The Bovarys arrive; Dinner at the inn; Monsieur Homais describes the climate; The chemist's lodger; Emma finds a kindred spirit; The chemist's library; The Bovarys' new home.

EMMA got out first, then Felicite, Monsieur Lheureux and a nursemaid. They had to wake Charles up. He had fallen sound asleep in his corner, as soon as it grew dark.

Homais introduced himself, offered his homage to Madame and his respects to Monsieur, told them he was charmed to have been able to do them a service, adding genially that he had ventured to invite himself, his wife being away from home.

As soon as she was in the kitchen, Madame Bovary went over to the fire. With the tips of two fingers she took hold of her dress at the knee and raising it thus above her ankles, stretched out a foot to the blaze, above the leg of mutton that was turning on the spit- a little foot encased in a black boot. The fire illumined her from top to toe, its ruddy glare penetrating the warp of her dress, the regular pores of her white skin and even the lids of her eyes, which she blinked every now and then. A great red glow would sweep over her as the wind blew in through the half-open door. On the other side of the fireplace, a fair-haired young man watched her in silence.

Seeing that he had rather a boring time of it at Yonville, where he was clerk to Maitre Guillaumin the notary, Monsieur Leon Dupuis (for it was he, the other 'regular' at the 'Lion d'Or') would often postpone the hour of his meal hoping that some traveller would turn up at the inn with whom he might enjoy a chat in the evening. On the days when he did not have to work late he must needs (having nothing else to do) put in a punctual appearance at table and endure, from the soup to the savoury, the sole society of Binet. It was therefore with no small pleasure that he accepted the landlady's suggestion that he should sit down with the newcomers, and so they made their way into the large dining-room, where, by way of creating an impression, the four places had been laid.

Homais asked leave to keep on his Turkish cap, for fear of catching cold.

'Madame is doubtless a little tired,' he said, turning to Emma. 'One gets so terribly shaken up in that 'Hirondelle' of ours.'

'You do indeed,' she answered, 'but I adore moving about. I can't bear staying in one place.'

'Oh, it's horrible!' said the clerk- 'to be always cooped up in the same spot.'

'If you were like me,' said Charles, 'always obliged to be in the saddle....'

'Why,' answered Leon, addressing himself to Madame, 'could anything be jollier?- when you know how to ride, that is.'

'Well,' said the apothecary, 'medicine is not a very arduous profession in this part of the country. Roads are good, and you can drive your rounds; the farmers, as a rule, are well off and pay good fees. Speaking professionally, we have, over and above the usual stomachic, bronchial and liver troubles, a few cases of intermittent fever round about harvest-time, but on the whole, very few really serious complaints, nothing special to note, except a plentiful crop of colds, due, no doubt, to the deplorable housing conditions of the peasant classes. Ah! Monsieur Bovary, you'll have to fight against no end of prejudices: every day you'll be up against stubborn, deep-rooted ignorance, and, wherever you try to advance the light of science, you'll find some old superstition obstinately blocking the way. For the people about here still have recourse to novenas, relics and the parson, instead of going straight to the doctor or the chemist like sensible people. However, one cannot say the climate is bad; indeed, we can boast a few nonagenarians in the district. The thermometer (these are my own personal records) drops to four degrees Centigrade in winter and reaches twenty-five or thirty, at most, in the summer; that is to say, twenty-four degrees Reaumur or fifty-four Fahrenheit (the English scale)- no more! To the north we are sheltered by the Forest of Argueil, to the west by the hills of Saint Jean; and the heat, which, on account of the aqueous vapour set free by the river, and the considerable number of cattle in the fields, which, as you are aware, give off a large quantity of ammonia- that is, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen- no, merely nitrogen and hydrogen- that sucks up the moisture of the ground, mingling all these divers emanations, gathering them into a single bundle, so to speak, and spontaneously combining with the electricity, if any, present in the atmosphere, may after a time, as in tropical countries, produce injurious exhalations; this heat, then, is tempered in the direction whence it comes, let me rather say whence it would come if it could- namely, the south- by the south-easterly breezes, which, being cooled in their passage over the Seine, sometimes swoop down upon us with a rush like air currents straight from Russia.'

'Are there any nice walks in the neighbourhood?' continued Madame Bovary, talking to the young man.

'Hardly any,' he answered. 'There's a spot they call "The Pasturage" up on the hill near the woods. I sometimes go there of a Sunday with a book, and stay to watch the sunset.'

'I think there's nothing so beautiful as a sunset, especially by the sea!'

'Oh, I simply love the sea!' said Monsieur Leon.

'And doesn't it seem to you, somehow, that one's thoughts range more freely over the limitless expanse, and that the sight of it uplifts your soul and sort of makes you think of the infinite, the ideal?'

'It's just the same where there are mountains,' Leon went on. 'I've a cousin who went for a tour in Switzerland last year. He said you couldn't possibly imagine the poetry of the lakes, the charm of the waterfalls, the tremendous effect of the glaciers. You see pine trees of incredible height, across rushing torrents, huts clinging to precipices, and, when there's a cleft in the clouds, whole valleys, a thousand feet below. Sights like that are bound to make you feel enthusiastic, to send you into raptures, to fill you with religious emotion. And I can quite understand that composer who used to stimulate his imagination by going and playing the piano where he could look at some splendid view.'

'Do you do anything in the musical line?' she inquired.

'No, but I'm frightfully fond of it,' he answered.

'Ah! don't you believe him, Madame Bovary,' interrupted Homais, leaning over his plate. 'That's only his modesty. Why, look here, dear boy, it was only the other day you were up in your room singing 'l'Ange gardien', and singing it perfectly. I was in the laboratory and heard you. You let it go like a professional.'

Leon, it should be explained, lodged at the chemist's, where he had a little room on the second floor, overlooking the Square. He blushed at the compliment thus paid him by his landlord, who had now turned to the doctor and was giving him a list of the principal people in Yonville. He was full of stories and odds and ends of information. No one knew exactly what the notary was worth, and the Maison Tuvache rather gave itself airs.

'What sort of music do you like best?' said Emma.

'Oh, German; it's the music that sets you dreaming.'

'Have you been to the Opera?'

'Not yet; but I shall go next year when I'm in Paris for my law Finals.'

'As I had the honour,' said the chemist, 'of telling the doctor here, in connection with this unfortunate Yanoda, who has vanished into thin air, thanks to his mania for spending money, you have come in for one of the most comfortable houses in Yonville. What makes it especially suitable for a doctor is that it has a side entrance in the lane, so that one can go in and out without being seen. And then it has every imaginable convenience- a laundry, kitchen and scullery, extra sitting-room, apple-room, etc. He never looked twice at his money. He had a sort of arbour or summer-house put up at the bottom of the garden because he thought it would be nice to sit there and drink beer in the hot weather, and if Madame is fond of gardening, she'll be able...'

'My wife does precious little gardening,' said Charles. 'She's been told exercise is good for her, but she'd rather stop up in her bedroom reading, any day.'

'The same here,' answered Leon. 'And what is there to beat sitting by the fire of an evening with a book, when the lamp is lit and the wind beating against the window?'

'That's just what I think,' she replied, gazing at him fixedly with her big dark eyes.

'You forget everything,' he went on: 'the hours slip by. Sitting still in your arm-chair, you can wander in strange places and make believe they are there before your eyes. Your thoughts become entwined in the story, dwelling on the details, or eagerly following the course of the adventure. You imagine you are the characters, and it seems to be 'your' heart that is throbbing beneath their raiment.'

'Yes,' she said, 'how true that is!'

'Have you ever had the experience of coming across something in a book that you had thought of yourself ever so long before- a sort of dim, far-off memory, which is a complete interpretation of your own feelings?'

'Oh, haven't I!' she answered.

'That's why I like the poets most of all. I find poetry more touching than prose; it makes you feel more like weeping.'

'Yes, but it gets rather tiresome if you read much of it,' replied Emma. 'I like stories- the sort of stories that carry you along with them, stories that give you an eerie feeling. I hate commonplace heroes and humdrum emotions such as you get in real life.'

'Precisely,' said the clerk. 'And as such books fail to appeal to the heart, they fail, in my opinion, to fulfil the true mission of art. Among the disillusionments of life, it is a good thing to be able to dwell in thought on lofty characters, pure affections and scenes of happiness. For myself, living so far away from everybody, it's about the only amusement I have; Yonville's resources are so limited.'

'Very much like Tostes, I have no doubt,' rejoined Emma. 'That was why I always subscribed to a library.'

'If Madame will do me the honour to make use of it,' said the chemist, who had just caught these last words, 'my own library, comprising the works of the best authors, is at her disposal. It includes the works of Voltaire, Rousseau, Delille, Walter Scott, 'The Complete Story-teller', etc.; moreover, I get various periodicals sent to me, including the 'Rouen Beacon', which reaches me daily, I being its correspondent for Buchy, Forges, Neufchatel, Yonville and the surrounding districts.'

For two hours and a half they had been at table, for Artemise, the servant, didn't hurry herself as she traipsed in her carpet slippers along the stone floor. She brought in the plates one after another, persisted in forgetting things, misunderstood her orders, and omitted to shut the billiard-room door, the handle of which kept banging against the wall.

Quite unconsciously, in the course of the conversation, Leon had put his foot up on one of the bars of the chair on which Madame Bovary was sitting. She was wearing a little blue silk scarf that held up, as stiffly as if it had been a ruff, a goffered cambric collar. And as she moved her head, the lower part of her face would be concealed in the neckerchief or deliciously emerge from it. And so, while Charles and the chemist went on with their discussion, she and Leon sat close up to one another, and entered upon one of those vague conversations in which chance words and phrases continually bring one back to a fixed centre of mutual predilections. They talked about the Paris theatres, names of novels, the latest dances, the world of fashion, which they neither of them knew anything about, of Tostes, where she had lived, and Yonville, where they were now. They discussed anything and everything, and chattered away all through dinner.

When the coffee was brought in, Felicite went to put the bedroom straight in the new house, and the guests soon afterwards rose to go. Madame Lefrancois had dropped off into a doze by the dying fire, while the ostler, lantern in hand, was waiting to light Monsieur and Madame Bovary to their house. Bits of straw were tangled in his red hair and he was lame in the left leg. When he had taken hold of the 'cure's' umbrella in his other hand they set out on their way.

The little town was asleep. The pillars of the market place cast long shadows on the ground, and the whole scene was bathed in a light of silver grey, as on a summer's night.

As the doctor's house was only about fifty paces from the inn, the good-nights had to be exchanged almost immediately, and the company dispersed.

No sooner was she in the hall than Emma felt the chill of the plaster descending on her shoulders like a shroud of clammy linen. The walls were new and the wooden stairs creaked. Upstairs in the bedroom a wannish light came in through the curtainless windows. The tops of some trees were vaguely discernible, and, beyond them, the meadow half-submerged in the mist which steamed up in the moonlight, along the course of the river. In the middle of the room, dumped down anyhow, were drawers full of things, bottles, curtain-poles, gilt rods, mattresses piled up on chairs, and washbasins on the floor- the two men who had brought the furniture having set the things down just as they came, anywhere, without attempting to put them in their places.

This would be the fourth time she had slept in new surroundings. The first was when she went to the convent, the second when she came to Tostes, the third at la Vaubyessard, and now this was the fourth. And every time, it had seemed as though she were entering on a new phase of existence. She could not believe that things would look and be the same at different places, and since the part she had gone through had been bad, the part to come would no doubt be better.

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