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‘Fifty-eight.’

‘Ah!’

And that was all.

A quarter of an hour after he added, ‘My poor mother!

what will become of her now?’

She made a gesture that signified she did not know.

Seeing her so taciturn, Charles imagined her much

affected, and forced himself to say nothing, not to

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reawaken this sorrow which moved him. And, shaking off

his own—

‘Did you enjoy yourself yesterday?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

When the cloth was removed, Bovary did not rise, nor

did Emma; and as she looked at him, the monotony of the

spectacle drove little by little all pity from her heart. He

seemed to her paltry, weak, a cipher—in a word, a poor

thing in every way. How to get rid of him? What an

interminable evening! Something stupefying like the

fumes of opium seized her.

They heard in the passage the sharp noise of a wooden

leg on the boards. It was Hippolyte bringing back Emma’s

luggage. In order to put it down he described painfully a

quarter of a circle with his stump.

‘He doesn’t even remember any more about it,’ she

thought, looking at the poor devil, whose coarse red hair

was wet with perspiration.

Bovary was searching at the bottom of his purse for a

centime, and without appearing to understand all there

was of humiliation for him in the mere presence of this

man, who stood there like a personified reproach to his

incurable incapacity.

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‘Hallo! you’ve a pretty bouquet,’ he said, noticing

Leon’s violets on the chimney.

‘Yes,’ she replied indifferently; ‘it’s a bouquet I bought

just now from a beggar.’

Charles picked up the flowers, and freshening his eyes,

red with tears, against them, smelt them delicately.

She took them quickly from his hand and put them in a

glass of water.

The next day Madame Bovary senior arrived. She and

her son wept much. Emma, on the pretext of giving

orders, disappeared. The following day they had a talk

over the mourning. They went and sat down with their

workboxes by the waterside under the arbour.

Charles was thinking of his father, and was surprised to

feel so much affection for this man, whom till then he had

thought he cared little about. Madame Bovary senior was

thinking of her husband. The worst days of the past

seemed enviable to her. All was forgotten beneath the

instinctive regret of such a long habit, and from time to

time whilst she sewed, a big tear rolled along her nose and

hung suspended there a moment. Emma was thinking that

it was scarcely forty-eight hours since they had been

together, far from the world, all in a frenzy of joy, and not

having eyes enough to gaze upon each other. She tried to

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recall the slightest details of that past day. But the presence

of her husband and mother-in-law worried her. She

would have liked to hear nothing, to see nothing, so as

not to disturb the meditation on her love, that, do what

she would, became lost in external sensations.

She was unpicking the lining of a dress, and the strips

were scattered around her. Madame Bovary senior was

plying her scissor without looking up, and Charles, in his

list slippers and his old brown surtout that he used as a

dressing-gown, sat with both hands in his pockets, and did

not speak either; near them Berthe, in a little white

pinafore, was raking sand in the walks with her spade.

Suddenly she saw Monsieur Lheureux, the linendraper,

come in through the gate.

He came to offer his services ‘under the sad

circumstances.’ Emma answered that she thought she

could do without. The shopkeeper was not to be beaten.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, ‘but I should like to have a

private talk with you.’ Then in a low voice, ‘It’s about

that affair—you know.’

Charles crimsoned to his ears. ‘Oh, yes! certainly.’ And

in his confusion, turning to his wife, ‘Couldn’t you, my

darling?’

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She seemed to understand him, for she rose; and

Charles said to his mother, ‘It is nothing particular. No

doubt, some household trifle.’ He did not want her to

know the story of the bill, fearing her reproaches.

As soon as they were alone, Monsieur Lheureux in

sufficiently clear terms began to congratulate Emma on the

inheritance, then to talk of indifferent matters, of the

espaliers, of the harvest, and of his own health, which was

always so-so, always having ups and downs. In fact, he had

to work devilish hard, although he didn’t make enough, in

spite of all people said, to find butter for his bread.

Emma let him talk on. She had bored herself so

prodigiously the last two days.

‘And so you’re quite well again?’ he went on. ‘Ma foi! I

saw your husband in a sad state. He’s a good fellow,

though we did have a little misunderstanding.’

She asked what misunderstanding, for Charles had said

nothing of the dispute about the goods supplied to her.

‘Why, you know well enough,’ cried Lheureux. ‘It was

about your little fancies—the travelling trunks.’

He had drawn his hat over his eyes, and, with his hands

behind his back, smiling and whistling, he looked straight

at her in an unbearable manner. Did he suspect anything?

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She was lost in all kinds of apprehensions. At last,

however, he went on—

‘We made it up, all the same, and I’ve come again to

propose another arrangement.’

This was to renew the bill Bovary had signed. The

doctor, of course, would do as he pleased; he was not to

trouble himself, especially just now, when he would have

a lot of worry. ‘And he would do better to give it over to

someone else—to you, for example. With a power of

attorney it could be easily managed, and then we (you and

I) would have our little business transactions together.’

She did not understand. He was silent. Then, passing to

his trade, Lheureux declared that madame must require

something. He would send her a black barege, twelve

yards, just enough to make a gown.

‘The one you’ve on is good enough for the house, but

you want another for calls. I saw that the very moment

that I came in. I’ve the eye of an American!’

He did not send the stuff; he brought it. Then he came

again to measure it; he came again on other pretexts,

always trying to make himself agreeable, useful, ‘enfeoffing

himself,’ as Homais would have said, and always dropping

some hint to Emma about the power of attorney. He

never mentioned the bill; she did not think of it. Charles,

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Madame Bovary

at the beginning of her convalescence, had certainly said

something about it to her, but so many emotions had

passed through her head that she no longer remembered

it. Besides, she took care not to talk of any money

questions. Madame Bovary seemed surprised at this, and

attributed the change in her ways to the religious

sentiments she had contracted during her illness.

But as soon as she was gone, Emma greatly astounded

Bovary by her practical good sense. It would be necessary

to make inquiries, to look into mortgages, and see if there

were any occasion for a sale by auction or a liquidation.

She quoted technical terms casually, pronounced the grand

words of order, the future, foresight, and constantly

exaggerated the difficulties of settling his father’s affairs so

much, that at last one day she showed him the rough draft

of a power of attorney to manage and administer his

business, arrange all loans, sign and endorse all bills, pay all

sums, etc. She had profited by Lheureux’s lessons. Charles

naively asked her where this paper came from.

‘Monsieur Guillaumin"; and with the utmost coolness

she added, ‘I don’t trust him overmuch. Notaries have

such a bad reputation. Perhaps we ought to consult—we

only know—no one.’

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‘Unless Leon—’ replied Charles, who was reflecting.

But it was difficult to explain matters by letter. Then she

offered to make the journey, but he thanked her. She

insisted. It was quite a contest of mutual consideration. At

last she cried with affected waywardness—

‘No, I will go!’

‘How good you are!’ he said, kissing her forehead.

The next morning she set out in the ‘Hirondelle’ to go

to Rouen to consult Monsieur Leon, and she stayed there

three days.

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CHAPTER THREE

They were three full, exquisite days—a true

honeymoon. They were at the Hotel-de-Boulogne, on

the harbour; and they lived there, with drawn blinds and

closed doors, with flowers on the floor, and iced syrups

were brought them early in the morning.

Towards evening they took a covered boat and went to

dine on one of the islands. It was the time when one hears

by the side of the dockyard the caulking-mallets sounding

against the hull of vessels. The smoke of the tar rose up

between the trees; there were large fatty drops on the

water, undulating in the purple colour of the sun, like

floating plaques of Florentine bronze.

They rowed down in the midst of moored boats,

whose long oblique cables grazed lightly against the

bottom of the boat. The din of the town gradually grew

distant; the rolling of carriages, the tumult of voices, the

yelping of dogs on the decks of vessels. She took off her

bonnet, and they landed on their island.

They sat down in the low-ceilinged room of a tavern,

at whose door hung black nets. They ate fried smelts,

cream and cherries. They lay down upon the grass; they

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kissed behind the poplars; and they would fain, like two

Robinsons, have lived for ever in this little place, which

seemed to them in their beatitude the most magnificent on

earth. It was not the first time that they had seen trees, a

blue sky, meadows; that they had heard the water flowing

and the wind blowing in the leaves; but, no doubt, they

had never admired all this, as if Nature had not existed

before, or had only begun to be beautiful since the

gratification of their desires.

At night they returned. The boat glided along the

shores of the islands. They sat at the bottom, both hidden

by the shade, in silence. The square oars rang in the iron

thwarts, and, in the stillness, seemed to mark time, like the

beating of a metronome, while at the stern the rudder that

trailed behind never ceased its gentle splash against the

water.

Once the moon rose; they did not fail to make fine

phrases, finding the orb melancholy and full of poetry. She

even began to sing—

‘One night, do you remember, we were sailing,’ etc.

Her musical but weak voice died away along the

waves, and the winds carried off the trills that Leon heard

pass like the flapping of wings about him.

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She was opposite him, leaning against the partition of

the shallop, through one of whose raised blinds the moon

streamed in. Her black dress, whose drapery spread out

like a fan, made her seem more slender, taller. Her head

was raised, her hands clasped, her eyes turned towards

heaven. At times the shadow of the willows hid her

completely; then she reappeared suddenly, like a vision in

the moonlight.

Leon, on the floor by her side, found under his hand a

ribbon of scarlet silk. The boatman looked at it, and at last

said—

‘Perhaps it belongs to the party I took out the other

day. A lot of jolly folk, gentlemen and ladies, with cakes,

champagne, cornets—everything in style! There was one

especially, a tall handsome man with small moustaches,

who was that funny! And they all kept saying, ‘Now tell

us something, Adolphe—Dolpe,’ I think.’

She shivered.

‘You are in pain?’ asked Leon, coming closer to her.

‘Oh, it’s nothing! No doubt, it is only the night air.’

‘And who doesn’t want for women, either,’ softly

added the sailor, thinking he was paying the stranger a

compliment.

Then, spitting on his hands, he took the oars again.

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Yet they had to part. The adieux were sad. He was to

send his letters to Mere Rollet, and she gave him such

precise instructions about a double envelope that he

admired greatly her amorous astuteness.

‘So you can assure me it is all right?’ she said with her

last kiss.

‘Yes, certainly.’

‘But why,’ he thought afterwards as he came back

through the streets alone, ‘is she so very anxious to get this

power of attorney?’

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CHAPTER FOUR

Leon soon put on an air of superiority before his

comrades, avoided their company, and completely

neglected his work.

He waited for her letters; he re-read them; he wrote to

her. He called her to mind with all the strength of his

desires and of his memories. Instead of lessening with

absence, this longing to see her again grew, so that at last

on Saturday morning he escaped from his office.

When, from the summit of the hill, he saw in the valley

below the church-spire with its tin flag swinging in the

wind, he felt that delight mingled with triumphant vanity

and egoistic tenderness that millionaires must experience

when they come back to their native village.

He went rambling round her house. A light was

burning in the kitchen. He watched for her shadow

behind the curtains, but nothing appeared.

Mere Lefrancois, when she saw him, uttered many

exclamations. She thought he ‘had grown and was

thinner,’ while Artemise, on the contrary, thought him

stouter and darker.

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He dined in the little room as of yore, but alone,

without the tax-gatherer; for Binet, tired of waiting for

the ‘Hirondelle,’ had definitely put forward his meal one

hour, and now he dined punctually at five, and yet he