Madame Bovary

At last it comes — the famous agricultural show. Garlands of ivy hang from the town hall pediment; a tent has been erected in the meadow for the banquet. Binet parades his firemen, his tunic so tightly buttoned that the whole vital portion of his person seems to have descended into his legs, which rise in a cadence of set steps. Madame Lefrancois stands on her kitchen steps muttering: 'What rubbish! For cowherds! Tatterdemalions!' Homais, in a frock-coat and hat with a low crown, pauses to explain to her that agriculture falls entirely within the domain of chemistry, and that he has himself written a memoir of over seventy-two pages on cider. She barely listens; she has a more pressing piece of news — Lheureux is selling up Pere Tellier next week, having killed him with bills. In the crowd Madame Lefrancois spots Emma on Rodolphe's arm, wearing a green bonnet. Rodolphe, catching sight of Homais advancing, hurries Emma away down a side path: 'How you got rid of him!' she laughs. They pass through the show — pigs burrowing with their snouts, calves bleating, cows on folded knees slowly chewing the cud; apart from all the rest, a great black bull, muzzled with an iron ring, stands motionless as if cast in bronze, held by a child in rags. Rodolphe wears his cambric shirt blown out by the wind, his broad-striped trousers, his nankeen boots polished so they reflect the grass; he tramples on horse dung with one hand in his pocket. When the false alarm cannon fires and the crowd rushes toward the Place, Rodolphe steers Emma upstairs to the council room of the town hall. He fetches three stools from under the bust of the monarch and they sit by the window above the ceremony. Below, the councillor Lieuvain — bald brow, sallow complexion, heavy lids over a sharp nose — rises to speak. What follows is the chapter's great double aria: the councillor's oration below, Rodolphe's seduction above, their phrases cutting across each other in perfect counterpoint. While Lieuvain declaims on civic duty and the blessings of agriculture, Rodolphe speaks of souls constantly tormented, of two streams flowing across the infinite to unite. He apologises for his bad reputation. 'Oh, you are slandering yourself,' says Emma. He denounces duty as a word fit only for old blockheads in flannel vests. 'Ah! but there are two moralities,' he says — the small conventional one down there, and the eternal one above, like the blue heavens that give us light. The prize-calling begins below. Rodolphe draws closer, speaking rapidly of two souls who will come together sooner or later because fate has decreed it, because they are born one for the other. Emma notices small golden lines radiating from his black pupils; she smells the perfume of the pomade that makes his hair glossy — and the scent triggers a chain: the Viscount who smelled of vanilla and citron at Vaubyessard, and then, on the horizon through the window, the old Hirondelle descending the hill of Leux dragging a long trail of dust. Leon's carriage. By that route he had gone for ever. She seems to see him at his window; the waltz at Vaubyessard; Leon not far away; all while she is conscious of the scent of Rodolphe by her side. Like grains of sand under a gust of wind, her desires eddy to and fro in the subtle breath of the perfume which suffused her soul. She takes off her gloves, fans her face. He seizes her hand; she does not withdraw it. 'For good farming generally!' cried the president. 'Just now, for example, when I went to your house—' 'To Monsieur Bizat of Quincampoix.' 'Did I know I should accompany you?' 'Seventy francs.' 'A hundred times I wished to go; and I followed you—I remained.' 'Manures!' 'And I shall remain tonight, tomorrow, all other days, all my life!' A supreme desire makes their dry lips tremble, and wearily, without an effort, their fingers intertwine — precisely as the president calls: 'Catherine Nicaise Elizabeth Leroux, of Sassetot-la-Guerriere, for fifty-four years of service at the same farm, a silver medal — value, twenty-five francs!' Catherine Leroux comes forward with timid bearing: heavy wooden clogs, a large blue apron, a pale face more wrinkled than a withered russet apple, two large hands with knotty joints encrusted by barn dust, potash of washing, and the grease of wools — half open as if to bear humble witness for themselves of so much suffering endured. Something of monastic rigidity dignified her face. Inwardly scared by the flags, the drums, the gentlemen in frock-coats, she stands motionless, not knowing whether to advance or run. Thus stood before these radiant bourgeois this half-century of servitude. When she has her medal she looks at it; a smile of beatitude spreads over her face; and as she walks away they hear her muttering: 'I'll give it to our cure up home, to say some masses for me!' — 'What fanaticism!' exclaims Homais. Rodolphe sees Emma home. At the banquet in the tent he leans against the calico and hears nothing, dreams of what she said, of the line of her lips; her face shines on the plates of the shakos, the folds of her gown fall along the tent walls. In the evening the fireworks are a fiasco — the powder is damp, the dragon biting his tail fails completely, only a few meagre Roman candles go off. Emma nestles silently against Charles's shoulder, raising her chin to watch the luminous rays against the dark sky. Rodolphe gazes at her in the light of the burning lanterns. They bow to one another and separate. Two days later Homais's article appears in the Fanal de Rouen. He paints the joy of the prize-winners in dithyrambic strophes, cites himself among the first members of the jury, and closes with a dig at the absent clergy: 'No doubt the priests understand progress in another fashion. Just as you please, messieurs the followers of Loyola!'