She often changed her coiffure; she did her hair a la Chinoise, in
flowing curls, in plaited coils; she parted in on one side and rolled it
under like a man’s.
She wanted to learn Italian; she bought dictionaries, a grammar, and
a supply of white paper. She tried serious reading, history, and
philosophy. Sometimes in the night Charles woke up with a start,
thinking he was being called to a patient. "I’m coming," he stammered;
and it was the noise of a match Emma had struck to relight the lamp. But
her reading fared like her piece of embroidery, all of which, only just
begun, filled her cupboard; she took it up, left it, passed on to other
books.
She had attacks in which she could easily have been driven to commit any
folly. She maintained one day, in opposition to her husband, that she
could drink off a large glass of brandy, and, as Charles was stupid
enough to dare her to, she swallowed the brandy to the last drop.
In spite of her vapourish airs (as the housewives of Yonville called
them), Emma, all the same, never seemed gay, and usually she had at the
corners of her mouth that immobile contraction that puckers the faces of
old maids, and those of men whose ambition has failed. She was pale all
over, white as a sheet; the skin of her nose was drawn at the nostrils,
her eyes looked at you vaguely. After discovering three grey hairs on
her temples, she talked much of her old age.
She often fainted. One day she even spat blood, and, as Charles fussed
around her showing his anxiety--
"Bah!" she answered, "what does it matter?"
Charles fled to his study and wept there, both his elbows on the table,
sitting in an arm-chair at his bureau under the phrenological head.
Then he wrote to his mother begging her to come, and they had many long
consultations together on the subject of Emma.
What should they decide? What was to be done since she rejected all
medical treatment? "Do you know what your wife wants?" replied Madame
Bovary senior.
"She wants to be forced to occupy herself with some manual work. If she
were obliged, like so many others, to earn her living, she wouldn’t have
these vapours, that come to her from a lot of ideas she stuffs into her
head, and from the idleness in which she lives."
"Yet she is always busy," said Charles.
"Ah! always busy at what? Reading novels, bad books, works against
religion, and in which they mock at priests in speeches taken from
Voltaire. But all that leads you far astray, my poor child. Anyone who
has no religion always ends by turning out badly."
So it was decided to stop Emma reading novels. The enterprise did not
seem easy. The good lady undertook it. She was, when she passed through
Rouen, to go herself to the lending-library and represent that Emma had
discontinued her subscription. Would they not have a right to apply
to the police if the librarian persisted all the same in his poisonous
trade? The farewells of mother and daughter-in-law were cold. During
the three weeks that they had been together they had not exchanged
half-a-dozen words apart from the inquiries and phrases when they met at
table and in the evening before going to bed.
Madame Bovary left on a Wednesday, the market-day at Yonville.
The Place since morning had been blocked by a row of carts, which, on
end and their shafts in the air, spread all along the line of houses
from the church to the inn. On the other side there were canvas booths,
where cotton checks, blankets, and woollen stockings were sold,
together with harness for horses, and packets of blue ribbon, whose ends
fluttered in the wind. The coarse hardware was spread out on the ground
between pyramids of eggs and hampers of cheeses, from which sticky straw
stuck out.
Near the corn-machines clucking hens passed their necks through the bars
of flat cages. The people, crowding in the same place and unwilling
to move thence, sometimes threatened to smash the shop front of the
chemist. On Wednesdays his shop was never empty, and the people pushed
in less to buy drugs than for consultations. So great was Homais’
reputation in the neighbouring villages. His robust aplomb had
fascinated the rustics. They considered him a greater doctor than all
the doctors.
Emma was leaning out at the window; she was often there. The window in
the provinces replaces the theatre and the promenade, she was amusing
herself with watching the crowd of boors when she saw a gentleman in
a green velvet coat. He had on yellow gloves, although he wore heavy
gaiters; he was coming towards the doctor’s house, followed by a peasant
walking with a bent head and quite a thoughtful air.
"Can I see the doctor?" he asked Justin, who was talking on the
doorsteps with Felicite, and, taking him for a servant of the
house--"Tell him that Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger of La Huchette is
here."
It was not from territorial vanity that the new arrival added "of La
Huchette" to his name, but to make himself the better known.
La Huchette, in fact, was an estate near Yonville, where he had just
bought the chateau and two farms that he cultivated himself, without,
however, troubling very much about them. He lived as a bachelor, and was
supposed to have "at least fifteen thousand francs a year."
Charles came into the room. Monsieur Boulanger introduced his man, who
wanted to be bled because he felt "a tingling all over."
"That’ll purge me," he urged as an objection to all reasoning.
So Bovary ordered a bandage and a basin, and asked Justin to hold it.
Then addressing the peasant, who was already pale--
"Don’t be afraid, my lad."
"No, no, sir," said the other; "get on."
And with an air of bravado he held out his great arm. At the prick of
the lancet the blood spurted out, splashing against the looking-glass.
"Hold the basin nearer," exclaimed Charles.
"Lor!" said the peasant, "one would swear it was a little fountain
flowing. How red my blood is! That’s a good sign, isn’t it?"
"Sometimes," answered the doctor, "one feels nothing at first, and then
syncope sets in, and more especially with people of strong constitution
like this man."
At these words the rustic let go the lancet-case he was twisting between
his fingers. A shudder of his shoulders made the chair-back creak. His
hat fell off.
"I thought as much," said Bovary, pressing his finger on the vein.
The basin was beginning to tremble in Justin’s hands; his knees shook,
he turned pale.
"Emma! Emma!" called Charles.
With one bound she came down the staircase.
"Some vinegar," he cried. "O dear! two at once!"
And in his emotion he could hardly put on the compress.
"It is nothing," said Monsieur Boulanger quietly, taking Justin in his
arms. He seated him on the table with his back resting against the wall.
Madame Bovary began taking off his cravat. The strings of his shirt had
got into a knot, and she was for some minutes moving her light fingers
about the young fellow’s neck. Then she poured some vinegar on her
cambric handkerchief; she moistened his temples with little dabs, and
then blew upon them softly. The ploughman revived, but Justin’s syncope
still lasted, and his eyeballs disappeared in the pale sclerotics like
blue flowers in milk.
"We must hide this from him," said Charles.
Madame Bovary took the basin to put it under the table. With the
movement she made in bending down, her dress (it was a summer dress with
four flounces, yellow, long in the waist and wide in the skirt) spread
out around her on the flags of the room; and as Emma stooping, staggered
a little as she stretched out her arms.
The stuff here and there gave with the inflections of her bust.
Then she went to fetch a bottle of water, and she was melting some
pieces of sugar when the chemist arrived. The servant had been to
fetch him in the tumult. Seeing his pupil’s eyes staring he drew a long
breath; then going around him he looked at him from head to foot.
"Fool!" he said, "really a little fool! A fool in four letters! A
phlebotomy’s a big affair, isn’t it! And a fellow who isn’t afraid of
anything; a kind of squirrel, just as he is who climbs to vertiginous
heights to shake down nuts. Oh, yes! you just talk to me, boast about
yourself! Here’s a fine fitness for practising pharmacy later on; for
under serious circumstances you may be called before the tribunals in
order to enlighten the minds of the magistrates, and you would have to
keep your head then, to reason, show yourself a man, or else pass for an
imbecile."
Justin did not answer. The chemist went on--
"Who asked you to come? You are always pestering the doctor and madame.
On Wednesday, moreover, your presence is indispensable to me. There are
now twenty people in the shop. I left everything because of the interest
I take in you. Come, get along! Sharp! Wait for me, and keep an eye on
the jars."
When Justin, who was rearranging his dress, had gone, they talked for a
little while about fainting-fits. Madame Bovary had never fainted.
"That is extraordinary for a lady," said Monsieur Boulanger; "but some
people are very susceptible. Thus in a duel, I have seen a second lose
consciousness at the mere sound of the loading of pistols."
"For my part," said the chemist, "the sight of other people’s blood
doesn’t affect me at all, but the mere thought of my own flowing would
make me faint if I reflected upon it too much."
Monsieur Boulanger, however, dismissed his servant, advising him to calm
himself, since his fancy was over.
"It procured me the advantage of making your acquaintance," he added,
and he looked at Emma as he said this. Then he put three francs on the
corner of the table, bowed negligently, and went out.
He was soon on the other side of the river (this was his way back to La
Huchette), and Emma saw him in the meadow, walking under the poplars,
slackening his pace now and then as one who reflects.
"She is very pretty," he said to himself; "she is very pretty, this
doctor’s wife. Fine teeth, black eyes, a dainty foot, a figure like a
Parisienne’s. Where the devil does she come from? Wherever did that fat
fellow pick her up?"
Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger was thirty-four; he was of brutal
temperament and intelligent perspicacity, having, moreover, had much to
do with women, and knowing them well. This one had seemed pretty to him;
so he was thinking about her and her husband.
"I think he is very stupid. She is tired of him, no doubt. He has dirty
nails, and hasn’t shaved for three days. While he is trotting after his
patients, she sits there botching socks. And she gets bored! She would
like to live in town and dance polkas every evening. Poor little woman!
She is gaping after love like a carp after water on a kitchen-table.
With three words of gallantry she’d adore one, I’m sure of it. She’d be
tender, charming. Yes; but how to get rid of her afterwards?"
Then the difficulties of love-making seen in the distance made him by
contrast think of his mistress. She was an actress at Rouen, whom he
kept; and when he had pondered over this image, with which, even in
remembrance, he was satiated--
"Ah! Madame Bovary," he thought, "is much prettier, especially fresher.
Virginie is decidedly beginning to grow fat. She is so finiky about her
pleasures; and, besides, she has a mania for prawns."
The fields were empty, and around him Rodolphe only heard the regular
beating of the grass striking against his boots, with a cry of the
grasshopper hidden at a distance among the oats. He again saw Emma in
her room, dressed as he had seen her, and he undressed her.
"Oh, I will have her," he cried, striking a blow with his stick at a
clod in front of him. And he at once began to consider the political
part of the enterprise. He asked himself--
"Where shall we meet? By what means? We shall always be having the brat
on our hands, and the servant, the neighbours, and husband, all sorts of
worries. Pshaw! one would lose too much time over it."
Then he resumed, "She really has eyes that pierce one’s heart like a
gimlet. And that pale complexion! I adore pale women!"
When he reached the top of the Arguiel hills he had made up his mind.
"It’s only finding the opportunities. Well, I will call in now and then.
I’ll send them venison, poultry; I’ll have myself bled, if need be. We
shall become friends; I’ll invite them to my place. By Jove!" added he,
"there’s the agricultural show coming on. She’ll be there. I shall see
her. We’ll begin boldly, for that’s the surest way."
Chapter Eight
At last it came, the famous agricultural show. On the morning of the
solemnity all the inhabitants at their doors were chatting over the
preparations. The pediment of the town hall had been hung with garlands
of ivy; a tent had been erected in a meadow for the banquet; and in the
middle of the Place, in front of the church, a kind of bombarde was
to announce the arrival of the prefect and the names of the successful
farmers who had obtained prizes. The National Guard of Buchy (there was
none at Yonville) had come to join the corps of firemen, of whom Binet
was captain. On that day he wore a collar even higher than usual; and,
tightly buttoned in his tunic, his figure was so stiff and motionless
that the whole vital portion of his person seemed to have descended into
his legs, which rose in a cadence of set steps with a single movement.
As there was some rivalry between the tax-collector and the colonel,
both, to show off their talents, drilled their men separately. One
saw the red epaulettes and the black breastplates pass and re-pass
alternately; there was no end to it, and it constantly began again.
There had never been such a display of pomp. Several citizens had
scoured their houses the evening before; tri-coloured flags hung from
half-open windows; all the public-houses were full; and in the lovely
weather the starched caps, the golden crosses, and the coloured
neckerchiefs seemed whiter than snow, shone in the sun, and relieved
with the motley colours the sombre monotony of the frock-coats and blue
smocks. The neighbouring farmers’ wives, when they got off their horses,
pulled out the long pins that fastened around them their dresses, turned
up for fear of mud; and the husbands, for their part, in order to save
their hats, kept their handkerchiefs around them, holding one corner
between their teeth.
The crowd came into the main street from both ends of the village.
People poured in from the lanes, the alleys, the houses; and from time
to time one heard knockers banging against doors closing behind women
with their gloves, who were going out to see the fete. What was most
admired were two long lamp-stands covered with lanterns, that flanked a
platform on which the authorities were to sit. Besides this there were
against the four columns of the town hall four kinds of poles,
each bearing a small standard of greenish cloth, embellished with
inscriptions in gold letters.
On one was written, "To Commerce"; on the other, "To Agriculture"; on
the third, "To Industry"; and on the fourth, "To the Fine Arts."
But the jubilation that brightened all faces seemed to darken that of
Madame Lefrancois, the innkeeper. Standing on her kitchen-steps she
muttered to herself, "What rubbish! what rubbish! With their canvas
booth! Do they think the prefect will be glad to dine down there under
a tent like a gipsy? They call all this fussing doing good to the place!
Then it wasn’t worth while sending to Neufchatel for the keeper of a
cookshop! And for whom? For cowherds! tatterdemalions!"
The druggist was passing. He had on a frock-coat, nankeen trousers,
beaver shoes, and, for a wonder, a hat with a low crown.
"Your servant! Excuse me, I am in a hurry." And as the fat widow asked
where he was going--
"It seems odd to you, doesn’t it, I who am always more cooped up in my
laboratory than the man’s rat in his cheese."
"What cheese?" asked the landlady.
"Oh, nothing! nothing!" Homais continued. "I merely wished to convey
to you, Madame Lefrancois, that I usually live at home like a recluse.
To-day, however, considering the circumstances, it is necessary--"
"Oh, you’re going down there!" she said contemptuously.
"Yes, I am going," replied the druggist, astonished. "Am I not a member
of the consulting commission?"
Mere Lefrancois looked at him for a few moments, and ended by saying
with a smile--
"That’s another pair of shoes! But what does agriculture matter to you?
Do you understand anything about it?"
"Certainly I understand it, since I am a druggist--that is to say,
a chemist. And the object of chemistry, Madame Lefrancois, being the
knowledge of the reciprocal and molecular action of all natural bodies,
it follows that agriculture is comprised within its domain. And, in
fact, the composition of the manure, the fermentation of liquids, the
analyses of gases, and the influence of miasmata, what, I ask you, is
all this, if it isn’t chemistry, pure and simple?"
The landlady did not answer. Homais went on--
"Do you think that to be an agriculturist it is necessary to have tilled
the earth or fattened fowls oneself? It is necessary rather to know the
composition of the substances in question--the geological strata, the
atmospheric actions, the quality of the soil, the minerals, the waters,
the density of the different bodies, their capillarity, and what not.
And one must be master of all the principles of hygiene in order to
direct, criticize the construction of buildings, the feeding of animals,
the diet of domestics. And, moreover, Madame Lefrancois, one must know
botany, be able to distinguish between plants, you understand, which are
the wholesome and those that are deleterious, which are unproductive
and which nutritive, if it is well to pull them up here and re-sow them
there, to propagate some, destroy others; in brief, one must keep pace
with science by means of pamphlets and public papers, be always on the
alert to find out improvements."
The landlady never took her eyes off the "Cafe Francois" and the chemist
went on--
"Would to God our agriculturists were chemists, or that at least they
would pay more attention to the counsels of science. Thus lately I
myself wrote a considerable tract, a memoir of over seventy-two pages,
entitled, ‘Cider, its Manufacture and its Effects, together with some
New Reflections on the Subject,’ that I sent to the Agricultural Society
of Rouen, and which even procured me the honour of being received among
its members--Section, Agriculture; Class, Pomological. Well, if my
work had been given to the public--" But the druggist stopped, Madame
Lefrancois seemed so preoccupied.
"Just look at them!" she said. "It’s past comprehension! Such a cookshop
as that!" And with a shrug of the shoulders that stretched out over her
breast the stitches of her knitted bodice, she pointed with both hands
at her rival’s inn, whence songs were heard issuing. "Well, it won’t
last long," she added. "It’ll be over before a week."
Homais drew back with stupefaction. She came down three steps and
whispered in his ear--
"What! you didn’t know it? There is to be an execution in next week.
It’s Lheureux who is selling him out; he has killed him with bills."
"What a terrible catastrophe!" cried the druggist, who always found
expressions in harmony with all imaginable circumstances.
Then the landlady began telling him the story that she had heard from
Theodore, Monsieur Guillaumin’s servant, and although she detested
Tellier, she blamed Lheureux. He was "a wheedler, a sneak."
"There!" she said. "Look at him! he is in the market; he is bowing to
Madame Bovary, who’s got on a green bonnet. Why, she’s taking Monsieur
Boulanger’s arm."
"Madame Bovary!" exclaimed Homais. "I must go at once and pay her my
respects. Perhaps she’ll be very glad to have a seat in the enclosure
under the peristyle." And, without heeding Madame Lefrancois, who was
calling him back to tell him more about it, the druggist walked off
rapidly with a smile on his lips, with straight knees, bowing copiously
to right and left, and taking up much room with the large tails of his
frock-coat that fluttered behind him in the wind.
Rodolphe, having caught sight of him from afar, hurried on, but Madame
Bovary lost her breath; so he walked more slowly, and, smiling at her,
said in a rough tone--
"It’s only to get away from that fat fellow, you know, the druggist."
She pressed his elbow.
"What’s the meaning of that?" he asked himself. And he looked at her out
of the corner of his eyes.
Her profile was so calm that one could guess nothing from it. It stood
out in the light from the oval of her bonnet, with pale ribbons on it
like the leaves of weeds. Her eyes with their long curved lashes looked
straight before her, and though wide open, they seemed slightly puckered
by the cheek-bones, because of the blood pulsing gently under the
delicate skin. A pink line ran along the partition between her nostrils.
Her head was bent upon her shoulder, and the pearl tips of her white
teeth were seen between her lips.
"Is she making fun of me?" thought Rodolphe.
Emma’s gesture, however, had only been meant for a warning; for Monsieur
Lheureux was accompanying them, and spoke now and again as if to enter
into the conversation.
"What a superb day! Everybody is out! The wind is east!"
And neither Madame Bovary nor Rodolphe answered him, whilst at the
slightest movement made by them he drew near, saying, "I beg your
pardon!" and raised his hat.
When they reached the farrier’s house, instead of following the road
up to the fence, Rodolphe suddenly turned down a path, drawing with him
Madame Bovary. He called out--
"Good evening, Monsieur Lheureux! See you again presently."
"How you got rid of him!" she said, laughing.
"Why," he went on, "allow oneself to be intruded upon by others? And as
to-day I have the happiness of being with you--"
Emma blushed. He did not finish his sentence. Then he talked of the fine
weather and of the pleasure of walking on the grass. A few daisies had
sprung up again.
"Here are some pretty Easter daisies," he said, "and enough of them to
furnish oracles to all the amorous maids in the place."
He added, "Shall I pick some? What do you think?"
"Are you in love?" she asked, coughing a little.
"H’m, h’m! who knows?" answered Rodolphe.
The meadow began to fill, and the housewives hustled you with their
great umbrellas, their baskets, and their babies. One had often to get
out of the way of a long file of country folk, servant-maids with blue
stockings, flat shoes, silver rings, and who smelt of milk, when one
passed close to them. They walked along holding one another by the hand,
and thus they spread over the whole field from the row of open trees to
the banquet tent.
But this was the examination time, and the farmers one after the other
entered a kind of enclosure formed by a long cord supported on sticks.
The beasts were there, their noses towards the cord, and making a
confused line with their unequal rumps. Drowsy pigs were burrowing in
the earth with their snouts, calves were bleating, lambs baaing; the
cows, on knees folded in, were stretching their bellies on the grass,
slowly chewing the cud, and blinking their heavy eyelids at the gnats
that buzzed round them. Plough-men with bare arms were holding by the
halter prancing stallions that neighed with dilated nostrils looking
towards the mares. These stood quietly, stretching out their heads and
flowing manes, while their foals rested in their shadow, or now and then
came and sucked them. And above the long undulation of these crowded
animals one saw some white mane rising in the wind like a wave, or some
sharp horns sticking out, and the heads of men running about. Apart,
outside the enclosure, a hundred paces off, was a large black bull,
muzzled, with an iron ring in its nostrils, and who moved no more than
if he had been in bronze. A child in rags was holding him by a rope.
Between the two lines the committee-men were walking with heavy steps,
examining each animal, then consulting one another in a low voice. One
who seemed of more importance now and then took notes in a book as he
walked along. This was the president of the jury, Monsieur Derozerays de
la Panville. As soon as he recognised Rodolphe he came forward quickly,
and smiling amiably, said--
"What! Monsieur Boulanger, you are deserting us?"
Rodolphe protested that he was just coming. But when the president had
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496
497
498
499
500