Madame Bovary

On reaching the inn, Madame Bovary was surprised not to see the diligence. Hivert had waited fifty-three minutes and at last started. Yet nothing forced her to go; but she had given her word she would return that same evening, and in her heart she felt already that cowardly docility that is for some women at once the chastisement and atonement of adultery. She caught up the Hirondelle just outside Quincampoix, and opened her eyes at the foot of the hill to see Félicité waiting at the farrier's shop with a mysterious summons to Homais. The village was silent as usual, except for small pink heaps of jam smoking on the street corners — it was jam-making day, and everyone in Yonville prepared his supply at once. In front of the chemist's shop was a far larger heap. Inside she found all the Homais, large and small, in aprons to their chins and with forks in their hands, while Homais screamed at Justin, who stood with bowed head. Justin had gone to fetch a spare pan from the Capharnaum — Homais's private laboratory under the leads, his sanctuary, which no one in the world set foot in. But the offence was worse: Justin had stood next to the bottle of blue glass sealed with yellow wax, labelled Dangerous, containing arsenic. 'You might have poisoned us all!' — the children began howling as if they already had frightful pains in their entrails. So exasperated was he that he quoted Latin. Then, shaking Justin by the collar of his blouse, he knocked a book from his pocket. He picked it up, stared at it with open mouth: 'CONJUGAL — LOVE! Ah! very good! very good! very pretty! And illustrations! Oh, this is too much!' He paced up and down with the open volume, apoplectic. 'Did you not reflect that this infamous book might tarnish the purity of Athalie, corrupt Napoleon?' 'But really, sir, you wished to tell me—' Emma finally said. 'Ah, yes! Madame. Your father-in-law is dead.' Charles had begged Homais to break the news gradually; Homais had prepared a masterpiece of prudence and subtle transitions — but anger had got the better of rhetoric. Emma left the pharmacy while Homais, growing calmer, fanned himself with his skull-cap and mused that the book was not entirely without scientific merit, but for a man fully formed. When Emma knocked at the door, Charles came forward with open arms and tears in his voice: 'Ah! my dear!' He bent over her gently to kiss her. But at the contact of his lips the memory of the other seized her, and she passed her hand over her face shuddering. He showed her his mother's letter — Bovary senior had died of apoplexy at the door of a café in Daudeville after a patriotic dinner with ex-officers, without the consolations of religion. At dinner she affected a certain repugnance, then resolutely began eating, while Charles sat motionless and dejected opposite her. Now and then he raised his head with a long look full of distress. 'I should have liked to see him again.' She was silent. At last: 'How old was your father?' — 'Fifty-eight.' — 'Ah!' And that was all. The monotony of the spectacle drove little by little all pity from her heart. He seemed to her paltry, weak, a cipher — in a word, a poor thing in every way. They heard in the passage the sharp noise of a wooden leg on the boards. Hippolyte was bringing back her luggage, describing painfully a quarter of a circle with his stump. 'He doesn't even remember any more about it,' she thought, watching the poor devil with his coarse red hair wet with perspiration, while Charles searched at the bottom of his purse for a centime without appearing to understand all the humiliation in the mere presence of this man who stood like a personified reproach to his incurable incapacity. 'Hallo! you've a pretty bouquet,' Charles said, noticing Léon's violets on the chimney. 'It's a bouquet I bought from a beggar.' He freshened his tear-reddened eyes against the flowers and smelt them delicately. She took them quickly from his hand and put them in a glass of water. Madame Bovary senior arrived the next day; she and Charles wept much. They sat with their workboxes by the waterside under the arbour to talk over the mourning. Charles was surprised to feel so much affection for this man he had thought he cared little about. His mother sat sewing, a big tear rolling along her nose and hanging there a moment. Emma was thinking that it was scarcely forty-eight hours since she and Léon had been together, far from the world, in a frenzy of joy. She would have liked to hear nothing, to see nothing, so as not to disturb the meditation on her love. Near them Berthe raked sand in her little white pinafore. Then Lheureux came through the gate. He came to offer his services under the sad circumstances, then drew Charles aside. In private, he suggested renewing the bill Bovary had signed — and that the doctor might do better to give the matter over to someone else; to Emma, for example. With a power of attorney, their little business transactions could be easily managed together. He did not send the mourning barège he offered — he brought it himself, came again to measure it, came again on other pretexts, always dropping some hint about the power of attorney and never mentioning the bill. As soon as Madame Bovary senior left, Emma astonished Charles with her practical good sense. She quoted technical terms, pronounced the grand words of order, foresight, the future, exaggerated the difficulties of settling his father's affairs, and at last showed him the rough draft of a power of attorney — to manage and administer, arrange all loans, sign and endorse all bills. She had profited by Lheureux's lessons. Charles naively asked where the paper came from. 'Monsieur Guillaumin — though I don't trust him overmuch. Perhaps we ought to consult — unless Léon—' Charles agreed it might be best. She offered to make the journey. He thanked her. She insisted. It was quite a contest of mutual consideration. 'No, I will go!' she cried at last. 'How good you are!' he said, kissing her forehead. The next morning she set out in the Hirondelle for Rouen — and stayed there three days.