Part I: Chapter Nine

by Gustave Flaubert

　　Often when Charles was out she took from the cupboard, betweenthe folds of the linen where she had left it, the green silkcigar case. She looked at it, opened it, and even smelt the odourof the lining--a mixture of verbena and tobacco. Whose was it?The Viscount's? Perhaps it was a present from his mistress. Ithad been embroidered on some rosewood frame, a pretty littlething, hidden from all eyes, that had occupied many hours, andover which had fallen the soft curls of the pensive worker. Abreath of love had passed over the stitches on the canvas; eachprick of the needle had fixed there a hope or a memory, and allthose interwoven threads of silk were but the continuity of thesame silent passion. And then one morning the Viscount had takenit away with him. Of what had they spoken when it lay upon thewide-mantelled chimneys between flower-vases and Pompadourclocks? She was at Tostes; he was at Paris now, far away! Whatwas this Paris like? What a vague name! She repeated it in a lowvoice, for the mere pleasure of it; it rang in her ears like agreat cathedral bell; it shone before her eyes, even on thelabels of her pomade-pots.

　　At night, when the carriers passed under her windows in theircarts singing the "Marjolaine," she awoke, and listened to thenoise of the iron-bound wheels, which, as they gained the countryroad, was soon deadened by the soil. "They will be thereto-morrow!" she said to herself.

　　And she followed them in thought up and down the hills,traversing villages, gliding along the highroads by the light ofthe stars. At the end of some indefinite distance there wasalways a confused spot, into which her dream died.

　　She bought a plan of Paris, and with the tip of her finger on themap she walked about the capital. She went up the boulevards,stopping at every turning, between the lines of the streets, infront of the white squares that represented the houses. At lastshe would close the lids of her weary eyes, and see in thedarkness the gas jets flaring in the wind and the steps ofcarriages lowered with much noise before the peristyles oftheatres.

　　She took in "La Corbeille," a lady's journal, and the "Sylphe desSalons." She devoured, without skipping a work, all the accountsof first nights, races, and soirees, took interest in the debutof a singer, in the opening of a new shop. She knew the latestfashions, the addresses of the best tailors, the days of the Boisand the Opera. In Eugene Sue she studied descriptions offurniture; she read Balzac and George Sand, seeking in themimaginary satisfaction for her own desires. Even at table she hadher book by her, and turned over the pages while Charles ate andtalked to her. The memory of the Viscount always returned as sheread. Between him and the imaginary personages she madecomparisons. But the circle of which he was the centre graduallywidened round him, and the aureole that he bore, fading from hisform, broadened out beyond, lighting up her other dreams.

　　Paris, more vague than the ocean, glimmered before Emma's eyes inan atmosphere of vermilion. The many lives that stirred amid thistumult were, however, divided into parts, classed as distinctpictures. Emma perceived only two or three that hid from her allthe rest, and in themselves represented all humanity. The worldof ambassadors moved over polished floors in drawing rooms linedwith mirrors, round oval tables covered with velvet andgold-fringed cloths. There were dresses with trains, deepmysteries, anguish hidden beneath smiles. Then came the societyof the duchesses; all were pale; all got up at four o'clock; thewomen, poor angels, wore English point on their petticoats; andthe men, unappreciated geniuses under a frivolous outwardseeming, rode horses to death at pleasure parties, spent thesummer season at Baden, and towards the forties marriedheiresses. In the private rooms of restaurants, where one supsafter midnight by the light of wax candles, laughed the motleycrowd of men of letters and actresses. They were prodigal askings, full of ideal, ambitious, fantastic frenzy. This was anexistence outside that of all others, between heaven and earth,in the midst of storms, having something of the sublime. For therest of the world it was lost, with no particular place and as ifnon-existent. The nearer things were, moreover, the more herthoughts turned away from them. All her immediate surroundings,the wearisome country, the middle-class imbeciles, the mediocrityof existence, seemed to her exceptional, a peculiar chance thathad caught hold of her, while beyond stretched, as far as eyecould see, an immense land of joys and passions. She confused inher desire the sensualities of luxury with the delights of theheart, elegance of manners with delicacy of sentiment. Did notlove, like Indian plants, need a special soil, a particulartemperature? Signs by moonlight, long embraces, tears flowingover yielded hands, all the fevers of the flesh and the languorsof tenderness could not be separated from the balconies of greatcastles full of indolence, from boudoirs with silken curtains andthick carpets, well-filled flower-stands, a bed on a raised dias,nor from the flashing of precious stones and the shoulder-knotsof liveries.

　　The lad from the posting house who came to groom the mare everymorning passed through the passage with his heavy wooden shoes;there were holes in his blouse; his feet were bare in listslippers. And this was the groom in knee-britches with whom shehad to be content! His work done, he did not come back again allday, for Charles on his return put up his horse himself,unsaddled him and put on the halter, while the servant-girlbrought a bundle of straw and threw it as best she could into themanger.

　　To replace Nastasie (who left Tostes shedding torrents of tears)Emma took into her service a young girl of fourteen, an orphanwith a sweet face. She forbade her wearing cotton caps, taughther to address her in the third person, to bring a glass of wateron a plate, to knock before coming into a room, to iron, starch,and to dress her--wanted to make a lady's-maid of her. The newservant obeyed without a murmur, so as not to be sent away; andas madame usually left the key in the sideboard, Felicite everyevening took a small supply of sugar that she ate alone in herbed after she had said her prayers.

　　Sometimes in the afternoon she went to chat with the postilions.

　　Madame was in her room upstairs. She wore an open dressing gownthat showed between the shawl facings of her bodice a pleatedchamisette with three gold buttons. Her belt was a corded girdlewith great tassels, and her small garnet coloured slippers had alarge knot of ribbon that fell over her instep. She had boughtherself a blotting book, writing case, pen-holder, and envelopes,although she had no one to write to; she dusted her what-not,looked at herself in the glass, picked up a book, and then,dreaming between the lines, let it drop on her knees. She longedto travel or to go back to her convent. She wished at the sametime to die and to live in Paris.

　　Charles in snow and rain trotted across country. He ate omeletteson farmhouse tables, poked his arm into damp beds, received thetepid spurt of blood-lettings in his face, listened todeath-rattles, examined basins, turned over a good deal of dirtylinen; but every evening he found a blazing fire, his dinnerready, easy-chairs, and a well-dressed woman, charming with anodour of freshness, though no one could say whence the perfumecame, or if it were not her skin that made odorous her chemise.

　　She charmed him by numerous attentions; now it was some new wayof arranging paper sconces for the candles, a flounce that shealtered on her gown, or an extraordinary name for some verysimple dish that the servant had spoilt, but that Charlesswallowed with pleasure to the last mouthful. At Rouen she sawsome ladies who wore a bunch of charms on the watch-chains; shebought some charms. She wanted for her mantelpiece two large blueglass vases, and some time after an ivory necessaire with asilver-gilt thimble. The less Charles understood theserefinements the more they seduced him. They added something tothe pleasure of the senses and to the comfort of his fireside. Itwas like a golden dust sanding all along the narrow path of hislife.

　　He was well, looked well; his reputation was firmly established.

　　The country-folk loved him because he was not proud. He pettedthe children, never went to the public house, and, moreover, hismorals inspired confidence. He was specially successful withcatarrhs and chest complaints. Being much afraid of killing hispatients, Charles, in fact only prescribed sedatives, from timeto time and emetic, a footbath, or leeches. It was not that hewas afraid of surgery; he bled people copiously like horses, andfor the taking out of teeth he had the "devil's own wrist."

　　Finally, to keep up with the times, he took in "La RucheMedicale," a new journal whose prospectus had been sent him. Heread it a little after dinner, but in about five minutes thewarmth of the room added to the effect of his dinner sent him tosleep; and he sat there, his chin on his two hands and his hairspreading like a mane to the foot of the lamp. Emma looked at himand shrugged her shoulders. Why, at least, was not her husbandone of those men of taciturn passions who work at their books allnight, and at last, when about sixty, the age of rheumatism setsin, wear a string of orders on their ill-fitting black coat? Shecould have wished this name of Bovary, which was hers, had beenillustrious, to see it displayed at the booksellers', repeated inthe newspapers, known to all France. But Charles had no ambition.

　　An Yvetot doctor whom he had lately met in consultation hadsomewhat humiliated him at the very bedside of the patient,before the assembled relatives. When, in the evening, Charlestold her this anecdote, Emma inveighed loudly against hiscolleague. Charles was much touched. He kissed her forehead witha tear in his eyes. But she was angered with shame; she felt awild desire to strike him; she went to open the window in thepassage and breathed in the fresh air to calm herself.

　　"What a man! What a man!" she said in a low voice, biting herlips.

　　Besides, she was becoming more irritated with him. As he grewolder his manner grew heavier; at dessert he cut the corks of theempty bottles; after eating he cleaned his teeth with his tongue;in taking soup he made a gurgling noise with every spoonful; and,as he was getting fatter, the puffed-out cheeks seemed to pushthe eyes, always small, up to the temples.

　　Sometimes Emma tucked the red borders of his under-vest unto hiswaistcoat, rearranged his cravat, and threw away the dirty gloveshe was going to put on; and this was not, as he fancied, forhimself; it was for herself, by a diffusion of egotism, ofnervous irritation. Sometimes, too, she told him of what she hadread, such as a passage in a novel, of a new play, or an anecdoteof the "upper ten" that she had seen in a feuilleton; for, afterall, Charles was something, an ever-open ear, and ever-readyapprobation. She confided many a thing to her greyhound. Shewould have done so to the logs in the fireplace or to thependulum of the clock.

　　At the bottom of her heart, however, she was waiting forsomething to happen. Like shipwrecked sailors, she turneddespairing eyes upon the solitude of her life, seeking afar offsome white sail in the mists of the horizon. She did not knowwhat this chance would be, what wind would bring it her, towardswhat shore it would drive her, if it would be a shallop or athree-decker, laden with anguish or full of bliss to theportholes. But each morning, as she awoke, she hoped it wouldcome that day; she listened to every sound, sprang up with astart, wondered that it did not come; then at sunset, always moresaddened, she longed for the morrow.

　　Spring came round. With the first warm weather, when the peartrees began to blossom, she suffered from dyspnoea.

　　>From the beginning of July she counted how many weeks there wereto October, thinking that perhaps the Marquis d'Andervillierswould give another ball at Vaubyessard. But all September passedwithout letters or visits.

　　After the ennui of this disappointment her heart once moreremained empty, and then the same series of days recommenced. Sonow they would thus follow one another, always the same,immovable, and bringing nothing. Other lives, however flat, hadat least the chance of some event. One adventure sometimesbrought with it infinite consequences and the scene changed. Butnothing happened to her; God had willed it so! The future was adark corridor, with its door at the end shut fast.

　　She gave up music. What was the good of playing? Who would hearher? Since she could never, in a velvet gown with short sleeves,striking with her light fingers the ivory keys of an Erard at aconcert, feel the murmur of ecstasy envelop her like a breeze, itwas not worth while boring herself with practicing. Her drawingcardboard and her embroidery she left in the cupboard. What wasthe good? What was the good? Sewing irritated her. "I have readeverything," she said to herself. And she sat there making thetongs red-hot, or looked at the rain falling.

　　How sad she was on Sundays when vespers sounded! She listenedwith dull attention to each stroke of the cracked bell. A catslowly walking over some roof put up his back in the pale rays ofthe sum. The wind on the highroad blew up clouds of dust. Afaroff a dog sometimes howled; and the bell, keeping time, continuedits monotonous ringing that died away over the fields.

　　But the people came out from church. The women in waxed clogs,the peasants in new blouses, the little bare-headed childrenskipping along in front of them, all were going home. And tillnightfall, five or six men, always the same, stayed playing atcorks in front of the large door of the inn.

　　The winter was severe. The windows every morning were coveredwith rime, and the light shining through them, dim as throughground-glass, sometimes did not change the whole day long. Atfour o'clock the lamp had to be lighted.

　　On fine days she went down into the garden. The dew had left onthe cabbages a silver lace with long transparent threadsspreading from one to the other. No birds were to be heard;everything seemed asleep, the espalier covered with straw, andthe vine, like a great sick serpent under the coping of the wall,along which, on drawing hear, one saw the many-footed woodlicecrawling. Under the spruce by the hedgerow, the curie in thethree-cornered hat reading his breviary had lost his right foot,and the very plaster, scaling off with the frost, had left whitescabs on his face.

　　Then she went up again, shut her door, put on coals, and faintingwith the heat of the hearth, felt her boredom weigh more heavilythan ever. She would have like to go down and talk to theservant, but a sense of shame restrained her.

　　Every day at the same time the schoolmaster in a black skullcapopened the shutters of his house, and the rural policeman,wearing his sabre over his blouse, passed by. Night and morningthe post-horses, three by three, crossed the street to water atthe pond. From time to time the bell of a public house door rang,and when it was windy one could hear the little brass basins thatserved as signs for the hairdresser's shop creaking on their tworods. This shop had as decoration an old engraving of afashion-plate stuck against a windowpane and the wax bust of awoman with yellow hair. He, too, the hairdresser, lamented hiswasted calling, his hopeless future, and dreaming of some shop ina big town--at Rouen, for example, overlooking the harbour, nearthe theatre--he walked up and down all day from the mairie to thechurch, sombre and waiting for customers. When Madame Bovarylooked up, she always saw him there, like a sentinel on duty,with his skullcap over his ears and his vest of lasting.

　　Sometimes in the afternoon outside the window of her room, thehead of a man appeared, a swarthy head with black whiskers,smiling slowly, with a broad, gentle smile that showed his whiteteeth. A waltz immediately began and on the organ, in a littledrawing room, dancers the size of a finger, women in pinkturbans, Tyrolians in jackets, monkeys in frock coats, gentlemenin knee-breeches, turned and turned between the sofas, theconsoles, multiplied in the bits of looking glass held togetherat their corners by a piece of gold paper. The man turned hishandle, looking to the right and left, and up at the windows. Nowand again, while he shot out a long squirt of brown salivaagainst the milestone, with his knee raised his instrument, whosehard straps tired his shoulder; and now, doleful and drawling, orgay and hurried, the music escaped from the box, droning througha curtain of pink taffeta under a brass claw in arabesque. Theywere airs played in other places at the theatres, sung in drawingrooms, danced to at night under lighted lustres, echoes of theworld that reached even to Emma. Endless sarabands ran throughher head, and, like an Indian dancing girl on the flowers of acarpet, her thoughts leapt with the notes, swung from dream todream, from sadness to sadness. When the man had caught somecoppers in his cap, he drew down an old cover of blue cloth,hitched his organ on to his back, and went off with a heavytread. She watched him going.

　　But it was above all the meal-times that were unbearable to her,in this small room on the ground floor, with its smoking stove,its creaking door, the walls that sweated, the damp flags; allthe bitterness in life seemed served up on her plate, and withsmoke of the boiled beef there rose from her secret soul whiffsof sickliness. Charles was a slow eater; she played with a fewnuts, or, leaning on her elbow, amused herself with drawing linesalong the oilcloth table cover with the point of her knife.

　　She now let everything in her household take care of itself, andMadame Bovary senior, when she came to spend part of Lent atTostes, was much surprised at the change. She who was formerly socareful, so dainty, now passed whole days without dressing, woregrey cotton stockings, and burnt tallow candles. She kept sayingthey must be economical since they were not rich, adding that shewas very contented, very happy, that Tostes pleased her verymuch, with other speeches that closed the mouth of hermother-in-law. Besides, Emma no longer seemed inclined to followher advice; once even, Madame Bovary having thought fit tomaintain that mistresses ought to keep an eye on the religion oftheir servants, she had answered with so angry a look and so colda smile that the good woman did not interfere again.

　　Emma was growing difficult, capricious. She ordered dishes forherself, then she did not touch them; one day drank only puremilk, the next cups of tea by the dozen. Often she persisted innot going out, then, stifling, threw open the windows and put onlight dresses. After she had well scolded her servant she gaveher presents or sent her out to see neighbours, just as shesometimes threw beggars all the silver in her purse, although shewas by no means tender-hearted or easily accessible to thefeelings of others, like most country-bred people, who alwaysretain in their souls something of the horny hardness of thepaternal hands.

　　Towards the end of February old Rouault, in memory of his cure,himself brought his son-in-law a superb turkey, and stayed threedays at Tostes. Charles being with his patients, Emma kept himcompany. He smoked in the room, spat on the firedogs, talkedfarming, calves, cows, poultry, and municipal council, so thatwhen he left she closed the door on him with a feeling ofsatisfaction that surprised even herself. Moreover she no longerconcealed her contempt for anything or anybody, and at times sheset herself to express singular opinions, finding fault with thatwhich others approved, and approving things perverse and immoral,all of which made her husband open his eyes widely.

　　Would this misery last for ever? Would she never issue from it?Yet she was as good as all the women who were living happily. Shehad seen duchesses at Vaubyessard with clumsier waists andcommoner ways, and she execrated the injustice of God. She leanther head against the walls to weep; she envied lives of stir;longed for masked balls, for violent pleasures, with all thewildness that she did not know, but that these must surely yield.

　　She grew pale and suffered from palpitations of the heart.

　　Charles prescribed valerian and camphor baths. Everything thatwas tried only seemed to irritate her the more.

　　On certain days she chatted with feverish rapidity, and thisover-excitement was suddenly followed by a state of torpor, inwhich she remained without speaking, without moving. What thenrevived her was pouring a bottle of eau-de-cologne over her arms.

　　As she was constantly complaining about Tostes, Charles fanciedthat her illness was no doubt due to some local cause, and fixingon this idea, began to think seriously of setting up elsewhere.

　　>From that moment she drank vinegar, contracted a sharp littlecough, and completely lost her appetite.

　　It cost Charles much to give up Tostes after living there fouryears and "when he was beginning to get on there." Yet if it mustbe! He took her to Rouen to see his old master. It was a nervouscomplaint: change of air was needed.

　　After looking about him on this side and on that, Charles learntthat in the Neufchatel arrondissement there was a considerablemarket town called Yonville-l'Abbaye, whose doctor, a Polishrefugee, had decamped a week before. Then he wrote to the chemistof the place to ask the number of the population, the distancefrom the nearest doctor, what his predecessor had made a year,and so forth; and the answer being satisfactory, he made up hismind to move towards the spring, if Emma's health did notimprove.

　　One day when, in view of her departure, she was tidying a drawer,something pricked her finger. It was a wire of her weddingbouquet. The orange blossoms were yellow with dust and the silverbordered satin ribbons frayed at the edges. She threw it into thefire. It flared up more quickly than dry straw. Then it was, likea red bush in the cinders, slowly devoured. She watched it burn.

　　The little pasteboard berries burst, the wire twisted, the goldlace melted; and the shriveled paper corollas, fluttering likeblack butterflies at the back of the stove, at least flew up thechimney.

　　When they left Tostes at the month of March, Madame Bovary waspregnant.