第 17 页

steps nor their lowing could be heard; and the bell, still

ringing through the air, kept up its peaceful lamentation.

With this repeated tinkling the thoughts of the young

woman lost themselves in old memories of her youth and

school-days. She remembered the great candlesticks that

rose above the vases full of flowers on the altar, and the

tabernacle with its small columns. She would have liked to

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be once more lost in the long line of white veils, marked

off here and there by the stuff black hoods of the good

sisters bending over their prie-Dieu. At mass on Sundays,

when she looked up, she saw the gentle face of the Virgin

amid the blue smoke of the rising incense. Then she was

moved; she felt herself weak and quite deserted, like the

down of a bird whirled by the tempest, and it was

unconsciously that she went towards the church, included

to no matter what devotions, so that her soul was absorbed

and all existence lost in it.

On the Place she met Lestivoudois on his way back,

for, in order not to shorten his day’s labour, he preferred

interrupting his work, then beginning it again, so that he

rang the Angelus to suit his own convenience. Besides, the

ringing over a little earlier warned the lads of catechism

hour.

Already a few who had arrived were playing marbles on

the stones of the cemetery. Others, astride the wall, swung

their legs, kicking with their clogs the large nettles

growing between the little enclosure and the newest

graves. This was the only green spot. All the rest was but

stones, always covered with a fine powder, despite the

vestry-broom.

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The children in list shoes ran about there as if it were

an enclosure made for them. The shouts of their voices

could be heard through the humming of the bell. This

grew less and less with the swinging of the great rope that,

hanging from the top of the belfry, dragged its end on the

ground. Swallows flitted to and fro uttering little cries, cut

the air with the edge of their wings, and swiftly returned

to their yellow nests under the tiles of the coping. At the

end of the church a lamp was burning, the wick of a

night-light in a glass hung up. Its light from a distance

looked like a white stain trembling in the oil. A long ray

of the sun fell across the nave and seemed to darken the

lower sides and the corners.

‘Where is the cure?’ asked Madame Bovary of one of

the lads, who was amusing himself by shaking a swivel in a

hole too large for it.

‘He is just coming,’ he answered.

And in fact the door of the presbytery grated; Abbe

Bournisien appeared; the children, pell-mell, fled into the

church.

‘These young scamps!’ murmured the priest, ‘always

the same!’

Then, picking up a catechism all in rags that he had

struck with is foot, ‘They respect nothing!’ But as soon as

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he caught sight of Madame Bovary, ‘Excuse me,’ he said;

‘I did not recognise you.’

He thrust the catechism into his pocket, and stopped

short, balancing the heavy vestry key between his two

fingers.

The light of the setting sun that fell full upon his face

paled the lasting of his cassock, shiny at the elbows,

unravelled at the hem. Grease and tobacco stains followed

along his broad chest the lines of the buttons, and grew

more numerous the farther they were from his neckcloth,

in which the massive folds of his red chin rested; this was

dotted with yellow spots, that disappeared beneath the

coarse hair of his greyish beard. He had just dined and was

breathing noisily.

‘How are you?’ he added.

‘Not well,’ replied Emma; ‘I am ill.’

‘Well, and so am I,’ answered the priest. ‘These first

warm days weaken one most remarkably, don’t they? But,

after all, we are born to suffer, as St. Paul says. But what

does Monsieur Bovary think of it?’

‘He!’ she said with a gesture of contempt.

‘What!’ replied the good fellow, quite astonished,

doesn’t he prescribe something for you?’

‘Ah!’ said Emma, ‘it is no earthly remedy I need.’

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But the cure from time to time looked into the church,

where the kneeling boys were shouldering one another,

and tumbling over like packs of cards.

‘I should like to know—’ she went on.

‘You look out, Riboudet,’ cried the priest in an angry

voice; ‘I’ll warm your ears, you imp!’ Then turning to

Emma, ‘He’s Boudet the carpenter’s son; his parents are

well off, and let him do just as he pleases. Yet he could

learn quickly if he would, for he is very sharp. And so

sometimes for a joke I call him Riboudet (like the road

one takes to go to Maromme) and I even say ‘Mon

Riboudet.’ Ha! Ha! ‘Mont Riboudet.’ The other day I

repeated that just to Monsignor, and he laughed at it; he

condescended to laugh at it. And how is Monsieur

Bovary?’

She seemed not to hear him. And he went on—

‘Always very busy, no doubt; for he and I are certainly

the busiest people in the parish. But he is doctor of the

body,’ he added with a thick laugh, ‘and I of the soul.’

She fixed her pleading eyes upon the priest. ‘Yes,’ she

said, ‘you solace all sorrows.’

‘Ah! don’t talk to me of it, Madame Bovary. This

morning I had to go to Bas-Diauville for a cow that was

ill; they thought it was under a spell. All their cows, I

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don’t know how it is—But pardon me! Longuemarre and

Boudet! Bless me! Will you leave off?’

And with a bound he ran into the church.

The boys were just then clustering round the large

desk, climbing over the precentor’s footstool, opening the

missal; and others on tiptoe were just about to venture

into the confessional. But the priest suddenly distributed a

shower of cuffs among them. Seizing them by the collars

of their coats, he lifted them from the ground, and

deposited them on their knees on the stones of the choir,

firmly, as if he meant planting them there.

‘Yes,’ said he, when he returned to Emma, unfolding

his large cotton handkerchief, one corner of which he put

between his teeth, ‘farmers are much to be pitied.’

‘Others, too,’ she replied.

‘Assuredly. Town-labourers, for example.’

‘It is not they—‘

‘Pardon! I’ve there known poor mothers of families,

virtuous women, I assure you, real saints, who wanted

even bread.’

‘But those,’ replied Emma, and the corners of her

mouth twitched as she spoke, ‘those, Monsieur le Cure,

who have bread and have no—‘

‘Fire in the winter,’ said the priest.

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‘Oh, what does that matter?’

‘What! What does it matter? It seems to me that when

one has firing and food—for, after all—‘

‘My God! my God!’ she sighed.

‘It is indigestion, no doubt? You must get home,

Madame Bovary; drink a little tea, that will strengthen

you, or else a glass of fresh water with a little moist sugar.’

‘Why?’ And she looked like one awaking from a

dream.

‘Well, you see, you were putting your hand to your

forehead. I thought you felt faint.’ Then, bethinking

himself, ‘But you were asking me something? What was

it? I really don’t remember.’

‘I? Nothing! nothing!’ repeated Emma.

And the glance she cast round her slowly fell upon the

old man in the cassock. They looked at one another face

to face without speaking.

‘Then, Madame Bovary,’ he said at last, ‘excuse me,

but duty first, you know; I must look after my good-fornothings.

The first communion will soon be upon us, and

I fear we shall be behind after all. So after Ascension Day I

keep them recta* an extra hour every Wednesday. Poor

children! One cannot lead them too soon into the path of

the Lord, as, moreover, he has himself recommended us to

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do by the mouth of his Divine Son. Good health to you,

madame; my respects to your husband.’

*On the straight and narrow path.

And he went into the church making a genuflexion as

soon as he reached the door.

Emma saw him disappear between the double row of

forms, walking with a heavy tread, his head a little bent

over his shoulder, and with his two hands half-open

behind him.

Then she turned on her heel all of one piece, like a

statue on a pivot, and went homewards. But the loud

voice of the priest, the clear voices of the boys still reached

her ears, and went on behind her.

‘Are you a Christian?’

‘Yes, I am a Christian.’

‘What is a Christian?’

‘He who, being baptized-baptized-baptized—‘

She went up the steps of the staircase holding on to the

banisters, and when she was in her room threw herself

into an arm-chair.

The whitish light of the window-panes fell with soft

undulations.

The furniture in its place seemed to have become more

immobile, and to lose itself in the shadow as in an ocean

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of darkness. The fire was out, the clock went on ticking,

and Emma vaguely marvelled at this calm of all things

while within herself was such tumult. But little Berthe was

there, between the window and the work-table, tottering

on her knitted shoes, and trying to come to her mother to

catch hold of the ends of her apron-strings.

‘Leave me alone,’ said the latter, putting her from her

with her hand.

The little girl soon came up closer against her knees,

and leaning on them with her arms, she looked up with

her large blue eyes, while a small thread of pure saliva

dribbled from her lips on to the silk apron.

‘Leave me alone,’ repeated the young woman quite

irritably.

Her face frightened the child, who began to scream.

‘Will you leave me alone?’ she said, pushing her with

her elbow.

Berthe fell at the foot of the drawers against the brass

handle, cutting her cheek, which began to bleed, against

it. Madame Bovary sprang to lift her up, broke the bell-

rope, called for the servant with all her might, and she was

just going to curse herself when Charles appeared. It was

the dinner-hour; he had come home.

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‘Look, dear!’ said Emma, in a calm voice, ‘the little one

fell down while she was playing, and has hurt herself.’

Charles reassured her; the case was not a serious one,

and he went for some sticking plaster.

Madame Bovary did not go downstairs to the dining-

room; she wished to remain alone to look after the child.

Then watching her sleep, the little anxiety she felt

gradually wore off, and she seemed very stupid to herself,

and very good to have been so worried just now at so

little. Berthe, in fact, no longer sobbed.

Her breathing now imperceptibly raised the cotton

covering. Big tears lay in the corner of the half-closed

eyelids, through whose lashes one could see two pale

sunken pupils; the plaster stuck on her cheek drew the

skin obliquely.

‘It is very strange,’ thought Emma, ‘how ugly this child

is!’

When at eleven o’clock Charles came back from the

chemist’s shop, whither he had gone after dinner to return

the remainder of the sticking-plaster, he found his wife

standing by the cradle.

‘I assure you it’s nothing.’ he said, kissing her on the

forehead. ‘Don’t worry, my poor darling; you will make

yourself ill.’

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He had stayed a long time at the chemist’s. Although

he had not seemed much moved, Homais, nevertheless,

had exerted himself to buoy him up, to ‘keep up his

spirits.’ Then they had talked of the various dangers that

threaten childhood, of the carelessness of servants.

Madame Homais knew something of it, having still upon

her chest the marks left by a basin full of soup that a cook

had formerly dropped on her pinafore, and her good

parents took no end of trouble for her. The knives were

not sharpened, nor the floors waxed; there were iron

gratings to the windows and strong bars across the

fireplace; the little Homais, in spite of their spirit, could

not stir without someone watching them; at the slightest

cold their father stuffed them with pectorals; and until

they were turned four they all, without pity, had to wear

wadded head-protectors. This, it is true, was a fancy of

Madame Homais’; her husband was inwardly afflicted at it.

Fearing the possible consequences of such compression to

the intellectual organs. He even went so far as to say to

her, ‘Do you want to make Caribs or Botocudos of them?’

Charles, however, had several times tried to interrupt

the conversation. ‘I should like to speak to you,’ he had

whispered in the clerk’s ear, who went upstairs in front of

him.

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‘Can he suspect anything?’ Leon asked himself. His

heart beat, and he racked his brain with surmises.

At last, Charles, having shut the door, asked him to see

himself what would be the price at Rouen of a fine

daguerreotypes. It was a sentimental surprise he intended

for his wife, a delicate attention—his portrait in a frock-

coat. But he wanted first to know ‘how much it would

be.’ The inquiries would not put Monsieur Leon out,

since he went to town almost every week.

Why? Monsieur Homais suspected some ‘young man’s

affair’ at the bottom of it, an intrigue. But he was

mistaken. Leon was after no love-making. He was sadder

than ever, as Madame Lefrancois saw from the amount of

food he left on his plate. To find out more about it she

questioned the tax-collector. Binet answered roughly that

he ‘wasn’t paid by the police.’

All the same, his companion seemed very strange to

him, for Leon often threw himself back in his chair, and

stretching out his arms. Complained vaguely of life.

‘It’s because you don’t take enough recreation,’ said the

collector.

‘What recreation?’

‘If I were you I’d have a lathe.’