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‘Go on,’ cried a voice that came from within.

The cab went on again, and as soon as it reached the

Carrefour Lafayette, set off down-hill, and entered the

station at a gallop.

‘No, straight on!’ cried the same voice.

The cab came out by the gate, and soon having reached

the Cours, trotted quietly beneath the elm-trees. The

coachman wiped his brow, put his leather hat between his

knees, and drove his carriage beyond the side alley by the

meadow to the margin of the waters.

It went along by the river, along the towing-path

paved with sharp pebbles, and for a long while in the

direction of Oyssel, beyond the isles.

But suddenly it turned with a dash across Quatremares,

Sotteville, La Grande-Chaussee, the Rue d’Elbeuf, and

made its third halt in front of the Jardin des Plantes.

‘Get on, will you?’ cried the voice more furiously.

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And at once resuming its course, it passed by Saint-

Sever, by the Quai’des Curandiers, the Quai aux Meules,

once more over the bridge, by the Place du Champ de

Mars, and behind the hospital gardens, where old men in

black coats were walking in the sun along the terrace all

green with ivy. It went up the Boulevard Bouvreuil, along

the Boulevard Cauchoise, then the whole of Mont-

Riboudet to the Deville hills.

It came back; and then, without any fixed plan or

direction, wandered about at hazard. The cab was seen at

Saint-Pol, at Lescure, at Mont Gargan, at La Rougue-

Marc and Place du Gaillardbois; in the Rue Maladrerie,

Rue Dinanderie, before Saint-Romain, Saint-Vivien,

Saint-Maclou, Saint-Nicaise—in front of the Customs, at

the ‘Vieille Tour,’ the ‘Trois Pipes,’ and the Monumental

Cemetery. From time to time the coachman, on his box

cast despairing eyes at the public-houses. He could not

understand what furious desire for locomotion urged these

individuals never to wish to stop. He tried to now and

then, and at once exclamations of anger burst forth behind

him. Then he lashed his perspiring jades afresh, but

indifferent to their jolting, running up against things here

and there, not caring if he did, demoralised, and almost

weeping with thirst, fatigue, and depression.

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And on the harbour, in the midst of the drays and

casks, and in the streets, at the corners, the good folk

opened large wonder-stricken eyes at this sight, so

extraordinary in the provinces, a cab with blinds drawn,

and which appeared thus constantly shut more closely than

a tomb, and tossing about like a vessel.

Once in the middle of the day, in the open country,

just as the sun beat most fiercely against the old plated

lanterns, a bared hand passed beneath the small blinds of

yellow canvas, and threw out some scraps of paper that

scattered in the wind, and farther off lighted like white

butterflies on a field of red clover all in bloom.

At about six o’clock the carriage stopped in a back

street of the Beauvoisine Quarter, and a woman got out,

who walked with her veil down, and without turning her

head.

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CHAPTER TWO

On reaching the inn, Madame Bovary was surprised

not to see the diligence. Hivert, who had waited for her

fifty-three minutes, had at last started.

Yet nothing forced her to go; but she had given her

word that she would return that same evening. Moreover,

Charles expected her, and in her heart she felt already that

cowardly docility that is for some women at once the

chastisement and atonement of adultery.

She packed her box quickly, paid her bill, took a cab in

the yard, hurrying on the driver, urging him on, every

moment inquiring about the time and the miles traversed.

He succeeded in catching up the ‘Hirondelle’ as it neared

the first houses of Quincampoix.

Hardly was she seated in her corner than she closed her

eyes, and opened them at the foot of the hill, when from

afar she recognised Felicite, who was on the lookout in

front of the farrier’s shop. Hivert pulled in his horses and,

the servant, climbing up to the window, said

mysteriously—

‘Madame, you must go at once to Monsieur Homais.

It’s for something important.’

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The village was silent as usual. At the corner of the

streets were small pink heaps that smoked in the air, for

this was the time for jam-making, and everyone at

Yonville prepared his supply on the same day. But in front

of the chemist’s shop one might admire a far larger heap,

and that surpassed the others with the superiority that a

laboratory must have over ordinary stores, a general need

over individual fancy.

She went in. The large arm-chair was upset, and even

the ‘Fanal de Rouen’ lay on the ground, outspread

between two pestles. She pushed open the lobby door,

and in the middle of the kitchen, amid brown jars full of

picked currants, of powdered sugar and lump sugar, of the

scales on the table, and of the pans on the fire, she saw all

the Homais, small and large, with aprons reaching to their

chins, and with forks in their hands. Justin was standing up

with bowed head, and the chemist was screaming—

‘Who told you to go and fetch it in the Capharnaum.’

‘What is it? What is the matter?’

‘What is it?’ replied the druggist. ‘We are making

preserves; they are simmering; but they were about to boil

over, because there is too much juice, and I ordered

another pan. Then he, from indolence, from laziness, went

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and took, hanging on its nail in my laboratory, the key of

the Capharnaum.’

It was thus the druggist called a small room under the

leads, full of the utensils and the goods of his trade. He

often spent long hours there alone, labelling, decanting,

and doing up again; and he looked upon it not as a simple

store, but as a veritable sanctuary, whence there afterwards

issued, elaborated by his hands, all sorts of pills, boluses,

infusions, lotions, and potions, that would bear far and

wide his celebrity. No one in the world set foot there, and

he respected it so, that he swept it himself. Finally, if the

pharmacy, open to all comers, was the spot where he

displayed his pride, the Capharnaum was the refuge

where, egoistically concentrating himself, Homais

delighted in the exercise of his predilections, so that

Justin’s thoughtlessness seemed to him a monstrous piece

of irreverence, and, redder than the currants, he

repeated—

‘Yes, from the Capharnaum! The key that locks up the

acids and caustic alkalies! To go and get a spare pan! a pan

with a lid! and that I shall perhaps never use! Everything is

of importance in the delicate operations of our art! But,

devil take it! one must make distinctions, and not employ

for almost domestic purposes that which is meant for

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pharmaceutical! It is as if one were to carve a fowl with a

scalpel; as if a magistrate—‘

‘Now be calm,’ said Madame Homais.

And Athalie, pulling at his coat, cried ‘Papa! papa!’

‘No, let me alone,’ went on the druggist ‘let me alone,

hang it! My word! One might as well set up for a grocer.

That’s it! go it! respect nothing! break, smash, let loose the

leeches, burn the mallow-paste, pickle the gherkins in the

window jars, tear up the bandages!’

‘I thought you had—‘said Emma.

‘Presently! Do you know to what you exposed

yourself? Didn’t you see anything in the corner, on the

left, on the third shelf? Speak, answer, articulate

something.’

‘I—don’t—know,’ stammered the young fellow.

‘Ah! you don’t know! Well, then, I do know! You saw

a bottle of blue glass, sealed with yellow wax, that contains

a white powder, on which I have even written

‘Dangerous!’ And do you know what is in it? Arsenic!

And you go and touch it! You take a pan that was next to

it!’

‘Next to it!’ cried Madame Hoinais, clasping her hands.

‘Arsenic! You might have poisoned us all.’

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And the children began howling as if they already had

frightful pains in their entrails.

‘Or poison a patient!’ continued the druggist. ‘Do you

want to see me in the prisoner’s dock with criminals, in a

court of justice? To see me dragged to the scaffold? Don’t

you know what care I take in managing things, although I

am so thoroughly used to it? Often I am horrified myself

when I think of my responsibility; for the Government

persecutes us, and the absurd legislation that rules us is a

veritable Damocles’ sword over our heads.’

Emma no longer dreamed of asking what they wanted

her for, and the druggist went on in breathless phrases—

‘That is your return for all the kindness we have shown

you! That is how you recompense me for the really

paternal care that I lavish on you! For without me where

would you be? What would you be doing? Who provides

you with food, education, clothes, and all the means of

figuring one day with honour in the ranks of society? But

you must pull hard at the oar if you’re to do that, and get,

as, people say, callosities upon your hands. Fabricando fit

faber, age quod agis.*.’

* The worker lives by working, do what he will.

He was so exasperated he quoted Latin. He would have

quoted Chinese or Greenlandish had he known those two

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languages, for he was in one of those crises in which the

whole soul shows indistinctly what it contains, like the

ocean, which, in the storm, opens itself from the seaweeds

on its shores down to the sands of its abysses.

And he went on—

‘I am beginning to repent terribly of having taken you

up! I should certainly have done better to have left you to

rot in your poverty and the dirt in which you were born.

Oh, you’ll never be fit for anything but to herd animals

with horns! You have no aptitude for science! You hardly

know how to stick on a label! And there you are, dwelling

with me snug as a parson, living in clover, taking your

ease!’

But Emma, turning to Madame Homais, ‘I was told to

come here—‘

‘Oh, dear me!’ interrupted the good woman, with a sad

air, ‘how am I to tell you? It is a misfortune!’

She could not finish, the druggist was thundering—

‘Empty it! Clean it! Take it back! Be quick!’

And seizing Justin by the collar of his blouse, he shook

a book out of his pocket. The lad stooped, but Homais

was the quicker, and, having picked up the volume,

contemplated it with staring eyes and open mouth.

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‘CONJUGAL—LOVE!’ he said, slowly separating the

two words. ‘Ah! very good! very good! very pretty! And

illustrations! Oh, this is too much!’

Madame Homais came forward.

‘No, do not touch it!’

The children wanted to look at the pictures.

‘Leave the room,’ he said imperiously; and they went

out.

First he walked up and down with the open volume in

his hand, rolling his eyes, choking, tumid, apoplectic.

Then he came straight to his pupil, and, planting himself

in front of him with crossed arms—

‘Have you every vice, then, little wretch? Take care!

you are on a downward path. Did not you reflect that this

infamous book might fall in the hands of my children,

kindle a spark in their minds, tarnish the purity of Athalie,

corrupt Napoleon. He is already formed like a man. Are

you quite sure, anyhow, that they have not read it? Can

you certify to me—‘

‘But really, sir,’ said Emma, ‘you wished to tell me—‘

‘Ah, yes! madame. Your father-in-law is dead.’

In fact, Monsieur Bovary senior had expired the

evening before suddenly from an attack of apoplexy as he

got up from table, and by way of greater precaution, on

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account of Emma’s sensibility, Charles had begged Homais

to break the horrible news to her gradually. Homais had

thought over his speech; he had rounded, polished it,

made it rhythmical; it was a masterpiece of prudence and

transitions, of subtle turns and delicacy; but anger had got

the better of rhetoric.

Emma, giving up all chance of hearing any details, left

the pharmacy; for Monsieur Homais had taken up the

thread of his vituperations. However, he was growing

calmer, and was now grumbling in a paternal tone whilst

he fanned himself with his skull-cap.

‘It is not that I entirely disapprove of the work. Its

author was a doctor! There are certain scientific points in

it that it is not ill a man should know, and I would even

venture to say that a man must know. But later—later! At

any rate, not till you are man yourself and your

temperament is formed.’

When Emma knocked at the door. Charles, who was

waiting for her, came forward with open arms and said to

‘Ah! my dear!’

And he bent over her gently to kiss her. But at the

contact of his lips the memory of the other seized her, and

she passed her hand over her face shuddering.

her with tears in his voice—

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But she made answer, ‘Yes, I know, I know!’

He showed her the letter in which his mother told the

event without any sentimental hypocrisy. She only

regretted her husband had not received the consolations of

religion, as he had died at Daudeville, in the street, at the

door of a cafe after a patriotic dinner with some ex-

officers.

Emma gave him back the letter; then at dinner, for

appearance’s sake, she affected a certain repugnance. But as

he urged her to try, she resolutely began eating, while

Charles opposite her sat motionless in a dejected attitude.

Now and then he raised his head and gave her a long

look full of distress. Once he sighed, ‘I should have liked

to see him again!’

She was silent. At last, understanding that she must say

something, ‘How old was your father?’ she asked.