Madame Bovary Ch. 9: The Viscount's Cigar Case

Summary

When Charles is out, Emma takes the green silk cigar case from the linen cupboard, opens it, and smells verbena and tobacco. She decides it belonged to the Viscount, perhaps a gift from a mistress, and she builds a Paris life around the stitches. She says the word Paris until it rings like a church bell. She buys a map of the city and follows the streets with her finger. At dinner she reads fashion papers and novels while Charles talks about patients, and she keeps the case hidden as if the smell were a door he must not see.

Charles still thinks he has a perfect wife. Emma hates the way he eats, the medical journal he falls asleep over, and the weight he is putting on. She gives up the piano and drawing. She heats the tongs in the fire and stares at the rain. Nastasie leaves in tears. Emma hires Félicité, an orphan of fourteen, and trains her like a lady's maid: no cotton caps, a knock before entering, a glass of water on a plate. Félicité steals sugar from the sideboard and eats it in bed after her prayers. Emma tells her sadness to the greyhound. She would have said the same things to the logs in the fireplace or to the pendulum of the clock, because Charles is only an ear that always approves. Under that talk she is still waiting. Each morning she wakes sure that something will arrive. By night the day has brought nothing, and she wants tomorrow instead.

Spring brings an organ-grinder whose tunes are songs from other drawing rooms. The airs keep running after he shoulders the box and walks off. Meals in the low room become unbearable. She snaps at her mother-in-law, tells visitors she is perfectly happy, and is glad when her father leaves after bringing a turkey. She grows pale and plays at being ill until Charles agrees they must move. Tidying a drawer, she pricks her finger on the wire of her wedding bouquet, then burns the flowers in the stove and watches the pasteboard berries burst. In March they leave Tostes. Madame Bovary is pregnant.

In this chapter:Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Spotting Fantasy Loops

Waiting for rescue without naming what you want turns days into rehearsal for disappointment. Emma hopes each morning for an unknown event, reads while Charles eats, and burns her wedding flowers instead of speaking.

Count how many hours this week you planned an escape you did not take one step towards.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: Charles

Emma opens the cigar case, says Paris until the word sounds solemn, and traces streets on a map, while Charles talks about his patients and still believes the woman at his table is content. Her quiet looks like peace to him. He is not cruel: he is sealed inside a happiness that cannot read a map.

Read the full psychological reading

Coming Up in Chapter 10

Part Two opens on Yonville-l'Abbaye before the Bovarys arrive: a market town on the Rieule, twenty-four miles from Rouen, between the Abbeville and Beauvais roads, with three water-mills and a few trout. The Lion d'Or and Homais's jars are already waiting.

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Chapter 09

The Viscount's Cigar Case

Chapter Nine Often when Charles was out she took from the cupboard, between the folds of the linen where she had left it, the green silk cigar case. She looked at it, opened it, and even smelt the odour of the lining—a mixture of verbena and tobacco. Whose was it? The Viscount’s? Perhaps it was a present from his mistress. It had been embroidered on some rosewood frame, a pretty little thing, hidden from all eyes, that had occupied many hours, and over which had fallen the soft curls of the pensive worker. A breath of love had passed over…

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The Viscount's Cigar Case

Summary

Why This Matters