Madame Bovary (Modern Library) Page 9

  She gave up music. Why play? Who would listen to her? As she could never, in a short-sleeved velvet dress, on an Erard piano, in a concert, striking the ivory keys with her slender fingers, feel an ecstatic murmur, like a breeze, circling about her, it was not worth the tedium of practicing. She left her drawing portfolios and needlework in the cupboard. What use were they? What use? Sewing exasperated her.

  “I have read everything,” she said to herself.

  And she stayed turning the fire tongs red, or watching the rain fall.

  How sad she was of a Sunday, when vespers sounded! She listened, in an attentive stupor, to the bell’s cracked strokes tolling one by one. Some cat or other on the roof, stepping slowly, arched its back in the wan rays of the sun. The wind blew trails of dust on the high road. Sometimes, far off, a dog howled: and the bell went on with its monotonous ringing, the regular strokes losing themselves in the fields.

  Yet out of church they still came. The women in waxed boots, the peasant men in new smock frocks, the little children skipping before them, they all headed home. And, until nightfall, five or six men, always the same, would stay on to play a game of corks in front of the inn’s great door.

  The winter was a cold one. Every morning the windowpanes were thick with frost, and the light, whitish through them, as through sanded glass, would sometimes not vary all day. The lamp had to be lit from four o’clock in the afternoon.

  On fine days, she would go down into the garden. The dew had left a lace of silver over the cabbages, with long bright threads stretching from one to the other. There were no birds to be heard, all seemed asleep, the espalier covered in straw and the vine like a great sick snake under the wall’s coping where, as you came nearer, you could see woodlice with numerous legs. Under the spruce trees, near the hedge, the breviary-reading priest in the tricorn hat had lost his right foot, and even the plaster, flaking off in the frost, had left white scabs on his face.

  Then she went up again, closed the door, spread the coals, and, swooning from the heat of the hearth, would feel the tedium lapping ever heavier over her. She might well have gone down to chat with the maid, but a sense of decorum held her back.

  Every day, at the same hour, the schoolmaster, in a black silk hat, opened the shutters of his house, and the village watch would pass by, bearing his sword over his frock coat. Morning and evening, the post-horses crossed the street in threes to drink at the pond. From time to time, a tavern door would jingle its bell, and, when there was a wind, the wigmaker’s little copper basins, that served as the sign for his shop, could be heard grating on their two rods. It had a venerable fashion print pasted on a windowpane and, as decoration, the wax bust of a woman, whose hair was yellow. The wigmaker, too, lamented his arrested calling, his ruined prospects, and, longing for some shop in a city, somewhere like Rouen, for instance, on the quayside, near the theater, he would spend the entire day walking up and down, from the Mairie to the church, gloomily awaiting customers. Whenever Madame Bovary raised her eyes, she would see him always there, like a sentry on duty, with his bonnet-grec over one ear and his jacket of tough wool.

  Sometimes, of an afternoon, a man’s head would appear beyond the parlor windows, a tanned head with black whiskers, which smiled slowly with a broad, gentle smile, showing white teeth. A waltz began immediately, and, on top of the organ, in a tiny drawing-room, dancers the size of a finger, women in pink turbans, Tyroleans in jackets, monkeys in dress coats, gentlemen in short breeches, twirled, twirled among the armchairs, the sofas, the pier tables, reflected again and again in the pieces of mirror joined at their edges by wisps of gold paper. The man cranked the handle, looking to the right, the left and up at the windows. From time to time, while shooting a long jet of brown saliva at the mounting stone, he raised his instrument with his knee, the hard strap tiring his shoulder; and, sometimes mournful and languid, or cheerful and hurried, the box’s music burst forth buzzing through a curtain of pink taffeta, under an arabesque rail of brass. These were airs played elsewhere in theaters, sung in drawing-rooms, danced to in the evening under glittering chandeliers, echoes of a world that reached as far as Emma. Endless sarabandes unrolled in her head, and, like a Hindu dancing girl on a flowery carpet, her thoughts skipped about to the notes, swinging from dream to dream, from sadness to sadness. When the man had received his alms in his cap, he would pull down an old blanket of blue wool, hitch the barrel organ onto his back and wander off with a heavy step. She watched him leave.

  But it was above all at mealtimes that she could bear it no longer, in that little room on the ground floor, with the stove that smoked, the door that squeaked, the walls that oozed moisture, the damp paving; all the bitterness of existence seemed to be served up on her plate, and, with the boiled beef’s reek, there rose other similarly nauseating whiffs from the bottom of her soul. Charles was a slow eater; she would nibble a few nuts, or else, leaning on her elbow, amuse herself in making lines on the waxed cloth with the point of her knife.

  She let everything go in her household, and Madame Bovary senior, when she came to spend a part of Lent at Tostes, was most astonished by the change. Indeed, she who was so mindful and dainty in the past, now spent whole days without dressing, wore stockings of gray cotton, used tallow candles for light. She would say over and over that they had to economize, not being rich, adding that she was very contented, very happy, that Tostes pleased her very much, and other novel speeches that left the mother-in-law mute. Yet Emma seemed no more disposed to follow her advice; one time, even, Madame Bovary having taken it into her head to maintain that masters should superintend the religion of their servants, she was replied to with so furious an eye and with such a frosty smile, that the good woman meddled no more.

  Emma grew difficult, capricious. She ordered dishes for herself, did not touch them, one day drank nothing but milk on its own and the next day cups of tea by the dozen. Often she would stubbornly refuse to go out, then feel suffocated, opening the windows and putting on a light gown. When she had treated the maid with particular harshness, she gave her presents or sent her off to visit the neighbors, just as she would sometimes toss all the silver in her purse to paupers, although in the meantime she was scarcely tenderhearted, nor easily capable of feeling another’s emotions, as is true of most country-bred people, who always keep in their souls something of the callousness of their fathers’ hands.

  Toward the end of February, Père Rouault, in memory of his recovery, personally brought a superb turkey for his son-in-law, and stayed three days at Tostes. Charles being busy with his patients, Emma kept him company. He smoked in the bedroom, spat on the firedogs, chatted about husbandry, calves, cows, poultry, and the municipal council; to such an extent that she closed the door again, when he had left, with a feeling of satisfaction that took even her by surprise. Moreover, she no longer hid her contempt for everything, as well as everyone; and now and again she would start to utter peculiar opinions, censuring what was approved of, and approving of perverse or immoral things: which made her husband stretch his eyes.

  Would this misery last forever? Would she not escape it? She was nevertheless as good as all those women who lived happily! She had seen duchesses at La Vaubyessard who were dumpier and more common-looking, and she cursed God’s injustice; she would rest her head against the wall to cry; she envied lives full of tumult, masked nights, the saucy pleasures with all the wild states of mind she knew not of and which they must provide.

  She grew pale and her heart would flutter. Charles gave her valerian and camphor baths. Everything he tried seemed to vex her more.

  There were days when she prattled with a feverish spontaneity; these exalted moments were abruptly followed by periods of torpor in which she would remain without speaking, without stirring. What revived her then, was to sprinkle a bottle of eau-de-Cologne over her arms.

  As she kept on and on complaining of Tostes, Charles imagined that the cause of her malady was doubtless to be found in some local influence, and, f
ixing on this idea, he seriously considered settling elsewhere.

  Then she drank vinegar to make herself slimmer, contracted a little dry cough and lost her appetite completely.

  It would cost Charles to leave Tostes after four years’ residence and just as he was beginning to make his mark. Yet, if he had to! He drove her to Rouen to see his old master. It was a nervous complaint: they must have a change of air.

  Having turned this way and that, Charles learned that in the district of Neufchâtel, there was a large market town called Yonville-l’Abbaye, whose doctor, a Polish refugee, had decamped just the week before. So he wrote to the local pharmacist to find out what the population figures were, the distance to the nearest colleague, how much his predecessor earned a year, etc.; and, the answers being satisfactory, he determined to move around springtime, if Emma’s health did not improve.

  One day, while she was tidying up a drawer in anticipation of her departure, she pricked her fingers on something. It was a wire on her marriage bouquet. The orange blossom was yellow with dust, and the satin ribbons, piped in silver, were frayed at the edges. She threw it in the fire. It blazed up faster than dry straw. Then it was like a red bush on the embers, slowly consuming itself. She watched it burn. The little pasteboard berries flashed, the brass wires writhed, the lace melted; and the paper florets, all shriveled up, swaying along the fireback like black butterflies, finally flew away up the chimney.

  When they left Tostes, in March, Madame Bovary was pregnant.

  PART TWO

  I

  Yonville-l’Abbaye (thus named after an ancient Capuchin abbey of which not even the ruins exist anymore) is a market town some twenty-five miles from Rouen, between the Abbeville and Beauvais roads, at the bottom of a valley watered by the Rieule, a little river that after turning three millwheels near its mouth, flows into the Andelle, and has a few trout in it, which lads amuse themselves angling for of a Sunday.

  We leave the main road to La Boissière and continue on the flat until we come to the top of Leux hill, from where the valley can be seen. The river that runs through it forms, as it were, two regions that are physiognomically distinct; everything on the left is put to grazing, everything on the right is put to the plow. The meadow stretches away under low, swelling hills to join up at the back with the pastures of the Bray country, while, on the eastern side, the plain, rising gently, broadens out gradually to display its golden cornfields as far as the eye can see. Flowing along the edge of the grass, the water divides the meadows’ color from that of the tilled fields in a single sinuous white streak, and so the country resembles a great unfolded cloak with a collar of green velvet edged in silver lace.

  On the extreme skyline, as we arrive, we have in front of us the oaks of the Argueil forest, with the scarps of Saint-Jean’s hill, striped from top to bottom by long, uneven trails of red; these are the marks of rainstorms, and their brick hues, standing out in thin threads from the gray color of the mountain, derive from the large number of ferruginous springs flowing higher up, in the surrounding area.

  Here we are in the border country of Normandy, Picardy and the Ile de France, a bastard region where the language lacks modulation, like the characterless countryside. This is where the worst Neufchâtel cheeses in the entire district are made, and where, on the other hand, farming is expensive, because a lot of dung is needed to fatten these friable soils full of sand and stones.

  Up until 1835, there was no passable road serving Yonville; but around this time a major parish highway was established, linking the Abbeville and Amiens roads, and sometimes used by wagoners traveling from Rouen into Flanders. Nevertheless, Yonville-l’Abbaye continued to stand still, despite its new openings. Instead of improving cultivation, they stubbornly clung here to grazing, however low its value, and the indolent town, turning aside from the plain, continued naturally to expand toward the river. It can be seen from afar, lying all along the bank, like a cowherd having a nap beside the water.

  At the base of the hill, after the bridge, begins a road planted with aspens, leading us in a straight line to the first houses of the place. Enclosed by hedges, they are surrounded by disheveled buildings, presses, wagon sheds and distilleries scattered under bushy trees with ladders, poles or scythes hooked up in their branches. The thatched roofs, like fur caps pulled over the eyes, come to about a third of the way down the low windows, whose thick, bulging glass is embellished with a knot in the middle, like the bottom of a bottle. Occasionally, on the plaster walls crossed diagonally by black joists, hangs the odd scrawny pear tree, and the ground-floor doors have a little swing gate to keep out the chicks, which come to peck on the threshold at crumbs of dark bread soaked in cider. Meanwhile the yards grow narrower, the dwellings draw closer together, the hedges disappear; a bundle of ferns swings on the end of a broom handle under a window; there is a farrier’s forge and then a wheelwright’s shop with two or three new wagons outside, encroaching on the road. Then, through a wall’s opening, a white house appears beyond a circle of lawn adorned by a Cupid, finger to his lips; two cast-iron vases stand at each end of the front steps; brass plates shine on the door: it is the notary’s house, the finest in these parts.

  The church is on the other side of the road, twenty paces further, at the entrance to the square. The little cemetery which surrounds it, enclosed by a wall at chest height, is so crammed with tombs, that the old stones level with the ground make an unbroken flagging, in which the grass has laid out neat green squares of its own accord. The church was rebuilt as good as new in the final years of Charles X’s reign. The wooden vault is starting to rot from the top, and its blue coloring has black cavities in places. Above the door, where the organ should be, clings a rood loft for the men, with a spiral staircase that rings under the wooden shoes.

  The daylight, slanting in by the plain glass windows, illumines the rows of pews standing sideways to the wall, adorned here and there with a straw mat nailed above the words in thick letters: “M. So-and-So’s pew.” Further down, where the nave narrows, the confessional is matched by a statuette of the Virgin, dressed in a satin gown, her hair covered in a veil of net strewn with silver stars, her cheeks rouged like a Sandwich Islands’ idol; a copy of the Holy Family, sent by the Minister of the Interior, dominating the high altar between four chandeliers at the back, finally concludes the vista. The pinewood choir stalls have been left unpainted.

  The market house, that is to say a tiled roof supported by a score of posts, alone takes up about half of Yonville’s main square. The Mairie, built after the plans of a Paris architect, is a sort of Greek temple on the corner, next to the apothecary’s house, with three Ionic pillars on the ground floor and, on the first floor, a semicircular gallery, while the tympanum which completes the building is filled by a Gallic cock, resting one claw on the Charter and holding the scales of justice in the other.

  But what most draws the eye, opposite the Lion d’Or, is the pharmacy of Monsieur Homais!—chiefly in the evening, when its lamps are lit and the red and green flasks that adorn its façade throw their two bright colors a long way over the ground; and when, through them, as if by the light of Bengal flares, might be glimpsed the shadow of the pharmacist, leaning his elbows on his desk. From top to bottom his house is placarded with inscriptions written in a sloping hand, in a round hand, in block capitals: “Vichy, Seltzer and Barèges Waters, purifying syrups, Raspail’s physic, Arabian sweetmeats, Darcet’s pastilles, Regnault’s paste, trusses, baths, chocolates for health, etc.” And the sign-board, which takes up the entire width of the shop, declares in gold letters: Homais, Pharmacist. Then, at the back of the shop, behind the huge scales fixed to the counter, the word Laboratory unscrolls above the glassed door which, halfway up its loftiness, repeats Homais yet one more time, in letters of gold on a black ground.

  After that there is nothing more to see in Yonville. The street (the sole one), the length of a musket shot and lined with a few shops, stops abruptly where the road turns. If we leave this
on our right and follow the bottom of Saint-Jean’s hill, we soon arrive at the cemetery.

  To enlarge it during the cholera outbreak, a section of wall was knocked down and three acres of land purchased alongside; but this entire portion is almost uninhabited, the graves continuing to pile up near the gate, as before. The warden, who is both gravedigger and beadle to the church (thus drawing a double profit from the parish corpses), has taken advantage of the vacant ground to plant potatoes. From year to year, nevertheless, his little field shrinks, and, when an epidemic unexpectedly occurs, he does not know whether he should rejoice at the deaths or mourn the burial plots.

  “You’re feeding on the dead, Lestiboudois!” the priest told him finally, one day.

  This somber utterance caused him to reflect; it stayed him for a while; but still today he continues to cultivate his potatoes, and even maintains with aplomb that they grow naturally.

  Since the events we are about to relate, nothing, in fact, has changed at Yonville. The tin tricolor still turns atop the church’s bell tower; the novelty shop goes on fluttering its two calico streamers in the wind; the pharmacist’s specimens, like lumps of white fungus, decay more and more in their muddy alcohol, and, over the main entrance of the inn, the old golden lion, its color washed out by the rain, still shows off its poodle frizz to passersby.

  The evening the Bovary couple were due to arrive at Yonville, the widow Lefrançois, landlady of this inn, was so very busy that sweat poured off her as she gave her stewpans a stir. Tomorrow was market day in the town. The meat had to be carved, the chickens drawn, the soup and coffee prepared, all in advance. In addition, she had her lodgers’ meal, and that of the doctor, his wife and their maid; the billiard-room rang with bursts of laughter; three millers in the snug called for brandy; the wood blazed, the embers crackled, and on the long kitchen table, amongst the quarters of raw mutton, rose piles of plates that trembled at the shocks of the chopping block as the spinach was hashed. The poultry in the yard could be heard screeching as the maid chased after the birds to cut off their heads.