“Has your colic gone away, my angel?”
Mère Bovary found nothing to censure, except perhaps this passion for knitting nightgowns for orphans, instead of darning dusters. But, worn out by domestic feuds, the simple soul delighted in this unruffled house, and even stayed with them beyond Easter, so as to avoid the sarcastic remarks of Père Bovary, who never failed, every Good Friday, to order a chitterling sausage.
Other than the company of her mother-in-law, who fortified her a little with her sound judgment and solid ways, Emma still enjoyed the society of others almost every day. There was Madame Langlois, Madame Caron, Madame Dubreuil, Madame Tuvache and, regularly, from two to five o’clock, the excellent Madame Homais, who had never wanted to believe, for her part, in any of the tittle-tattle that was spread about concerning her neighbor. The Homais children would come to visit her as well, accompanied by Justin. He went up with them into the room, and stayed standing by the door, motionless, not speaking a word. Often Madame Bovary, not realizing, would actually start to dress. She began by removing her comb, tossing her head with an abrupt movement; and, when he observed for the first time that complete head of hair uncoiling its black ringlets and falling as far as the backs of her knees, it was for him, poor boy, like the unexpected entry into something new and extraordinary whose splendor appalled him.
Emma, without doubt, noticed neither his silent ardor nor his timidity. She never suspected that love, vanished from her life, was throbbing there, so close to her, under that shirt of coarse canvas, in that adolescent heart open to her beauty’s emanations. Nevertheless, she looked on everything now with such indifference, her words were so fond and her gaze so haughty, her ways so various, that none could make a distinction between her egoism and her charity, her corruption and her virtue. One evening, for instance, she flew at her maidservant, who was asking her leave to go out and stammering as she sought a pretext; then all of a sudden:
“You’re in love with him, then?”
And, without waiting for a response from Félicité, who was blushing, she added with a sad look:
“Go on, woo him! Have fun!”
At the beginning of spring, she had the garden turned topsy-turvy from one end to the other, despite Bovary’s remarks; he was happy, however, to see her display the tiniest bit of determination at last. This grew in proportion to her recovery. At first, she found the means to throw out Mère Rollet, the wet nurse, who had got into the habit, during Emma’s convalescence, of coming into the kitchen too often with her two nurslings and her boarder, with a bigger appetite than a cannibal. Then she disentangled herself from the Homais family, dismissed in succession all the other callers and even frequented the church with less assiduity, to the loud approval of the apothecary, who then said to her in a friendly manner:
“You were lapsing a little into the cloth!”
Monsieur Bournisien, as before, would pop in every day, when he emerged from catechism. He preferred to stay out of doors, to take the air in the midst of the grove, as he termed the arbor. It was the time of day when Charles got back. They were hot; sweet cider was brought, and together they drank to Madame’s complete recovery.
Binet was there, that is to say a bit lower down, against the terrace wall, angling for crayfish. Bovary invited him to cool down, and he understood perfectly how to uncork those small jugs.
“You must,” he said, casting a satisfied look around him and out to the furthest points of the landscape, “hold the bottle upright thus on the table, and, after the wires are cut, push the cork with little thrusts, gently, gently, as you do, may I add, with seltzer water, in restaurants.”
But the cider, during this demonstration, would often gush full into their faces, and then the cleric, with an inscrutable laugh, never let this piece of wit go by:
“Its goodness is evident to the eye!”
He was a decent fellow, indeed, and was not even deeply shocked by the pharmacist, who was advising Charles that, to distract Madame, he should take her to the theater in Rouen, to see Lagardy, the tenor. Homais being amazed at this silence, wanted to have his opinion, and the priest declared that he regarded music as less dangerous for morals than literature.
But the pharmacist took the defense of letters. The theater, he maintained, served to lampoon prejudice, and, under pleasure’s mask, teach virtue.
“Castigat ridendo mores, Monsieur Bournisien! So consider the greater part of Voltaire’s tragedies; they are cleverly seeded with philosophical reflections which act as a veritable school of ethics and diplomacy for the people.”
“For my part,” said Binet, “in the old days I saw a play called The Urchin of Paris, in which your attention’s drawn to the character of an old general who is awfully well hit off! He sends one of his sons packing who had seduced a factory girl, who at the end …”
“Of course!” Homais continued, “there is bad literature as there is bad pharmacy; but to condemn in one lump the most important of the arts strikes me as doltish, a barbarous notion, worthy of those abominable times when they locked away Galileo.”
“I am well aware,” the priest objected, “that there exist decent works, decent authors; nevertheless, if only owing to these people of different sexes being thrown together in a bewitching room, adorned with worldly splendors, and then those heathen disguises, that face paint, those torches, those effeminate voices, all that has to end up spawning a certain debauchery of mind and giving you indecent thoughts, unclean temptations. Such at least is the opinion of every Church Father. After all,” he added, taking on a mystical tone of voice, while rolling a pinch of snuff on his thumb, “if the Church has condemned these plays, she had reason to; we must submit to her decrees.”
“Why,” demanded the apothecary, “does it excommunicate actors? Because, in the old days, they openly joined in with the creed’s rituals. Yes, they would act, they would perform, in the middle of the choir, types of farces, called mysteries, in which the rules of decency were frequently offended.”
The cleric merely uttered a groan, and the apothecary went on:
“It’s the same in the Bible; there is … you know … more than one … titillating detail … stuff that is … truly … bawdy!”
And, following an irritated gesture from Monsieur Bournisien:
“Ah, you will agree that it’s not a book to put into a young person’s hands, and I’d be sorry if Athalie …”
“But it’s the Protestants, and not us,” the other shouted, provoked, “who recommend the Bible!”
“No matter,” said Homais, “I’m astonished that nowadays, in an enlightened century, we are still obstinately bent on proscribing an intellectual recreation which is inoffensive, morally instructive and even at times health-preserving, isn’t that right, doctor?”
“Without doubt,” the doctor replied listlessly, whether because, having the same ideas, he did not want to offend anyone, or because he had none.
The conversation appeared to be over, when the pharmacist judged it the moment to make a final thrust.
“Some I have known, priests that is, who would dress as ordinary citizens to go and see dancing girls wriggle about.”
“Nonsense!” said the priest.
“Ah, some I have known!”
And, separating the syllables of his sentence, Homais repeated:
“Some-I-have-known.”
“Ah well, they were in the wrong,” said Bournisien, his ears resigned to anything.
“Zounds, they’ve committed many another!” exclaimed the apothecary.
“Monsieur!” chided the priest, with eyes so fierce that the pharmacist felt intimidated.
“I simply want to say,” he replied then, in a more conciliatory tone, “that tolerance is the surest way to entice minds to religion.”
“True, true,” conceded the good-natured fellow, settling down again on his chair.
But he stayed only two minutes. Then, as soon as he had left, Monsieur Homais said to the doctor:
�
�There’s what you call a set-to. I took a rise out of him there, somehow, did you see? Well, be advised by me, take Madame to the show, if only to enrage one of those crows just once in your life, by Jove! If someone could replace me, I’d accompany you myself. Hurry up! Lagardy is only giving one performance; he’s been invited to England for a considerable fee. He is, the rumor goes, a capital fellow. He’s rolling in it. He goes about with three mistresses and a cook. All these great artists burn the candle at both ends; their life has to be one of barefaced licentiousness to stimulate the imagination a little. But they die in the workhouse because, being young, they haven’t had the wit to save. Well, enjoy your dinner; till tomorrow!”
This theater idea quickly sprouted in Bovary’s head; for he shared it straightaway with his wife, who declined at first, pleading fatigue, the inconvenience, the expense; but, extraordinarily, Charles did not give in, so firm was he in his belief that this diversion would be beneficial to her. He could see no impediment; his mother had dispatched them three hundred francs on which he was no longer counting, current debts were not so huge, and the expiration of the bills payable to Monsieur Lheureux was still such a long way off, that there was no need to think about them. Moreover, imagining that she was being considerate, Charles was more and more insistent; so much so that finally, by dint of being beset, she decided. And, the next day, at eight o’clock, they packed themselves off in the Hirondelle.
The apothecary, whom nothing detained in Yonville, but who considered himself compelled not to budge, let out a sigh on seeing them leave.
“Well, have a good trip!” he said to them, “happy mortals that you are!”
Then, addressing himself to Emma, who was wearing a four-flounced dress of blue silk:
“I find you as pretty as a Venus. You’ll be cutting a dash in Rouen!”
The stagecoach stopped at the Hôtel de la Croix Rouge, in the Place Beauvoisine. It was one of those inns found in the outskirts of all provincial towns, with large stables and small bedrooms, where in the middle of the yard you see hens pecking at oats beneath the squalid gigs of commercial travelers; fine old lodgings with worm-eaten wooden balconies that creak in the wind through the winter nights, always full of people, hubbub and mounds of food, whose black tables are stickied by the laced coffee, the thick window glass yellowed by flies, the damp napkins stained by the cheap blue wine; and which, still redolent of the village, like farm servants dressed as townsmen, have a café facing the road, and a vegetable garden on the field side. Charles immediately got down to business. He muddled up the front of the stage with the gallery, the orchestra with the boxes, demanded explanations, failed to understand them, was sent from the ticket seller to the manager, came back to the inn, returned to the office, and thus paced the length of the town several times, from the theater to the boulevard.
Madame bought herself a hat, gloves, a nosegay. Monsieur greatly feared missing the beginning; and, without having had the time to swallow a plate of soup, they appeared before the theater doors, which were still shut.
XV
The crowd stood against the wall, penned in symmetrically between railings. At the corner of the neighboring streets, gigantic posters repeated in baroque letters: “Lucie de Lammermoor … Lagardy … Opéra … etc.” It was fine weather; they were hot, sweat trickled through the curls, the drawn handkerchiefs were all dabbing at flushed foreheads; and at times a warm wind, blowing from the river, feebly stirred the edges of the twill awnings suspended over the tavern doors. A little lower down, however, they were cooled by a current of cold air that smelled of tallow, leather and oil. This was the vaporous breath of the rue des Charrettes, full of big dark warehouses where casks are rolled.
Fearful of appearing ridiculous, Emma wanted to take a turn on foot about the harbor, and Bovary, as a precaution, kept the tickets to hand, in his trouser pocket, pressing it to his stomach.
Her heart began beating hard the moment she entered the vestibule. She smiled involuntarily from vanity, on seeing the crowd rushing to the right by the other corridor, whereas she was climbing the staircase for the dress circle. She took a child’s pleasure in pushing the wide upholstered doors with her finger; she breathed the dusty odor of the corridors deep into her lungs, and, when she was seated in her box, she threw back her shoulders with the airiness of a duchess.
The theater began to fill up, the opera glasses were drawn from their cases, and the regular playgoers, catching sight of one another from afar, bowed. They were here to relinquish the anxieties of the marketplace for the fine arts; but, not unmindful of business matters, they were still talking cotton, spirits or indigo. Old men’s heads were to be seen there, blank and peaceable, whitish hair and complexion giving them the appearance of silver medals tarnished by a haze of lead. The young fops strutted in the pit, showing off, through open waistcoats, their rosy or apple-green neck cloths; and from up above Madame Bovary admired them as they rested the stretched palm of their yellow gloves upon gold-knobbed riding crops.
Meanwhile, the orchestra’s candles lit up; the chandelier was lowered from the ceiling, its crystal-faceted radiance shedding a sudden gaiety over the theater; then the musicians entered one after the other, and at first there was a long discordancy of snoring bass viols, grating violins, screaming cornets, whining flutes and flageolets. But three thumps were heard on the stage; a rolling of kettledrums began, the brass struck its chords, and the curtain rose to reveal a country scene.
It was a woodland crossroads, with a fountain on the left, shaded by an oak. Crofters and lairds, plaids on their shoulders, all sang a hunting song together; then a chieftain suddenly appeared and, lifting his arms to the heavens, he called on the angel of evil; another man appeared; they went out, and the hunters resumed.
She found herself back in the reading of her youth, in the middle of Walter Scott. She thought she could hear, through the fog, the sound of Scottish bagpipes echoing over the heather. Moreover, the memory of the novel made it easier to understand the libretto, and she followed the plot phrase by phrase, while fleeting thoughts that came back to her scattered, immediately, under the squalls of the music. She let herself be lulled by the melodies and felt her whole being vibrating as if the bows of the violins were being drawn across her own nerves. Her eyes were barely wide enough to take in the costumes, the scenery, the characters, the painted trees that trembled when anyone strutted, and the velvet caps, the cloaks, the swords, all these chimera stirring in harmony as though in the air of another world. But a young woman stepped forward, throwing a purse to a squire in green. She remained alone, and then a flute was heard that played like a fountain’s murmur or the purling of a bird. Lucie began her cavatina in G major valiantly; she complained of love, she yearned for wings. Emma, likewise, would have liked to take flight on an embrace, fleeing life. All of a sudden, Edgar, Lagardy, appeared.
He had that splendid pallor which lends a certain marmoreal majesty to the passionate southern races. His vigorous figure was cased in a brown doublet; a little chased dagger knocked against his thigh, and he rolled his eyes languorously, revealing his white teeth. It was said that a Polish princess, hearing him sing one night on the beach at Biarritz, where he was refitting ship-boats, had fallen in love with him. He had been the cause of her ruin. He had left her there in the lurch for other women, and this sentimental fame merely served his artistic reputation. The diplomatic strolling player would even take care always to have a poetic phrase concerning his fascinating personality and his sensitive soul slipped into the advertisements. A lovely voice, an imperturbable aplomb, more robust than intelligent and more energetic than lyrical, was all that was needed to increase the prestige of this admirable kind of charlatan, who had something of both the hairdresser and the toreador about him.
He enthused from the very first scene. He clasped Lucie in his arms, he left her, he came back, he seemed disconsolate: he had bursts of rage, then elegiac death rattles of an infinite sweetness, and the notes broke loose from hi
s bare throat, full of sobs and kisses. Emma leaned over to see him, scratching her box’s velvet with her nails. She filled her heart with these tuneful lamentations that were drawn out to the accompaniment of the double basses, like the cries of the drowned in a storm’s uproar. She knew again all the intoxication and the anguish that she had been like to die from. The singer’s voice seemed to her no more than the echo of her mind, and this illusion that held her spellbound something actually drawn from her life. But nobody on earth had loved her with such a love. He did not weep like Edgar, on the last night, in the light of the moon, when they said to each other, “Till tomorrow! Till tomorrow …!” The theater cracked open with cheers; the whole stretta was repeated; the lovers spoke of the flowers on their graves, of oaths, of exile, of fatality, of hopes, and when they uttered the last farewell, Emma let out a shrill cry, which was lost in the quivering of the final chords.
“So why,” Bovary asked, “is this lord persecuting her?”
“Oh no,” she replied; “he’s her lover.”
“Even so he swears to avenge himself on her family, while the other, the one who came on just now, said: ‘I love Lucie and I believe I am loved by her.’ Moreover, he left with her father, arm in arm. Because it’s definitely her father, isn’t it, the little ugly one who wears a cock’s feather in his hat?”
Despite Emma’s explanations, from the recitative and duet in which Gilbert reveals his abominable maneuverings to his master Ashton, Charles, on seeing the false betrothal ring intended to deceive Lucie, believed it to be a memento of love sent by Edgar. He admitted, however, that he did not understand the story—because of the music—which was very detrimental to the words.
“What does it matter?” said Emma; “Hush!”
“It’s just that I do like,” he began again, leaning on her shoulder, “to have some idea, as you well know.”
Madame Bovary (Modern Library) Page 25
