When Debts Come Due — Madame Bovary

Léon invites Homais to Rouen. The chemist surprises Emma at the Lion d'Or inn and drags Léon to a café, keeping him away from their meeting. Emma waits and grows furious. She begins to find Léon weak and boring. Their passion fades like a tired marriage, and she finds again in adultery all the platitudes of marriage.

Emma stops caring about money. Bills pile up from Lheureux. A man from Vincart demands seven hundred francs. Lheureux renews her notes but keeps trapping her deeper in debt. She sells old clothes, borrows from servants, and hides bills from Charles. She sends patients fake accounts and adds postscripts telling them not to tell her husband. She burns Turkish incense, reads wild books at night, and banishes Charles to another room so he will not disturb her sleep.

At a masked ball she drinks too much and faints among rough company. She returns home to find a legal paper demanding eight thousand francs in twenty-four hours or the bailiff will take her furniture. She runs to Lheureux begging for help. He refuses and shows proof she took money in secret. He mocks her tears, laughs at her pleading, and shuts the door on her despair.