Essential Novelists - Gustave Flaubert. August Nemo
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me,” he urged as an objection to all reasoning.
So Bovary ordered a bandage and a basin, and asked Justin to hold it. Then addressing the peasant, who was already pale—
“Don’t be afraid, my lad.”
“No, no, sir,” said the other; “get on.”
And with an air of bravado he held out his great arm. At the prick of the lancet the blood spurted out, splashing against the looking-glass.
“Hold the basin nearer,” exclaimed Charles.
“Lor!” said the peasant, “one would swear it was a little fountain flowing. How red my blood is! That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes,” answered the doctor, “one feels nothing at first, and then syncope sets in, and more especially with people of strong constitution like this man.”
At these words the rustic let go the lancet-case he was twisting between his fingers. A shudder of his shoulders made the chair-back creak. His hat fell off.
“I thought as much,” said Bovary, pressing his finger on the vein.
The basin was beginning to tremble in Justin’s hands; his knees shook, he turned pale.
“Emma! Emma!” called Charles.
With one bound she came down the staircase.
“Some vinegar,” he cried. “O dear! two at once!”
And in his emotion he could hardly put on the compress.
“It is nothing,” said Monsieur Boulanger quietly, taking Justin in his arms. He seated him on the table with his back resting against the wall.
Madame Bovary began taking off his cravat. The strings of his shirt had got into a knot, and she was for some minutes moving her light fingers about the young fellow’s neck. Then she poured some vinegar on her cambric handkerchief; she moistened his temples with little dabs, and then blew upon them softly. The ploughman revived, but Justin’s syncope still lasted, and his eyeballs disappeared in the pale sclerotics like blue flowers in milk.
“We must hide this from him,” said Charles.
Madame Bovary took the basin to put it under the table. With the movement she made in bending down, her dress (it was a summer dress with four flounces, yellow, long in the waist and wide in the skirt) spread out around her on the flags of the room; and as Emma stooping, staggered a little as she stretched out her arms.
The stuff here and there gave with the inflections of her bust.
Then she went to fetch a bottle of water, and she was melting some pieces of sugar when the chemist arrived. The servant had been to fetch him in the tumult. Seeing his pupil’s eyes staring he drew a long breath; then going around him he looked at him from head to foot.
“Fool!” he said, “really a little fool! A fool in four letters! A phlebotomy’s a big affair, isn’t it! And a fellow who isn’t afraid of anything; a kind of squirrel, just as he is who climbs to vertiginous heights to shake down nuts. Oh, yes! you just talk to me, boast about yourself! Here’s a fine fitness for practising pharmacy later on; for under serious circumstances you may be called before the tribunals in order to enlighten the minds of the magistrates, and you would have to keep your head then, to reason, show yourself a man, or else pass for an imbecile.”
Justin did not answer. The chemist went on—
“Who asked you to come? You are always pestering the doctor and madame. On Wednesday, moreover, your presence is indispensable to me. There are now twenty people in the shop. I left everything because of the interest I take in you. Come, get along! Sharp! Wait for me, and keep an eye on the jars.”
When Justin, who was rearranging his dress, had gone, they talked for a little while about fainting-fits. Madame Bovary had never fainted.
“That is extraordinary for a lady,” said Monsieur Boulanger; “but some people are very susceptible. Thus in a duel, I have seen a second lose consciousness at the mere sound of the loading of pistols.”
“For my part,” said the chemist, “the sight of other people’s blood doesn’t affect me at all, but the mere thought of my own flowing would make me faint if I reflected upon it too much.”
Monsieur Boulanger, however, dismissed his servant, advising him to calm himself, since his fancy was over.
“It procured me the advantage of making your acquaintance,” he added, and he looked at Emma as he said this. Then he put three francs on the corner of the table, bowed negligently, and went out.
He was soon on the other side of the river (this was his way back to La Huchette), and Emma saw him in the meadow, walking under the poplars, slackening his pace now and then as one who reflects.
“She is very pretty,” he said to himself; “she is very pretty, this doctor’s wife. Fine teeth, black eyes, a dainty foot, a figure like a Parisienne’s. Where the devil does she come from? Wherever did that fat fellow pick her up?”
Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger was thirty-four; he was of brutal temperament and intelligent perspicacity, having, moreover, had much to do with women, and knowing them well. This one had seemed pretty to him; so he was thinking about her and her husband.
“I think he is very stupid. She is tired of him, no doubt. He has dirty nails, and hasn’t shaved for three days. While he is trotting after his patients, she sits there botching socks. And she gets bored! She would like to live in town and dance polkas every evening. Poor little woman! She is gaping after love like a carp after water on a kitchen-table. With three words of gallantry she’d adore one, I’m sure of it. She’d be tender, charming. Yes; but how to get rid of her afterwards?”
Then the difficulties of love-making seen in the distance made him by contrast think of his mistress. She was an actress at Rouen, whom he kept; and when he had pondered over this image, with which, even in remembrance, he was satiated—
“Ah! Madame Bovary,” he thought, “is much prettier, especially fresher. Virginie is decidedly beginning to grow fat. She is so finiky about her pleasures; and, besides, she has a mania for prawns.”
The fields were empty, and around him Rodolphe only heard the regular beating of the grass striking against his boots, with a cry of the grasshopper hidden at a distance among the oats. He again saw Emma in her room, dressed as he had seen her, and he undressed her.
“Oh, I will have her,” he cried, striking a blow with his stick at a clod in front of him. And he at once began to consider the political part of the enterprise. He asked himself—
“Where shall we meet? By what means? We shall always be having the brat on our hands, and the servant, the neighbours, and husband, all sorts of worries. Pshaw! one would lose too much time over it.”
Then he resumed, “She really has eyes that pierce one’s heart like a gimlet. And that pale complexion! I adore pale women!”
When he reached the top of the Arguiel hills he had made up his mind. “It’s only finding the opportunities. Well, I will call in now and then. I’ll send them venison, poultry; I’ll have myself bled, if need be. We shall become friends; I’ll invite them to my place. By Jove!” added he, “there’s the agricultural show coming on. She’ll be there. I shall see her. We’ll begin boldly, for that’s the surest way.”
Chapter Eight
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AT LAST IT CAME, THE famous agricultural show. On the morning of the solemnity all the inhabitants at their doors were chatting over the preparations. The pediment of the town hall had been hung with garlands of ivy; a tent had been erected in a meadow for the banquet;