Part 3

At Michaelmas, Charles had come to spend three days at the Bertaux. The last day had slipped by like the others, putting off departure by quarter-hour after quarter-hour. Old Rouault saw him on his way; they walked along a sunken lane, about to part; it was the moment. Charles held out until they reached the corner of the hedge, and at last, when they had passed it:

“Master Rouault,” he murmured, “I should very much like to say something to you.”

They stopped. Charles was silent.

“But tell me your story! Don’t I know it all?” said old Rouault, laughing softly.

“Father Rouault… father Rouault…” stammered Charles.

“As for me, I ask nothing better,” the farmer went on. “Though no doubt the girl is of my mind, still her opinion must be asked. Be off with you; I’m going back home. If it’s yes, mind you, you won’t need to come back, on account of the neighbors, and besides it would upset her too much. But so you don’t gnaw your heart out, I’ll push the window shutter wide open against the wall: you can see it from behind, leaning over the hedge.”

And he went away.

Charles tied his horse to a tree. He ran to place himself in the path; he waited. Half an hour passed, then he counted nineteen minutes on his watch. Suddenly a noise sounded against the wall; the shutter had swung back, its latch was still trembling.

The next day, by nine o’clock, he was at the farm. Emma blushed when he entered, while trying to laugh a little, to keep her composure. Old Rouault embraced his future son-in-law. They postponed talking over the financial arrangements; besides, they had time before them, since the wedding could not decently take place before the end of Charles’s mourning, that is to say toward the spring of the following year.

The winter passed in this expectation. Mademoiselle Rouault occupied herself with her trousseau. Part of it was ordered from Rouen, and she made shirts and nightcaps for herself from fashion plates she borrowed. On the visits Charles paid to the farm, they talked of the wedding preparations; they wondered in which room the dinner would be served; they dreamed of the number of dishes there must be and what the entrées would be.

Emma, on the contrary, would have liked to be married at midnight, by torchlight; but old Rouault understood nothing of this idea. So there was a wedding, to which came forty-three persons, where they stayed sixteen hours at table, which began again the next day and somewhat the days following.

IV

The guests arrived early in carriages, one-horse carts, two-wheeled chars-à-bancs, old cabriolets without hoods, covered wagons with leather curtains, and the young folk from the nearest villages in carts where they stood in a row, hands on the rails so as not to fall, going at a trot and jolted hard. Some came from ten leagues off, from Goderville, from Normanville, and from Cany. All the relatives of both families had been invited, quarrels with friends had been made up, acquaintances lost sight of for long had been written to.

From time to time, cracks of the whip were heard behind the hedge; soon the gate opened: it was a cart coming in. Galloping up to the first step of the porch, it stopped short, and emptied its load, who got out on all sides rubbing their knees and stretching their arms. The ladies, in bonnets, had town-style dresses, gold watch-chains, pelerines with crossed ends at the waist, or little colored neckerchiefs pinned at the back, which bared their necks behind. The boys, dressed just like their fathers, seemed inconvenienced by their new clothes (many indeed that day broke in the first pair of boots of their existence), and at their side, not saying a word in the white dress of her first communion lengthened for the occasion, could be seen some big girl of fourteen or sixteen, their cousin or elder sister no doubt, ruddy, bewildered, her hair greasy with rose pomade, and much afraid of soiling her gloves. As there were not enough stable-boys to unharness all the vehicles, the gentlemen rolled up their sleeves and set to themselves. According to their different social standing, they wore coats, frock-coats, jackets, coat-jackets: — good coats, surrounded by all the consideration of a family, and which came out of the wardrobe only for solemnities; frock-coats with large skirts flapping in the wind, cylindrical collar, pockets wide as bags; jackets of coarse cloth, which ordinarily accompanied a cap with a brass-bound peak; coat-jackets very short, having on the back two buttons close together like a pair of eyes, and whose skirts seemed to have been cut from a single block by the carpenter’s axe. Some few again (but those, surely, were to dine at the lower end of the table) wore holiday blouses, that is to say whose collar was turned back on the shoulders, the back gathered in small pleats and the waist tied very low by a sewn belt.

And the shirts on the chests bulged like cuirasses! Everybody was freshly cropped, the ears stood out from the heads, they were close-shaven; some even who had got up before dawn, not seeing clear to shave themselves, had diagonal scratches under the nose, or, along the jaws, strips of peeled skin as broad as three-franc pieces, and which the open air had inflamed on the road, which mottled a little with pink patches all those broad beaming white faces.

The town hall being half a league from the farm, they went there on foot, and came back the same way, once the ceremony at church was done. The procession, at first united like a single colored scarf, which undulated in the country, along the narrow path winding between the green wheat, soon lengthened and broke into different groups, who lingered to talk. The fiddler went in front, with his violin plumed with ribbons at the scroll; the married couple came next, the relatives, the friends quite at random, and the children stayed behind, amusing themselves pulling the little bells off the oat-stalks, or playing among themselves, unseen. Emma’s dress, too long, trailed a little at the bottom; from time to time she stopped to pull it up, and then delicately, with her gloved fingers, she picked off the coarse grasses and the small thistledown, while Charles, hands empty, waited till she had finished. Old Rouault, a new silk hat on his head and the cuffs of his black coat covering his hands to the nails, gave his arm to Madame Bovary senior. As for old Bovary, who at bottom despised all these people, and had come simply in a frock-coat with a row of military-cut buttons, he was dealing out tavern gallantries to a blonde young peasant girl. She curtsied, blushed, knew not what to answer. The other wedding folk talked of their affairs or played tricks behind each other’s backs, exciting themselves beforehand to merriment; and, lending an ear, one always heard the screech of the fiddler who kept on playing in the country. When he noticed he was far behind, he stopped to catch his breath, long waxed his bow with rosin so the strings would grate better, then set off again, lowering and raising by turns the neck of his violin, to keep himself well marked in time. The sound of the instrument started the little birds far off.

It was under the cart-shed that the table was laid. On it there were four sirloins, six fricassees of chicken, veal in the pot, three legs of mutton, and, in the middle, a pretty roast sucking-pig, flanked by four chitterlings with sorrel. At the corners stood the brandy in decanters. Sweet cider in bottles pushed its thick foam around the corks, and all the glasses, beforehand, had been filled with wine to the brim. Great dishes of yellow cream, which trembled of themselves at the least shock of the table, presented, drawn on their smooth surface, the ciphers of the new-weds in nonpareil arabesques. A pastry-cook had been fetched from Yvetot, for the tarts and the nougat. As he was beginning in the district, he had taken care; and he himself brought, at dessert, a set piece which drew cries. At the base, first, was a square of blue cardboard representing a temple with porticoes, colonnades and stucco statuettes all around, in niches starred with gilt paper; then on the second stage stood a Savoy-cake keep, surrounded by tiny fortifications in angelica, almonds, raisins, orange quarters; and finally, on the upper platform, which was a green meadow where there were rocks with jam lakes and boats of hazelnut shells, could be seen a little Cupid, swinging on a chocolate swing, whose two posts were finished with two natural rosebuds, as balls, at the top.

Till evening they ate. When they were too tired of sitting, they went to walk in the yards or play a game of skittles in the barn; then they came back to table. Some, toward the end, fell asleep there and snored. But, at the coffee, all revived; then they struck up songs, performed feats of strength, lifted weights, passed carts over their thumbs, tried to raise carts on their shoulders, told broad jokes; they kissed the ladies. In the evening, to depart, the horses, stuffed with oats up to the nostrils, had trouble getting between the shafts; they kicked, reared, the harness broke, their masters swore or laughed; and all night, in the moonlight, along the country roads, there were carts carried away running at full gallop, bounding in the ruts, jumping over the stone heaps, catching on the banks, with women leaning out of the door to seize the reins.

Those who stayed at the Bertaux spent the night drinking in the kitchen. The children had fallen asleep under the benches.

The bride had begged her father to spare her the usual jokes. However, a fishmonger of their cousins (who had even brought, as a wedding present, a pair of soles) was beginning to blow water with his mouth through the keyhole, when old Rouault arrived just in time to stop him, and explained to him that the serious position of his son-in-law did not permit such improprieties. The cousin, nevertheless, gave way unwillingly to these reasons. In his own mind, he accused old Rouault of being proud, and he went to join in a corner four or five other guests who, having by chance several times running at table got the poor pieces of meat, also found they had been ill received, whispered about their host and wished him ruin in muffled words.

Madame Bovary senior had not unclenched her teeth all day. She had not been consulted either on the bride’s dress or on the ordering of the feast; she withdrew early. Her husband, instead of following her, sent for cigars at Saint-Victor and smoked till daylight, drinking kirsch grogs, a mixture unknown to the company, and which was for him like the source of still greater consideration.

Charles was not of a facetious constitution; he had not shone at the wedding. He answered poorly to the puns, calembours, double-entendres, compliments and broad jests that they made it a duty to fire at him from the soup onward.

The next day, on the contrary, he seemed another man. It was rather he whom one would have taken for the virgin of the eve, while the bride let nothing be discovered whereby one might guess anything. The slyest knew not what to answer, and they watched her, when she passed near them, with disproportionate strains of mind. But Charles hid nothing. He called her my wife, used the familiar tu, inquired after her of everyone, looked for her everywhere, and often he drew her away into the yards, where she was seen from afar, between the trees, his arm under her waist and continuing to walk half bent over her, rumpling with his head the tucker of her bodice.

Two days after the wedding, the couple left: Charles, because of his patients, could not be away longer. Old Rouault had them driven back in his cart and accompanied them himself as far as Vassonville. There, he kissed his daughter a last time, set foot to ground and took his road back. When he had gone some hundred paces, he stopped, and, as he saw the cart moving off, whose wheels turned in the dust, he gave a heavy sigh. Then he recalled his own wedding, his time of old, the first pregnancy of his wife; he too had been very joyful, the day he had taken her from her father’s house to his own, when he carried her on the croup trotting on the snow; for it was about Christmas and the country was all white; she held him by one arm, her basket hung on the other; the wind shook the long laces of her Cauchoise head-dress, which sometimes passed over his mouth, and, when he turned his head, he saw near him, on his shoulder, her little rosy face which smiled silently, under the gold plate of her bonnet. To warm her fingers, she put them, from time to time, in his chest. How old all that was! Their son would be thirty now! Then he looked behind him, he saw nothing on the road. He felt sad as an unfurnished house; and, tender memories mingling with black thoughts in his brain obscured by the fumes of the revel, he had a good mind for a moment to go take a turn toward the church. As he was afraid, however, that this sight would make him still sadder, he came straight back home.

Monsieur and Madame Charles arrived at Tostes, about six o’clock. The neighbors put their faces to the windows to see the new wife of their doctor.

The old servant came forward, made her curtsies, excused herself that dinner was not ready, and invited Madame, meanwhile, to make acquaintance with her house.

V

The brick front was exactly in line with the street, or rather the road. Behind the door were hung a small-collared greatcoat, a bridle, a black leather cap, and, in a corner, on the ground, a pair of leggings still covered with dry mud. To the right was the room, that is to say the apartment where one ate and sat. A yellow-canary paper, lifted at the top by a garland of pale flowers, trembled all over on its ill-stretched canvas; white calico curtains, edged with a red braid, crossed along the windows, and on the narrow chimney-piece shone a clock with the head of Hippocrates, between two plated silver candlesticks, under oval shades. On the other side of the corridor was Charles’s study, a small room some six paces wide, with a table, three chairs and an office armchair. The volumes of the Dictionary of Medical Sciences, uncut, but whose binding had suffered in all the successive sales through which they had passed, furnished almost alone the six shelves of a spruce bookcase. The smell of the patients’ hair-oil penetrated through the wall, during consultations, just as from the kitchen one heard the sick cough in the study and tell their whole story. Then came, opening immediately onto the yard, where the stable was, a large dilapidated room which had an oven, and which now served as wood-shed, cellar, storeroom, full of old iron, empty barrels, disabled farm implements, with a quantity of other dusty things whose use it was impossible to guess.

The garden, longer than wide, went, between two mud walls covered with espalier apricots, to a thorn hedge which separated it from the fields. There was in the middle a slate sundial, on a masonry pedestal; four borders furnished with thin eglantines symmetrically surrounded the more useful square of serious vegetables. At the very back, under the firs, a plaster curate read his breviary.

Emma went up into the bedrooms. The first was not furnished; but the second, which was the conjugal chamber, had a mahogany bed in a red-draped alcove. A box of shells decorated the chest; and, on the writing-desk, near the window, there was, in a carafe, a bouquet of orange blossoms, tied with white satin ribbons. It was a bridal bouquet, the other’s bouquet! She looked at it. Charles noticed; he took it and went to put it in the attic, while seated in an armchair (they were arranging her things around her), Emma mused on her wedding bouquet, which was packed in a cardboard box, and wondered, dreaming, what would be done with it, if by chance she came to die.

She occupied herself, the first days, in meditating changes in her house. She took down the shades of the candlesticks, had new paper pasted, the staircase repainted and benches made in the garden, all around the sundial; she even asked how to go about having a jet fountain with fish. Finally her husband, knowing she liked to drive, found a second-hand one-horse chaise which, having once new lamps and quilted leather mud-guards, looked almost like a tilbury.

He was therefore happy and without care for anything in the world. A tete-a-tete dinner, an evening walk on the high road, a gesture of her hand on her temple-curls, the sight of her straw hat hung on the window-catch, and many other things besides where Charles had never suspected pleasure, now composed the continuity of his happiness. In bed, in the morning, and side by side on the pillow, he watched the sunlight pass among the down of her blonde cheeks, half covered by the scalloped lappets of her bonnet. Seen so close, her eyes seemed enlarged to him, especially when she opened several times running her lids on waking; black in the shade and dark blue in broad daylight, they had like successive layers of color, thicker in the depths, growing lighter toward the surface of the enamel. His own eye lost itself in those depths, and saw himself therein small to the shoulders, with the scarf that covered his head and the top of his open shirt. He got up. She went to the window to see him off; and she stayed leaning on the edge, between two pots of geraniums, clad in her peignoir, which hung loose about her. Charles, in the street, buckled his spurs on the stone block; and she continued to speak to him from above, while with her mouth plucking some scrap of flower or green stuff which she blew toward him, and which, fluttering, sustaining itself, making half-circles in the air like a bird, went, before falling, to catch in the ill-combed mane of the old white mare, motionless at the door. Charles, on horseback, sent her a kiss; she answered with a sign, she closed the window, he departed. And then, on the high road which stretched endlessly its long ribbon of dust, in the sunken lanes where the trees bent like bowers, in the paths whose wheat rose to his knees, with the sun on his shoulders and the morning air at his nostrils, the heart full of the night’s felicities, the mind tranquil, the flesh content, he went off chewing his happiness, like those who, after dinner, still chew the taste of the truffles they digest.

Until now, what good had he had in life? Was it his college time, when he stayed shut in between those high walls, alone among his comrades richer or stronger than him in their classes, who made him laugh by his accent, who mocked his clothes, and whose mothers came to the parlor with pastries in their muff? Was it later, when he studied medicine and never had his purse round enough to pay the contra-dance to some little workgirl who might have become his mistress? Then he had lived fourteen months with the widow, whose feet, in bed, were cold as icicles. But now he possessed for life this pretty woman he adored. The universe, for him, exceeded not the silken turn of her petticoat; and he reproached himself for not loving her, he had a desire to see her again; he came back quickly, mounted the stairs, heart beating. Emma, in her room, was at her toilet; he arrived with muffled steps, he kissed her on the back, she gave a cry.

He could not keep from continually touching her comb, her rings, her neckerchief; sometimes he gave her on the cheeks great full-mouth kisses, or else were small kisses in a row all along her bare arm, from the fingertips to the shoulder; and she pushed him away, half smiling and vexed, as one does to a child who hangs on you.

Before she married, she had believed she had love; but the happiness which should have resulted from that love not having come, it must be that she had been mistaken, she thought. And Emma sought to know exactly what is meant in life by the words felicity, passion and rapture, which had seemed so beautiful to her in books.

VI

She had read Paul and Virginia, and she had dreamed of the bamboo cottage, the negro Domingo, the dog Fidele, but above all the sweet friendship of some good little brother, who goes to gather for you red fruits in great trees higher than steeples, or who runs barefoot on the sand, bringing you a bird’s nest.

When she was thirteen, her father took her himself to the town, to put her in the convent. They stopped at an inn in the Saint-Gervais quarter, where at supper they had painted plates representing the history of mademoiselle de la Valliere. The legendary explanations, broken here and there by the scratch of the knives, glorified all of them religion, the delicacies of the heart and the pomps of the Court.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”