It was hot in the room, small, and too low where the stove was hissing
in the midst of wigs and pomades. The smell of the tongs, together with
the greasy hands that handled her head, soon stunned her, and she dozed
a little in her wrapper. Often, as he did her hair, the man offered her
tickets for a masked ball.
Then she went away. She went up the streets; reached the Croix-Rouge,
put on her overshoes, that she had hidden in the morning under the seat,
and sank into her place among the impatient passengers. Some got out
at the foot of the hill. She remained alone in the carriage. At every
turning all the lights of the town were seen more and more completely,
making a great luminous vapour about the dim houses. Emma knelt on the
cushions and her eyes wandered over the dazzling light. She sobbed;
called on Leon, sent him tender words and kisses lost in the wind.
On the hillside a poor devil wandered about with his stick in the midst
of the diligences. A mass of rags covered his shoulders, and an old
staved-in beaver, turned out like a basin, hid his face; but when he
took it off he discovered in the place of eyelids empty and bloody
orbits. The flesh hung in red shreds, and there flowed from it liquids
that congealed into green scale down to the nose, whose black nostrils
sniffed convulsively. To speak to you he threw back his head with an
idiotic laugh; then his bluish eyeballs, rolling constantly, at the
temples beat against the edge of the open wound. He sang a little song
as he followed the carriages--
"Maids an the warmth of a summer day Dream of love, and of love always"
And all the rest was about birds and sunshine and green leaves.
Sometimes he appeared suddenly behind Emma, bareheaded, and she drew
back with a cry. Hivert made fun of him. He would advise him to get a
booth at the Saint Romain fair, or else ask him, laughing, how his young
woman was.
Often they had started when, with a sudden movement, his hat entered the
diligence through the small window, while he clung with his other arm
to the footboard, between the wheels splashing mud. His voice, feeble
at first and quavering, grew sharp; it resounded in the night like the
indistinct moan of a vague distress; and through the ringing of the
bells, the murmur of the trees, and the rumbling of the empty vehicle,
it had a far-off sound that disturbed Emma. It went to the bottom of
her soul, like a whirlwind in an abyss, and carried her away into the
distances of a boundless melancholy. But Hivert, noticing a weight
behind, gave the blind man sharp cuts with his whip. The thong lashed
his wounds, and he fell back into the mud with a yell. Then the
passengers in the "Hirondelle" ended by falling asleep, some with open
mouths, others with lowered chins, leaning against their neighbour’s
shoulder, or with their arm passed through the strap, oscillating
regularly with the jolting of the carriage; and the reflection of the
lantern swinging without, on the crupper of the wheeler; penetrating
into the interior through the chocolate calico curtains, threw
sanguineous shadows over all these motionless people. Emma, drunk with
grief, shivered in her clothes, feeling her feet grow colder and colder,
and death in her soul.
Charles at home was waiting for her; the "Hirondelle" was always late
on Thursdays. Madame arrived at last, and scarcely kissed the child. The
dinner was not ready. No matter! She excused the servant. This girl now
seemed allowed to do just as she liked.
Often her husband, noting her pallor, asked if she were unwell.
"No," said Emma.
"But," he replied, "you seem so strange this evening."
"Oh, it’s nothing! nothing!"
There were even days when she had no sooner come in than she went up to
her room; and Justin, happening to be there, moved about noiselessly,
quicker at helping her than the best of maids. He put the matches
ready, the candlestick, a book, arranged her nightgown, turned back the
bedclothes.
"Come!" said she, "that will do. Now you can go."
For he stood there, his hands hanging down and his eyes wide open, as if
enmeshed in the innumerable threads of a sudden reverie.
The following day was frightful, and those that came after still more
unbearable, because of her impatience to once again seize her happiness;
an ardent lust, inflamed by the images of past experience, and that
burst forth freely on the seventh day beneath Leon’s caresses. His
ardours were hidden beneath outbursts of wonder and gratitude. Emma
tasted this love in a discreet, absorbed fashion, maintained it by all
the artifices of her tenderness, and trembled a little lest it should be
lost later on.
She often said to him, with her sweet, melancholy voice--
"Ah! you too, you will leave me! You will marry! You will be like all
the others."
He asked, "What others?"
"Why, like all men," she replied. Then added, repulsing him with a
languid movement--
"You are all evil!"
One day, as they were talking philosophically of earthly disillusions,
to experiment on his jealousy, or yielding, perhaps, to an over-strong
need to pour out her heart, she told him that formerly, before him, she
had loved someone.
"Not like you," she went on quickly, protesting by the head of her child
that "nothing had passed between them."
The young man believed her, but none the less questioned her to find out
what he was.
"He was a ship’s captain, my dear."
Was this not preventing any inquiry, and, at the same time, assuming a
higher ground through this pretended fascination exercised over a man
who must have been of warlike nature and accustomed to receive homage?
The clerk then felt the lowliness of his position; he longed for
epaulettes, crosses, titles. All that would please her--he gathered that
from her spendthrift habits.
Emma nevertheless concealed many of these extravagant fancies, such as
her wish to have a blue tilbury to drive into Rouen, drawn by an English
horse and driven by a groom in top-boots. It was Justin who had inspired
her with this whim, by begging her to take him into her service as
valet-de-chambre*, and if the privation of it did not lessen the
pleasure of her arrival at each rendezvous, it certainly augmented the
bitterness of the return.
* Manservant.
Often, when they talked together of Paris, she ended by murmuring, "Ah!
how happy we should be there!"
"Are we not happy?" gently answered the young man passing his hands over
her hair.
"Yes, that is true," she said. "I am mad. Kiss me!"
To her husband she was more charming than ever. She made him
pistachio-creams, and played him waltzes after dinner. So he thought
himself the most fortunate of men and Emma was without uneasiness, when,
one evening suddenly he said--
"It is Mademoiselle Lempereur, isn’t it, who gives you lessons?"
"Yes."
"Well, I saw her just now," Charles went on, "at Madame Liegeard’s. I
spoke to her about you, and she doesn’t know you."
This was like a thunderclap. However, she replied quite naturally--
"Ah! no doubt she forgot my name."
"But perhaps," said the doctor, "there are several Demoiselles Lempereur
at Rouen who are music-mistresses."
"Possibly!" Then quickly--"But I have my receipts here. See!"
And she went to the writing-table, ransacked all the drawers, rummaged
the papers, and at last lost her head so completely that Charles
earnestly begged her not to take so much trouble about those wretched
receipts.
"Oh, I will find them," she said.
And, in fact, on the following Friday, as Charles was putting on one
of his boots in the dark cabinet where his clothes were kept, he felt
a piece of paper between the leather and his sock. He took it out and
read--
"Received, for three months’ lessons and several pieces of music, the
sum of sixty-three francs.--Felicie Lempereur, professor of music."
"How the devil did it get into my boots?"
"It must," she replied, "have fallen from the old box of bills that is
on the edge of the shelf."
From that moment her existence was but one long tissue of lies, in which
she enveloped her love as in veils to hide it. It was a want, a mania,
a pleasure carried to such an extent that if she said she had the day
before walked on the right side of a road, one might know she had taken
the left.
One morning, when she had gone, as usual, rather lightly clothed, it
suddenly began to snow, and as Charles was watching the weather from the
window, he caught sight of Monsieur Bournisien in the chaise of Monsieur
Tuvache, who was driving him to Rouen. Then he went down to give the
priest a thick shawl that he was to hand over to Emma as soon as he
reached the "Croix-Rouge." When he got to the inn, Monsieur Bournisien
asked for the wife of the Yonville doctor. The landlady replied that
she very rarely came to her establishment. So that evening, when he
recognised Madame Bovary in the "Hirondelle," the cure told her his
dilemma, without, however, appearing to attach much importance to it,
for he began praising a preacher who was doing wonders at the Cathedral,
and whom all the ladies were rushing to hear.
Still, if he did not ask for any explanation, others, later on, might
prove less discreet. So she thought well to get down each time at the
"Croix-Rouge," so that the good folk of her village who saw her on the
stairs should suspect nothing.
One day, however, Monsieur Lheureux met her coming out of the Hotel
de Boulogne on Leon’s arm; and she was frightened, thinking he would
gossip. He was not such a fool. But three days after he came to her
room, shut the door, and said, "I must have some money."
She declared she could not give him any. Lheureux burst into
lamentations and reminded her of all the kindnesses he had shown her.
In fact, of the two bills signed by Charles, Emma up to the present had
paid only one. As to the second, the shopkeeper, at her request, had
consented to replace it by another, which again had been renewed for a
long date. Then he drew from his pocket a list of goods not paid for; to
wit, the curtains, the carpet, the material for the armchairs, several
dresses, and divers articles of dress, the bills for which amounted to
about two thousand francs.
She bowed her head. He went on--
"But if you haven’t any ready money, you have an estate." And he
reminded her of a miserable little hovel situated at Barneville, near
Aumale, that brought in almost nothing. It had formerly been part of a
small farm sold by Monsieur Bovary senior; for Lheureux knew everything,
even to the number of acres and the names of the neighbours.
"If I were in your place," he said, "I should clear myself of my debts,
and have money left over."
She pointed out the difficulty of getting a purchaser. He held out the
hope of finding one; but she asked him how she should manage to sell it.
"Haven’t you your power of attorney?" he replied.
The phrase came to her like a breath of fresh air. "Leave me the bill,"
said Emma.
"Oh, it isn’t worth while," answered Lheureux.
He came back the following week and boasted of having, after much
trouble, at last discovered a certain Langlois, who, for a long time,
had had an eye on the property, but without mentioning his price.
"Never mind the price!" she cried.
But they would, on the contrary, have to wait, to sound the fellow.
The thing was worth a journey, and, as she could not undertake it, he
offered to go to the place to have an interview with Langlois. On his
return he announced that the purchaser proposed four thousand francs.
Emma was radiant at this news.
"Frankly," he added, "that’s a good price."
She drew half the sum at once, and when she was about to pay her account
the shopkeeper said--
"It really grieves me, on my word! to see you depriving yourself all at
once of such a big sum as that."
Then she looked at the bank-notes, and dreaming of the unlimited number
of rendezvous represented by those two thousand francs, she stammered--
"What! what!"
"Oh!" he went on, laughing good-naturedly, "one puts anything one likes
on receipts. Don’t you think I know what household affairs are?" And he
looked at her fixedly, while in his hand he held two long papers that he
slid between his nails. At last, opening his pocket-book, he spread out
on the table four bills to order, each for a thousand francs.
"Sign these," he said, "and keep it all!"
She cried out, scandalised.
"But if I give you the surplus," replied Monsieur Lheureux impudently,
"is that not helping you?"
And taking a pen he wrote at the bottom of the account, "Received of
Madame Bovary four thousand francs."
"Now who can trouble you, since in six months you’ll draw the arrears
for your cottage, and I don’t make the last bill due till after you’ve
been paid?"
Emma grew rather confused in her calculations, and her ears tingled
as if gold pieces, bursting from their bags, rang all round her on
the floor. At last Lheureux explained that he had a very good friend,
Vincart, a broker at Rouen, who would discount these four bills. Then
he himself would hand over to madame the remainder after the actual debt
was paid.
But instead of two thousand francs he brought only eighteen hundred, for
the friend Vincart (which was only fair) had deducted two hundred francs
for commission and discount. Then he carelessly asked for a receipt.
"You understand--in business--sometimes. And with the date, if you
please, with the date."
A horizon of realisable whims opened out before Emma. She was prudent
enough to lay by a thousand crowns, with which the first three bills
were paid when they fell due; but the fourth, by chance, came to the
house on a Thursday, and Charles, quite upset, patiently awaited his
wife’s return for an explanation.
If she had not told him about this bill, it was only to spare him such
domestic worries; she sat on his knees, caressed him, cooed to him, gave
him a long enumeration of all the indispensable things that had been got
on credit.
"Really, you must confess, considering the quantity, it isn’t too dear."
Charles, at his wit’s end, soon had recourse to the eternal Lheureux,
who swore he would arrange matters if the doctor would sign him two
bills, one of which was for seven hundred francs, payable in three
months. In order to arrange for this he wrote his mother a pathetic
letter. Instead of sending a reply she came herself; and when Emma
wanted to know whether he had got anything out of her, "Yes," he
replied; "but she wants to see the account." The next morning at
daybreak Emma ran to Lheureux to beg him to make out another account for
not more than a thousand francs, for to show the one for four thousand
it would be necessary to say that she had paid two-thirds, and confess,
consequently, the sale of the estate--a negotiation admirably carried
out by the shopkeeper, and which, in fact, was only actually known later
on.
Despite the low price of each article, Madame Bovary senior, of course,
thought the expenditure extravagant.
"Couldn’t you do without a carpet? Why have recovered the arm-chairs? In
my time there was a single arm-chair in a house, for elderly persons--at
any rate it was so at my mother’s, who was a good woman, I can tell you.
Everybody can’t be rich! No fortune can hold out against waste! I should
be ashamed to coddle myself as you do! And yet I am old. I need looking
after. And there! there! fitting up gowns! fallals! What! silk for
lining at two francs, when you can get jaconet for ten sous, or even for
eight, that would do well enough!"
Emma, lying on a lounge, replied as quietly as possible--"Ah! Madame,
enough! enough!"
The other went on lecturing her, predicting they would end in the
workhouse. But it was Bovary’s fault. Luckily he had promised to destroy
that power of attorney.
"What?"
"Ah! he swore he would," went on the good woman.
Emma opened the window, called Charles, and the poor fellow was obliged
to confess the promise torn from him by his mother.
Emma disappeared, then came back quickly, and majestically handed her a
thick piece of paper.
"Thank you," said the old woman. And she threw the power of attorney
into the fire.
Emma began to laugh, a strident, piercing, continuous laugh; she had an
attack of hysterics.
"Oh, my God!" cried Charles. "Ah! you really are wrong! You come here
and make scenes with her!"
His mother, shrugging her shoulders, declared it was "all put on."
But Charles, rebelling for the first time, took his wife’s part, so that
Madame Bovary, senior, said she would leave. She went the very next day,
and on the threshold, as he was trying to detain her, she replied--
"No, no! You love her better than me, and you are right. It is natural.
For the rest, so much the worse! You will see. Good day--for I am not
likely to come soon again, as you say, to make scenes."
Charles nevertheless was very crestfallen before Emma, who did not hide
the resentment she still felt at his want of confidence, and it needed
many prayers before she would consent to have another power of attorney.
He even accompanied her to Monsieur Guillaumin to have a second one,
just like the other, drawn up.
"I understand," said the notary; "a man of science can’t be worried with
the practical details of life."
And Charles felt relieved by this comfortable reflection, which gave his
weakness the flattering appearance of higher pre-occupation.
And what an outburst the next Thursday at the hotel in their room with
Leon! She laughed, cried, sang, sent for sherbets, wanted to smoke
cigarettes, seemed to him wild and extravagant, but adorable, superb.
He did not know what recreation of her whole being drove her more and
more to plunge into the pleasures of life. She was becoming irritable,
greedy, voluptuous; and she walked about the streets with him carrying
her head high, without fear, so she said, of compromising herself.
At times, however, Emma shuddered at the sudden thought of meeting
Rodolphe, for it seemed to her that, although they were separated
forever, she was not completely free from her subjugation to him.
One night she did not return to Yonville at all. Charles lost his head
with anxiety, and little Berthe would not go to bed without her mamma,
and sobbed enough to break her heart. Justin had gone out searching the
road at random. Monsieur Homais even had left his pharmacy.
At last, at eleven o’clock, able to bear it no longer, Charles
harnessed his chaise, jumped in, whipped up his horse, and reached the
"Croix-Rouge" about two o’clock in the morning. No one there! He thought
that the clerk had perhaps seen her; but where did he live? Happily,
Charles remembered his employer’s address, and rushed off there.
Day was breaking, and he could distinguish the escutcheons over the
door, and knocked. Someone, without opening the door, shouted out the
required information, adding a few insults to those who disturb people
in the middle of the night.
The house inhabited by the clerk had neither bell, knocker, nor porter.
Charles knocked loudly at the shutters with his hands. A policeman
happened to pass by. Then he was frightened, and went away.
"I am mad," he said; "no doubt they kept her to dinner at Monsieur
Lormeaux’." But the Lormeaux no longer lived at Rouen.
"She probably stayed to look after Madame Dubreuil. Why, Madame Dubreuil
has been dead these ten months! Where can she be?"
An idea occurred to him. At a cafe he asked for a Directory, and
hurriedly looked for the name of Mademoiselle Lempereur, who lived at
No. 74 Rue de la Renelle-des-Maroquiniers.
As he was turning into the street, Emma herself appeared at the other
end of it. He threw himself upon her rather than embraced her, crying--
"What kept you yesterday?"
"I was not well."
"What was it? Where? How?"
She passed her hand over her forehead and answered, "At Mademoiselle
Lempereur’s."
"I was sure of it! I was going there."
"Oh, it isn’t worth while," said Emma. "She went out just now; but for
the future don’t worry. I do not feel free, you see, if I know that the
least delay upsets you like this."
This was a sort of permission that she gave herself, so as to get
perfect freedom in her escapades. And she profited by it freely, fully.
When she was seized with the desire to see Leon, she set out upon any
pretext; and as he was not expecting her on that day, she went to fetch
him at his office.
It was a great delight at first, but soon he no longer concealed the
truth, which was, that his master complained very much about these
interruptions.
"Pshaw! come along," she said.
And he slipped out.
She wanted him to dress all in black, and grow a pointed beard, to
look like the portraits of Louis XIII. She wanted to see his lodgings;
thought them poor. He blushed at them, but she did not notice this, then
advised him to buy some curtains like hers, and as he objected to the
expense--
"Ah! ah! you care for your money," she said laughing.
Each time Leon had to tell her everything that he had done since their
last meeting. She asked him for some verses--some verses "for herself,"
a "love poem" in honour of her. But he never succeeded in getting a
rhyme for the second verse; and at last ended by copying a sonnet in
a "Keepsake." This was less from vanity than from the one desire of
pleasing her. He did not question her ideas; he accepted all her tastes;
he was rather becoming her mistress than she his. She had tender words
and kisses that thrilled his soul. Where could she have learnt this
corruption almost incorporeal in the strength of its profanity and
dissimulation?
Chapter Six
During the journeys he made to see her, Leon had often dined at the
chemist’s, and he felt obliged from politeness to invite him in turn.
"With pleasure!" Monsieur Homais replied; "besides, I must invigorate
my mind, for I am getting rusty here. We’ll go to the theatre, to the
restaurant; we’ll make a night of it."
"Oh, my dear!" tenderly murmured Madame Homais, alarmed at the vague
perils he was preparing to brave.
"Well, what? Do you think I’m not sufficiently ruining my health living
here amid the continual emanations of the pharmacy? But there! that is
the way with women! They are jealous of science, and then are opposed to
our taking the most legitimate distractions. No matter! Count upon
me. One of these days I shall turn up at Rouen, and we’ll go the pace
together."
The druggist would formerly have taken good care not to use such an
expression, but he was cultivating a gay Parisian style, which he
thought in the best taste; and, like his neighbour, Madame Bovary, he
questioned the clerk curiously about the customs of the capital; he
even talked slang to dazzle the bourgeois, saying bender, crummy, dandy,
macaroni, the cheese, cut my stick and "I’ll hook it," for "I am going."
So one Thursday Emma was surprised to meet Monsieur Homais in the
kitchen of the "Lion d’Or," wearing a traveller’s costume, that is to
say, wrapped in an old cloak which no one knew he had, while he carried
a valise in one hand and the foot-warmer of his establishment in the
other. He had confided his intentions to no one, for fear of causing the
public anxiety by his absence.
The idea of seeing again the place where his youth had been spent no
doubt excited him, for during the whole journey he never ceased talking,
and as soon as he had arrived, he jumped quickly out of the diligence
to go in search of Leon. In vain the clerk tried to get rid of him.
Monsieur Homais dragged him off to the large Cafe de la Normandie,
which he entered majestically, not raising his hat, thinking it very
provincial to uncover in any public place.
Emma waited for Leon three quarters of an hour. At last she ran to
his office; and, lost in all sorts of conjectures, accusing him of
indifference, and reproaching herself for her weakness, she spent the
afternoon, her face pressed against the window-panes.
At two o’clock they were still at a table opposite each other. The large
room was emptying; the stove-pipe, in the shape of a palm-tree, spread
its gilt leaves over the white ceiling, and near them, outside the
window, in the bright sunshine, a little fountain gurgled in a white
basin, where; in the midst of watercress and asparagus, three torpid
lobsters stretched across to some quails that lay heaped up in a pile on
their sides.
Homais was enjoying himself. Although he was even more intoxicated with
the luxury than the rich fare, the Pommard wine all the same rather
excited his faculties; and when the omelette au rhum* appeared, he began
propounding immoral theories about women. What seduced him above all
else was chic. He admired an elegant toilette in a well-furnished
apartment, and as to bodily qualities, he didn’t dislike a young girl.
* In rum.
Leon watched the clock in despair. The druggist went on drinking,
eating, and talking.
"You must be very lonely," he said suddenly, "here at Rouen. To be sure
your lady-love doesn’t live far away."
And the other blushed--
"Come now, be frank. Can you deny that at Yonville--"
The young man stammered something.
"At Madame Bovary’s, you’re not making love to--"
"To whom?"
"The servant!"
He was not joking; but vanity getting the better of all prudence, Leon,
in spite of himself protested. Besides, he only liked dark women.
"I approve of that," said the chemist; "they have more passion."
And whispering into his friend’s ear, he pointed out the symptoms by
which one could find out if a woman had passion. He even launched into
an ethnographic digression: the German was vapourish, the French woman
licentious, the Italian passionate.
"And negresses?" asked the clerk.
"They are an artistic taste!" said Homais. "Waiter! two cups of coffee!"
"Are we going?" at last asked Leon impatiently.
"Ja!"
But before leaving he wanted to see the proprietor of the establishment
and made him a few compliments. Then the young man, to be alone, alleged
he had some business engagement.
"Ah! I will escort you," said Homais.
And all the while he was walking through the streets with him he talked
of his wife, his children; of their future, and of his business; told
him in what a decayed condition it had formerly been, and to what a
degree of perfection he had raised it.
Arrived in front of the Hotel de Boulogne, Leon left him abruptly, ran
up the stairs, and found his mistress in great excitement. At mention of
the chemist she flew into a passion. He, however, piled up good reasons;
it wasn’t his fault; didn’t she know Homais--did she believe that he
would prefer his company? But she turned away; he drew her back, and,
sinking on his knees, clasped her waist with his arms in a languorous
pose, full of concupiscence and supplication.
She was standing up, her large flashing eyes looked at him seriously,
almost terribly. Then tears obscured them, her red eyelids were lowered,
she gave him her hands, and Leon was pressing them to his lips when a
servant appeared to tell the gentleman that he was wanted.
"You will come back?" she said.
"Yes."
"But when?"
"Immediately."
"It’s a trick," said the chemist, when he saw Leon. "I wanted to
interrupt this visit, that seemed to me to annoy you. Let’s go and have
a glass of garus at Bridoux’."
Leon vowed that he must get back to his office. Then the druggist joked
him about quill-drivers and the law.
"Leave Cujas and Barthole alone a bit. Who the devil prevents you? Be a
man! Let’s go to Bridoux’. You’ll see his dog. It’s very interesting."
And as the clerk still insisted--
"I’ll go with you. I’ll read a paper while I wait for you, or turn over
the leaves of a ‘Code.’"
Leon, bewildered by Emma’s anger, Monsieur Homais’ chatter, and,
perhaps, by the heaviness of the luncheon, was undecided, and, as it
were, fascinated by the chemist, who kept repeating--
"Let’s go to Bridoux’. It’s just by here, in the Rue Malpalu."
Then, through cowardice, through stupidity, through that indefinable
feeling that drags us into the most distasteful acts, he allowed
himself to be led off to Bridoux’, whom they found in his small yard,
superintending three workmen, who panted as they turned the large
wheel of a machine for making seltzer-water. Homais gave them some good
advice. He embraced Bridoux; they took some garus. Twenty times Leon
tried to escape, but the other seized him by the arm saying--
"Presently! I’m coming! We’ll go to the ‘Fanal de Rouen’ to see the
fellows there. I’ll introduce you to Thornassin."
At last he managed to get rid of him, and rushed straight to the hotel.
Emma was no longer there. She had just gone in a fit of anger. She
detested him now. This failing to keep their rendezvous seemed to her an
insult, and she tried to rake up other reasons to separate herself from
him. He was incapable of heroism, weak, banal, more spiritless than a
woman, avaricious too, and cowardly.
Then, growing calmer, she at length discovered that she had, no doubt,
calumniated him. But the disparaging of those we love always alienates
us from them to some extent. We must not touch our idols; the gilt
sticks to our fingers.
They gradually came to talking more frequently of matters outside their
love, and in the letters that Emma wrote him she spoke of flowers,
verses, the moon and the stars, naive resources of a waning passion
striving to keep itself alive by all external aids. She was constantly
promising herself a profound felicity on her next journey. Then
she confessed to herself that she felt nothing extraordinary. This
disappointment quickly gave way to a new hope, and Emma returned to him
more inflamed, more eager than ever. She undressed brutally, tearing off
the thin laces of her corset that nestled around her hips like a gliding
snake. She went on tiptoe, barefooted, to see once more that the
door was closed, then, pale, serious, and, without speaking, with one
movement, she threw herself upon his breast with a long shudder.
Yet there was upon that brow covered with cold drops, on those quivering
lips, in those wild eyes, in the strain of those arms, something vague
and dreary that seemed to Leon to glide between them subtly as if to
separate them.
He did not dare to question her; but, seeing her so skilled, she must
have passed, he thought, through every experience of suffering and of
pleasure. What had once charmed now frightened him a little. Besides, he
rebelled against his absorption, daily more marked, by her personality.
He begrudged Emma this constant victory. He even strove not to love her;
then, when he heard the creaking of her boots, he turned coward, like
drunkards at the sight of strong drinks.
She did not fail, in truth, to lavish all sorts of attentions upon him,
from the delicacies of food to the coquettries of dress and languishing
looks. She brought roses to her breast from Yonville, which she threw
into his face; was anxious about his health, gave him advice as to his
conduct; and, in order the more surely to keep her hold on him, hoping
perhaps that heaven would take her part, she tied a medal of the
Virgin round his neck. She inquired like a virtuous mother about his
companions. She said to him--
"Don’t see them; don’t go out; think only of ourselves; love me!"
She would have liked to be able to watch over his life; and the idea
occurred to her of having him followed in the streets. Near the hotel
there was always a kind of loafer who accosted travellers, and who would
not refuse. But her pride revolted at this.
"Bah! so much the worse. Let him deceive me! What does it matter to me?
As If I cared for him!"
One day, when they had parted early and she was returning alone along
the boulevard, she saw the walls of her convent; then she sat down on a
form in the shade of the elm-trees. How calm that time had been! How she
longed for the ineffable sentiments of love that she had tried to figure
to herself out of books! The first month of her marriage, her rides in
the wood, the viscount that waltzed, and Lagardy singing, all repassed
before her eyes. And Leon suddenly appeared to her as far off as the
others.
"Yet I love him," she said to herself.
No matter! She was not happy--she never had been. Whence came this
insufficiency in life--this instantaneous turning to decay of everything
on which she leant? But if there were somewhere a being strong and
beautiful, a valiant nature, full at once of exaltation and refinement,
a poet’s heart in an angel’s form, a lyre with sounding chords ringing
out elegiac epithalamia to heaven, why, perchance, should she not find
him? Ah! how impossible! Besides, nothing was worth the trouble of
seeking it; everything was a lie. Every smile hid a yawn of boredom,
every joy a curse, all pleasure satiety, and the sweetest kisses left
upon your lips only the unattainable desire for a greater delight.
A metallic clang droned through the air, and four strokes were heard
from the convent-clock. Four o’clock! And it seemed to her that she had
been there on that form an eternity. But an infinity of passions may be
contained in a minute, like a crowd in a small space.
Emma lived all absorbed in hers, and troubled no more about money
matters than an archduchess.
Once, however, a wretched-looking man, rubicund and bald, came to her
house, saying he had been sent by Monsieur Vincart of Rouen. He took out
the pins that held together the side-pockets of his long green overcoat,
stuck them into his sleeve, and politely handed her a paper.
It was a bill for seven hundred francs, signed by her, and which
Lheureux, in spite of all his professions, had paid away to Vincart. She
sent her servant for him. He could not come. Then the stranger, who
had remained standing, casting right and left curious glances, that his
thick, fair eyebrows hid, asked with a naive air--
"What answer am I to take Monsieur Vincart?"
"Oh," said Emma, "tell him that I haven’t it. I will send next week; he
must wait; yes, till next week."
And the fellow went without another word.
But the next day at twelve o’clock she received a summons, and the sight
of the stamped paper, on which appeared several times in large letters,
"Maitre Hareng, bailiff at Buchy," so frightened her that she rushed in
hot haste to the linendraper’s. She found him in his shop, doing up a
parcel.
"Your obedient!" he said; "I am at your service."
But Lheureux, all the same, went on with his work, helped by a young
girl of about thirteen, somewhat hunch-backed, who was at once his clerk
and his servant.
Then, his clogs clattering on the shop-boards, he went up in front
of Madame Bovary to the first door, and introduced her into a narrow
closet, where, in a large bureau in sapon-wood, lay some ledgers,
protected by a horizontal padlocked iron bar. Against the wall, under
some remnants of calico, one glimpsed a safe, but of such dimensions
that it must contain something besides bills and money. Monsieur
Lheureux, in fact, went in for pawnbroking, and it was there that he had
put Madame Bovary’s gold chain, together with the earrings of poor old
Tellier, who, at last forced to sell out, had bought a meagre store
of grocery at Quincampoix, where he was dying of catarrh amongst his
candles, that were less yellow than his face.
Lheureux sat down in a large cane arm-chair, saying: "What news?"
"See!"
And she showed him the paper.
"Well how can I help it?"
Then she grew angry, reminding him of the promise he had given not to
pay away her bills. He acknowledged it.
"But I was pressed myself; the knife was at my own throat."
"And what will happen now?" she went on.
"Oh, it’s very simple; a judgment and then a distraint--that’s about
it!"
Emma kept down a desire to strike him, and asked gently if there was no
way of quieting Monsieur Vincart.
"I dare say! Quiet Vincart! You don’t know him; he’s more ferocious than
an Arab!"
Still Monsieur Lheureux must interfere.
"Well, listen. It seems to me so far I’ve been very good to you." And
opening one of his ledgers, "See," he said. Then running up the page
with his finger, "Let’s see! let’s see! August 3d, two hundred francs;
June 17th, a hundred and fifty; March 23d, forty-six. In April--"
He stopped, as if afraid of making some mistake.
"Not to speak of the bills signed by Monsieur Bovary, one for seven
hundred francs, and another for three hundred. As to your little
installments, with the interest, why, there’s no end to ‘em; one gets
quite muddled over ‘em. I’ll have nothing more to do with it."
She wept; she even called him "her good Monsieur Lheureux." But he
always fell back upon "that rascal Vincart." Besides, he hadn’t a brass
farthing; no one was paying him now-a-days; they were eating his coat
off his back; a poor shopkeeper like him couldn’t advance money.
Emma was silent, and Monsieur Lheureux, who was biting the feathers of a
quill, no doubt became uneasy at her silence, for he went on--
"Unless one of these days I have something coming in, I might--"
"Besides," said she, "as soon as the balance of Barneville--"
"What!"
And on hearing that Langlois had not yet paid he seemed much surprised.
Then in a honied voice--
"And we agree, you say?"
"Oh! to anything you like."
On this he closed his eyes to reflect, wrote down a few figures, and
declaring it would be very difficult for him, that the affair was shady,
and that he was being bled, he wrote out four bills for two hundred and
fifty francs each, to fall due month by month.
"Provided that Vincart will listen to me! However, it’s settled. I don’t
play the fool; I’m straight enough."
Next he carelessly showed her several new goods, not one of which,
however, was in his opinion worthy of madame.
"When I think that there’s a dress at threepence-halfpenny a yard, and
warranted fast colours! And yet they actually swallow it! Of course you
understand one doesn’t tell them what it really is!" He hoped by this
confession of dishonesty to others to quite convince her of his probity
to her.
Then he called her back to show her three yards of guipure that he had
lately picked up "at a sale."
"Isn’t it lovely?" said Lheureux. "It is very much used now for the
backs of arm-chairs. It’s quite the rage."
And, more ready than a juggler, he wrapped up the guipure in some blue
paper and put it in Emma’s hands.
"But at least let me know--"
"Yes, another time," he replied, turning on his heel.
That same evening she urged Bovary to write to his mother, to ask her
to send as quickly as possible the whole of the balance due from the
father’s estate. The mother-in-law replied that she had nothing more,
the winding up was over, and there was due to them besides Barneville an
income of six hundred francs, that she would pay them punctually.
Then Madame Bovary sent in accounts to two or three patients, and she
made large use of this method, which was very successful. She was always
careful to add a postscript: "Do not mention this to my husband; you
know how proud he is. Excuse me. Yours obediently." There were some
complaints; she intercepted them.
To get money she began selling her old gloves, her old hats, the old
odds and ends, and she bargained rapaciously, her peasant blood standing
her in good stead. Then on her journey to town she picked up nick-nacks
secondhand, that, in default of anyone else, Monsieur Lheureux would
certainly take off her hands. She bought ostrich feathers, Chinese
porcelain, and trunks; she borrowed from Felicite, from Madame
Lefrancois, from the landlady at the Croix-Rouge, from everybody, no
matter where.
With the money she at last received from Barneville she paid two bills;
the other fifteen hundred francs fell due. She renewed the bills, and
thus it was continually.
Sometimes, it is true, she tried to make a calculation, but she
discovered things so exorbitant that she could not believe them
possible. Then she recommenced, soon got confused, gave it all up, and
thought no more about it.
The house was very dreary now. Tradesmen were seen leaving it with angry
faces. Handkerchiefs were lying about on the stoves, and little Berthe,
to the great scandal of Madame Homais, wore stockings with holes in
them. If Charles timidly ventured a remark, she answered roughly that it
wasn’t her fault.
What was the meaning of all these fits of temper? He explained
everything through her old nervous illness, and reproaching himself with
having taken her infirmities for faults, accused himself of egotism, and
longed to go and take her in his arms.
"Ah, no!" he said to himself; "I should worry her."
And he did not stir.
After dinner he walked about alone in the garden; he took little Berthe
on his knees, and unfolding his medical journal, tried to teach her
to read. But the child, who never had any lessons, soon looked up with
large, sad eyes and began to cry. Then he comforted her; went to fetch
water in her can to make rivers on the sand path, or broke off branches
from the privet hedges to plant trees in the beds. This did not spoil
the garden much, all choked now with long weeds. They owed Lestiboudois
for so many days. Then the child grew cold and asked for her mother.
"Call the servant," said Charles. "You know, dearie, that mamma does not
like to be disturbed."
Autumn was setting in, and the leaves were already falling, as they did
two years ago when she was ill. Where would it all end? And he walked up
and down, his hands behind his back.
Madame was in her room, which no one entered. She stayed there all
day long, torpid, half dressed, and from time to time burning Turkish
pastilles which she had bought at Rouen in an Algerian’s shop. In order
not to have at night this sleeping man stretched at her side, by dint of
manoeuvring, she at last succeeded in banishing him to the second floor,
while she read till morning extravagant books, full of pictures of
orgies and thrilling situations. Often, seized with fear, she cried out,
and Charles hurried to her.
"Oh, go away!" she would say.
Or at other times, consumed more ardently than ever by that inner flame
to which adultery added fuel, panting, tremulous, all desire, she threw
open her window, breathed in the cold air, shook loose in the wind her
masses of hair, too heavy, and, gazing upon the stars, longed for some
princely love. She thought of him, of Leon. She would then have given
anything for a single one of those meetings that surfeited her.
These were her gala days. She wanted them to be sumptuous, and when he
alone could not pay the expenses, she made up the deficit liberally,
which happened pretty well every time. He tried to make her understand
that they would be quite as comfortable somewhere else, in a smaller
hotel, but she always found some objection.
One day she drew six small silver-gilt spoons from her bag (they were
old Roualt’s wedding present), begging him to pawn them at once for her,
and Leon obeyed, though the proceeding annoyed him. He was afraid of
compromising himself.
Then, on, reflection, he began to think his mistress’s ways were growing
odd, and that they were perhaps not wrong in wishing to separate him
from her.
In fact someone had sent his mother a long anonymous letter to warn her
that he was "ruining himself with a married woman," and the good lady at
once conjuring up the eternal bugbear of families, the vague pernicious
creature, the siren, the monster, who dwells fantastically in depths of
love, wrote to Lawyer Dubocage, his employer, who behaved perfectly in
the affair. He kept him for three quarters of an hour trying to open
his eyes, to warn him of the abyss into which he was falling. Such
an intrigue would damage him later on, when he set up for himself. He
implored him to break with her, and, if he would not make this sacrifice
in his own interest, to do it at least for his, Dubocage’s sake.
At last Leon swore he would not see Emma again, and he reproached
himself with not having kept his word, considering all the worry and
lectures this woman might still draw down upon him, without reckoning
the jokes made by his companions as they sat round the stove in the
morning. Besides, he was soon to be head clerk; it was time to settle
down. So he gave up his flute, exalted sentiments, and poetry; for every
bourgeois in the flush of his youth, were it but for a day, a moment,
has believed himself capable of immense passions, of lofty enterprises.
The most mediocre libertine has dreamed of sultanas; every notary bears
within him the debris of a poet.
He was bored now when Emma suddenly began to sob on his breast, and his
heart, like the people who can only stand a certain amount of music,
dozed to the sound of a love whose delicacies he no longer noted.
They knew one another too well for any of those surprises of possession
that increase its joys a hundred-fold. She was as sick of him as he
was weary of her. Emma found again in adultery all the platitudes of
marriage.
But how to get rid of him? Then, though she might feel humiliated at
the baseness of such enjoyment, she clung to it from habit or from
corruption, and each day she hungered after them the more, exhausting
all felicity in wishing for too much of it. She accused Leon of her
baffled hopes, as if he had betrayed her; and she even longed for some
catastrophe that would bring about their separation, since she had not
the courage to make up her mind to it herself.
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