Part III: Chapter One

by Gustave Flaubert

　　Monsieur Leon, while studying law, had gone pretty often to thedancing-rooms, where he was even a great success amongst thegrisettes, who thought he had a distinguished air. He was thebest-mannered of the students; he wore his hair neither too longnor too short, didn't spend all his quarter's money on the firstday of the month, and kept on good terms with his professors. Asfor excesses, he had always abstained from them, as much fromcowardice as from refinement.

　　Often when he stayed in his room to read, or else when sitting ofan evening under the lime-trees of the Luxembourg, he let hisCode fall to the ground, and the memory of Emma came back to him.But gradually this feeling grew weaker, and other desiresgathered over it, although it still persisted through them all.For Leon did not lose all hope; there was for him, as it were, avague promise floating in the future, like a golden fruitsuspended from some fantastic tree.

　　Then, seeing her again after three years of absence his passionreawakened. He must, he thought, at last make up his mind topossess her. Moreover, his timidity had worn off by contact withhis gay companions, and he returned to the provinces despisingeveryone who had not with varnished shoes trodden the asphalt ofthe boulevards. By the side of a Parisienne in her laces, in thedrawing-room of some illustrious physician, a person driving hiscarriage and wearing many orders, the poor clerk would no doubthave trembled like a child; but here, at Rouen, on the harbour,with the wife of this small doctor he felt at his ease, surebeforehand he would shine. Self-possession depends on itsenvironment. We don't speak on the first floor as on the fourth;and the wealthy woman seems to have, about her, to guard hervirtue, all her banknotes, like a cuirass in the lining of hercorset.

　　On leaving the Bovarys the night before, Leon had followed themthrough the streets at a distance; then having seen them stop atthe "Croix-Rouge," he turned on his heel, and spent the nightmeditating a plan.

　　So the next day about five o'clock he walked into the kitchen ofthe inn, with a choking sensation in his throat, pale cheeks, andthat resolution of cowards that stops at nothing.

　　"The gentleman isn't in," answered a servant.

　　This seemed to him a good omen. He went upstairs.

　　She was not disturbed at his approach; on the contrary, sheapologised for having neglected to tell him where they werestaying.

　　"Oh, I divined it!" said Leon.

　　He pretended he had been guided towards her by chance, by,instinct. She began to smile; and at once, to repair his folly,Leon told her that he had spent his morning in looking for her inall the hotels in the town one after the other.

　　"So you have made up your mind to stay?" he added.

　　"Yes," she said, "and I am wrong. One ought not to accustomoneself to impossible pleasures when there are a thousand demandsupon one."

　　"Oh, I can imagine!"

　　"Ah! no; for you, you are a man!"

　　But men too had had their trials, and the conversation went offinto certain philosophical reflections. Emma expatiated much onthe misery of earthly affections, and the eternal isolation inwhich the heart remains entombed.

　　To show off, or from a naive imitation of this melancholy whichcalled forth his, the young man declared that he had been awfullybored during the whole course of his studies. The law irritatedhim, other vocations attracted him, and his mother never ceasedworrying him in every one of her letters. As they talked theyexplained more and more fully the motives of their sadness,working themselves up in their progressive confidence. But theysometimes stopped short of the complete exposition of theirthought, and then sought to invent a phrase that might express itall the same. She did not confess her passion for another; he didnot say that he had forgotten her.

　　Perhaps he no longer remembered his suppers with girls aftermasked balls; and no doubt she did not recollect the rendezvousof old when she ran across the fields in the morning to herlover's house. The noises of the town hardly reached them, andthe room seemed small, as if on purpose to hem in their solitudemore closely. Emma, in a dimity dressing-gown, leant her headagainst the back of the old arm-chair; the yellow wall-paperformed, as it were, a golden background behind her, and her barehead was mirrored in the glass with the white parting in themiddle, and the tip of her ears peeping out from the folds of herhair.

　　"But pardon me!" she said. "It is wrong of me. I weary you withmy eternal complaints."

　　"No, never, never!"

　　"If you knew," she went on, raising to the ceiling her beautifuleyes, in which a tear was trembling, "all that I had dreamed!"

　　"And I! Oh, I too have suffered! Often I went out; I went away. Idragged myself along the quays, seeking distraction amid the dinof the crowd without being able to banish the heaviness thatweighed upon me. In an engraver's shop on the boulevard there isan Italian print of one of the Muses. She is draped in a tunic,and she is looking at the moon, with forget-me-nots in herflowing hair. Something drove me there continually; I stayedthere hours together." Then in a trembling voice, "She resembledyou a little."

　　Madame Bovary turned away her head that he might not see theirrepressible smile she felt rising to her lips.

　　"Often," he went on, "I wrote you letters that I tore up."

　　She did not answer. He continued--

　　"I sometimes fancied that some chance would bring you. I thoughtI recognised you at street-corners, and I ran after all thecarriages through whose windows I saw a shawl fluttering, a veillike yours."

　　She seemed resolved to let him go on speaking withoutinterruption. Crossing her arms and bending down her face, shelooked at the rosettes on her slippers, and at intervals madelittle movements inside the satin of them with her toes.

　　At last she sighed.

　　"But the most wretched thing, is it not--is to drag out, as I do,a useless existence. If our pains were only of some use tosomeone, we should find consolation in the thought of thesacrifice."

　　He started off in praise of virtue, duty, and silent immolation,having himself an incredible longing for self-sacrifice that hecould not satisfy.

　　"I should much like," she said, "to be a nurse at a hospital."

　　"Alas! men have none of these holy missions, and I see nowhereany calling--unless perhaps that of a doctor."

　　With a slight shrug of her shoulders, Emma interrupted him tospeak of her illness, which had almost killed her. What a pity!She should not be suffering now! Leon at once envied the calm ofthe tomb, and one evening he had even made his will, asking to beburied in that beautiful rug with velvet stripes he had receivedfrom her. For this was how they would have wished to be, eachsetting up an ideal to which they were now adapting their pastlife. Besides, speech is a rolling-mill that always thins out thesentiment.

　　But at this invention of the rug she asked, "But why?"

　　"Why?" He hesitated. "Because I loved you so!" And congratulatinghimself at having surmounted the difficulty, Leon watched herface out of the corner of his eyes.

　　It was like the sky when a gust of wind drives the clouds across.The mass of sad thoughts that darkened them seemed to be liftedfrom her blue eyes; her whole face shone. He waited. At last shereplied--

　　"I always suspected it."

　　Then they went over all the trifling events of that far-offexistence, whose joys and sorrows they had just summed up in oneword. They recalled the arbour with clematis, the dresses she hadworn, the furniture of her room, the whole of her house.

　　"And our poor cactuses, where are they?"

　　"The cold killed them this winter."

　　"Ah! how I have thought of them, do you know? I often saw themagain as of yore, when on the summer mornings the sun beat downupon your blinds, and I saw your two bare arms passing outamongst the flowers."

　　"Poor friend!" she said, holding out her hand to him.

　　Leon swiftly pressed his lips to it. Then, when he had taken adeep breath--

　　"At that time you were to me I know not what incomprehensibleforce that took captive my life. Once, for instance, I went tosee you; but you, no doubt, do not remember it."

　　"I do," she said; "go on."

　　"You were downstairs in the ante-room, ready to go out, standingon the last stair; you were wearing a bonnet with small blueflowers; and without any invitation from you, in spite of myself,I went with you. Every moment, however, I grew more and moreconscious of my folly, and I went on walking by you, not daringto follow you completely, and unwilling to leave you. When youwent into a shop, I waited in the street, and I watched youthrough the window taking off your gloves and counting the changeon the counter. Then you rang at Madame Tuvache's; you were letin, and I stood like an idiot in front of the great heavy doorthat had closed after you."

　　Madame Bovary, as she listened to him, wondered that she was soold. All these things reappearing before her seemed to widen outher life; it was like some sentimental immensity to which shereturned; and from time to time she said in a low voice, her eyeshalf closed--

　　"Yes, it is true--true--true!"

　　They heard eight strike on the different clocks of theBeauvoisine quarter, which is full of schools, churches, andlarge empty hotels. They no longer spoke, but they felt as theylooked upon each other a buzzing in their heads, as if somethingsonorous had escaped from the fixed eyes of each of them. Theywere hand in hand now, and the past, the future, reminiscencesand dreams, all were confounded in the sweetness of this ecstasy.Night was darkening over the walls, on which still shone, halfhidden in the shade, the coarse colours of four billsrepresenting four scenes from the "Tour de Nesle," with a mottoin Spanish and French at the bottom. Through the sash-window apatch of dark sky was seen between the pointed roofs.

　　She rose to light two wax-candles on the drawers, then she satdown again.

　　"Well!" said Leon.

　　"Well!" she replied.

　　He was thinking how to resume the interrupted conversation, whenshe said to him--

　　"How is it that no one until now has ever expressed suchsentiments to me?"

　　The clerk said that ideal natures were difficult to understand.He from the first moment had loved her, and he despaired when hethought of the happiness that would have been theirs, if thanksto fortune, meeting her earlier, they had been indissolubly boundto one another.

　　"I have sometimes thought of it," she went on.

　　"What a dream!" murmured Leon. And fingering gently the bluebinding of her long white sash, he added, "And who prevents usfrom beginning now?"

　　"No, my friend," she replied; "I am too old; you are too young.Forget me! Others will love you; you will love them."

　　"Not as you!" he cried.

　　"What a child you are! Come, let us be sensible. I wish it."

　　She showed him the impossibility of their love, and that theymust remain, as formerly, on the simple terms of a fraternalfriendship.

　　Was she speaking thus seriously? No doubt Emma did not herselfknow, quite absorbed as she was by the charm of the seduction,and the necessity of defending herself from it; and contemplatingthe young man with a moved look, she gently repulsed the timidcaresses that his trembling hands attempted.

　　"Ah! forgive me!" he cried, drawing back.

　　Emma was seized with a vague fear at this shyness, more dangerousto her than the boldness of Rodolphe when he advanced to heropen-armed. No man had ever seemed to her so beautiful. Anexquisite candour emanated from his being. He lowered his longfine eyelashes, that curled upwards. His cheek, with the softskin reddened, she thought, with desire of her person, and Emmafelt an invincible longing to press her lips to it. Then, leaningtowards the clock as if to see the time--

　　"Ah! how late it is!" she said; "how we do chatter!"

　　He understood the hint and took up his hat.

　　"It has even made me forget the theatre. And poor Bovary has leftme here especially for that. Monsieur Lormeaux, of the RueGrand-Pont, was to take me and his wife."

　　And the opportunity was lost, as she was to leave the next day.

　　"Really!" said Leon.

　　"Yes."

　　"But I must see you again," he went on. "I wanted to tell you--"

　　"What?"

　　"Something--important--serious. Oh, no! Besides, you will not go;it is impossible. If you should--listen to me. Then you have notunderstood me; you have not guessed--"

　　"Yet you speak plainly," said Emma.

　　"Ah! you can jest. Enough! enough! Oh, for pity's sake, let mesee you once--only once!"

　　"Well--"She stopped; then, as if thinking better of it, "Oh, nothere!"

　　"Where you will."

　　"Will you--"She seemed to reflect; then abruptly, "To-morrow ateleven o'clock in the cathedral."

　　"I shall be there," he cried, seizing her hands, which shedisengaged.

　　And as they were both standing up, he behind her, and Emma withher head bent, he stooped over her and pressed long kisses on herneck.

　　"You are mad! Ah! you are mad!" she said, with sounding littlelaughs, while the kisses multiplied.

　　Then bending his head over her shoulder, he seemed to beg theconsent of her eyes. They fell upon him full of an icy dignity.

　　Leon stepped back to go out. He stopped on the threshold; then hewhispered with a trembling voice, "Tomorrow!"

　　She answered with a nod, and disappeared like a bird into thenext room.

　　In the evening Emma wrote the clerk an interminable letter, inwhich she cancelled the rendezvous; all was over; they must not,for the sake of their happiness, meet again. But when the letterwas finished, as she did not know Leon's address, she waspuzzled.

　　"I'll give it to him myself," she said; "he will come."

　　The next morning, at the open window, and humming on his balcony,Leon himself varnished his pumps with several coatings. He put onwhite trousers, fine socks, a green coat, emptied all the scenthe had into his handkerchief, then having had his hair curled, heuncurled it again, in order to give it a more natural elegance.

　　"It is still too early," he thought, looking at the hairdresser'scuckoo-clock, that pointed to the hour of nine. He read an oldfashion journal, went out, smoked a cigar, walked up threestreets, thought it was time, and went slowly towards the porchof Notre Dame.

　　It was a beautiful summer morning. Silver plate sparkled in thejeweller's windows, and the light falling obliquely on thecathedral made mirrors of the corners of the grey stones; a flockof birds fluttered in the grey sky round the trefoilbell-turrets; the square, resounding with cries, was fragrantwith the flowers that bordered its pavement, roses, jasmines,pinks, narcissi, and tube-roses, unevenly spaced out betweenmoist grasses, catmint, and chickweed for the birds; thefountains gurgled in the centre, and under large umbrellas,amidst melons, piled up in heaps, flower-women, bare-headed, weretwisting paper round bunches of violets.

　　The young man took one. It was the first time that he had boughtflowers for a woman, and his breast, as he smelt them, swelledwith pride, as if this homage that he meant for another hadrecoiled upon himself.

　　But he was afraid of being seen; he resolutely entered thechurch. The beadle, who was just then standing on the thresholdin the middle of the left doorway, under the "Dancing Marianne,"with feather cap, and rapier dangling against his calves, camein, more majestic than a cardinal, and as shining as a saint on aholy pyx.

　　He came towards Leon, and, with that smile of wheedling benignityassumed by ecclesiastics when they question children--

　　"The gentleman, no doubt, does not belong to these parts? Thegentleman would like to see the curiosities of the church?"

　　"No!" said the other.

　　And he first went round the lower aisles. Then he went out tolook at the Place. Emma was not coming yet. He went up again tothe choir.

　　The nave was reflected in the full fonts with the beginning ofthe arches and some portions of the glass windows. But thereflections of the paintings, broken by the marble rim, werecontinued farther on upon the flag-stones, like a many-colouredcarpet. The broad daylight from without streamed into the churchin three enormous rays from the three opened portals. From timeto time at the upper end a sacristan passed, making the obliquegenuflexion of devout persons in a hurry. The crystal lustreshung motionless. In the choir a silver lamp was burning, and fromthe side chapels and dark places of the church sometimes rosesounds like sighs, with the clang of a closing grating, its echoreverberating under the lofty vault.

　　Leon with solemn steps walked along by the walls. Life had neverseemed so good to him. She would come directly, charming,agitated, looking back at the glances that followed her, and withher flounced dress, her gold eyeglass, her thin shoes, with allsorts of elegant trifles that he had never enjoyed, and with theineffable seduction of yielding virtue. The church like a hugeboudoir spread around her; the arches bent down to gather in theshade the confession of her love; the windows shone resplendentto illumine her face, and the censers would burn that she mightappear like an angel amid the fumes of the sweet-smelling odours.

　　But she did not come. He sat down on a chair, and his eyes fellupon a blue stained window representing boatmen carrying baskets.He looked at it long, attentively, and he counted the scales ofthe fishes and the button-holes of the doublets, while histhoughts wandered off towards Emma.

　　The beadle, standing aloof, was inwardly angry at this individualwho took the liberty of admiring the cathedral by himself. Heseemed to him to be conducting himself in a monstrous fashion, tobe robbing him in a sort, and almost committing sacrilege.

　　But a rustle of silk on the flags, the tip of a bonnet, a linedcloak--it was she! Leon rose and ran to meet her.

　　Emma was pale. She walked fast.

　　"Read!" she said, holding out a paper to him. "Oh, no!"

　　And she abruptly withdrew her hand to enter the chapel of theVirgin, where, kneeling on a chair, she began to pray.

　　The young man was irritated at this bigot fancy; then henevertheless experienced a certain charm in seeing her, in themiddle of a rendezvous, thus lost in her devotions, like anAndalusian marchioness; then he grew bored, for she seemed nevercoming to an end.

　　Emma prayed, or rather strove to pray, hoping that some suddenresolution might descend to her from heaven; and to draw downdivine aid she filled full her eyes with the splendours of thetabernacle. She breathed in the perfumes of the full-blownflowers in the large vases, and listened to the stillness of thechurch, that only heightened the tumult of her heart.

　　She rose, and they were about to leave, when the beadle cameforward, hurriedly saying--

　　"Madame, no doubt, does not belong to these parts? Madame wouldlike to see the curiosities of the church?"

　　"Oh, no!" cried the clerk.

　　"Why not?" said she. For she clung with her expiring virtue tothe Virgin, the sculptures, the tombs--anything.

　　Then, in order to proceed "by rule," the beadle conducted themright to the entrance near the square, where, pointing out withhis cane a large circle of block-stones without inscription orcarving--

　　"This," he said majestically, "is the circumference of thebeautiful bell of Ambroise. It weighed forty thousand pounds.There was not its equal in all Europe. The workman who cast itdied of the joy--"

　　"Let us go on," said Leon.

　　The old fellow started off again; then, having got back to thechapel of the Virgin, he stretched forth his arm with anall-embracing gesture of demonstration, and, prouder than acountry squire showing you his espaliers, went on--

　　"This simple stone covers Pierre de Breze, lord of Varenne and ofBrissac, grand marshal of Poitou, and governor of Normandy, whodied at the battle of Montlhery on the 16th of July, 1465."

　　Leon bit his lips, fuming.

　　"And on the right, this gentleman all encased in iron, on theprancing horse, is his grandson, Louis de Breze, lord of Brevaland of Montchauvet, Count de Maulevrier, Baron de Mauny,chamberlain to the king, Knight of the Order, and also governorof Normandy; died on the 23rd of July, 1531--a Sunday, as theinscription specifies; and below, this figure, about to descendinto the tomb, portrays the same person. It is not possible, isit, to see a more perfect representation of annihilation?"

　　Madame Bovary put up her eyeglasses. Leon, motionless, looked ather, no longer even attempting to speak a single word, to make agesture, so discouraged was he at this two-fold obstinacy ofgossip and indifference.

　　The everlasting guide went on--

　　"Near him, this kneeling woman who weeps is his spouse, Diane dePoitiers, Countess de Breze, Duchess de Valentinois, born in1499, died in 1566, and to the left, the one with the child isthe Holy Virgin. Now turn to this side; here are the tombs of theAmbroise. They were both cardinals and archbishops of Rouen. Thatone was minister under Louis XII. He did a great deal for thecathedral. In his will he left thirty thousand gold crowns forthe poor."

　　And without stopping, still talking, he pushed them into a chapelfull of balustrades, some put away, and disclosed a kind of blockthat certainly might once have been an ill-made statue.

　　"Truly," he said with a groan, "it adorned the tomb of RichardCoeur de Lion, King of England and Duke of Normandy. It was theCalvinists, sir, who reduced it to this condition. They hadburied it for spite in the earth, under the episcopal seat ofMonsignor. See! this is the door by which Monsignor passes to hishouse. Let us pass on quickly to see the gargoyle windows."

　　But Leon hastily took some silver from his pocket and seizedEmma's arm. The beadle stood dumfounded, not able to understandthis untimely munificence when there were still so many thingsfor the stranger to see. So calling him back, he cried--

　　"Sir! sir! The steeple! the steeple!"

　　"No, thank you!" said Leon.

　　"You are wrong, sir! It is four hundred and forty feet high, nineless than the great pyramid of Egypt. It is all cast; it--"

　　Leon was fleeing, for it seemed to him that his love, that fornearly two hours now had become petrified in the church like thestones, would vanish like a vapour through that sort of truncatedfunnel, of oblong cage, of open chimney that rises so grotesquelyfrom the cathedral like the extravagant attempt of some fantasticbrazier.

　　"But where are we going?" she said.

　　Making no answer, he walked on with a rapid step; and MadameBovary was already, dipping her finger in the holy water whenbehind them they heard a panting breath interrupted by theregular sound of a cane. Leon turned back.

　　"Sir!"

　　"What is it?"

　　And he recognised the beadle, holding under his arms andbalancing against his stomach some twenty large sewn volumes.They were works "which treated of the cathedral."

　　"Idiot!" growled Leon, rushing out of the church.

　　A lad was playing about the close.

　　"Go and get me a cab!"

　　The child bounded off like a ball by the Rue Quatre-Vents; thenthey were alone a few minutes, face to face, and a littleembarrassed.

　　"Ah! Leon! Really--I don't know--if I ought," she whispered. Thenwith a more serious air, "Do you know, it is very improper--"

　　"How so?" replied the clerk. "It is done at Paris."

　　And that, as an irresistible argument, decided her.

　　Still the cab did not come. Leon was afraid she might go backinto the church. At last the cab appeared.

　　"At all events, go out by the north porch," cried the beadle, whowas left alone on the threshold, "so as to see the Resurrection,the Last Judgment, Paradise, King David, and the Condemned inHell-flames."

　　"Where to, sir?" asked the coachman.

　　"Where you like," said Leon, forcing Emma into the cab.

　　And the lumbering machine set out. It went down the RueGrand-Pont, crossed the Place des Arts, the Quai Napoleon, thePont Neuf, and stopped short before the statue of PierreCorneille.

　　"Go on," cried a voice that came from within.

　　The cab went on again, and as soon as it reached the CarrefourLafayette, set off down-hill, and entered the station at agallop.

　　"No, straight on!" cried the same voice.

　　The cab came out by the gate, and soon having reached the Cours,trotted quietly beneath the elm-trees. The coachman wiped hisbrow, put his leather hat between his knees, and drove hiscarriage beyond the side alley by the meadow to the margin of thewaters.

　　It went along by the river, along the towing-path paved withsharp pebbles, and for a long while in the direction of Oyssel,beyond the isles.

　　But suddenly it turned with a dash across Quatremares,Sotteville, La Grande-Chaussee, the Rue d'Elbeuf, and made itsthird halt in front of the Jardin des Plantes.

　　"Get on, will you?" cried the voice more furiously.

　　And at once resuming its course, it passed by Saint-Sever, by theQuai'des Curandiers, the Quai aux Meules, once more over thebridge, by the Place du Champ de Mars, and behind the hospitalgardens, where old men in black coats were walking in the sunalong the terrace all green with ivy. It went up the BoulevardBouvreuil, along the Boulevard Cauchoise, then the whole ofMont-Riboudet to the Deville hills.

　　It came back; and then, without any fixed plan or direction,wandered about at hazard. The cab was seen at Saint-Pol, atLescure, at Mont Gargan, at La Rougue-Marc and Place duGaillardbois; in the Rue Maladrerie, Rue Dinanderie, beforeSaint-Romain, Saint-Vivien, Saint-Maclou, Saint-Nicaise--in frontof the Customs, at the "Vieille Tour," the "Trois Pipes," and theMonumental Cemetery. From time to time the coachman, on his boxcast despairing eyes at the public-houses. He could notunderstand what furious desire for locomotion urged theseindividuals never to wish to stop. He tried to now and then, andat once exclamations of anger burst forth behind him. Then helashed his perspiring jades afresh, but indifferent to theirjolting, running up against things here and there, not caring ifhe did, demoralised, and almost weeping with thirst, fatigue, anddepression.

　　And on the harbour, in the midst of the drays and casks, and inthe streets, at the corners, the good folk opened largewonder-stricken eyes at this sight, so extraordinary in theprovinces, a cab with blinds drawn, and which appeared thusconstantly shut more closely than a tomb, and tossing about likea vessel.

　　Once in the middle of the day, in the open country, just as thesun beat most fiercely against the old plated lanterns, a baredhand passed beneath the small blinds of yellow canvas, and threwout some scraps of paper that scattered in the wind, and fartheroff lighted like white butterflies on a field of red clover allin bloom.

　　At about six o'clock the carriage stopped in a back street of theBeauvoisine Quarter, and a woman got out, who walked with herveil down, and without turning her head.