Part II: Chapter Twelve

by Gustave Flaubert

　　They began to love one another again. Often, even in the middleof the day, Emma suddenly wrote to him, then from the window madea sign to Justin, who, taking his apron off, quickly ran to LaHuchette. Rodolphe would come; she had sent for him to tell himthat she was bored, that her husband was odious, her lifefrightful.

　　"But what can I do?" he cried one day impatiently.

　　"Ah! if you would--"

　　She was sitting on the floor between his knees, her hair loose,her look lost.

　　"Why, what?" said Rodolphe.

　　She sighed.

　　"We would go and live elsewhere--somewhere!"

　　"You are really mad!" he said laughing. "How could that bepossible?"

　　She returned to the subject; he pretended not to understand, andturned the conversation.

　　What he did not understand was all this worry about so simple anaffair as love. She had a motive, a reason, and, as it were, apendant to her affection.

　　Her tenderness, in fact, grew each day with her repulsion to herhusband. The more she gave up herself to the one, the more sheloathed the other. Never had Charles seemed to her sodisagreeable, to have such stodgy fingers, such vulgar ways, tobe so dull as when they found themselves together after hermeeting with Rodolphe. Then, while playing the spouse and virtue,she was burning at the thought of that head whose black hair fellin a curl over the sunburnt brow, of that form at once so strongand elegant, of that man, in a word, who had such experience inhis reasoning, such passion in his desires. It was for him thatshe filed her nails with the care of a chaser, and that there wasnever enough cold-cream for her skin, nor of patchouli for herhandkerchiefs. She loaded herself with bracelets, rings, andnecklaces. When he was coming she filled the two large blue glassvases with roses, and prepared her room and her person like acourtesan expecting a prince. The servant had to be constantlywashing linen, and all day Felicite did not stir from thekitchen, where little Justin, who often kept her company, watchedher at work.

　　With his elbows on the long board on which she was ironing, hegreedily watched all these women's clothes spread about him, thedimity petticoats, the fichus, the collars, and the drawers withrunning strings, wide at the hips and growing narrower below.

　　"What is that for?" asked the young fellow, passing his hand overthe crinoline or the hooks and eyes.

　　"Why, haven't you ever seen anything?" Felicite answeredlaughing. "As if your mistress, Madame Homais, didn't wear thesame."

　　"Oh, I daresay! Madame Homais!" And he added with a meditativeair, "As if she were a lady like madame!"

　　But Felicite grew impatient of seeing him hanging round her. Shewas six years older than he, and Theodore, Monsieur Guillaumin'sservant, was beginning to pay court to her.

　　"Let me alone," she said, moving her pot of starch. "You'd betterbe off and pound almonds; you are always dangling about women.Before you meddle with such things, bad boy, wait till you've gota beard to your chin."

　　"Oh, don't be cross! I'll go and clean her boots."

　　And he at once took down from the shelf Emma's boots, all coatedwith mud, the mud of the rendezvous, that crumbled into powderbeneath his fingers, and that he watched as it gently rose in aray of sunlight.

　　"How afraid you are of spoiling them!" said the servant, whowasn't so particular when she cleaned them herself, because assoon as the stuff of the boots was no longer fresh madame handedthem over to her.

　　Emma had a number in her cupboard that she squandered one afterthe other, without Charles allowing himself the slightestobservation. So also he disbursed three hundred francs for awooden leg that she thought proper to make a present of toHippolyte. Its top was covered with cork, and it had springjoints, a complicated mechanism, covered over by black trousersending in a patent-leather boot. But Hippolyte, not daring to usesuch a handsome leg every day, begged Madame Bovary to get himanother more convenient one. The doctor, of course, had again todefray the expense of this purchase.

　　So little by little the stable-man took up his work again. Onesaw him running about the village as before, and when Charlesheard from afar the sharp noise of the wooden leg, he at oncewent in another direction.

　　It was Monsieur Lheureux, the shopkeeper, who had undertaken theorder; this provided him with an excuse for visiting Emma. Hechatted with her about the new goods from Paris, about a thousandfeminine trifles, made himself very obliging, and never asked forhis money. Emma yielded to this lazy mode of satisfying all hercaprices. Thus she wanted to have a very handsome ridding-whipthat was at an umbrella-maker's at Rouen to give to Rodolphe. Theweek after Monsieur Lheureux placed it on her table.

　　But the next day he called on her with a bill for two hundred andseventy francs, not counting the centimes. Emma was muchembarrassed; all the drawers of the writing-table were empty;they owed over a fortnight's wages to Lestiboudois, two quartersto the servant, for any quantity of other things, and Bovary wasimpatiently expecting Monsieur Derozeray's account, which he wasin the habit of paying every year about Midsummer.

　　She succeeded at first in putting off Lheureux. At last he lostpatience; he was being sued; his capital was out, and unless hegot some in he should be forced to take back all the goods shehad received.

　　"Oh, very well, take them!" said Emma.

　　"I was only joking," he replied; "the only thing I regret is thewhip. My word! I'll ask monsieur to return it to me."

　　"No, no!" she said.

　　"Ah! I've got you!" thought Lheureux.

　　And, certain of his discovery, he went out repeating to himselfin an undertone, and with his usual low whistle--

　　"Good! we shall see! we shall see!"

　　She was thinking how to get out of this when the servant comingin put on the mantelpiece a small roll of blue paper "fromMonsieur Derozeray's." Emma pounced upon and opened it. Itcontained fifteen napoleons; it was the account. She heardCharles on the stairs; threw the gold to the back of her drawer,and took out the key

　　Three days after Lheureux reappeared.

　　"I have an arrangement to suggest to you," he said. "If, insteadof the sum agreed on, you would take--"

　　"Here it is," she said placing fourteen napoleons in his hand.

　　The tradesman was dumfounded. Then, to conceal hisdisappointment, he was profuse in apologies and proffers ofservice, all of which Emma declined; then she remained a fewmoments fingering in the pocket of her apron the two five-francpieces that he had given her in change. She promised herself shewould economise in order to pay back later on. "Pshaw!" shethought, "he won't think about it again."

　　Besides the riding-whip with its silver-gilt handle, Rodolphe hadreceived a seal with the motto Amor nel cor* furthermore, a scarffor a muffler, and, finally, a cigar-case exactly like theViscount's, that Charles had formerly picked up in the road, andthat Emma had kept. These presents, however, humiliated him; herefused several; she insisted, and he ended by obeying, thinkingher tyrannical and overexacting.

　　*A loving heart.

　　Then she had strange ideas.

　　"When midnight strikes," she said, "you must think of me."

　　And if he confessed that he had not thought of her, there werefloods of reproaches that always ended with the eternal question--

　　"Do you love me?"

　　"Why, of course I love you," he answered.

　　"A great deal?"

　　"Certainly!"

　　"You haven't loved any others?"

　　"Did you think you'd got a virgin?" he exclaimed laughing.

　　Emma cried, and he tried to console her, adorning hisprotestations with puns.

　　"Oh," she went on, "I love you! I love you so that I could notlive without you, do you see? There are times when I long to seeyou again, when I am torn by all the anger of love. I ask myself,Where is he? Perhaps he is talking to other women. They smileupon him; he approaches. Oh no; no one else pleases you. Thereare some more beautiful, but I love you best. I know how to lovebest. I am your servant, your concubine! You are my king, myidol! You are good, you are beautiful, you are clever, you arestrong!"

　　He had so often heard these things said that they did not strikehim as original. Emma was like all his mistresses; and the charmof novelty, gradually falling away like a garment, laid bare theeternal monotony of passion, that has always the same forms andthe same language. He did not distinguish, this man of so muchexperience, the difference of sentiment beneath the sameness ofexpression. Because lips libertine and venal had murmured suchwords to him, he believed but little in the candour of hers;exaggerated speeches hiding mediocre affections must bediscounted; as if the fullness of the soul did not sometimesoverflow in the emptiest metaphors, since no one can ever givethe exact measure of his needs, nor of his conceptions, nor ofhis sorrows; and since human speech is like a cracked tin kettle,on which we hammer out tunes to make tears dance when we long tomove the stars.

　　But with that superior critical judgment that belongs to him who,in no matter what circumstance, holds back, Rodolphe saw otherdelights to be got out of this love. He thought all modesty inthe way. He treated her quite sans facon.* He made of hersomething supple and corrupt. Hers was an idiotic sort ofattachment, full of admiration for him, of voluptuousness forher, a beatitude that benumbed her; her soul sank into thisdrunkenness, shrivelled up, drowned in it, like Clarence in hisbutt of Malmsey.

　　*Off-handedly.

　　By the mere effect of her love Madame Bovary's manners changed.Her looks grew bolder, her speech more free; she even committedthe impropriety of walking out with Monsieur Rodolphe, acigarette in her mouth, "as if to defy the people." At last,those who still doubted doubted no longer when one day they sawher getting out of the "Hirondelle," her waist squeezed into awaistcoat like a man; and Madame Bovary senior, who, after afearful scene with her husband, had taken refuge at her son's,was not the least scandalised of the women-folk. Many otherthings displeased her. First, Charles had not attended to heradvice about the forbidding of novels; then the "ways of thehouse" annoyed her; she allowed herself to make some remarks, andthere were quarrels, especially one on account of Felicite.

　　Madame Bovary senior, the evening before, passing along thepassage, had surprised her in company of a man--a man with abrown collar, about forty years old, who, at the sound of herstep, had quickly escaped through the kitchen. Then Emma began tolaugh, but the good lady grew angry, declaring that unless moralswere to be laughed at one ought to look after those of one'sservants.

　　"Where were you brought up?" asked the daughter-in-law, with soimpertinent a look that Madame Bovary asked her if she were notperhaps defending her own case.

　　"Leave the room!" said the young woman, springing up with abound.

　　"Emma! Mamma!" cried Charles, trying to reconcile them.

　　But both had fled in their exasperation. Emma was stamping herfeet as she repeated--

　　"Oh! what manners! What a peasant!"

　　He ran to his mother; she was beside herself. She stammered

　　"She is an insolent, giddy-headed thing, or perhaps worse!"

　　And she was for leaving at once if the other did not apologise.So Charles went back again to his wife and implored her to giveway; he knelt to her; she ended by saying--

　　"Very well! I'll go to her."

　　And in fact she held out her hand to her mother-in-law with thedignity of a marchioness as she said--

　　"Excuse me, madame."

　　Then, having gone up again to her room, she threw herself flat onher bed and cried there like a child, her face buried in thepillow.

　　She and Rodolphe had agreed that in the event of anythingextraordinary occurring, she should fasten a small piece of whitepaper to the blind, so that if by chance he happened to be inYonville, he could hurry to the lane behind the house. Emma madethe signal; she had been waiting three-quarters of an hour whenshe suddenly caught sight of Rodolphe at the corner of themarket. She felt tempted to open the window and call him, but hehad already disappeared. She fell back in despair.

　　Soon, however, it seemed to her that someone was walking on thepavement. It was he, no doubt. She went downstairs, crossed theyard. He was there outside. She threw herself into his arms.

　　"Do take care!" he said.

　　"Ah! if you knew!" she replied.

　　And she began telling him everything, hurriedly, disjointedly,exaggerating the facts, inventing many, and so prodigal ofparentheses that he understood nothing of it.

　　"Come, my poor angel, courage! Be comforted! be patient!"

　　"But I have been patient; I have suffered for four years. A lovelike ours ought to show itself in the face of heaven. Theytorture me! I can bear it no longer! Save me!"

　　She clung to Rodolphe. Her eyes, full of tears, flashed likeflames beneath a wave; her breast heaved; he had never loved herso much, so that he lost his head and said "What is, it? What doyou wish?"

　　"Take me away," she cried, "carry me off! Oh, I pray you!"

　　And she threw herself upon his mouth, as if to seize there theunexpected consent if breathed forth in a kiss.

　　"But--" Rodolphe resumed.

　　"What?""Your little girl!"She reflected a few moments, then replied--

　　"We will take her! It can't be helped!"

　　"What a woman!" he said to himself, watching her as she went. Forshe had run into the garden. Someone was calling her.

　　On the following days Madame Bovary senior was much surprised atthe change in her daughter-in-law. Emma, in fact, was showingherself more docile, and even carried her deference so far as toask for a recipe for pickling gherkins.

　　Was it the better to deceive them both? Or did she wish by a sortof voluptuous stoicism to feel the more profoundly the bitternessof the things she was about to leave?

　　But she paid no heed to them; on the contrary, she lived as lostin the anticipated delight of her coming happiness.

　　It was an eternal subject for conversation with Rodolphe. Sheleant on his shoulder murmuring--

　　"Ah! when we are in the mail-coach! Do you think about it? Can itbe? It seems to me that the moment I feel the carriage start, itwill be as if we were rising in a balloon, as if we were settingout for the clouds. Do you know that I count the hours? And you?"

　　Never had Madame Bovary been so beautiful as at this period; shehad that indefinable beauty that results from joy, fromenthusiasm, from success, and that is only the harmony oftemperament with circumstances. Her desires, her sorrows, theexperience of pleasure, and her ever-young illusions, that had,as soil and rain and winds and the sun make flowers grow,gradually developed her, and she at length blossomed forth in allthe plenitude of her nature. Her eyelids seemed chiselledexpressly for her long amorous looks in which the pupildisappeared, while a strong inspiration expanded her delicatenostrils and raised the fleshy corner of her lips, shaded in thelight by a little black down. One would have thought that anartist apt in conception had arranged the curls of hair upon herneck; they fell in a thick mass, negligently, and with thechanging chances of their adultery, that unbound them every day.Her voice now took more mellow infections, her figure also;something subtle and penetrating escaped even from the folds ofher gown and from the line of her foot. Charles, as when theywere first married, thought her delicious and quite irresistible.

　　When he came home in the middle of the night, he did not dare towake her. The porcelain night-light threw a round trembling gleamupon the ceiling, and the drawn curtains of the little cot formedas it were a white hut standing out in the shade, and by thebedside Charles looked at them. He seemed to hear the lightbreathing of his child. She would grow big now; every seasonwould bring rapid progress. He already saw her coming from schoolas the day drew in, laughing, with ink-stains on her jacket, andcarrying her basket on her arm. Then she would have to be sent tothe boarding-school; that would cost much; how was it to be done?Then he reflected. He thought of hiring a small farm in theneighbourhood, that he would superintend every morning on his wayto his patients. He would save up what he brought in; he wouldput it in the savings-bank. Then he would buy shares somewhere,no matter where; besides, his practice would increase; he countedupon that, for he wanted Berthe to be well-educated, to beaccomplished, to learn to play the piano. Ah! how pretty shewould be later on when she was fifteen, when, resembling hermother, she would, like her, wear large straw hats in thesummer-time; from a distance they would be taken for two sisters.He pictured her to himself working in the evening by their sidebeneath the light of the lamp; she would embroider him slippers;she would look after the house; she would fill all the home withher charm and her gaiety. At last, they would think of hermarriage; they would find her some good young fellow with asteady business; he would make her happy; this would last forever.

　　Emma was not asleep; she pretended to be; and while he dozed offby her side she awakened to other dreams.

　　To the gallop of four horses she was carried away for a weektowards a new land, whence they would return no more. They wenton and on, their arms entwined, without a word. Often from thetop of a mountain there suddenly glimpsed some splendid city withdomes, and bridges, and ships, forests of citron trees, andcathedrals of white marble, on whose pointed steeples werestorks' nests. They went at a walking-pace because of the greatflag-stones, and on the ground there were bouquets of flowers,offered you by women dressed in red bodices. They heard thechiming of bells, the neighing of mules, together with the murmurof guitars and the noise of fountains, whose rising sprayrefreshed heaps of fruit arranged like a pyramid at the foot ofpale statues that smiled beneath playing waters. And then, onenight they came to a fishing village, where brown nets weredrying in the wind along the cliffs and in front of the huts. Itwas there that they would stay; they would live in a low,flat-roofed house, shaded by a palm-tree, in the heart of a gulf,by the sea. They would row in gondolas, swing in hammocks, andtheir existence would be easy and large as their silk gowns, warmand star-spangled as the nights they would contemplate. However,in the immensity of this future that she conjured up, nothingspecial stood forth; the days, all magnificent, resembledeach other like waves; and it swayed in the horizon, infinite,harmonised, azure, and bathed in sunshine. But the child began tocough in her cot or Bovary snored more loudly, and Emma did notfall asleep till morning, when the dawn whitened the windows, andwhen little Justin was already in the square taking down theshutters of the chemist's shop.

　　She had sent for Monsieur Lheureux, and had said to him--

　　"I want a cloak--a large lined cloak with a deep collar."

　　"You are going on a journey?" he asked.

　　"No; but--never mind. I may count on you, may I not, andquickly?"

　　He bowed.

　　"Besides, I shall want," she went on, "a trunk--not too heavy--handy."

　　"Yes, yes, I understand. About three feet by a foot and a half,as they are being made just now."

　　"And a travelling bag."

　　"Decidedly," thought Lheureux. "there's a row on here."

　　"And," said Madame Bovary, taking her watch from her belt, "takethis; you can pay yourself out of it."

　　But the tradesman cried out that she was wrong; they knew oneanother; did he doubt her? What childishness!

　　She insisted, however, on his taking at least the chain, andLheureux had already put it in his pocket and was going, when shecalled him back.

　　"You will leave everything at your place. As to the cloak"--sheseemed to be reflecting--"do not bring it either; you can give methe maker's address, and tell him to have it ready for me."

　　It was the next month that they were to run away. She was toleave Yonville as if she was going on some business to Rouen.Rodolphe would have booked the seats, procured the passports, andeven have written to Paris in order to have the whole mail-coachreserved for them as far as Marseilles, where they would buy acarriage, and go on thence without stopping to Genoa. She wouldtake care to send her luggage to Lheureux whence it would betaken direct to the "Hirondelle," so that no one would have anysuspicion. And in all this there never was any allusion to thechild. Rodolphe avoided speaking of her; perhaps he no longerthought about it.

　　He wished to have two more weeks before him to arrange someaffairs; then at the end of a week he wanted two more; then hesaid he was ill; next he went on a journey. The month of Augustpassed, and, after all these delays, they decided that it was tobe irrevocably fixed for the 4th September--a Monday.

　　At length the Saturday before arrived.

　　Rodolphe came in the evening earlier than usual.

　　"Everything is ready?" she asked him.

　　"Yes."

　　Then they walked round a garden-bed, and went to sit down nearthe terrace on the kerb-stone of the wall.

　　"You are sad," said Emma.

　　"No; why?"

　　And yet he looked at her strangely in a tender fashion.

　　"It is because you are going away?" she went on; "because you areleaving what is dear to you--your life? Ah! I understand. I havenothing in the world! you are all to me; so shall I be to you. Iwill be your people, your country; I will tend, I will love you!"

　　"How sweet you are!" he said, seizing her in his arms.

　　"Really!" she said with a voluptuous laugh. "Do you love me?Swear it then!"

　　"Do I love you--love you? I adore you, my love."

　　The moon, full and purple-coloured, was rising right out of theearth at the end of the meadow. She rose quickly between thebranches of the poplars, that hid her here and there like a blackcurtain pierced with holes. Then she appeared dazzling withwhiteness in the empty heavens that she lit up, and now sailingmore slowly along, let fall upon the river a great stain thatbroke up into an infinity of stars; and the silver sheen seemedto writhe through the very depths like a heedless serpent coveredwith luminous scales; it also resembled some monster candelabraall along which sparkled drops of diamonds running together. Thesoft night was about them; masses of shadow filled the branches.Emma, her eyes half closed, breathed in with deep sighs the freshwind that was blowing. They did not speak, lost as they were inthe rush of their reverie. The tenderness of the old days cameback to their hearts, full and silent as the flowing river, withthe softness of the perfume of the syringas, and threw acrosstheir memories shadows more immense and more sombre than those ofthe still willows that lengthened out over the grass. Often somenight-animal, hedgehog or weasel, setting out on the hunt,disturbed the lovers, or sometimes they heard a ripe peachfalling all alone from the espalier.

　　"Ah! what a lovely night!" said Rodolphe.

　　"We shall have others," replied Emma; and, as if speaking toherself: "Yet, it will be good to travel. And yet, why should myheart be so heavy? Is it dread of the unknown? The effect ofhabits left? Or rather--? No; it is the excess of happiness. Howweak I am, am I not? Forgive me!"

　　"There is still time!" he cried. "Reflect! perhaps you mayrepent!"

　　"Never!" she cried impetuously. And coming closer to him: "Whatill could come to me? There is no desert, no precipice, no oceanI would not traverse with you. The longer we live together themore it will be like an embrace, every day closer, more heart toheart. There will be nothing to trouble us, no cares, noobstacle. We shall be alone, all to ourselves eternally. Oh,speak! Answer me!"

　　At regular intervals he answered, "Yes--Yes--" She had passed herhands through his hair, and she repeated in a childlike voice,despite the big tears which were falling, "Rodolphe! Rodolphe!Ah! Rodolphe! dear little Rodolphe!"

　　Midnight struck.

　　"Midnight!" said she. "Come, it is to-morrow. One day more!"

　　He rose to go; and as if the movement he made had been the signalfor their flight, Emma said, suddenly assuming a gay air--

　　"You have the passports?"

　　"Yes."

　　"You are forgetting nothing?"

　　"No."

　　"Are you sure?"

　　"Certainly."

　　"It is at the Hotel de Provence, is it not, that you will waitfor me at midday?"

　　He nodded.

　　"Till to-morrow then!" said Emma in a last caress; and shewatched him go.

　　He did not turn round. She ran after him, and, leaning over thewater's edge between the bulrushes

　　"To-morrow!" she cried.

　　He was already on the other side of the river and walking fastacross the meadow.

　　After a few moments Rodolphe stopped; and when he saw her withher white gown gradually fade away in the shade like a ghost, hewas seized with such a beating of the heart that he leant againsta tree lest he should fall.

　　"What an imbecile I am!" he said with a fearful oath. "No matter!She was a pretty mistress!"

　　And immediately Emma's beauty, with all the pleasures of theirlove, came back to him. For a moment he softened; then herebelled against her.

　　"For, after all," he exclaimed, gesticulating, "I can't exilemyself--have a child on my hands."

　　He was saying these things to give himself firmness.

　　"And besides, the worry, the expense! Ah! no, no, no, no! athousand times no! That would be too stupid."