Madame Bovary Ch. 2: The Call That Changes

Gustave Flaubert

The Call That Changes Everything

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Summary

A letter arrives late at night asking Charles to ride to the Bertaux farm and set a broken leg. He leaves before dawn, still half asleep, and rides through cold flat country. The leg is a simple break. The farmer's daughter Emma is not simple. Charles notices her clean nails as she sews bandages. He notices her bold dark eyes. When he looks for his whip, they reach for it at the same time and their bodies brush. She turns red and hands it to him without speaking.

Charles keeps going back. He tells himself the visits are for medicine. He wipes his boots before entering and puts on black gloves. He notices her wooden shoes, her apron strings in the wind, and the silk parasol she opens during a thaw. His wife Heloise figures it out. She learns Emma went to a convent school and knows fancy things. She makes Charles swear on a prayer book never to return. He stops going, but now he tells himself the ban gives him permission to want Emma even more.

In spring Heloise's notary runs off with her money. Her rich life turns out to be mostly lies. A week later she coughs blood while hanging laundry and dies suddenly. Charles comes home, finds her dress still at the foot of the bed, and sits at his desk until dark. He thinks, She had loved him after all. He is sad, not free.

In this chapter:Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Detecting Self-Deception

Respectable reasons can hide wants you are not ready to admit. Charles returns to the Bertaux for Emma while calling the visits medicine, and Héloïse sees the new waistcoat and bright face before he does.

When you build an elaborate case for a choice, pause and name what you are actually chasing.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: Emma

Emma sews the bandages, then reaches for the dropped whip in the same instant Charles does. Their bodies brush, and neither of them has to name it. Before any talk of love, wanting has already arrived as a helpful gesture she can pretend was only manners.

Read the full psychological reading

Coming Up in Chapter 3

Old Rouault brings Charles payment for the broken leg plus a turkey, then consoles him for Heloise's death with blunt country advice: grief wears away crumb by crumb, and he should return to the Bertaux. Charles goes back, and Emma is there.

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Chapter 02

The Call That Changes Everything

Chapter Two One night towards eleven o’clock they were awakened by the noise of a horse pulling up outside their door. The servant opened the garret-window and parleyed for some time with a man in the street below. He came for the doctor, had a letter for him. Natasie came downstairs shivering and undid the bars and bolts one after the other. The man left his horse, and, following the servant, suddenly came in behind her. He pulled out from his wool cap with grey top-knots a letter wrapped up in a rag and presented it gingerly to Charles, who…

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The Call That Changes Everything

Summary

Why This Matters