Spiritual Emptiness and Failed Connections — Madame Bovary

The Silent Spider

After the priest offers indigestion remedies, Berthe totters toward the apron-strings. Emma says leave me alone, then again, then pushes with an elbow. The cheek hits brass and bleeds. She lies to Charles that the child fell playing. Watching Berthe sleep, she thinks it very strange how ugly this child is. Charles plans a daguerreotype surprise, his portrait in a frock-coat, and asks Léon the Rouen price. He wants to give her a tender attention. She is still in the chair where the spider works.

“It is very strange, thought Emma, how ugly this child is!”

She Loved the Sea for Its Storms

Angelus bells pull her toward white veils and incense. What she meets is a priest still breathing from dinner, grease on the cassock, a joke about Riboudet he once told Monsignor. She says she is ill and that it is no earthly remedy she needs. He offers tea, or water with moist sugar, and scolds the catechism boys. She goes home like a statue on a pivot. Berthe reaches for the apron-strings. Emma pushes. The child hits the brass handle. Watching her sleep, Emma thinks how ugly she is. The novel she imported had no room for a toddler with saliva on silk.

“Ah! it is no earthly remedy I need.”