Part 5

Charles's chaise stopped before the middle flight of steps; servants appeared; the Marquis came forward, and, offering his arm to the doctor's wife, led her into the vestibule.

It was paved with marble flags, very lofty, and the sound of footsteps, with that of voices, reverberated there like in a church. Facing one mounted a straight staircase, and to the left a gallery overlooking the garden led to the billiard room, whence one could hear, from the door, the ivory balls caroming. As she crossed it to go to the salon, Emma saw around the game men of grave countenance, their chins resting on high cravats, all decorated, and who smiled silently as they pushed their cues. On the dark woodwork of the paneling, large gilded frames bore, at the foot of their border, names written in black letters. She read: "Jean-Antoine d'Andervilliers d'Yverbonville, Count of La Vaubyessard and Baron of La Fresnaye, killed at the battle of Coutras, 20 October 1587." And on another: "Jean-Antoine-Henry-Guy d'Andervilliers de La Vaubyessard, admiral of France and knight of the Order of Saint-Michael, wounded at the combat of La Hougue-Saint-Vaast, 29 May 1692, died at La Vaubyessard 23 January 1693." Then one could scarcely distinguish those that followed, for the light of the lamps, thrown down upon the green cloth of the billiard table, left a shadow floating in the apartment. Browning the horizontal canvases, it broke against them in fine ridges, according to the cracks of the varnish; and from all those great black squares bordered with gold there emerged, here and there, some clearer portion of the painting, a pale forehead, two eyes that looked at you, wigs unrolling upon the powdered shoulder of red coats, or else the buckle of a garter at the top of a rounded calf.

The Marquis opened the salon door; one of the ladies rose (the Marquise herself), came to meet Emma and seated her beside her, on a settee, where she began to speak to her in a friendly way, as if she had known her a long time. She was a woman of about forty, with fine shoulders, an aquiline nose, a drawling voice, and wearing, that evening, upon her chestnut hair, a simple guipure kerchief that fell behind in a triangle. A blonde young person stood near her, in a high-backed chair; and gentlemen, who had a small flower in the buttonhole of their coats, conversed with the ladies, all around the fireplace.

At seven o'clock, dinner was served. The men, more numerous, sat at the first table, in the vestibule, and the ladies at the second, in the dining room, with the Marquis and Marquise.

Emma felt herself, on entering, enveloped by a warm air, a mixture of the perfume of flowers and of fine linen, the savory smell of meats and the odor of truffles. The candles of the candelabra lengthened their flames upon the silver covers; the faceted crystals, covered with a dull mist, threw back pale rays to one another; bouquets were in a row the whole length of the table, and, in the wide-bordered plates, the napkins, arranged like a bishop's mitre, held between the gaping of their two folds each an oval-shaped roll. The red legs of the lobsters stuck out over the dishes; large fruits in openwork baskets were ranged upon the moss; the quails had their feathers, vapors rose; and, in silk stockings, short breeches, white cravat and jabot, grave as a judge, the butler, passing between the shoulders of the guests the already carved dishes, made with a spoon a flick to send up for you the piece you chose. On the great porcelain stove with a brass molding, a draped statue to the chin looked immobile upon the crowded room.

Madame Bovary noticed that several ladies had not put their gloves in their glass.

Meanwhile, at the high end of the table, alone among all those women, bent over his full plate, and the napkin tied behind his back like a child, an old man ate, letting sauce drops fall from his mouth. He had bloodshot eyes and wore a small queue rolled with a black ribbon. It was the Marquis's father-in-law, the old Duke of Laverdière, the former favorite of the Count of Artois, in the time of the hunts at Vaudreuil, at the Marquis de Conflans's, and who had been, it was said, the lover of Queen Marie-Antoinette between MM. de Coigny and de Lauzun. He had led a noisy life of debauchery, full of duels, wagers, abducted women, had devoured his fortune and frightened all his family. A servant, behind his chair, named aloud in his ear the dishes he pointed to with a stammering finger; and constantly Emma's eyes returned of their own accord to that old man with hanging lips as to something extraordinary and august. He had lived at Court and slept in the beds of queens!

They poured iced Champagne. Emma shivered in all her skin feeling that cold in her mouth. She had never seen pomegranates nor eaten pineapples. Even the powdered sugar seemed to her whiter and finer than elsewhere.

The ladies then went up to their rooms to prepare for the ball.

Emma made her toilette with the meticulous conscience of an actress at her debut. She arranged her hair according to the hairdresser's recommendations, and she stepped into her barège gown, spread upon the bed. Charles's trousers pinched his belly.

— The stirrup-straps will bother me for dancing, said he.

— Dancing? replied Emma.

— Yes!

— But you have lost your head! they would laugh at you, stay in your place. Besides, it is more becoming for a doctor, she added.

Charles was silent. He walked back and forth, waiting for Emma to be dressed.

He saw her from behind, in the mirror, between two candelabra. Her black eyes seemed blacker. Her bands, softly rounded toward the ears, shone with a blue gleam; a rose at her chignon trembled on a mobile stem, with drops of artificial water at the tip of its leaves. She had a pale saffron gown, lifted by three bouquets of pompon roses mixed with green.

Charles came to kiss her on the shoulder.

— Leave me alone! said she, you are rumpling me.

One heard a violin ritornelle and the sounds of a horn. She descended the staircase, restraining herself from running.

The quadrilles had begun. People were arriving. They pushed. She placed herself near the door, on a bench.

When the contredanse was finished, the parquet remained free for the groups of men talking standing and the liveried servants who brought large trays. On the row of seated women, the painted fans fluttered, the bouquets half hid the smile of faces, and the gold-stoppered flasks turned in half-open hands whose white gloves marked the shape of the nails and squeezed the flesh at the wrist. The lace trimmings, diamond brooches, medallion bracelets trembled at the bodices, sparkled on the chests, rustled on the bare arms. The hair, well glued on the foreheads and twisted at the nape, had, in crowns, in clusters or in branches, forget-me-nots, jasmine, pomegranate flowers, wheat ears or cornflowers. Peaceful in their places, mothers with sullen faces wore red turbans.

Emma's heart beat a little when, her partner holding her by the fingertips, she came to stand in line and waited for the stroke of the bow to start. But soon the emotion disappeared; and, swaying to the rhythm of the orchestra, she glided forward, with light movements of the neck. A smile rose to her lips at certain delicacies of the violin, which played alone, sometimes, when the other instruments were silent; one heard the clear noise of gold louis that were poured beside, on the carpet of the tables; then all resumed at once, the bugle horn launched a sonorous blare, the feet fell back in measure, the skirts puffed and brushed, the hands gave, left each other; the same eyes, lowering before you, came back to fix upon yours.

Some men (about fifteen) from twenty-five to forty years, scattered among the dancers or talking at the doorways, distinguished themselves from the crowd by a family air, whatever were their differences of age, dress or face.

Their coats, better made, seemed of a more supple cloth, and their hair, drawn back in curls toward the temples, polished by finer pomades. They had the complexion of wealth, that white complexion set off by the pallor of porcelains, the moires of satin, the varnish of fine furniture, and which is maintained in its health by a discreet regimen of exquisite foods. Their neck turned at ease on low cravats; their long side-whiskers fell on turned-down collars; they wiped their lips on handkerchiefs embroidered with a large cipher, whence came a sweet odor. Those who were beginning to age looked young, while something mature spread on the face of the young. In their indifferent gazes floated the quietude of daily satisfied passions; and, through their gentle manners, pierced that particular brutality communicated by the domination of half-easy things, in which force is exercised and vanity amuses itself, the handling of thoroughbred horses and the society of fallen women.

Three steps from Emma, a rider in a blue coat was talking Italy with a pale young woman, wearing a pearl ornament. They praised the thickness of the pillars of Saint Peter's, Tivoli, Vesuvius, Castellamare and the Cassines, the roses of Genoa, the Coliseum by moonlight. Emma listened with her other ear to a conversation full of words she did not understand. They surrounded a very young man who had beaten, the week before, Miss Arabelle and Romulus, and won two thousand louis by jumping a ditch, in England. One complained of his runners who were getting fat; another, of printing errors that had denatured the name of his horse.

The air of the ball was heavy; the lamps paled. They flowed back into the billiard room. A servant climbed on a chair and broke two panes; at the noise of the glass shards, Madame Bovary turned her head and caught sight, in the garden, against the panes, of peasants' faces that were looking. Then the memory of the Bertaux came to her. She saw again the farm, the muddy pond, her father in a smock under the apple trees, and she saw herself again, as formerly, skimming with her finger the milk bowls in the dairy. But, at the flashes of the present hour, her past life, so clear until then, vanished entirely, and she almost doubted having lived it. She was there; then around the ball, there was nothing but shadow, spread over all the rest. She was then eating a maraschino ice, which she held in her left hand in a vermeil shell, and half closed her eyes, the spoon between her teeth.

A lady, near her, dropped her fan. A dancer was passing.

— How good you would be, sir, said the lady, to please pick up my fan, which is behind that sofa!

The gentleman bowed, and, while he made the movement to extend his arm, Emma saw the hand of the young lady who threw into his hat something white, folded in a triangle. The gentleman, bringing back the fan, offered it to the lady, respectfully; she thanked him with a nod and began to smell her bouquet.

After supper, where there were many wines of Spain and of the Rhine, bisque and almond-milk soups, Trafalgar puddings and all sorts of cold meats with jellies around them that trembled in the dishes, the carriages, one after another, began to leave. By drawing aside the muslin curtain, one saw the light of their lanterns glide in the shadow. The benches thinned out; a few players remained still; the musicians refreshed, on their tongue, the tip of their fingers; Charles slept half, his back leaning against a door.

At three in the morning, the cotillion began. Emma did not know how to waltz. Everyone waltzed, Mademoiselle d'Andervilliers herself and the Marquise; there were no longer but the guests of the château, about a dozen persons.

However, one of the waltzers, who was familiarly called viscount, and whose very open waistcoat seemed molded upon the chest, came a second time yet to invite Madame Bovary, assuring her that he would guide her and that she would get through well.

They began slowly, then went faster. They turned: all turned around them, the lamps, the furniture, the paneling, and the parquet, like a disk upon a pivot. In passing near the doors, Emma's gown, at the bottom, grazed the trousers; their legs entered one into the other; he lowered his gaze upon her, she raised hers upon him; a torpor took her, she stopped. They set off again; and, with a quicker movement, the viscount, drawing her along, disappeared with her to the end of the gallery, where, breathless, she almost fell, and, for an instant, leaned her head on his chest. And then, turning always, but more softly, he reconducted her to her place; she threw herself back against the wall and put her hand before her eyes.

When she reopened them, in the middle of the salon, a lady seated on a stool had before her three waltzers on their knees. She chose the Viscount, and the violin began again.

They looked at them. They passed and came back, she immobile of body and the chin lowered, and he always in his same pose, the waist arched, the elbow rounded, the mouth forward. She knew how to waltz, that one! They continued long and tired all the others.

They talked a few minutes more, and, after the farewells or rather the good-morrows, the guests of the château went to bed.

Charles dragged himself to the rail, his knees drawing into his body. He had spent five hours straight, all standing before the tables, looking at whist being played without understanding anything. So he uttered a great sigh of satisfaction when he had removed his boots.

Emma put a shawl on her shoulders, opened the window and leaned on it.

The night was black. A few drops of rain fell. She breathed the humid wind that refreshed her eyelids. The music of the ball still buzzed in her ears, and she made efforts to keep awake, in order to prolong the illusion of that luxurious life which she must abandon shortly.

Daybreak appeared. She looked at the windows of the château, long, trying to guess which were the rooms of all those she had noticed the evening before. She would have liked to know their lives, to penetrate them, to mingle with them.

But she shivered with cold. She undressed and curled between the sheets, against Charles who slept.

There was much company at breakfast. The meal lasted ten minutes; no liqueur was served, which astonished the doctor. Then Mademoiselle d'Andervilliers gathered pieces of brioche in a basket, to carry them to the swans on the pond, and they went to walk in the hothouse, where bizarre plants, bristling with hairs, were ranged in pyramids under suspended vases, which, like too-full nests of serpents, let fall, from their edges, long green intertwined cords. The orangery, which one found at the end, led under cover to the outbuildings of the château. The Marquis, to amuse the young woman, led her to see the stables. Above the basket-shaped racks, porcelain plates bore in black the names of the horses. Each beast stirred in its stall, when one passed near it, clicking its tongue. The floor of the harness room shone to the eye like the parquet of a salon. The carriage harness was set up in the middle upon two turning columns, and the bits, whips, stirrups, curb-chains ranged in line all along the wall.

Charles, however, went to ask a servant to harness his chaise. It was brought before the steps, and, all the packages being stuffed in, the Bovarys made their politenesses to the Marquis and Marquise, and set off again for Tostes.

Emma, silent, watched the wheels turn. Charles, placed on the extreme edge of the seat, drove with both arms apart, and the little horse trotted the amble in the shafts, which were too wide for him. The loose reins beat on his croup, soaking there with foam, and the corded box behind the chaise gave against the case regular loud knocks.

They were on the heights of Thibourville, when before them, suddenly, some riders passed laughing, with cigars at the mouth. Emma thought she recognized the Viscount: she turned aside, and perceived on the horizon only the movement of heads lowering and rising, according to the unequal cadence of the trot or gallop.

A quarter of a league farther, they had to stop to repair, with rope, the backstrap which was broken.

But Charles, giving the harness a last look, saw something on the ground, between his horse's legs; and he picked up a cigar-case all bordered with green silk and blazoned in the middle like the door-panel of a carriage.

— There are even two cigars in it, said he; that will be for this evening, after dinner.

— Do you smoke then? asked she.

— Sometimes, when the occasion presents itself.

He put his find in his pocket and whipped the nag.

When they arrived home, dinner was not ready. Madame lost her temper. Nastasie answered insolently.

— Leave! said Emma. This is mockery, I dismiss you.

There was for dinner some onion soup, with a piece of veal with sorrel. Charles, seated before Emma, said rubbing his hands with a happy air:

— It feels good to find oneself at home again!

One heard Nastasie crying. He liked a little that poor girl. She had, formerly, kept him company during many an evening, in the idleness of his widowhood. She was his first patient, his oldest acquaintance of the country.

— Did you really dismiss her? said he at last.

— Yes. Who prevents me? answered she.

Then they warmed themselves in the kitchen, while their room was being prepared. Charles began to smoke. He smoked pushing out his lips, spitting every minute, drawing back at each puff.

— You are going to hurt yourself, said she disdainfully.

He set down his cigar, and ran to swallow, at the pump, a glass of cold water. Emma, seizing the cigar-case, threw it quickly to the bottom of the wardrobe.

The day was long, the next day! She walked in her little garden, passing and coming back by the same paths, stopping before the flower beds, before the espalier, before the plaster curate, considering with astonishment all those things of former times that she knew so well. How the ball already seemed far! Who then had separated, at such a distance, the morning of the day before yesterday and the evening of today? Her trip to La Vaubyessard had made a hole in her life, in the manner of those great crevices that a storm, in a single night, sometimes digs in the mountains. She resigned herself however; she piously locked in the commode her fine toilette and even her satin shoes, whose sole had yellowed at the slippery wax of the parquet. Her heart was like them: at the friction of wealth, something had placed itself upon it that would not be erased.

It was therefore an occupation for Emma, the memory of that ball. Every time the Wednesday returned, she said to herself on waking: "Ah! a week ago... a fortnight ago... three weeks ago, I was there!" And little by little, the faces mingled in her memory, she forgot the air of the contredanses, she no longer saw so clearly the liveries and the apartments; some details went away; but the regret remained to her.

IX

Often, when Charles had gone out, she went to take in the wardrobe, between the folds of the linen where she had left it, the green silk cigar-case.

She looked at it, opened it, and even smelled the odor of its lining, mixed with verbena and tobacco. To whom did it belong?... To the Viscount. It was perhaps a gift from his mistress. One had embroidered that on some rosewood frame, a pretty piece of furniture that one hid from all eyes, which had occupied many hours and where the soft curls of the pensive worker had leaned. A breath of love had passed among the meshes of the canvas; each stitch of the needle had fixed there a hope or a memory, and all those interlaced silk threads were but the continuity of the same silent passion. And then the Viscount, one morning, had carried it away with him. Of what had they spoken, when it remained on the wide-manteled chimneys, between the flower vases and the Pompadour clocks? She was at Tostes. He, he was at Paris, now; over there! What was that Paris? What a disproportionate name! She repeated it to herself half-voice, to please herself; it sounded in her ears like a bourdon of cathedral, it flamed in her eyes even on the label of her pots of pomade.

At night, when the fishwives, in their carts, passed under her windows singing the Marjolaine, she awoke, and listening to the noise of the iron-shod wheels, which, at the exit of the village, was soon deadened on the earth:

— They will be there tomorrow! said she to herself.

And she followed them in her thought, going up and down the hills, crossing the villages, speeding on the great road in the starlight. At the end of an undetermined distance, there was always a confused place where her dream expired.

She bought a plan of Paris, and, with the tip of her finger, on the map, she made runs in the capital. She went up the boulevards, stopping at each corner, between the lines of the streets, before the white squares that figure the houses. Her eyes tired at last, she closed her lids, and she saw in the darkness twist in the wind gas burners, with carriage steps, that unfolded with great clamor before the peristyle of the theaters.

She subscribed to La Corbeille, a women's newspaper, and to Le Sylphe des salons. She devoured, without skipping anything, all the reviews of first performances, of races and of soirées, interested herself in the debut of a singer, in the opening of a shop. She knew the new fashions, the address of good tailors, the days of Bois or Opéra. She studied, in Eugène Sue, descriptions of furnishings; she read Balzac and George Sand, seeking there imaginary assuagements for her personal covetousness. At table even, she brought her book, and she turned the pages, while Charles ate speaking to her. The memory of the Viscount always returned in her readings. Between him and the invented characters, she established comparisons. But the circle of which he was the center little by little widened around him, and that halo he had, moving away from his face, spread farther off, to illuminate other dreams.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”