Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert [book club recommendations txt] 📗

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?

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 barège, 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, 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.”

“Unless Léon⁠—” 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 Léon, and she stayed there three days.

III

They were three full, exquisite days⁠—a true honeymoon. They were at the Hôtel-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 kissed behind the poplars; and they would fain, like two Robinsons, have lived forever 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