The Agricultural Show Seduction — Madame Bovary

The agricultural show finally arrives in Yonville. Ivy hangs on the town hall, a banquet tent stands in the meadow, and a bombarde in the square is meant to announce the prefect and the prize-winners. Binet drills the firemen in a collar higher than usual. The National Guard has come from Buchy because Yonville has none. Farmers argue over the pens. Stallions pull at their halters while mares stand quiet and foals suck in their shadow. A black bull stands apart, muzzled, held by a child in rags, as still as bronze. Homais explains chemistry and progress to anyone who will listen. Rodolphe sees Emma in the crowd, green hat among the dusty coats, and decides the day will do his courting for him. Charles stays down among the animals and the committee. Rodolphe offers his arm and leads her up to the empty council room, where they can hear the speeches and still be alone.

Downstairs Monsieur Derozerays and the jurors walk the lines of beasts and take notes. Upstairs Councillor Lieuvain praises the king, religion, full ports, and farmers as pacific pioneers of a civilisation that has recovered. Rodolphe talks in the pauses. He tells Emma that duty is a religion for small people, that some souls are tormented and need both dream and action, and that happiness comes one day to those who understand. She says poor women have none of the distractions men have, not even hunting or travel. He answers that he has felt fate in this. She smells the oil in his hair and thinks of Léon, then of the ball at Vaubyessard, as if this room were another version of a life she already missed. The president cites Cincinnatus at his plough, Diocletian planting cabbages, and the emperors of China sowing the first seed. Rodolphe talks of affinities from a previous existence, two streams that exist only to meet. He takes her hand. She does not take it back. Below them the prizes are shouted through their sentences: seventy francs, a hundred francs, good farming generally.

An old farm servant, Catherine Leroux, is called up for fifty-four years on the same farm. She is frightened of the gentlemen, the flags, and the drum. They give her a silver medal worth a few francs for a lifetime of work. She says she will have masses said, and Homais later calls that superstition. The crowd applauds her in the same minute Rodolphe tightens his fingers on Emma's hand. When the speeches end they walk back through the square together. The banquet and the fireworks are meant to crown the day. The fireworks fail. In the dark Emma leans on Charles's shoulder as if the show had been a family outing. Rodolphe watches from outside the light. Two days later Homais prints a glowing article. The square was a kaleidoscope, a scene from the Thousand and One Nights, and no untoward event disturbed the family meeting. He complains only that the clergy stayed away. The hand in the council room is not in the paper.