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undulations. Sometimes they disappeared in the windings

of the path; but the great silver cross rose always before the

trees.

*Psalm CXXX.

The women followed in black cloaks with turned-

down hoods; each of them carried in her hands a large

lighted candle, and Charles felt himself growing weaker at

this continual repetition of prayers and torches, beneath

this oppressive odour of wax and of cassocks. A fresh

breeze was blowing; the rye and colza were sprouting,

little dewdrops trembled at the roadsides and on the

hawthorn hedges. All sorts of joyous sounds filled the air;

the jolting of a cart rolling afar off in the ruts, the crowing

of a cock, repeated again and again, or the gambling of a

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foal running away under the apple-trees: The pure sky was

fretted with rosy clouds; a bluish haze rested upon the cots

covered with iris. Charles as he passed recognised each

courtyard. He remembered mornings like this, when, after

visiting some patient, he came out from one and returned

to her.

The black cloth bestrewn with white beads blew up

from time to time, laying bare the coffin. The tired bearers

walked more slowly, and it advanced with constant jerks,

like a boat that pitches with every wave.

They reached the cemetery. The men went right down

to a place in the grass where a grave was dug. They ranged

themselves all round; and while the priest spoke, the red

soil thrown up at the sides kept noiselessly slipping down

at the corners.

Then when the four ropes were arranged the coffin was

placed upon them. He watched it descend; it seemed

descending for ever. At last a thud was heard; the ropes

creaked as they were drawn up. Then Bournisien took the

spade handed to him by Lestiboudois; with his left hand all

the time sprinkling water, with the right he vigorously

threw in a large spadeful; and the wood of the coffin,

struck by the pebbles, gave forth that dread sound that

seems to us the reverberation of eternity.

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The ecclesiastic passed the holy water sprinkler to his

neighbour. This was Homais. He swung it gravely, then

handed it to Charles, who sank to his knees in the earth

and threw in handfuls of it, crying, ‘Adieu!’ He sent her

kisses; he dragged himself towards the grave, to engulf

himself with her. They led him away, and he soon grew

calmer, feeling perhaps, like the others, a vague satisfaction

that it was all over.

Old Rouault on his way back began quietly smoking a

pipe, which Homais in his innermost conscience thought

not quite the thing. He also noticed that Monsieur Binet

had not been present, and that Tuvache had ‘made off’

after mass, and that Theodore, the notary’s servant wore a

blue coat, ‘as if one could not have got a black coat, since

that is the custom, by Jove!’ And to share his observations

with others he went from group to group. They were

deploring Emma’s death, especially Lheureux, who had

not failed to come to the funeral.

‘Poor little woman! What a trouble for her husband!’

The druggist continued, ‘Do you know that but for me

he would have committed some fatal attempt upon

himself?’

‘Such a good woman! To think that I saw her only last

Saturday in my shop.’

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‘I haven’t had leisure,’ said Homais, ‘to prepare a few

words that I would have cast upon her tomb.’

Charles on getting home undressed, and old Rouault

put on his blue blouse. It was a new one, and as he had

often during the journey wiped his eyes on the sleeves, the

dye had stained his face, and the traces of tears made lines

in the layer of dust that covered it.

Madame Bovary senior was with them. All three were

silent. At last the old fellow sighed—

‘Do you remember, my friend, that I went to Tostes

once when you had just lost your first deceased? I

consoled you at that time. I thought of something to say

then, but now—’ Then, with a loud groan that shook his

whole chest, ‘Ah! this is the end for me, do you see! I saw

my wife go, then my son, and now to-day it’s my

daughter.’

He wanted to go back at once to Bertaux, saying that

he could not sleep in this house. He even refused to see

his granddaughter.

‘No, no! It would grieve me too much. Only you’ll

kiss her many times for me. Good-bye! you’re a good

fellow! And then I shall never forget that,’ he said,

slapping his thigh. ‘Never fear, you shall always have your

turkey.’

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But when he reached the top of the hill he turned

back, as he had turned once before on the road of Saint-

Victor when he had parted from her. The windows of the

village were all on fire beneath the slanting rays of the sun

sinking behind the field. He put his hand over his eyes,

and saw in the horizon an enclosure of walls, where trees

here and there formed black clusters between white

stones; then he went on his way at a gentle trot, for his

nag had gone lame.

Despite their fatigue, Charles and his mother stayed

very long that evening talking together. They spoke of the

days of the past and of the future. She would come to live

at Yonville; she would keep house for him; they would

never part again. She was ingenious and caressing,

rejoicing in her heart at gaining once more an affection

that had wandered from her for so many years. Midnight

struck. The village as usual was silent, and Charles, awake,

thought always of her.

Rodolphe, who, to distract himself, had been rambling

about the wood all day, was sleeping quietly in his

chateau, and Leon, down yonder, always slept.

There was another who at that hour was not asleep.

On the grave between the pine-trees a child was on his

knees weeping, and his heart, rent by sobs, was beating in

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the shadow beneath the load of an immense regret,

sweeter than the moon and fathomless as the night. The

gate suddenly grated. It was Lestiboudois; he came to fetch

his spade, that he had forgotten. He recognised Justin

climbing over the wall, and at last knew who was the

culprit who stole his potatoes.

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

The next day Charles had the child brought back. She

asked for her mamma. They told her she was away; that

she would bring her back some playthings. Berthe spoke

of her again several times, then at last thought no more of

her. The child’s gaiety broke Bovary’s heart, and he had to

bear besides the intolerable consolations of the chemist.

Money troubles soon began again, Monsieur Lheureux

urging on anew his friend Vincart, and Charles pledged

himself for exorbitant sums; for he would never consent to

let the smallest of the things that had belonged to HER be

sold. His mother was exasperated with him; he grew even

more angry than she did. He had altogether changed. She

left the house.

Then everyone began ‘taking advantage’ of him.

Mademoiselle Lempereur presented a bill for six months’

teaching, although Emma had never taken a lesson (despite

the receipted bill she had shown Bovary); it was an

arrangement between the two women. The man at the

circulating library demanded three years’ subscriptions;

Mere Rollet claimed the postage due for some twenty

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letters, and when Charles asked for an explanation, she had

the delicacy to reply—

‘Oh, I don’t know. It was for her business affairs.’

With every debt he paid Charles thought he had come

to the end of them. But others followed ceaselessly. He

sent in accounts for professional attendance. He was

shown the letters his wife had written. Then he had to

apologise.

Felicite now wore Madame Bovary’s gowns; not all, for

he had kept some of them, and he went to look at them in

her dressing-room, locking himself up there; she was

about her height, and often Charles, seeing her from

behind, was seized with an illusion, and cried out—

‘Oh, stay, stay!’

But at Whitsuntide she ran away from Yonville, carried

off by Theodore, stealing all that was left of the wardrobe.

It was about this time that the widow Dupuis had the

honour to inform him of the ‘marriage of Monsieur Leon

Dupuis her son, notary at Yvetot, to Mademoiselle

Leocadie Leboeuf of Bondeville.’ Charles, among the

other congratulations he sent him, wrote this sentence—

‘How glad my poor wife would have been!’

One day when, wandering aimlessly about the house,

he had gone up to the attic, he felt a pellet of fine paper

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under his slipper. He opened it and read: ‘Courage,

Emma, courage. I would not bring misery into your life.’

It was Rodolphe’s letter, fallen to the ground between the

boxes, where it had remained, and that the wind from the

dormer window had just blown towards the door. And

Charles stood, motionless and staring, in the very same

place where, long ago, Emma, in despair, and paler even

than he, had thought of dying. At last he discovered a

small R at the bottom of the second page. What did this

mean? He remembered Rodolphe’s attentions, his sudden,

disappearance, his constrained air when they had met two

or three times since. But the respectful tone of the letter

deceived him.

‘Perhaps they loved one another platonically,’ he said to

himself.

Besides, Charles was not of those who go to the

bottom of things; he shrank from the proofs, and his vague

jealousy was lost in the immensity of his woe.

Everyone, he thought, must have adored her; all men

assuredly must have coveted her. She seemed but the more

beautiful to him for this; he was seized with a lasting,

furious desire for her, that inflamed his despair, and that

was boundless, because it was now unrealisable.

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To please her, as if she were still living, he adopted her

predilections, her ideas; he bought patent leather boots and

took to wearing white cravats. He put cosmetics on his

moustache, and, like her, signed notes of hand. She

corrupted him from beyond the grave.

He was obliged to sell his silver piece by piece; next he

sold the drawing-room furniture. All the rooms were

stripped; but the bedroom, her own room, remained as

before. After his dinner Charles went up there. He pushed

the round table in front of the fire, and drew up her

armchair. He sat down opposite it. A candle burnt in one

of the gilt candlesticks. Berthe by his side was painting

prints.

He suffered, poor man, at seeing her so badly dressed,

with laceless boots, and the arm-holes of her pinafore torn

down to the hips; for the charwoman took no care of her.

But she was so sweet, so pretty, and her little head bent

forward so gracefully, letting the dear fair hair fall over her

rosy cheeks, that an infinite joy came upon him, a

happiness mingled with bitterness, like those ill-made

wines that taste of resin. He mended her toys, made her

puppets from cardboard, or sewed up half-torn dolls.

Then, if his eyes fell upon the workbox, a ribbon lying

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about, or even a pin left in a crack of the table, he began

to dream, and looked so sad that she became as sad as he.

No one now came to see them, for Justin had run away

to Rouen, where he was a grocer’s assistant, and the

druggist’s children saw less and less of the child, Monsieur

Homais not caring, seeing the difference of their social

position, to continue the intimacy.

The blind man, whom he had not been able to cure

with the pomade, had gone back to the hill of Bois-

Guillaume, where he told the travellers of the vain attempt

of the druggist, to such an extent, that Homais when he

went to town hid himself behind the curtains of the

‘Hirondelle’ to avoid meeting him. He detested him, and

wishing, in the interests of his own reputation, to get rid

of him at all costs, he directed against him a secret battery,

that betrayed the depth of his intellect and the baseness of

his vanity. Thus, for six consecutive months, one could

read in the ‘Fanal de Rouen’ editorials such as these—

‘All who bend their steps towards the fertile plains of

Picardy have, no doubt, remarked, by the Bois-Guillaume

hill, a wretch suffering from a horrible facial wound. He

importunes, persecutes one, and levies a regular tax on all

travellers. Are we still living in the monstrous times of the

Middle Ages, when vagabonds were permitted to display

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in our public places leprosy and scrofulas they had brought

back from the Crusades?’

Or—

‘In spite of the laws against vagabondage, the

approaches to our great towns continue to be infected by

bands of beggars. Some are seen going about alone, and

these are not, perhaps, the least dangerous. What are our

ediles about?’

Then Homais invented anecdotes—

‘Yesterday, by the Bois-Guillaume hill, a skittish

horse—’ And then followed the story of an accident

caused by the presence of the blind man.

He managed so well that the fellow was locked up. But

he was released. He began again, and Homais began again.

It was a struggle. Homais won it, for his foe was

condemned to life-long confinement in an asylum.

This success emboldened him, and henceforth there

was no longer a dog run over, a barn burnt down, a

woman beaten in the parish, of which he did not

immediately inform the public, guided always by the love

of progress and the hate of priests. He instituted

comparisons between the elementary and clerical schools

to the detriment of the latter; called to mind the massacre

of St. Bartholomew a propos of a grant of one hundred

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francs to the church, and denounced abuses, aired new