Monsieur Homais in trouble; Bothers over money; Emma's baby; Choosing a name; The christening party; Madame Bovary visits her daughter; A walk with Leon; How to make friends.

NEXT morning, when she awoke, she saw the clerk walking across the square. She was in her dressing-gown. He looked up and took off his hat. She gave a little nod and quickly shut the window.

All day long Leon waited for six o'clock to arrive. But when he went round to the inn the only person there was Monsieur Binet, already seated at table.

That dinner of the night before had been something of an event for Leon. It was the first time in his life he had talked with a woman for a couple of hours on end. How did he manage to tell her, and in such brilliant language, a whole host of things he certainly could not have expressed so well before? He was naturally shy and accustomed to maintain that reserve which is half bashfulness and half protective armour. The Yonville people thought him a very gentlemanly young man. He listened to what his elders had to say, and didn't let politics turn his head, which was exceptional in so young a man. Then, again, he had a certain amount of talent. He could do water-colours, read music and was fond of reading and talking books after dinner when there was no card-playing going on. Monsieur Homais thought a good deal of him, because he was well educated; Madame Homais liked him because he was so obliging, for he often took the little Homais children into the garden- dirty little brats, horribly spoilt and, like their mother, rather excitable. Besides the domestic, they had Justin to look after them. Justin was the apprentice and a second cousin of Monsieur Homais. They had taken him in out of charity, and he acted as a sort of servant.

The apothecary displayed the most neighbourly qualities. He told Madame Bovary all about the tradespeople, got his own cider merchant to call, sampled the liquor himself and went down into the cellar to make sure the cask was put in the best place. He put her up to a wrinkle for getting her butter on the cheap, and fixed up an arrangement with Lestiboudois, the sacristan, who, in addition to his sacerdotal and funereal functions, looked after the principal gardens at Yonville, working by the hour, or the year, as his customers might prefer.

But it was not unadulterated altruism that prompted the pharmacist to display such obsequious cordiality. There was something behind it.

He had infringed Article I of the Act of the 19th Ventose, Year XI, which forbids the practice of medicine by all unqualified persons. Some person or persons having secretly informed the authorities, he was summoned to Rouen to appear before the King's proctor in Chambers. The magistrate received him standing, arrayed in his official robes. It was in the morning, before the court opened. Homais heard the gendarmes in the corridor stumping by in their heavy boots, and something that sounded like keys turning in big locks a long way off. There was such a buzzing in the chemist's ears, that he thought he was going to have a stroke. He saw himself in the deepest of dungeons, his wife and children bathed in tears, the shop put up for sale, all his jars dispersed; and he was obliged to go into a cafe and have a nip of rum and seltzer to steady his nerves.

Little by little the effect of the admonition wore off; and, as before, he went on giving little harmless consultations in his shop-parlour. But the Mayor didn't like him, some of his confreres were jealous, he was playing a dangerous game. If he did things for Monsieur Bovary, Monsieur Bovary could not help being grateful, and that would prevent him from talking, if he got wind of anything later on. So every morning Homais would come across with 'the paper', and often, of an afternoon, he would leave his shop for a minute or two to go and have a chat with the medical officer of health.

Charles was low-spirited. Patients did not come. He would sit for hours on end and never utter a word, or go and sleep in his surgery, or watch his wife sew. To break the monotony he turned odd-job man at home, and made an attempt to paint the attic with some paint the men had left behind. But money matters were his great worry. He had spent such a lot on repairs at Tostes, on his wife's clothes and on moving, that the whole of the dowry had gone in two years. And then, look at the things that had been broken or lost in shifting them from Tostes to Yonville, not to mention the plaster 'cure', which an extra big jolt had knocked out of the wagon and smashed into atoms on the cobbles at Quincampoix!

But a pleasanter care came to occupy his mind. His wife was to have a child. The closer her time drew near, the greater the fuss he made of her. It was another fleshly link between them, a sort of perpetual reminder of a more complex union. When, from a distance, he surveyed her languid walk and her figure without stays turning limply on her hips, when he had her opposite to him, he could look at her at his ease, while she assumed all kinds of tired poses in her easy-chair. He could contain himself no longer. He would get up, kiss her, stroke her face, call her 'little mamma', try to make her dance and, half laughing, half in tears, deliver himself of all the tender, loving baby-talk that came into his mind. The idea of being a father pleased him immensely. There was nothing lacking now. He knew human existence all along the line, and he settled down to it with a contented mind.

At first Emma felt a great astonishment; then she was anxious to get the confinement over, so that she might know how it felt to be a mother. But not being able to spend as much as she wanted to and to have a swing cradle with pink silk curtains, and baby-caps with embroidery on them, she gave it up in a fit of temper and ordered the whole thing from a local sewing-woman without choosing or discussing anything. Thus she took no interest in all those preparations which stimulate a mother's tenderness, and so perhaps from the very beginning there was something lacking in her affection.

However, as Charles kept harping on the brat at every meal, she soon began to dwell on the matter more continuously.

She hoped it would be a boy. He should be strong and dark, and they would call him George. And the thought of having a boy seemed somehow to compensate her for all her unrequited longings in the past. A man, at all events, is free. The realms of passion and the realms of travel are his to range at will. He can override obstacles, and no sort of happiness is necessarily beyond his reach. But a woman is checkmated at every turn. Flexible yet powerless to move, she has at once her physical disabilities and her economic dependence in the scales against her. Her will, like the veil of her bonnet, is tied to a string and flutters in every wind. Whenever a desire impels, there is always a convention that restrains.

She was confined one Sunday morning about six, just as the sun was getting up.

'It's a girl,' said Charles.

She turned away her head and fainted.

Madame Homais hurried over almost at once to embrace her, and so did Mere Lefrancois of the 'Lion d'Or'. The chemist, a most discreet man, offered her a few preliminary congratulations through the half-open door. He desired to inspect the infant, and pronounced himself satisfied.

During her convalescence she busied herself trying to find a name for her daughter. She started by going through all the names with Italian endings, like Clara, Louisa, Amanda, Atala. She rather liked Galsuinde, and still more Yseult or Leocadie. Charles wanted the child to be called after her mother. Emma said no. They went through the calendar from end to end, they asked outsiders.

'I was talking to Monsieur Leon the other day,' said the chemist, and he was surprised you did not choose Madeleine, which is very popular just now.'

But the dowager Madame Bovary protested loudly against giving the child the name of an erring woman. Monsieur Homais always had a predilection for names associated with a great man, a glorious deed or a noble idea, and it was on this system that he had christened his four children. Thus Napoleon represented glory, and Franklin, liberty. Irma was possibly a concession to romanticism, but Athalie was a tribute to the most deathless masterpiece of the French stage.

For his philosophical convictions did not interfere with his artistic susceptibilities. In him the thinker did not stifle the man of feeling. He knew where to draw the line, how to differentiate between imagination and fanaticism. In 'Athalie', for instance, he condemned the ideas but admired the style, he denounced the conception but applauded the workmanship, fell foul of the characters but belauded their speeches. When he read out the purple passages, he was carried away, but when he reflected that the shavelings made use of it to reinforce their stock-in-trade, he was terribly cast down. He would have liked to crown Racine with both hands, and at the same time give him a good piece of his mind.

At last Emma remembered that when she was at the Chateau de la Vaubyessard she had heard the Marquise call a young woman by the name of Berthe. That settled it, and Berthe was the name chosen. As Farmer Rouault could not come to the christening, Monsieur Homais was asked to be godfather. All the things he gave by way of presents were taken from stock- namely, six boxes of jujubes, one whole flask of racahout, three tubes of marshmallow paste, together with six sticks of sugar candy which he had accidentally come across in a cupboard. On the night of the ceremony there was a big dinner, at which the 'cure' was present. They all got pretty well warmed up. Just before the liqueurs came on Monsieur Homais struck up 'Le Dieu des bonnes gens', Monsieur Leon sang a barcarolle and Madame Bovary, senior, who was the godmother, a ballad of the days of the Empire. Finally, Monsieur Bovary, senior, insisted on the baby being brought down, and proceeded to baptize it by pouring a glass of champagne on its head. This mockery of the first of the sacraments roused the Abbe Bournisien's indignation. Bovary pere responded with a quotation from 'La Guerre des Dieux'. The 'cure' got up to go. The ladies implored him to remain. Homais interposed. At last he was induced to resume his seat and continued to finish off the half-cup of coffee he had poured out into his saucer.

Monsieur Bovary, senior, stopped on a whole month at Yonville, making a great impression on the natives with a splendid forage cap trimmed with silver braid which he wore of a morning when smoking his pipe in the market-place. And being in the habit of drinking a lot of brandy, he often despatched the servant-girl to the 'Lion d'Or' to buy him a bottle, which he put down to his son's account; and to scent his handkerchiefs he used up all his daughter-in-law's eau-de-Cologne.

Emma by no means disliked his company. He had seen a lot of the world, talked to her about Berlin, Vienna, Strasbourg, of his soldiering days, the mistresses he had had, the flash luncheon-parties he had attended, and then he displayed great friendliness, and sometimes, on the stairs, or out in the garden, he would put his arm round her waist, with a 'Charles, my boy, you had better keep an eye on her!' Whereat Madame Bovary, senior, began to feel anxious for her son's happiness, and fearing that sooner or later her husband would have a bad influence on the young woman's moral ideas, she did her best to hurry on their departure. Possibly she had even graver grounds for apprehension, for Monsieur Bovary was a man to stick at nothing.

One day Emma was seized with a sudden longing to see her little girl, who had been put out to nurse with the carpenter's wife, and, without looking at the almanac to see whether the six weeks of the Virgin were over or not, she set out in the direction of Rollet's house, which was at the far end of the village, at the foot of the hill, between the high-road and the meadows. It was midday. The houses had their shutters pulled to, and the slate roofs, which shone brightly in the fierce light that beat down on them from the cloudless sky, seemed to be flashing out sparks from the peaks of their gables. A hot wind was blowing. When she had gone some way, Emma began to feel her strength failing her. She hesitated whether to return home or go in somewhere and sit down.

Just then, Monsieur Leon came out from a house close by, with a bundle of papers under his arm. He came up and spoke, and took up his stand in the shade of the grey sun-blind outside Lheureux's shop.

Madame Bovary said she was on her way to see her baby, but that she was beginning to feel tired.

'If...' began Leon, but he stopped short, not daring to continue.

'Have you any business to do anywhere?' she inquired.

And when the clerk said that he hadn't, she begged him to accompany her. That very night the news had got abroad in Yonville, and Madame Tuvache, the mayor's wife, declared, in her servant's hearing, that 'Madame Bovary was compromising herself'.

To get to the nurse's you had to go along to the end of the street and then turn to the left, as if you were going to the cemetery, along a narrow pathway fringed with privet between some cottages and gardens. The privet was in blossom and so were the speedwells, the honeysuckle, the thistles, and the briars, which pierced their way through the bushes. Through the gaps in the hedge you might catch sight of a pig reclining on a dung-heap or a tethered cow rubbing her horns against a tree-trunk. And so, both together, and side by side, they strolled gently on, she leaning on his arm and he walking in step with her. In front of them hovered a swarm of midges, buzzing in the warm air.

They recognized the house by an aged walnut-tree that shaded it. It was a low house, roofed with brown tiles, and outside it, underneath the attic window, hung a string of onions. Faggots, standing upright against a blackthorn hedge, surrounded a bed of lettuces, a few patches of lavender and some sweet peas trained on sticks. A trickle of dirty water went oozing in amongst the grass and all about were a number of nondescript odds and ends of clothes- knitted stockings, a red calico bodice and a large sheet of coarse linen stretched along on the hedge. Hearing the gate open, the woman came out, carrying a baby at the breast. With her other hand she was dragging along a poor, miserable-looking little urchin with scabs all over his face. He belonged to some drapers in Rouen, and his parents being too much taken up with their business to have him at home, had put him out to board in the country.

'Come along in,' said she, 'your little mite is in there asleep.' The bedroom, on the ground floor- the only one in the house- had a large bed at the far end stuck against the wall, while a kneading-trough stood beside the window, one pane of which had been repaired with a star of blue paper. In the corner behind the bed, shoes with gleaming hob-nails were ranged along underneath the washstand next to a bottle of oil with a feather stuck into its neck. A 'Mathieu Laensherg' lay on the dusty mantelpiece among a medley of gunflints, candle ends and bits of tinder. The room's crowning superfluity was a picture representing 'Fame' blowing her trumpet. This had evidently been cut out from some perfumer's advertisement, and six shoe brads fixed it to the wall.

Emma's baby was asleep in a wicker cradle on the floor. She took it in her arms, wrapped up in its coverlet, and began to croon gently as she rocked it to and fro.

Meanwhile Leon walked up and down the room. It seemed strange to him to see this beautiful, elegantly attired woman in the midst of such squalid surroundings. Madame Bovary turned crimson. He looked away, thinking he had perhaps seemed too inquisitive. She put the little one back in the bassinet. It had just been sick all over her collar. The nurse came to wipe it, assuring her that it wouldn't show.

'She does that and plenty more besides on me,' she said, 'and I am for ever washing her. It would be kind of you if you would just leave word at Camus the grocer's to let me have a bit of soap when I wanted it. This would save you trouble, as I shouldn't have to come bothering you for it then.'

'Quite so, quite so,' said Emma. 'Good-bye, Mere Rollet.'

And she wiped her shoes on the mat as she went out.

The worthy woman went with her to the garden gate, telling her what a job it was for her to get up at night.

'I'm that done up sometimes,' she said, 'that I drop off to sleep a-sittin' in my chair. Now if you could let me have just a pound of ground coffee. It would last me a month, and I'd have some in the morning with a drop of milk.'

The woman was profuse in her thanks, and Madame Bovary again turned to depart. She had not gone many steps along the footpath when she heard the sound of clogs behind her, and turned to see who was coming. It was the nurse.

'Well,' she said, 'what is it?'

The woman drew her aside, behind an elm-tree, and began telling her all about her husband. 'What with his job, you see, and six francs a year what Captain...'

'Quick, come to the point,' said Emma. 'What do you want?'

'Well, you see,' said the nurse, heaving a sigh after every word. 'I'm afraid he might feel hurt like if he was to see me a-drinking coffee all to myself. You know what men...'

'But you'll have some. I'm going to give you some. You pester me.'

'Ah, but, you see, it's like this, mum. Ever since he got his wounds he gets cramp on the chest something horrible. He says cider only makes him feel weaker.'

'Oh, do come to the point, Mere Rollet!'

'Well, then,' she said, with a curtsey, 'if it's not asking too much'- here she bobbed again- 'if you could manage'- and she looked at her imploringly- 'just a little jar of brandy, and I'd rub your little one's feet with it; they're as tender as your tongue, they are!'

Ridding herself of the nurse, Emma again took Monsieur Leon's arm. She walked quickly for some distance, then slackened her pace, and as she looked about her her gaze rested on the young man's shoulder and on his frock-coat, with its smart black velvet collar. His auburn hair descended upon it, and it was smooth and carefully brushed. She noticed his nails, which were longer than nails were usually worn at Yonville. Attending to his nails was one of the clerk's chief occupations; and he had a special pocket-knife for the purpose which he kept in his writing-desk.

They went back to Yonville along the bank. In summer the stream is wider than usual, and now showed the whole extent of the garden walls, which had a few steps leading down to the water. The stream flowed on noiselessly, swift and cool to the eye; tall, slender weeds clung and bowed together, swaying in the stream and, like green tresses, rose and fell and outspread themselves in its translucent depths. Sometimes on the tips of the rushes, or on the leaves of the water-lilies, an insect with its dainty feet would walk or stand airily poised. The sunlight darted its rays through the little blue bubbles on the water, that formed and broke in endless succession on the surface. Aged willows, with their spreading branches and hoary trunks, were mirrored in the stream; and all around, as far as eye could see, the meadows seemed deserted. It was dinner-time in the farms, and the only sounds that fell upon the ears of the young woman and her companion as they went their way were their footfalls on the path, the words they spoke to one another, and the frou-frou of Emma's dress rustling round her.

The garden walls, with pieces of broken bottles on their coping, were as hot as the panes of a forcing-frame. Wallflowers had rooted themselves in the crannies, and Madame Bovary, as she passed, touched some of their withered blossoms with the edge of her open parasol and made them crumble into yellow dust, or, maybe, a tendril of honeysuckle or clematis overhanging the wall would catch in the fringe and drag for a moment over the silk.

They were talking about a troop of Spanish dancers who were shortly to appear at the theatre in Rouen.

'Shall you go?' she asked.

'If I can.' he replied.

Was this all they had to say to one another? Matters of deeper import seemed to seek utterance in the expression of their eyes. They tried to speak of ordinary, everyday things, but all the while they felt a mutual languor stealing into their inmost being. It was like a murmur of the soul, deep down, persistent, dominating the spoken word. Lost in wonder at the strange sweetness that stole upon their senses, they never spoke of it to one another or sought to probe its cause. Coming delights, like the shores of tropic isles, exhale across the spreading seas their perfume-laden airs, the native softness of the clime; and they who breathe them, their spirits lulled as if by wine, scan not, nor try to scan, the faint, far-off horizon.

They came to a place where the ground had been trodden into a mire by the cattle. They had to step across it on big green stones set at intervals in the mud. From time to time she would pause and look where to put her foot. The stone would move, and she would sway about, elbows in air, bending forward and darting eager glances here and there, trying to keep her balance. And she would laugh as she nearly tumbled into a puddle.

When they came to her garden, Madame Bovary pushed open the little gate and, running up the steps, disappeared from view.

Leon went back to his office. His chief was out. He gave a glance at some papers, trimmed a quill pen and, finally, put on his hat and went out.

He went up to La Pature at the top of the Cote d'Argueil, where the woods begin. He threw himself down on the ground under the pines and looked at the sky through his fingers.

'Ah me!' he sighed, 'how slow things are!'

He cursed his luck, having to live in this village with Homais for friend and Monsieur Guillaumin for master. The latter, with his gold-rimmed spectacles and his red whiskers resplendent against his white cravat, was wholly wrapped up in his profession, and had no culture or intellectual refinement about him, though he affected a sort of English downrightness of manner which had very much impressed the clerk to begin with. As for the chemist's wife, there wasn't another such woman in the whole of Normandy. She was as placid as a sheep, looked after her children, her father, her mother and her cousins, wept at the misfortunes of others, let the house take care of itself, and cordially hated stays. But she was so slow in her movements, so wearisome to listen to, so under-bred in appearance and so limited in ideas that, although she was thirty and he twenty, and they slept in adjoining rooms and spoke to each other every day, it never occurred to him that she was the kind of woman anyone would give a thought to, or that she had anything of her sex about her but the dress.

And who else was there? Binet, a few tradesmen, two or three innkeepers, the 'cure', and finally Monsieur Tuvache, the mayor, and his two sons: people with money: stodgy, dull-witted folk who worked their own land, gave family parties among themselves, a goody-goody, wholly insufferable crowd.

But against all this background of shoddy humanity, Emma's face stood out, lonely yet far-off, for somehow it seemed to him that there was a gulf between them.

At first he had been a pretty frequent visitor to the house, going there with the chemist. Charles had not appeared overjoyed to see him, and Leon did not quite know what line to take, what with his anxiety not to appear too pushing and his desire to be on such terms as he never really expected to attain.

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