The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs

by Michael Ciardi

A repugnant whiff of cow dung wafted in a breeze all throughout a provincial town. I adapted to this setting as swiftly as the folks who paced pell mell toward a rather ordinary destination. Apparently, I had traversed upon a rural gala of some significance. The congregating yokels gazed upon this fete with bug-eyed anticipation. An enormous tent was pitched at the midway of a grassy meadow, providing a greeting point for those who may have refrained from such cordialities since the last celebration. A repulsive scent of animal droppings mixed nauseatingly with curdled milk, yet everyone seemed desensitized to this pervading stench. As a result, the festivities unfolded as methodically as a plough tilling a crop field.

  I mingled quietly among the countrified populace, as any polite neighbor might’ve represented himself in public. No one bothered to question my intent, for the business at hand had little to do with my attendance. The gentlemen in company, by and large, wore frock coats, nankeen pantaloons, and beaver-skinned shoes. The finer ladies among the crowd were clad in frilly gowns and pale-colored smocks, while others brandished wicker baskets or parasols on their arms, depending on their perceived status in society. In my current attire, I had a faint hope of blending seamlessly among their ranks, but as I already mentioned, the order of this occasion didn’t include the drifting trek of a twenty-first century schoolteacher.

  I had obviously interrupted this village on the grandest day in a calendar year. Aside from the innumerable bumpkins filing in from all ridges within the pasture and adjoining environs, I noticed an assortment of farm animals on display. Many of the townsfolk had stationed themselves around a string of makeshift corrals, ogling plump pigs and unshorn sheep as though they had never observed creatures of such handsome breeding before today. The prime livestock, which included stallions, mares, and cows, garnered the most impressive grins from the enamored onlookers.

  Farther along the fairway I witnessed a young, shabbily attired boy clutching a rope nearly as thick as his wrists. Fortunately for this tatterdemalion, the hulking bull he had been assigned to tether offered no resistance. The ebony-skinned animal snorted stringy snot through an iron ring piercing its nostrils, but appeared otherwise inanimate upon my approach. Since this boy inspected me as curiously as I did him, I decided to ascertain my present location with his assistance.

  “Hello,” I called to the ragamuffin. Not surprisingly, the child scoffed at my initial attempt to communicate with him. Since I risked nothing by extending this farmhand a few kind words, I proceeded in a tone adults often resorted to when placating a youngster. “It’s a very fine afternoon for such an event, don’t you think?” I stated.

  “If you say so, monsieur,” he muttered. Perhaps my boast was a bit hastily contrived; the boy’s soiled rags and skinned shins suggested that this bull hadn’t always maintained such a statuesque demeanor. On the other hand, a foul stink of fresh manure and swarming flies proved unsavory for even the most seasoned cowherds.

  At the risk of exposing myself as an outsider or outright ignoramus, I asked my next question almost as if speaking out of my shirt’s sleeve. “Do you know the general location of this festival?”

  Admittedly, my query must’ve sounded asinine to the boy. After all, how many people (minus those who’ve journeyed by way of dreams) managed to lose track of their whereabouts? The boy looked at me through circled eyes and forwarded an expression closely resembling a prelude to laughter. He then pointed his grubby index finger toward a stage aligned with lanterns. A few haughtily clothed gentlemen meandered about this area, summoning the spellbound attention of innumerous sycophants. Just beyond this platform, four columns were erected in front of an official building. Green banners with gold lettering fluttered at each of these posts’ peaks. The boy offered me a tentative grin before clarifying his direction by saying, “The Comice Agricole.”

  I only required another moment to identify my inclusion at Yonville’s Annual Agricultural Fair. This community stirred with an ebullition seldom witnessed in France’s bucolic backdrop. The folks had taken uncommon measures to ensure that the local bureaucrats were not dissatisfied with their labors. The bourgeois hung garlands of ivy from the thresholds of visible structures, and tri-colored flags adorned the windows of most abodes. Of course, after the boy pointed out the town’s centerpiece, I sensed a profound urgency to make my way toward the council chamber.

  The task of ambling through this hoard of hucksters was challenging even for the most brawny spectators in company. We progressed along the marshy ground as sluggishly as earthworms channeling the soil’s fecund entrails. As it turned out, I had accidentally attempted to plot a course through this crowd just as a balding councilor had commenced his grandiloquent speech. My eyes instinctively shifted toward a first floor window in the town hall. Sitting there, in barefaced view for anyone who dared to notice, a comely woman donning an emerald bonnet perched nearly knee-to-knee beside a dapper gentlemen. Unlike the majority of those who huddled beside one another with listless expressions, these two untrue attendees appeared grossly preoccupied with a tête-à-tête antithetical to Lieuvain’s pontifications.

  Their visages were only scantly illuminated by a nick of sunlight slicing between the erected posts, but neither of them managed to elude identification by me. Even at the distance where I now stood, Emma Bovary’s amorous eyes shimmered with a glint of adventure uncommon to her kind. And why should she have shown affectations to the contrary? Stationed in near full shadow, voicing a calm serenade that yearned to be internalized by an impetuous woman, Rodolphe Boulanger dexterously laid the framework for their forthcoming affair. I didn’t need to witness the flirty entwinement of their fingertips, for that would have come after Monsieur Derozerays proclamation of prizewinners.

  Rather than proceed toward the bantering pair in town hall, I directed my footsteps away from a scene that sickened my heart. It also scared me to consider that I was beginning to feel funnily at ease among the clumsy folks waiting in almost breathless wonderment for any semblance of recognition. Soon enough, an elderly woman with flesh as tanned as a horse’s hide, scuttled between lanes of people leading away from the stage. She appeared especially pleased by an award bestowed upon her from the speaker.

  An exuberant bystander clarified my remembrance of this person. “What a glorious day it is for Catherine Leroux!” he bellowed.

  Indeed, I thought to myself. The old lady had at last been recognized for over a half a century of farm work on the same land. Unquestionably, in her mind and others in this field, it was a silver medal well earned. Even in this supposedly simpler time, such devotion was not the norm. And yet when I stared more discerningly at the woman’s sun-splotched forehead and grooved cheeks, I wondered if a scrap of polished metal supplanted the dreams that she must’ve once envisioned for herself. A medal of any size certainly would not repress the romantic notions of Madame Bovary.

  Had I not other endeavors in mind, I might’ve persuaded the weathered crone to pitch a few sketches of her life’s artistry to me. The relevant target in my line of sight, however, remained as stagnant as a spiny weed in a knoll of bluegrass. I didn’t even have to resort to elbowing my way through the crowd to approach this fellow, for he had taken a position on a bench upwind from a herd of flatulent cattle. He squatted alone on a carpenter’s plank, watching with eyes as sightless as a newborn calf. What he fixated upon was anyone’s guess, but I imagined it was nothing beyond the limitations of the objects set right beneath his pinched nostrils.

  Charles Bovary wasn’t a corrupt man, unless utter ineptitude rated as a criminal infraction. Sadly, here sat an affable fellow who epitomized incompetence, and remained hopelessly oblivious to all matters essential to a prosperous existence. Yet, despite his defects of judgment, he had acquired at least some short-lived credibility as a country doctor. But in his mind, I suspected Charles secretly reconciled that he was no more a practitioner of medicine than his wife was a visionary of undecorated requirements. From what I knew of this dullard’s habits, he lacked an
aptitude for rudimentary foresight, or any sight for that matter. Even before I faced Charles for the first time, I felt a fervent desire to grab him by his drab collar and manually crane his neck towards the council chamber’s window. Would he have even noticed his wife’s adultery unfurling like a cow’s parched tongue before his eyes?

  I modestly took a seat on the bench beside Charles without instigating a single flinch from his sheepish mug. He appeared to focus insipidly upon the gnats teeming in a jittery mist around his hands and forearms, while extending no effort to acknowledge my intrusion. I literally bent close enough to this dolt so that these insects flitted between us with no measurable distance. If I hoped to lure Charles into any meaningful interaction, then I’d have to provoke him more bluntly.

  “Hello, monsieur,” I said, feigning my unawareness of the fetid cow manure smothering anything faintly aromatic in the breeze. My next statement to Charles reeked almost as terribly as the dung. “I’ve never been to such a grand fair with so many interesting people.” Charles had about as much a chance of distinguishing my sarcasm as he did at winning an award for being France’s most accomplished apothecary.

  With a dimwitted jauntiness, Charles shifted in his hunched posture and blotted a dollop of perspiration from his scalp with a handkerchief. His eyeballs appeared to be varnished by an opaque lacquer; I suspected that not even the most stringent solvents could’ve dissolved such haziness from his countenance.

  “I can’t recall a better stretch of sunshine,” he declared while tilting his face directly toward the sun’s rays. Unlike many of the men here, Charles wore no hat upon his head to protect the pinkish skin spaced between his temples.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt your meditation,” I said, “but I had a sudden urge to sit down when I noticed an empty spot on this bench beside you.”

  Charles nodded contritely before saying, “You’re more than welcome to it, monsieur. I’m certain that there are other gentlemen here today who’ve happily conceded to their wives’ wanderings. My own darling is milling about as we speak.”

  “So you’ve come to this fair with your wife?” I asked, angling my face toward the indigo sky, but my eyes zeroed in on the council chamber’s window. Charles was not nearly astute enough to follow my gaze to his wife’s idealized antics. He eventually settled on the obvious observation that I was new in town.

  “I don’t recall ever seeing you in Yonville,” he speculated.

  “You wouldn’t have seen me here before today,” I returned.

  I anticipated a formal salutation from the health examiner at this point, and Charles remained as conventional as a cock’s crow at daybreak. He extended a flaccid, moist palm that seemed far too rickety to belong to anyone who manipulated medical apparatus for his bread and cheese. In the manner of proper etiquette, I accepted a handshake from him that felt as slimy as a pig’s snout. He then hastily announced his name with a jumbled arrangement of syllables, revealing a trace of irresolution that most likely haunted him since his youthful days at prep school.

  Despite Monsieur Bovary’s inadequacies of common sense and fortitude, which I readily surmised before making his acquaintance, I introduced myself with a less than ingenuous purpose for my future plans.

  “If it’s a respite you’re in search of,” Charles said with the gaiety of an untested schoolboy, “then I couldn’t recommend I finer retreat than our little hamlet. If there are any finer or more candid people in the countryside, I wouldn’t presume to know where to seek them out.”

  My eyes once again pivoted toward town hall, hoping in vain that Charles’s vapid stare mimicked the reflex. “From what I’ve watched thus far,” I harmonized, “the folks are especially friendly.”

  “We gladly exist without pretentiousness here, Monsieur Cobbs,” he said, while simultaneously nibbling on a hangnail on his left pinkie. “Oh, we may lack the niceties of city folk, but it’s by design rather than default. Rest assured, a country gentleman can secure himself a dutiful wife and live out his years in complete contentment. I’m living proof of such a boast.”

  Charles was living, perhaps, but hardly in the manner in which he envisioned. However, since he willfully retrieved his blind notions of fidelity within his marriage, I decided to overtly sway our conversation in this direction.

  “Being a married man myself, I haven’t given much consideration to finding companionship here,” I said. “But I can imagine that a man in your position wouldn’t be short of prospects, if it ever came to that.” My mocking insinuation, of course, was intended to foster a reaction from this passionless physician.

  “I’m afraid there’s only one lady for me in all of France,” he gushed. “In truth, Emma and I are quite privileged to have found one another. I’m sure the Fates have spun a thread that has no end as far as our marriage goes.”

  If it was truly feasible to be as torpid in spirit as it was in intellect, then I suspected Charles managed to illustrate this picture. How could he simply ignore or misinterpret his wife’s forlorn sighs? She cast words of disenchantment toward him like musket balls against his forehead, but he never flinched. The boor was nothing special to look at, and judging by his wife’s account, he bordered on repulsive. At every turn and glance, Emma Bovary sought the image of a lover that her husband was least capable of replicating. Moreover, the futility to transform this clod into something other than what he was caused resentment to swell within her like a boil in dire need of lancing. Charles might have had studied enough journals to mend a few superficial wounds (discounting anything requiring a surgical procedure), but he had no instrument in his medical bag to dissect his wife’s heartache. In this way, I couldn’t perceive this visitation as beneficial to my own marital woes, but yet I elected to share my history with Charles as if I had known the man all my life.

  “Unlike you, Monsieur Bovary, my wife didn’t accompany me to this fair today. As a matter of fact, she recommended that I take this trip alone.”

  Charles patted his handkerchief at the sweat bubbling on his cheeks like gobs of hot grease on a skillet. “I can’t claim to know your situation very well,” he offered, “but it sounds to me as if you’ve had a spat with her. Once a woman gets it in her head that you’re inferior by nature, it’s best to let her make the choices.”

  “That’s practical advice,” I goaded him. “And coming from such a reputed doctor as yourself, I’d guess you’d have superior knowledge of these things.”

  “Well, in terms of experience with the nuptial day, I do have one more in my past than any man deserves,” Charles admitted fretfully. “I was formerly wedded to another woman. My mother thought she’d make a proper companion, but compatibility between spouses cannot be underestimated.”

  “So what happened to your first wife?”

  “Oh, unfortunately, Heloise died quite suddenly. But I’ve gained insight by recognizing that all events occur for a purpose. I now trust that marriages are like fences, Monsieur Cobbs. With daily diligence, the posts and slats must be mended to stabilize the homestead.”

  “It must give you extreme confidence to know that your wife cleaves to you so ardently,” I said, trying to stifle an inappropriate chuckle. This hapless fellow, of course, had about as much aptitude for “repairing fences” as he did at curing Hippolyte of his clubfoot.

  Upon hearing my bogus proclamation, Charles puffed out his chest. He looked as if he was suddenly inflated with of all the Greek heroes’ hubris combined. But it wouldn’t have taken anything sharper than a stitching needle to pierce this faux bravado.

  “I must be honest,” Charles then confessed. “I dispense no fail-safe ointments or elixirs to credit my uncanny fortune when it comes to my connubial life. I suppose a dedicated partner isn’t so easily obtained, even for the best among us.”

  The feeble-minded doctor’s face flushed with a pink hue in the sunlight, reminding me of a hog’s belly. By now, I nearly had to sit on my own hands to prevent myself from pointing directly to the window where
Madame Bovary surreptitiously splintered the paddock surrounding her domestication. Charles’s banality even surpassed what I believed was humanly achievable. If another man ever lived who lacked a sliver of creative ingenuity, then I gathered that he’d be equally aghast to witness this buffoon in action.

  “Let me ask you something, Monsieur Cobbs,” he continued with the voice of a sapient scholar. “If you find this question too personal, please excuse me for presenting it so bluntly.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Do you love your wife?”

  “More than I ever presumed possible.”

  “And I assume you convey those words to her frequently?”

  “Maybe not as much as I should. What ways do you show your affection toward your wife, Monsieur Bovary?”

  “Why not indulge her extravagances?” he suggested. “Permit her to go to market and purchase a few toiletries and feminine trinkets, or maybe a frock so that she may look pretty in a mirror. This occupies a woman’s fancy for most hours of the day.”

  “It seems like it must be more complicated than that.” If spending money was a safeguard against marital erosion, then where did that render the men whose pockets were stuffed with more lint than loot? My next statement might’ve deflated some of the false dignity from Charles’s lungs. “I now have an indelicate question of my own. How much money does your wife go through in a given month?”

  The apathetic apothecary prescribed no immediate reply to remedy my interest in his savings, albeit an artificial one. He instead entwined his fingers across his lap and twiddled his thumbs like a petulant child. Although I wanted to despise him for his unforgivable naivety, he expressed a genuine compassion for my plight. This reminded me of his inherent goodness, and perhaps merited him a hint of sympathy after all.

  “I wish my wife was as simple to appease as your own, Monsieur Bovary. But I’m afraid I have more serious issues to contend with. It’s not going to be easy to return to her and just forget everything that’s happened.”

  Even a man as utterly infertile of imagination as Charles must have recognized the sordid suggestion in my tone. But once again, the country simpleton proved that his legacy of ineptitude was well earned. “What has she done to make you so hesitant to go back home?” he inquired thoughtlessly.

  I stalled momentarily, weighing the anguish of my words on a scale never utilized until this moment. “I’m certain she’s betrayed me,” I sighed.

  “In what manner?”

  “In the manner that matters most,” I returned. “All apparent signs point to her unfaithfulness.” The physician’s ruddy flesh instantly lost its natural color as he pondered my assertion. I now detected pity etching into his unremarkable gaze. At least I managed to summon a degree of vitality in a fellow I deemed only marginally more animated than a corpse.

  Charles swallowed several bullets of saliva forming on his upper lip as he proffered his next bit of wisdom. “You mustn’t be so hasty with such vulgar allegations,” he admonished. “After all, eyesight is sometimes a fallible instrument, Monsieur Cobbs. We don’t always see things as they really are.”

  “Is that so?” I chimed.

  “Indeed. It could very well be that your wife has acquired some platonic friendships, as women often do when their husbands occupy themselves away from home. I mean, as men we know how much we crave communications with the fairer sex. But you should find comfort in the fact that it’s your bed pillow where she lays her head each evening.”

  “So are you saying that I should ignore the evidence that verifies her adultery?”

  “Evidence can be as inconclusive as eyesight,” he persisted. While speaking on this issue, Charles deemed it necessary to fan himself with his frock coat’s mulch-colored lapels. “If I was in your position, and thankfully I’m not, I’d go back home and live your life with the untainted knowledge that your wife loves you as much as you care for her.”

  “And not even mention my suspicions?”

  “That depends,” replied the imbecile. “If you love her, and based on what you’ve told me I can’t conclude otherwise, then why would you jeopardize the linkage of trust that still binds your marriage? Have you considered the ramifications if you falsely incriminate her?”

  “I have no doubt that I’m right.”

  “When did you anticipate that she might be capable of such an unscrupulous offense?”

  “I don’t know. Does anyone really suspect his spouse of cheating before the act actually occurs? It’s only in hindsight that we recognize our stupidity.”

  My response caused Charles to defer his next question, if only to feign his comprehension of my two-sided statement. I, of course, already owned half of it, while he unwittingly inherited the other portion. “I didn’t want to believe that my wife could ever be untrue,” I continued, “but maybe I respected her far more than she deserved. Then again, can I fairly lay all the blame on her?”

  “If what you allege is accurate, how are you at fault?”

  “Well, when I married Rachel, I talked about doing all these adventurous and exotic things such as attending art museums, sharing international cuisine, traveling the Orient, studying new languages, and basically living an extraordinarily pretentious life. My plan was all pie in the sky, but it flopped like a cake left baking in the oven too long. Secretly, I might’ve been just as content traipsing to the county fair, as long as she was at my side.”

  “It does sound like a fantasy realm you’ve concocted for her,” he said. “This story only serves to support the importance of finding more pastoral pleasures to occupy your time. Gratefully, my wife has no such romantic notions teeming in her veins.”

  “But how can you be absolutely certain of her motivations, Monsieur Bovary?”

  “What an odd question,” he quavered. “Every married man should know his wife as well as the flipside of his own hand. Besides, I have visual proof to confirm Emma’s devotion to me.”

  “Then please share it.”

  “It’s a rather simple method that any man should be able to do. When I’m staring closely at her eyes, I see my own reflection in her pupils. Therefore, I can presume she must discern the same thing when looking at me. Obviously, we have a natural bond that filters out any silly, farfetched imaginings.”

  Charles cleared his throat as if it was lodged with a clump of wet horsehair. He then began to look around the crowd, presumably scanning for his preoccupied wife. “I do hope she gets back soon,” he muttered. “They’re having a fine presentation of fireworks tonight. It wouldn’t be very entertaining to watch them alone.”

  As I looked at Charles Bovary I hoped he understood that my shortcomings weren’t so very different from his own. But it was an uncontestable truth that this indolent man lacked the foresight to see beyond his own reflection. Therefore, it already seemed predestined that his demise was as inevitable as a cluster of weeds in an unkempt garden.

  I stood up from the bench just as unpredictably as I had joined him, but Charles hardly noticed my departure. There was no need for me to share any further discourse with this fellow. Besides, the pong in the air had already surpassed an intolerable level. As I paced away from this doomed doctor, he occasionally swiveled his head to search the fairground for his unchaste treasure. At least he wouldn’t have to watch the fireworks by himself tonight. Maybe relationships should’ve been savored in such tiny measures, because the larger portion of any man’s life typically promised varying degrees of grief. Soon enough, Charles Bovary would’ve unlocked his wife’s rosewood desk, inadvertently exposing the secret source of his sorrow.

  Chapter 17

  7:30 A.M.