Part 15

The apothecary was beginning to cut some wax, when Madame Homais appeared with Irma in her arms, Napoléon at her side, and Athalie following her. She went to sit on the velvet bench against the window, and the little boy squatted on a stool, while his older sister wandered around the licorice box, near her little papa. The latter was filling funnels and corking bottles, he was gluing on labels, he was making up packets. They were silent around him; and one heard only from time to time the tinkling of the weights in the scales, with a few low words from the pharmacist giving advice to his apprentice.

— How is your young lady? suddenly asked Madame Homais.

— Silence! exclaimed her husband, who was writing figures in the rough draft book.

— Why did you not bring her? she went on in a half-voice.

— Hush! hush! said Emma, pointing with her finger at the apothecary.

But Binet, wholly taken up with reading the bill, had heard nothing, probably. At last he went out. Then Emma, relieved, gave a great sigh.

— How you breathe heavily! said Madame Homais.

— Oh! it is that it is a little warm, she answered.

They therefore decided, the next day, to organize their meetings; Emma wanted to bribe her servant with a gift; but it would have been better to discover at Yonville some discreet house. Rodolphe promised to look for one.

During the whole winter, three or four times a week, at dead of night, he arrived in the garden. Emma, on purpose, had taken away the key of the gate, which Charles thought lost.

To warn her, Rodolphe threw a handful of sand against the shutters. She would start up; but sometimes he had to wait, for Charles had the mania of chatting by the fireside, and he never finished. She devoured herself with impatience; if her eyes could have done it, they would have made him leap through the windows. At last, she began her night toilet; then she took a book and continued to read quite tranquilly, as if reading had amused her. But Charles, who was in bed, called her to come and lie down.

— Do come, Emma, he said, it is time.

— Yes, I am coming! she answered.

However, as the candles dazzled him, he turned toward the wall and fell asleep. She slipped away holding her breath, smiling, palpitating, undressed.

Rodolphe had a large cloak; he wrapped her entirely in it, and, passing his arm around her waist, he drew her along without speaking to the bottom of the garden.

It was under the arbor, on that same bench of rotten sticks where formerly Léon had looked at her so lovingly, during the summer evenings. She scarcely thought of him now.

The stars shone through the branches of the leafless jasmine; they heard behind them the river flowing, and, from time to time, on the bank, the snapping of the dry reeds. Masses of shadow, here and there, swelled in the darkness, and, shivering all with a single movement, they rose up and bent over like immense black waves that had advanced to cover them. The cold of the night made them cling more closely; the sighs of their lips seemed louder to them; their eyes, which they barely glimpsed, seemed larger to them, and, in the midst of the silence, there were words spoken low that fell upon their souls with a crystalline sonority and reverberated there in multiplied vibrations.

When the night was rainy, they went to take refuge in the consultation room, between the shed and the stable. She lit one of the kitchen candlesticks, which she had hidden behind the books. Rodolphe settled in there as if at home. The sight of the library and the desk, of the whole apartment in fact, excited his gaiety; and he could not keep from making a great many jokes about Charles that embarrassed Emma. She would have liked to see him more serious, and even more dramatic on occasion, like that time when she thought she heard in the walk a noise of steps approaching.

— Someone is coming! she said.

He blew out the light.

— Have you your pistols?

— Why?

— But... to defend yourself, she went on.

— Is it from your husband? Ah! the poor fellow!

And Rodolphe finished his phrase with a gesture that meant: "I would crush him with a flick of the finger."

She was astonished at his bravery, though she felt in it a sort of indelicacy and naive coarseness that scandalized her.

Rodolphe thought a great deal about this pistol business. If she had spoken seriously, that was very ridiculous, he thought, even odious, for he, for his part, had no reason to hate good Charles, not being what is called devoured by jealousy; — and, on this subject, Emma had made him a great oath that he did not find in the best of taste either.

Besides, she was becoming very sentimental. They had had to exchange miniatures, they had cut off handfuls of hair, and she was now asking for a ring, a true wedding ring, as a sign of eternal alliance. Often she spoke to him of the evening bells or the voices of nature; then she talked to him of her mother, hers, and of his mother. Rodolphe had lost his twenty years before. Emma, nevertheless, consoled him for it with sweetnesses of language, as one would do to an abandoned child, and even said to him sometimes, looking at the moon:

— I am sure that up there, together, they approve our love.

But she was so pretty! he had possessed so few of such candor! This love without libertinage was for him something new, and which, taking him out of his easy habits, caressed at once his pride and his sensuality. The exaltation of Emma, which his bourgeois good sense disdained, seemed to him deep in his heart charming, since it addressed itself to his person. Then, sure of being loved, he did not restrain himself, and insensibly his manners changed.

He no longer had, as before, those so gentle words that made her weep, nor those vehement caresses that made her mad; so well that their great love, in which she lived plunged, seemed to diminish beneath her, like the water of a river that would absorb itself in its bed, and she perceived the mud. She would not believe it; she redoubled her tenderness; and Rodolphe, less and less, hid his indifference.

She did not know whether she regretted having yielded to him, or whether she did not wish, on the contrary, to cherish him more. The humiliation of feeling herself weak turned into a resentment that the pleasures tempered. It was not attachment, it was like a permanent seduction. He subjugated her. She was almost afraid of it.

The appearances, nevertheless, were calmer than ever, Rodolphe having succeeded in conducting the adultery according to his fancy; and, at the end of six months, when spring arrived, they found themselves, one opposite the other, like two spouses who quietly maintain a domestic flame.

It was the time when old Rouault sent his turkey, in memory of his healed leg. The gift always arrived with a letter. Emma cut the string that held it to the basket, and read the following lines:

"My dear children,

"I hope this finds you in good health, and that this one will be worth the others; for he seems to me a little plumper, if I may say so, and more solid. But, next time, for a change, I will give you a cock, unless you prefer pullets; and send me back the basket, please, with the two old ones. I had a misfortune at my cart-shed, whose roofing, one night when it was blowing hard, flew off into the trees. The harvest neither was too famous. Finally, I do not know when I shall come to see you. It is so difficult for me to leave the house now, since I am alone, my poor Emma!

And there was here a space between the lines, as if the good man had let his pen fall to dream for a while.

"As for me, I am well, except a cold that I caught the other day at the Yvetot fair, where I had gone to engage a shepherd, having turned mine out, on account of his too great delicacy of mouth. How to be pitied with all those rogues! Besides, he was a dishonest one too.

"I learned from a peddler who, traveling this winter through your country, had a tooth pulled, that Bovary was still working hard. That does not surprise me, and he showed me his tooth; we took a coffee together. I asked him if he had seen you, he told me no, but that he had seen in the stable two animals, whence I conclude that the business goes. So much the better, my dear children, and may the good God send you all the happiness imaginable.

"It grieves me not to know yet my beloved little granddaughter Berthe Bovary. I have planted for her, in the garden, under your window, an oat-plum tree, and I do not want anyone to touch it, except to make her later some compotes, that I will keep in the cupboard, for her, when she comes.

"Farewell, my dear children. I kiss you, my daughter; you too, my son-in-law, and the little one, on both cheeks.

"I am, with many compliments,

"Your tender father,

"THEODORE ROUAULT."

She remained a few minutes holding this coarse paper between her fingers. The spelling mistakes intertwined with one another, and Emma pursued the sweet thought that chattered right through like a hen half hidden in a hedge of thorns. The writing had been dried with the ashes of the hearth, for a little gray dust slid from the letter onto her dress, and she almost thought she saw her father bending toward the fire to seize the tongs. How long since she had been near him, on the stool, in the chimney corner, when she made the end of a stick burn at the great flame of the marine reeds that crackled!...

She recalled summer evenings full of sunlight. The colts neighed when one passed, and galloped, galloped... There was under her window a beehive, and sometimes the bees, whirling in the light, struck against the panes like rebounding balls of gold. What happiness in those times! what liberty! what hope! what abundance of illusions! None of it remained now! She had spent it on all the adventures of her soul, through all the successive conditions, in virginity, in marriage and in love; — losing them thus continuously along her life, like a traveler who leaves something of his wealth at all the inns of the road.

But who then made her so unhappy? where was the extraordinary catastrophe that had overturned her? And she raised her head, looking around her, as if to seek the cause of what made her suffer.

An April ray shimmered on the porcelain of the shelf; the fire burned; she felt under her slippers the softness of the carpet; the day was white, the atmosphere mild, and she heard her child bursting into peals of laughter.

Indeed, the little girl was then rolling on the grass, in the middle of the hay that was being dried. She was lying flat on her stomach, at the top of a haycock. Her nurse held her by the skirt. Lestiboudois was raking beside her, and, each time he came near, she leaned over beating the air with her two arms.

— Bring her to me! said her mother, rushing to kiss her. How I love you, my poor child! how I love you!

Then, noticing that the tips of her ears were a little dirty, she quickly rang for hot water, and cleaned her, changed her linen, her stockings, her shoes, asked a thousand questions about her health, as on returning from a journey, and finally, kissing her again and weeping a little, she gave her back to the hands of the servant, who remained quite astonished at this excess of tenderness.

Rodolphe, in the evening, found her more serious than usual.

— It will pass, he judged, it is a whim.

And he missed three appointments in a row. When he came back, she showed herself cold and almost disdainful.

— Ah! you are wasting your time, my darling...

And he seemed not to notice her melancholy sighs, nor the handkerchief she drew out.

It is then that Emma repented!

She even asked herself why indeed she detested Charles, and whether it would not have been better to be able to love him. But he offered not much hold for these returns of feeling, so well that she remained quite embarrassed in her disposition to sacrifice, when the apothecary opportunely came to provide her an occasion.

XI

He had lately read the eulogy of a new method for the cure of clubfeet; and as he was a partisan of progress, he conceived this patriotic idea that Yonville, to put itself on a level, ought to have strephopodie operations.

— For, he said to Emma, what risk is run? Examine (and he enumerated, on his fingers, the advantages of the attempt); almost certain success, relief and beautifying of the patient, celebrity quickly acquired by the operator. Why would your husband, for example, not wish to rid that poor Hippolyte, of the Lion d'or, of his trouble? Note that he would not fail to tell of his cure to all the travelers, and then (Homais lowered his voice and looked around him) who then would prevent me from sending to the newspaper a little note on that? Eh! my God! an article circulates..., one speaks of it..., that ends by making the snowball! And who knows? who knows?

Indeed, Bovary could succeed; nothing affirmed to Emma that he was not skillful, and what satisfaction for her to have urged him to a step from which his reputation and his fortune would be increased? She asked only to lean on something more solid than love.

Charles, solicited by the apothecary and by her, let himself be convinced. He had brought from Rouen the volume of Doctor Duval, and, every evening, taking his head between his hands, he plunged into this reading.

While he studied the equini, the vari and the valgi, that is to say strephocatopodie, strephendopodie and strephexopodie (or, to speak better, the different deviations of the foot, whether downward, inward or outward), with strephypopodie and strephanopodie (otherwise called torsion underneath and straightening upward), M. Homais by all sorts of reasonings exhorted the inn servant to have himself operated on.

— You will scarcely feel, perhaps, a slight pain; it is a simple prick like a little bleeding, less than the extraction of certain corns.

Hippolyte, reflecting, rolled his stupid eyes.

— Besides, resumed the pharmacist, that does not concern me! it is for you; by pure humanity! I would like to see you, my friend, rid of your hideous limp, with that balancing of the lumbar region, which, although you claim the contrary, must harm you considerably in the exercise of your trade.

Then Homais represented to him how much more brisk and nimble he would feel afterward, and even gave him to understand that he would find himself better for pleasing the women; and the stable boy began to smile heavily. Then he attacked him through vanity:

— Are you not a man, zounds! What would it be then, if you had had to serve, go fight under the flags?... Ah! Hippolyte!

And Homais moved away, declaring that he did not understand this stubbornness, this blindness at refusing the benefits of science.

The poor fellow gave in, for it was like a conspiracy. Binet, who never meddled in others' affairs, Madame Lefrançois, Artémise, the neighbors, and even the mayor, M. Tuvache, everybody urged him, sermonized him, shamed him; but what decided him was that it would cost him nothing. Bovary even undertook to furnish the machine for the operation. Emma had had the idea of this generosity; and Charles consented to it, saying in the bottom of his heart that his wife was an angel.

With the advice of the pharmacist, and by beginning three times, he therefore had made by the carpenter, aided by the locksmith, a kind of box weighing about eight pounds, and where iron, wood, sheet metal, leather, screws and nuts were not spared.

However, to know which tendon to cut in Hippolyte, one had first to know what species of clubfoot he had.

He had a foot making with the leg an almost straight line, which did not prevent it from being turned inward, so that it was an equin mixed with a little varus, or rather a slight varus strongly marked with equin; but, with this equin, broad indeed like a horse's foot, with rough skin, dry tendons, thick toes, and where the black nails figured the nails of a shoe, the strephopod, from morning till night, galloped like a stag. He was continually seen on the square, hopping all around the carts, throwing forward his unequal support. He even seemed stronger in that leg than in the other. By dint of having served, it had contracted as it were moral qualities of patience and energy, and when one gave him some heavy work, he wore himself out on it, preferably.

Now, since it was an equin, it was necessary to cut the Achilles tendon, reserving to attack later the anterior tibial muscle to get rid of the varus; for the doctor did not dare risk two operations at one stroke, and even he was already trembling, in fear of attacking some important region that he did not know.

Neither Ambroise Paré, applying for the first time since Celsus, after an interval of fifteen centuries, the immediate ligature of an artery; nor Dupuytren going to open an abscess through a thick layer of brain; nor Gensoul, when he made the first ablation of the upper maxillary, had certainly the heart so palpitating, the hand so trembling, the intellect so tense as M. Bovary when he approached Hippolyte, his tenotome between his fingers. And, as in the hospitals, one saw beside, on a table, a heap of charpie, waxed threads, many bands, a pyramid of bands, all that there was of bands at the apothecary's. It was M. Homais who had organized since the morning all these preparations, as much to dazzle the multitude as to delude himself. Charles pricked the skin; one heard a dry crack. The tendon was cut, the operation was finished. Hippolyte, astonished, was not recovering from his surprise; he leaned over to cover Bovary's hands with kisses.

— Calm yourself, said the apothecary, you will testify later your gratitude toward your benefactor!

And he went down to tell the result to five or six curious people who were standing in the yard, and who imagined that Hippolyte was going to reappear walking straight. Then Charles, having buckled his patient into the mechanical motor, returned home, where Emma, all anxious, awaited him on the doorstep. She jumped at his neck; they sat down at table; he ate a great deal, and even he wanted, at dessert, to take a cup of coffee, a debauch that he permitted himself only on Sundays when there was company.

The evening was charming, full of talk, of dreams in common. They spoke of their future fortune, of improvements to introduce into their household, he saw his consideration extending, his well-being increasing, his wife always loving him; and she found herself happy to refresh herself in a sentiment new, more wholesome, better, finally to feel some tenderness for that poor boy who cherished her. The idea of Rodolphe, for a moment, passed through her head; but her eyes returned to Charles; she noticed even with surprise that he had not ugly teeth.

They were in bed when M. Homais, despite the cook, entered suddenly into the room, holding in his hand a freshly written sheet of paper. It was the advertisement that he destined for the Fanal de Rouen. He brought it to them to read.

— Read it yourself, said Bovary.

He read:

— "Despite the prejudices which still cover a part of the face of Europe like a net, light however begins to penetrate into our countryside. It is thus that, Tuesday, our little town of Yonville saw itself the theater of a surgical experiment which is at the same time an act of high philanthropy. M. Bovary, one of our most distinguished practitioners..."

— Ah! it is too much! it is too much! said Charles, whom the emotion suffocated.

— But no, not at all! how so!... "has operated on a clubfoot..." I did not put the scientific term, because, you know, in a newspaper..., everyone perhaps would not understand; it is necessary that the masses...

— Indeed, said Bovary. Continue.

— I resume, said the pharmacist. "M. Bovary, one of our most distinguished practitioners, has operated on a clubfoot the named Hippolyte Tautain, stable boy for twenty-five years at the Lion d'or hotel, kept by the widow Lefrançois, on the Arms Square. The novelty of the attempt and the interest attached to the subject had attracted such a concourse of population, that there was truly crowding at the threshold of the establishment. The operation, moreover, was performed as if by enchantment, and scarcely did a few drops of blood come on the skin, as if to say that the rebellious tendon had just yielded under the efforts of art. The patient, strange thing (we affirm it de visu) accused no pain. His state, up to now, leaves nothing to be desired. Everything leads to believe that the convalescence will be short; and who knows even if, at the next village festival, we shall not see our brave Hippolyte figure in bacchic dances, in the midst of a chorus of merry fellows, and thus prove to all eyes, by his verve and his entrechats, his complete cure! Honor therefore to the generous scholars! honor to those untiring spirits who consecrate their vigils to the improvement or else the relief of their species! Honor! three times honor! Is it not the case to cry out that the blind shall see, the deaf shall hear and the lame shall walk! But what fanaticism formerly promised to its elect, science now accomplishes for all men! We shall keep our readers informed of the successive phases of this so remarkable cure."

Which did not prevent that, five days after, Mother Lefrançois arrived all aghast crying out:

— Help! he is dying!... I am losing my head!

Charles rushed toward the Lion d'or, and the pharmacist who saw him passing on the square, without a hat, abandoned the pharmacy. He appeared himself, panting, red, worried, and asking all those who went up the stairs:

— What ails our interesting strephopod?

He was writhing, the strephopod, in atrocious convulsions, so well that the mechanical motor where his leg was enclosed struck against the wall to break it.

With much precaution, so as not to disturb the position of the limb, they therefore withdrew the box, and saw an awful sight. The shapes of the foot disappeared in such a swelling, that the whole skin seemed about to burst, and it was covered with bruises occasioned by the famous machine. Hippolyte had already complained of suffering from it; no attention had been paid; it was necessary to acknowledge that he had not been completely wrong; and they left him free for some hours. But scarcely had the edema a little disappeared, than the two scholars judged it proper to re-establish the limb in the apparatus, and by tightening it more, to accelerate things. Finally, three days after, Hippolyte no longer able to bear it, they withdrew again the mechanical device, while being very astonished at the result they perceived. A livid tumefaction extended over the leg, with phlyctenae here and there, through which a black liquid oozed. This was taking a serious turn. Hippolyte began to be bored, and Mother Lefrançois installed him in the little room, near the kitchen, so that he might at least have some distraction.

But the tax collector, who dined there every day, complained bitterly of such a neighborhood. Then they transported Hippolyte into the billiard room.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”