第 11 页

side, the plain, gently rising, broadens out, showing as far

as eye can follow its blond cornfields. The water, flowing

by the grass, divides with a white line the colour of the

roads and of the plains, and the country is like a great

unfolded mantle with a green velvet cape bordered with a

fringe of silver.

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Before us, on the verge of the horizon, lie the oaks of

the forest of Argueil, with the steeps of the Saint-Jean hills

scarred from top to bottom with red irregular lines; they

are rain tracks, and these brick-tones standing out in

narrow streaks against the grey colour of the mountain are

due to the quantity of iron springs that flow beyond in the

neighboring country.

Here we are on the confines of Normandy, Picardy,

and the Ile-de-France, a bastard land whose language is

without accent and its landscape is without character. It is

there that they make the worst Neufchatel cheeses of all

the arrondissement; and, on the other hand, farming is

costly because so much manure is needed to enrich this

friable soil full of sand and flints.

Up to 1835 there was no practicable road for getting to

Yonville, but about this time a cross-road was made which

joins that of Abbeville to that of Amiens, and is

occasionally used by the Rouen wagoners on their way to

Flanders. Yonville-l’Abbaye has remained stationary in

spite of its ‘new outlet.’ Instead of improving the soil, they

persist in keeping up the pasture lands, however

depreciated they may be in value, and the lazy borough,

growing away from the plain, has naturally spread

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riverwards. It is seem from afar sprawling along the banks

like a cowherd taking a siesta by the water-side.

At the foot of the hill beyond the bridge begins a

roadway, planted with young aspens, that leads in a

straight line to the first houses in the place. These, fenced

in by hedges, are in the middle of courtyards full of

straggling buildings, wine-presses, cart-sheds and distilleries

scattered under thick trees, with ladders, poles, or scythes

hung on to the branches. The thatched roofs, like fur caps

drawn over eyes, reach down over about a third of the

low windows, whose coarse convex glasses have knots in

the middle like the bottoms of bottles. Against the plaster

wall diagonally crossed by black joists, a meagre pear-tree

sometimes leans and the ground-floors have at their door a

small swing-gate to keep out the chicks that come

pilfering crumbs of bread steeped in cider on the

threshold. But the courtyards grow narrower, the houses

closer together, and the fences disappear; a bundle of ferns

swings under a window from the end of a broomstick;

there is a blacksmith’s forge and then a wheelwright’s,

with two or three new carts outside that partly block the

way. Then across an open space appears a white house

beyond a grass mound ornamented by a Cupid, his finger

on his lips; two brass vases are at each end of a flight of

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steps; scutcheons* blaze upon the door. It is the notary’s

house, and the finest in the place.

*The panonceaux that have to be hung over the doors

of notaries.

The Church is on the other side of the street, twenty

paces farther down, at the entrance of the square. The

little cemetery that surrounds it, closed in by a wall breast

high, is so full of graves that the old stones, level with the

ground, form a continuous pavement, on which the grass

of itself has marked out regular green squares. The church

was rebuilt during the last years of the reign of Charles X.

The wooden roof is beginning to rot from the top, and

here and there has black hollows in its blue colour. Over

the door, where the organ should be, is a loft for the men,

with a spiral staircase that reverberates under their wooden

shoes.

The daylight coming through the plain glass windows

falls obliquely upon the pews ranged along the walls,

which are adorned here and there with a straw mat

bearing beneath it the words in large letters, ‘Mr. So-andso’s

pew.’ Farther on, at a spot where the building

narrows, the confessional forms a pendant to a statuette of

the Virgin, clothed in a satin robe, coifed with a tulle veil

sprinkled with silver stars, and with red cheeks, like an idol

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of the Sandwich Islands; and, finally, a copy of the ‘Holy

Family, presented by the Minister of the Interior,’

overlooking the high altar, between four candlesticks,

closes in the perspective. The choir stalls, of deal wood,

have been left unpainted.

The market, that is to say, a tiled roof supported by

some twenty posts, occupies of itself about half the public

square of Yonville. The town hall, constructed ‘from the

designs of a Paris architect,’ is a sort of Greek temple that

forms the corner next to the chemist’s shop. On the

ground-floor are three Ionic columns and on the first floor

a semicircular gallery, while the dome that crowns it is

occupied by a Gallic cock, resting one foot upon the

‘Charte’ and holding in the other the scales of Justice.

But that which most attracts the eye is opposite the

Lion d’Or inn, the chemist’s shop of Monsieur Homais. In

the evening especially its argand lamp is lit up and the red

and green jars that embellish his shop-front throw far

across the street their two streams of colour; then across

them as if in Bengal lights is seen the shadow of the

chemist leaning over his desk. His house from top to

bottom is placarded with inscriptions written in large

hand, round hand, printed hand: ‘Vichy, Seltzer, Barege

waters, blood purifiers, Raspail patent medicine, Arabian

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racahout, Darcet lozenges, Regnault paste, trusses, baths,

hygienic chocolate,’ etc. And the signboard, which takes

up all the breadth of the shop, bears in gold letters,

‘Homais, Chemist.’ Then at the back of the shop, behind

the great scales fixed to the counter, the word ‘Laboratory’

appears on a scroll above a glass door, which about halfway

up once more repeats ‘Homais’ in gold letters on a

black ground.

Beyond this there is nothing to see at Yonville. The

street (the only one) a gunshot in length and flanked by a

few shops on either side stops short at the turn of the

highroad. If it is left on the right hand and the foot of the

Saint-Jean hills followed the cemetery is soon reached.

At the time of the cholera, in order to enlarge this, a

piece of wall was pulled down, and three acres of land by

its side purchased; but all the new portion is almost

tenantless; the tombs, as heretofore, continue to crowd

together towards the gate. The keeper, who is at once

gravedigger and church beadle (thus making a double

profit out of the parish corpses), has taken advantage of the

unused plot of ground to plant potatoes there. From year

to year, however, his small field grows smaller, and when

there is an epidemic, he does not know whether to rejoice

at the deaths or regret the burials.

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‘You live on the dead, Lestiboudois!’ the curie at last

said to him one day. This grim remark made him reflect; it

checked him for some time; but to this day he carries on

the cultivation of his little tubers, and even maintains

stoutly that they grow naturally.

Since the events about to be narrated, nothing in fact

has changed at Yonville. The tin tricolour flag still swings

at the top of the church-steeple; the two chintz streamers

still flutter in the wind from the linen-draper’s; the

chemist’s fetuses, like lumps of white amadou, rot more

and more in their turbid alcohol, and above the big door

of the inn the old golden lion, faded by rain, still shows

passers-by its poodle mane.

On the evening when the Bovarys were to arrive at

Yonville, Widow Lefrancois, the landlady of this inn, was

so very busy that she sweated great drops as she moved her

saucepans. To-morrow was market-day. The meat had to

be cut beforehand, the fowls drawn, the soup and coffee

made. Moreover, she had the boarders’ meal to see to, and

that of the doctor, his wife, and their servant; the billiard-

room was echoing with bursts of laughter; three millers in

a small parlour were calling for brandy; the wood was

blazing, the brazen pan was hissing, and on the long

kitchen table, amid the quarters of raw mutton, rose piles

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of plates that rattled with the shaking of the block on

which spinach was being chopped.

From the poultry-yard was heard the screaming of the

fowls whom the servant was chasing in order to wring

their necks.

A man slightly marked with small-pox, in green leather

slippers, and wearing a velvet cap with a gold tassel, was

warming his back at the chimney. His face expressed

nothing but self-satisfaction, and he appeared to take life as

calmly as the goldfinch suspended over his head in its

wicker cage: this was the chemist.

‘Artemise!’ shouted the landlady, ‘chop some wood, fill

the water bottles, bring some brandy, look sharp! If only I

knew what dessert to offer the guests you are expecting!

Good heavens! Those furniture-movers are beginning

their racket in the billiard-room again; and their van has

been left before the front door! The ‘Hirondelle’ might

run into it when it draws up. Call Polyte and tell him to

put it up. Only think, Monsieur Homais, that since

morning they have had about fifteen games, and drunk

eight jars of cider! Why, they’ll tear my cloth for me,’ she

went on, looking at them from a distance, her strainer in

her hand.

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‘That wouldn’t be much of a loss,’ replied Monsieur

Homais. ‘You would buy another.’

‘Another billiard-table!’ exclaimed the widow.

‘Since that one is coming to pieces, Madame

Lefrancois. I tell you again you are doing yourself harm,

much harm! And besides, players now want narrow

pockets and heavy cues. Hazards aren’t played now;

everything is changed! One must keep pace with the

times! Just look at Tellier!’

The hostess reddened with vexation. The chemist went

on—

‘You may say what you like; his table is better than

yours; and if one were to think, for example, of getting up

a patriotic pool for Poland or the sufferers from the Lyons

floods—‘

‘It isn’t beggars like him that’ll frighten us,’ interrupted

the landlady, shrugging her fat shoulders. ‘Come, come,

Monsieur Homais; as long as the ‘Lion d’Or’ exists people

will come to it. We’ve feathered our nest; while one of

these days you’ll find the ‘Cafe Francais’ closed with a big

placard on the shutters. Change my billiard-table!’ she

went on, speaking to herself, ‘the table that comes in so

handy for folding the washing, and on which, in the

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hunting season, I have slept six visitors! But that dawdler,

Hivert, doesn’t come!’

‘Are you waiting for him for your gentlemen’s dinner?’

‘Wait for him! And what about Monsieur Binet? As the

clock strikes six you’ll see him come in, for he hasn’t his

equal under the sun for punctuality. He must always have

his seat in the small parlour. He’d rather die than dine

anywhere else. And so squeamish as he is, and so particular

about the cider! Not like Monsieur Leon; he sometimes

comes at seven, or even half-past, and he doesn’t so much

as look at what he eats. Such a nice young man! Never

speaks a rough word!’

‘Well, you see, there’s a great difference between an

educated man and an old carabineer who is now a tax-

collector.’

Six o’clock struck. Binet came in.

He wore a blue frock-coat falling in a straight line

round his thin body, and his leather cap, with its lappets

knotted over the top of his head with string, showed

under the turned-up peak a bald forehead, flattened by the

constant wearing of a helmet. He wore a black cloth

waistcoat, a hair collar, grey trousers, and, all the year

round, well-blacked boots, that had two parallel swellings

due to the sticking out of his big-toes. Not a hair stood

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out from the regular line of fair whiskers, which,

encircling his jaws, framed, after the fashion of a garden

border, his long, wan face, whose eyes were small and the

nose hooked. Clever at all games of cards, a good hunter,

and writing a fine hand, he had at home a lathe, and

amused himself by turning napkin rings, with which he

filled up his house, with the jealousy of an artist and the

egotism of a bourgeois.

He went to the small parlour, but the three millers had

to be got out first, and during the whole time necessary

for laying the cloth, Binet remained silent in his place near

the stove. Then he shut the door and took off his cap in

his usual way.

‘It isn’t with saying civil things that he’ll wear out his

tongue,’ said the chemist, as soon as he was along with the

landlady.

‘He never talks more,’ she replied. ‘Last week two

travelers in the cloth line were here—such clever chaps

who told such jokes in the evening, that I fairly cried with

laughing; and he stood there like a dab fish and never said

a word.’

‘Yes,’ observed the chemist; ‘no imagination, no sallies,

nothing that makes the society-man.’

‘Yet they say he has parts,’ objected the landlady.

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‘Parts!’ replied Monsieur Homais; ‘he, parts! In his own

line it is possible,’ he added in a calmer tone. And he went

on—

‘Ah! That a merchant, who has large connections, a

jurisconsult, a doctor, a chemist, should be thus absentminded,

that the should become whimsical or even

peevish, I can understand; such cases are cited in history.