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once catch sight of Emma; the outside shutters were

closed. Through the chinks of the wood the sun sent

across the flooring long fine rays that were broken at the

corners of the furniture and trembled along the ceiling.

Some flies on the table were crawling up the glasses that

had been used, and buzzing as they drowned themselves in

the dregs of the cider. The daylight that came in by the

chimney made velvet of the soot at the back of the

fireplace, and touched with blue the cold cinders.

Between the window and the hearth Emma was sewing;

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she wore no fichu; he could see small drops of perspiration

on her bare shoulders.

After the fashion of country folks she asked him to have

something to drink. He said no; she insisted, and at last

laughingly offered to have a glass of liqueur with him. So

she went to fetch a bottle of curacao from the cupboard,

reached down two small glasses, filled one to the brim,

poured scarcely anything into the other, and, after having

clinked glasses, carried hers to her mouth. As it was almost

empty she bent back to drink, her head thrown back, her

lips pouting, her neck on the strain. She laughed at getting

none of it, while with the tip of her tongue passing

between her small teeth she licked drop by drop the

bottom of her glass.

She sat down again and took up her work, a white

cotton stocking she was darning. She worked with her

head bent down; she did not speak, nor did Charles. The

air coming in under the door blew a little dust over the

flags; he watched it drift along, and heard nothing but the

throbbing in his head and the faint clucking of a hen that

had laid an egg in the yard. Emma from time to time

cooled her cheeks with the palms of her hands, and cooled

these again on the knobs of the huge fire-dogs.

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She complained of suffering since the beginning of the

season from giddiness; she asked if sea-baths would do her

any good; she began talking of her convent, Charles of his

school; words came to them. They went up into her

bedroom. She showed him her old music-books, the little

prizes she had won, and the oak-leaf crowns, left at the

bottom of a cupboard. She spoke to him, too, of her

mother, of the country, and even showed him the bed in

the garden where, on the first Friday of every month, she

gathered flowers to put on her mother’s tomb. But the

gardener they had never knew anything about it; servants

are so stupid! She would have dearly liked, if only for the

winter, to live in town, although the length of the fine

days made the country perhaps even more wearisome in

the summer. And, according to what she was saying, her

voice was clear, sharp, or, on a sudden all languor, drawn

out in modulations that ended almost in murmurs as she

spoke to herself, now joyous, opening big naive eyes, then

with her eyelids half closed, her look full of boredom, her

thoughts wandering.

Going home at night, Charles went over her words one

by one, trying to recall them, to fill out their sense, that he

might piece out the life she had lived before he knew her.

But he never saw her in his thoughts other than he had

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seen her the first time, or as he had just left her. Then he

asked himself what would become of her—if she would be

married, and to whom! Alas! Old Rouault was rich, and

she!—so beautiful! But Emma’s face always rose before his

eyes, and a monotone, like the humming of a top,

sounded in his ears, ‘If you should marry after all! If you

should marry!’ At night he could not sleep; his throat was

parched; he was athirst. He got up to drink from the

water-bottle and opened the window. The night was

covered with stars, a warm wind blowing in the distance;

the dogs were barking. He turned his head towards the

Bertaux.

Thinking that, after all, he should lose nothing, Charles

promised himself to ask her in marriage as soon as occasion

offered, but each time such occasion did offer the fear of

not finding the right words sealed his lips.

Old Rouault would not have been sorry to be rid of his

daughter, who was of no use to him in the house. In his

heart he excused her, thinking her too clever for farming,

a calling under the ban of Heaven, since one never saw a

millionaire in it. Far from having made a fortune by it, the

good man was losing every year; for if he was good in

bargaining, in which he enjoyed the dodges of the trade,

on the other hand, agriculture properly so called, and the

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internal management of the farm, suited him less than

most people. He did not willingly take his hands out of his

pockets, and did not spare expense in all that concerned

himself, liking to eat well, to have good fires, and to sleep

well. He liked old cider, underdone legs of mutton,

glorias* well beaten up. He took his meals in the kitchen

alone, opposite the fire, on a little table brought to him all

ready laid as on the stage.

*A mixture of coffee and spirits.

When, therefore, he perceived that Charles’s cheeks

grew red if near his daughter, which meant that he would

propose for her one of these days, he chewed the cud of

the matter beforehand. He certainly thought him a little

meagre, and not quite the son-in-law he would have

liked, but he was said to be well brought-up, economical,

very learned, and no doubt would not make too many

difficulties about the dowry. Now, as old Rouault would

soon be forced to sell twenty-two acres of ‘his property,’

as he owed a good deal to the mason, to the harness-

maker, and as the shaft of the cider-press wanted

renewing, ‘If he asks for her,’ he said to himself, ‘I’ll give

her to him.’

At Michaelmas Charles went to spend three days at the

Bertaux.

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The last had passed like the others in procrastinating

from hour to hour. Old Rouault was seeing him off; they

were walking along the road full of ruts; they were about

to part. This was the time. Charles gave himself as far as to

the corner of the hedge, and at last, when past it—

‘Monsieur Rouault,’ he murmured, ‘I should like to say

something to you.’

They stopped. Charles was silent.

‘Well, tell me your story. Don’t I know all about it?’

said old Rouault, laughing softly.

‘Monsieur Rouault—Monsieur Rouault,’ stammered

Charles.

‘I ask nothing better’, the farmer went on. ‘Although,

no doubt, the little one is of my mind, still we must ask

her opinion. So you get off—I’ll go back home. If it is

‘yes’, you needn’t return because of all the people about,

and besides it would upset her too much. But so that you

mayn’t be eating your heart, I’ll open wide the outer

shutter of the window against the wall; you can see it from

the back by leaning over the hedge.’

And he went off.

Charles fastened his horse to a tree; he ran into the road

and waited. Half an hour passed, then he counted nineteen

minutes by his watch. Suddenly a noise was heard against

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the wall; the shutter had been thrown back; the hook was

still swinging.

The next day by nine o’clock he was at the farm.

Emma blushed as he entered, and she gave a little forced

laugh to keep herself in countenance. Old Rouault

embraced his future son-in-law. The discussion of money

matters was put off; moreover, there was plenty of time

before them, as the marriage could not decently take place

till Charles was out of mourning, that is to say, about the

spring of the next year.

The winter passed waiting for this. Mademoiselle

Rouault was busy with her trousseau. Part of it was

ordered at Rouen, and she made herself chemises and

nightcaps after fashion-plates that she borrowed. When

Charles visited the farmer, the preparations for the

wedding were talked over; they wondered in what room

they should have dinner; they dreamed of the number of

dishes that would be wanted, and what should be entrees.

Emma would, on the contrary, have preferred to have a

midnight wedding with torches, but old Rouault could

not understand such an idea. So there was a wedding at

which forty-three persons were present, at which they

remained sixteen hours at table, began again the next day,

and to some extent on the days following.

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CHAPTER FOUR

The guests arrived early in carriages, in one-horse

chaises, two-wheeled cars, old open gigs, waggonettes

with leather hoods, and the young people from the nearer

villages in carts, in which they stood up in rows, holding

on to the sides so as not to fall, going at a trot and well

shaken up. Some came from a distance of thirty miles,

from Goderville, from Normanville, and from Cany.

All the relatives of both families had been invited,

quarrels between friends arranged, acquaintances long

since lost sight of written to.

From time to time one heard the crack of a whip

behind the hedge; then the gates opened, a chaise entered.

Galloping up to the foot of the steps, it stopped short and

emptied its load. They got down from all sides, rubbing

knees and stretching arms. The ladies, wearing bonnets,

had on dresses in the town fashion, gold watch chains,

pelerines with the ends tucked into belts, or little coloured

fichus fastened down behind with a pin, and that left the

back of the neck bare. The lads, dressed like their papas,

seemed uncomfortable in their new clothes (many that day

hand-sewed their first pair of boots), and by their sides,

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speaking never a work, wearing the white dress of their

first communion lengthened for the occasion were some

big girls of fourteen or sixteen, cousins or elder sisters no

doubt, rubicund, bewildered, their hair greasy with rose

pomade, and very much afraid of dirtying their gloves. As

there were not enough stable-boys to unharness all the

carriages, the gentlemen turned up their sleeves and set

about it themselves. According to their different social

positions they wore tail-coats, overcoats, shooting jackets,

cutaway-coats; fine tail-coats, redolent of family

respectability, that only came out of the wardrobe on state

occasions; overcoats with long tails flapping in the wind

and round capes and pockets like sacks; shooting jackets of

coarse cloth, generally worn with a cap with a brass-bound

peak; very short cutaway-coats with two small buttons in

the back, close together like a pair of eyes, and the tails of

which seemed cut out of one piece by a carpenter’s

hatchet. Some, too (but these, you may be sure, would sit

at the bottom of the table), wore their best blouses—that

is to say, with collars turned down to the shoulders, the

back gathered into small plaits and the waist fastened very

low down with a worked belt.

And the shirts stood out from the chests like cuirasses!

Everyone had just had his hair cut; ears stood out from the

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heads; they had been close-shaved; a few, even, who had

had to get up before daybreak, and not been able to see to

shave, had diagonal gashes under their noses or cuts the

size of a three-franc piece along the jaws, which the fresh

air en route had enflamed, so that the great white beaming

faces were mottled here and there with red dabs.

The mairie was a mile and a half from the farm, and

they went thither on foot, returning in the same way after

the ceremony in the church. The procession, first united

like one long coloured scarf that undulated across the

fields, along the narrow path winding amid the green

corn, soon lengthened out, and broke up into different

groups that loitered to talk. The fiddler walked in front

with his violin, gay with ribbons at its pegs. Then came

the married pair, the relations, the friends, all following

pell-mell; the children stayed behind amusing themselves

plucking the bell-flowers from oat-ears, or playing

amongst themselves unseen. Emma’s dress, too long,

trailed a little on the ground; from time to time she

stopped to pull it up, and then delicately, with her gloved

hands, she picked off the coarse grass and the thistledowns,

while Charles, empty handed, waited till she had finished.

Old Rouault, with a new silk hat and the cuffs of his black

coat covering his hands up to the nails, gave his arm to

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Madame Bovary senior. As to Monsieur Bovary senior,

who, heartily despising all these folk, had come simply in a

frock-coat of military cut with one row of buttons—he

was passing compliments of the bar to a fair young peasant.

She bowed, blushed, and did not know what to say. The

other wedding guests talked of their business or played

tricks behind each other’s backs, egging one another on in

advance to be jolly. Those who listened could always

catch the squeaking of the fiddler, who went on playing

across the fields. When he saw that the rest were far

behind he stopped to take breath, slowly rosined his bow,

so that the strings should sound more shrilly, then set off

again, by turns lowering and raising his neck, the better to

mark time for himself. The noise of the instrument drove

away the little birds from afar.

The table was laid under the cart-shed. On it were four

sirloins, six chicken fricassees, stewed veal, three legs of

mutton, and in the middle a fine roast suckling pig,

flanked by four chitterlings with sorrel. At the corners

were decanters of brandy. Sweet bottled-cider frothed

round the corks, and all the glasses had been filled to the

brim with wine beforehand. Large dishes of yellow cream,

that trembled with the least shake of the table, had

designed on their smooth surface the initials of the newly