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《Madame Bovary包法利夫人(英文版)》

作者：[法]Gustave Flaubert 居斯塔夫·福楼拜【完结】

《包法利夫人》的作者福楼拜(Gustave Flaubert)，是法国现实主义文学大师，法国１９世纪小说史上三位巨人之一，福楼拜出生于一个医生世家，曾在巴黎攻读法律，因病辍学。福楼拜的出身对他的写作有巨大的影响：看惯了手术刀的他不相信宗教，崇拜真实——这在他的小说中都有充分的反映。他依靠丰裕的遗产过活，专心于文学创作，他终生过着独身生活。

《包法利夫人》一书不仅在出版之初就受到热烈的讨论，在经过一百多年之后，它的魅力依然不减，至今仍风行世界各国，并被列为最具代表性、最经典的写实小说。

Madame Bovary

To Marie-Antoine-Jules Senard

Member of the Paris Bar, Ex-President of the National

Assembly, and Former Minister of the Interior

Dear and Illustrious Friend,

Permit me to inscribe your name at the head of this book,

and above its dedication; for it is to you, before all, that I

owe its publication. Reading over your magnificent

defence, my work has acquired for myself, as it were, an

unexpected authority.

Accept, then, here, the homage of my gratitude, which,

how great soever it is, will never attain the height of your

eloquence and your devotion.

Gustave Flaubert

Paris, 12 April 1857

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Part I

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CHAPTER ONE

We were in class when the head-master came in,

followed by a ‘new fellow,’ not wearing the school

uniform, and a school servant carrying a large desk. Those

who had been asleep woke up, and every one rose as if

just surprised at his work.

The head-master made a sign to us to sit down. Then,

turning to the class-master, he said to him in a low

voice—

‘Monsieur Roger, here is a pupil whom I recommend

to your care; he’ll be in the second. If his work and

conduct are satisfactory, he will go into one of the upper

classes, as becomes his age.’

The ‘new fellow,’ standing in the corner behind the

door so that he could hardly be seen, was a country lad of

about fifteen, and taller than any of us. His hair was cut

square on his forehead like a village chorister’s; he looked

reliable, but very ill at ease. Although he was not broad-

shouldered, his short school jacket of green cloth with

black buttons must have been tight about the arm-holes,

and showed at the opening of the cuffs red wrists

accustomed to being bare. His legs, in blue stockings,

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looked out from beneath yellow trousers, drawn tight by

braces, He wore stout, ill-cleaned, hob-nailed boots.

We began repeating the lesson. He listened with all his

ears, as attentive as if at a sermon, not daring even to cross

his legs or lean on his elbow; and when at two o’clock the

bell rang, the master was obliged to tell him to fall into

line with the rest of us.

When we came back to work, we were in the habit of

throwing our caps on the ground so as to have our hands

more free; we used from the door to toss them under the

form, so that they hit against the wall and made a lot of

dust: it was ‘the thing.’

But, whether he had not noticed the trick, or did not

dare to attempt it, the ‘new fellow,’ was still holding his

cap on his knees even after prayers were over. It was one

of those head-gears of composite order, in which we can

find traces of the bearskin, shako, billycock hat, sealskin

cap, and cotton night-cap; one of those poor things, in

fine, whose dumb ugliness has depths of expression, like

an imbecile’s face. Oval, stiffened with whalebone, it

began with three round knobs; then came in succession

lozenges of velvet and rabbit-skin separated by a red band;

after that a sort of bag that ended in a cardboard polygon

covered with complicated braiding, from which hung, at

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the end of a long thin cord, small twisted gold threads in

the manner of a tassel. The cap was new; its peak shone.

‘Rise,’ said the master.

He stood up; his cap fell. The whole class began to

laugh. He stooped to pick it up. A neighbor knocked it

down again with his elbow; he picked it up once more.

‘Get rid of your helmet,’ said the master, who was a bit

of a wag.

There was a burst of laughter from the boys, which so

thoroughly put the poor lad out of countenance that he

did not know whether to keep his cap in his hand, leave it

on the ground, or put it on his head. He sat down again

and placed it on his knee.

‘Rise,’ repeated the master, ‘and tell me your

name.’

The new boy articulated in a stammering voice an

unintelligible name.

‘Again!’

The same sputtering of syllables was heard, drowned by

the tittering of the class.

‘Louder!’ cried the master; ‘louder!’

The ‘new fellow’ then took a supreme resolution,

opened an inordinately large mouth, and shouted at the

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top of his voice as if calling someone in the word

‘Charbovari.’

A hubbub broke out, rose in crescendo with bursts of

shrill voices (they yelled, barked, stamped, repeated

‘Charbovari! Charbovari’), then died away into single

notes, growing quieter only with great difficulty, and now

and again suddenly recommencing along the line of a form

whence rose here and there, like a damp cracker going off,

a stifled laugh.

However, amid a rain of impositions, order was

gradually re-established in the class; and the master having

succeeded in catching the name of ‘Charles Bovary,’

having had it dictated to him, spelt out, and re-read, at

once ordered the poor devil to go and sit down on the

punishment form at the foot of the master’s desk. He got

up, but before going hesitated.

‘What are you looking for?’ asked the master.

‘My c-a-p,’ timidly said the ‘new fellow,’ casting

troubled looks round him.

‘Five hundred lines for all the class!’ shouted in a

furious voice stopped, like the Quos ego*, a fresh

outburst. ‘Silence!’ continued the master indignantly,

wiping his brow with his handkerchief, which he had just

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taken from his cap. ‘As to you, ‘new boy,’ you will

conjugate ‘ridiculus sum’** twenty times.’

Then, in a gentler tone, ‘Come, you’ll find your cap

again; it hasn’t been stolen.’

*A quotation from the Aeneid signifying a threat.

**I am ridiculous.

Quiet was restored. Heads bent over desks, and the

‘new fellow’ remained for two hours in an exemplary

attitude, although from time to time some paper pellet

flipped from the tip of a pen came bang in his face. But he

wiped his face with one hand and continued motionless,

his eyes lowered.

In the evening, at preparation, he pulled out his pens

from his desk, arranged his small belongings, and carefully

ruled his paper. We saw him working conscientiously,

looking up every word in the dictionary, and taking the

greatest pains. Thanks, no doubt, to the willingness he

showed, he had not to go down to the class below. But

though he knew his rules passably, he had little finish in

composition. It was the cure of his village who had taught

him his first Latin; his parents, from motives of economy,

having sent him to school as late as possible.

His father, Monsieur Charles Denis Bartolome Bovary,

retired assistant-surgeon-major, compromised about 1812

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in certain conscription scandals, and forced at this time to

leave the service, had taken advantage of his fine figure to

get hold of a dowry of sixty thousand francs that offered in

the person of a hosier’s daughter who had fallen in love

with his good looks. A fine man, a great talker, making his

spurs ring as he walked, wearing whiskers that ran into his

moustache, his fingers always garnished with rings and

dressed in loud colours, he had the dash of a military man

with the easy go of a commercial traveller.

Once married, he lived for three or four years on his

wife’s fortune, dining well, rising late, smoking long

porcelain pipes, not coming in at night till after the

theatre, and haunting cafes. The father-in-law died,

leaving little; he was indignant at this, ‘went in for the

business,’ lost some money in it, then retired to the

country, where he thought he would make money.

But, as he knew no more about farming than calico, as

he rode his horses instead of sending them to plough,

drank his cider in bottle instead of selling it in cask, ate the

finest poultry in his farmyard, and greased his hunting-

boots with the fat of his pigs, he was not long in finding

out that he would do better to give up all speculation.

For two hundred francs a year he managed to live on

the border of the provinces of Caux and Picardy, in a kind

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of place half farm, half private house; and here, soured,

eaten up with regrets, cursing his luck, jealous of

everyone, he shut himself up at the age of forty-five, sick

of men, he said, and determined to live at peace.

His wife had adored him once on a time; she had bored

him with a thousand servilities that had only estranged him

the more. Lively once, expansive and affectionate, in

growing older she had become (after the fashion of wine

that, exposed to air, turns to vinegar) ill-tempered,

grumbling, irritable. She had suffered so much without

complaint at first, until she had seem him going after all

the village drabs, and until a score of bad houses sent him

back to her at night, weary, stinking drunk. Then her

pride revolted. After that she was silent, burying her anger

in a dumb stoicism that she maintained till her death. She

was constantly going about looking after business matters.

She called on the lawyers, the president, remembered

when bills fell due, got them renewed, and at home

ironed, sewed, washed, looked after the workmen, paid

the accounts, while he, troubling himself about nothing,

eternally besotted in sleepy sulkiness, whence he only

roused himself to say disagreeable things to her, sat

smoking by the fire and spitting into the cinders.

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When she had a child, it had to be sent out to nurse.

When he came home, the lad was spoilt as if he were a

prince. His mother stuffed him with jam; his father let him

run about barefoot, and, playing the philosopher, even said

he might as well go about quite naked like the young of

animals. As opposed to the maternal ideas, he had a certain

virile idea of childhood on which he sought to mould his

son, wishing him to be brought up hardily, like a Spartan,

to give him a strong constitution. He sent him to bed

without any fire, taught him to drink off large draughts of

rum and to jeer at religious processions. But, peaceable by

nature, the lad answered only poorly to his notions. His

mother always kept him near her; she cut out cardboard

for him, told him tales, entertained him with endless

monologues full of melancholy gaiety and charming

nonsense. In her life’s isolation she centered on the child’s

head all her shattered, broken little vanities. She dreamed

of high station; she already saw him, tall, handsome,

clever, settled as an engineer or in the law. She taught him

to read, and even, on an old piano, she had taught him

two or three little songs. But to all this Monsieur Bovary,

caring little for letters, said, ‘It was not worth while.

Would they ever have the means to send him to a public

school, to buy him a practice, or start him in business?

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Besides, with cheek a man always gets on in the world.’

Madame Bovary bit her lips, and the child knocked about

the village.

He went after the labourers, drove away with clods of

earth the ravens that were flying about. He ate blackberries

along the hedges, minded the geese with a long switch,

went haymaking during harvest, ran about in the woods,

played hop-scotch under the church porch on rainy days,

and at great fetes begged the beadle to let him toll the

bells, that he might hang all his weight on the long rope

and feel himself borne upward by it in its swing.

Meanwhile he grew like an oak; he was strong on hand,

fresh of colour.

When he was twelve years old his mother had her own

way; he began lessons. The cure took him in hand; but the

lessons were so short and irregular that they could not be

of much use. They were given at spare moments in the

sacristy, standing up, hurriedly, between a baptism and a

burial; or else the cure, if he had not to go out, sent for his

pupil after the Angelus*. They went up to his room and

settled down; the flies and moths fluttered round the

candle. It was close, the child fell asleep, and the good

man, beginning to doze with his hands on his stomach,

was soon snoring with his mouth wide open. On other

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occasions, when Monsieur le Cure, on his way back after

administering the viaticum to some sick person in the

neighbourhood, caught sight of Charles playing about the

fields, he called him, lectured him for a quarter of an hour

and took advantage of the occasion to make him

conjugate his verb at the foot of a tree. The rain

interrupted them or an acquaintance passed. All the same

he was always pleased with him, and even said the ‘young

man’ had a very good memory.

*A devotion said at morning, noon, and evening, at the

sound of a bell. Here, the evening prayer.

Charles could not go on like this. Madame Bovary

took strong steps. Ashamed, or rather tired out, Monsieur

Bovary gave in without a struggle, and they waited one

year longer, so that the lad should take his first

communion.

Six months more passed, and the year after Charles was

finally sent to school at Rouen, where his father took him

towards the end of October, at the time of the St. Romain

fair.

It would now be impossible for any of us to remember

anything about him. He was a youth of even

temperament, who played in playtime, worked in school-

hours, was attentive in class, slept well in the dormitory,

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