The Greatest Works of Gustave Flaubert. Gustave Flaubert
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gave him back the letter; then at dinner, for appearance’s sake, she affected a certain repugnance. But as he urged her to try, she resolutely began eating, while Charles opposite her sat motionless in a dejected attitude.
Now and then he raised his head and gave her a long look full of distress. Once he sighed, “I should have liked to see him again!”
She was silent. At last, understanding that she must say something, “How old was your father?” she asked.
“Fifty-eight.”
“Ah!”
And that was all.
A quarter of an hour after he added, “My poor mother! what will become of her now?”
She made a gesture that signified she did not know. Seeing her so taciturn, Charles imagined her much affected, and forced himself to say nothing, not to reawaken this sorrow which moved him. And, shaking off his own —
“Did you enjoy yourself yesterday?” he asked.
“Yes.”
When the cloth was removed, Bovary did not rise, nor did Emma; and as she looked at him, the monotony of the spectacle drove little by little all pity from her heart. He seemed to her paltry, weak, a cipher — in a word, a poor thing in every way. How to get rid of him? What an interminable evening! Something stupefying like the fumes of opium seized her.
They heard in the passage the sharp noise of a wooden leg on the boards. It was Hippolyte bringing back Emma’s luggage. In order to put it down he described painfully a quarter of a circle with his stump.
“He doesn’t even remember any more about it,” she thought, looking at the poor devil, whose coarse red hair was wet with perspiration.
Bovary was searching at the bottom of his purse for a centime, and without appearing to understand all there was of humiliation for him in the mere presence of this man, who stood there like a personified reproach to his incurable incapacity.
“Hallo! you’ve a pretty bouquet,” he said, noticing Leon’s violets on the chimney.
“Yes,” she replied indifferently; “it’s a bouquet I bought just now from a beggar.”
Charles picked up the flowers, and freshening his eyes, red with tears, against them, smelt them delicately.
She took them quickly from his hand and put them in a glass of water.
The next day Madame Bovary senior arrived. She and her son wept much. Emma, on the pretext of giving orders, disappeared. The following day they had a talk over the mourning. They went and sat down with their workboxes by the waterside under the arbour.
Charles was thinking of his father, and was surprised to feel so much affection for this man, whom till then he had thought he cared little about. Madame Bovary senior was thinking of her husband. The worst days of the past seemed enviable to her. All was forgotten beneath the instinctive regret of such a long habit, and from time to time whilst she sewed, a big tear rolled along her nose and hung suspended there a moment. Emma was thinking that it was scarcely forty-eight hours since they had been together, far from the world, all in a frenzy of joy, and not having eyes enough to gaze upon each other. She tried to recall the slightest details of that past day. But the presence of her husband and mother-in-law worried her. She would have liked to hear nothing, to see nothing, so as not to disturb the meditation on her love, that, do what she would, became lost in external sensations.
She was unpicking the lining of a dress, and the strips were scattered around her. Madame Bovary senior was plying her scissor without looking up, and Charles, in his list slippers and his old brown surtout that he used as a dressing-gown, sat with both hands in his pockets, and did not speak either; near them Berthe, in a little white pinafore, was raking sand in the walks with her spade. Suddenly she saw Monsieur Lheureux, the linendraper, come in through the gate.
He came to offer his services “under the sad circumstances.” Emma answered that she thought she could do without. The shopkeeper was not to be beaten.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but I should like to have a private talk with you.” Then in a low voice, “It’s about that affair — you know.”
Charles crimsoned to his ears. “Oh, yes! certainly.” And in his confusion, turning to his wife, “Couldn’t you, my darling?”
She seemed to understand him, for she rose; and Charles said to his mother, “It is nothing particular. No doubt, some household trifle.” He did not want her to know the story of the bill, fearing her reproaches.
As soon as they were alone, Monsieur Lheureux in sufficiently clear terms began to congratulate Emma 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 barege, 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