Madame Bovary
When she had thus for a while struck the flint on her heart without
getting a spark, incapable, moreover, of understanding what she did
not experience as of believing anything that did not present itself
in conventional forms, she persuaded herself without difficulty that
Charles’s passion was nothing very exorbitant. His outbursts became
regular; he embraced her at certain fixed times. It was one habit among
other habits, and, like a dessert, looked forward to after the monotony
of dinner.
A gamekeeper, cured by the doctor of inflammation of the lungs, had
given madame a little Italian greyhound; she took her out walking, for
she went out sometimes in order to be alone for a moment, and not to see
before her eyes the eternal garden and the dusty road. She went as far
as the beeches of Banneville, near the deserted pavilion which forms an
angle of the wall on the side of the country. Amidst the vegetation of
the ditch there are long reeds with leaves that cut you.
She began by looking round her to see if nothing had changed since last
she had been there. She found again in the same places the foxgloves and
wallflowers, the beds of nettles growing round the big stones, and
the patches of lichen along the three windows, whose shutters, always
closed, were rotting away on their rusty iron bars. Her thoughts,
aimless at first, wandered at random, like her greyhound, who ran round
and round in the fields, yelping after the yellow butterflies, chasing
the shrew-mice, or nibbling the poppies on the edge of a cornfield.
Then gradually her ideas took definite shape, and, sitting on the grass
that she dug up with little prods of her sunshade, Emma repeated to
herself, “Good heavens! Why did I marry?”
She asked herself if by some other chance combination it would have not
been possible to meet another man; and she tried to imagine what would
have been these unrealised events, this different life, this unknown
husband. All, surely, could not be like this one. He might have been
handsome, witty, distinguished, attractive, such as, no doubt, her old
companions of the convent had married. What were they doing now? In
town, with the noise of the streets, the buzz of the theatres and the
lights of the ballroom, they were living lives where the heart expands,
the senses bourgeon out. But she--her life was cold as a garret whose
dormer window looks on the north, and ennui, the silent spider, was
weaving its web in the darkness in every corner of her heart.
She recalled the prize days, when she mounted the platform to receive
her little crowns, with her hair in long plaits. In her white frock and
open prunella shoes she had a pretty way, and when she went back to her
seat, the gentlemen bent over her to congratulate her; the courtyard was
full of carriages; farewells were called to her through their windows;
the music master with his violin case bowed in passing by. How far all
of this! How far away! She called Djali, took her between her knees, and
smoothed the long delicate head, saying, “Come, kiss mistress; you have
no troubles.”
Then noting the melancholy face of the graceful animal, who yawned
slowly, she softened, and comparing her to herself, spoke to her aloud
as to somebody in trouble whom one is consoling.
Occasionally there came gusts of winds, breezes from the sea rolling in
one sweep over the whole plateau of the Caux country, which brought
even to these fields a salt freshness. The rushes, close to the ground,
whistled; the branches trembled in a swift rustling, while their
summits, ceaselessly swaying, kept up a deep murmur. Emma drew her shawl
round her shoulders and rose.
In the avenue a green light dimmed by the leaves lit up the short moss
that crackled softly beneath her feet. The sun was setting; the sky
showed red between the branches, and the trunks of the trees, uniform,
and planted in a straight line, seemed a brown colonnade standing out
against a background of gold. A fear took hold of her; she called Djali,
and hurriedly returned to Tostes by the high road, threw herself into an
armchair, and for the rest of the evening did not speak.
But towards the end of September something extraordinary fell upon her
life; she was invited by the Marquis d’Andervilliers to Vaubyessard.
Secretary of State under the Restoration, the Marquis, anxious to
re-enter political life, set about preparing for his candidature to
the Chamber of Deputies long beforehand. In the winter he distributed a
great deal of wood, and in the Conseil General always enthusiastically
demanded new roads for his arrondissement. During the dog-days he had
suffered from an abscess, which Charles had cured as if by miracle by
giving a timely little touch with the lancet. The steward sent to Tostes
to pay for the operation reported in the evening that he had seen some
superb cherries in the doctor’s little garden. Now cherry trees did not
thrive at Vaubyessard; the Marquis asked Bovary for some slips; made it
his business to thank his personally; saw Emma; thought she had a pretty
figure, and that she did not bow like a peasant; so that he did not
think he was going beyond the bounds of condescension, nor, on the other
hand, making a mistake, in inviting the young couple.
On Wednesday at three o’clock, Monsieur and Madame Bovary, seated in
their dog-cart, set out for Vaubyessard, with a great trunk strapped
on behind and a bonnet-box in front of the apron. Besides these Charles
held a bandbox between his knees.
They arrived at nightfall, just as the lamps in the park were being lit
to show the way for the carriages.
Chapter Eight
The château, a modern building in Italian style, with two projecting
wings and three flights of steps, lay at the foot of an immense
green-sward, on which some cows were grazing among groups of large trees
set out at regular intervals, while large beds of arbutus, rhododendron,
syringas, and guelder roses bulged out their irregular clusters of
green along the curve of the gravel path. A river flowed under a bridge;
through the mist one could distinguish buildings with thatched roofs
scattered over the field bordered by two gently sloping, well timbered
hillocks, and in the background amid the trees rose in two parallel
lines the coach houses and stables, all that was left of the ruined old
château.
Charles’s dog-cart pulled up before the middle flight of steps; servants
appeared; the Marquis came forward, and, offering his arm to the
doctor’s wife, conducted her to the vestibule.
It was paved with marble slabs, was very lofty, and the sound of
footsteps and that of voices re-echoed through it as in a church.
Opposite rose a straight staircase, and on the left a gallery
overlooking the garden led to the billiard room, through whose door one
could hear the click of the ivory balls. As she crossed it to go to the
drawing room, Emma saw standing round the table men with grave faces,
their chins resting on high cravats. They all wore orders, and smiled
silently as they made their strokes.
On the dark wainscoting of the walls large gold frames bore at
the bottom names written in black letters. She read: “Jean-Antoine
d’Andervilliers d’Yvervonbille, Count de la Vaubyessard and Baron de la
Fresnay, killed at the battle of Coutras on the 20th of October,
1587.” And on another: “Jean-Antoine-Henry-Guy d’Andervilliers de
la Vaubyessard, Admiral of France and Chevalier of the Order of St.
Michael, wounded at the battle of the Hougue-Saint-Vaast on the 29th of
May, 1692; died at Vaubyessard on the 23rd of January 1693.” One could
hardly make out those that followed, for the light of the lamps lowered
over the green cloth threw a dim shadow round the room. Burnishing the
horizontal pictures, it broke up against these in delicate lines where
there were cracks in the varnish, and from all these great black squares
framed in with gold stood out here and there some lighter portion of the
painting--a pale brow, two eyes that looked at you, perukes flowing over
and powdering red-coated shoulders, or the buckle of a garter above a
well-rounded calf.
The Marquis opened the drawing room door; one of the ladies (the
Marchioness herself) came to meet Emma. She made her sit down by her on
an ottoman, and began talking to her as amicably as if she had known her
a long time. She was a woman of about forty, with fine shoulders, a hook
nose, a drawling voice, and on this evening she wore over her brown hair
a simple guipure fichu that fell in a point at the back. A fair young
woman sat in a high-backed chair in a corner; and gentlemen with flowers
in their buttonholes were talking to ladies round the fire.
At seven dinner was served. The men, who were in the majority, sat down
at the first table in the vestibule; the ladies at the second in the
dining room with the Marquis and Marchioness.
Emma, on entering, felt herself wrapped round by the warm air, a
blending of the perfume of flowers and of the fine linen, of the fumes
of the viands, and the odour of the truffles. The silver dish covers
reflected the lighted wax candles in the candelabra, the cut crystal
covered with light steam reflected from one to the other pale rays;
bouquets were placed in a row the whole length of the table; and in
the large-bordered plates each napkin, arranged after the fashion of a
bishop’s mitre, held between its two gaping folds a small oval shaped
roll. The red claws of lobsters hung over the dishes; rich fruit in open
baskets was piled up on moss; there were quails in their plumage; smoke
was rising; and in silk stockings, knee-breeches, white cravat, and
frilled shirt, the steward, grave as a judge, offering ready carved
dishes between the shoulders of the guests, with a touch of the spoon
gave you the piece chosen. On the large stove of porcelain inlaid
with copper baguettes the statue of a woman, draped to the chin, gazed
motionless on the room full of life.
Madame Bovary noticed that many ladies had not put their gloves in their
glasses.
But at the upper end of the table, alone amongst all these women, bent
over his full plate, and his napkin tied round his neck like a child, an
old man sat eating, letting drops of gravy drip from his mouth. His eyes
were bloodshot, and he wore a little queue tied with black ribbon. He
was the Marquis’s father-in-law, the old Duke de Laverdiere, once on
a time favourite of the Count d’Artois, in the days of the Vaudreuil
hunting-parties at the Marquis de Conflans’, and had been, it was said,
the lover of Queen Marie Antoinette, between Monsieur de Coigny and
Monsieur de Lauzun. He had lived a life of noisy debauch, full of duels,
bets, elopements; he had squandered his fortune and frightened all his
family. A servant behind his chair named aloud to him in his ear the
dishes that he pointed to stammering, and constantly Emma’s eyes
turned involuntarily to this old man with hanging lips, as to something
extraordinary. He had lived at court and slept in the bed of queens!
Iced champagne was poured out. Emma shivered all over as she felt
it cold in her mouth. She had never seen pomegranates nor tasted
pineapples. The powdered sugar even seemed to her whiter and finer than
elsewhere.
The ladies afterwards went to their rooms to prepare for the ball.
Emma made her toilet with the fastidious care of an actress on her
debut. She did her hair according to the directions of the hairdresser,
and put on the barege dress spread out upon the bed.
Charles’s trousers were tight across the belly.
“My trouser-straps will be rather awkward for dancing,” he said.
“Dancing?” repeated Emma.
“Yes!”
“Why, you must be mad! They would make fun of you; keep your place.
Besides, it is more becoming for a doctor,” she added.