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    Madame Bovary
    Madame Bovary
    Madame Bovary
    Ebook479 pages10 hours

    Madame Bovary

    By Gustave Flaubert

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    According to Wikipedia: "Madame Bovary is a novel by Gustave Flaubert that was attacked for obscenity by public prosecutors when it was first serialised in La Revue de Paris between 1 October 1856 and 15 December 1856, resulting in a trial in January 1857 that made it notorious. After the acquittal on 7 February, it became a bestseller in book form in April 1857, and now stands virtually unchallenged not only as a seminal work of Realism, but as one of the most influential novels ever written. The novel focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. Though the basic plot is rather simple, even archetypal, the novel's true art lies in its details and hidden patterns. Flaubert was notoriously perfectionistic about his writing and claimed to always be searching for le mot juste (the right word). A 2007 poll of contemporary authors...cited Madame Bovary as one of the 2 greatest novels ever written."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSeltzer Books
    Release dateMar 1, 2018
    ISBN9781455330546
    Author

    Gustave Flaubert

    Gustave Flaubert was born in Rouen in 1821. He initially studied to become a lawyer, but gave it up after a bout of ill-health, and devoted himself to writing. After travelling extensively, and working on many unpublished projects, he completed Madame Bovary in 1856. This was published to great scandal and acclaim, and Flaubert became a celebrated literary figure. His reputation was cemented with Salammbô (1862) and Sentimental Education (1869). He died in 1880, probably of a stroke, leaving his last work, Bouvard et Pécuchet, unfinished.

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    Reviews for Madame Bovary

    4/5

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    • 3/5
      Written in 1857. Emma, a doctor's wife, is lonely and bored and has affairs with Rodolphe and Léon which are both ill-fated. In her disillusionment she has a taste of arsenic with the usual outcome. Okay, but showing it's age.
    • 4/5
      The kind of book that uses "spaded" as a transitive verb and it works. (How to judge classics in translation? The voice is so far from Davis' own work (as well as her Proust) that one assumes the translation is impeccable. What struck me most was how idiotic, provincial, and fixed the characters were regarded by the narrative voice. Still, pretty good for a first novel circa 1856. The structure is, of course, flawless. Worth it for the opening scene of poor Bovary in school.)
    • 5/5
      English translation by Merloyd Lawrence. Fantastique.
    • 4/5
      I have been reading Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert by installments from Daily Lit since November, 2018. I was very happy to reach the end of this book although it certainly held my attention throughout the reading, but there was an inevitable sense of doom building. The story, set in 1840’s Normandy, is of a doctor’s unhappy and unfaithful wife. I found this a very sad tale, as to me, it was obvious that Emma was married to a dull man and had no outlet available for her other than adultery. Women of a certain class did not work, or really have much to occupy their time, other than oversee the servants. Emma Bovary was a woman of passion, in fact shopping excited her every bit as much as sex. Yes, she was beautiful, somewhat selfish and immature but I still felt a great deal of sympathy for her. It was hard not to emphasize with a woman whose happiness was so out of tune with her situation.Did I have sympathy for her husband, Charles, yes, indeed. He tried to provide Emma with what he thought he wanted and she carefully never revealed her unhappiness in the life he provided her. Charles was not the brightest of men, he was quiet and easily satisfied, didn’t have a romantic bone in his body and apparently never questioned their life or situation until it was too late. The Boyarys were a mismatched couple and the marriage, right from the start seemed doomed to failure.Flaubert has written an excellent morality tale that still stands today. Our happiness does not rely on anyone or anything other than ourselves. Emma Bovary paid a heavy price for her longings to escape the caged life that she lead and this book reminds me that woman can still fall into the same patterns as Emma Bovary even though we have more choices today in our search for a fulfilling life.
    • 5/5
      somewhere a reviewer called it a 'buddhist morality tale on the futility of desire' which pretty much sums it up for me.
    • 2/5
      It's been a few years since I read this book, but I remember thinking how pathetic Ms. Bovary was. I could not develop any sympathy for her whatsoever and thought she was one of those who thought love was about first kisses and butterflies in the stomach. Perhaps she watched too many soap operas. Anyway, not a female character in literature I would aspire to be. Read Little Women or some Jane Austen.
    • 2/5
      I hated this book when it was assigned to me my senior year of high school. Assuming I'd changed since then, I gave it another go. Turns out I had good sense as an 18-year-old. I'm putting it down after 170 unsatisfying pages.
    • 4/5
      I did not read this version I read a 'free' Public domain kindle book. It was a great version by Eleanor Marx-Aveling. You don't need to buy it, this version is great, but you will need a device to read it on!
    • 3/5
      I read this for a book club. I have to admit that I'm not sure I see why it has received all this acclaim. There were pages that I just had to force myself to wade through. That being said, I can see for it's time that it was quite a thriller. The writing style is just so much different than what we as readers of most modern novels are accustomed to.I never felt any kind of sympathy for Emma Bovary, but yet I do believe she is representative of those individuals who are always looking outward to something or someone else to make them happy. Manners, customs, fashions, lifestyles have changed, but there are still plenty of Emma Bovarys today. Good literature lets us see human nature at its best or at its worst; this book does that.As the saying goes, "So many books, so little time" -- if you have lots of time, read this. However, if there's only so much time, there are many more modern novels that will be easier to read and relate to.
    • 5/5
      I read this novel when I was younger and the impressions I have of the work now is that it was a beautifully written book. Flaubert spent much labor over constructing perfect lines and it shows. It is a novel that I plan on re-reading.
    • 5/5
      'Madame Bovary', as with Kate Chopin's 'The Awakening', is a classic that shows how properly written characters and beautiful prose will find an audience across the span of time. Considered scandalous in its day, this story of a woman living in a world of romantic delusions is like watching a slow motion train wreck- it can only come to a horrible end, and yet it rumbles down the track while everyone watches from the sideline, apparently baffled by what is to come. Emma's character can be a little distasteful at times, with fits of selfishness and childish behavior displayed at its worst in her treatment of her daughter, but these are symptomatic of her greater character flaws, and without them, her character would not be the cohesive element that has propelled her tale to the respect it has earned among literary classics. Flaubert labored over every word in the writing of this book, often proofing sentences with incredible attention to detail. And though this is obviously not in the native French, the beauty and musical sound of his language is preserved in this translation. If nothing else, if the intention is to read a book of prose of incredible beauty, read 'Madame Bovary'. If one is interested in a greater exposure to portrayals of woman 'led astray' in nineteenth century literature, Kate Chopin's 'The Awakening' makes a wonderful companion to Flaubert's tale.
    • 5/5
      Perhaps the best novel ever written? I'm afraid its critique of the romantically inclined woman still rings awfully true...
    • 3/5
      I struggle because I want to give this book 4 stars but I didn't "really like it". 3 1/2 stars only because Flaubert's writing is so detailed and the characters all so despicable that I didn't enjoy reading it very much, although I can't help but appreciate the excellence of its author. The story is extremely well written in a style far ahead of its time. I found some sympathy for Emma's position as a powerless woman and yet, she was so bi-polar about her desires and lacking in any real display of human feeling and affection that I felt her to be nothing but a drama queen. "Whoah is me, my life sucks, I think I'll ruin everyone else's life too." As far as the author's attention to detail, the more I get into the story, the deeper I like to be transported. I did feel as if I were right there at the wedding banquet along with the peasants, awkward in their niceties, hearing the clock tick in an empty room, listening to the blind beggar's song, viewing Hyppolite's gangrenous leg. Which in this case was all very depressing and made me feel as if I were wading slowly through the book.
    • 2/5
      I agree with Will Cuppy in preferring Salammbo to Mme. Bovary, but I felt I should have it as a classic. I was ashamed because once in class i said Mme. B. herself was stupid without having read it and a student who had read it disagreed.
    • 5/5
      I had attempted this book a couple year ago, but was confounded by a bad translation. Then I heard about Lydia Davis's new, highly touted translation through the New York Times book review podcast. It's everything they say. Beautifully done.

      This novel is so psychologically realistic, the result of such careful observation of human behavior, that it's amazing it came out in the mid-nineteenth century. Not only that, but it's an early feminist novel!

      Emma Roualt is a farm girl who has been given a good convent education by her father. She longs for the finer things in life. Music, art, romance, the company of cultured people. She ends up marrying Charles Bovary, a barely competent physician, and a dull man in the bargain. With him she relocates to a small town where everybody knows everybody, has a child, and of course, becomes very unhappy.

      Her unhappiness comes not only from her dissatisfaction with her dull, unambitious husband and the life they share, but also from her awareness of the lack of freedom experienced by women in her society. Her sadness allows to to place her hopes for a better life successively, in two adulterous affairs. Rodolphe, the gentleman farmer, has ignoble intentions toward her from the start. Leon, the young law clerk, is too immature to know what he wants.

      Serving as sort of a Greek chorus is Homais, the apothecary, who is the Bovarys' next door neighbor. He's a pompous twit who has a number of comic monologues.

      In order to finance the tissue of lies she's concocted to carry on her affairs, Emma makes an association with a dry goods merchant who plays with her like a fish on a line, loaning her sums of money and coaxing her to sign promissory notes which eventually come due.

      The ending of the book is very dark, but realistic.
    • 4/5
      Finally got to this one after being on my to-read list for some time. I enjoyed it much more than I expected and was struck by how modern Flaubert's narrative structure and prose was in the novel (helped no doubt by the skilled translation by Steegmuller). The narrative focus seamlessly shifts from character to character and the reader is left with no solid empathetic foundation under any of these unhappy characters. It's difficult to completely admire or condemn any of them- each exhibits qualities of greed, love, selfishness, determination, apathy, and hopeful yearning. In short, Falubert has provided a cast of truly human characters.
    • 2/5
      What the heck is the big deal about this book? I just wanted to shake Emma Bovary. Suck it up sister. No body made you marry your husband. Nobody made you run up all that debt. And why do I care about the agriculture "fair" and some of the other things that Flaubert dwelt on?
    • 4/5
      When I was a senior in college, I took a Russian lit course in which Anna Karenina was the major text, and I devoured it.I felt a kind of empathy for Anna—and I loved her, too. Her haughtiness, her grandeur and her passion were somehow beautiful to me. My classmates, on the other hand, were very critical of her. They despised her for having an affair, for essentially abandoning her son — and indeed, these are terrible things even in the most forgiving circumstances. But I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Anna. I wondered—and I wonder still—what I would do in her circumstances (if I lived in 1870s Russia, that is). I wondered if my classmates scorned her because they, like me, saw something of themselves in her. (And don’t the most artfully crafted characters make us do that?)Occasionally Flaubert’s Madame Bovary came up during our class discussions. There are obvious parallels between the two (and if you don’t want to know, stop now, because here come the spoilers) — the unhappy marriages, the affairs, the heroines’ abandonment of their children, their suicides at the close of the book. At the time, though, I hadn’t read Madame Bovary. I was a little bit wary of it, knowing that I would approach it through a comparative lens. How would it measure up to my beloved Anna?Let me say this: in my (biased) opinion, it didn’t.That’s not to say I didn’t like it. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Emma Bovary was a compelling character—compelling in that I had no sympathy for her. I didn’t love her like I loved Anna. I thought her complaints about her husband were completely unfounded. He, a successful and intelligent doctor, loved her so much and was incredibly devoted and kind to her. Emma was simply determined to find him inadequate, ordinary and boring. She wanted the high life—living comfortably wasn’t enough. She wanted balls and fancy dinners and an endless wardrobe.True to my nature, though, I have to cut Emma a little slack. As a woman in mid-1800s France, she was powerless—and she knew it. She knew she had no options, no freedom, and very little control over her life. I think that, in a way, her obsession with her extra-marital affairs was a form of control. I’m not sure she was capable of loving any of those men—but she was capable of using them to feel as though she some power and influence.Emma was a tragic character, true, but an unlikeable one. Even her death was prolonged, dramatic and grotesque.I’d love to see what kind of lives Emma and Anna would create for themselves in the 21st century. I have a feeling they would thrive.
    • 3/5
      Read for college. I didn't so much enjoy it as much as I appreciated it existence. Bovary is not a likeable character for me, but I understood where she was. She is one of those characters that make me wonder about the lives of women back when they were written and how many would have been better off had they been allowed to make their own way in the world.
    • 2/5
      Summary: Emma Bovary is stuck in her provincial life. She is married to a successful but dull country doctor, and longs for the city, for the culture and refinement and romance that she does not find in her marriage nor in motherhood. She becomes infatuated with a young law student, but does not show her affections, trying to cling to the image of devoted wife. However, she then allows herself to be seduced by a wealthy man about town, and to run up huge debts trying to live the live she wants, only to find that reality still does not live up to her romantic fantasy. Review: I really, really did not care for this book. I don't know if it's a matter of the writing, or the translation, or the narration, or what, but it just did very little for me. I found the characters flat and unlikable - I felt sorry for Charles (Emma's husband), but that's about it. Emma herself bugged the heck out of me - I get that women in the 1800s didn't have many options, or really any control over their lives, but Emma just seemed so stubbornly flighty and selfish that I wanted to give her a solid kick to the shins. I also didn't really care for the writing itself (again, this may have been the translation more than the writing). The introduction talks about how meticulous Flaubert was, always in search of the perfect word, but in listening to it, I didn't get that at all. The book came across as incredibly wordy and meandering and unnecessarily descriptive of just about everything. I didn't understand the point of some of the lengthy narrative diversions, and even parts of the plot that were important (the whole scheme of buying and selling debt, for example) wasn't entirely clear. Maybe if I had read this in a literature class, or if I spent more time analyzing the structure of the narrative and the significance of some of the details, maybe then I'd have gotten more out of it. But reading it by myself from a character and story-centric point of view? I had a hard time with it, and was glad when it was over. 1.5 out of 5 stars.Recommendation: I don't want to dissuade people from reading the classics, but this one didn't do it for me. You can get much the same story with more compelling characters and in a much shorter package in Kate Chopin's The Awakening.
    • 5/5
      A classic. What else can one say? Oh yes, it's actually an enjoyable read as well as being supposedly one of the best books in history.
    • 4/5
      I had read this book some time in the distant past but when I saw the audiobook available on my library's electronic media site I thought it would be worth a listen. It was but it also bothered me a great deal. The tale is ultimately so tragic for Madame Bovary and her family and it seemed a high price to pay for essentially being an attractive woman. If you don't know the story it is pretty simple but beware spoilers follow. Emma Bovary is a lovely young woman who attracts the attention of a doctor. They marry but Emma is not happy in the small village they live in. So the doctor decides to move to a larger town where Emma attracts the attention of more men. Her first flirtation is quite innocent with the young clerk who lives across the street. However, he leaves to pursue legal studies in Paris and Emma is bereft. She has a child but perhaps due to post-partum depression doesn't seem to bond with the child. Then a wealthy landowner, Rodolphe, notices Emma and woos and wins her. They have a passionate affair and, in time, Emma begs him to run away with her. He agrees but has no intention of doing so. Emma orders clothes and travelling chests incurring quite a debt. When Rodolphe finally sends her a note breaking off their affair she becomes ill. The debts she incurred come due and she has no way of paying them. She goes to Rodolphe to get money from him but he tells her he does not have it. Emma gets arsenic from the chemist, swallows it and dies in agony. Her husband dies soon after, no doubt of a broken heart. The young daughter goes to a cousin who puts her to work in a cotton factory. Although the Bovarys are destroyed, nothing seems to happen to Rodolphe who is the cause of the tragedy really. If Flaubert's intention was to show what disparity existed (and possibly still exists) between men and women then he succeeded admirably.
    • 5/5
      Having put off reading this novel, thinking it would be hard to read, in that I would need to be "in the mood" to get through the languge of the writers of the time, I was surprised at how easily it flows and how I couldn't put it down.I felt rather sad for Emma, although her seeming lack of feeling for her young daughter was a times perplexing, I felt she suffered depression, and anxiety, and a sense of feeling as if she had no idea what she wanted or needed. Of course, she lived in a time where she wasn't expected to "do much" of anything. Her life probably seemed meaningless. Was this why she was so easily swayed by an admiring glance, and so easily seemed to fall into affairs of the hear. The characters all seemed to lack much emotional depth, except perhaps poor Charles, who tried so hard to please Emma and everyone else. I was shocked at how she died, although not surprised. I am sure, now I have been gifted this favourite book of a friend, that I too will read it often, for the joy and sadness and despair of it.
    • 3/5
      Lydia Davis is magnificent: she is as precise as Flaubert was obsessive. I read this just for her, to see if I could understand more about Flaubert's claim that writing, and not plot, was all that mattered in "Madame Bovary."Flaubert's sense of what counts as ambitious writing -- his meticulous prose, where every sentence displays the work it took to make it, where each adjective is the only possible choice, and never hides its perfection as simple inspiration -- has hypertrophied into hyper-realism or atrophied into rote realism. He had a constant and deliberate sense of responsibility to mimesis, which gives the book an unremitting, pressurized attachment to what he considers as real life. His laborious search for the right word or image sometimes makes him perfunctory and mechanical, like the pharmacist Homais -- a parallel he seems not to have noticed at all (he enjoyed the character, so presumably he saw parts of himself in Homais, but there is no evidence he saw his own daily struggles for the perfect word as anything like Homais's grandiloquent misuses of language). The constant continuous attention to the perfect word, the dogged myopic search for the perfect image, the oppressive sense of the pages he discarded, creates a dull humming in my ears. It can't ever be realism again.And then of course there's the story. It's often said that Emma is a prototypical modern bourgeois woman, or even a prototype of contemporary experience, because she lives out of joint with her time (and because she never knows her desires). She has been said to be the prototype of many alienated, disaffected, emotionally unconnected characters, right up to Tom McCarthy's "Remainder." Contemporary readers admire Flaubert's capacity to despise so much of bourgeois life, and to write with such sarcasm ("irony" is the word Davis prefers in her introduction). But he doesn't despise everyone equally. The book is deeply sexist, for example. Emma notoriously ignores her daughter; but so does Flaubert. Emma famously fails to appreciate her husband, but Flaubert doesn't have anything very bad to say about him: he's almost as innocent and unformed as a child.But at least now I have a clearer sense of Flaubert's writing, and I can see enough of it to know it is not a model for the contemporary novel. It does not correspond clearly to any viable contemporary sense of realism, the reality effect, mimesis, or descriptive skill. The novel is sunk in history.
    • 1/5
      I hated this book. Emma Bovary is boring, vain and without purpose. Charles Bovary as stupid and boring as his wife finds him. most of the other characters just annoying. I read up to the 200 page mark, the end of the affair with the odious Rodolphe, and lost the will to carry on. I then looked up the plot line in Wikipedia. The thought of another boring affair and a bad end for all was too much and I have given up. I fail to see why this is such an acclaimed book. It may be the translation, but I found nothing extraordinary or exciting about the prose, plot or characters.
    • 4/5
      I had to read this book in school and in my memory the book was as boring as Emma Bovary found life itself but I thought it was worth rereading to see if several decades worth of reading in the meantime would change how i perceived the book. It has, naturally.It's the story of Emma who marries a doctor, Charles. She finds life in a small French village and marraige itself far different from what she thought it would be. She's bored, she finds it all, including motherhood, tedious. She becomes unfaithful and after two lovers, when that doesn't give her the satisfaction and happiness she craves, she then gets herself deeper and deeper into debt until she can see no way out.Emma is never happy. She grew up devouring romantic fiction and it's given her the perception of the ideal life. Romance, adventure, someone to put her on a pedestal and spoil her and love her. She finds out that life is not filled with white knights sweeping her off her feet yet she never lets go of that yearning and her affairs and spending habits are all her ways of trying to find that ideal. Her husband bumbles through life oblivious to her unhappiness or her escapades but the story isn't about him.The author has a lovely way with words and description and tells the story well if not a bit overly wordy at times. It's certainly better than how I remember it though it won't be to everyone's taste.
    • 4/5
      An inexperienced, passionate, romantic dreamer of a girl marries a boring, medicre, widowed, milksop, country doctor with predictable consequences.My feelings about Madame Bovary are ambiguous. At times the writing seemed uneven. There were many brilliant passages, but many that were not so great. That might have been the fault of the translation.I really couldn't sympathize with either Emma Bovary, nor her husband. The character that I had the most compassion for was Berthe, a minor character.I'm glad that I read this, though, because I did enjoy some of the more outstanding passages, and it was so rich with symbolism and other literary devices, such as foreshadowing.I can't help but conclude that Flaubert was a gifted writer.
    • 4/5
      This book should have been the mister rather than the missus Bovary. In my opinion Charles Bovary is what you would call a nineteenth century sad sack. When we first meet Charles (for he starts and ends the book as you'll soon see) he is a shy student who grows up to become a second rate doctor (more on that later). He has an overbearing mother who convinces him to marry a much older, supposedly rich, but nevertheless nagging woman who makes him miserable. oh yeah, and add insult to injury, she's nowhere near wealthy. After the lying lady's death Charles meets Emma Rouault (our ahem - heroine), the daughter of Charles's patient. He falls in love and wins her heart only to have her mope about because her life soon after the wedding isn't exciting or wealthy enough. Poor Charles! But, the sad tale of Charles Bovary doesn't stop here. There's more! As mentioned before he is a second rate doctor so his attempts to heal a clubfooted patient fail miserably. That failure only irritates our dear Emma even more. She soon convinces herself she deserves better in the way of the company of other more exciting and accomplished men and by spending Charles's money. Emma convinces herself adultery isn't a sin because it's cloaked in beauty and romance and how can those things be bad? And isn't she, as Charles's wife, entitled to Charles's money? So, Charles is in debt and his father dies. What's left? Emma attempts suicide and our Doctor Bovary (irony of ironies) can't save her. After her death he finds her illicit love letters and learns of her infidelity...then he dies. The end.Nope. Not a stitch of happiness in this classic.
    • 5/5
      What a wonderful novel -- and what a surprise! I read it in French fifty years and remembered virtually nothing except boredom (my own, and Emma's) and decided, now that I am retired and reading fiction, that I should try again. Emma's boredom is still there, as is Charles' stupidity, but oh, the pity of it all! Despite the fact that the novel evokes a time and place very powerfully, the story seemed timeless to me -- far more so than that of Anna Karenina, for example, who was to a large extent the victim of a specific social situation. Emma, in contrast, is a victim of her own illusions, which denies her the joy of being truly (if stupidly) loved.
    • 4/5
      Okay, to be clear, this book was not at all what I thought it would be. I was, no lie, expecting torrid sex scenes. Why? I have no idea. I just was. Funny thing is, I don’t read anything even approaching erotica so I’m not sure where this thought came from. Obviously, something was lost in translation for me. Charles Bovary is a less than ambitious man but he’s a good man. A doctor by trade, he’s happy practicing in a quiet French hamlet. After he starts his medical practice, his mother finds him a wife; an older and rather unhappy woman who dies early on in their marriage leaving Charles the opportunity to find love. He believes he may have found it in a woman named Emma who he met while setting her father’s broken leg. Emma has dreams, the first of which is to get away from her father’s home, so when Charles asks, she agrees to marry him. Married life is agony for her. She has a pleasant home, a husband who cares for her immensely --- almost to the point of smothering her --- and she has few tangible complaints. What she wants is romance though. After attending a ball, it’s all she can think about and her boring life holds no interest for her. Charles decides that Emma needs a change of scenery and moves the family (a child will soon be born to the couple) to Yonville. Emma soon finds herself entranced by a law student, Léon Dupuis, who seems to return her affection. Appalled by her own thoughts, she refuses to act and Léon soon leaves to finish his degree. However, when Emma meets Rodolphe Boulanger, all thoughts of propriety go out the window and she gives in to his advances and starts the affair. She wants to run away, but Rodolphe, who has had several mistresses, decides that she is too clingy and breaks off the affair on the morning they’re to leave town together. Shattered by the end of the affair, Emma falls into a deep depression and sickness. When she finally recovers, Charles again tries to re-interest her in life this time believing the theatre will be the answer. It’s here that she once more meets Léon and begins her second affair. Lie after lie build up as do her debts. Emma is incapable of handling the lies or the debts and begins begging others for help, which doesn’t arrive. In a final dramatic act, she deals the only way she can. At first, I felt sorry for Charles. He was boring but loving. He wasn’t ambitious at all and was happy with his life. He had a beautiful wife and child and a medical practice that provided the necessities of life. But, again, he was boring. Then he tried to pin everything wrong with his wife on a nervous condition which annoyed me and any sympathy I may have had for the clueless husband vanished. Emma on the other hand, doesn’t exactly deserve any praise. She wants everything, expensive things, is constantly bored, obsessive, and refuses to see any good in her life. She’s always looking for the next best thing. And it must be said, she’s a horrid excuse for a mother. Emma is interesting though and the reason to keep reading because every other character in this book is flat. Toward the end though, when the proverbial dirty laundry is aired, everyone is at fault in some way or another and it’s hard to have any sympathy for any of the characters. My book had two additional sections at the end about the book itself, trials, bannings, etc. I didn’t read them. I think I wanted to look back on the book from my own perspective and not the perspective of a scandalous 19th Century trial discussing the need for a stricter moral code. Also, I think it would have made me upset and I enjoyed this book and didn’t want it to be marred. So, back to my first paragraph --- the sex. It’s there but it’s off screen. There’s kissing, there’s heavy petting, but shall we say, not what I was expecting considering the ruckus this book caused. Then again, that was back in the day. I don’t want to get into a discussion of morals, really, I’m the last person, but it’s an interesting part of this story and while I never felt lectured to, obviously, Emma is a lesson. But her character is more than simply a woman having an affair, she’s a woman unhinged but somewhat deserving of some understanding, even if it’s just to understand her depression better.

    Book preview

    Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

    MADAME BOVARY BY GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

    published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT, USA

    established in 1974, offering over 14,000 books

    Books by Gustave Flaubert in English translation:

    Madame Bovary

    Salammbo

    The Temptation of Saint Anthony

    Bouvard and Pecuchet

    Three Short Works (Dance of Death, Saint-Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul)

    Herodias

    Over Strand and Field (Travel through Brittany

    The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters

    feedback welcome: info@samizdat.com

    visit us at samizdat.com

    Translated from the French by Eleanor Marx-Aveling

    To Marie-Antoine-Jules Senard Member of the Paris Bar, Ex-President of the National Assembly, and Former Minister of the Interior

    Dear and Illustrious Friend, Permit me to inscribe your name at the head of this book, and above its dedication; for it is to you, before all, that I owe its publication. Reading over your magnificent defence, my work has acquired for myself, as it were, an unexpected authority.

    Accept, then, here, the homage of my gratitude, which, how great soever it is, will never attain the height of your eloquence and your devotion.

    Gustave Flaubert Paris, 12 April 1857

    Part 1

    Chapter One

    Chapter Two

    Chapter Three

    Chapter Four

    Chapter Five

    Chapter Six

    Chapter Seven

    Chapter Eight

    Chapter Nine

    Part II

    Chapter One

    Chapter Two

    Chapter Three

    Chapter Four

    Chapter Five

    Chapter Six

    Chapter Seven

    Chapter Eight

    Chapter Nine

    Chapter Ten

    Chapter Eleven

    Chapter Twelve

    Chapter Thirteen

    Chapter Fourteen

    Chapter Fifteen

    Part III

    Chapter One

    Chapter Two

    Chapter Three

    Chapter Four

    Chapter Five

    Chapter Six

    Chapter Seven

    Chapter Eight

    Chapter Nine

    Chapter Ten

    Chapter Eleven

    Part I

    Chapter One

    We were in class when the head-master came in, followed by a new fellow, not wearing the school uniform, and a school servant carrying a large desk. Those who had been asleep woke up, and every one rose as if just surprised at his work.

    The head-master made a sign to us to sit down. Then, turning to the class-master, he said to him in a low voice--

    Monsieur Roger, here is a pupil whom I recommend to your care; he'll be in the second. If his work and conduct are satisfactory, he will go into one of the upper classes, as becomes his age.

    The new fellow, standing in the corner behind the door so that he could hardly be seen, was a country lad of about fifteen, and taller than any of us. His hair was cut square on his forehead like a village chorister's; he looked reliable, but very ill at ease. Although he was not broad-shouldered, his short school jacket of green cloth with black buttons must have been tight about the arm-holes, and showed at the opening of the cuffs red wrists accustomed to being bare. His legs, in blue stockings, looked out from beneath yellow trousers, drawn tight by braces, He wore stout, ill-cleaned, hob-nailed boots.

    We began repeating the lesson. He listened with all his ears, as attentive as if at a sermon, not daring even to cross his legs or lean on his elbow; and when at two o'clock the bell rang, the master was obliged to tell him to fall into line with the rest of us.

    When we came back to work, we were in the habit of throwing our caps on the ground so as to have our hands more free; we used from the door to toss them under the form, so that they hit against the wall and made a lot of dust: it was the thing.

    But, whether he had not noticed the trick, or did not dare to attempt it, the new fellow, was still holding his cap on his knees even after prayers were over. It was one of those head-gears of composite order, in which we can find traces of the bearskin, shako, billycock hat, sealskin cap, and cotton night-cap; one of those poor things, in fine, whose dumb ugliness has depths of expression, like an imbecile's face. Oval, stiffened with whalebone, it began with three round knobs; then came in succession lozenges of velvet and rabbit-skin separated by a red band; after that a sort of bag that ended in a cardboard polygon covered with complicated braiding, from which hung, at the end of a long thin cord, small twisted gold threads in the manner of a tassel. The cap was new; its peak shone.

    Rise, said the master.

    He stood up; his cap fell. The whole class began to laugh. He stooped to pick it up. A neighbor knocked it down again with his elbow; he picked it up once more.

    Get rid of your helmet, said the master, who was a bit of a wag.

    There was a burst of laughter from the boys, which so thoroughly put the poor lad out of countenance that he did not know whether to keep his cap in his hand, leave it on the ground, or put it on his head. He sat down again and placed it on his knee.

    Rise, repeated the master, and tell me your name.

    The new boy articulated in a stammering voice an unintelligible name.

    Again!

    The same sputtering of syllables was heard, drowned by the tittering of the class.

    Louder! cried the master; louder!

    The new fellow then took a supreme resolution, opened an inordinately large mouth, and shouted at the top of his voice as if calling someone in the word Charbovari.

    A hubbub broke out, rose in crescendo with bursts of shrill voices (they yelled, barked, stamped, repeated Charbovari! Charbovari), then died away into single notes, growing quieter only with great difficulty, and now and again suddenly recommencing along the line of a form whence rose here and there, like a damp cracker going off, a stifled laugh.

    However, amid a rain of impositions, order was gradually re-established in the class; and the master having succeeded in catching the name of Charles Bovary, having had it dictated to him, spelt out, and re-read, at once ordered the poor devil to go and sit down on the punishment form at the foot of the master's desk. He got up, but before going hesitated.

    What are you looking for? asked the master.

    My c-a-p, timidly said the new fellow, casting troubled looks round him.

    Five hundred lines for all the class! shouted in a furious voice stopped, like the Quos ego*, a fresh outburst. Silence! continued the master indignantly, wiping his brow with his handkerchief, which he had just taken from his cap. As to you, 'new boy,' you will conjugate 'ridiculus sum'** twenty times.

    Then, in a gentler tone, Come, you'll find your cap again; it hasn't been stolen.

    *A quotation from the Aeneid signifying a threat.

    **I am ridiculous.

    Quiet was restored. Heads bent over desks, and the new fellow remained for two hours in an exemplary attitude, although from time to time some paper pellet flipped from the tip of a pen came bang in his face. But he wiped his face with one hand and continued motionless, his eyes lowered.

    In the evening, at preparation, he pulled out his pens from his desk, arranged his small belongings, and carefully ruled his paper. We saw him working conscientiously, looking up every word in the dictionary, and taking the greatest pains. Thanks, no doubt, to the willingness he showed, he had not to go down to the class below. But though he knew his rules passably, he had little finish in composition. It was the cure of his village who had taught him his first Latin; his parents, from motives of economy, having sent him to school as late as possible.

    His father, Monsieur Charles Denis Bartolome Bovary, retired assistant-surgeon-major, compromised about 1812 in certain conscription scandals, and forced at this time to leave the service, had taken advantage of his fine figure to get hold of a dowry of sixty thousand francs that offered in the person of a hosier's daughter who had fallen in love with his good looks.  A fine man, a great talker, making his spurs ring as he walked, wearing whiskers that ran into his moustache, his fingers always garnished with rings and dressed in loud colours, he had the dash of a military man with the easy go of a commercial traveller.

    Once married, he lived for three or four years on his wife's fortune, dining well, rising late, smoking long porcelain pipes, not coming in at night till after the theatre, and haunting cafes. The father-in-law died, leaving little; he was indignant at this, went in for the business, lost some money in it, then retired to the country, where he thought he would make money.

    But, as he knew no more about farming than calico, as he rode his horses instead of sending them to plough, drank his cider in bottle instead of selling it in cask, ate the finest poultry in his farmyard, and greased his hunting-boots with the fat of his pigs, he was not long in finding out that he would do better to give up all speculation.

    For two hundred francs a year he managed to live on the border of the provinces of Caux and Picardy, in a kind of place half farm, half private house; and here, soured, eaten up with regrets, cursing his luck, jealous of everyone, he shut himself up at the age of forty-five, sick of men, he said, and determined to live at peace.

    His wife had adored him once on a time; she had bored him with a thousand servilities that had only estranged him the more. Lively once, expansive and affectionate, in growing older she had become (after the fashion of wine that, exposed to air, turns to vinegar) ill-tempered, grumbling, irritable. She had suffered so much without complaint at first, until she had seem him going after all the village drabs, and until a score of bad houses sent him back to her at night, weary, stinking drunk. Then her pride revolted. After that she was silent, burying her anger in a dumb stoicism that she maintained till her death. She was constantly going about looking after business matters. She called on the lawyers, the president, remembered when bills fell due, got them renewed, and at home ironed, sewed, washed, looked after the workmen, paid the accounts, while he, troubling himself about nothing, eternally besotted in sleepy sulkiness, whence he only roused himself to say disagreeable things to her, sat smoking by the fire and spitting into the cinders.

    When she had a child, it had to be sent out to nurse. When he came home, the lad was spoilt as if he were a prince. His mother stuffed him with jam; his father let him run about barefoot, and, playing the philosopher, even said he might as well go about quite naked like the young of animals. As opposed to the maternal ideas, he had a certain virile idea of childhood on which he sought to mould his son, wishing him to be brought up hardily, like a Spartan, to give him a strong constitution. He sent him to bed without any fire, taught him to drink off large draughts of rum and to jeer at religious processions. But, peaceable by nature, the lad answered only poorly to his notions. His mother always kept him near her; she cut out cardboard for him, told him tales, entertained him with endless monologues full of melancholy gaiety and charming nonsense. In her life's isolation she centered on the child's head all her shattered, broken little vanities. She dreamed of high station; she already saw him, tall, handsome, clever, settled as an engineer or in the law. She taught him to read, and even, on an old piano, she had taught him two or three little songs. But to all this Monsieur Bovary, caring little for letters, said, It was not worth while. Would they ever have the means to send him to a public school, to buy him a practice, or start him in business? Besides, with cheek a man always gets on in the world. Madame Bovary bit her lips, and the child knocked about the village.

    He went after the labourers, drove away with clods of earth the ravens that were flying about. He ate blackberries along the hedges, minded the geese with a long switch, went haymaking during harvest, ran about in the woods, played hop-scotch under the church porch on rainy days, and at great fetes begged the beadle to let him toll the bells, that he might hang all his weight on the long rope and feel himself borne upward by it in its swing. Meanwhile he grew like an oak; he was strong on hand, fresh of colour.

    When he was twelve years old his mother had her own way; he began lessons. The cure took him in hand; but the lessons were so short and irregular that they could not be of much use. They were given at spare moments in the sacristy, standing up, hurriedly, between a baptism and a burial; or else the cure, if he had not to go out, sent for his pupil after the Angelus*. They went up to his room and settled down; the flies and moths fluttered round the candle. It was close, the child fell asleep, and the good man, beginning to doze with his hands on his stomach, was soon snoring with his mouth wide open. On other occasions, when Monsieur le Cure, on his way back after administering the viaticum to some sick person in the neighbourhood, caught sight of Charles playing about the fields, he called him, lectured him for a quarter of an hour and took advantage of the occasion to make him conjugate his verb at the foot of a tree. The rain interrupted them or an acquaintance passed. All the same he was always pleased with him, and even said the young man had a very good memory.

    *A devotion said at morning, noon, and evening, at the sound of a bell. Here, the evening prayer.

    Charles could not go on like this. Madame Bovary took strong steps. Ashamed, or rather tired out, Monsieur Bovary gave in without a struggle, and they waited one year longer, so that the lad should take his first communion.

    Six months more passed, and the year after Charles was finally sent to school at Rouen, where his father took him towards the end of October, at the time of the St. Romain fair.

    It would now be impossible for any of us to remember anything about him. He was a youth of even temperament, who played in playtime, worked in school-hours, was attentive in class, slept well in the dormitory, and ate well in the refectory. He had in loco parentis* a wholesale ironmonger in the Rue Ganterie, who took him out once a month on Sundays after his shop was shut, sent him for a walk on the quay to look at the boats, and then brought him back to college at seven o'clock before supper. Every Thursday evening he wrote a long letter to his mother with red ink and three wafers; then he went over his history note-books, or read an old volume of Anarchasis that was knocking about the study. When he went for walks he talked to the servant, who, like himself, came from the country.

    *In place of a parent.

    By dint of hard work he kept always about the middle of the class; once even he got a certificate in natural history. But at the end of his third year his parents withdrew him from the school to make him study medicine, convinced that he could even take his degree by himself.

    His mother chose a room for him on the fourth floor of a dyer's she knew, overlooking the Eau-de-Robec. She made arrangements for his board, got him furniture, table and two chairs, sent home for an old cherry-tree bedstead, and bought besides a small cast-iron stove with the supply of wood that was to warm the poor child.

    Then at the end of a week she departed, after a thousand injunctions to be good now that he was going to be left to himself.

    The syllabus that he read on the notice-board stunned him; lectures on anatomy, lectures on pathology, lectures on physiology, lectures on pharmacy, lectures on botany and clinical medicine, and therapeutics, without counting hygiene and materia medica--all names of whose etymologies he was ignorant, and that were to him as so many doors to sanctuaries filled with magnificent darkness.

    He understood nothing of it all; it was all very well to listen-- he did not follow. Still he worked; he had bound note-books, he attended all the courses, never missed a single lecture. He did his little daily task like a mill-horse, who goes round and round with his eyes bandaged, not knowing what work he is doing.

    To spare him expense his mother sent him every week by the carrier a piece of veal baked in the oven, with which he lunched when he came back from the hospital, while he sat kicking his feet against the wall. After this he had to run off to lectures, to the operation-room, to the hospital, and return to his home at the other end of the town. In the evening, after the poor dinner of his landlord, he went back to his room and set to work again in his wet clothes, which smoked as he sat in front of the hot stove.

    On the fine summer evenings, at the time when the close streets are empty, when the servants are playing shuttle-cock at the doors, he opened his window and leaned out. The river, that makes of this quarter of Rouen a wretched little Venice, flowed beneath

     him, between the bridges and the railings, yellow, violet, or blue. Working men, kneeling on the banks, washed their bare arms in the water. On poles projecting from the attics, skeins of cotton were drying in the air. Opposite, beyond the roots spread the pure heaven with the red sun setting. How pleasant it must be at home! How fresh under the beech-tree! And he expanded his nostrils to breathe in the sweet odours of the country which did not reach him.

    He grew thin, his figure became taller, his face took a saddened look that made it nearly interesting. Naturally, through indifference, he abandoned all the resolutions he had made. Once he missed a lecture; the next day all the lectures; and, enjoying his idleness, little by little, he gave up work altogether. He got into the habit of going to the public-house, and had a passion for dominoes. To shut himself up every evening in the dirty public room, to push about on marble tables the small sheep bones with black dots, seemed to him a fine proof of his freedom, which raised him in his own esteem. It was beginning to see life, the sweetness of stolen pleasures; and when he entered, he put his hand on the door-handle with a joy almost sensual. Then many things hidden within him came out; he learnt couplets by heart and sang them to his boon companions, became enthusiastic about Beranger, learnt how to make punch, and, finally, how to make love.

    Thanks to these preparatory labours, he failed completely in his examination for an ordinary degree. He was expected home the same night to celebrate his success. He started on foot, stopped at the beginning of the village, sent for his mother, and told her all. She excused him, threw the blame of his failure on the injustice of the examiners, encouraged him a little, and took upon herself to set matters straight. It was only five years later that Monsieur Bovary knew the truth; it was old then, and he accepted it. Moreover, he could not believe that a man born of him could be a fool.

    So Charles set to work again and crammed for his examination, ceaselessly learning all the old questions by heart. He passed pretty well. What a happy day for his mother! They gave a grand dinner.

    Where should he go to practice? To Tostes, where there was only one old doctor. For a long time Madame Bovary had been on the look-out for his death, and the old fellow had barely been packed off when Charles was installed, opposite his place, as his successor.

    But it was not everything to have brought up a son, to have had him taught medicine, and discovered Tostes, where he could practice it; he must have a wife. She found him one--the widow of a bailiff at Dieppe--who was forty-five and had an income of twelve hundred francs. Though she was ugly, as dry as a bone, her face with as many pimples as the spring has buds, Madame Dubuc had no lack of suitors. To attain her ends Madame Bovary had to oust them all, and she even succeeded in very cleverly baffling the intrigues of a port-butcher backed up by the priests.

    Charles had seen in marriage the advent of an easier life, thinking he would be more free to do as he liked with himself and his money. But his wife was master; he had to say this and not say that in company, to fast every Friday, dress as she liked, harass at her bidding those patients who did not pay. She opened his letter, watched his comings and goings, and listened at the partition-wall when women came to consult him in his surgery.

    She must have her chocolate every morning, attentions without end. She constantly complained of her nerves, her chest, her liver. The noise of footsteps made her ill; when people left her, solitude became odious to her; if they came back, it was doubtless to see her die. When Charles returned in the evening, she stretched forth two long thin arms from beneath the sheets, put them round his neck, and having made him sit down on the edge of the bed, began to talk to him of her troubles: he was neglecting her, he loved another. She had been warned she would be unhappy; and she ended by asking him for a dose of medicine and a little more love.

    Chapter Two

    One night towards eleven o'clock they were awakened by the noise of a horse pulling up outside their door. The servant opened the garret-window and parleyed for some time with a man in the street below. He came for the doctor, had a letter for him. Natasie came downstairs shivering and undid the bars and bolts one after the other. The man left his horse, and, following the servant, suddenly came in behind her. He pulled out from his wool cap with grey top-knots a letter wrapped up in a rag and presented it gingerly to Charles, who rested on his elbow on the pillow to read it. Natasie, standing near the bed, held the light. Madame in modesty had turned to the wall and showed only her back.

    This letter, sealed with a small seal in blue wax, begged Monsieur Bovary to come immediately to the farm of the Bertaux to set a broken leg. Now from Tostes to the Bertaux was a good eighteen miles across country by way of Longueville and Saint-Victor. It was a dark night; Madame Bovary junior was afraid of accidents for her husband. So it was decided the stable-boy should go on first; Charles would start three hours later when the moon rose. A boy was to be sent to meet him, and show him the way to the farm, and open the gates for him.

    Towards four o'clock in the morning, Charles, well wrapped up in his cloak, set out for the Bertaux. Still sleepy from the warmth of his bed, he let himself be lulled by the quiet trot of his horse. When it stopped of its own accord in front of those holes surrounded with thorns that are dug on the margin of furrows, Charles awoke with a start, suddenly remembered the broken leg, and tried to call to mind all the fractures he knew. The rain had stopped, day was breaking, and on the branches of the leafless trees birds roosted motionless, their little feathers bristling in the cold morning wind. The flat country stretched as far as

     eye could see, and the tufts of trees round the farms at long intervals seemed like dark violet stains on the cast grey surface, that on the horizon faded into the gloom of the sky.

    Charles from time to time opened his eyes, his mind grew weary, and, sleep coming upon him, he soon fell into a doze wherein, his recent sensations blending with memories, he became conscious of a double self, at once student and married man, lying in his bed as but now, and crossing the operation theatre as of old. The warm smell of poultices mingled in his brain with the fresh odour of dew; he heard the iron rings rattling along the curtain-rods of the bed and saw his wife sleeping. As he passed Vassonville he came upon a boy sitting on the grass at the edge of a ditch.

    Are you the doctor? asked the child.

    And on Charles's answer he took his wooden shoes in his hands and ran on in front of him.

    The general practitioner, riding along, gathered from his guide's talk that Monsieur Rouault must be one of the well-to-do farmers.

    He had broken his leg the evening before on his way home from a Twelfth-night feast at a neighbour's. His wife had been dead for two years. There was with him only his daughter, who helped him to keep house.

    The ruts were becoming deeper; they were approaching the Bertaux.

    The little lad, slipping through a hole in the hedge, disappeared; then he came back to the end of a courtyard to open the gate. The horse slipped on the wet grass; Charles had to stoop to pass under the branches. The watchdogs in their kennels barked, dragging at their chains. As he entered the Bertaux, the horse took fright and stumbled.

    It was a substantial-looking farm. In the stables, over the top of the open doors, one could see great cart-horses quietly feeding from new racks. Right along the outbuildings extended a large dunghill, from which manure liquid oozed, while amidst fowls and turkeys, five or six peacocks, a luxury in Chauchois farmyards, were foraging on the top of it. The sheepfold was long, the barn high, with walls smooth as your hand. Under the cart-shed were two large carts and four ploughs, with their whips, shafts and harnesses complete, whose fleeces of blue wool were getting soiled by the fine dust that fell from the granaries. The courtyard sloped upwards, planted with trees set out symmetrically, and the chattering noise of a flock of geese was heard near the pond.

    A young woman in a blue merino dress with three flounces came to the threshold of the door to receive Monsieur Bovary, whom she led to the kitchen, where a large fire was blazing. The servant's breakfast was boiling beside it in small pots of all sizes. Some damp clothes were drying inside the chimney-corner. The shovel, tongs, and the nozzle of the bellows, all of colossal size, shone like polished steel, while along the walls hung many pots and pans in which the clear flame of the hearth, mingling with the first rays of the sun coming in through the window, was mirrored fitfully.

    Charles went up the first floor to see the patient. He found him in his bed, sweating under his bed-clothes, having thrown his cotton nightcap right away from him. He was a fat little man of fifty, with white skin and blue eyes, the forepart of his head bald, and he wore earrings. By his side on a chair stood a large decanter of brandy, whence he poured himself a little from time to time to keep up his spirits; but as soon as he caught sight of the doctor his elation subsided, and instead of swearing, as he had been doing for the last twelve hours, began to groan freely.

    The fracture was a simple one, without any kind of complication.

    Charles could not have hoped for an easier case. Then calling to mind the devices of his masters at the bedsides of patients, he comforted the sufferer with all sorts of kindly remarks, those Caresses of the surgeon that are like the oil they put on bistouries. In order to make some splints a bundle of laths was brought up from the cart-house. Charles selected one, cut it into two pieces and planed it with a fragment of windowpane, while the servant tore up sheets to make bandages, and Mademoiselle Emma tried to sew some pads. As she was a long time before she found her work-case, her father grew impatient; she did not answer, but as she sewed she pricked her fingers, which she then put to her mouth to suck them. Charles was surprised at the whiteness of her nails. They were shiny, delicate at the tips, more polished than the ivory of Dieppe, and almond-shaped. Yet her hand was not beautiful, perhaps not white enough, and a little hard at the knuckles; besides, it was too long, with no soft inflections in the outlines. Her real beauty was in her eyes. Although brown, they seemed black because of the lashes, and her look came at you frankly, with a candid boldness.

    The bandaging over, the doctor was invited by Monsieur Rouault himself to pick a bit before he left.

    Charles went down into the room on the ground floor. Knives and forks and silver goblets were laid for two on a little table at the foot of a huge bed that had a canopy of printed cotton with figures representing Turks. There was an odour of iris-root and damp sheets that escaped from a large oak chest opposite the window. On the floor in corners were sacks of flour stuck upright in rows. These were the overflow from the neighbouring granary, to which three stone steps led. By way of decoration for the apartment, hanging to a nail in the middle of the wall, whose green paint scaled off from the effects of the saltpetre, was a crayon head of Minerva in gold frame, underneath which was written in Gothic letters To dear Papa.

    First they spoke of the patient, then of the weather, of the great cold, of the wolves that infested the fields at night.

    Mademoiselle Rouault did not at all like the country, especially now that she had to look after the farm almost alone. As the room was chilly, she shivered as she ate. This showed something of her full lips, that she had a habit of biting when silent.

    Her neck stood out from a white turned-down collar. Her hair, whose two black folds seemed each of a single piece, so smooth were they, was parted in the middle by a delicate lie that curved slightly with the curve of the head; and, just showing the tip of the ear, it was joined behind in a thick chignon, with a wavy movement at the temples that the country doctor saw now for the first time in his life. The upper part of her cheek was rose-coloured. She had, like a man, thrust in between two buttons of her bodice a tortoise-shell eyeglass.

    When Charles, after bidding farewell to old Rouault, returned to the room before leaving, he found her standing, her forehead against the window, looking into the garden, where the bean props had been knocked down by the wind. She turned round. Are you looking for anything? she asked.

    My whip, if you please, he answered.

    He began rummaging on the bed, behind the doors, under the chairs. It had fallen to the floor, between the sacks and the wall. Mademoiselle Emma saw it, and bent over the flour sacks.

    Charles out of politeness made a dash also, and as he stretched out his arm, at the same moment felt his breast brush against the back of the young girl bending beneath him. She drew herself up, scarlet, and looked at him over her shoulder as she handed him his whip.

    Instead of returning to the Bertaux in three days as he had promised, he went back the very next day, then regularly twice a week, without counting the visits he paid now and then as if by accident.

    Everything, moreover, went well; the patient progressed favourably; and when, at the end of forty-six days, old Rouault was seen trying to walk alone in his den, Monsieur Bovary began to be looked upon as a man of great capacity. Old Rouault said that he could not have been cured better by the first doctor of Yvetot, or even of Rouen.

    As to Charles, he did not stop to ask himself why it was a pleasure to him to go to the Bertaux. Had he done so, he would, no doubt, have attributed his zeal to the importance of the case, or perhaps to the money he hoped to make by it. Was it for this, however, that his visits to the farm formed a delightful exception to the meagre occupations of his life? On these days he rose early, set off at a gallop, urging on his horse, then got down to wipe his boots in the grass and put on black gloves before entering. He liked going into the courtyard, and noticing the gate turn against his shoulder, the cock crow on the wall, the lads run to meet him. He liked the granary and the stables; he liked old Rouault, who pressed his hand and called him his saviour; he like the small wooden shoes of Mademoiselle Emma on the scoured flags of the kitchen--her high heels made her a little taller; and when she walked in front of him, the wooden soles springing up quickly struck with a sharp sound against the leather of her boots.

    She always accompanied him to the first step of the stairs. When his horse had not yet been brought round she stayed there. They had said Good-bye; there was no more talking. The open air wrapped her round, playing with the soft down on the back of her neck, or blew to and fro on her hips the apron-strings, that fluttered like streamers. Once, during a thaw the bark of the

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