Part II: Chapter Two

by Gustave Flaubert

　　Emma got out first, then Felicite, Monsieur Lheureux, and anurse, and they had to wake up Charles in his corner, where hehad slept soundly since night set in.

　　Homais introduced himself; he offered his homages to madame andhis respects to monsieur; said he was charmed to have been ableto render them some slight service, and added with a cordial airthat he had ventured to invite himself, his wife being away.

　　When Madame Bovary was in the kitchen she went up to the chimney.

　　With the tips of her fingers she caught her dress at the knee,and having thus pulled it up to her ankle, held out her foot inits black boot to the fire above the revolving leg of mutton. Theflame lit up the whole of her, penetrating with a crude light thewoof of her gowns, the fine pores of her fair skin, and even hereyelids, which she blinked now and again. A great red glow passedover her with the blowing of the wind through the half-open door.

　　On the other side of the chimney a young man with fair hairwatched her silently.

　　As he was a good deal bored at Yonville, where he was a clerk atthe notary's, Monsieur Guillaumin, Monsieur Leon Dupuis (it washe who was the second habitue of the "Lion d'Or") frequently putback his dinner-hour in hope that some traveler might come to theinn, with whom he could chat in the evening. On the days when hiswork was done early, he had, for want of something else to do, tocome punctually, and endure from soup to cheese a tete-a-tetewith Binet. It was therefore with delight that he accepted thelandlady's suggestion that he should dine in company with thenewcomers, and they passed into the large parlour where MadameLefrancois, for the purpose of showing off, had had the tablelaid for four.

　　Homais asked to be allowed to keep on his skull-cap, for fear ofcoryza; then, turning to his neighbour--

　　"Madame is no doubt a little fatigued; one gets jolted soabominably in our 'Hirondelle.'"

　　"That is true," replied Emma; "but moving about always amuses me.I like change of place."

　　"It is so tedious," sighed the clerk, "to be always riveted tothe same places."

　　"If you were like me," said Charles, "constantly obliged to be inthe saddle"--

　　"But," Leon went on, addressing himself to Madame Bovary,"nothing, it seems to me, is more pleasant--when one can," headded.

　　"Moreover," said the druggist, "the practice of medicine is notvery hard work in our part of the world, for the state of ourroads allows us the use of gigs, and generally, as the farmersare prosperous, they pay pretty well. We have, medicallyspeaking, besides the ordinary cases of enteritis, bronchitis,bilious affections, etc., now and then a few intermittent feversat harvest-time; but on the whole, little of a serious nature,nothing special to note, unless it be a great deal of scrofula,due, no doubt, to the deplorable hygienic conditions of ourpeasant dwellings. Ah! you will find many prejudices to combat,Monsieur Bovary, much obstinacy of routine, with which all theefforts of your science will daily come into collision; forpeople still have recourse to novenas, to relics, to the priest,rather than come straight to the doctor of the chemist. Theclimate, however, is not, truth to tell, bad, and we even have afew nonagenarians in our parish. The thermometer (I have madesome observations) falls in winter to 4 degrees Centigrade at theoutside, which gives us 24 degrees Reaumur as the maximum, orotherwise 54 degrees Fahrenheit (English scale), not more. And,as a matter of fact, we are sheltered from the north winds by theforest of Argueil on the one side, from the west winds by the St.Jean range on the other; and this heat, moreover, which, onaccount of the aqueous vapours given off by the river and theconsiderable number of cattle in the fields, which, as you know,exhale much ammonia, that is to say, nitrogen, hydrogen andoxygen (no, nitrogen and hydrogen alone), and which sucking upinto itself the humus from the ground, mixing together all thosedifferent emanations, unites them into a stack, so to say, andcombining with the electricity diffused through the atmosphere,when there is any, might in the long run, as in tropicalcountries, engender insalubrious miasmata--this heat, I say,finds itself perfectly tempered on the side whence it comes, orrather whence it should come--that is to say, the southern side--by the south-eastern winds, which, having cooled themselvespassing over the Seine, reach us sometimes all at once likebreezes from Russia."

　　"At any rate, you have some walks in the neighbourhood?"continued Madame Bovary, speaking to the young man.

　　"Oh, very few," he answered. "There is a place they call LaPature, on the top of the hill, on the edge of the forest.Sometimes, on Sundays, I go and stay there with a book, watchingthe sunset."

　　"I think there is nothing so admirable as sunsets," she resumed;"but especially by the side of the sea."

　　"Oh, I adore the sea!" said Monsieur Leon.

　　"And then, does it not seem to you," continued Madame Bovary,"that the mind travels more freely on this limitless expanse, thecontemplation of which elevates the soul, gives ideas of theinfinite, the ideal?"

　　"It is the same with mountainous landscapes," continued Leon. "Acousin of mine who travelled in Switzerland last year told methat one could not picture to oneself the poetry of the lakes,the charm of the waterfalls, the gigantic effect of the glaciers.One sees pines of incredible size across torrents, cottagessuspended over precipices, and, a thousand feet below one, wholevalleys when the clouds open. Such spectacles must stir toenthusiasm, incline to prayer, to ecstasy; and I no longer marvelat that celebrated musician who, the better to inspire hisimagination, was in the habit of playing the piano before someimposing site."

　　"You play?" she asked.

　　"No, but I am very fond of music," he replied.

　　"Ah! don't you listen to him, Madame Bovary," interrupted Homais,bending over his plate. "That's sheer modesty. Why, my dearfellow, the other day in your room you were singing 'L'AngeGardien' ravishingly. I heard you from the laboratory. You gaveit like an actor."

　　Leon, in fact, lodged at the chemist's where he had a small roomon the second floor, overlooking the Place. He blushed at thecompliment of his landlord, who had already turned to the doctor,and was enumerating to him, one after the other, all theprincipal inhabitants of Yonville. He was telling anecdotes,giving information; the fortune of the notary was not knownexactly, and "there was the Tuvache household," who made a gooddeal of show.

　　Emma continued, "And what music do you prefer?"

　　"Oh, German music; that which makes you dream."

　　"Have you been to the opera?"

　　"Not yet; but I shall go next year, when I am living at Paris tofinish reading for the bar."

　　"As I had the honour of putting it to your husband," said thechemist, "with regard to this poor Yanoda who has run away, youwill find yourself, thanks to his extravagance, in the possessionof one of the most comfortable houses of Yonville. Its greatestconvenience for a doctor is a door giving on the Walk, where onecan go in and out unseen. Moreover, it contains everything thatis agreeable in a household--a laundry, kitchen with offices,sitting-room, fruit-room, and so on. He was a gay dog, who didn'tcare what he spent. At the end of the garden, by the side of thewater, he had an arbour built just for the purpose of drinkingbeer in summer; and if madame is fond of gardening she will beable--"

　　"My wife doesn't care about it," said Charles; "although she hasbeen advised to take exercise, she prefers always sitting in herroom reading."

　　"Like me," replied Leon. "And indeed, what is better than to sitby one's fireside in the evening with a book, while the windbeats against the window and the lamp is burning?"

　　"What, indeed?" she said, fixing her large black eyes wide openupon him.

　　"One thinks of nothing," he continued; "the hours slip by.Motionless we traverse countries we fancy we see, and yourthought, blinding with the fiction, playing with the details,follows the outline of the adventures. It mingles with thecharacters, and it seems as if it were yourself palpitatingbeneath their costumes."

　　"That is true! That is true?" she said.

　　"Has it ever happened to you," Leon went on, "to come across somevague idea of one's own in a book, some dim image that comes backto you from afar, and as the completest expression of your ownslightest sentiment?"

　　"I have experienced it," she replied.

　　"That is why," he said, "I especially love the poets. I thinkverse more tender than prose, and that it moves far more easilyto tears."

　　"Still in the long run it is tiring," continued Emma. Now I, onthe contrary, adore stories that rush breathlessly along, thatfrighten one. I detest commonplace heroes and moderatesentiments, such as there are in nature."

　　"In fact," observed the clerk, "these works, not touching theheart, miss, it seems to me, the true end of art. It is so sweet,amid all the disenchantments of life, to be able to dwell inthought upon noble characters, pure affections, and pictures ofhappiness. For myself, living here far from the world, this is myone distraction; but Yonville affords so few resources."

　　"Like Tostes, no doubt," replied Emma; "and so I alwayssubscribed to a lending library."

　　"If madame will do me the honour of making use of it", said thechemist, who had just caught the last words, "I have at herdisposal a library composed of the best authors, Voltaire,Rousseau, Delille, Walter Scott, the 'Echo des Feuilletons'; andin addition I receive various periodicals, among them the 'Fanalde Rouen' daily, having the advantage to be its correspondent forthe districts of Buchy, Forges, Neufchatel, Yonville, andvicinity."

　　For two hours and a half they had been at table; for the servantArtemis, carelessly dragging her old list slippers over theflags, brought one plate after the other, forgot everything, andconstantly left the door of the billiard-room half open, so thatit beat against the wall with its hooks.

　　Unconsciously, Leon, while talking, had placed his foot on one ofthe bars of the chair on which Madame Bovary was sitting. Shewore a small blue silk necktie, that kept up like a ruff agauffered cambric collar, and with the movements of her head thelower part of her face gently sunk into the linen or came outfrom it. Thus side by side, while Charles and the chemistchatted, they entered into one of those vague conversations wherethe hazard of all that is said brings you back to the fixedcentre of a common sympathy. The Paris theatres, titles ofnovels, new quadrilles, and the world they did not know; Tostes,where she had lived, and Yonville, where they were; they examinedall, talked of everything till to the end of dinner.

　　When coffee was served Felicite went away to get ready the roomin the new house, and the guests soon raised the siege. MadameLefrancois was asleep near the cinders, while the stable-boy,lantern in hand, was waiting to show Monsieur and Madame Bovarythe way home. Bits of straw stuck in his red hair, and he limpedwith his left leg. When he had taken in his other hand the cure'sumbrella, they started.

　　The town was asleep; the pillars of the market threw greatshadows; the earth was all grey as on a summer's night. But asthe doctor's house was only some fifty paces from the inn, theyhad to say good-night almost immediately, and the companydispersed.

　　As soon as she entered the passage, Emma felt the cold of theplaster fall about her shoulders like damp linen. The walls werenew and the wooden stairs creaked. In their bedroom, on the firstfloor, a whitish light passed through the curtainless windows.

　　She could catch glimpses of tree tops, and beyond, the fields,half-drowned in the fog that lay reeking in the moonlight alongthe course of the river. In the middle of the room, pell-mell,were scattered drawers, bottles, curtain-rods, gilt poles, withmattresses on the chairs and basins on the ground--the two menwho had brought the furniture had left everything aboutcarelessly.

　　This was the fourth time that she had slept in a strange place.

　　The first was the day of her going to the convent; the second, ofher arrival at Tostes; the third, at Vaubyessard; and this wasthe fourth. And each one had marked, as it were, the inaugurationof a new phase in her life. She did not believe that things couldpresent themselves in the same way in different places, and sincethe portion of her life lived had been bad, no doubt that whichremained to be lived would be better.