaceutical products than to consult the
    pharmacist, so celebrated was Monsieur Homais' reputation in
    the villages round about.  His hearty self-confidence be-
    witched the country folk.  To them he was a greater doctor
    than all the doctors.

         Emma was leaning out her window (she often did this, in
    the provinces windows take the place of boulevards and thea-
    tres) watching the crowd of yokels, when she caught sight of
    a gentleman in a green frock coat.  His dressy yellow gloves
    contrasted with his heavy gaiters, and he was approaching
    the doctor's house.  Behind him was a peasant who followed
    along with lowered head and decidedly pensive expression.

         "May I see Monsieur?' he asked Justin, who was chatting
    in the doorway with Felicite.  And assuming that he was one
    of the house servants, he added, "Give him my name, Monsieur
    Rodolphe Boulanger, de la Huchette."

         The new arrival had added the "de" and the "La Huchette"
    to his name not out of vanity as a landowner but rather to
    indicate more clearly who he was.  La Huchette was an estate
    near Yonville, and he had recently bought the chateau and its
    two dependent farms.  The latter he worked himself, not too
    seriously.  He kept a bachelor establishment and was rumored
    to have "a private income of at least fifteen thousand francs
    a year."

         Charles came into the parlor, and Monsieur Boulanger
    introduced his man, who wanted to be bled because "he felt
    prickly all over."  There was no arguing with him.  He said
    it would "clear him out."

         So Bovary told the maid to bring a bandage, and a basin
    that he asked Justin to hold.  The peasant turned pale at
    once.

         "There's nothing to be afraid of," Charles told him.

         "I'm all right," the man said.  "Go ahead."

         He held out his sturdy arm with an air of bravado.  At
    the prick of the scalpel the blood spurted out and spattered
    against the mirror.

         "Hold the basin closer!" Charles cried.

         "Look at that!" said the peasant.  "Just like a fountain!
    I've got real red blood.  That's a good sign, isn't it?"

         "Sometimes," remarked the officier de sante, "they don't
    feel anything at first, and then they keel over.  Especially
    the husky ones, like this one here."

         At those words the peasant dropped the scalpel case,
    which he had been twisting in his fingers.  The back of the
    chair creaked under the heavy impact of his shoulders, and
    his hat fell on the floor.

         "Just what I thought," said Bovary, pressing the vein
    with his finger.

         The basin began to shake in Justin's hands.  His knees
    wobbled and he turned pale.

         "Where's my wife?' Charles cried, and he called her
    loudly.  She came rushing down the stairs.

         "Vinegar!" he cried.  "We've got a pair of them, damn
    it!"

         In his excitement he had trouble applying the compress.

         "It's nothing," said Monsieur Boulanger, quite calmly,
    and he lifted Justin in his arms and propped him up on the
    table with his back against the wall.

         Madame Bovary set about loosening Justin's cravat.
    There was a knot in the strings that fastened his shirt, and
    when she had undone it she rubbed his boyish neck lightly
    for a few minutes.  Then she moistened her batiste handker-
    chief in vinegar and patted his forehead with it, blowing
    gently on it as she did so.

         The teamster revived, but Justin remained in his faint,
    the pupils of his eyes sunk into the whites like blue flowers
    in milk.

         "We'd better not let him see this," said Charles.

         Madame Bovary took away the basin.  As she bent down to
    put it under the table, her dress, a long-waisted, full-
    skirted yellow summer dress with four flounces, belled out
    around her on the tile floor of the parlor.  And as she put
    out her arms to steady herself the material billowed and
    settled, revealing the lines of her body.  Then she brought
    in a pitcher of water, and was dissolving sugar in it when
    the pharmacist arrived.  The maid had gone after him in the
    midst of the fracas, and when he found his apprentice with
    his eyes open he breathed a sigh of relief.  Then he stalked
    back and forth in front of him, staring him up and down.

         "Idiot!" he said.  "Idiot, with a capital I!  A terrible
    thing, a little blood-letting, isn't it!  A fine fellow, too.
    Just look at him!  And yet I've seen him go up a tree after
    nuts like a squirrel, up to the dizziest heights, Messieurs
    et Madame!  Say something, can't you?  Tell us how good you
    are!  You'll certainly make a fine pharmacist!  Don't you
    know that some day you may be called on to give important
    evidence in court?  The judges may need your expert opinion.
    You'll have to keep calm at such times, and know what to say!
    You'll have to show them you're a man, or else be called a
    fool!"

         Justin made no answer, and the apothecary went on.

         "Who asked you to come here anyway?  You're always
    bothering Monsieur and Madame!  You know perfectly well I
    always need you Wednesdays!  There are twenty people in the
    shop right now!  I left everything out of consideration for
    you!  Go on!  Get back there!  Keep an eye on things till I
    come!"

         When Justin had put himself to rights and gone, they
    talked a little about fainting spells.  Madame Bovary had
    never had one.

         "That's unusual for a lady," said Monsieur Boulanger.
    "But there are men who are extraordinarily susceptible, you
    know.  I've seen a second at a duel lose consciousness at the
    mere sound of the loading of the pistols."

         "I don't mind the sight of other people's blood a bit,"
    said the pharmacist.  "But the very idea of shedding my own
    would be enough to turn my stomach if I thought about it too
    much."

         Meanwhile Monsieur Boulanger sent away his man, urging
    him to stop worrying now that he'd got what he wanted.

         "His whim has afforded me the privilege of making your
    acquaintance," he said, and as he spoke the words he looked
    at Emma.

         Then he put three francs on the corner of the table,
    bowed casually, and left.

         He was soon on the other side of the river (it was the
    way back to La Huchette), and Emma saw him crossing the meadow
    under the poplars, occasionally slowing his pace as though he
    were pondering something.

         "She's very nice," he was saying to himself, "very nice,
    that wife of the doctor's!  Lovely teeth, black eyes, a dainty
    foot, she's like a real Parisian.  Where the devil does she
    come from?  How did such a clodhopper ever get hold of her?'

         Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger was thirty-four.  He was
    brutal and shrewd.  He was something of a connoisseur.  There
    had been many women in his life.  This one seemed pretty, so
    the thought of her and her husband stayed with him.

         "I have an idea he's stupid.  I'll bet she's tired of
    him.  His fingernails are dirty and he hasn't shaved in three
    days.  He trots off to see his patients and leaves her home
    to darn his socks.  How bored she must be!  Dying to live in
    town, to dance the polka every night!  Poor little thing!
    She's gasping for love like a carp on a kitchen table gasping
    for water.  A compliment or two and she'd adore me, I'm
    positive.  She'd be sweet!  But . . . how would I get rid of
    her later?"

         And the thought of the troubles inevitable in such an
    affair brought to his mind by contrast his present mistress,
    an actress he kept in Rouen.  He found he could not evoke

    her image without a feeling of satiety, and after a time he
    said to himself.  "Ah, Madame Bovary is much prettier . . .
    and what's more, much fresher.  Virginie's certainly growing
    too fat.  She's getting on my nerves with all her enthusiasms.
    And her mania for shrimps . . .!"

         The countryside was deserted, and the only sounds were
    the regular swish of the tall grass against his gaiters and
    the chirping of crickets hidden in the distant oats.  He
    thought of Emma in the parlor, dressed as he had seen her,
    and he undressed her.

         "I'll have her!" he said aloud, bringing his stick down
    on a clod of earth in front of him.

         And he immediately began to consider the question of
    strategy.

         "Where could we meet?  How could we arrange it?  The
    brat would always be around, and the maid, and the neighbors,
    and the husband . . . there'd be a lot of headaches.  Bah!
    It would all take too much time.

         Then he began all over again.  "Those eyes really bore
    into you, though!  And that pale complexion . . . God!  How
    I love pale women . . ."

         By the time he had reached the top of the hill his mind
    was made up.

         "The only thing to do now is keep my eyes open for
    opportunities.  I'll call on them occasionally and send them
    presents, game and chickens.  I'll have myself bled, if I
    have to.  We'll get to be friends.  I'll invite them to the
    house . . . And . . . Oh, yes" . . . it came to him . . .
    "we'll soon be having the show.  She'll be there.  I'll see
    her.  We'll get started.  The approach direct, that's the
    best."




















    PART 2

    CHAPTER EIGHT

         The great day arrived at last.

         The morning of the Agricultural Show all the Yonvillians
    were standing on their doorsteps discussing the preparations.
    The pediment of the town hall had been looped with ivy.  A
    marquee had been set up for the banquet in one of the meadows.
    And in the middle of the square, in front of the church, stood
    an antiquated fieldpiece that was to be fired as a signal
    announcing the arrival of the prefect and the proclamation of
    the prize winners.  The Buchy national guard (Yonville had
    none) had come to join forces with the fire brigade, commanded
    by Binet.  Today he wore a collar even higher than usual, and
    his bust, tightly encased in his tunic, was so stiff and in-
    flexible that all his animal fluids seemed to be concentrated
    in his legs, which rose and fell with the music in rhythmic
    jerks.  Since the tax collector and the colonel were rivals,
    each showed off his talents by drilling his men separately.
    First the red epaulettes would march up and down, and then the
    black breastplates.  And then it would begin all over again.
    There was no end to it.  Never had there been such a display
    of pomp!  A number of citizens had washed their housefronts
    the day before.  Tricolor flags were hanging from half-open
    windows.  All the cafes were full.  And in the perfect weather
    the headdresses of the women seemed whiter than snow, their
    gold crosses glittered in the bright sun, and their multi-
    colored neckcloths relieved the somber monotony of the men's
    frock coats and blue smocks.  As the farm women dismounted
    from their horses they undid the big pins that had held their
    skirts tucked up away from splashing.  The men's concern was
    for their hats.  To protect them they had covered them with
    large pocket handkerchiefs, holding the corners between their
    teeth as they rode.

         The crowd converged on the main street from both ends
    of the village, from the paths between the houses, from the
    lanes, and from the houses themselves.  Knockers could be
    heard falling against doors as housewives in cotton gloves
    emerged to watch the festivities.  Particularly admired were
    the two large illumination frames laden with colored glass
    lamps that flanked the official grandstand.  And against the
    four columns of the town hall stood four poles, each with a
    little banner bearing a legend in gold letters on a greenish
    ground.  One said, "Commerce," another "Agriculture," the
    third "Industry," and the fourth "Fine Arts."

         But the jubilation brightening all faces seemed to cast
    a gloom over Madame Lefrancois, the hotel-keeper.  She was
    standing on her kitchen steps muttering to herself.

         "It's a crime . . . a crime, that canvas shack!  Do they
    really think the prefect will enjoy eating his dinner in a
    tent, like a circus performer?  They pretend the whole thing's
    for the good of this village . . . so why bring a third-class
    cook over from Neufchatel?  And who's it all for, anyway?  A
    lot of cowherds and riffraff."

         The apothecary came by.  He was wearing a black tail
    coat, yellow nankeen trousers, reverse-calf shoes, and . . .
    most exceptionally . . . a hat.  A stiff low-crowned hat.

         "Good morning!" he said.  "Forgive me for being in such
    a hurry."

         And as the buxom widow asked him where he was going, "I
    imagine it must seem funny to you, doesn't it?  Considering
    that most of the time I can't be pried loose from my labora-
    tory any more than the old man's rat from his cheese."

         "What cheese is that?' asked the landlady.

         "Oh, nothing, nothing," said Homais.  "I was merely
    referring to the fact, Madame Lefrancois, that I usually
    stay at home, like a recluse.  But today things are different.
    I must absolutely . . ."

         "You don't mean you're going there?" she said with a
    scornful look.

         "Of course I'm going there," the apothecary replied,
    surprised.  "Don't you know I'm on the advisory committee?"

         Madame Lefrancois looked at him for a moment or two and
    then answered with a smile.

         "That's all right, then.  But what have you got to do
    with farming?  Do you know anything about it?'

         "Certainly I know something about it, being a pharmacist!
    A pharmacist is a chemist, Madame Lefrancois.  And since the
    aim of chemistry is to discover the laws governing the reci-
    procal and molecular action of all natural bodies, it follows
    that agriculture falls within its domain!  Take the composi-
    tion of manures, the fermentation of liquids, the analysis of
    gases, the effects of noxious effuvia . . . what's all that,
    I ask you, if it isn't chemistry in the strictest sense of
    the word?"

         The landlady made no reply.  Homais went on, "Do you
    think that to be an agronomist you must till the soil or
    fatten chickens with your own hands?  No!  You have to study
    the composition of various substances, geological strata,
    atmospheric phenomena, the properties of the various soils,
    minerals, types of water, the density of different bodies,
    their capillary attraction.  And a hundred other things.  You
    have to be thoroughly versed in all the principles of hygiene
    . . . that's an absolute prerequisite if you're going to serve
    in a supervisory or consultant capacity in anything relating
    to the construction of farm buildings, the feeding of live-
    stock, the preparation of meals for hired men.  And then
    you've got to know botany, Madame Lefrancois.  Be able to tell
    one plant from another . . . you know what I mean?  Which ones
    are benign and which ones are poisonous, which ones are unpro-
    ductive and which ones are nutritive.  Whether it's a good
    thing to pull them out here and resow them there, propagate
    some and destroy others.  In short, you've got to keep abreast
    of science by reading pamphlets and publications.  You've got
    to be always on the alert, always on the lookout for possible
    improvements . . ."

         All this time the landlady never took her eyes off the
    door of the Cafe Francais.  The pharmacist continued.

         "Would to God our farmers were chemists, or at least
    that they listened more carefully to what science has to say.
    I myself recently wrote a rather considerable little treatise,
    a monograph of over seventy-two pages, entitled:  Cider:  Its
    Manufacture and Its Effects;  Followed by Certain New Observa-
    tions on This Subject.  I sent it to the Agronomical Society
    of Rouen, and it even brought me the honor of being admitted
    to membership in that body, Agricultural Section, Pomology
    Division.  Now if this work of mine had been made available to
    the public . . ."

         The apothecary broke off.  Madame Lefrancois' attention
    was obviously elsewhere.

         "Just look at them," she said.  "How can they patronize
    such a filthy place?'

         And with shrugs that stretched her sweater tight over her
    bosom, she pointed with both hands to her competitor's cafe,
    out of which came the sound of singing.

         "Anyway, it won't be there much longer," she said.  "Just
    a few days more, and then, finis."

         Homais drew back in amazement, and she came down her
    three steps and put her lips to his ear.

         "What!  Haven't you heard?  They're padlocking it this
    week.  It's Lheureux who's forcing the sale.  All those notes
    Tellier signed were murder."

         "What an unutterable catastrophe!"  The apothecary always
    had the proper expression ready, whatever the occasion.

         The landlady proceeded to tell him the story, which she
    had from Theodore, Maitre Gullaumin's servant.  And although
    she detested Tellier she had nothing but harsh words for
    Lheureux.  He was a wheedler, a cringer.

         "Look!  There he is now, in the market," she said.  "He's
    greeting Madame Bovary.  She's wearing a green hat.  In fact,
    she's on Monsieur Boulanger's arm."

         "Madame Bovary!" cried Homais.  "I must go and pay her
    my respects.  She might like to have a seat in the enclosure,
    under the portico."

         And ignoring Madame Lefrancois' attempts to detain him
    with further details, he hurried off, smiling and with springy
    step, bestowing innumerable salutations right and left, and
    taking up a good deal of room with his long black coat tails
    that streamed in the wind behind him.

         Rodolphe had seen him coming and had quickened his pace,
    but Madame Bovary was out of breath, and he slowed and smiled
    at her.  "I was trying to avoid that bore," he said savagely.
    "You know, the apothecary."

         She nudged him with her elbow.

         "What does that mean?" he wondered, glancing at her out
    of the corner of his eye as they moved on.

         Her face, seen in profile, was so calm that it gave him
    no hint.  It stood out against the light, framed in the oval
    of her bonnet, whose pale ribbons were like streaming reeds.
    Her eyes with their long curving lashes looked straight ahead.
    They were fully open, but seemed a little narrowed because of
    the blood that was pulsing gently under the fine skin of her
    cheekbones.  The rosy flesh between her nostrils was all but
    transparent in the light.  She was inclining her head to one
    side, and the pearly tips of her white teeth showed between
    her lips.

         "Is she laughing at me?" Rodolphe wondered.

         But Emma's nudge had been no more than a warning, for
    Monsieur Lheureux was walking along beside them, now and then
    addressing them as though to begin conversation.

         "What a marvelous day!  Everybody's out!  The wind is
    from the east."

         Neither Madame Bovary nor Rodolphe made any reply, though
    at their slightest movement he edged up to them saying, "Beg
    your pardon?" and touching his hat.

         When they were in front of the blacksmith's, instead of
    following the road as far as the gate Rodolphe turned abruptly
    into a side path, drawing Madame Bovary with him.

         "Good-bye, Monsieur Lheureux!" he called out.  "We'll be
    seeing you!"

         "You certainly got rid of him!" she said, laughing.

         "Why should we put up with intruders?" he said.  "Today
    I'm lucky enough to be with you, so . . ."

         Emma blushed.  He left his sentence unfinished, and
    talked instead, about the fine weather and how pleasant it was
    to be walking on the grass.  A few late daisies were blooming
    around them.

         "They're pretty, aren't they?' he said.  "If any of the
    village girls are in love they can come here for their oracles."
    And he added, "Maybe I should pick one.  What do you think?"

         "Are you in love?" she asked, coughing a little.

         "Ah, ah!  Who knows?" answered Rodolphe.

         The meadow was beginning to fill up, and housewives laden
    with big umbrellas, picnic baskets and babies were bumping into
    everyone.  It was constantly necessary to turn aside, out of
    the way of long lines of girls.  Servants from farms, wearing
    blue stockings, low-heeled shoes and silver rings and smelling
    of the dairy when they came close.  They walked holding hands,
    forming chains the whole length of the meadow, from the row
    of aspens to the banquet tent.  It was time for the judging,
    and one after another the farmers were filing into a kind of
    hippodrome marked off by a long rope hung on stakes.

         Here stood the livestock, noses to the rope, rumps of
    all shapes and sizes forming a ragged line.  Lethargic pigs
    were nuzzling the earth with their snouts.  Calves were lowing
    and sheep bleating.  Cows with their legs folded under them
    lay on the grass, slowly chewing their cud and blinking their
    heavy eyelids under the midges buzzing around them.  Bare-
    armed teamsters were holding rearing stallions by the halter.
    These were neighing loudly in the direction of the mares, who
    stood quietly, necks outstretched and manes drooping, as their
    foals rested in their shadow or came now and again to suck.
    Above the long undulating line of these massed bodies a white
    mane would occasionally surge up like a wave in the wind, or a
    pair of sharp horns would stick out, or men's heads would bob
    up as they ran.  Quite apart, outside the arena, a hundred
    yards off, was a big black bull with a strap harness and an
    iron ring through its nose, motionless as a barren image.  A
    ragged little boy held it by a rope.

         Meanwhile a group of gentlemen were solemnly advancing
    between the two rows, inspecting each animal and then confer-
    ring in an undertone.  One, who seemed the most important,
    was writing details in a notebook as he walked.  This was the
    chairman of the jury, Monsieur Derozerays de la Panville.  As
    soon as he recognized Rodolphe he quickly stepped forward and
    addressed him with a cordial smile.  "What's this, Monsieur
    Boulanger?  You've deserted us?"

         Rodolphe assured him that he was coming directly.  But
    when the chairman had passed, "I'll certainly not be going,"
    he said to Emma.  "I like your company better than his."

         And though he kept making fun of the show, Rodolphe dis-
    played his blue pass to the guard so that they could walk
    about unmolested, and he even stopped from time to time in
    front of some particularly fine exhibit.  It was never any-
    thing that Madame Bovary cared about.  He noticed this, and

    began to make jokes about the Yonville ladies and the way they
    dressed, then he apologized for the carelessness of his own
    costume.  This was a mixture of the casual and the refined.
    The kind of thing that both fascinates and exasperates the
    common herd, hinting as it does at an eccentric way of life,
    indulgence in wild passions and "artistic" affectations, and
    a contempt for social conventions.  His bastiste shirt (it had
    pleated cuffs) puffed out from the opening of his gray twill
    vest at each gust of wind, and his broad-striped trousers
    ended at nankeen shoes trimmed with patent leather so shiny
    that the grass was reflected in it.  He tramped unconcernedly
    through horse dung, one thumb in his vest pocket, his straw
    hat tilted over one ear.

         "Anyway," he said, "when you live in the country . . ."

         "Any trouble you take is wasted," said Emma.

         "Completely," replied Rodolphe.  "Think of it.  There
    isn't a single person here today capable of appreciating the
    cut of a coat."

         And they talked about the mediocrity of provincial life,
    so suffocating, so fatal to all noble dreams.

         "So," said Rodolphe, "I just get more and more engulfed
    in gloom as time goes on . . ."

         "You do!" she cried, in surprise.  "I thought of you as
    being very jolly."

         "Of course, that's the impression I give.  I've learned
    to wear a mask of mockery when I'm with other people.  But
    many's the time I've passed a cemetery in the moonlight and
    asked myself if I wouldn't be better off lying there with the
    rest . . ."

         "Oh!  And what about your friends?" she asked.  "Have
    you no thought for them?"

         "My friends?  What friends?  Have I any?  Who cares any-
    thing about me?"

         And he accompanied those last words with a kind of des-
    perate whistle.

         But they had to draw apart to make way for a tall tower
    of chairs borne by a man coming up behind them.  He was so
    excessively laden that the only parts of him visible were the
    tips of his wooden shoes and his two outstretched hands.  It
    was Lestiboudois, the gravedigger, who was renting out church
    seats to the crowd.  He was highly inventive where his own
    interests were concerned, and had thought up this way of pro-
    fiting from the show.  It was a good idea, everyone was hailing
    him at once.  The villagers were hot, they clamored for the
    straw-seated chairs that gave off a smell of incense, and they
    leaned back with a certain veneration against the heavy slats
    stained with candlewax.

         Then once again Madame Bovary took Rodolphe's arm, and
    he went on as though talking to himself.

         "Yes, so many things have passed me by!  I've always been
    so alone!  Ah!  If I'd had a purpose in life, if I'd met anyone
    with true affection, if I'd found somebody who . . .  Oh!  Then
    I wouldn't have spared any effort.  I'd have surmounted every
    obstacle, let nothing stand in my way . . .!"

         "It seems to me, though," said Emma, "that you're scarcely
    to be pitied."

         "Oh?  You think that?" said Rodolphe.

         "Yes," she answered, "because after all you're free," she
    hesitated, "rich . . ."

         "Don't make fun of me," he begged.

         And she was swearing that she was doing nothing of the
    kind, when a cannon shot resounded and everyone began to hurry
    toward the village.

         It was a false alarm.  The prefect wasn't even in sight,
    and the members of the jury were in a quandary, not knowing
    whether to begin the proceedings or wait a while longer.

         Finally at the far end of the square appeared a big hired
    landau drawn by two skinny horses who were being furiously
    whipped on by a white-hatted coachman.  Binet had just time to
    shout, "Fall in!" and the colonel to echo him.  There was a
    rush for the stacked rifles, and in the confusion some of the
    men forgot to button their collars.  But the official coach-
    and-pair seemed to sense the difficulty, and the emaciated
    beasts dawdling on their chain, drew up at a slow trot in
    front of the portico of the town hall just at the moment when
    the national guard and the fire brigade were deploying into
    line to the beating of the drums.

         "Mark time!" cried Binet.

         "Halt!" cried the colonel.  "Left, turn!"

         And after a present-arms during which the rattle of the
    metal bands as they slid down the stocks and barrels sounded
    like a copper cauldron rolling down a flight of stairs, all
    the rifles were lowered.

         Then there emerged from the carriage a gentleman clad
    in a short, silver-embroidered coat, his forehead high and
    bald, the back of his head tufted, his complexion wan and
    his expression remarkably benign.  His eyes, very large and
    heavy-lidded, half shut as he peered at the multitude, and at
    the same time he lifted his sharp nose and curved his sunken
    mouth into a smile.  He recognized the mayor by his sash, and
    explained that the prefect had been unable to come.  He him-
    self was a prefectural councilor, and he added a few words of
    apology.  Tuvache replied with compliments, the emissary
    declared himself unworthy of them, and the two officials
    stood there face to face, their foreheads almost touching,
    all about them the members of the jury, the village council,
    the local elite, the national guard and the crowd.  Holding
    his little black three-cornered hat against his chest, the
    prefectural councilor reiterated his greetings.  And Tuvache,
    bent like a bow, returned his smiles, stammered, clutched
    uncertainly for words, protested his devotion to the monarchy
    and his awareness of the honor that was being bestowed on
    Yonville.

         Hippolyte, the stableboy at the hotel, came to take the
    horses from the coachman, and limping on his clubfoot he led
    them through the gateway of the Lion d'Or, where a crowd of
    peasants gathered to stare at the carriage.  There was a roll
    of the drums, the howitzer thundered, and the gentlemen filed
    up and took their seats on the platform in red plush armchairs
    loaned by Madame Tuvache.

         All in this group looked alike.  Their flabby, fair-
    skinned, slightly sun-tanned faces were the color of new
    cider, and their bushy side whiskers stuck out over high,
    stiff collars that were held in place by white cravats tied
    in wide bows.  Every vest was of velvet, with a shawl collar.
    Every watch had an oval carnelian seal at the end of a long
    ribbon.  And every one of the gentlemen sat with his hands
    planted on his thighs, his legs carefully apart, the hard
    finished broad-cloth of his trousers shining more brightly
    than the leather of his heavy shoes.

         The invited ladies were seated to the rear, under the
    portico between the columns, while the ordinary citizens
    faced the platform, either standing, or sitting on chairs.
    Lestiboudois had retransported to this new location all those
    that he had previously taken to the meadow.  Now he kept
    bringing still more from the church, and he was crowding the
    place so with his chair-rental business that it was almost
    impossible for anyone to reach the few steps leading to the
    platform.

         "In my opinion," said Monsieur Lheureux, addressing the
    pharmacist, who was passing by on his way to take his seat,
    "they should have set up a pair of Venetian flagstaffs,
    trimmed with something rich and not too showy they'd have
    made a very pretty sight."

         "Certainly," said Homais.  "But what can you expect?
    The mayor took everything into his own hands.  He hasn't
    much taste, poor Tuvache.  In fact, he's completely devoid
    of what is known as the artistic sense."

         Meanwhile Rodolphe, with Madame Bovary, had gone up to
    the second floor of the town hall, into the "council chamber."
    It was quite empty, a perfect place, he said, from which to
    have a comfortable view of the ceremonies.  He took three of
    the stools that stood around the oval table under the king's
    bust and moved them over to one of the windows, and there
    they sat down close together.

         There was a certain agitation on the platform, prolonged
    whisperings and consultations.  Finally the prefectural coun-
    cilor rose to his feet.  It had become known that he was
    called Lieuvain, and his name was repeated from one to another
    in the crowd.  He made sure that his sheets of paper were in
    proper order, peered at them closely, and began.

         "Gentlemen.  I should like, with your permission, before
    speaking to you about the object of today's meeting, and this
    sentiment, I am sure, will be shared by all of you, I should
    like, with your permission, to pay tribute to the national
    administration, to the government, to the monarch, gentlemen,
    to our sovereign, to the beloved king to whom no branch of
    public or private prosperity in indifferent, and who, with so
    firm and yet so wise a hand, guides the chariot of state amidst
    the constant perils of a stormy sea, maintaining at the same
    time public respect for peace as well as for war, for industry,
    for commerce, for agriculture, for the fine arts."

         "I ought to move a little further back," said Rodolphe.

         "Why?' said Emma.

         But at that moment the councilor's voice rose to an
    extraordinary pitch.  He was declaiming,  "Gone forever,
    gentlemen, are the days when civil discord drenched our streets
    with blood.  When the landlord, the business man, nay, the
    worker, sank at night into a peaceful slumber trembling lest
    they be brutally awakened by the sound of inflammatory tocsins.
    When the most subversive principles were audaciously under-
    mining the foundations . . ."

         "It's just that I might be caught sight of from below,"
    said Rodolphe.  "If I were, I'd have to spend the next two
    weeks apologizing.  And what with my bad reputation . . ."

         "Oh!  You're slandering yourself," said Emma.

         "No, no, my reputation's execrable, I assure you."

         "But, gentlemen," continued the councilor, "if I dismiss
    those depressing evocations and turn my eyes to the present
    situation of our cherished fatherland, what do I see before
    me?  Commerce and the arts are thriving everywhere, everywhere
    new channels of communications, like so many new arteries in
    the body politic, are multiplying contacts between its various
    parts.  Our great manufacturing centers have resumed their
    activity.  Religion, its foundations strengthened, appeals to
    every heart.  Shipping fills our ports, confidence returns, at
    long last, France breathes again!"

         "Moreover, from the point of view of society it's prob-
    ably deserved," Rodolphe said.

         "What do you mean?" she asked.

         "Do you really not know," he said, "that there exist
    souls that are ceaselessly in torment?  That are driven now
    to dreams, now to action, driven from the purest passions to
    the most orgiastic pleasures?  No wonder we fling ourselves
    into all kinds of fantasies and follies!"

         She stared at him as if he were a traveler from mythical
    lands.  "We poor women," she said, "don't have even that
    escape."

         "A poor escape," he said, "since it doesn't bring happi-
    ness."

         "But do we ever find happiness?' she asked.

         "Yes, it comes along one day," he answered.

         "And the point has not been lost on you," the councilor
    was saying.  "Not on you, farmers and workers in the fields!
    Not on you, champions of progress and morality!  The point
    has not been lost on you, I say, that the storms of political
    strife are truly more to be dreaded than the disorders of the
    elements!"

         "Yes, it comes along one day," Rodolphe repeated.  "All
    of a sudden, just when we've given up hope.  Then new horizons
    open before us.  It's like a voice crying, `Look!  It's here!'
    We feel the need to pour out our hearts to a given person, to
    surrender, to sacrifice everything.  In such a meeting no
    words are necessary, each senses the other's thoughts.  Each
    is the answer to the other's dreams."  He kept staring at her.
    "There it is, the treasure so long sought for.  There before
    us, it gleams, it sparkles.  But still we doubt.  We daren't
    believe, we stand there dazzled, as though we'd come from
    darkness into light."

         As he ended, Rodolphe enhanced his words with pantomime.
    He passed his hand over his face, like someone dazed, then he
    let it fall on Emma's hand.  She withdrew hers.

         The councilor read on, "And who is there who would wonder
    at such a statement, gentlemen?  Only one so blind, so sunk, I
    use the word advisedly, so sunk in the prejudices of another
    age as to persist in his misconceptions concerning the spirit
    of our farming population.  Where, I ask you, is there to be
    found greater patriotism than in rural areas, greater devotion
    to the common weal.  Greater, in one word, intelligence?  And
    by intelligence, gentlemen, I do not mean that superficial
    intelligence that is a futile ornament of idle minds, but
    rather that profound and moderate intelligence that applies
    itself above all to useful ends, contributing in this manner
    to the good of all, to public improvement and the upholding of
    the state.  That intelligence that is the fruit of respect for
    law and the performance of duty!"

         "Ah, there they go again!" said Rodolphe.  "Duty, duty,
    always duty.  I'm sick of that word.  Listen to them!  They're
    a bunch of doddering old morons and bigoted old church mice
    with foot warmers and rosaries, always squeaking, `Duty! Duty!'
    at us.  I have my own idea of duty.  Our duty is to feel what
    is great and love what is beautiful, not to accept all the
    social conventions and the infamies they impose on us."

         "Still . . . still . . ." objected Madame Bovary.

         "No!  Why preach against the passions?  Aren't they the
    only beautiful thing in this world, the source of heroism,
    enthusiasm, poetry, music, the arts, everything?"

         "But still," said Emma, "we have to be guided a little
    by society's opinions.  We have to follow its standards of
    morality."

         "Ah!  But there are two moralities," he replied.  "The
    petty one, the conventional one, the one invented by man, the
    one that keeps changing and screaming its head off, that one's
    noisy and vulgar, like that crowd of fools you see out there.
    But the other one, the eternal one . . .  Ah!  This one's all
    around us and above us, like the landscape that surrounds us
    and the blue sky that gives us light."

         Monsieur Lieuvain had just wiped his mouth with his
    pocket handkerchief.  He resumed, "Why should I presume,
    gentlemen, to prove to you who are here today the usefulness
    of agriculture?  Who is it that supplies our needs, who is it
    that provisions us, if not the farmer?  The farmer, gentlemen,
    sowing with laborious hand the fertile furrows of our country-
    side, brings forth the wheat which, having been ground and
    reduced to powder by means of ingenious machinery, emerges in
    the form of flour, and from thence, transported to our cities,
    is presently delivered to the baker, who fashions from it a
    food for the poor man as well as for the rich.  Is it not the
    farmer, once again, who fattens his plentiful flocks in the
    pastures to provide us with our clothing?  For how would we be
    clothed, for how would we be nourished, without agriculture?
    Indeed, gentlemen, is there need to seek so far afield for
    examples?  Who among you has not often given thought to the
    immense benefit we derive from that modest creature, adornment
    of our kitchen yards, which provides at one and the same time
    a downy pillow for our beds, its succulent meat for out tables,
    and eggs?  But I should never end, had I to enumerate one after
    another the different products which properly cultivated soil
    lavishes on its children like a generous mother.  Here, the

    grape, there, the cider apple, yonder, the colza, elsewhere, a
    thousand kinds of cheese.  And flax, gentlemen, do not forget
    flax!  An area in which within the past few years there has
    been considerable development, and one to which I particularly
    call your attention."

         There was no need for him to "call their attention," every
    mouth in the crowd was open, as though to drink in his words.
    Tuvache, sitting beside him, listened wide-eyed.  Monsieur
    Derozerays' lids now and again gently shut, and further along
    the pharmacist, holding his son Napoleon between his knees,
    cupped his hand to his ear lest he miss a single syllable.  The
    other members of the jury kept slowly nodding their chins
    against their vests to express their approval.  The fire bri-
    gade, at the foot of the platform, leaned on their bayonets.
    And Binet stood motionless, elbow bent, the tip of his sword
    in the air.  He could hear, perhaps, but he certainly could not
    see, for the visor of his helmet had fallen forward onto his
    nose.  His lieutenant, who was Monsieur Tuvache's younger son,
    had gone him one better.  The helmet he was wearing was far too
    big for him and kept teetering on his head and  showing a cor-
    ner of the calico nightcap he had on under it.  He was smiling
    from beneath his headgear as sweetly as a baby.  And his small
    pale face, dripping with sweat, wore an expression of enjoyment,
    exhaustion and drowsiness.

         The square was packed solidly with people as far as the
    houses.  Spectators were leaning out of every window and
    standing on every doorstep.  And Justin, in front of the
    pharmacy show window, seemed nailed to the spot in contempla-
    tion of the spectacle.  Despite the crowd's silence, Monsieur
    Lieuvain's voice didn't carry too well in the open air.  What
    came was fragmentary bits of sentences interrupted here and
    there by the scraping of chairs.  Then all at once from behind
    there would resound the prolonged lowing of an ox, and lambs
    bleated to one another on the street corners.  For the cowherds
    and shepherds had driven their animals in that close, and from
    time to time a cow would bellow as her tongue tore off some bit
    of foliage hanging down over her muzzle.

         Rodolphe had come close to Emma and was speaking rapidly
    in a low voice.  "Don't you think it's disgusting, the way they
    conspire to ruin everything?  Is there a single sentiment that
    society doesn't condemn?  The noblest instincts, the purest
    sympathies are persecuted and dragged in the mud.  And if two
    poor souls do find one another, everything is organized to
    keep them apart.  They'll try, just the same, they'll beat
    their wings, they'll call to each other.  Oh!  Never fear!
    Sooner or later, in six months or ten years, they'll come
    together and love one another, because they can't go against
    fate and because they were born for each other."

         He was leaning forward with his arms crossed on his
    knees, and lifting his face to Emma's he looked at her fixedly
    from very near.  In his eyes she could see tiny golden lines
    radiating out all around his black pupils, and she could even
    smell the perfume of the pomade that lent a gloss to his hair.
    Then a languor came over her.  She remembered the vicomte who
    had waltzed with her at La Vaubyessard and whose beard had
    given off this same odor of vanilla and lemon, and automatic-
    ally she half closed her eyes to breathe it more deeply.  But
    as she did this, sitting up straight in her chair, she saw in
    the distance, on the farthest horizon, the old stagecoach, the
    Hirondelle, slowly descending the hill of Les Leux, trailing a
    long plume of dust behind it.  It was in this yellow carriage
    that Leon had so often returned to her, and that was the road
    he had taken when he had left forever.  For a moment she
    thought she saw him across the square, at his window, then
    everything became confused, and clouds passed before her eyes.
    It seemed to her that she was still whirling in the waltz,
    under the blaze of the chandeliers, in the vicomte's arms, and
    that Leon was not far off, that he was coming . . .  And yet
    all the while she was smelling the perfume of Rodolphe's hair
    beside her.  The sweetness of this sensation permeated her
    earlier desires, and like grains of sand in the wind these
    whirled about in the subtle fragrance that was filling her
    soul.  She opened her nostrils wide to breathe in the fresh-
    ness of the ivy festooning the capitals outside the window.
    She took off her gloves and wiped her hands.  Then she fanned
    herself with her handkerchief, hearing above the beating of
    the pulse in her temples the murmur of the crowd and the
    councilor's voice as he intoned his periods.

         "Persist!' he was saying.  "Persevere!  Follow neither
    the beaten tracks of routine nor the rash counsels of reckless
    empiricism.  Apply yourselves above all to the improvement of
    the soil, to rich fertilizers, to the development of fine
    breeds, equine, bovine, ovine and porcine.  May this exhibi-
    tion be for you a peaceful arena where the winner, as he
    leaves, will stretch out his hand to the loser and fraternize
    with him, wishing him better luck another time!  And you,
    venerable servants, humblest members of the household, whose
    painful labors have by no government up until today been given
    the slightest consideration.  Present yourselves now, and
    receive the reward of your silent heroism!  And rest assured
    that the state henceforth has its eyes upon you, that it
    encourages you, that it protects you, that it will honor your
    just demands, and lighten, to the best of its ability, the
    burden of your painful sacrifices!"

         Monsieur Lieuvain sat down.

         Monsieur Derozerays stood up, and began another speech.
    His was perhaps not quite so flowery as the councilor's, but
    it had the advantage of being characterized by a more positive
    style, by a more specialized knowledge, that is, and more
    pertinent arguments.  There was less praise of the government,
    and more mention of religion and agriculture.  He showed the
    relation between the two and how they had always worked
    together for the good of civilization.  Rodolphe was talking
    to Madame Bovary about dreams, forebodings, magnetism.  Going
    back to the cradle of human society, the orator depicted the
    savage ages when men lived off acorns in the depths of the
    forest.  Then they had cast off their animal skins, garbed
    themselves in cloth, dug the ground and planted the vine.
    Was this an advance?  Didn't this discovery entail more
    disadvantages than benefits?  That was the problem Monsieur
    Derozerays set himself.  From magnetism Rodolphe gradually
    moved on to affinities.  And as the chairman cited Cincinnatus
    and his plow, Diogenes planting his cabbages and the Chinese
    emperors celebrating the New Year by sowing seed, the young
    man was explaining to the young woman that these irresistible
    attractions had their roots in some earlier existence.

        "Take us, for example," he said.  "Why should we have met?
    How did it happen?  It can only be that something in our
    particular inclinations made us come closer and closer across
    the distance that separated us, the way two rivers flow
    together."

         He took her hand, and this time she did not withdraw it.

         "First prize for all-round farming!" cried the chairman.

         "Just this morning, for example, when I came to your
    house . . ."

         "To Monsieur Bizet, of Quincampoix."

         "Did I have any idea that I'd be coming with you to the
    show?"

         "Seventy francs!"

         "A hundred times I was on the point of leaving, and yet
    I followed you and stayed with you . . ."

         "For the best manures."

         ". . . as I'd stay with you tonight, tomorrow, every day,
    all my life!"

         "To Monsieur Caron, of Argueil, a gold medal!"

         "Never have I been so utterly charmed by anyone . . ."

         "To Monsieur Bain, of Givry-Saint-Martin!"

         ". . . so that I'll carry the memory of you with me . . ."

         "For a merino ram . . ."

         "Whereas you'll forget me, I'll vanish like a shadow."

         "To Monsieur Belot, of Notre-Dame . . ."

         "No, though!  Tell me it isn't so!  Tell me I'll have a
    place in your thoughts, in your life!"

         "Hogs, a tie!  To Messieurs Leherisse and Cullembourg,
    sixty francs!"

         Rodolphe squeezed her hand, and he felt it all warm and
    trembling in his, like a captive dove that longs to fly away.
    But then, whether in an effort to free it, or in response to
    his pressure, she moved her fingers.

         "Oh!  Thank God!  You don't repulse me!  How sweet, how
    kind!  I'm yours.  You know that now!  Let me see you!  Let me
    look at you!"

         A gust of wind coming in the windows ruffled the cloth on
    the table, and down in the square all the tall head-dresses of
    the peasant women rose up like fluttering white butterfly wings.

         "Use of oil-cakes!" continued the chairman.

         He was going faster now.

         "Flemish fertilizer . . . flax-raising . . . drainage . . .
    long-term leases . . . domestic service!"

         Rodolphe had stopped speaking.  They were staring at each
    other.  As their desire rose to a peak their dry lips quivered,
    and, languidly, of their own accord, their fingers intertwined.

         "Catherine-Nicaise-Elizabeth Leroux, of Sassetot-la-
    Guerriere, for fifty-four years of service on the same farm, a
    silver medal, value twenty-five francs!"

         "Where is Catherine Leroux?" repeated the chairman.

         There was no sign of her, but there was the sound of
    whispering voices.

         "Go ahead!"

         "No!"

         "To the left!"

         "Don't be scared!"

         "Stupid old thing!"

         "Is she there or isn't she?' cried Tuvache.

         "Yes!  Here she is!"

         "Then send her up!"

         Everyone watched her as she climbed to the platform.  A
    frightened-looking little old woman who seemed to have shri-
    veled inside her shabby clothes.  On her feet were heavy
    wooden clogs, and she wore a long blue apron.  Her thin face,
    framed in a simple coif, was more wrinkled than a withered
    russet, and out of the sleeves of her red blouse hung her
    large, gnarled hands.  Years of barn dust, washing soda and
    wool grease had left them so crusted and rough and hard that
    they looked dirty despite all the clear water they'd been
    rinsed in.  And from long habit of service they hung half
    open, as though offering their own humble testimony to the
    hardships they had endured.  A kind of monklike rigidity gave
    a certain dignity to her face, but her pale stare was softened
    by no hint of sadness or human kindness.  Living among animals,
    she had taken on their muteness and placidity.  This was the
    first time she had ever been in the midst of so great a crowd.
    And inwardly terrified by the flags and the drums, by the
    gentlemen in tail coats and by the decoration worn by the
    councilor, she stood still, uncertain whether to move ahead or
    to turn and run, comprehending neither the urgings of the
    crowd nor the smiles of the jury.  Thus did half a century of
    servitude stand before these beaming bourgeois.

         "Step forward, venerable Catherine-Nicaise-Elizabeth
    Leroux!" cried the councilor, who had taken the list of prize
    winners from the chairman.

         Looking at the sheet of paper and at the old woman in
    turn, he kept urging her forward like a father.  "Come right
    here, come ahead!"

         "Are you deaf?" cried Tuvache, jumping up from his chair.

         And he proceeded to shout into her ear.  "Fifty-four
    years of service!  A silver medal!  Twenty-five francs!  For
    you!"

         She took the medal and stared at it.  Then a beatific
    smile spread over her face, and as she left the platform those
    nearby could hear her mumble, "I'll give it to our priest and
    he'll say some Masses for me."

         "Such fanaticism!" hissed the pharmacist, bending toward
    the notary.

         The ceremonies were ended.  The crowd dispersed, and now
    that the speeches had been read everyone resumed his rank and
    everything reverted to normal.  Masters bullied their servants,
    the servants beat their cows and their sheep, and the cows and
    the sheep, indolent in their triumph, moved slowly back to
    their sheds, their horns decked with the green wreaths that
    were their trophies.

         Meanwhile the national guard had gone up to the second
    floor of the town hall.  Brioches were impaled on their
    bayonets, and their drummer bore a basketful of bottles.
    Madame Bovary took Rodolphe's arm.  He escorted her home.
    They said good-bye at her door, and then he went for a stroll
    in the meadow until it was time for the banquet.

         The feast was long, noisy, clumsily served.  The guests
    were so crowded that they could scarcely move their elbows,
    and the narrow planks that were used for benches threatened
    to snap under their weight.  They ate enormously, each piling
    his plate high to get full value for his assessment.  Sweat
    poured off every forehead.  And over the table, between the
    hanging lamps, hovered a whitish vapor, like a river mist on
    an autumn morning.  Rodolphe, his back against the cloth side
    of the tent, was thinking so much about Emma that he was aware
    of nothing going on around him.  Out on the grass behind him
    servants were stacking dirty plates.  His tablemates spoke to
    him and he didn't answer.  Someone kept filling his glass, and
    his mind was filled with stillness despite the growing noise.
    He was thinking of the things she had said and of the shape of
    her lips.  Her face shone out from the plaques on the shakos
    as from so many magic mirrors.  The folds of her dress hung
    down the walls, and days of love-making stretched endlessly
    ahead in the vistas of the future.

         He saw her again that evening, during the fireworks, but
    she was with her husband and Madame Homais and the pharmacist.
    The latter was very worried about stray rockets, and constantly
    left the others to give Binet a word of advice.

         Through overprecaution, the fireworks, which had been
    delivered in care of Monsieur Tuvache, had been stored in his
    cellar, with the result that the damp powder could scarcely
    be got to light.  And the culminating number, which was to
    have depicted a dragon swallowing its own tail, was a complete
    fiasco.  Now and then some pathetic little Roman candle would
    go off and bring a roar from the gaping crowd.  A roar amidst
    which could be heard the screams of women, fair game for
    ticklers in the darkness.  Emma nestled silently against
    Charles' shoulder, raising her head to follow the bright trail
    of the rockets in the black sky.  Rodolphe watched her in the
    glow of the colored lamps.

         Gradually these went out, the stars gleamed.  Then came
    a few drops of rain, and she tied a scarf over her hair.

         Just then the councilor's landau drove out of the hotel
    yard.  The drunken coachman chose that moment to collapse, and
    high above the hood, between the two lamps, everyone could see
    the mass of his body swaying right and left with the pitching
    of the springs.

         "There ought to be strong measures taken against drunken-
    ness," said the apothecary.  "If I had my way, there'd be a
    special bulletin board put up on the door of the town hall,
    and every week there'd be a list posted of all who had intoxi-
    cated themselves with alcoholic liquors during that period.
    Such a thing would be very valuable statistically, a public
    record that might . . .  Excuse me!"

         And once again he hurried off toward the captain.

         The latter was homeward bound.  He was looking forward to
    rejoining his lathe.

         "It might not do any harm," said Homais, "to send one of
    your men, or go yourself, to . . ."

         "Get away and leave me alone," replied the tax collector.
    "Everything's taken care of."

         "You can all stop worrying," the apothecary announced
    when he was back with his friends.  "Monsieur Binet guarantees
    that all necessary measures have been taken.  Not a spark has
    fallen.  The pumps are full.  We can safely retire to our beds."

         "I can certainly do with some sleep," said Madame Homais,
    with a vast yawn.  "Never mind, we had a wonderfully beautiful
    day for the show."

         Rodolphe echoed her words in a low voice, his eyes soft.
    "Yes, it was, wonderfully beautiful."

         They exchanged good-byes and went their respective ways.

         Two days later, in the Fanal de Rouen, there was a great
    article about the Agricultural Show.  Homais had written it in
    a burst of inspiration the very next day.

         "Why these festoons, these flowers, these garlands?
    Whither was it bound, this crowd rushing like the billows of
    a raging sea under a torrential tropic sun that poured its
    torrid rays upon our fertile meadows?"

         Then he went on to speak of the condition of the peasants.
    The government was doing something, certainly, but not enough.
    "Be bold!" he cried, addressing the administration.  "A thou-
    sand reforms are indispensable.  Let us accomplish them."
    Then, describing the arrival of the councilor, he didn't for-
    get "the warlike air of our militia," or "our sprightliest
    village maidens," or the bald-headed old men, veritable patri-
    archs, "some of whom, survivors of our immortal phalanxes,
    felt their hearts throb once again to the manly sound of the
    drums."  His own name came quite early in his listing of the
    members of the jury, and he even reminded his readers in a
    footnote that Monsieur Homais, the pharmacist, had sent a
    monograph concerning cider to the Agricultural Society.  When
    he came to the distribution of the prizes, he depicted the
    joy of the winners in dithyrambic terms.  Father embraced son,
    brother embraced brother, husband embraced wife.  More than
    one worthy rustic proudly displayed his humble medal to the
    assemblage, and, returning home to his helpmeet, doubtless
    wept tears of joy as he hung it on the modest wall of his cot.

         "About six o'clock the leading participants in the festi-
    vities forgathered at a banquet in the pasture belonging to
    Monsieur Liegeard.  The utmost cordiality reigned throughout.
    A number of toasts were proposed.  By Monsieur Lieuvain, `To
    the king!'  By Monsieur Tuvache, `To the prefect!'  By Monsieur
    Derozerays, `To agriculture!'  By Monsieur Homais, `To those
    twin sisters, industry and the fine arts!'  By Monsieur
    Leplichey, `To progress!'  After nightfall a brilliant display
    of fireworks all at once illuminated the heavens.  It was a
    veritable kaleidescope, a true stage-set for an opera, and for
    a moment our modest village imagined itself transported into
    the midst of an Arabian Nights dream.

         "We may mention that no untoward incidents arose to disturb
    this family gathering."

         And he added, "Only the clergy was conspicuous by its
    absence.  Doubtless a totally different idea of progress obtains
    in the sacristies.  Suit yourselves, messieurs de Loyola!"




















    PART 2

    CHAPTER NINE

         Six weeks went by without further visit from Rodolphe.
    Then one evening he came.

         The day after the Show he had admonished himself, "I
    mustn't go back right away.  That would be a mistake."  And
    at the end of the week he had left for a hunting trip.

         After his hunting was over he thought he had waited too
    long.  But then, "If she loved me from the first, she must be
    impatient to see me again," he reasoned.  "And this means she
    must love me all the more by now.  So, back to the attack!"

         And when he saw Emma turn pale as he entered the parlor
    he knew he was right.

         She was alone.  Daylight was fading.  The muslin sash
    curtains deepened the twilight, and the gilt barometer had
    just caught a ray of sun and was blazing in the mirror between
    the lacy edges of the coral.

         Rodolphe remained standing, and Emma scarcely replied to
    his first conventionally polite phrases.

         "I've been having all kinds of things happen," he said.
    "I was ill."

         "Anything serious?" she cried.

         "Well, not really," he said, sitting beside her on a stool.
    "It was just that I didn't want to come here again."

         "Why?"

         "Can't you guess?"

         He stared at her, this time so intently that she blushed
    and lowered her head.

         "Emma . . ." he said.

         "Monsieur!" she exclaimed, drawing away a little.

         "Ah, you can see for yourself," he said, in a resigned
    voice, "that I was right not to want to come here again.  Your
    name . . . my heart's full of it . . . I spoke it without
    meaning to, and you stopped me.  `Madame Bovary'!  Everyone
    calls you that, and it's not your name at all.  It's somebody
    else's.  Somebody else's," he said a second time, and he buried
    his face in his hands.  "I think of you every minute!  The
    thought of you drives me crazy!  Forgive me . . . I won't stay
    with you.  I'll go away . . . far away . . . so far that you'll
    never hear of me again.  But today . . . I don't know what
    power it was that made me come.  We can't fight against fate.
    There's no resisting when an angel smiles.  Once something
    lovely and charming and adorable has wound itself around your
    heart . . ."

         It was the first time that Emma had had such things said
    to her.  And her pride, like someone relaxing in a steam bath,
    stretched luxuriously in the warmth of his words.

         "No," he continued.  "I didn't come, these past few weeks.
    I haven't seen you.  But everything close to you I've looked at
    and looked at.  At night, night after night, I got up and came
    here and stared at your house.  The roof shining in the moon-
    light, the trees in the garden swaying at your window, and a
    little lamp, just a gleam, shining through the windowpanes in
    the dark.  Ah!  You little knew that a poor wretch was standing
    there, so near you and yet so far . . ."

         She turned to him with a sob.  "How kind you are . . .!"

         "I'm not kind!  I love you, that's all!  You must know
    it.  Tell me you do!  One word!  Just one word!"

         And Rodolphe was sliding imperceptibly from the stool to
    his knees when there was a sound of sabots in the kitchen and
    he saw that the door of the room was ajar.

         "You'd be doing me a favor," he said, resuming his
    position on the stool, "if you'd gratify a whim I have."

         The whim was to be taken through her house.  He wanted
    to see it.  Madame Bovary saw nothing out of the way in the
    request, and they were both just rising to their feet when
    Charles appeared.

         "Bonjour, docteur," Rodolphe greeted him.

         Flattered to be so addressed, the officier de sante was
    profusely obsequious, and Rodolphe profitted from those few
    moments to regain some of his composure.

         "Madame was talking to me about her health," he began,
    "and . . ."

         Charles interrupted him.  He was very worried indeed,
    his wife was having difficulty breathing again.  Rodolphe
    asked whether horseback riding might not be good for her.

         "Certainly it would!  Just the thing!  An excellent
    suggestion, darling!  You ought to follow it."

         She pointed out that she had no horse, Monsieur Rodolphe
    offered her one of his.  She declined, he did not insist, and
    finally, to explain the purpose of his visit, he told Charles
    that his teamster, the man who had been bled, was still having
    dizzy spells.

         "I'll stop by and see him," said Bovary.

         "No, no, I'll send him to you.  We'll come here, that
    will be easier for you."

         "Very good.  Thank you."

         As soon as they were alone, "Why don't you accept Monsieur
    Boulanger's suggestions?  He's being so gracious."

         She pouted, made one excuse after another, and finally
    said that "it might look strange."

         "A lot I care about that!" said Charles, turning on his
    heel.  "Health comes first!  You're wrong!"

         "But how do you expect me to ride a horse if I have no
    habit?'

         "You must order one," he replied.

         It was the riding habit that decided her.

         When it was ready, Charles wrote to Monsieur Boulanger
    that his wife was at his disposition, and that they thanked
    him in advance for his kindness.

         The next day at noon Rodolphe presented himself at
    Charles' door with two riding horses.  One of them had pink
    pompons decorating its ears and bore a lady's buckskin
    saddle.

        Rodolphe had put on a pair of high soft boots, telling
    himself that she had probably never seen anything like them.
    And Emma was indeed charmed with his appearance when he came
    up to the landing in his velvet frock coat and white tricot
    riding breeches.  She was ready and waiting for him.

         Justin ran out of the pharmacy to take a look at her,
    and the apothecary himself left his work for a few moments.
    He gave Monsieur Boulanger several bits of advice.

         "Accidents happen so quickly!  Take care!  Your horses
    may be more spirited than you know!"

         She heard a sound above her head.  It was Felicite
    drumming on the windowpanes to amuse little Berthe.  The
    child blew her a kiss, and Emma made a sign with her riding
    crop in answer.

         "Have a good ride!" cried Monsieur Homais.  "Be careful!
    That's the main thing!  Careful!"

         And he waved his newspaper after them as he watched them
    ride away.

         As soon as it felt soft ground, Emma's horse broke into
    a gallop.  Rodolphe galloped at her side.  Now and again they
    exchanged a word.  With her head slightly lowered, her hand
    raised and her right arm outstretched, she let herself go to
    the rhythmic rocking motion.

         At the foot of the hill Rodolphe gave his horse its head.
    Both horses leapt forward as one, and then at the top they as
    suddenly stopped, and Emma's large blue veil settled and hung
    still.

         It was early October.  There was a mist over the country-
    side.  Wisps of vapor lay along the horizon, following the
    contours of the hills, and elsewhere they were drifting and
    rising and evaporating.  Now and then as the clouds shifted, a
    ray of sun would light up the roofs of Yonville in the distance,
    with its riverside gardens, it yards and its church steeple.
    Emma half closed her eyes trying to pick out her house, and
    never had the wretched village she lived in looked so very
    small.  From the height on which they were standing the whole
    valley was like an immense pale lake, dissolving into thin air.
    Clumps of trees stood out here and there like dark rocks, and
    the tall lines of poplars piercing the fog were like its leafy
    banks, swaying in the wind.

         To one side, over the turf between the firs, the light
    was dim and the air mild.  The reddish earth, the color of
    snuff, deadened the sound of the hoofs, and the horses kicked
    fir cones before them as they walked.

         For a time Rodolphe and Emma continued to follow the edge
    of the wood.  Now and then she turned her head away to avoid
    his eyes, and at such moments she saw only the regularly spaced
    trunks of the firs, almost dizzying in their unbroken succession.
    The horses were blowing, and the leather creaked in the saddles.

         Then they turned into the forest, and at that moment the
    sun came out.

         "God's watching over us," said Rodolphe.

         "You think so?" she said.

         "Let's go on!" he said.

         He clicked his tongue, and both horses broke into a trot.

         Tall ferns growing along the path kept catching in Emma's
    stirrup, and Rodolphe bent over as he rode and pulled them out.
    At other times he came close to her to push aside overhanging
    branches, and she felt his knee brush against her leg.  Now the
    sky was blue, and the leaves were still.  There were clearings
    full of heather in bloom, and the sheets of purple alternated
    with the multicolored tangle of the trees, gray, fawn and gold.
    Often a faint rustling and fluttering of wings would come from
    under the bushes, or there would be the cry, at once raucous
    and sweet, of crows flying off among the oaks.

         They dismounted.  Rodolphe tethered the horses.  She
    walked ahead of him on the moss between the cart tracks.

         But the long skirt of her habit impeded her, even though
    she held it up by the end.  And Rodolphe, walking behind her,
    kept staring at her sheer white stocking that showed between
    the black broadcloth and the black shoe as though it were a
    bit of her naked flesh.

         She stopped.

         "I'm tired," she said.

         "Just a little further," he said.  "Come along, try."

         Then a hundred yards further on she stopped again, and
    the veil that slanted down from her man's hat to below her
    waist covered her face with a translucent blue film, as
    though she were swimming under limpid water.

         "Where are we going?"

         He didn't answer.  She was breathing quickly.  Rodolphe
    looked this way and that, biting his mustache.

         They came to a larger open space, one that had recently
    been cleared of saplings.  They sat down on a log, and Rodolphe
    spoke to her of his love.

         He was careful not to frighten her, at first, by saying
    anything overbold.  He was calm, serious, melancholy.

         She listened to him with lowered head, stirring the wood
    chips on the ground with the toe of her shoe.

         But when he said, "Our lives are bound up together now,
    aren't they?" she answered, "No . . . you know they can't be."

         She rose to leave.  He grasped her wrist.  She stood still
    and gave him a long look, her eyes moist and tender.  Then she
    said hastily.  "Please . . . let's not talk about it any more.
    Where are the horses?  Let's go back."

         A movement of angry displeasure escaped him.

         "Where are the horses?" she asked again.  "Where are the
    horses?"

         Then, smiling a strange smile, staring fixedly, his teeth
    clenched, he advanced toward her with arms outstretched.  She
    drew back trembling.

         "You're frightening me!" she stammered.  "What are you
    doing?  Take me back!"

         His expression changed.  "Since you insist," he said.

         And abruptly he was once more considerate, tender, timid.
    She took his arm and they turned back.

         "What was the matter?" he asked.  "What came over you?
    I don't understand.  You must have some mistaken idea.  I have
    you in my heart like a Madonna on a pedestal, in an exalted
    place, secure, immaculate.  But I need you if I'm to go on
    living!  I need your eyes, your voice, your thoughts.  I be-
    seech you.  Be my friend, my sister, my angel!"

         And he reached out his arm and put it around her waist.
    She made a half-hearted effort to free herself, but he kept it
    there, holding her as they walked.

         Now they were so close to the horses that they heard them
    munching leaves.

         "Just a little longer," begged Rodolphe.  "Let's not go
    yet.  Wait."

         He drew her further on, to the edge of a little pond
    whose surface was green with duck weed and where faded water
    lilies lay still among the rushes.  At the sound of their
    steps in the grass, frogs leaped to hiding.

         "It's wrong of me," she said.  "Wrong.  I must be out of
    my mind to listen to you."

         "Why?  Emma!  Emma!"


         "Oh!  Rodolphe!"  The syllables came out slowly, and she
    pressed against his shoulder.

         The broadcloth of her habit clung to the velvet of his
    coat.  She leaned back her head, her white throat swelled in
    a sigh, and, her resistance gone, weeping, hiding her face,
    with a long shudder she gave herself to him.

         Evening shadows were falling, and the level rays of the
    sun streamed through the branches and dazzled her eyes.  Here
    and there, all about her, among the leaves and on the ground,
    were shimmering patches of light, as though hummingbirds
    winging by had scattered their feathers.  All was silent.  A
    soft sweetness seemed to be seeping from the trees.  She felt
    her heart beating again, and her blood flowing in her flesh
    like a river of milk.  Then from far off, beyond the woods in
    distant hills, she heard a vague, long, drawn-out cry, a sound
    that lingered, and she listened silently as it mingled like a
    strain of music with the last vibrations of her quivering
    nerves.  Rodolphe, a cigar between his teeth, was mending a
    broken bridle with his penknife.

         They returned to Yonville by the same route.  In the
    mud they saw, side by side, the hoof prints left there by
    their own two horses.  They saw the same bushes, the same
    stones in the grass.  Nothing around them had changed, and yet
    to her something had happened that was more momentous than if
    mountains had moved.  Rodolphe reached over, now and then, and
    raised her hand to this lips.

         She was charming on horseback.  Erect and slender, her
    knee bent against the animal's mane, her face flushed a little
    by the air in the red glow of evening.

         As she entered the village she made her horse prance on
    the stone pavement, and people stared at her from their windows.

         Her husband, at dinner, found that she looked well, but
    she seemed not to hear him when he asked about her ride, and
    she leaned her elbow on the table beside her plate, between the
    two lighted candles.

         "Emma!" he said.

         "What?"

         "Well, I called on Monsieur Alexandre this afternoon.  He
    bought a filly a few years ago and she's still in fine shape,
    just a little broken in the knees.  I'm sure I could get her
    for a hundred ecus . . ."

         And he went on, "I thought you might like to have her, so
    I reserved her . . . I bought her . . . Did I do right?  Tell
    me."

         She nodded her head in assent.  Then, a quarter of an hour
    later.

         "Are you going out tonight?" she asked.

         "Yes, why?"

         "Oh, nothing . . . nothing, dear."

         And as soon as she was rid of Charles she went upstairs
    and shut herself in her room.

         At first it was as though she were in a daze.  She saw the
    trees, the paths, the ditches, Rodolphe.  Once again she felt
    his arms tighten around her as the leaves were all a-tremble
    and the reeds whistled in the wind.

         Then she caught sight of herself in the mirror, and was
    amazed by the way she looked.  Never had her eyes been so
    enormous, so dark, so deep.  Her whole being was transfigured
    by some subtle emanation.

         "I have a lover!  I have a lover!" she kept repeating to
    herself, reveling in the thought as though she were beginning
    a second puberty.  At last she was going to know the joys of
    love, the fever of the happiness she had despaired of.  She
    was entering a marvelous realm where all would be passion,
    ecstasy, rapture.  She was in the midst of an endless blue
    expanse, scaling the glittering heights of passion.  Everyday
    life had receded, and lay far below, in the shadows between
    those peaks.

         She remembered the heroines of novels she had read, and
    the lyrical legion of those adulterous women began to sing in
    her memory with sisterly voices that enchanted her.  Now she
    saw herself as one of those amoureuses whom she had so envied.
    She was becoming, in reality, one of that gallery of fictional
    figures, the long dream of her youth was coming true.  She was
    full of a delicious sense of vengeance.  How she had suffered!
    But now her hour of triumph had come, and love, so long re-
    pressed, was gushing forth in joyful effervescence.  She
    savored it without remorse, without anxiety, without distress.

         The next day brought new delight.  They exchanged vows.
    She told him her sorrows.  Rodolphe interrupted her with
    kisses.  And she begged him, gazing at him with half-shut
    eyes, to say her name again and tell her once more that he
    loved her.  They were in the forest, like the day before,
    this time in a hut used by sabot-makers.  The walls were of
    straw, and the roof was so low that they could not stand
    erect.  They sat side by side on a bed of dry leaves.

         From that day on they wrote each other regularly every
    night.  Emma took her letter out into the garden and slipped
    it into a crack in the terrace wall beside the river.  Rodolphe
    came, took it, and left one for her.  One that was always,
    she complained, too short.

         One morning when Charles had gone out before sunrise
    she was seized with a longing to see Rodolphe at once.  She
    could go quickly to La Huchette, stay there an hour, and be
    back in Yonville before anyone was up.  The thought made her
    pant with desire, and soon she was halfway across the meadow,
    walking fast and not looking back.

         Day was just breaking.  From far off Emma recognized her
    lover's farm, with its two swallow-tailed weathervanes silhou-
    etted in black against the pale twilight.

         Beyond the farmyard was a building that could only be
    the chateau.  She entered it as though the walls opened of
    themselves at her approach.  A long straight staircase led to
    an upper hall.  Emma turned the latch of a door, and there at
    the far end of a room she saw a man asleep.  It was Rodolphe.
    She uttered a cry.

         "It's you!" he cried.  "You, here!  How did you come?
    Ah!  Your dress is wet!"

         "I love you!" was her answer, and she flung her arms
    around his neck.

         She had dared and won, and from then on, each time that
    Charles went out early she quickly dressed and stole down the
    river stairs.

         If the cow plank had been raised she had to follow the
    garden walls that bordered the stream.  The bank was slippery,
    and to keep from falling she would clutch at tufts of faded
    wallflowers.  Then she would strike out across the ploughed
    fields, sinking in, stumbling, her light shoes getting con-
    tinually stuck in the soft soil.  The scarf she had tied over
    her head fluttered in the wind as she crossed the meadows.
    She was afraid of the oxen, and would begin to run.  And she
    would arrive breathless, rosy-cheeked, everything about her
    smelling of sap and verdure and fresh air.  Rodolphe would
    still be asleep.  She was like a spring morning entering his
    room.

         The yellow curtains masking the windows let through a
    soft, dull golden light.  Emma would grope her way, squinting,
    dewdrops clinging to her hair like a halo of topazes around
    her face.  And Rodolphe would laugh and draw her to him and
    strain her to his heart.

         Afterwards she would explore the room, opening drawers,
    combing her hair with his comb, looking at herself in his
    shaving mirror.  Often she took the stem of his pipe in her
    teeth, a large pipe that he kept on his night table, beside
    the lemons and lumps of sugar that were there with his water
    jug.

         It always took them a good quarter of an hour to say
    good-bye.  Emma invariably wept.  She wished that she never
    had to leave him.  Some irresistible force kept driving her
    time and again to his side, until one day when she arrived
    unexpectedly he frowned as though displeased.

         "What's wrong?" she cried.  "Are you ill?  Tell me!"

         After some urging, he declared gravely that her visits
    were becoming foolhardy and that she was risking her repu-
    tation.



















    PART 2

    CHAPTER TEN

         As time went on she came to share Rodolphe's fears.  Love
    had intoxicated her at first, and she had no thought beyond it.
    But now that life was inconceivable without it she was terri-
    fied lest she be deprived of any protion of this love, or even
    that it be in any way interfered with.  Each time she returned
    from one of her visits she cast uneasy glances about her, peer-
    ing at every figure moving on the horizon, at every dormer in
    the village from which she might be seen.  Her ears picked up
    the sound of every footstep, every voice, every plough.  And
    she would stand still, paler and more trembling than the leaves
    of the swaying poplars overhead.

         One morning on her way back she suddenly thought she saw
    a rifle pointing at her.  It was slanting out over the edge of
    a small barrel half hidden in the grass beside a ditch.  She
    felt faint with fright, but continued to walk ahead, and a man
    emerged from the barrel like a jack-in-the-box.  He wore gaiters
    buckled up to his knees, and his cap was pulled down over his
    eyes.  His lips were trembling with cold and his nose was red.
    It was Captain Binet, out after wild duck.

         "You should have called!" he cried.  "When you see a gun
    you must always give warning."

         That reproach was actually the tax collector's attempt to
    cover up the fright that Emma had given him.  There was a police
    ordinance prohibiting duck-shooting except from boats, and for
    all his respect for the law, Monsieur Binet was in the process
    of committing a violation.  He had been expecting the game
    warden to appear any minute.  But fear had added spice to his
    enjoyment, and in the solitude of his barrel he had been con-
    gratulating himself on his luck and his deviltry.

         At the sight of Emma he felt relieved of a great weight,
    and he opened conversation, "Chilly, isn't it!  Really nippy!"

         Emma made no answer.

         "You're certainly out bright and early," he went on.

         "Yes," she stammered.  "I've been to see my baby at the
    nurse's."

         "Ah, I see!  I see!  As for me, I've been right here where
    I am now ever since daybreak, but it's such dirty weather that
    unless you have the bird at the very end of your gun . . ."

         "Good-bye, Monsieur Binet," she interrupted, turning away.

         "Good-bye, Madame," he answered dryly.  And he went back
    into his barrel.

         Emma regretted having taken such brusque leave of the tax
    collector.  Whatever surmises he made would certainly be to
    her discredit.  What she had said about the wet nurse was the
    worst possible story she could have invented.  Everyone in
    Yonville knew perfectly well that little Berthe had been back
    with her parents for a year.  Besides, no one lived out in
    that direction.  That particular path led only to La Huchette.
    Binet must certainly have guessed where she was coming from.
    He wouldn't keep his mouth shut, either.  He would gossip,
    unquestionably.  All day she racked her brains, trying to
    dream up all possible lies, and she brooded incessantly about
    that fool with his game bag.

         After dinner Charles, seeing that she looked worried
    about something, had the idea of distracting her from whatever
    it was by taking her to call on the pharmacist, and the first
    person she saw in the pharmacy was, once again, the tax
    collector!  He was standing at the counter in the glow of the
    red jar, saying, "Give me a half-ounce of vitriol."

         "Justin," called the pharmacist, "bring the sulphuric
    acid."

         Then, to Emma, who was about to go up to Madame Homais'
    quarters.

         "No, don't bother to climb the stairs, she'll be coming
    down directly.  Warm yourself at the stove while you wait.
    Excuse me . . . Bonjour, docteur."  (The pharmacist greatly
    enjoyed uttering the word docteur, as though by applying it
    to someone else he caused some of the glory it held for him
    to be reflected on himself.)  "But be careful not to knock
    over the mortars," he called to Justin.  "No, no!  Go get
    some of the chairs from the little room!  You know perfectly
    well we never move the parlor armchairs."

         And Homais was just bustling out from behind the counter
    to put his armchair back where it belonged when Binet asked
    him for a half-ounce of sugar acid.

         "Sugar acid?" said the pharmacist scornfully.  "I don't
    know what that is.  I never heard of it.  You want oxalic
    acid, perhaps?  Oxalic is what you mean, isn't it?"

         Binet explained that he needed a corrosive.  He wanted
    to make some metal polish to clean the rust off parts of his
    hunting gear.  Emma stood rigid.

         "Yes, the weather is certainly umpropitious," said the
    pharmacist, "what with all this dampness."

         "Still," said the tax collector slyly, "there are people
    who don't mind it."

         She was choking.

         "Now give me . . ."

         "He'll never go!" she thought.

         " . . . a half-ounce of rosin and turpentine, four ounces
    of beeswax, and an ounce and a half of boneblack to clean the
    patent leather on my outfit."

         As the apothecary began cutting the wax, Madame Homais
    appeared with Irma in her arms, Napoleon beside her and Athalie
    bringing up the rear.  She sat down on the plush-covered bench
    by the window, while the boy took a stool and his elder sister
    kept close to the jujube jar, near her dear papa.  The latter
    was pouring things into funnels, corking bottles, gluing labels
    and wrapping parcels.  Everyone watched him in silence.  The
    only sound was an occasional clink of weights in the scales,
    and a few low-voiced words of advice from the pharmacist to his
    apprentice.

         "How is your little girl?" Madame Homais suddenly asked.

         "Quiet!" cried her husband, who was jotting figures on a
    scratch-pad.

         "Why didn't you bring her?" she went on, in an undertone.

         "Sh!  Sh!" said Emma, pointing to the apothecary.

         But Binet, absorbed in checking the pharmacist's arith-
    metic, seemed to have heard nothing.  Then at last he left.
    Emma gave a deep sigh of relief.

         "How heavily you're breathing!" said Madame Homais.

         "Don't you find it rather warm?" she answered.

         The next day, therefore, Emma and Rodolphe discussed the
    best way of arranging their meetings.  Emma was for bribing
    her maid with a present, but it would be better if they could
    find some other, safer place in Yonville.  Rodolphe promised
    to look for one.

         From then on, three or four times a week throughout the
    winter, he came to the garden in the dark of the night.  Emma
    had removed the key from the gate, letting Charles think it
    was lost.

         To announce himself, Rodolphe threw a handful of gravel
    against the shutters.  She always started up, but sometimes
    she had to wait, for Charles loved to chat beside the fire,
    and went on and on.  She would grow wild with impatience, if
    she could have accomplished it with a look, she would have
    flung him out a window.  Finally she would begin to get ready
    for bed, and then she would take up a book and sit quietly
    reading, as though absorbed.  Charles, in bed by this time,
    would call her.

         "Come, Emma," he would say.  "It's time."

         "Yes, I'm coming," she would answer.

         But the candles shone in his eyes, and he would turn to
    the wall and fall asleep.  Then she slipped out, holding her
    breath, smiling, palpitating, half undressed.

         Rodolphe would enfold her in the large full cape he wore
    and, with his arm around her waist, lead her without a word to
    the foot of the garden.

         It was in the arbor that they spent their time together,
    on the same dilapidated rustic bench from which Leon used to
    stare at her so amorously on summer evenings.  She scarcely
    thought of him now.

         The stars glittered through the bare branches of the
    jasmine.  Behind them they heard the flowing of the river, and
    now and again the crackle of dry reeds on the bank.  Here and
    there in the darkness loomed patches of deeper shadow.  And
    sometimes these would suddenly seem to shudder, rear up and
    then curve downward, like huge black waves threatening to
    engulf them.  In the cold of the night they clasped each other
    the more tightly, the sighs that came from their lips seemed
    deeper, their half-seen eyes looked larger, and amidst the
    silence their soft-spoken words had a crystalline ring that
    echoed and reechoed in their hearts.

         If the night was rainy they sought shelter in the con-
    sulting room, between the shed and the stable.  She would
    light a kitchen lamp that she kept hidden behind the books.
    Rodolphe made himself at home here, as though the place be-
    longed to him.  The sight of the bookcase and the desk, indeed
    the whole room, aroused his hilarity.  He couldn't keep from
    joking about Charles in a way that made Emma uncomfortable.
    She would have liked him to be more serious, or even more
    dramatic sometimes, like the night she thought she heard the
    sound of approaching footsteps in the lane.

         "Someone's coming," she whispered.

         He blew out the light.

         "Have you got your pistols?'


         "What for?"

         "Why . . . to defend yourself," said Emma.

         "You mean against your husband?  That poor . . .?"

         And Rodolphe ended his sentence with a gesture that meant
    that he could annihilate Charles with a flick of his finger.

         This display of fearlessness dazzled her, even though she
    sensed in it a crudity and bland vulgarity that shocked her.

         Rodolphe thought a good deal about that episode of the
    pistols.  If she had spoken in earnest, it was absurd of her,
    he thought, really an odious thing, for he had no cause to
    hate poor Charles.  He was by no means "devoured by jealousy,"
    as the saying went.  And indeed, in this connection, Emma had
    made him a tremendous vow that he, for his part, thought in
    rather poor taste.

         Besides, she was becoming frightfully sentimental.  They
    had had to exchange miniatures and cut handfuls of each other's
    hair.  And now she was asking for a ring, a real wedding band,
    as a sign of eternal union.  She often talked to him about the
    "bells of evening," or the "voices of nature," and then she
    would go on about her mother and his.  Rodolphe's mother had
    been dead for twenty years, but Emma kept consoling him in the
    kind of affected language one uses to a bereaved child.  And
    sometimes she would even look at the moon and say to him,
    "Somewhere up there I'm sure they're both looking down at us
    and approving of our love.

         But she was so pretty!  He couldn't remember ever having
    had so unspoiled a mistress.  The purity of her love was some-
    thing entirely new to him.  It was a change from his usual
    loose habits, and it both flattered his pride and inflamed his
    senses.  Emma's continual raptures, which his bourgeois common
    sense despised, seemed to him in his heart of hearts charming,
    since it was he who inspired them.

         As time went on he stopped making any effort, secure in
    the knowledge that he was loved, and imperceptibly his manner
    changed.  No longer did he speak to her, as before, in words
    so sweet that they made her weep, nor were there any more of
    those fervid embraces that frenzied her.  Their great love, in
    which she lived completely immersed, seemed to be ebbing away,
    like the water of a river that was sinking into its own bed,
    and she saw the mud at the bottom.  She refused to believe it.
    She redoubled her caresses, and Rodolphe hid his indifference
    less and less.

         She didn't know whether she regretted having yielded to
    him or whether she didn't rather long to love him more dearly.
    Her humiliating feeling of weakness was turning into resent-
    ment, but this melted away in the heat of his embraces.  It
    was not an attachment, it was a kind of permanent seduction.
    She was in his bondage.  It almost frightened her.

         Nevertheless, from the outside everything looked more
    serene than ever, Rodolphe having succeeded in conducting the
    affair as he pleased.  And at the end of six months, when
    spring came, they were like a married couple peacefully
    tending a domestic flame.

         It was the time of the year when Monsieur Rouault always
    sent his turkey, in commemoration of his mended leg.  As
    usual, the present was accompanied by a letter.  Emma cut the
    string tying it to the basket, and read the following:

              Dear Children:
                   I hope these lines find you well and that this
              one will be up to the others.  It seems to me a
              little tenderer, if I may say so, and meatier.  But
              next time I'll send you a cock for a change, unless
              you'd rather stick to gobblers, and please send me
              back the basket along with the last two.  I had an
              accident with the cart shed, one night a heavy wind
              blew the roof off into the trees.  Crops haven't
              been too good either.  I can't tell when I'll come
              to see you.  It's so hard for me to leave the place
              now that I'm alone.

         Here there was a space between the lines, as though the
    old man had put down his pen to think a while.

                   As for me, I'm all right, except for a cold I
              caught the other day at the fair in Yvetot, where I
              went to hire a shepherd, having got rid of the one I
              had because he was too particular about his food.
              All these good-for-nothings give you more trouble
              than they're worth.  This one was disrespectful
              besides.

                   I heard from a peddler who stopped in your town
              to have a tooth drawn that Bovary keeps busy.  It
              doesn't surprise me, and he showed me his tooth.  We
              took a cup of coffee together.  I asked if he'd seen
              you, Emma, he said no, but he'd seen two horses in
              the stable from which I assume that business is pros-
              pering.  I'm glad of it, dear children, may the good
              Lord send you every possible happiness.

                   It grieves me that I've never seen my beloved
              granddaughter Berthe Bovary.  I've planted a tree of
              September plums for her under the window of your room
              and I won't let anybody touch it except to make some
              jam for her later that I'll keep in the cupboard for
              her when she comes.

                   Good-bye, dear children.  I kiss you on both
              cheeks, all three of you.

                                       I am, with all good wishes,
                                                Your loving father
                                                  Theodore Rouault

         She sat for a few minutes with the sheet of coarse paper
    in her hand.  The letter was thick with spelling mistakes, and
    Emma brooded on the affectionate thought that cackled through
    them like a hen half hidden in a thorn hedge.  Her father had
    dried his writing with ash from the fireplace, for a bit of
    gray dust drifted out of the letter onto her dress, and she
    could almost see the old man bending down toward the hearth to
    take up the tongs.  How long it was since she had sat there
    beside him, on the fireseat, burning the end of a stick in the
    flame of the crackling furze!  She remembered summer evenings,
    full of sunshine.  The foals would whinny when anyone came
    near, and gallop and gallop to their hearts' content.  There
    had been a beehive under her window, and sometimes the bees,
    wheeling in the light, would strike against the panes like
    bouncing golden balls.  How happy she had been in those days!
    How free!  How full of hope!  How rich in illusions!  There
    were no illusions left now!  She had had to part with some
    each time she had ventured on a new path, in each of her
    successive conditions, as virgin, as wife, as mistress.  All
    along the course of her life she had been losing them, like a
    traveler leaving a bit of his fortune in every inn along the
    road.

         But what was making her so unhappy?  Where was the
    extraordinary disaster that had wrought havoc with her life?
    And she lifted her head and looked about her, as though
    trying to discover the cause of her suffering.

         An April sunbeam was dancing on the china in the what-
    not.  The fire was burning.  She felt the rug soft beneath
    her slippers.  The day was cloudless, the air mild, and she
    could hear her child shouting with laughter.

         The little girl was rolling on the lawn, in the cut grass
    that Lestiboudois was raking.  She was lying on her stomach on
    a pile that he had got together.  Felicite was holding her by
    the skirt.  The gardener was working nearby, and whenever he
    came close she leaned over toward him, waving her arms in the
    air.

         "Bring her in to me!" her mother cried.  And she rushed
    over and kissed her.  "How I love you, darling!  How I love
    you!"

         Then, noticing that the tips of the child's ears were a
    little dirty, she quickly rang for hot water.  And she washed
    her, changed her underclothes, stockings and shoes, asked a
    thousand questions about how she felt, as though she were just
    back from a trip, and finally, giving her more and more kisses,

    and weeping a little, she handed her back to the maid, who
    stood gaping at this overflow of affection.

         That night Rodolphe found her more reserved than usual.

         "It will pass," he thought.  "It's some whim."

         And on three successive evenings he didn't appear for
    their rendezvous.  When he finally came she was cold, almost
    disdainful.

         "Ah!  You'll get nowhere playing that game . . .!"  And
    he pretended not to notice her melancholy sighs or the hand-
    kerchief she kept bringing out.

         Then Emma's repentance knew no bounds.

         She even wondered why she detested Charles, and whether
    it mightn't be better to try to love him.  But there was so
    little about him to which her resurgent feeling could attach
    itself that she was at a loss as to how to put her noble reso-
    lution into effect.  And then one day the apothecary provided
    the desired opportunity.




    PART 2

    CHAPTER ELEVEN

         Homais had lately read an article extolling a new method
    of curing clubfoot.  And since he was on the side of progress
    he conceived the patriotic idea that Yonville, to keep abreast
    of the times, should have its own operation for talipes, as he
    learnedly called the deformity.

         "After all," he said to Emma, "what's the risk?  Look."
    And he enumerated on his fingers the advantages that would
    accrue from the attempt.  "Almost sure success, relief and
    improved appearance for the patient, and for the surgeon a
    rapid rise to fame.  Why shouldn't your husband fix up poor
    Hippolyte, at the Lion d'Or?  The boy would unquestionably
    talk about his cure to every traveler at the inn, and then,"
    here Homais lowered his voice and cast a glance about him,
    "what is there to keep me from sending a little piece about it
    to the paper?  Ah!  An article gets around, people talk about
    it, a thing like that really snowballs.  Who can tell?  Who
    can tell?"

         He was right.  Bovary might very well succeed.  Emma had
    never had any reason to think that he wasn't skillful in his
    work.  And what satisfaction she would derive from persuading
    him to take a step that would increase his fame and fortune!
    Something more solid than love to lean on would be only too
    welcome.

         Egged on by her and by the apothecary, Charles consented.
    He sent to Rouen for Doctor's Duval's treatise, and every
    night, his head in his hands, he buried himself in its pages.

         He studied talipes in its various forms, equinus, varus
    and valgus.  In other words, the varying malformations of the
    foot downwards, inwards, or outwards, sometimes scientifically
    called strephocatopodia, strephendopodia and strephexopodia.
    And he studied strephypopodia and strephanopodia, downward or
    upward torsion.  And meanwhile Monsieur Homais tried to per-
    suade the stable-boy to agree to be operated.  He used every
    possible argument.

         "You'll scarcely feel it, there'll be the very slightest
    pain if any.  It's just a prick, like the tiniest blood-letting.
    Not nearly as bad as cutting out certain kinds of corns."

         Hippolyte rolled his eyes stupidly as he thought it over.

         "Besides," the pharmacist went on, "it's not for my sake
    that I'm urging you, but for yours, out of pure humanity.  I'd
    like to see you rid of that ugly limp, my boy, and that swaying
    in the lumbar region that must interfere seriously with your
    work, whatever you say."

         Then Homais painted a picture of how much more lively and
    nimble he would feel, and even intimated that he'd be much
    more successful with women.  The stable-boy grinned sheepishly
    at that.  Then Homais played on his vanity.

         "Are you a man or aren't you?  Think what it would have
    been like if you'd had to serve in the army and go into combat!
    Ah, Hippolyte!"

         In the end the poor wretch yielded, unable to stand up
    against what was a veritable conspiracy.  Binet, who never
    meddled in other people's affairs, Madame Lefrancois, Artemise,
    the neighbors, even the mayor, Monsieur Tuvache, everybody
    urged him, lectured him, shamed him.  But what finally decided
    him was that it wouldn't cost him anything.  Bovary even
    offered to supply the apparatus that would be used after the
    operation.  Emma had thought up that bit of generosity, and
    Charles had agreed, inwardly marveling at what an angel his
    wife was.

         Guided by the pharmacist's advice, he finally succeeded
    on the third try in having the cabinetmaker and the locksmith

    construct a sort of box weighing about eight pounds.  A compli-
    cated mass of iron, wood, tin, leather, screws and nuts.

         Meanwhile, in order to know which of Hippolyte's tendons
    had to be cut, he first had to find out what variety of club-
    foot his was.

         The foot made almost a straight line with the leg, and at
    the same time was twisted inward, so that it was an equinus
    with certain characteristics of a varus, or else a varus with
    strong equinus features.  But with his equinus, which actually
    was as wide across as an equine hoof, with rough skin, stringy
    tendons, oversized toes, and black nails that were like the
    nails of a horseshoe, the taliped ran about fleet as a deer
    from morning to night.  He was constantly to be seen in the
    square, hopping about among the carts, thrusting his clubfoot
    ahead of him.  Actually, the affected leg seemed to be stronger
    than the other.  From its long years of service it had taken on
    moral qualities, as it were, qualities of patience and energy.
    And whenever Hippolyte was given a particularly heavy task to
    do, it was that leg that he threw his weight on.

         Since it was an equinus, the Achilles tendon would have
    to be cut, and then later, perhaps, the anterior tibial muscle,
    to take care of the varus.  Charles didn't dare risk two
    operations at once, and indeed he was trembling already lest
    he interfere with some important part of the foot he knew
    nothing about.

         Neither Ambroise Pare, applying an immediate ligature to
    an artery for the first time since Celsus had done it fifteen
    centuries before, nor Dupuytren cutting open an abscess through
    a thick layer of the brain, nor Gensoul, when he performed the
    first removal of an upper maxillary, none of them, certainly,
    felt such a beating of the heart, such a quivering of the hand,
    such a tenseness of the mind, as Monsieur Bovary when he ap-
    proached Hippolyte with his tenotomy knife.  On a table nearby,
    just as in a hospital, lay a pile of lint, waxed thread and a
    quantity of bandages.  A veritable pyramid of bandages, the
    apothecary's entire stock.  It was Monsieur Homais who had been
    making these preparations ever since early morning, as much to
    dazzle the multitude as to inflate his self-importance. Charles
    pierced the skin, there was a sharp snap.  The tendon was cut,
    the operation was over.  Hippolyte couldn't stop marveling, he
    bent over Bovary's hands and covered them with kisses.

         "Don't get excited," said the apothecary.  "You'll have
    plenty of occasion to express your gratitude to your benefactor."

         And he went out to announce the result to five or six
    sensation-seekers who were waiting in the yard expecting
    Hippolyte to make his appearance walking normally.  Then Charles
    strapped his patient into the apparatus and went home, where
    Emma was anxiously awaiting him at the door.  She flung her arms
    around his neck.  They sat down at table, he ate heartily, and
    even asked for a cup of coffee with his dessert.  A bit of
    intemperance he ordinarily allowed himself only on Sunday when
    there was company.

         Their evening together was charming.  They spoke of their
    future, the improvement they expected in their fortunes, changes
    they would make in their house.  He saw himself a man of renown
    and riches, adored by his wife.  And she felt herself pleasantly
    revived by this new sensation, this noble, wholesome experience
    of returning at least some of poor Charles' love.  For a moment
    the thought of Rodolphe crossed her mind, but then her eyes
    swung back to Charles, and she noticed with surprise that his
    teeth weren't bad at all.

         They were in bed when Monsieur Homais suddenly entered
    their room.  He had brushed aside the cook's attempts to
    announce him, and was holding a newly written sheet of paper.
    It was the publicity article he had prepared for the Fanal de
    Rouen.  He had brought it for them to read.

         "You read it to us," said Bovary.

         He began, "Despite the network of prejudices that still
    extends across part of the face of Europe, our country dis-
    tricts are beginning to see the light.  Just this Tuesday our
    small community of Yonville was the scene of a surgical experi-
    ment that was also an act of pure philanthropy.  Monsieur
    Bovary, one of our most distinguished practitioners . . ."

         "That's going too far!  Too far!" cried Charles, choked
    with emotion.

         "Not at all!  Certainly not!  . . . performed an operation
    on a clubfoot . . . I didn't use the scientific term, in a
    newspaper, you know . . . not everybody would understand. the
    masses have to be . . ."

         "You're right," said Bovary.  "Go ahead."

         "Where was I?" said the pharmacist.  "Oh, yes.  Monsieur
    Bovary, one of our most distinguished practitioners, performed
    an operation on a clubfoot.  The patient was one Hippolyte
    Tautain, stable-boy for the past twenty-five years at the Lion
    d'Or hotel, owned by Madame Lefrancois, on the Place d'Armes.
    The novelty of the enterprise and the interest felt in the
    patient had attracted such a large throng of our local citi-
    zenry that there was a veritable crush outside the establish-
    ment.  The operation went off like magic, and only a few drops
    of blood appeared on the skin, as though to announce that the
    rebellious tendon had finally surrendered to the surgeon's art.
    The patient, strange though it may seem (we report this fact de
    visu), experienced not the slightest pain.  Up to the moment of
    the present writing, his condition is entirely satisfactory.
    Everything gives us reason to expect that his convalescence
    will be rapid.  Who knows?  At the next village festival we may
    well see our good friend Hippolyte tripping Bacchic measures
    amidst a chorus of joyous companions, thus demonstrating to all,
    by his high spirits and his capers, the completeness of his cure.
    All honor to those tireless benefactors who go without sleep to
    work for the improvement or the relief of mankind!  All honor to
    them!  Now indeed we can proclaim that the blind shall see, the
    deaf shall hear and the lame shall walk!  But what fanaticism
    promised in times past to the elect, science is now achieving for
    all men!  We shall keep our readers informed concerning the sub-
    sequent stages of this remarkable cure."

         But all that eloquence did not alter the course of events.
    Five days later Madame Lefrancois rushed into the doctor's house
    frightened out of her wits, crying,  "Help!  He's dying! It's
    driving me mad!"

         Charles made a dash for the Lion d'Or, and the pharmacist,
    catching sight of him as he rushed bareheaded across the square,
    hurriedly left his pharmacy.  He, too, arrived at the hotel
    breathless, flushed and worried.  "What has happened," he inquired
    of the numerous people climbing the stairs, "to our interesting
    taliped?'

         The taliped was writhing.  Writhing in frightful convulsions,
    so severe that the apparatus locked around his leg was beating
    against the wall, threatening to demolish it.

         Taking every precaution not to disturb the position of the

    leg, Charles and Monsieur Homais removed the box, and a terrible
    sight met their eyes.  The foot was completely formless, so
    immensely swollen that the skin seemed ready to burst.  And the
    entire surface was covered with black and blue spots caused by
    the much-vaunted apparatus.  Hippolyte ad been complaining of
    pain for some time, but no one had paid any attention.  Now it
    was clear that he hadn't entirely imagined it, and he was allowed
    to keep his foot out of the box for several hours.  But hardly
    had the swelling subsided a little than the two experts decided
    that the treatment should be resumed, and they screwed the appa-
    ratus on more tightly than before, to hasten results.  Finally,
    three days later, when Hippolyte could bear it no longer, they
    removed the box again and were amazed by what they saw.  A livid
    tumescence now extended up the leg, and a dark liquid was oozing
    from a number of blood blisters.  Things were taking a serious
    turn.  Hippolyte had no courage left, and Madame Lefrancois moved
    him into the small room, just off the kitchen, so that he might
    at least have some distraction.

         But the tax collector, who took his dinner there every
    evening, complained bitterly of such company, so Hippolyte was
    moved again, this time into the billiard room.

         He lay there, groaning under his heavy blankets, pale,
    unshaven, hollow-eyed, turning and twisting his sweaty head on
    the dirty, fly-covered pillow.  Madame Bovary came to see him.
    She brought him linen for his poultices, comforted him, tried
    to cheer him.  He had no lack of company, especially on market
    days, when the peasants crowded around him, playing billiards,
    dueling with the cues, smoking, drinking, singing, shouting.

         "How're you getting along?' they would say, giving him a
    poke in the shoulder.  "You don't look too good.  But it's your
    own fault.  You should have . . ."  And they would give their
    advice, telling him about people who had all been cured by
    methods quite different from the one that had been used on him.
    Then they would add, by way of comfort, "You fuss too much!
    Why don't you get up, instead of having everybody wait on you?
    Well, never mind, old boy, you certainly stink!"

         And indeed the gangrene was climbing higher and higher.
    Bovary was sick about it.  He kept coming in every hour, every
    few minutes.  Hippolyte would look at him with terror-filled
    eyes, and sob and stammer.  "When will I be cured?  Help me!
    Help me!  Oh, God, it's terrible!"

         And each time the doctor could only go away again, advis-
    ing him to eat lightly.


         "Don't listen to him," Madame Lefrancois would say, when
    Bovary had left.  "They've made you suffer enough already.
    You'll lose still more of your strength.  Here, swallow this!"

         And she would give him some tasty soup, or a slice from a
    leg of mutton, or a bit of bacon, and now and again a little
    glass of brandy that he hardly dared drink.

         The abbe Bournisien, learning that he was getting worse,
    came to the hotel and asked to see him.  He began by condoling
    with him on his suffering, declaring, however, that he should
    rejoice in it, since it was the Lord's will, and lose no time
    taking advantage of this occasion to become reconciled with
    heaven.

         "You've been a little neglectful of your religious duties,"
    he pointed out in a paternal tone.  "I've seldom seen you at
    Mass.  How many years is it since you've been to Communion?
    It's understandable that your work and other distractions should
    have made you careless about your eternal salvation.  But now is
    the time to think about it.  Don't give way to despair.  I've
    known grievous sinners who implored God's mercy when they were
    about to appear before Him, I know you haven't reached that point
    yet, and who certainly made better deaths as a result.  Be an
    example to us, as they were!  What's to prevent you from saying
    a Hail Mary and an Our Father every night and morning just as a
    precaution?  Do it!  Do it for me, to oblige me!  It doesn't
    amount to much.  Will you promise?'

         The poor devil promised.  The priest came again the fol-
    lowing days.  He chatted with the hotel-keeper, told stories,
    made jokes and puns that were over Hippolyte's head.  Then, at
    the first possible opening, he would return to religious matters,
    his face taking on an appropriate expression as he did so.

         His zeal seemed to have some effect, for soon the taliped
    expressed a wish to make a pilgrimage to Bon-Secours if he was
    cured.  To which the abbe replied that he could see nothing
    against it, two precautions were better than one.  What . . .
    as he put it . . . was the risk?

         The apothecary railed against what he called the priest's
    "manoeuvres."  They were interfering, he claimed, with Hippo-
    lyte's convalescence, and he kept saying to Madame Lefrancois,
    "Leave him alone!  You're confusing him with all your mysticism!"

         But the lady wouldn't listen to him.  He was "to blame for
    everything."  And on a nail in the wall at the head of the sick
    bed she defiantly hung a brimming holy-water font with a sprig
    of boxwood in it.

         However, religion seemed to be of no greater help than sur-
    gery, and the gangrenous process continued to extend inexorably
    upward toward the groin.  In vain did they change medications
    and poultices.  Each day the muscles rotted a little more, and
    finally Charles replied with an affirmative nod when Madame
    Lefrancois asked him whether as a last resort she couldn't call
    in Monsieur Canivet, a celebrated surgeon in Neufchatel.

         This fellow practitioner, a fifty-year-old M.D. of consi-
    derable standing and equal self-assurance, laughed with uncon-
    cealed scorn when he saw Hippolyte's leg, by now gangrenous to
    the knee.  Then, after declaring flatly that he would have to
    amputate, he visited the pharmacist and inveighed against the
    jackasses capable of reducing an unfortunate man to such a
    plight.  He grasped Monsieur Homais by one of his coat buttons
    and shook him, shouting, "New-fangled ideas from Paris!  It's
    like strabismus and chloroform and lithotrity.  The government
    ought to forbid such tomfoolery!  But everybody wants to be
    smart nowadays, and they stuff you full of remedies without
    caring about the consequences!  We don't pretend to be so
    clever, here in the country.  We're not such know-it-alls,
    such la-di-das!  We're practitioners, healers!  It doesn't
    occur to us to operate on somebody who's perfectly well!
    Straighten a clubfoot!  Who ever heard of straightening a
    clubfoot?  It's like wanting to iron out a hunchback!"

         Those words were a whiplash to Homais, but he hid his
    discomfiture under an obsequious smile.  It was important to
    humor Canivet, whose prescriptions were sometimes brought
    into the pharmacy by Yonvillians, and so he made no defense
    of Bovary and expressed no opinion.  He cast principles to
    the winds, and sacrificed his dignity to the weightier
    interests of his business.

         It was quite an event in the village, that mid-thigh
    amputation by Doctor Canivet!  All the citizens rose early
    that morning, and the Grande-Rue, thronged though it was, had
    something sinister about it, as though it were execution day.
    At the grocer's, Hippolyte's case was discussed from every
    angle.  None of the stores did any business.  And Madame
    Tuvache, the mayor's wife, didn't budge form her window, so
    eager was she not to miss the surgeon's arrival.

         He drove up in his gig, holding the reins himself.  Over
    the years the right-hand spring had given way under the weight
    of his corpulence, so that the carriage sagged a little to one
    side as it rolled along.  Beside him, on the higher half of
    the seat cushion, could be seen a huge red leather case, its
    three brass clasps gleaming magisterially.

         The doctor drew up in the hotel yard with a flourish and
    called loudly for someone to unharness his mare, and then went
    to the stable to see whether she was really being given oats
    as he had ordered.  His first concern, whenever he arrived at
    a patient's, was always for his mare and his gig.  "That
    Canivet, he's a character!" people said of him.  And they
    thought the more of him for his unshakable self-assurance.
    The universe might have perished to the last man, and he
    wouldn't have altered his habits a jot.

         Homais made his appearance.

         "I'm counting on you," said the doctor.  "Are we ready?
    Let's go!"

         But the apothecary blushingly confessed that he was too
    sensitive to be present at such an operation.

         "When you just stand there watching," he said, "your
    imagination begins to play tricks on you, you know.  And I'm
    of such a nervous temperament anyway that . . ."

         "Bah!" interrupted Canivet.  "You look more like the
    apoplectic type to me.  It doesn't surprise me, either, you
    pharmacists are always cooped up in your kitchens.  It can't
    help undermining your constitutions in the long run.  Look at
    me.  I'm up every day at four, shave in cold water every season
    of the year.  I'm never chilly, never wear flannel underwear,
    never catch cold, I'm sound as a bell.  I eat well one day,
    badly the next, however it comes.  I take it philosophically.
    That's why I'm not a bit squeamish, like you.  And that's why
    it's all the same to me whether I carve up a Christian or any
    old chicken they put in front of me.  It's all a question of
    habit."

         Thereupon, with no consideration whatever for Hippolyte,
    who was sweating with pain and terror under his bedclothes in
    the billiard room, the two gentlemen proceeded there in the
    kitchen to engage in a conversation in which the apothecary
    likened the coolness of a surgeon to that of a general.  The
    comparison pleased Canivet, who expatiated on the demands made
    by his profession.  He looked on it as a kind of sacred charge,
    even though dishonored nowadays by the activities of the
    officiers de sante.  Then, finally giving thought to his
    patient, he inspected the bandages Homais had brought, the same
    ones he had furnished the day of the earlier operation, and
    asked for someone to hold the leg for him while he worked.
    Lestiboudois was sent for, and Canivet rolled up his sleeves
    and went into the billiard room.  The apothecary stayed outside
    with Artemise and the landlady, both of the latter whiter than
    their aprons and all three of them with their ears to the door.

         Bovary, meanwhile, didn't dare show himself outside his
    house.  He sat downstairs in the parlor beside the empty fire-
    place, his chin on his chest, his hands folded, his eyes set.
    What a misfortune! he was thinking.  What a disappointment!
    Certainly he had taken all conceivable precautions.  Fate had
    played a hand in it.  Be that as it may, if Hippolyte were
    later to die it would be he who would have murdered him.  And
    then, how was he to answer the questions his patients were
    sure to ask him?  What reason could he give for his failure?
    Perhaps he had made some mistake?  He sought for what it
    might be, and failed to find it.  The greatest surgeons made
    mistakes, didn't they?  That was something no one would ever
    believe.  Everyone would laugh at him, talk about him.  The
    news would spread to Forges, to Neufchatel, to Rouen, every-
    where!  Who knew.  Other doctors might write letters and
    articles attacking him!  There would be a controversy.  He
    would have to send replies to the newspapers.  Hippolyte him-
    self might sue him.  He saw himself dishonored, ruined, lost!
    And his imagination, engendering countless fears, was tossed
    about like an empty barrel carried out to sea and bobbing on
    the waves.

         Emma, sitting opposite, was watching him.  She was not
    participating in his humiliation.  She was experiencing a humi-
    liation of a different sort.  The humiliation of having imagined
    that such a man might be worth something.  As though she hadn't
    twenty times already had full proof of his mediocrity.

         Charles began to stride up and down the room.  The floor
    creaked under his heavy boots.

         "Sit down!" she said.  "You're getting on my nerves!"

         He sat down.

         How in the world had she managed, she who was so intelligent,
    to commit yet another blunder?  What deplorable mania was it that
    had made her wreck her life by constant self-sacrifice?  She
    recalled all her desires for luxury, all her spiritual privations,
    the sordid details of marriage and housekeeping, her dreams mired
    like wounded swallows, everything she had ever craved for, every-
    thing she had denied herself, all the things she might have had.
    And for whose sake had she given up so much?


         The silence that hung over the village was suddenly rent by
    a scream.  Bovary went deathly pale.  For an instant her brows
    contracted in a nervous frown, then she resumed her brooding.  It
    was for him that she had done it.  For this creature here, this
    man who understood nothing, who felt nothing.  He was sitting
    quite calmly, utterly oblivious of the fact that the ridicule
    henceforth inseparable from his name would disgrace her as well.
    And she had tried to love him!  She had wept tears of repentance
    at having given herself to another!

         "I wonder, could it perhaps have been a valgus?"  The
    question came abruptly from the musing Charles.

         At the sudden impact of those words, crashing into her
    mind like a leaden bullet into a silver dish, Emma felt her-
    self shudder.  And she raised her head, straining to under-
    stand what he had meant by them.  They looked at each other
    in silence, almost wonderstruck, each of them, to see that
    the other was there, so far apart had their thoughts carried
    them.  Charles stared at her with the clouded gaze of a
    drunken man, motionless in his chair, he was listening to the
    screams that continued to come from the hotel.  One followed
    after another.  Each was a long, drawn-out succession of tones,
    and they were interspersed with short, shrill shrieks.  It was
    all like the howling of some animal being butchered far away.
    Emma bit her pale lips, and twisting and turning in her fingers
    a sliver she had broken off the coral, she stared fixedly at
    Charles with blazing eyes that were like twin fiery arrows.
    Everything, everything about him exasperated her now.  His face,
    his clothes, what he didn't say, his entire person, his very
    existence.  She repented her virtue of days past as though it
    had been a crime, and what virtue she had left now crumbled
    under the furious assault of her pride.  Adultery was triumphant,
    and she reveled in the prospect of its sordid ironies.  The
    thought of her lover made her reel with desire.  Heart and soul
    she flung herself into her longing, borne toward him on waves of
    new rapture.  And Charles seemed to her as detached from her
    life, as irrevocably gone, as impossible and done for, as though
    he were a dying man, gasping his last before her eyes.

         There was a sound of footsteps on the sidewalk.  Charles
    looked through the lowered blind.  In the hot sun near the market
    Doctor Canivet was mopping his forehead with his handkerchief.
    Behind him was Homais, carrying a large red box, and they were
    both heading for the pharmacy.

         Flooded with sudden tenderness and despondency, Charles
    turned to his wife.  "Kiss me!" he cried.  "Kiss me, darling!"

         "Don't touch me!" she flared, scarlet with fury.

         "What . . . what is it?" he stammered, bewildered.  "What's
    wrong?  You're not yourself!  You know how I love you!  I need
    you!"

         "Stop!" she cried in a terrible voice.

         And rushing from the room she slammed the door so violently
    that the barometer was flung from the wall and broke to pieces on
    the floor.

         Charles sank into his chair, crushed, wondering what her
    trouble was, fearing some nervous illness, weeping, and vaguely
    aware that the air about him was heavy with something baleful
    and incomprehensible.

         When Rodolphe came to the garden that night he found his
    mistress waiting for him on the lowest step of the river stairs.
    They fell into each other's arms, and all their accumulated
    resentments melted like snow in the heat of this embrace.

    PART 2

    CHAPTER TWELVE

         Once again their love was at high tide.

         Now Emma would often take it into her head to write him
    during the day.  Through her window she would signal to Justin,
    and he would whip off his apron and fly to La Huchette.  And
    when Rodolphe arrived in response to her summons, it was to
    hear that she was miserable, that her husband was odious, that
    her life was a torment.

         "Can I do anything about it?" he snapped at her one day.

         "Ah, if you only would . . ."

         She was sitting at his feet staring at nothing, her head
    between his knees, her hair streaming.

         "What could I do?" Rodolphe demanded.

         She sighed.  "We could go live somewhere else, away from
    here . . ."

         "You're really crazy!" he said, laughing.  "You know it's
    impossible!"

         She tried to pursue the subject, but he pretended not to
    understand, and spoke of other things.

         He saw no reason why there should be all this todo about
    so simple a thing as love-making.

         But for her there was a reason.  There was a motive force
    that gave an additional impetus to her passion.  Every day her
    love for Rodolphe was fanned by her aversion for her husband.
    The more completely she surrendered to the one, the more
    intensely she loathed the other.  Never did Charles seem to
    her so repulsive, so thick-fingered, so heavy-witted, so
    common, as when she was alone with him after her meetings with
    Rodolphe.  Acting, at such times, the role of wife, of vir-
    tuous woman, she thought feverishly of her lover.  Of his
    black hair curling over his tanned forehead, of his body so
    powerful and yet so elegant, of the cool judgement that went
    hand in hand with his fiery passion.  It was for him that she
    filed her fingernails with the care of the most exquisite
    artist, that she kept massaging her skin with cold cream,
    scenting her handkerchiefs with patchouli.  She decked herself
    with bracelets, rings and necklaces.  Whenever he was expected
    she filled her two big blue glass vases with roses.  Both her
    room and herself were made ready for him, as though she were a
    courtesan awaiting a prince.  Felicite was perpetually bleach-
    ing lingerie, all day long she was in the kitchen, and Justin
    often sat there with her, watching her work.

         His elbows on the ironing board, he would stare hungrily
    at all the feminine garments strewn about him.  The dimity
    petticoats, the fichus, the collars, the drawstring pantaloons
    enormously wide at the waist and narrowing below.


         "What is this for?" the boy would ask, touching a crinoline
    lining or a set of fastenings.

         "Don't tell me you've never seen anything!" Felicite would
    laugh.  "As if your Madame Homais didn't wear these same things!"

         "Oh, Madame Homais . . ."  And he would wonder aloud, "Is
    she a lady, like Madame?"

         But Felicite was getting tired of having him hand around
    her.  She was six years his elder, and Theodore, Maitre Guil-
    laumin's servant, was beginning to court her.

         "Leave me alone!" she would say, reaching for her starch
    pot.  "Go pound your almonds.  You're always fussing around the
    women.  You're a nasty little boy.  Better wait till you get
    some hair on your face for that sort of thing."

         "Don't be cross.  I'll do her shoes for you."

         And he would go over to the doorsill and reach for Emma's
    shoes, all caked with the mud she had brought in from her
    meetings.  It would fall away powdery under his fingers, and
    he would watch the particles float gently upward in a shaft of
    sun.

         "You act as though you're afraid of spoiling them!" the
    cook would jeer.  She herself wasn't so careful when she cleaned
    them, for Madame always gave them to her as soon as they looked
    the least bit worn.

         Emma had countless pairs in her wardrobe, and discarded
    them on the slightest pretext.  Charles never said a word.

         Nor did he protest at paying three hundred francs for a
    wooden leg that she felt should be given to Hippolyte.  It was
    cork-trimmed and had spring joints.  A complicated mechanism
    hidden under a black trouser leg that ended in a patent-leather
    shoe.  But Hippolyte didn't dare use such a beautiful leg every
    day, and he begged Madame Bovary to get him another that would
    be more suitable.  Naturally Charles paid for the new one as
    well.

         The stable-boy gradually resumed his work.  He went about
    the village as before, and whenever Charles heard the sharp tap
    of his stick on the cobblestones in the distance, he quickly
    changed his direction.

         It was Monsieur Lheureux, the shopkeeper, who had taken
    charge of the order.  It gave him an opportunity to see a good
    deal of Emma.  He chatted with her about the latest novelties
    from Paris, about a thousand feminine trifles, he was more than
    obliging, and never pressed for payment.  Emma let herself
    slide into this easy way of gratifying all her whims.  When she
    decided she wanted to give Rodolphe a handsome riding crop she
    had seen in an umbrella shop in Rouen, she told Lheureux to
    get it for her, and he set it on her table a week later.

         The next day, however, he appeared with his bill, two
    hundred and seventy francs, not to mention the centimes.  Emma
    didn't know what to do.  All the desk drawers were empty, they
    owed Lestiboudois two weeks' pay and the maid six months' wages,
    there were a number of other bills, and Bovary was waiting
    impatiently for a remittance from Monsieur Derozerays, who
    usually settled with him once a year, toward the end of June.

         She was able to put Lheureux off for a time, but eventually
    he lost patience.  He was hard pressed, he said, his capital was
    tied up, and if she couldn't give him something on account he'd
    be forced to take back all the items she had chosen.

         "All right, take them!" she said.

         "I didn't really mean that," he answered.  "Except perhaps
    for the riding crop.  I guess I'll have to ask Monsieur for it
    back."

         "No!  No!' she cried.

         "Ah ha!" Lheureux thought.  "I've got you!"

         And feeling sure that he had ferreted out her secret, he
    left her.  "We'll see," he murmured to himself, with his cus-
    tomary little whistle.  "We'll see!"

         She was wondering how to extricate herself when the cook
    came in and put a little cylindrical parcel on the mantel.
    "From Monsieur Derozerays," she said.  Emma seized it and
    opened it.  It contained fifteen napoleons, full payment.
    She heard Charles on the stairs, and she flung the gold pieces
    into one of her drawers and took the key.

         Three days later Lheureux came again.

         "I have a suggestion," he said.  "If instead of paying the
    amount we agreed on you'd like to take . . ."

         "Here!" she said, and she handed him fourteen napoleons.

         The shopkeeper was taken aback.  To hide his disappoint-
    ment he overflowed with apologies and offers of service, all
    of which Emma declined.  When he had left she stood a few
    moments with her hand in her apron, fingering the two five-
    franc pieces he had given her in change.  She resolved to
    economize, so that eventually she could pay Charles back . . .

         "Bah!" she said to herself.  "He'll never give it a
    thought."

         Besides the riding crop with the silver-gilt knob, Rodol-
    phe had been given a signet ring with the motto "Amor nel cor."
    Also a scarf to use as a muffler, and a cigar case very like
    the vicomte's that Charles had picked up on the road and Emma
    still kept.

         But he found her presents humiliating, and on several
    occasions refused them.  She was insistent, however, and he
    gave in, grumbling to himself that she was high-handed and
    interfering.

         Then she had such crazy notions.

         "When the bell strikes midnight," she would command him,
    "think of me."

         And if he confessed that he hadn't done so, there were
    strings of reproaches, always ending with the eternal, "Do you
    love me?"

         "Of course I love you!"

         "Very much?"

         "Of course."

         "You've never loved anybody else, have you?'

         That made him laugh, "Do you think you deflowered me?"

         When Emma burst into tears he tried to comfort her,
    protesting his love and saying things to make her smile.

         "It's because I love you," she would interrupt.  "I love
    you so much that I can't do without you.  You know that don't
    you?  Sometimes I want so much to see you that it tears me to
    pieces.  `Where is he?' I wonder.  `Maybe he's with other
    women.  They're smiling at him, he's going up close to them .
    . .'  Tell me it isn't true!  Tell me you don't like any of
    them!  Some of them are prettier than I am, but none of them
    can love you the way I do.  I'm your slave and your concubine!
    You're my king, my idol!  You're good!  You're beautiful!
    You're wise!  You're strong!"

         He had had such things said to him so many times that
    none of them had any freshness for him.  Emma was like all his
    other mistresses.  And as the charm of novelty gradually slip-
    ped from her like a piece of her clothing, he saw revealed in
    all its nakedness the eternal monotony of passion, which always
    assumes the same forms and always speaks the same language.
    He had no perception, this man of such vast experience, of the
    dissimilarity of feeling that might underlie similarities of
    expression.  Since he had heard those words uttered by loose
    women or prostitutes, he had little belief in their sincerity
    when he heard them now.  The more flowery a person's speech,
    he thought, the more suspect the feelings, or lack of feelings,
    it concealed.  Whereas the truth is that fullness of soul can
    sometimes overflow in utter vapidity of language, for none of
    us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his
    thoughts or his sorrows.  And human speech is like a cracked
    kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to,
    while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

         But with the superior acumen of those who keep aloof in
    any relationship, Rodolphe discovered that the affair offered
    still further possibilities of sensual gratification.  He
    abandoned every last shred of restraint and consideration.
    He made her into something compliant, something corrupt.  Hers
    was an infatuation to the point of idiocy.  The intensity of
    her admiration for him was matched by the intensity of her own
    voluptuous feelings.  She was in a blissful torpor, a drunken-
    ness in which her very soul lay drowned and shriveled, like the
    duke of Clarence in his butt of malmsey.

         This constant indulgence had its effect on her daily be-
    havior.  Her glance grew bolder, her language freer.  She went
    so far as to be seen smoking a cigarette in public, in Rodol-
    phe's company.  "As though," people said, "to show her contempt
    for propriety."  Even those who had given her the benefit of
    the doubt stopped doing so when they saw her step out of the
    Hirondelle on day wearing a tight-fitting vest, like a man's.
    The elder Madame Bovary, who had taken refuge with her son fol-
    lowing a particularly unpleasant scene with her husband, was as
    scandalized as any of the Yonville matrons.  There were many
    other things that she disliked too.  First of all, Charles
    hadn't followed her advice about the ban on novels.  And then
    she disapproved of "the way the house was run."  She took the
    liberty of saying how she felt, and there were quarrels . . .
    One, especially, about Felicite.

         Going down the hall the previous night the elder Madame
    Bovary had surprised her with a man . . . a man of about forty,
    with dark chin whiskers, who had slipped out through the kit-
    chen when he had heard her coming.  When she reported this,
    Emma burst out laughing.  The older woman lost her temper,
    declaring that unless one cared nothing for morals oneself, one
    was bound to keep an eye on the morals of one's servants.

         "What kind of social circles do you frequent?" Emma
    retorted, with such an impertinent stare that her mother-in-law
    asked her whether in taking her servant's part it wasn't really
    herself that she was defending.

         "Get out!" the young woman cried, springing from her chair.

         "Emma!  Mother!" cried Charles, trying to stop the argu-
    ment.  But in their rage they both rushed from the room.

         "What manners!" Emma sneered when he came to her.  And she
    stamped with fury.  "What a peasant!"

         He hurried to his mother and found her close to hysterics.
    "Such insolence!  She's irresponsible!  Maybe worse!"

         And she declared she would leave the house at once unless
    her daughter-in-law came to her and apologized.  So Charles
    sought out his wife again and begged her to give in.  He
    implored her on his knees.  "Oh, all right, I'll do it," she
    said finally.

         She held out her hand to her mother-in-law with the dig-
    nity of a marquise, "Excusez-moi, Madame."  And then in her
    own room she flung herself flat on the bed and wept like a
    child, her head buried in the pillow.

         She and Rodolphe had agreed that in case of an emergency
    she would fasten a piece of white paper to the blind, so that
    if he happened to be in Yonville he could go immediately into
    the lane behind the house.  Emma hung out the signal.  After
    waiting three-quarters of an hour she suddenly saw Rodolphe at
    the corner of the market.  She was tempted to open the window
    and call to him, as she hesitated he disappeared.  She sank
    back hopelessly in her chair.

         But after a short time she thought she heard someone on
    the sidewalk.  It must be he.  She went downstairs and across
    the yard.  He was outside the gate.  She flung herself into his
    arms.

         "Be careful!" he warned.

         "Ah, if you knew what I've been through," she breathed.
    And she proceeded to tell him everything.  Hurriedly, disjoin-
    tedly, exaggerating some facts and inventing others, and putting
    in so many parentheses that he lost the thread of her story.

         "Come, angel, be brave!  Cheer up!  Be patient!"

         "But I've been patient for four years!  I've suffered for
    four years!  A love like ours is something to boast of!  I'm on
    the rack, with those people!  I can't stand it any longer!
    Rescue me, for God's sake!"

         She clung to him.  Her tear-filled eyes were flashing like
    undersea fires.  Her breast rose and fell in quick gasps, never
    had he found her so desirable.  He lost his head.  "What must
    we do?' he said.  "What do you want me to do?'

         "Oh!  Take me away!" she cried.  "I implore you!  Take me
    away!"  And she crushed her lips to his, as though to catch the
    consent she hadn't dared hope for.  The consent that was now
    breathed out in a kiss.

         "But . . ." Rodolphe began.

         "What is it?"

         "What about your little girl?'

         She pondered a few moments.  Then, "We'll take her with us.
    It's the only way."

         "What a woman!" he thought as he watched her move off.  She
    had quickly slipped back into the garden, someone was calling
    her.

         The elder Madame Bovary was astonished, the next few days,
    by her daughter-in-law's transformation.  Emma was docility
    itself, deferential to the point of asking her for a recipe for
    pickles.

         Was it her way of covering her tracks more thoroughly!
    Or was it a kind of voluptuous stoicism?  A deliberate, deeper
    savoring of the bitterness of everything she was about to
    abandon?  Scarcely the latter, for she noticed nothing around
    her.  She was living as though immersed in advance in her
    future happiness.  With Rodolphe she talked of nothing else.
    She would lean on his shoulder, and murmur, "Think of what it
    will be like when we're in the stagecoach!  Can you imagine
    it?  Is it possible?  The moment I feel the carriage moving,
    I think I'll have the sensation we're going up in a balloon,
    sailing up into the clouds.  I'm counting the days.  Are you?"

         Never had Madame Bovary been as beautiful as now.  She had
    that indefinable beauty that comes from happiness, enthusiasm,
    success, a beauty that is nothing more or less than a harmony
    of temperament and circumstances.  Her desires, her sorrows, her
    experience of sensuality, her evergreen illusions, had developed
    her step by step, like a flower nourished by manure and by the
    rain, by the wind and the sun.  And she was finally blooming
    in the fullness of her nature.  Her eyelids seemed strangely
    perfect when she half closed them in a long amorous glance.
    And each of her deep sighs dilated her fine nostrils and raised
    the fleshy corners of her lips, lightly shadowed by dark down.
    Some artist skilled in corruption seemed to have designed the
    knot of her hair.  It lay on her neck coiled in a heavy mass,
    twisted carelessly and always a little differently, for every
    day it was loosened by embraces.  Her voice now took on softer
    inflections.  Her body, too, something subtle and penetrating
    emanated from the very folds of her dress, from the very arch
    of her foot.  Charles found her exquisite and utterly irresis-
    tible, as in the first days of their marriage.

         When he returned home in the middle of the night he dared
    not wake her.  The porcelain night-light cast a trembling cir-
    cular glow on the ceiling, and the drawn curtains of the cradle
    made it look like a tiny white hut swelling out in the darkness
    beside the bed.  Charles looked at both sleepers.  He thought
    he could hear the light breathing of his child.  She would be
    growing rapidly now, every season would bring a change.  Already
    he saw her coming home from school at the end of the day, laugh-
    ing, her blouse spotted with ink, her basket on her arm.  Then
    they would have to send her away to boarding school.  That would
    cost a good deal, how would they manage?  He thought and thought
    about it.  He had the idea of renting a little farm on the out-
    skirts, one that he could supervise himself mornings, as he rode
    out to see his patients.  He would put the profits aside, in the
    savings bank.  Later he would buy securities of some kind.  Be-
    sides, his practice would grow.  He was counting on it, for he
    wanted Berthe to have a good education.  He wanted her to be
    accomplished, to take piano lessons.  Ah!  How pretty she would
    be later, at fifteen!  She would look just like her mother.  And
    like her, in the summer, she would wear a great straw hat.  From
    the distance they'd be taken for sisters.  He pictured her sewing
    at night beside them in the lamplight.  She would embroider slip-
    pers for him, and look after the house.  She would fill their
    lives with her sweetness and her gaiety.  And then he would think
    about her marriage.  They would find her some fine young man with
    a good position, who would make her happy.  And her happiness
    would last forever and ever.

       Emma wasn't asleep at such times.  She was only pretending to
    be, and as Charles gradually sank into slumber beside her she lay
    awake dreaming different dreams.

         A team of four horses, galloping every day for a week, had
    been whirling her and Rodolphe toward a new land from which
    they would never return.  On and on the carriage bore them, and
    they sat there, arms entwined, saying not a word.  Often from
    a mountain top they would espy some splendid city, with domes,
    bridges, ships, forests of lemon trees, and white marble cathe-
    drals whose pointed steeples were crowned with storks' nests.
    Here the horses slowed, picking their way over the great paving-
    stones, and the ground was strewn with bouquets of flowers
    tossed at them by women laced in red bodices.  The ringing of
    bells and the braying of mules mingled with the murmur of gui-
    tars and the sound of gushing fountains.  Pyramids of fruit
    piled at the foot of pale statues were cooled by the flying
    spray, and the statues themselves seemed to smile through the
    streaming water.  And then one night they arrived in a fishing
    village, where brown nets were drying in the wind along the
    cliff and the line of cottages.  Here they stopped, this would
    be their dwelling place.  They would live in a low flat roofed
    house in the shade of a palm tree, on a bay beside the sea.
    They would ride in gondolas, swing in hammocks.  And their lives
    would be easy and ample like the silk clothes they wore, warm
    like the soft nights that enveloped them, starry like the skies
    they gazed upon.  Nothing specific stood out against the vast
    background of the future that she thus envoked.  The days were
    all of them splendid, and as alike as the waves of the sea.  And
    the whole thing hovered on the horizon, infinite, harmonious,
    blue and sparkling in the sun.  But then the baby would cough in
    the cradle, or Bovary would give a snore louder than the rest,
    and Emma wouldn't fall asleep till morning, when dawn was whiten-
    ing the windowpanes and Justin was already opening the shutters
    of the pharmacy.

         She had sent for Monsieur Lheureux and told him she would
    be needing a cloak.  "A long cloak with a deep collar and a
    lining."

         "You're going on a trip?" he asked.

         "No!  But . . . Anyway, I can count on you to get it, can't
    I?  Soon?"

         He bowed.

         "I'll want a trunk, too.  Not too heavy, roomy."

         "I know the kind you mean.  About three feet by a foot and
    a half, the sort they're making now."

         "And an overnight bay."

         "A little too much smoke not to mean fire," Lheureux said
    to himself.

         "And here," said Madame Bovary, unfastening her watch
    from her belt.  "Take this, you can pay for the things out of
    what you get for it."

         But the shopkeeper protested.  She was wrong to suggest
    such a thing, he said.  They were well acquainted, he trusted
    her completely.  She mustn't be childish.  But she insisted
    that he take at least the chain, and Lheureux had put it in
    his pocket and was on his way out when she called him back.

         "Hold the luggage for me," she said.  "As for the cloak"
    she pretended to ponder the question, "don't bring that to me,
    either.  But give me the address of the shop and tell them to
    have it ready for me when I come."

         They were to elope the following month.  She would leave
    Yonville as though to go shopping in Rouen.  Rodolphe was to
    arrange for their reservations and their passports, and would
    write to Paris to make sure that they would have the coach to
    themselves as far as Marseilles.  There they would buy a
    barouche and continue straight on toward Genoa.  She would
    send her things to Lheureux's whence they would be loaded
    directly onto the Hirondelle, thus arousing no one's suspi-
    cions.  In all these plans there was never a mention of little
    Berthe.  Rodolphe avoided speaking of her, perhaps Emma had
    forgotten her.

         He said he needed two weeks more, to wind up some affairs.
    Then, at the end of the first of them, he said he would need
    an additional two.  Then he said he was sick.  Then he went on
    a trip somewhere.  The month of August passed.  Finally they
    decided they would leave without fail on the fourth of Septem-
    ber, a Monday.

         The Saturday night before that Monday, Rodolphe arrived
    earlier than usual.

         "Is everything ready?' she asked him.

         "Yes."

         They strolled around the flower beds and sat on the ter-
    race wall.

         "You seem sad," said Emma.

         "No, why?'

         But he kept looking at her strangely, with unusual soft-
    ness and tenderness.

         "Is it because you're going away?' she asked.  "Leaving
    everything that's dear to you, everything that makes up your
    life?  I understand that . . .  But I have nothing, nothing
    in the world.  You're my everything.  And I'll be yours.  I'll
    be your family, your country.  I'll look after you, I'll love
    you."

         "How sweet you are!" he cried, clasping her in his arms.

         "Am I really?" she laughed, melting with pleasure.  "Do
    you love me?  Swear that you do?"

         "Do I love you!  Do I!  I adore you, darling!"

         The moon, a deep red disc, was rising straight out of the
    earth beyond the meadows.  They could see it climb swiftly
    between the poplar branches that partially screened it like a
    torn black curtain.  And finally, dazzlingly white, it shone
    high above them in the empty sky illumined by its light.  Now,
    moving more slowly, it poured onto a stretch of the river a
    great brightness that flashed like a million stars.  And this
    silvery gleam seemed to be writhing in its depths like a head-
    less serpent covered with luminous scales.  It looked, too,
    like a monstrous many-branched candlestick dripping with
    molten diamonds.  The night spread softly around them, patches
    of shadow hung in the leaves of the trees.  Emma, her eyes
    half closed, drank in the cool breeze with deep sighs.  Lost
    in their revery, they said not a word.  Full and silent as the
    flowing river, languid as the perfume of the syringas, the
    sweetness they had known in earlier days once again surged up
    in their hearts, casting on their memories longer and more
    melancholy shadows than those of the motionless willows on the
    grass.  Now and again some prowling night animal, hedgehog or
    weasel, disturbed the leaves, or they heard the sound of a
    ripe peach as it dropped to the ground.

         "What a lovely night!" said Rodolphe.

         "We'll have many more," Emma answered.  And as though
    speaking to herself, "Yes, it will be good to be traveling.
    But why should I feel sad?  Is it fear of the unknown, or the
    effect of leaving everything I'm used to?  No . . . it's from
    too much happiness.  How weak of me!  Forgive me!"

         "There's still time," he cried.  "Think carefully . . .
    you might be sorry!"

         "Never!" she answered impetuously.  And moving close to
    him, "What harm can come to me?  There's not a desert, not a
    precipice, not an ocean, that I wouldn't cross with you.
    Living together will be like an embrace that's tighter and
    more perfect every day.  There'll be nothing to bother us, no
    cares . . . nothing in our way.  We'll be alone, entirely to
    ourselves, for ever and ever.  Say something, darling!
    Answer me!"

         At regular intervals he answered, "Yes . . . yes . . ."
    Her fingers were in his hair, and through the great tears
    that were welling from her eyes she kept repeating his name
    in a childish voice, "Rodolphe!  Rodolphe!  Sweet little
    Rodolphe!"

         Midnight struck.

         "Midnight!" she said.  "Now it's tomorrow! one more day!"

         He stood up to go, and as though his movement was the
    signal for their flight, Emma suddenly brightened.

         "You have the passports?"

         "Yes."

         "You haven't forgotten anything?"

         "No."

         "You're sure?"

         "Absolutely."

         "And you'll be waiting for me at the Hotel de Provence
    at noon?"

         He nodded.

         "Till tomorrow, then," said Emma, giving him a last caress.

         And she watched him go.

         He did not turn around.  She ran after him, and leaning
    out over the water among the bushes, "Till tomorrow!" she
    cried.

         Already he was on the other side of the river, walking
    quickly across the meadow.

         After several minutes Rodolphe stopped.  And when he saw
    her in her white dress gradually vanishing into the shadows
    like a wraith, his heart began to pound so violently that he
    leaned against a tree to keep from falling.

         "God, what a fool I am!" he muttered with an obscene
    curse.  "But she certainly made a pretty mistress!"

         Emma's beauty and all the joys of their love rushed back
    into his mind, and for a moment he softened.  But then he
    turned against her.

         "After all," he cried, gesticulating and talking aloud to
    himself to strengthen his resolution, "I can't spend the rest
    of my life abroad!  I can't be saddled with a child!  All that
    trouble!  All that expense!  No!  No!  Absolutely not!  It
    would be too stupid!"














    PART 2

    CHAPTER THIRTEEN

         As soon as he reached home Rodolphe sat down at his desk,
    under the stag's-head trophy that hung on the wall.  But when
    he took up his pen he couldn't think of what to write, and he
    leaned on his elbows and pondered.  Emma seemed to have receded
    into a far-off past, as though the resolution he had just made
    had put a great distance between them.

         In order to recapture some feeling of her he went to the
    wardrobe at the head of his bed and took out an old Rheims

    cookie box that was his storage place for letters from women.
    Out of it came a smell of damp dust and withered roses.  The
    first thing his eye fell on was a handkerchief spotted with
    faint stains, it was one of Emma's.  She had had a nosebleed
    one day when they were out together, he hadn't remembered it
    till now.  Then he took up something that had been knocking
    against the sides of the box.  It was the miniature she had
    given him.  She looked much too fussily dressed, he thought,
    and her ogling expression was preposterous.  He kept staring
    at the artist's handiwork in an attempt to evoke the model
    as he remembered her, and this gradually resulted in Emma's
    features becoming confused in his memory, as though the real
    face and the painted face had been rubbing against each other
    and wearing each other away.  Finally he read some of her
    letters.  They were as brief, as technical, as urgent as
    business letters, filled chiefly with details pertaining to
    their trip.  He wanted to reread the longer ones, the earlier
    ones.  They were further down in the box, and to get at them
    he had to disarrange everything else.  He found himself mec-
    hanically going through the pile of letters and other things,
    turning up a heterogeneous assortment.  Bouquets, a garter,
    a black mask, pins, locks of hair.  So many locks of hair!
    Brunette and blond.  Some of them, catching in the metal
    hinges of the box, had broken off as he opened it.

         He rummaged among his souvenirs, lingering on the dif-
    ferences of handwriting and style in the letters, as marked
    as the differences of spelling.  There were affectionate
    letters, jolly letters, facetious letters, melancholy letters.
    There were some that begged for love and others the begged for
    money.  Now and then a word brought back a face, a gesture,
    the sound of a voice.  Certain letters brought back nothing at
    all.

         All those women, thronging into his memory, got in each
    other's way.  None of them stood out above the rest, leveled
    down as they all were by the measure of his love.  He took up
    handfuls of the various letters and for some minutes amused
    himself by letting them stream from one hand to another.  In
    the end he lost interest in the game and put the box back into
    the wardrobe.  "What a lot of nonsense!" he said to himself.

         This accurately summed up his opinion, for his companions
    in pleasure, like children playing in a schoolyard, had so
    trampled his heart that nothing green could grow there.  Indeed
    they were more casual than children, they hadn't even scribbled
    their names on the walls.

         "Come now," he said to himself.  "Get busy."

         He began to write, "You must be courageous, Emma, the last
    thing I want to do in ruin your life . . ."

         "That's absolutely true, after all," he assured himself.
    "I'm acting in her interest.  I'm only being honest."

         "Have you given really serious thought to your decision?
    Do you realize into what abyss I was about to hurl you, poor
    darling?  You don't, I'm sure.  You were going ahead blind and
    confident, full of faith in happiness, in the future . . . Ah!
    Poor wretched, insane creatures that we are!"

         Here Rodolphe paused, looking for some good excuse.  "I
    could tell her that I've lost all my money . . . No . . . that
    wouldn't stop her anyway.  I'd have to go through the whole
    thing again later.  Is there any way of making such women come
    to their senses?"

        He thought for a while, then added, "I'll never forget you
    . . . believe me . . . and I'll always feel the deepest devotion
    to you.  But some day sooner or later our passion would have
    cooled . . . inevitable . . . it's the way with everything human.
    We would have had moments of weariness.  Who knows . . . I might
    even have had the dreadful anguish of witnessing your remorse,
    and of sharing in it, since it would have been I who caused it.
    The very thought of the grief in store for you is a torture to
    me.  Emma!  Forget me!  Why was it ordained that we should meet?
    Why were you so beautiful?  Is the fault mine?  In God's name,
    no!  No!  Fate alone is to blame.  Nothing and no one but fate!"

         "That's always an effective word," he remarked to himself.

         "Ah!  Had you been a shallow-hearted creature like so
    many others, I could very well have gone ahead and let things
    happen as they might, purely for what was in it for myself.  In
    that case without danger to you.  But that marvelous intensity
    of feelings you have, such a delight for those who know you,
    such a source of anguish for yourself, kept you, adorable woman
    that you are, from realizing the falsity of the position the
    future held for us.  At first I, too, gave it no thought.  I
    was lying in the shade of that ideal happiness we dreamed of
    as under a poison tree, without thought for the consequences."

         "Maybe she'll think I'm giving her up out of stinginess.
    What's it to me if she does!  Let her . . . And let's get it
    over with!"

         "The world is cruel, Emma.  It would have pursued us
    everywhere.  You'd have been subjected to indiscreet questions.
    Calumny, scorn, even insult, perhaps.  You, insulted!  Oh, my
    darling!  And I would have been the cause of it!  I, who wanted
    to put you on a throne!  I, who shall carry away the thought of
    you like a talisman!  Yes, away, for I am punishing myself for
    the harm I have done you!  I am going into exile!  Where?  How
    can I tell?  My poor mad brain can give no answer.  Adieu,
    Emma!  Continue to be as good as you have always been!  Never
    forget the unfortunate man who lost you!  Teach your child my
    name.  Tell her to include me in her prayers."

         The flames of the two candles were flickering.  Rodolphe
    got up to close the window, and then, back at his desk, "That's
    all, I guess," he said to himself.  "Oh, just this little bit
    more, to keep her from coming after me."

         "I shall be far away when you read these unhappy lines, I
    dare not linger, the temptation to see you again is all but
    irresistible!  This is no moment for weakness!  I shall come
    back, and perhaps one day we'll be able to speak of our love
    with detachment, as a thing of the past.  Adieu!"

         And he appended one more, last adieu, this time written
    as two words.  "A Dieu!"  It seemed to him in excellent taste.

         "How shall I sign it?" he wondered.  " `Devotedly'?  No.
    `Your friend'?  Yes . . . that's it."

         "Your friend."

         He read over his letter and thought it was good.

         "Poor little thing!" he thought, suddenly sentimental.
    "She'll think me as unfeeling as a stone.  There ought to be
    a few tears on it, but weeping is beyond me . . . what can I
    do?"  He poured some water in a glass, wet a finger, and
    holding it high above the page shook off a large drop.  It
    made a pale blot on the ink.  Then, looking around for some-
    thing to seal the letter with, his eye fell on the signet ring
    with the motto "Amor nel cor."  "Scarcely appropriate under
    the circumstances, but what the . . ."

         Whereupon he smoked three pipes and went to bed.

         When he got up the next day (about two in the afternoon,
    he slept late) Rodolphe had some apricots picked and arranged
    in a basket.  At the bottom, hidden under some vine leaves,
    he put the letter.  And he ordered Girard, his plough-boy,
    to deliver it carefully to Madame Bovary.  This was his usual
    way of corresponding with her, sending her fruit or game
    according to the season.

         "If she asks you anything about me," he said, "tell her
    I've left for a trip.  Be sure to give the basket to her
    personally.  Get going, now, and do it right!"

         Girard put on his new smock, tied his handkerchief over
    the apricots, and plodding along in his great hobnailed boots,
    he set out tranquilly for Yonville.

         When he reached Madame Bovary's he found her helping
    Felicite stack linen on the kitchen table.

         "Here," said the plough-boy.  "My master sent you this."

         A feeling of dread came over her, and as she fumbled in
    her pocket for some change she stared at the peasant with
    haggard eyes.  He in turn looked at her in bewilderment,
    failing to understand why anyone should be so upset by such a
    present.  Finally he left.  Felicite stayed where she was.
    The suspense was too great for Emma.  She ran into the other
    room as though for the purpose of carrying in the apricots,
    dumped them out of the basket, tore away the leaves, found the
    letter and opened it, and as though she were fleeing from a
    fire she ran panic-stricken up the stairs toward her room.

         Charles had come in.  She caught sight of him.  He spoke
    to her.  Whatever he said, she didn't hear it.  And she hurried
    on up the second flight of stairs, breathless, distracted,
    reeling, clutching the horrible piece of paper that rattled in
    her hand like a sheet of tin.  At the third-floor landing she
    stopped outside the closed attic door.

         She tried to calm herself.  Only then did she think of
    the letter.  She must finish it, she didn't dare.  Besides,
    where could she read it?  How?  She'd be seen.

         "I'll be all right in here," she thought.  And she pushed
    open the door and went in.

         There the roof slates were throwing down a heat that was
    all but unbearable.  It pressed on her so that she could
    scarcely breathe.  She dragged herself over to the dormer,
    whose shutters were closed.  She pulled back the bolt, and the
    dazzling sunlight poured in.

         Out beyond the roof-tops, the open countryside stretched
    as far as eye could see.  Below her the village square was
    empty.  The stone sidewalk glittered.  The weathervanes on the
    houses stood motionless.  From the lower floor of a house at
    the corner came a whirring noise with strident changes of tone.
    Binet was at his lathe.

         Leaning against the window frame she read the letter
    through, now and then giving an angry sneer.  But the more she
    tried to concentrate, the more confused her thoughts became.
    She saw Rodolphe, heard his voice, clasped him in her arms,
    and a series of irregular palpitations, thudding in her breast
    like great blows from a battering ram, came faster and faster.
    She cast her eyes about her, longing for the earth to open up.
    Why not end it all?  What was holding her back?  She was free
    to act.  And she moved forward.  "Do it!  Do it!" she ordered
    herself, peering down at the pavement.

         The rays of bright light reflected directly up to her
    from below were pulling the weight of her body toward the
    abyss.  The surface of the village square seemed to be sliding
    dizzily up the wall of her house.  The floor she was standing
    on seemed to be tipped up on end, like a pitching ship.  Now
    she was at the very edge, almost hanging out, a great empti-
    ness all around her.  The blue of the sky was flooding her.
    Her head felt hollow and filled with the rushing of the wind.
    All she had to do now was to surrender, yield to the onrush.
    And the lathe kept whirring, like an angry voice calling her.

         But then she heard another voice.  "Where are you?"  It
    was Charles.

         She listened.

         "Where are you?  Come down!"

         The thought that she had just escaped death almost made
    her faint from terror.  She closed her eyes, then she gave a
    start as she felt the touch of a hand on her sleeve.  It was
    Felicite.

         "Monsieur is waiting, Madame.  The soup is on the table."

         And she had to go down.  Had to sit through a meal!

         She did her best to eat.  Each mouthful choked her.  She
    unfolded her napkin as though to inspect the darns, and began
    really seriously to devote her attention to it and count the
    stitches.  Suddenly the thought of the letter came back to her.
    Had she lost it?  Where would she lay hands on it?  But in her
    exhaustion of mind she could invent no excuse for leaving the
    table.  Besides, she didn't dare.  She was terrified of Charles.
    He knew everything, she was sure he must!  And oddly enough he
    chose that moment to say.

         "I gather we shan't be seeing Monsieur Rodolphe for some
    time."

         She started, "Who told you so?"

         "Who told me?" he said, surprised by her abrupt tone.
    "Girard.  I saw him a few minutes ago at the door of the Cafe
    Francais.  He's left for a trip, or he's about to leave."

         A sob escaped her.

         "What's so surprising about it?  He's always going off on
    pleasure trips.  Why shouldn't he?  When you're a bachelor and
    well off . . .  Besides, he knows how to give himself a good
    time, our friend.  He's a real playboy.  Monsieur Langlois once
    told me . . ."  He decorously broke off as the maid came in.

         Felicite gathered up the apricots that lay scattered over
    the sideboard and put them back into the basket.  Unaware that
    his wife had turned scarlet, Charles asked for them, took one,
    and bit into it.

         "Oh, perfect!" he said.  "Try one."

         He held the basket out toward her, and she gently pushed
    it away.

         "Smell them.  Such fragrance!" he said, moving it back
    and forth before her.

         "I'm stifling in here!" she cried, leaping to her feet.
    But she forced herself to conquer her spasm.  "It's nothing,"
    she said.  "Nothing.  Just nerves.  Sit down.  Eat your
    fruit."

         Her great dread was lest he question her, insist on doing
    something for her, never leave her to herself.

         Charles had obediently sat down and was spitting apricot
    pits into his hand and transferring them to his plate.

         Suddenly a blue tilbury crossed the square at a smart
    trot.  Emma gave a cry, fell abruptly backwards and lay on
    the floor.

         Rodolphe had decided, after a good deal of thought, to
    leave for Rouen.  Since the Yonville road was the only route
    from La Huchette to Buchy, he had to pass through the village,
    and Emma had recognized him in the glow of his carriage
    lights as they flashed in the gathering dusk like a streak of
    lightning.

         The commotion at the Bovarys' brought the pharmacist
    running.  The table had been knocked over and all the plates
    were on the floor.  Gravy, meat, knives, the salt cellar and
    the cruet stand littered the room.  Charles was calling for
    help.  Berthe was frightened and in tears, and Felicite with
    trembling hands was unlacing Madame, whose entire body was
    racked with convulsions.

         "I'll run to my laboratory and get a little aromatic
    vinegar," said the apothecary.

         And when he had returned and held the flacon under her
    nostrils and she opened her eyes, "I knew it," he said.
    "This stuff would resuscitate a corpse."

         "Speak to us!" cried Charles.  "Say something!  Can you
    hear me?  It's Charles . . . Charles, who loves you.  Do you
    recognize me?  See . . . here's your little girl . . . kiss
    her, darling."

         The child stretched out her arms toward her mother,
    trying to clasp them around her neck.  But Emma turned her
    head away.  "No, no," she said brokenly.  "Leave me alone."

         She fainted again, and they carried her to her bed.

         She lay there on her back, mouth open, eyes closed,
    hands flat beside her, motionless, white as a wax statue.
    Two rivulets of tears trickled slowly from her eyes onto the
    pillow.

         Charles stood at the foot of the bed.  At his side the
    pharmacist was observing the thoughtful silence appropriate
    to life's solemn occasions.  Then, "I think she'll be all
    right," he said.  "The paroxysm seems to be over."

         "Yes, she's resting a little now," Charles answered,
    watching her sleep.  "Poor thing!  Poor thing!  It's a real
    relapse."

         Then Homais asked for details, and Charles told him how
    she had been stricken suddenly while eating apricots.

         "Extraordinary!" said the pharmacist.  "Still, the
    apricots may very well have caused the syncope.  Some natures
    react so strongly to certain odors!  It would be an interest-
    ing subject to study, in both its pathological and its physio-
    logical aspects.  The priests are well aware of the importance
    of this phenomenon.  They've always made use of aromatics in
    their ceremonies.  They employ them deliberately, to deaden
    the understanding and induce ecstatic states.  Women lend
    themselves to it easily, they're so much more delicate than
    the rest of us.  Cases are recorded of women fainting from
    the smell of burnt horn, fresh bread . . ."

         "Take care not to wake her!" Bovary warned softly.

         "And it's not only humans who are subject to such
    anomalies," continued the apothecary.  "Animals are too.  You
    are certainly not ignorant of the intensely aphrodisiac effect
    produced by nepeta cataria, vulgarly called catnip, on the
    feline species.  And to mention another example, one whose
    authenticity I myself can vouch for, Bridoux, one of my old
    schoolmates, now in business in the Rue Malpalu, has a dog
    which has convulsions if you show it a snuffbox.  Bridoux
    sometimes makes him perform for his friends, at his suburban
    residence in Bois-Guillaume.  Would you believe that a simple
    sternutative could work such havoc in the organism of a
    quadruped?  It's extremely curious, don't you find?"

         "Yes," said Charles, who wasn't listening.

         "This is but another illustration," said the pharmacist,
    smiling with an air of benign self-satisfaction, "of the
    innumerable irregularities of the nervous system.  As far as
    Madame is concerned, I confess she has always seemed to me a
    genuine sensitive.  For that reason, my good friend, I advise
    you not to use any of those so-called remedies which attack
    the temperament under the guise of attacking the symptoms.
    No, no futile medication.  Just a regimen.  Sedatives,
    emollients, dulcifiers.  And then, don't you think it would
    be a good thing to rouse her imagination, something striking?"

         "How?  What?"

         "Ah, that's the problem.  That is indeed the problem.
    `That is the question,'" he quoted in English, "as I read in
    the paper recently."

         Just then Emma, waking from her sleep, cried, "The letter?
    Where is the letter?"

         They thought her delirious, and from midnight on she was.
    There could be no doubt that it was brain fever.

         For forty-three days Charles did not leave her side.  He
    neglected all his patients.  He never lay down.  He was con-
    stantly feeling her pulse, applying mustard plasters and cold
    compresses.  He sent Justin to Neufchatel for ice.  The ice
    melted on the way, he sent him back.  He called in Doctor
    Canivet for consultation.  He had Doctor Lariviere, his old
    teacher, come from Rouen, he was desperate.  What frightened
    him most was Emma's degree of prostration.  She didn't speak,
    she gave no sign of comprehending or even hearing anything
    that was said to her, and she seemed to be in no pain.  It
    was as though her body and her soul together had sought rest
    after all their tribulations.  Toward the middle of October
    she could sit up in bed, propped against pillows.  Charles
    wept when he saw her eat her first slice of bread and jam.
    Her strength returned.  She left her bed for a few hours each
    afternoon, and one day when she felt better than usual he got
    her to take his arm and try a walk in the garden.  The gravel
    on the paths was almost hidden under dead leaves.  She walked
    slowly, dragging her slippers.  And leaning on Charles'
    shoulder she smiled continuously.

         They made their way to the far end, near the terrace.
    She drew herself up slowly and held her hand above her eyes.
    She stared into the distance, the far distance, but on the
    horizon there were only great grass fires, smoking on the
    hills.

         "You'll tire yourself, darling," said Bovary.  And
    guiding her gently, trying to induce her to enter the arbor.
    "Sit on the bench.  You'll be comfortable."

         "Oh no!  Not there!  Not there!" she said in a faltering
    voice.

         Immediately she felt dizzy, and beginning that night
    there was another onset of her illness.  This time it was less
    clearly identifiable, more complex.  Now her heart would pain
    her, now her chest, now her head, now her limbs.  She had
    vomiting spells, which Charles feared were the first symptoms
    of cancer.

         And as though that were not enough, the poor fellow had
    money worries!



















    PART 2

    CHAPTER FOURTEEN

         To begin with, he didn't know how to make good to Monsieur
    Homais for all the medicaments that had come from the pharmacy.
    As a doctor he might have been excused from paying for them,
    but the obligation embarrassed him.  Then, what with the cook
    acting as mistress, the household expenses were getting to be
    alarming.  There was a deluge of bills.  The tradespeople were
    grumbling.  Monsieur Lheureux, especially, was harassing him.
    The drygoods dealer, taking advantage of the circumstances to
    pad his bill, had chosen a moment at the very height of Emma's
    illness to deliver the cloak, the overnight bag, two trunks
    instead of one, and a number of other things as well.  Charles
    protested that he had no use for them, but the shopkeeper
    arrogantly retorted that all those items had been ordered and
    that he wouldn't take them back.  Besides, he said, it would
    be upsetting to Madame in her convalescence.  Monsieur should
    think it over.  In short, he was determined to stand on his
    rights and carry the matter to court rather than give in.  A
    little later Charles ordered that everything be sent back to
    the shop, but Felicite forgot, and he had other things on his
    mind and didn't think of them.  Monsieur Lheureux brought the
    matter up again, and by alternating threats and moans got
    Charles to sign a six-months' promissory note.  No sooner had
    he signed than he had a bold idea.  He would try to borrow a
    thousand francs from Monsieur Lheureux.  So he awkwardly asked
    whether there was any chance of this, explaining that it would
    be for one year and at any rate of interest Lheureux might
    specify.  Lheureux ran to his shop, brought back the money,
    and dictated another promissory note, whereby Bovary promised
    to pay to his order, the first of the following September, the
    sum of 1,070 francs.  Together with the 180 already stipulated,
    that came to just 1,250.  In this way, loaning at the rate of
    six percent, plus his commission and at least one-third mark-up
    on the goods, the whole thing would bring him in a clear 130
    francs' profit in twelve months.  And he hoped it wouldn't stop
    there, that the notes wouldn't be met but renewed, and that his
    poor little capital, after benefiting from the doctor's care
    like a patient in a sanatorium, would eventually come back to
    him considerably plumper, fat enough to burst the bag.

         Everything Lheureux touched was successful at this moment.
    His had been the winning bid for the cider supply contract at
    the Neufchatel public hospital.  Maitre Guillaumin was promising
    him some shares in the peatery at Grumesnil, and he was thinking
    of setting up a new coach service between Argueil and Rouen.
    Such a thing would quickly spell the end of the old rattletrap
    at the Lion d'Or, and being faster and cheaper and carrying a
    bigger pay load would give him a monopoly on the Yonville trade.

         Charles wondered more than once how he was going to be
    able to pay back so large a sum the following year. And racking
    his brains he imagined various expedients, such as applying to
    his father or selling off something.  But his father would turn
    a deaf ear, and he himself owned nothing that could be sold.
    The difficulties he foresaw were so formidable that he quickly
    banished the disagreeable subject from his mind.  He reproached
    himself for having let it distract him from Emma, as though his
    every thought were her property and he were filching something
    from her if he took his mind off her for a second.

         It was a severe winter.  Madame's convalescence was slow.
    On fine days they pushed her armchair to the window.  The one
    overlooking the square, for she had taken an aversion to the
    garden, and the blind on that side was always down.  She asked
    that her horse be sold, things that had once given her pleasure
    she now disliked.  She seemed to have no thought for anything
    beyond her own health.  She ate her tiny meals in bed, rang for
    the maid to ask about her tisanes or just to chat.  All this
    while the snow on the roof of the market filled the room with
    its monotonous white reflection, then came a spell of rain.
    And every day Emma looked forward, with a kind of anxious
    expectation, to the same, unfailingly recurring, trivial
    events, little though they mattered to her.  The greatest of
    these was the nightly arrival of the Hirondelle, when Madame
    Lefrancois shouted, other voices replied, and Hippolyte's
    stable lamp, as he looked for luggage under the hood, shone
    out like a star in the darkness.  At noon Charles always
    returned from his rounds.  After lunch he went out again, then
    she took a cup of bouillon.  And toward five, at the close of
    day, children passed the house on their way home from school,
    dragging their wooden shoes along the sidewalk, and invariably,
    one after the other, hitting their rulers against the shutter
    hooks.

         About this time Monsieur Bournisien usually stopped in.
    He would ask after her health, give her news, and exhort her
    to prayer in an affectionate, informal way that wasn't without
    its charm.  Just the sight of his cassock she found comforting.

         One day at the height of her sickness, when she thought
    she was dying, she had asked for Communion.  And as her room
    was made ready for the sacrament, the chest of drawers cleared
    of its medicine bottles and transformed into an altar, the
    floor strewn with dahlia blossoms by Felicite, Emma felt some-
    thing powerful pass over her that rid her of all pain, all
    perception, all feeling.  Her flesh had been relieved of its
    burdens, even the burden of thought.  Another life was begin-
    ning.  It seemed to her that her spirit, ascending to God, was
    about to find annihilation in this love, like burning incense
    dissolving in smoke.  the sheets of her bed were sprinkled with
    holy water.  The priest drew the white host from the sacred
    pyx, and she was all but swooning with celestial bliss as she
    advanced her lips to receive the body of the Saviour.  The cur-
    tains of her alcove swelled out softly around her like clouds.
    And the beams of the two wax tapers burning on the chest of
    drawers seemed to her like dazzling emanations of divine light.
    Then she let her head fall back.  Through the vastnesses of
    space seemed to come the music of seraphic harps, and on a
    golden throne in an azure sky she thought she saw God the Father
    in all His glory, surrounded by the saints bearing branches of
    green palm.  He was gesturing majestically, and obedient angels
    with flaming wings were descending to the earth to bear her to
    Him in their arms.

         This splendid vision, the most beautiful of all possible
    dreams, stayed in her memory.  Not eclipsing all else as at
    the time it occurred, but no less intensely sweet.  And she
    kept straining to recapture the original sensation.  Her soul,
    aching with pride, was at last finding rest in Christian humi-
    lity, and luxuriating in her own weakness she turned her eyes
    inward and watched the destruction of her will, which was to
    open wide the way for an onrush of grace.  She was filled with
    wonderment at the discovery that there was a bliss greater
    than mere happiness, a love different from and transcending
    all others.  A love without break and without end, a love that
    increased throughout eternity!  Among the illusions born of
    her hope she glimpsed a realm of purity in which she aspired
    to dwell.  It hovered above the earth, merging with the sky.
    She conceived the idea of becoming a saint.  She bought rosa-
    ries and festooned herself with holy medals.  She wished she
    had an emerald-studded reliquary within reach at her bed's
    head, to kiss every night.

         The priest was enchanted by her change of heart, though
    he was of the opinion that her faith might by it very fervor
    come to border on heresy and even on extravagance.  But not
    being versed in these matters once they went beyond a certain
    point, he wrote Monsieur Boulard, the bishop's bookseller,
    and asked him to send him "something particularly good for a
    lady who had a very fine mind."  As casually as though he
    were shipping trinkets to savages, the bookseller made up a
    heterogeneous package of everything just then current in the
    religious book trade.  Little question-and-answer manuals,
    pamphlets couched in the contemptuous language made popular
    by Monsieur de Maistre, so-called novels in pink bindings and
    sugary style concocted by romantic-minded seminarists or re-
    formed blue-stockings.  There were titles such as Think It
    Over Carefully, The Man of the World at the Feet of Mary, by
    Monsieur de . . ., recipient of several decorations, The
    Errors of Voltaire, for the use of the young, etc.

         Madame Bovary wasn't yet sufficiently recovered in mind
    to apply herself seriously to anything.  And besides, she
    plunged into all this literature far too precipitately.  The
    regulations governing worship annoyed her.  She disliked the
    arrogance of the polemical writings because of their relent-
    less attacks on people she had never heard of, and the secular
    stories flavored with religion seemed to her written out of
    such ignorance of the world that she was unwittingly led away
    from the very truths she was longing to have confirmed.  Never-
    theless she persisted, and when the volume fell from her hands
    she was convinced that hers was the most exquisite Catholic
    melancholy that had ever entered an ethereal soul.

         As for the memory of Rodolphe, she had buried it in the
    depths of her heart, and there it remained, as solemn and
    motionless as the mummy of a pharaoh in an underground chamber.
    Her great love that lay thus embalmed gave off a fragrance
    that permeated everything, adding a touch of tenderness to the
    immaculate atmosphere in which she longed to live.  When she
    knelt at her Gothic prie-dieu she addressed the Lord in the
    same ardent words she had formerly murmured to her lover in
    the ecstasies of adultery.  It was her way of praying for
    faith.  But heaven showered no joy upon her, and she would
    rise, her limbs aching, with a vague feeling that it was all a
    vast fraud.  This quest she considered meritorious in itself,
    and in the pride of her piety Emma likened herself to those
    great ladies of yore whose fame she had dreamed of while
    gazing at a portrait of La Valliere.  How majestically they
    had trailed the gorgeous trains of their long gowns, as they
    withdrew into seclusion to shed at the feet of Christ all the
    tears of their life-wounded hearts!

         Now she became wildly charitable.  She sewed clothes for
    the poor, sent firewood to women in childbed.  And one day
    Charles came home to find three tramps sitting at the kitchen
    table eating soup.  She sent for her daughter (during her ill-
    ness Charles had left the child with the nurse) and she was
    determined to teach her to read.  Berthe wept and wept, but
    she never lost her temper with her.  It was a deliberately
    adopted attitude of resignation, of indulgence toward all.
    She used a lofty term whenever she could.  "Is your stomach-
    ache all gone, my angel?" she would say to her daughter.

         The elder Madame Bovary found nothing to reproach her
    for in all this, except perhaps her mania for knitting under-
    shirts for orphans instead of mending her own dish towels.
    Harassed by the incessant quarrels in her own home, the old
    lady enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere of this house, and she
    prolonged her visit through Easter to escape the jibes of her
    husband, whose invariable habit it was to order pork sausage
    on Good Friday.

         In addition to the company of her mother-in-law, whom
    she found a steadying influence because of her unswerving
    principles and solemn demeanor, Emma nearly every day had
    other visits.  From Madame Langlois, Madame Caron, Madame
    Dubreuil, Madame Tuvache, and, regularly from two to five,
    from Madame Homais, who, good soul that she was, had always
    refused to believe any of the gossip that was spread about
    her neighbor.  The Homais children visited her too, Justin
    brought them.  He came with them up into her bedroom and
    stood quietly near the door, never saying a word.  Often
    while he was there Madame Bovary would start to dress, obli-
    vious of him.  She would begin by taking out her comb and
    tossing her head.  The first time he saw her mass of black
    hair fall in ringlets to her knees, it was for the boy like
    the sudden opening of a door upon something marvelous and
    new, something whose splendor frightened him.

         Emma never noticed his silent eagerness or his timidity.
    She knew only that love had disappeared from her life.  She
    had no suspicion that it was pulsating there so close to her,
    beneath that coarse shirt, in that adolescent heart so open
    to the emanations of her beauty.  Moreover, her detachment
    from everything had become so complete, her language was so
    sweet and the look in her eye so haughty, her behavior was so
    mercurial, that there was no longer any way of telling where
    selfishness and corruption ended and charity and virtue began.
    One night, for instance, she lost her temper with her servant,
    who was asking permission to go out and stammering some pre-
    tended reason.

         Then, "So you love him, do you?" Emma suddenly demanded.
    And without waiting for the blushing Felicite to answer, she
    added, resignedly.  "All right, run along!  Enjoy yourself!"

         When the weather turned mild she had the garden completely
    dug up and relandscaped.  Bovary objected a little, but he was
    glad to see her finally caring about things, and she gave more
    and more evidence of this as her strength returned.  She for-
    bade the house to Madame Rollet the nurse, who during her con-
    valescence had formed the habit of coming too often to the
    kitchen with her own two babes and her little boarder, the
    latter more ravenous than a cannibal.  She cut down on visits
    from the Homais', discouraged all her other callers, and even
    went less regularly to church, thus eliciting the apothecary's
    approval.

         "I was afraid you'd been taken in by the mumbo-jumbo,"
    he said amicably.

         The abbe Bournisien still came every day, after catechism
    class.  He preferred to sit outdoors in the fresh air, in the
    "grove," as he called the arbor.  This was the hour of Charles'
    return.  Both men would be hot.  Felicite would bring them
    sweet cider, and they would raise their glasses and drink to
    Madame's complete recovery.

         Binet was often there, just below, that is, beside the
    terrace wall, fishing for crayfish.  Bovary would invite him
    to join them for a drink, he prided himself on being an expert
    uncorker of cider jugs.

         "First," he would say, glancing at his companions compla-
    cently and then giving an equally smug look at the landscape,
    "first you must hold the bottle upright on the table, like
    this.  Then you cut the strings.  And then you pry up the cork,
    a little at a time, gently, gently, the way they open Seltzer
    water in restaurants."

         But during this demonstration the cork would often pop
    out and the cider would splash one or another of them in the
    face.  And the cure never failed to laugh his thick laugh and
    make his joke, "Its excellence is certainly striking!"

         He was a good-hearted fellow, there was no denying it,
    and he even expressed no objection one day when the pharmacist
    advised Charles to give Madame a treat and take her to the
    opera in Rouen, to hear the famous tenor, Lagardy.  Homais was
    surprised at his silence, and asked him how he felt about it,
    and the priest declared that he considered music less dangerous
    to morals than literature.

         The pharmacist sprang to the defense of letters.  The
    theatre, he claimed, served to expose prejudice.  It taught
    virtue under the guise of entertainment.

         "Castigat ridendo mores, Monsieur Bournisien!  Take most
    of Voltaire's tragedies, for example.  It's clever the way
    he's stuck them full of philosophical remarks.  They're a
    complete education in morals and diplomacy for the people."

         "I saw a play once, called the Gamin de Paris," said
    Binet.  "There's an old general in it that's absolutely first-
    class.  A rich fellow seduces a working girl and the general

    slaps him down and at the end . . ."

         "Of course," Homais went on, "there's bad literature just
    as there's bad pharmaceutics.  But to make a blanket condemna-
    tion of the greatest of the fine arts seems to be a yokelism, a
    medievalism worthy of that abominable age when they imprisoned
    Galileo."

         "I know perfectly well," objected the priest, "that there
    are good writers who write good things.  Still, the fact alone
    that people of different sexes are brought together in a glamo-
    rous auditorium that's the last word in worldly luxury, and
    then the heathenish disguises, the painted faces, the foot-
    lights, the effeminate voices, it all can't help encouraging a
    certain licentiousness and inducing evil thoughts and impure
    temptations.  Such, at least, is the opinion of all the church
    fathers.  After all," he added, suddenly assuming an unctuous
    tone and rolling himself a pinch of snuff, "if the church con-
    demns play-going she has good reason for doing so, we must sub-
    mit to her decrees."

         "Why," demanded the apothecary, "does she excommunicate
    actors?  They used to take part openly in ecclesiastical cere-
    monies, you know.  Yes, they used to act right in the middle of
    the choir, put on farcical plays called mysteries.  These often
    violated the laws of decency, I may say."

         The priest's only answer was a groan, and the pharmacist
    persisted.  "It's the same in the Bible.  There's more than one
    spicy bit in that book, you know, some pret-ty dar-ing things!"

         And as Monsieur Bournisien made a gesture of annoyance.

         "Ah!  You'll agree that it's no book to give a young
    person!  I'd be sorry if my daughter Athalie . . ."

         "But we don't recommend the reading of the Bible!" cried
    the abbe impatiently.  "It's the Protestants!"

         "It makes no difference," said Homais.  "I'm astonished
    that in this day and age, an age of enlightenment, anyone
    should persist in forbidding a form of intellectual diversion
    that's harmless, morally uplifting, and sometimes, isn't it
    true, Doctor? . . . even good for the health."

         "I guess so."  Charles made his answer in a vacant tone,
    perhaps because he shared Homais' opinion and didn't want to
    offend the priest, or perhaps because he had no opinion.

         The conversation seemed to be at an end, when the pharma-
    cist saw fit to make one last dig.

         "I've known priests," he said, "who made a practice of
    going out in civilian clothes and watching leg shows."

         "Come now," said the priest.

         "Oh yes, I've known some!"

         And once again separating his syllables by way of signifi-
    cant emphasis, Homais repeated.  "I . . . have . . . known . . .
    some!"

         "Well, then, they did wrong," said Bournisien with truly
    Christian patience.

         "I should think so!  And that wasn't all they were up to,
    either!" exclaimed the apothecary.

         "Monsieur!"  The priest jumped to his feet and glared so
    fiercely that the pharmacist was intimidated.

         "All I mean," he said, much more mildly, "is that toler-
    ance is the surest means of bringing souls into the church."

         "Quite true, quite true," the cure conceded, sitting down
    again.

         He left a moment or two later, however, and Homais said
    to the doctor, "Quite a squabble!  How did you like the way I
    got the better of him?  Pretty good, eh?  Anyway, follow my
    advice and take Madame to the opera, if only to give a priest
    a black eye for once in your life.  If I could find a substi-
    tute I'd come with you.  Don't lose any time getting tickets.
    Lagardy's giving only one performance, he's scheduled for an
    English tour at staggering fees.  From what they say, he must
    be quite a lad.  He's filthy with money.  Everywhere he goes
    he takes along three mistresses and a cook.  All those great
    artists burn their candles at both ends.  They have to lead a
    wild kind of life.  It stimulates their imagination.  But they
    die in the poorhouse, because they haven't the sense to save
    money when they're young.  Well, bon appetit, a demain!"

         The idea of the opera took rapid root in Bovary's mind.
    He lost no time suggesting it to his wife.  She shook her head,
    pleading fatigue, trouble and expense.  But for once Charles
    didn't give in, so convinced was he that she would benefit from
    the excursion.  He saw no reason for them not to go, his mother
    had sent him three hundred francs they had given up hope of
    getting, their debts of the moment were nothing tremendous, and
    Lheureux's notes weren't due for so long that there was no use
    thinking about them.  Fancying that Emma was refusing out of
    consideration for him, Charles insisted the more strongly, and
    finally she gave in.  The next day, at eight in the morning,
    they bundled themselves into the Hirondelle.

         The apothecary, who had nothing in the world to keep him
    in Yonville, but who was firmly convinced that he couldn't
    absent himself even briefly, gave a sigh as he watched their
    departure.

         "Bon voyage!" he called to them.  "Some people have all
    the luck!"

         And to Emma, who was wearing a blue silk dress with four
    rows of flounces, "You're pretty as a picture!  You'll be the
    belle of Rouen!"

         The coach took them to the Hotel de la Croix-Rouge in
    the Place Beauvoisine.  It was one of those inns such as you
    find on the edge of every provincial city, with large stables
    and small bedrooms, and chickens scratching for oats in the
    coach yard under muddy gigs belonging to traveling salesmen.
    Comfortable, old-fashioned stopovers, with worm-eaten wooden
    balconies that creak in the wind on winter nights, constantly
    full of people, bustle and victuals, their blackened table
    tops sticky with spilled coffee-and-brandies, their thick
    windowpanes yellowed by flies, their napkins spotted blue by
    cheap red wine.  They always seem a little rustic, like farm
    hands in Sunday clothes.  On the street side they have a cafe,
    and in back, on the country side, a vegetable garden.  Charles
    went at once to buy tickets.  He got the stage boxes mixed up
    with the top balconies, and the rest of the boxes with the
    orchestra.  He asked for explanations, didn't understand them,
    was sent from the box office to the manager, came back to the
    hotel, went back to the box office again.  All in all, between
    the theatre and the outer boulevard he covered the entire
    length of the city several times over.

         Madame bought herself a hat, gloves and a bouquet.
    Monsieur was nervous about missing the beginning, and without
    stopping for as much as a cup of bouillon they arrived at the
    theatre before the doors were even open.






















    PART 2

    CHAPTER FIFTEEN

         There was a crowd waiting outside, lined up behind rail-
    ings on both sides of the entrance.  At the adjoining street
    corners huge posters in fancy lettering announced, "Lucie de
    Lammermoor . . . Lagardy . . . Opera . . . etc."  It was a
    fine evening.  Everyone was hot.  Many a set of curls was
    drenched in sweat, and handkerchiefs were out, mopping red
    brows.  Now and again a soft breeze blowing from the river
    gently stirred the edges of the canvas awnings over cafe doors.
    But just a short distance away there was a coolness, provided
    by an icy draft smelling of tallow, leather and oil, the effu-
    via of the Rue des Charettes, with its great, gloomy, barrel-
    filled warehouses.

         Fearing lest they appear ridiculous, Emma insisted that
    they stroll a bit along the river front before going in.  And
    Bovary, by way of precaution, kept the tickets in his hand and
    his hand in his trousers pocket, pressed reassuringly against
    his stomach.

         Her heart began to pound as they entered the foyer.  A
    smile of satisfaction rose involuntarily to her lips at seeing
    the crowd hurry off to the right down the corridor, while she
    climbed the stairs leading to the first tier.  She took plea-
    sure, like a child, in pushing open the wide upholstered doors
    with one finger.  She filled her lungs with the dusty smell of
    the corridors, and seated in her box she drew herself up with
    all the airs of a duchess.

         The theatre began to fill.  Opera glasses came out of
    cases, and subscribers exchanged greetings as they glimpsed
    one another across the house.  The arts, for them, were a
    relaxation from the worries of buying and selling, that was
    why they had come, but it was quite impossible for them to
    forget business even here, and their conversation was about
    cotton, spirits and indigo.  The old men looked blank and
    placid.  With their gray-white hair and gray-white skin they
    were like silver medals that had been tarnished by lead fumes.
    The young beaux strutted in the orchestra.  The openings of
    their waistcoats were bright with pink or apple-green cravats,
    and Madame Bovary looked admiringly down at them as they
    leaned with tightly yellow-gloved hands on their gold-knobbed
    walking sticks.

         Meanwhile the candles were lighted on the music stands
    and the chandelier came down from the ceiling, the sparkle of
    its crystals filling the house with sudden gaiety.  Then the
    musicians filed in and there was a long cacophony of booming
    cellos, scraping violins, blaring horns, and piping flutes
    and flageolets.  Then three heavy blows came from the stage.
    There was a roll of kettledrums and a series of chords from
    the brasses, and the curtain rose on an outdoor scene.

         It was a crossroad in a forest, on the right a spring
    shaded by an oak.  A group of country folk and nobles, all
    with tartans over their shoulders, sang a hunting chorus.
    Then a captain strode in and inveighed against an evil spirit,
    raising both arms to heaven.  Another character joined him.
    They both walked off, and the huntsmen repeated their chorus.

         She was back in the books she had read as a girl, deep in
    Walter Scott.  She imagined she could hear the sound of Scot-
    tish pipes echoing through the mist across the heather.  Her
    recollection of the novel made it easy for her to grasp the
    libretto, and she followed the plot line by line, elusive,
    half-forgotten memories drifting into her thoughts only to be
    dispelled by the onrush of the music.  She let herself be
    lulled by the melodies, feeling herself vibrate to the very
    fiber of her being, as though the bows of the violins were
    playing on her nerve-strings.  She couldn't take in enough of
    the costumes, the sets, the characters, the painted trees
    that shook at the slightest footstep, the velvet bonnets, the
    cloaks, the swords, all those fanciful things that fluttered
    on waves of music as though in another world.  Then a young
    woman came forward, tossing a purse to a squire in green. She
    was left alone on the stage, and there came the sound of a
    flute, like the ripple of a spring or the warbling of a bird.
    Lucie, looking solemn, began her cavatina in G major.  She
    uttered love laments, begged for wings.  And at that moment
    Emma, too, longed that she might leave life behind and take
    wing in an embrace.  Suddenly Edgar Lagardy came on stage.

         He was pale to the point of splendor with that marmoreal
    majesty sometimes found among the passionate races of the
    south.  His stalwart figure was clad in a tight brown doublet.
    A small chased dagger swung at his left hip, and he rolled his
    eyes about him languorously and flashed his white teeth.

         People said that a Polish princess had heard him sing one
    night on the beach at Biarritz, where he was a boat-boy, and
    had fallen in love with him.  She had beggared herself for
    him, and he had left her for other women.  This reputation
    as a ladies' man had done no disservice to his professional
    career.  Shrewd ham actor that he was, he always saw to it
    that his publicity should include a poetic phrase or two about
    the charm of his personality and the sensibility of his soul.
    A fine voice, utter self-possession, more temperament than
    intelligence, more bombast than feeling, such were the prin-
    cipal attributes of this magnificent charlatan.  There was
    a touch of the hairdresser about him, and a touch of the
    toreador.

         He had the audience in transports from the first.  He
    clasped Lucie in his arms, left her, returned to her, seemed
    in despair.  He would shout with rage, then let his voice
    expire, plaintive and infinitely sweet, and the notes that
    poured from his bare throat were full of sobs and kisses.

         Emma strained forward to watch him, her fingernails
    scratching the plush of her box.  Her heart drank its full of
    the medodious laments that hung suspended in the air against
    the sound of the double-basses like the cries of shipwrecked
    sailors against the tumult of a storm.  Here was the same
    ecstasy, the same anguish that had brought her to the brink
    of death.  The soprano's voice seemed but the echo of her own
    soul, and this illusion that held her under its spell a part
    of her own life.  But no one on earth had ever loved her with
    so great a love.  That last moonlight night, when they had
    told each other, "Till tomorrow!  Till tomorrow!" he had not
    wept as Edgar was weeping now.  The house was bursting with
    applause.  The whole stretto was repeated.  The lovers sang
    about the flowers on their graves, about vows and exile and

    fate and hope.  And when their voices rose in the final fare-
    well, Emma herself uttered a sharp cry that was drowned in
    the blast of the final chords.

         "What's that lord doing, mistreating her like that?"
    Charles asked.

         "No, no," she answered.  "That's her lover."

         "But he's swearing vengeance on her family, whereas the
    other one, the one that came on a while ago, said `I love
    Lucie and I think she loves me!'  Besides, he walked off arm
    in arm with her father.  That is her father, isn't it, the
    ugly little one with the cock-feather in his hat?"

         Despite Emma's explanations, Charles got everything mixed
    up beginning with the duet in recitative in which Gilbert ex-
    plains his abominable machinations to his master Ashton.  The
    false engagement ring serving to trick Lucie he took to be a
    love token sent by Edgar.  In fact he couldn't follow the story
    at all, he said, because of the music.  It interfered so with
    the words.

         "What difference does it make?" said Emma.  "Be quiet!"

         "But I like to know what's going on," he persisted, lean-
    ing over her shoulder.  "You know I do."

         "Be quiet!  Be quiet!" she whispered impatiently.

         Lucie came on, half borne up by her women.  There was a
    wreath of orange blossoms in her hair, and she was paler than
    the white satin of her gown.  Emma thought of her own wedding
    day.  She saw herself walking toward the church along the
    little path amid the wheatfields.  Why in heaven's name hadn't
    she resisted and entreated, like Lucie?  But no, she had been
    light-hearted, unaware of the abyss she was rushing toward.
    Ah!  If only in the freshness of her beauty, before defiling
    herself in marriage, before the disillusionments of adultery,
    she could have found some great and noble heart to be her
    life's foundation!  Then virtue and affection, sensual joys
    and duty would all have been one, and she would never have
    fallen from her high felicity.  But that kind of happiness was
    doubtless a lie, invented to make one despair of any love.
    Now she well knew the true paltriness of the passions that art
    painted so large.  So she did her best to think of the opera
    in a different light.  She resolved to regard this image of
    her own griefs as a vivid fantasy, an enjoyable spectacle and
    nothing more.  And she was actually smiling to herself in
    scornful pity when from behind the velvet curtains at the
    back of the stage there appeared a man in a black cloak.

         A single gesture sent his broad-brimmed Spanish hat to
    the ground, and the orchestra and the singers abruptly broke
    into the sextet.  Edgar, flashing fury, dominated all the
    others with his high, clear voice.  Ashton flung him his
    homicidal challenge in solemn tones.  Lucie uttered her shrill
    lament.  Arthur sang his asides in middle register.  And the
    chaplain's baritone boomed like an organ while the women,
    echoing his words, repeated them in delicious chorus.  All the
    characters now formed a single line across the stage.  All were
    gesticulating at once, and rage, vengeance, jealousy, terror,
    pity and amazement poured simultaneously from their open
    mouths.  The outraged lover brandished his naked sword.  His
    lace collar rose and fell with the heaving of his chest, and
    he strode up and down, clanking the silver-gilt spurs on his
    soft, flaring boots.  His love, she thought, must be inexhaus-
    tible, since he could pour it out in such great quantities on
    the crowd.  Her resolution not to be taken in by the display
    of false sentiment was swept away by the impact of the singer's
    eloquence.  The fiction that he was embodying drew her to his
    real life, and she tried to imagine what it was like.  That
    glamorous, fabulous, marvelous life that she, too, might have
    lived had chance so willed it.  They might have met!  They
    might have loved!  With him she might have traveled over all
    the kingdoms of Europe, from capital to capital, sharing his
    hardships and his triumphs, gathering up the flowers his ad-
    mirers threw.  Embroidering his costumes with her own hands,
    and every night behind the gilded lattice of her box she might
    have sat open-mouthed, breathing in the outpourings of that
    divine creature who would be singing for her alone.  He would
    have gazed at her from the stage as he played his role.  A mad
    idea seized her, he was gazing at her now!  She was sure of
    it!  She longed to rush into his arms and seek refuge in his
    strength as in the very incarnation  of love.  She longed to
    cry, "Ravish me!  Carry me off!  Away from here!  All my
    passion and all my dreams are yours, yours alone!"

         The curtain fell.

         The smell of gas mingled with human exhalations, and the
    air seemed the more stifling for being stirred up by fans.
    Emma tried to get out, but there was a crush in the corridors,
    and she sank back onto a chair, oppressed by palpitations.
    Charles, fearful lest she fall into a faint, hurried to the
    bar for a glass of orgeat.

         He had a hard time getting back to the box.  He held the
    glass in both hands because his elbows were being jarred at
    every other step, but even so he spilled three-quarters of it
    over the shoulders of a Rouen lady in short sleeves, who began
    to scream like a peacock, as though she were being murdered,
    when she felt the cold liquid trickling down her spine.  While
    she took her handkerchief to the spots on her beautiful cerise
    taffeta gown, her mill-owner husband gave poor clumsy Charles
    a piece of his mind, angrily muttering the words "damages,"
    "cost," and "replacement."  Finally Charles made his way to
    his wife.

         "I thought I'd never get out of there," he gasped.  "Such
    a crowd!  Such a crowd!"

         And he added, "Guess who I ran into, Monsieur Leon!"

         "Leon?"

         "Absolutely.  He'll be coming along to pay you his re-
    spects."

         As he uttered the words the former Yonville clerk entered
    the box.

         He held out his hand with aristocratic casualness, and
    Madame Bovary automatically extended hers, yielding, no doubt,
    to the attraction of a stronger will.  She hadn't touched it
    since that spring evening when the rain was falling on the new
    green leaves, the evening they had said farewell as they stood
    beside the window.  But quickly reminding herself of the social
    requirements of the situation, she roused herself with an
    effort from her memories and began to stammer hurried phrases.

         "Ah, good evening!  You here?  How amazing . . .!"

         "Quiet!" cried a voice from the orchestra, for the third
    act was beginning.

         "So you're living in Rouen?"

         "Yes."

         "Since when?'

         "Sh!  Sh!"

         People were turning around at them indignantly, and they
    fell silent.

         But from that moment on Emma no longer listened to the
    music.  The chorus of guests, the scene between Ashton and his
    attendant, the great duet in D major.  For her it all took
    place at a distance, as though the instruments had lost their
    sound and the characters had moved away.  She recalled the
    card games at the pharmacist's and the walk to the wet nurse's,
    their readings under the arbor, the tete-a-tetes beside the
    fire.  The whole poor story of their love, so quiet and so
    long, so discreet, so tender, and yet discarded from her
    memory.  Why was he returning like this?  What combination
    of events was bringing him back into her life?  He sat behind
    her, leaning a shoulder against the wall of the box.  And
    from time to time she quivered as she felt his warm breath
    on her hair.

         "Are you enjoying this?' he asked, leaning over so close
    that the tip of his mustache brushed against her cheek.

         "Heavens no," she said carelessly, "not particularly."

         And he suggested that they leave the theatre and go
    somewhere for an ice.

         "Oh, not yet!  Let's stay!" said Bovary.  "Her hair's
    down.  It looks as though it's going to be tragic."

         But the mad scene interested Emma not at all.  The
    soprano, she felt, was overdoing her role.

         "She's shrieking too loud," she said, turning toward
    Charles, who was drinking it in.

         "Yes . . . perhaps . . . a little," he replied, torn
    between the fullness of his enjoyment and the respect he had
    for his wife's opinions.

         "It's so hot . . ." sighed Leon.

         "It is . . . Unbearable."

         "Are you uncomfortable?' asked Bovary.

         "Yes, I'm stifling.  Let's go."

         Monsieur Leon carefully laid her long lace shawl over her
    shoulders, and the three of them walked to the river front and
    sat down on the outdoor terrace of a cafe.  First they spoke
    of her sickness, Emma interrupting Charles now and then lest,
    as she said, he bore Monsieur Leon.  And Monsieur Leon told
    them he had just come to Rouen to spend two years in a large
    office to familiarize himself with the kind of business car-
    ried on in Normandy, which was different from anything he had
    learned about in Paris.  Then he asked about Berthe, the
    Homais', and Madame Lefrancois, and since they had no more to
    say to each other in front of Charles the conversation soon
    died.

         People coming from the theatre strolled by on the side-
    walk, humming or bawling at the top of their voices, "O bel
    ange, ma Lucie!"  Leon began to show off his musical know-
    ledge.  He had heard Tamburini, Rubini, Persiani, Grisi, and
    in comparison with them, Lagardy, for all the noise he made,
    was nothing.

         "Still," interrupted Charles, who was eating his rum
    sherbet a tiny bit at a time, "they say he's wonderful in
    the last act.  I was sorry to leave before the end.  I was
    beginning to like it."

         "Don't worry," said the clerk, "he'll be giving another
    performance soon."

         But Charles said they were leaving the next day.

         "Unless," he said, turning to his wife, "you'd like to
    stay on by yourself, sweetheart?"

         And changing his tune to suit this unexpected opportunity,
    the young man sang the praises of Lagardy in the final scenes.
    He was superb, sublime!

         Charles insisted, "You can come home Sunday.  Yes, make
    up your mind to do it.  You'd be wrong not to, if you think
    there's the slightest chance it might do you some good."

         Meanwhile the tables around them were emptying.  A waiter
    came and stood discreetly nearby.  Charles took the hint and
    drew out his purse.  The clerk put a restraining hand on his
    arm, paid the bill, and noisily threw down a couple of silver
    coins for the waiter.

         "I'm really embarrassed," murmured Bovary, "at the money
    that you . . ."

         The younger man shrugged him off in a friendly way and
    took up his hat.  "So it's agreed?' he said.  "tomorrow at
    six?'

         Charles repeated that he couldn't stay away that much
    longer, but that there was nothing to prevent Emma . . .

         "Oh," she murmured, smiling a peculiar smile, "I really
    don't know whether . . ."

         "Well, think it over," said Charles.  "Sleep on it and
    we'll decide in the morning."  Then, to Leon, who was walking
    with them, "Now that you're back in our part of the world I
    hope you'll drop in now and then and let us give you dinner?"

         The clerk said that he certainly would, especially since
    he'd soon be going to Yonville anyway on a business matter.
    They said good night at the corner of the Passage Saint-
    Herbland as the cathedral clock was striking half past eleven.














    PART 3

    CHAPTER ONE

         Busy though he had been with his law studies, Monsieur
    Leon had nevertheless found time to frequent the Chaumiere,
    and in that cabaret he had done very well for himself with
    the grisettes, who considered him "distinguished-looking."
    He was the best-behaved student imaginable.  His hair was
    neither too long nor too short, he didn't spend his entire
    quarter's allowance the day he got it, and he kept on good
    terms with his professors.  As for excesses, he had been too
    timorous as well as too squeamish to go in for them.

         Often, when he sat reading in his room, or under the
    lindens of the Luxembourg in the evening, he let his law book
    fall to the ground, and the memory of Emma came back to him.
    But gradually his feeling for her faded, and other sensual
    appetites supplanted it.  Even so, it persisted in the back-
    ground, for Leon never gave up all hope.  It was as though a
    vague promise kept dangling before him in the future, like a
    golden fruit hanging from some exotic tree.

         Then, seeing her again after three years, his passion
    revived.  This time, he decided he must make up his mind to
    possess her.  Much of his shyness had worn off as a result
    of the gay company he had kept, and he had returned to the
    provinces filled with contempt for the local ladies, so
    different from the trim-shod creatures of the boulevards.
    Before an elegant Parisienne in the salon of some famous,
    rich, be-medaled physician, the poor clerk would doubtless
    have trembled like a child.  But here on the Rouen river
    front, in the presence of this wife of an officier de sante,
    he felt at ease, sure in advance that she would be dazzled.
    Self-confidence depends on surroundings.  The same person
    talks quite differently in the drawing room and in the
    garret, and a rich woman's virtue is protected by her bank-
    notes quite as effectively as by any cuirass worn under a
    corset.

         After taking leave of Monsieur and Madame Bovary the
    previous night, Leon had followed them at a distance in the
    street, and when he saw them turn into the Croix-Rouge, he
    retraced his steps and spent the rest of the night working
    out a plan of action.

         The next afternoon about five, pale-faced, with a tight-
    ness in his throat and with the blind resolution of the panic-
    stricken, he walked into the inn kitchen.

         "Monsieur isn't here," a servant told him.

         He took that to be a good omen, and went upstairs.

         She received him calmly, and even apologized for having
    forgotten to mention where they were staying.

         "Oh, I guessed!" said Leon.

         "How?"

         He pretended that he had been led to her by pure chance,
    a kind of instinct.  That made her smile, and, ashamed of his
    blunder, he quickly told her that he had spent the morning
    looking for her all over the city, in one hotel after another.

         "So you decided to stay?" he asked.

         "Yes," she said, "and I was wrong.  One can't afford to
    be self-indulgent if one has a thousand things to attend to."

         "Oh, I can imagine . . ."

         "No, you can't!  You're not a woman."

         But men had their troubles too.  And so the conversation
    got under way, with philosophical reflections.  Emma expati-
    ated on the vanity of earthly attachments and on the eternal
    isolation of every human heart.  Either to impress her, or
    naturally taking on the color of her melancholy, the young
    man declared that he had found his studies prodigiously frus-
    trating.  The technicalities of law irritated him, he was

    tempted by other careers, and in her letters his mother never
    stopped pestering him.  Indeed, as they talked on they both
    became more specific in their complaints, and less reserved
    in their confidences.  Occasionally they shrank from giving
    full expression to their thought, and groped for phrases that
    would convey it obliquely.  But she never disclosed having had
    another passion, and he said nothing about having forgotten
    her.

         Perhaps he no longer remembered the suppers following
    fancy-dress balls, with the girls costumed as stevedores.  And
    doubtless she didn't recall those early-morning meetings when
    she had run through the fields to her lover's chateau.  The
    sounds of the city reached them only faintly, and the room
    seemed small, designed with them in mind, to make their soli-
    tude the closer.  Emma, in a dimity dressing gown, leaned her
    chignon against the back of the old armchair.  The yellow
    wallpaper was like a gold ground behind her, and her bare head
    was reflected in the mirror, with the white line of her center
    part, and the tips of her ears peeping out from under the
    sweeps of her hair.

         "But forgive me," she said.  "I shouldn't bore you with
    all my complaints!"

         "How can you say that!" he said reproachfully.

         "Ah!" she said, lifting her lovely tear-bright eyes to
    the ceiling.  "If you knew all the dreams I've dreamed!"

         "It's the same with me!  Oh, I had a terrible time!  Very
    often I dropped everything and went out and wandered along the
    quays, trying to forget my thoughts in the noise of the crowd.
    But I could never drive out the obsession that haunted me.  In
    the window of a print shop on the boulevard there's an Italian
    engraving showing one of the Muses.  She's draped in a tunic
    and looking at the moon.  Her hair's streaming down, with for-
    get-me-nots in it.  Something made me go back there over and
    over again.  I used to stand in front of that window for hours
    on end."  Then, in a trembling voice, "She looked like you a
    little."

         Madame Bovary averted her face lest he see the smile that
    she couldn't suppress.

         "I kept writing you letters," he said, "and then tearing
    them up."

         She made no answer.

         He went on, "I used to imagine we'd meet by chance.  I
    kept thinking I saw you on street corners, and I even ran
    after cabs sometimes, if I saw a shawl or a veil at the window
    that looked like yours . . ."

         She seemed determined to let him speak without interrup-
    tion.  Arms crossed and head lowered, she stared at the ros-
    ettes on her slippers, now and again moving her toes a little
    under the satin.

         Finally she gave a sigh.  "The worst thing of all, it
    seems to me, is to go on leading a futile life the way I do.
    If our unhappiness were of use to someone, we could find con-
    solation in the thought of sacrifice!"

         He launched into a eulogy of virtue, duty, silent renun-
    ciation.  He, too, he said, had a fantastic need for selfless
    dedication that he was unable to satisfy.

         "What I should love to do," she said, "would be to join
    an order of nursing Sisters."

         "Alas!" he answered.  "No such sacred missions are open
    to men.  I can't think of any calling . . . except maybe be-
    coming a doctor . . ."

         She gave a slight shrug and interrupted him, expressing
    regret that her illness had not been fatal.  What a pity!  By
    now she would be past all suffering.  Leon at once chimed in
    with a longing for "the peace of the grave."  One night he had
    even written out his will, asking to be buried in the beautiful
    velvet-striped coverlet she had given him.

         That was how they would have liked to be.  What they were
    doing was to dream up ideals and then refashion their past
    lives to match them.  Speech is a rolling-machine that always
    stretches the feelings it expresses!

         But, "Why?" she asked him, at his made-up tale about the
    coverlet.

         "Why?"  He hesitated.  "Because . . . I was terribly in
    love with you!"

         And congratulating himself on having got over the hurdle,
    Leon watched her face out of the corner of his eye.

         It was like the sky when a gust of wind sweeps away the
    clouds.  The mass of sad thoughts that had darkened her blue
    eyes seemed to lift, her whole face was radiant.

         He waited.  Finally she answered, "I always thought so."

         They went over, then, the tiny happenings of that far-off
    time, whose joys and sorrows had been evoked by a single word.
    He spoke of the clematis bower, of the dresses she had worn,
    of the furniture in her room . . . of everything in the house.

         "And our poor cactuses . . . what's become of them?'

         "The cold killed them last winter."

         "I've thought about them so often, would you believe it?
    I've pictured them the way they used to look on summer morn-
    ings, with the sun on the blinds and your bare arms in among
    the flowers."

         "Poor boy," she said, holding out her hand.

         Leon lost no time pressing it to his lips.  Then, after
    taking a deep breath.

         "You were a strange, mysterious, captivating force in my
    life in those days.  There was one time, for example, when I
    came to call on you . . . But you probably don't remember."

         "Yes, I do.  Go on."

         "You were downstairs in the hall, ready to go out, stand-
    ing on the bottom step.  I even remember your hat . . . it had
    little blue flowers on it.  And without your asking me at all
    I went with you.  I couldn't help it.  I felt more and more
    foolish every minute, though, and I kept on walking near you.
    I didn't dare really follow you, and yet I couldn't bear to go
    away.  When you went into a shop I stayed in the street, watch-
    ing you through the window take off your gloves and count the
    change on the counter.  Then you rang Madame Tuvache's bell.
    You went in, and I stood there like an idiot in front of the
    big heavy door even after it had closed behind you."

         As she listened to him, Madame Bovary marveled at how old
    she was.  All those re-emerging details made her life seem
    vaster, as though she had endless emotional experiences to
    look back on.  Her voice low, her eyes half closed, she kept
    saying, "Yes, I remember!  I remember!  I remember . . .!"

         They heard eight o'clock strike from several belfries
    near the Place Beauvoisine, a section of Rouen full of board-
    ing schools, churches and great deserted mansions.  They were
    no longer speaking, but as they looked at one another they
    felt a throbbing in their heads.  It was as though their very
    glances had set off a physical vibration.  Now they had clasped
    hands, and in the sweetness of their ecstasy everything merged,
    the past, the future, their memories and their dreams.  Night
    was darkening the walls of the room.  Still gleaming in the
    dimness were the garish colors of four prints showing four
    scenes from La Tour de Nesle, with captions below in Spanish
    and French.  Through the sash window they could see a patch of
    dark sky between peaked roofs.

         She rose to light two candles on the chest of drawers,
    and then sat down again.

         "Well . . . ?" said Leon.

         "Well . . . ?" she echoed.

         And as he wondered how to resume the interrupted con-
    versation, she asked, "Why has no one ever said such things
    to me before?"

         The clerk assured her warmly that idealistic natures
    were rarely understood.  But he had loved her the moment he
    saw her, and despair filled him whenever he thought of the
    happiness that might have been theirs.  Had fortune been
    kind, had they met earlier, they would long since have been
    united indissolubly.

         "I've thought about that, sometimes," she said.

         "What a dream!" murmured Leon.

         And then, gently fingering the blue bordeer of her long
    white belt, "What's to prevent us from beginning all over
    again, now?"

         "No, no," she said.  "I'm too old . . . you're too young
    . . . forget me!  You'll find other women to love you . . .
    and to love."

         "Not as I do you!" he cried.

         "What a child you are!  Come, let's be sensible.  I want
    us to be."

         And she explained why they couldn't be lovers, why they
    must continue to be friends, like brother and sister, as in
    the past.

         Did she mean those things she was saying?  Doubtless
    Emma herself couldn't tell, engrossed as she was by the charm
    of seduction and the need to defend herself.  Looking fondly
    at the young man, she gently repulsed the timid caresses his
    trembling hands essayed.

         "Ah!  Forgive me!" he said, drawing back.

         And Emma was seized by a vague terror in the face of this
    timidity, a greater danger for her than Rodolphe's boldness
    when he had advanced with outstretched arms.  Never had any
    man seemed to her so handsome.  There was an exquisite candor
    about him.  His long, fine, curving eyelashes were lowered,
    the smooth skin of his cheek was flushing with desire for her,
    so she thought.  And she felt an all but invincible longing to
    touch it with her lips.  She leaned away toward the clock, as
    though to see the time.

         "Heavens!" she said.  "How late!  How we've been chatter-
    ing!"

         He understood, and rose to go.

         "I forgot all about the opera!  And poor Bovary left me
    here on purpose to see it!  It was all arranged that I was to
    go with Monsieur and Madame Lormeaux, of the Rue Grand-Pont!"
    It was her last chance, too, for she was leaving the next day.

         "Really?' said Leon.

         "Yes."

         "But I must see you again," he said.  "I had something to
    tell you . . ."

         "What?"

         "Something . . . something serious, important.  No, really.
    You mustn't go, you mustn't.  If you knew . . . Listen . . .
    You haven't understood me, then?  You haven't guessed . . ."

         "On the contrary, you have a very clear way of putting
    things," said Emma.

         "Ah!  Now you're laughing at me!  Please don't!  Have
    pity on me.  Let me see you again.  Once . . . just once."

         "Well . . ."  She paused, then, as though changing her
    mind, "Not here, certainly!"

         "Wherever you like."

         "Will you . . ."  She seemed to ponder, and then, tersely,
    "Tomorrow at eleven in the cathedral."

         "I'll be there!" he cried.  He seized her hands, but she
    pulled them away.

         They were standing close together, he behind and she
    with lowered head, and he bent over and kissed her long and
    lingeringly on the nape of the neck.

         "You're crazy, crazy!" she cried between short bursts
    of laughter as he kissed her again and again.

         Then, leaning his head over her shoulder, he seemed to
    be imploring her eyes to say yes, but the gaze he received
    was icy and aloof.

         Leon stepped back.  In the doorway he paused, and trem-
    blingly whispered, "Till tomorrow."

         Her only reply was a nod, and like a bird she vanished
    into the adjoining room.

         That night Emma wrote the clerk an endless letter can-
    celing their appointment.  Everything was over between them,
    and for the sake of their own happiness they must never meet
    again.  But when she finished the letter she didn't know what
    to do with it, she hadn't Leon's address.

         "I'll give ti to him myself," she thought, "when he
    comes."

         Leon, the next morning, humming a tune on his balcony be-
    side his open window, polished his pumps himself, going over
    them again and again.  He donned a pair of white trousers,
    fine socks, and a green tail coat.  He doused his handkerchief
    with all the perfumes he possessed, had his hair curled, then
    uncurled it again to make it look more elegantly natural.

         "Still too early!" he thought.  He was looking at the
    barber's cuckoo clock, and it pointed to nine.

         He read an old fashion magazine, went out, smoked a cigar,
    walked a few blocks.  Finally he decided it was time to go, and
    set off briskly toward the Parvis Notre-Dame.

         It was a fine summer morning.  Silver gleamed in jewelers'
    windows, and the sunlight slanting onto the cathedral flashed
    on the cut surface of the gray stone.  A flock of birds was
    swirling in the blue sky around the trefoiled turrets.  The
    square, echoing with cries, smelled of the flowers that edged
    its pavement.  Roses, jasmine, carnations, narcissus and
    tuberoses interspersed with well-watered plants of catnip and
    chickweed.  The fountain gurgled in the center, and under
    great umbrellas, among piles of cantaloups, bareheaded flower-
    women were twisting paper around bunches of violets.

         The young man chose one.  It was the first time he had
    bought flowers for a woman, and his chest swelled with pride
    as he inhaled their fragrance, as though this homage that he
    intended for another were being paid, instead, to him.

         But he was afraid of being seen, and resolutely entered
    the church.

         The verger was just then standing in the left doorway,
    under the figure of the dancing Salome.  He was in full re-
    galia, with plumed hat, rapier and staff, more majestic than
    a cardinal, shining like a pyx.

         He advanced toward Leon, and with the smiling, bland
    benignity of a priest questioning a child, he said, "Monsieur
    is from out of town, perhaps?  Monsieur would like to visit
    the church?'

         "No," said Leon.

         He walked down one of the side aisles and up the other,
    then stood outside and looked over the square.  There was no
    sign of Emma, and he re-entered the church and strolled as
    far as the choir.

         The nave was mirrored in the holy-water fonts, with the
    lower portions of the ogives and some of the stained glass.
    The reflection of the painted windows broke off at the marble
    rim only to continue beyond, on the pavement, like a many-
    colored carpet.  Brilliant daylight streamed into the church
    in three enormous shafts through the three open portals.  Now
    and again a sacristan moved across the far end, dipping before
    the altar in the half-sidewise genuflection practiced by hur-
    ried worshippers.  The crystal chandeliers hung motionless.  A
    silver lamp was burning in the choir, and from the side chapels
    and shadowy corners of the church came an occasional sound like
    a sigh, and the noise of a metal gate clanging shut and echoing
    under the lofty vaults.

         Leon walked meditatively, keeping near the walls.  Never
    had life seemed so good.  Any minute now she would appear,
    charming, all aquiver, turning around to see whether anyone
    was looking.  With her flounced dress, her gold eyeglass, her
    dainty shoes, all kinds of feminine elegancies he had never
    had a taste of, and all the ineffable allurement of virtue on
    the point of yielding.  The church was like a gigantic bou-
    doir, suffused by her image.  The vaults curved dimly down to
    breathe in the avowal of her love.  The windows were ablaze
    to cast their splendor on her face.  And even the incense
    burners were lighted, to welcome her like an angel amid clouds
    of perfume.

         But still she didn't come.  He took a chair and his eyes
    rested on a blue stained-glass window showing boatmen carrying
    baskets.  He stared at it fixedly, counting the scales on the
    fish and the buttonholes in the doublets, his thoughts mean-
    while roving in search of Emma.

         The verger, standing to one side, was raging inwardly at
    this person who was taking it upon himself to admire the cathe-
    dral on his own.  He was behaving monstrously, he considered.
    He was stealing from him, really, almost committing sacrilege.

         Then there was a rustle of silk on the stone pavement,
    the edge of a hat under a hooded cape . . .  It was she!  Leon
    jumped up and ran to meet her.

         She was pale.  She walked quickly.

         "Read this!" she said, holding out a sheet of paper.
    "Oh, no!"

         And abruptly she drew back her hand and turned into the
    chapel of the Virgin, where she knelt down against a chair
    and began to pray.

         The young man was irritated by this sanctimonious bit
    of whimsy.  Then he felt a certain charm at seeing her, in
    the midst of a love meeting, plunged into devotions like an
    Andalusian marquesa.  But he soon grew impatient, for there
    seemed to be no end to it.

         Emma was praying, or rather forcing herself to pray, in
    the hope that heaven might miraculously send her strength of
    will.  And to draw down divine aid she filled her eyes with
    the splendors of the tabernacle, she breathed the fragrance
    of the sweet rockets, white and lush in their tall vases, and
    she listened intently to the silence of the church, which
    only increased the tumult of her heart.

         She rose, and they were about to leave when the verger
    came swiftly over, "Madame is perhaps from out of town?
    Madame would like to visit the church?'

         "Oh, no!" the clerk cried.

         "Why not?' she retorted.

         Her desperate attempt to steady her virtue made her
    clutch at the Virgin, at the sculptures, at the tombs, at
    anything that came to hand.

         Insisting that they must "begin at the beginning," the
    verger led them outside the entrance door to the edge of
    the square, and there pointed with his staff to a large
    circle of black stones in the pavement, devoid of carving
    or inscription.

         "That," he said majestically, "is the circumference of
    the great Amboise bell.  It weighed forty thousand pounds.
    It was without equal in all Europe.  The workman who cast it
    died of joy . . ."

         "Let's get away from here," said Leon.

         The guide moved on, and back in the chapel of the Virgin
    he extended his arms in a showman's gesture that took in every-
    thing, and addressed them more proudly than a gentleman farmer
    displaying his fruit trees.

         "This plain stone marks the resting place of Pierre de
    Breze, lord of La Varenne and Brissac, grand marshal of Poitou
    and governor of Normandy, killed at the battle of Montlhery,
    July 16, 1465."

         Leon bit his lips in a fury of impatience.

         "And on the right the nobleman in full armor on a rearing
    horse is his grandson Louis de Breze, lord of Braval and Mont-
    chauvet, comte de Maulevrier, baron de Mauny, royal chamberlain,
    knight of the order and likewise governor of Normandy, who died
    July 23, 1531, a Sunday, as it says on the inscription.  And
    below, the man about to descend into the tomb represents the
    same person exactly.  Human mortality has never been more per-
    fectly represented."

         Madame Bovary raised her eyeglass.  Leon stood still and
    stared at her, no longer even trying to utter a word or make
    the slightest move, so discouraged was he by this combination
    of patter and indifference.

         The guide droned on, "Near him, there, that kneeling
    weeping woman is his wife, Diane de Poitiers, comtesse de
    Breze, duchesse de Valentinois, born 1499, died 1566.  And on
    the left, holding a child, the Holy Virgin.  Now face this
    way.  Those are the tombs of the Amboises.  They were both
    cardinals and archbishops of Rouen.  That one was one of King
    Louis XII's ministers.  He was a great benefactor of the cathe-
    dral.  In his will he left 30,000 ecus d`or for the poor."

         And immediately, without interrupting his stream of talk,
    he pushed them into a chapel cluttered with railings, some of
    which he moved aside to reveal a blockish object that looked
    like a roughly carved statue.

         "This," he said with a deep sigh, "once formed part of
    the decoration of the tomb of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, king of
    England and duke of Normandy.  It was the Calvinists, Monsieur,
    who reduced it to the condition in which you see it now.  Out
    of pure malice they buried it in the earth, under Monseigneur's
    episcopal throne.  That door, there, by the way, is the one he
    uses, Monseigneur, I mean, to reach his residence.  Now we'll
    move on to the gargoyle windows."

         But Leon hastily took a silver piece from his pocket and
    grasped Emma's arm.  The verger was taken aback, mystified by
    such premature munificence.  The visitor still had so much to
    see!  He called after him,  "Monsieur!  The steeple!  The
    steeple!"

         "No, thanks," said Leon.

         "Monsieur is wrong!  It's going to be four hundred forty
    feet high, only nine feet lower than the Great Pyramid of
    Egypt.  It's entirely of cast iron, it . . ."

         Leon fled, for it seemed to him that his love, after being
    reduced to stonelike immobility in the church for nearly two
    hours, was now going to vanish like smoke up that truncated
    pipe, that elongated cage, that fretwork chimney, or what you
    will, that perches so precariously and grotesquely atop the
    cathedral like the wild invention of a crazy metal-worker.

         "But where are we going?" she asked.

         Making no answer, he continued swiftly on, and Madame
    Bovary was already dipping a finger in the holy water when
    behind them they heard a sound of heavy panting regularly
    punctuated by the tapping of a staff.  Leon turned around.

         "Monsieur!"

         "What?"

         It was the verger, holding about twenty thick paper-
    bound volumes against his stomach.  They were "books about
    the cathedral."

         "Fool!" muttered Leon, hurrying out of the church.

         An urchin was playing in the square.

         "Go get me a cab!"

         The youngster vanished like a shot up the Rue des Quatre-
    Vents, and for a few minutes they were left alone, face to
    face and a little constrained.

         "Oh, Leon!  Really . . . I don't know whether I should!"
    she simpered.  Then, in a serious tone, "It's very improper,
    you know."

         "What's improper about it?' retorted the clerk.  "Every-
    body does it in Paris!"

         It was an irresistible and clinching argument.

         But there was no sign of a cab.  Leon was terrified lest
    she retreat into the church.  Finally the cab appeared.

         "Drive past the north door, at least!" cried the verger,
    from the entrance.  "Take a look at the Resurrection, the Last
    Judgment, Paradise, King David, and the souls of the damned in
    the flames of hell!"

         "Where does Monsieur wish to go?" asked the driver.

         "Anywhere!" said Leon, pushing Emma into the carriage.

         And the lumbering contraption rolled away.

         It went down the Rue Grand-Pont, crossed the Place des
    Arts, the Quai Napoleon and the Pont Neuf, and stopped in
    front of the statue of Pierre Corneille.

         "Keep going!" called a voice from within.

         It started off again, and gathering speed on the down-
    grade beyond the Carrefour Lafayette it came galloping up to
    the railway station.

         "No!  Straight on!" cried the same voice.

         Rattling out through the station gates, the cab soon
    turned into the Boulevard, where it proceeded at a gentl trot
    between the double row of tall elms.  The coachman wiped his
    brow, stowed his leather hat between his legs, and veered the
    cab off beyond the side lanes to the grass strip along the
    river front.

         It continued along the river on the cobbled towing path
    for a long time in the direction of Oyssel, leaving the is-
    lands behind.

         But suddenly it rushed off through Quatre-Mares, Sotte-
    ville, the Grande-Chaussee, the Rue d'Elbeuf, and made its
    third stop, this time at the Jardin des Plantes.

         "Drive on!" cried the voice, more furiously.

         And abruptly starting off again it went through Saint-
    Sever, along the Quai des Curandiers and the Quai aux Meules,
    recrossed the bridge, crossed the Place du Champ-de-Mars and
    continued on behind the garden of the hospital, where old men
    in black jackets were strolling in the sun on a terrace green
    with ivy.  It went up the Boulevard Bouvreuil, along the
    Boulevard Cauchoise, and traversed Mont-Riboudet as far as
    the hill at Deville.

         There it turned back, and from then on it wandered at
    random, without apparent goal.  It was seen at Saint-Pol, at
    Lescure, at Mont-Gargan, at Rouge-Mare and the Place du Gail-
    lardbois.  In the Rue Maladrerie, the Rue Dinanderie, and in
    front of one church after another, Saint-Romain, Saint-Vivien,
    Saint-Maclou, Saint-Nicaise.  In front of the customs house,
    at the Basse Vieille-Tour, at Trois-Pipes, and at the Cimeti-
    ere Monumental.  From his seat the coachman now and again cast
    a desperate glance at a cafe.  He couldn't conceive what loco-
    motive frenzy was making these people persist in refusing to
    stop.  He tried a few times, only to hear immediate angry ex-
    clamations from behind.  So he lashed the more furiously at
    his two sweating nags, and paid no attention whatever to bumps
    in the road.  He hooked into things right and left.  He was
    past caring, demoralized, and almost weeping from thirst,
    fatigue, and despair.

         Along the river front amidst the trucks and the barrels,
    along the streets from the shelter of the guard posts, the
    bourgeois stared wide-eyed at this spectacle unheard of in the
    provinces.  A carriage with drawn shades that kept appearing
    and reappearing, sealed tighter than a tomb and tossing like
    a ship.

         At a certain moment in the early afternoon, when the sun
    was blazing down most fiercely on the old silver-plated lamps,
    a bare hand appeared from under the little yellow cloth cur-
    tains and threw out some torn scraps of paper.  The wind caught
    them and scattered them, and they alighted at a distance, like
    white butterflies, on a field of flowering red clover.

         Then, about six o'clock, the carriage stopped in a side
    street near the Place Beauvoisine.  A woman alighted from it
    and walked off, her veil down, without a backward glance.










    PART 3

    CHAPTER TWO

         When she reached the hotel, Madame Bovary was surprised
    to see no sign of the stagecoach.  Hivert had waited for her
    fifty-three minutes, and then driven off.

         Nothing really obliged her to go, even though she had
    said that she would be back that evening.  But Charles would
    be waiting for her.  And in advance her heart was filled with
    that craven submissiveness with which many women both redeem
    their adultery and punish themselves for it.

         She quickly packed her bag, paid her bill, and hired a
    gig in the yard.  She told the driver to hurry, and kept
    urging him on and asking him the time and how many miles they
    had gone.  They caught up with the Hirondelle on the outskirts
    of Quincampoix.

         She shut her eyes almost before she was seated in her
    corner, and opened them at the outskirts of the village.
    Ahead she saw Felicite standing watch outside the blacksmith's.
    Hivert pulled up the horses, and the cook, standing on tiptoe
    to address her through the window, said with an air of mystery,
    "Madame, you must go straight to Monsieur Homais'.  It's some-
    thing urgent."

         The village was silent as usual.  Little pink mounds were
    steaming in the gutters.  It was jelly-making time, and every-
    one in Yonville was putting up the year's supply the same day.
    The mound in front of the pharmacy was by far the largest and
    most impressive, and quite properly so.  A laboratory must
    always be superior to home kitchens.  A universal demand must
    always overshadow mere individual tastes!

         She went in.  The big armchair was overturned, and, what
    was more shocking, the Fanal de Rouen itself had been left
    lying on the floor between the two pestles.  She pushed open
    the hall door, and in the middle of the kitchen, amid earthen-
    ware jars full of stemmed currants, grated sugar, lump sugar,
    scales on the table and pans on the fire, she found all the
    Homais', big and little, swathed to the chin in aprons and
    wielding forks.  Justin was standing there hanging his head,
    and the pharmacist was shouting, "Who told you to go get it in
    the Capharnaum?"

         "What is it?' Emma asked.  "What's the matter?'

         "What's the matter?" replied the apothecary.  "We're
    making jelly.  It's on the fire.  It threatens to boil over.
    I call for another pan.  And this good-for-nothing, out of
    sheer laziness, goes and takes . . . goes into my laboratory
    and takes off the hook . . . the key to the Capharnaum!"

         Such was the apothecary's name for a small room under
    the eaves, filled with pharmaceutical utensils and supplies.
    He often spent long hours there alone, labeling, decanting,
    repackaging.  He considered it not a mere storeroom, but a
    veritable sanctuary, birthplace of all kinds of pills,
    boluses, tisanes, lotions and potions concocted by himself
    and destined to spread his renown throughout the countryside.
    Not another soul ever set foot in it, so fiercely did he
    respect the place that he even swept it out himself.  If the
    pharmacy, open to all comers, was the arena where he paraded
    in all his glory, the Capharnaum was the hideaway where he
    rapturously pursued his favorite occupations in selfish
    seclusion.  No wonder Justin's carelessness seemed to him a
    monstrous bit of irreverence.  His face was redder than the
    currants as he continued his tirade.

         "Yes, the key to the Capharnaum!  The key that guards
    the acids and the caustic alkalis!  And to calmly go and take
    one of the spare pans!  A pan with a lid!  One I may never
    use!  Every detail is important in an art as precise as ours!
    Distinctions must be preserved!  Pharmaceutical implements
    mustn't be used for near-domestic tasks!  It's like carving
    a chicken with a scalpel, as though a judge were to . . ."

         "Stop exciting yourself!" Madame Homais kept saying.

         And Athalie pulled at his frock coat and cried, "Papa!
    Papa!"

         "No!  Leave me alone!" ordered the apothecary.  "Leave
    me alone!  God!  I might as well be a grocer, I swear!  Go
    ahead . . . go right ahead . . . don't respect anything!
    Smash!  Crash!  Let the leeches loose!  Burn the marshmallow!
    Make pickles in the medicine jars!  Slash up the bandages!"

         "But you had something to . . ." said Emma.

         "One moment, Madame!  Do you know the risk you were
    running?  Didn't you notice anything in the corner, on the
    left, on the third shelf?  Open your mouth!  Say something!"

         "I . . . don't . . . know . . ." stammered the boy.

         "Ah!  You don't know!  Well, I know!  You saw a bottle,
    a blue glass bottle sealed with yellow wax, with white powder
    in it, and that I myself marked Dangerous!  Do you know what's
    in that bottle?  Arsenic!  And you go meddling with that!  You
    take a pan that's standing right beside it!"

         "Right beside it!" cried Madame Homais, clasping her
    hands.  "Arsenic!  You might have poisoned us all!"

         And the children began to scream, as though they were
    already prey to the most frightful gastric pains.

         "Or you might have poisoned a patient!" the apothecary
    persisted.  "Do you want me to be hauled into court as a common
    criminal?  Do you want to see me dragged to the scaffold?
    Don't you know how very careful I am about handling anything,
    no matter how many million times I may have done it before?
    Sometimes I'm terrified at the thought of my responsibilities!
    The government positively hounds us!  The legal restrictions
    are absurd, a veritable sword of Damocles hanging over our
    heads!"

         Emma had given up any attempt to ask what was wanted of
    her, and the pharmacist breathlessly continued.

         "That's your way of being grateful for all the kindness
    you've been shown!  That's how you repay me for the father's
    care I've showered on you!  Where would you be if it weren't
    for me?  What would you be doing?  Who gives you your food and
    your lodging, and training, and clothing . . . everything you
    need to become a respectable member of society some day?  But
    to achieve that you've got to bend your back to the oar . . .
    get some callouses on your hands, as the saying goes.  Fabri-
    cando fit faber, age quod agis."

         His rage had sent him into Latin.  He would have spouted
    Chinese or Greenlandic had he been able to, for he was in the
    throes of one of those crises in which the soul lays bare its
    every last corner, just as the ocean, in the travail of storm,
    splits open to display everything from the seaweed on it shores
    to the sand of its deepest bottom.

         And he went on, "I'm beginning to repent bitterly that I
    ever took you into my charge!  I'd have done far better to
    leave you as I found you . . . let you wallow in the misery and
    filth you were born in!  You'll never be fit to do anything
    except look after the cows!  You haven't the makings of a
    scientist!  You're scarcely capable of sticking on a label!
    And you live here at my expense, gorging yourself like a priest,
    like a pig in clover!"

         Emma turned to Madame Homais.

         "I was told to come . . ."

         "I know," the lady said, wringing her hands, "but how can
    I possibly tell you . . .?  It's a calamity . . ."

         She left her words unfinished.  The apothecary was thun-
    dering on, "Empty it out!  Scour it!  Take it back!  Be quick
    about it!"

         And as he shook Justin by the collar of his overall a
    book fell out of one of the pockets.

         The boy bent down for it, but Homais was quicker, and he
    picked up the book and stared at it open-mouthed.

         "Conjugal . . . Love!" he cried, placing a deliberate
    pause between the two words.  "Ah!  Very good!  Very good!
    Charming, in fact!  And with illustrations . . .  Really!
    This goes beyond everything!"

         Madame Homais stepped forward as though to look.

         "No!  Don't touch it!"

         The children clamored to see the pictures.

         "Leave the room!" he said imperiously.

         They left.

         First he strode up and down, holding the volume open,
    rolling his eyes, choking, puffing, apoplectic.  Then he
    walked straight up to his apprentice and stood in front of
    him, arms folded.

         "So you're going in for all the vices, are you, you
    little wretch?  Watch out, you're on the downward path!  Did
    it ever occur to you that this wicked book might fall into my
    children's hands?  It might be just the spark that . . .  It
    might sully the purity of Athalie!  It might corrupt Napoleon!
    Physically, he's a man already!  Are you sure, at least, that
    they haven't read it?  Can you swear to me . . ."

         "Really, Monsieur," said Emma.  "Did you have something
    to tell me?"

         "So I did, Madame . . .  Your father-in-law is dead!"

         It was true.  The elder Bovary had died two days before,
    very suddenly, from an apoplectic stroke, as he was leaving
    the table.  And Charles, overanxious to spare Emma's sensi-
    bilities, had asked Monsieur Homais to acquaint her tactfully
    with the horrible news.

         The pharmacist had devoted much thought to the wording
    of his announcement.  He had rounded it and polished it and
    given it cadence.  It was a masterpiece of discretion and
    transition, of subtlety and shading.  But anger had swept away
    rhetoric.

         Emma, seeing that it was useless to ask for details, left
    the pharmacy, for Monsieur Homais had resumed his vituperations.
    He was quieting down, however, and now was grumbling in a
    fatherly way as he fanned himself with his cap.

         "It's not that I disapprove entirely of the book.  The
    author was a doctor.  It deals with certain scientific aspects
    that it does a man no harm to know about . . . aspects, if I
    may say so, that a man has to know about.  But later, later!
    Wait till you're a man yourself, at least, wait till your
    character's formed."

         The sound of the knocker told the expectant Charles that
    Emma had arrived, and he came toward her with open arms.  There
    were tears in his voice, "Ah! Ma chere amie . . ."

         And he bent down gently to kiss her.  But at the touch of
    his lips the memory of Leon gripped her, and she passed her
    hand over her face and shuddered.

         Nevertheless she answered him.  "Yes," she said.  "I know
    . . . I know . . ."

         He showed her the letter in which his mother told what
    had happened, without any sentimental hypocrisy.  Her only
    regret was that her husband had not received the succor of the
    church.  He had died not at home, but at Doudeville, in the
    street, just outside a cafe, after a patriotic banquet with
    some ex-army officers.

         Emma handed back the letter.  At dinner she pretended a
    little for the sake of good manners to have no appetite, but
    when Charles urged her, she proceeded to eat heartily, while
    he sat opposite her motionless, weighed down by grief.

         Now and again he lifted his head and gave her a long,
    stricken look.

         "I wish I could have seen him again!" he sighed.

         She made no answer.  And finally, when she knew that
    she must say something, "How old was your father?"

         "Fifty-eight."

         "Ah!"

         And that was all.

         A little later, "My poor mother!" he said.  "What's to
    become of her now?"

         She conveyed with a gesture that she had no idea.

         Seeing her so silent, Charles supposed that she, too,
    was affected, and he forced himself to say no more lest he
    exacerbate her sorrow, which he found touching.  But for a
    moment he roused himself from his own.

         "Did you have a good time yesterday?' he asked.

         "Yes."

         When the tablecloth was removed, Bovary did not get
    up, nor did Emma.  And as she continued to look at him the
    monotony of the sight gradually banished all compassion
    from her heart.  He seemed to her insignificant, weak, a
    nonentity, contemptible in every way.  How could she rid
    herself of him?  What an endless evening!  She felt torpid,
    drugged, as though from opium fumes.

         From the entry came the sharp tap of a stick on the
    wooden floor.  It was Hippolyte, bringing Madame's bags.
    To set them down, he swung his wooden leg around in an
    awkward quarter-circle.

         "Charles doesn't even think about him any more," she
    remarked to herself as she watched the poor devil, his mop
    or red hair dripping sweat.

         Bovary fumbled in his purse for a coin, and, apparently
    unaware of the humiliation implicit in the very presence of
    the man who was standing there, like a living reproach for
    his incurable ineptitude.

         "Oh, you have a pretty bouquet!" he said, noticing Leon's
    violets on the mantelpiece.

         "Yes," she said carelessly.  "I bought it just before I
    left, from a beggar-woman."


         Charles took up the violets, held their coolness against
    his tear-reddened eyes, and gently sniffed them.  She quickly
    took them from his hand, and went to put them in a glass of
    water.

         The following day the older Madame Bovary arrived.  She
    and her son did a good deal of weeping.  Emma, pleading house-
    hold duties, kept out of the way.  The day after that, they
    had to consult about mourning, and the three of them sat down
    together, the ladies with their workboxes, under the arbor on
    the river bank.

         Charles thought about his father, and was surprised to
    feel so much affection for one whom up till then he had
    thought he loved but little.  The older Madame Bovary thought
    of her husband.  The worst of her times with him seemed desir-
    able now.  Everything was submerged in grief, so intensely did
    she miss the life she was used to.  And from time to time as
    she plied her needle a great tear rolled down her nose and
    hung there for a moment before dropping.  Emma was thinking
    that scarcely forty-eight hours before they had been together,
    shut away from the world, in ecstasy, devouring each other
    with their eyes.  She tried to recapture the tiniest details
    of that vanished day.  But the presence of her mother-in-law
    and her husband interfered.  She wished she could hear nothing,
    see nothing.  She wanted merely to be left alone to evoke her
    love, which despite her best efforts was becoming blurred under
    the impact of external impressions.

         She was ripping the lining of a dress, and scraps of the
    material lay scattered around her.  The older Madame Bovary,
    never raising her eyes, kept squeaking away with her scissors.
    And Charles, in his cloth slippers and the old brown frock
    coat that he used as a dressing gown, kept his hand in his
    pockets and said no more than the others.  Near them, Berthe,
    in a little white apron, was scraping the gravel of the path
    with her shovel.

         Suddenly they saw Monsieur Lheureux, the dry-goods dealer,
    push open the gate.

         He had come to offer his services "on this very sad occa-
    sion."  Emma answered that she thought she could do without
    them.  But the shopkeeper did not concede defeat.

         "If you'll excuse me," he said, "I'd like to speak to you
    privately."

         And in a low voice, "It's about that little matter . . .
    you know what I'm referring to?"

         Charles blushed to the roots of his hair.  "Oh, yes . . .
    of course."

         And in his embarrassment he turned to his wife, "Darling,
    would you take care of . . .?"

         She seemed to understand, for she rose, and Charles said
    to his mother, "It's nothing.  Just some household detail, I
    imagine."  He didn't want her to learn about the promissory
    note, he dreaded her comments.

         As soon as Emma was alone with Monsieur Lheureux he began
    to congratulate her rather bluntly on coming into money, and
    then spoke of indifferent matters.  Fruit trees, the harvest,
    and his own health, which was always the same, "so-so, could
    be worse."  He worked like a galley slave, he informed her,
    and even so, despite what people said about him, he didn't
    make enough to buy butter for his bread.

         Emma let him talk.  She had been so prodigiously bored
    these last two days!

         "And you're entirely well again?" he went on.  "Your
    husband was in quite a state, I can tell you!  He's a fine
    fellow, even if we did have a little trouble."

         "What trouble?" she asked, for Charles had told her
    nothing about the dispute over the various items.

         "But you know perfectly well!" said Lheureux.  "About
    the little things you wanted . . . the trunks."

         He had pushed his hat forward over his eyes, and with
    his hands behind his back, smiling, and whistling to himself
    under his breath, he was staring straight at her in a way
    she found intolerable.  Did he suspect something?  She waited
    in a panic of apprehension.  But finally he said, "We made it
    up, and I came today to propose another arrangement."

         What he proposed was the renewal of the note signed by
    Bovary.  Monsieur should of course do as he pleased.  He
    shouldn't worry, especially now that he was going to have so
    many other things on his mind.

         "He'd really do best to turn it over to somebody else,
    you, for example.  With a power of attorney everything would
    be very simple, and then you and I could attend to our little
    affairs together."

         She didn't understand.  He let the matter drop, and
    turned the conversation back to dry goods.  Madame really
    couldn't not order something from him.  He'd send her a piece
    of black barege, twelve meters, enough to make a dress.

         "The one you have there is all right for the house, but
    you need another for going out.  I saw that the minute I came
    in.  I've got an eye like a Yankee!"

         He didn't send the material, he brought it.  Then he came
    again to do the measuring, and again and again on other pre-
    texts, each time putting himself out to be agreeable and help-
    ful.  Making himself her liegeman, as Homais might have put
    it, and always slipping in a few words of advice about the
    power of attorney.  He didn't mention the promissory note.  It
    didn't occur to her to think of it.  Early in her convalescence
    Charles had, in fact, said something to her about it, but her
    mind had been so agitated that she had forgotten.  Moreover she
    was careful never to bring up anything about money matters.
    This surprised her mother-in-law, who attributed her new atti-
    tude to the religious sentiments she had acquired during her
    illness.

         But as soon as the older woman left, Emma lost no time in
    impressing Bovary with her practical good sense.  It was up to
    them, she said, to make inquiries, check on mortgages, see if
    there were grounds for liquidating the property by auction or
    otherwise.  She used technical terms at random, and impressive
    words like "order," "the future" and "foresight," and she con-
    tinually exaggerated the complications attendant on inheritance.
    Then one day she showed him the draft of a general authorization
    to "manage and administer his affairs, negotiate all loans, sign
    and endorse all promissory notes, pay all sums," etc.  She had
    profited from Lheureux's lessons.

         Charles naively asked her where the document came from.

         "From Maitre Guillaumin."  And with the greatest coolness
    imaginable she added, "I haven't too much confidence in him.
    You hear such dreadful things about notaries!  Perhaps we ought
    to consult . . .  We don't know anyone except . . .  We don't
    know anyone, really."

         "Unless Leon . . ." said Charles, who was thinking hard.

         But it was difficult to make things clear by letter.  So
    she offered to make the trip.  He thanked her but said she
    mustn't.  She insisted.  Each outdid the other in consideration.
    Finally, imitating the pert disobedience of a child, she cried,
    "I will, too, go!  I will!"

         "How good you are!" he said, kissing her on the forehead.

         The next morning she set out in the Hirondelle for Rouen
    to consult Monsieur Leon, and she stayed there three days.


















    PART 2

    CHAPTER THREE

         They were three full, exquisite, glorious days, a real
    honeymoon.

         They stayed at the Hotel de Boulogne on the river front,
    living there behind drawn shutters and locked doors.  Their
    room was strewn with flowers, and iced fruit drinks were
    brought up to them all day long.

         At dusk they hired a covered boat and went to dine on one
    of the islands.

         From the shipyards came the thumping of caulking irons
    against hulls.  Wisps of tar smoke curled up from among the
    trees, and on the river floated great oily patches, the color
    of Florentine bronze, undulating unevenly in the purple glow
    of the sun.

         They drifted downstream amidst anchored craft whose long
    slanting cables grazed the top of their boat.

         The sounds of the city gradually receded, the rattle of
    wagons, the tumult of voices, the barking of dogs on the decks
    of ships.  As they touched the shore of their island she
    loosened the silk ribbon of her hat.

         They sat in the low-ceilinged room of a restaurant with
    black fishnets hanging at its door, and ate fried smelts,
    cream and cherries.  Then they stretched out on the grass in
    an out-of-the-way corner and lay in each other's arms under
    the poplars.  They wished they might live forever, like two
    Robinson Crusoes, in this little spot that seemed to them in
    their bliss the most magnificent on earth.  It wasn't the
    first time in their lives that they had seen trees, blue sky
    and lawn, or heard the flowing of water or the rustle of the
    breeze in the branches, but never before, certainly, had they
    looked on it all with such wonder.  It was as though nature
    had not existed before, or had only begun to be beautiful
    with the slaking of their desires.

         At nightfall they returned to the city.  The boat fol-
    lowed the shoreline of the islands, and they crouched deep
    in its shadow, not saying a word.  The square-tipped oars
    clicked in the iron oar-locks.  It sounded, in the silence,
    like the beat of a metronome, and the rope trailing behind
    kept up its gentle splashing in the water.

         One night the moon shone out, and of course they rhap-
    sodized about how melancholy and poetical it was.  She even
    sang a little.

                   One night, dost thou remember?
                   We were sailing . . .

         Her sweet, small voice died away over the river.  Borne
    off on the breeze were the trills that Leon heard flit past
    him like the fluttering of wings.

         She was sitting opposite him, leaning against the wall of
    the little cabin, the moonlight streaming in on her through an
    open shutter.  In her black dress, its folds spreading out
    around her like a fan, she looked taller, slimmer.  Her head
    was raised, her hands were clasped, her eyes turned heavenward.
    One moment she would be hidden by the shadow of some willows,
    the next, she would suddenly re-emerge in the light of the moon
    like an apparition.

         Leon, sitting on the bottom beside her, picked up a bright
    red ribbon.

         The boatman looked at it.  "Oh," he said, "that's probably
    from a party I took out the other day.  They were a jolly lot,
    all right, the men and the girls.  They brought along food and
    champagne and music, the whole works.  There was one of them,
    especially, a big, good-looking fellow with a little mustache,
    he was a riot.  They all kept after him.  `Come on, tell us a
    story, Adolphe' . . . or Dodolphe, or some name like that."

         She shuddered.

         "Don't you feel well?" asked Leon, moving closer to her.


         "Oh, it's nothing.  Just a chill."

         "He was another one who never had to worry about where
    his women would come from," the old boatman added softly, as
    a compliment to his present passenger.  Then he spit on his
    hands and took up his oars.

         But finally they had to part.  Their farewells were sad.
    He was to write her in care of Madame Rollet, and she gave
    him such detailed instructions about using a double envelope
    that he marveled greatly at her shrewdness in love matters.

         "So I have your word for it that everything's in order?"
    she said, as they kissed for the last time.

         "Absolutely . . . But why the devil," he wondered, as he
    walked home alone through the streets, "is she so set on
    having that power of attorney?"














    PART 3

    CHAPTER FOUR

         Before long, Leon began to give himself superior airs
    around the office.  He kept aloof from his colleagues and
    totally neglected his work.  He waited for Emma's letters,
    and read them over and over.  He wrote to her.  He evoked her
    image with all the strength of his passion and his memories.
    Far from being lessened by absence, his longing to see her
    again increased, until finally one Saturday morning he took
    the road to Yonville.

         When he looked down on the valley from the top of the
    hill and saw the church steeple with its tin flag turning in
    the wind, he was filled with an exquisite pleasure.  Smug
    satisfaction and selfish sentimentality were mingled in it.
    It was the feeling that a millionaire must experience on
    revisiting his boyhood village.

         He prowled around her house.  A light was burning in the
    kitchen.  He watched for her shadow behind the curtains.  Not
    a soul was to be seen.

         Madame Lefrancois uttered loud cries at the sight of him,
    and said that he was "taller and thinner."  Artemise, on the
    other hand, found that he had grown "heavier and darker."

         He took his dinner in the small dining room, just as in
    the old days, but alone, without the tax collector, for Binet,
    sick of waiting for the Hirondelle, had permanently changed
    his mealtime to an hour earlier, and now dined on the stroke
    of five.  Even so he never missed a chance to grumble that
    "the rusty old clock was slow."

         Finally Leon got up his courage and knocked on the
    doctor's door.  Madame was in her room.  It was a quarter of
    an hour before she came down.  Monsieur seemed delighted to
    see him again, but didn't stir from the house all evening or
    all the next day.

         Only late Saturday evening did he see her alone, in the
    lane behind the garden . . . in the lane, just like Rodolphe.
    It was during a thunderstorm, and they talked under an um-
    brella, with lightning flashing around them.

         The thought of parting was unbearable.

         "I'd rather die!" said Emma.  She clung convulsively to
    his arm and wept.  "Adieu!  Adieu!  When will I see you again?"

         They separated, then turned back for a last embrace, and
    it was at that moment that she promised him to find, soon, no
    matter how, some way in which they would be able to see each
    other alone and regularly, at least once a week.  Emma had no
    doubt about succeeding.  She looked forward to the future with
    confidence.  The inheritance money would shortly be coming in.

         On the strength of it she bought, for her bedroom, a pair
    of wide-striped yellow curtains that Monsieur Lheureux extolled
    as a bargain.  She said she wished she could have a carpet, and
    Lheureux, assuring her that she wasn't "reaching for the moon,"
    promised very obligingly to find her one.  By now she didn't
    know how she could get along without him.  She sent for him
    twenty times a day, and he always promptly left whatever he was
    doing and came, without a word of protest.  Nor was it clear to
    anyone why Madame Rollet lunched at her house every day, and
    even visited with her privately.

         It was about this time, the beginning of winter, that she
    became intensely musical.

         One evening while Charles was listening she started the
    same piece over again four times, each time expressing annoy-
    ance with herself.  Charles was unaware of anything wrong.
    "Bravo!" he cried.  "Very good!  Why stop?  Keep going."

         "No, I'm playing abominably.  My fingers are rusty."

         The next day he asked her to "play him something else."

         "Very well, if you like."

         Charles had to admit that she seemed a little out of
    practice.  She fumbled, struck wrong notes, and finally broke
    off abruptly.  "That's enough of that!  I should take some
    lessons, but . . ."  She bit her lips and added, "Twenty
    francs an hour . . . it's too expensive."

         "Yes, it certainly is . . . a little . . ." said Charles,
    with a silly giggle.  "But it seems to me you ought to be able
    to find somebody for less.  There are plenty of musicians with-
    out big names who are better than the celebrities."

         "Try and find some," said Emma.

         When he came in the next day he gave her a sly look, and
    finally come out with, "You certainly have a way sometimes of
    thinking you know better than anybody else.  I was at Barfeu-
    cheres today and Madame Liegeard told me that her three girls,
    the three at school at the Misericorde, take lessons at two
    and a half francs an hour, and from a marvelous teacher!"

         She shrugged, and from then on left her instrument un-
    opened.

         But whenever she walked by it she would sigh, if Bovary
    happened to be there, "Ah, my poor piano!"

         And she always made a point of telling visitors that she
    had given up her music and now couldn't possibly go on with
    it again, for imperative reasons.  Everybody pitied her.
    What a shame!  She had so much talent!  People even spoke to
    Bovary about it.  They made him feel ashamed, especially the
    pharmacist.

         "You're making a mistake!  Natural faculties must never
    be let lie fallow!  Besides, my friend, look at it this way.
    By encouraging Madame to take lessons now, you'll save money
    later on your daughter's lessons.  In my opinion, mothers
    should teach their children themselves.  It's an idea of
    Rousseau's.  Maybe a little new, still, but bound to prevail
    eventually, I'm sure, like mother's breast feeding and vacci-
    nation."

         So Charles brought up the question of the piano again.
    Emma answered tartly that they'd better sell it.  Poor old
    piano!  It had so often been a source of pride for him, that
    to see it go would be like watching Emma commit partial sui-
    cide.

         "If you really want to go ahead with it," he said, "I
    suppose a lesson now and then wouldn't ruin us."

         "But lessons aren't worth taking," she said, "unless
    they're taken regularly."

         That was how she obtained her husband's permission to
    go to the city once a week to meet her lover.  By the end of
    the first month everyone found that her playing had improved
    considerably.














    PART 3

    CHAPTER FIVE

         And so, every Thursday, she rose and dressed without a
    sound, lest she wake Charles, who would have remarked on her
    getting ready too early.  Then she paced up and down, stood
    at the windows, looked out at the square.  The first light of
    morning was stealing into the pillared market place, and on
    the pharmacist's house, its shutters still drawn, the pale
    tints of dawn were picking out the capital letters of the
    shop sign.

         When the clock said quarter past seven she made her way
    to the Lion d'Or and was let in by the yawning Artemise.  The
    servant paid her the attention of digging out the smoldering
    coals from under the ashes, and then left her to herself in
    the kitchen.  From time to time she walked out into the yard.
    Hivert would be harnessing the horses.  He went about it very
    deliberately, listening as he did so to Madame Lefrancois,
    who had stuck her head, nightcap and all, out of a window and
    was briefing him on his errands in a way that anyone else
    would have found bewildering.  Emma tapped her foot on the
    cobbles.

         Finally, when he had downed his bowl of soup, put on his
    overcoat, lighted his pipe and picked up his whip, he unhur-
    riedly climbed onto the seat.

         The Hirondelle set off at a gentle trot, and for the first
    mile or two kept stopping here and there to take on passengers
    who stood watching for it along the road, outside their gates.
    Those who had booked seats the day before kept the coach wait-
    ing.  Some, even, were still in their beds, and Hivert would
    call, shout, curse, and finally get down from his seat and
    pound on the doors.  The wind whistled in through the cracked
    blinds.

         Gradually the four benches filled up, the coach rattled
    along, row upon row of apple trees flashed by.  And the road,
    lined on each side by a ditch of yellow water, stretched on
    and on, narrowing toward the horizon.

         Emma knew every inch of it.  She knew that after a
    certain meadow came a road sign, then an elm, a barn, or a
    road-mender's cabin.  Sometimes she even shut her eyes, trying
    to give herself a surprise.  But she always knew just how much
    farther there was to go.

         Finally the brick houses crowded closer together, the
    road rang under the wheels, and now the Hirondelle moved
    smoothly between gardens.  Through iron fences were glimpses
    of statues, artificial mounds crowned by arbors, clipped yews,
    a swing.  Then, all at once, the city came into view.

         Sloping downward like an amphitheatre, drowned in mist,
    it sprawled out shapelessly beyond its bridges.  Then open
    fields swept upward again in a monotonous curve, merging at
    the top with the uncertain line of the pale sky.  Thus seen
    from above, the whole landscape had the static quality of a
    painting.  Ships at anchor were crowded into one corner, the
    river traced its curve along the foot of the green hills,
    and on the water the oblong-shaped islands looked like great
    black fish stopped in their course.  From the factory chimneys
    poured endless trails of brown smoke, their tips continually
    dissolving in the wind.  The roar of foundries mingled with
    the clear peal of chimes that came from the churches looming
    in the fog.  The leafless trees along the boulevards were like
    purple thickets in amongst the houses.  And the roofs, all of
    them shiny with rain, gleamed with particular brilliance in
    the upper reaches of the town.  Now and again a gust of wind
    blew the clouds toward the hill of Sainte-Catherine, like
    aerial waves breaking soundlessly against a cliff.

         A kind of intoxication was wafted up to her from those
    closely packed lives, and her heart swelled as though the
    120,000 souls palpitating below had sent up to her as a
    collective offering the breath of all the passions she supposed
    them to be feeling.  In the face of the vastness her love grew
    larger, and was filled with a turmoil that echoed the vague
    ascending hum.  All this love she, in turn, poured out, onto
    the squares, onto the tree-lined avenues, onto the streets.
    And to her the old Norman city was like some fabulous capital,
    a Babylon into which she was making her entry.  She leaned far
    out the window and filled her lungs with air.  The three
    horses galloped on, there was a grinding of stones in the mud
    beneath the wheels, the coach swayed.  Hivert shouted warningly
    ahead to the wagons he was about to overtake, and businessmen
    leaving their suburban villas in Bois-Guillaume descended the
    hill at a respectable pace in their little family carriages.

         There was a stop at the city gate.  Emma took off her
    overshoes, changed her gloves, arranged her shawl, and twenty
    paces further on she left the Hirondelle.

         The city was coming to life.  Clerks in caps were polish-
    ing shop windows, and women with baskets on their hips stood
    on street corners uttering loud, regular cries.  She walked
    on, her eyes lowered, keeping close to the house walls, and
    smiling happily under her lowered black veil.

         For fear of being seen, she usually didn't take the
    shortest way.  She would plunge into a maze of dark alleys,
    and emerge, hot and perspiring, close to the fountain at the
    lower end of the Rue Nationale.  This is the part of town
    near the theatre, full of bars and prostitutes.  Often a van
    rumbled by, laden with shaky stage-sets.  Aproned waiters
    were sanding the pavement between the tubs of green bushes.
    There was a smell of absinthe, cigars and oysters.

         Then she turned a corner.  She recognized him from afar
    by the way his curly hair hung down below his hat.

         He walked ahead on the sidewalk.  She followed him to
    the hotel.  He went upstairs, opened the door of the room,
    went in . . .  What an embrace!

         Then, after kisses, came a flood of words.  They spoke
    of the troubles of the week, of their forebodings, their
    worries about letters.  But now they could forget everything,
    and they looked into each other's eyes, laughing with delight
    and exchanging loving names.

         The bed was a large mahogany one in the form of a boat.
    Red silk curtains hung from the ceiling and were looped back
    very low beside the flaring headboard, and there was nothing
    so lovely in the world as her dark hair and white skin against
    the deep crimson when she brought her bare arms together in a
    gesture of modesty, hiding her face in her hands.

         The warm room, with its discreet carpet, its pretty
    knickknacks and its tranquil light, seemed designed for the
    intimacies of passion.  The arrow-tipped curtain rods, the
    brass ornaments on the furniture and the big knobs on the
    andirons, all gleamed at once if the sun shone in.  Between
    the candlesticks on the mantelpiece was a pair of those great
    pink shells that sound like the ocean when you hold them to
    your ear.

         How they loved that sweet, cheerful room, for all its
    slightly faded splendor!  Each piece of furniture was always
    waiting for them in its place, and sometimes the hairpins
    she had forgotten the Thursday before were still there, under
    the pedestal of the clock.  They lunched beside the fire, on
    a little table inlaid with rosewood.  Emma carved, murmuring
    all kinds of endearments as she put the pieces on his plate.
    And she gave a loud, wanton laugh when the champagne foamed
    over the fine edge of the glass onto the rings on her fingers.
    They were so completely lost in their possession of each other
    that they thought of themselves as being in their own home,
    destined to live there for the rest of their days, eternal
    young husband and eternal young wife.  They said "our room,"
    "our carpet," "our chairs."  She even said "our slippers,"
    meaning a pair that Leon had given her to gratify a whim.
    They were of pink satin, trimmed with swansdown.  When she sat
    in his lap her legs swung in the air, not reaching the floor,
    and the dainty slippers, open all around except at the tip,
    hung precariously from her bare toes.

         He was savoring for the first time the ineffable subtle-
    ties of feminine refinement.  Never had he encountered this
    grace of language, this quiet taste in dress, these relaxed,
    dovelike postures.  He marveled at the sublimity of her soul
    and at the lace on her petticoat.  Besides, wasn't she a
    "lady," and married besides?  Everything, in short, that a
    mistress should be?

         With her ever-changing moods, by turns brooding and gay,
    chattering and silent, fiery and casual, she aroused in him a
    thousand desires, awakening instincts or memories.  She was
    the amoureuse of all the novels, the heroine of all the plays,
    the vague "she" of all the poetry books.  Her shoulders were
    amber-toned, like the bathing odalisques he had seen in pic-
    tures.  She was long-waisted like the feudal chatelaines.  She
    resembled Musset's "pale femme de Barcelone," too.  But at all
    times she was less woman than angel!

         Often, as he looked at her, it seemed to him that his
    soul, leaving him in quest of her, flowed like a wave around
    the outline of her head, and then was drawn down into the
    whiteness of her breast.

         He would kneel on the floor before her, and with his
    elbows on her knees gaze at her smilingly, his face lifted.

         She would bend toward him and murmur, as though choking
    with rapture.  "Don't move!  Don't say a word!  Just look at
    me!  There's something so sweet in your eyes, something that
    does me so much good!"

         She called him "child."  "Do you love me, child?"

         She never heard his answer, so fast did his lips always
    rise to meet her mouth.

         On the clock there was a little bronze cupid, simpering
    and curving its arms under a gilded wreath.  They often laughed
    at it, but when it came time to part, everything grew serious.

        Motionless, face to face, they would say, over and over.

         "Till Thursday!  Till Thursday!"

         Then she would abruptly take his face between her hands,
    quickly kiss him on the forehead, cry, "Adieu!" and run out
    into the hall.

         She always went to a hairdresser in the Rue de la Comedie
    and had her hair brushed and put in order.  Darkness would be
    falling, in the shops they would be lighting the gas.

         She could hear the bell in the theatre summoning the
    actors to the performance, and across the street she would see
    white-faced men and shabbily dressed women going in through
    the stage door.

         It was hot in this little place with its too-low ceiling
    and its stove humming in the midst of wigs and pomades.  The
    smell of the curling irons and the touch of the soft hands at
    work on her head soon made her drowsy, and she dozed off a
    little in her dressing gown.  Often, as he arranged her hair,
    the coiffeur would ask her to buy tickets for a masked ball.

         Then she was off.  She retraced her way through the
    streets, reached the Croix-Rouge, retrieved the overshoes that
    she had hidden there that morning under a bench, and squeezed
    herself in among the impatient passengers.  To spare the
    horses, the men got out at the foot of the hill, leaving Emma
    alone in the coach.

         At each bend of the road more and more of the city lights
    came into view, making a layer of luminous mist that hung over
    the mass of the houses.  Emma would kneel on the cushions and
    look back, letting her eyes wander over the brilliance.  Sobs
    would burst from her, she would call Leon's name, and send him
    sweet words, and kisses that were lost in the wind.

         On this hill-road was a wretched beggar, who wandered
    with his stick in the midst of the traffic.  His clothes were
    a mass of rags, and his face was hidden under a battered old
    felt hat that was turned down all around like a basin.  When
    he took this off, it was to reveal two gaping, bloody sockets
    in place of eyelids.  The flesh continually shredded off in
    red gobbets, and from it oozed a liquid matter, hardening into
    greenish scabs that reached down to his nose.  His black nos-
    trils sniffled convulsively.  Whenever he began to talk, he
    leaned his head far back and gave an idiot laugh.  And at such
    times his bluish eyeballs, rolling round and round, pushed up
    against the edges of the live wound.

         As he walked beside the coaches he sang a little song.

                 A clear day's warmth will often move
                 A lass to stray in dreams of love . . .

         And the rest of it was all about the birds, the sun, and
    the leaves on the trees.

         Sometimes he would loom up all at once from behind Emma,
    bareheaded.  She would draw back with a cry.  Hivert always
    joked with him, urging him to hire a booth at the Saint-Romain
    fair, or laughingly asking after the health of his sweetheart.

         Often while the coach was moving slowly up the hill his
    hat would suddenly come through the window, and he would be
    there, clinging with his other hand to the footboard, between
    the spattering wheels.  His voice, at the outset a mere wail,
    would grow shrill.  It would linger in the darkness like a
    plaintive cry of distress.  And through the jingle of the
    horse bells, the rustle of the trees and the rumble of the
    empty coach, there was something eerie about it that gave
    Emma a shudder of horror.  The sound spiraled down into the
    very depths of her soul, like a whirlwind in an abyss, and
    swept her off into the reaches of a boundless melancholy.  But
    Hivert would become aware that his vehicle was weighed down on
    one side, and would strike out savagely at the blind man with
    his whip.  the stinging lash would cut into his wounds, and he
    would drop off into the mud with a shriek.

         One by one the Hirondelle's passengers would fall asleep,
    some with their mouths open, others with their chins on their
    chests, leaning on their neighbor's shoulder or with an arm
    in the strap, all the while rocking steadily with the motion
    of the coach.  And the gleam of the lamp, swaying outside
    above the rumps of the shaft-horses and shining in through
    the chocolate-colored calico curtains, cast blood-red shadows
    on all those motionless travelers.  Emma, numb with sadness,
    would shiver under her coat.  Her feet would grow colder and
    colder, and she felt like death.

         Charles would be at the house, waiting.  The Hirondelle
    was always late on Thursdays.  Then at last Madame would
    arrive!  She would scarcely take time to kiss her little girl.
    Dinner wasn't ready . . . no matter!  She forgave the cook.
    Felicite seemed to have everything her own way, these days.

         Often her husband would notice her pallor, and ask whether
    she were ill.

         "No," Emma would say.

         "But you're acting so strangely tonight!"

         "Oh, it's nothing!  It's nothing!"

         Some Thursdays she went up to her room almost the minute
    she came in.  Justin would be there and would busy himself
    silently, cleverer at helping her than an experienced ladies'
    maid.  He would arrange matches, candlesticks, a book, lay
    out her dressing jacket, open her bed.

         "Very good," she would tell him.  "Now run along."

         For he would be standing there, his hands at his sides
    and his eyes staring, as though a sudden revery had tied him
    to the spot with a thousand strands.

         The next day was always an ordeal, and the days that
    followed were even more unbearable, so impatient was she to
    recover her happiness.  It was a fierce desire that was kept
    aflame by the vividness of her memories, and on the seventh
    day burst forth freely under Leon's caresses.  His transports
    took the form of overflowing wonderment and gratitude.  Emma
    enjoyed this passion in a way that was both deliberate and
    intense, keeping it alive by every amorous device at her com-
    mand, and fearing all the while that some day it would come to
    an end.

         Often she would say to him, sweetly and sadly.  "Ah!
    Sooner or later you'll leave me!  You'll marry!  You'll be
    like all the others."

         "What others?"

         "Why, men . . . all men."

         And, languidly pushing him away, she would add, "You're
    faithless, every one of you!"

         One day when they were having a philosophical discussion
    about earthly disillusionments, she went so far as to say,
    whether testing his jealousy, or yielding to an irresistible
    need to confide, that in the past, before him, she had loved
    someone else.  "Not like you!" she quickly added, and she swore
    by her daughter that "nothing had happened."

         The young man believed her, but nevertheless asked her
    what kind of man "he" had been.

         "He was a sea captain," she told him.

         Did she say that, perhaps, to forestall his making any
    inquiries, and at the same time to exalt herself by making the
    supposed victim of her charms sound like an imperious kind of
    man accustomed to having his way?

         This impressed upon the clerk the mediocrity of his own
    status.  He longed to have epaulettes, decorations and titles.
    Such things must be to her liking, he suspected, judging by
    her spendthrift ways.

         There were a number of her wildest ideas, however, that
    Emma never said a word about, such as her craving to be driven
    to Rouen in a blue tilbury drawn by an English horse, with a
    groom in turned-down boots on the seat.  It was Justin who had
    inspired her with this particular fancy, by begging her to take
    him into her service as footman.  And though being deprived of
    it didn't prevent her from enjoying each weekly arrival in the
    city, it certainly added to the bitterness of each return to
    Yonville.

         Often, when they spoke of Paris, she would murmur, "Ah!
    How happy we'd be, living there!"

         "Aren't we happy here?" the young man would softly ask,
    passing his hand over her hair.

         "Of course we are!  I'm being foolish.  Kiss me!"


         With her husband she was more charming than ever.  She
    made him pistachio creams and played waltzes for him after
    dinner.  He considered himself the luckiest of mortals, and
    Emma had no fear of discovery . . . until suddenly, one
    evening.

         "It is Mademoiselle Lempereur you take lessons from,
    isn't it?"

         "Yes."

         "Well, I just saw her," said Charles, "at Madame Liege-
    ard's.  I talked to her about you.  She doesn't know you."

         It was like a thunderbolt.  But she answered in a natural
    tone.  "Oh, she must have forgotten my name."

         "Or else maybe there's more than one Mademoiselle
    Lempereur in Rouen who teaches piano."

         "Maybe so."  Then, quickly, "Besides, it just occurs to
    me, I have her receipts.  Look!"

         And she went to the secretary, rummaged in all the
    drawers, mixed up all the papers, and finally grew so rattled
    that Charles begged her not to go to so much trouble for a
    few wretched receipts.

         "Oh, I'll find them," she said.

         And indeed, the following Friday, while Charles was
    putting on one of his shoes in the dark dressing room where
    his clothes were kept, he felt a piece of paper between the
    sole and his sock, and pulled it out and read.

         "Three months' lessons, plus supplies.  Sixty-five
    francs.  Paid.  Felicite Lempereur, Professeur de musique."

         "How the devil did this get in my shoe?"

         "It probably fell down from the old bill file on the
    shelf."

         From that moment on, she piled lie upon lie, using them
    as veils to conceal her love.

         Lying became a need, a mania, a positive joy.  To such
    a point that if she said that she had walked down the right-
    hand side of a street the day before, it meant that she had
    gone down the left.

         One morning just after she had gone, rather lightly clad
    as usual, there was a sudden snowfall.  And Charles, looking
    out the window at the weather, saw Monsieur Bournisien setting
    out for Rouen in Monsieur Tuvache's buggy.  So he ran down
    with a heavy shawl and asked the priest to give it to Madame
    as soon as he got to the Croix-Rouge.  The moment he reached
    the inn, Bournisien asked where the wife of the Yonville doctor
    was.  The hotel-keeper replied that she spent very little time
    there.  That evening, therefore, finding Madame Bovary in the
    Hirondelle, the cure told her of the contretemps.  He seemed
    to attach little importance to it, however, for he launched
    into praise of a preacher, the sensation at the cathedral,
    adored by all the ladies.

         Still, though he hadn't asked for explanations, others,
    in the future, might be less discreet.  So she thought it
    practical to take a room each time at the Croix-Rouge, in
    order that her fellow villagers might see her there and have
    no suspicion.

         One day, however, Monsieur Lheureux ran into her as she
    was leaving the Hotel de Boulogne on Leon's arm.  She was
    frightened, thinking that he might talk.  He was too smart for
    that.

         But three days later he came into her room, closed the
    door, and said.  "I'd like some money."

         She declared that she had none to give him.  Lheureux
    began to moan, and reminded her of how many times he'd gone
    out of his way to oblige her.

         And indeed, of the two notes signed by Charles, Emma had
    so far paid off only one.  As for the second, the shopkeeper
    had agreed at her request to replace it with two others, which
    themselves had been renewed for a very long term.  Then he
    drew out of his pocket a list of goods still unpaid for.  The
    curtains, the carpet, upholstery material for armchairs,
    several dresses and various toilet articles, totaling about
    two thousand francs.

         She hung her head.

         "You may not have any cash," he said, "but you do have
    some property."

         And he mentioned a wretched, tumbledown cottage situated
    at Barneville, near Aumale, which didn't bring in very much.
    It had once been part of a small farm that the elder Bovary
    had sold.  Lheureux knew everything, down to the acreage and
    the neighbors' names.

         "If I were you I'd get rid of it," he said.  "You'd still
    have a balance after paying me."

         She brought up the difficulty of finding a buyer.  He was
    encouraging about the possibility of locating one.  But, "What
    would I have to do to be able to sell?" she asked.

         "Haven't you power of attorney?" he countered.

         The words came to her like a breath of fresh air.

         "Leave your bill with me," said Emma.

         "Oh, it's not worth bothering about," replied Lheureux.

         He came again the following week, very proud of having
    unearthed, after a lot of trouble, a certain Monsieur Langlois,
    who had been eying the property for a long time without ever
    mentioning the price he was willing to pay.

         "The price doesn't matter!" she cried.

         "On the contrary," he said.  They should take their time,
    sound Langlois out.  The affair was worth the bother of a trip,
    and since she couldn't make it he offered to go himself and
    talk things over with Langlois on the spot.  On his return he
    announced that the buyer offered 4,000 francs.

         Emma beamed at the news.

         "Frankly," he said, "it's a good price."

         Half the amount was paid her at once, and when she said
    that now she'd settle his bill, he told her, "Honestly, it
    hurts me to see you hand over every bit of all that money right
    away."

         She stared at the banknotes and had a vision of the count-
    less love-meetings those 2,000 francs represented.  "What?" she
    stammered.  "What do you mean?"

         "Oh," he said, with a jovial laugh, "there's more than one
    way of making out a bill.  Don't you think I know how it is
    with married couples?"

         And he stared at her, running his fingernails up and down
    two long sheets of paper he had in his hand.  After a long
    moment he opened his billfold and spread out on the table four
    more promissory notes, each for a thousand francs.

         "Sign these," he said, "and keep all the money."

         She gave a shocked cry.

         "But if I give you the balance," Monsieur Lheureux
    answered, "don't you see that I'm doing you a service?'

         And taking up a pen he wrote at the bottom of the bill,
    "Received from Madame Bovary the sum of 4,000 francs."

         "What's there to worry you?  In six months you'll have
    the rest of the money due on your cottage, and I'll make the
    last note payable after that date."

         She was getting a little mixed up in her arithmetic, and
    she felt a ringing in her ears as though gold pieces were

    bursting out of their bags and dropping to the floor all about
    her.  Finally Lheureux explained that he had a friend named
    Vincart, a Rouen banker, who would discount these four new
    notes, following which he himself would pay Madame the balance
    of what was really owed.

         But instead of 2,000 francs, he brought her only 1,800,
    for his friend Vincart, as was "only right," had deducted 200,
    representing commission and discount.

         Then he casually asked for a receipt.

         "You know . . . in business . . . sometimes . . .  And
    put down the date, please, the date."

         A host of things that she could do with the money
    stretched out before Emma in perspective.  She had enough
    sense to put 3,000 francs aside, and with them she paid, as
    they came due, the first three notes.  But the fourth, as
    luck would have it, arrived at the house on a Thursday, and
    Charles, stunned, patiently awaited his wife's return to have
    it explained to him.

         Ah!  If she hadn't told him anything about that note it
    was because she hadn't wanted to bother him with household
    worries.  She sat in his lap, caressed him, cooed at him, and
    gave a long list of all the indispensables she had bought on
    credit.

         "You'll have to admit," she said, "that considering how
    many things there were, the bill's not too high."

         Charles, at his wit's end, soon had recourse to the in-
    evitable Lheureux, who promised to straighten everything out
    if Monsieur would sign two more notes, one of them for 700
    francs, payable in three months.  Charles wrote a pathetic
    letter to his mother, asking for help.  Instead of sending
    an answer, she came herself, and when Emma asked him if he'd
    got anything out of her, "Yes,: he answered.  "But she
    insists on seeing the bill."

         So early the next morning Emma rushed to Monsieur
    Lheureux and begged him to make out a different note, for
    not more than 1,000 francs, for if she were to show the one
    for 4,000 she would have to say that she had paid off two-
    thirds of it, and consequently reveal the sale of the cottage.
    That transaction had been handled very cleverly by the shop-
    keeper, and never did leak out until later.

         Despite the low price of each article, the elder Madame
    Bovary naturally found such expenditure excessive.

         "Couldn't you get along without a carpet?  Why re-cover
    the armchairs?  In my day every house had exactly one armchair,
    for elderly persons . . . at least, that's the way it was at
    my mother's, and she was a respectable woman, I assure you.
    Everybody can't be rich!  No amount of money will last if you
    throw it out the window.  It would make me blush to pamper
    myself the way you do . . . and I'm an old woman and need
    looking after . . .  Who's ever seen so much finery?  What,
    silk for linings at two francs when you can find jaconet for
    half a franc and even less that does perfectly well?"

         Emma, stretched out on the settee, answered with the
    greatest calm, "That's enough, Madame, that's enough."

         Her mother-in-law continued to sermonize, prophesying
    that they'd end in the poorhouse.  Besides, it was all Bovary's
    fault, she said.  At least, though, he'd promised her he'd
    cancel the power of attorney.

         "What!"

         "Yes, he's given me his word," said the lady.

         Emma disappeared, then quickly returned, majestically
    holding out to her a large sheet of paper.

         "I thank you," said the woman.  And she threw the power
    of attorney into the fire.

         Emma burst out laughing and didn't stop.  Her laughter
    was loud and strident, it was an attack of hysterics.

         "Ah, my God!" cried Charles.  "You're overdoing things,
    too!  You've no right to come here and make scenes."

         His mother shrugged her shoulders and said that "it was
    all put on."

         But Charles, rebellious for the first time in his life,
    took his wife's part, and the older Madame Bovary said she
    wanted to go.  She departed the next day, and on the doorstep,
    as he was trying to make her change her mind, she answered,
    "No!  No!  You love her more than you do me, and you're right,
    that's as it should be.  There's nothing I can do about it.
    You'll see, though . . .  Take care of yourself . . . I can
    promise you it will be a long time before I come back here to
    `make scenes,' as you put it."

         Nevertheless Charles was very hangdog with Emma, and she
    didn't hide her resentment at having been distrusted.  He had
    to entreat her many times before she would consent to accept
    power of attorney again, and he even went with her to Maitre
    Guillaumin to have a new one drawn up, identical with the
    first.

         "I well understand your doing this," said the notary.
    "A man of science can't be expected to burden himself with
    the practical details of existence."

         Charles felt soothed by those oily words.  They flattered
    his weakness, making it look like preoccupation with lofty
    things.

         What exultation there was the next Thursday in their
    room at the hotel, with Leon!  She laughed, cried, sang,
    danced, sent for water ices, insisted on smoking cigarettes.
    He found her wild, but adorable, superb.

         He had no idea what it was that was driving her more
    and more to fling herself into a reckless pursuit of pleasure.
    She grew irritable, greedy, voluptuous, and she walked boldly
    with him in the street.  Unafraid, she said, of compromising
    herself.  There were times, though, when Emma trembled at the
    sudden thought of meeting Rodolphe, for she suspected that
    even though they had parted, forever, he still retained some
    of his power over her.

         One night she didn't return to Yonville at all.  Charles
    lost his head, and little Berthe, unwilling to go to bed with-
    out maman, sobbed as though her heart would break.  Justin had
    gone off down the road to look for her.  Monsieur Homais actu-
    ally stepped out of his pharmacy.

         Finally, at eleven o'clock, unable to stand it any longer,
    Charles harnessed his buggy, jumped in, whipped the horse on,
    and reached the Croix-Rouge at two in the morning.  No sign of
    her.  It occurred to him that Leon might have seen her.  But
    where did he live?  Luckily, Charles remembered the address of
    his employer, and he hastened there.

         The sky was beginning to lighten.  He made out some
    escutcheons over a door, and knocked.  Without opening, someone
    shouted the information he wanted, together with a good deal
    of abuse about people who disturb other people at night.

         The house the clerk lived in boasted neither bell nor
    knocker no doorman.  Charles pounded with his fists on the
    shutters, but just then a policeman came along.  This fright-
    ened him, and he slunk away.

         "I'm crazy," he told himself.  "The Lormeaux' probably
    kept her to dinner."

         But the Lormeaux' no longer lived in Rouen.

         "She must have stayed to look after Madame Dubreuil.  Oh,
    no . . . Madame Dubreuil died ten months ago.  So where can
    she be?'

         He had an idea.  In a cafe he asked for the directory and
    looked up Mademoiselle Lempereur.  74 Rue de la Renelle-des-
    Maroquiniers was her address.

         Just as he turned into that street, Emma herself appeared
    at the other end.  It would be wrong to say that he embraced
    her, he flung himself on her, crying, "What kept you yesterday?"

         "I was ill."

         "Ill?  How?  Where?"

         She passed her hand over her forehead, "At Mademoiselle
    Lempereur's."

         "I knew it!  I was on my way there."

         "Well, there's no use going there now.  She's just gone
    out.  But after this don't get so excited.  I won't feel free
    to do a thing if I know that the slightest delay upsets you
    like this."

         It was a kind of permit that she was giving herself.  A
    permit to feel completely unhampered in her escapades.  And
    she proceeded to make free and frequent use of it.  Whenever
    she felt like seeing Leon, she would go off, using any excuse
    that came to mind.  And since he wouldn't be expecting her
    that day, she would call for him at his office.

         It was all very joyous, the first few times.  But before
    long he stopped hiding the truth from her, his employer was
    complaining loudly of these incursions.

         "Bah!" she said.  "Come along."

         And he slipped out.

         She demanded that he dress entirely in black and grow a
    little pointed beard, to make himself look like the portraits
    of Louis XIII.  She asked to see his rooms, and found them
    very so-so.  He reddened at that, but she didn't notice, and
    advised him to buy curtains like hers.  When he objected to
    the expense.

         "Ah!  So you pinch your pennies!" she said laughing.

         Each time, Leon had to tell her everything he had done
    since their last rendezvous.  She asked for a poem, a poem
    for herself, a love piece written in her honor.  He could
    never find a rhyme for the second line, and ended up copying
    a sonnet from a keepsake.

         He did that less out of vanity than out of a desire to
    please her.  He never disputed any of her ideas.  He fell in
    with all her tastes.  He was becoming her mistress, far more
    than she was his.  Her sweet words and her kisses swept away
    his soul.  Her depravity was so deep and so dissembled as to
    be almost intangible.  Where could she have learned it?






    PART 3

    CHAPTER SIX

         On his trips to see her he had often taken dinner at the
    pharmacist's, and he felt obliged out of politeness to invite
    him in return.

         "With pleasure!" Homais answered.  "A change will do me
    good.  My life here is such a rut.  We'll see a show and eat
    in a restaurant and really go out on the town."

         "Out on the town!"  Madame Homais' exclamation was affec-
    tionate.  She was alarmed by the vague perils he was girding
    himself to meet.

         "Why shouldn't I?  Don't you think I ruin my health
    enough, exposing myself to all those drug fumes?  That's women
    for you!  They're jealous of Science, and yet they're up in
    arms at the mention of even the most legitimate distraction.
    Never mind, I'll be there.  One of these days I'll turn up in
    Rouen, and we'll turn the town upside down."

         In the past, the apothecary would have been careful to
    avoid such an expression.  But now he was going in for a dare-
    devil, Parisian kind of language that he considered very a la
    mode, and like his neighbor Madame Bovary he asked the clerk
    many searching questions about life in the big city.  He even
    talked slang in order to show off in front of the "bourgeois,"
    using such terms as turne, bazar, chicard, chicandard, the
    English "Breda Street" for Rue de Breda and je me la casse for
    je m'en vais.

         So one Thursday Emma was surprised to find, in the kitchen
    of the Lion d'Or, none other than Monsieur Homais in traveling
    garb.  That is, wrapped in an old cape that no one had ever
    seen on him before, with a suitcase in one hand and in the
    other the foot-warmer from his shop.  He hadn't breathed a word
    about his trip to anyone, fearing lest the public be made ner-
    vous by his absence.

         The idea of revisiting the scenes of his youth apparently
    excited him, for he didn't stop talking all the way.  The
    wheels had barely stopped turning when he leapt from the coach
    in search of Leon, and despite the clerk's struggles he dragged
    him off to lunch at the Cafe de Normandie.  Here Monsieur Homais
    made a majestic entrance.  He kept his hat on, considering it
    highly provincial to uncover in a public place.

         Emma waited for Leon three-quarters of an hour, then rushed
    to his office.  She was at a loss as to what could have happened.
    In her mind she heaped him with reproaches for his indifference
    and herself for her weakness.  All afternoon she stood with her
    forehead glued to the windowpanes of their room.

         At two o'clock Leon and Homais were still facing each other
    across their table.  The big dining room was emptying.  The
    stovepipe, designed to resemble a palm tree, spread out in a
    circle of gilded fronds on the white ceiling.  And near them,
    just inside the window, in full sun, a little fountain gurgled
    into a marble basin, where among watercress and asparagus three
    sluggish lobsters stretched their claws toward a heap of quail.

         Homais was in heaven.  He found the luxe even more intoxi-
    cating than the fine food and drink.  Still, the Pomard went to
    his head a little, and when the rum omelet made its appearance
    he advanced certain immoral theories concerning women.  What
    particularly captivated him was the quality of chic.  He adored
    an elegant toilette in a handsome decor, and as for physical
    qualities, he wasn't averse to a "plump little morsel."

         Leon desperately watched the clock.  The apothecary kept
    drinking, eating, talking.

         "You must feel quite deprived, here in Rouen," he suddenly
    remarked.  "But then, your lady-love doesn't live too far away."

         And as Leon blushed, "Come, be frank!  You won't deny, will
    you, that in Yonville . . ."

         The young man began to stammer.

         " . . . at the Bovarys', you did quite some courting of
    . . ."

         "Of whom?"

         "Of the maid!"

         Homais wasn't joking.  But Leon vanity got the better of
    his discretion, and despite himself he protested indignantly.
    Besides, he said, he liked only brunettes.

         "I approve your preference," said the pharmacist.  "They
    have more temperament."

         And putting his mouth close to his friend's ear, he
    enumerated the sure signs of temperament in a woman.  He even
    launched into an ethnographical digression.  German women were
    moody, French women licentious, Italian women passionate.

         "What about Negro women?" demanded the clerk.

         "Much favored by artists," said Homais.  "Waiter, two
    demitasses!"

         "Shall we go?" said Leon finally, his patience at an end.

         "Yes," said Homais in English.

         But before leaving he insisted on seeing the manager, and
    offered him his congratulations.

         Leon, in the hope of being left alone, now pleaded a
    business appointment.

         "Ah!  I'll go with you!" said Homais.

         And as he accompanied him through the streets he talked
    about his wife, about his children, about their future, about
    his pharmacy, told him in what a rundown state he had found
    it and to what a peak of perfection he had brought it.

         When they reached the Hotel de Boulogne, Leon brusquely
    took leave of him, ran upstairs and found his mistress close
    to hysterics.

         The mention of the pharmacist's name put her into a rage.
    He pleaded his case persuasively.  It wasn't his fault . . .
    surely she knew Monsieur Homais.  Could she think for a moment
    that he preferred his company?  But she turned away.  He caught
    hold of her, and winding his arms around her waist he sank to
    his knees, languorous, passionate, imploring.

         She stood there, solemn, almost terrible, transfixing him
    with her great blazing eyes.  Then tears came to cloud them,
    she lowered her reddened eyelids, held out her hands, and Leon
    was just pressing them to his lips when a servant knocked and
    said that someone was asking for Monsieur.

         "You'll come back?' she said.

         "Yes."

         "When?"

         "Right away."

         "How do you like my little trick?' said the pharmacist,
    when Leon appeared.  "I wanted to help you get away from your
    company.  You gave me the impression you didn't expect to enjoy
    it.  Let's go to Bridoux's and have a glass of cordial.

         Leon insisted that he had to return to his office.  The
    apothecary made facetious remarks about legal papers and legal
    flummery.

         "Forget about Cujas and Barthole for a bit, for heaven's
    sake.  Who's to stop you?  Be a sport.  Let's go to Bridoux's.
    You'll see his dog.  It's very interesting."

         And when the clerk stubbornly held out, "I'll come, too.
    I'll read a newspaper while I wait, or look through a law
    book.

         Overcome by Emma's anger, Monsieur Homais' chatter, and
    perhaps by the heavy lunch, Leon stood undecided, as though
    under the pharmacist's spell.

         "Let's go to Bridoux's!" the latter kept repeating.
    "It's only a step from here . . . Rue Malpalu."

         Out of cowardice or stupidity, or perhaps yielding to
    that indefinable impulse that leads us to do the things we
    most deplore, he let himself be carried off to Bridoux's.
    They found him in his little yard, superintending three
    workmen who were pantingly turning the great wheel of a
    Seltzer-water machine.  Homais offered them several bits of
    advice and embraced Bridoux.  They had their cordial.  Twenty
    times Leon started to leave, but the pharmacist caught him by
    the arm, saying, "Just a minute!  I'm coming.  We'll go to
    the Fanal de Rouen and say hello to everybody.  I'll introduce
    you to Thomassin."

         He got rid of him, however, and flew to the hotel.  Emma
    was gone.

         She had just left in a fury.  She hated him.  His failure
    to keep their appointment seemed to her an insult, and she
    sought additional reasons for seeing no more of him.  He was
    unheroic, weak, commonplace, spineless as a woman, and stingy
    and timorous to boot.

         Gradually, growing calmer, she came to see that she had
    been unjust to him.  But casting aspersions on those we love
    always does something to loosen our ties.  We shouldn't mal-
    treat our idols.  The gilt comes off on our hands.

         From then on, matters extraneous to their love occupied
    a greater place in their talk.  The letters that Emma sent
    him were all about flowers, poetry, the moon and the stars.
    She resorted to these naive expedients as her passion weakened,
    trying to keep it alive by artificial means.  She continually
    promised herself that the next rendezvous would carry her to
    the peak of bliss.  But when it was over she had to admit that
    she had felt nothing extraordinary.  Each disappointment quickly
    gave way to new hope.  Each time, Emma returned to him more
    feverish, more avid.  She could hardly wait to undress.  She
    pulled so savagely at her corset string that it hissed around
    her hips like a gliding snake.  Then she would tiptoe barefoot
    to see once again that the door was locked, and in a single
    movement let fall all her clothes.  And, pale, silent, solemn,
    she would fling herself against his body with a long shudder.

         There was something mad, though, something strange and
    sinister, about that cold, sweating forehead, about those
    stammering lips, those wildly staring eyes, the clasp of those
    arms.  Something that seemed to Leon to be creeping between
    them, subtly, as though to tear them apart.

         He didn't dare question her, but realizing how experi-
    enced she was, he told himself that she must have known the
    utmost extremes of suffering and pleasure.  What had once
    charmed him he now found a little frightening.  Then, too,
    he rebelled against the way his personality was increasingly
    being submerged.  He resented her perpetual triumph over him.
    He even did his best to stop loving her, then at the sound of
    her footsteps he would feel his will desert him, like a
    drunkard at the sight of strong liquor.

         She made a point, it is true, of showering him with all
    kinds of attentions.  Everything from fine foods to coquetries
    of dress and languorous glances.  She brought roses from
    Yonville in her bosom and tossed them at him.  She worried
    over his health, gave him advice about how to conduct himself.
    And one day, to bind him the closer, hoping that heaven itself
    might take a hand in things, she slipped over his head a medal
    of the Blessed Virgin.  Like a virtuous mother, she inquired
    about his associates.

         "Don't see then," she would say.  "Don't go out.  Just
    think about us.  Love me!"

         She wished she could keep an eye on him continually, and
    it occurred to her to have him followed on the street.  There
    was a kind of tramp near the hotel who always accosted tra-
    velers and who would certainly be willing to . . .  But her
    pride rebelled.

         "What if he does betray me?  Do I care?'

         One day when they had said farewell earlier than usual,
    she caught sight of the walls of her convent as she was
    walking back alone down the boulevard, and she sank onto a
    bench in the shade of the elms.  How peaceful those days had
    been!  How she had longed for that ineffable emotion of love
    that she had tried to imagine from her books!

         The first months of her marriage, her rides in the forest,
    the vicomte she had waltzed with, Lagardy singing.  All passed
    before her eyes.  And Leon suddenly seemed as far removed as
    the others.

         "I do love him, though!" she told herself.

         No matter, she wasn't happy, and never had been.  Why
    was life so unsatisfactory?  Why did everything she leaned
    on crumble instantly to dust?  But why, if somewhere there
    existed a strong and handsome being . . . a man of valor,
    sublime in passion and refinement, with a poet's heart and
    an angel's shape, a man like a lyre with strings of bronze,
    intoning elegiac epithalamiums to the heavens, why mightn't
    she have the luck to meet him?  Ah, fine chance!  Besides,
    nothing was worth looking for.  Everything was a lie!  Every
    smile concealed a yawn of boredom.  Every joy, a curse, every
    pleasure, its own surfeit.  And the sweetest kisses left on
    one's lips but a vain longing for fuller delight.

         Through the air came a hoarse, prolonged metallic groan,
    and then the clock of the convent struck four.  Only four!
    And it seemed to her that she had been there on that bench
    since eternity.  But an infinity of passions can be com-
    pressed into a minute, like a crowd into a little space.
    Emma's passions were the sole concern of her life, for money
    she had no more thought than an archduchess.

         One day, however, she was visited by an ill-kempt
    individual, red-faced and bald, who said he had been sent by
    Monsieur Vincart of Rouen.  He pulled out the pins fastening
    the side pocket of his long green frock coat, stuck them in
    his sleeve, and politely handed her a document.

         It was a note for 500 francs, signed by her, which
    Lheureux, despite all his promises, had endorsed over to
    Vincart.

         She sent her maid for Lheureux.  He couldn't come.

         The stranger had remained standing, dissimulating under
    his thick blond eyebrows the inquisitive glances that he cast
    left and right.  "What answer am I to give Monsieur Vincart?'
    he asked, with an innocent air.

         "Well," said Emma, "tell him . . . that I haven't got
    . . . I'll have it next week . . . He should wait . . . yes,
    I'll have it next week."

         Whereupon the fellow went off without a word.

         But the next day, at noon, she received a protest of
    nonpayment, and the sight of the official document, bearing
    the words "Maitre Hareng, huissier at Buchy" several times
    in large letters, gave her such a fright that she hurried to
    the dry-goods merchant.

         She found him in his shop tying up a parcel.

         "At your service!" he said.  "What can I do for you?'

         He didn't interrupt his task.  His clerk, a slightly
    hunch-backed girl of thirteen or so, who also did his cooking,
    was helping him.

         Finally he clattered across the shop in his wooden shoes,
    climbed up ahead of Madame to the second floor, and showed her
    into a small office.  Here on a large fir desk lay several
    ledgers, fastened down by a padlocked metal bar that stretched
    across them.  A safe could be glimpsed against the wall, under
    some lengths of calico.  A safe of such size that it certainly
    contained something besides cash and promissory notes.  And
    indeed Monsieur Lheureux did some pawnbroking.  It was here
    that he kept Madame Bovary's gold chain, along with some ear-
    rings that had belonged to poor Tellier.  The latter had
    finally had to sell the Cafe Francais, and had since bought a
    little grocery business in Quincampoix, where he was dying of
    his catarrh, his face yellower than the tallow candles he sold.

         Lheureux sat down in his broad, rush-bottomed armchair.
    "What's new?' he asked her.

         "Look!"  And she showed him the document.

         "Well, what can I do about it?'

         She flew into a rage, reminding him that he had promised
    not to endorse her notes.

         He admitted it.  "But my hand was forced.  My creditors
    had a knife at my throat."

         "And what's going to happen now?' she asked.

         "Oh, it's very simple.  A court warrant, then execution.
    There's no way out."

         Emma had to restrain herself from hitting him.  She asked
    quietly whether there wasn't some way of appeasing Monsieur
    Vincart.

         "Ha!  Appease Vincart!  You didn't know him.  He's fiercer
    than an Arab."

         But Monsieur Lheureux had to do something about it!

         "Now listen!" he said.  "It seems to me I've been pretty
    nice to you so far."

         And opening one of his ledgers, "Look!"  He moved his
    finger up the page.  "Let's see . . . let's see . . . August
    3,200 francs . . . June 17, 150 . . . March 23, 46.  In April
    . . ."  He stopped, as though afraid of making a blunder.

         "I won't even mention the notes your husband signed, one
    for seven hundred francs, another for three hundred.  And as
    for your payments on account, and the interest, there's no
    end to it.  It's a mess.  I won't have anything more to do
    with it."

         She wept, she even called him her "dear Monsieur Lheureux."
    But he kept laying the blame on "That scoundrelly Vincart."
    Besides, he himself didn't have a centime.  No one was paying
    him at the moment.  His creditors were tearing the clothes from
    his back.  A poor shopkeeper like himself couldn't advance money.

         Emma stopped speaking, and Monsieur Lheureux, nibbling the
    quill of his pen, seemed disturbed by her silence.

         "Of course," he said, "if I were to have something come in
    one of these days I might . . ."

         "After all," she said, "as soon as the balance on Barne-
    ville . . ."

         "What's that?"

         And when he heard that Langlois hadn't yet paid he seemed
    very surprised.  Then, in an oily voice, "And our terms will
    be . . .?"

         "Oh, anything you say!"

         Then he shut his eyes to help himself think, wrote down
    a few figures, and assuring her that he was making things
    hard for himself, taking a great risk, "bleeding himself
    white," he made out four notes for 250 francs each, payable
    a month apart.

         "Let's hope that Vincart's willing to listen to me!
    Anyway, you have my word.  I don't say one thing and mean
    another.  I'm open and aboveboard."

         Afterwards he casually showed her a few items, not one
    of which, in his opinion, was worthy of Madame.

         "When I think of dress goods like this selling at seven
    sous a metre and guaranteed dye-fast!  Everybody believes it,
    too!  And they don't get undeceived, I can assure you."  The
    admission that he swindled others was meant as clinching
    proof of his frankness with herself.

         Then he called her back and showed her several yards of
    point lace that he had come upon recently "in a vendue."

         "Isn't it splendid?"  he said.  "It's being used a good
    deal now for antimacassars, it's the last word."

         And quicker than a juggler he wrapped up the lace and
    handed it to Emma.

         "At least," she said, "let me know how much it . . ."

         "Oh, we'll talk about that later," he answered, turning
    abruptly away.

         That very evening she made Bovary write his mother and
    ask her to send the balance of his inheritance at once.  Her
    mother-in-law replied that there was nothing to send.  The
    estate was settled, and in addition to Barneville they could
    count on a yearly income of 600 francs, which she would forward
    punctually.

         So Madame sent bills to two or three patients, and before
    long she was sending them to many more, so successful did the
    expedient prove.  She was always careful to add, in a post-
    script, "Don't speak of this to my husband, you know how proud
    he is.  With regrets.  Your humble servant."  There were a
    few complaints, but she intercepted them.

         To raise money she began to sell her old gloves, her old
    hats, all kinds of household odds and ends.  She drove a hard
    bargain.  Her peasant blood stood her in good stead.  And on
    her trips to the city she combed the curiosity shops for
    knickknacks, telling herself that Monsieur Lheureux, if no
    one else, would take them off her hands.  She brought ostrich
    feathers, Chinese porcelains, old chests.  She borrowed from
    Felicite, from Madame Lefrancois, from the landlady of the
    Croix-Rouge, from anyone and everyone.  With part of the
    money she finally got from Barneville, she paid off two notes.
    The rest, 1,500 francs, dribbled away.  She signed new notes,
    always new notes.

         Occasionally she tried to add up some figures, but the
    totals were so enormous that she couldn't believe them.  Then
    she'd begin all over again, quickly become confused, and push
    it all aside and forget it.

         The house was a gloomy place these days.  Tradesmen
    called, and left with angry faces.  Handkerchiefs lay strewn
    about on the stoves, and Madame Homais was shocked to see
    little Berthe with holes in her stockings.  If Charles ventured
    some timid remark, Emma retorted savagely that she certainly
    wasn't to blame.

         Why these fits of rage?  He laid it all to her old nervous
    illness, and, penitent at having mistaken her infirmities for
    faults, he cursed his selfishness and longed to run up to her
    and take her in his arms.

         "Oh, no!" he told himself.  "I'd only annoy her."  And he
    did nothing.

         After dinner he would walk alone in the garden.  Then,
    with little Berthe in his lap and his medical journal open, he
    would try to teach the child to read.  But she had never been
    given the slightest schooling, and after a few moments her
    eyes would grow round and sad, and the tears would come.  He
    would comfort her.  He filled the watering can to help her
    make rivulets in the paths, or broke privet branches that she
    could plant as trees in the flower beds.  None of this harmed
    the garden, particularly, it was so choked with high grass
    anyway.  They owed so many days' pay to Lestiboudois!  Then
    the little girl would feel chilly and ask for her mother.

         "Call Felicite," Charles would tell her.  "You know
    maman doesn't like to be disturbed."

         It was the onset of autumn, and already the leaves were
    falling, like two years before, when she had been so ill.
    When would there be an end to all this?  And he would walk up
    and down, his hands behind his back.

         Madame was in her room.  No one else was admitted.  She
    stayed there all day long in a torpor, not bothering to dress,
    now and again burning incense that she had bought at an
    Algerian shop in Rouen.  She couldn't stand having Charles
    lying like a log at her side all night, and her repeated
    complaints finally drove him to sleep in the attic.  She would
    read till morning.  Lurid novels full of orgies and bloodshed.

         Sometimes, in sudden terror, she screamed, but when
    Charles ran in she dismissed him.  "Oh, get out."

         At other times, seared by that hidden fire which her
    adultery kept feeding, consumed with longing, feverish with
    desire, she would open her window, inhale the cold air, let
    the heavy mass of her hair stream out in the wind.  As she
    gazed at the stars she wished she were loved by a prince.
    Thoughts of Leon filled her.  At such moments she would have
    given anything for a single one of their trysts, the trysts
    that sated her lust.

         Those were her gala days.  She was determined that they
    be glorious.  And when he couldn't pay for everything himself
    she freely made up the difference.  This happened almost every
    time.  He tried to convince her that they would be just as
    well off elsewhere, in a more modest hotel, but she always
    objected.

         One day she opened her bag, produced six little silver-
    gilt spoons, they had been her father's wedding present, and
    asked him to run out and pawn them for her.  Leon obeyed,
    though he disliked the errand.  He was afraid it might com-
    promise him.

         Thinking it over later, he came to the conclusion that
    his mistress was certainly beginning to act strangely, maybe
    the people who were urging him to break with her weren't so
    mistaken after all.

         For indeed someone had sent his mother a long anonymous
    letter, warning her that he was "ruining himself with a married
    woman," and the lady, having visions of the perennial bogey of
    respectable families, that ill-defined, baleful female, that
    siren, that fantastic monster forever lurking in the abysses
    of love, wrote to Maitre Bocage, his employer.  This gentle-
    man's handling of the matter was flawless.  He talked to the
    young man for three-quarters of an hour, trying to unseal his
    eyes and warn him of the precipice ahead.  Sooner or later,
    such an affair would harm his career.  He begged him to break
    it off, and if he couldn't make the sacrifice for his own
    sake, then he should at least do it for his . . . namely, for
    the sake of Maitre Bocage.

         In the end Leon had promised never to see Emma again.
    And he reproached himself for not having kept his word,
    especially considering all the trouble and reproaches she
    still probably held in store for him, not to mention the jokes
    his fellow clerks cracked every morning around the stove.
    Besides, he was about to be promoted to head clerk, this was
    the time to turn over a new leaf.  So he gave up playing the
    flute and said good-bye to exalted sentiments and romantic
    dreams.  There isn't a bourgeois alive who in the ferment of
    his youth, if only for a day or for a minute, hasn't thought
    himself capable of boundless passions and noble exploits.  The
    sorriest little woman-chaser has dreamed of Oriental queens.
    In a corner of every notary's heart lie the moldy remains of
    a poet.

         These days it only bored him when Emma suddenly burst out
    sobbing on his breast, like people who can stand only a certain
    amount of music, he was drowsy and apathetic amidst the shrill-
    ness of her love.  His heart had grown deaf to its subtler
    overtones.

         By now they knew each other too well.  No longer did they
    experience, in their mutual possession, that wonder that multi-
    plies the joy a hundredfold.  She was as surfeited with him as
    he was tired of her.  Adultery, Emma was discovering, could be
    as banal as marriage.

         But what way out was there?  She felt humiliated by the
    degradation of such pleasures, but to no avail.  She continued
    to cling to them, out of habit or out of depravity.  And every
    day she pursued them more desperately, destroying all possible
    happiness by her excessive demands.  She blamed Leon for her
    disappointed hopes, as though he had betrayed her.  And she
    even longed for a catastrophe that would bring about their
    separation, since she hadn't the courage to bring it about
    herself.

         Still, she continued to write him loving letters, faithful
    to the idea that a woman must always write her lover.

         But as her pen flew over the paper she was aware of the
    presence of another man, a phantom embodying her most ardent
    memories, the most beautiful things she had read and her
    strongest desires.  In the end he became so real and accessible
    that she tingled with excitement, unable though she was to
    picture him clearly, so hidden was he, godlike, under his
    manifold attributes.  He dwelt in that enchanted realm where
    silken ladders swing from balconies moon-bright and flower-
    scented.  She felt him near her.  He was coming . . . coming
    to ravish her entirely in a kiss.  And the next moment she
    would drop back to earth, shattered.  For these rapturous
    love-dreams drained her more than the greatest orgies.

         She lived these days in a state of constant and total
    exhaustion.  She was continually receiving writs, official
    documents that she barely looked at.  She wished she were
    dead, or in a state of continual sleep.

         The Thursday night of the mi-careme, the mid-Lenten
    festivities, she didn't return to Yonville, but went to a
    masked ball.  She wore velvet knee breeches and red stockings
    and a peruke, and a cocked hat over one ear.  She danced all
    night to the wild sound of trombones.  She was the center of
    an admiring throng, and morning found her under the portico
    of the theatre with five or six maskers dressed as stevedores
    and sailors, friends of Leon's, who were wondering where they
    might have something to eat.

         The nearby cafes were all full.  On the river front they
    found a nondescript restaurant whose owner showed them up to
    a little room on the fifth floor.

         The men whispered in a corner, doubtless consulting about
    the expense.  A clerk, two medical students and a shop assis-
    tant.  What company she was keeping!  As for the women, Emma
    was quickly aware from their voices that most of them must be
    of the lowest class.  That frightened her, and she drew back
    her chair and lowered her eyes.

         The others began to eat.  She did not.  Her forehead was
    afire, her eyelids were smarting, her skin was icy cold.  In
    her head she still felt the quaking of the dance floor under
    the rhythmic tread of a thousand feet.  The smell of punch
    and cigar smoke made her dizzy.  She fainted, and they carried
    her to the window.

         Day was beginning to break, and in the pale sky toward
    Sainte-Catherine a large streak of red was widening.  The
    leaden river shivered in the wind.  The bridges were empty.
    The street lamps were going out.

         Gradually she revived, and somehow she thought of Berthe,
    asleep out there beyond the horizon, in Felicite's room.  But
    a wagon laden with long strips of iron went by, and the impact
    of its metallic clang shook the house walls.

         Abruptly, she left the place.  She took off her costume,
    told Leon she had to go home, and at last was alone in the
    Hotel de Boulogne.  She loathed everything, including herself.
    She longed to fly away like a bird, to recapture her youth
    somewhere far away in the immaculate reaches of space.

         She went out, followed the boulevard, crossed the Place
    Cauchoise and walked through the outskirts of the city to an
    open street overlooking gardens.  She walked swiftly, the
    fresh air calmed her, and gradually the faces of the crowd,
    the maskers, the quadrilles, the blazing lights, the supper,
    and those women she had found herself with all disappeared
    like mist blown off by the wind.  Then she returned to the
    Croix-Rouge and flung herself down on her bed in the little
    third-floor room with the prints of the Tour de Nesle.  At
    four that afternoon Hivert woke her.

         When she arrived home Felicite showed her a gray sheet
    of paper stuck behind the clock.

         "By virtue of an instrument," she read, "duly setting
    forth the terms of a judgement to be enforced . . ."

         What judgement?  The previous day, she found, another
    paper had arrived, she hadn't seen it, and now she was dumb-
    founded to read these words.

         "To Madame Bovary.  You are hereby commanded by order
    of the king, the law and the courts . . ."

         Then, skipping several lines, she saw, "Within twenty-
    four hours."  What was this?  "Pay the total amount of 8,000
    francs."  And lower down, "There to be subjected to all due
    processes of law, and notably to execution of distraint upon
    furniture and effects."

         What was to be done?  In twenty-four hours.  Tomorrow?
    Lheureux, she thought, was probably trying to frighten her
    again.  Suddenly she saw through all his schemes.  The reason
    for his amiability burst upon her.  What reassured her was
    the very enormity of the amount.

         Nonetheless, as a result of buying and never paying,
    borrowing, signing notes and then renewing those same notes,
    which grew larger and larger each time they came due, she
    had gradually built up a capital for Monsieur Lheureux that
    he was impatient to lay his hands on to use in his specula-
    tions.

         She called on him, assuming a nonchalant air.

         "You know what's happened?  It's a joke, I suppose?"

         "No."

         "What do you mean?"

         He slowly turned his head away and folded his arms.

         "Did you think, my dear lady," he said, "that I was
    going to go on to the end of time being your supplier and
    banker just for the love of God?  I have to get back what I
    laid out.  Let's be fair!"

         She was indignant about the size of the amount claimed.

         "What can I do about it?  The court upheld it.  There's
    a judgement.  You were notified.  Besides, I have nothing to
    do with it . . . it's Vincart."

         "Couldn't you . . .?"

         "Absolutely nothing."

         "But . . . still . . . let's talk it over."

         And she stammered incoherently that she had known nothing
    about it, that the whole thing had come as a surprise . . .

         "Whose fault is that?" said Lheureux, with an ironic bow.
    "I work like a slave, and you go out enjoying yourself."

         "Ah!  No preaching!"

         "It never did anybody any harm," he retorted.

         She was craven.  She pled with him, she even put her
    pretty slender white hand on his knee.

         "None of that!  Are you trying to seduce me, or what?"

         "You're contemptible!" she cried.

         "Oh!  Oh!  How you go on!" he said, laughing.

         "I'll let everybody know what you're like.  I'll tell my
    husband . . ."

         "Will you?  I have something to show your husband!"

         And out of his safe Lheureux took the receipt for 1,800
    francs that she had given him for the note discounted by
    Vincart.  "Do you think," he said, "that he won't see through
    your little swindle, the poor dear man?"

         She crumpled, as though hit over the head with a club.
    He paced back and forth between the window and the desk,
    saying over and over, "I'll show it to him!  I'll show it to
    him!"

         Then he came close to her and said softly, "It's no fun,
    I know.  But nobody's ever died of it, after all, and since
    it's the only way you have left of paying me back my money."

         "But where can I find some?" cried Emma, wringing her
    hands.

         "Ah!  Bah!"  A woman like you, with plenty of friends!"
    And he transfixed her with a stare so knowing and so terrible
    that she shuddered to the depths of her being.

         "I promise you!" she said, "I'll sign . . ."

         "I have enough of your signatures!"

         "I'll sell more . . ."

         "Face it!" he said, shrugging his shoulders.  "You've got
    nothing left."

         And he called through a peephole that communicated with
    the shop, "Annette!  Don't forget the three cuttings of No.
    14."


         The servant entered.  Emma took the hint, and asked how
    much money would be required to stop all proceedings.

         "It's too late!"

         "But if I brought you a few thousand francs, a quarter
    of the amount, a third, almost all?"

         "No . . . there's no use!"  He pushed her gently toward
    the stairs.

         "I implore you, Monsieur Lheureux . . . just a few days
    more!"

         She was sobbing.

         "Ah!  Tears!  Very good!"

         "You'll drive me to do something desperate!"

         "A lot I care!" he said, closing the door behind her.







    PART 3

    CHAPTER SEVEN

         She was stoical, the next day, when Maitre Hareng, the
    huissier, arrived with two witnesses to take inventory of the
    goods and chattels to be sold.

         They began with Bovary's consulting room, and didn't
    include the phrenological head, which was considered a
    "professional instrument."   But in the kitchen they counted
    the plates and the pans, the chairs and the candlesticks, and
    in the bedroom all the knickknacks on the whatnot.  They
    inspected her dresses, the linen, the cabinet de toilette,
    and her very being, down to its most hidden and intimate
    details, was laid open, like a dissected corpse, to the stares
    of those three men.

         Maitre Hareng, buttoned up in a close-fitting black tail
    coat, with a white cravat, his shoestraps very tight, kept
    repeating, "Vous permettez, Madame?  Vous permettez?"

         And frequently he exclaimed, "Charming!  Very pretty!"

         Then he would resume his writing, dipping his pen in the
    inkhorn he held in his left hand.

         When they had finished with the various rooms they went
    up to the attic.

         She kept a desk there, where Rodolphe's letters were
    locked away.  They made her open it.

         "Ah!  Personal papers!" said Maitre Hareng, with a
    discreet smile.  "Mais permettez!  I have to make sure there's
    nothing else in the box."

         And he held the envelopes upside down, very gently, as
    though expecting them to disgorge gold pieces.  She was put
    into a fury by the sight of that great red hand, with its
    soft, sluglike fingers, touching those pages that had caused
    her so many heartthrobs.

         They left at last.  Felicite came back.  She had sent
    her out to watch for Bovary and keep him away.  They quickly
    installed the watchman in the attic, and he promised to stay
    there.

         Charles, she thought during the evening, looked careworn.
    She scrutinized him with an agonized stare, reading accusations
    in the drawn lines of his face.  Then, as her eyes roved over
    the mantelpiece, gay with Chinese fans, over the full curtains,
    the armchairs, all the things that had tempered the bitterness
    of her life, she was overcome with remorse, or rather with
    immense regret.  And this, far from eclipsing her passion, only
    exasperated it.  Charles placidly stirred the fire, lounging in
    his chair.

         At one moment the watchman, bored, no doubt, in his hiding
    place, made a slight noise.

         "Is somebody walking around up there?" asked Charles.

         "No!" she answered.  "It's a dormer that's been left open,
    blowing in the wind."

         The next day, Sunday, she left for Rouen, determined to
    call on every banker she had heard of.  Most of them were away
    in the country or traveling.  She persisted, however, and those
    whom she succeeded in seeing she asked for money, insisting
    that she must have it, swearing to repay.  Some of them laughed
    in her face, they all refused.

         At two o'clock she hurried to Leon's and knocked on his
    door.  No one came to open.  Finally he appeared.

         "What brings you here?"

         "Are you sorry to see me?"

         "No . . . but . . ."

         And he confessed that his landlord didn't like the tenants
    to entertain "women."

         "I've got to talk to you," she said.

         He reached for his key.  She stopped him, "Oh, no . . .
    let's go to our place."

         And they went to their room in the Hotel de Boulogne.

         There she drank a large glass of water.  She was very pale.
    "Leon," she said to him, "you have to do something for me."

         And clutching both his hands tightly in hers, she shook
    them and said, "Listen!  I've got to have eight thousand
    francs!"

         "But you're out of your mind!"

         "Not yet!"

         And in a rush she told him all about the execution.  She
    was in desperate straits, Charles had been kept in total
    ignorance, her mother-in-law hated her, her father could do
    nothing.  He, Leon, must save her.  He must go out at once
    and find her the money that she absolutely had to have.

         "How in the world do you expect me . . .?"

         "Don't just stand there, like a spineless fool!"

         "You're making things out to be worse than they are,"
    he said stupidly.  "You could probably quiet your man with
    three thousand francs."

         All the more reason for trying to do something.  It
    wasn't conceivable that three thousand francs couldn't be
    found.  Besides, Leon's signature could go on the notes
    instead of hers.

         "Go ahead!  Try!  I've got to have it!  Hurry!  Oh,
    try!  Try!  Then I'll show you how I love you!"

         He went out.  In an hour he was back.

         "I've seen three people," he told her, solemn-faced.
    "Nothing doing."

         They sat face to face across the fire, still and silent.
    Emma kept shrugging her shoulders, tapping her foot.  Then
    he heard her say, low-voiced, "If I were in your place I'd
    know where to find the money!"

         "You would?  Where?"

         "In your office!"  She stared at him.

         There was a demonic desperation burning in her eyes, and
    she narrowed them in a look of lascivious provocation.  The
    young man felt himself giving way before the mute will of
    this woman who was urging him to crime.  He took fright, and
    to avoid hearing anything further he clapped his hand to his
    forehead.

         "Morel should be back tonight!" he cried.  "He won't
    refuse me, I hope!"  (Morel was one of his friends, the son
    of a wealthy businessman.)  "I'll bring it to you tomorrow,"
    he promised.

         Emma didn't appear to welcome this hope of relief as
    joyfully as he had thought.  Did she suspect his lie?  He
    blushed as he added, "But if I'm not back by three, don't
    wait for me any longer, darling.  Now I have to go out.
    Forgive me!  Good-bye!"

         He pressed her hand, but it lay inert in his, Emma was
    drained of all feeling.

         Four o'clock struck, and she got up to go back to
    Yonville, automatic in her obedience to the force of habit.

         The day was fine.  One of those clear, sharp March days
    with the sun brilliant in a cloudless sky.  Contented-looking
    Rouennais were strolling in their Sunday best.  As she came
    to the Place du Parvis, vespers in the cathedral had just
    ended.  Crowds were pouring out through the three portals,
    like a river through the three arches of a bridge.  And in
    their midst, immovable as a rock, stood the verger.

         She remembered how tremulous she had been, how full of
    hope, the day she had entered that lofty nave.  How it had
    stretched away before her, on and on, and yet not as infinite
    as her love!  And she kept walking, weeping under her veil,
    dazed, tottering, almost in a faint.

         "Watch out!"  The cry came from within a portecochere
    that was swinging open.  She stopped, and out came a black
    horse, prancing between the shafts of a tilbury.  A gentleman
    in sables was holding the reins.  Who was he?  She knew him.
    The carriage leapt forward and was gone.

         The vicomte!  It was the vicomte!  She turned to stare,
    the street was empty.  And the encounter left her so crushed,
    so immeasurably sad, that she leaned against a wall to keep
    from falling.

         Then she thought that she might be mistaken.  How could
    she tell?  She had no way of knowing.  Everything, everything
    within her, everything without, was abandoning her.  She felt
    lost, rolling dizzily down into some dark abyss.  And she was
    almost glad, when she reached the Croix-Rouge, to see good
    old Monsieur Homais.  He was watching a case of pharmaceutical
    supplies being loaded onto the Hirondelle, and in his hand he
    carried a present for his wife, six cheminots wrapped in a
    foulard handkerchief.

         Madame Homais was particularly fond of those heavy
    turban-shaped rolls, which the Rouennais eat in Lent with
    salted butter.  A last relic of Gothic fare, going back
    perhaps to the times of the Crusades.  The lusty Normans
    of those days gorged themselves on cheminots, picturing
    them as the heads of Saracens, to be devoured by the light
    of yellow torches along with flacons of spiced wine and
    giant slabs of meat.  Like those ancients, the apothecary's
    wife crunched them heroically, despite her wretched teeth.
    And every time Monsieur Homais made a trip to the city he
    faithfully brought some back to her, buying them always at
    the best baker's, in the Rue Massacre.

         "Delighted to see you!" he said, offering Emma a hand
    to help her into the Hirondelle.

         Then he put the cheminots in the baggage net and sat
    there hatless, his arms folded, in a pose that was pensive
    and Napoleonic.

         But when the blind beggar made his appearance as usual
    at the foot of the hill, he exclaimed in indignation, "I
    cannot understand why the authorities continue to tolerate
    such dishonest occupations!  All these unfortunates should
    be put away, and put to work!  Progress moves at a snail's
    pace, no doubt about it!  We're still wallowing in the midst
    of barbarism!"

         The blind man held out his hat, and it swung to and fro
    at the window like a loose piece of upholstery.

         "That," pronounced the pharmacist, "is a scrofulous
    disease."  And though he had often seen the poor devil before,
    he pretended now to be looking at him for the first time, and
    he murmured the words "cornea," "opaque cornea," "sclerotic,"
    "facies."  Then, in a paternal tone, "Have you had that
    frightful affliction long, my friend?  You'd do well to follow
    a diet, instead of getting drunk in cafes."

         He urged him to take only good wine and good beer, and
    to eat good roast meat.  The blind man kept singing his song.
    Actually, he seemed fairly close to idiocy.  Finally Monsieur
    Homais took out his purse.

         "Here . . . here's a sou, change it for me and keep half
    of it for yourself.  And don't forget my suggestions . . .
    you'll find they help."

         Hivert presumed to express certain doubts about their
    efficacy.  But the apothecary swore that he could cure the
    fellow himself, with an antiphlogistic salve of his own
    invention, and he gave him his address.

         "Monsieur Homais, near the market . . . ask anyone."

         "Come now," said Hivert.  "Show the gentleman you're
    grateful by doing your act."

         The blind man squatted on his haunches and threw back
    his head, and rolling his greenish eyes and sticking out his
    tongue he rubbed his stomach with both hands, meanwhile
    uttering a kind of muffled howl, like a famished dog.  Emma,
    shuddering with disgust, flung him a five-franc piece over
    her shoulder.  It was all the money she had in the world.
    There was something grand, she thought, in thus throwing
    it away.

         The coach was again in motion, when suddenly Monsieur
    Homais leaned out the window.

         "Nothing farinaceous!" he shouted.  "No dairy products!
    Wear woolens next to your skin!  Fumigate the diseased areas
    with the smoke of juniper berries!"

         The sight of all the familiar things they passed gradually
    took Emma's mind off her misery.  She was oppressed, crushed
    with fatigue, and she reached home numb and spiritless, almost
    asleep.

         "Let come what may!" she told herself.  Besides, who knew?
    Something extraordinary might happen any moment.  Lheureux
    himself might die.

         She was awakened the next morning at nine by the sound
    of voices in the square.  People were crowding around the
    market to read a large notice posted on one of the pillars,
    and she saw Justin climb on a guard post and deface the
    notice.  Just then the village policeman seized him by the
    collar.  Monsieur Homais came out of his pharmacy, and Madame
    Lefrancois seemed to be holding forth in the midst of the

    crowd.

         "Madame!  Madame!" cried Felicite, rushing in.  "It's an
    outrage!"

         And the poor girl, much agitated, showed her a yellow
    paper she had just torn off the front door.  Emma read in a
    glance that all the contents of her house were subject to
    sale.

         They looked at each other in silence.  There were no
    secrets between mistress and maid.  Finally Felicite murmured,
    "If I were you, Madame, I'd go see Maitre Guillaumin."

         "Do you think so?"

         "You know all about the Guillaumins from their man-
    servant," the question meant, "does the master mention me,
    sometimes?"

         "Yes, go ahead, it's worth trying."

         She put on her black dress and her bonnet with jade
    beads.  And to keep from being seen (there was still quite a
    crowd in the square) she avoided the village and took the
    river path.

         She was breathless when she reached the notary's gate.
    The sky was dark.  It was snowing a little.

         At the sound of her ring Theodore, in a red vest,
    emerged from the front door.  He opened the gate for her
    with an air of familiarity, as though she were someone he
    knew well, and showed her into the dining room.

         A large porcelain stove was purring.  The niche above it
    was filled with a cactus, and against the oak-grained wall-
    paper hung Steuben's "Esmeralda" and Schopin's "Potiphar,"
    both in black wood frames.  The table set for breakfast, the
    two silver dishwarmers, the crystal doorknobs, the parquet
    floor and the furniture, all gleamed with a meticulous Eng-
    lish spotlessness.  In the corners of each of the windows were
    panes of colored glass.

         "This," thought Emma, "is the kind of dining room I
    should have."

         The notary came in.  He was wearing a dressing gown with
    palm designs, which he clutched about him with his left hand,
    and with his right he doffed and then quickly replaced his
    brown velvet skullcap.  This he wore rakishly tilted to the
    right, and out from under it emerged the ends of three strands
    of fair hair that were combed up from the back and drawn care-
    fully over his bald cranium.

         After offering her a chair he sat down to his breakfast,
    apologizing profusely for his discourtesy.

         "Monsieur," she said, "I want to ask you . . ."

         "What, Madame?  I'm listening."

         She told him of her predicament.

         It was no news to Maitre Guillaumin.  He was secretly
    associated with the dry-goods merchant, who could always be
    counted on to supply him with capital for the mortgage loans
    he arranged for his clients.

         Thus he knew, far better than she, the long story of the
    notes, small at first, carrying the names of various endorsers,
    made out for long terms and continually renewed.  He knew how
    the shopkeeper had gradually accumulated the various protests
    of nonpayment, and how he had finally had his friend Vincart
    institute the necessary legal proceedings in his name, wishing
    to avoid acquiring a reputation for bloodthirstiness among his
    fellow villagers.

         She interspersed her story with recriminations against
    Lheureux, and to these the notary returned occasional, empty
    answers.  He ate his chop and drank his tea.  His chin kept
    rubbing against his sky-blue cravat, whose two diamond stick-
    pins were linked by a fine gold chain, and he smiled a strange,
    sugary, ambiguous smile.  Then he noticed that her feet were
    wet.

         "Move closer to the stove!  Put them up . . . higher
    . . . against the porcelain."

         She was afraid of dirtying it, but his retort was gallant.
    "Pretty things never do any harm."

         Then she tried to appeal to his emotions, growing emo-
    tional herself.  She told him about her cramped household
    budget, her harassments, her needs.  He was very sympathetic
    . . . an elegant woman like herself! . . . and without inter-
    rupting his meal he gradually turned so that he faced her and
    his knee brushed against her shoe, whose sole was beginning to
    curl a little as it steamed in the heat of the stove.

         But when she asked him for 3,000 francs he tightened his
    lips and said that he was very sorry not to have had charge
    of her capital in the past, for there were a hundred easy ways
    in which even a lady could invest her money profitably.  The
    Grumesnil peatery, building lots in Le Havre, such speculations
    were excellent, almost risk-proof.  And he let her consume
    herself with rage at the thought of the fantastic sums she
    could certainly have made.

         "How come," he asked her, "that you never called on me?"

         "I really don't know," she said.

         "Why didn't you?  Did I seem so very frightening to you?
    But I'm the one who has cause for complaint.  We barely know
    each other!  I feel very warmly toward you, though.  You
    realize that now, I hope?"

         He reached out his hand, took hers, pressed it to his
    lips in a greedy kiss, and then kept it on his knee, and he
    gently fondled her fingers, murmuring a thousand compliments.

         His monotonous voice rustled on like a running brook.
    His eyes were gleaming through the glitter of his glasses,
    and his hands crept up inside Emma's sleeve and stroked her
    arm.  She felt a panting breath on her cheek.  This man was
    more than she could stand.

         She leapt to her feet.  "Monsieur!  I'm waiting!"

         "What for?" cried the notary, suddenly extremely pale.

         "The money."

         "But . . ."

         Then, yielding to an irresistible surge of desire, "Yes!
    Yes!"

         He dragged himself toward her on his knees, careless of
    his dressing gown.  "Please!  Don't go!  I love you!"  He
    seized her by the waist.

         A flood of crimson rushed to Madame Bovary's face.  She
    shrank back, and with a terrible look she cried, "It's shame-
    less of you to take advantage of my distress!  I'm to be
    pitied, but I'm not for sale!"  And she walked out.

         The notary sat there dumbfounded, his eyes fixed on his
    beautiful embroidered slippers.  They were a gift from a mis-
    tress, and the sight of them gradually comforted him.  Anyway,
    he told himself, such an affair would have involved too many
    risks.

         "What a contemptible, lowdown cad!" she said to herself,
    as she fled tremulously under the aspens lining the road.
    Disappointment at having failed made her all the more indig-
    nant at the insult offered her honor.  It seemed to her that
    Providence was hounding her relentlessly.  She was filled
    with pride at the way she had acted.  Never before had she
    esteemed herself so highly.  Never had she felt such contempt
    for everyone else.  She was at war with the world, and the
    thought transported her.  She longed to lash out at all men,
    to spit in their faces, grind them all to dust.  And she
    hurried straight on, pale, trembling, furious, scanning the
    empty horizon with weeping eyes, almost gloating in the hatred
    that was choking her.

         When she caught sight of her house she felt suddenly
    paralyzed.  She couldn't go on and yet she had to.  What
    escape was there?

         Felicite was waiting for her at the door.

         "Well?"

         "No," said Emma.

         And for a quarter of an hour they discussed who in
    Yonville might be willing to help her.  But every time
    Felicite mentioned someone, Emma answered, "Out of the
    question!  They'd refuse!"

         "And Monsieur will soon be home!"

         "I know . . .  Go away and leave me alone."

         She had tried everything.  Now there was nothing more
    to be done.  So when Charles appeared there would be only one
    thing to tell him.

         "Don't stay here!  The very rug you're walking on isn't
    ours.  Not a piece of all this furniture belongs to you . . .
    not a pin, not a wisp of straw.  And I'm the one who has
    ruined you!"

         Then he would utter a great sob, and then weep floods
    of tears.  And in the end, once the shock was over, he would
    forgive her.

         "Yes," she muttered, through clenched teeth, "he'll for-
    give me . . . the man I wouldn't forgive for setting eyes on
    me if he offered me a million . . .  Never!  Never!"

         This thought of Bovary in a position to be condescending
    put her beside herself.  But whether she confessed or not,
    he would inevitably . . . sooner or later, today or tomorrow
    . . . learn of the disaster.  So she could only look forward
    to that horrible scene and to being subjected to the weight of
    his magnanimity.  Suddenly she felt an urge to try Lheureux
    once more.  But what was the use?  Or to write to her father,
    but it was too late.  And perhaps she was regretting, now, not
    having yielded to the notary, when she heard a horse's trot in
    the lane.  It was Charles.  He was opening the gate, his face
    more ashen than the plaster on the wall.  Rushing downstairs,
    she slipped quickly out into the square, and the mayor's wife,
    who was chatting in front of the church with Lestiboudois, saw
    her enter the house of the tax collector.

         Madame Tuvache ran to tell Madame Caron.  The two ladies
    climbed up to the latter's attic, and there, hidden behind
    some laundry that was hanging up to dry, they stood so that
    they could easily see into Binet's.

         He was alone in his garret, busily copying, in wood, one
    of those ivory ornaments that beggar description, a conglomera-
    tion of half-moons and of spheres carved one inside the other,
    the whole thing standing erect like an obelisk and perfectly
    useless.  He was just beginning on the last section, the end
    was in sight!  In the chiaroscuro of his workshop the golden
    sawdust flew from his lathe like a spray of sparks under the
    hooves of a galloping horse.  The two wheels spun and whirred,

    Binet was smiling, chin down and nostrils wide.  He looked
    absorbed, in one of those states of utter bliss such as men
    seem to find only in humble activities, which divert the mind
    with easy challenges and gratify it with the most utter and
    complete success.

         "Ah!  There she is!" said Madame Tuvache.

         But the sound of the lathe made it impossible to know
    what she was saying.

         Finally the two ladies thought they heard the word
    "francs," and Madame Tuvache whispered, "She's asking him
    for a postponement of her taxes."

         "Looks like it," said the other.

         They saw her pacing up and down the room, looking at
    the shelves along the wall laden with napkin rings, candle-
    sticks and finials, while Binet contentedly stroked his
    beard.

         "Would she be coming to order something from him?"
    suggested Madame Tuvache.

         "But he never sells anything!" the other reminded her.

         The tax collector seemed to be listening, staring as
    though he didn't understand.  She continued to talk, her
    manner gentle and supplicating.  She came close to him, her
    breast was heaving, now they seemed not to be speaking.

         "Is she making advances to him?" said Madame Tuvache.

         Binet had gone red to the roots of his hair.  She grasped
    his hands.

         "Ah!  Just look at that . . .!"

         And she must have been suggesting something abominable,
    for the tax collector . . . and he was a man of courage, he
    had fought at Bautzen and Lutzen, and taken part in the French
    campaign, and even been proposed for the Legion of Honor . . .
    suddenly recoiled as though he had seen a snake.

         "Madame!" he cried.  "You must be dreaming!"

         "Women like that should be horsewhipped," said Madame
    Tuvache.

         "Where has she gone to?' said Madame Caron.

         For even as he was speaking she had vanished.  Then they
    saw her darting down the Grande Rue and turning to the right,
    as though to reach the cemetery, and they didn't know what to
    make of it.

         "Madame Rollet!" she cried, when she reached the wet-
    nurse's.  "I can't breathe!  Unlace me!"

         She fell sobbing onto the bed.  Madame Rollet covered
    her with a petticoat and stood beside her.  Then, when she
    didn't speak, the peasant woman moved away, took up her wheel
    and began spinning flax.

         "Don't do that!" she murmured.  She thought it was Binet's
    lathe.

         "What's the matter with her?" wondered the nurse.  "Why
    did she come here?"

         She had come because a kind of terror had sent her . . .
    a terror that made her flee her home.  Lying on her back,
    motionless, her eyes vacant, she saw things only in a blur,
    though she focused her attention on them with idiotic per-
    sistence.  She stared at the flaking plaster on the wall, at
    two half-burned sticks smoking end to end in the fireplace,
    at a large spider crawling overhead in a crack in the rafter.
    Gradually she collected her thoughts.  She remembered . . .
    one day with Leon . . .  Oh, how far away it was . . .!  The
    sun was shining on the river, and the air was full of the
    scent of clematis . . .  Then, swept along in her memories as
    in a raging torrent, she quickly recalled the previous day.

         "What time is it?" she asked.

         Madame Rollet went out, held up the fingers of her right
    hand against the brightest part of the sky, and came slowly
    back, saying, "Almost three."

         "Ah!  Thank you!  Thank you!"

         For he would be coming.  There could be no question about
    it, by now he had found the money.  But probably he would go
    to her house, having no idea that she was here, and she ordered
    the nurse to run and fetch him.

         "Hurry!"

         "I'm on my way, dear lady!  I'm on my way!"

         She marveled, now, at not having thought of him in the
    first place.  Yesterday he had given his word.  He wouldn't
    fail her, and already she saw herself at Lheureux's, laying
    the three banknotes on his desk.  Then she'd have to invent
    some story that would satisfy Bovary.  What would it be?

         But the nurse was a long time returning.  Still, since
    there was no clock in the cottage, Emma feared that she might
    be exaggerating the duration of her absence, and she walked
    slowly around and around the garden, and down the path by the
    hedge and quickly back, hoping that the nurse might have
    returned some other way.  Finally, weary of waiting, a prey
    to suspicions that she resolutely put out of her mind, no
    longer sure whether she had been there a hundred years or a
    minute, she sat down in a corner and closed her eyes and put
    her hands to her ears.  The gate squeaked.  She leapt up.
    Before she could speak Madame Rollet said, "He's not there!"

         "What?'

         "No, he's not!  And Monsieur's crying.  He keeps calling
    your name.  Everybody's looking for you."

         Emma made no answer.  She was gasping and staring wildly
    about her.  The peasant woman, frightened by the expression
    on her face, instinctively shrank back, thinking her crazed.
    All at once she clapped her hand to her forehead and gave a
    cry, for into her mind had come the memory of Rodolphe, like
    a great lightning-flash in a black night.  He was so kind, so
    sensitive, so generous!  And if he should hesitate to help
    her she'd know how to persuade him.  One glance from her eyes
    would remind him of their lost love.  So she set out for La
    Huchette, unaware that now she was eager to yield to the very
    thing that had made her so indignant only a short while ago,
    and totally unconscious that she was prostituting herself.



    PART 3

    CHAPTER EIGHT

         As she walked she wondered.  "What am I going to say?
    What shall I tell him first?"  Drawing nearer, she recognized
    the thickets, the trees, the furze on the hill, the chateau
    in the distance.  She was reliving the sensations of her
    first love, and at the memory her poor anguished heart swelled
    tenderly.  A warm wind was blowing in her face, melting snow
    dripped from the leaf-buds onto the grass.

         She entered, as she always had, by the little park gate,
    and then came to the main courtyard, planted round with a
    double row of thick-crowned lindens, their long branches
    rustling and swaying.  All the dogs in the kennel barked, but
    though their outcry echoed and re-echoed, no one came.

         She climbed the wide, straight, wooden-banistered stairs
    that led up to the hall with its paving of dusty flagstones.
    A row of doors opened onto it, as in a monastery or an inn.
    His room was at the far end, the last on the left.  When her
    fingers touched the latch her strength suddenly left her.
    She was afraid that he would not be there.  She almost wished
    that he wouldn't be, and yet he was her only hope, her last
    chance of salvation.  For a minute she collected her thoughts.
    Then, steeling her courage to the present necessity, she
    entered.

         He was smoking a pipe before the fire, his feet against
    the mantelpiece.

         "Oh, it's you!" he said, rising quickly.

         "Yes, here I am . . . Rodolphe, I want . . . I need some
    advice . . ."  Despite her best efforts she couldn't go on.

         "You haven't changed . . . you're as charming as ever!"

         "Oh, my charms!" she answered bitterly.  "They can't
    amount to much, since you scorned them."

         He launched into apology, justifying his conduct in
    terms that were vague but the best he could muster.

         She let herself be taken in . . . not so much by what he
    said, as by the sound of his voice and the very sight of him,
    and she pretended to believe . . . or perhaps she actually did
    believe . . . the reason he gave for their break.  It was a
    secret, he said, involving the honor . . . the life, even . . .
    of a third person.

         She looked at him sadly.  "Whatever it was," she said, "I
    suffered a great deal."

         He answered philosophically, "That's how life is!"

         "Has it been kind to you, at least," asked Emma, "since
    we parted?"

         "Oh, neither kind nor unkind, particularly."

         "Perhaps it would have been better had we stayed
    together."

         "Yes . . . perhaps!"


         "Do you really think so?" she asked, coming closer.

         And she sighed, "Oh, Rodolphe!  If you knew!  I loved you
    very much!"

         She took his hand, and for a few moments their fingers
    were intertwined, like that first day, at the Agricultural
    Show!  Pride made him struggle against giving in to his feel-
    ings.  But she leaned heavily against him, and said, "How did
    you ever think that I could live without you?  Happiness is a
    habit that's hard to break!  I was desperate!  I thought I'd
    die!  I'll tell you all about it.  And you . . . you stayed
    away from me . . .!"

         It was true.  For the past three years he had carefully
    avoided her, out of the natural cowardice that characterizes
    the stronger sex.  And now Emma went on, twisting and turning
    her head in coaxing little movements that were loving and
    catlike.

         "You have other women . . . admit it.  Oh, I sympathize
    with them.  I don't blame them.  You seduced them, the way
    you seduced me.  You're a man!  You have everything to make
    us love you.  But you and I'll begin all over again, won't
    we?  We'll love each other!  Look . . . I'm laughing, I'm
    happy!  Speak to me!"

         And indeed she was ravishing to see, with a tear tremb-
    ling in her eye like a raindrop in a blue flower-cup after a
    storm.

         He drew her onto his lap, and with the back of his hand
    caressed her sleek hair.  In the twilight a last sunbeam was
    gleaming on it like a golden arrow.  She lowered her head,
    and soon he was kissing her on the eyelids, very gently just
    brushing them with his lips.

         "But you've been crying!" he said.  "Why?"

         She burst into sobs.  Rodolphe thought it was from the
    violence of her love.  When she didn't answer him he inter-
    preted her silence as the ultimate refuge of her womanly
    modesty, and exclaimed, "Ah!  Forgive me!  You're the only
    one I really care about!  I've been stupid and heartless!  I
    love you . . . I'll always love you . . . What is it?  Tell
    me!"  He was on his knees.

         "Well, then . . . I'm ruined, Rodolphe!  You've got to
    lend me three thousand francs!"

         "But . . . but . . .?' he said, slowly rising, a worried
    expression coming over his face.

         "You know," she went on quickly, "my husband gave his
    money to a notary to invest, and the notary absconded.  We've
    borrowed, patients haven't paid . . .  The estate isn't
    settled yet.  We'll be getting something later.  But today
    . . . just for three thousand francs . . . they're going to
    sell us out.  Now, this very instant.  I counted on your
    friendship.  I came to you."

         And after a moment he said, calmly, "I haven't got it,
    dear lady."

         He wasn't lying.  If he had had it he would probably have
    given it to her, unpleasant though it usually is to make such
    generous gifts.  Of all the icy blasts that blow on love, a
    request for money is the most chilling and havoc-wreaking.

         For a long moment she stared at him.  Then, "You haven't
    got it!"  She said it again, several times.  "You haven't got
    it!  I might have spared myself this final humiliation.  You
    never loved me!  You're no better than the rest!"

         She was giving herself away.  She no longer knew what
    she was saying.

         Rodolphe broke in, assuring her that he was "hard up"
    himself.

         "Ah, I pity you!" said Emma.  "How I pity you!"

         And as her eyes fell on a damascened rifle that glittered
    in a trophy on the wall, "When you're as poor as all that you
    don't put silver on the stock of your gun!  You don't buy
    things with tortoise-shell inlay!"  She went on, pointing to
    the Boulle clock.  "Or silver-gilt whistles for your whip!"
    . . . she touched them . . . "or charms for your watch chain!
    Oh, he has everything!  Even a liqueur case in his bedroom!
    You pamper yourself, you live well, you have a chateau, farms,
    woods.  You hunt, you make trips to Paris . . . Why, even
    things like this," she cried, snatching up his cuff links from
    the mantelpiece.  "The tiniest trifles, you can raise money on
    . . .!  Oh, I don't want then!  Keep them."  And she hurled
    the two buttons so violently that their gold chain snapped as
    they struck the wall.

         "But I . . . I'd have given you everything, I'd have sold
    everything, worked my fingers to the bone, begged in the
    streets, just for a smile from you, for a look, just to hear
    you say `Thank you.'  And you sit there calmly in your chair,
    as though you hadn't made me suffer enough already!  If it
    hadn't been for you I could have been happy!  What made you do
    it?  Was it a bet?  You loved me, though . . . you used to say
    so . . .  And you said so again just now.  Ah, you'd have done
    better to throw me out!  My hands are still hot from your
    kisses!  And right there on the rug you swore on your knees
    that you'd love me forever.  You made me believe it.  For two
    years you led me on in a wonderful, marvelous dream . . . Our
    plans for going away . . . you remember?  Oh!  That letter you
    wrote me!  It tore my heart in two!  And now when I come back
    to him . . . and find him rich and happy and free . . . to
    implore him for help that anybody would give me . . . come in
    distress, bringing him all my love . . . he refuses me, because
    it would cost him three thousand francs!"

         "I haven't got it," answered Rodolphe, with that perfect
    calm that resigned anger employs as a shield.

         She walked out.  The walls were quaking, the ceiling was
    threatening to crush her.  And she went back down the long
    avenue of trees, stumbling against piles of dead leaves that
    were scattering in the wind.  At last she reached the ditch
    before the gate.  She broke her nails on the latch, so fran-
    tically did she open it.  Then, a hundred yards further on,
    out of breath, ready to drop, she paused.  She turned, and
    once again she saw the impassive chateau, with its peak, its
    gardens, its three courtyards, its many-windowed facade.

         She stood there in a daze.  Only the pulsing of her veins
    told her that she was alive.  She thought she heard it outside
    herself, like some deafening music filling the countryside.
    The earth beneath her feet was as yielding as water, and the
    furrows seemed to her like immense, dark, breaking waves.  All
    the memories and thoughts in her mind poured out at once, like
    a thousand fireworks.  She saw her father, Lheureux's office,
    their room in Rouen, another landscape.  Madness began to take
    hold of her.  She was frightened, but managed to control her-
    self . . . without, however, emerging from her confusion, for
    the cause of her horrible state . . . the question of money
    . . . had faded from her mind.  It was only her love that was
    making her suffer, and she felt her soul leave her at the
    thought . . . just as a wounded man, as he lies dying, feels
    his life flowing out with his blood through the gaping hole.

         Night was falling.  Crows flew overhead.

         It suddenly seemed to her that fiery particles were
    bursting in the air, like bullets exploding as they fell, and
    spinning and spinning and finally melting in the snow among
    the tree branches.  In the center of each of them appeared
    Rodolphe's face.  They multiplied.  They came together.  They
    penetrated her.  Everything vanished.  She recognized the
    lights of houses, shining far off in the mist.

         Suddenly her plight loomed before her, like an abyss.
    She panted as though her lungs would burst.  Then, with a
    heroic resolve that made her almost happy, she ran down the
    hill and across the cow plank, ran down the river path and
    the lane, crossed the square, and came to the pharmacy.

         It was empty.  She was about to go in, when it occurred
    to her that the sound of the bell might bring someone, and
    slipping through the side gate, holding her breath, feeling
    her way along the walls, she came to the kitchen door.  A
    lighted tallow candle was standing on the stove, and Justin,
    in shirt sleeves, was just leaving the room carrying a dish.

         "Ah, they're at dinner," she said to herself.  "Better
    wait."

         Justin returned to the kitchen.  She tapped on the win-
    dow.  He came out.

         "The key!  The one for upstairs, where the . . ."

         "What?"

         And he stared at her, astounded by the pallor of her
    face, which stood out white against the blackness of the
    night.  She seemed to him extraordinarily beautiful, majestic
    as an apparition from another world.  Without understanding
    what she wanted, he had a foreboding of something terrible.

         But she went on quickly, in a low voice, a voice that
    was gentle and melting, "I want it!  Give it to me."

         The wall was thin, and they could hear the clinking of
    forks on plates in the dining room.

         She pretended she had to kill some rats that were keeping
    her awake nights.

         "I must go ask Monsieur."

         "No!  Stay here!"

         Then, with a casual air, "There's no use bothering him.
    I'll tell him later.  Come along, give me a light."

         She passed into the hall off which opened the laboratory
    door.  There against the wall hung a key marked "capharnaum."

         "Justin!" called the apothecary impatiently.

         "Let's go up!"

         He followed her.

         The key turned in the lock, and she went straight to the
    third shelf . . . so well did her memory serve her as guide
    . . . seized the blue jar, tore out the cork, plunged in her
    hand, withdrew it full of white powder, and ate greedily.

         "Stop!" he cried, flinging himself on her.

         "Be quiet!  Someone might come . . ."

         He was frantic, wanted to call out.

         "Don't say a word about it.  All the blame would fall on
    your master!"

         Then she went home, suddenly at peace, almost as serene
    as though she had done her duty.

         When Charles reached home, overwhelmed by the news of
    the execution, Emma had just left.  He called her name, wept,
    fainted away, but she didn't come back.  Where could she be?
    He sent Felicite to the pharmacist's, to the mayor's, to the
    dry-goods shop, to the Lion d'Or, everywhere.  And whenever
    his anguish about her momentarily subsided he saw his reputa-
    tion ruined, all their money gone, Berthe's future wrecked!
    What was the cause of it all . . .?  Not a word!  He waited
    until six that evening.  Finally, unable to bear it any longer,
    and imagining that she must have gone to Rouen, he went out to
    the highway, followed it for a mile or so, met no one, waited
    a while, and returned.

         She was back.

         "What happened? . . . Why? . . . Tell me!"

         She sat down at her desk and wrote a letter, sealed it
    slowly, and added the date and the hour.  Then she said in a
    solemn tone, "Read it tomorrow.  Till then, please don't ask
    me a single question . . . not one!"

         "But . . ."

         "Oh, leave me alone!"

         And she stretched out on her bed.

         An acrid taste in her mouth woke her.  She caught sight
    of Charles and reclosed her eyes.

         She observed herself with interest, to see whether there
    was any pain.  No . . . nothing yet.  She heard the ticking of
    the clock, the sound of the fire, and Charles breathing, stand-
    ing there beside her bed.

         "Dying doesn't amount to much!" she thought.  "I'll fall
    asleep, and everything will be over."

         She swallowed a mouthful of water and turned to the wall.
    There was still that dreadful taste of ink.

         "I'm thirsty!  I'm so thirsty! she whispered.

         "What's wrong with you, anyway?' said Charles, handing
    her a glass.

         "Nothing!  Open the window . . . I'm choking!"

         She was seized by an attack of nausea so sudden that
    she scarcely had time to snatch her handkerchief from under
    the pillow.

         "Get rid of it!" she said quickly.  "Throw it out!"

         He questioned her, but she made no answer.  She lay very
    still, fearing that the slightest disturbance would make her
    vomit.  Now she felt an icy coldness creeping up from her feet
    toward her heart.

         "Ah!  It's beginning!" she murmured.

         "What did you say?"

         She twisted her head from side to side in a gentle move-
    ment expressive of anguish, and kept opening her jaws as though
    she had something very heavy on her tongue.  At eight o'clock
    the vomiting resumed.

         Charles noticed that there was a gritty white deposit on
    the bottom of the basin, clinging to the porcelain.

         "That's extraordinary!  That's peculiar!" he kept saying.

         "No! she said loudly.  "You're mistaken."

         Very gently, almost caressingly, he passed his hand over
    her stomach.  She gave a sharp scream.  He drew back in fright.

         She began to moan, softly at first.  Her shoulders heaved
    in a great shudder, and she grew whiter than the sheet her
    clenched fingers were digging into.  Her irregular pulse was
    almost imperceptible now.

         Beads of sweat stood out on her face, which had turned
    blue and rigid, as though from the breath of some metallic
    vapor.  Her teeth chattered, her dilated eyes stared about
    her vaguely, and her sole answer to questions was a shake of
    her head.  Two or three times she even smiled.  Gradually
    her groans grew louder.  A muffled scream escaped her.  She
    pretended that she was feeling better and that she'd soon be
    getting up.  But she was seized with convulsions.

         "God!" she cried.  "It's horrible!"

         He flung himself on his knees beside her bed.

         "Speak to me!  What did you eat?  Answer, for heaven's
    sake!"

         And in his eyes she read a love such as she had never
    known.

         "There . . . over there . . ." she said in a faltering
    voice.

         He darted to the secretary, broke open the seal and

    read aloud, "No one is to blame . . ."  He stopped, passed
    his hand over his eyes, read it again.

         "What . . .!  Help!  Help!"

         He could only repeat the word.  "Poisoned!  Poisoned!"

         Felicite ran to Homais, who spoke loudly as he crossed
    the square.  Madame Lefrancois heard him at the Lion d'Or,
    other citizens left their beds to tell their neighbors, and
    all night long the village was awake.

         Distracted, stammering, close to collapse, Charles
    walked in circles around the room.  He stumbled against the
    furniture, tore his hair.  Never had the pharmacist dreamed
    there could be so frightful a sight.

         He went back to his own house and wrote letters to Mon-
    sieur Canivet and Doctor Lariviere.  He couldn't concentrate,
    had to begin them over fifteen times.  Hippolyte left for
    Neufchatel, and Justin spurred Bovary's horse so hard that he
    left it on the hill at Bois-Guillaume, foundered and all but
    done for.

         Charles tried to consult his medical dictionary.  He

    couldn't see, the lines danced before his eyes.

         "Don't lose your head!" said the apothecary.  "It's just
    a question of administering some powerful antidote.  What
    poison is it?"

         Charles showed him the letter.  It was arsenic.

         "Well then!" said Homais.  "We must make an analysis."
    For he knew that an analysis always had to be made in cases
    of poisoning.

         Charles, who hadn't understood, answered with a groan.
    "Do it!  Do it!  Save her . . .!"

         And returning to her side, he sank down on the carpet and
    leaned his head on the edge of her bed, sobbing.

         "Don't cry!" she said.  "I shan't be tormenting you much
    longer."

         "Why did you do it?  What made you?"

         "It was the only thing," she answered.

         "Weren't you happy?  Am I to blame?  But I did everything
    I could . . .!"

         "Yes . . . I know . . . You're good, you're different."

         She slowly passed her hand through his hair.  The sweet-
    ness of her touch was more than his grief could bear.  He felt
    his entire being give way to despair at the thought of having
    to lose her just when she was showing him more love than ever
    in the past.  And he could think of nothing to do . . . he
    knew nothing, dared nothing.  The need for immediate action
    took away the last of his presence of mind.

         Emma was thinking that now she was through with all the
    betrayals, the infamies, the countless fierce desires that had
    racked her.  She hated no one, now.  A twilight confusion was
    falling over her thoughts, and of all the world's sounds she
    heard only the intermittent lament of this poor man beside her,
    gentle and indistinct, like the last echo of an ever-fainter
    symphony.

         "Bring me my little girl," she said, raising herself on
    her elbow.

         "You're not feeling worse, are you?" Charles asked.

         "No!  No!"

         Berthe was carried in by the maid.  Her bare feet peeped
    out from beneath her long nightdress.  She looked serious,
    still half dreaming.  She stared in surprise to see the room
    in such disorder, and she blinked her eyes, dazzled by the
    candles that were standing here and there on the furniture.
    They probably reminded her of other mornings.  New Year's day
    or mi-careme, when she was wakened early in just the same way
    by candlelight and carried to her mother's bed to be given a
    shoeful of presents, for she asked, "Where is it, maman?"

         And when no one answered, "I don't see my little shoe!"

         Felicite held her over the bed, but she kept looking
    toward the fireplace.  "Did nurse take it away?" she asked.

         At the word "nurse" which brought back her adulteries
    and her calamities, Madame Bovary averted her head, as though
    another, stronger, poison had risen to her mouth and filled
    her with revulsion.

         "Oh, how big your eyes are, maman!" cried Berthe, whom
    the maid had put on the bed.  "How pale you are!  You're
    sweating . . .!"

         Her mother looked at her.

         "I'm afraid!" cried the little girl, shrinking back.

         Emma took her hand to kiss it.  She struggled.

         "Enough!  Take her away!" cried Charles, sobbing at the
    foot of the bed.

         The symptoms momentarily stopped.  She seemed calmer.
    And at each insignificant word she said, each time she
    breathed a little more easily, his hope gained ground.  When
    Canivet finally arrived he threw himself in his arms, weeping.

         "Ah!  You've come!  Thank you!  You're kind!  But she's
    doing better.  Here, look at her!"

         His colleague was not at all of this opinion.  There was
    no use, as he himself put it, "beating around the bush," and
    he prescribed an emetic, to empty the stomach completely.

         Soon she was vomiting blood.  Her lips pressed together
    more tightly.  Her limbs were contorted, her body was covered
    with brown blotches, her pulse quivered under the doctor's
    fingers like a taut thread, like a harpstring about to snap.

         Then she began to scream, horribly.  She cursed the
    poison, railed against it, begged it to be quick.  And with
    her stiffened arms she pushed away everything that Charles,
    in greater agony than herself, tried to make her drink.  He
    was standing, his handkerchief to his mouth, moaning, weeping,
    choked by sobs and shaking all over.  Felicite rushed about
    the room.  Homais, motionless, kept sighing heavily.  And
    Monsieur Canivet, for all his air of self-assurance, began to
    manifest some uneasiness.

         "What the devil . . .!  But she's purged, and since the
    cause is removed . . ."

         "The effect should subside," said Homais.  "It's self-
    evident."

         "Do something to save her!" cried Bovary.

         Paying no attention to the pharmacist, who was venturing
    the hypothesis that "this paroxysm may mark the beginning of
    improvement," Canivet was about to give her theriaca when
    there came the crack of a whip, all the windows rattled, and
    a post chaise drawn at breakneck speed by three mud-covered
    horses flashed around the corner of the market place.  It was
    Doctor Lariviere.

         The sudden appearance of a god wouldn't have caused
    greater excitement.  Bovary raised both hands, Canivet broke
    off his preparations, and Homais doffed his cap well before
    the doctor entered.

         He belonged to that great surgical school created by
    Bichat.  That generation, now vanished, of philosopher-
    practitioners, who cherished their art with fanatical love
    and applied it with enthusiasm and sagacity.  Everyone in
    his hospital trembled when he was angry.  And his students
    so revered him that the moment they set up for themselves
    they imitated him as much as they could.  There was scarcely
    a town in the district where one of them couldn't be found,
    wearing a long merino overcoat and a full black tail coat,
    exactly like his.  Doctor Lariviere's unbuttoned cuffs
    partly covered his fleshy hands.  Extraordinary hands,
    always ungloved, as though to be the readier to grapple with
    suffering.  Disdainful of decorations, titles and academies,
    hospitable, generous, a father to the poor, practicing
    Christian virtues although an unbeliever, he might have been
    thought of as a saint if he hadn't been feared as a devil
    because of the keenness of his mind.  His scalpel-sharp
    glance cut deep into your soul, exposing any lie buried under
    excuses and reticences.  His manner was majestic and genial,
    conscious as he was of his great gifts and his wealth and
    the forty years of hard work and blameless living he had
    behind him.

         While he was still in the doorway he frowned, catching
    sight of Emma's cadaverous face as she lay on her back, her
    mouth open.  Then, seeming to listen to Canivet, he passed
    his forefinger back and forth beneath his nostrils, repeating,
    "Yes, yes."

         But his shoulders lifted in a slow shrug.  Bovary
    noticed it, their eyes met.  The sight of a grieving face was
    no novelty to the doctor, yet he couldn't keep a tear from
    dropping onto his shirt front.

         He asked Canivet to step into the next room.  Charles
    followed him.

         "She's very low, isn't she?  How about poultices?  What
    else?  Can't you think of something?  You've saved so many
    lives!"

         Charles put his arms around him, sagged against his
    chest, and looked at him anxiously and beseechingly.

         "Come, my poor boy, be brave!  There's nothing to be
    done."  And Doctor Lariviere turned away.

         "You're leaving?"

         "I'll be back."

         He pretended he had something to say to the coachman,
    and went out with Canivet, who was no more eager that he to
    watch Emma die.

         The pharmacist joined them in the square.  He was tem-
    peramentally incapable of staying away from celebrities, and
    he begged Monsieur Lariviere to do him the signal honor of
    being his guest at lunch.

         Someone was quickly sent to the Lion d'Or for pigeons,
    the butcher was stripped of all his chops, Tuvache supplied
    cream and Lestiboudois eggs.  The apothecary himself helped
    with the preparations, while Madame Homais pulled at her
    wrapper-strings and said:

         "I hope you'll forgive us, Monsieur.  In this wretched
    village, if we don't have a full day's warning . . ."

         "The stemmed glasses!!!" whispered Homais.

         "If we lived in the city we'd at least have stuffed pigs'
    feet to fall back on."

         "Don't talk so much . . .!  Sit down, Doctor!"

         After the first few mouthfuls he considered it appropriate
    to supply a few details concerning the catastrophe.

         "First we had a sensation of siccity in the pharynx, then
    intolerable pain in the epigastrium, superprugation, coma."

         "How did she poison herself?'

         "I have no idea, Doctor, and I can't even imagine where
    she managed to procure that arsenous oxide."

         Justin, who was just then carrying in a pile of plates,
    was seized with a fit of trembling.

         "What's the matter with you?' asked the pharmacist.

         At the question the young man dropped everything with a
    great crash.

         "Imbecile!" cried Homais.  "Clumsy lout!  Damned idiot!"

         Then, quickly regaining his self-control, "I wanted to
    try an analysis, Doctor, and, primo, I carefully inserted into
    a tube . . ."

         "It would have been better," said the surgeon, "if you'd
    inserted your fingers into her throat."

         Canivet said nothing, having just a few minutes before
    been given, in private, a severe rebuke concerning his emetic.
    Today he was as meek as he had been arrogant and verbose the
    day he had operated on Hippolyte.  His face was fixed in a
    continual, approving smile.

         Homais blossomed in his role of proud host, and the
    thought of Bovary's distress added something to his pleasure
    as he selfishly contrasted their lots.  Moreover, the doctor's
    presence excited him.  He displayed all his erudition, drag-
    ging in, pell-mell, mention of cantharides, the upas, the
    manchineel, the bite of the adder.

         "I've even read about people being poisoned, Doctor,
    positively struck down, by blood sausages that had been sub-
    jected to excessive fumigation!  At least, so it says in a
    very fine report, written by one of our leading pharmaceutical
    lights, one of our masters, the illustrious Cadet de Gassi-
    court!"

         Madame Homais reappeared, bearing one of those rickety
    contraptions that are heated with alcohol, for Homais insisted
    on brewing his coffee at table, having, needless to say,
    previously done his own roasting, his own grinding and his own
    blending.

         "Saccharum, Doctor?' he said, passing the sugar.

         Then he called in all his children, eager to have the
    surgeon's opinion on their constitutions.

         Finally, when Monsieur Lariviere was about to leave,
    Madame Homais asked him to advise her about her husband.  His
    "blood was getting thicker" because of his habit of falling
    asleep every evening after dinner.

         "Oh, he's not thick-blooded!"

         And smiling a little at his joke, which passed unnoticed,
    the doctor opened the door.  But the pharmacy was thronged,
    and he had a hard time getting rid of Monsieur Tuvache, who
    was afraid that his wife would get pneumonia because of her
    habit of spitting into the fire.  Then Monsieur Binet com-
    plained of often feeling ravenous, Madame Caron had prickling
    sensations, Lheureux suffered from dizzy spells, Lestiboudois
    was rheumatic, and Madame Lefrancois had heartburn.  Finally,
    the three horses bore him away, and the general verdict was
    that he had been far from obliging.

         Then the attention of the public was distracted by the
    appearance of Monsieur Bournisien, crossing the market with
    the holy oils.

         Homais paid his debt to his principles by likening
    priests to ravens, both are attracted by the odor of the dead.
    Actually, he had a more personal reason for disliking the
    sight of a priest.  A cassock made him think of a shroud, and
    his execration of the one owed something to his fear of the
    other.

         Nevertheless, not flinching in the face of what he called
    his "mission," he returned to the Bovary house along with
    Canivet, whom Monsieur Lariviere had urged to stay on to the
    end.  But for his wife's protests, the pharmacist would have
    taken his two sons along, to inure them to life's great
    moments, to provide them with a lesson, an example, a momentous
    spectacle that they would remember later.

         The bedroom, as they entered, was mournful and solemn.
    On the sewing table, now covered with a white napkin, were
    five or six small wads of cotton in a silver dish, and nearby
    a large crucifix between two lighted candelabra.  Emma lay
    with her chin sunk on her breast, her eyelids unnaturally wide
    apart, and her poor hands picked at the sheets in the ghastly
    and poignant way of the dying, who seem impatient to cover
    themselves with their shrouds.  Pale as a statue, his eyes red
    as coals, but no longer weeping, Charles stood facing her at
    the foot of the bed.  The priest, on one knee, mumbled under
    his breath.

         She slowly turned her face, and seemed overjoyed at
    suddenly seeing the purple stole.  Doubtless recognizing, in
    this interval of extraordinary peace, the lost ecstasy of her
    first mystical flights and the first visions of eternal bliss.

         The priest stood up and took the crucifix.  She stretched
    out her head like someone thirsting, and pressing her lips to
    the body of the God-Man, she imprinted on it, with every ounce
    of her failing strength, the most passionate love-kiss she had
    ever given.  Then he recited the Misereatur and the Indul-
    gentiam, dipped his right thumb in the oil, and began the
    unctions.  First he anointed her eyes, once so covetous of all
    earthly luxuries, then her nostrils, so gluttonous of caressing
    breezes and amorous scents, then her mouth, so prompt to lie,
    so defiant in pride, so loud in lust, then her hands, that had
    thrilled to voluptuous contacts, and finally the soles of her
    feet, once so swift when she had hastened to slake her desires,
    and now never to walk again.

         The cure wiped his fingers, threw the oil-soaked bits of
    cotton into the fire, and returned to the dying woman, sitting
    beside her and telling her that now she must unite her suffer-
    ings with Christ's and throw herself on the divine mercy.

         As he ended his exhortations he tried to have her grasp a
    blessed candle, symbol of the celestial glories soon to sur-
    round her.  Emma was too weak, and couldn't close her fingers.
    But for Monsieur Bournisien the candle would have fallen to
    the floor.

         Yet she was no longer so pale, and her face was serene,
    as though the sacrament had cured her.

         The priest didn't fail to point this out.  He even ex-
    plained to Bovary that the Lord sometimes prolonged people's
    lives when He judged it expedient for their salvation.  And
    Charles remembered another day, when, similarly close to
    death, she had received communion.

         "Perhaps there's hope after all," he thought.

         And indeed, she looked all about her, slowly, like some-
    one waking from a dream.  Then, in a distinct voice, she asked
    for her mirror, and she remained bowed over it for some time,
    until great tears flowed from her eyes.  Then she threw back
    her head with a sigh, and sank onto the pillow.

         At once her breast began to heave rapidly.  Her tongue
    hung at full length from her mouth.  Her rolling eyes grew dim
    like the globes of two lamps about to go out.  And one might
    have thought her dead already but for the terrifying, ever-
    faster movement of her ribs, which were shaken by furious
    gasps, as though her soul were straining violently to break
    its fetters.  Felicite knelt before the crucifix, and even the
    pharmacist flexed his knees a little.  Monsieur Canivet stared
    vaguely out into the square.  Bournisien had resumed his pray-
    ing, his face bowed over the edge of the bed and his long black
    cassock trailing out behind him into the room.  Charles was on
    the other side, on his knees, his arms stretched out toward
    Emma.  He had taken her hands, and was pressing them, shudder-
    ing at every beat of her heart, as at the tremors of a falling
    ruin.  As the death-rattle grew louder, the priest speeded his
    prayers.  They mingled with Bovary's stifled sobs, and at
    moments everything seemed drowned by the monotonous flow of
    Latin syllables that sounded like the tolling of a bell.

         Suddenly from out on the sidewalk came a noise of heavy
    wooden shoes and the scraping of a stick, and a voice rose up,
    a raucous voice singing:

                A clear day's warmth will often move
                A lass to stray in dreams of love.

         Emma sat up like a galvanized corpse, her hair streaming,
    her eyes fixed and gaping.


                To gather up the stalks of wheat
                The swinging scythe keeps laying by,
                Nanette goes stooping in the heat
                Along the furrow where they lie.

         "The blind man!" she cried.  Emma began to laugh . . .
    a horrible, frantic, desperate laugh . . . fancying that she
    saw the beggar's hideous face, a figure of terror looming up
    in the darkness of eternity.

                The wind blew very hard that day
                And snatched her petticoat away!

         A spasm flung her down on the mattress.  Everyone drew
    close.  She had ceased to exist.









    PART 3

    CHAPTER NINE

         Anyone's death always releases something like an aura of
    stupefaction, so difficult is it to grasp this irruption of
    nothingness and to believe that it has actually taken place.
    But when Charles realized how still she was, he threw himself
    on her, crying, "Adieu!  Adieu!"

         Homais and Canivet led him from the room.

         "Control yourself!"

         "Let me stay!" he said, struggling.  "I'll be reasonable.
    I won't do anything I shouldn't.  But I want to be near her.
    She's my wife!"  And he wept.

         "Weep, weep," said the pharmacist.  "Let yourself go.
    You'll feel the better for it."

         Helpless as a child, Charles let himself be taken down-
    stairs to the parlor.  Monsieur Homais soon went home.

         In the square he was accosted by the blind beggar.
    Lured by the hope of the antiphlogistic salve, he had dragged
    himself all the way to Yonville, and now was asking every
    passer-by where the apothecary lived.

         "Good Lord!  As though I didn't have other things on my
    mind!  Too bad!  Come back later."

         He hurried into the pharmacy.

         He had to write two letters, prepare a sedative for
    Bovary, and invent a plausible lie that would cover up the
    suicide for an article in the Fanal and for the crowd that
    was awaiting him in order to learn the news.  When all the
    Yonvillians had heard his story about the arsenic that Emma
    had mistaken for sugar while making a custard, Homais re-
    turned once more to Bovary.

         He found him alone (Canivet had just left), sitting in
    the armchair beside the window, staring vacantly at the parlor
    floor.

         "Now," said the pharmacist, "what you've got to do is
    decide on a time for the ceremony."

         "Why?  What ceremony?'

         Then, in a frightened stammer, "Oh no!  I don't have to,
    do I?  I want to keep her!"

         To hide his embarrassment Homais took a carafe from the
    whatnot and began to water the geraniums.

         "Ah, thank you!" said Charles.  "You're so good!"  He
    broke off, choked by the flood of memories the pharmacist's
    action evoked.

         To distract him, Homais thought it well to talk about
    horticulture.  Plants, he ventured, had to be kept moist.
    Charles nodded in agreement.

         "Anyway, we'll soon be having fine spring weather."

         "Ah!" said Bovary.

         Not knowing what to say next, the apothecary twitched
    the sash curtain.

         "Ah . . . there's Monsieur Tuvache going by."

         Charles repeated mechanically, "Monsieur Tuvache going
    by."

         Homais didn't dare broach the subject of funeral arrange-
    ments again.  It was the priest who eventually made Charles
    see reason.

         He locked himself in his consulting room, took a pen, and
    after sobbing awhile he wrote, "I want her buried in her bridal
    dress, with white shoes and a wreath and her hair spread over
    her shoulders.  Three coffins . . . one oak, one mahogany, one
    lead.  No one has to say anything to me.  I'll have the strength
    to go through with it.  Cover her with a large piece of green
    velvet.  I want this done.  Do it."

         The priest and the pharmacist were much taken aback by
    Bovary's romantic ideas.  Homais expostulated, "The velvet seems
    to be supererogatory.  Not to mention the expense . . ."

         "Is it any concern of yours?' cried Charles.  "Leave me
    alone!  You didn't love her!  Go away!"

         The priest took him by the arm and walked him around the
    garden, discoursing on the vanity of earthly things.  God is
    all-great, all-good.  We must submit to His decrees without
    complaint.  More than that, we must be grateful.

         Charles burst into a stream of blasphemy.

         "I detest your God!"

         "The spirit of rebellion is still in you," sighed the
    priest.

         Bovary had strode away from him and was pacing up and
    down beside the wall of espaliered fruit trees, grinding his
    teeth and looking curses at heaven.  But not even a leaf
    stirred in answer.

         A fine rain was falling.  Charles' shirt was open, and
    soon he began to shiver.  He went back into the house and sat
    in the kitchen.

         At six o'clock there was a clanking in the square.  It was
    the Hirondelle arriving, and he stood with his head against
    the windowpanes, watching all the passengers get out, one after
    the other.  Felicite put down a mattress for him in the parlor,
    and he threw himself on it and fell asleep.

         Rationalist though he was, Monsieur Homais respected the
    dead.  So, bearing no grudge against poor Charles, he returned
    that night to watch beside the body.  He brought three books
    with him, and a writing-pad for making notes.

         He found Monsieur Bournisien already there.  Two tall
    candles were burning at the head of the bed, which had been
    moved out of the alcove.

         The apothecary, oppressed by the silence, soon made a few
    elegiac remarks concerning "this hapless young woman," and the
    priest replied that now there was nothing left to do but pray
    for her.

         "Still," said Homais, "it's one thing or the other, either
    she died in a state of grace, as the church puts it, and there-
    fore had no need of our prayers, or else she died unrepentant,
    I believe that is the ecclesiastical term, and in that case..."

         Bournisien interrupted him, replying testily that prayer
    was called for nonetheless.

         "But," objected the pharmacist, "since God knows all our
    needs, what purpose can be served by prayer?'

         "What?' said the priest.  "Prayer?  Aren't you a Christian,
    then?"

         "I beg your pardon!" said Homais.  "I admire Christianity.
    It freed the slaves, for one thing.  It introduced into the
    world a moral code that..."

         "That's not the point!  All the texts..."

         "Oh!  Oh!  The texts!  Look in any history book.  Every-
    body knows they were falsified by the Jesuits."

         Charles came in, walked up to the bed and slowly parted
    the curtains.

         Emma's head was turned toward her right shoulder.  The
    corner of her open mouth was like a black hole in the lower
    part of her face.  Her two thumbs were bent inward toward the
    palms of her hands.  A kind of white dust powdered her lashes,
    and the outline of her eyes was beginning to disappear in a
    viscous pallor, as though spiders had been spinning cobwebs
    over her face.  From her breasts to her knees the sheet sagged,
    rising again at her toes, and it seemed to Charles that some
    infinite mass, some enormous weight, was pressing on her.

         The church clock struck two.  The flowing river murmured
    deeply in the darkness at the foot of the terrace.  Now and
    again Monsieur Bournisien blew his nose loudly, and Homais'
    pen was scratching on his paper.

         "Go back to bed, my friend," he said.  "Stop torturing
    yourself."

         When Charles had gone, the pharmacist and the cure
    resumed their arguments.

         "Read Voltaire!" said the one.  "Read Holbach!  Read the
    Encyclopedia!"

         "Read the Letters of Some Portuguese Jews!" said the
    other.  "Read the Proof of Christianity, by ex-magistrate
    Nicolas!"

         They grew excited and flushed.  Both spoke at once,
    neither listening to the other.  Bournisien was shocked by
    such audacity.  Homais marveled at such stupidity.  And they
    were on the point of exchanging insults when Charles suddenly
    reappeared.  He couldn't keep away.  It was as though a spell
    kept drawing him upstairs.

         He stood at the foot of the bed to see her better, ab-
    sorbed in contemplation so intense that he no longer felt any
    pain.  He recalled stories about catalepsy and the miracles of
    magnetism, and he told himself that by straining his will to
    the utmost he might resuscitate her.  Once he even leaned over
    toward her and cried very softly, "Emma!  Emma!"  The force of
    his breath blew the flickering candle flames against the wall.

         At daybreak the older Madame Bovary arrived, and as
    Charles embraced her he had another fit of weeping.  Like
    the pharmacist, she ventured a few remarks about the funeral
    expenses, but he flew into such a rage that she said no more,
    and he sent her straight to the city to buy what was needed.

         Charles spent all afternoon alone.  Berthe had been taken
    to Madame Homais'.  Felicite stayed upstairs in the bedroom
    with Madame Lefrancois.

         That evening, people called.  He rose and shook hands
    with them, unable to speak.  Each then took a seat alongside
    the others, gradually forming a wide semicircle in front of
    the fireplace.  Eyes lowered and legs crossed, they dangled
    their feet, sighing deeply from time to time.  Everyone was
    bored beyond measure, but no one was willing to be the first
    to leave.

         When Homais returned at nine o'clock (during the past
    two days he had seemed to spend all his time crossing the
    square) he brought with him a supply of camphor, benzoin and
    aromatic herbs.  He also had a vase full of chlorine water,
    to "drive out the miasmas."  At that moment the maid, Madame
    Lefrancois and the older Madame Bovary were clustered around
    Emma, putting the finishing touches to her toilette.  They
    drew down the long, stiff veil, covering her even to her
    satin shoes.

         Felicite sobbed, "Ah!  Poor mistress!  Poor mistress!"

         "Look at her," said the hotel-keeper, with a sigh.  "How
    pretty she still is!  You'd swear she'd be getting up any
    minute."

         Then they bent over to put on her wreath.  They had to
    lift her head a little, and as they did so a black liquid
    poured out of her mouth like vomit.

         "Heavens!  Watch out for her dress!" cried Madame
    Lefrancois.  "Help us, won't you?' she said to the pharmacist.
    "You wouldn't be afraid, would you?"

         "I, afraid?' he answered, shrugging his shoulders.  "Take
    it from me, I saw plenty of things like this at the hospital,
    when I was studying pharmacy.  We used to make punch in the
    dissecting room while we worked.  Death holds no terrors for a
    philosopher.  In fact, as I often say, I intend to leave my
    body to the hospitals, so that it can eventually be of service
    to science."

         When the cure arrived he asked how Monsieur was, and at
    the apothecary's reply he said, "Of course.  He still hasn't
    got over the shock."

         Homais went on to congratulate him on not being exposed,
    like other men, to the risk of losing a beloved wife.  And
    there followed a discussion on the celibacy of the clergy.

         "After all," said the pharmacist, "it's against nature
    for a man to do without women.  We've all heard of crimes..."

         "But drat it all!" cried the priest.  "How would you
    expect anyone who was married to be able to keep the secrets
    of the confessional, for example?'

         Homais attacked confession.  Bournisien defended it.  He
    dilated on the acts of restitution it was constantly responsi-
    ble for, told stories about thieves suddenly turning honest.
    Soldiers, approaching the tribunal of repentance, had felt the
    scales drop from their eyes.  There was a minister at Fribourg
    . . ."

         His fellow watcher had fallen asleep.  Bournisien found it
    somewhat hard to breathe, the air of the room was so heavy, and
    he opened a window.  This woke the pharmacist.

         "Here," the priest said.  "Take a pinch of snuff.  Do, it
    clears the head."

         There was a continual barking somewhere in the distance.

         "Do you hear a dog howling?' said the pharmacist.

         "People say that they scent the dead," answered the
    priest.  "It's like bees.  They leave the hive when someone
    dies."

         Homais didn't challenge those superstitions, for once
    again he had fallen asleep.

         Monsieur Bournisien, more resistant, continued for some
    time to move his lips in a murmur, then his chin sank grad-
    ually lower, his thick black book slipped from his hand, and
    he began to snore.

         They sat opposite one another, stomachs out, faces swol-
    len, both of them scowling, united, after so much dissension,
    in the same human weakness.  And they stirred no more than the
    corpse that was like another sleeper beside them.

         Charles' coming didn't wake them.  This was the last
    time.  He had come to bid her farewell.

         The aromatic herbs were still smoking, and at the window
    their swirls of bluish vapor mingled with the mist that was
    blowing in.

         There were a few stars.  The night was mild.

         Great drops of wax were falling onto the bedsheets from
    the candles.  Charles watched them burn, tiring his eyes in
    the gleam of their yellow flames.

         The watered satin of her dress was shimmering with the
    whiteness of moonbeams.  Emma was invisible under it.  And it
    seemed to him as though she were spreading out beyond herself,
    melting confusedly into the surroundings, the silence, the
    night, the passing wind, the damp fragrance that rose from the
    earth.

         Then, suddenly, he saw her in the garden at Tostes, on
    the seat, against the thorn hedge, or in Rouen, in the street,
    or on the doorstep of their house, in the farmyard at Les
    Bertaux.  Once again he heard the laughter of the merry lads
    dancing under the apple trees.  the wedding chamber was full
    of the perfume of her hair, and her dress rustled in his arms
    with a sound of flying sparks.  And now she was wearing that
    very dress!

         He stood there a long time thus recalling all his past
    happiness.  Her poses, her gestures, the sound of her voice.
    Wave of despair followed upon wave, endlessly, like the
    waters of an overflowing tide.

         A terrible curiosity came over him.  Slowly, with the
    tips of his fingers, his heart pounding, he lifted her veil.
    He gave a scream of horror that woke the sleepers.  They took
    him downstairs to the parlor.

         Then Felicite came up, to say that he was asking for a
    lock of her hair.

         "Cut some!" answered the apothecary.

         She didn't dare, and he stepped forward himself, scissors
    in hand.  He trembled so violently that he nicked the skin on
    the temples in several places.  Finally, steeling himself,
    Homais slashed blindly two or three times, leaving white marks
    in the beautiful black tresses.

         The pharmacist and the cure resumed their respective occu-
    pations, not without dozing off now and again and reproaching
    each other for doing so each time they awoke.  Then Monsieur
    Bournisien would sprinkle the room with holy water and Homais
    would pour a little chlorine water on the floor.

         Felicite had thought to leave a bottle of brandy for them
    on the chest of drawers, along with a cheese and a big brioche.
    Finally, about four in the morning, the apothecary could hold
    out no longer.

         "I confess," he sighed, "that I'd gladly partake of some
    nourishment."

         The priest didn't have to be asked twice.  He went out,
    said his Mass, came back, and they proceeded to eat and clink
    their glasses, chuckling a little without knowing why, prey
    to that indefinable gaiety that often succeeds periods of
    gloom.  With the last drink of brandy the priest slapped the
    pharmacist on the back.

         "We'll be good friends yet!" he said.

         Downstairs in the hall they met the workmen arriving,
    and for two hours Charles had to suffer the torture of the
    sound of the hammer on the planks.  Then they brought her
    down in her oaken coffin, which they fitted inside the two
    others.  The outermost was too wide, and they had to stuff
    the space between with wool from a mattress.  Finally, when
    the three lids had been planed, nailed on and soldered, the
    bier was exposed at the door.  The house was thrown open,
    and the Yonvillians began to flock in.

         Monsieur Rouault arrived.  He fell in a faint in the
    square at the sight of the black cloth.













    PART 3

    CHAPTER TEN

         The pharmacist's letter hadn't reached him until thirty-
    six hours after the event, and to spare his feelings Monsieur
    Homais had worded it in such a way that it was impossible for
    him to know what to think.

         On reading it he fell to the ground, as though stricken
    by apoplexy.  Then he gathered that she was not dead.  But she
    might be . . .  He put on his smock and his hat, fastened a
    spur to his boot, and set off at a gallop.  And during the en-
    tire length of his breathless ride he was frantic with anguish.
    At one point he had to stop and dismount.  He couldn't see, he
    heard voices, he thought he was losing his mind.

         At daybreak he caught sight of three black hens asleep in
    a tree, and he shuddered, terrified by the omen.  He promised
    the HOly Virgin three chasubles for the church, and vowed to
    walk barefoot from the cemetery at Les Bertaux to the chapel
    at Vassonville.

         He rode into Maromme, shouting ahead to the people at the
    inn, burst open the gate with his shoulder, dashed up to the
    oats bag, poured a bottle of sweet cider into the manger.  Then
    he remounted his nag, and it was off again, striking sparks
    from all four shoes.

         He kept telling himself that she would certainly live.
    The doctors would find a remedy, there was no question.  He
    reminded himself of all the miraculous recoveries people had
    told him of.

         Then he had a vision of her dead.  She was there, before
    him, stretched on her back in the middle of the road.  He
    pulled at the reins, and the hallucination vanished.

         At Quincampoix he drank three coffees in a row to fortify
    himself.

         It occurred to him that they might have put the wrong
    name on the letter.  He rummaged for it in his pocket, felt
    it there, but didn't dare open it.

         He even began to imagine that it might be a practical
    joke, an attempt to get even with him for something, or a
    wag's idea of a prank.  Besides, if she was dead, he'd know
    it!  But no, the countryside was as always.  The sky was blue,
    the trees were swaying.  A flock of sheep crossed the road.
    He caught sight of the village.  People saw him racing by,
    hunched over his horse, beating it furiously, its saddle
    girths dripping blood.

         Then, when he had regained consciousness, he fell weeping
    into Bovary's arms.

         "My daughter!  Emma!  My baby!  Tell me . . ."

         Charles answered, sobbing, "I don't know, I don't know!
    It's a curse . . ."

         The apothecary drew them apart.

         "There's no use going into the horrible details.  I'll
    tell Monsieur all about it later.  People are coming.  Have
    some dignity, for heaven's sake!  Take it like a philosopher!"

         Poor Charles made an effort, and repeated several times,
    "Yes! . . . Be brave!"

         "All right, then, I'll be brave, God damn it to hell!"
    the old man cried.  "I'll stay with her to the end."

         The bell was tolling.  Everything was ready.  It was time
    to set out.

         Sitting side by side in one of the choir stalls, they
    watched the three cantors continually crossing back and forth
    in front of them, intoning.  The serpent player blew with all
    his might.  Monsieur Bournisien, in full regalia, sang in a
    shrill voice.  He bowed to the tabernacle, raised his hands,
    stretched out his arms.  Lestiboudois moved about the church
    with his verger's staff.  Near the lectern stood the coffin,
    between four rows of candles.  Charles had to restrain himself
    from getting up and putting them out.

         He did his best, however, to work himself up into a
    religious frame of mind, to seize on the hope of a future
    life in which he would see her again.  He tried to imagine
    that she had gone on a trip, far off, a long time ago.  But
    when he remembered that she was right there, in the coffin,
    and that everything was over, and that now she was going to
    be buried, he was filled with a rage that was fierce and
    black and desperate.  At moments he thought he was beyond
    feeling, and he relished this ebbing of grief, cursing him-
    self in the same breath for a scoundrel.

         A sharp, regular noise, like the tapping of a metal-
    tipped walking stick, was heard on the stone floor.  It came
    from the far end of the church and stopped abruptly in the
    side aisle.  A man in a coarse brown jacket sank painfully to
    his knees.  It was Hippolyte, the stable-boy at the Lion d'Or.
    He had put on his new leg.

         One of the cantors came through the nave, taking up the
    collection, and one after another the heavy coins clattered
    onto the silver plate.

         "Get it over with!  I can't stand much more of this! cried
    Bovary, angrily throwing him a five-franc piece.

         The cantor thanked him with a ceremonious bow.

         The singing and the kneeling and the rising went on and
    on.  He remembered that once, early in their marriage, they
    had attended Mass together, and that they had sat on the other
    side, at the right, against the wall.  The bell began to toll
    again.  There was a great scraping of chairs.  the pallbearers
    slipped their three poles under the bier, and everyone left
    the church.

         At that moment Justin appeared in the doorway of the
    pharmacy and abruptly retreated, white-faced and trembling.

         People stood at their windows to watch the procession.
    Charles, at the head, held himself very straight.  He put on
    a brave front and nodded to those who came out from the lanes
    and the doorways to join the crowd.

         The six men, three on each side, walked with short steps,
    panting a little.  The priests, the cantors and the two choir-
    boys recited the De profundis, and their voices carried over
    the fields, rising and falling in waves.  Sometimes they dis-
    appeared from view at a twist of the path, but the great sil-
    ver cross was always visible high up among the trees.

         At the rear were the women, in their black cloaks with
    turned-down hoods.  Each of them carried a thick lighted can-
    dle, and Charles felt himself overcome amidst this endless
    succession of prayers and lights, these cloying odors of wax
    and cassocks.  A cool breeze was blowing, the rye and the
    colza were sprouting green.  Dewdrops shimmered on the thorn
    hedges along the road.  All kinds of joyous sounds filled the
    air.  The rattle of a jolting cart in distant ruts, the re-
    peated crowing of a cock, the thudding of a colt as it bolted
    off under the apple trees.  The pure sky was dappled with rosy
    clouds.  Wisps of bluish smoke trailed down over the thatched
    cottages, their roofs abloom with iris.  Charles recognized
    each farmyard as he passed.  He remembered leaving them on
    mornings like this after making sick-calls, on his way back
    home to where she was.

         The black pall, embroidered with white tears, flapped up
    now and again, exposing the coffin beneath.  The tired pall-
    bearers were slowing down, and the bier moved forward in a
    series of jerks, like a boat pitching at every wave.

         They reached the cemetery.

         The pallbearers continued on to where the grave had been
    dug in the turf.

         Everyone stood around it, and as the priest spoke, the
    reddish earth, heaped up on the edges, kept sliding down at
    the corners, noiselessly and continuously.

         Then, when the four ropes were in position, the coffin
    was pushed onto them.  He watched it go down.  It went down
    and down.

         Finally there was a thud, and the ropes creaked as they
    came back up.  Then Bournisien took the shovel that Lestibou-
    dois held out to him.  With his left hand . . . all the while
    sprinkling holy water with his right . . . he vigorously
    pushed in a large spadeful of earth, and the stones striking
    the wood of the coffin made that awesome sound that seems to
    us like the very voice of eternity.

         The priest passed his sprinkler to the person beside him.
    It was Homais.  He shook it gravely, then handed it to Charles,
    who sank on his knees in the pile of earth and threw it into
    the grave in handfuls, crying, "Adieu!"  He blew her kisses,
    and dragged himself toward the grave as though to be swallowed
    up in it with her.

         They led him away, and he soon grew calmer . . . vaguely
    relieved, perhaps, like everyone else, that it was all over.

         On the way back Monsieur Rouault calmly lit his pipe,
    a gesture that Homais silently condemned as improper.  He
    noticed, too, that Monsieur Binet had stayed away, that
    Tuvache had "sneaked off" after the Mass, and that Theodore,
    the notary's servant, was wearing a blue coat, "as if he
    couldn't find a black coat, since it's the custom, for
    heaven's sake!"  And he went from group to group communi-
    cating his sentiments.  Everyone was deploring Emma's death,
    especially Lheureux, who hadn't failed to attend the funeral.

         "Poor little lady!  How terrible for her husband!"

         "If it hadn't been for me, let me tell you," the
    apothecary assured him, "he would have tried to do away with
    himself!"

         "Such a good woman!  To think that just last Saturday I
    saw her in my shop!"

         "I didn't have the leisure," said Homais, "to prepare
    a little speech.  I'd have liked to say a few words at the
    grave."

         Back home, Charles took off his funeral clothes and
    Monsieur Rouault got back into his blue smock.  It was a new
    one.  All the way from Les Bertaux he had kept wiping his
    eyes with the sleeve, and the dye had come off on his face,
    which was still dusty and tear-streaked.

         The older Madame Bovary was with them.  All three were
    silent.  Finally the old man sighed.

         "You remember, my friend, I came to Tostes once, when
    you had just lost your first wife.  That time I tried to
    comfort you.  I could think of something to say.  But now
    . . ."  Then, his chest heaving in a long groan, "Ah!
    Everything's over for me!  I've seen my wife go . . . then
    my son . . . and now today my daughter!"

         He insisted on leaving immediately for Les Bertaux,
    saying that he couldn't sleep in that house.  He even refused
    to see his granddaughter.

         "No!  No!  It would be too hard on me . . . But give
    her a big kiss for me!  Good-bye! . . . You're a good man!
    And . . . I'll never forget this!" he said, slapping his
    thigh.  "Don't worry . . . you'll always get your turkey."

         But when he reached the top of the hill he turned
    around as he had turned around once before, after parting
    from her on the road to Saint-Victor.  The windows of the
    village were all ablaze in the slanting rays of the sun that
    was setting beyond the meadow.  He shaded his eyes with his
    hand, and on the horizon he made out a walled enclosure
    where trees stood in dark clumps here and there among white
    stones.  Then he continued on his way at a gentle trot, for
    his nag was limping.

         Weary though they were, Charles and his mother sat up
    very late that night talking.  They spoke of days gone by
    and of the future.  She would come and live in Yonville.
    She would keep house for him, never again would they be
    apart.  She was astute and ingratiating with him, rejoicing
    inwardly at the thought of recapturing his affection, which
    had eluded her for so many years.  Midnight struck.  The
    village was silent as usual, and Charles lay awake, thinking
    ceaselessly of her.

         Rodolphe, who had spent all day roaming the woods to
    keep his mind off things, was peacefully asleep in his cha-
    teau.  And Leon was sleeping, too, in the distant city.

         But there was someone else . . . someone who was not
    asleep at that late hour.

         On the grave among the firs knelt a young boy, weeping
    and sobbing in the darkness, his heart overflowing with an
    immense grief that was tender as the moon and unfathomable
    as night.  Suddenly the gate creaked.  It was Lestiboudois,
    come to fetch his spade, which he had forgotten a while
    before.  He recognized Justin clambering over the wall.  At
    last he knew who had been stealing his potatoes!

    PART 3

    CHAPTER ELEVEN

         The next day Charles sent for Berthe.  She asked for
    maman.  She was away on a trip, she was told, and would bring
    her back some toys.  She mentioned her again several times,
    then gradually forgot her.  Charles found the little girl's
    cheerfulness depressing.  The pharmacist's consolations, too,
    were an ordeal.

         Before long the question of money came up again.  Monsieur
    Lheureux egged on his friend Vincart as before, and Charles
    signed notes for enormous sums.  He refused absolutely to con-
    sider selling the slightest bit of furniture that had belonged
    to her.  His mother fumed.  He flew into an even greater rage.
    He was a completely changed man.  She packed up and left.

         Then everyone began to snatch what he could.  Mademoiselle
    Lempereur demanded her fees for six months' lessons.  Emma had
    never taken a single one, despite the receipted bills that she
    had shown Bovary.  The two ladies had concocted this device
    between them.  The lending-library proprietor demanded three
    years' subscription fees.  Madame Rollet demanded postage fees
    for twenty or so letters, and when Charles asked for an expla-
    nation she was tactful enough to answer, "Oh, I don't know
    anything about them . . . some personal matters."

         Each debt he paid, Charles thought was the last.  Then
    more came . . . a continual stream.

         He dunned patients for back bills, but they showed him
    the letters his wife had sent and he had to apologize.

         Felicite now wore Madame's dresses.  Not all, for he had
    kept a few and used to shut himself up in her dressing room
    and look at them.  The maid was just about her size, and often
    when Charles caught sight of her from behind he thought it was
    Emma, and cried out, "Oh!  Don't go!  Don't go!"

         But at Pentecost she left Yonville without warning,
    eloping with Theodore and stealing everything that was left
    of the wardrobe.

         It was about this time that "Madame veuve Dupuis" had
    the honor of announcing to him the "marriage of M. Leon Dupuis,
    her son, notary at Yvetot, and Mlle. Leocadie Leboeuf, of Bon-
    deville."  Charles' letter of congratulation contained the
    sentence, "How happy this would have made my poor wife!"

         One day, wandering aimlessly about the house, he went up
    to the attic, and through the sole of his slipper he felt a wad
    of thin paper.  He opened it.  "You must be courageous, Emma,"
    he read.  "The last thing I want to do is ruin your life."  It
    was Rodolphe's letter.  It had fallen to the floor in among
    some boxes and had remained there, and now the draught from the
    dormer had blown it toward the door.  Charles stood there
    motionless and open-mouthed, in the very spot where Emma,
    desperate and even paler that he was now, had longed to die.
    Finally he discovered a small "R" at the bottom of the second
    page.  Who was it?  He remembered Rodolphe's attentiveness,
    his sudden disappearance, and his air of constraint the two or
    three times they had met since.  But the respectful tone of the
    letter deceived him.

         "Perhaps they loved each other platonically," he told
    himself.

         In any case, Charles wasn't one to go to the root of
    things.  He closed his eyes to the evidence, and his hesitant
    jealousy was drowned in the immensity of his grief.

         Everyone must have adored her, he thought.  Every man who
    saw her must certainly have coveted her.  This made her the
    lovelier in his mind, and he conceived a furious desire for
    her that never stopped.  It fed the flames of his despair, and
    it grew stronger and stronger because not it could never be
    satisfied.

         To please her, as though she were still alive, he adopted
    her tastes, her ideas.  He bought himself patent leather shoes,
    took to wearing white cravats.  He waxed his mustache, and
    signed . . . just as she had . . . more promissory notes.  She
    was corrupting him from beyond the grave.

         He was forced to sell the silver piece by piece, then he
    sold the parlor furniture.  But though all the other rooms grew
    bare, the bedroom, her bedroom, remained as before.  Charles
    went there every day after dinner.  He pushed the round table
    up to the fire, pulled her armchair close to it.  He sat oppo-
    site.  A tallow candle burned in one of the gilded sconces.
    Berthe, at his side, colored pictures.

         It pained him, poor fellow, to see her so shabbily dressed,
    with her shoes unlaced and the armholes of her smock torn and
    gaping to below her waist, for the cleaning woman completely
    neglected her.  But she was so sweet and gentle, and she bent
    her little head so gracefully, letting her fair hair fall
    against her rosy cheek, that he was flooded with infinite
    pleasure.  An enjoyment that was mixed with bitterness, like
    an inferior wine tasting of resin.  He mended her toys, made
    puppets for her out of cardboard, sewed up the torn stomachs
    of her dolls.  But the sight of the sewing-box, or a bit of
    loose ribbon, or even a pin caught in a crack in the table,
    would send him brooding.  And then he looked so gloomy that
    she, too, grew sad.

         No one came to see them now, for Justin had run off to
    Rouen, where he found work as a grocery clerk, and the apothe-
    cary's children saw less and less of Berthe.  Monsieur Homais
    was not eager to prolong the intimacy, considering the differ-
    ence in their social status.

         The blind man, whom his salve had not cured, had resumed
    his beat on the hill at Bois-Guillaume, where he told everyone
    about the pharmacist's failure.  To such a point that Homais,
    whenever he went to the city, hid behind the Hirondelle's
    curtain to avoid meeting him face to face.  He hated him.  He
    must get rid of him at all costs, he decided, for the sake of
    his own reputation.  And he launched an underhand campaign
    against him in which he revealed his deep cunning and his
    criminal vanity.  During the next six months paragraphs like
    the following would appear in the Fanal de Rouen:

            Anyone who has ever wended his way toward the fertile
            fields of Picardy cannot help but have noticed, on the
            hill at Bois-Guillaume, an unfortunate afflicted with
            a horrible facial deformity.  He pesters travelers,
            persecutes them, levies a veritable tax upon them.  Are
            we back in the monstrous days of the Middle Ages, when
            vagabonds were permitted to display, in our public
            squares, the leprous ulcers and scrofulous sores they
            brought back from the Crusades?

    Or:

            Despite the laws against vagrancy, the approaches to
            our large cities continue to be infested by bands of
            beggars.  There are some who operate single-handed.
            And these, perhaps, are not the least dangerous of the
            lot.  What are our Municipal Authorities waiting for?

         Sometimes Homais invented ancedotes:

            Yesterday, on the hill at Bois-Guillaume, a skittish
            horse . . .

         And there would follow the story of an accident caused by
    the blind man.

         This went on until the beggar was locked up.  But he was
    released.  He took up where he had left off.  So did Homais.
    It was a fight to the finish.  Homais was victorious.  His
    enemy was committed to an asylum for the rest of his days.

         This success emboldened him.  And from then on whenever a
    dog was run over in the district, or a barn set on fire, or a
    woman beaten, Homais hastened to publicize the event, inspired
    always by love of progress and hatred of the clergy.  He insti-
    tuted comparisons between public and religious schools, to the
    detriment of the latter.  He referred to Saint Bartholomew's
    Eve apropos of every hundred-franc subsidy the government
    granted the church.  He denounced abuses, he flashed the rapier
    of satire.  Such, at least, was the way he put it.  In short
    Homais was "undermining the foundations."  He was becoming a
    dangerous man.

         He found the narrow limitations of journalism stifling,
    however, and soon he felt the need to produce a book, a
    "work."  So he composed his General Statistics Concerning the
    Canton of Yonville, Followed by Climatological Observations,
    and statistics led him into philosophy.  He dealt with burn-
    ing issues.  The social problem, raising the moral standards
    of the poor, pisciculture, rubber, railroads, etc.  In the
    end, he felt it a disgrace to be a bourgeois.  He affected
    bohemian ways, he even smoked!  He bought two rococo statu-
    ettes, very chic, to decorate his parlor.

         Not that he gave up pharmacy.  Far from it!  He kept up
    with all the latest discoveries.  He followed every stage in
    the great development of chocolates.  He was the first to
    introduce into the department of the Seine-Inferieure those
    two great chocolate health foods, Cho-ca and Revalentia.  He
    became an enthusiastic partisan of Pulvermacher electric
    health belts.  He wore one himself, and at night when he took
    off his flannel undershirt Madame Homais never failed to be
    dazzled by the golden spiral that almost hid him from view,
    and her passion redoubled for this man she saw before her
    swaddled like a Scythian and splendid as a Magian priest.

         He had brilliant ideas for Emma's tombstone.  First he
    suggested a broken column with a drapery.  Then a pyramid,
    then a Temple of Vesta, a kind of rotunda, or perhaps a
    romantic pile of ruins.  One element was constant in all his
    plans, a weeping willow, which he considered the obligatory
    symbol of grief.

         Charles and he made a trip to Rouen together to look at
    tombstones at a burial specialist's, accompanied by an artist
    named Vaufrilard, a friend of Bridoux's, who never stopped
    making puns.  Finally, after examining a hundred designs,
    getting an estimate, and making a second trip to Rouen,
    Charles decided in favor of a mausoleum whose two principal
    sides were to be adorned with "a spirit bearing an extin-
    guished torch."

         As for the inscription, Homais could think of nothing
    as eloquent as Sta viator.  He couldn't get beyond it, rack
    his brains as he might.  He kept repeating "Sta viator" to
    himself over and over again.  Finally he had an inspiration,
    amabilem conjugem calcas, and this was adopted.

         The strange thing was that Bovary, even though he thought
    of Emma continually, was forgetting her, and he felt desperate
    realizing that her image was fading from his memory, struggle
    as he might to keep it alive.  Each night, however, he dreamed
    of her.  It was always the same dream.  He approached her, but
    just when he was about to embrace her she fell into decay in
    his arms.

         The first week, he went to church every evening.  Monsieur
    Bournisien called on him two or three times, then left him
    alone.  The fact is that the priest was becoming decidedly less
    tolerant, sinking into real fanaticism, as Homais put it.  He
    thundered against the spirit of the modern age, and regularly
    once a fortnight included in his sermon an account of the last
    agony of Voltaire, who died eating his own excrement, as every-
    one knows.

         Despite Bovary's frugality, he was quite unable to pay off
    his old debts.  Lheureux refused to renew a single note.  Exe-
    cution was imminent.  He had recourse to his mother, who agreed
    to let him mortgage her house.  But she seized the occasion to
    write him many harsh things about Emma, and in return for her
    sacrifice she demanded a shawl that had escaped Felicite's
    depredations.  Charles refused to let her have it, and they
    quarreled.

         She made the first overtures toward a reconciliation by
    offering to take the little girl to live with her.  The child
    could help her in the house.  Charles consented.  But when the
    time came for her to leave he couldn't face it, and there was
    a new break between mother and son, this time irrevocable.

         As his bonds with others weakened, his love for his child
    grew ever stronger.  She worried him, however, for occasionally
    she coughed and had red patches on her cheekbones.

         Across the square, in constant view, thriving and jovial,
    was the family of the pharmacist.  He had every reason to be
    satisfied with his lot.  Napoleon helped him in the laboratory,
    Athalie embroidered him a smoking cap, Irma cut paper circles
    to cover the jelly jars, and Franklin could recite the multi-
    plication table without stumbling.  Homais was the happiest of
    fathers, the luckiest of men.

         Not quite, though!  He was eaten with a secret ambition.
    He wanted the cross of the Legion of Honor.  He had plenty
    of qualifications.

         "First: during the cholera epidemic, was conspicuous for
    devotion above and beyond the call of professional duty.
    Second: have published at my own expense various works of
    public usefulness, such as . . ."  (And he cited his treatise
    on Cider:  Its Manufacture and Its Effects: also, some obser-
    vations on the wooly aphis that he had sent to the Academy.
    His volume of statistics, and even his pharmacist's thesis.)
    "NOt to mention that I am a member of several learned socie-
    ties."  (He belonged to only one.)

         "And even suppose," he said with a caper, "that the only
    thing I had to my credit was my perfect record as a volunteer
    fireman!"

         Homais proceeded to ingratiate himself with the powers
    that be.  He secretly rendered great services to Monsieur le
    Prefet during an electoral campaign.  In short he sold himself.
    He prostituted himself.  He went so far as to address a peti-
    tion to the sovereign in which he begged him to "do him jus-
    tice."  He called him "our good king" and compared him to Henri
    IV.

         Every morning the apothecary rushed to the newspaper,
    hoping to find the news of his nomination, but it didn't come.
    Finally, in his impatience, he had a star-shaped grass plot
    designed for his garden, to represent the decoration, with
    two little tufts of greenery as the ribbon.  He would walk
    around it, his arms folded, pondering on government stupidity
    and human ingratitude.

         Out of respect, or to prolong the almost sensual pleasure
    he took in his investigations, Charles had not yet opened the
    secret compartment of the rosewood desk that Emma had always
    used.  At last, one day, he sat down at it, turned the key and
    pressed the spring.  All Leon's letters were there.  No poss-
    ible doubt, this time!  He devoured every last one of them.
    Then he rummaged in every corner, every piece of furniture,
    every drawer, looked for hiding places in the walls.  He was
    sobbing, screaming with rage, beside himself, stark mad.  He
    came upon a box, kicked it open.  Rodolphe's picture jumped
    out at him, and all the love letters spilled out with it.

         Everyone was amazed at the depth of his depression.  He
    no longer went out, had no visitors, refused even to call on
    his patients.  Everyone said that he "locked himself up to
    get drunk."

         Now and again someone more curious than the rest would
    peer over the garden hedge and would be startled at the sight
    of him, wild-eyed, long-bearded, clad in sordid rags, walking
    and weeping aloud.

         Summer evenings he would take his daughter with him and
    go to the cemetery.  They always came back after dark, when
    the only light in the square was in Binet's dormer.

         Still, he was unable to savor his grief to the full,
    since he had no one with whom he could share it.  From time
    to time he called on Madame Lefrancois, for the sole purpose
    of talking about "her."  But the innkeeper listened to him
    with only one ear, having her troubles just as he had his.
    Monsieur Lheureux had finally established his transportation
    service, Les Favorites du commerce, and Hivert, who enjoyed
    a considerable reputation for his dependability as doer of
    errands, was demanding an increase in wages and threatening
    to go to work for her competitor.

         One day, at the market in Argueuil, where he had gone
    to sell his horse, his last asset, he met Rodolphe.

         Both men turned pale when they caught sight of each
    other.  Rodolphe, who had merely sent his card with a message
    of condolence, began by stammering a few excuses.  Then he
    grew bolder, and even had the cheek (it was a very hot August
    day) to invite him to take a bottle of beer in a cafe.

         Sitting opposite him, his elbows on the table, he chewed
    his cigar as he talked, and Charles was lost in revery as he
    looked into the face that she had loved.  In it, he felt, he
    was seeing something of her.  It was a revelation.  He would
    have liked to be that man.

         Rodolphe talked farming, livestock, fertilizers, making
    use of banalities to stop up all the gaps through which any
    compromising reference might creep in.  Charles wasn't listen-

    ing.  Rodolphe became aware of this, and in the play of ex-
    pression on Charles' face he could read the sequence of his
    thoughts.  Gradually it grew crimson.  Charles' nostrils
    fluttered, his lips quivered.  At one point, filled with
    somber fury, he stared fixedly at Rodolphe, who in his fright
    stopped speaking.  But almost at once the other man's features
    reassumed their habitual expression of mournful weariness.

         "I don't hold it against you," he said.

         Rodolphe sat speechless.  And Charles, his head in his
    hands, repeated, in a dull voice, with all the resignation of
    a grief that can never be assuaged, "No, I don't hold it against
    you, any more."

         And he added a bit of rhetoric, the only such utterance
    that had ever escaped him, "No one is to blame.  It was decreed
    by fate."

         Rodolphe, who had been the instrument of that fate,
    thought him very meek indeed for a man in his situation,
    comical, even, and a little contemptible.

         The next day Charles sat down on the bench in the arbor.
    Rays of light came through the trellis, grape leaves traced
    their shadow on the gravel, the jasmine was fragrant under
    the blue sky, beetles buzzed about the flowering lilies.  A
    vaporous flood of love-memories swelled in his sorrowing
    heart, and he was overcome with emotion, like an adolescent.

         At seven o'clock little Berthe, who hadn't seen him all
    afternoon, came to call him to dinner.

         She found him with his head leaning back against the
    wall, his eyes closed, his mouth open, and there was a long
    lock of black hair in his hands.

         "Papa!  Come along!" she said.

         She thought that he was playing, and gave him a little
    push.  He fell to the ground.  He was dead.

         Thirty-six hours later Monsieur Canivet arrived, sum-
    moned by the apothecary.  He performed an autopsy, but found
    nothing.

         When everything was sold, there remained twelve francs
    and fifteen centimes.  Enough to pay Mademoiselle Bovary's
    coach fare to her grandmother's.  The old lady died the same
    year, and since Monsieur Rouault was now paralyzed, it was
    an aunt who took charge of her.  She is poor, and sends her
    to work for her living in a cotton mill.

         Since Bovary's death, three doctors have succeeded one
    another Yonville, and not one of them has gained a foothold,
    so rapidly and so utterly has Homais routed them.  The devil
    himself doesn't have a greater following that the pharmacist.
    The authorities treat him considerately, and public opinion
    is on his side.

         He has just been awarded the cross of the Legion of
    Honor.