And she abruptly withdrew her hand to enter the chapel of the Virgin,
where, kneeling on a chair, she began to pray.
The young man was irritated at this bigot fancy; then he nevertheless
experienced a certain charm in seeing her, in the middle of a
rendezvous, thus lost in her devotions, like an Andalusian marchioness;
then he grew bored, for she seemed never coming to an end.
Emma prayed, or rather strove to pray, hoping that some sudden
resolution might descend to her from heaven; and to draw down divine
aid she filled full her eyes with the splendours of the tabernacle. She
breathed in the perfumes of the full-blown flowers in the large vases,
and listened to the stillness of the church, that only heightened the
tumult of her heart.
She rose, and they were about to leave, when the beadle came forward,
hurriedly saying--
"Madame, no doubt, does not belong to these parts? Madame would like to
see the curiosities of the church?"
"Oh, no!" cried the clerk.
"Why not?" said she. For she clung with her expiring virtue to the
Virgin, the sculptures, the tombs--anything.
Then, in order to proceed "by rule," the beadle conducted them right to
the entrance near the square, where, pointing out with his cane a large
circle of block-stones without inscription or carving--
"This," he said majestically, "is the circumference of the beautiful
bell of Ambroise. It weighed forty thousand pounds. There was not its
equal in all Europe. The workman who cast it died of the joy--"
"Let us go on," said Leon.
The old fellow started off again; then, having got back to the chapel of
the Virgin, he stretched forth his arm with an all-embracing gesture
of demonstration, and, prouder than a country squire showing you his
espaliers, went on--
"This simple stone covers Pierre de Breze, lord of Varenne and of
Brissac, grand marshal of Poitou, and governor of Normandy, who died at
the battle of Montlhery on the 16th of July, 1465."
Leon bit his lips, fuming.
"And on the right, this gentleman all encased in iron, on the
prancing horse, is his grandson, Louis de Breze, lord of Breval and of
Montchauvet, Count de Maulevrier, Baron de Mauny, chamberlain to the
king, Knight of the Order, and also governor of Normandy; died on the
23rd of July, 1531--a Sunday, as the inscription specifies; and below,
this figure, about to descend into the tomb, portrays the same person.
It is not possible, is it, to see a more perfect representation of
annihilation?"
Madame Bovary put up her eyeglasses. Leon, motionless, looked at her,
no longer even attempting to speak a single word, to make a gesture,
so discouraged was he at this two-fold obstinacy of gossip and
indifference.
The everlasting guide went on--
"Near him, this kneeling woman who weeps is his spouse, Diane de
Poitiers, Countess de Breze, Duchess de Valentinois, born in 1499, died
in 1566, and to the left, the one with the child is the Holy Virgin. Now
turn to this side; here are the tombs of the Ambroise. They were both
cardinals and archbishops of Rouen. That one was minister under Louis
XII. He did a great deal for the cathedral. In his will he left thirty
thousand gold crowns for the poor."
And without stopping, still talking, he pushed them into a chapel
full of balustrades, some put away, and disclosed a kind of block that
certainly might once have been an ill-made statue.
"Truly," he said with a groan, "it adorned the tomb of Richard Coeur de
Lion, King of England and Duke of Normandy. It was the Calvinists, sir,
who reduced it to this condition. They had buried it for spite in the
earth, under the episcopal seat of Monsignor. See! this is the door by
which Monsignor passes to his house. Let us pass on quickly to see the
gargoyle windows."
But Leon hastily took some silver from his pocket and seized Emma’s
arm. The beadle stood dumfounded, not able to understand this untimely
munificence when there were still so many things for the stranger to
see. So calling him back, he cried--
"Sir! sir! The steeple! the steeple!"
"No, thank you!" said Leon.
"You are wrong, sir! It is four hundred and forty feet high, nine less
than the great pyramid of Egypt. It is all cast; it--"
Leon was fleeing, for it seemed to him that his love, that for nearly
two hours now had become petrified in the church like the stones, would
vanish like a vapour through that sort of truncated funnel, of oblong
cage, of open chimney that rises so grotesquely from the cathedral like
the extravagant attempt of some fantastic brazier.
"But where are we going?" she said.
Making no answer, he walked on with a rapid step; and Madame Bovary
was already, dipping her finger in the holy water when behind them they
heard a panting breath interrupted by the regular sound of a cane. Leon
turned back.
"Sir!"
"What is it?"
And he recognised the beadle, holding under his arms and balancing
against his stomach some twenty large sewn volumes. They were works
"which treated of the cathedral."
"Idiot!" growled Leon, rushing out of the church.
A lad was playing about the close.
"Go and get me a cab!"
The child bounded off like a ball by the Rue Quatre-Vents; then they
were alone a few minutes, face to face, and a little embarrassed.
"Ah! Leon! Really--I don’t know--if I ought," she whispered. Then with a
more serious air, "Do you know, it is very improper--"
"How so?" replied the clerk. "It is done at Paris."
And that, as an irresistible argument, decided her.
Still the cab did not come. Leon was afraid she might go back into the
church. At last the cab appeared.
"At all events, go out by the north porch," cried the beadle, who was
left alone on the threshold, "so as to see the Resurrection, the Last
Judgment, Paradise, King David, and the Condemned in Hell-flames."
"Where to, sir?" asked the coachman.
"Where you like," said Leon, forcing Emma into the cab.
And the lumbering machine set out. It went down the Rue Grand-Pont,
crossed the Place des Arts, the Quai Napoleon, the Pont Neuf, and
stopped short before the statue of Pierre Corneille.
"Go on," cried a voice that came from within.
The cab went on again, and as soon as it reached the Carrefour
Lafayette, set off down-hill, and entered the station at a gallop.
"No, straight on!" cried the same voice.
The cab came out by the gate, and soon having reached the Cours, trotted
quietly beneath the elm-trees. The coachman wiped his brow, put his
leather hat between his knees, and drove his carriage beyond the side
alley by the meadow to the margin of the waters.
It went along by the river, along the towing-path paved with sharp
pebbles, and for a long while in the direction of Oyssel, beyond the
isles.
But suddenly it turned with a dash across Quatremares, Sotteville, La
Grande-Chaussee, the Rue d’Elbeuf, and made its third halt in front of
the Jardin des Plantes.
"Get on, will you?" cried the voice more furiously.
And at once resuming its course, it passed by Saint-Sever, by the
Quai’des Curandiers, the Quai aux Meules, once more over the bridge, by
the Place du Champ de Mars, and behind the hospital gardens, where old
men in black coats were walking in the sun along the terrace all green
with ivy. It went up the Boulevard Bouvreuil, along the Boulevard
Cauchoise, then the whole of Mont-Riboudet to the Deville hills.
It came back; and then, without any fixed plan or direction, wandered
about at hazard. The cab was seen at Saint-Pol, at Lescure, at Mont
Gargan, at La Rougue-Marc and Place du Gaillardbois; in the Rue
Maladrerie, Rue Dinanderie, before Saint-Romain, Saint-Vivien,
Saint-Maclou, Saint-Nicaise--in front of the Customs, at the "Vieille
Tour," the "Trois Pipes," and the Monumental Cemetery. From time to time
the coachman, on his box cast despairing eyes at the public-houses.
He could not understand what furious desire for locomotion urged these
individuals never to wish to stop. He tried to now and then, and at
once exclamations of anger burst forth behind him. Then he lashed his
perspiring jades afresh, but indifferent to their jolting, running up
against things here and there, not caring if he did, demoralised, and
almost weeping with thirst, fatigue, and depression.
And on the harbour, in the midst of the drays and casks, and in the
streets, at the corners, the good folk opened large wonder-stricken
eyes at this sight, so extraordinary in the provinces, a cab with blinds
drawn, and which appeared thus constantly shut more closely than a tomb,
and tossing about like a vessel.
Once in the middle of the day, in the open country, just as the sun
beat most fiercely against the old plated lanterns, a bared hand passed
beneath the small blinds of yellow canvas, and threw out some scraps
of paper that scattered in the wind, and farther off lighted like white
butterflies on a field of red clover all in bloom.
At about six o’clock the carriage stopped in a back street of the
Beauvoisine Quarter, and a woman got out, who walked with her veil down,
and without turning her head.
Chapter Two
On reaching the inn, Madame Bovary was surprised not to see the
diligence. Hivert, who had waited for her fifty-three minutes, had at
last started.
Yet nothing forced her to go; but she had given her word that she would
return that same evening. Moreover, Charles expected her, and in her
heart she felt already that cowardly docility that is for some women at
once the chastisement and atonement of adultery.
She packed her box quickly, paid her bill, took a cab in the yard,
hurrying on the driver, urging him on, every moment inquiring about
the time and the miles traversed. He succeeded in catching up the
"Hirondelle" as it neared the first houses of Quincampoix.
Hardly was she seated in her corner than she closed her eyes, and opened
them at the foot of the hill, when from afar she recognised Felicite,
who was on the lookout in front of the farrier’s shop. Hivert pulled
in his horses and, the servant, climbing up to the window, said
mysteriously--
"Madame, you must go at once to Monsieur Homais. It’s for something
important."
The village was silent as usual. At the corner of the streets were small
pink heaps that smoked in the air, for this was the time for jam-making,
and everyone at Yonville prepared his supply on the same day. But in
front of the chemist’s shop one might admire a far larger heap, and that
surpassed the others with the superiority that a laboratory must have
over ordinary stores, a general need over individual fancy.
She went in. The large arm-chair was upset, and even the "Fanal de
Rouen" lay on the ground, outspread between two pestles. She pushed open
the lobby door, and in the middle of the kitchen, amid brown jars full
of picked currants, of powdered sugar and lump sugar, of the scales on
the table, and of the pans on the fire, she saw all the Homais, small
and large, with aprons reaching to their chins, and with forks in their
hands. Justin was standing up with bowed head, and the chemist was
screaming--
"Who told you to go and fetch it in the Capharnaum."
"What is it? What is the matter?"
"What is it?" replied the druggist. "We are making preserves; they are
simmering; but they were about to boil over, because there is too
much juice, and I ordered another pan. Then he, from indolence, from
laziness, went and took, hanging on its nail in my laboratory, the key
of the Capharnaum."
It was thus the druggist called a small room under the leads, full of
the utensils and the goods of his trade. He often spent long hours there
alone, labelling, decanting, and doing up again; and he looked upon
it not as a simple store, but as a veritable sanctuary, whence there
afterwards issued, elaborated by his hands, all sorts of pills, boluses,
infusions, lotions, and potions, that would bear far and wide his
celebrity. No one in the world set foot there, and he respected it so,
that he swept it himself. Finally, if the pharmacy, open to all comers,
was the spot where he displayed his pride, the Capharnaum was the refuge
where, egoistically concentrating himself, Homais delighted in the
exercise of his predilections, so that Justin’s thoughtlessness seemed
to him a monstrous piece of irreverence, and, redder than the currants,
he repeated--
"Yes, from the Capharnaum! The key that locks up the acids and caustic
alkalies! To go and get a spare pan! a pan with a lid! and that I
shall perhaps never use! Everything is of importance in the delicate
operations of our art! But, devil take it! one must make distinctions,
and not employ for almost domestic purposes that which is meant for
pharmaceutical! It is as if one were to carve a fowl with a scalpel; as
if a magistrate--"
"Now be calm," said Madame Homais.
And Athalie, pulling at his coat, cried "Papa! papa!"
"No, let me alone," went on the druggist "let me alone, hang it! My
word! One might as well set up for a grocer. That’s it! go it! respect
nothing! break, smash, let loose the leeches, burn the mallow-paste,
pickle the gherkins in the window jars, tear up the bandages!"
"I thought you had--" said Emma.
"Presently! Do you know to what you exposed yourself? Didn’t you see
anything in the corner, on the left, on the third shelf? Speak, answer,
articulate something."
"I--don’t--know," stammered the young fellow.
"Ah! you don’t know! Well, then, I do know! You saw a bottle of blue
glass, sealed with yellow wax, that contains a white powder, on which I
have even written ‘Dangerous!’ And do you know what is in it? Arsenic!
And you go and touch it! You take a pan that was next to it!"
"Next to it!" cried Madame Homais, clasping her hands. "Arsenic! You
might have poisoned us all."
And the children began howling as if they already had frightful pains in
their entrails.
"Or poison a patient!" continued the druggist. "Do you want to see me
in the prisoner’s dock with criminals, in a court of justice? To see
me dragged to the scaffold? Don’t you know what care I take in managing
things, although I am so thoroughly used to it? Often I am horrified
myself when I think of my responsibility; for the Government persecutes
us, and the absurd legislation that rules us is a veritable Damocles’
sword over our heads."
Emma no longer dreamed of asking what they wanted her for, and the
druggist went on in breathless phrases--
"That is your return for all the kindness we have shown you! That is how
you recompense me for the really paternal care that I lavish on you! For
without me where would you be? What would you be doing? Who provides
you with food, education, clothes, and all the means of figuring one day
with honour in the ranks of society? But you must pull hard at the oar
if you’re to do that, and get, as, people say, callosities upon your
hands. Fabricando fit faber, age quod agis.*"
* The worker lives by working, do what he will.
He was so exasperated he quoted Latin. He would have quoted Chinese
or Greenlandish had he known those two languages, for he was in one
of those crises in which the whole soul shows indistinctly what it
contains, like the ocean, which, in the storm, opens itself from the
seaweeds on its shores down to the sands of its abysses.
And he went on--
"I am beginning to repent terribly of having taken you up! I should
certainly have done better to have left you to rot in your poverty and
the dirt in which you were born. Oh, you’ll never be fit for anything
but to herd animals with horns! You have no aptitude for science! You
hardly know how to stick on a label! And there you are, dwelling with me
snug as a parson, living in clover, taking your ease!"
But Emma, turning to Madame Homais, "I was told to come here--"
"Oh, dear me!" interrupted the good woman, with a sad air, "how am I to
tell you? It is a misfortune!"
She could not finish, the druggist was thundering--"Empty it! Clean it!
Take it back! Be quick!"
And seizing Justin by the collar of his blouse, he shook a book out of
his pocket. The lad stooped, but Homais was the quicker, and, having
picked up the volume, contemplated it with staring eyes and open mouth.
"CONJUGAL--LOVE!" he said, slowly separating the two words. "Ah! very
good! very good! very pretty! And illustrations! Oh, this is too much!"
Madame Homais came forward.
"No, do not touch it!"
The children wanted to look at the pictures.
"Leave the room," he said imperiously; and they went out.
First he walked up and down with the open volume in his hand, rolling
his eyes, choking, tumid, apoplectic. Then he came straight to his
pupil, and, planting himself in front of him with crossed arms--
"Have you every vice, then, little wretch? Take care! you are on a
downward path. Did not you reflect that this infamous book might fall
in the hands of my children, kindle a spark in their minds, tarnish the
purity of Athalie, corrupt Napoleon. He is already formed like a man.
Are you quite sure, anyhow, that they have not read it? Can you certify
to me--"
"But really, sir," said Emma, "you wished to tell me--"
"Ah, yes! madame. Your father-in-law is dead."
In fact, Monsieur Bovary senior had expired the evening before suddenly
from an attack of apoplexy as he got up from table, and by way of
greater precaution, on account of Emma’s sensibility, Charles had begged
Homais to break the horrible news to her gradually. Homais had thought
over his speech; he had rounded, polished it, made it rhythmical; it was
a masterpiece of prudence and transitions, of subtle turns and delicacy;
but anger had got the better of rhetoric.
Emma, giving up all chance of hearing any details, left the pharmacy;
for Monsieur Homais had taken up the thread of his vituperations.
However, he was growing calmer, and was now grumbling in a paternal tone
whilst he fanned himself with his skull-cap.
"It is not that I entirely disapprove of the work. Its author was a
doctor! There are certain scientific points in it that it is not ill a
man should know, and I would even venture to say that a man must know.
But later--later! At any rate, not till you are man yourself and your
temperament is formed."
When Emma knocked at the door. Charles, who was waiting for her, came
forward with open arms and said to her with tears in his voice--
"Ah! my dear!"
And he bent over her gently to kiss her. But at the contact of his lips
the memory of the other seized her, and she passed her hand over her
face shuddering.
But she made answer, "Yes, I know, I know!"
He showed her the letter in which his mother told the event without any
sentimental hypocrisy. She only regretted her husband had not received
the consolations of religion, as he had died at Daudeville, in the
street, at the door of a cafe after a patriotic dinner with some
ex-officers.
Emma gave him back the letter; then at dinner, for appearance’s sake,
she affected a certain repugnance. But as he urged her to try, she
resolutely began eating, while Charles opposite her sat motionless in a
dejected attitude.
Now and then he raised his head and gave her a long look full of
distress. Once he sighed, "I should have liked to see him again!"
She was silent. At last, understanding that she must say something, "How
old was your father?" she asked.
"Fifty-eight."
"Ah!"
And that was all.
A quarter of an hour after he added, "My poor mother! what will become
of her now?"
She made a gesture that signified she did not know. Seeing her so
taciturn, Charles imagined her much affected, and forced himself to say
nothing, not to reawaken this sorrow which moved him. And, shaking off
his own--
"Did you enjoy yourself yesterday?" he asked.
"Yes."
When the cloth was removed, Bovary did not rise, nor did Emma; and as
she looked at him, the monotony of the spectacle drove little by little
all pity from her heart. He seemed to her paltry, weak, a cipher--in
a word, a poor thing in every way. How to get rid of him? What an
interminable evening! Something stupefying like the fumes of opium
seized her.
They heard in the passage the sharp noise of a wooden leg on the boards.
It was Hippolyte bringing back Emma’s luggage. In order to put it down
he described painfully a quarter of a circle with his stump.
"He doesn’t even remember any more about it," she thought, looking at
the poor devil, whose coarse red hair was wet with perspiration.
Bovary was searching at the bottom of his purse for a centime, and
without appearing to understand all there was of humiliation for him
in the mere presence of this man, who stood there like a personified
reproach to his incurable incapacity.
"Hallo! you’ve a pretty bouquet," he said, noticing Leon’s violets on
the chimney.
"Yes," she replied indifferently; "it’s a bouquet I bought just now from
a beggar."
Charles picked up the flowers, and freshening his eyes, red with tears,
against them, smelt them delicately.
She took them quickly from his hand and put them in a glass of water.
The next day Madame Bovary senior arrived. She and her son wept much.
Emma, on the pretext of giving orders, disappeared. The following day
they had a talk over the mourning. They went and sat down with their
workboxes by the waterside under the arbour.
Charles was thinking of his father, and was surprised to feel so much
affection for this man, whom till then he had thought he cared little
about. Madame Bovary senior was thinking of her husband. The worst
days of the past seemed enviable to her. All was forgotten beneath the
instinctive regret of such a long habit, and from time to time whilst
she sewed, a big tear rolled along her nose and hung suspended there a
moment. Emma was thinking that it was scarcely forty-eight hours since
they had been together, far from the world, all in a frenzy of joy, and
not having eyes enough to gaze upon each other. She tried to recall the
slightest details of that past day. But the presence of her husband and
mother-in-law worried her. She would have liked to hear nothing, to see
nothing, so as not to disturb the meditation on her love, that, do what
she would, became lost in external sensations.
She was unpicking the lining of a dress, and the strips were scattered
around her. Madame Bovary senior was plying her scissor without looking
up, and Charles, in his list slippers and his old brown surtout that he
used as a dressing-gown, sat with both hands in his pockets, and did not
speak either; near them Berthe, in a little white pinafore, was raking
sand in the walks with her spade. Suddenly she saw Monsieur Lheureux,
the linendraper, come in through the gate.
He came to offer his services "under the sad circumstances." Emma
answered that she thought she could do without. The shopkeeper was not
to be beaten.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "but I should like to have a private talk
with you." Then in a low voice, "It’s about that affair--you know."
Charles crimsoned to his ears. "Oh, yes! certainly." And in his
confusion, turning to his wife, "Couldn’t you, my darling?"
She seemed to understand him, for she rose; and Charles said to his
mother, "It is nothing particular. No doubt, some household trifle." He
did not want her to know the story of the bill, fearing her reproaches.
As soon as they were alone, Monsieur Lheureux in sufficiently clear
terms began to congratulate Emma on the inheritance, then to talk of
indifferent matters, of the espaliers, of the harvest, and of his own
health, which was always so-so, always having ups and downs. In fact, he
had to work devilish hard, although he didn’t make enough, in spite of
all people said, to find butter for his bread.
Emma let him talk on. She had bored herself so prodigiously the last two
days.
"And so you’re quite well again?" he went on. "Ma foi! I saw your
husband in a sad state. He’s a good fellow, though we did have a little
misunderstanding."
She asked what misunderstanding, for Charles had said nothing of the
dispute about the goods supplied to her.
"Why, you know well enough," cried Lheureux. "It was about your little
fancies--the travelling trunks."
He had drawn his hat over his eyes, and, with his hands behind his
back, smiling and whistling, he looked straight at her in an unbearable
manner. Did he suspect anything?
She was lost in all kinds of apprehensions. At last, however, he went
on--
"We made it up, all the same, and I’ve come again to propose another
arrangement."
This was to renew the bill Bovary had signed. The doctor, of course,
would do as he pleased; he was not to trouble himself, especially just
now, when he would have a lot of worry. "And he would do better to give
it over to someone else--to you, for example. With a power of attorney
it could be easily managed, and then we (you and I) would have our
little business transactions together."
She did not understand. He was silent. Then, passing to his trade,
Lheureux declared that madame must require something. He would send her
a black barege, twelve yards, just enough to make a gown.
"The one you’ve on is good enough for the house, but you want another
for calls. I saw that the very moment that I came in. I’ve the eye of an
American!"
He did not send the stuff; he brought it. Then he came again to measure
it; he came again on other pretexts, always trying to make himself
agreeable, useful, "enfeoffing himself," as Homais would have said, and
always dropping some hint to Emma about the power of attorney. He never
mentioned the bill; she did not think of it. Charles, at the beginning
of her convalescence, had certainly said something about it to her,
but so many emotions had passed through her head that she no longer
remembered it. Besides, she took care not to talk of any money
questions. Madame Bovary seemed surprised at this, and attributed the
change in her ways to the religious sentiments she had contracted during
her illness.
But as soon as she was gone, Emma greatly astounded Bovary by her
practical good sense. It would be necessary to make inquiries, to look
into mortgages, and see if there were any occasion for a sale by auction
or a liquidation. She quoted technical terms casually, pronounced the
grand words of order, the future, foresight, and constantly exaggerated
the difficulties of settling his father’s affairs so much, that at last
one day she showed him the rough draft of a power of attorney to manage
and administer his business, arrange all loans, sign and endorse all
bills, pay all sums, etc. She had profited by Lheureux’s lessons.
Charles naively asked her where this paper came from.
"Monsieur Guillaumin"; and with the utmost coolness she added, "I don’t
trust him overmuch. Notaries have such a bad reputation. Perhaps we
ought to consult--we only know--no one."
"Unless Leon--" replied Charles, who was reflecting. But it was
difficult to explain matters by letter. Then she offered to make the
journey, but he thanked her. She insisted. It was quite a contest of
mutual consideration. At last she cried with affected waywardness--
"No, I will go!"
"How good you are!" he said, kissing her forehead.
The next morning she set out in the "Hirondelle" to go to Rouen to
consult Monsieur Leon, and she stayed there three days.
Chapter Three
They were three full, exquisite days--a true honeymoon. They were at
the Hotel-de-Boulogne, on the harbour; and they lived there, with drawn
blinds and closed doors, with flowers on the floor, and iced syrups were
brought them early in the morning.
Towards evening they took a covered boat and went to dine on one of the
islands. It was the time when one hears by the side of the dockyard the
caulking-mallets sounding against the hull of vessels. The smoke of
the tar rose up between the trees; there were large fatty drops on the
water, undulating in the purple colour of the sun, like floating plaques
of Florentine bronze.
They rowed down in the midst of moored boats, whose long oblique cables
grazed lightly against the bottom of the boat. The din of the town
gradually grew distant; the rolling of carriages, the tumult of voices,
the yelping of dogs on the decks of vessels. She took off her bonnet,
and they landed on their island.
They sat down in the low-ceilinged room of a tavern, at whose door hung
black nets. They ate fried smelts, cream and cherries. They lay down
upon the grass; they kissed behind the poplars; and they would fain,
like two Robinsons, have lived for ever in this little place, which
seemed to them in their beatitude the most magnificent on earth. It was
not the first time that they had seen trees, a blue sky, meadows; that
they had heard the water flowing and the wind blowing in the leaves;
but, no doubt, they had never admired all this, as if Nature had
not existed before, or had only begun to be beautiful since the
gratification of their desires.
At night they returned. The boat glided along the shores of the islands.
They sat at the bottom, both hidden by the shade, in silence. The square
oars rang in the iron thwarts, and, in the stillness, seemed to mark
time, like the beating of a metronome, while at the stern the rudder
that trailed behind never ceased its gentle splash against the water.
Once the moon rose; they did not fail to make fine phrases, finding the
orb melancholy and full of poetry. She even began to sing--
"One night, do you remember, we were sailing," etc.
Her musical but weak voice died away along the waves, and the winds
carried off the trills that Leon heard pass like the flapping of wings
about him.
She was opposite him, leaning against the partition of the shallop,
through one of whose raised blinds the moon streamed in. Her black
dress, whose drapery spread out like a fan, made her seem more slender,
taller. Her head was raised, her hands clasped, her eyes turned towards
heaven. At times the shadow of the willows hid her completely; then she
reappeared suddenly, like a vision in the moonlight.
Leon, on the floor by her side, found under his hand a ribbon of scarlet
silk. The boatman looked at it, and at last said--
"Perhaps it belongs to the party I took out the other day. A lot
of jolly folk, gentlemen and ladies, with cakes, champagne,
cornets--everything in style! There was one especially, a tall handsome
man with small moustaches, who was that funny! And they all kept saying,
‘Now tell us something, Adolphe--Dolpe,’ I think."
She shivered.
"You are in pain?" asked Leon, coming closer to her.
"Oh, it’s nothing! No doubt, it is only the night air."
"And who doesn’t want for women, either," softly added the sailor,
thinking he was paying the stranger a compliment.
Then, spitting on his hands, he took the oars again.
Yet they had to part. The adieux were sad. He was to send his letters to
Mere Rollet, and she gave him such precise instructions about a double
envelope that he admired greatly her amorous astuteness.
"So you can assure me it is all right?" she said with her last kiss.
"Yes, certainly."
"But why," he thought afterwards as he came back through the streets
alone, "is she so very anxious to get this power of attorney?"
Chapter Four
Leon soon put on an air of superiority before his comrades, avoided
their company, and completely neglected his work.
He waited for her letters; he re-read them; he wrote to her. He called
her to mind with all the strength of his desires and of his memories.
Instead of lessening with absence, this longing to see her again grew,
so that at last on Saturday morning he escaped from his office.
When, from the summit of the hill, he saw in the valley below the
church-spire with its tin flag swinging in the wind, he felt that
delight mingled with triumphant vanity and egoistic tenderness that
millionaires must experience when they come back to their native
village.
He went rambling round her house. A light was burning in the kitchen. He
watched for her shadow behind the curtains, but nothing appeared.
Mere Lefrancois, when she saw him, uttered many exclamations. She
thought he "had grown and was thinner," while Artemise, on the contrary,
thought him stouter and darker.
He dined in the little room as of yore, but alone, without the
tax-gatherer; for Binet, tired of waiting for the "Hirondelle," had
definitely put forward his meal one hour, and now he dined punctually at
five, and yet he declared usually the rickety old concern "was late."
Leon, however, made up his mind, and knocked at the doctor’s door.
Madame was in her room, and did not come down for a quarter of an hour.
The doctor seemed delighted to see him, but he never stirred out that
evening, nor all the next day.
He saw her alone in the evening, very late, behind the garden in the
lane; in the lane, as she had the other one! It was a stormy night, and
they talked under an umbrella by lightning flashes.
Their separation was becoming intolerable. "I would rather die!" said
Emma. She was writhing in his arms, weeping. "Adieu! adieu! When shall I
see you again?"
They came back again to embrace once more, and it was then that
she promised him to find soon, by no matter what means, a regular
opportunity for seeing one another in freedom at least once a week. Emma
never doubted she should be able to do this. Besides, she was full of
hope. Some money was coming to her.
On the strength of it she bought a pair of yellow curtains with large
stripes for her room, whose cheapness Monsieur Lheureux had commended;
she dreamed of getting a carpet, and Lheureux, declaring that it wasn’t
"drinking the sea," politely undertook to supply her with one. She could
no longer do without his services. Twenty times a day she sent for him,
and he at once put by his business without a murmur. People could not
understand either why Mere Rollet breakfasted with her every day, and
even paid her private visits.
It was about this time, that is to say, the beginning of winter, that
she seemed seized with great musical fervour.
One evening when Charles was listening to her, she began the same piece
four times over, each time with much vexation, while he, not noticing
any difference, cried--
"Bravo! very goodl You are wrong to stop. Go on!"
"Oh, no; it is execrable! My fingers are quite rusty."
The next day he begged her to play him something again.
"Very well; to please you!"
And Charles confessed she had gone off a little. She played wrong notes
and blundered; then, stopping short--
"Ah! it is no use. I ought to take some lessons; but--" She bit her lips
and added, "Twenty francs a lesson, that’s too dear!"
"Yes, so it is--rather," said Charles, giggling stupidly. "But it seems
to me that one might be able to do it for less; for there are artists of
no reputation, and who are often better than the celebrities."
"Find them!" said Emma.
The next day when he came home he looked at her shyly, and at last could
no longer keep back the words.
"How obstinate you are sometimes! I went to Barfucheres to-day. Well,
Madame Liegard assured me that her three young ladies who are at
La Misericorde have lessons at fifty sous apiece, and that from an
excellent mistress!"
She shrugged her shoulders and did not open her piano again. But when
she passed by it (if Bovary were there), she sighed--
"Ah! my poor piano!"
And when anyone came to see her, she did not fail to inform them she
had given up music, and could not begin again now for important reasons.
Then people commiserated her--
"What a pity! she had so much talent!"
They even spoke to Bovary about it. They put him to shame, and
especially the chemist.
"You are wrong. One should never let any of the faculties of nature lie
fallow. Besides, just think, my good friend, that by inducing madame to
study; you are economising on the subsequent musical education of
your child. For my own part, I think that mothers ought themselves to
instruct their children. That is an idea of Rousseau’s, still rather
new perhaps, but that will end by triumphing, I am certain of it, like
mothers nursing their own children and vaccination."
So Charles returned once more to this question of the piano. Emma
replied bitterly that it would be better to sell it. This poor piano,
that had given her vanity so much satisfaction--to see it go was to
Bovary like the indefinable suicide of a part of herself.
"If you liked," he said, "a lesson from time to time, that wouldn’t
after all be very ruinous."
"But lessons," she replied, "are only of use when followed up."
And thus it was she set about obtaining her husband’s permission to go
to town once a week to see her lover. At the end of a month she was even
considered to have made considerable progress.
Chapter Five
She went on Thursdays. She got up and dressed silently, in order not to
awaken Charles, who would have made remarks about her getting ready too
early. Next she walked up and down, went to the windows, and looked out
at the Place. The early dawn was broadening between the pillars of the
market, and the chemist’s shop, with the shutters still up, showed in
the pale light of the dawn the large letters of his signboard.
When the clock pointed to a quarter past seven, she went off to the
"Lion d’Or," whose door Artemise opened yawning. The girl then made
up the coals covered by the cinders, and Emma remained alone in the
kitchen. Now and again she went out. Hivert was leisurely harnessing his
horses, listening, moreover, to Mere Lefrancois, who, passing her head
and nightcap through a grating, was charging him with commissions and
giving him explanations that would have confused anyone else. Emma kept
beating the soles of her boots against the pavement of the yard.
At last, when he had eaten his soup, put on his cloak, lighted his pipe,
and grasped his whip, he calmly installed himself on his seat.
The "Hirondelle" started at a slow trot, and for about a mile stopped
here and there to pick up passengers who waited for it, standing at the
border of the road, in front of their yard gates.
Those who had secured seats the evening before kept it waiting; some
even were still in bed in their houses. Hivert called, shouted, swore;
then he got down from his seat and went and knocked loudly at the doors.
The wind blew through the cracked windows.
The four seats, however, filled up. The carriage rolled off; rows of
apple-trees followed one upon another, and the road between its two long
ditches, full of yellow water, rose, constantly narrowing towards the
horizon.
Emma knew it from end to end; she knew that after a meadow there was
a sign-post, next an elm, a barn, or the hut of a lime-kiln tender.
Sometimes even, in the hope of getting some surprise, she shut her eyes,
but she never lost the clear perception of the distance to be traversed.
At last the brick houses began to follow one another more closely, the
earth resounded beneath the wheels, the "Hirondelle" glided between the
gardens, where through an opening one saw statues, a periwinkle plant,
clipped yews, and a swing. Then on a sudden the town appeared. Sloping
down like an amphitheatre, and drowned in the fog, it widened out
beyond the bridges confusedly. Then the open country spread away with
a monotonous movement till it touched in the distance the vague line of
the pale sky. Seen thus from above, the whole landscape looked immovable
as a picture; the anchored ships were massed in one corner, the river
curved round the foot of the green hills, and the isles, oblique in
shape, lay on the water, like large, motionless, black fishes. The
factory chimneys belched forth immense brown fumes that were blown away
at the top. One heard the rumbling of the foundries, together with the
clear chimes of the churches that stood out in the mist. The leafless
trees on the boulevards made violet thickets in the midst of the
houses, and the roofs, all shining with the rain, threw back unequal
reflections, according to the height of the quarters in which they were.
Sometimes a gust of wind drove the clouds towards the Saint Catherine
hills, like aerial waves that broke silently against a cliff.
A giddiness seemed to her to detach itself from this mass of existence,
and her heart swelled as if the hundred and twenty thousand souls that
palpitated there had all at once sent into it the vapour of the passions
she fancied theirs. Her love grew in the presence of this vastness, and
expanded with tumult to the vague murmurings that rose towards her. She
poured it out upon the square, on the walks, on the streets, and the
old Norman city outspread before her eyes as an enormous capital, as a
Babylon into which she was entering. She leant with both hands against
the window, drinking in the breeze; the three horses galloped, the
stones grated in the mud, the diligence rocked, and Hivert, from afar,
hailed the carts on the road, while the bourgeois who had spent the
night at the Guillaume woods came quietly down the hill in their little
family carriages.
They stopped at the barrier; Emma undid her overshoes, put on other
gloves, rearranged her shawl, and some twenty paces farther she got down
from the "Hirondelle."
The town was then awakening. Shop-boys in caps were cleaning up the
shop-fronts, and women with baskets against their hips, at intervals
uttered sonorous cries at the corners of streets. She walked with
downcast eyes, close to the walls, and smiling with pleasure under her
lowered black veil.
For fear of being seen, she did not usually take the most direct road.
She plunged into dark alleys, and, all perspiring, reached the bottom
of the Rue Nationale, near the fountain that stands there. It is the
quarter for theatres, public-houses, and whores. Often a cart would
pass near her, bearing some shaking scenery. Waiters in aprons were
sprinkling sand on the flagstones between green shrubs. It all smelt of
absinthe, cigars, and oysters.
She turned down a street; she recognised him by his curling hair that
escaped from beneath his hat.
Leon walked along the pavement. She followed him to the hotel. He went
up, opened the door, entered--What an embrace!
Then, after the kisses, the words gushed forth. They told each other the
sorrows of the week, the presentiments, the anxiety for the letters; but
now everything was forgotten; they gazed into each other’s faces with
voluptuous laughs, and tender names.
The bed was large, of mahogany, in the shape of a boat. The curtains
were in red levantine, that hung from the ceiling and bulged out too
much towards the bell-shaped bedside; and nothing in the world was so
lovely as her brown head and white skin standing out against this purple
colour, when, with a movement of shame, she crossed her bare arms,
hiding her face in her hands.
The warm room, with its discreet carpet, its gay ornaments, and its
calm light, seemed made for the intimacies of passion. The curtain-rods,
ending in arrows, their brass pegs, and the great balls of the fire-dogs
shone suddenly when the sun came in. On the chimney between the
candelabra there were two of those pink shells in which one hears the
murmur of the sea if one holds them to the ear.
How they loved that dear room, so full of gaiety, despite its rather
faded splendour! They always found the furniture in the same place, and
sometimes hairpins, that she had forgotten the Thursday before, under
the pedestal of the clock. They lunched by the fireside on a little
round table, inlaid with rosewood. Emma carved, put bits on his plate
with all sorts of coquettish ways, and she laughed with a sonorous and
libertine laugh when the froth of the champagne ran over from the
glass to the rings on her fingers. They were so completely lost in
the possession of each other that they thought themselves in their
own house, and that they would live there till death, like two spouses
eternally young. They said "our room," "our carpet," she even said "my
slippers," a gift of Leon’s, a whim she had had. They were pink satin,
bordered with swansdown. When she sat on his knees, her leg, then too
short, hung in the air, and the dainty shoe, that had no back to it, was
held only by the toes to her bare foot.
He for the first time enjoyed the inexpressible delicacy of feminine
refinements. He had never met this grace of language, this reserve of
clothing, these poses of the weary dove. He admired the exaltation of
her soul and the lace on her petticoat. Besides, was she not "a lady"
and a married woman--a real mistress, in fine?
By the diversity of her humour, in turn mystical or mirthful, talkative,
taciturn, passionate, careless, she awakened in him a thousand desires,
called up instincts or memories. She was the mistress of all the novels,
the heroine of all the dramas, the vague "she" of all the volumes
of verse. He found again on her shoulder the amber colouring of the
"Odalisque Bathing"; she had the long waist of feudal chatelaines, and
she resembled the "Pale Woman of Barcelona." But above all she was the
Angel!
Often looking at her, it seemed to him that his soul, escaping towards
her, spread like a wave about the outline of her head, and descended
drawn down into the whiteness of her breast. He knelt on the ground
before her, and with both elbows on her knees looked at her with a
smile, his face upturned.
She bent over him, and murmured, as if choking with intoxication--
"Oh, do not move! do not speak! look at me! Something so sweet comes
from your eyes that helps me so much!"
She called him "child." "Child, do you love me?"
And she did not listen for his answer in the haste of her lips that
fastened to his mouth.
On the clock there was a bronze cupid, who smirked as he bent his arm
beneath a golden garland. They had laughed at it many a time, but when
they had to part everything seemed serious to them.
Motionless in front of each other, they kept repeating, "Till Thursday,
till Thursday."
Suddenly she seized his head between her hands, kissed him hurriedly on
the forehead, crying, "Adieu!" and rushed down the stairs.
She went to a hairdresser’s in the Rue de la Comedie to have her hair
arranged. Night fell; the gas was lighted in the shop. She heard the
bell at the theatre calling the mummers to the performance, and she saw,
passing opposite, men with white faces and women in faded gowns going in
at the stage-door.
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