Madame Bovary

  Now they talked more often about things unconcerned with their love; and the letters Emma sent him were full of flowers, verses, the moon and the stars, as she naïvely attempted to revive her weakened passion with external stimulants. She kept promising herself that on her next trip, she would be profoundly happy; then she would admit that she had not felt anything extraordinary. This disappointment would fade quickly in the presence of fresh hope, and Emma would return to him more ardent, more avid. She would undress roughly, tearing the thin string of her corset, which would whistle around her hips like a slithering snake. She would stand on the tips of her bare toes to see one more time that the door was locked, then drop all her clothes in a single motion; —and, pale, speechless, solemn, she would collapse against his chest with a long shudder.

  But on that forehead beaded with cold droplets, on those stammering lips, in those wild eyes, in the clasp of those arms, there was something extreme, undefined, and bleak that seemed to Léon to slip subtly between them as though to separate them.

  He did not dare question her; but, understanding how experienced she was, he would say to himself that she must have passed through every ordeal of suffering and pleasure. What had once charmed him he now found a little frightening. Moreover, he rebelled against the way his personality was absorbed by her more and more each day. He resented Emma for this perpetual victory. He even attempted to stop loving her; then, at the creak of her little boots, he would feel how cowardly he was, like a drunkard at the sight of strong liquor.

  True, she unfailingly lavished on him attentions of every kind, from delicacies for the table to her stylish clothing and her dreamy glances. She would bring roses from Yonville in her bosom and toss them in his face; she would worry over his health, give him advice about how to conduct himself; and in order to keep a firmer hold on him, hoping that heaven would perhaps intervene, she hung around his neck a medal of the Blessed Virgin. She informed herself, like a virtuous mother, about his friends. She would say to him:

  “Don’t see them, don’t go out, think only about us; love me!”

  She would have liked to be able to keep a constant eye on him, and it occurred to her to have him followed in the streets. Near the hotel, there was a sort of tramp who was always accosting travelers and who would not refuse … But her pride rebelled.

  “Oh, too bad! If he’s deceiving me, what do I care! Does it matter to me?”

  One day when they had left each other early, and she was walking back alone down the boulevard, she caught sight of the walls of her convent; she sat down on a bench, in the shade of the elms. How peaceful those days had been! How she had longed for the indescribable feelings of love that she had tried, with the help of her books, to imagine for herself!

  The first months of her marriage, her horseback rides in the forest, the Vicomte waltzing, and Lagardy singing, all passed before her eyes again … And suddenly Léon appeared to her as far away as the others.

  “And yet I love him!” she said to herself.

  It didn’t matter! She was not happy and never had been. Why was life so inadequate, why did the things she depended on turn immediately to dust? … Yet if somewhere there existed a strong, handsome being, with a valorous nature, at once exalted and refined, with the heart of a poet in the shape of an angel, a lyre with strings of brass, sounding elegiac epithalamiums to the heavens, then why mightn’t she, by chance, find him? Oh, how impossible! And anyway, nothing was worth the difficulty of such a search; everything was a lie! Every smile hid a yawn of boredom, every joy a malediction, every pleasure its own disgust, and the sweetest kisses left on your lips no more than a vain longing for a more sublime pleasure.

  A prolonged metallic rattle whirred through the air and four strokes sounded from the convent bell. Four o’clock! and it seemed to her that she had been there on that bench for all eternity. But an infinity of passions can be contained within a minute, like a crowd of people in a small space.

  Emma’s life was completely occupied by her passions, and she worried no more about money than an archduchess.

  One day, however, a sickly-looking man, red-faced and bald, entered her house declaring that he had been sent by Monsieur Vinçart of Rouen. He withdrew the pins fastening the side pocket of his long green frock coat, stuck them in his sleeve, and politely held out a piece of paper.

  It was a note for seven hundred francs, signed by her, which Lheureux, despite all his protestations, had endorsed over to Vinçart.

  She sent her servant to his house. He was unable to come.

  Then the stranger, who had remained standing, glancing curiously to the right and left under the cover of his thick blond eyebrows, asked with a naïve air:

  “What answer will I give Monsieur Vinçart?”

  “Well,” answered Emma, “tell him … that I don’t have it … It’ll have to be next week … He should wait … Yes. Next week.”

  And the fellow went off without uttering a word.

  But the next day, at noon, she received a protest of nonpayment; and the sight of the official document, on which were displayed, in several places and in large letters, the words “Maître Hareng, Bailiff at Bucy,” frightened her so much that she ran in all haste to the dry-goods merchant.

  She found him in his shop, tying up a parcel.

  “Your servant!” he said; “what can I do for you?”

  Yet Lheureux went on with his task, helped by a slightly hunchbacked girl of about thirteen, who served him as both shop assistant and cook.

  Then, his wooden shoes clattering on the floorboards of the shop, he preceded Madame up to the second floor and showed her into a cramped office where a large pine desk supported several ledgers secured by a transverse padlocked iron bar. Against the wall, under some lengths of calico, a strongbox could be seen, of such dimensions, however, that it had to contain something other than promissory notes and cash. Indeed, Monsieur Lheureux was a pawnbroker, and it was here that he had put Madame Bovary’s gold chain, along with some earrings belonging to poor Père Tellier, who, having at last been obliged to sell, had bought a struggling grocery business in Quincampoix, where he was dying of his catarrh, his face yellower than the candles that surrounded him.

  Lheureux sat down in his large straw armchair, saying:

  “What is it now?”

  “Here.”

  And she showed him the paper.

  “Well, what can I do about it?”

  Then she flew into a rage, reminding him of the promise he had given her not to circulate her notes; he admitted it.

  “But I was forced to do it. I had a knife at my throat.”

  “And what’s going to happen now?” she went on.

  “Oh, it’s very simple: a court order, and then seizure … ; no help for it!”

  Emma had to restrain herself from striking him. She asked quietly if there was no way to appease Monsieur Vinçart.

  “Oh, yes … appease Vinçart. You don’t know him; he’s fiercer than an Arab.”

  But Monsieur Lheureux simply had to intervene.

  “Listen! It seems to me that, up to now, I’ve been quite good to you.”

  And, opening one of his ledgers:

  “Here!”

  Then, going up the page with his finger:

  “Let’s see … let’s see … On August third, two hundred francs … On June seventeenth, one hundred fifty … March twenty-third, forty-six … In April …”

  He stopped, as though afraid of doing something foolish.

  “And I’m not saying anything about the notes signed by Monsieur, one for seven hundred francs, another for three hundred! As for your little payments on account, and the interest, there’s no end to all of that, it’s a real muddle. I’m not getting mixed up in it anymore!”

  She was weeping; she even called him her “good Monsieur Lheureux.” But he kept laying the blame on that “cunning dog Vinçart.” Anyway, he hi
mself didn’t have a centime; no one was paying him at the moment; people were eating the wool off his back; a poor shopkeeper like him couldn’t offer advances.

  Emma fell silent; and Monsieur Lheureux, who was nibbling the barbs of a quill pen, probably began to worry about her silence, for he went on:

  “Of course, if, one of these days, I were to receive some payments … I could possibly …”

  “After all,” she said, “as soon as the balance on Barneville …”

  “What? …”

  And, learning that Langlois had not yet paid, he seemed very surprised. Then, in a honey-smooth voice:

  “And you say we can agree …”

  “Oh, whatever you like!”

  Then he closed his eyes in order to think, wrote down a few figures, and, declaring that it would be very hard for him, that the thing was risky and that he was bleeding himself white, he dictated four notes of 250 francs each, with due dates falling at intervals one month apart.

  “Provided Vinçart is willing to listen to me! Anyway, we’re agreed, I’m not trifling with you, I’m straight as an arrow.”

  Then he casually showed her several pieces of new merchandise, though not one of them, in his opinion, was worthy of Madame.

  “Just think—here’s dress goods for seven sous a meter, and certified dye-fast! And yet they swallow that! They don’t get told different, you may well believe,” wishing, by this confession that he swindled others, to convince her of his utter honesty.

  Then he called her back, to show her three ells of point lace he had just picked up “at auction.”

  “Isn’t it fine!” said Lheureux; “it’s very much used nowadays, for antimacassars—it’s the style.”

  And quicker than a conjurer, he wrapped the lace in blue paper and put it in Emma’s hands.

  “At least, could you let me know … ?”

  “Ah! Later,” he said, turning on his heels.

  That evening, she pressed Bovary to write his mother and ask her to send them the balance of the inheritance at once. Her mother-in-law answered that she had nothing more: the settlement was done, and what was left for them, apart from Barneville, was six hundred livres yearly income, which she would pay out to them punctually.

  Then Madame sent bills to two or three clients and soon made liberal use of this expedient, which was successful. She was always careful to add, as a postscript: “Don’t speak of this to my husband, you know how proud he is … My apologies … Your servant …” There were a few complaints; she intercepted them.

  To make some money for herself, she began selling her old gloves, her old hats, the old scrap iron; and she haggled rapaciously, —her peasant blood driving her to make a profit. Then, on her trips to the city, she would trade with secondhand dealers for knickknacks that Monsieur Lheureux, if no one else, would certainly buy from her. She bought herself ostrich feathers, Chinese porcelain, and round-topped chests; she borrowed from Félicité, from Madame Lefrançois, from the landlady of the Croix Rouge, from anyone, anywhere. Out of the money she received at last from Barneville, she paid two notes; the remaining fifteen hundred francs melted away. She signed new notes, and so it went on!

  Sometimes, it is true, she would attempt some calculations; but she would discover things so exorbitant that she could not believe them. So she would begin again, quickly become muddled, drop it all at that point, and think no more about it.

  The house was certainly dismal now! Tradesmen could be seen leaving with furious looks on their faces. Handkerchiefs were draped over the stoves; and little Berthe, to the great indignation of Madame Homais, wore stockings with holes in them. If Charles timidly ventured a comment, she would answer roughly that it was not her fault!

  Why these fits of anger? He blamed it all on her old nervous complaint; and, reproaching himself for having mistaken her infirmities for defects of character, he would accuse himself of selfishness, and would want to rush over and take her in his arms.

  “Oh, no!” he would say to himself. “I would only annoy her!”

  And he would stay where he was.

  After dinner, he would walk alone in the garden; he would take little Berthe on his knees, and, spreading out his medical journal, try to teach her to read. The child, who had never been given any schooling, would soon open wide her large, sad eyes and begin to cry. Then he would comfort her; he would go get some water for her in the watering can to make rivers in the sand, or break off branches of the privet hedge to plant trees in the flower beds, which hardly spoiled the garden, choked as it was with tall grass; they owed so many days’ pay to Lestiboudois! Then the child would feel chilly and ask for her mother.

  “Call your nanny, my dearest,” Charles would say. “You know very well your mama doesn’t like to be disturbed.”

  Autumn was beginning and already the leaves were falling, like two years ago, when she was so ill! When would it end! … And he would go on walking, his hands behind his back.

  Madame was in her room. One did not go upstairs. She would remain there all day long, listless, half dressed, and, from time to time, burning pastilles of incense that she had bought in Rouen in a shop belonging to an Algerian. So as not to have that man lying there next to her at night asleep, she managed, by the unpleasant faces she made, to relegate him to the third floor; and till morning she would read lurid books full of orgies and scenes of bloodshed. Often she would become terrified, she would cry out, Charles would come running.

  “Oh, go away!” she would say.

  Or, at other times, burning more hotly with that secret flame that adultery had revived, breathless, agitated, consumed by desire, she would open her window, breathe in the cold air, toss her too-heavy mane of hair in the wind, and, looking at the stars, long for princely loves. She would think of him, of Léon. At such moments she would have given anything for a single one of those meetings with him, which so satiated her.

  Those were her gala days. She wanted them to be splendid! And when he could not pay all the expenses himself, she would liberally make up the difference, which happened almost every time. He tried to persuade her that they would be just as happy elsewhere, in a more modest hotel; but she found objections.

  One day, she drew from her bag six little silver-plated spoons (they were Père Rouault’s wedding present) and asked him to take them immediately to the pawnbroker for her; and Léon complied, though he did not like doing it. He was afraid of compromising himself.

  Then, as he thought about it afterward, he felt that his mistress was behaving strangely and that people were perhaps not wrong to want to separate him from her.

  Indeed, someone had sent his mother a long anonymous letter, warning her that he was ruining himself with a married woman; and right away the good lady, having visions of that eternal bogey of family life, that ill-defined, pernicious creature, that siren, that fantastic monster inhabiting the depths of love, wrote to Maître Dubocage, his employer, who behaved perfectly in this matter. He detained him for three-quarters of an hour, trying to unseal his eyes, to warn him of the chasm before him. Such an intrigue would later hurt his chances of establishing himself. He entreated him to break it off, and, if he would not make the sacrifice in his own interest, at least to do it for him, Dubocage!

  In the end, Léon had sworn not to see Emma again; and he reproached himself for not having kept his word, considering all that this woman might still draw down upon him in the way of trouble and talk, not to mention the jokes his fellow clerks traded around the stove every morning. Besides, he was about to be made head clerk: the time had come to be serious. And so he gave up the flute, exalted sentiments, and the fancies of the imagination; —for in the heat of his youth, every bourgeois man has believed, if only for a day, for a minute, that he is capable of boundless passions, lofty enterprises. The most halfhearted libertine has dreamed of sultans’ wives; every notary carries within him the remains of a poet.

  He bec
ame bored, now, when Emma suddenly burst into sobs on his chest; and, like people who cannot endure more than a certain dose of music, his heart would grow drowsy with indifference at the din raised by a love whose refinements he could no longer see.

  They knew each other too well to experience, in their mutual possession, that wonder which multiplies the joy of it a hundred times over. She was as weary of him as he was tired of her. Emma was rediscovering in adultery all the platitudes of marriage.

  But how could she get rid of him? And then, though she might feel humiliated at the baseness of such a happiness, she clung to it out of habit or depravity; and every day, she pursued it more eagerly, exhausting all pleasure by wanting it to be too great. She blamed Léon for her disappointed hopes, as if he had betrayed her; and she even longed for some catastrophe that would cause them to separate, since she did not have the courage to resolve to do it herself.

  Yet she continued to write him loving letters, believing in the principle that a woman must always write to her lover.

  But as she wrote, she saw a different man, a phantom created out of her most ardent memories, the most beautiful things she had read, her strongest desires; and in the end he became so real, and so accessible, that she would tremble, marveling, and yet be unable to imagine him clearly, so lost was he, like a god, under the abundance of his attributes. He inhabited that blue-tinted land where silken ladders sway from balconies, amid the breath of flowers, in the moonlight. She would sense him near her; he was going to come and sweep her away in a single kiss. Then she would fall back, shattered; for these transports of vague love tired her more than prolonged debauchery.

  She was experiencing, now, a general and constant aching exhaustion. Often, Emma would receive summonses, official stamped documents that she would scarcely look at. She wished she could stop living, or sleep all the time.

  On Mid-Lent Day, she did not return to Yonville; in the evening she went to a masked ball. She wore velvet breeches and red stockings, a wig with a queue, and a cocked hat over one ear. She leaped about all night to the frenetic sounds of the trombones; people gathered around her in a circle; and in the morning she found herself in the portico of the theater with five or six masqueraders, stevedores and sailors, friends of Léon’s, who were talking about going somewhere for supper.