第 30 页

however, he remembered nothing at all.

In fact, these women, rushing at once into his thoughts,

cramped each other and lessened, as reduced to a uniform

level of love that equalised them all. So taking handfuls of

the mixed-up letters, he amused himself for some

moments with letting them fall in cascades from his right

into his left hand. At last, bored and weary, Rodolphe

took back the box to the cupboard, saying to himself,

‘What a lot of rubbish!’ Which summed up his opinion;

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for pleasures, like schoolboys in a school courtyard, had so

trampled upon his heart that no green thing grew there,

and that which passed through it, more heedless than

children, did not even, like them, leave a name carved

upon the wall.

‘Come,’ said he, ‘let’s begin.’

He wrote—

‘Courage, Emma! courage! I would not bring misery

into your life.’

‘After all, that’s true,’ thought Rodolphe. ‘I am acting

in her interest; I am honest.’

‘Have you carefully weighed your resolution? Do you

know to what an abyss I was dragging you, poor angel?

No, you do not, do you? You were coming confident and

fearless, believing in happiness in the future. Ah! unhappy

that we are—insensate!’

Rodolphe stopped here to think of some good excuse.

‘If I told her all my fortune is lost? No! Besides, that

would stop nothing. It would all have to be begun over

again later on. As if one could make women like that

listen to reason!’ He reflected, then went on—

‘I shall not forget you, oh believe it; and I shall ever

have a profound devotion for you; but some day, sooner

or later, this ardour (such is the fate of human things)

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would have grown less, no doubt. Lassitude would have

come to us, and who knows if I should not even have had

the atrocious pain of witnessing your remorse, of sharing it

myself, since I should have been its cause? The mere idea

of the grief that would come to you tortures me, Emma.

Forget me! Why did I ever know you? Why were you so

beautiful? Is it my fault? O my God! No, no! Accuse only

fate.’

‘That’s a word that always tells,’ he said to himself.

‘Ah, if you had been one of those frivolous women that

one sees, certainly I might, through egotism, have tried an

experiment, in that case without danger for you. But that

delicious exaltation, at once your charm and your

torment, has prevented you from understanding, adorable

woman that you are, the falseness of our future position.

Nor had I reflected upon this at first, and I rested in the

shade of that ideal happiness as beneath that of the

manchineel tree, without foreseeing the consequences.’

‘Perhaps she’ll think I’m giving it up from avarice. Ah,

well! so much the worse; it must be stopped!’

‘The world is cruel, Emma. Wherever we might have

gone, it would have persecuted us. You would have had

to put up with indiscreet questions, calumny, contempt,

insult perhaps. Insult to you! Oh! And I, who would place

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you on a throne! I who bear with me your memory as a

talisman! For I am going to punish myself by exile for all

the ill I have done you. I am going away. Whither I know

not. I am mad. Adieu! Be good always. Preserve the

memory of the unfortunate who has lost you. Teach my

name to your child; let her repeat it in her prayers.’

The wicks of the candles flickered. Rodolphe got up

to, shut the window, and when he had sat down again—

‘I think it’s all right. Ah! and this for fear she should

come and hunt me up.’

‘I shall be far away when you read these sad lines, for I

have wished to flee as quickly as possible to shun the

temptation of seeing you again. No weakness! I shall

return, and perhaps later on we shall talk together very

coldly of our old love. Adieu!’

And there was a last ‘adieu’ divided into two words! ‘A

Dieu!’ which he thought in very excellent taste.

‘Now how am I to sign?’ he said to himself. ‘ ‘Yours

devotedly?’ No! ‘Your friend?’ Yes, that’s it.’

‘Your friend.’

He re-read his letter. He considered it very good.

‘Poor little woman!’ he thought with emotion. ‘She’ll

think me harder than a rock. There ought to have been

some tears on this; but I can’t cry; it isn’t my fault.’ Then,

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having emptied some water into a glass, Rodolphe dipped

his finger into it, and let a big drop fall on the paper, that

made a pale stain on the ink. Then looking for a seal, he

came upon the one ‘Amor nel cor.’

‘That doesn’t at all fit in with the circumstances. Pshaw!

never mind!’

After which he smoked three pipes and went to bed.

The next day when he was up (at about two o’clock—

he had slept late), Rodolphe had a basket of apricots

picked. He put his letter at the bottom under some vine

leaves, and at once ordered Girard, his ploughman, to take

it with care to Madame Bovary. He made use of this

means for corresponding with her, sending according to

the season fruits or game.

‘If she asks after me,’ he said, ‘you will tell her that I

have gone on a journey. You must give the basket to her

herself, into her own hands. Get along and take care!’

Girard put on his new blouse, knotted his handkerchief

round the apricots, and walking with great heavy steps in

his thick iron-bound galoshes, made his way to Yonville.

Madame Bovary, when he got to her house, was

arranging a bundle of linen on the kitchen-table with

Felicite.

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‘Here,’ said the ploughboy, ‘is something for you—

from the master.’

She was seized with apprehension, and as she sought in

her pocket for some coppers, she looked at the peasant

with haggard eyes, while he himself looked at her with

amazement, not understanding how such a present could

so move anyone. At last he went out. Felicite remained.

She could bear it no longer; she ran into the sitting room

as if to take the apricots there, overturned the basket, tore

away the leaves, found the letter, opened it, and, as if

some fearful fire were behind her, Emma flew to her room

terrified.

Charles was there; she saw him; he spoke to her; she

heard nothing, and she went on quickly up the stairs,

breathless, distraught, dumb, and ever holding this horrible

piece of paper, that crackled between her fingers like a

plate of sheet-iron. On the second floor she stopped

before the attic door, which was closed.

Then she tried to calm herself; she recalled the letter;

she must finish it; she did not dare to. And where? How?

She would be seen! ‘Ah, no! here,’ she thought, ‘I shall be

all right.’

Emma pushed open the door and went in.

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The slates threw straight down a heavy heat that

gripped her temples, stifled her; she dragged herself to the

closed garret-window. She drew back the bolt, and the

dazzling light burst in with a leap.

Opposite, beyond the roofs, stretched the open country

till it was lost to sight. Down below, underneath her, the

village square was empty; the stones of the pavement

glittered, the weathercocks on the houses were motionless.

At the corner of the street, from a lower storey, rose a

kind of humming with strident modulations. It was Binet

turning.

She leant against the embrasure of the window, and

reread the letter with angry sneers. But the more she fixed

her attention upon it, the more confused were her ideas.

She saw him again, heard him, encircled him with her

arms, and throbs of her heart, that beat against her breast

like blows of a sledge-hammer, grew faster and faster, with

uneven intervals. She looked about her with the wish that

the earth might crumble into pieces. Why not end it all?

What restrained her? She was free. She advanced, looking

at the paving-stones, saying to herself, ‘Come! come!’

The luminous ray that came straight up from below

drew the weight of her body towards the abyss. It seemed

to her that the ground of the oscillating square went up

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the walls and that the floor dipped on end like a tossing

boat. She was right at the edge, almost hanging,

surrounded by vast space. The blue of the heavens suffused

her, the air was whirling in her hollow head; she had but

to yield, to let herself be taken; and the humming of the

lathe never ceased, like an angry voice calling her.

‘Emma! Emma!’ cried Charles.

She stopped.

‘Wherever are you? Come!’

The thought that she had just escaped from death

almost made her faint with terror. She closed her eyes;

then she shivered at the touch of a hand on her sleeve; it

was Felicite.

‘Master is waiting for you, madame; the soup is on the

table.’

And she had to go down to sit at table.

She tried to eat. The food choked her. Then she

unfolded her napkin as if to examine the darns, and she

really thought of applying herself to this work, counting

the threads in the linen. Suddenly the remembrance of the

letter returned to her. How had she lost it? Where could

she find it? But she felt such weariness of spirit that she

could not even invent a pretext for leaving the table. Then

she became a coward; she was afraid of Charles; he knew

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all, that was certain! Indeed he pronounced these words in

a strange manner:

‘We are not likely to see Monsieur Rodolphe soon

again, it seems.’

‘Who told you?’ she said, shuddering.

‘Who told me!’ he replied, rather astonished at her

abrupt tone. ‘Why, Girard, whom I met just now at the

door of the Cafe Francais. He has gone on a journey, or is

to go.’

She gave a sob.

‘What surprises you in that? He absents himself like that

from time to time for a change, and, ma foi, I think he’s

right, when one has a fortune and is a bachelor. Besides,

he has jolly times, has our friend. He’s a bit of a rake.

Monsieur Langlois told me—‘

He stopped for propriety’s sake because the servant

came in. She put back into the basket the apricots

scattered on the sideboard. Charles, without noticing his

wife’s colour, had them brought to him, took one, and bit

into it.

‘Ah! perfect!’ said he; ‘just taste!’

And he handed her the basket, which she put away

from her gently.

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‘Do just smell! What an odour!’ he remarked, passing it

under her nose several times.

‘I am choking,’ she cried, leaping up. But by an effort

of will the spasm passed; then—

‘It is nothing,’ she said, ‘it is nothing! It is nervousness.

Sit down and go on eating.’ For she dreaded lest he should

begin questioning her, attending to her, that she should

not be left alone.

Charles, to obey her, sat down again, and he spat the

stones of the apricots into his hands, afterwards putting

them on his plate.

Suddenly a blue tilbury passed across the square at a

rapid trot. Emma uttered a cry and fell back rigid to the

ground.

In fact, Rodolphe, after many reflections, had decided

to set out for Rouen. Now, as from La Huchette to

Buchy there is no other way than by Yonville, he had to

go through the village, and Emma had recognised him by

the rays of the lanterns, which like lightning flashed

through the twilight.

The chemist, at the tumult which broke out in the

house ran thither. The table with all the plates was upset;

sauce, meat, knives, the salt, and cruet-stand were strewn

over the room; Charles was calling for help; Berthe,

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scared, was crying; and Felicite, whose hands trembled,

was unlacing her mistress, whose whole body shivered

convulsively.

‘I’ll run to my laboratory for some aromatic vinegar,’

said the druggist.

Then as she opened her eyes on smelling the bottle—

‘I was sure of it,’ he remarked; ‘that would wake any

dead person for you!’

‘Speak to us,’ said Charles; ‘collect yourself; it is your

Charles, who loves you. Do you know me? See! here is

your little girl! Oh, kiss her!’

The child stretched out her arms to her mother to cling

to her neck. But turning away her head, Emma said in a

broken voice ‘No, no! no one!’

She fainted again. They carried her to her bed. She lay

there stretched at full length, her lips apart, her eyelids

closed, her hands open, motionless, and white as a waxen

image. Two streams of tears flowed from her eyes and fell

slowly upon the pillow.

Charles, standing up, was at the back of the alcove, and

the chemist, near him, maintained that meditative silence

that is becoming on the serious occasions of life.

‘Do not be uneasy,’ he said, touching his elbow; ‘I

think the paroxysm is past.’

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‘Yes, she is resting a little now,’ answered Charles,

watching her sleep. ‘Poor girl! poor girl! She had gone off

now!’

Then Homais asked how the accident had come about.

Charles answered that she had been taken ill suddenly

while she was eating some apricots.

‘Extraordinary!’ continued the chemist. ‘But it might

be that the apricots had brought on the syncope. Some

natures are so sensitive to certain smells; and it would even

be a very fine question to study both in its pathological

and physiological relation. The priests know the

importance of it, they who have introduced aromatics into

all their ceremonies. It is to stupefy the senses and to bring

on ecstasies—a thing, moreover, very easy in persons of

the weaker sex, who are more delicate than the other.

Some are cited who faint at the smell of burnt hartshorn,

of new bread—‘

‘Take care; you’ll wake her!’ said Bovary in a low

voice.

‘And not only,’ the druggist went on, ‘are human

beings subject to such anomalies, but animals also. Thus