A Spring evening; Emma meets the cure; Berthe's fall; Charles's portrait; Leon is bored; Off to Paris; Monsieur Homais's evening call; An event for Yonville.

ONE evening as she was sitting at the open window looking at Lestiboudois, the beadle, who was cutting the hedge, she heard the Angelus ringing.

It was at the beginning of April, and the primroses were in bloom, a warm wind was blowing over the freshly turned beds, and the gardens, like the women, seemed to be adorning themselves for the high days of summer. Through the lattice-work of the summer-house and out and away beyond, you could see the little river threading its way through the green meadows in little wandering curves. The evening mist loitered, slowly drawn, among the leafless poplars, shading their outlines with a violet paler and more transparent than the frailest gauze entangled in their branches. In the far distance cattle were moving leisurely homeward, but they were too far off for their lowing to be heard, and, all the while, the bell went on ringing, ringing, burdening the wandering airs with its unvarying lament. The reiterated, rhythmic sound sent Emma's thoughts wandering among the memories of her young days, memories of her convent school. She remembered the tall candlesticks on the altar towering above the vases filled with flowers, and the tabernacle with its little columns. And a longing came over her to be back again, to make one in the long line of white veils, broken here and there by the stiff black hoods of the nuns, kneeling with bowed heads at their prie-Dieu. At Mass on Sundays, when she raised her head, she could see, amid the blue-grey clouds of incense, the meek and lovely countenance of the Virgin. Then something knocked at her heart, she felt all yielding and help less like a downy feather from a bird's breast, eddying in the storm, and, half unconscious of her action, she began to make her way to the church, bent on some act of devotion, no matter what, if only she might drown her spirit therein and so become oblivious of the world about her.

She met Lestiboudois coming back across the Square, for, so as not to finish up his day's work before the time was up, he chose to leave off in the middle and then go on again, so that he rang the Angelus when it suited him. And even if he 'did' ring too soon, what of that? It let the youngsters know when it was time to go in for catechism. Some were there already, playing marbles on the flagstones in the churchyard. Others were sitting straddle-legged on the wall, swinging their legs and scraping away with their clogs at the tall nettles that had sprung up between the little enclosure and the newest graves. It was the only green spot there; all the rest was stones, and perpetually covered with a fine dust, despite the sexton's broom. The children scampered about there as on a floor specially made for them, and their shrill laughter pierced through the sound of the bell, which grew softer and softer, as the rope came to a standstill- the big rope that hung down from the tower and trailed its end upon the ground.

Swallows darted to and fro uttering little cries, cleaving the air in their flight, and returning swiftly to their yellow nests beneath the sheltering eaves. At the far end of the church, a lamp was burning, or, more precisely, the wick of a night-light in a hanging glass. Seen from afar, it looked like a whitish stain quivering on the oil. A long beam of sunlight shone right across the nave and deepened the shadows in the aisles and recesses.

'Where is the 'cure?'' asked Madame Bovary of a small boy who was absorbed in waggling about the turnstile in its worn-out socket.

'He'll be here in a minute,' said the urchin.

And sure enough the presbytery door creaked on its hinges, and the Abbe Bournisien appeared. The children turned and rushed helterskelter into the church.

'Little ragamuffins!' muttered the 'cure': 'always the same!' And, picking up a torn and battered catechism which he had knocked against with his foot, he exclaimed: 'Irreverent little brats!'

And then, noticing Emma there, he said:

'Excuse me, I didn't see who it was.' He stuffed the catechism in his pocket and stood there, swinging the heavy sacristy key between his fingers.

The light of the setting sun shone full in his face, blanching the lasting of his cassock, all shiny at the elbows and frayed at the bottom. Grease spots and tobacco stains followed the line of the little buttons all down his broad chest, increasing in number as they receded from his neckbands, on which reposed the copious folds of a ruddy chin flecked with little stains half hidden in the stubbly hair of his grizzled beard. He had just had dinner, and his breathing was laboured.

'How are you?' he went on.

'Oh, I feel dreadful!' she replied.

'So do I,' said the 'cure'. 'This sudden heat takes it out of one terribly, doesn't it? Ah, well, there you are! We are born to suffer, as Saint Paul says. But what does Monsieur Bovary think of it?'

'He!' she exclaimed, with a toss of her head.

'What!' said the good man, thoroughly astonished, 'doesn't he give you something for it?'

'Ah!' said Emma, 'it's no earthly remedy I need.'

But the cure kept peering into the church, where all the children were on their knees, pushing each other about with their shoulders and falling over like a house of cards.

'I should like to know-' she began.

'Now then, Riboudet, just you wait a minute!' shouted the cure angrily. 'I'll give you one over the ears, you limb of Satan, you!'

'He's Boudet the carpenter's boy,' he went on, turning back to Emma; 'his parents are well off and let him do just as he likes. He could learn fast enough, if he would; he's got plenty of brains. And sometimes, for a joke, I call him Riboudet (like the hill you go up when you go to Maromme); and I say, "Mon Riboudet". D'you get me- "Mont Riboudet"? Ha! ha! I told that little joke to the Bishop the other day. And he laughed. He was so nice! Yes, he laughed outright! And how's Monsieur Bovary these days?' She seemed not to hear.

'Always at work, I'm sure. We're the hardest-driven people in the parish, he and I. But he patches bodies and I patch souls. That's the difference!'

'Yes,' she said, 'you bring balm for every ill!'

'Oh, well you may say so, Madame Bovary. This very morning they had me out to go over to Bas-Diauville to see a sick cow- all blown out with wind she was. They thought someone had put the Evil Eye on her. I can't make it out; all their cows are like that. But, just a moment! Longuemarre and Boudet, there! My word, I'll give you what for!' At a single bound he was in the church.

The urchins were all crowding round the pulpit, climbing on the cantor's stool, turning over the leaves of the missal. Others, stealing along with noiseless, wary tread, were just about to venture into the confessional box. But before you could say 'knife', the cure was upon them, distributing cuffs right and left. Taking hold of them by the coat collar, he held them aloft, and then deposited them on their two knees on the stone floor of the choir, ramming them well down as if he wanted to plant them there.

'Ah, yes,' he said, when he had come back to Emma, unfolding his large cotton handkerchief, putting one corner of it between his teeth, 'the farmers are having a bad time of it.'

'Not only the farmers,' answered Emma.

'Ah, no, you're right! The workers in the towns, for example.'

'It's not them I-'

'Pardon me. I've known mothers with a family of little children- good women, I assure you, real saints- who hadn't even got bread to put in their mouths.'

'But what about those,' answered Emma, and the corners of her mouth quivered- 'those, Monsieur le Cure, who have got bread, but not-'

'Any fire to warm them in winter,' said the cure.

'Well, what matter?'

'How do you mean, what matter? It seems to me that when you've got food to eat and a fire to sit by... for after all-'

'Oh dear! oh dear!' she sighed.

'Are you feeling queer?' he asked, in an anxious tone. 'Something must have disagreed. You must get back home, Madame Bovary, and drink some hot tea. That'll put you right. Or else a glass of cold water with a little moist sugar in it.'

'Why?'

And she looked like one awakening from a dream.

'You put your hand up to your forehead. I thought you had an attack of giddiness.'

Then he remembered and said,

'But there was something you were asking me. What was it now? I can't remember.'

'I? Oh, no, nothing- nothing,' repeated Emma.

And as she looked around her, her gaze slowly fell on the old man in the cassock. They stood and looked at each other face to face, without speaking.

'Well, then, Madame Bovary,' he said at last, 'you must please excuse me. Duty first, you know. I must look after these brats of mine. We shall have our first communions here before we know where we are. I'm half afraid we shall be caught napping again. So from Ascension-tide onwards I've been keeping them at it an hour longer every Wednesday. Poor children! it is never too soon to set them in the way of the Lord, as indeed He bade us do by the mouth of His Divine Son.... Wish you well, Madame. My respects to the doctor.'

So saying, he turned to enter the church, genuflecting as soon as he reached the door.

Emma watched him disappear between the two rows of seats, stumping along, with his head a little bent over his shoulder, holding his two hands half-open, palms outwards.

Then she turned on her heel, all of a piece, as if she had been a statue on a pivot, and bent her steps homewards. But the loud voice of the cure, the shrill treble of the urchins, still reached her ears and followed her as she went:

'Are you a Christian?'

'Yes, I am a Christian.'

'What is a Christian?'

'A Christian is one who, having been baptized... baptized... baptized-'

She went upstairs clinging on to the banisters, and as soon as she was in her room she sank into a chair.

The pallid light that filtered through the window faded softly away with little shadowy undulations. The various pieces of furniture in their places seemed to become more motionless and to be lost in the gloom as though on a darkling ocean. The fire had gone out, but the clock went on ticking, and Emma vaguely wondered how all these things could be so still when her own heart was so full of turmoil. Between the windows and the work-table little Berthe was toddling about in her knitted shoes and trying to get to her mother, in order that she might catch hold of the ends of her apron-strings.

'Leave me alone,' said Emma, pushing her away.

The little one was soon back again, close up to her knees, and, leaning her arms on them, she lifted up her big blue eyes, while a trickle of saliva dropped from her mouth on the silken apron.

'Leave me alone,' said her mother, who had quite lost her temper. Her look made the child frightened, and it began to cry. 'Leave me alone, will you?' she repeated, and she gave her a push with her elbow.

Berthe fell down by the chest of drawers, striking her head against one of the brass handles. She cut her cheek, and blood began to flow. Madame Bovary rushed over to pick her up, broke the bell-pull, shouted with all her might for the servant to come, and was beginning to curse herself for a wicked woman, when Charles appeared on the scene. It was dinner-time and he had done for the day.

'Oh, look, dear,' said Emma, quite calmly. 'The little one was playing about and has just fallen down and hurt herself!'

Charles set her mind at rest: it was nothing serious, and he went to fetch some sticking plaster.

Madame Bovary did not go downstairs to the dining-room; she wanted to be alone, taking care of the child. And then, as she watched her sleeping, whatever remnants of anxiety she had gradually disappeared, and she thought it had been very foolish and very tender-hearted of her to have been in such a state just now for so trifling a matter. Berthe's sobs had ceased, and she was breathing so quietly that the cotton bed-cover scarcely moved. Big tears glistened at the corners of her half-closed eyes, and through her lashes were visible two pale, sunken pupils. The plaster on her cheek drew the skin awry.

'Strange,' thought Emma, 'how ugly the child is!' It was eleven when Charles came back from the chemist's (he had gone over after dinner to put back what was left of the sticking plaster). He found his wife standing by the cot.

'Come, now! I assure you it's nothing,' he said, kissing her on the forehead. 'Don't worry so, my poor darling, you'll make yourself ill.'

He had stayed a long time at the apothecary's. Although he had not appeared very greatly upset, Monsieur Homais had done his utmost to reassure him, 'to cheer him up'. They discussed the various dangers that children run, and the carelessness of servants. Madame Homais knew something about that, for the cook upset a bowl of soup all down her pinafore once when she was a little girl, and she bore the marks of it on her chest to this day. And so her good parents were tremendously careful of her. Never any edge on the knives, or wax on the floors. There were gratings to all the windows and stout bars across the fireplaces. The little Homais children, though they had plenty of spirit, could not budge without someone behind them to look after them. At the slightest signs of a cold their father would stuff them with cough lozenges, and, till they were turned four, they all had to wear wadding inside their caps. True, that was a special fad of Madame Homais. In his own mind, her husband was rather worried about it, for fear the intellectual organs should suffer from such rigid compression. And once he let himself go so far as to say,

'Do you want to make Caribs or Botocudos of them?'

Charles had made several attempts to interrupt his discourse.

'I want to have a word with you,' he whispered in the clerk's ear.

And Leon rose to lead the way upstairs.

'I wonder if he suspects anything?' he said to himself. His heart began to thump and he couldn't make out what to think.

At length, Charles, having shut the door behind him, asked him to make inquiries in Rouen concerning the price one would have to pay for a really first-rate daguerreotype. It was a surprise he had in store for his wife. A little bit of sentimentalism, a portrait of himself in dress clothes. But first of all he wanted to know how he stood as regards expense. All this wouldn't be much trouble, he hoped, for Monsieur Leon, seeing that he had to go into Rouen almost every week.

And what 'did' he go for? Ah! Homais had a strong notion that he had an affair, that there was a woman in the case. But he was wrong. Leon had nothing like that on his hands. He seemed more melancholy than ever. Madame Lefrancois could see that well enough from the quantity of food he left on his plate. She wanted to get at the root of the matter, and spoke to the tax-collector about it. Binet glared at her and grunted out that he 'wasn't a paid detective'.

All the same he couldn't quite make his companion out, for Leon would often fling himself back in his chair, stretch out his arms and complain vaguely about life and the world in general.

'You don't get enough amusement, that's what's the matter with you,' affirmed the tax-collector.

'How do you mean?'

'If I were you I should get a lathe.'

'What's the good? I couldn't use it.'

'Hum! Yes, that's true,' said the other, stroking his chin with a gratified air of superiority.

Leon was tired of playing 'Love's Labour's Lost'. He was beginning to feel the sort of depression that comes over you when you go on doing the same things day after day, when you have no interest to carry you along and no sort of change to look forward to. He was so sick of Yonville and its inhabitants that the mere sight of certain people and certain houses irritated him beyond endurance. The chemist, too, meant well, no doubt, but he simply couldn't stand him. Nevertheless, the prospect of a new order of things scared him as much as it charmed him.

The more he thought about it all, the more impatient he became. Paris, in his inward ear, sounded a sort of trumpet call, with her masked balls and laughing 'grisettes'. Since he had to go there for his final, why not go now? What was to prevent him? And he began to cogitate on the preparations he would have to make. He thought out all his occupations in advance. He furnished his rooms in imagination. He would live the life of an artist. He would take lessons on the guitar. He would have a dressing-gown, a beret, blue velvet slippers. And he was already gazing in admiration at an imaginary pair of foils hung up over his chimney-piece, with a skull and the guitar above them.

The great difficulty would be to get his mother to agree. And yet the idea seemed perfectly sound. His own employer had been urging him to take up work in another office and so enlarge his experience. So Leon compromised, and looked out for an assistant's post in Rouen. Meeting with no success, he ended by writing a long and detailed letter to his mother in which he explained why he thought it would be a good thing for him to go and live in Paris right away. She gave her consent.

He did not hurry himself. Every day, for a whole month, Hivert carted boxes, trunks and parcels for him from Yonville to Rouen and from Rouen back to Yonville; and when Leon had replenished his wardrobe, had his three easy-chairs restuffed, purchased a stock of foulards- in short, made enough preparations and more than enough for a voyage round the world, he kept putting things off from week to week, until he got another letter from his mother urging him to make a start, seeing that he wanted to get through his examination before the recess.

When the time came to say good-bye, Madame Homais burst out crying; Justin sobbed; Homais, the strong man, dissembled his emotion. He insisted on carrying his friend's overcoat right into the notary's office, for the notary was driving Leon to Rouen in his own carriage. There was barely time for Leon to say good-bye to Monsieur Bovary. When he got to the top of the stairs, he stopped short, he felt so out of breath. As he went in Madame Bovary rose quickly.

'Here I am again!' said Leon.

'I knew you would come!'

She bit her lip hard, and a rush of blood beneath her skin made her flush from the roots of her hair to the edge of her collar. She remained standing, leaning her shoulder against the panelling.

'The doctor not in?' he said.

'No, he's gone out.'

And she repeated,

'He's gone out.'

Then there was silence. They looked at each other, and their thoughts, mingling in the same anguish of mind, clung closely to one another like two throbbing bosoms.

'I should so like to kiss Berthe,' he said.

Emma went down a few stairs and called out to Felicite.

He gave a long look round- at the walls, the shelves, the chimney-piece- as though to take it all in, to carry the memory of it away with him.

Emma returned, and the servant came in with Berthe, who was carrying a toy windmill upside down, pulling a string to make the sails go round.

Leon kissed her several times on the neck.

'Good-bye, my poor darling; good-bye, my pet; good-bye.' And he gave her back to her mother.

'Take her away,' said she.

And now they were alone.

Madame Bovary had her back to him, her face resting against a window-pane. Leon was holding his cap in his hand and beating it gently against his thigh.

'It's going to rain,' said Emma.

'I've got a cape,' he answered.

'Ah!'

She turned away, her chin down and her brow well forward. The light shone on it as on a piece of marble, down to the curve of the eyebrows. But none could have told what Emma was looking at on the horizon, or what thoughts she was harbouring deep down within her.

'Ah, well! good-bye, then,' he sighed.

She raised her head with a swift, sudden movement.

'Yes, good-bye.... Oh, go!'

They advanced towards each other. He held out his hand. She hesitated. ''A l'anglaise', then!' she said, flinging her hand in his and laughing a forced laugh.

Leon felt it between his fingers, and the very substance of his being seemed to him to descend into that little moist palm.

Then he released her hand. Their eyes met again, and he was gone.

When he came to the market-house he stopped and hid behind one of the pillars in order to give a last look at that white house with its four green shutters. He thought he saw a shadow in the room behind the window, but the curtain coming unhitched as though no one were looking after it, slowly shook its long, oblique folds, blew out wide and then fell back again, remaining as straight and motionless as a plaster wall. Leon set off at full speed.

He saw his employer's gig some way up the road, and alongside it a man in a workman's apron, who was holding the horse. Homais and Monsieur Guillaumin were chatting together, waiting for him.

'One more shake of the hand,' said the apothecary, with tears in his eyes. 'Here's your coat, old man. Mind you don't catch cold. Take care of yourself. Don't overdo it.'

'Come on, Leon, up you get!' said the notary.

Homais put his hand on the splashboard, and in a voice choked with sobs uttered these two sad words:

'Good-bye.'

'Good-night,' answered Monsieur Guillaumin. 'All right, let go!' They were off, and Homais went back home.

Madame Bovary had opened her window, which looked on to the garden, and was gazing at the clouds. They were piling up in the west, away towards Rouen, and quickly rolling up their dark folds, in the rear of which projected long rays of sunlight like the golden arrows of a suspended trophy, while all the rest of the vacant heavens were as white as a piece of china. But a gust of wind swept by and bowed the poplars, and all of a sudden the rain came down, pattering on the green leaves. Then the sun came out again, the hens clucked, the sparrows fluttered their wings in the wet shrubs, and the pools of water on the gravel bore on their surface as they streamed away the pink blossoms of an acacia.

'He must be a long way off by this time!' thought she.

Monsieur Homais dropped in as usual at half-past six, while they were having dinner.

'Ah well!' said he as he sat himself down, 'so we've seen the last of our young friend?'

'Seems like it,' answered the doctor, and then, turning round in his chair, he added,

'And what's the news with you?'

'Oh, nothing much. Only my wife was a little upset this afternoon. You know what women are: it doesn't take much to put them out- my wife especially. And it would be a mistake to go on at them about it; their nervous system is much more easily disturbed than ours.'

'Poor Leon!' said Charles. 'I wonder how he'll get on in Paris. Will he get used to the life?'

Madame Bovary sighed.

'What do you think!' rejoined the chemist. 'Nice little dinners in town, masked balls, champagne! He'll have the time of his life, I'll warrant.'

'I don't believe he'll go off the lines,' protested Monsieur Bovary.

'No more do I,' answered Homais quickly, 'although he'll have to do like the others for fear of being taken for a Jesuit. And you haven't an idea how those bright lads of the Quartier Latin carry on with their actress friends. But I can tell you, the students are thought a lot of in Paris. Provided they've got the least bit of social attractiveness about them, they can go anywhere, and even the ladies of the Faubourg Saint Germain sometimes lose their hearts to them, and that often means that, later on, they have a chance of making an extraordinarily good match.'

'Yes,' said the doctor; 'but in his case, up there, I'm half afraid-'

'You're right,' interrupted the apothecary. 'There's the reverse of the medal. And then you're always obliged to be clapping your hand on your pocket. For instance, suppose you're in the park. Up comes someone, quite well dressed, wearing a decoration, perhaps- someone you might take for a diplomat. You start talking. He makes himself agreeable, offers you a pinch of snuff, or picks up your hat for you. And so you get quite friendly. He lugs you off to a cafe, invites you down to his place in the country, and, when you've had a drop too much, introduces you to all kinds of people, and as often as not he's got his eye on your purse or is trying to put you on the downward track.'

'That's right enough,' assented Charles; 'but I was thinking more especially of the diseases you might get- typhoid, for example, to which students from the country are particularly liable.' Emma gave a shudder.

'That's owing to the change of diet,' continued the chemist, 'and the disturbance to the system which results therefrom. And then, the Paris water, don't forget that! And the rich, spiced food you get in the restaurants overheats the blood and doesn't, after all, come up to a good 'pot-au-feu'. Personally, myself I've always liked home cooking best. It's more wholesome. And so when I was reading up chemistry at Rouen, I lived in a boarding-house and had all my meals there. I used to feed with the professors.'

And so he went on, expounding his views on things in general and telling them all about his personal likes and dislikes, until Justin came to fetch him home to make up a mulled egg that someone wanted in a hurry.

'Never a moment to myself!' he exclaimed, 'always at the grindstone. I can't go out for a single minute. Always at it from morning till night. Might as well be a cart-horse. What a life!'

When he reached the door he added,

'By the way, heard the news?'

'What news?'

'Why, it's very probable,' said Homais, raising his eyebrows and putting on an air of tremendous importance, 'that the Seine-Inferieure Agricultural Society will hold their show at Yonville l'Abbaye this year. Anyhow, that's the rumour. There was some hint of it in this morning's paper. It would be no end of a good thing for the district. However, we'll discuss it further later on. No, I can see all right, thanks; Justin's got the lantern.'

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