Part II: Chapter Three

by Gustave Flaubert

　　The next day, as she was getting up, she saw the clerk on thePlace. She had on a dressing-gown. He looked up and bowed. Shenodded quickly and reclosed the window.

　　Leon waited all day for six o'clock in the evening to come, buton going to the inn, he found no one but Monsieur Binet, alreadyat table. The dinner of the evening before had been aconsiderable event for him; he had never till then talked for twohours consecutively to a "lady." How then had he been able toexplain, and in such language, the number of things that he couldnot have said so well before? He was usually shy, and maintainedthat reserve which partakes at once of modesty and dissimulation.

　　At Yonville he was considered "well-bred." He listened to thearguments of the older people, and did not seem hot aboutpolitics--a remarkable thing for a young man. Then he had someaccomplishments; he painted in water-colours, could read the keyof G, and readily talked literature after dinner when he did notplay cards. Monsieur Homais respected him for his education;Madame Homais liked him for his good-nature, for he often tookthe little Homais into the garden--little brats who were alwaysdirty, very much spoilt, and somewhat lymphatic, like theirmother. Besides the servant to look after them, they had Justin,the chemist's apprentice, a second cousin of Monsieur Homais, whohad been taken into the house from charity, and who was useful atthe same time as a servant.

　　The druggist proved the best of neighbours. He gave Madame Bovaryinformation as to the trades-people, sent expressly for his owncider merchant, tasted the drink himself, and saw that the caskswere properly placed in the cellar; he explained how to set aboutgetting in a supply of butter cheap, and made an arrangement withLestiboudois, the sacristan, who, besides his sacerdotal andfuneral functions, looked after the principal gardens at Yonvilleby the hour or the year, according to the taste of the customers.

　　The need of looking after others was not the only thing thaturged the chemist to such obsequious cordiality; there was a planunderneath it all.

　　He had infringed the law of the 19th Ventose, year xi., articleI, which forbade all persons not having a diploma to practisemedicine; so that, after certain anonymous denunciations, Homaishad been summoned to Rouen to see the procurer of the king in hisown private room; the magistrate receiving him standing up,ermine on shoulder and cap on head. It was in the morning, beforethe court opened. In the corridors one heard the heavy boots ofthe gendarmes walking past, and like a far-off noise great locksthat were shut. The druggist's ears tingled as if he were aboutto have an apoplectic stroke; he saw the depths of dungeons, hisfamily in tears, his shop sold, all the jars dispersed; and hewas obliged to enter a cafe and take a glass of rum and seltzerto recover his spirits.

　　Little by little the memory of this reprimand grew fainter, andhe continued, as heretofore, to give anodyne consultations in hisback-parlour. But the mayor resented it, his colleagues werejealous, everything was to be feared; gaining over MonsieurBovary by his attentions was to earn his gratitude, and preventhis speaking out later on, should he notice anything. So everymorning Homais brought him "the paper," and often in theafternoon left his shop for a few moments to have a chat with theDoctor.

　　Charles was dull: patients did not come. He remained seated forhours without speaking, went into his consulting room to sleep,or watched his wife sewing. Then for diversion he employedhimself at home as a workman; he even tried to do up the atticwith some paint which had been left behind by the painters. Butmoney matters worried him. He had spent so much for repairs atTostes, for madame's toilette, and for the moving, that the wholedowry, over three thousand crowns, had slipped away in two years.

　　Then how many things had been spoilt or lost during theircarriage from Tostes to Yonville, without counting the plastercure, who falling out of the coach at an over-severe jolt, hadbeen dashed into a thousand fragments on the pavements ofQuincampoix! A pleasanter trouble came to distract him, namely,the pregnancy of his wife. As the time of her confinementapproached he cherished her the more. It was another bond of theflesh establishing itself, and, as it were, a continued sentimentof a more complex union. When from afar he saw her languid walk,and her figure without stays turning softly on her hips; whenopposite one another he looked at her at his ease, while she tooktired poses in her armchair, then his happiness knew no bounds;he got up, embraced her, passed his hands over her face, calledher little mamma, wanted to make her dance, and half-laughing,half-crying, uttered all kinds of caressing pleasantries thatcame into his head. The idea of having begotten a child delightedhim. Now he wanted nothing. He knew human life from end to end,and he sat down to it with serenity.

　　Emma at first felt a great astonishment; then was anxious to bedelivered that she might know what it was to be a mother. But notbeing able to spend as much as she would have liked, to have aswing-bassinette with rose silk curtains, and embroidered caps,in a fit of bitterness she gave up looking after the trousseau,and ordered the whole of it from a village needlewoman, withoutchoosing or discussing anything. Thus she did not amuse herselfwith those preparations that stimulate the tenderness of mothers,and so her affection was from the very outset, perhaps, to someextent attenuated.

　　As Charles, however, spoke of the boy at every meal, she soonbegan to think of him more consecutively.

　　She hoped for a son; he would be strong and dark; she would callhim George; and this idea of having a male child was like anexpected revenge for all her impotence in the past. A man, atleast, is free; he may travel over passions and over countries,overcome obstacles, taste of the most far-away pleasures. But awoman is always hampered. At once inert and flexible, she hasagainst her the weakness of the flesh and legal dependence. Herwill, like the veil of her bonnet, held by a string, flutters inevery wind; there is always some desire that draws her, someconventionality that restrains.

　　She was confined on a Sunday at about six o'clock, as the sun wasrising.

　　"It is a girl!" said Charles.

　　She turned her head away and fainted.

　　Madame Homais, as well as Madame Lefrancois of the Lion d'Or,almost immediately came running in to embrace her. The chemist,as man of discretion, only offered a few provincial felicitationsthrough the half-opened door. He wished to see the child andthought it well made.

　　Whilst she was getting well she occupied herself much in seekinga name for her daughter. First she went over all those that haveItalian endings, such as Clara, Louisa, Amanda, Atala; she likedGalsuinde pretty well, and Yseult or Leocadie still better.

　　Charles wanted the child to be called after her mother; Emmaopposed this. They ran over the calendar from end to end, andthen consulted outsiders.

　　"Monsieur Leon," said the chemist, "with whom I was talking aboutit the other day, wonders you do not chose Madeleine. It is verymuch in fashion just now."

　　But Madame Bovary, senior, cried out loudly against this name ofa sinner. As to Monsieur Homais, he had a preference for allthose that recalled some great man, an illustrious fact, or agenerous idea, and it was on this system that he had baptized hisfour children. Thus Napoleon represented glory and Franklinliberty; Irma was perhaps a concession to romanticism, butAthalie was a homage to the greatest masterpiece of the Frenchstage. For his philosophical convictions did not interfere withhis artistic tastes; in him the thinker did not stifle the man ofsentiment; he could make distinctions, make allowances forimagination and fanaticism. In this tragedy, for example, hefound fault with the ideas, but admired the style; he detestedthe conception, but applauded all the details, and loathed thecharacters while he grew enthusiastic over their dialogue. Whenhe read the fine passages he was transported, but when he thoughtthat mummers would get something out of them for their show, hewas disconsolate; and in this confusion of sentiments in which hewas involved he would have like at once to crown Racine with bothhis hands and discuss with him for a good quarter of an hour.

　　At last Emma remembered that at the chateau of Vaubyessard shehad heard the Marchioness call a young lady Berthe; from thatmoment this name was chosen; and as old Rouault could not come,Monsieur Homais was requested to stand godfather. His gifts wereall products from his establishment, to wit: six boxes ofjujubes, a whole jar of racahout, three cakes of marshmallowpaste, and six sticks of sugar-candy into the bargain that he hadcome across in a cupboard. On the evening of the ceremony therewas a grand dinner; the cure was present; there was muchexcitement. Monsieur Homais towards liqueur-time began singing"Le Dieu des bonnes gens." Monsieur Leon sang a barcarolle, andMadame Bovary, senior, who was godmother, a romance of the timeof the Empire; finally, M. Bovary, senior, insisted on having thechild brought down, and began baptizing it with a glass ofchampagne that he poured over its head. This mockery of the firstof the sacraments made the Abbe Bournisien angry; old Bovaryreplied by a quotation from "La Guerre des Dieux"; the curewanted to leave; the ladies implored, Homais interfered; and theysucceeded in making the priest sit down again, and he quietlywent on with the half-finished coffee in his saucer.

　　Monsieur Bovary, senior, stayed at Yonville a month, dazzling thenative by a superb policeman's cap with silver tassels that hewore in the morning when he smoked his pipe in the square. Beingalso in the habit of drinking a good deal of brandy, he oftensent the servant to the Lion d'Or to buy him a bottle, which wasput down to his son's account, and to perfume his handkerchiefshe used up his daughter-in-law's whole supply of eau-de-cologne.

　　The latter did not at all dislike his company. He had knockedabout the world, he talked about Berlin, Vienna, and Strasbourg,of his soldier times, of the mistresses he had had, the grandluncheons of which he had partaken; then he was amiable, andsometimes even, either on the stairs, or in the garden, wouldseize hold of her waist, crying, "Charles, look out foryourself."

　　Then Madame Bovary, senior, became alarmed for her son'shappiness, and fearing that her husband might in the long-runhave an immoral influence upon the ideas of the young woman, tookcare to hurry their departure. Perhaps she had more seriousreasons for uneasiness. Monsieur Bovary was not the man torespect anything.

　　One day Emma was suddenly seized with the desire to see herlittle girl, who had been put to nurse with the carpenter's wife,and, without looking at the calendar to see whether the six weeksof the Virgin were yet passed, she set out for the Rollets'house, situated at the extreme end of the village, between thehighroad and the fields.

　　It was mid-day, the shutters of the houses were closed and theslate roofs that glittered beneath the fierce light of the bluesky seemed to strike sparks from the crest of the gables. A heavywind was blowing; Emma felt weak as she walked; the stones of thepavement hurt her; she was doubtful whether she would not go homeagain, or go in somewhere to rest.

　　At this moment Monsieur Leon came out from a neighbouring doorwith a bundle of papers under his arm. He came to greet her, andstood in the shade in front of the Lheureux's shop under theprojecting grey awning.

　　Madame Bovary said she was going to see her baby, but that shewas beginning to grow tired.

　　"If--" said Leon, not daring to go on.

　　"Have you any business to attend to?" she asked.

　　And on the clerk's answer, she begged him to accompany her. Thatsame evening this was known in Yonville, and Madame Tuvache, themayor's wife, declared in the presence of her servant that"Madame Bovary was compromising herself."

　　To get to the nurse's it was necessary to turn to the left onleaving the street, as if making for the cemetery, and to followbetween little houses and yards a small path bordered with privethedges. They were in bloom, and so were the speedwells,eglantines, thistles, and the sweetbriar that sprang up from thethickets. Through openings in the hedges one could see into thehuts, some pigs on a dung-heap, or tethered cows rubbing theirhorns against the trunk of trees. The two, side by side walkedslowly, she leaning upon him, and he restraining his pace, whichhe regulated by hers; in front of them a swarm of midgesfluttered, buzzing in the warm air.

　　The recognized the house by an old walnut-tree which shaded it.

　　Low and covered with brown tiles, there hung outside it, beneaththe dormer-window of the garret, a string of onions. Faggotsupright against a thorn fence surrounded a bed of lettuce, a fewsquare feet of lavender, and sweet peas stung on sticks. Dirtywater was running here and there on the grass, and all round wereseveral indefinite rags, knitted stockings, a red calico jacket,and a large sheet of coarse linen spread over the hedge. At thenoise of the gate the nurse appeared with a baby she was sucklingon one arm. With her other hand she was pulling along a poor punylittle fellow, his face covered with scrofula, the son of a Rouenhosier, whom his parents, too taken up with their business, leftin the country.

　　"Go in," she said; "your little one is there asleep."

　　The room on the ground-floor, the only one in the dwelling, hadat its farther end, against the wall, a large bed withoutcurtains, while a kneading-trough took up the side by the window,one pane of which was mended with a piece of blue paper. In thecorner behind the door, shining hob-nailed shoes stood in a rowunder the slab of the washstand, near a bottle of oil with afeather stuck in its mouth; a Matthieu Laensberg lay on the dustymantelpiece amid gunflints, candle-ends, and bits of amadou.

　　Finally, the last luxury in the apartment was a "Fame" blowingher trumpets, a picture cut out, no doubt, from some perfumer'sprospectus and nailed to the wall with six wooden shoe-pegs.

　　Emma's child was asleep in a wicker-cradle. She took it up in thewrapping that enveloped it and began singing softly as she rockedherself to and fro.

　　Leon walked up and down the room; it seemed strange to him to seethis beautiful woman in her nankeen dress in the midst of allthis poverty. Madam Bovary reddened; he turned away, thinkingperhaps there had been an impertinent look in his eyes. Then sheput back the little girl, who had just been sick over her collar.

　　The nurse at once came to dry her, protesting that it wouldn'tshow.

　　"She gives me other doses," she said: "I am always a-washing ofher. If you would have the goodness to order Camus, the grocer,to let me have a little soap, it would really be more convenientfor you, as I needn't trouble you then."

　　"Very well! very well!" said Emma. "Good morning, Madame Rollet,"and she went out, wiping her shoes at the door.

　　The good woman accompanied her to the end of the garden, talkingall the time of the trouble she had getting up of nights.

　　"I'm that worn out sometimes as I drop asleep on my chair. I'msure you might at least give me just a pound of ground coffee;that'd last me a month, and I'd take it of a morning with somemilk."

　　After having submitted to her thanks, Madam Bovary left. She hadgone a little way down the path when, at the sound of woodenshoes, she turned round. It was the nurse.

　　"What is it?"

　　Then the peasant woman, taking her aside behind an elm tree,began talking to her of her husband, who with his trade and sixfrancs a year that the captain--

　　"Oh, be quick!" said Emma.

　　"Well," the nurse went on, heaving sighs between each word, "I'mafraid he'll be put out seeing me have coffee along, you knowmen--"

　　"But you are to have some," Emma repeated; "I will give you some.You bother me!"

　　"Oh, dear! my poor, dear lady! you see in consequence of hiswounds he has terrible cramps in the chest. He even says thatcider weakens him."

　　"Do make haste, Mere Rollet!"

　　"Well," the latter continued, making a curtsey, "if it weren'tasking too much," and she curtsied once more, "if you would"--andher eyes begged--"a jar of brandy," she said at last, "and I'drub your little one's feet with it; they're as tender as one'stongue."

　　Once rid of the nurse, Emma again took Monsieur Leon's arm. Shewalked fast for some time, then more slowly, and looking straightin front of her, her eyes rested on the shoulder of the youngman, whose frock-coat had a black-velvety collar. His brown hairfell over it, straight and carefully arranged. She noticed hisnails which were longer than one wore them at Yonville. It wasone of the clerk's chief occupations to trim them, and for thispurpose he kept a special knife in his writing desk.

　　They returned to Yonville by the water-side. In the warm seasonthe bank, wider than at other times, showed to their foot thegarden walls whence a few steps led to the river. It flowednoiselessly, swift, and cold to the eye; long, thin grasseshuddled together in it as the current drove them, and spreadthemselves upon the limpid water like streaming hair; sometimesat the tip of the reeds or on the leaf of a water-lily an insectwith fine legs crawled or rested. The sun pierced with a ray thesmall blue bubbles of the waves that, breaking, followed eachother; branchless old willows mirrored their grey backs in thewater; beyond, all around, the meadows seemed empty. It was thedinner-hour at the farms, and the young woman and her companionheard nothing as they walked but the fall of their steps on theearth of the path, the words they spoke, and the sound of Emma'sdress rustling round her.

　　The walls of the gardens with pieces of bottle on their copingwere hot as the glass windows of a conservatory. Wallflowers hadsprung up between the bricks, and with the tip of her opensunshade Madame Bovary, as she passed, made some of their fadedflowers crumble into a yellow dust, or a spray of overhanginghoneysuckle and clematis caught in its fringe and dangled for amoment over the silk.

　　They were talking of a troupe of Spanish dancers who wereexpected shortly at the Rouen theatre.

　　"Are you going?" she asked.

　　"If I can," he answered.

　　Had they nothing else to say to one another? Yet their eyes werefull of more serious speech, and while they forced themselves tofind trivial phrases, they felt the same languor stealing overthem both. It was the whisper of the soul, deep, continuous,dominating that of their voices. Surprised with wonder at thisstrange sweetness, they did not think of speaking of thesensation or of seeking its cause. Coming joys, like tropicalshores, throw over the immensity before them their inbornsoftness, an odorous wind, and we are lulled by this intoxicationwithout a thought of the horizon that we do not even know.

　　In one place the ground had been trodden down by the cattle; theyhad to step on large green stones put here and there in the mud.

　　She often stopped a moment to look where to place her foot, andtottering on a stone that shook, her arms outspread, her formbent forward with a look of indecision, she would laugh, afraidof falling into the puddles of water.

　　When they arrived in front of her garden, Madame Bovary openedthe little gate, ran up the steps and disappeared.

　　Leon returned to his office. His chief was away; he just glancedat the briefs, then cut himself a pen, and at last took up hishat and went out.

　　He went to La Pature at the top of the Argueil hills at thebeginning of the forest; he threw himself upon the ground underthe pines and watched the sky through his fingers.

　　"How bored I am!" he said to himself, "how bored I am!"

　　He thought he was to be pitied for living in this village, withHomais for a friend and Monsieru Guillaumin for master. Thelatter, entirely absorbed by his business, wearing gold-rimmedspectacles and red whiskers over a white cravat, understoodnothing of mental refinements, although he affected a stiffEnglish manner, which in the beginning had impressed the clerk.

　　As to the chemist's spouse, she was the best wife in Normandy,gentle as a sheep, loving her children, her father, her mother,her cousins, weeping for other's woes, letting everything go inher household, and detesting corsets; but so slow of movement,such a bore to listen to, so common in appearance, and of suchrestricted conversation, that although she was thirty, he onlytwenty, although they slept in rooms next each other and he spoketo her daily, he never thought that she might be a woman foranother, or that she possessed anything else of her sex than thegown.

　　And what else was there? Binet, a few shopkeepers, two or threepublicans, the cure, and finally, Monsieur Tuvache, the mayor,with his two sons, rich, crabbed, obtuse persons, who farmedtheir own lands and had feasts among themselves, bigoted to boot,and quite unbearable companions.

　　But from the general background of all these human faces Emma'sstood out isolated and yet farthest off; for between her and himhe seemed to see a vague abyss.

　　In the beginning he had called on her several times along withthe druggist. Charles had not appeared particularly anxious tosee him again, and Leon did not know what to do between his fearof being indiscreet and the desire for an intimacy that seemedalmost impossible.