Madame Bovary

She went on Thursdays. She got up and dressed silently so as not to wake Charles, then walked up and down, went to the windows, looked out at the Place. The early dawn broadened between the pillars of the market; the chemist's shop, shutters still up, showed its large letters in the pale light. At a quarter past seven she went to the Lion d'Or, whose door Artemise opened yawning, and waited, beating the soles of her boots against the pavement, while Hivert finished his soup, put on his cloak, lit his pipe, and grasped his whip. The Hirondelle set out at a slow trot. Emma knew the road from end to end — after a meadow a sign-post, then an elm, a barn, the hut of a lime-kiln tender. Sometimes, in the hope of surprise, she shut her eyes, but never lost the clear perception of the distance. Then from the summit the town appeared, sloping down like an amphitheatre, drowned in fog, its anchored ships massed in one corner, its factory chimneys belching brown fumes, leafless trees on the boulevards making violet thickets in the midst of the houses. A giddiness seemed to her to detach itself from this mass of existence; her heart swelled as if the hundred and twenty thousand souls that palpitated there had all at once sent into it the vapour of the passions she fancied theirs. She poured her love out upon the squares, the streets — Rouen spread before her like an enormous capital, a Babylon into which she was entering. She got down at the barrier, rearranged her gloves and shawl, and walked with downcast eyes under her black veil, plunging into dark alleys that smelt of absinthe, cigars, and oysters — until she recognised Leon by his curling hair. What an embrace! The bed was large, mahogany, in the shape of a boat, its red levantine curtains hanging from the ceiling; nothing so lovely as her brown head and white skin against that purple. On the chimney between the candelabra were two pink shells in which one hears the murmur of the sea. They said 'our room,' 'our carpet'; she even said 'my slippers' — a gift of Leon's, pink satin bordered with swansdown. Leon found in her the mistress of all the novels, the heroine of all the dramas: the amber colouring of the Odalisque Bathing, the long waist of feudal chatelaines, the Pale Woman of Barcelona — but above all the Angel. The bronze cupid on the clock smirked as he bent his arm beneath a golden garland. When it was time to part, they kept repeating: 'Till Thursday, till Thursday.' She went to a hairdresser in the Rue de la Comedie; night fell; white-faced mummers went in at the stage-door. On the return, at the foot of the hill, a blind man clung to the footboard — empty bloody orbits, flesh in red shreds, green scale down to the nostrils — singing: 'Maids in the warmth of a summer day dream of love.' His voice went to the bottom of Emma's soul like a whirlwind in an abyss. Hivert whipped him off. Emma, drunk with grief, felt death in her soul. Charles was waiting. 'You seem so strange this evening.' — 'Oh, it is nothing.' Justin moved noiselessly about her room, matches ready, candlestick, a book, the bedclothes turned back. The following day was frightful, those after still more unbearable — until the seventh day burst forth beneath Leon's caresses. She said to him: 'Ah! you too, you will leave me! You are all evil!' Once she told him that formerly she had loved someone — 'a ship's captain.' Leon felt the lowliness of his position and longed for epaulettes and titles. She concealed many of her extravagant fancies, such as the blue tilbury she wished for. Often she said: 'How happy we should be in Paris!' — 'Are we not happy?' he replied gently. To Charles she was more charming than ever — pistachio-creams, waltzes after dinner. Then one evening he said: 'It is Mademoiselle Lempereur who gives you lessons, isn't it?' — 'Yes.' — 'Well, I saw her just now at Madame Liegeard's. She doesn't know you.' This was like a thunderclap. 'Ah! no doubt she forgot my name. But I have my receipts here — see!' She ransacked all the drawers, rummaged the papers, and at last lost her head so completely that Charles begged her not to take such trouble. On the following Friday he found, tucked between the leather of his boot and his sock, a receipt: 'Received, for three months' lessons and several pieces of music, the sum of sixty-three francs. Felicie Lempereur, professor of music.' From that moment her existence was but one long tissue of lies. Lheureux one day met her coming out of the Hotel de Boulogne on Leon's arm. Three days later he shut the door of her room and said: 'I must have some money.' He produced a list of goods unpaid — curtains, carpet, armchairs, dresses — amounting to about two thousand francs. But he reminded her of a small property at Barneville: 'Haven't you your power of attorney?' He found a purchaser at four thousand francs; Emma drew half at once; Lheureux then spread four bills of a thousand francs each: 'Sign these, and keep it all.' After Vincart the broker deducted his commission he brought her eighteen hundred. The fourth bill arrived at the house on a Thursday; Emma sat on Charles's knees and gave him a long enumeration of indispensable things got on credit. Madame Bovary senior arrived and delivered a lecture on silk lining at two francs and jaconet at ten sous: 'No fortune can hold out against waste!' Then: 'Luckily he has promised to destroy that power of attorney.' Emma opened the window, called Charles down, and he confessed the promise his mother had torn from him. Emma disappeared and came back, majestically handing the old woman a thick piece of paper. Madame Bovary senior threw it into the fire. Emma began to laugh — a strident, piercing, continuous laugh. She had an attack of hysterics. For the first time Charles rebelled and took his wife's part; his mother left the next day. A second power of attorney was drawn up by Guillaumin: 'A man of science can't be worried with the practical details of life.' The following Thursday at the hotel Emma laughed, cried, sang, sent for sherbets, wanted to smoke cigarettes — wild and extravagant, but adorable, superb. One night she did not return to Yonville at all. Charles lost his head; Berthe sobbed; Justin searched the road; Homais left his pharmacy. At two in the morning Charles reached the Croix-Rouge — no one there. He knocked at Leon's shutters; a policeman passed and he was frightened and went away. Day breaking, he finally found the address of Mademoiselle Lempereur, and as he turned into the Rue de la Renelle, Emma herself appeared at the other end of it. 'I was not well — at Mademoiselle Lempereur's.' 'I was sure of it!' She gave herself permission henceforth for perfect freedom. She demanded Leon dress all in black with a pointed beard like Louis XIII; she wanted verses, a love poem in her honour. He ended by copying a sonnet from a Keepsake. He was becoming her mistress rather than she his.