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filled up the niche in the wall, and in black wood frames

against the oak-stained paper hung Steuben’s ‘Esmeralda’

and Schopin’s ‘Potiphar.’ The ready-laid table, the two

silver chafing-dishes, the crystal door-knobs, the parquet

and the furniture, all shone with a scrupulous, English

cleanliness; the windows were ornamented at each corner

with stained glass.

‘Now this,’ thought Emma, ‘is the dining-room I

ought to have.’

The notary came in pressing his palm-leaf dressing-

gown to his breast with his left arm, while with the other

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hand he raised and quickly put on again his brown velvet

cap, pretentiously cocked on the right side, whence

looked out the ends of three fair curls drawn from the

back of the head, following the line of his bald skull.

After he had offered her a seat he sat down to breakfast,

apologising profusely for his rudeness.

‘I have come,’ she said, ‘to beg you, sir—‘

‘What, madame? I am listening.’

And she began explaining her position to him.

Monsieur Guillaumin knew it, being secretly associated

with the linendraper, from whom he always got capital for

the loans on mortgages that he was asked to make.

So he knew (and better than she herself) the long story

of the bills, small at first, bearing different names as

endorsers, made out at long dates, and constantly renewed

up to the day, when, gathering together all the protested

bills, the shopkeeper had bidden his friend Vincart take in

his own name all the necessary proceedings, not wishing

to pass for a tiger with his fellow-citizens.

She mingled her story with recriminations against

Lheureux, to which the notary replied from time to time

with some insignificant word. Eating his cutlet and

drinking his tea, he buried his chin in his sky-blue cravat,

into which were thrust two diamond pins, held together

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by a small gold chain; and he smiled a singular smile, in a

sugary, ambiguous fashion. But noticing that her feet were

damp, he said—

‘Do get closer to the stove; put your feet up against the

porcelain.’

She was afraid of dirtying it. The notary replied in a

gallant tone—

‘Beautiful things spoil nothing.’

Then she tried to move him, and, growing moved

herself, she began telling him about the poorness of her

home, her worries, her wants. He could understand that;

an elegant woman! and, without leaving off eating, he had

turned completely round towards her, so that his knee

brushed against her boot, whose sole curled round as it

smoked against the stove.

But when she asked for a thousand sous, he closed his

lips, and declared he was very sorry he had not had the

management of her fortune before, for there were

hundreds of ways very convenient, even for a lady, of

turning her money to account. They might, either in the

turf-peats of Grumesnil or building-ground at Havre,

almost without risk, have ventured on some excellent

speculations; and he let her consume herself with rage at

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the thought of the fabulous sums that she would certainly

have made.

‘How was it,’ he went on, ‘that you didn’t come to

me?’

‘I hardly know,’ she said.

‘Why, hey? Did I frighten you so much? It is I, on the

contrary, who ought to complain. We hardly know one

another; yet I am very devoted to you. You do not doubt

that, I hope?’

He held out his hand, took hers, covered it with a

greedy kiss, then held it on his knee; and he played

delicately with her fingers whilst he murmured a thousand

blandishments. His insipid voice murmured like a running

brook; a light shone in his eyes through the glimmering of

his spectacles, and his hand was advancing up Emma’s

sleeve to press her arm. She felt against her cheek his

panting breath. This man oppressed her horribly.

She sprang up and said to him—

‘Sir, I am waiting.’

‘For what?’ said the notary, who suddenly became very

pale.

‘This money.’

‘But—’ Then, yielding to the outburst of too powerful

a desire, ‘Well, yes!’

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He dragged himself towards her on his knees, regardless

of his dressing-gown.

‘For pity’s sake, stay. I love you!’

He seized her by her waist. Madame Bovary’s face

flushed purple. She recoiled with a terrible look, crying—

‘You are taking a shameless advantage of my distress,

sir! I am to be pitied—not to be sold.’

And she went out.

The notary remained quite stupefied, his eyes fixed on

his fine embroidered slippers. They were a love gift, and

the sight of them at last consoled him. Besides, he

reflected that such an adventure might have carried him

too far.

‘What a wretch! what a scoundrel! what an infamy!’ she

said to herself, as she fled with nervous steps beneath the

aspens of the path. The disappointment of her failure

increased the indignation of her outraged modesty; it

seemed to her that Providence pursued her implacably,

and, strengthening herself in her pride, she had never felt

so much esteem for herself nor so much contempt for

others. A spirit of warfare transformed her. She would

have liked to strike all men, to spit in their faces, to crush

them, and she walked rapidly straight on, pale, quivering,

maddened, searching the empty horizon with tear

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dimmed eyes, and as it were rejoicing in the hate that was

choking her.

When she saw her house a numbness came over her.

She could not go on; and yet she must. Besides, whither

could she flee?

Felicite was waiting for her at the door. ‘Well?’

‘No!’ said Emma.

And for a quarter of an hour the two of them went

over the various persons in Yonville who might perhaps

be inclined to help her. But each time that Felicite named

someone Emma replied—

‘Impossible! they will not!’

‘And the master’ll soon be in.’

‘I know that well enough. Leave me alone.’

She had tried everything; there was nothing more to be

done now; and when Charles came in she would have to

say to him—

‘Go away! This carpet on which you are walking is no

longer ours. In your own house you do not possess a

chair, a pin, a straw, and it is I, poor man, who have

ruined you.’

Then there would be a great sob; next he would weep

abundantly, and at last, the surprise past, he would forgive

her.

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‘Yes,’ she murmured, grinding her teeth, ‘he will

forgive me, he who would give a million if I would

forgive him for having known me! Never! never!’

This thought of Bovary’s superiority to her exasperated

her. Then, whether she confessed or did not confess,

presently, immediately, to-morrow, he would know the

catastrophe all the same; so she must wait for this horrible

scene, and bear the weight of his magnanimity. The desire

to return to Lheureux’s seized her—what would be the

use? To write to her father—it was too late; and perhaps,

she began to repent now that she had not yielded to that

other, when she heard the trot of a horse in the alley. It

was he; he was opening the gate; he was whiter than the

plaster wall. Rushing to the stairs, she ran out quickly to

the square; and the wife of the mayor, who was talking to

Lestiboudois in front of the church, saw her go in to the

tax-collector’s.

She hurried off to tell Madame Caron, and the two

ladies went up to the attic, and, hidden by some linen

spread across props, stationed themselves comfortably for

overlooking the whole of Binet’s room.

He was alone in his garret, busy imitating in wood one

of those indescribable bits of ivory, composed of crescents,

of spheres hollowed out one within the other, the whole

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as straight as an obelisk, and of no use whatever; and he

was beginning on the last piece—he was nearing his goal.

In the twilight of the workshop the white dust was flying

from his tools like a shower of sparks under the hoofs of a

galloping horse; the two wheels were turning, droning;

Binet smiled, his chin lowered, his nostrils distended, and,

in a word, seemed lost in one of those complete

happinesses that, no doubt, belong only to commonplace

occupations, which amuse the mind with facile difficulties,

and satisfy by a realisation of that beyond which such

minds have not a dream.

‘Ah! there she is!’ exclaimed Madame Tuvache.

But it was impossible because of the lathe to hear what

she was saying.

At last these ladies thought they made out the word

‘francs,’ and Madame Tuvache whispered in a low

voice—

‘She is begging him to give her time for paying her

taxes.’

‘Apparently!’ replied the other.

They saw her walking up and down, examining the

napkin-rings, the candlesticks, the banister rails against the

walls, while Binet stroked his beard with satisfaction.

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‘Do you think she wants to order something of him?’

said Madame Tuvache.

‘Why, he doesn’t sell anything,’ objected her

neighbour.

The tax-collector seemed to be listening with wide-

open eyes, as if he did not understand. She went on in a

tender, suppliant manner. She came nearer to him, her

breast heaving; they no longer spoke.

‘Is she making him advances?’ said Madame Tuvache.

Binet was scarlet to his very ears. She took hold of his

hands.

‘Oh, it’s too much!’

And no doubt she was suggesting something

abominable to him; for the tax-collector—yet he was

brave, had fought at Bautzen and at Lutzen, had been

through the French campaign, and had even been

recommended for the cross—suddenly, as at the sight of a

serpent, recoiled as far as he could from her, crying—

‘Madame! what do you mean?’

‘Women like that ought to be whipped,’ said Madame

Tuvache.

‘But where is she?’ continued Madame Caron, for she

had disappeared whilst they spoke; then catching sight of

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her going up the Grande Rue, and turning to the right as

if making for the cemetery, they were lost in conjectures.

‘Nurse Rollet,’ she said on reaching the nurse’s, ‘I am

choking; unlace me!’ She fell on the bed sobbing. Nurse

Rollet covered her with a petticoat and remained standing

by her side. Then, as she did not answer, the good woman

withdrew, took her wheel and began spinning flax.

‘Oh, leave off!’ she murmured, fancying she heard

Binet’s lathe.

‘What’s bothering her?’ said the nurse to herself. ‘Why

has she come here?’

She had rushed thither; impelled by a kind of horror

that drove her from her home.

Lying on her back, motionless, and with staring eyes,

she saw things but vaguely, although she tried to with

idiotic persistence. She looked at the scales on the walls,

two brands smoking end to end, and a long spider

crawling over her head in a rent in the beam. At last she

began to collect her thoughts. She remembered—one

day—Leon—Oh! how long ago that was—the sun was

shining on the river, and the clematis were perfuming the

air. Then, carried away as by a rushing torrent, she soon

began to recall the day before.

‘What time is it?’ she asked.

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Mere Rollet went out, raised the fingers of her right

hand to that side of the sky that was brightest, and came

back slowly, saying—

‘Nearly three.’

‘Ahl thanks, thanks!’

For he would come; he would have found some

money. But he would, perhaps, go down yonder, not

guessing she was here, and she told the nurse to run to her

house to fetch him.

‘Be quick!’

‘But, my dear lady, I’m going, I’m going!’

She wondered now that she had not thought of him

from the first. Yesterday he had given his word; he would

not break it. And she already saw herself at Lheureux’s

spreading out her three bank-notes on his bureau. Then

she would have to invent some story to explain matters to

Bovary. What should it be?

The nurse, however, was a long while gone. But, as

there was no clock in the cot, Emma feared she was

perhaps exaggerating the length of time. She began

walking round the garden, step by step; she went into the

path by the hedge, and returned quickly, hoping that the

woman would have come back by another road. At last,

weary of waiting, assailed by fears that she thrust from her,

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no longer conscious whether she had been here a century

or a moment, she sat down in a corner, closed her eyes,

and stopped her ears. The gate grated; she sprang up.

Before she had spoken Mere Rollet said to her—

‘There is no one at your house!’

‘What?’

‘Oh, no one! And the doctor is crying. He is calling for

you; they’re looking for you.’

Emma answered nothing. She gasped as she turned her

eyes about her, while the peasant woman, frightened at

her face, drew back instinctively, thinking her mad.

Suddenly she struck her brow and uttered a cry; for the

thought of Rodolphe, like a flash of lightning in a dark

night, had passed into her soul. He was so good, so

delicate, so generous! And besides, should he hesitate to

do her this service, she would know well enough how to

constrain him to it by re-waking, in a single moment,

their lost love. So she set out towards La Huchette, not

seeing that she was hastening to offer herself to that which

but a while ago had so angered her, not in the least

conscious of her prostitution.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

She asked herself as she walked along, ‘What am I

going to say? How shall I begin?’ And as she went on she

recognised the thickets, the trees, the sea-rushes on the

hill, the chateau yonder. All the sensations of her first

tenderness came back to her, and her poor aching heart