A commonplace husband; Emma's accomplishments; Dainty meals and heavy boots;
          Mother-in-law; Monotonous affection; Why did I get married?; The beeches of Banneville;
          The Marquis's invitation.

          NEVERTHELESS she sometimes thought that they were the finest days of her life, those 'honeymoon days' as people call them. To enjoy their sweetness to the full it would doubtless have been necessary to go far away to lands whose names fall like music upon the ear, where the nuptials of lovers are followed by morrows of soft languor, lands where, in post-chaises shaded with blue silk hoods, you slowly mount, by precipitous roads, upward, ever upward, giving ear to the postilion's song, echoed back from the mountain and blending with the sound of goat bells and the soft murmur of the waterfall. When the sun sinks down to rest, you breathe, beside the margin of a bay, the fragrant odours of the lemon-trees; and then, by night, on the terrace, alone with each other, with fingers intertwined, you gaze at the stars and make plans for the future. It seemed to her that there were certain places on the earth which naturally brought forth happiness, as though it were a plant native to the soil, which could not thrive elsewhere. Why could she not lean upon the balcony of some Alpine chalet, or immure her sadness in a Scottish cottage, with a husband in a black velvet coat with great flaps to the pockets, brown boots, a peaked cap and ruffles on his sleeves?

          Possibly she would have liked to unburden herself to someone of all these things; but how was she to describe this vague, elusive unrest, that changed like the clouds and eddied like the winds? She could not find the words, nor the occasion, nor the courage.

          If Charles had willed it, however; if it had occurred to him; if, just once, his eyes had read her thoughts, it seemed to her that abundant riches would have fallen from her heart, even as falls, at the lightest touch, the ripe fruitage of a wall-tree. But as the intimacy of their lives increased, so there grew within her a secret feeling of estrangement from her husband.

          Charles's conversation was as flat as a street pavement, and everyone's ideas but his own promenaded there all in their humdrum dress, bringing no emotion to his face, no smile, no look of contemplation. He confessed that when he lived in Rouen he never had the slightest desire to go to the theatre to see a Paris company. He couldn't swim, he couldn't fence, he couldn't fire a pistol, and one day when she came across some term connected with horsemanship in a novel she was reading, he couldn't tell her what it meant.

          But wasn't it a man's business to know about things, to shine in all sorts of activities, to display the energy of the passionate lover, to acquaint you with the amenities of life, and to initiate you into all its mysteries? But he couldn't teach anybody anything, that man. He knew nothing, and he wanted nothing. He thought she was happy; and his immovable placidity, his ponderous serenity, the very contentment of which she herself was the cause, got on her nerves.

          Sometimes she would take up drawing. And it was a great thing for Charles to be there, standing bolt upright, watching her leaning over her drawing-block, screwing up her eyes to get a better view of her work, or rolling up little balls of bread between her finger and thumb. When she played the piano, the faster flashed her fingers the more he stared in wonderment. She struck the notes with a dashing air and ran down the whole length of the keyboard without a stop. Under her rousing touch, the ancient instrument could be heard at the other end of the village, if she had the window open, and frequently the bailiffs clerk, walking along the road bare-headed and in his slippers, would stop and listen, with his papers in his hand.

          Nevertheless, Emma was a first-rate manager. She sent the patients their accounts in neatly worded letters that had nothing of the tradesman's invoice about them. When of a Sunday they had a neighbour in to dinner, she always contrived to put some dainty little dish on the table. She was an adept at arranging greengages in pyramids on vine leaves, served her jams and jellies not in their pots but in little dishes, and even talked about buying some finger-bowls for dessert. All this had a favourable reaction on Bovary's position in the place.

          Charles came to think himself luckier than ever, to have such a woman for his wife. He would point with pride to two little pencil sketches of hers in the dining-room. He had had them put into very broad frames and hung up on the wall with long green cords. After church, he was to be seen standing on his doorstep in a pair of handsome embroidered slippers. It would sometimes be late before he got in from his rounds- perhaps ten o'clock, occasionally even midnight. He would want something to eat, and as the maid would have gone to bed, Emma herself would put the things on the table. He would take off his frock coat so as to eat in greater comfort. One after another he would recite to her the names of all the people he had met, the villages he had been to and the medicines he had prescribed; and, feeling thoroughly pleased with himself, would polish off the remains of the hash, pare the rind from his cheese, munch an apple, empty the decanter and so to bed, where he would turn over on his back and snore.

          As he had always been used to wearing a nightcap, his silk wrap kept slipping away from his ears, with the result that, in the morning, his hair was hanging in disorder all over his face, covered with down from the pillow that had worked out of its pillow-slip during the night. He always wore heavy boots, which had two deep creases running diagonally from the top of the upper to the ankle, the rest of the boot being stretched out in a straight line as though the foot inside it were made of wood. He said they were quite good enough for the country.

          His mother approved of his economy. She came to see him sometimes, as she used to do during his first marriage when there had been a more or less serious squabble at home. But Madame Bovary senior seemed prejudiced against her daughter-in-law. She regarded her as too big in her ideas for their rank in life. They used enough wood, sugar and candles for a mansion, and the amount of fuel they burnt in the kitchen would have cooked a dinner for twenty-five people. She stored away the linen in the cupboards and taught her to see that she got the right weight when the butcher came with the meat. Emma interpreted these lessons as Madame Bovary bestowed them- liberally. All day long it was nothing but 'my dear' here and 'yes mother' there, accompanied by a little quiver of the lips, each saying nice things to the other in a voice trembling with anger.

          In Madame Dubuc's day, the old lady still regarded herself as the favourite, but now Charles was so wrapt up in Emma that she felt as if she had been thrown over, as if she had been robbed of something that belonged to her. And she contemplated her son's happiness in gloomy silence, as a ruined man might look through the window and see strangers sitting at table in his old home. She would tell him, by way of recalling old times, about the trouble she had taken and the sacrifices she had made for him, and, comparing all this with the casual way Emma treated him, wound up by saying it was silly to worship her as if there were no one else in the world.

          Charles did not know what to say; he respected his mother, he loved his wife, immeasurably. The judgement of the one he deemed infallible, the conduct of the other irreproachable. When Madame Bovary had gone, he would hazard, very tentatively and in the same terms, one or two of the more harmless criticisms he had heard his mother advance. Emma soon showed him his mistake, and packed him off to his patients.

          Nevertheless, in accordance with theories she considered sound, she tried to physic herself with love. By moonlight, in the garden, she recited all the love poetry she knew and sighed and sang of love's sweet melancholy. But afterwards she found herself not a whit less calm, and Charles not a whit more amorous or emotional.

          When she had thus struck the flint upon her heart without producing a single spark, unable either to understand what she did not experience or to believe in anything that did not show itself in the customary forms, it dawned on her that Charles's love had passed through the passionate stage. His emotional expansions had become regular; he embraced her at certain fixed periods. It was just another habit added to the rest, like a humdrum dessert rounding off a humdrum dinner.

          A gamekeeper whom the doctor had pulled through an attack of congestion of the lungs had presented Madame with a little Italian greyhound. She took it with her for walks, for she used to go out sometimes just to get a few moments to herself and to enjoy a change from the everlasting garden and the dusty highroad.

          She would go as far as the beechwoods of Banneville, along by the deserted summer-house at the turn of the wall, towards the open country. There, in the ditch, amid the grass, are towering rushes with leaves as sharp as knives.

          First of all she would take a look round, to see if anything had changed since last she was there. She found the foxgloves and the wallflowers in their old places, and the clumps of nettles round about the big stones, and the patches of lichen along the three windows with their never-opened shutters shedding their dust of dry-rot on the rusty iron bars. Her thoughts, vagrant at first, strayed hither and thither, wandering as they listed, like her dog, that careered round and round about the fields, yapping after yellow butterflies, giving chase to the field-mice or nibbling at the poppies on the fringe of a wheat patch. Then, gradually, her thoughts would begin to focus themselves, and sitting on the grass, giving it little pokes with the point of her parasol, she would keep saying to herself,

          'Mon Dieu, why did I get married!'

          She wondered whether, if things had taken a different turn, she might not have encountered a different sort of man; and she tried to think what her life might have been if things that hadn't happened had come to pass, and what manner of man was this husband whom she had never met. Husbands were not all like 'him', that was quite certain. Hers 'might' have been handsome, clever, distinguished, fascinating, as doubtless were the men who had married the other girls she had known at the convent. What were they doing now? Enjoying town life, the stir and bustle of the streets, going to theatres and dances, the sort of life that enlivens the heart and quickens the senses. But for her, life was as cold as an attic with a window looking to the north, and ennui, like a spider, was silently spinning its shadowy web in every cranny of her heart.

          She thought of the prize days, when she mounted the platform to receive her little crowns. With her hair in plaits, her white frock and her kid shoes, she looked such a nice little girl, and as she made her way back to her seat, the gentlemen would lean over and pay her pretty compliments. The courtyard would be thronged with carriages, and people would smilingly wave her good-bye from the carriage windows. The music-master, carrying his violin case, would give her a nod as he passed. How far away it all seemed! How far away! She called Djali to come to her, took her between her knees, stroked her long, graceful head and said,

          'Come, kiss your mistress; 'you' have no worries, have you?'

          Then she would look musingly into the creature's beautiful, sad eyes. The dog would open her jaws in a leisurely yawn. A feeling of tenderness would come over her, and, pretending the animal was herself, she would talk to her aloud as though she were comforting someone in distress.

          Sometimes the wind came in gusts, and, sweeping in from the Channel, leapt at a bound over all the uplands of Caux, bearing with it, far inland, the salt, sharp savour of the sea. The bowed reeds whistled along the ground, and the leaves of the beech-trees sang as they fluttered wildly in the wind, while their crests, swaying ceaselessly to and fro, sounded their unending murmur. Emma drew her shawl closely about her shoulders and rose to go.

          In the avenue, a green light, reflected by the foliage, lit up the mossy carpet which crackled softly beneath her feet. The sun was setting; the sky glowed red between the branches, and the serried trunks of the trees, planted in regular lines, gloomed like a dark colonnade against a background of gold. A sense of fear crept over her, she called Djali and walked quickly back to Tostes, along the road. Arriving home, she sank exhausted into an easy-chair, and never uttered a word the evening through.

          But towards the end of September, there befell an extraordinary event in her life: she was invited to the Marquis d'Andervilliers' at la Vaubyessard. The Marquis, who had held office as Secretary of State under the Restoration, was anxious to get back into politics, and was sedulously nursing the constituency with a view to putting up as a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies. During the winter months he made liberal distributions of fuel, and was always to the fore in demanding new roads for his district. When the last heat wave was at its height, he had developed an abscess in the mouth, which Charles had managed to cure as if by a miracle, lancing it in the nick of time. The steward who was sent to Tostes to pay for the operation announced, when he got back, that he had seen some magnificent cherries in the doctor's little garden. Now cherries did not thrive at la Vaubyessard, and my lord Marquis asked Bovary to let him have a few slips. He made a point of tendering his thanks in person, saw Emma, and noted that she had a pretty figure and good manners. It was therefore held at the chateau that they would not be overpassing the limits of condescension, or doing themselves any harm, if they sent the young people an invitation.

          And so it came to pass that one Wednesday, at three o'clock, Monsieur and Madame Bovary, perched up in their two-wheel trap, set out for la Vaubyessard, with a big travelling bag tied on behind, and a hat-box fixed in front of the apron. Charles also had a bandbox between his legs.

          They arrived when it was getting dusk, just as the lamps were being lit in the park, to show the carriages their way.