Memories of Leon; Strange whims; No more novels; Market day; Enter M. Boulanger; Bleeding a Peasant; Justin faints; Rodolphe contemplates a change; Plans for acquaintance.

THE next day, for Emma, was like a funeral. Everything seemed to be wrapped in a sort of black atmosphere which floated confusedly about the exterior of things, and grief plunged into the deep places of her soul, making soft moan, like the wintry wind in some deserted chateau. She was dreaming the dreams that come to one when one has bade farewell to something that will never return, the lassitude that comes over one when something is finally over and done with- the pain, in a word, which accompanies the interruption of a habit, the sudden cessation of a prolonged vibration.

Just as when she came back from la Vaubyessard and the dance-tunes were thrumming in her head, so now she felt the same sort of dismal melancholy, of dull despair. Leon came back to her, taller, handsomer, more persuasive and more vague; though he was separated from her, he had not left her. He was there, and the walls of the house seemed to retain his shadow. She could not keep her eyes from the carpet on which he had walked, from the chairs on which he had sat. The river still flowed on, and its little wavelets softly lapped at the slippery edge. Many and many a time had they walked together there and listened to the murmur of the water foaming over the pebbles. Ah, what beautiful sunny days had been theirs, what good afternoons, all by themselves, in the shade, at the bottom of the garden! He would read aloud, sitting there, without a hat, on a bundle of faggots. The wind, blowing in cool from the meadows, fluttered the leaves of the book and the nasturtiums of the arbour. And now he was gone; the sole charm of her life, the only source from which she might have hoped to win a little happiness. Why had she not taken the chance when it was offered her? Why hadn't she held him back with both hands, begged and prayed to him on her knees, when he tried to fly away? She cursed herself for not giving her love to Leon; she was thirsty for his lips. A longing came over her to fly after him and join him, to fling herself into his arms and say, 'I have come, I am yours!' But Emma was afraid of all the difficulties in the way, she longed and dared not, and so her longing did but grow the more intense.

Henceforth the memory of Leon became, as it were, the centre, the focus of her sorrow. It glowed and sparkled amid the surrounding gloom more brightly than a derelict fire, left by travellers journeying across some Russian steppe to burn itself out in the snow. She hurried towards it, she crouched down beside it, she stirred most carefully its fading embers, she cast about her for anything and everything that might make them burn the brighter, and her most faint and far-off memories, as well as the things that happened today or yesterday, things imagined and things felt, her dreams of love that melted into air, her hopes of happiness that snapped like dead branches in the wind, her barren virtue, her fallen hopes, the daily domestic round- she gathered them all together and made of them the wherewithal to feed the embers of her melancholy.

However, the fires died down, perhaps because the fuel was exhausted or because too much was piled upon them. Little by little, absence chilled the flame of love, the pangs of regret were dulled by habit. The glare of the conflagration that had incarnadined her pallid sky was obscured by shadows, and gradually disappeared. So vague and dreamy were her impressions that she mistook her detestation of her husband for longing for her lover, the fires of hate for the warmth of love; but since the storm ceased not to rage and passion burnt to the socket, since no succour came nor any ray of light appeared, she was left groping her way help lessly in the chill of unbroken night.

And then the unhappy days of Tostes began all over again. She deemed herself far more unfortunate now, for she had had experience of grief, and she knew that it was endless.

A woman who had made such a sacrifice as she had was justly entitled to indulge her whims and caprices. She bought herself a Gothic prie-Dieu, and, in a single month, she purchased fourteen francs' worth of lemons to clean her nails. She wrote to Rouen and ordered a blue cashmere dress, and she bought from Lheureux the finest scarf he had in his shop. She tied it round her waist, outside her dressing-gown, and thus attired she would lie by the hour stretched out on the sofa with the blinds closed and a book in her hand. She was for ever dressing her hair differently; she did it a 'la Chinoise', she waved it, she plaited it, she parted it at the side and wore it like a man.

She decided she would learn Italian, and bought dictionaries, a grammar and a stock of paper. She took up really serious reading- history and philosophy. Sometimes, of a night, Charles would wake up with a start, fancying someone had come for him.

'All right, I'm coming,' he would mumble.

It was only Emma striking a match to relight the lamp. But reading or needlework- it was all the same. The needlework was tossed half finished into the cupboard, and she would take up one book after another only to cast it aside.

Sometimes she got into states of mind when you could have made her do anything. One day she would have it that she could drink off half a tumbler of neat brandy, and as Charles was stupid enough to say she couldn't, she drained it to the last drop.

For all her flighty ways (that was what the respectable married women of Yonville called them) Emma did not seem very happy. She always had that little drawn look at the corners of the mouth which you see in old maids and people who have failed in their ambitions. She was pale all over, white as a sheet. The skin was drawn tight over her nose. She had a vague look in the eyes. And because she discovered three grey hairs on her temples, she talked about being an old woman.

She had frequent attacks of faintness. One day she spat a little blood. Charles rushed over to her, looking terribly concerned.

'Bah!' she said, 'what does it matter?' Charles went and shut himself in the surgery and wept with his two elbows on the table, seated in his desk-chair beneath the phrenological bust.

Then he wrote off to his mother asking her to come, and the pair of them had long talks together about Emma.

What was to be done? What 'could' they do, since she refused to submit to treatment?

'Do you know what your wife really wants?' said Madame Bovary. 'She wants work, something to keep her employed, whether she likes it or not; plenty of household work. If she had to earn her bread as so many others have to do, she'd never suffer from all these vapours. It all comes from these ideas she's stuffed her head with, it all comes of not having work to do.'

'Yet she's always doing something,' said Charles.

'Doing something! Doing what, I should like to know? Reading rubbishy novels, good-for-nothing books, books that make light of religion and mock at the priests, with pieces quoted from Voltaire. But that kind of thing tells in the long run, my poor dear, and anyone without religion is bound to come to grief sooner or later.' So they decided not to let Emma read any more novels. It wasn't so easy as it looked. The old lady said she would see to it. The next time she went to Rouen she would go to the Library and tell the man there that Emma was giving up her subscription. Would she not have the right to put the police on him, if he still persisted in carrying on his poisonous work?

The good-byes of Emma and her mother-in-law were anything but cordial. During the whole of the three weeks they had been together they hadn't spoken to each other four times, except to utter the usual formulas when they met at table and said good-night at bedtime.

Madame Bovary, senior, left on a Wednesday, which was market day at Yonville.

From early morning the square had been lumbered up with carts turned up on end with their shafts in the air, stood along in front of the houses from the church all the way to the inn. Over on the other side, there were canvas booths where all sorts of cotton goods, counterpanes, woollen stockings, halters for horses and rolls of blue ribbon with the ends fluttering in the wind were exposed for sale. The heavy ironmongery was spread out on the ground, between pyramids of eggs and bannets of cheese with bits of greasy straw sticking out from them. Near the reaping-machines there were a number of hens imprisoned in flat cages, making a great noise and thrusting their heads through the bars. The people, all bunched up at one spot, did not seem inclined to move, and it sometimes looked as if they would go through the chemist's shop-front. Wednesdays the shop never emptied. Folk crowded into it, not so much to buy medicine, as to get advice, for Monsieur Homais was a well-known man in all the villages for miles around. His geniality and bounce made a great impression on the country folk. They thought he knew more about doctoring than all the doctors put together. Emma was seated at her window (she often sat there, because in the country the window takes the place of the theatre and the promenade), and she was amusing herself by looking at the crowd of rustics, when her eye lighted upon a gentleman in a green velvet coat. He was wearing yellow gloves, which contrasted rather incongruously with a pair of stout leather gaiters. He was making his way towards the doctor's house, followed by a rustic walking along with bowed head and looking very thoughtful.

'Can I see the doctor?' he inquired of Justin, who was on the doorstep gossiping with Felicite. He took him for one of the servants and added,

'Tell him Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger of la Huchette is here.' It was from no desire to impress, that the visitor added the territorial description to his name. He did so merely to make it quite clear who he was. La Huchette was an estate near Yonville, and he had just bought the mansion, together with a couple of farms, which he was farming himself, taking things pretty easily, it should be added. He lived a bachelor's life, and was said to have a good twelve hundred a year.

Charles came into the room, and Monsieur Boulanger presented his man, who said he wanted to be bled because he felt as if he had a lot of ants running all over him.

'That'll give me a good clear out!' he said when they tried to dissuade him.

So Bovary told them to bring him a bandage and a basin and asked Justin to hold it. 'Don't be afraid,' said he, turning to the yokel, who had gone as white as a sheet.

'Not me, sir!' he replied. 'Carry on.'

And he stuck out a great arm, with a 'do-your-damnedest' sort of air. Charles pricked him with a lancet, and out shot the blood right over on to the mirror.

'Hold the basin nearer,' cried Charles.

'Gosh!' said the man, 'you'd think it was a little fountain. My blood's red enough, conscience! You'd say that were a good sign now, wouldn't ye?'

'Sometimes they feel nothing to start with. Then faintness sets in, especially with big strong people like this man here,' said Charles.

Hearing this the man let go the lancet case that he was twiddling in his fingers. He gave a sudden jerk with his shoulders and snapped the back of the chair. Down fell his hat.

'I thought as much,' said Bovary, putting his finger on the vein. The basin was beginning to wobble in Justin's hands. His knees were quaking, and he was looking like a ghost.

'Emma! quick! I want you!' shouted Charles.

She was down the stairs in a flash.

'Get me some vinegar,' he said. 'Good Lord, two of them at once!' He was so excited he could hardly put on the compress.

'It's nothing at all,' said Monsieur Boulanger calmly, as he took Justin in his arms. And he rigged him up on the table with his back against the wall.

Madame Bovary began loosening his collar and tie. His shirt strings had got into a knot, and for some minutes her fingers were busy about the young man's neck. Then she poured out some vinegar on her handkerchief, and dabbed it on his forehead, blowing upon it delicately.

The man came round, but Justin was still unconscious, and his pupils looked as if they were sinking down into the whites, like blue flowers drowning in milk.

'We mustn't let him see that,' said Charles.

Madame Bovary took hold of the basin. She stooped down to put it under the table, and as she did so her dress (it had four flounces to it and was made of some yellow stuff, long in the waist and full in the skirt) spread out on the floor. And as Emma, bending down, swayed a little as she stretched out her arm, the stuff clung to her here and there, following the undulations of her bosom. Then she went to fetch a jug of water, and was dissolving some pieces of sugar, when the chemist arrived on the scene. The servant had run over to fetch him when the excitement was on. Seeing his pupil with his eyes open, he breathed again. Then he walked round him, surveying him from top to toe.

'Duffer,' he said- 'silly little duffer, complete and utter duffer, if ever there was one! What is there to be scared at in a little drop of blood? And a fellow that's not afraid of anything, too! Why, he'll swarm up a tree like a squirrel, terrific heights that make you feel sick to think of them, just to shake down a few nuts. Ah, yes, speak up, brag away! Nice sort of chemist you'll make one of these days! Why, you might be called up as a witness, and have to give evidence in some matter of life and death. And it would never do to lose your head then; you've got to keep cool, bring out your arguments clearly and sharply, show them that you're a man, or else let them write you down a fool.' Justin made no answer, and the apothecary went on.

'Who asked you to come? You're always pestering Monsieur and Madame. And Wednesdays of all days you ought to know I want you in the shop. There's a score of people over there now, and I've left them all because of you. Come on, over you go! Hurry up, and keep an eye on the drugs; I'll be there in a minute.'

When Justin, who was putting himself ship-shape, had taken his departure, they began to talk about fainting attacks. Madame Bovary said she had never gone right off.

'That's exceptional for a woman,' observed Monsieur Boulanger. 'But there are some sensitive people about. I saw one of the witnesses at a duel faint dead away at the mere sound of the pistols being loaded.'

'I don't mind in the least seeing other people's blood, but the thought of losing any of my own would make me feel quite queer, if I thought about it too much,' said the apothecary.

At this point Monsieur Boulanger sent off his man, telling him he ought to be all right now that his whim had been satisfied.

'Anyhow, it's given me the pleasure of your acquaintance,' he added, looking at Emma as he spoke.

He put down three francs on the corner of the table, bowed in rather an off-hand manner, and departed.

He was soon on the other side of the river (his road back to La Huchette lay that way). Emma saw him in the meadows, walking along under the poplars, slowing up every now and again, like a man thinking hard about something.

'Pretty little woman, this doctor's wife- very pretty indeed! Lovely teeth, dark eyes, neat foot. Why, she might be a Parisian. Where the deuce does she hail from, and where did our heavy friend pick her up?'

Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger was a man of thirty-four, hard-hearted but shrewd. He had had plenty of experience with women, and knew how to tackle them. This latest one had rather taken his fancy, and his thoughts were running on her and her husband.

'He looks a dull dog to me. She's no doubt sick of him. He's got dirty nails and three days' beard. While he's out on his rounds, she sits at home darning socks. And she's sick to death of it, wants to live in town and go to a dance every night. Poor little woman! She's simply gasping for love, like a carp on a kitchen table gasping for water. A word or two about love and she'd be at your feet, that's a certainty. She'd be a delicious little piece of goods- absolutely charming! But shunting her afterwards, that's where the trouble would come in.'

And as he began to think about the scheming and all the bothers that love-making involves, his thoughts reverted by contrast to his mistress, an actress at Rouen. The mere recollection, the mental image of her, gave him a feeling of satiety.

'Ah, Madame Bovary,' thought he, 'is ever so much prettier than she is. So much fresher! There's no doubt about it, Virginia is putting on flesh. And she's such a nuisance with her likes and dislikes. What a mania the woman's got for shrimps!'

The countryside was deserted, there was no one about, and the only sound Rodolphe heard was the rhythmical swish of the grass brushing against his boots and the cry of the grasshoppers in the distance among the oats. Once more he saw Emma in the room dressed as he had seen her, and he proceeded to undress her.

'Oh, I'll have her!' he cried, lashing out at a clod of earth with his stick.

And forthwith he began to examine the possibilities of the situation.

Where was he going to meet her, and how? She would always be carting the child about, and there would be the servant, the neighbours, the husband and all kinds of nuisances. Bah! it would be too much waste of time.

Then he began all over again.

'But, by Jove, she's got eyes that go right through you! And that pallor of hers! I simply adore pale women.'

By the time he had reached the top of the hill his mind was made up.

'It's only a matter of making an opportunity. I'll call there some time, send them along some game or poultry. I'll have myself bled if necessary. We'll become friends. I'll ask them to my place. Why, by Jove! of course, there's the Agricultural Show before very long. She's bound to be there. I shall see her. We'll start then, and no beating about the bush. It's the best way.'

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