'Madame Bovary' Ch 3

Charles falls in love with Emma, and gains her fathers approval for marriage. They wait a respectable time period for Charles to be in mourning for his wife. Here's Chapter 3 of Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert. The bill is paid; Pull yourself together; Advantages of independence; A visit to Emma; What will become of her?; Father and daughter; The opened shutter; Preparations for marriage. One morning Pere Rouault came to pay Charles for setting his broken leg: seventy-five francs in forty-sou pieces, and a turkey. He had heard of his loss and consoled him as best he could. 'I know what it is,' said he, clapping him on the shoulder. 'I've been through the same thing myself. When I lost my poor wife I went wandering about the fields in order to be alone. I chucked myself down under a tree, called on God to hear me and told Him all kinds of silly things. I wished I had been like the moles that I saw on the branches with maggots swarming in their bellies- I wished myself dead, in a word. And when I thought that other men, at that very moment, had nice little wives to cuddle, I began to bang at the ground with my stick. I was nearly mad, and went right off my food. The very thought of going into a cafe turned me sick. You wouldn't believe. Well, slowly and surely, as one day sent another day packing, spring following on winter and autumn on summer, it began to ebb away bit by bit, crumb by crumb. It went, it departed- it went under, I should say, for you've always got something of it deep down inside, a weight on your chest, as you might say. But because we've all got to face it, there's no call for a man to fret himself into the grave before his time or to want to die himself, because other folks be dead. Pull yourself together, Monsieur Bovary; you'll get over it. Come and see us; my daughter thinks a deal about you, you know, and she says you would forget things that way. Spring will soon be here. Come and knock over a rabbit or two in our warrens; it will be a change for you.' Charles took his advice. He revisited les Bertaux, and found everything there just the same as last time, that is to say just as it was five months previously. The pear trees were already in bloom, and Farmer Rouault, now firmly established on his legs again, was always in and out, and that made things more lively. Deeming that it behoved him to lavish every possible attention on the doctor, in view of the bereavement he had sustained, he begged him not to remove his hat, spoke to him in a subdued voice as though he were talking to an invalid, and went the length of pretending to be annoyed that they had not got some special delicacy for him such as a little jug or two of cream, or some stewed pears. He told him a few stories; Charles was surprised to find himself laughing; but suddenly he would remember his wife and grow grave again. Then the coffee came in, and he thought about her no more. He thought of her less and less as he got used to living alone. The unaccustomed sweets of independence soon made his solitude more bearable. He was free now to have his meals when he liked, he could go out and come in without having to give explanations, and when he was very tired he could stretch out his arms and legs in bed as far as he liked. And then he pampered himself, indulged in self-pity, and let people console him to the top of their bent. Moreover his wife's death had been rather an advantage to him professionally, because, for a whole month, people had said nothing else but 'Poor young fellow! What a dreadful blow for him!' So his name had got about and his practice had increased; and then again, he could go to les Bertaux just when he thought he would. He was vaguely optimistic and indefinably happy; and surveying himself in the glass as he brushed his whiskers, he thought he had got better looking. He arrived at the farm one day about three o'clock; everyone was out in the fields. He went into the kitchen, but did not see Emma at first; the jalousies were closed. Through the slits in the wood, the sunlight fell on the flagstones in long, slender rays, which were broken into various angles by the furniture, and shone tremulously on the ceiling. Flies on the table crawled up the glasses that had not been cleared away and buzzed as they fell drowning in the dregs of the cider. The daylight which shone down the chimney imparted a velvety look to the soot in the fireplace and gave a bluish tinge to the cold ashes. Between the window and the hearth sat Emma at her needlework. She had no scarf about her neck, and tiny drops of perspiration were visible on her shoulders. Like all country people, she asked him to have something to drink. He said no, but she pressed him, and at last, with a laugh, invited him to take a glass of liqueur with her. She went to the cupboard and brought out a bottle of curacoa, reached down two small glasses, filled one up to the brim, poured two or three drops into the other and, clinking it with the doctor's, put it to her lips. As it was nearly empty, she leaned back to drink, and with her head flung back, her lips pouted and her neck thrust forward she began to laugh because she could not taste anything, and at the same time, the tip of her tongue, peeping out between her dainty teeth, made little darts at the bottom of the glass. Then she sat down and took up her work again- a white cotton stocking which she was darning. She worked with her head bent forward. She did not talk, nor did Charles. The breeze stealing in under the door blew a little dust along the stone floor. He watched it as it eddied about, and the only sound he could hear was a buzzing in his head and the cackling of a hen that had laid an egg in the yard outside. From time to time Emma would freshen her cheeks with the palms of her hands, which she cooled again by laying them on the knob of the great andirons.

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