第 47 页

spitting on the ashes; then of Monsieur Binet, who

sometimes experienced sudden attacks of great hunger;

and of Madame Caron, who suffered from tinglings; of

Lheureux, who had vertigo; of Lestiboudois, who had

rheumatism; and of Madame Lefrancois, who had

heartburn. At last the three horses started; and it was the

general opinion that he had not shown himself at all

obliging.

Public attention was distracted by the appearance of

Monsieur Bournisien, who was going across the market

with the holy oil.

Homais, as was due to his principles, compared priests

to ravens attracted by the odour of death. The sight of an

ecclesiastic was personally disagreeable to him, for the

cassock made him think of the shroud, and he detested the

one from some fear of the other.

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Nevertheless, not shrinking from what he called his

mission, he returned to Bovary’s in company with Canivet

whom Monsieur Lariviere, before leaving, had strongly

urged to make this visit; and he would, but for his wife’s

objections, have taken his two sons with him, in order to

accustom them to great occasions; that this might be a

lesson, an example, a solemn picture, that should remain

in their heads later on.

The room when they went in was full of mournful

solemnity. On the work-table, covered over with a white

cloth, there were five or six small balls of cotton in a silver

dish, near a large crucifix between two lighted candles.

Emma, her chin sunken upon her breast, had her eyes

inordinately wide open, and her poor hands wandered

over the sheets with that hideous and soft movement of

the dying, that seems as if they wanted already to cover

themselves with the shroud. Pale as a statue and with eyes

red as fire, Charles, not weeping, stood opposite her at the

foot of the bed, while the priest, bending one knee, was

muttering words in a low voice.

She turned her face slowly, and seemed filled with joy

on seeing suddenly the violet stole, no doubt finding

again, in the midst of a temporary lull in her pain, the lost

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voluptuousness of her first mystical transports, with the

visions of eternal beatitude that were beginning.

The priest rose to take the crucifix; then she stretched

forward her neck as one who is athirst, and glueing her

lips to the body of the Man-God, she pressed upon it with

all her expiring strength the fullest kiss of love that she had

ever given. Then he recited the Misereatur and the

Indulgentiam, dipped his right thumb in the oil, and began

to give extreme unction. First upon the eyes, that had so

coveted all worldly pomp; then upon the nostrils, that had

been greedy of the warm breeze and amorous odours;

then upon the mouth, that had uttered lies, that had curled

with pride and cried out in lewdness; then upon the hands

that had delighted in sensual touches; and finally upon the

soles of the feet, so swift of yore, when she was running to

satisfy her desires, and that would now walk no more.

The cure wiped his fingers, threw the bit of cotton

dipped in oil into the fire, and came and sat down by the

dying woman, to tell her that she must now blend her

sufferings with those of Jesus Christ and abandon herself to

the divine mercy.

Finishing his exhortations, he tried to place in her hand

a blessed candle, symbol of the celestial glory with which

she was soon to be surrounded. Emma, too weak, could

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not close her fingers, and the taper, but for Monsieur

Bournisien would have fallen to the ground.

However, she was not quite so pale, and her face had

an expression of serenity as if the sacrament had cured her.

The priest did not fail to point this out; he even

explained to Bovary that the Lord sometimes prolonged

the life of persons when he thought it meet for their

salvation; and Charles remembered the day when, so near

death, she had received the communion. Perhaps there

was no need to despair, he thought.

In fact, she looked around her slowly, as one

awakening from a dream; then in a distinct voice she asked

for her looking-glass, and remained some time bending

over it, until the big tears fell from her eyes. Then she

turned away her head with a sigh and fell back upon the

pillows.

Her chest soon began panting rapidly; the whole of her

tongue protruded from her mouth; her eyes, as they

rolled, grew paler, like the two globes of a lamp that is

going out, so that one might have thought her already

dead but for the fearful labouring of her ribs, shaken by

violent breathing, as if the soul were struggling to free

itself. Felicite knelt down before the crucifix, and the

druggist himself slightly bent his knees, while Monsieur

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Canivet looked out vaguely at the Place. Bournisien had

again begun to pray, his face bowed against the edge of

the bed, his long black cassock trailing behind him in the

room. Charles was on the other side, on his knees, his

arms outstretched towards Emma. He had taken her hands

and pressed them, shuddering at every beat of her heart, as

at the shaking of a falling ruin. As the death-rattle became

stronger the priest prayed faster; his prayers mingled with

the stifled sobs of Bovary, and sometimes all seemed lost in

the muffled murmur of the Latin syllables that tolled like a

passing bell.

Suddenly on the pavement was heard a loud noise of

clogs and the clattering of a stick; and a voice rose—a

raucous voice—that sang—

‘Maids an the warmth of a summer day Dream of love

and of love always.’

Emma raised herself like a galvanised corpse, her hair

undone, her eyes fixed, staring.

‘Where the sickle blades have been, Nannette,

gathering ears of corn, Passes bending down, my queen,

To the earth where they were born.’

‘The blind man!’ she cried. And Emma began to laugh,

an atrocious, frantic, despairing laugh, thinking she saw

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the hideous face of the poor wretch that stood out against

the eternal night like a menace.

‘The wind is strong this summer day, Her petticoat has

flown away.’

She fell back upon the mattress in a convulsion. They

all drew near. She was dead.

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CHAPTER NINE

There is always after the death of anyone a kind of

stupefaction; so difficult is it to grasp this advent of

nothingness and to resign ourselves to believe in it. But

still, when he saw that she did not move, Charles threw

himself upon her, crying—

‘Farewell! farewell!’

Homais and Canivet dragged him from the room.

‘Restrain yourself!’

‘Yes.’ said he, struggling, ‘I’ll be quiet. I’ll not do

anything. But leave me alone. I want to see her. She is my

wife!’

And he wept.

‘Cry,’ said the chemist; ‘let nature take her course; that

will solace you.’

Weaker than a child, Charles let himself be led

downstairs into the sitting-room, and Monsieur Homais

soon went home. On the Place he was accosted by the

blind man, who, having dragged himself as far as Yonville,

in the hope of getting the antiphlogistic pomade, was

asking every passer-by where the druggist lived.

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‘There now! as if I hadn’t got other fish to fry. Well, so

much the worse; you must come later on.’

And he entered the shop hurriedly.

He had to write two letters, to prepare a soothing

potion for Bovary, to invent some lie that would conceal

the poisoning, and work it up into an article for the

‘Fanal,’ without counting the people who were waiting to

get the news from him; and when the Yonvillers had all

heard his story of the arsenic that she had mistaken for

sugar in making a vanilla cream. Homais once more

returned to Bovary’s.

He found him alone (Monsieur Canivet had left),

sitting in an arm-chair near the window, staring with an

idiotic look at the flags of the floor.

‘Now,’ said the chemist, ‘you ought yourself to fix the

hour for the ceremony.’

‘Why? What ceremony?’ Then, in a stammering,

frightened voice, ‘Oh, no! not that. No! I want to see her

here.’

Homais, to keep himself in countenance, took up a

water-bottle on the whatnot to water the geraniums.

‘Ah! thanks,’ said Charles; ‘you are good.’

But he did not finish, choking beneath the crowd of

memories that this action of the druggist recalled to him.

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Then to distract him, Homais thought fit to talk a little

horticulture: plants wanted humidity. Charles bowed his

head in sign of approbation.

‘Besides, the fine days will soon be here again.’

‘Ah!’ said Bovary.

The druggist, at his wit’s end, began softly to draw

aside the small window-curtain.

‘Hallo! there’s Monsieur Tuvache passing.’

Charles repeated like a machine—-

‘Monsieur Tuvache passing!’

Homais did not dare to speak to him again about the

funeral arrangements; it was the priest who succeeded in

reconciling him to them.

He shut himself up in his consulting-room, took a pen,

and after sobbing for some time, wrote—

‘I wish her to be buried in her wedding-dress, with

white shoes, and a wreath. Her hair is to be spread out

over her shoulders. Three coffins, one of oak, one of

mahogany, one of lead. Let no one say anything to me. I

shall have strength. Over all there is to be placed a large

piece of green velvet. This is my wish; see that it is done.’

The two men were much surprised at Bovary’s

romantic ideas. The chemist at once went to him and

said—

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‘This velvet seems to me a superfetation. Besides, the

expense—‘

‘What’s that to you?’ cried Charles. ‘Leave me! You

did not love her. Go!’

The priest took him by the arm for a turn in the

garden. He discoursed on the vanity of earthly things. God

was very great, was very good: one must submit to his

decrees without a murmur; nay, must even thank him.

Charles burst out into blasphemies: ‘I hate your God!’

‘The spirit of rebellion is still upon you,’ sighed the

ecclesiastic.

Bovary was far away. He was walking with great strides

along by the wall, near the espalier, and he ground his

teeth; he raised to heaven looks of malediction, but not so

much as a leaf stirred.

A fine rain was falling: Charles, whose chest was bare,

at last began to shiver; he went in and sat down in the

kitchen.

At six o’clock a noise like a clatter of old iron was

heard on the Place; it was the ‘Hirondelle’ coming in, and

he remained with his forehead against the windowpane,

watching all the passengers get out, one after the other.

Felicite put down a mattress for him in the drawing-room.

He threw himself upon it and fell asleep.

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Although a philosopher, Monsieur Homais respected

the dead. So bearing no grudge to poor Charles, he came

back again in the evening to sit up with the body;

bringing with him three volumes and a pocket-book for

taking notes.

Monsieur Bournisien was there, and two large candles

were burning at the head of the bed, that had been taken

out of the alcove. The druggist, on whom the silence

weighed, was not long before he began formulating some

regrets about this ‘unfortunate young woman.’ and the

priest replied that there was nothing to do now but pray

for her.

‘Yet,’ Homais went on, ‘one of two things; either she

died in a state of grace (as the Church has it), and then she

has no need of our prayers; or else she departed

impertinent (that is, I believe, the ecclesiastical expression),

and then—‘

Bournisien interrupted him, replying testily that it was

none the less necessary to pray.

‘But,’ objected the chemist, ‘since God knows all our

needs, what can be the good of prayer?’

‘What!’ cried the ecclesiastic, ‘prayer! Why, aren’t you

a Christian?’

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‘Excuse me,’ said Homais; ‘I admire Christianity. To

begin with, it enfranchised the slaves, introduced into the

world a morality—‘

‘That isn’t the question. All the texts-.’

‘Oh! oh! As to texts, look at history; it, is known that

all the texts have been falsified by the Jesuits.’

Charles came in, and advancing towards the bed,

slowly drew the curtains.

Emma’s head was turned towards her right shoulder,

the corner of her mouth, which was open, seemed like a

black hole at the lower part of her face; her two thumbs

were bent into the palms of her hands; a kind of white

dust besprinkled her lashes, and her eyes were beginning

to disappear in that viscous pallor that looks like a thin

web, as if spiders had spun it over. The sheet sunk in from

her breast to her knees, and then rose at the tips of her

toes, and it seemed to Charles that infinite masses, an

enormous load, were weighing upon her.

The church clock struck two. They could hear the

loud murmur of the river flowing in the darkness at the

foot of the terrace. Monsieur Bournisien from time to

time blew his nose noisily, and Homais’ pen was

scratching over the paper.

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‘Come, my good friend,’ he said, ‘withdraw; this

spectacle is tearing you to pieces.’

Charles once gone, the chemist and the cure

recommenced their discussions.

‘Read Voltaire,’ said the one, ‘read D’Holbach, read

the ‘Encyclopaedia’!’

‘Read the ‘Letters of some Portuguese Jews,’’ said the

other; ‘read ‘The Meaning of Christianity,’ by Nicolas,

formerly a magistrate.’

They grew warm, they grew red, they both talked at

once without listening to each other. Bournisien was

scandalized at such audacity; Homais marvelled at such

stupidity; and they were on the point of insulting one