Money troubles; Winter convalescence; Consolations of religion; Reading and good works; Visitors at the bedside; Monsieur Homais; disputes with the cure; Preparing for the theatre.

TO begin with he didn't know how in the world he was going to settle with Monsieur Homais for all the medicines he had had from him, and although his official position theoretically absolved him from the legal necessity of paying, he felt a little uncomfortable at being under such an obligation. And then the household expenses, now that the cook was running the place, were getting ruinous. Bills kept pouring in; the tradesmen were grumbling. Monsieur Lheureux was especially troublesome. In fact, when Emma's illness was at its height, Lheureux, taking advantage of the circumstances to pile on his charges, had rushed over with the cloak, the travelling bag, two trunks instead of one, and a whole heap of things besides. Charles, of course, said he had no use for them, but it was no good. The man gave himself airs, said the goods had been ordered, and he wasn't going to take them back. Besides, it would upset Madame and put her back, just when she was getting on so nicely. Monsieur had better think it over. Anyhow, he was determined to bring the matter into court sooner than abandon his rights and cart back his goods. Whereupon Charles gave orders that they should be sent over to the shop. Felicite forgot; he himself had other things to think of; the matter got overlooked. Monsieur Lheureux returned to the charge, and now blustering and now whining, he so manoeuvred things that Bovary was at length induced to put his hand to a bill at six months. But no sooner had he signed this note than a bold idea came into his mind; and that was to borrow a thousand francs of Monsieur Lheureux. And so, looking rather sheepish about it, he inquired whether it would be in any way possible for him to have that amount, adding that he wanted it for twelve months at whatever interest he liked to ask. Lheureux hurried over to his shop, brought back the money and dictated another bill, whereby Bovary promised to pay to his order, on the first day of September next ensuing, the sum of one thousand and seventy francs, which, with the hundred and eighty francs stipulated for in the preceding agreement, would make up exactly twelve hundred and fifty. Thus, getting six per cent interest on his money plus a quarter for commission, and a good thirty-three and a third on the goods supplied, he saw himself in twelve months making a hundred and thirty francs profit. And he hoped that things wouldn't stop there; he hoped Bovary would be unable to pay the bills, that they would have to be renewed and that his poor little bit of money, after being fattened up at the doctor's like a patient in a convalescent home, would one day come back to him a great deal plumper than it had gone forth and fat enough to burst the sack.

Everything he touched turned to money. He was given the contract for the supply of cider to the hospital at Neufchatel. Monsieur Guillaumin promised to allot him some shares in the peat-bogs at Grumesnil, and it was his ambition to start a new service of omnibuses between Arcueil and Rouen, which would not only soon do for the old rattle-trap of the 'Lion d'Or', but, being quicker and cheaper and carrying more luggage, would bring him the whole of the Yonville trade.

Charles often wondered how he was going to pay all this money back next year. He thought and thought; he conceived various ideas, such as applying to his father, or selling something or other. But his father wouldn't listen, and he- well, he had got nothing to sell. And then the whole situation began to look so black that he hurriedly dismissed from his mind so disagreeable a subject of contemplation. He reproached himself for allowing it to make him forget Emma, as if all his thoughts belonged to her and he was robbing her of something if he did not have her continually in mind.

The winter was a hard one, and Madame's convalescence was slow. When the weather was fine, they pushed her chair up to the window, so that she could look out on the Square. She had now taken a violent dislike to the garden, and the blind on that side was always left drawn.

She wanted them to get rid of the horse, and the things she used to be so fond of now pleased her no more. All her thoughts seemed to be concentrated on the care of her own health. She had little plates of food brought up to her in bed, she rang for the servant to ask about her beef-tea or to have a little gossip with her. The reflection of the snow on the roof of the market-hall filled the room with a still, white light. And then the rain would fall. And day by day Emma would wait, with an almost anxious eagerness, for the coming round of little trivial events which could not have meant anything to her. Chief among them was the arrival of the 'Hirondelle' of an evening. The landlady would begin shouting and other people would shout back, and Hippolyte's lantern as he got down the boxes from the boot was like a star shining in the darkness. Every day, at noon, Charles came in from his rounds; then out he went again. And she would have her broth, and about five o'clock, when it was getting dusk, the children would come home from school, scraping along with their sabots on the pavement and tapping their rulers against the hasp of the shutters, one after another.

It was at this hour that Monsieur Bournisien used to come to see her. He inquired after her health, brought her the news and exhorted her to religion in a little, wheedling, gossipy way that was not without its charm. The mere sight of his 'soutane' was a comfort to her.

On one of her worst days, when she thought she was dying, she asked for the Sacrament; and as the preparations went on, and they cleared all the medicine bottles and syrups off the chest of drawers to turn it into an altar, and Felicite scattered dahlias about on the carpet, Emma felt as if something endowed with great strength were passing over her, taking away all her sorrows, all perception, all feeling. Her flesh was no longer weighed down with the burden of anxiety, a new life was beginning for her. It seemed to her that her being, mounting upwards towards God, was about to be swallowed up in the divine love, like burning incense that melts away into vapour. They sprinkled the bedclothes with holy water; the priest drew forth the white wafer from the pyx, and she was almost swooning with celestial joy when she put forth her lips to receive the Body of the Saviour there present. The curtains of her bed hung full about her like clouds, and the rays from the two lighted tapers on the drawers dazzled her with a radiance as from heaven. Then she let her head fall back on the pillow, seeming to hear the sound of angels' harps filling the heavenly spaces, and to see, beneath a sky of azure, on a golden throne, surrounded by the saints bearing branches of great palm, God the Father, effulgent with ineffable majesty, who, with a sign, was causing angels with wings of fire to come down to earth and bear her away in their embrace.

This splendid vision had dwelt in her memory as the loveliest dream that anyone could be visited by, and now she essayed to recapture the sensation, which continued, indeed, but in a manner less exclusive, yet with a sweetness no less deep. Her soul, warped and twisted by the fires of pride, had at last found rest in Christian humility; and tasting the joys of weakness, Emma contemplated in herself the destruction of her will, a process bound to afford an easy access to the flowing tide of grace. So mere mundane happiness had given place to more transcendent bliss, a love high above all human passion, that knew neither end nor intermission, a love that would grow and grow eternally. And among the illusory visions conjured up by hope, she thought she saw a realm of purity floating above the earth, melting into the sky, and it was there, in that region, that she longed to dwell. She longed to become a saint. She bought rosaries, she wore amulets; she must needs have a reliquary set with emeralds to keep in her room, so that she could have it by her pillow and kiss it every night.

The 'cure' was wonderfully struck by this attitude of mind, although he thought that by reason of its very fervour Emma's religion might topple over into heresy, into extravagance. But not being very well up in such matters after they got beyond a certain limit, he wrote off to Monsieur Boulard, the Bishop's bookseller, asking him to send along something really sound, for a female parishioner with plenty of brains. The bookseller, with as much indifference as if he had been sending a consignment of hardware to a parcel of niggers, packed off a bundle containing all the best sellers in the way of books of devotion. There were little manuals of instruction by way of question and answer, pamphlets in rather a grim style, in the manner of Monsieur de Maistre, and things that passed for novels- namby-pamby things bound in pink boards, put together by scribbling clerics or repentant blue stockings. There was 'Ponder it Well; The Man of the World at Mary's Feet', by M. de..., whose work had received official recognition; 'The Errors of Voltaire, for Young Readers', etc.

Madame Bovary's intellectual faculties had not yet recovered grip enough to enable her to apply herself seriously to anything. Moreover, there was too much haste, too much eagerness in the way she attacked her reading. She was impatient of the rules and regulations of the religious life; she disliked the pontifical tone of the controversial writings and the implacable fury with which they pursued people she had never heard of. And the works of fiction, flavoured with religion, seemed to her to display such ignorance of the world that they insensibly alienated her from the doctrines of which she was seeking the proof. Nevertheless, she persevered, and when her book fell from her hands, she imagined herself uplifted by the most delicate spirit of Catholic melancholy that an ethereal soul could conceive.

As for Rodolphe, she had relegated his memory to the nethermost chamber of her heart; and there he lay, more solemn and more still than a King's mummy in a subterranean tomb. There stole upwards to the outer air an exhalation from this great embalmed passion, and, as it ascended, it perfumed with tenderness the atmosphere of immaculate purity in which she aspired to dwell. When she fell on her knees at her Gothic prie-Dieu, she addressed to the Lord the same sweet words she had of old been wont, in the full tide of adulterous passion, to whisper in her lover's ear. It was thus she essayed to awaken faith. But no responsive delight came down from the skies, and she rose from her knees with aching limbs and the vague sentiment of an immense deception. This seeking for the light she held to be another merit in her favour, and in the pride of her devotion, Emma likened herself to those great ladies of olden times, of whose glory she had got an idea by contemplating a portrait of La Valliere, and who, trailing with lofty majesty the gorgeous train of their stately robes, sought silence and solitude to water the Saviour's feet with the tears that welled up from their wounded hearts.

Then she flung herself, with immoderate zeal, into works of charity. She did sewing for the poor; she sent wood for women who were lying-in; and one day Charles came in and found three ne'er-do-wells in the kitchen guzzling soup. She had her little girl back home with her again. Her husband had put her to board with Mere Rollet during her mother's illness. She tried to teach her to read, and Berthe might whimper as much as she liked, she never got out of temper with her. Resignation, universal indulgence, was the order of the day. Even her ordinary language about the most mundane things was tinged with idealism. 'Is your stomach-ache better, my angel?' she would say to the child.

Madame Bovary, senior, had nothing to find fault with, unless it was this mania for knitting vests for orphans, when she might have been darning her own dusters. But the atmosphere of her own home was too uncomfortable for the good woman to be anything but happy in this quiet household, and she stayed on till after Easter, in order to escape the sarcasms of Bovary pere, who, whenever Good Friday came round, would always go and order a hog's pudding for his dinner.

Over and above the society of her mother-in-law, who gave her a feeling of confidence by her sound common sense and steady-going ways, Emma had callers almost every day. There was Madame Langlois, Madame Caron, Madame Dubreuil, Madame Tuvache and, as regular as clockwork, from two till five, the excellent Madame Homais, who for her part had never attached the slightest importance to the tittle-tattle that was going the rounds about her neighbour. The Homais children also came to see her; Justin accompanied them. He came upstairs with them into the bedroom and stood at the door stock still, without uttering a word. Often enough, Madame Bovary, ignoring his presence, would busy herself with her toilet. She would begin by taking out her comb and giving her head a sudden shake; and the first time he beheld all this torrent of hair rippling in a mass of dark ringlets to her knees the poor child felt as if he were suddenly entering upon some new and extraordinary experience, of which the splendour took his breath away.

Doubtless Emma failed to notice his shyness and the silent fervour of his adoration. It never entered her head that love, which had vanished from her life, was throbbing there, close at hand, under that coarse linen shirt in a young man's heart that lay all open to the emanations of her beauty. For the rest, she viewed everything with such unvarying indifference, her words were so affectionate, her looks so cold and her ways so bewildering, that it was impossible to say how much was the pharisaism of conscious benevolence, how much the corruption of her moral being. One evening, for example, she flew into a rage with her servant, who had asked if she might go out, and had been trying, with a great deal of hesitation, to explain why.

'So you love him, then?' she said all of a sudden. And without waiting for Felicite to answer- the girl had gone red all over- she added mournfully,

'Well, off you go! Make the most of your time!'

When the spring came she had the whole garden torn up from end to end, despite Bovary's expostulations. And even he was glad to see her exercising her will about something or other. Her will began to return, as her health improved. To start with, she found an excuse for getting rid of Mere Rollet, the nurse, who had got too fond of coming into the kitchen with her two nurslings and her boy-boarder, who had an appetite like a cannibal. Then she cold-shouldered the Homais family, discouraged all her other callers, and even cooled off somewhat in her church-going, to the marked approval of the apothecary, who observed, with an air of friendly familiarity,

'You really were getting a bit too churchy, weren't you?'

Monsieur Bournisien still continued to visit her every day, after his catechism class. He liked to be out of doors breathing the fresh air in 'the spinney,' as he called the arbour. This was the time that Charles came in from his rounds. They felt the heat very much, and had some cider brought out, and they drank together, to Madame's complete recovery.

And Binet too was there, a little farther down, against the garden wall, catching crayfish. Bovary asked him to come and have a drink, and Binet showed himself an expert at uncorking stone bottles.

'What you've got to do,' he said, casting his eyes around him so as to embrace the distant horizon, 'is to hold the bottle plumb on the table and, after cutting the wire, work the cork up 've-ry' gently, so, just as they do seltzer-water in a restaurant.'

But, as often as not, the cider would spurt up into their faces in the very middle of his demonstration, whereupon the 'cure' would give a guttural laugh and produce his inevitable joke:

'Its goodness hits you in the eye!'

As a matter of fact, he was a thoroughly decent fellow, the 'cure'- so much so that, one day, when Homais was advising Charles to give Madame a little change and take her to the theatre at Rouen to hear Lagardy, the famous tenor, he didn't seem the least bit scandalized. Homais, astonished that he should take it so quietly, asked him what he thought about such matters, and the priest declared that he looked on music as much less dangerous to morals than literature.

On which the chemist launched forth upon a defence of letters. The stage, he argued, pricked the bubble of prejudice and improved while it amused.

''Castigat ridendo mores', Monsieur Bournisien! Take the majority of Voltaire's tragedies, for example. Why, you could compile a popular system of instruction in morals and diplomacy from the reflections with which they are so cunningly interspersed.'

'There's a play I once saw, called 'The Paris Guttersnipe',' remarked Binet, 'with an old general who was absolutely "it". There's a work-girl in it who gets put in the family way by some aristocratic young cock-o'-my-hoop. My word, how the old general dresses him down! Well, in the end...'

'Of course,' Homais went on, 'there's bad literature, just as there's bad dispensing and bad everything else. But to pass a wholesale condemnation on one of the most important of the fine arts, strikes me as stupid, barbarous, worthy of those abominable times when they cast Galileo into prison.'

'I am well aware,' protested the 'cure', 'that there are good books in the world, and good writers. But go and put a lot of people of different sexes into some delightful chamber, furnished and decorated in the most costly manner- and then look at all those pagan costumes, the rouge, the lights, the seductive voices- it's all bound, I tell you, to induce an atmosphere of moral laxity, to give rise to immodest thoughts and impure temptations. The Fathers, at any rate, are all agreed on that point. Finally,' he said, suddenly adopting a mystical tone, as he rolled a pinch of snuff between his thumb and forefinger, 'if the Church has condemned the stage, there's an end of it. We must bow to her ruling.'

'Why,' asked the apothecary, 'should the Church excommunicate actors? In the old days they actually used to take part in religious ceremonies. Yes, they used to perform, to enact a kind of farce- mysteries, they called them- in the middle of the choir, and in those mysteries the laws of decency were often set at naught.'

The 'cure' only sighed, and the chemist continued,

'It's just the same in the Bible. There you have- don't you know- well, some rather spicy details, about things that are decidedly over the fence.'

Monsieur Bournisien made a gesture of angry impatience.

'Ah, well,' said Homais, 'you will agree, anyhow, that it's not the sort of book to put into the hands of the young, and I should be sorry if Athalie...'

'But it's the Protestants who want everyone to read the Bible,' exclaimed Monsieur Bournisien impatiently- ''we' don't.'

'Ah, well,' said Homais, 'I can't make out how it is that in these days there should still be people who would rule out a form of intellectual amusement which is harmless, moral and sometimes actively conducive to health. Isn't that so, Doctor?'

'Absolutely!' assented Charles absently, either because he had the same ideas and didn't want to upset anyone, or else because he hadn't any ideas at all.

The discussion seemed to have come to an end when the chemist thought he would fire off a parting shot,

'I've known priests who have got themselves up in ordinary clothes to go and look at the women kicking up their legs on the stage.'

'Oh, come now!' said the 'cure'.

'Yes, I've known them,' and, hammering out the syllables with obstinate emphasis, he repeated, 'I- have- known- them.'

'Well then, it was very wrong of them,' said Bournisien in a tone of complete resignation.

'Yes, and they go a good deal farther than that!' exclaimed the chemist.

'Sir!' cried the churchman, with such a glare in his eye that the chemist was quite taken aback.

'What I mean to say'- he went on, in a milder tone- 'is that toleration is the surest way to bring people to religion.'

'True, true!' agreed the worthy man, re-seating himself on his chair.

But he only stayed a couple of minutes longer. As soon as he was gone Monsieur Homais looked round at the doctor.

'That's what I call "one in the eye". You saw? I didn't half wipe the floor with him! Well, anyhow, take my advice and go with Madame to the theatre, if it is only to upset one of those croakers for once in your life. If only I could get hold of a 'locum', I would come along with you myself. There's no time to lose, hurry up! Lagardy's only on for one night. He's got an engagement in London at a big salary. He's' a nice lad, according to all reports. Simply rolling in money. Goes about with three mistresses and his own chef. All these big artists burn the candle at both ends. They've got to go the pace; it keeps their imagination keyed up. But they die in the workhouse, because they haven't sense enough to put by when they're young. Well, I'm off. Play a good knife and fork. See you tomorrow!'

This theatre idea quickly took root in Bovary's head; for he immediately broached it to his wife. At first she said she couldn't go. It would be so tiring, such an upset and such an expense. Strange to say, Charles stuck to his guns- so strong was his conviction that the change would do her good. So far as he could see, nothing stood in the way. His mother had sent them three hundred francs he never expected to get; their current liabilities were nothing very tremendous, and Lheureux's bills did not fall due till such a long time ahead there was no need to worry about them. Besides, the idea that she didn't want to put him to the expense, only made him the more insistent. At last she was virtually hypnotized into acquiescence; and so, at eight o'clock next morning, they bundled into the 'Hirondelle'.

The apothecary, who could have got away quite easily if he had liked, but who made out he couldn't possibly leave his business, heaved a sigh as he saw them depart.

'Well, good-bye and 'bon voyage',' he said. 'Some people have all the luck!'

Then he turned to Emma, who was wearing a blue silk dress with four flounces.

'You look like the goddess of Love! Rouen'll go mad about you!'

The diligence put up at the 'Croix Rouge', in the Place Beauvoisine. It was one of those inns you so often come across in provincial towns, with roomy stables and poky bedrooms, the sort of inn where the fowls wander about the courtyard looking for oats under the mudstained gigs of the commercial travellers- good old-fashioned hostelries, with balconies of worm-eaten wood that creak in the wind of a winter's night; always full of people, noise and victuals. Their blackened tables are stained with coffee, their windows of coarse glass are yellowed by flies, their damp napkins stained with new wine, and, with their cafe in front and their vegetable patch behind, they present an inalienably bucolic appearance, like farm hands in their Sunday best. Charles at once went out to see about the seats. He muddled up the stalls with the gallery, the pit with the boxes; asked for explanations which he failed to understand, went to the booking clerk, who sent him to the manager, returned to the inn, went back again to the theatre, and thus covered the whole length of the town, from the theatre to the boulevard, several times over.

Madame bought herself a hat, a pair of gloves, a bouquet. Monsieur was in a great state lest they should miss the beginning, and without even giving themselves time to bolt their soup, they arrived at the doors of the theatre only to find they were not yet open.

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