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answer, but as she sewed she pricked her fingers, which

she then put to her mouth to suck them. Charles was

surprised at the whiteness of her nails. They were shiny,

delicate at the tips, more polished than the ivory of

Dieppe, and almond-shaped. Yet her hand was not

beautiful, perhaps not white enough, and a little hard at

the knuckles; besides, it was too long, with no soft

inflections in the outlines. Her real beauty was in her eyes.

Although brown, they seemed black because of the lashes,

and her look came at you frankly, with a candid boldness.

The bandaging over, the doctor was invited by

Monsieur Rouault himself to ‘pick a bit’ before he left.

Charles went down into the room on the ground floor.

Knives and forks and silver goblets were laid for two on a

little table at the foot of a huge bed that had a canopy of

printed cotton with figures representing Turks. There was

an odour of iris-root and damp sheets that escaped from a

large oak chest opposite the window. On the floor in

corners were sacks of flour stuck upright in rows. These

were the overflow from the neighbouring granary, to

which three stone steps led. By way of decoration for the

apartment, hanging to a nail in the middle of the wall,

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whose green paint scaled off from the effects of the

saltpetre, was a crayon head of Minerva in gold frame,

underneath which was written in Gothic letters ‘To dear

Papa.’

First they spoke of the patient, then of the weather, of

the great cold, of the wolves that infested the fields at

night.

Mademoiselle Rouault did not at all like the country,

especially now that she had to look after the farm almost

alone. As the room was chilly, she shivered as she ate. This

showed something of her full lips, that she had a habit of

biting when silent.

Her neck stood out from a white turned-down collar.

Her hair, whose two black folds seemed each of a single

piece, so smooth were they, was parted in the middle by a

delicate lie that curved slightly with the curve of the head;

and, just showing the tip of the ear, it was joined behind

in a thick chignon, with a wavy movement at the temples

that the country doctor saw now for the first time in his

life. The upper part of her cheek was rose-coloured. She

had, like a man, thrust in between two buttons of her

bodice a tortoise-shell eyeglass.

When Charles, after bidding farewell to old Rouault,

returned to the room before leaving, he found her

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standing, her forehead against the window, looking into

the garden, where the bean props had been knocked

down by the wind. She turned round. ‘Are you looking

for anything?’ she asked.

‘My whip, if you please,’ he answered.

He began rummaging on the bed, behind the doors,

under the chairs. It had fallen to the floor, between the

sacks and the wall. Mademoiselle Emma saw it, and bent

over the flour sacks.

Charles out of politeness made a dash also, and as he

stretched out his arm, at the same moment felt his breast

brush against the back of the young girl bending beneath

him. She drew herself up, scarlet, and looked at him over

her shoulder as she handed him his whip.

Instead of returning to the Bertaux in three days as he

had promised, he went back the very next day, then

regularly twice a week, without counting the visits he paid

now and then as if by accident.

Everything, moreover, went well; the patient

progressed favourably; and when, at the end of forty-six

days, old Rouault was seen trying to walk alone in his

‘den,’ Monsieur Bovary began to be looked upon as a man

of great capacity. Old Rouault said that he could not have

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been cured better by the first doctor of Yvetot, or even of

Rouen.

As to Charles, he did not stop to ask himself why it was

a pleasure to him to go to the Bertaux. Had he done so,

he would, no doubt, have attributed his zeal to the

importance of the case, or perhaps to the money he hoped

to make by it. Was it for this, however, that his visits to

the farm formed a delightful exception to the meagre

occupations of his life? On these days he rose early, set off

at a gallop, urging on his horse, then got down to wipe his

boots in the grass and put on black gloves before entering.

He liked going into the courtyard, and noticing the gate

turn against his shoulder, the cock crow on the wall, the

lads run to meet him. He liked the granary and the stables;

he liked old Rouault, who pressed his hand and called him

his saviour; he like the small wooden shoes of

Mademoiselle Emma on the scoured flags of the kitchen—

her high heels made her a little taller; and when she

walked in front of him, the wooden soles springing up

quickly struck with a sharp sound against the leather of her

boots.

She always accompanied him to the first step of the

stairs. When his horse had not yet been brought round she

stayed there. They had said ‘Good-bye"; there was no

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more talking. The open air wrapped her round, playing

with the soft down on the back of her neck, or blew to

and fro on her hips the apron-strings, that fluttered like

streamers. Once, during a thaw the bark of the trees in the

yard was oozing, the snow on the roofs of the outbuildings

was melting; she stood on the threshold, and went to fetch

her sunshade and opened it. The sunshade of silk of the

colour of pigeons’ breasts, through which the sun shone,

lighted up with shifting hues the white skin of her face.

She smiled under the tender warmth, and drops of water

could be heard falling one by one on the stretched silk.

During the first period of Charles’s visits to the

Bertaux, Madame Bovary junior never failed to inquire

after the invalid, and she had even chosen in the book that

she kept on a system of double entry a clean blank page

for Monsieur Rouault. But when she heard he had a

daughter, she began to make inquiries, and she learnt the

Mademoiselle Rouault, brought up at the Ursuline

Convent, had received what is called ‘a good education";

and so knew dancing, geography, drawing, how to

embroider and play the piano. That was the last straw.

‘So it is for this,’ she said to herself, ‘that his face beams

when he goes to see her, and that he puts on his new

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waistcoat at the risk of spoiling it with the rain. Ah! that

woman! That woman!’

And she detested her instinctively. At first she solaced

herself by allusions that Charles did not understand, then

by casual observations that he let pass for fear of a storm,

finally by open apostrophes to which he knew not what to

answer. ‘Why did he go back to the Bertaux now that

Monsieur Rouault was cured and that these folks hadn’t

paid yet? Ah! it was because a young lady was there, some

one who know how to talk, to embroider, to be witty.

That was what he cared about; he wanted town misses.’

And she went on—

‘The daughter of old Rouault a town miss! Get out!

Their grandfather was a shepherd, and they have a cousin

who was almost had up at the assizes for a nasty blow in a

quarrel. It is not worth while making such a fuss, or

showing herself at church on Sundays in a silk gown like a

countess. Besides, the poor old chap, if it hadn’t been for

the colza last year, would have had much ado to pay up

his arrears.’

For very weariness Charles left off going to the

Bertaux. Heloise made him swear, his hand on the prayer-

book, that he would go there no more after much sobbing

and many kisses, in a great outburst of love. He obeyed

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then, but the strength of his desire protested against the

servility of his conduct; and he thought, with a kind of

naive hypocrisy, that his interdict to see her gave him a

sort of right to love her. And then the widow was thin;

she had long teeth; wore in all weathers a little black

shawl, the edge of which hung down between her

shoulder-blades; her bony figure was sheathed in her

clothes as if they were a scabbard; they were too short, and

displayed her ankles with the laces of her large boots

crossed over grey stockings.

Charles’s mother came to see them from time to time,

but after a few days the daughter-in-law seemed to put her

own edge on her, and then, like two knives, they scarified

him with their reflections and observations. It was wrong

of him to eat so much.

Why did he always offer a glass of something to

everyone who came? What obstinacy not to wear flannels!

In the spring it came about that a notary at Ingouville, the

holder of the widow Dubuc’s property, one fine day went

off, taking with him all the money in his office. Heloise, it

is true, still possessed, besides a share in a boat valued at six

thousand francs, her house in the Rue St. Francois; and

yet, with all this fortune that had been so trumpeted

abroad, nothing, excepting perhaps a little furniture and a

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few clothes, had appeared in the household. The matter

had to be gone into. The house at Dieppe was found to be

eaten up with mortgages to its foundations; what she had

placed with the notary God only knew, and her share in

the boat did not exceed one thousand crowns. She had

lied, the good lady! In his exasperation, Monsieur Bovary

the elder, smashing a chair on the flags, accused his wife of

having caused misfortune to the son by harnessing him to

such a harridan, whose harness wasn’t worth her hide.

They came to Tostes. Explanations followed. There were

scenes. Heloise in tears, throwing her arms about her

husband, implored him to defend her from his parents.

Charles tried to speak up for her. They grew angry and

left the house.

But ‘the blow had struck home.’ A week after, as she

was hanging up some washing in her yard, she was seized

with a spitting of blood, and the next day, while Charles

had his back turned to her drawing the window-curtain,

she said, ‘O God!’ gave a sigh and fainted. She was dead!

What a surprise! When all was over at the cemetery

Charles went home. He found no one downstairs; he

went up to the first floor to their room; say her dress still

hanging at the foot of the alcove; then, leaning against the

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writing-table, he stayed until the evening, buried in a

sorrowful reverie. She had loved him after all!

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CHAPTER THREE

One morning old Rouault brought Charles the money

for setting his leg—seventy-five francs in forty-sou pieces,

and a turkey. He had heard of his loss, and consoled him

as well as he could.

‘I know what it is,’ said he, clapping him on the

shoulder; ‘I’ve been through it. When I lost my dear

departed, I went into the fields to be quite alone. I fell at

the foot of a tree; I cried; I called on God; I talked

nonsense to Him. I wanted to be like the moles that I saw

on the branches, their insides swarming with worms, dead,

and an end of it. And when I thought that there were

others at that very moment with their nice little wives

holding them in their embrace, I struck great blows on the

earth with my stick. I was pretty well mad with not eating;

the very idea of going to a cafe disgusted me—you

wouldn’t believe it. Well, quite softly, one day following

another, a spring on a winter, and an autumn after a

summer, this wore away, piece by piece, crumb by crumb;

it passed away, it is gone, I should say it has sunk; for

something always remains at the bottom as one would

say—a weight here, at one’s heart. But since it is the lot of

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all of us, one must not give way altogether, and, because

others have died, want to die too. You must pull yourself

together, Monsieur Bovary. It will pass away. Come to see

us; my daughter thinks of you now and again, d’ye know,

and she says you are forgetting her. Spring will soon be

here. We’ll have some rabbit-shooting in the warrens to

amuse you a bit.’

Charles followed his advice. He went back to the

Bertaux. He found all as he had left it, that is to say, as it

was five months ago. The pear trees were already in

blossom, and Farmer Rouault, on his legs again, came and

went, making the farm more full of life.

Thinking it his duty to heap the greatest attention upon

the doctor because of his sad position, he begged him not

to take his hat off, spoke to him in an undertone as if he

had been ill, and even pretended to be angry because

nothing rather lighter had been prepared for him than for

the others, such as a little clotted cream or stewed pears.

He told stories. Charles found himself laughing, but the

remembrance of his wife suddenly coming back to him

depressed him. Coffee was brought in; he thought no

more about her.

He thought less of her as he grew accustomed to living

alone. The new delight of independence soon made his

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loneliness bearable. He could now change his meal-times,

go in or out without explanation, and when he was very

tired stretch himself at full length on his bed. So he nursed

and coddled himself and accepted the consolations that

were offered him. On the other hand, the death of his

wife had not served him ill in his business, since for a

month people had been saying, ‘The poor young man!

what a loss!’ His name had been talked about, his practice

had increased; and moreover, he could go to the Bertaux

just as he liked. He had an aimless hope, and was vaguely

happy; he thought himself better looking as he brushed his

whiskers before the looking-glass.

One day he got there about three o’clock. Everybody

was in the fields. He went into the kitchen, but did not at