第 48 页

another when Charles suddenly reappeared. A fascination

drew him. He was continually coming upstairs.

He stood opposite her, the better to see her, and he lost

himself in a contemplation so deep that it was no longer

painful.

He recalled stories of catalepsy, the marvels of

magnetism, and he said to himself that by willing it with

all his force he might perhaps succeed in reviving her.

Once he even bent towards he, and cried in a low voice,

‘Emma! Emma!’ His strong breathing made the flames of

the candles tremble against the wall.

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At daybreak Madame Bovary senior arrived. Charles as

he embraced her burst into another flood of tears. She

tried, as the chemist had done, to make some remarks to

him on the expenses of the funeral. He became so angry

that she was silent, and he even commissioned her to go to

town at once and buy what was necessary.

Charles remained alone the whole afternoon; they had

taken Berthe to Madame Homais’; Felicite was in the

room upstairs with Madame Lefrancois.

In the evening he had some visitors. He rose, pressed

their hands, unable to speak. Then they sat down near one

another, and formed a large semicircle in front of the fire.

With lowered faces, and swinging one leg crossed over the

other knee, they uttered deep sighs at intervals; each one

was inordinately bored, and yet none would be the first to

go.

Homais, when he returned at nine o’clock (for the last

two days only Homais seemed to have been on the Place),

was laden with a stock of camphor, of benzine, and

aromatic herbs. He also carried a large jar full of chlorine

water, to keep off all miasmata. Just then the servant,

Madame Lefrancois, and Madame Bovary senior were

busy about Emma, finishing dressing her, and they were

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drawing down the long stiff veil that covered her to her

satin shoes.

Felicite was sobbing—‘Ah! my poor mistress! my poor

mistress!’

‘Look at her,’ said the landlady, sighing; ‘how pretty

she still is! Now, couldn’t you swear she was going to get

up in a minute?’

Then they bent over her to put on her wreath. They

had to raise the head a little, and a rush of black liquid

issued, as if she were vomiting, from her mouth.

‘Oh, goodness! The dress; take care!’ cried Madame

Lefrancois. ‘Now, just come and help,’ she said to the

chemist. ‘Perhaps you’re afraid?’

‘I afraid?’ replied he, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I dare

say! I’ve seen all sorts of things at the hospital when I was

studying pharmacy. We used to make punch in the

dissecting room! Nothingness does not terrify a

philosopher; and, as I often say, I even intend to leave my

body to the hospitals, in order, later on, to serve science.’

The cure on his arrival inquired how Monsieur Bovary

was, and, on the reply of the druggist, went on—‘The

blow, you see, is still too recent.’

Then Homais congratulated him on not being exposed,

like other people, to the loss of a beloved companion;

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whence there followed a discussion on the celibacy of

priests.

‘For,’ said the chemist, ‘it is unnatural that a man

should do without women! There have been crimes—‘

‘But, good heaven!’ cried the ecclesiastic, ‘how do you

expect an individual who is married to keep the secrets of

the confessional, for example?’

Homais fell foul of the confessional. Bournisien

defended it; he enlarged on the acts of restitution that it

brought about. He cited various anecdotes about thieves

who had suddenly become honest. Military men on

approaching the tribunal of penitence had felt the scales

fall from their eyes. At Fribourg there was a minister—

His companion was asleep. Then he felt somewhat

stifled by the over-heavy atmosphere of the room; he

opened the window; this awoke the chemist.

‘Come, take a pinch of snuff,’ he said to him. ‘Take it;

it’ll relieve you.’

A continual barking was heard in the distance. ‘Do you

hear that dog howling?’ said the chemist.

‘They smell the dead,’ replied the priest. ‘It’s like bees;

they leave their hives on the decease of any person.’

Homais made no remark upon these prejudices, for he

had again dropped asleep. Monsieur Bournisien, stronger

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than he, went on moving his lips gently for some time,

then insensibly his chin sank down, he let fall his big black

boot, and began to snore.

They sat opposite one another, with protruding

stomachs, puffed-up faces, and frowning looks, after so

much disagreement uniting at last in the same human

weakness, and they moved no more than the corpse by

their side, that seemed to be sleeping.

Charles coming in did not wake them. It was the last

time; he came to bid her farewell.

The aromatic herbs were still smoking, and spirals of

bluish vapour blended at the window-sash with the fog

that was coming in. There were few stars, and the night

was warm. The wax of the candles fell in great drops upon

the sheets of the bed. Charles watched them burn, tiring

his eyes against the glare of their yellow flame.

The watering on the satin gown shimmered white as

moonlight. Emma was lost beneath it; and it seemed to

him that, spreading beyond her own self, she blended

confusedly with everything around her— the silence, the

night, the passing wind, the damp odours rising from the

ground.

Then suddenly he saw her in the garden at Tostes, on a

bench against the thorn hedge, or else at Rouen in the

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streets, on the threshold of their house, in the yard at

Bertaux. He again heard the laughter of the happy boys

beneath the apple-trees: the room was filled with the

perfume of her hair; and her dress rustled in his arms with

a noise like electricity. The dress was still the same.

For a long while he thus recalled all his lost joys, her

attitudes, her movements, the sound of her voice. Upon

one fit of despair followed another, and even others,

inexhaustible as the waves of an overflowing sea.

A terrible curiosity seized him. Slowly, with the tips of

his fingers, palpitating, he lifted her veil. But he uttered a

cry of horror that awoke the other two.

They dragged him down into the sitting-room. Then

Felicite came up to say that he wanted some of her hair.

‘Cut some off,’ replied the druggist.

And as she did not dare to, he himself stepped forward,

scissors in hand. He trembled so that he pierced the skin of

the temple in several places. At last, stiffening himself

against emotion, Homais gave two or three great cuts at

random that left white patches amongst that beautiful

black hair.

The chemist and the cure plunged anew into their

occupations, not without sleeping from time to time, of

which they accused each other reciprocally at each fresh

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awakening. Then Monsieur Bournisien sprinkled the

room with holy water and Homais threw a little chlorine

water on the floor.

Felicite had taken care to put on the chest of drawers,

for each of them, a bottle of brandy, some cheese, and a

large roll. And the druggist, who could not hold out any

longer, about four in the morning sighed—

‘My word! I should like to take some sustenance.’

The priest did not need any persuading; he went out to

go and say mass, came back, and then they ate and

hobnobbed, giggling a little without knowing why,

stimulated by that vague gaiety that comes upon us after

times of sadness, and at the last glass the priest said to the

druggist, as he clapped him on the shoulder—

‘We shall end by understanding one another.’

In the passage downstairs they met the undertaker’s

men, who were coming in. Then Charles for two hours

had to suffer the torture of hearing the hammer resound

against the wood. Next day they lowered her into her oak

coffin, that was fitted into the other two; but as the bier

was too large, they had to fill up the gaps with the wool of

a mattress. At last, when the three lids had been planed

down, nailed, soldered, it was placed outside in front of

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the door; the house was thrown open, and the people of

Yonville began to flock round.

Old Rouault arrived, and fainted on the Place when he

saw the black cloth!

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CHAPTER TEN

He had only received the chemist’s letter thirty-six

hours after the event; and, from consideration for his

feelings, Homais had so worded it that it was impossible to

make out what it was all about.

First, the old fellow had fallen as if struck by apoplexy.

Next, he understood that she was not dead, but she might

be. At last, he had put on his blouse, taken his hat,

fastened his spurs to his boots, and set out at full speed;

and the whole of the way old Rouault, panting, was torn

by anguish. Once even he was obliged to dismount. He

was dizzy; he heard voices round about him; he felt

himself going mad.

He entered Maromme shouting for the people of the

inn, burst open the door with a thrust of his shoulder,

made for a sack of oats, emptied a bottle of sweet cider

Day broke. He saw three black hens asleep in a tree.

He shuddered, horrified at this omen. Then he promised

the Holy Virgin three chasubles for the church, and that

he would go barefooted from the cemetery at Bertaux to

the chapel of Vassonville.

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into the manger, and again mounted his nag, whose feet

struck fire as it dashed along.

He said to himself that no doubt they would save her;

the doctors would discover some remedy surely. He

remembered all the miraculous cures he had been told

about. Then she appeared to him dead. She was there;

before his eyes, lying on her back in the middle of the

road. He reined up, and the hallucination disappeared.

At Quincampoix, to give himself heart, he drank three

cups of coffee one after the other. He fancied they had

made a mistake in the name in writing. He looked for the

letter in his pocket, felt it there, but did not dare to open

it.

At last he began to think it was all a joke; someone’s

spite, the jest of some wag; and besides, if she were dead,

one would have known it. But no! There was nothing

extraordinary about the country; the sky was blue, the

trees swayed; a flock of sheep passed. He saw the village;

he was seen coming bending forward upon his horse,

belabouring it with great blows, the girths dripping with

blood.

When he had recovered consciousness, he fell,

weeping, into Bovary’s arms: ‘My girl! Emma! my child!

tell me—‘

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The other replied, sobbing, ‘I don’t know! I don’t

know! It’s a curse!’

The druggist separated them. ‘These horrible details are

useless. I will tell this gentleman all about it. Here are the

people coming. Dignity! Come now! Philosophy!’

The poor fellow tried to show himself brave, and

repeated several times. ‘Yes! courage!’

‘Oh,’ cried the old man, ‘so I will have, by God! I’ll go

along o’ her to the end!’

The bell began tolling. All was ready; they had to start.

And seated in a stall of the choir, side by side, they saw

pass and repass in front of them continually the three

chanting choristers.

The serpent-player was blowing with all his might.

Monsieur Bournisien, in full vestments, was singing in a

shrill voice. He bowed before the tabernacle, raising his

hands, stretched out his arms. Lestiboudois went about the

church with his whalebone stick. The bier stood near the

lectern, between four rows of candles. Charles felt inclined

Yet he tried to stir himself to a feeling of devotion, to

throw himself into the hope of a future life in which he

should see her again. He imagined to himself she had gone

on a long journey, far away, for along time. But when he

to get up and put them out.

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thought of her lying there, and that all was over, that they

would lay her in the earth, he was seized with a fierce,

gloomy, despairful rage. At times he thought he felt

nothing more, and he enjoyed this lull in his pain, whilst

at the same time he reproached himself for being a wretch.

The sharp noise of an iron-ferruled stick was heard on

the stones, striking them at irregular intervals. It came

from the end of the church, and stopped short at the lower

aisles. A man in a coarse brown jacket knelt down

painfully. It was Hippolyte, the stable-boy at the ‘Lion

d’Or.’ He had put on his new leg.

One of the choristers went round the nave making a

collection, and the coppers chinked one after the other on

the silver plate.

‘Oh, make haste! I am in pain!’ cried Bovary, angrily

throwing him a five-franc piece. The churchman thanked

him with a deep bow.

They sang, they knelt, they stood up; it was endless! He

remembered that once, in the early times, they had been

to mass together, and they had sat down on the other side,

on the right, by the wall. The bell began again. There was

a great moving of chairs; the bearers slipped their three

staves under the coffin, and everyone left the church.

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Then Justin appeared at the door of the shop. He

suddenly went in again, pale, staggering.

People were at the windows to see the procession pass.

Charles at the head walked erect. He affected a brave air,

and saluted with a nod those who, coming out from the

lanes or from their doors, stood amidst the crowd.

The six men, three on either side, walked slowly,

panting a little. The priests, the choristers, and the two

choirboys recited the De profundis*, and their voices

echoed over the fields, rising and falling with their