Madame Bovary

Charles did not know how he could pay Homais for all the physic supplied during Emma's illness. Then the household expenses became terrible; bills rained in upon the house. Lheureux especially harassed him — at the height of Emma's illness he had hurriedly brought the cloak, the travelling-bag, two trunks instead of one, and a number of other things, and would not take them back. Charles ended by signing a bill at six months. Then, in a bold move, he asked to borrow a thousand francs from the same man. Lheureux ran off, brought the money, and dictated another bill by which Bovary undertook to pay one thousand and seventy francs on the 1st of September — which, added to the hundred and eighty already agreed on, made twelve hundred and fifty. Lheureux, lending at six per cent in addition to a fourth for commission, and profiting by the goods themselves, reckoned this ought in twelve months to give him a profit of a hundred and thirty francs. He hoped the bills would not be paid, that they would be renewed, and that his poor little money, having thrived at the doctor's as at a hospital, would come back to him one day considerably more plump, and fat enough to burst his bag. The winter was severe, Madame Bovary's convalescence slow. When it was fine they wheeled her armchair to the window that overlooked the square — she now had an antipathy to the garden, and the blinds on that side were always down. She stayed in bed, rang for the servant to inquire about her gruel or to chat with her. The most important event of each day was the arrival of the Hirondelle in the evening, while Hippolyte's lantern, as he fetched the boxes from the boot, was like a star in the darkness. Abbé Bournisien came to see her regularly; the mere thought of his cassock comforted her. One day, at the height of her illness, she had asked for the communion, and while they turned the night table into an altar and Félicité strewed dahlia flowers on the floor, Emma felt some power passing over her that freed her from all pain, all perception. Her body, relieved, no longer thought; another life was beginning. She fancied she heard the music of seraphic harps and perceived in an azure sky, on a golden throne, God the Father, resplendent with majesty, who with a sign sent angels with wings of fire to carry her away in their arms. This splendid vision dwelt in her memory as the most beautiful thing it was possible to dream. Her soul, tortured by pride, found rest in Christian humility; she tasted the joy of weakness. She bought chaplets, wore amulets, wished to have by her bed a reliquary set in emeralds to kiss every evening. As for the memory of Rodolphe, she had thrust it back to the bottom of her heart, where it remained more solemn and motionless than a king's mummy in a catacomb. When she knelt on her Gothic prie-Dieu, she addressed to the Lord the same suave words that she had murmured formerly to her lover in the outpourings of adultery. She arose with tired limbs and a vague feeling of a gigantic dupery. Bournisien sent to a bookseller for something suitable; the bookseller packed up, pell-mell, everything then in fashion in the pious trade — manuals in questions and answers, pamphlets after the manner of de Maistre, novels in rose-coloured bindings manufactured by troubadour seminarists. Emma grew provoked at the arrogance of the polemic writings, and the secular stories relieved with religion seemed written in such ignorance of the world that they insensibly estranged her from the truths she was seeking. Nevertheless, she persevered, and when the volume slipped from her hands she fancied herself seized with the finest Catholic melancholy that an ethereal soul could conceive. She gave herself up to excessive charity: sewed clothes for the poor, sent wood to women in childbed. Charles coming home one day found three good-for-nothings seated at the kitchen table eating soup. She had Berthe brought back from the nurse and undertook to teach her to read, was not vexed even when the child cried. Her language about everything was full of ideal expressions. Madame Bovary senior found nothing to censure except Emma's mania for knitting jackets for orphans instead of mending the house-linen. Justin accompanied the Homais children on their visits and remained standing near Emma's bedroom door, motionless and mute. When she let down her hair — all that mass falling to her knees in black ringlets — it was to him, poor child, like a sudden entrance into something new and strange, whose splendour terrified him. Emma had no suspicion that the love vanished from her life was there, palpitating by her side, beneath that coarse holland shirt. As she grew stronger she dismissed them all in turn — Mère Rollet the nurse, the Homais family, the other visitors — and frequented church less assiduously. Homais said to her with a friendly air: 'You were going in a bit for the cassock!' By spring, Bournisien preferred to sit out of doors with Charles and, on warm afternoons, Binet joined them fishing for crayfish against the terrace wall. The priest and the chemist fell into their habitual combat: Homais recommended the theatre, citing Voltaire; Bournisien pronounced it dangerous to morals. Binet announced he had once seen a piece called the Gamin de Paris with a general that was really hit off to a T. The chemist, after the priest had gone, declared: 'That's what I call a cock-fight. I beat him, did you see! Now take madame to hear Lagardy — the illustrious tenor. He's only giving one performance; he's engaged to go to England. A dissolute life, that suits the imagination. Be quick about it.' The idea quickly germinated in Bovary's head. Emma at first refused, alleging fatigue, worry, expense; but Charles did not give in. His mother had sent three hundred francs; the current debts were not very large; Lheureux's bills were still far off. He insisted the more, imagining she refused from delicacy. She at last made up her mind, and the next day at eight o'clock they set out in the Hirondelle — Emma in a blue silk gown with four flounces. The diligence stopped at the Croix-Rouge in the Place Beauvoisine — the inn that is in every provincial faubourg, whose black tables are sticky with coffee and brandy, the thick windows yellowed by flies, the damp napkins stained with cheap wine, and that always smells of the village. Charles at once set out to collect the tickets, muddled up the stage-boxes with the gallery, the pit with the boxes, was sent from the box-office to the acting-manager and back again, and thus several times traversed the whole length of the town. Emma bought a bonnet, gloves, and a bouquet. They presented themselves at the doors of the theatre, which were still closed.