Part I: Chapter Two

by Gustave Flaubert

　　One night towards eleven o'clock they were awakened by the noiseof a horse pulling up outside their door. The servant opened thegarret-window and parleyed for some time with a man in the streetbelow. He came for the doctor, had a letter for him. Natasie camedownstairs shivering and undid the bars and bolts one after theother. The man left his horse, and, following the servant,suddenly came in behind her. He pulled out from his wool cap withgrey top-knots a letter wrapped up in a rag and presented itgingerly to Charles, who rested on his elbow on the pillow toread it. Natasie, standing near the bed, held the light. Madamein modesty had turned to the wall and showed only her back.

　　This letter, sealed with a small seal in blue wax, beggedMonsieur Bovary to come immediately to the farm of the Bertaux toset a broken leg. Now from Tostes to the Bertaux was a goodeighteen miles across country by way of Longueville andSaint-Victor. It was a dark night; Madame Bovary junior wasafraid of accidents for her husband. So it was decided thestable-boy should go on first; Charles would start three hourslater when the moon rose. A boy was to be sent to meet him, andshow him the way to the farm, and open the gates for him.

　　Towards four o'clock in the morning, Charles, well wrapped up inhis cloak, set out for the Bertaux. Still sleepy from the warmthof his bed, he let himself be lulled by the quiet trot of hishorse. When it stopped of its own accord in front of those holessurrounded with thorns that are dug on the margin of furrows,Charles awoke with a start, suddenly remembered the broken leg,and tried to call to mind all the fractures he knew. The rain hadstopped, day was breaking, and on the branches of the leaflesstrees birds roosted motionless, their little feathers bristlingin the cold morning wind. The flat country stretched as far aseye could see, and the tufts of trees round the farms at longintervals seemed like dark violet stains on the cast greysurface, that on the horizon faded into the gloom of the sky.

　　Charles from time to time opened his eyes, his mind grew weary,and, sleep coming upon him, he soon fell into a doze wherein, hisrecent sensations blending with memories, he became conscious ofa double self, at once student and married man, lying in his bedas but now, and crossing the operation theatre as of old. Thewarm smell of poultices mingled in his brain with the fresh odourof dew; he heard the iron rings rattling along the curtain-rodsof the bed and saw his wife sleeping. As he passed Vassonville hecame upon a boy sitting on the grass at the edge of a ditch.

　　"Are you the doctor?" asked the child.

　　And on Charles's answer he took his wooden shoes in his hands andran on in front of him.

　　The general practitioner, riding along, gathered from his guide'stalk that Monsieur Rouault must be one of the well-to-do farmers.

　　He had broken his leg the evening before on his way home from aTwelfth-night feast at a neighbour's. His wife had been dead fortwo years. There was with him only his daughter, who helped himto keep house.

　　The ruts were becoming deeper; they were approaching the Bertaux.

　　The little lad, slipping through a hole in the hedge,disappeared; then he came back to the end of a courtyard to openthe gate. The horse slipped on the wet grass; Charles had tostoop to pass under the branches. The watchdogs in their kennelsbarked, dragging at their chains. As he entered the Bertaux, thehorse took fright and stumbled.

　　It was a substantial-looking farm. In the stables, over the topof the open doors, one could see great cart-horses quietlyfeeding from new racks. Right along the outbuildings extended alarge dunghill, from which manure liquid oozed, while amidstfowls and turkeys, five or six peacocks, a luxury in Chauchoisfarmyards, were foraging on the top of it. The sheepfold waslong, the barn high, with walls smooth as your hand. Under thecart-shed were two large carts and four ploughs, with theirwhips, shafts and harnesses complete, whose fleeces of blue woolwere getting soiled by the fine dust that fell from thegranaries. The courtyard sloped upwards, planted with trees setout symmetrically, and the chattering noise of a flock of geesewas heard near the pond.

　　A young woman in a blue merino dress with three flounces came tothe threshold of the door to receive Monsieur Bovary, whom sheled to the kitchen, where a large fire was blazing. The servant'sbreakfast was boiling beside it in small pots of all sizes. Somedamp clothes were drying inside the chimney-corner. The shovel,tongs, and the nozzle of the bellows, all of colossal size, shonelike polished steel, while along the walls hung many pots andpans in which the clear flame of the hearth, mingling with thefirst rays of the sun coming in through the window, was mirroredfitfully.

　　Charles went up the first floor to see the patient. He found himin his bed, sweating under his bed-clothes, having thrown hiscotton nightcap right away from him. He was a fat little man offifty, with white skin and blue eyes, the forepart of his headbald, and he wore earrings. By his side on a chair stood a largedecanter of brandy, whence he poured himself a little from timeto time to keep up his spirits; but as soon as he caught sight ofthe doctor his elation subsided, and instead of swearing, as hehad been doing for the last twelve hours, began to groan freely.

　　The fracture was a simple one, without any kind of complication.

　　Charles could not have hoped for an easier case. Then calling tomind the devices of his masters at the bedsides of patients, hecomforted the sufferer with all sorts of kindly remarks, thoseCaresses of the surgeon that are like the oil they put onbistouries. In order to make some splints a bundle of laths wasbrought up from the cart-house. Charles selected one, cut it intotwo pieces and planed it with a fragment of windowpane, while theservant tore up sheets to make bandages, and Mademoiselle Emmatried to sew some pads. As she was a long time before she foundher work-case, her father grew impatient; she did not answer, butas she sewed she pricked her fingers, which she then put to hermouth to suck them. Charles was surprised at the whiteness of hernails. They were shiny, delicate at the tips, more polished thanthe ivory of Dieppe, and almond-shaped. Yet her hand was notbeautiful, perhaps not white enough, and a little hard at theknuckles; besides, it was too long, with no soft inflections inthe outlines. Her real beauty was in her eyes. Although brown,they seemed black because of the lashes, and her look came at youfrankly, with a candid boldness.

　　The bandaging over, the doctor was invited by Monsieur Rouaulthimself to "pick a bit" before he left.

　　Charles went down into the room on the ground floor. Knives andforks and silver goblets were laid for two on a little table atthe foot of a huge bed that had a canopy of printed cotton withfigures representing Turks. There was an odour of iris-root anddamp sheets that escaped from a large oak chest opposite thewindow. On the floor in corners were sacks of flour stuck uprightin rows. These were the overflow from the neighbouring granary,to which three stone steps led. By way of decoration for theapartment, hanging to a nail in the middle of the wall, whosegreen paint scaled off from the effects of the saltpetre, was acrayon head of Minerva in gold frame, underneath which waswritten in Gothic letters "To dear Papa."

　　First they spoke of the patient, then of the weather, of thegreat cold, of the wolves that infested the fields at night.

　　Mademoiselle Rouault did not at all like the country, especiallynow that she had to look after the farm almost alone. As the roomwas chilly, she shivered as she ate. This showed something of herfull lips, that she had a habit of biting when silent.

　　Her neck stood out from a white turned-down collar. Her hair,whose two black folds seemed each of a single piece, so smoothwere they, was parted in the middle by a delicate lie that curvedslightly with the curve of the head; and, just showing the tip ofthe ear, it was joined behind in a thick chignon, with a wavymovement at the temples that the country doctor saw now for thefirst time in his life. The upper part of her cheek wasrose-coloured. She had, like a man, thrust in between two buttonsof her bodice a tortoise-shell eyeglass.

　　When Charles, after bidding farewell to old Rouault, returned tothe room before leaving, he found her standing, her foreheadagainst the window, looking into the garden, where the bean propshad been knocked down by the wind. She turned round. "Are youlooking for anything?" she asked.

　　"My whip, if you please," he answered.

　　He began rummaging on the bed, behind the doors, under thechairs. It had fallen to the floor, between the sacks and thewall. Mademoiselle Emma saw it, and bent over the flour sacks.

　　Charles out of politeness made a dash also, and as he stretchedout his arm, at the same moment felt his breast brush against theback of the young girl bending beneath him. She drew herself up,scarlet, and looked at him over her shoulder as she handed himhis whip.

　　Instead of returning to the Bertaux in three days as he hadpromised, he went back the very next day, then regularly twice aweek, without counting the visits he paid now and then as if byaccident.

　　Everything, moreover, went well; the patient progressedfavourably; and when, at the end of forty-six days, old Rouaultwas seen trying to walk alone in his "den," Monsieur Bovary beganto be looked upon as a man of great capacity. Old Rouault saidthat he could not have been cured better by the first doctor ofYvetot, or even of Rouen.

　　As to Charles, he did not stop to ask himself why it was apleasure to him to go to the Bertaux. Had he done so, he would,no doubt, have attributed his zeal to the importance of the case,or perhaps to the money he hoped to make by it. Was it for this,however, that his visits to the farm formed a delightfulexception to the meagre occupations of his life? On these days herose early, set off at a gallop, urging on his horse, then gotdown to wipe his boots in the grass and put on black glovesbefore entering. He liked going into the courtyard, and noticingthe gate turn against his shoulder, the cock crow on the wall,the lads run to meet him. He liked the granary and the stables;he liked old Rouault, who pressed his hand and called him hissaviour; he like the small wooden shoes of Mademoiselle Emma onthe scoured flags of the kitchen--her high heels made her alittle taller; and when she walked in front of him, the woodensoles springing up quickly struck with a sharp sound against theleather of her boots.

　　She always accompanied him to the first step of the stairs. Whenhis horse had not yet been brought round she stayed there. Theyhad said "Good-bye"; there was no more talking. The open airwrapped her round, playing with the soft down on the back of herneck, or blew to and fro on her hips the apron-strings, thatfluttered like streamers. Once, during a thaw the bark of thetrees in the yard was oozing, the snow on the roofs of theoutbuildings was melting; she stood on the threshold, and went tofetch her sunshade and opened it. The sunshade of silk of thecolour of pigeons' breasts, through which the sun shone, lightedup with shifting hues the white skin of her face. She smiledunder the tender warmth, and drops of water could be heardfalling one by one on the stretched silk.

　　During the first period of Charles's visits to the Bertaux,Madame Bovary junior never failed to inquire after the invalid,and she had even chosen in the book that she kept on a system ofdouble entry a clean blank page for Monsieur Rouault. But whenshe heard he had a daughter, she began to make inquiries, and shelearnt the Mademoiselle Rouault, brought up at the UrsulineConvent, had received what is called "a good education"; and soknew dancing, geography, drawing, how to embroider and play thepiano. That was the last straw.

　　"So it is for this," she said to herself, "that his face beamswhen he goes to see her, and that he puts on his new waistcoat atthe risk of spoiling it with the rain. Ah! that woman! Thatwoman!"

　　And she detested her instinctively. At first she solaced herselfby allusions that Charles did not understand, then by casualobservations that he let pass for fear of a storm, finally byopen apostrophes to which he knew not what to answer. "Why did hego back to the Bertaux now that Monsieur Rouault was cured andthat these folks hadn't paid yet? Ah! it was because a young ladywas there, some one who know how to talk, to embroider, to bewitty. That was what he cared about; he wanted town misses." Andshe went on--

　　"The daughter of old Rouault a town miss! Get out! Theirgrandfather was a shepherd, and they have a cousin who was almosthad up at the assizes for a nasty blow in a quarrel. It is notworth while making such a fuss, or showing herself at church onSundays in a silk gown like a countess. Besides, the poor oldchap, if it hadn't been for the colza last year, would have hadmuch ado to pay up his arrears."

　　For very weariness Charles left off going to the Bertaux. Heloisemade him swear, his hand on the prayer-book, that he would gothere no more after much sobbing and many kisses, in a greatoutburst of love. He obeyed then, but the strength of his desireprotested against the servility of his conduct; and he thought,with a kind of naive hypocrisy, that his interdict to see hergave him a sort of right to love her. And then the widow wasthin; she had long teeth; wore in all weathers a little blackshawl, the edge of which hung down between her shoulder-blades;her bony figure was sheathed in her clothes as if they were ascabbard; they were too short, and displayed her ankles with thelaces of her large boots crossed over grey stockings.

　　Charles's mother came to see them from time to time, but after afew days the daughter-in-law seemed to put her own edge on her,and then, like two knives, they scarified him with theirreflections and observations. It was wrong of him to eat so much.

　　Why did he always offer a glass of something to everyone whocame? What obstinacy not to wear flannels! In the spring it cameabout that a notary at Ingouville, the holder of the widowDubuc's property, one fine day went off, taking with him all themoney in his office. Heloise, it is true, still possessed,besides a share in a boat valued at six thousand francs, herhouse in the Rue St. Francois; and yet, with all this fortunethat had been so trumpeted abroad, nothing, excepting perhaps alittle furniture and a few clothes, had appeared in thehousehold. The matter had to be gone into. The house at Dieppewas found to be eaten up with mortgages to its foundations; whatshe had placed with the notary God only knew, and her share inthe boat did not exceed one thousand crowns. She had lied, thegood lady! In his exasperation, Monsieur Bovary the elder,smashing a chair on the flags, accused his wife of having causedmisfortune to the son by harnessing him to such a harridan, whoseharness wasn't worth her hide. They came to Tostes. Explanationsfollowed. There were scenes. Heloise in tears, throwing her armsabout her husband, implored him to defend her from his parents.

　　Charles tried to speak up for her. They grew angry and left thehouse.

　　But "the blow had struck home." A week after, as she was hangingup some washing in her yard, she was seized with a spitting ofblood, and the next day, while Charles had his back turned to herdrawing the window-curtain, she said, "O God!" gave a sigh andfainted. She was dead! What a surprise! When all was over at thecemetery Charles went home. He found no one downstairs; he wentup to the first floor to their room; say her dress still hangingat the foot of the alcove; then, leaning against thewriting-table, he stayed until the evening, buried in a sorrowfulreverie. She had loved him after all!